ld belief, that God is a living God, and
that His judgments are abroad in the earth, and that only in keeping His
commandments can we get life, and not perish, we shall be seriously in
danger of sinking at last into that hopeless state of popular feeling,
into which more than one nation in our own time has fallen,--that, as the
prophet of old says, a wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the
land; the prophets--that is, the preachers and teachers--prophesy
falsely; and the priests--the ministers of religion--bear rule by their
means; and my people love to have it so--love to have their consciences
drugged by the news that they may live bad lives, and yet die good
deaths.

"And what will ye do in the end thereof?" asks Jeremiah. What indeed!
What the Jews did in the end thereof you may read in the book of the
prophet Jeremiah. They did nothing, and could do nothing--with their
morality their manhood was gone. Sin had borne its certain fruit of
anarchy and decrepitude. The wrath of God revealed itself as usual, by
no miracle, but through inscrutable social laws. They had to submit,
cowardly and broken-hearted, to an invasion, a siege, and an utter ruin.
I do not say, God forbid, that we shall ever sink so low, and have to
endure so terrible a chastisement: but this I say, that the only way in
which any nation of which I ever read in history, can escape, sooner or
later, from such a fate, is to remember every day, and all day long, that
the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ill-doing of men,
who hold the truth in unrighteousness, knowing what is true and what is
right, yet telling lies, and doing wrong.

Let us lay this to heart, with seriousness and godly fear. For so we
shall look up with reverence, and yet with hope, to Christ the ascended
king, to whom all power is given in heaven and earth; for ever asking Him
for His Holy Spirit, to put into our minds good desires, and to enable us
to bring these desires to good effect. And so we shall live for ever
under our great taskmaster's eye, and find out that that eye is not
merely the eye of a just judge, not merely the eye of a bountiful king,
but more the eye of a loving and merciful Saviour, in whose presence is
life even here on earth; and at whose right hand, even in this sinful
world, are pleasures for evermore.

SERMON XXXI. THE UNCHANGEABLE CHRIST

Eversley. 1845.

Hebrews xiii. 8. "Jesus