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Jesus Christ will take

of others thrown in his teeth. Better die than deny the Saviour! Better that we lie sick at home, covered with boils and blains, than that we go about the world grieving the Holy Spirit, and putting an evil word into the mouth of the ungodly. Follow after holiness, I charge you. You are not saved by works. We give no uncertain sound about that doctrine. We have told you, and we constantly do tell you, that you are only to be saved by the blood of Jesus; but, remember, Jesus came to save us from our sins. If we hug our sins, we cannot have Christ for our Saviour. Christ and you must part, unless you and your sins part. any sinner to heaven, but he will not take any sin to heaven. He will spare the sinner, but he will not spare his sin. If you want to spare your own sins, depend upon it you will lose your souls. Watch, I pray you, against what are called "little" sins. Remember, when thieves want to get into the house, if they cannot find a ready entrance they will often put a child through a little window, and then he opens the front or the back door. So a little sin will often open the door to a big sin. Watch, I pray you-watch against secret sins. We have heard of some who barred the door at night, and fastened the windows, but there was a thief under the bed. Mind that it is not so with you-some hidden evil-some secret lust. Watch, pray, resolve, but still come back to this, "Lord, help me; Lord, save me; Lord, keep me." The old ploughman whom I sometimes used to talk with before he went to heaven, said to me, "Depend upon it, if you and I get one inch above the ground, we shall get that inch too high." There is much truth in his plain remark. If we get any high

notions of what we are, we shall soon sink below what we should be. Lie low; aspire high; be nothing; take Christ to be your all in all; renounce self-confidence, and have faith in God. In this way you shall conquer sin. Your prayer shall be accepted, your resolution shall be carried out, the purpose of your heart shall be verified. "I will keep thy statutes." Amen, and

amen.

A Firebrand.

"Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?"-Zechariah iii. 2.

T may be well to explain these words, for, simple as they are, a few words of exposition may be useful to open up the metaphor, and enforce the thrilling truth that underlies it.

There is mention of a fire. A cry of "FIRE!" has something fearful in it. When a fire

begins to get the upper hand with us, it is terrible in its destructiveness. The fire here meant is more awful than any flame, that makes havoc of matter, and its devastations ten thousand times more appalling. It is the fire of sin. It blazed in the heart of an angel, and he became a devil. Its sparks fell into the bosom of mother Eve, and into the heart of father Adam, and paradise was burned up, and the world became a wilderness. Sin is a fire which destroys the comfort of mankind here, and all the joy of mankind hereafter. It is a flame which yields no comfortable warmth. The sinner may dance in the light of it for a moment, but in sorrow will he have to lie down in it for ever. Woe unto those who have to make their bed in this fire, to

dwell with these consuming flames for a term that knows no ending.

There is further mention of a brand. Nothing can be more suitable to burn in the fire than a brand. It is not a branch just taken from the tree, fresh and full of sap; it is a brand-dry, sere timber, fit for the burning; it is not a mass of stone or iron, but a combustible brand. And what does this indicate but man's natural heart, which is so congenial to the fire of sin? Our heart is like the tinder, and Satan has but to strike the spark, and how readily does the spark find a nest within our bosom! As the firebrand fits the fire, so does the sinner fit in with sin. When sin and the sinner come in contact, it is "Hail fellow, well met!" They are boon companions. The sinner's heart is the nest well prepared, and sins are the foul birds which come to nestle there. Not to go a step without a particular application, it will be well for us all to understand that we are ourselves like the brands; there is a fitness between us and sin; if we burn in the fire of sin it is no wonder; with our fallen nature, it is no greater marvel that we should be instigated by sin than that the firebrand should kindle in the flame.

It

Beyond the distinct allusion to a fire and a brand, we read of a brand in the fire. Nor is it merely a brand hitherto lying upon the heap, to be by-and-by put upon the flames; it is "a brand plucked out of the fire." has been in the fire. Does not this portray our condition-not only congenial for the fire of sin, but actually burning and blazing in it? We began very early. Disobedience to parents, angry tempers, petty falsehoods, many sorts of childish obstinacies and wrong

doings-all these were like the first catchings on fire of the brand. We have blazed away the reverse of merrily since then; some have become charred with sin, till their very bodies contain the marks of that tremendous fire, while in every case the soul receives a charring and blackening from the flame. Not one of us has been able, even with Godly training and Christian parentage, to escape from burning to some extent in this fire. Alas! alas! for those who are even now in it! What with the lusts of the flesh, or pride, or unbelief, or some other form of departing from the living God, how many are still like the firebrand, blazing and flashing in the flame!

There is a fair side to the picture. It is not altogether gloomy. While we have a fire, and a brand, and a brand in the fire, we also have, blessed be God! a brand plucked out of the fire. Sinners these, who though they have still within them the propensity to sin, are no longer in the fire of sin. They have been taken away from it. They sin through infirmity, but wilful sin they do not commit. Their nature has been changed. They have received the renewing grace of God. The fire that once burned within them has been quenched. They recollect, to their grief and sorrow, the mischief that sin did to them, but it is not doing them the same mischief now. They are delivered from the body of sin and death. They are, in short, rescued from that fire which once threatened their everlasting destruction. They are brands still, but they are brands no longer in the fire; they are out of the fire now.

Still, the force of the passage seems to lie in the words-"plucked out of." You may sit down on the

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