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of the Lord to persuade men to repentance. It is for me to preach Jesus and the resurrection. Let God be the judge-not man—whilst we lay before you the doctrine of eternal life. If I can win you with His word, and persuade you to flee from the wrath to come by imploring you to hide yourselves under the shadow of His wings-by preaching salvation unto you-I am content to leave the wicked to their own condemnation, only praying that God may turn them from their sins, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Believe me your affectionate friend,
THE COMFORTER.

ADDRESS XXII.

ALMIGHTY GOD, who wouldest not the death of a sinner, but that he should repent and live, cleanse us, we pray thee, from all wickedness, that we may read thy word without terror and receive the truth of thy salvation into our souls, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The triumphing of the wicked is short; and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment.—Joв xx. 5.

MY DEAR FRIENDS-There is a triumphing which is permanent and lasting and which shall endure for ever; and there is a joy both in the present life and the life to come, which is certain and to be possessed as assuredly as that I now preach the word before you. But no wicked person can have that triumph, be he the proudest warrior upon earth, and gain, by the help of others' hands, the strongest cities: nor can any hypocrite have any joy whatever, for him there is no joy! Honesty, only truthful honesty of purpose and intention, can be said to have joy even in this transitory state of probation in which we now live. Of the wicked and the hypocrite God only can have a strict knowledge; for all may be apparently righteous in the sight of their fellow-men and have no real communion with God; and, on the other hand, men may seem to be

ignorant, weak, distressed, and unhappy; and yet have their hearts really with God and be really partakers of His blessed comfort and consolation. To our own Master we must all give account of our employment. We have a work to do on earth which must be done or left undone; and there is a way of doing that work which will not stand-a way of doing that work which will endure for ever! Be it my endeavour, beneath God's help, to lay before you this day a few plain arguments in favour of the honest worker in faith as opposed to the dishonest worker in hypocrisy ; and if, by the grace of God, we receive any comfort from this instruction, unto Him be our hearts opened and our tongues ready to give Him the praise. My first argument. in favour of the worker of honesty shall be shown by tracing the short triumph of the wicked.

I take it for granted that by a wicked man you all understand that I mean the man who does not respect God's commandments, but proudly and boldly violates them and secretly encourages others to do the same; and that by an honest man I mean the man who corrects himself by God's laws and keeps His commandments. "The triumphing of the wicked is short." This might easily be proved from the words of the royal Psalmist, who, after speaking in praise of the man whose delight is in the law of his God, says "Not so are the wicked, for they are like the chaff which the wind driveth away from the face of the earth" (Psalm i). Nothing can more forcibly represent the brevity of the wicked's triumph than this comparison to chaff, which is blown away from the good seed by the wind. We not only read this in the Scriptures, but

our daily experience teaches us its truth. The triumphing of the wicked is short. It was not until the Psalmist entered into the sanctuary of God that he perceived how short their triumph was: for he, as many do now, was grieved at the wicked and at the seeing ungodly men in such prosperity. "They appear to come into no misfortune like other folk, nor to be plagued like other men. They do what they list, corrupt, and speak against God"-are great talkers, and compass all the range of science throughout the world. To the people they seem most wonderful men, and hence they suck no small advantage out of them. "Tush (say they), how should God perceive it: is their knowledge in the Most High?" These are the ungodly-these have riches in possession-these prosper in the world. Well might the Psalmist say-" Then have I cleansed my heart in vain, and washed mine hands in innocency." To him it appeared inexplicable; and he said within himself -"Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? Then thought I to understand this, but it was too hard for me, until I went into the sanctuary of God: then understood I the end of these men "—namely, how thou dost set them in slippery places and castest them down and destroyest them. Oh, how suddenly do they consume, perish, and come to a fearful end! "Yea,

even like a dream when one awaketh, so shall thou make their image to vanish out of the city" (Psalm Ixxiii. 21). Looking, then, upon the triumph of the wicked, how very short does it appear? In the midst of their boasting, their mighty success, God raises them up as He did Pharaoh of old, and sets them in slippery places and then casts them down

and destroys them and shall we be such blind mortals as to envy them? Shall we desire to be like them? Shall we sigh after their felicity which is but for a moment, and forget God's mercies to ourselves? O, let us not envy them; but rather let us be contented with such things as we have and say " It is good for me to hold me fast by God; to put my trust in the Lord God, and to speak of all thy works in the gates of the daughter of Sion" (Psalm lxxiii. 27). Job, from whose book our text is taken, was thought by his friends to be one of those wicked persons whose triumph is short; and Zophar, the Naamathite, cast the words of my text in his teeth-"Knowest thou not this of old, that since man was placed upon the earth that the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment?" They saw this good man afflicted, brought low, his children killed before him his riches all departed, his poor body afflicted with sores, and such an object of sudden calamity that they concluded he had been both wicked and an hypocrite. The language is truthful enough, and Job knew it to be so, though he felt that in his own condition it was not applicable to himself. "Beloved, if our hearts condemn us not, we may have confidence with God" (1 John iii. 21). Job knew that in the midst of his prosperity his heart was with God: that though he had many infirmities, yet he had countenanced virtue and discouraged vice. It was not because he was thus made an object of his friends' pity and reproaches, by his calamity, that he was to be thought a wicked man and an hypocrite. He soon lets his friends into the light of the truth that was in him, and replies to

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