SERMON XXIX.

ISAIAH, Xxxii. 13.

Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briers; yea, upon all the houses of joy in the joyous city.

THERE are two parts of the Christian preacher's office, and both of them of very great usefulness. The first is, that he should expound the Scriptures; the second, that he should address his hearers on those things which concern them particularly; that is to say, on the particular faults which he may know them to be guilty of, on the particular temptations to which they are exposed, on those circumstances, whether in themselves or in their outward condition, which most affect their character, whether for good or for evil. No man would speak to his own children or household exactly in the same way that another man would speak to his; and this is, became there is in every family something more or less peculiar to them, so that what would suit another, would not exactly suit them. And this is one great advantage of a

resident minister,-that by living amongst the people and knowing them, by seeing and hearing their state, and their opinions and actions when out of the church, he may be able, when he speaks to them in the church, to tell them the very things which they most need, to give the right medicine which may restore health, because he knows not only the complaint, but also the general constitution of the patient.

This, however, a stranger cannot do. A man of whom you know nothing, and who knows nothing of you, cannot pretend to enter into the particular state of your souls, nor to fix on the particular sort of exhortation which you may most need. He must take the other part of the Christian minister's office, and that too not the least useful; he must endeavour to expound the Scriptures. For here, however little we may know of one another, we are all on common ground. The Scriptures were given to our fathers, and to us, and to our children after us; they are the learning which we all need, and which we can never understand too well. In one parish of England, as much as in another,-in one nation as much as in another,nay, in one part of the world as much as in another, the Scriptures are alike our common lesson. Yet, so rich are they in all the treasures of wisdom, that they contain what may satisfy the wants of one generation, and the different wants of another: they may be

most useful at one time of the world for one thing, at another time for another. I propose then, now, to explain to you, as well as I can, the first lesson of this evening service, and to dwell particularly on those points of it which seem to me to be of most concern to us in our present generation.

The first lesson of this evening was the thirtysecond chapter of Isaiah. I said just now, that there was so much in the Scriptures, that they could satisfy the different wants of different times;-and this is particularly true of the prophets. There is a great deal in all parts of Isaiah which relates to our Lord Jesus Christ: there are, indeed, to be found in it some of the most famous prophecies in the whole Bible. Now, in the beginning of the Gospel, when the Christians were disputing with the Jews and heathens, to show that Jesus was the Christ, they would use the Prophets mostly for their prophecies: they would turn to Isaiah, and read those passages in which the Spirit of Christ that was in him testified beforehand of the sufferings of Christ, and of the glory that should follow; they would, then, point out how exactly Christ's life and death had fulfilled those prophecies, and would thus prove from the Scriptures, that this was he of whom the prophets had spoken, the Messiah, who had been promised for many generations. This was the use which our fathers, in the beginning of the Gospel, made of the writings of the pro

phets; they turned to them as the best witnesses of Christ. And so they are rightly used by those good men in our own days, who make it their particular business to go to the heathen or to the Jew, and to turn them to the knowledge of Christ's salvation. But the prophets afford another use, which I think concerns us in these days,-us I mean who are living at home in our own country, amongst a people already named by the name of Christ,— which concerns us yet more nearly. The prophets spoke of things to come, it is true; but they spoke of things present also: they held up a light in a dark place, imperfectly understood in their own days, but bright and clear when the full day arose, of which they had obscurely spoken; but they also held up a light, a broad blazing light, to the men of their own times, which would never become clearer than it then was, and would be hardly ever again so clear. That is, they were teachers of righteousness to their own people: the sins which they reproved were the sins which they saw daily committed; the judgments which they threatened were the judgments which these sins would draw down; and, as this part of their task was more addressed to their own generation than to after ages, so it is most useful to those times and those nations which are most like the times when the prophets lived, and the state of the nation of Israel, to whom their word was spoken.

Now I think, that our times and our own nation more closely resemble the time of Isaiah's preaching, and the nation of Israel to whom he preached, than any other time or nation that could be named. The worship of God was established by law amongst the Israelites as it is amongst us: they and we are alike in this, that both professed, as a nation, to believe in and to worship the true God. They honoured God with their lips as a people, though their heart was far from him: and so, at this very day, through all the ten thousand parishes of this land, how many voices will have joined in our Christian services of prayer and praise, whose hearts to-morrow will go their several ways to their pride, their pleasure, their covetousness, and their selfishness, without any thought or love for Him whom their tongues so lately honoured! Israel, in the days of Isaiah, was full of great riches and great poverty,-great covetousness and luxury on one side, great misery and carelessness of God on the other. Who can look through this land at this moment, and not see the same state of things here? Israel, in the days of Isaiah, had those who measured things and actions not by the word of God, but by the custom of men ;-if practices were common and of long continuance, they were called by some honourable name, whether they were an abomination in the sight of God or no. So it is among us, when we