separated from Him, and have lost sight of His presence; peradventure we may not find Him in the day of necessity, when we come to depart; and if not, we shall want that consolation and support, of which He exhibited the preciousness and the power; we shall want that resignation which He so fully manifested, "Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.”* You have probably witnessed the holy scene of a believer's dying bed: and you may have seen some, who appeared to be dying without Him, full of trouble and anguish of spirit: either case were enough, by God's grace, to impress your mind, and fix your heart for ever.

Jesus rose again from the dead; and it was a triumphant and glorious rising: we must rise again; but whether like Him, whether triumphantly and gloriously, who shall say? It depends upon what we have been, and what we have done in the body. But if we should rise in another manner, "to shame and ever

* Luke xxiii. 46.

lasting contempt;" it will, indeed, after all that the Lord has done for us, be a day of misery, too deep for tongue to tell, or imagination to conceive. O that every soul of us were effectually and savingly interested in this mighty consideration— 'how shall I rise?' Shall it be in the image of the Lamb? Yea, blessed Lord, even so, amen: let me "awake up after Thy likeness, and I shall be satisfied with it."*

There is yet another step, taken by the servants of God, after their dear and honoured Redeemer; the step to everlasting bliss, the entrance into the gate of the heavenly Jerusalem. And who would not desire to follow Him thither, to behold and to partake of His glory? But let no man deceive himself this blessedness is not to be obtained by our praise or admiration of it, by a creed or a profession, by a wish or a prayer: they who faithfully accompany their Lord in this mortal life, they who "seek first

* Psal. xviii, 15.

His kingdom and His righteousness," they who are willing to "forsake all and follow Him," shall be gathered to Him in the life immortal.

Blessed Jesus, that I may follow Thee, step by step and day by day, in every doctrine, in every ordinance, in every commandment: whether in height or lowliness, whether in sickness or health, whether in joy or sorrow, I leave to Thee; "Thy will be done :" I ask but Thy grace to incline and enable me to follow Thee throughout; this is my hope, be this my "crown of rejoicing."

SERMON XIV.

THE DANGER OF SLIGHTING THE GOSPEL.

MATT. xxii. 5.

But they made light of it and went their ways.

THESE words are part of a parable, by which our Lord represented the treatment that the gospel message had received at the hands of the Jewish people, and would continue to receive: they treated it, as a body, with neglect and scorn. They despised its forerunner, John the Baptist, when he called them to prepare for its approach; they were rejecting Jesus at the very time, when He was delivering to them the heavenly tidings;

and their children would, in like manner, slight and oppose the truth, when preached by the apostles and disciples, with the power of the Holy Ghost. All this is described by the figure of a mar. riage feast, to which the invited guests, time after time, refused to come; they made light of the bridegroom and the entertainment, and therefore of the invitation, and went their ways; preferred their own business, or ease, or pleasure.

And now let us apply this subject to our own case, and for our own improvement. We wonder at the Jew: how he could make light of the gospel; preached, as it was, by the lips of Him, who confessedly "spake as never man spake;" established, as it was, by the mighty deeds of Him, who "did all things well, making both the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak;"* giving sight to the blind, health to the paralytic and the leper, and raising the dead to life; recommended,

*Mark vii. 37.