UPON THE SIGHT OF AN ECLIPSE OF THE SUN.

"Light is an ordinary and familiar blessing; yet so dear to us, that one hour's interception of it sets all the world in a wonder. The two great luminaries of heaven, as they impart light to us, so they withdraw light from each other. The sun darkens the full moon, in casting the shadow of the earth upon her opposed face. The new moon repays this blemish to the sun, in the interposing of her dark body betwixt our eyes and his glorious beams; the earth is troubled at both: O God, if we be so afflicted with the obscuring of some piece of one of thy created lights for an hour or two, what a confusion shall it be, that thou, who art the God of these lights (in comparison of whom they are mere darkness,) shalt hide thy face from thy creatures for ever! Oh thou that art the Sun of righteousness, if every of my sins cloud thy face, yet let not my grievous sins eclipse thy light; thou shinest always, though I do not see thee, but, oh! never suffer my sins so to darken thy visage, that I cannot see thee."-Bishop Hall's Occasional Meditations. Affixed to the end of vol, ii. p. 118. Ed. fol. 1634.

PREFACE.

THE Occasion of the Eclipse seemed to the writer a very fit one for calling the attention of a Christian congregation to those signs in heaven and on the earth, which are but too often allowed to pass by unheeded. How often has every one,-when awakened, like Jacob, out of his sleep, or falling into a trance, but having his eyes open,―occasion to say, Surely the Lord is in this place; and I knew

it not !

The Sermon is published, with the same intent that it was written,—under the blessing of God, to do good; and the reader is requested to consider it as a plain Sermon, preached before a plain congregation,-Rechabites, as it were, dwelling in

tents.

The Author has nothing further to add, but the following words of an old Divine, whose piety and simplicity will easily betray him. "I pray God, this may go forth into a blessing to all that shall use it, and reflect blessings upon me all the way,

that my spark may grow greater by kindling my brother's taper, and God may be glorified in us both. If the reader shall receive no benefit, yet I intended him one, and I have laboured in order to it; and I shall receive a great recompence for that intention, if he shall please to say this prayer for me,That while I have preached to others I may not become a cast-away.""

Vicarage House, West Tarring,

St. John Baptist's Day, 1836.

A

SERMON,

&c.

ACTS ii. 20.

"The Sun shall be turned into darkness."

THE sun, and the moon, and the stars in their courses, obey the Lord that made them. He said, "Let there be light, and there was light ;" and the sun knew his place. He appointed the moon to rule the night, and the moon knoweth her "certain seasons1." "He made the stars also,"—and the stars know their Maker, and do His behests. "They fought from heaven; the stars in their courses fought against Sisera"." Even as it is said in the song of the Three Children (the Canticle which follows the Te Deum in the morning service) The sun and moon bless the Lord, praise Him and magnify Him for ever. The stars of heaven

bless the Lord, praise Him and magnify Him for

ever."

But the Almighty "doeth according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth,—He worketh signs and wonders in heaven and in earth1;" and so, if by his servant Joshua He said in the sight of Israel,-" Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon, and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon," the sun must stand still, and the moon must stay until Israel be avenged upon their enemies. Or, again, if haply the Lord's anointed be sick unto death, and an Hezekiah turn his face to the wall, and pray unto the Lord, behold, He may add unto his days fifteen years, and bring "the shadow of the degrees, which is gone down in the sun-dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward," and so, because it is the Almighty's will, the sun must obey, -the sun must return "ten degrees, by which degrees it was gone down." And yet further, if it be the Lord's will, the stars shall seem to make obeisance unto Joseph *; or, though He has given them for a light by night, He may seal them up and cover the heaven with blackness 5. If they be not pure in His sight, if they be disobedient to His will, (though in sober truth it is man alone that is disobedient,) "Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the South®,

'Dan. iv. 34. vi. 27.

* Gen. xxxvii. 9.

6

Job ix. 9.-Our translation follows the Septuagint version:

Ὁ ποιῶν Πλειάδα, καὶ Ἕσπερον, καὶ ̓Αρκτοῦρον, καὶ ταμεῖα Νότου.