bers may be watched by hosts of rejoicing angels, and soothed by the hope of sins forgiven and mercy promised. Know, then, my brethren, to your own comfort and your own joy, that this end of the righteous, this hope in death, will be the blessed portion of all who are the children of God's adoption; and it will be theirs, not because they have deserved it or attained it by their own merits, but because Christ has bought it for them with his own blood. Yes, my brethren, in this hour of peril, as in every time besides, it is to Jesus our eyes must look, our hearts must turn. In life or death he is present with us still. Are we in prosperity, he will sanctify it to our hearts; are we in affliction, his name will strengthen us, his Spirit will bear us up. Sin seizes upon our souls, its accursed fetters bind us in bonds which we cannot break. But one word from the Saviour's lips and the chains fall, and the captive is set free. Death comes, disease and suffering precede his approach; he comes but he affrights not; for Jesus has conquered him and crushed the sinews of his strength. He has destroyed this our latest enemy, and has made him the passport to the Christian's rest. And he has done all this for you. Miserable sinners though you are, he is still ready to receive, still willing to bless you, if you call upon him in penitence and faith. Come then within his sacred fold, and

whilst the unconverted sinner goes on still in wickedness, may ye be purified by the Spirit of Christ ruling in your hearts; and so will ye find at last, when the day of trial and of danger comes, that he hath indeed snatched the victory from the grave, and robbed death of his sting.

SERMON II.

MATTHEW XVII, PART OF 4TH VERSE.

Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here.

To a mind duly impressed with the sentiments of religion, duly sensible of its importance beyond all other objects of human enquiry, every point connected with the life and ministry of our blessed Saviour, becomes deeply interesting and instructive. The ways of God are often, indeed, inscrutable to man, and it ill becomes his frail and erring creatures, to attempt to scan too minutely the mysteries of his dispensations. But the pious heart derives comfort and delight, in meditating upon those blessed events connected with the great scheme of our redemption; in tracing their origin to the same bounteous hand; in discovering how they all tend to promote the merciful object in view, and display the goodness

and omnipotence of the great Creator. Nor if we approach the study with humility of heart, with a deep sense of God's eternal and unchanging truth, will our researches be displeasing to him or unprofitable to ourselves.

Of the many circumstances which are so strongly marked in our Redeemer's life, few are more interesting or more consolatory, than that which is usually termed his transfiguration. It was the only period during the whole of his earthly sojourning, in which the glories he had left in heaven, were brought down to be his ministers on earth; it was the only time in which he vouchsafed to resume, for a brief space, the splendour he had for our sakes resigned, and to shake off the trammels and burden of mortality. This occurrence is in itself important; because it affords us an additional link to the chain of evidence, by which the divinity of the Messiah is established; but it acquires an additional interest, when we consider the compassionate emotions which gave rise to the event, and the merciful intention with which that event was brought to pass.

In the chapter immediately preceding that from which the text is taken, Simon Peter is represented as having made the following reply to the question of our blessed Lord-" Whom say ye that I am?" "Thou art the Christ, the Son

of the living God." A blessing was graciously bestowed upon him for this acknowledgment, and our Saviour then took an opportunity of announcing to his disciples, that he "must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders, and chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day." He foretold, also, that they must expect to undergo many afflictions and persecutions for his sake; that if they would become his followers, they must be prepared to sacrifice life itself for him, to resign all the comforts and emoluments which the world could impart, and take up their cross and follow his steps. These intimations of approaching trials and sorrows, were so different from the hopes they had been accustomed to cherish; so subversive of all those visions of grandeur and power, which had hitherto consoled them under their present privations; that their benevolent master, anxious to soothe the fears he had excited, and cheer their drooping spirits, by a partial display of the glories which had been his eternal inheritance, took an early opportunity of convincing them of his power and ability to perform the promises he had made. For it must not be forgotten, that after Jesus had forewarned his disciples of the troubles by which they were to be assailed, he also declared, that when "the Son of man should come in the glory of his Father with

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