SERMON XIV. ON THE HARVEST. O GOD, Father of men, Father of all things in heaven and earth, thou openest thy bountiful hand without wearying, and fillest and rejoicest and blessest all that live with good things. Thou hast this year also not left us without witness, but hast graciously given us what we need for our support. Thou hast preserved the fruits of the field by thy guardianship, and permitted us to gather them in in undisturbed tranquillity under the protection of peace. Thou hast again done great things for us, and by all thy gifts hast laid upon us the obligation to praise thee with emotion of soul. O then that our thanksgiving were not merely the work of the lips, but the effusion of the heart! that we perceived and felt what new and just claims thou hast acquired thereby on our love, our trust, and our obedience! that we might present to thee on this festive day an offering worthy of thee, agreeable to thy will and to our duty! Yes, to extol thy good ness, and revere the ways of thy Providence, to be contented, and not as dissatisfied creatures, not as guilty rioters in thy kingdom, to rebel against thy established regulations; to limit our wishes, and to enjoy with wise moderation, with a calm mind, in innocence and virtue, what thou bestowest on us; this becomes us as men and as Christians; let this therefore be our sincere resolution and our earnest endeavour. And let us be encouraged and strengthened thereto in the present hour, consecrated to thy worship, let us be forcibly reminded of it by the call which the harvest now addresses to us; let the fruits of the earth thereby become beneficial to our mind, beneficial with regard to our higher destination. Amen. JOHN iv. 35-38. Say not ye, There are yet four months and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal; that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour; other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours. If we did not behold the works of nature in our earliest childhood; if the view of its great and admired phenomena, following each other in regular succession, were not of common and daily occurrence; if we entered the theatre of the creation at once as educated men with exercised and developed understandings, and sensitive and expanded hearts, what an impression would it not make upon us! with what force would it strike upon our senses and our mind! with what irresistible power would it attract us, and rivet our attention! What a solemn tone of mind would the manifold scenes and changes in heaven and earth impart to us! How lively and ardent would be our sensations, how instructive and earnest our meditations, how devout and fervent our songs of praise offered up to the Deity! Yes, man can become indifferent to every thing, even to the greatest and most sublime object, when it has lost the charm of novelty; and therefore we must carefully guard against our taste for the beauties of nature being gradually blunted; therefore we must never enter her fields without thought, but always as rational creatures, always as men and as Christians; therefore we must open our ears to her voice, and consider it a sacred law thankfully to regard her warnings, her admonitions, and her sources of consolation. And this is most especially applicable to the harvest, which calls to us every year, and reminds us of truths, the importance of which deserves the most serious regard. For these truths, if we rightly comprehend and faithfully follow them, are the real |