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tabernacle again amongst you. But has not Jesus, that gracious helper of perishing souls, another sort of expostulation for those who have not loved "to retain him in their knowledge" at all? Did he not reason with Israel and Judah, and spread out his hands all the day unto a rebellious people, a people that provoked him to anger continually to his face? and is he not sending message after message to careless gentiles, and saying, "Woe unto the world because of offences, woe unto that man by whom the offence cometh?" Is he not questioning you by his ambassadors, with the peculiar earnestness of one who knows the value of an immortal soul, "Why will ye die?". Do you want power to break through the trammels of sin and the entanglements of the world? Set your hearts and affections upon the kingdom of God, and the righteousness of his dear Son; and a new prospect will gladden your heart, and all the vanities of sense in due season shall drop from you as the sickly leaves are driven from the healthy cedar. Do you want a hand to lift you up, and to take the burden of your sickness from you? Where can you find one so effectual as that which caught Peter out of the depths of the sea?—It is ready; it is now stretched out; lay hold on it, poor sinking sinners! it is the hand of Jesus. Do

you want words to tell him that you are weary and heavy laden? Take that simple prayer in the text, "Lord save me!" and if your hearts can respond to it, it will be answered from above, "Be of good cheer, thy faith hath saved thee."

121.

SERMON VIII.

CHRIST THE ARK OF SALVATION TO HIS

CHURCH.

HABAKKUK, iii. 17, 18.

Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat ; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls; yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.

No

No one could have given utterance to such a feeling as the text expresses, that had not been visited by God's all-merciful Spirit, and who had not seen the day-star rising in his heart. natural man could witness the gradual falling away of all his earthly substance, and not sink under the loss. These things constitute almost the whole sum of what he prizes upon earth;

he lives for them, they are rooted in his very existence, they are his treasure, his rock, his refuge; he watches them by day, and dreams of them by night. Is it a wonder, then, that he should rejoice, when his eye has but to admire, and he can make the object his own; when his mind has but to create a want, and it is satisfied; when the air, and the earth, and the sea, pour their abundance in upon him? Are we to expect that such a being is also to rejoice, when his eye looks for these, and none of them are to be found? Oh no! he acts upon the same principle that influences the rest of the world, who, like himself, make gods out of the gifts of God, and glory in the creature, more than the Creator, God blessed for ever. If these treasures make to themselves wings, and leave him, he talks of his misery, as if eternity were made up of such riches as these; and he proclaims his ruin, as if hell itself were opening to devour him. And why does not the prophet act thus? why are there no tears, and heartburnings, and lamentations, in the case of distress that he represents as occurring to himself? There is a plain answer-he is a spiritual man; and this is the thought of his heart: "What! shall I receive good at the hand of God, and shall I not receive evil? the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the

Lord;" he trembles before the exceeding majesty of the Most High, and yet in his confidence he is unshaken; the more he sees of his power, the more he seems to feel that he will never leave him nor forsake him. The vision was a terrible one, for he saw the earth reeling, and all that was in it in confusion; and the revelation of God was terrible, for he saw him marching through the land in indignation. "Before him went the pestilence, and burning coals went forth at his feet; he stood and measured the earth, he beheld and drove asunder the nations, and the everlasting mountains were scattered; the perpetual hills did bow." These were the wonders displayed to his astonished eyes; but the only effect they had upon him was, an increased assurance that they never would be turned against himself; for when the vision had passed away, and left him to the stillness of his own reflections, his mind appears to have been absorbed, not, as we might suppose, in considering the King of kings clothed with majesty and strength, but in viewing him as a God of mercy, as one whom, under any circumstances, even those the most adverse to his temporal prosperity, he could do no otherwise, than glorify, and adore, and love; and he then supposes a case of the utmost extremity," Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit

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