My friends, in these dangerous days, for dangerous they truly are—­ like those of the Scribes and Pharisees of old; days in which bigotry and hardness of heart, hypocrisy and lip-profession stalk triumphant; days, in which men, like the Scribes and Pharisees of old, boast of the Bible, worship the Bible, think they have eternal life in the Bible, spend vast sums every year in spreading the Bible; and yet will neither read the Bible honestly, nor obey its plain commands—­In such days as these, what prophet shall we fall back upon?  What preacher shall we trust?

We can at least trust our Bible.  We can read it honestly, if only there be in us the honest and good heart; we can obey its plain commands, if only we hunger and thirst after righteousness, and desire really to become good men.  Read your Bibles for yourselves with a single eye, and with a pure heart which longs to know God’s will because it longs to do God’s will; and you will need no false prophets, under pretence of explaining it to you, to draw you away from the Holy Catholic faith into which you were baptized.

But if you must have a commentary on the Bible; if you must have some book to give you a general notion of what the Bible teaches you, and what it expects of you; go to the prayer-book.  Go to the good old Catechism which you learnt at school.  There, though not from the popular preachers, you will learn that God is just and true, loving and merciful, and no respecter of persons.  There you will learn, that Christ died not for a few elect, but for the sins of the whole world.  There you will learn that in baptism, by God’s free grace, and not by any experiences or feelings of your own, you were made children of God, members of Christ, and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven.  There you will learn, that the elect whom the Holy Spirit sanctifies, are not merely a favoured few, but you—­ every baptized man, woman, and child.  That the Holy Spirit is with you, every one of you, to sanctify you, if you will open your hearts to his gracious inspirations.  And there you will learn what sanctification really means.  Not a few fancies and feelings about which any man can deceive himself, and any man, also, deceive his neighbours.  No, that sanctification means being made holy, righteous, virtuous, good.  That sanctification means ’To love your neighbour as yourself, and to do to all men as they should do unto you—­to love, honour, and succour your father and mother’—­Shall I go on?  Or do you all know the plain old duty to your neighbours, which stands in the Church Catechism.  If you do, thank God that you were taught it in your youth.  Read it over and over again.  Think over it.  Pray to God to give you grace to act upon it, and to shew the fruit of it in your lives.  And then, ’By its fruits you shall know it.’  By its fruits you shall know the virtue of the Catechism, and of the great and good men, true prophets of God, who wrote that Catechism.  Yes.  Cling to