advanced by those who would level the only national bulwark that exists against the deluging inundation of all that is corrupt in religion, and turbulent in politics; and so we would make " days to speak, and years to teach wisdom." I desire not to exalt an institution or mere instrument beyond its due place, or into undue importance: it is but an instrument, yet it is one we cannot and should not dispense with; it is certainly but as the scaffolding to the building, as the shade to the lamp, as the husk to the kernel; yet, remove the scaffolding, and how shall the builders work? break the shade, and what prevents the lamp from being extinguished by the gusts of human passions? destroy the husk, and can the kernel ripen? Imperfect as it may be, brethren, nevertheless allowing all its imperfections, it is indispensible, in these days of unsettled notions, and heretical errors; and if only considered as a national depository of the truth we would maintain it to the last. For this end at least, the church has justified her fitness, and in proof of my assertion let the wide spread Socinianism without her pale, on the one hand, vie as testimony, and on the other, the uncorrupt transmission of the faith by means of her accredited formularies, when congregations were listless, and ministers unfaithful; and thus let "days speak" for her, and "years teach" the "wisdom" of maintaining her. Fastidious indeed must be that taste, and distempered that conscience, which in days like these could urge one to leave the benign guardianship and gentle nurture of a church that waits upon us from the cradle to the grave, and rashly launch forth upon the sea of unrestrained fancies and heated impulses, in search of that yet undiscovered Eutopia of romantic religionists, where, forsooth, temptation is to have no triumph-sin no footing, sinners no admission. Oh! my brethren, the word of God and the experience of the heart are alike opposed to this: observe too, its not uncommon effects; what a lamentable fall there often is from kind and peaceful charity-from the sweet spirit of christian fellowship-from the enlarged and unselfish love of the sober minded child of God, and how soon, in order to support a system, prejudice is fortified by the indulgence of a rancorous and controversial habit so ruinous to growth in christian grace. Let this too, read to all who yet abide within the tabernacle the lesson of the text—“ I said, days should speak, and years teach wisdom." 2 Once more, while we have to bear up against all that is dark and threatening in the political horizon, and meet the subtle approaches of the professed enemy of truth and holiness, it is indeed discouraging that we have also to resist and protest against the leaven of a corrupt system, which has begun to work in the very bosom of the church. It is not enough, it seems, that we have to oppose the encroachments of Romanism from without, but we are also to be startled by a new danger from within: from the high and lettered retreats of our universities, the nurseries of our rising ministry, some of the most intolerant and unscriptural dogmas of the church of Rome are advanced, her predicted apostacy negatived, and her "strong claims upon our admiration, reverence, love, and giltude," asserted! Yes, we have now to contend where we expected to combine ; we have to contend for the christianity of the Bible, against the christianity of human traditions for the all-sufficiency of the bread of life-for the unadulterated fountain of truth. Modern liberalism may reproach us with unjustifiable bigotry, and may say that we are making mountains of unimportant distinctions; besides that Romanism is so softened down and humanized, by the enlarged intelligence of the times, and the diffusion of knowledge, that it is both ungenerous and unfair to charge upon it in the 19th century, the absurdities and barbarities of the dark ages; but how far this vindication is satisfactory, let Dens's Theology bear witness, their authenticated and well used compilation of the absurdities and iniquities of the darkest period of that church; at all events, we have to do with church that declares herself infallible, and unless the claim of infallibility be among the absurdities laid aside, it appears not to me how she can have materially altered. No, brethren, she is not suicidal enough to do so; her monstrous superstructure must crumble into ruins, with the sinking of that monstrous basis, and the claim of infallibility. which she cannot forego, without ceasing to be herself and by which she binds her enslaved votaries to her blood-stained idol-car, does indisolubly rivet upon her own neck the heavy weight of her accumulated superstitions, till they eventually sink the fore-doomed apostate in the abyss of tremendous, and irrevocable judgment ! If then, her principles be the same as when she brought our fathers to the stake and scaffold, for maintaining what this generation is pleased to term "unimportant distinctions," let us, instead of loading her with apologies for our bigotry, in the strength of our Redeemer resist her advances, by uncompromising adherence to sound doctrine, followed up by the note and comment of a holy life. If she is again to regain her lost power, let us not lend a helping hand by luke-warmness and unfaithfulness: if she wrest back ecclesiastical endowments-if she be legislated into influence, by time-serving concessions-if she lengthen her cords and strengthen her stakes, through the aid of mental reservations and violated oaths if she multiply her mass houses, by cajoling the artful, flattering the vain, and intimidating the abject-Oh! let not us be silent, as though we allowed Romanism to be truth, or error to be unimportant: the word of the living God forbids it, the example of our righteous ancestry protests against it; aye, brethren, the very martyrs raise their admonitory hand from the scaffold and the flamethey bend over us from the block-they beckon to us from their ascending chariots of fire, to inculcate the lesson of the text-" I said, days should speak, and multitude of years should teach wisdom." The advantages and blessings of our communion, you, my brethren, have largely experienced a stated ministry, a faithful and kindly discharge of its offices, an open door, a free access for yourselves and little ones to the devotions of public worship, and the advantages of religious instruction-I hope they have not spoken in vain. Believe me, these periodical meetings and parochial visits, the kind advice, the meek reproo the seasonable consolation, and the ready example, which, under God, have been dispensed unto you, render you deeply responsible to the Lord and to one another; "for to whom much is given, of him shall much be required"; "and this commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God, love his brother also." But I may be speaking to some who, under the light of these great privileges, are still enslaved by a wordly heart; unimpressed by the sparing mercies of God, and unsubdued by all that is brought to bear upon the conscience, the intellect, and the sensibilities: providences are startling, warnings are reiterated, the Gospel plies you with its motives, and judgment with its terrors, and you will not awake! If there be one awful state on earth, it is that of one, who, under the periodical preaching of the Gospel, can sit listless and unimpressed-madly bent on turning that into his condemnation, which is held out to him for the salvation of his soul! There he sits among the worshippers of God, while the world is the idol-of his affections! mocking God with a lip service, and rendering Satan the devotion of his heart, in the very temple of the Most High! And while the dew of heavenly blessings descends in rich abundance upon all around, like Gideon's fleece, that wretched man alone is singularly unaltered! Oh, my brethren, should not "days speak, and years teach you wisdom?" Look back upon the past: what fruit had ye in these things, of which you should be now ashamed? none! "the wages of sin is death!" I do beseech you to consider your ways; let it suffice you of your past abominations; throw yourself upon the mercies of Him, whose mercy you have hitherto despised, mercy purchased by a Saviour's blood, and He will have mercy upon you, and abundantly pardon you, and you will find peace at your latter end, through Him who is "our peace" with God, through faith in his name-even our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Again, if I am speaking to a backslider, is there nothing touching, nothing affecting, in the retrospect to which I would summon you also! is there nothing condemning-nothing painful, in the constrast of a heart once occupied by spiritual things, with a heart that now tries to satisfy itself with the frivolities of a hollow world? let "days speak" to you also; I would waken memory; I would arm her with recollections of the past; I would bid her plead with you, by the holy and the happy hours, the peaceful meditation, the sweet communion with God, and with the people of God-the fervent prayer-the humble trust the soul rejoicing view of Jesus, and your hope of glory- and ask you, are you happy? are you happy, since you parted with them! Oh! if you have any conscience, any remnant of just reflection or sensibility, there will be, under the Lord's blessing, a penetrating power in her words, while she bids you "remember from whence you are fallen;" and it can scarcely come to pass, that, recalling the past, with all its sanctified enjoyments, and contrasting the present, with its bitter and remorseful pangs, you will not feel yourself to be the wanderer, without yearning for the home you have forsaken and thus it may be "days would speak and years teach wisdom." ; Finally, I rejoice in the assurance that there are some among you, who, under all the hindrances of a deceitful heart, them no more " I days should speak ;" "years should teach" the wisdom of "setting your affections on things above, not on things upon the earth;" turn, therefore, from the fickle and changeable, the unstable and hurtful things of this poor world, to Him who never changes, and is joy. Oh! beloved, if the eye of faith did but more steadily contemplate the Saviour, in the mystery of his person, the perfection of his work, the fulness of his love, and the glory of his promises, believe me, the affections of our renewed nature would settle down unalterably upon him. Then, whatever the changes, the difficulties, and the trials which may and will be presented by this troublesome world, they would no more turn the heart from its object, than the magnet could be turned from the north by shaking the box which encloses it: some vibrations there may be; but allow a moment for the soul to settle, and, like and a sinful world, have been enabled, ness and insufficiency: well, then, try by the Lord's grace, to practise "patient continuance in well doing;" to you, too, "days should speak;" let the peaceful enjoyment you have found in the path of devotedness to God encourage you to persevere. Under the discipline of the Holy Comforter you have been acquiring many a lesson from last year's experience; | the unfailing well spring of his people's various and conflicting it may be lately, forming the variegated threads of that interwoven cord of love with which He binds you unto Jesus; and, whether pleasurable or otherwise, those lessons have, I trust, been sanctified unto your souls. No doubt, you have had more experience of indwelling sin-learned more of the evil of your hearts even in your holiest things, and been humbled into self abasement thereby, and have felt with the pious Beveridge, when, in the hour of self-searching meditation, he was led to say-" nay, I cannot so much as confess my sins, but my confessions are still aggravations of them: my repentance needs to be repented of—my | the needle, it will turn with trembling tears want washing, and the very washing of my tears needs still to be washed with the blood of my Redeemer." Have you felt this, and, in brokenness of heart, be taken yourselves to your precious and all sufficient Saviour, and been comforted in Him, though condemned in yourselves? Then let "days speak :" continue ever to go to Him, who is "the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever"-" whose compassions fail not, they are new every morning." You have been, perhaps, no strangers to the sorrows and disappointments which beset the highway of life; you have been learning the changeableness of earthly things, their hollow pertinacity to the object by which it is supremely attracted, "for it is there surely fixed, where true joys are to be found." Again-death has been busy among you; your tears are scarcely dry. Consider, beloved, that when Christ takes his children home, it is but the answer to his prayer, Father I will, that they whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory"-that it is "to depart and be with Christ, which is far better." Nature will grieve, but faith should rejoice; and though the heart be bursting with emotions that none but those who have experienced them can imagine, yet can that heart in filial trustfulness declare, "I know in whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him," until the blessed morning of reunion in the kingdom of Christ. Rest, then, my dear brethren, on Him who more than supplies the place of father and mother, and sister and brother-who is the father of the fatherless, and the God of the widow; and thus days of bereavement will not have spoken in vain, nor years of sorrow been unfruitful of wisdom. Once more--you have to deplore your ignorance, and your poor advancement in true knowledge. Brethren, perhaps you have not studied your Bibles carefully and prayerfully enough, and in the excitement of social communion, you have comparatively overlooked the quiet home-study of God's Holy Word. This is wrong. The Bible is the lamp which the Spirit has lit up in this dark and dangerous world, to guide our souls into the apprehension of wisdom, and our feet into the way of peace. Those doctrines, precepts, and promises, which are appreciated sooner by the spiritual heart than by the learned head, are the rays which at once warm our hearts, and enlighten our road. Keep, therefore, to the Word, and you are on that highway on which "the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err." Be watchful, too, against selfdependance; it is a great obstacle to spiritual advancement, and a great inlet of sin: try your progress in grace more by the requirements of God's Word than by the walk and profession of others; this will keep you humble, and often bring you to the foot of the cross; and whatever be your attainments in practical discipleship, you will do with them what the elders do with their crowns-cast them before the Lamb, and give Him all the praise. 'Tis true, our ignorance is as obvious as distressing; this is indeed the night time of sin, sorrow, and darkness; but of that glorious habitation which Jesus hath opened to all believers, it is emphatically said, "there shall be no night there," and there, in the most enlarged sense, shall" days speak, and multitude of years teach wisdom :" the ways of providence shall be made clear, the mysteries of grace unfolded, and the things hard to be understood explained. "No night" of sorrow, for grief cannot exist there; no tears are shed, no friends removed, no sepulchres replenished—and never does one momentary shadow flit across the pure sunshine of its bright tranquillity. No more blighted hopes or sudden disappointments, no more weariness of heart nor bitterness of spirit, but everlasting gladness shall bear us on the bosom of its unruffled joys, shall roll throughout eternity, and deepen as it rolls, "No night" of sin shall be there, no evil heart to battle with, no sinful desire to resist, no corrupt suggestions to subdue, but holiness the atmosphere which we shall breathe. There shall be the removal of all mistake, for misconception and conjecture shall give place to certainty-"we shall know even as we are known;" and thus, in the unassailable holiness of heaven, in its ineffable and imperishable joys, in the untiring expatiation of our enlarged and spiritualised intellect over the wondrous ways and works of God our Saviour, shall "days" of glory "speak," and "years" of eternity "teach wisdom." And now, having folded down the leaf |