orders of this creation is to be found in conformity to the revealed will of God. We are sure, whatever schemes may be devised for the amelioration of kuman condition, that the happiness of a people is closely bound up with its righteousness, and that the greater the departure from God the greater the misery introduced into its families. It is no unwarranted assertion, but one which will stand every test to which it can fairly be brought, that the decline of a nation's prosperity keeps pace with the decline of its piety, and that in banishing true religion you banish the chief elements of its greatness and security.

And what is the condition of a land, when its inhabitants have literally made void God's law? The experiment was tried in the heart of civilized Europe; and we all know what fearful scenes were enacted on the stage of revolutionized France, when atheism was the only creed which the nation would profess. We have no instance in history of a people throwing equal scorn on their Creator, and neither have we any of a people being plunged in equal depths of misery. There was then given a demonstration, never to be forgotten, that to throw off the restraints of religion is to proclaim the carnival of anarchy and bloodshed; and that the getting quit of the fear of God is the surest mode of undermining government, invading the rights of property, and turning a civilized people into a horde of barbarians and assassins. But if such be the consequences of making void God's law, what effect will be wrought upon the few by whom that law is yet reverenced and prized? Certainly, not that they will love the law less, but rather that they will love it more. If I saw thousands writhing in incurable agony, and could trace the tremendous disease to the gradual disuse, and, at length, final rejection of a medicine, beyond all doubt that medicine would appear to me more precious than ever; and it would be from the throwing away of this medicine that I best learnt its value. In like manner, if I can see that the making void God's law is the most effectual mode of covering a land with wretchedness, unquestionably it is in the being made void that this law displays its claims to

my attachment. And if, therefore, we lived in times when a mighty infidelity was pervading our cities and our villages, and men were advancing by rapid strides towards an open contempt, or denial of God; the divine law, if we had ever learnt to prize it, would commend itself increasingly to our affections, as impiety went onward to its consummation. We should more and more recognize the power of this law to confer happiness, because we should more and more observe how the despising it produced misery. We should more and more perceive in it an engine for counteracting human degeneracy, because there would be, on all sides, the material of conviction, that, in setting it aside, men sank to the lowest level of degradation. We should. more and more regard it as the best boon which God had conferred on this creation, because we should increasingly discover that it could only be removed by substituting a fearful curse in its stead. And would not then this law appear more deserving than ever of our veneration and attachment? If we ever before prized it above gold, should we not now prize it above fine gold? There are two ways in which the commandments of God prove equally their excellence-by the blessed results which follow on obedience, and by the tremendous results which follow on disobedience. The former are to be seen when the law is observed, the latter when that law is made void. But since, in each case, the same truth is exhibited-that of the power of the law to confer happiness-in each case, the same reason is given why the law should be increasingly the object of our love.

We will take a simple instance, and gather from it the principle on which we now insist. A young person is born of religious parents, and educated in the fear of the Almighty. But the father and mother have been gathered to the grave, and the temptations of the world prevail over their instructions, and the child becomes the irreligious and profligate. He passes from one degree of wickedness to another, till at length, as the perpetrator of some fearful crime, he waits the shame of a public execution. And in this condition he is visited by a clergyman, who

would be into such a form as this that his reflections would shape themselves, --indeed, Lord, he hath made void thy law; therefore, as for me, "therefore I love thy commandments above gold, yea, above fine gold."

Now it is not difficult thus to trace a connection between the making void of God's law, and the heightened love which the righteous entertain to that law. The law cannot be made void, whether nationally or individually, without an accompanying demonstration that it is both designed and adapted to bless the human race. And we need not add, that every such demonstration enhances the worth of the law in the estimation of the righteous, so that the transition is very natural from the statement of a general profligacy of manners to that of an increased love to the commandments of God.

But we have yet another mode in which to exhibit the connection between the verses, though it may have already suggested itself to your minds.

perhaps remembers the days of his youth, whilst his honored parents were yet alive, and himself an inmate of the village-school. It is a grievous and sickening spectacle, that, of. one who was cradled in piety, and into whose opening intelligence were distilled the precepts of righteousness, thus lying as an outcast, branded with indignity, and expecting the penalty of death. And the minister asks of him the history of his guilt, how it came to pass that he wandered so far, and so fatally from uprightness. The whole is traced to neglect of the commandments of God, a neglect which began perhaps in minor points, but rapidly increased till the whole law was made void. And we shall not attempt to tell you with what bitterness of soul, and what intenseness of self-reproach, the criminal recalls the dying looks and words of his parents, as they bequeathed him. the Bible as his best treasure, and besought him, with many tears, to take its precepts as his guide. The uppermost and crushing feelings in his spirit-We have hitherto supposed the is, that, had he followed the parting advice of his father and mother, he would have lived honorably and happily, and would never have thus become a byword and an execration; every thing earthly shipwrecked, and nothing heavenly secured. But we only want to know what would be the thoughts of the minister in regard of God's commandments, as he retired from the cell where he had delivered the messages of the Gospel. He has been looking on an instance of the consequences of making void the divine law. He cannot but contrast what the criminal is, with what he would have been, had he not made void that law. And does he not gather from the contrast a higher sense than he had before entertained of the excellence of that law, and of its might in contributing to the present, as well as future welfare of mankind? We can quite believe that, as he retreated from the overpowering scene, his mind agonized by the thought that one, of whom he had augured well, was thus hopelessly reduced to a desolate and ruined thing, the value of God's law, as a rule of human conduct, and a safeguard of human happiness, would be felt by him in a degree which he had never yet experienced; and that it

strengthened attachment which David expresses towards the law, to have been produced by the fact that this law was made void. But we now refer it to the fact that it was time for God to work. We consider, that is, that when the Psalmist says, therefore I love thy commandments above gold, yea, above fine gold," the reason is to be found in the character of the times, in the season being one at which God must bring judgments on the earth. "Since thy law is made void, it is time for thee, Lord, to interfere in vengeance; and, on this account, because wrath must be let loose, therefore I love thy commandments above gold, yea, above fine gold."

And if this be regarded as the connection between the verses, you will readily admit that there is abundant force in the reason of the Psalmist. If there be one season at which, more than at another, the righteous feel the worth of revelation, and the blessedness of obeying its precepts, the season must be that of danger and trouble. Whether the danger and trouble be public or domestic; whether it be his country, or only his own household, over which calamity hangs; the man of piety finds a consolation in religion

earthly is slipping from my hold? word, O my God! The gold, and the Thy commandments-commandments fine gold, can profit me nothing; for which direct me to believe upon thy "it is time for thee to work," and Son-thy law, a law so obeyed by the earth, with all its treasures, must be Mediator in my stead, that its every left. But thy commandments—a comprecept acquits me, and its every re- mandment that death be swallowed up ward awaits me-these are precious in victory, a commandment that the to me, unspeakably more precious than corruptible put on incorruption, a comever before. I know that thy strange mandment that new heavens and a new work must be wrought on me, the earth rise as the everlasting home of work of dissolution. I know that the righteousness-these give me gladness time is come, when I must go hence as I enter the dark valley; these I and be no more seen. But I know also would not barter for the richest and that, "till heaven and earth pass, one costliest of earthly things—" it is time jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass for thee, Lord, to work: therefore I from thy law." I know that "blessed love thy commandments above gold, are they that do his commandments, yea, above fine gold." that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." The nearer, therefore, the approaches of death, the more worthless appears every thing but thy

We have nothing to add but an earnest prayer that we may all be able to say from the heart with David, "Oh, how I love thy law; it is my meditation all thy day."

SERMON.

ON THE STRENGTH WHICH FAITH GAINS BY EXPERIENCE.

"For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have com→ mitted unto him against that day."-2 Timothy, 1:12.

You will observe, if you consult the context of this passage, that St. Paul is speaking of our Redeemer. In the tenth verse he had made mention of our Savior Jesus Christ, as having abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel. The discourse is then continuous up to the words which I have just read to you; so that we are not left in doubt as to the being upon whom St. Paul fastened his faith. It was Christ with whom the apostle had left some great deposit, and of whose power and faithfulness he expresses his deep-wrought persuasion. And it will therefore be our business, in any inquiries to which this passage may lead, to bear careful

ly in mind that Deity, united with humanity in the Mediator's person, constituted that object of faith which had been proved so trust-worthy by the teacher of the Gentiles.

Now there is an important distinction to be drawn between experience and faith, and which is clearly marked out to us by these words of the apostle. It is certain that a man cannot be saved without faith, but it is just as certain that he may be saved without experience. You must all perceive that if the matter under review be the power and sufficiency of the Savior, there must be faith before there can be experience. We can know nothing of Christ, except by rumor and hearsay,

ever

until we believe in him. But unques-uneducated believer is more easily tionably we might believe in him, and overborne than a well-educated, by the then the arrest of death coming upon doubts and objections of infidelity. If us at the instant of the outputting of the illiterate man be not so able as the faith, all personal knowledge of him instructed, to expose the hollowness, must be referred to another and a and to demonstrate the fallacy of the higher state of being. So that it would reasoning by which he is assailed, he be accurate to say, that while faith is will be to the full as rigorous in his indispensable, experience is not indis- resistance of the attack, and will be no pensable to salvation. We have ta- more shaken from his faith through ken, however, the extreme case. And want of acquaintance with the evidenthough it be certainly supposable that ces of christianity, than if he were a man might enter into heaven without equipped with all that armor of proof experience, properly so called, yet it which has been heaped together by the is true, as a general rule, that faith learned of the earth. And we hold the will be followed by experience, and explanation of the phenomenon to be, that whosoever believes in Christ will that the poor man knows whom he hath go on to know whom he hath believed. believed. If he can make no appeal to We may therefore say of experience, history and to science, and so fetch no that it is a kind of touchstone to which witness from the records of the earth faith should be brought. For whilst we and its inhabitants, he can travel into the would set ourselves most earnestly, world which lies within himself; and and most assiduously, against the re- he gathers from what has been transsolving religion into a mere thing of acted there, and experienced there, a frames and of feelings, we are bound mightier testimony than was to hold that it is no matter of frigid or wrung from external evidence. When heartless speculation, but that a real he began to believe, it may be true christian must have a real sense of the that he could give but little account of power and preciousness of Christ. We any ground-work on which he builded. consider that it would be altogether his faith. But as he goes on believing, idle to maintain that a man may believe his faith may be said to become more in Christ as a Savior for months or and more built upon knowledge; and years, and yet have no witness in him- there will be wrought in him gradualself to the energies of that Being to- ly, through his own personal experiwards whom his faith is directed. Faith ence of the power and faithfulness of is that mighty, though mysterious prin- the Savior, something of the persuasion ciple, which attaches a man to Christ. which is expressed by St. Paul, and And we may fairly set it down as im- which will more than supply the place possible that there should be actual of those ramparts against infidelity membership between ourselves and the which have been thrown up by the laMediator, and yet nothing of personal bors of the champions of christianity. practical acquaintance with his suffi- And though we have directed our reciencies for the office which he fills. He marks to the case of the poor and the who believes will taste and see that the illiterate, we would not have it thought Lord is gracious; and knowledge be- that they are inapplicable to others. It ing superadded to faith, he will be his is quite evident that the great apostle own testimony that the Bible is no cun- himself, than whom there hath never ningly-devised fable; but that Christ arisen a man better able to demoncrucified, though unto the Jews a stum- strate, on external grounds, that Jesus bling-block, and unto the Greeks fool- was the Christ, strengthened his faith ishness, is nevertheless the power of by his knowledge, and fetched out of God and the wisdom of God. · his own experience his choicest proof of the fulness which is laid up in the Savior. And thus with ourselves; whatever our rank in society, and whatever our advantages of education, we must place ourselves on the same level with the mean and the uninstructed, when searching out the best evidence that

And we think it worth while to observe, before we quit these introductory remarks, that experience thus corroborating faith, is at the root of that stanchness which poor men will ex hibit when plied with the arguments of the sceptic. You will not find that an