But while we call upon believers to come and drink the wine of the kingdom, to enjoy the present and anticipate by faith the future privileges of the people of God, what shall we say to those who have no realisation of the former and no well-grounded hope of the latter? "How long to streams of false delight 66 How long your strength and substance waste 'My stores afford those rich supplies The soul that hears shall live." But if sinners will not hear the voice of eternal wisdom and love, if they will prefer an earthly to a proffered heavenly feast, if they will not go to the Cross, and from the Cross to the banqueting-house, if they will not through Christ and by the Spirit rise to an immortality of highest dignity and blessedness, where, I ask, will be their ground to complain if an immortality of dishonour and wretchedness await them? 'Tis their own free and infatuated choice. If they will not accept a freely offered title to glory, should they be surprised if there be put into their hands the sealed sentence of everlasting condemnation? What but death can the man expect who obdurately and perseveringly bids away God's wonderful and gracious offer of eternal life in His Son? O, let every sinner among us, therefore, hear the graciously entreating and tenderly expostulating voice of mercy, "Wherefore do ye spend your money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David." "Ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest. Ye are come unto mount Sion, and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than the blood of Abel. See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape if we turn away from him that speaketh unto us from heaven." * AFTER THE FEAST. "When they had sung an hymn," &c.-MATT. xxvi. 30. If any to the feast have come Who were not bidden, Lord, forgive; If any came in doubt and fear, O may they carry peace away, Let Heaven to them be calm and clear, And who in Zion mourning were, O give them songs of praise to Thee; O set them from their burden free. *This Hymn is inserted with the kind permission of the Author, and by request. All those who never sat before At this dear altar of Thy grace, O may they love Thee more and more, And serve Thee in Thy Holy Place. And they who ne'er again shall see The day of our communion dawn; Prepare them, Lord, to feast with Thee At tables which are never drawn. Forgive us all our wandering thought, VII. The last Sermon preached by Mr PURVES in the old Disruption Church was from the text, ISAIAH liii. 1, "Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?" and the concluding portion of it is inserted here : BUT let us see whether the subject before us, and to which we have briefly called your attention, does not admit of some application to the circumstances in which, as a congregation, we are this day placed. Within the walls of this Church, of which as a place of worship, we are about to take farewell, the gospel message has been proclaimed, the word of salvation preached during a period of almost twenty-three years; for I learn from one of our office-bearers, much respected and a warm and constant friend, and who deeply regrets that the state of his health prevents him from being with us to-day, that this house was opened for the worship of God on the 19th day of November, 1843, the ever memorable year of the Disruption. May I not therefore put the testing, solemn question, "Who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?" I am aware that not a few who heard the word, and received the bread of life in this building, when the gospel was first preached in it, are now far away beyond the reach of my voice. Every year has been lessening the Disruption congregation, and we have now among us only a handful, comparatively speaking, of that congregation, and of those also who attached themselves to it during the earlier years of the Church of Scotland, free and protesting. Nevertheless there are some of them still going out and in among us, and others who have for a longer or shorter period been fellow-worshippers with them in this House of Prayer, and are there not a goodly number connected with the congregation who for the first time, and at the Communion Table, spread out in the area of this Disruption Church, took into their hands the cup of salvation, and called upon the name of the Lord? "Who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed ?" How many are there among our members and adherents who have truly repented and believed the gospel? This is surely a question worthy to be considered, and seriously pondered over. I do not ask you to answer it to me, but God would have you to answer it to Him. You have just had two ministers ordained over you in the Lord—the Rev. William Clark, now of Quebec, who was inducted on the 5th of April, 1844, and myself, inducted on the 6th October, 1853. I might speak, and from unquestionable testimony I could speak freely and confidently, of the able and consecrated ministry of my predecessor, but I need not. Those of you who had the privilege of sitting under that ministry can tell whether he kept back anything that was profitable unto you; whether he shunned to declare unto you the whole counsel of God; whether he did not faithfully and affectionately, and with the finest of the wheat feed the flock; and whether he did not, with something of His Master's tenderness and urgency, press upon the acceptance of all the overtures of reconciliation; and |