conflict you inevitably must. But I also know, that as in your work, if you faithfully begin, and with full dependence on the Lord Jesus Christ, carry it on, I know that not only have you the approbation of the King, but the forces of the King to attend you, to support, to protect, and honour you. Your eyes, covered with the film of mortality, may not see, they cannot see the celestial auxiliaries; and like the servant of Elisha, when pressed by your spiritual foes you may be disposed to ask, alas! alas! my master, what shall we do? Let faith but supply the place of vision. Could your eyes, by miracle, be opened as were his, you too would behold, round about, chariots of fire and horses of fire. And is this agency of God's ministering spirits less real, because it is to us invisible? No, no. What a miracle of love is this appointed agency of God's pure messengers! How should it encourage us in the struggle to know that the heart is thus shielded in the day of the spiritual battle! How should it animate in the fight, to know that such auxiliaries are near! How aggravated the cowardice when with angels on our side we turn our backs even on the fiercest battle; and how ten-fold more severe the condemnation when we wilfully yield the victory to hell's dark host.

SERMON XIX.

THE GREAT WORK OF RELIGION.

NEHEMIAH vi. 3.

IN carrying on the great work of religion, if there is opposition, there is also aid. In illustrating the propositions which I have been discussing, I have used the fruitful and interesting history of Nehemiah, and have endeavoured to classify the aids, as well as the previously considered opposition, by the circumstances of that history. In my last discourse I considered the holy angels as engaged in the aid of this great work. I come now to take up another point, and I purpose here to embrace the largest class of subjects which can come within the scope of pulpit instruction; I mean all the dispensations of God's providence, without exception. Let me, however, lead you for a moment to the point of illustration. I have stated to you that in aid of his great undertaking, Nehemiah had, 1, the king's approbation; 2, the king's forces. I then remarked, that he had the king's resources-" Moreover, I said unto the king, If it please the king, let letters be given

me to the governors beyond the river, that they may convey me over, till I come into Judah; and a letter unto Asaph, the keeper of the king's forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the palace which appertained to the house, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I shall enter into. And the king granted me, according to the good hand of my God upon me."*

Now, in applying this subject to the aids which can be taken advantage of, if the question is asked, what are the aids to the great work of religion, I answer, all the resources of the great God on earth; the whole full treasury of his providential dispensations. One single passage of Scripture may be said to embody the whole amount of my proposition-" All things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose," which, as applied to my present subject, means exactly this: There is nothing in all the dealings and dispensations of God with men, but what is intended, by the great God himself, to be auxiliary to this great work. It will be my purpose, as far as feeble abilities can do it, to carry out this sublime idea into particulars minute and tangible.

The individual who engages in the great work of religion, draws his supplies from the exhaustless treasures of God. Thus God provides him with a foundation on which to build; here he must begin; a broad and deep foundation must be laid for the superstructure which he desires to rear, or it will inevitably fall. The wise man is he who built his house on a rock-" And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house;

* Nehemiah ii. 7, 8. † Romans viii. 28.

and it fell not for it was founded upon a rock."* The sinner, anxious to accomplish the great work of salvation, might toil and labour for ever, and bring nothing profitable to pass, so long as he is destitute of a good foundation. This God furnishes him "Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ."+" Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner-stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded." This is "the stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner." But even with a foundation man naturally is destitute, both of the will and the ability to work. From the exhaustless treasures of God both are furnished-" Work out your salvation with fear and trembling: for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure."-"My grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me."T But even when the will and the ability to work are given by the power of the grace of God, foes rise up on every side. But in the armoury of God, ready for the use of the individual really awakened, are to be found a full and adequate supply. But all this does not meet the full purpose of the proposition, that all the dispensations of God are intended to furnish aid in the great work of religion. When the expression is used-"All things work together for good,' there is nothing excluded. It were impossible, my brethren, even to enumerate all the particulars which might be collected under this division; the events

St. Matthew vii. 25. † Corinthians iii. 11. § Luke xx. 17. | Philippians ii. 12, 13.

+ 1 Peter ii. 6.

12 Corinthians xii. 9.

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which are daily transpiring around him, the movements of the grand machinery of God in relation to the civil and political affairs of men; the movements of the same great machinery in another of its departments, the moral improvement of the world; the various individual, social, civil, religious advantages which he may enjoy; the property he may be permitted to gain; the honourable name which he may be permitted to acquire; the afflictions which he may be called upon to endure, are all, singly or in any of their combinations, so many sources from which, in the work of religion, the individual, zealously engaged, may draw his collateral assistances. Take a brief illustration of these several particulars, and see how they are intended to bring their aid to the great work. Let an individual whose heart has been turned to God, and who is zealously engaged in pursuing the salvation of his soul,-let him observe the events which are daily transpiring about him. Other men have no power to read in these things any thing more than what they interpret as the ordinary course of things; and it is a high attainment of an unconverted man, to acknowledge an overruling and superintending providence. But the individual engaged in the work of religion, desires aid from all these events, because they bring to his mind the solemn fact, that the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth, that the Lord is King, be the earth never so unquiet. To the individual whose mind is set on things above, all these bring the aid of their instruction, and have a tendency to constrain him to wean his affections from the world, and fix them intensely on his God. To him the overthrow of kingdoms, and nations, and empires; the lifting up of one, and the prostration of