But, above all, let us look to that other injunction, "Cleanse your hands, ye sinners, and purify your hearts, ye double minded." Consider your ways this day. Examine yourselves. Look at hand and heart, and see what sins are staining the one or corroding the other. Begin a new life. "Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God," and know, assuredly, that in His own due time, "He shall lift you up."

case.

Let every man here apply this visitation to his own special We cannot doubt that it is God's purpose that he should do so. We do not shut our eyes to that which we have already largely dwelt on, in respect to national delinquency. We believe ourselves to have "been verily guilty concerning our brother," now brought so low down, and lying in the very pit of destruction. We believe the consequences of our neglect, both as a government and a church, to be seen in the aggravation of the judgment, if not in actually bringing it down. We believe all our national sins to be now in process of punishment and those in respect to the sister island most especially. But it does not follow that God is not also visiting each of us personally. Let the drunkard think of his cups of excess, and ask whether he has any reason to think that God is not visiting that excess. There is nothing worse than the abuse of God's good gifts. The pride, the cunning, the sensuality of men, their censoriousness and their bitter words, our want of union and our dissension, our covetousness and our flat idolatry of maminon; surely these all deserve heavy visitation, and we may well believe that God, by this judgment, is visiting them. And if this be so, let us listen to the voice; let us "bear the rod, and who hath appointed it." We have, undoubtedly, much reason to bless God for the effect already produced. There is a feeling, an impression, an inquiry, a solemnity of mind abroad, to which we have not been lately used. Men look-and we thank God for it-more closely at the uses of wealth and its abuses. Let us all earnestly pray that this feeling may be greatly increased. For who knows what these visitations may portend? Who can tell when the coming of the Lord shall be? Who can say that it is not near at hand? How are we certain that these judgments are not the echo of His footsteps? Can any say that He is not already approaching? Surely we all know what are the features of His own solemn warnings. We all know how He himself foretold famine and pestilence as the beginnings of the latter-day sorrow.

Again I ask you to add your alms to your fasting and your

Let us never Christ's own

prayers. Many a conscientious poor man will lose his day's labour by respecting this day's solemnity; let not the rich be behind them. Let them give, at least, what they save through abstinence, to our fund for food or seed for Ireland, or let them make a conscience of doing it in some other way. forget that self-denial and self-crucifixion are garden paths. Even He "pleased not himself." Oh, let us follow His steps! What are our pains to His agony,-our hardships to His endurance? God gave us grace to follow His steps: God gave us grace to remember these His latest words, "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." (John xiv. 34, 35.)

THE GENERAL FAST.

A SERMON

PREACHED BY

THE REV. P. E. BOISSIER, M.A.,

AT

ST. PETER'S DISTRICT CHURCH,

MALVERN WELLS,

MARCH 24, 1847.

"So the people of Nineveh believed GOD, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them."-Jonah iii. 5.

us,

"WHATSOEVER things were written aforetime," St. Paul tells were written for our learning, that we, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope." (Rom. xv. 4.) The chapter from which I have taken my text, brethren, is one of those portions of the inspired Word of God from which we may be permitted humbly to seek hope and comfort under the circumstances which have assembled us together in the Lord's house to-day. What the dealings and dispensations of God, as the Almighty Ruler of the world, have been in one period of its history, such we may expect will they be in their general character towards mankind in all ages "He is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever." (Heb. xiii. 8.) "Whether we see His hand or not, He orders all the affairs of men according to the counsels of His own will." Nations and empires rise and fall, flourish and decay, at His bidding. The powers of nature, storms and tempests, famines and pestilences, whatever it be that comes upon mankind in forms of afflicting dispensations, as well as in all the variety of merciful Providences, are ministers of His, to do His pleasure." (Ps. ciii. 21.) He is the same in all His moral attributes,—the same God of judg

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ment to punish the sins of men,-the same God and Father of mercy to pardon and spare. He says to us still, as He said of old, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay fury to my adversaries, recompense to my enemies." (Isa. lix. 18.) And, again, “I am the Lord, I change not; therefore, ye sons of Jacob are not consumed; return unto me, and I will return unto you." (Mal. iii. 6, 7.) It is in the belief, and for the more solemn acknowledgment of these great truths, that by the command of our sovereign we are now met together to humble ourselves under the "afflicting hand of God," who has visited us with one of those severe dispensations, one of those His "four sore judgments" (Ezek. xiv. 21), as He calls them himself in His Holy Word, of which we read many instances in Scripture, against which no human foresight can guard us, and under which human aid is of very small avail, and is oftentimes altogether unavailing. We see, it may be, only the beginning of the evil which, in the counsels of the Almighty, is come upon us. "Wrath is gone out from the Lord, the plague is begun." (Numb. xvi. 46.) But who can predict whither it may spread, or where it will end? Famine is desolating a portion of these kingdoms-already are the words of the Prophet, mourning over the desolation of Zion, sadly verified amidst a large portion of our fellow-subjects; "They that be slain with the sword are better than they which be slain with hunger: for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the field." (Lament. iv. 9.) But famine, brethren, does not come alone. Pestilence is its sure attendant. Disease, which human skill cannot combat, will slay its thousands, amongst those whom the hand of famine has not reached; and, even now, no vain and groundless alarm is felt in some parts of this kingdom, as to the probable consequences, if the scourge is by the mercy of God not speedily removed. And surely these are circumstances which may well humble us under "the mighty hand of God," and call upon us to inquire not only how we may escape this evil, but why it is come upon us? No Prophet, it is true, has been commissioned to declare to us, as Jonah to the Ninevites, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." But the judgment of the Lord, brethren, is His commissioned herald, and it cries to us, in the same warning tone, "Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, Consider your ways," (Hag. i. 5). "Hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it." (Mic. vi. 9.) May the same spirit in which the men of Nineveh hearkened to the Prophet's message, inspire the united congrega

tions of these kingdoms, who are this day met as supplicants before the throne of Grace ! "So the people of Nineveh," we read, "believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. For word came to the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh, by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, nor drink water: but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto the Lord Yea, let them turne very one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from His fierce anger that we perish not?"

We have here, brethren, one of the most striking descriptions which the Scripture contains of a national religious fast and humiliation before God, for the turning away a temporal judgment, and one which our Saviour himself mentions, as an example of national and sincere repentance towards God. (Matthew xii. 41). The whole nation clothed in the garb of mourning, from the monarch on his throne to the humblest peasant; even the very beasts of the field, the herds and flocks, bearing the same outward symbols of grief; every labour suspended; the wants of the body denied any refreshment; and the whole people engaged in one universal act of confession of sin, and earnest supplication for pardon and mercy. Such were the outward observances of religious fasts among the eastern nations of whom we read in Scripture; and such were they also, by Divine appointment, among the Jews; an instance of which has been brought before you in the Epistle appointed for this day's solemnity. (Joel ii. 12, &c.) We have, therefore, the warrant of Scripture, and the authority of God himself, for the observance of a similar custom, on any occasion of public calamity, distress, or danger. And we have the same reason to hope, in humble submission to the will of God, that the blessings and benefits which have been recorded as following such national humiliations, may be equally vouchsafed to ourselves. We may say, and hope, with the king of Nineveh, "Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from His fierce anger, that we perish not." But, brethren, it is not the outward solemnity which can avail us, if it only consist in an outward show of sorrow and humiliation. The outward act, however, natural and