the atonement, it behoves us to stand weeping beside the Cross; and to humble our souls with fasting; and to loathe ourselves as the authors of so wide a breach; and to bewail, in deep contrition, the hardness of our thankless hearts!

Now, indeed, a cloud has received Him out of our sight, and we can behold our dying Redeemer only by faith; but already the skirts of that cloud are heaving in the dim horizon, and streaks of the dawning light betoken the approach of day, when " every eye shall see Him," and they also that pierced Him. Christian brethren, who pierced Him? the accusing faction of Jewish chiefs, or the wicked. Herod, or the weak Pilate, or the mercenary soldiers, or was it all the people who cried out, "His blood be on us, and on our children!" But not these only: All have pierced Him, all who have ever committed sin; and all who commit wilful sin wound and crucify Him afresh! Since then we have ourselves pierced our

Saviour, and shed His blood, and driven the nails of His cross, how boundless is that love, how infinite that goodness which permits, which encourages, which entreats us to behold Him coming in the clouds of heaven, not to avenge our crime and punish our rebellion, but to pardon, to save, to bless, to reward us! to make the very blood which we have spilt a cleansing fountain to wash our guilt away, the wounds which we have inflicted on His body, so many eloquent mouths interceding for our forgiveness, the cross on which we have exposed Him to shame, the foundation of our hope, the pillar of our glory!

But the path to that glory lies through timely sorrow and humiliation. If we desire to rejoice and triumph with our Saviour, we must consent to suffer with Him: we must enter with a deep and sincere affliction into the feelings of His Church, lamenting the sufferings of her Lord; we must crucify our own pride,

and wilfulness, and pierce and wound our own hearts, and sacrifice our own nature upon the altar of faith and love!

Here, whilst we are contemplating our Lord stretched out in bloody torture, let us each, in all sincerity, search out our own bosoms, and seize upon our most cherished sin, and nail it, with the handwriting of ordinances, to His cross; let us not shrink from the sacrifice; let us be ashamed, whilst He endures all for us, to feel any pang severe which we can encounter for His sake; rather let us exult and be thankful if He gives us strength and resolution to crucify our old man, and utterly abolish the whole body of sin.

SERMON XVII.

THE MAMMON OF UNRIGHTEOUSNESS.

LUKE XVI. 9.

Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.

THESE words conclude a well known parable addressed by our Saviour to His disciples, in which, under the apologue of a dishonest steward, He contrasts the sagacity and the perseverance displayed by the worldly and the wicked in the pursuit of their ill-chosen ends, with the lukewarmness and carelessness too generally remarkable in those who profess to have

set their affections on things above, and to be engaged in the great work of their own salvation.

The steward, it will be recollected, was accused of having misapplied or embezzled his master's property; he was called to account, and was unable to clear up his character, or explain his deficiencies; and he was consequently discharged from his office. The loss of his reputation would of course preclude him from obtaining any similar situation; he was too indolent and too delicate to gain his livelihood by hard labour; and too proud to beg his bread what was to be done?

In this difficulty his ingenuity suggested a resource, which was quite compatible with his corrupt principles. He had forfeited the favour of his master, and thought that there could be nothing further to apprehend from that quarter; and he conceived that he might confer great and binding obligations upon his master's debtors by suggesting to them