he
cannot abolish Christ the Lord.

For Christ is set upon the throne of the universe. The Father of all--if
we may dare to hint even in Scriptural words at mysteries which are in
themselves unspeakable--is eternally saying to Him--Thou art my Son, this
day have I begotten Thee. And Christ answers eternally--I come to do Thy
will, O God. The nations are Christ's inheritance; and the utmost parts
of the earth are His possession, now, already; whether we or they think
so or not.

And there are times--there are times, my friends--when the awful words
which follow come true likewise--"Thou shalt bruise them with a rod of
iron, and break them in pieces like a potter's vessel."

For as to this world in which we live, so to the God who created that
world, there is a terrible aspect. There is calm: but there is storm
also. There is fertilizing sunshine: but there is also the destroying
thunderbolt. There is the solid and fruitful earth, where man can till
and build; but there is the earthquake and the flood likewise, which
destroy in a moment the works of man. So there is in God boundless love,
and boundless mercy: but there is, too, a wrath of God, and a fire of God
which burns eternally against all evil and falsehood. And woe to those
who fall under that wrath; who are even scorched for a moment by that
fire.

"It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God."

We are all ready enough to forget this; ready enough to think only of
God's goodness, and never of His severity. Ready enough to talk of
Christ as gentle and suffering; because we flatter ourselves that if He
is gentle, He may be also indulgent; if He be suffering, He may be also
weak. We like to forget that He is, and was, and ever will be--Lord of
heaven and earth; and to think of Him only in His humiliation in Judaea
1800 years ago, forgetting that during that very humiliation, while He
was shewing love, and mercy, and miracles of healing, and sympathy and
compassion for every form of human sorrow and weakness, He did not shrink
from shewing to men the awful side of His character; did not shrink from
saying, "Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. Ye serpents,
ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?"--did
not shrink from declaring that He was coming again, even before that very
generation had passed away, to destroy, unless it repented, the wicked
city of Jerusalem, with an utter and horrible destruc