4 I’ll leave my sport to read and pray, and so prepare for heaven: O may I love this blessed day the best of all the seven! XXV.--_For the Lord’s Day Evening._ 1 Lord, how delightful ’tis to see A whole assembly worship thee! At once they sing, at once they pray, They hear of heaven and learn the way. 2 I have been there, and still would go, ’Tis like a little heaven below; Nor all my pleasures, nor my play, Shall tempt me to forget that day. 3 O write upon my mem’ry, Lord, The test and doctrines of thy Word, That I may break thy laws no more, But love thee better than before. 4 With thoughts of Christ, and things divine Fill up this foolish heart of mine; That, hoping pardon through his blood, I may lie down, and wake with God. FINIS. THE PLANT OF RENOWN: BEING TWO SERMONS, PREACHED BY THE REV. EBENEZER ERSKINE, LATE MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL IN STIRLING. [Illustration] GLASGOW: PRINTED FOR THE BOOKSELLERS. THE PLANT OF RENOWN. SERMON I. EZEKIEL, xxxiv. 29. _And I will raise up for them a Plant of Renown._ If we cast our eyes back upon the foregoing part of this chapter, we shall find a very melancholy scene casting up; we shall find the flock and heritage of God scattered, robbed and peeled by the civil and ecclesiastical rulers that were in being in that day; a day much like to the day wherein we live: the ruin of the church of Christ in all ages and periods of the world, has been owing to combinations betwixt corrupt churchmen, and corrupt statesmen; and so you will find it. In the preceding part of this chapter there is a high charge brought in against the Shepherds of Israel, and a terrible and awful threatening denounced by the great and chief shepherd against them, for the bad treatment that the flock of Christ had met with in their hands: However the sheep of Christ may be fleeced, and scattered, and spoiled, yet the Lord looks on them; and many great and precious promises are made for their encouragement in that evil day; you may read them at your own leisure, for I must not stay upon them just now. But among all the rest of the promises that are made, Christ is the chief; Christ is the To-look of the church, whatever trouble she be in. In the 7th chapter of Isaiah, the church had a trembling heart, God’s Israel was shaken as ever you saw the leaves of the wood shaken by the wind, by reason of two Kings combining against them: Well, the Lord tells them, “A Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and call his name IMMANUEL.” But, might not the church say, what is that to us? What encouragement doth this afford in the present distress? Why, the Messiah is to come of the tribe of Judah and the family of David; and therefore that tribe and family must be preserved, in order to the accomplishment of that promise. Whatever distance of