this passage the apostle speaks of a something received, and not done:  “Let the peace of God rule in your hearts.”  It is throughout receptive, but by no means inactive.  And according to this, there are two kinds of peace; the peace of obedience—­“Let the peace of God rule” you—­and there is the peace of gratefulness—­“Be ye thankful.”  Very great, brethren, is the peace of obedience:  when a man has his lot fixed, and his mind made up, and he sees his destiny before him, and quietly acquiesces in it; his spirit is at rest.  Great and deep is the peace of the soldier to whom has been assigned even an untenable position, with the command, “Keep that, even if you die,” and he obediently remains to die.

Great was the peace of Elisha—­very, very calm are those words by which he expressed his acquiescence in the divine will.  “Knowest thou,” said the troubled, excited, and restless men around him—­“Knowest thou that the Lord will take away thy master from thy head to-day?” He answered, “Yea, I know it; hold ye your peace.”  Then there is the other peace, it is the peace of gratefulness:  “Be ye thankful.”  It is that peace which the Israelites had when these words were spoken to them on the shores of the Red Sea, while the bodies of their enemies floated past them, destroyed, but not by them:  “Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.”

And here brethren, is another mistake of ours:  we look on salvation as a thing to be done, and not received.  In God’s salvation we can do but little, but there is a great deal to be received.  We are here, not merely to act, but to be acted upon.  “Let the peace of God rule in your hearts;” there is a peace that will enter there, if you do not thwart it; there is a Spirit that will take possession of your soul, provided that you do not quench it.  In this world we are recipients, not creators.  In obedience and in gratefulness, and the infinite peace of God in the soul of man, is alone to be found deep calm repose.

 XII.

 Preached January 4, 1852.

 THE CHRISTIAN AIM AND MOTIVE.

   “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven
    is perfect.”—­Matthew v. 48.

There are two erroneous views held respecting the character of the Sermon on the Mount.  The first may be called an error of worldly-minded men, the other an error of mistaken religionists.  Worldly-minded men—­men that is, in whom the devotional feeling is but feeble—­are accustomed to look upon morality as the whole of religion; and they suppose that the Sermon on the Mount was designed only to explain and enforce correct principles of morality.  It tells of human duties and human proprieties, and an attention to these, they maintain, is the only religion which is required by it.  Strange my Christian brethren, that men, whose lives are least remarkable for superhuman excellence, should be the very men to refer most frequently to those