SKETCHES OF HIS SERMONS WHICH HE EXTENDED IN THE DELIVERY. "Oh! that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea.”—ISAIAH xlviii. 18. I. Their peace would have been like a river.-1. It has a source. It begins at the fountain of Christ's blood. 2. It is fed from above. Rains and showers feed the rivers. The shower of grace swells the rivers of peace. 3. It has inundations, as the Nile. An awakening providence often makes it overflow.-Af flictions and the consolations under them always, if the sufferings are the sufferings of Christ. Sacramental times, also; hence the desirableness of frequency in the administration of the Lord's Supper. 4. It gets broader and broader to the sea. The Tay. "The path of the just is like the shining light." Try yourselves by this text. 5. It is fertilizing. It conveys nourishment. Egypt owes all its fertility to the Nile. The peace of Christ makes every grace grow. Holiness always grows out of a peaceful breast. II. Their righteousness would have been as the waves of the sea. -The righteousness of Christ is compared to the waves of the Because, 1. It covers over the highest sins. 2. It covers over again and again. 3. It is infinite righteousness. You cannot count the waves of the sea. sea. Inference. God wishes men to be saved. God sometimes pleads with men to be saved for his own pleasure; it would be pleasant to him; it would make him glad; as in the parable of the lost sheep. Sometimes he pleads for his own glory. Jer. xiii. 16; Mal. ii. 1. But here it is for the happiness of sinners themselves. So Psalm lxxxi. 13. Once more he pleads with men, because unwilling that any should perish. 2 Pet. iii. 9. "Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin."-ROMANS iv. 4-8. Blessed I. The way in which the natural man seeks salvation.-Verse 4" Worketh." Wishes it to be of desert. II. The better way. The old way. David's, Abel's. eth not." III The blessedness.-David speaks of this. "Work At a later period he took the same text, dividing it thus :— I. The working plan. II. The believing plan. "Fools make a mock at sin: but among the righteous there is favor.-PROVERBS XIV. 9. I. What the natural heart thinks of sin.-1. Men sin easily. As a fountain casting out its waters. Jer. vii. Such is the natural flow of their heart. 2. They bear the load lightly. At ease in Zion. 3. The heavier the load, they sin the more easily. Like a river filled, Eph. iv. 19. II. What God thinks of sin.-1. He says he hates it. Jer. xliv. 4. 2. He has prepared hell for it. 3. He has punished it in his Son. III. What awakened souls think of it.-Rom. vii. 9; John xvi. ; Ps. li. The jailor. The sting. IV. What believers think of it. "Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us. Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit."—1 JOHN iv. 7-13. I. It is a delicate love.-" Beloved, let us love one another." II. It is self-denying love.-Verse 11. Hear its language"If God so loved us, we ought," &c. III. It is God-like love.-Verse 12. It is produced by the Spirit of God moving in the heart, and it imitates God. "If God so loved," &c. IV. It is never-failing love.-For no fountain is so unfailing as the heart of God, which is its fountain. "And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son, and they shall be in bitterness for him as one that is in bitterness for his first born..... .In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for uncleanness."-ZECHARIAH xii. 10; xiii. 1. I. The great spring." I will pour." II. The great agent." The spirit of grace and supplication." HI. The effect. They look; they mourn; they see the fountain opened. VOL. I. 17 "The Lord our Righteousness.”—Jeremiah xxxiii. 16. Deep wounding, from views of Christ pierced by our sins, precedes deep peace from views of his righteousness. Originally spoken to Judah and Israel. I. It is the sight of a Divine righteousness.—Jehovah has made the atonement. II. It is a living righteousness.-Jehovah is the righteousness. A living one gives it. He is exalted to give it. He comes to you with the offer of it. III. It is an appropriated righteousness. It would not give me peace to see all the world clothed in Christ, if I were not. No delight to me except I am sitting under his shade myself-under the rock. The joy of Paul was, "Christ is made unto us;" of Thomas, "My Lord." Application.-1. The rest of a believer consists in knowing that Jehovah is his righteousness. 2. The folly of those who rest in seeking is evident-ever learning." 3. We see the misery of unbelievers. There is a glorious divine righteousness that would make the blackest fair. It will be your eternal torment, that so glorious a righteousness was offered you, and you died without it. "And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God: and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them; and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire."-REVELATION XX. 11-15. I. The Throne and the Judge. The Throne. 1. Great.-Because so many are to stand before it; because so great a Saviour is to sit down upon it; because everlasting sentences are to be given out from it. 2. White.-Because of his holiness, because of his equity. He will be righteous in acquitting and in condemning. None can cast a stain upon it. The Judge.-Christ himself. 1. Because he is the Son of Man; knows by experience our inmost feelings. John v. 22-27. 2. As a reward for his pains. Philip. ii. 3. For the comfort of the godly. 4. For the confusion of the Christless. Lessons.-1. Prepare for it. 2. Go to a throne of grace. 3. Care for one another's souls. II. The judged.-1. All. The dead, small and great; men of all ranks and degrees; rulers and subjects; parents and children; pastors and people; none too high, none too low. 2. From all places; grave, sea, death, hell. 3. Stand together. Philip. iv. 1.; 1 Thes. ii. 4. Before God. 5. Must come forth. John v. III. The Books opened.-1. The Book of Remembrance-Malachi iii.; Ps. lvi. Thoughts, words, and actions; secret sins done in the heart, or in the dark; secret fraud and uncleanness; forgotten sins. The good deeds of the saints; a cup of cold water; Mary's ointment; not according to your appearance, nor your professions, nor the thoughts of other men, nor your own selfflatterers, but by "works."-2. The Bible-John xii. 48. The law; the gospel; not according to your present rule; men judge themselves by one another, or by themselves, or by their fancy.3. Book of Life-To show that his everlasting counsels have been fulfilled. To show the source from which every one was saved. IV. The Sentence.--1. This explains why God does not now take vengeance. Did not the hand wither? The Atheist in France. The railway. 2. The folly of secret sin. 3. Repent. God commandeth all men everywhere to repent, because he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world. LEBANON-ITS SCENERY AND ALLUSIONS. [It will be interesting to many to see how his rich imagination used at times to revel amid the beautiful images and figures of the Divine Word. I insert two specimens, of which the first was written in his earlier days, when his taste for Scripture imagery was fresh, and his peculiar style just forming. It is a critical essay read in the Exegetical Society, while he was a student in the Divinity Hall.] "O, Lord God, I pray thee, let me go over and see the good land that is beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon." Such was the prayer of Moses in the land of Moab. Whether he had heard by report of the glory of snow-capped Lebanon from Egyptian traffickers in balm and myrrh and spiceries, or knew of it only by finding it in the charter of Israel's promised inheritance; there is a peculiar beauty and fulness in the prayer, when, as descriptive of the good land. he asks to see the chief object of its moral beauty, and that of its chief natural beauty-Zion and Lebanon-the one the type of all spiritual, the other of all temporal blessings to Israel. What a refreshing sight to his eye, yet undimmed with age, after resting for forty years on the monotonous scenery of the desert, now to rest upon Zion,* embosomed in olive-clad hills, and Lebanon with its vine-clad base, and overhanging forests, and towering peaks of snow! "I pray thee, let me go over and see the good land, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon." The same taste which inspired the wish of the venerable lawgiver, descended to the people whom he led to Canaan to such a That Zion was known to the Israelites before they reached Canaan, if not by name, at least as a holy mountain, see such passages as Exod. xv. 17. "Thou shalt bring them in and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place which thou hast made for them to dwell in, in the sanctuary which thy hands have established." degree, that Zion and Lebanon have afforded more materials for figure and allusion to the prophets and sweet singers of Israel than perhaps any other individual natural objects whatever. To consider the beauty and propriety of a few of these allusions to Lebanon is the object of my present investigation. 66 I. The first passage I mean to observe upon is the 29th Psalm -"a Psalm of David," in which the strength of Jehovah is celebrated; and the exemplification of it is evidently taken from a thunder-storm in Lebanon. The Psalm seems to be addressed to the angels; see Psalm lxxxix. 7. It thus begins— Render unto Jehovah, ye sons of the mighty, Bow down to Jehovah in the majesty of holiness!" Immediately follows the description of the thunder-storm, in which it does not seem fanciful to observe the historical progression which is usual on such occasions. The first lines seem to describe only the noise of the thunder, the description growing more intense as the rumbling draws nearer. "The voice of Jehovah is above the waters; The God of Glory thundereth! Jehovah is louder than many waters. The voice of Jehovah is majesty !" But now the effects become visible; the storm has descended on the mountains and forests:— The voice of Jehovah shivers the cedars, Even shivers Jehovah the cedars of Lebanon; And makes them to skip, like a calf, Lebanon and Sirion, like a young buffalo. The voice of Jehovah forketh the lightning's flash!" From the mountains the storm sweeps down into the plains, where, however, its effects are not so fearful as on the mountains. "The voice of Jehovah causeth the desert to tremble The voice of Jehovah causeth to tremble the desert of Kadesh- And lays bare the forests! Therefore, in his temple every one speaks of his glory." The description of the swollen torrents closes the scene"Jehovah upon the rain-torrent sitteth, Yea, sitteth Jehovah a king forever." And the moral or application of the whole is— "Jehovah to his people will give strength; I have to remark several things in connection with Lebanon which may illustrate this beautiful Psalm. That thunder-storms are frequent in these mountains is matter of historical fact; inso |