, ~?._e- -4: -—.~ —? Ose -. --- -— ~-~~ —-— ~_ -_ -~ —~~ i~~~~~~~~~ B~~~~~ P ~ ~ -- 77:: ": ~:::~;ijjr~;e,~ 9::s ~i SERMONS AND DISCOURSES BYt THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D., LL.D NOWV COMPLETED BY THE INTRODUCTION OF HIS P OST HU MOU S SERMONS. TWO VOLUMES IN ONE. VOL. I. NEW YORK: ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, No. 530. BROADWAY. 1873. CUONT E N T S SERMON I. ~ ON: THE PATERNAL CHARACTER OF GOD. - If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shal your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?"-MATT. vii. 11. 7 SERMON II. TITE STATE OF THE UNCONVERTED. wAt that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world."-EPIr. ii. 12. 13 SERMON II. THE GOODNESS AND SEVERITY OF GOD " Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God."-ROMANS xi 22... 21 SERMON IV. SALVATION SCARCELY OBTAINED EVEN BY THE RIGHTEOUS. " And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear."-'PETER iv. 18. 29 SERMON V.' ON THE SPIRIT'S STRIVING WITH MAN. " And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man."-GEN. vi. 3... 35 SERMON VI. ON THE NATURE OF THE SIN UNTO DEATH. "There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it." —1 JOHN V. 16.. 43 SERMON VII. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE SABBATH. "If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine owns pleas'ure, nor speaking thine own words; then snalt thou delight thyself in the Lord: and 1 will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth -of the Lord hath spoken it."-ISAIAH lviii. 13, 14... 51 SERMON VIII. THE ADVANTAGES OF A FIXED SABBATH. "Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.-GAL. iv. 10..... 59 SERMON IX.: THE ACCOMMODATING SPIRIT OF CHRISTIAN CIARITY TO THE SCRUPLES OF THE WEAK. "Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world stanldeth, lest I make my brother to offend."-1 CoR. viii. 13..68 IT CONTENTS. SERMON X. ON THE AMUSEMENTS AND COMPANIES OF THE WORLD. "Be ye not unequally yoKed together with unbelievers; for what fellowship hath rihteousness with unrighteousness 7 and what communion hath light with darkness? And wtat concord hath Christ with Belial. or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel 2 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols 3 for ye are the temple of the living God; as,God hatt said, 1 will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, andl they shall be my people."-2 Con. vi. 14-16.. 73 SERMON XI. ON CHRISTIAN CONVERSATION. "Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time. Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man."-CoLosSIANS iv. 5, 6. 84 SERMON XIT. ON CHRISTIAN CASUISTRY. " Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind."-RoM. xiv. 5.... 91 SERMON XIII. OF THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT. "For he that soweth to his flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption, but he that sowetn to the spirit shall of the spirit reap life everlasting."-GAL. vi. 8. 99 SERMON XIV. ON THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED. "For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified."-1 COR. ii. 2...... 109 SERMON XV. DANGER OF NEGLECTING THE GOSPEL. "How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation."-HEB. ii. 3.... 114 SERMON XVI. THE RELATION OF THE LAW TO THE GOSPEL. "For Christ is the end oftihe law for righteousness to every one that believeth."-RoMANS x. 4. "Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience and of faith unfeigned."-1 TiM. i. 5..120 SERMON XVII. ON FAITH AND REPENTANCE. " Testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks, repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ.-AcTs xxI. 21. 126 SERMON XVIII. THE IMMEDIATE REWARD OF OBEDIENCE. " In keeping of them there is great reward.-PsALM xix. 11. 134 SERMON XIX. THE NECESSITY OF A PERSONAL MEETNESS FOR HEAVEN. "Giving thanks unto the Father which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.-CoL. i. 12. 140 SERMON XX. THE CONNECTION BETWEEN SINGLENESS OF AIM AND SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT. "The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.-MATT. vi. 22. 14.4 SERMON XXI. THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. Wllich also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into Heaven T7his same Jesus, which is taken up from you into Heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into Ileaven.-AuTrs i. 11.. 150 CONTENTS. V SERMON XXII. GOD IS LOVE. U God is 1oie.'-JouIN iv. 16...50 SERMON XXIII. FEAR OF TERROR AND FEAR OF REVERENCE. "Pass the time of your sojourning here in fear."-1 PETER i. 17.. 166 SERMON XXIV. IMMORTALITY BROUGHT TO LIGHT BY THE GOSPEL. "Who hath abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light by the gospel,"2 TM i..... 174 SERMON XXV. THE BREVITY OF HUMAN LIFE. "But this I say, brethren, the time is short."-1 COR. vii. 29. 182 SERMON XXVI. THE FAITH OF THE PATRIARCHS. "For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country." —HEB. xi. 14.. 191 SERMON XXVII. ON THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE INCIPIENT DUTIES, AND THE SUBSEQUENT EXPERIENCES OF A CHRISTIAN. "And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high."-LUKE xxiv. 49... 202 SERMON XXVIII. CONNECTION BETWEEN FAITH AND PEACE. "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."-ROMANS V. 1. 209 SERMON XXIX. ON THE ANALOGIES WHICH OBTAIN BETWEEN THE NATURAL AND THE SPIRITUAL HUSBANDRY. " And he said, So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; and should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come." —MARK iv. 26-29. 228 SERMON XXX. ON THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE GOSPEL OFFER. "Good-will toward men."-LuKE ii. 14... 234 SERMON XXXI. ON THE RESPECT DUE TO ANTIQUITY. "Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein."-JEREMIAH Vi. 16. 241 SERMON XXXII. THE EFFECT OF MAN'S WRATH IN THE AGITATION OF RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSIES. "The wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God."-JAMES i. 20... 254 SERMON XXXIII. ON THE.DEATH OF THE REV. DR. ANDREW THOMPSON. "He being dead yet speaketh."-HEB. Xi. 4. X. 265 Vi CONTENTSi SERMON: XXXIV. THE BLESSEDNESS OF CONSIDERING'xfE CASE OF THE POOR.'Blessed is he that considereth the poor; the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble."PSALM xli. 1. 274 SERMON XXXV..... ON PREACHING TO THE COMMON PEOPL'E. "And the common people heard him gladly."-MARK xii. 37... 285 - g - R:SERMON XXXVI.: ON THE SUPERIOR BLESSEDNESS OF THE GIVER TO THAT OF THE RECEIVER. "I have showed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak; and to emember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to reeeive."-ACTs xx. 35. 297 SERMON XXXVII. ON RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS. "And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit tiou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also."-'2 TM. ii. 2.... 309 SERMON XXXVIII.. ON THE HONOUR DUE TO ALL MEN. "Honour all men.-Honour the king."-1 PETER ii. 17...., 318 SERMON XXXIX.. ON:THE MORAL INFLUENCE OF FIDELITY. Not purloining, but showing all good fidelity;- that they may adorn the doctrine of God ouI Saviour in all things."-TITUS ii. 10. 324 SERMON XL. THE:IMPORTANCE OF.CIVIL.GOVERNMENT TO SOCIETY. "'What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one; There is none that understandeth, there is, none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre;; with:their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; Their feet are swift to' shed blood: Destruction and misery are in their ways: And: the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know, that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.' —ROMANS iii. 9- 19.. 336 SERMON XLI. ON THE CONSISTENCY BETWEEN THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER, AND THE UNIFORMITY OF NATURE.," Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days. scoffers, walking after their own lusts,-and saying, Where is the promise of his coming i for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation."-2 PETER iii. 3,4. 352 SERMON XLII.:. HEAVEN A CHARACTER AND NOT A. LOCALITY "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still;. and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still; and he that is holy, let him be holy still."' — RE.. xxii. 11. 362 SERMON XLIII. LIGHT IN DARKNESS. Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness." —PsALM cxii. 4. 369 SERMON XLIV. THE OUTWARD BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE OF GOCD.. 376 POSTHUMOUS SERMONS, SERMON I. DIVINE SUMMARY OF HUMAN DUTY,.... 38 SERMON II. GUILT OF CALUMNY,. 390 SERMON III. THE TROUBLED HEART COMFORTED,...... 397 SERMON IV. FAREWELL DISCOURSE AT CAVERS,..... 401 SERMON V. FAST-DAY SERMON,...... ~. 404 SERMON VI. COURTEOUSNESS,..... 409 SERMON VII, FAST-DAY DISCOURSE,........ 415 SERMON VIIL THE SENTIMENTS SUITABLE TO A COMMUNION SABBATH,..... 419 SERMON IX. ZION REMEMBERED BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON,..... 4'SERMON X. THE LIVING WATER,.... 437 SERMON XI. THE DUTY REQUIRED AND THE STRENGTH IMPARTED$. 456 SERMON XII. THE DOCTRINE OF HUMAN DEPRAVITY,... 466 SERMON XIIL DIVINE MANIFESTATIONS,..... 476 SERMON XIV. DEFENCE OF RELIGIOUS ENTHUSIASM,. 487 SERMON XV. FAREWELL DISCOURSES AT KILMANYT... 495 SERMON XVI. FAREWELL DISCOURSES AT KILMANY,..... 499 VlJU' CONTENTS. SERMON XVII. THE RICTIT FEAR ANDZ IHt RIGHT FAITH,.. 506 SERMON XVIII. SPIRITUAL IDOLATRY,.. 512 SERMON XIX. SAC'RAMENTAL SERMON,... 520 SERMON XX. THE TEMPTATIONS..5.... 27 SERMON XXL THE TEMPTATION,... -533 SERMON XXII. rHE EMBASSY OF RECONCILIATION,. 543 SERMON XXIII. THE CHRISTIAN MINISTRY SECULARIZED,.. 5 52 SERMON XXIV. CHRISTIAN MEEKNESS,..... 561 SERMON XXV. THE SILVER SHRINES,..568 SERMON XXVI. THE FOOLISHNESS OF GOD WISER THAN MEN,.. 575 SERMON XXVII. OUTrES OF MASTERS AND SERVANTS,..... 530 SERMON XXVIII. fFRMON TO THE YOUNG,.......... 586 SERMON XXIX. FAREWELL DISCOURSE AT GLASGOW, ~. 591 SERMON XXX. LRY NOT IN GOD,.........599 SERMON XXXI. ADDRESS TO DR. DUFF,....608 SERMON XXXII. SERMON AT THE OPENING OF FREE ST. JOHN'S, GLASGOW,. 615 SERMON XXXIII. THE AR1TICLES OF THE COVENANT..... 624 SERMION I. On the Paternal Charactcr of God. "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shal your Father,which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?"'IIATTH. Vii. 11. IN our purposed treatment of this verse than that of our pitying Saviour; and we shall advert to some of the general we may be very sure that He who wept doctrine that may be educed from it. at the grave of Lazarus would have I. The first thing to be noticed is the given both His sympathy and His apdesignation of evil, given by our Saviour, proval to this agony of afflicted nature,. to men of whom He nevertheless admits, He would recognize it to be good, to be that they profess a habit and are prompted unquestionably good; and still we have by an affection, both of which are un- to ask, what it was that He saw in those questionably good. It is surely a good parents, who, in the instance at least thiag for one to have a parental fond- which Himself has specified, felt and ness towards his own offspring. We acted in the way that was good, what cannot dispute that there is much of love- that was which could have led Him who liness, in the various guises and manifes- knew what was in man, to denounce tations of this universal instinct of our them in character as evil? nature. We feel as if it had a moral The devotedness of a parent to his beauty, even when we observe it among children, equals, even in every-day life, the inferior animals-and, still more, that which History has recorded to us of when we rise to those more touching the sublimest heroism. For them he and graceful exhibitions of it, which oc- makes the largest surrenders of ease and cur every day in our own species- time and fortune. He will compass sea whether we read it in the delight of a and land in quest of a provision for them mother's eye when she looks around on -and, for their sakes, nerve himself the health and happiness of her chil- against the buffeting of all the elementsdren; or, when disease has entered the at one time adventurously ploughing the household, we read it more unequivo- ocean in their behalf; and, at another, cally still in the agitations and alarms of living for years in the exile and esa mother's tenderness. In the shade as trangement of a foreign clime, with well as in the sunshine of domestic his- nought to soothe him in the midst of his tory, does this affection give proof the fatigues but the imagery of his dear and most conclusive both of its reality and its far distant home. It is the strength of force. And we are not sure if there be this family affection by which the great: not even more of what may be called the society of mankind is upholden, made up picturesque of human virtue, in its darker as it is of families. It is this which nourpassages,-as when the mother plies the ishes them in childhood, which counsels work and the labours of an untired and cares for them in youth, and which watchfulness over her infant's dying bed, even after the perversities or the losses of or pours the flood of now unlocked sen- their manhood welcomes them back sibilities over her infant's early tomb. again to the roof of their nativity, and There never was a heart that could be throws them as before on the yet unless unmoved by such a representation, quelled ar.d unextinguishable kindnes GOD'S PATERNAL CHARACTER. [SERiM of the parents who gave them birth; and or of duteous inclination towards the who, even in the winter frost of their now giver. On looking to this domestic reladeclining years, and perhaps the hard- tionship, it were a libel on humanity to ship of their declining circumstances, affirm, that there is not among parents, still find the love of offspring all alive much of that love and liberality to their and warm in their aged bosoms. It is children which are undoubtedly and most in truth one of the strongest and most beauteously good. But if, on the other enduring of nature's propensities-as hand, if it shall be found of any of these beautiful in its exhibition as it is useful in children, that they can trample all this its exercises; and still the nlystery is un- indulgence under feet, and heedless of resolved, what He, whose discerning eye the hand that sustains them, can forget saw it to be in all men and spoke f: it:as the -claims of a father's tenderness and good, what that was which He saw uni- turn unimpressed away from the earnestversally along with it, and on which:He` ness of a ather's voice, then, as surely as could censure and- stigmatize:: alli men as the first of these exhibitions wvas good, so evil. the second of them is most odiously and For an- answer to this question we: most painfully evil.: might draw aid and illustmration:still from- [ Now we; admit that: the love of pa.the case. of a family. We admit the rents to'ffspring is nearlyuniversal; and' whole truth and tenderness of the paren- Iwe venture not to: affirm' how often or tal affection. It were: in the face of all how seldom it may be, that this inrgti; experience, did we deny either the- real-': tude-6 of-offspring to parents is exempliity or, the strength of those intincive: -fied within the limits of an earthly. regards, which flow. downwards from. a household,: or how often violence is done father's or a mother"'s heart, upon their Ito this relationship in'- several families. Ocwn offspring —and we'just bid you ad.- IBut viewing:creation: as that spacious: vert to the weight of gratitude- which so ousehold'-which is presided over by a rightfully lies on those children who are'universal parent, and peopled by a uni. the objects of them. Surely if the spec-;versa] family-looking to the relation.: tacle of tenderness on the one sidei be so; ship in-' which all the men of our earth: very pleasing, the spectacle of disobedi- stand to their Father who is in heavenence or neglect on the'other is most we affirm, that -there is none exempted oftfnsively revolting.. In. proportion as from the guilt. of:having done most dut: the father lavishes. of his ceaseless and rageous violence to' this relationship, no, untired generosity upon the son,-in that.not one.-The charge which we disproportion do we look with moral antip- tinctly" prefer against'every -son and, athy to the disdain, or the defiance, or daughter of the species is their heedlessthe reckless independence of the son ness of God; or, if they would but exam-. upon the father. Even though he should ine their own hearts and they will find do with his hand the bidding of this his it there, a, cleaving and constant ungodlinatural superior, yet, if he bear in his ness.-The fondest and most unnaturalheart either a cold indifference or a posi- mothers are alike in this-the one differtive distaste to the person and.society of ing wholly-from the other in relation to his own parent, this were enough to con- their own family; but, viewed as mem-: vict him of a moral perversity the most bers of the universal family, each demonstrous and unnatural. We cannot formed by foulest ingratitude to the cornrefuse the undoubted good will which mon parent of them all-not chargeable glows unextinguished, and perhaps un- in? common with the want of love to their extinguishable, in the bosom of the one: own offspring; but in. reference to Him' and all that we ask of you is just to form of whom themselves are the offspring,a right estimate, when'instead of being universally chargeable with the most flamet from the other by reverence and by grant defects both of love and of loyaltygood will back again. it is only responded -not evil it may be, but good, in regard to with contempt,' or with carelessness, or to that instinctive affection -which binds with the -selfish unconcern of one who'them -to'their own little' ones; yet not can ravenously seize upon the. gifts, but good, but glaringly and undeniably evil, without one movement either of grateful in regard to'their distaste and disinclina L.-J GOD'S PATERNAL CHARACTER. 9 tion for God.' Look to them as at the of that great human family, who have head, each of her own household commu- cast off the allegiance of their hearts from nity, and, they have at least one point or Him and have turned every one of them proper'y of good parents. Look to them to his own way? Do you call it nothing as members of that great community, that this stray planet of ours should be whose habitation is the universe, and burdened with a race sunlk in deepest whose head is the creator Of all-and apathy toward God; and, if not lifting they have all the delinquency in their up the cry of positive rebellion, yet losinog spirits of evil children. Our Saviour saw all sense of His kindness in universal the one thing they had and pronounced regardlessness? What'do you think of it to be good, even as when He looked-to man that derived and dependent creature, the young man in the gospel.He loved walkingothrough: life.so- heedlessly and him. But He further sees the one thing so independently of the Creator who they lack, the great master-virtue of every gave hinm birth-receiving from his hand creature- both in heaven and on earth, the inspiration of every breath which he and without which. all other virtue:is draws; but with no habitual aspiring of baseless and perishable; and so they the soul to Him back again-curiously who knew how to- give good gifts uiito fashioned by' the' skill bf that Master their children, are nevertheless evil and Architect'who formed him; yet bearing accursed children themselves.-. it as proudly as if all his parts and all his rThis language is not too stronig for the faculties were his own-nourished from guilt and the turpitude of that: enormiety, his cradle to his'grave by the' gifts of an wherewith humanity is chargeable. Yet all-sustaining Providence; and reckless the majority of our world are all unsus- all' the while of the' giver -who bestows picious. of having ought. so foul'and'so them-sefishly revelling in the midst of enormous about them...They can see a thousand earthly gratifications; but and be impressed. by it as a" great' moral without any rejoicing gratitude to Him delinquency, when a son bears either a who out of the treasury of His own fulscowl upon his countenance, or an. anti-:ness, hath poured them forth in' such luxpathy in his bosom towards his earthly uriance upon:our world-living every thther; and they will even readily admit, h6ur under the guardianship of a God that no constrained obedience bythe hand, whose eye watches him continually; and can atone for the disaffection of the heart' yet with his own eye almost'as continuin a state of hostility and revolt' against: ally averted from'his God —looking the parent who gave him birth. And abroad on a'glorious panorama with: even should there be no positive hostility, heaven's illuminated concave above his yet should the heart be. in a state of head, and around him a.scenerv of smilindifference only, —the indifference you -ing landscapes'; but without the recogniwill observe of a child to that parent, who tion of, that' unseen Benefactor who tended him from. infancy to manhood,- pencilled it With all its beauties, and and' who now feels it the sorest agony of lighted it up with innumerable splendours nature, that he should have brought upa -inhaling fresh delight througlh every family who simply do not care for him- organ of his sentient economy: yet all this neglect merely, even though there his senses. steeped, as it were. in the utter should be no hatred, is enough of itself oblivion of Him who furnished him with to fasten the imtputation of a very foul de- all his various capacities of sensation, and formity on him who is chargeable there- so adapted him to the theatre which he with. Yes! we are capable of feeling occupies, that the air and the water and most vivid indignation, when an earthly the earth and all'the elements of sur-. parent is thus robbed of that moral pro- rounding nature are the ministers of his perty which belongs to him, in the love enjoyment? You know how to denounce and the loyalty of his own offsprin,- the ingratitude of a child'to its earthly and how then can you miss the far more parents-but is there no term in your emphatic application of a principle, the vocabulary of crime or of condemnation very:same in kind, thougnh far more in- for ingratitude like this? And you know tense.in degree, to our Father who is in how to feel for the agony of the parent's Ileaven' What do- you make, we ask, wounded bosom-and is there no force 2 10 GOD'S PATERNAL CHARACTER. [SERM, in the complaining voice of Him who to be good, and yet, wanting as they did saith to us from heaven, "Behold I have that great virtue which links the creature stretched forth my hand and no man to his Creator, He denouncedthemselves regaided?" There is a moral lethargy as evil. that has laid hold of our species; and we This ought to teach, in what terms we feel not the evil of that which in the up- should speak of that undoubted doctrine, per sanctuary is felt to be enormous-the as true in the eye of sound philosophy as guilt of creatures who have disowned it is in the eye of sound faith-the detheir Creator, the deep criminality of a pravity of our nature.-This depravity world that has departed from its God. does not lie in the utter destitution of all You will now perceive how Jesus that is amiable in feeling, or of all that is Christ, while He admitted of mankind useful in the practical and urgent princi. that they possessed one thing that was ples of our nature. It maybe expressed good, even the parental affection, yet IHe by one word. It lies in ungodliness, denounced them in the general as evil. This is the constituting essence of that He had recently come from the place great moral disease under which human. where that, evil was felt in all its enor- ilty labours-a disease however that premity. He had just left heaven, where, vents not humanity from giving forth on the one hand, He witnessed the many beauteous exhibitions, whether it: strength and the warmth of that parental glows at one time with sentiments of affection which radiated from the throne proudest heroism, or melts at another of God upon all His creatures-and He with the sensibilities of a most graceful had now lighted upon earth, where He tenderness. There might be beauty of further witnessed the total heedlessness character even as there is beauty of and ingratitude of creatures back again. colour and form, where there is no reli. Possessing as He did the intelligence and gion. There might be a moral as well the sympathies of that celestial family as a material loveliness, apart from any where He had been, He could not pro- love of God in the heart, or from the nounce otherwise than in our text on the moving efficacy of God's law upon the men whom He visited. The love of par- conduct. There is beauty in the blush ents to children He could not but ap- of a rose, and there is beauty of a higher prove-a virtue which graced the char- character'n the blush that mantles the acter even of God in heaven, and which cheek of modesty-and yet there may be still survivinga the fall of our species in just as little of loyalty to God in the livthe shape of a constitutional instinct, op- Ilng as in the inanimate subject. —It is erated strongly and universally among pleasing td the eye of taste when we bethe families of earth. Yet just in propor- hold the attachment of a mother to her tion that He admired the affection of pa- young, even among the inferior animals. rents, would He abhor-the disaffection of But the same attachment is still more exchildren-the very feelingswhich your- quisitely pleasing, because enhanced to selves have when you look to the earthly us by all the home sympathies of our relationship.-But He looked also to the own felt and familiar nature, when we heavenly relationship-and then He behold a mother of our species lavishinig clearly and immediately saw, that, though her endearments and her smiles upon an the parental love of the one relationship infant family-and still as before, might had in the shape of an instinct remained the rational be as destitute of any inclinaunbroken in our world; yet the filial tion towards God as the irrational loyalty and gratitude of the other rela- creatures-and while we refuse to neither tionship had not survived the moral ruin a most precious affection, we affirm of of our species but in the shape of a prin- both that they are alike dead to the power ciple had totally disappeared. And so or the principle of sacredness. And it is on the one hand when He witnessed the same of many other propensities of among men this strong devotedness of our constitution. There might be the spirit to their offspring, and on the other cordiality that delights in the virtues of hand witnessed as stron-g a defection of good fellowship-there might be the spirit from their God-He both could compassion that urges to the relief of admit that onqe thing which they retained misery —there might be the delicacy that L] aGOD S PATERNAL CHARACTER. would refrain from what is hurtful or and God tells us to love our children, offensive to a neighbour's feelings-there There is an inborn uprightness with mioght be a high-minded integrity, and some in virtue of which they would not truth that would spurn away the tempta- lie, and would not steal; and God bids tions to unworthy artifice-in a word, us to lie not and to steal not. And hence there might be all those native moralities that perplexity of thought, which I am which uphold the economy of an earthl-: now trying to unravel. People delude state, and all those native affections be themselves into the imagination of a certween man and man which shed a plea- tain godliness within them, because they sure and a brightness along the way of do many things the matter of which is his earthly pilgrimage-all this we say the very matter of God's own commandexisting- and in busy play among the ment. The difficulty is to make them members of a terrestrial community be- conceive of two actions which, in respect low, among whom at the same time the of materiel, are altogether the same, that, religious principle was utterly unfelt, and in respect of morale, they may be wholly godliness, that morality which binds earth dissimilar, nay opposite. To refrain from to heaven, was neither recognized nor re- theft in the spirit of high and honourable garded by them. This we deem the feeling, is not the same exhibition with right way to propound the depravity of that of refraining from theft in the spirit our nature-to affirm, as we are fillly of obedience to the law of God. It is the warranted by observation to do, that there same exhibition of conduct, but not of exists in the bosom of unregenerate man character; the same in respect of perno affection or no affinity to God, but not formance, but not in respect of principle. o refuse, that niany are the graces and But thus it is that a man, because of a.nany are the virtues which might harmony in actions which are merely flourish in the bosom even of earth's un- external, may confound the different afregenerate families. On the subject of fections from which they have sprung man's daring and desperate wickedness, and which are internal; and, mere y betheres a certain sternness of asseveration cause of certain doings, which in the not fitted to advance the cause in whose letter and outward description of them service it is employed —for, independently are so in any conformities to heaven's of its- harshness, there is a want of exper- law, he may credit himself with the posimental truth in it, which must revolt the session of godliness —when, in fact, and judgment as well as the sensibilities of within the whole compass of his moral an intelligent audience. Be assured that economy, there is no godliness to be sound faith is ever at one with sound ex- found. In this way would we convince perience-and, therefore, we at all times him of sin. We dispute not that he may should mix the discriminations of experi- have many good points, many desirable ence with the zeal of orthodoxy. properties; but he'wants, altogether the Ere we leave this part of our argu- property of a reigning and ascendant ment, we have one observation more to godliness. He may be in a state of high offer. The reason why, in looking to moral accomplishment; but, substantially the multitude of man's natural virtues, and really, he is in a state of practical we lose sight of his ungodliness is, that, atheism. in point of' fact, God wills our most busy We have left ourselves but little room and strenuous cultivation of them all. for that which is nevertheless the main This gives rise to a confusion of senti- lesson of our text, a lesson of confidence ment, in the midst of which we are apt in the liberality and good-will of our to miss altogether the truth of that fatal, Father in heaven. To beget in our that entire depravity, which scripture hearts this delightful assurance, He avails every where ascribes to us; and which, himself of imagery at once the most paif we did but study her lessons aright, thetic and the most persuasive. Tle anexperience would confirm. There is nounces Himself to us in the familiar spontaneous compassion in many a bo- character of a parent. Ile steps forward som; and Gotl wills us to be compas- as it were from the deep and awful myssionate. There is instinctive affection tery of His unfathomable naty re-and almost with all for their own children; tells us that within its recesses, Lhere are 12 GOD'S PATERNAL CHARACTER. [SERM the workings towards us of all a Father's disorder, how purely and how power tenderness. To beget a trust in those fully must it opeiate still in the unaltered bls'oms, where else there might well have: heart of Him who formed: us at the first been a dark and overwhelming terror, after His own image-in that unviolated He inlists upon His side the dearest and- sanctuary which neither- darkness nor the kindliest of all human recollections- disorder can possibly enter, even the sinand there is not a man, who, lookin g less nature of -the Godhead. There it back upon the days of his cherished boy- still burns undirninished and undisturbed hood, feels reminded by our text of the in all its original lustre-and by the ~guides and the:'guardians'of his early " how much more" of our text,..the forcihome, but is told that there is a fondness: ble appeal is carried home. to all the exwhich far surpasses theirs, and which perience we ever had of love and libernow beckons and beams'upon him fromm ality from our.earthly parents who are:heaven.'It is thus that the unseen God evil. If our memory can tell that they, looks out upon the world from the shroud burdened with all the evil of their acof His invisibility,-and, as if to relieve cursed nature, that even they have loved our imaginations from the fears and the us —then with Faith rejoicing in the jealousies ofa tremendous unknown He unchanged and primeval goodness of seizes on the most. intelligible of all our Father in Heaven, let us have the earthly relationships; and therewith re- assurance in our hearts that He loves presents Himself to our species not as a more truly, that He loves more tenderly. Master over his household, but as a Fa- than they. ther at the head of his family. To dissi- Nevertheless, and in the face of this pate the injurious suspicions of His own touching demonstration, does the guilty creatures, lHe is fain' to divestHimself I nature of man keep by its sullen and dis. of all, that is spectral or alarming-and trustful jealousles. It teels all the con how, it may well be thought, could this sciousness of a turpitude within; and, be done more successfully, than by thus' conceiving rightly of God as a God of likening Himself to those parents who' inviolable sacredness, it images a Being, smiled upon our infancy; and, with a who, from the height of His afftonted friendship which never can misgive, kept majesty. looks down with the terrors of by us and counselled'us through all the an offended countenance on the sinful difficulties of our ascent' to manhood. world that is beneath Him. This is the The lofty pavilion of His residence on strong, though secret apprehension which high is disarmed'of all'its terrors, when lurks in the bosom of all who know the glorious Being by whom it is.occu- themselves to be transgressors. T hey pied thus lets Himself down as it'were are haunted by the dread and the disamong our earthly tabernacles; and tells quietude of a yet unsettled controversy; us that the instinct which Himself has and till they perceive how an adjustment planted there, but'feebly expresses the can be made, and without disparagement affection that is in His own breast to the to the high and- lofty attributes of the family of mankind. It is true that in this Godhead, they cannot be at rest. It is same text,' He characterizes mankind as'vain to tell them of Heaven's parental evil-not however as a denunciation of love, and how far it outstrips the earthly wrath, but rather as a device or an argu- affection of their own parents. Still there ment by which to win'His way more is that which disturbs and terrifies in the effectually to our confidence. The love imagination of Heaven's high sacredof offspring is o'ne beauteous fragment of ness. It is even in vain to speak of its our nature which has. survived its'over- being a love unquenched by man's dishrow. It still gleams and gladdens' obedience,'as pictured forth in the Father hroughout the'ruins of fallen humanity, who ran to meet his wandering prodigal and casts a remaining'brightness over and to welcome him back again.'Still the habitations of its outcast species. And the sense of a dishonoured law aid an the argument is,-if; such be the strength incensed Lawgiver abides in the sinner's of this principle in our nature, that it guilty bosom; and nothing- can effecstill, keeps its ground even after the tually appease his fears, but the revelamighty havoc of so wide and wasteful a tion of that way by which the acceptance ,.] GOD'S- PATERNAL -CHARACTER. 13 of the rebel has been made to harmonize and the Holiness -and the Justiceare all -with the dignityof the offended sovereign. propitiated-by the Saviour who died for i~ This -brings us to the sacrifice which him. Th:s is the medlatorial ground on -has been made for the,sins,:of the world which:the righteous God and His rebel-to the decease which was accomplished lious creatures can commune peaceably at Jerusalem-?and, by which the mighty, -and now that the incense of a sweetthe mysterious problem,, -was resolved, smelling savour is between them, He can that was unfathomable to the wisdom of effuse all the love and liberality of a FaNat:Ire, and that angels desired to look ther on:-is redeemed children, and beinto, This resolves all difficulties-;:!and stow good -thi-ngs on all who ask Him. now that the propitiation - has been ren- Forgiveness is yours if you: ill. The deredl,;man is freely invited to rejoice in clean heart and the right spirit:are yours his God, and God rejoices over man as if you will. Heaven vith-all its glories if man had never fallen. Sin is-oblitera..is open to receive you. And holiness, ted bgr the sacrifice that has. been made which- is the dress:of Heaven, is ready to for it; and now with a clear conscience fall, like- Elijah's mantle, from:the hand because now on a consecrated way, of Him who hath said-" Turn unto me might the guiltiest of our world draw and I will pour out my spirit upon you."' nigh and make his requests known unto Under the economy of the:Gospel all the God. He is now on firm and high van- Oets and hindrances, which- obstructed tage ground - for prayer; and in the face these generous communications from the of Jesus Christ that vail which mantled upper sanctuary, are now done away. the aspect of the Divinity is withdrawn. And, kinder far than ever earthly father The voice of the intercessor is now added to his offspring, does the bountiful God tothe voice of the suppliant; and while who is: in, Heaven,- rejoice in meeting all the, mercy of the Godhead is all.awake the wishes, and supplying all the wants Q the sinner's imploring cry, the: Truth of His spiritual family. SERMON II. The State of the Unconverted. " At that time ve were without'Christ,: being aliens from the commonwea,.n of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world."-EPHS. SIANS ii. 12. THFE change from a wrong to a right place with: man on the other side of state in religion is a far mightier transi. death. We speak of that spiritual resurtion in the habit of the soul, than is gen- rection which takes place here, wbhen the orally imagined. And it- is the under- heart of man is -made alive to the power rating of the magnitude of:this transition of unseen things, and the crust of its which lies at the bottom of all that mea- earthliness is broken. Man cannot by gre and superficial Christianity where- his own strength achieve this revolution with so many are satisfied, although::it upon himself. He cannot so change the be altogether short of eternal life. Ere feelings and faculties of nature, as that, the soul can hold affinity or conversa- heretofore awake only to sense and to tion with heaven, there is a certain de- time, he shall-henceforth be awake to the velopmlent which it must be made to un- things of the Spirit, and breathe with dergo, as great and -at the same time as kindred satisfaction in a spiritual atmosessential, as that by which the chrysalis phere. There is a translation firom the is emancipated from its prison-house ere walk of sight to the walk of faith —there it can expatiate among the fields of lighTt is a passing out of darkness into marveland of ether which are above it. We b1us light-there is a release from the speak not of that resurrection which takes: bondage of the world and its besetting 14 STATE OF THE UNCONVERTED. [SER., influences, to the glorious liberty of a he continues to be without Christ —And1 willing subjection under Him who made lastly, let us urge, as the Gospel warrants and who upholds"the world-which are us to do, your acceptance of Christ, as represented in Scripture, not as the fruit being the only' but the sure link of reof an amendment that lies within the union with God; and on whom if you compass of human power, but as the fruit do lay hold, you will live no longer of a regeneration, which it requires the without, but you will live with God in forthgoing of a divine power to accom- the world. plish; and which is likened, or rather identified in the New Testament, with Before we enter on the first head of that supernatural energy whereby Christ discourse, let it be remarked, that when was raised from the dead. So that the we speak of man being without God, we power which reanimates a body is not do not speak of man as outcast from the spoken of as more extraordinary or favour and friendship of God; but of miraculous, than the power which reno- God, or rather the thought of God, as vates a spirit-nor is it deemed a more outcast from the spirit of man. We supernatural achievement to call up the mean by our being without God, that we one from its grave and usher it into the are without an effectual or abiding sense life of nature, than to call up the other of Him in our hearts-that we live withfrom its state of death in trespasses and out Him in the world-that we betake sins to that new moral existence which ourselves to our own way, unmindful of forms the true life of the soul, the beati- Him or of His way. In short we take tude and the essence of life everlasting. the phrase not externally, and with referIn describing, as is often done, the ence to the deed of the Creator, as if God marks of conversion, there is much that.had cast us off; but internally, and with to a general hearer must be wholly un- reference to the desire and spirit of the intelligible. It is mysticism to him, be: creature, as if we had cast Him offcause it is beyond the range of his own casting Him off from our allegiance so felt and familiar experience. How can as to live independently of Him, and to we speak to his sympathy or to his un- manifest by our whole habit and history derstanding, when we assign, with what in the world that- we will not have God ever clearness or accuracy, the charac- to reign over us. teristics of a state, into which he has not entered? But there are also character- I. Now to substantiate this charge, let istics belonging to the state of unregene- us not detain ourselves with any lengthrated nature, out of which he has not yet ened argument on the case of those of emerged; and by means of these we our species who, whether many or few, may hold out his own likeness to some are characterised by open and habitual convicted, some conscience-stricken hear- profligacy. We do not need laboriously er. The text presents us with several to search after the evidence of their beof those lineaments or traits of character, ing without loyalty to God-seeing that which enter into the portraiture of a man we have the overt-acts of their disloyalty previous to his Christianity. At pre- so palpably before our eyes. The dissent, we shall only fasten upon one of honesty, or the malice, or the licentiousthese-even his being'without God in ness, or the profanation-these are so the world. And should we manifest the many visible ensigns of their rebellion truth of this description to the conscience against that monarch whose law they so of any, we may perhaps with the bless- directly and so daringly violate; and, ing of God, succeed in alarming them with such signals of defiance to heaven into a sense of their yet destitute and un- planted along the line of their outward provided eternity. history, it were a superfluous task to Let us therefore endeavour to show, probe and scrutinize among the arcana in the first place, how truly the natural of their spirit, in quest of that ungodlistate of man is represented, as being in- ness which broadly announces itself at,deed without God in the world-In the the first glance, and in characters that second place, how this must e er con- cannot be mistaken. It is only then that tinue to be the state of man, so long as the task becomes a hard one, when we f,. STATE OF THE UNCONVERTED. 15 have to deal with the subtle ungodliness knowledge how possible it is to live a of those, who, free from the delinquen- life of innocence in regard to society, arnd cies of human life, are studiously obser- yet in regard to God a life of complete vant of all its decencies-of that mighty irreligion. Vice is not a necessary host who stand in the middle place be- ingredient of worldliness. Yours may tween crime and Christianity-being be a habit of honourable business, or of neither to be charged with the abomina- studious and enamoured literature, or of tions of the one, nor yet at all to be cred- domestic faithfulness and assiduity, or ited with the sacredness of the other. even of devoted philanthropy and patriotThey form the great mass of society; ism-yet one and all of these, untainted and are spread out as it were over that with crime, nay signalized by the respect table-land in character, where they are and gratitude of mankind, may still be not so sunken as to be numbered among but so many varieties of worldliness. the reprobates by the world, nor yet so Still while engaged in any of these ways, elevated as to be numbered among the it is not with God that the spirit holds religious by Him who made the world. converse; but it is wholly with the Still they are without God-as much derived and dependent things which prowithout Him if they but knew it, as any ceed from God that the spirit is at play. of those who on the scale of the terres- Literature is better than licentiousness — trial morality are so immeasurably be- domestic regularity is better than lawless neath them. Let the scale of that moral- dissipation —the business of the shop or ity which is celestial be applied, and it of the market is better than the business will be found of them all, that they are of the gaming-table or of the highway. at an equal distance and disruption from These modes of conduct admit of comGod. To draw a comparison from the parison; and to certain of them rather material world —the summit of a moun- than to others the meed of superiority is tain on the surface of our earth looks to rightfully awarded. This we cannot human eyes as if magnificently elevated dispute; and this, for any argument of above its base; and yet in reference to ours, it concerns us not to deny. All we the sun, though made somewhat nearer affirm is, that it is possible, nay that it Is to it by the ascent, we are still within an frequent, nay that it is ordinary as falling insensible fraction of being as remotely in with the currency of nature —that each distant from that glorious luminary, as of these varieties, in the habit and history those whom we have left behind us in of man, may be seen exemplified in a the depths below. There is no ascent state of disjunction from God. There is we can make among the terrestrial eleva- many a life spent in upright and prospertions of our world, which brings us sen- ous merchandise, and where God is unsibly nearer to any orb in these material heeded along the whole path of it. There heavens. And there is no ascent we can is many a life spent among books and make among the elevations of a mere ter- amid the charms of philosophy; and restrial morality, which brings us sen- where the. intellect of man, regaled with sibly nearer to Him who rules supreme these, has yet never recognized the claims in the spiritual heavens, or indeed to any of the originating God to all the gratimember of heaven's spiritual family. tude and all the glory of such dignified And just because it is a morality without enjoyments. There is many a life spent godliness-just because it is possible to in the busy succession of household tasks, be so gifted and adorned therewith, as to or the sweets of domestic tenderness; look prodigiously elevated above our fel- and yet, in the bosom of these families on lows; and yet, immeasurably beneath earth, there is no hourly, no habitual rethe standard of the sacred and the spirit- membrance of Him who is the great ual, to be without God in the world. Father of the human family. There is: But we do not stand in need of illus- even many a life spent in the bustle and: tration from other things to make good enterprise of schemes of- usefulness,. our charge-seeing that we can do so by where the public good is honestly aspired: a di rect appeal to the conscience. Let after, and where apart from the pursuit any of you but reflect aright on the his- of a name, the achievement of our species' ory of a single day-and you will ac- I or our co.untry's welfare would be felt as 16 STATE OF THE UNCONVERTED. [SERM a real gratification; anri yet, with this gether on their own spontaneous imP constitutional benevolence which so fits pulses, and scarcely fetch one impulse us for the citizenship of the world, there fiom the consideration of God's will or may be no citizenship in h aven-no God's law. We state the matter plainly, interest and no part in its f'ran( adminis- and for the very purpose that you may trations-no converse ax i1 EHim who take it home to your own recollections of sitteth upon heaven's throne-no building what you daily and familiarly are-a up of a provision either in behalf of our- self-moving and self-regulating creature, selves or others for the good of eternity. walking in the counsel of your own In a word, each man acts according to heart and after the sight of your own his own proen- and characteristic variety; eyes, and without one thought all the and yet there,nay be nought of God in while of the duteousness or dependence these varieties. Each man comes forth which you owe to God. Now that He with his own spontaneous evolutions; has made you, and endowed you with and yet, endowed though he be with an certain powers, and provided you with intelligence and a will and the faculties certain capacities of enjoy-vment, and of a moral nature, there may be as little placed you in a theatre richly crowded of godliness in any of his movements, as with objects upon which you can exerthere is in the movements of an automa- cise the one and gratify the other-now, ton that is guided according to the springs you are content to manage without God, and the workings of a machinery within. to take as it were the whole interest and Both the physical and the moral mechan- conduct of your existence into your own ism have their place and performance on hands-alike reckless of the power that the earth below; and each may be alike formed and of the providence that upholds removed from all contact or communica- you. This practically and really is the tion with the upper sanctuary. There state of nature in reference to God. You may be even a moral loveliness in man can best tell whether in the description separate from religion; but like that of of it which we now give you recognize.fruit or of flowers, it is but the loveliness your own likeness-whether you are in of earth. The man, thus decked with that state which substantially and in effect the graces and the accomplishments of is a state of atheism-in that tremendous natural virtue, may notwithstanding, only condition from which if there be no mind earthly things-and, under a thou- resurrection here into another habit of sand various hues and complexions of the soul, you never can be preferred herecharacter from the more or less odious to after to the honours or the beautitudes cf,the more or less amiable and engaging, a glorious eternity-even the condition,thero may sit one aspect of ungodliness of living as you list, of living without.on the face of an alienated world. God in the world. For the truth of this representation, we And let it not hide this melancholy:make our confident appeal to many a truth from your eyes-that you appropriconscience. Is there none here present ate certain days and occasions to the of -whom it may be said, that heaven in special recognition of your Maker. Ve their eye is a land of shadows; and that are aware of these formalities-and that the thought of heaven's Sovereign is to it would even pain you if they were disthem as unimpressive, as any mere pensed with. There is a certain dese-shadowy imagination q God is wholly cration of your sabbaths, a certain interout ofsight; and He is almost as wholly ruption of your wonted attendance on out of mind. They work, or they bar- sermons and sacraments, which would gain, or-they':spend their successive hours, inflict the very same discomfort upon you.or they go ahout the varied business of that is felt by pagans and idolaters on the,their callings and their families-very suspension of their solemn rites, their much as they would have done, although temple services. This after all afflicts in-their hearts there had been no belief you, not because an outrage upon vita-if God. It is not from Him that they godliness, but because an outrage upon:take the guidance or direction of their custom and nature-and thus the pago life, in the main'bulk and magnitude of das of Hindoston, and the churches of'ixt concerns. They move almost alto- Christendom, might give rise mt a like 1n.| STATE OF THE UNCONVERTED. 17 exhibition of character on the part of ever. He may even loT e the framle-work those who repair to them; and a like of the service, and yet be unleavened by violence may be felt as aone to the habits the essenc- of it. He, comes out the and the hereditary superstition of both, same grolq'hlina and terrestrial creature by any glaring inroad on their religious that he x ent'i -with the full set and observances. But truly these separate strenuous ness'of his heart ul )n the things and ceremonial acts of homage to the which are beneath, and tile complete Divinitv, argue nothing of a spirit at all withdrawment of his thoughts and affecassimilated to His spirit, or of a charac- tions from the things which are above. at all assimilated to His character. These WTe are not sure if his thoughts be very outward loyalties to God do not consti- much if at all with God, even on his cute the habit of living with God-any most solemn occasions of retirement from more than a thousand prostrations of the the world. But what the text affirms of body could make up one principl: in the him is, that he is without God in the heart. What we allege of your prayers world-and certain it is, that when the' and your ordinances is, that they are so man comes forth again from his sanctumanv things which sit loose as it- were ary of devotion, when leaving the church on the tablet of human life, without or the closet he -casts himself as before entering as a pervading ingredient, or, among the rounds of ordinary life, when if we may so speak, without making part bills and bargains and companies and either as woof or as warp of the tablet either the business or the handicraft of itself We mean, they incorporate no- his calling take their accustomed place thing that is vital or permanent with the in the history of his affairs-then heaven character. Your morning and evening and its glories vanish with the speed sf exercises, and your seventh-day devo- lightning from the eye of a mind now tions, look to us as so many embank- closed in upon by the objects of an earthly ments thrown at stated intervals across scene, and desolated by these of all its the current of your existence. They do godliness., not tinge or qualify that current. They only arrest it for a little, and then let it II. We now proceed to show, in the go, but with the very same quality as next place, that the state of being without before-so that from its fountain head to God is that in which man must ever conits mouth, in spite of all the stops or de- tinue, so long as he is without Christ. flections which it may have undergone, Under this head, too, let it be reit retains its properties unaltered, from marked, that it is not to God having re. the place at which it issued to the- place nounced us, but to us having renounced of its discharge amongthe waters of the God, that we have been all along and ocean. And even so, we fear, with the still are recalling your attention. It is spirits of our earthly and alienated race. true, that, in virtue of our guilt, God has In the progressive course of such a one, put us away from a place in heavenfrom the day of birth to the day of disso- but what we chiefly advert to throughout: lution, he may have his periodical deten- this discourse, is, that other and distinot; tions at the house of God; but whence effect of guilt, in *virtue of which it: is,. he is soon released, and let off again that we have put God away from a place without one slight infusion of the savour in our hearts. It is not to His haviing of godliness. The tenor of his engage- banished us from His presence, but it i ments with this world of sense, may be to our having banished Him from ou, broken every week by the recurrence of thoughts that we are now attending. It, sabbath; but, when this is overpast, his is quite true that the effect of sin on the life just flows on as before without one jurisprudence of the sanctuary above, has. tincture of a Sabbatical spirit, or the spirit been to separate man from the friendof sacredness. He seenis to have acted ship of the Lawgiver; anti that it is only' for a little season the part of a religionist; the atonement by Christ which again rebut he joined with the full heart and stores him to acceptance and favour. But habit of worldliness in the services of the it is also true that the effect of sin on the sanctuary, and retired from them as habitual direction of the soul of man bestrong and unaltered in secularity as low, has been to separate God from the 3 1 8 STATE OF THE UNCONVERTED. [SLRM regards and contemplations of the hu- of His power. There can be no kind man spirit —and what we shortly pro- regard where there is no confidence; pose under the second head is to show, and how is confidence possible on the that it is faith in the atonement of Christ, part of rebels, against whom the whole and this alone, which can restore God to force and authority of a righteous sove. the soul, as the object of its cordial and reign are armed for their destruction? willing fellowship. It is said of Adam that he hid himself To perceive how this may be, let us from the presence of God among the ask you to remember how it is that you trees of the garden. We also, when like proceed with anyobject, be it animate or to be obtruded on by the presence of inanimate, the presence of which gives God to our conscience or our thoughts, any sort of pain or annoyance to you. do,'by a movement almost instinctive, You would shut your eyes, or turn away flee to hide ourselves. We too have our your sight from a revolting object of dis- gardens of vain security, our places of' gust or deformity. You would, if pos- sweet and soothing forgetfulness, which sible, turn aside to escape an encounter serve, to ourselves at least, the temporary on the street with the man whom you purpose of a hiding-place from God. If either hated or were afraid of. It is thus they do not hinder Him from seeing us, too that the mind is constantly, though they at least hinder us from seeing Him; perhaps uncorsciously, on the defensive and this does in the mean time, for a reagainst the in.rusion of such thoughts or spite from all those troublesome awakenimages as are hurtful to its repose, or in ings, which might else have haunted our any way disagreeable to it. If it could, spirits, and rifled away from them the it would rather shun the thought which rest and the enjoyments which we are is offensive, the contemplation which at so fain to prolong. It is a fond illusion; all terrifies or disturbs it. Now this is and the soul is not willing to break it up the real secret of our spirit's habitual by any such frightfui imagination as that alienation from God. It is the sense of of a terrific judge or august sovereign in gruilt which explains what otherwise heaven, with a face of rebuke and an upwould be a mystery in our constitution. lifted arm of vengeance. No, it is glad While this continues to haunt us, we to be embowered as it were in some cannot view God otherwise than with grotto of concealment, so as to shut out jealousy and distrust-and, rather than the hateful, the appalling demonstration have the disquietude of any such emo- -and, in the heat and hurry of this tions, we would have God to be not in world's business, or in the glee of its our view at all. We keep God habitu- merry companionship, or in the mental ally out ox- view, just that we may not be engrossment whether of its pleasures or disturbed in our habitual enjoyment of of its cares, it can at all times summon the peace of nature. It is thus, if we around itself enough of the imagery of may so express ourselves, that, hourly this pleasing and peopled world, to screen and minutely, we blink the thought of from its view both the offended cournteGod. There is on the part of every nance of heaven above, and those dread mind a natural love of ease, and so, a characters of a coming misery which sit secret yet strong recoil from every.topic in perspective on the death and the eterof contemplation which is fitted to dis- nity before it. It cainnot by all its contur'b it. Now God apart from Christ is trivances separate' God from itself'-but just such a contemplation. The very well is it able to separate itself, and, that thought of Him, if He be at all appre- by a wide and a constant interval, from hended as a God of sacredness and truth the thought of God. It can replenish its and inviolable majesty, is a thought of inner chamber with a crowd of phantadisquietude. The soul, if in any degree sies and hopes and wishes, all rushing awake to a right sense of its own unwor- in upon it from the world that is without, thiness, must be fearful of God-nor can and leaving no room for the descent of it escape from the terrors of His offended any serious or abiding impression from dignity, but by lulling itself, among the. the upper sanctuary. It is thus that, from opiates of sense and of carnality, into a the cradle to the grave, the soul is rocked profound oblivion both of His purity and as it Nwere, amid the feelings and the n.] STATE OF THE UNCONVERTED. 19 fluctuations of a busy world, into pro- gether, and may be said indeed to be found insensibility toward Him who casually or efficiently connected. There made the world. And it wills to have is no fellowship with the Father, just beit so. It wants to hold no converse with cause there is no fellowship with the Son. images of disquietude; and none more We appeal to those who, in the whole to than the image of incensed and in- spirit and system of their lives, have been tlexible Holiness-none more so than the asunder from God, if they have not been:mage of a consuming fire, ready to be equally asunder from Christ. This dedischarged from heaven on all who have serves to be well pondered by them-for done offence to heaven's high Lawgiver it may suggest the all-important consid-none more so than God out of Christ, eration, that, the estrangement of their at the sight of whom all the daring and souls from God in heaven, has been due defiance of the stoutest-hearted sinner will to a like estrangement from that messenat length melt away; and the thought ger who came charged with His calls of whom is meanwhile ejected from his and overtures to earth. Their habitual bosom, as a hateful visitant whose office distance from the one, is resolvable into it was to frighten and to annoy. their habitual disinclination from the Such is the secret but substantial con- other. They are far from God, just benexion which obtains between our dread cause of their heedlessness to the voice of God, and the habitual distance at of Him whose profest office is to bring which we stand from Him. We gladly them nigh. It is indeed a wondrous fact shut the mind's eye against all that is in their moral history, this perpetual exile painful-and, unless God'stands forth in of their spirits from Him who is the another aspect, we shall feel strongly Father of spirits; but, as yet, they have and constantly disposed to stifle in ern- missed the highway of communication to bryo every thought that may arise within His august and inviolable sanctuaryus of this tremendous because yet unap- even the way of a consecrated priesthood, peased God. In a word, ere we shall of an ordained and accepted mediatorship. willingly detain and habitually dwell This relation of cause and consequence, upon the thought of God, He, from a between being with Christ and with God, painful, must become a pleasing object of may guide them to that mystic ladder, by contemplation. Now.this can only be, which sinners may ascend to the abode by the terrors of His countenance being of the Eternal. They still abide in the softened and done away. This can only distance of nature from God —but this is be, if not by dismant.ing Him of His just because they have never ventured, truth and holiness and justice-at least on the only stepping-stone, by which by those mighty attributes, inflexible as guilty nature can make its approaches to they are, being in some way disposed of, that Being of else unapproachable sacredso as not to take the direction of ven- ness, from whom it is so deeply aliengeance against ourselves. This can only ated. So long have they been without be, by the threats of judgment giving Christ, and just as long have they been place to the assurances of friendship and without God. There is a connexion the benignant offers of reconciliation. here worthy of being most ser'-usly We cannot welcome to our hearts the dwelt upon. Hitherto they have stooct at thouht of God,'so long as the dread and a distance from the Father-but they the menace of a yet unsettled controversy have also stood at an equal distance from are betwixt us. This question must be the.Son; and the very reason why with resolved; or guilty nature will be at a God they have no fellowship, is, that in sullen and impracticable distance for Christ they have no faith. ever-and, singly on its determination, You will herein see the importance of there is suspended the alternative whether their entertaining the gospel. It is called the children of nature shall be with or the message of reconciliation; but this without God. message, when accepted, does more than Now it is well to put it to the con- reconcile-it regenerates. It is not only science of those who are without God, if that the sinner's name is thereby exthey be not also without Christ. These punged from the book of condemnation two characteristics go inseparably to, the fearE and the jealousies and the enmitV 20 STATE OF THE UNCONVERTED. [SERK, of natuire to God are also expunged from covenant. Never was transaction bethe sinner's neart. There is a personal tween one Being and another more richly as well as a legal salvation accomplished guaranteed. The very designation of a through the intervention of- Him, in promise, as applied to, the offered bles. whose blood we are invited to wash out sings of the gospel, carries the obliga. our sins; and in the investiture of whose tion of a contract along with it. It inrighteousness we- are called upon to ap- vests man to whom the promise is made pear before the mercy-seat. That is a with a claim; and it-stakes the truth and great judicial deliverance, by which the justice of the promiser to the fulfilmert sentence of death is cancelled; and that of it. But' when to this we add the firm is a great moral deliverance, -by which securities, which have been established the hatred and the terror and the sullen by the Mediator of the covenant-when despondency of guilt are now done away. we look to Him, as having borne all the It is Christ crucified who hath accom- debts of sin, snd satisfied all the demands plished the one. It is faith in Christ of righteousness-when we recollect, not crucified which accomplishes the other- merely that mercy has been promised, being that quickening touch which reani- but that a ransom has been found'; that mates the coldness of man's alienated the punishment which our Saviour did spirit, and recalls him to fellowship with sustain, when He once offered Himself' God. for the sins of men, cannot, even in justice, be executed over again; that the, IIL, Let us now in a few sentences reward which he won, not for Himself address this offered pardon of the gospel but for others,'cannot even in justice be for the acceptance of you all. It is in- withheld from them-then- never, may deed a pardon held out to all who may we safely conclude, never was title-deed choose to embrace and rely tpon it- to any inheritance so impregnably valid, flung diffusively abroad- as it were over as that title-deed which believers do posthe face of the whole earth; and there is sess to an inheritance of glory; and the not one individual of our guilty species, framing of which constitutes the main who is not welcome to place his steadfast skilfulness which so often in the New and sure dependence thereupon.. Let Testament is ascribed to the economy of but this offer of kindness from God the gospel. It is not mercy alone, but. simply meet with the homage of confi- mercy in alliance with truth. It is not dence from man; and then there is peace alone, but peace in conjunction opened up a channel of communication, with righteousness. It is not a simple through which there is nothing that shall act of forgiveness alone, but of forgiveintercept the flow of heaven's mercy- ness couched as it were in the honours even upon those who in times past have of God's vindicated sacredness; and His most daringly trampled on heaven's law, one attribute of compassion irradiated by and done most grievous offence to hea- a lustre from all the other high attributes ven's sacredness. It is the sure though of a nature that is unchangeable. These the simple ligament, by which man is are the leading peculiarities, which serve again united with the God frqm whom at once to characterise and to dignify the he had separated so widely. That.liga- whole plan of our salvation; and, while ment is Faith. God puts forth His offer they maintain the character of God unof reconciliation; and man accepts of the violate, they rest the comfort and confioffer, simply by the reliance which he dence of the sinner on the immutabilities puts upon its honesty. It is then that of a covenant which never can be broken, the reconciliation is entered upon. It is of a word which can never pass away. then that an act of agreement is struck The calls of this free, but withal sure between the parties, who are now the and well-ordered covenant, you may have parties of a covenant where a faith on hitherto resisted. Its character, as a mesthe one side that never falters, is sure to sage of gratuitous kindness to one and meet with a faithfulness on the other side all of the human race, you have perhaps that never fails. misunderstood. It is likely that some of This dispensation of mercy is com- you may never have adverted to the perpassed about with all the securities of a fect freeness, wherewith its invitations Il1 STATE OF THE UNCONVERTED. 21 are made to circulate through the world. ceptation. A sceptre of mercy is held None of you are beyond the reach of its out A; you there. There God is stretch welcome and good-will; and could we ing frth His hands to you. He feels point as specifically home to each as we all the longings of a Father bereaved now spread abroad among all the assu- of his children, and He plies you with rance of that blood which cleanseth from all the expostulations of a Father's tenall sin, and why not from yours?-then derness. What pleasure has He in the should you awaken to a sense of friend- death of any one of you? It is a pleaship with God, and, along with it, to the sure He disclaims; and He protests of charm and power of a new moral exist- even the chief of sinners, that He would ence. If hitherto your consciences can rather he should return to Him and live. tell, that you have lived without God in He sends you bibles which circulate a; the world; and that whereas He is re- large among your habitations; and from presented as the Being with whom you the pulpits of the land, there soundeth have to do, you in fact in the busy en- forth-the declaration of a God that waiteth grossment of your manifold doings, have to be gracious. Many are the means, held Him in habitual disregard-then and many are the messengers whom He surely the gospel method of reunion and employs; and by the permanent institureconciliation with that mighty Being, tion of a christian ministry in the midst from whom you have all life long been of you, does He, from generation to genpractically an outcast, is worthy of your eration, perpetuate an embassy of peace most serious entertainment. 0 be at to our world, by which to recall its suclength prevailed upon to seek after it, cessive wanderers to God. aid you shall find it worthy of all acSERMON III. The Goodness and Severity of God. "Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God."-RoMANs xi. 22. IN the prosecution of this discourse Divinity of themT imagination, there is not we shal first endeavour to expose the the slightest approach to severity and far partiality, and therefore the mischief, of less to sternness of character, the very two difier!ent views that might be taken least degree of which would cause them of the Godhead-and secondly point to recoil from the whole contemplationyour attention to the way in which these that they might forget, among the kinviews are so united in our text, as to form dred and every day topics of their comrn a more full and a consistent representa- mon life, all that is repulsive or ungainly tion of Him. We shall then conclude in the contemplationofsacredness. There with a practical application of the whole is but one expression from Heaven's argument.' King which they will tolerate-and that is the expression of gentleness, and comI. One partial, and therefore mischiev- plaisance, and soft unvaried benignity. ous view, of the Deity, is incidental to Ought that can ruffle or displease these those who bear a single respect to His is banished from their creed, or rather one attribute of goodness. They look to never found admittance there, because it Him as a God of tenderness, and nothing was no sooner offered to their notice than else. In their description of Him, they all the antipathies both of inclination and have a relish for the imagery of domestic taste were up in arms against it. The life-and, in the employment of which, smile of an indulgent Deity is that whNere. they ascribe to Him the fondness rather with they would constantly regale them than the authority of a Father. In the selves, while the scowl of an indignan 22 GOODNESS AND SEVERITY OF GOD. [SERIM Deity is that before which they would natured connivance, of which they praco most carefully shut their eyes, rather ticallyv avail themselves-a placability than that it should give dread or distur- and promptitude to forgiveness upon bance to their bosoms. They would ad- which they count, and on which we may mit of no other aspect for religion than add that many of them do draw to an ex. that of uniform placidness-and to deco- tent which is altogether indefinite; thererate this bland and beauteous imagina- by effacing the line of demarcation betion the more, they would appeal to all tween sin and sacredness, and, on the that looks mild and merciful in the maxim that God is ever ready to pardon, scenery of nature —a scenery which God holding it safe for them to transgress at Himself hath embellished, and on which all times, up to the strength or urgency therefore we might well conceive that he of the actual temptation. Throughout hath left the very impress of His own all the classes of society, in fact, it is this character. And whether, it may be beholding of the goodness without a bethought, we look on soft and flowery holding along with it of the severity of landscapes, lighted up from heaven by God, that lulls the human spirit into a sweetest sunshine-or towards that even- fatal complacency with its own state and ing sky, behind the hues and inimitable its own prospects. It is this which sustouches of whose loveliness, one could tains the imagination of a certain vague almost dream that there floated isles of and ill-defined compromise, between inParadise whereon the spirits of the blest dulgence from heaven upon the one hand, were rejoicing-or, without poetic reverie and the frailties of our earthly nature at all, did we but confine our prospect to upon the other-and, in virtue of which, those realities by which earth is peopled; man might take to himself the liberty of and take account of those unnumbered sinning just as much as he likes; and graces, which, in verdant meads, or then of soothing his apprehensions of waving foliage, or embosomed lake, or vengeance by the opiate of this forward all the other varieties of rural freshness tenderness on the part of God, just as and fertility, lie strewn upon its surface- much as he stands in need of it. Such it may most readily be thought, that is-the fearful state of relaxation, in which surely He at whose creative touch all this dislike for a religion of gloom, and this loveliness has arisen, must Himself this demand for a religion of cheerfulbe p.acid as the scene, or gentle as the ness and pleasure, are often found to land zephyr that He causes to blow over it. us in. It is this disposition to soften the At present, we do not stop to observe, menaces of the Lawgiver-it is this tenthat, if the Divinity is to be interpreted dency to reduce, or rather to obliterate, by the aspects of nature, Nature has her the vindictiveness of His nature-it is hurricanes and hes earthquakes and her this perpetual gloss that, by means of the thunder, as well as those kindlier exhi- argument of His goodness, is attempted bitions in which the disciples of a taste- to be thrown over the truth, and the holiful and sentimental piety most love to ness, and the justice, and the high Sovedwell. But we hold it of more import- reign state which compose the severity ance to remark, that the illusion which is or the awfulness of His character-it is thus fostered, and by which God is ex- this, in fact, which serves, in practice to clusivelv regarded in the light of benev- break down the fences between obedience olence alone, is not confined to the sons and sin; to nullify all hioral government, and daughters of poetry. It is an illu- and so to confound all the distinctions be. sion that might be recognised in humble tween one part of the moral territory and life-and which we believe to be of ex- another; and, by tampering as it does tended operation, on the hearts and habits with the authority of the divine jurisprueven of our most unlettered peasantry. dence, to overspread the face of our world There is a disposition amongst them too, with a deep and ruinous severity, at the to build upon the goodness, and to blink, very time, that, adrift from the restraints if we may so express it, the severity of of heaven's law, each may be walking in the divine character. They also ascribe the counsel of his own heart, and after a certain facility of temperament to Heav- the sight of his own eyes. en's Sovereign —a sort of easy and good- So much for the mischief that might X,1i GOODNESS AND SEVERITY OF GOD. 23 ensue by looking singly to the goodness giveness held out in the sight of all its of God, and apart from His severity. But families-and we would not, that so there is also a mischief that will ensue, much as one individual should be chilled by our looking singly to the severity of into hopelessness by the dogmatism of a God, and apart from His goodness. hard and unfeeling theology; or that There are certain theologians who have fancying some stern or repulsive interthus arrayed Him; and that, notso much diet against himself, he should feel an oy the views which they have given forth arrest upon his footsteps, in his return to of His inviolable sanctity-for none can that God who waiteth to be gracious. state too strongly, or too absolutely, His But, independently of all lofty speculadetermined recoil from the approaches of tion, and aside from the mysteries which moral aid; but rather by the news which attach to the counsels and determinations they have given forth of such a dread of a predestinating God, there is abroad tand despotic sovereignty, as to impress on the spirits of men, a certain practical the conception of a fatalism that is inex- and prevalent impression of His severity, cusable, a hopeless necessity against to which we believe that most of this which all prayer and all perfoirmance of world's irreligion is owing. For, howman are unavailing. Neither do we ever strange, it is nevertheless a frequent hold them to be chargeable with any anomaly of human feeling-that they positive error; or, in the course of their who at one time can take comfort in sin adventurous speculation on the decrees under such an impression of His goodof God, and the bearing which they have ness as will dispose Him to connive at on the final destinies of the elect and the it, have at all times such an overhanging reprobate, to have affirmed ought that sense of His severity upon them as never was doctrinally or philosophically untrue. to attain a thorough confidence in His But there are truths which might be in- favour. In spite of every illusion, their troduced unseasonably, and on the very conscience tells them that they are ofoccasion when thev are most liable to be fenders; neither can they get rid of the grievously misunderstood and misapplied. suspicion, that they are not as they ought And we do think, that, in the act of hold- to be; and they are haunted by a secret ing converse with men, for the sake of jealousy of God, whom in spite of themgaining their compliance with the invi- selves they regard as looking with an tations of the gospel, the matter on hand eye of jealousy upon them; and, just as is the perfect freedom and frankness and a man will gladly shut his eyes against sincerity of these invitations-that then the' spectacle that pains him, so will they it is, when nought should be heard but shrink from the contemplation that only the voice of welcome and of good-will, serves to put dread and disturbance into and nothing should be said which might their bosoms; and thus there is a habicountenance the imagination of an im- tual distance kept up between the spirits practicable barrier between sinners and of all flesh and Him who is'the Father the mercy-seat. However difficult it may of them. There is the feeling of an unbe to adjust the metaphysics of the ques- settled controversy betwixt you and God; tion, there is one thing unquestionable, and just as you would rather avoid than and that is, an amnesty from heaven encounter the man with whom you are offered without exception to all-a pro- not fully at ease, so you have the same pitiation set forth for the sins of the world; motive for shuwnincg all intercourse beand on which there is not one member tween your own spirit and that of God's. of our world's population, who has not a The constant operation of this motive, warrant to cast the whole burden of his will explain the constancy of your aliereliance-an embassy to our alienated nation from Him who made vou. The species of which the record has come world is your' hiding-place from God. down to us. and by which God beseeches It charms you away from the thought even the guiltiest of men to enter into of Him whom you are glad to forgetreconciliation. And therefore we would, and the light of whose countenance would that the representation weie often given trouble you. Did it sh'rae upon you in of a message which might circulate such characters of mercy as you would around the globe, and a sceptre of for- stedfastly trust and rejoice in, your heart 24 GOODNESS AND SEVERITY OF GOD. [SEP-iu, would ever be rising towards God, and goodness in God as might yield. enough with the very alacrity in which a man of toleration for sin; and, on the other goeth forth to meet a friend. But, instead hand, might save him all the disturbance of this, you imagine v; displeasure in His that he else would feel, on too near an ap. countenance; and you are not at ease proach to His severity or His sacredness. in his presence; and, beholding the severity alone without the goodness, you II. Nevertheless, there is both a goodfeAl it more tolerable for to live in the ness and a severity; and this brings us oblivion rather than in the remembrance to the second head of discourse, under of Deity; and thus in the midst of formal which we proposed to point your attenprayers, and of very fair and seemly per- tion to the way, in which these two views formances, the inner man may be in a of the Godhead were so united in the state of perpetual exile from Him who is gospel of Jesus Christ, as to form a more the high and heavenly witness of all its full and consistent representation of Him. thoughts and all its tendencies. This, in First, then, there is a severity. There part, accounts for the sluggishness of na- is a law that will not be trampled on. ture-when called upon to stir itself up, There is a Lawgiver that.will not be inthat it may lay hold of God. There is a suited. There is a throne of high juriscertain imagined frown upon Hlis aspect prudence that is guarded and upheld by which frightens it away-or lays a check all the severities of truth and of firm emon all its approximations to the upper pire; and there is a voice of authority sanctuary. Our distance from God is that issues therefrom, by which we are allied with our distrust in God; and there told that heaven and earth shall pass is a substantial though secret connection, away, ere any one of its -words can pass in virtue of which it is, that the soul away. In the economy of that moral keeps habitually away from Him, just be- government under which we sit, there is cause the soul is habitually afraid of Him. no compromise with sin. There is no It may appear a mystery-yet, to the letting down of the judgment against it. patient and profound discerner of our The face of God is unchangeably set nature, we are persuaded that it will not against evil, and either the evil must be appear a contradiction-should the same sanctified into that which is good, or be man both occasionally take comfort to wholly swept away. There is no tolerahimself in sin, under the thought of an tion with God for the impure or the unindulgent goodness on the part of God; holy; and it were a violence to his nature, and yet habitually stand at a suspicious did iniquity pass without a punishment and mistrustful distance from Him, under or without an expiation. There may, by the thouoht of His unrelenting severity. some mysterious conveyance, an access It is our very distance from God which be found for his goodness to the sinner; sheds a dimness over His character and but towards the sin, there is nought in ways-over His wrath against disobedi- the heart of the Godhead, save the most ence, as well as over the gentler and unsparing and implacablewarfare. With kindlier attributes of His nature. Alto- sin, he can descend to no weak or ungether, it is to man at best a shadowy worthy connivance; and, dwelling as he contemplation; and so his imagination does in lofty and unapproachable sacredfinds a certain pliancy in the materials ness, He cannot deal with the-guilty, but that compose it. Whatever is dimly seen, in that way, by which His justice shall can more readily and easily be disguised be vindicated,.and His law be magnified by the gloss, which, to serve a purpose, and made honourable. may at any time be thrown over it; and In this respect, there is a'steadfastness thus, to quell the remorse and terror of of principle, which runs thrcughout the guilt, the severity of God may for the divine administration, and from which moment be put out of sight-even though the august Being who presides over it, this be the aspect in which we most habi- was never once known to recede or to tually regard Him. And thus it is, that falter. In the whole history of His man takes his stand at the place of dis- ways, we cannot light upon a single tance and obscurity, where, on the one instance of God's so falling back from hand, he might so fancy to himself a the severity of His denunciations againD. LI.' - GOODNESS AND SEVERITY OF GOD. 25 sin, as at all to soften the expression of God by ourselves —His antipathy to sin, His hatred and hostility towards it. Not by our ovn slight and careless irnaginaat the fall-when the one transgression tion of it-the strength of His displeasure of our first parent, was followed up by a against much evil, only by the languid curse that has burdened the earth and all and nearly extinct moral sensibilities of its families'for many generations. Not our own heart. We blring down Heaven at the flood, which rained down from to the standard of Earth; and measure heaven, to wash away a wickedness from the force of the recoil from sin in the the face of our globe, that Heaven could upper sanctuary, by what we witness of no longer tolerate. Not at the promul- this recoil, either in our own bosom, or gation of the Law from Mount Sinai, in that of our fellow-sinners upon this when the loud and the lofty challenge lower world. Now if we measure Go(d for obedience was made in the hearing by ourselves, we shall have little feat of the people; and the smoke, and the indeed of vengeance or severity fiomn thunder, and the voice gave felt demon- His hands. lfor, save when there is stration of an authority which it were gross and: monstrous delinquency, we can death to violate. Not at the entrance of bear very well both with our own transIsrael upon their promised land, when gressions and those of others-even God, to avouch the truth and the terror although these transgressions should beof His judgment, gave forth his edict speak an utter alienation of the heart and utterly to exterminate the sinful nations life from God. We should never think, that were before them; and so the old, for example, of an acquaintance as the and the middle aged, and even the little object of indignation-merely because he ones, were destroyed. Not in the subse- was a stranger to prayer and destitute of quent dealing of many centuries with His piety. For it so happens, that, while own perverse and stiff-necked children, there be rare atrocities of character by among whom he sent pestilence and the few, which awaken the horror and famine, and captivity, as the ministers of vivid indignation of the many there is a His vengeance; and against whom all habit of ungodliness nearly with all, and His prophecies of evil were followed up for which there is amongst them all the by the sure and tremendous fulfilment of utmost mutual complacency and tol]erathem. And lastly, not at that terrible tion. No man would ever think of veheperiod when the Jewish economy was at mently denouncing another, just because length swept away; and even the tears he thought little of God; and the whole of a compassionate Saviour did not avert habits of his soul was that of estrange, the approaching overthrow, but who, ment fiom the things of Faith and of while He wept over the doom which He Eternity. He could view him with easy would not recall, gave most impressive toleration notwithstanding; and the de. exhibition, that, along with the goodness, lusion is, that he is looked down upon there was also a severity with God. In with the same complacency from above, all this, there is admonition for us to that he is looked upon by the men of his whom the latter end of the world has kindred and genial companionship here come; and, as we witness through the below. This is adverted to by the periods of its past history, how awful Psalmist: and from him we learn, that have been the threats of Heaven against even what is so venial in our eyes as the the impenitent, and how unfailing the mere forgetfulness of God, and for which execution of them-let us beware of any there is such an entire sufferance here, flattering unction upon *our own souls that towards this there is the utmost and be very sure, that, on all the- ungod- severity there-" Thou thoughtest that I liness of the present generation, the de- was altogether such an one as thyself, nounced judgment and the denounced but I will reprove thee, and set thy sins vengeance are coming-though that in order before thine eyes. Now, conjudgment should be held amid the ele- sider this ye that forget God, lest I teat nents of dissolving nations, and that yena you in pieces andc there be none to eance to the ruin of a wretched and un- deliver." lone eternity. Such is the alliance between our un. The great delusion is, that we estimate derstanding and our heart, that man can 4 26 GOODNESS AND SEVERITY OF GOD, [SER], often succeed in believing to be true a manifestation is gliven in His work of what he wishes to be true; and so there vengeance, be carried forlxard in as fu'. is a very wide and prevalent impression and convincing manifestation to, a work a nong men, that there is just the very of mercy-could the justice, and the holid.sposition to tolerate our infirmities in ness, and the truth, all of which are set Heaven, which we feel that we have forth so evidently on a deed of retribuneed of, and have a demand for upon tion; could a way be devised, by which Earth. There is thus a very general se- there may be inscribed as legibly. and curity in the midst of ungodliness-no be made to shine forth in indivated lustre dread whatever of a coming wrath, and on a deed of amnesty-then, we may be just because they have done nothing assured, that He who hath no pleasure to incur the detestation of the world. The in the death of children, but who hath use of hell is conceived to be as a recep- sworn by Himself that He would rather tacle for the outcasts of society; and that, they should live and rejoice in His pretherefore, they have nothing to fear if sence for ever-that He, after such a way they have not sunk to the crimes and the had been opened up and cleared of all moral hardihood of outcasts. The its impediments, would pour along it of Psalmist hath again said-" that the na- His grace, and His goodness, and cause tions who forget God shall be turned into them freely to descend and spread over hell," —and not only to you who are dis- even to the uttermost limits of His sinful graced by profligacy; but even to you, creation. who, busied with the occupations of this Now it is this, and this precisely, which world, live in a state of total and practical distinguishes the evangelical mercy that unconcern about another world, would is gratuitously held out for the acceptance we address the language of our text, and of all, from that general mercy in which ask you to behold the severity of God. so many do confide, but by which none Bat along with this severity, there is can possibly be saved. Were we asked, a goodness that you are also called upon in briefest possible definition, to state to behold; and if you view both ariht, what that is, which impresses on the you will perceive that they do meet to- mercy of the Gospel its essential and gether in fullest harmony. It is this, in specifying characteristic-we should say fact, which constitutes the leading pecu- of it, that it is a mercy in full and visible liarity of the gospel dispensation-that conjunction with righteousness. With the expression of the divine character the pardon which it deals out for sin, it which is given forth by the severity of makes most impressive demonstration of God, is retained and still given forth in the evil of it; and magnifies and does all its entireness in the display and exer- honour to, the Law, by the very way in cise of His goodness. When He is which it cancels the guilt that has been severe, it is not because of His delight incurred by its violation. All the exhiin the sufferings of His creatures, but bition that God would have given of His because of His justice, and holiness, and character, by the wreaking of his severity truth. His delight is in the happiness upon the rebellious, is still given, unof that sentient nature which He himself marred and unmutilated, when, under hath fiamed; and, except it be to the in- the peculiar economy of redemption, He jury of these high moral attributes, He lavishes upon them of His loving kindever rejoices in scattering the fruits of ness and tender mercy. And such is the His beneficence, over the wide extent of policy of its constitution, such is the exa grateful and rejoicing family. When quisite wisdom of its contrivance, that the He is vindictive, it is not because He mercy of the gospel meets with the truth derives a workl of vengeance; but be- of the law, and God can at once be a just cause the righteousness of His character, God and a Saviour. and the stability of a righteous govern- You know how, for this marvellous ment, demand it. Could He so manage, design, the economy of grace has been as that this lofty perfection, and the lofty framed; but, knowing it though you do interest which is connected therewith, there is not a believing soul that has exshould not suffer by it-could the sacred- perienced the power of this salvation, and Less of the Godhead, of which so directI felt its preciousness, who does not los'r II.] GOODNESS AND SEVERITI OF GOD, 27 to be often toll of it, That name, which the man who eye, the fierceness of a is as ointment poured forth, will always bursting volcano from some place cf bear to be repeated in the hearing of the security where its flames cannot possibly faithful; nor does it ever pall upon the involve him-and so he whom the temspirit of him who hath been visited with pest of God's wrath hath passed by bea sense of his sinfulness, and labours un- cause now discharged upon another, can der the burden of it, though frequently now securely rejoice himself in the goodthe utterance is given, that unto him a ness, while in the cries, and tears, and Saviour has been born. On him did agonies of his Redeemer, he beholds the God lay the iniquities of us all. That severity of God. sword of vengeance which should have Now, if you refuse the mercy of God been lifted up against us, He awakened upon this footing, you will receive it in all its brightness against his fellow; upon no other. It is for Him the offended, and, in bowing himself down unto the and not for you the offending party, to sacrifice, Jesus Christ had to bear the dictate the terms of reconciliation. And weight of a world's atonement. The He tells us that no man cometh unto the severity of God. because of sin, was not Father but by the Son-while all who relaxed, but only transferred, from the enter into His presence by the open door head of the offenders, to the head of their of His Son's mediatorship shall be saved. substitute; and, in the depth of Christ's In other words you will never meet with mysterious sufferings, has He made as acceptance from God, on the ground of full display of the rigours of His unviol- His general mercy-while on the ground able sanctity, as he would have done by of His gospel mercy, you will never the direct infliction of their doom on the miss it. He is most ready to pardon, but millions foi whom the Saviour died. not so as to extenuate the malignity of The characters of truth, and justice, and sin'; and only so as to stanlp the expresholiness, instead of being efflced from sion of His uttermost hostility on that evil this administration, stand as conspicu- thing, whose guilt in you He is most ously blazoned forth, in the new economy willing to pass by. Should you, in the of the Gospel, as in the old economy of distaste and disinclination of your spirit the Law; and, with all the freeness and to the cross of Christ, keep by your genexuberance of its mercy, there is pre- eral confidence, and nauseate the evanserved the undegraded majesty of a gov- gelical confidence away from youernment that cannot be dishonoured, of should you count only on God's goodness perfections that cannot be violated. It is to the sinner, while you shut your eyes true, that sinners are now permitted to upon His severity against sin, as manidraw nigh; but it must only be in the fested in the death of His Son-then does name of Him, who hath made full ac- it still remain, that His severity must be quittal for Heaven's insulted authority; manifested in your own death and everand, ample as is the pardon which they lasting destruction. It is the grand pecureceive it is without the compromise of liarity of the gospel scheme, that while Heaven's hiah sacredness-seeinog that by it God hath come forth in love and it is pardon, earned by a divine sacrifice, tenderness to our world, He hath at the and sealed with the blood of an everlast- same time made full reservation of His ing covenant. The Holy one of Israel dignity; and, along with the freest overnow sitteth upon a throne of grace; but, tures of peace to the rebellious, there is approached as it can only be by the august the fullest reparation for every outrage and guarded ceremonial of a priesthood, which they have inflicted upon His govand a consecrated mediatorship, not a ernment. On this footing He welcomes sinner who draws nigh but must feel in you, but on no other. He will not pass his heart the homage, and render in his over your transgressions of His law. but person and his services the fealty that in such a way, as shall compel your is due to a throne of righteousness. He recognition of the law's unviolable right reads the inscription of peace between to all your obedience. He will not God and his own soul-but he reads it lavish upon you of His attribute of mercy, on that cross upon which the chastise- but in such a way, as shall constrain ment of his peace was borne. It is like your homage to all the other lofty and 28 GOODNESS AND SEVERITY OF GOD. [SERt, unchangeable attributes of His nature. thority and His truth have all been pro. He will not let vou off for yourviolation vided for; now that full demonstration of his commandments, but in such a way, has been given to men and to angels, of as shall stamp indelibly the lesson of the a sovereignty that could not be trampled commandments' unviolable sanctity.- on, of a jurisprudence that could not be This is that way of exquisite skilfulness, violated; now that every let and hinby which the economy of grace is charac- drance is removed from the way of His terised; and wherebyat once the deepest darling attribute, is a voice heard from stigma is affixed upon sin, and the guilt of the mercy-seat, —the sound whereof the sinner is wiped away. It is a way reaches to the most distant places of our that God Himself has found out-but if world, and the purport whereof is to you conform not thereto, thouogh the sure, recall to that Father's house from which it is the only way of reconciliation; and they have departed, one and all of its as you will not consent to take His good- alienated families. ness in the shape that he offers itnought remains but that with the un- III. We must now conclude with a believing Jews of my text, you shall be short practical application. And first, overtaken by the severity of God. such is the goodness of God, that it overBut let us not leave off, without assur- passes the guilt even of the most daring ing you once more, that there is a path and stout-hearted offender amongst you. of escape from this catastrophe, and a Let him even have grown grey, in path opened for you all. The flaming iniquity, there is still held out to him the sword at the gate of Eden, turns every offer of that peace-speaking blood in way to intercept your approach to the which there resides the specific virtue of tree of life; and the gospel of Jesus Christ washing it utterly away. These words turns every way save one —but that one from the mouth of God Himself can yet is a passage by which every creature be addrest to him, and to all who are in who now hears us, is invited to make the body-" Come now. let us reason good his entrance into the Paradise of together —though your sins be as God. That severity of God, on which crimson they shall become as wool, we have so much insisted, so far from though they be as scarlet, yet shall they lessening or casting a shade over His be made whiter than the snow." There goodness, only heightens and enhances it is none here present, whose transgresthe more. It had to struggle away for sions are so foul and so enormous as to the manifestation of itself-amid the con- be beyond the reach of the Saviour's flict of all the other perfections of Deity. atonement. There is none so sunk in The mercy of the gospel is mercy in its ungodliness, or who have drunk so deeply highest possible exhibition-for it is a of the spirit of this world, that he may mercy that had to scale the barrier of' not, through Him who died the just for such difficulties, as to every other eye but the unjust, be yet brought right and made the eye of infinite wisdom looked imprac- alive unto God. There is none or ticable —it is a mercy that, ere it could whom the load of Heaven's displeasure reach the world, had to wait the under- hath so accumulated that he may not cast taking of Him who went forth upon the the whole of his burden on that foundaembassy to seek and to save it-it is a tion which is laid in Zion, and' lightened mercy by which God, to spare those of all his fears, may xot rejoice in guilty who had affronted and despised the presence of God as his reconciles him, spared not His well-beloved Son; Father. The very worst and most worth but endured the spectacle of that deep and less among you are free to return unt( mysterious agony, by which the penalties Him —nay, have the word and the war of a broken law were absolved, and the rant of an express invitation; and, how mighty problem was resolved of God be- ever far you have wandered in profligacy ing just and yet the justifier of the un- or shame from the sanctuary of EHis ungodly. And now that the mercy of God' polluted holiness, still are you within the hath found its sure establishment on the scope of his widely sounding call, " Look foundation of his vindicated honours; unto me all ye ends of the earth and nwtv that the high demands of His au- be saved." .J C GOODNESS AND SEVERITY OF GOtr. 29 But agai). in ery proportion to this of that law; for then shall he be judged goodness will be the severity of God on worthy of a severer punishment-seeing those who shall have rejected it. There that he has trodden under foot the Sol. is reconciliation to all who will-but, if of God, and counted the blood of the ye will not, the heavier will be the ven- covenant an unholy thing. Your ordigeance that awaiteth you. The kindness nances are an abomination, and the share of God is still unquencehed, even by your that you take in solemnities and in sacramultiplied provocations of His broken ments will only serve to mark the deeper law-but quenched it most assuredly will hypocrisy of your souls-if you rise not be, if to this you add the tenfold provoca- from the table of commemoration more tion of His rejected gospel. The dispensa- devoted to the will of Him who is the tion under which you sit is anl alternative great Master of the feast, and over the dispensation. The word which cometh symbols of whose broken body, and out of the mouth of the Son of God will whose shed blood, you propose to witbe likened to a two-edged sword. There ness a good confession in the eyes of the is good-will for all who turn towards world.* Draw near with a true heart,, him. There is wrath, more intense and and He will draw near unto you. The jealous and unappeasable wrath, for all very deliverance that He will give you who turn away. He is the savour of life from the fears of condemnation, will inunto life-or he is the savour of death spire alacrity and vi(gour in the way of unto death. He is a tried and precious new obedience. The exchange that you stone, by leaning upon whom, you are shall make of the spirit of bondage for upheld on the firm ground of acceptance the spirit of adoption, will be the transla-_ with God; or He is a stone of stumbling tion of you into a new moral atmosphere on which you shall fall, or which falling -when you shall experience the differupon you shall grind you to powder. ence that there is between the services "Kiss the Son then now, and while He which are prompted. by affection and is in the way, lest his wrath should begin gratitude, and those mercenary services to burn-when blessed only shall they be which are compelled from the unwilling who have put their trust in Him." by the rod of authority. You will be And finally-let us warn you all, that endowed with another taste than that no one truly embraces Christ as their which actuates the children of this world: Saviour, vho does not submit to Him as and, as a fruit of the regeneration that their Master and their Lord. No one springeth from a real belief in the Sahas a true faith in His promises, who is viour, you will serve Him because you not faithful in the observation of His pre- love Him, and do His -will because you cepts. No one has rightly taken refuge delight to do Him honour. in Him from the punishment of a broken law, who still heedlessly and presumptu- r Preached on the occasion of a Sacrament. ously gives himself up to the violation SERMON IV. Salvation scarcely obtained even by the Righteous. "And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear."-. 1 PETER. iV. 18. THERE are men of no less than three ners; of whom it is asked, where shall distinct classes of character who have all they appear? The two last have one a part in this brief but most impressive common resemblance; but withal, they warning. First, the righteous, of whom have certain separate characteristics, it is said that they scarcely shall be saved. which it mav be well to notice on the Secondly, the ungodly; and thirdly, sin- present occasion. 30 SALVATION SCAR CELY OBTAINED EVEN BY THE RIGHTEOUS. SEX' I. It is unnecessary to dwell on the in peace without spot and blameless. It signification of the term righteous in the is thus, in fact, that we work out our salpassage before us-or to insist at any vation; not salvation from the punish great length on the distinction which ment of sin, for this is effected by the obtains between the imputed and the per- blood of Christ's atoning sacrifice-but son'l righteousness of those whb believe. salvation fi om the pollution and the power The one is perfect; and from the very of sin, which is effected by our striving first there is in it no scarceness, no short- mightily according to the grace of God coming. The second is frail and humble which worketh in us mightily. It is in the In its commencement, doubtful and vari- arduous prosecution of this work, that ous in its progress, and has to struggle man presses onward to a mark for a its uncertain way through defeats, and prize, and feels how all his power and difficulties, and discouragements, ere it strength must be embarked in the underreaches its full consummation. By the taking, lest he should fall short of it; one, we are delivered from the guilt of that, with much study and much strenusin. By the other, we are delivered from ousness, he tries to bring himself nearer the power of sin. In virtue of the im- every day to an object which still lies in puted righteousness, our names are blotted the distance before him; that, yet far beout from that book of condemnation which neath the summit of moral or spiritual is kept in the judicatory above. In virtue perfection to which he is aspiring, he of the personal righteousness, the pollu- plies his toilsome ascent along the nartion of sin is washed away from the heart row and the rugged path by which he is — and there is a busy work of holiness led to it. And so, the images employed goingr forward on each genuine and aspir- in scripture for the work of christianity, ing pilgrimn below. It is a firm and im- are expressive of most intense and susmutable certainty, that if a man believe, tained effort towards an attainment which he obtains a judicial righteousness in after all may not be realised-a battle Christ. But it is just as firm a certainty, which requires complete armour, and that if a man'believe, he obtains a per- the busy use of it, in order to secure the sonal righteousness in his own character. doubtful victory-a race which many The one is just as indissolubly linked run, but in which few will gain the with his salvation as the other-and, if prize-a narrow path, by which many because gifted with the former, he rejoices shall seek to pass through the gate of in hope, and has a peace in his heart life and not be able, and by which the which passeth all understanding; then, few only who strive shall make good because gifted also with the latter, he their entrance into the paradise of God. plies with utmost diligence and labour It is by dint of painful and assiduous all the activities of the christian service, striving that salvation is at length earalike instant in duty and watchfulness ried; and just as the courser may be said and prayer. scarcely to have won, who, with the utmost Now, it is obvious, both from the text of his power and fleetness hath made and from the context, that it is by their good his distance by a hair-breadth of personal characteristics that the righteous space, or within a moment of time, so it are contrasted with the ungodly and the is said of the righteous by the apostle in sinner. The judgment which begins our text, that scarcely they are saved. with the former and ends with the latter, Now the question we have to put upon is a judgment which takes cognizance of all this is, whether the righteous of our personal qualities alone. On that day we day, or those who deem themselves to shall be reckoned with for our doings- be so, are really comporting themselves and the respective awards of the judg- in a way answerable to such a represenment-seat will proceed on the distinction, tation? Are they running, so as that on the personal distinction which there is they may obtain? Are they fighting, so between them who obey and them who as that they may gain a hard-won vicobey not. So that, in looking forward to tory? Are they striving, so as that they that judgment-seat, our great aim should may force an entrance of great obstruc. be to perfect our obedience, and to be tion and difficulty? Where, we ask, are diligent, that we may be found of Chi'st there any symptoms of a work and of It.]- SALVATION SCARCELY IBTAINED EVEN BY THE RIGHTEOUS. 3 a warfare, or of that busy earnestness starting-post of a busy career, whence which a state of probation like ours would the Christian breaks forth with hope and seem so imperiously to demand? There alacrity on all the services of a new obeis a whole host of people, we are aware, dience. " Christ gave himself for us," who do stand forth and signalize them- says the apostle, " that he might redeem selves as the Religionists of the day. us from all iniquity, aud purify unto himBut amid all the pretence and profession self a peculiar people zealous of good; by which they are distinguished, where works." The faith of the gospel so enis the practical exercise? Where the larges the heart, as to make him by whom strenuous, the sustained effort that cometh it is actuated, run in the way of the comout of desirous hearts and doing hands? mandments. There is nought, surely,'How many or how few are there of these of indolence in this. The work which who are diligently plying at the real task- it is given a Christian to do, is not a work work of christianity?-who are making done so easily, that it may be lightly, or a business of their sanctification? —who carelessly, or superficially gone aboutare labouring for Heaven, as if pursued but a work done with such exceeding by the conviction that without labour they difficulty, that they who do accomplish will never make it out, and that even after it, accomplish it but scarcely, and so iis their utmost labour, they will but save but scarcely that they are saved. their distance, and scarcely reach the To keep the heart with all diligencegoal which they are tending to? Surely, to keep the heart in the love of God-to if they proceeded on this view of the mat- dwell with ever-recurring contemplation ter, their appearance altogether would be on those objects of faith by which gratithat of men upon the stretch-of men, tude and affectionate loyalty, and all the all whose faculties were pressed into a purposes of hew obedience are upholden mighty service-of men in a state of -to keep a strict and resolute guardianconstant and great urgency, on a way ship over the inner man, amid the tempoeset with many obstacles, and their tations by which it is both plied from progress through which required the without, and most insidiously, operated forthputting of all their strength, and upon from within —to watch over the of all their busy expedients. Now we infirmities of temper, the perpetual aberscarcely see this degree of intensity rations of selfishness and vanity-to any where. Not certainly among all, if follow after peace when surrounded by indeed among any, of those who are provocatives to war. to maintain charity' calledthe professing people. They have in the midst of cruelest provocations-to, more the semblance of men who have be patient under calumny and injustice;. been lulled to sleep by the sound of a and master that most difficult of all pleasant song, than of men who have achievements, the love of enemies who been roused into action by a spirit-stirring have hurt or affronted or betrayed us-to: call. Their orthodoxy has acted rather bid away all the incitements of sensuality,. as a sedative than a stimulant. It has so as both to have purity in the heart andt cradled them into a state of repose rather temperance in the habits, in the presence, than brought them out into a state of of a thousand besetting solicitations: In exertion. They are more like men un- addition to these labours of the unseen der the power of an opiate, than of men Spirit, to fill the whole history with thewho, awoke from lethargy, and now in doings of a visible obedience-to labour the attitude of readiness for service, have in our closets, to labour in our families, their loins girded about and their lamps to labour in the ordinances of religion, to burning. labour in the attentions and the ofices of Christianity is grievously misunder- social intercourse, to labour in the'visita-. stood, whenever it is imagined that all tions of liberality and kindness, to labour this activity and labour are not called for. yet with a spirit schooled out of all its' They are sadly misled by their creeds worldliness in the business of our callings and their systems, who fancy the death -these, these are the tests of Christianityof Christ to be that terminating object, in here; and these, when done to the glory which the believer has only to rest and of God, and in the name of Jesus, will be. do nothing. Instead of this, it is the the triumphs of Christianity hereafter S2 SALVATION SCARCELY OBTAINED EVEN BY THE RIGHTEOUS. [SERM. These are the treasures'laid up for us in -It is not the sacramental decency, or Heaven-not as forming our title-deed to even the sacramental fervour, followed up that glorious inheritance of the saints, but by a year, throughout the general tenor as forming our meetness for its exercises of which, you breathe like other men the and its joys. All the possible acts and air of this world's business and this virtues of humanity put together, cannot world's companionship It is not thus build up a claim to Heaven; but they that you acquit yourselves like servants, build up the indispensable character of who, as if under the immediate eye of Heaven. Trhey compose not that im- Heaven, are working and waiting for puted righteousness of Christ which is their Lord. Awaken, awaken, then all the meritorious plea; but they compose ye, who sit at ease in Zion, if ye would that personal righteousness of his disciples escape the fearfulness which shall overwhich is their essential preparation. take the hypocrite, the doom of those who And it is the magnitude of that prepara- say, Lord, Lord, while they do not the tion; it is the loftiness, the spirituality of things which he says. that law, with the graces and perfections of which they'are called upon to clothe II. Now if such be the ordeal which thyaselves; it is the mighty range or even the righteous must undergo, what extent of a commandment whereof the must become of the ungodly? If the Psalmist says, that it is exceeding broad former can scarcely pass the judgment in -these make the work and the labour safety, how is it possible that in that judgof Christianity such that it scarcely can ment the latter can stand 2 It begins, it be done-these, as constituting the salva- would appear, at the house of God, and tion of believers from sin unto righteous- there it so searches and scrutinizes, that ness, give emphatic truth to the saying, it is but hardly and by a little way, that that the righteous scarcely can be saved. many, even of Christ's own disciples Now the first class of believers who shall be found on the right side of the line ought to feel the force of this representa- of demarcation. It ends with those who tion, are they who have embraced the stand afar off from the precincts of holifaith of the gospel. Whatan impressive ness or of heaven, and among them it warning to all such that it is but scarcely will be a consuming fire. If'the saints,!they shall be saved! You may win, but with all their prayers and pains and hardly, and as if within a hair-breadth. struggles upon earth, shall but have won -Now to make this out, are you working their distance by a hair-breadth, and by hardly Does your seeking amount to their much strenuousness have forced, any thing like striving 2 Are you at all and'scarcely forced their admittance like men putting forth your whole might within the door of the kingdom-ah! for carrying some point of difficulty what will become of those sinners, the When the fortress stands in a position that care of whose souls cost them no strenuis nearly impregnable, we find that all ousness, who live here as they list, and the strength and all the tactics of besieg- make this evanescent world their restingers are put forth in the business of storm- place, without an effort or a wish beyond ing it. Is the kingdom of Heaven, we it. Surely, if among God's own people ask, suffering this violenceat your hands; the sacred jealousy of His nature act and where are your high resolves, your as a refiner's fire,' to separate the almost busy expedients, your struggles and your from the altogether Christian, it must go,onsets for taking it by force? Where forth in one mighty and devouring tide are your ardent prayers for strength; of conflagration among the hosts of the and then, the stirring Up or the putting rebellious. forth of that strength which is in you for Our purpose in distinguishing the ungreat and arduous performances? And, godly and the sinners into two classes, is do you watch as well as pray? It is not if possible to excite salutary alarm in the the devotion of a little time in the morn- breasts of those, who imagine of theming, followed up by an utter relaxation of selves that they are not sinnersspirit through the day-It is not the who at least imagine of themselves observation of all the Sabbath punctuali- that they are not in danger, because ties followed up by a week of earthliness in reputation and good will among men, ,v. - SALVATION SCARCELY OBTAINED EVEN BY THE RIGErEOUS. 33 they are free from the disgrace of all liantly accomplished in the moralities of grossandnotorious delinquencies. They earth, yet without one thought or one lie not. They steal not. They oppress visitation in their spirits of any practical not the poor; nor do they violate either earnestness about the heaven that lies the equities of business or the proprieties beyond it-free of all those sins which of good neighbourhood. It is a most fre- would be termed delinquencies in the quent, nay a most natural delusion among world, yet most surely as free of all desuch, that they are not great sinners- votedness in their hearts to Him who and for this best of all reasons that they made the world-surrounded by the reare chargeable with no great sins. They gards of kindness and the obeisances of will not admit the magnitude of their respect in their neighbourhood below, guilt-neither will they admit the mag- yet living in a perpetual exile of the nitude of their danger, till some specific affections from Him who is above, at or definite transgression can can be alleged once the Father and the Judge of the against them. In the absence of these human family-lulled into complacency they feel a complacency in their present by the thought of the many duties and state, and are visited with no disturbance the many decencies whereof they acquit at least, in the contemplation of their -themselves, yet hastening onward to that future prospects. They stand alike ex- day of account, when tried by the quesempted from remorse and terror. And tion, " What have you done unto God V" it serves to foster this tranquillity of spirit they shall be left without a speech and more, if to the absence of all which they without an argument. Surely, if they deem to be positively bad, they add the who have cared and striven and sought presence of much that is positively good after God all their days, yet after all are in their charazter-if they be amiable in but scarcely saved-well may it be asked, the relations of domestic and social life, what shall become of those who have if they be kind and companionable never cared? If with the one there be among their fellows, if they be erect and such difficulty of salvation, what are we untainted in honour, if they be trusty in to conclude of the other, but that with friendship, if they be devoted in patriot- them there is the certainty of damnation? ism. If it be with so much ado that the richt. These are the virtues which uphold, eous pass through the ordeal of their nay beautify the societies of the earth — coming judgment, how is it possible that but what we affirm of one and all of them the ungodly can, stand? is, that they do coexist with ungodliness. We are tot charging you with aught Along with the presence of these social which the world would call monstrous. moralities, there may be the absence or We charge you only with the negatives utter destitution of all the sacred morali- of character. You have no practical, no ties. That is a pleasing light wvhich is perpetual sense of God. We are not struck out by the mere workings of in- speaking of your vices. We speak only stinct in the hearts and among the habit- of your defects. You are deficient from ations of men. But it differs from that searedness. It is not by your profligalight which cometh down from the upper cies, but simply by your negations that sanctuary. The one is no more like to we describe you. You have no godlithe other than.the tiny lustre of the glow- ness, or you are ungodly. Your conworm is like t\lto the firmament's merid- sciences can tell, whether such be a just ian blaze. There may be nought of the representation of yourselves. It can make celestial in this earth-born virtue; and it palpable the difference between the habit is a possible, nay a frequent, thing that of your souls, and that of those whose men shall live and breathe in its atmos- eye, and the aspiration of whose heart, phere, yet live without God. are ever towards the upper sanctuary —Now, it is for the sake of grouping whose delight is in communion with these men into a company by themselves, God, and whose chief dread it is to offend that we view the, ungodly of our text, as Him —who bear upon their spirits at all separate from the sinners of our text. times a reverential impression of His They in truth form a distinct class of sacredness; and who strive, with a.ll their society-accomplished, and perhaps bril- vigour and all their vigilance, to uphold 5 34 SALVATION SCARCELY OBTAINED EVEN BY THE RIGHTEOUS. LSERV] that frame of the affections, which most the thunders of His righteous condembefits the expectant of heaven, and best nation. prepares for its holy services. You can best say if it be thus with you; and III. So much for the subtle delusion whether you now realise those longings of those who are ungodly, but feel not and those labourings of the life of faith, themselves to be sinners-and just bebr which all the feelings of the inner cause, whatever may be the hidden delinman, and all the doings of the outer man, quencies of their spirit, there are no speare consecrated to the business of a high cific delinquencies of outward conduct calling. Even they who are the most with the matter of which they are chargestrenuous and the most devoted in this able. He who ventures upon the latter business of piety-even they but scarcely kind of disobedience, belongs to a distinct shall be saved; and what, we repeat, can genus of character from that of mere unbecome of those, who, from their cradles godliness. And hence the distinction we to their graves, do but grovel in the dust would make between the ungodly and of that earth which they tread upon, and the sinner. The one simply cares not live without God in the world? for God. The other, more resolute, lifts Think not then, that you might sleep against Him an open defiance. The one, on in safety because you have had no led by his own will, can perhaps only be crimes. That judgment which shall at charged with the distance of his affeclength awaken you, will fall in weighti- tions from the person or character of est vengeance upon your head, if it but God. The other, in formal and act.ive find you in a state of negation and naked- resistance to the Divine will, may be ness. You fancy, that you have done charged with the despite done by his nothing against God. But it is enough actions to the authority of God. The that you have lived without God. You one is only disaffected. The other is are not conscious of such disobedience as more, he is disobedient: and while the any distinct or specific act of rebellion. former is but upon the neutral ground But enough, that you have not yielded of indifference to God, the latter has obedience to His reign. It will be vain planted his daring footstep within the to allege that you never were a rebel distinct and the declared landmark of a against Him, if He can allege that He forbidden territory.. Such is the differ. never had the rule over you. They are ence between him who is ungodly, and your own M ills that have ruled you. It him who is a transgressor. The one is is by the waywardness of your own destitute of the feeling of loyalty. The affections that you have walked. It may other, more stoutly rebellious, hath broken not have been on a way of profligacy or the laws. He hath more outraged Heaon a way of scandalous profaneness; but ven's high sovereignty. He hath more still it was your own way, and not His braved, and bid defiance to the authority way. You have carried it all your lives of God. long, independently of God. Perhaps It is the more visible nature of his dewithout any gross violation of the decen- linquency which lays him opener to the cies of life, but then you have a taste for conviction of sin, than the man of decent decency. Perhaps without any glaring morality, yet withal rooted ungodliness; infraction of the integrities of business; and thus also would we explain the debut then, you have a native principle of claration of Christ, that publicans and integrity. Perhaps with an habitual sinners enter the kingdom of heaven behomage to the voice of society, and even fore the Pharisees. They are more easily an occasional homage to the voice of your conscience-stricken, just because their sins own conscience; but reckless all the are more conspicuous. Their fraud, or while to the voice of God, and relatively their falsehood, or their drunkenness, or to Him, in as deep a slumber of uncon- their impurity, or their sabbath profanasciousness as if He were a nonentity or tions, or their blasphemies, or their acts a phantom. Now, you refuse to hear of oppression and violence; these are the voice of His rightful authority; and more glaring insignia of revolt against BO afterwards you shall be made to hear the government of Heaven, than is the IV.] SALVATION SCARCELY OBTAINED EVEN BY THE RIGHTEOUS. 35,atent, the lurking ungodliness of a to him of the ungodliness that is in his worldly moralist-even though it should heart, when things like these have broken leaven his whole heart, and thoroughly out upon his history-the overt-acts of impregnate every deed of his history. rebellion-the expressions of a distinct Both will be reckoned with on the great and declared warfare against Heaven's day of manifestation-the one by the throne. And 0, if e but knew the insecret things of his heart, which shall violable sacredness Of Him who sitteth then be revealed; the other by the deeds thereon-of Him whose eyes are as a lone in his body, which shall then be flame'of fire, and before the rebuke of judged. But the inward secrets may not whose countenance all the derision and se palpable now while the outward deeds defiance of the hardiest in wickedness are abundantly so. The apostle makes must at length melt away-surely he, a distinction between those sins which would judge it better to recall himself in are open before-hand, and those which time, than to appear with all the aggrafollow after. It is a distinction realized vations of his uncancelled guilt before by the ungodly and the sinner of our the judgment-seat. The voice of weltext. The rebellion of the former has come and of good-will still calls upon its firm though unseen hold in the re- him from his mercy-seat; and that God, cesses of his bosom The rebellion of the book of whose remembrance is laden the latter is written in such characters with the record of his misdoings, is still upon his forehead as may be seen and willing that they shall all be blotted out read of all men. in the blood of the great atonement: and It is thus, that while often difficult to if he will only break off his sins by awaken conviction in the hearts of the righteousness and turn him to Christ who mere ungodly-the heart of the sinner is mighty to save, the way of renovation may be reached by reading to him in is yet open; and the great Lawgiver, the deeds of his history his own char- whom he has so often offended, beckons acter; and by reading to him, in the him to draw nigh and taste of His gracharacter of these deeds, the tremendous ciousness Suce is the offer now: but destiny which awaits him. It is thus let both the sinner and the ungodly rethat we would try to lay an arrest on the collect, that this season of opportunity career of the transgressor. We would will soon pass away. The invitations appeal to his own consciousness of his of God's tenderness will give place, and own doings. We would remind him of that speedily, to the terrors of a vengeance the sabbaths that he has violated, or of which will burn all the more fiercely be. the execrations that he has poured forth, cause of a slighted gospel, and a rejected or of the impurities and excesses that he Saviour. Be alive then to the urgency has indulged in, or of the dishonesties in of the present call, to the power and the business that he has committed, or of the encouragement of the present invitation. relative duties that he has broken, or of Kiss the Son while He is in the waythe calumnies, whether heedless or ma- lest his wrath should begin to burnlignant, wherewith he has soiled a neigh- when blessed only shall they be who bour's reputation We need not speak have put their trust in Him. SERMON V. On the Spirit's striving with Man. "And the Lord said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man."-GEN. vi. 3. WHSEN man is prevailed on to follow in moving him to this step; but this it {he call of the Gospel, he does it on the could not have, unless he saw his interest impulse of certain considerations. In- to be involved in it-or, in other words, tdrest, for example, may have some share unless he believed in the unseen matters 36 THE SPIItIT'S STRIVING WITH MAN. [SERM, of a judgment and an eternity. Duty ments of Scripture —that while, in the may have some share in moving him; administration of Heaven's kingdom but this it could not have, unless he was upon earth, the bible, and the minister, visited with a relenting sense of his obli- and the various ordinances of religion, gation to that God, whose will he had so are set agoing as so many visible instruoften forgotten, ai whose requirements ments for turning man from the power he had so often tram pled on-or, in other of Satan unto God-it is that spirit which words, unless the conscience were made bloweth where He listeth, who gives to more tender, and the heart of stone were these instruments all their success, and made more soft and susceptible than it all their energy. And, without stopping' ever had been, up to the decisive moment at present to resolve all the interesting of his embarking his every desire and questions which follow in the train of his every purpose, on that path of obedi- this most important doctrine, we feel, ence which leads to the Jerusalem above. that we are only uttering the words of Now, it is to be remarked, that all the God's own authoritative revelation, when considerations both of duty and of in- we say, that, wherever an imnpression is terest might be presented to- a multitude kindled in a human bosom on the side of of people in the same language, with the what is right, or penitent, or pious, there, same impressiveness of tone and of vehe- through the medium of some secondary ment affection on the part of the speaker, cause or other, the Spirit of God has been and with all the same external advan- at work. And in every movement of tages on the part of the hearer; and yet, conscience, in every pang of self-reproach, in point of fact, there is not a more fami- in every visitation of a compunctious tenJiar exhibition of human nature, than derness, in every conception of a better that the movement of the very same purpose, in every longing of the soul enrgine should carry along with it a pre- after a conformity to the law of heaven, vailing influence on certain individuals in every upward aspiring of the heart of this multitude, while, with certain under all the darkness and all the passion others, the influence felt at the time and by which it is encompassed, do we recog. acted on for the time, is at length lost nize a manifestation of the Spirit's influand overborne amongst the concerns of ence, a trace of His unseen but most unthe world, and the urgency of its mani- doubted agency, a struggle in that confold temptations. test which is now going on between the Now, there must be a cause for this powers of heaven and of hell for the difference; and it is not enough, to assign dominion of this world; and upon the as the cause the mere variety of original issue of which contest in the soul of each character and constitution among those, individual it will depend, whether he rewho are within the reach of a hearing. main in captivity to the spirit that now There can be no doubt that this has an worketh in the children of disobedience; effect; but still the effect is not such as or renewed in his mind by the power of may not, be completely overruled, by a the Holy Ghost, he be rescued from that cause that is paramount to all the pre- universal wreck which has come upon vious varieties of character whatever, and the species, and be exalted into a monua cause that can get the better of all the ment of that Redeemer's triumphs, who resistance which the hardiest and the has undertaken the work of our deliverworldiest of minds may offer to the power ance, and, for that greatness of strength of that truth which is brought to bear which He put forth is the execution of upon it. There are repeated instances, it, has obtained for His reward, that He in the history of the church, of the un- shall see of the travail of His soul and likeliest and most stubborn of men, sur- be satisfied. rendering themselves to the power of a Now it may require some attention gospel argument, which has fallen on from you, to perceive the precise kind of the conscience of one who had apparently responsibility, which this view of the a more impressible constitution, without matter lays on one and on all of us. fruit and without efficacy. And to sus- Were a charge committed to me by some pend you no longer on this topic, we give rightful superior in an unknown tongue, it you as one of the clearest announce- I incur no fault towards him, though I ;V.1 THE SPIRIT STRINING WITH MAN. 37 fail to acquaint myself of the articles of thority of the Godhead; and he with his this charge. But conceive an interpreter eyes so open, to put his daring footstep to -step in between me' and him, and on that forbidden ground which is fenced to translate the whole'of his instructions about by the prohibitions of the Divine into my vernacular language; and then law. Or, were this power to touch his should I persist in my neglect, I land heart by some sense of dutiful obligation myself in all the guilt of disobedience. to his Maker: and he, stifling the whole Or, what brings it still nearer to the topic of its urgency, were to forbear anll enon hand, conceive me to be labouring trance upon the way of the commandunder such a deafness, that I cannot pos- ments. Or were this power to lay before sibly hear the feeble voice of my master, him, in clear and resistless manifestation, as he delivers his commission to me; the spectacle of an inviting God, plying but that I am able to understand it by His wandering prodigal with all the tenthe more powerful enunciation of a third derness of entreaty, and assurinc him on person, who acts as an assistant in this the pledge of His own Son given up to business of communication betwixt us. the death for us, that if he turn in repentOr, what perhaps is a still more precise ance to the God he has strayed from, all approximation, conceive me to be igno- will be forgiven and all will be forgotten; rant of the authority and blind to the and he, unmoved out of his obstinacy by claims of him who is laying: his com- the whole weight of this fatherly exposmands upon me; but that another ex- tulation, were to refuse the proffered kindplains the matter so as to make me sensi- ness, and unmindful of the call from ble of his moral and legitimate right heaven, were to walk in the counsel of to the whole of my obedience. Then his own heart and in the sight of his own you can be at no loss to feel, how, what- eyes. Now there is such a power at ever palliations might be devised for my work with us all. We see Him not, but want of subordination to the will of my we have the experience of His agency in superior, had there been no intermediate the effect it has on our hearts and conlink of interpretation, or of exposition, or sciences. This is the only way in which of audible conveyance betwixt us-yet, His interference may have been at all with such a link, every such palliation is sensible to you-even by a movement of done away; and the more faithfully and conscience, when it pointed to you the laboriously and patiently the office of an path of duty, or charged on you the guilt interpreter has been discharged, the more of your manifold deviations. All of you does it go to aggravate the blame of him, must have the remembrance of such who, with. all these advantages, still movements. There is not one of you, refuses the rightful call of his rightful su- who has not felt in your past history, perior, and turns in contempt and diso- a visitation of this kind on your ever busy bedience away from him. and ever thinking spirits. And there is Now it would suspend our immediate not one of you who has been in the habit object, did we attempt at present what we of resisting these visitations, who does not think can be done by the united force of feel, how, in the progress of this resistreason and Scripture, to pour the light of ance, the moral sense gets more languid a thorough explicitness into all the sub- in its admonitions; and the monitor tleties of this interesting argument. We within emits a gentler voice; and the will not therefore say at present, in how impression of the present guilt and the far man, because labouring as he does future danger is ever decaying into a under a moral blindness of perception, fainter and a feebler influence; and that and sunk in all the stupidity of a consti- horror at sin, which was fresh and powtutional alienation from God, is, on that erful at the outset of life, is subsiding account, to be held less guilty of rebellion into a hardened insensibility; and, for against Him by his life of prone and the tenderness of youthful conscience, habitual disobedience. But, sure we are, and youthful apprehension, there is now that it would take away from the whole perhaps the front of an audacious rebelforce of the apology, were some secret lion —an iron remorselessness of soul and invisible power to open at times the which can now sin for itself without a eye of itis mind to the high titles and au- sigh, and behold the sin of others without 38 THE SPIRIT'S STRIVIN,. WITH MIAN. [SERa, one movement of concern or of sympa- coming less powerful, and less frequent, thy. Now if you look no farther than to and less urgent in its admonitions; and the phenomenon of conscience within if you connect these admonitions with you, you will look on this as the natural the living and the personal agent, who, progress of its hardening; and on this by whispering to the human mind progress, an argument may be founded through the organ of conscience, is the for immediate repentance. But the Bible real though unseen author of all its sugteaches us to look farther. It connects gestions-you bring every individual every phenomenon both of matter and of amongst us into the same relation with mind, with the invisible power which the Spirit of God, that subsists between gives birth to it. It refers every moral him who lies under certain duties and movement towards God in the heart of obligations, and him who fulfils the office man, to the visitation of God's Spirit? of his friendly and advising superior. acting the part of an enlightener or ad- The Spirit takes upon Himself the office viser or persuasive monitor, who plies of persuading us to all that is most rightHis suggestions and His arguments with eous towards God, and of course to all the men of a perverse and obstinate gen- that is most beneficial to ourselves. In eration. And thus it is that we are the discharge of this office, there is the called to grieve not the Spirit, to quench exercise of much kindness and patience not the Spirit, to provoke not the Spirit to and tender benevolence. If we act faithabandon us to our own wilfulness, to fully and zealously on the advice of this make not the Spirit angry by our con- day, He will treat us as hopeful subjects tempt for His warnings and our resist- for the advice of another day. He will ance to the voice of His authority. It is persevere in His soarvices, and reiterate alarming indeed, to be told of the natural His admonitions; and to us who have progress of the conscience, in becoming made a right use of the teaching we have hardier and more insensible by every act received, more will be given. And this of resistance to its dictates. But it forms harmonizes with all that we experience a distinct and a powerful addition to the of the visible effect of this invisible influargument, when we think of these dic- ence. He who betakes himself most tates being set forth by the Spirit of God, scrupulously to the following of his conwho is a willing and a knowing and science, is every day receiving from it a living and a personal agent; that we the ioght of clearer and more abundant by our resistance tire His patience, and intimations. The monitor within betempt Him to leave us to ourselves and comes every day, by reason of use, more bring hardness down upon our hearts judicious and enlightened, and more in the way of a judgment; if that to-day able to indicate the path of duty, and to we hear not His voice He may not come lead us a clear and a confident wayto-morrow, or if He do come may knock through all the embarrassments of a more deafly than ever at the door of our darkening casuistry; and, in return, as hearts, and emit a fainter and a feebler it were, for our faithful application of its whispering; that if now we mind not the more elementary lessons, does it deal things. which belong to our peace, He them out in larger and surer and more will become less loud and less frequent in abundant manifestations. The consciHis admonitions, He will gradually die entious performance of what we do know, away from us into a final departure, He is rewarded by a more satisfying revelawill let us alone, and leave us to the per- tion of what we do not know. And thus verseness of our own ways and the infat- it is, that we so often behold the progress:ation ofour own counsels. of a true believer, to be from the fearful The first argument for immediate re- scrupulosities of a yet unsettled and unpentance turns upon the fact, that the confirmed babe in Christ, to that firm soul, by every fresh act of resistance purpose, that intrepid decision, that bold against the admonitions of conscience, and immediate energy of conduct, which gathers the metal of a stouter and a hard- bespeak the full assurance of a mind that ier resistance in all time coming. The knoweth the right from the wrong, and second argument turns upon the fact that promptly betakes itself to the line of its the conscience itself is every day be- own just and righteous determination V.] THE SPIRIT'S STRIVING WITH MAN. 3~ If any man keep my sayings to him will ful command; and which, had he fol. I manifest myself. If any man serve lowed, the spirit of God would still have me, he shall not walk in darkness but kept by him and plied him with his furshall have the light of life. These and ther communications. But he did not such as these are most interesting passa- follow it, clear as it was even to his own ges. They unfold the connexion which sense of right and wrong; and therefore the Author of the Gospel has established, it is, that on that great and decisive day, between advancing obedience and ad- his condemnation will have a clear prinvancing spiritual discernment. Follow ciple to rest upon. He will be tried by out the dictates that have already been the light that was put within his reach, clearly put forth to you; arid this will and which was withdrawn from him be followed up by a more copious supply only because he had not the uprightness of instruction than you have ever yet re- and the morality to walk in it; and ceived. Walk after the present leadings therefore it is that in him is fulfilled the of your conscience, or rather of the Spirit saying, that he who hath not, from him to whom conscience is the organ or chan- shall be taken away even that which he nel of conveyance; and He will lead you hath. And thus it is, that every act of still farther: And thus it is, that you known and wilful disobedience, throws a grow from the first rudiments of the darkening cloud over the path of duty; Christian practice, to the strength and and smothers the admonitions of the inthe stature of manhood; and are carried ward voice; and makes the Spirit of God forward from the tottering feebleness of less frequent in His visitations; and one who is in the infancy of his acquire- hastens to the soul that awful consummaments, till you are made to stand perfect tion of being let alone, or of being finally and complete in the whole will of God. abandoned to its. own desperate impeniNow mark the opposite result of that tency. And therefore do we urge you conduct, by which we turn a deaf ear to to follow out every one step and purpose the voice that is within us. We not only of repentance that conscience is now laydisobey the voice, but we stifle it. In the ing upon you; and that not merely be whole of this business we have to do with cause we anticipate in future a hardier one who is pleased with our attention to resistance to its dictates, but we anticipate Him, and rewards it by the growing the progressive feebleness of a decaying clearness and frequency of His intima- and perhaps of an expiring conscience. tions. But should we withhold our at- Or, in other words, we know that He who tention, He in time will withhold His suggests to it all its admonitions, and ~intimations. My Spirit will not always arms its voice with all the energy that strive with the children of men. It is belongs to it, may at length be driven by thus it vill be found in the great day of your perverse and ungracious treatment account that He is clear of the blood of of Him to abandon His office altogether, all the families upon earth. It will be and to leave the chamber of that mind found that over the whole face of an where sin reigns uncontrolled and fills alienated world, deep as its spirit of slum- the recesses of the inner man with its ber may be about the things of God, it dark and unhallowed imagery,-leave it will be found that He has done enough with all its rebellious affections unreto awaken it. It will be found, that, buked by His presence and unblest by with the mighty instruments of the law any of His future visitations. written in the heart and the law written This is not an aerial speculation. in the record of heaven's messengers, He What we have now asserted may be has made His ample round through all seen by us all, fixed and exemplified on the tribes of this world's accountable many a living subject. There are men population, and has knocked at the door to be met with at all times, crossing our of every conscience; and there is not a daily path, and sitting down with us in man who will have Him to blame for the social party, and entering into talk the undoing of his eternity. He has with us in the room of public resort, and given to each some distinct suggestions into negotiation with us at the marketor other, which he himself felt to be in- place-who are just in that very state of vested with all the authority of a right- abandonment which we have now been 40 THE SPIRIT'S STRIVING WITH MAN. ISERM describing. You may not have been in is, that the Spirit of (od is no longer ai the habit of looking upon them, as men work with him. He no longer offers. to of whom you could say, that the Spirit move him out of the fatal tranquillity of God had given them over. But this which has got hold of him. And that is only because you have not adverted to soul, which is enjoying itself for a few the fact-that it is this Spirit who is the years —which feels so much at ease, bereal, though secret and unnoticed author, cause leaning on a foundation of repose of every movement of principle; of every that never varies-which goes on to sin suggestion of conscience; of every check without one disquieting scruple; and to of self-reproach; of every arresting call, keep by its distance firom God, without by which the mind is directed to serious- one terrifying thought of His unescapable tess, and is led to bethink itself of God, eye, and His no less unescapable judg end is visited by a sense of the present ment-Why such a soul, surrounded a guilt and the coming judgment, and is it may be with all the securities of unin any way brought under the power of concern, and of worldly pleasure, and of a religious consideration. We are sure, prosperous circumstances, and of health, you must allow, that there is not a more which bids fair for a long vista and a familiar exhibition amongst your fellow- brilliant perspective on this side of etermen, than of one who is built up in an nity-such a soul, with all its enviable ease and in a security, to which the mo- tranquillities, and all its keen enjoyment nitor within offers no disturbance what- of time and of its vanities, is neither more ever-of one who does, and is in the nor less than ripening for its doom, in deliberate habit of doing. what is clearly the deceitful calm of a deep and undisland undeniably wrong; but whose con- turbed infatuation. And, however much icience has ceased to ply him with her the easy man may be the object of comiemonstrances, and to tell him that it is placency to himself and of convivial deso-of one, who, in the pursuits of volup- light to his acquairnances who are like tuousness, suffers not one thought of the him —on him lies the awful sentence of law of heaven, to stop him in that un- being let alone; of being given up by hallowed career on which he has em- the Spirit of God; of being turned from barked himself-of, one, who, in the as one of those hopeless subjects, on prosecution of gain, can do things with- whom all the past suggestions of con.out one check of remorse, which other science and of principle have been throwr men could not do, without their inner away: of being left to the deep spirit of man bringing the whole armour of prin- slumber, in which he may persist to the ciple and of compunction and a struggling hour of death, and from which he may sense of duty into war against it. You never, never be awakened, till the sound must, in your walk of experience, have of the last trumpet shall summon him met with such men-whose conscience from the grave-and the awful infliction is asleep, or whose conscience has lost of his now heedless, and thoughtless, and its power of admonition; or whose con- remorseless guilt, shall frown upon him science, at least, has given up her wonted in fell characters of truth and of severity task, of presenting her admonitions to from the judgment-seat. the notice of the infatuated profligate, or But, it may be said, does not this treatof the corrupt and devoted worlding. ment of him by the Spirit of God look And if you just connect this fact, offered hard and unrelenting? Would it not be to you by your own experience, with the kind to keep by him, and to remonstrate undou I ted truth-that this said conscience with him, and to send another and another is neither more nor less than the organ, suggestion through the conscience of this through which the Spirit of God sends poor child of infatuation? Yes, but ere His impressive whispers into the soul; we indulge in these reflections, let us and plies it with the awful lessons, of think what the Spirit of God has already man being answerable to his God, and done for him. We appeal to his own of God's wrath being revealed from hea- remembrance, if any such be here, wheyen against all unrighteousness of man ther the Spirit of God have not already —.Then the right inference to make con- done all this? We call him to look back cerning hil n who hears no such whispers, on his youthful days. and bid him recol V. J THE SPIRIT S STRIVING WITh AAN. 41 lect, if there never was a time in the anxieties; and how, dismantled- of all his whole history of his life, when conscience youthful innocence, and with all purity awoke upon him, when, ere he entered fled from his practice and all tenderness that career of guilt on which he is now from his heart, he was widening every so frully embarked, if the internal moni- day his distance from that God, at whose tor, true to her office, did not struggle word he had been taught to tremble, and the point with him; and he, suffering whose sabbaths he had been taught to himself to be overborne by temptations, remember and to keep them holy. But would none of her reproof, and turned why need we talk of his conscience, away from all her admonitions? We when in fact it was the pure and the ask him to tell us upon his own honest Holy Spirit of God, who prompted her,remembrance of the past, if, even after every admonition, and gave its emphasis he had been led astray among the dark to every lifting of her voice. This Spirit paths of this world's deceit and this world's kept by him; and gave him the fairest profligacy, conscience still did not keep and most frequent trials; and, grieved for months and for years by her post, though He was by the bitterest provocaand ever and anon plied him with her tions did not for long abandon him; and visitations? We ask him, if she did not went along with him to those haupts of fill her mouth with arguments, and make iniquity, where pure as He was, He had use of every plea to recal her thankless to bear with all the impurities and all the disciple, firom the profanations and the execrations which are acted in these depravities into which he was wander- scenes of wickedness, and even then did ing? Was there never a time when she He attempt to reclaim him to seriouspressed him with her suggestions; and ness: But all, all was stifled; and after he, shutting the hasty door against them a patience exercised to the uttermostall, took shelter in the surrounding ex- after the discouragement of many refusals ample, and quelled his every agitation -after being quenched and resisted in amid the boisterous merriment of his still many thousand ways-then and not till hardier acquaintances? then did the Holy Spirit of God, against Yes, if he will only look back, he will whom he is now venting forth his murfind that it was long and very long, ere murs of discontent, abandon him to his conscience gave way to his repeated own infatuation. insults, and was at length compelled And even still, if there be any indito quit him under the power of his mani- vidual of the description we allude to fold and provoking contempt for her. within the reach of our hearing, and And ere she could resign her task, did whose conscience has been at all touched she borrow suggestions from every quar- or his feelings at all arrested, by the in ter, and try her every expedient, and strumentality of our feeble voice-then waited her every moment, and bethink there has been another agent between herself of a variety of affecting consider- him and us, than the mere sound by ations. She would at one time fetch an which the words of truth are conveyed to argument from heaven; and tell him of his hearing. The Spirit of God has lent the God who sitteth on the throne, and His presence to the sound. And after of the law that proceedeth out of His the long and dreary absence of those mouth, and of the all-seeing eye that is in years which have been spent at a distance every place beholding the evil and the from all that was serious in principle, good. At another, she would fetch her and all that was pure and righteous in argument from earth, and, to subdue him conduct, has He now come back upon into tenderness would she set before him him; and made another reappearance; the picture of a venerable father; and of and given him another sicht of His the mansions of piety, where he spent rebuking countenance; and is making his early days, and would have shrunk another trial to find a way into his bosom. in horror from the thought of his present and forgetful of every provocation, and delinquencies; and of the prayers which of every wrong that He has gotten from his unsuspecting parents are still putting his.hands, is He telling him that here is forth for him; and of the -thankless another opportunity; and lifting IHis return he has made them for all their friendly countenance, that, if possible, Ile 6 42 THE SPIRIT'S STRIVING WITH MAN. [SERM, may still restrain him from the fate of a it gives to every suggestion of right or of desperado in rebellious iniquity against wrong by which you are visited! En. God. He is pointing to him, on the one courage the suggestion and follow it; hand, the terrors of that sentence which and you encourage the Spirit of God is awaiting him, if he will turn him to persevere with you, in the exercise of away from the reproof that He is now all His offices. Stifle the suggestion, laying upon His conscience; and, on the and resist it, and suffer it to be quenched other, He is trying to lure him to his and forgotten amid the tumults of a noisy, safety, by holding forth to the eye of his headlong, and worldly career. and you mind the arms of an inviting lawgiver, set up a contest from which God declares, who, even in this late hour of his dark that His Spirit will at length retire. His and deceitful day, still says, That if he patience has a limit beyond which it will only return to Him and make his will not pass. And by this one and that peace with Him through the blood of an other act of resistance, to the call of Turn everlasting covenant, and be willing to and' repent and live —by this wretched live no longer to himself but to the new postponement one day after another in law of Him who has taken upon Him the which you have persisted so long-by burden of his iniquities-that He is wil- this deceitful carrying forward of the ling to forgive all and to forget all. If purpose, to some distant period of your any thing will touch the heart of him anticipated history-by this delusive miswho has driven at a long career of hard calculation upon the eleventh hour —you and obstinate impenitency, this should. are every day bringing nearer to you And if it do not, who does not see that that awful consummation, when it might God has wiped His hands of him? Who be said of you, what our Saviour said does not see, that He who sitteth on the with tears over the devoted city of Jeruthrone, and has plied him through life salem, " Hadst thou known in thy day with so many warnings of proclaimed the things which belong to thy peace, danger and so many messages of insulted but now they are forever hid from thine tenderness, has acquitted Himself of all eyes." harsh and unrighteous severity? Who May the Spirit of God press home this does not see, that the blood lieth on the interesting argument resistlessly upon head of him who has thus abandoned you; and by the working of that power himself; and that it is by his own re- of His, by which He is mighty to the peated sins against the imploring and pulling down of strongholds, may all beseeching and expostulating Spirit, that your feelings and all your purposes be this Spirit tempted and exercised to the overborne. May the call of immediate uttermost, has taken its final flight, and repentance force its way through the put on its inflexible purpose of never withstanding barriers of every heart, returning to this vessel of wrath fitted for that is now trenched in the depths of destruction. alienation. In the striving of this day, Now the appeal we have made to the may He make a conquest over you. hoary and the habitual and the hack- And working in you faith with powerneyed offender is applicable to you all.' and making through this faith your souls If there have come near the hearts of any a fit habitation for Himself-and stirring one of you this day, a single impulse up within you the immediate resolution towards the repentance that is unto salva- of giving up all that you know to be sintion, it is the Spirit of God who brought ful in your conduct-and plying you the impulse home to your conviction; with suggestions, which, listened to and and you inflict upon Him a wound and obeyed, may open an inviting access into a provocation, if you let it be smothered your heart for all His communicationsamong the levities or the profanenesses May He thus obtain within you a firm or the cold and blasting secularities of and inviolable lodgment-That brought this alienated world. You have made under the dominion of His purifying and this one other attempt in the work of sanctifying and perfecting influences, it striving with you fruitless; and you are may be seen of you, that you are indeed tempting Him to desist from striving *born again by the word of God, brough ahltogether. 0 what a fearful importance home to your consciences with power by Tl] ON THE NATURE OF THE SIN UNTO DEATH. 43 the Spirit of God; and have embarked carries forward to the glories of immor. all your energies and all your desires tality, every new creature in Jesus Christ upon that new track of obedience, which our Lord. SERMON VI. On the Nature of the Sin unto Death. "There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it."'-1 JOHN V. 16. IF we assume that the sin unto death and do honour to the power of His sacri. is the same with the sin against the Holy fice, by resting on it; and show respect Ghost-then, from what has been said in to His authority, by putting forth all the a previous discourse, it will follow that energy that is in him to act up to its rewe regard those people to be on a wrong quirements; and evidence his humble track of inquiry, who, with a view to as- submission to the doctrine of the Spirit, certain whether they have committed this by praying for Him in faith; and give sin, look back to their by-gone history; proof of the general honesty which runs arid rummage the depositories of their through all his principles on the subject past remembrance; and try to find, of the Christian religion, by his diligent among all the deeds they have ever cornm- use of every revealed expedient, in the mitted, that one deed of particular enor- way of reading and acting and devoutly mity, to which the forgiveness of the gos- observing the appointed ordinancespel will not and cannot be extended. then do we say to him what we say to There is, in truth, no such deed within you all-that you have taken such a the reach of human performance. The step, and entered upon such a career, and blood of Christ can wash away the guilt committed yourself to such an infallh of all the sins of all the individuals in the guidance, as in spite of all the manifol, assemblage before us; and, in the hear- deformities of your past life, and under in(r of every one of you, do we make this all that guilt of rebelliousness which now free and open announcement of the gos- lies upon you, will translate you into acnel remedy, in all the power and pre- ceptance with the God whom you have ciousness which belong to it. It is a so deeply offended; and carry you formatter of rare occurrence, but it does oc- ward by the ascending march of a procur, that the imagination of this sin fills gressive and ever-advancing sanctificathe heart of some melancholy patients tion, to all the glories and all the perfecwith the agitations of despair; and tions of a blissful eternity. spreads a dark and mournful complexion But though this retrospective examinaover the secret history of him who is the tion of the past is not the way of ascervictim of it; and keeps the comfort of the taining whether you have committed the gospel far away fromn him; and fixes in unpardonable sin, there is a way, not his mind the obstinate delusion, that there perhaps of ascertaining, but of gathering is a something about him, which renders much both of probability and of most him an exception to those wide and uni- valuable and important information reversal calls, which are made to circulate specting it. The question we put to you at large among' all the other sons and is, not what you have done through the daughters of the species. Now this is a life that is past, but what do you feel at misapprehension. The offer is still unto present [ How is the call we have now all, and upon all who believe; and he is sounded in your ears, telling upon your not excluded from the offer. And there purposes? How is this wondrously free is not a single iniquity of his past life that invitation of the gospel entertained by to excludes him. And if he will only you at this moment? Tell us, if the come to Christ in His appointed way; proclamation of an open path to return 14 THE SIN UNTO DEATH, [SERM, to the God from whom iyou were aliena- opposition. as constitutes the sin untc ted, is at all disposing you to bestir your- death —a sin'or which no intercession selves and moving you towards Him? will avail: no prayer of weeping rela Let us know, if it be your intention now, tive will be lifted with efficacy to heaven: to abandon every one of the things which no earthly expedient will ever woo that you know to be the will of Christ that Spirit back again, whom your manifold you should abandon; or, in other words, provocations and your oft repeated conto turn ye from all your iniquities. Let tempt have'determined to let you for ever us know, if you wish to submit your alone. hearts to the power and the vitality of The sin against the Holy Ghost is not His spiritual law. Let us know if you some obscure and useless doctrine, which wish for acceptance on the simple footing occupies its hidden corner in the field of of His righteousness; and if you wish revelation; and forms a legitimate topic for holiness through the operation of that of speculation only to those, who have Spirit, which is alone able to revolution- attained some rare and monstrous distmcize your inner man, and bring it into an tion by a daring feat of impiety. It carentire and an altogether devoted conform- ries a lesson along with it which applies ity to the will of a heart-searching God. to you all at this very moment. If there Tell us whether the earnest aspiration be some old among you, upon the obduand the honest intention towards all this racy of whose hackneved consciences. be in you; or tell if the urgency of these the call we have now lifted in your hearinvitations be now falling without power ing makes no practical impressionand without fruit upon your unstimula- then, look not for the sin against the ted consciences. Then know, that, if, in Holy Ghost in any guilty act by which the struggle of your opposing purposes some passage of your former history is and your conflicting inclinations, the deformed. It consists in that repeated world shall prevail —we will not say, if act, by which you have turned the every you have yet so grieved the Holy Spirit call of the gospel away from you; and:f God, as to determine Him to leave you the evidence of it does not lie in any for ever: But you have at least height- thing that memory can furnish you with ened the provocation, and brought it out of the materials of the history that is nearer to the point of His final abandon- past. The evidence of it lies in the, prement. We cannot say of any of you, sent condition of your soul, as to its moral that you have come this length already. and religious sensibility; and if that senBut we can say of all. who retire from us sibility is so far deranged, as to beget in this day, without an effective purpose of you at this moment no impulse towards immediate repentance-that.by this sin- your turning unto God, in that way ot gle act of resistance, you have brought appointed mediatorship that is made yourselves nearer to it. The sin against known to us in the New Testamentthe Holy Ghost is not a point of myste- this is a fell and an alarming symptom rious speculation. It is a point of prac- as to you, and well have you reason to tical importance. It is a -point of plain suspect and to anticipate and to tremble, and impressive application to every ordi- Again, if there be some old among you, nary conscience. And what a fearful who, after a sleep so loneg and so proimportance does it confer on every call found that it bore a resemblance to the to turn unto God-what a mighty rein- irrecoverable sleep of death, are now visforcement to every argument that can be ited with a movement and a desire and addressed to you for turning immediately a concern after these things; and feel a — that by every resistance to every single readiness in you to be all that Christ impulse that is,made upon you, you are would have you to be; and are looking working up the sin against the Holy earnestly towards the way of His salvaGhost nearer and nearer to that point of tion; and long to be established upon it aggravation, at which He takes His final -then we have no power of divination departure away from you; that you are into the way or the mind of the unmaking farther approaches to a state of searchable Spirit. All that we can do is desperate impenitency; that you are get- to put a fair interpretation upon the facts tmng forward to such a pitch of hardened that are before us. And the fact of an VI.] THE SIN UNTO DEATH. 45 arrested conscience even on the eleventh however much it may be talked of, and hour of an indolent and a rebellious day, liked, anld acquiesced in by the under. speaks for itself, and tells you that He standing, if it tell not on the practical has not yet left you. And we feel not powers, brines you nearer to it. The that we are exceeding our warrant by a history of this very day may bring you single inch, when we try to cheer you on nearer it. And therefore it is, that we by the language of encouragement; and never can consent to repentance on any call upon you not to quench the Spirit- other terms than repentance now. We not to let this movement in your heart never can listen without alarm to all the pass unproductive away from you-not to misapplied phraseology about the eleventh make of it but one transitory glimpse, hour. We never can speak to you in previous to an everlasting departure. — any other language, than "to-day while But do follow out the impulse that you it is called to-day." We never can lay have gotten; and drink in all the com- before you the gift of an offered Saviour, fort that the free grace of the gospel is but we must speak of " now as your acfitted to inspire; and aspire after all the cepted time, and now as the day of your strictness of walk and conversation, salvation." And we have but one object, which becomes the profession of it; and and all our explanation has been thrown let not the imploring cry for the clean away on him who retires from us this heart and the right spirit cease to ascend evening; and who, if hitherto a stranger to the throne of God through the channel to the power and significancy of these of His Son, till the answer come down things, does not, from this time forward, upon you in all its fulness, and your re- begin and carry on that good work of pentance be perfected. turning unto the Lord, which shall terBut let the youngest also among you, minate in the secure and everlasting enr (and by addressing ourselves both to old joyment of His presence in paradise. and young we comprehend all who now Now, to turn all this to the practical hear us), learn what a fearful thing it is account of regulating our intercessions in to tamper with conscience-to stifle any behalf of others-suppose, in the first inof its movements-to suppress the dic- stance, that I possessed in a perfect detates of your inward monitor on any gree, a gift that we know to have been temptation whatever-or to suffer the miraculously conferred in the first age of small still voice within you to be deafen- Christianity-the discerning of spirits.ed and overborne, by the maddening out- Suppose me endowed with the faculty of cry of those lawless, those deriding, those looking to another man; and taking as profligate scorners with whom you may accurate a note of the movements of his have unhappily associated. By so doing heart, as if I could perceive through a you commit an offence against the light window the secrecy of all its operations. of conscience. You commit an offence Give me the power, in particular, of estiagainst that present agent, who makes mating all the degrees of his actual rethe light to shine upon it. And one such sistance to the voice of conscience; and offence facilitates the way to another.- furnish me at the same time with the And you enter on a career of defiance to knowledge at what point of resistance it principle. And the matter aggravates. is, that the Holy Spirit gives up the man And the sin accumulates upon you till it with whom he has been striving to the arrives at that fatal point in the history of infatuation of his own perverse and deevery man who walks the whole of the termined wilfulness-and then would I broad way which leadeth to destruction- know at what instant of time it was that even to that point where the Holy Ghost he had committed the sin unto death.abandons him for ever; and that just be- Then I would know how longr he re. cause the sin against the Holy Ghost, is mained the hopeful subject of my internow wrought up to that degree of enor- cessions; and then would I know the mity, which provokes Him to take'His time of his arrival at that point in the final and irrecoverable leave of you. — history of impenitence, when the inspirEvery slighted call brings you nearer to ed Apostle of our text withdraws his posthis point. Every neglected warning itive sanction from my prayers. It is to brings you nearer to it. Every sermon be observed, that he does not speak upon 46 THE SIN UNTO DEATH. [SERM. Lhis subject with the tone and in the terms prayer was right, withdraw at least the of decision. He does not peremptorily sanction of a positive authority, from any forbid prayer. He speaks in the man- intercessions delivered for an object so ner of a man who had received no posi- hopeless and so unattainable. tive commission upon the subject. He This, then, is the practical result that leaves it on the footing of a point of would come out of the circumstances of doubtfulness, whether a man should pray the first Christians. Those of whom or not for an acquaintance in these cir- they did not know, that they had comcumstances. He announces himself to mitted the sin unto death, they would; his readers, very much in the same way make the subjects of their intercession in which Paul announced himself, when before God; and as to those of whom he ventured to speak in his own person, they did know that they had been guilty and not with the authority of an inspired of this sin, they would feel, from the messenger. "I speak as a man." I want of faith in the possibility of the obgive you my own judgment, says Paul, ject, and from the discouragement they in a matter, in which God has not received at the mouth of an apostle, that thought fit to favour me with any revela- they could not pray for them with any tion. In the verse before us, John does efficacy. Now just conceive them to not even venture to give us his own have no certain way of knowing at all, judgment. He goes no further than to whether any had committed this sin or express his opinion of the inefficacy, and not-what effect should this have on the therefore his doubtfulness as to the pro- practice of intercession? Why, it would priety of intercession, when it was made bring the whole human race within the in behalf of one who had sinned the sin circle of their prayers. It would enable unto death. But he at least supposes that them to fulfil the injunction of "pray for some of those whom he addressed, had all men," without laying any such modithe means of knowing when a professing fication on this precept as is pointed out Christian committed this sin. Suppose by the apostle in the text. Those whom them then to have this knowledge.- they thought hopefully and well of, they Suppose, that, in virtue of the miraculous could of course pray for with a higher gift of discerning spirits, they were made degree of confidence before God, than sure of the irrecoverable state of some those of whom they were ignorant or member of their society. Then they doubtful. But still there was no positive could not pray for his recovery in faith. knowledge of their case being irrecoverThey could not, along with such a pray- able, that ought at all to restrain them er, present that offering to God which is from such petitions, as, " Lord, if it be essential to its acceptance. They could thy will, do thou work faith with power not, in this instance comply with the in- in the heart of this particular acquaintjunction of the Saviour, who tells His ance"-"- Lord, if it be possible, that the disciples, that whatever they ask in pray- obstinate enmity to the truth which feser, let them believe that they are to re- ters in the heart of another, can be made ceive it, and they shall receive it. They to yield to the influences of thy Divine could not believe that they were to obtain Spirit, do thou cause it to pass away from by the power of their supplications, the him"-" Lord, do thou recal my unhappy recovery of the soul of him, whom they relative from those depths of alienation knew that the Holy Spirit had irrecover- in which he is sunk, and raise him from ably abandoned. They could not there- his death in trespasses and sins to the fore do. what, in the verses immediately new obedience of a spiritual resurrecpreceding the text, they were told would tion." Yes, and though his depravities give an unfailing success to all their pe- should accumulate upon him by every titions-they could not ask for this thing, hour of his earthly existence; though'knowing at the same time that it was the hardness of an impenitent heartshould agreeable to the will of God; and there- be ever gathering into a temper of still fore knowing that they should have the more settled obstinacy than before; though petitions that they desired of Him. And habit should be compassing him round, in these circumstances does John, by ex- within the enclosure of a tighter and more pressing his doubtfulness xl hether such a inextricable bondage; nay, though in the aI,| THE SIN UNTO DEATH. 47 secret counsels of heaven his die should of the heart, and so penetrate into the be cast, and months or seasons may have counsels of God, as to determine of one rolled, since the Spirit made His last at- single human being who walks abroad tempt upon him, and then died away into on the scene of life and population around a final and irremediable separation-yet us, that he is an outcast from prayer? In so long as this counsel is a secret to you those days of miracle, when the discern-so long as in your mind this question ing of spirits was given to apostles and has a slight uncertainty to rest upon it- to primitive teachers, there may have then you are not released from the duty been individuals, in behalf of whom the that lies upon you; and acting, as it is duty of prayer ought to be suspendedyour humble and becoming part to do, who had not only thrown themselves on the revealed things which belong to irrecoverably out from the mercies of you and to your children-you are at God, but who, certainly known to be so, your post when you pray for the man of had arrested that voice of supplication, whose fate you are in the dark, though which wont to ascend for them from their his fate may have long been fixed and fellow-men. In those days of wide and determined on. visible distinction between the church Now this exhibits to us the kind of and the world, when the very profession intercourse which goes on very exten- of Christianity proved a certain degree sively between earth and heaven-the of sincerity and earnestness-when, by intercourse, if we may use the expres- the very act of being admitted into the sion, of praying at a venture. It is a society of disciples, it was made evident, rind of intercourse warranted by scrip- that there was a certain liking for their tural example. Did not our Saviour doctrine; and a certain sympathy in their pray, that, if possible, the cup might pass feelings, and in their faith; and a certain from Him?-and He had to drink it participation in the hopes of the gospel; to the very dregs. Did not Peter tell and a certain tasting of the word of life; Simon Magus to pray God, if perhaps and a certain habit of living by the powers the thought of his heart might be for- of a coming world-In those days, when given him? And, in the Old Testament, men by their very profe.dic-n proved that have we not examples of this uncertainty, they were so far partakers of the Holy as to the result both of praying and of Ghost —that to throw him off, after all doing? Does not God call on the people their experience of the power and preto prove Him-to put Him to the trial ciousness of His teaching-that to throw by their prayers? And does not the ex- Him off after all the fellowship they had pression repeatedly occur, " Let us return with Him, and all the favours of light, unto the Lord"-at one time in the way and direction and joy they had gotten of supplication, at another in the way of from His hand-argued a degree of reobedience — And it is stated as the effect sistance more hardened and more irreof it, that it may be the Lord will be coverable, than even to hold out against gracious. His first and His earliest instigationsWhat; then should be the practice of In such days, and with such a visible the present day? We have no doubt landmark before them, as the withdrawthat there are many who have put the ment of an apostate from their commufinal seal upon their own condemnation. nion, we know not but that even ordiBut the question is, are there any upon nary and unendowed Christians may whom that seal is legible to us? Is there have been able to judge of some of them, a single individual of our acquaintance, that they had so fallen away, and so cru-?upon whAose forehead we can read the cified to themselves the Son of God afresh, inscription, that he is undone? Is there and so put Him to an open shame-that a mark set upon him, by which we can they had committed the sin unto death,'earn, that he has rendered himself a and were beyond the reach of human,ugitive and a vagabond from the mercy prayer, because it was impossible to reof Gad? Is there any such index, that new again unto repentance.* But tell at abl offers itself to the eye of our senses; us, if you have attained this certainty of end if there be none, then. is there any one qf us, who can so weigh the secrets see Heb. vi. 4 —6. 48 THE SJN UNTO DEATH. [SERM, any one man you can point your finger disobedience, is nearer than ever to the to? Can you say of any one desperado step of a final abandonment. And thus In wickedness, that there goes an outcast it is that a doctrine, which, if it only from mercy, and that it is vain to pray ministered exercise to the understanding, for him? Or, rather, is it not true of us we never should have touched upon-a all, that such is our ignorance of the doctrine, which, if it only serve to regale human heart; and so deep is that veil the curiosity of the speculative, is to him with which the God of wisdom has chosen of no more use than any one of the lofty to shroud the doctrine of individual des- abstractions of philosophy-a doctrine tiny-that there is not a man within the which mnay be talked about, and controrange of the acquaintance of any of us, verted, and commented on in a thousand of whom it is not our becoming duty to different ways, while no salutary alarm pray in his behalf, lest peradventure God is felt, and no energetic purpose is forme'd may give him repentance to the acknow- upon the undoubted truth, that every" Sav ledging of the truth. of procastination is nearing you to'.at Now mark how the very principle point of time at which the Spirit shal& which runs through the subject of pray- cease to strive with you-Thus it is that ing for others at a venture, applies in the the doctrine of the sin against the Holy whole extent of it to the subject of preach- Glhost may be turned to the attainme.L; ing to others at a venture. He who is of a practical end. It should so tell, ir put in charge of the gospel, knows not fact, on the hearts and the consciences of to whom it shall be the savour of life all men as to help on the business o" unto life, and to whom it shall be the their immediate repentance; and it leaves savour of death unto death. He is at every one without the shelter of a singrle his post, and in the exercise of his duty, pretext, for delaying to turn to God in when he proclaims it in the hearing of His appointed way, and, fleeing from all all, as that free and unconditional offer sin, to flee for refuge to the hope set,of mercy which is at the taking of all.: before him in the gospel. He knows not where the offer is to These explanations may serve perhaps -light; nor from whose individual bosom to do away a difficulty, which, to the eye it is to chase away his heavy alienation of a superficial observer, hangs over a from the God whom he has offended; remarkable passage in the history of out nor what is the heart that shall be soft- Saviour. On His approach to the city ened by it out of all the obstinacy of its of Jerusalem, it is said of Him, that when former impenitence; nor in what quarter He came near and beheld the city, He of the crowd that is before him, that man wept over it-saying, " If thou hadst is to be found, whose conscience shall known even thou at least in this thy day surrender itself to the power and urgency the things which belong unto thy peace; of the preacher's voice; nor into whose but now they are hid from thine eyes." conviction the winged messenger shall It looks a mystery, that our Saviour find its entrance, because the power and should weep for that, which He had demonstration of the Spirit have lent to it power to ward off from the object of his all its efficacy. Why, he is like a man tenderness-that He who created these drawing a bow at a venture; and he worlds, and who is now exalted a Prince knows not whither the arrow is to speed and a Saviour, should abandon Himself its uncertain way. But of one thing he to the helplessness of despair, when He is certain-that if the argument, by contemplated the approaching fate of that which he is trying now to storm the city, which, after all the wrongs He had fortress of human corruption, shall fall sustained from it, and all the perversefruitless on the soul of any individual ness and provocations He had gotten amongst you, that soul is strengthening from its hands, He still longed. after and the bulwarks of its future resistance sighed over in all the bitterness of grief, against him; and the weapons of his at the prospect of its cominog visitation. spiritual warfare are becoming every day Why, it may be thought, could not He more languid and more ineffectual for have fulfilled the every desire of His their purpose; and the Holy Ghost, sympathizing heart, by interposing the grieved by this fresh act of contempt and might and sovereignty which belonged VI.] THE SIN UNTO DEATH. 49 to Him? Could not HIe have arrested written. And it were well for us that we the progress of the victorious armies? remained satisfied with what God is Could not He have been for a wall of pleased, that we should know, or with bedefence around His beloved city; and ing wise up to that which is written. If whence that dark and mysterious neces- the question related merely to the power sity, to which even the power of Him, to of God, we are apt to think that there is whom all power was committed both no limit whatever to what He simply can in heaven and earth, was constrained to do. We are apt to think, for example, give way-insomuch that the Being, in that God could, if He had chosen, have whom was vested an omnipotence over lifted, by a simple act of remission, all the the whole domain of Nature and of Prov- penal consequences of sin away from us; idence, felt that He had nothing for it and have treated us as creatures, who but to sit Him down and weep over the stood absolved from the guilt of all our doom that He saw to be irrevocable? transgressions; and have introduced us It is true that the inhabitants of this in this state into heaven; and made each' devoted city were the children of dark- of us live in a state of enjoyment there ness. It IS true that they still put the throughout all eternity. calls and the offers of.the New Testament But God has other attributes than those away from them. It is true that their of mere power. And in virtue of them, yet unpenetrated hearts were shielded He has chosen to conduct the adminisround by an obstinacy which had with- tration of His government on certain stood every previous application. But great and unchangeable principles. And could not He who commanded the light He has told us, and nothing remhains for to shine out of darkness, shine in their us but to take the information just as it is hearts with such a power and a splen- given, He has told us, that without sheddour of conviction, as would have been ding of blood there is no remission of utterly irresistible? Could not He who sins, and no forgiveness without faith in is able to subdue all things unto Himself, that propitiation which is through the have subdued His countrymen out of death of Jesus. And thus had the Son that obstinacy, which had hitherto stood of God to bear the burden of all the venimmoveable to all the influence that was geance that we should have borne: and brought to bear upon it? Could not to take upon His shoulders the ~w.nole that influence have been augmented? weight of the world's atonement; and to Could it not have been wrought up to pour out His soul for us in tears and such a degree of efficacy, as would have agonies and cries. And had there been overmatched the whole force and tenacity no other attributes in the character of the of their opposing prejudices-and had Godhead, but the simple energy of His this been done, the people would have omnipotence and the longings of His been converted; and the threatened ven- compassion, all these pains and sorrows geance been withdrawn; and the Saviour of suffering innocence might have been would have seen in His countrymen of spared; and, without so heavy a sacrithe travail of His soul, and been satisfied; fice the barrier which defended the gate and the mysterious phenomenon of the of Paradise might have been opened to a greatest and the powerfulest of all beings guilty world. But the truth and justice weeping over a calamity, to avert which of God demanded an expiation; and we HIe had both the power and the inclina- show the docility which belongs to us, tion, would not have been presented: when we give our unreserved acquiesand how then does all this accord with cence to the recorded fact; and like little what we know. or what we can guess, of children in humility, as we are in underthe character of' God's administration? standing, it is our part to take the stateNow this brings us to the limit be- ment as the statement is offered to us. In tween those secret things which belong the same manner, when His Jewish eneto God, and those things which are mies were proceeding to put our Savioull revealed and which belong to us and to to the trial; and were mustering up their our children. It were well for us that xvitnesses against Him; and were conwe gave up all our guesses, and made no certing all those measures which led te attempt to be wise above that which is His execution-He could have inter 50 THE SIN UNTO DEATH. [SERM, posed, and defeated all their policy, and contesting with them. And He will not overthrown all the might of that fearful always strive. And to him who hath combination that was leagued to destroy the property of yielding to His first inHim: And had there been nothing but fluences, more will be given. And to power in the case, and a simple desire to him who hath not, there will even be ward off from the Son of God all the dis- taken away from him such influences as trace and humiliation and -misery He he may have already had. And thus it wvas about to endure —how readily would is that the way of the Spirit with the contwelve legions of angels have palsied the science of man, harmonizes with all that every arm, and sent consternation into we feel and all that:we experience of the the every heart of His persecutors! But workings of this conscience. If often here lay the necessity, and a necessity stifled and repressed, it will at length too, which, according to our Saviour's cease to meddle with us. And enough own account of the matter, constituted an for every practical purpose that we know invincible barrier in the way of His de- this to be the fact. Enough that it is liverance-This cannot be, says He, made known:to us as a principle of "for how then should the Scriptures be God's administration, though we know fulfilled?" The truth of God behoved not the reason why: it should be so. to be accomplished. The prophecies of Enough to alarm us into an immediate God must obtain their vindication. And compliance with the voice of our inward dire as the spectacle was, to see perfect monitor, that, should we resist it any innocence so cruelly borne down, it was longer, the time may come, when even all forced to give way before a great and Omnipotence itself will not interpose to unchangeable principle in the Divine save us. Enough to compel our instanadministration, Now apply this to the taneous respect for all its suggestions, nmatter before us. Take into account only that, should we keep unmoved and unthe power of the Saviour to deliver the awed by them, even the God of love, city of Jerusalem, and the strength of His who wills the happiness of all His chilkind and affectionate desires towards it; dren, may find that the wisdom and the and you might think that there lay before purity and the justice of His government Him a plain and practicable way for the require of Him our final and everlasting fulfilment of the object. But there was abandonment. And 0 how we should another principle of the Divine adminis- tremble to presume on the goodness of tration which overruled the whole of this God-when we see the impressive attimatter; and, without attempting to dive tude of Him, who, though the kindest into the reasons of the counsel of God, and gentlest and best of beings, looked or to inquire why He has adopted such to the great mass of His countrymen, and.a principle-enough for us the bare an- foresaw the wretchedness that was in renouncement of the fact that it is so. He serve for them; and, instead of offering has found out, and He has published a to put forth the might of His resistless Tvay of salvation; and a message of peace energy for their deliverance, did nothing is made to circulate round the world; but give way to the tenderness of His and all who will are made welcome to nature, and weep for a distress which partake of it; and the Spirit, urging He would not remedy. every one to whom the word of salvation They had got beyond that irrecovera. is sent to turn unto Christ from their ini- ble point we have so much insisted on. quities, plies them with as much argu- They had tried the Spirit of God to the ment, and holds out to them as much uttermost, and He had ceased to strive light, and affects the conscience of one with them. At that time of their day, and all of us with as much power-as when, had they minded the things which ought to constrain us to the measure of belong to their peace, they would have accepting the Saviour, and relinquishing done it with effect-they put away from fbr tHim the idol of every besetting sin them His every admonition, and His and of every seducing vanity. But if every argument; and now there lay we will not be constrained, it is the mode upon them the stern and unrelenting of His procedure with every human soul, doom, that they were for ever hid from gradually to cease from His work of their eyes. Let us once more make the vI.J THE SIN UNTO DEATH. 51 application. The goodness of God lies may choose to inflict upon it. It is a in the freeness of that offer wherewith goodness, in virtue of which, every one He urges you now. And He backs this of us now may turn to the God whom offer by the call of repentance now. And we have offended; and be assured of His He tells you, that, to carry forward and abundant forgiveness; and be admitted to perfect this repentance, He is willing into all the privileges of his reconciled to minister help to all your infirmities children; and, rejoicing in the blood now. And on this your day, He calls that cleanseth from all sin, stand with all you to mind these things and to proceed the securities of conscious acceptance beupon these things now. But should this fore Him; and be established in that goodness not lead you to repentance- way oi new obedience, for which He is then-it is not a goodness that you have both able and willing most abundantly any warrant to calculate upon, at any to strengthen us. All this now, all this future stage of your history. And the to day while it is called to day, should time may come when all these things you harden not your hearts. All this on shall be hid firom your eyes. The good- that critical and interesting.now, which ness of God is perfect, as all His other is called the accepted time and the day attributes are; but then it is a goodness of salvation. But O forget not, that the exercised in that one way of perfect wis- same Saviour, who sounded just such dom which He has thought fit to reveal calls in the ears of his countrymen, and to us. It is a goodness which harmo- would have gathered them- together even nizes, in all its displays, with such max- as a hen gathereth her chickens under ims and such principles in the way of her wings, ere a few years more had God's administration, as God has thought rolled over the city of Jerusalem, wept fit to make known to us. It is a good- when he beheld it, and thought of the aess that will not survive all the resist- stern and unalterable necessity of its ap. ance and all the provocation that we proaching desolation. SERMON VII. Thle Christianity of the Sabbath. ~ thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call he Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and;halt honour him, not doing thine;awvi ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words; then shalt thou de-.;gl;t thyself in the Lord, and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and.ed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." — ISAIAH lviii. 13, 14. THERE are some who are disposed to but for the purpose of reducing the ausassign to the Sabbath the same rank with terities which had of old been thrown the positive and ceremonial observances around it. And, therefore, would they of Judalusm; and who think that the'assimilate the keeping of this day to the authorit, of its obligations has ceased, performing of any of those rites that have with the rigours and the burdens of that no place in Christianity; and bear to it grosser economy which has now gone no more regard than they would to any by; and who make the spirituality of our of those Hebrew festivals, which, since own more enlightened dispensation the the destruction of the temple, and the argument on which they would found the coining in of another system of worship, relaxation, if not the utter neglect, of this has fallen into total and irrecoverable ordinance; and, in all this, they feel desuetude. themselves to be very much confirmed For the permanency of the Sabbath, by the silence of the New Testament, however, we might argue its place in which never recognises the institution the decalogue, where it stands enshrined 52 CHRISTIANITY OF THE SABBATH. [SERM~ among 1he moralities of a rectitude that observancy; in which case, we have not is immutable and everlasting; and we to abolish this institution, but only to might argue the traditional homage and transfuse into its services the same spirit observancy in which it has been held which the Gospel transfuces into allother since the days of the Apostles; and we services. Let the Sabbath be altogether might argue the undoubted and experi- done away, as out of keeping with Chrismental fact, that where this day is best tianity, if only signalised from all other kept, there all the other graces of Chris- days by the bodily exercise which pro. tianity are in most healthful exercise and fiteth little; and if it admit not of being preservation. But we rather waive, for so signalized by that godliness which is the present, all these considerations; and profitable unto all things. It were a would rest the perpetuity of the Sabbath most unseemly appendage to the disciplelaw on this affirmation, that, while a day ship of the gospel, could it not be deliof unmeaning drudgery to the formalist, vered from the aspect of a morose and it is, to every real Christian, a day of unbending Pharisee; and be softened holy and heavenly delight,-that he loves and transformed into the aspect of a free, the law, and so has it graven on the tablet and joyfill, and affectionate worshipper of his heart, with a power of sovereignty of the God of love. We are willing to upon his actions, which it never had rest, upon this condition, the claims of when it was only engraven on a tablet Sabbath to the homage and observation of stone, or on the tablet of an outward of Christians; and, should it not be posrevelation,-that, wherever there is a true sible to make the condition good, we are principle of religion, the consecration of willing that the Sabbath should pass the Sabbath is felt, not as a bondage, but away with the feasts and the holidays of is felt to be the very beatitude of the soul, a ritual that is now superannuated. -and that, therefore, the keeping of it, Certain it is, that the Sabbath day may instead of being to be viewed as a slavish be made to wear an aspect of great gloon: exaction on the time and services of the and great ungainliness, with each hour outer man, is the direct and genuine fruit having its own irksome punctuality at, of a spiritual impulse on the best affec- tached to it; and when the weary formal tiQns of the inner man. ist, labouring to acquit himself in fuil Christianity does not dispense with tale and measure of all his manifolu service on the part of its disciples. It observations. is either sorely fatigued ii, only animates this service with another the work of filling up the unvaried rou principle, substituting what itself calls the tine, or is sorely oppressed in conscience; newness of the spirit for the oldness of should there be the slightest encroachthe letter. Now, the question is, Can ment either on its regularity, or on its such a substitution be made to pass upon entireness. We may follow him through the services of the Sabbath?-for, if not, his Sabbath history, and mark how, in the the genius of Christianity would appear spirit of bondage, this drivelling slave to demand, that we should be rid of' the plies at an unceasing task,to which, all the Sabbath altogether, which ought not to while, there is a secret dissatisfaction in retained, unless it can be brought into his own bosom, and with which he lays accordancy with the style and character an intolerable penance on his whole of the new religion. But if, on the other family. He is clothed in the habiliments hand, the Sabbath is really capable of of seriousness, and holds out the aspect being translated from the oldness of the of it; but never was aspect more unproletter to the newness of the spirit-there rmising or:ore- unlovely. And, in this may be no need, under the economy of very character of severity, it is possible the Gospel, for the Sabbath being dis- for him to move through all the stages carded-it were quite enough, that it of Sabbath observancy-first, to eke out should be accommodated to our more his morning hour of solitary devotion; enlightened dispensation. There is a and then to assemble his household to Judaical style of Sabbath observancy, and the psalms, and the readings, and the this ought to give place to the genius of prayers, which are all set forth in due our better economy. But there may, and regular celebration: and then, with also, be a Christian style of Sabbath stern parental authority,'to muster in full VII.] CHRISTIANITY OF THE SABBATH. 53 attendance for church, all the.children their own, —and how there may mingle and dmrnestics who belong to him; and with these laborious sanctities, both or then, in his compressed and crowded public worship and of private and family pew, to hold out, in complete array, the exercise, the very spirit in which either demureness of spirit that sits upon his Papist or Pharisee thinks that he will own countenance, and the demureness carry heaven on the strength of his manof constraint that sits on the general face ifold observations. of his family; and then to follow up the But after all the sabbath was made for public services of the day by an evening, man; and the worthlessness of such a the reigning expression of which shall sabbath as the one we have now attemptoe, that of strict, unbending austerity- ed to pourtray, is no argument against when the exercises o; patience, and the an institution which must be capable of a exercises of memory, and a confinement most important subserviency to the great that must not be broken from, even for cause of moral and religious improvethe tempting ail and beauty of a garden, ment. Though often kept according to and the manifold other interdicts that are the oldness of' the letter-that is no realaid on the vivacity of chilahood, may son why it may not also be kept accordtruly turn every Sabbath as it comes ing to the newness of the spirit; and if round into a periodical season of buffer- so, then is it fully entitled to a place of ance and dejection: And thus, instead of high authority among all the other servibeing a preparation of love and joy for a ces of an enlightened Christianity. And heaven of its own likleness, may all these accordingly the very services which are proprieties be discharged, for no other rendered by one man in the spirit of purpose, than that of pacifying the jea- a couching servility as drivelling and lousies of a God of vengeance, and work- pharisaical, may, when rendered by aning our a burdetsome acquittal from the other, be the genuine emanation of a exaLtions of this Hard and unrelenting heart that is altogether free and fearless task-master. and affectionate towards God. To the Now, it must bo quite evident, that eye of the world, there may be a strong such a Sabbath is characterized through- visible resemblance both in the kind and out by the oldness of the letter. The in the succession of these exercises — fear, and the disquietude, andt even that while to the eye of God, and in respect sense of the meritoriousness of works, of essential character, they differ as widewhich all issue from the spirit of legality, ly as light does from darkness. It makes may easily be witnessed in its various the utmost possible dissimilarity between services. And nothing can be more pal- one human soul and another, whether pable than the want of heart and of good the sabbath be like a fast that affects the will in its whole style of observation. It soul, or like a feast that yields to it its is an affair, not of love, but of labour- best loved entertainment. In the one not the homage of spontaneous affection, case, it is certainly possible to be most but a mere thing of handiwork, and of sternly resolved on the drudgery of all its bodily exercise. The very soreness and services-even as it is possible for a man scrupulosity of the man's conscience, on of the world, on the mere strength of an the accidental misgiving of any of his obstinate determination, to stand out for arranagements, are at utter antipodes with hours together the hallowed air of a conthe liberty of one of the children of God. venticle of piety however hateful it may There is no one character of a free celes- be to him. But it argues a man of a distial spirit that exists beneath this grim tinct moral species altogether, and to be form and parade of godliness. It is like endowed as it were with such organs o. the attempt to inake a purchase of heaven moral respiration as the other does not by the pains and the privations of a rig- possess, who can breathe in that air with orous devoteeship; and little are many delight, and feels it to be the very eleof our sturdy professors aware, how ment by which he loves most to be surmuch the operose drudgery of their Sab- rounded. So that the wretched sabbath Dath is at variance with their own ortho- history, which we have already offered doxy,-how often it is prosecuted with to your notice, is quite another thing, the view to establish a righteousness of from a history which bears to it a very 64 CIHtISTIANITY OF THE SABBATH. [SERxI strong external reserzn'lance; but is im- praises of the Eternal; and a (oleful re, pregnated by wholly another spirit, and gion of blasphemy on the other, where is sustained throughout all the stages of be those accursed outcasts who bear nc it by another principle-The history not love to God and have no delight in the of a sabbath drudge, but of a sabbath am- exercises of godliness-Then recollect, atour, who rises with alacrity to the de- that, beside the one and the other of these light of the hallowed services that are be- dominions, there is not one spot of ground fore him-who spends too his own hour like this temporary and intermediate of morning communion with his Gods earth that you. will have to stand upon.and from the prayer-opened gate of heav- And, distasteful as you are of sacredness en catches upon his soul a portion of here, and with no other alternative there heaven's gladness-who gathers too his than sacredness for ever or suffering for family around the household altar, and ever, what other doom is left for us to there diffuses the love and the sacred joy pronounce upon you, who so love the ocwhich have already descended upon his cupations of this week-day world, and so own bosom-who walks along with droop and languish under the weary them to the house of prayer; and, in pro- routine of sabbath prayers and sabbath portion as he fills them with his own services, than that when the world is disspirit, so does he make the yoke of con- solved and no place is found within the finement easy and its burden light unto limits of creation but one abode for the them-who plies them with their even- celestial and another for the damneding exercise, but does it with a father's then will this your dislike to the fourth tenderness, and studies how their task commandment be indeed the fellest inshall become their enjoyment-who dication of your unmeetness for a seat could.. but for example's sake, walk fear- of glory, of your being a vessel of wrath lessly abroad and recognise in the beau- and fitted for destruction. ties of nature the hand that has graced You will perceive then a very striking and adorned it; but that still a truer peculiarity in this sabbath law-that, percharm awaits him in the solitude of his haps of all others, it is best fitted to own chamber, where he can hold con- exemplify the distinction between the oldverse with the piety of other days, with ness of the letter and the newness of the some worthy of a former generation who spirit; and is at the same time so abunbeing dead still speaketh, with God him- dantly capable of being kept in the latter self in the book of His testimony, or with style of observation, as most abundantly God in prayer whom he blesses for such entitles it to its old place in the decalogue happy moments of peace and of precious- even under the pure and enlightened ness. And so he concludes a day, not economy of the gospel. In one way of in which his spirit has been thwarted, but it, it may be nothing better than an in which his spirit has been regaled-a elaborate ceremonial, a lifeless body of day of sunshine to the recurrence of religiousness without the breath of its which he looks onward with cheerful- warm and animating spirit, and whereby ness-a day of respite from this world's the starch and unbending formalist of our cares-a day of rejoicing participation in day can still exhibit the very gait and the praises and spiritual beatitudes of the character of grossest Judaism. In the future world. other way of it, it may have all the refineNow if you have no taste for such a ment and rationality of a service that sabbath as this, you have no, taste for is altogether celestial; and be the effloheaven. If these services be a weariness rescence of a heart that is touched with to your heart, then the services of the fire and feeling from the upper sanctuary; blest in eternity were also a weariness to and be the truest symptom that can possiyour heart. You are still of the earth bly be given of a spiritual taste and a and earthly; and when this world is spiritual affection; and with all its outburnt up, and the whole universe is ward resemblance to the sabbath of a thrown into two great departments-of a formalist, stand as much apart from it in sabbath and sainted territory on the one essential character as the devotion of hand, where the redeemed and the un- a seraph from the drivelling of a slave; fallen alike rejoice in the prayers and and, so far from savouring of that earthly VII.j CHRISTIANITY OF THE SABBATH. 55 Jerusalem where Pharisees of old heaped lthe world; and you may at least say their laborious offerings on the altar from the recollection of them, whether of legality, may the Sabbath of a Chris- your taste is for communion with God, tian be the very nearest specimen that and how far the spirit that is in you conoccurs in our world of that Jerusalem grenializes with the feelings and the exerabove where all is freedom and confi- cises of piety. We are not aware of a dence and good will. And distaste, we better test, or of one that can be turned to repeat it, for the services of such a sab- readier use and application; and we bath as this, is just distaste for the services therefore urge it upon you, to come to a of eternity. The very commandment, conclusion upon the question-whether which, when kept in the spirit of a fear- your heart be more set upon the things ful scrupulosity, argues you to be still of the world among which you move in beggary and bondage,. is the corn- and are busily conversant through the mandment that, when kept in the willing- six days of the week; or on those things ness of a spontaneous heart, argues you that are above, and to which the duties to have the exalted taste and liberty and opportunities of the seventh day of one of God's children: And it is in- give you the power of a nearer and more deed a striking singularity of this ob- affecting approximation —whether you servance, that though when punctually like it best, to be immersed in the business rendered against the grain, it is but the and the pleasure and companionship of a drudgery of a worthless superstition-yet scene that is speedily to pass away; when pleasantly rendered and because or to stand as it were at the gate and on with the grain, it becomes kindred in the confines of that inheritance which quality with all that is most pure and is in heaven, and there catch a glimpse ethereal in sacredness; and the best evi- of its coming glories, and be refreshed by dence that can be given of the regenerat- a sample and a foretaste of its coming ing touch, whereby earth-born man is blessedness? Tellus which is the drift of assimilated to an angel, and becomes a your prevailing inclinations? Whether new creature in Christ our Lord. be they towards the secularities of comWe have now only to say in conclu- mercial or festive or fashionable life, sion of this part of our argument, that or be they towards the serenities of faith something more ought to be gained by it, and prayer and spiritual contemplation? than the mere specific object of evincing We ask you not to lie overwhelned the Sabbath to be in full harmony with in utter hopelessness, if heretofore it is the spirit and character of the Gospel. too plain that you have been a child We should like, if, in the course of these of the present world-without the taste observations, any thing may have been for sacredness, and with scarcely an said that is fitted to arrest the conscience aspiration after it. But we do ask you of hearers. We think that the Sabbath to mark by the intelligible appeal that may be turned into a very palpable and we have now made to you, how wide the powerful instrument for the discovery of transition is from the atmosphere of nayour real spiritual conditiodn. You will ture's every-day pursuits and every-day know surely whether its peculiar servi- propensities, to the atmosphere of all that ces are felt -by you to be a pleasure or an grace and goodness in which if you canannoyance-whether there be dulness or not breathe with comfort here, you will delight in its psalmody-xwhether the never breathe in heaven hereafter. We longing of the soul be towards its retire- bid you reflect what a vast and untrodden ments, or towards a relief from them- distance you have still to walk, ere you whether the morning be most rejoiced in, reach a meetness for the joys and a taste because it ushers in a day of sacredness, for the sanctities of the upper paradise. or the evening because it terminates the We crave your attention to the vas' irksome round, and brings you again to immeasurable space by which humanity the margin of that e.ement in which you has receded from the ground which it most love to expatiate. You will be able once occupied, and become as an alien to tell whether you are most at home and an outcast in a far country from the in your closets or in your countingrhou- great family of holiness; and we would I es? You have spent many Sabbaths in put you the question, whether to the truth 56 CHRISTIANITY OF THE SABBATH. [SERMt of Scripture there is not an echo in your some into the agreeable, and what is dull own experience —when you read how in the Sabbath of the Lord to feel it a detotal the revolution of character must be light and honourable-in attempting this, -how a something tantamount to a new with only the resources and the energies birth and a new creation must take effect of Nature at command, man feels himself upon the soul, ere you shall become at the limit of his helplessness. He can an heir of the everlasting kingdom, or no more change the taste of his heart have entered on that course of grace from the creature to the Creator, than he which leads to a consummation of full can change his organic taste for the and finished glory? kinds of food that are set before him. But how shall this transition be He may force himself to that which effectei? How shall the soul be made is nauseous to his animal palate, but to gather upon it a taste and a temper so he cannot divest it of its nauseousness; opposite to that of its first nature? How nor can he bid his spiritual palate to shall it be made to relish as its best loved relish the hallowedness of Sabbath, howenjoyment, that which it has hitherto felt ever much he may compel himself tc to be irksome and unsavoury? Won- the drudgery of its manifold observations. derful change in the habit of the affec- The anatomy of his moral frame would tions you will allow, if he who at one need to be reconstructed, ere such a revtime nauseated the air of the public or olution of taste could be made to take private sanctuary, shall now breathe effect upon it and this he can no more therein wvith delight, as in the element do, than he can newmodel the anatomy that is best suited to him-and the Sab- of his morbid frame: And thus it is, that bath from a service of weariness shall while quite a possible thing to keep the become a service of willingness. This Sabbath in the style of a most sour and would imply a change equivalent to that unbending formalist-it is no more posby which the old man is transformed sible for man to keep it in the style of a into the new creature-and it will be seen free and joyful and affectionate worshipthat our present topic though in regard per, than it is for a man at his own to the matter of it it be but one solitary bidding to make all things new, or for man and specific observation, yet when viewed to be the author of his own regeneration. in its proper bearing it rises into a ques- It all resolves itself into the distinction tion of general and paramount impor- between the spirit of love and the spirit tance-for the question how shall I learn of legality. Could you exchange the to love the Sabbath is commensurate one spirit for the other, then would you to the question how shall I be so renewed turn Sabbath from a day of constraint in the spirit of my mind, as that I who into a day of cheerfulness. You never have been heretofore carnal, and whose will get the better of your distaste for affections were only kindred with the the religiousness of Sabbath-while you objects of sense, and of intellect, shall look upon God in the light of a jealous now become spiritual, and have a kin- taskmaster, and yourselves in the light of dred pleasure in the objects and the con- bondmen who have an allotted task to templations of sacredness? perform, and by rendering all the items It may serve to throw some light on of which you eke out the fulfilment of a the real difficulties of this transition, stimulated contract. It is this accursed when wre reflect on what that is which spirit of legality which turns Sabbath we can do, and what that is which we service and every other service, into a cannot do in reference to Sabbath obser- heartless thing of distaste disquietude vation. We can task ourselves with the and most unproductive anxiety; and never manifold varieties of bodily exercise. will this day be kept aright, till, out of We can forcibly withdraw our presence the new-born desires of an evangelized from the fields, and constrain our pres- heart, it be kept, not as a fast to afflict the ence either to church or to our closets. soul, but as a feast to regale it-not as a We can by dint of mere strenuousness service of desert for which you obtain the endure a Sabbath confinement however friendship of God, but as a service of irksome, and breathe a *sabattic atmos- grateful commemoration in return for the phere however dull; but to turn the irk- friendship that has been alread, prof, yin.] CHRISTIANITY OF TIi SABBATH. 57 fered, and already been accepted of. it alone, can we learn to love that law You will not know what it is to have a which we aforetime hated, and to rejoice religious, and, at the same time a free in those observations that we aforetime Sabbath, till you have embraced the of- resisted and trampled upon. And if you fers of a free Gospel; and then all will indeed long for such a revolution in your be light, and liberty, and enlargement; taste and in your desires, as that Sabbath and the cold obstructions of legality will shall cease to be an oppression, and begive way from. the labouring bosom; come to you a day of hallowed and honand the opportunity of meeting with God ourable enjoyment-never cease to fix as your undoubted friend will be prized your regards -on Christ crucified, till, and courted-when the opportunity of through Him, all your legal apprehenmeetinog with him as your rigid and un- sions have given way, and you can rerelenting exactor would be looked to joice in God as indeed your faithful with feelings of timidity and distrust and friend, as indeed your reconciled Father. heavy alienation. It is the Gospel which And this seems to be the right place refines and elevates the whole style of for adverting to a very common aphorour obedience. It is the Gospel which ism that is constantly on the lips of turns it from the extorted drudgery of a worldly men-at one time in the form of crouching fearful superstitious slave, into reproach against the seriousness of dethe ready services of attachment. And cided Christians, and at another of vinas it is saying much, on the one hand, dication for their own levity; and that for the doctrines of grace and atonement is, that religion was never meant for and righteousness by faith, that it is the gloom but for enjoyment-that Christianacceptance of these which forms the step- ity is always in her best style, when in ping-stone from service in the oldness of the style of cheerfulness-that, in her the letter to service in the newness of strict, and precise, and puritanical aspect spirit-,so it is saying much on the other she is the scourge and the terror of our hand for Sabbath, and for its title to rank species-and that it is only by the relaxamong the institutions of Christianity; ation of this aspect, that she is put into hat, instead of a mere positive and cere- accordancy with the real spirit and charmonial observance, which ought to be acter of Him who has drest nature in expunged from our more enlightened smiles: and who, God of love as H-le is, economy, there is not one other precept can have no sweeter incense to ascend to of the decalogue that admits of being Him from our world than the happiness more evangelized, or of having a brighter of a grateful and rejoicing family. And and more beautiful radiance of celestial thus it is, that they would seek for coungrace and celestial glory thrown over it. tenance to their own vain and giddy gnraThe services of Sabbath upon earth, form tirications-in pleasures and amusements, the very nearest approximation that can not where God is recognised, but in the be made to the current and every-day m-idst of which God is utterly forgotten; services in Heaven. He who does not to that meri-iment of the heart which is love them loves not God. He who inspired, not by any cheering and at the droops in weariness under the exercises same time accurate thoughts of their of Sabbath, has nought before him but a heavenly Father, but to that merrimnent dismal prospect of eternity. There is which has its foundation in the thoughtnone admitted to Heaven, to whom lessness of mnerest unconcern and vacancy. Heaven were a dull and melancholy im- The maxim is a true one, but they utterly prisonment; and there will be no mid- misconceive its application. Religion is way territory like our present earth, be- indeed the minister, not of gloom, but ot tween the Heaven of the redeemed and enjoyment; but of enjoyment only to them the hell of the rebellious. It forms in- whose hearts have been so touched as to be deed an emphatic argument to flee from attuned to the spirit and the feelings of sathe coming wrath, and to flee for refuge credness. The genuine style of Christiarto the hope set before you in the Gospel ity is that of cheerfulness; but the way in — that it is not only on this ground which it breathes cheerfulness into the where forgiveness and a free acceptance soul, is, not by alterin g its own character for are awarded; but on this ground, and on the purpose of accommod ating itself to the 8 58 CHRISTIANITY OF THE SABBATH. [SERMI'astes of the unconverted, but by altering ing the currency of the performance or the tastes of the unconverted, through in the grateful emotions that were left the renewing process which they are behind it, would they bear an obvious made to undergo, to its own uncompro- countenance of satisfaction; and as, they mising and invariable character. The sent forth the beamings of a regaled and maxim is just; but not the slightest au- recreated spirit, might they impress the thority does it give to the glee, and the conviction upon many, that those men gaiety, and the joyous companionship, of who are the most strenuously bent op Sabbath profanation. To rejoice in their education for Heaven are at the God is a habit of the soul, not'merely same time the happiest upon earth.different, but diametrically opposite to the Others again, without any taste for muhabit of him who rejoices without God; sic whatever, may give any unwearied and all the zest and vivacity of whose attendance to the festival; and determinpleasures, any visitation of seriousness edly support the whole irksomeness of its would instantly put to flight. The uncongenial confinement; and, utterly maxim most assuredly is just, and bears' against the drift of their own native tenwith emphatic condemnation on the dencies, sit out the oppressive hours of a weary and ever-doing formalist-who heat and a noise that are well nigh intoils at his Sabbath duties, with a hand supportable; and all this too on the imamost punctual to their fulfilment, and a gination, that heaven was to be conferred spirit fretted and galled as if by the felt upon them, as the payment of wages for burden of so many painful and ponder- all the painfulness and self-denial of this ous austerities. The maxim that Chris- unvaried regularity. But alas! when tianity is a free and indulgent religion they get to the heaven of our present supcondemns this Sabbath drudge, but it position, music will be the only reward does not acquit the Sabbath despiser; and that shall meet them there. That music then only does it find its satisfyingappli- which so sickened and fatigued them in cation, when the first light of Sabbath time, will be all the entertainment they nmorn summons the affectionate disciple have to look for through eternity: And to those kindred exercises of piety in who does not see by such an illustration which his heart is most fitted to rejoice as this, that the Sabbath formalist will who goes not sadly but spontaneously to miss the happiness of both worlds-unthat which, animated as he is with the happy here because drivelling all his breath of another spirit, he feels not as a- days at a work that is utterly uncongepainful task, but as a precious opportu- nial to his spirit; and unhappy there, benity-and like the Christians of old can cause, even should he enter within heaveat his meat with gladness and single- en's gate and it be shut upon him, he ness of heart, not because like those who finds himself in the midst of that very take shelter in the maxim that religion is work, which, though a delicious treat to averse to melancholy, his delight is in others, was always to him a reluctant sense or in unsanctified appetite; but task, and the feeling of which still will because his delight is in converse with turn the paradise in which he dwells into God. a dull and everlasting imprisonment.Were heaven a mere paradise of mu- Now, though it be the happy and not the sic —then, to attain the capacity of enjoy- reluctant disciple of music who can reing it, one, would need to be a lover of joice in the musical heaven, that is not to harmony. It is conceivable that a musi- say that he who is only happy in other cal festival, held at short periodic inter- things will ever reach it-that he who vals, were the fittest preparation for ob- prefers the liberty and fresh air of the taining and fostering the musical taste, general world to the lessons of the recurand so for being happy in such an in- ring festival, will, because happy in his mortality as this. Those who had de- own style here, be in fit preparation for light in the beauty of airs and the sweet the happiness of another style hereafter..oncord of voices, would welcome the And neither does it follow, ye gay and recurrence of every coming festival as unreflectingo men of the world, because they A ould a joyful entertainment; and, like unto the best and highest of Christwhether in the ecstatic pleasure felt dur- ianls in being cheerful, you will ever -sik ,iI.] ADVANTAGES OF A FIXED SABBATH. 59 down with them as the partakers of a similating the reckless hilarity of your cheerful eternity. Your happiness is of bosoms, to the heaven-born joy that glows sense, and theirs is of spirit; and the in the bosom of a spiritual Christian.paradise for which they are training by Or despisers as ye are of that Sabbath the exercises of the weekly Sabbath festi- which to himr is the source of hallowed val, instead of a mere paradise of music, and heavenly delight, that ever you, with is a paradise of sacredness. Anrd think your present habit, will realise any other not ye men, in all whose joys and pur- condition than that of being left without suits there is the secularity of a world pleasure and without a portion through that soon fadeth away-think not of as- eternity. SERMON VIII. The Advantages of a fixed Sabbath. "Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years."-GAL. iv. 10. THERE are two distinct grounds, on liberally held forth on the footing of a which works in religion are appraised present to the sinner; but it is most at a low or rather worthless valuation in;inly and tenaciously kept back on the the Bible, and either rejected or de- footing of a purchase by the sinner. nounced accordingly. The first is when Still, however, it was bought for us; or they are offered as the price of our justi- rather after it had been forfeited, it was fication in the sight of. God; as an equi- redeemed for us, and at a ransom too, valent upon which the Lawgiver is altogether commensurate to its value. challenged for the honour and the re- There was a price given for it; but that gard that are due to righteousness; as an price is neither in whole nor in part the acquittal on our side of that bargain contribution of the sinner himself. He where the obedience of the creature is welcome, if he will, to God's favour. forms one part, and the good will of the Nay, he is welcome to this favour by Creator forms the other part of the sti- being put into possession, if he will, of pulation that is betwixt them. A work a positive right to it; but then he must may be entitled in certain respects to the understand that it is not a right conceded designation of good; but when this good to him, because of any claim of merit wvork assumes the character of purchase- whatever in his own performances. He money for eternal life, and in so doing must learn more justly to estimate the assumes that the thing which is rendered value of this right to the favour of a God by man is in the reckoning of the divine of holiness; and that it cannot be rated law, satisfactory value for the thing that according to the righteousness of man, is given to him by God in return for it but according to the righteousness of -then does the Bible utterly hold at Christ's atonement and holy services. nought, the most laborious, and, per- To cheapen the right of man to Heaven's haps, when looked to in another view, reward down to the standard of man's the most holy and estimable of all hu- obedience, were to degrade to the same man performances. This is a point standard the righteousness of God. And upon which the gospel, earnest to enlioht- thus to sustain the dignity of God's charen man as to the worth of his acceptance acter, does the gospel disown, and rewith God. and as to the worthlessness in pudiate marl's works, when accompanied regard to merit of his own proper pre- with the plea for divine favour, as their tensions to it, will descend to no compro- just and adequate remuneration. mise whatever with the vanity or the But there is still another ground on deceitful imaginations of our fallen spe- which works are computed at a low vacies. Acceptance with God is most luation in the Bible-and that is, whens 60 ADVANTAGES OF A FIXED SABBATH. [SERM, either in themselves:hey are devoid of which serve not to exalt or to purify the;rue moral excellence, or serve not in soul; and which varied or multiplied in their tendencies to refine and to strength- every possible way, can never shed upon en the principles of our moral naturie. him who performs them either the grace If the work in question carry in it no or the lustre of a true personal rightindication either of love to God, or of eousness. love to man,-if there be in it no char- But let a good work be delivered of acter of spiritual worth, or spiritual both these ingredients-let there be neirectitude,-if, on tracing it to its first im- ther an arrogated merit nor an inherent pulse from a principle within the heart, meanness in it-let the sinner who perit betoken no becoming grace, or no forms it inflict no oifence onthe unspotted duteous and incumbent morality, which righteousness of God, by offering it in should have its residence there,-if it price for that wvhich nought can purchase neither flow from some good affection of for the guily but an unsullied obedience the heart, nor be of any reflex efficacy and a perfect expiation; and, at the same in making the heart better,-in a word, time, let it be such a good work as serves, if disjoined from the virtue of the inner not to degrade, but to dignify, the perman, it be a mere muscular or mechanical. former, and as both marks and matures action, which affords an exercise,' and the real worth and growing excellence gives weariness to the body,-if it be of his character-let it be free of all premerely some operose task, or some irk- tension to the reward which has been some confinement, laid upon the person, forfeited by man, and which a Divine which, after it had been resolutely gone Mediator alone can redeem to him; and, through, or resolutely endured, terminates at the same time, let it, in its own subin itself; and leaves no increase, either of stance, be free of all pettiness and abject godliness or of humanity, behind it, —if, timidity-And we say of works like unto instead of appertaining to any thing of this, that, so far from the'Gospel lifting mind that is devout, or upright, or gen- a voice of hostility. or casting a look of erous, it be a work that can be done by discountenance towards them, the very a mere putting forth of the animal pow- aim of the Gospel is to raise and to mul. ers, and which, after its performance tiply them over the face of a new moral leaves its laborious agent as little en- creation. The ultimate design which the nobled, in his spirit, above the animal as Gospel has upon man, is not to redeem before-Then, on this ground, also, his person, but to renovate his character does the Bible hold it to be of as utter -not to lift off from him the weight of insignificance as the Saviour held the condemnation, that, under the deliverfasts, and the ablutions, and the whole ance, he may merely sit at ease; but fatiguing and fruitless ceremonial of the that,. thereby, he may be free to enter on drivelling Pharisee. The former works a course of activity, along which he is~ were offensive, because, like many of the ever approximating to the worth and works of Popery, they assume a merit holiness of the Godhead. For this, in in the sight of a highly exalted God. fact, as the great and terminating object, The latter works are offensive, because, was the whole peculiar economy of the like many of the works of Popery-as Gospel raised. For this did Christ die, its penances, and its offerings, and its that the men of nature and of the world telling of rosaries-they have a mean- might become men of God, and be per. ness in the sight of every truly enlight- fect, and thoroughly furnished unto all ened man. And as, to sustain the dig- good works. He, by His propitiation, nity of God, the Gospel holds out a hath made us partakers of the Divine countenance of rebuke towards those approbation, but just that we might beworks of presumption on which we come partakers of the Divine nature would found the claim of our legal The justification, which He hath bought righteousness for reward from the Law- for us, is only the door of admittance giver-so, for the sake of stamping a upon the career of glory and virtue to true dignity upon man, does the Gospel which He hath called us. In the works also hold out a countenance of rebuke which we do, let the merit of Christ be towards those works of superstition fully recognized, and the example of VIII.] ADVANTAGES OF A FIXED SABBATH. 61 Christ free as it is from debasing super- tion are, in respect of their sufficiency stition, and bright as it is in all the with God, supplanted and set aside by graces of essential rectitude, be fully re- the faith of the Gospel; yet he never fails garded; and the declared purpose of the to represent that faith as emanating an Gospel is, upon the basis of such a hu- obedience of a higher order, that is free mility, to build up every believer accord- from both the vitiating admixtures-alike ing to the similitude of this godlike pat- dignified in its character, and unpretendtern. It is not to damp his enthusiasm ing in its claims. in the cause of good works, but to make In the text too, there is a certain scruhim zealous of them. And, after rooting pulous observation referred to by the out the weeds, both of legal presumption apostle, which his converts adhered to as and of worthless formality, from the soil a duty; but which he charges them with of our nature-is it the office of the Gos- as if it were a delinquency. They obpel to turn it into a well-watered garden, served days and months and times and over which the eye of Heaven might years, annexing a religious importance rejoice in the reflection of its own like- to the stated acts and exercises of stated ness; and even the best and holiest of all periods; and we have no doubt, labourbe regaled by its sweet-smelling odours, ing under distress of conscience, at any and look down with complacency on its misgiving fiom the prescribed and wontfair and pleasant fruits of righteousness. ed regularity. It is likely enough, that Nothing can be more obvious in the both of those ingredients which go to epistle to the Galatians, than the express vilify a work, and to render it null and disinclination and dread of the Apostle worthless, entered into this outward fortowards certain works but then these mality of the Galatians-that it gave them were works tainted with the alloy of a feeling of security as to their meritoriboth the obnoxious ingredients-as when ous acceptance with God, which nought a justifying merit was assigned to the but the Redeemer's merits ought to inrite of circumcision-and then, what did spire; and that it further degraded the its performance avail to the great object character of man, by reducing moralit3 either of purifying or of elevating the to the level of mechanism, and substitu moral character? But with all his re- ting for the obedience of a rightly strung probation of such works, and after it and rightly actuated heart, an obedience might have been imagined by some that like that of a galley slave who plies at his he had extinguished works altogether, unvaried oar and moves in the one and mark how, ere he finishes his argument, unvaried circuit that is assigned to him. they are made to re-appear upon the Man was not made for this. He was Christian, and to replenish both his heart not even made for the Sabbath; and and his history with the richest variety neither surely was he made to go through of excellence. It is, indeed, interesting the seasons of his existence, like the to notice how the transition is secured in figures upon an orrery. He was not the Gospel from the humble to the holy, made to.square the movements of his per-how, if the creature will only renounce son with the lines or the convolutions of the worth of his own services, and seek a diagram-nor was it ever intended of unto God with the righteousness of Christ this creature, endowed as he is with the as the only price and the only plea he noble capacities of thought and sentiment can offer for acceptance, how, from this and spontaneous affection, that time abyss of felt and acknowledged nothing- should lay her arrest on the free-born ness, God will cause him to arise, —how, energies of his nature, or subjugate him if he will only stand denuded of all that to the dull routine of her cycles and her virtue which he deemed noble enough epicycles. This may do for a piece of for the rewards of eternity, a virtue shall unconscious materialism, or it may do for be inspired into his bosom, and made to a beast of burden; and the cruel task effloresce upon his life, that really will master man has made it to do for the ennoble him. And thus it is, that while yoked and harnessed negro, who, day in those comrnpends of Christianity which after day, toils on that beaten path-way Paul left behind him, both the decencies of labour, to which a stern and unchanof nature and the drudgeries of supersti- ging necessity has compel\ed him. But 62 ADVANTAGES OF A FIXED SABBATH; [SERN, shall the Spirit of h.m who knows the be left in its room, if the regenerated truth, and whom the truth has made free, spirit when broken loose from its imbe laid under the bondage and the beg- prisonment, shall, in the genius of our gary of such grovelling services? There better economy, expatiate without obwas something more than jealousy for struction on the more ethereal field of its the prerogatives of Christ's righteousness, own fellowship with the upper sanctuary, which inspired the apostle's antipathy to and of its own secret but seraphic con the whole work and labour of the Gala- templations? tians. We think that there was also a Now thougoh it be true that man was generous and high-toned ambition, that not made for the Sabbath, yet let it never while to Christ should be awarded all the be forgotten that the Sabbath was made glory to which he was entitled, on man for man. Man was not made to move in should be imprinted all the grace and a precise orbit of times and seasons; yet dignity of which he was capable —that times and seasons may be arranged, so he should be rescued from the degrada- as to subserve his use, and be the ministion of those poor and meagre and creep- ters of good both to his natural and moral ing servilities, which were stealing their economy. TWere the keeping the Sab entrance into the churches; and that for bath a mere servitude of the body which such paltry and pitiful rudiments, there left the heart no better than before, it should be substituted the light of a higher would be a frivolous ceremonial and morality, the love and the liberty of the ought to be exploded. But if it be true children of God. that he who sanctifies the Sabbath sanctiBut then will not this expunge the fies his own soul, then does the Sabbath Sabbath from the observation of Chris- assume a spiritual importance, because tians-that day which comes as invaria- an expedient of spiritual cultivation. The bly round to us as a lunation in the suspension on this day of the labour or heavens-that day the keeping of which business of the world-its scrupulous re, compels us to move in the dull uniform- tirement from the converse or the festivi ity of a circle; and which, instead of ties of common intercourse —its solemn leaving him to the free aspirations of a congregations and its evening solitudes — a heart that knows no control but that of These singly and in themselves, may not high and heaven-born principle, would be esteemed as moralities; and yet be enstill reduce the man to an automaton? titled to a high pre-eminence among And does not Paul in the parallel epistle them, from the impulse they give to that of Colossians, turn his argument to this living fountain of piety, out of which the very application? "Let no man there- various moralities of life ever come forth fore judge you in meat or in drink, or in in purest and most plenteous emanation. respect of an holy day, or of the new It is not that the virtue of man consists in moon, or of Sabbath days." Does not these things, but that these things are dehe here set them utterly at large from all vices of best and surest efficacy for upthe prescriptions of the ritualist; and holding the virtue of man. Were it not fearlessly commit them to the guidance for this subserviency, the Sabbath might of such principles, as are drawn from a well be swept away; but because of this loftier morality, and are addressed to the subserviency, it not only takes its place. nobler feelings and the higher faculties among the other obligations of Christianof our species? Does not he call upon ity, but is entitled to that reverence which us to abandon altogether the walk of is due if not to the parent at least to the ceremonial observation for the walk of foster-mother of them all. If the Sabbath spiritual exercises; and is not the Sab- of any one of the primitive churches obbath levelled, and laid under the same tained not this homage from the apostle, interdict, with all the other drudgeries of it must have been because a Sabbath of the Pharisee or the formalist? Were it ceremonial drudgery and not of spiritual not accordant then with the character, exercise. And you have only to comnay, even with the demands of the gos- pute the worth and the celestial characpel that this institution should be hence- ter of all those graces, which have shelrorth 3wept away; and will not enough tered and fed and reared to maturity in — ~ —~~ --- ~ —---- "~ VmUI ADVANTAGES OF A.,"IXED SABBATH. 63 the bosom of this institution, that you may I the work of intercourse with God and of own the high bearing and dignity which preparation for eternity. It is good fbr belong to it. man that he is not left in this matter If it be true of man, that he can attain to his own caprice and his own listlessi loftier communion with his God, at ness-that whether he wills it or not,,hose hours when the din and urgency of Sabbath should recur upon him at its own the world are away fiom him; and that periods, and proclaim an authoritative a season of reading, and contemplation, halt on the business of the wold —that and prayer acts as a restorative to the this day, ushered in if you like with the embers of his decaying sacredness; and sound of bells, should announce itself to that the voice of a minister, when prompt- his very senses as a day of sacrednessed by the Spirit from on high, and aided that it should give out another echo than by the sympathies of all who are around that which falls upon the ear from the him, can often send the elevation of heav- general buzz arid action of week-day en into his soul; and that it is on'those employment-or even that in the mornevenings of deep and lengthened tran- ing silence of our streets, and that halquillity which the footstep of intruding lowed peacefulness which overspreads companionship does not violate, when the the landscape, it should have its own nurture and admonition of the Lord can mementoes to characterise it. We put it descend more abundantly on the hearts to the plainest understanding, whether, of his children, and when the calm and with such an arrangement, more of busithe unction of a holy influence may ness will not be transacted with Heaven, be most felt in his dwellingr-place-then than if man were left to steal, to the hour Sabbath, which, from one end to the oth- he chose from the bustling urgencies of er of it, teems with these very opportuni- his business in the world. And on this ties, instead of ranking with the holidays ground singly, though there were none of idle superstition, will be dear as piety beside, would we say of our.Sabbatbh itself to every enlightened Christian; and that, unlike to the days and times whichl to it, in the most emphatic sense of the were observed by the crouching devotees term, will he award the obeisance of of Galatia, it is worthy of the homage of a divine and spiritual festival. the most enlightened ages, for its wise And on this principle too, may the and merciful adaptation to the laws of Sabbath be rescued from that contempt our moral nature. which the text, in denouncing the obser- And the maxim that what may be vation of days and of times, would appear done at any time is never done, applies to cast on it. It is true, that it is a peri- with peculiar emphasis to ever.y work odic festival, and that man was not made against which there is.a srong constitufor periods. But this does not hinder tional bias — where there is a reluctance that periods may be made for man. We to begin it, and the pitching of a strenu, have already affirmed, that Sabbath work ous: effort to overcome that reluctances is good for man to be engaged in, be- and the pleasant deception all the while cause it is a work of sacredness; and the that it will just do as well after a little remaining question is simply this, Wheth- more postponement-a deception which, er will man do more of that work, if left as it overspreads the whole of life, will every day of his life to the waywardness lead us, to put off indefinitely; and this in of his own desultory inclinations, or if a the vast majority of instances is tantacertain recurring day shall be cleared: of mount: to the habit of putting off irrecovthis world's concerns and companies, and erably and for ever. Now this would he be reminded, that the business of reli- just be the work of religion when shorn gion is its peculiar destination? It is a of its S-abbath-a work to embark upon. sound though homely maxim, that what which Nature has to arrest her strongest may be done at any time is never done; currents; and to shake her out of her and on this principle alone, it is good that lethargies.; and to suspend those pursuits a dayv shall be fixed upon-casting up at to which by all the desires of her exis, equidistant intervals, and on which the tence she isled most tenaciouslyto cleave; people of the land shall feel themselves and to struggle for the ascendancy of mnore strictly and pointedly summoned to faith over sight, and, of a love to the unr 64. ADVANTAGES OF A FIXED SABBATH. [SERI seen God whom the mind-with all the time should have been wholly abandoned aids of solitude and prayer so dimly ap- to our random determinations; and that prehendeth, over the love of those things God's Sabbath should come to us, than that are in the world, and whose power that we should be trusted to find our and whose presence are so constantly spontaneous way to sabbaths and parts and so importunately hbearing upon us.- of sabbaths of our own? If in some And will any say that in these circum- hour of frenzied innovation our week stances, the cause of religion is not bet- were thrown into disorder, and our whole tered by Sabbath, that weekly visitor remembrance were obliterated of that coming to our door, and sounding the re- day which has been consecrated by the treat of every seventh day from the heat observance of former generations-all and the hurry and the onset of such man- the piety would depart from the land, ifold temptations? It is not with dissipa- along with all the Sabbath punctuality tion's votaries that we are pleading this of our venerable forefathers. If this cause. But let us know, ye votaries of sanctuary, which has hitherto been fenced business, are ye able to preserve in your around from the outer court of week-day spirits through the week such a flavour employments, were ever trodden under of God and godliness, as to make you in- feet by the Gentiles, it would not be the dependent of any recruits that a Sabbath sacredness within that should spread might afford you? Does sacredness so itself abroad over the whole mass of hukeep at all times its undisturbed place man existence; but the secularity from and pre-eminence, amid the turmoil of without would rush through the broken those many secularities by which you wall, and appropriate to itself the territory are surrounded, that any one set and spe- of holiness. The spirit of the world cific time is not needed, on which, at a would engross and domineer over those distance from the besetting world, you last remnants of timne which it had viomight relume that lamp of heaven in the lated. The. Sabbath of human life may soul which was ready to expire? Or if be like the fleece of Gideon, when it was ithe time were left to your own discretion, dry on all the earth beside, and the dew;are such your longings after a spiritual of heaven was upon it only. But we are atmosphere, that you would be ever sure not to expect, till the millennium perhaps to make your escape to it, when like to has come upon our world, that it shall be be lulled or overborne in an atmosphere dry only upon the fleece while the dew of earthliness. It is true you may lift up is upon all the ground; nor, should this your hearts to God when you please- day of solemn services be expunged from.and even amid the thickening occupations the history of man, are we to think that.of the market and the counting-house, is it shall offer any other aspect than one it possible that many a secret aspiration -wide and unalleviated waste of earthlimay arise to Him. But how often is it ness. that you would so please, and tell us on We have already, though but briefly your experience of the past, what, if all and incidentally, adverted to another days were alike, would be the fervour, or benefit arising from a fixed and regular the frequency of such aspirations? How day for the services of piety. It brings {often does the sense of God intrude upon a concert and a common understanding your hearts in company; and how much along with it. And this shields every of it do you carry abroad in the walks of family retreat from the inroads of boisnmerchandise; or if there must be occa- terous acquaintanceship; and lays the sional retirement for the keeping up of re- alone effectual interdict on the calls and ligion in the soul, and the time and the'distractions of business; and not only opportunity were left altogether to your- throws a canopy of defence over the selves, would there be actually as much solitude of our private exercises, but through the week of the work and pre- affords to us a public and a social religion, paration of the sanctuary as a Sabbath and enlists the very sympathies of our nacould comprise? - ture on the side of sacredness, by impressWe appeal to every practical under- ing upon whole multitudes one consenstanding, whether it is not better, that taneous movement to the house of prayer. a time has been appointed, than that the And there is a touching power even 'I1ii.1 ADVANTAGES OF A FIXED SABBATH. sL in the visible insignia, wherewith, from spirit from the world's cares and the this circumstance alone, the sabbath of world's vanities, and by its busy exercise Christians is decked and signalized-in with those eternal realities which in the the holiday costume, which is worn like throng of ordinary life are so little a dress of ceremony to her honour- thought of. If it open for you the place in that shut and barricadoed covering, of solemn congregation —see that you which stretches along all the doors and forsake not the assembling of' yourselves windows of merchandise-in the suspen- together, and let the intense devotedness sion of human labour, and that general of your hearts through the week to all hush over the face of the world which that goeth on in the haunts of business, marks the season of its deep and serious rebuke its many flights and wanderings repose. This is all the fruit of a conven- on the sabbath from all that goeth on in tional understanding among men, which the house of prayer. If it afford you the nought but the authority of a sabbath quiet leisure of evening with your houselaw could have rendered universal; and hold-let it be your care to redeem the x is a fine poetical delusion, that even sacred opportunity; and let not the negthe lower animals of creation, together lected souls of your children, be so many with its mute and inanimate things, par- frightful vouchers on the day of reckontake in the stillness and'eolemnity of this ing, of the many neglected sabbaths that hallowed day. It is indeed a most pleas- you have spent upon earth. To whom ing and allowable fancy-nor can we much is given, of them much will be refuse our admiration to the lines which required; and on this principle your have so b'eautifully and with such tender- sabbaths, these precious gifts of God to ness expressed it: — man will have to be accounted for. And Calmness sits thr')n'd on yon unmoving cloud. 0, forget not, that if these have been To him who wanders o'er the upland leas, nauseated in time, Heaven, if you e'er Theblack bird's notecomeslmellow'r fromthe dale; were admitted there, would be nauseated And sweeter from the sky the gladsome lark through all eternity Sabbath is that Warbles the heaven-tuned song; the lulling brook ter. a i tha Murmurs more gently down the deep-worn glen; station on the territory of human life, While from yon lowly roof, whose curling smoke from which we can descry with most O'ermounts the mist, is heard at intervals advantage and delight the beauties of the The voice of psalms, the simple song of praise. promised land; and it is there, as if at But our main desire ought ever to be, the gate of the upper sanctuary, where not to regale with beauty, but to urge we can command one of the nearest you with a sense of obligation. And, approaches whereof our nature is capable, now, having endeavoured to rescue the to the contemplations and the doings sabbath law from the imputation of its of the saints in blessedness. There is being a paltry ceremonial; and to re- nothing else but sabbath in heaven, and commend it to the homage of enlightened in hell there is no sabbath. Such is the minds; and to establish it in a rank character of these two realms; and judge co-ordinate with the highest principles of for yourselves the state of human characour moral nature; and to prove, in ex- ter that is suited to them-which is the aeption to the apostolic censure passed on likely abode of him who delights in sabthe scrupulosity of the Galatians about bath, and altogether changed with its days and months and times and years, spirit, therewith impregnates and sanctithat our sabbath, punctually though it fies the week; and which is the likelier does come round as clock-work, stands abode of him whose taste the business of nobly and liberally aloof firom all the ig- the week monopolizes, and who altonoble characteristics of a drudging and gether charged with its spirit, therewith mechanical observation-what now re- pollutes and desecrates the sabbath. mains after the argument is finished,.but And if it be true, that to set apart a lo press it home upon your conscience, day in the week for the business of that you turn this day to all the high Christianity, both provides a greater seuses and facilities of which it is so abun- curity and adds a greater amount to that dantly capable? If it secure the retire- business-it is no less true that the cause ment of your person from the world-let is essentially served, by setting apart to this be followed up by the escape of your the same object certain portions. of each 9 66 ADVANTAGES OF A FIXED SABBATH. tSERIL successive day. The great use of sab- bid you to the resolute observance of cer. bath is to Christianize the whole life of tain select portions of the day which you man; but for this purpose something appropriate to sacredness, and which more is required than a weekly festival. nought but overbearing necessity should There must be a daily repast; and we ever tempt you to violate-that likl those would extend the principle by which we regular meals which recruit the body have endeavoured to advocate the sabbath, from the fatigues of business, you have into an advice, that each day should have also your regular occasions of fellowship its specific hours for the readings and with God, through prayer, or through the prayers, and the various exercises of the Bible, for that spiritual aliment which sacredness. We know that this is a pro- might recruit the exhaustion of your cess which may be superstitiously gone hearts, when the urgencies of business through, and just as if man were made have well nigh driven the sense of judgfor the hours like a time-telling piece of ment and eternity out of them. On the mechanism —and( then would he comeae principle that man was not made for trainder the denunciation of my text on the versing in regular step and order the churches of Galatia, or under that high- successive spaces of a diary, but for a minded contempt which is now felt for nobler purpose-we forbear to assign the mummeries and the paternosters of a either the length or the frequency of more modern ritual. But we alo know these holy exercises. But on the printhat this is a process which may be most ciple again, that time and all its various spiritually and intelligently gone through, successions were made for man, would and at given hours too, because hours we ask you in practice thus to divide and were made for man; and he acting with thus to journalise it-and that just for the authority of an enlightened judge the ncble purpose of sustaining in life all over the habits and tendencies of his own the functions of man's spiritual economy, moral nature, and experimentally aware of upholding his perseverance in that that what may be done at any time is lofty path of well-doing, which leads to never done, counts it the best of arrange- g~ory, and immortality, and honour. ments for the best of objects to have And again do we confidently put it solemn hours for solemn performances. to our men of business, whether if there It is not that we want to lay you under were not set times for God and his bible, stop-watch regulation-a matter, most there ever would be any time-whether assuredly, against which Paul and every the spirit of man can thus be trusted to sensible Christian after him would pro- its own spontaneous cravings for the test, as quite incompatible with the reli- bread and the water of life-or if there gion of liberty. But we want, and on a be any such periodic hunger in the soul survey of the known laws and principles as there is in the body, that demands at of our nature, to devise fittest and most short and frequent intervals of the aliment effictual expedients for keeping the free which is suited to it 2 The disease of a and elevated spirit of this religion alive. patient may call for regular air and exerIt is surely a good thing to make use of cise, and, such may be his indolence, such expedients; and our anxiety is, not that the stated hours must be prescribed that you do this thing at a given time, to him, and the very assignation of the but to strengthen and to multiply the times may be the stimulus that secures guarantees for its being done at all. his observance of them. And we all The style of observation, which, if ter- labour under a disease of the heart that 1minating in itself, would be the grovelling calls for its frequent exposure and exerof slavish and sordid devoteeship, might, cise in a spiritual atmosphere; and one viewed in its consequences, be generous sad accompaniment of the disease is its and noble, and altogether accordant with disinclination to the whole breadth and that higher cast of morality, which speaks. feeling of heaven's temperament and to the air and the spirit of our better dispen- overcome this, there may be a weight s;ation. And, it is on this account, and of authority in the very hours which the on thIs alone, that we lay the stress even patient has laid out for his own observaof a religious importance on your morn- tion. And, it is most rational and fair Ing and your evening sacrifices-that we to bring in this, as an auxiliary Iniiuence VIl.] ADVANTAGES OF A FIXED SABBAT-IH. 67 on the side of religion. The theologian are before himr; nor will his ever obtru has as good a warrant for his punc- sive consciousness of theeye that is above. tualities on this matter, as the physician disturb, but rather urge and exhilarate has for his. And thoroughly aware, his industry the more —for he. knows it therefore. though. we be, that bodily exer- to be an eye whiclh has respect to his 3ise profiteth little in Christianity, while performances as well as to his prayers, it is godliness alone which is profitable and that the genuine spirit which cometh unto all things-yet still do we press to him from heaven is a spirit wherewith upon you the religious keeping of a cer- the whole of human life ought to be imtain day every week, and of certain hours pregnated. It is thus that the time or parts of these hours every day; and for which is laid out on the work that goeth this single reason too, not that thy body on in the chamber of retirement, so far may go through its set and regular pro- from being lost to the work that goeth on strations, but that thy soul may prosper in the chamber of common merchandise, and be in health, may prove a great and positive accession And, think not that business will suffer to it. It excites instead of exhausting; by the encroachments which we are now and acting on the recorded precept of proposing to you. Think not that the diligence in our callings, the spirit that elevation which a closet prayer leaves we fetch down upon the world from the behind it on the heart. will transport mount of fellowship with God, adds a away your attention from the manifold momentum to the wheels of ordinary cares and operations of the counting- business, and not only stimulates, but mehouse; or that vou will come forth from thodises all its managements. A kinthe exercises of the one, indolent and dis- dred influence is caught from Him who tasteful, and alienated from the exercises is the author of order and not of confuof the other. The bible recognises no sion, and to whom the morning( has been such disjunction. On the contrary, it consecrated. The light by which the supposes that he who is fervent in spirit heart of the worshipper is thus visited, is may be t.ot slothful in business, and that not lost on his' transition to this world's in the departments both of work and of familiarities; but remains with him to worship he alike serveth the Lord. guide the history of his day, and to shed A religionist is thought by some to be a useful and pleasing distribution over all a visionary, who is in hazard of dream- the doings of it. ing when he ought to be doing; and And while we thus would propitiate who must find it ill to combine his monk- the man of active life to a set time for ish propensities to devotion with the alert the duties and the preparations of sacredand wakeful and ever-varying activities ness, we should also like the religionist of merchandise. But this does not ex- to understand that the business, whether perimentally hold. The very power of his profession or his family, has its and taste for order, which has led him times and its seasons too; and he is not to apportion his day between the labours to practise any hurtful inroad upon these, of the sanctuary and those of ordinary even though tempted so to do by the life, he will carry with him into all his strength of his spiritual appetite for spisubordinate arrangements; and the stren- ritual joys and contemplations. It is uousness wherewith he abides by his doubtless a case of exceeding rarity; hours of sacredness, will also keep him but some there are of more ethereal most poinmedly faithful and alive to the mould, who, for hours together, can hold discharge of all his incumbent secula- converse with God and be all the while rities; and that sense of duty which in ecstasy-who, as if broken loose impels him to the observations of his pri- fiom the fetters of earthliness and evolved vacy, so far fiom being stifled by them, on a beauteous field of light and liberty, wilt be strengthened and recruited for can feel such transports, and breathe the affairs of society; and the very ala- such ineffable delights, as if all the crity of feeling which these spiritual glories of Heaven had descended upon communions have given to him, will im- them —who, as if already borne uppart a satisfaction and celerity and sue- ward to paradise, can, even in the cess to the miscellaneous agencies that body, taste of the seraphic joy that OS ADVANTAGES OF A FIXED SABBATH. ISERML flows throughout that bright domain pied all your week-day hours vith ths of love and of holiness; and who, throng and the thickening multiplicity feeling with Peter on the mount of of your week-day affairs; and demand, transfiguration that it is good to be here, in the name of your best and highest cowuld fondly linger in the midst of a interest, that not a day shall pass over beatific imagery, at the sight of which your heads without its allotted time for all the cares and employments of this the concerns of your eternity. We revulgar world were forgotten. The peat it, that business will not suffer by American missionary Brainerd, of all your morning and evening sacrifice-. our modern devotees, could keep the that your ledgers will not run into conlongest and the loftiest on the wing: fision, though you should tie your unAnd from him therefore it is a testimony varied half-hour's attention every day of exceeding weight to the lesson we to the Bible-that your correspondence have been labouring to inculcate, when of penmanship with man will not run he vouches for a regular distribution of into a heavier arrear, because you have hours, in which the business of the low- now instituted a regular correspondence er world might be provided for, and be of prayer with God. Time, in fact, is made to alternate with spiritual exercises a tallent given largely and liberally to.-when he vouches for this as condu- us all; and it only depends on our own cive even to the prosperity of religion in use and distribution of it, that we find the soul —when he tells us, that were it in it an ample sufficiency for every for nothing more than the health of our thing. Be but resolute and orderly; personal Christianity, it is well that the and if, on the pretence of an overaffairs of earth should have their turn, whelming business, you have hurt or even in the history of him whose en- neglected the readings and the devotions grossing care is so to advance his sancti- of sacredness, summon up now such a fiiation, as that he may stand perfect and principle of arrangement as shall pro2onmplete in the whole will of God. vide for your daily converse with HeaAfter conceding thus-much to the do- ven; and you will find, that under'the. ings and the business of the world-af- prolific virtue of such a principle, you ter giving to the work of your merchan- will subordinate to your power all those dise, and to the work of your farnmilies, complexities that are now so oppressive the benefit of the principle that there is to you, and acquire a thorough mastery a time for every thincr-suffer us to come over that business of which you are now back upon you who have hitherto occu- the jaded and the overdriven slaves. SERMON IX. The accommnodating Spirit of Christian charity to the scruples of the Wea/c. "Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend."-1 COR. viii. 13. Wre have already affirmed what the to degrade man by substituting points in two principles are, on which it is that a the room of principles; and loading him human work is held to be of low or with the observations of a paltry cereinoworthless estimation in Christianity. nial, rather than infusing into his heart The first is- -when, offered as the price the essence of substantial virtue. It is of our justification, it tends to bring down worthy of being remarked however, the honour of the divine law, by calling that the first of these ingredients is upon it to acknowledge, and to reward greatly more obnoxious to the Gospel an imperfect obedience. The second is than the second-that it can tolerate no -when, destitute in itself of any moral infringement on the ground of our meri. or spiritual character, it tends personally torious acceptance with God; and so 1.] ACCOMMODATING SPIRIT Ok' CRIitlST1AN CHARITY. 69 Paul resisted to the uttermost the practice those very habiliments which have given of circumcision, when proposed by cer- so pleasing and picturesque a variety to tain teachers to the church of Galatia, as this denomination of Christians? Did indispensable to salvation. Yet the same they assume to their peculiar dress the Paul could tolerate this very rite, nay merit or the power, which belongs to the even himself inflicted it upon Timothy, doctrine of Christ's righteousness, then when the great doctrine of the righteous- Paul himself would have resented it as ness that is through faith was not endan- an aggression on the very foundation of gered by it. What he resisted when it our faith., But if it be only a way in trenched on a fundamental principle, he which they think to adorn that doctrine, could, were this principle kept inviolate, and a way that looks comely to their give way to, on the ground of expe- eyes, we believe that Paul would have diency. The very same thing which he let their taste and their peculiarity alone. opposed with all his might, when made He might have regarded it as hay or to usurp the place of merit beside the stubble lying on the foundation, along righteousness of Christ-he was on cer- with the gold and silver and precious tain occasions content to let alone, when stones which had been deposited there, only made to usurp a place of simple oc- by men rich in the substantial graces of cupancy beside those other attributes of Christianity. But, instead of stooping conduct or character, which make out to controvert the singularity, he, in all the personal righteousness of man. likelihood, would have postponed the When admitted on the first footing, it question to that day, which shall try and thwarts the whole spirit and design of' declare every man's work, and maniHeaven's jurisprudence, that will not stoop fest its real worth, whatever it may to the recognition of any human work, be. The man himself, standing as he whatever, as being of any avail towards does on the foundation, shall be saved. the acceptance of the guilty, aind will be Yet all that was insignificant in any of challenged on no other plea than the one his practices shall be consumed away and unmixed righteousness which Christ into oblivion; and only that, which hath brought in. Whereas when some has the attributes of enduring excellence little matter of outward or circumstantial shall stand-for only that is capable of observancy is admitted on the second foot- being translated into the great and abiding-it may at least be borne with as a ing society of Heaven, where nought harmless, though not esteemed as a very other worth is recognised than what is honourable visitor. Its presence, though lasting as the soul, and dignified as are the it could well be dispensed with, may not faculties of its moral and spiritual nature. exclude the presence of what is really So that the very same observance good and graceful and desirable upon the which, in one view, is of such pernicharacter-just as the garb of Qua- cious import, as, if admitted, would prove kerismn may be worn by the same indivi- fatal to Christianity by sapping its foundual, who wears along with it the piety dations, might, in ancther view of it, be and the patience and the uprightness and a mere innocent peculiarity, which could the primitive worth of Quakerism, with either be dispensed with or tolerated acall the ornaments of its meek and quiet cording to circumstances. This will exspirit, which, in the sight of God are of plain all that might have else appeared great price. One may smile, or perhaps incongruous or veering in the conduct of one' may regret, that the stress of any re- our Apostle. In his fourteenth chapter ligious importance at all should be laid to the Romans, you will find the whole either on the hue or on the pattern of force and spirit of his understanding, put vestments-and think that this question forth on the casuistry of points and scruof bodily apparel, like that of bodily ex- pies; and we have often done homage to ercise, signifies but little. But who the rare and admirable sagacity wherewould ever think of any serious contro- with he has delivered himself in a quesversy about so downright a bagratelle; or tion, which, of all others, is most apt to who would not, if it softened antipathies elude our efforts to unrival it; and that,. or added to the amount of charity and just from the very unimportance of its good will between rman and man, put on materials, rendering it difficult to bring 70 ACCOMMODATING SPIRIT C F CHRISTIAN CHARITY.:SERM the light of any decisive or commanding infliction of this painful feeling ought to principle to bear upon it. He was most be avoided, wherever it can be done with thoroughly aware of the frivolity, in re- propriety —for, says Paul, if thy brother gard to substance, of all those doubtful be grieved with thy meat, now walkest disputations that related to meats or days thou not charitably. Or, if he be not or ceremonies; but never lifted the voice quite decided-if, diffident of himselfr he either of alarm or of authority on one be readily overborne by the authority of side or other, save when an invasion was another —if, in deference to the judgment threatened on the ground of a sinner's of the stronger Christian, he imitate him acceptance. After having repelled this in certain freedoms of observation, about mischief, he looked to these various nice- which, however, he has not altogether ties, very much as a man of full stature obtained satisfaction in the light of his and exercised discernment would look to own mind, then, there is still a struggle the peculiarities of grown-up children- between the power of conscience and the in which, for the sake of peace and good power of example; and should the latter humour, he might benevolently indulge prevai], the man is led to do a thing, not them-or in which, for the still higher from the impulse of his clear convictions, purpose of maintaining the ascendancy but in opposition to his labouring doubts, of his Christian kindness over their spi- and thus suffers himself to be hurried rits, he. most wisely and most willingly into a transgression against his own sense might share. of moral rectitude. And thus it is that There can be no mistaking the opinion a weak conscience is wounded-for on of Paul, as to who was the more enlight- seeing him who hath knowledge sit at a ened Christian —he who for himself sat kind of meat which he deems unlawful, -oose to the punctualities in question, or his conscience is emboldened to take the he who was the slave of them. It is he same liberty; and through the knowwho is strong that eateth all things: It ledge of him who is enlightened, the;s he who is weak that eateth herbs. weak brother perishes for whom Christ Yet we never saw the qualities of mind died. For though he has given way to the and of principle in more beauteous com- indulgence, it is not with his own faith, bination; nor, do we conceive how the but in the mere following of another's vigour of masculine intellect can be more practice; and he secretly condemneth finely attempered with the mild. and nler- himself in that which he alloweth; and ciful and condescending spirit of the whatever is not of faith is sin, whence he Gospel-than when the apostle lets him- that doubteth is condemned if he eateth, self down from that high region of liberty because he eateth not of faith: And, so it whither he had been borne on the pinions is good, both on the principle of followof a noble and emancipated spirit; and ing after those things which make for when he who could roam with a free peace, and those things wherewith one conscience over the wide domain of na- may edify another-it is good neither to ture, and fearlessly partake of all. its eat flesh nor to drink wine, nor any bounties, recollected the tenderness of a thingr whereby thy brother stumbleth, brother yet labouring in the distress and or is offended, or is made weak. It is'mprisonment of many difficulties, and this which may invest with a character protested that he would not eat flesh of very high principle, what else would while the world standeth, lest he make have seemed a weak and wretched scruhis brother to offend. pulosity. It is this which may stamp And there is a twofold mischief which upon it the dignity of the second law the apostle avoids by this generous cornm- that is like unto the first, and give the pliance with another's principle, even grace and the loveliness of charity even though he himself regards it in the light to the imbecilities of superstition. On lof a weak peculiarity. Should this bro- the person of him who is its trembling.ther be quite decided and tenacious of votary, they may look silly enough; but *the scruple, that he has raised in his own they gather into an aspect of nobleness mind to the dignity of an essential obli- on the person of him, who, instead of gation, then will another's liberty be mat- frowning, as some would, the drivellel.r of sorrow or concern to him. and the away, walketh byehis side; and, toler 2X1,] ACCOMMODATING SPIRIT OF CHRISTIAN CHARITY. 7. tting the weakness for sake of the worth he is longing. It is even conceivable, wherewith it is associated, can descend that the withdrawment of himself from from the level of his own superiority, and church into his own chamber, during stretch forth to this humble Christian the the whole or the half of that time that is courtesy of his kind and respectful accom- spent by others in its public services, modations. might on some particular occasion be This suggests another principle in aid good for his spirit; and that he, without of all the others which have already been one remonstrance from his own heart. adduced on the side of Sabbath observa- could then fearlessly be absent fiom the tions. You know that there is a certain house of God. Nay, there might even style of Sabbath keeping, which is re- occur to him in the train of accidents, garded by many as the best and most such unlooked for urgencies of call oi appropriate; and that this style varies in of intercourse, as would amount in his different countries; and that; in some of situation to a valid demand for worldly these countries there is a strong popular and secular converse-and that, too, on feeling of what the things are which are an hour that he else would have given essential to the becoming sanctity of this to prayer and heavenly contemplation.,day, and what the things are whereby Throughout all these deviations from this sanctity would be violated. Some the letter of many a rigid formalist, could not without distress of conscience might this enlightened Christian be able walk abroad upon the fields; and some to clear his way, with a spirit unhurt, becould not reduce their double to a single cause with a conscience unviolated; and attendance upon the house of prayer; had he only his own things to look at, and some could not cast their eye over then with love to the Sabbath in his,he columns of a newspaper; and some heart. might he still take the liberty of a could not spend an hour upon a worldly son of God with Sabbath in his practice. visit, or so much as one moment upon Bult this very love teaches him to look to worldly conversation. We have already, the things of others also-teaches him, as we think, alleged enough of substan- while at perfect freedom in his own contial argument for the solemn observation science, to be the servant even of the of this day, inasmuch as it is one of the weakest of his brethren. And should he unexpunged precepts of the decalogue — know that his Sabbath walk; or his Saband inasmuch as every man of genuine bath converse with the world; or his Christian affections will love such a day,. Sabbath indulgence, thouyrh on rare ocinstead of feeling it a load upon his spi- casions, in the newvs and t he business and rit —and inasmuch as a set and specific the secularities of the week; or even his time for the exercises of piety insures a disappearance from church in any one of far larger amount of these exercises, than its services, though the tilme were conseif they had been left at random to the crated to the secret labourings of his spontaneous and desultory movement of heart with God-should he lknow that one's own inclinations. And, to supple- any one of these freedoms would, under mert all these considerations, does the the cover of his revered example, emtext supply us with one more, the force bolden another to trespass against the of which must be felt by every man'who light of his own mind, and so wound is at all endowed with the philanthropy that spirit which, not yet strengthened to of the Gospel-and just felt the stronger, the discernment of what was substantially if by the lustre of his unquestionable vir- good and evil, is still over scrupulous and tues he has earned'a confidence among over sensitive about the externals of men, and has the homage awarded to Christianity-Then in the spirit of our him of being both an ornament and an text would he feel, that wuhat might else example of Christianity. He may with- have been a mere ins;gnificancy, -was out offence to his own conscience go forth now impregnated with the very ete-nce on Sabbath among the beauties of nature. of gospel charity and gospel obligationHe inay, endowed as he is with the and, taking up the language of Paul, glorious and generous law of liberty, to would he resolve to do none of those quell some anxiety that oppresses him, things while the world standeth, lest he search for the article of news after which should make his brother to offend. t 2 ACCOMMODATING SPIRIT OF CHRISTIAN CHARITY. [SERl? You will thus perceive that the pre- expatiated-and tell us, whether it were rise style and etiquette of Sabbath obser- narrow or it were noble, if. in his tour of vation is, to a certain degree, a question recreation through our romantic territoof geography. The Christians of Eng- ry, he, for the sake of.the people's holi land, for example, have altogether a freer ness, dearer to his heart than even the and more negligent Sabbath exterior fond enthusiasm wherewith the face of than those of Scotland; and this is per- nature is surveyed by him, he did on fectly consistent with a substantial unity every seventh day suspend the enjoyment of spirit and of principle among them of her lakes and her mountains, and' ~oth. A Scottish religionist might on turn his Sabbath inn into a hermitage, visiting, or on shifting his residence to rather than inake the meanest of her peasthe south, maintain without prejudice, antry to offencl. either to himself or others, all the rigidi- It is in this spirit that you ought to act. ties of his accustomed practice. But the Beside all the previous considerations on English religioni;:t, on coming amongst behalf of Sabbath, you must compute the us, could not without the hazard of dam- force of your example upon others-and aging the principles of his new vicinity, each should contribute the decorum of retain the laxities of his. If the mind his own grave and regular observations, have long associated with a certain habit even though at the expense of self-denial a feeling of deep and serious obligation, I to his own tastes, that he may help withthen the surrender of that habit were tan- in the. sphere of his influence to arrest tamount to a surrender of principle, and the declining piety of our age. It is wothe conscience is vitiated. Higher ele- ful to think at this period of benevolent ments are at stake upon the issue of such forthgoing, on the part of the higher a contest; and though the scruple may classes among the habitations of the poor be a downright futility in itself, yet the — how listless after all they are of the whole religion of him who entertains it, Christianity of our city multitudes-and may by its violation be shaken to an what woful havockl they do make, by overthrow. It may be so.implicated in their conspicuous departure from the his heart with all the feelings of sacred- gravity of the olden times, on the best' ness, that the scruple cannot be torn and dearest principles of our land. And away without the sacredness coming up the mischief is not confined to its operaalong with it; and so the same authority tion upon the brethren, or upon those which conjures a man out of his frivol- who are already Christians, in causing ous punctuality, might conjure him out them to offend, and so speeding them of his faith altogether. The very same downward along the career of degeneraexample which left untouched the Chris- cy. For this growing obliteration of' tianity of one neigrhbourhood, might shed Sabbath, and of all those solemn and ima deleterious blight over the Christianity pressive vestiges which wont to c(haracof another. So, that while without det- terise it, tell with malignant eflect, in riment to any passing observer, Wilber- perpetuating and confirmling the heathenforce, firom the lofty and exposed terrace ism of our outcast population. It were of his habitation, might, in unison with well, for the sake of those in whom the every Sabbath feeling, inhale the fresh- power of reflection is so nearly extinct, ness of its summer evens, and verily as to leave almost nothing but the extercatch a sweeter influence fiom Heaven nal senses, by which to find a conveyApon his heart, when he looked abroad ance for serious or pathetic emotion into,an the peaceful glories of the landscape their hearts-it were well for them that before him-yet might the same exhibi- Sabbath should be upholden in all its tion spread a pestilential virus, through venerable distinctions, and should stand the atmosphere of many of our northern visibly out with the aspect of religious. parishes: And wre leave you to estimate ness on its very forehead. It is not we for yourselves what the cast of that deli- think in the spirit of a blind fanaticism, cacy is, which would lead'this most ten- but rather in the spirit of a philosophy der yet most liberal of Christians, to which can look into the secret rmechan. forego the much loved liberty in which ism both of our moral and sentient nature, his own spirit could most fearlessl3 have that the opening on the Sabbath. whether X.] AMUSEMENTS AND COMPANIES OF THE WORLD. 73,of public rooms or of public gardens, merely to your own things but to the should be resisted as a measure of deadly things of others also; and fail not to keep import~to, the religion of the community up both a congregational regularity in at large; and on the same principle the eye of your fellow-worshippers, and would we advocate that Sabbath police, I a household regularity in the eye of your which, without oppression and without family. These are sensible memorials lolence, puts to flight those many dese- which serve both to grace and to signal*rations by which the hallowed aspect of ise this day of sacredness; and so multi.,his day fhas been overborne. But our ply the influences, in favour of that great.nore immediate business is with you; Christian institution, a reverence for and our present aim is, to lay the respon- which seems to be identified with a reverbibility of the principle that, we have now ence for Christianity itself. urged upon youlr consciences. Look not SERMON X. On the Amusements and Companies of the World. { 3, ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness 3 and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial I or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols 3 for ye are the temple of the living God; as God halth said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." — 2 COR. Vi. 14-16. PERHAPS on no occasion does the Apos- But he took into account the effect of it; tie evince a more delicate and discerning in the way of exhibition to other discieve, than when pronouncing on the ples; and how it might be matter of disquestion of meet and allowable inter- tress and difficulty to their hearts; and course between his recent converts and how it might embolden them to tnlAsthose idolaters, who composed the great gress against the light of their own coi. mass of the society around them, and science, and so be matter of defilement with whom they were still connected by as well as of distress; and how it might the ties both of neighbourhood and rela- be the means of bringing them more fre. tionship. You see at once, hovw, strong que.ntly into contact and exposure, with in the important principles of the ques- people who had no kindred quality of tion, he could stand his own individual spirit or sentiment with themselves; and ground against all the scrupulosities of a under the force of these considerations, weak and sensitive conscience. He for does this free and firm and most intellihimself could eat the meat that had been gent casuist come forth with the expres. offered to an idol-he could even have sion of a resolve, the principle and applieaten it in the very temple of idolatry, cation of which we have already tried to and perhaps at the same table too with its elucidate-" Wherefore, if meat make deluded worshippers. W7nat another my brother to offend, 1 will eat no flesh Christian would have shuddered aths an while the world standeth, lest it make abomination, he could fearlessly have my brother to offend.." done; and it was not any conscientious In the text that has now been submittenderness about the matter in itself, but ted to you, the apostle looks to the apa charitable tenderness for the points and proxiination in question between his dis*perplexities of the feeble-minded among ciples and idolaters under another aspect. the brethren, which led him to abstain Viewed as a mere bodily or external act, from it. The act he regarded as no- the eating with themi of the same food, thing, or truly as much too insignificant or sitting witi them at the same table, for any strenuous or imperative deliver- he seems to regard as a point of indiffer ance from him upon its own account. ency, and to number with the all things to 74 AMUSEMENTS AND COMPANIES OF THE WORLD, ISERIC which are lawful. But viewed not as offered to an idol is nothing; he could the juxtaposition of different persons, but say at another, that it was both hurtful as the juxtaposition of different minds or and unseemly for Christians to associate of different principles, he looks to the with idolaters-between whom,in allthe spiritual character and contemplates the essential characteristics of the inner man, spiritual result that is likely to come out there was no fellowship and no agreeof such a companionship, and seems at ment and no communion. once to number it among the things There seem to be two capital reasons which are.not expedient. He seems to why the men of a Christian spirit should regard it as a most unequal and unseemly not by choice, and as if prompted thereto assortment of people, who are wholly by a spontaneous impulse of their own unsuitable and heterogeneous the one to associate with those -of a worldly or the other. Their mere presence together idolatrous spirit. The first is, that there in the same apartment, and their mere is really no congeniality between the two sitting together at the same board, and spirits. As there is the want of a comtheir partaking together of the same mon taste, so there is the want of common dishes and the same viands-these deeds topics. The children of this world nauand these circumstances of materialism, seate the favourite themes of the children would argue in. the religion of Christ, of light; and the children of light hold the grossness and the littleness of mate- to be insipid at least the favourite themes rialism, did it lay down its specifications of the children of this world. For a man and its categories for things of such frivo- then to delight in the air and converious observation. But when we think sation of an irreligious party, bears on it of the kind of moral atmosphere that is the evidence of his own irreligion. It sure to gather and be formed around proves him to be of a kindred quality, every assembled company; and how with those who have nothing in them each individual spirit that is there, con- that is akin to sacredness: And the very tributes a something of its own character facility wherewith his spirit can amalgaby wh;ch to tinge and to peculiarise it: mate with theirs-the very Comfort and and that person cannot be approximated pleasure wherewith he can breathe in an to person, without mind reciprocating on atmosphere altogether tainted with un mind; and that there be manifold ave- godliness-the very circumstance of hlm nues of transition from one heart to ano- not feeling out of his element, though in ther, whether by the utterance of direct an element in which, for hours together sentiment, or by the natural signs of the there has not been one sentiment ex eye and of the voice, or what perhaps is changed that bears on the things of faith most insiduous of all, by a certain tact of' or of eternity-This ought to alarm him sympathy with the general pulse'of those for his own state, as carrying in it the who are near us and about us,. in virtue indication of its being a state in which of which the tone and habit of a party nature still maintains great force, if it do have a certain power of diffusiveness that not maintain the entire predominancy: tends at least to a community of feeling And, if it be the apostolical symptom among all the members of it-when we of having passed from death unto life, think that from these causes, there is a that we love the brethren, or love the hazard that sacredness, by moving too society of Christian disciples-then may near to the temperament of the region the love of another society, at utter antiwhich is opposite, may sustain a blight podes with the former, administer the from the withering influences of the con- suspicion of a still unregenerated heart, tiguous secularity —then must we see of a still unsubdued worldliness. that the topic on hand, instead of apper- But there is still another reason, distaining to the casuistry of mere circum- tinct from the former, why there ought to stantials, holds by an immediate tie on be no gratuitous fellowship between the the clear and intelligent morality of prin- pious and the ungodly. The former ciple: And, we must again award to our reason is, that for a man to consort, and apostle,;he homage of a high and pow- by choice, with the un godly, argues that erful illumination-when, saying at one there is in him still a strong leaven time that an idol is nothing and the meat or remainder of ungodliness. The other x.l AMUSEMENTS AND COMPANIES CSF THE WORLD. 75 reason is, that so to consort with the deteriorate the gracious principle that ungodly not only proves the existence of is therein, if not to destroy it. a kindred leaven in our spirit, but tends Both the one and the other of these so ferment it-not only argues the un- considerations are directly applicable' godliness which yet is in the constitution, touchstones by which to try, we will not but tends to promote and to strengthen it say the lawfulness, but at least the expethe more. The one reason why it is diency, both of the theatre and of all pubdesirable that a man in quest of spiritual lic entertainments. Think of the degree health should shun an intercourse with of congeniality which there is between corruption, is, that his very delight in the temperament of sacredness, and the that intercourse is in itself a most infalli- temperament of any of those assemblages ble symptom of spiritual disease; and the which are now referred to. Compute, other reason is, that it only indicates the though it be only in a general way, the disease, but serves to aggravate and to distance and dissimilarity that do actually confirm it. And who can doubt of the obtain between the prevalent spirit of this blight and the barrenness that are world's amusements and the spirit of brought upon the spirit by its converse godliness. Bethink yourselves of any with the world? Who, that ever looked such tests as may help to clear and asceron human life with an observant eye, can tain this matter: and perhaps one of the question the might and efficacy. of that most effectual is, to recollect that one assimilating power, which every circle individual of all your acquaintanceship, of society has on the individuals who to whom you would most readily award, mingle with it? Such, even among and that in the most pure and holy and those who ha',e been long under a pro- reverend sense of the term, the character cess of sanctification-such is the down- of a saint; and on whose aspect, there ward tendency of the heart, that it is stands out to your eve the nmost decided indeed a work of strenuousness to uphold and unequivocal expression of saintliness. its spiritual frame for a single hour; and Then make an effort, and conceive of the hazard. is, that, on being laid open to this very personage-either that, as one the full tide of that worldly influence of the most delighted spectators, he drinks which descends upon it from an alienated in the whole fascination of a scenic pelcompany, the whole unction of its sacred- formance on the stage, and shares in the ness will take flight and be dissipated. loudest peals of the merriment that is It is altogether with the grain and ten- awakened by it; or that, with all the dency of our old nature, to fall in with ecstatic glee of the most youthful in the prevalent tone of nature's unrenewed attendance, he plays off his agility and children; and this old nature, though elegance in the eddying circles of an subordinated by grace, is not extin- assembly. We do not ask you of any guished; and so, there is ever present in unseemliness in all this arising out of us, a principle of ready coalescence with age; but we ask, if there be not palpable, the taste and spirit 1nd affections of men even to yourselves, a most violent unwho have not God in all their thoughts; seemliness arising out of the profession and thus to bring this earthly ingredient and the character? Do you not feel imof our constitution into voluntary contact mediately awake to the utter discordancy with such men, is tantamount, in fact, to a that there is between the imagined exervoluntary exile or departure, on our part, cises of the man in secret,'and the public from the living God. It is as if, by our exhibition that he now makes of himself? own proper choice, we left the tabernacle On your own impressions of human of God, that we might dwell for a season nature do you hold it possible, that a. rein the tents of iniquity; and as this, lish so decisive for the actings whicharo) by our first consideration, bespeaks where carried on in the temples of fashion, can the likinog of the heart lies, and is there- dwell in the same bosom with a relish fore to be deplored-so, by our second, it equally determined for the actings which is equally to be deplored, as carrying in are carried on in a temple of piety? it a most pernicious reflex influence upon Would you believe it of the man, thus the heart tending most assuredly to the gayest of the gay, that he had spent 76 AMUSEMENTS AND COMPANIES OF THE WORLD. [SERnL his morning hour in rapt and hallowed successful attempt on Heaven's sanctuary converse with Heaven; or do you ever than before? The simple matter to be think, that he who bears in his heart a determined is, will the dance, and the cherished love for theatric declamation music, and the merriment, and the repre. and. song, carries in it also love for the sentation, and the whole tumult of that psalmody of Christian worshippers? Is vanity through which you have passed, it not then your feeling, that, by the and in full sympathy too, it is to be pretransition he has made. from the chain- sumed, with the joyous multitude around Jer of prayer to the concourse of fash- you-will these attune the consent of the onable gaiety, his character has, even in spirit to the feelings and the exercises your eyes, sustained a grievous desecra- of sacredness? Would you say of any tion? And what is this to say, but that one place of fashionable gaiety, that it you hold the atmosphere of the one place makes a good antichamber of preparation to be of diverse quality from the atmos- for that house of solemn interview, in phere of the other?-that, yourselves which converseis held, either withthe still being judges, there is a real and substan- small voice that is within, or with that tial opposition between the temperament God above who bids you sanctify Him of piety and the temperament of a dis- at all times in your heart, and do all sipation, which, however refined, is at things to His glory. These are experileast utterly devoid of the breath and the mental questions; and perhaps the mebeing of godliness; that there is a cer- mory of some who are here present tain want of assortment between the two may serve for the solution of them. things, in virtue which you cannot ima- And if their recollection be, that thd algine a great delight in the one, without most unfailing result of' an evening of some distaste or aversion for the other; gaiety, was to be bustled and jaded out and that, therefore, and of necessary of all their spirituality-that the whole consequence, the abandonment of oneself unction of religiousness had fled; and, to the rounds of fashionable life, while it if prayers were uttered at all, they were may imply no infraction in the outward lifted up in the mockery of meagre and act of single specific requirement to be downright heartlessness-that, in truth, found in sacred writ, may yet most de- there was a general riot or restlessness cisively imply an utter alienation of the of their internal feelings, which nought heart from all sacredness. could compose but sleep, and sleep held Thus much, then, for the act of de- under the unacknowledged eye of Him lighted attendance on public entertain- who never slumbers, and still kept His ments, viewed as the symptom of a state wakeful guardianship over the unconof spiritual disease; and then, as to the scious moments of that creature, who, second point of view in which it may be for a season had chosen to disregard Him regarded, that is, as a course by which -Oh, is it needful for us to suspend you the disease may gather strength and be any longer on the issues of a deep and aggravated-this also may safely be re- doubtful casuistry —r will we not be ferred, we think, to your feelings and helped forward by the responding of your own experience. Wehave already your own bosoms, when we say, that presumed on the fact of your voluntary this cannot be the habit of one who presence in the theatre or ball-room, and knows himself to be a stranger and a eager participation in their amusements, pilgrim on the earth-cannot be the as being( itself an indication, that on the habit of one who has tasked himself to morning of that day, you had not reached the work of nursing up his spirit for in your closet to the heights of saintly or eternity? seraphic communion with the God of We have all along assumed these holiness. And the question remains, places of public and fashionable resort, whether the glee and the giddiness and to be innocent of any specific or tangible and the splendour that you have wit- offence against the proprieties of human nessed and have shared, will send you life, or the delicacies of human sentiment; back again to your closets in the even- and, on this assumption, the most favouring, in better trim, if we may be allowed able for them, have we nevertheless at, the expression, for another and more tempted to demonstrate, how utterly at X] AMUSEMENTS AND COMPANIES OF THE NORLD. 77 antipodes they are with the soul and ha- have recourse on imaginative phantoms; bit of one, who is singly aspiring after and with their plea attenuated to airy immortality. But shouldthis assumption nothing, all which remains to them is not be true-should it be found that in the fierceness of an irrational and internthese haunts of assembled elegance, a perate bigotry, or a certain subtlety of regardless impiety is sometimes connived argument that is far too ethereal for the at, and sometimes a sensitive and high- grasp of an ordinary understanding. toned delicacy is laughed out of coun- Now, you will recollect, that on the tenance —should there, in the midst of all question of public entertainmernis, our that disguise and decorum which signal- reasoning, in the main amount of it, was ises the present above the former genera- directed, not against any specific violation, should there be the hazard of so tions of propriety wherewith they were much as one sportive effusion by which chargeable-but against them on account -he most pure or the most pious ear could of their spiritual character and spiritual possibly be offended-Then the question tendency. We affirmed, that, in virtue instantly emerges out of all its difficul- of that change which Christianity in-.ies; and the Christian, instead of hav- duced upon its converts, the once passioning to grope his way through the am- ate votary of fashion would cease to be biguities of a yet unsettled controversy, any longer enamoured of its dissipations will recoil from the poisoned insidious- and its gaieties; and that, simply from ness, with the promptitude of as quick the willing impulse of his new taste, an alarm, as he wvould from the most di- these old things would go into desuetude rect and declared abomination. and then pass away. And then might Now, what is true of this world's this world's amusements be abandoned amusements is also true of this world's without any imperative deliverance at companies. If there be risk, either with all upofi the subject of them-not given the one or the other, of being exposed to up, because of any precept of Christian. the language of profaneness or the lan- ity that required the specific action; and guage of impurity, this were reason en- yet at the same time given up, because ough, without any lengthened or recon- of the power of Christianity over the afdite argumentation, why a Christian fections. And one reason whyit is very should maintain himself at the most undesirable to behold a professing disciscrupulous and determined distance from ple. as intent as before in pursuit of gaiety, them both. But it so happens, that like is, that it is the symptom not only of no as the theatre, for example, has been re- change in his habits; but much there is fined out of much of its original coarse- room to fear it as the symptom of there ness, so a similar process of refinement yet being no change in his heart. And has taken undoubted effect on the con- another reason of its being undesirable, versation of private society.'And when is that, besides a taste for the amusements the public representation on the one of the world being the symptom or the hand, and' the household party on the indication of a worldly spirit-the indulother, have thus been delivered of every gence of this taste seems to fix and to specific transgression-where is the strengthen this worldliness the more. harm, and where is the hazard, it may We are not conscious of any thing mysbe asked, of our most faithful and re- tic or unintelligible in all this. There peated attendance on them? It is when may be a difficulty in replying to the inevery thing in the shape of distinct or terrogation-What is the crime of mudefinite impropriety is cleared away, that sic? Yet would you feel yourself entimany feel as if the cause of liberty, both tied to rebuke the scholar whose love for as to fashion's entertainments and fash- music dispossessed his love of study, ion's visits, were restored to an impreg- and whose gratification of this appetite nable standuing-place. It is thought, dissipated his mind away from all the that when the enemies of any indulg- preparations that were indispensable to ence have nothing specific to allege his professional excellence. And in like against it, they, on that account have no- manner it may be difficult to state what thing substantial to allege against it; that specific thing is in which the crimithat in the lack of solid materials they nality of the theatre or the ball-room lies 78 AMUSEMENTS AND COMPANIES OF THE WORLD. [SERAe. -and more particul-arly, if refined out ciples on which so bland and amiable of all that is literally or outwardly ex- and domestic a looking party are to be ceptionable. And yet without any re- stigmatized as a party of unregenerates mote or scholastic process of ratiocina- And are we to be shocked with an affirtion-may it be clearly made out, that mation, in every way so transcendently these ure among the earthly things, the revolting-as that in a scene often real liking of which is at diametric variance ised at our own tables; and enlivened with the habit of him who has his con- by the humour and hilarity of our own versation in heaven-that, without any choicest acquaintances; and still more departure from the wisdom which is so- endeared by the smile and the sparkle, berly and strictly experimental, they may and the engaging loqacity of our own be denounced as a nuisance and an ohb- children-there is nought but the tainted stacle mn the path of spiritual education atmosphere of corruption; and that we -reprobated, not dogmatically but repro- must shun the infection of such a circle, bated intelligently, by him who with an as we would that of so many reprobates eye fresh fiom the lights of observation, or unbelievers who are ripening for the and well exercised in the phases and -society of the damned. phenomena of human character, can The intelligent Christian will not fail pronounce on the whole atmosphere of to recognise in all his vehemence, the fashion as being pervaded with the breath very repugnance that is felt in the heart of a diverse spirit from the atmosphere of a worldly yet respectable man, when of godliness; and lift up a true warning the minister tries to pursue him' with the when he says, that the more you prose- demonstration of his utter sinfulness. It cute of this world's gaieties, the more is a thing not felt and not understood, by you darken the hopes and enfeeble the the conscience that has not been spiritupreparations of eternity. ally awakened, to the rightful ascendancy And, as it is with this world's amuse- of Heaven's laws over all the desires of ments, so it may be with this world's the heart, and all those affections which companies. It may not be possible to it charges with' revolt and idolatry, single out that one enactment of the sta- simply because the things of sense have tute-book which, by any specific act, or seduced them from God. by any specific expression has been tram- There may not be one member of an pled upon. There may be none of the assembled company, who has not much excesses of intemperance. There may that should endear him to our most kind be none of the execrations of profanity. and complacent regards-whether as the There may be'none of the sneers of in- honourable citizen; or as the benignant fidelity. There may be none of that matron of the party; or as the joyous foolish talking, which to use the lan- and free-hearted companion, whose very guage of the apostle, is not seemly or presence lights up the expectation of convenient. It is true, that neither the pleasure in every countenance; or as doctrine, nor the devotional'spirit of the son, who though now verging upon Christianity, may have contributed one manhood, has never yet cost his parents, ingredient throughout the whole of the or his sisters, a sigh, but who all of them evening's conversation. Yet all may rejoice in the opening anticipations both have been pure, and dignified and intel- of his prosperity and his worth; or lectual-or if not a very enlightened so- finally, and to complete our sketch of ciety, all at least may have been affection- this happy and harmonious assemblage, ate and kind, and free from any thing may we advert to those lovely infants, more obstreperous or jovial than what a who are permitted for a season to shed a simple light-heartedness would inspire. beauteous halo of innocence and delight And, then, the gravelling question is put over the scene of enjoyment. And again, — where is the mighty and mysterious it may be asked, is it the mandate of harmn of all this? By what magic of so- stern and unrelenting theology that all phistry, will you fasten on such a fami- this shall be broken up; or at least, thia liar and oft-acted companionship, the atro- it shall be shrunk from by its own vo cious characters of carnal and ungodly taries, as if charged with the noxioui and anti-christian What are the prin- elements of a moral or a spiritual pesti, X.] AMUSEMENTS AND COMPANIES OF THE WORLD. 79 lence Is it for Christianity to look with gotten; and by a tacit but faithful comrnthe hard eye of a Gorgon on this living pact during the whole process of tLis scene-peopled as it is with the best conviviality, all thought and all talk of family affections, and with all those feel- the ever present Deity may for the season ings which flow in grateful circulation be abandoned. It is said in one of the around a gay and generous companion- old. prophets, that they who feared the ship? Or can it at all be endured that Lord spake often one to another; and the grace and embellishment and heart- the Lord hearkened and heard it; and felt charms of society shall thus be scared a book of remembrance was written beaway; and that too, at the bidding of a fore Him for them that feared the Lord, principle the reason and authority of and that thought upon His name. Now, which we cannot comprehend? how we ask, would the topics of any of You will thus perceive, that by meet- our every-day companies appear in the ing our antagonist in all his plausibility, book of Heaven's remembrance? What and in all his force, we have landed our- sort of document would you frame, by selves in what some may regard as a taking a full and a faithfuil record of its task of no common difficulty-which is, conversation? It may not be licentious, to steer our way between the truth of it may not be profane, it may not be enwhat Christianity affirms regarding our livened by so much as one touch of scannature, and the tenderness which Chris- dal; and vet withal be just as remote as tianity feels towards every individual possible from sacredness. If it be from who wears it; or to prove of orthodoxy, the abundance of the heart that the mouth that it is not only sound, but amiable. speaketh, and out of the whole mass of You will further perceive, that we can- the utterance that has been poured forth, not advance a step upon this subject, not one sentence was heard that bore without taking the essential principles upon religion or eternity —what can we of the.gospel along with us. And it infer but that religion or eternity has not ought to reconcile the hearer to a greater been in all their thoughts? God, by length of disquisition on the one topic of common consent, has been shut out from. conformity to the world than might else the party altogether, and has been as. have been tolerated, that thereby the fun- little regarded, and as little recognised,, damental doctrines of our faith might as He would have been in a region of obtain a new enforcement, when thus atheism. carried out to a new and generally in- So, you will observe, that it is just: teresting application. Think not, then, with our fashionable parties, as it is with that we are lavishing an enormous amount our fashionable amusements. Both have of time and labour barely on one of the been much purified of late years from all; subordinate moralities of the New Testa- that is directly revolting or abominable.. ment-for, in truth, there can be no sub- Both may be animated with that play of stantial or'satisfactory management of heart and of humour, which is quite ac-. the question, without settling it deeply cordant with the kindliness of nature. upon an evangelical basis, and repeatedly All the feeling, and all the fancy which appealing therefrom to the highest and circulate there, may be in perfect unison; most peculiar principles of the evangreli- with those best sympathies, which go to. cal system. cement and to sweeten the intercourse It must not be disguised then, that, of human society. And yet, the whole with all the attractive qualities which breath of this fair society on earth may. each member of the company referred to be utterly distinct from the breath of the may personally realise-it is quite a society in Heaven. In the very propor — possible thing that there be not one trait tion of its freedom. from that which would; or tincture of godliness on the character alarm or repel a sensitive delicacy, may of any one of them. They may all be it in truth be the more pregnant withi; living,without God in the world; and danger to the souls of the unwary. It deriving though they do all the' moral may only engage them the more to the. and all the physical gracefulness which things that are be.neath, and alienate them belong to them from the hand of the great the more from the things that are above human architect, He may be utterly for- And thus it is a very possible thing,. that 80 AMUSEMENTS AND.COMPANIES OF THE WORLD., [SERM in simply prosecuting your round of world's companies-as we have not dis invitations among this world's amiable guised or extenuated the former, as little friends and hospitable families, you may to shrink from giving a picture of the be cradling the soul into utter insensi- latter equally aggravated and equally bility against the portentous realities of alarming. Nay, xve are not sure but that another world-a spiritual lethargy may it has greater power than the other to grow and gather every year till it settle confirm the spiritual lethargy, and to down into the irrevocable sleep of death steal away the heart into a pleasing ob-and, without one specific transgression livion of God and godliness. The show, that can be alleged of the companies and the festival, and the great public enamong which you move, still may you tertainment may more violently discombe inhaling in the midst of them an at- pose the spirit out of its religiousness for mosphere that makes you as oblivious the time; and, acting by successive asof judgment, and as oblivious of eternity, saults upon the frame of our personal as if you had drunk of the waters of for- Christianity, may at length demolish it getfulness. It may not be the air of vul- altogether. But we can conceive the gar profligacy, or abandoned licentious- disciple to be more upon his guard against ness, but it may be still the air of irreli- a danger so direct, and so palpable-and gion; and you, assimilating more and thus better able to withstand the shock of more to the temperament by which you a hostility, that renews its attacks upon are surrounded, in confirmed irreligion him at given periods, and does so with may expire. the full-blown note and circumstance of This is the leading principle that is preparation. We can conceive of him, applicable to the question of indiscrimi- that, even though present among the nate converse with the society of this tumults and the gaieties of the public enworld. The love of it is opposite to the tertainment, he may come off more unlove of God; and the indulgence of the hurt, than from the polite and placid cirlove of it serves to confirm and strength- cle of a very kind yet wholly unchristian en our enmity to sacredness the more.- society-when mind comes vastly nearer In as far as it goes to indicate the disease to mind; and so the assimilating power (of a worldly spirit, it is to be regretted.- of man upon his fellows, acts with tenfold In as far as it goes to cherish' or to ag- advantage and effect; and is besides ingravate that disease, it should be forth- conceivably heightened by that rapid,with relinquished by all who have at interchange of thoughts and feelings, iheart their preparation for the upper which takes place in co-ilversation. And sanctuary. We do not say that even the complaisance sits in smiling supremacy,most wakeful feeling of its danger, will there. And cheerfulness which the inlead in fact to a total abstinence from gen- troduction of an ungenial topic would at eral company; or even that it ought to once put to flight, has her post of long do so. But sure we are that it will very and well established occupancy there.much abridge the intercourse; and that And who can withstand the pleasing.in every specific instance when it is illusions of all the glow, and of all the thought right or allowable to venture graciousness, which are current there upon it, it will lead to the most vigilant And thus it is, that the very kindliness guardianship —to the jealousy of a spirit of nature may beguile the spirit into a,that forewarns and forearms itself against sweet forgetfulness of the ever present,the -hazards of the coming party-to the Deity. All sense of religion is charmed.strictest maintenance of Christian humili- away from the heart, soothed and satisfity-and holiness and love during the cur- ed as it is amid the sweets of youth or rency of its dissipations and its blandish- generous companionship: And if it be a,ments-and finally, to a solemn reckon- likely thing that the occasional atmosing upon its effects and its influences, phere of a playhouse, pealing aloud with after that the season of its exposures has the thunders of merriment and applause, gone by. shall storm the human bosom for a seaWe think it right in stating our corm.- son out of all its piety-then know it to!parison between the influence of this be a still more likely thing of the daily,world's amusements, and that of this atmosphere of many a parlour, that, x.1 AMUSEMENTS AND COMPANIES OF THE WORLD. 81 lighted up as:; is with smiles and per- so abounds among us?-and do they not fumed with the incense of mutual rever- tend to satisfy that heart, which, did it ence and regard, it may stifle into irre- feel as it ought, would be all awake and coverable death that piety which the in disquietude about its state of condemother might only at intervals scare, away. nation? —and do they not lend a most Alld what gives additional soreness as pernicious sanction to the whole habit well as subtlety to this oft recurring mis- and history of creatures, who have taken chief, is, that it may not only injure the up with the world as their resting-place; Christian, but may cause him to reflect and, engrossed with the bustle'of its comthe injury back again on those who are panies and its joys, never cast one look of ararund him. Let him have but the earnestness to the eternity that is beyond name and the authority of religiousness it? -let it be held enough by the many that And now is it time for the question — they reach the standard of his observa- that if an unbridled indulgence in this tions —-let his example be quoted as the world's companies be to the full as delemeasure of a safe and sufficient imitation;- terious as an unbridled indulgence in this and then let them witness with what world's amusements-how comes it that kindred delight, he can give himself up, in point of fact, a Christian, and of most and that for hours together, to a scene of entire and decided character too, may unmingled earthliness. Let him there not unfrequently be seen to mingle with exhibit a full and approving sympathy the one, and need never in a single inwith the joy of creatures who have no stance lend his presence to the other?joy in God, and share in all the busy in- How comes it that the same individual, terest they feel, about topics more paltry whom, because of his spiritual taste, you and ephemeral still, than is the passing will never once detect within the walls world they tread upon. Let it be seen of a theatre, you may, and without, it is how willingly he can disport himself to be presumed, any compromise -of his among fellow men, who, if his Christian- taste or his principle, often meet even in ity be true, are on the brink of a fearful a carnal or common-place household lake, from whose devouring billows there party? By what clue of reasoning is it, is no other way of escape, than by the that we shall make out the consistency living faith and thorough regeneration of the feeling that the atmosphere of the of the gospel. And after all this, will it latter is just as tainted with ungodliness, be said that no damage is sustained by as the atmosphere of the former-with human souls, from this man's easy con- the fact that he is never known to enter nivance at the ungodliness of the world; within the lirmits of the one, while he oft or from his complacent toleration of those is compassed round with the other, and parties by whom a sacred or scriptural breathes it for hours, not perhaps with utterance would be felt as a most un- great positive satisfaction, but at least with seemly and most unwarranted intrusion, toleration or even with comfort? Surely and so put a sudden arrest on all that if the element of this world's companionhilarity which they had met to indulge ship be as uncongenial with that of in? Think you not that the cruel deli- Christianity, as is the element of this cacy of this man's silence about the cares world's more public and fashionable gaiand concerns of eternity; and the coun- eties-then should not a disciple be just tenance that he sheds by his presence on as much out of his element in the one those meetings of conviviality, from situation as in the other; and let us know which by tacit but unviolated compact therefore, how you count it an unlikely religion is alienated; and the free aban- thing that a Christian should ever be donlment of himself to the trifles, or at found to take part among the diversions least to the temporalities which form the of earthliness, when you affirm of him, all wherein the carnal and the unbeliev- that, actually and historically, he may at er can expatiate-think you not that times be found among the societies of these will serve to reduce still farther in earthliness? the eyes of men the high topics of immor- The great principle by which this tality 9-and will they not foster the de- whole obscurity is unravelled is, that lusions of that practical infidelity which there is a mighty difference between the 11 82 AAMUSEMENTS AND COMPANIES OF THE WORLD. SERM. act of your going voluntarily forth upon of. For, take notice-there is all the temptation, and the circumstance of temp- difference poss.ble as to indication of tation coming unsought and unasked for character, and all the difference as to upon you. The first sort of encounter is security against any pernicious opera. by your ovrwn will; and you have no Ition on the character, and all the differ. warrant for believing that you will be ence as to the will and countenance of upheld in safety, against a hazard which Him with whom in every footstep of you have presumptuously dared. The your history you have to do, between the second sort of encounter is by the will of movement adopted by one who at his Him who has placed us among the duties own bidding goeth out of his way, and and events, each of his own neighbour- the movement impressed upon one by hood; and we do have the warrant for the manifold besetting influences which believing, that we shall be iipheld in meet him on his way. And who shall safety against a hazard into which we say, that,by one sweeping and summary have been providentially brought. The act of rejection, all these influences are man who looks with heedful jealousy to to be cast aside? Who shall say that it his way, will not rush upon temptation. is the part of the Christian, to shut his But still God may suffer him to be door aogainst the stranger that has been tempted, though not beyond that which thrown upon his courtesies?-or dis-le will enable him to bear. tantly to scowl on all the convivialities Now this, generally speaking, is the which take place within the circle of his difference between a public amusement, unconverted relationship? —or even fearand a private company. Both may be fully, as if in superstition, to absent himalike uncongenial with godliness-nor self from those festivities which are made may it be possible to inhale the spirit, subservient to the plans and the consuland catch the prevalent tone and sympa- tations of merchandise? The path of thy of either, without dispossessing the every heavenward traveller is beset with heart of all sacredness. But to be in difficulties-yet it is not his part to vault contact with the one, you have, speaking them, by one single act of rapid and resoin the general, to make the originating lute energy; but to walk and to feel his movement. To bring you into contact way through them, with wisdom and with the other, there are a thousand prayer to God and much circumspection: foreign urgencies that have their origin And most assuredly of all, has he failed without, and which come upon you in of hitting the exact proprieties of his conthe attitude of passiveness. That you be dition-if the aspect he bear among his in the theatre, there must be a spontane- fellows, be that of a morose and repulsive ous forth-going on your part; or if you and iinconciliating gruffness; or if he so did not originate the proposal, you could wear the badge of his profession, as to easily, still speaking in the general, and disguise from the eye of the world the without offence have made your escape great characteristics of Christianity, as from it-so that if there, you are there the religion of kindness and the religion because you choose; and, whatever sedu- of liberty. cing influence may be in this place of It is no infringement upon a man's entertainment, you have voluntarily ap- liberty, that he is led by the impulse of proached or presumptuously braved it. his own' taste; and so, with a taste that That you be in the private society, may disinclines him from the society of the be the effect not of choice, but of circum- world, does a Christian, in the, full exerstances-a trial not of your own making, cise of freedom, keep aloof as much as but a trial brought upon you by the ar- he may from companies, with whose rangements of Providence-an exposure spirit and with whose favourite themes which in itself ma. he fully as hazard- he cannot amalgamate. Neither is it ous as the other, but still an exposure any infringement on a man's liberty, that that instead of courting, you rather he is led by the impulse of his own fears, would have shrunk froln, had it not been to shun an exposure by. which he may for some call of necessity, or even some hurt or hazard the very dearest interest call of obligation which you could not that his heart is set upon; and so, still otherwise have conscientiously disposed in the full exercise of freedom, may he 1.] AMUSEMENTS AND COMPANIES OF THE WORLD. 83 zultivate to the uttermost his distance delicacies of an intercourse, which, at from a society, the very breath of which times, it may be necessary to have, serves to taint, and to reduce the spiritu- but which he knows it were most hazardality of all his affections. Thus far, you ous to indulge in. And thus, while called will allow that he keeps on the high walk upon to love not the world, and to dread of reason and principle-not at all recoil- a contamination to his own spirit, should ing like a man of points, and with slavish he for the sake of its gratifications, volunor superstitious fearfulness, from the mere teer his presence among its companies; act of worldly association; but reflecting yet, through these very companies will like a man of sense and observation on he pass unhurt, when either the calls of the spirit or tendency of the act, and lay- duty or the necessities of business have ing down the general habit of his life ac- so involved him. That world which, at cordingly. And it is thus, that wherever all times it were unlawful to court, ceases he can, he will of his own independent at these times to be a forbidden territory; choice seek for his companionship among and, teeming though it does, with the the godly rather than among the un- elements of moral evil, it is often by the godly; among those who are travelling arrangements of Providence the field of to Heaven. rather than among those who Christian warfare —that appointed scene, grovel in the dust of this perishable earth; among the duties and the dangers and among the generous aspirants after the the difficulties of which, the'soldier of holiness of a divine nature-rather than Jesus Christ is trained and disciplined for among those who care for nothing higher the services of eternity. in grace or in virtue, than the equities of The apostle Paul seems, in one of his human business or thecivilities of human epistles to the disciples at Corinth,. to neighbourhood. look on their occasional convivialities Yet it may often happen, that, instead with the men of the world as unavoidaof him seeking after the companionship, ble; and that it was not pohible entirely it is a companionship which has beset to give these up, without going out of the and closed around him-instead of a world altogether. The honest experitemptation upon which he has voluntarily ence of those who now hear us, will be gone forth, it may be a temptation into the best authority which they can consult which he has been providentially brought, upon the question-whether this is or- is a thing not of will, but of circumstances; not in some measure still the place and which, though he had no call of duty to the predicament of Christians —whether create for himself, yet, now that they are it were possible or even right, to cut with created for him by another, he has no the intimacies of relationship-or if the call of duty to make his escape from- urgencies of business do not indispensabut the contrary. And it is here that the bly require the acts of festivity, as well as strength and the sacredness, and the of fellowship, with unconverted men-or liberality of the Christian spirit, will if it were doing a service either to one's come into manifestation; and he will own spirit or to the cause of that gospel prove how nobly he stands exempted which he is bound to adorn, did he keep from any wretched scrupulosity about the morosely aloof from the traveller who act, and that all which concerns him has been recommended to the protection is the enlightened guardianship of his own of his roof or the politeness of his courteheart against the consequences; and most sies. Bring a free and a fearless spirit gratefully will he mingle with the society to these investigations. Never lose sight to.which the hand of some fortuitous, oi of Christianity, as being, not a religion of perhaps some duteous necessity, has acts, but a religion of principles; and brought him; and decorate the scene not that whenever the latter can be guaranteed upon which he has entered, but rather to from injury, it regards the former with a wlhich he has been carried, by the living most smiling and benignant toleration. light of his own Christianity and the Be very sure that there is a wayof beilg loveliness of its moral accomplishments; rightfullv acquitted of all this casuistry; and, walking to those who are without without escaping from it into a cell or in a wisdom that he has already praved a hermitage. This is an alternative from for, will he be upholden through all the which our great apostle most evidently 84 ON CHRISTIAN CONVERSATION. [SERX ielines; and it is in striking conformity they should be taken out o, the world. with his deliverance* that our Saviour He only prays that they should be kept prays on behalf of his disciples-not that from the evil of it. See 1 Cor, v. 10. SERMON XI. On Christian Conversation. "Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time. Let your speech be alway with grace. seasonedwith salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man."-CoLosSIANS iv. 5, 6. WE trust, we may have now made I not enough,-that the fervency of our deit abundantly palpable, that a man of sires for the glory and interest of religion, truly spiritual taste will not cultivate a is not enough. Had we nought to do but voluntary and habitual companionship to resign ourselves to the impulse of these, with the children of this world. save from as the sole actuating principles of our an impulse of duty, or from the design of converse with the world,-then might rendering to them a Christian benefit. we just give unrestrained and unreguBut whether he move forward to their lated vent to that abundance of the heart, society or not. their society will often out of which the mouth speaketh. And closearound'tirn; and that, in the course thus, many would be the effusions of of opportunities which he ought not to warmth and of vehemence that should decline, and under providential arrange- break in upon the ear of general society; ments that he neither can nor ought and daring, as well as frequent, would to control. And, when thus implicated, be the inroads of Christianity on those the question is, howv shall he acquit him- festive boards, where now, the topic were self so as to walk in wisdom to those who a very strange and before unheard-of are without? novelty; and often, would there come In the observations which follow, we forth at random, from the lips of some shall restrict ourselves to the wisdom of honest and desirous believer, such an speech as distinct from the wisdom of con- utterance, as, in our present habits of induct; and that the apostle had the former tercourse, would lay a freezing arrest on chiefly, if not exclusively, in his eye, the whole current of the foregoing conwe hold to be apparent, from the second versation, and leave the adventurous of these two verses —" Let your speech zealot to fill up, as he may, the pause of be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, silence and astonishment that he himself that ye may know how ye ought to had created. Such eruptions were ceranswer every man." tainly more frequent amongst us, but for From this passage it would appear, the delicacy, or rather, perhaps, the cow first, that mere sincerity and strength of ardice of Christians. Yet there is a Christian affection are not enough of higher principle than either of these, themselves, to carry us aright in our walk wvhich should go a certain length to reand conversation to those who are with- press them. The words that are uttered out. There is milch to be gathered fiom should be words in season. lThe man the selection which the apostle here who speaks them should know how he makes of that one attribute by which he ought to speak. So, that the apostle does woulJ have the deportment of Christians not confide the matter of religious contowards those who are without, to be versation to zeal or earnestness alone. Carac(terized. It is the attribute of wis- And, accordingly, in the text, he singles dorn. It would appear that zeal is niot out wisdorn, if not as the impelling, at enotlgh,-that affectionate earnestness is least as the guiding principle, that should XLI ON CHRISTIAN CONVERSATION. 85 preside over this important occasion of circumstances count his best and fittest frequent and almost daily occurrence in wisdom to be the wisdom of silence. the walk of Christians. There are many reasons, why the Secondly, there might be an excess of topics of Christianity should not be talk upon Christian subjects to those who pressed beyond a certain limit, on those are without. If there be any wisdom who refuse to entertain them. It may that is more specially meant than another often be distinctly seen, whether the in this passage, it must be the wisdom of effect may not be to harden their conwinning souls. Now, the zeal that would science the more; and to aggravate the urge you onward to ceaseless and indis-;-uilt of all their previous resistance to criminate loquacity about religion, were the gospel; and to encourage those who directly in opposition to such wisdom. are beside them, and perhaps not so Whenever disgust, or irritation, or any established in impiety as themselves, to feeling of annoyance, is manifested at the I join forces against the man.who has thus topic, there must hbe a material damage gratuitously offered to jar, and discominflicted upon the hearer by persisting in pose the society, and thus to cause that it. For it is very possible thus to arm which is good to be evil spoken of, by him into a more resolute and stout-hearted transforming a thing of high benevodefiance of the whole subject; and to lence, into a thing of offensive controadd to the number of those unpleasant versy. All these evils might be incurred recollections wherewith in his mind it by the heedless and premature introducstands associated; and, in a word, to tion of this great concern as a tbpic of make serious Christianity more the topic conversation. You must be aware of of his ridicule or his resentment than be- many companies, where the whole misfore. That there lies a limit somewhere chief which we have now specified, and to the freedom and the copiousness of much more, would be a certain result of our speech on the topics of sacredness the experiment in question: and this is evident, from such injunctions, as- might serve to prove that along with a "s Give not that which is holy unto dogs" spirit of zeal prompting' to the. utterance — and, "Cast not your pearls before of religious feelings, there should also swine"-and, " If they will not hear you, be the vigilance of an enlightened wisshake off the dust of your feet as a testi- dom to regulate, and sometimes to remony against them." It is thus, we be- strain it. lieve, that many a Christian conversation But, additional to this, there is a very is reuressed in embrvo-even in corn- wide gradation in the, amount of that welpanies where there may be a few indi- come, which diffbrent people will give to viduals whose heart is wholly toward Christianity, and in the kind of tonics these thin(rs. By means of a delicate they are prepared to listen to with;leaand discerning tact, the surrounding sure, or at least with toleration. Some taste and disposition may very speedily wvill bear to be addressed on the highest be ascertained; and the way may have mysteries of a Christian's experience, been sounded to an opening, and found to and can sympathise with the utterance be impracticable; and it may have been of his most saintly and spiritual affections. concluded, and maost rightly concluded, Others, without much experience, but that there was something in the general with much earnestness, can suffer to be pulse of those about you, that was un- spoken to of the urgent and awful imsuited to serious conversation, and for- portance of the gospel, and to be told of bade the introduction of it: And, thus it its high demands on the attention of is possible, that. the man who never guilty creatures —who are so fast speed, )breathes more congenially thain in the ing their way to death and:o the judgfree circulation of Christian feelings and ment-seat. Others, who would recoil Christian experience, may holl it expe- from any personal exhibition either of dient to keep the aspiring tendencies of their feelings or their fears, would not his bosom in check or in inaction; and refuse to take up Christianity, with that that bent, tlroulgh he is on the honour of calmer sort of interest which attaches to his Master name, he may still in such a matter of intellect, or a matter of spe. 86 ON Cas IUSTIAN CONVERSATION.!SERM culation-and thus an opening may be whom there is no responsive mingling had, and room for conversation may be of hearts at the utterance of that name, found, in the doctrine of the Bible, in which is most dear to him-that he the meaning of its passages, in the evi- should not feel' in a state of exile, or dence that there is for its authority and of abandonment, when fated to a condition, inspiration. where no door of access is to be found for Many more there are, who would de- those themes, which stand linked to his dine from such an argument as this, but imagination with the fondest hopes and who would give their attendance through- the highest glories of his existence. In out all those outworks of the subject, every other department of human life. which might be denominated the environs you see how they are men of kindred of Christianity; and the man who is all profession, and kindred pursuit, who things to all men, might, at certain mo- draw most frequently together-how dull ments of this. excursion, along with the and listless a thing conviviality is with topics of patronage, or pauperism, or civil those, between whom there is no commuand ecclesiastical polity, give his timely nity of feeling or of interest-how the thrust to the conscience, and make his scholar of abstract and abstruse meditaskilful transition to the very essentials of tion, would droop as if out of his element that question, on which there turns the at some joyous festival of gay and gallant good of a sinner's eternity. But still you military —or the mariner would sink into must perceive there is need for wisdom, downright apathy and weariness, at a as well as zeal in the whole management meeting of agriculturalists. It is thus, in of this intercourse with human beings; fact, that the various orders of acquaint. and that it is not enough for the heart to anceship are formed-that likeness of be full of sacred affections; but that habit and of condition is the great assimfurther than this, the way in which its ilating tie, which associates men into abundance shall be discharged upon intimacy together-that wherever there others, should be intelligently gone about. is the greatest alliance of taste, or of cirIt must be quite evident that no good cumstances, then also there is the most is done by the effusion of this Christian frequent interchange of hospitality: And adventurer, unless he carry the willing all we ask is allowance for the same regards of his company along with him, peculiarity among the people called unless he have felt this way to a certain Christians-that on the universal princimeasure of acceptance for those high ple of men ranging themselves according themes on which his heart. is set most to the sympathies of their kindred condidesirously; and that there are distinct tion or character, it shall not be thought intimations in the awkwardness or rest- unnatural, if they, who are dying unto iveness or embarrassed silence of the the world, shall often be found in close party, against which it were utterly vain and separate companionship among themto attempt their religious good by talking selves, and standing aloof from those of religion, as it would be to proselyte the who cling to the world as their only reststones of the field, or preach among the ing place. Let some hopeful and distant rocks of the desolate wilderness. adventure be held out to our people; and Thirdly, there may be such a difficulty a hundred families be tempted thereby to of management in this matter, as to a purpose of emigation-vou will injustify the cultivation of an assiduous stantly perceive a busier and more excludistance from the world. And you may sive intercourse among them than before. now see perhaps more strongly than be- They will leave to others the whole argufore, the principle which may be expected mentation of home prices and home to regulate the fellowship of a Christian politics, and all that variety of homne inwith the children of this world. - It is not telligence, from the feeling of which, and to be thoug'ht of him, that he will by the I the interest of which, they are now upon impulse of his own proper taste move the eve of a final disruption; and the himself towards a society, where he has urgent topics of the preparation, and the no hope either of doing good or receiving outfit, and the voyage, and the employ. it-that he should love to mingle in per- ments or the gains of that foreign terrison for hours together among those with tory on which they are to spend the XI.] ON CHRISTIAN CONVERSATION. 87 remainder of their earthly existence- His disciple-that fear of man which is these will groupe our adventurers to- a snare-that delicacy which recoils from gether into many a keen and separate such an exhibition of his feelings or conversation. And who would ever think of his faith, as causes him to falter from of remarking this as an oddity that was the intrepidity of a firm and consistent at all unaccountable. And yet it is just profession-that cowardice: which might on the working of the very same human not have shrunk from a gospel testimony propensities, thatxwe can vindicate allthe under the threats of an inquisition in exclusion and all the illiberality which ancient Rome, but which will shrink arye charged upon Christians. Most from the same testimony under the terror happy would they be, that the whole or the tenderness or the undescribable species were to embark on the same en- restraints of a drawing-room in modern terprise for heaven with themselves. But, Christendom —that nervous imbecility if otherwise, you are not to wonder that which would riot have succumbed at these voyagers of immortality have much sight of the grim apparatus of martyrdom, to say, that will be of mighty interest to but which does, succumb to the might one another, and of no interest to the and the mystery of that spell, wherewith world-that engrossed as they are with the fashion of this world hath suborthe preparation, and the outfit, and the dinated all its votaries. splendours of that eternal city whither It is the dread of his own treachery they are bound, they who thus walk by to Christ-it is the secret consciousness faith, and not by sight, should talli often of a misgiving from His cause in. the together-that, save when the leadings of presence of its enemies-it is the felt duty or of Providence are upon them, urgency of the obligation to do all and they should never feel moved to a fre- to say all in His name, contrasted with quent intercourse with those who are that fearfulness by which he knows that without, by the leadings of their own he is actuated-These are what nfight inclination —and that but to gain more often impel him to disburden his conrecruits to the expedition on which they science, by breaking forth on the ears of have entered, they should seldom mingle an astonished party, with the utterance in those societies where God is forgotten, of his distaste for the world and the and where all sense of eternity is sus- world's vanity. But aware at the same pended. time that it is of mightier importance to Fourthly, what adds to the difficulties win others than to relieve himself; and of our walk among those who are with- that he is bidden to be wise as well as out, is that while an excess of talk on courageous; and that he ought not to outChristian subjects.may- disgust them- rage the feelings which he can possibly.here may be such a deficiency of talk as conciliate; and that his way is not clear is tantamount to the denial of Christ. through the mazes of a dilemma which And what adds to the perplexities of a he still finds to be inextricable-It is Christian disciple upon this subject is- under the contest of these deeply felt that, whereas, if in general company he and oft experienced difficulties, that should say too much, he may injure the many a conscientious disciple has retircause that he should labour to recom- ed to as great a distance fiom this mend-yet, if in the same company he world's majorities as he may-declining should say too little, he may incur'the the general society that can be avoided, guilt of denying- the Saviour. He may just as he would some missionary deny Him by his silence. He, at least, ground that is found to be impracticable if silent, abstains from confessing Him- -and praying for the.guidance of the and then to think of the appalling denun- wisdom that is from on high, through ciation that whosoever confesseth not all that society which he neither ought, Christ before men, neither shall Christ nor is able to abandon. confess him before the angels which are Fifthly, we must not abandon in desin heaven. And it is often shame, too, pair the cause of making a general imthat restrains his utterance-that shame pression on the would, even through the of the Saviour as his Lord? which shall medium of this world's companies. And make the Saviour ashamed oZ him as in the midst of all this helplessness, 88 ON CHRISTIAN CONVERSATION. [SEitM, there is one thing which the Christian of eternity shall be revealed in all the never must abandon-the cultivation of commanding magnitude which belongs every opening for the Christian good of to them —and in return for the wisdom his fellow men. If in pursuit of this ob- of those who are the friends of Christianiect, he have hitherto knocked in vain at ity, the Spirit shall subdue under them the door of general society, he may retire the will of its enemies. for a season, but to arm himself with Lastly, much is to be done through the strength and wisdom for a fresh attempt medium of private and affectionate conon that which he yet has found to be im- verse. For meanwhile, and in defect of pregnable. It is possible that he himself the talent or the hardihood that may be may not be ripe for such an experiment — requisite for tabling the matter amidst not yet enough of Christian decision- the collisions of general society-it were not yet enough of simple dependence well if every devoted Christian laid himupon God-not yet enough of sacred self out to Christian usefulness, on every benevolence in his own heart, which occasion that he felt himself able for; beaming forth in unquestionable evidence and more particularly, if unfit to brave on all whom he addressed, might pro- the exposure of himself on a wider and pitiate their respectful hearing, to the more conspicuous arena, that he distilled urgency wherewith he bore upon them — the sacredness of his affections through not yet enough at ease in his religion, the privacies of individual acquaintance so as to come forth spontaneously and ship. Here too, often is there the barrier with the full command of all his resour- of a formidable delicacy in the way of a ces in the face of resistance and ridicule. full and explicit communication; and It may only be one man in a hundred, never at times is it felt to be stronger than who could acquit himself of all the deli- between the nearest of kindred; and it cacies of such a task, or act the part of absolutely looks as if withheld by infera Christian apostle when seated at the nal sorcery, the man cannot though he board of hospitality. But though there would unbosom himself to those of his should be only of such a very few who own blood, on the topic of their highest are now hearing us, yet, let us. give these and mightiest concernment. And yet to understand, that the vocation for which were this accursed incan.tation only God hath accomplished thern, is on irm- broken; and did each mind step forth portance as high, as that of those hardy from its obstinate hiding-place; and could adventurers who bear the tidings ofhthe the one friend burst loose from all the gospel to distant lands-that to carry the restraints which heretofore had held him, doctrine of Christ with acceptance into and pour of his Christian fervency into the heart of our alienated companies at another's ear-may it be found that the home, were an achievement as much. to man whom you never could have arbe wondered at, as to carry it abroad rested in the midst of other company, among the deepest recesses of Paganism will when spoken to alone, offbr a glad -that to cross the sea, and to penetrate and grateful welcome to your rnessaige: the desert in quest of proselytes to the And, precious reward of intrepidity and faith, is not an enterprise more daring, faithfulness, may we reclaim a brother than to scale those moral barriers which fiom the error of his way, and cause lie around a polite and lettered society, Heaven to reioice on a new accession to and there to propound the terms and the the- great spiritual family. mysteries of our faith, in the midst of an And here we must remark. as an enassembled audience. And, if one may couragement to more frankness and freejudge from the aspect of the times, the dom than at present do obtain throughday is not far off when a talent like this out society in the utterance of religious will find scope ani matter for its exer- sentiment, that often, in quarters where cise —when the d'mand for Christian in- it was least expected, is it found to be formation will become more intense and met, not with toleration merely. but even the realities of the gospe, wil_ challengce with thankfulness. It is, therefore, wor. a larger space in the affairs and the con- thy of an occasional experiment, though versation of men-when the veil shall be it should be hazarded in companies which lifted off from many eyes, and the things you fear to be most alienated. It is hard ld[.] ON CHRISTIAN CONVERSATION. 89 that whi e trade, and agriculture, and ness which separate from the latter, may politics, and science, all find such ready not be of more difficult transition, than and respectful acceptance in the converse are the thousand artificial delicacies of society-no place and no entertain- which obstruct the pathway of communiment should be found for Christianity; cation to the former. And, thus the zeal out, for ought that is known previous to and the devotedness, and withal the wisan attempt, this may be as much due to dom of a most acconmplished missionary, the despair of her friends, as it is to the may be as indispensably called for, in a dislike or resistance of her enemies. It service which ought not to be neglected, were too much to try the establishment as altogether unpromising; and, in the of a monopoly in her favour; but why, face even of its many discouragements, amid the free and abundant circulation ought not to be abandoned in despair. of other articles, should this alone be And let us specify one thing, which treated as contraband? And therefore it would do much to clear and facilitate the were not amiss, that a man of sense, and way to such an enterprise as we are now colloquial firmness, should at times re- recommending. Its heaviest obstacle by connoitre the; party by which he is sur- far, is the deep and the deadening silence rounded, and actually propounding that that often ensues on the first utterance of theme which is dearest to his bosom, a religious sentiment. The adventurer should adventure himself on the currency must be supported by the co-operation of and reception that it may meet with. Let your replies, or the experiment is aborit be done with ease-let it be done with tive. That he should be left tosermonbreeding-let it be done, not in the spirit ize at the board of free and equal cornof fearfulness as if for the relief of an op- panionship, is altogether out of the quespressed conscience, but done in the more tion. It is not a dissertation that is generous style of one who loves the fel- wanted, but a dialogue-a thing that is lowship of his species, and should like sustained by the play and the colloquial to raise every member of it to the delight interchange of human sentiments-the of his own exercises, and the dignity of reciprocation of mind with mind, insohis own contemplations. We are aware much that a contest with well-bred inthat with all this to recommend it, the fidelity, were not half so insupportable, attempt may misgive, and a sudden ar- as this formal and ministerial harangue rest be laid by it on the flow and facility in the midst of a dumb-struck auditory. of conversation, and the adventurer be Were it but a question that marked instantly made to feel as if the door of the interest of the hearers, it might serve access was shut against him. But there as a stepping-stone, and an encourageare times, and there are places where it ment to the process; and you cannot but is otherwise; and where unexpected wel- perceive, how much out of keeping it come is given to the utterance of serious- were with the whole character and comness; and where a responsive feeling is plexion of a party, if the speaker shall be awakened, and room afforded for the abandoned to work his long and solitary lifting tip of a gospel testimony; and de- passage through the still medium of a light both courteously expressed, and freezing and hopeless taciturnity. The cordially felt at this novel style of enter- thing in short demanded and felt to be tainment; and the discovery made, that necessary is, that a topic connected with the general silence of this world's com- Christianity, shall be taken up as easily panionship on the high topics of eternity, and fallen in with as readily and prose-;nay be sometimes as much due to the cuted as freely, as any other topic of' huwrant of intrepidity in the one party, as to man interest or speculation: And just as the want of disposition in the other. So the politeness of genteel and cultivated that on this untrodden walk of Christian men forms, in general, a sufficient guarphilanthropy, somethingmaybe achieved. antee against the disturbance that might: "The field is the world;" and there may be excited by the acrimony of a heated oe places on the civilized region of it, partizanship in politics —so, under the more inaccessible, than on the most re- shelter of the same guarantee, religion in mote countries of its savage and unknown its piety, or religion in its great and epr territory; and the ocean or the wilder- sential principles, may be talked of, with, 93 ON CHRISTIAN CONVERSATION. [SE:Rl. out involv'ng the circle in the offence or too, should feel their way to a common irritation of its controversies. The thing understanding; and be indulged in the may be attempted; but without the contri- fre-and frequent participation of their bution of some such welcome and accep- mutual sympathies; and should be seen tancy as this, the thing is utterly impracti- aggregating together in clusters-even cable. The very feeling of such a barri- as you see men of a kindred character or or, is intimation enough of the topic being kindred profession in all the other walks a fruitless one; and, just because the moral of the community. It is most true, that clime is unsuited to it, that, to be produc- if they give way to the abundance of tive of a blessing, it must be borne away their heart in general conversation, they to a soil which is open to receive it, where will leave many at a distance, and per. it may find the harbour of another circle of haps many as impatient and as distasteful acquaintanceship, and be made to thrive of their presence, as you would be of in the atmosphere of another society. those who are ever deafening their comNow, this were one good effect that pany with topics that no one savours, or should result from a more free and intre- no one cares for. But thus it is that the pid utterance on the part of Christians. needful discoveries are made; and the There would then be a more clearly as- men of a common taste find out one an. certained line of distinction between those other; and, in obedience to the impulse who inclined to religious conversation, of it, they naturally and freely resolve and those who disrelished it. There is themselves into distinct circles -of comnothing that one nauseates more, than panionship; and the line of demarcation the companionship of those who have between the decided and the adverse their own favourite topics-for which he comes forth into visibility; and, precious feels no taste, and upon which he can fruit of that more frank and fearless exhold no intelligent sympathy whatever. hibition of our Christianity which we with those who are around him. Many now recotnmend, would they who are of you must recollect how tiresome and hostile, spontaneously, and of themselves, disgustful it is —when the attentions of a i 11ll away, and they Who are fiiendly, as whole party are monopolized by a few, spontaneously groupe themselves into aswhose peculiar likings or peculiar ac- sociations of willing and congenial inter, quirements, invariably lead them to one course..walk of remark or argument, that is just And lest this should appear like raisas insipid to all the others, as would be ing a barrier of everlasting separation the gibberish of an unknown tongue: between the church and the world, let us and, be it for example, the jockeyship of here shortly evince the style of managefield sports, or the politics of a city cor- ment that obtains, we -have heard to a poration, or some rare topic of connois- great extent, in the metropolis of British seurship that none but themselves can society. There, devoted Christians do either value or comprehend-you both associate more exclusively with each other, see what a ready and rejoicing coales- and keep far more distinctly and decence they have with each other, and at cidedly aloof from the minglings of genthe same time, how ill they are fitted to eral acquaintanceship, and maintain a amalgamate with general society. And sort of hallowed and secluded ground it is thus that the intimacies of social life that does not lie open to the random inare formed; and! just as it should be, vasions of those who are without; and that the spectacle is held forth of men yet is not closed round by a fence that is drawn into more close and separate as- utterly impregnable. For the practice, sociation together, by the tie of their sim- as we understand it. is so to arrange the ilar pursuits or similar predilections; and festive or the social party, as to compreall we want is, that Christianity shall not hend a few from among the wide and be smothered under the weight of those general outfield of humanity, though not many delicacies, which have interred so many as to overbear its character of her in deep concealment from the notice sacredness. Let but the preponderancy of society, and in virtue of which her be secured for the Christian spirit and friends remain unknowing and unknown conversation of the meeting; and, up to to each other. It were right, that they, this indispensable object, may adirnittanct XiI.] ON CHRISTIAN CASI JISTRY. 9 be granted even to the farthest off in pitalities of human intercourse may be alienation from the concerns of eternity. made subservient to the evangelization of The experience is, that, however diffieult our species; and often when the voice for the friends of the gospel to face this of expostulation has fallen from the pulpit world's majorities, with an incorrupt tes- without efficacy, has it been found oI timony and a pure or consistent exhibi- Christianity that she has other graceful tion in its favour-it is not so difficult to and haDpy exhibitions at command, charm, or even to assimilate the loose wherewith to soften the heart of man out and scattered minorities of the world, of all its prejudices-that what cannot be when the collective influence of a num- done by the verbal demonstrations of the ber of Christians is brought as it were, minister, may be done by the personal separately and piecemeal, to bear upon exhibitions of worth and mildness that them. T'he very fact of their presence, are frequently held out in the converse of their very acceptance of the issued invi- private society. And when religion is tation, may argue a degree of predisposi- thus blended, as it sometimes is in the tion, which only needs to be fostered by upper walks of life, with the fascinations the delicacies of judicious kindness, into of taste and elegance and literary accoman established attachment for the ways of plishment-such a union of saint-like peace and of true wisdom. So that it is piety on the one hand, with the polish not necessary to abandon the world to and the ornament of finished cultivation itself, or to lay a stern interdict on all its on the other, has often sent forth an inapproximations. There is a way in fluence upon the beholder on the side of which, consistently with all that has been that gospel he wont to despise, which he urged or advanced by us, the very hos- has felt to be utterly irresistible. SERMON XII. On Christian Casuistry.' Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind."-RoMANS xiv. b. THERE is a kind of minuter casuistry the mere conventional Shibboleth of a which it is extremely difficult to handle I party, and who wait till a clear reason from the mere want of something very approve itself to their judgments, ere distinct or tangible to hold by; and they can utter with their mouths'a clear about. which there is the greatest degree and confident deliverance. of indecision, and that just from the loss Some may have already guessed what at which we feel, to get any decisive the questions are to which we are now principle of unquestioned evidence and adverting. They relate to the degree authority to bear upon it —And, so it is, of our conformity with the world, and that even the Christian mind fl:;ctuates to the share which it were lawful to take thereanent, and exhibits itself upon this in its companies and amusements. You subject in a state both of vacillation and must be aware on this topic of a certain variety. For'while one class of the unsettledness of opinion; while we know professors are heard to declaim, and to of none that wakens a more anxious dedogmatise, and most strenuously to as- gree of interest and speculation among severate with all the readiness of minds those who are honestly aspiring aft r that are thoroughly' made up on the the right, and are most fearfully sensematters alluded to-there is another class tive of the wrong in all their conversaof them who cannot assume this certain- tion. And if to tenderness of conty without cause being shown, who science, they add a certain force of intel tnust have something more to allege for ligence, they will not be satisfied with a he vindication of their peculiarities than mere oracular response from those v ho 92 ON CHRISTIAN CASUISTRY. [SERPI seem to be somewhat, and who speak design and nature of Christianity. Foi as if from the vantage ground of their these acts of rigi.d abstemiousness occupy long initiation into higher mysteries. the place of works; and the punctual They are prepared for every surren- fulfilment of These may minister the comder, and are in readiness to followv ful- placency of self-righteousness, and so ly wherever the light of scripture, or land us in the capital error of transfer of argument may carry them; but this ring our plea for God's meritorious favoui light is the very thing they want, and from the ground of Christ's obedience, to are in quest of. It is their demand for the ground of our own obedience. And the ratioitale of this matter, with the besides, they are such acts as! do not nedifficulty they feel in reaching it, that cessarily imply any graceful or elevated has thrown them into a kind of harass- morality in the individual who has perment about the whole affair from which formed them. With him they -may be they long to be extricated. And neither the mere heartless austerities of formal in the magisterial, but unapproved dicta- or Pharisaical devoteeship-the morose tion of one set of Christians; nor in the penances and self-inflictions of one who yet unstable practice of another set of resolutely denies to his taste, that gratifiChristians, who are hovering about the cation which he, nevertheless, is still most margin that separates the church from desirously set upon-the stated sacrifices the world, and ever tremulously veering which are offered, not with, but against between the sides of accommodation and the entire current of the soul, that pines, non-conformity therewith-from neither perhaps, in secret mortification after those of these parties in the great professing jubilees of mirth or of splendour, which, public of our day can they afnd repose at the bidding of a stern, rigid, and unto their spirits, because from neither, compromising puritanism, he has been they have found effectual relief to the taught to put utterly away. It is, indeed, painful ambiguity under which they are a very possible thing, that Christianity labouring. may thus be made to wear another asWhat has now drawn our attention pect than that in which she smiles so more especially to this subject, is its Zbenignantly upon us from the New Tes, strong identity in regard to principle tament-that instead of a religion of with that question of Sabbath observa- freedom, because her only control is that tion, which we have recently attempted of heavenly and high-born principle, to elucidate. The elements of Christian wherewith she rules, and by moral asliberty and expediency, and charity, ap- cendancy alone, over her willing and pear to be similarly involved in both, so delighted votaries, she may be transas that we may avail ourselves of the formed into a narrow system of bigotry, same guidance as before, from the man- whose oppressive mandates of touch not, ner in which the apostle hath cleared and taste not, and handle not, bear no and discriminated his way through the relation whatever to the spiritual departcontroversy that arose in his time about ment of our nature-only galling and meats and days and ceremonies. In- subordinating the outer man, while they stead, however, of going the whole leave the inner man as remote, both in ground over again, we shall barely state, principle and affection from the likeness rather than argument, many of our posi, of God, or the character of godliness as tions-trusting for your concurrenceto the before. recollection of what you may before have It is for this reason that we think It heard, and before have acquiesced in. greatly better, with every young inquirer, First, then, when the giving up of the at least, to begin at the beginning-to aim theatre, and the giving up of public places, a blow at the root of his corruption, inand the giving up of the festive and the stead of mangling and lacerating at one fashionable parties of this world, are laid of its branches-to go at once to the very down for the observance of the young essence of the controversy between him disciple in the shape of so many distinct and God, even that he idolizes the creaand categorical impositions-it is a very ture, and with a heart set upon its enjoy. possible thing that he may be thereby ments, has cast the love and homage of misled into an utter misconception of the the Creator away from hirr -instead of XI!.] ON CHRISTIAN CASUISTRY. 93 charging him with a matter of doubtful present among those solemn and uncriminality, to put it direct to his con- doubted realities, the very magnitude of science, whether the world, or He who which, both gives them an imperative made the world, have the most permanent power over the attention, and causes and practical hold of ascendancy over them by the eye of his mind to be more him. After having reached his convic- distinctly, because more forcibly appretions on this point, and laid open to him hended. rThus, instead of trying to clear the nakedness of his spiritual condition, our way through the ambiguities of any we would tell him that the thing -fr ad- subordinate question, we should like to justment at present was not the habitual reduce himn-an arrested and a conattendance of his person upon places of science-struck sinner to the question, what public amusement; but the devoted at- shall I do to be saved?-and would adtendance of his heart on the hiigh places mit nothing else into our solution of it, of a far more stupendous and engrossing than the mighty elements of his exile idolatry, to which he was wholly given from God, and the way that God has over. We should, in all these cases, feel taken to reconcile and to recall him. inclined to forbear the casuistry of theatres Now, it is on the personal settlemenlt and assemblies, and the various resorts of this question, that a great personal of fashionable gaiety, as being really not chance takes place upon the enquirerthe matter on hand. To make use of that a vista is opened up through which parliamentary language —we should be desires and delights that were before undisposed, on the starting of this topic, to known are let in upon the soul-that move the previous question-or borrow- there ensues a great moral revolution, in ing another expressive phrase from the virtue of which, what was before shrunk same quarter, we should proceed to the from either with dislike or with terror, order of the day. The point of imme- becomes the object of' a most attractive diate urgency, and that should be first tenderness; and what was before the obtaken up, is his general state with God. ject of eager pursuit and of much loved The charge to be first brought home, is indulgence, is now regarded with unconnot that he is occasionally seen in a room cern, if not with positive detestation. of public entertainment; but, of far more Many, it is true, who profess the faith of tremendous import, that the ground which the gospel, evince no such translation into he constantly occupies is a ground of another habit and another history: But alienation from God, and from godliness. there are none who actually acquire the The quarrel is, not that he may some- faith of the gospel-the tendencies of times be detected in one of this world's whose inner man are not thereby shifted, favourite haunting places-but that the so as to point either in a diverse or opworld, with the full power of its seducing posite direction from that they did before. influences, has at all times the possession, Other glories than those of this world's of his heart, that his only portion is there, splendour now engage the affections; and and that there he has been living up to other paths. than those of this world's the present hour without any prevailing dissipations, are now the paths of peace sense of God, or of eternity. and the ways of pleasantness. The man In a word, we should like for the time who before was of the earth and earthly, being, to decline with him the ambigu- now breathes with his spirit of the air of ous controversy about public festivals heaven; and loftier to him than the and public entertainments-and that, for highest earthly flights of poetry or song the purpose of sounding in his ears the is the music of Heaven's psalmody. He alarm of an actual, and a greater contro- now feels his kindred atmosphere to be versy that is still more appalling. In in the house of prayer; and that time short, our indictment against him has which wont to be an oppressive load only one article-not that he has been in- upon the heart that ever sighed for relief cidentally seen in places, which lie with- from the burden of its own vacancy, he out the territory of sacredness; but that, can now fill up, and most congenially from that territory, he is wholly an out- too, with the labours of love and the cast and a wanderer. With such an en- works o' righteousness. It may not, quirer we should prefer dealing for the however be with the fierce, intolerance A4 ON CHRISTIAN CASUISTRY. [SERMI of a bigot, that he looks on the amuse- i thority. Better that it spring up, in ments of other days, but simply with the kindly vegetation from the soil of the new indifference of one who has found his nature, than that it be forced and driven way to higher and better amusements. forward' at the stern call of an uncomIn the new tract to which he has betaken promising or unmeaning dogmnatism.~ himself, all that we behold is the spon- Better that it come at will as the spon. taneous emanation of a new taste-and taneous efflorescence of a previous change not a rigorous or reluctant compliance, upon the inner man, than that without with any of the rigorous proprieties of choice and without consent, it be laid as formal and common-place professorship. a yoke -of bondage upon the outer man. And should the result be, that he keeps You have heard of the new wine that himself from the ball-room or the theatre, was put into old bottles. The wine had this result is only one among the many; not yet done with its fermentation; and and but an hum~ble corollary out of the the leathern bottles of these days, that operation of great and noble elements. had lost their elasticity and were altogeAlong the Whole of that march by ther hard and unyielding, did not expand which he has been conducted, we see to the process, but were rent asunder nought but the impulse of generous af- and burst, so that both wine and bottles fections and elevated principles-nor in were destroyed. And the same may any step of the process, whereon the often be the result of prematurely putting passionate devotee of this world's gaieties, into an old and yet unregenerated man has at length utterly andconclusively re- those new observations, which are in nounced them, is there one such character most pleasing accordancy with the whole of moroseness or constraint, as would ill desire and habit of an altogether Chrisbecome the religion of liberty. tian. The current maxims of professor-. Secondly, this forms another reason ship, about the total abstinence of his why we feel so much disposed to avoid person from this world's gaiety and comany thing like a dogmatic deliverance on panionship, lock to him as so many the subject of this world's entertainments. senseless and arbitrary impositions. The It gives to the general eye an appearance light of his mind does not yet go along of narrowness to our religion which with them. The high and turnultuating really does not belong to it. Better spirit of the man is stirred up to a revolt, surely to impregnate the man's heart, against an intolerance for which he canfirst with the taste and spirit of our reli- not see the authority of the reason. He gion; and, then, if this should supersede is galled and restive under the shackles the taste and affection he before had for in which he has been made to fester; the frivolities of life, it impresses a far and for no purpose which he can undernobler character of freeness and great- stand, as at all worthy of the self-denial ness on the change of habit that has taken that has been laid upon him. He will place, when thus made to emanate from positively not bind himself down to the a change of heart-than when it appears attitude of being so beset and harassed; in the light of a reluctant compliance and the danger is, that, in some fit of exwith the rigid exaction of intolerance, plosive impatience, he casts Christianity, the rationality and rightness of which along with the lessons of this injudicious are at the same time not very distinctly Christian tutorship, away from him. apprehended. Let the reformation in This new wine should be put into new question, if reformation it be, come forth bottles, which, without being torn, can upon the habit of the man in this way- stretch and accommodate their capacity as the final upshot of a process by which to the ebullitions of the new liquor the heart has been reformed, as the fruit, that has been deposited therein. In other of an internal change that has taken words'the man should be renovated. place on the taste and on the affections, The mighty transition from nature to through the power of the truth that is in grace should take effect upon him. The Jesus, and whereby all old things have great and elementary principles on which passed away, and all things have become there hinges the conversion of the heart, new. Better thus, than by a mandate on should have told upon his conscience; the subject issued from the chair of au- and he, being ushered by the Christian en.I 3N CHRISTIAN CASUISTRY. faith into the joys of the divine counte- creature in Jesus Christ our Lord. In nance and the hopes of eternity, the inor- the act of giving up the fashions or the dinate love of this world should have al- frivolities of a passing world, he only ready given place to those high and follows the high behests of the judgment heavenly affections by which it is dispos- and the taste and the affection that are sessed. When the new wine is thus put freely operating within his own Iegenerinto a new bottle, both are preserved. ated bosom-he only, in this instance, The commandment to renounce the exemplifies one of the many exhibitions amusements of the world ceases to be that come forth of their own accord, from grievous, or rather the commandment the feelings and the faculties of his itself ceases to be necessary. The man, spiritual nature. in all likelihood. may, after this change, The reply that was once given by an never once be seen at any one indiscrim- aged Christian to the question of an anxinate intercourse-where fashion, and ious beginner at the work of Christianity, finery, and pleasure, form into one is quite in-the zest and spirit of the prinblended and brilliant attraction for the ciple thatwe now advocate. He saw his assembling together of this world's multi- young friend to be on a hopeful career tudes. Yet it is not the scowl of monkery of enquiry, and had no doubt of the final that he casts at them. It is not in the result of all his conscientiousness; and grim and ghastly spirit of antiquated perceived that he was moving aright puritanism, that he keeps his distance among the great elementary feelings that from them. The whole amount of the relate to sin and repentance and faith; matter is, that he is otherwise employed. and when the question was put by him, He is taken up with something else that whether he should now continue to go to he likes better. He does not ask them to the theatre, the answer was, that he might withdraw their presence from the place go as long as he could-an answer, we where their heart is. And they surely own, very much to our taste, and appearshould not expect him to lend his pres- ing to us as if replete with wisdom of a, ence to a place where his heart is not. very high order: And, we appeal ta. Let your theatres be purified of all blas- yourselves, whether it was not greaphemy and grossness-let the gossip of better, that, instead of admitting him to.; your parties be free of the venom of this doubtful disputation, he was lefl tPo calunmny-let your games be unruffled the wholesome exercise of his spirit on, by the fierce and frenzied agitations of the leading essentials of our faith, and, at desperate adventure-and let your assem- length found his own way to that lofty. blies be chastened out of all but the vantage ground, whence he could!aescryr thoughtless vivacity of light and emanci- such unfading glories as gave to. his pated spirits, that love, at the impulse of heart its full entertainment, and whence music, to expatiate in fairy circles on an he could turn him friom the noXw tasteless illuminated scene of gracefulness and enjoyments of the world, to purer and gaiety: and we are not aware upon what nobler gratifications. ground he can single out and stigmatise But still it may be asked, is it not true as a monstrous abomination any one of of all the amusements referred to, and to these varieties. And, yet he may look which so many immortal creatures have upon them all as so many varieties of devoted themselves, that in them the earthliness-as the occupations of a moral spirit of earthliness has the undoubted region distinct from the one through predominancy: and thatthe places wheie which he is travelling- and the delights they are held, leave their company on of a clime of diverse air and quality, from the broad way, and not on the narrow that in which he can breathe with com- path, which leadeth to life everlasting?2 fort or satisfaction. It may be true that Grant this t, be true, and that all these he has abandoned them, yet not at the obnoxious assemblales were broken up bidding of a capricious intolerance, but and dispersed of their visitors-these in the unforced and unftttered exercise visitors may still keep on the broad way; of his own liberty. As the new wine is and we cannot distinctly see what is suited to the new bottle, so are the present gained by drawing thousands away from nabits to the present heart of the new the theatre and ball-room, if in the move, 96 ON CHRISTIAN CASUISTRY. [SER]L ment that we have impressed upon them, he gained but twenty converts from they' shall all tarry at any point that is darkness to light, he did a higher achieveshort of the conversion of their souls. ment, than if, without Christianizing one1 There is a line of demarcation between he had dispersed the assemblage of the tvo great regions of the carnal and twenty thousand —frightened by his me the spiritual; and though to the former naces, but not led by the power of his you assign all the houses of public enter- ministrations to that following of the tainment that ever had been reared, and. Lord fully on earth, which terminates in so fulminate againt them till they are His approval of them at the judgmentlevelled to the dust, yet we see not seat, and their welcome to His everlastthe profit that accrues to Christianity, if ing habitations. He did, it is said, as the all the -worshippers of these conceived reward of his noble intrepidity, secure a abominations still keep that side of the goodly number of converts on that occaline of demarcation which they wont sion. He did not break up the fair, for to occupy. In these circumstances, we it is still upholden; but he did a great would not like to address a worldly deal better, he gathered out of it a harassemblage on the vanity of public places vest for eternity. He did more by the and public entertainments. We should conquest he made over a few hearts, take a loftier aim. We should feel as if than if he had only put to flight the pernothing had been effected by pulling any sons of all this mighty multitude. The one of these conclusively away from the sons and daughters whom he turned unto theatre, if we had not pulled them across righteousness, he withdrew from their the mighty line of separation that marks former amusements, not by a movement off the region of grace from the region of superstitious fear, but by a high moveof sinful and unconverted nature. To ment of affection and principle-their fa-:the achievement of this great transition vourite hauntino-place having now be-;then, would we give our first earnestness come the house of prayer-their best-lov-;and our first energies; and, meanwhile, ed resort the companionship of the saints ~bolding the subordinate question in abey- the conventicles of praise and piety. ance, would we try to find a way to their It would need more than the nerve.conscience with the appalling thoughts of and the intrepidity of a Whitfield, tc.a yet unchristianized soul, of a yet unpro- force a sermon into any of those places vided.eternity. of public amusement which we have had.Some of you may have readi in the occasion-to specify in the course of our'life of the celebrated Whitfield, of the present argument. The thing is imposwell-kMown attempt that he made at one sible, and could not be tolerated. But.of the great London fairs, when, amid the fact is undoubted, both of the sons all:the'fantastic and grotesque erections and daughters of this world's gaiety, that,.of such ana occasion, he contrived to in- among the other sportive caprices which.troducee a pulpit; and, braving the whole fashion has been known to indulge in, ~uproar of riot and ridicule excited by his she sometimes sends her votaries to:appearance, actually preached for days church; and varies by a sermon on the'together to the assembled multitude.- Sabbath, the giddy round of her weekWe know not, particularly, what was day entertainments. And should any of the subject of his addresses. But sure her enamoured followers be now listenwe are, that there was a something in ing, we would have them to know, that them of far more comprehensive import, it is not at present with any one of those than that of denouncing with intemperate entertainments that we are now holding and untimely zeal as a gross abomina- controversy. But we are charged with'tion, the scenes of madness and merri- a controversy of import far more tremenment and festivity wherewith he was dous. Our impeachment of them is, besurrounded. He went there charged cause of their ungodliness. Our direct with the gospdl of Jesus Christ; and his affirmation, and let'them carry it to their,errand was not to put down one of. the consciences and try it there, is, that they modifications of worldiness, but all world- live without God in'the world; that, to liness. And if, on the strength of the the purpose of any practical influence on great and essential truths of Christianity, their hearts and on their habits, He is xI.. ON CHRISTIAN CASUISTRY. 97 not in all their thoughts; and that in the eousness can alone settle all your defiwhirl of time's gratifications and of time's ciencies. Turn from folly and iniquity concerns, they have buried all effective unto Him, and He will usher you unto consideration of eternity. We say that the ways of pleasantness and the paths of the element in which they live and move peace. and have their being, is an element of But it is now time to have done with earthliness-whlch, seeing that it is really this long excursion, among the details in God that they live and move and have and the difficulties of a casuistry, by their being, is tantamount to the element which the Christian mind has oft been of a wilful and rebellious atheism. We exercised. For, let it never be forgotten, would warn them, that, through that that a heart with rightly-set affections pleasing atmosphere of deceit by which and desires is after all the best of casuists. they are encompassed, the eye of Him If the heart in its various regards be as it who sitteth on the throne of Heaven, ought, this is our securest guarantee that now looketh with an eye of clear and the history in its various manifestations penetrating intelligence; and beholds in will be as it ought. The man who is them so many imperishable creatures, stationed at the fountain, and whose busiwho forgetful of their high destination, ness is to keep it in living play, may are pursuing the follies and the frivolities. abandon it for a time to clear and trace of a short-lived day to the ruin of their out through their proper windings the souls. And, it is not upon this one folly, channels by which the water ought to or upon that other frivolity, that we run.. But it is possible that while he would enter our protest against them; tarries at this employment, the fountain but, pointing direct to the citadel of their may run dry-and of what avail are all hearts, garrisoned to very fulness with his conduits, and all his lines of accurate no other than earthly desires, we would and well-drawn conveyance, if there be call their parties of pl'easure and of pub- nothing to flow through them? It is lic amusement, not so much the acts as quite obvious that his main and importhe insignia of their rebellion-as indica- rtant office is to feed and stimulate the tions of the state of an inner man that fountain-that there his presence is rnost had deeply revolted against God. It is frequently, and most urgently required to heal this mighty breach that the gos- -that it is the post from which he ought pel is declared to them —not to achieve a never to prolong his absence beyond the few circumstantial reformations in their rigid necessities of the case —and that if history, but wholly to regenerate their for the perfection of the whole apparatus, hearts; and from the habit of those who it be at any time expedient that he should mind earthly things, so to make all old move away to its subordinate parts, or things pass away, and all things to be-. even its more distant extremities, it is income new, as that their conversation shall dispensable to the whole use and purpose be in Heaven, and their treasure there.- of the apparatus, that he ever and anon Be first Christians, and then we may sat- reiterate on the well-spring, where the isfy your curiosity about the lawfulness. whole being and activity of the operaor the unlawfulness of theatres. Give tion are upholden. And how much up the love of the world for the love of more true is this, if in fact the impetus of God, and then may we say in how far the waters shall force a right descent and this world might be used without abus- direction for themselves; if, by the might ing it. Let the balance be fairly struck of their own currency, they can wear a between time and eternity; and after this deep channel, and clear away all the ob-. mighty calculation is over, then may we stacles to their progress; if without altiha-'e heart and leisure for pettier calcula- ficial guidance, they can spontaneously, tions, and say what of time may be given and by the pure weight of their own nato recreation, and what of it to those sol- tive momentum, find their own way to emn exercises which have a direct bear- their best and their fittest destination. ing on eternity. Consider your ways.- Now, we must not forget, while lingerTry-your hearts by the standard of God's ing among the turns and the windings of spiritual law. Look to Christ as the Me- Christian casuistry, that there is a place diator, who, by His sacrifice and right- whence the impulse may proceed of 13 98 ON CHRISTIAN CASUISTRY, [SERI strength enough to overbear its difficul- which the single principle of love in the ties. and to force a way through all its heart might have given the entire masdark and ambiguous passages-that the tery. Only let this fountain be replennew-born desire of a Christianized heart ished with sacred affection, and there is is worth the catalogue of a thousand so- no fear, it may well be thought, of the lutlons to a thousand perplexities-that uniform sacredness that will emanate the best way of restoring to light and to therefrom on all the diversities of human liberty the conscience of man, is to en- conduct and experience. To this object, throne love in his bosom-and that in then, ought the main force of every Chris. willing discipleship to this gentlest, yet tian teacher be directed-and could he most persuasive of' masters, will every only enlist the will of his hearers on the new creature find the best and readiest side of God, then may we be sure, that outlet from all the bewilderments that though he should trace in description of meet him in his progress, through this all the varieties of their outward way, it great labyrinth of our earthly pilgrimage. will mainly and substantially be a way Give us but once a taste for sacredness- of godliness. and we need scarcely speak on the de- And we trust that this observation will tails of sabbath observation to him who serve as another argument for the mighty already loves that hallowed day, to whom importance of our much and urgently all its exercises are sweet, and all its op- insisting on the fundamental articles of portunities are precious, Give us a heart Christianity. The great achievement is set on the things that are above; and to possess your hearts with the love of what calls for warninog against the amuse- the gospel, and this can only be done by ments of the world, tie man who in the possessing your understanding with the midst of higher and better engagements truths of the gospel. We know not how feels tneir uitter insipidity? Or'gives us to win your regards to God, but by rean affection for God in Heaven, or for presenting Him as God in Christ reconthe likeness of God in those who are ciling the world. We know not how under a process of renovation to His He can become the object of your tender image upon earth-and we are already ness, but by His ceasing to become the anticipated in all our dissuasions against object of your terror. We know not how a preference for this world's companion- your fond affection to Him can be made ship, or an indiscriminate converse with to arise, but by your fearful apprehensions its festive and fashionable societies. Ame- of Him being made to subside. In other rica, said Lord Chatham, must be con- words, the patent way of finding access quered in Germany. The way to subor- for love into your bosoms, is to find access *dinate the human history,, is to obtain for faith-and could we only obtain crepossession of the human heart-and bet- dit for the message of peace with God, ter thanthiscontinuedskirmishingamong through the blood of a satisfying atonethe details and outposts of casuistry, would ment, then, by the moving forces of grait be to ply with the right engine, that titude and good will should we reach a central and commanding fortress, which far more effective mastery over all the looks down w'th imperial sway over the details of the Christian life, than all the whole territory of this extended warfare. skill of cunning men, all the wisdom of So that, after all, we may have lingered learned moral artificers could ps',ly for too many sabbaths on those details of obtain for us. pious or prudentia. observation, over =4. OF THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT 99 SERMON XIII. Of the Flesh and the Spirit. "a Fat.e that soweth to his flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption, but he that soweth to the spiri' shall of the spirit reap life everlasting."-GALATIANs Vi. 8. THE term " flesh" has obtained a wider sensuality. If it be true that it is He signification than it previously had; and, alone who doeth the will of God that encorresponding to this, the phrase of our dureth for ever, the one may be as little text, "the desires of the flesh" has ob- connected as the other with the eternal tained a proportionally wider range of life of our text. Both may be equally application. These desires, in fact em- fleeting in their duration; and both may brace one and all of the enjoyments which pass away with the vapour of our present are competent to the natural man while life. when it passeth away. They may he is in the body. Had the species re- end when the body ends; and thus it is, mained innocent, there would have been that many generous as well as many nothing, either in these desires or enjoy- grovelling desires, that the propensity of ments, that would have either thwarted the heart to power and glory or to the the will of God, or carried any forgetful- objects of lofty ambition, may, as well as ness or disinclination towards God along the lowest propensities of our animal nawith them. But as the matter actually ture, come under the brief but comprestands, it is far otherwise. With the de- hensive description of " the desires of the sire that we have for what is agreeable, flesh." there mingles no desire and no liking Recollect then that in this extended towards God. With the enjoyment that sense, we employ the term flesh throughwe have in it, there mingles no remem- out the whole of our discourse. All the brance and nlo pleasure in God. The desires which it is competent for a man thing is desired for itself; in itself the to feel, who has no care, and takes no heart rests, and terminates, and has full interest about the things of God or of complacency; and the enjoyment is in another world, are the desires of the flesh. every way as much detached from the All the. enjoyments of' which man is cathought of God, as if the belief' of God pable, apart either from the duties or the had no place in his creed, or as if God delights of religion, are the enjoyments Himself had no place in creation. Now of the flesh. They may or they may not this is not merely true of the grosser ap- be the enjoyments of a shameless and petites of nature. It is true of every ap- abandoned profligacy. The line of de, petite which has for its object something marcation between flesh and spirit, is not separate from God; of every appetite that by which the dissipations of life ate which points to any one thing that the separated from its decencies-but that by world has to offer, while God is not re- which all the desire that we have towards cognised as the ogiver of it, or as having the enjoyments of our present life, in that superior claim upon our affections sense and in the creature, but apart from which the giver has over the gift; of God, is separated from the desire that we every appetite in the prosecution of which have towards the enjoyments of the spiritand the indul'oence of which, the mind ual l'ife with God in Heaven. A man may all the while be away from the con- may be wholly occupied by the former sideration of God. Now this applies, not desire, and be wholly devoid of the latter merely to the desires of the epicure, and -in which case he is of the flesh and of the voluptuary. It belongs as essen- not of the spirit; or, to make use still tially to all the other desires of unre- more of the phraseology of scripture, he newed nature. There may be as little is carnal and not spiritual: or he walks -)f God, f;r example, in the delights of by sight, and not by faith or he is one eratult, as there is in the delights of of the children of this world, and noA 100 OF THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT. [SERXi. one of the children of light; or, finally, has become the slave of every propen. he minds earthly things, and neither his sity, lives in the perpetual harvest of cri. heart nor his conversation is in Heaven. minal gratification. If with him the Now to answer this description of charac- voice of conscience be ever heard, amid ter, it is not necessary, that he should be the uproar of those passions which war Immersed in vice and in voluptuousness. against the soul, it only serves to darker. He may recoil from these; and yet the his intervals of vice-when, on the asworld in some other of its varieties may sault of the next temptation, ant the corn have the entire mastery of his affections, ing round of the' next opportunity, it is and it be the alone theatre of his hopes again deafened and overborne as before, and his interests and his wishes. What amid the mirth and -the riot and the reckthe earthly thing is which engrosses him, lessness of profligate companionship. It we may not be able to specify; and yet is not to such a man that we should look it may be very sure that earthly things as our best example of one who sows. are all which he minds, and that to the We should rather look to another who is pleasure and the pursuit of them he is equally immersed in vice, but with more wholly given over. In the judgment of of steadfastness and self-command in the an earthborn morality he may not be at prosecution of it-who can bring intelliall criminal; and yet, in his tastes and gence and cool deliberation to bear upon tendencies and practical habits, he may its objects-who can patiently take his be altogether carnal. stand; and calculate upon his advanThe next thingo which requires to be tages; and, after the disguise and prepaunderstood, is what is meant by " sow- ration of many months, can obtain the ing to the flesh." Let it be observed gratification of an unhallowed triumph then, that the act of indulging its desires over some victim of artifice. To the eye is one thing, and that the act of provid- of the world, and with the general deing for the indulgence of them is ano- cency of his regulated habits, he may ther. When a lian, on the impulse of have a more seemly character than the sudlden provocation, wreaks his resent- unbridled debauchee. But if to disobey full feelings upon the neighbour who has conscience, when scarcely heard amid ofiended him, he is not at that time pre- the ravings of a tempest, be an humbler paring for the indulgence of a carnal attainment in the school of impiety, than feeling; but actually indulging it. He to stifle conscience in the hour of stillness is not at that time sowing, but reaping, and circumspection if it be not so hardy such as it is, a harvest of gratification. a resistance to the voice of duty, when she But when, instead of. tasting the sweets calls unheeded along with a crowd of of revenge, he is employed in devising boisterous assailants, as when, with the the measures of revenge, and taking cool and collected energies of a mind at counsel with the view of putting some leisure, she is firmly bidden to the door scheme of it into operation-he is no -then, though both these wretched doubt stimulated throughout this process, aliens front God be surely posting to the by the desire of retaliation; but it is not place of condemnation, if there be deuntil the process has reached its accom- grees of punishment in hell, even as plishment, that the desire is satisfied. It there are degrees of glory and enjoyis thus that the sowing and the reaping ment in heaven, vw leave the question may be distinguished from'one another. with yourselves, whether he in the preWe are busied with the one, when bu- sent instance who has most been occupied sied with the preparatory steps towards in sowing, or he who has most been ocsome consummation which we are aim- cupied in reaping, shall be made to ining at; and we obtain the other in the herit the deepest curse, or have the heavact of consummation. iest vengeance laid upon him. This distinction may serve to assist But it is more useful still, to complete our judgment, in estimating the ungodli- I this distinction in the walks of reputable ness of certain characters. The ramblinfg life; and for this purpose, we may notice voluptuary, who is carried along by a very frequent exhibition of it among every impulse, and all whose powers of the members of a prosperous family. A mental discipline are so enfeebled that he daughter, whose whol.e delight is in her xm.l: OF THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT..0[ rapid transitions from- one scene of ex- seriousness about a provision for the pensive brilliancy to another —who sus- perishable body-where wealth has be. tains the delirium of her spirits among come the chosen and adopted divinity of the visits and the excursions, and the par- the whole life; and, in place of the God ties of gaiety, which fashion has invented who endureth for ever, every care ana for the entertainment of its unthinking every calculation are directed to a portion, generations-who dissipates every care, frail as our earthly tabernacles, and fleetand fills up every hour, with the raptures ing as the vapour that soon passeth away. of hope or the raptures of enjoyment, But there is still another word that among the frivolities and fascinations of needs explanation. The term corruption heir volatile society-She leads a life, in this passage is expressive, not of moral than which nothing can be irragined worthlessness as it frequently is, but more opposite to a life of preparation for of decay or expiration. The meaning of the coming judgment or the coming eter- it here is in precise contrast to that of the nity. Yet she reaps rather than sows. term incorruption, in the place where it It lies with another to gather the money is said that this corruptible shall put on which purchaseth all things, and with incorruption, and this mortal shall put on her totaste the fiuits of the purchase. It immortality. Where it stands in this is the father who sows. It is he who verse, it is expressive, not of a moral prosits in busy and brooding anxiety over perty, but of a physical one. The corhis manifold speculations-wrinkled per- ruption that is spoken of in the text, is haps with care, and sobered by years into simply opposed to the eternal life that is an utter distaste for the splerdours and spoken of in the text. It is not here insignificancies of fashionable life. He designed to affirm the wrongness of any provides the elements of all this expendi- carnal pursuit, but the instability of its ture, yet in the expenditure itself may objects. We are only translating the have no enjoyment whatever. On all text into other language, when we say his habits there may be imprinted one that all the harvest which is reaped unvaried character of regularity-punc- by him who soweth unto the flesh cometh tual in hours, aind temperate in enjoy- to an end-whereas he who soweith inentl. and exempiary in all the mercan- to the spirit will reap a harvest of pleat.ile virtues, and with no rambling desire sures which shall be for evermore. So whatever beyond the threshold of his that the lesson here is quite the same with counting-house, and engrossed with no- that of the apostle John, " The world thing so much as with the snug pros- passeth away, and the lust thereof, but perity of its operations. he that doeth the will of God abideth for In the business of gain, there is often ever." the ruffing of an occasional breeze; and Now that we have finished these varithe one who so employed is, to make use ous explanations, the first lesson which of a Bible expression, 1" sowing the wind." we urge from the text, is the vanity of this In the business of expenditure there is world's ambition. We are elsewhere often the fury and agitation of a tempest; told in plainer language. not to love the and the other who is so employed is, to world, neither the things that are in the make use of another Bible expression, world. To gratify our affection for these a reaping the whirlwind." The habit things, is to reap of the flesh, all which of both is alike a habit of ungodliness. the flesh, even in its most extended sense, Giddy and unthinking in the latter; but has to bestow upon us. To provide again certainly not more hopeless, than the for this gratifications, is to sow unto the settled ungodliness of the former-where flesh.'l'he man sows, when, under the system, and perseverance, and the delib- impulse of a desire after earthly things, erate application of the whole heart and he plies and prosecutes his measures for the whole understanding, are given to.the the attainment of them. He reaps when interests of the world —where every hedoes attain. Were it not for a strange. thought of Seriousness about the soul, in- anomaly in the moral nature of man, this stead of being lost for a time in the whirl distinction could not have been better ex, of intoxicating variety, is calmly and reso- ernplified, than by himn who first labours lutely dispossessed by thoughts of equal I with the whole heart and strenuousneas 102 OF THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT. [SER]A of his soul, after the money which pur- the love of which is equally opposite chaseth the objects of this world's gratifi- to the love of the Father.. They who zation; and then gives himself up to the are seeking treasure for themselves, inharvest of indulgence. But what mars stead of seeking to be rich towards God, and confounds the distinction in this in- are in fact sowing unto the fiesh, for stance is, that, when man devotes himself they are sowing unto that which termito the acquisition of that moneyr which nates with the body-They are sowing purchaseth all things, it is not always unto that which is altogether corrupt — with the view of purchasing. WeaYh.is understanding by this term altogether often prosecuted without that view. A.n Itransitory. They are sowing unto that independent charm is annexed to the lon which death, in a few little years, bare possession of it. Apart altogether i will nut it- inre55ssive mockery. They from its power of command over the are rearing tl~lir chief good on a foundaenjoyments of life, it has become with tion that is ner.s. able. They are labou-r many an object in itself of the most pas- ing for one portion only, which wi'l sionate and intense ambition. All the speedily be wrested from them by th, pleasure of the chase is keenly felt in gripe of a destroyer-who will leave the pursuit of it, and all the triumph of a them without a portion, and without arn victory as keenly felt in the attainment of inheritance for ever. it; and this without any regard to that They are labouring for a part in this harvest of subsequent enjoyment, int.o world's substance, and in the possession which it has the power of ushering itc of it, verilv they have their reward. But, successful votaries. It is thus. that, in regard to the substance which enduralthough the mere shadow and represen- eth, as for it they have never laboured, so tative of enjoyment, it has at length infat- 1it they never will acquire. iThey have uated its worshippers into a higher relish sought to be arrayed in perishable glory, for itself, than for all the enjoyments and perhans will find a little hour of of which it is the minister-so that, magnificenc.e on earth, ere they bid their instead of a handmaid to the gratification everlasting adieu to its infatuations. But of our other appetites, itself has become that hour will soon come to its termina. with many the object of an appetite more tion; and Death may leave all the posdomineering than them all; and wealth sessions untouched, but he will lay his apart from all its uses and subserviencies, rude and resistless hand upon the pos. now stands to their imagination in the sessor. The house may stand in castelplace of a mighty and dispensing sove- lated pride for many generations, and the reign, to whom they render the devotion domain may smile for ages in undiminand the drudgery of all their services. ished beauty; but in less, perhaps, than In those cases, however, where wealth half a generation, death will shoot his is the terminating object, there is still the unbidden way to the inner apartment, process of sowing-even that process of and, without spoiling the lord of his prodiligence and of busy devisings, by perty, he will spoil the property of its which the schemes of this earthly amrnbi- lord. It is not his way to tear the parchtion are carried on. Only the harvest, ments, and the rights of investiture from instead of consisting in any ulterior things the hand of their proprietor; but he para. which wealth can purchase, consists in the lyzes and unlocks the hand, and they fall mere acquisition of the wealth itself. In like useless and forgotten things away the wallrs of merchandise, were we to from it. It is thus that Death smiles in look to the minds and the tnotives of its' ghastly contempt on all human aggranmost aspiring candidates, would we often dizemrnent. He meddles not with the see that it was not what comes after the things that are occupied, but he lays hold wealth, but the wealth itself which both of the occupier; and this to him is as set them agoing and keeps them agoing. entire a deprivation, as if he trampled all They may be sowing, not unto the lust of that belonged to him into powder. He the flesh7 not unto the lust of the eye, not does not seize upon the wealth, but he lays unto ihe pride of life, all of which are his arrest upon the owner. He forces opposite to the love of the Father. But away his body to the grave, where it moul.,till they are sowing; and to that, too, ders into dust; and, in turning the soul xIi.] OF THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT. 103 out of its warm and well-loved tenement, terest beyond the limits of its sensible he turns it adrift on the cheerless waste horizon. That, indeed, is a meagre of a desolate and neglected Eternity. theology which would look upon the We are not told here that it is wrong outcasts of human society, as the only to sow unto the flesh. This may be, outcasts from Heaven; and which would this is a doctrine of the Bible; but it is represent the path that leadeth unto spinot the doctrine of this particular verse. ritual and everlasting life, to be so gentle It does not pronounce on the ciriminality and so accessible that few do miss it, inof the pursuit-but just on the evanes- stead of representing it as that arduous cence of its objects. It simply tells us, and narrow path, of which our Saviour that the good attained by sowing unto hath said that there be few who find it. the flesh is temporal; and to this the It is a woeful delusion, and we fear the whole experience of man bears testimony. undoing of many an immortal spirit, that He cannot look upon general history, nought will shut us out of Paradise, but without perceiving the rapid movement such literal and flagrant offences against of one generation after another. He the law of rectitude, as would degrade cannot live long in the world, without us beneath the average character of those perceiving the fall of acquaintances upon decent and respectable and neighbourevery side of him. He cannot have a like families, by whom we are encomcircle of relatives around him, without passed; and that if we but acquit ourthe lesson of death being brought home selves with tolerable fairness upon earth, to his feelings, by the touching incidents we are fit for being translated when we of his own domestic history. Should he die, among the choirs and the companies still persist in assei.ating either durability of the celestial. Now, it is true, that we or magnitude with his earthly interests, may stand exempted firom all gross and -this may prove a moral or an intellec- outrageous delinquency. We may fulfil tual derangement in himself; but it proves all the honesties of social intercourse. nothing against the affirmation, that, in We may even have more than the aversowing unr, the flesh, he will of the flesh age share of its humanities. The core reap only c.orlrulwlon. As he grows older diaiities of domestic affection may, by the in years, he xl.;ay grow more inveterate mechanism of our sentient nature, flow in delusion. A.: he draws towards the through ourrbosoms, in a stream as warm termination of his earthly existence, he and as kindly as does the blood that cirmay cling with more intense affection to cuiates through our veins. And to many its vanities. As the hour of his eternal of the graces of private life, there may be separation from the world approaches, added the activities of public life and of he may grow in the estimation of its patriotism-the pulse of high and honvalue; and adhere more tenaciously to ourable feeling-the blush of unviolated all its objects, and to all its interests. delicacy-the ingenuousness of nature's This proves him to be the child of infa- truth-the sensibilities of nature's tendertuation; but against the truth of the Bible, ness. And withal, there may be a taste it proves nothing. It may bespeak the most finely and feelingly alive, if not to virulence of some great spiritual disease, those spiritual beauties which irradiate which hath overspread our species. It the character of the Godhead, at least to may demonstrate, that, in reference to a those sensible beauties wherewith the great and awfully momentous truth, we face of our goodly creation hath been labour under all the obstinacy of an habi- decked so profusely by his hand; and tual blindness. But the truth itself re- there may be science, and imagination, mains unshaken; and on everv indivi- and towering intellect, and sublime dual who is born into the world, it will thoughts of truth and of the universe. be most surely and most speedily realized. and alil the virtues which the happiest The second lesson, founded on these constitution can enoender, and all the phiexplanations of our text, that we would losophy which loftiest genius can achieve. propose, is the unprovidedness of all Now we would put it to your own those nien for eternity, whose affections sense and experience of our common naare settled upon the world, and who pos- ture, if you think it impossible, that a;ess not one wish or one practical in- man so gifted shall breathe the element 104- OF THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT. [BERM of irreligion; that, from morning to night, Eternity. Were you to put it to thei. the God, amid the glories of whose work- choice, whether, if all was prosperous manship he all the day rejoices, shall be here, it was not here that they would to him like an unknown or a forgotten like to live obr ever-it might bringf the thing; that satisfied, and in full occupa- state of their affections to the test, and de. tion with the business of the peopled re. cide the question of their being carnal or gion in which he dwells, he should cast spiritual men. Let the proposal be made, not one look beyond the death to which that, with health and fortune and friendhis footsteps are'carrying him, should ship, and the bloom of perpetual youth, heave not one aspiration through the illu- and the blessings of joyous companionminated concave that is above his head; ship, and an affectionate family, there and that thus the Being, who hath graced should withal be the elixir of immortality and invested humanity with all that so poured into your cup; and on the face proudly or so pleasingly adorns it, should of this goodly world, so full of sweets be habitually and wholly disregarded by and of sunshine, you should be permitted him, whom the hand of the Almighty to expatiate for ever. Tell me, if, on Sovereign hath called forth, and exalted these terms, you would not cleave with into the noblest of its specimens. And fondest tenacity to your present habitaif indeed a creature so accomplished, tion; and be willing(to live ail recklessly might nevertheless live: and die in un- as heretofore of the God that upholds godliness, then let us not be deceived into you? Woul:l you not be glad to take fatal security, by the virtues ofan average everlasting leave of your Maker; and, and every-day world. They one and all could you only be spared the encounter of them may consist with alienation fiom of that hideous death which disembodies God; and utter strangers to the spirit, or the soul and conveys it to the land of to the things of that spiritual economy spectres, would you not consent far rather which He has instituted, they may, to sojourn and to spend your eternity in throughout all their rounds of business this' more congenial land?. In other or companionship or pleasure, be sowing words, would you not prefer that God only unto the flesh, and making this and you should be eveilastingly quit of earth, this perishable earth, the scene of each other-ratther than be wrested from all their joys and of all their expectations, your tenements of clay; and deprived of We charge them not witherime-yet, if your footing on that territory, where so immersed in earthliness as to have lost alone those earthly enjoyments are to be all practical sen:ibility to God, we must found, that are suited to your earthly narefuse their Christianity: The whole ture? Tell me if you could not forego drift and tendency of their affections are even heaven and all its psalmody to be to the things which are beneath. The fairly let alone; and, for the sake of a eflort, the anxiety, the perpetual longing lasting and undisturbed inheritance in of their hearts, are all toward the accorn- this smiling world, would you not agree modations and the interests oftime. They that God should withdraw Himself in are carnally minded, which is death. eternal oblivion fiom your thoughts, and They sow unto the flesh, and of the flesh that you should be eternal outcasts from they shall reap corruption. God's spiritual family? And this is the consummation of their You may plead in apology, that, il present beinr, not because they have lived choosing for earth rather than heaven, either in profane. or in profligate wick- you just make the universal choice of edness, but simply because they have nature; but it only proves the truth ol lived without God-because they have this great Bible position-that Nature is made earth their resting-place; and, alto- in a state of exile from God-and that gether pleased with what is perishable. there is indeed a wide disruption between the geheral habit of their souls has mark- the planet on which we dwell, and the ed them to be citizens of earth and not rest of God's unfallen creation. It only of heaven-with this world as the alone proves that you are yet of the flesh and repository of their interests and hopes, not of the spirit; and that you nave not without one pilgrim sigh, and far less made that mighty transition by which the one pilgrim step, towards the land of affections are carried upward. from the III.J OF THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT. 105 dust of this perishable world, to that would never look, for the result of such upper'sanctuary where Christ sitteth at an aim or such an enterprise, to di;tinc, the right hand of God, and where God tion in the circle of politics. The citizen sitteth on a throne that is at once a throne I looks forward in perspective, and labours of grace and of righteousness. Be assur- in the walk of busy merchandise, for the ed if.so, that you are not in a state which sum which he thinks will satiate the amat will do to die in. There will be no bition of his nature —this he may reach, such earth as the one that we inhabit- but not surely an eminence of literary after the present economy is dissolved; fame. And so of every other landingand succeeded by a heaven where all is place to every other path of exertion.sacredness and seraphic ecstasy, and a As is the seeking so is the finding. The hell where all is the defiance and the inan of business does not get a name in despe. ation of rooted, resolved, and impla- philosophy. The man of letters does not cable ungodliness. Such a middle re- get to the pinnacle of affluence. The gion as the one we at present occupy, man of victory in war, does not obtain where the creature enjoys himself amid the glory which is achieved by the man the gifts, and cares not for the giver, can- of discovery in science. And so, to use a not long be tolerated. It is an anomaly designation comprehensive of them all, on the face of creation, and will as such the man of the world realises some one'be swept away. And meanwhile the or other of the world's objects; but he processes of our text are those which con- does not realise the things or the interests nect your doings here, with one or other of heaven.'Verily he hath his reward. of the two destinies hereafter. "If you He gets what he sought for, and has no sow unto the flesh you will of the flesh right to complain if he do not get what reap corruption. If you sow unto the he never sought for. He reaches the spirit you will of the spirit reap life ever- appropriate termination of his path.lasting." Time and Eternity are both set before We have hitherto used the term cor- him; he made choice of time, and he ruption in the sense it has in the text- hath sped accordingly. But his eternity that is the property of being perishable is a blank; and it were in violation of and so transitory; and, ere we conclude all the analogies of human experience if in a few words with the common sense it were otherwise. It is thus, if we had of the term as denoting the moral pro- time to illustrate the lesson a little farther, perty of being criminal or faulty, let us that a flood of light may be thrown upon just make one remark which at present the position that-not because a man's we cannot afford to expatiate on. It is actions are criminal, but simply because this-that the man who soweth unto the his affections are earthly-not because in flesh, or in other words labours to secure the deeds of his hand there has been some earthly enjoyment, that he should ought of the violent but because in the reap only corruption, or reap only that desires of his heart there has been nought which at length passes away from him of the spiritual-not because he hath and ceases any longer to be-why this (lone that which should disgrace him in is in perfect keeping with all the analo- this world of sinners which is soon to gies of nature and human life. It is the pass away, but simply because he hath proper result of the course on which he neither sought after a place nor laboured hath entered. It is in conformity with in the work of preparation for that world all that takes place in other paths of ac. of saints which is to remain in brightness tivity and exertion-where it is found for ever.-On these grounds alone, and that as is the aimn so is the accomplish- without the imputation of any notorious ment. The schoolboy seeks for amuse- delinquency at all, there is many a most -nent, and he finds it-he gets the one respectable citizen, who, viewed in referthing his heart is set upon, but not anoth- ence to his capacity as an immortal crea. er thing-he gets not the acquisition of a ture, lives all his days in a state of utter fortune for example. The daughter of negation and nakedness; and who, when many graces and many accomplishments overtaken by death, will find himself on seeks for distinction in the circle of fash- the margin of an unprovided eternity, ion, and that may be realiscd; but you with nought inits mighty and unexplored 14 106 OF THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT. [SER1, vastness before him but the dark im- upon it the burden of a grievous condemn agery of desolation and despair. nation-and so a peace which we fear is But the final issue of such a life as he no peace. There is indeed in all this a hath spent in the world, is something ad- very complete illusion. For a man to be ditional to t mere shortness from heaven. execrated as a monster in society, he must There is further included in it the posi- have outraged the duties of that relation tive wretchedness of hell: And ere the in which he stands to his fellow-men. reason and the conscience can be recon- Now of all these he may have acquitted ciled to such a consummation as this, it himself in a very tolerable way; and is not enough to make out that he has yet there is another and a distinct relabeen all along sowing to that which is tion, to which also belong peculiar duties corrupt in the sense of that which is tran- of its own, and which he may have alsitory; but that further, he is charge- together neglected-we mean the relaable with that which is corrupt in the tion in which he stands, not to the beings sense of that which is morally reprehen- of his own species, but to the Being who sible and wrong. The great difficulty made him. He may have discharged of a gospel minister lies in convincing of himself of all that he owes to his fellows this, our amiable and virtuous but withal upon earth, and yet have been utterly worldly men. Our chief encounter in unmindful of-what he owes to God in society, is with a meagre and superficial heaven. He may have felt the force of imagination of guilt. Men know not all those moral and sympathetic affecwhat they have done, that should land tions, which bind men together into a them in so frightful a consummation, as community below —and yet felt no atthe hell of the New Testament. They traction whatever to Him who is the understand not how it is, that any sin of great Parent and Preserver of the hutheirs should have lighted up those fires man family. There might be many which are to burn everlastinglyv. They a close and kindly reciprocation of muwill admit that they have failings; but tual esteemn, and mutual tenderness, and surely nothing commensurate to a ven- all the virtues of g'ood neighbourhood geance so relentless and so interminable among ourselves; and yet the whole oft as this.'Ihere may be some desperadoes this terrestrial society. be in a state of in wickedness-there may be a few of utter disruption from Him who is at once stouter and more stubborn hardihood than the source and the centre of the created. all their fellows-there may be men of Universe. It is just as if a stray planet fiend-like atrocity, whom the children of might retain its cohesion, and its chemthis world so little resemble, that the istry, and all those laws of motion and world at large would shudder at them — plastic influences which would continue these may be the befitting inmates of that to uphold many of the processes of our dire and dreadful Pandemoniurn, where present terrestrial physics; but which the spirits of the accursed dwell. But loosed from its gravitation to the sun surely the kind and the courteous and would drift waywardly in space, and the companionable men of our own daily become an outcast from the harmonies walk and our own familiar neighbour- of the great mundane system. Now hood, with whom we exchange the visits this is precisely what the Bible affirms of hospitality and the smiles of benignity of the spiritual world. The men of this and good will-you would not assimilate planet have broken off their affinity to their guilt, with that of the daring out- God. They retain many of their wonted cast, who passes through life in utter affinities for each other; but they have recklessness of all its duties and of all its made disruption and a wide and general decencies. This causeof the peace which departure from God. They have yet a men feel about their eternal prospects is terrestrial ethics with the graces and distinct from the former. It is a juridical moralities of which some are so richly principle that is quite current among men, adorned, as to shine in beauteous lustre and lends a mighty reinforcement to the before the eye of their fellows; while apathy of Nature. They are at peace, others even in reference to these earthbecause they do not see that theirs is at born virtues, are so marred and mutila. ill a guilt so grievous as to bring down ted, that they are looked upon by all as xTIII] OF THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT. 107 he objects of a revolting deformity. Of ciple, which forms one main ingredient the great principle of the celestial Ethics, of the false and the fatal peace that is so Doth may at the same time be alike des- general in our world. There is blindtitute. It is experimentally true, that the ness to the jurisprudence of the upper man of cormpassion and the man of cru- sanctuary, as well as blindness to the fuelty, with hearts so differently affected turities of the unseen state. The twc by the sight of distress, may be in the together have the effect of a most deadly same state of practical indifference to- opiate; nor are we to wonder if our spewards God. It is the spirit of a sound cies have been charmed thereby-, into so philosophy, as well as of a sound faith, profound a spiritual lethargy. —And thus Wo affirm that Humanity, with all her it is, that though the creatures of a fleetcomplexional varieties of character be- ing and fantastic day, we tread on earth tween one specimen and another, may with as assured footsteps, as if, instead of be throughout impregnated with the deep its shortlived tenants we were to be everspirit of ungodliness. lastingly its lords. And the laugh, and This is the representation of that the song, and the festive gaiety, and the scripture which spea.keth to us from busy schemes of earthliness, all speak a heaven; and to this, we believe, that generation fast locked in the insensibility every enlightened conscience upon earth of spiritual death. Nor do the terrors will re-echo. It charges not injustice of the grave shake this tranquillity-nor upon all. It charges not gross and do the still more awful terrors of the abominable licentiousness upon all. It judgment-seat. That day of man's dis charges'not open or scandalous pro- solution which is so palpably at hand, faneness upon all. But it charges un- and which sends before it so many intigodliness upon all. When brought to mations, fails to disturb him. That day the bar of civil or criminal law, when of *the world's dissolution, when the brought to the bar of public opinion, when trumpet shall be sounded, and the men brought tothebar of social or conventional of all generations shall awake to the morality amongst men, you may be most high reckonings of eternity, and this fully and honourably acquitted. Yet earth and these Heavens shall be inwhen brouoht to the bar of a higher ju- volved in the ruins of one mighty conrisprudence, there may be laid, and most flagration, and the wrath that now is susrightfully laid upon you, the burden of pended in this season of offered mercy an overwhelming condemnation. It is shall at length break forth into open then, and then only that ungodliness manifestation on all the sons and daughstands forth as an article of the indict- ters of ungodliness-this day, which ment against you. It is then that the when it cometh, will absorb every heart Beingo who made you takes up His own in one fearful and overwhelming interest cause, and appears in support of his -now that it only is to come. and is seen Dwn controversy. It is then that ques- through the imagined vista of many suction is made, not of the claims which cessive centuries, has no more effect than men have upon you, but of those pe- a dream of poetry. And, whether from culiar and transcendental claims which the dimness of nature's sio't to all the God has upon you. It is then that you futurities of the spiritual world, or from are met with the question-"- What have its slender apprehension of that guilt you done unto God?" In reference to which in the sacred eye of heaven is so the moralities of your human companion- enormous-certain it is, that men can ship below, there is perhaps not one travel onward both to the death and to earthly tribunal before which you might the judgment, and say peace, peace, when not stand in the attitude of proud integ- there is no peace. rity. In reference to that transcendental The awfulness of the first of these morality, which relates the thing that is events, even death, bears in it experimenformled to Him who hath formed it- tal proof to God's intolerance of sin. If there is the overthrow of every preten- He. indeed felt our guilt, as little as we sion, and man's boasted righteousness feel our danger-if His displeasure were melteth utterly away. a thing as slight and as gentle as ouI Now it is man's blindness to this prin- alarm —why so dreadful a visitation uapon 108 OF THE FLESH AND THE SPIRIT. [SERM. our specieb as death?-a thing unknown law, there may be the utmost spiritual to angels, and from which the whole of destitution in the mere earthliness of out sentient nature shrinks as at the ap-. affections-the most entire unfitness for proach of most unnatural violence. If heaven above, simply because our heart's God be as much at peace with the world, delight and desire are set upon the world as the world is at peaceful complacency that is below-an eternity wholly unprowith itself-why keep up so hard and so vided, because the pleasures and the prohostile a dispensation against it?-or if vision of time are all that we seek and sin be of as trivial account in the estima- all that we care for. There is a juridition of Heaven, as it is in the estimation cal principle, that nothing will condemn of human society-how should it have us at the bar of our final reckoning, but brought down such a vengeance upon crime; and then that mere carnality, in earth, as to have smitten it with a plague the general sense of the word, is no of mortality throughout all its borders; crime. Now it is not a crime in the eye and swept off to the hideousness of the of human jurisprudence; but in the eye grave, all the life and beauty and intelli- of the divine jurisprudence it is the most gence of its successive generations. enormous of all. It is the preference of That surely is no trifle, which has turned the creature to the Creator, and will terthis bright and blooming world into a minate in the gloom of everlasting deprivast sepulchral abode for the men of all vation and despair, after that Creation, ages. Its moaning death-beds, and its in its present power to engage and to weeping families, and its marred and gratify, shall have passed away, and we broken companionships-these are all shall have to do with the rebuke ana emphatic testimonies of God's hatred of the resentment of Creation's Lord who moral evil; for that sin brought all this endureth for ever. O be persuaded, calamity upon the world, is a principle then, of your need of a gospel; and announced to us in scripture-and it is give up from this time forward your inthe only principle which resolves to us difference and contempt for it. Be asthe mystery of death. And when the sured that the great apparatus of a Mesame scripture announces that after death diator, and a Sacrifice, and a risen High cometh the judgment —O let us not give Priest. and an Intercession to reconcile, in to the treacherous imagination; that and a Spirit to sanctify-be assured that He who hath made such fell exhibition all this was not uncalled for: and now of severity in the one, will in the other seek unto Him who is able to change but manifest and indulge his tenderness. you from the carnal to the spiritual, to But let us be very sure, that, as death is crucify those affections which have their to every unrepentant sinner but the be- objects on earth and are now so vigorginning of his sorrows, so judgment ously alive, and to quicken within you will be to him as a second death. such new affections as have their objects We shall be happy, if, as the fruit of in Heaven, and without which heaven these observations, we can convince any can never be the place of our abode, and of you, that, apart from crime, apart just because it cannot be the place of our from literal transgressions of the divine enjoyment. EmoJ! ~TIHE KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED. 109 SERMON XIV. On the Knowledge of Christ and Him crucified. For I determrined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified."-1 COR. 11. 2. You are aware that Christian truth cal discernment; nor can we do better consists, not of one article, but of many than look to that. very quarter where this articles; that in the treasury of sacred gifted man of inspiration is so fixedly wisdom, there are things both new and looking, when he says I am determined old, and all of which oug ht to be brought to know nothing among you save Jesus forth and unfolded to the view of those Christ and Him crucified. who are attending the lessons of prepar- While so employed, we should like ation for eternity; that just as in a land- chiefly to confine your, attention to the scape of nature, so it is not one single specification which the apostle attaches object which either by its magnitude oc- to our Saviour, when he passes from the cupies the whole of the spiritual land- mention of Christ in the general to the scape, or even by the lustre of its over- mention of Hin crucified; and to d-ebearing worth and importance ought, to monstrate the title which this object so engross our exclusive regards to it. specialised has on the supreme attention There is not one object in the whole of Christians. And it will appear in field of revelation, which should so the course of our observations, that, fasten and concentrate our observation though Christ crucified should be the upon it, as to detach us from all the supreme, He is not the sole object of others that stand out there in the visible our regard; and that, so far from the exhibition; nor one of such exceeding dignity of the object beinr reduced in size and prominency, as should cause us consequence, it is in fact enTlanced when to overlook the variety of lesser objects thus translated from a place of solitude that. are strewed around its pedestal. to a place of supremacy. But still as you may have often noticed The first title that ChrisL crucified on some scene or representation of visi- bath upon our attention is,' that by the ble beauty, that, all crowded though it knowledge of this we are provided be with traits of loveliness, there is some against the most urgent and appalling one figure in the groupe bearing itself calamity which hangs over our species. so nobly and so commandingly over the If we abide in ignorance herein, the rest, as to be ever drawing the eye and wrath of God abideth upon us. Let the admiration of the spectator towards the apathy of man to his real condition it-so, among all the diversities which be what it may-this may lighten for a the Bible places before the spiritual eye, time his fears, but it does not lighten the may there be one truth of such eclipsing actual burden of his curse and his consuperiority over all the others, as that demnation. He mav have been seized ever present, or at least of constant re- by the spirit of deep slumber; but he currence to the thoughts, it may be the only sleeps on the eve of a coming one on which a Christian heart shall storm. Such may be the profoundness dwell with perpetual fondness, and be of his spiritual lethargy, that the denunoftenest absorded in the contemplation ciations of vengeance are unheard; and of it. Paul in the text points to such a the storehouse of' that vengeance in heatruth; and if he do not just tell us that ven, even the breast of the offended it' ought to monopolise the regards of Godhead, in which are treasured up the every disciple, he at least tells us of its remembrance of all His wrongs, and lofty and superlative claims upon them. His unalterable purposes of redress and It is well that in this matter we have the vindicatiron-this may lie hid in deep guidance of apostolical taste and apostoli- oblivion irom his eye; and just because 110 THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED. ISERI. the danger is wholly unfelt, the deliver- an open discharge; and all the attributes ance therefrom may be wholly unprized. of a nature that is holy and unchangeable He may be alike reckless of sin and of must then stand out in their own proper the Saviour; and because the one falls demonstration. Among the frivolities of lightly upon his conscience, the other a short-lived day, we may have cradled may be of light esteem in his computa- our souls into unconcern; and this may non. But it is not his blindness that can disguise from us, but it cannot destroy in either change, or can annihilate, the itself, the reality of things. The treach. eternal relationships by which he is sur- ery of this world's delusions, can never rounded. He is within the domain of belie the truth of heaven's declarations. an eternal government, beyond which And still it remaineth, amid all the unhe cannot transport himself. He is un- heedings of nature's incredulity and nader the authority of a strict and un- ture's blindness-that there must be some changeable law, from which he cannot awful adjustment between God as the escape. There is a throne in heaven. insulted Sovereign, and man as the rebel and a God sitting upon that throne, from who hath defied and disobeyed Him. the rebuke of whose countenance he The direct, and, if one may so term cannot flee away-by whom the mean- it, the natural way of bringing about this est of His accountable familv cannot be adjustment, were by the infliction of the overlooked-and all those dealings with i threatened penalty on those who had inevery creature whom He has formed, curred it-precisely as the difference bewill serve to illustrate the force and the tween a creditor and a debtor is adjusted, purity and the rectitude of a high moral by enforcing payment. It is thus that administration. It is in the power of God might have eased Him of his adverman to shut his eyes and so extinguish saries, and swept away from the face of his preception of the truth: but he can- His creation that guilt which had denot extinguish the truth itself. formed it; and made full demonstration These are the real, and stable, and of His justice and His power, by lifting substantial conditions of his being, and up the red arm of an avenger over the he cannot obliterate them. He hath hosts of the rebellious; and as it were broken a commandment, the awful sane- cleared out from the domain of purity, lions of which were set forth in the hear- the loathsome and offensive spectacle of ing of men and of angels; and in their sin, by dooming all who were tainted sight they must be executed: There is with it to an accursed territory, where a solemn dhy that will speedily overtake they should be for ever apart from the us all, when we shall be reckoned with children of His own kingdom. And this for our ungodliness-when we shall be is the very doom that lies on humanity — charged with having lived out our time the very curse that adheres to& each indiin the world, regardlessly of Him who vidual member of it-the very sentence nmade the world —when the heart shall which, whether you tremble under it or be taken cognisance of for all its stray not, is written against you in the book affections from Him to whom it owed of condemnation. And could we only supreme allegiance-when the question pursue each conscience,. with the appreshall be put, what hast thou done unto hension of this, as with. an, arrow sticking God; and the mighty requirement of fast; and make known to. its owner, how doing all things to His glory shall be set unrelenting the law of God is, and how up, as the only standard of reference by impossible it were for Him, by any comnwhich to try all our duties and all our promise of dignity or of truth, to connive deviations. A.11 this we may cancel for a at transgression, or look to sin without time from our own recollection; but we the ful. attestation of His righteous abcannot cancel it from the book of God's horrence-then might every soul, awake remembrance-nor can we cancel it from to the dread reality of its own condition, those certainties which shall be fulfilled, above all other knowledge, hold the on the person of every sinner who dies an knowledge of a Saviour to be indeed the outcast from reconciliation. Truth will most precious. have its way upon him. The jealousies And it is through a Saviour. that the of an incensed God will'burst forth into adjustment b.'-~:vn Lawgiver ana XIV.]'IHE KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED. 111 the sinner has been made. The tidings 4he who'e burden of this tremendous of this adjustment form the very essence curse has been made to pass away from of the gospel. The debt is not exacted us; and we are again ushered back into from the principal, because paid by a the friendship of heaven's family? surety. The penalty is not laid on the And let us have you all to understand, transgressor, because laid on a substitute. that this is not the general exposition of To remove the offence of a dishonoured an argument, in which you have no conlaw, there needeth not now that the cern, and to which you may look from offender shall be borne away to a place a distance with an eye of cold and intelof exile or imprisonment-for by the lectual speculation. There is none here price of a Redeemer's blood hath the present, on whom it does not bear with law been magnified; and. grander exhi- the specific import of one who is pointbition far of its authority than that the edly and individually addrest by it. The sinner should die, is that he should pass message of the gospel is something more under the covert of His mediatorship than a voice, which merely reports to all who gave himself up a nobler sacrifice. what is good that all may hear of it. It It is this which constitutes the excellency is in fact the bearer of what is good, and of the knowledge of Christ crucified. brings the good nigh unto each that each There was a need be, that the wrath of may lay hold of it. There is in it no God should be discharged; and it has doubt the testimony of a great deliverbeen discharged on the head of this illus- ance for sinners; but this testimony is trious sufferer. There was a need be, just as good as an offer to all who are withthat if ever mercy should go forth from in reach of the sound of it-for there is a heaven upon our world, it should wear way of so receiving the testimony, as upon its forehead the impress of the truth that the deliverance of which it speaks and justice and holiness of heaven; and shall be received along with it, and it that these perfections of Him who dwell- thus be fastened on by an act of appropriaeth there should so appear in vindicated tion. And the way in which you have majesty, as that glory to God in the to receive it, is simply to receive it with highest might meet and be in harmony credit. Put faith in it, and you will with peace on earth and goodwill to the have in your own person the full experichildren of men: And'nowhere but in ence of its faithfulness. It is your trust the cross of Christ hath the world beheld in this gospel salvation, which constitutes so very peculiar a manifestation of the your acceptance of it. It is on the stepGodhead. There was a need be, that, ping-stone of belief in the record, that if ever again the sinner could be admitted you pass from death unto life. This is into the august presence of Him whom the one and only turning point of your he had displeased, the way of readmit- reconciliation; and did we know how to tance should be guarded by such a cere- frame the intimation, so as to bring it monial, as would announce to him in more plainly and more persuasively to solemn and emphatic characters the evil your doors, we should labour to assure of sin; and for this purpose, a way has you of this, that the more firm your rebeen opened, through the rent vail of a liance on the blood of the great propitiaSaviour's flesh, and been consecrated by tion, the more certain is your possession the blood of a divine atonement. And of all it hath wrought and of all it hath what can more concern you, than to purchased for you. know this path of recall from your eter- Let the sinner then be fairly arrested nal banishment? What more momentous by a sense of danger-let his conscience to us, than that there has been found out be up in alarm because of the coming another way for the descending ven- judgment; and truth with itspenetrating geance of heaven, than that it should fall beams make known to him that he is in on our guilty and devoted heads? What the hands of an angry God-let him is there on the wide universe in which once be overtaken by that fearfulness, we are placed, that should come more which, under a just view of his exposed urgently home to our personal interests and guilty condition, should sieze upon. and fears, than when told of that mighty his soul; and, shooting his anticipations and mysterious transference, by which across that barrier of death to which he 112 THE KNOM'LEDGE OF CHRIST AND HIUM CRUCIFIED. [SERM. is so rapidly approaching, let the eternity And thus it has been a most natural beyond it be peopled to the eye of his imagination among Christian writers, mtnd with the appalling imagery of ven- that, ere men will seek to know Christ geance and despair-O how fondly crucified, they must be made to know would he desire, and how highly would themselves as liable to the punishment he appreciate the tidings of Christ cruci- that he hath borne —that they must first fled; and even join the apostle in saying, be awakened to a sight of the enemy that nothing else than this he desired to wh9 pursues them, ere they will flee tc know, because nothing but this could that place of refuge where they are in bring him relief from the terrors by safety from his power —that a sense of which he was occupied. Wretched, and guilt must take the precedency.in their wearied out with attempts to find the hearts, of any ahxious longing after abdoor of escape, would he hail with rap- solution from it —and that each must feel ture that outlet from the penalties of the with pungency he is a great siuner, ere law, which has been opened up by the he can feel the preciousness of Christ as expiatory death made known to us in the a great Saviour. gospel; and when he sees in the pro- Of what use then, may it be thought, visions of its wondrous economy, how is it to preach Christ to a listless and by the noblest of victims there had been lethargic auditory? Paul, it is true, said rendered to the justice of God the noblest that he determined to know nothing else of vindications-how it must rejoice him among his hearers-but is not one thing to find that the Divinity might at once at least indispensable to be previously be glorified and he himself be safe. known, ere the excellency of the knowBut of what avail it may be thought, ledge of Christ can be -at all appreciated I is the doctrine of Christ crucified, when Must inot the.eople who are addrest there is no such vivacity of alarm- with the offer of salvation, be convinced when people immersed in'wordliness of sin, ere salvation can be at all dear to have no care or concern for any thing them? -beyond it-when these terrors are all Let us attempt to state iti a few words, iunfelt, and the tidings of deliverance are how we conceive that this matter practitherefore all unheeded-and the medi- cally stands. And first we think, that tine is in no demand, just because the we must have the testimony of many disease has excited no apprehension? consciences when we say, that there is This is very much the general condition not much of grief, there is not much of of men in society. They are in peace sensibility, there is not any very pungent already, and therefore need nothing to or penetrating conviction of sin in your pacify them. CI-rist has been called the hearts-nothing we fear that amounts to anchor of the sctl; but ere the soul go a state of spiritual distress or spiritual in quest of anr,nchor must it not first be restlessness-and that, bating a few thrown into -stormy agitation2 And week-day forms and a few sabbath obmunstthere not be revealed to the spirit- servations, the successive months and nal eye the vengeance that lies upon years of your existence in this world guilt,tere it can discern or look with fond pass tolerably away, without any thing complacency on the worth of the offered being either very sensibly felt, or very atonement? strenuously done by you, for the interest Now it is'very true, that, were we to of your eternity. describe the religious state of the great Now it is not by the very same footmajority of our species, we should say steps, that all are led from their present that the danger on the one hand and the state of death in trespasses and sins, to deliverance -on the other are alike un- the state of being spiritually alive. Could seen by them —-that if they have no joy we in the first instance disturb them out in the pardon of the gospel, they have of their security —could we lead them to as little consternation in the threats of the see that gulph of destruction, which lieth law-and -that, profoundly asleep unto at the end of the broad way, crowded as both, they live without delight in Christ as it is by a multitude as heedless as themtheir Saviour, and without dread of God selves-could the frown of an incensed as their Judge. lawgiver be lm.de manifest to their souls, K[IV.] tm.HE KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIZI. 113 and they be told to their own apprehen- of a sinking vessel, or the adventurer orn sion that by nature they are undone- a sea of commercial speculation who finds his were a condition which some have that his comning bankruptcy is inevitable, realized; and weary and heavy laden have been known to take an opiate in under asense of its terrors, have at length mad intoxication from the agonising heard the invitation to rest, and to their sense of the ruin which impended over happiness have found it. The terrors of therm. the law have shut them up unto the faith Now it is just so with the human of the gospel; and they have arrived at mind in reference to eternity, and to Himn peace, through a labyrinth of many dis- who has the disposal of it. Let a demonquietudes. It was by an avenue through stration be offered in the characters of the dark forebodings of guilt, that they terror; and man's first and natural moveat length reached a landing place among ment would be to make his escape from the comforts and promises of the gospel; it. He will keep aloof from a spectacle alt, as we often read in the history that disturbs him; and by the very disofl conversions-the transition of their tance at which he stands from it, may hearts, from the false peace of nature to protect his conscience from all violent or the true peace of Christianity, was distressful agitation. In these tircunmthrough a long intermediate passage of stances, let the severities of the law many doubts and many agitations. be offered and nothing else, and the man Now though this is a frequent way of may seek after any outlet rather than passing out of darkness into marvellous brave a contemplation so appalling. He light, it is not the only way. We would may never, through his whole life long, not ply you exclusively with the threaten- have experience of the deeper agonies of ings of the law-till we judged the alarm horror or remorse-and, just because to be enough lively, and the affliction for of the wilful and resolute distance at sin to be enough deep and sorrowful, and which he keeps himself from the whole the sense of danger and of helplessness contemplation, he, from the place he to be enough overxvhelming, and the occupies, may view religion as a dull and whole discipline of legal remorse and a comfortless system; and while perhaps legal apprehensions to be enough length- he acquits himself of its outward decenened out-for then plying you with the cies, he will take care if he can help overtures of reconciliation, through Jesus it not to drink in its terrors. And many Christ and Him crucified. We should are his facilities for keeping it at abey, rather incline to mix both at the outset of ance, and for postponing,:11 settlement our ministrations; and, alike removed of the question to a more convenient seathough mnany of you may be from the son-when like to trer.~ble as Felix of fears of guilt and the consolations of old, under the power of.:-%dAenunciations. grace, yet, within the compass of single How easy it were in thei~giee of merry breathing, should we like to tell that companionship, to drown the urgencies while by the one all has been lost, by the of the last menacing sermon. How other all has been regained for you. manifold are the varieties of business or And our reason for this, will perhaps amusement, in whose whirl he can dissirecommend itself to your own experience. pate every rising impression of fear or of No man likes to open his eyes to the seriousness in his bosom. With what spectacle which gives him pain; and, effect can he lull the alarms of his inward should he have the power, he would monitor, by any of the thousand soporirather turn him away from it. Could he, fics, which sense and time and the world by the putting forth of his own volitions, administer to carnality. And then how drown the remembrance of that which possible it is for a man to throw himself hurts or which disquiets him —then the into the arms of forgetfulness, and to temptation will be felt to a little more cradle his soul in the repose of a deep sleep and a little more slumber. He will and determined insensibility. The bid off the unwelcome intruder if he can; preaching of the law, though in all the and that for the sake of a peaceful or a thunders of its violated majesty, may pleasing oblivion from all that might have no more power to shake the sinner harrow up his soul-just as the mariners out of his spiritual lethargies, than the' 15 i14 THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST AND HIM 1RUCIFIED. [SER! louder fury of the storm has to recall to able defaulters with the eternal imprison. dulty the inebriated mariner. The mani- ment that awaits them, if they have no festation of a coming vengeance to the other remedy than mad and insensate one, may have just the effect that the carelessness against the horrors of desman ifestation of a coming shipwreck has pair. The only way to recall them to upon the other. It may drive both to the path and the attitude of immortal their expedients of stupefaction; and the creatures, is to clear away that thick and excess of an abandoned crew on the eve awful darkness, which before sat on the of their engulphment, is but the counter- prospects of their immortality. There is part to the insanity of those, who. in this no other way of rescuing them from the world's oblivious draughts, hush all sense state of being without God, but by rescaof their dark and fathomless eternity. ing them from the state of being without The way to rally this desperado crew hope in the world. If you want to move were, not that the tempest should blow them out of their lethargy, you must folmore fiercely, but to cause the signal be low up the demonstration of their sin, by heard of relief and safety at hand; and the demonstration of the Saviour who then would they put forth all their stren- died for it. It is this whic,. gives such uousness to make for it. And the way effect to the preaching of the gospel;'and to sumnmon back again fromn his plunge turns its peace, and its invitation, and its of reckless dissipation, the merchant kindness, into the elements of a ministry who had lost all hope of his affairs were still more awakening, than any which not to astound him with the tidings of has nought but the threats and the teranother disaster-but to conle forth with rors of legality to sustain it. And you such a gift or offer of suretyship, as who have hitherto withstood all that is might cover all his deficiencies, and tremendous ir the,houghts of the fiercemake credit and independence again to ness of Almighty God-some even of smile upon his labours. And so it is with you may be drawn to do Him homage. the voyagers of our great earthly pilgyrim- when you look to the embassy of love age; and so it is with those who are that He sent by His Son into the world; debtors to do the whole law, and who are and, more especially, when you see that shortly to be orought to the bar of heav- the great barrier of separation is now en's reckoning. Quite in vain to tell taken down, and that a high way of conthem of the coming storm, if this be all. version has been opened for you all Quite in vain to threaten these irrecover- through Jesus Christ and Him crur;fied. SERMON XV. Danger of neglecting the Gospel. "'Jow shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation."-HEBRESw ii. 3. WE recently observed, in discoursing comforts of the gospel. And manifold is on the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and of the recorded experience of those, on Him crucified. that some were visited' whose desolate hearts the light of the with an alarming sense of danger, and offered reconciliation never beamed-till were long kept in a state of pain and of they had been preyed upon for months perplexity, and had much of disquietude and years, by the remorse of a coming upon their spirits-ere they found their guilt, by the dread of a coming venway to a place of rest, or a place' of geance. enlargement. They had to describe a But we further observed, that, though course of dark and strong agitation this was frequent in the history of conamong the terrors of the law, ere they versions, it was far from universal. And arrived at their secure haven among the why should it There is a message ot xV.] DANGER OF NEGLECTING THE GOSPEL. 1lo pardon irom heaven at our door; and its ciled Father. Some, in the process of very first demand upon us, is that we being alive unto God, are made first should give credit thereto. If any one alive to Him as their offended judge; claim upon us be preferable to another, and then alive to Him as their friend surely it is the claim of Him who cannot whose anger has been turned away, and lie, that we shall believe in His testimony. who has nought towards them but Are we to hold the truth of God at abey- thoughts of peace and of great kindness: ance, ave and until we have walked some Others again arrive at this without any round of mental discipline and experi- stepping-stone. They are drawn at ence, that may liken the history of our once by the cords of love, without being translation from darkness unto light, to driven by the terrors of the law. Instead that of some fellow-mortal who has gone of being awakened by the thunders of before us? Are we to postpone our faith its violated authority, they are awakened, in an actual report, brought to us from like the shepherds of Bethlehem, by a the upper sanctuary, till we have brought music of sweeter and softer utterance, the frame of our spirits to its right adjust- that breathes peace on earth and goodk ment, by having travelled over a course will even to the guiltiest of all its generoff'certain feelings and certain fluctua- ations. cons? Meanwhile let us recollect, that Now we should not object to any one an embassy from Heaven is waiting to individual who'is here present being be heard; that it is charged with the so awakened. Let the habit and history tidings of an atonement for sin where- of his life up to this moment have been with God is satisfied, if we are but satis- what they may, we could not forbid that fled; that we lie under a peremptory in- he should now look to the amplitude and vitation to look unto Christ and be saved; the freeness of the gospel offer, and and that overtures of peace and of for- therein rejoice. Though never visited giveness are before us, of which we are till nov, with one thought of practical expressly bidden to entertain and to close seriousness towards God-yet even now with them. is it competent for him, to meet the FaThis is a light, in which the gospel ther of his spirit and count on a Father's hath dawned upon some at the very out- tenderness. We ask not one moment of set of their religious earnestness; and distrust or despondency at his hand; no sooner did it so shine upon them than and should like it rather, that, sunken they rejoiced. The earliest morning of though he be in the depths of spiritual their Christianity arose in gladness-so lethargy, he were aroused therefrom, that they were scarcely sensible of any not by the appalling denunciations of tempestuous passage midway, from the vengeance, but by the sounds of jubilee, peace of nature to the peace of the gos- and the proclaimed welcome from pel. The call to believe, they felt to be Heaven of a God waiting to be gracious. imperative; and coming as it did with We know that there is a peace where what they were made to recognise as a there is no peace; and better than this voice of authority, it permitted not the sleep of death, where the disturbance of lapse of a single day, between the con- loud and perpetual alarm, from which viction that they were great sinners, and there might be no respite to the sinner, the consolation that Christ was -a great till forced to betake himself to the alone Saviour. They felt that they had no effectual hiding-place. But better inost right to suspend their assurance in the assuredly still, that you saw the hidingtruth of what God said, till they had place to be open now; and that, without completed a given period of sighing and the interval of a single moment, you of sorrowing, because of their unworthi- now fled for refuge there, and that the ness. And so, thev drew almost in- soul had no sooner broken loose from stantly to the tidings of great joy, that the tranquillity of nature, than it instantly.here is salvation for all who will; and fastened on the anchor of a hope that of couirse they as instantly became joy- was more sure and steadfast. At this ful. l'heir transition seems to have rate there would be no reason of interbeen immediate, from a state of ungodli- mediate dreariness. Converts would exness to a sense of God as their recon- perience now, what was oft experienced 116 DANGER OF NFC. LECTING THE GOSPEL. [SERKM il the days of the apostles. Their be- pleasing is the homage that we render lief would instantly come in the train of unto God's faithfulness. the gospel testimony-and their joy And there is nought in the freeness would instantly come in the train of their of the gospel, that should cheapen or de. belief. The glad tidings of the new grade the honours of the law. For in Testament would have precisely the reference to those who do accept the offer same effect upon their spirit, with any of its immunities, Christ hath made amother glad tidings. It would simply ple provision for all their offences and make them glad; and so, without the indignities against the law of God, by gloom or the agitation or the terror taking upon Himself the burden of their through which many have to pass, might atonement. And in reference to those there be a direct hold on the promises of who decline the offer, against them the scripture.-the settled peacefulness of a law still reserves the right of its entire heart, that has found its rest and its de- vindication. Those penalties, which, by pendence under the canopy of the ac- fleeingo to Christ, they might have evacepted mediatorship. ded, will all be discharged upon them; We know that there are some who and the frown of offended majesty will apprehend a danger in making the sal- gather into tenfold darkness, because, to vation of the gospel too accessible —who the provocation of a broken commandthink that it ought not thus to be cheap- ment, they have added the further provoened down to a level with any of those cation of a despised and rejected amnesty. common beauties of nature, to the free Their first blow was at the sceptre of participation of which all are welcome — Heaven's authority; and for this they who would demand'in every instance a have incurred condemnation. Their course of preceding terror, ere the disci- second blow is at the sceptre of Heaven's pile shall reach the triumph or the tran- clemency; and for this they seal their quillity of Faith-who feel as if it were condemnation, and make it irreversible. due to the vindication of God's dignity It is most true, that, by the constitution as a' Lawgiver, that every believer shall of the gospel, there is a free and willing be solemnized into a more awful sense dispensation of mercy to all who will; of the evil of sin, than he is likely to at- and the vilest of sinners may at the intain, by an easy and immediate transi- stant, set himself down under the shadow tion from a state of wrath to a state of of it, and be safe. Some have listened to acceptance-and who, for this purpose, its call, and the law has not been degrawould have him to undergo the chasten- ded by their justification-for in the pering of a legal discipline, during which son and sacrifice of Christ, the noblest of he might taste the bitterness of remorse; all indemnities has been rendered to it. and be left for a season to mourn or And many have been unheeding of the tremble under the hidings of God's of- call, and neither in them has the law fended countenance. Now we dispute been degraded or brought to shame-for not that this is one, and a very common the justice of God will only burn the way, in which the law acts as a school- more fiercely, because the voice of His.master for bringing men to Christ. Yet compassion has been lifted up in vain. it is not the invariable way. And still In very proportion to the tenderness of we affirm, that the g(spel cannot be that slighted call which came forth from trusted in too soon; and that men cannot the mercy-seat, will be the force and the give up too early their doubt and their power of that anger which shall descend unbelief in the truth of Heaven's corn-'from the throne of judgment on the still munication; and that the more quickly unreclaimed hosts of the rebellious. The we are rid of all suspense, in regard to more rich the provision of grace is, the God's own testimony, the better-or in more fell and hopeless will be the conother words, the more shortly that the pe- demnation of those guilty, who have riod of dread and disturbance comes to spurned it away from them. If the an end, and the sooner we thus arrive at herald of forgiveness have made full and the tranquillity of tho Christian faith, the open proclamation, the executioner of fmre prompt and' therefore the more vengeance who comes after him, will on XV l DANGER OF NEGLECMtIG'tHE GOSPEL. 117 that account break forth in the uttermost forth in the might of its elasticity; and of his fury on all whom he finds to be overleaps all those barriers of restraint, still standing on the ground of defiance. within which the angry passions of naShould the sacredness of God have ap- ture lay struggling, as in the bosom of a peared to let itself down by a proposal volcano-who does not see that the paof fellowship with sinner s,-tremendous tience and the long-suffering, which were will be the reaction of His offended dig- in the mind of the long unwearied benenity on those sinners, who shall refuse factor, and above all the message of forto entertain it. The very greatness of giveness which proceeded from his lips the offered deliverance will be the sorest — who does not see that these are the aggravation to the doom of those who very causes which enhance the guilt of have met it with repulse and indignity — the scorner, the very elements which for how can they escape; when they bring the most overwhelming discharge neglect so great a salvation? upon him? Such an economy is at one with the And this is the very evolution which most familiar and recognized principles takes place under the economy of the that are current in human society. The gospel. You are now beseeched bvy the man who has been insulted and defrauded -meekness and the gentleness of Christ. by another, and has suffered the provo- In a little while, and you may run to eation of many sore and repeated inju- hide yourselves from the wrath of the ries at his hand, is admitted to have a Lamb. To-day, if you will hear his direct claim of redress and reparation voice, the goodness of God would lead But should he forbear the prosecution of you unto repentance. But if, in the hardthe claim-should he, in the tenderness ness of thine impenitent heart, the touch of his nature towards the individual who of a practical impulse be quite unfelt by had aggorieved him, stifle the vindictive you, then is there another day which is propensities of his heart, and give way to a called the day of the righteous judgments pitying sensation in behalf of himself and of God. There is not a hearer now prehis family-should he, by a movement of sent, who is not honestly invited to kiss generosity, hold out the right hand of the Son while He is in the way-but, fellowship, and assure the author of all along with the invitation, he must also his wrongs, that still his only desire was take the alternative, that time is short; for peace, and his only purposes were and the way of reconciliation will soon those of yet unquelled kindness and re- be closed against him; and the Son of gard for him-should he, though the God, instead of being found in that way, offended party, come down so far as to will be seated on a throne of judgment, entreat a reconciliation; and to protest, whence His wrath shall speedily begin in the voice of a supplicant, his readiness to burn against all who have failed comto forgive all and to forget all-Who pliance with Him. You have first set among you does not feel from the work- at nought the authority of the law; but ings of his own bosom, that, though it this is a controversy that might still be were possible to stand out the provocation settled. But if you now set at nought of direct and multiplied offences, yet to the grace of the gospel, this will be the stand out the provocation of trampling consummation of your injuriousness tounder foot the despised and derided wards God, and the breach between Him clemency that has been so generously and you will be wholly irreparable. awarded may not be possible? The You first took feom Him the tables of a malice, and the calumny, and the injus- holy commandment, and these to your.ice of the man, may all be borne with; own condemnation, you have broken. but the contempt, and the carelessness He then stretched forward the olive wherewith.he hears of the offered par- branch of forgiveness; and you, by your don, or eyes the advances of a wvished-for unconcern, may now lay upon it the most and attempted reconciliation-this cannot degrading mockery. It is this which be borne with. The power of sufferance gives the force and the operation of a may have been tried beyond the limit of two-edged sword to the preaching of the that uttermost compression whereof it is gospel; and, while the savour of life capable-but when at length it does break l unto life to all who will, it is this which A 18 DANGER OF NEGLECTING THE GOSPEL. [SERMa makes it the savyour of death unto death this world to the place of the accursed to all who will not. In proportion as opened first on the view of the beholder; the unrelenting sinner is plied now with and then should we witness conscious the looks and the language of tender- guilt in its state of remorse and restlessness, will he have to brook then the ness and alarm-till the screen had been glances of a fiery indignation; and that further unfolded; and the way that leadgrace which were sufficient here to efface eth to the place of the redeemed, floating the whole guilt wherewith his nature is with the signals of invitation, and anso deeply and inveterately tainted, will, nouncing itself to b:e accessible to all, if turned away from, but aggravate there stood revealed to the eye of the earthly the reproach and the reckoning of a God traveller. And this is a process that is of vengeance. oft exemplified on those, who are called'You may now see how it is that the out of darkness into marvellous light. law and the gospel, instead of thwarting But often, too, the intercepting veil is at or obliterating each other in the exercise once lifted away; and both the danger of their respective functions, reflect on and the deliverance are made palpable the provinces of both the greatest possible alike to the soul, now ushered for the force of illustration. In looking towards first time into a scene of manifestation; them; we may say with the apostle, be- and no sooner are the thunders of an outhold then the goodness and the severity raged law heard by the spiritual ear, of God; and, instead of these in a state than are heard along with it the glad of conflict, each, by every new exercise, tidings and assurances of the gospel; strengthening that wall of demarcation and, with both in your full contemplation by which the territory of the other is at once, might you be urged to a choice guarded from all violence. Should a between the death and the life that are sinner, pursued by the terrors of the one, set forth evidently before you. They are take refige among the promises of the both placed beside each other in the text, other-he does not therefore defraud the which suggests to the reader, at one and lawv of its challengeable rights; but ren- the same time, the greatness of the ruin, ders to it, in'fact, the greatest possible and the greatness of the deliverance homage, by bowing unto Him. who, in therefrom. It makes a dread of the one, honour of the law, bowed down His the instrument for shutting up unto the head unto the sacrifice. Or, if the sinner other; and urges the alternative of the stand out in defiance to the threat of the coming wrath, as the'reason on which law, and be alike indifferent to the pro- we ought to flee to the hope set before us mike of the gospel-then does the latter in the gospel. For how shall we escape still leave him in'the hands of the former. if we neglect so great salvation 2 The gospel does not strip the law of a And it is observable, that the purpose single prerogative; and, instead of har- fbr which the greatness of the salvation bouring the renegado who would trample is here argued, is to vindicate a heavier upon both, the rejected mercy of the one doom on all those who shall live and die unites with the incensed justice of the in the negligence thereof. After such other, in giving tenfold force to the pen- an offer being rejected, their blood realties of a broken commandment. maineth on their own heads. God wipeth But Nature is alike blind to the reality His hands of them; and what mnore, may of both. In the gospel, it takes no de- He well say, could I have done for my light; and, from the law, it finds no dis.- vineyard that I have not done for it? turbance. The voice of remorse, and the Had there been no way of escape pointed voice of mercy, are alike unheeded. The out to you, it mlight not have been so open gates of Hell and of Heaven, which easy to answer the corrplaints of' the lie on the other side of death, are hidden, sinner against God. But now that a as if by an impalpable screen, from the way at once so palpable and so free has eye of the senses; and with every man been provided, and provided too for who is still unawakened, they are equally all under the economy of the gospelhidden from his spiritual eye. One might when, in lack of all righteousness.of his conceive, that, by a partial unfolding of own, the righteousness of Christ is held tlh screen,' the way which leadeth fiom out even to the chief of sinners, that XV.] DANGER OF NEGLECTING THE G( SlEEL. 119 he may put it on and appear before God turned him to his own way? Tell us, invested in its honours and crowned with honestly, whether the peace of your now its everlasting rewards-when invited, as deep and settled unconcern, is that of a he most truly and tenderly is, to wash man who has blinked the question of his out his guilt in the blood of a satisfying eternity, and so left it unresolved —or that atonement; and delivered at once from of a man who has sifted and scrutinized the fear and the shame of an accusing it in all its bearings, and at length placed conscience, to walk in the land of the it on the footing that will rightly uphold living with the erect confidence of him him in security through life, and keep who never had offended —when plied him firm and undismayed under the with the demonstrations of a Father's agonies of his death-bed? What! can love, that hath been made to beam upon you lay your hand upon your heart, and the world from a Saviour's countenance, say that there is nothing there which and to descend upon it in softest utter- might well make the death and the judgance from a Saviour's lips-when the ment and the eternity to be thoughts oath, and the protestation, and the as- of fearfulness; or bold in the sense surance of welcome and goodwill, and of your own integrity, could you now the widely-sounding call of look unto -stand the reckoning of a Holy God withme all ye ends of the earth and be saved; out a gospel and without a Saviourt when these are hung out to view in Are you not aware of sin, that it has dethe indelible record of God's own testi- ranged the whole of the relationship mony-when He hath thus embarked, between you and God; and is it not true and in the sight too of men and of angels, that this is the strong though secret the credit (f His honesty, on the fulfil- jealousy, under which you would fain ment of the promise, that, if you will but I escape the contemplation of His presence close with Christ and accept of Him I or tremble at the thought of Him as of ar, as He is offc fed to you in the gospel, you enemy who was armed to destroy you will receive alongr with Him an unfailinog And whether is it for Him the offended protection upon earth and a blissful eter- party, or for you the offender, to find out nity in Heaven-when things of mighty I the a:djustment of this sore controversy; import as these are rung from sabbath to and to dictate the terms and the treaty of sabbath in your hearing; and every day rec nciliation? Or, should He, in pity of the week solicit your notice, through to our fallen world, stoop from the heights bibles or ministers or the various remem- of His affronted majesty, and again brancers of Him who hath not left Him- beckon to -Iis own realms.of love and of self without a witness in the world —- purity its hapless wanderers-tell me is O tell us how you can pass through the it for you to quarrel with that path ordeal of the coming judgment, if it shall of access which He has prescribed, or be found, that, deaf and listless and wilful strong ii: the testimony of an unappalled in the midst of all these encouragements, conscience, to say that you want no salvou still would grovel in the depths of vation and stand in need of no mediatoryour own sin and your own sordidness- ship. moved by no terror in the threats of yen- But we cannot think of any here pregeance, and by no allurement in the sent, that, with minds thus made up, they offered friendship of God. can bid their whole-hearted defiance to And what is it that makes you feel so the invitations of the gospel. They do reckless and so bravely independent.? know that all is not right about them. Do you really think yourselves in a state They do feel that many are the biblet texts which it will do to die in? Would no which look hard at them. They are mis.giving sense of unpreparedness come aware of God as a Lawgiver; and how over your heart, did you but once find it is that He can both be just and a yourselves in good earnest on the margin Saviour, is a knot of difficulty in their of eternity? Can you seriously imagine minds, which, till resolved, leaves the of God's law, that its honors can be corn- question of their eternity at abeyance. promised-or of God himself, that H-le There is the impression of a barrier becan be mocked with impunity by a tween Him who sitteth on thethrone and creature who his whole life long has their own persons, which to them at leat 120 DANGMt. OF NEGLECTING THE GOSPEL. [SER[. is insuperable. And perhaps at one time What you so vehemently wish, He hath or other, the thought may have come accomplished. His right arm hath over their hearts-what a mighty en- brought for you the whole of this salvalargement were this barrier done away tion; and now it is finished, and'.ies and the sore burden of this heavy and ready at this moment for your accephelpless alienation were disposed of. and tance. Why stand you thus in vain and all remembrance of our sins were ex- fruitless aspirations, after a matter that is punged for ever, and the gate of a secure already secured-and which'now you and blissful Heaven were open to receive are simply invited to lay hold of? Grar us, and we heard the shouts of welcome that you are a sinner above all the singratulation on bending our footsteps l ners on the face of the earth-still the thitherward. What a contrast to the biood of Christ overm'atches the virulence things and the influences which are now of your guilt; and the open path of acaround us, could we find it only thus- cess that He has consecrated, you also and we, in full and confident march to are welcome to walk upon; and God immortality, knew the Saviour to be our who waiteth to be gracious, only waiteth friend, and God to be rejoicing over us. for your trust in His mercy through the Well then my brethren; and is this the atonement of the cross, that he may treat translation into a state of betterness that you mercifully. And even now may you your fancy ever dwelt upon, and has strike an agreement with the God whom longed. to realise. This thing on which you have offended; and make a final esyou are so intensely set, is the very thing cape from all future vengeance, and from that the gospel hath spread out before all your present forebodings, by fleeing you. By what mistake is it, that you for refuge unto Christ Jesus and laying and the gospel of Jesus Christ have not hold of His great salvation. found their way to each other sooner? SERMON XVI. Tlhe relation of the Law to the Gospel. "For Christ is the ernd of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth."-RoMANS. x. 4. " Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience and of faith unfeigned."-1 TIMOTHY i. 5. I. THE law of God mav be viewed in the distinction that we have now ana twofold aspect-either as that by which, nounced in its principle, and then follow when we imbibe the virtues that it en- it out into its legitinlate applications. joins, we build up and beautify a person- First then, when the law is viewed in al character; or as that by which, when relation to the righteousness which conwe satisfy the demands that it prefers, we stitutes the title to its rewards: then, when acquire a title both to the full enjoyment we strive to make this out by our own of its rewards and to a full exemption obedience, the aim is to possess ourselves from its penalties. There is a distinction of a legal right to the kingdom of Heaven. here, which, if steadily kept in view, It is our object to render an adequate would, we are persuaded, prove a safe- price for that glorious inheritance; and guard, both against theerrors of legality. that the value given in the worth of our and the equally pernicious errors of an- performances, shall be equal to the value tinornianism. The subject is truly an received, in the worth of that eternal important one; for twe reckon, that the blessedness which we labour to realise whole economy of the gospel is pervaded We proceed on the imagination of a con by it —nor can we think of a likelier ex- tract between God and man —whereof pedient for the illustration of the evan- I the counterpart terms are a fulfilment of gelical system, titan just to lay hold of the law's recquisitions upon the one sides T 1I.] THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL.'S arpd a bestowment of the law's rewards will man as if by the bias of a constitu upon the other. Theoneis the purchase tional necessity, recur to the old legal money-the other is the payment. They imagination, of this virtue being a thing stand related to each other, as work does of desert, and of Heaven being the reto wages. Obedience is the allotted task ward which is due to it. -Heaven is the stipulated hire. When And certain it is, that for man to estabthis is the conception present to the mind, lish a right by his righteousness, is in the going about to establish our own the face of all jurisprudence. When righteousness, is just going about to estab- this is the object after which he strives, lish our own right to immortal happiness. he indeed spends his labour after that And like as the servant who hath accom- which is nought-wearying and wastplished his term or his task, can challenge ing himself on a thing which is imfrom his rmater on earth the covenanted practicable. If there be one characrecompen-te-so it is figured by many, ter of the law of God more distinct that, after the course of virtue in this life and more declared than another, it is ended, he who hath acquitted himself of is the resolute, the unbending assertion its achievements and its toils, may chal- which it makes of its own authority; lenge from his Master in Heaven that and, in virtue of which, it will stoop to everlasting life, which under the law of no compromise with human disobedience. "do this and live," is held out as the re- There is in this respect, a high state and ward of obedience. sovereignty in the divine government, Now this spirit of legality, as it is from which it is impossible that it ever called, is nearly the universal spirit of can descend. There might in some humanity. It is not Judaism alone, it is other way be acceptance for the sinner; Nature. They are not the Israelites but never by the admission of the sinonly who go about to establish a right- ner's right to the rewards of a law which eousness of their own. The very same he hath violated. This is a position, thing may be detected among the reli- which, whether in the dispensation of gionists of all countries and all ages. the Old or in the dispensation of the Their cleaving agd constant tendency is New Testament, never once is receded to bargain for heaven by their services- from. Both the law and the gospel nor can they easily rid themselves of alike disown man's legal right to the rethis mercantile imagination. When they wards of eternity; and if he be too proud attempt a career of rigrhteousness, it is to to disown;t himself, he remains both a establish a right. It is to win their sal- victim of condemnation by the one, and vation by merit-just as any labourer a helpless a hopeless outcast from the wins the remuneration that he has mercy of the other. If man will persist, wrought for. It is to constitute a claim, as nature stiongly inclines him, in seekwhich they might prefer at the court of ing to make out a title-deed to Heaven the Divine Lalwgiver, in plea of pay- by his own obedience, then that obediment-and which payment is held to ence must be perfect,-else there is a consist, in the favour of God; and ad- flaw in the title-deed, which is held to be mission to those realms of bliss, where irreparable. It is thus that the law of He reigns and holds unceasing jubilee, Heaven looks down upon Earth, in the amon(g the choirs and companies of firm the unfalterinog aspect of its own inthe celestial. This is the obstinate flexibility; and that if' man seeks, in estendency of nature, charged in the tablishincg a righteousness, to establish a Apostle's days on the ignorance of the right —it forthwith becomes a question of Israelites-but certainly such an icnor- equity; and the principles of strict, ab-tnce, as mere doctrine or mere iniiforma- solute, unchanging equity, are brought tion cannot dissipate.'here is in fact a rigidly and relentlessly to bear upon legal disposition in the heart, which him. On the moment that the element keeps its ground against all the articles of a right is introduced into the quesand dermoonstration of orthodoxy; and, tion between God and man; then man long after that jurisprudence hath made i instead of sueing for Heaven in the attimost clear and conclusive argument of Itude of a petitioner for mercy, is dethe utter shortness of human virtue, yet mnanding it in the at'itude of a cailman 16 122 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [SERAS for justice —and the law accepts of his I insignificance of all that man can do for challenge upon his own terms. The the establishment of his right to the king. two parties are confronted together on dom of Heaven; and yet, he must be the ground of equity and truth; and the somehow or other provided with such a matter will be decided on considerations right, ere that he can find admittance proper to that ground, and upon no other. there. It holds out eternal life to him, If man, on the one hand, have presump- not on the footing of a simple gratuitytuously lifted himself up to a claim, that but in return for, and on the consideration is above the merits of his obedience-the -of a righteousness. His own righteouslaw, on the other hand, will not, on that ness it most pointedly and peremptorily account, let itself down beneath the level refuses to entertain as that consideration; of its own demands and its own declara- and makes throughout all its pages, the tions. Man hath braved the combat total-the unqualified denial of the efficacy upon an arena of his own choosing; of human virtue, when directed to the and it is by the rules of that arena, that end of substantiating upon its own merits his fate must be determined. He hath a title or a legal claim to the rewards of appealed unto Caesar, and to Caesar he immortality. This no doubt was one must go. He hath made mention of his great and primary end of the law-even right; and, by the very term, he hath that man, by the fulfilment of its requisicommitted his cause to a tribunal of jus- tions, might obtain for himself a right to tice. He hath sisted himself before God its rewards. But this end of the law, as a lawgiver —even the God who says man hath hopelessly frustrated by his that He will not be mocked; and that own disobedience. He hath entirely forthe law which hath proceeded out of his feited the right; and he cannot re-estabmouth, can no more be nullified or lish it, with all his strenuousness. And brought to shame, than can the truth and yet he would fain make the trial. It is righteousness of the Godhead. that to which nature is constantly promptIt is thus, that, in seekinc to establish ing him. There is an inveteracy in the a right by his righteousness, he finds legal spirit-so that it remains unquelled that even if he have but committed one by the declarations 4 the gospel from sin-there is the barrier of what may be without, however responded to fiom called a moral necessity in his way, witlin, by the depositions of a conscience, which it is impossible to force. The that cannot but feel the shortness and the God who cannot lie, cannot recall the insufficiency of all our obedience. It is utterance which Himself hath made in opposition to this legal spirit, that the against the children of iniquity; and worthlessness, the absolute nullity of all IHe hath denounced a curse, upon every human virtue, is, in the records of the one who continueth not in all the words evangelical dispensation, affirmed so conof the book of His law to do them. And stantly; and that the same doctrine is so so it is that every sinner who goes about zealously repeated, by the faithful and to establish a righteousness of his own, orthodox ministers of that dispensation. is either borne down by the misgivings That righteousness of his own, whereof a conscience which only serves to with man would proudly array and set haunt and paralyze him; or he lives at himself forward as a claimant for Heavease, because living in the delusion of a en, the Bible, with all honest and fearless vain and groundless security. For one expounders of the Bible, pronounces upon of two thing-s must happen. Either with as filthy rags; and nothing can exceed a high and therefore a just conception of the terms of degradation, in which it the standard of the law, he will be dis- stigmatizes, nay vilifies all human rightpirited and sink into despair; or with a eousness, when ought ~ like a right is low conception of that standard, he, founded thereupon. though but grovellingy among the mere Still without the investiture of a legal decencies of civil life or the barren for- right, man obtains no part nor possession realities of religious service, will aspire in the inheritance above. It is not by an no farther and vet count himself safe. act of mercy alone, that the gate of HeavNow herein lies the grand peculiarity en is opened to the sinner. With his of the gospel It pronounces onthe utter entry there, there is in some way or MvI.] THE LAW, AND THE GOSPEL, 123 other, a merit associated. It is not the one-and only in respect of its in. enough that he appears with a petition at sufficiency for the establishment of this the bar of mercy. He must be furnished right, that they so depreciate the other.with a plea, which he can state at the And this, not because, as many do ima. bar of justice-not, it would appear, the gine, of the low; but truly because of the plea of his own deservings, which we high estimation in which virtue is held have already found that the gospel holds by them. They first look to the law, no terms with; and therefore with a plea, that pure and perfect exemplar of all founded solely and exclusively on the de- righteousness-and there they learn what servings of another. Now what we a noble and elevated and perfect thing; reckon to be the very essence of the gos- is that morality which it prescribes to us. pel, is the report which it brings to a sin- They then look to the actual state of huful world of a solid and satisfying plea; man obedience; and just in proportion and that every sinner is welcome to the to their lofty estimation of virtue in itself, use of it. In defect of his own righteous- is their lowly estimation of virtue in man. ness, which he is required to disown, as It is just because so alive to the worth of having any part in his meritorious ac- virtue, that they are so alive to the worthceptance with God, he is told of an ever- lessness of man; and the higher their lasting righteousness which another has regards are cast towlards its supreme exbrought in; and which he is invited nay cellency, the lower most actual humanity commanded, to make mention of. It is appear in their eyes, ae beneath the'stanthus that Christ becomes the end of the dard from which human virtue has so law for righteousness, that is for justify- immeasurably fallen.'ho.y have indeed ing righteousness, or for a righteousness a very humble reckoning of what men which gives a right to him who possesses are, but only because the) have a very it. This end of the law we have fallen exalted reckoning of what men ought to short of; for we could have only achiev- be; and, so far from these advocates for ed it for ourselves by our perfect and un- the righteousness of faith having lost all failing obedience. Christ therefore hath sense of morality or of its importance, achieved it for us. He hath for us, by they have fled. to this righteousness as his sacrifice, borne the penalties of the their only refuoe, just because a reverlaw. He hath for us, by his obedience, ence for morality exists so purely and so won the rewards of the law. And, by sacredly in their bosoms. Why is it, the constitution of the gospel, every one that they prefer that righteousness of who believeth is on, this high vantage Christ which faith trusts in, as their only ground. He is as much exempted from argument for Heaven, to that rigohteousthe denounced vengeance of a broken ness of man which is yielded by the obelaw, as if in his own person he had al- dience of works, and on which so many ready borne it. He is as much secured would found as their pretention and their in the stipulated recompense of an obser- plea for the rewards of Heaven's blessedved law, as if in his own person he had ness? It is just because they see perfecrendered a full and faultless observation. tion in the one righteousness, and polluHe has attained an interest in the right- tion in the other-in the one an adequate eousness of Christ by faith; and with tribute to the sovereignty of the law, and this he has attained the end of the law therefore a full and finished right to its for righteousness. rewards; in the other all the worthlessAnd so this righteousness by faith, is ness of a lame and imperfect offering, the frequent, the favourite theme, of evan- and on which therefore no right can be gelical ministers. It may indeed be called alleged without violence to the law's inthe Shibboleth of their preaching. They censed dignity. These surely are not are men who exalt to the uttermost the the men, among whom all sense of morighteousness by faith. And they are rality lies extinct and prostrate in their men who degrade to the uttermost the bosoms. There appears rather to be the righteousness by works. But'let it be very strength and spirit of a moral esdistinctly kept in view, that it is in respect sence in that doctrine which they hold of its sufficiency for the establishment of and it seems the fruit of their more adoa valid right to Heaven that they exalt quate homage to the law, that, under tLe 124 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [SERM feeling of their own distance ana aeficien- I charity, and its bidden uprightness, upon cv therefrom, they have laid hold upon our own characters. Human virtue hath Christ as the end of the law for right- ceased, under the economy of grace, tc eousness. be the price of Heaven-for this power it lost, and lost irrecoverably, by its II. But this though one, is not the only ceasing to be perfect. But human virtue end of the law. It had another and a is still the indispensable preparation for distinct object, from that of holding out a Heaven; and we, helped firom the sancmethod, by which we might acquire a tuarv above, to struggle with all the imright to its promised rewards —even that perfections of our corrupt and carnal naof holding out a method, by which we ture below, must, by a life of prayer and might acquire a rightness of character, painstaking and all duteous performance, in the cultivation and the exercise of its make way through the frailties and bidden virtues. T'he legal right which temptations of our sinful state in time, to obedience confers is one thing. The a meetness for the joys of that endless personal rightness which obedience con- inheritance which is beyond it. It is no fers is another. For the first object the longer the purchase-money, by which law has now become useless: and, hav- to buy your right of entry or admittance ing fallen short of personal righteousness into the marriage supper of the Lamb. ourselves, we must now find our legal But it is the wedding garment, without right only in the righteousness of Christ. which you will never be seated among For the latter object, the law still retains the beatitudes of that glorious and imall the use and all the importance which mortal festival. To be meet in law, and it ever had. It is that written tablet, on without violence done to the jurispruwhich are inscribed the virtues of the dence of Heaven, we must be invested Godhead; and we, by copying these on by faith with the righteousness of Christ. the tablet of our own characters, are re-?Io be meet in character, and without stored to the image of Hiln who created offence or violence to the spirit or the us. We utterly mistake the design and taste of Heaven's society, we must be ineconomy of the gospel, if we think- vested with the graces of our own perthat, while the first function of the law sonal righteousness. has been superseded under the new dis- But thus it is, that the ministers of the Sensation, the second has been superse- gospel of Jesus Christ have been so ded also; or because the penalties of our grievously misunderstood. They strenuold disobedience are now done away, the ously affirm of human virtue, that it has precepts of our new obedience are there- no place in our title-deed to the Jerusafore dispensed with. Obedience for a lem above. And therefore, they have legal right is everywhere denounced in been charged with denying it that place, the New Testament, as a presumptuous which it invariably and essentially has and vain enterprise. Obedience for a in the hearts and natures of all who enpersonal rightness, is everywhere urged ter therein. Because they have disjoined in the New Testament, as an enterprise, it from the legal claim, the imagination the prosecution of which forms the main is that they have also disjoined it from business of every disciple; and the full the persona. character-or because not achievement of which is that prize of his permitted to be set forth and blazoned in high calling, to which he' must press for- a title-deed, that therefore it needs not by ward continually. For the one end, the their theology, to have a residence or a law has altogether lost its efficacy; and being in the souls of believers. we, in our own utter inability to substan- And not only have these faithful extiate its claims, must seek to be justified pounders of the New Testament been only by the righteousness of Christ. For charged wth hostility to the cause of perthe other end, the law retains its office as sonal righteousness; but the New Tesa perfect guide and exemplar of all vir- tarrm.nt itself has been charged with intue;:and we, empowered by strength consistency upon this subject. There is from on hlbi to follow its dictates, must a felt puzzle in the minds of men, in conseek to be sanctified by the transference sequence of its apparently opposite repreof its bidden godliness, and its bidden sentations on the importance of good THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. 125 wozks, and on the place and considera- by one passage of the New Testament, tion which they should be made to oc- the law in reference to the former end is cupy in the system of the gospel-de- set aside, and Christ put in its room —by nounced at one time as insignificant and another passage, the law in reference to worthless, demanded at another as indis- the latter end is retained; and we accord.pensable to all true discipleship. The ingly read, that "the end of the cornexplanation is, that they are available for mandment is charity out of a pure heart. one end, but they are unavailable for and of a good conscience, and of fait:. another. They avail not for justification. unfeigned." They are inseparable from sanctification. We have deemed it necessary to say They confer no right to the favour of thus much in vindication, for the advoGod; but they enter as constituents into cates and expounders of that system which that rightness, without which no man is commonly known by the name of " the shall see His face. They now possess evangelical." They are still much misno importance whatever in the covenant conceived and misrepresented in general between God and man. They still pos- society-as men whose preaching is insess a supreme importance in the charac- jurious to the cause of good morals, and ter of both-the just and beneficent whose doctrine sheds a withering milworks of the Deity, being the fruits or dew over the virtues of our population. the emanations of His innate personal Their doctrine is manifestly popular; righteousness; and our works of the but the imagination of many is, that this same or a similar kind, being in like is because impunity and indulgence for manner the fruits of that inborn personal sin are popular. Even the semblance righteousness, which, imprest upon us of a pure moral indignation does mix itby the Holy Spirit, renews us after the self occasionally with this antipathy to image, and fits us ror the everlasting so- the gospel of Jesus Christ; and so forms cietv of Him whc created us. The part of that subtle delusion, which alienworks of a believer are short of perfec- ated from evangelical preaching, the tion; and therefore short of that end for respect of many of the most intelligent, which the law is now superseded, and as well as the patronage of the most inChrist is substituted in its place-even fluential in our land. the end of making good our right by our righteousness. Let us conclude these remarks with But the works of every believer are two distinct particulars. First, then, growing up, and carrying him forward know, that the legal right is what you to perfection; and, for this end, the law cannot work for; but that in the gospel still retains the office of a guide and of a of Jesus Christ it is freely offered for stimulant-even the end of making good your acceptance. The very essence, we a seemly and a suitable character, for apprehend, of the gospel, lies in this that land of perfect love and perfect offer. We there read of the gift of sacredness, where the servants of God righteousness; or that gift, by which for ever serve Him. We never can by there is conveyed to you, the privilege our most strenuous observation of the law, of a rightful admittance into Heaven. arrive at a juridical or a forensic right to Be assured that you waste your efforts Heaven. But it is just by our observa- on a hopeless impracticability, when you tion of the law, as a law of piety, and labour to win this privilege for yourpurity, and equity, and kindness, that we selves. Receive Christ by faith; and arrive at that personal righteousness, lay a confident hold on the propitiation which makes us meet for Heaven's exer- made by that Saviour, who " became sin cises and Heaven's joys-the exercises for you although he knew no sin, that of a morality that is then faultless, the you might be made the righteousness of joys of a then complete and unsullied God in him." virtue. Virtue, when regarded as com- But, secondly-havinc thus secured posing that assemblage of personal qua- what the apostle in one passage calls the lities which we must carry with us to end of the law; count it your unceasing }Heaven, has all the paramount import- business, to labour for what the apostle ance which it ever had. And so while in another passage calls the end of the 126 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. [SERIL,ommandment. Though the law has like to that of a slave. And le assured1,eased as a covenant, it has not ceased that, unless this new obedience is entered as a rule of life. Though it can no on, you have no part nor interest in the longer be the instrument by which you gospel of Jesus Christ. That gospel shall obtain a legal plea for Heaven, it which bringeth salvation, bringeth a preis still the instrument by which you shall sent salvation, as well as a future one; obtain that preparation which is as indis- and they who are the subjects of it, are pen-sable as a plea-even the preparation under promise of deliverance from the of Heaven's character and of Heaven's power of sin here, as well as have the virtue. Greatly do they mistake the assured prospect of deliverance from the whole design and economy of the gos- punishment of sin hereafter. 0 let us pel, who think that it brings any exemp- then do honour to the faith that we protion from the services of righteousness fess, by our abounding in those fruits of along with it. There is, in truth, a busier righteousness which emanate therefrom. and a more abundant service than before; And never let gainsayers have to allege and the only distinction is, that, whereas of that holy name by which we are called, under the one dispensation you served in that it is prostituted by those who wear the oldness of the letter under the other it, into a license for iniquity. Let the dispensation you serve in the newness faith of the gospel approve itself in our of the spirit. The obedience now is of hearts, to bring along with it the charm a more refined, and pure, and exalted and the efficacy of a new moral existence. character, than ever was obedience then. And, in our individual case, let the mysIt is obedience altogether divested of that tery be realised of our not boasting in mercenary character, which never ceases the works of the law as forming our to adhere to it, so long as viewed legally, rightful claim for Heaven, and yet of our it is regarded but as the term of a bar- having become the workmanship of God, gain. Instead of a constrained stipula- and our being created in Christ Jesus tion, it becomes a spontaneous offering unto good works —so as that they form of love and of loyalty; and, proceeding the very business and ornament of our as it does from the new taste and desire lives. Thus shall our light shine before of a heart now emancipated from the men, and others seeing our good works bondage and the terror of a felt condem- shall glorify our Father who is in Heanation, it is as unlike to what it formerly ven. was as the obedience of a seraph is unSERMON XVII. On Faith and Repentance. "Testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ."-icq s xx. 21. IT has been'made a great question propound this argument here, we should among theologians, whether faith or re- find that altogether it was a great deal pentance comes first? Now though, too subtle for the pulpit; and we there practically, faith on the one hand has a fore satisfy ourselves for the present with great influence upon repentance; and, the following deliverance. No man can on the other hand, repentance has also a begin either the work of faith, or the great influence upon faith-yet we do work of repentance, too soon; and he not hold it indispensable to make a full should not wait for the one, ere the other settlement, or a full statement, in your shall be entered on. There should be hearing, of the order of precedency be- no putting off for the sake of any adtween them. Did we attempt fully to justment of this sort. If told to believe XVII.] ON FAITH AND REPENTANCE. 12" ne should stir up all that is in him — applied orthodoxy has done a great dea_ whether much or little-all that,s al- of mischief; and that the systems and ready in him, that he might flee for re- speculations of theology have been often fuge to the hope set before him in the so conducted as greatly to embarrass and gospel. If told to repent, he should also to cast entanglements on the practical stir up all that is in. hil, that he might work of christianization. What we have haste and make no delay to keep the said before, we say again. As much as commandment. When he hears the lies in them let every man believe as he tidings of great joy, his duty is to enter- can, and let every man also repent as he tain them. When he hears the call of can. It is not preposterous, it is in the turning unto God, his as instant duty, is order of nature, and there is nothing conto cease to do evil and learn to do well. trary to it in the order of grace-that We shall not therefore discuss the order men should be called upon at the very of these two christian graces; but, falling outset of their repentance,- and, as if it in with the actual order set before us by were the first footstep of their enterprise the apostle in the text, present you, first on which they had embarked, to give up with our observations on repentance the evil of their ways and the evil of their towards God, and secondly with our ob- doings, and to put their palpable iniquiservations on faith towards our Lord ties away from them. This plain busiJesus Christ. This is the same apostle, ness ought not to be suspended on any who, in describing how it was that he controversy, about what man can do, executed the message wherewith he had or what he cannot do. The terrors been entrusted, tells us of his having of the law can restrain a thief from open showed both to Jews and Gentiles, that depredations; and why might he not be they should repent and turn unto' God adjured by the terrors of the Lord, to and do works meet for repentance. give up his secret purloinings or his. midnight robberies? The shame of ex-. I. To repent of sin, is something more posure will keep many a transgressor' than to grieve for it. It is to turn from from the indulgence of licentiousness Em it. It is something more than to regret the face of day; and why might he not: your sins-it is to renounce them. Re- be told, on the dread solemnies of thatl pentance may begin with sorrow, but it coming judgment when many shall' does not end there. Sorrow of itself is awaken to shame and everlasting connot repentance; it only works repentance. tempt, to give up all the abomrlimable: And he alone fuilfils this work, whb gives I works of darkness? If told of poison in, up the evil of his doings, and enters with the cup, however otherwise alluring to full purpose of heart on a life of new his taste, the most inveterate of drunkards obedience. would stay his ravenous appetite, and' We have just adverted to the question, show he had the power to refrain from whether faith or repentance comes first. it; and why might not the same power And there has been another question be manifested and put forth, when told, stirred-which part of repentance comes that, by every new act of intoxication, he first, or which part is it that comes be- nourisheth within his heart the worm fore the other. Does it not first begin that dieth not-he kindles into greater with the heart, and then take effect upon fierceness that fire which never shall be the history? Must not the work com- quenched? If the prospect of the malemence with the desires of the inner factor's cell, and the execution which man; and then go forth in regular order, follows, be that which terrifies many so as to tell on the deeds of the outer thousands in society fiom the perpetraan? tion of crimes against the state —night And is it not preposterous, some have not the prospect of that living lake, the. agined, to urge on our hearers the pal- lake of agony and vengeance, into which ble reformation of their conduct, ere all the children of iniquity will be cast, e have made sure that a process of re- have the like effect in terrifying men generation within has really been entered from their disobedience and their daring. on? We answer, no; and we think criminalities against the majesty of Hleavthat in this matter a sensitive and mis- en's Lawgiver? In preaching repenw 128 ON FAITH AND REPENTANCE. [SERM tance then, let us strike an immediate or have they in them aught like the love blow, and sound an immediate alarm of God, aught like a sense or a principle against all the deeds of human wicked- of godliness. What signifies, it may be ness. We even now then, and without thought, although the thief should give waiting for any order of precedency, as up his stealing, and the drunkard his for principles first and performances after- habits of intoxication-if the whole effect wards-we even now call for such per- of the change shall be to transform him formances as ye can set your hand to; into one of those decent moral well-living and that though, at the first shakinot citizens who still are but citizens of of the dry bones, we should behold earth, taking no thought, and feeling no nothing else than the deeds of an out- care, either about God or about eternity. ward reformation. Still we bid, and that But mark well a difference here;- and if too their instant. their peremptory compli- you ponder it aright, it may perhaps lead ance, when we tell the thief to give the orthodox among you, to have a up his depredations; and the drunkard higher respect than heretofore for that to give up his riotous excesses; and the practical preaching,-the first note o' impure to give up his secret abomina- whose trumpet, as it were, when soundtions; and the unfair dealer to give ing the proclamation to the workers of up his dishonesties; and the undutiful iniquity, is that that iniquity must be son or daughter to give up their contempt abandoned. Mark well we say the differ. and disobedience of parents; and the liar ence between the conscience-stricken to give up his falsehoods, and his frauds; man, who has ceased to be a drunkard, and the swearer to give up his daring because the preacher spoke effectually to liberties with the name of God; and the his conscience and to his fears-and the sabbath-breaker to give up his no less irreligious man who never was a drunkdaring liberties with the day of God- ard, because his constitutional propensi-,even that God, who, though he dwelleth ties never urged him to the habit, or his in heaven, lookleth down upon earth, alike aversion to all that is disgraceful and unjealous of his day and of his name. seemly kept him aloof from it. In the Against one and all of these iniquities, one case of sobriety, we admit that there we would lift the trumpet and spare not. may be nothing which one can hold In reference to one and all of them, to be of any religious value, or put to the we say go and sin no more. There account of religion at all. But in the must be no delay, no parrying. It must other case of sobriety, it is religion and ~be the speed of an instantaneous flight, religion alone that has had to do with it. like that of men running for their lives The man became sober, because the from the awful wrath of God, which minister told him, and told him truly, is upon the soul of every one that doeth that all drunkards should be cast into the evil. If ye will not forsake these evil lake which burneth with fire and brim-:doings, the vengeance of Him, who is as stone-and he was frightened for his;a consuming fire will overtake you. soul. There is all the difference in the Repent then even now of all this your world, between the man who has been wickedness, that is to say. renounce it- sober all his days though he never thinks else there is not even the beginning of a of God, and the man who has become good change upon you. Fronl this mo- sober because he is afraid of God —or rnent cease to do evil, and learn to do between the man, who, constitutionally'works meet for repentance. upright and temperate, never once tremWe are aware, there is a theology bled at the thought of hell; and the man w'hich undervalues these reformations. who renounces his dissipations and his And the reason is that many are the dishonesties, because this thoi.ght has thousands of human society, who stand been infixed into his heart by words in no need of being thus reformed; and uttered from the pulpit, and now pursues yet stand chargeable with all the guilt of and agonises him like an arrow sticking nature's enmity, and nature's indifference fast. to God. They are neither fraudulent, It is this which makes a tota. difference nor intemperate, nor profane; but as between the two cases, between the one little, on the other hand, are they godly, I man's sobriety and. the other man's so xvII.1 ON FAITH AND REPENTANCE. 12~ brietf. In deed and in outward descrip- no embarrassment be thrown in that tion) they form one and the same virtue; man's way. Nay leave him alone, rather but inl spirit and character, they are as than that his activities should be over unlike as possible. T'here is no religion borne under the weight of our pon tn the one sobriety. The other sobriety d erous theological systems. Let him not Is entered on, under the force of a reli- be interrupted in the midst of his doings; gious consideration-in the spirit and un- nor the dread of legality freeze into a der the visitation of a religious earn.est- sort of suspended animation, that soun ness. The former is the sobriety of a which was awakening in its own way to man who never thinks either of heaven the reality of eternal things. Let no or of hell. The latter is like the first cabalistic orthodoxy put its restraints upmovement of one, who is fleeing from on him-leading him and the world at hell and seeking after heaven. It is the large, to misapprehend the real character first footstep, as it were, of his christian and design of the gospel of Jesus Christ, education. God forbid that it should be which is to extirpate moral evil from the considered as the whole of it, or that any earth, and substitute in its place the reign trembling sinner should have the misfor- of truth and charity and righteousness. tune to sit under a minister, who can tell But the matter does not stop here.. him no more than this of the way of sal- Though repentance begins thus, it does vation. He is but yet at the alphabet of not end thus. Christianity is not satischristianity; and let him not learn the fled with a mere work of external reforalphabet imperfectly, in our hurry to get mation; and, what is more, neither will him onward to the higher lessons of it. the man's own conscience be satisfied. He has not yet entered into reconciliation Let his be but honest endeavours, and howith God; but look to the expression of nest fears; and the unavoidable effect our text "repentance towards "-he is will be, that the more he does to obtain moving towards God, and that is what peace with his offended God, the more the man of mere constitutional upright- he feels the utter insufficiency of all his ness, or constitutional sobriety, is not at doings. The more he rises in his deeds all thinking of. He is not yet a citizen of obedience to the law, the more the law of Zion; but leave his conscience to its rises in its demands upon him. He may workings, and let it tell. in the reforma- have gijven up to drink, or to swear, or tion of its habits; and he is seeking to- to speak evil of his neighbour, or to wanwards Zion and his face is thitherwards. der abroad in daring profanation on the What he is now doing, and this you can- sabbath; but he is deeply conscious, nay not say for the other, he is doing unto more consciou,s'than ever, that he has God. He who said, "a cup of cold not vet compassed the whole length and water given to a disciple for his sake breadth of the divine commandments: shall have its reward," will not despise What happened to Paul happens. also to this day of small things. Hle will not him-" But when the commandment break this bruised reed, nor quench this came, sin revived and I died." The smoking flax; but at once pities, and is meaning of this is, the commandment pleased, with this incipient effort of a came-that is a sense of its purity, of its trembling penitent-' this shaking of his elevation, of its exceeding height above dry bones, however proud theology may all the possibilities of human performance, scowl upon it. The science taught in our now visited his heart;: and this larger halls of divinity may find it a thing of view of the commandment, gave him a difficult adjustment, and be at a loss what larger vi'c-:f of his own exceeding distance to make of the phenomenon-the exter- and deficiency therefrom; and thus sin renal reformation of a man, not yet initiat- vived, or a sense of his own exceeding ed for aught we know, even in the first sinfulness was more alive and awake than principles of orthodoxy; but only, under ever in his bosom; and so he died- or the impulse of nature's conscience and felt more emphatically than ever that the nature's fears, awakening to a sense of law's condemnation fo death was upon his danger and his guilt, and breaking him, and that he could not with all his off from the sins and the profligacies of eflforts and all his aspirations, make his other days. Now what we say is-let escalpe from it. It is well that he has put 17 130 ON FAiTH AND REPENTANCE. [SERM. the evil of his outward doings awayfrom the account of his debt and of his de. hilm. It is well, that, by the shaking of ficiency; and, in spite of all his efthe dead bones, some larger clods, as it forts, the conviction grows upon him were, of earthliness and corruption, have -that he is a helpless and a hopethus been shaken off, and no longer ad- less outcast from the favour of God, and here to him. It is. very well that the from the joys of a blissful eternity. And matter has proceeded thus far; and that here the question comes, what is to be wve can speak of this one external refor- the end of this? It is clear that every mation, of that other literal work of obe- thing the man does, but aggravates his dience. But with all this, he may be a despair. He is sinking deeper and dead man still. The life of obedience deeper every day, into an abyss of des. may not be there.'The love, without pondency. His prospects become blacker which a willing obedience is impossible, with every attempt he makes to relieve may be altogether wanting. The hand himself-fighting as it were against a may have been compelled, under the in- barrier through which he cannot make fluence of terror, to its reluctant task; but his way, while the penalties of an unfulthe heart refuses to go along with it. filled law rise like a wall of fire in Still it is well, that, when the law, with threatening array against him. It is the voice and authority of a school-mas- perfectly clear that with but the one lesson ter, told him to give up this one and that of repentance, there is no getting on. other disobedience, he obeyed the lesson Repentance is a return to that law from and gave them up accordingly. But which we had departed. But when the this is not the only lesson which the law law wont recall its own threats of vengives him. It tells him of the uncancel- geance-it wont cancel its own long and fed guilt of his past life, which he can fearful account against us-it wont look make no atonement for. It tells him of a on and be silent, while we are taking on curse and of a condemnation, which, un- new debts; and by new delinquencies of der the government of a righteous Sover- thought word and deed, come day after eign, cannot be recalled. It tells him of day under a heavier reckoning and reits own sacredness-the sacredness of the sponsibility than before. The law is not law, and the dread majesty of the law- of that supple pliant accommodating giver. It reveals to him heights of obe- character, not of such a flexible and dience, which, to corrupt man, are inac- yielding disposition, so full of complain cessible; and lets him know that, toil as sance and facility and good-natured conhe may beneath these heights, he, with nivance-that, for the sake of our conall his pains and all his efforts, is but mul- venience, it will let down its own exactiplying his transgressions, and becoming tions; or become a precarious, nay a every day a deadlier offender than before. polluted thing, by lowering and suiting it reveals God to him as an enemy and its precepts to our powers and possibilian avenger; and yet bids him love this ties of obedience. I'he law utterly reGod-love the being, whom, with a just fuses to make any half-way compromise sense of his own sinfulness, he cannot of this sort. It insists, and that most ribut regard, as a strong man armed to de- gidly, on its own terms; and if we have strov him. only the law to deal with, we see not We repeat it is well that the first les- how we can fling off the burden and the son should have been listened to, and in terror of this lawful deliverance from some measure obeyed. It forms a sort our own persons-" cursed is every one of guarantee that the other lessons will who continueth not in all the words of be of' effect also-that the man's con- this book to do them." If we have do-, science will become every day more ten- ings with no other party than the law, der-that he will see more and more of or with God viewed as a Lawgiver, we the perfection of God's law, and of his are truly placed in a most inextricable own guiltiness-that, in proportion as he dilemma. If we have no other than one multiplies his doings, he will be made lesson to work at, even the lesson of remore clearly to perceive the excess of pentance, which is merely coming back the law's requirements above all that he again to the law, we are fairly shut up, and Can do; so that every new day swells that to endless and unescapable despair. t-VII.H ON FAITH AND REPENTANCE. 13! But, blessed be God, there is another party heavy laden existence —overtaskad — beside the law, that we are called upon to overtoiled-pressed above strength and do with; and to which the law itself is our beyond measure, and yet every day beconductorand our guide-a school-master coming a poorer man than before-the for bringing us to Christ, at whose hands spirit sunken under the consciousness of we are provided with an outlet and a increasing debt, and the body exhausted place of refu-ge-and we are still shut by ceaseless and sore drudgery —the up no doubt, not to despair however, as whole proceeds of his industry torn from heretofore, but shut up by the terrors of his hands by the gripe of creditors, who, the law to the faith of the gospel. And, in spite of all their exactions, can yet exblessed be GoA, it is not one lesson only hibit at every week or every month's end that is prescribed-and that a lesson, to a deadlier count and reckoning than bewhich, if we are confined, and without fore. How vain to tell that man, to put the light breaking in upon us of any forth more strength, or give more time other truth or fiom any other quarter, of more diligence to the business of his then the longer we learn at it the more calling-with such a mountain weighing wretched we shall be; but, ever blessed upon him. There is positively no enbe God, there is another lesson: And couragement in any of these circumthe two so fitted, so helpful to each other, stances to industry at all. The heart is that the work of both, when they are made heavy; the hand is slackened; thus joined together, goes on most pros- and the' whole man powerless and paraperously: And so the same apostle who lysed, gives himself up to the apathy and taught and testified repentance towards indolence of despair. And yet there is God, taught and testified also faith to- a method by which this wretched and unwards our Lord Jesus Christ. done being, might be charmed and It. But it is now high time to enter on evoked into a life of activity; and an inthis second lesson-a lesson of:greatest spiring energy be put into his heart, that preciousness. We must be brief in our would absolutely make a new creature exposition of it; but let us at the same of him. If that debt were but cleared time be as plain as possible. It is not a away —if a kind and able friend were to lesson that can be set forth advantage- take it upon himself, and pay the last farously in the wisdom of man's words; thinog of it-if a full and free discharge nor is it the way of securing its accep- were put into his hand; and he, over tance, that it should be garnished with and above, were gifted with the means human eloquence, or made the subject of of entering on a walk of sure profit, any iasternfu. and high-wrought descrip- where, with care and industry on his tion for the entertainment of the human part, he could make certain of a compefancy —when the weight of its own eter- tency to himself and a rich inheritance cal importance should be enough to re- to his family-Who does not see that, on:ommend it, to the attention and the con- the moment of being restored to hope, sciences of men. Let us speak to your the man is restored to willing and active experience. If laden with debt so enor- exertion also? Who does not see, that mous and so overwhelming, that the in- when this weight is lifted off, the man dustry of a whole life could work out no goes forth in all the vigour and alacrity sensible abatement of it-if the wages of of his now emancipated powers-reanithe day did not even suffice for the ex- mated to industry, because now unshacknenditure of the day, so that the longer led from all his encumbrances, and with you lived, the claims which justice had the prospect of a sufficiency and an inagainst you became every day heavier dependence now set before him? than before-if thus crushed under a And thus, (God grant that you may load of accumulating obligations, with not only understand but believe what we no prospect of relief or of escape from say, for we now speak of the matters them —WVe ask you to conceive, with which belong to the very turning point what heart or what alacrity, you could of a man's salvation) and thus is the debt address yourself to the labours of your between us and our rawgiver in Heaven daily or cupation? What an unhappy cleared away. The great surety for sindoom, the d,tom of a weary, heartless, ners took it all upon Himself. God laid i 32 ON FarI AND REPENTANCE. ISERK on Him the iniquities of us all; and He suffered, but He has served for us; and, became sin for us though He knew no instead of leaving us mndway between sin, that we might be made the righteous- Hell and Heaven, Ile has done more ness of God in Him. That we might than redeem us from the one, by His own be freed from the curse of the law, did full endurance of the penalties of that law the only beloved Son of God become a which we had broken-He has earned curse for us; and on the accursed tree, for us the reward of a sure and blissful did He hear the full weight of the con- inheritance in the other, by His own perdernnation and the penalty, that we else fect obedience to all the precepts of that should have borne.. He was stricken for Law, which He has magnified and made our iniquities. He was smitten for our honourable. Now, observe the whole transgressions. The chastisement of our extent of that relief and that enlargement peace was laid upon Him; and, in bow- which He has procured, for all who acin(g Himself down to the burden of a cept of Him as He is offered in the gosvorld's atonement, did He pour out his pel. There is not only put into their soul even unto the death fo-r us. In that hands, a discharge from that debt which hour of darkness and mystery, when the He has paid for them; but there is put great lawgiver wakened the sword of into their hands, a title-deed of entry into vengeance against His fellow-then it that glorious and everlasting inheritance, was that our debt was paid to the last which He has won for them. It were farthing; for then it was, that the Cap- not enough, that, disburdened from aebt, tain of our salvation, drunk to its last you were then left as if to start fair and dregs that cup which the Father had put work out for yourselves the rewards of into His hands, Then it was, that our eternity. Who does not see, that, ere discharge was fully made out; and, one day rolled over your heads, you hearken to us-if ye believe not these would again fall short of the commandtidings of great joy, you remain listless ment-again dishonour that law, which or alienated or heavy laden as before; utterly refuses to dishonour itself, by letbut oh the power and victory of faith! ting down the standard of its own absowhat a mountain is lifted off by it, and lute perfection-again run a new score, how the sinner's soul breaks forth as if as it were, of debt and of deficiencyinto a land of light and love and liberty, again become a wretched outcast of conwhen, enabled to lay hold on Christ, the demnation; haunted as before by the perdischarge is put into his hands, and he petual consciousness of your own irapernow rests in the assurance that all is clear fection; and having no rest to the soles with God. And there is a great deal of your feet, because still without any more than the cancelment of our debt; solid foundation of peace or confidence for He not only made an end of trans- in God. And be assured that you never gression but He brought in an everlast- will know what it is to be fully and firmly ing righteousness. Mark the distinct- at rest-all, as heretofore, will be misgivness of these two parts of salvation,- ing and perplexity and despair, till reliec The mere blotting out of your sins might ed from the task of establishing a righthave rescued you from Hell; but, alone eousness of your own. That was the and of itself and without something more, old stumbling-block of the Jews; and it it would have given you no part of the will prove a stumbling-block to you also, inheritance that has been purchased for if you set out on the imagination, now you in Heaven. It might have shut that Christ has delivered you from Hell against you the gate of Hell, because by His sufferings, you will earn a right ransomed from that awful and everlasting to Heaven by your own services. You prison house; but it would not have must look to CGhrist for both. Yoi have opened the gate of Heaven, that the ran- as much need of the services of Christ sorned of the Lord might enter in. But. for the one, as you have of the sufferings blessed be God's eternal Son, He has fin- of Christ for the other. You can no ished the work which was given Him to more work out a righteousness for yourdo. He has not been satisfied with doing selves, than you can work out a redempit by halves. He has made out for us a tion for yourselves; and accordingly we complete salvation. He has not only I read of Christ being made unto us right. XVI.1 ON FAITH AND REPENTANCE. 133 eousness as well as redemption. If you already there-with God.he Fatherobtain a discharge from Hell, it is not be- with Christ, who is the brightness of cause )ou have paid the debt; but be- His Father's glory, and the express cause Christ hath paid it for you —if you image of His person —with the unfallex obtain a right of entry into Heaven, it is angels, who still retain that resemblance not because you have performed the to their Maker in which they were crerequisite obedience; but because Christ ated-with the spirits of just men made hath performed it for you. In a' word, perfect, who had lost this resemblance, you must look for Heaven, not as the and were again renewed in righteouswages of your own righteousness, but, ness and holiness. And this renewal we alone and altogether, as the wages of the must all undergo also. To become the righteousness of Christ. For your de- members of Heaven's family, we must liverance from the coming wrath, trust to acquire the family likeness of'Heaven. the sufficiency of His atonement-for It is said of Heaven, that it is the land your participation in that fulness of joy of uprightness; and to be admitted there, which is at God's right hand, trust to you must become upright. It is said of the sufficiency of His righteousness.- Heaven, there thy servants serve thee; And, in answer to the frequent question to be admitted there, you must become of the ignorant or the half-informed in the servants of God. It is said of Heathe nature of the gospel, who, after the ven, that nothing which defileth can enter matter is explained thus far are often there; and you to be qualified for that heard to ask, have we no further concern entrance, must cleanse yourselves from then with a work of righteousness our- all filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit, selves; or have we no more to do with and your holiness must be perfected. It the law of God? No more to do with it, is said of Heaven, that its rejoicing inhaas a covenant of works. Nothinog what- bitants cease not day nor night to glorify ever to do with it, on the old footing, and the Father and the Son, insomuch, that under the old legal economy of Do this the high arches of the upper sanctuary and live. Absolutely nothing at all to ring with jubilee, and loud hosannas fill do with it, in the way of building up a the eternal regions; and you, to participlea, a meritorious plea, on which you pate in the joys and the exercises of that might challenge a place in the kingdom blissfil land, must have the love of God of Heaven, or put in a claim for it that shed abroad in your hearts, and learn in shall avail against the judgment of a spirit and in truth to worship Him.righteous God. Nothing to do with it, Finally, it is said of Heaven, that there in the purpose and on the principle of charity never faileth; and you, to be deserving Heaven for yourselves; but, qualified for sitting down in its celestial mark us wvell, every thing to do with it company, must know what it is to have in the purpose and on the principle of a heait that feels for all, and a hand in pleasing Him who has deserved Heaven readiness to succour and to serve all for you. Justification, so far from being the whole Chrlist now stands in the place of the of your Christianity, is but the beginning law; and, to use the image of the apostle, of it; and so far from Christianity having you, dissevered from the law, your old nothing to do with Sanctification, which husband, are married to another, even is the entire conformity of your heart and Christ; but for what end?-that you life to the law, this sanctification is the may bring forth fruit unto God. Your great design, the great end of Christianobedience is as indispensable as before; ity-the main purpose for which Christ but then it fulfils a different office from died, even to purify unto Himself a pecuwhat it should have done before. The liar people zealous of good works. For purpose of your obedience now, is, not this object you put yburselves into the to make you meet in law —Christ has hand of the Saviour, and he puts into settled all its accounts for you —but the your hands a busy work of obedience, purpose of your obedience now, is, to'L Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever make you meet in person, or meet in I command you." You do not renounce 3haracter, for Heaven; that you may service in passing from the law to the become:le-minded wit those who are gospel. You only change the principle 134.MMEDIATE RE\WARD OF OBEDIENCE. [SERf, of the service; and serve now, not with love Him back again. There is an ala the oldness of the letter, but with the new- crity and a good-will that you had not ness of the spirit. The difference is as before; for now God makes you willing great, as between the reluctant submis- in the day of His tower-workillg in sion of a slave, and the prompt and cheer- you to will, as well as to do of His good ful obedience of a friend and of a freed- pleasure. There is a delight, a spontaman. There is a felt security which you neous and Heaven-born delight in the had not before; for now you know that service of God which you had not bethe all-powerful Mediator is upon your fore; for now He puts the law into your side. There is a strength which you had inward part, or, in other words, He ennot before; for now there is a spirit given lists your affections and your taste on the to help your infirmities, on which you side of obedience-so that what before cannot too certainly depend, and which was a weariness, or a drudgery, or a you cannot too confidently pray for. gallingf bondage, becomes your meat and There is a love which you had not be- drink, a congenial and much-loved emfore; for now faith has opened a foun- ployment. You serve God because you tain of gratitude in the heart; and you, love Him. You do His will because believing the love that God has to you, you delight to do Him honour. SERMON XVIII. Thye immediate Reward of Obedience. "In keeping of them there is great reward."-PsALM Xix. 11. You will observe the Psalmist does not loved." The hundred and ninetee'tth say in these words, that after the keep- Psalm is full of such testimonies; and so, ing of the commandments there is great indeed, in the one from which our text reward-but that in the keeping of them is taken, there is most distinct affirmathere is great reward; and the lesson tion, not of a future reward from oui which we mean to urge from this is, observation of God's will, but of an im that, altogether beside any future recom- mediate joy. T'he statutes of the Lord pense which may be annexed to obedi- are spoken of not merely as right, but as ence there is in the very work of obe- rejoicing the heart, as more to be desired dience a present recreation. The reward than gold, yea, much fine gold; and spoken of in the text, is the pleasure sweeter also than honey, and the honeywhich lies in the service of God now; comb-all marking a sweetness and a and not in the payment which is ju- satisfaction in the work of virtue itself, dicially made for it afterwards. It is apart from any coming good that may the instantaneous delight which springs accrue from the performance of it —a up in the heart, at the moment of well- current, and not a consequent gratificadoing; and not any subsequent delight tion, wherewith the spirit is regaled in which may have been affixed to it, under the very midst of the deeds and desires the existing economy of nature or Provi- of righteousness: 3ust as the eve is redence. And whether this be sustained galed on the instant by sifhts of beauty, as the meaning or not in the verse that or the ear by that melody which falls is before us —it is at least a meaning upon it. which fully accords both with experience In the prosecution of this discourse we and the doctrine o s-ripture. "0 how shall first endeavour, shortly to state 1 love thy law," marks a present gratifi-. what the ingredients are of the present cation in the keeping of it; and so does reward, which there is in the keeping of the passage, that, "I will delight myself the commandments: And secondly, to in- thy commandments which I have state the nature of that future reward V[IiI.] IMMEDIATE REWARD OF OBEDIENCE. 1 35 which cometh after the keeping of the the affections of the heart which constitute commandments; and of what importance its real and primary essence. Insomuch it is to the real worth and character that the love of God is said to be the of our obedience, that we should have first and greatest of the commandments; right apprehensions of this. We shall and all those commandments that have then, in a very few words of practical for their object the good of our fellow application, advert to the way in which men, are said by the apostle to be briefly the economy of the gospel bears upon this comprehended in this saying —" Thou whole question. shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." This immediate joy which there is in Now in the play and exercise of love, the keeping of God's law, might be re- there is instantaneous joy. Love is not solved, we think, into two leading ingre- merely acted on as a principle-it is dients. The first is the happiness that felt as an emotion; and, save when it flows direct, from the sense of doing strays fiom duty or is checked-by disapor having done what is right. It pro- pointment, it is a pleasurable emotion. ceeds from the testimony of an approving More especially is it so, and that in great conscience. It lies in.the satisfaction est pureness and ecstacy, when it goes wherewith the ear of the inner man list- forth in rejoicing confidence towards God ens to the inward voice, when it speaks -when the heart of the creature rises to in the accents of complacency. This the Creator, in trust and in tendernesswas ground of rejoicing to the mind of when it can look to the Being who made an apostle. "For our rejoicing is this, it as a Friend and throw back the the testimony of our conscience." It is willing regards of gratitude upon Him, not a rejoicing that springs altogether for those kind and fatherly regards that from the hope of reward; or because, on IHe ever casts on His acceptable worthe recollection of a past integrity or shippers-when from gratitude it rises to a past charity or a past self-denial, there esteem, and eyes with delighted admirais founded the anticipation of a future tion the gracefulness and the glory which blessedness. There is a blessinog in the sit on His revealed countenance —when recollection itself. It is precious on its on the aspect of the Divinity, seen withown account. It drops as it were an irn- out disturbance and without dread, are mediate elixir upon the soul. A good beheld both the mildness and the majesty conscience is a present as well as a per- of worth-and above all when Hle stands petual feast; and there is a felt and pres- forth in the charms of His unspotted holient solace, in the taste and flavour of that ness; and at once transports and solemhidden manna which it administers. It nizes the soul of' him, whom, whether affords something more than a clear by the eye of Faith or the eye of vision, medium, through which we might see a He admits to see the moral radiance that coming reward on the distance that lies encircles Hlls throne. There is in all before us. In the very clearness itself, this a beautitude of which no adequate there is the enjoyment even now, of utterance can be given. It is, in truth, sweetest sunshine; and the pleasure of a the very beautitude of Heaven above; good conscience no'more consists alone and may be realised, though in fainter in the hope of a future remuneration, degree and at broken iritervals, upon than the pain of a bad or an accusing earth below. There be a saintly and a conscience consists alone in the dread of select few, who, at times, even on this a futuLe vengeance. There is in remorse side of the grave, have attained to such a present agony, that is distinct from fear. mysterious elevation; and who also There is in the answer of a good con- after they have ascended from the heights science a present satisfaction, that is dis- of a more ethereal sacredness, feel, in the tinct from hope; and this forms one perennial sense of God's reconciled presingredient of that reward, which lies ence, a gladness which is also perennial. even now in the keeping of the com- If there be not at all times a seraphic mandnments. ecstacy, there is at most times a seraphic But there is still another ingredient. calmness in their spirits. They have a Though the acts of the hand be the out- peace which the world knoweth not ward expressions of virtue, yet they are and are not troubled as other men, in 136 IMMEDIATE REWARD OF OBEDIENOE. SRK ineir midway passage between them and plays on the human countenance, we Eternity. There is at least a foretaste may gather how: when there is kindness of the coming joy; and if love to God be within there is comfort within. The indeed shed abroad in their hearts, it is inner man feels, that when breathing in even now the experience of their hearts, the element of love, hle is breathing in that, In the keeping of the first and great- an element of light and cheerfulness; est commandment, there is indeed a very and that the happiest mood of the spirit, great reward. is when it blandly and bounteously deBut we shall speak nmore to the intel- vises for another's welfare. The selfishligence of the general world, if we ex- ness by which it of old was actuated, is emplify the truth of the text, by the now felt to have been a weight and a second great affection that is required of confinement upon its energies-from us in the gospel, even the love of our which when released, it seems -as if it neighbour. In the keeping of this com- had just gotten its native elasticity; and mandment too, there is a great reward. so could forthwith expatiate on a fields We do not insist on the constitutional de where there was room and liberty and a light which many have in the mere ac- genial atmosphere. It is almost as if a tivities of benevolence, or on the gratifi- stricture upon its faculties had been taken cation that is thereby afforded even to our off-and. it was now restored to alacrity, taste for employment; or on that enjoy- because its own proper force and freement which is felt by every philanthro- dom had been restored to it. Certain it pist, when made hopeful or happy by the is, that, both in the feelings and the outsuccess which has attended his prosper- flowings of human synmpathy, there is a ous manacrement of human nature. This satisfaction which not only blesses our last is rather a reward that cometh after companionships on earth, but which we our plans and performances of well-do- shall bear with us to the choirs of Paraing, than one which intermixes with the dise; and that, beside the goodwill which prosecution of them. But what is more radiates from Eleaven's throne and is reto the truth of our principle, is the plea- fleeted back again to Hlim who sitteth sure which is lighted uip in the heart on thereon, there is a goodwill which passes the first iistant of its felt kindness to- and repasses in busy circulation among wards an3 creature that breathes-that all the members of Heaven's family. no sooner dloes the play of cordiality be- Now of this we have a present foretaste, gin there, than there commences along of which even the most unsaintly and with it a play of purest and most satisfy- unregenerate of this world can be made ing enjoyment-that there is delight in to understand. For God, bath not only, the original conceptionrs of Benevolence, to bind together a perpetual society in and delight' also in all its out-goings- Heaven, established there the charity that whereas malignity and envy and that never faLileth-but, even for the temanger do rankle the bosom, gratitude and porary purposes of our frail and fleeting goodwill and all the benign affections of society on earth, hath spread the many our nature do rejoice it, being fraught thousand charities of home and of neighwith a double blessing, and dernonstra- bourhood even among the men of our ting the lesson of our text by that ample ungodly generation. And even to them share of it, which cometh to the giver, we canr, confidently appeal for the truth, and which consists in the happiness that that, in the grovelling pursuits Whether redounds to himself fionm the wish and of sense or avarice, they never experithe effort to make others bappy. When enced so true a delight, as in those mothe heart is thus attuned, it is then that ments when their spirit was touched into it tastes of the very truth and substance sympathv with other spirits than their of enjoynment-it is then that the mechan- own. There is many a scene of domesism of our sentient nature moves sweetly; tic tenderness on which this principle is and that, in the mere concord of its feel- fully manifested; and whence we may inrgs and f:-culties, there is unutterable gather what that is, in which, after all, joy. It is then that the soul is in its the real happiness of our nature lies. It wholesome ndl well-conditioned frame; is most certainly more in the play of and indeed from the very beaming that kindness to others, than in the secreting XVIIL] IMMEDIATE RV WARD OF OBEDIENCE. 137 or securing oI any animal enjoyment to a peace as well as transparent beauty and ourselves. In the walks of merchandise loveliness, that it is like breathing in the men are to be found, who, among the third Heavens instead of this world's noblest:specimens of all that virtue which gross and troubled atmosphere, when, mere nature has to boast of, can, upon under the guardianship of strictest delitheir own remembrance of their own cacy, the heart becomes that hallowed feelings, give the same testimony-who abode, in which no wrong or. tainted, imperhaps recollect a time, when, on the agination is permitted to dwell. These sad occasion of a neighbour's bankruptcy, and all the other moralities of the human the principle on which we now insist character, are what make up the true was brought to the trial of their own ob- health and harmony of the soul. They servation-who as they sat' in judgment are the very streams or materials of that over the fortunes. of a fallen family, were well, which is struck out in the bosom of visited with the xindlings of a mercy that regenerated man, and which springeth up rejoiced against judgment and prevailed there unto life everlasting. They are. above it —who could have exacted all, those fruits of the spirit which are sweet but, in a moment of relenting generosity, unto the taste, and which constitute the there was a gentle force upon their spirits food and the sustenance of eternity. which would not let themn; and, in virtue The crown that is given in paradise to of which: they felt and they forgave.- the possessor of these, is neither of gold We ask, if, in the tenderness and in the nor of silver; for these in truth are the;riumph of that moment, there was not very graces, of which the crown and all imple compensation made for all which its glory is composed. It is a moral they surrendered; or if all the money splendour that is lighted up there. It is which they made over with their hands, virtue which blooms and is immortal could have purchased one fraction of the there. It is the felt pleasure that they delight that they had from the mercy have in goodness here, though with a wh;:h then glowed in their bosoms? sad mixture and mitigation of earthliness But we can no longer afford to multi- -this is the very feeling which is transply these illustrations; and we trust that ported along with the spirits of the good it will now appear abundantly manifest, to Heaven, and constitutes the very how, in the exercise of love to our fel- essence of Heaven's blessedness. Neverlows there is a moral, even as, in the ex- theless, and amid all the obscurations of ercise of Love to our God, there is a ouir earthly nature, we have the feeling spiritual gladness; and how likely it is even on this side of death; and, such as therefore, that when the one is blended it, is, it forms that present reward which with the other, or rather when the one there is in the keeping of the command. either originates or issues from the other, ments. there is in the keeping of the second, as well as of the first law, a very precious II. Now, instead of the reward which and withal a present reward. there is in the keeping of the commandThere is not a single virtue, when ments, let us conceive that there had looked to in its own independent aspect, been a reward after the keeping of the of which the same thing migoht not be commandments, and not only so, but affirmed. They one and all of them that it is quite distinct from that enjoyyield an immediate satisfaction to the ment of which we have nowv spoken and wearer. There is a certain untroubled which lies directly and essentially in the serenity in truth and in justice-there is obedience itself. Instead of a happiness a felt and native dignity in honour-in that resides natively, or that comes forth -perfect keeping with this, there is a -nmediately, out of the holiness-let it be quiet and secure resting-place to the thought of for a moment. as a happiness inner man in gentleness and humility- that has been arbitrarily and by divine there is, we shall not say a proud, but at appointment annexed to holiness. This least a triumlphant complacency in all can easily be imagined-a Heaven in the virtues of self-command-there is a which there may be the delight that becheerfulness to the spirit in the temper- longs to virtue, but which Is also peo. ance of the body-there is in purity such pled with other charms-where there 18 138 IMMEDIATE P.E ARD OF OBEDIENCE. [SERiM are sights of loveliness, and sounds of lie as wide of each other, as do the two sweetest harmony-where beside the re- elements of sordidness and sacredness; creation that there is to the glorified and those services, which, had they spirit, there is also a recreation to the proceeded from willingness and taste, glorified senses; and the pleasures even would have argued a holy creature, may of taste and intellect are superadded, to in fact be nothing better than the sert the ecstasies of a saintly and seraphic vices of a drivelling and reluctant mercedevotion-a Heaven of space and splen- nary. dour and full security from ought that We might appeal on this subject to the can pain or can annoy; and whose very understanding of an ordinary workman. exemption from the sufferings of a hide- He knows well the distinction, between ous and everlasting hell, is enough to a love of the'work, and a love ofthepay call out the desires of all men towards ment which is made for it; and it is very it. Now we can well suppose, that the possible that he has none whatever for one ingredient of its sacredness may be the one, while all the regards of his lost sight of,. in the multitude of those heart are set upon the other. He would other ingredients which compose the rather have the payment without the felicity of such a Paradise as this-or, at work, to which at the same time he suball events, that it is not the sacredness mits only because he must, as to any hard but something else, which gives the and hatefl1 necessity. He would feel it practical Uirgency to our efforts and de- a strange proposal, should work be offersires after such a habitation. And, so ed to him, and, on inquiring about the reif it still is obedience by which we earn ward, should be told, that it was just Heaven, while its blessedness is fancied more work; and that the better he did to consist of things which are distinct. his allotted service, so much the larger' from the gratification that lies in the would be the supply and imposition of obedience itself-then virtue becomes that same service in all time coming. the work, and a something which is not Were this all the encouragement a masvirtue forms the wages. The candidates ter had to give, he would soon desert the of immortality are so many labourers employment; or if compelled thereto, for hire; and Heaven is not looked to. would at least feel the revolt of all his inor at least not aspired after, as a place cljnations to be against it. And what we of holiness-but as the price that is have to ask is, whether with all the corn. given for it. pliances of your outer man, there be not Now this is a consideration which you the very same revolt of your inward man do well to ponder, for it really does af- fiomn the service of God —whether, as in fect the whole spirit and character of ordinary labour the wages are given as your Christianity. It goes to the very a compensation for the weariness, so with root of the pririciple by which you are you a deliverance from hell and an enactuated-and will perhaps lay bare to trance upon some vague and fancied the eye of conscience, how utterly devoid heaven, be not counted upon as the afteryou are of that which may be deemed wages of a labour which at present and the very essence of religion. It is no in itself you feel to be a weariness — evidence at all of the love which you whether the service of religion be indeed have for a work, that you may have a your taste, or only your task, at which love to its wages. Let two men go forth. now you slavishly and assiduously ply, upon the labour that is prescribed to not for its own sake, but for the sake of them by their divine lawgiver; and it a something else that lies in the distance makes all the difference in the world befobre you-whether the exercises of between the one man and the other-if your practical Christianity be exercises I shall see the first busied with the la- unto godliness, or in the hope to make a bour because of his liking it, and the gain of godliness-whether it be a thing second because of his looking to the re- of delih'ht or a thino of drudgery, extorted muneration that comes afterwards. A by a lfar from without or excited by a taste for the employment, is a wholly feeling from within-a generous homdifferent thingf firom a taste for its dis- age to the glory of the supreme lawgiver tinct and snhequent reward. T'hey may and the woith of His commandments ox XVIII. J IMEDIATE REVARD OF OBEDIENCE. 139 but the worthles policy of a creeping comes forth with the offer of eternal life and ignoble selfishness? to you as the gift of God through Jesus These are questions which go to the Christ our Lord. One reason of this is. very soul of our religion; and by which we that God's jurisprudence requires a highare now attempting to probe and to scruti- er homage to be rendered to it, than carn nize among those hidden things of the possibly be rendered by the obedience of heart, that shall at length be brought out man; and therefore it will not consent and fullv manifested in the day of reck- so far to honour that obedience, as to beoning. 1They are the questions by which stow upon it the rewards of eternity, on the sterling and the counterfeit in Chris- the footing of these being a due and a tianity may be determined. The true rightful acknowledgment. The law of religiousness of a man does not hinge up- God refuses to let itself down in this way on what the things be to which he is to the degraded standard of human virdriven, but upon whst the things be in tue; and, therefore, instead of' holding which he natively and spontaneously de- out eternal life to us as the payment of lights. An inferior animal can be our righteousness it holds out to us for operated upon by pain and terror as well the sake of the righteousness of Christ as he. It can tremble under the rod of -if we will consent to receive it on this authority, when backed with the power footing. It is thus that the dignity of of enforcement, as well as he. Or it can Heaven's government is secured; and the be lured by the gratifications that are character of God as a Sovereign is not suited to its nature, as well as he. These at all compromised, by the terms of' acare motives, that can be addressed with ceptance which He holds out to the effect, to the mere element of earthliness; guilty who have offended Him. and, under their influence, many are the. But this gospel economy is not more formalities of religion which might be for the character of God as a Sovereign gone through, and many are its severe than it is for the character of man as the arid servile exactions which might be subject of God's will. The truth is that rendered, and much of its seemly ex- if you waken up the old economy of do terior might be put on-as much certain- this and live, you waken up that very ly as might sustain the appearance of a spirit of bondage and of low mercenary goodly profession. But still the question bargaining between the two parties, which is in reserve, if you delight in the law of we have already endeavoured to stigma God after the inward man-if the homage tize. Along with the fears of' legality, you give be that of willing and affection- the sordidness of legality is sure to make ate loyalty-if the walk you tread upon entrance again into the heart; and we do be that of a disinterested rectitude-if you not see how under such a dispensation, have been lured into holiness by the the pursuit of holiness can be disencumbeauty of its graces, and not by the bri- bered from the mixture of such ignoble bery of its gains-For surely there is motives, as would make the pursuit a nought in him of the pure or the exalted selfish and an unholy one. There is no or the heavenly, who labours only for access, in such very peculiar circumstanthe reward that cometh after the com- ces as these-there is no access to a sinmandment, and neither feels nor under- ner's heart for the love of holiness in itstands how in the commandment there self, but by making him the frefe offer of should be a great reward. Heaven as an unconditional gift; and at the same time making him understand, HII. We may now perhaps be able to that it is in truth holiness and nothing perceive, how the gospel of Jesus Christ else, which forms the very essence of comes in and adapts itself to the question Heaven's blessedness. that is now before you. It in the first On this footing let there be a will instance then, releases you altogether come on the part of men, and there is a from the law as a covenant. It tells you welcome on the part of God. There is that you are not to work for Heaven, be- no let or hindrance whatever, between cause that Heaven is secured to you in the sinner and the mercy-seat. You another way. Instead of coming forth have not to work for acceptance, but the with the stipulation of do this and live, it signal of acceptance is even now held 140 THE NECESSITY OF A PERSONAL MEETNESS FOR HEAVEN. [SERI out to you; and. instead of winning the'have the promise, you will have a pre, favour of God by your holiness, this fa- sent and a most precious sample,, in the -Tour smiles upon you now, and if you new tastes and new enjoyments of the new will only put yourself in its way, it creature in Jesus Christ our Lord. TlIis will, as its first and very greatest expres- will be in fact the beginning of Heaven sion, put the principle of holiness within to your souls-the morning twilight of you. O! then be persuaded to close your happy and good eternity. In the with this free and transforming gospel.. moral gladness of your renovated nature.'! Turn unto me now," says God, " and you will have the earnest of what is I will pour out my spirit upon you." I coming; and, on your way through the That law, which you are now so afraid world, will demonstrate how great the of, you will be made to love; and from difference is between the low crouching a service of jealousy and constraint, it and fearful spirit of the legal, and the li. will become a service of willingness. beral and generous style of the evangeliOf that splendid Heaven whereof you cal obedience. SERMON XIX. The necessity of a Personal meetness for Heaven. " Giving thanks unto the Father which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance cl the saints in light."-CoLossIANs i. 12. To any man who reads a few of these temper, for example, is its own punish. verses in connection, it must be obvious ment; and the misery which it inflicts that the apostle points to something more by its own working, may be regarded as than a judicial meetness for the kingdom the natural and necessary effect of the of Heaven-though without that redemp- temper itself. But it may further urge tion which is through the blood of Jesus, the man who is under its power to the. even the forgiveness of sin, we could transgression of an assault upon his never have been admitted into heaven. neighbour, for which by the law of his But to walk worthy of the Lord, and to country he is put into confinement. By be fruitful in every good work, and to be being' thus detached from society, he is strengthened with all might-these also certainly restrained for the time from a are so many ingredients of the meetness. similar act of violence against another; There is a personal, as well as a judi- and even when sent back from his imcious meetness, indispensable to our be- prisonment, the fear of its recurrence coming partakers of the inheritance of may restrain him, from giving vent in the saints; and while there is nothing extravagant conduct at least. to the outmore true, than that it is by faith alone rageous feelings which swell and tumulthat we are justified-it is just as true, tuate in his bosom. The object of peace that, ere we can obtain as the fruit of our and protection to the community is justification a place in the blessed family gained by this proceeding. But there is above, we must be sanctified by faith. nothing done by it to mollify the man's We often, in the matters of the divine temper. There may be something done administration, separate, in idea, the judi- to repress the outbreakings of mischief, cial from the personal meetness of but nothing done to purify or todry up the heaven; and we lay an inferior stress source. The man may still continue to upon the latter, while we count the for- fester, and to be agitated, and to sustain mer to be indispensable. What helps all the miseries of a fierce internal war. us to do this, is the arbitrary connection So that even though the civil punishwhich obtains between a punishment ment were remitted; though by the pay. and a crime in civil society. A violent ment of a ransom on the part of another XIX.] THE NECESSITY OF A PERSONAL MEETNESS FOR HEAVEN. 141 we obtained a full discharge from the part of our constitution. But still it is penalties of the law-there are other pe- the heat, the flame, the fire and brimstone, nalties annexed by nature to the moral the everlasting burnings-which chiefly infirmities of his character, from which appal the fancy, and engross the fears of the law can obtain for him no deliver- the inner man, when he thiunks of the ance whatever. It may take off the suf- place of condemnation. Now it is very ferings which itself put on; but from the true, that, by a bare act of justification, sufferings which essentially attach to the we may be delivered fiom all, that is constitution of his heart, it cannot save gross and corporeal in these torments.him. It cannot save him from the misery The fire may cease to burn, and the body of his own boisterous and ungovernable may cease to be agonised. But if the temper. It cannot save him from the character remain, the misery it entails wretchedness of being driven, and pur- on the moral constitution will also resued, and agonised, by the fury and the main. A mere deed of acquittal will disorder of his own passions. After it never work out a deliverance from this has done its uttermost in the way of re- misery. There is no new arrangement lieving him from the burden of every le- made known to us in the gospel, by gal chastisement-after it has reversed which God has dissolved the alliance beits sentence, and made it pass into a sen- tween love and enjoyment on the one tence of justification-after it has pro- hand, or between hatred and wretchednounced on him in such a way, that, fo- ness on the other. He has made no rensically and in the eye of the law, he change, either on the character or on the is a righteous person-after it has tendency of what is right and wrong.snatched him from the hand of its own Virtue is as inseparable from happiness executioners-There may be the ven- as before; and vice as inseparable from geance of an executioner within,. who misery as before. The economy of never ceases from the cruelty of his ap- grace, made known to us in the New plicatioes. The factitious distress which Testament, has no more broken up the the law lays on, the law also can lift off: connection between benevolence and But there is a natural and necessary dis- pleasure, or between malignity and pain tress appended by a law of our moral in a man's heart-than it has broken up constitution to the character, and which the connection between the sight of will remain so long as the character re- beauty and an emotion of pleasure, or benains. And in the heat and violence of tween the sight of deformity and an emoan anger. which restraint may confine, tion of disgust. So that; if, by a solitary but which restraint can never extinguish deed of justification, a believer could be -in the conflict and fermentation of pas- delivered from the fire of hell, and at the sions, which live and burn and fluctuate same time were to rem.ain in character within the brooding chambers of his own and affection just what he was-a portion heart-in the affronted pride, and the un- of the feeling of hell would still adhere to quelled resentment, which are at all him. His body may be at ease from all times ready to burst forth on the fancied that is painful, in respect of physical senprovocation of his fellow men-May this sation; but his mind, in respect of all unhappy criminal, assoilzied and justified that is painful in moral sensation, may and set free from the arbitrary imposi- be the seat of a torment as unrelenting as tions of the law, still feel the burden of a ever. All that is mainly and essentially curse from which there is no escaping- hell may still be attached to his person, and of a punishment, that, in the lan- without respite and without mitigation.guage of Cain, is heavier than he can Let pride come into collision'with conbear. tempt; and disdain meet with equal disThere is we have every reason to be- dain; and hatred exchange its mutual lieve both an arbitrary and a natural in- glances, from one unregenerated being to gredient in the punishment of hell. We another; and remorse shoot its arrows are apt to look only to the former, and to across this dark scene of moral turbuoverlook the latter. There is no natural lence and disorder; and suspicion and connection between moral guilt and the envy and discontent rankle in the hearts application of intense heat to the material of creatures, fired with hostility towards 142 THE NECESSITY OF A PERSONAL MEETNESS FOR HEAVEN. [SERl God and against each other-these, these of themselves are enough to bring though not one sensation of agony were a heavy load of wretchedness on the acpermitted to reach their bodies, are cursed, we ask you to think of the horenough to make a hell, out Df any habita- rors of an unregulated jail —where bodily tion of assembled criminals. These form pain may be conceived to have no place the sharpest inflictions of the worm that -where, if you choose, there is no disdieth not, and the fiercest materials of the ease, and the wretched inmates are refire that is not quenched. The man who strained by the terrors of the discipline has these. unsanctified feelings in his from acts of violence on each other. Let heart, carries the elements of hell about corporeal suffering be detached from this with him. He has only to die, and to abode of criminals, as an element of descend with his unrenewed passions into wretchedness altogether. Still there are that place, where all who have not been other elements, which, working in their born again have gone before him. It is hearts with unchastened violence, may then that he enters into hell. In respect beget such a mental wretchedness-as to of the material ingredients of the torture, make it the most expressive way of charit is certainly conceivable that he may be acterising this scene of confinement, to saved by being justified. But in respect call it a hell upon earth. There may be of the moral ingredients of the torture, mutual rage and mutual revilings.the passions themselves must be extrica- There may be the misery of revenge unted from his bosom, and to be saved he satiated, or of revenge venting itself in must be sanctified. keenest execrations. There may be the So it is not enough, you will perceive, uproar of bacchanalian levity, mingled to obtain a man's translation from what with all that is blasphemous in language, is locally hell to what is locally heaven, and all that is fierce or unhallowed in in order to translate him from the misery desire. There may be passion, whether of the one abode to the happiness of the sordid or malicious, raising a tempest in other. A great part of the misery of the the soul before its gratification; or leavformer, consists in the sufferings, which, ing after it the bitterness of remorse.by the unrepealed law of moral and sen- There may be the unbridled selfishness tient nature, are attached to vicious and of beings-each clamouring for his own unholy propensities. And a great part object, and only uniting in one cry of of the happiness of the latter, consists in daring and desperate rebellion against the enjoyments, which, by the same law heaven's law. You have only to stamp are attached to kind and good and holy immortality on these creatures, in order affections. So that to have the full ad- to have a hell; and though you were to vantage of an inheritance among the open the prison door and loose them saints, there must be a meetness of char- from confinement, each would carry acter; and for this purpose, to have the away with him his own portion of hell. sinner turned into a saint, is just as es- You may travel them from one end sential as to have a deed of acquittal made of the world to the other-yet would out —or a sentence of justification passed not these accursed beings, thereby esupon him. cape the sufferings of what is mainly Let us first direct your attention for a and essentially hell. You may even little longer to the first of those recepta- transport their persons into what is locally cles; and, however painful the imagery heaven; and yet, recoiling as they would associated with such a contemplation may from what that is which forms the enbe, the importance of the lesson must be joyment of its indwellers, they would still held as our apology. We are not to continue to be haunted by the substantial overlook the penal character of those wretchedness of hell. These are misersufferings, which are endured in the pris- ies from which no change of place, and on-house of the damned; and we have no sentence of justification, can deliver every reason to believe, that intense them. These are ills from which they bodily pain forms one ingredient of this cannot be saved, by a mere act of transbitter tnd ever-during agony. But there ference from one abode to another.are other ingredients; and to prove how There must be ani act Df transformation ]ICX.] THE NECESSITY OF A PERSONAL MEETNESS FOR HEAVEN. 143.rom one character to another; or, in and unsubdued nature. On the great day other words, if faith be to save the:n from of manifestation, let the utter worthless these, they mnust be sanctified by faith. ness of such a propensity, be laid open But, without going for illustration to to his now awakened conscience: and the outcasts of exile and imprisonment, let the shame and everlasting contemp' the very same thing may be exemplified of a preference so sordid, follow him to in the bosom of families. It is not neces- his assigned. habitation. Let him be sary that pain be inflicted on bodies by made to see that there adheres to his actions of violence, in order to make up character, the guilt of having cast his a wretched family. It is enough that God away from him; and the folly of pain' be made to rankle within every having forsaken the fountain of unperish. heart, by means of the affections of vio- able good, and chosen for his eternity the lence. Out of the elements of malignity, wretched employment of feeding upon and' suspicion, and hatred, and unfaith- ashes. Let the eye of infinite rectitude fulness, and disgust- an abode of enjoy- be felt to be turned upon him as an eye ment may be turned into an abode of in of rebuke; and let him know himself to tensest suffering. A house upon earth, be a worthless outcast from the great from the mere operation of moral causes, family of holiness. These are sufficient may be turned into hell. The fiercest of themselves to make out the sting of an ingredients of the place of torment, may undying worm, whether a weight of corbrood and break out in the dwelling- poreal agony be added or not to the places of the unregenerate in the world. weight of these agonising reflections. So that though the material element of In these, there is enough of the elements fire were altogether expunged from the of disquietude to give to hell an unsupfuture arrangements of nature and of portable bitterness; and to be saved from providence —yet God has other elements, these, it will not suffice that his name be which he can wield to the eternal wretch- expunged from the book of condemnaedness of those who disobey him. There tion. It vill not suffice that a sentence are other agonies which share the work of justification be attached to his name. of vengeance in that lake, that is repre- A real process of crucifying him unto sented as burning with fire and brim- the world, and making him alive,unto stone. Our own passions will be to Him God, must be attached to his person. Or, the ministers of hottest indignation; and in other words in virtue of an eternal, to be saved from these, it is not enough ordination by which misery of feeling is:. that we be justified in our persons —there ever attached to worthlessness of charmust be a meetness impressed on our acter, there is a misery attached to every' characters, and to be saved we must be depraved creature, to be saved from. sanctified. which, his depravity must be done away,. It is true, at the same time, of many a and he must be sanctified. worldly man-that he may be compara- This might be rendered'still more, tively a stranger to the fiercer maligni- evident, by our directing your attention,, ties of our nature; and that he may not, in the second place, to heaven, and to; therefore, carry to the place of his desti- the essential character of that blessedness.: nation the torture which these are calcu- which is found in it. But enough that lated to inflict upon him. But it is at we distinguish between that part of the. least true of cvery man, who is not born punishment of hell, which is arbitrarily' ot the Spirit of God that he loves the attached to sin, and that part of it which creature more than the Creator. Let is necessarily and naturally attached to-; him carry this unsanctified affection with sin. It may be seen from this how little, him to his grave. Let the desires of a mere unaccompanied deed of justificaflesh and blood remain unsanctified by tion can do for us-if it only deliver us. the Holy Ghost, at that period when from the material fire of the place of death lays him prostrate like a fallen tree condemnation. It will be seen, that, even: upon the ground. Let it be true, that as were the fire extinguished, there would, the tree falleth so it lies; and that when in every unregenerate bosom, be morali he rises again, he rises with this idola- elements at work, to constitute an undy. trous affection in the full vigour of carnal ing worm, which would never cease to 144 THE NECESSITY OF A PERSONAL MEETNESS FOR HEAVEN. [SERM,. torment us by its corrosions-that, to be commandment of the law. God, in fact, delivered from the torture and the fury must make that new covenant with us, of these elements, the elements them- by which He gives us clean hearts, and selves must be extinguished; or, in other creates within us right spirits. In other words, we must be delivered from all the words, it is not enough that there be passions and all the propensities of un- a forensic deed of justification. There godliness. We must be delivered fiom must be a personal transformation of the whole train of dark, and malignant, character; and faith cannot save us from and worldly affections, which the apostle that which forms the mighty burden of denominates the works of the flesh. We a sinner's curse-but through the sinnet must be delivered from all that is oppo- being sanctified by faith. site either to the first or to the second SERMON XX. J'he connection between Singleness of Aim and Spiritual Discernment. "The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light."-MATTHEW Vi. 22. THERE is a great demand among cer- singleness consist in the oneness of.ihe tain religionists, for clear and simple thing which it saw, so that all the other views of the gospel. And, to make this things both new and old of scripture were good, they often fasten upon some one unheeded or unobserved by it-this truth or object in the field of revelation, surely were an impotency or a defect, to which they look singly and exclu- instead of an excellency in the mental sively; and as if it alone were representa- eye. Instead of the whole body being live of all Christianity, or comprehensive full of light, there would be a partial and,of all. They seem to have confounded distorted view of Christian truth; and for -singleness of eye, with the singleness of the largeness and variety of heaven's,the object which the eye fastens upon: own communication, we should be wholly wand to have understood our Saviour as if taken up with some shibboleth of a party He meant to describe the state of the some solitaryprinciple or point of narrow kobject, when He was describing the state sectarianism. of the organ. Now it is with the mental We may be sure then that the single as it is with the corporeal eye. In a pure ness of eye, in our text, is something and right state of the latter, it is not one different from any straitening of this sort tthing only which is seen, but all the and by which, in fact, illumination were ithings which are on the field of vision- obstructed, rather than let forth in all its the trees, and the houses, and the various fulness and expanse upon the understandlobjects, which make up a complex and ing. This singleness of eye refers not,extended landscape. It would mark a to the number of truths which might be disease, and not a perfection, in this presented to the contemplation of the organ —were its power of beholding re- intellect; nor does it signify that we stricted to one thing only. And the should but entertain one truth, or one same is true of the spiritual landscape- topic, in opposition to a multiplicity. It of the Bible that tablet of revelation, on refers to the number of pursuits in which, which are spread out the doctrines and for various objects of desire or affection, nte informations of a voluminous record. we might be practically engaged; and it It would argue no perfection in the signifies that we should give ourselves to seeing faculty of the mind, were it awake one such pursuit to the exclusion of every only to one of these doctrines while blind other, or at least to the entire subordina. or undiscerning to all the rest. Did its tion of every other. It is called single. XX.1 CONNECTION OF SINGLENESS OF AIM AND SPIRITUAL DISCERNMLNT. 1t5 ness of eye, not because the eye sees but expediting of this journey, there is use one thing; but, more properly, because for the whole fulness and furniture of the it looks in one direction-having one Bible. And as its objects are various, so great object after which the mind pre-. the mind is variously exercised-at one dominantly aims; and to which therefore time with the doctrine of the sacrifice, it looks steadfastly, and constantly, and whence it obtaineth peace-at another so singly. Singleness of eye in this with the doctrine of the Spirit, whence it place, denotes, not the simplicity of our obtaineth strength —at a third with the intellectual regards as bestowed on some doctrine of the law as a rule of. life one object of theoretical contemplation, to believers, whence it obtaineth direcbut the simplicity of our moral regards tion. In short. instead of but one truth towards some one object of practical singled out perhaps by some hair-splitting attainment. It marks the unity, and or metaphysic nicety,the manifold lights along with' it, the energy of a ruling of scripture and experience conspire to passion-for which every other passion shine upon his way. His eye is single, is pressed into subserviency, or gives not because it looks to but one point way altogether. It follows not because in theology-but because intent upon the the mind hath fixed and concentred all its one object of a blissfull immortality, or faculties on - some one acquisition, that upon the one path which leads to it. it must all the while confine its regards Now though, beside the single pursuit to but one truth in science or one article of religion, there may be specified a in theology. The navigator may have thousand other pursuits distinct from it set his heart on the realizing of a d-is- and opposed to it —as the pursuit of fame, covery in some remote quarter of the the pursuit of fortune, the pursuit of amglobe; and with this, as his supreme or bition, the pursuit of pleasure-yet, in the rather single ambition, he may repel Bible, all these are generally classed every lateraltemptation that would divert together and comprehended, under the him on his way; and suffer neither the one characteristic of enmity to God and beauty and luxury of one region to detain a life of godliness, of rivalship with the him, nor the gainful merchandise of interests of eternity. another to draw him from his course. It is thus that the children of light and There is here singleness of eye-yet of the children of this world are contrasted an eve filled and exercised with many with each other-the meat that perisheth, ooi0ects of contemplation notwithstanding; with the meat that endureth-the tempand busied in the work of perpetual tations of the present evil world, with the observation, both on the depths of the powers of the world to come-the broad earth beneath and on the courses of the way of destruction, with the narrow path firmament above, on the compass by of life everlasting-the slavery of Satan, which he steers, on the chart by which with the service of the living and true he measures and ascertains his progress. God Man is looked upon as being unThe voyage may be said to have but one der the rivalry of two great forces, of but object-yet, for its proper guidance and two great conflicting elements. Our text, equipment, there might be a manifold where singleness of eye is recommended,ttention required, and light not firom one lies between one passage in which we but from many sciences. And so of the are told to lay not up for ourselves voyage to eternity, and the steadfast or treasures on earth but treasures in singlehearted prosecution of it. The heaven, and another passage in which )bject is one; and he who is resolved we are told that no man serve two apon its attainment, may evince both the masters and that he cannot serve God;trength and the simplicity of his purpose, and mammon. This singleness stands ny his universal resistance to the various opposed in scripture, not to multiplicity, solicitations, that would draw him by a but to doubleness. It is true that there;housand devious ways from the path are manifold earthly affections, any one:o heaven. Yet we are not to suppose, of which might prevail to the destruction:hat, because the object is one, it is but of our hopes and interests in eternity;;he light of one truth or one proposition yet they may all be regarded, in their which leads the way to it. To the one generic character of earthliness 19 i146 CONNECTION OF SINGLENESS OF AIM AND SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT. [SERIi. " Love not the world," says the apostle heaven, and who, in pursuit of this, is John, "neither the things that are in the ready to shun or to sacrifice every object world. If any man love the world, the of desire that would enter into colnpetilove of the Father is not in him. For tion with it-how he comes, and in virall that is in the world, the lust of the tue of this very attitude, to move forward flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the in an element of clearness, and to be free pride of life, is not of the Father but is from the doubts and uncertainties which of the world. And the world passeth harass the spirits and hinder-the proaway and the lust thereof; but he that gress of other men. doeth the will of God abideth for ever." It is by wavering between these two, be- I. Nowthe first reason for this is very tween the will of God on the one hand, obvious, and in harmony with all expeand some worldly affection whatever that rience. That which we most desire to may be upon the other-that we neglect have, we most desire to know about; o0 the injunction of the text, like the double- at least, to know the means of obtaining minded man who is unstable in all his it. It is not in nature, that we should ways. It is because the eye most looks vehemently wish to possess an object, to what the heart most likes, that single- and yet be at no pains to inquire the ness of eye is made to denote the single- way to it. Let a man be actuated by a ness of a heart, set upon heaven and its strong and unceasing desire after salvatreasures. It is because the retards of tion; and he will never cease to search the mind are solely fixed upon that after the way of salvation, even till he which is solely aimed after, that, by the has found it. He will hearken diligentsame term, we may express that full pur- ly, and, as the fruit of this, his soul will pose of heart, wherewith we cleave to at length be satisfied. The desire of his the one master, and utterly refuse the heart will set to work the faculties of his bribes or service of the other. It is be- mind; and, just as in all other busy cause when bent on some great pursuit, scholarship, the learning is in proportion we turn aside neither to the right nor to the labour-so will he find it the way to the left, but persevere in our onward to light and learning in the scholarship course, unseduced by any object that of Christianity. The more sharply set would lure us into by-ways-that by the we are upon any attainment, the more singleness of eye in our text. we under- surely will we give all our wits to the instand the habit of him, who, actuated by vestigation of the process by which it the one perpetual will to be what he may be reached; and just as the skill ought and do what he ought, resists the and intelligence are all the greater in a very solicitation that might tempt him favourite service, than in one to which away from this great and unchanging we are indifferent-so the more favourite principle. Singleness of eye is held any object of ambition is, the more exerequivalent to singleness of heart or of cised and awake will our attention be to purpose —because when the regards of all the methods by which it may-be realthe heart are solely directed. to the one ized. Just conceive this object to be the thing needful, then the regards of the un- friendship of God. Let it be the understanding are solely directed to its con- quenchable desire of the creature, going templation, and to the means of securing forth in quest of the Creator. Let it be it. And what we have now to evince is such a thirst after the living God, as to how, such being the moral state of the nmake it the supreme and most urgent appurposes and affections, the intellectual petite of his nature-Then, under its imstate of the whole body being full of light pulse, he, in the strong language of scripfollows from it-just as an effect does friom ture, will stir himself up that he may lay its cause, or a consequent from the ante-. hold of his Maker; he will search after 3edent that went before it. We should Him as for hidden treasure; he will seek like, if possible, to manifest the connec- for Him if haply he may find Him. He tion between the one and the other; and will eag'erly pursue after every trace and to show 1y what transition it is, that the indication of the Godhead.: He will seek man whose whole determination and de- for Him in the Bible. He will seek for sire is to Wmake good his eternity in Him in meditation. Ile will seek for XX.] CONNECTION OF SINGLENESS OF AIM AND:SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT. 147 Him in prayer. He will grope as it they may clearly see light? He holds were in every direction fui the way Himself out:as the rewarder of those of access; nor will he take rest to who seek Him diligently —what we ask his soul, while the deeply interesting has been their diligence in seeking God?' question is unsettled, wherewithal shall Do they expect to find Him without dili. a sinner appear before God? It is gence; and while they are indulging in evident that the more intense this desire, spiritual sloth, or are diligent about other' the more intense and diligent also will even temporal things, the light of His his search be after the object of it. countenance and His ways is at once to And should the one become the engross- break forth upon them? They have ing desire of his heart, the other will be- never found; but in good truth it is bezome the paramount business of his life. cause they have never sought. At least It will be his supreme and unremitting their seeking has never amounted to earnestness, to seek after God. Should striving. It has been nothing like the he at length find Him and find Him fully, i strenuous and sustained effort of one there is nothing at least to surprise us in- singly bent on the good of his eternity; the result. It is in keeping with a law, and giving himself, with perfect singlewhich, in every department of attainable ness of heart and of eye, to this great knowledge, holds universally. Generally consummation. Day after day, the quesspeaking, in proportion to the laborious- tion has been postponed; and they have ness of the search, is the largeness of the put off to a more.convenient season the discovery. There is nothing mysterious labour of its full and serious entertainin this. It seems to follow in the way ment; and, in reference to the peculiar of natural consequence; nor should we business of their eternity, to the good'and wonder, when the heart or the eye is the interest of their unperishable souls. thus so strongly, nay so singly set on a their habit all their lives long has been blissful eternity, as that the whole con- that of a dull and languid procrastination cern is to explore the avenue which leads — with now and then perhaps some fruitto it-that the fruit of such singleness of less sighs, some heaving yet transient eye is the whole body becoming full of and wholly' unproductive aspirations. light. But never all the while a real taking up Before we pass on to the next reason of the question —a real and substantial of this connection between the one thing and industrious prosecution of it. They and the other, let us appeal to the con- do not make a business of this inquiry at sciences of those who are now present all. They do not go about it, with the on the subject of the reason which we plain and practical object of bringing it have just given. If they hold it to be an to a settlement. On the subject of their invalid reason, can they say so on their eternity, they acquiesce in the most vague own experience? Have they given all and unsubstantial generalities; and are diligence to this great inquiry, and find at no pains that it should be otherwise. that they remain in darkness notwith- Yet they complain of darkness. We tell standing? Have they striven with all theml that they have not bestirred themtheir might after a knowledge of the selves to the search. Trhey distrust the things which belong to their peace, and efficacy of a search. We tell them that yet abide as far from peace and from they are no judges, they have nevei satisfying light as before? Can they tried. appeal to the fatiguing yet fruitless toils of a most laborious and long-sustained II. Our next reason, however difficu. inquiry, that has yet terminated in no- to propound, we hold to be one of thing?. What have been their readings, main efficacy in this process. He whoc what their importunate and persevering hath singled out and set his heart or his supplications at the door of h-aven's eye upon eternity, proves himself to be sanctuary? How long have eney kept rightly impressed by the worth of eterby the attitude, or how frequently have nity. He begins by a just estimate of they been found in it-of the Bible in the relation between eternity and time. their hands, and a prayer in their hearts The eflect of this is incalculable. I! that in the light of God's own revelation rectifies, just because it reverses all tiSL CONNECTION CF SINGLENESS OF AIM AND SPIRITUAL DISCERNMENT. ISER M imaginations of nature. There is on be great, and see to be great all that we this subject a grand practical delusion, falsely disregarded as little-this of itself the bane and bewilderment of our spe- would dissipate a World of illusions, and cies. To our optics, tirne stands forth in on this single change in the habit and the characters of eternity; and eternity perception of the mental eye, the whole has the insignificance of time. All our body would become full of light. ideas of inagnitude are inverted. The And let us here make another appeal substance appears the shadow, and the to the consciences of men. What are shadow the substance. The correction objects of greatest significancy and moof this would wholly change our mental ment in their eyes-? Let their eyes depanorama, and throw a new light over clare it. Let the whcle drift of their it. Let eternity and time be but seen in thoughts and affections dCclare it. Does their just proportions; and by this alone not the business of every day proceed the scenery of the future, if we may so on a constant exaggeration of things preexpress it, would be completely trans- sent, and as constant an extenuation of forined. What is now the foreground, things future and eternal? It is thus and occupies the whole field of vision, that there runs a great practical illusion, would shrink into nothing; and the new through the whole system of their affairs. dim and shadowy ulterior would brighten It may well be called a perpetual error, into vivid interest, and expand into mag- that has the dominion over them; and nificence before us. The single rectifica- by acting perpetually upon it, their darktion would introduce justness and order ness thickens the more as they grow into the whole perspective of our being older-just like any other infatuation, -just as the assumption of a great and which becomes the more powerful the true principle in science, might bring or- longer it is persisted in. In the very der out of confusion, and light up as it wisdom of the secular man, there is were a whole chaos of phenomena. It throughout a radical fallacy-proceeding is only by this reference to eternity, that as it does on the fancied worth of that we can make a right survey of human which is insignificant, on the magnitude existence-just as a map in geography is of that which is paltry, on the endurance rightly constructed, by the references of c(' that which is evanescent and perisha correct and comprehensive scale. And able. The light which is in him is what a different representation do we at- darkness, and how great therefore is that tain of life, when we thus proceed darkness! It envelops every thing. It on the high scale of eternity, to measure distorts every thing. He sees, but it is off all and to subordinate all-giving through a false medium-so false that to each event or interest its right place, even infinity is reversed into its opposite and its right proportion in reference to -the infinitely great Being regarded as the whole. It would give us a similar nothing; the infinitely small absorbing command over a prospect in time, that every desire of the heart, and monopothe loftiest summit in the landscape gives lising the whole field of vision. It is ob. over a prospect in space. -Among the vious that by the simple dispersion of localities of the every-day world, or this medium, the whole aspect and charamong the urgencies of every day lisfe, we acter of things would be changed. It are alike lost in the nearness, and multi- *would give rise to another and an oppotude of besetting objects; and are site manifestation. It were more than strangely insensible to the comparative the overthrow of an error. It were the littleness of.present things, whether in subversion of a system of error-the respace or in tduration. It is by an en- moval of a false light, which tinged every largement of the view that chis error is thing and discoloured every thing. As corrected-in the one case by an extended by the hold of one right principle, we vision, in the other by an exalted faith. are enabled to rectify a thousand wrong It is this wvhich reduces to their proper conclusions-so, with but a right sense size and importance, all temporal things. of eternity, those multiplied errors would The universal error would be met by a vanish away, by which the whole of huaniversal correction. Could we now see man existence is hourly and habitually in, to be little all that we falsely imagined to fested. The grand deception of life XX.] CONNECTION OF SINGI ENESS OF AIM AND SPIRITUAL DISUERNMENT. 141 would be cleared away; and on this one of an everlasting good is superseded by simple change in the objects of the mind, the pursuit of a merely temporal good, it the whole body would become full of has something more than a distracting, light. it has a darkening effect also. The mind It is in things of sacredness as in is not only divided between an object of Lninugs of science. There is often a vir- sense and an object of faith; but a deeper tue in one principle to cast a pervading shade of concealment is thrown over the illumination and glory over the whole remote and unseen object. Immortality, field of contemplation. The subordina- viewed as a dogma, may be as zealously tion of the thing that is formed, to Him asserted as ever; but immortality, viewed who formed it is such a principle-it be- as a living and substantial reality, is sadly: ing one of universal application, and that bedimmed by every act of practical deleaves nothing untouched, as comprehen- votion to the power of things present and sive of all that exists, of the Creator who things sensible. It may retain its place made all of the creature who received as an article of the creed, yet without behis all. It is therefore well said, that the ing credited-for, be the profession what fear of God is the beginning, or the first it may, to the man whose affections groprinciple of wisdomn. The overpassing vel among the things of earth, heaven is greatness of Eternity to Time, is ano- but a nonentity and a name. The very ther such principle-it being one that af- desire of any worldly thing, is an homage fixes its character of magnitude or mi- done to the worth and magnitude of that nuteness to every object, of wisdom or which is temporal; and is fitted to dis. folly to every pursuit. The two, we be- turb the estimate we should otherwise lieve, are never apart-each being impli- have formed, of the overpassing magnicated with the other, so that the inlet of tude of that which is eternal. It lays us either to the mind, were the admission of open to that most bewildering of all a light that should overspread the whole sophistry-the sophistry of the affections. of its perspective. And the man who When the choice and the judgment draw looked singly to the interest of his Eter- opposite ways, the judgment is at length nity, laying up all his treasure there; or perverted in the conflict and counteraction who looked singly to the will of his of the two adverse influences. The light God, cleaving to him as the alone Master of the understanding is, as it were, smoof his services —will experience the ful- thered under that perversity of the will filment of our text, the guidance of a ce- by which it is constantly thwarted and lestial wisdom in all his doings, a glory overborne. The superior worth of eter. from above shining on all his paths. nity may, on occasions, be feebly recogBut there may be a singleness of eye nized; but the superior worth of time is either in the direction of Earth, or in the always the principle that is fully acted direction of Heaven; and we hold it the on. In this war of contradiction, where special aim of our text, to warn against the conduct perpetually belies the creed, the vacillations of those, who look at and the creed as perpetually reclaims, both and strive to effect a compromise but without effect against the conduct, between them. They would fain unite there is an augmenting and aggravating the interests of both worlds; and it will darkness-till both the power and light generally be found of such, that they look of conscience are extinguished, and life habitually to the one, and but occasion- settles down into a system of obstinate, ally to the other. Whenever the pursuit often irrecoverable delusion. 150 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. SERMI SERMON XXI. The Second Coming of Christ. " Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into Heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into Heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into Heaven."-AcTs i. 11. THERE are certain great steps, or suc- race, we as'place ourselves at the side of cessive peiiods, in the divine administra- the saints and the righteous men of other tion-each of which forms an era in the days, and rise to a sort of kindred elevahistory of our world. The first scrip- tion with the ancients of inspired writtural era is from the Creation to the Flood. with the holy patriarchs who have gone The second from the Flood to the call of before us. Abraham. The third fromn the call o.f At none of the periods which we have Abraham to the promulgation of the law now specified, did God leave Himself in mount Sinai. The fourth is from the without a witness, or ever abandon the promulgation of the law to the end of care and government of our species. Ofthe Jewish economy. And the last, within ten as the world may have lost sight of whose limits ours forms one of the many Him, He kept by the world, and made it generations, is distinctly marked both by the busy scene both of His purposes and its epoch and by its close-the fbrmer by fulfilments. Even when the world in its Christ's ascension from our world —the blindness thought least of God, God was latter by His appearance in the sky, not sitting in the state and distance of when the same Jesus who was taken up lofty unconcern to the world; but, intent into Heaven shall so come in like man- on great designs, was He directing all ner as He was seen go into HIeaven. the springs, and presiding over all the It is good to connect our brief, our little movements of its history. And so at day, with the roll and succession of these each term of this mighty series of changreat changes in the spiritual jurispru- ges, we behold a demonstration' of the dence of our species. It is elevating to Godhead. It was so, when, moved by look at the place which belongs to our- the wickedness that was upor be earth, selves, in this maonificent progression; He by the waters of the flood, sr ept off and it tends to sulJirne, to solemnize hu- all its living generations, and left but one man: life, as it were, above the vulgarity memorial of our race in the preservation of its daily and fimiliar concerns-when of one family. It was so again, when thus enabled to assign the point which mankind were again lapsing into their we occupy in the march or evolution of old forgetfulness of Himself; and He, to that great drama, which commences with keep up His name and His remembrance, the birth, and terminates with the disso- in the midst of them, singled out another lution of our world. But it does more family, and threw a wall of separation than: exalt the imagination. It serves around them. It was most visibly so, both to inform, and powerfully to impress when He made his descent upon Sinai; the conscience. It teaches what the atti- and the voice of the Eternal was heard tude and the preparation are, which cor- by the' thousands of Israel; and the respond to the high position that we fill, flame, and the smoke, and the thunder, and to the high expectations that await gave manifest tokens of a present Deity; us. Altogether its effect, or rather, per- and the law which issued from His lips, haps, its tendency, is to abstract and to bespoke Him to be still the Governor of lift the soul above the dust of that earth- men, and still the asserting Lord of His liness in which it so habitually grovels; own Creation.'But most of all, among and, when thus mingling the calls of these evolutions of the Supreme which duty with the contemplation of the earlier are already past, have we to regard that and th!.ater stares in the history of our age of miracle when the Saviour lived, XXI.] SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 151 and that event of deepest mystery when lay a reflection on the truth and majesty He died-when, the old economy wax- of I tim who sitteth thereon. And hence ing away like a temporary apparatus for the peculiar errand on which our Sav some greater and more enduring con- lour came. It was to open wide the porsummation, and a new economy emerg- tals of mercy for a guilty world-yet to ing out of the ruins and the tremendous open them so, as to cast not an obscurity overthrow of the one that had gone before but a heightened lustre on all the other It, gave distinct evidence of a new and a perfections of the Godhead. It was to more advanced era in the government of resolve that mystery which angels deour world. And this brings us down- sired to look into-to reconcile the honour ward to ourselves, upon whom the latter of the law vith the forgiveness of those ends of the world have come. The era who had bI ken it-and at once to heap in which we live has had its striking blessings upon the head of the sinner, outset, and it will have its awful termina- and to magnify all the prerogatives of the tion. The ascent of our Saviour begun commandment that he had violated.the era-the descent of our Saviour will This was the knot of difficulty which had finish it. There is a peculiar character to be united. This was the wall of parwhich such a beginning and such an tition which had to be broken down. Or ending of our dispensation give to the this the impassable gtulph, over which dispensation itself; and the question is, there had to be thrown a high-way of what are our- responding duties and re- communication between the rebels of our sponding expectations? exiled world, and their offended SoverBut we must first advert to the purpose, eign. for which Christcameintothe world. You And we know, or at least we know in are aware of God as its Moral Governor. part, what our Saviour ditl and suffered You are aware both of a law written on to achieve this enterprise-of the descent the tablet of an express revelation, and of that He made from Heaven; of the a law written upon our hearts. You sojourn that He had on earth; of the inknow that Law and Government and carnation by which He veiled the glories Authority are words withouit meaning, if of His divinity, ullel Ime likeness oi a not accompanied by securities and sanc- man; of the preternatural conflicts, and tions; and, rore particularly, if disobe- temptations, and agonies, that He had to ence is not to be challenged and not to be undergo; of His mysterious warfare reckoned with. With these undoubted with the powers of darkness; and the principles, and the equally undoubted season of deep endurance that He hadto fact that all had fallen short of the com- travel through ere that victory was won, mandments of God-in what other light and His own arm had brought to Him can we regard mankind, than as a re- salvation. A contest this, where were volted family? and responsible for their many spectators. The eminences of defection, at the bar of that rightful sov- EIeaven were crowned; and the dark ereign whose authority they had set at ness, and the earthquake, and the opennought? The question at issue, was one ing of graves, and the coming forth of which affected the dignity of the Lawgiv- their dead, all gave token to the big and er; and there were an end of all juris- busy importance of what was going on. diction, if God might enact and yet not It was amid these symptoms of distress in enforce, or if man might disobey and yet nature, that our Saviour expired; and not incur the condemnation and the pen- the soul which He poured out an offering alty. Behold then the stateto which we for sin, after the unknown history of had reduced ourselves-a state of contro- a few days, re-entered the body from versy with our Maker; and on the set- which it had departed; and, coming tlement of which, His attributes and the again into iimiliar converse with men, unchangeakle principles of His govern- did He now manifest the new and the ment were at stake. It was indeed a living way of access, that Himself had fearful thing for our species, when there. opened, and by which the farthest off in appeared no other way of deliverance guilt and depravity amongst us might from ruin, but that which would bring. draw nigh unto God. And thus. having dishonour on the throne of Heaven, and both finished the work of our reconcilia 152 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. rSERM. lion and proclaimed it, did He leave the which belong to the condition of those world to the hopes and the appropriate who live in our present era —the era that duties of that new economy which Him- has begun with the ascent, and that is to self had instituted-of that n 3w era which terminate with the descent of the Saviour Himself had ushered in. The first is a hirgh sense of the worth But, to complete our grounds for a of that salvation which Christ- hath practical application-let us further think achieved, and which He now offers to of the relationship in which He now the children of men. rThe second is that stands to the world; and of the regard change of desire and affection, which is which He now casts towards it; and of induced by o.r acceptance of it. And the interest wherewith He is now look- the third is that abundant righteousness ing down, to see whether there be any of life by which the profession of Chrisconsequent movement on our part, by tianity is adorned, and its Author and which we might accord to the movement Finisher is well pleased. made upon His. When He returned to,he place which He now occupies, He 1. What an outrage is cast on the Sawould be hailed' by the hosts of Paradise viour's enterprise, when, instead of being as the Finisher of a great enterprise. It prized and sought after as a thing of behoved to be a re-entrance of triumph, worth, it is slighted, and by those too, for after the toils and the sufferings of an whom it was designed and executed, as a arduous undertaking; and loud and thing of worthlessness. The likest case high must have been the gratulations to it which we can imagine, is that of a of welcome to Him, who, travelling in physician, who announces himself as the the greatness of His strength over all ob- inventor of a sovereign remedy; and cirstacles, established a reunion7 and reared culates at large his gratuitous offeis; and a pathway of communication between rears the magnificent office, to which in ~arth and Heaven. And let us only crowds his suffering patients might reconceivu, by what other and by what pair; and inscribes upon its f. ont both opposite feelings, must those of rapture the freeness and the efficacy of' his great and benevulet;t triumph have been suc- specific, and in such flarning characters ceeded-it, o, looking to this pathway so as might be seen and read of all men. laboriously rearcd, it had been found We ask you to think of the felt mortificawithout a traveller — if, unmoved by all tion, if, after this parade and expectancy, the signals of invitatiun and by all the fa- not one individual should be found, who cilities of a now plov:ded' access, the responds to the big and the blazoned regardles'. world had remained as slug- overtures-if, after weeks and months of gish and alienated as before-if it had idle tarrying, no single applicant should been found that the door of acceptance come to the door; and all the pomp, and was opened in vain, and a highway of all the promise of this enterprise, should approach over the else dreary and un- be utterly put to shame by the neglect of trodden interval wvas constructed in vain a contemptuous and unbelieving public. — and if, after the victory had been gotten, Is it not grievous to think, that such is and the toil and the contest and the the very scorn, and such the very outrage hazird of the great mediatorship been now inflicted by the world upon the Saendea, uthankful man, in whose behalf viour! —that He, the minister of the true it waals: ncnertaken, should set it utterly sanctuary, and whose office it is to wait at nought; ont:. cleavino to that world at the tabernacle of Heaven for the apfrom which,lelthei the threats of a cornm- proaches of all who are weary and heavying judgment nor.hle odbrs of a present laden, is just so put to shame! —that salvation could oiset. oae:.c thim, he should, in lightly esteeming Christ, we virtually heedless alike of the pu.t,.hment and of treat Him and all His biddings and prothe pardon, stamp a nll,)i'v on all the clamations of welcome with the cruellest wonders of redeeming love, alda trample derision, even the derision of our indifferthe Redeemer's work into utter tnnd. most ence and distrust?-that thus we mock affront.ng insignificance. the enterprise on which He came, and cause His attendant angels to blush at There are three distinct proprieties I the sight cast by the world upon Him, XXI.] SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 15wha is ~o oft announced in the hearing that if you have received all this grace of nlen, as the exalted Prince and the in vain-if, listless and lawless as ever, mighty Saviour? 0, let us cease to the offers of the gospel have failed to atmarvel, when told, that the thunders of a tract, even as the terrors of the broken violated law are but as soft and feeble commandment had failed to arouse you whispers, when compared with the ven- I -if. sunk in profoundest apathy, you geance of a rejected gospel; and that in think not, and care not, of the dread althe day when Jesus shall so come from ternative, that he who hath the Son hath heaven, in like manner as He was seen life, and he who hath not the Son hath go into Heaven, that on that day, the not life.-if the preaching of His Cross obulest profligacy of heathen lands, shall be foolishness in vour ears, or at least so be more mildly dealt with, than the unproductive of influence, as to have lecent ungodliness of those who have brought no hope of Heaven into your heard of mercy and have despised it. hearts, and to' have imprinted none of' So, we need be at no loss to compre- the character of Heaven upon your walk herd the principles which are now at and conversation-if, in the busy prosework in Heaven, and which will at cution of your own entire and unbroken length break forth upon the world in that earthliness, you still live at a distance Lwful manifestation-the wrath of the from God; and, while He, by His Son, Lamb. It really need not be marvelled is stretching forth His hand you are disat, that they, who do now slumber in the regarding-Be assured, as you would ot depths of spiritual lethargy and uncon- any moral necessity, that He who went cern, shall then be overtaken with saddest up to Heaven the gracious' and inviting fearfulness. The provocation is quite Saviour, -will come down from Heaven intelligible, which will then cause the the indignant judge; and, that if the ininsulted dignity of Heaven to look out termediate season in which you now live in characters of menace on a despairing and have your opportunity be not imworld. We might learn from the work- proved by you into the season of vour ings of our moral nature, how it is, that, redemption-it will be declared by Him simply by living as many of you do in on that day to have been the season in neglect of the Saviour, and thus despis — which yo'. have sealed, with your own ing the riches of his forbearance and hlands, the sentence of a final and ever-,ong-suffering, you treasure up unto lasting reprobation. yourselves wrath against the day of One very palpable mark of your indif wrath and revelation of the righteous ference to what Christ hath done, is that judgment of God. You have only to the report of it falls so heavily and su look to the distinctive character of our bluntly upon your heaiing. Though era. The Saviour hath gone up into proclaimed Sabbath after Sabbath-this Heaven, and hath there taken His place brings no such relief, as that which capas a High Priest for sinners at the rioht tives feel when told of their coming lihand of God. He is there waiting on. berty. The only exercise to which you He is marking as it were the fruit and seem at all moved by the utterance of a the efficacy of his own far-sounded gospel truth, is that you recognise its orachievement. He is observing how the thodoxyv, and so approve of it; and that world now replies to it, and is in earnest without any visitation upon the soul, of watch for the fruit of the travail of His the gladness and the hope and the triown soul. Like the king who hath de- umph, which irradiated the walk of the parted into a far country, and who is af- primitive Christians. This is insulting terwards to return, he hath gone to some to the Saviour, because it proves his salplace of absence and mystery away fiom vation to be unbelieved and undervalued. our world-whence He will come again, It is a mortifying return for His services. and take account of the affairs of His He now looketh down from the eminence government. And meanwhile He eyes to which He had ascended; and it was fir6m afar, how it is that His overtures at least a natural expectation, that the rehave sped, and how it fares %with the gos- opening of Heaven's gate upon the world, pel which He left behind Him. And and the lifting away of those obstructions the unavoidable result of such a state is, which had blocked the entrance there91] 154 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST, [SERi unto, would have set all in motion-that tion. Our joy is a right acknowledgmen would have testified their homage mentjust as ourindifference is a grievous to this great enterprise, by the readiness and a highly displeasing affront. And and the rapture wherewith they accorded thus it is. that when His disciples perto it; and that thus it would have been sisted in sluggishness and sorrow, Christ responded to by eaith's sinful families. was grieved for it; and that God resents, Our pleasure in the offered redemption, as He would the imputation of a lie, when would have been to the Redeemer the they to whom salvation is preached, will most pleasing of all acknowledgments. not lay their confiding hold upon it; and And what must be His opposite feeling, that the peace, and the joy, and the glowhen, instead of this, the tidings, which rying of Faith, are all so acceptable in ought to have lighted up an ecstacy in His sight; and that the dread and the every bosom, are heard by this world's distrust and the despondency, all of them vast majority with perfect unconcern; sensations opposite to these, are felt by and when, in reference to the mass and Him to be.so injurious, that, among those multitude of our species, the labour of who shall have part in the second death, His wondrous achievement has been are ranked the fearful and the unbelievwholly thrown away. That the gift of ing. Thus are we bidden to rejoice in eternal life through Christ Jesus is the Lord; and when, in the face of all treated by many as a useless thing, may that our Saviour hath done, we remain be seen from the listlessness of many a in the bondage either of earthly griefs or Christian auditory, when the transaction of earthly affections, He is entitled to feel is expounded; and from those intervals the indignation of slighted and underof many a day and many a week in the rated services. private history of individuals, throughout which, amid the urgency of life's or- II. But secondly, this acceptance of dinary cares, it is never thought of. It Christ involves in it something more is the unimportance which they hereby than the admission of a new hope. I. pust upon the Saviour —it is the cold and involves the acquisition of a new characsullen apathy wherewith his overtures ter; and this cannot be accomplished are received by them-it is the pre-en- without what is painful to nature-the gagement of their hearts with the frivol- surrender of. old desires and affections ities of life, and the utter powerlessness to the mastery of new desires and affec. even of the largest offers and the largest tions, which are substituted in their room, hopes of an inheritance above to do it There is not merely the translation into away —it is that thankless lethargy, out of a new hope. Tlhere is the translation which the message of pardon and of the into a new practical habit. The hope in price whereat it was obtained, is unable fact will induce the habit. The man to move them-it is their insensibility, who looks -with a delighted eye on the both to the great privilege which is held open gate of Heaven, and the now unobforth to sinners, and to the great expense structed path which leads to it-that man of suffering and degradation and labour must, at the same time, be aspiring after at which it was earned for them by the Heaven's graces; and must have entered Saviour-These form the constituents of on those moralities both of heart and life, a provocation, which is now accumulat- which give to Heaven all its gladness. ing every day in the breast of the of- A man could no more rejoice in the prosfended Higrh Priest, and which, on that pect of the real Heaven of Eternity, day when He shall come down from without a taste and a desire towards its Heaven, even as He was seen go into spiritual excellence —than he could reHeaven, will fall with one overwhelming joice in the prospect of entering for life discharge upon them. upon a forcign land, whose goveinnment You may be enabled to conceive from and customs and people were every way this, why God has so much complacency, hateful to him. It is thus that the tiith in the trust and in the rejoicing confi- of the gospel induces, or brings in sure dence, which a believer feels in the pro- and speedy train after it, the character of mises of the gospel. It is setting on the the gospel. The very entrance upon its work of, His own Son its proper estima- hope implies a turning of the soul. By x.r.] SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 1 55 it, there is not only a looking of the inner tion have all been expended-that afte, man after another portion-but there is a barriers have been levelled, and crooked choice of that portion. The man who places been made straight, and rough believes, takes up with Heaven as his places plain, and a highway for sinners eternal- habitation; and this he cannot do has been thrown across the dark. and without' a transference of the heart to dreary infinite which separated them from other things, than those whereby it wont God-that after by the strength of His to be occupied. Now, it is the aver- own right arm he had forced this mystesion of men to this transference, which rious passage, and planted upon it the forms the great obstacle to their accept- flag of invitation —He now sees, after ance of the gospel. They do not believe, He has thus brought eternity within their because they love the darkness rather reach, that, fastened in the thraldom of than the light. Their heart is engaged their own base and inglorious affections, with things present, and agreeably en- they remain immoveable; that they congaged; and hence their disinclination to tinue to grovel as before, and it matters things future. Thevhaveno. other wish not to them what facilities have been than to be as they are. The gravitation struck out or what the avenues that are of their souls is towards earth; and they now opened to the paradise above-bewant not this to be thwarted or disturbed cause* earth is dearer to them than by any cause, that would impress an as- Heaven; and the delights of this sensible piring tendency in the opposite direction. though passing world far more enchantThis is the real secret of their indisposi- ing to their spirits, than all the splendid tion to the overtures of the gospel. Their honours and all the offered joys of immind is darkened, just because their fond mortality. and foolish heart is darkened. They And it is just because this rejection of labour under a blindness, no doubt-but the gospel is a thing of will upon our it is because they labour under a moral side, that it is a thing of provocation upon unwillingness. They do not see the evi- His side. Had our unbelief been the dence which would give them faith: but blindness of those who could not see, it is because they shut their eyes, or, there would have been no room for wrath which is the same thing, they will not on the part of the Saviour. But it is the attend to the evidence. This world con- blindness of those who will not see; and tents them; and they are utterly indis- it is this which gives its moral force to posed for any overtures at all about ano- the remonstrance-" Ye will not comether world. It is vain to tell them that or rather ye are not willing to come that Christ makes a free offer of happiness to ye may have life." We can be at no them all —if it be not happiness, or be loss to perceive, how the Saviour must not pleasure, in the way they like it. stand affected by this treatment on man's They will not part with the earthly for part of that economy over which He now the heavenly. They will not give up presides, and which He Himself hath so their carnal preferences, to which they laboriously instituted. The scorn, or at are urged by nature —for those spiritual least the apathy, wherewith man puts the delights which are held out to every be- glories of the purchased inheritance away,iever, for his recreation in time, for his from him —the choice that he still makes full and satisfying enjoyment through of time, after immortality has been thus eternity. They do not breathe with any brought near to him-the inefficiency of kindredness of feeling in a spiritual at- the gospel with all its encouragements, mosphere; and, children as they are of to lure him from the world and bring sense and secularity, they refuse to turn him to reconciliation with God -the sinfrom their own way. They will not ful and the sordid appetency for earth, come unto Christ that they may have which not even the now accessisle life; and He, looking clown upon them Heaven with its pure and perpetual joys from the mediatorial throne to which He can overcome-the inert and invincible has been exalted, sees, that, after all He sluggishness, wherewith he still adheres has done to roll away the obstacles be- to the carnalities of the old man, and tween earth and heaven-that after the from which all the proclamations of grace toil and the agony of the great propilia- cannot move nim-the ousy rounds ofb 156' SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. [SER.L pleasure or of gain or of ambition, at glorious liberty which consists in the which he keeps plying as assiduously, as service of love and willingness. It is if earth were the platform on which he not easy to conceive the physical preferwas to expatiate for ever-All these mark ence of a dark and dismal confinement, such an obstinate affinity to sense, such to a free range on the domain of nature; a rooted dislike and diversity of his taste but we see exemplified every day, the frola all sacredlness, as will go most effec- moral preference of a continued thraldom tually on the day of judgment to charac- amongst the idolatries of sense and of the terize and to condemn him. The free world, to an outlet or emancipation of the gospel hath acted as a criterion, for fixing soul into the regions, of sacredness and on which side of the question between of spiritual health and of spiritual harearth and Heaven it is that his affections mony. Ours is the era of a great emlie. And HIe who sees him from the bassy from. heaven to earth; and men place of ascension which He now occu- are beseeched to make good that escape pies-He who hath consecrated for him, from slavery which has been provided in by His own blood, a path by which the the gospel; and Christ, from the emisinner if he will might return unto God nence on which He now stands, is watchif in the face of this the sinner will not, ing and witnessing how His messengers might not He the Saviour, on the day in are received arid what is the effect of which He comes down and takes account their solicitations. This is the character of the world, fill his mouth with an over- of our interesting period; and our doom whelming argument? Will not that be for eternity hangs upon it. It is fixed by a clear justice, which shuts out from the our own choice. Should we love to high and the holy abode, him who all breathe in the atmosphere of spiritual life long hath persisted in the earthliness death, it is the only atmosphere that we which he loved, and from which even shall breathe in for ever. And if now the open gate of Heaven and the voice that Christ hath gone up into Heaven, of welcome that issued therefrom could we follow Him not in faith and by upnot disengage him 2 In going up unto ward aspirations there —when He again Heaven Christ is said to -have arisen comes down fiom Heaven, He will rethere for our justification. But in coming. cognise us to be still carnal-He will down from Heaven, He will come for the deal with us as enemies. enhanced condemnation of those who have declined His grace, and so have III. But Christianity implies something kept by their own guiltiness. They more than one great and initial surrender shall be made to eat the fruit of their of affection on the part of the inner man. own ways; and as they chose to walk in There are daily and hourly services, their owvn counsels, by these counsels which come historicallyafter this. There.hey shall fall. is something more than one great revulThat prisoner is not to blame, who sion from the old habit of nature. We do makes no attempt to escape from the dun- not merely pass into another state. We geon whose gates are impregnably shut enter upon another path; and, in so doagainst him. But should he refuse the ing, launch forth among all the activities guidance of the benefactor who has of a sustained and unremitting progress. thrown open these gates, and who offers It is not enough that there be in our to conduct him to a place of enlarge- heart the desires of righteousness-there ment, where he shall have air and light must be upon our history the deeds of and liberty-he verily is the author of righteousness. Christ becomes the mas. his own undoing, if he pine and perish ter of our services, as well as of our affecamong the noxious damps of his prison- tions; and it is not only the heart which house. And it is thus that Christ now responds:o Him in gratitude, nut the offers to set the spiritual captive free. hand moves, and is obedient at the bidHe hath cleared away all legal obstruc- ding of his voice. The one, in fact, is tions. He hath provided an open door the test of the other. " Ye are my friends of access unto God. He hath opened a if ye do whatsoever I command you." clear exit for us all from the place of To complete the relation between Christ condemnation, and now invites us to:hat and His disciples, He must be thioned XXI. SECOND COMING OF CHRllST. 157 in authority over theltl, as well as the deeds to the august assembly of men and supreme object of their regards; and of angels, that you are of' His husbandry, then it is that His doctrine, instead of a and fit for being removed into HIis Facontroversial speculation, becomes the ther's vineyard in Heaven. It is worthy efficient principle both of a new character of observation, that, on the sentence and of a new life. The ultimate design being declared, it will be said that yoL of His economy, in fact, is not to justify are His-not inasmuch as you have be. but to sanctify men. It is to evolve a lieved, nor inasmuch as you have denew moral harmony out of the chaos of sired, but inasmuch as you have done. our present world-and then only do Your destiny will be made to hang diHis word and doctrine prosper unto that rect upon your doings-as being in truth for which they have been sent, when the the best vouchers, both for the feelings of disciples thereof emerge into virtue, and your heart, and the faith of your underbecome thoroughly furnished unto all standing. And we bid you think theregood works. It is when He succeeds fore, of the busy interest and regard in making you holy and obedient crea- wherewith your judge in Heaven is now tures, that He sees in you of the travail looking on; and of the book of record of His soul and is satisfied. The same and remembrance which is now before eye which gazed with delight on the Him; and of the materials which He is'lilies of the field, perceives with a higher now gathering from your each day's delight the efflorescence of Heaven's history, for the examinations and the graces upon your person. The great judgments of a future day. He is now object of His administration, is to build on that post of observation, whither He up and beautify a moral landscape, in has ascended for a season, and whence the midst of wrhich He might everlast- he descries the whole line of your hisingly rejoice. And for this purpose, He tory in the world. But that season will who judgeth by your fruits, would train come to its close; and then there will and transform you into trees of righteous- ensue another great movement in God's ness, which, though rooted in the soil administration. He who was seen go and sediment of the world, may, under into Heaven, will again come down the cultivation of His own spiritual hus- from Heaven; and will be met in livino bandry, be at length meet for being array by the men.of all generations. transplanted into the paradise of God. He will come fraught with the archives Now, it is by acts of Heavenly obedience, of your present history; and, now your that you promote this heavenly vegeta- vigilant and unerring witness, will He tion. It is by the doings of the hand on then be your impartial judge. Do you the side of virtue, that you strengthen live under an affecting sense of these and confirm still more the desires of the plain but all important *'ealities 2 Do heart after it. It is by the busy conduct you ever once think of Christ's eye of the disciple, that a reflex influence is being upon you? Do you ever once sent back upon his soul; and all those think of His judgment awaiting you? principles are fixed more tenaciously than Do these enter at all as elements into before, which enter into the formation of your deliberation? And we would ask the disciple's character. And so by the whether it is possible that you can stand readier humanity, and the godlier watch- then with acceptance before him —if fulness, and soberness, and fear of every now, the general habit of your mind be day, do you rise fiom one degree of that of listless unconcern, either to the grace unto another; and carry onward cognizance which He takes of you at that great object of sanctification, which present, or to the reckoning which He the heart of your Redeemer is, if not will have with you in future-braving solely, yet supremely set upon. alike the omniscience of His present reThus it is, that. by the deeds done in gards, the justice and the certainty of H~i the body, you wliL be judged in the great coming retributions? day of reckoning. It is upon these that And now would we have you to ]a3 it our Saviour will demonstrate you to be upon your consciences, whether you His own. As the tree is known by its indeed lie under a real and practical fruits, so EIe will make known by your sense of the economy which has been 158 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. [SERM. set up at this period of the world- feel or suffer or be the rubject of wrath whether you conform to the spirit and and anguish and tribulation through the character of God's existing adminis- eternity. tration —whether, while the Judoge at We may conclude with stating what I-is right hand is impending over you appears to us one great distinction beand marking all your ways, you at the tween a religionist and an ordinary man. same time feel and move as if an eye There is a pervading unity and greatfrom Heaven were looking on-or ness of object in the life of the former. whether, as if disjoined from all relation- In that of the latter there is a fitful and ship with aught that is above, or as if fluctuating waywardness. The one is the planet that you occupy had drifted like a voyage, where the drift of every away beyond the cognizance of the movement is towards a certain quarter of upper world, is the whole style of your the heavens, and with the view to a fixed history upon earth just what it would place of arrival.. The other is like the have been, though the ascended Jesus random,the ever-varying course of a veshad taken His eternal leave; and, on sel, that has been abandoned and is at the quitting the abodes of humanity, had mercy of a thousand capricious impulses. quitted all superintendence of our con- The one, in selecting his end, has shot cerns' But he causes us to know in ahead as it were of all that is intermedithe text, that He has not so quitted us — ate between him and the grave; and so that IHe still keeps a hold of our species his high and habitual refetrence is ever -that, instead of having left us for ever, towards that place in the history of his He is to come again and to have a visi- being, which forms the exit of his time ble meeting with each and all of the — the entrance of his eternity. The members of the human family-that, other may have selected his ends also; however now He may stand concealed but lying a short way in the distance befrom mortal view in the remoteness and fore him,'they are -ever shifting and mystery of the place to which He has shaping anew among the mutabilities of cone, the time is coming when every life,- with the deceits of human fancy, eye shall behold Him; and the gaze of with the disappointments of human forea universal world shall be turned to- sight. The one familiarly conversant wards Him, as He approaches the judg- with the great elements of death and ment-seat fraught with the materials of a judgment and life everlasting, moves solemn examination; and which mate- along the path which bears him onward rials He is now gathering from the with the lofty consciousness of one, the doings of your present day, and of your simplicity yet comprehensive grandeur past yesterday, and of your future mor- of whose aim sublimes his spirit above row-thereby stamping an eternal im- the cares and the passions of commonportance on all the' passages of your fa- place humanity. The other, heedless miliar history, and giving to the hourly and perhaps unseeing of the remote but details of your business in life a bearing ever-during interest of his existence, vaon your destiny for ever. And tell me, cillates and is lost in the countless multiye men who from Sabbath to Sabbath tude of those lesser influences, each of breathe in no other air than that of irre- which gains one little hour of ascendanligion, and who if you do come to cy, and then: passes fruitless and forgotchurch receive but a passing emotion, ten away from him. His journey is like that, like the glow of sentiment or poetry, the aimless ramble of a schoolboy, when soon vanishes away-tell me how it is compared to the high bearing of him possible that you can escape the frown who walks through life with the gait of and the condemnation and the lawful an immortal creature-who knows that penalty, when thus the whole habit of every footstep brings him nearer to Heayour existence is at utter variance with'yven, and whose daily advances in sanctithe realities of your state; and you shall fication are the stepping-stones by which have passed firom your infancy to your he is conducted to Heaven's glory..grave as recklessly along, as if there The advice of that wise moralist, Dr. were to be no resurrection, no trial, no Johnson, to a friend, under the discom. fearfulness beyond death, no life that can fort of some sore annoyance-was to be. XXII. SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 159 think h mself of what a trifle it should He now fills in Heaven, to the judgment. appear that day twelvemonth. And tl. us seat which He then will occupy on earth, it is that human life is dissipated in a He bids you all flee from the com'ng, series of trifles. On looking back to that wrath-He holds out even to the guiltiest busy alternation of cares, and wishes, and of you all the sceptre of an offered reconanxieties, each of which has in its turn ciliation —He plies you alike with the been the short-lived tenant of man's rest- overtures of pardon and the calls of reless and ever-brooding spirit, we cannot pentance; a pardon sealed by the blood miss the reflection —what a waste both of a satisfying atonement, in which He of comfort and energy on topics which, invites you to trust, and a repentance after all, have been productive of nothing..achieved through the aids of a strengthIt is high time to recall ourselves from ening spirit, for which he invites you to these fugitive vanities-to strike a nobler pray. This is the season of your full and aim, and seek a more enduring interest welcome opportunity. That will be the -and, for this purpose, to cast a further day of your trial. Now you are urged anticipation on the futurity which lies by the entreaties of a free gospel, and by before us. And along the whole of this compliance therewith, you propitiate the perspective, there seems no event, the wrath of the offended Saviour. Then, contemplation of which is more fitted to should you have withheld compliance, still the spirit into seriousness, or bring will you be judged by the requisitions it up to the high resolves of Christianity, of a fiery law; and the unaverted, the than the cominog advent of the Saviour- aggravated wrath of Heaven, will descend an event on one side of which lie all the in judgment upon your heads. "0 kiss recollections of time, and on the other side the Son, then, lest He be angry, and all the retributions of eternity. Mean- while He is in the way-for blessed only while, and ere He take the decisive shall they be who have put their trust in movernert from the mercy-seat which Him." SERMON XXII. God is Love. " God is love."-JOHN iv. 16. DID we only give credit to the text, ception in its place-And, thirdly, let us, did we but view God as love-on this stop to contemplate the effect of such a, sifnple translation into another belief, change in the state of man's understandwould there be the translation into an- ing as to God, on the whole system of' other character. We should feel differ- his feelings and conduct. ently of God, the moment that we thought of Him differently; and with the estab- I. Under the first general head, then,. lishment of this new faith, there would let it be observed-that there are two, instantly emerge a new heart and a new reasons why we should conceive God to, nature. be so actuated as to inspire us with terror, For, let us attena, mn tne first place, to j or at leasL with distrust: instead of con the original conception of Humanity, ceiving Him to be actuated by that love placed and constituted as it now is, in which the text ascribes to Him; and. reference to this great and invisible Be- which were no sooner believed than it ing-secondly, let us adduce the likeliest would set us at ease, and inspire us with) considerations, the likeliest arguments, delightful confidence. by which to overcome this conception, 1. The first of these reasons, which and to find lodgement in the human we shall allege, admits of being illusbreast for another and an opposite con- trated by a very genera experience of 60 GOD IS LOVE. [SEERS human nature. It may be shortly stated because the Being who hath all the ener. thus-Whenever placed within the reach gies of nature at command, is at the same of any Being, of imagined power, but time shrouded in mystery impenetrable withal of unknown purpose-that Being -that ee view Him as tremendous. All is the object of' our dismay. It is not regarding Him is inscrutable-the depths necessary for this, that we should be of His past eternity-the mighty and- unpositively assured of His hostility. It is known extent of his creation-the secret enough, that, for aught we know, He policy or end of His government, a govmay be hostile; and that, for aught we ernment that embraces an infinity of know, He has strength enough for the worlds, and reaches forward to an infinexecution of His displeasure. Uncer- ity of ages-All these leave a being so tainty alone will beget terror; and the circumscribed in his faculties as man, fancies of mere ignorance, are ever found so limited in his duration and there. to be images of fear. It is thus, that a fore in his experience, in profoundest igcertain recoil of dread and aversion, norance of God and of His ways. And would be felt in the presence of a strange then the inaccessible retirement in which animal, whatever the gentleness of its He hides himself from the observation nature-if simply its nature were un- of His creatures here below-the clouds known. And hence, too, the fear of a and darkness which are about the pavilchild for strangers, who must first make ion of His residence-the utter impodemonstration of their love byatheir gifts, tency of. man, to pierce his wa. beyond or their caresses-ere they can woo it the confines.of that materialism which into confidence. And so also the conster- hems and incloses him, so as at all to fanation of savages, on the first approach thom. the essence of the Godhead, or- to Df a mighty vessel to their shores-more obtain any distinct apprehension of His especially if in smoke, and..thunder, and personality and His Being-the silence. feats'of marvellous exhibition, it hath the deep unbroken silence of many cen-:given the evidence of its power. It may turies, insomuch that nature, however be a voyage of benevolence; but this distinctly it may tell of His existence, is,they as yet know not. They only be- to our senses a screen of interception in hold the power; and power beheld singly the way of nature's God. There is a'is tremendous. And many often are mighty gulph of separation —an interval, the vain attempts at approximation, the a mysterious and untrodden interval, befruitless demonstrations and signals of tween the spirituality of the Godhead on good-will, ere they can conquer their the one hand, and all that the eye of distrust; or recall them to free and fear- man can see or the ear of man can hear less intercourse, from the woods or the upon the other-a barrier, which man lurking-places to which they had fled for with all his powers of curious and safety. Such, then, is the universal bias searching inspection, cannot force; and,of nature, whenever the power is known across. which God, at least for many:and the purpose is unknown. Men give ages, hath sent forth no direct or visible way to the visions of terror. to the dark manifestation of His own person or His misgivings of a troubled imagination. own character. And so, whatever the. The quick and instant suggestion, on all confidence or the manifested kindness these occasions, is that of fear; and the may have been in those primeval days, difficulty, an exceeding difficulty, for it when God walked with man in the bow. is as if working against a constitutional ers. of his earthly paradise and among: law or tendency of the heart, is to re- the smiling beauties of its garden —-cerassure it into confidence. tain it is, that now, exiled from the di. If such then be the effect on human vine. presence, all his confidence has fled. feelings of a power that is known, asso- Now that the divinity is withdrawn from ciated with purposes that are unknown- mortal view, man trembles at- the thought we are not to wonder that the great and of EHim; and the dread imagination, invisible God is invested to our eyes with.whether of a present wrath or a coming the imagery of terror. It is verily be- vengeance, -is the only homage which cause great, and at the same time in visi- nature renders to an unknown God. ble, that we so invest Him. It is precisely And there - is nothing- in -the varying XLn.J lGOD is LOVE. 161 aspects of Creation, or in the varying are able, enforce:tie; appropriate counterfortunes of human -life, which can at all part:argument, by which that reason may alleviate ourpcerplexity, in regard to the be met and ought' to be overcome. final designs-or character of God. "For The argument then that we are in if, on the one hand,- the smile'and the quest of," is not to be found in the whole sunshine and the softer beauties of the range or within the whole- compass of landscape, would.seem to picture forth visible: nature. It is only to be fbund in the milder virtues of the Divinity-these one of the doctrines of the- gospel of Jeare alternated by other and opposite ex- sus Christ.' A certain distrust; nay a pressions, in the sweeping flood, and the' certain'terror, will still continue to haunt angry tempest, and that dread: thunder and to disquietusso' long asany abifrom the skies wherewith the mysterious guitv" continues to rest on the character Being who rules in the firmament above' of God. But thereis such an ambiguity; overawes a prostrate world. And if, on and which no observation of nature, or the one hand, the shelter anid abundance no experience of human life can dissiand natural affection and unnunmbered pate. Whatever of the.falsely or the su sweets of many a cottage home, might perstitiously fearful imagination conjures serve to indicate' the profuse benevolence up, because of:God being at a distance, of Him who is the great, the universal can only -be dispelled by God, brought'Parent of the human' famrily-on -':the nigth unto us.'The spiritual must beother, the cares; the heart-burnings:; the come sensible. The vail which hides moral discomforts;'often the pining sick- the uns'eenr God from the eye of mortals, ness, or cold and cheerless poverty; must be somehow withdrawn. Now all more largely and palpably still-the fierce this has'been done once, and done only, contests unto blood and mutual destruc- in the incarnation of Jesus Christ —He tion, even among civilized men; and being the brightness o f His FRather's lastly, as if to crown and consummate glory, and the express image of His perall, the death, the unsparing' and relent- son.- The Godhead became palpable to less death, which sweeps off generation human senses; and man'could behold, after generatibn, and, in like ghastly tri- as in a picture or in distinct personificaumph, whether aong the abodes of the tion the very characteristics of the Being prosperous or unhappy. after thie'brief who mnade'him. Then truly "did men subsistence of a' few little years, lays all -hold converse with'Immanuel, which is, the varieties of human fortune in the dust being -interpreted; God with us. They -These, on the other hand, bespeak, if saw His gl6ry' in' the face of Jesus Christ; not a malignant, at least an offended and the very characteristics of the DivinDeity. It is in the midst of such contra- ity Himself may be said to have appeared dictory appearances, that the question of in authentic representation before them, the divine administration becomesa pro- when' God manifest in the flesh defound, a hopeless enigma-at -once to scended on Judea and sojourned amongst exercise and baffle all spirits; and the its' earthly tabernacles. By this mystelofty, the unapproachable Being, who rious movement from HEeaven to Earth. presides over it, is' the' object of our the dark the untrodden interval, which dread because to us mantled-in deepest separates the Corporeal from'the Spiiobscurity, is terrible because unknown.' tual, was at Ilength overcome. The King We have only explained one of the eternal' and invisible was then placed two reasons, why nature's conception of'within the' ken of mortals. They saw God, is such as to inspire terror rather the Son, and in Him saw the Father also than our grateful or rejoicing-confidence; -so that while contemplating the person and, ere we proceed to the consideration and the history'of a man, they could of the second, we feel strongly inclined, make a study of the Godhead. though we should thereby anticipate the' And it is thus the unequivocal demon-' next head of discourse, to state, even stration has been given, that God is love. now, and in:immediate sequence to our We could not scale the heights of that first reason for thinking hardly and ad- mysterious ascent, which might bring us -ersely of God, to state, and as far as we within view of the Godhead. It: is byi 21 .162 GOD IS LOVE. [SERIL the descent of the G dhead ur.:o us, that every heart; and which each possessor this great manifestation has been given; of that heart knows himse.f to have haand we learn and know of God, from the bitually violated. But more than this. wondrous history of Him who went about Along with the felt certainly of such doing good continually. We could not a law, there is the resistless apprehension go in search of the viewless Deity, of a Lawgiver; of a God offended by the through the depths and the vastnesses of disobedience of His creatures; of a Judge, Infinitude; or discover the secret, the un- and so of a judgment that awaits us; of told purposes, that were brooding there. a governor, or king in Heaven, between But in no way could a more palpable ex- whom and ourselves there is a yet unsethibition have been made, than when the tied controversy, and because of which eternal Son shrined in humanity stepped we are disquieted with the thought of a forth on the platform of visible things, reckoning and a vengeance that are to and on the proclaimed errand to seek come. We cannot view God as Love, and to save us. We can now read the at the very time that conscience so powchiracter of God, in the human looks erfully tells us to view Him as an enemy. and in the human language of Him, who Even though the lights of Nature and is the very image and visible representa- Christianity should conspire to inform us tion of the Deity. We see it in the tears that love is a general characteristic of the of sympathy which He shed. We hear Divinity, we cannot feel the personal or it in the accents of tenderness which fell practical influence of such a contemplafrom Him. Even His very remonstran- tion, so long as we are sensible of His ces were those of a meek and gentle na- special and merited displeasure; and that ture; for they are remonstrances of deep- the truth and the justice and the high and est pathos, the complaints of a longing, holy attributes of a nature which is unand affectionate spirit, against the sad changeable, seem imperiously to require perversity of men bent on their own un- that this displeasure shall be executed.doing. When visited with the fear that While haunted by the misgivings of a God looks hardly and adversely towards guilty nature, which tells us of our G.wn us, let us think of Him who had com- danger and our own insecurity, we could passion on the famishing multitudes; of' no more delight ourselves with the genHim who mourned with the sisters of eral benevolence of God-than we could Lazirus; of Him who, when He ap- luxuriate in tasteful contemplation over preached the city of Jerusalem wept over the beauties, which, far apd wide, even to it, at the thouyght of its coming desolation the most distant horizon, surrounded the And knowing that the Son is like unto mountain's base, if ourselves exposed to the Father, let us re-assure our hopes the menaces of a bursting volcano that with the certainty that God is love. was above our head. It is thus that we 2. But there is still another reason, lose all sense of God, so long as we view why, instead of viewing God as love, we God through the medium of our own should apprehend Him to be a God of troubled consciences. Even though reaseverity and of stern displeasure. And soning alone were to establish this beau. it is not, like the former, but a fearful im- tiful property in God, as an article of agination, a mere product of uncertainty calm and philosophical conviction, the -or resulting from a headlong bias, on agitations of terror grounded on the conthe part of the human mind, to the super- sciousness of our self-deservings, would stitiously dark and terrific, when employ- disturb this conviction or displace it altoed in contemplating what is vast and at gether. This is not a mere spectral the same time unknown. It has a firmer alarm as the former, but has both a basis to rest upon-not conjured up by definite object and definite cause; and, infancy from a distant land of shadows; stead of an airy imagir.ation, is grounded but drawn from the intimacies of one's on the universal sense. which nature has of own consciousness, and suggested by its own actual and ascertained guiltiness. one of the surest facts or findings in the And this apprehension is not more homestead of man's moral nature. The general than it is strong, and not to be truth is that, by the constitution of human- overcome by a mere eloquent or sentiity, there is a law of right and wrong in mental representation of the Deity-as if XXI.] GOD IS LOVE. 1 6 He possessed but the one characteristic of and Mrist precious of its articles. The tenderness; or as if this were the single one was the doctrine of the Incarnation. excellence of a moral nature, signalized The other is the doctrine of the Atoneby all that is high and all that is holy.- ment. " Herein is love, not that we loved There is a mea(re theology that would God. but that God loved us, and sent His fain resolve the entire character of God Son into the world to be the propitiation into the one attribute of kindness; but for our sins." By the former, a con there is a theology of conscience that quest has been made over the imaginamaintains the ascendancy notwithstand- tions of ignorance. By the latter, a coning, and keeps its ground against this quest has been made over, not the imafrail imagination. To Him who is seat- ginations, but the solid and well-grounded ed on the throne of the universe, we, in fears of guilt. By the one, or through spite of ourselves, ascribe the virtues of means of a divine incarnation, we are the Sovereign as well as the virtues of told of the Deity embodied; and thus the parent; and, however much it might the love of God has been made the subhave suited our convenience and our ject, as it were, of ocular demonstration. wishes, that we could at all times have By the other, or through means of a ditaken refilge in the general and indefin- vine Sacrifice, we are told of the Deity ite placability of God, there are certain propitiated; and thus the love of God has immutabilities of truth and nature that been made to shine forth, in midst of the cannot thus be disposed of. For, attempt law's sustained and vindicated honours. it as we will, we cannot find repose in It is this conjunction of mercy with the imagination of a law without enforce- truth and righteousness; it is this harments, of a lawgiver without authority, mony of all the divine attributes in the of a government without sanctions, of a scheme of reconciliation; it is this skilsentence without effect, and so of guilt fill congruity established in the gospel, without the execution of its proclaimed between the salvation of the sinner and and threatened penalty. And thus the the authority as well as justice of' the ever-meddling conscience within, as irre- Sovereign —which so adapts the mediapressible as it is importunate, keeps man torial economy under which we sit, to all in perpetual fear of God; and tells him, the wants and exigencies of our fallen with felt authority too, that it is a well- nature. A naked proclamation of mercy grounded fear. We cannot rid from our could not have set the conscience at rest, apprehension a jurisprudence, a strict could never have effectually hushea those and guarded and awful jurisprudence, perpetual misgivings -wherewith the which enters into the relationship be- heart of the sinner is haunted, —who, by tween Heaven and earth; and the hon- the very constitution of his moral nature, ours of which cannot be let down, with- must, when he does think of Godthink out despoiling the sanctuary of God of all and tremble before him as a God of justhat is great and all that is venerable.- tice. This it is which letteth; and, ere We cannot think of God with confidence peace and confidence can be fully or or hope, whilst we think of ourselves as I firmly restored to the sinner's distempered delinquents at the bar of that august and bosom, that which letteth must be taken unviolable tribunal where He sitteth in out of the way. And it has been taken judgment over us. We cannot even see out of the way-for now nailed to the Him to be love, through the troubled me- cross of Christ. In this glorious specdium of remorse and fear; and far less tacle do we see the mystery resolved; rejoice or takle comfort in it as a love and the compassion of the parent meeting directed to ourselves. in fullest harmony, with the now assert. Now, as in counteraction to our first ed, the now vin-:icated prerogatives of reason for viewing God with apprehen- the lawgiver. We there behold justice sion and thus losing sight of Him as a satisfied and mercy made sure. T'he Go]l of love, we adduced one peculiar gospel of Jesus Christ is a halo of all the doctrine of Christianity-so, i:. coun- attributes; and yet the pre-eminent maniteraction to our second reason, we now festation there is of God as love-for it addtce another peculiar doctrine otf is love, not only rejoicing over all the Christianity; and that by far the noblest works, but -hrined in full consent while 164 GOD IS LOVE. ISERM shedding e.ihanced lustre amidst all the the propitiation for our sins. There is a perfections of the divine nature. moral, adepth and intensity of meaning, And here At should be especially no- a richness of sentiment that the Bible ticed, that the atonement made for the calls unsearchable, in the cross of Christ. sins of the world, though its direct and It tells a sinful world that God is right. primary object be to vindicate the truth eousness; and it as clearly and emphatiand justice of the Godhead-instead of cally tells us that God is love. casting obscuration over His love, only gives more emrnphatic demonstration of it. But, for the purposb of making this For instead of love, simple, and sponta- doctrine available to ourselves personally, peous, and finding its unimpeded way. we mnust view the love of God, not as a wvithout obstruction and without difficulty vague and inapplicable generality, but to the happiness of its objects-it was a as specially directed, nay actually prof. love, wvhich, ere it could reach the guilty fered, and that pointedly and individually millions whom it longed after, had to to each of us. It is not sufficiently adface the barrier of a moral necessity, that verted to by inquirers, norsufficiently to all but infinite strength and infinite urged by ministers, that the constitution wisdom was insuperable. It was a love of the gospel warrants this appropriation which had to force aside the mountain of of its blessings by each man for himself those iniquities that separated us from.This all-important truth, so apt to be God. The high and holy characteris- lost sight of in lax and hazy speculation, tics of a Being who is unchangeable may be elicited from the very terms stood in its way; and the mystery which in which the gospel is propounded to us, angels desired to look unto was how the from the very phraseology in which its King Eternal who sitteth on heaven's overtures are couched. It is a message throne could at once be a just God and of good news unto all people-to me a Saviour. The love of Godin therefore as one of the people, for where flict with such an obstacle and triumph- is the scripture which tells that I am an ing over it, is a higher exhibition of the outcast? Christ is set forth as a propitia. attribute, than all the love:which radiates tion for the sins of the world; and God from His throne on the sinless families so loved the world as to send His Son into of the unfallen. And then we are taught, it. Let me therefore, who beyond all that. for the achievement of this mighty. doubt am in the world, take the comfort deliverance, not only had the Captain of of these gracious promulgations-for it is our salvation to travel in the greatness only if out of the world, or away from of His strength, but to sustain a deep the world, that they.do not belong to me. and dreadful endurance.: The redemp- The delusive imagination in the hearts tion of mankind was wrought out, in the of many, and by which the gospel is midst of agon4es and cries and a11 the with them bereft of all significancy and symptoms of a so.re and bitter humilia- effect, is, that they cannot take any gention. He was wounded for our trans- eral announcement or general invitation gressions; He was bruised for our ini- that is therein to themselves, unless in quities; on Him the chastisement of our virtue of some certain mark or certain peace was laid; and.when bowing down designation, by which they are specially His head unto the sacrifice, He had to included in it. Now, in real truth, it bear the full burden of a world's expia- is all the other way. It would require a tion. The affirmation that God loveth certain mark, or certain d'signation the world is inconceivably heightened in specially to exclude them; and without lsignificancy and strength of evidence, to some such mark which might expressly 1him who owns the authority of Scrip- signalize them, they should not refuse a ture, and has treasured up these sayings part in the announcements or invitations -that God, so loved the world as to give of the gospel. If the gospel have made Ilis only begotten Son; or, that He no exception of them, they either misunspared not His own Son, but delivered derstand that gospel, or by their unbelief Him up for us all; or, that herein is love, make thoe author of it a liar, if they exnot that we loved God, but that God loved cept themselves. They demand a parus and sent His Son into the world, to he ticular warrant, for believing that they '~xII. aGOD IS LOVE. 165 are comprehended within the limits of: Jstacl-es which it has to struggle with. It the' gospel call to reconciliation: with is commensurate with the species; and God. Now the call:is universal; and:it may be tendered, urgently and honestly would rather need a particular warrant, tendered, to each individual of the human to justify their own dark and — distrustful family. imagination-:of beingr without its limits. When in the spirit of a perverse or.: III. Let us now suppose, in any in-.obstinate melancholy, they; ask their stance that to' the tender on the one side Christian mninister-what is the'ground' there is an acceptance upon the- other; on which he would'bid them in to the. that: God is taken at His,word; and, household of God's reconciled family?- instead of being regarded with jealousy well may he ask, what is the groundton or'terror: as a' distant and inaccessible which they would keep themselves out:?: lawgiver, that He is beheld as a reconHe stands on a triumphant vantage-foot- ciled Father- in Jesus Christ our Lord; ing -for his own vindication. His com-: that the dark, and before impenetrable mission is to. preach the gospel-to.everiy: vail:, which hitherto had mantled the be-'creature -under heaven, and that takes. nign aspect of the divinity is withdrawn; them: in-or to say that whosoever cometh- that the mercy-seat is seen in Heaven, unto Christ' shall not be cast out', and not the less to be relied: on in'its being that takes them in-or behold I stand ate mercy, met with:truth; that disclosure is'the door and knock, if any man will open'made of the love with its smiles of wel I shall enter into friendship and peace come- which beams and beckons there, with him, that also takes them in-or I not the less but the more to be trusted and look unto me all ye ends of the earth and l rejoiced in, that it is a love in full be saved; ~ there is no outcast spoken:of' conjunction with righteousness-a love here, and that too takes them in-or, consecrated with the blood of-an everlastevery man who- asketh receiveth; and ing covenant, and shrined conspicuous surely,; if language have a meaning, that and triumphant amid the honours of a vin-;takes them in-or Christ came into the dicated law. Only imagine a translation world to save sinnee,'s; and, unless they of this sott, a translation truly out of darkdeny'themselves to be sinners, that takes ness into the:mnarvellous light of the gosthem in. In a:word, although they pel; and do you not perceive, -that with may cast themselves out, the primary the light of the gospel in the mind, the'overtures of the gospel recognise no out- love of the gospel in theheart will follow cast.-'I'hy: are not forbidden by God- in its: train? and that the love of goodwill they are only forbidden by themselves, in God,'when once seen and recognised There is no straitening with Him. The I by us, will surely' draw our love of gratstraitening is only in their own narrow itude back. again? - If we had but the and suspicious and ungenerous bosoms. perception, the emotion would come uriIt is true they may abide in spiritual. bidden, or, in the words of the apostle, if darkness if they will-even as a — man we knew and believed the love which can, at his own pleasure, immure him- God hath to us, we should love God beself in a dungeon, or obstinately shut his cause He first loved us. eyes. Still it holds good, notwithstand- And here we may understand the ing, that the light of the Sun in the Fir- regenerating power of Faith. One of its mament is not more open to alleyes,than functions is to justify. But its higher the light of the Sun of Righteousness is and greater function is to sanctify men. for the rejoicing of the spirits of all flesh. Let but the cold obstruction of unbelief The blessings of the gospel are as. ac- be removed; and from that moment, the cessible to all who will) as are the water emancipated heart, as if by the operation or the air or any of the cheap and corn- of a charm, will beat freely and willingly mon bounties of nature. The element of in love to God, and love'for all: His Heaven's love is in as universal diffusion services.- This new faith were the-turnamong the dwelling-places of men, as is ing-point of a new character; and in the, theatmosphere they breathe in. Itsolicits difference between God viewed as an admittance at every door; and.the igno- object of terror, and: God rlewed as anr ran.e or unbelief of man are the only ob- object of confidence-on that single differ. 166 GOD IS LOVE. SER=1 ence, a complete moral revolution is sus- the intractable heart-nor can any of pended. Let me be made to know and its movements be thus subjected to a voli. to believe that God loves me; and, by a tion or to a voice. We cannot, by a law of my mental constitution, I shall be mere inward and undirected >lunge made to love Him back again. I'he in.. among the recesses of our menta, constitellectual precedes the moral change. It tution, conjure up any of the emotions at is doctrine, an article of doctrine, not in our pleasure. The true way of bidding the place which it occupies as the dogma an emotion into being, is to bid into the of a theological system, but as actually mind its appropriate and counterpart obseated in the heart and the article there ject. If I want to light up resentment of a substantial and living creed-it is in my heart, let me think of the injury this which subdues the whole man into a which provokes it-or to be moved with new creature. The executive power of compassion, let me dwell, whether by working this great transformation lies in recollection or fancy, on some picture of the truth. In other words, let the faith 6f wretchedness-or to be regaled with a the gospel enter the breast of any indi- sense of beauty, let me look objectivevidual, and it will renovate the man. ly and out of myself on the glories Let the faith be universal, and we shall of a summer landscape-or to stir up have a renovated w6rld. within me a grateful affection, let me call We might here indulge in the brilliant to remembrance some friendly demonperspective of a regenerated species, and stration of a kind and trusty benefactorthat through the practicable stepping- or to rekindle in my cold and deserted stone, of a declared gospel-seeing that bosom the love of God, let God's love to if its doctrine of God loving the world me be the theme of my believing mediwere as generally accepted as it might tations. I shall never evoke this affecbe heralded through all our pulpits, a na- tion by lookingo inwardly upon myself; tion would be born in a day. But let us but by looking upwardly to the gospel rather at present urge a lesson, which manifestations of the divine character, I each of you might carry personally and may bring it down from the sanctuary practically home; and tell how it is, that that is above me. In other words it is one might animate his own heart with the the faith which elicits and calls out the love of God, and keep this sacred affection feeling; and thus both the lessons of the glowing there. It is not to be summoned Bible, and the findings of the experimneninto being or activity at a call. It is not tal Christian, are at one.vith the strict,y any simple or direct effebt, that you can philosophy of the process-when they atDid it into operation within you. You test that the way to keep our hearts in tan say to the hand, do this, and it do- the love of God, is to build ourselves up 1he. But we have no such mastery over on our most holy faith. SERMON XXIII.Fear of Terror and fear of Reverence. "Pass the time of your sojourning here in fear."-1 PETER i. 17. IN the high and hidden walk of Chris- in good earnest, to the business of their tian experience, there are mental pro- salvation. What more inexplicable for incesses, of which the world at large does stance, than that a disciple should grow not know, and cannot sympathize with. in humility, just as he grows in holiness'There are even certain apparent contra- -that he should have a deeper sense of tieties of feeling,'that are fitted to perplex abasement upon his spirit, just as he those who never realized the rn-just be- should have made a loftier ascent in the cause they have never betaken themselves path of spiritual excellence-that in pro, LXxii. FEAR OF TERROR AND FEAR OF REVERENCE. 167 portion as his advancement in virtue is to us another of its seeming cor.nrarieties. obvious to all other men, in that very pro- W ~e are, in one place, led by the apostle portion he should become the viler in the to regard it as the privilege of Christians, sight of his own eyes. This however is that God had not given them the spirit not so mysterious perhaps, as certain of fear-and yet it is the prayer of the other paradoxes in the life of a gospel same apostle in behalf both of himself pilgrim-which wear an air of more and of his fellow Christians, that they puzzling inconsistency still, to the gene- might have grace whereby to serve God ral understanding. WVhat for example acceptably with reverence and godly can be made of this findingc on the part fear. We are taulght by another apostle of the apostle, that when he was weak to pass the time of' our sojourning here then he was strong-or that when he in fear. Whereas Zacharias, the father gloried in his infirmities, then he had of John the Baptist, rejoices in it as a power to prevail over them-or that privilege of the new dispensation, that when he had no confidence in himself; under it we should serve God without then he rejoiced the most, and had the fear. The apostle Paul tells us to work greatest success in the whole work and out our salvation with fear and trembling; warfare of obedience. This mingling and yet the apostle John says, that perfect of incompatibilities in the heart and his- love casteth out fear, and he that feareth tory of believers, goes to stamp upon is not perfect. We hope by a further them the character of a very peculiar attention to this subject-not merely to people. It is true, the Bible expressly vindicate the wisdom and consistency of tells us that they are so, and that the pe- the Bible in regard to it-but through culiarity lies in their being zealous of the divine blessing, so to unfold certain good works. But it aggravates the pe- processes in the work of sanctification, culiarity yet more, when we behold these as might serve in some degree for the same people having the utmost zeal for practical guidance of those who now the performance of good works,, and yet hear us. the utmost zeal'against placing their re- It may happen from the poverty of liance on them; the most accomplished human language, that the same term in all the graces of personal righteousness, should be employed to express two affecand yet the least confident of its effect in tions, which, although they possess a purchasing for them the rewards of Eter- common resemblance, have also such nity; the most eminent of all their fel- distinct modifications, as really to differ, lows in the virtues of society as well as and that considerably from each other. in the virtues of sacredness, yet the most Nay, so wide may be the difference beforward to disclaim them as articles of tween them, that while it is the privilege merit by which they have earned a suffi- of Christians to be exempted from the cient title to the glories and the enjoy- one, it is their duty to cherish the other ments of Heaven. If Christianity be true to the uttermost. This may give rise to there must be a solution for all these diffi- at least a verbal inconsistency between cultieks; a clue by which to guide our many passages of the Bible-which, way, through the intricacies both of when cleared away, not only delivers Christian doctrine and of Christian ex- this book from a charge which might be perience; a light, that, to every honest alleged against it, but may also elicit an and patient inquirer, must at length be impressive argument in its favour, by struck out between the truths of Scripture manifesting its delicate adaptations to thb and the trials of his own heart-and in peculiarities of our chequered and comquest of which, each of us should betake plex Nature. himself to a more diligent study than be- In the prosecution of this discourse, fore of the Bible, to a more busy process we shall only remark on that fear where-,han before of moral and spiritual culti- of God is the object-and not on that fear vation. which is excited in the heart of an earnest The reason why the verse before us and desirous Christian, by the considerahas suggested these general observatiols, tion of those hazards to which his final is, because that in regard to the affection salvation is exposed. which it enjoins, the Scripture hath offered There is a fear towards God that might 168 FEAR-: OF TERROR AND: FEAR OF REVERENCE..-[SERM -e denominated the fear of terror. It is one brought about by compulsicr of the the-affection of one who is afraid of Him. hand, the other by consent of the -heart. There is in it the alarm of- selfishness. And yet, how shall this translation be God is regarded as in a state of displea- effected from the spirit of bondage to that sure, and as afterwards to wreak that of liberty?:How shall we get quit of displeasure on the person of him who; is -that overwhelming terror, wherewith it the object of it. There is in this fear a is impossible that either affection or condread of God's vengeance. It is at all!fidence can dwell?-and which so long, times connected with a view of one's own therefore, as it subsists, must cause the personal suffering; and the dire imagery'religion of a man upon earth, to be wholly of pain, and tribulation, and perhaps end- dissimilar firom that of. an angel in Healess and irreversible wretchedness, is per- ven? For this purpose, and to appease haps tha.. which chiefly gives dismay and the: terror of our own spirits, shall we disturban,ce to his soul. There is, an im-: shut our eyes to what: is really terrible pression of wrath in. the, breast of' an in- in: the character of GCod 2. Shall we view censed L1jity against him; but there.' is, Him otherwise than as a God of holifurthermo,re, the prospect of some fell and- ness? Shall we dismantle His character fearftl in.liction from His uplifted hand.'of its justice, and righteousness, and The fear of the sinner is not lest God truth? Shall we conceive of Him as should be displeased-for were it only descending: to a compromise with sin, to stop here, he should feel no care, andi and as relenting in aught fiom His hatred have no disquietude'about the matter.. and hostility against it? T'o soften the But the fear- is, lest himself should be Divinity into an object of our possible destroyed. It is altogether an affection tenderness and trust, shall we stlip Him of absorbed and concentrated selfishness. of all His moral attributes but one; and, It. terminates. upon his own person. It in the midst of all this wild and -wasteful is not in the least a rmoral, but entirely anarchy, shall mercy abide as the only an animal feeling —the same with that, surviving perfection of that God whom tn virtue of which any inferior creature we deemed to be unchangeable'? 0, we would struggle back from the precipice fear, that the constitution of the Godhead over wiich it was to be cast; oreye with cannot be so tampered with; and that.rembli.tg recoil the weapon that was the principles:of His everlasting governarandlll ed for its extermina.i.ion. Such nment can never be set aside, nor make.s the it. tr of terror.. It-carries it.in no way to suit the wishes' or the convenialoa.age to- the sacredness of the Divinity ence of sinful man. And the question -v. t iz. aggravated by a sense of that remains, how shall man ever be divested Aar'rt'rntnss, because then.God, regarded' of that terror which is inspired:'bv the as a Gu, of unappeasable- jealousy, is sense of an anory God; and which, at deemed wo be intolerant of all evil; and the same time, sti-iles. an impotency upon the guilt-at-icken soul, in looking upward all the effo ts of Nature to love God, or s;o the hoiiness of the lawgiver, looks for- to impregnate with a right spirit any ward to its own destruction in that. hide-: part of the obedience which it renders to ous and everlasting hell, where the.trans- Him? gressors of the law find their doom and It is reserved for the gospel of Jesus their landing-place. Christ to do away this terror from the Now it is obvious, that, while haunted heart of man, and yet to leave untarby a fear of this soit, there can be no- nished the holiness of God. It is the free, or vwilling, or generous obedience.. atonement that was made by Him which Ti-ere might be a service of drudgery, resolves this nrystery-providing at once but not a service of delight-such obe- for the deliverance of the sinner and for diel.ce as is extorted from a slave by the the dignity of the Sovereign. That whip of his overseer-but not a fiee-will wrath, which had else been poured forth offering- of love or of loyalty. It males upon the guilty, has all been discharged all the di. irence between a slavish and upon the head of their accepted Substi- a sponta,\eous obedience —the one ren- tute; and He, in bowing Himself down dered in the. oldness' of the' letter, the unto the sacrifice,has both established in other in tile newness of the spirit-the full authority the law, and purchased full XXI!.] FEAR -OF TERROR AND FEAR OF REVERENCE. 169 indemnity for those who had put that brood of abominations,: He carries on the authority to scorn. This is the great same unsparing and implacable warfare transaction, by which the broken fellow- as before. Among all the myriads of the ship of earth and Heaven is readjusted; redeemed, there is not one individual the and through this as a free and open me- guilt of whose sins has been pardoned, dium of communication, can God rejoice the powerand the being of whose sins as before. in all kindness over man, and shall not be utterly destroyed. Within man again place his rejoi'ingconfidence the entire compass of our Redeemer's in God. On doing so, he is disburdened kingdom, not one subject to the end of from the terror that had enslaved. him, time ever shall be found, who, ransomed and that had given him the spirit of a from the condemnation of sin, has not crouching pusillanimity to all his obe- been reclaimed fiom sin unto Holiness. dience. He from this moment enters The great and ultimate design of that into libert y. He is no longer haunted: new economy under which we it, is to by degrading apprehensions. about self restore and, to perfect in fallen nan the and about safety. He sees God to be at'lost. virtues of the Godhead; and we only peace with him, but in such a way as to conform to this economy,, when, after enhance the sacredness.of His now vin- having accepted of its offered forgiveness dicated character; and in the very act and so entered into peace. we lcok unto of receiving.his forgiveness through the the.venerable image of. Him to whom we hand of a Mediator, he beholds, through-. have been brought nigh, that brightenout the whole of the august ceremonial, ing unto His resemblance every day, we the heightened lustre that is thrown over may at length attain to Hils character and the truth, and the.justice, and the majesty be filled with His fullness. of the Godhead. It will now be understood of all those But while this view of God.in Christ who have beer. translated into this new -xt;ig'uishes one fear-the fear of terror; economy, or,. to use the language of the St awakens another and an altogether dis- aIpostle, whom God hath translated into.incL fear-the fear of reverence. God is I the kingdom of His dear Son, it will be,o ibager regarded as the enemy of the understood what the fear is which they;inner; but in the cross of the: Redeemer, are relieved from, and what the fear is,rhere this enmity was slain, there is full which they retain-or how they, con-.remonstration of a moral nature that is in formably to one passage of the New mtter repugnancy to sin. He does not Testament, can serve God without fear; appear against us in the aspect of a and at the same time, comformably to Judge; nor, do we hear from His lips the another passage, can serve Him, with voice of condemnation for sins that are reverence and with. godly fear. The past. But still there is distinctly heard.one is that fear which hath torment, and fronm the mercy-seat the voice of a Father, which. perfect love casteth out. The who, along with the utterance of our other is that in which the early churches pardon, bids us go and sin no more. are said to have wallked, at the time Now that we have entered into reconcilia- when they had rest throughout all Judea tion, we hear not the upbraidings of the i and Galilee. and Samaria, and were edifilawgiver, for the despite which in former ed; and walking. in the fear of the Lord, days we nave done unto His will. But and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost, the office of the gospel is to regenerate as were multiplied. The one is that which welt as reconcile; and every disciple belongs.to those fearful and unbelieving, who embraces it is met with the saying- of whom. it is said that they shall have "This is the will of God even your part in the lake which burneth with fire sanctification.". The truth is, that, hav- and brimstone. The other is that which ing found out a way by which to ward belonags to those of whom it is said, that off the vengeance of sin from your per- the mercy of the Lord is unto them who sons —it is the intent and object of this fear. Him. Stuch is the difference of esHis new administration to root out its ex- timation in which these two affections istence from your hearts.. With the sin- are held; and such the difference, in ner He has entered into a _eague of ami- point of treatment, which they severally y; but against sin, and all its serpent shall experience. And it does vin 22 170 FEAR OF TERROR AND FEAR OF REVERENCE. [SERM, dicate the wisdom or d:scrimination of i And such is the feeling of a Christian Scripture, it does mark an intelligent towards God. He stands not in the terview both of our nature and of the bear- ror of any vengeance from His handsings which the evangelical system of yet he would feel an awe in the rebuke revelation has upon it, when it appears, of His countenance. He trembles not that, confounded though they be under under the uplifted arm of an injured one denomination, there is a like differ- Deity. Yet the disapproval of His omence in the properties and characteristics niscient eye, would in itself be dreadful of each of them. The one, as we said to him. He is not frightened at the before, is the fear of terror. The other thought of any coming penalties-yet he is the fear of reverence. When under is solemnized by the notice that God takes the one, we are looking unto self: and of him. In other words, the fear of terthe apprehension is, lest a creature so ror is done away, but the fear of reversentient should be agonised by sufferings ence survives it. A sense of God's mercy, that are to come. When under the other, as exhibited in the work of our redempwe are looking unto God; and the ap- tion, has expelled the one. A sense of prehension is, lest a Being so sacred His holiness, also exhibited there, has should look with distaste and dissatisfac- enhanced and perpetuated the other. The tion towards us because of our present two fears are distinct and dissimilar to remaining sinfulness. When the one is the uttermost. The one is an animal — awakened by a sense of God's displeas- the other is a moralaffection. T'he one, ure, it is because of the vengeance which the fear of terror, will descend with the follows in its train. To the other there accursed into Hell, and have fulfilment is a moral force in the displeasure, there in the cries and agonies of the although there should be no vengeance. place of torment. The other, the fear To conceive the distinction, might we of reverence, will be borne upward by imagine an earthly superior, whom we the redeemed in Heaven, and will there hold in reverence both for his rank and pour a deeper and a graver melody into for his virtues. It inight be a reverence the adorations that compass the throne of wholly unaccompanied with terror. It the Eternal. Let us cease to wonder might be a fear into which there enters then, that the disciples of the New Testano apprehension whatever of pains or of ment are called upon to banish from their penalties. The loss simply of 1his good hearts the first affection, and to retain the opinion were enough to awaken it- second-that in one place, they should although there should be no physical be reproached because of their fearfulloss or physical sufferinf incurred by it. ness; and, in another, should be admonA mere lookl of disapprobation from him, ished to live all their days in the fear of of whose respectability and worth we had God. The faith of the gospel harmonithe high imagination, like the look of zes both these sentiments. It displaces Christ upon Peter, would, of itself, be terror. It heightens reverence. felt to agonise all the better sensibilities This, so far from an unintelligible of our nature. mystery, is exemplified in one of the It is not even necessary for this, that most frequent and familiar relations of we should incur his displeasure by a human life. Let the wife, says the aposviolation of his legal rights. It xvere tle Paul, reverence her husband; but, simply enough to have incurred his dis- while in subjection to him, says the aposesteem by a violation of moral rightness. tle Peter, let her not be afraid with any It is not necessary that he should be amazement-or, as it means, with any offended with us. because we have robbed terror or consternation. If ever you eshim of his dues.' It were enough that he teemed a man from whom you had nothougrht of us unfavourably, because we thing personally to fear-if ever the pre*had fallen short of our own duties. Even sence of a superior drew an homage of thouogh we had nothing to fear fiorn his profoundest defterence from your bosom, anger, still we should fear his disappro- although you had nought of harm and bation. A mere adverse judgment, al- nought of hostility to apprehend from though not followed up by any execu- him-if you have ever knov.n what it tion, would in itself be grievous to us. was to have an awe cast upon youi spi. XxlI.] FEAR OF TEItROR AND FEAF. OF RE /ERENCE, 17, rits, when the dignity, whether of virtu- rous aspirant after the excellence that is ous or intellectual greatness, stood before godlike, into a morose and mercenary you, even though it beamed in placidness hireling.-So that, instead of loving rightupon yourself-then you have had ex- eousness for itself, or of hating iniquity perimental proof in your own feelings of for itself, he wretchedly drivels at the the distinction that we now labour to im- services of the one, and only for the propress; and you have found how possible mised reward; and represses his desires it is to be utterly free of all terror towards towards the other, only because of the God, and yet to hold Him in deepest threatened vengeance. reverence. Now it is not so with the economy of Such is the wide difference between the gospel. The gate of Heaven is these two affections; and, corresponding thrown open at the outset to its disciples; to this, there is a difference equally wide and they were invited with confident step between the legal and the evangelical to walk towards it. God holds Himself dispensations. Under the former econo- forth not as a Judge who reckons, but as my, the alternative to do this and live, is, a Father who is reconciled to them. A that if you fail in doing this, you will deed of remission for the sins that are perish everlastingly. Now let this be past is put into their hands; and wherethe great stimulus to the performance of as before, they, under a sense of guilt, virtue; and then think of the spirit and may have been troubled at the sight of of the inward character, wherewith they God's offended sacredness, they have now are impregnated. It is in fact a charac- beneath the covert of an ample and to them ter of the most intense selfishness. It is freely extended mediatorship, taken their the fear of terror which goads him on to secure refuge from the storm. The fear all his obedience, and compels him to act of terror ought now to have no place in religiously-to walk the servile round of hearts, occupied by a grateful and rejoicmany outward. conforiities, and forcibly ing love, that should cast it away from to refrain his hands from all outward and them; but there is nothing in this transiliteral transgression. For such a reli- tion from Nature to Grace, nothing in gion as this, it is not needed, that he this renouncing of our own righteousness should have any capacity of moral prin- and relying on Christ as our alone Saciple. It is enough if he have the capa- viour, nothing in this change of the lecity of animal pain. He is driven along, gal for the evangelical, that is fitted to not by the feelings of his spiritual, but by extinguish-there is every thing to enthose of his sentient nature; and, instead hance within us the fear of reverence. of liberal or spontaneous piety, we be- When God is seen by us in the face of hold, in the multitude of his operose but Christ, He is seen in the brightness of unwilling drudgeries, all the baseness of His mercy to the sinful; but it is a mera sordid and superstitious devoteeship. cy so accompanied with holiness and That obedience which is given with a truth, so enshrined as it were in the high view to purchase, either the enjoyments honours of a vindicated law, as to throw of Heaven or exemption from the ago- over the character of the Godhead a nies of hell, may evince a taste for hap- deeper sacredness than before. In that piness; but this is altogether distinct from halo which is over the mercy-seat of a taste for holiness-or it may evince a Christianity, there is a radiance of all the distaste for cuffering, but this is not a attributes. Along with the love which distaste for sin. It is thus that we hold gladdens every believer's heart, there is the legal economy to be not more adverse an august and awful majesty to solemnize to the comfort, than it is to the character it, and. while in this wondrous spectacle, of man. It taints and vitiates the moral- we behold peace to the sinner-yet, seen ity which it professes to idolize. It puts as it is through the mystery of a world's -the alloy of an ignoble quality into all its atonement, we there too behold the evil of services. Its constant demand is for vir- sin in most full and appalling demonstratue-on which however it inflicts the ut- tion. While the sinner looked upon all most degradation-causing principle to this as the fire of Heaven's jealousy, di. sink into prudence; and transforming rected against himself, to burn tip and him wrho might else have been a gene- I fierce.y to destroy, there was but room 172 FEAR OF TERROR AND FEAR OF 1REVERENCE. [SE~M.: in his heart for the one affection of sin- tration, all the tasteful scnsiblhities were gle and overwhelming terror. But in abeyance, while death and destruction when seen as it is, averted from us be- were conceived to be at hand-so all the cause discharged upon Him who for our moral sensibilities towards God are s-ake sustained the agonies of the garden equally in abeyance, when'the mind is and of the cross, he can look on without engrossed with the dread of his venthe fear of terror-yet it is impossible to geance, or looks onward to that frightlook intelligently on without the fear of ful eternity which is in reserve for the deepest reverence. It is a like difference children of ungodliness. with that which obtains between the It is by the gospel of Jesus Christ, and sight of a volcano from a place of expo- by it alone, that this check on the morai sure, and from a place of safety. In the sensibilities of our heart towards God is one there are the emotions of an absorb- removed. It assures safety and peace to ing terror, in a mind occupied with self. the sinner; -and he, looking to the atoneIn the other there are the emotions of an ment of the cross, can at once rejoice in admiring taste, in a mind occupied with the fulness of the divine mercy, and do the scene of contemplation.- But for the profoundest reverence to the unabated full enjoyment of this scene, a degree of dignity of the Sovereign. The grace conscious security is indispensable. A and the greatness of the Divinity are sense of danger would disturb, and des- alike open to his view; and. whereas bepair would utterly destroy it; and not fore, the terrors of a guilty selfishness without a certain belief of personal safety, had within him their sole occupation, res. would the fine sensibilities -of taste have cued from these, he can now look calmly their play in the spectator's bosom.'His and intelligently on; and it is when so soul must be in a state of repose,` ere it employed,' that the susceptibilities of: his can reflect those characters' of grandeur moral nature are awakened to one and or of gracefulness which lie on the panol all of the perfections -of the Godhead. rama before it; nor could it take on a It is when he thus looks unto God, that true impression of its varied imagery, if he becomes like unto God —even by the ruffled by apprehension, or, still more,if moral radiance of Him who is adored, tempest-driven among the hazards of the now calling back - a kindred' reflection fiery torrent and of the earthquake from the serene and steadfast counteThere would be one engrossing sensi- nance of him who is the adorer. It isbility that dispossessed all others; -and, thus that that assimilating process which till it was hushed by a sense of protection shall be perfected in'Heaven, where we and of safety, neither the graces nor the shall be altogether like unto God, for sublimities of a perspective so marvellous there we shall see Him as He is, has its could have any charm for his imagina- commencement and its progress upon tion-alike insensible to the gorgeous- earth-for even now, beholding as with ness that blazed upon the mountain-top, open face th'e glory of the Lord, we are or to'the verdant beauty that smiled changed into the same image from glory around its base. to glory even as by the spirit of the Lord.It is just so in reference to God- more Let us now conclude this part of our terrible as He is to the sinner's eye, argument with two practical reflections. than the fiercest and most - menacing First, we doubt that there mayv be some volcano, when viewed only in the light here present, who are alike strangerb of an incensed lawgiver. The sinner is both to the one fear and the other-as at that time otherwise employed, than in little struck by the terror of God's wrath, an admiring survey of the beautyor the as they are solemnized into reverence by nobleness of the Divine character. His the worth:and the moral excellence which great concern is about himself' His belong-to Him.: This we hold to be the overwhelming anxiety is about his own Igeneral habit of men in the world. They prospects. He has not time, or at least stand in no need of a gospel to,soothe he has not tranquillity, among'the agita- them, and just because'the law never tlons of a perturbed spirit, for what may scared them. They are listless, in truth, be called a contemplative study of the and most profoundly asleep to both terms Godhead. And as in our case of illus- of-this big alternative; and, if not- am Xxn.]: FEAR OF TERROR:: AND FEAR; OF REVERENCE.' 173 mated into hope by any sense of reality invitations of that gospel which has held in the offers of mercy, neither can they out to them a sanctuary and a hidingsink into despondency by -any sense of place from the storm, have there cast the reality in the coming vengeance. The anchor of their hope, and now rejoice present existence is their all; and as to that they are safe. Theirs is in no way its issues in a yet unknown and untravel- the joy of those who feel that they can led scene, they think not at all and they sin with impunity. - It is true that they care not at all. The Bible declaration count upon forgiveness, but not forgivethat by nature they are the children of: ness in such a way as marks' the indif. wrath, does not move them. The testi- ference of the Godhead to sin, but formony of their own conscience that they giveness in such a way as manifests His are living without God in the world, does entire and unbroken sacredness. In that not awaken them. The daily remem- atonement-by which the-vengeance of a brancers which' meet them on:their way, broken law has been'averted from themand speak to them with a force of ani- selves, -they still-behold the demonstration mation which. there is no evading, of the of God's antipathy to evil; and if not acdeath -that is so'surely and so speedily tuated as heretofore by the terror'of His awaiting them, carry not forward their- power, still they are actuated by the deepthoughts to the judgment that is also est reverence for the perfections of His awaiting them. Meanwhile.time runs moral nature:' They are not exempted on with unaltered footsteps; and the cy- from service under the economy of the cles of Heaven, as they roll over-head, gospel. Only it is service, not in the oldwitness the follies and the heedlessness of ness of the letters but in the newness oi each successive. day, to be as inveterate as the- spirit. Still it is service; and it of the day that went before it; and not. should be no longer a mystery, that they, more steadfastly than these perform their who,'in one sense- of the term are called wonted revolutions in the firmament upon to serve God without fear, are, in above, does many a poor child of infatua-.another sense of it, called upon to perfect tion below persist in the -coursesof a deep their -holiness in the fear of the Lord. and determined worldliness. Ard -so You will perceive by this, how much with thousands and thousands more, there more pure and generous and noble, the is never so much as one: fearful anticipa- evangelical is than the legal virtue-the tion in time, of that which has its dread one in fact being rendered, in truckling fulfilment in eternity. For God is not exchange for the remuneration which it to be mocked.. -The unchanging princi- aims after;- the other, already in possesples of His moral administration are not sion of -that ample remuneration which to be tampered with. The sanctions of has been won bythe Mediator for all who His outraged law are not to be nullified, believe, rendered as a spontaneous offerbut must have their emphatic vindication ing of love and of loyalty. It is thus -for sooner shall nature expire than the that faith, of all principles the most mahigh jurisprudence of God shall. be ligned and misunderstood by the world, trampled' on-Heaven and Earth -shall not only pacifies the conscience of the pass away but not one jot or one tittle of, sinner, but purifies all the springs of his His law shall fail. obedience-so -that, instead of a drivelSecondly-Let us hope that there are ling -servility towards the' Master o! some here present, who have known whom he is in dread, it is the willing what it was to be practically in earnest: homage of his duteous -and delighted because of these things; and who feeling subordination towards the Father whom a significancy both in the threats-of that.he hold.3 in utmost revereverec. law which they have violated, and in the 174 IMMORTALITY BROUGHT TO LIGHT BY THE GOSPEL. rSERN SERMON XXIV. Immortality brought to light by the Gospel. Who hath abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light by the gospel."-2 TIM. i. 10, THE men of the earth carry on their away from us. Is it a market place? designs and their doings, just as if on Death works among the people at short earth they were to live for ever. Each and rapid intervals; and though at the is.so intent upon his own earthly object end of twenty years, I see a crowd as -every mind is so occupied with its busy and as numerous as before-these own earthly scheme-every countenance are new faces which meet my eye, and speaks such deep and eager anxiety after new names which fall upon my ear. Is some favourite yet earthly ambition- it a church? The aspect of the congreeach individual is so decidedly embarked, gation is changing perpetually; and in with all his powers of attention and per- a little time another people will enter severance, on some earthly undertaking these walls, and another minister will -That surely one might think, it can speak to them. Is it the country at be nought of a trifling or temporary na- large? On every side we see a shifting ture, which either creates or keeps up so population-another set of occupiers to mighty a stir among our species. And the farms, and other names or other men yet it is not the less true, that all the busy annexed to the properties. activities of all these people have their But this is viewing the subject at a upshot in forgetfulness. It is not the distance. Every assemblage of objects greatness or the durability of the objects, is composed of individuals; and think which has called forth the effort and the of the numbers that must have suffered, strenuousness of men. It is the folly of to accomplish the changes which we men, which urges them to the pursuit of have now set before you. Think that paltry and evanescent objects-a folly each of these individuals carried in his whill overlooks the arithmetic of our bosom a living principle, and that that few little years, and has invested time principle is now to all appearance extinwith the characters of eternity-a folly guished-that each felt as warm and as which all the demonstrations of experi- alive to the world as perhaps any who ence have been unable to rectify; and now hears me, and that this world the which, after the mighty sweep of count- stern severity of death forced' him to less generations fiom the face of our abandon for ever-that each was as feelworld, reigns with unabated strength ingly open to pain and to terror, and over the human heart, and finds the men that the forebodings and the reluctance of the present day as unwise and as in- and the agonies of death came upon all fatuated as ever. of them-that each had hopes and plans. Death is a theme of mighty import; and wishes to accomplish, but that death and every variety of eloquence has been carried him away; and they are all exhausted, upon the magnitude of its buried in forgetfulness along with him. desolations. There is not a place where All is vanity, says the preacher; and human beings congregate together, that it is death which stamps this character does not, in the fleeting history of its in- on the affairs of the world. It throws a matos, give forth the lesson of their mockery on all that is human. It frusmortality. Is it a house? Death enters trates the wisest plans, and absolutely unceremoniously there, and with rude converts them into nothingness. Allthe hand tears asunder the dearest of our ecstacies of pleasure, all the splendours sympathies. Is itatown? Every year. of fame, all the triumphs of ambition, death breaks up its families; and the so- all the joys of domestic tenderness, all ciety of our early days is fast melting the eye can look for or the heart aspire uxIV.] IMMORTALITY BROUGHT TO LIGHT BY THE GOSTEL. 175 fter —tnis, this is their affecting termi- his tyranny to pieces? We never saw Lation. Death absorbs all-it annihi- that Being. But the records of past ites all. Our fathers who strutted their I ages have come down to us; and we ittle hour on this very theatre, were as there read of an extraordinary visitor ctive and as noisy as we. The loud who lighted on tlese realms. where death tugh of festivity was heard in their has'reigned so long in all the triumphs wellingrs; and in the busy occupation of undivided empire. Wonderful enterf their callings, they had their days of prise, He came to destroy death. Vast ibour, and their nights of thoughtful undertaking, He came to depose Nature nxiety. The world carried on it then from her conceived immutability. He le same face of activity as now; and came to shift her processes-and a law there are the men who kept it up in that embraced in its wide grasp all which leir allotted generation? They are lives and moves on the face of the world, there wev shall soon follow them. They he came to overturn it. And He soon ave gone to sleep; but it is the sleep of gave tokens of a power commensurate to eath. Their bed is a coffin in which the mighty undertaking. That Nature, iey are mouldering. The garment to whose operations we are so apt to asrhich they have thrown aside is their cribe some stubborn and invincible neody, which served them through life; cessity, gave way at His coming. She ut is now lying in loose and scattered felt His authority through all her ele-:agnients, among the earth of their ments, and she obeyed it. VWonderful rave. period, when the constancy of Nature And it does aggravate our hopeless- was broke in upon by Him who estabess of escape from death, when we look lished it-when the Deity vindicated His' e the wide extent and universality of its honours; and the miracles of a single ivages. We see no exception. It scat- age, committed to authentic history, gave' rs its desolations with unsparing cruelty evidence to all futurity that there is nong all the sons and daughters of a Power above Nature and beyond it...dam. It perhaps adds to our despair, What more unchanging than the aspect,hen. we see it extending to the other of the starry Heavens; in what quarter.imals. Every thing that has life dies; of her dominions does Nature maintain ad even the lovely forms of the vegeta- a more silent and solemn inflexibility,, le creation dissolve into nothing. It than in the orbs which roll around us T ppears to be the condition of every or- Yet at the coming of the mighty Saviour, anic being; and so looks as if it were these Heavens broke silence. Music rne tremendous necessity, under which was heard from their canopy, and it came re have nothing for it but helplessly to from a concord of living voices, which:quiesce. It carries to our observation sung the praises of God, and made them 1 the immutability of a general law. fall in articulate language upon human [an can look for no mitigation to ears. After this, ho can call Nature unre big and incurable distress. He can- alterable? Jesus Christ while he tarried )t reverse the processes of Nature, on earth made perpetual invasions upon )r bid her mighty elements obey him. her constancy; and she never in a sinIs there no power then superior to gle instance, resisted the word of His. ature, and which can control her? To power. What manner of man is this, a law of the universe carries the idea said his disciples, who can make the some fixed and inalienable necessity wind and the seas obey him? Philosomng with it; and none more certain, phers love to expatiate; and they tell us are unvarying and more widely ex- of the laws of the animal and the vegeided in its operation, than the law of table kingdom. These laws may prove ath. In the wide circuit of things, an impassable barrier to us, but in the es there exist no high authority which! hand of the omnipotent Saviour they a abolish this law?-no power which were nothing. He reversed or susa overthrow death, and spoil him of pended them at pleasure. He blasted principality?-no being travelling in the fig tree by a single word; and, wbhat. greatness of his strength? who can to us was the dawn of some high antici ipple this mighty monarch and break pation, He made man the subject of His 176 IMMORTALITY BROUGHT TO LIGHT BY THE GOSPEL. [SERBL miracles. He restored sight to the blind. its properties, when it is regarded as hasw He restored speech to the dumb. He ing a separate or substantive being of its restored motion to the palsied. And to own. For example it has been said that crown His triumph over Nature and her spirit is not matter, and therefore must be processes, He restored life to the dead. imperishable. We confess that we see He laid down His own life, and He took not the force of this reasoning, -We are it up again. The disciples gave up all not sure by nature of the premises; and for lost, when they saw the champion of neither do we apprehend how the conclutheir hopes made the victim of that very sion flows from it. We think ourselves mortality, which He promised to destroy. familiar with the subtleties and the schoIt was like the revenge and the victory lastics that have been uttered upon the of Nature, over Him who had so often subject. To us theyv are far from satis, prevailed against her. But it was only factory; nor can we perceive aught of to make His triumph more illustrious. that evidence, on which we rest our Ile died and was buried; but He belief in any coming event or coming rose again. HEe re-entered that myste- state of the futurity which lies before us rious bourne, from which it has been -we can perceive no such force of pracsaid'that no traveller ever returns; but tical evidence in those abstract or metaHe did. He burst asunder the mighty physic generalities, which are employed barriers of the grave. He re-entered to demonstrate the endurance or rather and reanimated that body which expired the indestructibleness of the thinking on the cross; and by that most striking principle-so as to be persuaded, that it of all testimonies, His own unaltered shall indeed survive the dissolution of the form emerging from the tomb, Ele has body, and shall separately maintain its given us to know, that He fought against consciousness and its powers 6n the other the law of death and He carried it. side of the grave. But man not only wants power to Now, in the recorded fact of our Sa.;achieve his own immortality, He also viour's resurrection, we see what mans,wants light to discover it. If such, in would call a mrore popular; but what w( spite of every appalling exhibition to the should deem a far more substantial anc contrary, is really to be the ultimate state satisfactory argument for the soul's immor of man, this doctrine is not brought to tality, than any that is furnished by thi light by reason. T'he text ind'eed says speculation which we have now allude( as much, in saying that it is brought to to. To us the one appears as mucd light by the gospel. It represents this superior to the other, as History is mor great truth as dark by Nature, and only solid than Hypothesis, or as Experienc made clear by Revelation. It seems to is of a texture more firm than Imnagine cast discredit on all the arguments of tion, or as the Philosophy of our moder: science in behalf of.a future state; and, Bacon, is of a surer and sounder chara( just for want of a sufficient basis in the ter than the Philosophy of the old schoo evidence of Philosophy on which to rear men. Now it is upon the fact of H: this noble anticipation, it would rest and own resurrection that Christ rests ti establish it chiefly on the evidence of faith. hope and the promise of resurrectic to all of us. If He be not risen from't In the further prosecution of this dis- dead, says one of His'apostles, we are ( course, let us first advert to what may be all men the most miserable. It is to th called the physical state, and then to the fact, that he appeals as the foundation ar moral state of the mind; and under each'the hope of immortality-. To every cat nead, let us endeavour to contrast the in- and to every difficulty he opposes t] sufficiency of the light of nature, with the emphatic argurnent, that Christ has rise sufficiency and fulness of the light of the This was Paulll's arogumodnt; and it h gospel. descended by inheritance to us. V have received the testimony. We ha I. An argument for its immortality has access to the documents. We can ta' been drawn from the consideration of a view of the unexampled eviden what we should term the physics of the which has been carried down to us up mind-that is, from the consideration of the vehicles of history; and in oppositi XYI.] IMMORTALITY BRiOUGH7 TO LIGHT BY THE GOSPEL. 177 to all which fancy or speculation can of immortality. So is the resurrection muster against us, we can appeal to the of the dead. It is sown in corruption. fact. It is not a doctrine excogitated by It is raised in incorruption. It is sown in the ingenuities of human reasoning. It dishonour. It is raised in glory. It is is a doctrine submitted to the observa- sown in weakness. It is raised in power. tion of the human senses. It is not It is sown a natural body. It is raised a an untried experiment. While Jesus spiritual body. This corruptible must Christ lived, He made it repeatedly, and put on incorruption; and this moital with unvaried success, upon others; and, must put on immortality. So when this in giving up His body to the cross, He corruption shall have put on incorruption, made it upon Himself. One who could andl this mortal shall have put on irnmor. carry an experiment such as this to a tality, then shall be brought to pass the successful termination, has a claim to be saying that is written, Death is swallowed listened to; and He tells by the mouth of up in victory. an apostle, that the fact of Himself having risen, bears most decisively upon the II. But another argument for the imrdoctrine that we shall rise also. "For mortality of man, has been drawn by if we believe that Jesus died and rose philosophers from the moral state of his again, even so them also which sleep in mind; and more especially from that Jesus will God bring with him." progressive expansion, which they affirm Let it be remarked, before we conclude it to have undergone, in respect of its -this head ofdiscourse,that the word which virtues as well as of its powers. Still we we render " abolished," signifies also, fear, that, in respect of this argument too "made of no effect." The latter inter- the flowery description of the moralists pretation of the word is certainly more has no proof, and more particularly no applicable to our first or our temporal experience to support it. There is a death. He has not abolished temporal beauty we do confess in many of their death. It still reigns with unmitigated representations; but beauty is only for violence, and sweeps off its successive them who sit at ease. It is a cruel generations with as great sureness and mockery to the man who is surrounded rapidity as ever. This part of the sen- by the agonies of a death-bed; and has tence is not abolished, but it is rendered in his immediate view, the dread images ineffectual. Death still lays us in the of annihilation or vengeance. Yes! we grave; but it cannot chain us there have heard them talk, and with eloquence to everlasting forgetfulness. It puts its too, of the good man and of his prospects cold hand upon every one of us; but a -of his progress in life being a splendid power mightier than death will lift it off career of viitue, and of his death being a and these frames be again reanimated gentle transition to another and a better with all the warmth of life and of senti- world —of its being the goal where he ment. The church-yard has been called reaps the honourable reward that is due he land ofsilence; and silent it is indeed to his accomplishments, or being little:o those who occupy it. The Sabbath more than a step in his proud march to ell is no longer heard; nor yet the tread eternity. This is all verv fine, but it )f the living population above them. is the fineness of poetry. Where is the 3ut though removed from the hearing evidence of its being any better than )f every'earthly sound, yet shall they a deceitful imagination? lear the sound of the last trumpet. It We might believe that there was some-:hall enter the loneliness of their d wel- thing real in this stately progression to ings, and be heard through Death's eternity, if we saw it; but we see it not.'emotest caverns. When we open the Why so cruel an interruption to the proepulchres of the men of other times, the gress? What means this awful and ragments of skeletons and the moulder- mysterious death? Why is the good ag of bones form indeed a humiliating man not suffered to carry on in his tripectacle. But the working of the same umphant progress; and how comes this. lower which -raised Jesus from the dead, dark and inexplicable event, to be interhall raise corruption to a comelier form, posed between him and the full accomnd invest it in all the bloom and vigour plishment of his destiny? You may 23 178 IMMORTALITY BROUGHT TO LIGHT BY THE GOSPEL. SERM. choose to call it a step; but there is no have no confidence in him, or in his virtue in a name to quell our suspicion. remedies. I should like him to see the It bears in every circumstance all the mischief in its full extent, that the medimarks of a termination. We see the cine applied may be such as to meet and gradual decay of those faculties, which to combat with it. Now Christ the Phyyou tell us, but tell us falsely, are ripen- sician of souls has taken up their disease ing and expanding. We see those vir- in all its malignity. There is no softentues which you have represented as in a ing, no disguise, in the representation of state of constant perseverance-we see His messengers. Their account of death them giving way to the power of disease Iaccords with our experience of it. What -we-see them withering into feebleness; they tell us of death, is what we feel it to and, instead of that which confers grace be-not that thing of triumph, which out or dignity on man, we see the peevish- of Christianity and beyond the circle of ness, the discontent, the fretfulness of age. its influence it never is; but a thing of WVe see the body bending to the dust. distress, and horror, and unnatural vioWe see it extended in all the agony of lence. He who is weak enough to be helplessness and pain. To call this a carried along by the false and the flimsy triumphant procession to eternity-or to eloquence of sentimental moralists, might disguise those actual horrors which the be led to believe that the man who dies ear -hears and the eye witnesses, by the is only sinking gently to repose, or winggildings of a flimsy imagination! We ing his way to a triumphant eternity. observe the emission of the last breath; But the Bible tells us differently-that and, whether the spirit is extinguished or out of Christ there is no triumph and no fled to another residence, Nature tells us gentleness about i;. It talks of the sting, not-but when the academic aeclaimner and of the pains, and of the fear of death; talks of his fancied career of perfection, and what we feel and know of the shrinkwse should lift the honest front of expe- ings of nature, proves that it has experience against him, and call upon him to rience on its side. And the book which reveal to us the mystery of death. How characterizes so truly death in itself, is comes an event so unseemly to meet the worthy at least of our attention, when it hero of immortality, on the path he was treats of death in its moral or spiritual treading with such securityand triumph? bearings. What the purpose of such an interrup- Death then, as it appears to the eye of tion at all? Why has the being, whom the senses, is but the extinction of that they would proudly assimilate to angels, life which we now live in the world; but such an ordeal to undergo? Why like death, as revealed to us in Scripture, is them does he not flourish in perpetual the effect and the sentence of sin. Sin is vigour? And how shall we explain that the root of the mischief; and it is a mismighty change, with all its affecting ac- chief which Scripture represents as companiments of reluctance and agony stretching in malignity and duration, far and despair? bevond the ken of the senses. Had we Deatlh gives the lie to all the specula- no other guide than our senses, we might tions of all the moralists; but it only conceive death to be a mere annihilation; gives evidence and consistency to the and the utter destruction of their being: statements of the gospel. The doctrines to be the whole amount of the calamity of the New Testament will bear to be inflicted upon sinners. But distinct from confronted with the rough and vigorous this death of the body, there is what may lessons of experience. They attempt no be termed the death of the soul —not a ornament and no palliation. They give death which consists in the extinction of the truth in all its severity-nor do they its consciousness, for the conscience of attempt to strew flowers around the se- guilt will keep by it for ever-not a deatf pulchre, or pour a deceitful perfume into which implies the cessation of feeling, iO the rottenness of the grave. Were a to feeling it will continue to be all alive physician to take up my case, and speak though the feeling of intense sufferinglightly of my ailments, while I knew not a death by which all sense or Goc that a consuming disease was working will be expunged, for the sense of God' and making progress within me, [ should offended countenance will abide by it naa KIV.] IMMORTALITY BROUGHT TO LIGHT BY THE GOSPEL.. 17i ronize it through all eternity. He who God, where they shall ever rejoice in the idergores this second this sspiritual death, purest light and.he happiest immor)esnot thereby cease to have life; but tality. ceases to have that favor of God which To estimate aright the new moral exbetter than life. He lives it is true, but istence into which Christ ushers every is the life of an exile from hope and sinner who receives Him,-we have om happiness. He lives, but it is in a only to reflect how it is that every sinner, ate of hopeless distance from the foun- apart from Christ, stands towards God in of living water. God is at enmity He is either immersed in deep oblivion wards him; and in his own heart there and unconcern, and so may well be acenmity towards God. This at least is counted dead to the Being who made.e death of enjoyment. It is the death and who upholds him; or if his conall those pleasures, and of all those science be at all awake to a true sense of 1rceptions, which belong to a right moral his delinquencies from the law, he must ate of existence. In this sense truly the view the lawgiver with a feeling of,ul is dead, though alive and most pun- dread and discomfort and jealousy. -ntly alive to the corrosions of that worm There is a wide (rg':ph of alienation behich dieth not. In this sense there has tween him and his Maker; and the habi7en a quenching of its life, though all tual the haunting apprehension of God's nvake to the pain and the anguish of the displeasure towards him, engenders in re that is not quenched. The temporal him back again a habitual dislike towards Lath is only the portal to sorer calami- God. There is no community of affects. All who sin shall die; but this is tion or confidence betwixt them; and )t the conclusion of the sentence. All pursued as he is by a conviction of guilt, ho die in sin shall live in torment. which he cannot resist and cannot escape Now it promises well for our Sa- from, he imagines a scowl on the aspect our's treatment of this sore malady- of the Divinity-an awful barrier of at He hath as it were placed Himself separation, by which he is hopelessly the source of the mischief, and there and irrecoverably exiled from the sacred ade head against it. He has combated throne of the Eternal. His spirit is not Le radical force and virulence of the at ease. It is glad to find relief, in the,sease. He has probed it to the bottom. day-dreams of a passing world, from [e has grappled with sin in its origin those solemn realities, the thought of id its principle. He has taken it away which so agitates and disquiets it. It -for by the sacrifice of Himself on the seeks an opiate in the things of' sense'cursed tree, He has expiated its guilt; and time, against the disturbance which id, by the operation of the Spirit in the it finds in the things of eternity; and so, -art of the believer, He is rooting out cradled in profoundest lethargy, it, existence. Had He only put together while alive unto the world, is dead unto e fragments of my body, and recalled God. y soul to its former tenement-He We cannot imagine a greater revolu ould have done nothing. Sin, both in tion in the heart, than that which,would power and in its condemnation, would ensue on the burden of this distrust oi ive claimed me as its own —and, in of this apathy being done away-when,'eary banishment from God, it would instead of viewing God with terror, or Lve recalled me to life, but a life of shrinking from the thought of Him, the isery; and stamped on me immortali- sinner would steadfastly gaze upon. His,but an immortality of despair. But reconciled countenance, and be assured e Author of the gospel has swept off of the complacency and the good-will e whole burden of the calamity. He that were graven thereupon. Now a Ls made a decisive thrust into the very simple faith in the glad tidings of the,art and principle of the disease. He gospel is competent to achieve this. It Ls destroyed sin, for He has both can- would loosen the spirit's bondage, by lied the sentence and washed away merely transforming the aspect of the e pollution; and, by the accomplish- Divinity from that of an enemy to that ent of a mystery which angels desire of a friend. It would change our indlf. look into, He brings sinners unto ference or our hatred into love; and this 180 IMMORTALITY BROUGHT TO LIGHT BY THE GOSPEL. [SERA i,%ction, from the central the presiding took the sentence upon Himslf. He p-ace which it, occupies, would subordi- bore our iniquity. He became sin for nate the whole man, and so utterly us, though He knew no sin, that we change his moral system as to make a might become the righteousness of God new creature of him. The faith of the in Him. The sentence is no longer in gospel is somethln(r more than the germ force against us. The Saviour has canof a new hope. It is the germ of a new celled it; and he has done more than heart, and so of a new character. The this. He has not only cancelled the guilt believer's taste and sensibilities are now of sin, he has extinguished its power. He awake to objects, to which before he was reigns in the heart of the believer. He utterlv dead; or from which he wont to sweeps it of all its corruptions. He takes recoil with strong and sensitive aversion. it such as it is-He makes it such as it In other words. ie has become alive to should be. He brings the whole man these objects. He expatiates on another under a thorough process of sanctificatheatre of contemplation; and he rejoices tion-so that while he lives he adds one in other scenes and other prospects than degree of grace unto another-when he before. He has lost his relish for that dies he rejoices in hope of the coming in which he formerly delighted. He glory-when he stands at the bar of delights in that for which formerly he judgment, he is presented holy and unhad no relish. It is just as if old senses reprovable in the sight of God and of had been extinguished, and as if new His Saviour. Tn the wnole of this treatones had been substituted in their place. ment, I see the skill and intelligence and If he is not ushered into life for the first superior management of a physician who time he is at least ushered into a new is up to the disease; and knows where mode of life for the first time. He un- the main force of its malignity lies —who dergoes preferment from the animal to the has a thorough insight into the principle spiritual life; and this life, with the irn- of the mischief, and has reached forward mortality annexed to it, is not only made an appropriate remedy to confront'tclear by the gospel-but faith in the who, to abolish death, has directed the gospel may be said to have created it. strength of His attack against sin wvhic Now all this is the doing of the Sa- is its origin —who has averted the con viour. I cannot trust the physician who demnation of sin, by an expiatory sacri plavs upon the surface of my disease, fiee-and who is destroying its powe: and throws over it the disguise of false and its existence, by the operation of tha colouring. I have more confidence to mighty spirit, whereby He can breal put in himn, who, like Christ the Physi- down the corruption of the human hear cian of my soul, has looked the malady and subdue it unto all righteousness. fairly in the face,-has taken it up in all Believe this done; and the veili its extent, and in all its soreness-has thrown aside which separates you fror resolved it into its original principles- the glories of heaven-the way lies clea has probed it to the very bottom; and and open before you; and light, pure an has set himself forward to combat with satisfying light, gives the highest ev the radical elements of the disease. This dence and splendoiur to the great doctrin is what the Saviour has done with death. of life and immortality. The gran He has plucked it of its sting. He has mystery is resolved. The barrier awhic taken a full survey of the corruption, kept the sinner at a distance from God and met it in every one quarter where levelled and put away. That barri( its malignity operates. It was sin which was sin; and Christ, by the mighty ii constituted the virulence in the disease, struments of His sacrifice and His, spir, and he hath extracted it. He hath put has overthrown it. But a victory ovr it away. He hath expiated the sen- sin is a victory over death. Where s tence; and the believer, rejoicing in the hath no longer anv dominion, death ha assurance that all is clear With God, no longer any claim; and that migh serves Him without fear in righteous- Being who spoiled principalities ai ness and in holiness all the days of his powers hath abolished death, because E life. The sentence is no longer in force conquered sin. True, it still reigns aga.nst us who believe. The Saviour these mortal bodies; and till the ne XXIV. I IMMORTALITY BROUGHT TO Llui r BY THE GOSPEL. 18, system of things be established, it willI exertions. I obey the invitation of the scatter its desolation over the surface of Saviour —' Come unto me'-I put the the world. But the new system is pre- case into His hand; and, if I do it in the paring. A place is fitting up in Heaven, assured hope that His redemption will for those to whom our Saviour hath provide for it, I shall not be disappointed. given the assurance, that, in His Father's If I offer Him the case, He will not rehouse there are many mansions; and on fuse to take it up.' Him that cometh earth, the Spirit is now working in the unto me, I will in no wise cast out.' He hearts of the destined occupiers, and takes up the case which I have submitted making them meet for the inheritance. to Him. He examines it in its two leadThese vile bodies must be put off; and ing particulars. I cannot expiate the senothers put on, over which death shall tence; but the blood of His atonement have no power. They will persist in can do it for me. I cannot turn from the bloom and in vicour to eternity. Mighty paths of sin; but He can turn me by His change in the constitution of the species grace-He can reign in me by His spirit — mighty chance in the material system -so that though without Him I can do around us —mightv change in the souls nothing-yet with Him for my strengthof men, as well as in the bodies whitch ener and my friend I can do all things." they animate. The bodies we now wear This then is the finished work, the comrnshall moulder into dust-the earth we plete salvation of Jesus Christ. " VWhonow tread upon shall be burnt up-the soever believeth in Him hath everlasting heavens we now gaze at shall pass away life." Believe, and you will come forth as a scroll-But we look for new heavens with alacrity at His call. From the conand a new earth, wherein dwelleth right- templation of your own nothingness, you eousness; and the beings who live in it will cast yourself upon the Saviour and shall never die. upon His sufficiencyv. You will make Before we conclude, let us refer your an entire and unconditional surrender of attention to the grand agent in this won- yourselves to Him; and be assured, that, derful ri storation of a fallen world. The from the first moment of your doing so, work is His, and it is His only. We there will emerge the new hope of the must take Him not as a fellow-helper in redeemed, and the new life of the sanctithe cause, but as the Captain of our sal- fled disciple. vation. It was He who trode the wine- And you Christians, who have sat at press alone. His was all the contest, and His table-who have eaten of that bread to Him be all the triumph. Let no man which is the symbol of His body, and offer to usurp or to share it with Him. drunk of that wine which is the symbol To Him belongs the work of our re- of His blood-be assured, that, if you demptionr, in all its extent. and in all its have done so, with all the spirituality of particulars. It was His sacrifice which a firm and believing dependence on Him redeemed us friomm the punishment of sin; as your Saviour, upon you shall the and it is -l;is spirit which redeems us whole of this great redemption be acfrom its pollution. And we contend that complished. You have brought your man is not in the right attitude for re- bodies into contact with the elements of ceiving the mighty benefit, till he has the ordinance; and if you have brought cast down all his lofty imaginations, and your minds into contact with the things resigned himself with gratitude and qui- represented by these elements, we can etness into the S.lviour's hands. " Here state to you in decisive language what I am under the twofold misery, of having will be the fruit of such fellowship. God been a sinner in time past, and being a is not unfaithful who hath called you sinner still-of having incurred a sen- unto the fellowvship of His Son, Jesus tence which I cannot expiate, and of per- Christ our Lord; and we can assert, severing in a path of destruction which I upon the fidelity of God, upon the unfailcannot turn from. The case in all its ing promises of Heaven, upon the helplessness, and in all its difficulties, I strength of a high and unchangeable at make over wholly to the Saviour. I may tribute, upon that truth of the Deity as well try to level yonder mountain. as which is printed on all His works, and, try to master it by mny own indepcndetnt shines through all His revelations-In a 1-82 IMMORTALITY BROUGHT TO LIGHT BY THE GOSPEL. [SEIhM. word, we can assert upon the solemn as- He can ask you to bend your ear, and to severation, nay, upon the oath of the catch the faltering accents of praise and Divinity Himself, that all who believe in of piety. What meaneth that joy in the His Son shall have their fruit unto holi- midst of suffering-that hope in the midst ness, and the end everlasting life, of breathlessness and pain-that elevation Such is the hope of your calling. Hold in the midst of cruellest agonies? It is it firm and fast even unto the end; and not his own merit which sustains him. — the bed of death will be to you a scene of It is the merit of a benevolent Saviour. triumph-the last messenger will be It!s: not a sense of his own righteousness a messenger of joy; and those bright which gives intrepidity to his expiring images of peace and rapture and eleva- bosom. It is the righteousness of Christ. tion, which, out of Christ, are the mere It is the hope of being found in Him, fabrication of the fancy, will, in Christ, and a sense of the grace and forgiveness be found to have a reality and a fulfil- which he has received.through His ment, which shall bear you up in the hands. In a word it is Christ who remidst of your dying agonies, with a joy solves the mystery. It is His presence unspeakable and full of glory. It is no which throws tranquillity and joy around longer an idle declamation now. There the scene of distress. It is He who adis many a minister of Christ who could ministers vigour to the dying man-; and, give you experience for it. He can take while despair sits on every countenance, you to the house of mourning-to the and relatives are weeping around him, mansion of pain and of sickness-to the Ile enables him to leave them all with chamber of the dying man. He can this exulting testimony-O death where draw aside the curtain which covers the is thy sting-O grave where is thy last hours of the good man's existence, victory! and show you how a Christian can die. SERMON XXV. The Brevity of Human Life. " But this I say, brethren, the time is short."-1 COR. vii. 29. THE affirmation of the text may be ter. In the'churchyard, we see graves tried by a most distinct arithmetic. The of every dimension. This land of silence average of man's life is numerically is far more densely peopled by young known. And should there be an over- than by old-proving that through all weening confidence to carry our hopes the departments of life, whether of age, beyond this average, the maximum of or of youth, or of infancy, the arrows of life is numerically known. And, to this mighty destroyer flee at random. balance the uncertainty whether our days Parents have oftener to weep over their upon earth may not greatly exceed the children's tomb, than children hlave to average, there is an equal uncertainty carry their parents to that place, where whether they may not as greatly fall lies the mouldering heap of the generashort of it. There is no point, from its tions that have already gone by. So that origin downwards, in which death may on the side of our text, we have the clearnot lay his arrest on the current of hu- est lights both of arithmetic and of expeman existence; and as if the whole rience; and one would think it superfludomain of humanity were his own, does ous to hold any parley with the underhe go forth at large fiom one extreme to standing, on a topic of which the proof is the other of it; nor is there a single por- so overpowering. tion of the territory, on which, with free Why, it may be thought, should we aad unfaltering footstep, he may not en- be anxious in urging a truth, which may XXV.J BREVITY OF HUMAN LIFE. 183 safely be left to its own evidence? or his heart to it, under the most touching take occasion strenuously and repeatedly experiences of its vanity-than on per to affirm, what none is able to deny? ceiving how unmoved he is out of all his And this is just the marvellous anomaly earthliness, whether he go from burials of our nature, which it is so difficult to to business, or from business back again explain. In the face of all this evidence, to burials-than on observing how, after and in utter opposition to the judgment having carried a neighbour to his grave, which is extorted thereby, there is an and there trod as it were on the confines obstinate practical delusion, that resides of the world, he will turn him again most constantly within the hearts, and with a devotedness as intense and'as unrules most imperiously over the habits broken to its concerns and companies as of the vast majority of our species. It before. We affirm, that of the spell is not that we are incapable of all influ- which binds him to earth, no power ence from futurity; for it is the future within the compass of nature is able to gain of the present adventure, or the disenchant hini —that argument will not future issue of the present arrangement, -and the inroads of mortality on his or the future result of the present contri- own dwelling-place will not-and servance, that sets about the whole of human mons poured forth over the closing grave activity agoing. But it is to the future of the dearest of his family will not and death, and to the future condition on the the evident approaches of the last ruesother side of it, that we are so strangely senger to his own person will not-And insensible. We are all in the glow and it is indeed a most affecting spectacle to bustle and eagerness of most intense ex- behold, amid the warnings and the symppectation, about the events that lie on the toins of a dissolution which so speedily intermediate distance between us and awaits him, that he just hugs more closely death; and as blind to the certainty of to his heart that world, which is on the the death itseif, as if this distance stretched eve of being torn away from his embraces indefinitely onward in the region of anti- for ever. Give me then a man who is cipation before us, or as if it were indeed actually alive to the realities of faith; an eternity. There is a busy fitful and and the inference from all this is, that unsettled dream into which the world another power than that of the experience has been lulled as if by fascination; and of nature over the feelings of nature, must out of which neither the moan of fre- have been put foith to quicken him. quent death-beds, nor the- daily tolling There is not within the compass of all of the funeral bell, nor the constant break- that is visible, any cause competent to the ing down of existing families, nor the working of such an effect upon the human piece-meal falling away of the old society, spirit. The power which awakens it to nor the building up of a new one in its a sense of spiritual things, conleth from place-we say that there is a deep sleep a spiritual quarter. There is nought in upon our world, out of which the whole the world that is present, which can noise and turmoil and terror of these in- bring a human soul under the dominion cessant changes, have been totally unable of the world that is to come. One would to awaken us. have thought, that the failures and the Nor do we expect of a new utterance fluctuations of time might have shaken about the brevity of time, that it will the heart of man out of its devotedness awaken you. For this purpose, there to time, and shifted its regards to eternity. must be the putting forth of a force that But it would appear not. The mere is supernatural; and the most experi- destruction of our earthly dependence, is mental demonstration we know of this not enough, to shift our desires and our necessity, is the torpor of the human dependence to that,which is heavenly. soul about death, and the tenacity where- The. losses and the desolations whichwith it stands its ground against the attach to the life of sense, and the cermost pathetic and the most palpable ex- tainty of all its joys and interests being hibitions of it. We are never more speedily.and totally swept away-these assured of man,.that he is wholly sold it would appear, will not of themselves over to the captivity of this world, than germinate within us the life of:hith on witnessing the strong adherence of The unmoved earthliness of the soul 184 BREVITY OF HUMAN LIFE. [SERMI amid all the pathos, and warning, and by the Spirit of God, which both they menace, and solemn instruction of those and we are bound to pray for, be the. affecting changes, which our earth so very instrument of awakening them. convinc.ingly exhibits-this, of itself, demonstrates the need that there is, for' the I. The first esson that we woul. urge might and the mystery of a higher agent, from the shortness of our abode upon to transform that which is carnal into earth, is moderation in regard to all its that which is spiritual. In a word, the enjoyments-moderation, whether of dedecay and the dissolution of all that is sire in the pursuit, or of delight in belowv, have no effect in raising the the possession of them. There is not a downward tendencies of the heart, which stronger indication of time being felt as is only cradled thereby into more sunken substante liy our all, and of eternity beinfatuation, and strancely cleaves with ing but a zhadowy dream in our imaginmore tenacity to a scene, on which the ation, than the full set of our hearts upon characters of littleness, and frailty, and the advancement of our condition in this rapid evanescence stand so palpably en- world-so as to hedimn all our prospects, graven. This wondrous phenomenon and reduce to utter powerlessness all our of our nature, convinces us of the doc- efforts towards the advancement of our trine of regeneration. It informs us that condition in the next world. The plauno treatment short of this, is able to spi- sibility wherewith this undoubted habit ritualize us —that ere our affections can of the soul is often palliated, is the duty be set on the things which are above, an that lies upon us all, of building up a influence from above must descend upon provision for our family. 1ut then they them; or ere wie become alive to the too are a family of immortals. They too unfading glories and the etherealdelights are travelling along a journey that is of the upper sanctuary, there must come short, and towards a long andt lasting down from that sanctuary, the light and habitation. And if the accumulation of -the power of a special revelation. wealth for the expenses of their road, There is a real and a most momentous shuts out all care for the accumutflation of distinction, between the children of light, that treasure, the purpose of which is to and the children of this world; and that enrich and to beautify their residence foi is a distinction which ought to be fre- ever-still it resolves itself into that deluquently adverted to, in our addresses to sion, whereby the things of sense have every mixed or general congregation. been made to elbow the things of faith There are those of you, it is to be hoped, out of the system of human aftairs.who have been born of the Spirit. and so Every man loves himself: and the prefmade practically alive to the reality and erence of time to eternity for himself, the emphatic import of eternal things: gives decisive token of an unbelief about And, there are those of you, it is to be eternity. And most men love their feared, who have not been disturbed, or children; and the preference of their at least not Vet awakened out of the deep time to their eternity, is just in every slumbers of'carnality; and to whom, till way as decisive of the same unbel ef. they are so awakened, the shortness of The utter relaxation of all Christ an human life will prove an argument, in guardianship through the week, is but every way as feeble and as fruitless, as wretchedly redeemed, by the tasks and. any that can be drawn out of the maga- the formalities of a Sabbath evening and, zines either of natural or revealed truth. on the other hand, the busy and intent Let us first, therefore, endeavour to urge I and ever-plying carefulness wherewith on the former of these two classes, such men will labour for the earthly good of Christian lessons as the text might lead their children, forms the most impressive us at present to administer; and then rebuke that can be given, of the little they let us endeavour to ur(e their conversion do and the listlessness they feel for their to Christianity, on the latter of these twvo unperishable souls. And 0 did they but classes, and that still too from the con- compute, both for themselves and for sideration of our text, which, thouagh their little ones-how soon the high. without the Spirit of God, it will fall blown enterprise, with all its train of povt -,rlessly on their consciences, may, sanguine hopes, and dazzling anticipa. 1rV.] BREVITY OF HUMAN LIFE. 185 tions, and rapidly succeeding centages, disannintment, and the terrors of the inmand the brilliant perspective, perhaps of a pending poverty, have thus raised within family raised to unbounded affluence, it the conflict of many agitations. It is and admitted to all the privileges of free thus, that man manifests himself to be as and honourable conpanionship amonog much the creature of sense in the day of the upper circles of society-did they his misfortune, as in the day of his proscompute, as they would the returns of perity. It proves how fully his affections any worldly adventure, how very soon are set upon the world, when, on gaining time with its ceaseless footstep will out- it, he rejoices as if he had gained all; but stride the whole speculation, and cast it just proves his affections to be as fully both them and their children's children and as exclusively set upon the world, behind it among the ages that are forgot- when, on losing it, he abandons himself ten-did they but think of the speed and as utterly to despair as if he had lost all. the certainty of that coming day, when With a spiritual man, to whose mind their bodies shall be food for the creeping spiritual things come home, with the irmthings of the earth; and their souls, if pression of their reality-the consideraneglected now, shall then be wandering tion of our text would be effectual in both in unprovided nakedness, through the these cases; and while by its first lesson dark realms of condemnation-did they it would reduce the extravagance of his but figure, as well they might, the look joy, it would by a second lesson equally of despair, and the language of fell but reduce the extravagance of his distress.. fruitless execration, which ungodly fami- It has been well said that the faith of imlies will then cast at the parents by mortality, gives a certain firmness of texwhom their eternity has been undone- ture to the soul. It places it on a high did they contemplate with adequate feel- and a peaceful summit, which is beyond ing, the anguish, and the helplessness, the reach of all earthly fluctuations. It and the hatred, and the scowling re- brings within the ken of the mortal eye, proach, that should then sit on the coun- such mighty spaces of bliss and glory intenances of those, for whom now they terminable, as serve to expunge from the toil so strenuously, and in the splendour view of the beholder, that short intervenof whose coming opulence they rejoice- ing distance by which he is conducted to O how would the deep and the dismal the margin of this vast territory. It is cloud that sits on their ulterior prospect, indeed a high exhibition which the disciovershadow the nearer one. And even pie makes of his Christianity, when, sure while they rode in triumph on the wings of the present day because he knows that of this world's prosperity, would they its subsistence is guaranteed, and sure of learn to mix trembling with their mirth, the coming immortality because he has and to carry the burden of all their laid his full reliance on the promises of aggrandizement with most reverential the gospel — he can fearlessly commit the and religious soberness. whole of that pilgrimage which lies between these two extremes, to a faithfulBut on the other hand, and secondly, ness that he knows to be unfailinga dangerous adversity, as well as a dan- when, from the shore of present certainty, gerous success, may be the portion of he can eye without dismay the brief but many a family; and a boding cloud of the stormy passage that lies on this side disaster may hang and may discharge of death-when, athwart the dreary wilitself over their earthly habitation; and derness, he can behold the day-star of imas they look onward to the scene of their mortality, and be cheered by the beams future history in the world, may they of light and love and purity that iirradiate feel themselves standing on the margin therefrom; and, knowing that though of a dark and fearful unknown; and the discipline for heaven be severe yet even though daily bread is made sure by the time of that discipline is shoit, he can the promises of God to all who trust in put up with all the pain and all the povthem-yet who can brook the humilia- erty which are allotted to his life in tion of a descent so woful; and what is this world, and possess his soul in hope,the charm that can tranquillize the heart and in patience. into patience, when the shame, and the And there are other and severer ills 24 186 BREVITY OF HUMAN LIFE. [SERM. than those of poverty, wherewith the attitude of the trGo adversaries, and the spirit of a pilgrim may be sorely exer- sullen distance at which they so imcised. There may be the death of movably stand, and the deep and ireful friends; and, what perhaps is still more animosities which rankle within them, insupportable, there may be their deser- and the frenzied imaginations they have tion and their treachery. It is in the of their mutual deceit and mutual worthpower of the arch-enemy of our race, to lessness, with all the other symptoms of instil of his own spirit into the hearts of fierce and stout hostility, are often resolvmen-thus malting it possible, even in able-not unto the defect of truth or of the fair intercourse of society, to meet friendship, but purely into a defect of ex with deep and unfeeling cruelty under planation. Now this ought to have a softthe guise of kindness; and, in return for ening influence. But when even for this, the unsuspecting confidence wherewith the evidences whether of malice or disone pours out the sincerity of his fiiend- honesty, are too glaring to be resisted, ship into another's ear, to bring upon there is something to temper and to molhimself the unkindness and the wiles lify all our sensations of wrathfulness, and the bitter derision of a cool and in the thought of the coming disease and crafty deceiver. The great balsam for the coming deathbed. It were indeed a the wounded heart, under an infliction so triumph, could the kindling resentments painful, is the hope of immortality —in that now rage and burn within you, be the believing sight of that distant heaven, quenched by the waters of compassion; where cunning and contrivance and and for this purpose, think we beseech brooding secrecy are unknown —where you, even of the greatest enemy you the light of a pure and cloudless trans- may have in this world-how soon the parency, sits upon every character-and fatal distemper will seize upon him; and not one countenance that there opens the whole frame of his mortality will upon you with benignity, which does not shake into dissolution; and he will lie a truly express.the glow and the gracious- stricken and irrecoverable patient in most ness that are to be found in the inner- affecting helplessness; and he will send most recesses of the soul. This cheer- out a voice of feebleness that may iming hope is the grand medicine of the plore, but has not strength to upbraid heart, under the bitterness it may be vou; and after his lips have quivered doomed to experience; but it does add a and his eyes have rolled at the coming mellowing influence to the operation, on of the last agony, he will sink away when one thinks of the conflict of all into deep and unbroken stillness. And its emotions that it will be soon over- O if you but saw the pale and peaceful that the triumphs of an infernal policy repose, that sits on the dead man's counhave but their little and their short-lived tenance; or, still more, if you could folday, which will speedily be ended-that low his unembodied spirit to that bar, a retreat of peacefulness is at hand, in where it stands naked and defenceless the bosom of which the oppressor and before the scrutiny of God; and behold his victim will lie down in their graves how it trembles there under the piercing together, where the wicked cease from inspection of an eye, before which all troubling, where the weary are at rest. deceit lies open and all decision must for ever melt away-tell us if this were preBut this conducts us to the third sent to your contemplation as it ought Christian lesson, to which the consider- whether it would not curb the restless ination of our text might lend a very pow- dignancy of your spirit, and whether you erful reinforcement; and that is a lesson would not forget all his injustice and all of charity, even in the midst of deepest his cruelties in time, when you thought injuries and bitterest provocations. A of the horrors of his undone eternity? great deal more than one half of the malignity and exasperation of this world, is But let us rise from particular lessons due to the want of mutual understanding. to one that is comprehensive of them all We often murmur, the one against the — from the separate graces which enter ather, just because wve misconceive one into the sanctification of a disciple, to the another. And the proud and stubborn I work of sanctification at large- from the XXV.] BREVITY OF HUMAN LIFE. 18? special virtues, that enter as so many dis- cation for that grace of God, which can tinct features of worth and loveliness in alone work in us both to will and to do the Christian character, to the habit of of His good pleasure; and an ever-plygeneral and most intent diligence in per- ing diligence in the cultivation'of our fecting that character in all its points; personal character, that we may be found and thus standing complete in the whole without spot and blemish in the day of will of God. There is a mightv work'Jesus Christ; and such a contest with to be done; and few and evil are the nature, as that the spirit of the gospel days that are allotted for the doing of it. I may prevail over it, and sin, though not The race of Christianity is a race so eradicated, as that we shall be free of against time-in which therefore there is its hateful presence, may be so subdued not one minute to spare from its earnest- as that we shall be free of its hateful ty ness and toilsome prosecution. We ranny. And is this a work, we would know that it is the righteousness of ask, that is only to be taken tup at random Christ, which hath purchased for us our opportunities; and abandoned to such title of entry into Heaven. But there is scraps of leisure and convenience, as the a righteousness which must adhere per- busy history of a life spent in worldliness sonally to ourselves, that we may be can afford; and put off indefinitely to qualified for heaven's exercises and heav- those rare and occasional spaces, which en's joys. He hath recovered for us may or may not cast up, when a respite our inheritance, and our birth-ri(ht; and from the manifold urgencies of the world we must now enter upon our course of meets and is at one with the caprice of education, that. we may become meet for our own inclinations. This may do with the inheritance, and be qualified for do- those who can recline themselves in the ing honour to our birth-right, by the arms of their fancied orthodoxy, or it may acquirement of all those graces and pro- do with those who think that the sobrieprieties, which become the possession of ties of civil life are prepara ion enough it. It may be by an act of undeserved for the sacredness of heaven. But it will patronage, that a place of favour and not do with those, who, aware, of the emolument in the service of your earthly mighty transformation that is called for monarch is conferred upon you. But into another heart and another character yet, after all, there must be a training for than before, labour to realize upon their the place, and an examination of your persons that very Christianity which personal fitness for its duties, ere you are shone forth in the days of the New Testainducted into it. A mansion of glory in ment-when the all things whatsoever of the upper paradise, is just such a place human life, were consecrated to the glory of favour and distinction, under the eye of Him who is the Author of it; and the of your Monarch which is in heaven- lamp of religion was fed by the incense given freely through Christ Jesus to all of a perpetual offering; and prayer with. who will; but still a place for which out ceasing, and watchfulness with all you must be trained, and on the success perseverance, spoke the habitual attitude of which training you have to undergo of men whose lives were ever girded for a trial and an examination, and must the work and girded for the warfarehave an approving sentence proclaimed, who, in every change of experience, ere the door of heaven shall be opened could find a something to do, that marked to you. the discipleship on which they had enOn that day we shall be taken account tered; and, on the constant outlook of of, not according to our dogmata but ac- defence against the disturbingk forces of cording to our doings; and we shall not the world, could keep an unstained purity be admitted to any part of the salvation in the midst of its most deceitfill blanthat is through the blood of Christ, un- dishments, and a fervent unabated charity less it be found that we have a part in the of spirit when assailed by its host of most salvation that is by the washing of re- galling provocations. generation, and by the renewing of the There is indeed a mighty work to be Holy Ghost. And to work out this sal- done ere we die-that of crucifying the vation, there must on our part be a fear, old man, and making a new man all over and a trembling; and an earnest suppli- again-that of resisting the desires and 188 BREVITY OF HUMAN LIFE. [SERI, he habits of nature, till they are at least countless are the'sins ihich go tc dese. vanquished, if not exterminated-that of crate the spirit, while they leave the astransmuting the character of earth which pect of the exterior morality entire; and we have at the first. into the character of the busy discipline to which you are heaven which we must acquire after- called, is to war against and to subjugate wards, else heaven we shall never reach. I them all. It lies with the single strength The distance, great as it is between the of any one of them, to keep you moored. two states, must be traversed on this side on forbidden ground; and we therefore of death, or we shall never attain a state ask, whether, escaped fiom them all, you of blessedness on the other side of death. are now bending in full sail to that land It is a far journey; and short is the period of uprightness, where nought that is unthat we have for the. performance of it. holy can enter? You perhaps would With many of us the day is far spent; like it better, could you' let down thand the shades of night are gathering guardianship of your spiirts, and sink inaround us; and we still linger, and hesi- to the arms of an inert and unfruitful ortate, and send forth our few feeble and thodoxy. But know that the grace of ineffectual aspirations, at the mere outset the gospel is held forth, not that you may of this vast enterprise. The thing to be indulge but that you may deny ungodliaccomplished is, that we shall be trans- ness. This it teaches, and this it enables lated fiorom the mastery of sin to the mas- us; and the full proof that you have to tery of grace; or that the works of the give of your discipleship is, that you are flesh shall be abandoned, and the fruits earnestly aspiring after the whole perof the spirit shall flourish upon our per- fection of heaven, and, through the irasons abundantly. Ere these mortal bo- plored agency of the Spirit on your dies go into dissolution, the life of Christ hearts, that you are daily coming nearer must be made manifest in them-" else to it. when they are raised again, and sisted It is by the perseverance of your conbefore His judgment seat, they will be duct in the walk of the Spirit, that the found unfit of occupancy in any of His life of the Spirit in your souils is upholden. everlasting habitations. The distance The Holy Ghost is given to those who between hell and heaven is not greater, obey Him. Every act of charity, nourthan is the distance between sin and sa- ishes the principle of charity. Every credness; and what we have distinctly act of forbearance, strengthens you the to do while we are in the world, is to more against the assault of future provomake good our departure from the one cations. Every commitment of your territory and our entrance upon the other; anxieties to God, trains you more to the and, clearing our way from the entangle- habit of thus disposing the heavier anximents which detain us on the outcast and eties that still may offer to oppress and to accursed region, to break forth on a ca- overwhelm you. The doings of the reer of prosperous and progressive ho- Christian life go to enfeeble all the corfriess. ruption that is resisted, and to confirm all Now one entanglement may detain us the graces which have been put into as effectually as a thousand; and the finer operation. By reason of use, there is subtleties of the world as powerfully en- a prompter discernment, and a readier slave and implicate the heart, as do its preference of all that is good —a quicker most gross and revolting criminalities. recoil, and more resolute departure from Ye men, who sit at ease as if your work all that is evil. It is thus that every was over, or as if only a little of it was honest disciple, toils his laborious waay yet left which may be done at any time through the course of sanctification. -we do not charge you with such sins, He spares neither prayers nor pains, in as go to deform your visible history. But this steep ascent up the hill of difficulty. we bid you remember that ungodliness is He makes fast work of it; for that time a sin-that causeless anger is a sin-that is precious which is dealt out in smai' brooding anxiety is a sin-that depend- and precarious measurement, and when ence on the creature is a sin-that lan- nevertheless a work on which eternity gour in religion is a sin-that distaste for hangs remains to be accomplished. And prayer is a sin. We bid you think that thus it is, that he makes a business tf XV.1] BREVITY OF HUMAN LIFE. 180 the concerns of his soul-watching, and bitter provocations-a wrath, ye careless working. and connecting all his move- and ye worldly, that you are now treaments below with the eye of Him that suring up unto the day of its outpouring looketh from above-denying himself at — when you shall cry in vain for the every time of temptat.on, and crowding rocks and the mountains to cover you; every day of his brief endurance in the and will be made to feel that no indignaworld with the deeds of new obedience. tion burns more fiercely than the indigWe know not a text of more urgent nation of slighted tenderness, and no and alarming import in the whole Bible vengeance more overwhelming than the than that the righteous scarcely shall be vengeance of offered and rejected mercy. saved. They will make out the prize of Nor should we marvel at such a cataseternal life; but like the victorious trophe-for only think of the way in courser in the race, they will make it as which it is brought on. That Christ by the distance of a hair-breadth. Cornm- should so have toiled and suffered for our pare the task to be done, with the time sakes-that He should have descended that there is for the doing of it; and how on our miserable world, from that emiit should speed us on to the business of nence of pure and peaceful glory which our eternity; and what an occupying of He had before occupied-that He should all our hours, and a plying of all our have put on the infirmities of our nature, expedients ought there to be-lest when and shrouded His Godhead in a tabernathe night cometh in which no man can cle of flesh, which He took back with work, we shall be found short of the Him to Heaven, and which, for aught kingdom of God. we know, will adhere to Him there throughout all eternity-that, amid the II. But this carries us to the second agonies of a mysterious conflict, He head of discourse. If the righteous should have poured out His soul; and,,scarcely shall be saved, where shall the undertaking for the guilty millions of sinner and the ungodly appear? WTe our race, should have borne the whole are called to kiss the Son, while he is in weight of their chastisement-that, durthe way. It is a short and a little while. ing the hour and the power of darkness, The season of offered mercy is speeding He, in the depths of a passion that well onward to its close. In a few years, the nigh overwhelmed Him, should in love likeliest of us all will be swept away to men have weathered such an endurfrom the land of gospel calls and gospel ance; when the sword of righteous yenopportunities. The voice of a beseeching geance was awakened against Him; and God is upon us only until death-after the cup of retribution was put into His which the voice ceases to be heard;,and hands, and drunk by Himn to its very the light of the Sun -of righteousness is dregs; and the vials of an incensed and lifted up no longer; and the fountain insulted Lawgiver should have been that is opened in the house of Judah for poured forth by the Father upon the Son, sin and for uncleanness, has an ever- when He bowed down His head unto the lasting seal set upon it; and a dark and sacrifice-that thus He should have travimpassable gulph of separation, opens ailed; and thus He should have put asunder, between the souls of the impen- forth all the energies both of strength and itent and the blood of sprinkling. Kiss of suffering, that the mountain -of oui the Son then while He is in the way; iniquity may be levelled, and we may or, mark the alternative, His wrath will pass over in peace and safety unto Godbegin to burn. He who now is all meek- that, after having made reconciliation. He ness and gentleness and kind entreaty, should rise again to the place from whence will then look upon you with an altered He came, and be hailed by the shoutings countenance; and it is indeed a striking of the celestial as the author and the expression-the wrath of the Lamb- finisher of' a mighty enterprise-that, the wrath of Him who is denoted by that after having entered there, He should which is the -emblem of patience and turn His face to that world in whose non-resistance and timidity-a wrath behalf this movement was made: and hen, to the excitement of which, there mark how the men of it were prizing the must hare been a series of deep and vast redemption, and crowding the now 190 BREVITY OF HUMAN LIFE. [SERM. open gate of transition which leads from the entanglements of sin, and more help. sin unto the Saviour —Just think of this, lessly captive than before to the great and call you it no provocation, that, after adversary. This day may aggravate the cost and the labour of rearing such your danger. This call that is now an apparatus, the overtures thereof should sounded, ye impenitent, in your hearing fall in listlessness and without efficacy -if it kindle no purpose of amendment on the hearts of our alienated species- in your bosoms, may kindle a fiercer that this great work of deliverance should wrath in the bosom of the Divinity. be vilified into a thing of nought, and by Even now, may you be adding to the the very creatures for whose deliverance store of displeasure that is kept in reserve and whose welfare it was accomplished for the great day of its manifestation. And -that we should slight these tidings of close as you are to the brink of eternity, he gospel as insignificant, or impatiently and short as the period is, that will conspurn them as an offence away from us. duct you to its verge and plunge you into 0, think of all this, and you will be at no its abyss for ever-we ask, is it for you loss to comprehend, why He, who now thus to accumulate the wrath of God, stands out in the winning gentleness and to cradle your souls into a delusive of His nature, and bends with longing peace, on the very eve of its discharge compassion over you, should then come upon you? forth in vindictiveness and fiury, on all Despise not the riches of His goodness. who have put to mockery the dear-bought and forbearance, and long-suffering; but privilege; and on all who have unthank- know that the goodness of God should fully scorned the grace and the mercy of lead thee. to repentance. And do not, so precious an invitation. after thy hardness and impenitent heart, This day of wrath is at hand.'o treasure up unto thyself wrath against you at least the time is short, when its fire the day of wrath, and revelation of the will burn around you, and, through the righteous judgment of God.:penings of your mortal framework, as O avail yourselves, then, of the preit goeth into dissolution, will it enter the cious moment that is now passing over premises, and seize the affrighted soul you. Christ is offered to you. Salvathat now occupies therein. While in tion is at your choice. Forgiveness, the body the surrounding materialism through the blood of a satisfying atoneserves as a screen between us and the ment, is yours'if you will. God does Deity; and. we can escape into a tempo- not want to magnify the power of His rary oblivion of Him and of His anger, anger-He wants to magnify the power among the scenes and the pursuits and of His grace upon you. Try to approach the enjoyments of this visible world. But Him in your own righteousness; and there is no such screen between God and -you will find yourselves toiling at an imthe disembodied spirit-nothing that can practicable distance away from Him. shield it from the sight of His rebuking But come with the righteousness of Christ countenance, and the immediate glance as your plea; and you will indeed be of His fiery indignation. We are bidden permitted to draw nigh. God will renow, to speed our way from this impend- joice over you for the sake of Hlim ing storm; and by movements too which in whom He is well pleased; and you are all expressive of rapidity-to flee may freely, and with all your heart, fiom the coming wrath-to flee for rejoice in God, through Him, by whom refuge unto Christ-to haste and make ye have received the atonement. Could no delay that we should keep the com- we state the thing more plainly, we marndments. All which precepts,' be- would. V"We want to bring you into the token the urgency of a matter on hand. condition of a'simple receiver of God's And with reason too, for, if it do not pardon-a simple holder on the truth of become better, your condition is daily His promises. It is on this footing, and becoming worse-your conscience more on this alone, that you will ever be seared against the denunciations of the clothed in the garments of acceptance; law —your heart more proof against the or stand firmly and surely on the ground terrors of the threatened vengeance- of reconciliation before Him. 0 tirn your whole person more warped among then into this peaceful haven; and in tXV".] THE FAITH OF THE PATRIARCHS. 191:he act of so turning, God will pour out grace —that the peace and purity of the His spirit upon you. As the fruit of gospel are ever in alliance-They who your faith, you will become a new crea- walk before God without fear, being lure; and in stepping over to that region they who walk before Him in righteousDf sunshine where all is gladness, you ness and in holiness all the days of their rill be sure to experience also that all is life. SERMON XXVI. The Faith of the Patriarchs. " For they that say such things declare plainly that they seek a country." —HEREaws xi. 14. IT is in the power of actions as well as of discernment to ascertain what the f words to declare plainly; and the pa- leading object of pursuit is —while, withtriarchs of this chapter made it as plain out any stretch of penetration at all, it by what they did as by what they said, may glare upon us with the whole broadwhether it was that their desires and ness of day, where it is that the object their affections were tendirng. Nothing thus aspired after is locally situated. I could be more explicit of this, than the may not be able to pronounce of tlb1 practice of Abraham-who gave up the most bustling and ambitious memlbex o. place of his nativity; and tore himself our city corporation, whether his heart, away firom all its charms and endear- is most set on the acquirement of a, ments; and became a pilgrim in an un- princely fortune, or on a supreme ascent known land: And in the hope of a very dancy over all his compeers in the politi. distant fulfilment, which he saw to be cal management of this great commuyet afar off, and lying greatly beyond the nity. But whether it be the one or the period of his life in the world, did he other, I can say on the instant, that the shape every movement of that life, at great theatre of his fond and- favourite the bidding of Him who had uttered a exertion is this, the place of our habitapromise, and in whose hand alone lay tion-that it is here, and, not in the the accomplishment of it. What is very neighbouring metropolis where his vawell termed a man's general drift, stood rious interests lie-that the game in most palpably out on the whole of his which he is engaged is the business of history. And in the same way, every this city, or the polities of this city, and human being has a prevailing drift, that not the business or the polities of any may, in most instances, be pretty accu- other-that it is among home society rately gathered from certain obvious and around him, where he seeks to slgnal-. characteristic indications, which are ever ize himself, whether by wealth or by inobtruding themselves on the notice of fluence, or by popularity; and. not in by-standers. any remote or distant society with whom But there is a distinction to be re- no sympathies are felt, and for whose marked here. It may sometimes not be homage either to his dignity, or to his: so very plain, what the particular inter- opulence no anxiety whatever has been est is, which a man is prosecuting with conceived. All this may be plain the main force and intentness of his am- enough without any piercing anatomy bitious desires-whether it be the love of at all into the mysteries of the human money, or the love of power, or the love character-so that, however difficult it of acceptance and good will in society, may be to ascertain the precise interest or the love of eminence above his fellows which most engrosses the aim of any by the lustre of a higher literary reputa- given individual, there may be nothing ion. It may sometimes require a force difficult in the question of the pr tcis 192 FAtTH OP THE PATRIARCHS. [tIE:M, locality, where all his interests and all that he has set him down in placid ac. the choice objects of his taste and of his quiescence, among the creatures and the affections are to be found. Icircumstances by which he is for the And thus, in like manner, while skill, moment surrounded. We see nothing and subtlety, and groat power and inge- of the repose of full and finished attain. nuity of moral perception may be neces- ment, with any of our acquaintances. sary, to estimate what that thing in the There is none of them, in fact, who is world is, which any of its people is most not plainly stretching himself forward to in quest of-yet it may be resistlessly some one distant object or other; and, as evident to every eye, that they are the the tokens of one. who is evidently on a things and interests of this world. and pursuit, do we behold him in a state of not of any other, on which all its people motion and activity and busy endearvour. are lavishin'g their time and their But when we come to inquire into the thoughts and the earnestness of their nature of the object that so stimulates his best and most devoted regards. We desires and his faculties, do we find it to may not be able so to dissect the moral be a something which lies within the constitution -of an acquaintance, as to:confines of mortality-a something suited find out of him, what that precise earthly only to such senses and such powers of object is, which wields the rimost tyranni- enjoyment, as death will extinguish-a cal ascendancy over his affections-and, something that he may perhaps hand yet be very sure, all the while, that the down to posterity, but which a few rapid,object is an earthly and not a heavenly years will wrest away from -himself, and,one-that it is ease, or fortune, or fame, that by.an act of everlasting bereave-or sensible'indulgence (though you do ment. We cannot move amnongst our,not know which of them), on this side fellows, whether in meetings, or in,of time; and neither any enjoyment-nor market-places, or even on those convivial, {any glory on the other side of it-that occasions when man is. so willing to at is perhaps the advancement of a rising drown all his graver anxieties in the.family, stopping short however within playfulness of a passing hour, without -the confines of the present life, without most plainly perceiving that the present.oe thought of advancing either: them- is not enough for him —tihat he is con-,selves or their.children to a station of' stantly going forth in anticipation on:immortality. One would need to be some distant future, which he has -not ~profoundly intimate with -the hidden realized-that, instead of the quiescence.mysteries of our nature, to trace:the nu- of one who has found, there is with him:merous shadings, and- varieties of world- all the forecast and restlessness and out-liness that obtain in our species.'But it look of one who is still agog and is seek-:may be a matter of the most obvious re- ing. There is not an individual'we icognition to the most simple of men, know, who is not bending thus -onwards,.that worldliness in some shape or other, and that, with the set and strenuousness is the great pervading element of all its of his whole heart, on some object which generations. This much -at least may lies or appears to lie in the perspective -be.seen, without the piercing eye either before hiin. But when we come to mn-,of sceholar or satirist; and while the quire,how far on in the line of his lils,,apostle:sFaid of the faithful whom he was tory it may be placed, we find, in the ienumerating, how they declared plainly overwhelming majority of instances, that.that they were seeking a future and it belongs:to the region of sense, and a distant rcountry-we may say of almost never to the region of spirituality.nearly all whom we know, and of all -that the main force of human ambition whom we look upon in society, that they is lavished on some swift and splendid declare as Fplainly the world to be the evanc:cence, which cannot last to arty,only scene'on whi'eh theii hopes and single possessor beyond the limits of his their wishes do expatiate, and an atmos- own puny generation-that all are seek. phere of unmingled worldliness to be ing, no doubt; but where is the discoverthe only element they breathe in. able symptom, of almost any seeking be. It is not (ither that:man is actually yond the confines of that territory, which satisfied with riesent things. It is not God hath spread under our feet, first f:u xv.JT] rATTH OF THIE PATRIARCHS.:193 the sustenance, and then for the sepul- years will witness its total and irremedi. ture of human bodies? Where is almost able overthrow. the' man who is prosecuting, with the But to alleviate this gross infatuation. assiduity of a business, his personal in- it may be said, and with plausibility too, terest in that country where dwell the that the region of sense and the regionl spirits of the just made perfect? This of spirituality are so unlike the one to the tendency towards the distant unseen stood other-that there is positively nothing in out most plainly and most declaredly on our experience of the former, which can the history of' the believing patriarchs. at all familiarize our minds to the anticiBut now the tendency of almost every pation of the latter. And then, as if to man we see, is plainly the opposite of intercept the flight of our imaginations this-so that on travelling the round of forward to eternity, there is such.a dark human experience, it may nearly be and cloudy envelopnient that hangs on affirmed without alleviation of all, that, the very entrance of it. Ere we can amid the heat and the hurry and the realize that distant world of souls, we hard-driving of creatures in full pursuit must pierce our way beyond the curtain of a something that lies in the distance ofthe grave-we must scale this awful before them, it is uniformly a something barricado which separates the visible which they can only hold in frail and from the invisible-we must make our fleeting tenantry while they abide in this escape from all the close and warm and world; and which death, remorseless besetting urgencies, which, in this land and unescapable death, will soon ravish of human bodies, are ever plying us with. eternally from their grasp. constant and powerful solicitation and To'behold in man such a proneness to force our spirits across the boundaries of filturity, and'at the same time such a per- sense, to that mysterious place, where verseness in all his computations of futu- cold and meagre and evanescent spectres rity-to see him so disdainful of the past, dwell together in some unknown and inand so dissatisfied with the present, and comprehensible mode of existence. We yet, in labourina for the future', to fix his know not, if there be another tribe of regards on that only futurity which must beings in the universe who have such a soon be present, and soon be irrevocably task to perform. Angels have no death past-to see him so boundless in his de- to undergo. There is no such affair of sires, and yet so averse to that alone field unnatural violence between them and of enterprise where he can have scope for their final destiny. It is for man, and for them, and so unwilling to exchange the aught that appears, it is for man alone, to objects of time for those of a boundless fetch from the other side of a material eternity-to perceive him so obstinately panorama that hems and incloses him, and so peremptorily blind in this matter, the great and abiding realities with and that not merely in the face of most which he has everlastingly to do. It is obvious arithmetic, but in the'face of for him, so locked in an imprisonment of most urgent and affecting mementoes day, and with no other loop-holes oi cotn. with which the sad history of every year munication between himself and all that is strewing his path in this world of is around him than the eye and the ear mortality-Surely, it is one of the strang- -it is for him to light u/p in his bosom a est mysteries of our nature. and at the lively and realizing sense of the things same time, one of the strongest tokens of which eye hath never seen, and ear hath its derangement, that man should thus never heard. It is for man, and perhaps embark all his desires in a frail and crazy for man alone, to travel in thought over vessel, so soon to be engulphed by that the ruins of a mighty dissolution; and, sweeping whirlwind which sooner or beyond the wreck of that present wold later will overtake the whole of our ex- by which he is encompassed, to conceive isting generation-or that, on the quick- that future world in whicmh lie is to ex sands of time, he should rear hi3 only patiate for ever. resting place, and even please himself But, harder achievement perhaps than with the delusion of its firm and secure any, it is for man, in the exercise of faith, establishment-though he knows, and to brave that most appalling of all conmost assuredly knows, that a few little templations, the decay and dissolution of 25 194 FAITH OF THE PATRIARCHS. [SERM. himself; to think of the time when his legal or stipulated security for a place in tlo animated framework, every nart of the inheritance above. Faith is with w\hich is so sensitive and so dear to him, thein a mere embrace, by the understandshlallfall topieces-when thevital warmth, ing, of one or more articles in an approved hby which at present it is so thoroughly system of Divinity. It is enough, in their pe rvaded, shall take its departure, and imagination, to have a right to gloryleave to coldness and to abandonment, all that they be intellectually right about the that is visible of this moving and active matter of a sinner's justification in the anrid thinking creature-,when those limbs sight of God. Heaven is somehow lookwith which he now steps so firmly, and ed upon as a reward to the believer for that countenance out of which he now the soundness of his speculative opinions. looks so gracefully, and that tongue with The faith which is unto salvation, is rewhich he now speaks so eloquently, and garded in no other light than as the bare that whole body for the interest and pro- recognition of certain doctrinal truths, and vision of which he now labours as stren- the salvation itself as a return for such a uously as if indeed it were immortal- recognition. The indolence of a mere when all these shall be reduced to one theoretical contemplation, is thus substi. mass of putrefaction, and at length crum- tuted for the practice and the pains-taking ble with the coffin which incloses them and the perseverance of men, in busy purinto dust. Why, to a being in the full suit of some object to which they are consciousness and possession of his living bending forward, with the desire and the energies, there is something, if we may diligence of an earnest prosecution. Inbe allowed the expression, so foreign and stead of the attitude of men who are seekso unnatural in death, that we are not to ing, you witness the repose and the comwonder if it scare away the mind fiom placency of men who have already found. that ulterior region of existence to which They look as if they had gotten all they it is the stepping-stone. Angels have no want —a sort of mystical assurance for such transition of horror and mystery to the next world, but without one expression undergo. There is no screen of'darkness beaming forth from the history of their like this, interposed between them and lives, that they felt themselves to be any portion of their futurity, however dis- strangers and pilgrims in the present tant; and it appears only of man. that it world. There is positively nothing about is for him to drive a breach across that them, which declares plainly, as with the barrier which looks so impenetrable, or patriarchs of old, that they are seeking a so to surmount the power of vision as to country. With the understanding, they carry his aspirings over the summit of occasionally meditate on heavenly things; all that vision has made known to him. but with the afflctions they uniformly and Now if this be the work of faith, you habitually mind earthly things. We see will perceive that it is not just so light nothing to distinguish them fiom. others and easy an achievement as some would in the style of their great practical moveapprehend. Why, there are some who ments in the world; nor can we characseem to feel as if nothing more were re- terize their faith in any other terms, than quired for the completion of this work, as a mere entertainment given by the than merely to adjust the orthodoxy of mind to the topics of an inert and unpro-'their creeds and then have done with it. ductive theory. To acquire faith is with them as simple Now this is really not the apostolical an affair, as to learn their catechism. Let description of faith. It is not that which them only import a sound metaphysic no- heads the enumeration of those Old Testion into the head; and this, they think, tament worthies, who exemplified the v11 bear them upward into heaven, power and the operation of this principle. hough their treasure is not there and The assent of the understanding to any heir heart is not there. To seize upon one of the positions of orthodoxy, Is nei. the title-deed to heaven, they feel as if ther the substance of things hoped for; they had nothing more to do, than to nor is it the evidence of things not seen; seize upon some certain dogma in the or rather, as it should have been translatscience of Theology: and that by keep- ed, it is not the confident expectation of.rng firm hold of this, they hold a kind of things hoped for, neither is it the clear VT. ] FAI'IH F THE PATRIARCHS. 195 and assured conviction of things which I the sake of the distant advantage. Thus are not seen. This last is the principle it is, essentially and by its very nature, a which ser all the patriarchs in motion. practical principle: and no sooner does it They saw future things, with as fresh and take possession of the heart of any indioperative a feeling of their reality, as they vidual, than it holds out the plain attestasaw present things; and they acted not tion of itself upon his history-and not by merely on the matters that were near and his dogmata, but by his doings. around them, but also on the matters that But in the work of seeking, it is possiwere in the distance before them: and be- ble to go astray. Paul gives an instance lieving equally in both, they just measur- of this when he records it of his own ed their path and their proceedings in the countrymen, that they sought but stumworld, according to the real importance bled, because they souglht to establish a of both. This is faith; and you see how righteousness of their own. They sought immediately, and without the intervention to win Heaven by purchase, instead of of a single step, practice emerges out.of humbling themselves to the acceptance it —and how, by its simple presence in of it as a present. But to make out this, the mind, futurity obtains the ascendancy man must either equalize his doings to over all the purposes of the mind-and the demands of the law; or the shortness how, just as naturally as a man will pre- of the doings from the demands must just pare his house for the visit of a friend, be- be. overlooked, and a polluted obedience cause he knows his friend is coming, will be sustained by God as an adequate price a man prepare himself for the visit of his for the rewards of eternity. The former Saviour, because he believes and knows way of it is impossible. lMiian has already that his Saviour is coming. And hence fallen short; and lost a distance, which the reason why the apostle minded not he, with all his strenuousness, cannot reearthly things, but had his conversation cover; and incurred a guilt, which he, in heaven, was, because from that place with all his payments and all his penanhe looked for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus ces, cannot atone for. The latter way of Christ-All illustrative of this, that, by it is equally impossible. If it be true that faith, a moving and prevailing force upon man cannot clear himself of guilt, it is the conduct is made to lie in the conside- just as true that God cannot connive at it; ration of that which is coming, as well as It were carrying heaven by storm, and in the urgency of that which is at hand; forcing a way into it over, the ruins that the way in which the reality of a of the divine government-were the creaman's faith is attested, is by present but ture, on the strength of his own deservlesser interests being made to give way ings, to challenge a place in it, while one Ato future and greater ones; and that it is single commandment that had fallen from only he who declares plainly by his the mouth of the Creator was either undoings, that he is in quest of th.ese future done or resisted. And when that creainterests, it is he and he only who also de- ture is man, so far gone in disobedience clares that he is in the faith. -such an attempt is marked both by Think for one moment of the apostoli- a haughty presumption in himself; and cal definition of faith. It is the substance by a most debasing sense of what was of things hoped for, and the evidence of due to the holiness and authority of God. things not seen —or, as it should have Man's obedience is not worthy of heaven, been rendered, it is the confident expecta- as a reward from God-however worthy tion of things hoped for, and the clear heaven may be of God's munificence, as and assured conviction of things not seen. His free and unmerited donation to man. It is that which gives to an interest that The gospel never relaxes into any comis future, all the urgency and deciding promise with human unworthinesspower upon the conduct, which belong| when it affirms the footing upon which to an interest that is present: And should eternal life is held forth to our species. the future interest be greater than the It is not earned lby us in the shape of present, and they come into competition, wages. It is offered to us. in the shape the one with the other, faith is that which of a grant; and, whatever be the way in resolves him who is under its influence, which we are to seek after a place in the to give up the immediate gratification for I kingdom of God. It is not by labouring 1996 FAITH OF THE PATRIARCHS. s SEmR to render an equivalent price either in away from him-a height of privilega our property or in our services, thai we and of glory, not to be scaled by human shall obtain the possession of it. virtue at its utmost strenuousness, ana Heaven is held out in the gospel, not therefore brought down to human attainin bargain as a reward to our perform- ment, by the opening of a mediatoriai ance of God's precepts, but simply in an- gate, through which one and all of us are ticipation as a fillfilment to our hope of invited to enter upon the joys of inmorGod's promises; and what place it may tality. But, instead of bidding him enter be asked is there for seeking after this? upon these Joys, bid him earn them, and Ho w shall we seek that which is already that by the produce of his own industry; gotten2 or what conceivable thing is and then, as surely as a task felt to be inthere to do, in quest of a benefit that surmountable instead of stirring up his is offered to our hand; and on the hopes- powers weighs them down to inactivityty of which offer we have merely to lay sosurely will heaven, held out not as a an unfaltering reliance? We can under- loving offer but as a legal payment, faststand how to go about it, *when the mat- en such a drag ipon his exertions as ter is to seek that which we must work is quite immoveable. Grace has been for. But if heaven be not of works but charged with ministering to human indo of grace, what remains but to delight our- lence. Put it is free glace, and nothing selvesin the s:cure anticipation of that, else, which unfastens this drang-which vwhich we should count upon as a er- releases man from the imprisonment that tainty, instesd of labouring for it as if it formerly held him-which brings him were a contingency that hung upon our out to a large and open space, and sets an labours? object of hopefulness before him that he And yet they are promises, and no- knows to be accessible-which breaks thing else, which put all the patriarchs him loose from the grasp of that law. into motion. It was just because they from whose condemnation and whose saw these promises afar off and were penalties he felt so inextricable. So that, persuaded to them, and embraced them instead of doing nothing for heaven, when and confessed that they were strangers the gulph of a pathless separation stooa and pilgrims on the earth-it was just in the way of it, he can now embark on because of all this, that they declared a career of approximation, where, by alt plainly, both by their desires and by their his doings, and by all his seekilngs doings, that they sought a country. Had he may declare plainly that heaven is the land of Canaan been proposed to indeed the country to which he is travelAbraham as a thing to be purchased for ling. a price adequate to its value, he would It is said of the patriarchs in this never have moved a single footstep to- chapter, that they were not only perwards the acquisition of it. But when suaded of the promises, but that they proposed to him on the simple footing of -,mbraced them. To be persuaded of a promise, and to obtain a right to the them, was to believe in the truth of the land he had nothing to do but to accept of promises; to embrace them was to make it-f,'om that moment he set himself bu- choice of the things promised. Abraham sily forward, in prosecution of all the re- J chose his prospects in a distant country, quired steps by which he and his poster- rather than his possessions in the country itv were, not to buy a thing that was for of his father; and, in the prosecution of sale, but to enter on the possession of this choice, did he abandon the latter, a thing that was given. And it is quite and plainly declare, by all his subsequent the s-me of the heavenly Canaan. Eter- doinos, that he was seeking and making nal life is the gift of God through Jesus progress towards the former. And a Christ our Lord-a thing not purchased believer, now-a-days, is not only perb3y us, but purchased for us by another — suaded that he has heaven for the accepa matter so gigantically beyond any price tance of it; but he actually accepts, and, that man could render for it, that, if held in so doing, he, like the father of the up to him in this aspect, it would look faithful, makes a preference between two arnd rightly look to his despairing eye objects which stand in competition before as if placed in the region of impossibility him. He chooses heaven rather than SlXVI. FAITH OF THE pATRIARcIs. 197 aarth-the zountry he nas In promise, which he is released from the bondage rather than the country he has in pos- of hopelessness; and when, instead of session-the place where God is revealed idly aspiring after an object that is unattn sensible glory, rather than the place tainable, he sets forth in the prosecution that has been so long unblest and unvis- of an object now placed within his reach. nted by any manifestations of His pre- It is not in proportion as the freeness of sence-the land of holy and upright and grace becomes manifest to the soul, but obedient creatures, rather than this land just in proportion as it is darkened by of moral uproar and disorder, where the fears and the fancies of legality, that selfishness and sensuality and sin have the inquirer is kept back on his journey dethroned the authority of Heaven's law heavenwards. And it is not true that he from the hearts of a degenerate family. has gotten all he wants, when by faith he To make intelligent choice of such a has gotten his justification. This has heaven as this, is surely to prefer all that done no more for him than to open up is in it and about it, to the world and the the cornmencement of his path. It has things that are in the world; and the only given him the right of entry into more that it is true of our nature, and is heaven; but it has not given those preaverred most strenuously in the Bible, parations of the heart and the character that our affection for both is impossible. without which heaven would be an abode rhe man who chooses heaven rather of weariness. One can conceive that the than earth, chooses what is essentially mere right of entry, may be enough to characteristic of heaven, rather than satisfy the man who is merely persuaded what is essentially characteristic of earth; of heaven being by his faith; but it is or, in other words, he makes choice of not enough for the man who has em-the piety of heaven, and the purity of braced heaven as the chosen good of heaven and the benevolence of heaven. his existence. Ere he can attain the It is not by these that he purchases for comfort of heaven, he must work himhimself a place in paradise; but it is by self into the character of heaven. It is these, that he prepares himself both for not enough that there be rapture from the doings and for the delights of para- without. There must be a relish from dise. It is by these, that he brings his within. It is a place of happiness to taste and his temper into conformity with none, bult to those who have a heart for that which is celestial. It is by these, I its kind of happiness. It is guilt which that he becomes a. fit recipient fir all has closed the gate of heaven against the those sensations of blessedness which are men of our rebellious generation; and current there. It is not by these, that there is not one of them, who would ever he secures his right to the inheritance labour to qualify himself for the employabove; for this was puit into his hand at ments or the society of a place that he the very outset of his spiritual journey. could not enter. But by the death of But it is by these, that he secures what Christ, the guilt is washed away; and is no less indispensable, he secures in the gate is opened-and all to whom his own person a capacity for the joys these tidings of joy come with acceptof that inheritance; and by a transfor- ance, feel as if a fetter had been struck mation of character from the secular to I ofi fiom their persons, and so set themthe sacred, he can now breathe with kin- I selves forth to the work of preparation. dred delight in an atmosphere of sacred-;It is indeed the loosing of a bond, by ness. which they who aforetipme were station-' The point at which heaven is accepted ary become fiee to move, and actually as a gift, so far from marking that place do move with alacrity as did the Psalmin the history of a believer when he gives ist. "O Lord, truly I am thy servant, Ii up his activity because -he has now gotten am thy servant,and the son of thine handall that he wants, marlks the place of his maid, thou hast loosed my bonds. I will breaking forth on a career of activity- offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, at the entrance of which he was before and will call upon the name of the Lord. bound by a spell that no exertion of his [-will pay my vows unto the Lord now could dissipate. It is the very point at in the presence of all his people. In the 198 FAITH OF THE PATRIARCHS. IsER~ courts of the Lord's house, in the midst his nativity, and went forth in quest of a of thee O Jerusalem. Praise ye the promised land: and, by a movement pal. Lord." pable to the eye of the body, did he prove At the time when man was exiled from that he renounced present things in purbeyond the circle of God's favoured and suit of other things which were distant unfallen creation, he had acquired a guilt and unseen. The Christian who sets out by which he forfeited the place of his for the heavenly Canaan, and in so doing original settlement; and he had acquired takes his departure firom the Mesopotamia a depravity by which he became incapa- of this world, has not one mile of locoble both of its duties and its enjoyments. motion to perform. He makes no visible To retrieve this woful departure, so as to transference of his person from one place be admitted again to the standing which to another; and the whole change that he before occupied-rthe guilt behoves to he undergoes, lies in the transference of be atoned for, the depravity behoves to be his affections from one set of objects to done away. For the first, man is as in- another. Tl'his journey is altogether a competent as he is to liquidate the debt spiritual one; and the progress of it may of millions by the produce of his daily be traced, not by his distance from an old labour; and not' till the discharge is ob- country and his nearness to a new onetained for him by another, will all his but by his distance from the old character, practice in the sight of God be any thing and his unceasing approximation to a else than presumption, and all his at- new one. You see plainly where a man tempts to establish a righteousness of his is going by the road upon which he travown, but demonstrate the utter worthless- els; and if you can see as plainly what ness and incapacity of him who makes a man is seeking after, by the objects on them. For the second he of himself is which his heart is evidently set, then it equally incompetent. But the same Me- may be as true of a Christian in our day, diator who for him hath wrought the first as it was of Abraham in reference to the of these purposes, works in him the promised land, that he declares plainly second of them. And this he does, not how heaven is the place after which he by superseding the activity of man, but aspires-how heaven is the inheritance by stimulating that activity-not by set- that he has selected and made choice of, ting aside the machinery of human will as the joy of his heart and his portion for and human intelligence and human ac- evermore.:ion, but by setting to work that very ma- In this spiritual movement, there is a chinery-So that the man who before something that you have to forsake-not could not labour with any effect at all, such a forsaking as causes you to go out both because he was without strength, of the world, but such a forsaking as and also because the obstacle of unex- causes you to give up the world-so that piated guilt stood like a wall of iron in you may truly say, though I am still with his way-now that the obstacle is re- thee in presence I am no longer with thee molved, and now that the power of Christ in heayt. This implies as painful an is made to rest on the person of every abandonment of all that was before desihonest and aspiring disciple —now begins rable and precious to the soul, as the pathat great process of transition in his his- triarch had to undergo. tory, by which he departs from the cha- For the rich man not to cast away his racter and the habits of a mere citizen of wealth but to crucify his affections to it earth, and plainly declares that his heart — for the man of eminence to become is set upon other joys and he desireth a dead to the voice of praise-for the man better country that is a heavenly. of sensuality to abstain from every unBut the plain indication which Abra- lawful indulgence, and both to overcome ham gave of his seeking another country, and to mortify all those appetites which than the one which harboured all the war against the soul —for the man of friendships and all the interests of nature, sore and irritable feelings, utterly to is different firom the indication given of quench the anger and the malice and the the same thing by a modern Christian. envy that wont to agitate his heart-for Ile demonstrated this by a visible act of the man of worldliness, in any one shape ocomotion. He simply left the place of to arouse him out of its inveteracy, so as XXVI.] FAITH OF THE PATRIARCHS. 199 to thwart and entirely to traverse' the the cause of salvation zcn b. carried for whole tenor of an existence, that had ward, a cause on the prosperity of which been devoted to gratifications which are His heart is altogether set;)-and at the unknown in heaven and which death same time demonstrating by His word will put an end to-In all these there is and example and Spirit, that the way on a departure as wide, and in every way as which the ransomed of the Lord pass arduous, as is made by him who wrests over is a way of holiness-Thus binding himself for ever from his native land-a every follower of His to the righteous moral transition from one great principle ness which He Himself loves, and with to another, where there is a surrender drawing them from the iniquity which and a work of separation as violent, as it He hateth; and from that beautiful sane is possible to conceive in any personal tuary which He irradiates by his pre transition from. one place to another-a sence, causing the purity as'wrell as the resistance to the solicitations of nature's peace of the upper regions to descend on tenderness and nature's urgency, just as the soul of the believer. In the heart of hard to be gone through as is that partinga every believer there is love to Christscene where the resolved missionary has love to Him for what He is, and thereto tear himself away from the embraces of fore admiration of all the graces by weeping relatives; and set forth from his which He is adorned. And such is the parents' and his sister's home on an un- moral influence of this feeling, that it known pilgrimage, uncheered by the causes a reflection of these very graces hope, nay steeled against the wish or the on his own person; and he lonos for the purpose of returning to it. society where the alone perfect exhibiBut it were not possible to make a re- tion of them is to be found; and the way nunciation so mighty, for no positive ob- in which he plainly declares himself to ject either of desire or of endeavour. It be seeking towards it, is by growing does not lie with the heart of man, to every day in the taste and in the acquiforego an old attachment but by the su- sition of its moral excellence. Gratitude perior power of a new one. He will not to Christ seeks to gratify Christ. Love force himself away from a scene peopled impels to the keeping of His commandwith delights, for the mere sake of enter- ments; and following the impulse of ing on a scene of desolation. It was these new desires, and labouring in the doubtless a day of gloom to the mind of prosecution of these new interests, does Abraham, when he bade his long and the disciple bespeak the great movement last adieu to the place of his fathers. that he has made from that ealth which BGut he was not driven to such an exile; he no longer cleaves to, to that heaven he was lured to it by the prospect of I whither all his wishes and all his efforts another day, which he saw afar off and are continually tending. was glad. And, in like manner. when Before we conclude, let us offer two a Christian is drawn in affection from remarks, which may serve to explain the the world, he is still drawn by the cords precept of laying up treasure in heaven of love and the bonds of a man. He is — as it is by our treasure being there, not told to cease his affections from the that our heart will be there: and out of things that are beneath, without'the ex- the abundance of a heart, so set and so hibition of objects better and lovelier than situated, will there come forth such dothose he is bidden to relinquish, and with- ings as shall declare plainly that we out being told to set his affections on the seek a country,which lies on the distance things that are above. And there he that.is on the other side of the grave. may behold by faith Christ sitting at the The first way in which we grow in right hand of God; and with an eye of the heavenly riches, is to grow in a tender solicitude looking towards the heavenlvy relish for the enj(yments that world which He died to save; and wel- await us there. To be in heaven withcoming every applicant to that fountain out such a relish, were like the possesof mercy which He Himself has opened; sion of an ample fortune, without health and rejoicing, most sincerely rejoicing, or taste or appetite for any one gratificaover the approaches to it of every new tion which it can purchase. It is only spiritual patient-(for how is it else that by cultivating the musical talent, that 0(00 FAITH OF THE PATRIARHS., [SERMK yotu can ad& to the rapture of the nextI But secondly, the happiness of heaven musical entertainment; and it is only by is not merely the result of a meetness be. inicreasing the spiritual habit of the soul, tween its comforts and your characterthat you fit the man for breathing with it is also in part conferred upon you, krindred delight in that great spiritual ele- iin the shape of a reward for service. It ment which composes the air of paradise. is given as a return for your good deeds It is thus that every addition made to the -like wages for Work-or payment for purity of your character,. will render a performance, that you have rendered at more exquisite your delight in seeing the will or bidding of a superior. There God. Every addition made to the bene- is at the same time a strong agreement volence of your heart, will cause it more between this way of it, and the former. joyfully to respond to each note of hap- A series of benevolent actions strengthpiness, which is heard to arise from ens the principle of benevolence; and among the choirs and the companies of makes you therefore personally more the celestial. Every addition made to alive to all the delight, that is ever circuyour piety here, will the more heighten lating in a region of benevolence. And your seraphic elevation in that place, a series of successful conflicts with the where the glories of the Divinity will be pollutions of the world, strengthens the expanded visibly before you. Every ad- habit of purity and makes you partake dition made to the intenseness and con- more largely of the divine nature, and to stancy of your love to the Saviour, will enjoy with fresher and livelier sensation quicken the more your heart-felt ecstacy the ethereal purity that encompasses the as you join in the song of eternal glory divine throne. But in. addition to this, to Him, who loved us and washed us ithere seems to be a boon conterred upon fi-om our sills in His blood. There are the righteous, specifically and formally as two ways in which you may become hap- a reward for their distinct ser vices. And pier after death, either by obtaining an thus it is that he who giveth to the poor, outwardly better heaven, or by obtaining will, not only be happier in heaven, on an inwardly better heart for the enjoy- account of the finer arid stronger and ment of it. But there is only one heaven readier sympathies of kindness ihat he -with a gradation of felicity there, fiom bears with him fiom earth. But there the variety which obtains in the charac- will be an actual payment made to him ter and capacity of those who live in it. like that of an account with interest, beAnd thus it is, that though the righteous cause by giving to the poor he lendeth to are to shine as stars, yet it will be as one the Lord. And in like manner, he who star diffring firom another in glory. giveth a disciple a cup of cold water shall And thus it is, that you liay up treasure not lose his reward. And the rich are in heaven by an assiduous cultivation of said to laty up in store for themselves the personal virtues upon earth; and each'against the time to come, by being rich of these virtues is like another jewel in in good works, ready to distribute, willing the crown which is to encircle you; and to communicate. And alms done in the man who has got the true heavenly secret shall be rewarded openly. And taste, is neveit satisfied with his present prayers done in secret in the same way. acquisitions, but like Paul he forgets the And on the day of judgment, there will things that are behind, because ithere is be a specific investigation made of specific still a higher eminence before him which deeds of charity; and you will be dealt he labours to attain: And hence his un- with according to the principle and ceasing diligence to be found without amount of them —All proving that by spot and blemish against the day of every act of obedience to the will of Christ-labouring after all moral and Christ, you lay tip treasure in heaven,.spiritual perfection; and, with this as and so become richer towards God; and the high aini of his ex stence to which how plainly therefore you may declare he subordinates every other, declaring that you are seeking after a place among, plainly that he is in quest of an object I His mansions, simply by a studious and which places him far beyond the gene- pains-takong conformity to his will-by ral pursuits or sympathys of the world. being stedfist and imrnoveable and ai .XXVI.] FAITH OF THE PATRIARCHIS, 01 ways abound.ng.n the work of the Lord ture in Jesus Christ our Lord. Tell us z,-fOrasmuch as you know that your upon your honesty, ye hearers, whether labour in the Lord shall not be in vain. the whole set of your habits and affecAnd to meet the alarms of orthodoxy tions is more upon the acquirement of the upon this subject, let it be remarked, that, first or the second kind of property? though there is no rewardableness in More upon the money which purchaseth good works under the legal economy, all things, that serve to build or embellish there is under the gospel economy. The our abode upon earth; or upon the sublaw ministers condemnation, and nothinog stance that so endureth as to be of worth else; and, to flee from its penalties, do in heaven, and to serve for the wear we take refuge with the offered Mediator. of eternity? And what is the kind of It is with Him now that we have to do; disaster which goes nearest to overwhelm and while it is in His merit alone that we you? Is it the sweep of resistless bankfind a righteousness commensurate to the ruptcy, that demolishes your fairest prostruth and holiness of the Godhead, to pects in time? Or is it the urgency Him do we at the same time concede of some violent and unlooked for temptaa right to all our time and to all our ser- tion, that has wvell nigh ovelthrown all vices. And this is what He actually those hopes of a blissful immortality, claims; and deals out the tokens of His vwhich rest on the basis of experience? approbation to those who submit them- O be at length convinced of nature's folly selves; and, as the father of a family has and nature's miscalculation. Let not his rewards and his chastisements, so has these seasons which pass in sure. and He; and thus, though redeemed from rapid flight over your heads, speak to you the curse of the law, we are yet not with- in vain. Let the silent eloquence of out law to God because under the law to friends, who, now toinbed in their sepulChrist; and all that is done unto Hlim is chres, and who in their little day laughed treasured up in His remembrance, and as loudly and thronged as busily for this will be brought out in the great day world's interests as yourselves-let it of manifestation, as the proofs of our faith touch and solemnize you. and of our faithfillness-So that it is by And 0, though it be a thought of horunwearied assiduity in His service, by ror-yet if possible to snatch survivors living not to our own will but to' His, by from the gulph of perdition, let us not abounding in the fruits of that righteous- withhold it-Just think of some such acness which He has prescribed to all His quaintasce —who toiled through life his -disciples-it is thus we shall declare plain- unwearied round of earthliness, and with ly that we seek a country, that we seek all the earthliness of his soul unbroken the welcome of the j udgment-seat, that breathed his last-if fiom the place ol we seek to enter into the joy of our Lord. despair he now occupies, he looks back Let us entreat you to lay all this to on the land of oppoitunity and sends your consciences. Are you or are you forth the bitter and unfiruitful longings of not seeking a country? Many Of you his heart for one little hour upon its borare quite familiar with the satisfaction ders, that he may have another call to that is felt, when stock is o.n the increase: repent and another chance for eternitywhen bills and title-deeds of property what he never can obtain you still poscome abundantly into your possession; sess. The gate of Chi'ist's Mediatorand vou can read in such documents as ship to you is open. The road of' acthese, the authentic vouchers of the wealth cess to that fountain which is for sin and that perisheth. Are you as familiar, or uncleanness, is fiee and open. That rerather are you not altogether strange, to demption which is through the blood of the satisfaction which springs fiom the Christ, even the forgiveness of sins, is consciousness of a treasure in heaven- held out to every creature who now from such an examination of self, as hears us; and all the poltals of reconciliproves you to be sealed by the Spirit ation with the God whom you have ofof God for an inheritance that never i:ades f(ended, are most widely and welcomely -from the account of such viitues and open. The farm and the merchandise,.theperusal of such characters upon your and the domestic cares or the domestic person as bespeak you to be a new crea- comfoits. may so engross the soul, and i,6~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~: 202 INCIPlENT DUTIES AND SUBSEQUENT EXPERIENCES OF A CHRISTIAN, [SERM deafen all its organs of communication- he who hath ears to hear, let him hear that the voice of the preacher shall be -that breaking forth from the entangle. unheeded when he calls you to turn to ments of sense, he inay turn his path Christ from your iniquities; and, for the through life into a holy pilgrimage, and sake of the world that is future, to re- so declare plainly that he is seeking a nounce the present one. But it is his country. part to preach though at a venture. And SERMON XXVII. On the connection between the Incipient Duties, and the Subsequent Experiences of a Chrislian. " And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high."-LuKE xxiv. 49. You are aware that there was an inter- which, in the further prosecution of this val of forty days, between our Saviour's discourse, we shall endeavour to unfold resurrection from the grave and His as- and apply, in some of its leading partieension into heaven-that during that culars. time He appeared upon various occasions and at various places to his disciples- 1. By the descent of the Holy Ghost, that among others,' He met them as far they were endued with a power, which from Jerusalem as Galilee, whither they of course they had not previous to that had gone, but whence it behoved them to visitation.!" Ye shall receive power," return that they might witness His as- our Saviour said, "after that the Holy cension; for this great event was to take Ghost is come upon you." It is a place in the very neighbourhood of power which they had not, then, before the Jewish metropolis; and thither it that the Holy Ghost was come upon was appointed that the apostles should them. But you will observe that even repair; aad there it was commanded when destitute of this power, they had a them to wait, till, in the language of our part to act in regard to it; and were the text, " they were endued with a power subjects of a precept, that stood confrom on high"'-and, as it is expressed nected with the high and heavenly inspiin the book of Acts, they were not to de- ration which was afterwards to descend part from Jerusalem, but wait for the pro- upon them. There was a plain and mise of the Father, that is, to wait for a practicable bidding laid upon them, baptism from heaven, for they should be which was, to return to Jerusalem and baptized with the Holy Ghost not many to. wait there. They had power for dodays after. There was a scrupulous ing this, though they had not yet the obedience rendered by the apostles to the power that was to come upon them after commandment. They did travel from doing this. There was a power in theii Galilee to Jerusalem. They returned to feet, that carried them to the place of asthe mount of ascension; and continued signation. There was a power in their with one accord in prayer and stupplica- wvills that kept them there, and made tion even till the promise came upon them resist the movement of any inclithem, when they were all filled with the nation that might have seduced them Holy Ghost, and began to speak with away from it. There wcre certain comother tongues as the Spirit gave them ut- mon powers and faculties. which they terance. had along with other men; and by the We hold this narrative, short as it is, obediently putting forth of which, in and consisting of very few steps, to be the way that was laid upon them by the replete with soundest instruction; and authority of the Saviour, they were at XXVII..INCIPIENT DUTIES AND SUBSEQUENT EXPERIENCES OF A C JRISTIAN. 203 terwards endued with a power which resurrection-the direction, given subse. signalized them above all other men. quently, and even by themselves in their But meanwhile, they in a plain way, did own epistles, would not then have suited the plain thing that was required of them. They would have felt the obscuthem. They walked back to Jerusalem, rity of such sayings, as " quench not the and they stopped there-till the fulfil- Spirit," and "gloryin the crossof Christ," ment of the promise, which'was to be and "have no confidence in the flesh," realized upon them. there. Had they and "be dead unto the law," and "rejoice gone elsewhere, or tarried elsewhere, in the Holy Ghost." And so, as a high there would have been no such fulfil- point of wisdom and delicacy, our Sament. The accomplishment that came viour, in the treatment of these his immeafter followed in the train of that move- diate disciples, abstained from many ment which went before; and the en- things at the first, and limited himself to largement of spirit, that came upon the the utterance of such things as they were apostles in the day of Pentecost, was the able to learn. He fed them with milk, distinct consequence of a very plain act and reserved his strong meat for the of obedience. manhood of their Christianity. They The first general process then, which would have been at a loss with very many our text exemplifies, is that by which the of the instructions, which were scattered beginner is guided, from an humbler to over their own compositions; but at no a higher acquirement, in the course of loss whatever, how to set about the very his Christian education. It shows how obvious bidding of our text-how to the obedience of such powers as he has, make use of their feet in carrying them can haste him onward to such larger to Jerusalem, and stedfastly to abide powers and endowments as he at present there, till the promised enlargement has not. It shows that in the inferior should come upon them. And there we stages of discipleship, there is a distinct read that they waited and they prayed, and tangible something for him to do; till, as the result of their own performand in the doing of which he is at ances and God's promise together, they length raised to its more elevated stages. received that from Heaven which raised We shall seize upon this narrative as an them nearer to Heaven's light, and love, illustration of the very important princi- and liberty; and brought them up to a ple, that in no part of a believer's pro- far higher platform in the ascent of gress, not even in the very infancy of it, Christian experience. and further back than this, not even at Now the interesting question is, wheth. the time when most sunk in the uncon- er a process similar to this ever obtains cern of nature and of the world, is there in the present day. Is such still the ecothe want of some specific and practicable nomy of grace, that the obedience which thing, to which he might and ought to can be accomplished by a lower degree turn himself; and which has a bearing of power, elevates the Christian disciple upon the interest of his eternity. to a higher degree of it? Will the comWe read of the trumpet giving a cer- pliance with such humbler directions as tain and an uncertain sound; and a di- require less of light and knoxvledge to rection which could well be understood understand, carry forward the teachable and instantly proceeded on by the full- inquirer to more of light and knowledge grown Christian, might sound most un- than he had before? What are the certainly indeed, to the hearing of him movements that we on earth can perform, who is but a babe in the mysteries of the so as to meet the influences which are gospel, and still more of him who has rained down upon us from heaven?not yet felt one desire or made one move- and whither shall we lead our footsteps, ment towards it. Yet there is a way of that we may receive of some promised dealing with them too there is a word in enlargement? There is, it would appealr season for every man; and for them also, a visitation from on high, by which they there are words which can be spoken who are the subjects of it, become vel' seasonably. In that low degree both of sant in the mysteries of the faith, and understandingand power, which obtained have the mark impressed upon them of a among the apostles, immediately after the very peculiar people. To them th6 204 INCIPIENT DUTIES AND SUBSEQUENT EXPERIENCES OF A CHRISTIAN. [SERM. whole doctrine and phraseology of the with the Spirit of God, so still there are gospel are familiar; and many are the places of meeting with the same Spirit truths which spring from that doctrine, assigned for us; and just as easily as they and are couched in that phraseology,, could do as they were bidden, when they whereof they both see the meaning and went to their prescribed post, so can we feel the power and the preciousness. To do the bidding to repair to ours; that themr the trumpet giveth a certain sound, still there lies a distinct call, even upon while to them who have never yet been the uninitiated, who are afar off from the called out of darkness into marvellous gospel, as well as upon those babes in light, it may sound most uncertainly. Christ who are nigh unto its fuller reve-'he technicals of Christianity may fall lations; that still. there is a progression, upon their ears, like the vocables of an by which all may come from the acts of unknown lanluage. The truths of a humbler to the powers and the spiritual Christianity may be shrouded from their gifts of a higher obedience; that still mental eye, by a veil that looks most there are movements which might be hopelessly impenetrable. They may done by us on earth, and by which the have no sympathy, and no common intel- earthliest of us all may come within the ligence, with the children of light; and limits of that influence which falls on the question is, whether, with the unin- certain gracious places in a descending telligence which they have as the chil- ministration from heaven,-That so all dren of the world, any space howeverI are left without excuse; and will not small can be cleared out before them, on have to allege on the day of reckoning, which they might make one step in ad- at least of every neglected call which has vance towards the knowledge and the. been brought to their doo'r, ho, in each faith which are unto salvation? Is there instance, it was too hard and too high for but one obvious truth on which they them —that their consciences through might lay palpable hold, and by which life, have been repeatedly plied with the they may pluck all the other articles of a obligation of duties as clear as they were recondite Theology from their hiding- urgent and imperative; and to the perplace?-or, rather. is there any visible formance of which, if they had not been path of access that can lead them to the wanting to themselves, God would not margin, and at length introduce them have been wanting with the aids of his within the confines of a spiritual mani- grace, to carry onward their education for festation, whereunto they have not yet heaven-that, in short, for all there is a been admitted? All which the Bible path which is plain, and a sound which says of regeneration, and of the right- is certain and intelligible,-that many, eousness which is by faith, and of the life very many things, are laid upon us, which is hid with Christ in God, and of which bear on our future and everlasting walking in the Spirit, and of God's resi- interests, the neglect of which can be dence within them as if they were the traced distinctly, not to the want either of temples which He chose to decorate and power or of understandingD, but to the in which He loved to dwell,-these, and want of inclination-that for these at many other expressions to be found in the least we are clearly and fully responsipages of the evangelical record, maybe ble; and because of these it will be as darkly incomprehensible to them, as found, not of the not able but of the not any cabalistic responses that were ever willing, that God has wiped His hands given forth by the oracles of heathenism; of every one of them, and they have and the question still is, whether for these themselves to blame for the undoing of men of our present generation, we can l their eternity. prescribe a way as plain, as that in which But to be more specific. One assigned the apostles were bidden walk, when place of meeting between man and the commanded to go to Jerusalem, and there Spirit of God, is the word of God. In to wait till they were endued with power like manner as their ordinary and natural from on high. powers took the apostles to Jerusalem, Our general answer to this question is, and kept them there-so our natural facthat, just as Jerusalem was assigned to ulties will avail us so far when put forth he apostles, for their place of meeting upon.the Bible. The Bible may be to XXVII] INCIPIENT DUTIES AND SUBSEQUENT EXPERIENCES OF A CHRISTIAN. 2t us, what Jerusalem was to them. WVe being made clear and impressive o its. can at least place it before us; and bind When the Holy Ghost speaks to us, Hle ourselves over to the perusal of it; and makes use of no other vocables than the direct ou, eye upon its pages; and give words of Scripture. When He illumi to it the same strenuousness of attention nates the soul, it is by a lustre reflected and of thouglht, that we give to any other upon it from the pages of Scriptare composition; and press the understand- When He bears upon the conscience. it ing, andthe memory, and the conscience, is with the urgency of some truth or and all the other gifts and sensibilities some moral lesson, the whole letter and that are within us, into the service of be- expression of which are to be found ing rightly informed and rightly im- in the Scripture. He does not operate pressed by it: And this we can perse- on the mind of man, but by putting Him.. ~ere in many days, even as the disciples self into contact with the Scripture. And of our Lord tarried for days at the post man ought not to look for this operation, which was prescribed to them. The but by just, on the other hand, bringing Bible is the post prescribed to us. And himself into contact with this said Scripthere is just one thing more to be added, ture.'lhe Bible, ye hearers, the Bible in order to complete the resemblance be- is the place of concourse between the tween the two cases. They waited at celestial influence from above, and the Jerusalem, and we are farther informed terrestrial subject that is below-the comthat they prayed. The promise of God mon ground on which the two parties that they should have the Holy Ghost, hold their conference the one with the did not, it would appear, supersede, but other, and where the earnestness of man stimulate their prayers for its accomplish- meets with the visitation of that God who ment. Instead of causing them to give rewards them who seek Him diligently. up supplication, it suggested a topic for It is here, if any where, that if we draw it. And so let us, to the forth-putting of near unto God, God will draw near unto all the light and strength which we us. This is the field where the treasure actually have, add our supplications for lieth hid, to find which you must dig up more. More especially to the earnest and down upon it; and if you should not heed which we give unto the Bible, have succeeded, we have no other direclet us add our earnest entreaties that God tion to give, than that you must just dig would open our eyes, to behold the mar- over again. It is in the perusal and the vellous things which be contained in it- re-perusal of Scripture, that you can oblet the diligence wherewith we ply all its tain and make sure of the pearl of great various passages, be joined with devotion price; and the truth, and the power, and for a blessing upon the exercise-let us the enlargement which you are in quest look unto the word, as unto a light that of, are all embosomed there. The word shineth in a dark place, and look up unto is the intermedium between God and Him, at the bidding alone of whose man; and it is through it, and it only, voice, all the darkness can be dissipated that the light of inspiration is given. -And just as the first Christians kept by You are at your post, when, in the act Jerusalem, and in the earnest expectation of reading God's word, you may be said there of a coming enlargement-So to place yourselves beside that intermeought we to keep by the Bible, and con- dium, and there to listen for that voice of tinue to give earnest heed unto the word efficacy, which might transform you into of its prophecy, until (to use the very. lan- a new creature. You may have to wait; guage of the apostle Peter), until the but there is every assurance that no hon day dawn, and the day-star arise in our est inquirer shall have to wait in vain: hearts. and we believe it to be unexcepted, in There is a peculiar fitness in the Bible, the whole history of the Church, that, as a place of meeting between God's wherever there has been a desirous and Spirit and man's spirit. It is the very a devoted attendance upon the word, place, through which a conveyance from there the demonstration of the Spirit has the one descends upon the other. There been added to it. is no other inspiration to be expected Is there any here present, who. still a now-a-days, than simply the word of God stranger to the light and liberty of the 206 INCIPIENT DUTIES AND SUBSEQUENT EXPERIENCES OF A CHRISTIAN. [SERM, gospel, has to complain that long and some, with whom these exercises are wearily he has knocked at a door which prosecuted apart —we do not mean apart'he can'not open? Perhaps he may have in time, but apart as to all dependence been reading without prayer, as many do, the one upon the other. We ask you to who, acquitting themselves of their daily proceed on the harmony that is between chapter, drivel out their time at a formra them-to knock at no other door, than and fruitless task-work. Then he is like the door of Scripture for Heaven's inwhat the apostles would have been, had spirations; and at the same time to know, they gone to Jerusalem, but sent up no that, unless Heaven be addressed by your supplication to heaven there. Or perhaps, earnest and persevering entreaties, these under a sense of darkness and discomfort, inspirations never will be given. he may have been praying for enlarge- And now for those, who, to justify meat out of the straitening which op- their irreligion, complain that a plain presses him; but not looking to the Bible path hath never been set before them.as the only channel through which the that they might have been Christians light of life is to flow in upon his soul, as had it not been for the hieroglyphical obhthe appointed place where the answer is scurity in which Christianity is shrouded to come, he may just have fared as the -that they have not yet made one moveapostles would have done, had they not ment towards it, because they know not followed the order of going to Jerusalem; where to place their next footstep, and are but at some other part than that which quite sure that they could never find their was prescribed to them, thought of mrnak- way through its points and its paradoxes. ing up by the strenuousness of their de- It is thus they would excuse themselves votions for their palpable act of disobedi- -while all the while their Bible lies unence. You are on the one hand bidden opened-while the plain question, " of to search the Scriptures, and on the other what readest thou," remains unanswered hand to ask for the Spirit. Without the -while, to solve this question, they give one, vou will never find, in their power no time, either to perusals or to praying. and in their preciousness,. the truths And wit.l a readable volume to lie beside which lie deposited in the other. Still them, anrd invite their eye upon its pages; these fruths are to be gotten at a certain and with the promise of that merciful and specified place; and if away from Hieaven whnch smiles so benignantly the place, the help of the Spirit will be upon them, and offers to unravel for them of no avai to you. all its mysteries-it is in the midst of To the apostles was offered the Holy such facilities as these, they will persist Ghost at Jerusalem; and to yon there is in their apathy, though at the very openthe offer of the same Holy Ghost, in the ing of that career which leads to Heavact of giving your diligent and desirous en's bliss and to Heaven's glory. It is attendance upon the Bible. The com- not because the way is inaccessible, but pound direction under which you lie, is, because the spells of earth and of earthlito seek for something in a given place, ness have bound them. They have no where that something is to be found; right to complain of a hedge across their and to take the aid of an able auxiliary path. It is the manacle of their own alongr with you. If not at the place, you hearts' chcice and nothing else, which so will seek in vain; and if you have not detains and fastens them among the the aid you will also seek in vain. The treacherous delights of the world. There Spirit sent forth upon the soul, is no has been pointed out to them a way as mystic or undescribable afflatus; and all specific, as that which led the apostles of his teaching, indispensable as It is, is our Lord to Jerusalem. There has been couched and embodied in the literalizies made to them a promise as sure, as that of Scripture. You may have read, it ot the power by which the apostles were availeth not if you do not pray; you rrav endued from on high. And if during nave praved. it availeth not if you do riot yolur short-lived day, you choose to give read. They are the readings asid the iall your energies to its business and prayers together which avail you.'i'ere I its pleasures-if in the unabated fervour are many of this c.reiess and. unthink;nog wherewith ye ply your busy round amnong generation whbo uo relth.e;~ and there be the interests and. gratifications of senso KXVII.1 IN( IPIENT DUTIES AND SUBSEQUENT EXPERIENCES OF A CHRISTIAN. 207 you are scarcely, if ever, arrested a sin- you looked into its pages; and, putting gle hour for one pause or one preparation your hand upon your bosom, can you of seriousness-The great searcher )f honestly say, that you have discovered hearts will Himself not only pronounce- no characters of truth and of sacredness; but vindicate your doom, when He tells and that you nave met with no one prefrom the judgment-seat, of the Bible that gumption on its side, either in the loftiHe sent and the Spirit that he offered to | ness of its morality, or its searching disyou. cernment into the human spirit? Still Nor is it enough to vindicate your un- we do not ask your faith, till the evidenconcern, that the evidence for this Bible ces of its truth have been manifested; but is still unseen by you-that you have yet we ask your faithful and assiduous inmet with nothing to over-power you into quiries, till you have the manifested evithe conviction of its truth-that, for aught dence of its falsehood. We beg you not you know, it may be the record of a base to look so safe and so satisfied, in your and unprincipled imposture, instead of an habitual neglect of this religion, as if imauthentic and authoritative message from posture were plainly and palpably writthe upper sanctuary. The Bible may ten on the face of it: And we put the not stand forth in such characters of cer- question-whether, with nothing to lose tainty, as to compel your instantaneous if it be false, and every thing to lose if i belief; and yet stand forth in such char- be true, you would hazard one earthly acters of likelihood, as to challenge your interest that belongs to you, in the way instant and most serious inquiry. We that the contemners of the gospel of Jesus do not require of you to believe in the ab- Christ have staked the fortune of their sence of proof; but we require of you to eternity? O, they have done repeated peruse and to ponder and to investigate, violence, even to the light and the voice in the midst of many semblances and of nature, in their treatment of Christian many probabilities. iWe do not affirm, ity; and when visited, as they have that, on your very first look at Christian- sometimes been, with the suspicion tha ity, you will see as much as to force the they are wrong, their own natural con whole system of its doctrines and articles science hath testified against them. at. once into your creed; but we affirm, The Bible, with its many probabilities that, on your very first look at Christian- that should urge them to begin the inves ity, there appears as much on its forehead tigation, and its many proofs that would as should constrain your candid and re- have met and multiplied upon them erea spectful attention to it. It is not our de- they had gotten to the end of it-this Bi. mand, that you should believe without ble when opened in the day of reckon inquiry; but it is our demand that you ing, will be their coming witness; ant should not reject without inquiry. We will furnish against them many a cleardo not say there is enough in and about principle of condemnation. He who; the Bible, to dogmatise you into the ponders the heart, and hath an eye upon, sudden assurance of its infallibility; but all its secrets, will bring out the lurking we say, that, in and about this Bible, unfairness to the light of day-will un there is enough to rivet your regards, cover the moral perversity that hung a and rebuke away all your heedlessness. the bottom of it all —will make it clea-r How, I would ask, have you disposed of to every looker-on, that never in one inM the history of its miracles? And how of stance, has a thorough earnestness after that magnificent train of prophecy, that truth, missed of evidence enough for all" so accords with the general march and the truth which is unto salvation; that if movement of our world? How have any did not see, it was because they didi you contrived to resist the appeal, which not seek; that if strangers to the light, it, is made in behalf of Scripture, by the ex- was because they shut their eyes againstistence of the Jews as a separate and it; that if they abode in darkness, it xwas monumental nation? Or have you so because they loved the darkness and chose mastered the records of other times, as to to abide in it, It is not that they had no warrant your summary rejection of a proof for the ways of God; but that they volume, that so many of the wise and the had no pleasure in these ways-not that good in all ages have revered? Or have there was a want of harmonious and INCWInCIPIENT ESMiT AND SUJBSEQUENT T-L1XPERITf1191N:S' OiA CIRIRI5T-trfA1. [Am co/nvitcihg,~ tcoettn::a n H:iHis p~i:,prt.but,"but'l:when viWthout the.,co-bpratin'of thavo waantit-.n theirs of'aydesen ein-.wi:l' be given, -an,'kTitho4tt:4h hand-.thi-s is- thd oonden.hat' tht'their o-pation Tof' the o::otleronothi'.gwril'l M be,r&e-ves'wroatvyfoi, ad i.'ib.n.t'recei red.l.q The. —ablmth'i 1sjiusvt, st kah.,a~ gle-sliw'es'.x~ee a vy &forei lh ea:vwn:;nd, nt...':'"' ~..... upqt earth..'that, \v-hatev th wi dee~rieves::dinanhen'i for. yod can, t iestik f tJhei'i" outteerian.hese deeds ifte alista f:ro-all'eathlybsineand i anehemh- evi e'r IT,'e'd ok o sare:'dnes'&s' ~"~ahd' gi;e} T.:.We,. halve. efpqatiaited,::.so; tonr~on.this' your presence to the.solemn asSIMon. i.Hu t, cdRn,' aherewth nut ti-,ex't hams bly~:ndp-d."prfkwmi' ~e.rta i, i Tover —e nts fti', ishhn di us rthat niot mi8o o t oime:'is:hii i i a be. sai'-t bdrt~.'restviO~'and t'left',f'if~, ither''land''siiii IAr ist'sfiii omi.'p t -y-odrseltf ntjo. cer tain' atiMtues.,wi:h ie -T'.,helmgenri ptiriiple; ef l,th l S hat itat re also':t'e:rhstvial;.atnde to, a'll'' whdi vWe ereatujri-s!'d eailth,':rJ 1,i1oti1e'fA urchbiin-'do.e'yi tti.b:o~'if': ton:'e:a.'oiy dea, and iuht01" of some~. -e.moeet rdrpted' mya,s4kihg:'-heiit't/,~ ad ele.sti'thati beach.,h ofl:c, rhake andri c' t.tn' ifti'na b'Ve':wi'l' be' i'v':: It e.akini a! eof'iyhihh, w.e hal,meeti if'we,p'pi ib:a sori;"the'hble",