approval and blessings of the Almighty on us. Let his approbation, then, be sought in the way which he himself has recommended, namely, by faith and perseverance in every good work generally, and by studying rightly to divide his word in particular. And then, if God be for us, (and in such a case we may entertain the fullest assurance that he will), who, we may ask, can be against us? If He, who is the King of kings and Lord of lords, at whose commands nations and empires rise and fall, flourish and decay, condescend to become and to continue our Father and Friend, then shall we not fear, although the earth be moved, and the mountains be shaken, for we shall find that our bread shall be certain, and that our waters shall never fail. To the ministers of religion I would say, "Ye are the salt of the earth; but if the salt have lost its savour, wherewithal shall IT be salted?" If the unction of the Spirit have forsaken you, and your light have been either put out or obscured; if your sun have gone down at noon, or your candle been placed under a bushel or a bed, wherewithal shall the gloom and darkness now appearing in the horizon be dispelled, or the earth be secured from the fury of the impending storm? The powers of nature will, when that shall be poured out, afford neither to you nor to your flocks any asylum. The rocks will refuse to fall upon you; the hills will never cover you. But to them who fear His name shall the Sun of righteousness indeed arise with healing in his wings; they shall find the shadow of the great rock in the weary and withering land; and their rest shall be sweet, refreshing, and constant. The arrow that flieth by day, and the pestilence which wasteth at noon, shall pass harmless over their habitations; and the destroying angel, which shall smite the first-born, disarmed by the symbols of the sacrificed Lamb, shall only wield his avenging sword, that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

SERMON II.

The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.-Psalm xix. 7.

It should be observed, that the words just cited form part of a context which is opposed, or rather given in addition, to some particulars preceding them in order, therefore, to give them their full force, it will be just to notice them in this connection. This Psalm begins, then, by stating that "The heavens declare the glory of God," and so on; plainly and unequivocally appealing to the works of creation in testimony of His almighty power; it next proceeds to shew, in what respects His revealed will differs from or excels the declarations thus made, either in the kind or the effects of the instruction which it has to impart.

We may here remark, that there generally appears to be in society an unnecessary disagreement on this subject, which it certainly is desirable should be reviewed and corrected. One class of interpreters is almost perpetually insisting on the necessity of cultivating and urging natural theology as the most safe, the most certain, and the most explicit. Another, that every appeal to the works of God, as witnessed in nature, is incapable of affording either instruction or encouragement, and calculated only to place us in the situation in which it left the heathen, professing to be wise, but in reality becoming fools. Both these exclusive views appear to me to savour in a high degree of party spirit-to be unreasonable-and to be contrary to the practice of the sacred writers themselves. Nothing, surely, can be more certain, than that the heavens do declare the glory of God, and that the firmament sheweth forth his handy-work; or, that this is repeated day after day, and night after night,

that it is enounced in a language which none can misunderstand; or, that this is felt and acknowledged, as far as the boundaries measured by the sun, and warmed by the effulgence and vitality of its beams, stretch out and are known. The sun is, indeed, put here as the messenger of these glorious tidings; but then, the tidings themselves declare, that the Maker of the luminary is Lord of all; and, if the workmanship is thus great and glorious beyond description, the Workman himself must at least be worthy of all adoration and praise and, although the mighty scheme, with its author at its head, is such as to exceed the comprehension of a finite being, still those parts which do fall within the scope of his observation, tend abundantly to assure him, that a display of mercy and of goodness must have been among the first objects which He had in view. Partial, and, indeed, extensive misery does exist; but this appears, for the most part, to be the consequence of fault. of one sort or other in man, and no where to have been provided for systematically by the great Author of our nature. Sickness, decay, and death, cannot, it is true, be effectually provided against; and here natural theology will entirely fail us but then, we have other provisions made for these in the volume of our Scriptures, and these are such as to suit the whole of our wants. To the consideration of these we shall come in the sequel: we now insist only upon these striking and important truths,—that the works of God, as seen in creation, cannot but be a source of information, encouragement, and delight,-that when we find these appealed to in our Scriptures, and that they are actually in unison with the instruction there given (falling indeed considerably below it both in certainty and value), we are compelled to conclude, that the consideration cannot but be always valuable, and, in many instances, of the very highest possible importance.

On the other hand, we ought carefully to remember, that, although these things present the truth, they do not,

nevertheless, present this in all its light and strength ; and, that there are other considerations deserving our more immediate and more constant regard, because they are more specific, more authoritative, more certain and encouraging, more immediately binding on mankind, and better calculated to promote both the temporal and eternal interests of all. In this respect, we may affirm with the Psalmist, that "the testimony of the Lord is sure;" and beyond the assertion we shall not now proceed, reserving our proofs for a future occasion. Nor is it our intention, at present, to consider the completeness or perfection, as it is here termed, of the law of the Lord; but rather to shew, in the first place, in what way it generally proceeds for the purpose of making wise the simple; and in the second, to point out some very extensive and prevalent errors entertained on this subject.

If, then, the object of our Scriptures is to make wise the simple, they must necessarily lay down their instructions in a way likely to be understood and appreciated by all. And this we now propose to shew, they do. Any book, proposing to be generally and extensively useful, and intended to act as a guide to both the learned and unlearned, must necessarily ground its claims to attention on аиthority, for these reasons: It is not in the power of any to know what is, or what is not, most likely to advance the interests of all, or generally to fit man for eternity; nor can circumstances ever be such as to make this the case. In the next place: If men are not generally qualified to determine such questions intuitively, neither are they to enter on the discussion of the several topics connected with them; nor, as in the preceding case, can they ever be put in a situation so to do. Authority, therefore, can alone be generally appealed to; and to this our Revelation, or what is in our text termed the law of the Lord, lays an absolute and exclusive claim. On what grounds this claim and authority rest, will be shewn hereafter; we may now conclude, therefore, that in this respect our Scriptures are complete.

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If, then, our Scriptures rest on good and intelligible grounds, How, in the next place do they proceed, to lay open their instructions? for unless they are here also plain and intelligible, they will still be unavailing to the majority. I answer: They deal in nothing recondite, abstract, or scientific; but deliver their general precepts, promises, and threats, with the simple preamble of, "Thus saith the Lord;" or, "The word of the Lord came to" such or such a prophet, "saying," and so on: and, on the authority thus introduced, the message is then delivered in terms the most simple and unembarrassed possible. Every one must, I think, instantly perceive why this mode of instruction has been adopted; for, had any other been had recourse to, nothing but misconception, dispute, or mistake, could have been the consequence. Men, generally, would have soon been lost in the endless mazes of inquiry; and, what was intended to be for the instruction and good of all, would have eventually become the cause of disunion, doubt, debate, and interminable controversy: which, indeed, has usually been the case, where the Scriptures have been supposed to be of this character.

There is, however, still another and very important reason, why a book professing to teach religion should be thus authoritative and plain it is this: True religion is necessarily of a practical, not of a theoretical or speculative, nature. The mind it must, indeed, inform; but then, this is not to be done for the mere purposes of curiosity; but in order to improve it,-to inform it of its high and eternal destinies,-to urge with the greatest earnestness and force the necessity of faith, obedience, humility, forbearance, charity, and of perseverance in every good affection and work; and to insist, that, if the candidate for the blessings of both time and eternity would entertain a reasonable prospect of success, he must not only abound, but must daily make advances, in these, and that this his profiting must appear to all. If, then, the mind is to be informed and enlightened,