action of a power that should operate from within? As well might they have been set to watch that the sun should not rise on the morrow to spread his beams over the nations. It was a guard to repress the actions of the Divine Omnipotence! How much of human watchfulness and force have been thus wasted by the enemies of God. "The people shall weary themselves for very vanity."

1. Observe in these men the prodigious insensibility of ignorance. They had beheld an angel descend into the midst of them, in the darkness of night, "his countenance like lightning, and his raiment white as snow;" they had seen this dazzling apparition roll away the stone from the door of the sepulchre, and in the quiet majesty of heavenly power "sit upon it;" they had seen the inhabitant of the tomb emerge in the twilight; a mighty impression had been made upon their coarse spirits as by the descent of a hundred thunderbolts at once; yet to their ignorant minds these isolated facts had no connection with any other facts, or system of religious ideas; hence no meaning, no hold on their understandings, affections, or consciences; and, therefore, they were capable, in spite of the effulgent vision, of coolly, for a money consideration, denying the heavenly messenger's descent, and propagating the idle tale of the robbery of the tomb by the disciples. See, then, how important it is to understand "doctrines," in order to understand "facts," which are the foundation of doctrines; for when men are ignorant of either the one or the other, they fall an easy prey to the powers of darkness, who are the fixed adversaries of both.

Yes! of what prodigious falsehood some men are capable, of what unspeakable meanness in relation to religion, from the prospect of the enjoyment of some paltry gain. Other classes besides soldiers might be described in these words, "So they took the money, and did as they were taught;" those, for example, of whom we read, that "with feigned words they shall make merchandise of you;" the men who, for manifest reasons of personal profit, persist in upholding ancient delusions and iniquities, in the face of the loudest remonstrance, and in spite of the most enormous guilt. Now, the lesson that we are to learn is, that man's welfare and his salvation to eternal life depend on personal thought and personal action. In religion the soul must act for itself, and when it does this with an honest desire to please and obey God, its course will run counter to that of the multitude and the established external authority. Obedience. to the Eternal Authority will set the soul in antagonism to the whole world of thought and action around it. The mass of mankind live without thought; and thoughtlessness leads to perdition. Therefore, if any man will come after Christ, let him go forth bearing the cross, and wearing the crown of thorns. His path lies through Gethsemane to Calvary; but "if we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him."

2. Observe from this passage how God permits the utmost power of lying to do its very worst against his truth,-to propagate the most direct contradictions, even as of eye witnesses, against the fundamental facts of the gospel, to lay its heaviest black slab of falsehood over the grave of Truth, to prevent its resurrection-if it can! In vain. A lying tongue is but for a moment. Truth is immortal. Its language ever is, I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore! The Lord of truth is infinitely more than a match for a whole world of liars watching at his tomb. He will rise, as he said, and prove his resurrection by miracles of power and grace, which neither mercenaries can becloud by their mendacious assertions, nor Pharisaie rulers impudently ignore. Through all those clouds and mists of falsehood the Sun of Truth will shine so clearly before long, that a great company of the priests

themselves shall be obedient to the faith, and the word of the Lord everywhere prevail.

And thus it has always been and shall be. Falsehood has immense power and influence upon earth, but its reign is as uncertain as it is transitory. It is a mist at the mercy of every sunbeam. Truth is always gaining ground, establishing a wider dominion, and founding for itself a deeper authority over the world. True wisdom and goodness, if they are persecuted and neglected while living, are always canonised when they are dead; every true idea is always on the road to authority and power; and every saint of the Most High, who dies in obscurity and contempt, will return in angelic brightness, and in the flashing armour of immortality, to assert a dominion "under the whole heaven" for the religion of the skies.

3. Lastly, consider in this passage, "So they took the money, and did as they were taught," how every form of wickedness, which sacrifices truth to present gain, is short-sighted and infatuated, since the ultimate gain will be infinitely on the side of right. What is "large money compared with a "far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory"? What is a sack of gold beside everlasting life? Much more, what is there in "thirty pieces of silver" to make it worth while to encounter the damnation of hell? Ask the soldiers, ask Judas now, to announce to the creation the true result of that sum in profit and loss which they wrought out on earth, and are proving, with terrific certainty, in perdition. The last tormenting thought, which will urge the agony of lost men almost to madness, will be on the nothingness of the price for which they "sold themselves to sin," and parted with immortality.

"All things are yours," if ye are Christ's. To deny him, is to deny myself "enduring substance" and "true riches," and that, whether I deny him by open irreligion, or by secret disobedience. In giving to us Christ, the object of God is to endow the poorest and the vilest with exhaustless wealth. Oh, let us not deny his resurrection by obstinate unbelief and impenitence, or by a life of sense, which says to every beholder, "Christ is not risen." Every step in the path of faith, love, and self-denial, is a step towards a throne, compared with which all the united splendours of earthly monarchs would be but as darkness to noonday.

The life of mankind, in all their generations, is this vast practical sum in profit and loss, which they have been working out from age to age, with eyes blinded to all true rules of calculation. They have gained the whole world, and generally lost their own souls. And what can the profit be, if the vital enjoying power is taken away? What signifies a glorious estate to the owner who lies dead in the centre? For him flowers bloom, harvests wave, rents fall due, in vain. Imagine a man to have gained the whole world, by conquest, purchase, or legacy, and even to have gained it also intellectually, by comprehending it, yet to find himself at last about to die. What would be his profit? Oh, we might say to him, as we surrounded his bed of death, How much better for you to have gained less, if thereby you could have gained something that would last for ever, even life everlasting for your own soul. But now, owner of all things! you must die, and then whose shall those things be which thou has provided? They will lapse to the Crown. The Supreme will enter upon his estate of the world again, and give it to whomsoever he will; while you must go forth, to perish as a worthless weed,-you, the possessor of the globe, to be burned up like chaff in the unquenchable fire,to "die," where every wailing voice of the numberless victims of their own folly seems to re-echo Christ's question with a reply, as in tremendous

thunder from beneath, "What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or, what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"

'If, then, it would be foolish to lose eternal life for all the world, how much more foolish to lose it for the vile "morsel" of pleasure, however sweet, which a sinner can "roll under his tongue." May the God of our salvation teach us that "godliness" which will be everlasting "gain!" London.

"THE DAY OF SALVATION.”

2 Cor. vi. 2.

The generality of persons who have any knowledge of the sacred scriptures, admit that the present is the proper time for securing the salvation of the soul. Few or none suppose that this salvation is to be attained at all, if neglected during the period of the present life. No man has ever been able to answer the apostolic question, "How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by those who heard him?" It is admitted that to neglect this salvation during life, is to lose the benefits of it during eternity. With no other ground of argument with these persons than this general admission, there is ample scope to hem them in to an immediate attention to this question of questions. If an individual acknowledges the belief that his eternal safety and wellbeing shall be determined by the action which he takes in the present life, he makes an admission which must lead all rational beings to expect of him that be will forthwith give whatever attention may be necessary to the securing of that eternal salvation. For a man to have the conviction that a whole eternity depends upon a step to be taken now, and nevertheless to defer or neglect the taking of that step, is to act the part of a fool and a suicide. If he really believes, or if he has but the suspicion that his eternal welfare depends upon the treatment which he in this life gives to the overtures of divine mercy, what excuse has he or can he have for neglecting these overtures for a single hour? Is he not aware that the present life at longest is but short, and at the best but uncertain ? Does not his reason inform him that its duties and relationships merit but a subordinate consideration compared with the obligations which eternity flings around him? The life which he now lives, contrasted with the unending future which stretches out before him, baffling the utmost reach of all the thoughts, speculations, and imaginings by which he now and then essays to fathom its profounds, is but a passing cloud, a momentarily dissolving vapour, a flower which blooms at sunrise and is cut down by mid-day, a thing which perishes in the using: and shall this ephemeral existence so engross his attention that he so leaps the rapids of time as to find himself a castaway for ever in the eternal gulf beyond? No man in his senses can seriously and honestly advocate the precedence in importance of the passing over the eternal; and therefore we say, that a man who admits that his eternal welfare hangs upon a course of conduct to be taken in the present life, is bound by that very admission, as a rational and an accountable being, to enter upon that course without a moment's delay.

But while in the single admission that salvation is to be obtained—if obtained at all-in the present life, we have an invincible argument by which to urge the most immediate attention to the concerns of eternity;

yet this argument is vastly intensified when we adhere closely to the scripture doctrine on the subject. It is certainly the doctrine of scripture that the safety of the soul is determined during the present period of the sinner's existence; but the sacred writings are more specific than even this general statement. They not only specify the present life as the time of the sinner's deliverance, but they limit a certain day of that brief period, -they do not say to-morrow so much, but to-day, THIS HOUR, as it is written, "Behold, Now is the accepted time; behold, Now is the day of salvation."

While multitudes admit the general statement on which we have been speaking, they altogether overlook this all-important limitation which the word of God throws around the day of grace. These multitudes act in regard to the question of their salvation as if the scriptures gave them a warrant to procrastinate to the last day of the extreme year of man's earthly sojourn. They act as if the whole of the three score years and ten, or the four score years, were guaranteed them, and as if up to the last hour of that latter period all the opportunities, means, agencies, faculties, and health, necessary to their conversion, were to be continued in their possession and at their service. Hence their indifference to the calls of the gospel; hence their continued neglect of its overtures of mercy; hence their ungenerous and ofttimes fatal procrastination under the sound of its appeals and warnings. They have no other intention than to give heed at some time ere it be too late. The thought of being too late, of not securing salvation before entering the gloomy portals of death, of being numbered among the lost, is to them of all thoughts the most fearful. Yet they procrastinate, under the general impression that it is time enough, since, as the poet says,

"Life is the season God hath given,

To fly from hell and rise to heaven."

Under this vague generality they lose sight of the express and glorious declaration of scripture, that now is the accepted time, that now is the day of salvation. That there is such a passage in the sacred scriptures, they may not be altogether forgetful; yet as to the delightful and allimportant truth which it implies, they have no thought whatever. When they hear it quoted they regard its teaching as nothing more than a somewhat indefinite reference to the term of man's earthly sojourn. They do not see its saving import. They do not perceive that it bespeaks a God ready to pardon them, a saving work already wrought out for them, and a divine deliverance by God himself urgently pressed upon their immediate acceptance.

Let it, therefore, be carefully observed that the words of the apostle, "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation," imply, first, the present willingness of God to save the sinner. They clearly indicate that God is now desirous for the salvation of the guilty. If Jehovah were not thus desirous, the apostle never could have taken it upon him to exclaim, "Behold, now is the day of salvation." Paul was well aware that the salvation of man depends entirely on the grace of God. But for the willingness of God to save the sinner, his salvation were an absolute impossibility. It is against God that we have sinned, it is his law that we have broken, it is at his bar that we have to appear in judgment, and, therefore, it necessarily depends on the feelings of the divine Being toward us whether salvation is a possible thing in our case or not. If God be unwilling to save us, our salvation cannot be possible. When, then, the apostle says, "Behold, now is the day of salvation," he expressly teaches the glorious doctrine, that God now feels graciously towards the sinner, and that it is the Divine pleasure that now the lost be

saved. The apostolic declaration emphatically demonstrates that the sinner does not require either to wait till God is willing to vouchsafe salvation, or to do anything whatever in the way of making him willing. Since God is the author of salvation, and it is affirmed that now is the day thereof, it of necessity follows that God is now willing to save, and if thus willing already, it is of course vain for the sinner either to wait or to work for the effecting of that willingness to save which at this moment characterises our God. Were it necessary further to prove the truth of this most cheering of all considerations to the sin-burdened soul, we might refer at length to the oath of Ezekiel xxxiii. 11: "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live;" to the equally explicit language of 2 Peter iii. 9: "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance;" or again to the words of Paul in 1 Tim. ii. 3, 4: "For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour, who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth." If, then, unsaved reader, you have not considered this present willingness of your God to save you, consider it now.

But let it be remarked in the second place, that the declaration, "Behold, now is the day of salvation," implies that the saving work is finished. In order to the arrival of the day of salvation it was equally necessary that a Saviour be provided, and that he complete the undertaking which opened the gates of salvation to the guilty, as it was, that God should desire to save them. This gracious desire on the part of God was primarily imperative. Without it we never should have heard the joyful sound of salvation; but over and above this willingness, there remained to be effected that ever wonderful expedient which made it possible and righteous in God to forgive and accept the transgressor. That work is done. On Calvary's cross the divine Redeemer affirmed its completion in the ever memorable words, "It is finished." It is because this great undertaking is a perfected work that the apostle penned the gladdening announcement, "Now is the day of salvation." The reader will see this if he refer to the previous context as contained in chapter v. verses 18-21. There we are told that God having reconciled the apostles to himself by Jesus Christ, committed to them the ministry of reconciliation, that this ministry bore reference to the fact that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, that God was thus winning back the rebel race by not imputing to them their trespasses, that he was not imputing to them their trespasses, having already made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in him, and that in this way the apostles were ambassadors for Christ, and as though God did beseech men, they in Christ's stead prayed them to be reconciled to God. Well, then, might the apostle say in another place, "Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven to bring Christ down? or, Who shall descend into the deep to bring him up from the dead?" for the gospel which the apostles proclaimed was the fact that already was the Redeemer delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification. Remember, then, oh, reader, that you have neither to attempt a saving work yourself, nor to wait till God does it for you, for God in his love has anticipated you and your case in this, that in the person of his only begotten Son the saving work is already effected, and now it is yours to believe on Him whom God hath sent.

And let it be remembered in the third place, that the words of the apostle imply that the entire agency essential to the sinner's salvation is