his special mercy, his evident working | conceptions and purposes; then it alfor our welfare, his naming of us, his calling of us, his blessing us with his grace, and the right hand of his power, which hath brought us up hitherto and hitherto defended us. Then in such meditations God's spirit will take a part, and prompt you to fall upon your knees and render him thanks. You will pay your vows unto the Lord, and devote before him the service of your future life; and the consolations of the holy one shall descend upon you, and with a peace that passeth understanding you shall lay yourselves down into the lap of his carefulness, and sweet sleep after such holy occupation shall be commanded to fall upon you, and your visions of the night shall not trouble you, and in the morning you shall awake and walk in your uprightness; and when eventide comes again it will bring with it its season of thought and reflexion; and new revelations shall be made to you from above, and your way well ordered and sure shall shine more and more unto the perfect day. Now I know that your ignorant wits, city bred, and by the excitement of the city rendered incapable of such meditative moods, do, when occupation of business ceases, look out for occupation of amusement, and after days passed in offices, chambers, and counting-houses, think the evenings best spent in parties, in theatres, in crowded assemblies. To such what hath been said will appear weak and silly sentiment, the fruit of an affected or fanciful brain; in which they do but demonstrate the complete eradication of those finer parts of nature to which this discourse addresseth itself. For these contemplative moods which I have sought to turn to the service of religion, are not the resting time merely of the mind, but the breeding time; then it is creative, and engenders new ters, and amends, and occupies itself with speculations about the end and meaning of human life. It here achieves its liberation from the bondage of custom, and, away from noise and folly, takes its fill of calmness and freedom; and I will be bold to say, that no man was ever blessed to design aught beneficial to his kind, to change any of the currents of custom, who did not devote and addict himself much to retirement and solitude, and no man was ever converted from the error of his ways without much private meditation, se- ' cret prayer, and self-examination. Nay, nature speaks in behalf of the lesson which I this day endeavour to inculcate-speaks within the bosom of man, woman, and child. What meaneth that jocund face, and merry heart, and joyous spirit, with which people leave the noise of the city behind them? What means that roving of the eye unwearied over the aspects of the country? Why do poets ever cull their images of happiness and innocence from the country? Why do we citizens plant herbs and flowers around and in our very houses? Why do we ornament the hangings and furniture of our chambers with rural scenes?-hang pictures of the country upon our walls? Why is it, but that there are parts of our soul which call for nature in her simple form, which long after her silence and verdure, and which, feeling themselves ready to perish through much bustle and occupation, do, by a desperate effort, serve themselves therewith, and will construct emblems of the country everywhere, importing its productions, planting bowers, and shady walks, and evergreens, in the very heart of the most populous and living quarters of the town. Therefore, in the lesson and argument of this discourse I am borne out by the voice of universal nature; universal except in a few, who, never escaping during the time when soul and body are conformed, out of the alley or lane in that quarter of the city where they were born, become a sort of fixture which cannot bear to be removed. But what are such unfortunate people? they are, amongst men, what the dwarfish and stunted shrubs of the city are to the noble and graceful trunks which display themselves in their natural woodlands. I know, moreover, that the persons of the city, showing the same prejudices in another kind, will say that all this concerning which I discourse matters nothing provided the family devotion be regularly attended to, and religious conversations are regularly held, and the temple attended upon, and the weighty matters of the church regarded. But what, I ask, is the devotion that cometh not out of contemplation of GoD's works? or what is the prayer that proceedeth not from the knowledge of our own hearts? Truly, I have heard a peasant's prayer, the prayer of a man who conversed with his GOD, and his own soul more informed with the spirit of piety, broader and deeper in its religious sentiment, and nobler in its ascriptions of praise and utterance of humility, than would have supplied the formality and cant of many city conventicles. And for the religious conversations of cities, I hold them the most futile and unprofitable speculations which the world holds; places for display, for affectation, for every thing but true-hearted piety, whose right place is in the visiting of the sick and the comforting of the afflicted, and the upholding of the destitute. They are a sort of war of opinions, a muster of parties, an idclatry of some ephemeral creature dressed in his brief popularity, and distracting and not attracting pious and humble and heavenly moods. And for temple service, to go no further than this of our own, which we en deavour our best to sanctify, what an assemblage of staring varieties, prying, irreverent talkings, by which the pious and contemplative moods of the true worshippers are put to flight, their virtuous strains of conversation put out of countenance, and self-examination scared away, which I hold to be the foundation-stone of religious edification; and I myself, who endeavour, as God gives me the ability, with sincerity and singleness of heart, to lead this congregation, have need of all my grace and fortitude to be hindered from giving way to some of the humours into which the consciousness of such conditions as surround me would betray a less resolute man. Which rebuke, brethren, take not amiss-those of my congrgeation know me too well to think that I would say anything unkind, and they lament the evil as much as I can do. I speak not of them-I speak not against any one, I simply point to the effect which city bustle and excitement have upon the most sacred service of religion. Oh! brethren, I have seen sabbath sights, and joined in sabbath worships, which took the heart with their simplicity, and ravished it with sublime emotions. I have crossed the hills in the sober and contemplative autumn, to reach the retired lonely church betimes, and as we descended towards the simple edifice, whither every heart and every foot directed itself from the country around, on the sabbath morn, we beheld issuing from every vale and mountain glen, its little train of worshippers coming up to the congregation of the Lord's house, around which the bones of their fathers reposed, and near to which reposed the bones of one who had in cold blood fallen for his God, at the hands of that wretched man, the hero of our northern romances; bones oft visited by pious feet, and covered on the hill side, where they lie with a stone bearing an in scription not to be exceeded for substance by any in that sacred mausoleum, which containeth the ashes of those whom the nation delighteth to honour. In so holy a place the people assembled under a roof, where ye of the plentiful south, would not have lodged the porter of your gate. But under that roof the people sat and sung their Maker's praise, "tuning their hearts, by far the noblest aim," and the pastor poured forth to GOD the simple wants of the people, and poured into their attentive ears the scope of Christian doctrine and duty, and having filled the hearts of his flock with his consolations, parted with them after much blessing and mutual congratulation, and the people went on their way rejoicing. Oh! what meaning there was in the whole! what piety! what intelligence! what simplicity! The men were shepherds and came up in their shepherd's guise, and the very brute, the shepherd's servant and companion, rejoiced to come at his feet. Oh, it was a sabbath! a sabbath of rest! the body and soul were equally refreshed, and all nature around seemed to sympathize in the unity which breathed through the congregation; and the fruits of such sabbaths were manifest. The people were healthy, manly, and happy; and though the parish was of large extent, there was not in all its borders a house, for dispensing fermented liquors, those poi sons of the land. But were the people stupid? yes, in what an over-excited citizen would call stupid, that is they cared not for courts or parliaments, for plays, routs, or assemblies, but they cared for their wives and children, their laws, their religion, and their God; and they sang their own native songs in their native vales, songs which the men I speak of can alone imagine and compose, and from whom we citizens have to be served with songs and melodies too, for we can make none such ourselves. Now these comparisons mislead, and I fear I may shew unkindness, but I mean none, I mean only the statements of truth, that you, my friends, may be moved to take thought of these matters, and set your time in order before the Lord, and stand for leisure and liberty against the manifold invasions to which we are exposed. For until you do so your religion will not prosper-your accounts with GOD and eternity will remain unsettled your conscience will remain confused-your soul unoccupied-your religious fruits immature. It is as necessary as activity and occupation. The world calls for the latter, and I have thought it my duty as your pastor to call for the former. Refuse it not for the sake of your spiritual welldoing. Commune with yourselves in secret. Enter into your closets and pray unto your Father which is in secret, and your Father which is in secret shall reward you openly. Fear not the loss of time or of fortune, but retire to seek the Lord, and he will light upon you the light of his countenance, which shall give you more joy than when your corn and wine and oil do most abound. dication of God's perfections as a lawgiver, that every believer shall be solemnized into a more awful sense of the evil nature of sin than he is likely to attain by an easy access to a state of acceptance, and who would have him to describe the course of a legal discipline in which he may be left for a season to mourn or to tremble under the hidings of God's offended countenance. Now we dispute not that this is one, and a very common way, in which the law acts as "a schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ;" yet it is not the invariable way, and therefore we affirm that the Gospel cannot be trusted in too soon, that men cannot give up too early their doubt and their unbelief on the part of heaven's communication, and that the more quickly we are rid of all suspicion in regard to GoD's overtures the better. In other words, the more quickly the period of dread and disturbance comes to an end, the sooner we come to the tranquillity of the Christian faith, the more prompt and the more pleasing is the homage that we render to God's faithfulness. fresh provocation of a despised amnesty. Their first blow was at the sceptre of heaven's authority when they disobeyed the law, and for this they have incurred condemnation ; their second blow is at the sceptre of heaven's clemency in rejecting the Gospel, and by this they seal their condemnation and make it irreversible. It is quite true, that, by the sanction of the Gospel, there is a free and willing dispensation of mercy to all who will accept of it; and the vilest of sinners may at the instant seat himself under the shadow of it and be safe. Some have listened to its call and the law has not been degraded by their justification, for in the obedience and sacrifice of Christ the noblest of all indemnities has been rendered to it; and many have been unheeding of its call, and therefore over them the law still retains its authority and pronounces its condemnation; and the vengeance of God will only burn the more fiercely because the voice of his compassion has been lifted up in vain In proportion to the freeness of the slighted call which came forth from the mercy-seat, will be the force and the power of that anger which shall descend from the throne of judgment over the still unrelenting hearts of the rebellious. The more rich the pro There is really nothing in the freeness of the Gospel that at all comes into collision with the honour of the law. There are two classes of people to whom the Gospel is addressed those who accept, and those who re-vision of grace is, the more full and ject it. In reference to the first, it is not they who do honour to the law -Christ hath made ample provision for its honour by taking upon him. self the burden of their atonement; and in reference to the latter, the law still reserves against them the right of its entire vindication. Those penalties which, by betaking themselves to Christ, they might have avoided, will all be discharged upon those who neglect the Gospel, and the frown of of fended Majesty will be the fiercer, because to the provocation of a broken commandment they have added the hopeless will be the condemnation of the guilty who have spurned it away from them. If the herald has proclaimed a full pardon, the execution of the sentence after him will, on that account, burst forth to the uttermost of its fury on those whom the Sovereign finds still despising his authority, and heedless of his proffered kindness. And if GoD, willing to show mercy, has proclaimed to all the freeness of his grace, tremendous will be the reaction of his rejected benignity on those sinners who shall refuse to entertain it. The very greatness of the offered pardon will increase their condemnation, for "how," in the language of the text, "shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?" I think the force of the text lies in a sentiment, the justness of which may be made familiar to you all. The man who has been insulted, and has suffered the provocation of sore and repeated injuries at the hand of another, is admitted to have a direct claim of redress and amendment. But should he forbear the prosecution of the claim, even as God has forborne the penalties of a broken law, should he stifle all the vindictive propensities of his heart, and give way to pitying sensations in behalf of himself and his family, should he in the generosity of his heart hold out the right hand of fellowship, and assure the author of all his injuries, that still his only desire is for peace, and his only purposes are of unequalled kindness and regard for him, should he come down so far as to entreat a reconciliation, and protest in the attitude of a suppliant his readiness to forgive all and forget all-who is there among you that does not feel from his own bosom, that though it were possible to stand out the provocation of the first malevolent offence, yet to stand out the provocation of despised forbearance, and proffered reconciliation may not be possible. The power of sufferance may have been stretched beyond the limits of the uttermost compassion, and overleaping all restraint, seek their vindication in visiting with punishment the ungrateful offender. Who does not see that the patience which was in the mind, and the proffer of pardon that burst from the lips being thus slighted and despised, are the very causes which heighten the sinner's guilt, the very elements that bring the most overwhelming destruction upon him? Now this is the very evolution which takes place under the economy of the Gospel. We are now beseeched by the mercy and gentleness of Christin a little while, and ye shall run to hide yourselves from the wrath of the Lamb-to-day, if ye will hear his voice, the voice of God would lead you to repentance; but if, through the hardness and impenitence of your heart, you despise that voice, then is there another day, which is called "the day of the revelation of the righteous judgment of GOD." There is not a hearer now present who is not invited to kiss the Son while he is in the way, but along with that invitation he must also take the alternative-the time is short, and the way of reconciliation will soon be closed against him; and the Son of GOD, instead of being found in that way, will be seated on a throne of judgment, whence his wrath will speedily begin to burn against all who have spurned the offers of his grace. You have first set at nought the authority of the law-that is, what we all have done; but by his gracious interposition, that may be still settled; but if you thus set at nought the grace of the Gospel, this will be the consummation of your ungraciousness towards GOD, and the breach between Him and you will be wholly irreparable. You first took from him the tables of a perfect commandment, and these, to your own condemnation, you have broken; he then stretched forth the olive-branch of forgiveness, and that you have also treated with disdainful unconcern. gives the force of a double-edged sword to the preaching of the Gospel; so that while it is the savour of life unto some, to others it is the savour of death unto death, and hence the very grace of the offer, if rejected, will aggravate the sinner's future condemnation. It is this which You will now see how it is that the law and the Gospel instead of being in conflict with each other, harmonise |