are heavenly lives? such lives as are led in heaven, where all obey God's will. Such a life as our Saviour led on earth, whose meat and drink it was not to do his own will, but the will and the work of God the Father. Follow then after God's will faithfully and stedfastly: take the example and the principles of your Master for your guides: and they will lead you, it may be, through much trouble,-I have no warrant to promise you a freedom from earthly trials,—it may be, through evil report and contempt: for, as they called your Master Beelzebub, and St Paul mad, so will men at times speak ill of you, and think you meanspirited and foolish. But, if you can bear up under these crosses, and Christ for your sakes was loaded with a much heavier,-if you can walk along, notwithstanding your afflictions, in the path which Jesus trod before, it will bring you through the valley of the shadow of death to the glorious threshold of heaven. Is the path too rough for the delicate feet of human pride and passions? your feet be shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; and you will find the path bearable enough. Be it rough however, or be it smooth, walk along it we must, if we would go to heaven. For I should be deceiving you, if I did not tell you plainly, that the strait, the narrow, and the toilsome road, is the only one that leadeth upward.

Let

We must imitate the behaviour of Jesus here, if we would live with him hereafter. That sublime devotion, which made his whole life one unceasing prayer, his pure, meek, self-denying spirit, his love of all men, his special delight in those who shewed themselves by their faith to be true children of God,―these qualities, which are written in Scripture for our instruction, must all be copied by us, and written in our hearts and lives, before we can hope to have communion with the saints above. Amongst them such tempers, and no others, can gain admission; amongst them such tempers, and no others, could be happy.

SERMON II.

GOD'S JUDGEMENTS.

2 PETER ii. 9.

The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgement to be punished.

If I were asked to say in a few words, what is the difference between the Old Testament and the New, I should answer, that the Old Testament is the book of God's judgements, and the New Testament the book of God's mercies. I do not mean, that there are no stories of God's judgements against sin in the New Testament. There are several, as most of you, I trust, are well aware. There is the story of Judas Iscariot, who was driven by the stings of conscience to hang himself. There is the story of Ananias and Sapphira, who fell down dead for lying to the Holy Ghost. There

is the story of Elymas, the sorcerer, who was struck blind for withstanding the preaching of the Gospel. So on the other hand are there many beautiful and interesting stories of God's mercy and lovingkindness in the Old Testament. Still, notwithstanding these exceptions, in the history of the New Testament, generally speaking, we see God, as he is in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, not imputing their trespasses to them; while in the history of the Old Testament we see him in all the dreadful majesty of holiness, as the God to whom vengeance belongeth, and who will by no means clear the guilty. In a word, as I said before, the Old Testament is the history of God's judgements, the New Testament is the history of God's mercies.

That the New Testament, on the whole, is a book of mercy, none, I conceive, will doubt; and I shall not stop to prove it. But so is the Old Testament a book of judgements. What was the Flood, but a great and terrible judgement on all the inhabitants of the earth? What was the destruction of the cities of the plain, but a dreadful judgement? And were not the ten plagues, wherewith God plagued the land of Egypt, heavy judgements? And the destruction of the seven Canaanite nations, which we read of in the book of Joshua,-and all the afflictions which God sent

upon the children of Israel, whenever they forsook his ways to walk after idols, afflictions and visitations which the book of Judges and the books of Kings are filled with,—and the destruction of the kingdom of Israel, and of the kingdom of Judah, of Samaria, and of Jerusalem, and of God's own holy temple,—and the leading of the chosen people into captivity, are not these all so many judgements? Verily the book which tells us all these things, may with good reason be called the history of God's judgements.

Now these histories of God's most righteous judgements have been read to you year after year, ever since you were old enough to come to this church. You have heard them over and over and over again. Well! what are you the better for them? Too many of you, it is to be feared, are nothing the better for them. Of those who are much the better for them, the number in all likelihood is very small. I do not say, that you are not the better for coming to church. I hope and trust and believe, that you are all of you the better for that. It is hardly possible for any body to come to church regularly, and to be as bad as he would have been, had he made a practice of staying away. But a man may be much the better for coming to church,―he may be much the better for the service in church taken as a whole, without being noticeably the better for