present; but every one knows that instances of both these sorts of characters are never wanting, and every one knows also what reception they generally meet with. But could this possibly be the case if Christ's servants did their duty; if all who have declared that they will serve him were to remember to what that service pledges them? I have seen the thing enough necessarily; but it has always excited my astonishment that there should be, both in men and boys, so strange a hatred of obedience and of law; that good becomes distasteful because it is commanded; evil is favoured, because it is forbidden. This, at the bottom, is the secret of the favour which men often show to a breach of the laws of the land, and which is shown here to a breach of the laws of the school. No doubt servility is a base thing, and honest independence is a noble one; but far worse than servility is disobedience to commands that are just and good; and far nobler than any independence is the most entire submission, when shown to God, and to God's law.

But if that which God commands loses its favour in our eyes, because man commands it also; if we think it so glorious to disobey man, that we care not even to disobey God

in doing it; let us take heed what sort of spirit of liberty and independence this is; whether it is not theirs who are the lowest and vilest of all slaves, the slaves of their own wickedness. For be we sure of this, that we have but a choice of masters, good and evil: if we are the servants of good, we are free from evil; if we are the servants of evil, we are free from good: but the servants of one or the other we must be, both now and for all eternity. And there is no liberty to be found but in loving our service thoroughly, so that its cause becomes our own. Do we shrink from gaining this liberty in evil? Do we think it horrible to be so utterly sold to wickedness, body and soul, as to rejoice in the devil's work, to have no repentance or remorse but for some evil that we had left undone; no hope and joy but in the good which we had trampled on and despised? Is this indeed horrible? then is there only one other liberty, the liberty of the Spirit of Christ, the liberty to be gained by faithful obedience. By serving God, by humbly obeying him, by keeping every command issued for his service, we may gain indeed a perfect liberty, the liberty of just men made perfect, the liberty of those blessed angels who joy in all

that God delights in, and hate all that he hates; the liberty of the sons of God, given to us by Him who alone can give it; by Him who abideth in the house for ever, the Son of God, Jesus Christ our Lord.

SERMON XXIV.

CREED S.

ACTS IV. 24.

They lifted up their voice with one accord, and said, Lord, thou art God, who has made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is.

THESE words, and those which follow them, may be called the earliest and best specimen. of the nature of a Christian creed, when used in the public service of the Church; for the use of the Creed in the Catechism, in the Baptismal Service, and in that for the Visitation of the Sick, is not quite the same with its use in our daily service. Nor is this altogether unimportant to notice; at least it appears to me to make a very great difference as to the propriety of using the Creeds in our service, and as to the feeling with which we should repeat them. In the Catechism, the Creed, as we all know, is made a sort of text for instruction in

Christian truth; in the Baptismal Service, and in that for the Sick, it is made a touchstone, to know whether a man is fit to enter, or whether he may be considered as remaining to the end in the society of Christians; but in our daily service it partakes much more of the nature of a triumphant hymn; and accordingly, not only is it left to the choice of the congregation whether it shall be said or sung, but it might be imagined that the Church esteemed the latter the preferable method: for whereas the Rubric directs that the psalms and other hymns shall be either said or sung, of the Creeds it is directed, in a contrary order, that they shall be either sung or said. This, indeed, may only be accident, though, if it be, it is a curious coincidence; but whether it be accident or design, it certainly affords a very good illustration of the light in which the Creeds should be regarded; not as reviving the memory of old disputes, and a sort of declaration of war against those who may not agree with us in them, but as principally a free and triumphant confession of thanksgiving to God for all the mighty works which he has done for us.

And of such a nature, we may perceive, was that most primitive creed, if I may so