ee not, as yet, his worse fruits
of falsehood and profligacy. We know him by the sign of an increased,
and increasing selfishness, the everlasting cry of the thousand passions
of our nature, all for ever calling out, "Give, give;" all for ever
impatient, complaining, when their gratification is withheld, when the
call of duty is set before them. We know him by pride and
self-importance, as if nothing was so great as self, as if our own
opinions, judgment, feelings were to be consulted in all things. We know
him by the deep ungodliness which he occasions--no thought of God, much
less any love of him; living utterly without him in the world, or, at
least, whilst health and prosperity continue. These are the fatal signs
which show that the house is no longer empty; that the evil spirits have
entered in, and dwell there, to make it theirs, as too often happens,
for time and for eternity.

LECTURE XVI.

* * * * *

MATHEW xi. 10.

_I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way before
thee_.

If it was part of God's dispensation, that there should be one to
prepare the way before Christ's first coming, it may be expected much
more, that there should be some to prepare the way before his second.
And so it is expressed in the collect for the third Sunday in Advent: "O
Lord Jesus Christ, who at thy first coming didst send thy messenger to
prepare thy way before thee; grant that the ministers and stewards of
thy mysteries may likewise so prepare and make ready thy way, by turning
the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, that at thy
second coming to judge the world we may be found an acceptable people in
thy sight, who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit,
ever one God, world without end. Amen." NOW, in what does this preparing
for him consist; and what is its object? The Scripture will inform us as
to both. The object is, "Lest he come and smite the earth with a curse;"
lest, when he shall come, his coming, which should be our greatest joy
and happiness, should be our everlasting destruction; for there can
abide before him nothing that is evil. This is the object of preparing
for Christ's coming. Next, in what does the preparation consist? It
consists in teaching men to live above the common notions of their age
and country; to raise their standard higher; to live after what is right
in God's judgment, which often casts away, as faulty