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Χιν.]

CHRISTIANIZING OUR HOME POPULATION.

much such attentions as these, kept up, and | with that argument is listened to, which made to play in busy and constant recurrence goes to set forth the efficacy of Christian upon one local neighbourhood; it is not yet doctrine, or to magnify the office of him

known how much and how powerfully they tell in drawing the hearts of the people towards him who faithfully and with honest friendship, discharges them. They will make the pulpit which he fills a common centre of attraction to the whole territory over which he expatiates; and we need not, that we may see exemplified in human society the worth and importance of the pastoral relationship, we need not go alone among the sequestered vales, or the far and upland retreats of our country parishes. It is not a local phenomenon dependent on geography. It is a general one, dependent on the nature of man; on those laws of the heart, which no change of place or of circumstances can obliterate. To gain the moral ascendency of which we speak, it is and laborious clergyenough if

the upright

who delivers it.

extending

We can offer no computation that will satisfy such antagonists as these, of the importance of Christianity even to the civil and the temporal well-being of our species; and we shall, therefore, plead the authority of our text, for extend its lessons to every creature-for going forth with it to every haunt and every habitation where immortal beings are to be found for not merely carrying it beyond the limits of Christendom, but for filling up with instruction the many blank, and vacant, and still unoccupied places, teeming with population, that, even within these limits have not been overtaken. What! shall we be told, that if there is a man under heaven, whom the Gospel has not yet reached, it is but obedience to a last and solemn commandment, when the missionary travels even to the farthest verge of our horizon, that he may bear it to his door -shall we be told of the thousands who are beside us, that, though their souls are perishing for lack of knowledge, we without one care or one effort abandon them? Are we to give up as desperate, the Christian reformation of our land, when we read of those mighty achievements, and those heavenly outpourings, by which even the veriest wilds of heathenism have been fertilized-or, with such an instrument to work by as that of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which in the hands of the Spirit of God, hath wrought its miracles on the men of all ages, shall we forbear, as a hopeless enterprise, the evangelizing of our own homes, the eternal salvation of our own families? "Be of good cheer," says the Spirit

might,

man have human feelings and human families on every side of him. It signifies not where. Give him Christian kindness, and this will pioneer a way for him amongst all the varieties of place and of population. Beside the smoke, and the din, and the dizzying wheel of crowded manufactories, will he find as ready an introduction for himself and for his office, as if his only walk had been among peaceful hamlets, and with nought but the romance and the rusticity of nature spread out before him. It is utterly a wrong imagination, and in the face both of experience and of prophecy, that in towns there is an impracticable barrier against the capabilities and the triumphs of the Gospel-that in towns the cause of human amelioration must be abandoned in despair--that in towns it is not by the architecture of chapels, but by the architecture to the apostle, "I have much people for of prisons, and of barracks, and of bride- thee in this city;" and that, a city, too, the wells, we are alone to seek for the protec- most profligate and abandoned that ever

foul

flourished on the face of our world. And
still the Lord's hand is not shortened, that
it cannot save. Neither is his ear heavy,
that it cannot hear. It is open as ever to
the cry of your intercessions--and on these,
we would devolve our cause. We entreat
the fellowship of your prayers. We know,
that all human exertion, and eloquence, and
wisdom, are vain without them-that, lack-
ing that influence, which is gotten down by
supplications from on high, sermons are but
high-sounding cymbals, and churches but
naked architecture-that mere pains are of
no avail, and that it only lies within the com-
pass of pains and prayers, to do any thing.
And we, indeed, have great reason for
encouragement, when we think of the sub-
ject of our message. When we are bidden
in the text to preach, it is to preach the
Gospel it is to proclaim good news in the
hearing of the people-it is to sound forth
great joy-it is to tell

tion of society-that elsewhere a moralizing
charm may go forth among the people, from
village schools and Sabbath services, but
that there is a hardihood and a ferocity in
towns, which must be dealt with in another
way, and against which all the artillery of
the pulpit is feeble as infancy-that a
and feverish depravity has settled there,
which no spiritual application will ever ex-
tinguish: for amid all the devisings for the
peace and order of our community, do we
find it to be the shrewd and sturdy appre-
hension of many, that all which can be
achieved in our overgrown cities, is by the
strength of the secular arm; that a stern
and vigorous police will do more for public
morals, than a whole band of ecclesiastics;
that a periodical execution will strike a
more salutary terror into the hearts of the
multitude, than do the dreadest fulminations
of the preacher's voice; and this will ex-
plain the derision and the distrust where-the glad tidings of

even the chief of sinners, that God is now willing to treat him as a sinner no longer; that he invites him to all the honours of righteousness; and that in virtue of a blood which cleanseth from all sin, and of an obedience, to the rewards of which he is freely and fully invited, there is not a guilty creature in our world, who may not draw nigh. Should he who preaches within these walls, turn out the faithful and the energetic expounder of this word of salvation-should the blessing of God be upon his ways, and that demonstration which cometh from on high, accompany his words-should he, filled

toil, and his unwearied perseverance then, such is the power of the divine testimony, when urged out of the fulness of a believer's heart, and made to fall with the impression of his undoubted sincerity on those whom he addresses; that for ourselves we shall have no fear of a good and a glorious issue to this undertaking; and, therefore, as Paul often cast the success of his labours on the prayers of them for whom he laboured, would I again entreat that your supplications do ascend to the throne of grace for him who is to minister amongst you in word and in doctrine-that he may, indeed,

with zeal in the high cause of your immor- be a pastor according to God's own heart,

tality, be instant among you in season, and out of season-and devoted to the work of his sacred ministry, he make it his single aim to gather in a harvest of unperishable spirits, that by him as an instrument of grace, have been rescued from hell, and raised to a blissful eternity-should this be indeed the high walk of his unremitting

who shall feed a people here with knowledge and with spiritual understandingthat the travail of his soul may be blest to the conversion of many sons and daughters unto righteousness-that he may prove a comfort to all your hearts, and a great public benefit to all your families.

SERMON XV.

On the Distinction between Knowledge and Consideration.

"The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider."-Isaiah 1. 3.

It would appear, from this verse, that | great want of comfort in a family; and the children of Israel neither knew nor considered-but still there is a distinction suggested by it between these two things. And in the book of the prophet Malachi, we have a similar distinction, when the Lord says to the priests, "If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart." It is, in fact, possible for a man to do one of these things, and not to do the other. He may know the truth, and yet he may not consider it. He may hear, and yet not lay to heart. Nay, he may have heard of a particular doctrine so often as to have got it by heart, without ever laying it to heart. And this, we hold, to be the just and the applicable complaint that may be uttered of many professing Christians in our day.

And thus it is, that we may gather the difference which there is between knowledge and wisdom. The one is a speculative acquirement. The other is a practical faculty or habit. By the latter, we turn to its right and profitable use the former. Thus it is, that there may be great folly along with great scholarship; and, on the other hand, may an unlettered mind be il

what stands in fine and beautiful contrast with this, you may have witnessed the union of very humble means, with such a skill and consideration in the guidance of them, as to have yielded a respectable appearance, and a decent hospitality, and the sufficiency of a full and regular provision. And so, with the treasures of intellect, the acquisitions of the mind, whereof one may be rich, being possessed of most ample materials in all knowledge and information, and yet have an ill-conditioned mind notwithstanding; and another destitute of all but the most common and elementary truths, may yet, by a wise application of them, have attained to the true light and harmony of the soul, and be in sound preparation both for the duties of time, and for the delights of eternity.

All have so learned to number their days as to know the extreme limit of human life upon earth; yet all have not so learned to number their days as to apply their hearts unto wisdom. They are aware of their latter end, but they consider not their latter end.

lustrious in wisdom. You have, perhaps, I. This distinction between knowledge seen when there was great wealth, and yet, and wisdom, is abundantly realized even from the want of judicious management, on the field of earthly and of sensible ex

:

perience. The man of dissipation may inquiring neighbourhood, when the word have his eyes open to the ruin of character spreads that some one of their friends is and of fortune that awaits him, yet the dying; and the frequency of those funeral tyranny of his evil desires constrains him

processions that pass along our streets, and

to a perseverance in the ways of wretched- so mingle the business of death with the

ness. The man of indolence may foresee
the coming bankruptcy that will ensue on
the slovenly management of his affairs, yet
there is a lethargy within that weighs him
down to fatal inactivity. The man of
prone and headlong irritation, may be
able to discern the accumulating mischief
that he raises against himself in the hos- how is it truly and experimentally? That

moving throng of the people and the car-
these are the remem-
riages, which the business of life has press-
ed into its service;
brances that ever and anon hold up the
lesson of our mortality, and one might
think, should effectually keep it from sink-
ing for a single hour into oblivion. But
tility of those who are around him, and death of which we all know now so so well, is
may even look forward to the time when, ly ever in our thoughts. The momentary
deserted by the friendship of all, he shall touch of grief, and of seriousness, where-

live a neglected outcast from all human com-
panionship, yet continue as before to be
hurried away by the onward violence that
seizes him. In all these instances, there is
no want of knowledge in possession. But
there is a want of knowledge in use, or
knowledge in application. The unhappy
man has the truth of the matter in his head.
But he does not lay it with the authority of
a commander upon his practice. The pre-
sent urgency carries it over all thought of the
future consequences. He has received the
truth, but he does not give heed unto the
truth. He does not charge it upon his at-
tention, or give effectual warning of it to
his fears, or to his sense of prudence and
of interest. It is not of his ignorance that
we complain, but of his inconsideration.
And thus, apart from the things of spiritual
contemplation altogether, and on the mere
ground of every day life, with its passions
and pursuits in this world, may the distinc-
tion to which we now advert, be abundantly
exemplified.

II. But what we have now affirmed, even
of those events and consequences that take
place along the journey of this world, is
still more strikingly apparent of that great
event which marks its termination. There
is not a human creature of most ordinary
mind, and who hath overstepped the limits
of infancy, that does not know of death,
and with whom it does not rank among
the most undoubted of the certainties that
await him. And it is not only that of which
he is most thoroughly assured; but it is
that of which, in the course of observation
and history, he is most constantly remind-
ed. And many are the aids and the accom-
paniments which might serve to deepen his
impression of it. The horror of every death
that he witnesses; and the pathos of every
death which he deplores; and the distress,
even unto the measure of tragic sensibility,
which is felt when some tie of near and
affecting relationship is broken; and every
act of attendance on those last obsequies,
when acquaintances meet to carry one of
their number to his grave; and the aspect
of seriousness that gathers upon every

scarce

with we are at times visited, speedily goeth
into utter dissipation. With as cheerful and
assured footsteps, do we tread the face of
this world, as if it were the scene of our
immortality; and the latter end of life is
totally unseen in the obscure and undefined
distance at which we have placed it, on the
field of our contemplations. It argues for
the strength of that recoil with which nature
shrinks from the thought of its own dissolu-
tion, that all these loud and repeated de-
monstrations pass so unheeded by-and
that walking though we be, over the accu-
mulated ruins of so many generations, we
nevertheless will talk as merrily, and lift up
our heads as securely, as though beings
who were to live for ever.
to work the slightest abatement in the
eagerness of man after this world's in-
terests, that a few years will sweep them
utterly away; and when we look to the
busy engrossment of all his faculties with
one thing
the plans and the pursuits of earthliness,
it is but too manifest, that it is
to know of death, and another to consider
of it.

It seems not

This heedlessness of our latter end, is of a character still more obstinate and incurable than any such heedlessness as we have already quoted, of reputation or fortune in the world. It needs no impetuous appetite to overbear the thought of death; for in the calm equanimity of many a sober and aged citizen, you will find him as profoundly asleep to the feeling of his own mortality, as he is to any of the feelings or instigations of licentiousness. It needs no overweighing indolence of temperament to be all listless and unmoved by the fears of our coming death-bed; for many are to be found, who consume every hour in the activities of business and of daring adventure, without one emotion of seriousness on the awful catastrophe that awaits them.

It needs no imprudence, or unguarded violence, to betray a man into the forgetfulness of death: for many is the cool and practised calculator, and many is the sage of tranquil philosophy, and many is the

1

crafty politician, who can look far into con- | does he not seek to grave upon your softsequences, and is skilled in all the expe- ened heart the lesson of mortality in cha

dients of his vocation; and of whom it may be said, that the mind of each is steeped in the oblivion of death. We are heedless of much that is before us, even in this world; but as to its last and closing scene, there is a peculiar inveteracy of heedlessness that we do not have as to any of the other futurities of our earthly existence. Death is the stepping-stone between the two worlds; and so it somewhat combines the palpable of matter, with the shadowy.and the evanescent of spirit. It is the gateway to a land of mystery and of silence, and seems to gather upon it something of the visionary character which the things of faith have to the eye of the senses. It is not a thing unseen; but being an outlet to the region of invisibles, there settles upon it a degree of that faintness and obscurity wherewith the carnal eye regards all that is told of the matters of eternity. And so, amid all the varieties of temperament in our species, there is a universal heedlessness of death. It seems against the tendency of nature to think of it. There is an opposite bias that ever inclines us away from this dark contemplation, towards the warm and living realities of the peopled world around us. The mind refuses to dwell on that dreary abode of skulls and of sepulchres, and makes its willing escape from all this hideous imagery, to society, and to business, and to the whole interest and variety of life. Instead of some mighty impulse being required to dispossess us of the thought, it costs an effort of unnatural violence to uphold it in our bosoms. The thing is known, but it is not considered: and the giddy dance of life is carried onwards, as if there were no destroyer upon the way-the tide of human existence is borne as restlessly along, as if there were no grave to absorb it.

This might serve to convince us, how unavailing is the mere knowledge, even of important truth, if not accompanied by the feeling, or the practical remembrance of it. The knowledge, in this case, only serves to aggravate our folly, and to bring, on the utter heedlessness of our lives, a more full and emphatic condemnation. And on the subject of death, we would ask, how is it that your fatal insensibility can be justified? Has God left this matter without a witness? Has he not strewed the whole path of your existence in the world with the mementos of its affecting termination? Has he not pointed the eye of your experience to the agonies of many a death-bed, and brought it irresistibly down upon your convictions, that these are the very agonies through

racters of deeper remembrance? Has he not tried to find access for the truth, through the varied avenues of feeling, and of observation, and of conscience? And living, as you do, in the land of dying men, have you not seen enough of this world's changes to make the history of your life one continued sermon upon the grave? God has not been wanting in those demonstrations of Providence, which should have riveted a seriousness upon your hearts, and transformed you out of the careless, and gay, and worldly creature that you still are. We protest, by the many sick-beds over which you have hung, and by the deaths which you have witnessed, and by the tears which you have shed over them, that you have long ago had enough to loosen your hold upon earth, and to break that accursed spell by which you are so bound to its lying vanities. You have enough to dislodge from your bosom the spirit of the god of this world; and O! therefore, that you were wise, that you understood these things, that you considered your latter end.

There is no topic on which the distinction that there is between knowledge and consideration stands more palpably before us than that of death. All are assured of its coming, yet how few so bethink, or so bestir themselves, as to be prepared for its coming. The position which this event occupies in the line of our existence, gives to it a peculiar advantage for illustrating the distinction in question. It stands on the extreme horizon of what is sensible, and beyond it lie the dimness and the mystery of an untrodden land. On this side of it are the matters of experience. On the other side of it are the matters of faith. Now, it partakes with the one in the certainty wherewith all must regard it; and it partakes with the other in the nullity of its practical influence, over the vast majority of our species. As an object of knowledge, there belongeth to it the assurance of a most unquestioned truth; as an object of consideration, there belongeth to it the airy lightness of a vain and visionary fable. It is believed, but it is not minded; and while, on the one hand, it ranks among those experimental realities which are most assuredly known, it, on the other hand, ranks among those illusions of the fancy which are practically and habitually disregarded. It stands forth to the eye in all the plainness of ocular demonstration, and yet with as little power as if it were a tale of necromancy. It is quite obvious, that in the things of faith, there is a want of ascendant power

which you have to pass? In every death over the life of man; and, to justify man, of an acquaintance does he not lift a voice this has been ascribed to their want of eviof warning unto yourselves; and when dence. But where is the want of evidence that acquaintance is a relative or a friend, in death? This is not a thing of faith, but

a thing of observation; and makes it as that region, and which man hath not seen clear as day, that even when the evidence by his eye, or heard by his ear-to the awful is complete and irresistible, the effect may realities that will abide in deep and mysteribe as utterly unsubstantial, as if it were ous concealment from us, so long as we are a thing of nought. This ought to alarm in the body, and which not till the body is

us. It should lead us to apprehend, that there was enough of argument, on the side even of what is spiritual and unseen, to condemn our indifference to it. If the certainty of death do not move us, it may not be the uncertainty of what is on the other side

dissolved, will stand in direct manifestation before us. This character of unseen and spiritual, is not confined to things future. There are things present which are spiritual also. There is a present Deity, who dwelleth in light, it is true, but it is light inaccessible

of death, that can account for the sluggish--who is encompassed with glory, but it is

ness of our obstinate and unmoved carnality. One thing is certain, that we can see an acquaintance fall into his grave, and yet continue to live here, as if this were our eternity. And does not this make it probable, that though that acquaintance were to rise again, and to tell us of the world of spirits upon which he had entered, we should be unaffected as before by the real eternity that is awaiting us? Christ says to us himself, that if we believe not Moses and the prophets, neither should we believe though one rose from the dead. This is the way in which we meet the demand of infidelity, for more of proof, and more of information. The fact is that thousands have died before us, and are still dying around us, and yet the heart of man remains unvisited by any practical sense of his mortality. And the presumption, therefore, is, that though one of these thousands were to revive, and to ro-appear amongst us, fraught with the tidings of heaven's glory, and hell's unutterable despair, we should still keep our ground against him, and the heart of man be unvisited as before by any practical sense of his immortality. It is not more of evidence that we want. There is as much as ought to convince us now--and if not convinced, there is as much as will condemn us afterwards. The cause of our irreligion is not that we could not know, but that we do not, and will not consider.

This is a great practical use to which our insensibility about death is capable of being turned. It proves, that our insensibility about eternal things, may be due to something else than to the defect of that evidence by which they are accompanied. It causes us to perceive, that a truth may be surely known, and yet not be pondered, or not be proceeded upon. Surely to know it is one thing-seriously to reflect upon it is another; and thus it may be, that the irreligion of the world is due not to the want of a satisfying demonstration on God's part, for this might have excused us; but, to the want of right consideration on ours, and this is inexcusable.

glory which we, in the body, cannot approach unto-who stands revealed to angels and adoring spirits; but whom no man hath seen, neither can see. He is the King eternal and immortal, but he is also the King invisible-who, though not far from any one of us, is remote as infinity itself, from the ken of our earthly senses-and shrouded in the obscurity of his own unfathomable nature, is he so veiled and darkened from all human contemplation, that we cannot behold him.

And yet, even of this great Spirit we may be said, in one sense, to know, however little it is that we may consider him. There are averments about God which we have long recognised, and ranked among our admitted propositions, though we seldom recur to them in thought, and are never adequately impressed by them. We know, or think we know, that God is; and that all other existence is suspended upon his will; and that, were it not for his upholding arm, the whole of Nature would go into dissolution; and that while he sits in high authority over all worlds, there is not one individual member of his vast family, that is overlooked by him; and, more particularly, that he looks with the eye of a wise and a watchful judge, into every heart, and every conscience; and that he claims a right and a property in the services of all his creatures; and that he is more absolutely the owner and the master of them all, than is man of the machine that he hath made, and to whose touch all its movements are subordinate; and that he is a God of august and inviolable sacredness, in whose presence evil cannot dwell, and between the sanctity of whose nature and sin, there is a wide and implacable enmity; and that he does not sit in lofty and remote indifference to the characters of his children, but takes deep, and perpetual, and most vigilant concern in them all-loving their righteousness, hating their iniquity, treasuring their thoughts, and their purposes, and their doing, in the book of his remembrance; and that, with a view to the manifestation of them, on that day, when time shall be no more, and each of his accountable offspring shall, have their condition awarded to them through eternity

III. Let us now pass onwards, then, to the invisibles of faith-to those things which do not, like death, stand upon the confines when the mystery of God shall be finished, of the spiritual region, but are wholly within | and the glory of his attributes shall be made

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