that cometh unto me, I will in no call upon him, but he will not answer; wise cast out." you shall seek him, but you shall not But, my brethren, although now find him; for that ye hated knowbe the accepted time, and now be the ledge, and did not choose the fear day of salvation, yet this accepted of the Lord; therefore shall ye eat time and this day of salvation will of the fruit of your own way, and be not be for ever. The appointed filled with you own devices. Oh! my weeks in the concluding part of sum- beloved brethren, receive the warnmer which are reserved for the har- ings of the Almighty, accept the vest will pass away, and winter rains offered mercy before it be too late, and winter storms will succeed, and fly to Christ for repentance, for faith, where will be that man's sustenance and salvation. Oh! remember that who has neglected to gather in and repentance is the gift of Christ; He lay up in store the bounty of GOD? is exalted at the right hand of God, Or, in other words, the time of God's to give repentance and remission mercy will have an end. The day of of sins. Seek then, my brethren, grace is limited; the night cometh- oh! seek for repentance before it be that awful night of death, in which too late, and seek to be made parno man can work. There is no re- takers of Christ's great salvation, pentance in the grave, the sound of faith to receive and conversion of mercy never can reach its dark and heart, that ye may be born again of deep recesses; the cry, "Lord, save the spirit; for it is His own solemn me, or I perish," cannot be uttered declaration that except we be born there; nor, if uttered, would it with again we cannot see the kingdom of acceptance enter into the ears of GOD. Oh! seek for that living GOD. The harvest will then be past, bread which cometh down from heathe summer ended, and the sinner's ven and which giveth life to the doom sealed for ever. At this pre-world-life to the souls of those dead sent moment all the blessings of Lift up your eternity, all the mercies of the gospel, all the blessings which have been purchased by the precious blood of Christ, are freely offered to you all, even to the chief of sinners, without money and without price. But if, when the Saviour of sinners calls, you refuse-if, when he stretches out his hand, you do not regard him -if you set at nought all his counsels and despise his reproof-if you turn a deaf ear to his sweet accents of love, compassionately calling you to repentance, then, in the powerful language of inspiration, He will also laugh at your calamity; He will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish come upon you, then shall ye in trespasses and sins. voice in prayer, that ye may fear and escape those just but awful punishments of GOD. Let Him not have to say of you as he said of his ancient people." They hold fast deceit, they refuse to return."" No man repented him of his wickedness, saying, what have I done?" Oh! my beloved brethren, when you leave these walls, let it not be to return to your former evil ways and your GoD-forgetting course, "as the horse rusheth into the battle." Let not satan come and steal away the Word which has been preached unto you. Suffer not the cares of the world to efface those good impressions which the spirit of GOD may have now made upon your hearts; and oh! let there be no cause in future for the complaint that ye are not ashamed at the abo minations which ye commit, neither lamentation in the text, and say in can ye blush. Be prevailed on to seek the Lord while he may be found, and to call on him while he is near, lest the time be at hand when ye shall be obliged to take up the the sight of men and of angels as ye glide away from the presence of your judge into the regions of eternal woe, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." A Sermon, DELIVERED BY THE REV. D. WILSON, AT ISLINGTON CHURCH, WEDNESDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 11, 1833. Psalm cxix. 75.-"1 know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me." THAT Jehovah is a GOD of infinite purity, justice, and righteousness, both nature and revelation would evidently inform us. Did GoD cease to be just-could he cease to be that holy, that infinitely pure and just being, which he is revealed to us in the word of truth, he had ceased to be GOD himself. But combined with his attributes of holiness and justice, we find mercy, and grace, and love. We find it in the dealings of providence, in the dispensation and ordering of this nether world; we mark it in every portion of creation, in every part of that mighty, and complicated, and curious machinery, with which we are surrounded; but we see it marked in still fairer, and clearer, and more distinct letters, in the word of life itself. There we find love is stamped upon every page; there we are told that every dispensation of providence is marked and distinguished by that peculiar motive, and tends to exhibit and display, in fuller colours, that peculiar and distinctive attribute. And yet, notwithstanding this, there are certain apparent deviations in the course of the divine providence, there are certain events occurring in human life which seem, at first, to discourage this view and to render the sentiment I have mentioned difficult to comprehend. Many of those sudden changes in social and domestic life-many of those peculiarly painful and afflicting duties, to which in the course of providence, we are sometimes called-are designed, and intended, and evidently have the effect of leading us to pause, to enquire, to reflect, to wait. We may not, at first, understand the divine purpose, we may not, at the first moment, comprehend or be able to dive into the secret will of Jehovah, and yet, if I mistake not, those very events-those very peculiar circumstances, and trials, and afflictions, are of all others marked and distinguished in a peculiar manner, as exhibiting the faithfulness of a covenant GOD. Having been prevented, in the course of divine providence, from continuing that series of discourses on which we are just entering, I may, perhaps, be permitted on the present occasion to pause ere we recommence it, in order to dwell on the subject now before us-I mean that of the faithfulness of God, as displayed in the afflictive dispensations of Providence. May it, my brethren, | we enjoy the bounties of Providence ; be sanctified and blessed to our own hearts; may it be the means of leading us more fully and more closely to our GOD; may we learn to exclaim with David in my text: "I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me." From these words I would offer the three following observations : First, THAT THE IMMEDIATE HAND OF GOD IS TO BE RECOGNISED IN EVERY we walk in that social circle in which GOD has placed us; we possess those bounties and those comforts which he has provided for us; and, alas, in the midst of that enjoyment, in the midst of quiet and peaceful comfort, we are apt to speak peace to the soul, to receive the gift, and forget the Giver. Again; that happiness and that enjoyment which a gracious and merciful GOD has vouchsafed, have a AFFLICTIVE DISPENSATION OF PROVI- similar tendency; even the very boun DENCE. Secondly, THAT HIS TRUTH AND FAITHFULNESS ARE, AT THESE SEASONS, IN A MORE PECULIAR MANNER EXHIBITED. And, Lastly, THAT THE WAITING CHRISTIAN WILL BE EVENTUALLY BROUGHT BY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE TO PERCEIVE AND ACKNOWLEDGE THIS TO BE THE CASE. In the first place, then, I would observe THAT AFFLICTIONS AND UNEX PECTED TRIALS EXHIBIT IN A PECULIAR MANNER THE IMMEDIATE HAND OF GOD. In all the ordinary events of providence, indeed, that hand is observed. There is not the most minute and common of ordinary occurrences, even to the very descent and fall of a sparrow, which is not ordered, and appointed, and directed by His hand. But in the common events of life we do not so clearly and distinctively mark that hand; GOD seems, if I may so express myself, to hide, and to conceal himself, beneath his creatures in the ordinary direction and guidance of his providence. Order and continual regularity seem to lead the mind to the creature, seem to confine it merely to motives-those ordinary and instrumental causes which produce the varied effects in human life. To-morrow, we say, shall be as this day and still more abundant; ties and mercies of GOD-even those very blessings which issue and descend from His hand-the more immediate and marked and common effect of them is to raise the creature, to exalt the animal spirits perhaps, but, alas, not raise the soul to its Lord, not to raise man from the dust, not to lead him to reflect, and meditate, and inquire after that God who opens the hand and fills all things living with plenteousness. Then the world in which we live-that contaminating scene of care and anxiety, and business and pleasure, those associates, and that domestic circle in which we walk, the natural and almost necessary effect of it is to divert the mind from resting upon GOD; - they entrap, they allure, and they attract the soul; they fix it within its own small and confined circle; they rest upon it as with some mighty pressure which prevents it from expanding, and rising, and being elevated in affection and desire towards that GOD from whence it owes its origin, and to whose immediate presence it aspires eventually to come. But in any peculiar, and marked, and unlooked for dispensation of GOD; when, as the Psalmist expresses it, "thy judgments are exhibited, and the hand of affliction comes"-GOD seems, as it were, to step out from that usual, and common, and ordinary course of his providence, and to exhibit his own right hand, and the immediate interposition of his own mighty power, and grace, and love, in a more marked and distinct manner. Man would lull himself in ease and rest-man would forget that he is mortal; and GOD is pleased, in very faithfulness and love, to let him see how suddenly, and how speedily, he can dash that fancied cup of pleasure from his lips; and bring on affliction, and trials, and sorrow, and bereavement, attended, perhaps, in some cases, with peculiarly aggravated circumstances, and strip him of himself, to empty him of his creature comforts, to draw him nearer to his GOD, and to show him the power, at the same time the faithfulness and the love, of that Father whom he serves. It is at these seasons, that, in a more peculiar manner, we ought to recognise the hand of God-" I know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right." It is not, then, accident which sends afflictive dispensations, whether they be of a more general, or private and personal nature -whether Jehovah is riding upon the whirlwind or upon the storm, and raising those mighty and lofty billows which have so lately been the terror and the alarm of our land, or whe ther he is sweeping through the earth with an afflictive and alarming pestilence, or whether he enters the private and domestic dwelling with some single handed stroke of bereavement-I say, in whatever way those judgments may come, they are His judgments, they descend from Him, they are ordered and directed and appointed by Him, and we must learn, with the Psalmist, to know that those judgments are right, and that He in faithfulness has afflicted us. And to the Christian-to him who is enabled and willing to recognise that hand, I need not say how great is the comfort, how infinite and vast the consolation, which that conveys! What can human science and learning avail? What can the mere reasoning of mental power, however exalted, produce under these circumstances? But to set silent at the feet of the Lord, to know that it is his appointment and his direction, to know, moreover, that he has some important design of grace, and love, and mercy in every dispensation, there is the repose of the soul, there is the resting place for reasonable creatures, there is the source, and the spring, of every comfort which the world can neither give nor can it take away. (To be continued.) (The Rev. D. Wilson's Sermon concluded.) But I proceed to make a second observation upon this subject, namely, THAT THE TRUTH AND FAITHFULNESS OF GOD ARE IN A PECULIAR MANNER EXHIBITED AT THESE SEASONS. "I [Price 6d. children of men, but for their profit that they might be partakers of his holiness! And may we not readily form a conception of this? When is it, I ask, that the faithfulness and affection of an earthly friend is in a more marked and distinct manner exhibited? Is it in moments when he would merely caress and flatter our earthly pride? Is it in times when he would raise and elevate us in our own estimation or in that of others? Is it by the concealment of fault and of error that the love and affection of an earthly friend is exhibited? Is it by over tenderness and know, O Lord," says the psalmist, "that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me." It is then, the attribute of justice and faithfulness which is, in a more marked and peculiar manner, exhibited at these seasons. There are other and opposite moments, in which the loving kindness and the bounty of providence in the variety of his gifts and vouchsafements of mercy, is in a more peculiar and dis-indulgence, that the faithfulness of an tinct manner exhibited. In times of earthly prosperity, or in moments of spiritual comfort, thankfulness to the GOD of love is the duty and the privilege of his servants: but it is in the moments of affliction and times of trial in which the faithfulness and holiness of GOD, as well as the mercy and the truth of GOD, are peculiarly exhibited. For, my brethren, can we believe that he willingly afflicts the children of men? Can we conceive that that GOD who is love, whose every essence and attribute is love, can take pleasure or delight in human sorrow? Alas, on the contrary, we are told, that "in all our afflictions he is afflicted"-we are told, that he doth not willingly afflict the VOL. VI. earthly parent is evinced, and marked in a more distinct manner, or is it not rather, when by faithful reproof and correction, he would rather risk our affection, than risk his own truth and faithfulness? And, therefore, may we not, in like manner, conceive that the very faithfulness of GOD-his very faithfulness and truth, his faithfulness to his promises and his word, his faithfulness to his covenant of love and grace-demands that he should from time to time exhibit the rod of correction, and show that, while love, and mercy, and truth, are his direct attributes, justice and judgment are likewise the habitations of his throne? For what has not Jehovah undertaken for his U |