have been an utter impossibility that any of the sons of men should be called the sons of God. We cannot, therefore, be surprised that St. John reflects upon the subject with astonishment, and calls universal attention to its stupendous greatness. "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God." Can we think of the fact without

"Wonder, love, and praises ?"

:

In conclusion, let us ask ourselves the question whether we have a right to claim this distinguished title? If we have, we are a happy people all things are ours, God is our Father, Christ is our Brother, the angels are our guardians, providence is our foster-mother, this world is an apartment for our accommodation, heaven is our home, where exists the centre of all our future happiness. But then, we must not forget our obligations; if we be sons, we must be dutiful and obedient, remembering that a father has claims which the child dares not withhold. God has claims to our love, to our obedience, to our service, to our souls, to our all.

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The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity.

MORNING SERVICE.-Second Lesson: Matthew iii.

Verse 12.-"Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."

THE great beauty of Scripture is its simplicity. It illustrates God, and Christ, and the Church, and ourselves, and heaven, and hell in language so adapted to our capacities that we cannot fail to be impressed with its truth, although we may not be fully conscious of its power. John the Baptist, as his great successor, carried out in his ministry the uniform style of simple illustration, some of which we find in the text. Here we have a representation of Christ, of His Church, of man, of heaven, and of hell. Christ is represented as a husbandman, whose office is to thrash, fan, and winnow his corn to separate it from the chaff, preserving the one, and consuming the other. The Church is represented as a floor containing a mixture of grain and straw, of corn and chaff, of wheat and tares, of good seed and darnel. Man is represented as being of one kind or the other. Heaven is represented as a garner in which the pure grain shall be deposited ; and hell is represented as the process of destruction whereby the chaff shall be consumed. Rarely do we meet with a passage of Scripture in which so much is contained in so few words, every sentence being of vital importance, and every word involving a meaning of eternal consequence.

Let us briefly, by the help of God's Spirit, investigate the subjects which are here forced upon our notice, and apply the conclusion to our own practical benefit. We may regard, first, the characters described; secondly, the act performed; and thirdly, the consequences declared.

I. We shall regard the characters described. The "wheat " and the "chaff." The terms are intended to denote two classes of individuals, who are for a time united, but to be ultimately separated. By the wheat true believers are intended, and by the chaff hypocrites in the Church of Christ.

1. The wheat represents true believers, which is an appropriate emblem on account of its mode of production, its preciousness, and its utility. Wheat is not natural to the soil; it does not grow indigenously like cockle or darnel, without any preparation or trouble. There must be a deposit of seed, which must be seasonably sown and carefully nurtured ; neither is it instantaneously matured; it takes time to germinate, and it increases gradually, first the blade, then the stalk, then the ear, and then the full corn in the ear. The shower and the sunshine are absolute to its growth and maturity; weeks and months must witness its progress before it is even fit for the floor. No person is born a Christian; the Church is not the natural soil of man; the pernicious weeds of sin flourish luxuriantly in his heart without any cultivation or pains-taking, but to make him grow in the Church the seed of Divine grace must be sown within, the principles of the Gospel must be implanted in the soul. The heavenly showers and the sunshine of spiritual influences must foster the stalk and fructify the ear. Then the preciousness and utility of the wheat impresses us with the corresponding value of true believers. It is the "staff of life," without it existence would be misery, and would be of short duration. In its absence everything else would be worthless. If a man were cast on a barren island, could he collect around him all the gold and pearls of creation, they would be mere dross if he had not this article to sustain life. The Egyptians willingly gave up their money, their cattle, their land, and their liberty to Joseph for the corn which he had provided for the time of famine. Ten righteous men in Sodom would have saved the whole cities of the plain. The influence of one prophet saved Samaria. God's people are precious in His sight, and for their sakes He preserves the world. Their prayers, their

influence, their example are of more value to a nation than all its wealth and all its forces. The heathen Saxon king feared. a handful of praying Christians more than all the power of the British army. The Christianity of England is the secret of its safety and prosperity; God blesses her increase, in answer to the prayers of her believing children. They may be often despised and forsaken by the men of the world, but were they removed England and the world would sink.

2. There is chaff as well as wheat, it grows together with the wheat, and is mixed up with it even in the floor. By the chaff hypocrites are intended, who are combined with believers in the Church; all those who have only a show of religion. without its principles and good works, resting only on the rites and ceremonies of its outward communion, are chaff amongst the wheat. There never was wheat without chaff, there never was a church upon earth without hypocrites. Soon after the Church was turned out of the garden of Eden there appeared the chaff in the person of Cain. When reduced to the number of eight in the Ark of Noah, the chaff existed even there in the person of Ham. Follow its history through the patriarchal and Mosaic dispensations you will find a great number of melancholy instances given of the presence of the chaff. The few who composed the New Testament Church, and under the eye of the Husbandman Himself, were not free from it. There was one amongst the twelve who (Christ told His followers) was "a devil," and in the earliest days of apostolical prosperity, even during the fervour of Pentecostal influence, Ananias and Sapphira, Simon Magus, and Demas are especially mentioned as being the refuse of the thrashing-floor. God only knows, if the Church were sifted in our day as it has been in former ages, what proportion there may be of believers and hypocrites; but this we know for our encouragement and comfort, that the very presence of chaff proves there is wheat; it could not otherwise be produced. As a counterfeit is a proof of the existence of true coin, so a hyprocrite is a proof of the existence of a true Christian Church. Considering the corruption of human

nature, and the variety of motives which actuates it, we ought to "thank God and take courage" that any are found to be true, substantial wheat.

II. We find here an act performed by the Husbandman. "Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor." It is an act of warning and an act of encouragement -of warning to hypocrites, of encouragement to believers. The fan is either an instrument which is employed to produce an artificial wind strong enough to separate the lighter material from the grain, but not sufficiently strong to carry away the grain itself; or it may mean a kind of shovel by which the whole contents of the floor is thrown up so that the natural wind might detach the one from the other; in either case it means a thorough separation of the chaff from the wheat, and a thorough cleansing of the floor.

The Baptist evidently meant that the ministry of the Messiah would be so powerful, trying, searching, and purifying, that, whilst multitudes should be converted, those who were not true penitents should be driven away by the force of the trial.

Christ's means of purifying His floor, or His Church, may be classified into three acts, operating separately, but producing combined results.

1. He will purge His floor by the doctrines which He will teach. Probably John referred partly to this when he uttered the sentiments of the text. His Successor would by His teaching purify the Church from all the false Jewish notions of the virtue of a natural descent from Abraham, as well as from human traditions, and dependence upon outward rites and ceremonies as means of acceptance with God. This was the substance of His teaching at the well of Jacob, when He told the woman of Samaria that no hypocritical observance of rites, neither in Jerusalem nor in that mountain, could substitute the true worship of the Father; for God being a Spirit, "they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." The teaching of Christ tested the character of His