anxiety, and make no exertions to obtain your peace with him? Are you in a state of warfare with the great King of heaven, and yet refuse while he entreats you to return unto him, to give up your opposition to his will? Have you reflected how short is the period in which this reconciliation with an offended God must take place? A few more days, and he that shall come, will come, and will not tarry. Will you choose the despondency and fear of a death without hope? Will you choose to meet a Saviour then, who has been driven from you before, by an inexcusable ingratitude? Will you rush unpardoned and accursed, into that presence, where the holiest of the holy veil themselves with reverence? Will you reject the comfort of a Redeemer's grace, despise the riches of his forbearance, and cast from you the assistance of the one, who alone has power to defend you in the hour of trial? Will you give up here, the pleasantness and peace which Jesus offers, and the glorious inheritance which he has provided, and make your souls, with their immortal welfare, a sacrifice to your determined rebellion against God? Alas, if this be your decision, if you are resolved not to be on the Lord's side, man can do nothing for you. Your hours of regret are coming, when tears of blood will not repair your loss, nor anguish unutterable purchase peace.

But if you will return, come. Lay aside your repugnance to the will of God, your contests with his authority, your resistance of his Spirit. Let nothing detain or discourage you. Offer yourselves to God, and in that divine Saviour in whom he has laid up the treasures of his grace for you, seek pardon and life, and you shall in no wise be cast out.

To those of you who are on the Lord's side, let me say, come daily anew to him, with humble, believing hearts, and he will strengthen and bless you. Live more entirely by faith in him. Suffer him not to be wounded by your negligence or worldliness. Crucify him not afresh, by going back to the elements of the world, and drinking again out of broken cisterns. Never forget that there is no concord between Christ and Belial, no halfway ground in religious character or profession. There can be no giving up one hour of conflict for the sake of worldly peace. You must bear about with you the marks of the Lord Jesus, and never leave it as a doubtful matter to whom you belong. O, that you may have grace to live ever mindful of your eternal obligations, and always as becometh those who are on the Lord's side.

SERMON VIII.

THE PROTECTED PEOPLE.

EZEKIEL ix. 3-6.-And he called to the man clothed with linen, which had the writer's inkhorn by his side; And the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh, and that cry, for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof. And to the others he said in my hearing, Go ye after him through the city, and smite; let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: Slay utterly, old and young, both maids, and little children, and women; but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary.

To understand adequately, both the circumstances which are related in this passage, and the application which I design to make of them, it will be necessary to refer shortly, to the history which the prophet himself gives.

He was sitting in his house, and the elders of Judah were sitting before him, when the hand of the Lord God fell upon him. He beheld, and lo, a likeness as the appearance of fire. He saw a hand which was put forth, and took him by a lock of his head. And the Spirit lifted him up between the earth and the heaven, and brought him in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the inner door of the temple. And

the glory of the God of Israel was there, according to the vision which he had previously seen in the plain. There, God displayed to him successive scenes of the iniquity of the people; and carried him forward through different parts of the temple, and of the city, to witness the increasing abominations which were committed by various classes of the inhabitants of Jerusalem. The whole city seemed to him to be filled with crime. Even the sanctuary of the holy God, was desecrated by the polluting devices of wicked men. He beheld seventy of the ancients of the house of Israel, each provided with a censer, offering a thick cloud of incense to every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, which were portrayed upon the wall round about, saying to each other, "the Lord seeth us not, and the Lord hath forsaken the earth." He saw the women engaged in all the superstitions of their idol worship; and the men even between the porch and the altar of the temple, with their backs to the temple of the Lord, and their faces toward the east, worshipping the sun.

When all these varied scenes of guilt had been exhibited to him, the Lord said unto him, "Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah, that they commit the abominations which they commit here? For they have filled the land with violence, and have returned to provoke me to anger; and lo, they put the branch to their nose. Therefore will I also deal in fury; mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity; and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them."

The Lord then proceeded to show him the fulfilment of this solemn denunciation. "He cried in mine ears," says the prophet, "with a loud voice, 'cause them that have charge over the city, to draw near, even every man with his destroying weapon in his hand.' And behold, six men came from the way of the higher gate, which lieth toward the north, and every man with a slaughter weapon in his hand; and one man among them was clothed with linen with a writer's inkhorn by his side; and they went in and stood beside the brazen altar. And the glory of the God of Israel was gone up from the cherub whereupon it was, to the threshold of the house." The Lord forsook a sanctuary which had been so polluted by man's transgression, and stood at the door of the temple, to direct the work of separation and punishment among the people, which he had determined now to accomplish. He had come forth in his anger, to take vengeance on the iniquities of men, and to deal with them in his fury, for all the abominations which they had committed, and for the hardness and impenitent heart with which they defended themselves in them.

But the inhabitants of Jerusalem had not all thus forsaken or provoked him. The Lord had reserved to himself, as in the time of Elijah, a remnant who had not bowed the knee to the pernicious influence of a majority; who had dared to be "faithful found among the faithless." Before the work of determined destruction could commence, he must take forth the precious from among the vile. They had manifested their zeal for his honour, and their love for his ser vice, to the utmost of their power. And though they