We are

shall go on consuming them for ever. now like Israel passing through the wilderness, saved by water, put into a state of salvation, but not so set on our road towards the promised land as to be past the power of death, subject to temptation, beset by sin, having to force our way through the land of enemies, through that world which is at enmity with God. Think then of the peril of sin. It may be that in this life we shall not suffer for our sin; we may go on from day to day and think ourselves secure; we may feel at ease and shut our eyes to all thought of the wrath of God; but verily we shall be judged. The greater our grace, the greater our opportunities, the worse our punishment.

There is something awful in the multitude of our privileges, our calls, our gifts of the Spirit, our exhortations to think of our souls, unless they do turn us to God. For what shall we say when we have been thus called and called again? What shall we say when we consider the multitude of Lord's Days that have gone over our heads, the multitude of services in God's House to which we have been pressed, the multitude of private exhortations spoken to us by the priests and pastors of Christ whom He has sent, the multitude of warnings in sad accidents, sudden

deaths, and in our own escapes from death? We are apt in these days to slight the lessons of the Old Testament, but I pray you brethren to think of those things which happened to the Jews of old, with whom God "was not well pleased." Not I, but an Apostle beseeches you to look back to that fearful overthrow of sinners, when there fell in one day three and twenty thousand. Take to yourselves what he says, "Neither let us tempt Christ as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed of serpents.'

JOHN HENRY PARKER, OXFORD AND LONDON.

Sermons for the Christian Seasons.

TENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

CHRIST WEEPING OVER JERUSALEM.

LUKE xix. 41, 44. And when He was come near, He beheld the city, and wept over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee; and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another; because thou knewest not the time of thy visitation.

Ir we put side by side the two parts of this picture, we must, I think, be very much struck with the contrast: and if we go on to put together the circumstances which went before and which came after, we shall find a great deal on which we may think with profit.

For some time past our Lord had been setting His face to go to Jerusalem; He knew well, as God, for what purpose He was going there.

It was to accomplish the purpose for which He came on earth; to finish the work which He had to do. Look at this. He was about to put an end, a crown, to His work; as it were the topmost stone. The end was before Him; every thing therefore which He said or did looked that way. His parables and discourses at that time are full of preparation for an end; many of them speak of the judgment to come, and the way in which we ought to make ready for it. The chapter from which the text comes contains the parable of the talents; this is one of that sort: and having said these words, He went forwards, going up to Jerusalem.

You cannot forget the way in which He entered the city; how, as He came down the slope of the Mount of Olives, the multitude that went before and that followed with palm branches in their hands, and strewing branches and even their clothes in the way, went with Him crying "Blessed be the King that cometh in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven and glory in the highest."

But in the midst of all this rejoicing and triumph, you might have heard the Pharisees saying jealously, "Master, rebuke Thy disciples." They affected to be anxious for the honour of

God, and the sanctity of the temple: but really they were envious of the way in which our Lord was received by the people. They felt that their influence was all but gone; that He had exposed their hypocrisy, and they only thought now of the means by which they might get rid of Him, as they imagined, from the world by secret treachery.

If we may venture to imagine what our Lord's thoughts were at this time, we must suppose that they were of a bitter kind. He saw before Him the city of God, the mountain of His holiness, the joy of the whole earth, the city of the great King, the temple well adorned with goodly stones and buildings, meet for the place of the tabernacle of the most Highest. All this He knew, by His divine foreknowledge, must before long be utterly ruined.

Remember that our Blessed Lord was perfect man as well as God, that He had all the tender and affectionate feelings of a man, that He loved His friends with the warmest affection; and can we then doubt that He loved even particular spots: can we doubt that He loved that city in which every Jew took, if I may so speak, so much pride?

Can we suppose that He who not long before