Let this then be made a matter of self-examination by every one of you. Let each one ask, have I realised that condition of mind, in which I may expect that the high and holy one will dwell with me and revive me ? Have I ever really experienced that contrition and humility of soul which arises from the exhibition, by the Holy Spirit, to my own consciousness, of the utter vileness of sin, and my own vileness as a sinner? Have I been taught to abhor myself-to loath sin, and myself as a sinner? Have I mourned over it, not only because its wages are death, and from fear of the wrath to come, but as offensive to the holiness of God, and a violation of all that gratitude and love should oblige me to perform ? Have I been humbled under a sense of my unworthiness, so that I could take up the language of Scripture and say, "I am a worm, and no man."

If any of you have had such experience, keep these feelings in lively exercise. It is thus alone that you will secure the richest and most precious manifestations of the Divine goodness. Remember what has been said, that the habitation of God is holy, and consequently that he can only dwell with you when you are in Christ-washed in his blood, and clothed upon with his righteousness. Now, in order to your consciousness of the ever-abiding presence of God, it is necessary that you should always exercise a lively faith in Christ. There can be no gracious sense of the Divine presence, and no experience of the love of God in the soul, which does not know and feel its relationship to Christ. And observe how this twofold work is carried on-the revival of the soul, and the increase of the graces of contrition and humility. The believer who is running his course, looking unto Jesus, realizes the condition described by the prophet, "They shall look on him whom they have pierced, and mourn and be in bitterness, as one mourneth for a first-born, and is in bitterness for an only child." It is impossible to be continually exercising faith in Jesus-contemplating what he was and what he became— knowing wherefore "He humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross," without becoming both contrite and humble. Pride and self-righteousness cease to exist in the believing view of a crucified Saviour, and he who is determined to know nothing among men but Jesus Christ and him crucified, has the best assurance that he shall be always contrite and humble. On the other hand, faith is the instrument which lays hold of all the merit and fulness of Christ, appropriates them and makes them our own. By thus acting faith in Christ, then, all that is his becomes ours, and the love of the Father can flow forth towards us unrestrained. Where can He who inhabits the high and holy place find an abode more befitting the perfect purity of his own nature, and where He may more fully display the riches of his glory, and the depths of his

boundless love, than in a soul possessed, by free gift, of all the righteousness and matchless graces of his own beloved Son in whom He is ever well pleased.

But are there any here who have never felt contrition ? It is to be feared that there are too many such in every congregation. To them, we must needs say, You are far from God. You have never knownnever seen Jesus-never beheld the Lamb of God-and consequently God cannot, without denying his own holiness, dwell with you, or be any thing else to you than a consuming fire. You cannot look to Jesus without being contrite and humble, and whatever you may profess, you have never looked to him with the eye of faith. You have, therefore, nothing about you acceptable to God. Your own righteousness is as filthy rags. But even for you there is hope. The invitation is to you as to all, Behold the Lamb of God. Complying with this invitation you will be penetrated with sorrow because of sin, and God, even the Holy One, will fulfil in you the promise, "I dwell with him that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones."

SERMON XXXI.

THE CHURCH AND THE WORLD.

BY THE REV. DUNCAN MACFARLAN, D.D., RENFREW.

"Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible, This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver. his belly and his thighs of brass, his legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces. Then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer thrashing-floors; and the wind carried them away, that no place was found for them; and the stone that smote the image became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth."-DANIEL ii. 31–35.

Some of these There is in the

THE general condition of the Church, in reference to the world, urges to the consideration of large and fundamental principles. are set forth with great clearness in the above passage. prophetical image a very exact picture of the condition of the world in a Pagan state, and, to some extent, of what it is in every state, short of moral perfectness; and there is, in the stone cut out of the mountain without hands, an equally exact picture of the Christian Church working out the renovation of the world. The principles set forth in these two prophetical delineations are important, and ought to be understood at all times. But they are at present to be seen in active operation, and the knowledge of them may essentially contribute to a right view of public duty. It was mainly with a view to this practical end that the attention of the writer was first drawn to this subject, and it is with the same view that he would submit the result of his inquiries to others. May God, in whose hands is the control of every event, also direct and guide all who are truly his.

I. The Image.-Suppose, then, that we first think of what is here said concerning the image. We are not left to conjecture the meaning, either of the whole or of its separate parts (v. 36-43). The head of gold meant the Babylonish empire, especially during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar (v. 37, 38). The breast and arms, which were of silver, are understood to mean the Medo-Persian empire (v. 39); the belly and thighs of brass, the Grecian, particularly under Alexander the Great (v. 39); and the legs and feet, these last being divided into ten toes, the Roman, in the different conditions of an empire and of the ten kingdoms into which it was afterNo. 32. SER. 31.

wards divided (v. 40-43); all of this is commonly understood, and so generally allowed, as to warrant our omitting any special or detailed proof.

It will also be observed, that these different empires are introduced as occurring in succession, and as bringing before us the condition of the world continuously, during a very long period-during a period so long as to extend from the time of Daniel onward to a time yet future, even till the kingdoms of this world shall have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ; and this remark is the more important when we bear in mind, that the different empires here described were in their turn supreme, having power over the other nations of the world. Even now, when the last of these is seen broken up into so many separate nations, the chief power still resides among them. The nations of Europe are still substantially supreme among the other nations, and even empires of the world; and, bearing all this in mind, the vision will be understood as setting forth the condition, not of some particular nation or series of nations, but of the world—of the world especially in its Pagan state— but beyond this, to some extent, in all its stages of Christianization, up to that point at which it will become, and henceforward be, not under the dominion of Satan, but consisting of the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ.

But there remaineth another characteristic of this vision. The object revealed is an image. The word translated image is indeed something employed to signify merely a figure or resemblance of something. But its more ordinary meaning, and that which the circumstances seem to require, is that of an idol. The object introduced is in the form of a man, the materials employed are like those of idols, and the greatness and strange mixture of the figure do also correspond.

But the nations of the world, and especially those introduced, must in this way somehow or other be idolatrous; and the idolatry will require to be such as may be reached, as will afterwards appear, by the progress of Christianity.

Thus far we are carried by the image itself; and now we are led to look around, and to ask, whether the kingdoms of this world be really such as is here supposed;-whether all Pagan nations are essentially idolatrous, and whether all others not yet perfect are in the sight of God chargeable with less or more of the same offence? The question is an important one, altogether apart from the interpretation of this or any other individual passage. And if it shall turn out that the answer is as the image, the inquiry may lead to important practical results.

1. Now, first of all, it will be recollected that the same corruption which exists in the individual, affects society. Speaking of man as an individual, sin was first introduced into his heart; but out of the heart

proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, &c., and thus the whole man becomes defiled. Then families made up of such individuals must also be impure; and this not merely as regards the conduct of particular members, but as respects domestic habits, and the authority of those who are heads of families. The whole economy of such families will be essentially corrupt. But families grow into tribes, and tribes have laws and lawgivers exercising authority over them. And now, if no change has taken place, these very laws, that very authority and public opinion in the tribe, will all of them be sinful and upholding sin. They will not only be so as in a family, but greatly more because of the greater prevalence of moral contagion, and the more commanding influence of social power. But again, tribes become nations, and nations, whether by conquest or federal union, become empires; and in this state the evil is still worse. The contagion is greater, and the laws and customs, if supported by public opinion, are almost irresistible; and what now would the world itself be, if left to its own corruption, but one common though varied mass of moral evil.

2. The reasoning employed in these remarks is fully borne out by facts. The sin originally introduced into the breasts of our first parents soon discovered itself in their offspring; Cain slew Abel, and because his own works were evil and his brother's good. In the course of a few generations the Church had to be separated from the world on account of the prevalence of iniquity. And in the days of Noah, the world had so gained on the Church as to leave but him and his family as the depositories of truth; all the rest of the human race having sunk into a state of the grossest corruption. The same thing again occurred after the flood. It occurred to such an extent, that in the days of Abraham, who was only the tenth from Noah, special provision had again to be made for the preservation of religious truth. Abraham was separated from his country and kindred that he might be the founder of a separate nation, among whom the true worship and laws of God were to be observed, and all the rest of the world lapsed fast into idolatry, and into a state grossly immoral. And we have, if possible, a still stronger proof in the description furnished by an Apostle, as applicable to the world at the fulness of time. This account contains an explanation also of the corrupting principles. The process is described as consisting, first in self-love and vain glory; and these, as leading to wrong apprehensions of God, to practices of idolatry (Rom. i. 21-23), and to grossly immoral indulgences (24-27); and, speaking more generally, it is said to have consisted in many not liking to retain God in their knowledge, and this, as causing them to be given up to a reprobate mind, so as rankly and habitually to indulge in every form of abomination (28-32). And it