not in the persons of the widow and the orphan. Ye have come hither to announce and act on this resolve-oh, better than to have come to listen to "the cornet and harp, and dulcimer and flute;" ye have come to provide, that from burdened hearts, and stricken spirits, there shall rise the notes of gratitude and praise-" the blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me, and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy 2."

"Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end.

2 Job xxix. 13.

Amen."

SERMON VIII.'

CHURCH BUILDING.

HAGGAI i. 3, 4.

"Then came the word of the Lord by Haggai the prophet, saying, Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie waste?"

VERY few words will be needed, to put you in possession of the force and bearing of this passage, as originally delivered. The Jews had but lately returned, in virtue of the decree of Cyrus in their favour, from their captivity of seventy years in Babylon, to which they had been sentenced for their own sins and those of their fathers. Very shortly after their return, they had commenced the rebuilding of the temple, applying themselves to it as the most important work, like men who were conscious that

Preached at Camden Chapel, after reading the Queen's Letter of 1839, on behalf of the Society for Rebuilding and Repairing Churches.

Jerusalem could have no glory, until it again possessed the sanctuary of the Lord. But opposition soon arose the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin sought to thwart the design, and applied to the court of Persia for authority to put a stop to the building. This was obtained; and we read in the Book of Ezra, "Then ceased the work of the house of God, which is at Jerusalem. So it ceased unto the second year of the reign of Darius, king of Persia."

It was in this year, as we learn from the opening words of his prophecy, that Haggai was directed to address the message, of which our text is a part, to the Jews generally, but especially to Zerubbabel, the governor, and Joshua, the high priest, persons who, from station and influence, ought to have been earnest in endeavours to promote the rebuilding of the temple, though they would seem to have been chargeable with some measure of remissness. It may not have been altogether a matter of choice with the Jews, whether they should cease from the building, when the decree against them had been obtained by their enemies. It is possible, however, that they were too ready in yielding, having, perhaps, been secretly not displeased at an excuse for desisting from an expensive and laborious undertaking. We may gather this from observing the terms of the decree for it was generally the building of the city, and not particularly that of the temple, which was prohibited by Artaxerxes. Give ye now commandment to cause these men to cease, and that

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this city be not builded, until another commandment shall be given from me." But it does not appear that the Jews so complied with this decree, as to suspend the building of the city; though, as is expressly recorded, they left off working at the house of the Lord. We gather sufficiently from our text that they had persisted in building dwellings for themselves, though no progress had been made with the temple; and we can hardly therefore doubt that they had suffered themselves to be unnecessarily deterred from a work which they were bound to have prosecuted in preference to every other.

But however the case may have stood immediately on the issuing of the decree, it is certain that afterwards the Jews made frivolous excuses for not proceeding with the temple, and manifested a reluctance which was adapted to provoke the fierce anger of God. It was It was on this account that the prophets Haggai and Zechariah were raised up: the chief object of their mission was to rouse the people to the long-neglected work, to reprove the indolent, and encourage the desponding. You learn from the verse preceding our text, that the common excuse was that the time had not arrived at which the building of the temple could be advantageously undertaken. "This people say, The time is not yet come, the time that the Lord's house should be built." No doubt the Jews argued, that, harassed as they were by enemies, straitened in resources, and still dwelling among ruins, they were in no

condition to rear a structure which should be worthy to succeed the temple of Solomon. They probably made the magnificence of the former sanctuary a reason for delaying the work, and plausibly stated, that until national affairs were a little more settled, it would not be possible for them to rebuild the temple with adequate splendour. But, all the while, they were not only building themselves houses, but sumptuous houses-as the expression "cieled houses," which is used in our text, may be considered to denote. And this was enough to convict them of disinclination to the work of building the temple, and to show that their excuses, like those commonly of men who defer religious duties to more convenient seasons, were but marks of a secret resolve to escape, if possible, altogether from a labour which must interfere with more congenial pursuits.

of

Our text contains the abrupt and indignant expostulation with which the prophet was directed to meet the excuse as to the time not being come for building the Lord's house. It gives force to the expostulation, and it is indeed almost required by its terms, that we should suppose the messenger God planting himself in the midst of Jerusalem ; houses, which were almost palaces, rising on the one side, whilst on the other were the foundations of the temple, just discernible amid the ruins which still proclaimed how fierce had been the vengeance which the Chaldeans were com