SCOTTISH PULPIT.

SERMONS

BY

EMINENT SCOTTISH DIVINES.

VOL. I.

NEW EDITION, CORRECTED.

W. R. M.PHUN, 86, TRONGATE, GLASGOW :

AND SIMPKIN AND MARSHALL, LONDON.

MDCCCXXXIII.

A SERMON, PREACHED ON THURSDAY, 22d MARCH, 1832, BEING THE DAY APPOINTED BY HIS MAJESTY TO BE OBSERVED IN SCOTLAND AS A GENERAL FAST.

By the Very Rev. G. H. BAIRD, D. D.

Principal of the University, and Senior Minister of the High Church, Edinburgh.

"When thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness."-Isaiah xxvi. 9.

BEGIN, my friends, with remarking that where the precise object of the divine by the term "judgments of God," the visitation is unknown, and invisible to us. Scriptures sometimes denote the decisions, In many cases the Lord holdeth back his whether favourable or adverse, which God face in his dealings with his creatures, and passes upon the conduct of men. But spreadeth a cloud of darkness over it: more frequently this phrase is employed men behold the effects only of his interIto denote the effect of such decisions, position without perceiving the particular when they are unfavourable—to denote end for which these visitations were prothose remarkable punishments by which duced. For instance, in the material the Almighty chastises the wickedness of world we sometimes witness famine, and guilty individuals, and the crimes of guilty the raging tempest consuming all, and nations. In the course of God's provi- blasting the hopes of men,—and so it is dential procedure, we often see his judg- to this day in our land. At other times ments; we see misfortune and distress we behold a terrible pestilence, thinning, following so closely and visibly the con- by its ravages, the numbers of the people. duct of men, that we can have no doubt And in the establishments of social life, whatever concerning the connection that, too, do we not often see deep distress by his appointment, subsists between brought on the inhabitants of whole kingthem. Thus, when poverty, like an armed doms through political revolutions and Iman, rusheth on the prodigal,-when a war? Now, we know from the Scrip- " failing of eyes, and trembling of joints, tures, and the suggestions of our own land rottenness of bones afflict the sensu- hearts, and these also are the scourges of jalist, when a dissolution of all the moral nations, in the hands of the Almighty. bonds that uphold government sweeps from We are at the same time but seldom able ja once high place among the nations an to point out the individuals whose sin jungodly, and profligate, and effeminate these judgments were sent more immedipeople, we see in such cases an obvious ately to punish. The individual sufferers, relation between sin and punishment-like the eighteen men upon whom the between the sn aud the judgment of Tower of Siloam fell, are often not more God passed against it. They are con- guilty than other people. Let it not,

ected as cause and effect, by the original however, be overlooked, that the promisconstitution which the Almighty has im-cuous calamities which happen to them, posed on man, and on the world in which if they do not come as punishments, come man is placed, and where he acts; and we in Divine Wisdom, as salutary general feel no surprise when we see these accom- warnings, or as improving tests and trials panying one another-the sin and the of their faith, or as exercises of their punishment. fortitude and patience. In all such cases, it would therefore be rash and unchari

But, my friends, there are many cases
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