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burned like aqua fortis, and therefore had power to consume away even the black stain of the denial. Well would it have been for Judas if he could have wept such tears.

Probably when Judas appeared before the chief priests and elders, saying, "I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood," there was still time to have had recourse to the friend of sinners. Why then, unhappy man, didst thou go to those cold-hearted hypocrites, who threw back thy money with a "What is that to us? see thou to that"? Why didst thou not hasten to Him whose innocent blood thou hadst betrayed? Why didst thou not from the foot of the cross lift up thy hands to Him in supplication? No doubt the arms which used to be extended to every sinner imploring pardon were then nailed to the accursed tree, but for certain He would not have said to thee "see thou to that ;" and though He could not have stretched forth His hand, His closing eyes at least would have intimated that thou wert forgiven. In the heart of Judas, however, there was no longer either love or faith. There are some to whom the saying which the meek and gentle Son of God uttered against His betrayer sounds stern and severe: "The Son of Man goeth as it is written of Him: but woe unto that man by whom He is betrayed! it had been good for that man that he had not been born."1 But have they whom this offends ever cast a look into the night of a human heart in which the capacity to believe and love has been extinguished-a heart in which avarice has withered up the root of all faith and affection? The hints which Scripture gives explanatory of the black deed of the betrayer are few; but, in my opinion, they are sufficient to enable us to understand the final fall from which he never rose. "Judas was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein ;" and when the self-forgetful affection of Mary brings an offering that greatly exceeds her means, the thief comes to her under the mask of a friend of the needy and asks, “Why was "took of what was given."

1 Matt. xxvi. 24.

2 May also mean
3 John, xii. 6.

not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?" These few words seem to me enough to disclose the blackness of the man's heart. If he had ever been the friend of God he could not have been so with more than half a heart; and his case verifies the proverb, that "He who only gives the half of his heart to God gives the whole of it to the devil." In one respect the love of money is worse than every other vice that poisons our frail blood, in that it deadens our liveliest sensibilities, and withers up the soul. He who at the side of Jesus could continue to be a thief of money, and of money which was destined for the poor-he who under the eye of Jesus could feign compassion for the indigent while he was thinking of his own advantage-must have had a frame of mind which can hardly be imagined. Could there have been any communion with God, any sincere prayer to Him? It is impossible. He who played the hypocrite in the sight of Christ was beyond all doubt likewise a hypocrite in the sight of God. If in his heart there had been the slightest susceptibility of love, how could he have resisted when He "who knew that He was come from God and went to God" rose from supper to wash the disciples' feet, and knelt even at the feet of a Judas? But the voice of affection could expect no responsive echo from a heart that was dead-dead as the metal to which it had been sold. It is written, that having received the sop, he went immediately out, "and it was night." That night without was but a counterpart of the night within his soul. He had ceased in his daily walk to keep hold of the hand of God, and so when he fell the hand of God did not keep hold of him, and this was the reason why he could not rise from his fall. No doubt it is written that "when he saw that Jesus was condemned to die, he repented himself;" but, unlike that of Peter, his repentance was without tears. It was the repentance of terror and not of sorrow for sin-the repentance which fears the punishment, not that which would gladly have endured the penalty, if it could but 1 1 John, xii. 5. 2 John, xiii. 30. 3 Matt. xxvii. 3.

have undone the guilt. For this cause he was afraid to face God. Here God's eye had looked out at him from his conscience, and he imagined that in escaping from his conscience he would escape from God's eye.

Here stood he hid behind the shade,
There stands in open view displayed;
And all that once his soul dismayed
Has with him to the judgment gone.
Poor man! self-cheated and undone!

Thrice wretched is the transgressor to whom there is nothing left but a tearless repentance. Such a repentance preys on a man's flesh and bone, and wastes it like a gangrene, leaving him, when it has spent its force, undone. For certain there is no class of sinners to whom, in passing sentence, divine justice will apply so variable a rule as that of suicides. For is not suicide often, as it were, the last convulsive and involuntary gust of a storm which has been raging for years in the bodily tabernacle? In those cases, however, in which it manifests its true nature, and is the copestone to a life-long slavery to sin, and where the sinner leaps into the dread abyss because sin has chased him over hill and valley, all weary, to the brink, at which the last act of his life is the greatest of his misdeeds and he dies,-oh! can anything be more horrible than such a suicide as that?

One thing, therefore, O my Father and my God, do I implore of Thee, and it is this-if my weakness be so great that I cannot avoid falling, vouchsafe repentance to my heart, and let not my repentance lack tears. Behold, I can say with Peter, I know not where else to go, if Thou wilt not receive me. Though I fall ten times a-day, still with Peter I can say, "I know that I love Thee." Fall I may, but never more shall I quit hold of Thy hand; and as I shall not let it go, neither will it suffer me to lie prostrate on the ground, but will lift me up again and when at last, by all my stumbling, Thou hast humbled me so far that I wholly despair of myself, and from Thy hand alone seek my strength and my comfort, then

doubtless, will the hour at last come in which all my steps will be steady, and my walk be continually upright before Thy face. In Thy mercy vouchsafe to me this boon. Amen.

Judas, when thou hadst sold the Lord, and when

Thy deep remorse the council laughed to scorn,
Why didst thou not bethink thee to return
And plead with Christ to save thee, even then?

Ah! at His feet if thou thyself hadst thrown,
Confessed the dreadful crime, and mercy craved;
Love on the bitter cross must have vouchsafed
Such pardon as the tears of Peter won.

'Twas not too late to weep thy guilt away,
If sorrow from thy heart for ever gone
Had not resigned its place to fell dismay.

Better unborn than to be thus undone !

Thy kiss of love had poison in its breath,
And even in thy repentance there was death.

48.

Abraham against Nope believed in Nope.

Faith's part is TO RECEIVE,

And God to faith has given

All that is His to give

Either in earth or heaven.

LOVE DISTRIBUTES the gifts
Which she from faith receives.
Oh what a blest exchange is this

In which the Christian lives!

ROM. iv. 18-22. "Who [Abraham] against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be. And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own

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body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb: he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; and being fully persuaded that what He had promised, He was able also to perform. And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness."

BRAHAM against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be. And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb. Such is faith. It is believing in hope against hope. Here below everything Abraham saw forbade him to hope, but looking up to the place whence the promise came, he then saw nothing but the strongest grounds for hoping. About him upon earth the flesh found ample occasion to argue, from all that met his eye, a negative to the divine promise, and clearly to demonstrate that the word of God must be untrue. But he entered into no disputation of the kind, or if this were attempted by the flesh, his faith instantly soared high above it and trustfully took hold of the hand which God stretched forth to him from heaven. Yes, such indeed is faith; it cleaves to the things unseen as if it saw them. This is no doubt a hard lesson to learn; and when we mark how many there are who err in learning it, we might almost be tempted to say with Luther, "The wonder is, not that many miss the way, but rather that any, however few, find it; for to the foolish world what else can faith appear but the dream of a drunken man?” As it was not by disputation that faith entered his own mind, so neither is it possible for him who possesses it to impart or explain it by disputation to another. We see with our own eyes when the day has actually dawned, and need no arguments to convince us of the fact. To attempt to explain what light is before it has enlightened us, is to attempt to see it

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