tend to it, as that in which we are deeply con- | cerned.

I. What is meant by the good ground? St. Luke calls it an honest and good heart;" but whence can this come? "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked;" it therefore can come from none but the Holy Spirit alone. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above." Is there not then a real change wrought in the heart and nature of every true Christian? True faith can spring only from a regenerate heart; and "without faith it is impossible to please God": "Ye must," therefore, "be born again." "To as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God; who were born not of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." But let us not forget that "it is God who worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure;" and then we "work out our salvation with fear and trembling." He first produces in us the will; and then the will stirs up to active, persevering diligence. Therefore, while we say that "the preparation of the heart is of the Lord," let us beseech him by earnest prayer to grant this inestimable blessing to us; for, surely, to hold it as a notion that I must have my heart changed before I can be fitted for heaven, and to know that God alone can do it for me, and then not to come to him that he may change it, is the greatest absurdity that ever disgraced a human creature. "Create in me a clean heart, O Lord."

If we truly desire to profit by the word of God, we shall seek this "honest and good heart" by fervent prayer; we shall watch against all hindrances, and separate from all company or employment which has a tendency to stupify the heart; and, while we give all the glory to God, we shall be diligent in the use of every means of grace.

being taught of God; and, when revelation is set before us, it causes us to bow our reason to the word of God, and to receive with implicit credence the truth as stated in the scripture. It is this humility connected with an earnest search after truth. "Buy the truth and sell it not": "with all thy getting, get understanding;" and David says, "Give me understanding, that I may keep thy law." There is likewise a willingness to fol low the truth, to give up every thing for it, to avoid every prejudice; and, when it is found, a care to keep it: "Take fast hold of instruction, let her not go: keep her; for she is thy life.” A sincere regard and fear of God, an earnest cry, "What must I do to be saved?" are implied in this honest and good heart.

But, as more will appear to this purpose as we proceed, I shall conclude this part of the subject with citing a few passages of scripture. "If any man will do the will of God, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God, or whether men speak of themselves." This is a desire to know the will of God that we may do it. O that we might hope that such a congregation as this were like those who assembled at Cornelius's house to hear Peter: "Now therefore we are all here present before God, to hear all things that are commanded thee of God." I would now, therefore, refer you to St. James's epistle, i. 19 and following verses: "Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for of God. Wherefore lay apart all malice and superfluity of naughtiness; and receive with meeksouls, &c. ness the ingrafted word, which is able to save your "Wherefore, laying aside all malice, and all guile and hypocrisies, and envies, and evilmilk of the word, that ye may grow thereby; if speakings, as new born babes desire the sincere (1 Pet. ii. 1-3.) This is the honest and good have tasted that the Lord is gracious." tilled field is to receive seed. Therefore let u heart, prepared to receive the word, as the wellpray for this preparation of heart while, we proceed,

so be

ye

But wherein does this honest and good heart consist?

It consists in a deep sense of the importance and value of the favour of God, and a fear of his wrath, as influencing the practice. Can we look around on the inhabitants of London, or even on our congregations, and say that they are thus impressed? No, the case is lamentably the contrary! "God is not in all their thoughts." It implies a realizing view of the eternal state, and the comparative vanity and worthlessness of all worldly things. What is pain, what is poverty, which are but for a moment, when compared with eternity?

Again, it implies an humble sense of our own weakness, ignorance, and need of divine teaching. "Except a man receive the kingdom of heaven as a little child, he shall in nowise enter therein." A consciousness of our ignorance and danger of being misled makes us willing and desirous of

II. To consider how he receives the seed. 1. He understands it. We observed that the

this man hears it, with prayer to God that he would open his understanding, that he may understand it. But what is the reason that men do not under stand it? Is it because it is difficult to compre hend? No: "we use great plainness of speech." If we were to tell them the way to grow rich half as clearly, they would readily take our meaning: but the true reason is that they have not a will to understand; they have no desire after this spi ritual knowledge. This man, on the contrary, "seeks for it as for hid treasure." If you would wish to understand what you hear, imitate the disciples, who, when Christ had spoken this parable, and had sent the multitudes away, went to him privately, and asked him the meaning of it. So, when you have been hearing or reading the word af God, go to him, and with earnest prayer be seech him to enable you to understand it. This man longs to understand it; therefore he pray that he may be enabled so to do. O, if we did but more earnestly desire to know the truth as it

is in Jesus, we should not be so dull and stupid as

we are.

He understands it, therefore, as a manifestation of the character and perfections of God, of man's relations and obligations to God as his Creator and Preserver, of the lost and ruined condition of man kind as sinners and justly deserving the wrath of God, of their helplessness and need of a Saviour. He understands it as a revelation of mercy through Christ Jesus, and as an invitation to come and partake of it: "Ho! every one that thirsteth, come and take water of the water of life freely." He understands it as a command to repent and turn from his evil ways, and to "return to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." He hears it as a call to "draw nigh to God," to walk with him, to separate from sin and sinners. For we are to be purified a peculiar people, zealous of good works." It is evident that, if it were not for the enmity of the human heart, this might be easily understood by all.

2. When he understands it, he then receives it. There are many who understand the doctrines of the gospel, who nevertheless hate it: the pride and carnality of their hearts and the love of the world rise in opposition to them. But, where this honest and good heart is, there is a suitableness and disposition in the mind to receive the word, and to be instructed by it. He receives its awful warnings and threatenings, and says with David, "My flesh trembleth for fear of thee, and I am afraid of thy righteous judgments." Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord; for in thy sight shall no man living be justified. He acknowledges his depravity by nature: "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me." He examines the doctrines, and says, "God has spoken them; and I believe them." He receives the invitations, the promises, the commandments, as the warnings and threatenings of scripture, as the word of God. He receives Christ Jesus in all his characters, as "made unto us wisdom, rightteousness, sanctification, and redemption": he lives on him by faith, and desires to glorify his name, to live no longer to himself, but to him that died for him and rose again.

3. Having received the word, he keeps it. It is not like water poured into a sieve; which seems to have been the apostle's idea when he says, "Wherefore let us give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip," or run out, as the word implies. He examines the scriptures, like the Bereans, to "see whether things be so or not"; and desires to be confirmed and established in the truth. He lays it up in his heart by prayer, meditation, and study: he accounts the word of God to be his treasure. He receives the truth in the love thereof, and esteems it the delight of his heart. It is the rock on which he builds all his hopes, for time aud eternity: it is the balance in which he weighs everything: it is his rule, by which he measures all his actions: by it he "distinguishes things that differ." "He hides it therefore in his heart." "Thy testimonies, O Lord, are my heritage for ever." They are "the light of his fect, and the lantern of his paths," and the source of all his comfort: "O how I love thy law!" "it is sweeter than honey and the honeycomb; moreover,

by them is thy servant warned, and in keeping them there is great reward." The word is received into his heart, as the graft is into the tree : it produces an entire change in the very nature of it: his heart is now purified; and, in proportion as this is the case, the world sinks in his estimation. Those things which he before valued and delighted in, he now hates and dreads. He has now new hopes, new fears, new joys, new sorrows: an entire renovation has taken place in his soul: "old things are passed away; and, behold, all things are be come new."

III. I shall endeavour to show the manner in which the good ground bringeth forth fruit: it is "with patience."

Why do men so eagerly pursue the world? Because they are worldly-minded. So the true believer pursues spiritual things because he is spiritually-minded: he seeks them as naturally as others do worldly things; his "affections are set on things above": he makes heavenly things his object, and seeks them in a heavenly manner. Then, when he has felt the blessings of the gospel in his own soul, he says, "What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits?" how shall I bring others to share the same happiness? He will endeavour to show forth the excellency of religion in his life and conversation. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart; and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand; and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thine house, and upon thy gates." Such is the rule by which he desires to "order his conversation"; and thus "his mouth is like a tree of life." He "exercises himself to have a conscience void of offence toward God and toward man:" he endeavours" to adorn the doctrine of God his Saviour in all things." There will be honesty and integrity in all his dealings. He will aim to glorify God in his family, in his business and situation. He will, like Abraham, be instructing and "commanding his children and his household after him," that they too may hand down the blessing to their posterity. The glory of God and the good of mankind are his grand object; and he will be earnestly inquiring in what way he may best promote them. "The fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth." (Eph. v. 9; James iii. 17.) His tongue, his tempers, his passions are all brought into subjection.

What a blessing is such a man to his family, to the church, and to the community at large! "I will bless thee," said God to Abraham; "and thou shalt be a blessing." Let us observe then that nothing will be accepted by the Lord as good fruit, which has not the glory of God, and the good of mankind for its primary object.

There are degrees of fruitfulness, "some an hundred, some sixty, and some thirty fold;" but it is a constant rule that, the more fruitful any one is, so much the more joyful and comfortable. The apostle prays for his beloved Philippians, "that their love may abound yet more and more in know

sovereignty of the King of kings has been written on the forehead of all our national undertakings. Our queen reigns over us, not only by the will of her people, but "by the grace of God." The name of Christ and the voice of prayer are yet essential preliminaries to the consultations of our senate; and the stranger from a far country is reminded upon his entrance into our halls of merchandize, that "the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof."

Doubtless profession is worse than vain, unless it be followed by a real obedience*. It is not the patchwork of mere empty phrases, nor the prominence given to a few religious notions, which must vindicate our title to be a righteous nation." Here, as in the case of individuals, there may be rottenness concealed beneath a "name to live ;" and "faith, if it have not works, is dead being alone. But I believe that it may with truth be affirmed, together with a deep consciousness of our sins and shortcomings, that our national allegiance to the Most High is something more than a matter of ostentatious profession. Not for our merit's sake, but in his own mercy, the Lord hath made us to differ from other lands, by setting up among us the candlestick of his saving truth, and enshrining it in the convictions and affections of all classes of the community.

The kingship of Christ, my brethren,

was

then asserted and vindicated for us, when, at the blessed Reformation, "the man of sin" was deposed from his usurped jurisdiction, and our sovereign was recognized, no longer as a tributary of papal Rome; but, as the Lord's anointed, the defender of our faith, "over all persons, and in all causes, ecclesiastical as well as civil" (under God), "independent, and supreme within these her dominions.' And late events have shown that, whatever may be the infatuation of some miserable exceptions, the heart of the nation is still beating true, in loyal attachment to the faith and the freedom of our forefathers. We do not repent of the good confession which they witnessed for us three centuries ago. We still stand out before the nations as a protestant and a bible-loving people. "The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we rejoice." We own that his blessing hath made us great; and we are willing that he should yet remain "our Law-giver, our Judge, and our King," and that our tents should continue to surround his tabernacle.

II. And our text discovers to us the high vantage-ground on which this our profession

* See Birks' "Christian State."

places us; for we pass on to remark in the second place upon the prayerful confidence which it expresses of the Lord's covenanted protection. The people, that can with truth affirm, that the Lord Jehovah is its "King," may anticipate without presumption that he will "command deliverances for Jacob." Immunity from all danger, the occurrence of no seasons of perplexity, that the tide of peace and of plenty should always roll on unruffled by even the breath of adverse appearances this we may not calculate upon. Our national privileges will not avert the penalties of our national sins; rather they will make our chastisement the surer: "You only have I known," said God to Israel, "of all the families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities" (Amos iii. 2). And, as I have said before, the very prominence of our position, the very brilliancy of our national successes, must, in the nature of things, expose us to danger.

And danger, my brethren, it becomes us manfully to provide against. It is a mistaken pietism which looks for miracles, and neg lects the means. While Moses is on the mount, there must be Joshua on the plain, if we would that Amalek should be discomfited before us. Our privilege is this, that as a Christian people we may "set up our banners in the name of our God;" that in all times of our trouble, as in all times of our wealth, we may plead his promise, and call in bis favourable presence. We know that so it has been on past occasions of our history. The tempests that have loomed around us have suddenly been dispersed. "The Lord hath breathed; and our enemies were scattered." Surely, if the words of Moses have any present application, it is to our selves, men and brethren. "What nation is there so great, that hath God so nigh unto them, as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon him for?" O let us im prove the privilege! let us learn to rest upon this sure defence, this present help, this strong salvation! Let us do what we can, as we love our country, to strengthen the cords which bind her to the altar of her God, that his name may ever be our boast, and that she may be "exalted in righteousness."

This, and this alone, is the pledge of peace, the charter of prosperity. The "wisdom of this world" is but a fallible interpreter of the signs of the times. Twelve months ago, and we were ushering in, we thought, the bro therhood of universal man; and now we are fences! Let us mark the contrast, and heed engrossed in the business of our national de the lesson which it reads to us. It is man who proposes, but it is God that disposes.