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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 necessity of the grave, with the feebleness of every surrounding endeavour toward it, has the thought never entered within you, How powerless is the desire of man!-how sure and how resistless is the decree of God! And on the day of the second death, will it be found, that it is not the imagination of man, but the sentence of God that shall stand. When the sound of the last trumpet awakens us from the grave, and the ensigns 'of the last day are seen on the canopy of heaven, and the tremor of the dissolving elements is felt upon the earth, and the Son of God with his mighty angels are placed around the judgment-seat,and the men of all ages and of all nations are standing before it, and waiting the high decree of eternity,—then will it be found, that as no power of man can save his fellow from going down to the grave of mortality, so no testimony of man can save his fellow from going down to the pit of condemnation. Each on that day will mourn apart. Each of those on the left hand, engrossed by his own separate contemplation, and overwhelmed by the dark and the louring futurity of his own existence, will not have a thought or a sympathy to spare for those who are around him. Each of those on the right hand will see and acquiesce in the righ- |

bring along with them from the sanctuary of heaven, will be the entire subordination of the thing formed to him who formed it. In that praise which upon earthly feelings the creatures offer one to another, we behold no recognition of this principle whatever; and therefore it is, that it is so very different from the praise which cometh from God only. And should any one of these creatures be made on that great day of manifes tation, to see his nakedness, should the question, what have you done unto me? leave him speechless; should at length, convicted of his utter rebelliousness against God, he try to find among the companions of his pilgrimage, some attestation to the kindness that beamed from him upon his fellow mortals in the world,--they will not be able to hide him from the coming wrath. In the face of all the tenderness they ever bore him, the severity of an unreconciled lawgiver must have upon him its resistless operation. They may all bear witness to the honour and the generosity of his doings among men, but there is not one of them who can justify him before God. Nor among all those who now yield him a ready testimony on earth will he find a day's-man be twixt him and his Creator, who can lay his 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 Iuted 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, of 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 of the Almighty's justice, by incurring its condemnation, making an attempt upon the attribute itself, by bringing it down to the 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

men of all its generations, we may say, in the language of the text, that there is not a day's-man betwixt us who can lay his hand upon us both.

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.

alive, and maketh intercession for transgressors, is able to save to the uttermost all who come unto God through him; and standing in the breach between a holy God and the sinners who have offended him, does he make reconciliation, and lay his hand upon them both.

By him the mystery has been accomplish-I 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, every attribute of the Divinity is exalted; and the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, though turned into a throne of grace, is still upheld in all its firmness, and in all its glory. Through the unchangeable priesthood of Christ, the vilest of sinners may draw nigh, and receive of that mercy which But it is not enough that the Mediator be has met with truth, and of that peace which appointed by God,-he must be accepted is in close alliance with righteousness; and by man. And to incite our acceptance does without one perfection of the Godhead he hold forth every kind and constraining being surrendered by this act of forgiveness, argument. He casts abroad, over the whole all are made to receive a higher and more face of the world, one wide and universal wondrous manifestation; for though he assurance of welcome. "Whosoever cometh will by no means clear the guilty, yet there unto me shall not be cast out." "Come is no place for vengeance, when all their unto me all ye who labour and are heavy guilt is cleared away by the blood of the ever-laden, and I will give you rest." "Where lasting covenant; and though he executeth sin hath abounded, grace hath much more 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.

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

man with all the power of its original ascendency,-till the deep, and the searching, and the pervading influence of the love of God be shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost. This is the work of the great Mediator. This is the might and the mys-ginations in the peacefulness of spring, or tery of that regeneration, without which we shall never see the kingdom of God. This is the office of Him to whom all power is committed, both in heaven and in earth, who reigning in heaven, and uniting its mercy with its righteousness, causes them to flow upon earth in one stream of celes-surface of the world. tial influence; and reigning on earth, and working mightily in the hearts of its peo-how dreadful that mysterious and unseen ple, makes them meet for the society of heaven, thereby completing the wonderful work of our redemption, by which, on the one hand he brings the eye of a holy God to look approvingly on the sinner, and on the other hand, makes the sinner fit for the fellowship, and altogether prepared for the enjoyment of God.

lessons from the quarter whence the human heart derives its strongest sensations,-and we refer both to your own feelings, and to the history of this world's opinions, if God is more felt or more present to your imathe loveliness of a summer landscape, than when winter with its mighty elements sweeps the forest of its leaves,-when the rushing of the storm is heard upon our windows, and man flees to cover himself from the desolation that walketh over the

If nature and her elements be dreadful,

Being, who sits behind the elements he has formed, and gives birth and movement to all things! It is the mystery in which he is shrouded, it is that dark and unknown region of spirits, where he reigns in glory, and stands revealed to the immediate view of his worshippers,-it is the inexplicable manner of his being so far removed from that province of sense, within which the understanding of man can expatiate,-it is its total unlikeness to all that nature can furnish to the eye of the body, or to the conception of the mind, which animates it,-it is all this which throws the Being who formed us at a distance so inaccessible,-which throws an impenetrable mantle over his way, and gives us the idea of some dark and untrodden interval betwixt the glory of God, and all that is visible and created.

Such are the great elements of a sinner's religion. But if you turn from the prescribed use of them, the wrath of God abideth on you. If you kiss not the Son while he is in the way, you provoke his anger, and when once it begins to burn, they only are blessed who have put their trust in him. If, on the fancied sufficiency of a righteousness that is without godliness, you neglect the great salvation, you will not escape the severities of that day, when the Being with whom you have to do shall enter with you into judgment; and it is only Now, Jesus Christ has lifted up this mysby fleeing to the Mediator, as you would terious veil, or rather he has entered within from a coming storm, that peace is made it. He is now at the right hand of God; between you and God, and that, sanctified and though the brightness of his Father's by the faith which is in Jesus, you are glory, and the express image of his person, made to abound in such fruits of righteous- he appeared to us in the palpable characness, as shall be to praise and glory at the ters of a man; and those high attributes of last and the solemn reckoning. truth, and justice, and mercy, which could not be felt or understood, as they existed in the abstract and invisible Deity, are brought down to our conceptions in a manner the most familiar and impressive, by having been made, through Jesus Christ, to flow in utterance from human lips, and to beam in expressive physiognomy from a human countenance.

Before we conclude, we shall just advert to another sense, in which the Mediator between God and man may be affirmed to have laid his hand upon them bo h:-He fills up that mysterious interval which lies between every corporeal being, and the God who is a spirit and is invisible.

No man hath seen God at any time, and the power which is unseen is terrible. So long as I had nothing before me but Fancy trembles before its own picture, and the unseen spirit of God, my mind wandered superstition throws its darkest imagery over in uncertainty, my busy fancy was free to it. The voice of the thunder is awful, but expatiate, and its images filled my heart not so awful as the conception of that angry with disquietude and terror. But in the being who sits in mysterious concealment, life, and person, and history of Jesus Christ, and gives it all its energy. In these sketches the attributes of the Deity are brought down of the imagination, fear is sure to predomi- to the observation of the senses; and I can nate. We gather an impression of Nature's no longer mistake them, when in the Son, God, from those scenes where Nature who is the express image of his Father, Í threatens, and looks dreadful. We speak see them carried home to my understanding not of the theology of the schools, and the by the evidence and expression of human empty parade of its demonstrations. We organs,-when I see the kindness of the peak of the theology of actual feeling,- Father, in the tears which fell from his Son that theology which is sure to derive its at the tomb of Lazarus,-when I see his

justice blended with his mercy, in the ex- I see it in his unaltered form when he rose clamation, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem," by triumphant from the grave; I perceive it Jesus Christ; uttered with a tone more tender than the sympathy of human bosom ever prompted, while he bewailed the sentence of its desolation,-and in the look of energy and significance which he threw upon Peter, I feel the judgment of God himself, flashing conviction upon my conscience, and calling me to repent while his wrath is suspended, and he still waiteth to be gracious.

And it was not a temporary character which he assumed. The human kindness, and the human expression which makes it intelligible to us, remained with him till his latest hour. They survived his resurrection, and he has carried them along with him to the mysterious place which he now occupies. How do I know all this? I know it from his history; I hear it in the parting words to his mother from the cross;

in his tenderness for the scruples of the unbelieving Thomas; and I am given to understand, that as his body retained the impression of his own sufferings, so his mind retains a sympathy for ours, as warm, and gracious, and endearing, as ever. We have a Priest on high, who is touched with a fellow feeling of our infirmities. My soul, unable to support itself in its aerial flight among the spirits of the invisible, now reposes on Christ, who stands revealed to my conceptions in the figure, the countenance, the heart, the sympathies of a man. He has entered within that veil which hung over the glories of the Eternal; and the mysterious inaccessible throne of God is divested of all its teriors, when I think that a friend who bears the form of the species, and knows its infirmities, is there to plead for me.

SERMON VII.

The Folly of Men measuring themselves by themselves.

"For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves; but they, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise."--2 Corinthians, x. 12.

repose in the mediocrity of their actual accomplishments, and of their current and conventional observations.

ST. Paul addressed these words to the an example, it is safe for him to allow in members of a Christian congregation; and himself an equal extent of indulgence; and were we to confine their application to to go the same lengths of laxity or transthose people of the present day, who in gression; and thus, instead of measuring circumstances, bear the nearest resemblance himself by the perfect law of the Almighty, to them, we would, in the present discourse, and making conformity to it the object of have chiefly to do with the more serious his strenuous aspirings,-does he measure and declared professors of the Gospel. Nor himself and compare himself with his felshould we be long at a loss for a very ob- low-mortals, and pitches his ambition to servable peculiarity amongst them, against no greater height than the accidental level which to point the admonition of the which obtains amongst the members of his Apostle. For, in truth there is a great dis-own religious brotherhood, and finds a quiet position with the members of the religious world, to look away from the unalterable standard of God's will, and to form a standard of authority out of the existing attainments of those whom they conceive to be in the faith. We know nothing that has contributed more than this to reduce the tone of practical Christianity. We know not a more insidious security, than that which steals over the mind of him who when he looks to another of eminent name for godliness, or orthodoxy, and perceives in him a certain degree of conformity to the world, or a certain measure of infirmity of temper, or a certain abandonment of himself to the natural enjoyments of luxury, or of idle gossiping, or of commenting with malignant pleasure on the faults and failings of the absent, thinks, that upon such

There is much in this consideration to alarm many of those who within the pale of a select and peculiar circle, look upon themselves as firmly seated in an enclosure of safety. They may be recognized by the society around them as one of us; and they may keep the even pace of acquirement along with them; and they may wear all those marks of distinction which separate them from the general and unprofessing public; and, in respect of Church, and of sacrament, and of family observances, and of exclusive preference for each other's conversation, and of meetings for prayer and the other exercises of Christian fellowship, they may stand most decidedly out

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