realise that "he that drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst"; they do not overcome the world; one has almost to make a fresh text for them,—"This is the defeat wherewith they are worsted, even their little faith."

(4) It is not a humanly-devised life, as Solomon's aqueducts. Our faith stands not in human structures; not in the Westminster Confession; not in the XXXIX. Articles. It stands not in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. The Divine Life is not sect, and it is not system. What is your sect? A pipe whose power of supply is limited by its diameter; whatever we can learn from the maxims and traditions of men, is but a little compared with what we may learn from God directly. The channel of a sect! it is a pipe that bursts when the tide of life rises beyond a certain point. The channel of a system! it is an aqueduct through which, if one stone be taken out, the water ceases to reach you.

Our little systems have their day;
They have their day and cease to be;
They are but broken lights of Thee;
And Thou, O Lord, art more than they.

If one travels on the continent, one can see (I think it is at Avignon) the ruins of the ancient Roman aqueduct; but the Rhine and the rest of the rivers of God flow on still, full of water.

Let names and sects and parties fall,
That Jesus may be all in all.

As we learn to live the life of dependence upon the Lord, we must not be surprised if a great deal of our early theology drops off: it does not always sit down with us in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Instead of Solomon's pools and aqueducts there is given to us a pure river of water of life, gleaming as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb; and I think we may say of those who receive the life of God in this immediate and wonderful manner, that "not even Solomon, in all his glory, was so well supplied as one of these."

Finally, we may say, that the Life is one of absolute dependence, and is conditioned on the sovereignty of God and of the Lamb. Grace and the Holy Ghost are the portions of the dependent soul: they only flow from the throne of God and of the Lamb. I am amazed to find how much of true religion may be resolved into that one word "dependence." I can remember the time when I could not enter into the Psalm, "Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty, neither do I exercise myself in great matters, nor in things too high for me"; nor sing the verse, "I would be treated as a child, and guided where I go." Now it is, I hope, different. Moreover, we are sure that this spirit of dependence is one of the main features of the angelic life; we cannot imagine it otherwise; for the source of the river is the throne.

We sang in our hymn the lines—

I know Thou hast my heart,
And I have heaven;

but we can only sing the second line where we have said or sung the first.

IV

HEART ENLARGEMENT

"I will run the way of Thy commandments, when Thou shall enlarge my heart."—Ps. cxix. 32.

If we were to study the names of the different sects and parties that make up the "Ishmael" of God, we should find them to be singularly unsuggestive of such a thing as the existence of a spiritual life; nor could we easily infer from the nomenclature of so-called Christendom that "there is a spirit in man, and that the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding." Now, this is a very curious fact; for one would have expected that about the first thing suggested by the appellations of Christian bodies would have been some phase or other of the inward life.

But we are not going to spend our time to-night in discussing sects, or deploring their divisions, although we cannot altogether refrain regret when we contemplate the seamless robe of Christ rent into more than twain, and dabbled in blood worse than Joseph's coat was when his father said, "Some evil beast hath devoured him"; and although it does seem to us sometimes, as we contemplate the havoc of schisms and strife of sects, as if some convulsion from beneath had shaken down the towers of the New Jerusalem, and streams from the nether fires had coursed down the channels of the river of life. What we want to do is to think a little about the true Broad Church; not that branch of Christianity which commonly goes under the name, and which makes one of the instances referred to of the unsuitableness of names applied to religious schools and parties, but the spiritual Broad Church, which is the church of enlarged hearts. The school we want to belong to is the school of spiritual free-thinkers, who are at liberty to learn all that God has to teach them. The true Broad Church is that in which an enlarged obedience to God's commandments is brought about by an enlarged experience of His love; and His commandments and His love are both of them exceeding broad.

All true spiritual life must widen the soul; the more we live with Jesus, the more impossible will it be for any of us to be narrow. Our littleness takes refuge with God, and His greatness makes its abode with us; we bring Him our unworthiness and He imparts to us His righteousness; we offer to Him our hearts barren of sympathy and deficient in affection, and presently we find the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost that is given to us.

Thus, when acquainted with God we cannot be really narrow; they might as well call the Lord Jesus Christ narrow. We want to be as broad in our sympathies and in our views as He was; and neither broader nor narrower.

True spiritual life will widen the soul in its possessions, its perceptions, its will, and its love; it will extend our powers of having, of knowing, of willing, and of loving; and, in one or other of these four, most of our life is included.

(1) How very little we possess, both in outward and inward things. This is one of the points in which we are disposed to agree with the saying that the circumference of our circle is very near to the centre. We can grasp very little. Our hands are small and the world is large.

"Tell me how I can make my broad acres more broad," is the request of the rich man. "Tell me how I can make my narrow holding less narrow," is the cry of the poor. But a life in God makes us rich, for "all things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present or things to come;—all are yours; and ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's." "Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth." "There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for My sake and the Gospel's, but he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life."

And Madame Guyon says, "Have I not infinitely more than a hundredfold, in so entire a possession as Thou my Lord hast taken of me, in that unshaken firmness which Thou givest me in my sufferings, in a perfect tranquillity in the midst of a furious tempest that assails me on every side, in an unspeakable joy, enlargedness, and liberty which I enjoy in a most strait and rigorous captivity?"

(2) How trifling is our knowledge! Yet fewer people will assent to the lack of knowledge, for many think they know a good deal. As in the times of Socrates, it is only the wise man who knows he knows nothing. And yet how little we know! We know but little of things in this world, with all our sciences and study, and we know much less about God, and glory, and immortality, and the spirits which live outside the tent of this mortal flesh, or of any