which, though man should seem to destroy it, He will assuredly raise up again.

However, our short-sightedness is a part of our trial, and one of the reasons why things afflict us as it is best they should afflict us. Our Lord had not this trial, but instead of it the keener pang of seeing all sin, and therein ours. But His example may cheer us even in this trial, especially in that it enlightens us, so that we know that we ought to comfort ourselves by faith, where we cannot see before us. Truly shall the Word of God be kept—" a bone of Him shall not be broken;" and His Body shall come forth from the furnace of affliction, holy and pure, "not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing." His Church, the true Israel, shall all be saved, and perfectly saved, and perfected in His likeness. Faith is needed to see this now, but His Word is pledged, and so it shall indeed be.

g

The thought then returns upon us, " shall this blessedness be ours ?" for ours it cannot be except we abide in Him. And though His bones be not broken, yet, when He is spoken of as the Vine, we read of branches cut off from Him. "Every branch in Me that beareth not fruit He taketh away and

Eph. v. 27.

h

every branch that beareth fruit, He purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit." His Father is the Husbandman. No outward trials, no storms of affliction, no wild beasts of the forest, will He permit to break off the branches that "bear fruit." But those which bear no fruit unto godliness, He will Himself break off, every one.

May the thought of our Blessed Lord's Suffering be to us all an encouragement even to triumph in all outward distresses and troubles for His Name's sake, and even evermore to rejoice amidst the griefs and perplexities of these our evil days; but a strong warning to us to abhor all those evil things and bitter, those departings from God, and choosing of evil instead of good, which join men with the enemies that mocked Him, the soldiers that crucified Him, the fiends that came and found nothing in Him.

b S. John xv. 2.

SERMON XI.

GOOD-FRIDAY.

HEB. X. 19—22.

"Having, therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest, by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which He hath consecrated for us, through the vail, that is to say, His flesh; and having an High Priest over the house of God; let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water."

a

"b

с

"It is finished," that great Sacrifice is completed, by which our great High Priest "has perfected for ever them that are sanctified.” Since then," the life that we live in the flesh we live by the faith of the Son of God." In everything we plead His Sacrifice, and desire in everything, if we are truly His, to be conformed to it. I do not mean that we are to be always suffering, for He did not always suffer, though in the days of His humiliation He suffered much and often; but that we enter into the presence of God

» S. John xix. 30.

b Heb. x. 14.

• Gal. ii. 20.

through His Sacrifice, and therefore are to do all as in His presence, and as those who are brought in thither through His Blessed Sacrifice. If we pray, we pray in the Crucified; if we give thanks, we give thanks in the Crucified; if we live, we live in the Crucified; if we die, we die in the Crucified.

Lift up now the eyes of faith, and look upon the Sacrifice that is offered for us. "Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world!"d

Behold that Blessed Body, conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of a pure Virgin, the Temple and dwelling of Godhead, for three and thirty years the instrument of righteousness and charity, the vehicle of blessing and of grace, lifted up toward Heaven in the cruelty and scorn of the wicked, in the erring malice of the evil one to his own confusion, but in the holy and devoted consent of Him Who "gave His back to the smiter and his cheeks to them that plucked off the hair," because it was His Father's will that sin should be atoned for by suffering.

Think of that holy and blessed Soul, the Well-Spring of wisdom, and love, and righteousness, offered with the suffering and dying body, bearing the torture of every pierced and

S. John i. 29.

e Is. 1. 6.

strained limb, "despising the shame," pitying the scorn of men, but bowing under the weight of a whole world's guilt, and yielding Itself, willingly, because it was God's will, to bear the burden of all our sins, whether against God, against our neighbour, or against God's image in ourselves, not ours only, but all that we read of, and all that are forgotten, and all that God only knows.

There was Adam's first disobedience; there were the sins that brought the flood of waters on the earth; There was the sin that shut Moses out of the Land of Promise; There was the sin of Gideon and his house; There was the sin of David, in the matter of Uriah; There were the idolatries of Solomon, and the frettings of Asa, and the pride of Hezekiah; There was that very sin which they who crucified and they who mocked Him were committing; There were all that have been committed since, especially all that have been committed in His Church, all our own, all that each one of us has done, remembered or forgotten.

0 Lord, what a burden didst Thou bear! How great our share in it, though among so many!

Think upon His holy and spotless Son offered before God to represent our race, thus