one kind or another has made way into your families; and you will hardly, we think, be able to deny, that, in seasons of affliction, there is a tendency, in the face of all the testimony of Scripture and experience, towards disbelieving the fundamental attributes of God, or re

with his perfections. Ah, if you want evidence that the apparition, in bringing the very simplest and most elementary of messages, brought what was worthy of a supernatural conveyance, you might often find that evidence in the chamber of some mourner who is weeping for the dead. It may be that yonder mother, as she looks on the rigid pale face of her child, imagines herself resigned, and professes her persuasion that God hath smitten her in love. But doubts are struggling in her mind; the affliction seems to her inexplicable: she cannot understand why she should have been thus visited: the Bible, indeed, assures her of the compassion, the tenderness, of the Almighty; but she turns from comforting texts to the sad spectacle before her-so young, so beautiful, so gentle, would not a merciful being have spared awhile that sweet flower? -and then the tears, which the light of revelation had almost dried, break forth again, and, though taken for the gushings of nature, are rather the flowings of unbelief.

can, therefore, in no case be actually surprising that affliction should come, because even the most righteous are so far from perfect, that, to their dying day, they will need corrective discipline. Where then, in strict truth, is the mysteriousness of a dispensation, if we can always see the designed advantageous-garding his dispensations as at variance ness? There is something of contradiction here. The Christian tells me that the death of his child is a dark dealing -wherefore dark, if himself confesses that he is not yet refined, as he should be, from the dross of this earth, and, therefore, has further need of passing through the furnace? He may not be able to trace a connexion between the particular sorrow and some particular sin: he may not, that is, be able to assign any one special reason for any one special affliction-and so far there might be mystery, were it, indeed, his business to affix to every stripe an individual cause- -but he can see clearly enough that he requires chastisement in the general; and how then can it be mysterious that chastisement should come? And we cannot but feel, that, in a variety of instances, this speaking of the mysteriousness of a common dispensation, indicates a secret doubt as to the goodness or fitness of the dispensation: men would not be so ready to call a thing inexplicable, if, all the while, they felt that it was wisely and benevolently ordered. We do not mean to say that a Christian may not, at one and the same time, regard a dealing as mysterious, and feel it to be good: but where mysteriousness is ascribed to that for which there is evidently reason in abundance, we have ground to suspect that there is no real persuasion of there being such reason at all. And judge ye yourselves, ye to whom God has been pleased to allot much of sorrow, whether ye have not cherished a secret suspicion that ye were dealt with in a manner not to have been looked for from One who knew your frame, and remembered that ye were dust; whether ye have not used what ye have called the darkness of the dispensation, to cover a doubt, if not a denial, of its goodness?

We would have you call to mind your misgivings, when some beloved object has lain dead in your houses, or your rebellious questionings when trouble of

Now is it not certain that this distracted and sorrowing parent requires to have impressed upon her the most elementary of truths, that God cannot do wrong, that He cannot do other than the best? Whatever her theory, it is practically this truth of which she wants persuasion; it is this truth in which she has no thorough belief. And if, then, it were to please God to vouchsafe her a supernatural communication, would it not be worthy of God, would not the supernatural machinery be fitly employed, if the message were nothing more than that sent to Eliphaz? has the Bible: she has the revelation of the Gospel: but, notwithstanding these, she is secretly distrustful of God, and inclined to arraign the goodness of his dealings. Then I do not know, that, as she sits there, and wails over the dead, a shadowy thing will pass before her, and bring words from above. But this I know-that, if an apparition were to

She

need the being supernaturally taught, if employed to enforce so elementary a proposition.

enter, and stand, in its unearthliness, at the side of the coffin where her child lies so still, the most appropriate message which the spectre could deliver, And there is one general inference would be the simple one which was which we wish to draw from the appabrought so thrillingly to Eliphaz. Ay, rent, though not actual disproportion. that mother might rush from her cham- It is this-that truths, which we never ber with the scared and wan look of think of disputing, may be those which one who had gazed on the being of practically we are most in the habit of another sphere; and she might relate forgetting. It is of well-known things to me, circumstantially and convincingly, that a spectre must speak to us, if it how, in the darkened room, and amid would speak of what it is important that that silence which is the more oppres- we know. The apparition is not needsive because it makes every sob so dis-ed to impart new truth, but to impress tinct, she had been confronted by a form old. O strange but actual condition of whose very mystery proved it an inhabi- man-that, if a spirit were sent to him tant of the invisible world. But when she had collected herself sufficiently to tell me what the spectre had said, I should expect to hear nothing of new revelation, nothing as to the state of the departed, nothing as to the happiness of heaven. I should expect, as most precisely what she needed, and therefore as most likely to be thus strangely transmitted, that the apparition, which had made the hair of her flesh stand up, would have left these words printed on her mind, "Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his Maker?"

with a message for his good, it would be only of things with which he has long been familiar. The apparition enters the chamber of the man of pleasurewhat says it to the terrified voluptuary? "All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. Why, he knew this before; he has heard it a thousand times-yes; but this is what he practically disbelieves he lives as though he were not to die, and, therefore, what he needs from the apparition is the being told his mortality. The gliding spectre goes stealthily to the side of a miser; as the wealthy accumulator cowers and quails before the phantom, in what words is he addressed? "We brought nothing into the world, and it is certain that we can carry nothing out; "-why, this is no news: must the sheeted dead come back to tell a man this? no news, indeed-yet this is what the covetous practically disbelieves; he hoards as though his riches were to go with him into eternity; and therefore would the apparition be employed to the most necessary end, if employed to give impressiveness to the very tritest of truths.

And thus we may, perhaps, have done something towards removing the appearance of disproportion between the vehicle employed and the message conveyed the vehicle supernatural, the message the most simple, and apparently not needing the being delivered at all. I do not know whether you may have been used to observe the disproportion; but, certainly, to my own mind it is very striking. I almost tremble at the description which Eliphaz gives of the spirit. I feel sure that this dim and awful visitant must have come for a momentous and extraordinary pur- It is the same in every other instance. pose. I prepare myself, accordingly, With every one of us there is some simto hear from his lips some deep, ple truth about which there is no dismajestic, and perhaps inscrutable, pute, but to which there is no power; truth-when, lo, there is nothing ut- and if a spectre were sent with a mestered but what every child knows, what sage, it would be this truth which it every one believes, in believing a would be most for our advantage that it God. Our great object has been to should deliver; the delivery being needshow you, that, simple as the truth ed, not to increase our knowledge, but is, and unhesitatingly acknowledged, to make the knowledge influential. it is nevertheless one in regard of Alas! alas! is not this true in regard which there is a prevalent, though of all the uncontroverted in the present secret unbelief, so that an apparition assembly? Spirits of the dead, appear would not be employed on what did not amongst us. Rise as shadowy, vapory

66

things, and preach, in the name of the living God, to the men and the women who yet care nothing for their souls. What will they say? Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." Why, I have preached this to you a hundred times ye have heard it, till ye are wearied by the repetition. And yet, if we want spectres at all, we want them only to deliver this common-place truth: it might be effectual, as breathed by their wild strange voices, though of ten uttered without avail by mine.

So that, it is not to tell you what is new, but to make you feel what is old, that we would invoke the phantoms, and beseech them to arise. But they come not-why should they? ye must be self-condemned, if your remaining in danger of everlasting death be only through your not acting on your knowledge. It is not a revelation which you need and therefore must you not ex

pect that God will depart from ordinary rules, and send ærial beings to make revelation more impressive. The spirits will not appear now, to force you to accept what you make light of when offered through the ministrations of your fellow men. But the spirits shall appear hereafter. "Ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands" shall be around the Judge. They shall attest the equity of the sentence which dooms to destruction those who have put from them pardon through Christ. I hear the words that were heard by Eliphaz-if, for a moment, those appointed to the fire and the shame attempt to arraign the justice of their portion, a voice like the voice of many thunderings, or of mighty waters, bursts from the throng, the countless throng, of spirits, "Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall man be more pure than his Maker?"

SERMON V.

VARIOUS OPINIONS.

Many of the people therefore, when they heard this saying, said, Of a truth this is the Prophet. Others said, This is the Christ. But some said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee? Hath not the Scripture said, That Christ cometh of the seed of David, and out of the town of Bethlehem, where David was? "-ST. JOHN vii. 40, 41, 42.

We often speak of the great changes | principles have pervaded God's moral and revolutions which have occurred in government: amid all changes and the world history is considered as lit- chances, it can be seen that an overruling tle else than the record of the rise and providence has been at work, guiding fall of communities, families, and indi- the complicated instrumentality, and dividuals. But, throughout the long se-recting it to the futherance of certain ries of vicissitudes, there may be traced much of what is permanent and perpetual; so that, probably, sameness or uniformity is as truly the characteristic of human history as variety or diversity. It may, for example, be always ascertained by a careful observer, that the same

fixed purposes and ends. It may also be perceived that the elements of human character have throughout been the same: man has changed in his fortune and position, but not in himself: you find him in the most opposite conditions, according as civilization is advanced or

defective, according as power is be- sentiments which are being expressed stowed or withheld; but you never find in regard of our Redeemer; and we him other than a creature inclined to will see whether we may not find matevil, and not liking to "retain God in ter of instruction and warning, as some his thoughts."

call Him the Prophet, some the Christ whilst others are asking, whether it te not indeed contrary to Scripture, tha the Christ should come out of Galiler Now the first parties introduced into our text, are those who were disposed

This sameness in human character might be traced in the minutest particulars. Not but what there are many and marked differences between the savage, and the man of a polished age and community; but they are not differences to recognize in our Lord a teacher sen in the staple, so to speak, of the moral from God: for though it is not quite constitution; you might in any given clear whom they intended by "the Pro case make the one out of the other, and phet "-whether Him of whom Mose: still have the same enmity to God and had spoken, "a Prophet shall the Lore to righteousness, because you would your God raise up unto you of your still have the same depraved heart. And brethren, like unto me," and who was forasmuch as the human heart, in its un- uone other than Messiah Himself; on renewed state, has all along been the whether that Prophet who was gene same, answering always to the scriptural rally expected as the forerunner of the description, "deceitful above all things Messiah-there can be no question that and desperately wicked," there can be they meant some one with a commission no surprise that so great sameness may from above, some instructor, authorised be traced in man himself, notwithstand-by God to deliver intimations of his pur ing the perpetual shiftings of his con- pose and will. Probably, indeed, they dition: you can expect nothing but that, who call our Lord "the Prophet," did when viewed as the creature of God, he not thereby mean the Christ; for the should exhibit the same prejudice, op- Evangelist makes two classes, those position, and dislike; make similar ob- who confessed the Prophet" in our jections to the divine dealings, and jus- Savior, and those who confessed the tify unbelief by similar fallacies. Christ; and this he would hardly have It were beside our purpose to go into done, had the same personage been inevidence, on the present occasion, of the tended, but under different names. In moral, or religious sameness, which may either case, however, and this is all be traced, we affirm, throughout the his- with which we are at present concern. tory of man. But our text, relating, as ed-a teacher with divine authority was it does, opinions and debatings of the evidently recognized: something had Jews with regard to our Lord, will give been done, or said, by our Lord, which us great opportunities of observing this produced a conviction-though it may sameness in some particular cases. We have been only transient, and without shall probably find that the sort of rea- practical results-that He was no desoning, by which the claims of Chris-ceiver, no enthusiast; but that He spake tianity were parried at its first introduc- in God's name, and bore his commistion, is still practised amongst ourselves: sion. we may be compelled to say that men

And it will be very interesting to ohare what they were more than eighteen serve what had been the immediate prohundred years back, on discovering that ducing cause of this conviction; for we the grounds of scepticism are but little so generally find our Lord treated with shifted; that modern indifference, or contempt and neglect, his miracles beunbelief, borrows from ancient its forming ascribed to Beelzebub, and his disand apology. courses listened to with apparent indifLeaving this, however, to open upon ference, that we naturally look for someus as we advance with our subject-or thing very memorable in the doing or rather, preparing you by it to expect the saying, which could influence the that we shall turn much of our discourse multitude to regard with favor his claims. on resemblances between the Jews and It was not, as you learn from the first ourselves-we will go straightway to the verse of our text, any action of Christ scene presented by the text: we will which wrought this effect: He had not hearken to the various and conflicting just then been working one of his more