heart of the stranger, the poor heathen who hears for the first time, leaps with astonishment and joy, and by his repentance stirs up the joy of the angels of God in heaven.

And it brings to our ear, and would to God it did to every heart also, the report of things which, St. Peter says, even the angels desire to look into: and in the sounds we have been hearing this morning, this report has been made to us even now. Shall we not hear and understand? Shall not he that hath repented, receive strength and courage to his faith? Will not he, who hath not come unto repentance, give for once his heart to this message of a merciful God, and listen with a willing ear to the words of his Son, who in this chapter so openly reveals to us the gracious counsel of God respecting sinful man, and even opens before our sight the gates of heaven, that we may witness the joy which is there amid its glorious company of angels of God, over every one of us that repenteth? We are objects of interest to them. Shall we not be objects of interest to ourselves? They have joy over our repentance. Shall we not have joy in repentance? It begins, indeed, in sorrow, and therefore men are unwilling to have to do with it. But it ends in joy, as surely as the night ends in day; as the winter ends in spring, And the joy is the greater for the sorrow, and that joy no man taketh away. It is beyond the

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reach of his violence. It is surely fixed in heaven, where, in the songs which it sends up of praise, blessing, and thanksgiving, to Him that sitteth upon the throne and to the Lamb, it has a continual accompaniment of the joy of the angels in heaven.

SERMON III.

DUTY TOWARDS CHILDREN.
(Fourth Sunday after Easter.)

DEUT. vi. 7.

"And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up."

MOSES is proceeding in his instructions to the people of God, as to how they are to conduct themselves in the possession of the glorious inheritance to which he had called them. You have heard how much he insists on the keeping the commandments of the Lord their God; how he holds forth promises to them; how he threatens them; how he reminds them of what he had done for them; warns them against the forgetfulness of him; stirs them up to the remembrance of him; and, as in the words of the text, bids them not only observe these commandments themselves, but also to be most diligent in bringing up their children in the same.

Israel has been set forth as a pattern to ourselves but we are put into possession of an inheritance as much superior to that of Israel's, as spiritual to temporal, as Christ to Moses. And our Leader, Christ, has given us statutes to keep, and ordained us a service to perform in the land to which He has brought us; and these are to be our employment: these the fathers are to teach to their children, and these the faithful are to talk of when they sit in their house, when they walk by the way, and when they lie down, and when they rise up. In short, the Christian life is to be made up of the continual and diligent keeping of them.

By the keeping of them we must keep our place in the glorious inheritance of his Church, to which we have been called. If ye love me, keep my commandments, was one of his last commandments. And among his gracious promises He says, "If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love 1." And in these, and several other passages of St. John, the keeping of the Lord's commandments is considered as the great proof of the love of Him.

Now, are these commandments attended to with that diligence which manifests the love of Christ in the heart? Does his Church contain a

1 John xv. 10.

body of servants all purposed in their hearts to live in them, and by them? Are we ourselves making them the guide of our understandings, the controller of our affections, the rule of our life? This is an important question, if, as is surely the case, the continuance of our abode in the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of God, the Church of the first-born, depends upon it.

Now these commandments are of two classes. In one, are those which concern our duty to God; in the other, those which concern our duty towards our neighbour. And we must begin with those that concern God, and then those that concern our neighbour will come of course.

But how do men commonly keep

them? They begin with those which concern. their neighbour. And then what wonder if they never go on to those which concern God? And why do they begin with those which concern their neighbour? Because life cannot be safe or comfortable without the keeping of them; because the rules of society require it; because the laws of the land demand it. But what thank have such keepers of God's commandments. Do they keep them for the sake of the love of Christ? No. Do they keep them for the sake of the love of themselves? Yes. And yet persons who neglect all the commandments which concern God, and keep those which concern their neighbour only for the sake of their own convenience; and therefore, as far as