Two questions in conclusion. 1. Why do we not love Him more? For sweet is love. "I have sometimes heard," said Edward Payson, "of spells and charms to excite love, and have wished for them when a boy, that I might cause others to love me. But how much do I now wish for some charm which would lead men to love the Saviour more! Could I but paint a true likeness of Him, methinks I should rejoice to hold it up to the view and admiration of all creation, and be hid behind it for ever. It would be heaven enough to hear Him praised and adored. But I cannot paint Him; I cannot describe Him; I cannot make others love Him; nay, I cannot love Him a thousandth part so much as I ought myself. Oh, for an angel's tongue! Oh, for the tongue of ten thousand angels to sound His praises!"

2. Why not a holier living? Tholuck marvels how man can so readily yield to a multitude of propositions, and yet fail to draw from them the influences which are so very manifest.

Paul said Christ was formed in him the hope of glory. Oh, let none who read this rest till they know Christ thus-One who died for their sins, and is now in heaven, appearing in the presence of God for them.

XIX.

The Idol Shepherd.

THE IDOL SHEPHERD.

"WE may

Be nearer the grand conflict than appears.
Let it make haste, it shall be welcome; not
For its own self, but for the peace it brings.
The victory in which the spoiler shall
Be spoiled, his weapons broken, and himself
Bound in eternal chains by Him who came
To fight our battle here, and to undo
Our evil, and to conquer earth for man."

HORATIUS BONAR.

Nineteenth Part.

THE IDOL SHEPHERD.

WH

"Woe to the idol shepherd."-ZECH. xi. 17.

HO is this shepherd if not the antichrist? That he is an antichrist, a false shepherd, and not the true Shepherd, there can be no question. Every feature of the false is the opposite to the only One and true Shepherd.

"In speaking of the antichrist," Mr. Fawcett says, we must distinguish between the anti-Christianity that is latent in the long ages of apostatizing Christendom and the patent antagonisms to God of the last antichrist." Our Lord speaks of many such. He says, "Many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ." But He emphatically distinguishes these many coming in Christ's name from the last, who shall come in his own name. “If another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive." (John v. 43.) Like his Master, John distinguishes the many of the professing Church

from the one of the last age. "As ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists." (Chap. ii. 18.) So again, "Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world." (Chap. iv. 3.) "For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist." (2 John 7.) Many such have come in past ages; as Cerinthus and the Gnostics in John's time, and Mahomet subsequently denying Jesus' Messiahship and divinity. But these obviously are not the antichrist to come, whom the Lord shall "destroy with the brightness of His coming." (2 Thess. ii. 8.)

The many antichrists are easily distinguishable from the one foretold by our prophet, and set forth to us under the character of the "idol shepherd— a shepherd in the land, which shall not visit those that are cut off or hidden, neither shall seek the young ones, nor heal that which is broken, nor feed that which standeth still: but he shall eat the flesh of the fat, and tear their claws in pieces."

The term idol shepherd is one answering to his utter worthlessness and falsity, including the original