cerns of beings so minute and insignificant as men who think death is far off, because they have as yet only lived; who love and hate, forgive and revenge, bless and curse according to the impulse of the

moment.

If they believed the word of GOD which they have heard and may hear, they would at all events not be doers of such things. I have left out many other particulars, being too plain to read or mention, even to the people of the world all our workers of iniquity are hearers and not doers.

Well, on their house too, which they have built on the sand, the rains have descended, the floods have come and the winds blown it fell, says the LORD, and great was the fall of it. Just so the daily sight of the world shows us the case of the foolish man, the hearer and not doer, to be. His foundation is as sand, namely the slippery, unstable, ever-changing hopes of this world. At one time he hopes certain enjoyment from one scheme, at another from another; the storm rises and scatters both to the winds. Yes; his

house falls, and great is the fall of it. The blighted hopes of a worldly man admit of no repair; his time is lost, his labour cannot be recovered, his very capacity for enjoyment has perhaps left him: all is buried in the ruins of his foolish house on the sand.

And when we carry our thoughts a step higher, and consider that our LORD plainly meant us to understand this parable in its highest sense as a type of the reward and punishment of the future world, answering to the wisdom or the folly of our building on the rock of CHRIST, or the sand of sin in this; we read with a very mournful heart the emphatic summary which he gave of all this teaching, "great was the fall of it." How great is known to the ALMIGHTY only who could reveal the fact that it was and will be great.

I would, in conclusion, especially draw your attention to the circumstance that our LORD places this awful warning last of all in His discourse. He has given before in it precepts and exhortations,

and inducements to serve HIM, and promises of support and of comfort in so doing. He reserved, it would seem, to the last, the awakening truth on which we have been looking, as if foreseeing that, after all, many must be brought to HIM first by the terror of His wrath; and as if warning us to perpetual watchfulness, lest at any time we should be surprised by a storm with our foundation dilapidated, and unable to resist.

be

Practical indeed is this teaching; practical for us all, for doctrine, for reproof, for exhortation, as the Apostle afterwards said. of Scripture. The best instructed Christian may learn something, and receive some of the benefit of exhortation, from the contemplation of the parable: he may put in mind of what he has to expect and how vigilant he need be, and what will be his reward. The foolish man who is still toiling fruitlessly on in the sand, may see his danger and place his house elsewhere before the storm comes, may yet be roused to seek safety on the rock of CHRIST. May our houses be found so

placed, when the rains descend and the winds blow and the floods come. May each be able to say, now and for ever, "It fell not, for it was founded on a rock."

SERMON IV.

FOLLY.

PSALM liii. 8.

The foolish body hath said in his heart, There is no God.

IN common life we well know what is meant when we hear a person called a foolish body. We understand at once that he has either said or done something which is unbefitting a prudent man. It is thus that men are spoken of who ruin their worldly fortunes by misconduct, or make themselves ridiculous. No one has any doubt about the matter if a man has said or done certain things, and we therefore find that friends usually defend him, not by denying that what he has said or done is foolish, but by showing that circumstances make his fault more excusable than in the case of others. Worldly folly