you.

act as a child of God should do, he is no fit companion for Give him up at once and for ever. It may be a hard trial, but your soul is the stake at issue. Young females especially, take my warning. Often has the sun risen on one in early life, artless and unsuspecting, gay of heart and light of step, radiant of all which health and gentle affections and sanguine hopes could offer to the imagination; and before that sun had set, in some moment of guilty weakness, honour, happiness, peace of mind, and every fond anticipation have been swept away; and a dark and black night, which no morrow shall dissipate, has suddenly closed in, and shut out every earthly prospect.

But in this perilous world, there is the most sure promise of the help of the Lord to the tried and the tempted. "Call upon me in the time of trouble, so will I hear thee." There is no trouble like sipritual trouble, which so besets the tried and the tempted, nor is there any in which the Lord is more certainly present to help and to deliver. In spiritual trouble, then, call upon Him in the sincerity of your heart, and He will make a way for you to escape. The immediate agent of God's mercies is the Holy Spirit, imparted to you in your Baptism. Jesus calls Him the Comforter, and you will often need his consolations. We go to the world, alas! for pleasure ; but no one goes to the world for comfort. None can comfort a restless soul or an aching heart but God, and He never refuses to comfort those who come to Him. He has told us that we are to come to him

through Jesus Christ, and that only Mediator has promised access to Himself through prayer and the ordinances of His Church. In all these things you have been already instructed. Come, then, and in your own person renew your baptismal vows at the solemn rite of Confirmation. Then will you be entitled to the highest privilege, as well as to the most special means of grace which the goodness of God has provided for you; namely, a participation in the Communion of the Body and Blood of our Master and only Saviour Jesus Christ, those holy mysteries which He has instituted and ordained "as pledges of His love, and for a continual remembrance of His death, to our great and endless comfort."

THE UNITY OF THE CHURCH.

Preached August 13th, 1844.

66

'Jerusalem is built as a city: that is at unity in itself. For thither the tribes go up, even the tribes of the Lord to testify unto Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the Lord. O pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee." -Psalm cxxii. 3, 4, 6.

THE psalm from which I have taken my text is singularly beautiful, if considered only with reference to its primary intention. We are to represent to ourselves the tribes of Israel going up at one of the stated periods to join together in public worship within the Tabernacle or the Temple at Jerusalem. And when assembled there, we may imagine to ourselves such a choir as that mentioned in Chronicles, when the singers,

arrayed in white linen, having cymbals and psalteries and harps, stood at the east end of the altar, and with them an hundred and twenty priests sounding with trumpets ;" and, "as the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the Lord," "they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of music, and praised the Lord," in the words of this psalm, the subject of which is the union and unity of the Church

C

and nation, and the burden of it "peace" and "plenteousness," and "prosperity" to Jerusalem, "for their brethren and companions' sake, and for the love which they bore to" the House of the Lord their God," who had thus consented in a peculiar manner to dwell among men. But it is in their spiritual sense and interpretation that the outpourings of the sweet Psalmist of Israel are so valuable; and, like him, we must raise our thoughts and desires and the holiest of our aspirations to that future state of the Church, where only neither sin nor schism nor death can interrupt her union or her unity. Sweet and comforting it is, as many a worn and wounded soul can tell, to go up to the courts of the Lord's house here below, and there pour forth confessions of sin, and vows of repentance, and professions of faith, and supplications for mercy and grace and forgiveness, and there receive some inward assurances of divine support and assistance; but she feels all the while that she is again to return to a scene of worldly sorrows and spiritual conflicts, and she can find no enduring comfort or refreshment beneath the weariness of the day and the watchfulness of the night, until she mounts on the wings of faith, and sees in her trance some such sight as the beloved disciple describes in his vision: "I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their

God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain for the former things are passed away."

But it is with the Church here below that we have at present our portion; for her peace and prosperity we must labour and pray; and to her I must now confine my further remarks on the subject of my text, and on the occasion on which I am now addressing you. I shall, then, consider Jerusalem as a type of the Church of Christ militant upon earth, and I propose to say something :

First, on the subject of her unity: "Jerusalem is built as a city, that is at unity in itself."

Secondly, on the duty incumbent upon all her members to pray for, and, as far as in them lies, to promote her peace, and increase her usefulness: "O pray for the peace of Jerusalem."

Lastly, on the blessing promised to those who do pray and labour for her: "They shall prosper that love thee."

I. Let us take a hasty survey of the Church from the beginning, and we shall see how God has at all times provided for her unity, severed her from all besides, given her to be a light of the world, and set her on high, like a city on a hill, that none who sought her could miss her. Once her unity was perfect, and then the whole creation, which groaneth and