died for thee. Remember that striking saying of Luther. Luther says, "Satan once came to me and said, 'Martin Luther, thou art lost, for thou art a sinner.' Said I to him, 'Satan, I thank thee for saying I am a sinner, for, inasmuch as thou sayest I am a sinner, I answer thee thus-Christ died for sinners; and if Martin Luther is a sinner, Christ died for him.'" Now, canst thou lay hold on that, my hearer? It is not on my authority, but on God's authority. Go away and rejoice; for if thou be the chief of sinners thou shalt be saved, if thou believest.

"Jesus, thy blood and righteousness

My beauty are, my glorious dress;
'Midst flaming worlds in these arrayed,
With joy shall I lift up my head.

"Bold shall I stand in that great day,
For who aught to my charge shall lay?
Fully absolved by Christ I am,

From sin's tremendous curse and blame."

Sing that, poor soul, and thou hast begun to sing the song of Paradise. May the Lord, the Holy Spirit, apply these simple statements of truth to the salvation of your souls.

SERMON XXVII.

TURN OR BURN.

"If he turn not, he will whet his sword; he hath bent his bow, and made It ready."-PSALM vii. 12.

"IF the sinner turn not, God will whet his sword." So, then, God has a sword, and he will punish man on account of his iniquity. This evil generation hath labored to take away from God the sword of his justice; they have endeavored to prove to themselves that God will "clear the guilty," and will by no means "punish iniquity, transgression, and sin." Two hundred years ago the predominant strain of the pulpit was one of terror; it was like Mount Sinai, it thundered forth the dreadful wrath of God, and from the lips of a Baxter or a Bunyan, you heard most terrible sermons, full to the brim with warnings of judgment to come. Perhaps some of the Puritan fathers may have gone too far, and have given too great a prominence to the terrors of the Lord in their ministry; but the age in which we live has sought to forget those terrors altogether, and if we dare to tell men that God will punish them for their sins, it is charged upon us that we want to bully them into religion, and if we faithfully and honestly tell our hearers that sin must bring after it certain destruction, it is said that we are attempting to frighten them into goodness. Now we care not what men mockingly impute to us; we feel it our duty, when men sin, to tell them that they shall be punished; and so long as the world will not give up its sin, we feel we must not cease our warnings. But the cry of the age is, that God is merciful, that God is love. Ay, who said he was not? But remember, it is equally true, God is just, severely and inflexibly just! He were not God, if he were not

just; he could not be merciful if he were not just, for punishment of the wicked is demanded by the highest mercy to the rest of mankind. Rest assured, however, that he is just, and that the words I am about to read you from God's word are true: "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God;" "God is angry with the wicked every day;" "if he turn not, he will whet his sword; he hath bent his bow, and made it ready. He hath also prepared for him the instruments of death; he ordaineth his arrows against the persecutors." Forsooth, because this age is wicked, it is to have no hell; and because it is hypocritical, it would have but feigned punishment. This doctrine is so prevalent as to make even the ministers of the gospel flinch from their duty in declaring the day of wrath. How few there are who will solemnly tell us of the judgment to come. They preach of God's love and mercy, as they ought to do, and as God has commanded them; but of what avail is it to preach mercy unless they preach also the doom of the wicked? And how shall we hope to effect the purpose of preaching unless we warn men that if they "turn not, he will whet his sword ?" I fear that in too many places the doctrine of future punishment is rejected, and laughed at as a fancy and a chimera; but the day will come when it shall be known to be a reality. Ahab scoffed at Micaiah, when he said he should never come alive; the men of Noah's generation laughed at the foolish old man (as they thought him), who bid them take heed, for the world should be drowned; but when they were climbing to the treetops, and the floods were following them, did they then say that the prophecy was untrue? and when the arrow was sticking in the heart of Ahab, and he said, "Take me from the battle, for I must die;" did he then think that Micaiah spoke an untruth? And so it is now. You tell us we speak lies, when we warn you of judgment to come; but in that day when your mischief shall fall on yourselves, and when destruction shall overwhelm you, will you say we were liars then? Will you then turn round and scoff, and say he spake not the truth? Rather, my hearers, the highest meed of honor will then be given to him who was the most faithful in warning men concerning the wrath of God. I have often trembled at

the thought, that, here I am standing before you, and con stantly engaged in the work of the ministry, and what if, when I die, I should be found unfaithful to your souls, how doleful will be our meeting in the world of spirits? It would be a dreadful thing if you were able to say to me in the world to come, "Sir, you flattered us; you did not tell us of the solemnities of eternity; you did not rightly dwell upon the awful wrath of God; you spoke to us feebly and faintly; you were somewhat afraid of us; you knew we could not bear to hear of eternal torment, and therefore you kept it back and never mentioned it!" Why, methinks you would look me in the face and curse me through eternity, if that should be my conduct. But, by God's help, it never shall be. Come fair or foul, when I die, I shall, God helping me, be able to say, "I am clear of the blood of all men." So far as I know God's truth, I will endeavor to speak it; and though on my head opprobrium and scandal be poured to a tenfold greater extent than ever, I'll hail it, and welcome it, if I may but be faithful to this unstable generation, faithful to God, and faithful to my own conscience. Let me, then, endeavor, and, by God's help, I will do it as solemnly and as tenderly as I can, to address such of you as have not yet repented, most affectionately reminding you of your future doom, if you should die impenitent. "If he turn not, he will whet his sword."

In the first place, what is the turning here meant? In the second place, let us dwell on the necessity there is for men's turning, otherwise God will punish them; and then, thirdly, let me remind you of the means whereby men can be turned from the error of their ways, and the weakness and frailty of their nature amended by the power of divine grace.

I. In the first place, my hearers, let me endeavor to explain to you the NATURE OF THE TURNING HERE MEANT. It says, "If he turn not, he will whet his sword."

To commence, then. The turning here meant is actual, not fictitious--not that which stops with promises and vows, but that which deals with the real acts of life. Possibly one of you will say, this morning, "Lo, I turn to God; from this time forth I will not sin, but I will endeavor to walk in holiness; my vices shall be abandoned, my crimes shall be thrown to

the winds, and I will turn unto God with full purpose of heart;" but, mayhap, to-morrow you will have forgotten this; you will weep a tear or two under the preaching of God's word, but by to-morrow every tear shall have been dried, and you will utterly forget that you ever came to the house of God at all. How many of us are like men who see their faces in a glass, and straightway go away and forget what manner of men they are! Ah! my hearer, it is not thy promise of repentance that can save thee; it is not thy vow, it is not thy solemn declaration, it is not the tear that is dried more easily than the dew-drop by the sun; it is not the transient emotion. of the heart, which constitutes a real turning to God. There must be a true and actual abandonment of sin, and a turning unto righteousness in real act and deed in every day life. Do you say you are sorry, and repent, and yet go on from day to day, just as you always went? Will you now bow your heads, and say, "Lord, I repent," and in a little while commit the same deeds again? If you do, your repentance is worse than nothing, and shall but make your destruction yet more sure; for he that voweth to his Maker, and doth not pay, hath committed another sin, in that he hath attempted to deceive the Almighty, and lie against the God that made him. Repentance, to be true, to be evangelical, must be a repentance which really affects our outward conduct.

In the next place, repentance to be sure must be entire. How many will say, "Sir, I will renounce this sin and the other; but there are certain darling lusts which I must keep and hold." O sirs, in God's name let me tell you, it is not the giving up of one sin, nor fifty sins, which is true repentance; it is the solemn renunciation of every sin. If thou dost harbor one of these accursed vipers in thy heart, thy repentance is but a sham. If thou dost indugle in but one lust, and dost give up every other, that one lust, like one leak in a ship, will sink thy soul. Think it not sufficient to give up thy outward vices; fancy it not enough to cut off the more corrupt sins of thy life; it is all or none which God demands. "Repent," says he; and when he bids you repent, he means, repent for all thy sins, otherwise he never can accept thy repentance as being real and genuine. The true penitent hates sin in the