do not suit us. We are seldom able to bear them : they draw us away from God, they beget languor and indifference to the cause of God and his Gospel. Blessings that are long continued, and grown common, are for that reason undervalued. The corruptions of our hearts spring forth, and fulness nourishes infidelity and hardness of heart. The evil now appears to have come upon us. Pray God we may have grace to shew ourselves under it as faithful followers of Christ our Lord. A torrent of blasphemy and infidelity is deluging the land, and threatening to overwhelm all that is dear and valuable to us in Church and State. Does not this call for union-for union and exertion against the common foe? Should we not at length bury all our other differences, and join heart and hand to resist the enemy? It is no longer a question between this or that party in the Church, Calvinist or Arminian, high Churchmen or low Churchmen; the question is, whether we are to have any Church at all? whether the Gospel and the Bible are to remain among us? whether man is to have any check or control over his passions-any hope which religion can afford, or whether he is to be let loose with all the evil of his nature unrestrained, more fierce and terrible than the wild beast of the desert? "Who is on

the Lord's side ?" I call upon you for one proof of

this to-day. I call upon you to shew love to that Saviour whose name you bear, and your value of that Establishment of which you are members, by a liberal contribution to the purpose before us. I call upon you to give, as not balancing between a few shillings, more or less, but according to your means to give, as Christians should-as those should be found to give, who remember what their Saviour did and suffered for them. I call upon you to give, as you will wish you had given, when lying upon a death-bed, in the near view of eternity; or, when you shall stand before the Judge of the living and the dead, and hear him say, "See what I did for you: what, when you were upon earth, did you for me and for my Gospel ?" And, oh! how awful will it then be to hear it said, "Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it not

to me."1

And finally, my brethren, let us add prayer— fervent, sincere, heartfelt prayer for God's blessing on this and every other work in which we engage; without this, all our efforts will be unavailing. Paul may plant, Apollos may water, but God alone can give the increase. Then let us not doubt of success; let us not doubt that He, who has promised that he will be with his servants

1 St. Matt. xxv. 45.

"to the end of the world," will be able to fulfil that promise; so that we ourselves may live to see a great and glorious increase of the success of the Gospel of that Gospel, whose holy laws and commands shall finally prevail and fill the whole earth. "His Name shall endure for ever; his name shall be continued as long as the sun; and men shall be blessed in him; all nations shall call him blessed."1

1 Ps. lxxii. 17.

SERMON XV.

HEBREWS xi. 13, 14.

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such things, declare plainly that they seek a country,

"ALL Scripture," says the great Apostle, "is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable," in various ways, "for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, throughly fur. nished unto all good works." Nor is there any part of Scripture (rightly studied and applied) more profitable than the lives and characters of

1 2 Tim. iii. 16, 17.

remarkable persons there recorded. They were written for our admonition: indeed the same is the case with those of our own day-those with whom we are now passing through this eventful stage of our existence;-the righteous and the wicked, they who serve God, and they who serve him not, are in this way full of instruction: the one-the good, the pious, and the righteous-are held up to us as examples; the other—the wicked and irreligious-as solemn warnings and awful beacons. And when, in the course of Providence, they are removed from before us, not a death should happen, of which we hear, whether we are immediately connected with it or not, without our asking ourselves what lesson it is intended to teach us; without our endeavouring to improve, apply, and bring it home to ourselves.

This 11th chapter to the Hebrews has been well called a little book of Martyrs: it gives us an account of the lives and characters of the Old Testament saints,-of those good and holy men of old, who, though they lived before the coming of our Lord, might almost be called Christians; because they lived a life of faith, and exercised love and obedience to God, in the hope and through the promise of Christ as their great Redeemer, however faintly and obscurely revealed.