Testament types: the High Priest has offered the sacrifice, and carried the blood within the veil; but He has not yet returned to bless the gathered multitude. The cry, however, shall yet be heard at midnight; and "the Lord strong and mighty" shall approach to confound every enemy, and complete the salvation of His Church. And if we would be "found of Him in peace" on this His return, we must see to it that we provide our lamps with oil in the days of our strength. I do not know a more awful part of Scripture than the parable of the ten virgins, to which, as you will perceive, we here make allusion. We are always fearful of dwelling too strongly on the minuter parts of a parable; but there is something so singular in the fact, that the foolish virgins went to seek oil so soon as they heard of the bridegroom's approach, but were nevertheless excluded, that we dare not pass it by as conveying no lesson. If the parable admit of being applied, as we suppose it must in a modified sense, to the circumstances of our death, does it not seem to say that a repentance to which we are driven by the approach of dissolution will not be accepted? The foolish virgins sought not for oil till alarmed by tidings that the bridegroom was at hand; and many think that it will be enough if they give heed to religion when they shall have reason to apprehend that their last day is not distant. But the foolish virgins, although, as it would seem, they obtained oil, were indignantly shut out from the banquet; what, then, is to become of sinners, who, in the day of sickness, compelled by the urgency of their case, and frighted by the nearness of their end, show something like sorrow, and profess something like faith?

I own that nothing makes me think so despondingly of 1 2 Pet. iii. 14.

those who wholly neglect God till they feel themselves dying, as this rejection of the virgins, who would not begin to seek oil till they found the bridegroom at hand, and then obtained it in vain. It is as though God said, If you will not seek Me in health, if you will not think of Me till sickness tell you that you must soon enter My presence, I will surely reject you: when you knock at the door and say, "Lord, Lord, open to us,"1 I will answer from within, "I never knew you; depart, depart from Me." We dare not dwell upon this: we have a hundred other reasons for being suspicious of what is called death-bed repentance; but this seems to make that repentance—ay, though the death be that of consumption, and the patient linger for months with his senses about him, and his time apparently given to the duties of religion-of no avail whatever for if the man obstinately neglected God till alarmed by the hectic spot on his cheek, that hectic spot was to him what the midnight cry was to the virgins, the signal that the bridegroom was near; and what warrant have we that God will admit him to the feast, if the five virgins were excluded with every mark of abhorrence, though they sought for oil, and bought it, and brought it?

We bring before you this very awful suggestion, that none of you may think it too soon to prepare to meet the Saviour whose ascension we have commemorated, and for whose return we are directed to look. Let all the young and the old be ever on the watch, with the loins girt, the lamps trimmed, and the lights burning. Let not that day overtake any of us 66 as a thief," as a thief, not more because coming stealthily and unexpectedly, than because it will strip us of our confidence, and leave us defenceless. But if we now give diligence to "add to our faith virtue, 2 1 Thess. v. 2.

1 Matt. xxv. 11.

and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance;"1 if we labour to be "found of Him in peace,' "2 appropriating to ourselves His promises, only as we find ourselves conformed to His precepts; then let "the Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle," appear in the heavens; we shall be "caught up to meet Him in the air, and so shall we ever be with the Lord."3 Glorious transformation! glorious translation! I seem already to behold the wondrous scene. The sea and the land have given up their dead; the quickened myriads have been judged according to their works. And now an innumerable company, out of all nations and tribes and tongues, ascend with the Mediator towards the kingdom of His Father. Can it be that these, who were born children of wrath, who were long enemies to God by wicked works, are to enter the bright scenes of paradise? Yes, He who leads them has washed them in His blood; He who leads them has sanctified them by His Spirit; and now you may hear His voice in the summons, "Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and these, My ransomed ones, shall come in, and behold, and share My glories."

1 2 Pet. i. 5.

2 2 Pet. iii. 14.

8 1 Thess. iv. 17.

SERMON VIII

THE SPIRIT UPON THE WATERS1

"And the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.' -GEN. i. 2.

WE

E are required on this day by the ordinance of the Church to consider specially the Person and Work of the Third Person in the Trinity. The present festival is in commemoration of that great event the Pentecostal effusion of the Spirit, an event not inferior in importance to the incarnation of the Son. We say not inferior in importance, for it would avail us little that redemption has been achieved by one Divine Person if it were not applied or made effectual by another. There is so much to fix and even engross our attention in the work of the Son; the humiliation, the sufferings, and the success, are so conspicuous and confounding, that we may easily become comparatively unmindful of what we owe to the Father and the Spirit, though the persons of the Trinity are not more one in essence and dignity, than in their claim on our love and their title to our veneration.

1 The outline of this Sermon has been partly derived from that of a discourse by Dr. Donne on the last clause of the verse.

It is of great worth, therefore, that the Church has instituted such commemorations as the present: for by bringing before us in succession the mysteries of our faith and the various blessings provided for our race, they do much towards preventing our dwelling on one doctrine or benefit to the exclusion of others which deserve equal thought. There would have been the same stupendousness and virtue in the work of the Son, if it had never been followed by the descent of the Spirit. But then, if it be true that our hearts are naturally averse from God and holiness, so that of ourselves we are unable to repent and lay hold on the proffered but conditional deliverance, of what use is it that such costly provision has been made on our behalf, unless there be also provision for our being strengthened to make it our own? Thus such festivals as Christmas and Easter, and such commemorations as Good Friday, though they might remind us of sublime and awful things, would bring before us nothing that could be practically of worth to fallen creatures, if they were not to be followed by a Whit-Snnday, when might be celebrated the coming down of a divine agent to renew the corrupt nature. On this day the Third Person of the Trinity descended to tabernacle upon earth as on Christmas day the Second was 66 found in fashion as a man. "'1 And not deeper nor more abundant should be our gratitude, that "for us men and for our salvation," the "Word was made flesh," than that "with the sound as of a rushing mighty wind," the Comforter came to take the things of Christ and show them to the soul.

We have endeavoured on former recurrences of the present solemnity to explain to you the scriptural doctrine as to the Person and work of the Holy Ghost. We have

1 Phil. ii. 8.

2 John i. 14.

3 Acts ii. 2.