language of their piety, which sees the hand of God in every thing, and ascribes to the Almighty ruler of Heaven and Earth, all that directs the issue of the battle and regulates the concerns of the empire. If the sparrow falleth not to the ground without the knowledge of your heavenly Father, you cannot doubt, my beloved brethren, but that your best strength will be that righteousness, which through Christ's merits will make him your present help in time of trouble.

It must be acknowledged that in the Historical Scriptures as read in our Churches we may find, (as in what true History do we not find them?) deeds of vice and abomination recited, and even instances of faults committed by characters of high note, whom we had been accustomed to consider as honored with the favor of God. But here let it be observed that no one character in the Old Testament is pronounced perfect; none as an example in all particulars to be followed. These very deeds are condemned by the tenor of the whole Bible generally, and almost always specially censured somewhere, though not perhaps in the very chapter in which the Act is recited. 'Tis true also that the Old Scrip tures often represent commands as coming from God, which seem not to us perfectly reconcileable with our ideas of his attributes: but are we to set up our imperfect ideas as

the measures of his attributes? He has not called man into his counsels; and shall man assume a power of fathoming the depths of his policy? Not made acquainted with the secret things which belong to the most high, shall man pretend to criticise the intricacies of his administration? Often the objection has no better foundation than an ignorance of the language in which the Almighty speaks to his creatures. Examples of this sort we have, where God is said to have stirred up the Kings to war against Israel, or to have hardened the heart of Pharaoh, In explanation let it be observed, that in Scripture, whatever God permits to be done, whatever he does not interpose to prevent, is spoken of as done by him. When God is said then to have stirred up the Kings, we are to understand that their own evil thoughts produced the effect, and that God permitted them to be thus the ministers of his judgments on offending Israel. When God is said to have hardened the heart of Pharaoh to act against the commisson which had been given to Moses and Aaron, the meaning is not that he caused an opposition to be made against his own commission, thus to defeat his own object, this interpretation would be against common sense. The fact is that Pharaoh hardened his own heart, and this is in terms declared in other parts of the chapters, and God did not particularly inter

fere to check the wicked suggestion of the heart of the proud Egyptian, but after repeated trials gave him over to his presumption and to its consequences.

As to the Lessons from the Prophetical Scriptures it will not be necessary that I should enter on any detail of their contents. Generally we may say, that they are the volumes which testify of Christ, predictions of various particulars respecting his character and his sufferings, his coming in the flesh, and the extension of his kingdom on the earth. Many of the prophecies in their immediate view relate to some other person at or near the time of the Prophet, whose acts or history they directly predict or record. Still there is a farther reference beyond the person named, and the Jews treasured up many of this sort as in a secondary sense indicative of the Messiah elsewhere distinctly pointed out and expected by the nation. In making the selection from the books of the Prophets for the Sunday Lessons, two circumstances seem chiefly to have directed the choice. First, such chapters appear to have been selected as should give the most sublime descriptions of God's power and of his purity, the most affecting expostulations of his love, and the most powerful denunciations of his anger against sin. For the Prophets were the Messengers of the Lord, sent to rebuke and to alarm his people when they departed from his ways, to awake them

to remorse and to recall them to obedience, and secondly, such chapters have been selected, as have been particularly quoted by the writers of the New Testament, by our Lord himself and his Evangelists, as fulfilled in his person and the History of his Church. The congregation thus perceive the connection of the New and the Old Testament, and the unlearned hear Christ in each of the Lessons of the day. It should be kept in remembrance against any complaint of the difficulty of the constructions and the obscurity of the high wrought figures in some of these Scriptures, that many of the prophecies as well as the Psalms are poetical compositions, and that prophecy is only to be thoroughly understood in its accomplishment, a more clear exposition of God's will not being in all cases suited to his purposes. It may naturally occur that had the contents of the book of God been made perfectly clear, much of what it must have contained in its predictions, whatever in fact was not accommodated to the liking of the Jews, would not be preserved by them with any extroardinary strictness and precision. It is certain that were all clear to demonstration irresistible, and wholly above objection, the faith which rested on such evidence could not have been a trial of the heart.

To conclude. It has in this discourse, my beloved brethren, been shewn to you, with

what judgment the selection of Sunday Lessons has been made by your Church. They are portions of Holy Writ chosen especially for your instruction, from the whole of that Scripture which it has been shewn to you was given by the inspiration of God. Is it not the duty of a congregation, to listen with all respectful attention to the wise counsels of its pious Church ?-to hear with reverential awe those sacred words which proclaim the Majesty of the Creator, and announce the wonders which he doeth for the children of men? Be it then always the office of your gratitude, of your wisdom, and of your piety, to let his words sink deep into your ears, to drive away the intrusion of worldly objects, and to give, as far as may be, your undivided thought to the message of his communication. For know, my brethren, that in the Lesson of the day, to each of you a message from the Lord is sent. The denunciation of the sinner, and the promises to the faithful are addressed to all. The words of the Prophet, "Thou art the man,' belong not exclusively to David: the Scripture which records the destruction of a world of sinners by a general deluge, is followed by our Lord's comment with the warning voice, to all who heard him. "Watch therefore for ye know not what hour your Lord will come." The interest then in these Scriptures is for each who hears them. Let this secure for the

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