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CHAPTER XVII.

CONCLUSION.

Our sins, if we amend not, will enfeeble and divide us yet more: our intestine foes may take new courage; our foreign ones may support them better. Hitherto we have been only washed by the waves; the next time we may sink under them. Or suppose a sinful nation, either by stopping short of the extremity of sin, or by an uncommon delay of Divine justice, were to escape temporal ruin ever so long; yet there will a worse, an infinitely worse thing, come without fail, and that very soon, to every sinner in it,-the final vengeance of God in the next life which will be peculiarly severe on those who despise the riches of his forbearance and long-suffering, and will not know that his goodness leads them to repentance.—SEcker.

THEY who write on controversial subjects usually embark upon a sea of troubles; and it is well if they escape capture or shipwreck. But, in one sense, all religious instruction partakes of the nature of controversy. Every faithful sermon is a remonstrance; an attack upon human prejudice and passion: and he who delivers it will, sooner or later, be conscious of the enemy's resistance. Men will not

long endure reproof; and especially when it holds up a mirror, where they discover the reflection of their own antinomian and selfrighteous pretensions. The Christian patriots of the times have, in many instances, accused themselves, and most justly, of shunning" the offence of the Cross "it is a scriptural phrase, and applicable to the militant state of the church, throughout all its progress to eternity →by making too large concessions to their adversaries. The plan has not succeeded; since bad men will never be disarmed by the blandishments of flattery; and "the friendship of the world is "still" enmity with God."

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Hitherto the vials of Divine wrath have not been poured upon this guilty nation. But we may remind ourselves of certain of old, to whom, in reference to the massacre of the Galileans, and the fall of the tower in Siloam, Jesus said, Suppose ye that these were sinners above all the Galileans, because they suffered these things? Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, Nay; but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." The informants, who brought intelligence of Pilate's deed, seem to have intimated, that such as had fallen

were offenders unusually criminal; otherwise God would not have singled them out for punishment. But Jesus taught them a different lesson. He told them not to judge men by an incidental calamity having overtaken them; as if the good always escaped and the wicked perished. He gave them to understand, that, though some transgressors might be slain by the sword of Pilate, and others crushed by the fall of a building, yet that such surprisals were no proof of extraordinary guilt. Neither was this the only occasion when Jesus set right the mistakes of mankind on such points; since, at another time, his disciples asked him concerning a man blind from his birth, “ Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" The reply was, “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents - that is, beyond the common extent of human depravity.

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Without presuming to measure the degree of iniquity which we have nationally attained, we may yet hear the Son of God saying to us, Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” But the threatening casts a deep shadow over worldly prospects. We are more ready to cry out, "Art thou come to torment us before the time?" than to say, "Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on us." Or, we would

shelter ourselves from the impending storm by pleading the purity of the faith inherited from our forefathers; and our attachment to it, as distinct from the perversions of the rival church. This very plea is one of our worst delusions. We defend ourselves in the aggregate; and talk of the public religion as if a national confession ensured individual safety. Our plea is not personal: if it were, we should cease to expect the continuance of Divine protection, further than as we, each for himself, were able to appropriate the blessings of the Gospel. A faithful disciple aspires to say, "My Lord, and my God;" and to do this, as obtaining the earnest of eternal redemption immediately from Jesus Christ, the Head of the universal church. Any other kind of religion is vague and inefficient received without examination, and possessed without any definable benefit. It may seem, as it were, faintly to glimmer through the spiritual gloom of life on the Sabbath, but it is eclipsed during the week. Men of the world are shrewd enough to observe this periodical appearance; while Antichrist, on his part, persuades them to be satisfied with a good which at the same time they deride as visionary.

While the majority of our countrymen care

for none of these things, it is agreed on all sides that the empire is in a state of considerable embarrassment. Within and without the walls of Parliament our statesmen and political economists are proposing all kinds of remedies, or palliations, for the distempers extending around them. Some of these have their degree of utility; and others may aggravate the disease. The most efficacious of them, however, promise but little, in the estimate of a Christian; and it is too late, when we survey the progress of society, to have recourse to any measures which will not bear scrutiny, or generally coincide with popular opinion.

We have been told, by high authority, that Christianity is part and parcel of the law of the land. If so, it is time that the value of this portion of our inheritance should be better known and appreciated. There are those among us who are selling, or have long since sold, their birth-right, in the very spirit of Esau; and obtained nothing better in return than his morsel of meat. "But what shall a man be profited, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" It is the most serious question ever addressed to mankind ;—a question, also, which admits only of one answer, yet almost always given with unwillingness and shame.

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