cause it seems to suspect either our truth or our zeal; that we would fain know all Christ's pleasure, and strive and pray for His grace to do it. I think that we should feel so, and therefore I would urge you to make your confession of Christ freely and manifestly both here and amongst yourselves. The confession, the prayer, the resolution of the text, you would say at once that you ought to make them; make them therefore boldly. Confess that you are Christ's and would be so to the death, and then you will be glad to see plainly how Christ's people ought to walk, and will not be unwilling but rather most anxious to walk so yourselves in all things.

September 26, 1841.

SERMON XIV.

THE TEACHING OF CHRIST.

ST. MARK, vi. 34.

Jesus, when He came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd; and He began to teach them many things.

THAT all our Lord's miracles have not been recorded in the books of the New Testament is certain. Those which St. John notices are almost all omitted by the other Evangelists, and it appears by his own express words that He wrought many others at Jerusalem especially, of which we have no particular mention anywhere. What is true of our Lord's miracles is true also of His teaching; we have in all probability only a part of it. The words which St. Paul quotes as spoken by our Lord in the twentieth chapter of the Acts, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, "It is more blessed to give than to receive,"

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are not found in any of our gospels; and if St. John could record so many of our Lord's discourses, not one of which had been mentioned by the other three Evangelists, so we may be satisfied that many more might have been recorded, if it had pleased God, of which at present we have no knowledge. But yet we cannot doubt, that what God has been pleased to preserve for us contains a full specimen, if I may so speak, of all our Lord's teaching; it gives us something of what He said on every point where it concerned us to be taught by Him; it gives us also the proportions of His teaching; by which I mean that it shows us what He laid most stress on, what He considered it of most importance to his disciples to have dwelt upon often. And when it is considered again, that our Lord's teaching by common consent is to be found only in the scriptures; that in no other book or record of any kind is any thing of it pretended to be given; there is an exceeding comfort in taking up that one small volume of the four Gospels, and considering that we there hold in our hands all that exists of the teaching of our Lord and Saviour, and that what we there possess, although He said, no doubt, a great many things besides, is yet a full impression of His mind respecting us; we have as to its virtue, though not as to its actual amount, His teaching perfectly.

Now the spirit and object of His teaching are

given in the words of my text: "When Jesus saw the people, He was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd; and He began to teach them many things." His teaching then is the teaching of a merciful Saviour, and its spirit is compassion and tenderness: "When He saw the people, He was moved with compassion toward them." And its object is to save that which was lost: because they were as sheep not having a shepherd, therefore He was moved with compassion toward them, and began to teach them many things. It is not to make the wise wiser, or the good better, but to save those that were lost, to call the sinner to repentance. "The whole," said He, "need not a physician." By which, and other such words, our Lord meant to show, that in order to take His teaching rightly, we must know ourselves to be such as we really are, and such as His teaching supposes us to be. That is, in coming to Him we must not fancy that we have a knowledge and a goodness, imperfect indeed, but yet of some value, and requiring only to be improved and strengthened. We must come to Him as being sheep without a shepherd, sheep gone astray; as sick men needing a physician; these are His own figures; or, without a figure, we must come to Him as having no knowledge as to the great matter of saving our souls; as having no goodness that can

abide God's judgment. If we say that we see,

our sin remaineth.

We must come to we always remain so? Must all men to their latest hour whenever they read the gospels, consider themselves as still in the same condition as when they heard them first, as still straying without a shepherd, as still lost, as still knowing nothing, as still sinners? If they must, how can there be any reality whatever in much of the apostles' language, when they speak of the glorious liberty of the children of God—of their not sinning who are born of God? Or how could St. Paul have spoken as he does so confidently a little before his death: "I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith"?

Him, you may say, but must

Undoubtedly we may and ought to hope, that by long following Christ, by long clinging to Him, by the long indwelling of His Spirit, we may be changed into his image. Undoubtedly we may and ought to hope that the time should come to each of us when we may be no more lost but found; no more sinners, but redeemed and holy. Undoubtedly there must be such a thing existing in the church, as the true testimony of a good conscience; there must be within possibility the witness of God's Spirit agreeing with our own that we are the children of God.

This is the blessed consummation of the life of