substantial, abiding fruits of repentance or conversion than these will ever satisfy God. Let no man deceive you into a belief that God will take a cry, or a groan, or a vision, instead of these more solid, and stable, and enduring tokens of repentance. It cost more to redeem your souls than that. Neither again be persuaded that it is a death-bed business; that to make a good end is all that needs; that the condition of a man's soul to meet its God may be pronounced favourable, where a pious word has been heard to drop from his lips then, by the watchers around his couch. No such thing. None of these things come up to the notion of repentance as I have been explaining it, with God's Scripture for my warrant, to-day; for they do not imply a change of mind (which, as I have said, is the word for repentance) manifested by a change of ways and life, which is what is required in the command, "bring forth fruits meet for repentance."

A motive is added, shortly after the text, to quicken us in beginning to bear these fruits: even that " now the axe is laid unto the root of the trees ; therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire." The axe is ready to smite now, says the Baptist; be quick therefore, ere it falls. Years are consuming you- diseases are shaking you-sundry kinds of death are about you, - all of them having a voice for you of and it may be, that, of His mercy, He another year, that He may see whether you will begin then to bear fruit or no. But assuredly He pauses for a short time only, whether we will hear or whether we will forbear. Good resolutions only may stay God's hand for a short time; He may count them as blossoms which promise fruit at least, and He may pause to see whether they ripen or fall off. We read of "His bending

"cut it down ;"

is sparing you

His bow, and making it ready," i.e. of His preparing Himself to strike before He can find in His heart to deal the blow. It was this, His long-suffering, which availed Pharaoh so many times. Again and again God accepted his resolutions forbore, to see whether good would come of them; but having found them come to nothing, one after another, He would keep His bow bent no longer, but shot the shaft and cut him down. How many went to their account last year who reckoned on beginning to bear fruit this year ! how many will go this year who resolve to put off the season no longer than till next! Think you not that there are thousands of souls now in the other world who feel just as that rich man of whom we read in the Gospel? What would he have given to have been allowed to return to life again upon a further trial! How would he then have striven to reverse his lot! Would Moses and the Prophets have spoken to deaf ears then, as they had done in times past? But there was a great gulf fixed between that life and this, which he could not pass; and all that he could do was to send up wishes and prayers- vain and empty ones those also-that one might be sent unto his five brethren, from the dead, to warn them to repent and bring forth fruit meet for repentance in time, that it might not be with them as it was with him-to have their throats parched in this flame. Be not ye as they, but be up and stirring in this your little day. Lay not up for yourselves, for your last hours, the remorse of having wasted your talents all your lives long, and of having never awoke to a sense of what is required of you till then, when it was all too late; but bring forth fruit betimes, so that whenever it may be that your Lord shall come to seek it, He may find more than leaves, and not be provoked to curse you as barren trees, till ye wither away.

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SERMON XXX.

UNTHANKFULNESS.

ST. LUKE, xvii. 17.

"And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine?"

OUR Saviour, as He travels through Samaria, comes to a village where there were ten lepers. The disease was so catching, that those who had it were driven out of the towns, and not permitted to return till they were pronounced healed by the priests whose business it was to inspect them. On this account it was that so many were found collected in one village. They see Jesus as He journeyed— they cry to Him to heal them. He hears their cry—and leprosy to pass away from

though He does not cause the them the instant they address Him, yet He orders it so, that before they can reach the priests, whose business I have said it was to pronounce on the cure, they were healed. But, out of the whole ten, there was but one that had the grace to go back to Jesus and thank Him; the rest went their way, enjoying this vast benefit which His mercy had bestowed on them, and entirely forgetting from whence it flowed and to whom their gratitude was due. Our Lord, though it does not appear that He actually punished this their sin at the moment, yet showed that He was not blind

"Were there not

to it showed how much He resented it. ten cleansed?" said He,—did not ten men owe me thanks? "Where then are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger." He does not, it seems, dispense His blessings without reckoning them, what they are and to whom they are vouchsafed, whatever the parties themselves may do-whether they remember or forget; and He does not keep the reckoning without some purpose of eventually settling it.

We have here then a very remarkable example of a very common sin-the sin of unthankfulness; and I think we may not employ our time ill this morning if we make it the subject of our consideration.

How alive were these lepers to their affliction and their wants! How dead were they to the relief which was rendered them! To tell their distresses they were on the alert waylaid Jesus, of whose coming they had no doubt heard-met Him-did not wait for Him to come to them, but went to Him first-did not tarry till He should go forth from the village, but met Him as He entered it-did not allow their importunity to escape Him, by any doubtful application for help, but "lifted up their voices and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us"-crying to Him aloud : the whole scene, I say, showing that they were fully impressed with the sense of their wants and sufferings, and most desirous of impressing Jesus with the same. There was no harm in all this, provided what followed had been according to this beginning. But they are healed: Jesus listens to them-feels the greatness of their needstretches forth a helping hand and how is the boon received? Surely persons who were so earnest in describing their wants, will be equally earnest in acknowledging the relief which was afforded them. If the feeling of their

sufferings was so keen, surely that of their gratitude for the abatement of them would be equally so. But no! it seemed after they had got it, as if they thought it a right — as if nothing had been done for them to which they had not a strict claim; and they go away, all of them save one, with no more consideration for their Benefactor, with no more disposition to give Him thanks, than if they had not profited by Him at all. They had got what they wanted out of Him for the time, and that was enough; and probably if the leprosy should return on them, they would be inclined to meet Him again at the entrance of the village, and lift up their voices again as before, and take no further heed of Him or His goodness to them.

It is difficult to say what were the feelings that governed these thankless lepers. Perhaps they were so entirely occupied with their own distresses, that they had got a habit of thinking of themselves only; and so forgot another, though it was from Him that their help came. Perhaps they thought it some trouble to go back to Jesus to return Him their thanks; and as nothing further was to be got by it (for they were cured), were content to spare themselves the walk. Perhaps they were proud, and did not find themselves disposed to fall down at His feet and give Him thanks. Perhaps they thought He might have done more for them than merely cure them, if such had been His pleasure; and that if He had fed them and clothed them and provided for them the rest of their days, there would have been better reason for expressing to Him their gratitude. Perhaps they thought that the cure did not cost Him much; and that indeed they had well earned it by the trouble they had been put to themselves in seeking it-waylaying Him, meeting Him, crying to Him, and afterwards going to the priests in obedience to His command. They might feel, like Naaman,