our fashion of doing
good for the good done; aye, for the very Spirit of God Who inspires that
good; mistaking the garment for the person who wears it, the outward and
visible sign for the inward and spiritual grace; and so in our hearts
falling actually into that very error of transubstantiation, of which we
repudiate the name!

Why, ah why, will we not take refuge from fashions in Him in Whom are no
fashions--even in the Holy Spirit of God, Who is unchangeable and eternal
as the Father and the Son from Whom He proceeds; Who has spoken words in
sundry and divers manners to all the elect of God; Who has inspired every
good thought and feeling which was ever thought or felt in earth or
heaven; but Whose message of inspiration has been, and will be, for ever
the same--"Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with thy God"?

Could we but utterly trust Him, and utterly believe in His presence: then
we should welcome all truth, under whatever outward forms of the mere
intellect it was uttered; then we should bless every good deed, by
whomsoever and howsoever it was done; then we should rise above all party
strifes, party cries, party fashions and shibboleths, to the
contemplation of the One supreme good Spirit--the Spirit of Jesus Christ,
the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever; and hold to the One Fashion of
Almighty God, which never changes, for it is eternal by the necessity of
His own eternal character; namely,--To be perfect, even as our Father in
Heaven is perfect; because He causes His sun to shine on the evil and on
the good, and His rain to fall on the just and on the unjust.

SERMON VII. CONFUSION.

PSALM CXIX. 31.

I have stuck unto thy testimonies: O Lord, confound me not.

What is the meaning of this text? What is this which the Psalmist and
prophets call being confounded; being put to shame and confusion of face?
What is it? It is something which they dread more than death; which they
dread as much as hell. Nay, it seems in the mind of some of them to be
part and parcel of hell itself; one of the very worst things which could
happen to them after death: for what is written in the Book of the
Prophet Daniel?--"Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall
awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting
contempt."

And we Christians are excusable if we dread it likewise. How often does
St Paul speak of shame as an evil to be dreaded; just as he speaks, even
more of