THE RAINBOW ABOUT THE THRONE.

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it-it must certainly be our unquestionable duty and truest interest, to comply with these holy inspirations; to dispose ourselves for the receiving of them, by furnishing our minds with suitable dispositions and qualifications, by an attentive regard to whatsoever He speaks to us, and an humble submission to everything which becomes our duty. For shall God speak to us, and shall not man hear? Shall we not say with Samuel," Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth?" And yet how frequently do we turn a deaf ear to these admonitions! And though God speaks once, yea twice, yet we regard it not! Who is there that has not heard God speak to him by the voice of affliction, and the awakening dispensations of His providence, by the voice of His ministers, and the inspirations of His Holy Spirit? And yet all these admonitions have not been sufficient to work his reformation and amendment. There are none of us but have been frequently warned to flee from the wrath to come, whilst we lie musing on our beds, and calling to mind the past actions of our lives. Is there not a voice within us which either accuses or excuses us? which represents to us the reasonableness of a holy, just, and good life, and the folly and madness of being vicious and wicked, and what dangerous effects sin doth continually produce? And if so, how reasonable is it, that we should hearken to this heavenly monitor? that we should weigh and consider what He dictates to us, and resolve to perform whatsoever we are assured will conduce to our truest interest, both here and hereafter? Which that we may all of us do, God of His mercy grant for Jesus Christ His sake.

The Rainbow about the Throne.

There will certainly come a time when we shall all stand before the throne of God, to be judged according to our works, and to receive sentence according to our deeds done in the flesh, when the whole world shall be on fire, "the heavens shall

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be shrivelled up like a scroll of parchment, the elements melt with fervent heat, and the earth and all that is therein shall be burnt up;" when both the book of God's law and the book of our own consciences shall be opened, and all our thoughts, words, and actions writ in plain and legible characters, and exposed to the view of men and angels, and the devil, our accuser, shall read our indictment against us, aggravating our sins with all the most heightening circumstances. And then, were not the throne encompassed with this rainbow; were there not 'mercy with Him, that He might be feared," what course could we possibly take? Could we either avoid or endure the vengeance of an angry God? Could we withstand the power, or oppose the wrath of the Almighty? To fancy this, would be the most desperate folly. What then? Should we deny the fact, our consciences will be instead of a thousand witnesses. Or should we call to the mountains to fall on us, and cover us? Alas! they will shake and tremble no less than we. But is there no balm in our Gilead? Is there no help for poor miserable men within their own reach? Was misery so surely entailed upon them after the fall, that there is no possibility of reversing the sentence by their own means? No, certainly, our strength is but weakness, we have no power to raise ourselves out of this miserable condition, or to give the least helping hand towards our recovery. All that strength which God gave us at the first, we lost by the fall of our first parents, and have forfeited that grace which He has afforded us since, by the misuse of it. So that if we look down only upon ourselves, we shall find nothing but this dismal prospect of horror and despair; we can claim nothing of God, nor have we any thing of our own to succour and help us; to us belongs confusion of face and everlasting misery, "lamentation, mourning, and woe." But if we look up unto heaven, we may there behold that bow which God has placed about the throne, to remind us of that covenant of mercy which God has established with us,

:

DIVINE MERCY.

155 and ratified and confirmed it with the blood of His dearly beloved Son, to assure every broken heart and truly penitent sinner, that though He is a terrible Judge to obstinate offenders, yet He will be a gracious and merciful Saviour to all those who are reconciled to Him through Christ, and have their sins pardoned by His death and satisfaction. God is both able and willing to recover us out of that desperate condition into which we have reduced ourselves. To the Lord our God belongs mercy and plenteous forgiveness, though we have rebelled against Him. And therefore it is observable that this bow has no string it is not bent to execute God's vengeance upon us, but it is placed about the throne, as instruments of war used to be in times of peace, amongst the Romans, for ornaments to their houses and the temples of their gods. It is a bow without an arrow, denoting to us that our blessed Saviour has appeased God's wrath, and taken away the sting of sin and death, and, as it were, disarmed God's justice; so that now every one who is reconciled to God through Christ has no reason to fear "the arrows that fly by night, nor the pestilence that walketh at noonday," the most dreadful threatenings and judgments of God; for God has laid aside His thunder out of His hand, and is ready to embrace us with the arms of a loving and indulgent Father. And lastly, it is a bow encompassing the throne, denoting to us that God's mercy is exalted above His justice; for though all God's attributes are equal, as they are essentially in God, yet, in their effects and in the exercise of them, they shine with a different lustre; and the goodness of God is that attribute which in a peculiar manner adorns the Divine nature, and renders it amiable and lovely, as well as venerable and adorable. God's mercy, which is only the exercise of His goodness towards offenders, is represented in the Holy Scripture with peculiar privileges above the rest of His attributes. God is styled "the Father of mercy;" "He is rich in mercy;" and mercy is said to "please Him;" He

desires to be known by this attribute to the whole world; He is the Lord God gracious and merciful, and publicly declares that His mercy rejoices over judgment. And therefore the rainbow is placed about the throne, to signify to us that God is always mindful of His gracious covenant made with mankind; and that in the midst of justice He remembers mercy.

DEAN SWIFT.

Of the pulpit performances of the Dean of St Patrick's only three specimens survive. The following sermon was a special favourite with Dr Chalmers, and he used to read it to his class as a good example of plain sense and downrightness, as well as of a wise forbearance, brought to the treatment of a difficult subject. The text is 1 John v. 7.

Except to the lovers of morbid mental anatomy, the history of Jonathan Swift is not an attractive subject. Those who wish to study it will find abundant materials in his numerous biographers and critics, from Dr Johnson down to Sir Walter Scott and Mr Thackeray.

On the Trinity.

This day being set apart to acknowledge our belief in the Eternal Trinity, I thought it might be proper to employ my present discourse entirely upon that subject; and I hope to handle it in such a manner that the most ignorant among you may return home better informed of your duty in this great point than probably you are at present.

It must be confessed, that by the weakness and indiscretion of busy (or, at best, of well-meaning) people, as well as by the malice of those who are enemies to all revealed religion, and are not content to possess their own infidelity in silence, without communicating it to the disturbance of mankind; I say, by these means, it must be confessed, that the doctrine of the

ON THE TRINITY.

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Trinity hath suffered very much, and made Christianity suffer along with it. For these two things must be granted: First, That men of wicked lives would be very glad there were no truth in Christianity at all; and, secondly, If they can pick out any one single article in the Christian religion which appears not agreeable to their own corrupted reason, or to the arguments of those bad people who follow the trade of seducing others, they presently conclude, that the truth of the whole gospel must sink along with that one article; which is just as wise as if a man should say, because he dislikes one law of his country, he will therefore observe no law at all. And yet that one law may be very reasonable in itself, although he doth not allow it, or doth not know the reason of the lawgivers.

Thus it hath happened with the great doctrine of the Trinity; which word is indeed not in Scripture, but was a term of art invented in the earlier times to express the doctrine by a single word for the sake of brevity and convenience. The doctrine then, as delivered in Holy Scripture, although not exactly in the same words, is very short, and amounts only to this— That the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are each of them God, and yet that there is but one God. For, as to the word person, when we say there are three persons, and as to those other explanations in the Athanasian creed this day read to you (whether compiled by Athanasius or no), they were taken up three hundred years after Christ to expound this doctrine; and I will tell you upon what occasion. About that time there sprang up a heresy of a people called Arians, from one Arius the leader of them. These denied our Saviour to be God, although they allowed all the rest of the gospel (wherein they were more sincere than their followers among us). Thus the Christian world was divided into two parts, until at length, by the zeal and courage of Saint Athanasius, the Arians were condemned in a general council, and a creed formed upon the true faith, as Saint Athanasius hath settled it. This creed is now