providence which makes it necessary for you to plough and sow in the season, if you hope to reap

in harvest.

II. On the second general head there is no time to enlarge; and the consideration is so awful, that it would, under any circumstances, be desirable to say little more concerning it than God Himself has been pleased to say in His holy Word. The opportunities, we said, of religious improvement, and of obtaining God's favour, are sometimes at an end before the nation or individual ceases to exist. The day of grace may be over, before the day of life is closed.

Jerusalem, over which Jesus wept, was at this very time told that the things which belonged to her peace were hid from her eyes. Her day of visitation was spoken of as past and over. Jerusalem was indeed then, and continued for more than thirty years to think and call herself, the City of the Lord. Her people were most proud of their religious privileges, most confident of God's favour at the very moment when the measure of their iniquities was filled up; when the sentence was in fact passed, and the whole nation was in the condition of a convict awaiting execution.

So it had been with one great division of the Jewish people at an earlier period of their his

tory. Ephraim, said God, by His prophet Hosea, is joined to idols: let him alone. The kingdom of Israel, here represented by its largest and most powerful tribe, had continued obstinate in their idolatries so long, that now they were given over. The warnings which they had so long slighted would be sounded in their ears no more. And you are not at liberty to think that such severities belong only to the Old Dispensation, that they are not found beyond God's dealings with His ancient people. No, you too may refuse to know the things that belong to your peace till they are hid from your eyes; hid from your eyes, it may be by death, or, it may be, by your being made incapable of seeing or knowing them.

You may, by a habit of wilful and deliberate transgression, so rivet the chains of sin about your own selves, that you shall not be able to turn, or amend your lives. What says the Apostle? Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another, while it is called To-day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin." And does not another Scripture speak of men having their conscience seared with a hot iron?s Oh, what 'is

9 Hosea iv. 17.

r Heb. iii. 13.

• 1 Tim. iv. 2.

such a state but hell begun here on earth? While there is life there is hope, men are used to say-but, if it be with the heart that man believeth unto righteousness, what hope is there for you, if you let your hearts be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin? What hope is there, what hope can there be, for you, if conscience is seared-if you have trifled with its warnings so long that now it is insensible and dead? Conscience is the eye of the soul. If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness."

* Rom. x. 10.

u St. Matth. vi. 23.

SERMON VIII.

PREACHED ON THE ELEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY, 1839.

ISAIAH ix. 3.

They joy before Thee according to the joy in harvest.

All Thy works praise Thee, O Lord," says the holy Psalmist. Fire and hail; snow and vapour; wind and storm, fulfilling His word; mountains, and all hills; fruitful trees, and all cedars; beasts, and all cattle; worms and feathered fowls. The small and the great among the works of God alike do Him homage; the very least as feeling His care, and the greatest as not exempted from His power: both angels and men, and creatures of what condition soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all with uniform consent, admiring Him as the author of their peace and joy.

This is true at all times; more especially true, or rather, we ought to say, the truth is more brought home to us, at particular seasons; and our wisdom and duty of course is to receive the truth thus brought home to us, to dwell upon it in our thoughts, and apply it, as we may, in the practice of our daily life. All Thy works praise Thee, O Lord. These words we repeat in their course when we come to them in their place in the Psalms, with a sort of general notion that they are true; but when the Heavens are black with clouds and wind, when the voice of God's thunder is heard round about, and His lightnings shine upon the ground,d then, indeed, we feel that His works are praising the power and majesty of God. Or, to take one other instance, when the vallies stand so thick with corn that they seem to laugh and sing, when it appears as though the clouds in months past had indeed dropped fatness, and when God is crowning the year with His goodness f before our eyes; we feel then that the works of the Lord do indeed praise Him by setting forth the greatness and abundance of His mercy and goodness.

Yes, all Thy works praise Thee, O Lord. They praise Thee, as they shew the glory of Thy

d Psalm lxxvii. 18.

e Ibid. lxv. 14.

f Ibid. 12.