Surely there was not holden such a passover from the SERMON I. THE WAY OF LIFE. (Fourth Sunday in Advent.) ISA. xxx. 21. "And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left." THE LORD is here promising to Israel a day of restoration and comfort after his afflictions, and among his promises comes this of his especially showing that people the true way in which they should walk to please Him, after forsaking the errors in which they had turned aside from the paths of his commandments, and brought his judgments upon them; He would give Israel teachers, who should attend upon him as carefully as the nurse who walks behind the child, and in the moment that he takes a wrong turn to the right hand or to the left, cries out, "No! not that way, but this is the way for you to walk in ;" and so sets him continually in the right way. This world is full of ways, as it is of men; and B one way only is right. One only is the straight way of God's commandments, that leadeth to eternal life. The rest are the ways of men, that lead to destruction; and the most deceitful of them all are those which branch off from this one, and only way, going, some of them more, some of them less in its direction, and then by a sudden turn forsaking it. So that amid the multitude of ways, many travellers through life never find the right one at all. And many, too many, after they have been graciously set upon it, forsake it for the many byways of sin, which the vile arts of Satan have contrived to seduce thereby the walkers in God's way of life to his way of destruction and death. But the promises of God are found on his one way only; there alone their light guides amid darkness, on that alone will men meet their Saviour. And they that walk on that road, as day's journey is added to day's journey, have the comfort of thinking that they are advanced so much nearer to that day, the day of the second coming of the Lord in his power and glory, when at length all the crooked ways of man shall be abolished, and amid the wilderness of the sin of this world shall be heard the royal proclamation of his coming, " Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” 66 "This is the way, walk ye in it," saith the Lord. He hath set us on the way, He hath given us means to keep the way, and not turn to the right or left out of it. Why then should men forsake it, what excuse have they? They cannot plead ignorance. No high road in the world is plainer, and, as we have seen, there are directions at every turning. Wherever a road turns off by a way of sin, at that spot we have the Lord's direction in large letters, pointing straight onward, and saying, "This is the way." And further than this, there is also given us the direction of those turnings, and we may read if we will stay so to do at every one of them, "This is the way of sin," "This is the way to death," "This is the way to the pit." Is it not so? Our conscience and our experience bear witness to the fact. Let us appeal to them, and hear what they say. Thou shalt hear a word behind thee, says the text, as of a nurse directing the way of a child. And have not all of us been nursed and brought up in the knowledge and privileges of God's people; are we not all by profession children of God; and has He not done every thing for us which a father can do for his children? Has He not begun with setting us on his way of eternal life, so that we should walk in it? Is there one amongst us that does not know that Christ is the way unto the Father? that He opened this way for us by the sacrifice of his body; that He keeps it open by his ministry of intercession, by his guidance of |