thirst for God, or that this holy thirst can be at all gratified. But for him, men would never have seen God in such a light as to be won by his attractions, nor have cherished towards him sincere affection, nor have had any of that inward spiritual experience which causes them to pant after God. Nor would there have been any possible way of access by which the soul could approach its Maker, and be happy in his presence and in the manifestations of his infinite glories. But now every believer has free admission to the throne of grace, and unlimited sources of bliss in God, even while in the flesh, and can anticipate with assurance the hour of full communion with Him in the midst of his unveiled perfections in heaven. Once the Christian was like a star that has left its orbit and shot away from the sphere of its sun's attraction into regions of darkness and chaos; now he is like that star brought back to its appointed place in the vast system to revolve again in harmony with its fellow-satellites around the great central orb, to derive light and heat from the rays which it sends forth.

Finally, may no one be unmindful of the vast difference between thirsting for God now, and thirsting for a drop of water in the world of despair. The one is a means of the most exalted and satisfying pleasure enjoyed by mortals, and a sure pledge of perfect and immortal happiness in heaven; the other is a raging fever that never can be slaked, but must burn on and consume the soul for ever with its unquenchable fires. Take care, then, O cold-hearted professor and thoughtless sinner, lest by your indifference to God now, you shut yourselves out for ever from all those fountains of bliss which can meet the wants of your undying souls in eternity. Acquaint yourselves with God, and be joined to Him in bonds of everlasting love, that He may be your portion and joy while your existence shall endure.

RIVETED TO CHRIST.

CHRIST is a foundation-the foundation of our hope, of our peace, of our salvation; the foundation of all true worship, of all true access to God; the foundation of that spiritual temple which Jehovah is rearing to himself amid the ruins of the fall. He is the only foundation; the foundation that the Lord himself has laid for the hopes of a perishing world. He is the cornerstone-the support and the connection of the whole building-the chief corner-stone, chosen, tried, precious, sure, adjusted by infinite wisdom and infinite power to its position of honor, of

strength, and of beauty, in the stupendous work of man's redemption.

Am I built on this foundation? Men may disallow it, but God has chosen it, and it shall stand. Have I then chosen it as my foundation? Do I rest upon it as my confidence and support? Am I cemented to this foundation, riveted to it, so that all my interests are consolidated with the interests of Christ? "Think it not enough," says the excellent Leighton, " think it not enough that you know this stone is laid, but see whether you are built on it by faith. The multitude of imaginary believers lie round about it, but they are never the better nor the surer for that, any more than stones that lie loose in heaps near unto a foundation, but are not joined to it. There is no benefit to us by Christ, without union with him; no comfort in his riches, without an interest in them, and a title to them, by virtue of that union. This union, is the spring of all spiritual consolations. And faith, by which we are thus united, is a Divine work. "He that laid this foundation in Sion with his own hand, works likewise, with the same hand, faith in the heart, by which it is knit to this corner-stone." Yes, faith is the cement that unites the soul to this sure foundation-the ethereal link that binds it evermore to Christ. "To whom coming as to a living stone,. stones, are built up a spiritual house."

ye also, as lively

Have I this faith? "To you who believe he is precious"—an object of honor and esteem. Is Christ precious to me? Is he not only an object of fitful admiration and affection-as when his attractions are portrayed in eloquent discourse-but is he precious, my only honor, my ever chief delight? Then am built on him by faith; then may I claim that blessed promise, "He that believeth on him shall not be confounded-shall not make aste." Then all my interests are safe; then I am safe -for ever safe.

In the far South there is a river which, ordinarily still and shallow, in the spring time is swollen by heavy rains or melted snow from the mountains, and whose sudden freshets devastate the whole country through which it flows. I have heard that one who wished to avail himself of this stream for manufacturing purposes, selected a site for his building where the foundation was of living rock; this rock was drilled at various points to the depth of several inches, huge stones selected and shaped with care were then laid upon it in cement, each stone being furnished also with iron bolts that fitted into the sockets prepared in the foundation, and were there soldered by fused metal; thus was each stone bolted to its fellow, and the whole to the foundation. The neighbors laughed at such pains-taking and expense, and in their improvident way thought it better to take the risk of a freshet.

To what purpose was a pyramid of granite built, beside a shallow summer rill? The next spring there came a freshet of unprecedented suddenness and force. Wide the torrent overflowed its banks, sweeping down plantations, fences, trees, huts, houses, with appalling devastation. The occupants fled in dismay; confounded at the sudden ruin, they made haste to escape for their lives. Meanwhile, the workmen of this factory pursued their customary labors within its walls; from the windows they saw the roaring flood, the crashing trees and buildings, the torrent of destruction rolling by; yet they felt no alarm, they were not confounded with surprise, they were not agitated by one anxious thought, they did not make haste to secure their safety by flight; they knew that they were safe-nowhere could they be safer than there, founded on the rock, bolted to the rock. Thus it is with the soul that is built on Christ. Secure in him, it cannot know a fear. No danger can surprise it, no agitation or alarm can disturb its peace. It shall not make haste, it shall not ask, Whither shall I flee ?-for only where it is, can it be safe. "They that are disappointed and ashamed in their hopes, run to and fro, and seek after some new resource. The believing soul makes haste to Christ, but it never finds cause to hasten from him. . Such times may come as will shake all other supports, but this holds out against all-though the earth be removed, yet will not we fear. Though the frame of the world were cracking about a man's ears, he may hear it unaffrighted who is built on this foundation. And in that great day wherein all faces shall gather blackness and be filled with confusion, that have neglected to make Christ their stay when he was offered them, then it shall appear how happy they are who have trusted in him; they shall not be confounded, but shall lift up their faces and be acquitted in him."

Come then, my soul, and join thyself to Christ alone. Build upon this sure foundation, and rivet thyself and thine immortal destiny to Christ, by every tie of gratitude and affection, with every fibre of thy being. Be not content to have believed in Him, to have built upon Him thy hope, but daily by new bonds rivet thyself to this living and eternal rock. In thy morning meditations, let some new aspect of Christ, some new application of Christ, some new adaptation of his words and his life to thy condition and thy wants, be as a burning bolt of love to bind thee unto Him, and let the glow of devotion at eventide, the grateful remembrance of what Christ hath been to thee this day, weld and clinch that bolt for ever.

Oh, let me be established on the rock! Then shall I be firm in every trial, in every conflict, in every temptation; then when the cold, dark waters of death shall rise about me, I shall not be

confounded; though they gurgle in my ears, and chill the lifeblood in my heart, yet I shall touch bottom all the way, shall feel the rock beneath my feet, and shall emerge upon the crystal pavement on the other side.-N. Y. Independent.

INFLUENCE.

As, in the external and visible world, the fall of a pebble agitates, not perceptibly indeed, yet really, the whole mass of the earth; thus in the world of morals every act of every spirit is telling upon the whole system of moral beings to which God has bound him. No man leaves the world in all things such as he found it. The habits which he was instrumental in forming may go on from century to century, an heir-loom for good or for evil, doing their work of misery or of happiness, blasting or blessing the country that has now lost all records of his memory. In the case of some, this influence is most sensible. Every age beholds and owns their power. Such men have lived. The Church yet feels throughout all lands the influence of the thoughts that passed, perhaps in the solitude of midnight, through the bosom of Paul, as he sat in the shadows of his prison, an old and unbefriended man; thoughts which, lifting his manacled hands, he spread in his epistles before the eyes of men, there to remain for ever. They feel the effect of the pious meditations of David while roaming on the hill-side, an humble shepherd lad; of the family piety of Abraham, and of the religious nurture that trained up the infancy of Moses. Every nation is affected at this moment by the moral power that emanated from the despised Noah, as that preacher of righteousness sat among his family, perhaps dejected and faint with unsuccessful toil, teaching them to call upon God, when all the families of the earth besides had forgotten him. And if the mind, taking its flight from the narrow precincts of these walls, were to wander abroad along the peopled highways, and to the farthest hamlets of our own land, and, passing the seas, to traverse distant realms and barbarous coasts, every man whom its travels met, nay, every being of human mould that has ever trodden this earth in earlier ages, or that is now to be found among its moving myriads, has felt or is feeling the influence of the thoughts of a solitary woman, who, centuries since, stood debating the claims of conscience and of sin amid the verdant glories of the yet unforfeited paradise. -Williams.

NATIONAL PREACHER.

No. 10, VOL. XXVI]

OCTOBER, 1852.

[WHOLE NO. 310.

SERMON DLXXXII.

BY REV. MANCIUS S. HUTTON, D.D.,

PASTOR OF THE WASHINGTON SQUARE R. D. CHURCH, NEW-YORK.

THE DEATH OF CHRIST.

"And when they were come to a place which is called Calvary, there they crucified him."-LUKE xxiii. 33.

THE death of Christ is an event which surpasses all that have occurred or ever can occur in the universe. Stars in their courses might have fought in the hour of his crucifixion, and would have been unheeded. All hell was gathered around that cross; all heaven surrounded the place with their chariots of fire.

It was doubtless with deep and absorbing interest that the intelligences of heaven contemplated the work of creation. The morning stars, we are told, sang together, and the sons of God. shouted for joy. But the death of Christ was a more wonderful event-farther reaching, involving and displaying more of the glory of God-though not in its merely visible aspect. There was not the same magnificent display to the eye. It was more beautiful to behold the massy architecture of heaven float in spangled beauty into existence. It was apparently more wonderful to see the dry land emerge like the land of the blest from the midst of the waters, and, amid the low murmur of the retiring waves, clothe itself with verdure. But to the spiritual eye, and with regard to its moral effects, the death of Christ is by far the more sublime and wonderful event, displaying more of the glory of God; and among its wonders must we place the strange fact, that this glory of God should radiate from a cross, that our guilty world should be selected as affording the richest display of God's glory, and that the most luminous point of that glory should be a malefactor's cross-a cross of ignominy, which the malice of Satan