ever relieves them. It gives the most perfect and only true code of honor any where to be found. And its beauty is that it speaks not of fictitious but of real honor. "It is the glory of a man to pass over a transgression." The most pacific mode of settling our difficulties is at the same time the most honorable. To bear an injury is infinitely more honorable than to revenge it. And could we induce the world thus to believe, and thus to practice, what a Paradise would it become! No longer would it be the Aceldama which it has hitherto been, but by a magic transformation it would become as the garden of Eden for beauty and delight.

SERMON DCLVII.

BY REV. JONATHAN GREENLEAF,

BROOKLYN, N. Y.

THINGS THAT CANNOT BE SHAKEN.

"Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain."-HEBREWS xii. 26, 27.

In scripture phraseology the earth is often by a figure put for earthly or worldly things, such as worldly governments, temporal policies, and human institutions; while the phrase heaven represents religious things, mainly such as are external, such as the forms of religion, external church order, and the like. It was no doubt in this sense that our Lord used these terms in predicting the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and the breaking up and scattering of the Jewish people and church: "Heaven and earth," said he "shall pass away;" declaring in this way the subversion of the ancient polity, both political and ecclesiastical, and the bringing in of another dispensation. It seems most probable that we are to understand the expressions of the text in this way: "Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven." The Apostle had just alluded to the terrific displays of God's power on Mount Sinai, when his voice shook the earth, so that even Moses said, "I do exceedingly fear and quake," and now he declares that once more not earth only but heaven shall also be shaken; alluding probably here to the prophecy of Haggai, which was uttered in reference to the coming of Christ, wherein he says, " Thus saith the Lord of hosts, yetonce it is a little while and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the

sea, and the dry land. And I will shake all nations: for the desire of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with glory."

These remarks will assist us to a right understanding of our text. Great changes are predicted as taking place in the earth, both in the political and moral world, both in regard to the state and to the church, showing the instability of all things temporal, and the ultimate destruction of the powers which uphold them; and then bringing into view an entirely different state of things, a kingdom which cannot be moved, and things which can never be shaken.

In the contemplation of these two things we may be instructed.

I. From the beginning of the world to this day a scene of revolution and change has been exhibited on the earth, so that we can look to no point and say, see this is abiding, for mutability is inscribed on all things beneath the sun. Consider the ancient kingdoms among men, and where are they? They are gone-all gone-and many of them are now as though they had never been. Where is now Assyria, and Babylon its capital, once the mistress of the world, sitting as queen amid the nations, and seeing no sorrow, being decked with fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and gold, and precious stones, and pearls, while her merchandise was most precious, and all the merchants of the earth flocked thither? Where is she now? and what is her state? Ah! she is lost. Her sins reached unto heaven, and God remembered her iniquities, and rewarded her as she rewarded his people, filling double into her cup, as she did to others. Her great riches have come to nought, and her glories have expired in darkness. As a millstone is sunk in the waters, so Babylon is lost, and the very place of it can no more be found.

Egypt was once a mighty kingdom, and famous among the nations, but the sins and idolatries of the people provoked the Lord, and he gave them over to their enemies, till they were trodden down, and made base. Their princes became fools, and their counsellors brutish.

And there was Tyre also, once a "joyous city," a "crowning city," whose merchants were princes, and whose traffickers were the honorable of the earth. But Tyre sinned against the Lord, and he stretched his hand over her in vengeance, till her multitudes melted away, and her fine buildings and stately palaces have given place to a few rough rocks where the fisherman dries his nets.

Nor have the kingdoms of Media, and Persia, and Grecia, which were shown to Daniel in the visions of the ram and the rough goat, met any gentler doom. When they magnified themselves against the God of heaven, he shook them in pieces until they were destroyed, and all that can now be found of them is

but the ghost of what they were. More modern nations have shared a similar fate, for where God has not been acknowledged, or his word neglected, or his people persecuted, there his vengeance has come down, and the vials of his wrath have been poured out. There is very good reason for believing, that the revolutions and commotions of the nations of the earth, at the present day, are among the events predicted to occur at the pouring out of the vials of God's wrath upon a sinful world. The elements of combustion seem to be fast accumulating among the nations of Europe, like some vast subterranean mine, or some hidden volcano, laboring to find vent, and kept back perhaps only by new materials thrown in, which are hardly yet in a state of fusion. The crackling of the concealed fire is heard, the ground trembles beneath the tread of its inhabitants, and yet a little while, and the fearful irruption will take place, and for the sins of those nations God will shake them to their foundation. And then, we have good reason to believe, will come the great battle of the day of God Almighty, spoken of in the Revelation, when the Beast and the false Prophet shall be taken, and shall be cast together into the lake, burning with fire and brimstone.

One of our leading politicians,* referring to the present stormy aspect of things in Europe, expresses himself in the following striking language:

"It has seemed to me as if the prerogative of crowns, and the rights of men, and the hoarded-up resentments and revenges of a thousand years, were about to unsheath the sword for a conflict, in which the blood shall flow as in the Apocalyptic vision, to the bridles of the horses, and in which a whole age shall pass away -in which the great bell of time shall sound for another hourin which society itself shall be tried by fire and steel-whether it is of nature, and of nature's God, or not."

The question is an important one whether our own country will share in those punishments which are coming down upon the ungodly. We are indeed a very sinful people, and deserving of God's wrath; but there is still one encouraging circumstance: This nation has never formed any part of that power known in the Scriptures as "the Beast," meaning undoubtedly the papal empire; it has never been, in any sense, the "little horn," spoken of by Daniel, which persecuted the Church of God, and wore out the saints of the Most High. So long as we keep clear of this we may hope to be exempted from those desolating judgments by which a righteous God will punish those nations who have yielded themselves as instruments for the "man of sin."

In many other things great changes are taking place, and God in his providence is shaking every human institution, and thus showing that mutability is inscribed on every thing beneath the

* Hon. Rufus Choate.

sun. Societies, and various combinations of men, formed for the best of purposes, do not always accomplish the thing desired, and they are changed and modified by their friends; and they even sometimes become the instruments of evil, and the providence of God hedges them in. So too constitutions of civil government and laws change, and in very deed God shakes not earth only but heaven, signifying, as saith the text, "the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain." The contemplation of these is now before us; and we inquire

II. What are the things which cannot be shaken ?
To this inquiry we answer-

1. The purposes of God will never be shaken. He is in one mind, and none can turn him aside. Jehovah possesses perfect knowledge, and does not purpose or determine any thing without a full understanding of its propriety and suitableness for the end in view; and thus, with its results before him, he purposes to bring it to pass. The pleasure of God is the only rule of his purposes, and his own glory the sole end proposed, and hence every part, whether minute or more important, is established on an unshaken basis, planned in his own eternal mind, and rendered subservient to the accomplishment of certain fixed ends. With men it is wholly different. They resolve on certain acts in view of certain contingencies; but the contingency may change, or wholly fail, and the action changes of course. But with God it is not so. As he can commit no mistake in willing or purposing, so he cannot change, nor can his purposes ever be shaken.

2. The reasons of God's moral government, or the laws of his kingdom will never be shaken, or changed. In human governments the laws are continually changing, because the circumstances of the people vary, and a law that is proper now, becomes inexpedient or improper hereafter. Hence arises the enactment of new laws, the additions to some that remain, and the total repeal of others. Such is the employment of legislatures from year to year. But no such thing can happen in the government of Jehovah. The reason why he prohibits sin can never alter. It was ever opposed to his holy nature, and ever will be, and hence the reason, for his law can never cease, and the law itself can never change. So of holiness; it was the same thing in the beginning as now; and the law which required men to love God with all their heart can never change, because the holy nature of God can never change, and he will never cease to be a pure and holy Being, and deserving of the love of all his rational offspring. The laws promulgated to Adam in Paradise, so far as they went into detail, were in accordance with those given to Moses on Mount Sinai, and these again were sanctioned by our Lord, and repeatedly laid down by his apostles. Thus the law of God is one from

the beginning. It changes not, and is one of the things which can never be shaken.

3. The foundation of the Church of Christ is one of those things which can never be shaken. Figures are used in the Scriptures to represent it, but they are all figures of durability and power. "On this rock will I build my church," said our Lord, "and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Christ is the foundation of his Church, the corner-stone on which the building stands; and though the rain should descend, and the floods come, and the winds blow, and beat upon the building, it will not fall, for it is founded upon a rock. The prophet speaks of this foundation, as a stone laid in Zion, "a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation." Paul speaks of it as a glorious temple-"Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone." And then again it is represented as some noble tree planted by the rivers of water, whose roots pierce to the centre, whose top reaches to heaven, while its boughs, laden with goodly fruit, are extended to the utmost limits of the world. Thus the Church of God on earth is a permanent institution, having its foundation laid in the atonement made by the Divine Redeemer, and never to be overturned by all the convulsions of the world. It is, most strictly speaking, "a kingdom which cannot be moved." Human governments will be overturned, and the revolutions and convulsions of the nations will in time subvert the strongest; and some things in the external form of the church may be varied, but the thing itself will stand, and survive the destruction of the world. 4. The promises and threatenings of God's word will never be changed. From the beginning Jehovah has expressed his purposes of mercy toward his people in "exceeding great and cious promises," promises which have regard to the life which now is, as well as to life which is to come. These promises are substantially alike in every age of the world. They are expressed in various forms, and accommodated to various characters, but the amount of the whole is an assurance of glory, honor and peace, to every man that worketh good, "to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile." These promises were not one thing to-day, and another thing to-morrow, one thing under this dispensation, and another thing under that; they were not in this respect, yea and nay, as Paul terms it, meaning by this that they were not couched in equivocal language, sometimes a promise, and then a threatening; but adds the Apostle-" As God is true, our word toward you was not yea and nay. For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, even by me and Sylvanus, and Timotheus, was not yea and nay, but in him was nay. For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us." The threatenings issued against sin bear also one uniform character. Sin was always that evil and bitter thing which God hated: it always aimed at his throne; it

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