ed as a miserable enthusiast; by others, as buried in austerity and gloom. His noble birth, his distinguished friends, his high destination, are all overlooked or forgotten. But, take heed, ye who pride yourselves upon the distinctions of life, lest the day should come, when he will appear in triumph, and you in dishonor. In that cottage, where poverty and distress reside, and which you might think yourself dishonored to enter, there lives a candidate for all the honors of the New Jerusalem. There is the joy of contentment even now; and in the hour of death, there will be the triumph of faith; and after that, there will be an exceeding and eternal weight of glory. You may despise him, and shrink from his society, but angels will rejoice in it. Jesus the Mediator will own him as one of his ransomed people, and place upon his head a crown of life. But to what honor can you look forward, who build all your hopes upon the world? To the honor of a name which will perish, as soon as your body is hidden in the tomb: to the honor of a decorated coffin, a splendid funeral, a towering monument-it may be, a lying epitaph-which will tell the passing stranger of virtues which were never yours. And is this all? Teach us, Great God, the meanness of worldly glory, and help us to aspire to the exalted dignity of the Christian!

3. The subject teaches the Christian a lesson of humility.

Who art thou, disciple of Christ, that thou shouldst be an heir to such a glorious inheritance? What hast thou done to entitle thee to the high privileges of a child of God? Thou art a creature of yesterday—a worm of the dust; and till lately thou wert a child of wrath, and a rebel against Jehovah. And such thou wouldst always have been, had it not been for the power of redeeming grace. Yes, Christian, He who brought you up out of the horrible pit and miry clay, and set your feet upon a rock, and established your goings, and hath put a new song in your mouth, and hath sustained and shielded you ever since by the arm of his power, he is your covenant God and Redeemer. Wherefore, when you praise Him, forget not to abase yourself. When you have the brightest view of the riches of divine grace in your redemption; when faith mounts up nearest to the Redeemer's throne, and dwells with most intense delight upon his glories, and anticipates, with firmest assurance, a residence in his kingdom-then does it become you to bend with deepest humility in token of your unworthiness; and you ever mingle your voice with the voices of the redeemed, you will

if

not more certainly ascribe blessing, and honor, and thanksgiving to the Lamb that was slain, than you will add, Not unto us, not unto us, but unto thy name, O Lord, be all the glory.

Finally The subject impressively teaches us the guilt of unbelief.

It is unbelief which rejects the gospel; and the guilt of it is proportioned to the excellence and glory of the gospel. But the gospel is supremely excellent and glorious: it is the brightest revelation of the character and purposes of God, which, so far as we know, has ever been made to the universe. Unbelief, therefore, must involve aggravated guilt, and lead to a fearful condemnation. But you say, perhaps, that you are not an unbeliever, as you neither deny the divinity of revelation, or have aught to say against its doctrines. Fellow mortal, be not deceived. Believe me, there, is a practical unbelief, which as really pours contempt upon the mediation of Christ, as the most boldly avowed infidelity. If it has more of the external appearance of religion, it is more at war with consistency; for while it acknowledges the truth and importance of the gospel, it acts as though this gospel were neither true nor important. And I will tell you the marks of this unbelief, that you may know how to detect its operations; for it is insidious and deceitful; and has no doubt conducted multitudes to perdition, who had never doubted that they were on the way to glory. If, then, you do not love the commandments of God, and cordially approve of his character; if you shrink from that self-denial which the gospel requires, and give yourself up to the control of sinful passions; or if you are satisfied with a decent exterior, and feel no concern for the inner man of the heart; or if you are sunk down into a state of stupidity, and worldly-mindedness, and forgetfulness of God, and neglect of prayer-then you have the most alarming symptoms of an evil heart of unbelief. Let no one think that the omniscient eye will not penetrate the thin disguise of merely a correct creed, or a credible profession. That eye will search to the very bottom of the heart; and will dart lightning into every soul that puts on the exterior of a Christian, and yet does not cordially embrace the Saviour. Beware, then, of the spirit of unbelief. However little it may be regarded by the world, or however deep it may lie buried in the heart, it contains the elements of a tremendous curse; for He whose decisions are irreversible, hath declared, He that believeth not shall be damned..

THE EVIDENCE AND DUTY OF BEING ON THE LORD'S SIDE.

EXODUS, XXXII. 26.

Then Moses stood in the gate of the camp, and said, Who is on the Lord's side?

WHEN this solemn question was asked, the camp of Israel was in a very awful situation. Moses had been in the Mount, conversing with God, and receiving the Law from His lips, forty days and forty nights. And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the Mount, they gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him. O what an amazing scene was here! That the very people who, a few weeks before, had witnessed the wonderful displays of Divine power on their behalf, in Egypt. and at the Red-Sea; and afterwards the still more terrifick wonders of Mount Sinai, when the thunderings, and lightnings, and voices and earthquake made the whole camp to tremble, and even Moses, familiar as he was with God, exceedingly to fear and quake;-that this very people should so soon have forgotten all their signal deliverances, and all their solemn vows, and begged to be placed under the guidance of a dumb idol,-presents an example of infatuation and depravity, as enormous it was degrading. But so it was. The request was made. And, still more astonishing to tell! Aaron complied with it. Under his direction, the people, in their idolatrous phrenzy, made a Golden Calf, and fell down before it, and No. 7.

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worshipped it, and cried out, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

When Moses was informed of this besotted folly and wickedness on the part of the people, he immediately turned and went down from the Mount, and Joshua with him; and after remonstrating with Aaron and with the people on account of their sin, he took the Calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strewed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it. Having done this, for the purpose of making a solemn discrimination between the innocent and the guilty, and of preparing to execute the judgment of God against the latter, he came forth and stood in the gate of the camp, and said, Who is on the Lord's side?

The spirit of this question, my friends, is just as applicable to ts, as it was to the people of Israel three and thirty centuries ago. Suppose the Saviour were now to come, in his glorified body, into this assembly, and, standing visibly in the midst of us, were to ask-Who is on the Lord's side? what answer would each of us give Him? What answer would candour compel us to give? Well, that Divine and Omniscient Redeemer is present with us, though our bodily eyes see Him not; and he does ask each of us, in his Word, and in his Providence, this solemn question. Let me, then, beseech every one to answer it to his own conscience as in the presence of Him who cannot be deceived, and will not be mocked. And that you may be enabled to answer it with the more intelligence and certainty, I shall endeavour, First, to DESCRIBE THE CHARACTER OF THOSE WHO ARE ON THE LORD'S SIDE; and Secondly, to ASSIGN SOME REASONS WHY WE ARE ALL BOUND TO BE ON THAT SIDE. In other words, I propose to speak of the EVIDENCE and the DUTY of being on the Lord's side.

I. The first question to be considered is, What is implied in being on the Lord's side? What is the character of those of whom this may be said?

ness.

Now, this question evidently presupposes that there is a SIDE which may be emphatically called the Lord's side. And can any thinking man contemplate our world, or look into the Bible, without seeing and feeling that this is really the case? There is a controversy between God and rebellious man. God is on the side of truth, order, and holiThe rebels are on the side of folly, disorder, and sin. They have risen up, without the least cause, in opposition to the rightful Sovereign of the universe; and their hostility to him is implacable. They dislike his character, his truth, his precepts, his government, although they are infinitely perfect. This warfare, so unreasonable and atrocious on man's part, has been raging for near six thousand years, and is still kept up with unabated enmity. The object of Jeho valis

most wise and benevolent. It is to maintain untarnished the glory of his perfections, the honour of his law, and the authority of his most perfect and blessed government; and to make such a display of all these to his intelligent and moral kingdom, as shall ultimately promote the greatest happiness of that kingdom. By the Lord's side, therefore, is obviously meant, the side of wisdom, of holiness, and of true enjoyment; the side which our blessed Saviour came down from heaven, and made himself an atoning sacrifice to promote and maintain; the side, of course, which all good beings, on earth and in heaven, espouse and love; and which nothing but infatuation and wickedness ever prompted any creature to oppose.

The question before us further presupposes, that there are those who are not on the Lord's side. The very terms of it, as asked by Moses, plainly imported that the men of that generation were not all on the right side. Far from it. They were greatly divided. We know not what proportion, but a large number, were in the ranks of rebellion. So it was then; so it has ever been, since the time of Cain and Abel; and so it is now. The great mass of mankind are in arms against the righteous Governour of the universe. This is the case, indeed, by nature, with ALL. But some, blessed be the riches of Jehovah's grace, have laid down the weapons of their hostility, have left the camp of the rebels, and come in, and accepted the offers of reconciliation. Now, to one or the other of these parties all mankind belong. Yes, my brethren, those who have penitently returned and submitted, and those who still stand out in their rebellion-God and mammondivide the population of our globe between them. We cannot say of individual of our race that he belongs to neither of these parties. any Our blessed Saviour has unquestionably decided this point, when he pronounces, with solemn emphasis, He that is not for me, is against me. Let none, then, flatter themselves that, although they have no positive evidence that they are on the Lord's side, they may yet take comfort in the hope that they are not on the side of the enemy. This is a miserable delusion. There can be no neutrality here. If you are not on the Lord's side, you are on the side of his arch-adversary; and, remaining such, must be treated accordingly.

Once more; the question before us presupposes, that it is of the utmost importance that the point which it presses, be decided. Moses, undoubtedly, believed that interests of unspeakable consequence were involved in the solemn interrogatory, then; and are interests of less consequence, think you, involved in it at present? Can any rational being doubt that the solution of the question, whether we are the friends or the enemies of God, is of infinite moment? Oh, no. If ever a question: embraced OUR ALL, this is that question. Nay, it not only ought to be do