Page images
PDF
EPUB

in the case of all who now hear me.

Surrounded

as we are at this time of the year, on every side, with such bounteous witness to our great Father's love and care, we are surely ready to recognise His hand, and to acknowledge ourselves indebted to His goodness.

But though this be true,-although none of us, my brethren, could bear to be charged with overlooking God, although none of us would dispute for an instant His righteous claim upon our utmost gratitude, it yet may be a question whether our acknowledgment and outward profession is sustained by our actual practice. For instance, is it true as a fact that we do keep up a constant sense of our obligation to, and dependence upon, God? Is it true as a fact, that we do make it a portion of every day's business, to render unto God hearty thanks for His continual goodness towards us? Is it true as a fact, that we never lie down to rest, never rise up to our usual employment, without an uttered prayer to Him who alone can protect us through the hours of darkness, and shield us from the perils and temptations of the day? Is it true as a fact, that we feel in our hearts that which we are so ready to confess with our lips," That in God, and in Him only, we live, and move, and have our being.'

These are questions, the answer to which, whatever it may be, must greatly affect our spiritual

well-being; and therefore they are questions suitable for us to put, each to himself, at all times: but at no time are they more so than at present: for at no time in the course of the whole year is the witness to God's over-ruling Providence more strikingly manifest, than in these "the appointed weeks of the harvest." At no time are we called upon more imperatively to remember our Creator and Preserver than now, when He is accomplishing His own word; literally "filling our hearts with food and gladness." For, my brethren, that such is the case; that the harvest this year [1846], through God's mercy, has proved a good one, and the season for getting in has been most favourable, will, I am inclined to think, be allowed by you all. Already throughout the length and breadth of this well-cultivated country, large stores of grain are gathered in for the stay and sustenance of our vast population. And can we be partakers in this bounty, and not feel thankful for it? Can we, because we have experienced it many times before, take it as a matter of course-as the natural return for the toil and pains we have bestowed upon our land? I hope and trust that we can not. I hope and trust there is no one so satisfied with his own skill in cultivation, as not to see that all which he can do, would be as nothing, but for the wonderworking power of God: that man's part in bring

ing forth food out of the earth-the haste which he makes "to rise up early and to late retire to his rest," the care with which he dresses the ground and tends the rising crops, would be all lost labour, did not God first fertilize the soil, then give the germinating power to the seed sown, then protect it through the opposite danger of too much drought, or too much moisture, and finally bless it in the increase thereof.

If, my brethren, we allow this, and who does not?-let us take care lest by our own confession we be guilty of ingratitude before God. Let us beware lest that reproach be in any degree applicable to some of us, which was spoken by the prophet Isaiah to God's people of old-" The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib but Israel doth not know, my people will not consider." And yet assuredly this charge will be true, if we let the present fruitful season pass away, without deriving from it the lesson it is so well adapted to conveythe lesson, deep, and lasting, of our entire dependence upon God; and without its awakening in us such a due sense of our obligation, as shall stir us up to warmer efforts, in making the best return we can to our all-bountiful Creator and Benefactor.

And what return can we give unto the Lord for all His benefits? What will He vouchsafe to re

ceive at our hands?

What but that pointed out to

us in the psalm, "We will receive the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord. We will pay our vows unto the Lord now in the presence of His people, in the courts of the Lord's house." In other words, we should endeavour, by a more constant attention to our religious duties, by a more loving devotion, by a warmer worship, by a more eager partaking in all the sacred ordinances of our Christian faith, and, above all, by a more hearty surrender of ourselves to God in our daily lives, to testify our gratitude, "to show ourselves joyful before the Lord the King." Let us endeavour so to act; and then we may trust that the result of the present abundant harvest will be doubly blest: it will be blest to our immediate use,

[ocr errors]

to the satisfying our poor with bread," and will be blest in a far higher sense, to our soul's bealth and growth, by producing in us, by God's help and grace, (without which we can do nothing,) bringing forth day by day more perfectly the fruits of truly Christian-truly religious life."

Little Hadham, Aug. 16, 1846.

238

SERMON XIX.

THE USES OF ADVERSITY.

HEB. xii. 11. "Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless, afterwards it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them that are exercised thereby."

SUCH is the language, in which St. Paul expresses his concurrence in one of the most characteristic doctrines of our Christian religion; that doctrine which teaches us to look upon affliction as a sign of God's love, and calculated in the end to prove a blessing to those who are visited by it.

It is a doctrine that runs throughout the whole Bible, but which is brought out most fully in the New Testament, which finds a place in the sayings of our Divine Master, and in the writings of all His apostles and their immediate followers, and in

« PreviousContinue »