territories of the Catholic communion, and tell me if in rapine and murder, their population is removed more than a single shade from the dreariness and desolations of paganism. Where in Christendom is life and property least secure; where are daily assassinations, where the whole population prepared for any deed of darkness and cruelty, but where there is least prevalent a correct knowledge of God. And let any one of the better territories of Christendom become apostate in their views of God, and how soon will vice spring up, the public morals be changed, the Sabbath be lost, the theatre thronged, and dress and vanity fill the place of sobriety and prayer! How soon will the true followers of Christ be persecuted, and family devotion, and Christian watchfulness, and all the retiring virtues of holier times disappear!

Thus you have my reasons for thinking this subject important. For these, and others that could be offered, I would watch the public creed relative to the character of God, more tenaciously than at any other point. It is the fortress I would starve in defending, the strong-hold into which I would fly with my children, and feel myself, and teach them to feel, that it is the only safe place to die.

Will the blessed God make me far better acquainted with his character, and never subject me to the awful temptation, of thinking it a light thing to either overlook, or give paramount importance, to any one of the glorious attributes of his nature. Will he cause his name to be known in all lands, and make his praise glorious, wherever there are beings capable of doing him honour.

SERMON L.

THE CHURCH WITH ALL HER INTERESTS SAFE.

Isaiah xlix. 16.

I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.

THE Jewish church, during her captivity, would be led to conceive that God had forsaken, and forgotten her. To effectually remove this impression, God by his prophet appeals to one of the tenderest relationships of life. "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea they may forget, yet will I not forget thee." Thus would he give to Zion, assurance of his unchangeable love. His people should multiply, till the land, where their foes destroyed them, should be too limited for their increased population. Kings and nations should serve them, and do them honour. Zion was dear to him as the apple of his eye. He would engrave her upon the palms of his hands; her walls should be continually before him.

In those days, it was the custom to paint upon the palms of the hands such objects as men wished to remember, in allusion to which custom God assures his people, that he had graven Zion upon the palms of his hands. Thus should her walls be continually before him; he would not forget her a moment, nor suffer any

foe to injure her. We have here a broad and sacred pledge, to be kept in mind by the people of God in all ages, and plead in their prayers, that he will foster and bless his church, and will employ his vigilance and his power to secure her safety, and advance her honours.

Thus is the church safe, and the people of God need have no apprehensions, nor weep a tear, but over their own transgressions, and the miseries of that multitude, who will not be pursuaded to take sanctuary in her bosom. I shall argue the safety of the church, from the firmness and stability of the divine operations, from what God has already done for his church, what he is now doing, and what he has promised to do.

I. We assure ourselves, that the church is safe, from the firmness and stability of the divine operations. I now refer, not merely to the unchangeableness of God, which will lead him to pursue for ever that plan which his infinite wisdom devised; for that plan lies concealed from us; but to that uniform and steady course with which he has pursued every enterprise which his hands have begun. That he is of the same mind, and that none can turn him, is a thought full of comfort; but that he has finished every work which he took in hand is a fact, which intelligences have witnessed, and one on which we may found our richest expectations.

Each he

The worlds which he began to build he finished. Not one was left half formed and motionless. placed in its orbit, gave it light, and laws, and impulse. And ever since this first development of the divine stability, the wheels of Providence have rolled on with steady and settled course. What Omnipotence began, whether to create or to destroy, he rested not till he had accomplished.

When he had become incensed with our world, and

purposed its desolation, with what a firm and steady step did he go on to achieve his purpose. Noah builds the ark, and God prepares the fountains, which, at his word, burst from their entrenchments to drown an impious generation.

How have suns kept their stations, and planets rolled in their orbits, by the steady pressure of the hand of God; by their revolutions measuring out the years of their own duration, and by their velocity urging on the amazing moment when they shall meet in dread concussion, and perish in the contact. How fixed their periods, their risings, their eclipses, their changes, and their transits. And while they roll, how uniform is the return of spring, summer, autumn, and winter. How certain every law of matter, gravitation, attraction, reflection, &c. The very comet, so long considered lawless, how is it curbed and reined in its eccentric orbit, and never yet had power or permission to burn a single world.

How sure is the fulfilment of prophecy. Ages intervening cannot shake the certainty of its accomplishment. Jesus bleeds on Calvary four thousand years subsequently to the promise which that event accomplishes. Cyrus is named in the page of prophecy more than two hundred years before his birth, and at the destined moment becomes the Lord's shepherd, collects the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and builds Jerusalem. The Jews, as prophets three thousand years ago foretold, are yet in exile. The weeping prophet, now at rest, still sees the family he loved peeled and scattered, and the soil that drank his tears, cursed for their sins; and confident that God is true, waits impatient the certain, but distant year of their redemption.

Wretches that dare his power, God will not disturb his plan to punish. The old world flourished one hun

dred and twenty years after heaven had cursed that guilty race. Sodom was a fertile valley long after the cry of its enormities had entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabbaoth. The Amorites were allowed five hundred years to fill up the measure of their iniquity after God had pledged their land to Abram, although Israel wore away the intervening years in bondage. Many a murderer has been overtaken by the hand of justice, half a century past the time of the bloody deed. God will punish all the workers of iniquity, but he waits till the appointed moment. Like the monarch of the forest, he comes upon his enemies, conscious of his strength, with steady but dreadful steps. In his movements there is neither frenzy, passion, nor haste. While his judgments linger, his enemies ask, "Where is the promise of his coming?" but let them know, that he has appeared, and discomfited many a foe; and the inference is that they must perish too. Whatever God begins, he finishes: no unseen embarrassment can turn his eye from his original purpose.

Now the argument is, that as God has begun to erect a church, he will act in this matter as in all others. If one of light character, a man given to change, had laid the foundation of some mansion, there would still be doubt whether it would ever receive its top-stone. But suppose his character exactly the reverse, and the moment he breaks the ground imagination sees the mansion finished now only make God the builder and the argument is perfect. Whether we can trace his footsteps or not, he moves on to the accomplishment of his purpose with undeviating course. Every event, in aspect bright or dark, promotes the ultimate increase and establishment of his church. Or shall this be the only enterprise to which his wisdom, his power, or his grace, is inadequate?