they may be sanctified, and made manifest to be Christ's body, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. be privileged to worship that God in the way in which they had been accustomed, when they were inhabitants of the country where we now are? There is another reason why I would urge upon you, the claims of this society. We little know what connexion we ourselves may have with the emigrants. Emigration is on the increase, and in all probability it will go on to increase still. We know not but some dear, very dear to us, may soon exchange this country for a transatlantic one. Not one of us who are The persons for whom I this night, in a particular manner, am called to plead, have very special claims upon you. They have been under the necessity of leaving their native country; bidding adieu to the scenes endeared to them by many fond recollections-bidding adieu to the friends, as well as to the scenes, of their youth, they have gone to a land of strangers, and to a land where they not merely have not the asso-parents, knows but that some of our children ciations that endear our native country to the hearts of every one of us, but where they have not those religious feelings that make this country such a delightful home to its inhabitants. There the Sabbath comes not as it does here. The sun of the Sabbath rises and sets upon them indeed, but, in many places, the gates of the Sanctuary are not thrown open, the church bell is not heard, the glad tidings of salvation are not published. In many places, there is not merely an entire destitution of the means of religious instruction, but even of the means of common, and that the most common, education. Did Christ tell his disciples, then, when they preached the Gospel, to begin at Jerusalem? did he tell them to begin in that place where he himself was crucified, where he was maltreated, where he was buffetted, where he was spit upon? did he thus show regard for his country? did he thus teach his disciples to cherish the same feeling within their breasts, and shall we hear of our countrymen in straits, and not stretch out our hand-not do what we can, that in the foreign land in which they are, they may have at least the consolation of hearing of the God of their fathers, and may be under the necessity of removing from the country of their fathers, to the land whither so many have gone. And in these circumstances, under the possibility of such an occurrence, do not motives of selfishness, as well as of benevolence, call on you to do what you can, to add to the means of grace that there are awanting to make the Gospel more extensively known? This is the object which the North American Colonial Society has in view. They have sent out many preachers and ministers to that land of spiritual desolation. Within these few months, fourteen preachers, in connexion with the Church of Scotland, have been sent out. In consequence of this, a heavy debt has been contracted, obligations have been come under to an extent considerably beyond the funds; but they look to you, to the public in general, with the utmost confidence, for the means to enable them to fulfil their ends; and I trust, that by your contributions in this way, while you are anxious to avail yourselves of the privileges you now enjoy, you will show that you are likewise deeply concerned for your countr men, who may not be in circumstances s advantageous as you. THE CHARACTER AND BLESSING OF HIM THAT OVERCOMETH; A SERMON PREACHED IN THE TRON CHURCH, GLASGOW, ON THE EVENING OF SABBATH, 14TH JULY, 1833, By the Very Rev. DUNCAN MACFARLAN, D.D., Principal of the University, and Minister of the Inner High Church, Glasgow. "He that overcometh shall inherit all things."-Rev. xxi. 7. Two questions here suggest themselves. | posed, shortly, by the blessing of God, to In the first place, Who is he that over-call your attention. cometh? in the second place, What is the nature of that inheritance which is promised? To each of these in succession it is pro The blessing is promised here, and in many other passages of Scripture, to him that overcometh. To understand this aright, their desires and wishes are altogether proper. They reconcile you to the indulgence of covetousness where it presents power, and honour, and gain, as means of increasing your usefulness. Now, against these, thus incessant in their attacks, thus per it must be observed that the life of a Christian is uniformly described in Scripture as a state of danger and of toil. He is required to strive, to hold fast, to fight the good fight. Persecution was the trial to which the first Christians were chiefly exposed, and against which they were care-petually arrayed or disguised to betray, fully armed, but in succeeding ages, and unto the present times, the attacks which are made on believers are more numerous and more various. Whatever from within or from without may shake the faith or disturb the consistency of a Christian, whether under cover of turbulent passion, inordinate desire, or malignant affection, whether in the shape of worthless solicitation, sinful example, unlawful pleasure, or dishonest gain, may be regarded as an enemy, and is to be firmly resisted. Now, this is a combat in which you at least profess to be engaged. By calling yourselves Christians, and by meeting in the house of God, you solemnly profess that you are animated by the example and encouraged by the promises of the Captain of your salvation. What, then, are the qualifications of him who would fight successfully? The first is faith; such is the express and repeated declaration of Scripture. “This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?" The world is continually present with you. Its temptations assail you day by day, and hour by hour. You every day behold the multitude doing evil, and hurrying you on by their powerful and fascinating example into a participation of their guilt and sin. You are often solicited, not only by the profligate, but by professed Christians and pretended friends, to do those things which are inconsistent with faith and a good conscience towards God, and you frequently meet with opportunities of promoting your lawful interests by unjust and unlawful means, and with favourable opportunities of indulging in sinful pleasures. These temptations assail you in every shape. They not only agitate your violent passions and disturb the balance of your minds, but steal on you under the mask of goodness, and seduce your first propensities into auxiliaries against you. They reconcile you to the example of the wicked by representing to you the folly and uselessness of your standing out against the general practices of mankind. They represent it as even a duty to comply with the requests of your friends, what can support the soldier of Christ, or enable him to contend with perseverance or success? No general notions of duty, no views of self-interest, can arm him for that combat, or endue him with that determination of purpose which it requires. In faith alone is an adequate principle of resistance to be found. He who by Jesus Christ shall believe in God-he who setteth the Lord always before him, who, in all his thoughts, and words, and actions, has habitual reference to the all-seeing God, must be restrained from mortifying his favour and incurring his displeasure. He who walks by faith and not by sight, looking to him who came, not to do his own will, but the will of Him who sent him, of him who was despised and afflicted, and had not where to lay his head, will not extravagantly hunt after those pleasures and gains which his great master never stooped to be a partaker of. He whose entire reliance is on a suffering and crucified Redeemer, whose only hope is in the mercy of God, through him who laid down his life amid the trials of the cross for the deliverance of mankind, will not likely betray his advocate and intercessor, by indulging in those sins which put him to open shame. He who looks forward to the second coming of Christ will not likely be moved to provoke the displeasure of that Judge, and treasure up for himself wrath and shame, and confusion on the day of God. A person who is accustomed to look forward to the second coming of Jesus, and whose hopes rest on an inheritance which is incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, must be thereby raised above all undue attachment to the gains, the pleasures, and the sinful practices of this world What to him is the favour or the censure of mankind? the enjoyment of this world's pleasures, or the endurance of poverty and contempt ? All these, all vicissitudes, sink into nothing in comparison of that glory which shall be revealed, and when estimated by him along with that inheritance. Such are some of the principles of him who overcometh—such are some of the motives for perseverance in keeping the commandments. says our Lord, 66 of sin may overtake you; yea, I say unto all of you, watch." 66 cometh must exercise constant and unremitting watchfulness. This is the decided language of Scripture. Watch and pray," A third, and the most important weapon that ye enter not into in the hand of him who overcometh, is temptation." "Watch ye and pray always prayer. His combat is terrible-his path that ye may be accounted worthy to escape to success is strikingly described by the all those things that shall come to pass, and apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Epheto stand before the Son of man." The sians. Finally, my brethren, be strong in same command he repeats by his Apostles. the Lord, and in the power of his might. "Watch ye," says St. Paul, "stand fast in Put on the whole armour of God, that ye the faith, quit you like men, be strong." may be able to stand against the wiles of "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adver- the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh sary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh and blood, but against principalities, against about, seeking whom he may devour." If powers, against the rulers of the darkness your condition has thus been as it has been of this world, against spiritual wickedness represented, and as I am pretty sure you in high places. Wherefore take unto you will have found it to be, a state of perpetual the whole armour of God, that ye may be danger-it surely ought on your part to be able to withstand in the evil day, and hav also a state of perpetual watchfulness. In ing done all, to stand. Stand therefore, the spiritual, as in mortal warfare, the hour having your loins girt about with truth, and of fancied security is that of most evident having on the breastplate of righteousness, danger. The very notion of warfare im- and your feet shod with the preparation of plies the necessity of continued watchful- the gospel of peace; above all, taking the ness, lest your enemy take advantage of shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able your carelessness, and surprise you when to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. you are off your guard. When you blind- And take the helmet of salvation, and the ly indulge the wishes which arise in your sword of the Spirit, which is the word of hearts, or follow unguardedly the maxims God: praying always with all prayer and and example of the world-when you advance supplication in the Spirit, and watching in a blind reliance on your own strength, thereunto with all perseverance and suppliand say to yourselves that nothing is too cation for all saints." This injunction to hard for you, you wilfully expose yourselves habitual prayer and supplication is obvito the most imminent hazard of being be- ously founded on the imperfection and intrayed into sudden misery and danger. He firmity of human nature. Weak, indeed, who overcometh must exercise constant are the children of men, wavering in their watchfulness over all his thoughts, words, opinion, inconstant in their affections, inconand actions. Conscious of his own weak- sistent in their conduct. Most striking is ness, distrusting the alluring voice of plea- the emphatic declaration of Scripture: "It sure, and jealous of those pursuits that is not in man that walketh to direct his appear in the most favourable light when steps." For a painful proof of this truth I their nature and tendency are not distinctly may appeal to the conscious recollection ascertained, he exercises constant vigilance of every one who hears me. Who is over his temper, his inclinations, and his there, in this assembly, that has never conduct. He who is wise in your sight mourned over his own faults, never blushed engages in no undertaking, and indulges no for his own errors? Who is there whose inclination, without considering and weigh- experience has not often brought to his ing well the principles from which they pro- recollection these words of the apostle ceed, and the effects they are likely to pro- Paul: "When I would do good, evil is duce. He bears in mind the salutary counsels present with me." In the hour of trial and of wisdom, and ponders the path of his temptation are not your affections cold, and feet, that all his ways may be established. your resolutions feeble and unsuccessful? By the blessing of God, under this con- To vessels, thus weak, thus insufficient, thus stant discipline, he is guarded against many destitute of power in themselves, there is of the temptations that may assail him, and strength from on high. The Lord has dedelivered from many of those snares by clared he will make his grace sufficient for which the well-meaning, but unwise, are so them, and perfect his strength in their often entangled, to their utter destruction. weakness, and this strength they are com"Watch, therefore, for ye know not the manded and encouraged to seek by prayer. day, nor the hour, when the deceitfulness" Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and inclinations. Our desires are often erroneous, sinful, at variance with our own interest and the will of the Most High; but even when the inclination of man is not absolutely and directly very sinful, its habitual and systematic indulgence is in the last degree dangerous, weakening the authority of reason and conscience, and altogether unsettling the mind. It is no argument against this necessity, that it has been frequently misunderstood or abused. Man ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you for every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened." "If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?" This aid the soldier of Christ requires, and for this aid he habitually applies. He regularly supplicates the Father of mercies, the author of all that is good, that he would be pleas-kind have often imagined that the Almighty ed, by his gracious Spirit, to enlighten his understanding, to renew his will, to support him under his straits, to strengthen him under all his trials, to rescue him from temptation, and deliver him from evil. Putting up these prayers in a pure heart, he trusts to obtain from Christ what is requisite to prevent him from being overcome of evil. While the blessing attends him from on high, even the devout action he performs carries along with it its own reward. When he regularly and habitually addresses himself to that God who is invisible, a constant sense of the divine presence, government, and inspection, is kept alive in his mind; his thoughts are withdrawn from those outward objects which attract his external senses, and his attention is fixed on those glorious truths and realities which can elevate him above this world, and add him to the number of those who overcome its temptations. Every prayer he offers up is a renewed engagement to be faithful to his Lord, a new and solemn renunciation of all intercourse with his enemies. The blessing of God on the frequent repetition of this exercise must exalt the Christian above the contempt of this world, to his Creator and the works of the Lord. Another of the requisites in him that overcometh is self-denial. Ifany man will come after me," says Jesus" let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” This necessity is founded again in the imperfection of the character of man. Were we wise and pure, and righteous, as we are taught angels are in heaven, it is perfectly easy to conceive that our inclinations and our duties would in every case coincide perfectly, and in the indulging of our inclinations we should be uniformly promoting the ends of our existence. This is, however, not the case. We are seldom just judges of what is truly for our own benefit. Even in the plainest cases of duty we are often miserably misled by passions, prejudices, or evil' is pleased with the sufferings of his creatures, and that gloom, and severity, and a peevish rejection of all ordinary comforts, are the evidences of a grateful heart, and a serious sense of his presence. Such notions we justly reject as grossly erroneous, and most disrespectful to the glory and benevolence of the Father of mercies and of love. He has no pleasure in the sufferings of his creatures. He urges on them selfdenial, not for the sake of abridging their pleasures, but of increasing their future happiness. It is a salutary duty in this state of imperfection to correct their follies and sins, and render them meet for happiness hereafter. He who has this impression on his mind is aware of his own weakness. Knowing how often he may be misled, how easily he may be betrayed, how dangerous the passage into what inclination would lead him, he exercises a constant control over his wishes, and is ever anxious that no pleasure should be so dear to him as for one instant to set aside the predominance of the holy principle of duty and conscience. He knows well that many inclinations, innocent in themselves, are apt to break forth by indulgence into the most violent excesses, and keeps a constant check on his words and actions. He trembles at being led into base neglect or criminal excess, and studies the constant and habitual employment of self-denial; and in every case of doubt or emergency his prayer is, "Lord what wouldst thou have me to do:" The ruling passion, the favourite inclination, of every man is, in fact, his weak side, through which he is most apt to be betrayed into the sin that doth most easily beset him. Here, therefore, the prudent man is particularly on his guard, lest he should be betrayed by it, and brought to experience the truth, that for all things God will bring him to judgment. Lastly, it is essential to him that overcometh, that he persevere. To hold fast to 66 66 | watchfulness, in his doctrines, in his selfdenial, in his perseverance. Now, there are many glorious promises annexed to this character; but no words are more entitled to our serious consideration, than those of the text, " He that overcometh, shall inherit all things.” Observe the words, “He shall inherit all things." The symbol of an inheritance is most happy. It strikes against the presumption of human merit, and is at once an admission of divine favour. It marks out those who are to be blessed hereafter, as having a peculiar character; they are the sons of God ; if sons, then heirs, and joint heirs with Christ. "He that overcometh, shall inherit all things.” This is the converse of a common expression-heaven and earth. It is said, "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth"--that is, all things which are on this earth, in this world, or out of this world. In like manner, it is said or implied, He that overcometh, shall have the inheritance both of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. It were easy to show how he that overcometh, inheriteth even the life that now is, how he escapes many sufferings, how he enjoys many blessings, how prosperity is enhanced, how adversity is soothed and alleviated by his successful contest with temptation. At present, however, I would rather direct your attention to the future prospect which is opened to you, the future blessing, the unspeakable eternal happiness which is implied in the expression, "He shall inherit all things." the end, to be faithful unto death, is the | character of him to whom is promised the crown of life. If any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.” “If ye continue in my word," says Christ," then are ye my disciples indeed." He that endureth to the end, shall be saved." There are many who set out in life with a fair outward appearance of success. They have all the zeal which arises from a lively spirit and limited experience. They perform the outward acts of devotion with apparent fervour and earnestness. They are, in their general conduct, scrupulously precise. They contend for truth with energy and zeal, but, by degrees, their zeal waxes cold, their ener- | gies abate, lassitude and indifference creep upon them, religion wearies and disgusts. They begin by entertaining doubts as to some of its doctrines, and by throwing off all respect for its precepts. Such is a very | common process in the human mind, arising from the love of change, and the impossibility of keeping up warmth of devotional feeling, unless founded on rational | principles. Still more does it manifest itself, when, to original weakness, is added actual temptation. Too many resemble the seeds that fall upon stony ground, which, when the sun was up, were scorched, and because they had no root, withered away. Far from this wavering of principle are the true and faithful followers of the Captain of salvation. Their belief is founded on deep conviction, their affections and understandings are equally engaged in his service, and all their faculties are devoted to the cause of their What is the character of this inheritance? master. They go on from strength to It is an inheritance of the highest honour strength, and become day by day more con- and dignity. What is so dear to man as firmed in his faith, more ardent in love to honour and dignity? What swells the him, more resolute in resistance to tempta- heart so much as the opinion of being extion, and more and more abhorrent of ini-alted in the eyes of his fellow-men, and of quity. Is this the case with your charac- transmitting to posterity a distinguished and ters ? Do you grow daily in grace, and in powerful name ? What do men desire so the knowledge of your Saviour Jesus Christ? much as power and office—and yet what of Is your faith deep-rooted, and are you ready honour can all this world give, comparable always to give an answer to every one that to what is promised to the servants of God asketh a reason of the hope that is in you? hereafter? They shall be before the throne Are its fruits manifested day by day more of God-they shall be made kings and distinctly in your temper and conduct? Do priests before God-they are clothed with you advance from one degree of grace to white robes-they bear palms in their another, dying more unto sin, and living hands-they shall be made pillars and temmore unto righteousness ? Are you stead- ples of their God. "To him that overfast, unmovable, always abounding in the cometh will I grant to sit with me in my work of the Lord, for as much as ye know throne, even as I also overcame, and am set that your labour is not in vain? down with my Father in his throne." Instead of dwelling on such a promise as this, I go on to observe, in the second This is the character of him that overcometh-it consisteth in his faith in his | |