their springs are in him." How, then, can you be ought but unutterably wretched? You may deny them-you may keep them under-you may remain ignorant of them; but all the sources of confusion, and disquietude, and wrath are within you. And the evil is getting worse Each time that "the report" of They shew how day after day-sermon after sermon. a Saviour is heard, but not accepted, you are just removed the further from his grace, and more deeply confirmed in opposition to his reign. Ah! beloved, much have you heard of Jesus-much have you heard of him at this time. If still you turn away your sight and eyes-if still you shut out the vision of the cross and the glory of the throne-if still you are left without any desire after the Son of Man, or comfort in his love-if still you see not Jesus, nor seek for Jesus, then, are your hearts more perverse now than when we entered this house. Unforgiven soul! thou canst resist more light-more warning-more love now than thou couldst have done when this Sabbath first broke. Yet, saddest plague, ye are not aware that this is your case. Still you are satisfied with yourselves—you are still at ease. But your satisfaction and your ease are the demonstration of what I say. iron is your insensibility-how gross your darkness. fast into the arms of eternal death. Awake, then, sleeper even Now— awake as there you sit and listen ! There is mercy still, and hope, and salvation. O ye have trampled under foot the blood of the covenant-you have set at nought the Holy Ghost. With what chain has the devil not bound you? You are hanging over the PIT. The next shriek that issues from the flames may be yours! Yet even to this distance the Saviour of the lost pursues you, and gladly would he bring you home! There stands Jesus! there waits the Spirit! And still they ask, beseechingly, "Why wilt thou die, Israelite?" "Why"—" tell us why?" "I am guilty, and God would not suffer me to enter his presence-I am impure, and heaven would only be imprisonment and exile to me. what a change must pass upon me-a change that will make me spotless in the eyes of God-a change that will prepare me for the society of the blessed. And who is sufficient for this-who can wash me, and cleanse me, and make me new?" Ah, sinner! none but Christ may do these great things-none but Christ. He has, however, made all things ready for our meeting God in peace, and spending eternity in bliss around the throne. Plant your foot, then, upon this rock-build your hope upon this foundation-cast your soul upon the Lamb. Hitherto have you trusted in yourself-now place Jesus under you as all your confidence-feel nothing but the cross between you and condemation. Yes, even now, as the offer is pressed upon your acceptance-even now, whilst the words are on my lips-even now, "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Had Jesus not purchased heaven, and all that heaven contains, by his death, you might have hesitated to "lay hold of life eternal." But now that "Christ has died, yea, rather has risen again," it is casting disdain upon his accepted work-distrust upon his most certain word-if you do not freely and instantly take from him all he offers, and "go on your way rejoicing." 2. Unrestricted, however, as this offer is, let me in faithfulness say, that by MOST, I am persuaded, it will be set at nought, and "the report" of Jesus become more and more despised, until judgment burst upon us. Because the gospel is much preached in these days, you deem your peril less, your chance better. Mistaken men! If there be a dark omen over Scotland at this moment, it is a preached gospel. Received, it would have exalted us to heaven !--rejected, it will sink us in Capernaum's doom! Look to our text (v. 11, 12), and be convinced that a despised Christ must hasten an avenging Christ. Yes! and he hastens. Even as the life of a tree which has retired to the root, when every branch is broken off, his elect (v. 13) shall be safe. But inasmuch as men will not now give heed in this the merciful day of their visitation, when "our God comes, it shall be very tempestuous round about him.” We dream of human affairs as a tide, always swelling to a higher mark of prosperity-we see the world' rolling forward on the wheels of time to unparalleled greatness, and stable felicity. Of all this, however, we have no hint in Scripture, not one sign over all the disc of Providence. But every thing points to a crisis, when God must say, "Ah! I will ease me of mine adversaries, and avenge me of mine enemies." Unconverted man! where wilt thou then be found? Softened, thinkest thou, and healed, and at the feet of Jesus at last? No; all the history of Israel, in terms of Isaiah's prophecy (v. 10), assures us that where the gospel has been set at nought, judgments only ensnare, and harden, and overthrow. Ah! thou who hatest Jesus now, when his wrath pours out its vials, thou wilt hate him all the more-thou wilt hate him with all thy heart-thou wilt hate him with a supreme and perfect hatred. And as a hater of Jesus thou shalt live and die. And as a hater of Jesus thou shalt stand at the Judgment-bar. And as a hater of Jesus thou shalt spend eternity! O crucifying thought! An eternal hater of him who died for us! An eternal hater of him whom all the host of heaven worship! An eternal hater of him whom the Father infinitely loves! O consummation of wickedness, and shame, and misery- an eternal hater of Jesus! "Kiss, then, the Scn ere he be angry, and ye perish from the way; for within a little, his wrath shall blaze forth. Blessed only are they who have taken shelter under him!" SERMON XXXVI. THE DUTY OF NATIONS TO THE CHURCH, AND THeir danger IN [Preached before the Free Synod of Angus and Mearns, on 22d October 1844, and published at the request of the Synod] BY THE REV. JAMES LUMSDEN, BARRY. "For the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish, yea, those nation shall be utterly wasted.”—ISAIAH lx. 12. FAMILIAR though the Jews must have been with the prophetic intimations of the wide extension, and universal prevalence of the Church of God, we cannot wonder that they should have regarded the fulfilment of these announcements as improbable, and have occasionally listened to them with a feeling approaching to incredulity. If even now, after all that has taken place in the preservation and increase of the Church, we sometimes feel it difficult to believe that all opposition to the cause of truth shall yet be crushed, and that all nations will yield a hearty and harmonious homage to the Saviour, it would surely have betokened no ordinary strength of faith, and no ordinary enlargement of mind in a Jew, to have contemplated, with stedfast hope, the realization of such prospects as were opened up to him in the present chapter. Shut up as the Church of God had hitherto been, within the narrow confines of Judea, and shackled as its worship was by national peculiarities, its extension to all lands must have been an idea which nothing less than a Divine assurance could have enabled him to entertain. So little also must this have seemed accordant with the state, both political and religious, to which the nation had been now reduced, that they could not fail to be astonished at the glowing descriptions of Isaiah; and when they listened to such predictions as these, "the sons of strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall minister unto thee; thy gates shall be open continually, that men may bring unto thee the wealth of the Gentiles, and that their kings may be brought,"predictions that foreshowed an exaltation which their nation had not reached, even under the reigns of David and Solomon, we cannot wonder that there should have been awakened in their minds the anxious inquiry, "How can these things be?" As if anticipating this reception No. 37.-SER. 36. to his announcement, Isaiah meets the question, by setting forth in our text the appropriate answer, "For the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted." This assertion of Divine judgments, as the means by which the Church's triumph should be achieved, was not made to the exclusion of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, as another, and indeed as the chief, agency in bringing about this consummation. Not only do the Old Testament Scriptures abound with promises of the effusion of the Holy Ghost, but even in the chapter before us, His work, if not specifically mentioned, is evidently implied, as the fountain of those means by which the coming glories of the Church shall be realized. For, in the opening verses, it is declared, that the reflection from the Church of that "glory of the Lord" with which we know that it is the work of the Holy Spirit to irradiate her, will penetrate the "darkness that covers the earth," and attract the Gentiles toward her. But the Old Testament dispensation was not distinguished as the dispensation of the Spirit. The promises of His plentiful effusion, like the other promises of the Church's glory, were to be fulfilled under the New Testament economy. The Jews had, during the past history of their Church, been familiar with God's interposition on their behalf by judgment, rather than by grace; and, therefore, when the prophet's object is to confirm in their minds the hope of enlargement, he selects, of the two agencies by which this is to be effected, that one on which, from past experience, they would be likely the more easily to depend. Had he specified the other, their doubts would have been but little removed, for the employment of the means would have seemed to them as improbable as the end. We, on the other hand, who live under the dispensation of the Spirit, and know what changes He has already wrought, are more accustomed to refer the in-bringing of millenial glory to his agency on the hearts of men, than to Divine judgments on ungodly nations. And yet, whilst there is no doubt that the former is the more pleasing object of contemplation, there is just on this account a danger of indulging in it too exclusively, and thus of shutting ourselves out from the instruction and warning which God designed that we should receive from his so fully unfolding the prospect of the other. It is only when we regard the promises of his Spirit, in combination with the denunciations of his wrath, and thus give earnest heed to both departments of that word of prophecy, which God gave to be to his Church as a light shining in a dark place," that we can expect to have an accurate view either of the Church's future destiny, or of her present duty. 66 The text presents to our notice two topics, first, The duty of nations; and, secondly, The punishment by which the neglect of this duty will be avenged. The consideration of these may be subservient to the appreciation of our position and responsibilities as a Church of Christ. I. Let us, first, consider what is here pointed out to be the duty of nations. The duty of nations is to serve the Church. This is not simply, as some are guilty of carelessly interpreting this verse, to serve Christ. It is undoubtedly true, that nations are bound to serve Christ—that this duty is frequently inculcated in Holy Scriptures-and that, to serve Christ, may, on account of the close union between him and his Church, be substantially the same thing as to serve the Church. But you will observe that it is the Church which is addressed throughout this chapter, and to which, consequently, in this verse also the prophet's discourse is directed. And it is under the form, at least, of serving her, that the duty of nations is represented "The nation and kingdom that will not serve thee." The standing which nations are appointed to occupy in relation to the Church, is herein indicated. And one mode, at least, in which they must discharge themselves of their duty to Christ, is specified to be, serving his Church. But what is the precise duty which is here devolved upon nations? What is it for them to serve the Church? In answer to this, I remark, 1st, That the expression does not imply the supremacy of the Church over the State. It is very plain that it cannot denote the subjection of nations to the Church in things temporal. No control or power in these things is assigned to the Church. Scripture represents her authority as exercised only in spiritual matters. And for a testimony to her of her Master's will on this point, our Saviour put from him the request that he would arbitrate in a civil question, by the remark, "Who made me a judge and a divider over you?" It is equally plain that the text does not ascribe to the Church a dominion over the State in things spiritual. She is forbidden to dictate to the consciences of men. "Not for that," says the Apostle (2 Cor. i. 24), "we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy." She has no power to control either the faith or the conduct of men in spiritual things. She and they are equally placed under the authority of God's Word, and both are directly addressed by it. Nations are bound to listen to its voice, and are freed from all obstructions either in hearing or obeying its messages. When walking most closely by the Word, they are the most certain to serve the Church. The Church, again, that is most truly the Church of Christ, and knows the best her own privileges, will be the most careful in acknowledging the liberty of the nations. 2d, If the expression does not ascribe to the Church any control over the State, it still more clearly forbids the idea that the State may exer |