A SERMON.

ISAIAH ix. 2.

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.

Ir is a remarkable feature in the writings of the prophet Isaiah, that his predictions, (particularly those which refer to the advent of the Messiah, and the destined glories of the Christian church,) are delivered in the language of history, rather than of prophecy. He not only speaks without any doubt or hesitation as to the fulfilment of his prophetic declarations, but with as much confidence and decision as if they had been already fulfilled. In rapturous anticipation of the appearance of the promised Messiah, and with an enlarged and comprehensive view of those benefits, which all nations were to derive from the arising of the Sun of Righteousness, he exclaims, in the language of ardent exultation, "Unto us a child is born; unto us a son is given." Unto us. Though seven hundred years must yet revolve before his actual manifestation upon earth, yet unto us the child is born, inasmuch as we are partakers of that redemption which He shall accomplish for mankind; and which, as it will operate prospectively on generations now unborn, so has it a retrospective operation upon all those who have sinned after the transgression of our first parents, from the foundation of the world. Nor shall this Child, this Son, though, in becoming incarnate for our salvation, he "does not abhor the virgin's womb,"-be therefore deprived of that dignity and glory which are eternally and unalienably his; for the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace." Equally explicit and impressive, though clothed in language more figurative and metaphorical, is the prediction of our text: "The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined."

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By the term people,' the Prophet appears to intend peculiarly the Jewish nation. This was originally the chosen people of God. Delivered by the special intervention of Almighty Power from the land of Egypt, the house of bondage; conducted by the immediate guidance of Jehovah through the howling wilderness unto the fertile and flourishing land of Canaan; instructed in the revelation of the divine law, and themselves constituted the sole depositaries of the oracles of God, the Jews had long enjoyed the benefits of religious light and knowledge, while the rest of the world was still enveloped in the thick darkness of error and superstition. At the time, however, to which the prediction of our text refers, they had lamentably fallen from their high estate :—the glory had departed from Israel,– the pure effulgence of the law of God had been succeeded by the delusive glare of vain and empty tradition, and Israel was walking in darkness. The Jews had not yet indeed sunk into the lowest depth

of ignorance and impiety; the law of God, corrupted as it had been by the folly and presumption of man, was not yet wholly subverted; but, as the prophetic expression beautifully intimates, they were proceeding from vanity to vanity, and accumulating sins on sins. Every succeeding generation became more hopelessly bewildered, more darkly ignorant, more obstinately perverse, till that affecting exclamation of the Prophet was universally and mournfully verified :-"Ah, sinful nation! à people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil doers, children that are corrupters; they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel, they are gone away backward."

Yet the people that walked in darkness beheld a great light. That merciful and almighty Creator, who knew from the beginning that the imaginations of man's heart were only evil continually, would not leave his chosen people in that darkness which they had voluntarily, or at least unresistingly, incurred. "When the fulness of the time was come, he sent forth his Son made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law." Then indeed did the day-spring from on high arise over the darkness of Judah; and that glory, which shone around the shepherds who kept watch by night, was but a faint and feeble type of the glory which should afterwards be revealed-which was actually revealed in the manifestation of the Son of God. For Christ was emphatically Light. Such was his own divine declaration: "I am come a Light into the world." Such was the express testimony of the inspired Evangelist St. John: "That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." Such, as we have seen, had been, many centuries before, the prophetic language of the devout Isaiah: "The people which walked in darkness have seen a great light." Such was, after the close of His earthly career, the assertion of St. Paul, who calls him "the brightness of the Father's glory." How applicable these expressions are to the Saviour of the world, may be inferred from the result of his appearance, shining forth like the sun in his strength! He dissipated the clouds of error, and dispersed the mists of superstition. He not only shed the beams of divine truth over the wilderness of this world, but illuminated the dark valley of the shadow of death with the radiance of celestial hope, and disclosed to Israel and to the world that narrow path which led by a direct and unerring course to the mansions of eternal glory. "He came forth out of Sion, the Deliverer, and turned away ungodliness from Jacob."

Yet it was not only the people who walked in darkness that saw this great light; there were others whose condition was more forlorn, whose misery more hopeless, whose ignorance more profound. By "them that dwell in the land of the shadow of death," the Prophet means, beyond a doubt, the whole Gentile world, which was immersed, at this period, in the grossest and most abandoned profligacy. It is impossible for us, who live under the benignant influence of the Christian dispensation, and who are all partakers of its blessings, though some may be despisers of its authority;-it is impossible for us, even to imagine the melancholy condition of the world at this period. The most solemn obligations were violated without remorse; crimes, of which it is now a shame even to speak, were then universally

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practised, and openly avowed; the altars of the sanguinary deities reeked with the blood of human victims, and the solemn worship of the gods was a signal for the unrestrained indulgence of the most infamous licentiousness. Men, as St. Paul affirms, in writing to those very Romans who were the most polished nation of the age,men were "filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful; who, knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such sins are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them."

That this dark and fearful picture is not in any degree overcharged, might be proved, were it necessary, by the concurrent testimony of profane historians. Suffice it however to remark, that it was then an opinion current among the wiser and more reflecting portion of mankind, either that some signal interposition of the Deity must soon take place for the reformation of the world, or that it must be destroyed altogether by the stroke of his merited indignation.

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Upon those, therefore, who were thus dwelling" in the land of the shadow of death," was the light to shine; and the light did shine. It was indeed among the Jews that the Sun of Righteousness arose, but not to them were His benignant influences to be confined. He who was the glory of his people Israel, was no less the light to lighten the Gentiles, as it was expressly said of him by the Most High: "I have set thee for a light unto the Gentiles, that thou mayest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth." Well therefore might the Angels sing, upon the entrance of the Saviour into the world, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace; good-will towards men." Of the great events which succeeded the advent of Christ; of the wonderful reformation which ensued among all nations to which the sound of the Gospel reached; of the gradual abolition of idolatry, with all its attendant cruelties and abominations; of the joy and peace in believing, which was the support of so many confessors in their dungeon, of so many martyrs at the stake; it were superfluous now to speak, they are recorded in the page of history; and of the benefits of Christianity we have a more personal, if not a more convincing evidence. We feel them in the ties which unite society; in filial obedience and parental love; in the sanctity of the nuptial tie; in the munificence which provides for the necessities of the indigent; in that enlarged and expansive charity, which, disregarding the distinction of colour or of climate, aims to unite all men in the bond of fraternal amity, by making them partakers of that Gospel which is the power of God unto salvation. We might also feel them-and would to God such experience were more generally diffused-in that rational and enlightened piety, which consecrates these hallowed courts to the solemnities of devout supplication; in that contrite and unfeigned repentance, which embraces in humility and truth the gracious promises of God; in that firm and devoted faith, which reposes itself exclusively on the atoning sacrifice of Christ; in that assured and

animating hope, which is founded upon the word of Him who cannot lie, and which enlightens the dim eye of the departing Christian with the bright presage of an approaching and eternal victory.

The prediction of the inspired Prophet has long since been fully and finally accomplished. That event, which we are called upon by the solemnities of this season to commemorate, has long since taken place; the Son of God himself, the Eternal and Almighty God, has, as the Apostle declares, been manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory. The narrative of his sojourning among men, the doctrine which he proclaimed, the example which he set, the mysteries which he revealed, the promises which he declared, all are contained for us in that Scripture which was given by inspiration of God. Consequently, though our nature be the same with theirs whom the Prophet adverts to, equally degenerate; though our hearts, like theirs, be "deceitful and wicked;" yet our circumstances are materially different. They walked in darkness and saw no light-now is the light shining in darkness; and if the darkness comprehendeth it not-if men choose darkness rather than light, it is because their deeds are evil. They have now no palliation of ignorance or inability; the benefits of the Christian dispensation are proffered with equal and undiscriminating liberality to all, and they who wilfully refuse them refuse eternal salvation, and choose death rather than life.

The light which at this time first dawned on a benighted world, is still shining with unabated radiance, and shining for you. Do not turn away from this astonishing spectacle; behold the Lamb of God, taking away the sin of the world! Behold Him, to whom all the Prophets gave witness; of whom all the Evangelists spake; for whom all the Martyrs bled; to whom all the spirits of the just made perfect are now offering hymns of praise around the throne of life. Behold Him, who will be your light amidst the dimness of affliction, the gloom of sickness, the darkness of death! And date from this day of the Saviour's entrance into the world your entrance into a new and holy life; that so, when he shall return in his transcendant majesty to judge the world, you also may arise and shine, for your light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon you, to set no more for ever! T. D.

MISCELLANEOUS.

CHALMERS ON CHURCHMEN AND DISSENTERS.

WE Copy the following from a provincial newspaper :"In the course of a sermon which Dr. Chalmers preached on the opening of Mr. Hare's chapel, near Bedminster-bridge, Bristol, he made these remarks on the established church :-'I hold the Establishment to be not only a great Christian good, but one indispensable