peculiarly belongs that he will not receive assistance? Can a man in mental doubt go to the members of the same religious communion, or does he not know that they precisely are the ones who will frown upon his doubts, and proclaim his sins? Or, will a clergyman unburden his mind to his brethren in the ministry? Are they not, in their official rigor, the least capable of largely understanding him? If a woman be overtaken in a fault, will she tell it to a sister-woman? Or, does she not feel, instinctively, that her sister-woman is ever the most harsh, the most severe, and the most ferocious judge?

Well, you sneer at the confessional; you complain that mistaken ministers of the Church of England are restoring it amongst us. But who are they that are forcing on the confessional? Who drive laden and broken hearts to pour out their long pent-up sorrows into any ear that will receive them? I say it is we: we, by our uncharitableness; we, by our want of sympathy and unmerciful behavior; we, by the unchristian way in which we break down the bridge behind the penitent, and say, On, on in sin, there is no returning.

Finally, the apostle tells the spirit in which this is to be done, and assigns a motive for the doing it. The mode is "in the spirit of meekness." For Satan cannot cast out Satan; sin cannot drive out sin. For instance, my anger cannot drive out another man's covetousness; my petulance or sneer cannot expel another's extravagance. The meekness of Christ alone has power. The charity which desires another's goodness above his well-being-that alone succeeds in the work of restoration.

:

The motive is, "considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted." For sin is the result of inclination, or weakness, combined with opportunity. It is, there fore, in a degree, the offspring of circumstances. Go to the hulks, the jail, the penitentiary, the penal colony, statistics will almost mark out for you beforehand the classes which have furnished the inmates, and the exact proportion of the delinquency of each class. You will not find the wealthy there, nor the noble, nor those guarded by the fences of social life; but the poor, and the uneducated, and the frail, and the defenceless. Can you gravely surmise that this reg ular tabulation depends upon the superior virtue of one class, compared with others? Or, must you admit that the majority, at least, of those who have not fallen, are safe because they were not tempted? Well, then, when St. Paul says, "considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted," it is as if he had written: Proud Pharisee of a man, complacent in thine integrity, who thankest God that thou art not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, &c., hast thou gone through the terrible ordeal, and come off with unscathed virtue? Or, art thou in all these points simply untried? Proud Pharisee of a woman, who passest by an erring sister with a haughty look of conscious superiority, dost thou know what temptation is, with strong feeling and mastering opportunity? Shall the rich-cut crystal which stands on the table of the wealthy man, pro tected from dust and injury, boast that it has escaped the flaws, and the cracks, and the fractures, which the earthen jar has sustained, exposed and subjected to rough and general uses? O man or woman! thou who wouldst be a Pharisee, consider, O, "consider thy If, lest thou also be tempted.”

HEB. i. 1.

XII.

[Preached Christmas Day, 1851.]

CHRIST THE SON.

“God, who at sundry times, and in divers manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son."

Two critical remarks.

1. "Sundry times, "- more literally, sundry por tions, sections-not of time, but of the matter of the revelation. God gave His revelation in parts, piece meal, as you teach a child to spell a word,-letter by letter, syllable by syllable, adding all at last together. God had a Word to spell-His own Name. By degrees He did it. At last it came entire. The Word was made Flesh.

12. 2. "His Son," more correctly, “a Son" for this is the very argument. Not that God now spoke by Christ, but that, whereas once by prophets, now by a Son. The filial dispensation was the last.

This epistle was addressed to Christians on the verge of apostasy. See those passages: "It is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance;

seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame."-"Cast not away your confidence."-"We are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end."

Observe what the danger was. Christianity had disappointed them, — they had not found in it the rest they anticipated. They looked back to the Judaism they had left, and saw a splendid temple-service, a line of priests, a visible temple witnessing of God's presence, a religion which was unquestionably fertile in prophets and martyrs. They saw these pretensions, and wavered.

The Jew

But this was all on the eve of dissolution. ish earth and heavens--that is, the Jewish Commonwealth and Church-were doomed, and about to pass away. The writer of this epistle felt that their hour was come,see chap. xii. 26, 27, and if their re 27,—and ligion rested on nothing better than this, he knew that in the creligion itself would go. To return to Juda was to go down to atheism and despair.

ason alleged-they had contented themselves with a superficial view of Christianity; they had not seen how it was interwoven with all their own history, and how it alone explained that history.

Therefore in this epistle the writer labors to show that Christianity was the fulfilment of the Idea latent in Judaism; that from the earliest times and in every institution, it was implied. In the monarchy, in prophets, in sabbath-days, in psalms, in the priest hood, and in temple-services, Christianity lay con cealed; and the dispensation of a Son was the realiza tion of what else was shadows. He, therefore, alone,

who adhered to Christ, was the true Jew, and to apos. tatize from Christianity was really to apostatize from true Judaism.

I am to show, then, that the manifestation of God through a Son was implied, not realized, in the earlier dispensation.

"Sundry portions" of this Truth are instanced in the epistle. The mediatorial dispensation of Moses the gift of Canaan- the Sabbath, &c. At present I select these:

I. The preparatory Dispensation.

II. The filial and final Dispensation.

I. Implied, not fulfilled, in the kingly office. Three Psalms are quoted, all referring to kingship. In Psalm 2d, it was plain that the true idea of a king was only fulfilled in one who was a Son of God. The Jewish king was king only so far as he held from God; as His image, the representative of the Fountain of Law and Majesty.

"To Him God hath said, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee."

The 45th Psalm is a bridal hymn, composed on the marriage of a Jewish king. Startling language is addressed to him. He is called God, Lord. "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever." The bride is invited to worship him as it were a God:-"He is thy Lord, and worship thou him." No one is surprised at this who remembers that Moses was said to be made a God to Aaron. Yet it is startling, almost blasphemous, unless there be a deeper meaning implied-the divine character of the real king.

In the 110th Psalm a new idea is added. The true