The day will be made to dawn, and the day-star to arise in your hearts.

Let me only add, that beside prayer for yourselves, you should make intercession for others also; and more especially on this occasion, that the house in which we are now assembled for the first time may prove a blessing to the families of its hearers-that it may reclaim many to habits of church-going, and in particular, that those young men who are now given to the wanderings of Sabbath profanation, may be lured, and that from early boyhood, to the wholesome practice of regular attendance on the services of the sanctuary, so that that most pleasing of all spectacles -a well filled family pew-may, as in the days of our godlier forefathers, be again the frequent, nay, the general object of our delighted contemplation. Above all, let it be our fervent supplication, that beside the bodily presence of assembled worshipers, there may at all times be the presence of a grace and an unction from on high, that both minister and people may be guided to the right exercise of their respective functions-the one so taught how to speak, and the other how to hear, as to have a fruitful issue in the conversion of many souls. Oh! that this beauteous temple may prove the harbinger of what is goodlier stillthe Sabbath quiet and the Sabbath sacredness-and most precious of all, the love and the peace and the holiness and all the graces of our coming heaven to those who repair to it. Thus might a little heaven on earth be realized; and long after we, as the seniors of the present age, are moldering in our coffins, may the prophetic blessing be fulfilled on our children's children-That because of this man and that man being born here, righteousness has been made to run down all our streets, and to descend with all the force and fullness of an increasing river from generation to generation.

Before I conclude. let me hope that the lesson of how you are to hear has so far told that one may read out a very few of the most pregnant verses in the Bible, short but substantial, as containing in them the very marrow of the

gospel, that one or other of these may perhaps take effect on the souls of some who are before me. The first I shall repeat, as we read in the Life of Colonel Gardiner, was the instrument of his conversion, letting, as it were, the light of heaven into his mind, and so as that from that time forward he became a new creature in Jesus Christ. Who knows what may be the effect of the simple reading of a few such verses in your hearing now, and more especially if you consider that it is now God speaking from Himself, and not speaking as in the great bulk of a sermon through the lips of the minister?"Being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I say, at this time His righteousness; that He might be just, and the justifier of Him which believeth in Jesus."-"God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."-"God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved."-" As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but have eternal life."-" He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things ?""He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him."-"In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him."-"Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that God loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.""The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin."-Such, my brethren, are a few declarations from the word of God. Let me close with a few invitations grounded upon these:- "Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways, for why will ye die ?"—" Turn ye to the stronghold,

66

ye prisoners of hope."-" Come to me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."-"Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech. you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God."- Come out from among them, and be ye separate. saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and y'e shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty."-" We then, as workers together with Him, beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in vain. For He saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succored thee; behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation."-"Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely."

May these true sayings of God sink deep in your hearts, and may the Spirit so press them home that they may be to you the bearers of peace with God and of life everlasting, and to His name be praise.

SERMON XXXIII.

[ON Sabbath, the 25th April, 1847, Dr. Chalmers preached at the dispensation of the first sacrament administered in the Church of the West Port, Edinburgh-the last sacrament at which he was ever to preside. On that occasion the inexpressible gratification was afforded to him of seeing within a church of his own raising, a goodly number of that very class of the community for whose benefit it was erected, and of knowing that at the table of the Lord there sat down that day about twenty individuals, none of whom for many years before-some of whom not once in the course of a long lifetime-had commemorated the dying love of the Redeemer. Prepared on such occasion, and for such an audience, the sermon which follows has this additional interest attached to it, that it was the last ever written by its author-composed about a month before his death.]

E

ISAIAH LVI. 4, 5.

"Take hold of my covenant."

We do not enough contemplate the Christian salvation in the form of a covenant, and yet it is often so represented in Scripture. From a very early period indeed in the history of God's dealings with men, this is set forth as the relation in which He and the people who are peculiarly His own are made to stand to each other-we mean, the relation of parties in a covenant, a contract, as it were, having its articles of agreement, its mutual stipulations, its terms of engagement consented to on both sides, and binding upon both. It were well if Christians looked more at this, and dwelt more on this, as being the very condition and state of the matter between them and God,-so that instead of the vague and loose and general views that take no real or practical hold of a man, they were made precisely and distinctly to understand what the obligations are which lie upon each-what the things are, on the one hand, they owe to God; and what, on the other hand, the things are which the great God of heaven and earth has bound Himself to

VOL. VI.-Y

do for them, so that instead of this religion of ours floating before the eye of our mind in the form of a slight, shapeless, shadowy imagination, it shall be clearly apprehended by us as an express and definite scheme, both of what man is engaged by promise to do for God, and of what God is engaged by promise to do for man. We know of nothing better adapted for this purpose than to look at religion in the light and under the idea of a covenant; and as we have already said that this is the light in which it is regarded and often spoken of in Scripture, let us present you with a few specimens of this.

Numb. xxv. 12, 13.-"Wherefore say, Behold I give unto him my covenant of peace: and he shall have it, and his seed after him, even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood." This applies, no doubt, to a different covenant from that which obtains between God and us in the present day. Nevertheless I make the quotation because ours has the same characteristics with the covenant of these verses. Ours, too, is a covenant of peace, and the covenant of an everlasting priesthood.

Deut. iv. 23, 31.-"Take heed unto yourselves, lest ye forget the covenant of the Lord your God"-" for the Lord thy God is a merciful God: He will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers, which He sware unto them." Neither does this refer to our covenant; but I quote it notwithstanding; for neither must we forget our part of the covenant, and God, most assuredly, will not forget His; for ours, too, has the guarantee both of His word and His oath.

Deut. xxix. 12.-"Enter into covenant with the Lord thy God." This is a call on the Israelites, and the same call is upon us now, to enter into covenant with God.

Deut. xxix. 25.-"Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord God." Ours, too, is a covenant which if we forsake, wrath will come upon us, as it did upon the Israelites, to the uttermost.

Deut. xxxi. 20.-" Then will they turn unto other gods, and serve them, and provoke me, and break my covenant."