put a stop to any expression of religious service or repentance altogether. Many a poor man, we may believe, must have come totally unable to give more than the just and reasonable price for his lamb or his turtle doves, totally unable to make any purchase at all if the money-changers either denied the real worth of his coin, or demanded too great a recompence for their assistance. In every case of these iniquitous proceedings they laid a heavy tax on the expression of piety and on the working of repentance as ordered by the law of Moses; in some cases it is likely that they might positively step in between the penitent heart and the Lord his God, and by their exactions and frauds might deny him all power of humiliation and obedience. Such was their guilty conduct towards their neighbour.

How did it act upon themselves? Naturally they grew harder and harder in their hearts, more and more iniquitous. Seated before the very temple itself, they carried on their wicked traffic, and uttered their falsehoods, and performed their cheats in the very earshot of the Lord God Himself, and, as it were, even before His eyes. They put hindrances in the way of God's service, while they were immediately before His face; and looked out anxiously for the humble heart and the contrite spirit, that they might make a pillage, a profit, and an extortion out of repentance and prayer!

Is it to be thought, my brethren, that these men prayed much themselves? Are we to suppose that

they offered up repentant sacrifices? Were these the men who entered the temple, who approached the altar? Did their knees bend, did their hearts bow down, did their mouths pour forth confessions and prayers from a burdened conscience? These men, like the rest of the people, were sinners; it was their duty to have made their humiliations, their sacrifices, and their atonements, and then it would have been their privilege to have carried away with them an assuring hope of forgiveness, and a confident expectation of assisting grace. But what were duties, what were privileges to such men as these? Religion was for them a cause for gain, not a call for repentance and a wounded spirit. The tender consciences, the humble confessions, the trembling prayers of others were to them a spoliation and a traffic. Avarice and extortion are twin-sisters, they are "the daughters of the horseleech"," and their unceasing cry is "Give, give;" their remissions, their kindnesses, their tender feelings are never seen!

The wrath, then, which moved our Lord to chase away these fallen men from His Father's temple, which led Him to scourge these false dealers, who fattened on the pieties of their brethren, is not to be wondered at. His "zeal for His Father's house" took possession of Him, and we can easily understand how just the feeling was; we can readily go

b Prov. xxx. 15.

• John ii. 17.

forward with the Lord Jesus in His indignation, and we can plainly see and agree in the truth of His scornful rebuke, "It is written, My house is the house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves."

We have now seen the character of these " moneychangers" and of those "who sold doves" in the temple, and we have learnt also how just and righteous was that wrath which moved the Lord to chase them from the house of God. But these words

are written for our learning," and though we are neither "money-changers" nor "sell doves in the temple," yet the Church intends them to do us good, and she wishes that we may apply them to ourselves. In one sense, and in a sense which the New Testament forces in strong but most gracious terms upon our notice, we may apply them to ourselves, as it were, in a literal manner. In many parts of the New Testament we ourselves are called "the temples of the Lord." These most gracious words are used by St. Paul in his first Epistle to the Corinthians in the plainest manner, both of the whole Church collectively, and of each single member of it, who is in a state of grace:-"Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye ared." In

d 1 Cor. iii. 16, 17; vi. 19.

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the sixth chapter of the same Epistle the same figure is again insisted on: Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost?" The same doctrine is clearly implied in our Lord's gracious promise, which you will read in St. John's Gospel, Jesus answered and said, If a man love Me, he will keep My words, and My Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him."

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These, and all such-like passages, shew us that in our bosoms the Holy Ghost, unless we reject Him and cast Him out, will abide and dwell. These words declare that which in the Sacrament of Baptism is indicated and taught, that they who are accepted into the Church of Christ receive in their hearts God's Holy Spirit, to continue with them and to guide them through this life, even into forgiveness, through Christ, and peace hereafter. It is in this sense we are called the temples of the Lord, because we may continue to be thus inhabited, and comforted, and sanctified by His sacred Spirit indwelling in us.

Now, then, in the opening of the Christian year, the Church would have us ask if this is the case with ourselves? Are we, in this sense, the temples of God? "It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer:" this is one of the names, one of the marks of the temple; is it a mark which

e John xiv. 23.

befits us? Are our bosoms "the house of prayer?" Does prayer really dwell there? If it does, the voice of prayer proceedeth from us every morning and every night, and on many occasions both in the day and in the night. Whenever we think on our wants, whenever we are dismayed by our difficulties, whenever we think upon our blessings, our comforts, and our hopes, prayer straightway and fervently lifts up her voice. Prayer beseeches God to bless our friends, our kindred, and our families; prayer beseeches God for pardon and forbearance whenever we look within, and think of ourselves; when we see sin, prayer entreats that we may be kept from falling; when we see death, that we may be pitied in our judgment; in every hope, in every fear, in every sorrow, in every joy, in every case that can befall us, prayer being really with us, cries constantly unto the Lord our God. If there is the spirit of prayer within you, which without ceasing looks to God in all things, sees the Lord in all things, and stays herself always upon the Lord Christ, then, no doubt, you are abiding with God, and your bosoms are the temples of the Holy Ghost.

But are these things so, or are your hearts but "a den of thieves?" Greediness and falsehood were the thieves which the Lord Christ drove from His Father's house; but these are not the only evil spirits which may infest our hearts. We may be greedy, we may be falsè, very many are; but we may be uncharitable, we may be malicious, we may