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into the grave the honoured servant of Christ, the firm "follower of those who, through faith and patience, inherit the promises!"

THE PULPIT GALLERY.

NO. VIII.

what hesitating delivery-and with little or no action; he rarely fails of being highly interesting, and frequently rises to very considerable energy. His general strain is remarkably mild and persuasive-sincere and affectionate. His rank and connexions in life attract the attendance of many of the rich and great; and before them he dwells on the vanity of the world

THE HON. AND REV. GERARD T. NOEL, A.M. with the emphasis of one who feels that Curate of Richmond, Surrey.

"There is a beautiful symmetry in the religious character of such of the evangelical clergy as I have had an opportunity of knowing. The graces of piety are conspicuous in them; brotherly kindness and charity-tenderness and humility—the disposition that leads one to esteem others better than himself; a painstaking benevolence that can work without any impulse but that of its own zeal, steadily, silently, patiently; a habit of much secret communion with God in prayer, and the continual application of every question of doctrine or practice to the decision of the Scriptures, are the distinguishing features of the brethren of whom I speak."

BISHOP MCILVAINE.

THE REV. G. T. NOEL is the son of Sir Gerard Noel, Bart. and the late Lady Barham. He completed his education at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated about 1802. Several years ago he was presented to the vicarage of Rainham, in Kent, where he carefully instructed the people in the way of righteousness, exhibiting a fine example of piety and benevolence. To the rich he discharged the duties of his office with an affection and fidelity for which they will ever have reason to be thankful; while the poor and the afflicted will long remember with gratitude his deep sympathy, and his unwearied exertions to promote their spiritual and temporal advantages.

Mr. Noel as a preacher is evangelical and eloquent. In his sermons there is a happy union of doctrinal, experimental, and practical religion; an eager desire to convince his hearers of their nothingness, and of Christ's all sufficiency. Without any peculiar advantage of person-with a weak voice-with a plaintive and some

the fashion of this world passeth away.

In the success of those institutions which have for their object the glory of God and the salvation of man, Mr. Noel feels peculiar interest, and in their behalf is ever ready to plead, while he never shrinks from bearing an unfaltering testimony against false philosophy, and all corruptions of true religion. “Against these systems," said he on one occasion, "the systems that would fling back into the caverns of superstition, and ignorance, the torch of divine revelation, and leave the world in darkness, I will never withhold my voice of reprobation. No, while I have a tongue to speak, or an arm to lift up, I will use both in this holy and bloodless conflict."

Mr. Noel was one of the earliest, and has proved himself to be one of the warmest friends to the great effort of Missionary enterprise, and has been willing to link hand and heart with the good of every name, to extend the kingdom of Christ. In a sermon preached more than twenty years ago, he said, "Blessed be God for the things which we now hear, and the things which we now behold. Never did such sounds of concord vibrate on the Christian's ear. The spell of party is broken; and the deep rooted antipathies of education have been torn up. A mighty revolution of religious sentiment, strik ingly designating the finger of God, has taken place; and tranquillity, long banished from the world, has been, I had almost said, miraculously restored. The wretched situation of millions has come up in remembrance before us; and every hand is lifted up to spread that gospel whose prophetic testimony has gone forth that the kingdoms of the world shall be come the kingdoms of our God and of his Christ."

SERMON XVIII.

LIVING WITHOUT GOD IN THE WORLD.

BY THE REV. JOHN FOSTER.

"Without God in the world."-Eph. ii. 12

We have often occasion to wonder that too, in a world where the human creature brief expressions, descriptive of actual knows there is a mighty and continual conditions of men, do not strike us far conspiracy against his welfare. We fall more forcibly-do not convey more to our unspeakably below the true and dreadful thoughts, and awaken more emotion. For emphasis of the expression, even after example: Suppose it to be said " At we have given our utmost aggravation to this very time, this hour, even this mo- its significance. And still it is but the ment, a great number of human beings description of an actual condition; and are dying!" This is a positive fact. should not each one be intent on having But what is it to die? What would it good assurance that it is not his own conappear if I were with the dying man? dition! What if I were in the act? But a great It may be instructive to consider a litnumber are in this very situation. Think! tle to what states of mind this descrip-following their flight from the world. tion is applicable; and what a wrong and And suppose it to be said, "A multitude calamitous thing the condition is in all of human beings are now in heaven!" of them. And again, (another solemn fact,) "A vast number are now in hell!" But, to revert to things on earth, let it be said, "Enemies to God." There is a prodi- tribes-souls destitute of the very idea! gious army of such !-or" Without God Not one idea exalted and resplendent in the world." Think!—what a descrip- above the rest, casting a glory sometimes tion!-and applicable to individuals with- across the little intellectual field! It is out number! If it had been without as if, in the outward world of nature, friends, shelter, or food, that would have they had no visible heaven-the spirit been a gloomy sound. But without GOD! nothing to go out to, beyond its clay te-without HIM-(that is, in no happy re- nement, but the immediately surrounding lation to him)-who is the very origin, clements and other creatures of the same support, and life of all things;-without order. Think of a rational, and intellihim who can make good flow to his crea- gent nature, debased, in these remote sectures from an infinity of sources; with- tions of the universe, to so melancholy out him whose favour possessed is the best, an extreme!

We need not dwell on that condition of humanity in which there is no notion of Deity at all-some outcast, savage

the sublimest, of all delights, all triumphs, The adorers of false gods may just be all glories; without him who can confer named as coming under the description. an eternal felicity;-without HIM-but There is, almost throughout the race, a how is he lost! What do those under so feeling in men's minds that belongs to sad a destitution value and seek instead of the Divinity: but think how all manner him? What will any thing, or all things, of objects, real and imaginary, have been be worth in his absence? Without him, supplicated to accept and absorb this feelP 2 173

ing, that the true God might not take it! | upon him; all it contains, and all its acts, Men have been willing to fill the world-must therefore be in a solemn relation to the universe, with gods, and do homage him; and every thing in my spirit and to them all, rather than acknowledge, and adore, and love "the blessed and only Potentate ;" and a confirmed negation of him to the mind and the heart of man is the curse inflicted in return by all these infernal fallacies-an utter inaptitude to conceive the very idea!

conduct should acknowledge that relation; that relation is to be maintained in such a manner as that I may be in harmony and conformity with him; that relation constitutes the law of good and evil; and fixes an awful sanction on the difference; in an endless series of things

and against another; the thought of him is to be associated with all these things, and its influence is to be predominant:Thus and thus I think, and wish, and will, and act, because there is a God. Now, for me to forget or disregard all this, is to remove myself as far as I can from God-to cause, as far as I am able, that to me there is no God; it is a practical conformity to the atheist's speculative unbelief. Let such a man ask himself, "If I proceed thus, ought not my opinion to be that of the atheist ?" And let each man examine and judge whether there be not many things in his soul and his life which require this opinion in order to his being consistent. And let us all examine ourselves whether we live under a prevailing, powerful, all-pervading sentiment of God; or whether the thought of him be light, remote, uninflu

It is too obvious almost to be worth that there is such a being, and that I noting, how plainly the description ap-belong to him, is a reason for one thing, plies itself to those who persuade themselves that there is no God. We may believe some of them, on their own testimony, that they have attained to this deliberate opinion to them there is no Supreme Intelligence in the universe. Mind -spirit-would evidently be the glory of all existence;-a superlatively precious and noble kind of being, in comparison with which all others are unspeakably insignificant. And then one Supreme Spirit, self-existent, and the author of all existence, would be the transcendent object of every admiring, adoring, and devoted sentiment. But to the atheist there is NOTHING in the place of that which is the supremacy of all existence and glory! The Divine Spirit and all spirit abolished, he is left amidst masses and systems of matter without a first cause-ruled by chance, or by a blind mechanical impulse of what he calls fate; and, as a little com-ential, and very often absent altogether. position of atoms, he is himself to take We wish we could describe with dishis chance for a few moments of con- tinctness several of the ways or forms in scious being, and then be no more for which this disregard of God is seen to ever! And yet, in this infinite prostra-prevail. For one, we are placed amidst tion of all things, he feels an elation of the amazing scene of his works, extendintellectual pride!

ing on all sides, from the point where we But we have to consider the text in an stand, to far beyond any thing we can disapplication much more important to us, tinctly conceive of infinitely—in such a and to men in general: for, with a most diversity that eternal duration will not settled belief of the Divine existence, suffice to take account of all; having they may be "without God in the world." within one day, one hour, one instant, opeThis is too truly and sadly the appli- rations, changes, appearances, to which cable description when this belief and the greatest angel's calculating faculty its object do not maintain habitually the would be nothing-and all manifesting ascendant influence over us over the design, order, beauty, sublimity, utility. whole system of our thoughts, feelings, | Such is the scene to be contemplated. purposes, and actions. That there is But now, while our attention wanders such a being is a principle that evidently over it, or fixes on parts of it, do we reclaims to interfere in every thing. My gard it but as if it were something existvery existence is from him, and depends ing of itself? Can we glance over the

earth, and into the wilderness of worlds scheme of life and happiness independin infinite space, without the solemn ently of Him. They do not consult his thought that all this is but the sign and counsel or his will, as to what that scheme proof of something infinitely more glo- should be in its end or means; they will rious than itself? Are we not reminded have a plan of pursuits and well-being -"This is the production of his almighty to please themselves, without much inpower-that is an adjustment of his all- quiry or caring whether it be one that comprehending intelligence and foresight he will approve;-perhaps slightly wish -there is a glimmer, a ray of his beauty, that it could please both, but it shall please his glory—there an emanation of his be- me: this I like, and that I covet, and the nignity-but for him all this would never other would be the very summit of haphave been; and if, for a moment, his per-piness-no matter whether he has signivading energy were by his will restrained fied a more excellent way. And then the or suspended, what would it all be then?" confidence of realizing, on such a plan, Not to have some such perceptions and his favour, his blessing, is considered as thoughts, accompanied by devout senti- not absolutely indispensable:-"we can ments, is, so far, to "be without God in be happy, leaving him out of the account; the world." And that there should be the probabilities (the presumptions rather) men who can survey the creation with a of life, health, and success are in our fascientific enlargement of intelligence, and vour, according to the ordinary course of then say, "there is no God," is the most things, and we will embark on this; for hideous phenomenon in the world. the present we can do without him; if Again, the text is applicable to those our schemes fail, we can but turn to him who have no solemn recognition of God's at last." So He is forgotten!—and the all-disposing government and providence deluded man goes into his scheme, and -who have no thought of the course of after it, with all his might, "without things but as just "going on"-going on God." But if a brief illumination of some way or other, just as it can-to truth might glare out upon such a man, whom it appears abandoned to a strife and his schemes and prospects, what and competition of various mortal pow- amazement and horror would seize him, ers; or surrendered to something they to find himself thus impicusly employed! call general laws, and then blended withthus presuming to work out for himchance; who have, perhaps, a crude Epi- self a chief good of his existence, carecurean notion of exempting the Divine | lessly, independently, and in defiance of Being from the infinite toil and care of such a charge; or think they see things managed so wrong, that there cannot be a constant interference of sovereign power and wisdom-who do not discern and understand the indications manifested in some instances, and have no faith with respect to the darker parts of the system; who, with respect to their own lot, feel themselves as committed to an unaided struggle and fight with difficulties, enemies, and accidents; and who have no habitual trust or hope in the providential wisdom and care. If God be in the world with an all-pervading providence, those who do not acknowledge it really and practically are "without him in the world."

The text is a description of all those who are forming and pursuing their

Him who is the sovereign good!—in effect saying "I will make trial whether they were not in the right who were reproached with loving and serving the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever."

The text is a description of those who have but a slight sense of universal accountableness to God as the supreme authority; who have not a conscience constantly looking and listening to him, and testifying for him; who proceed as if this world were a province absolved from the strictness of his dominion and his laws; who will not apprehend that there is his will and warning affixed to every thing; who will not submissively ask, "What dost thou pronounce on this?" To be insensible to the divine character as Lawgiver, rightful authority and Judge,

traneous to the soul; they may communicate with it, but they are still separate and without it; an intermediate vacancy keeps them for ever asunder, so that the soul must be, in a sense, in an inseparable and eternal solitude—that is, as to all creatures. But GOD, on the contrary, has an all-pervading power-can interfuse, as it were, his very essence through the being of his creatures-can cause himself to be apprehended and felt as absolutely in the soul-such an intercommunion as is, by the nature of things, impossible between created beings; and thus the interior central loneliness-the solitude of the soul-is banished by a perfectly intimate presence, which imparts the most affecting sense of society

is truly to be "without God in the necessarily (shall we express it so ?) exworld" for thus every emotion of the soul and action of the life assumes that he is absent or does not exist. This insensibility of accountableness exists almost entire (a stupefaction of conscience) in very many minds. But in many others there is a disturbed yet inefficacious feeling and might not some of these be disposed to say, "We are not without God in the world,' as an awful authority and judge; for we are followed, and harassed, and persecuted, sometimes quite to misery, by the thought of him in this character: we cannot go on peacefully in the way our inclinations lead; a portentous sound alarms us—a formidable spectre encounters us, though we still persist." The cause here is that men wish to be "without God in the world"——a society, a communion, which imparts would, in preference to any other prayer, life and joy, and may continue in perpeimplore him to “Depart from us, for we tuity. To men completely immersed in desire not the knowledge of his ways." the world this might appear a very abThey would be willing to resume the en-stracted and enthusiastic notion of feliciterprise of the rebellious angels, if there | ty; but to those who have in any meawere any hope. Oh, that He, with his judgments and laws, were infinitely far away!" To be thus with God is in the most emphatical sense to be without him -without him as a friend, approver, and patron; each thought of him tells the soul who it is that it is without, and who it is that in a very fearful sense it never | God—absence of the thought of being can be without.

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sure attained it the idea of its loss would give the most emphatic sense of the expression, "Without God in the world."

The terms are a true description, also, of the state of mind in which there is no habitual anticipation of the great event of going at length into the presence of

with him in another world-of being with him in judgment, and whither to be with him for ever; not considering that HE awaits us somewhere, that the whole

The description belongs to that state of mind in which there is no communion with God maintained or even sought with cordial aspiration-no devout, ennobling | movement of life is absolutely towards converse held with him-no conscious him, that the course of life is deciding in reception of delightful impressions, sa- what manner we shall appear in his precred influences, suggested sentiments- sence;-not thinking what manner of no pouring out of the soul in fervent de- fact that will be, what experience, what sire for his illuminations, his compassion, consciousness, what emotion;—not rehis forgiveness, his transforming opera-garding it as the grand purpose of our tions-no earnest, penitential, hopeful pleading in the name of the gracious Intercessor no solemn, affectionate dedication of the whole being-no animation and vigour obtained for the labours and warfare of a Christian life.

But how lamentable to be without God! Consider it in one single view only: :that of the loneliness of a human soul in this destitution. All other beings are

present state of existence that we may attain a final dwelling in his presence.

One more, and the last application we would make of the description, is to those who, while professing to retain God in their thoughts with a religious regard, frame the religion in which they are to acknowledge him according to their own speculations and fancy. Thus many rejecters of divine revelation have

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