pity and pray for the impenitent, will then quite leave off their compassion and their prayers. HE who is the Fountain of all goodness, will no longer put it into the hearts of His Saints to remember and intercede for those who are against HIM: SO much worse and more entire will be the desolation of wicked hearts in that Day, than any thing which we can now experience or imagine.

The very sight of CHRIST, which is the happiness of the just, will be to them misery and torment unspeakable. "They will say to the rocks and mountains, Fall on us, and hide us." In His light the Saints see light: but to His enemies the same light is a fire going before HIM, and burning them on every side.

How miserable is it, when we have done amiss, to look on the countenance of some dear and good friend, parent, brother, wife, sister, or husband, and see it changed towards us in consequence of our evil doings! or what perhaps is even sharper to bear to those who have any good left in their hearts, how miserable to see our dearest friends going on and treating us with unaltered, undoubting love, when we know all the time how guilty we are towards them, and have not yet the heart earnestly to repent of our fault!

Something like these things, but infinitely bitterer, will be the sight of the glory of GoD in the face of JESUS CHRIST, when the wicked come to see it in the last day. They will not be able to endure it; they will try to hide their face from HIM, as they have so often tried before; but it will be all in vain: they will still look on HIм, and still be unable to bear the look; and no wonder, for the words with which He will meet their look will be the terrible words of most just judgment, Depart from ME, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.'

If " Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon GOD;" if Daniel and St. John fell down at His face as dead; if St. Peter sank on his knees, crying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O LORD," His glory being too bright even for the purest and best of the Saints; what must wretched sinners expect, who have never used themselves to draw near HIM in prayer, and so by degrees learnt to bear His light? How intolerable the agony, when people's eyes are fully and for ever opened to the

dreadful secrets of eternity, without their being strengthened by the grace of God to endure it!

Let us endeavour, by such thoughts as these, and by all the fearful pictures of the Last Day which the Book of GOD in so many places sets before us, let us endeavour to learn the true fear of GOD, serious fear, lest by our ill doing we forfeit our portion in CHRIST, and force HIM, whose we are, to look strange upon us at the Last Day. We think, perhaps, that we truly trust in HIM; but what if He should say, “I never knew you?" what if He should say, "How camest thou in hither?" what if HE should say, "Thou wicked and slothful servant?"

When we are truly and deeply touched with love and affection for any person, we naturally observe what things most anger and displease him, and keep ourselves with especial care from all such things. Observe we then carefully what Holy Scripture tells us of the things which especially make our LORD angry. Whatever we do, let us watch against those things. They are three especially, hypocrisy, pride, unmercifulness. We know how He spoke of the Scribes and Pharisees; how often HE uttered a woe against them, because of their falseness and hypocrisy. Always when He uses the word hypocrite, the Gospel seems to bring with it the very tones of His reproving voice, that "word quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, which pierceth even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." How does that voice seem to pierce into our consciences, when we read or hear such a sentence as this, "Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye!" And again, "Well hath Esaias prophesied of you, hypocrites, This people draweth nigh unto ME with their mouth, and honoureth ME with their lips, but their heart is far from me." Which of us does not at once understand, by such sentences as these, how foolish it is to deal deceitfully with our LORD? how such as do so may expect to find His face turned towards them in more especial indignation?

But again, pride, and hard and oppressive conduct towards those whom Providence has any way put in our power, is mentioned in the Gospel as the one thing, which particularly moved the Wrath

of our gracious SAVIOUR in the days of His flesh. There is hardly more than one place, that I remember, in which it is said that JESUS CHRIST was angry. He was in a synagogue on the Sabbath day, and there was a man which had a withered hand, and our LORD's enemies were watching HIM, whether He would heal on the Sabbath, in order that they might accuse HIM. HE asked them a question which they could not answer without owning themselves in the wrong; and when they held their peace, "He looked about on them with anger, being grieved at the hardness of their hearts." As in another place, when He had laid hands on a woman bowed down with infirmity, and the ruler of the synagogue had reproved her with anger for coming to be healed on the Sabbath day, the LORD answered by calling him "hypocrite," and reproving him severely for his hardness to the poor woman. By this we may judge what sort of a look He will wear at the Last Day towards oppressors, and such as do wrong to the helpless, and grudge their neighbours His blessing: especially if they add to such behaviour any especial pretence of piety and devotion.

Once more: we understand by the parable of the unforgiving servant, that unmercifulness is a great cause of the wrath of the LAMB. HE who forgives all, and died that all might be forgiven, HE cannot endure that those whom He has pardoned should refuse to pardon in their turn. The servant, who, having been let go himself, dealt hardly with his fellow servant, forfeited the whole pardon which he had received. "His Lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, until he should pay all that was due unto him."

These sayings of the Gospel are as so many glimpses of the wrath to come at the Last Day on the hypocritical, the oppressive, the unforgiving: and by the same rule they are tokens of His mercy to such as deal truly with HIM, gently with their inferiors, mercifully with their enemies. 'Now ye are commanded, this do ye:" remember those sins especially in your Advent and Christmas self-examinations: watch, and pray, and strive, that you may not be Pharisees in His sight; in all things labour to be true and loving, both towards HIM, and towards one another: that so, when you rise from your grave, you may see the light of His countenance lifted up upon you: and while the impenitent are vainly calling on the rocks and hills to cover them, you,

gazing stedfastly on the SON OF MAN, may feel yourself changed into the likeness of His glorious body, and be caught up to meet HIM in the air, and so for ever be with HIM. For "there

is

mercy with THEE," saith the Psalmist, "therefore shalt THOU be feared." Fear HIM now, that you may find mercy with HIM in that day.

SERMON CCLXXI.

OUR LORD'S HEALING TOUCH.

FOR THE THIRD SUNDAY IN ADVENT.

ST. LUKE vi. 14.

"The whole multitude sought to touch HIM, for there went virtue out of HIM, and healed them all."

Not once nor twice, but continually, in the history of our Blessed LORD's doings on earth, we find this picture, so to call it, drawn for us by the finger of GOD. We see JESUS CHRIST, wherever He goes, pouring around HIM the most precious gifts of life, and health, and soundness of body and mind. Wheresoever HE shows HIMSELF, "in villages, or cities, or country, they bring the sick upon beds and couches, and beseech Him that they may touch if it were but the hem of His garment and as many as touch HIM are made perfectly whole." They bring unto HIM "all that are sick with divers diseases and torments, them that are possessed with devils, and them that are lunatic, and them that have the palsy ;" and HE heals them all.

:

We seem with our mind's eye to behold this wonderful sight: the blessed JESUS in the midst, and the distressed and anxious sufferers crowding around HIм on every side, waiting with more or less of patience each till his own turn come to receive the healing gift, and after it going away in thankfulness, or in still more devout thankfulness continuing to wait on HIM who gave it.

We can form some idea of this, for we know how eager we ourselves should be, whether in our own sickness or in our