fathers may not rise up against us in the day of judgment, and
condemn us. Let us turn to the Lord this day with all our hearts,
and come to this holy table, confessing all our sins and
unfaithfulness, and backslidings, that we may get there cleansing
from his most precious blood, strength from his most precious body,
life from his life, and spirit from his spirit; that so we may go
away to lead new lives, following the commandments of God, and
living up to our great light and knowledge, at least as well as our
forefathers lived up to their little light. And so we shall really
keep the feast of Epiphany in spirit and in truth: for Epiphany
means the shewing of Jesus Christ to us Gentiles; and the way to
prove that Jesus Christ has been shewn to us, and that we have seen
his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of
grace and truth, is to keep his commandments, and live lives like
his.

SERMON XXXIX. THE WRATH OF LOVE

Psalm cvii. 6. Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and
he delivered them out of their distresses.

If I were asked to give a reason why I believed the Old Testament to
be an inspired and divine book, as well as the New, I could not do
better, I think, than to lay my hand on this 107th psalm, and say,--
This is my reason for believing the Old Testament to be inspired. I
have hundreds of others: but this one is enough--this one psalm.
It contains an account of God's dealings with men, such as the world
never heard before, and very seldom since, save from a very few men,
who really saw what the Bible meant, and honestly followed its
teaching. It gives a notion of the justice of God, and an
explanation of the chances and changes of this mortal life, such as
you will find nowhere else save in the Bible, and in the books of
Christian men who have been taught by the Bible. The man who wrote
that psalm knew so much more than other men, that he must have been
indeed inspired by the Spirit of Truth, and the Holy Ghost of God.

And, I should say, I have come to this opinion mainly by comparing
this psalm with the writings of heathens, even the wisest and the
best of them. For the heathens, like all men, used to have their
troubles, and to ask themselves, Who has sent this trouble? And why
has he sent it? And their answers remain to us in their writings,
some worse, some better, some very foolish, some tolerably wise.
But when one compares the heathen writings