grounds, it is the external representation of the invisible reality. "I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven." "Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." Now, in the exercise of this power of reception into the visible church, which is typical and declarative of reception into the invisible, Christ in the text forbids his people to make unholy and wicked men typically and declaratively members of the invisible church. Such practice involves the error that such men are meet for heaven, and, without a change, in fact are or may be members of the kingdom of Christ. It is therefore wrong. Then this error itself, and every form of doctrine which involves it-universalism, and antinomianism of all kinds-are condemned in the words before us.

Such we take to be the bearing and scope of the Saviour's words. But we must subject our interpretation to a rigid testing. The results of such a testing, as far as I am able to make it, are as follows:

1. This interpretation gives their natural and proper force to the figurative acts of "giving" and "casting" in the text. It was these words which in fact first suggested the explanation. On this point enough has been said already.

2. It assigns to the "dogs" and "swine" their true symbolic meaning as found in Bible usage. It makes them, namely, to represent the actually depraved and vicious. Nor does it suppose or contemplate a change in the persons thus designated before the "holy" and "precious" things are given; but their receiving and possessing them as they are, unholy and vicious still. It neither warps nor narrows down the sense of these metaphorical terms, but gives them their broad and natural application.

3. The same may be said in regard to the symbolic "holy things" and "pearls." They are made to designate in general, those sacred and precious things, both typical and spiritual, temporal and eternal, to which none but true believers have a title, and which ultimately none but true believers shall possess. There is here no violence, no arbitrary limitation or application of the terms to some single thing."

* It cannot with any justice be said that by this interpretation the "holy thing" and "the pearls" are in fact made to mean nothing but the Lord's Supper. That ordinance may indeed appear to the carnal eye to be the only privilege ex

4. By this interpretation of the rule, the reasons annexed to it by the Saviour acquire a striking and peculiar force. 'Make not wicked men sharers with you in the privileges and blessings

clusively enjoyed by church members. But this is to take a very narrow view indeed of the church and a place in it. Can it be a member of the church who knows so little what is comprehended in his citizenship? But suppose that participation in the Lord's Supper be the privilege primarily intended. What does the Lord's Supper mean? and what does partaking of it mean? The actual blessings of the kingdom of Heaven, and the sharing in them. Our application of these terms, then, is not a narrow one.

I will extend this note in order to set aside another possible mistake. It might occur to some one, that if the "giving" and "casting" are rightly understood of absolute conferring, inasmuch as there is no gift conferrible by men so entirely absolute and irrevocable as imparted knowledge, church-membership at least necessarily yielding to it in this quality; therefore the holy things and pearls might well be interpreted of instruction in Gospel truth, whence a meaning of the whole would result in amount the same as that first considered. Gospel truth has certainly both sacredness and value. Besides, as Tholuck observes, p. 477, instructions and discourses and books considered specially valuable are in the East very commonly denominated pearls. See d'Herbelot's Bibliotheque Orientale (Paris, 1597), Articles Loulow and Moroug. Tholuck's remark might have been extended to the West-witness the quaint titles to many of the devotional works of a century or two since. But I reply that the knowledge of the Gospel cannot be intended by the "holy thing" and the "pearls" of the text for two reasons: 1. The doctrine of the text would then be, that to the wicked Gospel truth may not be imparted: a doctrine which would imply the absurdity that Christ means and expects bad men to become good before the very means of reformation which he has appointed are used. Now it is as clear as day that Christ's "words of grace" may be carried where he went, among publicans and sinners. "The whole need not a physician, but they that are sick." 2. The knowledge of Gospel truths is only the apprehension of them by the mind, the understanding of the offers made by the Gospel to men on the conditions of repentance and faith-so that this supposed absolute gift of knowledge is only the perception of the offers of the Gospel after all. This explanation, therefore, resolves itself

of my kingdom' for (1.) They will trample them under their feet, and (2.) They will turn again and rend you.

No other words could in so short a compass so truly and so fully describe the evils of a disregard of this rule. That we may see and feel this, let us refer to history.

The rule has been almost universally disregarded by those who, for eighteen hundred years, have had the administration of the church. To a great extent the world has been let into the church in mass. Whole nations of heathen have been baptized at once without instruction. The church has been brought into unholy alliance with the state, and has received every citizen and subject as a member. Men have been born members of the church; and pastors have been bound to administer to them the holiest rites, at the peril of a suit at law, and even of their offices and lives. Or, some little restraint of outward indecencies at certain seasons has been made a requisite; or perhaps external morality. In some churches, again, some understanding of the doctrines of religion is required, for which, however, the bare repetition of the Commandments, the Creed, and perhaps the Catechism, is extensively substituted. Some seriousness of character is often required, but satisfactory evidence of piety is the acknowledged standard of admission in few churches, and in those how negligently applied! Thus the net of the church has indeed gathered of every kind. In proportion to the laxness of principle in this respect, has been the degree in which foolish virgins have been mingled with the wise in the community of professed disciples. Have now the evils which the Saviour points out in the text been experienced, and are they now felt?

If the foreknowledge and infallibility of the Saviour are tried by this test, the result is most decisive. Never were truer words spoken-never was prophecy more strikingly fulfilled.

into the one already rejected, and falls with it. This remark also clears up another matter. Bibles and Tracts are absolutely given the paper and ink are absolute gifts; but these are only the means of presenting and proposing to the mind the truths and offers of the Bible: and this, as we have proved, is abundantly commanded, but forbidden neither in this text nor any where else. There is, no doubt, a sacredness and preciousness in the volume of the Scriptures itself; but the Saviour has not seen it necessary to give any special rules for its protection.

History offers illustrations to an indefinite extent. We shall refer to a few only.

The Roman church has, since the days of the first degeneracy, violated the rule of Christ. What a congregation of wicked men (with doubtless many good) has that communion always exhibited! Think of the mass of the Irish, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italians, as members in full communion of the Church of Christ! Does any one know of a man whose moral character is too bad for membership in that church? She who claims to be keeper of the keys of heaven itself, has not scrupled to admit into it the vilest of mankind without the least evidence of genuine repentance. She sells salvation for money! The first consequence is profanation-the worship of God has been transferred to a woman, the Lord's Supper has been half of it cut away, and the rest substituted for the "one" offering of Christ; and what was left of holy and sacred has been overrun and trodden by the polluted and profane. The second is the rending of the church-the good and pious within the pale or within reach of that communion have been regularly and systematically persecuted for centuries; inquisitorial power and art and secrecy, holding commission from Rome, have been plying their instruments of torture and of death, and thousands who feared God more than man have been butchered in cold blood. If we look at the established Protestant churches, all which, as a matter of course, violate the rule, we shall also see that "profanation" of the church and "rending" of its members have gone hand in hand. The systematic persecutions and oppressions of Nonconformists in England and Scotland for two hundred years, together with the worldliness and godlessness, and open, infamous vice of many of those in office and power in the church, afford, again, abundant illustration of our Saviour's words. And the late "rending" of the Scotch church finds its whole (genetic) history embodied in this oracular text.

But to come nearer home. In those "free churches," which profess to receive members on principles in accordance with the command, we can still find, with the sin, the words of Christ as to the results of the sin amply verified. There may be found also in these churches men who, though morally blameless, give no evidence in their lives of vital piety-worldly men, whose "portions" and whose hearts are "in this life,"-gay and giddy youth, whose principle it is never to be serious-enemies of the cross of Christ, lovers of fashion and " conformed to the world"

Sabbath-breakers, who cannot spare to God and their own souls one day in seven-liars, habitually taking the advantage of others in their business-nay, even such as are profane and slaves of vice. What are the consequences?-Why, is it not a profanation when such men, with hearts and hands defiled with sin not repented of, engage as the people of God, nay, perhaps as ministers of the Gospel, in the holy duties and the holy ordinances of religion?when such bear the name and represent the cause and honor of Christ before the world? And "whence come wars and fightings among you?" Who, coming in "unawares," embrace false doctrine and bring in " damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them ?"-Witness the history of the New England churches for the last thirty or forty years; and the rending asunder of the churches of the Pilgrims. Whose character and life lie as an incubus upon the piety of a church? Read the history of Edwards and the Northampton church. Who are the tempters of the unstable, and stumblingblocks to the world? And who are Achans in the camp, causing God to be displeased and Israel to fall before his enemies? The answer is plain. It is unconverted, worldly, ungodly, and vicious church-members. Could the Saviour have told more solemn truths, or found truer and stronger language than he has used here?

For these evils there is no complete antidote in this world of imperfection. The church has always suffered from them, and always will suffer. Regular discipline can reach only flagrant cases, like that mentioned Tit. 3: 10, 11. It is unwieldy, and, when the evil has obtained ascendency, impracticable. Unconstitutional exclusion is, or ought to be, out of the question. To retire, as our Scotch brethren have done, is often the sad but only alternative for throwing off the responsibility of that which cannot be remedied.

Therefore, says the great Head and Lawgiver of the church, when about to set it up upon the Corner-Stone of Calvary, and causing his words, by being here recorded, to sound down the long line of the future generations of his people-- Guard the ENTRANCE OF MY HOUSE-REceive not the UNHOLY AND IMPURE.' Could command and reasons be more mutually appropriate?

We think that all the terms and all the parts of the text find, in this interpretation of it, a simple and natural signification, a pertinency and a mutual fitness which strongly support its claims as the true one.