enism. Thus God has made pristine rebellion chastise itself; and, from our hands, most terrible has the chastisement proved. Heathenism, at first, sought to destroy true Christianity. At last, through the channel of a corrupt ChristianityChristianity which it had itself corrupted - it has almost literally destroyed itself!

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And now, what is to be the end of the matter? This. God's purposes seem ripening into accomplishment. The system of horrors, which, under the auspices of commerce, has reigned since 1492, appears to be breaking up. The Christian world is waking to a view of the criminal part which it has had in the guilt of a long series of centuries, and the whole church of Christ is doing, or preparing to do, her great work of repentance and of justice, before those whom she has wronged. This work, however slow at present, she will, by God's grace, carry on to completion. And then, as a sharp sickle, fitted for the hand of the Lord, she will sweep over the whitened field, reap the harvest of a willing world, and bring home great glory to that God of salvation, who alone doeth wondrous things.

MESSIAH'S THRONE.

BY

REV. JOHN M. MASON, D. D.

But unto the Son, he saith, Thy Throne, O God, is forever and ever. — HEBREWS, 1: 8.

In the all-important argument which occupies this epistle, Paul assumes, what the believing Hebrews had already professed,― that Jesus of Nazareth is the true Messiah. To prepare them for the consequences of their own principle — a principle involving nothing less than the abolition of their law, the subversion of their State, the ruin of their city, the final extinction of their carnal hopes - he leads them to the doctrine of their Redeemer's person, in order to explain the nature of his offices, to evince the value of his spiritual salvation, and to show, in both, the accomplishment of their economy, which was "now ready to vanish away." Under no apprehension of betraying the unwary into idolatrous homage, by giving to the Lord Jesus greater glory than is "due unto his name," the apostle sets out with ascribing to him excellence and attributes which belong to no creature. Creatures of most elevated rank are introduced; but it is to display, by contrast, the preeminence of him who is "the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of his person." Angels are great in might and in dignity; but "unto them hath he not put in subjection the world to come. Unto which of them said he, at any time, Thou art my son?" To which of them, "Sit thou at my right hand?" He saith, they are spirits, "ministering spirits, sent forth to minister unto them who are the heirs of salvation." "But unto the Son,”—in a style which annihilates competition and comparison, "unto the Son he

saith, thy throne, O God, is forever and ever."

Brethren, if the majesty of Jesus is the subject which the Holy Ghost selected for the encouragement and consolation

of his people, when he was shaking the earth and the heavens, and diffusing his Gospel among the nations, can it be otherwise than suitable and precious to us on this occasion? Shall it not expand our views, and warm our hearts, and nerve our arm, in our efforts to exalt his fame? Let me implore, then, the aid of your prayers; but, far more importunately, the aids of his own Spirit, while I speak of the things which concern the King: those great things contained in the text his personal glory, his sovereign rule.

1. His personal glory shines forth in the name by which he is revealed; a name above every name, THY throne O God! To the single eye, nothing can be more evident, in the first place, than that the Holy Ghost here asserts the essential deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. Of his enemies, whom he will make his footstool, some have, indeed, controverted this position, and endeavored to blot out the text from the catalogue of his witnesses. Instead of thy throne, O God, they would compel us, by a perversion of phraseology, of figure and of sense, to read, "God is thy throne;" converting the great and dreadful God into a symbol of authority in one of his own creatures. The Scriptures, it seems, may utter contradictions or impiety, but the divinity of the Son they shall not attest. The crown, however, which "flourishes on his head," is not to be torn away; nor the anchor of our hope to be wrested from us, by the rude hand of licentious criticism.

I cannot find, in the lively oracles, a single distinctive mark of deity, which is not applied, without reserve or limitation, to the only begotten Son. "All things whatsoever the Father hath, are HIS." Who is that mysterious Word, that was "in the beginning, with God?" Who is the "Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, the first and the last, the Almighty?" Who is he that "knows what is in man," because he searches the deep and dark recesses of the heart? Who is the Omnipresent, that has promised, "Wherever two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them?" the light of whose countenance is, at the same moment, the joy of heaven and the salvation of earth? who is encircled by the seraphim on high, and "walks in the midst of the golden candlesticks?" who is in this assembly? in all the assemblies of his people? in every worshipping family? in every closet of prayer? in every holy heart? "Whose hands have stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth?" Who hath replenished them with inhabitants,

and garnished them with beauty, having created all things that are in both, "visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers? By whom do all things consist? Who is "the Governor among the nations," having "on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords?" Whom is it the Father's will that "all men should honor even as they honor himself?" Whom has he commanded his angels to worship? whom to obey? Before whom do the devils tremble? Who is qualified to redeem millions of sinners from the wrath to come, and preserve them, by his grace, to his everlasting kingdom? Who raiseth the dead, having life in himself, to quicken whom he will, so that, at his voice, all who are in their graves shall come forth; and death and hell surrender their numerous and forgotten captives? Who shall weigh, in the balance of judgment, the destinies of angels and men? dispose of the thrones of paradise? and bestow eternal life? Shall I submit to the decision of reason? Shall I ask a response from heaven? Shall I summon the devils from their chains of darkness? The response from heaven sounds in my ears; reason approves, and the devils confess This, O Christians,

is none other than the GREAT GOD our SAVIOUR!

-to a man,

Indeed, the doctrine of our Lord's divinity is not, as a fact, more interesting to our faith, than, as a principle, it is essential to our hope. If he were not the true God, he could not be eternal life. When, pressed down by guilt and languishing for happiness, I look around for a deliverer such as my conscience and my heart and the word of God assure me I need, insult not my agony, by directing me to a creature a mere man like myself! A creature! a man! My Redeemer owns my person. My immortal spirit is his property. When I come to die, I must commit it into his hands. My soul! my infinitely precious soul committed to a mere man! become the property of a mere man! I would not, thus, intrust my body, to the highest angel who burns in the temple above. It is only the Father of spirits, that can have property in spirits, and be their refuge in the hour of transition from the present to the approaching world. In short, my brethren, the divinity of Jesus is, in the system of grace, the sun to which all its parts are subordinate, and all their stations refer which binds them in sacred concord, and imparts to them their radiance, and life, and vigor. Take from it this central luminary, and the glory is departed— its holy

harmonies are broken- the elements rush to chaos - the light of salvation is extinguished forever!

was

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But it is not the deity of the Son, simply considered, to which the text confines our attention. We are, in the second place, to contemplate it as subsisting in a personal union with the human nature. Long before the epistle was written, had he "by himself purged our sins, and sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. It is, therefore, as "God manifested in the flesh; as my own brother, while he is "the express image of the Father's person;" as the Mediator of the new covenant, that he is seated on the throne. Of this throne, to which the pretensions of a creature were mad and blasphemous, the majesty is, indeed, maintained by his divine power; but the foundation is laid in his mediatorial character. I need not prove to this audience, that all his gracious offices and all his redeeming work, originated in the love and the election of his Father. Obedient to that will, which fully accorded with his own, he came down from heaven; tabernacled in our clay; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; " submitted to the contradictions of sinners, the temptations of the old serpent, and the wrath of an avenging God. In the merit of his obedience, which threw a lustre round the divine law; and in the atonement of his death by which "he offered himself a sacrifice without spot unto God," - repairing the injuries of man's rebellion, expiating sin through the blood of his cross, and conciliating its pardon with infinite purity and unalterable truth; summarily, in his performing those conditions, on which was suspended all God's mercy to man and all man's enjoyment of God, in these stupendous works of righteousness, are we to look for the cause of his present glory. bled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross; wherefore, God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Exalted thus, "to be a Prince and a Saviour," he fills heaven with his beauty, and obtains from its blest inhabitants the purest and most reverential praise. Worthy, cry the mingled voices of his angels and his redeemed, "worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing." Worthy, again cry his redeemed, in a song which

"He hum