spirit, walk in His steps, and follow Him, both through evil and through good report? Oh! what might not be expected from rulers who did know Him in this sense! - who zealously advocated His honour, His glory, and His cause in the five senses Í have mentioned in a former part of our discourse, and who had in them the doctrines He preached, and the spirit He manifested, settled, and grounded in their hearts.

But, whether the rulers do or do not; do you? Do you know indeed that this is the "very Christ?" Have you embraced those grand principles which I have announced to you for thirty years past, and the leading features of which I have reiterated this morning? Do you know Him so as to receive all He said, and accept His words, which declare, "My doctrine is not mine, but His who sent me.' And what shall I say about imbibing His spirit? "Oh," say some, "you have not much of His spirit!" Well, I would to God I had more, "for His spirit is not a spirit of bitterness." Stop a moment: what sort of a spirit was He of when He called the Pharisees around Him-those dignified people of His day-"a generation of vipers" and "serpents," and asked them, how they thought they could escape the damnation of hell? "Oh," said they, "what a bad spirit! how severe!" Well, and what sort of a spirit did He appear to be of when He took a whip of small cords, and began to lay it on the buyers and sellers in the temple, and drove them all out, and "poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables?" "Oh what a bitter spirit!—He might have taken care of the money!" Ah! that is the first thing with some people. But no; away went the money, and the cattle, and the buyers and sellers too. "Oh! how bitter! He might have gone quietly to the chief priests, and complained, and entreated them to cleanse the temple!" But He hesitates not, and, with the authority of a God, and fulfilling the prediction made concerning Him-"the zeal of thy house hath eaten me up"-He went forth, and drove them all out. We might name a number of cases, in His ministry, where he had to deal with determined foes; and the most solemn, and awful, and appalling of severities were used by Him. But when He had to deal with His disciples, or to suffer injuries or insults Himself, then He was the meek and lowly Lamb of God. Now, I want the same spirit-not merely with our rulers, but with all the followers of the Lamb and you cannot be too severe, too bold, or too bitter (if you like to call it so) against the abomination I am decrying. You cannot be too severe against sin, Satan, and the spirit of this world. But if it come to personal suffering, injuries, or insults, to you or to me, our wisest, holiest, and best plan is to cry mightily unto God, for patience to bear all things, to suffer all things, for Jesus' sake. This is the spirit I want to see prevailing amongst you. When I find this sort of true courage, and see that spirit in the character of the Christian, I am delighted with the view of it: that, in principle, he is as bold as a lion; in the spirit which he manifests against all that is opposed to Christ, Antichrist in particular, as firm and immoveable as a rock; and in his own personal demeanour as humble, meek, and lowly as the Lamb of God himself. My God, do thou grant me these things, and grant them also to thy hearers. Do the rulers indeed know Him thus? God grant them power to ask the question for themselves!

One word more. Do the rulers know Him, so as to own Him

publicly, or do they betray Him? You will recollect, when our precious Lord was betrayed, that though Judas was the tool, the chief priests, the scribes, and the Pharisees and rulers, were the moving power. Now, I think that Judas is the first Jesuit that we read of; and he was a Jesuit, because he went quietly and secretly to them, and said, "What will you give me if I betray Him unto you?" He moved the rulers, and they bribed him. I pray God not to suffer Jesuits to move our rulers to the betrayal of Christ! I pray God not to suffer them to follow in Judas's steps to betray our country! God Almighty prevent it! "Do the rulers know," so as to have their eyes open to Jesuit intrigues? "Do the rulers indeed know that this is the very Christ," so as to own Him publicly as their own personal Saviour? I do not ask them anything more. Do they even know Him, so as everywhere, in the senate-house as well as in the drawing-room and the closet, to honour, glorify, and exalt His precious name, and "whether they eat or drink, or whatsoever they do, to do all to the glory of God," in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, giving thanks unto God the Father by Him?

One thought more, and that must suffice here. Do the rulers know Him indeed, so as to feel their need of Him themselves? As I hinted before, I bless God that some of them do. Would to God they all did, and that none dared to despise Him! Oh! the vast importance of this one point, which I shall make my closing point-to know my need of this precious Christ for myself; to know it, under the Divine teaching, to such an extent as to despair of everything like life and salvation without Him; to know Him intimately, so as to obtain, by faith, a firm hold of Him, and thereby and therein, as the apostle has it, "lay hold of eternal life." Do I so know my need of Him? and have every one of you, whether rulers or ruled, asked, "Do I so know my need of Him as to be deeply conscious that I cannot live without Him, that I cannot be pardoned without Him, that I cannot be sanctified without Him, that I cannot enjoy God's presence without Him, that I cannot offer prayer without Him?-and this in a double sense; He must inspire it by His spirit, and He must also be the medium of presenting it-for no man cometh to the Father but by Him. I dare not approach God but by His name. I cannot have a hope of going to heaven without trusting His merits and righteousness. Any lust can vanquish me, if He is not upholding me with His mighty power, and dwelling in and walking with me habitually. Do I know Him so that even His Word is a blank unless I find Him there? Do I know Him so that He is all and everything in the soul's experience, in my daily walk, my providential movements, my public and my private life, for life, death, and eternity? Do I know Him, so that I feel my need of Him to be such that heaven would be no heaven without Him? I could have no foretaste of heaven upon earth without Him. My precious Bible would be a mere dark sayinga mere parable-an unintelligible thing. But with Him I possess all; "having Christ, I possess all things." You cannot express your loyalty and submission to your rulers in a better way than by pleading, day by day, that they may have this knowledge of their need of Him for themselves, and see England's danger, swarming with Jesuits-with the landed property getting into their hands, in consequence of the immense purchases they are making-while the very children are bribed from our schools, and brought under the Popish yoke?-when every effort

is put forth in every city, town, village, hamlet, and street throughout the kingdom to transfer the realm of England to the power of the Pope of Rome? What do our rulers believe? Oh, pray for them, that they may not be permitted to give their power and honour to the beast! Let those among them who know that this is the very Christ," be bold, zealous, manly, and determined, in opposing all that would make further concession to the Apocalyptic beast.

Yet once more, before I close, allow me to prepare your minds for the coming contest. I do not expect to see another birthday in this wilderness; nor did I expect to see this. But whilst I am able to lift up my voice, for my Master's sake, I warn you to prepare for the worst. I believe the time is not far distant-count me an alarmist, if you like -I have a clear conscience;-I believe the time is not far distant when there will be restrictions put upon public teachers and places of public worship. These restrictions will extend as the adversary acquires power, and by-and-bye they will accomplish for poor dear old England, unless God interposes, just what the spider accomplishes for the fly. The spider first weaves a beautiful web in the sunbeam; it is pretty to look at, and very orderly and regular. Having done this, he retires to a corner, and waits quietly until a fly is caught in the web, when down he pounces upon him. He then proceeds with another web, to tie the wings and the legs, and finishes the work by dragging his victim into the corner, and sucking its blood. Now that is just what Popery is actually doing in England at this moment. The web has long been spun. All the pretty enticements, and allurements, and gaudy shows, and pretended innocence, are but the spider's web, and there are Englishmen who have been such fools as to fly into that web. They are now proceeding to tie and bind, hand and foot, all the rights and privileges of English Christians, for the purpose of sucking their blood. I shall never again look at a spider at his work, without saying, "There is a Papist, hard at work-the exact figure and emblem of one."

If the time must come when we are to suffer persecution-when our teachers are to be taken from us, our chapels shut up, our goods confiscated, and our persons imprisoned, and possibly murdered -are we prepared for the events of that time? Are we able to to say, "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain?" Am I ready to go with Him to prison and to death? Am I willing to suffer all for His precious name? Oh! I want more grace from on high, and I plead with God for it, that, if I am spared until that period, I may be enabled to do so in the name of the gracious Master whom I serve. I have faithfully warned you; I have exhibited and proclaimed the precious Christ of God to you; "the very Christ" of God; I have held up, in contrast with Him, His opposer, Antichrist; and now I call upon you, as the professed followers of the Lamb, to at least adopt my last piece of advice, and make it a matter of prayer always in your closet, before God, that the rulers may indeed know that "that this is the very Christ."

May He command a blessing on these few hints, and His name shall have all the praise.

Delivered in Grove Chapel, Camberwell, Sunday Morning, Nov. 12, 1848, BY THE REV. JOSEPH IRONS.

"For the Lord shall judge His people, and repent Himself for His servants, when He seeth that their power is gone, and there is none shut up or left."-Deuteronomy xxxii. 36.

THESE words are part of what is called Moses's song, and a part of that song which might, with the strictest propriety, be called the lamentation, and be regarded as such; and yet, both the joyous part and the lamenting part unite to set forth the riches of Jehovah's sovereign grace to His own chosen people. This seems to be the great lesson of the whole chapter. He opens it by proclaiming the greatness of the glory of Jehovah, as "the rock," "a God of truth, and without iniquity, just and right." Then, speaking of the mighty deliverances which He had wrought for His people, he says, "So the Lord alone did lead him"-claiming them as His own, dividing their inheritance, separating the sons of Adam-"He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel;" asserting this one fundamental truth, that even the bounds of the earth, the divisions into nations, and the separation of all that pertains to the sons of Adam all over the world, is ordered, arranged, determined, and settled, "according to the number of the children of Israel." His eye is upon His chosen people, in all He does, and suffers to be done, throughout the world; and the reason is immediately assigned-"For the Lord's portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance." Then he goes on to sing of where he found Him, what He did for him, what were the miracles He wrought for him, what was the dignity He bestowed upon him-making him to "ride on the high places of the earth," and the like. And yet, after all that was done for Israel, in their redemp

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tion, in their deliverance, in their being Divinely led and guided, in the supply of their wants, and in their elevation, to "ride upon the high places of the earth," it is immediately added, in what I have called the lamentation, "But Jeshurun wazed fat, and kicked.". Oh, how awful and appalling the statement!" Then he forsook God who made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation. They provoked Him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations provoked they Him to anger. They sacrificed unto devils, not to God: to gods whom they knew not; to new gods that came newly up, whom your fathers feared not."

I cannot help pausing over this lamentation, in the midst of Moses's song, to mark the exact correspondence between the mighty works done for Israel, and the mighty works done for England, and the marvellous provocations of Israel, outdone by the more marvellous provocations of England. What shall be the result, time only can develope; but never was there a nation under heaven that had dealt so ungratefully with God, as God's Israel of old, until England determined to outdo them in ingratitude to God. And do mark the correctness of the expressions here employed as applicable to our circumstances as a nation. Pray indulge me a little, in the opening of my subject, upon this point: that they forsook God, that they lightly esteemed the Rock of their salvation, that they provoked Him to jealousy with strange gods, and sacrificed unto devils. Exactly Popery!-exactly! It is forsaking God, and setting up a delusion, and sacrificing unto devils; for it is the devil's religion all over, thus to have made all the nations drunk, as at the present hour, with the exception of the few persons whom we term-very offensively" God's elect." Their eyes are open to it. Now, what follows in this lamentation? "When the Lord saw it, He abhorred them." Oh, my God! never, never abhor dear old England. My soul must constantly pray for that as long as I can. "When the Lord saw it"-the very conduct that surrounds us everywhere"When the Lord saw it, He abhorred them, because of the provoking of His sons and of His daughters." They "moved" Him" to jealousy;" they were a "froward generation:" and now, says He, "a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn to the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains. I will heap mischiefs upon them. I will spend mine arrows upon them." Oh, how awful! Oh, how appalling! Is this a song? Is it not rather a lamentation? But then in comes a saving clause, " I said I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men, were it not that I feared the wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should behave themselves strangely, and lest they should say, Our hand is high, and the Lord hath not done all this: for they are a nation void of counsel, neither is there any understanding in them." And after this solemn lamentation, this saving clause is thrown in, and Moses proceeds to express the ardent longings of his soul, that they had been wise-"Oh, that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end. How should one chase a thousand"-instead of being himself chased into every corner-" and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the Lord had shut them up." I as much believe, as I believe in my own existence, that if all the nations of the world had, with one consent, become confederate, for the purpose of ruining England, they could not have done it, if