148 OF THOSE THAT COME UNWORTHILY.

throw some bitter medicament into the cup of life, or hide thy face from the polluting imagery of last night's revelry, or to-morrow's strife, pursuing them to the very footstool of thy throne.

CHAPTER VIII.

OF THOSE THAT COME WORTHILY.

WHY are ye so fearful?-how is it that ye have no faith? When Jesus beholds the trembling step and sinking heart, the smouldering hope and scarcely smouldering expectation, with which his people come to take his blessings, and sees also how little blest they seem to go away-surely if he did not remember whereof we are made-if he were not "touched with a feeling of our infirmities "—surely He would not spread his table any more, for guests so little hungry when they come-so little satisfied when they depart! It is no fault of his, "For what could he have done more for his vineyard that he has not done." He bought it at no ordinary price-even no less than his own precious blood. With all the glory he had before the world began, with all the riches of his Father's throne, with all the fulness of his own eternal God

head, relinquished, put aside :—with poverty and shame, and mortal anguish, a broken body and a broken heart, He bought this little vineyard. Oh how he must have loved it! And when He had bought it, he had it not—he paid the price, but another was in possession, and Jesus had to conquer what he had bought so dear. There was not an entrance but was barred against him, and sin, and death and hell were at the gates! Do we say were there? They are there still! Step by step, one by one, the blessed Lord has had to win his own; his own unwilling, resisting, refusing:—“ Behold, I stand at the door and knock." patient and long-suffering pity; by warnings forgotten and promises disbelieved; by his disputed word, by his resisted Spirit, by his despised and persecuted servants; by patient pleadings of unrequited love, and ceaseless prayers before the Father's throne, the Saviour conquers out his scant inheritance, and brings to submission a reluctant people. Oh! think if he does not love them! And does his work end here? When he has bought, and conquered, and entered into possession-when he has fenced it and planted it, and hedged it round, and built a tower in the midst in the

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communion of his separated church, in the little company of his regenerate people, does the blessed Redeemer come into his fair garden to see the grapes cluster and the winepress flowing, and find all fruitfulness and beauty round him?

No. His purchase is a spot of sterile earth; his conquest is an untamed wilderness. It is like those fastnesses of unknown lands which earthly princes sell or give away to whoever can find or conquer them: they must fell the forest before they can have a dwelling-place, or gather any harvest of their fields. More easy task! for these at least find materials for their work. But Jesus, when he comes into the heart, finds nothing-nothing but what is against him; perverted intellect, and adverse habits, and preoccupied affections: full, full to the very extremity, of things inimical. In a pestilent air and an ungracious soil, the Saviour cultivates his precious garden; precious indeed, if valued by its cost; most precious, if by the love he has manifested for it. By his word, too slowly learned; by his Spirit, too often grieved; by judgments provoked and blessings undervalued, and opportunities and ordinances neglected, this never-wearied husbandman plies his loving toil.

For a confiding, trusting, and rejoicing people? No! Let the heart of every believer answer for itself, what sort of love does love like this beget? Suspicious, anxious, apprehensive; wanting fresh proofs of love so dearly proved; and when he grants them, doubting, doubting still doubting, lest he who loved should change his mind, and rid himself of his too costly purchase. Oh, if its worthlessness could do it ;if ill-requiting could have changed it,-if he had not from all eternity foreseen that those he died for, would be afraid to trust him, and borne upon his cross this deadliest sin of all; he never need have left his Father's throne, for not a sinner had been saved! We do not know--but I could think, for Jesus was a man, —that on that night in which he was betrayed, at that funereal supper-so sad, so sorrowful; I could think it was not the treachery of Judas that was heaviest on him; for Judas was none of his, he was not about to expiate Judas' sin: Peter's denial, and Thomas's unbelief, and the strife, and cowardice, and abandonment of all, were in the Saviour's thoughts, when he took bread, and brake it, and gave it to his disciples. And if the eye of his omniscient godhead looked at that moment through the extent of