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 the house of his friends, "Ah!" responds the complacent Christian, "thank God, this sin cannot be laid to our charge." But again we say, Let us see. What are these wounds in thine hands? Whose hands? The hands of the great Redeemer! What wounds? Why they are the wounds inflicted upon Him in the house of His friends.

The Lord has now ascended high above all heavens; He has taken to Himself his great power, and reigns; and now there is no power in heaven or in earth that can rise superior to His: how then can we inflict wounds on His Hands?

What is the house here referred to? It is called His friend's house, and such a house is His professing church. "Why," say we, "the Lord is honoured in His church; He is acknowledged and worshipped in His church, and He is appealed to perpetually as the Saviour and Redeemer in His church." Ah! we still fear He is wounded in the hands by the friends or members of His church.

By the hands of the Lord, is implied, in the spiritual sense of the word, His Divine power, or abstracted from His person, Divine Truth. Now, how many wounds are inflicted by Christians upon the pure Divine Truth of Scripture. The Divine love is frequently turned into fury, the Divine mercy is frequently circumscribed, the Divine prerogative is frequently attempted to be wrested from the Divine hands, and the creature judges the Creator; and all this is done in the house of His professing friends.

"Thank God," says the enlightened professor, "this sin cannot be laid to our charge." We doubt even this. We know that in the world we are to have