Remarkable as these things are in themselves, they become much more so by contrast with the several cases of the Jews mentioned in their respective contexts. Thus nine _Jewish_ lepers were unthankful; a priest and a Levite passed by on the other side; the Prophet returning from Samaria, where He had been confessed, was not respected in His own country; Jerusalem had but lately rejected the Word which Samaria received. How was this? How came heterodoxy to be productive of acceptable fruit, while orthodoxy in the same circumstances was barren and unfruitful? The pursuit of this inquiry would doubtless be very interesting, but it would necessarily occupy much time, and lead us into the regions of speculation. I prefer, therefore, just now, to deal with the history of our text as a _fact_, and to endeavour to deduce from that fact three or four plain and profitable lessons. Nine professors of the true religion, members of the covenanted people of GOD, to whom pertained all the privileges, and gifts, and evidences, and responsibilities of a manifested Divine rule, were undutiful and unblessed in the very circumstances in which a stranger, an alien, belonging to a sect unsound in doctrine, and schismatic in practice, _volunteered_ to GOD most acceptable service, and received from Him the highest spiritual benediction. Now, what does this teach us—us, the members of the Church of England? First, with respect to ourselves, it teaches us not to pride ourselves in, or to rest satisfied with, a mere profession of the true faith. There is indeed but one true faith—that, namely, which GOD has delivered to us in His Word, and maintained by the testimony of His Church. To accept this faith in its integrity, is to set one’s seal to the testimony that GOD is true; to reject deliberately one article of it, no matter how small, how apparently unimportant, is to make GOD a liar, inasmuch as it is to refuse as false what He has offered us as true. Common _duty_ then, and ordinary fear lest we should become blasphemers, render it imperative that we should most anxiously inquire what is the true faith, and then most implicitly receive its every article. We _may not choose_ (heresy means choice) what we will believe, and what reject. To alter, or accept less than what GOD has propounded, is to act in defiance of Him, and to cast a slur upon His infallible truth. Is it reason to suppose that we can do this with impunity? Besides, remember, what GOD reveals to us as articles of faith, are no mere abstract truths for the philosopher to muse upon, and no more. They are the impelling force, the germ and embodiment of principles and ways of life, on the observance of which our very salvation depends. “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” Whosoever says, “I do not _choose_ to believe that He can in any way,” does not, as he imagines, merely deny a subtle dogma, he gives up a vital principle of godliness, without which of course he will not seek to