what individuals may refuse. What thousands, therefore, what millions, of tokens of free-will are enclosed within our walls. (This, perhaps, a better cement than any intervention of power would have been.) That so much has voluntarily been done, and is doing, should be accepted as evidence of a concern for the cause of God, rather than any factious hostility to the National Church. Those who impute such a motive would marvel if they were aware how little is said in our meeting-houses, how very rarely the subject of Dissent is in any way adverted to; indeed, too little.

But will not the liberal voluntary principle fail us at last, under the continual claims (exactions almost) that are made on it? It will, if the exhortation in the text fail. There does often arise in the minds of contributors, the idea, somewhat in the form of an objection and resistance, "There is no end to these applications." But if there were an end to them, what would that show, but that a great expansive and beneficent agency, was stopped by some fatal limit? that some power (what power?) had said to it, "Thus far, but no farther ?" And that would imply that an immense number yet remaining of the people of our land should receive little or nothing of the benefits of the Gospel of Christ. The very numerous applications show that this melancholy doom has not fallen upon them, And as they gradually receive the Gospel, how many of them will bless God that his servants, here and there, were not weary in well-doing!"

66

In some instances an objection is raised, (not quite without reason,) that the undertaking is on too ambitious a scale; an edifice too spacious, decorated, costly. We need not say, the house we are now in falls under no censure. In regarding the claims of a house for the service of religion, let it be considered how long the utility may en

dure; one long lapse of years after another, co-extended with the life of several generations. What a countless series of sentences of instructions! petitions in prayer, so many that he alone to whom they are made can keep the vast account! Blessings from Him in consequence; yes, in this very house. So that the contributed propertymoney-deposited in the walls ("sunk," in commercial phrase) will be yielding spiritual interest indefinitely onward. And this is one of the ways in which some of those will "reap," who are not "weary" of giving aid to the object. The habitual attendants, it may be hoped, will do so in their own persons, in the first instance; afterwards, in those they leave behind. The occasional friends will acknowledge that, through the medium of benevolence and love to religion, they may enjoy a portion of the good, a certain interest in the good, which others obtain. Happy to "reap" in any of these ways! But, independently of all this-there is the consideration of the Sovereign Master, the sublime perfection of all beneficence, who takes account of his servants for another world; who loses sight of no instance, throughout all time, of faithful perseverance in the good cause; loses none from his remembrance; and, in fulfilling his promises, will surpass all their expectations and conceptions. Then will they find that "their labour has not been in vain in the Lord."

LECTURE LXIII.

THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE, IN REFERENCE TO THE

ERECTION OF PLACES OF WORSHIP.

ISAIAH xli. 6.

They helped every one his neighbour; and every one said to his brother, Be of good courage."

The verses prealarmed at the But instead of

As a text is, of course, to be read for a good purpose, it may seem of doubtful propriety to cite language applied to a bad one, as here. But as Matthew Henry says, it is hard if we may not sometimes avail ourselves of what has been done and said for evil, to enforce what is good. ceding seem to describe the heathens as striking manifestations of the true God. renouncing their idols, they went the more zealously to the work of Idolatry. There were gods too few, not shaped to every fancy, and we have a description of the process of making a new one. It seems to have been a willing service; they were on "the Voluntary Principle;" but let it be no disparagement to that principle that Pagans acted on it,unless it be better that Christians should support their religion on compulsion.

What the inhabitants of this planet, between willingness and compulsion, have done, in labour and cost, for false religions, is an amazing spectacle for contemplation. Think of all the heathen temples! We have notices in history of some that have wholly or nearly vanished from the face of the earth, but that were once of great celebrity and resort. Others, described as of immense magnificence, have only

left their memorials, in parts of their foundations, in fragments of columns, pieces of sculpture, and shapeless heaps of stones. Many others, in various degrees of ruin, still exhibit prodigious grandeur and beauty; as at Athens, Rome, Baalbec, Palmyra. And there are at this day, in some regions, in a complete state, many vast structures for the service of pagan gods and abominations. So that our globe has been (if we may so speak) studded and sparkling with the splendid prominences of triumphant paganism. Evil spirits, haunting it, have had, as it were, superb palaces to go in and out of;-while good ones, sojourning, have had to survey mighty fortresses of war against heaven; and might wonder, unless instructed in the mystery of Providence.

All this has been done by human contrivance and labour! Over the greater part of the earth the inhabitants have raised these proud structures against heaven; even in America, as found at its discovery; in Europe,-think only of Greece and Italy; in Asia, to an incalculable amount; in eastern Europe, and western Asia, the dazzling beauty of some, and at once the beauty and grand dimensions of others were such that we cannot wonder the popular mind was enchanted and overawed;-Egypt above all, for stupendous vastness, consuming almost half a nation's labour, and successive generations, as at Carnac. After such a view we may well doubt whether all the structures in the world for Christian worship have absorbed so much labour and cost as the temples of heathenism. But, if we may be allowed to throw over to the same account as paganism, all the Mahommedan mosques,—and, in addition, all that which in Christian edifices, has been merely for the purpose of pomp and superstition—there is no longer any comparison. The whole sum of what has been expended in buildings really. for the service of Christianity would be as nothing in the comparison. What was St. Peter's for? and by what

expedients was the money raised? The same expedient was resorted to in certain of our own Cathedrals.

But it may be said,-why this excursion from one end of the world to the other, so foreign apparently, to any present business? And truly, it is a vast transition from such edifices as we have been describing, to our plain, humble, dissenting meeting-houses. But such an introductory reference has been suggested by the prominent characteristic apparent in the text, namely, zealous co-operation; "every man helped his neighbour," and the thing was accomplished. In contemplating those astonishing works for heathen religion and other superstitions, one cannot help thinking of the immense concurrence and combination of exertions. What exercise of genius in devising-consultations on the means and proceedings-treasures profusely expended-multitudes labouring together, under vigilant incitement and direction-a world of digging and hewing. What a troop about one stone, raising it to its position, by means which no one can now conjecture; going on from one ten years to another, and all in an assured faith that, in being acceptable to the Deity, it would be beneficial to men; all in a thousand ways "helping" each "his neighbour." A hundred hands were engaged on a single stone; some at one part of an engine, some at another; and all in the service of religion.

Now surely this may be offered and taken as a lesson to us, on the topic of willing aid and co-operation in engious undertakings. Shall we make, in imagination, the wide survey, of so many millions of fellow-contributors to raise the most sumptuous fabrics, to be devoted in clear property to false religious and gods, and not be reminded that even these, our comparatively diminutive structures cannot be consecrated in full property to the true God but by the friendly co-operating aid of numbers? Quite generally,