expressed in a still stronger manner in the ensuing verse. "What shall I say? He hath both spoken unto me, and himself hath done it. I shall go softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul;" that is, all the years that I am now permitted by the mercy of God to live in secu rity and in ease, I shall remember the bitter feelings which I once suffered, and by this remem brance renew my gratitude and thanksgiving. "O Lord," continues the monarch, "by these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit: so wilt thou recover me, and make me to live. Behold for peace I had great bitterness; but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back."

If Hezekiah saw the hand of God in this his deliverance from danger and death, how much more shall we as Christians both feel and adore his mercy! We whom Christ in love to our souls has redeemed, not from temporal, but eternal death; we whose sins he has borne himself on the cross, and by his blood has blotted out from the book of remembrance. Who is he then who has partaken in the mercies and the goodness of God? Let him join in humble adoration in the language of the Jewish monarch: "The grave cannot praise thee, death cannot celebrate thee, they that go down into the pit cannot hope

for thy truth. The living, the living shall praise thee, as I do at this day; the father to the children shall make known thy truth." That we are alive at this moment to praise him, is the mercy of God; that we shall stand before him after death, to sing Alleluias to him that sitteth on the throne, is through the sacrifice and the blood of Christ. The Lord has been ready, and is still ready to save us all, let us beware how we neglect so great salvation!

Lastly, Let not our gratitude be confined to the thanksgiving only of a single day, but let us "walk," as Hezekiah did, "all the days of our life, in the house of the Lord," and "shew forth our praises not with our lips only, but in our lives, by giving up ourselves to God's service, and by walking before him in holiness and righteousness all our days."

SERMON XXXVI.

2 ST. PETER iii. 15.

Account that the long suffering of the Lord is salvation.

WHETHER We take into our view the examples of public or private life, the history of nations, or the experience of individuals, there is one great character which marks the retributive justice of God. That character is patience and long suffering. God never strikes in punishment till after many and repeated warnings; till the ear is deaf, and the eye is blind; till "the measure of our iniquity is full."

The declarations of Scripture on this point, both under the law and under the Gospel, are uniform and decisive. When the Almighty "descended in the cloud, and passed by," before Moses, he proclaimed himself, "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long suffering and abundant in goodness and truth." So again, in the Psalms, he is represented as "full of com

the sentence may be ultimately reversed. When then Ahab himself, lying under the just condemnation of God, "rent his clothes, put sackcloth upon himself, and fasted," what was the word of the Almighty? "Seest thou, how Ahab humbleth himself before me? Because he humbleth himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days, but in his son's days, will I bring the evil upon his house." When again, the prophet Jonah cried unto the city of Nineveh, "Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown," why was the interval allowed? not to prepare them for destruction, but to give them one opportunity more of salvation. That opportunity was taken, "God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way, and God repented of the evil that he said he would do unto them, and he did it not."

To us, as Christians, the long suffering of our Lord is to be accounted still more peculiarly for salvation. From beginning to end the covenant of the Gospel is a covenant of accepted repentance. If we will repent, we believe and know that the blood of Christ will secure to that repentance mercy and acceptance. God is not willing that any of his children in Christ should perish. What escapes have we all experienced from the consequences of our sins! How do

the mercies of his providence and grace daily. and hourly struggle with our perversities! "Look how far the east is from the west, even so far hath he put our sins from us!" How many of us are daily in the habit of provoking the anger of God, by our sensuality, by our selfishness, by our avarice, by our neglect! And yet we travel onwards, apparently happy and secure. Would that this long suffering of God, would that this suspension of his just judgments could turn our hearts, and reform our lives! Now is the very moment for repentance: to-day, the day of security and of ease; hear his voice and harden not your hearts; to-morrow when the storm bursts upon our heads, when punishment from without, and reproach from within, harass and torment our souls, who shall dare to say, that then he will be able to repent? "Account then that long suffering of our Lord is salvation," that every protection from the consequences of sin, that every escape from just punishment is a call from heaven to penitence, and to a better life. As such they were intended, and as such let them be obeyed.

Secondly, we are to consider the abuse to which the long suffering of God is too often perverted. Men are apt to imagine that because God does not now strike them, that he never will. With the Almighty for our judge, can we