who broke them; but they disobeyed the commands, and disregarded the judgments.

What then would have been the consequence, if, in compliance with the request of their tormented brother, Lazarus had been sent from the grave to testify to them that their lives were sinful, and that their sins would surely be punished?-what would have been the effect if one witness more had been added to that cloud of witnesses who had already testified (and that with no lack of signs and wonders) to God's abhorrence of sin, and His determination to avenge it?

Perhaps the history of their fathers might be supposed to furnish a sufficient answer. When Prophet after Prophet was sent to the Jewish people, when Elijah or Elisha raised the dead, called down fire from Heaven, cured and inflicted leprosy with a word, what had been the effect of such continued wonders upon the sinful nation? When God with a mighty hand and stretched-out arm saved their forefathers from Egypt, and sustained them by a series of wonderful works during their forty years' wandering in the wilderness, had these signs and wonders been effectual to make them turn to God with real and lasting repentance? Let the records of that stiff-necked and rebellious people answer. Let David answer, who, after enumerating the miracles wrought by Moses for their deliverance, thus speaks of their obedience: "Yet for all this, they sinned yet more against Him. They tempt

ed and provoked the most High God, and kept not His testimonies. But turned back, and dealt unfaithfully, like their fathers; they were turned aside like a deceitful bow. For they provoked Him to anger with their high places, and moved Him to jealousy with their graven images. When God heard this, He was wroth, and greatly abhorred Israel."

But it may be thought that they might have been better than their fathers,—that though their lives were evil, in defiance of Moses and the Prophets, yet that they would not have resisted such evidence as had been resisted by earlier generations. Alas! it is easy for men to think what they would have done if they had been the persons to be tried in each case. Nothing perhaps is more remarkable than the way in which we always identify ourselves with the good characters in every history or parable, and take it for granted that we should have acted rightly had we been called upon to act in similar circumstances. It is a strange delusion, and the thought of it should teach us charity in our judgments of others, both in past times and our own. But our Lord has effectually exposed this wicked self-deceit in the 23d chap. of St. Matthew: "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the Prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the Prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves that ye

are the children of them which killed the Prophets. then the measure of your fathers."

Fill

ye up But consider, again,—how small would have been the benefit of any such miraculous attestation of God's wrath against sinners to an impenitent and disobedient Jew. Did the Jews disbelieve Moses and the Prophets? They disobeyed, it is true; but did they disbelieve them? Did they not, on the contrary, pride themselves upon the possession of God's revealed will? Did they not rest in the law, make their boast of God, know His will, and approve things that are excellent, being instructed out of the law? Was it for lack of knowledge or belief, that they disobeyed? Undoubtedly not, it was for lack of a humble and obedient spirit,-it was because their hearts were hard, because they were a stiff-necked and ungodly people. To what use, then, would it have been to address fresh evidence to the head, when it was the heart that was in fault? They did not need evidence, they needed the spirit of submission and humble duty. Would the appearance of Lazarus from the dead, and his witness of the terrors of Hell have given them a heart whole with God? could it have quickened their love, stimulated a godly sorrow, produced faith, mortified an unholy temper? Alas! it is to little purpose to multiply proof to an evil heart of unbelief, or to aggravate threatenings of punishment to a temper of sin! It is to little It is to little purpose to

add external barriers against the outbreaking of

wickedness, to build up dams against the river of sin, while the springs of evil are left to pour forth as copiously as ever the bitter waters from which that stream is fed. When the heart is unregenerate and the temper sinful, knowledge only condemns, punishment only produces despair, or recklessness of most unclean living, no less perilous than despair. That knowledge only condemns, hear St. Paul's testimony: "What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid! Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died; and the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me."

If any doubt whether aggravated and inevitable judgment can produce or at least co-exist with unclean and sinful living, let me only remind him of some of the darkest scenes of human misery and depravity, the scenes which have been, which are still sometimes enacted in the midst of the infliction of the Plague. Nothing is more horrible than the view of human wickedness which we have authentically exhibited to us in histories of such times,-the first utter and unreasonable abandonment of hope and courage, the gradual hardening of the heart

and feelings, as the danger becomes familiar,-by degrees the loss of reasonable expectation of safety, and then the mad carelessness of life and all principle; the recklessness of most unclean living that accompanies despair.

No, if there. be a truth which all Revelation teaches, and which all reason and experience confirm, it is this, that the evil heart does not yield either to increased clearness of evidence, or increased severity of judgment. Men will always console themselves by thinking that they want more proof. It is the commonest kind of self-deceit. They think that if they were more sure, that if God would vouchsafe them further witness,—that if He would show a sign to them, they would repent. It is a comfort to them to transfer the fault to the evidence. It soothes their pride to persuade themselves that they are waiting for proof. They do not take much pains to examine what proof they have got already, they do not think it worth while to attend to Moses and the Prophets; they crave one miracle more, addressed to themselves; they crave that God should do for them what they are not disposed to do for themselves: and meanwhile they think themselves candid and reasonable! As if that one miracle more would do what all the rest had failed to do! As if one risen from the grave could soften a heart which sin has hardened, or waken eyes and ears which love of sin has rendered blind and dull of sense! They would soon tamper

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