to the house of God, and to see them all in a glow with the crowd and the bustle of passengers-to enter the church, and there to find every eye fastened on the man of God as he speaks of the high and holy things of salvation, and presses home on an arrested audience the preparation for eternity. Oh, if the church going were a true and unfailing index of the heart, the business of the ministers would go on prosperously; but there is an obstinacy and a resistance to the will of God in the human heart, which none but God can remove; there is a deep-seated corruption in the affections and will, which no human power and no human eloquence can drive out; there is a spell and an infatuation which the calls of urgency or the denunciations of vengeance cannot break, and, therefore, the alarm given by the energy of the preacher dies away with the sound of his voice. The old man is carried out as vigorous as he was carried in, and the seriousness which now sits so visibly on every countenance will, without a visitation from on high, be dissipated in half an hour, and all will vanish in deep and utter forgetfulness, when you go again to your shops, when you return to your homes, when you again enter your families and resting-places. But hearken, and be wise now, and be instructed, and while it is "called to-day, harden not your hearts as in the day of provocation, but kiss the son lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but a little;" and you will experience the blessedness of all those who put their trust in the Lord, and who make a transition from the state of nature to a state of grace, and be introduced into that new, spiritual, and heavenly atmosphere, into which he ushers all those who put their trust in him. God grant this for his name's sake!

EXTRACT FROM

DANIEL'S VISION OF THE FOUR BEASTS,

66

BY REV. E. IRVING, M.A.

'My heart is sore, my head is weary, and my words flow slowly and painfully from my breast; but yet I will not close this discourse, the last haply which I shall preach before the terrible deed is done, without a parting word to the Christian people who hear and understand what I say. Abraham hoped against hope; Abraham believed against probability, against possibility; Abraham lifted up his knife upon his son, to slay him in whom God had promised that his seed should continue for ever. The like faith, the like hope, have I, and would have you to possess at this moment, concerning the tribes of this kingdom, which I believe to be the sealed tribes of the Apocalypse, which are preserved against those furious winds of the wrath of God which bring unto nought the kings and the captains and the mighty men of the earth. Faith without a promise, is superstition or fanaticism: faith with a promise, winneth the victory over the devil, the world, and the flesh. Blessed is he who hath a promise at this time to rest his faith upon! I have that blessedness, and I would fain impart it unto you. I cannot now lay out the grounds of it; nor, if I could, would I, standing over as it doth for our discourse next Lord's-day night. But I believe, I assure you, that we have such a promise, in this the darkest hour of the kingdom; and to you I give it, as ground of faith, and therefore ground of prayer: as ground of consolation, and therefore ground of joy. And because this blessed hope of our tribes resteth upon and is derived from the steady faithfulness of the church, I do call upon every believer-and if there be any ministers now listening to me, upon them especially I do call-with all diligence, with all faithfulness, with all earnestness, to set forth in their prayers the miserable state of this kingdom before the Lord, and implore his mercy: and in all responsible stations and offices, whether in the church or in the state, I call upon them evermore solemnly

to protest against the innovations which will now rush in like a flood. I call upon you not to desert the ship of the commonwealth of the church and state, but to abide therein, and stand fast, every man at his post, like good seamen in a breaking, bursting storm; and I think I can give hope from God's word, that in so doing we shall preserve and be preserved. I say not but the ship will go to pieces; I say not but the constitution, which we and the nations have worshipped, shall, like the brazen serpent that once saved Israel and afterwards came to be worshipped by Israel, be ground into powder: I say not but that it will be in much suffering unto us all; but I say that it will not be with the loss of our existence as a church and a nation. I believe that the sun, which is now beginning to be eclipsed by the hurricane, will yet shine out bright and strong upon our children, or our children's children, through the faithfulness, the present faithfulness, of us their fathers. Therefore, my brethren, my flock, and all ye Christian people who hear and understand these things, I pray you to be stirred up in your minds with good hope; and to continue instant in prayers; resigned unto the will of God; faithful unto Christ; hoping all things, believing all things; and waiting for the crown of glory, which Christ will give unto us, and unto all who love his appearing."

Printed by C. Roworth & Sons, Bell Yard, Temple Bar.

THE

CHURCH OF ENGLAND PREACHER.

Patronized by the Clergy and others.

"GOD IS LOVE."

A SERMON

PREACHED BY

THE REV. T. CHALMERS, D. D.

At the Scotch Church, Swallow Street, Regent Street,

ON SUNDAY MORNING, JULY 30th, 1837.

FIRST PRAYER, BY THE REV. DR. BROWN.

ALMIGHTY, highly exalted, and ever blessed Jehovah, we desire to come into thy presence through that new and living way which thou hast appointed, even Jesus Christ, making mention of his righteousness, and of his only, and to implore thee to love us freely and to receive us graciously. Make us deeply sensible, Holy Father, of our urgent spiritual blindness; cause us to feel the exceeding bitterness and malignity of sin; and do thou graciously lead us to the Lord Jesus as the fountain open in the house of Israel wherein we may wash and be clean. On this, the morning of thy holy day, we would give thee thanks for the return of the Christian Sabbath with all its quiet and peaceful associations-with all its gracious and spiritual privileges; and now that thou hast convened so many of us in the house of prayer, oh! do thou impart to us by thy Holy Spirit all the gracious dispositions that may enable us to hear thy word with profit and personal improvement. God forbid that it should be an additional aggravation of our guilt, that whereas we are spared to see the light and to enjoy the exercises of another Sabbath, that we should permit the opportunity to pass unheeded and unimproved. Enable us to remember that the extent of our responsibility corresponds with that of our privileges: and, now that thou art about to address us upon the great things that belong to our eternal peace, do thou give unto each of us now before thee the hearing ear, the understanding mind, and the believing heart. Oh Lord, deliver us, we pray thee, from all formality, insincerity, and indifference. Cause us to take a deep interest in the immortal concerns of our souls; and enable us to form a due estimate of the relative importance of time and of eternity. Help us to engage in the reading and in the hearing of thy word with a due feelNo. 4.

E

ing of reverence-reverence for thine authority who hath given it; and may we find that it is in all things adapted to our wants, therefore may we give it a cordial acceptance. Oh Lord, we beseech thee to bless us in the various relations in which we stand to each other, to society, and to the church, according to the various spheres we are called on to fill and duties we are required to discharge. Impart unto us the grace that may be needful for sustaining us and for enabling us to endure and to improve our time, and for deducing from every event of thy providence the improvement it is fitted to impart. Look down in mercy, we beseech thee, upon all the careless, the unbelieving, and the inconsiderate. Oh, do thou awaken them to a due sense of their danger and their guilt. Make bare thy holy arm, oh Lord, and pluck them as brands out of the everlasting furnace. Come forth with all thy ministering servants throughout the church universal this day; and in proportion to the important and arduous embassy on which they are sent, give them power to persuade men that they may be reconciled unto God. Do thou give them all needful light and strength and grace; and may the bow which is drawn at a venture send forth an arrow that shall reach many a heart. Increase the number of thy true spiritual children. Do thou weaken and thin the ranks of thine enemies. Hasten the period when Messiah shall reign universally among all the families and all the kingdoms of this world; and do thou graciously bring in thine elect. In thine own good time make up the number of thy jewels, and grant that the Redeemer's mediatorial crown may be radiated with the jewels which he hath purchased with his precious blood. Condescend to be in the midst of us this day; and come forth especially with thy servant who is now about to address us in thy name, and grant that through his instrumentality the grace of the Lord Jesus, in all its power and holiness and peace, may find its way to many a heart. These our petitions we present before thee not in our own name or in our own strength, but in the name and through the strength of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; to whom, with thee, the Father, and the Holy Spirit, be ascribed endless praise and glory. Amen.

SERMON BY DR. CHALMERS.

TEXT.-In the 16th verse of the 4th chap. of the First Epistle General of JOHN-" And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him."-Our text is the middle clause of the verse-" GOD IS LOVE." DID we only give credit to the text, did we but think that God is love, in the words of this simple translation of your authorized version of the Scriptures, which is in all your hands, did we but receive this simple translation of a great truth, we should feel from that moment we thought of God as love, the establishment in our minds of faith and confidence in him, and with the establishment of this faith there would instantly be generated a new heart and a new life.

Let us attend, in the first place, to the original constitution of humanity