than it is. But He hath not forsaken you. He is dealing with you as He doth with very many of his children. He is calling you to patience, to perseverance, to prayer, to faith. It will not be long, and you shall find that He is with you. Meanwhile this is his word for your instruction, and your encouragement: "Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God." Still cleave to his promise. He will not fail you, nor forsake you.

But not a few of you, beloved brethren, have found, and do find day by day, your help in God. Under all your cares, sorrows, conflicts, temptations, you cry to Him, and He delivers you. He opens your path: He supplies your needs: He strengthens your souls: and ofttimes He removes your troubles altogether away. By his power and providence without, by his Holy Spirit's grace within you, He proves Himself your constant friend.

Suffer the word of exhortation. Keep close to God. Fear nothing so much as separation from Him. Be afraid of sin, of worldly-mindedness, of trifling, of whatever would break your communion with Him. "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God." Live in habits of watchfulness, devotion, and prayer. Prize, and use the word of God, the house of God, the Sabbath, the holy table, and all means of grace, as channels of intercourse with heaven. Keep your hearts

with all diligence, and let your daily conversation be that of men who walk with God. So, whensoever trouble comes, you have your refuge nigh. You know that God is with you. You call upon Him, you ask his help, and you feel that you are safe. O, I entreat you, Christians, for your comfort in all trouble, keep close to God. And to you shall be fulfilled the blessed promise, so beautifully representing the nearness of God to his people, "Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer: thou shalt cry, and He shall say, here I am."

SERMON XVII.

PREACHED DECEMBER 27, 1840.

PSALM XC. 1.

LORD, THOU HAST BEEN OUR DWELLING PLACE IN ALL

GENERATIONS.

ANOTHER year, beloved brethren, has well nigh run its course. We are assembled now, on the last of its sabbaths, in the presence of our God, once more to join in the worship of his name, and the hearing of his word. O that this, the last, yet may prove among the best of sabbaths, which this year has brought to us. Let us each lift up our hearts in prayer for the special blessing of the Holy Ghost on this day's thoughts and occupations, and so shall we close the public worship of our year with thankfulness and praise.

I have taken a text, this morning, such as I think that Christian men will feel to be most suitable to the season, and most welcome to their hearts. The Psalm to which it belongs is entitled "A prayer of Moses, the man of God." It appears to have been occasioned by a fearful chastisement, sent on the Israelites in the form of a wide spread mortality among their families. "Thou carriest them away as with a flood: they

:

are as a sleep in the morning they are like grass which groweth up: in the morning it flourisheth and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth."

It was this sight of human frailty that led the man of God to solemn meditation, and to fervent prayer. In the midst of scenes, shewing at every turn the instability and uncertainty of the life of man, he betakes himself unto his God. Surrounded by decay and death, his comfort is to look to One who changeth not, the immutable, eternal Jehovah. And what is the light in which he contemplates his God? "Lord," saith he, "Thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations." All earthly things have faded, and are fading still: mortality is stamped on man, and all his race: nothing below stands firm and abiding: but, "Thou, Lord, art the same, and thy years shall not fail:" time works no change in Thee: and therefore to Thee thy servant's hope shall turn, and under the shadow of thy throne, the refuge of thy saints in every bygone age, my soul would fain abide, sheltered beneath the covert of an everlasting love.'

Such is the spirit of the text: a devout and thankful resort to an unchanging God, in the midst of a decaying, dying world. And do we not feel, my Christian brethren, that this is just the frame of mind for such a season as the present? O, as each year closes its round, how do we look back on its days that are past, and mark the changes they have brought, the blanks they have created, the friends they have removed,

the perpetual alterations they have, from time to time, been effecting, and what a sense of the fickleness, mutability, and weakness, of all earthly hopes, and human confidences, does the reflection leave upon our minds.

Then let us improve the thought. Let us turn it to our soul's advantage. Let us be sure that we have something more solid and enduring than any thing below, whereon to stay ourselves for our best enjoyments, and our everlasting peace.

Believer, let the sense of this uncertainty attaching to all things, yea, the purest, and the dearest things of time, operate with thee, as it did with Moses in his day; let it lead thee to look upward, above all the perishing objects that surround thee here, and see in thy God the sure and never-failing refuge of thy soul. I pray that such may be the effect of that consideration of the words before us to which I now invite you.

I. We shall notice, WHAT IT IS THAT MOSES DECLARES THE LORD HATH BEEN UNTO HIS PEOPLE. "Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling place." And

II. We shall observe, THE PERPETUITY AND

CONSTANCY WHICH HAS MARKED THEIR EXPE

RIENCE OF THIS PRIVILEGE: it has been so all generations."

"in

I. We notice, WHAT IT IS THE LORD HATH BEEN UNTO HIS PEOPLE: "their dwelling place." Now at once it is plain that this is a