AND COMPROMISE- THE IT IS THAT DEFILES THE

SURPLICE BAPTISMS-CORBAN-WHAT

SOUL-SEAL OF CHARACTER THE WOMAN'S POSSESSED DAUGHTEREPHPHATHA-ALL THINGS DONE WELL.

You will here notice a fact that occurs so often in the intercourse of Christ with the Pharisees, that their greatest objections to the conduct of the Apostles arose, not from a real or supposed breach of a moral law, but from a supposed or real breach of a ceremonial observance. They illustrate in this respect a great fact in the history of mankind, that whenever tradition and Scripture, man's word and God's Word, are placed upon the same level, it is only for a day that they can remain upon that level. The great result comes out, that no man can serve two such masters as these; either the tradition of man, or the truth of God, will gain the ascendency. If man be corrupt, it is easy to see that he will prefer the master that pleases and propitiates his own depraved appetites, and hate the master who rebukes the wrong-doing with the voice of a prophet, and pronounces it to be evil. And hence, whenever in the history of our world man's tradition and God's Word have been placed upon the same level, the issue, in the lapse of a very few years, has been what our blessed Lord says was the case with the Pharisees, "Full well"-most consistently-"ye reject the com

mandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition." There is no objection to obeying the commandment of man in its own place: it is only when that commandment is made an essential thing, though it have not its foundation in Scripture, or when it is raised to supremacy over God's Word, that it ought to be resisted, repudiated, and rejected. In things indifferent, do anything that will please the most; in matters ecclesiastical, submit to much you dislike, if only it will secure peace; but in matters of essential moment, involving the glory of God, the safety of the soul, the ascendency of vital truth, you may concede the largest husk of prejudice, but you must not give up the least living seed of eternal truth.

The great complaint of the Pharisees on this occasion was, that the disciples ate with unwashen hands. The Pharisees, it seems, were in the habit of "oft washing,” or,—as it might be translated,―strictly, rigidly, and minutely washing their hands, and doing it, not as a matter of comfort, but as a matter of ecclesiastical tradition. They might have washed their hands twenty times a-day, as a matter of personal comfort,—there could be no harm in that; but when they said that because they washed their hands, everybody else ought to do it as often,-and when they alleged that this washing of hands was as essential a matter as keeping the weightier matters of the law, then a thing in itself most indifferent became the just ground of a righteous protest on the part of our blessed Lord, and his immediate Apostles. So in the present day, one should bear many things so long as they are kept in their own place; but the instant they are raised to a prominence that does not belong to them, then silence

is connivance, just as acquiescence would be treachery to God. For instance, when it was held by certain ministers of religion that they ought to preach in a surplice, and not in a black gown, as long as it was a matter of taste and convenience, nobody would have paid the least attention to it, but every one would have left them to wear what seemed to them consistent with the usage of a church, a nation, or an age, it mattering very little to the doctrine that one teaches what may be the colour of the robe that one wears; but when the robe was put forward as symbolical, and when it was alleged that sacraments could not be rightly administered, nor could a minister preach efficiently, except in a particular robe,—when it was urged, not as a piece of personal and ecclesiastical etiquette, but as a matter of vital moment,-then the people of that church did most correctly when they protested against it, and insisted that the usage to which they had been accustomed for many years should, if changed, be changed for a right reason, and not for a Papal and Tractarian one. So in other matters-one prefers a liturgy, another prefers extemporaneous prayer: it is quite right that in these matters each should gratify his preference; but when the one who uses a liturgy says you cannot pray without it, or when the one who uses extemporaneous prayer says that a liturgy is necessarily Popery,-then you are elevating matters of detail into matters of vital importance; you are thinking that washen or unwashen hands have something to do with real religion; you are forgetting that the kingdom of God is not meat, nor drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.

Now, our blessed Lord, evidently in the spirit of the

remarks I have given, tells the Pharisees what was the logical issue of the course that they had pursued—that the result was, that they fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: "This people honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups"-outwardly, in form and, ceremony, whilst the main requisite in all acts of worship was wanting,—the homage and adoration of the heart. Then our Lord says, "Full well ye reject the commandment of God," that is, most consistently, most naturally, just as it ever will be and ever has been, "teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.'

One other thought upon this passage, and it is on the words translated here, "washing of pots and cups," and again, “washing of brazen vessels, and of tables." It is remarkable that the Greek word translated "washing" is ẞatioμous. Therefore, I allege, without enβαπτισμούς. tering at length into a matter of mere ecclesiastical controversy, we have in this passage proof that if our Baptist brethren be right in immersing the whole body, -and I do not quarrel with them upon that subject at all, we are not wrong in asserting and insisting that baptism is rightly administered by sprinkling. We have here tables mentioned, or, as it should be translated, couches, on which they reclined when they partook of their meals. It is quite absurd to suppose that these large pieces of furniture, twelve feet in length, were immersed deeply in water. We know, as a matter of fact, that hyssop was dipped into water, and that these couches were sprinkled ceremonially with it.

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Therefore, the inference is to me irresistible, that if Banтioμoùs does sometimes mean "immersion," which it most certainly does, it means also sometimes "sprinkling." And if so, it really is a discussion not worthy of being protracted, whether one should be immersed or sprinkled, as long as we hold this vital and inner requirement, "Except a man be born of the Spirit of God, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven."

It

Our Lord then rebukes another part of the ecclesiastical tradition which prevailed among the scribes and Pharisees, that a man who had quarrelled with his parents might take the property which he ought to give to them in their old age to keep them from beggary, and consecrate it as "corban," that is, something devoted to God; and then, when his poor aged parents asked him for bread, his answer would be, "I have devoted it," as the Roman Catholic would say, "to pious uses, and therefore cannot give it to so profane a purpose as giving bread to my father and mother." is scarcely possible to conceive that ecclesiastical depravity could rise to such a pitch as to make such a devotion to pious uses an apology for witholding what Iwas due to those connected with us. No man is warranted in giving to pious uses of any sort, if he has a parent who wants bread, or a relative who needs shelter. Charity ought to begin at home; only, it should not stop there. No pretext of the claims of the Church or the ministry will avail in the sight of God as an excuse for refusing to your children, parents, or relatives, bread when they stand in need of it.

Our Lord then explained to his disciples what it was that was really polluting in the sight of God. He said, it is not that which a man eats that pollutes him, but