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ings of a severe operation, feels confident of relief, and braces up his spirit to endurance by setting permanent ease over against a passing pain, Jesus bent his eye on Judas, and said, "That thou doest, do quickly,"—do it, and have done with it; I know it shall not last; I am not to be buried but baptized in sufferings; from the cross where it shall bow in death-exposed on a bloody tree; from the grave where it shall lie in dust -pillowed on a lonesome bed, shall mine head be lifted above mine enemies round about me; so that thou doest, do quickly; I foresee an end of sorrows, and long to enter upon my rest. Now, the relief which death brought to Christ, blessed be God, it brings to all that are Christ's. The passing bell rings out sin with all its sorrows, and rings in eternity with all its joys. And the very same event which plunges the unbeliever into everlasting perdition, ushers the believer into the inheritance of the saints in light. With gladness and rejoicing they shall be brought; they shall enter into the palace of the king. Before taking up the subject of the translation, this leads me to remark

I. That in delivering his people from the power of darkness, Christ saves them from eternal perdition.

The punishment which sin deserves, and which the impenitent and unbelieving suffer, is a very awful subject-one on which I could have no pleasure in dwelling. It is a deeply solemn theme; a terrible mystery; one in presence of which we stand in trembling awe, and can only say with David-Clouds and darkness are round about him.

It is a painful thing to see the dying of a poor dog,.. or any dumb creature suffer but the fate of the im

penitent, the sorrows that admit of no consolation, the misery that has no end-these form a subject brimful of horrors; the deepest, darkest, unfathomed mystery in the whole plan of the divine government. Yet what affords no pleasure may, notwithstanding, yield profit; and that even by reason of the pain it inflicts. And so, in the hope of such a blessed result, let me warn, and beseech, and implore careless sinners to be wise, and consider this solemn matter in the day of their merciful visitation. Better fear that punishment than feel it; better look into the pit than fall into it; better than fill your ears with syren songs of pleasure, listen to this warning voice, "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." To-day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts." The chains which bind you are yet but locked, and the gospel has a key to open them. Reject that gospel, and what is now but locked by the hand of sin, shall be rivetted by the hand of death-like the fetters on the limbs of him who leaves the bar to suffer that most awful sentence, the doom of perpetual imprisonment. "As the tree falls, so it lies." "He that is filthy, let him be filthy still."

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People talk about the mercy of God in a way for which they have no warrant in his word; and, ignoring his holiness, and justice, and truth, they lay this and the other vain hope as a flattering unction to their souls. Thinking light of sin, seeing no great harm in it, they judge God by themselves. "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself," accounts for the manner in which many explain away the awful revelations of Scripture about future punishment, and in the face of such terrible words as these, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for

the devil and his angels," give such a ready ear to the devil's old falsehood, Thou shalt not surely die. The fire, they allege, and are sure, is a mere symbol. Well, just look by the light of that symbol at the condition of the lost. Fire! What does that mean? Take it as a symbol, grant that it is but a figure of speech, still it has a terrible meaning, as will be manifest, if we consider the nature and characteristic features of that element. Let us see.

According to the imperfect science of the world's early ages, there were four elements, of which ancient philosophers held that all things else were compounded. These were fire, air, earth, and water; and from the other three, the first is strikingly distinguished by this peculiar and well-marked feature, that it is destructive of all life. Let us examine this matter somewhat in detail.

1. The element of earth is associated with life. Prolific mother, from whose womb we come, and to whose bosom we return, she is pregnant with life, an exhaustless storehouse of its germs. Raise the soil, for example, from the bottom of deepest well or darkest mine. And as divine truths, lodged in the heart by a mother in early childhood, though they have lain long dormant, spring up into conversion so soon as God's time comes and the Spirit descends, so seeds, that have lain in the soil for a thousand years, whenever they are exposed to the quickening influences of heat, and light, and air, and moisture, awake from their long sleep, and rise up into forms of grace and beauty. Nowhere but within the narrow wall of the churchyard-with its earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust-arc death and the dust associated. Even there

how does life, contending for the mastery of this world, intrude upon death's silent domains, and both in the grass that waves above, and the foul worms that feed below, claim the earth as her own! This earth is far less the tomb than a great prolific womb of life. Of its matter life builds her shrines; beneath its surface myriads of creeping things have their highways and homes; while its soil yields bountiful support to the forests, and flowers, and grasses, that clothe its naked form in gayest robes of life and beauty.

2. Air, too, is an element associated with life. Invisible substance, it is as much our food as corn or flesh. Symbol of the Holy Spirit, it feeds the vital flame, and is essential to the existence of all plants and animals, whether their home be the land or water, the ocean or its shores. They live by breathing it, whether it be extracted from the waters by their inhabitants, or directly from the atmosphere by the plants and animals that dwell on the dry land. Ceasing to breathe it, they die. With that groan, or gasp, or long-drawn sigh, man expires. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish. And as life exists on air, it exists in it; nor ever presents itself in a fuller, happier aspect, than at the serene close, for instance, of a summer day. The air is filled with the music of a thousand choristers; creation's evening hymn, sung by many voices, and in many notes, goes up to the ear of God; and, while the lark supplies music from the ringing heavens, nature holds innocent revels below; and happy insects, by sparkling stream, or the sedgy borders of the placid lake, keep up their mazy merry dances, till God puts out the lights, and, satiated with enjoyment, they retire to rest, wrapped

round in the curtains of the night. Figure of the truth that in God we live, and move, and have our being, our world itself, with all that lives on it, is a sphere that floats, buoyant and balanced, in an ocean of air.

3. Water, too, is an element associated with life. Fit emblem of saving mercies, so indispensable is water to the continued existence of life, that unless it be furnished by some source or other, all plants and animals must speedily die. Then how does this element, which covers more than two-thirds of the surface of our globe, teem with life! He has not seen one of the wonders of creation, who has not seen a drop of water changed, by the microscope, into a little world full of living, active, perfect, creatures, over whom a passing bird throws the shadow of an eclipse, and whose brief life of an hour or day seems to them as long as to us a century of years. Imagination attempts in vain to form some conception of the myriads that, all creatures of God's care, inhabit the living waters-the rushing stream, the mountain lake, the shallow shore, the profound depths of ocean-from the minutest insect which finds a home in some tiny pool, or its world on the leaf of the swaying sea-weed, to leviathan, around whose mighty bulk, whether in play or rage, the deep grows hoary, and foams like a boiling pot. How soon we abandon the attempt, and, dropping the wings of fancy, fall on our knees before the throne to say, O Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom hast thou made them all.

Mark, now, the broad and outstanding difference between these elements and fire. Earth and life, air and life, water and life, are not, as we have seen, neces

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