PRESBYTERIAN PREACHER.

VOL. II.

PITTSBURGH, OCTOBER, 1833.

No. 5.

SERMON XVIII.

BY JAMES BLYTHE, D. D.

PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE AT SOUTH HANOVER, INDIANA.

THE PRESENT STATE AND

CHURCH.

DUTIES OF THE

Isaiah 11: 3, 4, 5. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a high way for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and rough places plain: and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.

THAT is a very feeble interpretation of this passage, which makes it refer to the proclamation of Cyrus, and the return of the Jews to Jerusalem after their captivity. The Lord Redeemer coming to take away the sin of the world, and not his people returning to him, is predicted. The character and office of the forerunner of the Lord, and not the proclamation of any earthly potentate, form the subjects of this prophecy. Of this we are assured by the application of these words to Jesus Christ and John the Baptist, by the Evangelists.

It is worthy of remark, that each of the four evangelists has applied this passage of Isaiah to John, and Luke has given us an almost literal quotation of the whole of our text. The passage has been translated by G. Campbell." The voice of one proclaiming in the wilderness prepare a way for the Lord, make for him a straight passage, let every valley be filled, every mountain and hill be leveled, let the crooked roads be made straight, and the rough way smooth, that all flesh may see the Saviour (sent) of God." This seems to me to be a good translation of Luke, and a good comment on Isaiah. By adopting this reasoning we obtain a very important sense. The leveling and straightening of the way is not only to facilitate the passage of this august personage, but that he might be seen at a greater distance. "That all flesh might see the Saviour, the sent of God." And this seems to me to be the most appropriate sense; because

no obstacle can obstruct the passage of the omnipotent Saviour, whereas the smallest intervening object will intercept him from our circumscribed view.

There can be no question, but the future glory of the church is one great object of this prophecy, and particularly of the church as it respects its extent. "All flesh shall see it together," that is, at the same time and essentially under the same light, "for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." The church, then, and its future condition, is the principal idea contained in the words. 1. THE PRESENT STATE OF THE CHURCH.

1st. THEIR NUMBERS. It is granted that less than one third of the whole population of our world are Christians. The remaining two thirds, are Mahometans, Pagans and Jews. The heart of piety sinks when this fact is announced; and the crest of infidelity is proudly erected, while the disciple of the philosopher of Ferney, triumphantly asks, "are you christians, being but a handful, not ashamed to say you have the only heaven-born faith, that "there is none other name under heaven, given among men whereby we must be saved," but the name of Christ? A moment's impartial review of this subject, both as it respects ancient and modern times, will serve to tranquilize the heart of piety, and lower the escutcheon of infidelity. What was the religion of antiquity? It was a system of wickedness, engrafted exclusively upon human pride and human appetite. Hence deity and humanity were blended together. The vices of their great men were overlooked, and even applauded because they were the vices of the gods themselves. The passions, and the most loathsome lusts of the common people, were palliated, for Juno and Jupiter had their intrigues, Venus and Bacchus their orgies. Nor can any wise man for a moment be surprised that countless myriads of depraved, and sinful and corrupted beings should have crowded around altars polluted, should have worshipped deities who practised and approbated wrath and jealousy, and pride and lust in their very worst forms. And who does not know that the mythology of antiquity was interwoven, thread by thread, with the religion and jealousy of the nation. Touch the religion, and you change the policy, or change the civil policy, and the religion was endangered. Of the truth of these remarks we have abundant proof in the Acts of the Apostles, as recorded by Luke, and if further proof were wanting it is furnished in the fact that the religion and policy of antiquity perished together. We have not time to pursue these thoughts; had we, the investigation would awaken in our minds the most profound astonishment, that during the first ages of Christianity, she was not borne down; we would wonder, not that she had so few, but that she had so many votaries. Nor can the fact be accounted for upon human principles; we are compelled to refer them to heaven.

But we are told christianity is 2,000 years old: That 2,000 years is a long time: That ancient superstition has long since passed

away, and that but one third of the human family are yet, even professedly, christianized. Now all this is granted. But let it be remembered that the death of one system of error, did but give birth to others, engrafted upon the same corrupt stock, and equally replete with crime and folly. What is Mohamedanism but a flattering appeal to the worst passions of our nature? Is any Mussulman taught to curb his ambition, to love his enemy, or to subjugate the evil propensities of his heart? So deeply does sense imbue the whole of his system, that the heaven of Mohamed is nothing better than a brothel. Now when it is remembered what we are by nature-that from infancy to old age we are a mass of sensuality; who would wonder that there are so many Mohamedans? Have we not reason to be astonished that this religion of sense, has not desolated the whole human family! Nor need we be at all surprised, in our intercourse with men of certain principles, to find them rather leaning to the Alcoran than the Bible. This is no more than sailing with the current-embracing that which is pleasing to a corrupt taste, and rejecting that which calls upon us to reform and amend our ways -to be holy. The above remarks refer with all their force to every system of Pagan religion upon earth. We defy their admirers to find any thing like purity of heart and life, in one of them. There sits enthroned the DEMON OF LUst. He is sur rounded with a priesthood as loathsome as himself, and the millions who bow in homage at his feet, are driven to self-sacrifice and death, under the hope that the extinguishment of the lamp of life, that burns too feebly for their raging desires, will, beyond the grave, be immediately so rekindled that all the fancies of their polluted imaginations will then be realized. Such, if we mistake not, is the true philosophy of Mohamedanism and Paganism.

And now, my friends, with these thoughts present to your minds with the immaculate purity of the Bible in your eye-remembering its unbending rigidity-the holy demand which it makes upon all its adherents-the unsensual character of the christian's present joys, and future heaven: when you look at all these things, and then look again to the polluted fountain within thy own bosom-are you not astonished that the gospel continues to subjugate individual after individual, and nation after nation—that it bows the hearts of the sensual worshipers of the sensual gods of the heathen, and enables them to put on the purity, with the faith of Christ? That though slowly, yet certainly, it is new-creating the world, bringing at once, glory to God, and felicity to man? Let the GENIUS of Infidelity stand by and witness the triumphs of the CHURCH to-day. She, so far from blushing at the fewness of her numbers, triumphs in the fact, that in such a world, and among such beings, such a pure and holy religion, should, from such a small beginning-from a handful of corn upon the top of the mountains, in so short a time as 2,000 years, have achieved such wonders.

2d. HER CHARACTER. The character of the members of any community is a legitimate subject of inquiry in forming an estimate of that community. Who are Christians? What part of our world is under the influence of Prince Immanuel? Europe, and christianized America contain less than three eighths of the inhabitants of our world. But do Europe and christianized America possess no more than three eighths of the humanity and good-doing spirit of our world? Do Europe and christianized America appropriate to themselves no more than three eighths of that tide of felicity which is perpetually flowing from the beneficent hand of the Giver of all good? Let the infidel answer, yes, no more than three eighths, if he dare. Be as cold and philosophic as you please, analyse with any severity you may choose the pretensions of the Church, and, to gain your purpose, sarcastically repeat the cant phrase, "Every man thinks his own country the best, and his own philosophy the wisest," yet can you persuade yourself that there is as much humanity in China as in Great Britain,-as much felicity in Pekin as in New York-or as much good-doing in India as in Europe?

What has given those parts of the world, which in the beginning, and for thousands of years after the beginning, were nothing but howling deserts,-what has given them in these latter days, so far the ascendency over the regions round about the site of the garden of Eden, and those no less delightful regions watered by the Indus and the Ganges? Why are Europe and America the wonder and admiration of the world, as it respects every thing that ennobles our species and felicitates man? Say not that it is the fertility of the soil, and the salubrity of the clime. Does the val ley of the Mississippi exceed that of the Ganges, the Thames that of the Euphrates, or that in which Paris stands that in which proud Babylon once reared its head to heaven? Oh! my Christian brethren, you can solve this matter, and yours is the only rational solution. You come up to the solution of this question with hearts at once confident that you are right, and glowing with the most ardent gratitude. You believe that Europe and America flourish like the green bay-tree, not because they are under a more or less vertical sun, not because the clouds of Heaven drop down more fatness here than elsewhere: but because' we feel the influence of the Sun of Righteousness, and are partaking of the root and fulness of the good olive tree.

3d. THE PRESENT ADVOCATE OF THE CHURCH. Science is her advocate. When we speak of science, we mean that kind of knowledge which embraces the universe in all its actual states and dependencies. That science which recognizes God as the head of all things, and the whole frame as established by his will except so far as it has been deranged by sin. That apprehends God in Christ alone, and bows with holy deference to the high mysteries of God manifested in the flesh. We do not mean that

kind of philosophy, which makes man a bundle of nicely ar ranged and well organized materialities, and then would set this material, reasoning, and thinking being, to expound God and his works independently of what God has said. We do not mean that kind of heathen philosophy which would offer incense at the shrine of nature, and at the same instant trample nature's God and his laws under foot-which would set nature to the work of self-regeneration and creation, and exclude the hand of a wise and holy Providence. Nor do we mean that kind of Christian philosophy, the enemy of truth, and the present bane of the church, which would at once rob our Saviour of his proper divinity, and the sinner of his native pollution and responsibility, until "moral action" commences; and then sets this yesterdaymade agent to enlightening his own mind, and regenerating his own soul by the exercise of his own power, or the moral sua sion of his minister, independently of the Spirit of grace.

The church triumphantly, but meekly, asks an infidel world, what religion is that which at first put forth its claims in the very center of all the philosophy which was in the world, two thousand years ago; which has ever since delighted to accom pany with science; which sought the light, and coveted the scrutinizing eye of sound literature; which has exalted Europe and America, and which has been exalted by Europe and America? The church, this day, is surrounded and sustained by her thousands and millions of enlightened advocates; the most august philosophers throughout the Christian territory delight to do homage to Prince Immanuel and his church; and every statesman, and every lawyer, is compelled, however reluctantly, to cast a respectful eye upon the Bible, while they lend their talents to perfect our civil institutions, which are all connected with the gospel.

4th. PRESENT ASSUMPTIONS OF THE CHURCH. The church has never, except under the influence of the grossest mistake, assu med any thing to herself as it respects the civil policy or gov ernment of this world. 66 My kingdom is not of this world," is a declaration of our Saviour which should never have been forgotten; and which is more sacredly regarded at this time by the church, than it has been at any former period. Yet the church has always had, and especially has at this time, very high assumptions.

The church assumes to herself the honor of having deposited her hands, all the moral truth of any permanent and substanial worth, in the world. The church allows to philosophy all ts just claims. It allows the astronomer to measure the heav ns-the mathematician to describe his diagrams-the chemist heat his retorts-the civilian to perfect codes of human olicy-the moral philosopher to analyze mind, and develop the atural perfections of God. But she says to philosophy, here you aust stop. The moral character of God, and future destiny of