.But are you bearing crosses and making sacrifices for Jesus and his cause? If not, you are preferring some idol to him, and what must the end be? You will soon have to enter the furnace, and who will deliver you? Affliction is a furnace; but you will have no comforter with you there. Death is a furnace; but you will have no one to support you in that solemn hour. And the judgment will be a furnace; and there is "a lake that burneth with fire and brimstone;" and what guardian will rescue your soul? "How shall you escape, if you neglect so great salvation ?"

Why, oh, why should such a doom be yours? How much wiser the choice of these Hebrews; how much better the decision of Moses, "choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt." You admire these sainted heroes, make them then your models. Have faith in that God who says, "Them that honor me, I will honor," and be "followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”.

I suffer, I endure for Jesus; but what a privilege to bear anything for such an adorable Redeemer; "I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake." I suffer, I endure for Jesus; O, what honor to be identified with such a cause, to immolate anything for truth, for the salvation of a ruined world. Lastly, I suffer, I endure for Jesus; but it is the way to the crown; "through much tribulation we must enter the kingdom;" there

is no other avenue, and the footsteps of my Lord lead through this. "Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?" It was as a suffering Saviour that he passed to his coronation, and I must follow in the path he trod. Unto me "it is given, in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake."

Welcome, then, the Cross! Let the furnace be heated seven times! I glory in a cross by which I suffer with him, that I may be glorified with him. I triumph amidst the fires through which I shall win up to glory and honor and immortality beyond the skies.

"Through night to light. And though, to mortal eyes,

Creation's face a pall of sadness wear,

Good cheer, good cheer, the gloom of midnight flies,
Then shall a morning follow, bright and clear.

"Through cross to crown. And though thy spirit's life
Trials untold assail with giant strength,

Good cheer, good cheer, soon ends the bitter strife,

And thou shalt reign with Christ in heaven at length."

SERMON V.

THE DEITY OF CHRIST.

"And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory."-1 TIMO THY, iii. 16.

"God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.”—2 CORINTHIANS, v. 19.

LAST Sabbath I submitted to you an argument based upon the admissions which even infidels are compelled to make. And, assuming only those concessions, I attempted to show that Jesus Christ must have been more than man. I wish now to present. the truth in a somewhat different light; carrying the argument much farther.

In dwelling upon this subject let no one misunderstand me. Far be it from me to suppose that your minds need to be confirmed in this cardinal article of the gospel. My brethren, this is the Christian Sabbath ; the day which, from the morning of the Saviour's resurrection to the present hour, all Christians have hallowed as "the Sabbath of the Lord our God." This is a Christian temple, in which we are gathered to worship

Jesus, to mingle our homage with that of the multitude who burn around the throne of God, filling the golden. atmosphere with ascriptions "unto him who loved them and washed them in his own blood." And now perish the thought, that here, on this day and in this place, it should be necessary to prove to you that your faith is not sacrilege and your worship profanity.

The proper deity of Jesus Christ is, however, a subject which ought to engage our hearts and minds oftener than it does. Just reflect upon the importance of this great truth. It is the keystone in the arch of Christianity; on it as their substructure depend all our hopes; from it are derived all the glory of the gospel, and the magnificence of the atonement. I, therefore, make this fundamental doctrine the topic for our meditations today. The application of the subject will require nothing from me; your own hearts will instinctively turn, in admiration and gratitude, to the design of this amazing phenomenon. O Jesus! thou who in heaven art King of kings and Lord of lords, establish thy throne in the bosoms of this whole assembly, and reign there sovereign of every thought, undisputed monarch of every passion and affection.

"With

I. First, then, the divinity of Jesus Christ. out controversy great is the mystery of godliness; God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit," (his deity asserted, and “he declared to be the Son of God

with

power, according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead,") "seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up

into glory;" "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself;" "the first man was of the earth earthy, the second man is the Lord from heaven;" "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God;" "by him were all things created that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created by him, and for him; and he is before all things, and by him all things consist;""and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."

I pause before these texts. I do not multiply quotations; for I affirm that the man who can wrest these passages, will wrest the other Scriptures also, and is most deplorably and incurably prejudiced. I may love him for the graces of his character, and honor him for learning and genius; but it was to just such men Paul declared he found that Christ crucified was foolishness; it was of just such men-Grecians, Corinthians, amiable, accomplished-that he said, "The God of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, which is the image of God, should shine unto them.”

I am not ignorant, my brethren, of the flippant cavils with which the plainest "testimony of God" on this subject is sometimes assailed. I know there is a philosophy (but its name is folly) which forgetting that the Bible is not a record of human feelings and thoughts, but a divine revelation-affects to be offended at the myste