reply to the affecting question in the text, if an Almighty Saviour had merely been revealed, but no invitation had been given to you to come to him and be saved. A house may be quite sufficient to defend me from the wintry tempest, but I may not be welcomed to its cheering shelter. A medicine may be quite sufficient to counteract and remove my inveterate disease, but I may not be permitted to taste it. But "Why will ye die," if not only a Saviour who can meet all the requirements of your case has been provided, but if also you are most cordially invited to take hold of him and live? O guilty and perishing men, why will ye die? I am sure there is not a single feature in your sad condition for which there is not a counterpart gospel invitation. Is degrading vassalage a feature of your natural state-are you naturally led captive of Satan at his will? Then are you invited to take the remedy and live, for it is written, "Turn to the stronghold ye prisoners of hope, for even to-day do I declare that I will render to you double." Is pollution and depravity a feature in your case? Then are you invited to take the remedy and live, for it is written, "I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean; from all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you." Is it a feature in your case that you are burdened with a load of guilt, and ready to sink beneath its pressure down to the lowest hell? Then are ye invited to take the remedy and live, for it is written, "Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Are poverty, and nakedness, and blindness features in your case? Then are ye invited to take the remedy and live, for again it is written, "I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire that thou mayest be rich, and white raiment that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eye salve that thou mayest see." Poor sinners! Is it a feature in your case that through grace you are willing to be saved? Then are ye invited to take the remedy and live, for it is written, "Whosoever will let him take the water of life freely." Why then will ye die? What reason are you prepared to assign? Why will ye perish of hunger, when He in whom all fulness dwells is thus addressing you, "Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it?" Why will ye die of thirst, when Jesus is standing at the wells of salvation and trying to allure you to himself by the invitation, "If any man thirst let him come unto me and drink; I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely ?" Oh, why should you remain at a distance from the fold of salvation with inevitable and everlasting destruction before you, when the great, the good, the chief Shepherd of the sheep thus addresses you, "I am the door, by me if any man enter in he shall be saved,

and shall go in and out and find pasture ?" Ye that are out of Christ; and therefore perishing, are ye resolved to cast behind you those full and precious invitations-are you determined to flee from the very arms that are outstretched to save you? Thus welcomed, thus entreated, thus earnestly urged to be saved, "Why will ye die?"

IV. "Why will ye die?" Does not the Spirit, by his common operations, strive with you to induce you to close with the offered Saviour and live. Not only has an all-sufficient Saviour been provided-not only are you most cordially invited to come to him—but amid your natural unwillingness to receive him, yea, the aversion with which you turn from him, the Spirit has often been, and He may be still striving with you to convince you of Christ's excellency, and to impress you with the necessity of laying hold of him. We believe that all gospel hearers are more or less the subjects of the Spirit's common operations. Have you never had momentary convictions at least that all was not right with you, that your religion was but a cold, heartless, dead profession, and that your hopes (if hopes you at all entertained), instead of being based on the immoveable foundation laid in Zion, were like the spider's web, at the mercy of every wind that blows? The Spirit was then striving with you, although you grieved and quenched him. Have you not at times, under the faithful preaching of the glorious gospel, been impressed with the thought that really it is not enough to give the cold assent of the head to the revealed Bible truth that there is a hiding place from Divine and merited indignation to the poor traveller to eternity, and that, if he would be safe amid the storms and tempests that are quickly gathering, he must enter it and abide in it? Have you not felt at times, that it is not enough for the sinner, stained with condemning guilt, to know merely that a fountain has been opened for sin and for uncleanness, but that to be saved he must also be personally sprinkled with the atoning blood which it contains? When the ambassador of Christ has faithfully raised the alarm cry, and warned you to flee from the wrath that is to come, have you not felt the necessity of being hid in the very clefts of that Rock of Ages which bore up amid the violence of the wrath which an eternally chosen people deserved? True you may have rubbed off such impressions, you may have banished from your breasts, as unwelcome visitants, such fears of the second death, but this does not alter the fact that the Spirit was then striving with you. Perhaps he is striving with you at this moment, We implore you, resist not his operations-stifle not the convictions he imparts-grieve him not away, for each time that you quench the Spirit is just a step in advance towards the commission of that sin which is never forgiven.

If you deafen yourselves to the cry of danger-if you listen not to his timely warnings—no more may he ask at you the touching question in the text, "Why will ye die?"

V. Finally, "Why will ye die ?" Are ye, after mature deliberation, finally and firmly resolved to reject all that can make you happy, and to court all that can make you miserable? Are you resolved to be Satan's slaves rather than Jesus' freemen? Have you made up your minds that the vials of that wrath which agonizes soul and body through eternity, are preferable to that cup of salvation which the Gospel invites you to drink? Are you resolved that Christ and salvation shall never be yours? Are you resolved that those healthful countenances shall, through eternity, be writhed in unutterable anguish? Are you resolved that the voices which have been mingled to-day in the songs of Zion, shall be ultimately and for ever spent in the hideous wailings and lamentations of those who are consigned to the lake that burneth? Have the shrieks of eternal despair more charms than the new and ceaseless song of ransomed, happy Zion? Are you resolved to dwell with devouring flames, and to lie down in everlasting burnings, rather than in good earnest seek an entrance into that blessed abode where there is fulness of joy, and where there are pleasures for evermore? Are you resolved to cast away eternal life, with all the glory and the happiness it implies, and to prefer the second death with all the unmitigated agonies it ensures? Eternal Spirit! draw nigh in preventing grace, touch and soften every heart, that all may listen to the affecting question, "Why will ye die?"

SERMON XXXIV.

THE MORTALITY OF MAN AND THE ETERNITY OF THE WORD OF GOD.

BY THE REV. J. W. TAYLOR, FLISK AND CRIECH,

For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: but the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you."-1 PET. i. 24-25.

Ir was Isaiah the seer who first delivered to the Church the words of my text. The thing was secretly brought to him, and his ear received a little thereof. A spirit passed before his face-an image was before his eyes; there was silence, and he heard a voice, "and the voice said, Cry; and he said, What shall I cry? All flesh is as grass, and all the goodliness thereof as the flower of the field. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; but the word of our God shall stand for ever." Peter the Apostle is directed to repeat the warning. It is a warning which the listening ear can hear each day. It is whispered from the tomb-it is uttered in the sanctuary-day tells it to the night, and night echoes back the sound-every sick-bed, every passing funeral confirms it—and rolling weeks, and rolling months, and rolling years, proclaim to man that he is mortal.

But death is here relieved by life, incessant change by perpetual endurance. A contrast is presented betwixt man's mortality and the eternity of God's Word-betwixt the fleeting nature of all earthly glory and the abiding nature of Gospel impressions and of Gospel attain

ments.

We shall speak of these particulars in the order in which they are presented before us, looking for the promised help of the Holy Spirit, without whom there is nothing profitable and nothing permanent.

I. All flesh is as grass.

To see the force of the resemblance which is here instituted betwixt the fading nature of the grass and the frail nature of man, we must forget for a time the idea which we receive from the herbage of our own fields. The greenness of our grass endures throughout the year; but it is different in eastern countries. Vegetation there is subject to many

checks and to rapid decays. It is often as rapid in its decay as it is in its growth. Like Jonah's gourd, it comes up in a night and withers in a day. In the morning, the fields may look fresh; and their tender blade, bathed in the dews of heaven, may delight the gazer's eye by their enlivening verdure; but the sun rises with a sudden heat, and, before he sets, the fields are withered and burned up. But should the grass escape such sudden blastings, it cannot outlive its own season. Autumn will change its colour-winter will prepare its shroud.

The force of the comparison is naked and open. From Adam till now, what is the history of our race? It is a lengthened and almost unvarying bill of mortality. What is the most necessary part of a family possession? It is a burial-place where to lay our dead. What are the words which apply alike to all? It is the solemn sentence-" Dust to dust, earth to earth." Go where you will, you will everywhere see the ravages of death. There is no island of the blest-no famed spot of earth where you will not meet with the grim and ghastly trophies of his triumph. There is no speech nor language where you will not hear his hoarse voice calling, "Return ye children of men." The pyramids of Egypt, while they are a monument of human labour, are also a monument of human folly and of man's mortality. The decaying cemetery

in Jehoshaphat's vale reads to us an intelligible lesson, even though the epitaphs of the tombs are obliterated. The thickening grave-stones of every church-yard speak to the eye and to the heart, and say, "All flesh is as grass."

There are times when the truth of man's mortality is forced upon the mind with the most striking solemnity. The sun rises with a burning heat, and the grass withereth. The progress of the plague, or a fever's desolation, fills the church-yard and thins the ranks of families; and every house wears mourning, because death hath entered the dwelling; and every countenance wears gloom, because of the uncertainty and fears in which every man lives. There are other times when the grass is not withered by a sudden stroke, but is cut down by the hand of the mower. At morn it flourishes, it is allowed to stand during the day, but by evening it is doomed to fall before the sickle of the reaper. It is fading at the best. So is it with man. He may escape sudden death, or rapid disease, or premature decay-he may live during his day-but evening comes, and relentless death with his sweeping scythe lays him low.

Every man knows these things; every man is assured that he must die-that sooner or later he will be carried to his long home, and will lie down in his narrow bed. Yet on how few does this assurance exercise a practical effect! It is a general truth of which men speak, but of which they seldom think. Let me ask you, dying man, Have you ever