gaze upon Him whom you have pierced by your sins, until, like Job, you are able to say, "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee; wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and in ashes."

And now that the arrow of conviction has pierced the sinner's heart and drunk up his spirit, let him repair to the remedy provided in the gospel. Thus, wounded and heart-broken, how refreshing to him may the glad news be, that "there is balm in Gilead, and a Physician there." Often, it may be, has he read his Bible; but that blessed book will now appear to him in a very different light from that in which it ever did before. Here he finds all that he so much needed-a pardon free, full, and irrevocable, and an assurance of deliverance from that pollution, on account of which he loathes and abhors himself.

It is not enough, however, that the convinced, humbled sinner knows from God's Word that there is a remedy: he must strive to make sure of a personal interest in it by closing with the offer of Christ in the gospel. The offer is free and unconditional. He is invited to receive Him, to embrace Him, to close with Him. Let him put in his claim then on the ground of this free invitation, and give himself up to Christ, to be pardoned, sanctified, and saved. Then it is that being justified by faith, he will begin to experi

ence peace with God, a peace that passeth all understanding.

But while we have been speaking of a godly sorrow for sin, as the habitual characteristic of a believer, and as forming, indeed, the commencing process of the work of grace in the soul; there are some children of God who are not conscious of this deep sorrow, and who may therefore be ready to doubt, after all we have said, whether they are Christians at all. They often bewail the hardness of their hearts, the coldness and deadness of their affections, and the want of that humbleness of spirit, which a habitual sense of sin ought to awaken. But let such persons. be reminded that just as there may be a fasting where there is nothing discernible to our fellow-men, there may be, and there often is a secret conviction of sin, and genuine humility of soul where there is no strong feeling of uneasiness or of painful remorse. what is this complaint, mourning soul, of the want of feeling, but one of the surest proofs that though you are not conscious of it, feeling is there! If your heart had not been softened by the Spirit of God, you would not thus lament your want of softness.

And

May there not be some, who, because we have been teaching that sorrow for sin is essential to the Christian character, and they have never felt such a sorrow, may think themselves warranted in giving themselves up to indifference and unconcern! Do

you really suppose that this is a state of mind which ought to be cherished? Be assured that your impenitence and hardness of heart is the most alarming symptom of your case. There is not the slightest movement betokening the effort of a living power. You are dead, utterly, and to all appearance irretrievably dead. If nothing has hitherto availed to rouse you, will not the very thought that you are thus apparently given over to hopeless impenitence and unbelief, lead you to cry from the very depths of your inmost soul," Cast me not away from thy presence, take not thy holy Spirit from me?"

CHAPTER II.

PERSONAL LIFE OF PHARISEES.

SECTION 1.-SOURCE OF CHIEF HAPPINESS.

MAT. VI. 19-24.

The Redeemer has been illustrating the important principle of His kingdom, that God is the all in all of our religious duties, that in all our attempts to serve Him, our supreme anxiety must be to approve ourselves to Him, and to Him alone. And having shewn the necessity of this principle, by a reference to three different acts of service, alms-deeds, prayer, and fasting, He proceeds to lay down the equally important principle that God must be the all in all of the believer's heart. His demand admits of no compromise, "My son, give me thine heart." "He is a jealous God, and will not give his glory to any other." Jesus therefore fixes the attention of His hearers upon those objects which were too liable to engage the desires and feelings of the heart in preference to God,

and warns His hearers against all such spiritual idolatry as offensive in the sight of the Holy One.

Vv. 19 and 20. "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.”

The desire of amassing wealth of one kind or another is a strong principle in the unrenewed mind. It is not necessary that the treasure be always of silver and gold, though an apostle warns us that “the love of money is the root of all evil; which, while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." The treasures to which our Lord refers in the passage before us include all those objects on which the heart of man is wont to pride itself. We must not for a moment imagine that the Redeemer is here forbidding His people to make any provision for the future comfort of themselves and their families. His design is of a higher nature. He uses the word treasure to denote that which chiefly occupies the thoughts and engages the heart. And accordingly He follows up His exhortation by setting forth the reason:

V. 21. "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."