The billows of God were rolling over them, the arrow of God pursuing them, the iron entering into their very soul: and well might they hang their harps upon the willows, and, sitting down by the waters of Babylon, weep when they remembered their well-loved Zion. But though God's "children" had "forsaken" His "law, and walked not in his judgments," though they had "broken His statutes, and kept not His commandments,"—and though, in righteous retribution, He had "visited their offences with a rod, and their iniquities with stripes, nevertheless," O mark the tenderness of that expression, there is always a reserve of mercy in judgment, "nevertheless," notwithstanding their ingratitude and disobedience, their base requital of all His kindness, "His loving kindness He had not utterly taken from them, nor suffered His faithfulness to fail."* Though Israel had fallen, she had not fallen finally and irretrievably. Though so sunk in misery, the certain consequence even here of sin, that to human eyes her recovery seemed hopeless, there was still mercy in store for Israel. The Lord, "who seeth not as man seeth, whose ways are not as our ways, and

* Ps. lxxxix. 30-33.

whose thoughts are not as our thoughts,"*could still plead with His backsliding people, and make the very fact of their fall an argument upon which to urge His appeal: "O Israel, return unto the Lord thy God, for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity." Just so David, in the 29th Psalm, pleads the greatness of his iniquity with God, as a ground and reason why He should pardon it. "Pardon my iniquity, O Lord, for it is great." Yes, beloved Brethren, though Israel had fallen from her steadfastness, though she had come down from her high position, though she had plucked the crown from her brow, and soiled it by sin, and trampled upon it by transgression, and had broken the ancient covenant, stamped and sealed with the impress of ten thousand mercies, her God was still the faithful God: though she had denied Him, He could not deny Himself: though she had renounced Him, He could not renounce her: though she had "left her first love," and lavished upon those who cared not for her, the tokens of her transferred affections, yet the Lord could not forget that He had, "betrothed" her of old unto Himself: and as

* Is. lv. 8.

the remembrance of times gone by, times marked by "the kindness of her youth, the love of her espousals," came back upon His mind and memory,-he burst forth into the pleadings of wronged affection, and into the plaintive invitations to repentance and return, "My people are bent to backsliding from me: though they called them to the Most High, none at all would exalt Him. How shall I give thee up, Ephraim ? How shall I deliver thee, Israel? How shall I make thee as Admah? How shall I set thee as Zeboim? Mine heart is turned within Me, My repentings are kindled together." Israel, return unto the Lord thy God."

"O

But, may we, as Christians, gather no lesson of warning or of encouragement from the invitation addressed to backsliding Israel? Most certainly we may. The invitation addressed to Israel in the text is equally addressed to the Christian Church: to the Church visible, and to the Church mystical. Israel of old was a type and picture of the Church as it now stands; and of the Church, the Church visible, the great body of the professing members may be said to have fallen, "fallen

by their iniquity:" and therefore to them also is the invitation addressed, "Return unto the Lord." The professing Christian people of this land stand precisely in the same relationship to God as did ancient Israel. As then all were "not Israel, that were of Israel," so now, all are not true Christians, that are professing Christians. But how may the professing Church be said to have fallen? We cannot better answer your inquiry than by asking you to bear in mind the analogy to which we have alluded as existing between Israel and the Christian Church. In the 3rd chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, an objector is introduced as asking "What advantage, then, hath the Jew? The Apostle at once replies, "much every way: "chiefly,

he speaks of his

because that unto them were committed the oracles of God." And in the 9th chapter "brethren, his kinsmen, according to the flesh, Israelites," as possessing superior privileges, inasmuch as to them "pertain the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises." And in the same way, were we asked now, "What advantage has the professing Christian over the blinded Hindoo, or the deluded fol

lower of the false prophet?" We would answer in the very words of the Apostle, "much every way." We would say to every professing Christian in this congregation, "Is it no advantage that you have been born in a Christian land, that you have been baptized into the Christian Church, that you have received, it may be, a Christian education?Is it no advantage that you have been brought to the House of God, that you have attended Christian ordinances, that you have had faithfully opened to you the word and will of God, His way of justifying and saving sinners through the merits of His dear Son, and that you have been yourself invited to accept the free offers of His grace and mercy?' And oh! what return have you made for all these privileges, denied as they are to thousands, who, dared we speak of merit, possess as strong a claim to them as yourself? God has set you on the pinnacle of national mercies, and you have "fallen by your iniquity: "-You have violated your baptismal covenant; you have trampled on your baptismal engagements; you have broken down the fence of Christian privilege, which the Lord, in His providence, has drawn around you: you have refused to drink at the fountain of living waters, and