worshipped. If one of our great capitalists were to take ingots of gold and of silver, to deliver them into the hands of the statuary, and to command him to fashion them into an image, and if, when the command had been obeyed, he were to have the image set up in one of his chambers, and to accustom himself to bow before it, asking from it protection and looking to it for sustenance, why the whole world would, with one voice, pronounce him an idolator, de claring the title to be as justly bestowed, notwithstanding his Christian birth and profession, as on any of the heathen immersed in degrading superstition. And what we wish to know from you is, whether it is quite indispensable to the making good against this capitalist the charge of idolatry, that he should actually give the metal into the hands of an artificer, and then shrine the image in the recesses of his dwelling, and offer to it his morning and evening petitions. Suppose that, in place of having his gold wrought up into an image, he invests it in some bank, or some fund, of whose security he is thoroughly satisfied; and if, just because he has made this investment, he considers himself and his family amply provided for, secured against contingencies, or certain of abundance, what, we ask, is his investment but his god? Is he not looking to that investment to do for him what God alone can do, to supply his own wants and those of his children? And what practical difference is there between the gold in the investment and the gold in the image, if in both cases there be a confidence in the gold, as the source of those supplies which come from God alone?

And it is of idolatry as thus defined and exhibited that we at once convict the rich man in our parable. He felt thoroughly secured against want, not because of the unwearied benevolence and guardianship of God, but because his barns were about to be filled with all manner of store. He reckoned it a sufficient guarantee for his passing many years in affluence, that he had already in his possession so much of the material of abundant living as there was any likelihood of his being able to exhaust. Because he had in store a large quantity of the fruits of the earth, he evidently accounted himself independent upon God. In other words, he put his stock of provisions in the place of God, and trusted in that stock of provisions as able to do for him what God alone could do; and thus was he chargeable with idolatry, in the sense and on the principle which we have laid down in bringing home the accusation to the accumulators of our own day. Do you wonder, then, that his conduct was especially offensive to God, as offensive as though in spite of the very letter of the second commandment, he had fashioned an image and bowed down before it? We could earnestly wish that you were quite aware of the idolatry with which this sensualist was chargeable. He has a host of imitators, and perhaps hardly one is conscious of the imitation. Idolatry is so hard a word, and the mind so naturally presupposes for its commission all the symbols and externals of material superstition, that most men scarcely suspect that the land is now overrun with it, and still less that they themselves may be ranked with its practisers.

But we fasten you down to the simple proposition—a proposition, whose accuracy we challenge you to invalidate that if a man trust in anything but God to do for him what God alone can do, that in which he trusts is his substitute for God, and therefore as much his idol, as though it had been prepared by the hands of the statuary. And a man is trusting in capital to do for him what God alone can do, if he reckon himself and his family provided for just because he has accumulated capital, or if he be eager to accumulate capital, as thinking that it will make sure this provision. There is many a man who would dismiss all fears of want, and conclude his children sure of a sufficiency, if he were only master of £10,000. consols; and all we can say of such a man is, that he puts £10,000. consols in the place of God, and is as thorough an idolator, as though he worshipped Baal or Ashtaroth. It is not that a man necessarily becomes an idolator, through becoming the possessor of capital. Capital may increase, but the man may not set his heart upon it; he may be just as simple in his dependance upon God, through the whole period and process of his accumulation, when his investments are large, as whilst the day's

labour had to furnish the day's bread, and he had no superfluity to lay by for to-morrow. But if, as fast as he hoards, he considers himself more and more independent; if he be anxious to hoard with a view of being independent; if his confidence, as to the supply of his own future wants and those of his household, be in proportion to that which he has laid by, increasing therewith and diminishing therewith, then there is no parrying the charge of idolatry. Capital is to this man in the place of Divinity; and he is virtually saying to his soul, not as the Christian ought to say-Soul, thou hast a never-failing Guardian, who will be sure to provide for thee through the shifting scenes of life,' but, as a worshipper of his own possessions might say-"Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry." Yes, you might not have suspected that we should identify numbers in the present day with this rich sensualist, but the parallel must be very close, or Christ would not have said: "So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."

But we do not suppose that we have even yet reached the extreme point of this rich man's offence. He must have greatly provoked God by his materialism, and probably still more by his idolatry, but it was to neither of these that God pointedly referred when he interfered in just judgment, and we therefore conclude that it was yet in another particular that the chief offence lay. And this particular seems to have been his reckoning on many years of life. If it had been his idolatry which had specially provoked retribution, it would probably have been on the immediate object of idolatry that vengeance would have descended. God might have said-'I will fatally blight thine harvest; I will utterly burn up thy crops: where then will be thy sustenance, where thy boasted security against want?' But the judgment is evidently directed against the insolent expectation of long life. The speech is virtually, 'Thou hast assumed, or taken for granted, that thou hast many years to live, utterly forgetful that the times of every man are in my hand, and for this I will instantly visit thee. "O fool! this night thy soul shall be required of thee.' "The rich man is called a fool, and is upbraided as a fool, on the ground of his having supposed himself quite sure of life; so that evidently the reckoning on the distance of death is given as what, more than anything else, had displeased God in his conduct. And there ought to be something very striking in this to all of us, at all times, and more especially to the young, who are prone to the concluding that death must be distant. We have no information as to the age of the man to whom our parable refers, but we must naturally infer, from the whole tenor of the narrative, that he was in the prime of his days, so that what are called the probabilities were in favour of his having yet many years to live. Had he already reached old age, and had he been still reckoning on lengthened life, his folly would be universally admitted and perhaps even universally reprobated. But if he were yet, as he would seem to have been, in the fulness of his strength, he only did that which the great mass of men are in the habit of doing, without much consciousness that they are doing what is specially offensive unto God.

And it ought to be received by us as a very impressive warning, that it was nothing but a practical forgetfulness of the uncertainty of life, which brought down a sudden judgment on the rich worldling whose history is before us. It is as though God could have borne yet longer with his voluptuousness, though he had actually confounded the material with the spiritual, and debased the soul into a mere slave of the flesh; it is as though God could have borne yet longer with his idolatry, though he had substituted his own storehouses for a presiding Deity, and given to the hoarded corn all the confidence which should have been given to an ever-active providence; but when he presumed to make sure of life, to reckon, not only that his goods would last many years, but that he should have many years in which to enjoy them, then it seems as if the provocation were complete, and vengeance could no longer be deferred. And there is evidently a peculiar invasion, as it were, of the prerogatives of God, whensoever a man calculates that death is yet distant. Life is that of which, even in appearance, no man can have a stock in hand. The life of

to-morrow cannot be stored up to-day; though, in a certain sense, the supply of to-morrow's wants may be, supposing that we live till to-morrow. There is not, therefore, that shadow of an excuse for reckoning on the prolongation of life, which there may be for reckoning on a provision for its wants. The man who has a large stock of corn shows himself indeed unmindful of the supremacy of God, if he conclude that on that account he cannot live to be needy; but he is evidently vastly outdone by another, who, because he seems blessed with strong health, practically concludes that he shall not soon die. For this it was that the rich man perished. And the same may happen in regard to some amongst ourselves. Do you wish to shorten life? Make sure of its being prolonged., O, when I see how many are suddenly cut down in their prime, and when I remember how prone we are all to conclude that death cannot be at hand, the startling message in the parable forces itself upon the attention, and we cannot but fear that, where there has been a quick judgment, there may have been a hateful folly! It is altogether a startling reflection, that in all that variety of what we call "accidents," in the numberless cases of rapid and unexpected, and, in one sense, untimely dissolution, there may be workings of that retributive judgment of which the parable before us records so striking an exercise. The man may have virtually destroyed himself. That one person over whom a neighbourhood is lamenting, whose premature death is the subject of general conversation and regret, may have fallen through his own presumption. He had confidence that he had years to live, therefore God would not suffer him to live moments. We want very much to press this on your consideration. Every man who is not labouring earnestly to save the soul is reckoning on long life. We care not whether or not he acknowledge this to others, we care not whether or not he acknowledge it to himself: he may profess a thorough belief in the uncertainty of life, but the fact is, that he makes sure of life, and the proof is that he takes no pains to secure his salvation. And the fearful thing is, that this very reckoning upon life, which men would hardly perhaps think of counting amongst their sins, may be the most offensive part of their conduct in the eye of the Almighty, and draw upon them the abbreviation of that life, and thus the loss of the expected opportunities of repentance and amendment. A man determines that he will take a little more pleasure, or accumulate a little more wealth, before attending to the high duties of religion. Now, the great provocation may not be, as you might at first suppose, in the preference of worldly pleasure or worldly wealth to what is celestial and enduring; it may lie in concluding that he shall have the time in which to eat, or to drink, or to gather in money. God did not strike down the rich man whose history is before us, so much because he was a sensualist, as because he was a fool-a fool in making sure of life when there was nothing to assure him, and in reckoning on life as a fixed term when it is only held from moment to moment. Oh! how easy to overlook this! how easy to keep out of sight the sin of reckoning upon life, whilst we are quite aware of the sin of mis-spending life! The absurdity of reckoning upon life, in spite of the continued demonstrations of its uncertainty, is a common and favourite topic of discourse; but we are now upon the sinfulness, a sinfulness which is quite independent on the way in which life might be spent; for the righteous man, as well as the unrighteous, may practically take for granted that he has many years to live, and if he do it is not his righteousness in other particulars which will take away the sinfulness from his presumptuous calcu

lation. There is an expression in the verse preceding our text which sets this sinfulness in a clear and strong light: "This night thy soul shall be required of thee." Thy soul shall be demanded back.' It is but a lent thing, given for a time into thy keeping, but only in such a sense as to be liable at a moment's notice to recall. Who of us habitually considers the soul as only a loan entrusted for a while to his keeping, to be surrendered up, like any other deposit, whenever demanded, but not without a strict account as to the manner in which it has been used? The soul is not thine own. Thou dost act as if it were thine own-thine own to neglect, thine own to abuse, thine own to throw away. But it is not thine own. Fool! to trifle with the property of another, and that other the ever-living God,

My brethren, there are so many practical considerations pressed upon us by the message to the rich man in our parable, that we hardly know how to give each its due place. The sinfulness of reckoning upon life, which perhaps all of us may more or less be accused of; the possible suddenness of the retribution-"this night;"-ah! it may be so, that before another sun rise some of us whose plans are arranged on the supposition that there is yet much sand in the glass, shall have solved the mysterious problem and ascertained what it is to die; the character ascribed to the soul of being only a loan,-all these particulars are so full and impressive that each might furnish a matter for a separate discourse.

But we must draw to a close; and consider carefully our text. Are you "rich toward God?" Is your treasure above? If not, then it is the verdict of the Lord Jesus himself, that you closely resemble the rich sensualist of the parable, "So is he" of the same kind, of the same stuff, "so is he"-whatsoever and whosoever he be-who "layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God."

And of what avail is it, men of business! that ye "rise up early, and late take rest, and eat the bread of carefulness?" For whom are you accumulating? For children? for heirs? for friends? Ah! be not too sure. "Whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?" Biting question! “He heapeth up riches and cannot tell who shall gather them." Take one general rule: a family is never permanently benefitted by riches obtained through fraud, or hoarded through covetousness. There goes no blessing with such wealth—it is utterly cankered; and the large fortune, as it is called, entails commonly wretchedness on the family-as its history, if duly traced, would too faithfully attest. Provide not, then, for children, by endangering your own souls. It is no provision but a provision of wrath. You lay up bankruptcy and confusion, though you lay up in unquestioned securities. Whereas, "seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness," and you cannot leave your family destitute, for you will bequeath it the Divine blessing-you cannot leave it friendless, for you ensure it the Divine protection.

32

THE JEWISH AND CHRISTIAN SACRIFICES.

A Sermon

DELIVERED ON TUESDAY MORNING, MARCH 18, 1856,
BY THE REV. HENRY MELVILL, B.D.

(Chaplain in Ordinary to Her Majesty,)

AT ST. MARGARET'S CHURCH, LOTHBURY.

"And this shall be an everlasting statute unto you, to make an atonement for the children of Israel for all their sins once a year. And he did as the Lord commanded Moses."-Leviticus xvi. 34.

THAT the law had a shadow of things to come, and that the substance was Christ, is a point universally admitted by all who acknowledge the inspiration of the New Testament. The unhesitating manner in which the apostles applied to the offering up of Christ the various sacrificial terms of the Jewish ritual; the labour bestowed, for example, in the Epistle to the Hebrews on showing the significance of legal observances when viewed in their reference to the Mediator; these, if the authority of Scripture be admitted, compel us to acknowledge that between the temple sacrifices and the sacrifice of Christ there exists a relationship of a type to its antitype; and when once that relation is admitted, it becomes a great point to ascertain the sense in which legal sacrifices took away sins; for, of course, this sense must determine that in which the sacrifice of Christ made atonement for transgressions. Hence there is nothing on which Unitarian writers have bestowed more labour than on the endeavour to invalidate the propitiatory nature of the Mosaic sacrifices. They have seen clearly enough that if they could succeed in demonstating that the sacrifices under the law were not expiatory -in other words, that they were not efficacious in the removing guilt and obtaining pardon, they would have made a long advance towards establishing their favourite theory, that Christ died only to set an example and to confirm his doctrine, and not as a sin offering for a fallen creation. The relationship of type, and antitype being admitted, whatever proved that there was no propitiatory virtue in the type would go far towards proving that there was none in the antitype. On the other hand, if it be shown that under the law the suffering of animals was taken as a substitute for the punishment of offenders, so that in virtue of those sufferings the sinner was released, we. shall possess an almost irrefragable demonstration that Christ died as a real sacrifice for sin, and that through the energies of such sacrifice forgiveness is now attainable by man. And nothing apparently can be more expressive than the language of our text. It is declared that the priest should make atonement for the children of Israel, for all their sins. You will not be easily persuaded that these words mean aught else than that in consequence of the atonement, the congregation would be transferred from a position of