frivolous, the unearnest, the unbelieving, the envious, who laugh down what they call enthusiasm and romance; who delight in finding fault, and in blackening those who seem purer or nobler than themselves.  These are the men who cannot by any possibility learn anything of the law of God; for they will not even look for it.  They have cast away the likeness of rational men, and have taken upon themselves the likeness of the sneering accusing Satan, who asks in the book of Job—­“Doth Job serve God for nought?” When the greatest poet of our days tried to picture his idea of a fiend tempting a man to his ruin, he gave his fiend just such a character as this; a very clever, courteous, agreeable man of the world, and yet a being who could not love any one, could not believe in any one; who mocked not only at man but at God and tempted and ruined man, not out of hatred to him, hardly out of envy; but in mere sport, as a cruel child may torment an insect;—­in one word, a scorner.  And so true was his conception felt to be, that men of that character are now often called by the very name which he gave to his Satan—­Mephistopheles.  Beware therefore of the scornful spirit, as well as of the openly sinful or of the ungodly.  If you wish to learn the law of the Lord, keep your souls pious, pure, reverent, and earnest; for it is only the pure in heart who shall see God; and only those who do God’s will as far as they know it, who will know concerning any doctrine whether it be true or false; in one word, whether it be of God.

And now bear in mind secondly, that this law is the law of the Lord.  You cannot have a law without a lawgiver who makes the law, and also without a judge who enforces the law; and the lawgiver and the judge of the law of the Lord is the Lord Himself, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Remembering Him, and that He is King, we can understand the fervour of indignation and pity, with which the writer of the 2nd Psalm bursts out—­“Why do the heathen rage, and why do the people imagine a vain thing?  The kings of the earth stand up, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against His Anointed—­

“Let us break their bonds asunder and cast away their cords from us.”

For the great majority of mankind, in every age and country, will not believe that there is a Law of the Lord, to which they must conform themselves.  Kings, and governments, and peoples, are too often all alike in that.  They must needs have their own way.  Their will is to be law.  Their voice is to be the voice of God.  They are they who ought to speak; who is Lord over them?  And because the Lord is patient and long-suffering, and does not punish their presumption on the spot by lightning or earthquake, they fancy that He takes no notice of them, and of their crimes and follies; and say—­“Tush, shall God perceive it?  Is there knowledge in the most High?” But sooner or later, either by sudden and terrible catastrophes, or by slow decay, brought on sometimes by their own blind presumption, sometimes by their own luxury, they find out their mistake when it is too late.  And then—­