nant remonstrance from his offended sense | has foundations. Surrounded as he is by the of what is righteous, though there be made perishable admiration of his fellows, he is bare to his inspection all my devotedness altogether out of affection, and out of acto the world, and all my proud disdain at quaintance, with that Being with whom he the insolence of others, and all my anger has to do; and it will be found, on the great at the sufferings of injustice, and all my in- day of the doings, and the deliberations of difference to the God who formed me, and the judgment-seat, that as he had no relish all those secrecies of an unholy and an un- for God in time, so is he utterly unfit for his heavenly character, which are to be brought presence, or for his friendship in eternity. out into full manifestation on the great day of the winding up of this world's history.

It is a very capital delusion that God is like unto man,-"Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself; but I will reprove thee, and set thy sins in order before thine eyes. Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver."

It is said of God, that he created man after his own image, and it was upon losing this image that he was cast out of paradise: and ere he can be again admitted, the image that has been lost must again be formed on him. The grand qualification for the society of heaven is, that each of its members be like unto God. In the selfish and sensual society of earth, there is many a feature of

Man and man may come together in judg-resemblance to the Godhead that is most ment, and retire from each other in mutual complacency. But when man and God thus come together, there is another principle, and another standard of examination. There is a claim of justice on the part of the Creator, totally distinct from any claim which a fellow-creature can prefer,-and while the one will tolerate all that is consistent with the economy and the interest of the society upon earth, the other can tolerate nothing that is inconsistent with the economy and the character of the society in heaven. God made us for eternity. He designed us to be the members of a family which never separates, and over which he himself presides in the visible glory of all that worth, and of all that moral excellence, which belong to him. He formed us at first after his own likeness; and ere we can be re-admitted into that paradise from which we have been exiled, we must be created anew in the image of God. These spirits must be made perfect, and every taint of selfishness and impurity be done away from them. Heaven is the place into which nothing that is unclean or unholy can enter; and we are not preparing for our inheritance there, unless there be gathering upon us here, the lineaments of a celestial character. Now, a man may be accomplished in the moralities of civil and of social life, without so much as the semblance of such a character resting upon him. He may have no share whatsoever in the tastes, or in the enjoyments, or in the affections of paradise. There might not be a single trace of the mark of the Lamb of God upon his forehead. He who ponders so intelligently the secrets of the heart, may be able to discover there no vestige of any love for himself, no sensibility at all to what is amiable or to what is great in the character of the Godhead,-no desire whatever after his glory, no such feeling towards him who is to tabernacle with men, as will qualify him to bear a joyful part in the songs, and the praises of that city which

readily dispensed with; and many an individual here obtains applause and toleration among his fellows, though there is not one attribute of the saintly character belonging to him. Let him only fulfil the stipulations of integrity, and smile benignity upon his friends, and render the alacrity of willing and valuable services to those who have never offended him, and on the strength of such performances as these, may he rise to a conspicuous place in the scale of this world's reputation. But what would have been the sad event to us, had these been the only performances which went to illustrate the character of the Godhead,-had he been a God of whom we could say no more, than that he possessed the one attribute of an unrelenting justice, or even that he went beyond this attribute, in the exercise of kindness to those who loved him, and in acts of beneficence to those who had never offended him? Do we not owe our place and our prospect to the love of God for his enemies? Is it not from the riches of his forbearance and long-suffering, that we draw all our enjoyments in time, and all our hopes for eternity? Is it not be cause, though grieved with sinners every day, he still waits to be gracious; that he holds out to us, his heedless and wayward children, the beseeching voice of reconciliation; and puts on such an aspect of tenderness to those who have not ceased from their birth to vex his Holy Spirit, and to thwart him every hour by the perverseness of their disobedience? This is the godlike attribute on which all the privileges of our fallen race are suspended; and yet against the intimation of which, nature, when urged by the provocations of injustice, rises in such a tumult of strong and impetuous resistance. It is through the putting forth of this attribute, that any redeemed sinners are to be found among the other society of heaven; but into which no member shall be admitted out of this corrupt world, till there be stamped and realized on his own

person, that feature of the divinity to which i speak of the splendid career of beneficence he owes a distinction so exalted. And tell that he had run,--and in the recollection of us, ye men who are so jealous of right and the plaudits that had surrounded him, he of honour, who take sudden fire at every could boldly challenge the inspection of all insult, and suffer the slightest imagination his neighbours, and of all his enemies, on of another's contempt, or another's unfair- the whole tract of his visible history in the ness, to chase from your bosom every feel-world. He protested his innocence before ing of complacency;-ye men whom every fancied affront puts into such a turbulence of emotion, and in whom every fancied infringement stirs up the quick and the resentful appetite for justice-how will you stand the rigorous application of that test by which the forgiven of God are ascertained, even that the spirit of forgiveness is in them, and by which it will be pronounced whether you are indeed the children of the highest, and perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect?

them, and even so long as he had only heard of God by the hearing of the ear did he address him in the language of justification. But when God at length revealed himself,when the worth and the majesty of the Eternal stood before him in visible array,when the actual presence of his Maker brought the claims of his Maker to bear impressively upon his conscience, it was not merely the presence of the power of God which overawed him; it was the presence of the righteousness of God which But we must hasten to a close, and will, convinced him,-and when, from the bright therefore, barely suggest some other mat-assemblage of all that was pure, and holy, ters of self-examination. We ask you, to and graceful in the aspect of the Divinity, think of the facility with which you might he turned the eye of contemplation downobtain the approbation of men, without be ward upon himself,-O it is instructive to ing at all like unto God in the holiness of be told, how the vaunting patriarch shrunk his character. We ask you to think of the into all the depths of self-abasement at so delight which he takes in the contempla-striking a manifestation; and how he said, tion of what is pure, and moral, and righ-"I have heard of thee by the hearing of the teous. We ask you to think how one great ear, but now mine eye seeth thee; whereobject of his creation, was to diffuse over fore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and the face of it a multiplied resemblance of in ashes." himself, and that, therefore, however fit It is indeed a small matter to be judged you may be for sustaining your part in the of man's judgment. He who judges us is alienated community of this world, you are God. From this judgment there is no esmost assuredly unfit for the great and the cape, and no hiding place. The testimony general assembly of the spirits of just men of our fellows will as little avail us in the made perfect,-if unlike unto God who is day of judgment, as the help of our felin the midst of them, you have no conge-lows will avail us in the hour of death. nial delight with the Father of all, in the We may as well think of seeking a refuge contemplation of spiritual excellence. Now, in the applause of men, from the condemare you not blind to the glories and the nation of God, as we may think of seeking perfections of that Being who realizes this a refuge in the power or the skill of men, excellence to a degree that is infinite? Does from the mandate of God, that our breath not the creature fill up all your avenues of shall depart from us. And, have you never enjoyment, while the Creator is forgotten? thought, when called to the chamber of the In reference to God, is there not an utter dying man,-when you saw the warning dulness and insensibility of all your re- of death upon his countenance, and how its gards to him? If thus blind to the percep- symptoms gathered and grew, and got the tion of that supreme virtue and loveliness ascendency over all the ministrations of which reside in the Godhead, are you not, human care and of human tenderness,in fact, and by nature an outcast from the when it every day became more visible, Godhead? And an outcast will you ever that the patient was drawing to his close, remain, until your character be brought and that nothing in the whole compass of under some mighty revolutionizing influ-art or any of its resources, could stay the ence which is able to shift the currency of advances of the sure and the last malady, your desires, and to over-rule nature with-have you never thought, on seeing the all her obstinate habits, and all her fond and favourite predilections.

These are topics of great weight and great pregnancy; but we leave them to your own thoughts, and only ask you at present to look at the vivid illustration of them that may be gathered out of the history of Job. In reference to his fellows, he could make a triumphant appeal to the honour and the humanity which adorned him,--he could

U

bed of the sufferer surrounded by other comforters than those of the Patriarch,when, from morning to night, and from night to morning, the watchful family sat at his couch, and guarded his broken slumbers, and interpreted all his signals, and tried to hide from his observation the tears which attested him to be the kindest of parents,-when the sad anticipation spread its gloomy stillness over the household, and

even set forth an air of seriousness and con- | teousness of God, and be made to acknow cern upon the men of other families,-when ledge, that those things which are highly you have witnessed the despair of friends, esteemed among men are in his sight an who could only turn them to cry at the abomination. When the judge and his atspectacle of his last agonies, and had seen tendants shall come on the high errand of how little it was that weeping children and this world's destinies, they will come from inquiring neighbours could do for him,- God,--and the pure principle they shall when you have contrasted the unrelenting bring along with them from the sanctuary necessity of the grave, with the feebleness of heaven, will be the entire subordination of every surrounding endeavour toward it, of the thing formed to him who formed it. has the thought never entered within you, In that praise which upon earthly feelings How powerless is the desire of man!-how the creatures offer one to another, we behold sure and how resistless is the decree of God! no recognition of this principle whatever; And on the day of the second death, will and therefore it is, that it is so very differit be found, that it is not the imagination of ent from the praise which cometh from man, but the sentence of God that shall God only. And should any one of these creastand. When the sound of the last trumpet tures be made on that great day of manifesawakens us from the grave, and the ensigns tation, to see his nakedness,-should the of the last day are seen on the canopy of question, what have you done unto me? heaven, and the tremor of the dissolving ele- leave him speechless; should at length, conments is felt upon the earth, and the Son of victed of his utter rebelliousness against God with his mighty angels are placed around God, he try to find among the companions the judgment-seat,and the men of all ages and of his pilgrimage, some attestation to the of all nations are standing before it, and wait-kindness that beamed from him upon his ing the high decree of eternity,-then will it fellow mortals in the world,-they will not be found, that as no power of man can save be able to hide him from the coming wrath. his fellow from going down to the grave of In the face of all the tenderness they ever bore mortality, so no testimony of man can save him, the severity of an unreconciled lawhis fellow from going down to the pit of con- giver must have upon him its resistless demnation. Each on that day will mourn operation. They may all bear witness to apart. Each of those on the left hand, en- the honour and the generosity of his doings grossed by his own separate contemplation, among men, but there is not one of them and overwhelmed by the dark and the louring who can justify him before God. Nor among futurity of his own existence, will not have all those who now yield him a ready testia thought or a sympathy to spare for those mony on earth will he find a day's-man bewho are around him. Each of those on the twixt him and his Creator, who can lay his right hand will see and acquiesce in the righ-hand upon them both.

SERMON VI.

The Necessity of a Mediator between God and Man.

"Neither is there any day's-man betwixt us, that might lay his hands upon us both."-Job ix. 33.

IV. THE feeling of Job, at the time of his tuagint version of the Bible, that amongst uttering the complaint which is recorded in all our brethren of the species, not an indithe verses before us, might not have been vidual is to be found who, standing in the altogether free of a reproachful spirit towards place of a mediator, can lay his hand upon those friends who had refused to advocate his us both. It is, indeed, very possible, that all cause, and who had even added bitterness this may carry the understanding, and at to his distress by their most painful and the same time have all the inefficiency of a unwelcome arguments. And well may it cold and general speculation. But should be our feeling, and that too without the the Spirit, whose office it is to convince us presence of any such ingredient along with of sin, lend the power of his demonstration it-that there is not a man upon earth who to the argument,-should he divide asunder can execute the office of a day's-man be- our thoughts, and enable us to see that, twixt us and God,-that taking the com- with the goodly semblance of what is fair mon sense of this term, there is none who and estimable in the sight of man, all within can act as an umpire between us the chil- us is defection from the principle of loyalty dren of ungodliness, and the Lawgiver, to God-that while we yield a duty as the whom we have so deeply offended; or members of society, the duty that lies upon taking up the term that occurs in the Sep- us, as the creatures of the Supreme Being,

is, in respect of the spirit of allegiance which government over the universe that he has gives it all its value, fallen away from, by formed. It is laying those paltry accomevery one of us, should this conviction plishments which give you a place of discleave to us like an arrow sticking fast, and tinction among your fellows, before that work its legitimate influence, in causing us God of whose throne justice and judgment to feel all the worthlessness of our charac-are the habitation, and calling upon him to ters, and all the need and danger of our connive at all that you want, and to look circumstances, then would the urgency of with complacency on all that you possess. the case be felt as well as understood by us, It is to bring to the bar of judgment the -nor should we be long of pressing the poor and the starving samples of virtue inquiry of where is the day's-man betwixt which are current enough in a world us that might lay his hand upon us both! broken loose from its communion with And, in fact, by putting the Mediator God, and to defy the inspection upon them away from you,-by reckoning on a state of God's eternal Son, and of the angels he of safety and acceptance without him, what brings along with him to witness the righis the ground upon which, in reference to teousness of his decisions. Sin has indeed God, you actually put yourselves? We been the ruin of our nature-but this respeak not at present of the danger of per- fusal of the Saviour of sinners lands them sisting in such an attitude of independence, in a perdition still deeper and more irrecoof its being one of those refuges of treache-verable. It is blindness to the enormity of ry in which the good man of the world is sin. It is equivalent to a formally anoften to be found,-of its being a state nounced sentiment on your part that your wherein peace, when there is no peace, performances, sinful as they are, and pollulls him by its flatteries unto a deceitful | luted as they are, are good enough for hearepose. We are not at present saying how ven. It is just saying of the offered Saviour ruinous it is to rest a security upon an im- that you do not see the use of him. It is a posing exterior, when in fact the heart is provoking contempt of mercy; and causing not right in the sight of God, and while the the measure of ordinary guilt to overflow, reproving eye of him, who judgeth not as by heaping the additional blasphemy upon man judgeth, is upon him, or how poison- it, or calling upon God to honour it by his ous is the unction that comes upon the soul rewards, and to look to it with the complafrom those praises which upon the mere cency of his approbation. exhibition of the social virtues, are rung We cannot, then, we cannot draw near and circulated through society. But, unto God, by a direct or independent apin addition to the danger, let us insist upon proach to him. And who in these circumthe guilt of thus casting the offered Medi- stances, is fit to be the day's-man betwixt ator away from us. It implies in the most you? There is not a fellow-mortal from direct possible way, a sentiment of the suffi- Adam downward, who has not sins of his ciency of our own righteousness. It is ex- own to answer for. There is not one of pressly saying of our obedience, that it is them who has not the sentence of guilt ingood enough for God. It is presumptuously scribed upon his own forehead, and who is thinking that what pleases the world may not arrested by the same unscaled barrier please the Maker of it, even though he him- which keeps you at an inacessible distance self has declared it to be a world lying in from God. There is not one of them whose wickedness. There is an aggravation you entrance into the holiest of all would not will perceive in all this which goes beyond inflict on it as great a profanation, as if any the simple infraction of the commandment. of you were to present yourselves before It is, after the infraction of it, challenging him, who dwelleth there, without a Mediafor some remainder or for some semblance tor. There lieth a great gulf between God of conformity, the reward and approbation and the whole of this alienated world; of the God whose law we have dishonour- and after looking round amongst all the ed. It is, after we have braved the attribute men of all its generations, we may say, in of the Almighty's justice, by incurring its the language of the text, that there is not a condemnation, making an attempt upon the day's-man betwixt us who can lay his hand attribute itself, by bringing it down to the upon us both. standard of a polluted obedience. It is, after Insulting the throne of God's righteousness, embarking in the still deadlier enterprize of demolishing all the stabilities which guard it; and spoiling it of that truth which has pronounced a curse on the children of iniquity, of that holiness which cannot dwell with evil, of that unchangeableness which will admit of no compromise with sinners that can violate the honours of the Godhead, or weaken the authority of his

What we aim at as the effect of all these observations, is, that you should feel your only security to be in the revealed and the offered mediator; that you should seek to him as your only effectual hiding-place; and who alone, in the whole range of universal being, is able to lay his hand upon you, and shield you from the justice of the Almighty, and to lay his hand upon God, and stay the fury of the avenger. By him the deep atonement has been rendered.

By him the mystery has been accomplish- | could not hold him, ascend to the throne ed, which angels desired to look into. By of his appointed mediatorship; and now he, him such a sacrifice for sin has been offered, the first and the last, who was dead and is as that, in the acceptance of the sinner, alive, and maketh intercession for transevery attribute of the Divinity is exalted; gressors, is able to save to the uttermost and the throne of the Majesty in the hea- all who come unto God through him; and vens, though turned into a throne of grace, standing in the breach between a holy God is still upheld in all its firmness, and in all and the sinners who have offended him, its glory. Through the unchangeable priest- does he make reconciliation, and lay his hood of Christ, the vilest of sinners may hand upon them both. draw nigh, and receive of that mercy which has met with truth, and of that peace which is in close alliance with righteousness; and without one perfection of the Godhead being surrendered by this act of forgiveness, all are made to receive a higher and more wondrous manifestation; for though he will by no means clear the guilty, yet there is no place for vengeance, when all their guilt is cleared away by the blood of the everlasting covenant; and though he executeth justice upon the earth, yet he can be just while the justifier of them who believe in Jesus.

The work of our redemption is every where spoken of as an achievement of strength- -as done by the putting forth of mighty energies--as the work of one who, travelling in his own unaided greatness, had to tread the wine-press alone; and who, when of the people there was none to help him, did by his own arm bring unto him salvation. To move aside the obstacle which beset the path of acceptance; to reinstate the guilty into favour with the of fended and unchangeable Lawgiver: to avert from them the execution of that sentence to which there were staked the truth and justice of the Divinity; to work out a pardon for the disobedient, and at the same time to uphold in all their strength the pillars of that throne which they had insulted; to intercept the defied penalties of the law, and at the same time magnify it, and to make it honourable; thus to bend, as it were, the holy and everlasting attributes of God, and in doing so, to pour over them the lustre of a high and awful vindication,-this was an enterprise of such height, and depth, and length, as no created being could fulfil, and which called forth the might and the counsel of him who is the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

But it is not enough that the Mediator be appointed by God, he must be accepted by man. And to incite our acceptance does he hold forth every kind and constraining argument. He casts abroad, over the whole face of the world, one wide and universal assurance of welcome. "Whosoever cometh unto me shall not be cast out." "Come unto me all ye who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." "Where sin hath abounded, grace hath much more abounded." "Whatsoever ye ask in my name ye shall receive." The path of access to Christ is open and free of every obstacle, which kept fearful and guilty man at an impracticable distance from the jealous and unpacified Lawgiver. He hath put aside the obstacle, and now stands in its place. Let us only go in the way of the Gospel, and we shall find nothing between us and God but the author and finisher of the Gospel,-who, on the one hand, beckons to him the approach of man with every token of· truth and of tenderness; and, on the other hand, advocates our cause with God, and fills his mouth with arguments, and pleads that very atonement which was devised in love by the Father, and with the incense of which he was well pleased, and claims, as the fruit of the travail of his soul, all who put their trust in him; and thus, laying his hand upon God, turns him altogether from the fierceness of his indignation.

But Jesus Christ is something more than the agent of our justification,--he is the agent of our sanctification also. Standing between us and God, he receives from him of that Spirit which is called the promise of the Father, and he pours it forth in free and generous dispensation on those who believe in him. Without this spirit there When no man could redeem his neigh- may, in a few of the goodlier specimens of bour from the grave,-God himself found our race, be within us the play of what is out a ransom. When not one of the beings kindly in constitutional feeling, and withwhom he had formed could offer an ade-out us the exhibition of what is seemly in quate expiation, did the Lord of hosts a constitutional virtue; and man, thus standawaken the sword of vengeance against his fellow. When there was no messenger among the angels who surrounded his throne, that could both proclaim and purchase peace for a guilty world,-did God manifest in the flesh descend in shrouded majesty amongst our earthly tabernacles, and pour out his soul unto the death for us, and purchase the church by his own blood, and bursting away from the grave which

ing over us in judgment, may pass his verdict of approbation; and all that is visible in our doings may be pure as by the operation of snow water. But the utter irreligiousness of our nature will remain as entire and as obstinate as ever. The alienation of our desires from God will persist with unsubdued vigour in our bosoms; and sin, in the very essence of its elementary principle, will still lord it over the inner