entrusted, according to the infinite varieties of use made of them, there will be corresponding varieties of happiness hereafter.

The doctrine then of reward according to work being both conformable to reason and repeatedly asserted in a continuous strain of passages from one end of the Bible to the other, could not but be included as a necessary part of their system even in those Protestant confessions which most vehemently reject the Romish doctrine of merit and reward. It is enough for me to quote the Helvetic Confession: "Moreover, we teach that God gives an ample reward to those who work good, according to the saying of the prophet, 'Refrain thy voice from weeping, for thy work shall be rewarded;' and as our Lord also says in the Gospel, 'Rejoice, for great shall be your reward in heaven.' And again, 'Whosoever shall give to one of these little ones a cup of cold water only, verily I say unto you he shall not lose his reward.' We refer, however, this reward that the Lord gives, not to the merit of the man who receives, but to the goodness, liberality, and truth of God who promises and gives, who though He owes nothing to any one, yet has promised that He will reward His faithful worshippers, to whose gift, too, they owe it that they do faithfully worship Him.

There is, besides, much unworthy of God

and imperfect even in the works of saints, but because God receives into His grace those who work, for Christ's sake He pays them the promised reward."

The distinction here enunciated is so obvious that it does not much need to be drawn out at length. Children at a charity school may be promised rewards by their teachers for the lessons they learn. Such rewards spring solely from the bounty of the giver. The work by which they are earned in no way benefits him who gives the reward, but the reward is given only to stimulate the child to an exertion which will profit himself more than any one else. The education by which he earns the reward he owes also to the same bounty: yet the reward will be proportioned to work, and in virtue of a promise may be claimed as a right. So again in the parable: the servant whose pound gained ten pounds is made ruler over ten cities; he whose pound gained five pounds, over five. The reward is proportioned to work: yet the pounds which gain the reward are not the servants' own but the entrusted property of the master; the cities which are bestowed are gifts immeasurably out of proportion to the work which earns them, and are themselves part of an inheritance which their master has gained without help from them.

The doctrine of reward thus established, and as to which contending sects of Christians are substantially agreed, might at first sight seem to be an eminently practical one. To accept it is to believe in the momentous importance of every part of our course. According to it, everything done in the body tells: not a single temptation which, according as it is yielded to or baffled, does not affect for evil or for good our interests throughout eternity.

But is it actually the case that men are much influenced by these considerations ? I think not. Men who really believe the Christian doctrine of a future life have often been filled with terrible anxiety how they may escape hell, and win heaven; but the consideration whether in heaven they shall enjoy a higher or lower degree of happiness, and in the case of believers in purgatory whether they shall receive a greater or less degree of punishment, has the very faintest influence with them.

This brings me to a part of my subject with which I had thought it possible to deal to-day, but which now must be postponed to another occasion.

XVI

THE TWO CLASSES

"When the Son of man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory: And before Him shall be gathered all nations; and He shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And He shall set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left."-MATTHEW xxv. 31-33.

SOME of you will remember that of the two sermons I preached here last term the first had for its subject the antinomies of Scripture; in other words, it dealt with the fact that there are passages of Scripture which, taken separately, present different aspects of truth, and on which accordingly opposite systems have been founded. The second sermon dealt with a particular case of the kind, namely, the Christian doctrine of reward, there being passages which speak of man's reward as altogether proportioned to his works, others which seem to deny the possibility of man's works earning for him any reward at all. Yet when we came to examine this particular case, the opposition between the different utterances of

Scripture was seen to be so superficial that you may reasonably have wondered why I thought it necessary to prefix so elaborate an introduction. The ordinary rule of life certainly is that a man is rewarded according to his works; that according as a man sows, so he reaps; and yet to receive love and benefits we have not earned is the experience with which the life of every one of us of necessity begins, and is one which, if we judge ourselves fairly, we must in all thankfulness acknowledge, is daily repeated. It is manifest likewise that it can hardly be said that there is even apparent opposition between the statements that rewards are proportioned to work, and yet may be such that the workman could not claim them as his earned due except so far as the promise of his bountiful benefactor gave him a right to make such a claim.

But there is a difficulty connected with the Scripture doctrine of future retribution which lies deeper down; one not concerned with points on which Protestants have differed from Roman Catholics, or one Protestant sect or party from another, but relating to a doctrine which all Christians may be said to hold in common: the doctrine namely, that hereafter mankind will be divided into two great classes, separated from each other by a sharp and ineffaceable line of distinction. The text