SERMON IV1.

ON THE PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL.

JEREMIAH Xxii. 8, 9.

And many nations shall pass by this city, and they shall say every man to his neighbour, Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this great city? Then shall they answer, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord their God.

It requires not the meridian splendour of the Christian Revelation to teach us the lesson which the prophet Daniel deduced from the fearful dream of Nebuchadnezzar, "that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will." The man is not a Christian,

1 Preached in behalf of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.

2 Dan. iv. 25.

is not a believer in any religious dispensation, can scarcely be deemed to have faith in any GOD, who will not see the finger of the Almighty in the rise and fall of empires; in the prosperity and calamity of nations; in the peace, and wealth, and security, or the desolation, ruin, and decay of communities.

On this head we need anticipate no dispute. Still less, I trust, will any one be disposed to controvert the obvious truth, that the marked interference of Divine Providence has been signally conspicuous in the "strange eventful history" of our own times; and more particularly in the wonderful preservation of our Church and country, amid the revolution and anarchy, the wars, and devastations, and pestilences which have laid waste the whole civilized world, and convulsed the extreme limits of human society.

Nor will you, my brethren, fail to see, and to acknowledge, in the awful threatenings of "evil to come," which are now

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thundering on the verge of our horizon, the call of our GOD to repentance and reformation; to a more serious and vital reception of the Gospel, a more self-denying and dutiful obedience to its precepts, a more fervent and charitable zeal in the diffusion of its blessings, a more heart-felt earnestness to promote the glory of God, and the conversion and salvation of mankind.

You will not hesitate to recognize, in the events which have befallen us, manifest traces of "the determinate counsel and foreknowledge" of God, whose will it has been that the National Church of England should become "a candlestick" to shew

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light to them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death," "to be a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of his people," to occupy, in the modern world, the place which Israel held among the nations of old, as the depository of His pure oracles, the source from whence, in His due time, the truth should be

spread "from the rising up of the sun to the going down of the same."

It is placed beyond the reach of contradiction, that the diffusion of Christianity, to any considerable extent, or with any permanent hope of ultimate establishment, can only be effected by means of such a National Church as our own; at once protestant, episcopal, and soundly scriptural, enforcing unity of discipline, and of doctrine; abhorring coercive measures and corrupt influence in its labours for conversion; supported by a due and legitimate alliance with the temporal government, disdaining to receive any assistance, not strictly consonant with the spirit and letter of the Gospel.

It is now, I say, incontrovertible that the conversion of the heathen, and the reunion of corrupt and of schismatic bodies of Christians, can, humanly speaking, only be effected by such means; and though I would be the last to undervalue the pious labours of Missionaries of other

denominations, I confidently appeal to the admissions of the most candid and liberal among them, that their own exertions must be impeded, and finally rendered fruitless, if the authority and influence of the Established Church should be weakened and withdrawn.

Without entering at any great length into the reasons for this undoubted principle, I may be permitted to observe, in the first place, that all attempts to make the heathen think favourably of our religion, must be futile, as long as its professors continue to live "without GOD in the world." Now it must be admitted that in the original settlement of our colonies, the necessity for religious establishments was generally overlooked; and it is notorious that the consequent neglect of religious ordinances, and the grossly immoral habits of the European population, had led the natives to conclude, in many instances, that the English professed no religion at all: they reckoned