" a kingdom of priests," and may take the blood of your great sacrifice, and sprinkle it with acceptance on the Mercy-seat of your God. O that you might learn to estimate aright your high privilege, and improve it daily to the everlasting benefit of your souls !]
2. Endeavour to extend them to the whole world — [We should not be content to serve our God alone : we should wish him to be honoured and enjoyed by every child of man : and to advance his glory in the world should be an object of our most unwearied attention. Happily for us, there are Societies that have embarked in this blessed work, and through which every individual may contribute to the enlargement of the Redeemer's kingdom k And view the field, how ex- tended it is ! " The field is the world." Arise, my Brethren, to the work that is before you : and if you cannot effect all that you could wish, let it at least be said of you by the heart- searching God, " They have done what they could."]
k Here the particular Society, such as the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, the Bible Society, or the Prayer-book and Homily Society, may be set forth, and its objects and opera- tions may be detailed.
god's ways dark, but just.
Ps. xcvii. 2. Clouds and darkness are round about him : righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne.
THE reign of Christ is here spoken of, as a ground of joy to the whole world : " The Lord reigneth ; let the earth rejoice : let the multitude of isles be glad thereof." That Christ is the person to whom the psalm refers, we are assured on infallible autho- rity ; for, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, we are told that the injunction, " Worship him, all ye gods !" was given by the Father in reference to him : " When He (the Father) bringeth in the First-begotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship hima." As to the particular advent of our Lord, I conceive that, in the psalm before us, the period alluded to is that in which our Lord came to conduct the Hebrew nation through the wilderness to the Promised Land. " He came down with thun- derings and lightnings, and a thick cloud," in exact
a Compare ver. 7. with Heb. i. 6.
663.] god's ways dark, but just. 165
accordance with the description given of him in this psalm b. At the precise period of his incarnation there were no such signs ; though at his death and resurrection, which may properly be included in that period, there were similar demonstrations of his Divine Majesty : and at his future advent we are assured he will " come in power and great glory," such as that with which he was attended at the time of his ascension to the right hand of Godc. But it is not to any one of these periods that I shall confine my attention ; because the language of my text is general, and may well be considered as referring to all periods and to all events : for there is no one part of the divine government to which it may not be well applied, every act of it being involved in impenetra- ble obscurity, yet founded in wisdom, and goodness, and truth, and equity.
In unfolding, then, the truth contained in my text, I will endeavour to illustrate it, I. In the dispensations of God's providence —
Survey the state of the whole world since the fall of man —
[See the state in which every child is born into the world ; how " shapen in iniquity," how altogether unlike to man in his original creation d! See, too, as they grow up to ma- turity and put forth their powers, what wickedness they commit, and what misery they spread around them, none being a greater enemy to man than man himself !