whether He could, but whether He did? We know He did not. And hence we see, in this instance, (and many others might be adduced,) not the way in which alone He can, but the way in which alone He is pleased to act.

This is a thing to be well borne in mind. One often hears it asked by the disputers and cavillers of this world: What! do you pretend to say that one cannot be regenerated without Baptism? that one cannot be fed with the bread of Heaven and nourished unto life everlasting, without coming to the Holy Communion? Do you maintain, that it is necessary to listen to the Church? Is the Lord's hand so shortened, that He cannot save without such beggarly elements? Are we not living under the ministration of the Spirit? Is it not said of these times that all shall be taught of God? Is not the Spirit promised to every one to profit withal? Is it not the Holy Spirit's office to teach? What is the need of insisting on forms and ceremonies, an Apostolic succession

of the Ministry, and outward unity? cannot God save us all without our attending to such things?

To all this, and to every thing of the kind, there is this one plain answer, viz. that it is a mistaking of the whole question. The question being, not as to the power, but as to the will of God. Not whether He cannot save by other means, but whether He has been pleased to say He will save by these means? Nor whether He cannot work without instruments, such as Sacraments, Ceremonies, Ministers, but whether He has not declared that He will work by them. He has declared that He will. He shewed it by many of His miracles, by all indeed. He has appointed Baptism, and the Eucharist, and the Church, to be means of salvation, and of setting forth His glory, and they cannot be neglected without peril to men's souls. To reason about them, as so many now do, is as though the servants, instead of filling the water-pots with water, and then drawing Ephes. iii. 10; iv. 4—16.

out and bearing to the governor of the feast, had reasoned within themselves that there was no need thereof; that Christ might supply the need another way, if He meant to supply it at all. They might have asked, Of what use water, when wine is wanted?

Far be from us all, such a spirit of disobedience rather let us imitate the faith of the blessed Virgin, who, although her suit seemed rejected, murmured not, but even exhorted others to obedience, saying unto the servants, "Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it."

And this notice of the blessed Mother of our Lord, suggests another lesson. We must not think that because our prayers are not answered at once, that, therefore, they are not heard: rather we are to conclude, that we ask amiss. That perhaps it is not so much for the glory of God that our prayer should be answered, as that our faith should be tried. His hour is not yet come. The hour which He, Who hath times and seasons in His

own hand, knows to be best for manifesting His glory to us. Neither must we

doubt, if, when the answer does as it were begin to come, it come in an unpromising shape; come as something very different from what we had desired. We must not only wait patiently upon the Lord, but remember also, that "godliness is great riches, if a man be content with that he hath." We must not doubt or murmur, if, when we call for wine, water be first brought. Yet a little while, and the water shall be made wine: our weakness become strength; our poverty prove great riches; our troubles change to triumphs.

Another observation occurs, as evidently suggested by the narrative contained in the Gospel of this day. It is not merely the common remark, that the state of matrimony was sanctioned by our Lord's attending at a marriage feast, but, further, that His sanction is given, as it was on other occasions, to the rejoicing with them that do rejoice. "Both Jesus was called,

1 Offertory.

Our

and His disciples to the marriage." Lord, by attending, set the example of not clouding and marring the innocent mirth of social life by an over-severity or moroseness of not condemning our neighbour by a shew of self-denial, and a will-worship of our own devising. It is remarkable that many of the religionists, who argue in the way just now noticed about the unrestricted method of God's working for the good of our souls, themselves make and bind on men sore burdens and heavy to bear. They will make light of Baptism and of the Lord's Supper, and of all rites and ceremonies of the Church; and think an Order of Ministers and Forms of Prayer superfluities but they will, for all that, insist on praying, and preaching, and exhorting, and being, as they term it, "instant in season and out of season," without regard to time, place, or person. Professing to do away with forms, they are the greatest of all formalists; condemning whoever will not speak, think, act, and look as they do. They mar the order of

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