2. This subject will teach us to pity the heathen. Their endless quarrels are because they have no bible. They would let their children, their widows, their sick, and their aged live, if they had a bible. They would forgive their enemies, and be meek, and benevolent, and gracious, had they not been without the book that teaches these heavenly lessons. Send them a few of your bibles, and they will soon beat their swords into plow-shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks, and those vast fields of blood will be transformed into the garden of the Lord. He will accompany his word with his Spirit.

And

3. How happy the period of the Millennium. The bible will then have its legitimate influence, and there will prevail the very spirit inculcated in the text. In what a noble figure does the prophet teach us this truth, "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice-den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." You have often read this precious text.

How happy the eyes that are not

closed upon the scenes of life, till that sweet morning has come, and all these tumults, that keep this world a wilderness, have subsided! May some favoured child of mine live to see that happy period.

4. Let us learn, brethren, whether that day approaches. It will not burst upon us in a moment. There will be a gradual increase of that spirit which the text inculcates; till every parent will teach it to his children, and every child will love to learn. From the family circle it will spread out over the whole land, and render it Emmanuel's land, a mountain of holiness and a habitation of righteousness. Do we see an increase of this spirit? Do we feel it in our hearts? Does it go out to view in our daily deportment? Then the day approaches.

5. This subject will try our piety. Can we overcome evil with good? Does the tyger or the lamb, predominate in our social intercourse? When we receive abuse, with what temper do we act? To this test our religion must at last be brought, and by this and other similar tests, the question must be decided, whether we can be happy with angels, or must make our bed in the pit. Will God sanctify us by his Spirit, and fit us all to dwell in a peaceful happy world. Amen.

SERMON 11.

GOSPEL-TRUTH DEFINED.

JOHN XVIII. 38.

"What is truth?”

THIS question was put to our Lord by the miserable timeserving Pilate, who had no heart to love what he inquired after. He, and the whole multitude of the ungodly in all ages, would have the reputation of being the friends of truth. But when they have inquired what truth is, they are careful to turn away their ear from the answer. This one fatal error characterizes the whole human family, till the Spirit of God sanctifies the heart. Till then, they will not candidly examine the bible, nor put themselves under the guidance of the Spirit of God, nor will love the truth when they know it. Hence to know and love the truth, is characteristic of a heavenly mind.

But the question still comes up, What is that truth, which I must know and love, in order to have evidence that I am born of God? The text would furnish a field too large for a single sermon, and must be diminished. It will be my object to give you a few general characteristics of gospel truth. In do

ing this, I shall name the particular doctrines no farther, than may be necessary, to illustrate some leading feature of revealed truth generally. It has always seemed to me, as possible to know truth by its properties, as to arrive by this means at knowledge on any other subject, and have rather been surprised, to have met with no attempt at definition, such as I now have in contemplation, unless in those beautiful lines of the poet, which I quote with great pleasure.

"But what is truth? 'twas Pilate's question, put
To truth itself, that deign'd him no reply.
And wherefore? will not God impart his light
To them that ask it ?-Freely-'tis his joy,
His glory, and his nature, to impart.
But to the proud, uncandid, insincere,
Or negligent inquirer, not a spark.

What's that which brings contempt upon a book,
And him who writes it; though the style be neat,
The method clear, and argument exact?

That makes a minister in holy things

The joy of many, and the dread of more,

His name a theme for praise and for reproach ?—
That, while it gives us worth in God's account,
Depreciates and undoes us in our own?
What pearl is it that rich men cannot buy,
That learning is too proud to gather up;
But which the poor, and the despis'd of all,
Seek and obtain, and often find unsought?
Tell me and I will tell thee what is truth."

I should choose to say in answer to the question in the text, What is truth?

I. Truth is that which is consistent with the main scope of God's word. An insulated text or two, may seem to support what is not truth. By such means almost any sentiment may be drawn from the bible, or from any other book. other book. We could thus We could thus prove that, “There is no God:" "Thou shalt not surely die:" "Thou shalt hate thine enemy:" "I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of my own heart, to add drunkenness to thurst." Now you may fill a book with such insulated texts, but it would be all false; a lie couched in bible language, but not the less a lie.

All the false doctrines, that have spread their plagues through this ill fated world, have thus originated, and been thus sustained. To him who is willing to understand it, the bible is plain; but to one who prefers delusion, and wishes to believe a lie, because he has no pleasure in the truth, the bible presents it in that disconnected form, that he may wrest it, if he please to his own destruction.

Still it will prove true, that when a tortured text has been made the basis of a false doctrine, that doctrine will not be sustained by the main drift of inspiration. It cannot be supported by other texts, without giving them a false and forced construction, and the whole system when thus built will be a baseless fabric. There will be many texts in the very face of the false doctrine, and in a greater number still its falsehood will be implied. But it will not be thus with truth. When you have fairly