not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate." It was the stubbornness of the Jewish people which proved their ruin; and it was the contemplation of the cause, and the prospect of the result, which now drew tears from Judah's king.

But, brethren, are we, Gentiles, better than they? No, in no wise; for all are under sin, and in the sight of Heaven there is no sin more heinous or provoking than this of incorrigible impenitence ; yet, as if it were not enough that men had violated God's righteous law, they persist in keeping up their enmity, by refusing the gracious invitations, and spurning the kind entreaties of the gospel.

Now, in conduct like this there is something absolutely demoniacal: nay, there is in it a desperate malignity, beyond that of devils.

Were the messengers of mercy to carry their good tidings of great joy into that world upon which hope has never dawned, w are almost ready to imagine that, at the glad sound, fiends would be disarmed of their enmity; that the voice of infamous blasphemy would be silenced; that sorrow would cease to flow in the streams of burning tears; that even despair would lift its haggard front with complacent smile, while hope would strike its harp with transport, and the dreary caverns of woe would ring again with joy. But in this world of ours, over which the whole host of heaven proclaimed at Bethlehem, in God's name, the message of good-will to man and peace, even here the gospel has been rejected with disdain.

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You have seen that the very nation to whom, first of all, the promise of a deliverer was made, and who waited and longed for his appearance, yet, when he

actually came, received him not: him whom God the Father sealed and sent into the world, they contemned and crucified. But is there nothing in the conduct and condition of many in Christian lands that is equally fitted to excite our commiseration, while it awakens our astonishment and shame? Have ye yourselves never known a sinner who had been repeatedly instructed, admonished, warned, entreated, with all the faithfulness and affection that language could command, and yet he would not be reclaimed, but returned again and again unto folly, with a heart as hard as sin could well make it? Have you never met with some who have been privileged with a gospel ministry all their lifetime, who had attended, Sabbath after Sabbath, a house of God, where doctrine had been faithfully exhibited and duty earnestly enforced; who knew, as well as any one could tell them, the awful consequences of hardening their hearts to God's fear, but who, nevertheless, deliberately scorned the mandates of heaven, virtually trampled under foot the Son of God, and knowingly and wilfully did despite unto the Spirit of his grace? In reference to such cases (alas! that they should be so numerous wherever the gospel is preached in truth,) what can the preacher do but retire to his closet, and secretly weep over their folly and pride, sustained only by the reflection that he shall be unto God a sweet savour of Christ in them that are saved, and in them that perish; and that though he may often fear that he is labouring in vain, and spending his strength for nought and in vain, yet surely his judgment is with the Lord, and his work with his God?

But why tell my hearers of what they may have seen and known in others? I ask them, How have they

felt, and whạt have they done themselves? Is there no conscience present witnessing to its possessor, "Thou art the man? How long is it since you first heard the gospel? For how many years have you been hearing it from week to week? and yet this morning, now that you are privileged to hear it once more (it may be, for the last time,) it finds you, where it first found you, in a state of impenitence and unbelief. Many a time have you listened here to earnest persuasives to forsake your evil ways that you may live. Many a time have you heard the dreadful consequences of a life of sin most clearly unfolded to you from this place out of the Word of God. But, in the face of all warnings, you have gone on to sin, and continued to walk frowardly in the ways of your heart.

It is true that you have not heard these warnings, as did the Jews, from the lips of the Saviour himself. You have received them, in the first instance, from human messengers; but your hearts told you, as you listened to them, that their message entirely corresponded with the revelations of eternal truth. You may have had the courage-you may still have the courage (if you choose to style it so)—to set at nought every remonstrance, and fearlessly face the consequences; but it is, let me tell you, a courage which will prove your ruin. It was over such as you that a prophet mourned when he exclaimed, "Oh, that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!" It was over you, O sinner, that the Lord of the prophets wept when he said, "Oh that thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things that belong to thy peace!" The solemn decla

ration the Redeemer made, when on earth, is as true this day as on the day when he uttered it in his sermon on the Mount. "Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, is like unto a foolish man who built his house upon the sand. And the rains descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it."

3. Jesus beheld the eity and wept over it when he reflected on the recent and accumulating proofs of its daring infidelity. It had been declared by the Messiah's foreruuner, when bearing testimony of, and pointing to, the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world, "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life, but he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." And though unbelieving sinners may doubt and deride this saying, yet it is not without reason, that a curse so tremendous should proceed from the unerring judge.

For what is unbelief, brethren? Is it not the rejection of the sure testimony of God? Is it not the calling him a liar who cannot but be himself the very truth most pure? Is it not (speaking after the manner of men) the grossest insult that can be offered to the Majesty of heaven? Nay, without faith, there can be no intercourse with God; for he that cometh to God must believe that He is. An unbeliever, therefore, can have no more communion with the ever-blessed and glorious Jehovah, than the brute which pastures in the fields, or the insect that flutters in the air. Nay, more; unbelief has been the prolific source of all those crimes which have depopulated this earth and replenished the abodes of misery. It was unbelief which whispered to

our first parents, "Ye shall not surely die ;" and thus, by invalidating God's threatening, brought death into the world and all our woe. And as it was unbelief which first broke the law, so it is unbelief which still rejects the gospel, and by rejecting the gospel, repudiates the only method by which man can be restored to holiness or reinstated in bliss.

Is there here an infidel who disbelieves? is there here a sceptic who doubts the Bible? Then, to that unhappy man, sin has no real deformity, purity no abiding charm, eternity is a dreary blank. He can have no hope from a Saviour he despises, he can have no confidence in the God he denies;-for to him the character of God is a mere fiction, and the word of God a cunningly devised fable or an idle tale. And is not the sight of such a sinner, deliberately neglecting the great salvation, and turning away from him who speaketh, a sight well fitted to awaken the pity and draw forth the tears of incarnate Deity?

But some present will perhaps say, "You are fighting with shadows, for we are all believers: to rank us even with sceptics is to do us great injustice, for we abhor both the principles and the name." To such we reply, "Show us your faith by your works." What do you believe? Is it the plain testimony of God? What does that testimony imply, but that through sin we have exposed ourselves to his displeasure, and are unable to ransom our souls from his merited judgments, -yet, that in infinite compassion, God has sent his own Son into the world to be the purification for sin; and that if, by a living faith, we embrace this gospel, and earnestly seek salvation only through the mediation of Christ, then we shall neither be rejected nor