we may be eure that the epirite and eoule of the righteous do not sleep idly in the intermediate etate. Even Dives in torment prayed for his five brethren· can we doubt but that departed saint8 pray etill for those whom they loved on ;arth, for whom they were wont to pray? It is full of sweetness to believe that they still think of us; that they are witnesses (Heh. xii. 1) of our heavenward course; that they help us with their prayers; that as the num her of the blessed who have died in the Lord increases in ever vaster multitude, so a fuller volume of prayer rises from Paradise up to the glory-throne. They pray, we may be sure; it may be (for St. Peter throu"hout this passage is speaking of Christ as our Example) they also spread the glad ne~s of the gospel among the kingdoms of the dead. 2. The listeners. They too were absent from the body; but they were not in Paradise, on the happy sides of Hades; they were in prison. They were in some dreary place, apart from the souls of the bles;ed; for they had once been disobedient through unbelief. There had been a preacher among them then-Noah, "a preacher of righteousness;" but they heeded him not. They were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the very day that Noah entered into the ark. Noah and his sons ate and drank too; but his main work was to preach righteousness, and to build the ark according to the word of God. Still God's ministers preach; still the Church, which is the ark, bears witness to the mercy and long-suffering of God, and bids the world to escape from the wrath to come. And still, alas I vast multitudes live on in unbelief, eating and drinking and spending their wbole time in worldly pursuitR, as if eating and drinking were the end of life, as if this world with its vain pomp and glory were to abide for ever. So it was with these unhappy men; the long-suffering of God waited many years while the ark was a-pre- paring; as, blessed be his holy Name, it is waiting now till the number of his elect is complete. Then few only were saved; now, alas I it is the few who find the strait and narrow path. The "prison" must be the end of unbelief and disobedience; the word suggests fearful thoughts and dark unsatisfied qnestions. The Lord preached. even there; he brought, we may be sure, the glad tidings of salvation: may we not venture to trust, in humble hope, that some who bad not listened to Noah, the preacher of righteousness, listened then to Christ, the Preacher of salvation? III. THE BAPTISM WHICH HE ORDAINED. 1. The outward and vis·ible sign. It is water -" water wherein a person is baptized." Water once saved the world. water cleansed it from that wickedness which was bringing down the wrath of God; the world passed then through a baptism of water which was death unto sin, but a new birth unto righteousness; there wae a new beginning, new possibilities, new hopes. And water 11aved the few that had entered into the ark; it bore up the ark, and saved those in it from the wrath of men and from the contagion of surrounding pollution. Yet one of those few brought upon himself his father's curse. So baptism, the antitype cf the water of the Flood, is now saving those who by it are admitted into the ark of Christ's Church. It is saving us, for it is the beginning of our salvation, bringing us, as it does, into covenant with God. But it is only the beginning; still the Lord adds daily to the Church those who a.re being saved (Tol,r 0'01(oµlvour, Acts ii. 47). But that salvation has to be worked out by the grace of God who worketh within his chosen. 2. The irm·ard and spiritual grace. Ananias Mid to St. Paul, "Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins." Bet mere outward washing cannot cleanse the soul. The conscience must be good, the heart must be sprinkled from an evil conscience. The inward and spiritual grace is a death unto sin and e. new birth unto righteotL-mess; the conscience will bear witness whether this, the im,er meaning of our baptism, is realized in our life. Conscience, Leighton snys, is God's deputy in the soul: _" Its business is to sit and examine and judge within; to bold courts in the soul . . . . Not a day ought to pass without a session of conscience within; for daily disorders arise in the soul, which, if they pass on, will grow and gather more, and so breed more difficulty iu tl,eir trial and redress." The good conscience will inquire after God, will be ever seeking God. If we have not that good conscience, we 11re not abiding in the grace of our baptism, 11nd then the holy sacrament ordained for our salvation loses its saving power. 3. The connection between them. Baptism becomes o. means of grace through the appointment of the risen Saviour. His people could not rise with him in baptism save through the power of his resurrection;_ tha~ resurrec~i~n ~s the pledge of ne~v life, ~ew ~ner~es, new hopes, to nll who are bapt1zed Ill one Spmt rnto the one mptical l><1t1y ol Christ. Hu I. PETER. L HG THE FIRST EPIS'l'LE GENERAL OF PETER. [on. m. 1-22.
c~n give grace through t_he sacm.ments, for all power is gi'l'en unto him; ho is at the nght h~n_d of God, ever mterccding for us, able to save us to the uttermo,t. '!'here it1 no guard1_an, no hel_Per, like unto him, for all the highest spiritual intclli<rcuces aro made subJoct unto _him; the elect angels arc his ministers; he gives them charge over his cho~en; the enl angels are under his control· he can restrain their malice ho can baffic their devices. ' ' ~,ESSONS. 1. Christ suffered in bis flesh; let us take suffering patiently. 2. He sn:flercd, "the Just for the unjust." Sometimes God's holiest servants are called to the i:;rcatest_ suffering; they will not complain; they are being made, in their poor measure, like _their Lord. 3. He suffered to bring us to God; let us come in faith and love and c.'Tatltude. 4. He preached t-0 the spidts in prision; may we listen while we a.re in the tlesb! on the earth! 5. Let us strive by his grace to realize the deep meaning of our baptism, the death unto sin, the new birth unto righteousness. •