SERMON VIII.

THE ETERNAL NAME.

"His name shall endure forever."-PSALM !xxii. 17

No one here requires to be told that this is the name of Jesus Christ, which "shall endure forever." Men have said of many of their works, "they shall endure forever;" but how much have they been disappointed! In the age succeeding the flood, they made the brick, they gathered the slime, and when they had piled old Babel's tower, they said, "This shall last forever." But God confounded their language; they finished it not. By his lightnings he destroyed it, and left it a monument of their folly. Old Pharoah and the Egyptian monarchs heaped up their pyramids, and they said, "They shall stand forever," and so indeed they do stand; but the time is approaching when age shall devour even these. So with all the proudest works of man, whether they have been his temples or his monarchies, he has written "everlasting" on them; but God has ordained their end, and they have passed away. The most stable things have been evanescent as shadows and the bubbles of. an hour, speedily destroyed at God's bidding. Where is Nineveh, and where is Babylon? Where the

cities of Persia? Where are the high places of Edom? Where are Moab, and the princes of Ammon? Where are the temples or the heroes of Greece? Where the millions that passed from the gates of Thebes? Where are the hosts of Xerxes, or where the vast armies of the Roman emperors? Have they not passed away? And though in their pride they said, "This monarchy is an everlasting one; this queen of the seven hills shall be called the eternal city," its pride is dimmed; and she who sat alone, and said, "I shall be no widow, but a queen forever," she hath fallen, hath fallen, and in a little while she shall sink like a millstone in the flood, her name being a curse and a byword, and her site the habitation of dragons and of owls. Man calls his works eternal God calls them fleeting; man conceives that they are built of rock-God says, "Nay, sand, or worse than that they are air." Man says he erects them for eternity God blows but for a moment, and where are they? Like baseless fabrics of a vision, they are passed and gone forever.

It is pleasant, then, to find that there is one thing which is to last forever. Concerning that one thing we hope to speak to-night, if God will enable me to preach, and you to hear. "His name shall endure forever." First, the religion sanctified by his name shall endure forever; secondly, the honor of his name shall endure forever; and thirdly, the saving, comforting power of his name shall endure forever.

I. First, the religion of the name of Jesus is to endure forever. When imposters forged their delusions, they. had hopes that peradventure they might in some distant age carry the world before them; and if they saw a few followers gather around their standard, who offered in

cense at their shrine, then they smiled, and said, "My religion shall outshine the stars and last through eternity." But how mistaken have they been! How many false systems have started up and passed away! Why, some of us have seen, even in our short lifetime, sects that rose like Jonah's gourd, in a single night, and passed away as swiftly. We, too, have beheld prophets rise, who have had their hour-yea, they have had their day, as dogs all have; but, like the dogs, their day has passed away, and the imposter, where is he? And the arch-deceiver, where is he? Gone and ceased. Specially might I say this of the various systems of Infidelity. Within a hundred and fifty years, how has the boasted power of reason changed! It has piled up one thing, and then another day it has laughed at its own handiwork, demolished its own castle, and constructed another, and the next day a third. It has a thousand dresses. Once it came forth like a fool with its bells, heralded by Voltaire; then it came out a braggard bully, like Tom Paine; then it changed its course, and assumed another shape, till, forsooth, we have it in the base, bestial seculiarism of the present day, which looks for nought but the earth, keeps its nose upon the ground, and like the beast, thinks this world is enough; or looks for another through seeking this. Why, before one hair on this head shall be gray, the last secularist shall have passed away; before many of us are fifty years of age, a new Infidelity shall come, and to those who say, "Where will saints be?" we can turn round and say, "Where are you?" And they will answer, "We have altered our names." They will have altered their name, assumed a fresh shape, put on a new form of evil, but still their nature will be

the same; opposing Christ, and endeavoring to blaspheme his truths. On all their systems of religion, or non-religion for that is a system too-it may be written, "Evanescent; fading as the flower, fleeting as the meteor, frail and unreal as a vapor." But of Christ's religion, it shall be said, "His name shall endure forever." Let me now say a few things-not to prove it, for that I do not wish to do- but to give you some hints whereby, possibly, I may one day prove it to other people, that Jesus Christ's religion must inevitably endure forever.

And first, we ask those who think it shall pass away, when was there a time when it did not exist? We ask them whether they can point their finger to a period when the religion of Jesus was an unheard-of thing? "Yes," they will reply, "before the days of Christ and his apostles." But we answer, "Nay, Bethlehem was not the birthplace of the gospel; though Jesus was born there, there was a gospel long before the birth of Jesus, and a preached one too; although not preached in all its simplicity and plainness, as we hear it now. There was a gospel in the wilderness of Sinai, although it might be confused with the smoke of the incense, and only to be seen through slaughtered victims; yet, there was a gospel there." Yea, more, we take them back to the fair trees of Eden, where the fruits perpetually ripened, and summer always rested, and amid these groves we tell them there was a gospel, and we let them hear the voice of God, as he spoke to recreant man, and said, "The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." And having taken them thus far back, we ask, "Where were false religions born? Where was their cradle?" They point us to Mecca,

or they turn their fingers to Rome, or they speak of Confucius, or the dogmas of Budha. But we say, you only go back to a distant obscurity; we take you to the primeval age; we direct you to the days of purity; we take you back to the time when Adam first trod the earth; and then we ask you whether it is not likely that, as the first-born, it will not also be the last to die? and as it was born so early, and still exists, whilst a thousand ephemera have become extinct, whether it does not look most possible, that when all others shall have perished, like the bubble upon the wave, this only shall swim, like a good ship upon the ocean, and still shall bear its myriad souls, not to the land of shades, but across the river of death to the plains of heaven?

We ask next, supposing Christ's gospel to become extinct, what religion is to supplant it? We inquire of the wise man, who says Christianity is soon to die, "Pray, sir, what religion are we to have in its stead? Are we to have the delusions of the heathen, who bow before their gods, and worship images of wood and stone? Will ye have the orgies of Bacchus, or the obscenities of Venus? Would ye see your daughters once more bowing down before Thammuz, or performing obscene rites as of old?" Nay, ye would not endure such things; ye would say, "It must not be tolerated by civilized men." Then what would ye have? Would ye have Romanism and its superstitions? Ye will say, "No, God help us, never." They may do what they please with Britain; but she is too wise to take old Popery back again, while Smithfield lasts, and there is one of the signs of martyrs there; aye, while there breathes a man who marks himself a freeman, and swears by the constitution of Old