shorter term. Ye may soften away the haps think that there is a great deal of metaphor in the Bible, much which was never meant to be literally understood, much which was only for local or temporary application; and so, at last, "lest ye die," an expression which just implies some measure of risk, comes to pass with you (so far as you think on such matters at all) as a very fair exposition of "Ye shall surely die," an expression denoting the most absolute certainty. But, now, be warned by the instance of Eve. She allowed herself to give a And yet, such is the constancy in hu- smooth turn to the threatening of God. man perverseness, the feeling which She invented, and never was invention wrought in Eve, before she eat the fatal so pregnant with disaster to the world, fruit, is just that which is most power- the doubtful suggestion, "Lest ye die,” fully at work amongst her descendants. as a substitute for the awful affirmation, There is not perhaps one of you, who," Ye shall surely die." But, acting on if he be still living in unrepented sin, is the supposition that "Lest ye die," not secretly disposed to the regarding God as too gracious to visit iniquity with everlasting destruction, to the resolving into the exaggerations of the priesthood, or, at all events, into denunciations whose ends will be answered by their delivery without their execution, the tremendous announcements of a worm that dieth not, and of a fire that is not quenched. might fairly pass as the meaning of "Ye shall surely die," she "brought death into the world, and all our woe." In her case, indeed, tremendous though the consequences were, there was a remedy: our first parents fell, but were arrested by a Mediator in their fatal descent. But in your case-if the soul be staked on the chance, that God threatens more than He will execute, and if ye find, as find ye must, that “ye shall surely die" meant what it saidno exaggeration, no metaphor-alas! there will then be no remedy for you: It is not, that, if ye were pushed into an argument, or urged to a confession, ye would, in so many words, assert an expectation of such a difference between punishment as threatened, and punish-the hour will be passed, the day will be ment as put in force, as might make it comparatively safe for you to set at nought God's law. We do not suppose that Eve would have done this: she would not, even to herself, have acknowledged so much as this. But it is, that ye have a smooth way of putting the threatenings of the law; you per gone: though now a Mediator waits to make true to all penitents the bold falsehood of Satan, "Ye shall not surely die," there shall be no deliverance hereafter for such as have been presumptuous enough to sin, in the hope, or with the thought, that God will not be stern enough to strike. SERMON VII. SEEKING AFTER FINDING. "They shall ask the way to Zion, with their faces thitherward."—JEREMIAH 1. 5. The chapter from which these words text, you find this statement: "In those are taken is filled with predictions of days, and in that time, saith the Lord, the overthrow of Babylon, and of the the children of Israel shall come, they deliverance of the Jews from their and the children of Judah together, gohaughty oppressors. There can be no ing and weeping: they shall go, and doubt that these predictions had at least seek the Lord their God." These a primary reference to the demolition of words describe a great national contrithe Chaldean Empire by Cyrus, and to tion. The scattered tribes have been the consequent emancipation of the cap- brought to a deep sense of their rebeltive citizens of Jerusalem. But, as is lion against the God of their fathers, and generally if not always the case with are inclined accordingly to return to his prophecies of this class, there would ap- service. But it would hardly appear pear to be a secondary reference to the that there was any such general repentdestruction of the mystic Babylon, close-ance preparatory to the return of the ly associated as it will be with the restoration of the scattered tribes of Israel, and with the triumphant estate of the Christian Church. Jews from Babylon, though we have decisive testimony, from various parts of Scripture, that there will be antecedently to the final restoration of the IsraelIt would seem that from the first the ites to Canaan. And besides this, you enemies of God and his people which will not fail to observe that the children one age has produced, have served as of Israel are here combined with the types of those who will arise in the lat- children of Judah; whereas only the latter days of the world; and that the ter were captives in Babylon, and only judgments by which they have been the latter were emancipated by Cyrus. overtaken, have been so constructed as Whenever, as in tihs instance, prophecy to figure the final vengeance on Anti- speaks of any gathering together of the christ and his followers. Hence it is twelve tribes, of which the kingdom of that so many prophecies appear to re- Israel had ten, that of Judah only two, quire as well as to admit a double ful-we seem obliged to understand it as refilment; they could hardly delineate the type and not delineate also the antitype; whilst we may believe that the Spirit, which moved the holy men of old, designed that what it inspired should serve for the instruction of remote ages as well as of near. That the predictions in the chapter before us referred to what is yet future, as well as to what has long ago passed, will appear from a careful attention to the terms in which they are couched. In the verse immediately preceding our lating to the future; there having as yet been no event which can be regarded as the predicted restoration of the . ten tribes whom Shalmaneser removed. On this and other accounts which it is not important to specify, we conclude that in its secondary, if not in its primary, application, our text is connected with that august event, the theme of so many prophecies, the centre of so many hopes, the reinstatement in Canaan of the children of Israel. And it may possibly indicate from what various and remote districts of the earth shall the exiles be gathered, that there is to be that ignorance of the road to Jerusalem which the words before us express. We know that the whole globe is strewed with the Jews, so that you can scarcely find the country where this people, though distinct from every other, has not made itself a home. But the dwelling place of the ten tribes is still an unsolved problem: neither the navigator in his voyagings round the world, nor the traveller in his searchings over continents, has yet lighted on the mysterious seclusion where rest the descendants of those who, for their sins, were cast out from Samaria. It may well then be, that when, moved by one impulse from above, the thousands of the chosen seed, whether in the east, or west, or north, or south, shall resolve on seeking the land of their fathers, it will be almost like the quest of some unknown region, so indistinct will be the memory, and so darkened the tradition, of the long-lost inheritance. With numbers there may be nothing beyond a vague knowledge of the direction in which Palestine must lie, so that they will be able to turn their faces thitherward, but not to determine by what road to proceed. And this is precisely what is represented in our text. The children of Israel and the children of Judah, dissolved in tears on account of their now felt ingratitude and wickedness, have turned themselves towards Jerusalem, but are still forced to inquire the way. One seems to behold a band of the exiles weeping and nevertheless exulting, penetrated with sorrow for sins, and yet animated with the persuasion that the Lord was about to make bare his arm and gather home his banished ones. They press along the desert, they crowd to the shore; and of every one whom they meet they demand, in a voice of eagerness and anxiety, Where, where is our home, the beautiful land which God gave to our fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? But you will readily judge that it cannot be on this, the literal sense or fulfilment of the text, that we design to speak at any length. You are always prepared for our regarding the Jews as a typical people, and finding in the events of their history emblems of what occurs to the Christian Church. We shall *herefore at once detach the text from its connexion with the Jews, whether in their past deliverance from Babylon, or their yet future restoration to Canaan, and consider it as descriptive of what may be found amongst Christians, who have to quit a moral bondage, and find their way to a spiritual Zion. The singularity of the passage, when thus interpreted or applied, lies in the face of the inquirer being towards Zion, whilst he is yet forced to ask what road he ought to take. They shall ask the way to Zion, with their faces thitherward." They are in the right road, or at least are advancing in the right direction; but, nevertheless, whether through ignorance, or through fear of even the possibility of mistake, they continually make inquiries as to the path to be followed. We think that this circumstance, if considered as to be excmplified in our own spiritual history, will furnish abundant material for interesting and profitable discourse. It is a circumstance which indicates such honesty of purpose in the inquirer, such vigilance, such circumspection, such anxiety to be right, and such dread of being wrong, as should distinguish every Christian, though too often we look for them in vain. And, at the same time, we evidently learn that persons are not always fair judges of their spiritual condition; they may be asking the way like those who are in ignorance and darkness, and all the while their faces may be towards Zion. Let it be our endeavor to compass different classes within our present discourse; considering in the first place, the case of those who, though going right, suppose themselves going wrong; and, in the second place, that of those who believe themselves right, but yet desire further assurance; for of both classes it may equally be said, They ask the way to Zion, with their faces thitherward." 46 Now it is the object of such parables as that of the tares and the wheat, or that of the great net let down into the sea, and which gathered of all kinds, bad as well as good, to teach us that there is to be a mixture in the visible Church, and that it is not men's business to attempt a separation. We are all too much disposed to exercise a spirit of judgment, to pronounce opinions on the condition of our fellow-men, whether the living or the dead, just as though we had access to God's book, and could infallibly read its registered decisions. But there is every thing in the Bible to warn us against this spirit of judgment, and to urge us, on the contrary, to a spirit of charity; our inability to read the heart, which is the prerogative of God alone, being given as a sufficient reason why we should refrain from passing verdicts; and our duty as members of the same mystic body, being set forth as that of hoping all things, bearing one another's burdens, rather than scrutinizing one another's faults. 66 ample, in that passage of the prophet Isaiah, Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God." Here the case is evidently sup posed of religion existing in its genuineness, though in none of its comforts: the man fears the Lord, and obeys the voice of his servant; but, all the while, is surrounded by impenetrable darkness, even darkness which may be felt. And the direction to such a man, a direction to stay himself upon his God, is one which clearly assumes the reality of his piety, and as clearly asserts that he is not in danger, because not in light. But whilst the minister is quite pre And a very comforting remembrance it is, that we are not to stand or fall by human decision, that our portion for eternity is not to be settled by what men think of us here; for so furious is the spirit of religious party, and so deter-pared for these cases, and quite aware mined are numbers on making their own favorite dogma the alone passport to heaven, that many of the most lowly followers of Christ would be given over to perdition, and many of the most arrogant boasters chartered for everlasting life, were the verdicts of the Christian world to be final, and no appeal to lie to a higher tribunal. We always think that there is something very touching in those words of the Redeemer, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them." It is as much as to say, the world may not know them; in the judgment of men, many pass for my sheep who are not, and many who are, may be excluded from my flock; but I, I who cannot be deceived, I know my sheep, and will infallibly distinguish them at last from the goats.. 66 But not only are men likely to deliver a false judgment upon others, and therefore bound to confine their chief scrutiny to themselves, it is further very possible that they may form a wrong opinion of their own spiritual state, not only, as you all know, in concluding themselves safe whilst in danger, but, as is perhaps less suspected, in concluding themselves in danger whilst safe. In his more private ministrations amongst his people, a clergyman will not unfrequently find the case of a depressed and disconsolate individual, who obtains none of the comforts, though he is all alive to the duties, of religion. It gives him no surprise that there should be such cases; for he knows that they are expressly provided for in Scripture,-as, for ex that the spiritual gloom is no index of the spiritual state, he finds them singularly difficult and perplexing; and that, too, because they are commonly the cases of parties suffering from bodily disease, disease perhaps of the nerves, and whom that very circumstance incapacitates for judging with accuracy their spiritual state. If, through God's blessing on the prescriptions of the physician, a more wholesome tone be given to the nervous system, brighter views will quickly be reached of the condition of the soul: on the other hand, if the sickness increase, the moral darkness will become thicker and thicker: and whilst the minister is thoroughly assured that all these alternations are but proofs how the body can act upon the mind, and therefore noways affect the spiritual estate, the patient will take them as so many evidences of advance or decline in genuine religion. We know nothing to be done, in these and the like cases, but the endeavoring to shew men how utterly distinct are the reality of religion and its comforts; and how independent is that which is to save them on the frames and feelings of which they may be conscious. They are downcast because faith seems weak, or elated because it seems strong; whereas it is not faith which is to save them, but Christ; and whilst faith, whether in itself or its evidences, may change from day to day, Christ changes not, but is "the same yesterday, to-day, and forever." And we always think it safe to tell those who are spiritually depressed, God's word, though as yet they have not found a shelter from its threatenings; they who are so moved by a sense of danger that they earnestly inquire, "What must we do to be saved?" though they have not yet heard the answer in the depths of the heart-on all these the minister of the Gospel looks with great hopefulness: they may not themselves be aware of their having actually entered the heavenward path; but he considers their anxiety, their fear, their solicitude, as so many evidences of their having begun in religion, and he anticipates, with indescribable pleasure, their being "followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises." Regarding conversion as a that their very depression is no mean | from evil habits; they who tremble at argument of their safety; for so unnatural is it to man to feel anxious for his soul, that, wheresoever there is the anxiety, we recognize a higher agency, even a Divine, as having wrought to excite the solicitude. It certainly follows, that the man who is depressed as to his state before God, must be anxious as to that state; and we know not how, as a corrupt and fallen creature, he was to have become thus anxious, had not God's Spirit acted on his conscience, and commenced in him a work of moral renovation. So that there ought to be comfort even in the very wretchedness: you would not have been thus disquieted had you been left to yourselves; and that you have not been left to yourselves should prove to you that God is not wil-gradual work, a work in which "one ling that you should perish, nay, that He has already undertaken the bringing you to Himself. And over and above these cases of depression, in which one cause or another weaves darkness round a man, so that, whilst his face is towards Zion, he cannot perceive that he is on the road to the heavenly city, we nothing doubt that there are many instances of parties, who have begun in true religion, and nevertheless think that the first step has not been taken. It is not always, nay, it is not, we believe, often, that conversion is suddenly effected, nor through some special instrumentality which fixes, as it were, the date of the change. In the majority of cases, the change, we are inclined to believe, is gradual, imperceptibly effected, so that, although the man becomes at length conscious of a great moral alteration, he cannot tell you when it commenced, nor by what steps it went on. There is no one thing more distinguishable from another, than is the converted state from the unconverted; but the transition from the one to the other may be accomplished by such slow degrees, that the individual, who is its subject, shall not know with precision when or where the first movement took place. And we rejoice in the assurance that many, who would not venture to think themselves on the way to Zion, are actually walking in the direction of that city. They who have a sincere wish to be enabled to forsake sin, and who are endeavoring accordingly to break away soweth and another reapeth," we do not look on those, who are evidently confirmed believers, as the only travellers towards the celestial city we rejoice in thinking that there are numbers, in whom the moral change is not yet distinctly marked, but who are nevertheless in the act of passing the strait gate. Yea, with every wish to avoid giving encouragement where there is yet needed warning, we do feel authorized in taking fears for the soul, and desires for its safety, as evidences of a man's being in the pathway of life. We might almost say, that, in religion, anxiety to begin is itself a beginning the seeking the road is the being in the road: and though the inquirers themselves may not venture to think that they have yet done more than inquire, oh, we can regard them as having already virtually found that of which they are in quest: they may only consider themselves as asking the way to Zion; but we can feel that they are of those who ask the way to Zion "with their faces thitherward." But let us pass on to the case of men, in regard of whom there can be no doubt that they have made a beginning, and let us see what our text may indicate as to these more advanced characters. We may justly suppose that the parties, to whom the prophecy originally applied, had set out on the journey from Babylon to Zion: they had commenced; but, either through finding themselves in places where different roads met, or through desire to be more and more as |