to you how full of bliss they are, but your own tongues will be mute, and your own hearts cast down and silent. Whilst you are perishing, the bread of life will be their portion, and their home the very habitation of God. Poor unbeliever! here is a blessing, but not for you; what you might have possessed is for ever departed, the vision is but for a moment. "Behold! thou shalt see it with thine eyes, but shalt not eat thereof."

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SERMON XIV.

CHRIST THE REFINER OF HIS OWN JEWELS.

MALACHI iii. 17.

And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels.

It has never been pretended by the writers of Scripture, whether prophets, or evangelists, or apostles, that the narrow way which leadeth to life is not a thorny one. Had they said any thing to this effect, their own sufferings would have given a contradiction to their words; but we hear nothing of the kind. The cross was to be established in truth, and though the simple teaching of this doctrine became at length so grievous an offence to those who made their boast in the law, that "Paul was grieved to the heart," and asked them sorrowing, "Am I become your enemy because I tell you the truth?" yet we find, from first to last, he preaches the

same gospel, and insists upon the same precepts. His concern is not, how to please men of corrupt minds, who desire salvation upon their own terms, but how to honour God, who has provided salvation at all. He does not address himself to flesh and blood, but to the awakened soul. His business is not to accommodate himself to this feeling or the other, but to point out the road as it actually is, that will bring the weary to their rest; to show it in all its ruggedness, to conceal nothing, and then to beseech the traveller to set his face towards it.

"Strive to

"We must,

enter in at the strait gate.' through much tribulation, enter into the kingdom of heaven." My brethren! every one, as an inheritor of corruption, has his sorrow; but the Christian's cup is filled by Christ, and is peculiarly his own. The troubles of an un

sanctified man are not those that have the power to penetrate deep into his soul; he feels them, but not "as poison that drinketh up the spirits;" they can rob him of no comfort, for they come not near the seat of his happiness. But it is not so with the trials that immediately belong to one who is a child of adoption. He is a righteous man, and for righteousness' sake he is persecuted. He is a serious man, and liveth above the world, and the world hateth him for the reproof. He is still a corrupt man, and

cannot do the things that he would, and this keeps him in the garb of mourning all the days of his life. Remembrance too is a bitter and pursuing enemy, and will at times create a burthen for him even of those sins that are past, and for ever blotted out, and forgiven. But what are a Christian's tears, flow they ever so freely? or what are the deepest wounds that can be made in his soul, why every tear he sheds is considered before God? and for every wound he gets one of Christ's healing promises, a sure blessing out of the covenant of grace. This is a part of God's love to the chosen of his heritage, to reveal to them here what they shall be hereafter; not what they are to suffer as sinners, but what they are to possess as heirs of salvation.

Such a promise of love is before us. It is seen in the text, and the words immediately before it: "Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him, for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels."

From this passage I shall take occasion, in the first place, to describe a Christian according

to the image that is here given of him as a jewel of the Lord; secondly, what sort of a day it will be to him, when the kingdom of Christ, which was set up from everlasting, is come: and, lastly, whose property he will be in eternity. It is a true saying, that "the Lord knoweth them that are his;" and though all evidence of it may be lost for a season, yet will they "be made willing in the day of his power." "The Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God." He searcheth man. The Spirit of life, that is in Christ Jesus, enters into the dead soul, and then the divine work is openly manifested. Such a being is likened to a precious jewel, a stone of great price; and this similitude will hold good in the several situations and circumstances under which it is found.

The first remarkable thing to be noticed in the description of a jewel, is the place from whence it comes. It lies deep in a mine, without form or beauty, and occasionally it is so embedded in stone or in clay, that it needs a strong hand to make a complete and effectual separation. And it is out of the dust that man is taken; he comes into the world, loving darkness rather than light, and having corruption hanging about his heart, with a perverse will, a blind understanding, and all his affections in bondage: and as the wide earth, with