chasing one empty phantom after another, and by turns disappointed with all; walking in a vain shadow, and disquieting themselves in vain; his prayer is, "Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us: thou hast put gladness in my heart more than in the time when their corn and their wine increased."1

So may you live; so be found when you come to die; and having faithfully, however imperfectly, followed your Saviour here upon earth, he will take your departing spirit to himself, and you shall receive "the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls."

1 Psalm iv. 7.

SERMON V.

PSALM xlvi. 10.

Be still, and know that I am God.

THERE is something wonderfully powerful and commanding in these words. They afford us a very striking proof of that union of simplicity and sublimity which distinguishes the Bible from any other book, and stamps it with the internal and irresistible mark of divinity. We hear God himself speaking to us in the language of heaven, and we are awed into silence before Him: we retire within ourselves, and feel almost instinctively our own littleness, our insignificance, our nothingness; and the power, the greatness of that Almighty Being, who is here described to us. "Be still, and know that I am God." It is, indeed, brethren, the voice of that God, who can say to the troubled spirit, as He can to the

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and hereafter, to free us on earth from all the evils and misery of the Fall, and to extend its blessings beyond our present thought or imagination, through all the endless ages of eternity? Can all this provision of Divine mercy, this profusion of Divine love, be safely neglected? Can he, who (from whatever cause) now in the day of his visitation neglects or rejects the Gospel, have any thing to offer in extenuation of his guilt? As our Lord said of the unhappy blinded Jews of old, so will he declare to you who now neglect him: "If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin; but now they have no cloak for their sin."1

Again: "How shall any of us escape, if we neglect so great salvation?" Whither else shall we flee for safety? To whom else shall we go, but to Him who has the words of eternal life? Shall we go to the religion of nature? Will that be sufficient to save us? Is there any other religion in the world that has the semblance of truth belonging to it, except the religion of the Gospel? And what is that Gospel itself, if Jesus Christ, as a Saviour, be shut out from it? What place of refuge can we find to protect us from that Being whom our sins (as all our consciences must testify) have repeatedly offended, but that Saviour who

1 St. John xv. 22.

now offers himself as "a hiding-place from the storm, and a covert from the tempest ?"

Brethren, let us all think on these things; let us think deeply and seriously on them, as we all ought to think, now while we have the powers and faculties so to do; while the day of salvation lasts, while we yet see the things belonging to our peace, ere they are hid for ever from our eyes. Jesus now offers himself to you all as a friend; the friend of sinners, though the enemy of sin. Hereafter he will come as a Judge. Think what it must be, in that solemn, that decisive day, to have him as an enemy, not as a friend; when he shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power, when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe."1

But if the danger and misery of rejecting and neglecting this salvation be so great, who can sufficiently describe the security, the happiness of those who cordially receive, who sincerely and faithfully obey it?

1 2 Thess. i. 7-10.

troubled ocean,

"Peace, be still," and there shall be a great calm. Happy for us, if in our trials and afflictions, in the difficulties of life, be they what they may, we have thus sought and found God; if, in all the passing events of this chequered scene, we have learnt to see his hand, and bow to his will: for here alone we can find rest to our souls; here alone can we find peace, comfort, and security.

What, if you will ask yourselves, is true religion? It is nothing but conformity to the will of God, submission to his holy will; resigning our own corrupt and erring wills to his all-pure and all-perfect will. It is when we say with the heart, what we so often say with the lips, "Thy will be done." This is the religion of angels, and of the spirits of the just glorified in heaven; and therefore we pray that the will of God may be "done on earth as it is in heaven :" that is, so far as such imperfect creatures can do it, fully, cheerfully, unreservedly. When we consider what God is, that only true and living God whom we worship; that He is not only our sovereign Lord and Master by nature; that He not only created us by his power, and upholds and blesses us by his goodness, but, when we were lost and ruined by sin,

1 Mark iv. 39.