Guilt and consequences of it.

Lukewarm Christians.

coming and profaning what he has made sacred. The institution was designed to have a deep meaning, and to produce a powerful effect. By coming without examination, and without preparation of heart, and without a desire for the spiritual blessings it is designed to procure, we are doing all we can to degrade what God has elevated, to destroy its character and power, and its spiritual influence, and to bring it to contempt.

I need not repeat the language in which God has threatened those who eat and drink unworthily. It would be plain, if such language had not been used, that God must consider the intrusion of worldliness and sin, into the places which he had endeavored to make sacred, as an offence of the highest character. The prosperity of his kingdom, in this world, depends more upon the purity of his church, and the elevation of its standard of piety, than upon any thing else; and throughout the whole of the New Testament, no design is more apparent, or more earnestly pursued, than that of separating his friends, by a clear line of demarcation, from his enemies, and keeping his church pure. The worldly Christians, or rather the worldly professors of religion, crowd around this line, and obliterate all its distinctness. They allure many a sincere follower to it, who would otherwise keep away, and thus they are thwarting, most directly and most effectually, the progress of the Savior's kingdom. If all the cold and worldly and indifferent professors of religion could be exchanged, each for ten boisterous and inveterate enemies, piety might proclaim a jubilee at the brightening prospects of her cause.

But what shall we do, perhaps some one may ask, if we find, when the time of the communion season arrives, that our hearts are not in the right state, shall we stay away?—I have nothing to say about staying away. What you had better do, if you are a professing Christian, and will not give up the world and sin, when the

The sad alternative.

The Savior's farewell Hymn.

time arrives for renewing your solemn consecration of yourself to your Maker's service, I do not know. It is a sad alternative, if you are fixed upon it, either to disobey Christ's command altogether, or to comply hypocritically. I am sure I cannot tell you which to choose. One thing however is certain, that if you had any adequate ideas of your obligations and your accountability, - if you felt at all what it is to go into the very presence of the Savior, and among his best friends,— yourself a secret enemy; if, in a word, you could see the solemn ceremony which he instituted as he sees it, you would be afraid to go and be the Judas there.

'And when they had sung an hymn they went out into the Mount of Olives." The Savior and his disciples stood around their table and sang an hymn. It was the Redeemer's last public act, his final farewell. He had presided over many an assembly, guiding their devotions or explaining to them the principles of religion. Sometimes the thronging multitudes had gathered around him on the sea shore; sometimes they had crowded into a private dwelling, and sometimes he sat in the synagogue, and explained the law. But the last moment had come; he was presiding in the last assembly, which, by his mortal powers, he should ever address, and when the hour for separation came, the last tones in which his voice uttered itself, were heard in song.

What could have been their hymn? Its sentiments and feelings, they who can appreciate the occasion, may perhaps conceive, but what were its words? Beloved disciple, why didst thou not record them? They should have been sung in every nation, and language and clime. We would have fixed them in our hearts, and taught them to our children, and when we came together, to commemorate our Redeemer's sufferings, we would never have separated without singing his parting hymn.

Dramatic interest of the narrative of the crucifixion.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE CRUCIFIERS.

"The Lord looketh on the heart."

An instance of as high dramatic beauty and interest as the Bible furnishes, is to be found in the arrangement of the circumstances connected with the great final scene which it portrays. Fiction could not have arranged these circumstances with more admirable adaptation to the production of effect, and yet nature and truth had never more complete, or more evident control. Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the picture, is the number of distinct and strongly marked characters which appear as actors. Here is irreligion in all the variety of its forms. Hostility to God sends its representatives in all the leading shapes which it assumes, to exhibit themselves conspicuously here, in the view of all the world.

This was intended for our instruction. Characters portrayed in the New Testament are portrayed for the purpose of throwing light upon duty, or upon the nature and tendencies of sin; but we shield ourselves from all influence in this case, on account of the enormity of the consequences which resulted. No man thinks of comparing himself with Pontius Pilate; and Christians, though they often quote the example of Peter, seldom think that they have been guilty of his sin. The enormity of the crime, to which sin, in this case, led, has invested the whole transaction with such a character, as, in the view of men, to place it entirely beyond the region of reproof and warning to them. One great design, unquestionably, in a'lowing this scene to be acted, was to let the whole human family see, what disastrous effects would be produced, in peculiar circumstances, by very common sins.

Its moral effect often lost.

Three stages of guilt.

We evade the intended effect altogether, by setting the whole transaction aside;-disconnecting it from all ordinary exhibitions of human nature, on account of the extraordinariness of the effects, when we ought to unite it with them, on account of the commonness of the cause; and thus, though there are unquestionably thousands even in the Christian church, and in fair standing, who are habitually governed by the principles of Judas Iscariot, there is not one in the Christian world, so degraded and so abandoned, that he would not resent being called by his name.

This is owing to wrong ideas of the nature of guilt, as it is recognised by God's law; and we shall here devote a few paragraphs to this subject, both because it is of general importance to the young Christian to have clear ideas respecting it, and because a right understanding of it is absolutely essential to enable us to receive the proper moral lessons taught us by the narrative of the crucifixion of the Savior.

Guilt then, as it generally exhibits itself in this world, exists in three stages, proceeding regularly from the first to its consummation in the last. These stages are more or less distinctly marked in all the various cases which occur. We may however take as a convenient instance for illustration, the sin of Joseph's brethren in selling him as a slave. Let us look a few moments at this case.

The first stage of their guilt consists in the indulgence of envious and malignant feelings. They were the feelings which ultimately led to the commission of the crime. It is said " they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him," and when he innocently told them his dream, they said, "shalt thou indeed reign over us?' and they hated him yet the more for his words. Here now

Here

is guilt, but it is the guilt of feeling, not of conduct. are no overt acts of violence or of unkindness,—not even any plans or determinations to commit such acts.

It is

First stage; guilty feeling.

Second stage; guilty intentions.

the heart alone which has gone astray. They are filled with feelings of envy and hatred towards their brother, and though, as is very often the case at the present day, when a heart is filled with hateful passions, the prow might have been smooth, and the conduct right, and even though the tone of voice had been gentle and kind, and not a glance of the eye had betrayed the hidden anger, still, on the principles of God's law, they had committed great sin. It was not the sin of action, nor of intention; but of the heart.

The second stage of their guilt consists in their plans and determinations. They began to form the design to do some violence to their brother. This stage, which it will be readily perceived, is distinct from the other, and decidedly in advance of it, is described in the following words.

"When they saw him coming they conspired against him to slay him. They said one to another, Behold this dreamer cometh. Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say some evil beast hath devoured him, and we shall see what will become of his dreams!"

This is plainly a distinct stage from the other, and in advance of it. A man may cherish revengeful and malignant thoughts, and yet never intend to carry them forward into action. There are a thousand considerations of policy which tend to restrain him. There is the voice of public opinion, the fear of punishment, the dread of remorse; and while he hates his brother, and cordially wishes him injury, his hand may be held back by the thousand circumstances of restraint, with which a kind Providence has hemmed him in. By and by, however, the rising, swelling flood of wicked emotion breaks its barriers. He prepares himself for the execution of deeds of iniquity His mind passes from the mere indulgence of the wicked feeling itself, to the altogether different state, of deliber