PREFACE.

THE subject of the following sermon, is of the blessed properties of the promulgation of the gospel, both in the first coming of Christ, and of the gathering in of his redeemed, in the latter day glory. The Lord commands that all obstructions shall be removed; and He himself proclaimed. The Lord commands the gates to be opened; an highway cast up, and himself lifted up as a standard for the people. And the Lord adds how his people shall be designated. They are holy in the Lord, and they shall be called holy. They are the redeemed of the Lord, and they shall be known as such. And as it is said in another Scripture, "all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it."

Let us beg for grace, that our present contemplation of the subject may be followed with those distinguishing marks of the divine blessing.

Lord God Almighty! (I would say) let thy presence be eminently with thy people, which are now before thee! Do thou, gracious God, do as thou hast said; and both cast up, and prepare a way, even pointing to thyself as the way, the only way, and the truth and the life for them to walk in. Cause every valley to be exalted, and every mountain and hill to be made low; the crooked made straight, and the rough places plain: and thy glory to be revealed. Blessedly realize in our souls those divine truths of our God, that the glorious gospel of the ever blessed God may have an indwelling and abiding principle in us, influencing all we do or say; that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith; that being rooted and grounded in love, we may be able to comprehend with all saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that we may be filled with all the fulness of God. We fall before our God for those mercies; and arise to prosecute the subject with full assurance of faith! Glory to the Holy Three in One in Jesus Christ! Amen.

SERMON XXIV.

THE LORD CASTING UP THE WAY OF HIS PEOPLE.

ISAIAH lxii. 10-12.

Go through, go through the gates; prepare ye the way of the people; cast up, cast up the highway; gather out the stones; lift up a standard for the people. Behold, the Lord hath proclaimed unto the end of the world, Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh; behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him. And they shall call them, The holy people, The redeemed of the Lerd: and thou shalt be called, Sought out, A city not forsaken.

I HAVE no words sufficiently strong, to express the delight I feel in being brought home by the goodness of my God, to behold your faces once more in the flesh, and to stand up in my place before you this day. And after bending the knee in praise to the God of my life, for these mercies, contemplating Him the Almighty cause, "in whose hand my breath is, and whose are all my ways;" I would would say to you, in the words of the apostle Paul to the church: "Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me." (Rom. xv. 30.) I have already apprized you, before my late departure, what you have to expect from my labours, in what remains to be filled in, in my feeble, and now almost worn out life. For myself, I feel as the prophet speaks, "when the summer fruits have been gathered, as the grape gleanings of the vintage, there is no cluster to eat." (Micah vii. 1.) But I am comforted in the assurance of what the Lord said to the apostle, and which equally belongs to all his people: "My grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness." (2 Cor. xii. 9.)

And so divinely suited is our most glorious Lord for all the states and circumstances of his people, both minister and congregation, that however helpless and hopeless in ourselves, the Lord Jesus hath an all-sufficiency of correspondence for each and for all. So that when you and I have nothing, are nothing, yea, worse than nothing; those gracious words of our most glorious Christ sound with the sweeter melody in our ears, in which he saith, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." (John x. 10.)

My text is a beautiful confirmation of this doctrine: for all that is said in it is the Lord's saying, and hath not the least dependance for accomplishment upon human means or human deservings. If you analyze the several parts of it, there is not a syllable said of what the church feels, or what the church merits; what she hath done, or can do; but what the Lord will do for her. In a preceding chapter, the Lord, had called upon the church to "arise and shine, for her light was come, and the glory of the Lord was risen upon her." And the Lord added the assurance of unceasing light and life, when he said: "thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself, but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory." And under these divine gifts of grace, the Lord, more or less, prosecuted the same marvellous condescension through the chapters which followed, even to my text: and then, as if not only calling upon his church to arise and shine in his glory; but now as about to enter upon the possession of it, the Lord said; "Go through, go through the gates; prepare ye the way of the people: cast up, cast up the highway; gather out the stones; lift up a standard for the people. Behold, the Lord hath proclaimed unto the end of the world, Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold thy salvation cometh ;

behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him. And they shall call them, The holy people; The redeemed of the Lord: and thou shalt be called, Sought out, A city not forsaken."

This portion of the word of God contains in its bosom all the great and leading truths of our most holy faith. I cannot propose, within the limits of a sermon, to do more than merely to glance at the several particulars of it. But this will be enough, if the Lord, the Almighty author of his sacred Scripture, condescends to be our Teacher, and to lead us into all truth. Glorious Instructor of thy church and people; wilt thou at this time do it, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake?

I begin with the first part in the text. "Go through, go through the gates!" And here, on our very entrance, we find the Scripture testimony to the Holy, undivided Trinity, in their joint operation of this immense work. It was in the covenant of the Holy Three, before all worlds, the church hath to date her origin from the Father's choosing, and naming the whole election of grace, (Ephes. i. 4, and iii. 14.) when those ancient settlements of eternity were made. The Son, no less becoming the Head and Husband of his church and people. (Isaiah liv. 5. Ephes. i. 22, 23.) And God the Holy Ghost anointing by his unction the whole church in Christ. And, as if in conformity to the doctrine of our text, the beloved apostle described the New Jerusalem, that is, the spiritual church of Christ, under corresponding circumstances. After speaking of this church, as coming down from God, out of heaven; and stating the several particularities, John said: "And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day; for there shall be no night there." (Rev. xxi. 25. compared with Isaiah lx. 11.) And this is explained elsewhere in Scripture. The Lord Jesus hath entered into heaven as

our Forerunner. "The breaker (saith the prophet) is come up before them: they have broken up, and passed through the gate, and are gone out by it: and their King shall pass before them, and the Lord on the head of them." (Micah ii. 13.) Beautiful and blessed is it to see our glorious Lord, this Almighty Breaker, breaking up all before us. In his life, in his death, in his resurrection, in his ascension, he hath accomplished the whole and like another Samson, (yea, Samson was but a faint shadow of Christ,) he hath broken down all the gates of obstruction to his people, and carried them up to an high hill as the trophies of his victory. (Judges xvi. 3.) Hence the Song of the church; "Lift up your heads O ye gates, and be ye lift up ye everlasting doors and the King of glory shall come in!" (Psalm xxiv. 7.) Thus the church is said "to go through, go through the gates."

The second branch in our text is, " Prepare ye the way of the people." And this, like the former, can only be accomplished by the sovereign power of God. He, and He alone, who opens the gates for his people, can prepare their way to pass through them. The whole process of grace is "to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." And marvellous to

observe, the workings of grace, that all the persons in the GODHEAD concur, and co-operate in every individual instance of the Lord's people" to prepare their way." It is God the Father who draws them to Christ. (John vi. 44.) It is God the Son who saith, "Fear not, I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy Name; thou art mine!" (Isaiah xliii. 1.) And it is God the Holy Ghost " which reproves of sin, of righteousness and of judgment." (John xvi.) "Every good gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth."