SERMON VI.

PSALM lxxiv. 9.

We see not our signs.

AKING the Holy Scriptures for our guide,

ТАК

we have been employed in following the train of human events from the creation to the dissolution of all things; and without bringing examples from the Heathen world which knew not God, in the very bosom of his revelation, and among the people of his choice, our examination has proved a painful history of man's ingratitude and disobedience. Under every state of his trial and dependance we have seen the covenant of love and the conditions of pardon disregarded, broken, or despised; and with judgments forgotten, with mercies slighted, with blessings abused, with time squandered, and with talents unimproved, have hours, days, and years

passed over thoughtless ages, filling up the sum of their iniquity, or charged with little accusation against their guilty proceedings.

But amidst the signal punishments inflicted, whilst states and empires have been trodden down, and it may be said of nations, as the Psalmist reported of the ungodly, I went by, and lo he was gone; I sought him, but his place could no where be found-He who is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever, appears at the head of human affairs. The vicissitudes of times, the changes of power, the elevation and overthrow of empires, in short, all the plans of human counsels, and the whole series of earthly events, instead of lying in a confused and obscure mass, are shewn us by the light of revelation as so many parts of the great work of redemption; and the scriptures, exhibiting in sundry chastisements and corrections, in the fall and ruin of its enemies, the perpetuity of God's mercy to his church and people, are only waiting their ultimate completion, when the kingdom of Christ shall be extended to all nations, and all the ends of the earth shall look unto Christ, and be saved.

We have, my brethren, again concluded another annual period of our lives; and like those which have gone before, it has brought every one of us so much farther onwards in our journey towards the grave. With a respective application, therefore, of the text to every individual, it may be asked, what preparations the Christian traveller has made for the remainder of his way, what strength he may have acquired to endure its increasing hardships? To what guide he has adhered for directions, and what provision he has made for its awful close? We might then bid many look back on the paths they had trodden, and if there they too frequently find and lament their own deviations from the way on which God had shed forth the light of his word, and the obstacles that have thence impeded their feeble advances, on such we have only to call for greater vigilance, and more exerted vigour, to gird up the loins of their mind, and seek diligently to walk henceforward there alone, where the Sun of Righteousness will guide their feet into the way of peace.

But to many, I fear, we should have to pronounce the sharper admonitions of the Gospel.

Have they, busy about many things, neglected the one thing needful; and occupied by the interests of this transitory world, declined to cultivate the interests of eternity? Have they appealed from the voice of GOD to the suggestions of their own brief intellect, and preferred the sway of their own predominant passions to the easy yoke of their meek and lowly Redeemer? Have they witnessed, without instruction, the signs and warnings of surrounding mortality, and beheld their associates snatched suddenly to their last account, without thinking of the talents for which they themselves are to be responsible? And shall we, who are equally appointed to denounce the sanctions, as to preach the promises of the Gospel, acquiesce in the ruinous delusion? Have they, then, thus spoken peace to their own souls-Verily, saith my GoD, there is no peace to the wretched? Have they thus anticipated the grave as a place of final rest? When the Almighty shall come to judgment, then all that are in the grave shall hear his voice, and come forth; and as they that have done good shall come to the resurrection of life,

so they that have done evil shall come into the resurrection of damnation.

But although the real and important concern of man, as an individual, is necessarily transacted within the boundary of his own earthly duration; though in his separate character, his vices and his virtues, in this his state of probation, are to plunge him into misery, or to qualify him for eternal felicity; yet connected as he is with society, the actions of his life become relative also, and consequently form, on his part, a contribution to the character of his country, a contribution to the public vices or virtues, on which, from the history of his dispensations, we know that the Almighty has conferred his blessings, or inflicted his national judgments.

At the expiration of one, and the commencement of another year, the mind is naturally led at once to contemplate events and probabilities, and from the existence of the past, to infer to the future progress of human society. Without, therefore, stretching back the view to the recorded periods of the world, how ample is the lesson which even the little space, over which