SERMON XII.

SEPTUAGESIMA SUNDAY.

A Dedication Sermon preached after the consecration of St. Patrick's Chapel, Dublin.

Now when Solomon had ended his prayer, fire came down from Heaven, and consumed the holocausts and the victims, and the majesty of the Lord filled the house, and the priests could not enter into the temple of the Lord, because the majesty of the Lord had filled the temple of the Lord. And the Lord appeared to him by night, and said, I have heard thy prayer, and I have chosen this place to myself for a house of sacrifice. My eyes shall also be open, and my ears attentive to the prayers of him that shall pray in this place, for I have chosen and I have sanctified this place, that my name may be there for ever, and my eyes and my heart may remain there perpetually. Second Book of Paralipomenon, vii. i, 2, 12, 15, 16.

THE Almighty, in communicating information to mortals, has upon many occasions thought fit to clothe it in the awfulness of majesty, that, through the medium of visible objects addressed to the senses, the understanding might acquire a more ready and complete knowledge of spiritual subjects, than could otherwise have been attained. Thus it is that we are enabled to see the spiritual in the natural world; God having

been pleased to make use of the glass of nature to shew us himself, till that time arrives when we shall see him as he is, face to face, and not as we are now obliged to do, by reflection from the objects of nature.

The words of my text present a description of the majesty of God, calculated to make the most forcible impression on the human mind, and give a specimen strikingly descriptive of his peculiar predilection and attachment to those who are zealous as to his worship, and erect temples to his honour. In the 22d chapter of the book of Chronicles, the sacred text informs us, that David, Solomon's father, had prepared for the building of the house of the Lord, cedar trees without number; of gold one hundred thousand talents, of silver one million of talents, and that of brass and iron the abundance surpassed all account and in the 23d chapter it assures us that he assembled together all the princes of Israel, and the priest and Levites. Of them twenty-four thousand were chosen and distributed unto the ministry of the house of the Lord; that moreover four thousand were porters, and as many singers, singing to the Lord. It also points out to us, in the 3d chapter of the 2d book of Paralipomenon, that his son Solomon overlaid the roof of the temple with plates of pure gold throughout; that he paved the floor of the temple with most precious marble, and made the posts and doors of the finest gold, and that every nail was of gold, and the weight of every nail fifty sicles; that the candlesticks were also of the most pure gold, and that the vessels for the perfumes, and the censers, and the bowls, were of gold; that on the day of the dedication of the Temple, he offered a sacrifice of twenty thousand oxen, and one hundred and twenty

thousand rams. What are the promises and rewards on the part of God to David and his son Solomon for their zeal and attachment to his worship? We read in the 17th chapter of the 1st book of Chronicles, that he sent his prophet Nathan to David, and said to him, So thou shalt speak to my servant David: I took thee from following the flock, that thou shouldest be the ruler of my people Israel, and I have been with thee wherever thou hast gone, and I have slain all thy enemies before thee, and have made thee a name like that of one of the great ones that are renowned on the earth, and I have humbled all thy enemies, and I declare to thee that the Lord will build thee a house. And when thou shalt have ended thy days to go to thy forefathers, I will raise up thy seed after thee, which shall be of thy sons, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build me a house, and I will establish his throne for ever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. I will not take my mercy away from him, as I took it from him who was before thee; but I will settle him in my house, and in my kingdom, and his throne shall be most firm for ever. And to Solomon, on the night of the day that he sacrificed one thousand victims before the tabernacle at Gabaon, the Lord appeared to him, saying, Ask what thou wilt, that I should give thee. And after he had asked for nothing but wisdom and knowledge, God said to Solomon, because this choice hath pleased thy heart, and thou hast not asked riches, and wealth, and glory, nor the lives of them that hate thee, nor many days of life, wisdom and knowledge are granted thee, and I will give thee riches, wealth and glory, so that none of the kings before thee nor after thee, shall be like to thee. And after he had dedicated

the temple, God visibly descended as described in my text.

It is true that God has ceased to appear visibly amongst men; but he has not, nor ever will cease to fulfil his promises to his faithful worshippers. He will not descend visibly this day to overwhelm us with the grandeur of his majesty, in order to shew his complacency in the gifts we are about to offer; but he is invisibly in the midst of us. He is the same this day that he was a thousand years ago, " which to him" (to use the scripture phrase)" are but as yesterday that has passed."* He no longer delights in sacrifices made of the blood of victims, of thousands of oxen or rams, since his only begotten son, offered him the propitiatory sacrifice of his blood, to wash away our sins, but in the sacrifices of praise, of a broken and contrite heart. He no longer requires of us to erect mere empty temples, like that of Jerusalem, with pillars of cedar overlaid with gold, vestments adorned with every kind of precious stones, nor the perfumes of Arrbia, ascending in clouds to heaven, all which were so many figures. What constitutes his happiness is the support of humble roofs such as this, supported by living pillars established on the rock Christ Jesus, our infallible instructor and guide, declaring his will not by the ministry of the Urim or Thummim, not by visions and voices, not by prophets from among ourselves, nor by angels from heaven, but by the son of his love, the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, that son who has declared, that he is to be worshipped only "in spirit and in truth."+ The scope of this discourse shall be to shew you the necessity of

* Psalm 1xxxix. 4.

*John iv. 25,

promoting this divine worship, and the obligation you are under of erecting temples wherein this worship may be performed and solemnized. And I shall hope for all that favourable attention and indulgence, that a subject so novel, and a very short notice to prepare for it, must justly claim.

O thou eternal Jehovah, whose goodness is everlasting, whose providential care extends to all thy creatures, look down from the habitation of thy holiness upon us thy servants, who are here assembled to present our offerings for this house, dedicated and consecrated to thy service. We, on this day particularly, implore thy acceptance of the offerings we shall here make to thee, and to regard, with an eye of mercy, the suppliants who here approach thy presence. May the influence of thy holy spirit accompany the religious instructions and exhortations which shall here be delivered, that we may both perceive and know what things we ought to do, and also may have grace faithfully to fulfil the same; but if we sin against thee, yet if we repent and make our supplications to thee in this house, and return to thee with all our heart, and with all our soul; then hear thou from heaven thy dwelling-place, and forgive us our transgression wherein we have sinned against thee; this we beg through the merits of Jesus Christ our mediator and redeemer, in whose holy name and words we address thee: Our Father, &c.

The necessity of appropriating buildings to religious uses, may be clearly evinced, as well from God's positive appointment in the more early ages of the world, and under the Jewish economy, as from their being peculiarly suited to the Christian dispensation and the direction and example of the first preachers of the Gospel,