SERMON VIII.

And a man shall be as an hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place; as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land."-ISAIAH

XXXII. 2.

What a change has sin wrought in the condition and prospects of man! Before the transgression, man was but a little lower than the angels, the world was a paradise, every returning day brought a heaven of joy, with a pledge that to-morrow should be as this day, and yet more abundant; then the whole creation was in happy unison to cheer creation's chief. But oh! how changed the scene: the very elements wage war with man, the winds carry pestilence on their invisible pinions, the clouds pour forth destructive torrents, the sun beats with fiery fierceness on the culprit's head, the stars in their courses fight against him; and all this is but a faint emblem of his moral condition and curse. Could our venerable progenitor have seen with omniscient ken, all the sad consequences of sin; could he, from some high eminence, have looked through the long vista of time, and seen generation succeed generation with mourning, lamentation, and woe, written on every brow; could he have seen his numerous progeny like so many travellers passing through the journey of life, traversing a dry and thirsty land, exposed to wind, to tempest, to scorch

ing suns, and parching thirst; how would his manly soul have stood appalled? And could he have stretched his vision into the wide wastes of an unblessed eternity, and witnessed there the effects of sin; how would he have sighed to surrender back his soul and body to their original nonentity! Now this is the condition to which sin reduces us. Read the whole history of man in its many leaved volume, and you find not one fair page; there is literally nothing but a regular alternation of crimson guilt, and black woe. But could he again have seen here a refuge, and there a covert, and yonder an overshadowing rock; and by all the way a cooling stream; that is, could he have seen a Saviour from sin and its curse, methinks he would, with glowing heart, and ready tongue, exclaim, "I'll live and be blessed, and be the blessed father of a happy race."

Such is the condition in which grace places us. The revelation of God's grace is a volume, where every page is fair, every sentence peace, and every line mercy. If it speak of ought beside, it is only as a beacon to guard us against impending danger; or, in contrast, to display superior goodness; witness our text. Here is the wind and the tempest; the hiding place and the covert; who need fear the one when the other is so nigh? I need scarcely tell you that he who is all this, is the Man Christ Jesus, and we propose to preach Christ under this imagery.

I. The Lord Jesus Christ is a retreat from the wind, and a refuge from the tempest. A distinction might perhaps here be drawn between wind and tempest, but we consider them as being so nearly synonymous, that we shall take the liberty of blending them together; the one propably signifies a greater, the other a less degree of the same thing. Or perhaps one may refer to the present, the other

to the future consequences of sin, from both which Christ is a covert and a shield.

These figures especially express the wrath of God. They that plough iniquity and sow wickedness reap the same; (says Eliphaz,) by the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils are they consumed." "Terrors are upon me, (says Job,) they pursue my soul as the wind." "Thou shalt fan them, (says God to his Church, concerning her enemies,) and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them."* When his wrath rises to the highest pitch, and is poured forth in all its fury, it is then called a tempest. "Terrors take hold on him as waters, a tempest stealeth him away in the night. The east wind carrieth him away, and he departeth and as a storm hurleth him out of his place."+ Upon the wicked the Lord shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest; this shall be the portion of their cup." See your danger sinners; sinners we say, whether your sins be many or few, small or great; whether they be the follies of youth, or the frailties of age. Against every one a sentence of destruction is gone from God, and oh! who can stand before. Him. Men may fancy themselves strong as a mountain, but they are as chaff before the whirlwind of His wrath.

Think not of this wrath according to the storms with which we are familiar, but think of the wind that rent the mountains, and brake the rocks asunder before Elijah. Think of the tempest that desolated the land of Egypt. Think of the storm that wrecked the world and sunk her wretched crew into the depths of eternal misery. Think thus, and you have some conception how fearful a thing it is to fall under the tempest of God's wrath. And know, and remember that it is neither slow, nor distant, nor uncertain; it comes swiftly

* Isa. xli. 16. + Job xxvii. 20, 21. + Psalm xi. 6.

like the wind, suddenly like the whirl-wind, certainly as the flood. Already the clouds are gathering and blackening, and soon will burst on the guilty soul. No sooner does man commence his journey down the little hill of time, but lo! a little cloud like a man's hand arises in the distant horizon, it grows with his growth, and expands with his age, and blackens with his crimes; ever and anon it shoots forth its fiery darts, and pours down its sulphureous streams in the common calamities of life; a certain precursor of the storm which is about to descend upon the sinner.

Where, where then, oh! sinner wilt thou seek a hidingplace? Wilt thou take refuge behind thine own bulwarks? "As a bowing wall shall ye be, and as a tottering fence." Wilt thou repose in thy virtue? thy own virtue is but an ark of rushes, unable to outride the storm. Seek it, where alone it is to be found; in the man Christ Jesus; He alone can shelter thee from the rage of the world, the force of temptation, and the wrath of God. All beside are refuges of lies, devised in folly, executed in madness; and when the deluded mortal, like the proud Assyrian, boasts of the great Babylon which he has built, the destroying angel comes, laughs at the vain fabric, sweeps away the refuge and the refugee and leaves not a wreck behind.

But Christ affords complete protection. Do you ask how? As the wall intercepts the wind, and the hiding-place receives the full force of the storm. For us he became a man of sorrows, and drank the bitter cup of His father's wrath; for us He was tempted, and blunted the shafts of Satan's devices; for us He received the contents of the seven vials; and now, His name, His person and work, is a strong tower, the righteous runneth into it and is safe.

Only take refuge by faith in the righteousness of Christ, that is, His whole obedience to the moral law; and in His

atonement, that is, the whole series of his sufferings, and you will find yourselves behind a wall of adamant which no wind can shake; and in a covert which no storm can penetrate; you will find then, the clouds you so much dread

"Are big with blessings, and shall break

In blessings on your head."

II. The Lord Jesus Christ is held out to us under the idea of rivers in a dry place.

This world is called a wilderness in allusion to that through which the Israelites passed to Canaan, and like that it reaches from the house of our bondage to the promised land. If we look at the description given of the former, we shall find that it corresponds precisely with the latter. Moses calls that "a great and terrible wilderness, wherein were scorpions, and drought, and where was no water." Hosea "a land of great drought,"+ and Jeremiah "a land of deserts and pits, a land of drought and of the shadow of death." These circumstances, and especially the want of water, account for the frequent murmurings of the Israelites; hungry and thirsty their souls fainted within them. Such is the world, and such our characters. It is natural for men to thirst, and it is natural to seek after something that will satisfy. There is a principle in man which ever cries "give, give." The evil lies not here, but in applying to those creature enjoyments which can never satisfy; there the evil lies, "they forsake the fountain of living waters, and hew them out cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water." They go to pits that have no water. Some worldly object looks in distant prospect like a deceitful morass, it presents the appearance of a pellucid lake, they hasten towards it, but alas! as Jeremiah expresses it "They are waters that