Analysis of Homily the Fifty-third.

"What mean ye, that ye use this proverb concerning the land of Israel, saying, The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge? As I live, saith the Lord God, ye shall not have occasion any more to use this proverb in Israel."-Ezek. xviii. 2, 3.

SUBJECT:-The Entail of Suffering.

THE present world is to the majority a scene of affliction. "Man is born to trouble." To some it is a scene of complicated, protracted, and aggravated suffering. Our ability to bear the ills of life depends not so much on their intrinsic severity as on the circumstances of their origin. Self-inflicted ills are the most grevious to be borne. Here remorse combines with anguish, murmuring is forbidden, and the spirit cannot relieve itself in complaint. With less difficulty do we bear even greater evils when they have not originated with ourselves. A consciousness of comparative innocence sustains us, or we may even come to regard ourselves as martyrs to the injustice of men, or the arrangements of the supreme Ruler. This was the case of the Jews: they were in captivity, whither they had been carried for the sins of their ancestors. This reference of their sufferings was SO frequent that it embodied itself in a proverb. "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge."

There was little that was peculiar in the case of the Jews, or in the reference of their sufferings, which they were in the habit of making. Men still suffer in a similar way, and not unfrequently attempt to relieve themselves by a similar reference. We may, therefore, remark—

I. THAT THE FACT IS INDISPUTABLE. Men are liable to an entail of suffering. The Divine law asserts it :—“I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation," &c. (Exod. xx. 5.) Compare with this the awful malediction

of Christ ::-"That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth." (Matt. xxiii. 35.) The teachings of sacred scripture harmonize entirely with those of experience on this point. No man can doubt this. Not so surely will a father's inheritance descend to his sons as his physical characteristics. These are reproduced from generation to generation in long succession. Hence hereditary diseases. How many

of these were originally the result of violations of the Divine laws, natural or moral, needs not to be shown. Thus it is that the sins of one generation are so often seen to descend, in sufferings, upon another. The vice of an ancestor may entail evils on his descendants which the piety of generations may not wholly eradicate, and which the impiety of succeeding generations may only enhance and perpetuate to an indefinite extent. Thus the drunkard poisons the health of even his temperate son, just as the profuse reduces the social status, perhaps irremediably, of his frugal and industrious children.

And so mysterious are the relations which bind together succeeding generations, that, in many cases, both the mental and moral characteristics are seen to be transmitted. The evil tempers we have indulged reappear in our offspring to torture them and when they are evil, it may be said, "The fathers have eaten sour grapes," &c. So far the proverb was characterized by truth, but the manner in which it was employed intimates that the procedure was deemed unjust. We observe, therefore

II. THE PROCEDURE MAY BE VINDICATED. The entail complained of is the result of the Divine government; and, as in all other instances, so in the present, that government may be shown to be both just and beneficial.

We may confidently assert that this procedure cannot be shown to be unjust. Man is a sinner. "We are a seed of evil-doers; children that are corrupters."

We are therefore

liable to punishment. Punishment is inflicted, indeed, in but

a mitigated form, for we are yet in a state of probation, but there are to be seen, in the evils which overtake us, abundant proofs of the Divine displeasure against sin.

The only question, therefore, which, as sinners, we have a right to entertain, respects the degree of our punishment. Does our punishment, in the entailed evils of which we have spoken, surpass our guilt? If not, we have no right to complain. In what manner the punishment shall be inflicted it belongs not to us to dictate: this is a question for the Judge alone to decide. If it shall seem right to Him to institute an economy such as the text specifies, and that economy does not bear on us with greater severity than our sins have deserved, nor so great, it is liable to no objection whatever on the score of injustice. The fathers have eaten, and we have eaten, the sour grape; hence the painful result. But this procedure may be vindicated, moreover, by a reference to its adaptation to the great end of God's moral government of mankind. That end may be simply stated to be the repression of moral evil. To secure this end, he appeals to us in every possible form, and by every conceivable motive. By an arrangement which entails, in part, the bitter fruits of our own sins upon our offspring, he appeals to our tenderest sentiments. Who are dearer to us than our children? What motive more influential upon us than their good? What more likely to deter a man from vicious indulgence than the thought that it may taint the blood, paralyze the limbs, and cloud the skies, of those who ought to inherit the reward and perpetuate the blessing of his own virtues? And what more humiliating to a parent than to see the very faults which have disgraced and plagued himself reproduced in the children of his fondest love? Hence we may learn the tendency of this law of the Divine government, and see that it admits of the most complete vindication. We may expect, therefore

III. THAT THE USE OF THE PROVERB SHALL CEASE; not that Jehovah shall ever repeal this law, but that the consis

tency of it with moral perfection being perceived, men shall cease to urge that which shall afford them neither excuse nor ground of complaint.

1. An acquaintance with the rules which guide the Divine judgment of transgressors shall prevent men from using this proverb. Let the whole chapter be carefully studied by any who may have hitherto doubted the equity of the Divine procedure. No man dies, no man suffers, but for his own iniquity, by what channel soever the penal visitation may overtake him.

2. The common relation which all men sustain to Him may well prevent us from attributing iniquity to Him. "Behold, all souls are mine," &c. The Bible teaches us how intimate and loving is that tie that binds us all, and all alike, unto God. None shall suffer without just cause. No weak partialities characterize Jehovah in his relation to the children of men. The Bible enables us to understand this truth; and when it is understood, all complaints will be for ever hushed. When will men "know and believe the love God has to them?"

3. The true spirit of penitence which a knowledge of his equity and his love excites shall, in a similar manner, acquit Him. A deep sense of sin, and true contrition on account of it, will not suffer men to cavil against God: then they meekly "accept the punishment of their iniquity." They have sinned. This thought abases them in the dust before his feet. He has not destroyed them. His long-suffering and grace elevate Him in their esteem, far above the region of contradiction or complaint, to the highest pinnacle of glory. Whatever they understand they admire, and whatever they do not understand they are willing to believe admits of an interpretation honourable to Himself.

4. If any darkness yet seem to hover around these truths, the dawn of the last day shall assuredly dispel it; and friends and foes shall then unite the former joyfully, the latter inevitably-in the confession, that " The ways of the Lord are equal,"

Let us not, however, be occupied, solely by the argument, nor satisfied with the conclusion to which it has brought us. How dreadful oftentimes is truth! 66 Every man shall die for his own iniquity. He that eateth the sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge." Personal experience of the deep and thrilling import of these terms awaits all of us who are estranged from God. Sinful pleasures are at best but sour grapes. How poor the pleasures, how sad the destiny, of the sinner! G.

Analysis of Homily the Fifty-fourth.

"Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart," &c.— Acts ii. 37.

SUBJECT:-Mental Stages to Conversion.

THERE are three stages through which the mind of these people passed, and through which all must pass, in order to reach conversion:-First. They heard gospel truths. What did they hear? (1) That the last days, foretold by Joel, had commenced (ver. 16-21). These days will be distinguished by three things-the outpouring of the spirit, new mental phenomena, and the commencement of a series of events that would go on until the “notable day.” (2) That the events of these last days take place under the direction of Christ (ver. 33). (3) That this Christ, who has now the universe under his control, they had crucified. "Now when they heard this," &c. Second. They felt compunctive emotions. "They were pricked -pierced through-in their heart." The sense of injustice, ingratitude, and impiety, pierced them. Third. They started a new question: "What shall we do?" Three things are here implied:-(1) A sense of peril; (2) a belief that something was necessary to be done; (3) a readiness to do whatever was necessary. Every man, to be converted, must pass through these stages. He must hear gospel truths, these must produce compunctive emotions, and these emotions must produce this question.