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BV 4253 .B3 1841 c.2 
 Barnes, Albert, 1798-1870. 
 Practical sermons designed 
 for vacant congregations 
 

PRACTICAL 
 
 SERMONS: 
 
 DESIGNED FOR 
 
 VACANT CONGREGATIONS AND FAMILIES. 
 
 ^%W OF PRiHCB^^ 
 
 V 
 
 ALBERT BARNES. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 HENRY PERKINS, 
 
 134 CHESTNUT STREET. 
 
 1841. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in tlie year 1841, by 
 
 Albert Barnes, 
 
 in the Office of tlie Clerk of the District Court of the Eastern District of 
 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
 STEKEOTVPED I5Y L. JOHNSON. 
 PRINTED DY T. K. & P. G. UOLI.I.V.S, PHILADELPHIA. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The title of tins volume sufficiently indicates its 
 design. It is published, because it is supposed that 
 there is a want of such sermons constantly occur- 
 ring. There are numerous congregations in this 
 country, which, unhappily, have not the regular 
 preaching of the gospel, and in which, in order 
 to maintain public worship, it is necessary to 
 make use of printed sermons. It is not supposed 
 that these are better sermons than have before 
 been pubhshed for such an object, but that there 
 might be an advantage in having a greater variety; 
 and that an interest might exist in behalf of those 
 recently published which could not be excited for 
 even a better volume that has been frequently pe- 
 rused. There are not a few families, also, it is 
 supposed, which would be interested in a volume 
 of sermons, and in which, it is hoped, good might 
 be done by their perusal. 
 
^ PREFACE. 
 
 The discourses in this volume are wholly prac- 
 tical. They were intended to be such as would 
 be adapted to impress on the mind the importance 
 and necessity of personal religion, and to urge the 
 necessity of a holy life, as the first great duty of 
 man. There are no sermons in the volume which 
 professedly discuss the doctrines of Christianity; 
 and no sentiments are intended to be advanced 
 which would offend evangelical Christians of any 
 denomination. The appeals, illustrations, and argu- 
 ments to a holy life, are based on the supposition 
 of the truth of the evangelical doctrines; but it 
 was no part of the plan to discuss those doctrines, 
 or to make them prominent. I may be permitted, 
 perhaps, to say, in justice to myself, that, my usual 
 manner of preaching to my own congregation is 
 much more doctrinal in its character than the pe- 
 rusal of these sermons might lead a reader to sup- 
 pose. These are intentionally selected for their 
 practical character. 
 
 Albert Barnes. 
 
 Washington Square, Philadelphia, 
 June 16th, 1841. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Sermon I. The Freeness of the Gospel 7 
 
 Rev. xxii. 17, And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that 
 heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst, come. And whosoever 
 will, let him take the water of life freely. 
 
 Sermon II. The Love of God in the Gift of a Saviour 25 
 
 John iii. 16. God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, 
 that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting 
 life. 
 
 Sermon III. Hl^y will ye die? 41 
 
 Ezek. xxxiii. 11. Say unto them. As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no 
 pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his 
 way and live ; turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways ; for why will ye die I 
 
 Sermon IV. The Beceit fulness of the Heart 58 
 
 Jer. xvii. 9. The heart is deceitful above all things. 
 
 Sermon V. Indecision in Religion • • • • 75 
 
 1 Kings xviii. 21. And Elijah came unto all the people and said, IIow long 
 halt ye between two opinions 1 If the Lord be God, follow him : but 
 if Baal, then follow him. 
 
 Sermon VI. The Reasons why Men are not Christians- 89 
 
 Luke -xiv. 18. I pray thee have me excused. 
 
 Sermon VII. The Misery of forsaking God 103 
 
 Jer. ii. 13. My people have committed two evils;— they have forsaken me, 
 the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cis- 
 terns, that can hold no water. 
 
 Sermon VIII. God is ivorthy of Confidence 116 
 
 Job xxii. 21. Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace. 
 
 Sermon IX. Repentance 132 
 
 Acts xvii. 30. And the times of this ignorance God winked at ; but now 
 commandeth all men every where to repent. 
 
 Sermon X. Salvation Easy 148 
 
 Matt. xi. 30. My yoke is easy, and my burden is light. 
 
 Sermon XI. The Principles on luhich a Profession of 
 
 Religion should be made. No. 1 164 
 
 2 Cor. vi. 17, IS. Wherefore come cut from among them, and be ve sepa- 
 rate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will" receive 
 you, and will be a Father \uito you, and ye shall be my sons and daugh- 
 ters, saith the Lord Almighty. 
 
 1* 6 
 
6 CONTENTS. 
 
 Pag« 
 
 Sermon XII. The Principles on ivhich a Profession of 
 
 Religion should be made. No. 2 181 
 
 2 Cor. vi. 17, 18. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye sepa- 
 rate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and 1 will receive 
 you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daugh- 
 ters, saith the Lord Almighty. 
 
 Sermon XIII. Enemies of the Cross of Christ. No. 1««193 
 
 Phil. iii. 18. For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell 
 you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ. 
 
 Sermon XIV. Enemies of the Cross of Christ. No. 2-. 208 
 
 Phil. iii. 18. For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell 
 you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ. 
 
 Sermon XV. Enemies of the Cross of Christ. No. 3««««221 
 
 Phil. iii. 18, 19. For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now 
 tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, 
 whose end is destruction. 
 
 Sermon XVI. The Bide of Christianity, in regard to 
 
 Conformity to the JVorld 234 
 
 Rom. xii. 2. And be not conformed to this world. 
 
 Sermon XVII. The Blessings of a Benignant Spirit" '252 
 
 Col. iii. 12. Put on, therefore, as the elect of God— kindness. 
 
 Sermon XVIII. Secret Prayer -266 
 
 Matt, vi 6. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when 
 thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy 
 Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly. 
 
 Sermon XIX. The Sabbath 281 
 
 Ex. XX. 8. Remember the Sabbath-day, to keep it holy. 
 
 Sermon XX. Secret Faults 296 
 
 Psalm xix. 12. Who can understand his errors'? Cleanse thou me from 
 secret faults. 
 
 Sermon XXI. Preparation to meet God 311 
 
 Amos iv. 12. Prepare to meet thy God. 
 
 Sermon XXII. The Burden of Dumah 325 
 
 Isa. xxi. 11, 12. The burden of Dumah. He calleth to me o\\\. of Seir, 
 Watchman, what of the night 1 Watchman, what of the nightl The 
 waicliman said, The morning cometh, and also the night. — If ye will en- 
 quire, enquire ye. Return, come. 
 
 Sermon XXIII. The Harvest Past 342 
 
 Jer. viii. 20. The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not 
 
PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 SERMON I. 
 
 THE FREENESS OF THE GOSPEL. 
 
 Rev. xxii. 17. And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him 
 that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst, Come. And whoso- 
 ever will, let him take the water of life freely. 
 
 The obvious sentiment of this beautiful passage of 
 Scripture is, that the offers of salvation are made freely 
 to all men, and that the invitation is to be pressed on the 
 attention by all the means which can be employed. To 
 this sentiment, I propose at this time to invite your atten- 
 tion. 
 
 The figure of " the water of life" which John employs 
 in the text, is one that often occurs in the Scriptures to 
 represent the mercy of God tov/ards mankind. Thus 
 Isaiah (xxxv. 6) in speaking of the times of the Messiah 
 says, " Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the 
 tongue of the dumb sing : for in the wilderness shall waters 
 break out, and streams in the desert. And the parched 
 ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs 
 of water." And again (xli. 18), "I will open rivers in 
 high places, and fountains in the midst of the vallies : I 
 will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry 
 land springs of water." And again (Iv. 1), "Ho, every 
 one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath 
 no money ; come ye, buy and eat ; yea, come, buy wine 
 and milk without money, and without price." The idea 
 in all these passages is, that the blessings of the gospel 
 would resemble fountains and running streams ; as if in 
 the solitary, sandy desert, streams of water, pure, refresh- 
 ing, and ample, should suddenly break forth, and should 
 fill the desolate plains with verdure, and should gladden 
 
 7 
 
8 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 the heart of the faintmg traveller, — streams of which each 
 coming caravan might partake without money and with- 
 out charge. In a world which in regard to its real com- 
 forts is not unaptly compared to a waste of pathless sands, 
 the blessings of the gospel would burst forth like cooling, 
 perennial fountains ; and man like a weary and thirsty 
 pilgrim might partake and be happy, — as the traveller 
 sits down by such a fountain and slakes his thirst in the 
 desert. 
 
 In the text, however, the particular idea is, that men 
 are freely invited to partake of the blessings of salvation. 
 They are invited by the Holy Spirit, and by the bride — ■ 
 the church — to come. So free is salvation that even he 
 who hears of it may go "and say to kindred and friend, 
 'come.' They who thirst may come:— they who are 
 pressed down by the consciousness of the want of some- 
 thing like this to make them happy, who are satisfied 
 that happiness can noAvhere else be found, who thirst 
 for salvation under the consciousness of sin, and the 
 feeling that the " world can never give the bliss for 
 which they sigh," are invited to come ; and all who 
 choose may come and partake freely of the waters of 
 life. — John saw in vision (ch. xxh. 1) "a pure river of 
 water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne 
 of God and the Lamb." To that pure and clear river 
 of salvation, men are invited to come freely. There 
 they may slake their thirst. There the desires of the 
 immortal mind, where all earthly things fail, may be 
 satisfied. 
 
 It is not my purpose in this discourse — though my 
 text might seem to invite to it — to dwell on the fact that 
 the gospel is offered to all men ; that the Redeemer died 
 for all ; that the Eternal Father is willing to save all ; 
 or that ample provision is made for all who will come. 
 On these points, it is sufficient for my present purpose to 
 say, that my text declares that, " whosoever will may 
 take the water of life freely ;" that God has elsewhere 
 said, " Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the 
 waters ;" that the Redeemer has said, " come unto me 
 all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and 1 will give 
 you rest." It is enough that God has solemnly sworn, 
 " as I live I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, 
 
THE FREENESS OF THE GOSPEL. 9 
 
 but that the wicked turn from liis way and hve ;" that 
 it is solemnly declared that Christ '* by the grace of God 
 tasted death for every man;" that he is "the propitiation 
 for the sins of the whole world," and that the Saviour 
 has given the assurance that, " every one that asketh 
 rocciveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that 
 knocketh it shall be opened." It would be sufficient to 
 prove this, if there were nothing else, that the Lord Jesus 
 when about to ascend to heaven, said to his disciples, 
 " Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to 
 every creature — he that believeth and is baptized shall 
 be saved." I ask no higher proof that the plan of 
 salvation is adapted to all, and that it contains ample 
 blessings for all. I desire no other argument to show 
 that the doors of heaven are opened wide, and that the 
 Father of mercies waits to save men. I ask no other 
 warrant for making the ofter of salvation to as many of 
 the lost children of men as I may ever be enabled to do, 
 or of giving the a,ssnrance to man, wherever I may meet 
 him, that God is willing to save him from eternal death. 
 
 Taking our high stand, therefore, on these incontro- 
 vertible positions, and with these full aud free offers of 
 life clearly in view, my desire is, to press the invitation 
 in the text on your attention. I wish to state some of 
 the appeals which the gospel makes to you as individuals. 
 I wish to come to you and reason with you, and show 
 you why you should embrace it ; and I shall be satisfied 
 if I can so vary the form of the invitation that my beau- 
 tiful text may find its way, as it ought to be allowed to, 
 to the heart. 
 
 Vv'hy then should you embrace the offer of salvation 
 in the gospel ? In what way is this invitation pressed on 
 your attention ? I answer, it is done, 
 
 I. In the first place, by your own conviction of the 
 truth and the obligations of religion. I mean that the 
 convictions of the understanding are on the side of re- 
 ligion, and that Christianity makes its appeals to you 
 with the presumption that its claims are seen and known 
 to be right. We come to you, when we preach the 
 gospel, with the assurance that we carry with us the 
 decisions of the understanding, though we may fail in 
 
 '3: 
 
 •5 
 
10 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 to you as to those who have no disposition to cavil with 
 the argument for the truth of rehgion ; who are wilhng 
 to be numbered among the supporters and the defenders 
 of the gospel ; and who are cherishing the purpose more 
 or less distinctly formed, at some time to be Christians. 
 I refer to facts such as the following. 
 
 (1.) You believe that Christianity is true. You admit 
 this as a truth which you are not disposed to controvert, 
 and which you are willing should be understood by your 
 children and friends to be one of the settled truths on which 
 your mind has no doubt. You would be unwilling that 
 a wife, a sister, a child, or a parent, should tlhnk otherwise 
 of you than that this is the deliberate conviction of your 
 minds, a conviction in which you purpose to live, and to 
 die. You wish to be understood as having no sympathy 
 with an atheist, an infidel, a scoffer. With them you 
 have not been ranked ; with them you purpose not to be 
 found. When I say this, I mean that it is the conviction 
 of the most of those to whom the gospel is preached. 
 This conviction may be the result of education ; or, it 
 may have arisen from the habit of long and patient reflec- 
 tion ; or, it may have been formed from the observation of 
 the eflects of religion on the minds and lives of others ; or, 
 it may be possibly a conviction whose origin you cannot 
 well define ; or, it may have been the result of an extended 
 and patient examination of the evidences of the Christian 
 religion. It is not material to my argument now, what is 
 the origin of it, or by what arguments you would be dis- 
 posed to maintain it. The fact is all that is of importance 
 now ; and that fact is, that the divine origin of Christianity 
 is one of those truths which you do not presume to call 
 in question, and which you do not wish to be understood 
 as doubting. You feel that a part of your reputation is 
 involved in holding the opinion that Christianity is true. 
 
 I assume, therefore, that those whom I address at this 
 time are disposed to admit that Christianity is true, and 
 that it has a claim on their hearts, and lives. It is not 
 to be presumed of any man, without proof, that he is an 
 atheist or an infidel, any more than it is, that he is a liar 
 or a murderer. It is not true that the mass of men in 
 any commimity are infidels or atheists ; nor is it to be 
 presumed of any one that he is an nifidel unless he gives 
 
THE FUEENESS OF THE GOSPEL. 11 
 
 US proof of it that shall be irrefragable in his profession 
 or his life, — proof that would satisfy a court and jury on 
 the point. There is something about Christianity which 
 commends it wherever it comes, and wherever its effects 
 are seen, as true, and pure, and good, and adapted to the 
 condition of mankind ; and wherever it is long proclaimed 
 it secures the popular voice in its favor, and constrains the 
 intellect, if not the heart of man, to bow before it. As a 
 matter of fact, infidelity is usually the work of time and 
 of sin. Men who have been trained under the influence 
 of religion, do not speculatively cast off" the authority of 
 God until they have formed a purpose to live in a manner 
 which he forbids. Youth usually adheres to its belief of 
 the truth of religion until it is enticed by the love of sin, 
 or by the seductive arts of aged infidelity. The young 
 are full of sincerity, and openness, and confidence, and 
 they admit the claims of the principles of virtue and re- 
 Ugion. We are therefore to look for infidels and atheists, 
 not among the young, and the ingenuous, but among 
 the profligate, the abandoned, the profane and the sen- 
 sual. These all are infidels as a matter of course. The 
 speculative belief of Christianity and the sanctuary were 
 forsaken together, and infidelity and vice became at the 
 same moment bosom companions. 
 
 Now it is to this belief of the truth of Christianity that 
 I make my appeal. The gospel addresses you as if you 
 knew and admitted it to be true, and asks you to "come.'' 
 It is not the claim of a new and unknown religion. It 
 is not the voice of a stranger that invites you. It is^tliat 
 m Avhichyou have been trained ; a religion whose eflects 
 you have witnessed from childhood ; which has the 
 sanction of a father and mother, and of the best friends 
 which you now have, or have had on earth. It is that 
 whose effects you see in the community around you ; 
 whose consolations and sustaining power you may have 
 often witnessed in trial ; nay, whose hopes and joys you 
 may have seen exemplified on the death-bed of your 
 most beloved friend. It simply asks you, in a barren 
 world, to embrace consolation which you know to have 
 an existence ; to take the waters of life which you believe 
 flow freely for all; to come to a Saviour who you 
 
12 PRACTICAL SERIMOlsS. 
 
 believe poured out his precious blood that you might 
 live forever. 
 
 I kuow it may be said that this is the work of education, 
 and that I am appealing to a mere prejudice. But I reply, 
 that it is not with aU a mere prejudice, nor does the argu- 
 ment which I urge prechide the supposition of the most 
 close and patient examination. I argue from the admitted 
 truth of Ciiristianity on whatever ground that miay be 
 conceded. But suppose that it is the result of education, I 
 would observe that there are opinions and principles that 
 have been inculcated by education that constitute a just 
 ground of appeal. To what in most instances will you 
 trace the felt and conceded obligation of truth, of chastity, 
 of honesty, of patriotism, of modesty, but to the influences 
 of education ? Are they vahieless because they have been 
 instilled with parental care from the cradle ? Shall they be 
 rejected and despised because they thus depend on lessons 
 that have been inculcated with anxious solicitude from 
 very childhood ? Or is it, and should it not be presumptive 
 proof of their value, that they are the lessons which a 
 venerated father has taught ; that they are the sentiments 
 of a much loved mother ; that they are virtues which give 
 ornament and grace to a sister, and that they command the 
 assent of the community at large ? He walks safely who 
 walks in the ways of virtue ; he cannot greatly err who 
 desires to please his Maker and to live for heaven. 
 
 (2.) Again. Religion appeals to you not only by its 
 admitted truth, but by 3^our ovv^n reason. This is what 
 I mean. Your reason is always on the side of God and 
 of his claims. It always approves the service of God, no 
 matter how soon that service is begun, and no matter with 
 what self-denial and fidelity it is performed. It always 
 condemns the opposite, no matter how plausibly the 
 neglect of God may be urged, and no matter what may 
 be the apparent and temporary pleasure found in the ways 
 of sin. Reason never lends its voice in favor of atheism, 
 or scepticism, or the neglect of religion, or sensuality, or 
 crime. It is too faithful to the God who has formed the 
 human understanding, and who has made it capable of 
 pronouncing on truth and duty. There is not one of the 
 subjects which reason investigates that does not utter a 
 
THE FREENESS OF THE GOSPEL. 13 
 
 loud and distinct voice in favor of virtue, of religion, and 
 of God. Tliere is not a star, however faint or obscure ; 
 not a comet, however remotely it may travel ; not a petal 
 of a flower or an insect's wing ; not a fibre of a muscle 
 or a nerve, that does not rebuke all the feeling^ of the 
 atheist and the scoffer. There is not a ray of light or a 
 dew drop ; not a living thing or a grain of sand that can 
 be made tributary to the argument of the atheist. And 
 tliere is not one solitpay consideration which reason can 
 suggest that will justify the neglect of God, and the con- 
 cerns of the soul for a single moment. I am sure that, 
 whatever may be the feelings of my hearers, I always 
 iiave their understanding with me when I urge on them 
 the claims of God. I never speak to men in the name of 
 my Master without the utmost assurance that their 
 reason approves of all that I urge from the Bible, and 
 tiiat it would approve their course should they one and 
 all at once become decided Christians. If you doubt 
 this, show me one man who in his sober reflections ever 
 regretted his having become a Christian. Point me to one 
 even in the flames of martyrdom, or on a bed of death, 
 or in a career of prosperity, who regretted that he had so 
 soon or so entirely given himself to the service of God. 
 Tell me of one whose reason, when the sober moment of 
 death approaclied, condemned him for having sought to 
 live to the honor of God ; or tell me of one — yes, even 
 one, who has left iha most gay and splendid circles of life ; 
 vvdio has gone from the scenes of brilliant but hollow 
 pleasure to the cross ; who has given up the world for 
 Christian duties and self-denials however a^rduous, who 
 ever yet regretted it. No, that Christian remains yet to 
 be found who has left a gay and a wicked world, and has 
 chosen the service of God, who has for one moment 
 regretted the choice, and v/hose whole soul has not 
 approved the most self-denying service in the cause of 
 the Redeemer. And I am certain, my hearers, that I 
 now have your reason in favor of the appeal which I 
 make that you would come and take the water of life. 
 I am certain, and so are you, that should you one and all 
 hear this appeal, there can be no period in all your future 
 being when your reason would not approve the deed. 
 No, come honor or dishonor ; good report or evil report ; 
 
14 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 poverty or wealth ; sickness or health ; storms and tem- 
 pests, or calms and smishine ; come life or death ; come 
 calamity when and where it may, you would bless God 
 that you had resolved to drink of the water of the river 
 of life. 
 
 (3.) Equally clear is it that the conscience is on the side 
 of religion and the claims of God. I am always sure that 
 it is in my favor when I urge the law and the claims of my 
 Maker. I am sure that it is never at peace until peace is 
 found in the gospel. The Christian has always a calm 
 and an approving conscience in view of the fact that he 
 has become a Christian. He has no misgivings. He has 
 no feeling at any time that he has done wrong in doing it. 
 He cannot have ; he never will have. But the sinner never 
 has an approving conscience in view of the fact that he 
 lives in the neglect of religion. He may be callous and 
 insensible, but that is not to have an approving conscience. 
 Nor will his conscience ever approve the neglect of reli- 
 gion, or give him peace for having refused to come and 
 drink of the proffered water of life. 
 
 Here then is the first reason which I urge, or the first 
 ground of my appeal to-day. It is an appeal drawn from 
 your admission of the truth of Christianity ; from your 
 understanding, and from the monitions of your own con- 
 science. By these, Christianity urges you to return to God. 
 By these, it presses its claims on your attention. It is no 
 stranger that pleads, no foreigner, no religion of doubtful 
 nature or doubtful claims. You admit its truth ; you 
 admit its claims ; your conscience responds to its demands. 
 Yielding, you would follow the dictates of your own un- 
 derstanding; embracing it, you would do that which you 
 know your own conscience would forever approve. 
 
 II. In the second place, it is urged upon your attention 
 and acceptance, by your wants and necessities. You need 
 such a religion. It is adapted to the immortal mind thirst- 
 ing for happiness, and you are conscious that some such 
 system as that of the gospel alone can meet those immortal 
 desires. My position is, that such are the obvious wants 
 of men that they are conscious that they need some such 
 salvation as the gospel furnishes and offers to them. 
 
 (1.) I mean that when a man honestly looks at his own 
 heart and life he is conscious of depravity, and feels his 
 
THE FREENESS OF THE GOSPEL. 15 
 
 need of the pardoning mercy of God, and that this sense 
 of the need of pardon should lead him to embrace this 
 plan which proposes forgiveness. That the heart is 
 depraved and polluted is, I presume, at some period of 
 life, the conviction of every man. Never do I urge a 
 doctrine of the Bible that I am more sure commends 
 itself to every one of my hearers, than when I preach the 
 doctrine of depravity, and when I appeal to themselves 
 for the consciousness of its truth. There are moments 
 when the most hardened, and gay, and thoughtless have 
 some misgivings that all is not right, and that their hves 
 are such as to expose them to the displeasure of God. 
 There are moments when there is pensiveness, sadness, 
 melancholy ; when somehow the remembrance of guilt 
 troubles the soul ; when sins long since forgotten seem 
 to come in groups and clusters as if conjured up by some 
 magic wand ; when the whole sky seems overcast with 
 a gathering tempest ; and when there is a fearful appre- 
 hension that all that the Bible has said about sin, and 
 woe, and a judgment to come, is true. At one time it 
 may be a momentary conviction coming over the com- 
 placencies of the heart, and the joyous scenes of life, like 
 a dark cloud flying suddenly over the disk of the sun, 
 and that soon passes away. At another it is like the 
 gentle and quiet shades of an evening settling on the 
 mind, on which the sun does not rise for weeks and 
 months, leaving the soul in long and distressing sadness. 
 At another it is like a tempest that rolls, and flashes, and 
 thunders along the sky. At another it is like a dense and 
 dark night — a night without moon or stars, and where 
 the soul is involved in impenetrable gloom. 
 
 Now the gospel appeals to men by this conscious need 
 of pardon. Man wants peace. He wants light. He 
 wants forgiveness. And the gospel comes and professes 
 its readiness to extend forgiveness, and to furnish relief 
 for a mind thus darkened and sad. Man is conscious 
 that he is a sinner: and when he feels that, 1 ask no 
 other proof that the gospel is a scheme fitted to him than 
 to be permitted to go to him in that state, and to tell him 
 that through that plan, those sins though like scarlet may 
 be white as snow -, though red like crimson, that they may 
 
16 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 be as wool. The gospel then meets man as running 
 streams and fountams that break forth m the desert, do 
 the caravan ; and is as much fitted to tliat dark and be- 
 nighted soul as such fountains are to the fainting traveller 
 there. 
 
 (2.) I mean further, that when men look at the trials 
 of life, they feel the need of some system like that of the 
 gospel that shall be fitted to give consolation. It is in 
 vain for men to attempt to avoid trial. No strength how- 
 ever great ; no plan however wise ; no talent however 
 brilliant ; no v/ealth however unbounded ; no schemes 
 of pleasure or amusement however skilfully planned, will 
 drive disappointment, and care, and sickness, and pain 
 from our world. Life is after all a weary pilgrimage, 
 and is burdened with many woes. Man's heart is filled 
 with anxiety, and his steps are weary as he walks onward 
 to the grave. Now I mean that man feels the necessity 
 of some balm of life ; some alleviation of cares ; something 
 that shall perform the friendly office of dividing the cares 
 of this world, and that shall put an upholding hand beneath 
 our sufi'ering and exhausted nature. Men seek universally 
 some such comforter and alleviator of care and sorrow, 
 and if they do not find it, life is a weary and wretched 
 journey. One retreats to the academic grove, and seeks 
 consolation in philosophy — in calm contemplation, far 
 away from the bustle and tumult of life. Another goes 
 up the sides of Parnassus, and drinks from the Castalian 
 fount — seeking it in the pursuits of elegant literature, and 
 in the company of the Muses. Another flies to the temple 
 of Mammon and seeks it in the pursuit and possession of 
 gold. Another aims to find it in the brilliant and fascinat- 
 ing world of song and the dance; another in the pursuits 
 of professional life ; another in orgies of the god of Avine, 
 and the cup that is supposed to drown every care. In all 
 these there is a sense of the need oi something that shall 
 give comfort ; something that shall wipe away falling 
 tears; something that shall bind up broken, and pour 
 consolation into heavy hearts. Amidst these things prof- 
 fering consolation, the gospel also comes, and offers to the 
 weary, the heavy-laden, and the sad, its consolations. 
 That also offers support ; proposes a plan of wiping away 
 
THE FREENESS OF THE GOSPEL. 17 
 
 tears ; of comforting the hearts of the sad, and points the 
 sufferer to the river of Ufe, and asks him to come and take 
 freely — and never fails. 
 
 (3.) I mean further, that when men look at the shoi'i- 
 ness of life, and at the certainty of death, there is a con- 
 sciousness that some such system as that of the gospel is 
 needed, and that by this deep consciousness the gospel 
 appeals to men. " We all do fade as a leaf," and we 
 cannot but be conscious that however blooming and 
 vigorous we may now be, the time is not far remote 
 when we shall be cut down as the flower, and wither 
 like the green herb. Our day, even in its highest meri- 
 dian glory, hastens, as Wolsey said he did, to its setting ; 
 and in spite of all the aid of philosophy, and all the 
 amusements of life, men tvill feel sad at the prospect of 
 death. A death-bed is a melancholy place. The parting 
 with friends forever is a sad and mournful scene. The 
 closing up of all the plans of life, and the starting off on a 
 journey to a dark and unknown world from which "no 
 traveller returns," is an important and a deeply-affecting 
 event. The dying chill ; the clammy sweat ; the fading 
 eye ; the enfeebled delirious mind, are all sad and gloomy 
 things. The coffin is a gloomy abode ; and the grave, 
 for him who has reposed on a bed of down, is a cold and 
 cheerless resting-place. The thought of corruption and 
 decay until the frame, once so beautiful and active, is all 
 gone back to its native dust, is a gloomy thought, and 
 one that should make a deep impression on the human 
 mind. 
 
 Now men may blunt the force of these thoughts as 
 much as they can. They may fly from them to business ; 
 to their professions ; to amusement ; to sin — but all will 
 not do. Nature will be true to herself, and true to the 
 designs of God, and it cannot be but that when a man 
 thinks of the grave, there should be a " fond desire," a 
 " longing after immortality." Man would not die for- 
 ever. He would live again. He would be recovered 
 from that horrid, chilly sleep, from that cold grave, from 
 that repulsive stiUness and gloom. There is an inex- 
 tinguishable desire to live again ; a feeling which we can 
 never get rid of, that God did not form the wondrous 
 
18 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 powers of mind for the trpaisient pleasures of this brief 
 life. Man feels his need of the hope of heaven ; and 
 when the gospel comes to him and invites him to drink 
 of the river of life, and to live forever, he caimot but feel 
 that it is a system adapted to his whole nature, and is 
 just such a system as his circumstances demand. The 
 invitation of the gospel is one that meets all the deep 
 aspirations of his soul, and is just fitted to his condition. 
 It is such as a dying and yet a deathless being ought to 
 desire; it is fitted to meet the woes and sorrows of a 
 wretched world. And all that is in man that is great, 
 all his desire of consolation and of immortal happiness, 
 prompts him to come and take the water of life ; and the 
 gospel designs to keep the truth of the guilt and the sor- 
 row of the world before the mind, to induce the sufferer 
 and the sinner to come an.d embrace pardon and peace. 
 
 Thus far I have not adverted to the direct invitations 
 of the gospel. I have spoken rather of the character and 
 circumstances of man. I turn now to one other topic, 
 and with that I shall close. 
 
 III. I refer, therefore, in the third place, to the special 
 direct invitations in the Scriptures to embrace the gospel. 
 I shall dwell mainly on those referred to in the text, but 
 shall, in a rapid mxanner, glance at some others also. I 
 observe, then — 
 
 That God the Father invites you, and presses the gos- 
 pel on your attention. On tliis I need not dwell. If any 
 one doubts that the eternal Father invites men to come 
 to him, and is willing that the wanderer should return, 
 let him ponder the parable of the prodigal son. In that 
 most beautiful and touching of all compositions, how ten- 
 derly and pathetically are the feelings of God portrayed 
 in the joy of the aged father when he sees his son afar 
 off; when he goes forth to meet him, and when he greets 
 that long-lost son in an affectionate embrcice. With such 
 joy does God the Father come forth to meet the returning 
 sinner ; and with such desires does he proffer pardon to 
 the guilty, and a home to the wandering. Open your 
 Bibles. Is there one of the human race, however guilty 
 and wretched, to whom God does not extend the offer of 
 mercy ? Is there one who has gone off" so far that he is 
 
THE FUEENESS OF THE GOSPEL. 19 
 
 not invited to return? Is there one who would not -be 
 welcomed should he again come back to his Father's 
 house and arms ? 0, no. There is not one. God, the 
 eternal Father, all along your way has lifted up the voice 
 of invitation and entreaty, and is saying every where and 
 every day to man, " Let him return to the Lord, and he 
 will have mercy upon him, and to God, for he will abun- 
 dantly pardon.'' My hearer, all along your way, from 
 the cradle to the present hour, God the Father has uttered 
 but one voice, the voice of mercy ; he has expressed but 
 one wish — it is that you should turn and live. Heaven 
 he has oifered you with the fulness of its glory ; and by 
 all that is there of peace, and beauty, and bliss ; by ail 
 that is valuable in his favor and attractive in his own 
 house, he speaks to you and says, " Whosoever will, let 
 him take the water of life freely." 
 
 So has spoken the Son of God. Need I dwell on this ? 
 To invite sinners to return, he came forth from the bosom 
 of the Father, and dwelt among men. It was not be- 
 cause he was not happy that he became an exile from 
 the skies ; it was not because he did not wear a crown 
 that was brilliant enough, or sway a sceptre over an em- 
 pire that was not vast enough ; it was because here was 
 a race of lost and ruined sinners which might be restored ; 
 because they needed some such interposition to save them 
 from eternal ruin. And he came. And what was his 
 life ; what was his ministry ; what were his sufferings 
 and toils, but unwearied invitations to the guilty and the 
 wretched? "Behold, I stand at the door and knock," 
 said he, " if any man will open the door, I will come in 
 to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." " Come 
 unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I 
 will give you rest." " Every one that asketh receiveth, 
 and he that seeketh findeth ; and to him that knocketh it 
 shall be opened." Did Christ ever utter a word that ex- 
 pressed an unwillingness that the most guilty and vile 
 should be saved ? Did he ever spurn from his presence 
 one broken-hearted and penitent sinner ? Lives there a 
 man in all the regions where Christian light illuminates 
 the face of the world, who can doubt for one moment 
 that the Redeemer desires his salvation, and invites him 
 to come and take the water of life freely ? No, sinner, 
 
20 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 even you know that if you go to him, " all covered o'er" 
 as you may be with crime, he will welcome you, and 
 say, ' Son, daughter, be of good cheer, thy sins be for- 
 given thee.' 
 
 So speaks the Holy Ghost. " The Spirit says, come." 
 That sacred Spirit, the Comforter, sent by the ascended 
 Redeemer to awaken, convict, and convert the soul, says 
 " Come," and says so to all. He comes to teach men 
 their need of a Saviour; to acquaint them with their 
 guilt ; to guide them to the cross ; and all his work on 
 the soul is to impress that short word in the fulness 
 of its meaning on the heart — " Come." To impress 
 that invitation, to lead men to see its value and its 
 power, he visits the heart, and shows it its guilt and 
 its corruptions. For that, he awakens the mind of the 
 careless and the secure in their sins — the pleasure-loving, 
 the gay, the worldly, the ambitious, and shows them the 
 need of a better portion than this life can give. For that, 
 he, in a mysterious manner, makes your mind pensive 
 and sad when in the gay scenes of life, and when flowers 
 seem to be strewed and fragrance to be breathed all 
 around you. For that, he produces the uneasiness of 
 mind when pleasures "pall upon the sense," and when 
 your bosom is conscious of its need of more elevated joys 
 than this world can give. For that, he produces the sense 
 of sadness when you have returned from your daily toils 
 weary with the cares and the disappointments of life ; 
 when you have sought and obtained the plaudits of the 
 world, and find all an empty bubble ; when a man has 
 built him houses and planted vineyards, and made him 
 gardens and orchards, and gathered silver and gold, the 
 peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces, and when 
 vanity of vanities is seen written on them all. To press 
 that invitation to come to the water of life, the Holy 
 Spirit awakens in the heart the sense of sin, and shows 
 you the need of pardon. For that, he convinces you of 
 your past guilt ; recals to your mind the lessons of child- 
 hood ; makes the mind pensive or sad when you think of 
 death, of God, of the judgment, of eternity. Alike in 
 the still and gentle influences of that Spirit on the mind, 
 and in the terrors of that moment when he overwhelms 
 the soul with the deep consciousness of guilt, the object 
 
THE FREENESS OP THE GOSPEL. 21 
 
 is to impress upon the heart the invitation "• Come." I 
 said, ' In the still and gentle influences of that Spirit on 
 the mind.' You have seen how the pliant osier bends 
 before the zephyr, and how the harvest field gently waves 
 in a summer's eve. So gently, and often amidst such 
 scenes, too, does the Spirit of God incline the mind to 
 seek better things than this world can give — in heaven. 
 So calm, so sweet, so pure, are those influences which in- 
 cline the mind to thought, to prayer, to God. I said, 
 ' In the terrors of that moment when he overwhelms 
 the soul with the deep consciousness of gailt.' You 
 have seen the clouds grow dark in the western sky. 
 They roll inward on themselves, and throw their infold- 
 ing ample volumes over the heavens. The lightnings 
 play, and tlis3 thunder rolls, and nature is in commotion, 
 and the tornado sweeps over hill and vale, and the oak 
 crashes on the mountain. So also, and in such scenes, 
 too, the stout-hearted sinner trembles under the influ- 
 ences of the Spirit of God, and in anticipation of the 
 future judgment. He hears the thunder of justice about 
 to condemn him, and sees the lightnings flash ready to 
 devour him. But it is i/et a scene of mercy. It is not 
 to condemn, it is to warn him. It is a kind messenger 
 sent forth from God — the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, the 
 admonisher, whether in the stillness or the storm, saying 
 to the sinner, " Come— take the water of life freely." 
 
 So the " bride" says, " Come." But what is this ? " I 
 John," said the disciple in Patmos, " saw the holy cit)^, 
 New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, 
 prepared as a bride for her husband." Rev. xxi. 2. It is 
 the voice of the bride, '^ the Lamb's wife" — of the church 
 triumphant, the church in heaven, that speaks and in- 
 vites you to come. It is not merely that the church, by 
 lier ministry, her ordinances, and her friends ; by her ap- 
 peals and persuasions in the sanctuary invites — though 
 that is true — it is that the church redeemed ; the church 
 in heaven ; the church in white robes before the throne ; 
 the church now adorned in heaven as a bride, invites you 
 to come. And what is that church that thus invites you? 
 What claims has she on your attention ? Why should lier 
 voice be heard ? — Who compose that church ? The church 
 in heaven is composed of those who on earth tried both 
 
22 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 religion and the world ; and who can now speak from 
 deep experience alike of the trials and the joys of the 
 Christian faith. It is a triumphant church that has been 
 exposed to fiery persecutions, and that has survived thern 
 all. A church that has known what it is to be poor and 
 persecuted on earth, and what it is in heaven to be bless- 
 ed — and that as the result of all now invites you to come 
 and share its triumphs and its joys bought with blood. 
 Whom does the eye of faith see in that church in heaven 
 that invites you ? A father may be there ; a mother ; a 
 sister ; a lovely babe. That venerated father, whose cold 
 remains you bedewed with tears, and OA^er whose grave 
 you still go to weep, is there, and says, * Come, my son, 
 and take the water of life freely.' That tender mother, 
 that often spoke to you in childhood of Jesus and of 
 heaven, still says, ^ Come, my daughter, and take the 
 water of life freely.' That much-loved sister, now clothed 
 in white, and walking beside the river of salvation, says 
 still, * Come, my brother, and take the water of life 
 freely.' That sweet smiling babe stretches out its hands 
 from the world of glory, and speaks and says, ' Come, 
 father, mother, come and take the water of life freely.' 
 All that church redeemed — that church made up of pro- 
 phets, apostles, confessors, martyrs; that church that is now 
 amidst the glories of heaven, still says, ' Come, there yet 
 is room. Heaven's ample mansions shall furnish other 
 places of rest. There are harps unstrung which your 
 hands may strike. There are eternal fountains Avhere 
 you may drink. There are blest spirits there that will 
 hail your coming, and rejoice in your joy.' All heaven 
 invites. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost — the 
 one living and one blessed God — says, " Come." The 
 angels, the spirits of just men made perfect, and all your 
 departed pious kindred, all unite in the invitation, and 
 say, * Come, come, and take the water of life freely.' 
 
 Need I say that this voice of invitation is echoed back 
 in your ears from this world ? So speaks to you a pious ' 
 father; a tender mother; a sister, a friend. So speak 
 the living to you, and so addresses you the remembered 
 voice of the dead. Go walk among the graves. Beneath 
 your feet, in the sacred sweet slumbers of a Christian's 
 death, lies a much-loved mother. How still ! How lovely 
 
THE FREENESS OP THE GOSPEL. 23 
 
 a mother's grave ! How the memory deUghts to go back 
 to the nursery ; the fireside ; the sick-bed ; the anxious 
 care of a mother ! How it loves to recall the gentle look ; 
 the eye of love ; the kiss at night of a mother. She 
 sleeps now in death, but from that grave is it fancy that 
 we still hear a voice, ' My beloved son ! my much-loved 
 daughter ! Come — come, and take the water of life freely?' 
 No. Of all the departed pious dead ; of every living 
 Christian ; of all holy beings, there is not one who does 
 not invite you to come. There is not one who would not 
 rejoice in seeing yoit clothed in white, and with palms of 
 victory in your hands in heaven. Yes, in their hearts, 
 and in their eternal dwelling-places there yet is room — 
 room — ample room for all to come. 
 
 See now what pleads. The eternal Father ; the dying 
 Saviour ; the sacred Spirit ; all heaven ; earth ; the grave ; 
 conscience ; reason ; all the universe invites and pleads. 
 And what hinders ? A word will tell all. The fear of 
 shame. The love of gaiety. The fascinations of amuse- 
 ment — all temporary, unsatisfactory, dying. A scheme 
 of ambition ; a plan of gain ; an arrangement for plea- 
 sure — all valueless when compared with heaven. For 
 such things the ear is turned away, and the voice inviting 
 to heaven is unheeded. 0, how deluded ! To suffer the 
 .great interests of eternity to be neglected, and the immor- 
 tal welfare of the soul to be hazarded for nameless trifles ! 
 Of the folly of this course I could say much. But why 
 should I say any thing ? Who does not see it ? I will 
 make, therefore, but one other observation, and then close. 
 The river of life will roll on forever. Its pure 
 waters, clear as crystal, shall forever gladden and refresh 
 the inhabitants of heaven. But on the banks of that 
 river you may never recline. Far away from that pure 
 stream — far away from all the bliss of heaven — far away 
 from the redeemed and happy throng assembled there, 
 shall be your eternal abode, and never again shall you 
 hear the invitation, " Whosoever will, let him come and 
 take the water of life freely." To-day, all the universe 
 invites you. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit, say, 
 " Come." The church on earth and the church redeemed 
 say, " Come." The friend that has gone to the skies, and 
 the friend on earth, says, " Come." The tender father ; 
 
24 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 the afFectionate mother ; the pastor ; the brother ; the 
 sister, all say, " Come." Your own natm^e ; your con- 
 viction of the truth ; your sense of sin ; your dread of 
 death ; your inextinguishable desire of immortality ; your 
 conviction that " this world can never give the bliss for 
 which you sigh," — all these emotions and feelings say, 
 " Come." The whole universe joins in the invitation, 
 and voices from distant worlds mingle in this sanctuary 
 to-day, saying to you now, " Come, take the water of 
 life freely." To-morrow, how changed may be the 
 scene I Death's cold fingers may have felt after the strings 
 of life, and chilled them, and your soul may be beyond 
 hope and lieaven. Not a voice from all the universe may 
 invite you to leave the dark abodes where the wicked 
 dwell, and to take the waters of life. that word, 
 ^FREE salvation!' — What would you give to hear it 
 borne on the breeze in the world of despair ! But it will 
 be too late. Sealed will be the lips of the eternal Father ; 
 hushed the voice of the Redeemer ; gone the influences 
 of the Holy Spirit. The bride — the church — will have 
 ceased to invite ; and neither father, nor mother, nor bro- 
 ther, nor sister, nor pastor, nor friend, Avill ever say to 
 you again, " Come, take the water of life freely." 
 
SERMON II. 
 
 THE LOVE OF GOD IN THE GIFT OF A SAVIOUR. 
 
 John iii. 16. God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten 
 Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have ever- 
 lasting life. 
 
 These are the words of the Redeemer. They express 
 ill the briefest space the substance of the gospel. No 
 pubUc speaker ever possessed the power of condensing 
 the great principles of a system of truth into so narrow 
 a compass as the Lord Jesus ; and his instructions abound 
 v/ith instances of this condensation. Such declarations 
 were easily treasured up in the memory, and were, there- 
 fore, eminently adapted to the end which he had in view 
 —the instruction and salvation of the mass of mankind. 
 The terms of the text require no particular exposition ; 
 and we shall proceed at once to the contemplation of 
 the great truths which in so simple language it embodies. 
 It affirms that the origin of the plan of salvation was the 
 love of God ; that tliat love was of the highest degree — ■ 
 leading him to the gift of his only begotten Son ; and 
 that it was of the widest extent — embracing the world. 
 Vie shall consider these points in their order ; and shall 
 thus have before us the outlines of the great system of 
 the gospel. I do not suppose that it will be new to you. 
 I have no truths, and perhaps no illustrations, which you 
 have not often contemplated before. I present a system, 
 however, on which, whether it be to you ncAV or old, 
 your eternal welfare depends ; and which every consi- 
 deration of gratitude, of self-interest, of obligation, and 
 of hope, calls on you to embrace and love. 
 
 I. The first proposition is, that the plan of salvation 
 originated in the love of God. " God so loved the world, 
 that he gave his only begotten Son.'^ This idea, so simple 
 in appearance, is at the basis of all just views of religion, 
 and strikes far into different systems, and will modify or 
 
26 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 control them. The following remarks, in illustration of 
 it, will convey to you the thoughts which I wish to have 
 impressed on your minds. 
 
 The idea that God is a God of love, is not one that is 
 very extensively embraced by mankind. Large classes 
 of mankind suppose that if God were a benevolent being, 
 he would have made a world perfectly happy and pure ; 
 and the fact that sin and misery so extensively prevail, 
 is, in their view, wholly at war with such a proposition. 
 To them it furnishes no proof of his goodness that he 
 provides remedies and means of deliverance from these 
 evils, but they ask why was not the evil itself prevented, 
 and why was there a necessity for a remedy ? A man is 
 sick, and we tell him that the fact that remedies are pro- 
 vided for the various maladies which afflict the body, is 
 a proof of goodness, and he at once turns upon us in 
 a manner which we cannot well meet, and asks why was 
 not the sickness itself prevented ? Why was there need 
 of a remedy ? Would not higher benevolence have been 
 evinced had pleurisies, and palsies, and fevers, and con- 
 sumptions been unknown ? Why, he asks, was a system 
 formed ever requiring such a device as that of a remedy ; 
 why one that needs mending and repairing; why one 
 that was not perfect without the toil and expense of 
 mitigating evils, and repairing wastes? And this man 
 leaves us, after all that we can say, with the feeling that 
 the proof is very imperfect that God is a God of love ; 
 and on such a mind the proposition that he so loved the 
 world that he gave his only begotten Son, falls with little 
 force. He feels, perhaps, in spite of himself, that hack 
 of all this there is something in the divine bosom that is 
 remote from the proper exercise of love, and that a dying 
 and a suffering world is fitted to neutralize all the argu- 
 ment for benevolence which can be drawn from a reme- 
 dial system. 
 
 On another class of minds the same result is produced 
 by a different train of thought ; a train of thought that is 
 sometimes countenanced, I fear, by prevalent views in 
 theology. With such minds the supposition is, that the 
 Bible teaches that God is originally a stern and inexorable 
 being ; that the attribute of justice is the central and con- 
 trolling attribute of his character ; that in his nature all 
 
THE LOVE OP GOD IN THE GIFT OP A SAVIOUR. 27 
 
 is dark, repulsive, and cold ; that he is indisposed to par- 
 don, unrelenting in his claims, severe in his adjudications, 
 and by nature deaf to the cry of the suffering and the 
 penitent. That sustaining this character, and with these 
 feelings, one more mild and kind than he has consented 
 to become incarnate, and to suffer the unrelenting penalty 
 of the law, in order, as a primary part of his work, to 
 make God kind and forgiving. That whatever inclina- 
 tion to mercy there may be now in the character of God, 
 it is the result of purchase ; that he is disposed to bestow 
 only so much pardon as is bought ; that towards a part 
 of the human race, as the result of that purchase, he is 
 now mild and benignant, and that towards the unhappy 
 remainder the original sternness of his character is un- 
 mitigated, and that even the sufferings of the atonement 
 have not relaxed the rigidity of his justice in regard to 
 them. The feeling is, that God is now a different being 
 from what he was before the atonement was made, and 
 that he has been made mild and forgiving by the sacri- 
 fice on the cross. 
 
 Now, in opposition to these views, reflecting so much 
 on the character of God, my text teaches that he was ori- 
 ginally disposed to show mercy. His benevolence in 
 the plan of salvation lies back of the gift of a Saviour, 
 and prompted to it. It was love on the part of the 
 eternal Father that led him to give his Son to die, no less 
 than love on the part of the Son to come — and the one 
 was no more purchased than the other. The gift of the 
 Saviour was just the expression, or the exponent of that 
 love ; and the magnitude of the gift was the measure of 
 the original love of God. As this idea is the essential 
 thought in my text, and as the view which is taken of 
 it will control all our views of the plan of salvation, I 
 may be permitted to ask your attention to a remark or 
 two to illustrate it. 
 
 (1.) We do not suppose that any change has been 
 wrought in the character of God by the plan of salvation, 
 or by the work of the atonement. We do not believe 
 that any change could be produced in his character ; we 
 do not believe that it is desirable that there should be. 
 We suppose that God was just as worthy of the love 
 and confidence of his creatures before the atonement was 
 
28 PRACTICAL SEIIMONS. 
 
 made as he is now, or ever will be ; and that every attri- 
 bute of his character was just as lovely then as it is now. 
 He is no more merciful now than he was from all eter- 
 nity ; and he Avas no more stern in his character then 
 than he is now, and always will be. The incorrigible and 
 the finally impenitent sinner has no more reason to hope 
 for exemption from deserved wrath now than he had be- 
 fore Christ came ; and the angels in heaven gather around 
 him with no more real confidence and love than they did 
 before. The doctrine of the unchangeableness of God is 
 the foundation of all our hopes ; nor could the affairs of 
 the universe move on one moment securely, unless it 
 was exactly true that with God there is " no variableness 
 or shadow of turning." 
 
 (2.) We suppose that God was originally so full of 
 mercy, and so disposed to pardon sinners, that in order 
 to do it he was willing to stoop to any sacrifice except 
 that of truth and justice, and that therefore he sent his 
 Son to die. The race was in fact lost and ruined. The 
 world was full of sinners and full of sufferers. But we 
 do not suppose that compassion towards them has been 
 pinxhased, but that it was originally so great that he 
 was willing to stoop to sacrifice in order to rescue and 
 save them. — A father has a beloved son. He embarks 
 on the ocean in the pursuits of commerce, and falls into 
 the hands of an Algerine pirate. He is chained, and 
 di'iven to the slave market, and sold, and conveyed over 
 burning sands as a slave, and pines in hopeless bondage. 
 The news of this reaches the ears of the father. What 
 will be his emotions ? Will the sufferings of that son 
 make a change in his cha,racter ? If required, he would 
 gather up his silver, and his gold, and his pearls, and 
 leave his own home, and cross the ocean, and make his 
 way over the burning sands, that he might find out and 
 ransom the captive. But think you he would be a dif- 
 ferent man novr from what he was ? Has the captivity 
 of that son made a change in him } No. His sufferings 
 have called out the original tenderness of his bosom, and 
 have merely developed what he was. He so loved that 
 child that the forsaking of his own home, and the perils 
 of the ocean, and the journey over burning sands, were 
 regarded as of no consequence if he could seek out and 
 
THE LOVE OF GOD IN THE GIFT OF A SAVIOUR. 29 
 
 save him. These sacrifices and toils would be trifles, if 
 he might again press his lost son to his bosom, and restore 
 him to his desolate home. It is the love — the strong 
 original love m his bosom, that prompts to the sacrifice, 
 and that makes toil and peril welcome. So of God. 
 Such was his original love for man, that he was willing 
 to stoop to any sacrifice to save him ; and the gift of a 
 Saviour was the mere expression of that love. 
 
 (3.) But now to make this case more analogous to the 
 plan of salvation, and to show more of the real difficulty, 
 suppose the rescue of that child should in some way 
 involve the consequence of doing injustice to others. Sup- 
 pose it should take the father away from his own family, 
 and expose them to a similar danger. Suppose it should 
 involve the necessity of his acknowledging the right of 
 the captor, or in some way make it necessary to expose 
 his own character to a charge of injustice, or of false- 
 hood — the difficulty in the case would bo vastly increased, 
 and the strong love of the father would be more strik- 
 ingly shown if he should seek to remove this difficulty 
 at the same time that he should save his enslaved son. 
 This was the great work which rendered the plan of 
 salvation so difficult and so glorious. It was not merely 
 to save man, but it was at the same time to save the cha- 
 racter, and name, and government of God. It was to show 
 that he was "just," though he "'justified the ungodly;'^ 
 and true, though the sinner should not die. It was to 
 show his sense of the evil of sin, at the same time that 
 he pardoned it ; and his truth, at the same time that the 
 threatened penalty was remitted. This could be done 
 only by allowing his son to be treated as if he were a sin- 
 ner, in order to treat the really guilty as if they were 
 righteous ; and so to identify the one with the other, that 
 it might be adjudged that the law was as really satisfied 
 as though they had themselves borne the penalty. It 
 was not merely, therefore, the gift of a Saviour that was 
 the expression of love, it was giving him so as to remove 
 all the obstacles on his part to pardon, and making de- 
 signed arrangements so as to preserve his own honor 
 untarnished, and to secure the undiminished confidence 
 of the universe. 
 
 The essential idea which I have now aimed to exhibit. 
 
so PKACTICAL SERMOIS'&'. 
 
 is, that the love and mercy of God in the plan of salva- 
 tion lie hack of the gift of a Saviour. They are not 
 new attributes which have started up in the divine mind 
 in consequence of the work of redemption. The mercy 
 of God has not been purchased^ and the character of God 
 has not been changed. God is the same being now that 
 he always was, and he will ahvays remain unchangeably 
 the same. No new attribute has been created ; none has 
 been modified. The gift of a Saviour was just the ex- 
 pression of the original and eternal love of God ; and is 
 just one of the overflowing manifestations of benevolence 
 in the divine mind. It is not to make a change in God ; 
 it is not to make an inexorable being mild ; it is not to 
 make God more lovely than he was. It is true, that in 
 consequence of this, he appears more lovely than he 
 would otherwise have done — since every new develop- 
 ment of his character lays the foundation of an increased 
 obligation to love him. But still the essential idea before 
 us is, that he was originally and eternally disposed \o 
 show mercy ; and that the gift of a Saviour was just the 
 expression of his love. " He so loved the world that he 
 gave his only begotten Son." 
 
 II. My second object was to show that the expression 
 of his love was the highest that it possibly could be. 
 This is evidently implied in the text : '^ God so loved the 
 world, that he gave his only begotten Son.^^ In illus- 
 trating this point, I would observe — 
 
 (1.) That such a gift is the highest conceivable gift 
 among men, and the Saviour evidently means to say that 
 the same thing is true of God. The Bible is as far as 
 possible from representing God as without feeling or 
 emotion. In the Bible he has the attributes of a tender 
 and kind Father ; though in our philosophy and our theo- 
 logy, in our hearts and affections, we make him a difierent 
 being by far from what he is as revealed to be in the 
 Scriptures. Among men he is esteemed to be a cold 
 and distant being ; regardless, to a great extent, of the 
 wants and woes of the race ; seated in the far-distant 
 heavens, and unconcerned in what occurs among men ; 
 stern, and repulsive, and inapproachable, and severe. — 
 But this is not the God of the Bible. There he is repre- 
 sented as a Father. He is tender, compassionate, and 
 
THE LOVE OF GOD IN THE GIFT OF A SAVIOUR. 31 
 
 kind. He loves his creatures though erring ; he seeks 
 their welfare though fallen. He is interested for their 
 good ; and he makes sacrifices — sacrifices in some proper 
 sense — for their salvation. It is not trope and metaphor 
 merely, when he speaks of himself as a Father, and as 
 a compassionate God. He loves when he says he loves ; 
 pities when he says he pities ; compassionates when he 
 says he compassionates; and hates when he says he 
 hates. He is the living and the compassionate God — not 
 a cold creation of the imagination ; he is a Father — not 
 the repulsive and distant being dreaded if not hated by 
 the stoic. 
 
 Now we have no higher conception of the love of a 
 father than that he should give up his son to die. It is 
 the last oiFering which he could make ; and beyond this 
 there is nothing that we can expect. When a man bids 
 his only son go into the tented field, a.nd expose his life 
 for his country, and with every prospect that he will die 
 for its welfare, it is the highest expression of attachment 
 for that country. Man has no possessions so valuable 
 that he would not give them all to save the life of his 
 son ; and when he yields up his son in any cause, he has 
 shown for it the highest love. It is impossible to con- 
 ceive of a higher expression of love, if it could be done, 
 than for a man on the bench, whose ofiice required him 
 to condemn the guilty to death, to be willing to substitute 
 his own son on the gallows, and bid the murderer go free. 
 
 When we speak of the love of God to Jesus Christ, 
 and of his sacrifice and self-denial, it is not to be under- 
 stood as a matter of form or metaphor. It is not the use 
 of words without sense. The love of God to the Re- 
 deemer is not the same kind of love which he has to the 
 sun and stars ; to the rivers and hills ; to diamonds, and 
 gold, and pearls ; to the lily and the rose which he has 
 made ; or to the pjigelic hosts around his throne. The 
 love of God for a holy man like Abraham, Isaiah, and 
 Paul, is true and genuine attachment. The love of 
 God to a holy and unfallen angel is real attachment. It 
 is attachment to mind, and heart, and purity — and is not 
 a name. But the love to Christ Jesus is peculiar. No 
 other one sustained the relation to God which he did. 
 No man had been so holy ; no angel sustained such a 
 
32 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 rank. He was the equal with the Father — yet incarnate ; 
 and the love of God to Christ was the love of himself. 
 The Redeemer was the brightness of his glory, and the 
 express image of his person ; and he alone had joined 
 the divinity with manhood, and expressed in his power, 
 and wisdom, and hoUness, the exact image of God. To 
 give him was more than to give an angel — than all an- 
 gels. It was to God what it would be for man to give 
 up an only son. I know the difficulty of forming an 
 adequate conception of this ; but having settled in my 
 mind the full belief that the Bible is true, I do not be- 
 lieve that the representation that there was real love in 
 the gift of a Saviour is to be frittered away, or that the 
 solemn declarations which abound there expressing the 
 same idea as my text, are unmeaning. See a man sit 
 on the bench of justice. See a prisoner arraigned on a 
 charge of treason. See the solemn and just progress of 
 the trial, until the man stands condemned, and the sen- 
 tence of the law is about to fall on him. * He is guilty,' 
 says the judge, ' no man can vindicate him ; no man can 
 stay the regular operation of the law but myself. There 
 stands my son — my only son — my hope, my stay. Officer, 
 bind him. Lay him on the hurdle. Drag him to the 
 place of death, and let his quartered body show to the 
 nation that I hate the crime.' If this could be, who 
 would doubt the greatness of the love ? When God says 
 that this did exist in his case, who shall doubt that he 
 loved the guilty and the lost ? 
 
 (2.) But no man has ever manifested such love as this. 
 If the opportunity has ever occurred, it has not been em- 
 braced ; should it occur often, it would not be embraced. 
 Man would shrink from it. In a few instances one man 
 has been willing to sacrifice his life for a friend ; and not 
 a few fathers and mothers have been willing to endanger 
 their lives for the welfare of a son or daughter. But 
 the instance has never yet occurred where a man was 
 willing to give his own life, or the life of a child, for an 
 enemy. No monarch on the throne has ever thought of 
 giving the heir to his crown to die for a traitor, or for a 
 rebellious province ; and amidst the multitudes of treasons 
 which have occurred, it has never, probably, for one in- 
 stant crossed the bosom of the offended sovereign to 
 
THE LOVE OF GOD IN THE GIFT OF A SAVIOUR. 33 
 
 suppose that such a thing was possible ; and if it had 
 occurred it would have been at once dismissed as not 
 worth more than a passing thought. No magistrate has 
 ever lived avIio would have been willing to sentence his 
 own son to the gallows in place of the guilty wretch 
 Avhom it was his duty to sentence to death. Not an in- 
 stance has ever occurred in our own country — rich as it 
 is in examples of benignity and kindness — in which a 
 judge on the bench would have been willing to commute 
 a punishment in this manner, if it had been in strict ac- 
 cordance with equity and law ; and probably the records 
 of all nations might be searched in vain for such an in- 
 stance. We know that monarchs often feel, and that 
 magistrates are not destitute of a tender heart, and that 
 the man on the bench, v/ho passes the severe sentence of 
 the law, often does it in tears. The present king of France 
 passes every night to a late hour in carefully examining 
 the cases of those who are condemned to death, and in 
 the silence of the night-watches ponders all the reasons 
 why a pardon should be extended in au}^ case, and often 
 with a heavy heart signs the warrant for death ; and 
 Washington wept when his duty constrained hiin to ap- 
 prove the sentence which doomed the accompliyhcd 
 Andre to the gallows ; but would these feelings in either 
 instance, or in any histance, prompt to the surrender of a 
 son — an only son — to the disgrace of the gibbet to save 
 the spy or the traitor ? W^e are saying nothing in dispa- 
 ragement of such men — for they are but men, and not 
 God — when we say that their feelings of compassion 
 have made no approach to such a sacrifice. Their deep 
 emotions ; their tears ; their genuine sorrov/ ; their un- 
 affected and noble benevolence — though an lienor to our 
 nature — have not approached the question whether such 
 a sacrifice was possible or proper ; and we may add, it 
 is not to be approached in this world. The nearest ap- 
 proach of which I have ever heard to any thing like this 
 feeling, was in the pathetic wish of David that he had 
 himself been permitted to die in the place of a rebellious 
 and ungrateful son. " 0, my son, Absalom ! my son, 
 my son Absalom, would God I had died for thee, Ab- 
 salom, my son, my son !" 2 Kings xviii. 33. Strong was 
 that love which would lead a monarch and a father to 
 
34 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 be willing to die for such a son ; but how far removed 
 still from the love which vv^ould lead to the sacrifice of a 
 son for the guilty and the vile ! 
 
 But " God commendeth his love toward us in that while 
 we were yet sinners, in due time Christ died for us. 
 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved 
 us, and gave his Son to die for us." And such a death ! 
 It stands by itself — a death of unequalled shame and 
 woes. To be treated as a malefactor ; to be rejected and 
 reviled ; to take the vacated place of a murderer ; to be 
 subjected to lingering torture ; to be nailed to a cross — 
 yes, nailed there to hang suspended till death should end 
 the scene ; to endure through six long hours the pangs 
 of crucifixion ; to endure reproach, and scorn, and con- 
 tempt, and mockery, even on the cross — a place where, 
 if any where, compassion should be shown, and where 
 mockery should cease ; to be willing to endure all this 
 voluntarily, this was the love of Christ. 
 
 Every thing about the scene on Calvary fills me with 
 amazement. I cannot understand it; it is all — all so 
 unlike man. The gift of such a Saviour ; the patience 
 of the sufferer; the forbearance of God; the fact that 
 no thunder rolls, and no lightnings flash, to strike the 
 crucifi.ers of his Son in death ; the fact that no angelic 
 legion appears to seize and bear him away from the 
 cross ; the fact that in that unnatural night no angel of 
 death goes, as through the hosts of Sennacherib, to smite 
 the murderers ; the fact that he lingers on, and lingers 
 on — while the blood flows drop by drop, and stains the 
 tree, and his body, and the ground, until life wears away 
 — and he dies ! 0, it is wonderful. It stands alone ; and 
 / desire to stand alone — to close the eye on all other 
 scenes of love and suflering, and look there till my heart 
 is full, and I learn the height, and depth, and length, and 
 breadth of the love of God. And there, too, I desire to 
 tell my fellow-sinners that this is love — the love which 
 God had for this world. It is not in the glorious sun that 
 rides in the heavens, or the silent and solemn march of 
 the stars at night, that I most see his love ; it is not in 
 the running stream, and the landscape, and the songs in 
 the groves; it is not in bird, beast, or dewy morn, or 
 grateful evening mild; it is on Calvary, and in the sufferings 
 
THE LOVE OF GOD IN THE GIFT OF A SAVIOUR. 35 
 
 there. There all is love — love unknown, unthought of 
 elsewhere ; love that fills my eyes with tears, and my 
 heart with overflowing gratitude, and my soul with 
 peace. 
 
 for this love, let rocks and hills 
 
 Their lasting silence break, 
 And all harmonious human tongues 
 
 The Saviour's praises speak. 
 
 Yes, we will praise thee, dearest Lord, 
 
 Our souls are all on flame ; 
 Hosanna round the spacious earth, 
 
 To thine adored name. 
 
 Angels, assist our mighty joys, 
 
 Strike all your harps of gold; 
 But when you raise your highest notes, 
 
 His love can ne'er be told. 
 
 III. I proposed, in the third place, to consider the ex- 
 tent of this love. It v/as for '^ the v/orld." This is the 
 idea which I desire to illustrate. 
 
 (1.) It was for no part of the world considered as elect 
 or chosen, in contradistinction from the non-elect or the 
 reprobate. — I hold to the doctrine of election as a pre- 
 cious doctrine of the Bible, and I have no other hope of 
 the salvation of man than in that doctrine. I preach 
 only because I believe God has a purpose of mercy ; and 
 were it not that I believe that he will attend his message 
 with his special grace, and in accordance with an eternal 
 purpose, I should close this Bible and leave this pulpit in 
 despair. But when I look at the v/ork of the atonement, 
 I look at a grand and glorious transaction that lies hack^ 
 in the order of nature, of the purpose of election, and 
 that in its original applicability is limited by no design of 
 God. It is for the world — ' that whosoever believeth may 
 not perish, but have everlasting life.' I see in it a work 
 designed to show the benignity of God ; showing how 
 God can be just, and yet the justifier of him that believ- 
 eth ; how he can maintain his truth and yet forgive ; how 
 he can welcome rebels to his itivor and yet show that he 
 hates their sins ; how he can admit them to the fellow- 
 ship of angels, and yet not have them revolt at the ac- 
 cession to their number, or lose their confidence in God, 
 as if he were disposed to treat the evil and the good alike. 
 
36 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 And I love to contemplate it as it stands in its original 
 glory — as it is an emanation of the divine goodness. I 
 love to contemplate it, not in reference to the compara- 
 tively narrow question of selfishness, ' who shall or who 
 shall not be saved' ; not narrowed down by a reference 
 to a sordid commercial transaction of debt and purchase ; 
 but with reference to the display of the divine perfec- 
 tions — the exhibition of the mercy and the goodness of 
 God. So I love to stand on the shore of the ocean, 
 while surge after surge breaks at my feet ; and the blue 
 expanse stretches out inimitably before me ; and ships 
 ride proudly over the deep, and to contemplate it not 
 with reference to the question whether it will safely bear 
 a cargo of jjiijie across it or not, but as a glorious exhi- 
 bition of the power and greatness of God. So I love to 
 stand on some eminence, and look down upon the land- 
 scape, and to survey the spreading forests, and the river, 
 and tlie fields, and the water-falls, and the villages, and 
 the churches, not with the narrow inquiry, ' what is all 
 this worth ;' but wliat a view is there here of the good- 
 ness of God, and the greatness of his compassion to the 
 children of men ! So I stand at Niagara, and as God 
 " pours" tlie water *• from his hollow hand," and the 
 soul is filled with emotions of unutterable sublimit}^, I 
 Vv'ill not ask Vi^hat is all this worth ^6'?- a mill-seat, but I 
 will allow the scene to lift my soul up to God ; to teach 
 me lessons of his power and greatness, and to show me 
 the littleness of all that man can do. And so I will look 
 on the glorious work of the atonement. I will look at 
 it BACK of the question wiio is, or who is not, to be bene- 
 fitted by it. I v/ill ask vv^hat ncAv manifestation there is 
 in it of the character of God ; what is there to elevate 
 the soul ; what is there to make me think more highly 
 of the love, the truth, and the justice of my JN'Iaker ; 
 what is tliere to expand the soul, and to elevate it above 
 the sordid views and the grovehng propensities of this 
 world ? 
 
 (2.) It was for " the world." It was, therefore, for no 
 rank, or caste among men. It was not for any order of 
 men, favored by blood, or rank, or office, or name. There 
 has been a strong tendency every where to exalt one 
 class of men above another as more honored by birth 
 
THE LOVE OF GOD IN THE GIFT OF A SAVIOUR. 37 
 
 and by heaven than others. Hence in one land we liave 
 the hereditary aristocracy of caste, sanctioned by all the 
 authority of rchgion, and enforced by all the power de- 
 rived from the fact that it runs back to the most distant 
 antiquity. In another we have the aristocracy of titled 
 ranks, founded on the claims of some illustrious ances- 
 tors, and the transmission of their title to their sons ; and 
 this elevates one class in feeling as well as in power 
 above the humbler ranks of mortals. In other lands, 
 where these distinctions are unknown, there is a constant 
 tendency to create some permanent distinctions among 
 the different orders of society, and where it cannot be 
 done under the sanction of religion, or the splendid deeds 
 of an honored ancestry, or by law, to create it by the 
 pride of wealth and family ; by the distinction of color 
 and complexion; by the difference of employment or 
 profession ; or by a self-created notion of ascendancy in 
 one class above another. 
 
 Now, it requires all the power of the truth that God 
 ^ LOVED THE world' — the wholc world — to subdue and 
 control this pride of rank ; that he did not die for nobles 
 merely, or for princes, for the rich or the honored, but 
 that he died for all ; that the beggar and the slave had a 
 remembrance iu his dying love as well as the monarch 
 on his throne ; and that if men are saved, they must be 
 saved as companions in redemption, as they iiave been 
 ill guilt and in exposure to death. They are on a level. 
 It is not redemption that makes them so. They were so 
 before ; and redemption only recognises that fact. The 
 same blood ilows through their veins. They are tainted by 
 the same original corruption of sin. They are destined to 
 endure the same pangs of sickness and of death, and they 
 will moulder back side by side to dust. God loved the 
 one rank as much as the other — the monarch on the 
 throne as much as the beggar — and no more ; the man 
 of wealth as much as the man of poverty — a7id no more ; 
 the man who by his talents can transmit his name to 
 future times, as much as he who dies and is at once for- 
 gotten — and no more. 
 
 (3.) Finally, it was for the world — the whole world. 
 It was then limited in its design to no color or complex- 
 ion. Here, too, there is a strong tendency in the mind 
 
 4 
 
38 PHACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 of man to feel that color and complexion give some pre- 
 eminence. JNlen on this found their right to bind, and 
 chain, and task their fellows, and exact their toil with 
 stripes. They kidnap them, and convey them, amidst 
 many terrors, to distant lands. They expose them for 
 sale, as if they belonged to the brute creation. They ex- 
 amine their health, and their strength, and their sound- 
 ness, as they do the animal that is exposed to sale. They 
 buy them as they do the inferior creation. They disre- 
 gard the ties of parentage and brotherhood; of blood 
 and of affection, as if they were a trifle or a name. They 
 whhhold the Bible, as if they had no immortal nature ; 
 and they shut them out from the blessings of the ever- 
 lasting gospel, as if death was the end of consciousness 
 and the extinguisher of being. 
 
 Now, it requires all the power of the gospel to break 
 down and annihilate this feeling, and to make us realize 
 that he with a different skin from ours is a brother — a 
 brother in hope as well as in sin. We had one father. 
 We have one nature. We have one God ; one Saviour. 
 Beneath that less attractive external form — less attractive 
 to us, but not to God ; in that debased, and worn down, 
 and crushed human frame — crushed by sorrow and by 
 toil^there dwells an immortal spirit that might be pure 
 like an angel ; a soul worth all which it cost — and it could 
 cost no more — in redemption ; the germ of endless being ; 
 the beginning of undying life. It Vvdll live on, and live 
 on, when kingdoms shall be forgotten, and when all the 
 proud monuments that have been reared by oppressed 
 and purchased sinews shall have crumbled back to dust. 
 For that oppressed and broken spirit Christ died. That 
 down-trodden man God loved when he loved the world, 
 and gave his only begotten Son to die. And I love to 
 feel — and will feel ; — it makes me love the gospel more, 
 and the Saviour more, that for the red man of the forest 
 Christ died — whether he lingers pensively around his 
 fathers' graves, or heaves a deep-drawn sigh as he looks 
 on the stream where his fathers fished, or the ample 
 plains, where, in the elasticity of savage life, he pursued 
 the game of the forest ; or whether forced away by na- 
 tional injustice, and by the violation of compacts, he 
 turns his back sullenly on all those fair lands, and goes 
 
THE LOVE OF GOD IN THE GIFT OF A SAVIOUR. 39 
 
 with solitary step and slow to the setting sun, broken- 
 hearted, to lie down and die. And I love to feel, and 
 will feel ; — it makes me love tlie gospel more, and the Sa- 
 viour more — that for the black man of Africa he died — 
 whether sunk in debasement on his native shores — the 
 victim of degrading superstition there ; or whether borne 
 a captive across the ocean, and bound down by ignorance 
 and toil in Christian lands. He is a man — an immortal 
 man — a redeemed man — and not a chattel or a thing. 
 Christ died not for chattels and for things ; he died for 
 souls ; for man ; for immortal minds ; for Those who may 
 yet burst every shackle and every bond, and range the 
 world of glory as immortal freemen there. 
 
 In conclusion, I mig!jt remark, were there time, that 
 the gospel should be preached to all men — to elect and 
 non-elect ; to rich and poor ; to bond and free. No man 
 has a right to designate ranks and classes, when he 
 preaches the gospel. He who does not sincerely offer 
 the gospel to all mo;i ; who has mental reservations and 
 drawbacks, violates his commission, and dishonors the 
 gospel and its author. " Go ye into all the world and 
 preach the gospel to every creature," is the command ; 
 and this is to rule our preaching, and to govern our lives. 
 
 The gospel is to be preached to all classes of men — to 
 the debased and down-trodden, as well as the free and 
 the elevated. He who makes an arrangement by which 
 any class of men is excluded from the gospel, invades 
 the prerogative of God ; prohibits what he commands, 
 and exposes himself to the wrath of the Almighty. Any 
 system of things on earth which prevents the fair pro- 
 mulgation of the gospel, is a violation of the arrange- 
 ments of heaven, and will, sooner or later, meet with the 
 curse of the JNIost High. It is itself a curse — a wither- 
 ing, a blighting curse ; and on it heaven will never smile. 
 
 But chietly I wished to say to one class of this audi- 
 ence, that all along in life you have, by resisting the gos- 
 pel, been resisting the expressions of tender love. You 
 know what I mean. When you stand up against a ty- 
 rant, you feel that you are right in resisting him. When 
 you draw your sword against an aggressor, you feel that 
 you are right. But how do you feel when you resist the 
 kmdness of a father, and shght all the expressions of his 
 
40 IRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 love for you ? How do 3^011 feel when 3'^ou have broken 
 a mother's heart, and when all the expressions of her 
 love could not keep you from the ways of sin, and she 
 died of grief? then the scene, the fact is changed. 
 There is guilt ; and there the heart feels. So you have 
 resisted God. You ha\^e disregarded his love. Your life 
 has been little else than a constant resisting of the ap- 
 peals of his compassion. His love in redemption you 
 have slighted, and his offers of mercy you have shunned. 
 0, the cross, the cross of Christ ! 0, the bleeding victim 
 there ! 0, the pangs and sorrows of tliat dark day when 
 he died ! How it shows the love of God — his tenderness 
 for man— his desire that he should be saved ! And 0, 
 what a rock is the human heart that has no feeling, when 
 God's incarnate Son — the beloved of- heaven — hangs 
 there and bleeds ; is forsaken ; is pale ; is exhausted ; is 
 convulsed in agony — and dies ! 
 
 Hearts of stone, relent, relent, 
 
 Break, by Jesus' cross subdued ; 
 See his body, mangled — rent, 
 
 Covered with a gore of blood ; 
 Sinful soul, what hast thou done ! 
 Murdered God's eternal Son I 
 
 Yes, our sins have done the deed, 
 Drove the nails that fixed him there; 
 
 Crowned with thorns his sacred head, 
 Pierced him with a soldier's spear ; 
 
 Made his soul a sacrifice, 
 
 For a sinful world he dies. 
 
 Will you let him die in vain 1 
 
 Still to death pursue your Lord ? 
 Open tear his wounds again, 
 
 Trample on his precious blood ? 
 No ! With all my sins I'll part ; 
 Saviour, take my broken heart. 
 
SERMON III. 
 
 WHY WILL YE DIE? 
 
 Ezck. xxxiii. 11. Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have 
 no pleasure in the death of the wicked ; but that the wicked turn from his 
 way and live ; turn ye from your evil ways ; for why will ye die 1 
 
 The miiiistors of the gospel are sent to endeavor to 
 arouse their fellow-men to a sense of theh danger, and 
 to win them to God. We are to tell, in simple bnt solemn 
 language, all that we know about God, and Christ, and 
 heaven, and hell ; to rebuke, to warn, and to invite, by 
 all the means that God may put in our powder in order to 
 save them. We are to throw ourselves in the paths of 
 sinners ; and to attempt to stay their gohigs as they travel 
 down to death. If they ivill die, our duty is plain. It 
 is to be found throwing obstacles in their way as they go 
 to ruin ; addressing ourselves to their reason and their 
 conscience ; reminding them of death and the judgment ; 
 and appealing to them by all that is inviting in heaven, 
 and fearful hi future wo, not to go down to the place of 
 despair, to be the everlasting enemies of God. We have 
 no choice here. We must v/arn them as if they were to 
 die ; we must speak to them as if they were in danger 
 of eternal ruin. 
 
 Who are they who are thus to be addressed ? They 
 are the wicked : — the wicked, as the Bible uses that term 
 — the impenitent, and the unbelieving, and the violators 
 of the law of God, of every age, and character, and 
 complexion. The Bible makes but two grand divisions 
 among men — as there will be but two at the day of judg- 
 ment — the righteous and the wicked ; they who serve 
 God, and they who serve him not. In the one class are 
 the redeemed, the renewed, the praying, the pure, the 
 friends of Jesus ; in the other they who are unrenewed, 
 unsanctified, and unforgiven ; they who do not pray, and 
 who do not love the Redeemer, and who have not a well- 
 
 i' 41 
 
42 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 founded hope of heaven — be they profane, and sensnal, 
 and corrupt ; be they proud and haughty ; or be they 
 amiable and externally moral ; or be they accomplished 
 and winning in their manners. I say the externally moral, 
 the accomplished, the winning in their manners. I say 
 it, because the Bible classes them there. I. know of no 
 promise to them of salvation because they are such ; I 
 see no statement that one man is to be saved by faith in 
 Jesus Christ, and another by accomplishment, and free- 
 dom from gross vices. A heart exceedingly wicked may 
 reside beneath a most attractive outward mien. Fasci- 
 nating manners are not faith in Jesus Christ ; nor is 
 amiableness the love of God. There are but two classes 
 among you to-day — the righteous and the wicked. There 
 are but two paths that are trod by mortals — the narrow 
 Avay, and the broad way. There are but two places to 
 be occupied at the judgment — the right, and the left 
 hand of the Judge. There are but tAvo worlds which 
 are to receive us all at last — heaven and hell. There are 
 no Elysian fields which you m_ay traverse for whom the 
 Christian's heaven would be too holy and pure ; or where 
 you might possess and exhibit your amiableness and ac- 
 complishments apart from the grossly vile in the future 
 world. There is a line which divides the human race, 
 and which v/ill divide it forever. On one side are the 
 lovers of God, and on the other are the v/icked ; and that 
 portion of the latter class who are present here to-day I 
 desire to address, and to say to you, " Why v.all ye 
 die?" 
 
 Death means here eternal death. For why, or how 
 can God address mortal men, and ask them why they 
 should die and be laid in their graves ? They cannot help 
 it. He has himself said, " Dust thou art, and unto dust 
 shalt thou return." '^ It is appointed unto men once to 
 die," — and " There is no escape in that war." To ask 
 us ' ivhy we should die,' and be consigned to the grave, 
 and moulder back to dust, as if we could avoid it, w^ould 
 be to tantalize and mock us— and God would not, could 
 not do it. But to ask us lohy we will persevere and go 
 down to hell, when we might be saved; why we would 
 dwell with devouring fire, when we might dwell amid 
 the glories of heaven, is a question worthy of a God, and 
 
WHY WILL YE DIE ? 43 
 
 is fit to be deeply pondered by every traveller to eter- 
 nity. 
 
 I sliall endeavor to enforce that question. I shall ad 
 dress this part of my audience, with the earnest prayer 
 that they may hear this question of their Maker to-day ; 
 and with a regard to my account to my Maker, and to 
 your good, I shall submit to you now a few propositions 
 sustained by my text, and designed to set its meaning be- 
 fore you. 
 
 I. It is the unalterable purpose of God that the wicked 
 shall turn or die. In confirmation of this proposition, I 
 refer you to the text. There it is of necessity implied 
 that it is the solemn purpose of God that the wicked shall 
 turn or die. He would not expostulate with them in this 
 solemn manner if there were no danger, and if no such 
 purpose were formed. It is not the manner of our Maker 
 to assume earnestness when it is uncalled for ; or to use 
 words that are unmeaning ; or to make appeals that are 
 designed needlessly to alarm men. He does not trifle 
 with the creatures which he has made. He does not hold 
 up imaginary objects of dread. When God places him- 
 self in our path ; when he lifts up the voice of solemn 
 warning and remonstrance ; when he tells of danger, it 
 is no imaginary scene. It is no work of the fancy. It 
 is real. The highest proof of the reality and certainty 
 of danger and guilt, is for God to speak of them as if 
 they were so. 
 
 Many persons profess to hold that all men will be 
 saved. Many men feel that in some indefinable way 
 sinners may yet escape future wrath. JNIany feel, and 
 desire to feel, that there is no danger, and that all that is 
 said of eternal death is the work of fancy and of fiction. 
 It is not unnatural to dread to think on it — for it is fitted 
 to produce alarm and pain; and it is not- unnatural to 
 wish that there were no danger, and no death, and no 
 hell. But look at this subject, and see if your JNIaker's 
 earnestness and his solemn warning furnish no proof that 
 there is danger. You feel, or think, or hope that there is 
 no danger of eternal death, and that alarm is needless. 
 Tell me, then, what is the meaning of the solemn address 
 in the text. Would God — the ever blessed and benevo- 
 lent God, speak of death, when there was none, and of 
 
44 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 hell wliich had do existence ? Would he say, * Why rush 
 into those flames V when there are no flames ? ' Why go 
 into that pestilential region V when there is no pestilence ? 
 ' Why go on till you fall down that precipice V when 
 there is no precipice ? * Why tread that region of death V 
 Avhen there is no death ? No. God does not thus speak 
 to men. And when he asks them why they will die ; 
 when he entreats them to turn lest they die, it is full proof 
 that unless they repent they must die. There can be no 
 stronger proof of this. And without any impropriety of 
 imagination, or any improper use of Scripture language, 
 God may be regarded to-day as present in this house, and 
 as looking over this congregation, and into each heart — 
 and onward to the world of death — and saying to each 
 one, " Why will 3^ou die ?'^ He throws himself in the 
 path of the wicked, and by this question assures them 
 that unless they turn they must die. He speaks to the 
 wicked and the thoughtless — to you the gay, and the in- 
 sensible, and the unconverted, in your path to hell, and 
 puts the solemn question to-day, " Why will ye die ?" 
 Tell me, would he use this language if you were in no 
 danger ? Would he use it if he knew that all men were 
 to be saved ? 
 
 The text does not stand alone. If any man doubts 
 that it is the unalterable purpose of God that the wicked 
 shall turn or die, let him open at pleasure any part of the^ 
 Bible. " Verily, verily," said the Redeemer, " except a 
 man be born again, he shall not see the kingdom of God." 
 " Except ye be converted, and become as little children, 
 ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." " He 
 that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that 
 believeth not shall be damned." " He that believeth not 
 the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth 
 on him." " The wicked shall be turned into hell, and 
 all the nations that forget God." " It is a fearful thing to 
 fall into the hands of the living God." '^ These shall go 
 away into everlasting punishment." There is no ambiguity 
 here. There is no wish to hide a painful doctrine. There 
 is no concealment. If it be so that there is a world of 
 death, and that the wicked go there, they do not go un- 
 apprized of it. They are told what to expect, and what 
 is before them. 
 
WHY WILL YE DIE ? 45 
 
 The purpose of God on this point has been expressed 
 m every variety of way in the Bible, and in the events 
 of his Providence. In the Bible — by solemn assurance ; 
 by warning ; by entreaty ; by remonstrance ; by appeals ; 
 by threatening ; by the description of the dying and the 
 dead who have gone down to hell. In his Providence — 
 by the cutting oti' of the wicked ; by his judgments on 
 the old world, and on the cities of the plain, " Set forth 
 as an example suffering the vengeance of eternal fire." 
 In his Providence now. Every pain is designed to ad- 
 monish us. Every hour of sickness ; every funeral pro- 
 cession ; every open grave reminds us of it. The earth 
 is full of the warnings and of the monuments of his dis- 
 pleasure against sin, and of the assurances that unless 
 the guilty turn it is his unalterable purpose that they 
 shall die. There is no relaxing, no misgiving on the part 
 of God. Six thousand years have made no change in 
 his purpose ; and it is as true now as it was in the old 
 •world, and in the time of Ezekiel, that unless the wicked 
 turn they shall die. 
 
 If I had time, I think I could vindicate this doctrine ; 
 at least I could show that the objections against it are 
 unfounded. But I have no time to do it now, and it is 
 not necessary. What I wish to show is, that it is the 
 unchangeable purpose of God that the wicked must turn 
 or perish. The passages of scripture to which I have refer- 
 red demonstrate it. They ivould not, they could wot stand 
 in a revelation which meant to teach that there was no 
 danger. Language has no terrors more explicit, and none 
 more solemn than these. Here stand these passages — • 
 full of solemn truth, and solemn Avarning — from age to 
 age, to meet the caviller and the despiser of this gene- 
 ration on his way to hell— and then to meet the caviller 
 and the despiser of the next generation on his way to 
 hell — and thus to Y\^arn each successive generation that 
 it is the unalterable law of God that the wicked shall turn 
 or die. 
 
 Human opinions and human feelings have no bearing 
 on this doctrine. They do not, they cannot affect it. The 
 Bible travels on from age to age bearing the same fear- 
 ful doctrhie, and is unchanged in its warnhigs and ap- 
 
46 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 peals. Some of each generation listen, are admonished, and 
 saved ; — the rest pass on and die. Human opinion does 
 not alter facts. Human opinion does not remove death- 
 beds, and graves, and sorrows ; nor will it remove and 
 annihilate the world of wo. Facts stand unatiected by 
 the changes of human belief; and fearful events roll on 
 just as though men expected them. Nine-tenths of all 
 the dead expected not to die at the time when in fact 
 they have died, and more than half now listen to no ad- 
 monition that death will ever come. They who have 
 died had an expectation that they would live many 
 years. But death came. He was not stayed by their 
 belief or unbelief He came steadily on. Each day he 
 took a stride towards them — and step by step he ad- 
 vanced, so that they could not retreat or evade him till 
 he was near enough to strike, and they fell. And so 
 though the living Avill not hear, death comes to them. 
 And so the doom of the sinner rolls on. Each day, each 
 hour, each moment, it draws near. Whether he believes 
 it or not makes no difference in the fact. It comes. It 
 will not recede. In spite of all attempts to reason, or to 
 forget it, the time comes ; and at the appointed time the 
 sinner dies. 
 
 Cavil and ridicule do not affect this. There is no power 
 in a joke to put away convulsions, and fevers, and groans. 
 The laugh and the song close no grave, and put back 
 none of the sorrows of the second death. The dwellers 
 in Pompeii could not put back the fires of the volcano by 
 derision ; nor would the mockery of the inhabitants of 
 Sodom have stayed the sheets of flame that came from 
 heaven. The scoffing sinner dies, and is lost just like 
 others ; the young man that has learned to cavil and de- 
 ride religion, dies just like others. No cavil has yet 
 changed a fact ; none has ever stayed the arrow of 
 death. 
 
 This is plain. But will not God make allowance for 
 insensibility on this subject ? Will he not pity, and spare, 
 and save him who has no feeling, and no desire to be 
 saved ? I answer, No. It is not the fault of God that 
 the sinner does not feel. It is not because he has reveal- 
 ed no truth fitted to make men feel. It is not because 
 
WHY WILL YE DIE ? 47 
 
 the truth is not plain enough. I ask you, is not the 
 ground of your complaint — not that it is not plain enough 
 — but that it is too plain ? Is not that the feeling which 
 you liave to-day ? Has not God revealed truth enough to 
 affect the heart, and to make it feel ? You are insensible, 
 you say, to your condition. How has this been pro- 
 duced ? By God ? — / answer. By resisting his appeals ; 
 slighting his warnings ; grieving his Spirit ; refusing to 
 listen to his messengers. You have sought it, and loved 
 it, and would allow nothing to rouse you from it. You 
 have made up your mind on the subject — and now will 
 you blame God ? You may close your eyes to the fright- 
 ful precipice of which a friend warns you, but will you 
 say that you might not have seen the danger ? God is 
 not to blame when men are blind to their own interests. 
 He has told you what you are — a lost sinner. He has 
 told you what is before you — death. He has apprized 
 you when it will come— soon. He has lifted the veil 
 from the eternal world and shown to you his throne, and 
 his judgment -bar, and the world of wo. And now, I 
 ask, who is to blame if the sinner is unmoved and un- 
 concerned ? If, with the proof of guilt which God has 
 furnished ; and the solemn warning in the Bible before 
 you ; and the exhibition of the death of Jesus for your 
 sins, you are unmoved, will you blame God ? What 
 other truths could you ask, or expect to impress the 
 mind ? There are no other, no higher truths than these. 
 Heaven has no other, than to offer its eternal bliss to 
 mortals. Hell has no other, than to threaten its eternal 
 woes. The grave has no other, than to assure you that 
 you must all sleep and moulder there. God has no 
 higher truth than to declare his conviction of the guilt 
 and danger of man ; to proclaim his love by tlie gift of 
 his Son to die ; to offer himself as the portion of the soul, 
 and his heaven as our home ; and to invite as a Father, 
 and to threaten as a God, to induce us to return to him- 
 self. If the sinner is insensible, he has none to blame 
 but himself; if he dies, he dies with the assurance often 
 made to him — made to him till he was weary of it — that 
 it was the unalterable purpose of God that the wicked 
 should turn or die. 
 
48 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 II. My second proposition is, that there is danger that 
 the wicked will die the second death. In proof of this^ 
 hear these remarks. If there were no danger of it, God 
 would not address you in the language of the text ; and 
 in the similar language with which the Bible abounds. 
 He does not assume earnestness where there is no danger; 
 he does not warn men with increasing importunity, unless 
 he sees the danger deepen. Need I pause to prove further 
 that there is such danger ? Need I stop to show in what it 
 Ues ? A sinner never takes a step which is not on the crum- 
 bling verge of a precipice, from which, if he falls, he falls 
 to rise no more. A man who may die at any moment, and 
 who is unprepared to die, is in danger of hell each step 
 that he takes. A soul that is insensible and unmoved — 
 which no appeal reaches, and no voice alarms, is in dan- 
 ger of ruin. A man who lives for himself, and not for 
 God, is in danger of death eternal, and may at any mo- 
 ment be cut off from life and hope. There are obstacles 
 which lie between each impenitent man and heaven, and 
 there are strong probabilities that these obstacles will 
 never be surmounted, and that the soul will be lost. I 
 wish to show you some of these obstacles, and to repre- 
 sent to you the probability that they will never be over- 
 come, but that they will always stand in the way of your 
 salvation. The insensibility of the sinner is one proof of the 
 danger of losing the soul, and that danger lies in the diffi- 
 culty of arousing the mind to think of its own salvation, 
 and the unwillingness of the heart to feel its own guilt 
 and danger. A man may be made to feel when he is in 
 danger of bankruptcy, though he may shut his eyes long 
 to the truth. A man may be made to feel that he is in 
 danger of dying, when disease has seized upon him, and 
 his frame is wasting away. The eyes may shed tears 
 over a novel, or at an exhibition of a tragedy, or in scenes 
 of real grief The heart is susceptible to the appeals of 
 friendship, and gratitude, and love, and feels deeply at 
 the prospect of the loss of reputation or property. Scenes 
 of imaginary grief draw forth tears, but there are no 
 tears to shed at the cross of Christ. The danger of death 
 sometimes alarms, but there is no feeling of danger at 
 the prospect of losing the soul. There appeals are made 
 
WHY WILL YE DIE ? 49 
 
 in vain. The eye weeps not, and the heart feels not. 
 There are no tears to shed, and there is no power to 
 create concern. The unconverted heart of man is a hard 
 rock : — no persuasion, no entreaty, no command, no re- 
 monstrance, no glowing description of heaven, no fear- 
 ful denunciation of eternal wo, moves or affects it. Its 
 insensibility, in the circumstances in which we are placed, 
 is the most mysterious and wonderful fact in the universe, 
 of which we have any knowledge, and all philosophy 
 fails to account for it. 
 
 Now, the danger of which I am speaking is this. It 
 is, that this state of things will continue — and continue 
 until it be too late. I argue it and urge it, because you 
 mean it shall, and intend that nothing shall arouse you ; 
 because it continues till death in such a majority of cases 
 just like your own ; because you have succeeded in con- 
 tinuing it so long, and have learned the unhappy art of 
 warding oif all appeals, and of resisting all approaches 
 iQ the soul ; because you have already resisted, perhaps, 
 as solemn appeals as can ever be made to you ; and be- 
 cause you may have gone far over your little journey of 
 life, and may be near its close. He who has successfully 
 resisted the appeals of the gospel, and the providence, 
 and the Spirit of God for twenty, thirty, or forty years, 
 and whose mind is now unmoved, has the prospect of 
 being able to resist them until life shall close, and of dying 
 in the same insensibility in which he lives. What, my 
 hearer, will ever rouse you } Is there any new law to be 
 promulgated from some fearful Sinai, clothed in black- 
 ness and tempest ? Is there to be some new incarnation 
 of God, to appeal to you by more fearful wonders than 
 those of Calvary? Is there to be some new heaven re- 
 vealed, more glorious, more rich, more inviting, more 
 lovely, to win you ? Is there to be a hell disclosed of 
 more awful horror, and of longer burnings ? Oh, no, 
 none of these things. You have all to rouse you which 
 you can ever have. Death ; the grave ; the cross ; hea- 
 ven ; hell : all — all appeal to you, and call upon you to 
 turn and live. What, let me ask, is to rouse you ? Do 
 you expect to be aroused when you reach a more favor- 
 able time of life ? With many, many of you, the most 
 favorable time is passed already, and you were unmoved. 
 
 5 
 
50 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 Do yon expect to be aroused by some alarming dispen- 
 sation of Providence, and some more solemn call to re- 
 pentance ? You, perhaps, who have seen a child die, and 
 heard God speak from his bed and his grave to you in 
 vain ; you who have been stretched on a bed of pain, and 
 compelled to look into eternity, yet unmoved ; you who 
 have walked through scenes of calamity where God was, 
 and where you refused to hear his voice, do you expect 
 that affliction will awaken you ? Do you wait that God 
 should send his Spirit into your hearts, and arouse you ? 
 You who have often grieved that Spirit, and who know 
 that with your present desires you would resist and op- 
 pose him again, do you look and long for those heavenly 
 influences ? Do you wait for others to lead the way to 
 God, and expect to go with them ? Tell me, how many 
 of your friends have become Christians, and left you un- 
 willing to follow them ? Do you wait for a miracle to 
 convert you — for some supernatural influence to bear 
 you to heaven against your own will ? Then / tell you, 
 you wait in vain. For this you may wait till " seas shall 
 waste, and skies in smoke decay.'^ There are no such 
 influences. The heart must yield, or there is no salva- 
 tion.* The hard heart must feel, and repent, and become 
 willing that God should reign, or there is no salvation. 
 There are no insensible and unwilhng saints in heaven. 
 All there rejoice in the privilege of salvation, and have 
 wept, and sighed, and groaned over sin, and have prayed 
 for pardon. The truth, my hearer, is, that you do not 
 love religion ; and the danger is, that this state of things 
 will remain till you die. 
 
 I have spoken of insensibility as a source of danger. 
 I might have told you of other dangers. Young man — 
 your ambition is endangering your soul. Your love of 
 gain is estranging you from God. Your pride is a source 
 of danger to you. Your youthful passions ; your unholy 
 companions ; your amusements ; your loose and unsettled 
 principles ; your sceptical thoughts ; your intention to 
 delay this subject; your love of self; your nearness to 
 the grave ; your exposure to death — all endanger your 
 salvation. The allurements of the world ; the arts of a 
 cunning and subtle foe ; the deceitfulness of your own 
 hearts ; the propensity to delay, all endanger your salva- 
 
WHY WILL TE DIE ? 51 
 
 tion. They meet you every where ; every day ;— in your 
 hearts ; in the world ; in your feeUngs ; — and it is for 
 reasons such as these that God addresses you in the lan- 
 guage of the text, and asks you luhy you will die ? He 
 sees the danger ; he knows it ; he loves your soul ; and 
 he points you to the perils of your way. Look at these 
 facts. I ask if you are not in danger? I ask if there is 
 not a fearful probability that your souls will be lost ? I 
 ask if there is not reason to fear that you will be unmoved 
 by all the appeals of the gospel ; that you will hear un- 
 concerned all the thunders of the law ; that you will 
 tread on in the path of sin unconcerned ; — that, in one 
 word, while yoT> live you will live without God, and 
 when you di^ ,ou will die without God, and when 
 you go to eternity you will make the awful plunge " in. 
 the dark" without God? You will remember that these 
 difficulties are your own. God is not responsible for 
 them. He has not made them. Your indifference to re- 
 ligion ; your love of the world ; your love of ease ; your 
 love of sin, are all your own. Your own heart cherishes 
 them; and so dearly you love them that nothing will 
 induce you to abandon them. 
 
 III. My third general proposition is, that the kind of 
 death referred to in the text is such as to make earnest- 
 ness of remonstrance proper. If it were not, God would 
 not use this strong language. If it were a trifle, an 
 affair of a moment, or a day ; if it were temporary pain 
 or distress, he would not remonstrate in this manner. 
 When does he remonstrate with us about exposing our- 
 selves to sickness or temporal death ? But when God 
 uses this language, he sees all that can be seen in the sin- 
 ner's doom. His omniscient eye is on the grave, and on 
 hell ; and seeing all, he asks, why, why will ye die ? He 
 sees what you do not, and cannot see ; and seeing all, he 
 speaks as a Father and a Friend, and asks, why, why 
 will ye die ? Could you see it as he sees it, or as even 
 man on earth may be made to see it, you would cease to 
 wonder at the earnestness of the question. 
 
 What is the death referred to in the text ? What is 
 death at all ? What is eternal death ? — for the one is the 
 faint emblem and image — and, alas ! often the forerunner 
 of the other. We know something — yet little — of death. 
 
52 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 We see to-day a lovely and vigorous youth, flushed with 
 hope, and full of cheerfulness and joy — the pride of his 
 friends, and the hope of the community. His eye is ra- 
 diant with genius ; his cheek blooms with the rose of 
 health ; his frame is manly and commanding ; his step 
 is elastic and joyous; his heart is bounding with hope. 
 He comes to lend to the social circle the enchantment of 
 his conversation and his wit ; and he looks onward to 
 health, and honor, and long life. There is not a crown 
 so brilliant in the grasp of ambition that he does not as- 
 pire to it ; there is not a field of honor which he does not 
 hope to tread. To-morrow that elastic foot-tread ceases 
 to be heard in the cheerful circle. That voice is hushed. 
 The fire has departed from that eye ; and the color from 
 that cheek ; and that large heart has ceased to beat, and 
 the gushing blood has ceased to flow ; and all that am- 
 bition, and hope, and wit, and humor, and gaiety have 
 fled ; — and there is left — what ? A mass of moulded clay 
 — now like the marble — cold, but more perishable ; a 
 moulded form, but with a peculiarity of feature, a chilli- 
 ness, a fixedness, a solemnity, a repulsiveness, that we 
 see, but cannot describe — and that nature nowhere else 
 reveals but among the dead. Is this death ? — Who shall 
 tell us what it is ; or what that spirit felt when it fled — 
 driven by the grim king away from the clay tenement ? 
 This is death — the death of the bodi/ — but it is but the 
 image of death. The true death — the real death, is the 
 death of the soul. It is when the soul is severed from 
 its God, and from hope, and peace, and joy; when it 
 lives — without life ; survives — only to sufler ; — is cut off 
 from its high destiny — and driven away from him who 
 is the Resurrection and the Life. Religion is life ; and 
 heaven is life ; and hell is existence without life — conti- 
 nued being, where the soul is held in existence only to 
 continue to die. This is death. To be seen, it must 
 be seen beyond the grave — in hell. 
 
 What is ihaf death ? Why should we dread it ? Hear 
 him speak who saw it all, and who knew it all. " The 
 Son of man shall send forth his angels, and shall gather 
 out of his kingdom all things that ofl'end, and them 
 which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of 
 fire 5 there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.'' There, 
 
WHY WILL YE DIE ? 53 
 
 according to him, the sufferer shall Kft up the eyes, " being 
 in torment," and ask in vain for a single ^^ drop of water" 
 to cool the tongue ; there " the worm dieth not, and the 
 fire shall not be quenched" ; there shall be " everlasting 
 punishment" ; there shall be " outer darkness" ; there 
 shall be the execution of the sentence, " Depart, accursed, 
 into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his an- 
 gels." I have used only the words of the meek, and mild, 
 and benevolent Redeemer — the most tender, and kind, 
 and merciful of all who have dwelt on the earth, and who 
 used such expressions as these, '^ How can ye escape the 
 damnation of hell ?" as if they became no other lips but 
 his. He never concealed this danger. He never spake 
 or acted as if it did not exist. He sought to save men. 
 as if the danger were real. He was just as serious, and 
 solemn, and tender, as if he felt that every man was in 
 danger of it. And he told men when he lived, and he 
 tells you now, just what the sinner has to expect. He 
 felt that men were in danger, or he would never have 
 left the heavens to save them. And was it any common 
 or any imaginary danger that would lead him from hea- 
 ven to the manger, to the cross, to the tomb ? 
 
 I know not what eternal death is. I can tell you some 
 things. It is far away from heaven — those blissful plains 
 where eternal joy dwells. It is far from hope — hope that 
 here " comes to all." It is the abode of all the aban- 
 doned, and profane, and vile — the collected guilt and 
 wretchedness of this world. It is a place where no sanc- 
 tuary like this opens its doors and invites to heaven ; 
 where no Sabbath returns to bless the soul ; where no 
 message of mercy comes to the suffering and the sad. It 
 is a world unblessed like this with the work of redemp- 
 tion. On no second Calvary there is a Redeemer offered 
 for sin ; and from no tomb there does he rise to life to 
 bless the sufferers with the offer, and to furnish the pledge 
 of heaven. No Spirit strives there to reclaim the lost ; 
 and on no zephyr there is the message of mercy borne, 
 whispering peace. No God meets the desponding there 
 with promises and hopes ; and from no eye there is the 
 tear of sorrow ever wiped away. There is no such friend 
 as Jesus ; no voice of mercy ; no day-star of hope ; no 
 father, mother, daughter, pastor, angel, to sympathize ; 
 
 5* 
 
54 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 no one to breathe for the lost the prayer for pardon ; no 
 great Intercessor to bear the cry for mercy up to the 
 throne of God. It is death — Ungering, long, intermina- 
 ble death — the dying sorrow prolonged from age to age ; 
 onward — onward toward eternity — ever lingering, never 
 ending. 
 
 It is eternal. So said he who is the faithful and true 
 witness, and who cannot lie. They " go away into ever- 
 lasting punishment." This settles the question ; and if 
 you go there, you go with your eyes open. He deceives 
 no one. He would undeceive all. I use scripture lan- 
 guage. I have no power — no heart to attempt to por- 
 tray these scenes. They are not topics for declamation. 
 For of whom are these things spoken ? Of the dwellers 
 in distant worlds ? Of those whom we have not seen ? 
 Alas ! of many, many of the wicked in this house. How 
 many now in despair may have occupied the seats which 
 you now occupy — not suffered now to go and tell their 
 brethren lest they also come into that place of torment ! 
 Oh, they are spoken of our kindred and friends — of 
 wives, and husbands, and parents, and school-compa- 
 nions, and teachers, and pupils, who are out of Christ. 
 They are spoken of those to whom we are bound by 
 every tender tie, and to whom the heart is drawn by all 
 the gushing sympathy of love ; but are they less in dan- 
 ger on that account ? 0, is there no danger ? Suppose a 
 voice from heaven should be heard in this house, and 
 saying to the living here, " The day is coming in which 
 all that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the 
 Son of man, and shall come forth, they that have done 
 evil to the resurrection of damnation" ; " the wicked 
 shall be turned into hell" ; " except ye repent, ye shall 
 all perish" ; is there a heart here that would not feel that 
 there was danger ? Should a hand be seen writing on 
 these walls the names of all those here who are in dan- 
 ger of hell, how solemn would be this house ! With what 
 anxiety would you trace the record made ! How anxious- 
 ly would you look to see if your name was begun — was 
 recorded— was fixed there ! How deep the anguish of 
 the soul ! How deep, perhaps, the groans that would be 
 heard in every part of this house I 
 
 IV. My fourth and concluding proposition is, that eter- 
 
WHY WILL YE DIE ? 55 
 
 nal death is not necessary, and may be avoided. If it 
 were necessary and inevitable, your Maker would not 
 expostulate with you, and ask " Wiry will ye die ?'' By 
 a solemn oath — the most solemn — the only one that the 
 Creator can make — by himself — his own life — his exist- 
 ence — he declares that he has no pleasure in your death. 
 
 Nor does this solemn declaration stand alone. Open 
 any page of the Bible, and you may find the same as- 
 surance every where. In every way in which we can 
 conceive or desire, he has given the solemn assurance to 
 men that if they die, it will not be because his ear is deaf 
 to the cry of penitence, or his eye not compassionate to 
 the returning prodigal, or because there is no provision 
 for their salvation. What mean your spared liA^es, if he 
 would have pleasure in your death ? Why have you not 
 been cut down long since in your sins } What mean the 
 sorrows of the Redeemer in Gethsemane and on Cal- 
 vary, if God wished your death ? Why was a Saviour 
 given to die ? What mean the invitations of that Re- 
 deemer to all — to all to come and live ? Why do I hear 
 his kind voice meeting the sighs of the broken-hearted 
 and the contrite, and saying, " Come unto me, all ye 
 that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you 
 rest?" Why his invitation, Avide as the world, "Whoso- 
 ever will, let him take the water of life freely" ? Why 
 your serious thoughts ; your tender feehngs ; your con- 
 victions of sin ; your desires of heaven — produced by the 
 Holy Ghost — if God would have pleasure in your ruin } 
 Why this message of mercy sent again to your souls, if 
 God wished your death ? 
 
 No, my hearers, I assure you that God wishes not 
 your death. Had he desired it, instead of being to-day 
 in this peaceful sanctuary, you would have been lifting 
 up your eyes in the world of despair. He desires not 
 your death. The Redeemer desires not your death. 
 There is not an angel of light that desires your death. 
 There is not one among the spirits of the just made per- 
 fect in heaven — be it departed father, mother, sister, child, 
 that desires your death. There is not a pious friend 
 among the living that desires your death. There is not 
 one holy being throughout the universe, from Him that 
 
56 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 sitteth on the throne to the humblest member of the 
 Christian church, that does not desire your salvation. 
 
 Then why will you die ? Why should you die ? Why 
 neglect the subject till you perish forever ? I ask with 
 earnestness and with affection, wl <y, why will you die ? 
 What reason can be given why t/ou should perish, while 
 others are saved ? Is it because God is unwilling ? That 
 ivould be a reason if it were so, but look at his solemn 
 oath in the text. Is it because the Lord Jesus did not 
 die for you ? That would be a reason if it were so, but 
 hear the solemn declaration of the scriptures : " He tasted 
 death for every man" ? Hear his own words, that the 
 " Son of man would be lifted up, that whosoever believeth 
 on him might not perish, but have everlasting life." Is it 
 because Christ is unwilling that you should be saved ? 
 That would be a reason, but hear him say, " Come unto 
 me all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will 
 give you rest." Is it because there is no room in hea- 
 ven ; because it is limited, and is full ; because there are 
 no harps there that your hand might strike ? That would 
 be a reason, but hear the Redeemer say, " And yet there 
 is room." Is it because you cannot come ; because there 
 are mountains of difficulties which you cannot overcome ; 
 because your sins are so great that they cannot be par- 
 doned ? That would be a reason ; but hear the ever- 
 blessed God, " Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall 
 be as white as snow ; though they be red like crimson, 
 they shall be white as wool." Is it because the plea- 
 sures, and honours, and wealth of this world will be an 
 equivalent for eternal sorrows ; because there will be gain 
 in enjoying these though you perish at last ? That might 
 have some show of reason, but what will you be profited 
 " if 3^ou gain the whole world and lose your own soul" ? 
 
 Then, why will you die ? Why grieve away the Spirit 
 of God ? Why trample beneath your feet the blood of 
 the Saviour ? Why go down to death ? Aged man, why 
 exhaust the last drop of mercy as you totter over the 
 tomb, and sigh out the remains of your earthly being in 
 the prayer, ' God ! depart from me, I desire not the 
 knowledge of thy ways V Man of middle age, why 
 tread on in the neglect of religion, in the path which 
 
WHY WILL YE DIE ? 57 
 
 thousands have trod — the path that leads to death — de- 
 votmg yourself to this world, only to reap immortal wo ? 
 Ye young ; ye vigorous ; ye full of hope, and hilarity, 
 and ambition, why spend the spring-time of being amidst 
 youthful pleasures in the neglect of God, and why should 
 you die forever ? Ye gay, ye guilty, ye thoughtless, ye 
 anxious, ye aged, and ye young, your Maker meets you 
 now, and asks you, ^ Why will ye die V 0, that this 
 question might be written in letters of living light in 
 every gay assembly where you forget God ; in the room 
 where you sleep ; and over your path every day as you 
 go down to death ! Why will ye die ? why will ye die ? 
 why will ye die ? Why go away from the cross ? Why 
 tarn your backs on heaven ? Why be miserable forever ? 
 Why linger on to all eternity in that immortal pain which 
 never ceases — in the horrors of that death which never 
 dies? 
 
SERMON IV. 
 
 THE DECEITFULNESS OF THE HEART. 
 Jeremiah xvii. 9. The heart is deceitful above all things. 
 
 That is deceitful which tends to mislead, or in which 
 we cannot confide. A man who professes friendship for 
 us when we are in perplexity, and who leads us into ad- 
 ditional perplexity, deceives us. When a traveller has 
 lost his way, and a stranger meets him and offers to 
 conduct him, and leads him on a wrong course, or so 
 that he falls among robbers, he deceives him. Professed 
 friends are sometimes deceitful, and are beautifully com- 
 pared by Job to a brook in the desert. " My brethren 
 have dealt deceitfully as a brook, and as the stream of 
 brooks they pass away. Which are turbid by means of 
 the [melted] ice, in which the snow is hid [by being dis- 
 solved]. In the time when they become warm they 
 evaporate ; when the heat cometh they are dried up from 
 their place. The channels of their way Avind round 
 about ; they go into nothing and are lost. The caravans 
 of Tema look ; the travelling companies of Sheba expect 
 to see them. They are ashamed that they relied on 
 them ; they come even to the place, and are confounded." 
 Job vi. 15 — 20. They are deceitful — because in Eastern 
 climates, and in sandy deserts, such streams are dried up 
 or are lost in the sand. In the winter, or in the rainy 
 season, they are swollen. In summer, and in times of 
 drought, they disappear. They sink away in the sand, 
 or they wind along in the desert, until they grow smaller 
 and smaller, and finally disappear. The weary traveller 
 that had at some seasons of the year pitched his tent 
 there, returns again, and expects again to find the gur- 
 gling fountain, or the running stream, but is disappointed. 
 Its Avaters are dried up, and the brook has deceived him. 
 A hoiv is deceitful. " They turned back," says the 
 
 58 
 
THE DECEITFULNESS OF THE HEART 59 
 
 Psalmist, " and dealt unfaithfully like their fathers ; they 
 were turned aside like a deceitful bow." Ps. Ixxviii. 
 57. " They return," says the Prophet when speaking of 
 the false and unfaithful Jews, " they return, but not to the 
 Most High ; they are like a deceitful bow." Hos. vii. 16. 
 A bow is deceitful when the arms are of unequal length, 
 elasticity, or strength, or when, from any cause, the arrow 
 does not follow the aim of the marksman, and turns aside. 
 He who flatters us, and who designs to take advantage 
 of our vanity to ruin our virtue, or to obtain our property, 
 is deceitful. The man who professes to be your friend, 
 and who stabs your reputation in the dark ; who profess- 
 ing friendship sets in motion a train of evil reports and 
 inuendoes, and suspicions, whose source you cannot 
 trace, and whose malignity you cannot meet any more 
 than you can a " mist from the ocean," is deceitful. He 
 cannot be trusted. how full is the world of deceit and 
 imposition ! Thousands and millions are the dupes of 
 imposition in various ways, and no inconsiderable part of 
 the human family seem to live that they may practise 
 fraud on their fellow-men. 
 
 But the heart is deceitful above all these things. It 
 is more deceitful than the man who professes friendship 
 for us in perplexity, and who imposes on us ; than the 
 false guide to the traveller ; than the brook, the bow, 
 the flatterer, the slanderer. It is more likely to lead us 
 astray than any one or all of them. To illustrate this 
 truth will be the design of this discourse ; and my plan 
 will be to mention a few things in which men are deceived 
 by their own hearts. 
 
 I. I observe in the first place, that men impose on them- 
 selves respecting their own character; or. that the heart 
 practises a deception in regard to its natural tendency 
 and disposition. The human heart is a great deep : — a 
 deep so turbid by sin and agitated by passion that we 
 cannot look into it far ; a deep which no line yet has been 
 long enough to fathom. I believe that the true represen- 
 tation of the human heart is in the Bible, and that the 
 hearts of all men are reflected there. The account in the 
 history of the Bible of the depravity of man is not more 
 humiliating than is the account in Tacitus and Sallust, 
 m Hume and in Gibbon ; the account in the Sacred Poets 
 
CO PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 is substantially the same as in Shakespeare and Byron; 
 the account given by Paul is the same that you will find 
 in the books of every traveller who has penetrated the 
 dark regions of the heathen world. You admit the ac- 
 count to be true of the world at large, of other men ; you 
 take securities of others ; you put padlocks and bolts on 
 your stores; you guard your houses, as if yon believed 
 it Avere true. Others believe the same of you ; and the 
 Bible holds aU to be substantially alike — all fallen and 
 ruined. 
 
 And yet it is evident that men do not by nature attri- 
 bute to themselves the character which is given of the 
 human heart in the Bible. The Christian does. He be- 
 lieves that the account of the Bible is a fair representation 
 of his own heart by nature, and of the heart of every other 
 man. He has no more doubt of it than he has that the 
 account there given of God is true. He has learned it by 
 bitter experience ; by the revelations of the Spirit; and it 
 is to him a truth attested by many scenes of repentance, 
 and by many tears. But the mass of men do not feel so. 
 Perhaps you could scarcely offer a more signal affront to 
 a man — do it as kindly as you can — than to go to him, 
 and apply to hrm as an individual, the account of the 
 human heart in the Bible. Who will bear to be told, 
 though you may go with all the influence of the tender 
 relations of friendship, and all the influence that you can 
 take with you from any oflicial relation, that his mind is 
 " enmity against God ," that " in his flesh there dwelleth 
 no good thing;" tliathe "is a liater of God ;" that he is 
 a " lover of pleasure more than a lover of God ;" that he 
 is "living without God and without hope;" that his 
 "heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately 
 wicked ?" You will hear it from the desk — for (1.) you 
 believe that it is our oflicial duty to make the statement ; 
 and (2.) the statement is of necessity so general that no 
 one feels himself particularly intended. But would you 
 hear it from me, if I sliould come to you alone, and if I 
 should make the statements with all the tenderness that I 
 could assume ? With all the respect which you might 
 have for me as a man or a minister, would you take it 
 kindly, or would you allow it ? 
 
 As this is a matter pertaining to personal consciousness. 
 
THE DECEITFULNESS OF THE HEART. 61 
 
 I may make my appeal to each individual. Is this the 
 estimate which you have placed on yourselves? Does 
 your view of your own heart accord with that which is 
 given of the heart in the Bible ? Or is not the following 
 rather the estimate which you have formed of yourselves: 
 That you are moral, and amiable, and true, and just. 
 That your imperfections — for all have them — are rather 
 of the head than of the heart, and that your general aim 
 is right and pure. That the original and prevailing bent 
 of your mind is to goodness rather than to sin ; and that 
 you have greatly cultivated and improved this original 
 tendency, and have added much to it that claims the con- 
 filence and love of your friends and of the world. That 
 though you have been guilty of fauUs, yet they are minor 
 faults, iaw in number, and far between, that they have 
 been more than corrected and compensated by a subse- 
 quent life of virtue ; that they were not owing to any 
 natural tendency to evil, but to your time of life, to the 
 strength of temptation, or to a temperament signally sus- 
 ceptible and ardent. That you have a right to the con- 
 fidence of the world at large — having wronged no man, 
 defrauded no man, killed no man, corrupted no man, 
 slandered no man, and that the integrity of your charac- 
 ter is not to be called in question. That the charges in 
 the Bible of utter and total depravity, if applied to you, 
 are harsh and severe ; and that the plan of salvation, pro- 
 ceeding on the supposition of the utter ruin and corrup- 
 tion of man, is unnecessary for you — however needful it 
 may be for others — and is to be regarded by you as 
 medicine is by those in health. It is valuable for those 
 who are diseased ; it is unnecessary for the well. If such 
 bs your belief, then I need not say there is a radical dif- 
 ference between your views and those of the Bible about 
 your natural character, and your need of a Saviour. 
 
 Is it not possible that your heart has deceived you on 
 this point ? Let me suggest a few things for your consi- 
 deration. 
 
 One is, that if the Bible be true, there is no such native 
 excellence of character as you suppose you possess ; — for 
 in the most solemn manner, the Bible declares the whole 
 race to be guilty, and ruined, and lost ; — and the Bible 
 has such evidences of its truth and its divine origin as 
 
 6 
 
62 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 should lead you to suppose it possible that its account of 
 the human character is correct. 
 
 Another consideration is, that multitudes of men who 
 once had the same view of themselves which you have, 
 have been convinced of their error, and have been led to 
 accord with the account in the Bible. I allude to those 
 who are now Christians. Once they were just as confi- 
 dent of their native purity as you are. They trusted just 
 as much in their uprightness and integrity. They were 
 just as much opposed to the doctrine of natural de- 
 pravity. They cultivated the virtues and the graces of 
 life, just as much and as successfully as you do. Many 
 of them were upright, and moral, and honorable in the 
 sight of men. They moved in the circles of fashion and 
 of honor ; they had' the confidence of the world ; they 
 were without a stain on their external character ; they 
 thought, as you do, that their hearts were pure, and that 
 the charges in the Bible were singularly harsh and un- 
 kind. But they have changed their opinions. They 
 have seen their hearts in a different light. They now 
 admit that all that the Bible said of their hearts was true; 
 and have yielded themselves to the overpowering evi- 
 dence that they are by nature wholly prone to sin. Now, 
 if they were deceived, you may be also. If they are now 
 right in their views you are wrong. If their present es- 
 timate of character be correct, there is no such native ten- 
 dency to goodness as you suppose, and you are deceived. 
 They are among your best friends, and they have not 
 assumed this new position from any desire to impose on 
 others ; but they have been constrained to it because they 
 saw it was true. 
 
 Another consideration is, that there is nothing easier 
 than to deceive ourselves in this matter. You have cer- 
 tain traits of character which are in themselves well 
 enough, and which may be commendable, and you exalt 
 them in the place of others which God requires. You 
 have a disposition that is naturally amiable and inof- 
 fensive. So has a lamb, and a dove. Is this the love of 
 God ? Is that what the law requires ? You are honest 
 and upright towards men. Is this the love of the Creator, 
 and is this to be a substitute for repentance and faith ? 
 How inconclusive is the reasoning that is secretly going 
 
THE DECEITFULNESS OF THE HEART. 63 
 
 on ill your mind on this subject. ' I have wronged no 
 man, therefore, I am the friend of God. I am amiable, 
 accomphshed, true, therefore, my want of love to God 
 may be excused. I am kind to others, therefore, I need 
 not pray, and if I neither pray nor worship my Maker, 
 nor love my Redeemer, I shall be saved.' Is it not pos- 
 sible also to conceal offensive points of character from 
 yourselves and from the world ? Many an individual is 
 refined and courteous in a circle like that in which you 
 move, who would be a profane man or a gambler, a 
 drunkard or a freebooter, were these restraints thrown 
 off. Nay, I can conceive that a man may appear very 
 courteous, and refined, and virtuous here, and in an 
 hour afterwards, with the dissolute and profane, may 
 evince a totally difierent character. Much of the virtue 
 of this world is the creation of circumstances, not the re- 
 sult of principle^and is, therefore, no virtue at all. Many 
 a man aims to conceal not to eradicate the evil of his 
 heart ; and his smooth exterior, his plausible address, his 
 winning manners, are the result of that concealment. 
 Years ma}^ pass before the hidden fire shall burn, and 
 before the depravity of the soul shall manifest itself by 
 some tremendous deed of open guilt. — Again : we are 
 flattered. Our parents flatter us ; our friends do it ; we 
 do it ourselves. We love it. Our beauty, our strength, 
 our skill in music, our accomplishments, our learning are 
 praised. Somebody will praise us ; and we lay the flat- 
 tering unction to the soul, and believe it, and feed upon 
 it, and love it. We substitute this in the place of virtue, 
 and forget while we drink it in that the Bible has said 
 that the carnal mind is enmity against God. And it mat- 
 ters not whence it comes, or how valueless it may be in 
 its source, or scarcely how bad may be the intention with 
 which it is done. It is acceptable to us always ; it is ac- 
 ceptable to us all. Praise, 
 
 " what heart of man 
 Is proof against thy sweet seducing charms! 
 Praise from the rivelled lips of toothless, bald 
 Decrepitude, and in (he looks of lean 
 And craving poverty, and in the bow 
 Respectful of the smutched artificer, 
 Is oft too welcome, and may disturb 
 The bias of the purpose. How much more, 
 
64 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 Pourf^d forth by beauty splendid and polite 
 
 In language soft as adoration breathes ! 
 
 Ah ! spare your idol ! think him human still. 
 
 Task, B. II. 
 
 Another thought. Are you not deceived in your esti- 
 mate of your own character in regard to the love of virtue. 
 Let me ask a few plain questions. You say you love 
 truth. Why then resist the truth as designed to hear on 
 your own heart and to show you what you are? You 
 are amiable. Why not then love the Lord Jesus Christ ? 
 Has there been any one among men more amiable or 
 lovely than he ? You love purity. Why not then love 
 God ? Is there any one more pure than he ? You are 
 aiming to do right. Why then do you not pray in the 
 closet, and in the family, as you know you ought to do ? 
 You are not opposed, you say, to God and his religion. 
 Why then do you not embrace his gospel, and avow your 
 attachment to him in the face of the world ? Does the 
 child that loves a father neglect his commands ? Does he 
 flee from his presence when he calls him ? Does he min- 
 gle with his enemies, and choose that his name should be 
 with his revilers ? You have done no wrong. Will you 
 tell me then why you are afraid to die ? Why are you 
 afraid of God and of the judgment seat ? What has in- 
 nocence to fear in death, or in the world beyond ? What 
 has a guiltless man to dread at the bar of a holy God ? 
 You are deceived. The paleness, and the terror, and the 
 alarm of a dying man always prove that there is guilt 
 within, and that he has something to dread after death. 
 Few men know themselves. In all communities there is 
 many a man who regards himself as a paragon of humi- 
 lity who is a model of pride ; many a one who supposes 
 he has no hostility to the Saviour, who would have 
 joined in the cry " crucify him ;" and many a man who 
 supposes that his character is pure and his heart upright, 
 who in other circumstances would show that that heart 
 is a fountain of corruption, and is filled with evil. 
 
 II. Men deceive themselves in regard to their real at- 
 tachments. The remarks which I have to make under this 
 head and the others which follow, will partake of the na- 
 ture of illustrations of the fact already adverted to, that 
 men deceive themselves in regard to their character, and 
 
THE DECEITFULNESS OF THE HEART. 65 
 
 may be much more brief than the remarks under the first 
 head. Men deceive themselves in regard to their real at- 
 tachments. They usually flatter themselves that they have 
 no improper attachment to their friends, to their children, 
 to the world, to fashion, to fame, to property, to their 
 pursuits. They think they hold to the doctrines of reli- 
 gion, and that they are not insensible to its claims. They 
 are not infidels ; tliey are not at heart opposed to the gos- 
 pel. Is this so ? Or are they allowing their hearts to im- 
 pose on themselves ? 
 
 You think you have no undue attachment to a child. 
 When the great Giver of life takes this child back to him- 
 self, are you willing to part with it ? Are there no feel- 
 ings of murmuring when you see that lovely babe be- 
 yond human help sinking in death ? Is the heart always 
 calm and submissive when the son advancing to man- 
 hood — soon to be your pride and your stay, or the 
 daughter blooming like the rose, is suddenly cut down 
 like the flower of the field ? Is the eye serene ; and is 
 there no murmur tremulous on the lip ; or no suppressed 
 complaining in the heart ? Does the sufferer always then 
 say " the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, 
 blessed be the name of the Lord?" Not always thus. " I 
 am thankful," said one mother, when she lest a lovely 
 child — in her view then the most lovely of all her chil- 
 dren — " I am thankful that God has done his icorst.^^ 
 Another fell in death, and she murmured still. A third 
 also died — and she felt that the Lord had more that he 
 could do — and then, taught to acquiesce, and brought to 
 love him, she cheerfully said, " the Lord gave, and the 
 Lord hath taken away ; blessed be his holy name." 
 
 You think you have no undue attachment to wealth. 
 How do you feel when you are embarrassed and when 
 others are prospered ? When wind, and tide, and fire, 
 aixl tempest are against you, and when others grow rich ? 
 When your property takes to itself wings and flees aAvay, 
 while others are enjoying the smiles of Heaven ? How 
 do you feel when you are asked to aid the cause of hu- 
 manity with a portion of your wealth ? How do you 
 estimate that property when compared with the wants of 
 the world ? Tliere are the poor, and the ignorant, and 
 the down-trodden whom you might relieve. There is a 
 
 6* 
 
'66 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 dying world in want of schools, and Bibles, and churches, 
 and a preached gospel? There are millions of benighted 
 men ; millions under oppression ; milhons in slavery ; mil- 
 lions Avho are the miserable victims of sensuality and 
 vice — and a portion of your property might aid to set the 
 captive free, and to open the prisons of them that are 
 bound, and to knock off the chains of servitude, and to 
 relieve suffering nations, and to proclaim salvation to the 
 ends of the earth. Do you esteem any or all of these ob- 
 jects as at all comparable in value with the wealth which 
 you hold in your hands? And if you do not, have you 
 not affixed an inordinate estimate to that wealth, and 
 formed an attachment for it which God cannot approve ? 
 
 You think you have no undue attachment to the world, 
 and that in the influence which that world has over you, 
 you are showing no disrespect to the commands of God. 
 Let me ask you, is any pleasure abandoned because he 
 commands it ? Is any place of amusement forsaken be- 
 cause he wills it ? Do you listen to the voice of God 
 when he warns you against the seductive influence of the 
 theatre, the ball-room, and the pursuit of gain, and of 
 ambition ? Are they not pursued as if there were no God, 
 and as if you were never to give account ? 
 
 You suppose you have some attachment to Christians, 
 and to the Christian religion. You would be shocked and 
 offended to be called an atheist, an infidel, a scoffer. You 
 admit the Bible to be true, and mean to be found among 
 the number of those who hold that its doctrines are from 
 Heaven. Yet does the heart never deceive you in this ? 
 Is not this the truth — for I make my appeal to your 
 own consciousness? You admit the doctrines of the 
 Bible to be true in general ; you deny them in detail. 
 The doctrine of total depravity as taught in the Bible, 
 and as applicable to yourself — do you believe it ? The 
 necessity of regeneration in order to be saved — do ^^-ou 
 believe it? The fact that you can be saved onl}^ by 
 the merits of the Lord Jesus, and not by morals, and 
 by amiableness, and an upright life — do you believe it ? 
 The doctrine of the eternal punishment of the wicked — 
 do you believe it ? Step by step, and point by point, 
 we might go over the doctrines of the Bible, and as 
 we go along, the heart, if honest, would answer, * No, 
 
THE DECEITFULNESS OF THE HEART. 67 
 
 I believe none of tliese tilings. I am not as guilty and 
 corrupt OS the Bible says I am; I am not in danger of 
 eternal sorrow ; I do not deserve the unending wrath of 
 God ;' — and the heart has deceived you. 
 
 You think you have no particular opposition to the 
 duties of religion. But is not this the truth ? You admit 
 the obligation in general ; you deny it in detail. Let me 
 ask you, Do you pray ? Do you conscientiously read the 
 Bible ? Do you repent of your past sins ? Do you believe 
 in the Lord Jesus Christ ? Do you profess his name be- 
 fore men ? Do you celebrate his death ? Do you take up 
 the cross ? Do you cultivate meekness, and spirituality, 
 and heavenly-mindedness? Do you live for heaven, and 
 for eternity, and for God ? Step by step, and point by 
 point, we might go over the catalogue of Christian duties, 
 and as we go along the conscience would answer, ' No ; 
 I do none of these things. Not one of the duties of the 
 Christian religion do I perform as I know the Bible re- 
 quires. Not one am I willing noiv to do.' The heart has 
 deceived you in this. Am I saying more than your own 
 consciences will bear witness to when I say that there is 
 no argument, and no eloquence that could induce 3^ou 
 this night to kneel down before God and pray? 
 
 III. In the third place, the heart is deceitful in regard 
 to its power of resisting temptation. In the halcyon days 
 of youth and. inexperience, we think that we are proof 
 against all the forms of allurement, and w^e listen with 
 no pleasureable emotions to those who would warn us of 
 danger. Experience and aged wisdom find it not easy to 
 get and retain the ear of the young while they portray 
 the dangers of the youthful course, and warn against the 
 alluring customs of the world. And the reason is plain. 
 Those whom we would admonish have had no expe- 
 rience ; and they suspect no danger. They confide in 
 their own powers ; they see before them a smooth ocean 
 on which they expect to glide without danger. A gallant 
 ship with her sails all set leaves the port. She is new ; 
 and her virgin sails have not before been fanned by the 
 breeze. The gale springs up, and gently swells all her 
 canvass. Before her is the vast ocean — spread out as if to 
 invite her. On her deck stands the young mariner — 
 fresh from his home ; buoyant with hope ; his glad eye 
 
68 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 looking out on the new scene as the ship dances from 
 wave to wave ; and his heart beats with joy. How chill- 
 ing now ; how cold ; how incongruous, is it for the 
 weather-beaten seaman — the man of many voyages, to 
 come and tell of rocks, and quicksands, and whirlpools, 
 and furious tempests. How incongruous to suggest that 
 the seams may open, or the canvass be stripped to ribbons, 
 or that some unseen current may drift that beautiful ves- 
 sel into unknown seas, where she may lie becalmed, 
 
 " Day after day, day after day, 
 With neither breath nor motion ; 
 As idle as a painted ship, 
 Upon a painted ocean." 
 
 So we Start on the voyage of hfe. We flatter ourseh^es 
 that we are able to meet temptation. We confide in the 
 strength of our principles. We trust to the sincerity of 
 our own hearts. Guileless ourselves — I do not mean guilt- 
 less in the sense that we have no propensities to evil, 
 but guileless in the sense of sincere and confiding — we 
 suspect no fraud in others. Suspicion is not the charac- 
 teristic of youth. It is the unhappy work of experience ; 
 the influence that comes into our hearts, notwithstanding 
 all our efforts to resist it, from long acquaintance with the 
 insincerity of mankind. The world flatters us, and a 
 thousand temptations adapted with consummate skill to 
 the young, allure us. Professed friends meet us on the 
 way and assure us that there is no danger. The gay, the 
 fashionable, the rich, the winning, the beautiful, the ac- 
 complished, invite us to tread with them the path of plea- 
 sure, and to doubt the suggestions of experience and of 
 age. We feel confident of our own safety. We suppose 
 we may tread securely a little further. We see no danger 
 near. , We take another step still, and yet another, think- 
 ing that we are safe yet. We have tried our virtuous 
 principles, and thus far they bear the trial. We could re- 
 treat if we would ; we mean to retreat the moment that 
 danger comes near. But who knows the power of 
 temptation ? Who knows when dangers shall rusli upon 
 us so that we cannot escape ? There is a dividing line 
 between safety and danger. Above thundering Niagara 
 the river spreads out into a broad and tranquil basin. 
 
THE DECEITFULNESS OF THE HEART. 69 
 
 All is calm, and the current flows gently on, and there 
 even a light skifl" may be guided in safety. You may 
 glide nearer and nearer to the rapids, admiring the beauty 
 of the shore, and looking on the ascending spray of the 
 cataract, and listening to the roar of the distant waters, 
 and be happy in the consciousness that you are safe. 
 You may go a little further, and may have power still to 
 ply the oar to reach the bank. But there is a point be- 
 yond which human power is vain, and where the mighty 
 waters shall seize the quivering bark, and bear it on to 
 swift destruction. So perishes many a young man by the 
 power of temptation. You may drink a social glass, you 
 think, with a friend and be safe. One more glass, and 
 you may be safe still, and another may be taken, you 
 think, without danger. You may go to a theatre once, 
 you suppose, and be safe. You may be pleased, and think 
 you may go again, and be safe still. You are fascinated 
 with the scenery, the action, the sentiment — and you go 
 again. The acting, the sentiment, is not such as you saw 
 and heard at the fire-side of your childhood ; not such as 
 a mother would love ; not quite such as you would wish 
 a sister to see. It is indelicate, as you would once have 
 thought indelicate : and profane, as you now think pro- 
 fane. There are men and women there whom you would 
 not like to see at your father's fire-side, and whom you 
 would not allow to associate with a sister. You will be 
 sensible of less and less horror at the indelicacy and pro- 
 faneness there. There is a point where no young man 
 is safe ; and where no unconverted heart is secure from 
 the power of temptation. I need not describe the result. 
 0?ie allurement does not stand alone. None have been 
 injured by staying away from such scenes. But 0, how 
 many hearts have been broken as the result of a visit to 
 such a place of allurement ! 
 
 So you may go to a gambling room, you suppose, and 
 be safe. Of playing yourself you have no intention. Of 
 the place, the business you may have a deep abhorrence. 
 But your friend plays and wins ; and plays and wins 
 again. With the same feelings you may go again. You 
 feel still safe. You have no desire, no intention to play. 
 But for pastime you venture a trifle — and win — and you 
 \rin again and again, and begin to play deep — and you 
 
70 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 begin to lose — and are in debt — and wish to recover all — 
 and are now seized by fiends in human shape who de- 
 signed to devote yon to poverty, to despair, to cursing, 
 and to hell. — When Elisha the prophet met Hazael bear- 
 ing a present to him from Ben-hadad of Syria, the man 
 of God fixed his eyes upon the messenger, and wept. 
 Why dost thou weep ? said Hazael. Because, said the 
 prophet, I know the evil that thou will do unto the chil- 
 dren of Israel. Their strong holds wilt thou set on fire, 
 and their young men wilt thou slay with the sword. 
 But what, said Hazael, is thy servant a dog that he should 
 do this thing? 2 Kings, viii. 13. Scarce had he turned 
 from the prophet before he murdered the King his mas- 
 ter, and ascended the throne, and was all that the prophet 
 said he would be. 
 
 And who can tell what he would be if subjected to 
 temptation? Look upon the wretched and abandoned 
 profligate. See the ruined gambler, the counterfeiter, the 
 drunkard, the murderer. Once they were what you are, 
 confident in the strength of their virtue, with hearts 
 bounding with hope, and with eyes bright with the visions 
 of future honor and bliss. Far from the scenes of riot and 
 dissipation : far from the gambling room, the theatre, the 
 house of her " whose steps take hold on hell," is the path 
 of safety. And if I address any who are now sailing 
 along on the stream of pleasure, thinking that no danger 
 is near, I conjure you while manly strength remains, to 
 ply the oar and to reach the bank. As you value health, 
 property, reputation, usefulness, heaven; as you value 
 the happiness of father, mother, sister, wife, or child ; as 
 you regard the tears which a broken-hearted mother may 
 shed over your grave, or the sorrows of a father whose 
 heart may burst with swelling grief; as you would not 
 bring down their gray hairs with sorrow to the grave or 
 your own soul to death, I conjure you never to approach 
 again the place of temptation. Be sufficiently independ- 
 ent to act the man. Let conscience, and reason, and the 
 law of God direct your steps ; and with virtue, reputation, 
 happiness, heaven in the eye, dare to say to temptation 
 and the tempter, ' Henceforward I heed not your voice. 
 1 tvill be a man. I walk no more in the ways of sin. I 
 
THE DECEITFULNESS OF THE HEART. 71 
 
 tread no farther the path where many have fallen to rise 
 no more.' 
 
 IV. Once more. The heart deceives itself in its pro- 
 mises of reformation and amendment. I cannot dwell on 
 this. Permit me to ask of you, how many resolutions you 
 have formed to repent and be a Christian — all of which 
 have failed. How many times have you promised 
 yourself, your friends, and God, that you would forsake 
 the ways of sin and live for heaven — all of which 
 have failed. How often have you fixed the time when 
 you would do this ? And yet that time has come and 
 gone unimproved. At one time you resolved to repent 
 and be a Christian when you had enjoyed a little longer 
 the ways of sin. God granted you the desires of your 
 heart, but the time has not come when you were willing 
 to be his. At another time you resolved to repent 
 should you be laid on a sick bed. You were sick, but 
 you then found — what you will always find — that a sick 
 bed is no good place to prepare to die. Then you re- 
 solved, and in solemn covenant promised God, that if you 
 should recover you would devote your life to him. You 
 rose from your bed, and you forgot him. At one time 
 you resolved to be a Christian when you should be set- 
 tled in life ; then when you had more leisure; then when 
 the cares of life should cease. At twenty, at thirty, at 
 forty, at fifty years of age you may have resolved to turn 
 to your Maker should you reach those periods — but on 
 some of you the snows of winter have fallen, and yet a 
 deceitful and a deceived heart is pointing you to some fu- 
 ture period still. It deceived you in childhood; it deceived 
 you in youth ; it deceived you in manhood ; it deceives 
 you in old age. It has always deceived you as often as 
 you have trusted it in all circumstances of life — and yet 
 you trust it still. It has deceived you often er than you 
 have been deceived by any and all other things — oftener 
 than we are deceived by the false friend ; oftener than the 
 traveller is deceived by his faithless guide; oftener than 
 the caravan is deceived by the vanished brook ; oftener 
 than the bow deceives the hunter ; oftener than you have 
 been deceived by any and all other men. There is no 
 man whom you have not trusted more safely than your 
 own heart ; no object in nature that has been as faithless 
 
72 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 as that : — and I appeal to you if it is not deceitful above 
 all things. 
 
 In conclusion, I make three remarks : 
 (1.) There is danger of losing the soul. The heart has 
 deceived you in all the journey of life thus far ; it has de- 
 ceived you on all the points pertaining to salvation ; it is 
 'still deceiving you. It has deceived you about your own 
 character ; about your real objects of attachment ; about 
 your power to resist temptation ; about your resolutions 
 for eternity. It has deceived you whenever and wherever 
 you have trusted it on these points, and it is now deluding 
 you with vain promises and expectations about the future. 
 What shall hinder it from playing this same game till 
 death shall close the scene, and you shall go to a world 
 where delusions are unknown ? 
 
 (2.) The heart of man is wicked. You have a heart 
 which you yourself can.not trust. It has always deceived 
 you. You have a heart which your fellow-men will not 
 trust. They secure themselves by notes, and bonds, and 
 mortgages, and oaths, and locks, and bolts ; — and they 
 will not trust you without thom. You have a heart 
 which God regards as deceitful and depraved, and in 
 Avhich he puts no confidence, and which he has declared 
 to be "desperately wicked." But who does confide in 
 the heart of man ? The tempter, the seducer, the Devil. 
 The tempter knows that men may be led astray. The 
 seducer knows that allurements may be presented so 
 strong as to undermine our virtue, and lead us to ruin. 
 And the great adversary of God, practised in wiles, and 
 understanding fully the human heart, knows tliat that 
 heart may be led into sin. And I ask whether that 
 heart in which neither God nor man; in which neither 
 we nor our friends can put confidence, is a heart that is 
 good and pure ? Is it such a heart as is fitted for heaven ? 
 I answer no — and you respond to my own deep convic- 
 tion when I say it must be renewed. 
 
 (3.) Finally, I would warn you affectionately of dan- 
 ger. I would conjure you to wake from these delusions 
 to the reality of your condition. I would beseech you to 
 look at truth, and be no longer under the control of a de- 
 ceived and a deceitful heart. Life is too short to be play- 
 ing such a game. There are too great interests at stake 
 
THE DECEITFULNESS OF THE HEART. 73 
 
 to be thus the prey of deUisions. Death and the grave 
 cannot be made a foot-ball with which to amuse ourselves ; 
 nor are heaven and hell mere creations of the fancy. Of 
 all places, the earth is the least proper to be made the 
 scene of deceptions. In the world of despair — if delusion 
 were possible — it would mitigate pain, and would endan- 
 ger nothing. Nothing there can be worse, even in ima- 
 ghiation, than the reality. But here every thing is at 
 stake. You play and sport on the verge of a precipice 
 from which if you fall you rise no more. Death is real ; 
 and the grave is real ; and hell is real ; and the judg- 
 ment is real. Not one of them is the work of fancy ; not 
 one can be changed by the imagination. It will be no 
 fiction when you come to die ; it will be no delusive pa- 
 geant when you shall stand at the judgment seat ; it will 
 be no day-dream when you shall hear the Judge solemnly 
 say, " Depart accursed into everlasting fire." You pass 
 on through scenes of affecting reality to another world. 
 go not to awake first to the reality of the scene when 
 these eyes shall have closed on all the vain pageantry ofi 
 this world, and when you will have awaked from your 
 delusion only to say " the Jiarvest is passed, the summer 
 is ended, and I am not saved." 
 
SERMON V. 
 
 INDECISION IN RELIGION. 
 
 1 Kings xviii. 21. And Elijah came unto all the people and said, How 
 long halt ye between two opinions 1 If the Lord be God follow him : 
 But if Baal, then follow him. 
 
 When these words were uttered, the ten tribes had re- 
 volted, and had estabUshed a kingdom by themselves. 
 The throne was occupied by Ahab, a prhice distinguish- 
 ed for wickedness and impiety. The worship of Baal 
 had become the common religion of the kingdom of Israel, 
 and there were comparatively few worshippers of the 
 true God. EUjah assembled the prophets of Baal at 
 Mount Carmel for the purpose of testing, by a public 
 miracle, the question whether Jehovah or Baal were the 
 proper object of adoration. In regard to the state of 
 things existing at that time in Israel, we may remark — 
 
 (1.) That a large portion of the nation was decidedly 
 inclined to the worship of Baal. That worship was 
 patronized and countenanced by the king and queen ; 
 probably by most of the royal family, and, as a matter 
 of course almost, by the mass of the people. So exten- 
 sively did that worship prevail, that it was easy to as- 
 semble no less than four hundred and fifty prophets of 
 Baal on this occasion, to make a public trial of the ques- 
 tion whether Jehovah or Baal were the true God. 
 
 (2.) There were some who were as decidedly the 
 friends of Jehovah. They were indeed few in number. 
 Elijah thought himself alone ; and was greatly disheart- 
 ened at the thought that he was the only one left who 
 acknowledged the true God. Yet God said to him that 
 he had reserved to himself seven thousand men who had 
 not bowed the knee to the image of Baal, (1 Kings xix. 
 18 ; Rom. xi. 4) ; thus proving, that even in the most 
 discouras^ing circumstances, and in the widest prevalence 
 
 74 
 
INDECISION IN RELIGION. 75 
 
 of irreligion, there may be more real pitty than the de- 
 sponding hearts of the few friends of God may suppose. 
 
 (3.) There was another, and evidently a large class, 
 that was undecided. This was the class which Elijah 
 particularly addressed in the text. They were hesitating 
 and doubting ; they were undetermined Avhether to ac- 
 knowledge Jehovah as the true God, or whether to bow 
 down before the image of Baal. What was the ground 
 of their hesitancy we are not informed, but it is not im- 
 proper to suppose, that on the one hand they were in- 
 clined to the worship of Baal because it was the popular 
 religion ; because it was patronized by the sovereign ; 
 because the way to office might have depended on con- 
 formity to it ; and because it imposed few restraints, and 
 permitted great license in the indulgence of corrupt pas- 
 sions ; — and, on the other hand, there was the remem- 
 brance of what Jehovah had done for their fathers ; 
 there was the conviction of conscience that his religion 
 was pure and true ; and there were his solemn commands 
 to worship him alone, and his well-known denunciations 
 against idolatry. 
 
 This class particularly Elijah addressed. He called on 
 them to come to a decision. He demanded that they 
 should make up their minds, and come to some settled 
 determination as to the course which they would pursue. 
 He urged that if Jehovah was the true God, it was but 
 reasonable that they should devote themselves with un- 
 divided affection to him. If Baal, it was as reasonable 
 that the worship that was due to him should not be with- 
 neld, and that they should not approach his altars with 
 divided hearts and with wavering minds. Jehovah or 
 Baal, whichever was the true God, would be better 
 \')leased with settled views and determined purposes, than 
 with irresolution and indecision, and with a system of 
 worship that vibrated between one and the other. 
 
 The doctrine which is, therefore, taught in this pas- 
 sage, is the unreasonableness of indecision on the subject 
 of religion. In discoursing on it, my object will be, 
 
 I. To classify those who are thus undecided ; and 
 
 II. To urge some reasons for an inniiediate decision. 
 1. Those who are thus undecided may be regarded as 
 
 comprising the following classes. 
 
76 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 (1.) Those who are undecided about the truth or re- 
 ality of rehgion at all, or of any system of religion. 
 They embrace no system ; they make no pretensions to 
 any religion. They are lookers-on in the world, and ob- 
 servers of the various forms and systems of worship, 
 professing liberality to all, and manifesting a preference 
 for none. They are undetermined whether Christianity 
 is preferable to infidelity ; whether Protestantism is pre- 
 ferable to the Papacy ; whether deism is preferable to 
 atheism ; and whether any form of paganism is not as 
 safe as the purest form of Christianity. They are not 
 decided whether the system which proclaims that all men 
 will be saved is not as likely to be true as that which 
 proclaims that " the wicked shall be turned into hell''; 
 nor are they determined in their own minds whether it 
 is not as well to depend on their own morality as to de- 
 pend on the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ. They con- 
 form to any mode of worship only because it is the pre- 
 vailing form, and for the same reason that they would 
 have been Mussulmen at Mecca or Constantinople ; wor- 
 shippers of Confucius in China ; followei-s of Zoroaster 
 in Persia ; or atheists in Paris, amidst the scenes of the 
 French revolution. 
 
 (2.) A second class is composed of those who hesitate 
 between Christianity and infidelity. On the one hand, 
 there are all the happy effects which Christianity pro- 
 duces ; and all the arguments from miracle and prophecy 
 in its favor ; and all the influences of education ; all the 
 convictions of conscience, and all the offers which it 
 makes of an eternal heaven ; — and on the other, there is 
 all the force of the difficulties which are acknowledged 
 to exist in the Bible ; all the reluctance to embrace its 
 great and incomprehensible mysteries ; all the influence 
 of pride of heart, and the love of fancied independence ; 
 all the power of corrupting passion, and the desire of 
 indulgence in sin, prompting the individual to cast off 
 the restraints of religion ; all the love of the world ; all 
 the force of ihe fact that multitudes of the great, the rich, 
 the scientific, are undei^stood to have cast off Christianity, 
 or to have doubts about its truth. And multitudes, there- 
 fore, are in a state of avowed or secret doubt, and are 
 hesitating whether Christianity be true or false, and whe- 
 
# 
 
 INDECISION IN RELIGION. 77 
 
 ther they shall embrace that system, or some form of the 
 almost infinite number of forms in which infidehty mani- 
 fests itself in this land. 
 
 (3.) There are those, as a third class, who are awaken- 
 ed to see their guilt, and who are hesitating about giving 
 up their hearts to God. They see that they are sinners. 
 They know that they are exposed to the wrath of God. 
 They have no doubt of the necessity and the importance 
 of religion. They have no doubt of the truth of Chris- 
 tianity. They have long thought seriously on the subject ; 
 have often prayed and wept; and have often desired, as 
 they supposed, to be Christians. Many of them have 
 been trained in pious families, and in the Sabbath-school ; 
 and they have often, and long, and deeply felt that it was 
 necessary for them to be born again. But they hesitate. 
 There is the love of some sin which they are not willing 
 to abandon ; or there is the fear of shame, and the ap- 
 prehension of derision ; or there is a secret unwillingness 
 to be saved by the mere mercy of God, femd the merit of 
 the Saviour ; or there is a disposition to defer it to some 
 future period ; or there is deep absorption in the business 
 of the world ; or there are the allurements of youthful 
 pleasures ; or there is the withering influence of some infi- 
 del companion that ridicules the anxiety of the soul, and 
 poisons the mind, and is the means of often grieving the 
 Spirit of God. 
 
 (4.) A fourth class is made up of those wlio are con- 
 stantly forming resolutions to attend to the subject of 
 religion, and to become decided Christians. Probably 
 most of those who are here to-day, who have travelled 
 any considerable distance on the journey of life, can re- 
 collect many such resolutions seriously formed, and as 
 often disregarded and broken. They can recall many 
 ])eriods of their youth, when their minds were ten- 
 der, and when they were almost resolved to be Chris- 
 tians ; many periods in sickness or in other afflictions, 
 when they proposed, and solemnly promised to God that 
 they Avould live to his glory ; many times under the 
 preaching of the gospel, when they purposed to forsake 
 their sins, and give themselves to God. But they are 
 still undecided. Their vows, and purposes, and promises, 
 are forgotten. Their love of the world is too strong for 
 
78 PRACTICAL SERMONS, 
 
 them to forsake it yet, and they too much desire the in- 
 dulgence of sin to abandon it, and live a life of piety. 
 Notwithstanding all these resolutions, they are to-day as 
 undecided as they were years ago, and perhaps during 
 many years they have come no nearer to a decision. 
 
 (5.) A fifth class is made up of those who are unde- 
 cided about making a profession of religion. That it is 
 a duty they feel and admit ; and it is a duty which 
 they often purpose to perform. Yet one opportunity 
 passes by after another, and they are not prepared ; one 
 communion occurs after another, and they still hesitate. 
 There is the admission that it is a duty ; there is a set- 
 tled purpose to do it at some period of life ; but there is, 
 on the other hand, the fear of the world, or the love of 
 some habit that could not be indulged in consistently 
 with a profession of Christianity, or there is the plea 
 that they are unworthy, or that they would not be able 
 to adorn their profession ; or there is the ever-ready 
 plea — a plea, alas ! answered with so much difficulty — 
 that many professors do little honor to their high calling. 
 Thus life wears away. One communion season passes 
 after another ; and one year rolls on after another, and 
 in the mean time there is no decision, nor is there any 
 advance made towards a decision. Many an individual 
 can look back over a dozen or a score of years, and 
 find that during that period he has made no advance to- 
 wards a decision ; and some even on whom the snows of 
 age have fallen, have been agitating this question during 
 the better part of a century, and are now going down to 
 the grave still halting between two opinions. In the 
 mean time their name is with the world, and their com- 
 bined example is the argument to which the wicked ap- 
 peal, that men may be as good out of the church as in 
 it, and that if such persons of known and established 
 character, venerable by age, and respected for their vir- 
 tues, are safe unconnected with the chnrch, others may 
 be also. And there is no art which Satan practices that 
 evinces more skill and cunning than in retaining such 
 persons on what is deemed neutral ground, and in pre- 
 venting, by a thousand pleas, their giving their names 
 and their influence to the cause of decided piety, and 
 to God. 
 
INDECISION IN RELIGION. 79 
 
 These are the persons whom I wish to address. I have 
 classified them, in order that there may be no mistake as 
 to who I mean ; and to each class, and each individual, 
 I wish to address some remarks, showing the unreasona- 
 bleness of remaining in this condition, and urging them 
 to an immediate decision — either one way or the other. 
 This was my 
 
 II. Second object.* Under this head, assuming mainly 
 the form of direct address, I shall urge several considera- 
 tions as reasons why a decision should be made without 
 delay. 
 
 (1.) The first is, that our great interests, if Ave have 
 any great interests, or any that are much worth regard- 
 ing, are on the subject of religion. If this he so, then 
 religion is the last thing that should remain unsettled and 
 undetermined. It can make very little difference to a 
 man, whether he is rich or poor ; honored or despised ; 
 sick or well ; a bondman or a slave. Whether there is 
 an eternity or not, these things are comparatively of 
 trifling moment. How soon is the most exquisite earthly 
 pleasure passed ! The charms of the sweetest melody, 
 how soon it dies away on the ear ! The tenderest ties of 
 friendship, how soon are they severed ! The most splen- 
 did mansion, how soon it must be left ! The widest re- 
 putation, how soon must we cease to enjoy it ! And so 
 with the bitterest grief, the keenest sorrow, the most 
 agonizing pain, how soon it is all gone ! Whether we 
 are rich or poor, honored or dishonored, life is like a 
 vapor that appears for a little time, and then vanishes 
 away. Of what importance can it be to the vapor that 
 you see in the morning as it lies on the mountain side, 
 whether it be admired by a few more, or a few less mor- 
 tals ; or whether it roll a little higher, or sink a litde 
 lower, since it must soon vanish in the beams of the morn- 
 ing sun ? So of the vapor of life. The cloud that you 
 see lie along the western sky, as the sun sinks behind 
 the hills, so gorgeous, so changing, so beautiful, of what 
 importance can it be whether a few more or a few less 
 tints be painted there ; or whether a few more or a few 
 less eyes gaze upon it — for the darkness of midnight will 
 soon conceal it all. So with the beauty and the gorgeous- 
 ness of life. So with your dress, your equipage, your 
 
80 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 furniture, your dwellings. The night of death cometh, 
 and will shut all from your view. 
 
 If man has any great interests, they lie beyond the 
 tomb. If he has none there, life is a bubble, a vapor, a 
 gorgeous illusion, a changing cloud, a mist on the moun- 
 tain side. And if this be so, it is as well for a man to 
 make up his mind to it, and to eat and drmk, for to-mor- 
 row he dies. Then he should ascertain this, and have 
 no trouble about the future. He should settle the ques- 
 tion, and make as much of luxury and pastime ; of the 
 feast and the dance ; of the theatre and the ball-room ; 
 of riotous indulgence and of ambition, as possible. He 
 should so settle it as to have no trouble from his con- 
 science in the most riotous pleasures ; no fear of God in 
 the scenes of sensual indulgence and mirth ; no fear of 
 hell while he revels on the bounties which chance may 
 spread around him ; no superstitious apprehensions of a 
 judgment-seat while he rolls in dissipation, and tramples 
 on the rights of others. For if there is no eternity, it is 
 utter folly to act with reference to it ; if there is no hell, 
 it is folly to be restrained by any such unfounded appre- 
 hension ; if there is no God, then men should not be dis- 
 turbed by any superstitious belief that his eye is upon 
 them. But if there is a God, a heaven, a hell, an eter- 
 nity, then life becomes a very different thing. Then man's 
 great interests are transferred at once to the regions be- 
 yond the grave. Then life, now so busy and active, be- 
 comes so trifling that it may be said that all his interests 
 are there. The great things which are to afiect us most 
 deeply do not cease, but just commence, when we lie 
 down on a bed of death. There, amidst the darkness of 
 the dying scene, existence is just begun ; and there we 
 are just entering on the scenes which must thrill through 
 the soul, and absorb all its powers forever. Then the 
 eyes turned away from the gorgeousness of the illusive 
 scene here — the vain pageant of this world — are opened 
 upon the realities of the judgment-bar ; the throne of 
 God; and the splendors of the unchanging world. Then 
 the ear made deaf by dying to the charms of sweet mu- 
 sic, is opened to the sweet strains that float forever over 
 the plains of heaven, or the groans and sighs of the world 
 of wo. Then the soul, insensible longer to the comforts 
 
INDECISION IX RELIGION. 81 
 
 or the sorrows of this hfe ; no longer affected by the plea- 
 sures of friendship, or the evils of poverty, want, or pain, 
 is made alive at once to the bliss of eternal love in hea- 
 ven, or to the deep sorrows of that world of despair that 
 shall endure forever. And if this be so, then whatever 
 other interests you may neglect, assuredly this should 
 not be disregarded. Whatever else may be undecided, 
 this should be settled. If a choice were to be made, as- 
 suredly better to let health suffer than the soul die ; bet- 
 ter to be a bankrupt than be damned ; better be without 
 reputation here, than to meet the ever-endiu-ing wrath of 
 God ; better suffer your name to be blackened and calum- 
 niated, than to sink beneath the avenging arm of Jeho- 
 vah ; better let men kill the body, than^o fall unprepared 
 into the hands of that God who can destroy both soul 
 and body in hell. 
 
 (2.) A second consideration is, that you would suffer 
 no other matter to remain undecided as this does. If you 
 are sick, you leave no means untried to secure returnmg 
 health. If you were in as much danger of becoming a 
 bankrupt as'you are of losmg the soul, you would give 
 yourself no rest mitil, if possible, you should feel your- 
 self safe. If you had a richly-freighted ship at sea, and 
 there was as much danger that she and her cargo would 
 be lost as there is that your soul will, and there were any 
 doubt about the insurance, you would lose no time in 
 making the proper investigation. Your business, your 
 property, your reputation, you would not leave as you 
 do the concerns of the soul ; and if you did, it would be 
 impossible for any man to become rich, or respected, or 
 honored in the world. There is no other interest so un- 
 settled as your religious interests: there are no other 
 opinions so unfixed ; no other purposes so vascillating. 
 You leave no title-deeds, no investments, no stocks, no 
 bonds, no notes in the same unsettled condition : and 
 there is not a single department of your business ; a sin- 
 gle scheme or plan of life that is not more carefully looked 
 at, and better known than tlie question about eternity. 
 Were there this day half the danger that you would 
 come to poverty, that there is that you will sink down to 
 hell, no words would be wanting or needed to induce you 
 to examine your prospects, and contemplate your condi- 
 
82 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 tion. Nay, have you never witnessed this fact ? Have 
 you not seen a man yesterday in affluence, with the luxu- 
 ries and comforts of the world around him ; have you 
 not seen that man, when a blast of misfortune has come 
 over him, pale, and agitated, and alarmed ; have you not 
 seen how sleep has forsaken his pillow, and how he has 
 given himself no rest under the threatening storm ? And 
 then have you not seen on the subject of religion, when 
 the great interests of the soul are urged, and his danger 
 set forth, how unconcerned, how listless, how regardless 
 of all the proofs of danger ; how unmoved by even the 
 conviction that there all was unsettled, and in danger ! 
 
 (3.) A third consideration is, that it is possible to come 
 to a decision on this subject ; and if possible, an affair of 
 so much importance should not remain undecided. It is 
 possible for a man to find out whether there is any reli- 
 gion ; whether the Christian religion is true or false ; 
 whether the true religion is preferable to false religion ; 
 whether Christianity is preferable to infidelity ; whether 
 there is a God, a Saviour, a heaven, and a hell. It is 
 possible for a man to know whether there is such a thing 
 as the new birth, and the pardon of sin ; and whether there 
 is, or is not, any such thing as joy and peace in believing 
 the gospel. I say it is possible, for the following among 
 other reasons : (1.) Because it is as easy for a man to 
 understand his own character on the subject of religion 
 as it is on other subjects. In the nature of the case there 
 is no more reason why a man should not know whether 
 he loves God, than there is whether he loves an earthly 
 father or friend. (2.) Because thousands and millions, 
 with no better advantages than you have, have been en- 
 abled to settle the question, and to arrive at decided 
 views. They have so settled it that they have been en- 
 abled to look to the grave with peace, and to heaven 
 with triumph ; so settled it that doubt has fled, and left 
 their minds tranquil and serene. (3.) Because it is not 
 reasonable to believe that God would leave this matter to 
 uncertainty, or put it beyond our power to arrive at some 
 settled views on the subject of religion. No man should 
 charge it on him unless he has positive demonstration 
 that he has put it utterly beyond his power to arrive at 
 any determined views about his own character, his Crea- 
 
INDECISION IN RELIGION. 83 
 
 tor, and the world to come. (4.) Because he has given 
 us reason for this very purpose, and endowed us with 
 faculties for investigating the whole subject, and if a man 
 will not employ his reason, he must answer it to God. 
 (5.) Because he has given us the Bible for this very end ; 
 and has, in the Bible, given us all the information which 
 is needful in regard to his own character and ours ; to the 
 plan of salvation ; to death and hell. No man can pre- 
 tend that there is not in the Bible knowledge enough, if 
 it is true, about God and the future state ; — and whether 
 It is true or not, a man may, if he chooses, be able to 
 understand. And (6.) Because in the Bible he expressly 
 calls on us to decide ; to take a stand ; to be settled in 
 our views. Thus in the text, " If Jehovah be God, then 
 follow him ; but if Baal, then follow him." Thus Moses, 
 " I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, 
 that I have set before you life and death, blessing and 
 cursing ; therefore choose life.'' And every where in 
 the Bible, God calls on men to be decided, and firm, and 
 settled in their views on the subject of religion. 
 
 Now I know it is possible for men to be vacillating 
 and unsettled on the subject of religion. But if they are, 
 it is not the fault of God. If they have no settled views, 
 it must be traced to something else than to a want of 
 means to obtain them. There is a ship, suppose, in a 
 dark night at sea. There are rocks and quicksands near. 
 There are currents that are setting towards the shore, and 
 the wind is rising, and every thing indicates a tempest. 
 There is a chart and a compass near the helmsman. But 
 he is unsettled in his views and his aims. He will neither 
 look at his compass nor his chart, but he begins to be 
 distressed, and he turns his helm this way and that way, 
 and he guides his ship by caprice, and she moves in a 
 zig-zag course, and his hope is chance, and a few more 
 moments in this way will dash the ill-fated vessel on a 
 rock. Meantime many a mariner has gone calmly 
 through those seas, and stood out with a bold front and 
 swelling canvass to the ocean, and seen the tempest rise 
 without alarm, and been unmoved when cloud has been 
 piled on cloud, and the ocean been lashed into foam, and 
 the lightnings have pla3^ed, and the thunder has rolled 
 along the deep. Human life is a voyage ; and men act 
 
84 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 in reference to that, not as the skilful mariner does on the 
 deep, but as no mariner ever did, or ever will. They 
 have the chart and the compass in their own dwellings, 
 but they will not look at them ; and they are unsettled in 
 their views, and when the storm arises, and danger 
 deepens, they are alarmed, and when they die their 
 hopes become a wreck. 
 
 (4.) The fourth consideration is, that the things about 
 which a man is to decide are few in number, and may 
 easily be determined. In our text, it was a simple choice 
 which was to be made. There were but two objects be- 
 fore the mind, and the call was to determine which of 
 them was to be acknowledged as God. So it is still. 
 Were the question what selection a man would make 
 among the rabble of Pagan gods, it would be more diffi- 
 cult to determine. But the questions which you are to 
 settle are all of them very simple, and may be stated in 
 few words. They are, whether you will worship Jeho- 
 vah or Mammon — for both cannot be served. Whether 
 you will depend on Jesus Christ for salvation, or not — 
 for you cannot depend on him and your own morality. 
 Whether you will forsake your sins or not — for you can- 
 not be saved while you adhere to them. Whether you 
 will live to God, or to yourselves — for you cannot do 
 both. Whether you will give your heart to the Redeemer 
 or not — for 3^ou cannot be saved until this is done. Whe- 
 ther you will renounce the works of the flesh and the 
 devil, and come out from the world, and abandon its 
 vices and its gaieties or not — for both cannot be followed. 
 Now, these questions are very simple. The choice here 
 lies in a very narrow compass. The main points require 
 little investigation, and the mind may he settled at once. 
 Why should a man hesitate on any one of them ? 
 Why suppose that there was any thing peculiarly mys- 
 terious or difficult in regard to these enquiries ? What 
 is the necessity for delaying it from day to day, and even 
 from year to year ? These are the questions which in fact 
 are before the mind. And these are the points, and no 
 other, on which the mind hesitates, and is in doubt. The 
 perplexity is here in these practical matters, and not in 
 any imaginary metaphysical difficulty or abstruseness in 
 
INDECISION IN RELIGION. 85 
 
 the questions which are involved. And this leads me to 
 state, as a 
 
 (5.) Fifth consideration, that this state of mind must be 
 one that is infinitely displeasing to God. What are the 
 feelings of a father, if he learns that a child is seriously 
 pondering the question whether he shall or shall not love 
 and obey him ; whether he shall or shall not prefer his 
 father's good name to his disgrace, his father's society to 
 the society of the unprincipled and the vile, his father's 
 dwelling to the gambling room, and to the tavern, and 
 the house of infamy ? What would be his feelings should 
 he learn that that son has been debating these questions 
 in his own mind for weeks or years ; that he is able to 
 come to no settled decision on the subject ; that he be- 
 comes more and more perplexed about it ; and that in 
 the mean time he is i?i fact spending his nights with the 
 infamous, and is rioting on his father's beneficence, and 
 abusing his credulity and good nature ? Now, in like 
 manner, it is scarcely possible to conceive a state of mind 
 more wicked than a serious and protracted examination 
 of the question when it is fairly brought before a man, 
 whether he shall love God or hate him ; whether he shall 
 continue to reject the Saviour and crucify him afresh, or 
 embrace him ; whether he shall serve his Creator and 
 keep his laws, or whether he shall defile himself with 
 every form of abominable pollution and sin. PFhi/ should 
 a man agitate such a question at all? And if it occurs 
 to him, why not take some measures to settle it, and come 
 10 some fixed views in regard to it ? Better a thousand 
 times that it be settled any way than to be a question 
 which a man is agitating from week to week, and from 
 year to year. 
 
 (6.) A sixth consideration is, that you will never be in 
 circumstances more favorable for a decision than the pre- 
 sent. If there were any prospect that God would send 
 a new revelation more complete than the present, or if 
 his word did not contain all the light which we have rea- 
 son to expect, or which we needed, the case would be 
 different. But of any such new revelation there is no 
 prospect ; and there is as little necessity as there is a pros- 
 pect of it. You have all that can ever shed light on your 
 path ; all that will ever be given you to aid you in coming 
 
 8 
 
86 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 to a decision. The word of life is in your dwellings and 
 in your hands ; the lamp of salvation shines on your 
 way. There will be no new prophet sent into the world ; 
 there will be no new miracle ; no voice will be uttered 
 from heaven to remove yom: perplexity ; and the dead 
 will not be raised to resolve your doubts. You have 
 Moses, and the prophets, and the apostles, and the Re- 
 deemer ; and we)^e the dead to rise, if you will not hear 
 the risen Son of God, you would not be persuaded though 
 a man should come now from the tomb. 
 
 What prospect is there that there will be any increased 
 facility for coming to a decision on the subject ? That 
 aged man, venerable already by years, whose mind is 
 now undecided — what increased advantages will he ever 
 have for coming to a decision ? Will his mind ever be 
 clearer, his reason more powerful, his conscience more 
 quick, his perception of the truth more vivid ? Does he 
 not see that the powers of nature are decaying, and that 
 memory will soon fail, and his mind become weakened 
 and bewildered? And does he not see that his sands are 
 few in number, and that very soon he must be removed 
 to a world where this cannot be a subject of deliberation ? 
 That man in middle life — -will he ever be in circum- 
 stances more favorable for a decision ? His powers are 
 mature and active ; he cannot plead that he is urged on 
 by the passions of youth ; and he labors not yet under 
 the apathy, the imbecilities, and the infirmities of age. 
 He can look reasonably for no greater strength of mind ; 
 no greater tenderness of conscience ; no more solemn 
 appeals than God is now making to him. Tliink you, 
 that amidst the infirmities of advanced years, it will be a 
 more favorable time to come to a decision on the subject 
 than the present ? And how know you that you will live 
 to advanced years ? And who has given you a right to 
 serve Mammon now, with the purpose to serve God 
 hereafter ; to devote your best powers to the service of 
 sin and the world, with the design to give to God the 
 miserable remnant of your days, in an enfeebled, and dis- 
 contented, and peevish old age, when you can do no 
 honor to religion, and no service to the world ? Can it be 
 unknown to you, that as the effect of just such a purpose 
 as this, many a man grieves away the Spirit of God ; is 
 
INDECISION IN RELIGION. 87 
 
 given up to the sordid love of gain ; becomes callous to 
 the appeals of the gospel ; becomes a comfortless and a 
 peevish old man ; lives without usefulness, and dies with- 
 out hope ? And that interesting young man, or young 
 female — can they have a more favorable time to decide 
 this question than now — to-day ? Will there be a time 
 when the mind will be more tender, more susceptible of 
 serious impressions, more awake to the importance of 
 the subject ? Will there be a time when they will be 
 more free from care, and anxiety, and concern about this 
 world ? Can there be a period when it will be more 
 proper to determine and settle definitely the course that 
 shall be pursued through life ? When a new and gallant 
 ship, with her sails all set, and her masts all firm, and her 
 movement beautiful upon the waters, becomes ready 
 for a distant voyage on a sea full of rocks and mighty 
 currents, when is the proper time to determine what 
 course shall be steered ? When she has committed her- 
 self to the mercy of winds and waves to try her strength 
 in buffeting them, and has been tossed on unknown seas, 
 or when she leaves the port ? Shall her master steer for 
 some distant port, and lay down her course, and pursue 
 it amidst all the storms that may howl, or shall the vessel 
 start forth in her pride, and dance from wave to wave, 
 until she strikes suddenly upon a rock ? And when, my 
 young friend, is the best time for you to be decided on 
 the subject of religion ? When you start on the voyage 
 of life. Before the tempests shall beat, and the winds 
 howl. Before you drift into unknown seas. Before you 
 dash upon the rock. Now is the time to settle this great 
 question. To-day is the proper period to determine whe- 
 ther you will be for God or for the world ; a Christian or 
 an infidel ; a candidate early ripe for heaven, or a candi- 
 date early ripe for hell. 
 
 (7.) I add but one other consideration. The present 
 is the only time vv^hich you may have to decide this point. 
 To-morrow may find you in another world. To-morrow 
 God may have decided the question forever. This long 
 delay, this hesitancy, this indecision may provoke his 
 wrath ; and in judgment he may come forth and cut you 
 down as a curnberer of the ground. You cannot remain 
 always as you are. There must be a decision ; and if 
 
88 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 that decision is not made by a voluntary preference for 
 God, it will be made by a removal to a world where it 
 will not be a subject of deliberation. Death will close 
 this vacillating scene. Death will clear up the doubts 
 from the mind. Death will fix that which is unfixed ; 
 determijie that which is undetermined ; and render change- 
 less that which is now fhictuating as the waves of the sea. 
 In view, now, of all these considerations, I call on you 
 this day to take your stand ; to make up your mind to 
 one course or another; to resolve to serve God or to be 
 his avowed and settled foe ; to be a Christian, or to cast 
 in your name and intiuence with sin, and against Jesus 
 Christ ; to subscribe with your own hand to this fixed 
 purpose of life, whatevoi' it may be ; and to cast the die 
 for time and eternity. I call on you to make a choice. I 
 appeal to you to settle this question. I apprize you that 
 it will be easier to settle it now than it will be on a 
 dying bed. I ask tliat it may be settled on those seats ; 
 and in the name of my God and yours, I solemnly 
 warn every one against leaving this liouse to-day Avith- 
 out having made up his mind definitively on this subject. 
 If Jehovah be God, then follow him; if Baal, then fol- 
 low him; if Mammon, then follow him; if Bacchus, 
 then follow him. If Jesus Christ be the Redeemer of the 
 world, then embrace him. But if there be no Saviour, 
 then settle the point that you have no Saviour, and that, 
 in your view, the world is without a Redeemer. If the 
 Bible be a revelation from heaven, then embrace its 
 offers, and cling to its promises. But if there be no reve- 
 lation, then yield yourself to the miserable darkness of 
 your own reason, and give no credit to the Bible as hav- 
 ing any claims to your belief or homage. If there be a 
 heaven, resolve liere, and now, and in the presence of 
 God, that you will seek it as the grand purpose of the 
 soul ; if there be a hell, resolve here, and now, and be- 
 fore God, that you will never mingle in its groans, and 
 gnash your teeth with its pain ; — if there be neither, then 
 go — go, miserable creature of a day — go, vapor of morn- 
 ing dew — go, wretched dweller in a world of sin and 
 pain ; go, thou who hast no prospect of life everlasting ; 
 who hast no hope of existence beyond the grave ; who 
 hast no God and no Saviour — go, "eat and drink, for 
 to-morrow you die ."' 
 
SERMON VI. 
 
 THE REASONS WHY MEN ARE NOT CHRISTIANS. 
 Luke xiv. 1 8. I pray thee have me excused. 
 
 It is worth every man's while to ascertain the exact 
 reason why he is not a Christian. It is to be presumed 
 that he who is not a Christian has some reason for 
 remaining in his present state, or that there is some 
 cause why he does not embrace the offers of the gospel 
 which are pressed so constantly on his attention. If he 
 has any good reason — any such as exempts him from the 
 obligation resting on other men to give their hearts to 
 God, it Vv^ould be well for him distinctly to understand it. 
 It would be well also to enquire whether that on which 
 he is relying is in fact a substantial reason, and is such 
 as will abide the investigations of the last day. If a man 
 has a good reason for not being a Christian, it is such as 
 will meet with the approbation of God, and will admit 
 him to heaven without reliance on the merits of the Sa- 
 viour — for what is a sufficient reason now, will be a 
 sufficient reason then ; what will be valueless then, is 
 worthless now. 
 
 It is a part of my duty to search out the causes why 
 men are not Christians, and to endeavor to remove them. 
 Doing the best that I can to learn those causes, I am to 
 come and do the best that I can to remove them ; and 
 where I am convinced that those reasons are not solid, to 
 attempt to show men why they are not so. Such an at- 
 tempt requires candor on your part ; kindness and fidelity 
 on mine. I propose, therefore, at this time, to submit to 
 you the result of my reflections and observation on this 
 subject ; and my remarks will be confined to two points 
 — the causes or reasons why men are not Christians ; and 
 the enquiry whether those causes are satisfactory. 
 
 1. Our first point relates to the causes or reasons why 
 men are not Christians ; or in other words, Avhy they wish 
 to be excused from being Christians — which is the form 
 in which it is presented in the text. 
 
90 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 There is something remarkable in the aspect which the 
 subject assumes on the first view of it. Men ask to be 
 excused, as if it were a matter of favor. It is natural to 
 ask,/rom what? From a rich banquet, says the parable 
 from which my text is taken. From the hope of heaven 
 through Jesus Christ. From loving God, and keeping his 
 commandments. From having the peace of mind of 
 which all who are Christians partake ; from the support 
 in trial which religion indubitably furnishes to those that 
 love it ; from the consolation on a bed of death which re- 
 ligion gives, and frorn the prospect of immortal glory be- 
 yond. From that which is fitted to make a man more 
 useful, respected, and beloved in life ; remembered with 
 deeper affection when he is dead ; honored forever in hea- 
 ven. From that which will take from him no property ; 
 inflict no pain ; create no remorse ; cause no anguish ; 
 and never produce a sigh. From that which would be 
 mvaluable to him in the various circumstances of trial to 
 which he is subjected in common with other men in this 
 life, and which perhaps he will admit is indispensable to 
 his immortal happiness beyond the grave. If it were 
 from poverty and disgrace ; from anguish of spirit and 
 remorse ; from the loss of the favor of friends, and of 
 the world, we could easily understand why he would 
 wish to be excused. But when we search for the rea- 
 sons why a man wishes to be excused from that which 
 will promote his own best interest in this world, and for- 
 ever; from that which he needs, and knows he needs, 
 and which all his nature pants and sighs for ; from that 
 which gives the brightest ornament of character when 
 living, and the sweetest consolation to his friends when 
 dead, it is necessary that we look deeper that we may 
 know the true reason. It is an anomaly in the character 
 of man. 
 
 In searching for the causes or reasons why men wish 
 to be excused from becoming Christians, I may be allow- 
 ed to suggest that they are often under a strong tempta- 
 tion to conceal those which are real, and to suggest others 
 which will better answer their immediate purpose. My 
 idea is, that the real cause in not always avowed, and 
 that men are strongly tempted to suggest others. The 
 
THE REASONS WHY MEN ARE NOT CHRISTIANS. 01 
 
 actual reason may be such as, on many accounts, a man 
 would have strong reluctance to have known. It may 
 be such as would make it easy to ansvv^er it ; or such as 
 would be likely to be a very mortifying avowal, and 
 which would be rather a publication of guilt than a rea- 
 son for not being a Christian ; and there is, therefore, a 
 strong temptation for a man, when hard pressed with the 
 claims of duty, to resort to statements which will make 
 it more difficult to reply. A man that is proud, or sen- 
 sual, or ambitious, or profane, or who has embarked in 
 some yet unexecuted plan of iniquity, would be slow to 
 avow these as reasons why he does not become a Chris- 
 tian — though these may be in fact the real causes. He 
 would be under a strong temptation to suggest, and would 
 be likely to suggest, some such reasons as the following. 
 That he has no ability to repent and believe the gospel. 
 That the heart is changed by the power of God, and that 
 it is a work entirely beyond his control. That God has 
 determined, by an unalterable decree, the number of those 
 who will be saved, and that any efforts of his cannot 
 change the fixed purpose of God. That if he is to be 
 saved he will be, and that at all events he is so depen- 
 dent and so helpless, he must wait until God shall in- 
 terpose and renew his heart. These objections, though 
 not the real ones, are embarrassing, and difficult to be 
 answered. They involve perplexing questions, and those 
 which we admit we cannot always instantly solve. And 
 since this is so, there is a strong temptation to suggest 
 them, even where they are not the real causes, and it is 
 not uncharitable to suppose that they may be sometimes 
 urged when the real causes would be wholly different. 
 
 Supposing myself that these are not the actual reasons 
 at work to prevent men from becoming Christians, I shall 
 now proceed to state what I suppose are ; and shall sub- 
 mit what I have to say to your candid attention. 
 
 The grand reason why men are not Christians, as I 
 understand it, is the opposition of the heart to religion ; 
 that mysterious opposition that can be traced back through 
 all hearts, and all generations, up to the great apostacy — 
 the fall of Adam. All who have become Christians have 
 felt the power of this native opposition to holiness, and 
 have been wilhng to confess, that m their case, this was 
 
PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 the reason why they did not sooner yield to God. It 
 would bs easy, I think, to prove that the same thing ex- 
 ists in all other hearts, and that it is not possible to ac- 
 count for the universal rejection of the gospel on any 
 other supposition. The reason and the conscience of 
 men are on the side of religion. There is no want of 
 evidence of the truth of Christianity ; and such want of 
 evidence is not alleged by many as a reason why they 
 are not Christians. All those who are disposed to find 
 evidence of the truth of religion, find enough to be en- 
 tirely satisfactory to their own minds, and are willing to 
 risk the welfare of their souls on its truth. No man 
 who Avas disposed to serve God, ever went back and re- 
 jected Christianity because there was a lack of evidence 
 such as the mind wants in such a case. If this be so, 
 then there is in the human heart something lying back of 
 all this that is the reason why men are not Christians ; 
 and that, I need not pause to prove, is the unwillingness 
 of the heart to yield, or the opposition of the soul by 
 nature to God. 
 
 But though this is the original difficulty, and is the 
 actual cause why men cannot be persuaded to be Chris- 
 tians, yet it assumes a great variety of forms, and ap- 
 pears in a great variety of aspects. It goes forth like 
 streams that issue from a fountain, and like one of those 
 streams we often see it only at a great distance from the 
 source. It appears sometimes in a form that scarcely 
 seems to savor of opposition, and under an aspect so 
 mild, so sweet, so winning, that you can scarcely believe 
 that all this is connected with opposition of heart to all 
 that is good. Let us now leave this general cause, and 
 ask what are the actual reasons why men are not Chris- 
 tians. They are, as I understand them, such as the fol- 
 lowing. 
 
 (1.) A feeling that you do not 7ieed salvation in the 
 way proposed in the gospel ; that you do not need to be 
 born again, or pardoned through the merits of the Re- 
 deemer. The feeling is, that your heart is by nature 
 rather inclined to virtue than to vice, to good than to 
 evil ; that the errors of your life have been compara- 
 tively few, your virtues many ; that the follies which are 
 justly to be charged on you, pertain to less important 
 
THE REASONS WHY MEX ARE NOT CHRISTIANS. 93 
 
 points, and do not affect the integrity of your character ; 
 that they were such as were to be expected of those of 
 your age, and of your time of hfe, and such as are easily 
 pardonable. Your intentions, you would say, have been 
 good. You have been honest and honorable in business. 
 You have been faithful in the discharge of the duties of 
 a professional or an official station. As a merchant, a 
 lawyer, a director of a bank or an insurance company ; 
 as a magistrate, or as a representative in any conmiercial 
 or civil interest, you are conscious of having acted with 
 good intentions, and your character is above suspicion. 
 You have the deserved reputation of an honest man ; and 
 to that you may have superadded more than mere honesty 
 — you are a large hearted and a liberal man. With the 
 doctrine of total depravity, therefore, on which we feel 
 it our duty so much to insist, you have no S3mipathy — 
 and you do not, therefore, feel your need of an interest 
 in that religion of which the doctrine of the fall and ruin 
 of man is the very ground-work. 
 
 (2.) You suppose that in your case there is no danger 
 of being lost — or not such danger as to make it a subject 
 of serious alarm. This feeling grows out of the former, 
 and is a direct consequence of it. The idea is this, that 
 if the duties of this life be discharged with faithfulness, 
 there can be no serious ground of apprehension in regard 
 to the world to come. You do not regard it as credible 
 that a moral and upright man can be seriously in danger 
 of eternal punishment ; and you expect that the compa- 
 ratively trivial errors and follies oi your life will be easily 
 overlooked, and that the future may be not unsafely left 
 without anxiety. This would not, you feel, be a popu- 
 lar doctrine. All sincere Christians, and among them 
 some of your best friends, would differ from you in this 
 view. You do not covet the name of an Uiiiv^ersalist ; 
 you would rather avoid it. You do not covet contro- 
 versy ; you would rather avoid it. You do not wish to 
 pain the hearts of your friends by their being made to 
 understand exactly your views on the subject ; you would 
 rather avoid that. Your sentiments, therefore, are locked 
 up in your own bosom, and you do not choose io disclose 
 what is passing in the secret chambers of the soul about 
 
94 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 the final doom of man. But while these feelings arc 
 cherished, it is evident that you will make no effort to 
 secure your salvation grounded on an apprehension of 
 danger, and we plead in vain that you would give your 
 mind attentively to the subject of religion. 
 
 (3.) A third cause operating on a large class is this. It 
 is a secret scepticism about the truth of Christiaiiity. 
 The mind is not settled. The belief is not firm that it is 
 a revelation from heaven. There is a secret doubt as to 
 the truth of the whole system, or there is a special doubt 
 in regard to some of its cardinal and leading doctrines. 
 The mind has been poisoned by some book long since 
 read ; or some conversation long since had with an infi- 
 del ; or by some train of reflections which has been 
 allowed to work a channel through the soul in its own 
 way ; or by some lodgement of a doubt there which you 
 have never found time to remove ; and while these doubts 
 exist, of course you will not be a Christian. Yet these 
 you would not avow — except in a circle quite select and 
 confidential. They would be more likely to be disclosed 
 in the literary and scientific circles than at your own fire- 
 side. They will be more likely to be spoken of to your 
 male companion and friend, than in the presence of your 
 sister, or wife, or mother. But you do not intend to avow 
 them. They would be unpopular. The current now is 
 setting strongly in favor of Christianity ; and no hterary 
 or scientific man in this country wishes to risk his repu- 
 tation by publicly avowing any doubts about the truth 
 of the Bible. There is no such avowal. None such 
 would be tolerated. Yet if I have any just knowledge 
 of man, and of the operations of his heart, there are not 
 a few who are deterred from being Christians by some 
 sceptical feeling on some of the points of religion. 
 
 (4.) A fourth class are deterred by a feeling that the 
 divine government is unreasonable and severe. In one 
 of his parables, the Saviour has taught us expressly that 
 this operated in preventing a man from doing his duty, 
 and being prepared for his coming. " I know thee,'^ said 
 the man who had received the one talent, " I know thee, 
 that thou art an hard man, reaping where thou hast not 
 sown, and gathering where thou hast not strewed ; and 
 
THE REASONS WHY MEN ARE NOT CHRISTIANS. 95 
 
 I was afraid, and went and hid thy talent in the earth.'' 
 Matt. XXV. 24, 25. Often it is so with a man now. We 
 ask him to give up his op4)oshion, and to fix on God 
 higher affections than he does on any and all other be- 
 ings. We ask him to repose such confidence in him as 
 to be willing to give up all into his hands, and to surren- 
 der all to his disposal. When we do this, he at once in 
 his own mind recurs to some view which he has of God, 
 rendering him unworthy of that confidence which we 
 entreat him to repose in him. He thinks of his law as 
 rigid and severe; of his government as unnecessarily 
 strict in marking offences ; of the arrangement by which 
 he suffered sin and the overflowing deluge of woes that 
 have come in by the fall and fault of one man ; of the 
 severity of the sentence by which he dooms the impeni- 
 tent to an eternal hell ; — and he has so long accustomed 
 his mind to such dark views of the divine character, that 
 he sees no beauty in it ; feels that if he were to surren- 
 der, it would be a forced submission altogether; and 
 sometimes feels — though he would not allow himself to 
 express it — as if there was virtue in being alienated from 
 such a being as God. In this state of mind, it is out of 
 the question for a man to become a Christian. Every 
 view which he has of the divine government would stand 
 in the way of his conversion ; and argument and entreaty 
 are in vain. 
 
 (5.) A fifth class are deterred from being Christians by 
 liostility to some member or members of the church. 
 They have made bargains with them ; sold them goods ; 
 taken their notes ; credited them as they have other 
 men. They have seen, they would say, in one Chris- 
 tian great meanness of spirit ; in another a disposition 
 to take every advantage in a bargain ; in another who 
 has failed in business, such proofs of dishonesty as would 
 be disgraceful to men who made scarce any pretensions 
 to the principles of common honesty. In another they 
 have had the certain promise of the payment of a 
 debt which has as certainly failed ; in another they 
 cannot resist the conviction that he is chargeable with 
 fraud. All this is set down to the credit of Christianity ; 
 and it needs no great knowledge of human nature to see 
 
96 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 that where this is seen or suspected, men cannot be easily 
 persuaded to embrace a system which produces such fruits, 
 /acknowledge the force of this; or rather I acknowledge 
 that it would be difficult to prevent this effect on my 
 mind. Little conversant as a minister is, and ought to 
 be, with the commercial and political world ; and little 
 knowledge as he must of necessity have of the ordinary 
 business transactions of life, I confess I have seen and 
 known enough of this to cease to wonder at its inevitable 
 effect on the minds of upright men of business ; and if 
 there is any man of whom I would speak in the lan- 
 guage of unrestrained severity, it is of the professing 
 Christian who is mean in the transaction of business ; 
 who makes promises only to be broken ; who takes ad- 
 vantage of the necessity of others to increase his gains ; 
 who borrows money not to be repaid ; and who fails in 
 business where falsehood and fraud attend the whole 
 transaction. 
 
 (6.) A sixth reason which prevents men from becom- 
 ing Christians is worldliness — the desire of this world's 
 goods, or pleasures, or honors. Of all the causes which 
 are in operation, this is the most wide-spread and effi- 
 cient. The great mass of men where the gospel is 
 preached are not infidels or scoffers, nor are they sunk in 
 low and debasing vices. And though many are deterred 
 from being Christians by secret unbelief, or by open vice ; 
 by some strong ruling passion which they wish still to 
 indulge, and from which they cannot be induced to part, 
 yet the largest proportion by far of those whom we ad- 
 dress is deterred by the love of this world. It is that 
 love of wealth, to accumulate and preserve which occu- 
 pied all their time and talent, which prevents their study- 
 ing the word of God, and keeps them from prayer ; 
 which leads them often into forbidden paths, trenches on 
 the sacredness of the Sabbath, creates and fosters some 
 of the passions most opposed to the gospel, and which 
 causes them to defer attention to religion to some future 
 period. It is that love of pleasure, of gaiety, of fashion, 
 of admiration, of hilarity, of excitement in the unreal 
 world when they seek enjoyment, that drives away all 
 sober reflection, every serious thought, and every degree 
 
THE REASONS WHY MEN ARE NOT CHRISTIANS, 97 
 
 of solicitude about the soul ; which closes their Bibles, 
 and which makes prayer a mockery; which is so unlike 
 the spirit of Jesus and his gospel — it is this which ope- 
 rates with a large class in preventing them from becom- 
 ing Christians. It is that ambition which reigns in the 
 heart of the unrenewed man ; that fondness for being 
 known, and praised, and remembered, whether it mani- 
 fest itself in laying the foundation for lasting literary 
 fame ; or for eminence in the learned professions ; or for 
 official elevation — it is this which excludes religion from, 
 the heart. Where one is deterred from being a Chris- 
 tian by infidelity or gross vice, ten are kept back by one 
 of these manifestations of worldliness. Let the desire 
 of distinction in the ranks of worldliness seize upon the 
 mind, the ambhion of going up the steeps of fame from 
 one summit to another, until you can stand on the top 
 and look all around and see all the world at yout feet, 
 and you bid farewell to every serious thought, and every 
 desire of heaven. Rendered dizzy by the height to which 
 you have already ascended, and excited to climb the still 
 more dangerous eminences which are just above you, 
 and which it seems to be desirable to surmount, the whole 
 soul becomes absorbed in that high cnterprize, and all its 
 energies are concentrated there. And so in a family. I 
 know of nothing that is a more deadly foe to rehgion in 
 a family than this miserable ambition — this desire of en- 
 tering on terms of intimacy the circles of the aristocracy 
 of fashion and v/ealth ; tliis desire of leaving the quiet 
 vale of virtue and of peace for the mortifications, and 
 rebufis, and heart-breakings attending the effort to elbow 
 a family into circles for which God never designed them, 
 and where they can never be either happy or welcome. 
 The great cause why men are not Christians is icorldll' 
 ness ; and this is tlie grand reason why so many are 
 excluded from the kingdom of God here and in the skies. 
 I have not time to go through the statement of the 
 causes as I had intended. I might speak of the dread 
 which men have of the process of conversion ; of the 
 fear of the gloom and sadness which they suppose pre- 
 cedes and accompanies regeneration ; of the fear of the 
 ridicule and scorn of the world — operating on all minds ; 
 
 9 
 
98 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 of the love of some sin — some ruling vice — some master 
 passion that has ascendancy over the soul, but which 
 men are ashamed to have known, and to which they are 
 too much attached to surrender it ; and of the purpose 
 which is in most hearts to attend to religion at a future 
 time of life. But I have occupied too much time already 
 to speak of these, and it is possible now only to make a 
 few remarks on the second subject proposed. 
 
 II. That was, to enquire whether these reasons for not 
 being a Christian are satisfactory. Satisfactory to whom? 
 you may ask. I answer, to conscience and to God. Are 
 they such as are sufficient reasons for not loving God ? 
 
 The duty of loving God with all the heart, is the first 
 duty recommended to men by every precept of natural 
 and revealed religion. The duty of repentance is enjoin- 
 ed by all that is sacred in divine authority, and is re- 
 sponded to by the conscience of every sinner. The duty 
 of faith in the Lord Jesus — the great and only Saviour 
 of mankind — is demanded on the fore front of the Chris- 
 tian message, and solemnly declared to be essential to 
 salvation. The necessity of being born again is urged 
 in the Scriptures with a frequency and power of which 
 my preaching is but the faint and feeble echo — often as 
 I press it on your attention. No duty is prior to these in 
 time or in momentousness. Any and every thing else 
 may be better dispensed with than these. You can bet- 
 ter by far do without the love of earthly friends than 
 without the love of God. You can better by far do with- 
 out the wealth of this world than the treasures of heaven. 
 You can better do without an earthly mansion, even if 
 the earth were your bed and the skies your covering, 
 than without a building of God, a house eternal in the 
 heavens. You can better by far do without fame and 
 praise in this world, than you can without the appro- 
 bation of God in the world to come. 
 
 For these things you are neglecting him; you are 
 neglecting your souls. Are the reasons which prompt 
 you to it satisfactory ? Are they sufficient to render you 
 guiltless for neglecting such high and sacred obligations ? 
 Reflect a moment on the following considerations — the 
 only remarks which I will detain you now to hear. 
 
 (1.) You dare not yourselves urge them as the real 
 
THE REASONS WHY MEN ARE NOT CHRISTIANS. 99 
 
 cause why you do not attend to religion, and embrace the 
 offers of mercy. They are so Uttle satisfactory to your 
 own minds, that when we come to you and urge you to 
 become Christians, we are met with other reasons than 
 these. You resort to some difficulty about the doctrine 
 of ability, and the decrees of God ; some metaphysical 
 subtlety that you know may embarrass us, but which 
 you think of on no other occasion. Who will dare to 
 urge as a reason for not becoming a Christian the fact 
 that he is sensual, or proud, or worldly minded, or am- 
 bitious, or covetous, or self-righteous, or that he regards 
 God as a tyrant ? And yet one or all of these may be 
 the basis of every reason why you are not Christians. 
 Can that be a satisfactory reason for a man's conduct 
 which he is ashamed himself to avow ? Can that be the 
 true reason which he avows for the purpose of embar- 
 rassing others, while another is buried deep in his bosom ? 
 (2.) These excuses will not stand when a man is 
 convicted for sin. He then ceases to urge that he is up- 
 right and moral ; that he has injured no one ; that there 
 can be no danger for one who has lived as he has done ; 
 that there are hypocrites in the church ; that he has been 
 wronged by professors of religion ; and that he is afraid 
 of the ridicule of mankind. He feels then that he must 
 have a better righteousness than can be manufactured 
 out of such materials, and that with these excuses he 
 cannot venture to appear at the bar of God. There is a 
 power in conviction for sin which is m advance of all 
 the arguments which men can urge. It is the power of 
 the Holy Ghost — under whose influences cavils, and ob- 
 jections, and self-reliances suddenly vanish. Under that 
 power, men feel at once, despite all that they have said, 
 and all the arguments on which they have relied, that 
 they are sinners, and that they are exposed to the wrath 
 of God. It is the argument that is felt, and which is 
 irresistible on the soul. There is an access to the soul 
 of the sinner which God has, but which no mortal man 
 can have, and I appeal 7iow to the fact that when men 
 are brought under conviction for sin, they at once see 
 that all their excuses for not being Christians are vain. 
 Who are they who are thus convicted ? Who, by the 
 power of the Holy Ghost, have been made to see that 
 
100 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 they are sinners, and have yielded their hearts up to 
 God ? Need I answer ? They are such as have urged 
 all the excuses to which I have adverted in this discourse, 
 or such as have felt them all in their hearts. They are 
 men who reason as well as who feel; they are those 
 who were moral as well as those who were immoral ; 
 men not strangers to learning and science, as well as 
 those who are ignorant of letters ; and they who have 
 moved not without grace and loveliness in elevated ranks 
 as well as those of more humble walks in life. All, 
 when the hour comes in which God designs to bring them 
 into his kingdom, confess that they had no good reasons 
 for not being his friends, and for their having so long re- 
 fused to yield to the claims of God. 
 
 (3.) The same thing occurs on the bed of death. The 
 mind then is often overwhelmed, and under the convic- 
 tion that the excuses for not being a Christian were in- 
 sufficient, the sinner in horror dies. But I will not dwell 
 on that. I pass to one other consideration. 
 
 (4.) It is this. These excuses will not be admitted 
 at the bar of God. Suppose they were, what would fol- 
 low ? Why, that you would enter heaven — for God will 
 admit all to heaven, unless there is some good reason for 
 not doing it. No man will be sent to hell unless there 
 is a reason for it which will be satisfactory; a cause 
 which cannot be removed by sympathy, or by infinite 
 benevolence. If your excuses, then, for not being Chris- 
 tians are good, they will be admitted on the final trial, and 
 you will be received into heaven. And what then ? 
 Why, you will be saved because you did not believe that 
 you were as depraved as God had represented you to 
 be ; and you^ because you did not believe what he had 
 said of future punishment ; and you^ because you were 
 sceptical on the whole subject of religion — saved by 
 unbelief , not by faith ; and you, because you believed 
 that God was cruel and tyrannical in his character and 
 government, and because there was so much merit in 
 cherishing that opinion of him that he ought to save 
 you ; and you, because his professed friends had injured 
 you, and you hated religion on that account ; and you, 
 because you were so worldly, and ambitious, and vain, 
 and proud, that you neglected religion altogether : you, 
 
THE REASONS WHY MEN ARE NOT CHRISTIANS. 101 
 
 because you were afraid of the ridicule of the world ; 
 and yon, because you cherished some ruling, forbidden 
 lust which nehher the command of God, nor the love of 
 Christ, nor the fear of hell would induce you to surren- 
 der. And then what a place would be heaven ! Wliat 
 sympathy you would have with the redeemed ! What 
 communion of spirit with the martyrs ! What fellow- 
 ship with the Lord Jesus ! What gratitude would you 
 have to him for salvation ! But, my hearers, do you be- 
 lieve that you are to be saved in that way ? — I, for one, 
 do not. These are not the reasons why men are to enter 
 into heaven. 
 
 I wish to get, by this discourse, at least one idea be- 
 fore your minds. It is this. If you have a good reason 
 now for not being a Christian, it will be good at the bar 
 of God. If not good then and there, it is worth nothing 
 now. If it will not be the ground of your admission 
 into heaven, it is of no value. Will you risk your soul's 
 salvation, then, on the reasons which now operate to 
 prevent your becoming a Christian? A question than 
 which none more important ever demanded your atten- 
 tion. 
 
 I close here. You see the conclusion to which we 
 have come. If these reasons are not satisfactory ; if 
 none on which you rely are satisfactory, then you ought 
 to be a Christian. — To he a Christian. There is safety. 
 There the mind finds rest. There, in the love of God, 
 and in dependence on the Saviour, and in the hope of 
 heaven, man feels that he does right. For that he 
 needs no excuse ; he desires no apology. He is con- 
 scious of no wrong-doing when he gives up his heart to 
 God ; he looks back with no self-reproaches for it when 
 he contemplates it from the bed of death. The reasons 
 which induce him to give himself to God are conclusive 
 to his own mind ; satisfactory to his friends ; approved 
 by his Judge. No man has, or ever has had remorse of 
 conscience for being a Christian ; no man has self-re- 
 proaches for it on a bed of death. The mind then is at 
 rest ; it is free from the anguish of remorse, from alarms. 
 Who, then, to-day will seek that peace, and the smiles of 
 an approving conscience, and of God ? 
 
 9* 
 
SERMON VII. 
 
 THE MISERY OF FORSAKING GOD. 
 
 Jeremiah ii. 13. My people have committed two evils ; — they have 
 forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, 
 broken cisterns, that can hold no water. 
 
 The text affirms that man is guilty of two evils. One 
 is, that he has wandered away from God. The other is, 
 that he has sought for happiness in objects which are in- 
 capable of affording it. Tliere is the evil of guilt, and the 
 evil of wretchedness ; the evil of withholding the affections 
 from the true source of blessedness, and the evil of fixing 
 them on improper objects ; the evil of going away from a 
 fountain where happiness might be found, and the evil 
 of attempting to find it in other objects as a compen- 
 sation for that which is lost by forsaking God. Men 
 have sought happiness by going away from God. They 
 have been disappointed. They have not found it. That 
 which they have found bears the same relation to true 
 enjoyment which a cistern that is broken and leaky 
 does to a running fountain. Such a cistern may have a 
 great deal of beauty. It may be cut from the finest mar- 
 ble, and ornamented with all the skill of art. It may 
 be placed in a beautiful grove, or it may occupy the 
 splendid court of an oriental palace — but if it is cracked 
 and broken, however much it may be admired, it fails in 
 the design for which it was made, and for which a cis- 
 tern is desirable. 
 
 Man has gone off from God, the great fountain of 
 blessedness. He is a wanderer and an exile. He has 
 substituted in the place of God that which is the fruit of 
 his own invention, and thus far the history of this world 
 is little else than an experiment to ascertain whether the 
 soul can be satisfied without God, and whether the forms 
 of amusement and business can be so modified and varied 
 and refined that man can find in them the happiness 
 which his immortal nature demands. It is a most inter- 
 ior 
 
THE MISERY OF FORSAKING GOD. 103 
 
 esting inquiry whether he has been successful in the pur- 
 suit, or whether it has been hke forsaking a fountain 
 bubbhng in the desert for a splendid but broken cistern. 
 To that enquiry I propose now to direct your attention. 
 I shall confine my remarks to two points. 
 
 I. What has man substituted in the place of God ? and 
 
 II. Has it answered the purpose, or has it been suc- 
 cessful ? 
 
 I. What has man substituted in the place of the happi- 
 ness which might have been found in God ? 
 
 The text says that he has forsaken God — the foimtain 
 of living waters. Let us dwell a moment on these 
 words. — " Living waters.''^ They are not dead and stag- 
 nant — but running — and imparting life. Nothing is more 
 beautiful than a running stream. In the East the course 
 of a stream through a desert can be traced afar by the 
 trees, and shrubs, and flowers, and grass that spring up 
 on its bank, and that are sustained by it in its course — 
 a long waving line oi green in the waste of sand. Where 
 it winds along, that line of verdure winds along ; where 
 it expands into a lake that expands ; where it dies away 
 and is lost in the sand that disappears. So with the 
 blessedness flowing from the living fountain of waters. 
 Life, the true life in this world, can be traced by the 
 flowing forth of those streams from God. Where those 
 streams flow, health and happiness spring up ; where they 
 are unseen true happiness disappears, and the Avorld is a 
 desert. — " A fountain.''^ God is a "fountain''^ of living 
 waters — he is the source whence all the streams of bliss 
 take their rise. The fountain is ever fresh, ever pure, ever 
 full. The streams of blessedness begin to flow there ; and 
 should that fountain cease, every stream would die away, 
 and the whole world would be an arid waste. 
 
 My proposition is, that men have forsaken that ever- 
 living fountain. I do not now speak merely of the 
 idolatrous world — of man who there has forsaken God, 
 and who bows down to shapeless blocks. I speak of 
 man as man — in whatever form the departure may ap- 
 pear; and I rather wish to show how the human heart has 
 gone ofl" from God so that ice may feel it of ourselves, 
 than to turn your thoughts to far-distant idolaters and 
 philosophers. I could illustrate it of the ancient Hebrews, 
 
104 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 the Hindoo, the Chinese, the Tartar, the African, the 
 New Zealander ; I could iUustrate it by the opinions and 
 feeUngs of the ancient philosopher ; but I have a more 
 striking and more interesting source of iUustration here — 
 in our own famihes — and our own hearts — and the illus- 
 tration will be confined mainly to ourselves. 
 
 It can be scarcely necessary to go into an extended 
 statement of what man has substituted in the place of the 
 happiness which he is unwilling to seek in his Maker, or 
 which is the same thing in the hopes and consolations of 
 religion. A very brief enumeration is all that the time 
 will admit, and is all that is demanded in order to a pro- 
 per understanding of our subject. 
 
 A part have sought it in philosophy. They have re- 
 treated from the bustle and the turmoil of life. They 
 have sought enjoyment in calm contemplation on the re- 
 lations of things, and on the abstract questions of philo- 
 sophic inquiry. They have sought to raise themselves 
 above suffering by rendering the mind insensible to the 
 common ills of life, and they attempt to separate them- 
 selves from the common herd of mortals by their insensi- 
 bility to the woes which affect the mass of mankind. 
 They are the stoics of all ages — who whether in the cos- 
 tume and pride of the ancient Grecian philosophers ; or in 
 the Buddhism of China and India ; or in the monkish 
 system of the middle ages ; or in the occasional victim of 
 this wretched insanity who retires to caverns and rocks 
 in modern times ; or in the cool contemplative philosopher 
 who lives but to speculate, or to laugh at the follies of 
 mankind, have sought for happiness in the same way by 
 supposing that it consisted in insensibility to suffering, 
 and in that pride which looks with disdain on the mass 
 of mankind. 
 
 A part, men of leisure and of taste, fly to the acade- 
 mic grove, and look for happiness there. They go up 
 the sides of Parnassus, and drink from the Castalian fount, 
 and court the society of the Muses. Their enjoyment, 
 and their solace, is in the pursuit of elegant literature. 
 Their time is spent in belles-lettres— in the records of his- 
 toric truth, or in the world of poetry and of fiction. Our 
 land furnishes as yet less of this than countries where 
 men are favored with more hereditary wealth, and more 
 
THE MISERY OF FORSAKING GOD. 105 
 
 " learned leisure ;" but there are not a few who have 
 such leisure, and not a few, it is to be feared, who sub- 
 stitute such sources of happiness in the place of that 
 which is derived from the fountain of living waters. As 
 wealth increases ; and as leisure is multiplied, the desire 
 for this species of happiness will increase — increase not 
 as it ought to in connexion with religion, and with the 
 cuhivation of the graces of a renovated spirit, but as the 
 substitute for religion, and as in fact the excluder of 
 God from the soul. From the cares and troubles of life 
 they will flee to these calm retreats as a refuge, and seek 
 there to forget their sorrows, and to escape from the 
 dreadful apprehension of death and the judgment. 
 
 Another, and a much larger portion, have substituted 
 the pursuit of wealth in place of religion, and their hap- 
 piness is there. This has become almost the universal 
 passion of civilized man. Yet it is not happiness so much 
 sought in the pursuit of wealth itself, as in something be- 
 yond. The cultivator of elegant literature seeks his en- 
 joyment in the pursuit itself, and tastes the bliss which 
 he seeks as he goes on the journey of life ; the man seek- 
 ing wealth expects his happiness not in the pursuit, but 
 in that which wealth will procure. He looks on to the 
 old age of elegant retirement and leisure which is before 
 him ; he sees in vision the comforts which he will be able 
 to draw around him in the splendid mansion, and grounds, 
 and in the abundance which his old age will enjoy. He 
 crosses the ocean, and spends the vigor of his days in 
 Calcutta or in Canton, not because he has pleasure in a 
 voyage at sea ; or in the long exile from home ; or in the 
 society in a distant land ; or in the burning heats of a tro- 
 pical sun, but because he has fixed his eye on the com- 
 forts which amassed wealth will spread around him when 
 he shall return. 
 
 A large portion, perhaps nearly as large a portion as 
 can aff'ord the means — and many of those who cannot — 
 seek for happiness in the brilliant world of songs and 
 dances; in the splendid circles where God is forgotten, 
 and where prayer is unknown. For that they live ; and 
 the pleasure which is sought there is made a substitute 
 for that which might be, and which should be sought in 
 God. No one can deny that vast talent is often exhibited 
 
lOG PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 to make that gay world fascinating and alluring; and 
 that no inconsiderable success is evinced in accomplishing 
 the object in view. It would be strange if such a plan 
 were wholly unsuccessful. With princely wealth at 
 command ; with ample leisure ; with the full choice of 
 means ; and with a heart intently set on the object, it 
 would be strange if something could not be originated 
 that would, for the time being, be some substitute for the 
 happiness which should be sought in God. But nothing 
 on earth was ever designed in a more determinate man- 
 ner to exclude God. Neither prayer, nor praise, nor 
 worship of any form ; neither the remembrance of God, 
 nor the anticipation of a holy heaven ; neither conversa- 
 tion on the Bible, the cross, or the peace of pardon and 
 hope, come in for any share of the joys. It begins by 
 forsaking the fountain of living waters, and it is conducted 
 by whatever can be best made a substitute for the happi- 
 ness to be found in religion. 
 
 I might go on to speak of many other substitutes which 
 men have adopted in the place of the happiness which 
 should be sought in God, and which constitute the ^ cis- 
 terns, broken cisterns which they have hewed out for 
 themselves.' I might speak of the career of high and 
 so-called honorable ambition — whether manifested in 
 seeking office, in deeds of glory or the battle-field, in the 
 walks of science, or in the pride of authorship ; of the 
 drama, with all that is fascinating and captivating there ; 
 of the love of travel, and of hazardous enterprise in visit- 
 ing distant lands ; of the arts of painting, and music, and 
 statuary ; of the pleasures of the table ; of the couch of 
 luxury and ease, and of the indulgence in " the lusts that 
 war against the soul" — of the low and debasing vices 
 in which so many millions of the human race are at all 
 times seeking enjoyment. Not all these things would I 
 condemn for the same reason ; some of them, if pursued 
 with right motives, are not to be condemned at all. I 
 speak of them only as substitutes for the happiness which 
 men might find in God ; as devices to which they have 
 resorted to make their sojourn on earth in any way toler- 
 able, and as adapted to hide as much as possible the me- 
 lancholy close of that sojourn from view, and to keep the 
 mind from sadness and despaii*. 
 
THE MISERY OF TORSAKING GOD. 107 
 
 All these things — diifering as they do in regard to their 
 worth or worthlessness ; their dignity or meanness ; their 
 purity or their impurity ; and differing in regard to the 
 numbers and the ranks of those who pursue them, yet 
 agree in two things : (1.) All are resorted to in pursuit of 
 happiness; and (2.) all this happiness is pursued by the 
 exclusion of God. They are a part of that great system 
 which consists in forsaking the fountain of living waters, 
 and in hewing out broken cisterns which can hold no 
 water. They constitute the great scheme of an alienated 
 and a talented world to find enjoyment without God. — 
 They exhibit the result of the experiment which has been 
 now pursued for about six thousand years, and with a 
 talent and zeal worthy of any cause, to see whether the 
 happiness lost by the apostasy in Eden can be recovered 
 without returning to God ; whether the cracked and 
 broken cistern can be so repaired and beautified as not to 
 make it necessary to come back to the fountain of living 
 waters ; and whether the calamities and woes which the 
 apostasy from God introduced can be put back without 
 the painful necessity of returning to the much-hated God 
 from whom the race has revolted. 
 
 It is a very interesting question now, whether the plan 
 has been successful ; whether it is wise to pursue it any 
 further; or whether the voice of wisdom would not 
 prompt man to return to the fountain of living waters. 
 
 II. Our second inquiry, therefore, is, whether the plan 
 is successful ? Has it answered the purpose which was 
 contemplated ? Can the cistern which man has hewed 
 out for himself be made to answer the purpose of the 
 fountain of living waters ? 
 
 These are questions, evidently, which are to be settled 
 by experience ; and in making the appeal to experience 
 there are two enquiries to be answered. The first is, 
 what is happiness ? The second, can happiness be found 
 in these things ? 
 
 What is happiness ? I shall not go largely into the ex- 
 amination of this question, for it is not necessary, and I 
 can easily foresee that such an examination would be 
 tiresome. There are two or three principles which it is 
 important to state in order to a correct answer of the other 
 question proposed. Happiness does not consist in mere 
 
108 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 excitement, or laughter, or exhilaration, or ecstacy. — 
 These may be found I admit without difficulty in this 
 world — and may be found in abundance. The ball-room ; 
 the comedy ; the low farce ; the intoxicating bowl ; the 
 place of boisterous amusement will furnish them. But 
 there are occasions when " laughter is mad ;" and all this 
 merriment and excitement may be attended or followed 
 with an under current of sorrow that shall leave the soul 
 to grief. In true happiness there must be always found 
 certain elements, or certain essential principles, among 
 which are the following: (1.) It must be adapted to the 
 nature of man, or fitted to his true rank or dignity. It 
 would be absurd to suppose that the philosopher could 
 find permanent happiness in playing marbles, or an angel 
 in blowing of bubbles. These are the amusements of 
 children, and should God confine elevated minds to such 
 an employment forever it would be to doom such minds to 
 an eternal hell. So it must be with all trifles. They may 
 amuse and divert for a little while, but they are not 
 adapted to the elevated nature of the soul, and their 
 power must fail. (2.) Again, there must be some perma- 
 nency — some solid basis on which the superstructure is to 
 be reared. Happiness cannot be found in a palace if that 
 palace may at any moment fall down ; in a cottage, if the 
 wind may at any moment sweep it away ; in an office, if 
 at any moment it may be given to another ; in beauty 
 that must soon fade ; in health and strength, that must 
 soon become feeble ; in a scene of pleasure, if it may soon 
 be succeeded by grief. Who would be willing to stake 
 his chance of happiness on the permanency of the bright- 
 est rainbow, or on the vivid lightning's flash, or on the 
 fixedness of the colors of the gorgeous clouds in a sum- 
 mer evening ? Yet such a basis would be as secure as 
 half the happiness that is sought in the gay world. (3.) 
 Again, in true happiness in this world there must be a 
 recognition of immortality. This must be, because man 
 is so made that he cannot wholly forget it. There is a 
 consciousness in us of an immortal nature. There is a 
 longing after immortality that will be continually mani- 
 festing itself in spite of all that men can do. It Avill break 
 out like sunshine between clouds, and men will feel they 
 have souls that can never die ; and he who is unwilling 
 
THE MISERY OF FORSAKING GOD. 109 
 
 to recognize that, can never be permanently happy. 
 Nature will be true to herself and to the God that has 
 made all things ; and there are too many indications 
 within us that we are immortal, and too many mementoes 
 around us to remind us that we are travellers to a per- 
 manent home whatever it may be, to suffer us always to 
 forget it. (4.) Once more. True happiness must be of 
 such a nature that it will not be materially disturbed by 
 the prospect of sickness, the grave, and eternity. These 
 subjects are so frequently urged upon us ; they pass along 
 before us with such solemn and admonitory aspects ; they 
 are liable to come so near to us at any moment, that our 
 sources of permanent happiness should be such that the 
 mention of the grave would not dry them up ; our joys 
 should be such that the word " eternity" would not put 
 them all to flight. " My Athenian guest," said Croesus 
 to Solon, " the voice of fame speaks loudly of your wis- 
 dom. I have heard much of your travels ; you have been 
 led by a philosophic spirit to visit a considerable portion 
 of the globe. I am here induced to enquire of you what 
 man, of all you have beheld, has seemed to you most 
 truly happy." After one or two unsatisfactory answers, 
 and being pressed still for a reply, Solon said, " I shall not 
 be able to give a satisfactory answer to the question you 
 propose till I know that your scene of life shall have 
 closed with tranquillity. The man of afliuence is not in 
 fact more happy than the possessor of a bare competency, 
 unless in addition to his wealth his end be more fortunate. 
 Call no man happy till you know the nature of his death. 
 It is the part of wisdom to look to the event of things ; for 
 the Deity often overwhelms with misery those who have 
 formerly been placed at the summit of felicity.^^ Herod. 
 1. 24. 32. Our happiness must not be of such a nature 
 as to be disturbed by the recognition of death, and the 
 anticipation of a future world. That which is dissipated 
 by the mention of the grave — whatever else you may call 
 it — ecstasy, hilarity, laughter, merriment, is not happi- 
 ness ; that which is put to flight by the word eternity 
 cannot be the kind of enjoyment fitted to the nature of 
 man. 
 
 You say, perhaps, I have given my own definition of 
 the word happiness, and that it will now be easy for me 
 
 10 
 
110 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 to show that the happiness which man seeks cannot be 
 found away from God. I admit that this is true ; and 
 that your notions of happiness may differ materially from 
 mine. And yet it seems to me you cannot but admit that 
 happiness must embody or admit these elements. It 
 must be adapted to our nature. It must have some evi- 
 dence of permanency. It must recognize our immortality. 
 It must be of such a kind that it will not be disturbed 
 by the mention of death and eternity. With these prin- 
 ciples before us, let us now inquire whether man has 
 found tliat which he has sought by going away from the 
 fouutahi of livhig waters ; or whether he has not hewed 
 out to himself broken cisterns. 
 
 My appeal is mainly to experience — and here the argu- 
 ment need not be long. The experience of the world on 
 this point may be divided into two great parts — the re- 
 corded and the unrecorded. Which contains the larger 
 portion is not material to our inquiry, and either would 
 be decisive of the controversy. Of the recorded testimony 
 of the world, I appeal to the records made on sick beds, 
 and in graves; to the disappointments, and cares, and 
 anxieties, evinced all over the world as the result of the 
 revolt in Eden, and of wandering away from God. 
 
 Recall for one moment what the forsaking of God 
 has done. Whence is sorrow, disappointment, pain, 
 death ? The misery of our world all began at that sad 
 hour when man ate the fruit of the forbidden tree. — 
 What miglit not this world have been if man had never 
 forsaken the fountain of living waters ! The bliss of 
 Eden might have been prolonged to the present time, 
 and not a tear have been shed, not a sigh heard, not 
 a couch spread for the sick and the dyhig; and the earth 
 Avould never have opened its bosom to furnish a grave ! 
 Every sorrow, every tear, every sad hour among men 
 has been caused by the fact that man has forsaken his 
 God ; and tlie woes of the earth are an impressive com- 
 mentary on the fact which I am endeavormg to illustrate — 
 the evil of forsaking God. 
 
 If I had time I would like to follow out the effect of it 
 in a single case. I would show the effect of it from the 
 first moment of apostasy, to the last act when the sinner 
 attempts to exclude God from the soul on the bed of 
 
THE MISERY OF FORSAKING GOP. HI 
 
 death. I wouM take such a case as that of Cain — the first 
 instance, juihaps, of one who forsoolc the fountain of 
 Hvini; waters no more to return, and the oldest eiuthly 
 inliahitant now, perha}>s, of the world of desj)air. Nor 
 do 1 know hut I might he allowed in doing this to make 
 use of a celehrated i)ocn),full of hlasphemy, of the name 
 " Cain ;" expressive, I douht not, of tlie real feelings of 
 this early apostate, and so true and graphic hecause it 
 was drawn from the deep fountain of unhelief and hlas- 
 phemy in the heart of its titled, hut miserahle author. 
 The suhject of the poem, and the author of the poem, 
 might alike furnish us an illustration of the essential 
 misery of tlie man who lias forsaken the fountain of living 
 waters: — the one a fugitive, a muixlerer, a vagahond, in a 
 l)eautiful world fresh from the liandof God; — the otlier a 
 nol)lenian, an inheritor of a palace — and yet a miserable 
 inisanthro})e — and, like Cain, an unhappy wanderer from 
 land to land. 
 
 But why look to Cain, or to die not inappropriate his- 
 torian of his blasi)heniies ? Look at our world at large — 
 a dying world — full of sadness alid wo. Look at the bold 
 blasphemer — who is yet, if ever, for the first moment to 
 know peace. Look at the infidel, the sceptic — without a 
 (rod, without a Saviour, whose hope is chance, whose 
 peace is the troubled sea. Look at the convicted sinner — 
 over whose head the thunder of justice rolls, and at whose 
 feet the lightnings of vengeance play because he has for- 
 saken his God. Look into your own heart, to this moment 
 devoid of true peace unless you are a renewed and par- 
 doned man. Look at the death-bed of a sinner; read in 
 some moment of leisure the account of the dying moments 
 of Voltaire, D'Alembert, or Robespierre — and you will 
 neither need nor ask any further illustration of the misery 
 of forsaking God. 
 
 Again, for an important record of the capability of this 
 world to furnish the happiness which man desires, I 
 refer to the book of Ecclesiastes. Never had man more 
 ample opportunities of finding happiness in all that this 
 world can bestow than Solomon had. With abundant 
 wealth; with all the means of luxury which his age and 
 lantl, and a somewhat extended foreign commerce could 
 furnish ; with peace at home and abroad ; he early forgot 
 
112 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 the counsel of a pious father, and forsook his father's God. 
 At the close of a hfe over which he had much occasion to 
 mourn, he is behoved to have written the hook of Eccle- 
 siastes, as an expression of his sense of the power of this 
 world to furnish happiness. " I said in mine heart I will 
 prove thee with mirth; therefore, enjoy pleasure. I sought 
 in mine heart to give myself unto wine, and to lay hold 
 on folly till I might see what was that good for the sons 
 of men, which they should do under the heaven all the 
 days of their life. I made me great works ; 1 builded me 
 houses ; I planted me vineyards ; I made me gardens and 
 orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kinds of fruits. 
 I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar trea- 
 sure of kings and of the provinces : I gat me men-singers 
 and women-singers, and the delights of the sons of men, 
 as musical instruments, and that of all sorts. And what- 
 soever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I with- 
 held not my heart from any joy. Then I looked on all 
 the works that my hands had wrought, and behold all 
 was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no 
 profit under the sun '' " Vanity of vanities, all is va- 
 nity," was the result of perhaps the largest and the 
 best conducted experiment of the kind ever undertaken 
 by man. At the close of a dissatisfied life we may trust 
 this illustrious wanderer from God returned to the foun- 
 tain of living waters, and this instructive record he has 
 left to admonish all those who would tread in his foot- 
 steps, that however far they may go, and however they 
 may vary the experiment, they will come to the same 
 result. 
 
 "I now read Solomon,'' said Lord Chesterfield when 
 sixty-six years of age, and near the close of his unenviable 
 life, "with a sort of sympathetic feeling. I have been as 
 wicked and vain, though not as wise as he ; but am now at 
 last wise enough to feel and attest the truth of his reflec- 
 tions, that all is vanity and vexation of spirit. This truth 
 is never sufficiently discovered or felt by mere speculation ; 
 experience is necessary for conviction, though perhaps at 
 the expense of some morality." 
 
 There is still one other part of the recorded experience 
 of mankind in regard to the insufficiency of the substitute 
 that has been adopted to give happiness. I allude to the 
 
THE MISERY OF FORSAKING GOD. 113 
 
 experience of the penitent and the Christian world. 
 Every man who comes back to God, Uke the Prodigal 
 Son returning to his father's house, comes Avith this as an 
 important part of his testimony, that in the efforts which 
 he has made to find happiness he has been disappointed, 
 and he now comes back to the fountain of hving waters. 
 Nor is the number few, nor is their testimony without 
 value. Many hundreds of millions on earth and in hea- 
 ven now constitute the entire church which has been re- 
 deemed, and all come with the same language as to the 
 power of the world to furnish enjoym.ent. They have 
 turned away from the broken cisterns and have come 
 back to the fountain of living waters. And who are they ? 
 The poor ; the ignorant ; the needy ; the down-trodden 
 you say ; — they who have had no means of enjoying the 
 world, or of maknig a full experiment there. I admit it 
 to a great extent — perhaps to all the extent you wish — 
 and would then say in regard to ihevi that it is no mean 
 honor for Christianity to have given to the poor, and the 
 wretched, and the comfortless, peace and joy. But who 
 have come with them to the cross ? I see among them 
 men with crowned heads laying the diadem at the feet of 
 the Redeemer, and exchanging their princely robes for 
 the garments of salvation. I see men coming from the 
 halls of splendor and seeking for happiness in the religion 
 of the Saviour. I see them come from the circles of the 
 great, and the gay, and the rich, from the splendid party, 
 the ball-room, and the theatre, and confessing that the 
 happiness which they sought was not to be obtained 
 there, and seeking it now in God. Satisfied now that the 
 world cannot meet the desires of the immortal mind, they 
 come back to their Maker, and find permanent bliss in the 
 Christian hope of immortality. A living poet has beau- 
 tifully expressed the feelings of them all, as they ap- 
 proach the church, the altar, the cross. 
 
 People of the living GoJ, 
 
 I have sought tlie world around, 
 Paths of sin and sorrow trod, 
 
 Peace and comfort, nowhere found ; 
 Now to you my spirit turns. 
 
 Turns, a fugitive unblest ; 
 Brethren, where your altar jjurns, 
 
 O receive me unto rest ! 
 10^ 
 
114 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 Lonely I no longer roam, 
 
 Like the cloud, the wind, the wave ; 
 Where you dwell shall be my home, 
 
 Where you die shall be my grave; 
 Mine the God whom you adore — 
 
 Your Redeemer shall be mine ; 
 Earth can fill my heart no more, 
 
 Every idol I resign. Montgomery, 
 
 And what has been the result ? Have the returning 
 wanderers been satisfied ? Have they found that which 
 they sought, in the fountain of Uving waters ? Hear one 
 of them speak who gives utterance to the sentiments of 
 them all. " As the hart panteth after the- water brooks 
 so panteth my soul after thee, God, my soul thirsteth 
 for God, for the living God." " Whom have I in heaven 
 but thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire beside 
 thee. My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the 
 strength of my heart, and my portion forever." " As for 
 me, I will behold thy face in righteousness : I shall be 
 satisfied when I awake in thy likeness." God, to such a 
 man, becomes the portion of the soul. In his existence, 
 perfections, government, plans, works ; in his promises, 
 and in his communications to the soul that loves him, and 
 in the hope of dwelling with him, the weary heart finds 
 peace, and the burdened spirit rest. From the fountain 
 of living waters the returning wanderer drinks and thirsts 
 no more. It is pure, elevating, inexhaustible. Like a 
 perennial fountain it fails not by years, it is not exhausted 
 by the numbers that partake of it. It does not tire in the 
 enjoyment ; it does not leave the soul in sickness ; it does 
 not forsake it in death. That happiness goes with us to 
 all lands and to all worlds, and becomes brighter and 
 purer as earthly joys fade away and as the hour ap- 
 proaches when we must leave the world. None have 
 come to God and been disappointed ; none who have truly 
 tasted his love have had again a supreme relish for the 
 joys of sense and of sin. 
 
 I said that a part of the experience of this world in re- 
 ference to the happiness which is sought away from God, 
 is unrecorded. I refer to that as yet unwritten volume 
 where would be recorded all the sad disappointments, the 
 cares, the anxieties, and the sorrows of those who are 
 seeking happiness in the world. I mean the corroding 
 
THE MISERY OF FORSAKING GOD. 115 
 
 envy, and jealousy, and chagrin, and inward vexation 
 which may enter the most splendid circle, and which may 
 hve there despite all that is gay and winning. In that 
 brilliant world all may seem to be smiles and blandish- 
 ments ; on the pillow where the aching head shall rest, 
 the eyes may give vent to tears at disappointment, or the 
 heart be swollen by envy and chagrin, for which tears 
 would afford no relief. Madame Malibran, the most ce- 
 lebrated opera singer of her age, returning home from a 
 grand aristocratic party, where all had striven to over- 
 whelm her with admiration, burst into tears, knowing 
 that after all she was " a mere opera-singer,^' Alexan- 
 der wept on the throne of the world. Charles V. and 
 Dioclesian descended from the throne to seek that happi- 
 ness in the vale of private life, which could never be 
 found in the robes of royalty. Goethe, the celebrated 
 German author, said of himself in advanced age, " They 
 have called me a child of fortune, nor have I any 
 wish to complain of the course of my life. Yet it has 
 been nothing but labor and sorrow, and I may truly say 
 that in seventy-five years, I have not had four weeks of 
 true comfort. It was the constant rolling of a stone that 
 was always to be lifted anew." Who shall record the 
 disappointment of those who seek wealth as their portion ? 
 Who shall gather up and write down the names of the 
 young men — numerous as mighty armies — who have 
 sought fame, and been disappointed? Who shall give 
 utterance to the unrecorded sighs that bespoke the fail- 
 ures in the pursuit of happiness in the gay assembly ? — 
 The most instructive part of the history of our world is 
 unwritten — at least is not written among mortals. It is 
 recorded in the book that preserves the memory of human 
 deeds with reference to the judgment, and will be deve- 
 loped only on the final trial. It is the record of number- 
 less individual failures and disappointments ; the total 
 history of that which makes up the vast experiment in 
 our world to find enjoyment without the friendship of the 
 Most High ; the record of what has resulted to men for 
 having forsaken the fountain of living waters, and for 
 having hewed out to themselves cisterns, broken cisterns 
 that can hold no water. 
 
 Wandering sinner, permit me to say to you in conclu- 
 
116 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 sion, you can never be happy without God. You are 
 destined to be a miserable man while you wander away 
 from him — as the Prodigal Son was wretched who had 
 left his father's home. Nor wealth, nor books, nor busi- 
 ness, nor games, nor the dance, nor eating, nor drinking, 
 nor a splendid dwelling, nor a brilliant reputation, nor all 
 that you can do to secure a grateful remembrance after 
 you are dead, can be a substitute for the happiness that 
 is to be found in God. You may be false to your Maker, 
 but the world will be true to the God that made it. It 
 will not impart happiness except Avhen he bids it. True 
 is that world to its God — the earth, the air, the sea, the 
 silver, and the gold. Not one of them will give peace 
 except when he commands, and all of them he can make 
 a curse to your soul. There is no substitute for the bliss 
 which he alone can give ; and though you may pervert 
 your own powers, yet you can never so torture and per- 
 vert the works of the Almighty eis to make them confer 
 permanent enjoyment except Avhen he commands. 
 
 Wandering sinner, learn from our subject the benevo- 
 lent design of the plan of redemption. It is to bring back 
 an alienated and wretched race to the fountain of living 
 waters. It comes to us on the presumption that man 7nust 
 be miserable as long as he continues to wander away 
 from his Maker. From the broken cistern which can hold 
 no water, it would re-conduct the race back to God, and 
 restore the bliss of Eden. happy if man had never wan- 
 dered away, and happy still if he would return. Not one 
 favor would be denied by him who has had so just cause 
 to be offended ; not one frown would the sinner find on 
 the brow of the Almighty ; not one expression of kind- 
 ness would be withheld if he w^ould return. The same 
 heaven might be his abode as if he had never sinned, 
 and the bliss of even God's eternal favor may be height- 
 ened to the returning sinner by all there is in thank- 
 fulness for redemption, and in returning joy after many 
 sorrows. 
 
 Wandering sinner, I call on you to return to your long 
 forgotten God — the fountain of living waters. In view 
 of the experience of the world ; in view of its recorded 
 woes in every face of care, in every sick bed, in every 
 grave, as the result of wandering away from God; and in 
 
THE MISERY OF FORSAKING GOD. 117 
 
 view of the unrecorded ills of forsaking him, I call on you 
 to come back. Sufficient has been the sad experience of 
 the world to satisfy you that in those wanderings happi- 
 ness never can be found. Let the experience of the 
 world — dear bought in millions of instances — lead you to 
 return. Come back, unhappy wanderer, come back : 
 come to the ever-living fountain of bliss ; come and par- 
 take of the happiness that never deceives, and that never 
 fails. From the parched and desolate land where you 
 have gone, come back to the fountain of living waters. 
 Yes, come to the fountain of living waters ; for the Spirit 
 and the bride say come, and whosoever will let him take 
 the water of life freely. 
 
SERMON VIII. 
 
 GOD IS WORTHY OF CONFIDENCE. 
 Job xxii. 21. Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace. 
 
 That is, with God. The case to which the text refers 
 ■was this. Eliphaz — who addresses these words to Job — 
 supposed that he was wholly a stranger to the true God ; 
 that he had altogether erroneous views of his govern- 
 ment ; that he regarded him as harsh and severe in his 
 administration, and as unworthy of confidence. In his 
 sutferings, Job had at some times indulged in remarks of 
 considerable severity on the divine dealings. This Avas 
 by no means the prevailing character of the man ; but it 
 was so interpreted by his friends, and Eliphaz now de- 
 signs to assure him that he could never find peace until 
 he should become more acquainted with the divine cha- 
 racter, and should feel that God was worthy of confi- 
 dence. He proceeds, therefore, in a most beautiful manner 
 to exhort him to be reconciled to God, and portrays the 
 benefits which would result from such reconciliation. 
 The meaning is, 'Become truly acquainted with the 
 character and government of God. You have noAV no 
 just views of him. You regard him as harsh, severe, 
 tyrannical. You murmur, and complain, and are wretch- 
 ed. Estranged from him, you must be miserable. But 
 it is not too late to repent and return to him ; and in so 
 doing you will find peace.' Eliphaz — however impro- 
 perly he applied this to Job — has here stated a doctrine 
 which has been confirmed by all the subsequent revela- 
 tions in the Bible, and by all experience, that happiness 
 follows reconciliation with God, and that true peace is 
 found only there. This doctrine must have been under- 
 stood as early as religion was knov/n after the fall. Man 
 became alienated from God by the apostasy, and conse- 
 quently miserable; and peace was to be found again 
 only by reconciliation with him. 
 
 There are two great difficulties in the minds of men. 
 The one is, they have no just views of the character and 
 
GOD IS WORTHY OF CONFIDENCE. 119 
 
 government of God ; and the second is, if his true cha- 
 racter is made known to them, they have no pleasure in 
 it — no confidence in it. Both these difficulties must be 
 removed before man can be reconciled to his Maker. Iso 
 small part of the difficulty will be removed if we can 
 show him that the character of God is such as to deserve 
 his confidence. To that task I now proceed, and shall 
 arrange my thoughts under three heads : — 
 
 I. The liability to error on our part in judging of the 
 character and government of God ; 
 
 II. The real difficulties in the case ; and 
 
 III. The evidence that he is worthy of our confidence. 
 I would not attempt an argument of this nature, were 
 
 It not that I believe that the great difficulty with men is, 
 that they have no confidence in. God. This is the source 
 of all our woes. Man does not believe that the God of 
 the Bible is worthy to be the Sovereign of the universe ; 
 that his government is equal ; and that the terms of his 
 favors are the best that could be. He confides in his own 
 understanding rather than in God ; forms his own plan 
 of religion rather than embrace the one Avhich God has 
 revealed ; and relies on his own merits for salvation ra- 
 ther than on the merits of him whom God has sent. He 
 goes not to him in perplexity ; asks not his support in 
 sickness ; relies not on him in the hour of death. The 
 great evil in this world is a want of confidence in God ; 
 — a want of confidence producing the same disasters 
 there which it does in a commercial community, and in 
 the relations of domestic life. The great thing needful 
 to make this a happy world is to restore confidence in 
 the Creator — confidence, the great restorer of happiness 
 every where. 
 
 Now, men can never be reconciled to God unless this 
 confidence shall be restored. You and your neighbor 
 are at variance. The dispute has been bitter and long. 
 There has been a misunderstanding, and dissatisfaction, 
 and a lawsuit, and a long strife resulting in a confirmed 
 alienation. Now, suppose, in this difficulty, you are 
 wholly right, and your neighbor wholly wrong. You 
 have really done him no injury. You have not been un- 
 willing to be on terms of friendship with him. But a 
 long train of circumstances, which you could not have 
 
120 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 well controlled, has operated to make him misunderstand 
 your character, or suspect your motives. Evil minded 
 men have for their own ends misrepresented you. They 
 have reported to him things which you have not said, 
 and they have magnified trifles until they seem to be 
 mountains. Affairs have come to such a state, that he 
 has no confidence in you, and believes your character to 
 be wholly unworthy of respect. Now what is to be done 
 in the case to bring about reconciliation ? Not that you 
 are to change your character. Not that you are to make 
 acknowledgments where no wrong has been done. It 
 is to restore to his mind just confidence iii yourself- — 
 to explain matters ; to show him what you are ; to undo 
 the evils which busy-bodies have done in giving him a 
 wrong impression of you ; — and if, back of all this, he 
 has had hard thoughts of you without the show of rea- 
 son, and simply because he does not like a character of 
 honesty and truth, he is to lay all that aside. Then peace 
 would be restored. This is what is to be done in reli- 
 gion. It is to convince men that God is worthy of con- 
 fidence ; — and that all that has been said by infidels, and 
 sceptics, and scoffers against him, is unjust and wrong ; 
 and then, if back of all these false representations of the 
 character of God, you have been cherishing any feelings 
 hostile to his real character, to entreat you to lay them 
 aside. This would be reconciliation. — And why should 
 a man wish to cherish any hard thoughts of God without 
 the shadow of reason — hating him from the pure love 
 OF hating him ? 
 
 in the case of the two individuals referred to, it will 
 easily be seen that the one who supposed he was injured, 
 would be liable to form very erroneous estimates of the 
 character of the other. A man is not in very favorable 
 circumstances for estimating character when he is en- 
 gaged in a quarrel, nor is he then very likely to do jus- 
 tice to the motives and the actions of his neighbor. A 
 thousand things are concerned in forming our judgments, 
 against which we should, in such circumstances, guard 
 ourselves. Now, how is it in our estimate of the cha- 
 racter of God ? Are we in no danger of being influenced 
 by improper feelings ? This is the point before us. It 
 does not require long consideration, and I shall therefore 
 
GOD IS WORTHY OF CONFIDENCE. 121 
 
 just refer to four sources of danger on this point which I 
 think any careful observer will find in his own mind. 
 
 (1.) The first is, that we are in danger of being go- 
 verned in our views of God by mexQ feeling, rather than 
 by sober judgment and calm investigation. We must 
 all have been sensible of this in our differences with 
 others, and cannot have forgotten how our feelings mag- 
 nified trifles, refused explanations, imputed wrong mo- 
 tives, and gave a coloring to the whole transaction. We 
 can remember how little weight at that time the declara- 
 tion of the man himself from whom we were estranged, 
 had on our mind, and how little credit we gave to what 
 we deemed the partial and one-sided representations of 
 his friends. There is danger that the same thing will 
 happen in regard to God. The views of most men on 
 the subject of religion are drawn from their feelings. 
 How few are they who sit down to a calm investigation 
 to ascertain what in fact is the character and government 
 of God ! How few of those who speculatively profess to 
 believe the Bible, sit down patiently to ascertain what it 
 teaches on that point ! How many there are who are 
 drawn along by their own reflections and feelings into 
 the views which they now entertain of God, or who have 
 been led to form their present views by a remark of some 
 man who is an infidel or a scoffer ! 
 
 (2.) A second source of liability to error is, that we 
 are often in circumstances where we are in danger of 
 cherishing hard thoughts of God. He takes away our 
 property, or our health, or our friends ; he frustrates our 
 plans, hedges up our way, throws embarrassments in our 
 course, and does this, so far as we can see, without rea- 
 son or necessity. Now, no man is in the best situation 
 to judge candidly, or to form a favorable opinion of the 
 divine character, in such circumstances. The tendency 
 is to make us feel that his government is severe and arbi- 
 trary. Suppose a case between two neighbors where a 
 difference existed. Would you be in a situation to judge 
 favorably of the character of your neighbor, should he 
 be doing constantly what you thought to be injury to 
 you without reason ? I know this case is not quite paral- 
 lel, but it may illustrate what I mean. This was the 
 case with Job. He had suffered much ; and many of his 
 
 11 
 
122 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 remarks — full of complaint and murmuring — show the 
 effect of this condition on his mind in unfitting him to 
 come to such conclusions as should lead him to confide 
 in God. 
 
 (3.) A third source of liability to error in judging of 
 the character of God is, that we always regard ourselves 
 as the aggrieved and injured party. We do not allow 
 ourselves to suppose it possible that God should be right 
 and we wrong ; but whatever injury is done, we allow 
 ourselves to suppose has been done by him. If God 
 treats us as if we were great sinners, we do not allow 
 ourselves for a moment to suppose that we are such, but 
 instantly revert to our ideas of our own morality and in- 
 tegrity ; if he threatens to punish us forever in hell, we 
 do not allow ourselves for a moment to suppose that we 
 deserve such a treatment, but regard it at once as proof 
 that he is arbitrary and stern ; and while this is the case, 
 how is it possible for a man to put confidence in God, or 
 to feel that he ought to be reconciled to him ? His oppo- 
 sition he regards as in no small degree meritorious ; and 
 he feels that he would be wanting in self-respect to cherish 
 any other views of his Maker than he actually does. 
 
 (4.) A fourth source of liability to error, or to a want 
 of confidence in God, lies back of all this. It is not 
 merely that we do not understand his true character, but 
 it is that we are not pleased with that character when it 
 is understood. We have by nature no pleasure in God. 
 He is too holy, too just, too pure, too true, to satisfy 
 creatures such as we are ; and there is no fact better es- 
 tablished in the history of man, account for it as you 
 may, and draw what inferences from it you choose, than 
 that man by nature has a strong opposition to the charac- 
 ter of God, even when that character is understood. He 
 does not like to retain him in his knowledge. He loves 
 sin too much, and hates restraint, and desires his own 
 gratification, and has no sympathy with the divine per- 
 fections and attributes. Now, with this state of mind, 
 he looks on God and all that he does, through a distorted 
 medium, and is constantly seeking some ground of accu- 
 sation ; something that shall to him answer the purpose 
 of self-defence. 
 
 These are some of the liabilities to error in judging of 
 
GOD IS VVORTHTf OP CONFIDENCE. 123 
 
 the divine character, and it is to be feared that the views 
 which not a few have of God, have been formed under 
 some such feehngs as these. It is evident, however, at a 
 glance, that all the views of the divine character which 
 are formed under influences like these are likely to be 
 wrong, and should constitute no real difficulty in the 
 question whether we shall put confidence in him. I pro- 
 ceed, therefore, 
 
 II. To the second general point of enquiry — the real 
 difficulties in the case. I mean where a man has no pre- 
 judice ; no embittered feeling ; no cherished opposition : 
 where he is not suffering under any ill in such a way as 
 to sour his mind or pervert his understanding, and where 
 he would ivish to see such evidence that he may put un- 
 wavering confidence in God. 
 
 I think it is to be admitted that such a man may have 
 great difficulties. There are many things which he can- 
 not understand. There are many things which he can- 
 not reconcile with such a view. Briefly, for this is a 
 point on which we ought not long to dwell, such a man 
 will advert to such facts as the following, viz : 
 
 That sin should have been allowed to come into the 
 system formed by a holy God. That since he had power 
 to create or not, as he chose, and since worlds have been 
 made that were holy, and are still holy, that all should 
 not have been made so. That misery has come into the 
 universe, and that death, with many forms of wo, has 
 been commissioned to cut down one whole race, and that, 
 in doing it, the whole earth is strewed with hospitals, 
 and sick-beds, and graves. That the immortal mind 
 should be allowed to jeopard its infinite welfare, and 
 that trifles should be allowed to draw it away from 
 God, and virtue, and heaven. That any should suffer 
 forever— lingering on in hopeless despair, and rolling 
 amidst infinite torments without the possibility of alle- 
 viation, and without end. That since God can save 
 men, and will save a part, he has not purposed to 
 save all ; that on the supposition that the atonement is 
 ample, and that the blood of Christ can cleanse from all 
 and every sin, it is not in fact applied to all. That, in a 
 word, a God who claims to be worthy of the confidence 
 of the universe, and to be a being of infinite benevo- 
 
124 TRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 lence, should make such a world as this — full of sinners 
 and sufferers; and that when an atonement had been 
 made, he did not save all the race, and put an end to sin 
 and wo forever. 
 
 These, and kindred difficulties, meet the mind when 
 we think on this great subject ; and they meet us when 
 we endeavor to urge our fellow-sinners to be reconciled 
 to God, and to put confidence in him. On this ground 
 they hesitate. These are real, not imaginary difficulties. 
 They are probably felt by every mind that ever reflected 
 on the subject — and they are unexplained, unmitigated, 
 unremoved. I confess, for one, that I feel them, and feel 
 them more sensibly and powerfully the more I look at 
 them, and the longer I live. I do not understand these 
 facts ; and I make no advances towards understanding 
 them. I do not know that I have a ray of light on this 
 subject which I had not when the subject first flashed 
 across my soul. I have read, to some extent, what wise 
 and good men have written. I have looked at their va- 
 rious theories and explanations. I have endeavored to 
 weigh their arguments — ^for my whole soul pants for 
 light and relief on these questions. But I get neither ; 
 and in the distress and anguish of my own spirit, I con- 
 fess that I see no light Avhatever. I see not one ray to 
 disclose to me .the reason why sin came into the world; 
 why the earth is strewed with the dying and the dead, 
 and why man must suffer to all eternity. I have never 
 seen a particle of light thrown on these subjects that 
 has given a moment's ease to my tortured mind ; nor 
 have I an explanation to otfer, or a thought to sug- 
 gest, which would be a relief to you. I trust other 
 men — as they profess to do — understand this better than 
 I do, and that they have not the anguish of spirit which 
 I have ; but I confess, when I look on a world of sinners 
 and of sufterers ; upon death-beds and grave-yards ; upon 
 the world of wo filled with hosts to suffer forever ; — 
 when I see my friends, my parents, my family, my peo- 
 ple, my fellow-citizens — when I look upon a whole race, 
 all involved in this sin and danger, and when I see the 
 great mass of them wholly unconcerned, and Avhen I feel 
 that God only can save them and yet that he does not 
 
GOD IS WORTHY OF CONFIDENCE. 125 
 
 do it, I am struck dumb. It is all dark — dark — dark to 
 my soul — and I cannot disguise it. 
 
 Yet even here, in the midst of this gloom, I cast about 
 my eyes to see if I can find no evidence that God is 
 worthy of my confidence ; no evidence that though " clouds 
 and darkness are round about him, righteousness and 
 judgment are the habitation of his throne.'' Is there no- 
 thing on which my soul may rest, and of which I may 
 speak to my fellow-men, when their minds are involved 
 in the same perplexity ? And when I come to them as 
 the ambassador of God, and ask them to be reconciled, 
 is there nothing which I can say to convince them that 
 God is worthy of that confidence, and to satisfy them 
 that in all this gloom they may repose on their Creator ? 
 I have found for myself a rock in this heaving ocean ; a 
 star on which the eye may be fixed in the dark night. I 
 proceed, 
 
 III. In the third place to state, in the briefest manner 
 possible, the process of my own reflections on this point, 
 or the reasons why confidence should be placed in him, 
 and why men should be exhorted to become acquainted 
 with him, and be at peace. 
 
 My faith rests mainly on God's own word ; on the 
 testimony of himself in regard to his real character and 
 plans ; on the assurances which I find there, that, not- 
 withstanding all the difficulties in the case, he is holy, 
 true, just, good, and worthy of universal love and confi- 
 dence. It is the assurance of him who knows his own 
 character, and who declares most solemnly that all that he 
 does is consistent with the rules of eternal equity and right. 
 He has given what I believe to be a revelation of his 
 character, and has made such declarations respecting it 
 as to claim the confidence of mankind. Here my mind 
 rests. Conscious of my liability to err; knowing how 
 short-sighted I am ; feeling that man must be incompe- 
 tent to sit in judgment on the government and plans of 
 God ; and knowing that there iiiay be developments 3'et 
 that shall make all that is now dark, clear ; all that is ob- 
 scure, light, I put my trust in his assurances, and the 
 mind finds repose. 
 
 But I find also in his government, as it is actually ad- 
 ministered, not a little to confirm this confidence, and to 
 
 11^ 
 
126 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 calm the distresses of the soul ; not a little that I think 
 may be so stated as to show to men that he is worthy of 
 their confidence. I shall state some of these things now, 
 in the conclusion of this discourse. It can be merely, 
 however, to glance at thoughts which should be expand- 
 ed to much greater length. They are such as these : — 
 
 (1.) The government of God is one of law — always 
 presumptive proof that a government is worthy of con- 
 fidence. It is not a government of mere will, or caprice ; 
 not a government of passion, and therefore not one of 
 arbitrary tyranny. Where there is law which is known, 
 and which is rigidly adhered to, there may be confidence. 
 It shows that the sovereign has confidence himself in his 
 own principles ; that he is willing that they should be 
 known ; that he does not mean to be governed by ca- 
 price. He publishes his principles of administration, and 
 submits them to the world ; and in such a fact there is 
 proof that there is stability. A mob is governed by no 
 law ; a tyrant is controlled by no principle but his will ; 
 or if laws are proclaimed, they are proclaimed only to be 
 set aside by caprice. But it is not so with God. His is 
 a government of law, and has been from the beginning. 
 We know what he requires; we know what he will do 
 in given circumstances. Those laws are not set aside 
 by will ; they are not disregarded by caprice or passion. 
 In such a government there is presumptive ground, at 
 least, for confidence. 
 
 (2.) That government is stable and firm. What it is 
 in one place it is in another. What he requires of one 
 he requires of all ; what he forbids in one place he does 
 every where. What he prohibits in heaven, he does on 
 earth and in hell ; what he approves in heaven, he ap- 
 proves in all worlds. What in one generation he ap- 
 proves or forbids, he approves or forbids in all ; what in 
 one complexion or climate, he does every where. Virtue 
 that he rewards in one age, he rewards in all ; and vice 
 that he punishes in one clime, he punishes every where. 
 The deed that excites his displeasure beneath rags, ex- 
 cites his displeasure beneath the purple ; and the victim 
 that he smiles upon on the throne, pleases him not less in 
 the cottage. The light which comes to our eye from the 
 sun, is governed by the same laws as the light which is 
 
GOD IS WORTHY OF CONFIDE^-CE. 127 
 
 borne from the remotest star ; and the same laws apply to 
 water on the rose-bud and m the dew-drop which control 
 it hi the deep ocean. We know, therefore, what to ex- 
 pect. We see a government that is settled and firm ; and 
 such a government has at least some of the elements to 
 produce confidence. 
 
 (3.) All the operations of his government, and all his 
 laws, tend to promote the welfare of his subjects. None 
 are originally designed to produce misery; none do pro- 
 duce misery except when violated. There are, for ex- 
 ample, certain laws pertaining to health. They require 
 temperance, purity, industry, absence from exciting and 
 violent passions. All these laws tend to the welfare of 
 the individual, and if obeyed, injure no one. There are 
 certain laws pertaining to the acquisition of property. 
 These laws, if obeyed, injure no one, but would promote 
 the welfare of all. These are laws requiring truth, ho- 
 nesty, temperance, chastity, love, kindness, charity. None 
 are uijured by their observance. None ever have been. 
 None ever will be. It is a matter of the clearest demon- 
 stration, that if all those laws had been observed in the 
 exact sense of their requirements from the creation of the 
 universe, no one would have been injured by them ; and 
 you cannot find one of the laws of his kingdom whose 
 observance would not have been attended with benefit, 
 or where its violation has not been an injury sooner or 
 later. This is so clear that it needs no argument ; and is 
 not such a government worthy of confidence ? Has it not 
 a claim on the love and obedience of those who are its 
 subjects ? To see the full force of this, you have only to 
 remember that it was in the power of God to have made 
 laws directly the reverse, and to have so ordained them 
 that the observance of each one would have been fol- 
 lowed with a sigh or a groan. When I suffer, therefore, 
 and when, under the influence of suffering, I am disposed 
 to complain of God, let me remember that that suffering 
 is somehow connected with the violation of law, and that 
 the Creator has ordained no law, in the exact observ- 
 ance of which such misery would have followed. In 
 such a God, and hi such a government, can we see no 
 reasons for confidence ? 
 
 (4.) I look a step farther. I see a great number of 
 
128 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 arrangements designed to meet the evils which have in 
 fact grown up in the system — evils in all cases the result 
 of some violated law. I know the great difficulty lies 
 just here, and you will ask me why those evils were 
 allowed to come into the system ? Why were they not 
 prevented ? This is the gordion knot which we can neither 
 cut nor untie. I answer frankly that I do not know. I 
 have not one ray of light to shed here. I am involved 
 in deep midnight, as I believe all mankind are ; and I 
 see not that one explanation has ever been offered that 
 has helped the matter in the least. But when the evil 
 has entered the system, what is the conduct of the sove- 
 reign then ? Has he suffered it to go on unheeded, unre- 
 buked, and with no effort to arrest it? Are there no 
 devices, no contrivances to stay the evil, and ultimately 
 to remove it ? If the original law were good, he would be 
 under no obligation to interpose to arrest the evil resulting 
 from its violation ; but if he did interpose, it would be so 
 much proof standing out by itself that he was worthy the 
 confidence of the sufferers. This, then, introduces us into 
 a new department of the divine administration, and a 
 department that extends as far as we are concerned with 
 evil and wo. It is the department of remedies for the 
 evils of the violated system ; — a remedial arrangement 
 designed to anticipate the coming evil, and to prevent its 
 being finally and wlioUy destructive. Such are the reme- 
 dies in the case of disease designed to meet and mitigate 
 it, or to remove it ; and such is the great remedy for all 
 the maladies of men in the atonement. It is almost sus- 
 ceptible now of demonstration, and the proof is increasing 
 every year — that there is not a form of disease to which 
 the human system is liable for which some salutary re- 
 medy has not been provided ; it is capable of complete 
 demonstration that there is not an evil of any kind which 
 sill has introduced, pertaining to the shattered body and 
 the darkened soul, for which a complete remedy has not 
 been provided in the plan of redemption. Wo, in this 
 life, may all be mitigated by that plan, and completely 
 removed hereafter ; the soul, contaminated by sin, may 
 become yet wholly pure ; death, the great evil, may be 
 wholly destroyed, and the time come when the grave shall 
 
GOD IS WORTHY OF CONFIDENCE. 129 
 
 not have a tenant, and when the whole earth shall not 
 have a tomb. But if this be so, then there is ground of 
 confidence in the government of God. To such a being 
 I would not be a stranger. 
 
 (5.) We come to a fifth feature of his administration. 
 It is, that in that plan of complete recovery, none are ex- 
 cluded from his favor who desire his favor. I trust you 
 will understand me, and not give me credit for any more 
 proof under this point than I deserve. I do not say that 
 none are finally excluded from the favor of God. I am 
 not able to come to such a conclusion. But this is my 
 position, that none are excluded from his favor who de- 
 sire his favor ; that none of those who are lost had any 
 WISH to be his friends. This is the question of most 
 thrilling interest to us. It is not whether any have been 
 lost, or will be. It is not whether Achan, Judas, Simon 
 Magus, Cesar Borgia, Richard III., and Voltaire went to 
 heaven. It is whether it can or cannot be demonstrated 
 that any have been sent to hell who sincerely desired to 
 GO TO HEAVEN ; whether any have been refused forgive- 
 ness of sin who sincerely wished it ; whether any have 
 been thrust away from the cross who sincerely ashed 
 to be saved by the blood of the Redeemer ; whether any 
 have truly plead for mercy, and have been denied ; whe- 
 ther, in the world of wo, it can ever be said — 
 
 *< Here's a soul that perished, suing 
 For the boasted Saviour's aid." 
 
 If there have been any such instances, it is right to 
 ask where the evidence is to be found. Is it in the 
 Bible ? To me it speaks a wholly different language. 
 Have those who have gone down to death ever said this ? 
 Have Nero and Caligula, Herod and Cesar Borgia, 
 Paine and D'Alembert any where left it on record that 
 they had sincerely applied for pardon and salvation 
 through the atonement and were rejected, and that they 
 became monsters in iniquity because God would not save 
 them ? Such a record remains yet to be adduced. Go to 
 the multitudes of profligates and atheists ; the dissolute 
 and the profane ; the unprincipled and the vile, and ask 
 them the question, ^ Are you thus because you went in 
 humble prayer before God, and sued for pardon and sal- 
 
130 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 vation in the name of the Redeemer, and were rejected ?' 
 And what would be the answer ? A volley of curses, 
 perhaps, that the question was asked at all ; certainly- 
 such a spirited response as would effectually clear them 
 from the suspicion that they had ever done such a weak 
 thing as to pray. The truth is simply this. No means 
 will induce them to come and ask for pardon. We plead 
 with men ; we urge argument and entreaty ; we appeal 
 to their consciences, their hopes, their fears ; we point 
 them to heaven, and we warn them of hell, but all in 
 vain. The great mass press on in the broad road to death, 
 and scarce one takes the pains even to turn his head and 
 to say — what he feels — that he scorns the idea of seeking 
 salvation through a Redeemer. Meantime here and there 
 one leaves " the herd," comes back, and asks for mercy ; 
 and I appeal to the whole history of the world — from the 
 publican and the dying thief to the present time — in proof 
 that no one who came in that manner was ever rejected. 
 And to the same universal history I appeal with the same 
 confidence in proof that no one of the lost ever sincerely 
 desired to be saved. But if so, here is at least one ground 
 of confidence in God. What could we ask more ? 
 
 (6.) I have one other remark only to make now — for 
 the time will not admit of more. It is, that they who 
 know most of the character and government of God, and 
 who are best qualified to judge, repose most entire con- 
 fidence in him. Angels in heaven doubt not his goodness, 
 and mercy, and truth, and in their bosoms there dwells 
 no distrust. Multitudes on earth who were once alien- 
 ated and even miserable because they were alienated ; 
 who murmured against God, and who, in murmuring, 
 found no relief; and who rebelled in the day of adversity, 
 and thus plunged themselves into deeper sorrows, have 
 returned, and now see that he is worthy of their highest 
 trust. Since their return ; since they have become ^ ac- 
 quainted' with him, they have been at peace. They have 
 not doubted that he was qualified to rule ; and they have 
 committed to him the interest dearest to mortals — the in- 
 terest of the immortal soiil — and felt that all was safe. 
 Prophets and apostles did this ; confessors and martyrs 
 did it ; and there are tens of thousands now on earth, 
 and millions in heaven who have done it. God they have 
 
GOD IS WORTHY OF CONFIDENCE. 131 
 
 found true to his promises. The afflicted have found 
 him a support ; the dying have leaned on his arm ; and 
 the living now find him all that the heart desires to find 
 m their God. I make use of this as an argument. It is 
 the argument of history ; of experience. You will not 
 doubt that it is a legitimate argument, for they have had 
 all the feelings of distrust, and complaining, and murmur- 
 ing, which any can have now, and they have passed 
 through all the circumstances which we can conceive of 
 to test our confidence in God. It has been enough. They 
 have been upheld, and have found it true that he would 
 ^ never leave nor forsake them.' 
 
 JNIy hearers, I have desired so to set this subject before 
 you as to describe your state of mind, and to show you 
 the propriety of being reconciled to God. I know not 
 that I have succeeded in removing one difficulty from the 
 mind ; but I would trust that the remarks Avhich I have 
 made will not increase the perplexity. To you candidly 
 I commit the remarks made ; with God I leave them for 
 his blessing. The conclusions which I think we have 
 reached, are these — 
 
 (1.) It is a duty to be reconciled to God : — a duty to 
 him, for his government is just and right, and opposition 
 to him is lurnng. 
 
 (2.) It is unwise to maintain the state of mind in which 
 many indulge — chafed and fretted against God, and yet 
 using no means to ascertain his true character, and to be 
 at peace. 
 
 (3.) The world is doing its Creator great injustice. It 
 charges him with cruelty and wrong; holds him to be 
 unworthy of confidence and love ; is filled with hard 
 thoughts and fretted feelings ; and is venting complaints 
 and murmurings. Thousands murmur in their hearts ; 
 thousands complain openly ; thousands curse him on his 
 throne. What a world ! 
 
 (4.) It is foolish as well as wicked to resist him. What 
 can resistance avail against almighty power ! Justice and 
 wisdom, truth and love constrain us, therefore, to say to 
 each one of you, ' Acquaint now thyself with him, and 
 be at peace !' 
 
SERMON IX. 
 
 REPENTANCE. 
 
 Acts xvii, 30. And the times of this ignorance God winked at, but now 
 commandelh all men every where to repent. 
 
 This command is as positive as any other in the Bible. 
 It is simple and easily understood. From its obligations 
 there are no exceptions made in favor of the great, the 
 learned, the honored, the gay, the amiable, the moral. 
 It is addressed to all men, in all climes, and in all ages of 
 the world. It comes, therefore, to ns, and is laid across 
 our path. Repentance is here urged as the command of 
 the Almighty. In other places it is declared to be indis- 
 pensable to salvation, and we are assured that unless we 
 repent we shall perish. 
 
 Yet men have many objections to yielding obedience 
 to this command of God. At one time they allege, or they 
 would allege if they were to express the real feelings of 
 the heart, that they have done nothing which requires 
 repentance. They have done no wrong which they have 
 not endeavored to repair, and they are conscious of no 
 crime. They are not idolators ; they have not been guilty 
 of murder, or robbery, or fraud, or falsehood. Their lives 
 have been upright, and why should they weep ? At 
 another time it is said, that repentance is wholly beyond 
 the power of man ; that it is a work which can only be 
 performed by the aid of God ; and the expression of won- 
 der is scarce withheld that a command should be urged 
 to do that wliich it is known will never be done but by 
 divine assistance. At another time it is alleged, that the 
 requirement is wholly arbitrary ; that the terms of salva- 
 tion have in themselves no intrinsic value or necessit)^; and 
 that it is unreasonable that God should suspend eternal 
 salvation on the exercise of repentance and faith. Why, 
 it is asked, has he selected from all the exercises of min 
 these tivo as those in connexion with which he will be- 
 
 133 
 
REPENTANCE. 133 
 
 Stow salvation ? Why these more than love, or hope, or 
 joy, or zeal ? Is there any such intrmsic fitness or value 
 in sorrow and in faith in Christianity as to justify this se- 
 lection as constituting the only ground of salvation ? And 
 why in this arrangement has he chosen these mere emo- 
 tions of the heart in preference to a correct moral cha- 
 racter as the conditions of his favor ? Would it not be 
 more worthy of God to make eternal life depend on virtue 
 and benevolence ; on honesty and truth ; on the faithful 
 discharge of our duties in the family and in public life, 
 than on regret for the past, and on the mere exercise of 
 faith ? And why is it that he requires the man of many 
 years and many virtues, and the youth of great amiable- 
 ness and purity, to renounce all confidence in these vir- 
 tues and all dependence on them, and to approach God 
 weeping over the errors of a life ? Can he require feigned 
 sorrow ? Can there be virtue in forced and affected 
 tears? Again it is asked, why has God made the path to 
 heaven a path of sorrow ? Why must we go with the 
 head bowed down with grief? Why has he made the 
 road a thorn-hedge, and not planted it with roses ? Are 
 there no joyous emotions that might have been made the 
 condition of salvation ; nothing that would make the eye 
 bright, and the heart cheerful, and the soul glad, that 
 might have been selected of at least equal value with 
 pensiveness and a heavy heart; with melancholy and 
 tears ? 
 
 Such are some of the feelings that spring up in the mind 
 when we come to men and urge upon them tlie duty of 
 repentance. My desire is, if possible, to meet these feel- 
 ings, and to convince you that they are unfounded. I 
 shall aim to show you that the requisition of repentance 
 is not arbitrary, but that it is founded in the nature of 
 things, and that a man must repent if he will ever enter 
 into the kingdom of God. In doing this, I shall submit to 
 your attention a series of observations, which will have 
 a direct bearing on the case before us. 
 
 I. In the first place, repentance is a simple operation 
 of mind understood by all persons, and in some form 
 practised by all. You cannot find a person who at some 
 time has not exercised repentance. You cannot find a 
 child who needs to be told what is meant by being re- 
 
134 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 quired to repent when he has done a wrong thmg ; and 
 in the emotions of a child, when he feels sorrow that 
 he has done wrong, and who resolves to make con- 
 fession of it and to do so no more, you have the elements 
 of all that God requires of man as a condition of salvation. 
 You have broken the commands of a father. His law 
 was plain ; his will was clear. When the deed is per- 
 formed, you reflect on what you have done. You see 
 that his command was right ; that you have done wrong 
 by breaking his law, and have incurred his just displea- 
 sure. He has always treated you kindly ; his commands 
 have never been unreasonable; and you cannot justify 
 yourself in what you have done. You see that you have 
 done wrong. By a law of your nature you feel pain or 
 distress that you did the wrong. You resolve that you 
 will go and confess it, and that you will do so no more. 
 This is repentance ; and this is the whole of it. You have 
 a friend. He has a thousand times, and in a thousand 
 ways, laid you under obligation. He has helped you in 
 pecuniary distress ; shared your losses ; attended you in 
 sickness; defended your reputation when attacked. He 
 himself, in turn, suffers. Wicked men blacken and defame 
 his character, and a cloud rolls upon him and overwhelms 
 him. In an evil hour your mind is poisoned, and you 
 forget all that he has done for you, and you join in the 
 prevalent suspicion and error in regard to him, and give 
 increased currency to the slanderous reports. Subsequent- 
 ly you reflect that it was all wrong ; that you acted an 
 imgrateful part ; that you suffered your mind to be too 
 easily influenced to forget your benefactor, and that you 
 have done him great and lasting injury. You are pained 
 at the heart. You resolve that you will go to him and 
 make confession, and that you will implore forgiveness, 
 and that you will endeavor as far as possible to undo the 
 evil. This is repentance ; and this is all. Let these simple 
 elements be transferred to God and to rehgion, and you 
 have all that is included in repentance. Be as honest to- 
 wards God as you have been many a time toward a pa- 
 rent or a friend, and you will have no difficulty on the 
 subject. You will see that it was neither arbitrary nor 
 unreasonable. The difficulty is, when you approach reli- 
 gion you are determined to find something unintelligible, 
 
REPENTANCE. 135 
 
 severe, and harsh, and you at once suppose that God in 
 his arrangement is arbitrary and unkind. 
 
 I said that repentance was well understood by all per- 
 sons, and practised by all. Nothing is more common on 
 earth ; — on earth only. The angels in heaven having 
 never sinned have nothing of which to repent ; and of 
 course it is unknown there. Devils, though having sinned 
 long and much, have yet felt no regret at their crime, and 
 have never been disposed to go and ask for pardon : and 
 there is no repentance among them. Sinners that descend 
 from our world to the world of wo, go beyond the reach 
 of mercy and the desire of pardon, and there is no peni- 
 tence in hell. But on earth what is more common ? Who 
 is there that has not exercised repentance ? Who is there 
 that has never felt that he has done wrong, and that has 
 resolved that he would do so no more ? No inconsidera- 
 ble portion of every man's life is made up of regrets for 
 the errors and follies of the past. No small part of the 
 sighs and groans of the world are the bitter fruit of mis- 
 takes and crimes. No small part of the recollections of an 
 old man are made up of remembrances of days of folly 
 and of subsequent regret ; of the indulgence of appetite 
 and passion, and of the bitterly lamented fruits; of wrong 
 thoughts, and wrong words, and wrong deeds over which 
 he has had abundant leisure to mourn. These feelings 
 occur on the remembrance of errors, follies, crimes. They 
 invade the mind because we feel that w^e have done 
 ivrong, and that we ought to have done difterently. They 
 are not arbitrary. They are the operations of the regular 
 laws of the mind ; and they are operations which a gene- 
 rous and noble heart would not wish to check or prevent. 
 
 If such feelings actually occur on the recollection of 
 the past, it is natural to ask why we should not expect to 
 find them in religion ? We see repentance every where 
 else, and manifested in every man's life. We perceive 
 regrets at the past starting up in the minds of men of all 
 ages and all lands ; and why shall it be regarded as strange 
 that it is required in a system of religion designed to recall 
 the world from error and from sin ? 
 
 Further; the most deep and pungent feelings which 
 men ever have are found in regrets for the crimes of the 
 past. The mind no where else knows emotions so over- 
 
136 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 whelming and so torturing, as in the recollections of past 
 guilt. And why, then, should deep emotion he deemed 
 strange or unreasonable in religion ? Why should it be 
 regarded as fanatical that the soul should be burdened 
 with a sense of guilt when it comes back to God ? If you 
 feel pained when you recollect that you have wounded 
 the feelings of a friend ; if your mind is overwhelmed 
 when you thhik of disobedience towards a parent, 
 whether now living or dead ; if you are overwhelmed 
 when you are made conscious that you have been guilty 
 of great ingratitude, I ask why may we not expect that 
 there will be deep feeling in the return of a sinner to God ? 
 The sins which you have committed against a friend, 
 a parent, or an earthly benefactor, are trifles when com- 
 pared with the sins which we have committed against 
 our heavenly friend, parent, benefactor. David was guilty 
 of two of the most aggravated otfences which can be com- 
 mitted against human laws. That he felt the criminality 
 of these offences as committed against inan no one can 
 doubt ; but great as this consciousness of guilt was when 
 regarded as committed against vian, it was absorbed 
 and lost when he contemplated his offence as committed 
 against God. " Against thee, thee only," said he, 
 " have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight." Ps. li. 4. 
 My wonder is not that men feel deeply when they exer- 
 cise true repentance and become Christians, nor is it that 
 here and there one is so overwhelmed as to be driven to 
 permanent derangement. It is a matter of marvel that 
 they feel so little ; and a subject of praise and thanks- 
 giving that in nearly every instance the divine mercy in- 
 terposes, and the voice of pardon is heard speaking to the 
 soul, before the anxious and guilty sinner sinks into 
 despair. 
 
 II. My second proposition is, that God may appoint 
 his own terms of mercy, and that man has no right to 
 complain if he requires him to exercise repentance as a 
 condition of salvation. This general proposition is true 
 in relation to every thing, that God may appoint his own 
 terms on which his favors may be enjoyed, and that man 
 has neither the right to dictate nor complain. Health is 
 his gift ; and he has the absolute right — a right which he 
 is constantly exercising — to state to man on what terms 
 
REPENTANCE. 137 
 
 It may be enjoyed ; and if he does not choose to comply 
 with those terms, God will not depart from his settled 
 laws to give him health by miracle. Life is his gift, and 
 he has a right to say on what terms it shall be enjoyed ; 
 property is his gift, and he has a right to say to man how 
 it may be possessed. In like manner, pardon is the gift 
 of God, and he has a right to say on what terms it may 
 be obtained. An offender against law has no right to de- 
 mand forgiveness ; nor has he any more right to prescribe 
 the terms on which it may be obtained. Heaven is God's 
 home ; and he has a right to say to men on what terms 
 they may be admitted to live with him. Assuredly men 
 cannot claim of God the right to be admitted to heaven, 
 and to prescribe to him the terms on which he will receive 
 them to favor there. If, therefore, God has declared that 
 repentance and faith are the indispensable conditions on 
 which man may be admitted to favor and to heaven, no 
 one can complain. The only appropriate question to 
 ask is, whether in fact he has appointed them as the in- 
 dispensable conditions. That settled, every question on 
 the subject is at rest. 
 
 If we may illustrate great things by small, and appeal to 
 men for the propriety of this to their own doings, I would 
 observe that God is dealing with you in this respect just 
 as you deal with your fellow-men. You have a house. 
 It is your castle ; your home. No one has a right to come 
 there without your consent. You will admit no one to 
 your dwelling, or to your table, or to intercourse with 
 your sons and daughters, who does not choose to comply 
 with the reasonable conditions which you may choose to 
 have observed — whether they be such merely as society 
 has chosen to appoint in general, or such particular con- 
 ditions as you may think good order in your house re- 
 quires. Why complain of God if he does the same thing ? 
 You are a parent. A child violates your commands. Do 
 you not feel that you have a right to prescribe the terms 
 on which he may obtain your forgiveness ? Do you not 
 feel that pardon is yours, to bestow or withhold as you 
 shall choose ? You have a friend ; or there is one who 
 was your professed friend. He has greatly wronged you. 
 The offence is undeniable ; it is admitted. Do you not 
 feel that you have a right to prescribe to him the terms 
 
 12* 
 
13S PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 on which he may be admitted to your favor and enjoy 
 your friendship again ? And if you should require that 
 he should express regret, and confess the wrong, and re- 
 pair the evil, would you think that he had a right to com- 
 plain of you ? And would you think it a sujflicient answer 
 to this if lie should say, that he had no power to do it, or 
 that you might have planted the path of return with 
 flowers rather than with thorns ? How obvious the an- 
 swer that it would be as easy to make the confession, as 
 to do the wrong, and that as to the thorns in the case, he 
 planted them by his own wrong-doing, and not you. And 
 since we every where claim the right to say on what 
 terms those who have injured us may again be per- 
 mitted to partake of our favors, why should we complain 
 of our Maker if the same thing occurs under his govern- 
 ment ? 
 
 The proposition, therefore, that God has a right to ap- 
 point his own terms of favor cannot be disputed. If re- 
 pentance be one of the conditions, he has a right to say 
 that this is indispensable to obtaining his favor. You 
 deem it an incumbrance, a clog, a hindrance to your return. 
 But even if it were so, the question would be whether it 
 would not still be wise to accept of salvation cumbered 
 with temporary sorrow here in the hope of eternal glory 
 hereafter, or whether it would be best to perish forever 
 because God had appended such a condition to the offer 
 of life. IVIy remarks under this head tend to this, that 
 even if the appointment ivere loholly arhitrary^ God has 
 a right to make it, and man has no right to complain. 
 
 III. My third proposition is, that when wrong has been 
 done among men, the only way to obtain again the favor 
 of those who have been injured is by repentance. No 
 man who has done evil in any way can be restored to 
 forfeited favor but by just this process of repentance — by 
 a process involving all the elements of grief, shame, re- 
 morse, reformation, confession, that are demanded in re- 
 ligion. Let us recur to some of the former illustrations. 
 
 You are a father. A child does wrong. Pie violates 
 your law ; offends you ; treats you with disrespect or 
 scorn. He goes abroad and represents your government 
 at home as severe, and gives himself up to unbridled dis- 
 
REPENTANCE. 139 
 
 sipation. Regardless of your commands and of your 
 feelings, he becomes the companion of the dissipated and 
 the vile ; and with those companions wastes the fruits of 
 your labors. Towards that son you cherish still all a 
 father's feelings ; but I may appeal to any such unhappy 
 parent to say whether he would admit him to the same 
 degree of confidence and favor as before without some 
 evidence of repentance. You demand that he should ex- 
 press regret for the errors and follies of his life ; you de- 
 mand evidence that will be satisfactory to you that he 
 will not do the same thing again ; you require proof that 
 he will be disposed by a virtuous life to repair as far as 
 possible, the injury which he has done you ; and the mo- 
 ment you hear him sincerely say, " Father, I have sinned 
 against heaven, and before thee, and am not worthy to be 
 called thy son," that moment you are ready to go out and 
 meet him, and to throw your arms around his neck and to 
 forgive him. — You have had a friend. You thought him 
 sincere. But he betrayed you ; and in feeling, in property, 
 in character you have been made to suffer by him. I ask 
 any man whether he can receive such a friend again to 
 his bosom, and press him to his heart, without some evi- 
 dence of regret at what he has done, and some proof that 
 he will not do it again ? You cannot do it. You cannot 
 force your nature to do it. The sea might as well break 
 over the iron bound shore, or the river flow back and 
 again climb up the mountain side where it leaped down 
 in cascades, as for you to do it. You will convince your- 
 self in some way that he regrets what he has done, and 
 that he will not do it again, or you can never receive him 
 again with the confidence of a friend. Your nature is as 
 firm on this point as the everlasting hills, and is, in this 
 respect, but the counter-part and the image of God, who 
 does the same thing. — In like manner it is with those who 
 have committed offences against a community. Of the 
 man who has been guilty of theft, burglary, arson, or 
 forgery, and who has been sentenced and punished for 
 these offences, the community demand evidence that he 
 has repented of the crime, and that he purposes to do so 
 no more, before it will admit him again to its favor. If 
 you go into his cell and find him alone on his knees be- 
 
140 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 fore God confessing the sin ; if you see in him the evidence 
 of regret and sorrow that it was done ; if you beUeve that 
 the reformation is entire and sincere, the community will 
 again receive him to its bosom, and will forgive and 
 forget the past, and he may rise to public confidence, 
 and even to affluence and honor. But if none of these 
 things are seen ; if he spends the years of his sentence 
 sullen and hardened, and profane, and without one sigh 
 or tear, he is never forgiven. He may have paid the 
 penalty of the law, but he is not forgiven ; — and he goes 
 forth to meet the frowns of an indignant community, to be 
 watched with an eagle eye, and to be excluded all his life 
 from the atfections and confidence of mankind. Univer- 
 sally it is true that where an oftence has been committed 
 and there is evidence of repentance, the otiender may be 
 restored to favor ; where there is no regret, shame, the 
 curse of man and of his Maker alike rest upon him. 
 
 IV. My fourth proposition is, that in the actual course 
 of events under the divine administration, it is only in 
 connexion with repentance that forfeited favors can be 
 recovered. I do not mean to say that repentance will al- 
 ways repair the evil of the past; that it will restore to a 
 man the money which he has squandered by dissipation ; 
 that it will recover the health which has been lost by 
 vicious indulgence, or that it will recall to hfe the man 
 that has been murdered. But my meaning is, that if a 
 man who has done wrong is ever restored in any mea- 
 sure to the forfeited favor of God it will be in connec- 
 tion with repentance. A process of repentance, similar 
 to that required by the Christian religion, is inevitable, 
 and unless that exist, the forfeited favor can never be re- 
 gained. A man has wasted his health and property by 
 intemperance. He was once in comfortable circum- 
 stances ; saw around him a happy family ; was respected 
 and beloved ; enjoyed health, and was rising to affluence. 
 He yielded to temptation, and all is now swept away. — 
 Peace has lied from his dwelling, and his wife sits in po- 
 verty and in tears, and his chifdren are growing up in 
 idleness and vice, and he is fast hastening to a drunkard's 
 grave. Is there any way, now, by which health, and 
 domestic peace, and property, and respectability may be 
 recovered ? There is. But how ? By this course. He 
 
REPENTANCE. 141 
 
 will reflect on his sin and folly. He will feel deeply 
 pained at tlie evil he has done. He will lament that 
 coarse of life which has taken comfort and peace from his 
 dweUiug. He will resolve to forsake the ways of sin, and 
 will abandon forever the intoxicating bowl. He will re- 
 form his life, and become sober, industrious, and kind — 
 and health may again revisit his frame, and peace Ids 
 fcimily, and his farm will again be fenced, and ploughed, 
 and sown, and the rich harvest will again wave in the 
 summer sun. But this is the very way in which God re- 
 quires the sinner to come back to himself He requires 
 him to reflect on the past ; to feel as he ought that he has 
 pursued a guilty course ; to break off his transgressions, 
 and to lead a different life. Why should it be thought 
 more strange in religion than in the actual course of 
 events ? 
 
 The same is true of a gambler. He has been led on 
 by the arts of temptation till he has lost his all. He had 
 received a competence as the heir to a wealthy father. 
 Now it is all gone. From one step to another he has 
 been drawn into temptation with amazing rapidity, till 
 he is now stript of all, and is penniless, and is ready to 
 give himself up to despair. Is there any way by which 
 he can emerge from this depth of woes, and become a 
 man of respectability and property again ? There is 
 one, and but one way. It is a straight and a narrow 
 path — like that which leads to heaven. It will not be 
 found by treading on in the blighted and parched way 
 in which he is now going. It will be by the follow- 
 ing process. He will reflect on the folly and the guilt of 
 his course. He will feel pain and regret at the remem- 
 brance of that sad hour when he yielded to temptation. 
 He will mourn in the bitterness of his soul over that dark 
 day. He will resolve that he will never enter a gambling 
 room again, and that he will devote his life to a course of 
 steady industry and virtue ; — and the confidence of his 
 fellow-men he may regain, and God will bestow on him 
 wealth and respectability. But this is substantially the 
 way in which a sinner is to return to God. This is re- 
 pentance. 
 
 So in respect to indolence, vice, dissipation, crime in all 
 forms. If men ever turn back these evils j if they ever 
 
142 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 arrest this descending curse ; if they ever escape from the 
 withering and bUghting influence which pursues the 
 wicked, it must be in connexion with repentance. If 
 there is no evidence of repentance and reform, that 
 withering and bhghting influence will pursue the indivi- 
 dual over sea and land, to the end of the world and to the 
 end of life. He can never escape the curse of violating 
 the laws of heaven until he gives evidence of sincere sor- 
 row for Avhat he has done. But the moment that is done, 
 the avenger ceases to pursue him ; friends come again 
 around him ; and he finds peace in his own bosom, and 
 in every man he finds a friend. 
 
 V. The necessity of repentance could not be avoided 
 by any arrrangement whatever. It 7mist exist whenever 
 there is returning love to God ; and had it not have been 
 required in a formal manner as a condition of salvation, 
 still it would have been true that no sinner would ever 
 have returned from his ways and come back to God, 
 Avithout exercising repentance. 
 
 A moment's reflection will satisfy any one of this. The 
 law of God requires ttovE to him as to the supreme rule 
 of life. That law man has violated ; and the gospel re- 
 quiring repentance meets him as a sinner, and requires 
 him to return to the love of God. Now no alienated man 
 can come back to this love of God without regret that he 
 wandered away from him. To return to my former illus- 
 tration. A child is bound to love his father. He fails to 
 evince the love which he ought to, and becomes disobe- 
 dient. Can that child be brought back from the state 
 of alienation, and have his bosom glow with love, with 
 no regret that he has not showed that love before? 
 Can he now look on the excellence of his father's charac- 
 ter, and the reasonableness of his laws, and feel no regre 
 that he has not always loved him, and obeyed him ? Can 
 he look over that long, dark period, which has passed in 
 alienation, and feel that he had done no wrong, and ex- 
 perience no self-condemnation ? It could not be. Not 
 thus is the human heart made ; and he who has ever 
 come back from alienation to love has returned with regret 
 and tears. 
 
 Love is the grand principle on which God intends to 
 bind all worlds in harmony. It is the central virtue 
 
REPENTANCE. 143 
 
 whose influence is radiated over all others. God might 
 have governed the universe by terrors, and by flames, 
 and by the dread of stripes, and by chains, and adaman- 
 tine walls. But he designed to make love the great prin- 
 ciple of his administration every where, and it was 
 presumed that this was enough. It is enough. If in a 
 family you can secure proper love between a husband and 
 wife, parents and children, brothers and sisters, it is 
 enough. You may lay aside your rod, and dismiss your 
 system of terrors. If in a neighborhood you can secure 
 love — the love of one neighbor for another, it is enough. 
 There will be no brawls ; no law-suits ; no heart-burnings. 
 If in a nation you can secure love it is enough. If there 
 is the love of country in every bosom leading all to a rea- 
 diness to defend that country's rights ; if there is the love 
 of law, and justice ; if there is the love of a people towards 
 their rulers, and of rulers for their people, it would be 
 enough. You might shut up your prisons, and dismiss 
 your judges and juries, for there would be universal har- 
 mony. And so among the nations. If there were every 
 where the love of God and mart ; if there reigned in 
 every human bosom the love of a brother and of human 
 rights ; you might dismantle your forts, and disband 
 your armies, and the sword might be left to rust in the 
 scabbard, and the ship of war be left to decay on the 
 stocks. In his government, God intends that this princi- 
 ple shall have the ascendency and shall rule. It will be 
 the same principle in the bosoms of angels and of men. 
 It will bind the most lofty spirit of the skies to his throne, 
 and the most humble among the saints on earth — like the 
 mighty law which binds planets in their orbits, and which 
 bids the floating particle of dust to seek the centre. Had 
 this love been always shown, there would have been no 
 sin, no crime, no war, no death. 
 
 But it has not been shown always on earth. The im- 
 penitent sinner has never had the love of God in his 
 heart. He has been, and he is, an alienated being. This 
 he knows ; and this he feels in that moment when he is 
 pondering the question whether he shall return to God. 
 Every man knows that he has not loved God as he ought 
 to have done, and the impenitent man may see, if he 
 will see, that from the first dawn of his being to the 
 
144 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 present moment he has not put forth one single expression 
 of genuine love to his Maker. Now if this alienated 
 being comes back to God, it will be only by repentance. 
 He will, he must feel regret at this long and wasted period 
 of his life which has been spent in estrangement from 
 God. He will look with deep emotion on the many 
 mercies which his Maker has conferred on him ; or with 
 amazement on the fact that to this moment he has abused 
 them all. No man ever yet passed from hatred to love 
 without experiencing regret, remorse, and sorrow at his 
 former course of life, and without passing through a pro- 
 cess similar to that which God requires of the returning 
 sinner. And no man ever did, or can return to God from 
 whom he has been alienated without feeling and express- 
 ing regret that he has wandered, and without a purpose 
 to do so no more. At the remembrance of his sins and 
 of the abused mercies of God ; at the view of the goodness 
 which has kept him in all his wanderings, and especially 
 of the mercy which sought him in the gift of a Saviour, 
 and of the death of the Redeemer for these very sins, he 
 must feel and weep, and he cannot return without bitter 
 regrets that he abused so much love and slighted so much 
 mercy. Returning love, and a sense of God's goodness 
 will be attended with sorrow of heart that he ever wan- 
 dered, and with a full purpose to do so no more : — and 
 this is repentance. How could God be willing to admit 
 the wanderer to his favor unless he were willing to do as 
 much as this ? 
 
 I might add that it would be impossible for a man to 
 be happy in heaven unless he had repented of the errors 
 and follies of the past. The man who has injured you — 
 could he be happy in your family unless he had repented 
 of the wrong done, and obtained your forgiveness ? Were 
 you ever happy hi the presence of the man that you had 
 wronged until you confessed it and obtained pardon ? 
 Your whole nature is against such a supposition, and it 
 can never be. The deepest misery that we can well imagine 
 would be to be doomed to live forever with those whom 
 we have wronged ; to feel that they knew it ; to be re- 
 minded of it every time we caught their eye, and yet to 
 be too proud or wicked to confess it and ask for pardon : 
 and how then could an impenitent sinner be happy in the 
 
REPENTANCE. 145 
 
 presence of a much injured Saviour, and of a God of 
 abused mercy forever and ever ? 
 
 In view of the positions which I have endeavored to 
 defend in this discourse, I may remark, 
 
 1. That Christianity is not an arbitrary institution. Its 
 requirements are founded in the nature of things. It 
 would have been impossible to save sinners, or to have 
 made them happy, without repentance — and Christianity 
 has simply said that. It has appointed nothing arbitrary ; 
 nothing unmeaning. It has demanded that which must 
 exist; which does exist in all similar circumstances; and 
 which would have occurred in the case of every sinner 
 coming back to God even if it had not been formally re- 
 quired. 
 
 2. Evil is often done by representing the operations of 
 the mind in religion as in their nature essentially different 
 from mental operations on other subjects. As a mere 
 operation of mind, how can repentance in religion differ 
 from repentance exercised towards an injured parent or 
 friend ? The mental operation is simple and easily un- 
 derstood, and all are familiar with it. Who is there here 
 who has never repented of any thing that he has done ? 
 Who that has not confessed a wrong ? Who that does 
 not now feel that he has much to regret in the past, and 
 that there is much which he ought to confess ? Be as 
 honest toward God as you have been toward a parent, 
 lover, or friend, and you would have no difficulty on the 
 subject of repentance. It would be easy to be under- 
 stood, and your difficulties would all soon vanish. Yet 
 when you approach religion, you expect and desire to 
 find every thing cold, repulsive, unreal, arbitrary, and 
 impossible — and are unwilling to believe that religion is 
 the most simple of all things, and that it is in entire ac- 
 cordance with all the laws of the human mind. What is 
 needful is to bring the whole subject of religion back to 
 *'the simplicity that is in Christ;" to take away the 
 technicalities of the " schools," and to see that in simpli- 
 city it is adapted to children ; in sublimity and power it is 
 in accordance with the laws which govern the highest 
 intellects on earth or in heaven. 
 
 3. Repentance is not beyond the proper exercise of the 
 power of man. Every man practices it. Every child 
 
 13 
 
146 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 repents. Every one has at different times felt regret at 
 something that he has done ; has made confession ; has 
 resolved to do so no more ; has turned from the evil 
 course. This is repentance ; and no one in such a case 
 has resorted to any plea that it was impossible or that it 
 was unreasonable. It is only in religion that we hear 
 that it is unreasonable, and that it is beyond a man's 
 power. But why should it be there more than elsewhere ? 
 Why easy any where else ; why impossible there ? The 
 answer is simple. It is, that men wish to find an excuse 
 for not repenting ; and regardless of any reflections on the 
 character of their Maker, rather than forsake their sins, 
 they charge him with requiring that which is impossible, 
 and coolly say that they have no power to obey his com- 
 mands. Every where else it is easy in their view to re- 
 pent, here they say it is impossible, and is only to be done 
 by the Almighty power of God. 
 
 4. It is the sinner who is to repent. It is not God who 
 is to repent for him — for God has done no wrong. It is 
 not the Saviour who is to repent for him — for he has vio- 
 lated no law. It is not the Holy Spirit that is to repent — 
 for how can that blessed Agent feel sorrow, and why 
 should he ? My impenitent friend, it is your own mind 
 that is to repent ; your own heart that is to feel regret ; 
 your own feet that are to be turned from the evil way; 
 your own lips that are to make confession. I know that 
 if ever done it will be by the aid of God the Holy Ghost; 
 but I know also that you are yourself to be the peni- 
 tent, and that this is a work that cannot be done by 
 another. That very heart that has sinned must feel; 
 those very eyes that have looked with delight on forbid- 
 den objects must weep ; and those lips that have been 
 false, profane, or impure, must make confession. I will 
 add here, that God is willing to impart to you all the 
 grace which is needful to enable you to repent if you are 
 willing, for he has " exalted Christ Jesus to give repent- 
 ance and the remission of sins." With his offered and 
 promised grace you can never allege before him that re- 
 pentance was wholly put beyond your power. 
 
 5. Finally, it is right and proper to call on men to re- 
 pent of their sins. If they repent when they have wronged 
 a friend, or violated the laws of a parent ; if repentance is 
 
REPENTANCE. 147 
 
 an operation of mind with which all are familiar ; if it is 
 not beyond the proper reach of the human faculties ; and 
 if the sinner himself is actually to feel sorrow and make 
 confession, and if you have in fact violated the law of 
 God, then it is right to call on you to repent at once. — 
 This command, then, I lay across your path to-day, and 
 call on you to repent of all your sins, and to make con- 
 fession unto God. It is a command reasonable, proper, 
 easy, imperative ; — and I end as I began by saying that 
 it is as positive as any other in the Bible: that it is simple 
 and easily understood ; that it is addressed to all, and that 
 there are no exceptions made in favor of the great, the 
 learned, the honored, the gay, the amiable, the moral. 
 We shall all alike die ; and when we come to die it will 
 be one of the sincerest wishes of our souls that we had 
 honestly yielded obedience to all the commands of God; 
 one of the sincerest wishes of our hearts that we had con- 
 fessed and forsaken our sins before we were called to 
 stand at the awful bar of our final Judge. 
 
SERMON X. 
 
 SALVATION EASY. 
 Matthew xi. 30. My yoke is easy, and my burden is light. 
 
 All religion, like virtue of all kinds, implies restraint. 
 The Saviour did not come to institute a religion that 
 would be without law, or that would give vmrestrained 
 indulgence to the passions. He did not come to esta- 
 blish a religion where there would be no burden to be 
 borne, no cross to be taken up. He speaks, therefore, 
 in the text, of his religion as a 'yoke' — the emblem 
 of restraint ; of a * burden' — the emblem of obhgation, 
 implying that there were duties to be discharged and con- 
 ditions of salvation to be complied with. But he says 
 that the one was ' easy,' the other ' light.' Compared 
 with the heavy yoke of Jewish rites and ceremonies, 
 (Acts XV. 10 ;) compared with the oppressive burdens of 
 the heathen systems of religion every where ; and com- 
 pared with tlie yoke which fashion, and ambition, and 
 corrupt passions impose on their votaries every where, 
 the yoke which he required his followers to bear was 
 easy, and the burden light. It was not a hard thing to 
 be a Christian ; it was not difficult to be saved. In illus- 
 trating this truth, my object will be, 
 
 I. To show that salvation is easy ; and 
 
 II. To show why it is so. 
 
 I. Salvation is made easy for mankind. 
 
 I know that this proposition is one that will not be con- 
 ceded to be true by all men. It stands opposed to many 
 feelings of the human heart, as well as to some senti- 
 ments maintained by a part of the Christian world. It 
 is not introduced here for controversy, nor will my dis- 
 cussion of it be pursued for purposes of debate, but with 
 reference to some prevalent/ee/m^^ in the minds of men. 
 It is felt by many to whom we preach, that salvation is 
 difficult, or wholly impracticable for them. The feeling 
 assumes a great variety of forms, for the existence of 
 which we have only to appeal to your consciousness. It 
 
 148 
 
SALVATION EASY. 143. 
 
 is felt by some that God has provided no salvation for a 
 large part of the human family ; or that the Holy Spirit 
 strives with only a part of the race ; or that God is insin- 
 cere in his offers of salvation ; or that he has determined 
 by unalterable decree those who shall, and those who 
 shall not be saved ; or that man has no power to repent 
 or believe, and that should he put forth all possible efforts, 
 they would be utterly fruitless. At one time an impene- 
 trable obscurity seems to rest on the whole subject of 
 religion, and the mind of the sinner is in thick darkness ; 
 at another he feels that his sins are so strong that he has 
 no power to overcome them ; at another that some in- 
 visible power thwarts all his efforts and blasts all his 
 purposes ; and at another that salvation resembles some 
 object in heaven to be brought down like bringing Christ 
 again from the skies, or is like crossing the mighty deep 
 to seek for it on a pilgrimage in the dreariness of a dis- 
 tant land. It is this feeling which I wish to meet in de- 
 fence of the proposition derived from our text, that sal- 
 vation is easy. There are three considerations which I 
 trust will make it clear ; or three sources of argument to 
 which I shall refer you. 
 
 (1.) The first is, that such is the express testimony of 
 the Bible. To this I appeal as perfectly plain on the 
 point, and as meeting all the difficulties which are felt in 
 the case. I appeal to the following passage, the very 
 design of which is to state this truth with the utmost ex- 
 plicitness. " The righteousness which is of faith," or the 
 plan of salvation in the gospel, " speaketh in this wise, 
 say not in thine heart, who shall ascend into heaven ? 
 that is, to bring Christ down from above ; or, who shall 
 descend into the deep ? that is, to bring up Christ again 
 from the dead. But what saith it ? The word is nigh 
 tliee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart, that is, the 
 word of faith which we preach ; that if thou shalt con- 
 fess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in 
 thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou 
 shalt be saved." Rom. x. 6 — 9. The meaning is, the 
 Christian religion does not require us to ascend into heaven 
 — to perform an impossible work like going up to the 
 throne of God, and bringing the Mediator down. It does 
 not require us to go into the abyss, the grave, the regions of 
 
 12^ 
 
150 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 departed souls, and perform a work like raising a man 
 from the dead. It demands an easier task — one that lies 
 within the proper exercise of human power. It demands, 
 says Paul, simply a confession with the mouth of the 
 Lord Jesus, and a belief in the heart that God raised him 
 from the dead. And is this all, and is it then an erroneous 
 inference, that Paul meant to teach that salvation is easy; 
 that it demands no impracticable thing, and nothing which 
 lies beyond the proper compass of human responsibi- 
 lity ? 
 
 I appeal, in further confirmation of this position, to 
 the following plain declarations of the Bible. " Ho, every 
 one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters ; and he that 
 hath no money ; come ye, buy and eat ; yea, come, buy 
 wine and milk without money, and without price. In- 
 cline your ear, and come unto me ; hear, and your soul 
 shall live ; and I will make an everlasting covenant with 
 you, even the sure mercies of David." Isa. Iv. 1. 3. — 
 Is it impossible to incline the ear and hear ? To come and 
 buy ? — " Behold," said the Saviour, " I stand at the door 
 and knock : if any man will hear my voice, and open 
 the door, I will come in to him and sup with him, and he 
 with me." Rev. iii. 20. — Is it impossible for a man to 
 open his door for a friend, or for a stranger ? " And 
 the Spirit and the bride say, come. And let him that 
 heareth say, come. And let him that is athirst, come : 
 and whosoever will, let him take the water of Me freely.-^ 
 Rev. xxii. 17. — Is it impossible for the thirsty to drink 
 at a running fountain ? " Come unto me," said the 
 Redeemer, " all ye that labor and are heavy laden and 
 I will give you rest. My yoke is easy, and my bur- 
 den is light." Matth. xi. 28—30. " In the last day, the 
 great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying. If 
 any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink." John 
 vii. 37. These passages, it will at once occur to you, are 
 but a specimen of the language of the Scripture on the 
 subject, and the meaning of such language cannot be 
 mistaken. It is as far as possible from any representa- 
 tion that the provisions of salvation are limited in their 
 nature or design ; or that man is incapacitated from em- 
 bracing the offer ; or that there are, from any cause what- 
 ever, insuperable obstacles to his salvation. If there are 
 
SALVATION EASY. 151 
 
 passages in the Scripture which speak of difficulties and 
 obstacles of any kind to the salvation of men — as there 
 are, undoubtedly — they are such as refer to obstacles on 
 the part of tnan, and not on the part of God; obstacles 
 which the sinner has himself formed, and not those which 
 arise from any want of fulness in the provisions which 
 God has made, or any want of willingness on his part to 
 save the soul. 
 
 (2.) The second consideration to which I refer for 
 proof on this point is, that the difficulties which did exist 
 in regard to salvation, and which man could not have 
 overcome, have all been taken away by the plan of sal- 
 vation. A specification of a few of these difficulties will 
 illustrate the idea which I now present. One of these 
 obstacles related to pardon. Man had sinned. And yet 
 it is manifest that he could not be self-pardoned, nor could 
 he be pardoned by a fellow man, nor by the highest 
 angel. It was only the being whose law had been vio- 
 lated, and who had been offended, that could extend for- 
 giveness. A neighbor cannot pardon your child who has 
 done wrong to you ; nor can a foreign government par- 
 don a traitor to his country ; nor can a murderer pardon 
 himself. The solution of the question whether the of- 
 fender could or could not be pardoned under the divine 
 government, was one that was lodged in the bosom of 
 God, and over which man had no control. Pardon 
 could not be extorted — for man had no power to do this ; 
 it could not be demanded — for then it would not be par- 
 don, but justice ; it could not be purchased by gold or 
 pearls — for of what value are they to the Creator of all 
 things ; it could not be procured by penance, and self- 
 inflicted pains — for what merit is there in uncommended 
 self-torture ? Yet all this difficulty has been removed. 
 What all the gold and diamonds of the East could not 
 purchase, has been offered as a free gift to all. None are 
 so poor that they may not procure it ; none are so guilty 
 that it may not be freely bestowed upon them. A kin- 
 dred difficulty related to the atonement. It was just as 
 true that man could make no atonement for his sins, as 
 it was that he could not of himself secure pardon. Nor 
 had he any thing which he could offer as an expiation 
 for the past. " Will the Lord be pleased with thousands 
 
152 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil ? Shall I 
 give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my 
 body for the sin of my soul ?" Mic. vi. 7. Man had 
 nothing which could be a compensation, or an atonement 
 for his past sins ; and after all the efforts, the costly obla- 
 tions, the gorgeous ceremonials, and the bloody sacrifices, 
 and the painful penances of the pagan world, man is just 
 as far from having made any suitable atonement, as he 
 was when Cain brought his uncommended and unac- 
 ceptable offering to the offended Creator. And it would 
 have been so to the end of time. Unless man could do 
 something, or offer something that would repair the 
 evils of apostacy, how could he make an atonement for 
 his sins ? But this difficulty has been removed. An 
 ample atonement has been made. There is no more that 
 needs to be done ; and there is no more that can be done. 
 The atonement is sufficient in its nature for all men. The 
 death of Christ is declared to be the " propitiation for the 
 sins of the whole world.'' It is expressly affirmed that 
 he " died for all" ; that he " tasted death for every man." 
 Nothing on this subject remains to be desired ; and no 
 man can now approach God feeling that there is the 
 slightest difficulty in the way of his salvation from any 
 want of sufficiency in the provisions of the atonement ; 
 any want of willingness in the Redeemer to save him ; or 
 any want of efficacy in his blood to cleanse from all sin. It 
 is impossible for the human mind to conceive that there 
 should be a more complete and entire removal of all ob- 
 stacles in any case, or in relation to any subject whatever, 
 than has occurred in regard to the plan of the atonement 
 through Jesus Christ. Again — there was a difficulty also 
 in regard to the love of sin. It was certain that while 
 man had all the requisite power to do the will of God, he 
 never would of himself yield to his claims, and forsake 
 his transgressions. He was so alienated from God, that 
 that alienation would have forever prevented his return 
 to God, even had there been no other obstacle. But God 
 has met this difficulty also. What man would not do, he 
 has provided the means of his accomplishing. To the 
 sinner, sensible of the deep corruption of his own nature, 
 he has granted the Holy Spirit, for the very purpose of 
 
SALVATION EASY. 153 
 
 enabling him to overcome his love of sin, and of turning 
 him to God. And there is not a depraved propensity of 
 his nature which the Spirit of God cannot subdue ; not an 
 unholy affection which he cannot remove ; not a corrupt 
 desire which he cannot obUterate forever. 
 
 God has, in this manner, met all the obstacles which 
 stood in the way of salvation. He has designed that every 
 thing on his part that can be regarded as a difficulty, 
 should be removed; and that he should himself be able 
 to approach men with the assurance that so far as he 
 was concerned, there should be no obstacle to per- 
 fect and eternal reconciliation. He has devised a plan 
 through which he can consistently offer full pardon, and 
 so that he will be as fully glorified in the salvation as in 
 the condemnation of the sinner. He has gone even be- 
 yond this, and has met man on his own side of the diffi- 
 culty, and furnished him with the means of overcoming 
 the sinfulness of the heart itself. The case is like this. 
 When two of your neighbors are engaged in a contro- 
 versy which has been long continued, you gain much if 
 you can go to the party that has done the wrong, and 
 say, ' Your injured neighbor is willing to be reconciled. 
 Every difficulty which had existed in his mind has been 
 removed, and he now desires to be at peace. By great 
 self-denial and sacrifice, though without compromitting 
 his own dignity or honor, he has removed all the obsta- 
 cles which subsisted to perfect harmony, and he is now 
 desirous of walking with you in the bonds of unity and 
 concord.^ So God approaches every impenitent man. 
 With the assurance that all the obstacles on Ms part have 
 been removed, he comes and offers life. He proclaims 
 that every thing which man could not have done in this 
 case, but which was needful to be done, has been accom- 
 plished, and that all that remains for the sinner is easy, 
 and may be and should be performed. 
 
 (3.) The third consideration in support of my position 
 is, that the terms of salvation are the most simple that 
 they possibly could be. It is not only true that God has 
 removed all the obstacles which existed on his part to 
 salvation, but it is also true that he has made the condi- 
 tions as easy as it is possible to conceive them to be. 
 
154 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 These terms are repeated often in the Bible. " He that 
 believeth and is baptized, shall be saved." " If thou 
 shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt 
 believe in thy heart that God raised him from the dead, 
 thou shalt be saved." "With the heart," Paul adds, 
 " man believeth unto righteousness," i. e. unto justifica- 
 tion, or in connection with believing he becomes justi- 
 fied ; " and with the mouth confession" i. e. profession 
 " is made unto salvation ;" and the sense of the whole 
 is, that simple reliance on the Lord Jesus in the heart, 
 and a suitable acknowledgment of him before men will 
 be crowned with everlasting salvation. Now the remark 
 is obvious, that these terms are as simple and as easy as 
 it is possible to conceive aiiT/ terms to be. If man him- 
 self were to choose his own terms of salvation, he could 
 not select any more easy than God has himself appointed. 
 It is not gold which he demands ; it is not a costly offer- 
 ing ; it is not painful penance ; it is not stripes, or impri- 
 sonment, or a pilgrimage to a distant land. It is an act 
 of simple confidence in Jesus Christ, and a suitable ac- 
 knowledgment of him before the world at large. And 
 that man himself could not ask more simple and easy 
 terms, is apparent from the fact that when left to his own 
 way, he has uniformly chosen some method infinitely 
 more painful and self-denying than the gospel requires. 
 He seeks salvation by costly offerings and bloody rites , 
 by painful fastings and penances ; by scourging, and tor- 
 ture, and self-inflicted woes ; by pilgrimages over barren 
 rocks and burning sands to some distant shrine of his 
 idol god ; but no where has man ever thought of a plan 
 of salvation requiring so little personal sacrifice, and so 
 little that is painful as the Christian plan. This stands 
 alone, as admirable for the ease of compliance with it, 
 as for the simplicity of its aim. It requires no impracti- 
 cable thing. It is simply demanding that that should be 
 exercised towards God our Saviour which is every day 
 exercised towards men. We exercise confidence every 
 day in a father, a mother, a neighbor, a civil ruler ; in a 
 bank, a mercantile house, a book, and a promise ; and 
 God demands that similar confidence should be reposed 
 in him, and in that Redeemer whom he hath sent. The 
 reasonableness of this is not the object of our present re- 
 
SALVATION EAST. 155 
 
 search. It is the fact to which I am referring, and the 
 remark is, that in a scheme of salvation nothing more 
 simple than this could be conceived ; and that God could 
 not possibly require less. When a child has rebelled 
 against his father, can that father do less than require 
 proofs of returning confidence in him before he can re- 
 admit him to favor ? When a professed friend has injured 
 you in every way possible, can you do less than to de- 
 mand proofs of returning confidence before you can treat 
 him as a friend ? Can there be any friendship, any union, 
 unless that confidence shall be restored ? 
 
 I regard, therefore, the proposition as one that is unde- 
 niable, that salvation is made as easy by God as possible ; 
 and that the terms are as simple and as practicable as can 
 be conceived. 
 
 II. My second object is, to enquire why he has done 
 so, or why he has selected the simple conditions to which 
 I have referred, as those by which we may be saved. 
 
 It is undeniable, that it is on account of the very sim- 
 plicity of this plan that multitudes reject it. Had it been 
 attended with greater difficulties ; had it required penance, 
 and toil, and pilgrimages, it would have excited much 
 greater interest in the minds of a large portion of the 
 world. This is proved conclusively from the fact that 
 the most painful and degrading of the heathen religions 
 excite deeper interest among their votaries than the Chris- 
 tian scheme does in a nominally Christian community. 
 Every pagan is devoted to his religion, and holds all that 
 he possesses as at the disposal of his gods ; nor does he 
 deem any sacrifice too great, any penance too severe, any 
 pilgrimage too long, if he may secure the favor of the 
 fancied god. In a large portion of the community, how- 
 ever, where the gospel is preached, it excites no emotion, 
 and prompts to no effort to secure an interest in it. By 
 multitudes it is regarded as deserving contempt ; by mul- 
 titudes with hatred and indignation. It is still to one 
 class a stumbling-block, to another foolishness. One rea- 
 son undoubtedly is, the very ease of its terms ; the fact 
 that it appeals to all men as on a level ; that it contem- 
 plates the salvation of the rich and the poor, the bond 
 and the free, the master and the slave, on the same con- 
 ditions, and all as without personal merit, and all as to 
 
156 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 be saved by mere favor, without money and without 
 price. My wish is now to state some reasons why God 
 has appointed salvation on conditions so simple and easy. 
 
 (1.) One is, that the design of bestowing salvation on 
 all classes of men, demanded of necessity some plan that 
 was plain to be understood, and that was easy to be com- 
 plied with. The mass of men are poor, and ignorant, 
 and debased. They have no gold to offer — if gold were 
 of value in obtaining heaven ; they are incapable of long 
 and painful pilgrimages — if pilgrimages would be of any 
 avail. If a scheme of religion is adapted to our race, it 
 must be fitted to the poor, the needy, the slave, the igno- 
 rant, and the wretched. It must be so easy that even 
 children could appreciate and comprehend its essential ele- 
 ments. And this was and ought to have been the object. 
 It was not to save the rich only, and philosophers only, 
 and the great only — for their souls are of no more value 
 than the souls of others ; but it was to save men deeply 
 depraved, and ignorant, and degraded. Besides, the de- 
 sign of religion is not to go to those who are already 
 elevated and happy, but to go down to the poor, the 
 beggar, and the slave, to elevate them to the skies. 
 
 The religion of the gospel, therefore, contemplated as 
 a leading purpose, what has not been attempted, or if 
 attempted, what has been unsuccessful in other systems. 
 Its design was to elevate and save the mass of men, and 
 at the same time, and in the same way, to save the more 
 learned and refined of the race. It entered on the before 
 untried task of adapting itself to the most degraded and 
 vile of the human family ; and at the same time of pre- 
 senting such truths as should expand and sanctify the 
 most profound intellects on earth, and be fitted to the 
 largest views which the human mind can form. And it 
 is done. It has truths which are fitted to excite the 
 amazement of the most lofty intellects, and into which 
 the angels desire to look ; truths over which Bacon and 
 Newton bowed with the most profound reverence ; and 
 it is at the same time so simple that it is understood in its 
 mean features in the Sunday-school, and can communi- 
 cate its saving messages to the beggar that lies at the 
 gate. All may be saved by it ; and the lofty intellect of 
 the one class will feel that it is elevated by the gospel as 
 
SALVATION EASY. 157 
 
 well as the feeble powers of the other ; the large heart 
 of the one will feel that the gospel is as much fitted to 
 promote its sanctification as it is to promote the eternal 
 purity of the other ; and the farthest extremes of the 
 human family are met by that simple and pure system 
 which requires as its great conditions repentance toward 
 God and faith in Christ Jesus. 
 
 (2.) The system \s designed to humble men, and was 
 on that account made so simple and plain. It cannot be 
 denied that it is fitted to bring down the intellect and the 
 heart of man. . To be saved by mere favor ; to enter 
 heaven by special grace ; to be saved by the mere exer- 
 cise of faith, without merit and without claim, is deeply 
 abasing to the pride of man. God intended that it should 
 be so, and one purpose of the plan was to " stain the 
 pride of all human glory." Hence the gospel pays tri- 
 bute to no rank, wealth, learning, or power. It seeks out 
 no palace as its residence — and is as much at home in the 
 cottage as in the most magnificent dwelling. It reveals no 
 royal path to heaven. It saves no man because he is 
 clothed in purple and fine linen. It comes into no dwell- 
 ing because it is splendidly decorated, and garnished ; 
 and it offers bliss to no one because he is attended by a 
 splendid train of menials, or because men do him ho- 
 mage. It saves no one because he is beautiful, or be- 
 cause he is strong, or because he is learned, or because 
 he is honored. It does not refuse to save them ; but it 
 ofttimes passes by their abodes, and finds its home in the 
 humble dwelling of the poor. 
 
 Is it not right that this should be so ? What is there in 
 tliat beauty that will soon become the prey of corruption 
 and banquet of worms, that should constitute a claim to 
 salvation ? Is it more comely than the lily or the blushing 
 rose that soon decays ? What is there in that splendid 
 mansion that should attract the presence of the God who 
 dwells in light inaccessible, and who is encompassed with 
 the glory of heaven ? What is there in that pride of rank 
 and office that should attract the great and eternal God 
 to bestow his peculiar favors there ? What is there in the 
 amusements and plans of the gay and the rich, that should 
 induce the God of heaven to accommodate his plans to 
 their caprice, and bend his schemes to their pleasure ? 
 
 14 
 
15S PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 Nothing. But there may be much, very much there, that 
 shall demand just such a humbling system as the gospel 
 — a system that shall level all that pride, and bring the 
 gay and self-confident sinner to the dust. Does not the 
 original taint of our fallen nature as deeply pervade his 
 heart as the heart of the obscurest man ? Is not the gay 
 and fashionable, the rich and learned sinner as deeply 
 sunk in depravity as the rest of his fellow-mortals ? Has 
 he not a heart as offensive to God as they have who are 
 in humble life ? Will not a few years bring that beauty 
 and strength as low as the most degraded of the species ? 
 Will not the worm feed as sweetly on all that comeliness 
 as on the most down-trodden of the race ? And is it not 
 well, is it not indispensable, that the system of religion 
 should meet all this pride, and bring all this lofty-mind- 
 edness low in the dust ? Men in their great interests are 
 on a level, and Christianity simply recognizes this fact. 
 Their food, their raiment, their health, their vigor, are all 
 given by the same God. The same blood flows in their 
 veins ; they have the same pains and sicknesses when on 
 a bed of disease ; they are partakers of the same depra- 
 vity ; they lie side by side in the same bed of earth, and 
 moulder back to dust together. Why should not the sys- 
 tem of religion be framed as if this were so, and be so 
 humiliating as to reduce the pride of all, and yet so ele- 
 vating as to raise all to the hopes of the same heaven, 
 and fill all alike with wonder at their own real dignity 
 as immortal beings, and at the condescension of the infi- 
 nite God ? 
 
 (3.) God has made the system so simple and so easy, 
 because the terms which he proposes are just fitted to 
 meet all the evils of the world. 
 
 In the l^ible he has m3.de/aifh indispensable, aiid has 
 attached an unspeakable importance to it. " Fie that 
 believeth and is baptized, shall be saved ; and he that 
 believeth not shall be damned.'' Two or three remarks 
 will show why God has selected this, and has made its 
 exercise the indispensable condition of salvation. One 
 is, that the true source of all evil to man is a want of 
 confidence, in his Creator — a want of confidence in his 
 promises, his law, his claims, his threatenings, his qualifi- 
 cations for universal empire. This want of confidence in 
 
SALVATION' EASY. 159 
 
 God has produced the same evils in his administration 
 wliicli it does any where. A want of confidence between 
 a husband and wife annihilates their happiness, and turns 
 their once peaceful dwelling into a hell ; a want of con- 
 fidence between parents and children is the end of order 
 and government ; a want of confidence in a friend, a 
 physician, a lawyer, or a pastor, is the parent of distress 
 and wo ; a want of confidence in a commercial commu- 
 nity is an end of prosperity. And so it is in the govern- 
 ment of God. jNIan is wretched only Ijccause lie lias no 
 confidence in his Creator. He does not worshij) him as 
 God ; he does not believe that lie is wise ; he does not 
 go to him in trouble ; he does not rely on his promises ; 
 he docs not seek him in time of distress, he does not trust 
 him in death. Now the only thing needful to make this 
 a happy world, with all its sicknesses and sadnesses, is 
 to restore confidence in God. This would meet all the 
 evils of the apostasy, and would compose the agitated 
 human bosom to peace — like oil on troubled waves. It 
 will have just the effect under the divine government 
 which it will have in a family, if you restore confidence 
 to the alienated affections of husband and wife ; and in 
 a conmiunity, if you restore universal confidence between 
 man and man. Another reason why this is required is, 
 that God could require no less of man. In a plan of sal- 
 vation intended to be adapted to all the race, that was the 
 lowest possible demand, as we have already seen that it 
 is the simplest and most easy. Could God admit alien- 
 ated creatures to himself on any other condition than that 
 they should have confidence in him ? Could he admit 
 those to heaven — to dwell with him, to range the fields 
 of glory, to encompass his throne — who had no reliance 
 in his qualifications for universal empire ? Can you ad- 
 mit the man who has been your professed friend, but who 
 has slandered and injured you, again to your friendship, 
 without evidence of returning confidence and regard ? 
 Can a parent admit a rebellious and ungrateful child 
 again to the fulness of his affection and to his family, if 
 he has no evidence of returning confidence ? God, there- 
 fore, requires /«z7 A in him, because he could require no 
 less. It is the lowest possible condition. And for a simi- 
 lar reason, he requires that that faith should be avowed. 
 
160 PRACTICAL SERMOXS. 
 
 "With the mouth confession is made unto salvation." 
 The want of confidence has been open. The injury has 
 been public. The hfe of a sinner has not been passed in 
 a corner. It is public ; it is known ; it is seen. The 
 want of confidence in God here on earth is known above 
 the stars ; and wherever there is returning confidence, it 
 should be avowed, and the restored sinner should be de- 
 sirous that his return to God should be as widely known 
 as his apostasy has been. When a man has calumniated 
 you publicly, it will not do for him to come and confess 
 it to you alone, and in the dark. He has done you public 
 wrong, and the confession should be public, too. The 
 sinner should be willing, therefore, that all worlds shall 
 be apprized of his return, and seek that throughout the 
 universe it shall be proclaimed that he has confidence in 
 the Creator. Thus he will not only believe in his heart 
 on the Lord Jesus, but will confess him with his mouth, 
 and desire that the universe shall be acquainted with his 
 repentance and return. 
 
 I have thus endeavored to show that the plan of sal- 
 vation is the most simple and easy that man could con- 
 ceive or desire, and that it is proposed to man on the 
 lowest possible terms, and on the terms wiiich were in- 
 dispensable in a design to save the world. There are 
 some inferences followhig from the subject to which I 
 now ask your attention for a moment. 
 
 1. One is, the necessity of a profession of religion. 
 The view of the Lord Jesus on this subject has been ex- 
 pressed without any ambiguity. -'^ Whosoever shall con- 
 fess me before men, him will I confess also before my 
 Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny 
 me before men, him will I also deny before my Fatlier 
 which is in heaven." Matth. x. 32, 33. And this ap- 
 pointment is not arbitrary. Its propriety and reasonable- 
 ness are obvious. Why should a man enter heaven who 
 is unwilling to acknowledge God his Saviour in all the 
 proper ways on earth ? Why should he hope for appro- 
 bation or reward who seeks to hide his light under a 
 bushel, and is ashamed to have it understood that he 
 loves God? How can he expect the divine favor, ah 
 whose influence is with the world, and who habitually 
 neglects, or deliberately refuses to obey a positive com- 
 
SALVATION EASY. 161 
 
 mand of the Lord Jesus Christ ? And how can he infer 
 that he has any love to God, who is never wilhng to 
 avow it ; how can he have any true dependence on the 
 Saviour who is unwilUng to recognize it ; how can he 
 have any sympathy with him who is unwilUng to take 
 up his cross, and to suffer shame and reproach, if need be, 
 in his cause? God, therefore, has put this subject just 
 where all other things are put. And as we infer tliat a 
 man has no friendship for us whose name and influence 
 are with our enemies, and who never ranks himself with 
 us ; as we infer that a man has no love of country who 
 prefers that his name should be enrolled among her ene- 
 mies, and who never comes forth to fight her battles, or 
 to advance her cause, so are we not to infer the same 
 thing respecting the great truths and duties of religion ? 
 Every man who truly loves the Lord Jesus is required in 
 a proper way to express that love ; every man who does 
 not in the proper way express that love, gives evidence 
 that it has no existence in his heart. 
 
 (2.) We learn from our subject that men have no ex- 
 cuse if they are not Christians, and are not saved. We 
 have seen that that salvation is proposed on the simplest 
 terms possible, and on the lowest conditions on which 
 God could offer it to guilty men. And no one can doubt 
 this fact who ever looked at the scheme. Nor can any 
 one doubt it who contemplates what it has done. Thou- 
 sands and tens of thousands of the poor, the illiterate, the 
 despised ; thousands of children, as v*^ell as of the rich 
 and the great, have embraced it, and been saved. But 
 if this is so, then man is without excuse. Had it been a 
 scheme fitted to an intellect above that of man, then he 
 could not have been under obligation to embrace it. Had 
 it recpiired us to do a work like raising the dead, or cre- 
 ating a world, then man would have been free from blan <? 
 if he did not embrace it. And in like manner, if God 
 had required all to go on a pilgrimage to a distant land ; 
 or all to purchase salvation with gold, how few of the 
 race could have availed themselves of the privilege, and 
 been saved ! 
 
 And thus, too, if it were dependent on any other im- 
 possibility, or any thing beyond the powers and capa- 
 bilities of man, he would have been innocent in respecting 
 
 14* 
 
162 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 it. Nay, he would not only have been innocent in reject- 
 ing it, but would have been required to reject it. But 
 none of tliese things can be pretended. It is as simple as 
 it can be ; so plain that he that runs may read ; as wide 
 in its offers as the world ; and it is offered to men on the 
 lowest possible conditions. The simplest thing imagina- 
 ble is all that is required to be saved. " Look unto me 
 and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth." " Whosoever 
 shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." What 
 can man ask more than this ? What terms more easy, 
 more feasible, more merciful, more just ? And what ex- 
 cuse will be rendered in the last day if these terms are 
 rejected, and if the soul shall be lost ? Who will be to 
 blame for the destruction of the soul ? Who, if eternal 
 ruin is brought down on our heads, and we sink down to 
 wo ? What can man say in the day of judgment, if he 
 will not ask for pardon ? Why should he not be lost if he 
 will not do it ? 
 
 (3.) Finally. I may state in one word the true reason 
 which operates on many minds to prevent their being 
 Christians. A nobleman of the East, rich and honored 
 at a magnificent court, was affected with the leprosy. 
 He heard, by a servant girl, of a celebrated prophet. He 
 went to him. " Go," said the man of God, " and wash 
 seven times in Jordan, and thou shalt be healed. And he 
 turned away in a rage." " Lo, I thought," said he, " he 
 will surely come out to me, and stand and call on the 
 name of Jehovah his God, and strike his hand over the 
 place, and recover the leper. Are not Abana and Phar- 
 par, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of 
 Israel ? May I not wash in them and be clean ?" 2 Kings 
 V. II, 12. To man, proud even in the deep leprosy of 
 sin, God also sends a message of mercy. ' Go,' is his 
 language, ^ to the man of Nazareth. Go to the cross. Go, 
 without money and without price ; go, poor, and weary, 
 and heavy laden, and penitent. Go not on a pilgrimage ; 
 go not -with pomp and parade; go not with your gold 
 and your honors ; go not depending on your rank, or 
 your deeds of righteousness ; go with the beggar and the 
 slave. Go, and lie down beneath the cross with the most 
 degraded of the human race, a lost, wretched, ruined, 
 leprous man ; go, and receive life as the mere gift of God, 
 
SALVATION EASY. 163 
 
 and render to the bleeding victim on the tree all the praise 
 of your redemption.' And when this is said, in how 
 many hearts does the spirit of the proud yet leprous 
 Assyrian rise ; and the lip curls with scorn, and the brow 
 is knit with anger, and the sinner turns away in a rage. 
 
 < Am I thus to be saved ?' is the language of his heart. 
 
 < Rather let me die.' And he dies — and sinks to wo, 
 because it was too easy to he saved ! 
 
SERMON XI. 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES ON WHICH A PROFESSION OF RELIGION 
 SHOULD BE MADE. NO. I. 
 
 II. Cor, vi. 17. 18. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye 
 separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will re- 
 ceive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and 
 daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. 
 
 This passage of Scripture is an address to Christians, 
 and states the principles on which they should act in re- 
 ference to the world. It demands a separation from the 
 world ; and it contains the assurance that if such a sepa- 
 ration exists, God will be their father, and that they shall 
 sustain to, him the relation of adopted children. 
 
 My wish, at this time, is, not however to apply it to 
 Christians in general, but to the first public act of a 
 Christian's life — the act of making a profession of religion. 
 That, emphatically, is an act of coming out from the 
 world ; an act of separating ourselves from others ; an act 
 by which we express our purpose not to " touch the un- 
 clean thing" ; an act by which we publicly declare our 
 purpose to live as becomes " sons or daughters of the 
 Lord Ahuighty." The doctrine which it will be the main 
 object of this discourse to defend, is, that a profession of 
 religion implies a separation from the world, and a pur- 
 pose to lead a life of holiness ; and my aim will be to de- 
 rive from the New Testament the principles on which 
 such a profession should be made. 
 
 It is the duty of every man to make a profession of re- 
 Ugion. It would be easy to make this apparent if it were 
 necessary to the design of this discourse. Nothing can be 
 more evident than that every man should profess to be 
 the friend of the one only God who made him, and of the 
 Redeemer who died to save him. But this obligation to 
 profess religion supposes a previous obligation to embrace 
 it, and to become a sincere Christian. It supposes that 
 164 
 
PROFESSING RELIGION. 165 
 
 there should be certain quaUfications in order that it may 
 be done in a manner that will be acceptable to God. 
 
 The importance of just views on this subject will be 
 apparent from two considerations. One is, that a pro- 
 fession of religion is one of the most important steps in a 
 man's life. Its vows are sacred ; its results such as must 
 deeply affect his destiny. Henceforward he will be recog- 
 nised as a professed friend of God, and stand before the 
 world as a public witness of the truth and a candidate 
 for immortal glory. A part of the obligation of evincing 
 the nature of true religion, and of defending and extend- 
 ing it, will rest on him ; and to him the world will look 
 as an example of what religion is designed to be. The 
 other consideration showing the importance of just views 
 in making a profession of religion, is, that his whole 
 Christian character and usefulness will probably depend 
 on the feelings with which he enters the church. It 
 is undoubtedly a fact, that of those who become pro- 
 fessing Christians, scarce one in five contributes much 
 to its real strength. Some have very limited means of 
 usefulness. Some are scarcely fitted, either from want 
 of talent or education, to do good at all except in the very 
 narrowest circles. But of those who do not labor under 
 these disqualifications, the number of those who are the 
 bone and sinew of the church ; who are the bold and un- 
 flinching advocates of the truth ; who sustain the prayer 
 meetings and the institutions of benevolence ; who can be 
 depended on when a tide of worldliness and vanity comes 
 in upon the church ; who labor with a zeal that never 
 tires, and an ardor that never cools to save souls from 
 death, is comparatively very few. Part are zealous for a 
 time, and then their zeal dies away like " the morning 
 cloud and the early dew." Part are characteristically in- 
 dolent, and bring no active energy to the cause of Chris- 
 tianity. Part become soon conformed to the world, and 
 are better known there than in the church. Part become 
 immersed in political strifes, and their influence as Chris- 
 tians expires of course. Part become rich, and are intro- 
 duced into new circles of life, and their first attachment 
 to the church becomes chilled and cold. Part form 
 new connections in life, and their ardor languishes, and 
 they thus show that whatever there might have been 
 
166 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 of zeal at any time was the result of circumstances rather 
 than^f principle. Part take their complexion in religion 
 like the chameleon, from the objects and associates around 
 them — are zealous when they are zealous ; benevolent 
 when they are benevolent ; lukewarm when they are 
 lukewarm ; and worldly when they are conformed to the 
 world. A large portion, we have reason to apprehend, 
 have very slight views of the principles involved in the 
 organization of the church ; and some are strangers to re- 
 ligion altogether. 
 
 So deeply impressed was the Saviour with considera- 
 tions like these, that with great solemnity he at one time 
 asked the question, " when the son of man cometh shall 
 he find faith on the earth?" Luke xviii. S. Should he 
 come now, what measure of faith in his promises, in his 
 truth, in his religion, in his laws would he find? I 
 desire this day to stand before you, and apprise you of 
 what is involved in making a profession of religion ; 
 and while I would offer every encouragement to the 
 humble and the contrite to come, it is also a duty from 
 which you would not desire me to swerve to lay down 
 the principles on which the New Testament requires that 
 a profession of religion should be made, without any de- 
 parture from their high import. To that I now proceed. 
 
 I. There should be true conversion to God. In other 
 words, he who makes a profession of religion should be 
 a sincere Christian. He should not merely be a serious 
 minded man ; a sober, moral, amiable man ; or a man 
 speculatively holding the truth, but he should be a re- 
 newed man. He should not merely be an awakened or 
 convicted sinner ; he should not merely be anxious to he 
 a Christian, but he should be in fact a true Christian. He 
 should not enter the church with a desire to he converted 
 at the communion, or at any future time, but he should 
 be in fact already converted. He should not enter the 
 church expecting to be in some mysterious way there 
 prepared for heaven, but having evidence that he is now 
 prepared for heaven, and that if he should die before he 
 had an opportunity to partake of the communion, imper- 
 fect as he may feel that he is, he would be admitted to 
 glory. 
 
 I am thus particular in stating this point because of its 
 
PROFESSING RELIGION. 167 
 
 great importance, and because it is vital to all the views 
 which I shall yet state. The church of Christ is a church 
 of true converts^ not of those to he converted. It is de- 
 signed to be an assemblage of real Christians ; and not 
 of those who, for various reasons, may desire to become 
 Christians. 
 
 You will appreciate the importance of this remark 
 when you reflect on the inducements which exist to enter 
 the church without any evidence of piety. One of the 
 prevalent errors of these times, unless I am mistaken, in 
 all churches, is the desire for numbers rather than for 
 piety ; the wish to swell the catalogue of church members 
 rather than to augment the solid piety and the real strength 
 of the household of faith. To this tiiere are often a great 
 many temptations; and there is reason to apprehend that 
 not a few are persuaded to make a profession of religion 
 who are altogether strangers to its natnre. There is the 
 love of numbers itself— the desire of recording accessions 
 at every communion — a desire right in itself if intended 
 to glority Christianity, but which also may be mere sel- 
 fishness and vanity. In all associations of men, civil, po- 
 litical, literary, and religious, there is to be found the 
 operation of this principle — the mere desire of numerical 
 strength, rather than the strength which is derived from 
 principle, and from solid worth. There is often, also, the 
 vanity of a minister of religion desiring public evidence 
 of success arising from the fact that many join his com- 
 munion, and leading him to persuade them to connect 
 themselves with the church even when they give most 
 slender evidence of qualification, or it may be, no evi- 
 dence at all. There is also the anxiet}^ of friends-. ,;• A 
 Christian parent feels a deep anxiety for his children, and 
 urges them to connect themselves with the church ; a 
 husband feels an earnest solicitude for a wife, or a wife 
 for a husband; a sister for a brother, or a friend for a friend^ 
 and there is a feeling operating very secretly and very 
 subtilly that if they are in the church they are safe. It is 
 needless to add that many may enter the church under the 
 influence of strong temporary feeling, self-deluded, or 
 with a vague kind of expectation that they may somehow 
 be converted in the church. 
 
 There are not many men who are intentionally hypo- 
 
168 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 crites either in the clmrch or in the world. That there 
 may have been some in the church, none can doubt ; and 
 that there are some such men in all associations, no one 
 has any reason to disbelieve. Wherever an object is to 
 be gained of sufficient value in the view of men to over- 
 come their sense of honesty and of truth, men will play 
 the hypocrite ; and thus sometimes, but rarely, they enter 
 the church ; and thus too they attach themselves to a po- 
 litical party, or make professions of honesty to which they 
 know they are strangers. 
 
 But that there are those in the church who are stran- 
 gers to religion no one can doubt who remembers that 
 there was a Judas among the Apostles ; an Ananias, and 
 Sapphira, a Simon Magus, and a Demas among the early 
 disciples ; who remembers the parable of the tares of the 
 field; who remembers the declaration of Paul, "Many 
 walk of whom I have told you often and now tell you 
 even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of 
 Christianity;" who remembers the epistle which the 
 Saviour directed to be sent to the seven churches of Asia ; 
 or who looks into any Christian church of any denomi- 
 nation, and sees how little many professed Christians, 
 even in external form, exemplify the religion of the Re- 
 deemer. 
 
 My position is, that no one should enter the Christian 
 church who is not a sincere Christian ; a converted man ; 
 a sinner born again ; in other words, who has not evi- 
 dence of personal piety which will not only bear the test 
 of an examination before the pastor and officers of the 
 church, but before the Master himself, and at the judg- 
 ment seat of God. No one should enter the church who 
 would not enter heaven should he die ; no one who is not 
 as certainly prepared to sit down with Abraham, Isaac, 
 and Jacob, in the realms of glory, as he is to sit down with 
 his friends at the table of communion. 
 
 My proof of this position is, in few words, this : (1.) It 
 is implied in the very nature of a profession. What is a 
 profession ? It is a profession of something — of what ? 
 Is it not profession of love to God ; of dependence on Jesus 
 Christ ; of attachment to the Redeemer and his cause ; of 
 a purpose to lead a Christian life ? And where this exists, 
 does it not constitute religion ? It is a confession of sin \ 
 
PROFESSING RELIGION. 169 
 
 an acknowledgment of guilt, and folly, and former errors 
 and crimes ; and is not this a part of religion ? It is a 
 profession of the truth of the Bible, and of a purpose to 
 live according to its requirements ; and is not this a part 
 of religion ? It is not a profession of a purpose to be a 
 Christian at some future time ; it is a public recognition 
 of those feelings and doctrines which constitute religion 
 itself A man professes to be a moral man. What is the 
 meaning of this? Is it that, though now immoral, he 
 means to become moral hereafter? He professes to be a pa- 
 triot. Is the sense of this that he designs to become a friend 
 of his country at some future time ? No. This is not his 
 meaning. But it is that he is now a moral man, and a 
 lover of his country. So when a man professes religion, 
 it is a public and solemn declaration that, according to the 
 best of his knowledge and beUef, he has religion, that he 
 is born again, and has truly repented of his sins. Such is 
 the obvious interpretation of the act ; so it is understood 
 by the world. It is a public declaration made over the 
 slain body and shed blood of Jesus Christ, that according 
 to the most candid and prayerful view which he can take 
 of the subject he is a true Christian, and wishes to be re- 
 cognised as such. So the world interprets it ; so the Bible ; 
 so God. (2.) The Bible so speaks of it. Christ every where 
 speaks of a profession of religion as confessing him before 
 men. " Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will 
 I also confess before my Father in heaven." Matth. x. 32. 
 Luke xii. 8. But to confess Christ is to confess him as a 
 Saviour, a Redeemer ; an example ; — to profess a pur- 
 pose to be saved by him, to follow him, to obey him. (3.) 
 Again. The Lord's Supper is not designed or adapted to 
 be a converting ordinance. A man sits down at the table 
 of communion. What is the design of it? Is it that he 
 may be converted ? Was Judas converted at that table? 
 This is not its design. It is solely to comm,eniorate what 
 Christ has done, and to bring impressively before the mind 
 the great events of his death. " Do this in remembrance 
 of me," is the command ; and this implies that there is 
 already such an attachment to him as to make such a 
 commemoration proper. Do we institute memorials for 
 the purpose of creating an attachment to those whom we 
 despise, or hate ? Is not the very object of a memento to 
 
 15 
 
170 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 recall the image of one whom we love ; to deepen attach- 
 ment, to bind us more strongly to him or to his memory. 
 The ring which we wear on the finger, or the hair of a 
 friend that we preserve in a locket, is not to create love 
 for that friend, but it is to bring it to remembrance and to 
 perpetuate it. (4.) I advert to one other consideration 
 which can never be urged too frequently. It is that few 
 or none are ever converted who enter the church. This 
 fact is one that is familiar to all who ever made any ob- 
 servation ; and the philosophy of the fact is as apparent 
 as the fact itself A deceived person once in the church 
 feels that he is safe. Preaching adapted to convert the 
 impenitent he never applies to himself, for he is a mem- 
 ber of the church, and he wards off all these appeals.— 
 No one can go to him in private and address him person- 
 ally as an impenitent man, for he would resist it as an 
 affront. And there is another fact as undeniable as it is 
 remarkable. It is, that appeals made in the sanctuary, 
 and designed for him never reach him. Cautions and 
 entreaties on the subject of self-deception ; tender expos- 
 tulations designed for him, pass by him unheeded. Some 
 humble, pious, timid, prayhig, conscientious Christian 
 shall apply all these appeals to himself, and be deeply 
 distressed, while the cold, and formal, and deceived pro- 
 fessor shall perhaps be asleep in the sanctuary, or shall 
 deem it strange that the pastor can be so uncharitable 
 as to suppose that any members of his flock can be prac- 
 tising deception on themselves or their fellow-men. 
 
 II. The second principle on which a profession of reli- 
 gion should be made is, that there should be in fact, as 
 there is in form, a separation from the luorld. This is 
 the very command of the text. " Come out from among 
 them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not 
 the unclean thing." The word " them" in the text — come 
 out from among them — refers to the persons mentioned 
 in the context — to the worshippers of idols, to the impure, 
 to unbelievers. No one can doubt that the meaning of 
 Paul is, that Christians should regard themselves as a pe- 
 culiar people ; and that a distinct and definite line should 
 be drawn between them and their fellow-men. It would 
 be easy to multiply texts of Scripture to almost any extent 
 
PROFESSING RELIGION. 171 
 
 inculcating the same idea. The following passages will 
 set before you the current strain of the Scripture doctrine 
 on this subject. " Be not conformed to tliis world." Ro- 
 mans xii. 2. *•■ Love not the world, neither things that are 
 in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the 
 Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the 
 lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the pride of 
 life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." 1. John ii. 
 16. " Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an 
 holy nation, a peculiar people." 1. Pet. ii. 9. " My king- 
 dom," said the Redeemer, "is not of this world." 
 
 Now the only hope of restoring these solemn commands 
 of Jesus Christ to their place in the church is by address- 
 ing tliem, even perhaps with painful reiteration, to those 
 who are about to make a profession of religion. There 
 are w^orldly habits in the church itself as it is every where 
 constituted, which it is perhaps impossible to eradicate. 
 There are modes of living, styles of dress and of amuse- 
 ment, and schemes of gain and ambition, whose opposi- 
 tion to the spirit of the gospel does not strike us with 
 amazement only because they are common. But we may 
 stand at the portals of the church and remind those who 
 are about to enter, of what the gospel requires at their 
 hands. And despite of all that you may now see in the 
 church, I lay it down as one principle that is to guide 3^ou, 
 that you are not to be "conformed to this world." Neither 
 in spirit, in opinion, in aim, in purpose, in amusement, in 
 object, in desire, in your manner of hfe are you to be 
 conformed to this world. You are to feel that you belong 
 to a different community, are imder different laws, and 
 have different objects. You are, in all things to take upon 
 yourself the laws of Jesus Christ; and if in all honesty 
 you are not prepared for this, you are not prepared to 
 make a profession of religion. 
 
 To understand this, it may be proper to make a few 
 other remarks. The grand principle in the Bible is, that 
 on earth there are two great communities which are sepa- 
 rate in their organization, their purpose, and their design. 
 There is the community of the Christian church, em- 
 bracing all of every name and land who are under the 
 laws of Christianity ; and there is that great community 
 which in the Bible is called " the world." The latter has 
 
172 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 its own laws, and purposes; and so has the former. 
 Though mingled together in the same nation, neighbor- 
 hood, or family, yet they are radically distinct. Now the 
 act of making a profession of religion is, in fact, a coming 
 out from one, and becoming identified with the other of 
 these independent and separate communities. From this 
 primary principle another follows, that there are differ- 
 ent laws, purposes, and objects in these two entirely dis- 
 similar kingdoms. The peculiarity of the one is, that it 
 is governed by the laws of God as revealed in the Bible, 
 and as sanctioned and enforced by conscience; and of the 
 other, that it is governed by the laws of honor, though 
 they lead to cold-blooded and deliberate murder ; of 
 fashion — though frivolous and foolish, and attended with 
 the loss of the soul ; of expediency or of pleasure ; of 
 such laws as shall, in their apprehension, be best fitted to 
 promote the ends they have in view — ostentation, ambi- 
 tion, honor, or wealth. And another principle follows 
 from this, that the world as such has no right to cross the 
 line, and to give law to the members of the church. They 
 are under the laws of the Bible : and all which cannot be 
 defended by that is wrong. 
 
 Now what I have to say is, that you are by no means 
 prepared to connect yourself with the church, unless you 
 are ready, effectually and finally, to bid adieu to the com- 
 munity of the world as your portion, and to bring your- 
 self WHOLLY under the laws of the Bible. If there is a 
 purpose to blend the two together ; if there is an expecta- 
 tion to be as gay and fashionable as the world ; if there is 
 a desire for its pleasures ; if there is an intention to shape 
 your course by its maxims and its laws ; if you are not 
 prepared to abandon, and to feel, that though you are in 
 the world yet you are not " of the world," then you are 
 by no means prepared to make a profession of religion. 
 You would do more injury in the church than you would 
 do good ; and your name had better be where your heart 
 and your influence are. 
 
 These are simple principles, and if applied they would 
 guide you aright. It would be too long to attempt to 
 carry them out ; and it is not necessary to do it. The- 
 principles which should regulate our intercourse with the 
 world are very simple, and they may be expressed in few 
 
PROFESSING RELIGION. 173 
 
 words. I will just suggest them. (1.) You are not to par- 
 take of the sins of the world. This is clear, and needs 
 no proof. All that is positively evil, and only evil, and 
 that continually, is to be avoided by a Christian. Every 
 thing which is a sinful waste of time, money, influence, 
 strength, is to be avoided. What wide desolation would 
 this simple principle make even in the practice of the 
 members of the church ! (2.) You are not to partake of 
 the amus&intnts of the world as such. I mean that you 
 are not to originate such amusements ; you are not to 
 countenance them ; you are not to partake of them. You 
 are to go to no place where you will be expected to lay 
 aside your Christian character. Now let it be remem- 
 bered that over parties of pleasure, and over balls, and 
 over all similar amusements, the ivorld has the control. 
 The world gives laws. The world dictates the conversa- 
 tion. The world prescribes the dress, the hours, the ex- 
 penses, the manner of conversation. Such places the 
 Christian cannot control ; and when he goes there he is 
 expected for the time to lay aside the severity of his pro- 
 fession, and to conform to the world. Such scenes are 
 not arranged in accordance with the New Testament ; 
 the New Testament is not allowed to reign there. And 
 it becomes a plain and obvious principle, that where 
 a professed Christian cannot act out his religion ; where 
 lie is expected to lay aside his Christian character for 
 the time being; where he cannot without a violation 
 of the rules of the association, or the company, intro- 
 duce his own principles, and dv/ell, if he chooses, on 
 the great wonders of redemption, his place is not there. 
 (3.) There are great matters of entire innocence and 
 propriety in which the Christian can act in common 
 with tliis world — and his field of intercourse with them 
 is there. Thus there are the common interests of justice ; 
 of learning ; of agriculture ; of civil matters ; of public im- 
 provements ; of a neighbourhood ; of a nation ; — !us rights 
 as a citizen and as a mai], in all which he is called on to 
 act in connexion with the people of the Vv^orld. Yet in 
 none of these instances is he to act in any way inconsist- 
 ent with the principles of ^e most rigid Christian morali- 
 ty; and even in these things, whatever may be the aim 
 
 m 
 
174 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 of Others, his aim is to promote the honor of God the 
 Saviour. 
 
 (4.) We are to associate with the people of this world 
 so far as we can do them good. So the Saviour associated 
 with the Scribes and Pharisees ; with the Sadducees ani 
 the Publicans, and with sinners. So on the Sabbath he 
 went to dine with a Pharisee ; and so he entered the house 
 of Zaccheus the Publican to bring salvation to him and 
 his family. To all men we are to do good ; and to this end 
 we are not to avoid them, or to say to them " stand by 
 thyself for I am holier than thou ;" nor are we to be mo- 
 rose, sour, or misanthropic ; but to all we are to evince 
 kindness and benevolence, and to every man we are to 
 do all the good that God may put in our power. 
 
 Such are some of the principles which are to regulate 
 our intercourse with this world. Such the principles, I 
 apprehend, on which, if you come aright, you will come 
 into the church. And if these are not your principles, 
 then it is apparent that your heart is with the world, and 
 with your present feelings you should not make a pro- 
 fession of religion. 
 
 III. A third principle is, that you are to abandon what- 
 ever is inconsistent with the honest purpose to be a 
 whole-hearted Christian. As all hope of being understood 
 here arises from the particularity with which my state- 
 ments are made, I shall specify a few particulars showing 
 what I mean. The general principle I trust will not be 
 called in question, that a man who comes into the church 
 is to abandon whatever is wrong. Assuming this as in- 
 disputable, I observe more particularly, that you are to 
 abandon or surrender, 
 
 (1.) The supreme love of property or money. "Who- 
 soever he be of you," said the Master, " that forsaketh 
 not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple." Luke 
 xiv. 33. " Ye cannot," said he, " serve God and mam- 
 mon." " Covetousness," says Paul, " is idolatry ;" and 
 an idolater has no inheritance in the kingdom of God. — 
 The early disciples were required by the Redeemer to 
 forsake all that they had and to follow him ; and the early 
 Christians did in fact give up all that they had, and de- 
 voted all to the Son of God. Whatever Paul had 
 
PROFESSING RELIGION. 175 
 
 of property, or learning, or talent that was valuable, he 
 was ready to surrender it all to the cause of the Redeemer. 
 (Phil. iii. 7. 8.) " Yea, doubtless," said he, " I count all 
 things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of 
 Christ Jesus my Lord." God now requires all who 
 come into the church as honestly to consecrate all that 
 they have to him, and in reference to their property as 
 well as their aims, and influence, and talent, to say as 
 Saul of Tarsus did, " Lord what wilt thou have me to 
 do ?" And if you are not prepared to devote your pro- 
 perty honestly to God, to be sunk in the ocean, or swept 
 away by the flame if he pleases ; if you are not prepared 
 to impart of it to do good and benefit man ; if it is not to be 
 your great aim in regard to that to do just what God re- 
 quires, you are not prepared to make a profession of re- 
 ligion. 
 
 (2.) You must be prepared to abandon an evil course 
 of life. This is evident. What I wish to say is, that 
 not only gross vices are to be given up, but all forms 
 of evil. Habits of gross evil, I know, are easily for- 
 saken. But all that is false and evil is to be forsaken 
 also. Profaneness is not only to be forsaken, but false- 
 hood and deception are to be forsaken. The Christian is 
 to be a man of strict uncompromising truth and honesty, 
 no matter what the world is. If the people of the 
 world choose to deceive in the prices or qualities of arti- 
 cles of trade ; if they do not deem it necessary always to 
 adhere to their promises ; if they choose to say they are 
 not at home when they are at home, still the Christian 
 is to be like Jesus Christ, and is to say, or instruct others 
 to say only what he would. And unless you come into 
 the church prepared to be a man of uncompromising 
 truth and integrity, you are not prepared to make a pro- 
 fession of religion. No matter what raptures you may 
 have, or what zeal, or what spirit of prayer, or what joy, 
 the Christian is to be an honest man, and if he is not an 
 honest man all his supposed evidences of piety, are hay 
 and stubble. 
 
 (3.) You are to abandon your evil companions. If 
 hitherto your chosen friends have been infidels or scoti'ers : 
 .if they have been the pleasure-loving and the gay ; if they 
 
176 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 have Deen found among the patrons of the drama or the 
 ball-room, as companions they are now to be forsaken, 
 and you are to seek and find your associates among the 
 disciples of the Lord Jesus. You are to come and say to 
 each Christian brother, " thy people shall be my people, 
 and thy God my God ; where thou diest, will I die, and 
 there will I be buried." Ruth i. 16. 17. You are to 
 breathe out the prayer of the Psalmist. " Remember me 
 Lord with the favor which thou bearest imto thy peo- 
 ple." Ps. cvi. 4. You are to regard the Christian brother- 
 hood as your chosen companionship, and to have fellow- 
 ship with the friends of your days of sin, only in the 
 necessary intercourse of relationship, of business, or to do 
 them good. If this subjects yovi to their hatred or their 
 scorn, it is to be borne, and if you cannot bear it, it proves 
 that you have no true love to the Redeemer and his 
 cause. With the friends of Christ, if a Christian, you will 
 dwell forever in a world where there is no revelry, no 
 worldly pleasure ; and if on earth you decidedly prefer 
 the society of the worldly and the gay to that of the 
 humble friends of Christ, it shows where the heart is still, 
 and demonstrates that it is not w4th Christ. How is he 
 to be prepared for the society of heaven who has no love 
 for the fellowship of Christians on earth ; who prefers a 
 ball-room to a prayer meeting, and the conversation of 
 the gay and the frivolous, or even the scientific and the 
 literary, to conversation about the glor}^ of Christianity 
 and the enjoyment of heaven ? 
 
 (4.) You should come prepared to give up even your 
 kindred, and forsake them for Christ. On this point the 
 Saviour was probably more explicit than on almost any 
 other requirement of his religion. " If any man come to 
 me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and 
 children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life 
 also, he cannot be my disciple." Luke xiv. 26. " He 
 that loveth father and mother more than me, is not wor- 
 thy of me, and he that loveth son or daughter more than 
 me is not worthy of me." Matth. x. 37. On one occasion 
 he commanded a man to follow him. " Suffer me first, 
 said he, "to go and bury my father." " Let the dead bury 
 the dead," was the firm reply of the Redeemer, " but go 
 
PROFESSING RELIGION. 177 
 
 thou and preach the kingdom of God." Luke ix. 59. 60. 
 He demanded the strong proof which would thus be 
 shown that he preferred him to his own friends, and that 
 he was willing to break away from them even in the 
 most tender and interesting circumstances, and to go 
 where he required him. And the same principle is de- 
 manded now. If a profession of religion requires you to 
 differ in opinion from father, or mother, or kindred, it 
 should be done. If it requires you to break away from 
 their pleasures ; to cease to accompany them to the places 
 of sin, you are to be willing to make the sacrifice, and to 
 separate yourself unto God. If it shall demand of you to 
 forsake your country and home, and to go to the ends of 
 the earth to make him known, you are to come with that 
 feeling. No one should enter the Christian church who 
 would not be willing, if it were clearly shown to him to 
 be his duty, to cross oceans to proclaim the Saviour's 
 name, and to abandon forever all the comforts of his fire- 
 side and his home. This Christ demanded of the Apos- 
 tles ; and this he demands in every professor of religion. 
 For if this feeling does not exist, how can there be a su- 
 preme regard to the will of Christ ? 
 
 (5.) Allied to this, you should be willing to abandon 
 any calling, however honorable and lucrative it may be, 
 for any other calling where you can do more good. — 
 When Saul of Tarsus was converted, he \vas required to 
 give up his plans of life and become a minister of the 
 cross. And he did it without a murmur. So it must be 
 in all other cases. No man comes into the church with 
 a proper spirit who is not prepared to abandon any call- 
 ing if Christ requires it, and if he can do more good in a 
 new profession. It is not enough to say that his present 
 calling is not unlawful, and that he may be useful in 
 that. All that may be. But the grand question is, 
 whether in that he can do more to honor Christ and 
 save the world than in another. Remember one fact. 
 God often converts young lawyers, and merchants, and 
 farmers, and physicians, and mechanics, ybr the very 
 purpose of making them ministers of the gospel — as 
 he did Saul of Tarsus; and he expects them to fulfil 
 his design as Saul did, by becoming heralds of salva- 
 
178 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 tion to a dying world. If he is not prepared to do 
 just what in all honesty he believes Jesus Christ re- 
 quires of him, he is not prepared to make a profession 
 of religion. 
 
 (6.) One remark more under this head. If you are 
 not willing to abandon any calling however lucrative it 
 may be that is contrary to the Bible and to good morals, 
 you should not dare to enter the church. If a man is 
 converted as Paul was, pursuing an evil manner of life, 
 though on the high road to honor and perhaps to wealth, 
 and is not willing to abandon his course, he is not pre- 
 pared to make a profession of religion. What sort of a 
 professor of religion would Paul have been, if he had 
 not been willing to give up the business of persecu- 
 tion ? If a man is converted who is a slaveholder, as 
 John Newton was, he should be prepared to give up the 
 business, or he should not be allowed to make a pro- 
 fession of religion. Thus far all is clear. How is it now, 
 under the operation of this principle, with the man who 
 is engaged in the manufacture and sale of ardent spirits ? 
 In ancient Ephesus there were men who practised cu- 
 rious arts, and were devoted to it as a business. Under 
 the preaching of Paul they were converted ; and one of 
 the first promptings of their Christian zeal was to bring 
 together those books, and burn them before all men to 
 the amount in value of " fifty thousand pieces of silver" — 
 making the expression of their abhorrence at their former 
 life as public as their life and business had been. There 
 was manifested the great principle for which I contend 
 — that no man should connect himself with a church, 
 who is not prepared, at any sacrifice, as they were, to 
 abandon any business, however lucrative, which is evil, 
 and only evil, and that continually. How can a man be 
 a Christian who is not prepared to make such a sacrifice ? 
 And why should he seek a connexion with a church to 
 pursue his course of life under the sanction of the Chris- 
 tian name ? No. The church needs not such members ; 
 and the Saviour never designed that any should profess 
 his name who were not prepared forever to forsake all 
 forms of evil however lucrative, and however honorable 
 in the esteem of the world. No man can be a Christian who 
 
PROFESSING RELIGION. 17§ 
 
 pursues a calling which cannot be pursued from a sincere 
 desire to glorify God; and no man should enter the 
 church who is not prepared to sacrifice his profession, and 
 his calling if it be a scandal and a disgrace to the Chris- 
 tian name. 
 
SERMON XII. 
 
 THE PRINCIPLES ON WHICH A PROFESSION OF RELIGION 
 SHOULD BE MADE. NO. 2. 
 
 2 Cor. vi. 17, 18. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye 
 separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing ; and I will re- 
 ceive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and 
 daughters, saith the Lord Almighty. 
 
 In the previous discourse I stated some of the princi- 
 ples on which a profession of rehgion should be made. 
 
 I propose now to resume the subject, and to state some 
 other principles which should direct us in the perform- 
 ance of this duty. 
 
 IV. The fourth principle is, that we should come into 
 the church with a fixed and settled purpose to do our 
 whole duty as it may be made known to us by God. I 
 mean by this, that we should not flinch from any duty, 
 however arduous ; we should not shrink back from it 
 because it will demand personal sacrifice, or because it 
 will bring upon us the scorn or the opposition of the 
 world, or because it may be attended with pecuniary 
 loss, or because it may expose us to a martyr's death. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to attempt to prove that this is 
 involved in the purpose to make a profession of religion. 
 What is religion ? It is doing the will of God. And he 
 who professes religion, professes his solemn purpose to 
 do the will of God, and not his own. When Saul of 
 Tarsus was converted, one of the first questions which he 
 asked was, " Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ?" Acts 
 ix. 6. The governing purpose of his soul was changed, 
 and it became henceforth a characteristic of the man that 
 he engaged unceasingly in doing the will of God. And 
 how is it possible that a man can be a Christian who does 
 not ? Can he be a Christian who enters the church intend- 
 ing to do his duty or not, as he pleases ; resolving to be 
 guided by caprice, or fashion, or self-indulgence, or am- 
 bition, or pleasure, rather than by the solemn convictions 
 
 180 
 
PROFESSING RELIGION. 181 
 
 of duty ? Can a man be a Christian who has no settled 
 conviction of what is right and what is wrong ; who 
 makes no distinction between truth and falsehood ; who 
 has no such views of God's government as to lead him 
 to submit to him ? Is such a man prepared publicly to 
 profess that he is influenced by a supreme regard to the 
 will of God ? To ask these questions is to answer them. 
 There can be no two ways of thinking about them, 
 however many ways there may be of acting. 
 
 Instead, therefore, of attempting to demonstrate what 
 will be conceded by all, I shall assume that a man who 
 enters the church not intending to do his whole duty, has 
 no right views of the nature of the Christian profession. 
 And assuming this, I shall proceed to specify some of the 
 acknowledged duties which will be incumbent on him. 
 
 One is, to repair, as far as possible, the evils of his for- 
 mer life. Many of those evils, indeed, cannot now be 
 repaired. If a man has been a blasphemer, and a con- 
 temner of the divine commands, he can make no repara- 
 tion to God. His only course in respect to these sins is to 
 humble himself in dust and ashes, and seek for pardon 
 through the blood of the Redeemer. In like manner for 
 many of the evils which he has done to men, he can 
 now make no reparation. The parent whom he diso- 
 beyed when a child may be dead, and he cannot now 
 ask his forgiveness, or repay the disregarded and abused 
 kindness of the father or the mother. The neighbor 
 whom he slandered, or whose property he took away 
 by fraud, may be dead also. The man who was killed by 
 the intoxicating liquor which he sold may be dead, and 
 his children, impoverished and degraded, may be so far 
 ruined in their character, that he cannot repair the evils 
 which he has done them. For these, and all similar offences, 
 he can only humble himself before God, and resolve, 
 by a different life, to repair as far as possible the evils 
 done to the community at large. The individuals may 
 be beyond your reach, but an injured community is 
 not, and is as much to be benefitted by your active life 
 in holiness, as it has been injured by your active life of 
 sin. But there are other cases. The man whom you 
 may have corrupted by your infidelity, blasphemy, or 
 
 16 
 
182 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 sensuality, may live, and you may be the means of re- 
 claiming him. The man whom you may have slandered 
 may still live, and to him you may make penitent con- 
 fession of your error. The man that you defrauded may 
 be alive, and you are bound to restore, with penitent ac- 
 knowledgments, that of which you deprived him. You 
 failed in business. You made an assignment. You com- 
 pounded with your creditors ; and they released you, and 
 the law released you. But you are now in circumstances 
 of comfort or affluence — able to pay all. Will your con- 
 science be released because the law released you ? Are 
 you free from moral obligation to pay what you owe, 
 because the law has cancelled the legal obligation ? You 
 had their property. You used it. It was by no fault of 
 theirs that it was lost — and they, one and all, suffered by 
 it. You have the means of restoring it. What will good 
 faith require of a man thus circumstanced ? And why 
 shall not he who has now the power restore all, so that 
 he may feel that in conscience and in law he owes no 
 man any thing ? At a period of life when men usually 
 begin to look for relaxation and ease, Sir Walter Scott 
 failed, and was burdened with a debt of nearly half a 
 million of dollars. To pay it he had nothing but his pen. 
 How many men — professors of religion, too, I fear — 
 would have sat down in despair. Not so he. He refused 
 even the aid of his friends. * This right hand,' said he, 
 ' shall pay it' — and night and day he toiled till mind and 
 body, crushed together, sunk under the noble effort to 
 pay every man that he owed. What an example to men 
 bearing the Christian name, who, in the unavoidable 
 transactions of business, are unable to pay their creditor's ! 
 What a reproach to him who can continue to live in afflu- 
 ence unconcerned, and who feels that all is done where 
 the law has pronounced him discharged ! 
 
 Again. In the purpose to do his whole duty will be 
 involved the purpose to lead a life of prayer. I refer 
 now to secret prayer. Most persons when they are 
 about to make a profession of religion, practice secret 
 prayer. If their minds are deeply impressed, and they 
 feel that they are sinners, they pray of course. And 
 even if they practice a deception on others or on them- 
 selves, there is such an obvious impropriety in making a 
 
 1 
 
 J 
 
PROFESSING RELIGION. 183 
 
 profession ot religion without any prayer, that they then, 
 if at no other time, call upon God. But at the same time 
 it is easy to conceive that this may be regarded as an 
 extraordinary duty, and that they have no serious inten- 
 tion to continue to practice it to any considerable extent 
 after they shall have been admitted to the church. Now, 
 my remark is, that if there is any such secret purpose, a 
 profession of religion should not be made, for it is clear 
 that a man who does not in good faith practice secret 
 prayer, cannot be a pious man. " When thou prayest," 
 said the Saviour, "enter into thy closet, and when thou 
 hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret." 
 Matth. vi. 6. " Pray without ceasing," "in everything 
 by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your 
 requests be made known unto God," are among the most 
 positive commands of the Bible. It would be easy to 
 demonstrate that this is a duty. But this is not my de- 
 sign. My remark is, that a man who comes into the 
 church not prepared to take from his worldly business as 
 much time every da^r as shall be necessary, with a good 
 conscience to keep up the life of religion in the heart ; 
 to meet the temptations to which he is exposed, and to 
 walk with God, cannot be a pious man, and should not 
 approach the Lord's supper. Unless he loves his closet ; 
 unless he prefers it to any place of amusement, of busi- 
 ness, or of gain ; any pursuit of science, literature, or am- 
 bition, he may have much that is amiable, and kind, and 
 fascinating, but he has no evidence that he is a pious 
 man. For evidence of piety will be better found in the 
 persevering practice of secret devotion, than in the most 
 noisy profession, and in the most public proclamation of 
 a purpose to serve God. 
 
 The same thing is true of those whose duty would 
 lead them to the practice of family prayer. The general 
 principle is, that a man should honestly intend to dis- 
 charge his whole duty. My remark now is, that if he 
 is not prepared to summon his family around him, and 
 worship God by leading them to the throne of grace, he 
 is not prepared to make a profession of religion. It 
 would be too long to go into a proof on this point now. 
 A remark or two must suliice. What will be your influ- 
 ence in your family if this is not done ? The truth is, that 
 
184 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 there is such an instinctive sense of the propriety of 
 family devotion in every household, that where this is 
 not done, all other influence of a religious kind is neu- 
 tralized. A child knows that a father who professes to 
 be a Christian should worship God in his own dweUing. 
 To him it is inexplicable that he does not do it. He 
 learns, you can hardly tell how, that those who are siu- 
 cere and eminent Christians, do offer the morning and 
 evening sacrifice to God. And he has no way of account- 
 ing for the fact that you do not do it except on the sup- 
 position that you have less religion — a supposition that 
 approximates very rapidly to the conclusion that you 
 have none. And what man can expect the divine bless- 
 ing on his family ; who can expect peace in his own 
 bosom, who is living in the habitual and constant neglect 
 of a known duty ? How can a man come and partake of 
 the emblems of a Saviour's body, who at the very time 
 knows that he is daily neglecting a positive requirement 
 of God, and who is resolving to persevere in the neglect? 
 
 Again. The purpose to do our whole duty will extend 
 to all the relations of life. It will extend to the intention 
 to be a Christian, and to act like a Christian, wherever, 
 in the providence of God, we may be placed. Whether 
 iw. the relation of parent or child ; of husband or wife ; 
 of brother or sister ; of master or servant ; of employer 
 or apprentice, or clerk, in all these relations there will be 
 the solemn and fixed purpose to do our whole duty, and 
 to adorn religion there. In any situation in which we 
 may be placed, there will be the design to live and act 
 as the Saviour did. And if there is an intention to lay 
 aside the severer restraints of religion ; to mingle in 
 scenes of gaity and vanity that are contrary to the most 
 strict obligations of Christianity ; to go away from the 
 sanctuary and to be as gay, as volatile, as ambitious, 
 and as fond of dress and amusement as the people of the 
 world are, the case is clear, whatever else you may do, 
 you should never approach the table of communion. 
 
 V. A fifth general principle is, that we are to come 
 resolving that we will be as eminent Christians as possi- 
 ble, or that we will make as much of our religion as we 
 possibly can make of it. My meaning is, that we should 
 " make full proof" of the power of the gospel to sane- 
 
PROFESSING RELIGION. 185 
 
 tify the soul ; that we should not come intending merely 
 to he a member of the church; nor merely to reach 
 heaven, but intending that whatever there is of purify- 
 ing power, whatever there is of consolation, whatever 
 there is of the fulness of hope in the gospel should be 
 ours. One of the resolutions of President Edward's, adopt- 
 ed in early life, was in these words : " On the supposition 
 that there never was but one individual in the world, at 
 any time, who was properly a complete Christian in all 
 respects of a right stamp, having Christianity always 
 shilling in its true lustre, and appearing excellent and 
 lovely, from whatever part and under whatever charac- 
 ter viewed : Resolved, to act just as I would do, if I strove 
 with all my might to be that one who should live in my 
 time." Nor do I see how any one can be prepared to 
 make a profession of religion who does not adopt sub- 
 stantially that resolution. No commands of the New 
 Testament are more positive than those which require us 
 not only to aim at perfection, but to be perfect. " Be ye, 
 therefore, perfect," said the Saviour, '• as your Father in 
 heaven is perfect." Matth. v. 48. "As he which hath 
 called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conver- 
 sation." 1 Pet. i. 15. The idea is that he who makes a 
 profession of rehgion should resolve to be as holy as pos- 
 sible ; to be as dead to the world as possible ; to be as 
 eminent in love to God and in love to man, in prayer, 
 and faith, and humility, and self-denial as he possibly 
 can be. 
 
 To dwell on this head in the way of proof, would be 
 useless. I may just add, however, that if a man wishes 
 either comfort or usefulness in the church, he can obtain 
 either only in this way. No man ever arrived at any 
 eminence either in moral character, or in any profession, 
 who had not such a singleness of aim. " If thine eye 
 be single thy whole body shall be full of light ; but if 
 thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of dark- 
 ness." Matth. vi. 22. The reason why there is so little 
 comfort, peace, joy, and usefulness among the professed 
 friends of Christ, is, that they never came into the church 
 with any unity of aim ; or if they did, they soon aban- 
 doned it. To be a Christian ; to live a life of piety ; to 
 be holy, was onlv one of many plans which they formed ; 
 
186 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 and one, alas ! which has been often compelled to give 
 way to others. For it often happens, that of all the plans 
 and purposes which professed Christians form, those of 
 their religion are the most flexible and yielding. The 
 laws of fashionable life, at any expense of time, or mo- 
 ney, or ease, must be conformed to. The lav/s which 
 govern them in their attempts to become rich and honor- 
 ed, are to bo conformed to. If there is to be any yielding, 
 the laws of their religion are to be made to give way. If 
 any time is taken for any new project, it is time taken 
 from their closets rather than their counting-rooms ; and 
 the devotions of the family are abridged rather than the 
 pleasures of the evening party. If, in the pressure of 
 hard times, there is any curtailment of expenses requi- 
 site, the curtailment is made in the matters of benevo- 
 lence, and the cause of Christ first suffers. Meantime 
 the splendid mansion, and the carriage, and the retinue 
 of servants, and the gay apparel, and the gorgeous furni- 
 ture are kept as long as they can be ; but the channels 
 of benevolence are dry, and sympathy for the cause of a 
 dying world is suddenly extinguished. With such the 
 least stable of all laws are those of the New Testament ; 
 the most firm are those which control the fashionable and 
 the business world. Now, what I am wishing to say is 
 this : That he who comes into the churcli intending that 
 in any unexpected emergency the first acts of retrench- 
 ment shall be made on his religion ; that his piety shall 
 be perpetually giving way to the laws of fashionable 
 life, of politics, of gain, and of honor ; that all abridg- 
 ments of time shall be taken from his times of prayer, 
 and of reading the Bible, and of proper religious duty, 
 knows nothing about religion, and should not presume 
 to approach the emblems of a Saviour's death. The 
 only things in this world that are to be stern, inflexible, 
 unchanging, and eternal, are the principles of religion ; 
 and where they are not so regarded, whether in the church 
 or out of it, there is an utter destitution of the principles 
 of true love to the Redeemer. Heaven and earth are to 
 pass away, but the laws of Christ are not to pass away. 
 VI. A sixth principle which I state on which we 
 should make a profession of religion is, that we should 
 be the warm and decided friends of revivals. I mean 
 
PROFESSING RELIGION. 187 
 
 by this, not only that we should be the friends of reli- 
 gion in general, and of its advancement — which every 
 man who makes any pretensions to piety must be — but 
 that we should be the advocates and friends of the extra- 
 ordinary manifestations of the grace of God when num- 
 bers are simultaneously converted to the Saviour. I do 
 not deny that religion is to make advances in the world 
 by other modes than by revivals ; nor do I affirm, by any 
 means, that we are to undervalue any influences, how- 
 ever feeble, that tend to the promotion of true piety on 
 the earth. But this is what I mean. The gospel is fitted 
 to produce a deep and far-spreading simultaneous influ- 
 ence on the minds of men. It is a fact that such an in- 
 fluence often descends from heaven and pervades a com- 
 munity, and that a sense of the importance of religion 
 spreads from heart to heart, and the power of sympathy 
 is excited, and many come simultaneously to the cross. 
 It is a fact that the Saviour promised such blessings, and 
 that on the day of Pentecost the Spirit of God descended 
 with such power, and that thousands were converted. 
 And it is a fact that if this world is ever converted to 
 God ; if this land is saved from infidelity, and Sabbath- 
 breaking, and licentiousness, and profaneness, it must be 
 by such scenes as were witnessed on the day of Pente- 
 cost. I have no other hope of the prevalence and exten- 
 sion of religion and purity on earth than by revivals of 
 religion. Of this age they have been the glory ; striking 
 deeper and farther onward into all that is valuable in our 
 prospects for the future, than any or than all other means 
 that have been adopted to bless our country. 
 
 Now men enter the church with very various feelings 
 in regard to these manifestations of the grace of God. 
 Some have never witnessed such displays of his mercy, 
 and have no settled opinion in regard to them. Some 
 look on the whole subject with distrust, and have no de- 
 sire to witness them. Some associate them with scenes 
 of disorder and fanaticism ; regard them as the result of 
 an overheated imagination, and as tending to unsettle all 
 that is fixed and permanent. Some regard them as the 
 sluices of error and extravagance, and deem them to be 
 the mere production of human measures and machinery. 
 The ignorance of many in the church on this subject is 
 
188 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 to be pitied rather than to be regarded as a subject of 
 reproach. But the opposition which is often made de- 
 serves other language than that which merely describes 
 ignorance. The apathy of the churches in regard to re- 
 vivals is one of the most melancholy features of the times 
 in which we live. 
 
 The position which I wish now to be understood as 
 taking is, that no one should make a profession of religion 
 unless he is prepared to give his prayers, and toils, and 
 honest efforts to a promotion of a pure revival of religion. 
 He is not to come into the church to speak of such scenes 
 as disorder and confusion ; he is not to come to complain 
 of the preaching which the Holy Ghost usually blesses to 
 this end ; he is not to come to take side with the wicked 
 world in characterizing such scenes as that on the day of 
 Pentecost as extravagance and wild-fire ; he is not to 
 come to impede any honest and well-meant effort to pro- 
 mote the salvation of souls. Not for such purposes is he to 
 come into the church of Jesus Christ — for in all churches 
 there are enough such already. We need other men. 
 The churches need other professors of religion. There 
 must be other professors of religion — those who will 
 heartily, and prayerfully, and continually seek a revival 
 of the work of God. And if such is ^^our state of mind 
 that you could not in all honesty and heartiness join in 
 the prayer that the church might witness such a scene as 
 that on the day of Pentecost ; if you would be alarmed, 
 or would shrink back at the prospect of the simultaneous 
 conversion of hundreds and thousands in a brief period 
 of time ; if you would call it extravagance and enthu- 
 siasm, and join with the wicked and say, " these men are 
 filled with new wine," then it is manifest that you are not 
 prepared to make a profession of religion. Jesus Christ 
 needs no allies who would deride the work of the day of 
 Pentecost, or that would consider it as a scene of tumult 
 and disorder. 
 
 But what I have now said expresses very feebly what 
 I wish to say. It is not merely that you are not to oppose 
 such a work, but it is that you would heartily desire it, 
 and pray and labor for it. The sum of what I would 
 say is, that in all our churches we need — we greatly need 
 — those who in the fulness of an overflowing heart can 
 
PROCESSING RELIGION. 189 
 
 say, " Lord, revive thy work, in the midst of the years 
 make known, in wrath remember mercy ;" those who 
 for " Zion's sake will not hold their peace, and who for Je- 
 rusalem's sake cannot rest, until the righteousness thereof 
 go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp 
 that burneth." Why should a man enter the house of 
 God to impede in any way the work of salvation ? And 
 if you are not prepared to stand forth as the advocate of 
 revivals of religion ; if you are not prepared to give your 
 influence to promote them ; if you are not prepared to sus- 
 tain a pastor in such preaching and efforts as are adapted 
 to produce them ; if you cannot be depended on, should 
 God in his mercy visit his people with the descending 
 blessings of salvation like floods and torrents, then you 
 have not a spirit adopted to the exigency of the times in 
 which you live ; you bring not the aid which the church 
 needs in this time of her history." 
 
 VII. A seventh principle which I state is, that you 
 should enter the church as a warm and decided friend of 
 any and every proper plan for the salvation of the world. 
 For what did the Redeemer organize the church ? What 
 purpose did he contemplate by continuing it as an organ- 
 ized body from age to age ? Not for its own ease ; not 
 primarily and principally that its members might be pre- 
 pared for heaven. When converted they are prepared for 
 heaven, and if they should then die, they would be saved ; 
 and heaven is a higher place of comfort than the church 
 here, and better fitted to purify the soul than all the advan- 
 tages which we can here enjoy. The design for which he 
 keeps them here he has stated. " Go ye into all the world 
 and preach the gospel to every creature." Christ contem- 
 plates the conversion of this whole world to himself. 
 There is not a nation or a people which he does not intend 
 to subjugate to his law. The distant tribes of men are to 
 learn his name, and to hear the sound of his gospel ; and the 
 instrumentality by which that is to be effected is his church. 
 
 Every individual who becomes connected with the 
 church should sympathize with Jesus Christ in his pur- 
 pose to save the world. He should be of course a friend 
 of every feasible plan to extend the influence of religion ; 
 he should regard his time, and influence, and wealth, as 
 all the property of God the Saviour, to be employed in 
 
190 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 whatever way he shall direct. In all societies he should 
 be prepared to advocate the plans of benevolence ; at all 
 times he should rejoice in the opportunity of befriending 
 every scheme that goes to alleviate human misery, and 
 to elevate man to the favor of God. It should not be 
 forced, constrained, unwilling ; but he should be just as 
 willing to sacrifice his time and property to benefit 
 the world as Jesus Christ was to sacrifice comfort and 
 life to save us. Why should he not be ? He should be 
 just as willing, if need be, to cross oceans amidst priva- 
 tions and wants to benefit the perishing as the apostle 
 Paul was. Why should he not be ? 
 
 It needs no great acquaintance with the church to see 
 that all are not so. And it needs but little observation to 
 see the effect v/hen they are not so. When members of 
 the church are more penurious in regard to the objects of 
 Christian benevolence than are the men of the world ; 
 when you can more certainly calculate on a liberal bene- 
 faction for the circulation of the Bible and the spread of 
 the gospel from a man who makes no pretension to reli- 
 gion than from a professed Christian ; when a member 
 of the church joins with its foes in finding fault with the 
 plans of Christian benevolence, in exaggerating the errors 
 of those engaged in this work, in throwing obstacles in the 
 way ; when they look with unconcern on the whole enter- 
 prize of saving man ; when they have thousands to lavish 
 on their dwellings, their dress, their furniture, their equip- 
 age, their children, and nothing to give to that Redeemer 
 who died for men ; or when they can find it in their heart 
 to lavish on a splendid entertainment their wealth with- 
 out limit or bound and turn away coldly from the plead- 
 ings of a perishing world for aid, whatever may be the 
 estimate in which they will be held finally by the Master 
 before Avhom they must stand or fall, it is impossible not 
 to see the effect which it must have in regard to the sal- 
 vation of the world. There are devoted men with as 
 complete a right to earthly comforts as we have, who 
 have forsaken all, and who labor amidst many discourage- 
 ments in heathen lands to bring them to God. And that 
 which their hearts must most deeply feel is, the coldness 
 and indifference with which their enterprize is regarded 
 by many of the professed friends of their common Lord. 
 
PROFESSING RELIGION. 191 
 
 Now we need not so much accession of numbers to the 
 churches as those who shall enter heartily into the work 
 of the world's redemption. Nothing is gained to the cause 
 of Christ — as nothing is gained to himself — when a man 
 enrols himself among the professed friends of the Saviour 
 only to be a clog and a burden on the chariot wheels of 
 salvation ; — a man doing his duty only when it coincides 
 with his own interest ; who habitually neglects secret and 
 family worship ; who means to have only religion enough 
 to make him respectable and to take him to heaven ; who 
 has no friendship for revivals of religion, and who doubts 
 about them or opposes them ; who stands aloof from the 
 plans of Christian benevolence, and who coolly sees a 
 world unpitied going down to hell. Such a man sheds 
 a blight on any church, and on all accounts should retain 
 his connexion with the world. Let him not deceive him- 
 self, or attempt to deceive God and his fellow-men, by 
 enrolling his name among the friends of the Redeemer. 
 Other helpers are needed than these. The church must 
 have other friends or it will be ruined ; the world must 
 hax^e other helpers or it will never be converted to God. 
 
 Finally, I would observe that if the remarks which 
 have now been made, and which were made in the pre- 
 vious discourse, are correct, then we have arrived at the 
 conclusion that the profession of religion is much more 
 than a form and a name. To make such a profession is 
 a step not to be entered on without thought, and without 
 a most thorough acquaintance with ourselves. Our prin- 
 ciples should be understood. The reasons which prompt 
 us to it should be known. The object at which we aim 
 should be seen. The stand which we take should be de- 
 cided. And it should be taken with such, clear views, 
 and such firm convictions, that we should be able to 
 maintain our position amidst all the frowns, the contempt, 
 and the opposition which we may meet with. 
 
 On the ground of these views and principles, we may 
 exhort you to make a profession of religion. If the act 
 were what many seem to suppose ; if it imposed no solemn 
 obligations and implied no settled principles in regard to 
 the course of life ; if it was merely the change of a name 
 and of external relations ; if it were to come into the 
 church and pass the life in spiritual repose and indolence, 
 
192 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 then I should feel no interest in exhorting any man to 
 mak^ a profession of religion, and you would feel that it 
 was a matter of no consequence whether it was or was 
 not done. It would be a matter too insignificant to excite 
 any solicitude ; and the whole subject might be dismissed 
 without concern. And one reason, as I apprehend, why so 
 few make a profession, is, that it is felt by them to be a 
 matter of little importance, implying a slight change of 
 purpose, and not connected with any great and important 
 principles. I do not conceal the fact that I hope by the 
 representation which I have made to deter from this act 
 those who would come into the church only to be an in- 
 cumbrance when there ; but I have also desired to show 
 you that it is an act which demands solemn purpose, and 
 profound thought, and much prayer, and which is worth 
 an effort. We need none, we ask none, to come among us 
 who are not prepared to consecrate themselves in the 
 self-denials of a holy life to the Son of God ; none who 
 will not every where and always have the humility, 
 the self-denial, the heavenly-mindedness, the ever burning 
 zeal, the universal benevolence of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
SERMON XIII. 
 
 ENEMIES OF THE CROSS OF CHRIST. NO. I. 
 
 Phil. lii. 18. For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now 
 tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ. 
 
 Are we true Christians ? is the most important ques- 
 tion wliich can be asked in relation to ourselves. It is a 
 question which may be examined with the utmost atten- 
 tion without danger of injury. True piety, like gold, 
 will bear any test that can be applied, and will be all 
 the brighter and purer for it, and no sincere Christian need 
 be alarmed by any examination of his religion, however 
 rigid or severe. If our religion is not genuine it should 
 be examined by the strictest tests, and when believed to 
 be false it should be honestly abandoned. 
 
 It is evident that the persons referred to in the text 
 V\rere professors of religion. The term "walk" is com- 
 monly used in the New Testament to denote Christian 
 conduct ; and the undoubted meaning of the text is, that 
 there were many persons in the church at Philippi — pure 
 and noble as that church Vv^as in tlie main, who professed 
 to be Christians, but who showed by their deportment 
 that they were real enemies of the religion which they 
 professed. The "Cross of Christ" is an emphatic phrase 
 to denote the Christian religion. As the sacrifice on the 
 cross constituted the very essence of Christianity, the 
 term came to denote the Christian religion itself. It is 
 here used, perhaps, also to show more emphatically the 
 apostle's view of tlie extreme heinousness of the ofience, 
 that, while they professed to be Christians^ they were in 
 fact the enemies of the very peculiariti/ of the Christian 
 religion. 
 
 Of the existence of such strangers to religion in the 
 church, Paul had been long aware. Of their character, 
 and of their fearful doom he had told them often. He 
 now again reminded them, with tears, of the melancholy 
 
 17 193 
 
194 PRACTICAL SERMONS. r 
 
 truth. He used not towards them the language of harsh 
 and angry denunciation. He did not hold them up to 
 pubUc scorn and indignation. He did not attempt to 
 wound their feelings by satire, or to overwhelm them with 
 harsh invective. He was too deeply impressed with their 
 guilt and their danger to do this. He knew that the way 
 to reclaim the deceived and the erring was not to de- 
 nounce them with harshness, but to entreat them with 
 tears. Kindness accomplishes what severity cannot do, — 
 as, in the fabled strife between the sun and the north wind, 
 the sun with gentle and warming beams removes the 
 cloak which the north wind could not strip away by vio- 
 lence. The language of tenderness will find its way 
 with reforming power to the heart, where the words of 
 harsh rebuke would tend only to irritate and confirm in 
 error. Paul felt also, probably, as every minister of the 
 gospel should, that it little becomes a dying mortal, con- 
 scious of many imperfections and much liability to self- 
 deception himself, to use the language of harsh denuncia- 
 tion when speaking to others. Conscious imperfection 
 will speak tenderly of the faults of others, and will weep 
 rather than denounce when there is need of speaking of 
 the errors and dangers of professed Christians. 
 
 From the words of the text, the following points of 
 remark are naturally suggested. 
 
 I. There is reason to believe that many professors of 
 religion are the real enemies of the cross of Christ. 
 
 H. What are the characteristics of that enmity ; or how 
 may it be determined that they are the enemies of the 
 cross of Christ ? and 
 
 HI. Why is the fact of their being in the church fitted 
 to produce grief and tears? 
 
 I. The first proposition is, that there is reason to believe 
 that many professors of religion are the real enemies of 
 the cross of Christ. The proof on this head might be 
 drawn from what we know of the deceitfulness of the 
 heart; the numerous cautions against deception in the 
 Scriptures ; and from the case of Judas among the apos- 
 tles, and other instances specified in the New Testament. 
 I choose, however, rather to rest the whole proof of this 
 point on the account which the Lord Jesus has himself 
 given of the condition of the church in the two instruct 
 
ENEMIES OF THE CROSS OF CHRIST. 195 
 
 tive parables of the tares of the field, and of the net 
 cast mto the sea. " The kingdom of heaven is likened 
 unto a man which sowed good seed in his field : but while 
 men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the 
 wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was 
 sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares 
 also. So the servants of the householder came and said 
 unto him. Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? 
 from whence then hath it tares ? He said unto them, 
 An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, 
 Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up ? But he 
 said. Nay ; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up 
 also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until 
 the harvest : and in the time of harvest, I will say to the 
 reapers. Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them 
 in bundles to burn them ; but gather ye the wheat into 
 my barn." Matth. xiii. 24 — 30. " Again : the kingdom 
 of heaven is like unto a net that was cast into the sea, and 
 gathered of every kind : which when it was full, they 
 drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into 
 vessels, but cast the bad away. So shall it be at the end 
 of the Avorld : the angels shall come forth, and sever the 
 wicked from among the just ; and shall cast them into 
 the furnace of fire." Matth. xiii. 47 — 50. 
 
 That our Saviour meant to teach in these parables that 
 there would be many who would profess his name who 
 would be strangers to him, there can be no doubt. — 
 The same thing he affirmed in his account of the trans- 
 actions of the day of judgment. Matth. vii. 21 — 23: 
 " Not every one that shall call unto me. Lord, Lord, shall 
 enter into the kingdom of heaven. Many will say unto 
 me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in 
 thy name ? and in thy name cast out devils, and in thy 
 name done many wonderful works ? And then will I pro- 
 fess unto them, 1 never knew you." 
 
 It is not my purpose to dwell on this part of our sub- 
 ject. I wish simply to place the proof of the fact before 
 our own minds as furnishing a reason for whatever ear- 
 nestness I may evince in urging the language of the 
 Bible, " Be not deceived." I may just observe, however, 
 in passing, (I.) That Christianity is not responsible for the 
 
196 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 hypocrites or self-deceived professors that may be at any 
 time in the bosom of the church. ReUgion does not pro- 
 duce or countenance hypocrisy. No book more decidedly 
 condemns it than the New Testament ; no person ever 
 did it with more severity than the Saviour. The Christian 
 religion should no more be held answerable for hypocrisy, 
 than friendship is for false professions, or the patriotism 
 of Washington, for the treason of Arnold. (2.) The 
 Christian religion does not stand alone in this. There are 
 men who make professions of friendship which are false ; 
 men who make professions of patriotism which are false ; 
 men who make professions of honesty, temperance, 
 chastity, and honor, which are false, as well as men who 
 profess religion who are false. If our revolution pro- 
 duced a Washington, it produced also an Arnold ; and if 
 great and trying times have produced patriots who would 
 shed their blood for their country, they have produced 
 men also who would sell their country for gold. (3.) We 
 claim for Christianity only the good which it has done. 
 We point to the sinners whom it has reformed ; to the 
 vicious whom it has reclaimed ; to the proud whom it 
 has humbled ; to the virtues which it has created and 
 cherished, and to its influence on the morals and the des- 
 tiny of mankind, as the proof of its power. We claim 
 not for it the " tares" which have been sown in the field. 
 " An enemy hath done this." Patriotism may speak of 
 its achievements, and of the heroic virtues which it has 
 summoned forth and sustained, but it is not to be charged 
 with the crimes which under the name of love of country 
 have aimed a vital stab at liberty. (4.) We ask that, on this 
 subject, the language of discrimination and justice should 
 be used. We have no wish to screen the hypocrite, or 
 to be apologists for deceit. We ask that Christianity 
 should not be held answerable for what it has not contri- 
 buted to produce and foster. And we especially desire 
 that the facts to which we are now adverting should not 
 be made the occasion of the ruin of the soul. It will be 
 a poor compensation for the loss of the soul to reflect that 
 many were deceived in the church, and, to be able to 
 prove, if you are lost, that your most sanguine calcula- 
 tions of the number of hypocrites was correct, or fell 
 short of the reality. Such a reminiscence in the world 
 
ENEMIES OF THE CROSS OF CHRIST. 197 
 
 of WO will not constitute even the " single drop of water'' 
 that shall be needed to cool the parched tongue. It will 
 be no alleviation to your sorrows or mine, that others 
 were deceived ; and to prove that they have gone to hell 
 will constitute no passport for us to heaven. 
 
 II. My second object was to show how we may deter- 
 mine when those who profess religion are the enemies of 
 the cross of Christ. 
 
 The great importance of this enquiry, and the neces- 
 sity of obtaining discriminating views on it, will consti- 
 tute the apology for all the attention which I shall ask to 
 this head of the discourse. 
 
 The modes in which we discern the existence of 
 hostility are the following. (1.) When it is avowed 
 and declared, as between nations at war, or individuals 
 engaged in contention and strife. (2.) It may be evinced 
 by neglecting to manifest friendship in circumstances 
 fitted to test the character, and to bring out the real 
 principles. In. a nation, if all are summoned to its de- 
 fence, and a part neglect or refuse to come to its aid, 
 their real principles cannot be a matter of doubt. The 
 danger of the nation may be so imminent, that a neglect 
 to act is in fact an indication of hostile feelings. (3.) 
 It is evinced by failing to manifest the characteristic 
 spirit of friendship. If we are in distress, and a pro- 
 fessed friend could aid us, but loill not ; if we are hungry, 
 and he will not feed us ; if we are thirsty, and he will 
 not give us drink ; if we are naked, and he will not 
 clothe us ; if we are sick and in prison, and he will 
 not visit us ; if our affairs are in danger of bankruptcy, 
 and he will not help us ; if we are dying, and he will not 
 come near us to moisten our parched lips, or to close our 
 eyes in death, we have no doubt about the nature of his 
 professed friendship ; — for these are the scenes which 
 determine the reality of affection. (4.) It is evinced 
 where the professed friend is found coinciding in his plans 
 and feelings with those of an enemy ; where the course 
 of life he leads is such as to throw no obstacle in the way 
 of our antagonist, but is such as rather to facilitate his 
 plans ; and where he refuses to lend his aid to us, to 
 cripple the efforts and to embarrass the movements of the 
 foe. If our professed friends find all our schemes and 
 
 17* 
 
198 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 movements only embarrass theirs ; if we have no sym- 
 pathy with them, and are always found doubting the 
 wisdom of their plans, and suggesting errors and evils ; 
 if we have no plans of our own to propose, but live only 
 to suggest doubt about the expediency of those adopted 
 by them, it proves that our real sympathies are not with 
 them, but with their foes. (5.) If we are secretly aiding 
 and abetting an enemy, it shows that we are really in his 
 interest. If we are suggesting the counsels which he 
 would suggest, if we are forming the plans which he 
 would form ; if we are throwing embarrassments where 
 he would do it, it shows that we are really advancing 
 his cause. Further. There are often decisive moments 
 — the crises of events — where a slight circumstance will 
 determine the scale on one side or the other. If, in those 
 trying times, when every man is expected to be found at 
 his post, we are found in ever so small a matter abetting 
 an enemy, it shows that we are under his influence and 
 control. A word or a single action may often do more 
 to decide the character and determine the real feelings in 
 the crisis of a battle than the conduct of many hours and 
 months in a time of peace. (6.) The character is often 
 suddenly developed by some circumstance which shows 
 what it is. Some strong temptation brings out the true 
 feelings of the soul, and shows what is the real object of 
 attachment, while the general course of the life may have 
 been apparently otherwise. Such was the case in the 
 instances of Achan and Judas. In the comparatively 
 monotonous scenes of life, the profession may be uniform 
 and fair, and nothing may occur that shall determine the 
 true feelings of the soul. For it is not the uniformity of 
 the profession that determines character ; it is the crisis, 
 the moment of intense interest, the period when all the 
 real principles of the life are rallied and exhibited, that 
 constitutes the true criterion of the character. 
 
 Our object is to ascertain how we may determine whe- 
 ther we are the friends or the enemies of the cross of 
 Christ. Applying these obvious principles for determin- 
 ing the characteristics of friendship or enmity, I shall now 
 call your attention to several particulars which may aid 
 us in deciding this momentous question. I observe, then, 
 
 (1.) That those are the enemies of the cross of Christ 
 
ENEMIES OF THE CROSS OF CHRIST. 199 
 
 in the church who have not been bom again. The proof 
 of this is brief, but unquestionable. For, " the carnal 
 mind is enmity with God," and men are by nature " dead 
 in trespasses and in sins," and unrenewed men are " the 
 children of the wicked one." There are but two spiritual 
 empires in this world — the kingdom of light, and the 
 kingdom of darkness ; the empire over which God rules, 
 and the empire over which Satan is the absolute monarch. 
 They who are not the subjects of the one, are the sub- 
 jects of the other ; and they who have not, by the new 
 birth, been translated out of the " kingdom of darkness 
 into the kingdom of God's dear Son," are still the sub- 
 jects of the enemy of man. God is building up a king- 
 dom on the earth ; and it is done by a change in character, 
 and views, and feelings, the most momentous and tho- 
 rough that the mind ever undergoes. In the Bible it is 
 designated as " life from the dead," and as a " new crea- 
 tion ;" and it is impossible that this change should take 
 place and no evidence be furnished of it ; or that it should 
 occur and produce no diiference in the life. Can the 
 vegetable world again bloom with beauty in the return- 
 ing spring after the long death of winter, and give no evi- 
 dence of life ? Can the buds open, and the flowers blos- 
 som, and the grass carpet the earth, and yet all be as 
 cold and sterile as in the winter ? Could the now pale, 
 and stiff, and mouldering corpses under ground leave 
 their graves and come forth, and yet there be no evidence 
 of life ? Could the sun rise suddenly at midnight, and 
 shed his beams on the dark world, and there be no evi- 
 dence of the mighty change ? And can a sinner dead in 
 sins be quickened into life by the power of God's Spirit, 
 and still there be no life ? Can the powers of the soul, 
 long torpid and chill in the dreary winter of sin, be 
 warmed and animated with the love of God, and no one 
 know it ? Can the pure light of the Sun of righteousness 
 pour its beams into the soul darkened by sin, and all be 
 as benighted as ever ? Can the slave in sin be set at liber- 
 ty ; can the gospel touch his shackles, and his limbs feel 
 the manly impulse of the freedom of the sons of God, 
 and he continue to feel and act as if he v/ere still a slave ? 
 Can the poor maniac be restored to his right mind ; the 
 wandering eye of the lunatic become settled and calm, 
 
200 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 and no one know it ? Can he who has all his Ufe hated 
 eternal and infinite excellence, be brought to love it, and 
 the soul itself be ignorant of the amazing transformation? 
 And can he who has despised the cross, and trampled the 
 blood of the covenant beneath his feet, embrace that cross 
 as the only foundation of his hope of heaven, and yet 
 give so dubious indications of the change that no one 
 shall know it, or suspect it from his conduct ? 
 
 Herein is the origin of all our leanness. I verily be- 
 lieve that the true source of the coldness and deadness of 
 professing Christians is to be found in low and inadequate 
 views of the nature of conversion to God. We linger at 
 the threshold of life. We have not yet settled the great 
 point whether there is such a thing as regeneration, or 
 whether " there be any Holy Ghost." Multitudes have 
 no correct views of the great change which takes place 
 when the soul is renewed, nor have they any belief of 
 the truth which the Bible reveals on that subject. They 
 speak of seriousness, instead of regeneration. They 
 talk of being thoughtful, instead of being converted. 
 They have some indistinct image of an external work, 
 while the Bible describes it as passing from death to life. 
 They seem to suppose that the act of becoming connected 
 with the church is to be attended with a breaking off 
 from some open sins ; that they are to take their leave of 
 the grosser forms of iniquity, and that they are, for the 
 time at least, to give themselves to increased seriousness. 
 But do they speak of a mighty, thorough, transforming 
 change, as the Bible does ? Have they any sympathy 
 with the description of the new birth in the New Testa- 
 ment ? Know they any thing of compunction for sin ; of 
 grief that they are poor, and polluted before God ; of the 
 joys of pardon ; of the new views of the glory and 
 grandeur of the divine character as now seen in the Son of 
 God ? Is there a new heart ; a new life ; a new conver- 
 sation ? Are there new hopes ; new joys ; new objects of 
 pursuit? Or is there amidst the seriousness some plan for 
 compromising matters with God, and an enquiry even 
 then how the hold on the world may be continued? Is 
 there still a purpose, while the decencies of the Christian 
 profession shall be maintained, to grasp still as much of 
 the world as possible ; to pray as little as possible ; to be 
 
ENEMIES OF THE CROSS OF CHRIST. 201 
 
 as gay, and as fashionable, and as happy m the world as 
 may possibly consist with the Christian profession ? I 
 tremble when I think of a man just entering on the pro- 
 fessed Christian life, endeavoring to make a compromise 
 with God, and a league with the world ; attempting to 
 make light and darkness, and heaven and liell meet 
 together. 
 
 Here, I repeat it, is the source of our difficulties. It 
 consists in low, and unscriptural, and unsatisfactory views 
 of conversion to God. And the influence of those views 
 spreads through all the life, and moulds the character. But 
 the truth of the Scriptures on this point is plain. There 
 is no religion where there has been no conversion 3 and 
 if in our personal experience we have not known what 
 the Saviour meant by the new birth, our hopes of heaven 
 are built on the sand. If his language on this subject is 
 to us mysticism or fanaticism ; if we do not know what 
 is meant by the new creation, and by the life from the 
 dead, and by the love of God shed abroad in the heart, 
 and by the peace that passeth all understanding, I would 
 tell you, even weeping, that we are the enemies of the 
 cross of Christ ! 
 
 (2.) They are the enemies of the cross of Christ, who 
 are living in the indulgence of any known sin. It was 
 the indulgence of a single sin, and not any general de- 
 pravity of manners, that determined the character of 
 Achan and of Judas. It needs no argument to show 
 that the man that is seeking my hurt in any way, is my 
 enemy ; and that he who is aiding and abetting a foe in 
 the smallest matters, is to be set down as a traitor to his 
 country. It is not in great transactions that the charac- 
 ter is best determined. He who gives a foe information 
 of a weak point in a fortress, is as really an enemy to his 
 country as if he were to surrender the garrison ; and he 
 who furnishes an enemy with a small boat for his ser- 
 vice, is as really a traitor to his country as though it v^''ere 
 a ship of the hue. It was for this reason that our Saviour 
 said, "If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast 
 it from thee, that thy whole body be not cast into hell." 
 Matth. V. 29, 30. And for this reason David said, " If I 
 regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me;" 
 and for this reason he exclaimed, " Who can understand 
 
202 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 his errors ? Cleanse thou me from secret faults." Psal. 
 xix. 12. 
 
 It is perfectly manifest, that the man who indulges de- 
 liberately in any known sin, is the foe of his Maker. He 
 shows that he disregards his authority, and despises the 
 work of Christ, for he came that he might " cleanse us 
 from all iniquity." It matters not what this sin is ; nor 
 is it to be supposed that it is the same in all. It may be 
 levity, pride, ambition, envy, malice, backbiting, or covet- 
 ousness. It may be a purpose of revenge for a real or 
 supposed affront. It may be an unwillingness to confess 
 a fault, and to ask for pardon. It may be a refusal to 
 make restitution for an injury done to a neighbor's per- 
 son or property. It may be the indulgence of an unholy 
 temper, or an unhallowed filling the mind with images 
 of sensuality and licentiousness. It may be an incessant 
 aspiring after the honors of the world, or a desire for its 
 wealth that is never at ease, and that is never satisfied. 
 It may be a habit of murmuring at the allotments of 
 Providence, and the indulgence of envious feelings that 
 others are more honored, or more prospered than our- 
 selves. It may be attachment to some idol, or incon- 
 solable grief that some object of affection has been re- 
 moved by the hand of God. Whatever it is, hostility to 
 the cross is evinced by its indulgence ; and the man as 
 certainly shows that he is the enemy of Christ, as if he 
 had driven the nails that fastened him to the tree, or plait- 
 ed for him the crown of thorns. ' I kept the raiment of 
 those that stoned the martyr Stephen,' said Paul ; and 
 though he did not throw a stone, he regarded himself as 
 not meet to be an apostle. One of the very elements of 
 Christianity is, that he who does not desire to renounce 
 every thing that is sinful, is the enemy of God. 
 
 (3.) Those who are pursuing a doubtful and undecided 
 course of conduct without any effort to know what is 
 right, are the enemies of the cross of Christ. An honest 
 man, a sincere Christian, will be willing to be made ac- 
 quainted with all his faults. He will not turn away his 
 ear from reproof, but will candidly and prayerfully de- 
 sire to know what is the will of God. For it is one of 
 the very elements of Christianity, that a man should come 
 to Christ as a little child, and be willing to sit at his feet. 
 
ENEMIES OF THE CROSS OF CHRIST. 203 
 
 It is an indispensable requisite that he should be desirous 
 of knowing his Lord's will, and of ascertaining what 
 God requires at his hand. 
 
 Now, there may be many courses of conduct which to 
 the mind of a professed Christian must be, to say the 
 least, of very doubtful propriety. It must be a serious 
 question, whether they can be reconciled with the spirit 
 of the Lord Jesus Christ, and with the stern and uncom- 
 promising principles of Christianity. Whether, for instance, 
 a certain style of living and expense be such as Christ 
 will approve; whether the indulgence of certain feelings 
 be such as are consistent with Christianity; whether a cer- 
 tain kind of business be such as a Christian should pursue ; 
 whether a man's expenditure for personal adorning, or 
 for his family, and his gratification be right ; and whether 
 his expenditures for tlie purpose of doing good and the 
 salvation of the world, are such as are demanded by the 
 gospel of Christ ; these and a hundred similar questions 
 must come before the mind of each professor of religion, 
 and ought to receive a prompt and intelligent decision. 
 
 The position which is now before us is, that a man who 
 will pursue a course of life which is of doubtful propriety, 
 and on which his own mind is not satisfied that it is con- 
 sistent with Christianity, without any pains to know what 
 is right, is the enemy of the cross of Christ. He gives 
 evidence that he has never learned the very first princi- 
 ples of religion, the principles requiring him to submit 
 his will to the will of God. I refer to such cases as the 
 following. (L) Where a man has every reason to believe 
 that if he were to examine his course of life by the Bible 
 he would find it to be wrong, and yet continues to pursue 
 it ivithout examination, and because he is umvilling to 
 be convinced. (2.) W^here a man is told by his friends 
 that a certain course of life is evil, and yet is resolved to 
 pursue it without further notice or attention to the inquiry. 
 (3.) Where he becomes angry with a friend that would 
 convince him of the error of his course, or where he as- 
 sumes an air of indifference or contempt in the sanctuary 
 where such subjects come up for discussion. (4.) Where 
 the subject occupies public attention and discussion, and 
 he will neither read, nor converse, nor pray on it, but is 
 resolved to brave public opinion and the Bible. And (5.) 
 
204 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 Where he will not pray, and examine, and make it his 
 business to ascertain whether he is, or is not, pursuing a 
 course of hfe that shall please God. In all these cases, he 
 is evidently an enemy of the cross of Christ : for he 
 evinces just the spirit which the enemies of God do 
 always, and which a true Christian can never. The men 
 of the world pursue their own ways ; will not be admon- 
 ished ; will not stop to inquire whether their course is one 
 that pleases God ; and become irritated and vexed if 
 God by his Providence or his Spirit so far interferes with 
 their doings, as to call in question the propriety of their 
 conduct. And when professing Christians do the same 
 thing, they show that they have the same spirit, and that 
 they have never been born again. You pursue a course 
 of life, it may be, for which your conscience reproves 
 you, and for which the world reproaches you, and which 
 real Christians think to be wrong, and which you have 
 every reason to think the Bible condemns, and yet you 
 are at no pains to examine it. You continue to pursue 
 it from year to year, and you thus show, that you are an 
 utter stranger to the very elements of that gospel which 
 Paul embraced when he said, '' Lord lohat ivilt thou 
 have me to doV^ 
 
 (4.) They are the enemies of the cross of Christ among 
 his professed friends, who manifest in their conduct none 
 of the peculiarities of those who truly love him. There 
 is something that constitutes the peculiarity, the essential 
 nature, of the Christian religion. There was something 
 which distinguished the Lord Jesus from the mass of men, 
 and which constituted the peculiarity of his character. 
 There is something — whatever it may be — which is re- 
 quired in the New Testament as the distinguishing evi- 
 dence of attachment to the Lord Jesus. There is soyne- 
 thing which is to serve to distinguish Christians from 
 other men, or the religion is worthless. Now, my position 
 is, that, whatever this is, unless lue possess it, we are the 
 enemies of the cross of Christ. Whatever this is, it is not 
 external morality, for many men of the world are moral 
 men. It is not amiableness of temper, for many of them are 
 amiable and kind. It is not simply honesty and integrity, 
 for many of them are honest. It is something which is 
 to distinguish us from all the men of the world, and it 
 
ENEMIES OF THE CROSS OF CHRIST. 205 
 
 we are destitute of that, our profession is " sounding brass 
 and a tinkling cymbol." 
 
 But how, perhaps it may be asked, does it appear that 
 there is to be any thing pecuUar in the Christian profes- 
 sion ? I answer. It is not the nature of rehgion to be 
 hid. Men do not hght a candle to put it under a bushel. 
 I answer further, that the stupendous truths of redemp- 
 tion are not brought to bear upon the human soul that it 
 might be just what it was before. Did Christ die that 
 his followers might be just like other men ? Was his 
 precious blood shed on Calvary that his followers might 
 be undistinguished in the mighty mass of sinners ? Did 
 the Son of God toil and bleed that the kingdom which he 
 reared might be just like all other kingdoms? Did the 
 apostles labor, and suffer, and die as martyrs that they 
 might leave the world as they found it ? And does the 
 Holy Ghost effect the mighty change of the new creation 
 in the soul, that the man might be just what he was be- 
 fore ? And are the solemn truths pertaining to God's 
 authority, and to heaven and hell, brought to bear on the 
 conscience, that the friends of Christ may be just as worldly 
 minded, and as gay, and as prayerless, and as vain, and as 
 ambitious, as other men ? Are morality and kindness alone 
 to be baptized, and are these all that the blood of the 
 Saviour purchased on the cross ? Then were those pangs 
 in vain. And then this stupendous scheme of the incar- 
 nation and death of God's own Son, was a scheme of 
 most mighty preparation for most unimportant results. 
 Bat it is not so. He designed that religion should be 
 seen, and known, and felt. He meant that his people 
 should be a peculiar people. He intended to rear a king- 
 dom unlike all other kingdoms ; to be at the head of an 
 empire unlike all other empires ; and to marshal an im- 
 mense host that should shine like the stars of night, or 
 like suns, in the darkness of a lost world. And if we 
 have not the peculiarities of his friends, we are the ene- 
 mies of his cross ! 
 
 I close this discourse by observing, that were the dis- 
 cussion to end here, perhaps enough has been already 
 said to destroy the false hopes of some who now hear 
 me. I have specified four particulars ; and there may 
 be many professors who, if weighed in these balances, 
 
 18 
 
206 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 would be found wanting : — many who have not the 
 slightest evidence that they have ever been regener- 
 ated; who are habitually indulging in some known 
 sin without any effort to overcome it ; who are pur- 
 suing a doubtful course of life without any pains taken to 
 inquire whether it be consistent with the New Testament 
 or not, and who are conscious that they have none of the 
 peculiarities which went to make up the character of 
 Christ ; who are conscious that they have never formed 
 a plan, or performed an action, which the man of the 
 world might not do, and who have never put forth one 
 effort solely to promote the glory of God. 
 
 If this be the state of the mind in any case, the con- 
 clusion is inevitable. Light has no fellowship with dark- 
 ness, nor Christ with Belial. Painful as is the conclusion, 
 yet we are to remember that an enemy hath sown tares 
 in the great field which God will soon reap, and that the 
 proof is clear in the New Testament that the enemies of 
 Christ will in various ways come into his church. It was 
 from no wish to give pain that the Saviour stated this 
 doctrine, and it is from no wish to produce pain that it is 
 now repeated. '' Faithful are the wounds of a friend." 
 Timely admonition evinces more friendship than an at- 
 tempt to "■ daub with untempered mortar," or to " cry 
 peace, peace, when there is no peace." Not in words 
 only, therefore ; not in the way of professional duty merely, 
 but in the sober language of friendship, and with the ap- 
 prehensions of just alarm, do I exhort each professor 
 to examine his heart, and his life. For soon these eyes 
 will open upon the judgment seat ; and soon our own 
 ears will hear the words addressed to many unhappy 
 mortals, once professors of the religion of Christ, " De- 
 part from me, I never knew you." 
 
 I anticipate that this discourse will give pain, if pain 
 at aU, where it is least desirable that it should be done. 
 The humble, pious, modest, praying, real Christian, is 
 usually the one who is most alarmed by appeals like 
 this. The man deceived ; the cold, formal professor ; the 
 one really intended, and who is really the enemy of the 
 cross of Christ, is usually the man least affected, least 
 moved, least concerned. Judas was the last man at the 
 table to express concern when the Saviour said that one 
 
ENEMIES OF THE CROSS OF CHRIST. 207 
 
 of them would betray him. "Lord is it I?" was the 
 reluctant, and hollow language of the traitor at last. And 
 the last man who might ask the question here, ' am I un- 
 renewed, am I indulging in known sin, am I pursuing a 
 doubtful course of life, am I failing to exhibit the peculiar 
 spirit of a Christian,' might not improbably be the very 
 one who has most undoubted evidence of being the enemy 
 of the cross of Christ. Such are not alarmed. They 
 thank not the Saviour for his admonitions and reproofs. 
 Let us take to ourselves words and turn to the Lord and 
 say, " Search me, God, and know my heart ; try me, 
 and know my thoughts ; and see if there be any wicked 
 way m me, and lead me in the way everlasting." 
 
SERMON XIV. 
 
 ENEMIES OF THE CROSS OF CHRIST. NO. 2. 
 
 Phil. iii. 18. For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now 
 tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ. 
 
 From these words, in the last discourse, I proposed to 
 consider the following points : 
 
 I. There is reason to believe that many professors of 
 religion are the enemies of the cross of Christ. 
 
 II. What are the characteristics of that enmity, or how 
 may it be known that they are such ; and 
 
 III. Why is the fact of their being in the church an 
 occasion of grief and tears. 
 
 The first point was considered ; and also four specifi- 
 cations under the second head were suggested. I specified 
 the following classes as being his enemies, though in the 
 church : 
 
 (1.) Those who have not been born again or regene- 
 rated ; (2.) those who are living in the practice of any 
 known sin ; (3.) those who are pursuing a doubtful course 
 of life without any pains taken to ascertain whether it is 
 right or wrong; and (4.) those who in their conduct 
 manifest none of the peculiarities of those who truly love 
 him. 
 
 In the prosecution of the subject at this time, I pro- 
 pose to call your attention to some additional particulars 
 which are expressive of hostility to him among those who 
 professedly love him. Resuming the subject where we 
 then left oif, I observe, 
 
 (5.) In the fifth place, that they are the enemies of the 
 cross of Christ among his professed friends, who have a 
 deeper interest in their worldly affairs than they have in 
 the cause of the Redeemer. This is the particular thing 
 that is specified in the verse succeeding my text. Paul, 
 giving an account of the professors of religion at Philippi 
 whom he regarded as the enemies of the cross of Christ, 
 describes them as those who " mind earthly things ;'' 
 
 208 
 
ENEMIES OF THE CROSS OP CHRIST. 209 
 
 that is, whose supreme care was manifested for the 
 things of this Ufe. " Our conversation," he elsewhere 
 says, speaking of true Christians, " is in heaven ;" their 
 plans and thoughts pertain to the things of the earth, and 
 they thus show, though they are professors of religion, 
 the real principles by which they are actuated. And in 
 the second chapter of this epistle, when describing per- 
 sons of a similar character, he says, " For all seek their 
 own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's." Chap. ii. 
 21. And again, in 2 Timothy iii. 2, when describing a 
 period of great apostasy and general declension in reli- 
 gion, he says, as tlie characteristics of those times, '-'' Men 
 shall be lovers of their own selves." This is the esta- 
 bUshed mode of judging men's real character in the New 
 Testament. " By their fruit," was the Saviour's rule, 
 " shall ye know them." " Men do not gather grapes of 
 thorns, nor figs of thistles." When we see a shrul3 pro- 
 ducing only thorns, we judge that it is a thorn-bush ; 
 when producing only thistles, we judge that it is a thistle. 
 My proposition is, that where men have a deeper in- 
 terest in worldly affairs than they have in the cause of 
 Christ, they are strangers to his rehgion. The proof of 
 this proposition lies in a nut-shell. For (1.) The Re- 
 deemer himself said, " He that is not with me is against 
 me." (2.) There must be some way of accurately ar- 
 riving at a knowledge of character ; and there is no better 
 way than to observe a man's habitual walk and conver- 
 sation. Character is the result of conduct. It is not a 
 single deed ; it is not a temporary ebullition of feeling. 
 We do not attribute the tried character of virtue to the 
 man who has resisted a single temptation ; nor of hero- 
 ism to the man who has been engaged in a single con- 
 flict. It is the man who has been often tempted, and who 
 has successfully resisted temptation, to whom we award 
 the praise of virtue ; and it is the hero of many battles, 
 and many scars, to whom we ascribe valor. We ask, in 
 determining character, what is the tenor of the man's 
 Hfe ; what it is that will call forth the latent principles of 
 his soul ? If it be to make money, we then say that that is 
 his character. If it be to become honored, we then say so. 
 If it be to shine in the gay circle, we then say so. And 
 if the habitual purpose of the life be, that the man cares 
 
 18* 
 
210 • PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 more for the things of this world than he does for the 
 cause of Christ ; if they occupy more of his time and 
 thoughts; if his actions and his plans are just like those 
 of the men of this world, and just such as Satan would 
 have them to be, he is the enemy of the cross of Christ. 
 (3.) The interests of Christ's kingdom are intended to 
 be supreme. He seeks no divided sway, and rules over 
 no divided empire. He came not to establish a kingdom 
 that should be just like all other kingdoms, nor to sit on 
 a throne that is occupied by a rival. " If any man come 
 to me," is his language, " and hate not his father, and 
 mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sis- 
 ters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my dis- 
 ciple." Luke xiv. 26. If the interests of his kingdom, 
 therefore, are not supreme in the affections, and if a man 
 is not ready to sacrifice all other interests to his, he is the 
 enemy of his cross. (4.) The principles of the Cluistian 
 religion cannot lie dormant in the soul. If those princi- 
 ples exist, they will be manifested. Christians are to be 
 the light of the world ; and a light is not kindled that it 
 may be put under a bushel. Religion consists in love 
 to God and love to man. Can that love exist, and yet 
 the man always act as if it did not exist? Religion 
 consists in meekness, forgiveness, joy, peace, long-suifer- 
 ing, temperance, charity. Can these exist in the heart, 
 and yet a man act just as though they did not ? Religion 
 consists in self-denial, in bearing the cross, in crucifying 
 the flesh with the aff'ections and lusts. Can those princi- 
 ples exist, and yet the man be just as self-indulgent, just 
 as much seeking the pleasures and enjoyments of this 
 life as the men of the world ? Religion is holiness, not 
 more morality; it is conformity to Christ, not conformity 
 to an imaginary standard of excellence. Can that exist, 
 and yet the man in his manner of life be jnst like all other 
 men ? Was there nothing in which Jesus Christ was dis- 
 tinguished from the world ? 
 
 It is sometimes said that piety should be retiring, and 
 unseen. Religion it is said, is a secret principle of the 
 soul. It shrinks back from the public gaze, and seeks 
 concealment, and should not seek publicity. But why is 
 this said ? There is nothing of it in the Bible ; but every 
 thing there is just the contrary. Hypocrisy, and mere 
 
ENEMIES OF THE CROSS OF CHRIST. 211 
 
 profession, and ostentation, and sounding a trumpet, «7'e 
 rebuked. But I ask a man to point me to a single pas- 
 sage in the Bible where the manifestation of pure religion 
 is rebuked. " Let your light so shine before men," is the 
 language of the Redeemer, " that they may see your good 
 works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." " He 
 that is ashamed of me, and of my words before men, of 
 him shall the Son of man be ashamed when he shall come 
 in his own glory, and with the glory of the Father and 
 with the holy angels." Religion, in the Bible, is supposed 
 to be prominent, and manifest, if it exists at all. It is to 
 constitute the character ; it is to distinguish the man. 
 I point you to the example of Christ. Religion is every 
 thing in his life. I point you to the example of Paul. 
 You see nothing else in his life but his religion. Among 
 Greeks, and Jews, and Barbarians, it is alike developed. 
 I point you to David, and Isaiah, and John, and the holy 
 martyrs, and ask what were their principles ? The men 
 were modest men ; but their religion was open and bold. 
 It constituted their very character ; and is that, and that 
 alone, by which they are known. And thus it is in all 
 the works and doings of God. Is the sun that rides these 
 heavens ashamed to shine ; and does he hide his noontide 
 beams under the plea that pure light should not be osten- 
 tatious? Is the moon — that, like the Christian shines by re- 
 flected light — ashamed to emit its rays, and to sleep on the 
 "bank" and the silver lake } Are the stars — the wandering 
 or the fixed — ashamed to send their rays on a darkened 
 world } No. Light, pure, rich, varied, dazzling, shines 
 forth from these heavens by day and by night, just as the 
 light of the Christian's example is to be poured on the 
 darkness of the world. It shines not indeed for display, 
 but for use ; not for its own glory, but like the light that 
 should radiate from the Christian's life, to illustrate the 
 glory of the Great Creator. And thus it is in all God's 
 works. The ocean that he has made is not ashamed to 
 roll ; the lightning of heaven to play ; the oak to spread 
 out its boughs ; the flower to bloom. The humblest violet 
 on which we tread is not ashamed to exhibit its beauty, 
 and display its JNIaker's praise ; nor will the obscurest 
 light in the true Christian's soul seek to be hid. Light 
 is kindled there to shine on the darkness of a lost world. 
 
212 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 And if Christian light does not shine forth in the life, we 
 have the highest evidence that it has never been en- 
 kindled in the bosom. 
 
 The conclusion, therefore, is inevitable, that where men 
 have a deeper interest in the things of this world than they 
 have in the cause of Christ, they are the enemies of his 
 cross. They are pursuing the course which the grand 
 enemy of that cross would wish them to pursue. My 
 meaning here will not be misunderstood. I refer to the 
 cases where the concerns of this world are allowed to 
 engross all a man's time ; Avhere this is the primary object 
 of his solicitude ; where it constitutes his character, and 
 is that by which he is every where known ; and where 
 nothing will excite an interest in religion, further than 
 the formality of its external observances. The character 
 of such a man is that of a worldly man. He is living as 
 worldly men live, and as the enemy of God would wish 
 him to live, in estrangement from all the vital principles 
 of the kingdom of the Saviour ; and he must be judged 
 accordingly. 
 
 (6.) They are the enemies of the cross of Christ in his 
 church, whom nothing can induce to give up their worldly 
 concerns for the cause of religion when God demands it. 
 
 1 begin the illustration of this, by remarking, that, it is 
 to be feared, there is a great and radical mistake on this 
 point, in the feelings and language of most men. The 
 mistake to which I refer is, a feeling that time, and talents, 
 and strength, belong of right to us. We speak of our time, 
 our talents, our property. We hear men use the language 
 of complete self-appropriation, not in the qualified sense 
 which they will use who believe that all belongs of right 
 to God, but in the sense of 3.bso\ute proprietorship. And 
 this is not the language of the professed men of this world 
 merely, but of the professed friends of God. The mis- 
 take to which I refer is, that of regarding time as ours, 
 and talent as ours, and wealth as ours. For the truth 
 is, that the affairs of this life, as well as the business 
 of prayer and praise, should be pursued because this is 
 a part of the service which we owe to God. " Whether, 
 therefore, ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to 
 the glory of God.'' The business of the farm, or the 
 countmg-room, or the office, should be conducted with 
 
ENEMIES OF THE CROSS OF CHRIST. 213 
 
 as decided reference to his will as the services of the 
 sanctuary. Nor will men understand the true nature 
 of religion until Christianity is suffered to assert its 
 claims over each moment of time, over each faculty of 
 mind and hody, and each plan of life. For a man may 
 just as easily, and with just as much propriety, cultivate 
 his farm, or make a machine, or engage in commerce, 
 with a direct purpose to glorify God, and to honor the 
 gospel in his appropriate calling, as when he prays, or 
 reads the Bible, or goes forth as a missionary to save the 
 world. 
 
 It follov/s, therefore, that the gospel was designed to 
 overcome the love of the world, and to induce men 
 to surrender all when God urges his claims. For the 
 Redeemer said, " If any man will come after me, let 
 him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow 
 me." Luke ix. 23. " Let the dead bury their dead, but 
 follow thou me." " Whosoever wilt save his life shall 
 lose it, but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the 
 same shall save it. For what is a man advantaged if he 
 gain the whole world, and lose his own soul V^ Luke ix. 
 24 — 25. " If any man come to me, and hate not his father 
 and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and 
 sisters, yea and his own life also, he cannot be my dis- 
 ciple." Luke xiv. 26. 
 
 And thus we judge in every thing. You wish to try a 
 man's patriotism. He has a dwelling near the battle- 
 field where his countrymen have fallen in defence of 
 freedom, and are bleeding on the cold earth. If he will 
 not open his dwelling to receive the wounded soldier, do 
 you esteem him to be friend of his country } You wish 
 to know whether a man is your friend. If he will not give 
 up his own petty gratifications to aid you in your distress, 
 Avill you esteem him to be such ? If your affairs are 
 tending to bankruptcy, and he will not aid you ; if you 
 arc naked and he will not clothe you ; if you are hungry, 
 and he Avill not give you meat, thirsty and he will not 
 give you drink ; sick, and in prison, and he will not come 
 near to alleviate your pains, to wipe the cold sweat from 
 your brow, to moisten your parched lips, will you regard 
 his professions to be sincere ; or will you judge them to 
 be false, and hollow ? 
 
214 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 These principles are so obvious about common affairs 
 that they need no further ilhistration ; and they are just 
 as obvious in religion. My position is, that where nothing 
 will induce men to regard their worldly concerns as sub- 
 ordinate to the cause of Christ, it is proof that they are 
 the enemies of his cross. As an ilhistration of what is 
 meant by this general principle, I shall refer to a few par- 
 ticulars. I specify, then, 
 
 First, amusements. — The position is, that if a professed 
 follower of Christ will not abandon those which are ob- 
 viously and certainly inconsistent with the gospel, he is 
 the enemy of the cross of Christ. If he is engaged in 
 just such amusements as the people of the world are ; if 
 he engages in them with the same zest, and zeal, and at 
 the same expense ; if he evinces the same gaiety, levity, 
 and vanity that they do, it is proof that his heart is not 
 with Jesus Christ and his cause, but with them. If he 
 is in the habit of attending places which he knows the 
 Lord Jesus would not have attended ; and if he is undis- 
 tinguished in feeling, conversation, and deportment, from 
 the gay and thoughtless who are professedly going away 
 from heaven, and in the estimation of the Christian world 
 going down to hell, it proves that he is the enemy of the 
 cross of Christ. If he has a deeper interest in the fash- 
 ionable assembly than he has in the humble place where 
 the true friends of God seek his blessing by prayer, who 
 can doubt where his heart is ? If he will abridge, or 
 abandon his ordinary and proper times of secret devotion 
 for the gaieties of the fashionable circle, who can doubt 
 what is the real spirit that actuates his bosom ? If a pro- 
 fessed Christian, in relation to these matters, is pursuing 
 just such a course as the great enemy of seriousness and 
 of heaven would have him pursue ; if he is found in just 
 such places, and making just such parties, and indulging 
 in just such expenses as will gratify, not the Lord Jesus, 
 but the Prince of darkness, he thus shows that he is the 
 enemy of the cross. And if this is pursued from one 
 year to another, and it becomes the established character 
 that the course of life is just such as will gratify Satan, 
 and pain the bosoms of the friends of God, the character 
 may be as certainly known as though the judgment-day 
 were already past, and the destiny sealed. 
 
ENEMIES OF THE CROSS OF CHRIST. 215 
 
 Secondly, property. — If a man will not surrender it to 
 God when he demands it for his service, it proves that he 
 is the enemy of the cross of Christ, If he is living for its 
 acquisition just as the men of the world are ; if he grasps 
 it and hoards it with as much greediness as they do ; if 
 it be the characteristic of the man that he is a lover of 
 gold rather than a man of prayer, it is a demonstration of 
 his character which cannot be mistaken. If he pursues 
 just such a mode of life as the enemy of God would 
 desire — is just as avaricious, and selfish, and close ; or just 
 as extravagant, and profuse in his manner of living as 
 he would wish him to be, it shows that he is the enemy 
 of the cross of Christ. For thus we judge in all things. 
 If a man pursues just such a course of life as will gratify 
 the enemies of his country, we judge that he is in their 
 interest. If he has just such objects, plans, and modes 
 of living, as an enemy would prescribe ; if he is living so 
 that he could not desire a change, and would not suggest 
 an alteration, we have no doubt about the real principles 
 of the man. His own countrymen cannot doubt ; the 
 enemy cannot doubt ; the Judge of all cannot doubt. 
 
 Thirdly, ti7ne. — When professed Christians form their 
 own schemes, and employ all their hours in doing their 
 own will ; when they will not appropriate that which 
 God requires for prayer, and for searching the Bible ; and 
 when they will not devote that which he demands in 
 efforts to do good to others, it shows that they are the 
 enemies of the cross. When tlieir first thoughts in the 
 morning, and their mid-day plans, and their last thoughts 
 at night are of the world, and not of God, there is an 
 indication which is infallible of the true state of their 
 feeling. When a man professing patriotism, lives just as 
 the enemy of his country would wish ; when all his time 
 is employed in a manner that goes to promote his plans, 
 and to weaken the resources of his country, it shows that 
 he is in the service of the foe. 
 
 (7.) Those are the enemies of the cross of Christ who 
 are opposed to all that is peculiar in the doctinnes of 
 Christianity. One of the first things which the Lord 
 Jesus has required is, that we should be willing to receive 
 the kingdom of God as a little child. Nothing is more 
 evident than that where there is an unwillingness to re- 
 
216 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 ceive as truth that which God has stated to be truth ; to 
 admit as fact that which he has declared to be fact ; and 
 to repose sufficient confidence in him to beUeve what he 
 says, that there can be no true love to Him, and no real 
 friendship for his cause. If there be, therefore, an open 
 opposition to the doctrines of the Bible, or a secret resis- 
 tance of those truths, it proves that we have never yet 
 submitted the understanding and the will of God. I refer 
 to such cases as the following. (1.) Where a professed 
 friend of Christ admits the doctrines of the Bible in 
 general, but denies them in detail. (2.) Where he 
 admits such doctrines in the Bible to be true as are found 
 in systems of natural religion, but doubts, or denies those 
 which constitute the peculiarity of Christianity. Many 
 a man will admit cheerfully the doctrine that there is a 
 God ; will admit in general the duties of morality, while 
 he will be an open opposer of the doctrines of human de- 
 pravity, of the atonement, of divine Sovereignty, of elec- 
 tion, and of the agency of the Holy Ghost. (3.) Where 
 a man will not examine these doctrines to satisfy his own 
 mind whether they are true or false, he shows that he is 
 the secret enemy of the cross. For one of the elements 
 of the Christian faith is a willingness to know what is 
 true ; and where a man has strong reasons to beUeve that 
 if he were to examine them he would be convinced that 
 they are true, and yet will not examine them, it shows 
 that he is secretly opposed to them. (4.) Where a man 
 becomes angry, and chafed, and vexed when those doc- 
 trines are preached ; where he demands the preaching of 
 mere moral essays, and is irritated if the doctrines of re- 
 ligion are presented just as they are in the Bible, it 
 shows that he is the enemy of the cross. He has not yet 
 learned the first principle of religion which requires him 
 to submit his understanding to God. (5.) Where he takes 
 sides with the men of the world in regard to these high 
 truths of the Bible, it shows that he is the enemy of the 
 cross. Where in the circle of the gay, the vain, the 
 worldly, and the scoffing, he is unwilling that it should be 
 known that he holds them, or joins with others in opposing 
 them, it shows that his heart has no true love for those 
 doctrines. For these are the times and the places that 
 show whether he has really any attachment to the doc- 
 
ENEMIES OF THE CROSS OF CHRIST. 217 
 
 trines of the Bible, or whether he is really ashamed of 
 them. And when we see a man coinciding entirely with 
 the men of this world in regard to those truths — feeling as 
 they feel ; and talking as they talk ; and opposing what 
 they oppose ; and doubting just what they doubt; we can 
 be at no loss about his real character. 
 
 (8.) Finally. They are the enemies of the cross of 
 Christ who are opposed to all the peculiar duties of the 
 Christian religion ; who enter upon those duties with re- 
 luctance ; who rejoice when they are closed ; and who 
 show throughout that the heart is not in them. I shall 
 not pause to prove this, for it is perfectly apparent that 
 \\\ the sight of a holy God the character is to be deter- 
 mined by the state of the heart, and not by the external 
 profession. In illustrating this head of the discourse, I 
 refer to such cases as the following. (1.) Where the ob- 
 ligations of piety are admitted in general, but denied in 
 detail. The man admits Christianity to be true in gene- 
 ral, but he neglects prayer, or he lives for this world, or 
 he indulges in envy or a desire of revenge, or he is am- 
 bitious, or he is unwiiUng to deny himself and take up 
 his cross, until point by point the system of Christianity 
 is all denied by him, and nothing is left but the name. 
 There is nothing by which he is known in distinction from 
 others, and the conclusion is, that the Christian religion 
 exerts over liim no influence. (2.) Where professors have 
 no sympathy with the plans of true Christians. Where, 
 while they admit the truth of Christianity in general, they 
 have no sympathy \Ai\\ the active friends of Christ for the 
 spread of the gospel ; where they are strangers to those 
 plans, and uninterested in their success ; where they have 
 no rejoicing at the conversion of sinners, and no tears to 
 shed that millions are going down to hell ; where nothing 
 ever rouses them to even a momentary effort for the pro- 
 motion of the cause for which the Saviour died; where 
 they have no prayers to offer in secret, and no word of 
 encouragement to speak to the true friends of Christ ; and 
 where their bosoms would experience no heart-felt joy in 
 hearing that continent after continent, and island after 
 island should be converted to God. Are there not men 
 in the Christian church who are fully acquainted with the 
 state of political parties in the city, state, or nation, and 
 
 19 
 
218 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 whose prompt co-operation may be confidently expected 
 by their party, but on whose aid in promoting the salva- 
 tion of men no reliance can be placed ? Are there not 
 men fully acquainted with all that will go to promote 
 commerce, and wealth, and national prosperity, whose 
 presence and counsel we should seek in vain in any direct 
 effort to promote a revival of pure religion ? Are there 
 not men whose bosoms are agitated by any fluctuations 
 in the money market, or by a prospect of defeat in a po- 
 litical campaign, who have no anxiety to express, and 
 no tears to shed when the church slumbers, and when 
 the gospel falls powerless on the heavy ears of men? 
 And can the character of such men be mistaken, or the 
 real object of their preference be a matter of doubt ? — 
 Again. Are there not those who are familiar with all the 
 movements of the gay and fashionable world, and who 
 possibly may be the charm of every circle that forgets 
 God and that hates Jesus Christ, who have yet to offer 
 the first sincere prayer for the conversion of a soul, and 
 who leave the real friends of the Redeemer to struggle 
 alone amidst many embarrassments and discouragements? 
 And can it be a matter of doubt whether they have ever 
 been translated from the kingdom of darkness into the 
 kingdom of God's dear Son? (3.) I refer to instances 
 where all the sympathies are on the side of the enemy of 
 Christ. Where the professed Christian readily falls in 
 with the observations which the sons and daughters of 
 gaiety and of sin make about revivals of religion ; about 
 the proper mode of preaching ; about the faults of Chris- 
 tians, and the efforts of Christian benevolence ; where, 
 when an enemy of revivals is met, the professed Chris- 
 tian is an enemy also ; Avhen an enemy of missions is 
 met, the professed Christian is an enemy also ; when 
 an enemy of godliness complains of a certain style of 
 preaching, the professed Christian complains also ; when 
 an enemy of God dwells on the disorders of religious 
 excitements, and the mistakes and errors of Christians, 
 the professed Christian has the same remarks to offer, 
 and has not one word to express in behalf of the in- 
 jured and insulted cause of God. If, on all these sub- 
 jects, he thinks just as the enemy of God thinks, and feels 
 as he feels, and talks as he talks, can there be any doubt 
 
ENEMIES OF THE CROSS OF CHRIST. 219 
 
 about his true character ? If my conversation be just such 
 as the enemy of my country would desire, can there be 
 any doubt that I am in his interest ? And if, on the sub- 
 ject of reUgion, I talk just as the Devil would wish me 
 to talk ; if I make just such objections to the movements 
 of Christians as he could wish me to make ; if I oppose 
 just those things which he would wish me to oppose ; 
 and, if my whole style of action and remark be such as 
 would be gratifying to him, can there be any doubt about 
 my real character ? Not professions determine the cha- 
 racter, but the language, the conduct, the life. 
 
 In closing this part of the discussion, I may observe, 
 that the subject is one of easy application. My aim has 
 been to make it so plain that it should be impossible to 
 mistake my meaning ; and I presume that I have not 
 been misunderstood. The application of the eight tests 
 of character which I have suggested, can be easily made. 
 I may repeat a remark which is often made, that every 
 consideration of interest, and duty, and hope, and self- 
 respect, demands that we should be honest on this subject 
 of religion, and if we are deceived, let us know it before 
 it shall be too late forever. For " who among us can 
 dwell with devouring fire ? who can inhabit everlasting 
 burnings ?" " Faithful are the wounds of a friend ;'^ and 
 I can never do any man more essential service, if he is 
 deceived, than to show him his danger, and point him to 
 the cross of Christ, that he may obtain true peace and 
 salvation. 
 
 If it should be said, as possibly it may be, that there 
 is too much of severity in the remarks which I have thus 
 made, this is my answer. I desire not to give needless 
 pain ; nor shall I. Pain now, may save an eternity of 
 wo hereafter. My fears on that subject are not that too 
 much anxiety will be excited, but that there will be too 
 little, or that there will be none. I answer further, that 
 these tests of character are not severe. In thousands, 
 nay in millions of cases, they have been applied, and true 
 religion in the heart has endured the trial. Thousands 
 of martyrs have put these principles to the test, and they 
 have borne it. In view of the rack and the stake ; in 
 view of conflicts with wild beasts in the amphitheatre, 
 and of a lingering death by torture, the question as to the 
 
220 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 sincerity of piety has been tried, and piety has sustained 
 the trial. The question has come up there — oh, with what 
 interest — ^ Have I been born again ; have I forsaken my 
 sins ; have I the true spirit of a Christian ; have I a 
 deeper interest in the cross than in all other things ; have 
 I been willing to forsake father, and mother, and wife, 
 and children ; do I love the great cause of redemption, and 
 is my sympathy with the friends of God ?^ and the an- 
 swer before persecuting councils and kings has been 
 prompt and steady, ' I am ready to bleed or to be burned 
 in attestation of the truth of this religion' — Too severe ! 
 No. Nothing which men can say; nothing which tyrants 
 can do ; nothing which Satan can devise, is too severe a 
 test for the principles of Christian piety. These princi- 
 ples will bear the utmost scrutiny of torture on earth, and 
 the deep searchings of the omniscient and most holy 
 eye of God at the bar of judgment ! And if our pro- 
 fessed principles of piety will iwt bear all these, we are 
 the enemies of the cross of Christ. I answer, finally, 
 that a scrutiny far more severe than any which can result 
 from my exhibition of the truth is yet to be applied to 
 us. Death is soon to try us, to see w^hether our religion 
 will sustain us there. The searching eye of the Almighty 
 Judge is to try us at his bar, to see if our religion will 
 sustain us there. And if our piety will not bear the scru- 
 tiny applied by an erring and most imperfect mortal, how 
 shall it bear the trials of the bed of death, and the solemn 
 investigations of the final day ? Let us then again take 
 words and turn to the Lord, and say with one mind, 
 "Search us, God, and know our hearts; try us, and 
 know our thoughts ; and see if there be any wicked way 
 in us, and lead us in the way everlasting.'' Ps. cxxxix. 23» 
 
\ 
 
 \ 
 
 SERMON XV. 
 
 ENEMIES OF THE CROSS OF CHRIST. NO. 3. 
 
 Phil. iii. 18. 19. For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and 
 now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, 
 whose end is destruction. 
 
 I PROPOSED, from these words, to consider three points : 
 
 I. There is reason to beUeve that many professing 
 Christians are the real enemies of the cross of Christ. 
 
 II. What are the characteristics of that enmity ; or how- 
 may they be known to be such ; and 
 
 III. Why is the fact of their being in the church fitted 
 to excite grief. 
 
 The first two points have been considered. The third 
 will occupy our attention at this time ; and the enquiry 
 is, why is the fact that there are in the church those who 
 are the enemies of the cross of Christ fitted to excite grief 
 and tears. I observe : 
 
 I. In the first -place, that their being in the church is a 
 fact fitted to call forth the feelings of tenderness and com- 
 miseration — not reproach and harshness of language — 
 for they are cherishing hopes that will be disappointed, 
 and are exposed to danger that is unfelt. The eflect on 
 the mind of Paul was to produce tears, not harsh reproof, 
 not angry denunciation. He saw their situation as one 
 that was to be wept over ; and he knew enough of human 
 nature to see that all hope of reclaiming such persons was 
 in the use of the language of kindness and love. Kind- 
 ness will do what harshness never can ; and the love which 
 expresses itself in gushing tears will make its way to the 
 heart, while harsh words would only steel the soul, and 
 confirm it in error. 
 
 A similar case occurred in the church at Corinth, and 
 Paul met it in the same manner. Though required by 
 the nature of the offence to proceed to the extremity of 
 Christian discipline, yet it was still with tenderness and 
 tears. ^' For out of much affliction and anguish of heart/' 
 
 19* 221 
 
222 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 says he, " 1 wrote unto you with many tears ; not that ye 
 should he grieved, but that ye might know the love which 
 I have more abundantly unto you/' 2 Cor. ii. 4. 
 
 The same language of tenderness is evinced in the New 
 Testament throughout, in regard to this class of persons. 
 The Saviour's language was uniformly that of tenderness, 
 and pity. Pie spake with a fearful solemnity of manner 
 mdeed ; with words which show how much his soul was 
 impressed with the importance of the subject ; yet in his 
 manner and words there is not a particle of harshness. 
 We admit that when the Lord Jesus addressed the hypo- 
 crite — the man who professed a religion which he knew, 
 he did not practice, we hear the language of severity. 
 " Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers," says he, " how 
 can ye escape the damnation of hell !" The age in 
 which he lived was eminently hypocritical ; the men 
 with whom he had to deal were many of them false pro- 
 fessors. But we are not to infer that this is to be the 
 characteristic of all times, or that men in the church who 
 are strangers to religion, are to be addressed in this man- 
 ner, by us. The Son of God, knowing the human heart, 
 could speak with unerring certainty of the character of 
 those whom he addressed. But the ministers of religion 
 — themselves imperfect men, and having no right to as- 
 sume pre-eminence in moral worth above their Christian 
 brethren, will use the language of entreaty, not of denun- 
 ciation ; will seek to melt the heart by a tender setting 
 forth of danger, not to overwhelm it by the denunciations 
 of wrath. 
 
 Perhaps we are in danger of erring in regard to the 
 character of those in the church who give no evidence 
 of piety. In churches that are connected with the state ; 
 in lands where the obtainment of office or any other 
 important temporal advantage may depend on a pro- 
 fession of religion, many will openly profess it who are 
 influenced solely by a regard to the worldly considera- 
 tion. But the temptation to this in this land, if it ever 
 exist at all, exists to so inconsiderable a degree as not 
 to call for any special animadversion. The instances re- 
 main yet to occur, probably, Avhere a profession of reli- 
 gion has been assumed in this country for the sake of 
 office ; or where it would contribute to the attainment of 
 
ENEMIES OF THE CROSS OF CHRIST. 223 
 
 office. Nor is there reason to believe that the profession 
 of religion is often, if ever assumed, because it will clothe 
 a man with additional influence, or will facilitate the ac- 
 quisition of wealth. The power which a man can wield 
 in the church in this country is too inconsiderable to 
 make it a prize to be purchased by known hypocrisy ; and 
 those who are intent on becoming rich will derive too 
 little advantage from a profession of religion to make it 
 an object to be purchased at the expense of a good con- 
 science. I have been a pastor now more than sixteen 
 years, and it has been my business to observe, as I was 
 able, the lives of those who profess Christianity. And I 
 cannot recall an instance in which I have seen evidence 
 that the profession of religion was assumed, because it 
 would elevate a man to office, or aid him in becoming 
 rich. I have seen instances where it seemed to me, and 
 still seems, that men were deterred from making a pro- 
 fession of religion because there might be apprehension 
 that it would interfere with the hopes of office ; or throw 
 around them restraints which they would rather avoid in 
 the acquisition of wealth. The conclusion which has 
 been pressed on my mind has been, that ten men are 
 deterred from making a profession of religion from an 
 apprehension that it would interfere with their worldly 
 interests, for one who professedly embraces Christianity 
 from any hope of honor, or emolument. 
 
 But I have seen many, who, without any violation, as 
 I trust, of that charity which hopeth all things and is 
 kind, seemed to me to be strangers to the transforming 
 and elevating principles of the religion which they pro- 
 fess. In looking at the evidences of piety as laid down 
 with such simplicity in the New Testament, it has been 
 so forcibly impressed on the mind that all those evidences 
 were wanting, that it was impossible not to come to the 
 conclusion that there was an utter mistake in their cher- 
 ished hopes, and in the profession which they made. 
 To this conclusion, the mind and heart of a pastor will 
 sloAvly and reluctantly come. But having come to this 
 conclusion, he is guilty of unfaithfulness to the master 
 whom he serves, and to the souls which he would save, 
 if he fails to express his apprehensions, or to tell his 
 
224 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 hearers "often," and "even weeping" that "many walk 
 who are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is 
 
 DESTRUCTION." 
 
 There is nothing more fitted to excite commiseration 
 than this. If we see a son cherishing from year to year 
 a delusive expectation that he will be heir to a great 
 estate ; and in the mean time, on the ground of this, 
 making no preparation for the life which he must lead 
 when thrown upon his own resources, our feelings to- 
 wards him will be those only of pity, and of grief. If 
 we see a man lying on a sick bed with every mark of 
 approaching death, yet clinging to life ; if we see the 
 body waste away, and the hectic on the cheek, and hear 
 the admonitory voice of the physician, and yet see the 
 emaciated sufferer indulging in day-dreams of returning 
 health, we have but one feeling in relation to the deluded 
 man — not of severity but of tenderness ; not prompting 
 to rebuke, but exciting to tears. And so when we see an 
 immortal soul cherishing the delusive hope of the "adop- 
 tion" into the family of God, and of " the inheritance of 
 the saints in light," can there be other than the language 
 of pity ? When we hear a man speak of treading the 
 green fields of heaven, of slaking his thirst in the river 
 of hfe ; of reposing beneath the trees ever green in the 
 Paradise above ; of wearing the diadem, and of being 
 clothed in the flowing robes of heaven ; and then reflect 
 that all this is the language of a lost, and still unransomed 
 soul, is there a heart so hard as to use the language of se- 
 verity, and are there eyes so unused to pity as to withhold 
 tlieir tears ? 
 
 If it should be said that it is not reasonable to sup- 
 pose that, when the delusion is not to be traced to 
 voluntary hypocrisy, a God of mercy will recompense 
 the error with everlasting torments, I ask how it is in 
 other matters ? I look at the great principles of the divine 
 administration as they are developed in the world. I ask 
 whether the fact that men are deceived, in the ordinary 
 course of events, will make them safe from sufl*ering, 
 or turn aside the regular penalty of law? I see the 
 man who is cherishing the delusive hope that his world- 
 ly aflairs are prosperous, and who gives no heed to 
 the admonitions of his friends. He is not benefited by 
 
ENEMIES OP THE CROSS OF CHRIST. 225 
 
 the cherished dehision, but ruin and bankruptcy come 
 upon him with a step steady as time. I see a young man 
 confident in the vigor of his constitution ; unwilling to 
 beUeve that he endangers his heahh by a course of dis- 
 sipation ; deceived about the strength of his own princi- 
 ples, and spurning the sober counsel of wisdom and of 
 age. Nor is he benefited by his delusion, but he sinks 
 hke others to the woes and curses of the drunkard's grave. 
 I see the pale, emaciated man clinging to life ; cherishing 
 the delusive hope that his disease will yet depart from 
 him ; and anticipating future days of health, and plea- 
 sure. Yet the disease is not stayed by his delusion. It 
 approaches steadily the seat of life. Unawed, un rebuked, 
 unarrested by his delusions, the destroyer is levelling the 
 poisoned shaft, and the man finds the cold damps of death 
 standing upon his brow even while he cherishes tlie hope 
 of living long. So it is every where. The laws of na- 
 ture and of God, operate with steady and unchanging 
 power. They hasten to their end. When violated in 
 regard to health, or morals, or property, or salvation, they 
 have a penalty which is not met by self-deception ; and 
 which will not be driven back by the sunshine and calm 
 of fancied security. Man must pay the forfeit; and 
 neither in regard to his worldly affairs or to religion, will 
 self deception turn aside the penalty, or interpose to shield 
 the body or the soul. 
 
 II. The existence of such persons in the church is a 
 subject of regret and of tears, from their influence. This 
 I shall illustrate in a few particulars. It is, 
 
 (1.) The loss of so much positive strength to the cause 
 of the Redeemer. For it cannot be denied that those of 
 whom I am speaking often embody not a little of the 
 wealth, the talent, and the actual influence of the church. 
 Nor can it be denied that, when this is the case, this very 
 fact gives them a melancholy conspicuity, and promi- 
 nence. If those who sustain this character possess an 
 influence that spreads far through the political or com- 
 mercial world ; if they have power to excite to energy 
 mighty masses of mind, and that talent is a dead weight 
 on the church, the fact cannot escape the public observa- 
 tion, and be felt in all the interests of the church of Christ. 
 If they whose power is felt most deeply in the commercial 
 
226 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 or political world, are entirely inactive in the church ; if 
 while they are known every where else, they are unknown 
 here except in the bare record of their names ; if nothing 
 will rouse them to even a temporary interest in the spirit- 
 ual affairs of the church, it is just so much abstraction of 
 that which professedly belongs to Christ ; and there can be 
 no wonder if it diffuse a chill and paralysis over all the 
 interests of religion. It is melancholy to reflect on what 
 might be done in the church of Christ if all its members 
 had the burning zeal of Paul, or the ever-glowing and 
 pure love of John ; and then to remember that the designs 
 of Christian enterprise — the conversion of the soul — the 
 cause of revivals — the salvation of the world — lack the 
 counsel, and the prayers, and the friendly co-operation of 
 those who are best qualified, under God, to carry them 
 forward. Paul spake of such with tears ; nor is it easy to 
 withhold such expressions of grief when a man reposes 
 in the bosom of a church, bearing simply the name of 
 Christian ; a stranger to its feelings, to its plans, and to 
 its spiritual peace ; a man whose power is felt in the 
 political and commercial world always ; in the religious 
 
 world NEVER. 
 
 (2.) Their influence in the church is a subject of grief, 
 because it tends to discourage the true friends of God. 
 There are not a few in all Christian churches, who are 
 sincere and humble Christians. They love the Saviour 
 who died for them. They have not merely in form, but 
 in sincerity, devoted themselves to his service. Their 
 hearts pant for the spread of the gospel ; and their most 
 fervent desires are for the salvation of sinners, for the 
 peace and happiness and purity of the church, and for 
 the conversion of the world. Their purest joys are con- 
 nected with the reign of Immanuel, and they wish to live 
 only that by their influence and prayers, they may do 
 something for the furtherance of his gospel on the earth. 
 Their language is, in sincerity, 
 
 I love thy kingdom, Ijord, 
 
 The house of thine abode 
 The church our blessed Redeemer saved 
 
 With his own precious blood. 
 
ENEMIES OF THE CROSS OF CHRIST. 227 
 
 If e'er to bless thy sons 
 
 My voice or hands deny, 
 These hands let useful skill forsake, 
 
 This voice in silence die. 
 
 For her my tears shall fall, 
 
 For her ray prayers ascend, 
 To her my toils and cares be given, 
 
 Till cares and toils shall end. 
 
 Now it is not needful to dwell on the discouragement 
 which ensues when the irresistible conviction comes over 
 the mind, that a professed brother or sister in the church 
 has no interest in these things ; — that they have no pray- 
 ers to offer for the conversion of sinners ; no tears to shed, 
 like the Saviour, over the dangers of lost men ; no cheer- 
 ing counsel for those who are endeavoring to do good ; no 
 aid to offer to the pastor in his great ofhce, and no re- 
 joicing when souls are converted to Christ. It is as if, in 
 the struggle for liberty, a few should brave every danger, 
 encamp on the cold field, and expose themselves to death, 
 while professed friends should sit and look from their 
 palace windows on the struggle without sympathy, and 
 without a tear when brave men bleed. 
 
 But this is not the only cause of grief. It is not from 
 mere discouragement because they are left to toil alone. 
 For the Master has said, " he that is not with me, is against 
 me ; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.'^ 
 In this strife between sin and holiness, heaven and hell, 
 there is no neutrality. And it adds to the sadness of the 
 scene, when they who are the professed friends of Christ 
 not only stand aloof, but seek to build up that which true 
 Christians labor to destroy, and to destroy that which God 
 is endeavoring to build up. When the real friends of 
 Christ are endeavoring to promote revivals of religion 
 and the conversion of the world, and his professed friends 
 are always found to countenance the views of the enemies 
 of Christ, and to coincide with the men of the world, it 
 adds to the grief of the friends of the Saviour by all the 
 sorrow that attends violated friendship, and forgotten 
 plighted love. " I was wounded in the house of my 
 friends, and he that hath eaten bread with me hath lifted 
 up his hand against me," was the tender language of the 
 much injured David. " It was not an enemy that did it, 
 
228 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 then I could have born it. But it was thou, a man mine 
 equal, my guide and mine acquaintance ; we took sweet 
 counsel together and walked to the house of God in 
 company." Ps. Iv. 12, 13. And when too the professed 
 friends of Christ are found the patrons of those things 
 which his real friends are endeavoring to remove from 
 the world as hurtful to health, and morals, and the salva- 
 tion of the soul, can it be otherwise than a matter of 
 grief.? Can a house that is divided against itself stand. f* 
 And does not a kingdom that is divided against itself fall? 
 In one portion of the church there shall be prayer, and 
 toil, and tears to discountenance and destroy the works of 
 the devil ; and if in another the professed friends of Christ 
 are doing just v/hat the enemy of souls, of revivals, of 
 humble piety, and of the world's redemption would wish 
 them to do, how can it be otherwise than a subject of 
 grief and of tears ? 
 
 (3.) The deportment of such professors of religion gives 
 occasion for the reproach and opposition of a wicked 
 world — and it is, therefore, a cause of grief and tears. 
 For the great mass of men ever have derived, and ever 
 will derive their views of the Christian religion not from 
 the Bible, but from the lives of its professors. Rarely 
 will they take up th.e Bible to learn the nature of Chris- 
 tianity from the pure life, or holy precepts of its founder; 
 and rarely will they be convinced that that religion which 
 does not in fact produce renovation of the heart, and 
 holiness of life, can be from heaven — nor should they be. 
 And though we can point them to many instances of con- 
 sistent piety; though we can refer them to multitudes of 
 cases where Christianity has in fact reformed the profane, 
 the sensual, and the proud, yet the influence of one in- 
 consistent professor will more than neutralize the argu- 
 ment dravv^i from the consistent walk of ten who are 
 ornaments to their high calling. The thoughless, ungodly 
 world has an intey^est in keeping the lives of the ten hum- 
 ble and holy Christians out of view, and in fixing the 
 attention on the one professor that is a disgrace to the 
 Christian name. 
 
 This reproach is unanswerable. The fact alleged is un- 
 deniable ; and the attention is easily fixed on some profes- 
 sor of religion with whom the objector has had business of 
 
ENEMIES OF THE CROSS OF CHRIST. 229 
 
 a worldly nature, where he has found him as close as other 
 men; wiiere he has seen a spirit as grasping; where he 
 has witnessed some departure from moral honesty; where 
 a promise has not been kept ; or where there has been a 
 case of overreaching, or of fraud. And where such a case 
 can be referred to, it is all that the man of the world 
 asks ; and the force of argument with him is at an end. 
 In vain may we press upon his attention the argument 
 for Christianity from miracles and prophecy ; in vain 
 refer to the pure life and precepts of its founder ; in vain 
 appeal to its obvious and indisputable effects in reforming 
 the world ; in vain urge on the man that he should judge of 
 reUgion by its precepts and recorded principles in the Bible, 
 and that it is unfair to hold the whole system answerable 
 for the faults of its professed friends, in vain is all this 
 urged — for the inconsistent professor occupies the whole 
 field of vision before the objector. It is all that he sees, 
 or will see, or can be made to see ; and the reasoning 
 falls on heavy ears, and on a heart in respect to our ar- 
 guments just like adamant. All the objections which / 
 ever hear against religion are drawn from the inconsistent 
 lives of its friends. All the obstacles which are thrown 
 in viy path in endeavoring to urge the gospel personally 
 on the immediate attention of sinners are drawn from 
 this quarter. 
 
 (4.) Their influence is a matter of grief because it is 
 the occasion of the loss of the souls of men. They who 
 are in the church without any religion are a stumbling- 
 block over which others fall into perdition ; and to the 
 guilt of the ruin of their own souls, is to be added that 
 of being the means of the everlasting ruin of others. 
 This follows inevitably. They do not adorn the religion 
 which they profess to love by their lives ; they convey 
 erroneous ideas of it every step which they take ; they 
 do not exert a Christian influence over their children, 
 and friends, and fellow-sinners ; their example and con- 
 versation is just that which the world desires to make it 
 quiet in sin; they are pursuing just the course which 
 Satan desires them to pursue in order that the sons and 
 daughters of gaiety and folly should not be alarmed ; and 
 their whole influence is adapted to make the world 
 thoughtless, and unconcerned, and prayeriess. An un- 
 
 20 
 
230 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 godly parent thus adds to his own destruction that of Iiis 
 children ; and unless special mercy interposes, a whole 
 farnily in hell shall be the sad argument to illustrate the 
 effects of being deceived in the church. We can conceive of 
 no more affecting image of the inexpressible wretchedness 
 of the world of despair, than when we think of a child 
 thus reproaching a father or a mother as the cause of his 
 ruin. * You were a professor of religion. Your example 
 and views of life ; your conducting me to scenes of fash- 
 ion and gaiety, when the mind should have been im- 
 pressed with the thoughts of God ; your neglecting to 
 acquaint me with the Saviour of the soul, is the cause 
 why I weep amidst these inextinguishable fires. But for 
 that inconsistent, and unholy life of her that bare me, I 
 should now have been among the blessed, and heaven 
 would have been my eternal home. But these hor- 
 rors ! These deep, eternal burnings ! A father has led 
 me there ; a mother has guided my footsteps down to 
 death !' 
 
 III. The existence of the enemies of the cross of Christ 
 in the church is fitted to excite regret and tears from the 
 slender probability that they will ever be converted and 
 saved. Paul's grief arose mainly from the fact which he 
 expresses, that their "end was destruction." It is evi- 
 dent that he did not anticipate their conversion. Judas 
 Iscariot was three years with the Saviour, under his direct 
 ministry, and was not converted. In the account which 
 our Saviour gives in the parable of the tares, it is evident 
 that he did not suppose that they who were deceived in 
 the church would ever be converted. " Let both grow 
 together until the harvest," said he ; not, * let the tares 
 remain amidst the wheat with the hope of a change,' but 
 "let both grow together until the harvest, and in the 
 time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye 
 together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn 
 them." Matth. xiii. 30. Joshua had no hope that Achan 
 would be converted, and he was accordingly destroyed. 
 God had no expectation that Nadab and Abihu would be 
 converted, and the earth opened and swallowed them up. 
 Peter had no hope that Ananias and Sapphira would be 
 converted if they remained in the church, and the judg- 
 ment of heaven was manifested in their death. And the 
 
ENEMIES OF THE CROSS OF CHRIST. 231 
 
 current representations of the Bible may be appealed to 
 as a proof that the conversion of a man in the church is 
 an event scarcely contemplated, and for which no pro- 
 vision has been made. 
 
 An appeal to fact would sustain this conclusion. Amidst 
 the evidence which we cannot resist that there are many 
 such in the church, how rare a thing is it that even one 
 abandons his falsely-cherished hope, and becomes a sin- 
 cere believer. The die seems to be cast, and the destiny 
 scaled. The profane, the profligate, the dissolute, the 
 moral, the aged, and the young, the rich and the poor, 
 are converted by hundreds around them, but no Sun of 
 righteousness visits the Greenland of their souls, or re- 
 moves the deep darkness which blinds their minds. The 
 gospel is borne to other lands, and the benighted pagan 
 hails its coming, but it has no consolations for the de- 
 ceived professor, and its pleadings and its thunders die 
 away alike unheeded on the ear. 
 
 This melancholy fact may be accounted for in a word. 
 The condition of a deceived professor is unfavorable to 
 conversion. He dreams of a heaven to be obtained with 
 an unhumbled heart, without self-denial, and without 
 bearing the cross, and he is unwilling that the pleasing 
 dream should be disturbed. His fancied security shields 
 him from all the appeals which are made to men. The 
 exhortations which are addressed to sinners to repent and 
 to believe the gospel he does not apply to himself, for he 
 does not professedly belong to that class. The arguments 
 which are urged on Christians to lead a holy life ; the 
 motives which are urged from their inextinguishable love 
 to the Saviour, he does not regard, for he has none of the 
 Christian's feelings, and none of his real desire to glorify 
 God the Redeemer. Belonging not to the world profess- 
 edly, and not to Christians really, the appeals of divine 
 mercy for the salvation of the soul almost never reach 
 the heart, alarm the conscience, or arouse to hope or fear. 
 Yet it is fancied security, not real. It is that kind of se- 
 curity which a man will take, who, when ^tna or Vesu- 
 vius should cast forth lurid flames, and heave with an 
 approaching eruption, instead of fleeing to the distant 
 plain, should be content with reposing beneath a tree at 
 
232 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 its base, and hiding his eyes, and stopping his ears, should 
 regard himself as secure. 
 
 Here I close the consideration of this text. In conclu- 
 sion I shall make two remarks. 
 
 (1.) The first is, that there is an obvious propriety 
 for honest self-examination. The necessity of this is 
 urged upon us by all the worth of the undying soul ; 
 by all the value of the blood of Christ ; by all the ap])re- 
 hensions of a dreadful hell. On this of all subjects we 
 should be most honest with ourselves ; and yet on this of 
 all subjects we are prone to take up with sHghtest evi- 
 dences. The solicitude of the merchant to save his afiairs 
 from bankruptcy, is untiring ; the advocate toils to gain 
 his cause, and the physician to save his patient ; the 
 farmer has no rest till the title to his land is without a 
 flaw. Yet that merchant, perhaps, will feel no solicitude 
 that his eternal interests may not be bankrupt ; nor that 
 professional man feel any concern that he is in danger of 
 losing his soul ; nor the farmer that his title to heaven is 
 insecure. On the very point where we should suppose 
 there would be most interest felt, there is often the least ; 
 and the last thing to which immortal man, in the church 
 or out of it, can be roused, is the worth of his own soul. 
 
 Were it thus in other cases, we should be impressed 
 with the folly. Let a man be seized with disease, though 
 not immediately alarming, and let it be suffered to run 
 on without care or anxiety until death shall lay its cold 
 hand on him, and we do not doubt its folly. Yet how 
 many are under the influence of the incurable disease 
 of sin, who allow themselves to be deceived ; who listen 
 to no language of entreaty to examine ; and who will 
 soon find that their hopes of heaven have been founded 
 on the sand ! Once more, I may be permitted, not in 
 form, but in the soberness of sincerity and of love, to 
 entreat you to be willing to know the Avorst of the case. 
 If deceived, be willing to know it, and to seek mercy 
 before it shall be too late. If we are Christians let us 
 know it, and let our lives testify accordingly. 
 
 (2.) Let me address one word to those who are not 
 professors of religion. I beseech you not to make the 
 follies, and sins, and self-delusions of others the means of 
 your own destruction. You, as well as professed Chris- 
 
ENEMIES OF THE CROSS OF CHRIST. 233 
 
 tians, whether they are deceived or not, are advancing to 
 the same burial-place of the dead, and to the same judg- 
 ment-seat. You will stand before the same God, and 
 give up an account, not for them, but for yourselves. 
 " Every man shall give account of himself to God." It 
 will constitute no safeguard to you that they are deceived. 
 It will diminish none of the terrors of death, that your 
 wife or child was deceived, and must perish forever. It 
 will be no ground of acquittal to you, if they are lost. I 
 will add, it will furnish no consolation to you in hell — 
 no, not the drop of water to cool the parched tongue — 
 should they go down to be your everlasting companions. 
 To your own master you stand or fall. They may be 
 deluded ; you certainly are. They, in cherishing a hope 
 of life to which the}^ have no claim ; you, in supposing 
 that no preparation is necessary, and that there is no 
 heaven or hell beyond the grave. You, deluded amidst 
 the gaieties, and fascinations, and the jostling plans, and 
 the vain expectations of happiness hi this world ; they 
 in the church in regard to the hope of heaven. But what 
 then ? Are you safe } Hear me. When all the delu- 
 sions of life shall have vanished ; when we shall be sum- 
 moned to attend to the sober reality of dying, and of 
 going on the journey up to God, and giving in the solemn 
 account at his bar, and of entering a world where there 
 is no delusion, it will remove none of the sad realities 
 of those scenes to remember that others were deluded as 
 well as you, and that they, as you anticipated, sunk down 
 to the world where "are hypocrites and unbelievers." 
 But let me ask you, my friend, a question. What if their 
 hopes should be well-founded ? What if it shall appear 
 that ?/ow alone are deluded and deceived? What if they 
 rise to heaven, saved by the hope which they now che- 
 rish ? What if, notwithstanding all the difficulties of the 
 way, and the delusions around them, and their many 
 doubts and fears, they are able to bear the scrutiny of 
 the All-seeing Eye in the great day ? Solve me this ques- 
 tion, I beseech you — " If the righteous scarcely be saved, 
 where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear V 
 
 20^ 
 
SERMON XVI. 
 
 THE RULE OF CHRISTIANITY, IN REGARD TO CON- 
 FORMITY TO THE WORLD. 
 
 Rom. xii. 2. And be not conformed to this world. 
 
 I DO not know a more difficult passage in the New 
 Testament than this ; and I enter upon the discussion of 
 it with very httle hope of being able to furnish a satis- 
 factory solution of the many inquiries which may be 
 made respecting its meaning, and its application. What 
 is conformity to the world — is tlie question which imme- 
 diately presents itself on reading the text. It is easy to 
 see that a command so plain as this appears to be, may 
 give occasion to a great variety of opinions. Every 
 Christian may have an " interpretation,^' and " a doc- 
 trine" of his own. Every Christian denomination may 
 have its own rules. One will insist on confining it to the 
 feelings and general spirit of the man ; another will m.ain- 
 tain that it refers only to the vices and crimes of the 
 world ; a third will extend it to its gaieties ; a fourth will 
 affirm that it extends to every article of apparel ; and a 
 fifth to the ordinary intercourse and courtesies of life. 
 Many will demand that the rich shall abandon their 
 houses, their furniture, and their equipage, and come 
 down in all these things to the level of their neighbours ; 
 and many of the rich may deem their neighbours unduly 
 self-indulgent in their manner of life. All of us can see 
 some things in which we judge others to be too much 
 conformed to the world ; and most of us have many 
 perplexing questions pertaining to our own duty as Chris- 
 tians, and to the demands of this and other similar texts 
 of the Bible. Most of us probably are satisfied that there 
 has been, and is, in the church, too much conformity to 
 the world. Our fellow men who are not Christians, often 
 reproach us on this subject, and demand that we should 
 be less conformed to the follies and vanities in which thei/ 
 
 234 
 
CONFORMITY TO THE WOULD. 235 
 
 freely indulge. Poor compliment they pay to their own 
 conduct and discretion ; and a sad employment to blame 
 others for that which they feel at liberty to practise. 
 
 Amidst these conflicting opinions, I have little hope of 
 traversing a perplexed and difficult inquiry with entire 
 clearness and satisfaction. If I can excite thought on 
 the subject among conscientious men, one part of my 
 object will be gained. If I can establish some principles 
 by which we are to interpret the text, I shall do all that 
 I hope to be able to effect. It would be easy to declaim 
 on this subject ; and it is always easy to utter unmeaning 
 and loose denunciations against Christians for conformity 
 to the world. There may be occasion for all the severity 
 of reproof ever uttered ; but after all, the inquiry arises, 
 what is the duty of Christians, and by what principles 
 shall they judge of the text ? 
 
 The following inquiries I shall attempt to answer : 
 
 I. To what does the rule apply ? 
 
 II. What in the text is it designed to reach and effect? 
 
 III. What are the proper principles of its application? 
 I. To what does the rule apply? Here, also, many 
 
 questions might be asked. Was it intended to be limited 
 to the time of Paul, and to that peculiar age of the world ? 
 Christians, especially at Rome, were then placed amidst 
 the luxuries and gaieties of a refined, a vicious, and an 
 idolatrous age. To conform to that age, would be to coin- 
 cide with the splendor, pride, ambition, fashion, and even 
 corrupt principles of a generation peculiarly wicked and 
 vain. Christians w^ere expected to be separated, and to 
 constitute a distinct community. The difference between 
 them and others was to be marked, open, decided, and 
 there could have been little difficulty in applying the rule. 
 But the aspect of the world has, in some respects, 
 changed. Idolatry is banished. Its altars are overthrown. 
 Christianity has diffused intelligence, refinement, kind- 
 ness, and a thousand kindred virtues through the commu- 
 nity. It has elevated society much nearer to its own 
 standards ; and it is asked whether the rule is still to be 
 applicable ? If so, in what respects, and to what extent ? 
 Yet on the question of the applicability, or jurisdiction of 
 the rule, there can be no doubt. It is unrepealed. There 
 
236 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 was no intimation that it was to be confined to that age, 
 or to any peculiar age. Other directions respecting Chris- 
 tians have a similar meaning. " Love not the world, 
 neither the things that are in the world. If any man love 
 the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all 
 that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of 
 the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but 
 is of the world." I John ii. 15, 16. " No man can serve 
 two masters ; for either he will hate the one, and love the 
 other ; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the 
 other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." Matth. vi. 
 24. "For do I now persuade men or God ? or do I seek 
 to please men ? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be 
 the servant of Christ." Gal. i. 10. "- Know ye not that 
 the friendship of the world is enmity with God ? Who- 
 soever, therefore, will be a friend of the world, is the 
 enemy of God." James iv. 4. The text is, therefore, 
 manifestly a precept of the divine law that is to extend 
 its jurisdiction over ah the times, and places, and circum- 
 stances to which it may apply, until the peculiar commu- 
 nity called the world, shall be extinct. 
 
 But if applicable to all times, to what class of actions 
 does it apply ? Is it to the dress, the mind, the heart, the 
 demeanor, the conversation, or to all ? Is it to be limited 
 to one class of these objects, and then to cease in its in- 
 fluence, or is it to extend every where ? I answer, it is 
 like all other divine laws. They are given in a general 
 manner, and are to be interpreted on the same principle. 
 The general principle of the laws of God is, that they 
 are first to be applied to the heart and conscience, and 
 then io follow out all the conduct, and extend their juris- 
 diction over all. Human law is satisfied if it can control 
 the external deportment, and preserve the peace and 
 prosperity of the community. Divine law, extends its 
 purpose of control to the heart. If a proper influence 
 can be exerted over that, it supposes that all will be well ; 
 and the text is evidently one of the laws of Christian 
 conduct, enacted on this principle. The terms of the law 
 are applicable either to the mind, or to the external de- 
 portment ; to the feelings, opinions, and principles of 
 action, as well as to the dress, and conduct of life. Its 
 
CONFORMITY TO THE WORLD. 237 
 
 direct aim therefore, is the heart; its indirect, and com- 
 plete aim is reached only when it controls the entire de- 
 portment. 
 
 It is still asked what place in the code of Christian 
 laws is this rule designed to occupy ? Here I answer, 
 1. The design of Ihis law is not to keep Christians 
 from open vices and crimes. That is placed on better 
 defined ground ; and it is presumed that Christians cannot 
 commit them. Those things which are absolutely and 
 grossly evil, are made the subjects of express statute. 
 Crime is specified, and absolutely forbidden. It is not 
 left to a rule so easily perverted; so capable of abuse and 
 variation, as the simple injunction, not to be conformed to 
 the world. It is expressly declared that men shall not be 
 idolaters, or profane, or Sabbath-breakers, or haters of their 
 parents, or liars, or adulterers, or thieves, or drunkards, 
 or revilers, or false witnesses, or covetous. 1 Cor. vi. 9, 
 10. Gal. V. 19. 21. Eph. v. 4, 5. Heb. xii. 14 ; xiii. 4. Rev. 
 xxn. 15. Ex. XX. Whatever may be the conduct of the 
 world on these subjects, the law of God is positive, and 
 explicit. 2. The command in question is not designed to 
 teach Christians that they should not coincide with the 
 world in any respect, or on any subjects. It is not to be 
 considered as enjoining singularity for the sake of sin- 
 gularity. Such a purpose would be unworthy any 
 legislator. Unless the thing forbidden was either wrong 
 in itself, or was attended with bad consequences, it would 
 be the evidence of tyranny or caprice, not of wisdom, to 
 demand separation. The conformity then, is to be pre- 
 sumed to be in those things which would be injurious 
 to the object which the lawgiver had in view. The matter 
 of fact is, that there are many things in which Christians 
 and others may, and must, externally at least, coincide ; 
 and in which to affect singularity, would be to counte- 
 nance evil. When the apostle directs Christians to think 
 of" whatsoever things are true, and honest, and just, and 
 pure, and lovely, and of good report f (Phil. iv. S.) he 
 evidently supposes that in these things Christians are to 
 coincide with others. Thus also it is in respect to industry, 
 charity, temperance, courtesy, meekness, order. 2 Thess. 
 ill. 10. Rom. xii. 10, 11, &c. I Pet. ii. 17; iii. 8. Rom. 
 
238 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 xiii. 7, 8. Gal. v. 22. If the men of the world are in- 
 dustrious, Christians are not to be directed to be idle; 
 if they are temperate, Christians are not to be intem- 
 perate ; if they are courteous. Christians are not to affect 
 rusticity, or to violate the proper rules of refined inter- 
 course. On these, and a thousand kindred subjects, Chris- 
 tians and the world are to coincide ; nor does religion, 
 common sense, or good morals, demand ox permit singu- 
 larity. But 3. There is a large class of objects and actions 
 which come under neither of these denominations, which 
 are not fixed by absokite statute, and which it might yet 
 be proper to prohibit, or in which there might be de- 
 manded a separation from the world. To make laws on 
 them all, would be endless. These actions and feehngs, 
 the principle of the text is designed to influence and con- 
 trol. The general principle is settled, and the application 
 is to be made by the conscience of each Christian, on his 
 own responsibility. These actions pertain to the greater 
 part of our lives and intercourse. It is not often that a 
 man will be called on to apply the statute respecting 
 murder to himself, perhaps never ; but the principles of 
 religion pertaining to his daily conduct, need to be care- 
 fully applied to the ever varying forms and allurements 
 of the world. You may never have occasion to apply 
 to yourself for example, the ninth commandment ; but 
 there is a large territory of acts — a vast field over which 
 some law should be extended, which cannot be reached 
 by the decalogue, or by any direct statute. Such are all 
 those acts and emotions pertaining to dress and style of 
 life ; to modes of intercourse ; to gaiety and fashion and 
 equipage ; to the governing purposes of the heart in rela- 
 tion to our intercourse with men ; to the rules of business ; 
 and to that endless variety of things in which the men of 
 the world consider it no harm for them to indulge, and in 
 which they indulge freely. Now over this broad terri- 
 to7^y — this vast and ever varying presentation of objects 
 and things, God has left the simple direction, " be not 
 conformed to this world." The principles of the life are 
 not to be formed by the opinions of the world. The rule 
 is designed to occupy this vast region of thought and 
 feeling, over which there could not be the formality of 
 express statute for every thing. It is a kind of balance 
 
CONFORMITY TO THE WORLD. 239 
 
 wheel to the whole, to preserve it in order ; and a general 
 direction, that in relation to all these things, the opinion 
 and conduct should not he formed by the views of the 
 men of the world, but by other principles. The law 
 then, I suppose, is one not confined to the age of Paul ; 
 was not designed to control things in themselves abso- 
 lutely criminal, and subject to express statute ; not de- 
 signed to promote singularity for the sake of singularity, 
 and to separate Christians from the world in things which 
 are proper; but was designed to reach and control the 
 conduct, the feelings, and deportment in that vast variety 
 of things which the world may present from age to ag3 
 as objects of pleasure, gaiety, business, luxury, splendor, 
 or ambition. 
 
 II. Our second enquiry is, what the rule is? A few 
 remarks may enable us to understand this. 
 
 1. There is a difference contemplated between Chris- 
 tians and other men — a difference pertaining to principles 
 of action, to feelings, to laws, to destiny. 1 Cor. iv. 7. 
 2 Cor. vi. 14. 17. Isa. lii. 11. Rev. xviii. 4. The whole 
 arrangement by which this difference is produced and 
 promoted, shows that it is not one of tritling magnitude 
 or importance. To produce it, cost the labors of the Son 
 of God, " who gave himself for us, that he might re- 
 deem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a pe- 
 culiar people, zealous of good works." Titus ii. 14. "But 
 ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy 
 nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the 
 praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into 
 his marvellous light." 1 Pet. ii. 9. To advance this work 
 calls into exercise all the means of grace, and all the 
 direct operation of God on the human mind. While as 
 men we have many things in common with other men, 
 yet as Christians Ave are expected to possess something 
 original and peculiar. There is no change in the human 
 mind so great, thorough, and abiding as that of regenera- 
 tion. John in. 1. 7 — compare Eph. ii. 10; iv. 24. There 
 is no kingdom more different from all other kingdoms, 
 than the empire of Christ over the soul is unlike all other 
 empires. " My kingdom is not of this world," is his lan- 
 guage, (John xviii. 36,) and while we may have many 
 things in common with others, yet as Christians his em- 
 
240 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 pire over us is to be regarded as original and peculiar. 
 His law is to form our opinions and practice, and his will 
 to influence our conduct. 1 John ii. 3, 6. The world 
 may be governed by its own laws. The law^s of fashion 
 may control one portion ; the laws of honor another ; 
 the laws of ambition a third. One community may frame 
 its conduct by a set of artificial statutes, meaning or un- 
 meaning, which may have been agreed on respecting the 
 intercourse of the theatre, the ball-room, or any other 
 place of amusement or of business. Another community 
 is under the influence of the laws of honor — so called — 
 and those laws are understood, and capable of being writ- 
 ten down. The CJu^istian community rises in the midst 
 of all others — subject to laws of its own voluntarily as- 
 sumed, and claiming that their jurisdiction should be ad- 
 mitted to extend over all the thouglits and doings of the 
 life. It claims that no other community should be allow- 
 ed to originate statutes for the government of Christians, 
 or modify their laws, or demand their submission to its 
 mandates. It claims or/^/?z«/ jurisdiction over the whole 
 soul and body, and sternly rebukes the interposition of 
 the communities under the influence of the laws of honor, 
 fashion, or vice, if they come in with a claim to modify 
 or repeal the original and independent statutes of the 
 Christian community. Christianity regards all such inter- 
 ference as aggression. If they coincide with Christianity 
 in any thing, or in every thing, it is well, and Christians 
 are not to afl*ect singularity. If they difter, the Christian 
 community has another rule by which it is governed. 
 Now the essential idea of the rule which I am wishing 
 to explain, is, that Christianity has original jurisdiction 
 in all these cases ; that the laws of the New Testament 
 are the last appeal ; and that as far as this community is 
 concerned, its statutes are to govern — nor are they to be 
 modified by any intrusions of the laws of any other com- 
 monwealth. 
 
 I do not know that I present the idea clearly. Let me 
 attempt further to illustrate it. I have a family in a gay, 
 wicked, thoughtless city. I am surrounded by families 
 which have diflferent views altogether from those which 
 I have on the various subjects of employments and mo- 
 rals. As the head of that family, I give laws by which 
 
CONFORMITY TO TPIE WORLD. 241 
 
 I expect it will be influenced. Around me may be one 
 family governed by the laws of fashion; another by the 
 laws of honor; a third, perhaps, by certain arbitrary 
 rules which pick-pockets and highway-men have set ut). 
 I do not interfere with them ; nor do I say that in no 
 respects shall my famaly coincide with them. If they 
 have any thing commendable, I shall not denounce it, 
 nor demand that my children shall affect singularity. I 
 shall not demand alfected singularity in quaint and un- 
 usual modes of speech ; in an inconvenient, or a ridicu- 
 lous style of dress ; or in an unnatural and forced gait or 
 demeanor; or in a disgusting or an odious tone of utter- 
 ance, for the mere sake of singularity. I expect my 
 children Avill obey my original laws, and remember that 
 /have the jurisdiction in the premises. If my neighbor 
 presumes to legislate in the case, and demands that my 
 family shall forsake my lav/s ; if he atfirms that tny sta,- 
 tutes are stern and harsh, and should be modified — that 
 is a question fc^r me to consider, not for him to legislate 
 on. Just so it is with Christianity. Christ has establish- 
 ed a sat of laws, and demanded a certain course of life. 
 If the members of any other community, or of Mij 
 others, should in many things, or in all things, coincide 
 with what religion would produce, the Christian is 
 not to affect singularity in the case. The question is, 
 whether I am adhering to the laws of the peculiar king- 
 dom by which I am governed, and not whether others 
 are falling in with those laws also. What effect would 
 the Christian religion produce if obeyed by the entire 
 community, and if its principles were suffered to be acted 
 out every where ? That is the question ; and not what 
 compound and motley system of enactments can be form- 
 ed into a code, by amalgamathig Christianity with the 
 artificial rules which regulate your communities of the 
 gay and fashionable, of the proud and ambitious. 
 
 Let us take another illustration. Lycurgns framed a 
 code of laws for Sparta. He had an object in his eye in 
 each one of his statutes, and he i^esigncd to rear a pe- 
 culiar community. It was not the love of singularity; 
 it was not a wish to differ from others for the mere sake 
 of being different. It was with reference to his great 
 object — to make the Spartans valiant, hardy, laborious, 
 
 21 
 
242 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 daring freemen. With this object in his eye, he framed 
 his laws ; and this design was understood by every 
 Lacedemonian. Suppose, now, he had left some such 
 direction as the text — ' Be not conformed to surrounding 
 nations, or even to the other republics of Greece.' The 
 command would have been intelligible. It would not 
 mean, ' do not in any thing coincide with others, for 
 they uiRY t>e temperate, and laborious, and valiant, as 
 well as you, and in this do not affect singularity. Their 
 conduct in this respect is just what is required of you. 
 Do not pursue it because they do, but because it will 
 contribute to the great designs of the republic' The com- 
 mand would forbid conformity to other people, if that 
 conformity should interfere with tlie purpose of the Spar- 
 tan lawgiver. It might easily be seen that even the arts 
 of Athens, the extensive attention to statuary and orna- 
 mental architecture, might not consist with the main de- 
 sign of the Lacedemonian. Innocent as they might be 
 in themselves, or consistent as they might be in the mem- 
 bers of the republic of Athens, yet should the Lacede- 
 monians turn their attention to statuary or to the fine arts 
 as a people, they would abandon the peculiar design of 
 their lawgiver in making them a hardy and valorous race 
 of freemen. It would easily be seen that the delicacies 
 and refinements of Corinth ; its fashion and splendor, its 
 luxuries and amusements, as well as its licentious habits, 
 would be inconsistent with the design of the Spartan. 
 Whether they were well /or the Corinthian was another 
 question ; and a question which it did not pertain to the 
 Spartan to settle. His inquiry w^as of a diiferent kind. 
 What was the will of the lawgiver ? And are these things 
 consistent with his plain and obvious directions ? His de- 
 sign was to train up a peculiar community, and every 
 member of that community was qualified to judge of 
 that design. He contemplated that no other one — not 
 even one of the confederated republics of Greece, should 
 presume to come in and legislate for his people. If his 
 peculiar design was consistent with their views and con- 
 duct, it was well. They would be conformed to, not be- 
 cause they were the views of Athens or Corinth, but 
 because they contributed to the great purpose of the La- 
 cedemonian lawgiver. In no case had they a right to 
 
CONFORMITY TO THE WORLD. 243 
 
 originate laws for his people, or to demand that his laws 
 should be conformed to their views. 
 
 Thus with tlie Christian. If the views and conduct of 
 others coincide with his, it is well. If they do not, they 
 are not at liberty to come in and demand that he shall be 
 conformed to them. He has higher laws, and a higher 
 object. He has a purpose which strikes on to eternity. 
 His aim is to prepare for heaven. Theirs, to live for 
 time. Nor can they claim jurisdiction over conduct that 
 has been directed by the Son of God, and that he has 
 judged best in ordering his peculiar community. The 
 simple question is, whether a proposed course of conduct 
 or opinion is consistent with the spirit and life demanded 
 by the King of Zion. 
 
 The amount of the rule, as I understand it, is, that no 
 other society or authority is permitted to originate laws 
 or opinions that shall control the Christian. The first 
 act of his religion is to submit to the laws of Jesus 
 Christ, and to forsake all others that are inconsistent with 
 his. Acts ix. 6 ; xvi. 30. No matter from what commu- 
 nity they have been derived, they are to be abandoned. 
 Be it from the society of the vicious ; the men of honor 
 or of ambition ; the pleasure-loving, the rich or the gay ; 
 or even from a beloved parent or friend, if inconsis- 
 tent with the pure spirit of the gospel, they are to be 
 abandoned. Acts iv. 19, 20; v. 29, and Luke xiv. 26, 
 God is raising up a peculiar community — an empire, 
 amidst many other empires ; a kingdom in the midst of 
 other kingdoms — a kingdom of seriousness, and prayer, 
 and love, amidst the kingdoms of the gay, and dissipated, 
 and the worldly. His kingdom, though surrounded by 
 others, is designed to be peculiar — not for the love of sin- 
 gularity, but because all such designs involve singularity. 
 Thus the Athenian was singular ; the Spartan was sin- 
 gular ; the Corinthian was singular ; the Roman was 
 singular. Thus, too, the votary of pleasure is singular, 
 and the follower of fashion is singular, and the man seek- 
 ing wealth and honor has his own views about things, 
 and is peculiar. Each society has its own laws ; and the 
 kingdom of God is not designed to take its complexion, 
 camelion like, from surrounding objects, but to derive its 
 peculiar features from the laws of the Son of God. If 
 
244 PRACTICAL SER3I0NS. 
 
 the Christian community is singular, it is not because God 
 loves singularity, but because the world has gone out of 
 the way, and its maxims are an improper guide for those 
 who are sacking to save their souls. If this be the mean- 
 ing, therefore, of the rule, we are prepared — 
 
 III. To enquire on what principles it may be applied ? 
 
 I might be contented with observing here, that this is 
 the appropriate business of every Christian ; and that 
 God has made him responsible for the honest application 
 of the rule to all his conduct. No small part of our pro- 
 bation consists in ascertaining whether we are disposed 
 faithfully to apply the rule, or whether we are disposed 
 to be governed by every change of fashion, by every 
 scene of amusement, by all the allurements of gaiety and 
 of wealth. It would seem that the rule was of easy ap- 
 plication, and that the examination of ourselves on this 
 head would be one of the least difficult parts of the Chris- 
 tian enquiry. But I may be permitted here briefly to 
 specify a few principles on which the rule is to be ap- 
 plied. Remember, here, that I speak to Christians — 
 those who belong to that original and peculiar commu- 
 nity which, the Son of God came to establish. You will 
 remember also that I claim no infallibility here, or cer- 
 tainty that I am right. I suggest these principles as they 
 seem to me to be demanded by the rule. 
 
 1. You are not to regulate your feelings and views, 
 your apparel and manner of living, your conversation 
 and deportment, with a view of leading the world in 
 their own ways of vanity, pleasure, and ambition. You 
 are not to seek to be distinguished in the manner in which 
 they seek to be distinguished, and for which alone they live. 
 The people of the world are tending to a different destiny 
 from the Christian. It matters little in what way they go 
 — whether through the ball-room, the theatre, or any other 
 scene of vice and sin — they are going to their own home, 
 and it is a sad procession, however gay or gorgeous, 
 where a Christian moves at the head of the thoughtless 
 throng that is sporting down to hell. 
 
 2. You are not to regulate your opinions, and feelings, 
 and conduct, by the people of the world. You are not 
 to approve of a thing because they approve of it ; to do 
 a thing because they do it ; to love a thing because they 
 
CONFORMITY TO THE WORLD. 245 
 
 love it ; or to hate a thing because they hate it. They 
 have their own views of these things, and you are to 
 have yours — or rather you are to imbibe the views of the 
 Son of God. With the feehngs which the world has 
 about the objects of life, a thousand things may be con- 
 sistent which would be repugnant to the laws of the 
 kingdom of Christ. While they think life is valuable 
 only because it ministers to the appetites, or contributes 
 to pleasure, numberless objects may accord with their 
 notions, all which would interfere directly with the de- 
 sign for which the Christian lives, and with the laws by 
 which he is governed. If they have no other object in 
 life but to be amused, or to be caressed or adored, it may 
 be well to deck themselves, and sport over the grave. Their 
 dance will soon be over. So have I seen in the beams of 
 the western sun, as he sank behind the hills, thousands of 
 gay insects sporting in the departing rays— joyous in the 
 mazy dance, and unconscious that they were in the last 
 beams of the parting day — and perhaps in the last fleeting 
 seconds of a very brief existence. Soon the sun withdrew 
 his beams, and darkness came over the earth, and the 
 dance was ended, and also their life. Another generation 
 may play in those beams to-morrow. But this one is gone. 
 So the gay and thoughtless world moves on to darkness 
 and to death. The scenes of their festivity are soon to end, 
 and darkness will cover them, and in the sunshine of 
 gaiety and fashion they will be seen no more. All the 
 joy they seek or desire is included in the brief summer 
 sun of their earthly being— the fast fleeting moments of 
 fashion, pride, and folly here. To seek supremely for 
 adorning and admiration, in the scenes of gaiety, and of 
 sin, and of amusement, without prayer and without God, 
 may have a most melancholy consistency with their views 
 of human life. Bat for you who are living for eternity, 
 and looking for an everlasting dwelling in that world 
 which has no need of the moon, nor of the sun ; amidst 
 the splendors of that world where the Lord God and the 
 Lamb are the light thereof, such amusements and gaie- 
 ties may be folly ; may be worse — may be crime. 
 
 2. If in any of your views and deportment you coin 
 cide with the world, it will not be because they do it, but 
 because it will be best. I know that this principle may 
 
 21^ 
 
246 PRACTICAL SERIVIO:>S. 
 
 be difficult to be understood, and may be abused. Still 
 it may be the correct principle in the case. Let me illus- 
 trate it. In many things, as I have remarked, you may 
 coincide with the world. You are industrious. So are 
 they. But your industry is not because the world re- 
 quires it, but because it is best. It is required by the law 
 of your religion. You are temperate, so may they be. 
 But you are temperate, not because this is the fashion of 
 the tvorld, but because your religion demands it. You 
 are courteous, polite, kind. So may be, externally at 
 least, the people of the world. In this you may coincide. 
 But you are not thus because they are. You do not do 
 it, because they have originated it, or because they have 
 the right to dictate its forms. You do it because it is the 
 nature of your religion. It prompts to kindness, truth, 
 courtesy, tenderness of feelings and character, mutual 
 respect, civility. It enthrones on the heart of the Chris- 
 tian what may sit loose in forin only, around other men. 
 It gives vitality to what elsewhere may be a mere 
 shadow. And if the w^orld changes its views on this 
 subject, and adopts any system of intercourse that may 
 consist well enough with its views of morals, you are not 
 at liberty to follow it if it is a departure from the spirit 
 of Jesus Christ. A mere votary of the world, for exam- 
 ple, who has no idea of morals but a certain artificial 
 and shapeless standard adopted for convenience, may in- 
 corporate a thousand falsehoods and evasions into his 
 system, and make a show of deception a part of his well 
 understood rules of intercourse. For his, or her purpose, 
 and in accordance with his or her views of truth, it may 
 be consistent enough to say, or to instruct a servant to 
 say, that they are not at home, when they are at hom.e ; 
 or to say that they are sick, when they not sick ; or that 
 they are engaged, when they are not engaged. For a 
 man or a woman who is devoted to the service of the 
 God of truth, it becomes a difi'erent matter. The question 
 of conformity to the world in this thing, conies up with 
 reference to the inquiry Iiow it will appear before Him 
 who cannot lie, and where it will be too late to deceive. 
 You are regular, decent, comely in your apparel, and 
 your style of living. It is not because the world does it, 
 but it is the nature of religion to produce this in a com- 
 
CONFORMITY TO THE WORLD. 247 
 
 munity. It elevates and refines; produces order, and 
 personal neatness and propriety of living. It does not 
 require the man of wealth to seek the wigwam of the 
 Indian, or the hut of the Laplander. It does not require 
 him to become a hermit ; nor would it change the Chris- 
 tian commnnity into monasteries. It does not say that 
 the Christian prince or man of wealth should clothe him- 
 self in rags, or deny himself the ordinary comforts con- 
 nected with the rank of life where God has placed him. 
 It demands that he should carry out the influence of reli- 
 gion on that rank of life — that he should live and act in 
 a certain manner, not because the world does it, but be- 
 cause Christian propriety demands it — because if the Chris- 
 tian rehgion were extended to the entire community, 
 there would be men who had wealth, who would still be 
 Christian men ; there v/ould be men of professional skill 
 and talent, who would be Christian men ; and in that rank 
 of life, it would be as easy to apply the principles of the 
 gospel to what a man has, and does, as it would be in a 
 lar inferior station. Christ never denounced differences 
 of rank in life. He never engaged in the project of the 
 dissatisfied and disorganizing Roman people, in the de- 
 mands for an Agrarian law, nor in the covetous schemes 
 of modern infidelity to break up all ranks in society, to 
 denounce the rich, or to demand that all property should 
 be reduced to a mass to be subject to the arts of a cunning 
 and unprincipled leader. He designed a scheme of reli- 
 gion adapted to the existence of various orders in the 
 community. He demanded that the principles of the rich 
 should no more be modeled after the judgment of the 
 Avorld, than those of the poor. Live, and feel, and act in 
 this situation of life, is the language of his gospel, so as 
 in the best way to evince the influence of the gospel in 
 the rank of life in which you are placed. 
 
 4. A fourth obvious principle in which Christians will 
 apply the rule is, that their views and feelings will not be 
 prompted by a desire to elicit the applause and approba- 
 tion of the world. Your conduct will be regulated by a 
 higher law. It is not to produce admiration, envy, rival- 
 ship, flattery, competition, that you live ; it is not to be 
 the subject of conversation, commendation, or praise ; it 
 
248 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 is TO PLEASE God. If the kingdom of which you are a 
 member stood alone ; if the empires of this world were 
 wholly removed to other abodes, your conduct would 
 then be regulated by the Bible. So should it be now. 
 This is one of the plainest applications of the rule. And 
 yet if honestly applied, what a sad invasion would it 
 make in the Christian church ! Remove from the follow- 
 ers of Christ all that has been assumed for the purpose 
 of being admired by one another and by the world ; all 
 that has been the result of envy, and rivalship ; all that is 
 adjusted to catch the passing gale of applause ; all that 
 comes under the denomination of the lust of the flesh, 
 the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, and a most 
 fearful flight would be given to numberless ornaments, 
 and a most sad invasion would be made on the style of 
 Uving in every Christian community. Stripped of the 
 meretricious decorations which the world has persuaded 
 and enjoined the church to assume ; dressed in the virgin 
 purity which the Son of God has prescribed for it, it 
 w^ould at once rise to elevated influence, and be clad in 
 beauty and in honor. We are not to be guided by the 
 world. But there is an old Roman maxim, that it is right 
 to be taught by an enemy. And if in any thing it would be 
 right to listen to the people of the world it would be in 
 this; not what Xheyioish us to be, but what they understand 
 our religion to require. Glad would they be that every 
 Christian should be like themselves. But well do they 
 know that religion demands a difference, a great difference, 
 an eternal difterence, and well do they understand that 
 this difterence should be manifest in the life. And never 
 do they utter sentiments more worthy of the attention of 
 Christians than when they denounce us as fools or hypo- 
 crites for conformit}^ to their own senseless and vain 
 opinions about the scenes of gaiety and ambition — about 
 the theatre, and the ball-room, and the trifles by which 
 they contrive to amuse themselves in the brief summer 
 sun in which they are moving to a world of wo. Chris- 
 tians have a better inheritance ; and much and well do 
 the men of this world marvel that they find their plea- 
 sures in their scenes of gaiety and folly. 
 
 5. A fifth principle of the rule. It forbids all mingling 
 
CONFORMITY TO THE WORLD. 249 
 
 with the world which is inconsistent with the great objects 
 of the kingdom of Christ, or which will not on the whole 
 tend to promote it. It is not needful to state what those 
 objects are. They are known to all Christians. They 
 may be summed up in a desire to become personally 
 assimilated to Jesus Christ, and to bring our fellow-men 
 to the hope of the same Heaven. They demand of course 
 the spirit of prayer, of seriousness, of self-denial ; the 
 faithful discharge of our duties in all the relations of life ; a 
 conscientious appropriation of our time, our influence, and 
 our wealth; a faithful meeting of all the demands made 
 on us as Christians and as men. God has given us enough 
 to do ; and if we follow his will we shall not be oppressed 
 with useless time, or afflicted with ennui. Now with 
 this desire to do precisely what will be approved by the 
 mind of Christ, we may apply the rule before us. It 
 will be a test of the propriety of a thousand things which 
 might otherwise be the subject of much debate. It will 
 constitute a nice tact by which we may approach a great 
 variety of objects without danger of error. A child can 
 much more easily decide whether a thing will be accepta- 
 ble to the mind of his father, than he could settle its j^ro- 
 priety by argument. The inhabitant of Sparta could see 
 at once that many things were inconsistent vrith the 
 design of his republic, which he could by no means settle 
 in an abstract manner. Whether the aim of the Athenian 
 was proper, or the mild and soft pleasures of the Corin- 
 thian, he might not be able to settle by argument, but 
 this would not be the way in which "to train up the 
 Lacedemonian. So it might become a question of abstract 
 casuistry about a thousand scenes of amusement. It 
 would be easy to argue by the hour in favor of parties of 
 pleasure, and theatres, and ball-rooms, and all the vanity 
 of fashionable life, and the mind might " find no end in 
 wandering mazes lost." But apply the rule before us, 
 and all mist vanishes. Since the beginning of the world, 
 no professing Christian ever dreamed that he was imitat- 
 ing the example of Jesus Christ, or honoring the Christian 
 religion in a theatre, a ball room, or a splendid party of 
 pleasure. And equally clear would be the decision in 
 reference to multitudes of pleasures which it is needless 
 to specify. If these things were favorable to the designs 
 
250 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 of the founder of Christianity, they might, and should 
 have been enjoined. But how singular would have been 
 such directions in the New Testament ! How marvel- 
 lous would appear such a command when placed beside 
 those which enjoin prayer, and spirituality, and humility, 
 and self-denial ! If, by the patronage of such places, a 
 man is promoting the Christian religion or the salvation 
 of his soul, then they may be lawful. If they will not 
 bear this test they cannot be right, and may he dan- 
 gerous. 
 
 6. A sixth principle or application of the rule, A 
 Christian should have a spirit and temper above the things 
 that influence his fellow-men. Though in the midst of 
 these scenes, yet he may not be influenced by them. A 
 man may have wealth, and it may be manifest that his 
 afl^ections are not supremely fixed on it. He may be sur- 
 rounded by a thoughtless world, and yet be evidently 
 living above it. Christianity produces a spirit that is 
 elevated above these things ; that draws its consolations 
 and its principles of action from far different objects. A 
 man on the throne may be a Christian as really as in a 
 cottage, and he may become a nursing-father to the 
 Church with all the splendor of the diadem on his brow, 
 and the imperial purple flowing in his train. Thus it 
 may be manifest that Christianity is uppermost ; that the 
 man of rank and wealth desires to imbibe its spirit, 
 and to difl'use its blessings around the globe. Rules, you 
 may not be able to give him, but to the man himself, and 
 to all others, it may be clear that he is actuated by the 
 love of God, and a desire to be useful to a dying world. 
 
 Again. A man may be placed in circumstances which 
 require him to live in a mode which to a poorer man 
 might be deemed luxurious or extravagant. Of this no 
 other man can be the judge. To his own master he stands 
 or falls. But Christianity may be dilfused over all his con- 
 duct. Let him be at least as large and liberal in reli- 
 gion as in other things. Let him be the liberal patron 
 according to his rank, and station, and wealth, of all that 
 would promote the influence of religion, and the exten- 
 sion of the kingdom of the Son of God in all lands. 
 Thus it is that the spirit of the gospel may as really take 
 up its abode in the mansions of wealth, as in the cottages 
 
CONFORMITY TO THE WORLD. 251 
 
 of poverty ; nor is there any reason why it should not 
 reign there, and interweave itself with all the incidents 
 of life, as well as constitute the bright and lively details 
 in the " short and simple annals of the poor." Conformity 
 to the world may exist no more amidst those who are 
 blessed with wealth, than with those in far obscurer life, 
 and the man possessed of the riches of the Indies may as 
 little think of it, or regard it, as those who live by toil 
 from day to day. That religion has ever yet produced 
 its appropriate influence on all those classes of men, I do 
 not maintain. That the rule in our text may not be ap- 
 plied to all classes, none can affirm. 
 
 The conclusion, then, to which we have come is, that 
 in this rule God has furnished a guide to numberless 
 actions, and to the sph'it of the life ; a rule which no man 
 should apply to his neighbour, but which every man 
 should honestly and perpetually apply to himself; a rule 
 which you can take to all employments, and amidst all 
 the enjoyments of life ; a rule which may show its influ- 
 ence in the palace and the cottage — on the throne, and in 
 the obscurest dwelling where resides a ransomed child of 
 God. 
 
SERMON XVII. 
 
 THE BLESSINGS OF A BENIGNANT SPIRIT. 
 Coll. iii. 12. Put on, therefore, as the elect of God — ^kindness. 
 
 What an invaluable blessing is a kind and benignant 
 spiriC ! How invaluable to an individual, in a family, in 
 a church, in any community ! It is a spirit which the 
 gospel is adapted to produce ; which serves much to re- 
 move the asperities which are met with in life ; which 
 contributes to happiness every where. My wish, at this 
 time, is to illustrate its nature and importance ; and I 
 shall show, 
 
 I. In what it consists ; and 
 
 II. Its value. 
 
 I. Kindness, or a benignant spirit, consists in the fol- 
 lowing things. 
 
 (1.) In a dlsposilion to be pleased— di iviUingness to 
 be satisfied with the conduct of others towards us. This 
 disposition lies back of all external actions, and refers to 
 the general habit of feeling. It is not that which is 
 created by any sudden impression made on us, or by re- 
 ceiving from others any proofs of favor ; it is a previous 
 disposition rather to be satisfied than dissatisfied ; rather 
 to look on the favorable than the unfavorable side in the 
 conduct of others; rather to suppose that they are right than 
 to suppose that they are wrong ; and rather to attribute to 
 them good motives than bad motives. It is such a dispo- 
 sition that if we ever think unfavorably of others, it is 
 because we are compelled to do it rather than because we 
 laish to do it ; such that any moment we would be wil- 
 ling to listen to any explanation in extenuation of their 
 conduct. 
 
 This disposition contributes much towards our being 
 actually pleased. It is usually not difficult to find enough 
 in others that we can approve to make life pleasant and 
 harmonious when we are disposed to ; and this dis- 
 position will do more than all other things to make 
 
 252 
 
THE BLESSINGS OF A BENIGNANT SPIRIT. 253 
 
 social life move on with comfort and with joy. This 
 disposition stands opposed to a spirit of fault-finding and 
 complaining ; a temper which nothing satisfies, and which 
 notliing pleases; a propensity to magnify trifles and never 
 to forget them ; and a turn of mind that is irritable, and 
 that is constantly chafed and fretted. For this latter state 
 of mind we are now much in the habit of blaming the 
 nervous system, and there can be no doubt that from the 
 intimate connexion between the mind and the body, a 
 disordered nervous system may have much to do with 
 such a temperament. But it may be also true that the 
 body is often blamed when the soul should be, and that 
 the responsibihty is often improperly changed from the 
 heart to the nervous system. More frequently this dispo- 
 sition is to be traced to long habits of indulgence ; to 
 mortified pride ; to an overweening self-valuation ; to the 
 fact that the respect is not paid us which we think Ave 
 deserve ; to the fact that the heart is wrong, and the 
 v/ill obstinate and unsubdued. The spirit of the gospel 
 of Cln'ist would do more to eradicate this evil disposition 
 than any physical applications to the nervous system, and 
 it is the heart rather than the bodily health that demands 
 appropriate treatment. A man who is wilhng to be 
 pleased and gratified will in general pass pleasantly 
 through life. He who is willing to take his proper place 
 in society, content with the small share of public notice 
 Wiiich properly belongs to an individual, and believing it 
 to be possible that others may be as likely to be right in 
 their opinions as he is, will usually find the journey of 
 hfe to be a pleasant way, and will not have mucli occa- 
 sion to be dissatisfied with the world at large. 
 
 (2.) A spirit of kindness or benignity consists in a dis- 
 position to attribute to others the possession of good mo- 
 tives when it can be done. One of the rights of every 
 man in society is, to have it supposed that he acts with 
 good intentions unless he furnishes irrefragable proof to 
 the contrary. This right is quite as valuable as the right 
 to *' life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" — and is 
 essential to them all. He may do me a more palpable 
 and lasting wrong who ascribes to me a bad motive, than 
 he does who takes my purse ; and he has no more right 
 to do the one than the other. Now there are many 
 
 22 
 
254 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 actions performed which may be either from a good or 
 bad motive. There are many where the action may be 
 attended with injurious consequences when the motive is 
 good. There are many where the motive may be for a 
 long time concealed ; where we may not be permitted to 
 understand why it was done ; and where it may seem to 
 have been originated from the worst possible intention. 
 In all such cases, it is our duty to suppose that the motive 
 was good until the contrary becomes so clear that it can 
 no longer be doubted. Where an action may be perform- 
 ed from either a good or a bad intention, it is a mere act 
 of justice that we should attribute the correct and noble 
 motive in the case rather than evil one — or at least that 
 we should not assume that the motive was bad — for " love 
 rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth ; bear- 
 eth all things ; believeth all things ; hopeth all things : 
 endureth all things; and never faileth." 1 Cor. xiii. 
 6, 7, 8. Yet there are some persons who seem never to 
 have heard of this rule. The worst possible motive is at 
 once suspected. The worst construction is given to an 
 action. In the view of such persons every circumstance 
 combines to lead to the conclusion that the motive was a 
 bad one. Such persons, too, will have that unhappy 
 species of memory which recollects all the ill of another, 
 and forgets all the good ; and when an action is perform- 
 ed of doubtful character, it is surprising what a number 
 of similar deeds will be found to have been treasured up 
 in the memory all going to confirm the suspicion that the 
 motive was a bad one. Now a spirit of benignity and 
 kindness will lead us to pursue directly the contrary course. 
 The first impression on such a mind will be, that the action 
 was performed from a good motive. That impression will 
 be retained until there is positive proof to the contrary ; 
 and will be confirmed by the recollections of the former 
 life. The good will have been remembered ; the evil will 
 have been forgiven and forgotten. Past deeds of unkind- 
 ness towards you will be found to have been written in 
 sand which the next wave washed away ; deeds of benefi- 
 cence will be found to have been engraved on marble or 
 steel. A kind memory has treasured up all the favors ever 
 shown you — and now they come flocking to your recoUec- 
 
THE BLESSINGS OF A BENIGNANT SPIRIT. 255 
 
 tion, and help to throw the mantle of charity over the act 
 now even if it bo wrong. 
 
 (3.) A spirit of benignity or kindness consists in bear- 
 ing with the foibles, infirmities, and faults of others. We 
 do not go a great distance with any fellow-traveller on 
 the journey of life, before we find that he is far from our 
 notions of perfection. He has a temperament different 
 from our own. He may be sanguine, or choleric, or 
 melancholy in his temperament, while we are just the 
 reverse. He has peculiarities of taste, and habit, and 
 disposition, which differ much from our own. He has 
 his own plans and pin^poses in life ; and like ourselves he 
 does not like to be crossed or embarrassed. He has his 
 own way and time of doing things ; his own manner of 
 expression ; his own modes of speech. He has grown 
 up under other influences than those which have affected 
 our minds ; and his habits of feeling may be regulated 
 by his education, and by his calling in life. Neighbors 
 have occasion to remark this in their neighbors ; friends 
 in their friends; kindred in their kindred. In proportion 
 as the relations of life become more intimate, the more 
 these peculiarities become visible ; and hence the more 
 intimate we become, the more necessity there is for bear- 
 ing patiently with the frailties and foibles of others. In 
 the most tender connections, like that between a hus- 
 band and wife ; a parent and child ; a brother and sister, 
 it may require much of a gentle and yielding spirit to 
 adapt ourselves to their peculiarities so that life shall 
 move on smoothly and harmoniously. When there is a 
 disposition to do this, we soon learn to bear and forbear. 
 We understand how to avoid the look, the gesture, the 
 allusion, the remark that would excite improperly the 
 mind of our friend. We dwell on those points where 
 there is sympathy and harmony ; and we thus remove 
 the asperities of character, and the feelings and affec- 
 tions meet and mingle together. With any one of our 
 friends there may be enough, if excited, to make life with 
 him uncomfortable. A husband and wife — such is the 
 imperfection of human nature — can find, if they will, 
 enough in each other to embitter life, if they choose to 
 magnify foibles, and to become irritated at imperfections ; 
 and there is no friendship which may not be marred in 
 
256 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 this way if we will suffer it. The virtues of life are 
 tender plants. Love is most cleHcate in its texture, and 
 may not he rudely handled. To he preserved, we must 
 cease to expect perfection. We must he prepared for 
 little differences of opinion, and varieties of temperament. 
 We must indulge the friend that we love, in the little pe- 
 culiarities of saying and doing things whicli may be so 
 important to him, but which can be of so little moment to 
 us. Like children, we must suffer each other to build his 
 own play-house in his own way, and not quarrel with 
 him because he does not think our way the best. If we 
 have a spirit of kindness, we shall cease to look for per- 
 fection in any others ; and this is much in promoting our 
 own happiness in any relation of life. It will make us 
 indulgent, and forgiving, and tender. Conscious of our 
 own imperfection, we shall not harshly blame others; 
 sensible how much we need indulgence, we shall not 
 withhold it from them ; feeling deeply how much our 
 happiness depends on their being kind toward our frail- 
 ties and foibles, we shall not be unwilling to evince the 
 same indulgence towards l/ie?n. 
 
 (4.) A kind and benignant spirit is shown by our not 
 blaming others with undue harshness when they fail into 
 sin. In no circumstances does frail human nature need 
 more of the kindness of charity and forgiveness — no 
 where usually is less benignity shown. We weep with 
 the father who has lost his only son ; we sympathize 
 with the man who has lost his all in a storm at sea ; we 
 compassionate him who is deprived of the organs of 
 vision or of hearing, to whom the world is always dark, 
 or who is a stranger to the sweet voice of wife or child, 
 or to the soul-stirring harmony of music. But when a 
 man is overtaken by a fault, all our sympathies at once 
 usually die. We feel that he has cut all the cords that 
 bound him to the living and the social world, and that 
 henceforth he is to be treated as an alien and an outcast. 
 We exclude him from our social circles. We strip him 
 of oflice. We bind and incarcerate him. We place him 
 in a dark, damp, cold dungeon. We feed him on coarse 
 fare. We separate him from wife, and children, and 
 home, and books, and friends. To a certain extent all 
 this is inevitable and proper. We owe it to ourselves ; 
 
THE BLESSINGS OF A BENIGNANT SPIRIT. 257 
 
 we owe it to the community. But we need not with- 
 hold our kindness from an offending brother. We need 
 not withdraw all the expressions of benignant feeling. 
 "Brethren," says Paul, " if a man be overtaken in a fault, 
 ye which are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of 
 meekness, considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted." 
 Gal. vi. 1. " Love suffereth long and is kind ; love is not 
 easily provoked ; thinketh no evil ; believeth all things ; 
 hopeth all things." Let the following things be remem- 
 bered when a brother is accused of a fault. (1.) He is 
 a brother still. He has the same corrupt, fallen, ruined 
 nature that we have — and originally no worse. "John 
 Banyan, but by the grace of God," was the honest ex- 
 pression of the author of the Pilgrim's Progress, when 
 he saw a poor victim of profaneness and intemperance. 
 That erring, guilty, and wretched man — that man of 
 guilt, and profaneness, and crime, is thy brother. You 
 and he had the same father. The same blood flows in 
 your veins and his. That wretched female— that frail 
 and guilty woman — is thy sister. You had a common, 
 erring mother. She once had sympathies like thine own. 
 She once had a heart that could love and be loved, like 
 thine. She had a mother that loved her as thine loved 
 thee. She once was playful, and blithe, and happy, when 
 a child — and perchance beautiful and accomplished, as 
 others are. Fallen, and ruined, and guilty as she may 
 be, she is not beyond the possibility of being saved ; she 
 is not beyond the reach of prayer. For the soul of that 
 same guilty and erring daughter of vice, the Saviour's 
 blood was shed as well as for thine own ; and the " kind- 
 ness and love of God our Saviour" may yet recover even 
 her, and make her a companion with thyself in glory. 
 Remember (2.) that when another seems to fall into sin, 
 if you understood all the circumstances of the case, its 
 aspect might be greatly changed. " Judge not, that ye 
 be not judged ; condemn not, that ye be not condemned," 
 was the command of the Master. Luke vi. 37. " Above 
 all things have fervent charity among yourselves ; for 
 charity shall cover the multitude of sins." 1 Pet. iv. 8. 
 Remember (3.) that when a brother seems to err or fall, 
 it is possible that an explanation may remove all the 
 difficulty. Give him that opportunity. It is due to him. 
 
 22* 
 
258 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 AppearaDces, which he could not control, may have been 
 sadly against him; and malignant enemies may have 
 helped the matter on. It is dne to him to allow him a 
 fall opportunity to explain all. A kind spirit would make 
 you ready to listen ; and the same spirit, when he has 
 confessed his error — if he has done wrong — would lead 
 you to say, 'My brother, I forgive you. The offeiice 
 shall be remembered no more. I will forgive you as Christ 
 hath forgiven me. Your fault shall not be alluded to in our 
 intercourse ; it shall not be allowed to make me unkind, 
 or suspicious ; and I will never refer to it to harrow up 
 your feelings, or to suffuse your cheeks with shame. So 
 Christ hath forgiven me; so I forgive you.' (5.) A kind 
 and benignant spirit is that which prompts us to aid others 
 Avhen in our power. It wishes well to the stranger; to the 
 v/ayfaring man ; to the fatherless ; to the poor ; to the pri- 
 soner ; to the oppressed. It looks rather on considerations 
 why they sliould be aided than on those why they should 
 not be ; and asks the question, not how much we must 
 do for them, but how much we may do. On the man who 
 has failed in business honorably to himself, or v/ithout 
 dishonor, it looks with benignity, and asks in what way 
 he may be assisted, and not how his fall may be accele- 
 rated. The poor man at the door it meets with the en- 
 quiry whether he may be assisted consistently with other 
 duties and obligations. For the man in oppression, it 
 seeks relief when it can be done, and prompts to mea- 
 sures to secure it. V/hen relief is almost hopeless, still it 
 looks benignantly towards the sufferer, and is willing to 
 listen to any suggestions for his aid. It does not lead us 
 at once to sit down as if nothing can be done — appalled 
 by the magnitude of the evil, or indifferent to it ; nor 
 does it lead us to favor the opinion that all attempts at 
 relief are improper, or to be abandoned. 
 
 I may add, on this point, that where relief cannot be 
 afforded, it should be declined with a gentle and bene- 
 volent heart. It often happens, from the necessity of the 
 case, that we must decline aid to the poor, to the needy, 
 to the stranger, and to the cause of humanity and religion 
 at large. Circumstances put it out of our power to assist 
 them. But it mitigates the evil if benevolence beams in 
 
THE BLESSINGS OF A BENIGNANT SPIRIT. 259 
 
 the eye, and gentleness and love dictate the terms by 
 which it is done. It may become pleasant even to have 
 an appUcation rejected. It may be done with so much 
 good will and sincerity ; where it is so evident that the 
 heart is in it ; where there is such a manifest wish that 
 the circumstances were different, that the pain of the re- 
 fusal shall all be taken away, and good shall be done to 
 the soul even where the aid sought for the body could 
 not be granted. We are often troubled by applications 
 for aid — I say troubled, from their frequency, and be- 
 cause we allow them to trouble us. We are liable to 
 constant solicitations of this sort — solicitations all of 
 which we cannot comply with. It can neither be right 
 for us, nor would it be possible for us to comply with 
 them all. Part of those who apply to us for assistance 
 we know ; part are strangers whom we may never see 
 again. Yet we are to remember that most of them are 
 children of misfortune. Many of them have by nature 
 sensibilities as keen as we ourselves, and they will feel 
 a cold look and a stern repulse as much as we. We are 
 to remember, too, that not a few of them suffer more from 
 the necessity of asking assistance than from almost any 
 other ill of life. Long will a widowed mother suffer from 
 poverty and want, before she will go to the stranger to 
 seek assistance. Long would she suffer still rather than 
 do it, but it is not her own sufferings that prompt her to 
 it ; — it is the cry of her children for bread, the desolation 
 of her home without fuel, and without food, and without 
 work, that compels her to subdue her strong reluctance 
 to solicit charity, and she does this under a depth of min- 
 gled, agitated emotions which the affluent never know. 
 If to all this there is now to be added the cool repulse ; 
 the harsh, forbidding look ; the refusal even to hear the 
 simple story of her sufferings, and the sufferings of her 
 children, and if she is to return and say to them that no- 
 thing can be obtained for them — and to see them Aveep 
 and suffer the more by disappointment, you infuse the 
 bitterest dreg into her cup of v/oes. Christian kindness 
 would have mitigated all ; Christian kindness might have 
 prompted to that little aid from your superabundant 
 wealth, which not being missed in your dwelling, would 
 have made hers to her like Eden. The same thing is 
 
260 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 true when help is asked for any object of beneficence. 
 The man who asks your aid to reUeve a people suffering 
 the evils of famine ; or to help a family whose all has 
 been consumed by fire ; or to liberate a slave from bond- 
 age ; or to enable a man to purchase his wife or children 
 in order that they all may be free together ; or to send 
 the preached gospel to the heathen world, has a right to 
 a kind reception. On his part it is a work of benevo- 
 lence, in which he is usually no more interested than we 
 are — and in doing it he may have overcome much reluc- 
 tant feeling, and sacrificed many comforts, from the strong 
 conviction of duty. He has a right to expect, where aid 
 cannot be granted for his object, that his feelings shall 
 not be harrowed up by an uncivil and cold reception. If 
 aid is declined, he has a right to expect that it should be 
 in gentleness and love — so declined that it may be plea- 
 sant for him and for you to meet when your circumstances 
 shall be better. 
 
 (6.) Once more. A kind spirit should be shown to- 
 ward those who are applied to for aid, and who decline 
 to assist us. Here, I fear, we walk sometimes not chari- 
 tably toward others. We apply to them for assistance, 
 and are refused. How natural to feel that there was 
 something unkind in it ! Especiahy is this so, if we see 
 him to whom we apply live in a splendid house, and sur- 
 rounded with the means of luxur}^ ; or if we find him 
 engaged in a large business ; or if we see him rolling 
 along in his carriage. And it may be difficult to avoid 
 the conviction that he might easily have assisted us, and 
 that he is a man of a narrow and parsimonious spirit. I 
 admit too, that in not a few instances this irresistible con- 
 viction may be well founded ; and I admit, too, that there 
 is always an inconsistency — a painful, and I beUeve a 
 guilty inconsistency — where this style of living is main- 
 tained, and where the hand is systematically closed 
 against the objects of Christian benevolence. But there 
 is often much that may be said that would mitigate the 
 harshness of your judgment. You see one side. But 
 you may not know how much he is embarrassed in busi- 
 ness ; or how much he secretly gives away to other ob- 
 jects ; or how many poor relations he may have dependent 
 on him ; or how imperative may be the demand on him 
 
THE BLESSINGS OF A BENIGNANT SPIRIT. 261 
 
 just now to meet pressing obligations. For one, I am 
 endeavoring to learn to exercise more charity for those 
 Avho seem to me to be able, and who fall below the stand- 
 ard in benevolence which I should regard as the true one. 
 I thmk on two things ; first, that I do not know all the 
 circumstances in the case ; and second, that to his own 
 master each one standeth or falleth. It is his business, 
 not mine. I can insist only as a right that he should 
 show " kindness'''' — whether he give or withhold. In 
 other things he must act as he shall answer it to God. 
 Such are some of the things involved in kindness — a dis- 
 position to be pleased — a readiness to impute good mo- 
 tives — a patient bearing with the faults and foibles of 
 others — a disposition not to blame them harshly when 
 they fall — a readiness to aid, and kindness when aid can- 
 not be rendered — and a charitable spirit toward those 
 who refuse to aid us Avhen we apply to them. Let us, 
 
 II. In the second place, consider the value of this 
 spirit. A few remarks will be all ; and with these I shall 
 close. In illustrating this, I observe, 
 
 (1.) That much of the conifor^t of life depends on it. 
 Life is made up of little things that are constantly occur- 
 ring, but which if disarranged or displaced render us mis- 
 erable. Breathing is in itself a small matter, and ordinarily 
 scarcely noticed ; the beating of the heart, and the gentle 
 flowing of the blood are in themselves small matters, and 
 it is only when they are deranged or laborious that we 
 become sensible of their importance. So in morals and 
 in social intercourse. The happiness of life depends not 
 so much on great and illustrious deeds ; not so much on 
 glory in the field of battle, or splendid talents, or brilliant 
 eloquence, or the stern virtues that shine in daring 
 achievements, as in the quiet duties that are constantly 
 occurring. It is in the kind look ; the gentle spirit ; the 
 peaceful, calm, contented disposition; the cheerful answer; 
 tlie unaffected and unobtrusive interest in the welfare 
 of others ; the mild eye and the smooth brow which 
 show that the heart is full of love. When these are what 
 they should be, they are to social intercourse what unob- 
 structed breathing, and the healthful flow of blood along 
 the numerous arteries and veins of the body are to the 
 vigor and comfort of the bodily system. Life cannot be 
 
262 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 happy, if it can be prolonged, without them ; and when 
 these things do not exist, comfort dies. 
 
 (2.) Usefulness depends on this no less than happiness. 
 A man's usefulness in the Christian life depends far more 
 on the kindness of his daily temper, than on great and 
 glorious deeds that shall attract the admiration of the 
 world, and that shall send his name down to future times. 
 It is the little rivulet that glides through the meadow, and 
 that runs along day and night by the farm-house that is 
 useful, rather than the swollen flood, or the noisy cataract. 
 Niagara excites our wonder, and fills the mind with 
 amazement and awe. We feel that God is there ; and it 
 is well to go far to see once at least how solemn it is to 
 realize that we are in the presence of the Great God, and 
 to see what wonders his hand can do. But one Niagara is 
 enough for a continent — or a world ; while that same 
 world needs thousands and tens of thousands of silvery 
 fountains, and gently flowing rivulets, that shall water 
 every farm, and every meadow, and every garden, and 
 that shall flow on every day and every night with their 
 gentle and quiet beauty. So with life. We admire the 
 great deeds of Howard's benevolence, and wish that all 
 men were like him. We revere the names of the illustrious 
 martyrs. We honor the man who will throw himself in 
 the " imminent deadly breach," and save his country — 
 and such men and such deeds we must have when the 
 occasion calls for them. But all men are not to be useful 
 in this way — any more than all waters are to rush by us 
 in swelling and angry floods. We are to be useful in 
 more limited spheres. We are to cultivate the gentle 
 charities of life. We are by a -consistent walk to benefit 
 those around us— though in a humble vale, and though 
 like the gentle rivulet we may attract little attention, and 
 may soon cease to be remembered on earth. Kindness 
 will always do good. It makes others happy — and that 
 is doing good. It prompts us to seek to benefit others — 
 and that is doing good. It makes others gentle, and be- 
 nignant — and that is doing good. 
 
 Let it be remembered, also, that it is by the temper, 
 and by the spirit that we manifest, that the world forms 
 its opinion of the nature of religion. It is not by great 
 deeds in trying circumstances that men will judge of the 
 
THE BLESSINGS OF A BENIGNANT SPIRIT. 263 
 
 nature of the gospel. The world at large cares little how 
 Ignatius and Polycarp felt or how they died. Perhaps 
 the mass of those around you never heard their names. 
 They are little impressed by the virtues which Latimer, 
 and Ridley, and Cranmer evinced at the stake. But that 
 unbelieving husband cares much for the gentle and kind 
 spirit of the wife — for all his happiness depends on it ; 
 that brother is interested much in the conversation and the 
 spirit of his sister — for he daily observes her temper, and 
 is forming his views of religion from what he sees in her; 
 that child is constantly marking the temper of the father 
 and the mother, and is forming his .views of religion 
 not so much from what he hears in the pulpit, or in the 
 Sabbath-school, as from the temper which you evince 
 from one day to another. In these fields — humble though 
 they may seem, and little as they may appear to furnish 
 a theatre for the display of eminent virtues — your useful- 
 ness lies. There, with the " gentleness" that was in Christ 
 you cannot but be useful ; and exhibiting such a spirit 
 you will not live in vain. 
 
 Let it be remembered, also, that all usefulness may be 
 prevented by an unkind, a sour, a crabbed temper of 
 mind. A spirit of constant fault-finding; a harsh-judg- 
 ing temper ; a constant irritability ; little inequalities and 
 perversenesses in the look, and air, and manner of a wife, 
 whose brow is cloudy and dissatisfied her husband cannot 
 tell why ; or of a husband chafed, and fretted, and morose 
 when he returns home from his daily toil, and who is 
 satisfied with nothing, will more than neutralize all the 
 good you can do, and render your life any thing but a 
 blessing. Some come into the church cursed by the fall 
 with such a crabbedness of temper. Some have an un- 
 manageable and perverse nervous temperament. Some 
 are proud, and envious, and disappointed, and ambitious, 
 and all these things are constantly breaking out in their 
 professedly religious life ; and even amidst much that is 
 excellent, these passions are so constantly showing them- 
 selves that no one can tell whether there is at heart an}?- 
 true religion. Now you may give money for benevolent 
 objects, but it will not prevent the injury which will be 
 done by such an unhappy temperament. You may build 
 
264 PRACTICAL SERMONS 
 
 churches, and found schools and asykims ; you may 
 have " the gift of prophecy, and understand all myste- 
 ries, and all knowledge ; and you may bestow all your 
 goods to feed the poor, and give your body to be burned," 
 and all will not answer the purpose. It will all be like 
 " sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal." Nothing will be 
 a compensation for that " love which sufiers long and is 
 KIND : — that love which envieth not, which is not soon 
 provoked, which thinketh no evil, which beareth all 
 things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, cndureth all 
 things, and which never faileth." 
 
 (3.) And finally, this virtue is commended to us by the 
 example of the Master — the Lord Jesus. '' 1 beseech 
 3^ou," says Paul, " by the meekness and gentleness of 
 Christ." II. Cor. x. 1. What an expression! The 
 gentleness of Christ ! How much is there in that 
 short sentence ! How much to admire ; how much 
 to imitate ! Christ performed great deeds — such as no 
 other one ever did ; but not that we should imitate them. 
 He spake to the tempest, and stilled the rolling billows — 
 but not that we should lift up our voices when the wind 
 blows, and the thunders roll, and the waves are piled 
 mountain high, and attempt to hush them to peace. He 
 stood by the grave and spake, and the dead man left his 
 tomb, and came forth to life — but not that we should place 
 ourselves by the graves of the dead and attempt to restore 
 them to life. He opened the eyes of the blind, and taught 
 the lame man to leap as an hart, and the tongue of the 
 dumb to sing — but not that we should imitate him in this, 
 or attempt by miracle to give vigor to the feeble, or health 
 to the diseased. But Christ was meek and gentle, that 
 we iniglit be so too. Christ was benignant and kind, that 
 we might be too. Christ patiently bore reviling that we 
 might do it also ; he was not irritable, and uncharitable, 
 and fretful, and envious, and revengeful— and in all 
 these we may imitate him. His was a life of benevo- 
 lence, diffusive like the light of a morning without 
 clouds ; a life undisturbed by conflicting emotions ; un- 
 broken by a harsh and dissatisfied temper ; kind when 
 others were unkind ; gentle when the storms of furious 
 passions raged in their bosoms ; and tranquil and serene 
 
THE BLESSINGS OF A BENIGNANT SPIRIT. 265 
 
 while all nroiind him were distracted by anger, and am- 
 bition, and envy, and revenge. To us may the same 
 spirit be given ; and while the world aronnd us is agi- 
 tated with passion, and pride, and wrath, in our hearts 
 may there reign evermore "the gentleness of Christ." 
 Amen. 
 
 23 
 
SERMON XVIII. 
 
 SECRET PRAYER. 
 
 Matth. vi. 6. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and 
 when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret ; and 
 thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly. 
 
 The sense of this text is plain. The vSaviour is re- 
 proving the ostentation and pride of hypocrites for the 
 public manner in which they offered their prayers. In 
 contradistinction from them he directs liis disciples to go 
 into a place where they Avould be alone wnth God ; where 
 no eye could see them but his eye, and no ear could hear 
 their voice but his ear, and there to pray to him who 
 dwells in a world unseen by mortals. The subject, there- 
 fore, which is now before us is, secret prayer. In con- 
 sidering it, I shall direct your thoughts to the duty; to the 
 proper times and modes of performing it ; and to the 
 rewards or advantage of it. 
 
 1. I begin with the duty of secret prayer. You will 
 observe the peculiar manner in which this is mentioned 
 in the text. It is apparent that the Redeemer meant to 
 be understood as expressing his conviction that prayer 
 should be offered to God. Yet he rather assumes as a 
 matter of course that his followers would pray, than posi- 
 tively commands it ; and he gives no direction as to the 
 frequency with which the duty is to be performed. It 
 is thus much unlike the usual form of precepts in the 
 Bible, and wholly unlike the rules which men would 
 have prescribed. Mohammed specified the number of 
 times and the exact hours when his folloAvers should 
 pray; and perhaps some would be disposed to ask 
 whether the apparently lax and indefinite manner in 
 which the Saviour has left the subject, would not be at- 
 tended with the consequence that his followers would 
 seldom pray, or would perform the duty in a most hurried 
 and heedless manner. Where it was so easy to command 
 
 266 
 
SECRET PRAYER. 267 
 
 and to specify, was it the intention of ihe Saviour to leave 
 it designedly indefinite ? If so, what object did he propose 
 to secure by this ? These circumstances make it the more 
 important to ascertain exactly in what way the duty is 
 enjoined in the Bible. A few remarks will explain this 
 part of our subject. 
 
 (1.) The text may be regarded as having all the form 
 of a command. The frequency with which prayer is to 
 be offered is indeed not specified, but the duly of entering 
 into the closet, and praying in secret to God, is enjoined; 
 and enjoined on the supposition that this would be done. 
 The same thing is implied in James v. 13: ^^ Is any 
 afflicted among you? let him pray." Let him present 
 his individual wants and desires to God; let him ofter his 
 secret and solitary supplications to him who hears prayer. 
 So in Phil. iv. G :" In every thing by prayer and suppli- 
 cation with thanksgiving, let your requests be made 
 known to God.'' Men have individual wants, and 
 troubles, and temptations. They have feelings which 
 others cannot know, and which it is not desirable they 
 should know, and which, therefore, are to be brought 
 before God only in secret prayer. So in Eph. vi. IS. 
 " Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the 
 spirit ;'' — that is, with all the usual modes of prayer, not 
 limiting your supplications to the sanctuary and the 
 family, but using all the ways of prayer in which you 
 may present your wants before God. 
 
 (2.) But it is more by example than by express precept 
 that the dnty is enforced in the Scriptures; and that ex- 
 ample was exhibited by all the holy men who walked 
 with God on the earth. It will be sufficient to refer you 
 to Jacob in his lonely wrestling with the angel of the 
 covenant when on his way to a distant land ; to Abraham 
 who stood alone before the Lord and prayed for Sodom, 
 (Gen. xviii. 22) ; to David who said, " Evening and morn- 
 ing, and noon will I pray and cry aloud ; and he shall hear 
 my voice" (Ps. Iv. 17); to the author of the cxixth 
 Psalm, who said, "seven times a day do I praise thee; 
 because of thy righteous judgments" (ver. 1 64) ; to Daniel 
 who '' kneeled upon his knees three times a day and 
 prayed, and gave thanks before his God," (Dan. vi. 10), 
 and to the example of the Redeemer himself. With the 
 
26S PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 Saviour's habits on this subject we are not indeed made 
 fully acquainted. He himself enjoined secrecy in prayer, 
 and the whole record of his life shows that he sought it ; 
 and all that we can expect is some general intimation, 
 showing that he was in the habit of secret prayer. We 
 have just the record which we should anticipate. We are 
 told, on one occasion, that " in the morning, rising up a 
 great while before day, he went out, and departed into a 
 solitary place and there prayed," Mark i. 35. On 
 another occasion we are told, that *^when he had sent 
 the multitude away, he went up into a mountain apart to 
 pray ; and when the even was come he was there alone.'' 
 Matth. xiv. 23. On another occasion we are told, "that 
 he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all 
 night in prayer to God." Luke vi. 12.' His prayer also 
 in the garden of Gethsemane was private, for he was 
 withdrawn from his disciples before he kneeled down to 
 pray (Luke xxii. 41) ; and the whole narrative, espe- 
 cially in regard to the closing scenes of his life, shows 
 that he was accustomed to retire from the busy city to 
 some secluded part of the Mount of Olives that he might 
 be alone with God. 
 
 Now in regard to the Saviour's habits, we may remark 
 that secret prayer with him was attended with all the 
 difficulties which can ever exist in its performance. His 
 professed followers often excuse themselves for neglecting 
 it because they are away from home, and have no con- 
 venient place for retirement. Yet no small part of the 
 Saviour's life was spent in travelling from place to place ; 
 and he had no home. We excuse ourselves because we 
 find it diificult to retire from the gaze of man. But the 
 Saviour was surrounded by multitudes v/ho thronged his 
 path ; and he retired to the mountain that he might be. 
 alone with God. We excuse ourselves because we are 
 oppressed with business and care, and because we have 
 no time to pray. Yet the Saviour, with the burden of 
 redeeming the world upon him, felt so much the impor- 
 tance of secret prayer that he rose up a great while before 
 day that he might secure time for secret devotion. He 
 was in a busy city ; he was as incessantly occupied as we 
 can be ; he went from place to place as we often do, but 
 he forgot not the duty of secret devotion, and he made it 
 
SECRET PRATER. 269 
 
 a matter oi plan and study and self-denial that he might 
 be alone with God. Fellow professor ! He had not a 
 dwelling like yours where at any time he might secure a 
 place of retirement for prayer. Amidst all the difficulties 
 Avhich can encircle our path he prayed in secret ; and he 
 left a standing rebuke of the idle and the slumbering by 
 his rising a great while before day for prayer. Let me 
 ask of his followers, whether it would not be as easy for 
 them to anticipate the dawning of the morning to pray 
 as it was for their self-denying Saviour ? Should they 
 urge as an excuse for neglecting this duty that they have 
 no time to pray when they spend the time which the 
 Saviour sought for prayer in needless sleep ? When you 
 feel disposed to urge this, let me entreat you to call to 
 mind the image of the Son of God before the morning 
 had shed a ray of light in the east, treading his lonely 
 way to the mountain-side, that he might be alone with 
 Him who hears prayer. Your redemption was sought 
 by one who loved the devotions of the morning, and who 
 denied himself of repose that you might be saved. 
 
 (3.) The duty of secret prayer is enforced by the fact 
 that we have wants which can be presented before God 
 in no other way. Our prayers in the sanctuary must 
 be, to a great extent, such as will meet the common 
 wants of the entire congregation ; our prayers in the 
 family, though not as general, yet will scarce allow a re- 
 ference to the circumstances of individuals. We all have 
 easily besetting sins; we have thoughts and feelings 
 which cannot with propriety be made known to others ; 
 we have temptations which are peculiar to ourselves; 
 and we have sadnesses, and sorrows, and fears, and trials 
 of which others do not know, and which cannot be met 
 by public prayer. A true Christian, moreover, will feel 
 the necessity of more frequent communion with God than 
 he can enjoy either in the family, the prayer-meeting, or 
 the sanctuary. He will have desires and feelings which 
 can be gratified only by prayer ; and he will feel his need 
 of grace and strength that can be imparted only by direct 
 communion with God. 
 
 Yet I admit here, that the true question is rather one 
 of privilege than of stern and iron-handed duty. The 
 
 23* 
 
270 PRACTICAL SEHMONS. 
 
 enquiry is not so much whetlicr I ought, as wlictlicr I 
 may pray. I am a lost sinner; a tem})tc(l, and a dying 
 man. I have a heart that is hy natnre tiill of evil. I am in 
 a world wliere I am every moment liahle to go astray ; 
 and the question is, whetlier I shall meet these tempta- 
 tions alone and single-handed, or whether I may go to 
 a God of infinite power and grace and implore his aid ? 
 I am called to the discharge of great and arduous duties ; 
 and may I go to God and ask him to shine upon my un- 
 derstanding and my heartland to furnish facilities for the 
 discharge of those duties by tlie favoring events of liis 
 Providence ? I am ahout to die, and my whole nature 
 shrinks back at the word death. Shall I o^o to meet the 
 king of terrors armed by the little philosophy which I 
 can assume ; and after all with no security that the dark 
 valley will not be to me full of horrors, or may I now in 
 the days of my health and strengtli go before God 
 and ask him to prepare me for that dread hour, and 
 secure his presence when I come to die ? These are the 
 questions to be asked on the subject of secret prayer; and 
 if man has any right feelings, tlie answer to these ques- 
 tions cannot be diiiicult. 
 
 (4.) It is observable that the injunction on the subject 
 of secret prayer does not specify the titncs when we are 
 to pray. It docs not say how often, nor at what time of 
 the day, it is to be done. In this respect there is a strong 
 resemblance between this command and tliat enjoining 
 the observance of the Lord's supper. Both are to be 
 voluntary services ; and in regard to both, the time when 
 the duty is to be performed is left to ourselves. This was 
 evidently not without design ; and the Saviour meant to 
 accomplish what coukl not be accomplished had he spe- 
 cified the times when the duty was to be performed, or 
 the length of the service. Mohammed undertook to 
 regulate this matter. lie enjoined prayer a certain 
 number of times each day, and the consequence is a 
 formal, and cold, and heartless, and ostentatious pros- 
 tration of the body all over the regions Avhere the re- 
 hgion of Islam has spread. Christ meant that his religion 
 should be voluntary. It was to be the religion of the 
 heart. It was to be sufiiciently powerful to secure the 
 prpper observance of his laws without needless par- 
 
RECJIET riiArER. 271 
 
 ticiilarity. It was designed to be sudi that a test might 
 be luniished daily of our love lo him, and our readiness 
 to obey hiui. It is hke the expressions of confidence and 
 atteclion which we expect in our children. We do not 
 specify how often they sliall come and ask for favors, or 
 how often they shaU be admitted to our society ; — we 
 cherish such a feeling, and expect from them such confi- 
 dence in us, that they may come to us at any and at all 
 times in their perplexities; and we rejoice tar more in 
 the voluntary expressions of their confidence in us tlian 
 we could in any constrained and prescribed service. 
 Our prayers to God are to be voluntary. Wliether they 
 are more or less frequent, will be determined by the 
 strength or feebleness of our religion ; and there is not 
 to ourselves a better test of our attachment to God than 
 the voluntary and freciuent tribute which we pay to liim 
 in our secret devotions. Christianity is freedom — the true 
 freedom. In its duties we are not to l)e fettered by set 
 rules and formal services, but are to follow the prompt- 
 ings of a renovated mind, and to yield a service that is 
 to be a service of love. Yet there are some circumstances 
 determined by the principles laid down in the Bible, and 
 by experience, which may lead us in regard to the proper 
 times and modes of performing this duty. They are such 
 rules as would be desired by those anxious to know how 
 they may most profital)ly engage in secret prayer; and 
 as I wish to be us.;ful to those who are desirous of doing 
 their duty, I sliall [)roceed to consider these rules. This 
 was my. 
 
 II. Second object. In the text but a single circum- 
 stance is mentioned. It is, that we are to go into our 
 closet, and that we are to be alone, or to secure secresy. 
 In illustrating this, I would call your attention to a few 
 points suggested by the circumstances of the case, or by 
 what is obviously proper. 
 
 (1.) Tliere should, if possible, be a place to which we 
 may retire where we may be alone with God. It was a 
 custom among the Jews to prepare such a j)lacc in all 
 their dwellings as an essential part of the arrangement 
 of a house. There was with them, perhaps, somewhat of 
 ostentation in this, but the principle was a good one ; and 
 he wiio builds a house should secure some room where he 
 
272 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 may retire alike from his family and from the world, and 
 be alone with God. There are times in the lives of 
 all men when they wish to be alone ; there should be 
 times every day wiien we should withdraw wholly from 
 the world ; and unless such a place of retirement can be 
 secured, I see not that there can be the appropriate per- 
 formance of this duty of secret prayer. To breathe forth 
 a short and silent petition when lying in your bed, does 
 not meet the case supposed by the Saviour, when we are 
 to enter into the closet, and shut the door, and pray. 
 With the Redeemer, a grove, a mountain, a garden, con- 
 stituted such a place. Rather than forego it, he went 
 before day to the mountain-side ; he walked at deep night 
 to the grove ; he left the city, and sought out a garden 
 where he might be alone. And we may as well do it as 
 he. There need be no difficulty on tliis point. The love 
 of secret prayer would create such places in abundance ; 
 and no one need pass a single day without securing re- 
 tirement to pray to God. If there be not such a place, it 
 is not difficult to foresee what v/ill be the effect. There 
 will be no regular secret prayer; as I fear there is not by 
 many who are members of the Christian church. 
 
 (2.) There should be set times for secret devotion. It 
 is true that the Saviour did not prescribe such times, but 
 that does not make it improper that we should form rules 
 by which to regulate our personal habits in this matter. 
 When the times shall be ; how numerous ; or at what 
 periods of the day, must be left, of course, to each indi- 
 vidual. No one can give laws in religion where Christ 
 has given none ; and the whole arrangement must be one 
 that is voluntary on our part. The reasons why there 
 should be set times for secret devotion are almost too ob- 
 vious to be specified. The world crowds hard upon us, 
 and unless there is a time sacred to God in our estima- 
 tion, it will all be stolen away by the cares of this life. 
 We defer it, intending to secure time for the duty, but 
 company, and care, and pleasure, and light-reading, steal 
 away the hours, and the day glides on, and this duty is 
 forgotten. Of all things, our religious duties are most 
 easily crowded out of their place ; and in not a few in- 
 stances, it is to be feared, the duty of secret prayer is de- 
 ferred from day to day, until the Sabbath is almost the 
 
SECRET PRAYER. 273 
 
 only period when there is even the form of secret devo- 
 tion. If only on that day, I may remark also, it will be 
 mere form, and will be most heartlessly done. He who 
 suffers the week to be passed without secret devotion, 
 will usually not fiiid it difficult to devote the Sabbath 
 morning hours to protracted slumbers, and the entire day 
 to other matters than secret prayer. He does not mean 
 always so to live ; but day crowds on day, and week on 
 week, and his prayers are of the briefest nature, and of 
 the most heartless kind. 
 
 Some say they have no time for secret devotion. The 
 men of the world have, no time. Their hours are too 
 much occupied with the important business of making 
 money, and of dress, and pleasure, in the counting- 
 room, and in the gay and brilliant party, to attend to such 
 trifles as the soul's salvation, and to preparation for eter- 
 nity. Nothing would be more unreasonable than to dis- 
 turb so important purposes by asking them to devote 
 their time to prayer. But I marvel that a professor of 
 the religion of Christ should ever make this remark. For 
 what do we live ? Whose is our time ? Who gave it to 
 us ? To what have we devoted our lives ? What is 
 the purpose for which we have a being ? What is to be 
 our employment for eternity ? 0, professing Christian, 
 the Saviour would have taken some portion of that time 
 which you now spend in needless sleep, for secret prayer. 
 He would have anticipated the dawning of the morn- 
 ing, rather than forego this privilege. He would have 
 taken some of that time which you spend in dress, 
 or in business, or in plans pertaining to this life, rather 
 than neglect this duty. I add that the Saviour would 
 have taken some of those moments which you spend in 
 conversation of no profit, rather than forego the privilege 
 of secret prayer. Nor think that this v\rould be lost time. 
 " Since I began," said Dr. Payson when a student, " to 
 beg God's blessing on my studies, I have done more in 
 one week than in the whole year before." This accords, 
 I apprehend, with the experience of all Christians. He 
 who wishes for a clear head in pursuing business or study ; 
 for an understanding quick to perceive truth, and a me- 
 mory attentive to retain it ; for ability to spend his time 
 profitably — not wasting his energies in fruitless pursuits, 
 
274 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 nor exhausting them m profitless speculations, will not ^ 
 find the time lost that is spent in prayer to that God who 
 made the understanding, and who can give it just views 
 of the proper proportion and value of things. He who 
 wishes in business or in study for a heart justly balanced 
 and pure, estimating objects according to their real value, 
 superior to temptation and allurement, will not find his 
 time lost that is spent in seeking that a heavenly influ- 
 ence may reign in that heart, and that God would pre- 
 side over and direct all its feelings. 
 
 (3.) In regard to the frequency of our secret devotions, 
 without attempting to give rules where Christ has given 
 none, I would observe that the following are among the 
 seasons when a true Christian, desiring to maintain a 
 steady walk with God, and to become as eminent in piety 
 as possible, will regard it as a privilege to pray. 
 
 [a) In the morning — the early morning hour. So the 
 Psalmist prayed : " I prevented," that is, I anticipated 
 " the dawning of the morning, and cried ; I hoped in thy 
 word." Ps. cxix. 147. So the Saviour prayed — rising 
 a great while before day. What more appropriate season 
 for prayer? When just rising from a bed of repose, hav- 
 ing been guarded through the silent watches of night, 
 what more natural and appropriate than to go before God 
 and render him thanks that the sleep has not been the sleep 
 of death? When the light again shines upon a darkened 
 world, what more appropriate than to go to the Great 
 Source of light, and ask that he will shine upon our path ? 
 When we enter upon the duties, the trials, the toils of a 
 new day, not knowing what shall befall us, what more 
 proper than to commend ourselves to him who can guide 
 our feet, and lead us in the way in which we should go ? 
 The sun which dawns upon you in the new day, may be 
 the last that will ever rise to your eyes ; the journey 
 which you then enter upon may be the closing day's 
 journey of your life ; and as that sun sinks in the west, 
 your light may have gone out forever. How can a 
 Christian answer it to his conscience and to God, to begin 
 the day and offering no thanksgiving, and imploring no 
 guidance ? He will find it impossible, I believe, to lead a 
 life of very devoted piety, who does not begin each day 
 with God J and every man will find the peace, the purity, 
 
SECRET PRAYER. 275 
 
 the usefulness, and the comforts of each day to be deter- 
 mmed with ahnost unerring accuracy by the nature of 
 his early communion with God. 
 
 {b) Not less appropriate is secret prayer in the evening. 
 Our preservation through the day demands thanks. The 
 possibility that we have sinned, even where we have aim- 
 ed to do our duty, (compare Job i. 5 ;) the consciousness 
 of our infirmity and error, makes it proper that we should 
 seek pardoning mercy. About again to be locked in the 
 embrace of sleep, "the kinsman of death ;" to close our 
 eyes with no assurance that they will be opened again 
 till they are opened on the burning throne of God, what 
 can be more appropriate than to commend ourselves 
 to the fatherly care of Him "who never slumbers nor 
 sleeps?" And how will that Christian answer it to con- 
 science and to God who sleeps and wakes; who rises 
 and retires to rest; who walks in the light of God's sun, 
 and who is guarded by him in the shadows of his niglit, 
 without any recognition of his hand ? 
 
 (c) Equally proper is it to pray in time of perplexity 
 and embarrassment. We all have secret troubles. Our 
 way is hedged up. Our intellect is clouded, and our views 
 of truth and duty are obscure. Deepening darkness settles 
 on our path, and we know not what to do. Many such 
 times will occur in each man's life ; and they are appointed, 
 among other reasons, to see whether we will then look to 
 God. In the most dark and distressing season of the 
 American revolution, the commander-in-chief of our 
 armies was observed to retire each day to a grove in the 
 vicinity of the camp. It was at the Valley Forge. A 
 series of disasters had disheartened the army, and the 
 sky was overcast with a deep cloud, and distress and 
 anxiety pervaded the nation. The army was in want of 
 the comforts and almost of the indispensable necessaries 
 of life, and disaffection was spreading in the camp. 
 Curiosity prompted an individual to follow the comman- 
 der-in-chief, and to observe him. The father of his coun- 
 try was seen on his knees, supplicating the God of hosts 
 in secret prayer. With an anxious and a burdened mind ; 
 a mind conscious of its need of heavenly support and 
 devotion, he went and rolled these mighty burdens upon 
 
276 PRACTTCAL SERMONS. 
 
 tlie arm of Jehovah. Who can tell how much the liberty 
 of this nation is owing to the answer to the secret prayers 
 of Washington at the Valley Forge ? Or rather, who can 
 doubt that that spot where he plead with God was a 
 place as closely connected with American freedom as the 
 Hall of Independejice? So where difficulties cluster around, 
 us, and we are perplexed and embarrassed, shall we be 
 ashamed to go and pour out onr hearts before God ? An 
 ancient monarch, a distinguished warrior, and a most 
 beautiful poet, as well as an eminently holy man, once 
 used this language. " I sought the Lord, and he heard 
 me, and delivered me from all my fears. The angel of 
 the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him, 
 and delivereth them. The righteous cry, and the Lord 
 heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles.'' 
 Ps. xxxiv. 4. 7. 17. When such men have felt it a privi- 
 lege to pray, shall we regard it as humiliating for us ? 
 
 [d.) We should pray when we are beset with strong 
 temptations. Who has not had such temptations, when 
 sin seemed to have armed itself with all its power, and 
 wlien it made an onset on his piety which he felt unable 
 to resist ? Then Ave should pray. It was at such a 
 period that the Saviour prayed in the garden of Geth- 
 seniane ; and he who is thus beset by the tempter should 
 go and plead with God. 
 
 (e.) We should pray when the Holy Spirit prompts us 
 to pray. I mean this. There are times in the life of a 
 pious man when he desires communion with God. He 
 ieels just like praying. His mind and heart can be satis- 
 fied with nothing else. Prayer to him then is just as con- 
 genial as conversation with a beloved friend wlien his 
 heart glows with love ; as the society of father, mother, 
 sister, wife or child is when the heart is full of attach- 
 ment ; as strains of sweet music are to the ear best at- 
 tuned, and to the soul most filled with the love of har- 
 mony ; as an exquisite poem is to a heart most enamoured 
 with the Muses; as the most copious draughts from the 
 fountains of Helicon are to the lover of classic scenes ; 
 nay, as the most delicious banquet to the hungry. It is 
 then the element of being ; the breath ; the vital air. 
 Such times there are in the life of every Christian ; and 
 such times should not be suffered to pass by unimproved. 
 
SECRET PRAYER. 277 
 
 They are the spring-times of our piety ; favoring gales 
 from heaven designed to waft us onward to a world of 
 glory. He is the most eminent Christian who is most 
 favored with such strong desires urging him to prayer. 
 The heart then is full. The sun of glory shines with 
 unusual splendor. No cloud intervenes. The Christian 
 rises from the earth, and pants for glory. Nothing then 
 will satisfy the mind but communion with God ; and then 
 we should pray. Christian, have you never felt such 
 times, or is all this to you unintelligible language ? Does 
 it seem to savor of enthusiasm or mysticism ? Has 
 your mind never been pensive ; have you never seen 
 a deepening gloom coming over the world ; have you 
 never felt a growing distaste for the things of this life and 
 the usual objects of pursuit ; have you never felt your 
 mind unusually pressed down with the condition of your 
 unconverted relatives, your children, your partners hi life, 
 with the state of the church, and with the danger of 
 perishing sinners? These were times when the Spirit of 
 God prompted you to pray. Such feelings pervadhig a 
 church constitute in fact the beginning of a revival of 
 religion. Such feelings resisted are the resistance of the 
 Holy Ghost ; and such resistance, when it arises from the 
 love of vanity, of gain, and of fashion causes that Spirit 
 to depart, and leaves the church to the chilly shades of 
 spiritual night. 
 
 HI. I proposed in the third place to show what are the 
 rewards and advantages of secret prayer. "And thy 
 Father who seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.'' I 
 will just suggest a thought or two, and then close. 
 
 I might observe that the habit of secret prayer fur- 
 nishes to ourselves the best test of piety. There is the 
 least temptation to its performance from improper motives 
 of all the duties of religion. A man may preach merely 
 to be seen of men ; for the same reason he may give 
 largely to objects of benevolence ; and for the same 
 reason he may be abundant, and loud, and long in public 
 prayer. Such men were the Pharisees. But no such 
 motive can reign in the closet. And though, with hearts 
 such as ours are, no one can doubt that there may be im- 
 proper motives even there, yet no where else is there so 
 
 24 
 
278 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 little danger of being influenced by improper motives as 
 in that duty. 
 
 But what is meant by the " open reward" referred to 
 by the Saviour ? Not wealth ; not honor ; not a gorgeous 
 retinue of servants; not a splendid equipage ; not crowns 
 and sceptres. These are not the rewards of piety. Per- 
 haps lie refers to such things as the following. That 
 humble piety which you see in some very obscure Chris- 
 tian with half your advantages, with little of your learn- 
 ing, and with none of your wealth. You know not how to 
 account for it that he enjoys and manifests so much more 
 religion than you are able to do. It is the " open reward" 
 of much secret prayer. — That power which you see others 
 have to gain a victory over the world ; to resist its bad 
 influences, and to subdue their own passions. You won- 
 der how they do it, and wonder why such a victory is not 
 yours. It is the *• open reward" of much secret prayer. — 
 That calm and much subdued temper which you see in 
 others ; that superiority to passion and raging lusts ; that 
 equability of mind when provoked and injured. You 
 wonder how other minds can be so calm while you are 
 ruflled, and irritable, and excited, and revengeful. Their 
 calmness and composure is the "open reward" of secret 
 prayer. — That patience which others evince in trial ; that 
 meek and quiet resignation ; that readiness to bear many 
 suflerings and to bear them long, and that holy triumph 
 on the bed of death which you often see, is the " open 
 reward" of secret prayer. Your mind is disturbed. You 
 dread to die. You have no resignation when you lose your 
 friends, euid when you lie on a bed of pain. The reason 
 is plain. You have not prayed in secret as you should 
 have done, and there is to you no " open reward" of 
 secret prayer. In one word, that holy, humble, calm, 
 submissive life ; that life of cheerful piety, of self-denial, 
 and of practical benevolence ; and that resigned and peace- 
 ful death which you often see in others, is the " open 
 reward" of secret prayer. But further still. In the great 
 day, when light shall blaze over countless millions assem- 
 bled before God revealing all things, then the bright crown 
 of glory which God the Father shall place on the head 
 of the humble Christian, shall be the " open reward" of 
 secret prayer. 
 
SECRET PRAYER, 279 
 
 REMARKS. 
 
 1. It remains only to ask of you who bear the name 
 of Christ, whether you are in all honesty and good con- 
 science obeying the command of Jesus Christ ? Here, 
 every individual must act and answer for himself No 
 one can know your habits on this subject but yourselves 
 and God. Yourselves and God too are those most inter- 
 ested in knowing ; and I may add your habits on this 
 subject are known both to yourselves and to God. You 
 know whether in all good conscience you are hi the habit 
 of entering into your closet and praying to your Father 
 who is in secret, and God knows whether this is habit- 
 ually done. should his hand slowly pencil on these 
 walls in letters of living light the riames of those who He 
 knows do ;ic>/ pray, how many names of professing Chris- 
 tians would stand thus revealed ? My hearer, I hold it to 
 be an indisputable truth that the man who does not in all 
 fidelity pray in secret cannot be a Christian ; and further, 
 that the best evidence of your personal piety is nor your 
 attendance on the sanctuary — which in itself is no evi- 
 dence ; nor in celebrating the Lord's supper— which in 
 itself is no evidence ; nor in much alms-giving — which in 
 itself is no evidence ; but in that conscious love to God 
 and to Jesus Christ which prompts you to pray to him 
 who sees in secret. I may ask you then, whether you 
 pray in secret ? If you do, I may ask farther, what is 
 the character of your pra^^ers there .'' Are they infrequent, 
 short, rapid, hurried, without heart, or feeling, or care; 
 are they set and formal, hollow and insincere ; — or are they 
 the breathings of a heart that loves to pray, and that can- 
 not but call upon God ? 
 
 2. Finally, I would address one word to another inte- 
 resting class of my audience. I allude to those who were 
 early taught to pray, but who have now no "closet;" 
 no secret place where they retire ; no daily communion 
 with God. Light returns to you in the morning, but not 
 to you returns the secret wish to go and thank your Great 
 Preserver. Night throws his shades around you and you 
 lie down — perhaps to sleep the sleep of death, and you 
 
280 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 commend not yourself to his fatherly care. Troubles 
 come, and temptations arise, and disappointments thicken, 
 but none of all your troubles has power to induce you 
 to go to God and cast your care upon him. You see 
 days, and weeks, and years roll away, and the judgment 
 lessens its distance each moment, and death, '• king of 
 terrors," draws nearer, and still you do not pray. Once 
 you prayed. Your mother taught you to kneel before 
 your Maker, and put your little hands together, and say, 
 " Our Father who art in heaven." But that mother may 
 now slumber beneath the clods of the valley, or im- 
 mersed in the business or the gaiety of the world you have 
 forgotten her counsel, and now live without prayer. A 
 traveller to eternity ; a dependent being ; a sinner ; with 
 a soul that can never die, you are going to the grave, and 
 you seek not your Maker's blessing ; you ask not his 
 guidance and his salvation. Let me entreat of you one 
 thing. It is to resume that forgotten-habit of secret 
 prayer. Go once to-day, if it be the last time, and ask 
 of Gad to save you. Go and seek the face of your long- 
 forgotten God. Let it be, if you will it should be so, the 
 last time. Enter the closet with this feeling — ' This is the 
 last time that I shall call upon God ?' Yet let it once be 
 done. Stand not, I conjure you, at the bar of God with 
 this feeling, ' I asked not to be saved. I sought not to 
 enter into heaven.' Turn not away from the gates of 
 glory at the close of the scenes of the judgment, with 
 this feeling, ' I go to a world of wo from which I did not 
 ask to be delivered ; to everlasting despair, to be saved 
 from which I raised not a feeble cry.' Sinner, pray ! 
 Deathless being, pray ! Aged man, soon to go to the 
 judgment, pray ! Young man, amidst the snares of the 
 world and the temptations of this life, I entreat you to 
 pray ! Child of pious parents, baptized in the Saviour's 
 name, pray ! pray, ye travellers to eternity ; pray that 
 you may enter into the kingdom of God ! 
 
SERMON IX. 
 
 THE SABBATH 
 Ex. XX. 8. Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy. 
 
 The Sabbath may be contemplated from many differ- 
 ent points of view. It may be considered in its influence 
 on the powers of onr nature exhausted through six days 
 of anxiety and toil ; in the necessity which is laid in our 
 very constitution by the Author of our being for periodical 
 seasons of relaxation and repose ; in its influence on the 
 intellect of an individual or a people by its directing the 
 attention to topics adapted to elevate and expand the soul ; 
 in the aid which it furnishes to the magistrate in promot- 
 ing the observance of law ; in its influence on neighbour- 
 hoods and families in promoting social feeling, and refined 
 intercourse ; in its bearing on the civil liberties of a nation, 
 and in its indispensible necessity m preparing for the life 
 to come. Each one of these points would furnish an 
 ample topic of discourse ; and by the arguments which 
 might be accumulated on these topics we could satisfy 
 any reasonable mind of the value and importance of the 
 Sabbath. But I wish at this time to present a diflerent 
 train of thought from what would be furnished by either 
 of these points. I design particularly to address Christians ; 
 and to urge upon their minds some considerations why 
 they should feel a special interest in the proper observance 
 of this day. 
 
 I. The first consideration whicli I shall suggest is, that 
 if the Sabbath is abolished, -the Christian rehgion will be 
 abolished with it. The question whether this day is to 
 be observed or desecrated, is just a question of life and 
 death in regard to Christianity. This is so obvious that 
 it scarcely needs any attempt to prove it. Without a 
 Sabbath our public institutions desigiied to promote and 
 perpetuate religion would cease ; our Sabbath-schools 
 v/ould be disbanded ; family instruction would soon come 
 to an end ; the sanctuaries would be closed ; the ministry 
 
 21* 2S1 
 
282 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 dismissed and discarded ; the current of worldly affairs 
 would be unbroken ; plans of evil would meet with no 
 interruption ; and all tlie means of grace would be at once 
 arrested. Christians might meet at irregular and distant 
 intervals for prayer and praise ; but the number of such 
 meetings would rapidly decrease, and soon the last vestige 
 of Christianity would disappear. The books containing 
 its defence would be forgotten, and the Bible soon cease 
 to be read with interest or gratitude. If the Sabbath be 
 abolished, what hold can Christianity have on man ? 
 What way of access can it have to the heart and con- 
 science ? How shall the arguments for its truth be 
 brought before the mind ? How shall its moral precepts 
 be urged ? How shall its high hopes, and its solemn ap- 
 peals and sanctions be presented ? And how shall its 
 stern rebukes be made to fall on the ears of the guilty ? 
 If you close your churches, and your Sabbath-schools, 
 there is no other eflectual way. Nothing can be plainer 
 than this ; and nothing can be more manifest than that 
 he who violates, or disregards the Sabbath, is taking the 
 most effectual means for obliterating the Christian reli- 
 gion from the world. 
 
 The whole history of Christianity shows that where the 
 Sabbath is observed religion flourishes ; where it is not, 
 religion dies away and becomes extinct. We might appeal 
 here to any man's observation, and ask him to recall the 
 memory of a place where there is no Sabbath, and the 
 scenes which he witnessed there. Was the voice of 
 prayer heard there ? Was God feared and honored ? Were 
 children and youth trained in the ways of religion, and 
 taught to worship and honor their Maker ? Did meek- 
 ness, and temperance, and chastity, and justice, and 
 honesty abound ? Or Avas the place distinguished for 
 riot and disorder; for falsehood and profaneness ; for in- 
 temperance and licentiousness; for indolence and brutal 
 scenes of violence and strife ? Was there ever a place 
 in which the Sabbath began to be observed in Avhich 
 there did not revive the love of truth and order ; indus- 
 try and intelligence ; urbanity and benevolence ; tem.- 
 perance, purity, and the love of God — like streams break- 
 ing out in the desert, and like the lily and the rose spring- 
 ing up in waste and sandy places ! Has there ever been 
 
THE SABBATH. 283 
 
 an instance where this day has been observed, that it has 
 not been followed by the blessings which industry, and 
 temperance, and intelligence, and piety carry hi their 
 train ? This appeal is made with the utmost confidence ; 
 and the friends and foes of Christianity are invited to 
 examine the point at their leisure. 
 
 Well do the enemies of Christianity in these times, 
 know what they are about. In former generations, at- 
 tempts were made to destroy the gospel by the sword and 
 the faggot ; — but all such attempts were foiled. Imperial 
 power attempted to crush it ; but imperial power found 
 its arm too weak to contend with God. Argument and 
 sophistry were then employed; ridicule lent its aid, and 
 contempt pointed the finger of scorn ; but all was in vain. 
 Christianity survived all these, and rose with augmented 
 power and more resplendent beauty — and would do so to 
 the end of time. But there is one weapon Avhich the 
 enemy has employed to destroy Christianity, and to drive 
 it from the world, which has never been employed but 
 with signal success. It is the attempt to corrupt the 
 Christian Sabbath ; to make it a day of festivity ; to cause 
 Christians to feel that its sacred and rigid obligation has 
 ceased ; to induce them on that day to mingle in the 
 scenes of pleasure, or the exciting plans of ambition ; — • 
 to make them feel that they may pursue their journeys 
 by land and water — by the steam boat and the car re- 
 gardless of the command of God ; and this has done, and 
 will contmue to do, what no argument, no sophistry, no 
 imperial power has been able to accomplish. The " Book 
 of Sports" did more to destroy Christianity than all the 
 ten persecutions of the Roman emperors ; and the views 
 of the second Charles and his court about the Lord's day, 
 tended more to drive religion from the British nation than 
 all tlie fires that Avere enkindled by Mary. Paris has no 
 Sabbath, and that fact has done more to banish Chris- 
 tianity than all the writing of Voltaire ; and Vienna has 
 no Sabbath, and that fact does more to annihilate religion 
 there than ever did the scepticism of Frederick. Turn 
 the Sabbath into a day of sports and pastime ; of military 
 reviews, and of pantomimes and theatrical exhibitions, 
 and not an infidel any where would care a farthing about 
 
2S4 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 the tomes of Volney or Voltaire ; about the scepticism of 
 Hume, the sneers of Gibbon, or the scurrility of Paine. 
 
 Tlie great enemy of God and liberty, in this western 
 world, understands how to meet Christianity here. He 
 knows that it will not be possible to kindle the flames of 
 persecution. He knows that the friends of Christ cannot 
 be turned over by the sentence of the Inquisition to the 
 tender mercies of the civil arm. He knows that he cannot 
 get up an auto-de-fe, and that the garden of the capi- 
 tol cannot be illuminated by the burning bodies of the 
 samts. He knows too that there is too much science and 
 learning : that there are too many schools and colleges, 
 to attempt to attack it by sophistry and argument. It has 
 passed through too many such trials, and has come out of 
 them all unscathed. But was there no new form of op- 
 position by which religion could be met in the new 
 vrorld ; no vital part of Christianity that could be reached : 
 no blow that could be struck that would wither its rising 
 power, and lay it prostrate in the dust ? There was one 
 experiment that could be made. Over these broad and 
 ample states and territories men might be sent in search 
 of gain, regardless of the Sabbath. Our majestic streams 
 — windijig along for thousands of miles through the 
 richest lands on earth— might be ascended regardless of the 
 sacredness of the day. Young men miglit be led away, 
 by the hope of wealth, from the peaceful scenes where a 
 Sabbath sheds repose on a village, or the Sabbath bell 
 summons an entire population to worship God. The 
 nation might be roused by the love of gold ; and new 
 facilities for intercourse, and the love of travel might un- 
 settle almost the whole population, and transform tliern 
 into wandering tribes or families, and lead them to trample 
 down the barriers of virtue, and the institutions of religion. 
 The experiment was one of vast moment, and as fearful 
 in its results as it was vast. It involves the whole interest 
 of this nation. Its result will settle the fate of Christianity 
 in this land, and perhaps throughout the world. If we 
 can have a Sabbath, sacred in its stillness and its associa- 
 tions ; maintained by a healthful popular sentiment rather 
 than by human laws ; revered as a day of holy rest, and 
 as a type of keaven ; a day when men shall delight to 
 
THE SABBATH. 285 
 
 come together to worship God, and not a day of pastime, 
 Christianity is safe in this land, and our country is safe. 
 If not, the Sabbath, and rehgion, and hberty will die to- 
 gether. 
 
 In the experiment going on in this land not few hands 
 are engaged but many. It is not the mere work of 
 thoughtlessness and recklessness, but it has all the marks 
 of purpose and of plan. It has evidence of being under 
 the control of that master mind that is the author of all 
 evil, and the father of all the embarrassments that Chris- 
 tianity has ever met with. The attempt to blot out the 
 Sabbath from this land evinces more knowledge of human 
 nature, and more tact and skill than the persecutions of 
 the Roman emperors or of Mary. For who is engaged in 
 the work of blotting out the Sabbath ? Every atheist is 
 engaged in it, and here places his main hope of success. 
 Every sceptic is engaged in it, and anticipates more from 
 this than from all his arguments. Every profane man, 
 and every intemperate man, and every licentious man is 
 engaged in it, for in this way they hope that all restraint 
 will be removed from unlimited indulgence in vice. And 
 a multitude of men who are not professedly atheists or 
 infidels, but Avhose heart is with them in their leading 
 purposes, unite Avith them in opposing the sacredness of 
 this day. In one word, the mass of busy, active, unprin- 
 cipled, infidel mind in this nation, in high life and low, 
 in oflice and out of office, in city and country, that for 
 various reasons would desire Christianity to be extin- 
 guished, has made war on the Sabbath, and is prosecut- 
 ing that Avar by all the means within its reach, and, it is 
 to be feared, with augmenting prospects of success. 
 
 The question now is just this. Is Christianity worth 
 preserving, or can we afford to see it driven from the 
 land? Are we so secure without it in our individual and 
 national interests, that Ave can part Avith it Avithout re- 
 gret ; or is it Avith an effort to save it ? Has Christianity 
 such a connection Avith pure and Avholesome morals as 
 to make it desirable to retain it in the commouAvealth, or 
 Avill our morals be equally pure Avithout it ? Can this 
 great nation be gOA^erned and defended without a God, 
 or Avill it be best to yield obedience to his laAvs, and re- 
 tain the religion of "peace and good Avill toward men*^ 
 
286 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 among us, and transmit it to posterity ? These are ques- 
 tions connected with the Sabbath ; and the course which 
 is pursued in regard to this day will settle them all. 
 
 II. The second reason why this subject demands now 
 the special attention of Christians is, that if the Sabbath 
 is not regarded as holy time, it will be regarded as pas- 
 time ; if not a day sacred to devotion, it will be a day of 
 recreation, of pleasure, of licentiousness. The Sabbath 
 is not essentially an arbitrary appointment, for it is re- 
 quired in the very nature of the animal economy that 
 there should be periodical seasons of relaxation. Nature 
 cannot always be taxed to incessant effort. We must 
 have periodical rest in all the functions of our nature. 
 Bonaparte once passed three entire days and nights with- 
 out sleep, but he could no longer contend against a great 
 law of nature, and sank to sleep on his horse. There is 
 not a muscle in the animal economy that does not de- 
 mand rest after effort, and that will not have it. If it 
 is not granted voluntarily, it will be taken. If the powers 
 of nature are overworked, they will take relaxation by 
 disease, and perhaps when too late to repair their ex- 
 hausted energies. This great law of nature must and 
 will be obeyed. If the frame is worn out and exhausted 
 without this relaxation, the consequence must be sickness, 
 or rest in the grave. The late Mr. Wilberforce declared 
 that at one period of his parliamentary career, his duties 
 were so multiplied and exhausting that his health must 
 have been utterly prostrated, but for the seasonable relief 
 which the Sabbath afforded him. There is not an animal 
 that can endure unceasing efibrt without repose ; and 
 God, in requiring that the "cattle" should be allowed to 
 rest on the Sabbath, has spoken according to the laws 
 which he originally impressed on the brute creation. If 
 the question were simply one of interest, and a man 
 wished to make the most of the noble horse or the patient 
 ox, he would allow him to rest according to the com- 
 mandment. For every such day of periodical repose he 
 will receive more than an equivalent in augmented 
 strength and length of days. If rest is not allowed them, 
 their powers are exhausted, and they expire. The uni- 
 verse is fitted up, as far as we know, for the purposes of 
 alternate action and rest, from the first beating of the 
 
THE SABBATH, 287 
 
 heart in infancy to the mightiest effort of the mature 
 man ; from the insect that flutters and dies, to the lion of 
 the forest, the mighty elephant, and the monarch on the 
 throne. 
 
 In demanding, therefore, that the animal and mental 
 economy should be allowed a day of periodical repose, 
 God has acted in accordance with a great law of nature. 
 There is nothing arbitrary, except in designating the par- 
 ticular day which shall be observed ; and all that is arbi- 
 trary in this is a consultation of convenience, that we may 
 not be disturbed by tlie toil and action of anotlier while 
 Ave seek repose — ^just as he has so ordained the animal 
 functions that all are disposed to sleep at night. 
 
 Further, all nations have had, and will have periodical 
 seasons of relaxation from the severity of toil. The Jews 
 had their weekly Sabbath ; the Greeks and Romans had 
 numerous festivals in honor of their gods, and many a 
 day in the year for riot and disorder ; the followers of 
 Mohammed observe a weekly Sabbath ; the heathen na- 
 tions observe numerous festivals frequently occurring ; 
 and even the actors in the French revolution Avere con- 
 strained to bow to this great law of nature, and appoint- 
 ed one day in ten as a day of relaxation from toil. Hesiod 
 and Homer said, " The seventh day is holy." Josephus 
 says, "There is no city, however barbarous, where the 
 custom of observing the seventh day which prevails 
 among the Jews is not observed." Eusebius says, "Al- 
 most ail the philosophers and the poets acknowledge the 
 seventh day as holy."* Whatever may be the time se- 
 lected, whether a day in honor of an idol, or in honor of 
 the Saviour ; whether one day in seven, or one day in 
 ten ; whether it be in honor of a saint, a hero, or the 
 birth-day of a prince or of a nation, such days will be 
 observed. In our country it is settled that this day of 
 periodical rest is to be the first day of the week. This 
 is settled by custom ; by the statutes of the land ; by the 
 practices in courts and legislatures ; by mih'ersal under- 
 standing among farmers and mechanics; by the esta- 
 blished laws and habits in our colleges and schools, 
 between the master and the slave, and among neighbors 
 
 • Grotius de Veritate. Lib. 1, sec. xvi. 
 
288 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 every where. No one expects to find his neighbor at 
 work on the Sabbath ; and should even a master attempt 
 to enforce labor on the Sabbath, he Avould go against 
 the moral sense of the nation, and against the settled 
 customs of the land. This custom is settled, moreover, 
 by the belief of the religious portion of the nation that 
 this is holy time, and by the Ungerings of conscience 
 among those who have been trained in the ways of 
 religion. It is to be the settled custom in this nation 
 that on this day toil is to cease, and men are to give 
 themselves to other purposes than the ordinary employ- 
 ments of life. As a general habit all over the land, 
 our stores and counting-houses will be shut ; our schools 
 will be disbanded ; our courts and public offices will be 
 closed ; our banks and insurance oftlces will cease to do 
 business ; our mechanics will lay aside the saw and the 
 hammer; the student will close his books, the farmer will 
 leave his plow in the furrow, the woodman will lay down 
 his axe, the apprentice will be at liberty, and the slave 
 will feel that he has a little time that in some proper sense 
 is his own. The day is to be a day of relaxation and 
 rest. It is either to be devoted to religion, or to such pas- 
 times as the general public sentiment shall demand. 
 
 Since this is to be so, the question is, what is to be the 
 eftect if the day ceases to be a day of religious observ- 
 ance ? What will be the effect of releasing a population 
 of several millions one-seventh part of the time from any 
 settled bushiess of life ? What will be the result if they 
 are brought under no religious instruction ? What will 
 be the effect on morals ; on religion ; on sober habits of 
 industry; on virtue, happiness, and patriotism? Can we 
 safely close our places of business, and annihilate all the 
 restraints that bind us during the six days; can we turn 
 out a vast population of the young with nothing to do, and 
 abide the consequences of such a universal exposure to 
 vice ? Can we safely dismiss our young men, all over the 
 land, with sentiments unsettled, and with habits of virtue 
 unformed, and throw them one day in seven upon the 
 world with nothing to do ? Can we safely release our sons, 
 and our apprentices, and our clerks from our employ, and 
 send them forth under the influence of unchecked youth- 
 ful passion ? Can we safely open, as we do, fountains of 
 
THE SABBATH. 289 
 
 poison at every corner of the street, and in every village 
 and hamlet, and invite the young to drink there with im- 
 punity.'' Can there be a season of universal relaxation, 
 occurring fifty-two times in a year, when all restraints are 
 withdrawn, and when the power of temptation shall be 
 plied with all that art and skill can do to lead the hosts in 
 the way to ruin, and to drag them down to hell ? 
 
 One would suppose that the experiment which has 
 already been made in cities of our land, would be suffi- 
 cient to remove all doubt from every reasonable mind on 
 this subject. We are making the experiment on a large 
 scale every Sabbath. Extensively in our large cities and 
 their vicinities, this is a day of dissipation, of riot, of 
 licentiousness, and of blasphemy. It is probable that more 
 is done to unsettle the habits of virtue, and soberness, and 
 industry ; to propagate infidelity, and to lay the founda- 
 tion for future repentance or ignominy ; to retard the pro- 
 gress of the temperance reformation, and to prepare 
 candidates for the penitentiary and the gallows on this 
 day than on all the other days of the week. So it always 
 is where institutions designed for good are abused. They 
 become as powerful in evil as they were intended to be 
 for good. The Sabbath is an institution of tremendous 
 power for good or evil. If for good, as it is designed, 
 and as it easily may be, it is laid at the foundation of 
 all our peace, our intelligence, our morals, our religion. 
 If for evil, it strikes at all these ; nor is there any pos- 
 sible power in laws or in education that can, during 
 the six days, counteract the evils of a Sabbath given to 
 licentiousness and sin. And the question before the 
 nation is not, whether this is to be a day of labor and 
 sober industry, for that is settled, but whether it is to 
 be a day of religion or licentiousness ; a day of virtue or 
 of sin ; a day for God, or a day for the devil. It is, whe- 
 ther the nation can afford to have one day in seven a 
 day of riot and disorder — a saturnalia., occurring more 
 than fifty times in the year, when Rome, in the most 
 palmy days of her virtue, could scarcely survive the 
 effects of one. No graver question can come before the 
 nation than this. Let any one ask himself what would be 
 the effect of having a day kept as the anniversary of our 
 independence has usually been, occurring more than fifty 
 
 25 
 
290 PRACTICAL SERMO^-S. 
 
 times in the year — a day of riot and drunkenness — and 
 he can be at no loss what answer is to be given to such 
 a question. 
 
 Furtlier, the Sabbath is favorable to the spread of pure 
 moraUty, and the most pure and elevated virtues are 
 found in those communities that obser\-e it as a day of 
 holy rest. This assertion is made with the utmost confi- 
 dence, and you are invited to test the truth of it as often 
 as you please. Go through the country and examine the 
 cities, the towns, and the villages; mingle with the inha- 
 bitants of every class, and converse with them freely ; 
 learn their opinions and their habits; examine their pri- 
 sons and their almshouses, and then tell me v/here you 
 find most industry, most sober habits, most contentment, 
 most sobriety, most inteUigence, most freedom from low 
 and debashig vices. Tell me in what place you would 
 prefer to place a son, or where you would wish a daugh- 
 ter to be educated? Is there here a parent who would 
 hesitate for one moment in regard to this ? The virtues 
 which go to adorn domestic intercourse, and to cement 
 society: the mild and gentle charities that are connected 
 with the fireside, with the sick-room, and the bed of 
 death, flourish pre-eminently among those who love the 
 sound of the Sabbath-bell. Can you point me to one 
 idle and dissolute family ; to one disturber of the peace ; 
 to one vicious neighborhood ; to one community in which 
 Ucentiousness reigns, Avhere the Sabbath is habitually and 
 generally observed ? And can you point me to one com- 
 munity where it is not obseiwed, which does not become 
 riotous and vicious, and where intemperance, and gam- 
 bling, and licentiousness, do not sooner or later abound ? 
 Sir ^latthew Hale says, '• That of all the persons con- 
 victed of capital crimes while he was on the bench, there 
 "were few who were not ready to confess that they had 
 begun their career of wickedness by a neglect of the duties 
 of the Sabbath." 
 
 Now if the Sabbath be abolished, it will become a day 
 of immorality. In particular, I wish to say, that this re- 
 mark specially concerns young men. I do believe that 
 if I could collect around me all the young men of this 
 land, and if I could get their ear for a little time, I could 
 convince the mass of them that the only security for their 
 
THE SABBATH. 291 
 
 correct moral character, and their future iisefuhiess, suc- 
 cess, and happiness, will be connected with the proper 
 observance of this day. I could show them, to their perfect 
 satisfaction, that the temptations which are spread out to 
 beguile the unwary,are designed bycunning.unprincipled, 
 and avaricious men for them. I could satisfy them that 
 when they go forth from their father's dwellings, and from 
 the sanctuary this day, under the influence of strong de- 
 sires for pleasure and amusement, they are exposed to 
 temptations where no young man is safe, and that beyond 
 the eye of a father and a mother they may be hurried 
 on to excesses which the}^ would have been shocked to 
 have anticipated. For be it remembered that no young 
 man leaves his father's dwelling, and devotes this day 
 to amusement and revelry, without flying in the face 
 of an explicit command of the ]\Iost High. He tramples 
 beneath his feet one of the solemn mandates that were 
 given amidst flames and thunders on Mount Sinai — and 
 Avhen one command of God is basely and contemptuously 
 trod beneath his feet the other nine will soon cease to be 
 regarded. Be it remembered too, that the laws which 
 God has ordained tend only to promote human virtue and 
 happiness. Go to the penitentiar}', and walk along from 
 cell to cell, and enquire of the inmates when their career 
 of guilt commenced. Go and converse in his sober mo- 
 ments with the drunkard, and ask him when he first trod 
 that downward way, and the answer would be, in a ma- 
 jority of cases, on the Sabbath-day. I venture here a 
 remark — though with not entire certainty of its correct- 
 ness. It is, that in this country more young men com- 
 mence the habits of drinking on the Sabbath than on any 
 other day hi the week. They are at leisure. They band 
 together. They fill up the long lines of packed vehicles 
 that on that day lead out of our cities in every direction. 
 At the end of each one of those brief journies, and at as 
 many places on the way as they can be mduced to pause 
 at, a kind and indulgent public has placed a dram shop, 
 under the name of a tavern, and the Sabbath is their 
 harvest-time, and were it not for the Sabbath they could 
 not be sustained a month. There, many a young man 
 in thoughtlessness commences a career which terminates 
 in breaking a mother's heart, and in the early wreck of 
 
292 TRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 all the hopes of a family, and in the extinction of their 
 peace as they weep over a drunkard's grave. 
 
 III. A third reason why this subject demands the at- 
 tention of Christians in a special manner now is, that 
 there is a state of things in this land that is tending to 
 obliterate the Sabbath altogether. 
 
 The events to which I refer are too well known to 
 make it necessary to dwell particularly on them. In every 
 direction the mail is carried, and the example of the 
 violation of tlie day is thus set by national authority. 
 Every post-office is required by law to be kept open, and 
 a public invitation is thus given to obtain the political and 
 commercial intelligence, and to divert the mind from the 
 sacred duties of the day by the reference to the cares of 
 this life. Some years since the voice of respectful en- 
 treaty and petition was addressed to the National Legis- 
 lature by some thousands of the best citizens in the land ; 
 — and the sacred right of petition was met with contempt 
 and sarcasm. In every part of our land, also, the facili- 
 ties for intercommunication have been augmented to an 
 extent that excites the surprise of the world. By canals 
 and rail-roads distant portions of our country have been 
 brought together, and the land trembles as the ear of 
 commerce rolls on, and the long lines of majestic improve- 
 ments are crowded with the results of our toil, and with 
 a travelling community. Against these national improve- 
 ments, assuredly,. the language of complaint is not to be 
 urged. In many respects they are the glory of our land ; 
 and they should be sources of gratitude to God who has 
 thus signally blessed our country. But can any one be 
 ignorant that each canal and rail-road furnishes increased 
 facihty for Sabbath-violation, and that they are fast tend- 
 ing to blot it from the land ? Where in these public con- 
 veyances is the Sabbath regarded ? Where is the rail- 
 road car that is arrested by the return of this day ? Is it 
 not known that these vehicles, and particularly in the 
 neighborhood of our cities, are crowded with a denser 
 throng on this day than on any other day in the seven ? 
 Had it been the purpose of the people of this land to 
 abolish the Sabbath altogether, and to furnish the most 
 rapid and extended means of its entire obliteration, it 
 
THE SABBATH. 293 
 
 would have oeeu impossible to have devised a more cer- 
 tain and efiectual way than that which is now employed. 
 In the mean time there is an augmenting desire for 
 motion in this land. The population is becoming mi- 
 gratory ; and few pause — whether Christians or not — to 
 rest on the Sabbath. The merchant hastens on his way 
 to the commercial emporium — as if the saving of a day 
 for worldly business were of more value than the observ- 
 ance of the laws of God; the legislator pursues his jour- 
 ney to the capitol — as if anxious to exhibit a specimen 
 of breaking the laws of God while he goes to make laws 
 for man ; — the party of pleasure urge on their way to a 
 watering-place — determined to annihilate time and space, 
 as if the affairs of the world depended on their being there 
 an hour earlier ; our sons in the distant west are travel- 
 ling at the same time beyond the sound of the Sabbath- 
 bell, and the memory of the sanctuary to which it once 
 called them — as if it were a virtue to forget all the sacred 
 scenes where the calm light of a Sabbatii-morning visited 
 their souls ; and the idle, the dissipated, the profane, the 
 atheist, the Christian, the clergyman, in these public vehi- 
 cles, pursue the business of gain, or pleasure, or conve- 
 nience, or ambition — as if there were special merit in 
 forgetting all the usual distinctions of society, and each 
 and all were showing how they can most effectually dis- 
 regard the obligations of this day. For one man in the 
 community at large who will conscientiously stop on his 
 journey to keep holy the Sabbath-day, there are probably 
 ten who will be at special pains to violate it, either by 
 commencing a journey on that day, or by making it the 
 occasion of an excursion of pleasure. In the high places 
 of the land too there is an increasing laxness of principle 
 on this subject. During the times that tried men's souls 
 in the war of Independence, our fathers would have been 
 alarmed had the ordinary business of legislation been 
 pursued on the Sabbath, and the voice of indignant re- 
 monstrance would have been heard througliout the land. 
 Yet nothing has been more common of late years than 
 for the National Legislature, after wasting months in 
 needless and profitless debate, to close their labors on the 
 Sabbath — and amidst such scenes of disorder as to be 
 a disgrace to themselves and the nation on any day. — 
 
 25* 
 
294 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 It is not easy for men in any situation to cast off respect 
 for the laws of God and at the same time maintain a 
 character for sober virtue and order ; and in legislatures 
 as elsewhere a disregard for God's laws is but the begin- 
 ning of evil. Yet the nation has not been alarmed. A 
 few feeble voices from the press have been heard, but 
 they have died away ; and the nation seems resolved to 
 acquiesce in the insult put upon the religious sentiments 
 of the great body of the people of the land, and in the 
 disregard of the nation in its highest functions for the 
 Sabbath of the Lord. 
 
 I will close by repeating a remark already made. It is 
 this. The warfare which Christianity is to wage in this 
 land is here. The opposition to religion is here. The 
 Sabbath has more enemies in this land than the Lord's 
 Supper ; than baptism ; than the Bible ; than all the other 
 institutions of religion put together. At the same time 
 it is more difficult to meet the enemy here than any 
 where else — for we come in conflict not with argument 
 — but with interest, and pleasure, and the love of indul- 
 gence, and of gain. The conflict is to rage here. The 
 wish of the atheist, the infidel, the man of vice, is to 
 blot out the Sabbath. The attempt will not be made 
 here to destroy Christianity by persecution, for that has 
 been often tried, and has always faUed. It is to see 
 whether the Sabbath can be obliterated from the melnory 
 of man ; and if it can be done it will be done. If this 
 day, with its sacred institutions, can be blotted out, the 
 victory will be won. Infidelity will achieve what the 
 faggot and the stake, the force of argument and the 
 caustic severity of sarcasm and ridicule have never been 
 able to accomplish. And it is just now a question for 
 the good people of this land to determine for them- 
 selves whether they shall abandon the day, or make 
 an effort to save it ; whether the virtuous and the pious 
 shall yield the victory without a struggle, or whether they 
 shall combine their efl"orts, and address the reason and con- 
 science of their fellow-citizens and speak to them of our 
 hallowed institutions, and of the rapid corruption of the 
 public morals ; whether they shall remind them of what 
 the Sabbath has done for us in better times, and attempt 
 to bring back the nation to the observance of an institu- 
 
THE SABBATH. 295 
 
 tion that would diffuse intelligence, and soberness, and 
 industry, and salvation all over the land ; or whether dis- 
 heartened by the difficulties in the case, and overpowered 
 by numbers, they shall give it up in despair. On the po- 
 sition which each individual takes on these questions, 
 more may depend than on any other single step in his 
 Hfe ; on his course in regard to the Sabbath will depend 
 much of the peace or the sorrow of the bed of death. 
 
SERMON XX. 
 
 SECRET FAULTS. 
 
 Psalm xix. 112. Who can understand his errors ? Cleanse thou me 
 from secret faults. 
 
 Secret Faults. — Men are usually much less anxious 
 to be free from them than they are to be restramed from 
 open transgression. Yet, they enter deeply into tlie cha- 
 racter, and will enter into the fnture judgment. It is 
 miportant, therefore, that we should understand our own 
 secret propensities to evil ; and important that we should 
 urge, with fervor and sincerity, the petition of the text, 
 *• Cleanse thou me from secret faults." 
 
 The foUowmg points will be considered ui illustratmg 
 this subject : 
 
 I. What are secret faults ; 
 
 II. By what means they are concealed; and, 
 
 III. Why should we desire and pray to be delivered 
 from them ? 
 
 I. What are secret faults? They stand opposed to 
 open and "presumptuous transgressions ;" to such as are 
 seen and known by tlie world. They pertain to the mo- 
 tives, the feelmgs, the intentions of the heart. They relate 
 particularly to such sins as the following : 
 
 (1.) To the secret bias of the heart to evil. There may 
 be what may be called latent gnilt ; a propensity of the 
 soul to sin which has never been developed, and of which, 
 except in the feeblest degree, we may be scarcely con- 
 scious ourselves. Many a parent is surprised to see his 
 son, in some new situation in life, evince a propensity to 
 some form of vice which he had never suspected. The 
 reason was, that he was not before placed in a situation 
 to develop the peculiar depravity of his heart. Many a 
 man discovers a propensity to evil suddenly springing up 
 in liis own soul, which is equally surprising to himself and 
 to his friends. To his own amazement, he finds himself 
 suddenly growing covetous, or ambitious, or proud, and 
 
 296 
 
SECRET FAULTS. 2.97 
 
 wonders at the extraordinary power which the apparently- 
 new-born propensity has over his mind. The reason is, 
 that the strong native inchnation of his soul has not be- 
 fore been in circumstances to develop itself. It has been 
 held in check and abeyance, and no opportunity has oc- 
 curred where he could act out his nature. No man knows 
 what latent propensities to evil there may be in the soul, 
 imtil he has been thrown into a variety of circumstances 
 fitted to test his character, and show him what he is. 
 The human heart is a great deep. No line has been 
 found long enough to sound it ; and as it is in regard to 
 the bottom of the ocean, so no one has fully told us what 
 lies buried in the depths of the soul of man. 
 
 (2.) Secret faults consist of the unholy thoughts which 
 we intend no o.her person shall know. Some of those 
 are usually of so gross a character, that the great body 
 of persons at once reject them, and strive to be free from 
 them. But others are such as the mind indulges in, with 
 little effort to remove them, and with little sense of their 
 evil. They go materially into the formation of the cha- 
 racter as it is seen by God, and as it is ultimately deve- 
 loped before men, but they are often long indulged bcf,>re 
 there is any very decided effort to remove them, or any 
 very deep conviction that they are evil. Most uncon- 
 verted minds are in the habit of indulging in trains of 
 thought which they would by no means be willing that 
 the world should know of, and not a few such thoughts 
 are suffered to pass through the minds of those who are 
 professedly of pure life, which they are anxious to conceal 
 from their fellow-men. Few, indeed, are the hearts that 
 would bear the revolution of its workings for a single day 
 without exciting a blush; and few are the inhabitants of 
 this world, if there are any, who would be willing that 
 their secret views, and thoughts, and plans, for any con- 
 siderable period of their lives, should be laid open before 
 their best friends. 
 
 (3.) Secret faults are those sinful emotions and affec- 
 tions which rise up in the best hearts almost involuntarily, 
 and against which a mind wishing to be pure struggles. 
 They are the operations of a nature deeply depraved. 
 They are the streams that flow forth from the corrupt 
 fountain, the heart. They are the result of former habits 
 
298 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 of thinking, and of the former course of hfe. There is much 
 in habit, whether for good or evil, which we cannot 
 understand. Essentially we mean by it the facility for 
 doing any thing which results from having often done it ; 
 and when once a man has acquired the habit of sinning, it 
 will follow him and annoy him until contrary habits are 
 formed. A man who has been in the habit of profane- 
 ness, will long after find the words of blasphemy rising in 
 his mind almost involuntarily and irresistibly. He who 
 has been an infidel, will find infidel thoughts and associa- 
 tions torturing his peace for years after he becomes a true 
 Christian. He who has been proud, and irritable, and 
 selfish, and stubborn, and self-confident, and fault-finding, 
 and censorious before his conversion, will find a constant 
 tendency to these sins afterwards, and will detect himself 
 in their indulgence almost before he is aware of it. He 
 who was covetous or avaricious before his conversion, 
 will find the mighty remains of these sins in his heart 
 after he becomes a Christian, and will be subjected to 
 their secret operation, even when his general course of 
 life is that of a man of benevolence. We are beset with 
 two classes of evils — there is the evil of our original bias 
 to transgress — the powerful tendency with which we 
 came into the world ; and there is the evil arising from 
 long indulgence in habits of sin. He who commences 
 the Christian life in youth, will have the least trouble 
 from either of these sources; he who is converted at 
 middle or advanced life must expect a furious warfare 
 that shall cease only at death. 
 
 (4.) Secret faults include those plans of evil which are 
 not prosecuted to their completion. They are formed, 
 and there is an intention of executing them, but the op- 
 portunity does not occur; or some unexpected barrier is 
 thrown in the way ; or the heart fails ; or death breaks 
 up the scheme. Of all the plans of evil that have been 
 formed on earth, but a small proportion have ever been 
 executed; and great as is the aggregate of iniquity, the 
 amount would have been much more vast if all the pur- 
 poses of wickedness had been accomplished as Avas de- 
 sired by their projectors. Bad as the world is, and much 
 occasion as there is to mourn over it, yet but little of the 
 evil that has in fact existed has appeared to any but 
 
SECRET FAULTS. 299 
 
 to the all-seeing eye of God. This is one reason why his 
 estimate of the iiuman character in the Bible, seems to be 
 so much more severe than that which men form. He 
 looks upon the heart ; sees all the unexecuted plans of 
 evil ; knows what man would do if he were unrestrained ; 
 and forms his view of the human character from what he 
 sees in the secret chambers of the soul, and will judge 
 men according to that. 
 
 In speaking of secret faults, I might go on to speak of 
 the crimes that are perpetrated in darkness; of those 
 which escape the eye of the most vigilant police ; of those 
 which have been committed and which are forgotten ; and 
 of those which are perpetrated under the specious name 
 of virtue, and which pass for virtue among men. 13 nt the 
 enumeration already given will furnish an idea of what 
 I mean, and will prepare the way for considering the pro- 
 priety of prayer for deliverance from them in another 
 part of this discourse. I proceed, therefore, to show, 
 
 II. In the second place, some of the ways in which sin 
 is concealed, or in which our faults are hid from detection, 
 so that they remain unknoAvn to. others. 
 
 (1.) I begin with observing that men design to conceal 
 them. A power to hide our purposes is essential to the 
 existence of society, and grows out of its very organi- 
 zation. The body becomes the shield of the soul to guard 
 our plans from the observation of other minds, and to 
 bury our thoughts from the notice of all but the Omniscient 
 Eye. It becomes a right which every man has, to conceal 
 those of his plans in his own bosom which he is unwilling 
 the world should know. This power we hold for good. 
 It is essential often to the accomplishment of our virtuous 
 purposes, which would be defeated if we could not hide 
 them from others ; it is vital to the performance of con- 
 templated deeds of benevolence — for if the wicked could 
 see them they would often defeat them. It constitutes 
 individuality in the midst of society, that we are known 
 only so far as we wish to be known ; and that we may 
 walk among thousands and be the depositories of our own 
 secrets, and keep our individual aims hidden from the 
 world. 
 
 The power of concealment is, therefore, originally an 
 
300 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 arrangement for good. But it may be abused for pur- 
 poses of evil ; and my observation now is, that a large 
 part of the plans of wickedness in this world are concealed 
 of design. There is a course of discipline in vice to accom- 
 plish this, and it is often successful. God has placed in 
 the human frame by nature certain indications of secret 
 guilt ; and he meant that where that guilt existed it should 
 betray itself for the well-being of society. He designed 
 not only that the conscience should check the offender, 
 but he implanted in the frame itself, certain indications 
 of guilt which he intended also to be a safeguard of virtue. 
 The blushing cheek — the mysterious rush of blood there 
 which no man can account for except on the supposition 
 that there is a moral government and a God — he intended 
 should be an hidex of guilt — and in a novice in iniquity 
 it is so. The eye — tremulous, and abashed, and turning 
 away — he intended should betray the secret wickedness 
 of the soul — a fact also which no one can account for 
 except on the supposition that there is a God. The trem- 
 bling frame, the hand palsied by the consciousness of 
 crime when raised to commit a deed of wickedness, he 
 designed should reveal the guilty purpose of the soul. See 
 a brow calm, and an eye serene, and a frame composed, 
 and a hand steady, and a walk erect and firm, and you 
 are struck with the indications of conscious innocence. 
 The reverse indicates guilt. Now, one great art in this 
 world is to obliterate the natural marks of guilt from the 
 human frame, and to counterfeit the indications of inno- 
 cence. The object is so to train the eye that it will not 
 reveal the secret conviction of crime ; so to discipline the 
 cheek that it will betray the guilty by a sudden rush 
 of blood there ; so to fortify the hand and the frame that 
 they will not by trembling disclose the purposes of the 
 soul. One of the first lessons which the guilty attempt 
 to learn is this ; a lesson most difficult, and yet sometimes 
 learned with great skill. That young man when he leaves 
 his father's house to go to the theatre or to the gambling 
 room, or to associate with the vile, begins at once to study 
 how he may control his eye and his cheek, as well as his 
 words, in such a manner that they will not betray him. 
 — Nature would reveal the deed as soon as he comes into 
 the presence of his father or mother, if he would allow 
 
SECRET FAULTS. 301 
 
 her to speak out ; but he wishes to put on the appearance 
 of innocence, and to be able to tell a lie as if it were the 
 truth. That young man when he first pilfers the drawer of 
 his employer, would betray the act the next moment if 
 he were to allow nature to speak out, and did not put the 
 eye and the cheek under discipline that they should not 
 betray him. That man who has commenced a career of 
 fraud and villany ; who abuses his trust, and perverts or 
 abstracts public funds, would betray himself at once if 
 he would allow his nature to speak out. But he drills 
 and disciplines himself, and his eye is calm, and his coun- 
 tenance is taught to be composed, and he speaks and acts 
 as if he were an innocent man, and buries the conscious- 
 ness of the crime deep in the recesses of the soul. Soon 
 the brow is like brass, and the frame is schooled not to 
 betray, and the living indexes of guilt which God had 
 affixed to the body are obliterated, and the conscience is 
 seared, and the whole man has departed from the beauti- 
 ful form which God made, and has become an artificial 
 and a guilty thing. 
 
 Again. The arts of polished and refined life, to a me- 
 lancholy extent, have the same object. They are so 
 arranged as to conceal rancor, and envy, and hatred, and 
 the desire of revenge. They aim not to eradicate them, 
 but to conceal them. I speak, of course, not of all ; not 
 I trust of the principal efforts which are made. I trust 
 there is a much more pure and deviated code of morals 
 among those who belong to the community called ^ the 
 world,' than there once was. Lord Chesterfield, who 
 once gave absolute law to the fashionable world, and 
 who was characterised by Johnson as ' teaching the mo- 
 rals of a Avoman of infamy, and the manners of a dancing- 
 master,' led the way in this system of hypocrisy and 
 deception. He liimself was, not inappropriately, one of 
 the first victims of the system. A favorite young man — 
 an adopted son — to whom he wrote his celebrated letters, 
 and on whom he lavished every possible means of educa- 
 tion, was one of the first to conceal his own ^ secret fault' 
 in the marriage of a woman with whom a connection 
 would have never met with his approbation, and with a 
 sad and betrayed heart he lived to see that no confidence 
 could be placed in his own hollow system. Yet who is 
 
 2Q 
 
302 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 Ignorant that the arts of poUshed Hfe are often assumed 
 for the most base purposes, and that with all that educa- 
 tion can give, and all that accomplishment can furnish, 
 man can ' smile, and smile, and be a villain still ?' It is 
 alleged not seldom that there are hypocrites in the church, 
 and I do not deny that there may be. But there are 
 hypocrites and deceivers elsewhere than in the church, 
 and there is many a concealed purpose, many a secret 
 fault in the bosoms of those * graced with polished man- 
 ners and fine sense,' who have assumed an outward guise 
 the better to impose on the world. 
 
 (2.) Many secret sins are concealed because there is 
 no opportunity of carrying the purpose into execution. 
 The plan is laid, but some unforeseen occurrence prevents 
 the execution of it, and it is abandoned. In some in- 
 stances it may be cherished for years, and is not abandon- 
 ed until the last hope of carrying it into eifect fails. A 
 man forms a purpose of revenge, and pursues it from 
 year to year, and looks out for an opportunity to gratify 
 it, until all hope fails, and then it is abandoned. Or, hi 
 more cases still, the plan is arrested by death, and the 
 man dies with his wicked scheme unaccomplished. In 
 the aggregate of the sins of this world, the number of 
 unfinished plans of evil is not small ; the number of those 
 who are hurried into eternity with their plans unexecuted 
 is not few, and no man who forms such a plan knows but 
 that he will be hurried away while his scheme of iniquity 
 is just ripening No one knows, in the mysteriousness 
 of sudden deaths, how many a just and merciful God 
 takes away for the very purpose of arresting an unexe- 
 cuted scheme of evil, and of saving the innocent from the 
 wiles of the destroyer. 
 
 (3.) Many faults are secret, because the individual has 
 never been placed in circumstances to develop his cha- 
 racter. He has innate propensities to evil of which he 
 is unconscious, and which would be soon developed if he 
 were placed in a favorable situation to show what he is. 
 No small part of the virtue of this world is the result of 
 circumstances. It is external and artificial. It does not 
 reach and control the heart. It is formed by education ; 
 or it takes its form from the prevalent opinions in society ; 
 or it is a matter of convenience or policy. Beneath it 
 
SECRET FAULTS. 303 
 
 there is latent evil never yet brought out, and corruption 
 which has never been exposed. No one of us knows 
 what we would be if we were so situated in life as to 
 reveal exactly wliat we are. And none of us, therefore, 
 should pride ourselves on our own supposed virtue, nor 
 should we harshly judge our guilty fellows. They may 
 have shown what they are ; we may have a nature quite 
 as corrupt as they, and yet while they have wrecked cha- 
 racter, and hope, and peace by their vices, we may be 
 congratulating ourselves on our own purity, and priding 
 ourselves on our integrity. ^' Let him that thinketh he 
 standeth, take heed lest he fall." 
 
 (4.) Connected with this we may observe, t?iat the re- 
 straints of society conceal many a fault, and hide it from 
 public view. The germ of the evil exists ; and when a 
 favorable opportunity presents itself, it is manifested. 
 The restraints around a young man in a refined family or 
 neighborhood, often guard him. The authority of a 
 father ; the mild influence of a motiier ; the society of a 
 sister, or the courtesies of life in the society in which he 
 moves, preserve him. In a distant city, or in a foreign 
 land, how different the fact in regard to him ! There the 
 tendency of the heart is developed, and in scenes of 
 amusement and sin the restraints of morality and of reli- 
 gion he alike disregarded and renounced. 
 
 Such are some of the ways in which the faults of the 
 soul are concealed. Who is there that is not conscious 
 that he has himself such secret faults ? Who is there that 
 has not been training himself, though perhaps uncon- 
 sciously, to conceal them ? Who is there that has not feel- 
 ings and plans that he is not willing to disclose — not 
 merely because he believes that another one has not a 
 right to break in upon the secresy of his own feelings 
 and views, but because he knows they are wrong ? If 
 the wish of some of the old philosophers that every man 
 should have a glass in his bosom could be realized, how 
 few would venture out in the streets at noonday ! What 
 confusion, and blushes, and attempts at concealment would 
 it produce in any promiscuous assembly ! How would 
 the busy world seek the shades of night, and our houses 
 be dens where we would seek to hide ourselves ! There 
 is not a man among us that would be willing to have his 
 
304 PRACTICAL SEKMONS. 
 
 thoughts for a smgle week — the purest week of his Vife — 
 written down and read to an assembly like this. For the 
 truth of this, I appeal to every man's own consciousness. 
 And if this be truth, then what is the human heart ! 
 What is man ! And with what propriety may each one 
 urge the prayer of the text, and say, " Cleanse thou me 
 from secret faults." 
 
 III. I proceed, in the third and last place, to state some 
 reasons why we should pray to be delivered from secret 
 faults. I remark, 
 
 (1.) We should do it because we specially need the 
 grace of God to overcome thern. 1 presume most of us 
 who have made the attempt to subdue the inborn pro- 
 pensities of our nature to evil, have become entirely 
 satisfied of our impotency in such an undertaking. Our 
 external conduct we can better guard and secure. The 
 restraints of education, of our professions, and of society, 
 aid us much. Our calling may lead us into the circles of 
 the refined and the pure ; our profession may be such as 
 shall constrain us to act on the principles of honesty and 
 honor ; our whole success in life may be dependent on 
 our external probity and consistency. To foil into open 
 sin, in such circumstances, is rare ; and the prospect of it 
 is not so great as seriously to alarm a virtuous mind. I 
 beheve, indeed, that it is only by the grace of God that 
 we can be kept in the paths of external morality^ and 
 I put no great confidence in that untried and untempted 
 virtue which is confident of a power to stand by itself; 
 but still there arc helps for the promotion of that virtue 
 in the very frame-work of a well-organized society, on 
 which we may place some reliance. But what protec- 
 tion against secret sins is there around the human 
 heart ? Who knows it so well that he can guard tbe 
 approaches to it ? Who can so well describe or under- 
 stand the delicate laws of its associations as to be able 
 to defend it from unholy thoughts ? Wlio can arrest the 
 passage of that flitting unholy thought that comes from 
 you know not where, and is brought you know not how, 
 and that, however brief may be its stay, always leaves 
 pollution behind it ? Who can safely analyze the laws 
 of his own mind in regard to evil, and arrest and hold the 
 train of polluted images long enough to know how to 
 
SECRET FAULTS. 305 
 
 guard against them in future, without danger of finding 
 a guilty pleasure in the contemplation, and desiring to 
 retain them ? Who can arrest that tide of evil recollec- 
 tions that comes pouring like a flood into a man's bosom 
 from the remembrances of his past life ? Who can of him- 
 self break the subtle chain of associated evil thoughts, or 
 by an act of volition make a polluted mind pure ? And 
 who — for I believe there is, and was, and is to be such 
 an agency — who can foresee the approach of the great 
 tempter, and shut up the avenue? of the heart against him, 
 and make his fiery darts rebound ? It is not in feeble hu- 
 man nature to be successful alone in this warfare, and he 
 who has but once made the experiment, will feel the pro- 
 priety of applying to God to help him. More distressed 
 and troubled by far at these secret faults than at the danger 
 of external derilection from duty ; more downcast and sad 
 at the triumph which sin gets over him than from losses 
 of property or health ; more anxious for purity of heart 
 than for gold, yea, than much fine gold, he will feel the 
 necessity of looking to the Great Source of purity and 
 strength for aid. For often the sadness on a man's coun- 
 tenance is not from losses and the cares of this life ; not 
 from the death of friends, or failure of business ; it is 
 from this internal war — this heavy load — these fiery ar- 
 rows — these secret faults — these unholy imaginings — 
 these distressing inroads made by intruding plans of evil 
 on his peace. ' what would not I give,' may express 
 the language of not a few, ^ for one day of perfect purity 
 — one day without an improper emotion, or an unholy 
 feeling — one day when 1 should think, and speak, and 
 act just as I ought to — one day like that of an angel ; — 
 like a day of the life of Jesus ; like the passing moments 
 of the ever-blessed God. For such a day of purity I 
 would part with all earth's gilded baubles, and sacrifice 
 the most brilliant schemes that this world can furnish. 
 How sweet would sleep be at the close of such a day ! 
 How blessed to live — to awake again to repeat it, and 
 to walk with God in perfect holiness. come that 
 blessed day when my heart shall be thus pure ; and when 
 I shall sigh no more at night over the recollected errors 
 and secret faults of the day, and when I shall feel that 
 my easily-besetting sins shall torture my bosom no more !' 
 
 26* 
 
306 PRACTICAL SEIIMONS. 
 
 (2.) Such secret faults are peculiarly offensive to God, 
 and we should, therefore, pray to be cleansed from them. 
 The guilt of the wicked plan is not annihilated or dimi- 
 nished in the view of the Searcher of hearts, because he 
 chooses to arrest it by his own Providence, or because he 
 never allows the sinner the opportunity of accomplishing 
 it. Indeed the guilt of a long-cherished plan of evil, 
 though it is never executed, may be much greater in his 
 sight than an outbreaking of sudden passion, or a sudden 
 yielding to temptation. Many an open act of sin is mo- 
 mentary, and then is over. Wrath kindles in the eye, 
 and then as soon dies away. It is the passion of one, 
 
 " That carries anger, as the flint bears lire, 
 Which much enforced, shows a hasty spark, 
 And straight is cold again." 
 
 But the plan of revenge, the proud and obstinate 
 temper, the purposes of infamy, may be long cherished, 
 and will constitute in fact the real character of the man. 
 That will be far more hateful in the sight of God than 
 the sudden burst of passion, or the solitary act of intem- 
 perance, or even the deed of blood, for these may be the 
 result of temporary excitement. So of forgotten crime. It 
 has passed away from your recollection. But though the 
 specific act has passed away from your remembrance, yet 
 its effects have not. It left a withering and a bhghting 
 influence on your soul. You are a less happy man, and 
 a less pure man than you would have been had it not 
 been for the secret fault, though that may have been long 
 since forgotten. As fire that passes through the forest, 
 leaves long desolation when the flame is extinguished, 
 so has been the withering effects of sin on your soul — 
 and God sees that soul scathed and blasted by the in- 
 dwelling of former sinful thoughts and feelings. 
 
 (3.) And I add, finally, that we should pray for this, 
 because if secret faults are indulged, they will sooner or 
 later break out like smothered fires, and the true charac- 
 ter of the heart will be developed. Fires uncap a moun- 
 tain because they have been long accumulating, and can 
 be confined no longer. Streams that flow far under 
 ground, somewhere, though far from the fountain, make 
 their way to the surface. Disease that is long in the 
 
SECRET FAULTS. 307 
 
 system, and that flows round and round in tlie blood, will 
 at some time manifest itself, and so it is with the corrup- 
 tions of the heart. They cannot always be concealed, 
 and God designs that they shall not always be. It is 
 well, under the divine administration, that the true state 
 of the heart should be made manifest, and that it should 
 be seen what man is. Accordingly, few things are more 
 common, than such sudden developments of character, 
 and outbreakings of the secret faults of the soul. We 
 are often shocked by such cases, and our philosophy 
 about man seems to fail, and we are at a loss to account 
 for the instances of sudden depravity that appal the com- 
 munity. A man of fair character, and enjoying universal 
 confidence, becomes suddenly a public defaulter. A cler- 
 gyman is guilty of some crime that shocks the moral sense 
 of mankind. A man of supposed regular habits becomes 
 suddenly intemperate. A man clothed with power, like 
 Arnold, betrays his trust, and attempts to sell his country. 
 A judge on the bench, like Bacon, shocks the world by the 
 undisputed fact that he has been bribed. The community 
 is horror-stricken, and we feel for the moment like dis- 
 trusting every man, and doubting all virtue and all piety, 
 and we are almost led to conclude that all our estimates of 
 human character on which we have heretofore acted are 
 false — and we ask, not improperly, who is safe ? In wliom 
 can we confide ? And we begin to distrust every clergy- 
 man, and every officer, and every man of supposed in- 
 tegrity and good morals in public life, and every judge 
 on the bench. 
 
 But these painful disclosures are not departures from 
 the great principles of human nature. There is a maxnn 
 in law, that no one suddenly becomes eminently vile.* 
 These melancholy lapses into sin are but exponents of 
 the real character of the man ; the regular results of a 
 long course of guilt ; the regular outbreakings of secret 
 faults — like the breaking out of the volcano, or lik'e the 
 tumblhig down of a bowing wall, or the fall of a house 
 that has been long undermined by secret streams. In 
 the case of the clergyman who becomes unprincipled and 
 vile ; who shocks our moral sense, and degrades himself 
 
 • Nemo repente turpissimus. 
 
308 TRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 and his high calhng by some pubUc and shameful offence, 
 we are not to suppose that this is a sudden fault or crime. 
 There has been a long previous preparation. There has 
 been a relaxing of the high sense of obligation, and of 
 the sacredness of his calling ; there has been a train of 
 evil thoughts, and unholy imaginings ; there has been an 
 indulgence in guilty wishes, and the rovings of an im- 
 pure eye and imagination ; — there has been a neglect of 
 secret prayer and of communion with God — and God 
 suffers him to fall, not merely to mark his detestation of 
 the open crime, but of the long train of evil thoughts 
 that have led on at length to so painful a catastrophe. 
 The man who has betrayed his trust, and who shocks the 
 community by some stupendous crime as a public de- 
 faulter, we are not to suppose has been led by sudden 
 temptation into the sin, or that the act which now amazes 
 us is a solitary act. Back of that, there has been a series 
 of secret faults that have been accumulating like pent up 
 waters, and that now burst forth in an enormous act of 
 guilt that sweeps away every thing that is valuable in his 
 character, and that is peaceful in his domestic circle. 
 The man who betrays his country, as Arnold sought to 
 do, does not perform such a deed by one act of sudden 
 temptation. Far back in guilty pleasures, in extrava- 
 gance of living, in secret dissatisfaction with his com- 
 mander or his country, in disappointed ambition, envy, 
 malice, or covetousness, is laid the foundation of the 
 enormous crime, and the act of treason is just the expo- 
 nent of the man's secret guilt. And the judge on the 
 bench who disregards the purity of the ermine, and who 
 sells justice for a bribe, does not do this deed alone. It 
 is the result of secret crimes and guilty desires, of a weak- 
 ened sense of honor and obligation, of habitual contem- 
 plation of plans of evil, until the strength of guilt surpasses 
 his sense of honesty and honor, and he falls to rise no 
 more. And so our cherished secret faults will yet mani- 
 fest themselves unless they are checked and removed by 
 the grace of God, and by the blood of the atonement. In 
 a pure heart only are we safe. The indulgence in unholy 
 thoughts, and impure imaginings, and in the contemplation 
 of guilty pleasures, no man, no matter what his rank or 
 standing or external character, is safe. We are safe only 
 
SECRET FAULTS. 309 
 
 when in the smcerity of our hearts, and in the deep con- 
 sciousness of internal corruption and great feebleness, we 
 can Uft our eyes habitually to heaven, and say, " Cleanse 
 us from secret faults, keep us back from presumptuous 
 
 REMARKS. 
 
 (1.) Who can understand his errors ? Who knows wliat 
 man is? Who knows himself ? We look upon the fair 
 exterior, the polished manners, but who knows what is 
 in the heart ? A man of forty feels that he knows much 
 less of himself than he supposed he did at twenty ; and 
 increasing years only serve to astonish him with the great 
 deep of depravity in the human soul. His own heart is 
 more and more an enigma ; and his observation of his 
 own feelings teach him more and more to distrust him- 
 self. We look on men high in office and in public confi- 
 dence, we see them on an eminence, and a halo of glory 
 seems to be around their heads, and then we see them 
 suddenly fall into irretrievable ignominy, and we instinc- 
 tively ask, who is safe ? Who is next to fall ? Who can 
 be safely and wholly trusted? We weep over their fall. 
 Let the effect be to lead us more and more to distrust 
 ourselves, and to put our trust in God. 
 
 (2.) We should be humble. The fall of others, and 
 our own conscious sinfulness; our deeds of forgotten 
 guilt and our half-executed plans of evil, should make us 
 humble. " Oh, why should mortal man be proud V^ 
 
 'Follies and crimes, a countless sum, 
 Are crowded in life's little span; 
 How ill, alas, does pride become 
 That erring, guilty creature, man !" 
 
 Our career has done but little to lift us up Avith pride 
 in its recollection ; and our own course of life should 
 produce any other feeling than self-congratulation in the 
 retrospect. 
 
 (3.) We have much to dread at the revelations of the 
 day of judgment. Those secret faults of the sinner wiU 
 be brought out to noon-day then. God will bring every 
 secret thing into judgment. You have labored long and 
 hard to conceal your purposes. You have supposed that 
 
310 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 the darkness of night might hide them. You have con- 
 gratulated yourself in the belief that they were unknown 
 by the world. But there has been one eye upon you and 
 your sins — one eye that has never been turned av/ay by 
 day or by night ; and there has been a book of record where 
 every word, and thought, and feeling has been written 
 down ; and there is one mind that remembers all. Sinner^ 
 for every evil thought, for every impure desire, for every 
 deed of darkness, for every half-formed plan of evil, you 
 are to give account to God. what a scene will be exhi- 
 bited on the great day of trial ! Who can bear the revela- 
 tions of that day ? Who of you conld bear to have your 
 past lives and feelings all drawn out and exposed in letters 
 of living light to this congregation ? Who is there here 
 that would not call on the mountains to shelter him, and 
 the hills to cover him, at the prospect of such a revelation ? 
 Not one. With no consciousness of sinfulness but such as 
 I believe common to man ; with the recollection of the 
 general aim of my life to do right ; with great occasion for 
 thanksgiving that I have been preserved from the open 
 vices that have ruined so many who began the career of; 
 life with me, yet I confess to you, that if there is any thing 
 that I should more than all other things dread, it would be 
 that the record of all my thoughts and feelings should be 
 exhibited to the assembled universe in the last day. 
 That the universe would acquiesce in my condemna- 
 tion on such a revelation, I have no manner of doubt. 
 And if there is any one thing for which I desire to give 
 unfeigned thanks more than others, it is that through the 
 blood of Christ, those sins may be blotted out ; and that 
 through the infinite mercy of God the secret sins of which 
 I am conscious, may never — no never — be disclosed to 
 assembled worlds. 
 
SERMON XXI. 
 
 PREPARATION TO MEET GOD. 
 Amos iv. 12. Prepare to meet thy God. 
 
 From these impressive and solemn words, I propose to 
 give an answer to the following enquiries : 
 
 I. To whom may the command be considered as ad- 
 dressed ? 
 
 II. Why should a preparation be made to meet God? 
 
 III. In what way are we to prepare for it ? and 
 
 IV. When should it be done ? 
 
 I. To whom may the command be considered as ad- 
 dressed ? The general answer to this enquiry is obvious. 
 It is to be regarded as addressed to all those who have 
 made no preparation for meeting God ; I mean those who 
 have never made this a specific and settled part of their 
 plans, or who have not devoted their attention to it so 
 as to have that done which is needful to be done. Tliis 
 class comprises a large portion of the human family ; a 
 large portion of those to whom the gospel is preached. 
 The idea is, that they have done nothing which can be 
 considered as having been performed with reference 
 to the future interview with their final Judge. They 
 have done many things — and done them very well — with 
 reference to other matters, but they have done nothing 
 with a distinct desire and intention to be prepared to 
 stand at his bar. 
 
 This general description comprises several classes who 
 may be regarded as especially addressed. 
 
 (1.) Those who have designedly crowded the whole 
 subject from their minds, and who have been unwilling 
 to bestow any thought on it as a personal matter. They 
 may have listened respectfully to the preaching of the 
 gospel ; or they may have bestowed some attention on 
 religion as a speculative enquiry, but they have inten- 
 tionally resisted all its appeals to them personally. When- 
 ever they have reasoned or conversed on the subject of 
 
 311 
 
312 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 religion, it has been with an intention that it should make 
 no persona] impression on them. They have never allow- 
 ed the warnings and appeals of truth to have any direct 
 bearing on themselves ; nor in the whole course of their 
 hves have they ever done one thing with a distinct and 
 simple intention to be prepared to meet God. They 
 have done nothing which cannot be accounted for on 
 some other supposition, and they are conscious that they 
 have never spent one lialf hour in their lives in doing any 
 thing with a sole desire to be prepared to meet their 
 Maker. 
 
 (2.) This description embraces also tliose who have 
 deferred the subject with an intention to prepare at a 
 future time. They have some sense of the importance 
 and necessity of making preparation. They see and ad- 
 mit that something more is to be done than has been done. 
 It is not their design that it shall be wholly neglected. 
 But they have deferred doing what is necessary to be 
 done — whatever they may suppose that to be — to a future 
 period ; — one till he shall have finished his education ; 
 another till he shall be more at leisure, and less burdened 
 with cares ; another to a bed of sickness ; another to old 
 age, or the hour of death. Whatever may be the mo- 
 tives which lead them to delay it ; or whatever may be 
 their views of what is necessary to be done, they agree 
 in this, that it is not yet done, and that a preparation is 
 yet to be made. 
 
 (3.) There are embraced in this general class, also, 
 those who have spent their time in preparing for other 
 things, so as to crowd this subject out, though without 
 any specific or settled intention to do so. They have been 
 anxious to get ready for this life, and they have uncon- 
 sciously, almost — or thoughtlessly, at any rate — neglected 
 a preparation for a life to come. At one time they have 
 been occupied in preparing for a journey or a voyage — 
 and then it was crowded from the mind. Or the youth 
 has been fitting for college, or for a profession ; or the 
 young female has been engaged in acquiring skill in 
 music, or solid learning, or preparing to adorn the refined 
 circle ; or the young man has been preparhig to be a 
 merchant, or a mechanic ; and a preparation to meet 
 God has been — not exactly Avith design, but insensibly 
 
PREPARATION TO MEET GOD. 313 
 
 neglected. It has not come before his mind as a matter 
 of distinct enquiry, what is necessary to be prepared to 
 meet God, as it has what is necessary to prepare him to 
 act his part well in Ufe — or if it has, it has been a mo- 
 mentary suggestion, and the solution has been deferred to 
 a future period, and he is now unprepared. 
 
 (4.) The general description embraces, also, those who 
 have given some slight attention to the subject, but who 
 have settled down on that which will in fact constitute 
 no preparation when they come to appear before God. 
 They are relying on some delusive views and hopes ; 
 some erroneous doctrine, or opinions ; some vague, un- 
 settled, and unsubstantial feelings ; something that is dif- 
 ferent from what God has declared to be essential to a 
 preparation to meet him. It is immaterial to my purpose 
 what that may be ; nor will I run the risk of exciting 
 prejudice against what I am yet to say, by attempting to 
 specify what I mean. The general remark is all that is 
 needful here — that it is not every thing which will pre- 
 pare a man to meet God. On some things we should 
 agree — on others we might differ. We should agree that 
 it is not a man's height or color ; not beauty or strength ; 
 not talent or learning ; not wealth or adorning ; not ex- 
 ternal accomplishmeiits or professional eminence ; not 
 splendid mansions or equipage, that constitute a prepara- 
 tion to meet God. We might differ as to the point whe- 
 ther amiableness and honesty ; whether a fair character 
 and a life of integrity; whether, if we do right to men, 
 though we neglect our Maker, some or all of these things 
 would be a sufficient preparation. It is not needful to 
 argue that point here. The general observation will be 
 undisputed — that there is something which is required to 
 prepare us to meet God, and that it is possible that we 
 may be depending on something else rather than on what 
 God demands. If it is not beauty that is required, it is 
 something else ; if it is not wealth, it is something else ; 
 if it is not accomplishment, it is something else ; if it is 
 not amiableness, it is something else ; if it is not external 
 morality, it is something else ; and we may be mistaking 
 that which is not required for that which is. But in such 
 a case it is clear that there would be in fact no preparation 
 to meet God. 
 
 27 
 
314 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 These classes, it will be seen at once, embrace a large 
 portion of the human family. What with those who 
 intentionally crowd the whole subject from the mind, and 
 those who designedly postpone it to a future period, and 
 those who in preparing for other things neglect a pre- 
 paration to meet God, and those who make a false pre- 
 paration — in the church and out of it — no one can doubt 
 that a very large proportion of the community is em- 
 braced. For the most solemn and important moment of 
 existence no preparation is made, and the mass of men 
 live as if it Avere never to occur. The use to be made of 
 this fact belongs to another part of this discourse. I pro- 
 ceed to the 
 
 II. Second point of my discourse — to show why pre- 
 paration should be made to meet God. Why may it not 
 be left without special solicitude as an event where pre- 
 paration would be needless ? The answers to this question 
 will probably at once occur to every reflecting mind ; but 
 though obvious, they are such as in the hurry and bustle 
 of life we are prone to forget, and I will recall some 
 of them to your recollection. They are such as the fol- 
 lowing. 
 
 (1.) Because it is to be our first interview with him, 
 face to face. Here we do not see him. We attempt to 
 trace the proofs of his existence in his w^orks, and look 
 " through nature up^ to nature's God" ; or we listen to 
 his commands and threatenings in his word. But he is 
 imseen still, and the conception is faint and obscure. " No 
 man hath seen him, or can see him and live." We trace 
 along the proofs of his existence in his works from point 
 to point ; but we do not see God. We stretch our eyes 
 over the vast ocean, and see the proof that he is great ; 
 but we do not see God in the distance. We follow the 
 lightning's rapid flash as the clouds are covered with a 
 blaze of light ; but that flash does not enable us, through 
 the openings of the clouds, to see God. We seize the 
 telescope and point it to the heavens, and look on rolling 
 worlds, and penetrate into the unfathomable abyss where 
 no numbers can compute the distance ; but still amidst 
 those distant v/orlds and systems we have not seen God. 
 We close our eyes in prayer, and address the invisible 
 
PREPARATION TO MEET GOD. 315 
 
 and the great God, and attempt to form in our imagina- 
 tions an image of what he is ; but we have not seen him. 
 When we die we shall meet him face to face. It will be 
 the first interview where the veil of flesh and sense will 
 not obscure the vision ; and for such an interview with 
 the Almighty God man should be prepared. 
 
 (2.) We should make preparation because we shall 
 meet him in very solemn circumstances. It will be away 
 from friends ; from the body ; from the familiar scenes 
 with which we have been conversant here. It will be 
 when we shall be alone with God. It will be the next act 
 that shall succeed the solemn act of dying. A man who 
 is to meet God as soon as he dies, should make some pre- 
 paration for it. If he were to meet him on a lonely 
 mountain, like Moses,amidst clouds and tempests— though 
 he had left many friends at the base — as he clambered up 
 its steep ascent, he would feel that he ought to be pre- 
 pared for that solemn interview. How much more when 
 he leaves his friends weeping around his pale, lifeless body; 
 when he travels alone and disembodied, the untrodden, 
 dark way up to God ; when he goes there without a friend 
 or an advocate ; when he goes to come back no more ! 
 
 (3.) We should make preparation because we go there 
 on a very solemn errand. We go there not as idle spec- 
 tators ; not to behold the glory of the divine dwelling 
 and throne ; not as we often travel to other lands to see 
 the works of nature, or the monuments of art ; but we 
 go on the final trial, and with reference to the irreversi- 
 ble doom of the soul. A man who is soon to be put on 
 trial for his life, fe^ls that much must be done with refe- 
 rence to that important day in his existence ; and makes 
 the preparation accordingly. Every thing about the kind 
 of testimony on which he can rely ; every thing in the 
 law, in the character of the judge and of the jury, be- 
 comes to him a matter of moment, and he loolss it all 
 over with most anxious solicitude. He who should have 
 the prospect of such a trial before him, and who should 
 evince the same unconcern on these points which the 
 mass of men do in reference to their trial before God, 
 would be regarded as a fool or a madman. Should we 
 go into his cell and find him engaged in blowing up bub- 
 
316 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 bles, or in some other trifling employment, manifesting 
 the utmost indifference to all that we could say of the 
 character of the judge or jury, or to the importance of 
 being prepared for the arraignment, we should regard 
 him as bereft of the characteristics of a rational being. 
 On the issue of that interview with God depends every 
 thing that is dear to us hereafter. There will not be a 
 moment in all that boundless eternity before us which 
 will not be affected by the results of that day's investiga- 
 tion. To us, it will be the most solemn moment of our 
 existence — a period to be remembered in all the days of 
 our future being — as it should be anticipated with anxious 
 solicitude in all the days that precede it. 
 
 (4.) We should make preparation, because he has 
 solemnly commanded it. With the utmost clearness and 
 solemnity, he has required us to be ready. No part of 
 the Saviour's instructions was more plain and solemn than 
 to make this the first business of life. Every thing else 
 was to give way to it. Not even love to a parent ; not 
 the care of a family ; not the duty of hospitality to friends ; 
 not even attendance on the funeral obsequies of a deceased 
 relative were to interfere with this. First in our affec- 
 tions; first in our efforts, we were to seek God; — and 
 whatever else was neglected, that was not to be deferred 
 for one moment. My friend, you value yourself on the 
 fact that you are not an open violater of the law of God. 
 You do not worship idols ; you do not profane the name 
 of God ; you do not curse father and mother ; you are 
 not a murderer, an adulterer, a thief, a liar. But here is 
 a command as positive, as direct, as solemn, and I add as 
 important as any one of these — a command which you 
 are habitually and of design neglecting. It is not mere 
 counsel or advice ; it is the solemn coTnmand of the Most 
 High, to be ready to meet him, to be prepared to give up 
 your account, to be fitted for the final trial, to settle the 
 great question of the soul's salvation as \}l\q. first thing in 
 life. No one can doi^bt that he meant to be understood 
 as saying that this is his first claim on the heart, and 
 that your first duty is there. 
 
 (5.) We should make preparation to meet him, because 
 when we are brought before him it will be too late to do 
 
PIIEPARATIOX TO MEET GOD. 317 
 
 what is necessary to be done. The path up to the judg- 
 ment-seat is not a way of preparation ; nor at his bar is 
 it a place to prepare for eternity. It is no time to prepare 
 for battle when the enemy is in the camp ; no time to 
 make ready to meet a foe when he has broken open your 
 door. There is such a thing as putting off preparation 
 until it is too late. A man may neglect the care of his 
 health, until it is too late. A student may suffer the pro- 
 per time to prepare for a profession to glide away, until 
 it is too late. A farmer may neglect to ])lough and sow, 
 until it is too late. A man on a rapid stream near a 
 cataract may neglect to make efforts to reach the shore, 
 until it is too late. And so in religion. It is easy to put 
 it off from childhood to youth ; from youth to manhood; 
 from manhood to old age, until it shall be too late. Be- 
 yond that interview with G-od, there is no preparation. 
 Your eternity is not to be made up of a series of successive 
 probations, where, though yon fail in one, you may avail 
 yourself of another. There is but o}ie probation — how 
 short ; how fleeting ; how soon gone ! The shuttle of the 
 weaver flies not swifter ; nor do the shadows move more 
 rapidly over the plain. Each day leaves the number 
 less —and not one of them can be recalled. Life is passed 
 through not to be travelled over again ; and each foot- 
 print is made to be seen by us no more. He that comes 
 after us may track our way nearer and nearer to the beach 
 where the ocean of. eternity rolls ; he may see step after 
 step in the sand — till he comes to the last print, half 
 washed away b)^ the tide, where we plunged into the vast 
 ocean and disappeared forever. Yon go not back again. 
 This day, this hour, you live but once — and this setting 
 sun will have taken one irrecoverably from the allotted 
 days of your probation. I wonder at man. The earth 
 is our place of probation — and it is (/// — literally, abso- 
 lutely cil/. In that probation, if ever, you and I arc to be 
 prepared for that vast eternity on which we enter in a few 
 days. If not prepared then, we are never to be prepared. 
 Point me, fellow-mortal, to the slightest proof whatever, 
 or to the slightest presumption— I will not ask for proof — 
 that another season of probation is to be granted to you 
 beyond the judgment of the great day, and I will never 
 urge this point again. Bnt if there is none, ray dying 
 
318 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 fellow-man, you ought to be prepared to meet God. It is 
 not a thing of privilege, it is a thing of obligation. Yonr 
 conscience, your reason, your sober judgment all respond 
 to the claim which I urge upon you, that yoti should be 
 ready to meet God. You who have adopted it as a set- 
 tled purpose that you will not enter a profession without 
 being prepared for it ; you who will not appear in the 
 gay assembly without hours spent, under skilful hands, at 
 the toilet, that you may be prepared for it, ought to be 
 prepared to appear before God. You ought to have 
 on a brighter than any earthly array ; you ought to have 
 on the garments of salvation — the pure and spotless robes 
 wrought by the " Redeemer's hands and dyed in his 
 blood." Not as you are now, sinful, unforgiven, gay, 
 worldly, thoughtless, ambitious, should you stand before 
 the great and pure Jehovah to receive the sentence which 
 will seal your eternal doom. 
 
 III. I proceed, in the third place, to show what is ne- 
 cessary to be done in order to be prepared to meet God. I 
 shall do this in the fewest words, and in the plainest 
 manner possible. 
 
 I would observe then, that mere bravery or courage is 
 not a preparation to meet God. The soldier meets "the 
 cannon's mouth ; the duellist meets his foe on the field ; 
 the strong man meets danger without shrinking ; the dying 
 man on a bed of pain summons all his strength, and nei- 
 ther trembles nor is alarmed — and bravely dies. Strong 
 in physical courage, his cheek is not blanched with fear, 
 nor do his knees tremble at the approach of danger; and 
 friends and eulogists, patriots and historians, send the 
 brave man to heaven. But I take it, God is not to be 
 met with mere bravery or heroism. It is not physical 
 courage that is to carry the point against the Almighty. 
 The battery may be approached by the brave man ; mur- 
 derer may meet murderer in the field, and look each other 
 in the eye without quailing, but this is not the way in 
 which man is to meet God— face to face, and eye to eye. 
 Nor are courage, and defiance, and the fearless bearing 
 which faces the cannon's mouth, that by which the king- 
 dom of heaven is to be taken. The conquests of Caesar, 
 Alexander, Napoleon, and Nelson stopped far this side 
 
PREPAUATION TO MEET GOD. 319 
 
 the eternal throne ; nor will bravery ever make an inn- 
 pression on the Almighty God. 
 
 Not more is he prepared to meet God who bids defi- 
 ance to death ; who can jest at the dying pang ; who 
 summons all his vigor to maintain his infidel principles to 
 the last, and who secures the eulogium from his friends, 
 ' He died like a man. He shrank not ; he feared not ; he 
 trembled not ; and firm in his principles and integrity, he 
 died like a man.' Like a man, exactly: — a proud, self- 
 confident, sinful man. He has his reward. Some friend 
 will rear a stone over his tomb, or pen a lying obituary 
 notice that assures the world that he has gone to heaven ; 
 and the lying epitaph shall delude hundreds, while his 
 soul shall be in hell. But God is not thus deceived. Nor 
 does forced and unnatural calmness, or miserable stupi- 
 dity at the approach of death, beguile him with the belief 
 that the man proud as Lucifer, though in death, has a 
 claim to an admission to heaven. The indecent jesting 
 of Hume when he died did not move God any more than 
 the ravings and blasphemies of Paine or Voltaire. Nor 
 is a studied insensibility in death the proper preparation 
 to meet God. Insensibility is not what God has any 
 where, either by reason or his word, required. It is no 
 more manly than it is religious, to be insensible at the 
 prospect of appearing at the bar of God. He who can 
 sport on death's brink, and laugh at the idea of being 
 brought on trial before the eternal bar, or cultivate a 
 studied insensibility at the idea of eternity, has no more 
 the spirit of a man than he has of a Christian. It is a place 
 where man ought to feel ; where God meant he should 
 feel ; and where all his nature commands him to feel. 
 
 What is then necessary to prepare us to meet God ? 
 I answer, 
 
 (1.) It is necessary to be reconciled to him. No one 
 is prepared to meet him to whom he is a stranger or a 
 foe. No one can be prepared to meet him who has been 
 at no pains to enquire into his character, or who has 
 never sought to please him. No one can be prepared to 
 meet him who has resisted his claims, and who has during 
 his life put himself into an attitude of hostility to him. 
 The man who has made it a point to resist every impres- 
 sion which God would make on his heart ; to crowd from 
 
320 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 his mind all the appeals which He lias made to him ; to 
 have as little to do with him as possible ; never to think 
 of him if he could avoid it, and, when it could not be 
 avoided, to think of him only as severe, and harsh, and 
 vmjust in his claims, is assuredly not prepared to meet him. 
 Could he avoid it, he never would meet him. Had he 
 his own choice, he would prefer never to think of him 
 again. But in order to meet him in peace, it is needful 
 that the heart be reconciled to him. Enmity must be 
 laid aside. He must be regarded as a friend ; and what- 
 ever there is in the heart of hostiUty to him, or of dissatis- 
 faction with his government and claims ; whatever dispo- 
 sition there is to disregard or oppose him, must be laid 
 aside. No man can be prepared to meet him who in 
 form or in fact, in heart or in public conduct, regards him 
 as an enemy. When we come to stand before God we 
 shall wish to look on hmi as a friend, and not as an 
 Almighty Foe. Hence, with the utmost propriety, the 
 whole of the gospel is regarded as an exhortation to men 
 to be reconciled to God. 2 Cor. v. 19, 20. 
 
 (2.) It is necessary in order to be prepared to meet God, 
 to be born again ; to be renewed by the Holy Ghost. A 
 higher than man — he who is to decide our eternal destiny 
 — has settled this without any ambiguity. " Verily, verily, 
 I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot 
 enter into the kingdom of God." John iii. 3. No matter 
 what else a man may have, imless he has experienced 
 this change, he will be excluded from heaven. It would 
 be impossible to make a statement more explicit, or more 
 alarming to large classes of men. The heart is deceitful. 
 It betrays itself. And it is on this point constantly prac- 
 tising a deception. You do not mean to be regarded as in- 
 fidels — and you are not ; you are not disposed to be ranked 
 with scoffers ; you are not disposed to be the open enemy 
 of any of the doctrines of the Bible ; but Aere there is a 
 constant delusion playing around the heart, and a secret 
 and most withering unbelief of the words of the Saviour. 
 
 * You must be born again,' is the Redeemer's language, ' or 
 you cannot be saved.' Yet the feeling of the heart is, 
 
 * there may be an exception in my case. My character for 
 integrity or amiableness is such that it cannot be indis- 
 
PKEPARATION TO MEET GOD. 321 
 
 pensable for me, and the heart is, unconsciously ahnost, 
 substituting something in place of the new birth. You 
 do not depend on the fact that you have been born again 
 as the evidence that you will be saved. You depend on 
 something else — something which iwyour case will render 
 such a change unnecessary. And when you think of 
 meeting God, it is not with the evidence that the heart 
 has been changed, but with something else that may then 
 answer the purpose, or may be substituted in its stead. 
 
 (3.) There must be true repentance for sin, and true 
 faith hi the Lord Jesus Christ. On this point, no one 
 here will doubt whatare the teachings of the Bible. " He 
 that belie veth and is baptized shall be saA^cd, and he that 
 believed not shall be damned." No declarations can 
 possibly be more explicit than those which occur respect- 
 ing the necessity of repentance and faith. They are 
 addressed to all classes of mankind ; they admit of no 
 exceptions. The man who, in the fair sense of the word, 
 is a true penitent, and has true faith in the Lord Jesus, is 
 prepared to meet God ; the man who is not a penitent, 
 and who has not that faith, is not prepared to meet him. 
 He may be prepared for other things, but he is not pre- 
 pared for that hour when he will stand at his bar. He 
 may be prepared to adorn a profession ; to charm in the 
 social circle ; to preside on a bench of justice ; to occupy 
 an exalted office ; to go as an ambassador to foreign 
 courts ; but he is not prepared to meet his Maker. He 
 may be rich, honored, beloved, talented, learned, but he is 
 not ready to meet God. You may be amiable, accom- 
 plished, admired, flattered, but you are not prepared to 
 meet God. For the truth of this, I plant my foot not on 
 human reasoning or conjecture ; not on philosophy or 
 fancy ; but on the authority of the Bible. 
 
 The sum of what I say is this : To be prepared to 
 meet God, we must comply exactly with what he requires. 
 We must meet his terms. It is not what we would have 
 supposed would constitute a preparation ; it is not Avhat 
 we may fancy will answer the purpose ; it is not Avhat 
 we may choose to substitute in its place. Arsenic will 
 not supply the place of bread in supporting life, or oil 
 the place of water in putting out a fire ; nor will amia- 
 bleness, and accomplishments, and learning, and external 
 
322 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 morality supply the place of what God requires. You 
 can find no substitute for reconciliation with God. You 
 can find no declaration that you may be saved by mo- 
 rality, or amiableness, or integrity, and that / must be 
 saved by faith in the Lord Jesus. You can find no evi- 
 dence that you may be saved by an upright life, and by 
 your rank in society, and the poor and the down-trodden 
 only by faith in the Lord Jesus. God makes no such 
 distinctions among mankind. There are no such classes 
 and grades in his kingdom. There are no royal paths to 
 heaven. There are but two classes of people on earth — 
 the righteous and the wicked. There are but two paths 
 that mortals travel — the way to heaven and the way to 
 hell. There are but two places at the judgment bar — 
 the right and the left hand of the Judge. There are but 
 two worlds beyond — heaven and hell — one the abode of 
 the penitent and believing — the other of the impenitent 
 and the unbelieving. There are no Elysian fields — where 
 the proud, the gay, the fashionable, the impenitent may 
 dwell — fields of fancy, of amusement, of poetry, of the 
 dance and the song — or realms of irreligious literature 
 and science, where those may dwell who do not like to 
 retain God in their knowledge. 
 
 No one ever need to have made any mistake on this 
 point. If any one is ignorant of what is necessary in 
 order to enter heaven, it is his own fault. It is not need- 
 ful that any one should live without hope ; it is not need*- 
 ful that any one should meet God unprepared. So plain 
 is the account of this matter in the Bible that he may run 
 that reads ; and if any man comes to a bed of death un- 
 prepared, he does it with his eyes open. There is not a 
 child here who cannot tellAvhat is needful to be prepared 
 to meet God ; and I am not mentioning any neio thing to 
 you when I remind you that what you are relying on for 
 salvation is not v/hat God requires. Your amiableness 
 is not the love of God. Your morality is not religion. 
 Your accomplishments are not faith in Jesus Christ. Your 
 pride of heart and character ; your dependence on your 
 own righteousness, is not repentance. Your indifference 
 to religion is not the peace resulting from reconciliation 
 with God ; your cultivated stoicism when you think of 
 death, is not the Christian victory over the grave. Phy- 
 
PREPARATION TO MEET GOD. 323 
 
 sical and moral courage ; the bravery which defies death, 
 is not the qualification with which to meet God. 
 
 IV. It remains only to add a remark on the fourth point 
 proposed — the enquiry when we should prepare to meet 
 God.^ You anticipate what I would say. You know 
 what is the requirement in the Bible on that point. You 
 have heard, to painful satiety, the arguments and com- 
 mands which require us to do it now; — to attend to it 
 to-day ; to defer it no longer. You are familiar with the 
 fact tliat the Bible requires it to be done at once ; that it 
 demands that every tiling else should give way for that ; 
 that this day may end your probation, and that there is 
 slender probability that preparation v/ill be made on a 
 dying bed. I might content myself with laying this com- 
 mand across your path — ' Prepare to meet thy God.' I 
 might go to the Bible, and bring appeals and commands 
 almost without number, all pressing the point, 'Prepare 
 to meet thy God.' I might take you to the sinner's death- 
 bed, and describe his ^^Y^w% horrors, and pointing you to 
 that sad scene, say to you, ' Prepare to meet thy God.' I 
 might ask you to recall the cases of sudden death — when 
 the young, the vigorous, and the lovely, die — and pointing 
 you to their solemn warnings, say, '" Prepare to meet thy 
 God.' I might ask you to go and walk among the tombs ; 
 to measure the length of the graves there, to find out whe- 
 ther any die as young as you ; or to recall, as you stand 
 there, the image of some dear departed friend, or the last 
 accents and warnings of a mother, and say to you in that 
 solemn scene, ' Young man, prepare to meet thy God.' Or 
 I might attempt a description of the scenes of the last day 
 — of the rising dead ; of the descending Saviour ; of the 
 throne of judgment ; of the alarm and horror of the sin- 
 ner there ; of the awful doom which awaits him — and, 
 standing by anticipation amidst these solemn scenes, 
 might say, ' Prepare to meet thy God.' I had thought 
 of a different line of remark with which to close my ap- 
 peal. I had thought of making your own sentiments 
 speak out, and of exhibiting the reasoning which is pass- 
 ing through your mind ; and when the command comes, 
 * Prepare to meet God,' I had thought to say to you, as 
 you say to yourself, ' No — do not obey it now. It is 
 doubtful whether it is for you. It is for that miserable 
 
324 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 wretch — the outcast of society. It is for that profane 
 and drunken man. It is for the miserable heathen ; that 
 poor slave ; the weather-beaten seaman ; the prisoner 
 doomed to die ; the profligate young man ; the bold 
 blasphemer. It cannot be for you, so amiable, so up- 
 right, so moral. Regard it not — at least now. Enjoy 
 that party which you have in anticipation; go into that gay 
 circle where God is forgotten ; refuse to be found among 
 the anxious and the troubled, who enquire the way to 
 life. Not for you, so young, so vigorous, so full of hope, 
 so loved, so anxious to please all ; not for you with such 
 a chance of life, and with a character so amiable, can 
 such a command be intended ; not for you certainly now, 
 whatever may be in future years. Enjoy the world. 
 Make much of it. Drive on its pleasures and its gains ; 
 and forget the God that made you, and forget that there 
 is a Saviour that died for you, and that there is a grave, 
 a heaven, a judgment, and an eternity.' But I must not 
 speak so. Ye young of either sex ; ye children, youth, 
 men ; ye amiable, upright, accomplished, moral, there is 
 a grave ; a God ; a heaven ; a hell. I solemnly warn 
 you as a minister of religion — myself soon to die — to be 
 ready for death ; and were it my dying message, would 
 say with the last lisping accents of my lips, < Prepare now 
 to meet thy God ' Let not that sun set, I solemnly con- 
 jure and charge you, in view of the judgment of the great 
 day, without having done something — without having at 
 least once prayed — that you may be prepared to meet 
 God ! 
 
SERMON XXII. 
 
 THE BURDEN OF DUMAH. 
 
 Isa. xxi. 11, 12. The burden of Dumah. He calleth to me out of Seir, 
 Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night] The 
 watchman said, The morning cometh, and also the night. — If ye will en- 
 quire, enquire ye. Return. Come. 
 
 This is a single prophecy ; and a whole prophecy. It 
 has no immediate connection with what precedes, or with 
 what follows in the chapter; and if it were taken out of 
 the place which it now occupies in the Book of Isaiah, 
 and placed in any other part of the Book, or even of the 
 Bible, I do not see but it would be as intelligible as it is 
 now. It is a striking spechnen of the manner of Isaiah 
 Mdien he is full of a subject, and when, as is often the 
 case, the prophetic \vords flow from his mouth not like a 
 gentle and fertilizing stream, but like a torrent that has 
 been obstructed, and that now rushes impetuously over 
 all barriers. It is also a specimen of his manner when he 
 is ironical or sarcastic ; and when he designs to convey 
 some truth of vital interest that shall reach the heart of a 
 taunting enemy of God and his cause. The prophecy is 
 abrupt, concise, enigmatical, obscure. It is probably little 
 understood by most of the readers of this wonderful pro- 
 phet, as it has been by most commentators. Yet, notwith- 
 standing its obscurity, it is seen to be beautiful ; and there 
 arc few readers of tlie Bible who do not wish to under- 
 stand it. It is capable, I think, of an easy explanation ; and 
 is adapted to convey most important instruction alike to 
 the friends and the enemies of God : — to the former, when 
 desponding and disheartened in view of personal trials 
 and calamities, or in view of a persecuted and distracted 
 church, or of a darkened world ; — to the latter, when they 
 are disposed to taunt the friends of God ; to revile them in 
 suffering ; or to ridicule their solicitude for the coming of 
 the kingdom of the Redeemer on earth. 
 
 It is a vital part of the Avork of the ministry to explain 
 28 225 
 
326 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 the Scriptures, and to show not only that the Bible is a 
 book of eminent sublimity, truth, and beauty ; but that it 
 IS adapted to convey most valuable instruction and admo- 
 nition for all classes of mankind. I propose, therefore, to 
 submit an exposition of this very obscure, and yet very 
 striking prophecy ; and in doing it, I shall, 
 
 I. In the first place, endeavor to explain it ; and, 
 
 II. In the second place, exhibit the lessons which it 
 teaches, or apply it to the friends and the foes of God. 
 
 I. In the explanation of the prophecy, it will be neces- 
 sary to go somewhat into detail in an examination of the 
 words and phrases of which it is composed. I will pro- 
 mise, however, that this shall not be tedious or uninterest- 
 ing to those of you who will give me your patient atten- 
 tion. The prophecy is in these words: " The burden of 
 Dumah. He calleth to me out of Seir, Watchman, what 
 of the night? Watchman, what of the night? The 
 watchman said, The morning cometh, and also the night. 
 If ye will enquire, enquire ye. Return. Gome." 
 
 (1.) The word '^ burden,''^ in the text, is a common 
 word in the prophecies, and especially in Isaiah, to denote 
 a prophetic message, or an oracle. It is usually, not 
 always, given to such a message as foretold punishment 
 or calamity ; or such as was painful in its nature and 
 adapted to weigh down the spirits. We have a similar 
 idea in our language, when we speak of bad news as 
 adapted to weigh down the spirits ; or of suffering and 
 calamity that is fitted to oppress the mind. Of this na- 
 ture were many of the messages which the prophets were 
 directed to bear ; — messages predicting judgment and wo ; 
 foretelling the calamities of war, of the pestilence, or of 
 captivity, and portraying ruined temples, cities, and towns, 
 — messages alike painful to him who bare them, and to 
 those to whom they were addressed. Such, I take it, 
 was the message referred to here — a message indicating 
 future calamity represented by the word night — Uhe 
 night cometh ;' — a message oppressive and burdensome 
 to the prophet, and painful to the taunting inhabitants of 
 Dumah. 
 
 (2.) The word " Dumah " in the text, is another name 
 for Idumea, or the land of Edom. This country, settled by 
 the descendants of Esau, the brother of Jacob, stretched 
 
THE BURDEN OF DUMAII. 327 
 
 along on the south of Palestme, and extended as far as 
 the southern extremity of the Dead Sea, and by conquest 
 subsequently, far hito the land of Moab. It is now a vast 
 desert, travelled by wandering Arabs, and alike undistin- 
 guished for agriculture or commerce. Its capital was in 
 Blount Seir — a mountain range laying south of the Dead 
 Sea, in a plain now called Wady Mousa — or the valley 
 of Moses. This is the Mount Seir referred to in the text ; 
 the place from which one is heard calling to the watch- 
 man, and enquiring respecting the night. The reader of 
 the popular modern travels will be able to identify this 
 place when he is reminded that this is the site of the 
 celebrated city of Petra, so recently discovered and ex- 
 plored, and so fully described by travellers. Its site is a 
 vast hollow in a mountain, with but a single way of 
 access ; its structures now are vast tombs, and temples, 
 and theatres, and palaces cut with infinite toil from the 
 solid rock ; its inhabitants are the dead — and the living 
 are not there, save when a Bedoui chieftain with his 
 tribe passes along, or a lonely traveller spends a night in 
 one of its tombs. 
 
 (3.) Between Dumah or Idumea and the Jews, there 
 had been a long hostility ; a hostility coming down from 
 the strife between Jacob and Esau, and aggravated by 
 all the bitterness of a family quarrel. The hostility was 
 deepened when Moses led the children of Israel to the 
 land of Canaan. The territory of Edom lay between 
 him and Canaan, and he sent messengers to the king of 
 Idumea to ask the privilege of peaceably passing through 
 the land. " Let us pass, I pray thee," was the reason- 
 able request, " through thy country : we will not pass 
 through the fields, or through the vineyards, neither will 
 we drink of the water of the wells : we will go by the 
 king's highway, we will not turn to the right hand nor to 
 the left until we have passed thy borders." Num. xx. 17. 
 This reasonable petition was denied. Moses repeated 
 the request. " We will go," said he, " by the highway ; 
 and if I and my cattle drink of thy water, then will I 
 pay for it ; I will only, without doing any thing else, go 
 through on my feet." Ver. 19. This repeated and re- 
 spectful request was met with as decided hostility, and 
 the armies of Edom were sent to guard the way, and to 
 
32S PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 harrass the Israelites on their march. Edom soon be- 
 came the implacable foe of the Jews. It formed alliances 
 with their enemies ; invaded their land ; rejoiced in their 
 defeats, and triumphed in their calamities. The imme- 
 diate and special event, however, to which there is an in- 
 direct allusion in the text, was the unnatural and wicked 
 exnltation of the Idumeans when the temple at Jerusalem 
 was iired, and the city was destroyed by the Chaldeans. 
 Then, when calamity had come upon the whole Jewish 
 nation, and when all the sympathies of Edom should 
 have been excited in behalf of his much afflicted kins- 
 men, the descendants of Jacob, he joined in the exulting 
 cry of the Chaldeans, and urged them on to the complete 
 destruction of the holy city and the temple. " Remem- 
 ber, d Lord," said the Jews in their captivity, " remem- 
 ber the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem," i. e. 
 in the day when Jerusalem shall be rebuilt, " who said, 
 Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof" Psalm 
 cxxxvh. 7. Its enemies they urged on to the work of 
 deeper destruction. They regarded the ruin as final and 
 complete, and they exulted over desolate Judea, and the 
 captivity of its inhabitants in Babylon. 
 
 (4.) This is the time to which the prophecy in our text 
 refers. It was during the captivity at Babylon, and near 
 its close. The temple was in ruins, and the city and the 
 land were waste. The situation of their once beautiful 
 and much-loved country may be described in the lan- 
 guage of this same prophet uttering the words which the 
 captives would use. " Thy holy cities are a wilderness, 
 Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. Our holy 
 and our beautiful house, where our fathers praised thee, 
 is burnt up with fire, and all our pleasant things are laid 
 waste." Isa. Ixiv. 10, 11. This was the "night" — the 
 long and chilly night referred to in the text ; the night of 
 destruction that had settled upon Judea ; the calamity 
 over which the dweller in Mount Seir was disposed still 
 to exult. 
 
 (5.) At this time, and in this state of things, the pro- 
 phet represents himself in vision as a watchman amidst 
 desolate Jerusalem. It is night ; a long night of calamity 
 and wo. He is stationed there to observe the approach 
 of better times ; the indications of returning day. He is 
 
THE BURDEN OF DUMAH. 329 
 
 looking anxiously to the East — the direction whence hght 
 appears, and whence the exiles would return to their 
 own land. He is watching for the first ray of morning; 
 the first indication of returning prosperity, and of restored 
 peace for long desolated Jerusalem. 
 
 (6.) At this time, and in these circumstances, a voice 
 is heard from Mount Seir, the capital of Idumea. " He," 
 that is, some one, " calleth unto me out of Seir." It is 
 the voice of taunting and reproach breaking on the still- 
 ness and gloom of the night. * Watchman, what of the 
 night ? Watchman, what of the night ? What is the pros- 
 pect ? You have watched long. Is there any sign of 
 day ? Is there any ray in the East indicating the return 
 of better times ? Is your patience still unexhausted, as 
 you watch on during the long night, and amidst the deso- 
 late ruins ?' 
 
 (7.) To this the watchman answers. ' Yes. There is 
 the appearance of day. The morning cometh. There is 
 a ray in the East. I see the prospect of future happier 
 days ; of deliverance from the exile ; of peace and hap- 
 piness restored to the desolate land. I see the exiles re- 
 turn ; the temple rise in its glory ; the city restored to its 
 magnificence ; the land studded with villages and covered 
 with vineyards and with flocks. I see the sun of pros- 
 perity about to rise ; and I see, in the distance, the great 
 Deliverer, as the hght and glory of the world.' < But,' 
 he adds to the taunting Edomite, * I see another thing. 
 I see night coming too. I see times of calamity and deso- 
 lation in the distance. It is not all light ; not all pros- 
 perity for all people. A long, black, chilly night is to 
 come. It will come upon the land of Idumea. That 
 tauntmg, scoffing land ; that land so hostile to the people 
 of God ; that land whose inhabitants cried respecting Je- 
 rusalem, Rase it, rase it to the very foundation, shall be 
 enveloped in night, and covered with desolation. On that 
 proud capital, from which the voice of reproach now 
 comes. Watchman, what of the night? the shades of a 
 long and gloomy night are yet to settle ; a night darker, 
 and more dismal, and of more lengthened shadows than 
 that which has settled upon devoted Jerusalem and Jndea.' 
 < Yet,' adds he, ^ if ye will enquire further, enquire ye. 
 
 28* 
 
330 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 Do it, and you shall obtain information. Return, come. 
 Turn from your taunts and revilings. Come with a hum- 
 ble mind, and even you may partake of the blessings of 
 the light that I see dawning on the darkened land. Even 
 Idumea — the long and bitter foe of God and of his people ; 
 Idumea — taunting and scoffing ; Idumea, now reviling us 
 for the long night of calamity and wo, may partake of 
 the privileges of the pure religion that shall bless the 
 land in the bright day which begins to dawn in the East.' 
 
 Such I take to be the meaning of this brief prophecy. 
 I proceed now, as was proposed, 
 
 II. In the second place to exhibit the lessons which it 
 is fitted to teach, or to make a more particular application 
 of it. The application will be to two classes of men, and 
 it will be found to contain important instruction for those 
 who are, and those who are not, the friends of God. 
 With a statement of these lessons my subject will be 
 closed. 
 
 (1.) We have, in the prophecy before us, an illustra- 
 tion of the conduct of a taunting and a scoffing world ; 
 a world often disposed not to reason^ but to make dey^i- 
 sion of religion ; a world always finding occasions, in 
 some peculiar state of the church, or in some aspect of 
 religion, for the exhibition of irony or scorn. * What of 
 the night, watchman? what of the night?' was the sar- 
 castic and contemptuous language of the bitter foe of 
 Jerusalem, and of the nation that had exulted when it 
 fell. Its ruins ; its desolate temple ; its dilapidated walls ; 
 its grass-grown streets ; its broken-down hedges ; its 
 wasted fields, were the topic of derision. Carmel, once 
 a fold for flocks, and the splendid plain of Esdraelon, now 
 run over with briers and thorns, and the nation in exile 
 in a distant land, and the lonely and pensive Avatchman 
 looking long, as was supposed, in vain for the return of 
 day, furnished then the topic of the taunting enquiry. 
 
 You Avill not forget that in the time of this same exile, 
 the feeliiigs of the pious were tried in a similar manner 
 in Babylon. I use their own pensive and beautiful lan- 
 guage. " By the rivers of Babylon there we sat down ; 
 yea, we wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged 
 our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof For 
 there they that carried us away captive required of us 
 
THE BURDEN OF DUMAH. 331 
 
 a song; and they that wasted us reqnhxd of ns mirth, 
 saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall 
 we sing the Lord's song in a strange land ?" Ps. cxxxvii. 
 1—4. 
 
 •'Along the banks where Babel's current flows, 
 
 The captive bands in deep despondence strayed ; 
 While Zion's fall in sad remembrance rose, 
 
 Her friends, her children mingled with the dead. 
 
 The tuneful harp that once with joy they strung. 
 When praise employed and mirth inspired their lay 
 
 Was now in silence on the willows hung, 
 
 While growing grief prolonged the tedious day. 
 
 Their proud oppressors, to increase their woe, 
 
 With taunting smiles a song of Zion claim ; 
 Bid sacred praise in strains melodious flow, 
 
 While they blaspheme the great Jehovah's name." 
 
 Thus too, when they returned again to their own land, 
 and when they recommenced the building of the city and 
 the temple, they furnished a new topic of derision. " What 
 do these feeble Jews?" said their scoffing foes. "Will 
 they fortify themselves ? Will they revive the stones out 
 of the rubbish which are burnt ? Even that which they 
 build, if a fox go up, he shall even break down their stone 
 wall." Neh. iv. 2. 4. No one can fail to remember also 
 the manner in which the Redeemer of the world Avas met, 
 and the scoffs and jeers which he encountered in his life 
 and at his death. Wlien argument failed, how common 
 was it to taunt and revile him ! When confuted by 
 reason ; when reproved by conscience ; and when losing 
 their own power and popularity, his foes decked him in 
 the cast-off robes of royalty, and twisted a diadem of 
 thorns around his bleeding brow, and placed a reed in his 
 hand, and made him the sport of the multitude. Even 
 when he was on the cross, they reviled and taunted him. 
 " Ah, thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in 
 three days, save thyself and come down from the cross." 
 Who ever before or since reviled a sufferer on a cross? .Who 
 ever ridiculed a man on the gallows ? And where else but 
 in ridiculing religion do men lay aside all the tender and 
 kind feelings of their nature, and insult the miserable, and 
 delight in the anguish of the dying ? I need not remind 
 you that in nearly all ages the calamities, and trials, and 
 
333 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 hopes, and plans, and efforts of the church have been the 
 subject of derision and merriment by the world. The 
 " Nazarenes " was the name by which they were known 
 in ancient times ; and the name of Methodist and Puritan 
 have at different times been used for the same end ; 
 until all such names have been made respectable by the 
 virtues of those to whom they were first applied in scorn. 
 I need not remind you that the Lord's supper has been 
 made the subject of merriment; that the Bible has been 
 travestied by infidels ; that revivals and missions have 
 been the subject of jesting and of scorn ; and that the 
 slender success of the plans of the church for the conver- 
 sion of the world, have all been met with the spirit of the 
 man crying from Ssir, " Watchman, what of the night?" 
 Nor need I remind you of a celebrated prophecy, which 
 has certainly come to pass, whatever may be said of the 
 visions of Isaiah and Ezekiel about Babylon, Tyre, or 
 Egypt, " Afid there shall come in the last days scoffers, 
 walking after their own lusts, and saying where is the 
 promise of his coming ?" 2 Pet. iii. 3, 4. Such scoffers 
 there have been ; such there are ; such there will be ; 
 — and when they are encountered we should not suppose 
 that any strange tiling has happened unto us. 
 
 I do not regard this as an age distinguished by any 
 means, for scoffing or reviling on the subject of religion. 
 It may not be an age as distinguished for profound think- 
 ing as some others that have passed, for men are too 
 active, and too full of enterprize, to sit down in the closet 
 or the cloister for patient and deliberate thought. Still it 
 is an age when the great mass of men, in this land at 
 least, feel and believe that the subject of religion is to be 
 treated respectfully ; that to ridicule the opinions of others 
 is a breach of politeness if of no higher law ; an age too 
 when you can usually get a candid hearing for whatever 
 you have to say in favor of evangelical religion, of revi- 
 vals, and of Christian missions. Scoffers are the excep- 
 tion ; they do not give character to the age. They are 
 the few, not the many ; the few marked by the breach of 
 the common laws of urbanity no less than by the violation 
 of the laws of heaven. 
 
 Yet there are some such : — some who, like the man 
 calling from Mount Seir, are disposed to meet reUgion 
 
THE BURDEN OF DUMAII. 333 
 
 with taunts and reproaches. You may meet such a man 
 occasionally in a stage-coach or a steam-boat — a man as 
 deficient in sound knowledge and good breeding as he is 
 in respect for God ; — for when man loses his respect for 
 his Maker, he at the same time loses his res-pect for all that 
 is commendable and good. You may sometimes meet a 
 young man — bred to better things, and with early oppor- 
 tunities for becoming useful and respected — who lias 
 confounded flippancy with manliness, and mistaken con- 
 tempt for the opinions of the wise and great, for independ- 
 ence of mind — a young man who begins by torturing 
 the feelings of a sister and a mother ; and who ends, as 
 all such young men will, in the contempt and scorn of all 
 that is good, and in the utter wreck of character ; for 
 when a young man has learned to trifle with the feelings 
 of a sister and a mother, there is no step in the descend- 
 ing scale of infamy which he is not prepared to take. 
 
 Lord Shaftesbury, perhaps for the love of parodox, and 
 perhaps to perplex others, held that '•' ridicule is the test 
 of truth ;" and the enemies of religion have not been slow 
 to act on this precious maxim — a maxim that aided Ga- 
 lileo so much in perfecting the telescope, and Newton 
 in discovering the laws of the universe, and Hervey 
 in discovering the circulation of the blood, and which 
 has been just as valuable in religion as it was in those 
 sciences ! It has lived to our time ; and it is accomplish- 
 ing just as much for the welfare of men now as it did 
 m the possession of its noble author. How invaluable a 
 maxim for a man who is travehing to eternity ! How 
 easy it is to settle every question about religion and morals ! 
 How sovereign a specific for turning aside the arrows of the 
 king of terrors, and driving away the chihs of death, and 
 causing the thunders of justice around the throne of God 
 to sleep, is it to sit down and deride them all ! How easy 
 to be saved, if the only condition of salvation is to revile 
 the sorrows, the joys, the hopes, and the plans of the 
 people of God ! 
 
 (2.) We have in the response of the watchmen, " The 
 morning cometh," an illustration of the times of light and 
 prosperity in the church destined to succeed those of ca- 
 lamity. The watchman saw the light in the distant east. 
 He saw the day breaking, and the indications of returning 
 
334 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 morning. This, as has ah'eady been intimated, included 
 probably two things. (I.) He saw, in vision, the exiles 
 returning to their own land ; and, (2.) In the distant future 
 he saw the glory of the church ; its splendor and prosperity 
 after the darkness ; its glorious Dehverer — the Messiah, 
 and the light from his coming spreading over all the na- 
 tions of the earth. Future times of glory should succeed 
 the calamities of the seventy years desolation ; and a 
 brighter dsij than any before was yet to dawn upon the 
 world. 
 
 Let us, without forcing this unnaturally, endeavor to 
 apply it to some similar circumstances. It is not from 
 direct prophetic vision that we shall do it, but by the 
 application of some of the well-understood principles of 
 the Bible. 
 
 We may apply it to the individual Christian in the 
 midst of calamity. To him the morning cometh. " Weep- 
 ing may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morn- 
 ing." Ps. XXX. 5. It is true of every individual Christian 
 that to him, when he is pressed down by calamity and 
 sorrow, the morning cometh. Long he may watch ; and 
 "hope deferred may make the heart sick;" and his faith 
 may be ready to faint, but still it is true that to him brighter 
 times will come, and on him the day-star of hope and 
 salvation will arise. Or even should his trials continue 
 till life shall close, and should night follow night full of 
 gloom, still he sees a light above in heaven. Beyond the 
 confines of all this darkness his eye beholds the beams of 
 eternal day ; a world where the sun never sets, and where 
 light dwells forever around the throne of God. 
 
 " There is a home for weary souls 
 
 By sin and sorrow driven ; 
 When tossed on life's tempestuous shoals, 
 "Where storms arise and ocean rolls, 
 
 And all is drear but heaven. 
 
 There, faith lifts up her cheerful eye, 
 
 To brighter prospects given, 
 And views the tempest passing by, 
 The evening shadows quickly fly 
 
 And all serene in heaven." 
 
 Thus too it is of the church universal. In her darkest 
 hours, it was true that brighter days were to dawn. Tlie 
 
THE BURDEN OF DUMAH. 335 
 
 eye of faith could look forward to future periods when 
 the storms of persecution would subside, and the fires of 
 martyrdom would go out. As in the long desolations of 
 wasted Judea, the watchman could look onward, and see 
 the distant day dawn in the east, so it has always been 
 with a persecuted and afflicted church. The shadows 
 would pass away, and a brighter and purer light would 
 rise upon the benighted world. So it is now. We suffer 
 not indeed the evils of persecution. Our land is not, like 
 Judea, laid waste. Our country is not a wilderness, nor 
 are our temples burned up with fire. But there is often 
 not a httle in the contentions, and strifes ; the ambition, and 
 the crooked policy of portions of the church ; the worldly- 
 mindedness and the inconsistencies of its members, to 
 try the faith of those who love Zion, and to give occasion 
 to the taunt of the scoffer, and the raillery of the profane. 
 So too in the enterprize for the conversion of the world. 
 ' What is the prospect of its conversion ?' asks the scoffer. 
 ^What advance has been made? Who have been re- 
 claimed from Pagan darkness ? What is the character 
 of the converts on heathen ground ? How long will it 
 be ere the world is converted at the rate of the present 
 efforts, and the present success?' — There is an answer to 
 all this. As surely as the * watchman' saw the light in 
 the east rising on desolate Judea, so surely does the eye 
 of faith see the light of salvation rising on a darkened 
 world, and so surely can it be said, ' The morning cometh.' 
 The night of sin is to be succeeded by a long bright day. 
 The shadow of death which for six thousand years has 
 stretched over hill and vale, is to be dissipated by the 
 rising of the Sun of righteousness. Those shadows will 
 roll ofl' from the earth, as you have seen the cloud of dew 
 climb up the mountain side, and waste away as the sun 
 ascended, until all was gone, and his unobstructed beams 
 poured down on the world below. 
 
 There is one thing only that is certain in the future his- 
 tory of this world — its conversion to God and to the true 
 religion ; — and that is as certain as the destruction of 
 Babylon was when Isaiah foretold it ; as the ruin of Tyre 
 was when Ezekiel said it would be a barren rock on which 
 the fisherman should dry his net ; as the desolation of this 
 same Idumea and Petra was when God said by the pro- 
 
336 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 phets, "I will make Mount Seir most desolate, and cut 
 oif from it him that passeth out, and him that returneth ; 
 and I will fill his mountains with his slain men ; in thy 
 hills, and in thy vallies, and in all thy rivers, shall they 
 fall that are slain with the sword. I will make thee per- 
 petual desolations ;" " the cormorant and the hittern shall 
 possess it ; the owl also and the raven shall dwell in it ; 
 and thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and 
 brambles in the fortresses thereof; and it shall be an 
 habitation of dragons, and a court for owls ;" Ezek. xxxv. 
 7 — -9; Isa. xxxiv. 11. 13, 14; as certain as was the de- 
 struction of Jerusalem, when the Lord Jesus, sitting on 
 the brow of the Mount of Olives, and looking down on 
 the devoted city, said, " The days shall come upon thee, 
 that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and 
 compass thee round, and keep thee in on every side, and 
 shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children 
 within thee.^' Luke xix. 43, 44. All this, to the letter, 
 has been fulfilled. With equal clearness God has fore- 
 told the conversion of this whole world to himself. — ■ 
 " From the rising of the sun even unto the going down 
 of the same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles, 
 and in every place incense shall be offered to my name, 
 and a pure offering ; for my name shall be great among 
 the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts." Mai. i. 11. " So 
 shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west, and 
 his glory from the rising of the sun." Isa. lix. 19. "The 
 earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the 
 waters cover the sea." Isa. xi. 9. " And the Gentiles 
 shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy 
 rising. The abundance of the sea shall be converted 
 unto thee, and the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto 
 thee. And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and 
 all kings thy glory, and thou shalt be a crown of glory in 
 the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand 
 of thy God." Isa. Ix. " The wilderness and the soli- 
 tary place shall be glad, and the desert shall rejoice and 
 blossom as the rose. The glory of Lebanon shall be 
 given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon ; they 
 shall see the glory of the Lord and the excellency of our 
 God. And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and 
 come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their 
 
THE BURDEN OF DUMAH. 337 
 
 heads ; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow 
 and sighing shall flee away." Isa. xxxv. The duration 
 of any existing kingdom or dynasty on earth is unknown ; 
 the perpetuhy of any splendid commercial capital is un- 
 known ; the preservation of any existing civil institutions 
 is a point on which no one of the Burkes and the Can- 
 nings of the world, with their almost prophetic sagacity, 
 can reason with certainty; but the conversion of this 
 whole world to God is as fixed as his own throne, and 
 constitutes tiie only landmark that is set up in the 
 future. 
 
 (3.) In like manner we have, in the response of the 
 watchman, an illustration of a third important fact — the 
 night of calamity that is coming on a sinful and scoffing 
 world. ^ The morning cometh — and — also — the night ;' 
 morning, as I understand it, to desolate Jerusalem ; night, 
 long and chilly night, to taunting Petra and Idumea. ' I 
 see,' said the watchman, ' I see not only approaching 
 morning, but also approaching night. I see a bright 
 day dawning on the afflicted people of God, but I see, 
 in the distance, also, the dark shades of night. I see 
 the friends of God returning from exile to their now deso- 
 late land, and a long career of glory and honor before 
 them. But — I see night for their foes; night for their 
 taunting enemies ; night about to settle on Mount Seir 
 and the whole land of Idumea.' And such a night ! 
 What is Petra, the once proud capital of Idumea, now? 
 A city of tombs ; a sepulchre of the dead. True, its 
 theatre and its temples are there engraved in the eternal 
 rock; its dv/elhngs are there, sculptured with all the skill 
 of ancient art. But it is solitary and still. Ages rolled 
 by, when to the civilized and the Christian world its very 
 site was unknown. It was hidden in the towering rocks ; 
 and a night of centuries, unbroken by one ray of civili- 
 zation or prosperity, has rested upon the whole land of 
 Idumea. The foot of the traveller has indeed once more 
 passed through Idumea, and to Petra. The wayfaring 
 man has gone from a Christian land ; and what has he 
 found ? He has found a city of the dead ; a place of 
 tombs ; a desolate capital of a desolate land, as Ezekiel 
 and Isaiah, two thousand five hundred years ago, said it 
 
 29 
 
338 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 would be. He has found no dweller there ; he sees no 
 living human being but the wandering Arab stealing 
 along among the habitations of untenanted Petra, and 
 claiming the desolation as his own. " I would/' said our 
 own countryman, Stephens, when there, " I would that 
 the sceptic could stand, as I did, among the ruins of this 
 city among the rocks, and there open the sacred book, 
 and read the words of the inspired penman, written when 
 this desolate place was one of the greatest cities in the 
 world. I see the scoff arrested, his cheek pale, his lips 
 quivering, and his heart quaking with fear, as the ruined 
 city cries out to him in a voice loud and powerful as that 
 of one risen from the dead ; though he would not believe 
 Moses and the prophets, he believes the hand-writing of 
 God himself in the desolation and eternal ruin around 
 him."* 
 
 Now, in this night of desolation and ruin, we have an 
 illustration of the night that is yet to come on a sinful and 
 scoffing world. What a place of prosperity and splendor 
 — the thoroughfare, the emporium of the commerce of 
 the East — was once that proud city ! To what magnifi- 
 cence did it arise ! Yet what a fall ! What a night ! Thus 
 night is soon to settle on guilty and scoffing man — the 
 night of death. It comes — how chilly ; how gloomy ; 
 how long ! No matter what the pride, and wealth, and 
 talent of the scoffer ; no matter what his rank or his 
 standing ; yet to him the night approaches, and he must 
 die. A few more days of prosperity will end all ; and 
 the tongue of the profane man and of the scoffer will be 
 silent in the grave. Young man, or aged ! If a scoffer ; 
 if a reviler of God ; if a taunter of father, or mother, or 
 sister, for being a Christian ; if a reviler of the church, 
 or of the church's Redeemer, I apprize you that the day of 
 taunting and reviling will soon cease. I apprize you that 
 there will be no raillery or reviling in the grave, or at the 
 bar of God ; and I remind you that it is equally odious 
 and wicked here. Listen, one moment, to an extract 
 from what the leader of modern infidels — shame that the 
 immortal mind has ever acknowledged such a leader — 
 
 ♦ Travels in Arabia, Egypt, &c. vol. ii. 76. 
 
THE BURDEN OF DUMAH. S39 
 
 has called " Solomon's jest-book.'' — " Because I have 
 called, and ye have refused ; I have stretched out my hand, 
 and no man regarded ; but ye have set at nought all my 
 counsel, and would none of my reproof; I also will laugh 
 at your calamity, I will mock when your fear cometh." 
 Prov. i. 24, 25. 
 
 Thus too, a dark night of calamity and storm shall come 
 not only upon the individual scoffer, but upon the whole 
 wicked world. The morning of glory will dawn on the 
 church redeemed ; destruction fearful and awful as in 
 that solemn night when the angel of death went through 
 the tents of Sennacherib, shall come ; and the guilty shall 
 be doomed to wo. On all the wicked the night of de- 
 struction comes, as certainly as destruction impended 
 over Petra,and Babylon, and Tyre, and Jerusalem, when 
 the prophets and the Saviour looked far into future times, 
 and told what they would be. The same prophetic eye 
 has looked on the future doom of guilty man ; and the 
 vsame voice that with such fearful certainty told what 
 Jerusalem would be, has said " All that are in their graves 
 shall hear the voice of the Son of man and shall come 
 forth ; they that have done good to the resurrection of 
 life, and they that have done evil to the resurrection of 
 damnation." The same Spirit of inspiration that indited 
 the prophecy respecting Dumah, has also caused to be 
 recorded these words : " The day of the Lord will come 
 as a thief in the night ; in the which the heavens shall 
 pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt 
 with fervent heat ; the earth also and the works that are 
 therein shall be burned up." 2 Pet. iii. 10. So certain 
 as desolation reigns where once was proud and guilty 
 Babylon ; so certain as Petra is a lonely city of the dead ; 
 so certain as Tyre is a solitary place where the fisherman 
 spreads his net, so sure is it that fire and flame will spread 
 over the hills and vales of the earth, and that final and 
 irremediable destruction from the presence of Jehovah 
 shall come upon the guilty. God said of Dumah, (Isa. 
 xxxiv. 5. 4. 8.) " My sword shall rush as if intoxicated 
 [with wrath] from heaven; behold it shall come down 
 upon Idumea, and upon the people of my curse to judg- 
 ment. And all the hosts of heaven shall be dissolved, 
 and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll ; for 
 
340 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 it is the day of the Lord's vengeance."* So his ven- 
 geance shall come upon a guilty world; and so beneath 
 his uplifted arm the wicked shall die. 
 
 (4.) There remains one other idea on which, in conclu- 
 sion, I may make a remark. The thought occurs in that 
 part of my text, " If ye v/ill enquire, enquire ye ; return ; 
 come.'' Tliat is, if t/ou — the despiser and the scoffer — will 
 enquire in an humble manner; if you will come with 
 proper reverence and respect, and will turn from your 
 sins, it may be done. Light will stream also along your 
 path ; and the sun of prosuerity will ride up your sky, 
 and will pour down his noontide radiance upon you also. 
 The man who ridicules religion ; he v/ho travesties the 
 Bible ; he who makes the new birth, the atonement, and 
 the promise of heaven the subject of merriment ; he who 
 derides the piely of a sister and the solicitude of a mother 
 for his salvation ; he who laughs at the efforts of Christians 
 to convert the world ; and he who makes a mockery of 
 death and the judgment, even he may learn the way to life, 
 and partake of the much-despised blessings of pardon and 
 salvation. If he will forsake the ways of derision ; if he 
 will enquire on this subject in a manner appropriate to its 
 importance ; if v/ith a candid, humble, docile mind, he will 
 approach the oracles of God, light shall break in upon his 
 mind, and the beams of an eternal morning find their way 
 to his heart. " The meek will God guide in judgment, and 
 the meek will he teach his way." But who can instruct 
 a scoffer ? Who can teach that young man who is already 
 too wise to be taught even by the God that made him ? 
 Who can instruct him who is too wise to enquire; him 
 who lives to deride sacred things ; him who lives to make 
 a jest of death and a mockery of the judgment? I pity 
 the scoffer. — I have no deeper compassion for any one 
 of the misguided sons of mortality than I have for that 
 ill-informed and misdirected young man v/ho is too wise 
 to learn where Newton learned, and too proud to bow 
 where Bacon bowed his mighty mind ; — for that unhappy 
 and wretched man — standing over the grave, and near 
 the bar of Almighty God, who lives to make derision of 
 
 * For the propriety of this translation, I may be permitted, perhaps, to 
 refer the reader to my Notes on Isaiah on this place. 
 
THE BURDEN OF DUMAH. 341 
 
 the agony of the Saviour, to mock liis Maker on his 
 throne, and to scotf at the God who keeps him out of 
 hell ! Do I address such an one ? Let me tell you, there 
 is neither wisdom, nor wit, nor talent in this. It secures 
 the approbation of no one whose good opinion is of value. 
 It will secure not your own approbation when you die. 
 It will plant daggers in your dying pillow. Let me re- 
 mind you that life is not lengthened out by a jeer ; that 
 the shades of the chilly night roll on towards you while 
 you laugh ; that to ridicule religion alleviates none of the 
 agonies of dying and the terrors of the judgment seat, and 
 that the flames of hell are not made a thing of nought by 
 a jibe. Let me tell you, in the spirit of my text — that 
 serious, sober, humble, prayerful enquiry on the subject 
 of religion, will conduct to the favor of God and to hea- 
 ven ; — any other spirit leads down to the dark shades of 
 eternal death ! Do you then say to me, * Watchman, 
 what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?' I 
 reply, the morning cometh to the church redeemed ; — the 
 glad morning of deliverance to the afflicted Christian, 
 and the morning of the resurrection and of eternal glory 
 to all who bear the image and the name of the Son of 
 God : — and also night cometh to the scoffing sinner — the 
 chilly night of death — the night of wo eternal to all who 
 deride, despise, or neglect religion. If ye will enquire 
 further, it may be done. Even now return to the Lord 
 with a humble, penitent, and believing heart, and he will 
 be found of you ; and to our God, and he will abundantly 
 pardon. Isa. Iv. 7. 
 
 29* 
 
SERMON XXIII. 
 
 THE HARVEST PAST. 
 
 Jeremiah viii. 20. The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we 
 are not saved. 
 
 Man is placed upon the earth that he may prepare for 
 eternity. His errand in this world is not to gain its 
 wealth, to secure its honors, or to taste its pleasures. 
 He has time enough to prepare well for a boundless 
 existence, but he has none to lose ; he may make each 
 hour send an influence ever onward into the intermi- 
 nable duration before him, but if it is suffered to pass 
 by unimproved it cannot be recalled ; he may make the 
 whole of life a probation, but he can convert no part 
 of eternity into a preparation for what is beyond. As a 
 season of preparation for eternity, life may be regarded 
 as sustaining the same relation which spring and summer 
 do to the harvest. There is a time to plow and sow, and 
 there is an appropriate time for the harvest, and if these 
 are neglected, a gloomy winter sets in when there can be 
 no sowing, and when it will be too late to secure a harvest. 
 There are favorable seasons in life to secure salvation. 
 They are, one after another, fast passing away. When 
 gone they cannot be recalled ; and the favorable influence 
 which might have been secured to bear on our future 
 being is gone forever. We can no more recall it than 
 the farmer can command the sun of spring-time to rise 
 again, or the showers and dews of summer to come down 
 in the dreary winter. The opportunity of salvation will 
 have passed away forever. 
 
 These truths I wish now to illustrate, by employing 
 the text with the same design with which it was first 
 used in reference to the Jews. Ther« teas a time when 
 they might have obtained the favor of God ; a time, 
 when, if they had listened to his voice by the prophets, 
 
 342 
 
THE HARVEST PAST. 343 
 
 their temple, and city, and nation might liave been spared. 
 But it was now too late. That time tiad passed away, 
 and could not be recalled. The forbearance of God was 
 exhausted, and their beautiful house of worship, their 
 city, and their land were to be given up to destruction. 
 
 In illustrating the subject before us, I shall submit to 
 you a series of propositions which will at once command 
 your assent, and which, I trust, will lead to the conclu- 
 sion to which I desire to conduct you, that no time is to 
 be lost in securing the salvation of the soul. 
 
 I. Life is made up of a series of probations. Its 
 various parts are favorable periods for affecting the 
 future. The present may be so used as to be of advan- 
 tage to us hereafter. From the present we may send an 
 influence forward that shall meet us in time to come, and 
 that shall be worth to us there more than all which it 
 cost us. 
 
 These various modes of expressing the thought mean 
 substantially the same thing, and are repeated only that 
 there may be no possibility of misunderstanding the 
 import of the proposition. A few illustrations will make 
 this general truth plain. 
 
 (1.) Life is a probation in regard to the friendship and 
 favor of our fellow- men. We do not at once step into 
 their confidence without a trial. There is no original 
 presumption in regard to our character, our learning, our 
 talents, our capacity for business, which will secure us 
 the confidence of others without trial. There may be no 
 presumption against us except that which always exists 
 in relation to the depraved tendencies of a fallen nature, 
 but there is none in our favor which can be used as 
 capital with which to claim their confidence. Even 
 when there are all the advantages of birth, and blood ; 
 of hereditary honor, patriotism, or talent, the world 
 demands of us evidence that we are worthy of its confi- 
 dence before that confidence is bestowed. The favors 
 which it has to confer, are reserved for those who shall 
 evince in suitable circumstances that they are worthy of 
 the trust, and that they have endowments which will fit 
 them for the performance of the duties to be discharged. 
 It is in this way only that we can secure a reputation for 
 commercial integrity or professional ability ; that we can 
 
344 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 gain an office in the state that may be of value to us, or 
 the friendship of the wise and good ; or that we can lay 
 the foundation for lasting usefulness or fame. Many a 
 man thus toils through a long and weary life to secure by 
 his good conduct something which his fellow-men have 
 to bestow in the shape of honor or office, content at last, 
 if even when gray hairs are thick upon him, he may 
 lay his hand on the prize which has glittered before him 
 in all the journey of life. 
 
 (2.) Especially is this true of the young. Of no young 
 man is it presumed that he is qualified for office, or busi- 
 ness, or friendship, until he has given evidence of such 
 qualification. I have found in my own experience, and 
 as far as my observation has extended, have seen that 
 the world is kindly disposed toward young men, and 
 that there are no interests so dear that men are not will- 
 ing to commit them to their hands when they are satisfied 
 that they are qualified to defend them, and to transmit 
 them to future times. All the blood-bought blessings of 
 Uberty ; all the endowments of colleges and schools ; all 
 the offices of the state, and all the interests of religion and 
 benevolence, they are willing to entrust to the young as 
 soon as they have evidence that those interests will be 
 safe in their hands ; and then, those who have bled, and 
 toiled, and labored hardest for these things, and who 
 have prized them most, will lie calmly down and die ! 
 But they demand evidence that the young are qualified 
 for the trust before it is committed to their hands ; nor 
 will the chairs of the presidents and professors in our 
 seminaries of learning ; nor the seats of senators or 
 judges ; nor the pulpits or the executive offices of the 
 land, be confided to the young until by their lives they 
 have convinced those who hold them at their disposal 
 that they are worthy of the great and momentous trust. 
 
 (3.) The study of a profession, or apprenticeship, is 
 such a probation. It is just a trial to determine whether 
 the young man will be worthy of tlie confidence which he 
 desires, and it will decide the amount of honor or success 
 which the world will give him. The world is keen-eyed 
 in regard to this ; much more so than most young men 
 are aware. There is an eye of public vigilance on every 
 young man from which he cannot escape. The world 
 
THE HARVEST PAST. 345 
 
 watches his movements; learns his character ; marks his 
 defects ; records and remembers his virtues. There is an 
 arrangement in the course of events that will determine 
 his future life in accordance with the character which he 
 has formed, and from which he cannot escape. There is 
 an unseen, but withering influence that attends a young 
 man that is idle, dissipated, or unprincipled, that will go 
 with him, like an evil genius, to distant climes; that will 
 cross oceans with him, and start up to meet him in polar 
 snows or on barren sands; that will stand in his way every 
 where, and that he cannot escape. And there is a happy 
 influence, of more value than the fabled genius of So- 
 crates, whicli will go with every young man, who, by 
 industry and early virtue, has shown himself v/orthy the 
 confidence of mankind, and which will attend him around 
 the world. 
 
 (4.) The whole of this probation for the future often 
 depends on some single action that shall determine the 
 character, and that shall send an influence ever onward. 
 Every thing seems to be concentrated on a single point. 
 A right or a wrong decision then settles every thinar. The 
 moment when in the battle at Waterloo, the Duke of Wel- 
 lington could say, " This will do," decided the fate of the 
 battle, and of kingdoms. A wrong movement just at that 
 point might have changed the condition of the world for 
 centuries. In every man's life there are such periods; and 
 probably in the lives of most men their future course is 
 more certainly determined by one such far-reaching and 
 central decision, than by many actions in other circum- 
 stances. They are those moments when honor, wealth, 
 usefulness, health, and salvation seem all to depend on a 
 single resolution. It seems to be a small matter for a 
 young man to deliberate whether he shall- or shall not 
 partake of a social glass of intoxicating drink with a 
 friend ; and yet on the result of such a deliberation has 
 depended the whole career of many a man. So it may 
 seem a small matter for him to visit a gambling-room, 
 or a theatre once ; or to form a friendship with some 
 well-hitroduced and genteel looking stranger; and yet 
 the whole of his future destiny may depend on the 
 decision of that moment. The reason is this. It is the 
 crisis of the life. It settles a principle. It determines 
 
346 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 whether he will listen to the voice of reason and con- 
 science ; to parental counsel and to God, or whether he 
 is to be under the control of passion and appetite. Every- 
 thing is concentrated on that point — like one of Napo- 
 leon's movements at the bridge of Lodi, or at Austerlitz. 
 If that one point is carried, the whole field may soon be 
 won. In the decision which a young man often makes 
 at that point, there is such a breach made on his virtuous 
 principles ; there is such an array of temptations pouring 
 into the breach — like an army pouring into a city when 
 a breach is made in a wall — that henceforward there is 
 almost no resistance, and the citadel is taken. Of all 
 those Avho have become the victims of intemperance, it 
 would be found, probably, that the mischief was done at 
 some such decisive moment in their lives ; and of those 
 who have lived honored and useful lives, it might also be 
 found that their whole career was determined by some 
 single act of decided resistance to temptation. 
 
 11. My second general remark is, that when a time of 
 probation is passed, it cannot be recalled. If it has been 
 improved aright, the advantages which it conferred in 
 shaping the future life, will abide ; if it has been misim- 
 proved or abused, it will be too late to repair the evil. At 
 no subsequent period can the advantages be secured 
 which might have been secured then. This principle is 
 so plain that it will be admitted to be true without an at- 
 tempt to prove it. An ilhistration or two will prepare us 
 for the use which I intend to make of it. 
 
 A young man is fitting for a profession, or for com- 
 mercial life. If he suff'ers the time usually allotted to 
 such a preparation to pass away in idleness or vice, it 
 will soon be too late to recall his neglected or wasted op- 
 portunities. There are advantages in preparing for a 
 profession in youth, which cannot be secured at a subse- 
 quent period of life. A young man is professedly ac- 
 quiring an education. If he suffers the time of youth to 
 be spent in indolence, the period will soon arrive when 
 it will be too late for him to repair the evil. In the ac- 
 quisition of languages ; in the formation of industrious 
 habits; in cultivating an acquaintance with past event:?, 
 he has opportunities then which can be secured at Jio 
 other time of life. At no future period can he do what 
 
THE HARVEST PAST. 347 
 
 he was fitted to do then, and what ought to have been 
 done then. Whatever opportunities there were then to 
 prepare for the future, are now lost, and it is too late to 
 recall them. The period has passed away, and all that 
 follows must be unavailing regret. We cannot roll the 
 wheels of time backward. We cannot return and travel 
 over the journey anew. We cannot place ourselves in 
 the past where we now see that we missed the way, and 
 direct our steps in tlie right path. Seldom does a man find 
 gray hairs admonishing him that life is soon to end, with- 
 out having occasion to recall many such neglected oppor- 
 tunities ; many abused privileges ; much wasted time and 
 talent, and no small part of the lives of old men is filled 
 with regrets at the remembrance of such abused mercies. 
 It may seem like a digression from my main design, 
 but I cannot here withhold a remark on the amount of 
 abused and wasted talent every where in the world. I 
 advert to it to call the attention of the young to what 
 they may soon have occasion to regret with tears. It is 
 the fact that so much time is squandered, and so many 
 opportunities neglected, where a happy influence might 
 be sent forward to future years, but where preparations 
 are now making only for a harvest of woes. '• What a 
 fool you are, Paley," said a young man in a British 
 university, " to be wasting your time in idleness and dis- 
 sipation. You have talents which might raise you to 
 eminence. I have none ; and it is of no consequence 
 how I act." Paley took the hint, though roughly made, 
 and rose like a clear light, and shed a lustre on the age 
 and the literature of his nation, and England boasts no 
 son of greater acuteness, perhaps none of wider influence 
 than he. Let any one with the recollections of his own 
 wasted hours, and with any just views of the value of 
 time, look over this or any other city or land, and he can- 
 not do it but with emotions of unutterable sorrow. In all 
 our cities, towns, and villages; in even our colleges and 
 schools, there is talent that is now buried, ruined, wasted : 
 that is now, and that is to be in this world and the next 
 a blighting and a curse, that might adorn the bar, the 
 senate, or the pulpit ; that might resist with success the 
 evils of profligacy and infidelity, and that might bear 
 every blessing of science and civilization around the 
 
348 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 globe. From those lips which now give utterance to 
 horrid blasphemy, the gospel " in strains as sweet as an- 
 gels use/' might " whisper peace ;" and those frames 
 now hastening to the dishonored grave of the drunkard, 
 might endure the cold of northern climes, or the heat of 
 Arabian deserts, in diffusing the blessings of civilization 
 and Christianity; and those hands that will soon tremble 
 as if palsied by age under the influence of intoxicating 
 drinks, might make the wilderness and the solitary place 
 glad, and the desert blossom as the rose. All that we 
 would ask to secure the conversion of this whole world 
 to virtue, would be merely the talent that is now prepar- 
 ing to be a blighting and a curse. Soon to that mass of 
 expanding youthful intellect the opportunity of preparing 
 for future usefulness will have passed away ; and it will 
 be too late to prepare to accomplish any thing for the 
 welfare of mankind. I need not pause here to remark on 
 the painful emotions which visit the bosom in the few 
 cases of those who are reformed after a wasted and dissi- 
 pated youth. Cases of such reformation 50?7^e/^??^e.9 occur. 
 A man after the errors and follies of a dissipated early 
 life ; after he has wasted the opportunities which he had 
 to obtain an education ; after all the abused care and 
 anxiety of a parent to prepare him for future usefulness 
 and happiness, sometimes is aroused to see the error and 
 folly of his course. What would he not give to be able 
 to retrace that course, and to live over again that abused 
 and wasted life ! But it is too late. The die is cast for 
 this life — whatever may be the case in regard to the life 
 to come. 
 
 III. The general propositions which I have endeavored 
 to illustrate, are true in a much more important sense in 
 regard to religion. The proposition, as applicable to reli- 
 gion, is, that there are favorable seasons for securing the 
 salvation of the soul, which if suffered to pass away 
 imimproved, cannot be recalled. There are times in the 
 life of each individual which may be regarded as the 
 "summer," or the "harvest," in reference to salvation; 
 and which, if suffered to pass away unimproved, will 
 leave the mind to unavailing regret that it is now too late. 
 The grand purpose, as I have already remarked, for which 
 God has placed us on earth, is to prepare for what is be- 
 
THE HARVEST PAST. 349 
 
 yond the grave. It is not to obtain wealth, or to acquire 
 honor, or to enjoy pleasure here ; it is to prepare for the 
 world beyond. This could be easily shown did my sub- 
 ject call for it, or were it a proposition that would be likely 
 to be disputed. One consideration is enough now. It is, 
 that all the honors, and wealth, and learning, and worldly 
 happiness which man can gain, are wholly dispropor- 
 tionate to the vast powers with which God has endowed 
 us. They leave a "void," an impression which we can 
 never get rid of, that we were made for a higher and nobler 
 purpose. It would be unlike God to create such vast powers 
 for so unworthy ends ; and men must, and will, and should 
 look forward to the retributions of another state. On the 
 same principle, therefore, on which he has made future 
 character and happiness in this life dependent on our con- 
 duct in those seasons which are times of probation, has he 
 made all the eternity of our existence dependent on the 
 conduct of life regarded as a season of probation. And on 
 the same principle on which he has appointed favorable 
 seasons for sowing and reaping, he has appointed favor- 
 able seasons to secure our salvation. For it is no more to 
 be presumed of any man without trial that he is prepared 
 for heaven, than it is that a young man will be a good 
 merchant, lawyer, or physician, without trial. 
 
 There are periods, therefore, which God has appointed 
 as favorable seasons for salvation ; times when there are 
 peculiar advantages for securing religion, and which will 
 not occur again. There are advantages in regard to sal- 
 vation at those periods of life which can be found at no 
 other period ; seasons of favorable influence v^^hich may 
 be called the " summer," and the " harvest time," for be- 
 coming Christians, which can be secured at no other pe- 
 riod of life. If the advantages of such seasons be sufl'ered 
 to pass away unimproved, they cannot be recalled, nor 
 can they be secured at any other period, any more than 
 the youth who has been idle while he should have been 
 preparing for future life, can ever find the same advan- 
 tages again. Let us, at this stage of our remarks, look at 
 some of those seasons. 
 
 Foremost among them is youth — the most favorable 
 time always for becoming a Christian. Then the heart 
 is tender, and the conscience is easily impressed, and the 
 
 30 
 
350 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 mind is more free from cares than at a future period, and 
 there is less difhcultv in breaking away from the world, 
 and usually less dread of the ridicule of others. Then 
 numerous promises in the Bible meet us, assuring us that 
 God loves those that love him, and that they who seek 
 him early shall find him. No peculiar promise is made 
 to man in middle life, or m old age. The time of youth 
 compared with old age has about the same relation to 
 salvation, which spring-time and summer compared with 
 winter, have with reference to a harvest. The chills and 
 frosts of age are about as mifavorable to conversion to 
 God as the frosts and snows of December are to the cul- 
 tivation of the earth. He who suffers the time of youth 
 to pass by intending to become a Christian when he is 
 old, is acting in about the same way in which he would 
 act, who should suffer the genial suns of April, and May, 
 and June to pass by, and should intend to strike his plough 
 in the soil when stern winter throws his icy chains over 
 streams and fields, and when the whole earth has become 
 like a hard rock. The great mass of those who are saved, 
 are converted in early life ; and when that season passes 
 away, it is like the passing away of spring and summer 
 in reference to the harvest. At no future period of life 
 can you find the same advantages for becoming a Chris- 
 tian. You may live many years ; and in future life I do 
 not deny that you may find some advantages for becom- 
 ing religious, and I do not deny that you may then become 
 a Christian. But whatever there was in that season that 
 was peculiarly favorable will return no more, and can be 
 found no where else. And when you have stepped over 
 the limits of youth unconverted, you have gone beyond 
 the most favorable time you can ever have for preparins: 
 for heaven. But suppose that youth is to be all of your 
 life, and you were to die before you reached middle life, 
 what then wUl be your doom .^ 
 
 A season when your mind is awakened to the subject 
 of religion, is such a favorable time for salvation. All 
 persons experience such seasons ; times when there is an 
 unusual unpression of the vanity of the world, of the 
 evil of sin, of the need of a Savioiu*, and of the import- 
 ance of being prepared for heaven. These are times of 
 mercy, when God is speaking to the soul. All men, I 
 
THE HARVEST PAST. 351 
 
 say, experience them. They do not occur, indeed, often 
 in poHtical excitements ; in the pressure of business ; in the 
 struggles of ambition ; or amidst the dense throng that is 
 crowding on for gain or honor. But they occur when 
 those stormy scenes are hilled to repose, or in the inter- 
 vals when the mind is turned away from them ; in the 
 evening, when weary and sad, you come home to the 
 quiet of the family ; in the stillness of the Sabbath, when 
 the thoughts are turned to the world of rest ; in the sanc- 
 tuary, when the words of the gospel drop like the rain, 
 and distil like the dew ; in the moments of calm retro- 
 spection, when a man sits down to think over the past, 
 and when he cannot but think of the life to come ; on the 
 bed of sickness, when he is shut out from the world, and 
 in those moments when he thinks, he scarcely knows 
 why, of the grave, of judgment, of eternity. Those are 
 * summer' suns in regard to salvation. Compared with 
 the agitations and strifes of public life, they are with re- 
 ference to salvation what gentle summer suns are to the 
 husbandman, compared with the storm and tempest 
 when the lightnings flash, and the hail beats down the 
 harvest which he had hoped to reap. And the farmer 
 may as well expect to till his soil, and sow and reap his 
 harvest, when the black cloud rolls up the sky, and the 
 pelting storm drives on, as a man expect to prepare 
 for heaven in the din of business, in political conflicts, 
 and in the struggles of gain and ambition. But all — all 
 that is favorable for salvation, in such serious moments, 
 will soon pass away, and when gone they cannot be re- 
 called. They are favorable moments, sent by a merciful 
 God, to recall you from the world, and to prepare you 
 for heaven. Improved, they are like the summer sun in 
 reference to the harvest. Lost, or neglected, they are like 
 the passing away of spring, when not a furrow has been 
 turned, or a seed sown. 
 
 A revival of religion, in like manner, is a favorable 
 time for securing salvation. There are influences on your 
 heart when others are pressing into the kingdom, which 
 exist at no other period of your hfe. It is a time when 
 there is all the power of the appeal from sympathy ; all 
 the force of the fact that your companions and friends 
 are leaving you for heaven ; when the strong ties of love 
 
352 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 for them draw your mind towards religion ; when all the 
 confidence which you had in them becomes an argument 
 for religion ; and when, most of all, the Holy Spirit 
 makes your heart tender, and speaks with any unusual 
 power to the soul. But such a time, with all its advan- 
 tages, usually soon passes away ; and those advantages 
 for salvation you cannot again create, or recall — any more 
 than you can call up the bloom of spring in the snows of 
 December. 
 
 I might, were there time, go on to say, that there are 
 advantages for becoming a Christian when on a bed of 
 sickness ; or when in a pious family ; or when you fall 
 in with a pious stranger ; or when you are sitting iu the 
 sanctuary; or when some truth powerfully arrests your 
 attention. All these, and all kindred seasons, are the 
 " summer" and the " harvest" of salvation ; and all con- 
 stitute a part of our probation with reference to the world 
 to come. What advantages a youth has for becoming a 
 Christian, who has a pious father and mother ; for whom 
 prayer is daily offered at the family altar, and for whom 
 a parent feels the deepest solicitude that he should be 
 saved ! What advantage a young person has in the Sab- 
 bath-school for becoming a Christian, whose teacher seeks 
 to guide him in the paths of salvation ! — They are " sum- 
 mer" suns in regard to eternal life, and they furnish 
 advantages which can no where else be found. 
 
 But all these will soon, 0, how soon, be gone. Life 
 will soon be all travelled over. Not one of these advan- 
 tages can be recalled. Gone will be every Sabbath ; gone 
 every season of instruction hi the family and the Sabbath- 
 school. You will soon have listened to the last sermon, 
 and the last admonition of a friend. You will soon have 
 passed through the season of youth, and then of middle 
 life, and then of decrepid age. You will soon have felt 
 the last strivings of the Spirit, and witnessed the last 
 revival of religion. You will soon have seen the com- 
 munion administered for the last time, and heard your 
 pastor offer the last prayer for your salvation. Every 
 favorable circumstance for preparing for heaven in youth ; 
 in the Sabbath-school ; in the sanctuary ; in your own 
 feelings, and in the efforts of your friends, will soon have 
 passed away ; and not all the gold of Ophir could buy 
 
THE HARVEST PAST. 353 
 
 their return, even for a moment. The " harvest will 
 have passed, and the summer ended" — whether you are, 
 or are not saved. 
 
 Could man retrace his steps, and repair his follies, life 
 would be a different thing. But the journey of life is 
 like that of a man who is passing through a land full of 
 diamonds and gold, to be traversed but once — and where 
 they diminish hi beauty, in number, and in value, every 
 step he takes. What if he should pass all over that 
 journey and not have gathered a diamond or a particle 
 of gold — amused by the warbling of birds, or led by 
 some * Jack o' lantern' that danced along his path? 
 Thus travels man over the journey of hfe, charmed by 
 some trifle that turns off the mind from its great object, 
 until life is ended, the harvest is past, the summer is 
 ended, and the soul is not saved. The harp, the song 
 and the dance allured the youth ; business and ambition 
 controlled the man ; the love of honor and of gain drove 
 away every serious thought; the Sabbath came and 
 went ; years rolled on, and he has come to the end of the 
 busy, the gay, the unsatisfactory journey, and it is now 
 too late, and he dies without hope. Every favorable 
 influence for salvation has been neglected or abused ; 
 and he goes up the untrodden way to God, saying ' the 
 harvest is passed, the summer is ended, and I am not 
 saved.' 
 
 IV. The unpardoned sinner dies. Let us, in conclu- 
 sion, look a moment at the various classes who will utter 
 this unavailing lamentation, and the reflections of the soul, 
 as it goes unforgiven up to God. 
 
 Such words will be uttered by the aged man who has 
 sufl'ered his long life to pass away without preparation to 
 meet his Judge. He has seen many days. He has spent 
 a long, and perhaps a pleasant "summer" of life. He 
 may have risen high in wealth and honor. He may have 
 been entrusted with important oflices, and have been 
 eminent for talent. He may have gained all that he 
 hoped when he began life, and all that this world can fur- 
 nish to its votaries. He may have been favored with all 
 the means of grace ; nay, he may have been not an inat- 
 tentive hearer of the gospel. But his long life is closing. 
 His summer is ended, and he is not saved. With all 
 
 30* 
 
354 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 that he has gained, he has failed to acquire the one thing 
 which alone now would be useful to him. He has lived 
 to slight the otiers of mercy from year to year, and now 
 as he goes to eternity he can only take up the lamenta- 
 tion, " the harvest is passed, and I am not saved." 
 
 The language of the text will be uttered at last by 
 the man who often resolved to attend to the subject of 
 religion, but who deferred it until it was too late. He 
 was a professed believer in the truth of religion, and he 
 intended to be a Christian. He read much, and thought 
 much, and often resolved to defer it but little longer. At 
 twenty, at thirty, at forty, at fifty years of life he resolved 
 that if he lived a little longer he would become a Christian. 
 When a youth he resolved that he would attend to it, 
 should he become settled in life. He became settled, but 
 was burdened with unexpected cares, and resolved then 
 to seek religion at some future period. At one time he 
 resolved that he would be a Christian should he be 
 afflicted. God laid him on a bed of pain, and he found 
 then, what he had often been told in vain, that a sick- 
 bed was a poor place to prepare to die ; and then he 
 promised in solemn covenant with God that if he were 
 spared he would lead a different life. He was restored, 
 and as before forgot his promise. Life with him has 
 been but little else than a series of unfulfilled resolutions 
 to be a Christian. Every resolution has failed ; and at 
 the end of life, it remains only for him to say, " the sum- 
 mer is ended, and I am not saved." 
 
 These words will be uttered by the thoughtless and 
 the gay. Life to them has been a summer scene in more 
 senses than one. It has been — or they have tried to 
 make it so — ^just what a summer day is to the gaudy 
 insects that you see playing in the rays of the setting sun. 
 It has been just as volatile, as frivolous, as useless. In 
 regard to the great purpose for which God made them 
 immortal, and placed them in the world when his Son 
 died for sin, they have accomplished just as much as 
 the insect does that spends its little day in playing in the 
 sun-beams. At no time could they be persuaded that 
 the gay summer of fashion would pass away ; or that the 
 chill November of retribution would come at last; or 
 that these glittering scenes of life must ever be left ; or 
 
THE HARVEST PAST. 355 
 
 that they had any more important business in Uving than 
 could be found in dress and amusement. But the time 
 has come at last, when all this gaiety and vanity is to be 
 left. The beautiful summer, that seemed so full of flowers 
 and sweet odors, passes away. The sun of life hastens to 
 its setting. The circle of fashion has been visited for the 
 last time ; the theatre has been entered for the last time ; 
 the pleasures of the ball-room have been enjoyed for the 
 last time ; music has poured its last notes on the ear, and 
 the last silvery tones of flattery are dying away, and now 
 has come the serious hour to die. The gay summer is 
 ended, and as the soul leaves the body these disregarded 
 words will come to remembrance, "the harvest is passed, 
 the summer is ended, and I am not saved." 
 
 Thus too it will be with him whose mind was often 
 serious; with him who not seldom witnessed a revival 
 of religion ; with him who was trained in a pious family, 
 and who always meant to be a Christian ; with him who 
 was half convinced, and who began to break ofl" his sins; 
 with him who was admonished by a dying parent to be 
 prepared to meet him in heaven, and who meant to be 
 thus prepared ; with all that vast throng of all ages and 
 characters who are placed on earth to prepare for heaven, 
 who miss the great errand of their being, and who come 
 to the close of life having really done nothing for their 
 salvation. Those opportunities will all soon be gone to 
 return no more. That dying father will speak to you no 
 more ; that departing mother will entreat you no more to 
 be prepared for heaven ; and at the end of all, the lamen- 
 tation will be, ' the summer is ended, and lam not saved. ^ 
 
 With not a few here, it is not improbable, life will close 
 in this manner. When too late you will remember the 
 interesting invitations of the gospel, and your solemn re- 
 solutions. You will remember the sanctuary, the Sabbath, 
 the Sabbath-school teacher, the pastor. You will remem- 
 ber the times when you were serious, and when you were 
 half resolved to be a Christian. You will remember your 
 hfe of gaiety, or vice ; your days when you sought plea- 
 sure, and when for the baubles of this life you jeoparded 
 your soul's salvation. 
 
 At the close of all you will say, ' It is ended, and I am 
 not saved. I have trod life's flowery way, and the jour- 
 
356 PRACTICAL SERMONS. 
 
 iiey is over, and I am not saved. I have visited the house 
 of God, and been entreated to attend to my soul ; but I 
 am now to go there no more, and I am not saved. I 
 have cUmbed the steeps of ambition, and I have sought for 
 honor, and all that struggling is over, and I am not saved. 
 I have mingled in the gay circles of life, and all that is 
 ended, and I am not saved. I have ranged the fields of 
 pleasure, and trod along the flowery streams of life, and 
 my rambles are ended, and I am not saved. I have re- 
 solved, and re-resolved to be a Christian, and all is now 
 over, and I am not saved. I have crossed oceans, and 
 visited other lands, and now am about to embark on the 
 ocean of eternity, and visit an undiscovered country from 
 which I am not to return, but I am not saved. Closed is 
 the summer of life ; ceased is the voice of friendly admo- 
 nition ; gone are my opportunities of salvation ; youth, 
 strength, conviction for sin, the Sabbath, the privileges 
 of the sanctuary, all are passed away, and I am not 
 saved.' 
 
 0, on how many beds of death is this language heard ! 
 0, how many an unpardoned spirit goes up to God, say- 
 ing, ' the harvest is past, the summer is ended, and I am 
 not saved !' What are the sighings of despair but the 
 lamentation, * the harvest is past, the summer is ended, 
 and we are not saved ?' Sinner, the ^ summer' is passing 
 away ; youth is hastening to manhood ; and manhood is 
 hastening to the grave. Sabbaths are hastening away, 
 and privileges are hastening away, and soon, how soon, 
 may your lips on a dying bed take up the lamentation, 
 ^ the harvest is passed, the summer is ended, and I am 
 not saved.' 
 
 THE END. 
 
rinceton Theological Seminary-Speer Library 
 
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