to it with their blood, "We are not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ!"

The subject will now be concluded with a few brief reflections, naturally arising from it.

1. What supreme honor and affectionate homage are due to the Son of God. To his atonement and intercession we are indebted for all the unsearchable riches of the Gospel, and for all its amazing benefits, past, present, and to come. Never, then, should we withhold from him the tribute of grateful love, and of reverent worship. Let us, my brethren, enthrone him in our inmost souls; consecrate to him the service of all our faculties; and ever regard him as the great Fountain of our spiritual life, the chief Object of our desire on earth, and the central Attraction in the glories of Heaven.

2. The Gospel demands from us the most cordial acceptance, and the most decided avowal. If it be of such incalculable worth, involving our dearest interests in time and in eternity, how thankfully should we embrace it, and yield ourselves to its control. With what unblenching firmness should we profess it before men, declaring our attachment to it in the presence of opposers and gainsayers, exemplifying its principles in our conduct, and "holding forth the word of life in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation." And with what earnest zeal and untiring self-sacrifice should we labor to bring the impenitent around us to a saving reception of its truths; and to extend the knowledge of it among all the families of our ruined race, as the only antidote to the ills which they suffer, and the only lamp that can direct their steps through the darkness of this world, to the splendors of eternal day.

3. How great is the guilt and folly of those who are "ashamed of the Gospel of Christ." All are chargeable with being ashamed of it, who refuse to accept its grace, and to bow to its requirements. On each of you, then, my unconverted hearers, this dreadful imputation lies. And, O, what tongue can describe-what mind can adequately conceive the extent of your criminality and madness! You are ashamed of "the glorious Gospel of the blessed God"— of that Gospel which his adorable Son died to procure-of that Gospel which is the sovereign balm for all the miseries of sin-of that Gospel which has already achieved so much for an outcast world, as to fill Heaven with rapture-of that Gospel which is the only defence of your own souls against the righteous anger of the Almighty. Be assured, that if you persevere in neglecting and setting it at naught, all the shame with which you now treat it, will, in the end, recoil upon yourselves. God will be ashamed of you, and will banish you for ever, with loathing and abhorrence, from the bliss of his presence. Christ will be ashamed of you, when he cometh in the glory of his Father. The angels will be ashamed

of you, for 1 ighting a salvation whose mysteries form the subject of their deepest study, and of their loftiest wonder. The spirits of the just made perfect will be ashamed of you, because you have scorned the all-sufficient remedy which has brought them to the seats of blessedness. Devils will be ashamed of you, as having surpassed even their depravity, in that you have despised mercy never offered to them. And you will be ashamed of yourselves -ashamed of your desperate and suicidal conduct; and under the awful condemnation of God, the universal reprobation of his creatures, and the intolerable reproach of your own consciences, you will sink down, amid the torments of the fiery gulph, into unmitigated "shame, and everlasting contempt."

SERMON CCCCXLIX.

BY REV. JAMES M. SHERWOOD.

BROOKLYN, L. I.

MAN'S JUDGMENT AND GOD'S JUDGMENT.

For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things. 1 JOHN III., 20.

THERE are two constituted tribunals which take cognisance of men's actions, and authoritatively determine their character and destiny. These tribunals differ in their nature, order, and extent of power, and also as to the character and qualification of the judges who preside over them. The human heart, or conscience, is one of these tribunals, where reason sits as judge, and calls to an account for every passing deed, and gives sentence in this life. The tribunal of God is the other, where the enthroned Redeemer will hereafter sit in public judgment upon the conduct, and pronounce the eternal destiny of every creature. In the court of Conscience we are called to appear to-day, my hearers, to answer to charges involving all the interests of our deathless existence. Soon we shall stand at the higher and final tribunal, where, whatever may be the present decision in our case, unforgiven guilt will not go unpunished, and eternal truth and justice will be fully vindicated. The first point to be settled by us respects the character and

qualifications of these respective judges. Everything depends, you perceive, upon this. If they are inflexibly just, we can only plead guilty and cast ourselves, as penitents, on God's mercy. If the human judge is imperfect and prone to err on the side of evil, it follows that we may escape the condemnation of our own heart, and yet find no favor hereafter. But if our own heart, with all its weakness and bias, condemn us, as guilty and unfit for Heaven, the expectation of acquittal in the last great day is vain and presumptuous.

I. What, then, is the character of Conscience as our moral judge in this life? It is not, in all respects, good. He is, at best, a weak, fallible, and imperfect judge, and therefore liable and likely to err in his decisions. So that it is unwise and unsafe to trust to his verdict only so far as it obviously accords with the great standard of appeal, the Word of God.

1. Conscience, in man, is a depraved judge. Man's moral as well as his intellectual and physical being, has come under the influence of sin. His moral sense is both impaired and vitiated by the state of his affections. The conscience is either so weakened in itself, or is subject to such strong depraved influences from without, that it is easily made to connive at sin and sanction the worst wrong. How often is the light in man darkness! Under the great law of depravity, how often does good become evil and evil good, right wrong and wrong right. The eternal line of distinction, drawn by the hand of God, between virtue and vice, becomes, in the habitual sinner, almost effaced, so that he is but poorly qualified to apprehend and realize the Truth. Hence his false views of the character of God-the nature and claims of his Law and Gospel-his own sinfulness and duty; in a word, of the whole matter of difference between him and his God. His conscience is so perverted from the right way, that he lives insensible to the enormity of his guilt; excuses his evil conduct, and labors to justify that in himself and others, which is palpably wrong. The verdict of Conscience, then, cannot be wholly confided in. You would not trust your life in the hands of a murderer, nor your property with a robber, nor your reputation to the judgment of a notorious slanderer. And for the reason, that their sense of right and wrong in the case is perverted, and so perverted as to make them unsafe judges. As well call on a blind man to see or a deaf man to hear. Accordingly, certain occupations are thought, by the common assent of mankind, to have such a perverting influence on the moral feelings, as to be an absolute disqualification in those who follow them, to sit in a judicial capacity even under oath. And now when the sinner's whole being is depraved, and his life one tissue of wrong and wickedness, is it likely that he will be a fair and strict judge in the case of his own soul against

God? And yet if condemned by a judge so depraved as Conscience, how shall you stand before God?

2. Conscience is a strangely ignorant judge. There is one great standard by which all beings and actions are to be tried. God has revealed the law to which we are subject, declared the principles by which we are to regulate our conduct, and on which the final judgment will proceed. And to know whether our conduct is good or evil, whether we merit the favor or incur the displeasure of God, we must know what the standard of right is, and test our hearts and lives by it. Now the sinner is marvellously ignorant of the law by which he is to live and finally be judged. He neither understands its principles nor feels its obligations. It does not stand out before his mind in the lustre of its perfection and in its wide and solemn relations. He does not "apprehend it, spiritually," nor see how broad and strict are its requirements. He fails, therefore, to see his conduct in its true light-fails to make a right application of the divine Law to his faith and practice. Hence so few unrenewed sinners condemn themselves as verily guilty and unfit for heaven. They judge by another standard than the law of God, admit their own inclinations, or the common opinions and practices of men, as the law in the case, and judge themselves accordingly.

3. Conscience is a partial judge. In similar cases he gives different and even opposite verdicts. He condemns the very thing in others which he freely allows in himself. The members of the church are often judged by the sinner with a severe and unjust judgment, while he lives insensible to his own aggravated guilt; avoids a verdict in his own case; and even makes a parade and boast of his goodness. It is not strange, therefore, that many who go clear at the bar of Conscience are condemned of God.

4. Conscience is a corrupt, interested judge. The relations of life, worldly interest, fashion, custom, prejudice and the like, act as bribes to bias his judgment and foredetermine his verdict. You wish to please your own heart and gratify its desires, and hence naturally look with an evil eye on whatever crosses your inclinations, or opposes your conceived interests. The sinner is not willing to know the Truth. He will not see things which relate to his conduct and duty as others see them. He wishes to come to no decision that shall alarm his fears and constrain him to break off his sins and become a new creature.

Finally, Conscience is often an unjust judge. Enlightened but in part, under the law of depravity, and subject to manifold evil influences, he decides frequently against all reason and Scripture: against the clearest dictates of a sound philosophy: against the Law of God, the peace and welfare of his own soul, and the rights and interests of his fellow-men. No, the ungodly man is not willing to criminate himself, and therefore reasons falsely, shuts

his eyes to the truth, resists conviction, and wrests the Scriptures to his eternal undoing.

Such is the character of that judge who is to decide on your case, as a sinner to-day. And if you cannot establish your innocence and escape condemnation before one so disposed himself to evil, surely you will not think to stand in the great day of righteous reckoning! Come, then, and let us enter upon this solemn work as in the presence of God, knowing that the whole case will go up to be reviewed and passed upon, by infallible wisdom and omniscient justice.

And what is the verdict of your conscience, to-day, hearer? Does it not condemn you before God and men? Does it not pronounce you a SINNER, guilty, unholy, and utterly unfit for Heaven? Does it not charge home upon you most serious and weighty offences, offences against which lie the tremendous threatenings of God's Word?

Do you not, in truth, hate the character of God, which holds all impurity in utter abhorrence, and the all-perfect Law of God, which forbids all sin in thought, word, and deed, and enjoins a universal spiritual obedience? Have you not rejected the Lord Jesus Christ and refused to be reconciled to God by him? Have you not grieved the Spirit of God and hardened your heart under his strivings? Have you not disobeyed the Truth, times innumerable, striven to shut out from your mind its convicting light, and silenced its voice of honest reproof. Have you not trifled with holy things, by speaking lightly of sin and religion, God and Christ, heaven and hell? Have you not strangely undervalued and neglected your Bible; preferred any other book to it, and set at naught its divine instructions? Has it not gone unread for weeks, it may be, months, the neglected yet constant witness of your conduct, gathering up its testimony for the final judgment? Have you not said many things to wound the feelings and injure the reputation of others? The mercies of God to you have been great and numberless. And have you not abused them? Have you not failed to make suitable returns? Have you not turned them against God and made them occasions of sin? Have you not wasted many precious years of probation, years in mercy given to secure your salvation and do good in the world? Have you not lived without prayer? lived a guilty, needy, dependent creature, without any practical recognition of the being of God and your obligations to him? lived in the reception and enjoyment of numberless blessings, renewed every morning and fresh every evening, with no heart to bless or love the Father of mercies? Has not your example, in your family and elsewhere, been evil, and calculated to mislead and injure? Have you not trifled with your religious feelings, resisted and overcome your convictions? As you think on the past, do not times and seasons