and mother'--Shall I
go on? Or do you all know the plain old duty to your neighbours,
which stands in the Church Catechism. If you do, thank God that you
were taught it in your youth. Read it over and over again. Think
over it. Pray to God to give you grace to act upon it, and to shew
the fruit of it in your lives. And then, 'By its fruits you shall
know it.' By its fruits you shall know the virtue of the Catechism,
and of the great and good men, true prophets of God, who wrote that
Catechism. Yes. Cling to that Catechism, even if it convinces you
of many sins, and makes you sadly ashamed of yourselves again and
again; for, believe me, it will prove your best safeguard in
doctrine, your best teacher in practice, in these dangerous days--
days in which every man who believes that right is right, and wrong
is wrong, has need to pray with all his heart--'From all false
doctrine, heresy, and schism; from hardness of heart, and contempt
of thy word and commandments; good Lord, deliver us!'

SERMON XIV. THE ROCK OF AGES

(Ninth Sunday after Trinity.)

1 Corinthians x. 4. They drank of that Spiritual Rock which
followed them; and that Rock was Christ.

St. Paul has been speaking to the Corinthians about the Holy
Communion.

In this text, St. Paul is warning the Corinthians about it. He
says, 'You may be Christian men; you may have the means of grace;
you may come to the Communion and use the means of grace; and yet
you may become castaways.' St. Paul himself says, in the very verse
before, 'I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest .
. . . I myself should be a castaway.' Look, he says then, 'at the
old Jews in the wilderness. They all partook of God's grace: but
they were not all saved. They were all baptized to Moses in the
cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual meat, the
manna from heaven. They all drank the same spiritual drink, the
water out of the rock in Horeb. And yet with many of them God was
not well pleased;' for they were overthrown--their corpses were
scattered far and wide--in the wilderness. The spiritual meat and
the spiritual drink could not keep them alive, if they sinned, and
deserved death. 'So,' says St. Paul, 'with you. You are members of
Christ's body. The cup of blessing which we bless, is the communion
of the blood of Christ; the bread which we break, is the communion
of the body of Christ:' but beware, they will not save you, if yo