in their private, and in their public and aggregate capacity. You have the witness in your own hearts that it is true of men in their individual and private life. You have had secret misgivings yourselves, and you have encouraged yourselves, and strengthened yourselves, and persevered under the feeling, that after all it is doubtful, these threatenings about God's judgment; we do hear them it is true, sometimes, but we hear them from enthusiastic preachers; but we see nothing like it in the world; the world is going on as it has for centuries, and we may go on with it. And with regard to men in their aggregate corporate capacity it is the same. Talk to them about national transgression, and GOD's judgments on nations, they answer, "Well, nations have always been doing so, the nations last to this day, and so nations will last; and as for civil commotion and disturbances in nations, these have always been so, they may come on us, but it is not as you say, it is a matter of course." These are the holds of infidelity among men. now exalted in strength-he who wept tears of human tenderness is now on the throne of universal sovereignty he who marks the throbbing heart and treasures the secret sigh in his bosom, he is at the right hand of the sovereign glory and kingdom of GoD Almighty. No blow can be struck except as he strikes it; and the feelings of his heart arrest the weight of his hand. He is not slack concerning his promises, or concerning his threatenings, as some men count slackness; but he is "long suffering to us ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." The feelings of his soul yearn over us in love. He is righteous indeed to strike at last-and such outraged love must surely provoke, at last, an awful stroke-but, for the present, it is his patience. We say, therefore, to the sanguine enthusiast, be not impatient, Jesus is gentle; throw not up your confidence in him, because he does not answer your earnest entreaty all at once; he knows better what is good for you than yourself; besides he has a large heart, he thinks of others; your views are small and selfish, he will not hear selfish men. To the ungodly we say, beware, be not deceived, GoD is not mocked; Jesus is righteous as well as gentle, and though it was righteous in him to wait for the sinner, it will eventually be righteous in him to destroy that sinner; and "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Beware, then, you must yet have a king, an absolute sovereign over you in the person of that exalted man; humble yourself; kiss the Son lest he be angry; submit unto the throne where GoD sits in person; "blessed are all they who put their trust in him." Now, mark the secret of this patience in GoD who is on the throne who has the sceptre on his right hand. He who died for those men, he who loved them, so that he poured his heart's blood forth for them, is now a sovereign, is exalted with a human heart touched with a feeling of all human infirmity, and strengthened into enduring patience by union with divine compassion. Jesus is on the throne, Jesus who has made it a righteous thing in GOD to bear with simmers; not only to have patience with them, but to save them. He may wait righteously because he died as a substitute for them; and he does wait upon them tenderly, because he ever liveth as a sympathetic ruler. Now consider this fact as it stands This is the secret of God's patience-connected with THE GRACE OF GOD. he who was crucified in weakness is Jesus Christ is himself the treasury of willing to receive us sinners as we are! Many a heart is beaten back from its approach to GoD, under a secret sense of guilt, a secret consciousness that sin hangs upon it, and a secret unwillingness to draw near lest GOD should not receive. There arises a feeling of hopelessness in our case grace for human beings. In him, as having taken our nature, the fulness of the Godhead dwells for communication to us the members of his body; but that communication is carried on only by the agency of the Holy Spirit: so that it is an invariable truth, concerning every human being without a single exception, that "if he have-there arises the sort of feeling as not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his"-that" if he be not born again of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." Now the mission of the Spirit stands in direct connection with the exaltation of the Son of man. He said himself expressly, "It is expedient for you that I go away, for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come; but if I go, I will send him unto you." And what is the aspect in which he is presented to us by the Apostles? That "he is ever living at the right hand of God to make intercession for us." He is exalted a priest as well as a king. I have shown you something of the connection of his royalty with his divine patience; now see the connection of his exalted priesthood with divine grace. Hear what St. Paul tells us in the fourth chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews, "Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of GOD, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." What is the consequence which he draws from this gracious truth? "Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy to help in time of need." We have an interest in his heart, whose heart dispenses grace: let us come. Oh, how much we stand in need of this encouragement, how slow of heart are we to believe, that God is though other persons may succeed, but, as for us, we are too far fallen from GOD, ever to dare to come to him. And truly this would be so, had we not Jesus Christ upon his throne,a daysman to lay his hand upon both, one who while he has power to prevail upwards in the character of GOD, has sympathy to apply downwards to the tenderness and wants of men. Here is the main spring of all the consolations of religion. Those who are bereaved of their friends or relatives, or otherwise afflicted in the world, if they know what true religion is, do not turn to a sort of vague indistinct effort to resign to the sovereign will of an absolute GOD; but they turn to a tender sympathetic communion with the man who was tempted as they are-who was grieved as they are-who wept as they do-who feels for them having once felt like them— who is touched with a feeling of those infirmities, and therefore they are encouraged to repose on that bosom which is tenderness itself. This makes all the difference, theirs is the reality of consolation. There is no reality of consolation in what is commonly called mere resignation under an inevitable evil. This is more than resignation, this is communion with a friend; and who has not felt how sympathy with a friend lightens the load of sorrow-who has not felt how the distribution of sorrow lightens its operation? As the water-spout is, as it were, broken to pieces, and the water descends in drops as showers of rain, so is the overwhelming pres sure of sorrow broken by the sympathy of friends, and relies safely and refreshingly upon the kindly feeling of the heart. " willing yielding to sin or resolute determination against sin-every trembling heart shrinking back from yielding, and yet giving way and It is in this way that you are in-yielding at the solicitation of evil vited, in the experience of Christian companions. He sees the weakest consolation, to look to the ascension effort against sin in every one of you. of Jesus Christ. Truly, it is full of In the details of domestic life he encouragement to know that Jesus is watches every blush, every secret on the throne. Who can separate us temptation to falsehood, every irritafrom him? It is he who died, yea, tion of temper. All those little derather, that is risen again, who is even tails, which seem, from day to day, at the right hand of GoD, who maketh to be so small in the eyes of many, intercession for us. "Who can sepa- shall yet constitute the grand aggrerate us from the love of Christ? Shall grate of evidence in the judgment of tribulation, or distress, or persecution, GOD. And while he sees these things or famine, or the sword? Nay, in all he is capable of appreciating them by these things we are more than con- personal experience; for "he was querors through him who loved us.' tempted in all points like as we, yet Would you, then, satisfy your eager without sin." anxiety respecting GoD's patience with a guilty world, look unto Jesus the king upon the throne. And would you satisfy an aching heart under the griefs and distresses of this world, look unto Jesus the priest upon the throne-look unto him as dispensing God's mercy, as the administrator of GOD's favour, as the expression of GOD's love. What a divine contrivance, if I may use such an expression, is this, which lodges all our blessings in Jesus Christ! Now, consider this truth as it stands judge shall be manifestedly acquaintconnected with THE JUDGMENT OF ed with our character, and with the GOD. Jesus is the judge; he shall history of our trials in a way that we come again to judge the quick and can understand; so that no prisoner the dead. In the mean time he is a at that bar, no arraigned offender, witness of all the transactions that shall be able to screen himself behind are going on upon the earth. He the feeling that the judge was never shall not need to summon witnesses in my circumstances, so as to apprewhen he sits in the judgment-he ciate my trials; no arraigned offender shall not need to balance conflicting shall be able to screen himself behind testimony, and to guess at the result the thought, Oh, if the judge had of a true verdict. He knows infal- known what it was to be hungry he libly, during every moment of the would not condemn me for stealing process, every movement of every when I was starving. Yes, the judge individual that shall stand before the does know what it is to be hungry. bar of judgment. He perceives every He hungred and thirsted as we do; secret struggle against sin-every | he knows what it is to stand and Now, brethren, attend to this, we may say, and the educated mind is ready to say, ready to feel, and to think, GOD knows all these things. He needs not the ascension of Christ to his throne to satisfy us that he is acquainted with all the details of this life. We know that it is essentially a part of GOD's nature that he should know all things. But then what is gained by the circumstance of a man being on his throne and king over all things? Why this is gained, that the starve rather than sin, and to cast himself into the wilderness on the promised protection of his Father, rather than yield to the temptation of the devil and go out of his way to turn stones into bread. ment-while he is in heaven, he yet in the person of his members stands upon earth, and he has distinctly told you, that inasmuch as kindness is done to the least of them, it is done to him, and that inasmuch as kindness is omitted to the least of them, it is omitted to him. It is easy to say that we would show kindness to the exalted head if he were here, but it is not so easy to do in showing kindness to the suffering members that are here; yet, verily, I say unto you, in the name, and the word of the Lord, that there is no kindness shown in the least to Christian brethren, that he shall not receive on the judgment seat as shown to himself, and that there is no slight offered to one of them which he shall not in like manner receive as having been offered to himself. And Jesus shall come; he shall come who went into heaven, shall so come as he was seen to go into heaven; and he shall gather all nations before him, and "he shall separate them as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats;" and the ground of his judgment will be most intelligible. Many of you are deceived in the thought that if you had an opportunity of showing kindness in any way to the Lord Jesus Christ you would certainly do it, but not having such an opportunity, you feel yourself screened from any attempt, sheltered from any accusation in not doing it. Now remember the principle of his judg- | Amen. A Sermon, DELIVERED BY THE REV. HUNTER FELL, AT TRINITY CHURCH, CLOUDESLEY SQUARE, MAY 12, 1833. 2 Peter, iii. 15.—“ Account that the long suffering of our Lord is salvation.” "Ac with an infinity of patience. ing to hear it-" Account that the ther, righteousness and peace kiss long suffering of our Lord, is sal- | each other.” vation." But bearing this in mind, let each In order to enter into this passage, man's conscience be alive to its own I shall consider, in the First place "THE DEMANDS WHICH WE HAVE MADE, AND STILL MAKE, ON Secondly THE INTERPRETATION works, whilst I hint at some of the demands which we have made, and still make, upon the long suffering of our GoD. Every kind of sin, and every iniquity, which we commit, whether it be of thought, or of word, or action, we trespass against God's authority, we sin against his righ teous law, and his holy Gospel; and we make a demand upon his long suffering. We might consider this subject of provocations against GOD, and demands for his long suffering, in their length; that is, in reference to our world as a whole, from the period when GOD, by the flood, destroyed the whole family of mankind-we might consider it in reference to ourselves, as part of that whole, and call upon the aged men and women before me to speak to this point of God's long suffering towards them—we might call on those who have arrived at the middle age, to consider how frequently they have by their provocation called upon GOD for vengeance-we might take a little child, and invite the little infant almost, to consider how frequently he has added to the number of the world's transgressions; we might, indeed, consider it in one man, in a family, in a parish, in a generation of mankind, or in the whole period of the world's existence; but we rather pass over this general review of the subject, and come to our own consciences, and inquire into the demands which we have made on the long suffering of our Lord, as it respects our own When we look First, I would touch on THE DEMANDS WHICH WE HAVE MADE, AND STILL MAKE, UPON THE LONG SUFFERING OF OUR LORD. The character of Jehovah is always the same. It is always of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. He is always abhorring iniquity. He is always just, infinitely just; and therefore always determined to punish iniquity, either in the offender himself or his surety. It is most important that we keep this in view, in order that we may justly understand how greatly and repeatedly we have provoked the Lord to anger, and called upon his patience, and demanded at his hand the exercise of long suffering. We must not imagine, that God can possibly, by the fiat of his own will, pardon sinners, unless all his perfections can unite in the exhibition of that pardon. There is no other way in which GOD can be "just, and the justifier of the ungodly," except | personal, iniquity. in the way of his own wisdom-his own wise appointment: even through the death, and sacrifice, and all perfect righteousness of his Son, by which " mercy and truth meet toge | back upon the past, are we not confounded and ashamed, to think how heavy, and how aggravated, our sins are against the divine Majesty? Are they not of scarlet dye? are they not, |