deavor to ward 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 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 righteousness of God, and be made to acknowledge, that those things which are highly esteemed among men are his sight an abomination. When the Judge and his attendants shall come on the high errand of this world's destinies, they will come from God,-and the pure principle they shall 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 manifestation, 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 kindliness 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 betwixt him and his Creator, who can lay his hand upon them both.

SERMON VI.

THE NECESSITY OF A MEDIATOR BETWEEN GOD AND

MAN.

JOB ix. 33.

"Neither is there any day's-man betwixt us that might lay his hand upou us both."

IV. THE feeling of Job, at the time of his uttering the complaint which is recorded in the verses before us, might not have been altogether free of a reproachful spirit towards those friends who had refused to advocate his cause, and who had even added bitterness to his distress by their most painful and unwelcome arguments. And well may it be our feeling, and that too without the presence of any such ingredient along with it-that there is not a man upon earth who can execute the office of a day's-man betwixt us and God,-that taking the common sense of this term, there is none who can act as an umpire between us the children of ungodliness, and the Lawgiver, whom we have so deeply offended; or taking up the term that occurs in the Septuagint version of the Bible, that amongst all our brethren of the species, not an individual is to be found who, standing in the place of a mediator, can lay his hand upon us both. It is indeed, very possible, that all

this may carry the understanding, and at the same time have all the inefficiency of a cold and general speculation. But should the Spirit, whose office it is to convince us of sin, lend the power of his demonstration to the argument,—should he divide asunder our thoughts, and enable us to see that, with the goodly semblance of what is fair and estimable in the sight of man, all within us is defection from the principle of loyalty to God,-that while we yield a duty as the members of society, the duty that lies upon us, as the creatures of the Supreme Being, is, in respect of the spirit of allegiance which gives it all its value, fallen away from, by every one of us, should this conviction cleave to us like an arrow sticking fast, and work its legitimate influence, in causing us to feel all the worthlessness of our characters, and all the need and danger of our circumstances, then would the urgency of the case be felt as well as understood by us,-nor should we be long of pressing the inquiry of where is the day's-man betwixt us that might lay his hand upon us both ?

And, in fact, by putting the Mediator away from you, by reckoning on a state of safety and acceptance without him, what is the ground upon which, in reference to God, you actually put yourselves? We speak not at present of the danger of persisting in such an attitude of independence, of its being one of those refuges of treachery in which the good man of the world is often to be found,-of its being a state wherein peace, when there is no peace, lulls him by its flatteries unto a deceitful repose. We are not at present saying how ruinous it is to rest a security

upon an imposing exterior, when in fact the heart is not right in the sight of God, and while the reproving eye of him, who judgeth not as man judgeth, is upon bim, or how poisonous is the unction that comes upon the soul from those praises which upon the mere exhibition of the social virtues, are rung and circulated through society. But, in addition to the danger, let us insist upon the guilt of thus casting the offered Mediator away from us. It implies, in the most direct possible way, a sentiment of the sufficiency of our own righteousness. It is expressly saying of our obedience, that it is good enough for God. It is presumptuously thinking that what pleases the world may please the Maker of it, even though he himself has declared it to be a world lying in wickedness. There is an aggravation you will perceive in all this which goes beyond the simple infraction of the commandment. It is, after the infraction of it, challenging for some remainder or for some semblance of conformity, the reward and approbation of the God whose law we have dishonoured. 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