its objects the same? And are not we all such as were Moses, and Daniel, and Paul, and the other worthies whose names adorn the records of the Church? And is not an opposing world the same in its oppositions? And why should the triumphs of faith materially differ? They do not differ except in their degrees. Oh, it is withering to the efforts of faith, and enfeebling to all our spiritual powers, even to imagine that faith cannot accomplish now what it ever has; that it cannot triumph over the world now, as it ever has done. And as every victory gained by a general and his army only inspires their courage, and animates their hopes that in the next engagement they will be also successful; so the successive victories obtained by faith over the world in all ages and countries, should only animate our valor and dissipate all fear that the laurels of faith shall ever entwine and decorate the brows of the world.

Let us all then remember that heaven is the reward of victory—that victory supposes a conflict-that conflict supposes an enemy, and that that enemy is the world. And this is an omnipresent enemy, the perfect master of all feints and disguises, and of all deceivableness of unrighteousness. But with the shield of faith we need not fear its attacks. This guards us on the right hand and on the left. If now overcome, it is because of the weakness of faith, and instead of giving over the battle as lost, cry to heaven for an increase of faith, and rise again to the combat. Let every day witness an increase of your faith, and a renewal of the battle. And soon, with the world under your feet, and the song of triumph on your lips, you will be enabled to say, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith. Thanks be unto God who hath given me the victory through Jesus Christ my Lord." And when the day of final reward has arrived,

"Oh, that each in that day

May be able to say,

I have fought my way through,

I have finish'd the work thou didst give me to do;

Oh, that each from his Lord

May receive the glad word,

Well and faithfully done,

Enter into my joys and sit down on my throne."

2*

SERMON CCCLXVII.

BY REV. N. W. FISHER,

PASTOR OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, PALMYRA, N. Y.

DELIVERED BEFORE THE ALUMNI OF AUBURN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, AT ITS LAST ANNIVERSARY, AUGUST 15th, 1843.

TRUTH AND ITS TRIUMPHS.

"Brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may have free course, and be glorified, even as it is with you."-2 Thess. iii. 1.

IN obedience to the call of the heavenly vision, the Apostle Paul had been into Macedonia, and stationed himself at Thessalonica, the ancient metropolis of that province. Here he had preached in his accustomed plainness and power "the glorious Gospel of the blessed God." Multitudes, guided by its light, had emerged from the darkness of pagan idolatry. The sensualist had become chaste; the inebriate temperate; the covetous, munificent; the proud, humble; and the votary of idols, the worshipper of the living God. Under its power he had also seen the obdurate heart of the Jew break with penitence, and his faith and hope in the despised Nazarene confirmed.

In view of the wonderful success of the Gospel among them, the Apostle commences his first epistle to them in language of devout praise and thanksgiving: "We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers: Remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the sight of God our Father: knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God; for our Gospel came not unto you in word only, but in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much assurance. So that ye were ensamples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. For from you sounded out the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place, your faith to Godward is spread abroad."

Such were the triumphant effects of the Gospel preached to the Jews and idolators of Thessalonica. The Apostle having gathered them into a church, left them, and went out to publish the truth in other places. In this second epistle, sent to them from Athens, he solicits, among other things, their fervent prayers that the Gospel might have free course and be glorified, even as with them. Mark, he does not ask them to pray that the Gospel might have imparted to it any inherent power

which it did not already possess ; he only asks their prayers that the simple truth as committed to them by Christ might have free coursemight run unobstructed-and its legitimate influence upon the hearts and lives of men would show itself to be glorious truth. Unhindered, its enlightening, renovating, transforming power upon the entire character and condition of man is as certain as the succession of light to the rising of the sun. It will carry along with itself convincing proof of its divine original, and illumine its own course by its brilliant victories over every species of error and delusion.

The sentiment of the text may therefore be embraced in these two propositions: The truth is glorified by its effects; and its effects are commensurate with its opportunities to produce them.

I. The truth is glorified by its effects. The unadulterated word of God is truth, and is that in which a heavenly mind takes peculiar delight. Its moral beauty and sweetness find a corresponding affection in every holy and devout heart. Said the Psalmist concerning the statutes of the Lord, "More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the honey-comb." "O how love I thy law, it is my meditation all the day!" But this is a love of truth for its own sake, abstractly considered. We are in this discourse to contemplate it, as we do other objects, by its properties or effects. Viewed in this light, the word of the Lord is seen to be truly glorious.

1. The truth is glorified by its effects on the community. It contemplates men as social beings, and as such is adapted to all their wants. What community is so ignorant that it may not enlighten? or so degraded that it may not elevate? or so lost in the general apostacy that it may not redeem and bless? Other expedients have been tried upon communities and nations, thus ignorant and degraded, and scarcely any redeeming power has been exerted. And the glorious effects of Gospel truth are best seen in contrast with the total inefficiency of these expedients.

Civilisation has long been deemed by some to be fully adequate to relieve the community of its evils. But its conflict with them has only demonstrated its impotency. In spite of its influence, mankind have been ignorant of their highest good, and slaves to the worst passions of the human breast. It has not the power even to disinthral the mind from the worst forms of superstition and idolatry, as evinced in the ancient empires of the eastern world; nor from the most flagrant violations of divine law and human rights, as seen to exist amid all the monuments of the most refined modern, civil, and social improvements. A cultivation of the intellect, and a general diffusion of knowledge among the people, have been urged by many to be the only redeeming expedient that can raise a nation to its highest possible elevation. There is, if we mistake not, an overweening fondness, at the present day, of relying upon this expedient to cure the evils of society. Important as general learning may be, it can never remedy the moral evils of the heart. Mere intellect has no moral characteristics, and

under its highest cultivation every species of licentiousness and crime have flourished. Again, in free institutions, others have thought that they had found a panacea for all the wrongs of the community. But sober facts will demolish all these creations of the fancy. Dear as civil and religious liberty may be, still we are made painfully to feel that a people in the full enjoyment of them may be subject to all the malign influence of party, and to the control of the basest passions of the human heart; thus presenting the curious anomaly of external freedom with internal slavery. Others, again, boast of philosophy as adequate to reform a community. But here let Cicero speak. "Do you think," says he," that those precepts of morality had any influence, except in a very few instances, upon the men who speculated, wrote, and disputed concerning them? No: who is there, of all the philosophers, whose mind and manners were conformed to the dictates of right reason? Who of them ever made his philosophy the law and rule of his life, and not merely an occasion of displaying his own ingenuity? On the contrary, many of them have been slaves to the vilest lusts." And if philosophy failed to reform philosophers themselves, how wretched must have been the mass of the community on whom it shed no light! Others, again, discover a regenerating influence in the mechanic arts. The world is to be raised from its depressed state by steam power, to the great disparagement of Archimedes's lever. But there is no railway to national prosperity, nor to morals, nor to the kingdom of heaven. Ah! say others, we have made the great discovery; non-resistance, no-human government; here is the wonderful, the long-sought catholicon! Pandora's box rather, out of which are issuing a thousand nameless evils. Nor has the community found any relief in the various systems of infidelity. The horrid scenes of the French revolution, with their legitimate fruits of licentiousness, cruelty, and blood, are historical records, and no nation will ever again run the fearful hazard, by its legislative acts, of thrusting out the Bible, the Sabbath, and the God of heaven! Atheism and infidelity, instead of giving freedom and happiness to the French, only uncapped the volcano which poured its desolations over the land. Nothing healing, regenerating, and saving, has ever issued from these systems of human device. Nor is paganism any better. Idolatry is associated with nothing in principle but corruption, and nothing in practice scarcely but unutterable abominations. As for Mahomedanism, it scarcely sheds one ray of rational hope for man. Its essential elements are sensuality, scorn, revenge, war. Of benevolence, kindness, and humanity, it knows comparatively nothing. The true condition of those countries that are cursed with Islamism, is the best illustration of its genius and legitimate infiuence. Nor is there any hope from Romanism; if any, the world would. long ago have found it out. The past history of this politico-religious organization furnishes the best comment upon its present character and designs. It is enough for us to know that it is a medley of Paganism, Judaism, and Christianity corrupted: and hence unauthorized of Heaven, and inade

quate to meet the wants of guilty, ignorant, fallen humanity. It is an old repudiated system, in its last struggles for existence, and its apparent revival at this time, like the dying spark, is only a premonition of its approaching end. And the community may look in vain for relief from Puseyism, which is Romanism in its second edition; or from Parkerism, Unitarianism transcendentalized; or from Universalism, fatalism refined; or from Fourierism, Owenism sublimated; or from Mormonism, human folly concentrated; or from any other ism that may rise up and float awhile like scum upon the surface of the community.

Where, then, may society look for help? To the Gospel of Jesus Christ, pure and unadulterated. Let it have free course, let it pervade the nation; let it come home to the bosoms and business of men ; let its doctrines and precepts, in their plainness and simplicity, be obeyed by all, and the community would receive its highest possible elevation in all that is great and good. It is man's bill of rights sent down to him from heaven, which appropriately secures to him every natural, moral, intellectual, civil, domestic, religious and immortal interest. It secures to individuals their rights and immunities, and all that purity, elevation, and refinement of character of which they are susceptible in this life, and ultimate alliance to angels in the world to come. Hence it must impart to the community, which is composed of individuals, a corresponding elevation and refinement. It forms for it a correct conscience, gives sanction to its laws, aids in the administration of justice, fosters every humane and benevolent institution, aims at the emancipation of the oppressed, and would secure to all the greatest possible amount of happiness. All this is implied in its divine origin. And hence, to doubt its competency to produce these blessed results, and resort to other expedients, is a virtual impeachment of the claims of the Gospel to divine authenticity. But give us the Gospel, the pure Gospel, THE WHOLE GOSPEL, and its own brilliant conquests over sin, error, and superstition, will proclaim its heavenly birth, and its adaptedness to all the wants of man in his social relations. To admit its divine origin, and then call in question its efficacy to produce these results, is an implied impeachment of the wisdom and goodness of its Author.

2. The truth of God is glorified by its effects upon the family compact. The domestic institution is from God. "He taketh the solitary and setteth him in families." And he designed that it should be the nursery of all the social and moral virtues, and where should commingle and flow out all the sweet charities of life. But the true source of domestic happiness is found in practical religion, and not in the flowery regions of the fancy. "The secret of happiness lies folded up in the leaves of the Bible, and is carried in the bosom of religion." In "the word of the Lord" all the relative duties of husband and wife, parent and child, brother and sister, master and servant, are plainly taught and enforced. And where all the members of the household are cemented together by religious affection, and revolve harmoniously around one common centre of heavenly attraction, they attain to the highest degree of domestic felicity. The effect of the apostacy was to separate