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NATIONAL CALAMITIES TIIF. FRUIT OF NATIONAL SINS.

A SERMON,

PEEACHED ON OCCASION OF THE NATIONAL FAST,
24th MARCH 1847,

BY THE

REV. WILLIAM DOW, A.

EDINBURGH:
R. GRANT & SON, 82 PRINCE'S STREET.
W. E. PAINTER, 342 STRANO, LONDON.
1847.

mm-

NATIONAL CALAMITIES TEE FRUIT OF NATIONAL SINS.

A SEfiMON,

PEEACHED ON OCCASION OF THE NATIONAL FAST,
24th MAECH 1847,

REV. WILLIAM DOW, A.M.

EDINBURGH:
R. GRANT & SON, 82 PRINCE'S STREET.
W. E. PAINTER, 342 STRAND, LONDON.
1847.

SERMON.

Amos iii. 6-8.
« Shall a trumpet be blown, in the city, and the people not be afraid % Shall
there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath not done it 2 Surely the Lord will
do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets. The
lion hath roared, who will not fear ? The Lord hath spoken, who can but
prophesy.'' ,
God has called for a famine upon the land — and he has sent it
upon the two chief kingdoms of Christendom, England and France.
They are the chief kingdoms of Christendom. They are the most
advanced among the nations. They have run before all the other
nations of Christendom in the movement of the day, in the prin
ciples of the time. In them is seen whither Christendom is tend
ing. Moreover, they are the two nations in which rulers and
people run together — speak together. Elsewhere the people speak
not, their voice is not asked, their heart is unknown. What is in
their heart, of good and evil is not known, does not disclose itself.
The heart of the ruler is the source of what is done. But in these
two kingdoms, all that is in the heart of the people speaks out,
ripens itself, whether it be good-or whether it be evil.
And in these two kingdoms men are dying for lack of bread.
It has not touched us personally yet. We have not even seen it
with our eyes as yet. But we know that there are thousands of
our fellow-men in this empire, who are dying because they have
not a morsel of bread to put in their mouths. They are shutting
themselves up in their houses, that they may die decently, and not
in the open field — that they may die under the eye of one another
—under the eye of one another's love, and not under the eye of
the stranger. Death overtakes one man at his labour, with the
tools which too late a charity has put into his hands. Another
faints by the wayside, gathers himself together there, and dies. It

has become a charity, a burdensome charity, to find interment for
the dead.
And to shew how truly the judgment is from the Lord, common
foresight has been awanting in the midst of abundant warnings.
The rulers, with every anxiety of their own hearts, and with all
ready help from a charitable nation, have been able to bring no
succour. And among the people themselves, counsel has perished ;
even the bands of morality have been broken up ; nothing but in
stinct remains. Only the other day, when a woman had gone out,
like the widow of Sarepta, to gather a few sticks, that she might
bake her last handful of meal, and eat her last crust of bread with
her two children before she died ; hungry men had come in and put
these two children to death before she returned, for that crust of
bread and that handful of meal. Men cannot carry supplies of
food to these destitute places, for fear of pillage and murder by the
way. Those who are sent to pay the wages of such as are willing
to work, are shot on the Queen's highway, under the broad light
of the sun.
Rarely — not in the memory of centuries, has a Christian land
seen such things as we, in the foremost, most privileged kingdom
of Christendom, are living in the midst of. And the outward
cause of it all, they say, is an invisible worm — a caterpillar, that
has lighted on the meanest article of human subsistence. So are
we crushed before the moth.
And there are who say, — It is no act of Divine Providence.
What so heinous sin have these men committed that they should
die ! 'Tis seldom the poor people and the humble labourers who
occupy the front ranks of wickedness. More often it is the rich,
and those who have all things at their command, — who have never
known the discipline of self-denial, nor seen their bread come to
them daily out of the hand of God — it is they who sin with a high
hand, and brave the judgments of the Almighty. Very true. But
these are personal sins, and this is not a personal judgment. This
is a national judgment. We have been called by our gracious
monarch to humble ourselves and afflict our souls for a national
judgment. " In the multitude of the people is the king's honour."
And shall hundreds of thousands of our fellow-subjects perish in a
few months, and any affirm that the nation is not smitten ? But
you reply, — And have these poor Irish and Highland peasants
committed the national sin ? Is it not our princes, and our lead
ers, our great men, and our men of money on whose nod the la-

bouring millions must hang ; is it not they who sin the national
sin ? Is it not our bold thinkers, and our busy writers, and our
eloquent orators, at whose door the sin is lying ? and yet the stroke
of God strikes not so much as one of them ?
I deny not what you say. I affirm it not ; neither will I dis
pute it. But I will tell you a little piece of history. " In a cer
tain heathen land there was great famine and distress, and they
made great offerings of sacrifice at their capital city. The first
Autumn they sacrificed. oxen, but the succeeding season was not
improved by it. The following Autumn they sacrificed men, but
the succeeding year Avas rather worse. The third year, when the
time came for offering sacrifices, a great multitude came to the city,
and they held consultations with each other, and all agreed that
the times of scarcity were on account of their king, and they re
solved to offer him, for good reasons, and to assault and kill him,
and sprinkle the altar of the gods with his blood ; and they did so."
But it is not written that they helped themselves thereby. These
were heathens, literal people, and what they thought they executed.
And we see in them the natural thoughts of men's wicked hearts.
So little is it for men to judge who it is that hath provoked God.
But I will remind you of another piece of history. " The anger
of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he moved David
against them, to say, Go, number Israel and Judah, And David's
heart smote him, after that he had numbered the people. And
David said unto the Lord, I have sinned greatly in that I have
done ; and now, I beseech thee, O Lord, take away the iniquity of
thy servant ; for I have done very foolishly. And when David
was up in the morning, the word of the Lord came unto the pro
phet Gad, David's seer, saying. Go and say unto David, Thus
saith the Lord, I offer thee three things ; choose thee one of them,
that I may do it unto thee. So Gad came to David, and told him,
and said unto him, Shall seven years of famine come unto thee in
thy land ? or wilt thou flee three months before thine enemies,
while they pursue thee ? or that there be three days pestilence in
thy land ? Now advise, and see what answer I shall return to
him that sent me. And David said unto Gad, I am in a-great
strait : let us fall now into the hand of the Lord ; for his mercies
are great ; and let me not fall into the hand of man. So the Lord
sent a pestilence upon Israel, from the morning even unto the time
appointed : and there died of the people, from Dan even to Beer-
sheba, seventy thousand men. And when the angel stretched out

his hand upon Jerusalem, to destroy it, the Lord repented him of
the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed the people, It is
enough : stay now thine hand. And David spake unto the Lord,
when he saw the angel that smote the people, and said, Lo I have
sinned, and I have done wickedly : but these sheep, what have
they done ? let thine hand, I pray thee, be against me, and against
my Father's house.'' These seventy thousand men were not the
sinners, perhaps they were the most innocent of all Israel, perhaps
they were men to whom to die was a deliverance and a blessing.
Yet their death was a divine judgment.
So God deals with nations. He treats a nation as one, as a
unit. He smites it by touching a part of it. His mercy guides
His judgment. If seventy thousand are to be slain, He smites not
the princes, and the counsellors, and the great men. He accepted
not David's offer of his life for that of his people. It is a final
judgment, a judgment without mercy, when God smites the heads
of it. If your counsellors, and your judges, and your mighty men,
are taken away, you may then understand that wrath has come
forth to the uttermost.
Why, only look. If but one wealthy man in a great city fail
— we shall suppose because fire has devoured his warehouses, or
the sea has swallowed up his merchantmen, or his haste to be rich
has involved him in a rash and ruinous speculation — if one wealthy
man in a great city fail, what whole streets, nay how many towns
and" villages, are, as it were, laid waste, and their inhabitants scat
tered for want of bread. Even when the poor man dies, though
no man regards it, yet there is a little circle of desolation for a
time. How much more, how incalculably more, must cruel deso
lation spread itself among thousands, if God lay low the heads of
a people. Even when a peasant's ehild is cut off, there is weep
ing and bitterness : how much more if the experienced counsellors,
and the ripened statesmen, and the wise judges, be taken away.
God mingles judgment with mercy,, and He treats a nation as
one. He is merciful to the nation, and if He can bring it to re
pentance by gentle means, He will use gentle means. If, by smit
ing the inferior members, He can teach that lesson which he would
have a nation to learn, He will smite the inferior members. He
will spare the greater till he can spare no longer. The men, as
individual men, are of precisely the same value, both one and other
are of more value than many sparrows. Not a hair falleth from
the head of one or other without Him. But He considers not the

individual, but the nation. He takes one individual rather than
the other, nay, he takes many individuals of one condition, rather
than a single individual of another condition, for the nation's sake.
It is not for the individual's sake, or because of the individual's
sin, that He is acting. He is seeking to bring a nation to repen
tance. He speaks loudly to a nation, by the death of thousands,
and the distress of millions. Perhaps he mingles consolations un
speakable in the cup, as it goes round to the individual persons
who are to be cut off. At the very moment that He is sending
an angel of destruction to rebuke a nation's pride, that boasting
may be put away, and oppression may cease ; perhaps — nay, did
we recollect the character of God, and did we suppose the Church
to be mindful of her duty of making prayers, and supplications,
and intercessions, and giving of thanks for all men, we might say —
probably — He carries grace, repentance, and remission of sins, and
hope, eternal sure hope, along with that slow cruel death, into
those poor huts, to many an humble heart, too glad to hide its
mortal clay in that grave which the Son of God himself has visited,
and shall despoil of its victory. Death is perhaps to them a boon,
a release from bitter bondage, a letting of the oppressed go free.
But to the nation it is a righteous judgment of God, meant to make
all hearts heavy, from which none should through mawkish sensi
bility turn away, which none should refuse to hear of, with which
none should fail to sympathize.
You say, what can we do ? Suppose we know all, what can we
do ? We have flung our few pieces of silver or of gold, as it hap
pened, into the common gathering for the distressed, and even then,
it seems uncertain whether it may have been to their benefit or to
their loss. And we are ready to meet in like manner again, and
still more largely if need be, the cry of their wretchedness. But
what more can we do ? Nothing more perhaps that you can do.
But if you will meekly look upon that calamity as a visitation of
God, and bow yourself under His hand, there is something that He
can do. He can bring you near to Himself, and make you see
every man the plague of his own heart. He can reason with you
about your selfish ways, and make you ashamed of living as you
have lived, for your own pleasure, and not for the pleasure of Him
who made you. He can quicken your sleeping consciences, and
make you see that your sins are as scarlet, though you may have
been thinking well of yourselves ; and that you have been grieving
the Holy Spirit, wherewith you were sealed unto the day of re-

8
demption, while you thought yourselves very good men and very
zealous men, spiritually rich and increased in goods, and in
need of nothing. And if we will all thus suffer our hearts to he
affected by these calamities that are befalling our nation ; what
gracious lessons of truth, and of rebuke, and of repentance, may
not God be able to teach to this land of Great Britain, which in
deed is the glory of all lands, and the nation unto which all other
nations on the face of the earth are stretching out the hopeful or
the envious eye, waiting for her smiles, or watching for her fall !
It is no private man's task to tell a nation her sins. The church
is the prophet, and God will do nothing, but He revealeth His
secret unto the prophetic ear of a faithful church. Let her read
and interpret the handwriting that is on the wall. It is no pri
vate man's task to tell a nation her sins ; and he who is called
thereto would need a heart and a tongue touched by Him who
wept over Jerusalem ; for who can talk savingly of sin, but he who
is a messenger of mercy, or how shall you tell a people of their ini
quity, unless you come saying, " though your sins be as scarlet
they shall be white as snow, though they be red like crimson they
shall be as wool."
But evils there are which need no prophet's eye, written in
broad characters before the face of every observer, that may well
appal a heart that fears God in this land. We are great and
mighty, prosperous and rich ; from this little spot our dominion
has spread, until no region of the habitable world is untouched by
it ; hither come the productions of all the earth, and we can com
mand the precious things of every land. And do we give God the
thanks ? Do we ascribe it to His sovereign will ? Do we ask,
What is His purpose ? Perhaps — we boast of our wisdom, of our
industry, of our strength, of our invention. Having this great
ness do we hold it all for God ? When Abraham was enriched he
gave tithes of all to God. When Jacob vowed a vow to God, he
said he would honour Him with a tithe. Wherewith have we ho
noured Him ? As we have grown rich, and for a good century
increased to a maximum of wealth and power such as the world
never saw, untd our hand is withheld from no imaginable achieve
ment ; perhaps — we have fixed on the comparative poverty of our
forefathers as determining the never to be changed maximum of
tithe with which God shall be acknowledged by us, as the giver of
all things, and the possessor of heaven and earth.
Nay, in place of acknowledging God in all things, has not a certain

impious boldness possessed some men, and a certain godless timi
dity crept upon others, so that the former have broached, and the
latter have been glad of, the doctrine, that God has to do with in
dividuals only, and with individual men's consciences; that Christ
has to do with spiritual and religious affairs, but that He has no
thing to do with secular affairs, with men's business in the world,
and most of all, He has nothing to do with the legislation of a great
commercial republic, and with the management of international
affairs. Is there not prescribed a principle of neutrality and in
differentism to this or that religious creed, to religion or the ab
sence of religion — indifferentism to truth or falsehood, as if truth
had never yet been re\*ealed, and human life must yet be groped
almost irresponsibly through darkness and chance. Where is the
statesman that will take the helm of public affairs, ever again in
this nation, with the zeal of a man that is jealous for God. Or if
he do take it, shall the nation endure him. We are a people, in
the largest, most developed sense. God has given us that difficult,
dangerous, and most responsible condition of political being, in
which we are all from time to time called upon to say our yea or
nay to the principles of our rulers and legislators. Responsibility
to God is not concentrated upon one or a few heads, but spread
over the whole population. We have not merely godly rulers or
ungodly, believing princes or infidel, legislators who care for truth
or who despise it. If they who counsel our Queen be at any time
godly men, we have each our fractional power of saying whether
we wish that to continue. If at any time they shall deny that
the monarch rules for Jesus Christ and is answerable to Him, we
have again our opportunity of saying whether we approve of that.
And what has this land, by frequent unquestionable majorities,
by clear, decided, unmistakeable utterances, declared— ^-For Christ ?
for absence of Christ ? — Rule for Christ ? or rule for the people ?
I come not to accuse, and I will leave the answer to yourselves.
Is every soul subject to the higher powers, because the powers
that be are ordained of God ? or are men not ashamed to speak
evil of dignities, and do they desire to have all forms of institu
tion, and all laws, made the subject and the result of general dis
cussion, national judgment, and popular will ; as if rule that came
not down from God, could uphold men in the fulfilment of God's
will, and lift them into the region where His benediction abides :
as if a rule that came not down from God, and that refers not it
self to God, could be anything but the law of the strong and the

10
many, of the cleverest and the boldest, not of the few, wisest, and
best, and therefore a mere tyranny : a tyranny such as not even
savages lie under ; for they are faithful to certain traditions^ more
or less divine, that have come down to them from earliest times :
but such only as can befall a nation, which, having had Christi
anity for its light, has refused to let it shine any longer, and which
therefore, has nothing but the darkness of a fallen intellect, and of
an apostate heart, to fall back upon. Are not we loving the liberty
to choose this darkness, as if that liberty were more precious than
the light itself ? And so, failing to hold the truth in the love of
it, are not we tempting God to send us strong delusion to believe
a lie ? For, shall no stars arise in that darkness ? Shall the stars
that have fallen from heaven, and the " wandering stars to whom
is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever ;" — shall Satan not
cause them to shine in it ? Is every thing become merely natu
ral, because we have become merely natural ? Is the supernatural
gone, because we believe not in it ? Are there no spirits, because
we have become Sadducees ? Do we stand here in the midst of
God's creation, material and spiritual, ourselves partaking of both
matter and spirit, independent of it, untouchable by it, causing
matter to obey and serve us, to fulfil our pleasure, and to an
swer our demands, and we obedient to none, answering the de
mands of none ; liable to no actions and no impulses of spiritual
powers ? Or is the snare of the Devil still at hand for the proud
to fall into, and is not he that lyeth in wait to deceive, gliding
around us with his serpent beauty, beguiling us with his subtilty,
and stealing into our hearts with that lie from whose consequences
no Saviour shall ever redeem ?
What is government without Christ ? Is it a neutral thing ?
Where Christ is put out does no one come in ? What, then, are
those seven spirits worse than the first, which enter into the empty,
cleansed man ? Has the political man, I mean the aggregate poli
tical man, no such spiritual chamber that must have an inhabi
tant from God's right hand, or — from Hell ? Is it not out of the
heart of the political, as of the individual man, that proceed evil
thoughts and good, wholesome laws and ruinous ones, truth or lies,
blasphemies or the fear of God ? Yes, verily, the political man
has a spirit as well as an intellect, and that spirit is either indwelt
of the Holy Ghost, or wide flung open to the hosts of unclean
spirits. That power that shall stand up over the Christian na
tions, and whose perfection of wisdom, and comeliness of organiza-

11
tion, whose flatteries and promises, whose might and fulfilment of
his word, shall deceive every soul of man on the face of Christen
dom, save the elect alone — that power is the ripened fruit of man,
after Christianity has cultivated him, and he has bid Christ stand
out of the way ; after Christianity has exalted him, and enlarged
him, and the Dragon dwells and speaks where the Holy Ghost
should have spoken and dwelt. Is not that the meaning of those
premonitory words : " And then shall that Wicked be revealed,
whom God shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall
destroy with the brightness of His coming : Even him whose com
ing is after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and
lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in
them that perish ; because they received not the love of the truth
that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send
them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie ; that they all
might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in
unrighteousness."* It maybe, — God has been teaching us, lest we as a nation should
be betrayed into this destruction. A moth hath crushed you.
And how shall you stand before that Spirit ? Your wisdom, your
science has failed you, with its microscopes and its maxims of eco
nomy — it has brought no healing. Shall your wisdom avail you
against that caterpillar that shall alight upon your hearts, and fill
you with the rottenness of spiritual delusion ?
Oh ! brethren, do we not hear the voice of that deceitful one
already? Do we not meet with it everywhere, in books, in con
versation, from the mouth of the public declaimer, from the mouth
of the private friend ? They know not what they speak. They
know not what light they follow, or where it comes from. It may
be God has given us this warning, that we may all consider our ways,
and take heed what manner of spirit we are of.
And shall not many escape — many who know not what they say ?
It is vain to reason with them. Some, a wicked heart that chooseth
the lie hath deceived. Some, their very uprightness and hatred of
hypocrisy has ensnared. Some have been carried away by their just,
yet blind, resentment against power, which, proceeding from God,
acknowledged not Christ, keeps not itself for Christ, oppresses
the meek, scorns the widow's prayer, and maketh sad the hearts of
those whom God would not make sad. In all these ways, and a
* 2 Thes. ii. 8-12

12
thousand others, which have made plausible to unforewarned men
the beginnings of the delusion, the delusion hath crept in — now,
stalks in with ever increasing persuasiveness. And you cannot
reason with the men that are possessed of it. They are in a region
where you cannot touch them. Your first principles of all thought,
and their first principles, are absolutely diverse. Their science is
clear, demonstrable — clear as the voice of a perfect musical instru
ment. Yours is to them inarticulate wind. They have asssigned to
their god his region, and you are babbling to them of God in a re
gion where they have settled that there is none. And what is more,
Satan speaketh by them, although they know it not. Arguments
are nothing against him. You may break a flint, but you cannot
break a way into their hearts. The sword of him that layeth at
them cannot hold, the arrow cannot make them flee, they laugh at
the shaking of your spear. Because they are of him whom the
Lord hath reserved it for Himself to consume with the spirit of
His mouth, and destroy with the brightness of His coming. Yet
how many of such simple ones shall be delivered from their pride
and from their peril, by the prayers of such as be broken-hearted?
For, He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kind
ness, and repeuteth Him of the evil.
Shall I speak of social life ? You are all complaining of the
dissolution of its ties. Selfishness has come down with a pres
sure of unreasonable exactions. Selfishness has made even the
reasonable requirements of duty intolerable. A bondage, hard and
cruel as that of Egypt, is weighing upon all men. They are crea
tures of a system, victims under a system, which no individual pre
sides over, and which no individual can resist. The haste to be
rich has shot up a few mushroom princes, and sent thousands of
honest men to crowd together in garrets, and hide themselves in
cellars. Men lift not up the hands that hang down, nor strengthen
the feeble knees, but they jostle one another, crush one another,
tread one another down. Competition is the grand principle of all
human life, and takes the place of the weightier matters of the
law, judgment, mercy, and fidelity. They have no time to judge
the fatherless, or plead for the widow. As the wages of the indus
trious are often paid with a drawback and a grudge, so charity is
made as nearly penal as it can be made ; and the pittance of the in
firm, the orphan, the destitute, is reckoned judicious according as
it is insufficient — and that in this your proud city, the proudest of
its religion in all the world.

13
Or shall I speak of the domestic life ? Is there unity there,
protection and guidance of the weaker by the stronger — reve
rence of the weaker for the stronger ? Or is the family also a
scene of separate interests, and of mutual jostlings ; God's wisdom
and intention therein not seen ; every member transacting apart
and independently with God and with man, and expecting no com
mon blessing through the common head, of husband, father, master,
whom God hath ordained over it ? And your children, what shall
we say of them ? Are they brought up as the children of God ?
Are they so looked upon ? Are they taught so to look upon them
selves ? Are they kept of you their parents, for that unto which
you have committed them in their baptism ? Nay — they are allow
ed to consider themselves loose to the baptismal vow. Entitled to
choose for themselves, with nothing to renounce, with no precious
relationship to God or gift of eternal life to lose. Not directed to
give their dutiful consent to that act, in which you brought them
to be made heirs of the only good inheritance which you could help
them to, as immortal subjects of the divine government ; but kept
there at the porch of Christianity, taught to inquire for themselves,
to judge for themselves, to make free choice for themselves ; as though
the question was after all doubtful at best, and as if no one could be
a sound believer who had not first endured all the trials and miseries
of the sceptic. And this is called education of Christian children !
And because this is their education, therefore the children do not
behave as Christian children. They take the liberty which you
leave them. They are not as the Jewish children, who were to be
taught by their parents all the statutes of the Lord as most certain
things, and have the passover and all other feasts explained to
them by their parents, as they sat in the house, and as they walk
ed by the way. They have not enjoyed that privilege. But they
are all to be converted and Christianized over again, as a new, al
most pagan generation. They are not sanctified from their in
fancy, but are quenchers and resistors of the Holy Ghost from their
infancy ; and are expected to be so. They are not taught that their
sin is, that they have broken the bands of Christ, and grieved the
Spirit of God. But they are told that all Christians should pass
through the distinct throes of a conversion from darkness unto
light, and that the rare exception, the abnormal condition, is the
being sanctified from before the dawn of their recollection. They
are not told that they have been already separated from the life of
fallen flesh and from Satan, and that they should never have been

14
found within his kingdom. But instead, a Christian path is given
them  in books of devotion — in sermons — in the whole popular
Christian instruction — a Christian path is pointed out, along which
they are to tread, and the first step on that path they cannot
take, without being tempted to reckon their baptism a nullity, its
vows not binding, its words, and acts, and element, a sacred for
mality. Thus far we have spoken of our human conditions and relation
ships. And what shall we say of the Church, which has been espoused
as a chaste virgin unto Christ ; and has been made to sit in the
heavenly places ; sealed by Him with the Holy Spirit of promise ;
taught to sorrow during His absence ; and to wait for his appear
ing ; set, the light of the world, and the salt of the earth. She •
should have been the handmaid of Jesus, filled with the secret of
his counsel ; having his mind ; out of his treasure bringing forth
things new and old ; keeping the world in remembrance that He is
a prince and a Saviour; and that all power is given unto Him in
heaven and in earth ; dispensing his grace ; holding forth his salva
tion ; encouraging all men to return and to cleave unto God : the
admonisher of prince and of peasant ; the pattern of order and go
vernment ; the example of peace, unity, charity, holiness, superio
rity to the world, heavenliness of mind, steadfastness, faith.
And has she made herself the handmaid of men — coveted their
gifts — courted their favour — spoken or been silent at their plea
sure and their bidding ? Has she permitted their bribes to blind her
eyes, and to pervert her words from righteousness, qualifying and
diluting heavenly truth for earthly minds ? Has she sat down on
earthly thrones, and made herself a kingdom without waiting for
her Lord ? Has she left her high duty, that she might wait on the
behests of influential men, allowing them to bid and to forbid in
the house of God, giving way to their wilfulness, dishonouring her
Head by bowing down to them ? Has she, elsewhere, intruded her
self into temporal command, and made herself a judge and divider
where her Lord had refused to become so ? Has she within herself
presented a scene of division, distraction, intolerance, violence,
murmuring, variance, hatred ; — breaking her very self into many
pieces, and existing no more except in divisions named after men,
or after some favourite morsel of truth ; bringing all divine cer
tainties into uncertainty again, ministering to the world questions
only — distracting questions, instead of the truth that cleanses and

15
unites, keeping the world in darkness concerning God, and igno
rance of His revealed purpose in Jesus Christ ?
Which of these is the state of the Church ? I speak not of the
Church of Scotland. I would withdraw your thoughts from your
little spot and its doings. He that sitteth at the right hand of God
is looking upon all. He is looking upon His Church, and we
should enlarge ourselves to behold the condition of the Church,
with something of His mind in us.
And this judgment is lying upon the two chief nations of Chris
tendom, that the whole Church may be admonished and brought to
repentance thereby ; that everywhere, she may consider her ways ;
that she may lament, as a virgin girded with sackcloth, for the
husband of her youth ; that the priests, the ministers of the Lord,
may weep — and say, " Spare thy people 0 Lord, and give not thine
heritage to reproach :" that everywhere a repentant people may be
found to whom the Lord may return.
For your part, dear brethren, be helpers unto this blessed re
sult, that heavier judgments may be spared, and that we may not
find ourselves visited with that immeasurably more terrible famine
— the famine of hearing the words of the Lord.

EDINBURGH : MACPHERSON & SYME, PRINTERS,
31 East Roue Lane.