And we must be able to see, as well as hear. Eyes are necessary as well as ears. The spiritual eye is a spiritual mind. Where there is one spiritual sensehearing, there also will be the other spiritual senseseeing, and yet they are different, and must both be trained together, or neither will be trained so well.

Conscience may be quick and sensitive, and yet it may be quick and sensitive about wrong things. In one sense its edge may be too keen. It may be unwise; it may fix itself upon little things, forgetting great, or on great things forgetting little; upon anise and cummin only, or upon the weighter matters of the law only. Or it may be morbid, thinking of sin without thinking of the Redeemer from sin. It is an edged tool, intended rightly to divide for the soul the law of God, as softened for us in the gospel, and will get out of order if turned to other uses, as a surgeon's knife, which is meant to cut flesh, if turned to graving wood or tombstones. We need, therefore, wisdom to know what is right, to see who it is that is standing at the door, to discern spiritual things, to distinguish between the look of our Lord and other appearances; in short, we need the mind of Christ, the spiritual mind. It is not enough to believe a little and do some good things, and, generally, to act and behave ourselves in what is called a conscientious, and even religious, way. This is well, but it is only a beginning. We must have Christ formed within us. We must know how to open the door at the right times and in the right way, so as to allow our Lord to come now into this part of our house, and now into that; now into one chamber, and now into another; to come by the roof into our heads when we are thinking, and by the door into our

hearts when we are feeling; to sanctify our eyes that we may look to nothing but what is good, and our ears that we may listen to no sounds that are not of heaven; to ennoble every part of us, so that we may be sanctified wholly,-body, soul, and spirit. Mere virtue is not enough, nor self-denial, nor patience; though these are all good. We must be heavenlyminded. We must be saintly. Insight into divine things; a life like our Lord's, whose very meat and drink it was to do God's will; a demeanour which is above mere human nature, because it is the result of supernatural grace: for these we must labour, after these we must seek. The seeing eye, the mind which "searches all things," even "the deep things of God,"—this we must cultivate, if we would know the presence of the Beloved when His voice is knocking at our door, and He would come in to us and sup.

IV. And how does He knock? He knocks by chastisements. He does not always knock before He enters. Into some men He never enters at all. Where the heart is not a door, but a hard stone wall,-thick, obdurate, and impenetrable,-He neither stands nor knocks; but having knocked again and again, and finding neither door, nor ear, nor eye, He goes away. Into some, or into some at times, He enters without knocking. When the heart is opened easily, so that a little push, a very small motion of His hand, is enough to give Him entrance, He goes in and out continually, as a man into the house in which he lives abidingly; knocking not at all, or scarcely knocking, because the slightest tap, the very faintest sound, is heard by the listening ear, and answered by the seeing eye. But when the heart which is not destitute of all

love becomes cold and flags in loving, locking Him out, locking itself against Him, and when the listening ear gets dull, and the seeing eye grows heavy, then there comes a knock,-a clear, distinct sound, which no voice but His could utter, an unearthly note, which no hand but His could strike ;-not loud, but quiet, not violent, but gentle; like the fall of a firm foot, which falleth softly, or like the breaking of waves upon a still day, when thunder is nigh at hand. That knock of His has nothing else like it. There is a strength about it, and a majesty, which words cannot picture, and yet, withal, a tenderness and constraining sweetness, which breathes the very soul of love. Those who have heard it know it, and to others it is a mystery hidden from them, which they cannot know.

When the Beloved knocks, He chastens. His blow is loving; still it is a blow. He seldom knocks more than once at one time. His blows are seldom double or treble. One blow is commonly enough for those who love Him. He strikes once, and commonly, unless it be absolutely needful, He does not strike soon again. At any rate, He waits a little, and then, if His first stroke was unheeded, He strikes another and a heavier blow. If a third stroke be needful, it is likely that love is grown very cold, and there is danger, exceeding danger, that he may stand and wait no longer, but for a long season may withdraw Himself and go away.

These chastisements are not judgments. They are rather warnings than judgments. They are the strokes of a father who loves his child, and proves his love by chastening them. And at the same time they are warnings, that, if chastisements be not listened to, and the locked door reopened, they will be changed hereafter into judgments which shall be terrible.

And, looking at them thus, there is something even in their softness and in the love which breathes throughout them which is awefully sublime. Our Lord knocks at the door of a man's soul; that is, in a quiet, gentle way, He strips him of a great blessing, or He sends some great evil from which flesh and blood recoil. He takes from him some good possession, or He cuts off some object of affection,-son or daughter, sister or brother, wife or husband, parent or friend. Or He sends him some terrible pain, or some grievous sickness, or disease, or some sore reproach. And these are but gentle strokes, strokes so gentle that no one, unless he has a quick ear, could tell that it was the knock and chastisement of Christ; these are His warnings, the sound with which He speaks to those who love Him. What, then, must His judgments be? These blows, which strike a man to the earth, are the gentle notes of love. What must the voice of His anger be? "The thunder of His power, who can understand?" Oh! we can form some dim conception of the terrors of that storm which shall break upon the earth; we can imagine, in some feeble measure, how it can come to pass that the sun shall be darkened, and the moon not give her light, and the stars fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven be shaken, when the sign of His coming appears upon the sky; for we know Him in his mood of softness,-just as the calmness of the sea, when it is heaving in majestic rest, gives awful intimation of the power which lies behind such stillness and of the fury into which it may be lashed by angry storms.

V. The very love, then, which speaks in these words is terrible" Behold I stand at the door and knock !" "I am knocking at your heart now, because I would

show you what my love is, and would win an entrance by nothing else but love; but if this is my love, what is my power?' And I think, my brethren, that no one who has a listening ear and a seeing eye, can doubt but that He who spoke thus to the Church at Laodicea is saying now to His whole Church throughout the earth, 'I stand and knock.' The state of the Church generally is not unlike the state of Laodicea. In days gone by it was cold and almost dead. Faith had almost perished from the earth. The salt had almost lost its savour, and was itself approaching to corruption. The watchmen were asleep. But our Lord awoke them; and now the Church, at least in some of its members, is not cold; and yet it is not hot, as in days when persecution lit its fires and heated the blood of martyrs. It is in a sort of middle state; lukewarm, yet more likely to get hotter than colder; lukewarm, and tending to heat. And our Lord is standing at the door, and saying while He chastens, "As many as I love I rebuke and chasten. Be zealous, therefore, and repent."

Especially of late years He has been knocking. But seven or eight years ago, He knocked at the door of Europe, sounding the note of war. War, on a scale of vastness hitherto unknown, and with losses and sufferings not often paralleled, startled the peace of Europe and cried to all who could hear, Unlock thy door; repent.' A little while before, the same portion of the globe-that portion to which the name of Christendom applies peculiarly—had been shaken by the earthquake of revolution, which overturned thrones, and shook society from its base to its highest pinnacles. After that He knocked at the door of England, by the blows which He struck against her Indian empire; speaking to her