says,

which pierce into our inmost depths. When He "I know My sheep by name," He means, that there is nothing in them which He does not know; there is not one forgotten, not one passed over, as He telleth them morning and evening. His eyes are upon us all. And all the complex mystery of our spiritual being, all our secret motions of will, our daily sorrows, fears, and thoughts, are seen and read with the unerring gaze of our Divine Lord.

Whatsoever, therefore, befal us, let us say: It is He. It is the voice of the Good Shepherd. It is His rod and His staff which smite and comfort me. It is the work of One that loves me above measure, and cares for me with a sleepless providence. "The Lord is my Shepherd, therefore can I lack nothing." This will convert all things into revelations of His nearness and of His compassion. If it be disappointment, perhaps we were too bold and confident, and there were in our course pitfalls and death. If it be sickness, we were getting to be self-trusting, self-sufficing, unconscious of weakness, averse from humiliations. If it be long anxieties, perhaps we were settling down in this life with too full a rest. If our long anxieties have shaped themselves at length into the realities of sorrow, it was that we needed this for our very life; that nothing less would work in

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us His will, and our salvation; that the keen edge must come, or we must perish. Let us thus learn to taste, and to see that He is with us—that all things which befal us are just such as our truest friend would desire and do for our good. They are His doing—and that is enough. Let our heart's cry be, "Tell me, O Thou whom my soul loveth, where Thou feedest, where Thou makest Thy flock to rest at noon." So let us follow Him now "whithersoever He goeth." Be our path through joy or sorrow-in the darkness or in the light— in the multitude of His flock or in a solitary way, let us follow on to the fold which is pitched upon the everlasting hills, where the true flock shall "pass under the hand of Him that telleth them," one by one, till all the lost be found, and all His elect come in.

1 Song of Solomon i. 7.

SERMON II.

THE TRUE SHEEP.

ST. JOHN X. 14.

"I am the Good Shepherd, and know My sheep, and am known of Mine."

OUR Lord here says, that He and His sheep know each other; that His knowledge of them is one of the tokens of the Good Shepherd; and that their knowledge of Him is one of the tokens of the true sheep. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheep-fold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice; and he calleth his own sheep by name; and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for

“I am

they know not the voice of strangers." the Good Shepherd, and know My sheep, and am known of Mine." “But ye believe not, because ye are not of My sheep, as I said unto you. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me."

Now what is this knowledge by which His true sheep are known?

There are many kinds of knowledge, of which only one can be the true.

There is a knowledge which even fallen angels have of Him. St. James tells us that "the devils believe and tremble." St. Luke, that the spirit of an unclean devil cried out in Christ's presence "with a loud voice, saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with Thee, Thou Jesus of Nazareth? art Thou come to destroy us? I know Thee who Thou art; the Holy One of God;" and that "devils came out of many, crying out, and saying, Thou art Christ the Son of God. And He rebuking them suffered them not to speak; for they knew that He was Christ." And others again. "cried out, saying, What have we to do with Thee, Jesus, Thou Son of God? art Thou come hither to torment us before the time ?" This is a knowledge of the spiritual intelligence, which may be

1 St. John x. 1-5, 14, 26, 27.

2 St. Luke iv. 33, 34, 41; St. Matt. viii. 29.

possessed in energetic wickedness, and with direct resistance of the will against the will of Christ.

Again, there is also a knowledge which all the regenerate possess. The preaching of the Church, the reading of Holy Scriptures, the public commemoration of fasts and festivals, the tradition of popular Christianity, and all the knowledge which from childhood we unconsciously imbibe, give us a general knowledge of the evangelical facts and of the history of our Lord. But besides and before all this, there is a knowledge which is in the grace of regeneration itself. There is in every living soul, born again of the Holy Ghost, a gift of enlightening. The great truths and laws of God's kingdom are as a germ implanted in the conscience; latent, indeed, and undeveloped, but there in virtue and in power. For this cause, baptism is called our illumination.' It is impossible to say what it may bestow upon the spiritual capacities of the soul; what faculties and perceptions, what passive and subtil qualities may be infused into us by our regeneration.

There seems to be in those who are baptized, whether holy or unholy, an inward sense which hardly so much answers to truth as anticipates it. They know it almost before they hear it. They, as it were, forebode it before it is declared.

1 Heb. x. 32.

As the