Met in

position, to humble ourselves on account of our shortcomings, and to correct our practice by the light of experience. We are assembled for other purposes than mere social gratification, temporary excitement, or literary entertainment. the presence of Him whose we are, and whom we profess to serve, let us listen to His will, submit to His rebukes, and supplicate His help, that we may be neither unfruitful nor unprofitable in His service. May He, the invisible one, make us conscious of His presence, and richly endow us with the blessings of His grace.

I have selected the text rather as the enunciation of a genuine truth, having important practical bearings, than with any intention to consider it in its connection. I may, however, remark that it is just one of those very brief and spirit stirring passages which, to a casual perusal, are lost amid the context; but which, as the Scriptures are opened up to faith and prayer, present their force to us, and draw out all our thought to the glory they unfold. It is, as it were, a vision of the past and future, and reminds us of all that the Saviour has achieved, and of all He has yet to conquer. In general the passage evidently indicates the glory of the Saviour's kingdom, and teaches us to look onward for its complete and final victory.

I would ask your attention

I. TO THE GENERAL TRUTH ASSERTED IN THE TEXT.

II. TO OUR RESPONSIBILITY IN RELATION TO IT.

I.

As the servants of Christ we are pledged to the work of subjugating the world to Him; and a very cursory view of its present state and condition will satisfy us that our work is for the most part still to do. That some success has been achieved we are bound to acknowledge with unfeigned gratitude; but this has only been in the proportion to stimu

late and not to allay the spirit of persevering exertion. Nothing has yet been done equal to the prayers and hopes of the Christian church; nothing worthy of those comprehensive and innumerable predictions which fill and glorify the word of God. The prince of darkness is still the God of this world, and the east and the west, and the south and the north, offer him profane worship. Darkness yet covers the earth, and gross darkness the people. Seveneighths, probably, of the world's population have not yet heard the gospel; and perhaps not one-eighth of those to whom it has been proclaimed have experienced its saving power.

Over by far the greater part of the globe paganism, in some of its varied forms, prevails, and a large majority of mankind are yet under its influence. In India and China alone there are probably more than four hundred millions wholly given up to idolatry-without a God, save gods that sanction vice; without a sacrifice, save sacrifices of folly and blood; without a priest, except a race of jugglers, imposters, and murderers; without holy days, except such as debase by their levity, corrupt by their sensuality, or harden by their cruelty. From the entire regions of darkness and death that are still under the dominion of false gods it is computed that forty immortal beings go into eternity every minute, more than 2,000 every hour, and more than 50,000 every day.

Over another considerable portion of the human race the rude tyranny of Mahomet extends. The mosque, at this very hour, stands on the Mount of God's selection, where once Solomon worshipped, where Isaiah prophesied, where Asaph sung, and where Jesus taught. There, gleaming in the sun, may still be seen the crescent, where once the gilded battlements of the temple caught the first beams of the waking That crescent is the symbol

morn.

of a religion which was founded in fraud and propagated by the sword— a religion that puts an imposter in the place of Christ, and the Koran in the place of the Bible-a religion which, while it professes to worship the one God, dishonours His Son, rejects His word, and tramples His law in the dust. For more than a millenium has this vile imposture held deluded millions under its sway, and still nearly one hundred millions of the earth's population are daily heard uttering the watchword"There is one God, and Mahomet is his prophet."

Another great principle of obstruction in the way of the gospel is the continued unbelief of the Jews. It is calculated that nearly six and half millions of the seed of Abraham are, at this time, scattered about in the different nations of the earth. On some points in religion they disagree. Some of them still receive the Talmudical writings and traditions of the fathers as of divine authority; others give that honour only to the scriptures of the Old Testament; while many of them in their hearts are infidel, and put Moses and Onkelos, Jeremiah and Jonathan, in the same class, and treat the Pentateuch and the Targums as alike the uninspired productions of uninspired men. But however much they may differ in other respects, they all agree in denying the Messiahship of Jesus, and in rejecting the gospel of His salvation. Having in their hands the oracles of the Old Testament, this hardened rejection of all its prophecies of Christ is calculated, wherever they are scattered in their wanderings, to check the inquiries of the nations, and lead them to infer that the evidences of Christianity cannot be conclusive, when this, the very people of its founder, reject His name with scorn.

Besides these there are two other mighty opposing principles which have more immediate proximity to us, and influence upon us. The one

flatters man's reason and beguiles him to doubt; the other refuses to reason at all, shuts up all argument, all inquiry, and with them all hope. The former is infidelity, which, as the pride of reason, seeks to make its proselytes, with most assiduity, where civilization most prevails, yea even under the guise of religious reformation it will shape itself into Neology in Germany, or Socinianism in England, and with the plea of a more rational interpretation, place in a faint light the glorious mysteries of the gospel, and substitute a cold morality for the influences and comforts of the Holy Ghost. This is the opposing principle which thinks without God, of whose adherents it may be written, "God is not in all their thoughts"-"professing to be wise, they become fools."

The other opposing principle, whose plea is authority and not reason, is Popery. Over the vast regions of South America, throughout all Southern and great part of Western Europe, this apostacy prevails. Under pretence of being Vicar of Christ their chief prelate is in fact Antichrist; pretending that he is the representative of God, he is "exalted above all that is called God," or is worshipped so that "as God he sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God." genius of this system is to use Christ's authority for subverting Christ's doctrine; substituting the merit of men for His righteousness; the penances and mortifications of men for His sufferings; the fires of purgatory for the virtues of His agony and bloody sweat; and the administration of sacraments and absolutions for the peace of His Spirit and the good hope through grace.

The

In all its essential features popery is now just as Paul foresaw it when he described it as the man of sin" and the "mystery of iniquity." As far from "the truth as it is in Jesus" is it now as when our own Wycliffe began to protest against its errors.

As dishonourable to God-as injurious to society-as corruptive of morals-as dangerous to souls—as when Luther hurled at the whole system the thunders of his righteous indignation. In this system, and in the Greek Church, which bears the same relation to it that Neology and Socinianism do to infidelity, we see one of the most artful and effective hindrances to the Saviour's reign. We may form some estimate of the cunning and energy with which this principle is worked when even now in India, while our Missions are comparatively but in the youth of their progress, its votaries are numerous, and by the fact that long before Protestant missionaries could get admission into China, popery numbered its adherents there by millions.

In England popery and infidelity have of late years been making unwonted efforts. While the moral power of the former is declining in almost every other country, it is to be feared that it is increasing in this. Upon the banks of the Po and the Tagus, its nominal adherents mock while they worship; and but that the political convenience of France. and Austria afford the Pontiff protection, the Vatican could have no thunder even for the inhabitants of Rome. But here it is placed before the people in all the sympathy which real or supposed persecution never fails to excite-its votaries recount the sufferings of generations with the martyr's feeling and the zealot's pride-and almost everywhere around us impressions are made upon the masses of the people in its behalf. What progress it has made among the middle and upper classes of society, the numerous secessions from the English Establishment-and, let me add, the present state of that Establishment-conclusively show.

And then, with reference to Infidelity. The time was when scepticism found its votaries chiefly among the higher classes of society, and its high priests and apostles in

men who made some pretensions to philosophy and letters. Driven, to a great extent, from the upper classes, or at least disowned by them, it has courted the masses, has sought an asylum in our workshops, and found its advocates among the ranks of our artizans. The poor have been told that the Bible is the opponent of their rights, and the charter of their oppressions; and many of them, it is to be feared, have believed the lie. The press and the lecture room are both employed to shake men's confidence in the verities of our faith, and to lead them further away from God. Forth from one thousand channels the poison of infidelity is daily flowing; and it flows on under innumerable disguises, from the low ribaldry of the imitators of Paine up to the abused learning of Strauss

from the open attack of the bold blasphemer, up to the pantheism of the men who conceal their real meaning beneath their incessant talk about the Immensities and the Eternities. Whether it be referred to these ceaseless activities of the enemies of our faith, or to other causes, the fact is not to be questioned that vast masses of the people around us seem to be wholly estranged from religion and religious institutions. I should be sorry to have it thought that I sympathize with those who denounce the present period as "the last days," and therefore as essentially and emphatically the worst. I believe nothing of the kind. Still, it seems to me, that the religious condition of England is such as ought to excite our serious concern. Judging from the late census returns, there are probably upwards of four millions of the people, arrived at years of discretion, and who are in circumstances to do so, who never enter any place of worship; and it is to be feared that of those who do attend, there are, at a low computation, nearly an equal number who are not converted.

I do not dwell on these things;

Let us consider the Relation in which we stand to this truth, and our responsibility in that relation.

For eighteen long centuries Christianity has been upon the earth in its present form, and yet, as we have seen, its beams, instead of falling upon the hearts of the race, have scarcely touched its extremities. Why is this? In the first place, it is not to be referred to divine sovereignty. Whatever others may think, we are not among those who believe it to be the sovereign will of God that Christianity should remain thus limited in its influence, and that the millions of every age should pass into eternity without a saving knowledge of the truth. We know that the purpose and the promise of God are both linked to corresponding means; and that in every age the record has been true, and is to this bour, that "Ye have not because ye ask not, or because ye ask amiss." Wherever the impediment to the universal diffusion of the gospel may be, we believe it is not in the decrees of heaven. In the language of one of the most eloquent writers of the present time, we can all say, "My reason pronounces the idea heretic; my heart calls it blasphemy; it is the miserable dream of an ignorant and fatalistic theology; an impious excuse for an indolent and recreant church; it finds no sanction in the fair deductions of intellect; no sympathy in the genuine intuitions of the human soul; no record in the bright book of God."

2. But again, the present limited diffusion of the gospel is not to be

referred to the want of miraculous agency. Some in our day affirm that the age of miracles must be restored before the world is converted; and that a miraculous economy must succeed the present in order to accomplish what the gospel has failed to realize. It is true that in the first ages of the church, the servants of Christ had miracles in attestation of the truth of their mission; but special reasons existed why they were thus endowed. Certain reasons then existed, and certain ends were then to be accomplished, of a peculiar and special nature, which at once required and justified the employment of that instrumentality. Those reasons satisfied, and that end attained, the power was withdrawn. Miracles answered their purpose-they made the glory of God visible to all. When they had done this, when attention was roused, and Christianity could appeal to these demonstrations as matters of historical fact, they ceased-the work was left to be carried on by more secret and invisible influences: and now, much as miracles have been extolled, it is not too much to say, that they are below the spirit of our dispensation, and quite inadequate to its purposes. They may strike the vulgar sense, but they cannot speak to the soul. Were all the miracles of the apostolic age to be repeated, it may well be questioned whether they would convert a single sinner from the error of his way. No, we do not want miracles, and we must not wait for them. And then with reference to

3. Millenarianism, the refuge of those who, resting their belief on certain of Christ's own utterances, and some also of the apostles, and influenced mainly, no doubt, by the consideration of the slow and partial advance of the gospel hitherto, associate the fulfilment of their hopes as to the world's recovery with the re-appearance and personal reign of the Redeemer himself. It seems to us that if the means which Christ

has appointed, and which are now in operation for that purpose, be rightly comprehended and faithfully applied, they are themselves fitted and intended to accomplish all that has been foretold. Surely to expect and wait for anything else, under these circumstances, is to expose ourselves to the heavy charge of forsaking our prescribed course, and of substituting our own fancies for a stedfast unquestioning adherence to the Master's bidding. If, then, the present limited diffusion of the gospel be not referable to the divine sovereignty, nor to the want of miraculous power in the church, nor indeed to anything defective that pertains to the instrumentality we are encouraged to employ, the failure must be with the church, and with the church alone. Let no vain excuses come between us and the truth in this matter. Let us bring the subject home to ourselves. This congregation is composed, to a considerable extent, of representatives from our numerous churches, and these may justly be considered as eminently interested in pious and missionary services. Is it not fitting for us to inquire whether we have rightly and fully respected the claims of these services. Have we sufficiently realized our responsibility. Have we not often moved to our work rather under the force of habit than of principle; and even when we have been most active in service have we not often forgotten to pray. Have we ever laboured in this cause with the zest and aptitude with which we have pursued our temporal interests, or sorrowed over man's spiritual apostacy and misery as we have lamented a personal or relative calamity. In co-operating with one another, have we manifested that spirit of unity which casts out not only the love of party, but the consideration and love of self, and that devoted energy of heart which parleys not with discouragements, sees not difficulty, which sleeps not,

wearies not, and which indicates not a state of feverish excitement but of wholesome fervour, at once the sign and the nourishment of spiritual life. Have we shown that readiness to sacrifice which is the foe of personal indulgence, and of worldly conformity which teaches us to bless others by giving not of much, little-but of little, much. Above all, have we displayed that humility, sincere and deep, which, when we have done all, suffered all, surrendered all, shall boast of nothing, yea shall acknowledge unworthiness and sin with humiliation and grief. Brethren, by such a test, who shall be able to stand? In this assembly are there fifty, are there ten, are there five, is there one, who can deliberately lay his hand on his heart and say that he has so met and answered his solemn engagements. And yet, are not these the conditions of success, and are they not attainable by us? Brethren, the conclusion is inevitable that we, by our shortcomings and imperfections, have hindered the gospel. Our deficiencies are the more to be lamented when we think of the advantages which have been prepared for us. We have been appointed to live in times pregnant with the most important changes. As the great method of redemption has advanced towards its close, events have thickened around us, and the counter-plot of the adversary has matured to its crisis. All that has happened has evidently been for "the furtherance of the gospel."

Fearful convulsions have spread the interests of civil freedom, and undermined the ancient seats of bigotry and superstition. Art, by her inventions, has accelerated our progress; and Science, by her accumulated lights, has guided us on our way. The translations of Scripture have superseded the gift of tongues; the more perfect emendations of the sacred text have given to Truth a more distinct and certain utterance; while the improved machinery in