HOW TO ENTER THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
Luke xviii.17.

THIS text answers an all-important question. After information that man may enter the kingdom of heaven, what more necessary than that he should be told how he may enter it? This is done by a negative stateinent.

Notice

I.-The dispositions of heart requisite for

the reception of Gospel blessings. The phrase, As a little child,' points to two factors.

1. Humility. The child has no pre-conceived plan.

2. Confidence. The child has no fears accompanying its trustfulness.

II. The consequences attendant on wrong dispositions of heart.

He shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.'. Only one of two things is optional to man-a right state of heart and an enjoyment of blessing, or a wrong state of heart and deprivation of blessing. Exclusion from the kingdom of heaven signifies continued unrighteousness of life, deprivation of peace with God, and non-experience of joy in the Holy Ghost.

There is only one way into the kingdom of heaven; it is through the narrow gate of repentance and faith. He that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

MAN'S WEAKNESS AND GOD'S SUFFICIENCY

2 Cor, iii, 5.

THE defences of evil are compactly built. It is only when man undertakes the inculcation of moral principles that he discovers the real strength of the fortresses of immorality. Moral triumphs, more than anything else, give evidence of supernatural interference. God working with us is our only hope of seeing signs and wonders wrought in the transformation of human characters.

I.--Human reason in relation to religious truth.

1. It is incapable of reaching it without Divine aid.

2. It is incapable of preventing it without Divine aid.

II.-God's sufficiency in relation to religious truth.

1. God can reach it down to man's lowest position.

2. God can lift man up to its highest altitude.

3. God can qualify the most unpromising instruments for the successful dissemination of religious truth.

Religion is a special philosophy. Usefulness in the extension of religion requires specific qualifications. Humanity can provide nothing more than instrumentality. God must and can give the requisite power. Put your abilities at God's disposal. He can make the stammering tongue speak praises fluently, and the weak instrument mightily useful.

THE SUMMARY OF CHRIST'S LIFE

Mark vii. 37.

ALL biographies, excepting the biography of Jesus, require the modification of the phrases of praise. Abraham, Moses, David,

and all other men have had their defects. Christ alone is without spot, and blameless. I.-Christ's ministry was well executed. 1. He taught truth in its entirety. 2. He taught fearlessly.

3. He taught consistently. 4. He taught discriminately. 5. He taught authoritatively. II.-Christ's life was well sustained. 1. He was loyally obedient to the will of his Father.

2. He was devotedly affiliated with the interests of humanity.

3. He was faultlessly harmonious to the principles of his teaching and to the pretensions of his mission.

III.-Christ's whole work was faultlessly accomplished.

1. The Father was manifested.

2. Man's true condition was declared.
3. God's will was revealed.

4. The works of the devil were destroyed.
5. The Godhead was glorified.

Christ is a reliable teacher;-espouse the principles of his doctrine. Christ is a worthy example ;-follow in his steps. Christ is a sufficient Saviour;-confide to him the necessities and interests of your spiritual being.

TO OUR READERS.-We shall be obliged for short Outlines for our Sundays of the Month' Department (Sept.) on the following texts:-2 Kings vii. 9; Mark viii. 36, 37; 2 Kings xiii. 23; Mark xii, 17; Galatians vi. 9: Mark xv. 15; Nehemiah ii. 20; Luke iv. 4. To ensure insertion, post outlines not later than the 12th, addressed, 'Editor Preachers' Analyst, 155 Roman Road, North Bow, London, E.'

PREACHERS'

ANALYST:

VOL. III.

THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER

An Analysis of a Sermon by the Rev. GEO. F.
PENTECOST, the Evangelist, in the Hanson
Place Baptist Church, Brooklyn.
Behold, a sower went forth to sow, etc.-Matt. xiii. 6-9;
also explanation, 18-23.

THIS parable of the sower is one of seven parables recorded in this chapter. They should be interpreted together. There is unity in the group. The difficulties the kingdom of heaven encounters in securing firm lodgment in the human heart are illustrated by this parable of the sower. In the parable of the tares we see the difficulties this kingdom meets in its development. The parable of the mustard seed shows its wonderful capabilities for growth. The hidden treasure tells us how it should be valued above all things else. The pearl of great price presents the æsthetic side of the kingdom-it is altogether lovely. This group of parables winds up with the draw-net. The gospel takes up all, the good and bad, and then the final separation follows. The meaning of all is, we must take heed how we receive the Word of God. If we receive it rightly we shall dwell with God and the good; wrongly, we shall be cast away for ever.

I wish to call attention to the first parable of the group-that of the sower. It naturally falls into divisions.

I-The Sower.

This is Jesus himself. He has gone forth and is still going forth to sow the seed of the kingdom of heaven in the hearts and in the understandings of men. When did Christ first go forth to sow? We are told that he was slain from the foundation of the world. After the first sin we read the promise that the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head. Here the promise is dropped

PRICE TWOPENCE

as seed into the despairing heart of man. So in Noah's heart, and through Noah into the hearts of others, the seed of truth is scattered. Then God calls Abraham and makes him a new depository of the seed, and sends him forth. Then God, the great I Am, speaks to Moses, etc. So through all the centuries of the Jewish dispensation, by angels, by dreams, by signs, by prophecies, the seed of the kingdom of heaven was sown. Then, at last, the sower himself comes and sows the seed for. years, and again enters the skies, having appointed apostles, martyrs and good men through all ages to continue the sowing, until nearly all nations now have heard the good news of salvation through Christ, the everblessed Redeemer.

II. The Seed.

The

The Word is the seed. The promises? Yes, and more: the incorruptable Word of God. More still we read, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; that is, Christ is the Word-Christ himself is the seed. Bible is the growth of time, but the Word is from the beginning; before time was It was. Jesus is not only the sower; he is also the seed which is being sown in the hearts of men. True, he plants doctrine, but, infinitely better, he plants within us himself. In this he differs from all other teachers. Socrates, Confucius, Buddha taught their disciples doctrines. Christ does much more than this: he imparts himself; the truth. The everlasting Saviour, the Bright, the Morning Star, the true God plants himself in the heart of the faithful hearer. So we preach not only correct doctrine-we preach Jesus Christ, the living Saviour. It is not dead orthodoxy we proclaim, but a truth that has the life of God in it. Take heed how you receive this mar

1

vellous seed.

Observe several things concerning this seed:

1. Ordinary seed is covered with an outward coat. The live principle is hidden away from observation. So we find Christ the living God in the appearance of a man. 'Is not this the son of Joseph, the carpenter?' The vital principal, the living God, was covered with flesh and bone; it was incarnate. Who of us could have understood God save we saw him enclosed in a body? We might have talked for ever of the Son of God, like the philosophers (about the Logos, but no one would have understood us.

Well might Nicodemus exclaim, 'How can these things be?' Also, we find the truth hid away in the Bible. He that heareth my word,' exclaims Christ, 'hath eternal life.' Is that true? Certainly. Well, I hear. Yes, but says Jesus, My word is spirit and truth.' The words that you hear are but the outward covering. If you hear nothing but these words you do not hear Christ's word. In this the Bible differs from all books. One man reads a chapter. It sounds ordinary enough to him. Another reads it, and it blazes, and scintillates. Thus sermons affect different men. Some pierce the covering and behold the vital principle, the spiritual truth; others observe but the shell, the dull, dead covering. We are thus protected on the one hand against a mere doctrinal Christianity, dead orthodoxy, and on the other hand against mysticism. There are men who split hairs as to doctrines, are absolutely correct in their statements concerning the truths of Christianity, who yet know nothing of the vital principals of Christianity. They know the outward covering, but not the inward life. Then there are others who ignore the outward form, and say Christianity is wholly spiritual, and they plunge into a wild mysticism. One man says, Germs are nothing. To prove it, I will pick out of these seeds the germs and sow what remains. Another man says, 'The shell of the seed is nothing. The germs contain the vital principal and are alone important. I will pick out the germs, and sow them independent of the shells.' Neither reaps a harvest. The shell is important, the germ is important; they must both go together. So the written Word must not be ignored; much less dare we lose sight of the vital principal.

2. Again we observe, the life-giving property is not in the soil, but in the seed. You may plough, enrich the soil as you will, but without seed you can have no life. Scientists have about given up the idea of spontaneous gene

ration. There must be involution before evolution.

Philosophers have given up faith in spontaneous generation, but many people still hold to the idea that the human heart, dead in sín, can of itself generate life. Life cannot come from death. The life is in the seed, not in the heart in which it is sown. There is no salvation apart from the indwelling of Christ.

3. Where life is there is power. You may say, I will take these pebbles and secure a harvest. Your pebbles are dead and can have no power to reach a harvest. The living word of God is immensely powerful because it is living.

4. Every seed brings forth after his kind. Grapes are not found on thorns. You cannot sow the seed of wickedness and reap a harvest of Christianity. Now, the test of Christianity is perfectly simple: it brings forth after its kind. Apply the test to doctrine, to life, individual, Church.

III.-The Soil.

Now, we have not in the parable four different kinds of soil, but the same soil under different conditions.

1. The wayside hearer-soil made hard by the tread of feet, by passing wheels. Here we hear the tramp of the feet of Mammon. This is the careless hearer.

2. The stony-ground hearer.

He takes to the Word quickly, but soon lets go. Enduring for a while is one thing, for all time is another-they bring harvests that differ infinitely. This is the emotional hearer. The seed is not allowed to strike its roots in the understanding.

3. Among the thorns.

Here we have the double-minded hearer. 4. Good soil.

The man who hears aright. Friends, have you received the good seed? Has it passed beyond the outward ear? Is it growing into a harvest? Is Christ in you? Examine your heart. Take heed how you hear.

A GREAT OPPORTUNITY LOST

Analysis of a Sermon by the Rev, J. STIRLING.

If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace; but now they are hid from thine eyes.-Luke xix. 42.

OUR text anounces the presence of a supreme crisis in the history of Jerusalem; but as Jerusalem failed to recognise this crisis; it announces its close.

I-A supreme crisis in Jerusalem's history. Christ seems to have grown out of the period

in which he was born, but really the period grows out of him. His birth was the birth of a new era. This was felt most in Jerusalem. His advent was the world's springtime. His visitation brought a supreme crisis. Christ created a new light over Jerusalem's moral life.

II.-Jerusalem failed to recognise the supremacy of this crisis.

Some recognised it. The majority in most cases did not. The Jews as a people never rose to the conscious need of a spiritual Redeemer. God's kingdom came not with observation, therefore they failed to recognise it. Christ's life was brief. It finished while Jerusalem was discussing his claims. Great spiritual occasion may visit us and may pass away without our being benefited.

III.-The end of Jerusalem's crisis.

They are hid, &c. These words signify the closing of one period to the opening of another. In one case they would not see, in the other they could not. History moves in a strait line; such a period could never return. Such crises come to us. See that we recog

nise them.

See

WE cannot approach in the sense of magnitude to a conception of God. Infinite is a word, but it can never be a thing to us.

One thing that will strike every attentive reader of this early declaration of God's whole administration in this world, whatever might be His lenity, His sweetness, goodness, and mercy.

God is governing this world, from generation to generation, for the sake of raising men to a nobler manhood than they could reach by nature, therefore this important law of social liability by which the sins of the fathers roll over to the children. This natural penalty of sin was declared ages before natural science found it out.

Over against this-this being, as it were, cautionarily and negatively the Divine planlook at the positive plan as described by God himeslf, and see what enters into it. It is the revelation of the disposition of God.

I. You will observe, therefore, in this declaration, in the first place, the difference that there is between the present character of God, and that which prevailed in heathen nations, that which prevailed through long and weary ages, in Christian ages and nations, and that which really prevails to-day to a very large extent.

God has been made repellent to men by a distorted religious training.

II.-The terrors of the Lord are used in great proportions to persuade men from evil and toward good.

The emphasis has until now been to an inordinate degree on the Divine justice, and the Divine severity, and the immovableness of Divine law. The result has been that God, as he appears to an ordinary human intelligence, is not lovely. Men do not like to think of him in this character, and there are very few who would care whether God were swept out of heaven or not.

Is there no God that pities men that are wicked and while they are wicked, and helps them out of wickedness? Is there no physician in the universe? That is precisely what God is. I was brought up to look at God through the fences of theology, and had the impression that when I had reprented soundly and got on my feet, and was where I could offer my heart as a pure offering, then God would take me; then I tried, and I tried, and tried. But when studying for the instruction of others, the thought fell as a vision from heaven for me: God loves me in my faults, and the nature of God in holiness is to cure unholiness.

In the coming conflicts in the world and in the individual life, such a God is needed. Such an one only will endure.

We present to you such a God, to ye sinful, weak, needy men.

garded his physical safety, that question was already decided.

Neither was he safe as regarded his eternal welfare. We are not called upon to judge the departed, and yet we can hardly hope that Absalom was safe in an eternal sense. He has been guilty of murder, deceit, rebellion against his father, and died red-handed. Absalom, then, was not safe.

I.-Why was this young man not safe?

1. Because he had neglected to improve great opportunities. He had begun life with a royal station, beauty, popularity, &c.

2. Because his besetting sins carried him. away. There were vanity, self-seeking, ambition. What are ours?

3. Because he had especially neglected an opportunity of repentance. The history of this opportunity is an interesting one. We may refer to it, however, as testifying the tender compassion of our Heavenly Father, and his desire for our salvation.

II.-What will make any young man safe? 1. The Word of God taken for his guide. 2. The Lord Jesus Christ taken as his Master and Redeemer.

3. Eternal things, and not temporal things made his chief concern. Thus he will be safe

in time and in eternity.

THE BELIEVER'S PORTION

An Analysis of a Sermon by Rev. E. JERMAN.
God having provided some better things for us, that they
without us should not be made perfect.-Heb. xi. 40.
THIS epistle an epistle of better things:

A better Saviour-most excellent name (i. 4).
Better things (vi. 9). Better hope (vii. 19).
Better Testament (vii. 22). Better covenant
-Promises more excellent ministry (viii. 6).
Better sacrifice (ix. 23). Better country
(xi. 16). Better resurrection (xi. 35).
Something better the portion of the
believer.

I. What is the believers portion?

1. Religion here and all that constitutes it. 2. Religion hereafter in all its glorious prospects.

II. Better than what?

1. Certainly better than the world at its worst. In its (a) Degrading pleasures, (b) Self-persuits, c) Hatred and strife.

2. Better than the world at its best, (a) In the achievements of science, (b) In art, (c) In literature, (d) In its friendship, sympathy, love.

3. Better than the best thing of the Patriarchal and Mosaic dispensation.

III.-In what respect better? 1. In that it includes God's care and attention, and our help cannot fail.

2. In that it forms his highest and most costly provision.

3. (a) It provides for every man, (b) Fills every holy desire, (c) Is spiritual in character, (d) Is certain amidst a changing world, (e) Grows continually better.

4. (a) It ends in heaven, (b) Its blessings will be eternal.

Learn

1. To be sure you are the heirs of this portion.

2. To think of it often.

3. To walk worthy of your vocation.

A PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION Analysis of a Sermon by Dr. THOS. MANTON, A.D. 1660.

Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.-Psalm cxix. 18. We need that God should open our eyes, if we would have a right understanding of his Word.

I. What is meant by opening the eyes? The saints do not complain of the obscurity of the law, but of their own blindness. The light which they beg is not anything besides the Word, There is a double work in opening the eyes-(1) Taking away the veil, (2) Infusing light.

1. Taking away the veil-(a) Ignorance, (b) carnal knowledge and wisdom, (c) prejudice and corrupt affections, (d) carnal sense.

2. Infusing light-(a) A clear sight of God's truth, (b) an applicative sight, (c) an affective sight, (d) a transforming sight, (e) such a sense of the truth as is prevalent over lusts and interests.

II.-Reasons that show the necessity of this work.

1. Spiritual blindness is natural to us. 2. How much spiritual blindness is worse than bodily!

3. We cannot help ourselves out of this misery.

4. When spiritual blindness is in part cured we still need that God should open our eyes to the very last.

III. These thoughts show us

1. The reason why the Word prevaileth so little.

2. What need we have to consult with God whenever we make use of the Word.

Let this press us to seek after this blessing -the opening of the eyes.