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"My Lord delayeth his coming," or like the foolish virgins who, at the very gate of heaven, found the doors of mercy closed against them-with "the many who shall seek to enter in, and not be able," and to their repeated knocks shall only hear from the Lord the astounding sentence of rejection, "I know you not!"

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SERMON XVIII.

Psalm ix. 17.

THE WICKED SHALL BE TURNED INTO HELL, AND ALL THE NATIONS THAT FORGET GOD."

us.

"Forget God!"-forget the word implies the idea of the absence of the object. We cannot, with propriety, be said to remember or to forget one that is constantly present with But the time of absence is the time for the exercise of memory, and it is then that opportunity of trial is given whether the mind shall often employ itself in recollections of one no longer with us, or whether it shall be occupied about other objects; then, and then only, it is that the test is applied, whether we will remember, or whether we will forget.

There was a time, my friends, when, as Scripture tells, God held an intimacy of com

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munion with his creature man.

Time was

when the airs of Paradise carried upon their breathings the voice of the Lord; when Adam saw the glory of the immediate presence of Divinity shine suddenly across his path, and started not to think that Jehovah was at hand. But sin entered, and at its fearful and polluting incoming, the footsteps of the Deity were heard departing. Since that period God hath withdrawn himself: and though the church hath ever presented some spots on which the glory still lingered, and though the Holy Spirit, speaking by miracle and prophecy, still testified that there was some bond of union between this world and another, through the atoning influences of the everlasting covenant, still earth could never since be spoken of as that place wherein the tabernacle of God was with men, and on which the Creator and the creature stood, and saw each other face to face, every man having access to his presence, and every man having the confidence of a beloved and loving child. Oh, no!-we look around and see beauty, but it is beauty in decay. The architectural splendour of our world is as the faded magnificence of some mighty city in the wilderness, amid whose ruined pillars the barbarian hordes which tenant the

waste, still erect their temporary hovels; but it is in melancholy contrast; there is no harmony between the place and its possessors.

God, however, in retiring from among us, has not so withdrawn himself but that he has left behind him the evidences of his own existence. He has not obliterated the proofs of this great truth, upon which is based the whole superstructure of moral obligation. No: whatever shallow philosophers may dream, the book of nature can never be the manual of the atheist. It tells of a great First Cause, but still of one who dwells retired as it were from among us. He went-but, as St. Paul touchingly remarks, "He left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness." Like some generous and high-minded benefactor driven away from dwelling with the worthless and irreclaimable object of his once fervent regard, yet willing, even when he was gone, to leave behind some continuing tokens of his exceeding goodness, if haply the sight of them might stimulate the soul to reformation-even thus God's providences have tongues to call man back to thought. As for the Almighty we cannot find him out; but for his mercies, they are around us every where.

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As it was man's first crime, the removal from him of God's presence, so it must be the second in degree, the casting off of the recollections of him. To forget God—it is a thing monstrous and unjustifiable. It is that last proceeding of complete revolt and utter apostacy which must necessarily draw down the visitation of a just and fearful wrath upon the heads of the offenders. He to whom, with all our offences, we still owe every thing-he, in whom "we live and move and have our being;' "if it can be shown that men have forgotten him, is not that a kind of demonstration that there shall be some future punishment for this? Is there not a moral necessity, as it were, a something suitable, and according to the fitness of things, that there should be a final retribution for all this continuance of ingratitude and iniquity? Unquestionably dread and awful as are the words of the text, they compel a trembling assent, and the soul is forced to acknowledge the awful propriety of that declaration, "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God."

There are two considerations, in particular, growing out of this scripture, which I would at present, with the Divine blessing, seek to impress upon your minds. The first is, con

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