the moment his garment was touched by the believing and humble sufferer, in that moment "the fountain of her blood was dried up.

In this transaction there are some points which deserve attention, and are calculated to excite salutary and awakening reflections upon our own conduct.

I. The first circumstance which we may notice, is the extreme eagerness and anxiety of this woman to be relieved from her disease.

Emaciated and exhausted as she had been by a lingering disorder, her strength perhaps, would have appeared on ordinary occasions, scarcely equal to the support of her feeble frame. Were we to meet with such a person walking alone and unassisted, our commiseration would be excited. Were we to find her in a crowd, where all were struggling to a certain point, we should expect to see her overcome by the pressure, or even by her own agitation and alarm. But not so the woman whose case we are considering. Feeble as she may be she finds means, not only to sustain the pressure of the crowd, but to force her way to the very centre. Every nerve is exerted, every sinew strained. Hope and eagerness lend her momentary and preternatural vigour. She sees before her him from whom

only deliverance can be expected. She struggles to reach him with all her soul, and with all her strength.

This is perfectly natural; this is what was to be expected. It is what would be done by every person in her situation, and with her belief in our Saviour's power. Who would not exert himself to the utmost; stretch every sinew, and strive with more than ordinary energy to be delivered from a tormenting malady? Let them who have suffered, or are suffering from any wasting disorder. Let them answer the question! What is there in their power which they would not do, to be restored in a moment to health and strength? We know they would, as the woman before us, let nothing deter or repel them from their deliverer. An abhorrence of evil is a natural instinct. It is a principle implanted in us all, and doubtlessly implanted for the best and wisest purposes. But we are inconsistent and irrational, in the application of this principle. While we are actuated by the most intense and immoderate solicitude to escape some evils, we submit to others, of far greater magnitude, with a most culpable apathy and a most irrational indifference.

The slightest symptoms of illness are usually watched with the most jealous vigilance. A

wasting disorder is borne with the utmost impatience and anxiety. Every mode of cure or palliation is eagerly sought.

a

But there is one malady respecting which, frequently, no such anxiety and impatience prevails; a malady too, the most treacherous, the most fatal, the most destructive that can be named; a malady, which is indeed " sickness unto death." This malady is SIN; the malady not of the body, but of the soul; the malady, which, while it often saps the foundations and dries up the springs of this mortal life; will, (if not closely watched and promptly remedied,) inevitably deprive us of our immortal life; or at least, will render that life a curse, instead of a blessing; will cleave to us like an everlasting leprosy, and will mark us for objects of enduring detestation, and of enduring misery.

Yet, with how little solicitude is this baneful pest regarded! And at the same time, how necessary to our welfare, how essential is it to our safety, that we should incessantly watch it. It is a progressive malady; it steals upon us. The more its pestilential

venom operates on the soul, the more it commonly intoxicates its victim, and renders him insensible to his danger. Every day's, every hour's delay increases the peril of his situation.

The infection often creeps upon the infatuated wretch, till, (though roused to a sense of his danger,) he becomes incapable of attempting his deliverance. The poison has overpowered his spiritual energies, and, to him, as to the Israelites, (when stung by serpents in the wilderness) the symbol of health and salvation "lifted up," is of no avail. He has lost the power and the desire of looking up to it; his spiritual faculties are benumbed in a deadly torpor; his mental sight dimmed and obscured by the mists of error, and by that fatal darkness, which is the harbinger of eternal death.

How necessary, therefore, is it, that we should watch this malady. Every day we should watch it; every day we should be anxious, eager to apply all the remedies within our reach.

Yet how few, comparatively speaking, how very few, who are infected with sin, are seen to labour with all their soul, and all their strength to be delivered from it. How few evince all the eagerness and impatience of a sufferer anxious to escape from a dangerous malady. How few are seen striving to touch as it were, the hem of Christ's garment; solicitous to take hold of the blessed “hope of

e John iii. 14.

everlasting salvation;" to cast themselves upon his mercy; and to seek health and strength from the "Sun of righteousness," who hath arisen, “with healing in his wings"." How few, in a word, are as eager to be delivered from the malady of sin, as the woman was to be cured of the issue of blood.

say

This view of the subject presents to man, (in whom, though regenerate, "that infection doth remain,") points, which ought to excite him to close and diligent examination into the real state of his heart. For who is there, prepared to say before God, that he has no symptoms of this malady of the soul? Who will that he has no sin? His own conscience will contradict the dangerous fallacy. Or, if he will not attend to the testimony of his conscience, let him hearken to the warning of St. John. "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." But are we not virtually "deceiving ourselves," when, though we do not "say that we have no sin," we nevertheless feel no serious apprehensions as to its consequences? Is not this a self-deception? And do not the following questions tend to the development of a dangerous apathy in which we are too prone to be lulled?