it was capable of bringing out. Christ here tells you the positive wickedness that it would bring out namely, the mystery of iniquity, of which Jezebel was the prophetical and typical name, as it were that mystery of iniquity, which shall debauch the kings of the earth, which led the kings of the earth to persecute God's people. As Jezebel led the king of Israel to persecute the saints and the prophets of the Lord, that system which would be destroyed by the lover, which she was endeavouring to accommodate herself to in the end, just as Jezebel was thrown out of the window by the command of the king, with whom she wanted to form a new connexion, and for whom she was endeavouring to dress out and adorn her person. Now GOD, speaking of himself as the trier of the reins and the searcher of the hearts of the children of men, calls himself by that name, in connexion with the awful wickedness that is in the heart. And Christ calls himself by that name in the second chapter of Revelations, where he is bringing the fact to prove what God had said, viz. that the heart was deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. GOD said thus in the seventeenth of Jeremiah. Christ seemed to say, I now prove it, and in proving it, I just advert to the apostacy designated by Jezebel's name, and when you have gone through its length and breadth, when you have endeavoured to probe the bottom of its bottomless impurities and abominations, then you have a proof that the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. My friends, I would merely remark in connexion with this, what is very striking, that the very way in which Christ introduced himself to one of the first members of his church, and the last way in which he allows himself to be spoken of by one of his Apostles, was in the ascription to him | of Omniscience, a searching of the heart. Nathaniel comes to Christ, and Christ introduces himself to Nathaniel as the searcher of the heart." Behold a man in whom there is no guile.” He proves his Omnipresence and his Omniscience by this assertion to Nathaniel, and Nathaniel takes up this assertion of Christ as a proof of the same. And in the close of John, the last thing almost that Christ permits Peter to say to him is, "Lord, thou knowest all things." When he says to Peter, "Lovest thou me; lovest thou me more than these; lovest thou me more than the fishing-tackle; lovest thou me more than these earthly employments; lovest thou me more than any quantity of earthly treasure you can collect by your profession or occupation?" Peter says, "Lord, Lord thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee; thou art the searcher of the hearts of the children of men." It is very remarkable that the first thing spoken of Christ respecting the world, is that he would not trust himself in the world. The first word spoken of Christ in connexion with his disciples, is that he revealed himself as the heart-searcher to them, and the last thing ascribed to Christ by Peter is the attribute of Omniscience. Connect this with the seventeenth of Jeremiah and the second of Revela tions as before referred to, and rejoice in the Omniscience and Godhead of the Saviour whom you love. Dear friends, I shall bring before you a new consideration. No more attributes at present, but I would briefly refer you to the works of God, as ascribed to Christ. I will refer you to the first chapter of St. John, where it is said, "All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made." you to the first of Colossians, where "all things, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or prin I refer cipalities, or powers," are said to be | gated Judge, consider the work he has made by him. I refer you to Hebrews, to do as Judge, he is to be the Judge of the whole human race. Can he have the qualifications necessary to do that by delegation? It implies, that he must be Omniscient and Omnipresent. He must be Omniscient, to know the actions and motives of all creation; and he must be Omnipresent to have witnessed every movement of every child of man in the different parts of the world. And he must be all-powerful to execute the judgment which a consummate equity will pronounce on that day. Therefore, it is nonsense to speak of a delegated judge of the human race, unless you can also speak of God's delegating his own attributes to a creature, which is preposterous. If GOD delegates his own attributes to a creature, then he makes the creature GOD, which is an absurdity not to be imagined by a man of sense for a moment. But, I say the attributes of Deity are requisite to him who will perform the work of the Judge of the human race; he must be Omniscient and Omnipresent, and Christ is Omniscient and Omnipresent, and Christ is, therefore, the Judge-and Christ is, therefore, GoD and one with the Father. Lastly, dear friends, the last proposition which respects Christ is a delightful proposition, which I have to present to you, namely, the worship that is given to the Supreme GOD is given to the Lord Jesus Christ. In the New Testament the Church is described, in the day when her persecu tion is mentioned, as made up of those who call upon the name of the LORD"arise and call upon the LORD, and wash away thy sins;" this is addressed to a man once a persecutor, but who is to be introduced unto the Church. Now, if we want to know the Lord upon whom the Church calls, Paul tells way the Socinian attempts us in the tenth of the Romans and the to get rid of this, is by saying he is a first of Corinthians. In the tenth of delegated Judge; but if he is a dele- the Romans he says, "how then shall they call upon Him on whom they have not believed, and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard, and how shall they hear without a preacher, and how shall they preach except they be sent?" Now whom are the preachers to preach? The preachers are to preach Christ. In whom are the people to believe? The people are to believe in Christ. Upon whom are the people to call? They are to call on Him who was preached and in whom they believed. He who was preached was Christ. In Christ they believed, therefore, upon Christ they call, and the Lord is the name given to Christ in the New Testament every where. Wherefore, when the Church is described as calling upon him on whom she believed, she is described as calling upon Christ, and thus worshipping him as her Lord and her God. And Pliny the heathen well shews how exactly the Scriptures were thus understood by the ancient church. In his letter to Trajan he says, "the only fault he could find with the Christians was, that they were in the habit of assembling before day-break in the morning to call upon and worship as GoD one Christ." We have Christ presented to us as the object of worship in Paul's prayer, in the second epistle of Corinthians and the twelfth chapter, where he was visited with some distressing temptation of which we can form, perhaps, no accurate conception. I should be inclined to suppose that this thorn in the flesh was some suffering in the body, that made Paul contemptible and disfigured before those to whom he spake. What ever it was, in his prayer for its removal, he says "I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me, and he said unto me, my grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly will I, therefore, rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Here he says, I prayed to the Lord, and that Lord said, "" my grace is sufficient for thee;" and if you want to know who that Lord was, he informs you subsequently. He says, I am content to be weak, and insignificant, and contemptible in myself, that Christ's grace may be displayed in me, that his power may rest upon me; so that you see "the Lord" is Christ, the Lord of grace, the Lord of strength. Now I would connect with this the prayer or the declaration, if you choose, of Thomas the Apostle, when, after the resurrection, he thrust his hand into the wound of Christ, and said, "My Lord and my God." I would connect with this the prayer of dying Stephen the martyr, whose eyes were opened, and who saw heaven with all its glories. Stephen's dying prayer was not to God the Father, but to Christ. He was no Socinian; he was no Arian. Surely, if Christ was not God, Stephen spoke vainly, for he said, "Lord Jesus, into thy hands I commend my spirit." He saw Jesus -he trusted in Jesus. In such an hour, if GoD were before him, and he trusted in Jesus who was not God, then he trusted in the creature and not the Creator; and when heaven was opened, doubtless, the most glorious and compassionate object would be presented to the eye of Stephen; but heaven is opened, and all heaven's inhabitants are presented before the enraptured gaze of the delighted martyr, and he pauses on the Lord Jesus Christ, for in him the extreme of Creator and creature meet; he fastens on him in whom was Almighty power, and tenderness too exquisite for human language to describe, and he says, "Lord Jesus, into thy hand I commend my spirit." My dear friends, connect with this that beautiful declaration in the first | pray unto Jesus-call on the name of the Lord, and thou shalt be heard, and thou shalt be blessed up to the highest capacity of thy enjoyment, and up to the extent of thy life, nay, up to the extent of the duration of thy GOD. As long as the pillars of his throne are standing thou shalt stand in His strength and be blessed with His blessings. Remember what Jesus said: "It is more blessed to give than to receive." First go and tell Jesus you have it from his own lips that "it is more blessed to give than to receive.” Then Christ pronounces that it is more blessed to give than to receive, therefore He must be gratified when He gives, as benevolence is always delighted when it is extending a boon, as love is never tired of bestowing on the object it cares for, and as mercy which hath made an atonement is ever anxious to wash away guilt. Go to Jesus and tell him all these things, and say, thou hast declared that "it is more blessed to give than to receive." I give thee pleasure, as it were chapter of Hebrews, where it is said by GoD, when he brings the first-begotten into the world, "Let the angels of God worship him." You have the Church worshipping Christ-you have the Apostles worshipping Christ-you have Paul worshipping Christ in his affliction-you have Thomas worshiping Christ-you have Stephen the Martyr pouring out his soul in the worship of Christ-you have the angels challenged by GoD to worship Christ. But there is a more glorious exhibition than all these read the fifth chapter of Revelations, and see heaven thrown open to you with all its glories, and witness the language of the host of heaven, and observe how the praises, how the hallelujahs, how the homage of heaven are given "To GOD that sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb, for ever." Oh, who shall doubt whether Jesus is God? Oh, my dear friends, who shall doubt whether Jesus shall be worshipped after this? A poor woman once wrote a note to me as I was ascending the pulpit, requesting to know whether she ought to worship Jesus, and in the course of my sermon to explain the Scripture on the subject; for, said she, I would love to worship him if I thought it were not idolatry. If there be any poor doubting sinner here, I would say to you, when the doubt arises, then think of Stephen the Martyr pouring out his soul to Christ-then think of Thomas saying, "My Lord and my God"then think of Paul saying, "The Lording, naked child of poverty and destiJesus Christ has caused his grace to overshadow me-to overawn me-to be a canopy over me in the days of my fiery temptation. Then think of the angels of heaven called to worship Jesus, and look with the eye of faith into the Holy of Holies and see all the host of heaven surrounding the throne and worshiping GoD and the Lamb for ever, and then doubt no more, but I give Jesus the highest enjoyment of which a being is capable of forming any conception, when I just ask him to look upon my misery and administer to my relief. My dear friends, is there a generous man here who would feel a rich pleasure in giving the viands from his own table to a poor starving sufferer? Is there a generous man here who would feel pleasure in giving the apparel from his own wardrobe to the shiver tution? Is there a man here who feels a delight that language cannot describe, when he is able to administer relief to the wretched-when he is able to dry up the tears of the widow and the orphan-when he is able to bring joy, and happiness, and peace, into the chamber of desolation, and sorrow, and distress? I know there are some such persons in the world, because Jesus Christ has not left himself without witnesses in the world. Dear brethren, when you feel the luxury of doing good-when you feel the luxury of giving your substance to your poor distressed brethren-when you feel the joy that delights your soul when you are drying the tearwhen you are endeavouring to sympathise with the wounded and troubled spirit-O, then think of Jesus, and how faintly does your joy illustrate the high, and holy, and indescribable joy which Jesus Christ has in administering relief to you and me, in coming down to all the meanness, and misery, and guiltiness of our condition, and giving unto us pardon, and purity, and peace, possession of the glorified creation, and enjoyment of the glorious and blessed GOD. yet, after all, this love is untold, and passeth knowledge, just because it is not the love of the creature, for that does not pass knowledge, but because it is the love of Him who made the creature, and whose greatness the creature cannot fully comprehend. Again, just consider the transport of joy that is awakened in the breast of an inspired writer, when he speaks of the love of Christ, and compares that transport of joy with the emotion that arises from the contemplation of any other blessing. The gift of all creation is nothing in their estimation when compared with the love of Christ -no wonder is expressed that GoD should give his saints all things, else the wonder is that He should give his Son-" in this was manifested the love of God, in that He spared not his own Son, but freely gave him up for us all, shall He not with him also freely give us all things." The twenty-third Psalm suggests another incidental proof of the Divinity of Christ: "the Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want." Jehovah was the Christ is the shepherd under the new; but the old dispensation is confessedly inferior in point of liberty and grace to the new dispensation, therefore the shepherd of the new dispensation must not be inferior to the shepherd of the old dispensation; the shepherd, then, of the new dispensation, is Jehovah, and, therefore, Christ is Jehovah. In addition to these direct arguments for the Divinity of Christ, there are many presumptive or incidental proofs, which are no less satisfactory than direct evidences to the mind of the Christian: for instance-First let us observe the way in which the love of Christ is spoken of. Hear Paul speak-shepherd under the old dispensation, ing of it in the second of Corinthians and the third of Ephesians. See how he labours for language-he uses the universe-he uses the length, and breadth, and depth of the universe to illustrate the love of Christ; and, after having so used this enormous metaphor, yet he says, that love is unexplained notwithstanding. What an idea does this give of the love of Christ. All the length and breadth of the finite world, every thing that is finite in all its grandeur and all its greatness, is taken to illustrate this love; and when the Apostle has used this mighty metaphor, he says, this love is untold, and is love which, after all, passes knowledge. After the church has proclaimed it, after the creation has illustrated it, after the Holy Spirit has brought it home in some sense to the hearts of the saints, I Now, my dear friends, I promised would say a word respecting the atonement; I have but time, however, to mention the fifty-third of Isaiah, where the atonement is beautifully expressed: "he was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities." Who hath believed our report saith the Prophet? Now that report has many elements, but the principal are the sufferings of Christ, and the vicariousness of those suffer |