It was quite right to flee with them, it was right to cleave to them; for if not, you would certainly be hardened; if you stand out such moving invitations, nothing else will persuade you. If it was right to flee, it is right to flee still. Why should you look back? They are going to be blessed, and will you not go with them? They are fleeing from wrath, and will you not flee with them? "Remember Lot's wife." Have you made up your mind to separate eternally? If not, why then have you let them go? Why have you given up the first good movement in your breast? Flee still, cleave to them, and say: "We will go with you."

III. Some are laid hold of by God, and made to flee, who yet look back, and are lost.

So it was with Lot's wife. Not only were natural means made use of to make her flee, but supernatural means also. Not only was she moved by sudden terror, and by the example of her husband, but she was drawn out by the angels: "And while he lingered, the men laid hold upon his hand, and upon the hand of his wife, and upon the hand of his two daughters; the Lord being merciful unto him: and they brought him forth, and set him without the city."-Verse 16. She shared in the same divine help as her husband, God was merciful to her as he was to her husband. The same mighty hand was put forth to save her, and actually plucked her as a brand out of the burning; but, observe, the same hand did not pull her into Zoar, nor lift her away to the cave of the mountain. Grace did something for her, but did not do everything. She looked back, and became a pillar of salt.

So is it, we fear, with some among us. Some seem to be laid hold of by God, and made to flee, who yet look back, and are lost. Now, there are a great many among us of whom we have no right to say or to think that they have ever been laid hold of by God.

1. There are many among us who seem to live in utter ignorance of their lost condition, who plead the innocence of their lives even when Death is laying his cold hand upon them. There are some poor souls who seem to die willing to be judged by the law. I have lived a decent life, they will say; I have been a harmless, quiet-living man; and I can see no reason why the wrath of the great God should ever come upon me. Oh! brethren, if this is your case, it is very plain that you have never had a divine awakening. The power of God alone could awaken you to flee.

2. There are many among us who live in the daily practice of sins, some who carry on small dishonesties, or occasionally use small minced oaths, who walk in the counsel of the ungodly. O brethren! if this be your case, it is quite plain that you have never had a divine awakening. When a man is made anxious about his soul, he always puts away his open sins.

3. There are many among us who live much in the neglect of the means of grace; some who very seldom read the Bible when

alone, or never but on Sabbath-days; some who do not pay regularly, nor with any earnestness; some who are very careless about the house of God, contented if they attend it only once on the Sabbath-day; who make no conscience of being up betimes, and ready for the house of God in the morning; who allow the silliest excuses to keep them away; who loiter about on the Sabbath-day; who devote it to most unhallowed visiting, or walking in the fields; making it the most unholy day in the week. Oh! dear souls, if this be your case, then it is quite plain you have never been laid hold on by God. You are as dead and unawakened as the stones you walk upon. You are living in the very heart of Sodom, and the wrath of God abideth on you.

But there are some among us of whom we think that they have been laid hold on by God, and made to flee. There are some who show evident marks that God has been making them flee out of Sodom. The marks are these:

1. They have a deep sense of their lost condition; they have an abiding conviction that the time past of their lives has been spent under the wrath of the great God that made them; their concern goes with them wherever they go; and anxiety is painted on their very countenance. Is this your condition? Then you have indeed been awakened by God.

2. They dare not go back to their open sins; they break off quite suddenly from their little dishonesties, their swearing, or evilspeaking; they separate from their wicked companions and filthy conversation; they feel that death is in the cup, and they dare not drink it any longer. Is this your case? Then there is reason to think you have been awakened by God.

3. They are anxious users of the means of grace. They search the Scriptures night and day; they pray with earnestness; they are unwearied in waiting on ordinances; suffer no trifle to keep them away from the house of God; they seek for the Saviour as for hid treasure; listen for his name, as the criminal for the sound of pardon. Is this your case? Then it seems likely that God has been merciful to your soul; that God has been making you flee out of Sodom, and escape for your life.

But the text shows me that many who have been thus awakened look back, and are lost. "Remember Lot's wife." She was brought quite out of Sodom, and yet she looked back, and became a pillar of salt. She was awakened, yet never saved. Now, there is reason to fear this may be the case with some amongst us. (1.) Some awakened souls begin to despair of ever finding Christ. They begin to blame God for not having brought them into peace before now; and so they give up striving to enter in at the strait gate-they look behind, and are lost. (2.) Some awakened souls begin to think themselves saved already. They have put away many outward sins, and prayed with much earnestness. Their friends observe the change, and they think they

are surely safe now, that there is no need of fleeing any further; so they look behind, and become a pillar of salt. (3.) Some awakened souls begin to tire of the pains of seeking Christ. They remember their former ease and pleasures, their companions, their walks, their merry-makings; so they look behind and perish.

Speak a word to awakened souls.-Some now hearing me may be at present under the awakening hand of God. You have deep convictions of your lost condition, you have put away outward sins, and wait earnestly on every means of grace; there is every reason to think that God has been merciful to you, and has laid hold upon you. "Remember Lot's wife."

Learn from her, (1.) That you are not saved yet. Lot's wife fled out of Sodom, led by the angels' hand, and yet she was lost. An awakened soul is not a saved soul. You are not saved till God shut you into Christ. It is not enough that you flee-you must flee into Christ. Oh! do not lie down and slumber. Oh! do not look behind you. "Remember Lot's wife." (2.) That God is no ways obliged to bring you into Christ. God has made but one covenant; that is, with Christ and all in him; but he has nowhere bound himself to men that are out of Christ. He may never bring you to Christ, and yet be a just and righteous God. Do not demand it of God, then, as if he were obliged to save you, but lie helpless at his feet as a sovereign God.

Speak a word to those who are beginning to look back.-There is reason to think that some who were once awakened by God have begun to look back. (1.) Some of you have begun to lose a sense of your wretched and lost condition. Some of you have quite another view of your state from what you had. (2.) Some of you have gone back to old sins, to old habits, especially of keeping company with the ungodly; and some, there is reason to think, are trying to laugh at their former fears. (3.) Some of you have turned more careless of the Bible, and of prayer, and of the ordinances. At last sacrament there were many very eager to hear of Christ; and where are they now? There is reason to fear that much of that concern is gone, that many have lost their anxiety, that some are looking back.

Now, "remember Lot's wife." (1.) It will not save you, that you were once anxious; nay, that you were made anxious by God. So was Lot's wife, and yet she was lost. (2.) If you really look back, it is probable you never will be awakened again. Consider that monument of vengeance on the Plain of Jordan; speak to her, she does not hear; cry, she does not regard you; urge her to flee again from wrath, she does not move; she is dead. So will it be with you. If you really turn back now, we may speak, but you will not hear; we may cry, but you will not regard; we may urge you again to flee, but you will not move. "If any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him."

"No man,

having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.

St. Peter's, 1837.

SERMON LXIII.

HAPPY ART THOU, O ISRAEL!

"Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency? and thine enemies shall be found liars unto thee; and thou shalt tread upon their high places."— Deut. xxxiii., 29.

THESE are the last words of Moses, the man of God. He was now an hundred and twenty years old; his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated. For forty years he had led the people through the wilderness; he had cared for them, and prayed for them, and led them as a shepherd leads his flock; and now, when God had told him that he must part from them, he determined to part from them blessing them. And in this respect, as in many others, did he foreshadow the Saviour, of whom it is written, that "he led his disciples out as far as Bethany, and he lifted up his hands and blessed them; and it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven."

First of all, we may understand these words literally as the blessing of Moses upon the people of Israel. He looked back over the wilderness through which he had led them, and it was all brilliantly studded with the wondrous things which God had wrought for them. He remembered the high hand and outstretched arm with which he had brought them out of Egypt; he remembered how he clave a path for them through the Red Sea, when their enemies sank like lead in the mighty waters; he remembered how he went before them in a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night; he remembered how he had sweetened the waters of Marah, for they were bitter; he remembered how he had fed them with manna from on high: man did eat angels' food. He remembered how he had smitten the rock at Rephidim, and waters gushed forth; how he had held up his hands to the going down of the sun, and Israel prevailed over Amalek; how he had received the law from the very hand of God for them. He remembered how he had again brought water from the flinty rock at Meribah; how he had lifted up the brazen serpent in the wilderness; and, looking back over all this track of forty years' wonders, during which their garments had not waxed old, neither had the sole of their foot swelled, how could he but put a bless

ing upon them? He felt as Balaam did: "Blessed is he that blesseth thee, and cursed is he that curseth thee." And accordingly, when he had gone over each of the tribes separately, leaving each his prophetic blessing, he sums up the whole in these glorious words: "Who is like unto the God of Jeshurun ?"

But, secondly, these words may be understood typically as the blessing of Moses upon God's people to the end of time. No man can read the Old Testament intelligently without seeing that the people of Israel were a typical people; that the choosing of them out of Egypt, the bringing them through the Red Sea, and through the wilderness and into the land of promise, were all typical of the way in which God brings his chosen ones out of their sins, through this world of sin and misery, into the heavenly Canaanthe rest that remaineth for the people of God. If, then, the bondage, the deliverance, the unbelief, the enemies, the journeyings, the guidance, and the rest of the Israelites, were all typical of God's dealings with his own people to the end of time, we are quite justified in understanding these words as the blessing of Moses, the man of God, upon all the true children of God.

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Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency! and thine enemics shall be found liars unto thee; and thou shalt tread upon their high places." From these words I draw the following

Doctrine. That the people of God are a happy people, because they are saved by the Lord.

I. Israel is a happy people, because chosen by the Lord.

1. This was true of ancient Israel.-Moses tells them plainly: "The Lord did not set his love upon you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: but because the Lord loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers."--Deut. vii., 7. Here is a strange thing which the world cannot understand. He loved them because he loved them, not because they were better, or greater, or worthier than any other nation, but because he loved them. Strange, sovereign, unaccountable love! He gives no account of his matters; so, then, "it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy."

2. This is true of all God's people to this day.--David says, "Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causest to approach unto thee." Christ says, "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you." And Paul says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritua! blessings in heavenly places in Christ; according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love." Ah! yes, my friends, our God is a sovereign God: "Therefore hath he