if there were not some true men. It is the quantity of true men that helps to pass off the hypocrite in the crowd.

And then again, I say, when thou comest before the bar of God, dost thou think that this will serve thee as an excuse, to begin to find fault with God's own children? Suppose you were brought before a king, an absolute monarch, and you should begin to say, by way of appeal, "O king, I have been guilty, it is true, but your own sons and daughters I do not like; there are a great many faults in the princes of the blood." Would he not say, "Wretch! thou art adding insult to wickedness; thou art guilty thyself, and now thou dost malign mine own children, the princes of the blood." The Lord will not have thee say that at last. He has pardoned his children; he is ready to pardon thee. He sends mercy to thee this day; but if thou reject it, imagine not that thou shalt escape by recounting the sins of the pardoned ones. The rather this shall be an addition to thy sin, and thou shalt perish the more fearfully.

But come, man, once again; I would entreat of thee with all .my might. What! canst thou be so foolish as to imagine, that because another man is destroying his own soul by hypocrisy, that this is a reason why thou shouldst destroy thine by indifference? If there be thousands of untrue Christians, so much the more reason why I should be a true one; if there are hundreds of hypocrites, this should make me more earnest to search myself, and should not make me indifferent about the matter. sinner! thou wilt soon be on thy dying bed, and will it comfort thee there to think, "I have rejected Christ, I have despised salvation, I am perishing in my sins," and to add, “But there are many Christians who are hypocrites!" No; death will tear away that excuse. That will not serve you. And when the heavens are in a blaze, when the pillars of the earth shall reel, when God shall come on flying clouds to judge the children of men, when the eternal eyes are fixed upon you, and, like burning lamps, are enlightening the secret parts of your belly, will you then be able to make this an excuse-"Good God! it is true I have damned myself; it is true I have wilfully transgressed; but there were many hypocrites?" Then shall the Judge say, "What hast thou to do with that? Thou hadst nought to do,

to interfere with my kingdom and with my judgeship; for thine own offences thou art lost; for thine own rejection of Christ thou shalt perish everlastingly."

And now I conclude, by addressing the people of God with equal solemnity and earnestness.

My dear hearers, if I could weep tears of blood this morning, I could not show too much emotion concerning this most solemn point. I do not know that this text ever struck me before yesterday; but I no sooner noticed it, than it came home to me as an accusation. I plead guilty to it, and I pray for forgiveness. I only wish that a like power may attend it to you, that you may feel that you have been guilty too. O friends, can you bear the thought that you may have helped to drag others down to hell? Christ has loved you and pardoned your sins; and will you push others downward? And yet, if you are inconsistent, and especially if you are cold and lukewarm in your religion, you are doing it. "Well," says.one, "I don't do much good, but I do no hurt." That is an impossibility. You must be either doing good or evil. There is no border land between truth and sin; a man· must be either on land or in the water; and you are either serving God or serving Satan; each day you are increasing your Master's kingdom, or else diminishing it. I cannot bear the thought that any of you should be employed in Satan's camp..

Suppose there ever should be an invasion of this country by France. The tocsin rings from every church-steeple; the drum is sounding in every street, and men are gathering at every market-cross. Peaceful men spring up into soldiers in an instant; and multitudes are marching away to the coast. When we come near it, we behold a troop of soldiers who have climbed our white cliffs, and with bayonets fixed they are marching against us. We, with a tremendous cheer, rush on against them, to drive them back into the sea which girds our beloved country. Suddenly, as we rush forward, we detect scores of Englishmen marching in the same ranks with our foes, and seeking to ravage their own country. What should we say? "Seize those traitors; let not one of them escape; put them all to death. Can Englishmen take the side of England's enemies? Can they march against our hearths and homes, betray their fatherland, and take

the side of the tyrant Emperor? Can this be? Then let them die the death!"

And yet this day I behold a more mournful spectacle yet. There is King Jesus marching at the head of his troops; and can it be that some of you, who profess to be his followers, are on the other side; that, professing to be Christ's, you are fighting in the ranks of the enemy-carrying the baggage of Satan and wearing the uniform of hell, when you profess to be soldiers of Christ? I know there are such here; God forgive them ! God spare them; and may the deserters yet come back, even though they come back in the chains of conviction; May they come back and be saved! O brethren and sisters, there are enough to destroy souls without us-enough to extend the kingdom of Satan without our helping him. "Come out from among them; touch not the unclean thing; be ye separate." Church of God! awake, awake, awake to the salvation of men! Sleep no longer; begin to pray, to wrestle, to travail in birth; be more holy, more consistent, more strict, more solemn in thy deportment! Begin, O soldiers of Christ, to be more true to your colors; and as surely as the time shall come when the church shall thus be reformed and revived, so surely shall the King come into our midst, and we shall march on to certain victory, trampling down our enemies, and getting to our King many crowns, through many victories achieved.

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SERMON IX.

HIS NAME THE MIGHTY GOD.

"The mighty God."-ISAIAH, ix. 6.

OTHER translations of this divine title have been proposed by several very eminent and able scholars. Not that they have any of them been prepared to deny that this translation is, after all, most accurate; but rather that whilst there are various words in the original, which we render by the common appellation of “GOD,” it might be possible so to interpret this as to show more exactly its definite meaning. One writer, for example, thinks the term might be translated "The Irradiator," he who gives light Some think it bears the meaning of "The Illustrious,"the bright and the shining one. Still there are very few, if any, who are prepared to dispute the fact that our translation is the most faithful that could possibly be given—“ the mighty God."

to men.

The term here used for God, El, is taken from a Hebrew root, which, as I take it, signifies strength; and perhaps a literal translation even of that title might be, "The Strong one," the strong God. But there is added to this an adjective in the Hebrew, expressive of mightiness, and the two taken together express the omnipotence of Christ, his real deity and his omnipotence, as standing first and foremost among the attributes which the prophet beheld. "The mighty God.". I do not propose this morning to enter into any argument in proof of the divinity of Christ, because my text does not seem to demand it of me. It does not say that Christ shall be "the mighty God," that is affirmed in many other places of Sacred Writ; but here it says, "He shall be called Wonderful," called "Counsellor," called "The mighty God;" and I think that therefore 1 may be excused from enter

ing into any proof of the fact, if I am at least able to establish the truth of that which is here foretold, inasmuch as Christ is indeed called at this day, and shall be called to the end of the world, "the mighty God."

First, this morning, I shall speak for a moment on the folly of those who profess to be his followers, but who do not call him "the mighty God." In the second place I shall try to show how the true believer practically calls Christ "the mighty God," in many of the acts which concern his salvation; and then I shall close by noticing how Jesus Christ has proved himself to be indeed "the mighty God" to us, and in the experience of his church.

I. First let me point out THE FOLLY OF THOSE WHO PROFESS TO BE THE DISCIPLES OF CHRIST, YET DO NOT, AND WILL NOT, Call HIM GOD. The question has sometimes been proposed to me, how it is that some of us who hold the divinity of Christ manifest what is called uncharitableness towards those who deny him. We do continually affirm that an error, with regard to the divinity of Christ, is absolutely fatal, and that a man cannot be right in his judgment upon any part of the gospel unless he think rightly of him who is personally the very centre of all the purposes of heaven, and the foundation of all the hopes of earth. Nor can we admit of any latitudinarianism here. We extend the right hand of fellowship to all those who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity and truth; but we cannot exchange our Christian greetings with those who deny him to be "very God of very God." And the reason is sometimes asked; for, say our opponents, “We are ready to give the right hand of fellowship to you, why don't you do so to us?" Our reply shall be given thus briefly: "You have no right to complain of us, seeing that in this matter we stand on the defensive. When you declare yourselves to believe that Christ is not the Son of God, you may not be conscious of it, but you have charged us with one of the blackest sins in the entire catalogue of crime." The Unitarians must, to be consistent, charge the whole of us, who worship Christ, with being idolators. Now idolatry is a sin of the most heinous character; it is not an offence against men, it is true, but it is an intolerable offence against the majesty of God. We are ranked by Unitarians, if they be consistent, with the Hottentots. "No," say they, "we

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