God himself, and has often been the means of averting his displeasure, not only from the individual himself, but from those over whom he mourns. When God was about to inflict a signal punishment on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, he issued a special order to spare those who were engaged in this exercise. "Go through the midst of the city, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh, and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof."* Whole nations may have been indebted for their preservation from ruin, to the seasonable flowing of these "rivers of waters" from the eyes of a few genuine mourners in Zion, who, obscure and despised as they may have been, must be ranked, on this account, as the truest patriots, and the best benefactors of their country. "Ungodly men," says a pious writer,† "though they meddle not with public affairs, or should they be faithful and honourable in meddling-yet by their impious lives they are traitors to the nation-the incendiaries of states and kingdoms. Godly men, though they can do no more than mourn for the sins of the nation, are the most loyal and serviceable subjects, bringing tears to quench the fire of wrath kindled by sin."

Let us

"Let these sayings sink down into your ears." all be deeply humbled in the sight of God. Let "the land mourn, every family apart."+ "Let every man be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger that we perish not ? " §

Let me close this subject with a few reflections.

1. How rare is this exercise, even among professing Christians! To the greater part of the world it is wholly unknown. As the men of the world are strangers to the joy peculiar to a godly man, so they cannot enter into the grounds of his sadHow can it be expected, when they never saw the criminality or turpitude of sin, which, to their vitiated taste, in

ness.

* Ezek. ix. 4. † Archbishop Leighton. Zech. xii. 12. § Jonah, iii. 8.

stead of being "an evil and bitter thing," is "a sweet morsel," which they "roll under their tongue ?" With them, the mourner for sin is either a hypocrite or an enthusiast-he either acts a part by affecting a sorrow which he does not feel, or he foolishly mars his own happiness by brooding over the representations of a gloomy imagination, and indulging the qualms of a sickly and distempered conscience. Thus it has been in every age. Thus it was with David, or rather a greater than David, who had to say, "When I wept and chastened my soul with fasting, that was to my reproach. I made sackloth also my garment; and I became a proverb unto them. They that sit in the gate speak against me; and I was the song of the drunkards." * This, though it stirs instead of abating their inward grief, induces them to restrain the expression of it in public, and to seek for secret places in which they may give it vent without provoking the reproaches and insolent contempt of them that are at ease in Zion. As in the context of the words I was quoting: "But as for me, my prayer is unto thee."

That those who never felt any love to God or his law should look strangely on the person who mourns and is in bitterness for it, is not to be wondered at. But there is a fact which comes nearer to us, and which may justly excite both surprise and alarm. How rare is the exercise of the Psalmist among those who profess godliness! Among those who have separated from the world lying in wickedness, and who testify against and condemn the abominations done in the midst of the land! How far short in this respect do those come whom we are bound in charity to look upon as Christians indeed! O'tis a rare thing to see a person weep for sin-but it is a rarer—much rarer thing to see one weeping and grieved for the sins of others! Where, oh where are those adown whose cheeks the tears of sorrow for sin flow? whose sore runs in the night, and whom neither bodily health, nor domestic enjoyments, no, nor the assurance of personal salvation, will comfort, while they see God's law broken, and his name every day blasphemed?

*Ps. lxix. 10-12.

God knows where they are :-they are his hidden ones, like the seven thousand in Israel, who were unknown to Elijah, and like the mourners in Jerusalem, who could be discovered, not by Ezekiel, but by "the man clothed in linen, with the writer's ink-horn by his side." * We have often read the words of the text, they are familiar to our ears, we acquiesce in them as a just description of the exercise of a saint. But what experience have we of the exercise which they describe, or, allowing them to be figurative, of the inward sentiment of which they are the natural sign? It is said that God puts the tears of his children into "his bottle."† Ah! my brethren, if the tears which we have shed for worldly trials were separated and set aside, and if those which we have shed under awakenings and compunctious visitings for our own transgressions were also separated and set aside, what would the residue be? The smallest phial in the apothecary's shop would more than suffice to hold it. It will be so far a favourable symptom, if we are convinced of our mournful failure in this matter, and grieved for the hardness of our hearts.

2. How much need is there for the renewing and softening influences of the divine Spirit! The exercise described in the text supposes, in relation to sin, a discerning eye, a tender conscience, and a full heart. But the heart of man by nature is, in regard to spiritual things, blind, insensible, and unfeeling. Even those who possess great natural sensibility, and who have tears in readiness for every earthly object of distress, have none to bestow on that which is the fruitful and malignant source of all the evils which have drowned the world in sorrow. They may feel at the commission of those gross vices which attach infamy to themselves or their connexions, or which entail visible misery on the culprit. But they feel not for sin for the dishonour it does to God, and the degradation and ruin which it brings on the rational and immortal soul. The hard and flinty heart must be struck by the rod of God's word, wielded by the hand of a greater prophet than Moses, before the waters of godly sorrow will flow from it;

and there is this difference between it and the rock in the neighbourhood of Horeb: the one needed to be struck only once; whereas the other requires repeated strokes of divine influence, in order to extract the treasure which is infused into, not inherent in it. Even the renewed heart is apt to return to its original obduracy, or to contract a callousness as to sin by its daily contact with it, unless this is subdued by the grace of God. It is true, our Saviour hath said, "He that believeth on me-out of his belly" (that is, out of his heart) "shall flow rivers of living water." But what says the Evangelist in explanation? "But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive."* Would we have the services of this day, would you have the word now spoken, to profit us, by leading us to mourn and be in bitterness for our sins, like David in the text, then let us look up, with faith and fervent desire, to him who promised to 66 pour on the house of David, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications."

* John, vii. 39.

SERMON XX.*

THE BETTER COUNTRY.

HEB. xi. 16.

"BUT NOW THEY DESIRE A BETTER COUNTRY, THAT IS, AN HEAVENLY."

It is not at all uncommon to meet with persons who desire a better country than that in which they were born and have long resided. Thousands have, within these few years, left our own shores, and traversed wide oceans to the west and the south, in quest of new abodes. In some cases, this has proceeded from the urgency of external circumstances, inducing them to seek support for their families in places less peopled, and where the means of subsistence are more easily procured. The stern law of necessity has obliged them to tear asunder the ties of country and kindred. More frequently, the emigrants have been actuated by a restless disposition, the love of novelty, a spirit of discontent with the institutions of their native land, or extravagant and visionary hopes of bettering their condition. But all, how different soever their motives, merely seek to exchange one spot of earth for another, and in this respect differ widely, or as we usually say, toto cœlo, from the persons described in our text, who "desire a better country, that is, an heavenly."

The inspired apostle is speaking immediately of the patriarchs. As an example of the power of faith, he adduces the conduct of Abraham, who left his native country, and went out, at the command of God, "not knowing whither he went,” and his

* Delivered January, 1835.