to mind of previous happy relations. God is not ready to forsake his people with ~hom he made a covenant in the olden times. It may be the sa.me with the indi- vidual souls. There are mon who followed God in their childhood, perhaps learnin" to love him from a mother's teaching, and entering into solemn promises to liv~ for him in the hopeful days of youth. They may have forgotten those fair times of tho long-dead past. But God remembers them, and in his wonderful, endurin" love he delights to revive them, and therefore he calls his erring children back to th; forsaken paths. III. THE NEW COVENANT. 1. Its necessity. (1) On account of the failure of the former covenant. The old covenant being broken and having proved ineffectual, a new one must be instituted. (2) On account of the new needs of new times. The new wine must not be put into the old bottles. The Jewish Law which suited ancient Israel is not adapted to Christendom. 2. Its origin. It is based on the old covenant. God remembers that old covenant in granting a new one. The New Testament rests on the foundation of the Old Testament. Christ came to fulfil the Law by establishing the gospel (Matt. v. 17). The same Divine grace, which in its dawn shone through the earlier dispensation, in its noon glorifies the later one. 3. Its stability. It is to be an everlasting covenant. The old covenant was local, temporary, and fragile on the human side, though firm as adamant on God's side. The new covenant must have other characteristics to make it more enduring. (1) It is an inward, spiritual princip'/6 (Jer. xxxi. 33). (2) It is sealed by the blood of Christ (l Cor. xi. 25), is bound to the cross by his sacrifice and our love. Ver. 63.-0onfounded by memory. I. IT IS POSSIBLE TO BE CONFOUNDED BY MEMORY. 1. Memory of sin. We desire to forget our sin; but even if no recording angel wrote it down in the books of Divine judgment, the tooth of conscience would bite the memory of it into the very fibre of our hearts. We may succeed in drowning the hideous recollection for a time, but it seems to be proved that the forgotten past may be revived, and that all our life may be brought to mind in an awful flash of recollection, as in the experience of drowning men, or as we all find in the unexpected reminders of old associations suddenly encountered. When our hideous old sins thus glare upon our startled gaze, surely we must be confounded! 2. Memory of mercy. We may not note the favours of providence with which we a.re daily visited, and we may be accepting them with ingratitude and even abusing them with disobedience. But·some day the goodness of God in our past will rise up in memory and accuse our ill reception of it. 3. Memory of opportunity. When the day of service is past and the night wherein no man can work has fallen upon us, it will be useless to plead our lack of opportunity for following God. Many a warning voice, many an appealing invitation, many an open door, many a day of grace, will confront our guilty souls. 4. Memory of the lost. If we have not been true or kind to those near to us, we shall remember the wrong, when, alas! it is too late to make amends, and the recollection will be confounding. II. To BE CONFOUNDED BY MEMORY WILL BE A JUST PUNISHMENT. 1. It will be a punishment. Many consequences of sin may be met with a brazen face, but not this. We may even cherish the memory of our evil past with a bad affectionateness, but when it meets us to confound us, all our bravo.do will be killed, and nothing will remain but shame and anguish and remorse. 'fo be confounded means to have our career arrested, to be put to confusion, to be cast down in dismay, to make shipwreck of life. When we fully face the memory of our evil past, impeuitent and unpardoned, no Iese a result can follow. This sin is its own chastisement. The serpent of evil inflicts a deadly wound with its own fangs. There is no necessity for heavenly thunderbolts to dash the sinner to destruction. No demon tormentors need be summoned from Tartarus to torture his guilty soul. His own memory will strike him, his own thoughts will burn and tear and rack his miserable conscience. "Unnatural seeds do breed unnaturnl troubles." 2. This punishment will be Just. It will be the direct consequence of sin. '!'here can be no pretence that the accusation is false. No man can set up the plea of an alibi against the charges of his own memory. Here is a witness who cannot be upset by the most rigorous cross-examination, nor discredited by the bitterest opprobrium. Accused by his own memory, the sinner cannot but be 2PG TITE BOOK OF THE PROPHET EZEKIEL, [on. XVI. 1-63.
BpC'C'cbless. There is no oonceivable escape when the court of justice is a mau's own breast and when witnesses, judge, jury, and executioner are all found in his own thoughts. " To be left alone And fMe to face with my own crime, had been Juet retribution." (Longfellow.) These terrible thoughts are not written to drive us mad, but to urge us to amend- ment. When there is no door of escape from the awful chamber of solf-judgment tbe great necessity is to seek a new heart and a Divine pardon that we may never be "confounded by memory."