I. IN WHAT WAYS DOES CHRIST EXPECT YOU TO FULFlL THIS DUTY? 1. Whatever form or order Christ's Church may take, it always has eome way in which open .nnd public confession can be made. In that way the duty comes homo to ue, according to the Church to which we belong. Somehow Christ must be openly and publicly acknowledged before witnesses. 2. You must help in Christian service, and so confess Christ's Name. If you are made" a new creature in Christ Jesus," be sure that ho hBB some work for you to do, some place for you to occupy, eome mission for you to accomplish. 3. You must live such a godly life as shall of itself constantly confess Christ. If you do not check the movements of heart-piety, you will find it wants to push out into the light and show itself in holy living. When the spring is purified, &11 the rivulets that run from it flow clear and pure. When the leaven is put in the meal, it will not keep still until the whole is leavened. Let religion have as much room and power as it may please. Do not let timidity, any more than sin, or passion, or evil habit, check it from its natural and befitting expressions. II. BY WHAT HINDRANCES MAY YOU BE KEPT FROM OBEDIENCE? 1. The Bense of responsibility attaching to making public profession. But that is to forget that responsibility ennobles a man. 2. A sense of personal unworthiness because Christian experience seems so limited. 3. A fear of the possibility of dishonouring Christ by backsliding and sin. But that is to mistrust God'e power to keep you unto the end. -R.T. Ver. 38.-0ross-bearing. Confusion of mind is caused by associating this :figure with our Lord's crucifixion, or with the fact that he was required to carry his cross to the place of crucifixion. It cannot be too clearly pointed out, that our Lord used the figure to illustrate his teachings before his disciples had formed the faintest idea that he was to be crucified; and yet he must have meant them to understand him. They did understand. Cross-bearing was a commonly used figure of the day, and stood for " doing a thing that wa.s disagreeable to do, or bearing a thing that was painful to bear, because it was right." In that sort of sense Christ used it in our text. "Christian duty, sometimes painful, involves crucifixion of self, sacrifice of natural feelings." Dean Plumptre says, " These words would recall to the disciples the sad ecenes which Roman rule had made familiar to them-the procession of robbers or rebels, each carrying the cross on which he was to suffer to the place of execution. '!'hey would learn ,that they were called to a like endurance of ignominy and suffering." It is, however, better to preserve the familiar proverbial character of our Lord's allusion. I. EVERY CHRISTIAN MAN RAS BIB caoss. Every individual has his cross. We all have to say, again and again, " Things will not be according to my mind." Becoming a Christian may alter our crosses, but it is pretty certain to multiply them. 'fhe more active and enterprising a Christian is, the more, and the weightier, will be his croesee. They will always be marked by their demand on the Christian to do what he ought rather than what he likes. A cross is that which puts a man on self-restraints and self-denials. II. EVERY CHRISTIAN ){AN IS REVEALED BY THE WAY IN WHIOH HE DEALS WITH BIS CB0BS. 1. He may spurn it. 2. He may leave it. 3. He may lift. it. He is disloyal if he spume it. He is negligent if he leaves it. He is true-hearted if he lifts it. This leads on to the thought that if "cross-bearing" is discipline, and may even be stern discipline, it is always sanctifying. Cross-bearing may even be figured as the "highway of holiness."-R. T.
EXPOSITION. sermon on the mount (oh. v.-vii. 27): (2) OHAJ>TER XL the charge to the diaoiplee (eh, :ii:. 5-42); Ver. 1.-Matthew only. And it oame to (3) the parables (eh. xiii. 1-511); (4) dis- p&es, when 1esns had made an end. The courses to the disciples (eh. xviii.); (5) BBme formula recura in eh. vii. 28; xiii 53; prophecies about the end of the world, eto. xix. 1 ; :u:vi I. In all five cases it marks (oh, xxiv., x.xv.). (Of. Introduction, p. iii.). the end of important speeches. (I) The for the bearing that this h11s upon the OH. u 1-30.J THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW. 443