and in the field, if we desire to bear His image with us through the crowded and busy walks of life, and to recollect effectually that the universe is His temple, it is well that some portions of this vast whole should be divided and set apart in our ideas, as associated with customary piety, and unprofaned by secular mixtures.

Accordingly, even in the heathen world, “secernere sacra profanis," was accounted the duty of a king, while kings were yet the priests as well as leaders of their people. The rude stone altars of the ancient patriarchs, yea the very pillar of Luz, which this Jacob reared in memory of his glorious vision, were, by solemn prayer and by the pouring on of oil and wine, devoted to the thoughts of an invisible world and the service of the God of Abraham. The tabernacle first, and afterwards either temple, had their solemn feasts of dedication; and even in the latter days of the Jewish covenant, and when the temple of God in Jerusalem was so soon to be given up by its Heavenly King to that common destruction which chastised His rebellious subjects, we still see the Son of God, all gentle and gracious as was His usual character, aroused to a sense of wrath by the indignities offered to His Father's shrine; and on this provocation, and in this quarrel only, assuming to Himself the power of an earthly king, and inflicting on the corrupt guardians of the sanctuary the terrours of an earthly chastisement.

The God of the ancient patriarchs, the God of

the Jews, the God and Father of Him whose name we bear, is the God of the Christians still; human nature is still the same, and in us, no less than in them, it requires these outward appliances and associations, which attune the mind to a solemn and serious harmony, and enlist the senses on the side of the soul and its everlasting interests. The temple of God, which was soon to perish, was holy notwithstanding; and, while it lasted, the house of prayer, and of prayer only. The Church of God, which is to endure for ever, does this demand a less reverence at our hands? or is it not meet that these buildings, where that Church assembles to plume her wings and prepare her flight for her everlasting and Heavenly habitation, should, as the instruments of a more illustrious covenant than that of bulls and goats, receive at our hands a still humbler and more constant reverence?

It is for this cause, and fortified by this great example, that in the primitive Church, and in the humble but golden days of Christian zeal and courage, the tombs, the caves, the lowly and secret cells where the scattered congregations assembled to sing hymns to Christ, bear witness by their inscriptions, remaining at the present day, with how deep reverence they were approached, and with how solemn services they were appropriated to the honour of the Lamb, and to the memory of His saints and martyrs. It is for this cause, and encouraged by so vast a cloud of witnesses, that the more recent Church of Christ has continued to call down an

appropriate blessing on those temples which national or individual piety has reared to such holy purposes; and for this cause it is, and to no superstitious end, and, as we trust, from no presumptuous principle of will-worship, that we have this day offered the work of your munificence, in a public and solemn manner, to Him from whom we have received all things!

Let not him assume the name of Christian who is wilfully or willingly wanting in his token of respect to even the building thus hallowed by its destination; let not him lay claim to the character of a devout and rational worshipper, who forgets that, though God is every where, His blessing may be more largely given in one place than in another; and that no places can with greater propriety have hope of such a privilege, than those temples which are called after His name, and which have been repeatedly distinguished as the scene of His mercies!

Yea, rather, let the sense of the high privileges of which we are or may be partakers here; the communion with God which we here enjoy; the union with His Son, which through His body and blood we are not afraid to aspire to; the gift of the Holy Ghost, which our accepted though imperfect prayers may here obtain from the Giver of every good thing; inspire us to a reverence not only of the body but of the mind, a submission of ourselves to His holy will and pleasure, and an ardent longing after those celestial habitations where, not

through the dark glass of faith, or the long and dim perspective of hope deferred, but in the flesh shall we see that Lord, who now, though unseen by mortal eyes, is present to reward or punish us.

Where two or three, said Christ, are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them! "Surely God is in this place, though we behold Him not! How dreadful is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this the gate of Heaven!"

SERMON XIII.

SIN AND GRACE.

[Preached at St. Mary's, Madras, March 4, 1826.]

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ROMANS Vii. 24, 25.

Oh wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death! I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord!

A VERY touching and natural complaint is expressed, and a very seasonable and efficacious consolation afforded in the former and latter parts of this passage of Scripture, which contains, indeed, in very few words, a comprehensive and forcible view of the necessities and the hopes of a Christian. The natural misery of man is expressed in the heaviness of that sorrow which, when abstracted from the consideration of redemption through Christ, made St. Paul declare himself most wretched; and the merciful deliverance of man is no less warmly and gratefully acknowledged in that noble burst of rapture wherein he magnifies the favour bestowed on him, and thanks his God for his escape, through his crucified Lord and Saviour, from the body of death.

Without these distinct yet blended feelings; with