ordinances of God, yet the spirit by which they were actuated was essentially an atheistical spirit, inasmuch as with all the outward observance of divine ordinances, they looked for continued prosperity or deliverance from adversity, not to the wisdom of God, but to their own counsels, and the help promised to them by their idolatrous allies. And the judgment threatened was in accordance with the nature and manifestation of their sin. They were not to be overwhelmed with irresistible calamity, in order to punish their flagrant idolatry; but they were to be left to the effect of their own devices, and their own schemes, and by these they were to be entangled. They were to work by their own skill, and in so doing, to be working their own ruin and when all their plans were brought to their completion, the effect was to be to bring utter desolation on the land; for "behold," says the prophet, "I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder, for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of the prudent men shall be hid." It is one of these, that sin is the reproach of any people. One end of the Jewish economy was to illustrate this principle; but we are not to be mistaken as to even divine interposition in the history of this people, for frequently their punishments happened by the operation of natural causes, under the controlling and ruling providence of God. But it were absolute atheism to maintain, that because sentence against an evil work is not speedily executed, by suspending the ordinary laws of nature, therefore divine agency has nothing to do with prosperity or adversity, or that these are not determined by the moral character of those who are the subjects of it. If there be among us, possessing as we do a full revelation of the will of God, a disposition to deny or overlook his supremacy as Sovereign Disposer of all events, and to trust to the wisdom of human counsels for national deliverance or prosperity, without any devout recognition of absolute dependence upon him, are we not chargeable with the very sin with which Judah of old was charged, and which was the source of all their multiplied offences? And if, along with this, there be a profession of faithIt will not be necessary to enter at any an external compliance with the ordigreat length on the illustration of the nances of the Gospel are we not in the practical lessons suggested by the subject condition of drawing near to God with of these remarks. Mankind, with all our mouths, and honouring him with our their varieties of character, are essentially lips, while our heart is far removed from so much the same in all ages, and the him? It cannot be denied, that this Scriptures do, on the one hand, so gra- description is too applicable to us in our phically portray the leading features of national capacity; that though professedly human nature, and, on the other, set forth a christian people, with laws and ordiso clearly the great unchangeable princi- nances, we are looking mainly to our own ples of the divine administration, that skill and resources for the advancement none who read that book with soberness of our national prosperity; that whether and attention, and look around them on our schemes are successful or not, we are the world with ordinary observation, can too ready to rest satisfied with looking to fail to see that the sins of individuals or natural causes, without any solemn or of nations there reproved, are, with some serious recognition of the hand of God, modifications it may be, the same sins and that this practical infidelity characterwhich are still prevalent, and that, if un-izes no small portion of our public enterrepented of and unforgiven, their con- prises. It is a fact which no devout man sequences must in the end be the same. can contemplate but with sorrow, that No nation, it is true, is precisely in the the appointment of this very day for husame circumstances with the kingdom of miliation and prayer, and for the confesJudah, for, in the case of none is deli- sion of sin, has in various quarters been verance wrought or judgment executed made the subject of indecent scoffing. so immediately as to require those miraAnd granting that they who have done culous interpositions that so often took so are fewer in number and less influenplace in the history of Israel and Judah; tial than I fear they are, the practices too but still the great principles of the divine common among us show that such sentigovernment are unchangeable and eternal.ments are more general than is openly dom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid!" avowed, inasmuch as such practices are if we are left to our own devices! how altogether incompatible with an habitual unquestionable our calamities, treasured acknowledgment of God as the disposer up in that solemn declaration: "the wisof every event, or that his blessing can alone secure public blessings or private prosperity. If the want of directly avowing the watchful providence of God, in what of prosperity or adversity befalls us, is held openly in scorn and derision; if, in forming schemes for giving permanence to the one, or working out deliverance from the other, it be plain that nothing is looked to beyond the agency of human strength; and if, in the pursuit of individual interests, practices are become very prevalent in which men cannot dare deliberately to ask God's blessing, is not our national character to this extent essentially the same with that of Judah of old? And if the principles of divine government be the same in all ages, must we not soon, in one form or other, experience the bitter fruits of sin? We are already reaping these fruits. I allude not merely to the immediate effect of that visitation of Providence which, with appalling rapidity, has swept away thousands of our people, but to the immense extent of its operations already in the commercial interests of our country -the indefinite misery it may continue to entail, and the countless multitudes, the most industrious of our countrymen, to whom the usual channels of subsistence have been absolutely shut. And yet, what is this but an intimation of what God may do in the way of visiting upon us our sin of forgetting and forsaking him? For should He, by whom kings reign and princes decree justice, withdraw that secret influence by which he directs the thoughts of men to the accomplishment of his own objects; should he give us up to worldly power, however imposing; should he surrender the guidance of our concerns solely to the exercise of mere human talents, at the expense of the glory due to God, even yet, without the interposition of famine, or pestilence, or sword those more immediate executioners of divine judgments-how fearful may be the result 46 And what, then, is our duty as individuals? We may be able to do little in the way of bringing back men to the acknowledgment of God as Supreme Ruler among the nations; but there is a refuge to which the humblest among us may betake himself the refuge of prayer. Our sovereign has called on us, in language which breathes a devout and humble spirit, to make confession, and to offer up supplications for him, and for ourselves, and for our country. Let us, therefore, say, in all humility of soul, with pious Nehemiah of old, 'Now, our God, the great, the mighty, and the terrible God, who keepest covenant and mercy, let not all the trouble seem little before thee that hath come upon us, on our kings, on our princes, and on our priests, and on our prophets, and on all thy people. Howbeit, thou art just in all that is brought upon us: for thou hast done right, but we have done wickedly: neither have our kings, our princes, our priests, nor our fathers, kept thy law, nor hearkened unto thy commandments, and thy testimonies, wherewith thou didst testify against them." And while offering this prayer and confession, let us inquire how far we have contributed to the national guilt of forgetting and disowning God, in the sentiments we have entertained in respect of our national concerns, or in the principles on which we have acted in our individual pursuits. And let us beware lest our very confession go to aggravate our sin: if it be found that we draw near to God with our mouths, and honour him with our lips, while our hearts are far removed from him. Let us beware lest it should be found that our coming towards God has been taught us by the precept of men. God bless his word, and to his name be the praise! Amen. THE PURPOSES WHICH THE TRANSFIGURATION OF CHRIST WAS CALCULATED TO SERVE; A SERMON, PREACHED IN EGLINTON STREET UNITED SECESSION CHURCH, GLASGOW, ON THE AFTERNOON OF SABBATH, 1ST APRIL, 1832, By the Rev. JOHN JOHNSTONE, A.M. "And it came to pass, about an eight days after these sayings, he took Peter, and John, and James, and went up into a mountain to pray. And as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering. And, behold, there talked with him two men, which were Moses and Elias; who appeared in glory and spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem."LUKE ix. 29-31. THERE is no species of writing, when ably | his power, stilling the rage of the tempest, conducted, which is more amusing, and liberating the victims of death, and irrefrom which we may derive more instruc- sistibly controlling the fierce malignity of tion and information, that the histories the demons of hell. In the whole course of those men who have been justly cele- of that history there is not a single event brated on account of the talents which that is not worthy of our notice, and they possessed, the virtues which they that does not teem with instruction. displayed, and the energies which they There are some events, however, which put forth for the benefit of their country are of greater importance than others, or the interests of the human race at large. which consequently excite a deeper inEvery circumstance connected with such terest, and demand our more serious characters becomes interesting. We mark attention: and of this description, you with pleasure those various events, which will readily grant, is the transfiguration led to the first development of those on the holy mount. faculties and virtues which rendered their names illustrious; or which first called forth those energies, the successful exertion of which has imparted to them a deathless fame. All our sympathies are awakened when we behold them struggling with those difficulties which opposed their progress; and our hearts glow with the purest delight when we perceive them rising to that eminence to which they were pressing forward, and crowned with those honours which they had fairly won. There is no history, taking it as a whole, which is more interesting, and which merits closer study, than that of Jesus of Nazareth. The incidents with which it abounds are varied, and it exhibits unto us a character in which all the sublimer excellencies are blended with those which are more soft and lovely. Our souls are melted into tenderness when we contemplate him relieving the wants of the poor, imparting joy to the sorrowful, and administering consolation and hope to the broken-hearted and the desponding. Our minds are filled with wonder and awe when we behold him in a plenitude of It is not my intention, in this discourse, to enter upon any minute explanation of the different circumstances connected with the transfiguration of Christ, but simply to direct your attention to some of those important purposes which this wonderful event was calculated to serve; and amongst those which might be specified, I shall select the following: 1st, The transfiguration and the circumstances attending it, were calculated to prepare the mind of the Saviour for meeting and encountering the sufferings which he was soon to endure. We do much injustice to the character of the Redeemer, if we suppose that he was encased in a stoical apathy, or that his heart was so callous that he could not be moved by his own suffering, or affected by the sorrows of others. Possessed of all the feelings of humanity, purified from every thing that was selfish or sinful, his heart was imbued with a sensibility which rendered him highly susceptible. It is, in fact, this circumstance which softens down and imparts a loveliness to the loftier attributes in which he was clothed, and which is calculated, at the same time, to give us a more just and accurate conception of the acuteness of that grief which frequently preyed on his soul. It is true, indeed, Jesus Christ was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners;" but innocence is not always a safeguard against sorrow. And that it was not so in the experience of the Son of Man, we have ample and melancholy proof in the groans which he uttered, in the tears which he shed, in the lines of care which deeply marked and marred his countenance. The man of innocence not only mourns over the painful circumstances in which he may happen to be placed, but he anticipates with dread those evils which he sees are gathering and thickening around him, and threatening to overwhelm him with destruction. Such an anticipation is sometimes more oppressive than even the evil itself; for we look at the evil through a medium which magnifies it far beyond its reality. The Son of God, indeed, had an accurate prescience of every scene of wo through which he had to pass. He was intimately acquainted with the nature and extent of all his sufferings, and many a view which he took of them was most appalling and fearful. Though he had distinctly calculated the sum of these sufferings; though he felt strong in his own energies and resources; though he relied with unbending confidence on the promised aid and support of his heavenly Father; yet there were moments when his heart sunk within him, when every feeling of his nature recoiled at the prospect of his agony and death. It was necessary that his mind should be armed with fortitude to meet those evils which he was doomed to endure; and what circumstances were better calculated to produce this effect than those which took place on the holy mount? The "decease which he was to accomplish at Jerusalem" formed the subject of conversation. The ignominy and the torture which were to accompany it, would not be kept out of view; that load of divine wrath, under the pressure of which he was to die, would not be passed over in silence; and we can easily suppose that the importance of that death, and the glorious effects of which it was to be productive, would not be forgotten. Moses and Elias, along with the Saviour, would doubtless speak concerning the high au thority, the eternal and solemn decree, by which it was ordained-the vast sum of happiness it was to bring to millions of the lost, and the guilty, and the miserable the new and the sublime views of the divine character which it was to open up to every order of pure intelligences, and the high acclaims of praise it would call forth through the ages of eternity. The very individuals who conversed with the Saviour, and the circumstances in which they appeared, were to his mind noble and delightful evidences of the brilliant effects which were to be achieved by his death. For it was solely owing to the merits of that death that the spirit of the one had gone to bliss, and that the other, in his whole person, without tasting death, had entered the regions of immortality and glory. The glory, too, with which he himself was encircled, was calculated to elevate and fortify his mind in the prospect of his coming agonies and sorrows. Never, during the previous part of his humiliation, had such honour been conferred on the Son of God; his face shone as the brightness of the sun, and his very raiment was white as the light. This, to him, was doubtless a most refreshing foretaste of that glory on which he was to enter, when his sufferings were terminated; and the remembrance of it must have had a most beneficial influence on his mind amidst the gloom of desertion, when his soul was filled with a sense of divine wrath, and when he experienced the fearful tortures of crucifixion. Nothing is better calculated to relieve and to cheer the generous mind, when burdened and weighed down by the anticipation of suffering and of sorrow, than the contemplation of the excellence of the cause for which these are to be endured, and the hopes of the high advantages of which they are to be productive. When these are present to the view in all their splendour and magnitude, they operate like a bright vision of bliss; and the man who steadily contemplates them, goes forth to the conflict, not only calm and unmoved, forgetting the pain of the present, but exulting and triumphing in the prospect of the future. It was the conviction of the nobleness of their cause; it was the persuasion that the divine glory was promoted, and the good of the Church advanced; it was the holy hope of the crown of life they would gain, that made the martyrs of our own and of other scriptions were splendid and lofty, yet lands meet suffering, and torture, and they were sufficiently simple and plain to death, with a fearlessness and a fortitude' convey to the inquiring mind accurate which have shed around their character conceptions of him who was their subject; a lustre which the grave has not dimmed, and, doubtless, such conceptions of the and which time shall not extinguish; and Messiah were formed by many during the we have the authority of the Spirit of better and purer days of the Jewish hierGod when we assert, that it was the joy archy. As that Church, however, became set before him that made the Captain of corrupt and secularized, they lost sight our Salvation endure the cross and despise of the true character of the Christ, and the shame. formed to themselves ideas of him very far removed from the truth. II. The transfiguration of Christ and the circumstances connected with it, were This evil was universally prevalent calculated to rectify the misconceptions when the Son of God made his appearwhich the disciples had formed of his ance on earth. Every proper apprehencharacter, and to prevent that despondency sion of his character and of the design of which his death had a tendency to produce. his coming, seems to have been banished It is truly melancholy to contemplate from the minds of the Jewish people. In the fatal influence which prejudice will their own vain imaginations they had exert on the minds of men, and the errors denuded "Him who was to come" of his into which it will lead them, both in brightest glory, and had invested him theory and practice. When left to its with all the paltry grandeur of a worldly unfettered operation, even though sur-prince-of a powerful, indeed, but of a rounded with every possible advantage, temporal deliverer. They supposed that prejudice will darken our understanding, he would appear as the assertor of his bias our modes of thinking and reasoning, country's rights-as the champion of his and stamp with its own indelible impress, the conclusions at which we arrive. On those subjects particularly which are connected with religion, prejudice is too frequently permitted to enter and influence the mind. In too many instances, these subjects are not investigated with that candour and with that simple desire to reach the knowledge of the truth which are necessary. Theories concerning them are previously formed, and all our ingenuity is employed to bring every circumstance to bear upon and support these. We cannot find, we apprehend, a more apt and striking illustration of these remarks than in the history of the Jewish Church. From age to age prophets and holy men were raised up among them, who were commissioned by God, and who spake as they were moved by his Spirit concerning the Messiah. They described his character, the sublime attributes in which he was to be clothed, the deliverance which he was to accomplish, and the circumstances in which he was to appear. Wrapt in vision, their imaginations kindled, their whole minds glowed with a heavenly ardour, and they threw around their descriptions of this illustrious personage all the charms of the most brilliant poetry. But though these de country's liberties as the restorer of his country's faded glory. They expected that he would raise up and occupy the fallen and the deserted throne of David, and that by his prowess and the brilliancy of his deeds, he would elevate his country to the highest pinnacle of earthly fame and of earthly honour. It is to be ascribed to these false conceptions of his character, that Jesus of Nazareth became "a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence to both houses of Israel." The Apostles of our Lord cherished the very same conceptions of the character of their master, and fondly indulged the same hopes respecting the designs which he was destined to accomplish. They imagined that the kingdom which he came to found and to govern belonged entirely to this world. They looked forward with delightful emotions to a bright era in the history of their Lord, when he was to be arrayed in all the insignia of royalty; when he was to ascend a throne, to sway a sceptre, and to number among his vassals the nobles and princes of many lands. In this scene of pomp and of pleasure they never doubted but that they themselves were to occupy elevated stations and act a very prominent part. To persons entertaining such views and cherishing such hopes the circumstances in which the |