him, and kiss the rod, and look upon it as a call to be more soberminded. Else we may fall into that most desperate, but not uncommon sin, the setting up an idol of ourselves in our hearts, and becoming our own worshipers.

The last point which I would have you observe in this story of St Paul's escape from the viper, is the spiritual lesson which we may draw from it. Did he shake off the venomous serpent which had fastened on him, because he was a true disciple of Jesus Christ? So shall ye too, if ye are his true disciples, be enabled to shake off the spiritual serpent, who will undoubtedly try to fasten upon you. Try to fasten, did I say? Has he not fastened on you already? Is he not already at the heart of some of you, in the shape of a besetting sin, poisoning your heart, and trying to kill soul, which Christ designed should live for ever? If he be, shake him off, the tempter, shake him off into his native fire.

your

But here let me give you one or two cautions, very needful to be observed. Did the viper fasten on Paul, while he was engaged in a useful and servile work? We may learn from this, that, however humble and useful our walk in life may be, it will still have its own temptations. Every business has its own temptations; every employment has its own temptations; every rank in life

has its own temptations. We may find the serpent every where he will be sure to fasten on us, if we do not watch against him: and he will keep his hold, and slay us, if we do not pray to God to deliver us from him. Watch then always: pray without ceasing: and the moment you feel the temptation creeping upon you, do as St Paul did; shake it off; shake it out of your thoughts and wishes.

For this is the next caution I wish to give you, to do as St Paul did. He did not play with the venomous creature: he did not bring it close to him, and cherish it, and place it next his heart : he shook it off. So must we do with the spiritual serpent who is thirsting for our heart's blood. We must not dally with his temptations, and let them fasten on our thoughts, lest our minds get poisoned by them. We must shake them off at once. Far less should we go to seek the serpent in his nest, by putting ourselves in the way of being tempted. It is true, there is a prophecy in Isaiah, that in the reign of Christ the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice's den. And so they shall.

But are we my brethren, weaned children, in the spiritual and scriptural sense of thewords? A time will doubtless come,-God hasten it !-when Christ's kingdom shall be fully established, when

the Serpent's fangs shall be drawn, and his power of tempting taken from him, when men shall become like weaned children, weaned from their original wickedness, and free from guile and malice. That time, the time of peace, we know will doubtless come. It will come with the new heavens and the new earth, wherein shall dwell righteousness. But alas! it is not come yet. The war between the disciples of Christ and the seed of the Serpent is still raging. Therefore if we, who are not children now, put ourselves in the Serpent's way, we tempt God to leave us to ourselves: and we shall have nobody but ourselves to blame, if God allows the Serpent to fasten on us, and to wound us with his deadly sting. Do then, as St Paul did. Keep out of the Serpent's way: and if he fastens upon you, shake him off, with an earnest prayer to God that he will preserve you from his spiritual sting, even as he preserved St Paul from the viper.

But some will say perhaps, "This caution comes too late. I have allowed the Serpent to fasten on me already. I have cherished him; I have listened to his bewitching voice. He has led me into sin: I feel his poison in my soul." What can be said to this man? Is there no hope for him? I fear there is no hope for him out of the passage I have been preaching on. But there is another very striking passage of Scripture, which entitles

even this man, even this poor wounded poisoned sinner, to hope. The passage I am referring to is in the third chapter of St John's Gospel, where our Saviour says to Nicodemus, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." That is to say, as Moses," when the Israelites were bit by fiery serpents, so that much people of Israel died, was commanded by God to make a fiery serpent, and to set it upon a pole," and as God declared "that every one who was bitten, when he looked upon it, should live" (Numbers xxi. 8); in like manner was the Son of man lifted up on the cross for the healing of all who are bitten by the fiery serpents of sin. It is only by looking at Christ upon the cross, that the sinner can hope to recover from the bite of the old Serpent. But he must look on him, as the Israelites looked, feeling the burning pain of their wounds, and yearning to be healed of them. He must fix his eyes, or rather he must fix his heart, on Christ upon the cross. So look ye then, and live.

VOL. I.

X

458

SERMON XXVII.

TREES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.

ISAIAH lxi. 3.

Trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord.

EVERY one who reads his Bible, and minds what he reads, must know that it is a very common thing with the sacred writers to compare the growth of religion in man's heart with the growth of trees and plants. To go no further than that part of the Old Testament which is oftenest read in church, -the book of Psalms,-hear how David speaks in the first Psalm. "Blessed is the man whose delight is in the law of the Lord. He shall be like a tree planted by the water-side, that will bring forth his fruit in due season. His leaf also shall not wither." Again in the 92nd Psalm we read: "The righteous shall flourish like a palm-tree,