' f\\t 1 UUII I t . " . A " * - A MEMORIAL OP 3IINISTERIAL LABOUR. / A MEMORIAL MINISTERIAL LABOUR; BEING a ^election of Dtorouroro DELIVERED IX THE PARISH CHURCH OF PERTENHALL, BEDFORDSHIRE, DURING THE TEARS 1823, 1824, AND 1826, BV THE REV. WILLIAM MUDGE, A.B. CURATE OFRAMPISHAM, DORSET. To stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance. -2. PETER iii, 1. SHERBORNE: PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR, DY MARKER AND PENNY ; AND SOLD BY HATCHARD, PICCADILLY; SEF.I EY, FLEET-STREET; AND HAMILTON AND ADAMS, I-ATERNC*- JtH-HOW, LONDON ; AND BY FENNY AND SON, SHERBORNE. 1827. Stack Annex DEDICATION. IF respectful deference, unwearied kindness, and Christian sympathy, call for grateful ac- knowledgement ; then is the Author of this Volume under very powerful and constraining obligation gratefully to acknowledge these truly estimable qualities in the People of his first and earliest charge. To them as a proof of his af- fectionate regard and earnest solicitude for their welfare, does he dedicate the Memorial of his labours atPertenhall, beseeching, whilst he does so, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to make it a Means of spiritual and eternal good to not a few of its beloved inhabit- ants. Their acceptance and beneficial use of his Work will be sweetly refreshing to the Author's feelings. And in them there will be, he is sure, an association of idea and a recollection of cir- cumstance, that will give to his Volume an importance and a worth which strangers to Us 2000164 vi DEDICATION. Author can hardly be expected to appreciate. This will blunt the edge of unfriendly criticism and change the countenance of scorn. To live in the esteem and prayers of a few devoted fol- lowers of the Lamb is far, very far, preferable to living in the smile and popularity of a world the fashion of which passeth away. For such followers of the Lamb this Volume is principally designed. That it may revive the memory of the past, waken anticipation of the future, and strengthen the present purpose of the soul in the heaven-ward ways of Truth and Holiness, is the prayer of Their once willing servant in the Gospel, and Their still faithfully attached friend And brother in the faith and love Of Jesus Christ, W. M. PREFACE. YOUNG in years and younger still in grace ; ' small and of no reputation,' as is the Author of the follow- ing Discourses, it may seem to argue a want of judg- ment or of modesty, or of both, in him thus to court publicity : and more particularly so when it is recol- lected how many Volumes of Sermons are issuing con- tinually from the Press ; and Sermons, too, to whose elegance of diction, beauty of arrangement, and strength of argument, this Volume makes no pretence.*. It becomes, therefore, the duty of the Author to assign the ground of this publication. He might re- peat the hackneyed phrase of ' the entreaty of friends' and unaffectedly avow * his extreme reluctance to ap- pear in print :' but without availing himself of these or any other similar prefatory expressions, he shall simply and succinctly state In A. D. 1823 it was the Author's happiness to be ordained a Minister of the Church of Christ His ordination was the con- summation of the wishes, the anxieties, and the hopes of many a preceding year of his life. With trembling, indeed ; but, at the same time, with readiness and joy did he enter on the functions of the Ministerial Office. Most mercifully was he favoured with acceptance among the People committed to his charge. For a long period had that People been privileged to hear e the joyful sound.' ' Fathers in Christ' had minister- ed to their spiritual necessities ; and many of them, in viii PREFACE. their rich experience of Christian Truth, had eaten even ' angels' food :' and yet, to their credit be it spoken, they could listen with patient willingness and affectionate forbearance to the lispings of a ' babe in Christ.' The Author laboured not in vain. Very manij were brought to feel their helplessnesss, to glory in their Redeemer's excellence, and to walk in all pleasing. Will it be thought surprising that between them and their Minister an attachment of the tender- est and most pleasing kind was begotten ? Respect- ful and obliging towards himself; and, more than this, ' alive unto God' and ' ready to every good word and work,' could their Minister do otherwise than cheer- fully ' spend and be spent' for them ? Could he do otherwise than love them, and endeavour by every pru- dent and becoming means to further their best, their highest and their noblest interests ? He did so, may he, without any thing like disgustful arrogancy, be permitted to declare : and hence hearts were united, sensibilities were blended, and both Minister and Peo- ple dwelt together blessing and being blessed. Plain and faithful as were his public Addresses, they loved his plain fidelity. If faults they had (and where does fault not mark humanity ?) they desired their detec- tion ; they wished their exposure, and assayed to cor- rect them. Will it then, it is again inquired, be thought surprising that the Author's separation from his beloved, and worthity beloved, flock, even if that separation were under circumstances the most favour- able and auspicious, was painful very painful ? Painful indeed it was. Nothing short of ' the good PREFACE. ix Shepherd's* care for his ' own' and the hope of a re- union with them in those pastures of glory which stretch boundlesssly beyond the pastures of grace, could, he is persuaded, have enabled him to sustain the trial. Finding himself, eventually, apart and dis- tant from his once dear People, what could he do for them ? ' Cannot you select and print for them some of your Sermons ?' was a thought which one day crossed his mind when beseeching the eternal Majesty of heaven to bless and keep them. It was attempted : the prosecution of the Work was pleasant: it has been accomplished ; and the Reader is now in posses- sion of the Author's reason for appearing in print. The ultimate glory of God in the benefit of his ser- vants, is the one sole aim and end of the present Volume. As to the merits or demerits of the Volume others must judge. The Author is too conscious of imperfection to suppose himself not liable to censure and correction : he trusts, however, that censure will be kind and that correction profitable. Regard hag been paid to both the selection and the arrangement of subjects : and the Volume, it is hoped, will be found to contain a body of scriptural, experimental and practical divinity. It must not be thought that the Author's oft repeated quotation of the Articles and Homilies of his Church is pedantic or affected : he loves the acknowledged Formularies of the Established Church : it pities him to find them unknown or little read ; and both as a Clergyman and a Christian he cordially quotes and recommends them. Relative to the Sentiments divulged, explained, or inculcated in x PREFACE. these Discourses, the Author trusts they will he found both scriptural and orthodox. Me has hccn led to their adoption gradually, even step hy step. Never could he be forced to acquiesce in any doctrinal state- ment. The calmest and most sober consideration it is in his power to give, has preceded its reception and belief. To ' believe a lie* is bad: to preach a lie is worse. The Author, therefore, shrinks not to avow that so far as he can judge, he has gathered his Creed from the Bible and been taught it by the Spirit of God. A Commentary on the Bible (though far from insinuat- ing that he despises a Commentary) he does not pos- sess nor has ever possessed. He calls no Man ' Mas- ter.' He assumes no name ; he espouses no party. He prays and aims to be a simple, affectionate., and useful Minister of Jesus Christ. If there be any System of Religious Truth he prefers to others, it is that contain- ed in the Liturgy &c. of the Church of England NOT because they are the Liturgy c. of the Church of England ; but because their statements are accordant to Scripture, and calculated, at once to humble and renew the sinner, and to glorify and exalt the Saviour. This, it is confidently presumed, will be found the System of the Work here presented to the Public. Locality will sometimes be perceptible; but that could scarcely be avoided, nor did the Author always aim to avoid it. Craving now the indulgence of every candid and Christian Reader, he commends this Volume to his perusal, entreating the God of love and mercy to bless it to the furtherance of his present com- fort and everlasting salvation. Parsonage, Ramp? sham, June 30/7/, 1827. CONTENTS. DISCOURSE I. Importance of the Ministerial Office. 1 CORINTHIANS ix, 10. Woe is unto me, if I preach not the Gospel ! Page 1 DISCOURSE II. The Divine Law a Test of Character. 1 JOHN iii, 4. Sin is the transgression of the Law. 14 DISCOURSE III. On Justification. JOB xxv, 4. How then can Man be justified with God ^ Gal. iii, 8. Heb. iv. 1, 2. p Eph. iii, 10. i Acts xx, 24. 4 IMPORTANCE OF " the abominable thing which God hates ;'! jet that he loves our soulsand " willeth not" our death. As "the Gospel of Christ," 1 it reveals a Saviour ; an all-sufficient sacrifice for sin in that Saviour's death, and a life of endless blessedness and glory as the consequence of faith in him. As " the Ministration of the Spirit,"' the Gospel records " the promise of the Spirit" to work in our hearts genuine and unaffected penitence, operative faith, lively gratitude,, love to the person of our Lord, and universal benevolence towards man. As " the Gospel of Salvation "* it proclaims health to the brokenhearted, deliverance to the captives, recover)' of sight to the blind, and liberty to the bound. As " anew and a better Covenant l ," v the Gospel insures the fulfilment of every relative and Christian duty. As " an everlasting Covenant/'" it secures to the Believer " all things" sure and unfailing mercies. Its oath and promise are immutable. And as some strong and powerful odour revives the fainting senses of the body, so do " the immutable things" of God afford " strong consolation" to all who flee for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before them in the Gospel.* " Jehovah is the hope of his people."* " Christ is our hope/" He is the Alpha and Omega of our ministrations : " him we preach," nor can we be Ministers of the Gospel, if we cease to preach him. 3 " Ourselves" we preach not, " but Christ Jesus our Lord, and ourselves your ser- vants for Jesu's sake." b Jesus * f crucified" it is our office to exalt : and while we " set him forth evidently crucified among you," his dying love must be motive sufficient for us to " warn every man, and to teach every man in all wisdom ; that we may present every man perfect, in Christ Jesus." c Such, briefly, is the Gospel; and now, what is it to preach the Gospel? r Rom. i, 16. 2 Cor. iii, 8. * Eph. i. 13. T Jer. xxxi, 31, and Heb.viii, b. w 2 Sara.xxiii,5. Heb.xiii,20. * Heb. vi, 18. y Jer. xiv, 8. 1 Tim. i, 1. * Acts v, 42. 2 Cor iv, 5. c Col. i, 28. THE MINISTERIAL OFFICE. 5 To preach the Gospel is to declare it fully, plainly, kindly. It is to declare \i fully. " He that hath my \Vord ,"says God, "let him speak my Word faithfully.'" 1 And Paul, in accordance with this Divine direction, <( shunned not to declare all the counsel of God," e and " kept back nothing" that pertained to his office to de- clare. Equally faithful to our trust must we be. In all its parts and bearings must we preach the Gospel. Our system must be that of the Bible. We must call no mem ' Master.' Nothing may we add to, nothing may we diminish from, the Testament of a dying Lord. Even if things be spoken that are offensive to man's depraved nature and carnal mind, and these things be agreeable to the revealed will of God, we must not shrink from a full and faithful declaration of them. Such is our office, that if we seek to please men, we cannot be the servants of Christ/ Is man depraved and helpless? Is there NO health in us ? We must fully declare it. Is the will of God the first moving cause of our salva- tion? 8 Cometh no man unto the Father but by Christ ? h Cometh no man to the Son, except the Father which hath sent Him draw him ?' Is man condemned because, on account of the perverse and obstinate de- pravity of his heart, he will not come to Christ ? k Must we be born anew ere we can see, enter, or enjoy, the kingdom of God ?' Must all the glory of our salvation accrue to our only Saviour ? Itl And must the grace which brings salvation teach us to deny all ungodli- ness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, and to look for the re-appearing of our Lord, Jesus Christ?" Are these things so ? Then must we fully and unhesitatingly de- clare them. In short, my brethren, we, as Paul was, must be " bold to speak unto you the Gospel of God." * Jer. xxiii, 28. Acts xx, 27. ' Gal. i, 10, - s Kph. i, 11. h John xir, (5. ' John vi, 44. * John v, 40 >Johiii,3. m 1 Cor. i, 20,31. Titus ii, 12, 1 ;J . 1 Thebs. ii, 2. 6 IMPORTANCE OF Moreover, we must declare \i plainly not, I mean, in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth. p It is the language of human nature that says, " Speak to us smooth things, pro- phecy deceits.'" 1 Worded smoothly and disguised plausibly, many would even receive the truth : But, no ; the Gospel which we preach is unaccommodating in its solemn verities; arid therefore must " our speech and our preaching be not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power." Our Divine Master spake plainly/ Paul, speaking of himself and his fellow-labourers in the Gospel, says, tc We use great plainness of speech. *'** And great plainness of speech must we use, if we would either destroy the strong holds of the devil, or build up, on its most holy faith, the Church of Christ. It is here, we conceive, so many ministers of the Gospel fail they overshoot the capacities of their hearers use " high swelling words of vanity" and " so speak unto the air," and spend their strength for nought, " In simplicity and with godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but, by the grace of God, may we have our conversation in the world, and more abundantly to yoa-wards."* If the Law was required to be written " very plainly,"" surely the Gospel should not be written or preached in less distinguishable characters. Plainly, therefore, must it be declared. But, finally, we must declare it Idndly. The ministry we sustain is (as we have before intimated) a ministry of reconciliation. The Gospel reveals a God of love and mercy. It invites, beseeches, entreats, sinful and rebellious worms to be reconciled to God. Its preachers, therefore, should be men of tenderness and love. Sacred are the sorrows of a penitent. Quick are the sensibilities of a newly awakened soul. With these it becomes us to sympathize. With "many tears" 1 Cor. ii, 13. q Isa. xxx, 10. ' John xvi, 29. 2 Cor. iii, 12. 2 Cor. 1, 12. * Deut. xxvii, 8. THE MINISTERIAL OH ICE. 7 did Paul fulfil his office ; w " with tears he warned ;"* and " with tears he wrote." y A greater too, than Paul, offered his "supplications with strong crying and tears," 2 and with feelings of the tendercst kind He wept over the murderous Jerusalem.* With somewhat of the like compassion should we minister the Gospel of God. Our eyes should run down with tears when men keep not God's Law. b Day and night should we weep for the slain of the daughter of our people. If we must reprove "the enemies of our Redeemer's cross/' we should do it "even weeping. " a Peace, holiness, and love should mark the ministerial character. " In love" should the truth be spoken ; and spoken in love, however plainly and fully, it will not offend whom it may be worth our while to please. Truth is lovely, and suffered to appear in simple loveliness, it will win, soften, console, and bless. " Good and gracious is the Lord: therefore will he teach sinners in the way:"' Let the minister of the Lord be "good and gracious" kind and condescending too, and therefore shall h* also teach sinners in the way. Such, then, beloved, is the MINISTERIAL OFFICE : It is to preach the Gospel; and to preach the Gospel fully, plainly, kindly. Come we to consider II. The RESPONSIBILITY which attaches to it: " Woe, says St. Paul, is unto me, if I preach not the Gospel:" He imprecates a woe upon himself if he failed faithfully to discharge his office. Surely, then, the Apostle must have felt a responsibility of the most solemn and impressive kind attaching to his office. And, in fact, there is, however some, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram-like, aspire to the Priesthood/ and covet - Acts xx, 19. * Ib. 31. y 2 Cor. ii, 4. Heb. v, 7. Luke xix, 41. b Ps. 1 19, 13C. c Jei. ix, 1. d Phil, iii, 18. P*. 25, 8. f Num. ch. xvi. 8 IMPORTANCE OF pre-eminence in the Church, God will not be mocked. No Uzza must put forth his hand to hold the Ark : 8 The sons of Ko hath alone must bear it. 1 ' Awful things are written against such as run without being sent, and prophesy without being spoken to.' And " cursed is the man that doeth the work of the Lord deceit- fully/' 1 ' and " handleth his Word deceitfully." 1 We must be " called of God, as was Aaron/' accept- ably to minister in holy things. ' ' Jesus sent" his disciples whither he himself would come. " The Hohj Ghost said, separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto/ have called them.'" 11 Thusthe triune Jehovah is concerned in provisioning the ministerial office with teachers and labourers. Happy, then, is the man who can say with the Prophet, or rather with Messiah himself, " The Lord God and his Spirit hath sent me." 1 " Moved to take the office on us by " the Eternal Spirit," he will qualify us for it: we shall not run in vain : we shall not prophesy our own hearts' deceits : we shall have an unction from the Holy One to teach us all things necessary to be in- culcated on others: we shall see our office to be su- perior in dignity and excellence to any earthly calling whatever : the honour of our Saviour-God ; the sal- vation of immortal souls ; the promulgation of divine truth ; the extension of our Zion's borders ; the in- terests of time and of eternity are all involved in our office. Who, then, will say that a fearful responsibi- lity does not attach to it? Who will not rather ask, " Who is sufficient for it?" And does not all this say to me ' Be faithful.' "Take heed to the Ministry, thou hast received that THOM fulfil it ?" Let me, however, point you to a portion of Holy Scripture most strik- ingly applicable to ministerial responsibility: " Son of Man, (says the Word of the Lord in Ezek. f 1 Chron, xiii,9, 10, h Num. vii, 9. ' Jet. xxiii,21, 40. k Jr. xlviii. 10. 2 Cor. iv, 2. m Acts xiii, 2. " Isa. xlviii, 10. Col. iv, 17. THE MINISTERIAL OFFICE. xxxiii. 1, 9.) speak to the children of thy people, and say unto them, \vhen I bring the sword upon the land, if the people of the land take a man of their coasts, and set him for their watchman : If when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet and warn the people; then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning ; if the sword come, and take him away, his blood shall be upon his ozcvzhead. He heard the sound of the trumpet, and took not warn- ing ; his blood shall be upon him. But he that taketh warning shall deliver his soul. But if the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet and the people be not warned ; if the sword come and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his ini- quity ; but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand." (Now, mark, my Brethren :) " So thou, O Son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel : therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth and warn them from me. When I say unto the wicked, O wicked man thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity ; but his blood will I re- quire at thine hand. Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it ; if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity ; but thou hast delivered thy soul." See here the responsibility of our office and the indispensible necessity we are under of discharging it with fidelity ! May we, with this Scrip- ture full before us, " bring you another Gospel" than that of the Bible ? May we inculcate our own fan- cies ? May we {i seek our own things and not the things of Jesus Christ ?" May we be silent when we see a sinner exposed to the sword of divine justice, and treading heedlessly the brink of ruin ? Shall the watchman of some earthly city, walk his constant rounds and answer, as the Prophet says, the cry, "Watchman, what of the night ? Watchman, what of the night ?" p and shall the Watchman of the new Je- ' ISA. x\ s- 11. 10 IMPORTANCE OF rusalem, the spiritual Zion, be less alert, and indisposed to answer the enquiry, "What must I do to be saved?" If we would be saved "from blood-guiltiness" if we would be " pure from the blood of all men" 9 if we would escape te &oe" unutterable, we must be faithful to our trust, and diligent humbly, earnestly, prayer- fully, diligent, in the discharge of its solemn and im- portant duties. But I wish you to see what a clergy- man should be from the ordination service of your own church. When authorised to preach the Word of God and to minister amongst our people, our Bishops and Fathers say* "We exhort you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you have in remembrance, into how high a dignity, and to how weighty an office and charge, ye are called : that is to say, to be Messengers, Watch- men, and Stewards of the Lord ; to teach and to pre- nionish, to feed and to provide for the Lord's family ; to seek for Christ's sheep, that are dispersed abroad, and for his children, \vho are in the midst of this naughty world, that they may be saved through Christ for ever." Then follows a mention of lt the horrible punishment" that will ensue from ci negligence'' in the ministerial office. Hence we are exhorted " never to cease our labour, care, and diligence, till we have done all that in us liefh" for the souls committed to our care. te Worldly cares and studies" are we to set aside. " A mind and will thereto" we cannot have of ourselves : " therefore," it is added, { ' ye ought and have need to pray earnestly for the Holy Spirit." " Doctrine and exhortation we must gather out of the Holy Scriptures, whilst our OWN life must be agreeable to the same." " WHOLLY," in short, must we " ap- ply ourselves to this one thing, and draw ALL our cares * The reader is desired to refer to the ordination service of the Church itself, and with the exhortation to Priests to mark the questions which follow it. P Acts xx, 26. THE MINISTERIAL OFFICE. 11 and studies this vat/." How exactly does this accord with the conduct of those \vho " gave themselves CON- TINUALLY to prayer and to the ministry of the Word" in thebestdays of the Christian Church! How beautifully significant,, too, is that expression of Paul, " OXE firing I do /" q And how does all this declare the responsibility of the ministerial office. If " the fruits of the Spirit," should be more than usually abundant in any charac- ter whatever, it is that of the Ministerial. Our own and others souls to keep : a world of ignorance, preju- dice, and sin to overcome : a crafty and designing Ad- versary to detect, expose, defeat : a Saviour to glorify and serve: " a fiery trial to endure an account of our Stewardship to give who needs not to tremble in the view of things like these ? who needs not to cry mightily for help ? who needs not to say " Lord, help me!" Here is the "worm Jacob, threshing the mountains."' Here is the ee earthen vessel" bearing " riches of grace."* Here is one whom c< they have made Keeper of the vineyards," who with his careful- ness for others must keep his " own vineyard" too. 1 Well may not a Hophni and a Phinehas only/ but even a Moses/ a Jeremiah/ and many a one that la- bours even " with his spirit in the Gospel," pause with fearful anxiety to think on the responsibility which at- taches to the Work of the Ministry. The multiplied " Fear not" of the Bible alone can encourage and sus- tain our fainting heart. " Send by whom thou wilt send" should we say, did not the Lord add, "/ will go with thee."y " EVEN the youths would faint, and the young men utterly fail," did we not feel assured that our Redeemer's strengh would be perfected in our weakness. Strong, then, IN THE LORD and in the power of his might, we appear before you ; we dare to sus- tain our office with all the responsibility attaching to it, * Phil, iii, 13. r lsa. xli, 15. 2 Cor. iv. 7. 'Cant, i, 6. * 1 Sam. ii, 2, &c. "Exod. iii, 11. "Jer. i, 6. > Exod. xxxiii, 14. 12 IMPORTANCE OF and " by your prayers and the supply of the spirit of Christ," we will trust to "save both ourselves and them that hear us." z " Woe is unto me if I preach not the Gospel f" Fearing rather I have already intruded too long on your time and attention, there is yet, however, one ob- vious REMARK, which, in closing, I beg to make : If a " woe be unto me if I PREACH not the Gospel," woe will be unto you if you RECEIVE not the Gospel ! The word we preach will prove to you either a savour of life or of death. If it does not prove the one, it will prove the other. a We shall be "a sweet savour unto God" in our ministrations of the Gospel, " whe- ther you will hear or whether you will forbear." Our master will judge us not according to our success, but according to ourjidelity. In those whom we in- gtrumentally " win" to Christ, his " name and word will be magnified above all things." "Mercy," in them will be "set up for ever." Where our word is no " savour of life," but any through wilful blindness and determined wickedness, ft reject the counsel of God against themselves," even there we shall not be other than "a sweet savour unto God," for they perish not because we blew not the trumpet of alarm, but because "they choose darkness rather than light," and love " the wages of unrighteousness." " Believe, then, in the Lord your God, so shall he be established : believe his prophets, so shall he prosper." 5 The Gospel is a joyful soundr cheering and exhilirating as the silver trumpet in the year of Jubilee, to them that know zY. c On the contrary, a woe of untold agony awaits " the neglect of so great salvation. " d Oh ! that ye may " savour the things of God !" with meek heart and due reverence may ye receive his Holy Word! May we be mutually faithful. While 7 preach Jesus and him crucified, may you take up your cross and follow ITitn. iv, 16. 2 Cor. ii, 15, 16. > 2 Chron. w, 20. Ps. SO. 15. d Heb. ii, 1, 4. THE MINISTERIAL OFFICE. 13 Him ! While / profess to act under the guidance and governance of the Eternal Spirit, may you feel him working within you both to will and to do ! While I endeavour humbly to " teach you the good and the right way/' may I be favoured to go before you in it ! And when the account of your immortal souls is re- quired of me, may we together stand at our Lord's right hand, and be it mine to say, " Behold me and the children whom thou hast given me I" DISCOURSE II. THD DIVINE LAW A TEST OF CHARACTER. I JOHN in. 4. Sin is the transgression of the Law. PEOPLE, in general, are little, if at all, aware of their real state or condition, In the knowledge of the world and their vocations in it, they must be allow- ed, commonly, to be sufficiently informed : but in the knowledge of themselves, of God, of the way of ac- cess to him and reconciliation with him, of that eter- nally enduring world whither we are going, and of our capacity to enjoy its eternally enduring pleasures, they will be found, on enquiry, miserably wanting and deficient. Men may even " understand allmysteries" may range the walks of Science, may follow the Stars in their courses, may become acquainted with all the various histories of all the countries of the Earth, and in short, may "have all knowledge/' and yet, if desti- tute of ee the Spirit of wisdom," be none other than '' sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal." The stand- ard too, by which many judge themselves is erroneous. ie What will MAN think of me ?" is the language of a heart alienated from God, and naturally averse to spiritual excellence. Hence, how often do we hear persons ft measuring themselves bij themselves, and comparing themselves, among themselves, and from the admeasurement and comparison drawing a conclu- sion favourable to themselves. ' Oh ! we are no worse than others ; \ve are better than many whom we could THE DIVINE LAW 15 mention : if it fares not well with us, how will it fare with them ?' are expressions well befitting such a pro- cedure. But,, on the authority of an Apostle, we say, " those who measure themselves by themselves, and compare themselves among themselves, are NOT WISE."* te To the LAW and to the testimony : if they speak not according to THIS WORD, it is because there is NO LIGHT in them :" b itis because no morning of gracious visita- tion hath dawned upon their souls, and they, therefore, in the pride and ignorance of their hearts, laud and exalt themselves. God's law, and that law especially as "magnified" in the life and character of his beloved Son, is the alone legitimate standard to which we must refer in the examination of our state, and the estima- tion of our goodness. This is " the glass" in which alone our " natural face 1 ' may be satisfactorily discern- ed ; and its testimony concerning us will be the only true description of our moral likeness. May our consideration of the Law at this time in- crease our acquaintance with ourselves, and further the best interests of our immortal souls ! " Whosoever," says St. John, "committeth sin transgresseth also the Law ; for, Sin is the transgression of the Law" We purpose to notice I. The Law itself: And II. The Transgression of it. And I. The LAW itself :- The word " Law" is applied to different things and used on various occasions in holy Scripture. We read of a Law written on the heart ; c which means, tlieLasv of Nature or the Principles of naturalconscience. We read too of " a Law in our members'" 1 which is the propensity of our fallen nature to evil. In John i. 17. we read that " the law was given by Moses;" 2 Cor. x, 12. h I.-a. viii, 20. c Rom. ii, 15., d Hom. vii, 3. 1(5 A TEST OF CHARACTER. and here the law comprehends the moral, the cere- monial, and judicial precepts of God. "The law" mentioned in our text, we believe to be the decalogue, or the ten moral precepts exclusively. This lav?, therefore, it is which forms the subject of our pre- sent discussion. Now, concerning God's moral law, we observe that it was originally graven on the fleshly tables of man's heart This it was that constituted man's resemblance to the Deity. " God created man in his own image,"* that is, in his moral likeness. There are attributes of the Godhead un- communicable to the creature. We never read that man was omniscient or omnipotent : and yet we do read that " in the image of God created he him " It must, therefore, be in sentiment, in taste, in judgment, in enjoyment, that Adam resembled his Almighty Maker. The same mind was in man as was in God.* Between them existed a solemn covenant : the only command expressly revealed in word was, te Thou shalt not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil ;" f and this was of the prohibitory kind, and therefore the easier to be kept. Hence the covenant which existed between the infinite Creator and his creature Man, is called a Covenant of Works, because Life was to reward obedience to its precept, Death to be the penalty of the Law's transgression.^ This co- venant Adam brake : immediately Life was forfeited ; Death was incurred ; the Law was erased from the heart; the Divine likeness lost, and that which was once the fairest and most beautiful part of God's crea- tion, became a sinful and unholy thing. The Cove- nant having been made with Adam as a. public person, as the father of mankind, not only himself fell by his violation of God's Law, but his posterity, descending To this state, it will hereafter appear, the Gospel is designed to restore us. See Phil. ii. 5. Geu. i, 27. 'Gen. ii, 17. Rom. v, 12, 20. A TEST OF CHARACTER. 17 from him by ordinary generation, sinned in him and fell in the fall of their father. " In Adam all die." h The law, however, was still in force : its transgression must be expiated or its penalty endured. It could no longer be the article of a covenant : It was broken ; and it could only now condemn. It ceased for ever to be with us a covenant of works. And to shew us the greatness of our fall, the depravedness of our na- ture, the extensiveness of our guilt, God was subse- quently pleased more fully to reveal his Law. Re- vealed, however, in what age soever it might be, it would still be the transcript of the divine mind it would still manifest the moi'al features of the Deity, and shew us how glorious once was man, and inta what misery we are fallen. " I CHANGE NOT,'* saith the Lord :' His law, therefore, in its requirements, its obligations, and its penalties,, must, like himself, be changeless and unalterable. To cl love the Lord our God with ALL our heart, and soul, and mind, and strength, and our neighbour as ourselves," can never, to all eternity, be other than our bounden duty, con- ducive to our happiness, and perfective of our nature. And these " two commandments" are the sum and substance of the Moral Law. The history of the Law's promulgation, and the several particular precepts of it, you will find in Exodus xix. and xx, chs. " God" amidst thunders and lightnings and the sound of trumpets waxing louder and louder, as indicative of the Eternal's presence, "-Spake these words.* "He declared anew his Covenant," not now made with Man, but with Man's Redeemer; whom ceremonies and sacrifices, for the time being, were to foreshadow; f< even ten commandments, and he wrote them on tables of stone." k " The tables were the work of God; and the writing was the writing of God." 1 But, 1 Cor. xv, 22. * Mai. Hi, 0. * Dcut. iv. 13. 'Bxod. xxx'n, ]<>. t8 THE DIVfNE LAW mark the awful wickedness of the human heart, see how surely the Law was blotted thence I In the pre- sence of their God, whilst Moses was with him in the Mount, and the thunders of Sinai were yet tingling in their ears, the Israelites " made a calf, and worship- ped the molten image I" 1 In holy indignation Moses te cast the tables out of his hand and brake them be- neath the Mount." m Thus significantly, as we con- ceive, declaring how in ten thousand instances man- kind had broken the commandments of their God and Sovereign. The Law, however, was re- written and preserved. 11 " Very plainly," too, was Moses required to transcribe it; and this book of the Law was hence- forward to be the standard of moral worth and the directory of human conduct to all ages and genera- tions. Joshua meditated on it. p Ezra was a "Scribe in it.'' q It was fe a light and a lamp" in the days of Solomon/ Isaiah referred to it. 8 " Concerning the Law of his God," was fault found with Daniel. 1 Jesus came (i not to destroy, but to fulfil and to establish, the Law/' v Christ is its "end;'' w and us hath he redeemed from its curse/ In tranquil and sweet secu- rity may we, therefore, now contemplate the Law; view unappalled its pure, spiritual, and strict severity. We arerm////, as, Moses Wisjiguratk-ely, hid in the cleft Rock of our Salvation. A fissure in Horeb screened him from the terrors of the Lord ; a crucified Jesus is our refuge. y IN HIM we may dare to hear the Apostle Paul declare, " The Law is holy, and the Command- ment alluding, probably, to that searching and con- demning precept, ' Thou shall not covet' holy, and just, and good." 1 Let us then, from these words, alit^ tie more particularly consider the nature of the Law. 1 Acts vii, 41. m Exod. xxxii, 19. n Exod. xxxiv, 1. Deut. xxvii, 8. P Gh. i, 8. 1 Ch.vii, 6. Prov. vi. 23. 8 Ch. viii, 20. * Ch. vi, 5. * Malt, v, 17. w Rom. x, 4. * Gal. iii, 1?. y Comp. Exod. xvii, 6, xxxiii, 22, with 1 Cor. x, 4. 1 Rom. vii, 12. A TEST OF CHARACTER. 19 It is holt/; so holy, that it detects adultery in a thought/ and murder in a feeling of anger. b Acovet- ous desire is declartd tobe idolatry, and the object co- veted an idol. c Well, therefore, may the Apostle say,,, " The Law is spiritual."* Spiritual, indeed, it is, and more so than the generality of mankind have any idea of. Few believe that it has to do with the affections, purposes, and desires of the inner man no less than with the conduct of the outer. That it has is clear ; be- cause, while " Man looketh on the outward appear- ance, the Lord looketh on the heart."* Our state and disposition of mind determines our character with him : and therefore the Law whereby he governs us must be such as will extend to " the imaginations of the thoughts/' and to the principles of action. The Law must, then, like its Author, be pure, spiritual, and holy. It is, moreover, just. The Sovereign Lord of all has a right to the homage and the worship of his crea- tures. With whatever Law he governs them, their obedience should be prompt and willing. He must be just in all thai he brings upon us/ ' Why/ we some- times hear it said, f Why does the Almighty give us a Law we find it impossible to keep ? Why not im- pose on us less rigorous commands?' Why ? because He could not. Must. not the Law of a righteous Go- vernor be like himself, just and righteous too ? If the Law be rigorous in its exactions, and we find it a yoke grievous to be borne, the fault is in us y not in it. " God made man upright,"' and ere our uprightness was lost, the Law was easy to keep, and delightful to obey. Now " it is weak through the flesh ;" and the Law cannot do other than require either a perfect, sin- less, uninterrupted obedience to its commands, or pro- * Matt. v. 28. b 1 John iii, 15. c Col. iii, 5. d Rom. vii, 14 e 1 Sam. xri, 7. f Neh. ix, US. f Ecc. vii, 2y. 20 THE DIVINE LAW Bounce a righteous sentence of condemnation on our violation of them. 11 Prut, although the Law be thus holy and just, it is, nevertheless, good. Itisgood in its origin ; it is good in its nature ; it is good in its design. It was an un- speakably precious mercy in God to reveal his mind and will more fully after his Law had been violated by Adam. His "goodness" did the Lord proclaim when he passed by Moses in the Mount.' " Wondrous things" did David see in God's Law. k Nor will any one acquainted with the benevolence of the Divine Character say that " good" is not the word of the Lord which he hath spoken. In all that He commands He designs the happiness of his people. Where He says, ' Do this/ He says in other words, ' Be happy.' The spirituality of the Law discovers us to ourselves \ the rigour of the Law awakens our fears ; the good- ness of the Law kindly shuts us up to the faith of Jesus, Who, then, will not " consent" with Paul, " that it is good ?" 1 Surely " the Law of the Lord is perfect^ CONVERTING THE SOUL : the testimony of the Lord is sure, MAKING WISE THE SIMPLE. The Statutes of the Lord are right, REJOICING THE HEART : the Commandment of the Lord is pure, ENLIGHTENING THE EYES. The four of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever ; the Judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether : ." m Such is the Law : We are to notice II. The TRANSGRESSION of if. "The transgression of the Law is Six," Now here we have an infallible guide to the knowledge of our real character and our just desert. We may hence learn our real character. Naturally we are "lovers of our ownselves; boasters; proud; heady; highminded.' rn W r e see not the purity and the strictness of the Divine Law. "Satan hath blind' B Rora. viii, 3. Exod. xxxiii, 19. k Ps. 119, 18. 1 Rom. vii, 17. Ps. 19, 7, 9. " 1 Tim. in, 2,- 4. A TEST OF CHARACTER. 31 ed our eyes." Hence we judge ourselves *' rich and increased with goods ; and know not that we are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." 1 ' Our iniquity, like that of Ephraim's, "is bound up ; and our sin is hid :" q we perceive not its aggravated depth and extent. Many are; favoured with a natural amiableness of temper and disposition. Education, too, polishes the mind and manner. No gross immoralities may mark the outward conduct. In transactions too, of a worldly kind, there maybe much that is really estimable. This glare of external good- ness suffices. We are pleased with ourselves, and, it may be, disposed readily to say to many a one whom we deem our inferior, " Stand by thyself; come not ivcar to me : for I am holier than thou art." r But not in our oicn eyes only may we appear to begood; others, too, "through the ignorance that is in them," may deem us the same : call us good sort of people, exte- nuate our vices, and magnify our virtues. Thus are we deceitful and deceived. But u God seeth not as Man seeth." "Ye are they which justify yourselves be- fore men :" but what avails our self-justification ? "God knoweth our hearts : for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God." s Then it naturally follows that any rule of conduct, however highly esteemed among men, cannot be the criterion of our spiritual state. Judged by its white- washed exterior, the sepulchre may appear fair and beautiful ; l but what is its state internally ? " Asa man thinks, so is he." v Do our thoughts rise easily and spontaneously to God ? Do we find them flowing in one unvarying tide of love and gratitude, to the Author of all being and existence ? Is His service our perfect freedom ? Are His ways and paths to us ways of pleasantness and paths of peace? Is His Law our 2 Cor iv, 4. P Rev. iii, 17. * Hos. xiii, 12. r Isa. Ixv, 5. Luke xvi, 15. l Matt, xxiii, 27. * Prov. xxiii, 7. 23 THE DIVINE LAW delight?" "Judge i/e," Beloved. Distinguish be- tween natural, moral, educational, and spiritual good- ness. The latter alone determines our character with God. And how deficient in spiritual good we are, the Law of God will determine. From the opening of our eyes on the light of Heaven, till they close again in the darkness of Death, does the Law demand a full, entire, and undeviating conformity of heart and life to its precepts. The least possible deviation from the Law (if we can imagine any deviation from the Law to be a light or trivial matter) in thought, in word, in deed, is ,'/?. "^//unrighteousness is sin ;"* and sin of any kind or degree is a transgression of the Law, and a transgression of the Law subjects us to its penalty. Now, who will pretend not to have trans- gressed the Law ? Is any one amongst us without sin ? If not, where is our right either to be pleased "with others' praises or to commend ourselves. See a description of the natural heart in Mark vii, 21, 22. Every precept of the Moral Law is equally authorita- tive and binding. " He that said, do not commit adul- tery, said ALSO, do not kill. Now, if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgessor of the Law." y And the same reasoning holds good of any other precepts of the moral code Hence it is that "whosoever shall keep the ivhole Law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all." z It is the disposition to offend which the Law condemns : and hence there may be an universal opposition to the Law and a determined rebellion against the Lawgiver himself in the heart, where the conduct is morally de- cent and decorous. " A breaker of the Law,"* there- fore, may every child of Adam be denominated. "The righteousness of the Law" we have lost totally and for ever in ourselves as a ground of preference and glory. Ihe "God I thank thee" of the Pharisee, we * Rom. rii, 22. x 1 John v, 17. > James ii, 11. * James ii, 10. Rom. ii, 25. A TEST OF CHARACTER. *nust totally and for ever disclaim. " In many things we offend all." b We are conceived in sin : born in sin : sin is the elen*ent in which we naturally move and have our being ; we love it : we endeavour to lessen its enormity: we make it venial and tolerable: the holy, just, and righteous Law of our dread Sovereign Me accommodate to our prejudiced and depraxed opinions: we justify ourselves and despise others: we say not " Tsmar is more righteous than /," c but, " God I thank thec that I am not as other mem are :"* all which tends evidently to shew our real character. We in- herit only our fathers' degeneracy: their regene racy they inherited only for themselves. To our original depravity we have added actual transgression ; and making the Law of God NOT our own partial opinion, or the judgment of our felloe-creatures the test of our character, we shall find it, doubtless, really to be that of ' miserable sinners.' And what, as such, is our just desert? This, too, we were to learn from the transgression of the Law. And in this particular the world is no less mistaken than it is respecting our character and state before God. <( The world loves its own.' 16 It cannot, there- fore, be expected severely to censure those who love it. But our Bible says, "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." f And again, "The wages of sin is death. " B And in accordance with the Bible our Church says, "The fault and corruption of the nature of every man de- serveth God's wrath and damnation.'* This, indeed, is said of " Original Sin :" but, with equal propriety, we conceive, it may be said of actual sin : for " Cursed, it is written, is every one that continueth not in alt things which arc written in the Hook of the Law to do tlicm." 1 Here is the thunder of Sinai rolling over our affrighted consciences. Who, of us all, hath kept the fe James hi, 2. c Gen. xxxviii, 26, d Luke xviii, 11 * John xv, 10. f Ezek. xviii, 4. * Rom. vi, 23. k Art. ix. i Gal. iii. 10 24: THE DIVINE LAW A TEST OF CHARACTER. commandments written in the Law ? Who does keep them ? Who., by any power or ability in himself, can keep them ? And if the desert of one sin be death what must be the desert of multiplied and innumerable transgressions? Oh ! who would not be interested in " tlieLaw of the Spirit of Life," that Law which fc frees us from the Law of sin and death ?" k We have a Law-fulfiller -even Jesus. 1 Through his obedience unto death, mercy beams through all the terrors of Sinai upon the regenerate and believing sinner. Well, however., is it for us to see our desert, in order that we may the more gratefully value our deliverance from it. A view of what we are in ourselves, will tend to shew us what we were once in Adam, and what we mat/ be in Christ. In the Seed promised to the woman ; in the lamb that Abel offered; in the virtual sacrifice of Isaac; in all the ordinances of the Jewish Church ; in every sacrificial fire that blazed ; and by every victim therein consumed, we see at once the justice of an offended God, the unyielding strictness of His righteous Law, the shadow of a greater and a more effectual offering, and the meritorious means of a full and everlasting recovery from all the consequences of our destructive fall. While, then, our consideration of The Law it- self, and of The Transgression of it, constrains us, as needy creatures, individually to cry, " God be merci- ful to me a sinner ;" let the Law do for us what the Baptist did for the multitudes of Judea point us to our Lord and Saviour cheer our humble, contrite spirits with the words, " Behold the LAMB OF GOD, which talceth away the sins of the World!" and en- courage us to hope that the Law we have trans- gressed shall be re-written in all its eternal excellence on our hearts, and we ourselves stand once more and forever "perfect and complete in all the will of God." * Rom. viii, 2. 1 Ps. 40, 8. DISCOURSE III. ON JUSTIFICATION. .JOB xxv. 4. How then can Man be justified with God? How a Man can be justified with God, is, perhaps, of all others, the most important enquiry that can occupy our attention. Some things \ve may be safely ignorant of or mistaken about : but ignorance or mis- take about the matter of our justification with God, will prove ruinous to the peace and safety of our souls. And yet how lamentably ignorant, how lamentably mistaken, many people are about it ! and that not only where the truth lies buried under the rubish of Popish, Mahomedan, or Heathen error, but in a country call- ing itself Protestant, and where the pure Word of Christ is preached and His Sacraments are duly ad- ministered. It is utterly useless for the Ministers of Religion to suppose their people to be well or generally acquainted with the manner of our acceptance with God. A very little observation will prove the contrary. All, indeed, will pretend to know it, but, naturally, it will be found, no one knows it. What, then, is our duty ? Our duty is to shew you, as easily and simply as words will allow us, " How a man can bejustijied 26 ON JUSTIFICATION. with God." And to bring the subject of Justification full before you at this time, I shall say J. What Justification is : II. How a Man cannot be justified : III. How alone he can be justified : And IV. Why he can be justified in no other way than the way in which he is justified. I am to say I. What JUSTIFICATION is Justification is the being accounted righteous though .xviii. 20. w Gal. ii. 1116. * ii. Pet. iii. 15; y i, Cjr. iii. 11. z R om> j x 30 ; Gal. v. 2 4. Art. xi. i> Isa. xxv. 6. [ON JUSTIFICATION. 33 these things so ? Can a man be justified with God by faith only through another's righteousness ? That your faith may stand not in the \vord of man, but in the Word of God, turn with me first to Genesis xv, 6. Here we read, " Abraham believed in the Lord, and the Lord counted it to him for righteousness." The Lord promised Abraham " a Seed, in whom him- self and all the families of the earth should be blessed :" That Seed was Christ : c and by faith in him (for our Lord tells us Abraham saw his day, and rejoiced to see it, d ) was Abraham accounted righteous or justified. True, James asks/ "Was not Abraham, our father, justified bij ivorks ?" Yes, before men; when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar at Moriah, his faith was evidenced to be genuine and sincere, and before men he was manifestly a justified perstm. Cut the faith for which the Scriptures so justly "celebrate Abraham was that he exercised twenty years before the birth of Isaac, and which faith had for its exalted ob- ject the promised Seed, and which Seed James himself says, was " imputed to him for righteousness."* A living faith, as in Abraham's case, will evidence its ex- istence. It is impossible but it will do so : it is the germ of holiness; the principle of action Love be- gets love : affection mingled with gracious conde- scension, kindles a reciprocal affection. When .our faith realizes to our understanding and judgment, a Saviour and a Saviour's sacrifice of himself for the guilty and condemned, what Isaac is there we would not sacrifice in return to him ? Shall we think our~ sehes "our souls and bodies," too much to be pre- sented to a Saviour?* Oh! no: "all things will be * The reader may peruse at leisure Romans iv. It is an in- spired commentary on Genesis xr, e Gal. iii, 16. John viii, 56. Cb. ii, 21. 1 Rom. xii, 1. D 34 ON JUSTIFICATION. possible to him that believeth." A liberated captive will not sigh for his prison again. A ransomed slave will never voluntarily bind himself to the oar of slavery again. A sense of mercy will never make sin a trifle, and induce a wish io sin that grace may abound. No, no: " we have not so learned Christ." Justification by faith alone is " a doctrine according to godliness." Our evil deeds do worthily deserve to be punished, and it is only by the comfort of God's grace we can mercifully be relieved. g And that grace, bestowed where and on whom soever it will, invariably teaches us to "deny ungodliness, and to live soberly, righteous- ly, and godly." Turn with me, too, to Job. xxxiii, 15 30. Elihu speaks of a " Messenger, an Inter- preter, a Daysman," through whose uprightness the Lord will be gracious to a sinner, and deliver him from going down to the pit. Who sees not here " the Mes- senger of the Covenant/' 11 the Revealer of the Father's mind and will ?' " I have found a ransom an atone- ment/' saith the Lord : and for whose justification or salvation does this avail but the believer's? and what can give us an interest in it but faith only? Much in the same manner does Daniel speak , k when he de- clares "Messiah shall be cut off, but not for himself" By Jesus is a " reconciliation made for iniquity, and an everlasting righteousness is brought in." And now this' is, as an unspotted robe, " unto all and upon all them that believe." 1 Hence in Isaiah Ixi, 10, the be- liever is represented as saying, " I will greatly rejoice iu the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God :" and \vhythis rapturous exultation ?" FOR, He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the r^be of righteousness, as a bridegroom deck- eth himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth K Col. for ir. Sunday in Lent. h Mai. iii, 1. * John xv, 15. , * Ch. ix,24. ' Rom. iii, 22. ON .irsnncATi<. Irefself with her jewels." And whose is this righteous- ness? for, we observe, it is "THE righteousness/' pre- eminently and exclusively "///*? righteousness," whereby a sinner can be justified and shall glory. Paul will tell us: turn to Rom. iii, 19 22. In verse 19, all the world of mankind is declared to be guilty, or subject to the punishment of God. " Therefore," it follows in verse 20, " by the deeds of the Law shall no flesh be justified in God's sight : for by the Law is the know- ledge of sin : (and how can that justify us, which makes known to us our sinfulness?) But now (verse 21) the righteousness of God without the Law is manifested, being witnessed by the Law (or books of Moses,) and the prophets; even (verse 22) the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ," and this, as we have before intimated, is " unto all and upon all them that believe." Hence it appears, the righteous- ness in which the believer triumphs is " the righteous- ness of God" that is, of Christ; (for "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself:") and the means whereby he is interested in the finished work of his Redeemer is faith, faith alone t faith without tke deed* of the Laic, faith without our oicn works or deserv- ings. And this, we have seen, is witnessed by the Law of Moses, and the writings of the Prophets, to which we may with propriety add the writings also of the Apostles. ' ' SURELY, therj, shall one say, " IN THE LORD hare I righteousness and strength," yea, "!N THE LORD shall all the Seed of' Israel be justified, and shall glory. " m " IN THE LORD shall we be saved with an everlasting salvation," and "justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus/' I think, then, that our Church is abundantly war- ranted to inculcate the doctrine of Justification by faith alone in the merit of Jesus Christ on her MtnF- icrs f and, through them, on her members : nor can we Isa. xlv, 24, 25, 36 O.N JUSTIFICATION. teach any other method of Justification without wrest- ing the Scriptures and invalidating our trust. But, why, it may be asked, Why does faith alone, faith without works, justify us ? Because faith is the only medium by which we can receive Christ. It is, as it were, the hand which " puts on Christ/'" and which uses him as the Prophet, the Priest, the King-, the All of his believing people. Did the Law require a perfect unsinning obedience ? Jesus has magnified its every precept and honoured its every requirement. Was the blood of ff a Lamb without blemish and with- out spot" needed to expiate the guilt of our transgres- sions P" 1 ' Behold that Lamb in Jesus : he was " holy, harmless, undefiled," and freely did his blood flow forth in Gethsemane, in the Hall of Pilate, and on Mount Calvary. We, receiving cordially and be- lieving practkally, "the record God hath given of his Son, are justified from all things from which we could not be justified by the Law." Received and believed,* 1 the atonement of our dying Lord, heals the diseases of our sinful souls, cheers our sorrowing hearts, and constrains us to " do justly, to love mercy, arid to walk humbly with our God." Whilst, then, a Man cannot be justified by his re- pentance, by any amendment of his outward conduct, by a sincere though imperfect obedience to the Law, or by any works whatever of his own he CAN be jus- tified by faith only, by faith simply, in the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It remains only for me to say IV. WHY he can be justified in no other way than the way in which he is justified. There are many reasons why he cannot: We shall briefly notice a few. Rom. xiii, 14. Isa. xlii, 21. P Exod. xii, 1, 14 i Roin. v, U. ON JUSTIFICATION. 37 I. // is God's determination that " no Jlesh shall glory in his sight.'" " All flesh hath corrupted His way :" His Law we have daringly trampled on his Word we have impiously cast behind us. And yet in the pride and arrogance of our heart we would, if it were possible, merit our salvation, and have " whereof to glory" before God. This pride God is determined to humble. He therefore bestows a gratuitous, a free, Salvation. '' Before honour is humility."* The Gos- pel knows " no difference" between one person and another whilst in a natural state : it makes " no differ- ence" between the justification of a moral man and of an immoral man : it humbles all before it exalts any ; nor does it allow even an Abraham or a Paul to say, 'This or that part of rny Salvation I myself effected : the glory of it, consequently, belongs to me.' No: if it be asked, " Where is boasting, then ?i' The answer is, "It is excluded." v A man cannot, therefore, be justified in any other way than the way in \vhich he is justified. 2. God has determined that his SON ALONE shall le glorified in the justification of a sinner. Not only must " the loftiness of man be bowed down, and the haughti- ness of man be made low," but " the Lord alone must be exalted. " w Jei. ix, 21. 38 ON JUSTIFICATIOX. ture itself/ God l< hath given Christ for salvation to* the ends of the earth :" He is all our salvation ; and therefore must alone be exalted. This is another rea- son why a man can be justified in no other way than the way in which he is justified. 3. It is, too, God's determination to (t magnify his name ami his Word above" all the "philosophy, vain deceit, tradition of men, and rudiments of the world." " A council of peace" was held between him and his beloved Son. a We are ic saved and called not according to our works, but according to His own pur- pose and grace which were given us in Christ before the world began. " b " My counsel shall stand and I will do all my pleasure/' saith the Lord. Now, " if righteousness come by the Law/' and we be justified by our works, the purpose and grace of God will be frustrated, His counsel will be made void, and all His pleasure will fail of its accomplishment. The Word of God, like its all-glorious Author, is "without variable- Bess." It is the enduring rock, not the yielding sand. It is itself the system of all pure Divinity. It bows not to the reason or authority of man : its decisions are unalterable, and when it says, " By grace are ye saved, through faith; and that, not of yourselves ; it is the gift of God/' d it affords another and a powerful rea- son why a man carc be justified in no other way than the way in which he is justified. But 4, and finally, // is a merciful God's most gracious determination to afford grounds of the most abundant consolation to the humbled and believing sin- ner. If we were justified on the grounds of our own deserving, we should be continually and fearfully ap- prehensive of our acceptance and safety. We should never be able to ascertain what merit or how much, of ours would suffice to justify us: we should therefore * Tit. iii, 5, a Zech. vi, 13. b 2 Tim. i, 9. c Isa. xlvi, 10. d Eph. ii,8. ON JUSTIFICATION. 89 be miserably uncertain about the matter of otir justi- fication with God. Whereas in "the righteousness af faith" there is illimitable worth an infinite sufficiency of merit. Grounding, then, our hope of mercy simply and entirely on Jesus crucified, " our consolations by Him abound.'"" " We glory even in tribulations for His sake." f " We take pleasure, for His sake, in infirmi- ties, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses. " s " Our hope standeth sure." 1 * A sweet persuasion grows within us that nothing shall separate us from the love of God in Christ. 1 A peace that passeth understanding keeps our heart and mind. The service of the slave is lost in that of the child. The Law fulfils its office as " our schoolmaster" teaches us our need of Christ ; and " being justified by faith," we learn to " esteem all God's commandments con- cerning all things to be right;" his ways become to us " ways of pleasantness," and it is the very joy of our hearts to feel that a man can be justified in no other wa) than the way in which he is justified. I have now said, what Justification is ; how a man cannot be justified ; how alone he can be justified ; and why he can be justified in no other way than the way in which he is justified : In conclusion, 1 would only ASK, Doth this offend ijou ? What! doth it offend you to be stripped of the fig-leaf aprons or the " filthy rags" of your own righteousness, and to be clothed with the garment of Salvation? Oh! yes: I know full well the doctrine of Justification by faith alone is offensive to the proud carnality of the human mind. It is contrary to all the propensities of our fallen nature to "cease from going about to establish our own righte- ousness, and to submit ourselves to the righteousness of God." We would fain be something, do something, 2 Cor. i, 5. f Rom. v, 3. * 2 Cor xii, 10. h Heb. vi, 19. ' Rom. viii. 39. 40 ON JUST1FFCATION. deserve something. Earthly good we would rather obtain by gift than purchase: spiritual good we would rather buy than receive gratuitously. But " without money and without price" must we receive ec the riches of grace" if ever we would be enriched with them. " Righteousness" is a gift to be received from God through Jesus Christ. So also is the ''eternal life" to which it entitles the receiver. 11 Never shall we be jus- tified with God but in the way of his own appoint- ment. Condescend, therefore, you must, to accept the righteousness of your Redeemer, and to make 'his me- ritorious cross and passion' the all of your dependence, or never be justified at all. And should you do other- wise than readily accept what God so freely offers ? Your rejection of his proffered mercy will but aggra- vate your guilt. Moral soever as you may be, your morality will not save you. Can you pretend to be ho- lier, wiser, or better than Abel, Abraham, Jacob, Sa- muel, David, Paul, and innumerable others w r hose names are in the Book of Life ? And yet these were all justified by faith in Jesus Christ. 1 And to whom are they now ascribing their Salvation? to them" selves/ 1 Look and see Rev. v. 12, 14. Let us, then, be agreed to "humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God '." Let us pray him to fl search our hearts" and to discover them to us : Let us say with Job, ' ' I am vile ;" and cherish a feeling of self-ab- horrence : then will it rejoice us to hear that our "Re- deemer liveth ;" in him alone shall we glory ; his righteousness alone shall we make mention of, and when with all the redeemed of the earth we shout the 2 Cor. ii, 15. John v, 25. d Isaiah xs.vi, 19. OF THE DRY BONES. 95 become " members of a Saviour's flesh and of his bones." e The great end and design, too, of the Mi- nistry may be here observed. God could quicken and regenerate whom He would without man's instru- mentality or word : but he is pleased to put honour on his gospel, and to make its Ministers vessels of mercy and instruments of good to their fellows, " Thus saith the Lord' is the ministerial watch-word ; and "the word of the Lord," through the Spirit's agency, becomes the mighty means of turning man- kind " from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God." Hence we read, "of his own will begat he us with the word of truth ;" that is of God's will as the source of our regeneration, are we born again by means of the word of truth. " f " Quick and powerful" is his word when the Holy Ghost falls on them that hear it. K And in the believing hope that it will ever prove itself to be " the sword of the Spirit,'' we say to one and all of you, " O ye dry bones, hear the Word of the Lord :" " Hear and your souls shall live." Dry ye may be, very dry ; but unless ye might " have life," God would never have commanded his word to be preached unto you. 11 Such was the direction given to Ezekiel. Mark now his observance of it. *' So I prophesied, says he, as I was commanded." How or in what manner the dry bones should hear the word of the Lord, did not trouble Ezekiel. God commanded him to prophesy ; that was enough : it was for him, without, for a mo- ment, questioning the wisdom or the propriety or the utility of the command, to do as he was commanded. And he did so. And happy is the Minister who, like the Prophet, can truly say, " So I prophesied AS I was commanded!" Few, we fear, could do as we find in Acts xx. 27. Paul did appeal to their hearers and say, Eph. v, 30. f James i, 18. * Acts x, 44. h J oh u v, 40. 96 EZEKIEt'S VISION " I take you to record this day that I am pure front the blood of all men : for I have not shunned to declare unto you ALL the counsel of God." It is only, however, by a faithful declaration of God's counsel that we can be " pure from the blood of all men." As we are commanded, so must we speak. The watchman of the house of Israel must hear the word at God's mouth, and warn them from him. 1 And he that hath his word, must de- clare it faithfully. k The truth which may be least acceptable, and most opposed to the habits and pur- suits of our hearers, must we as faithfully declare as that which is the more agreeable. Human systems must not warp our judgment, or induce a thought con- trary to God's Word. Ignorance must be exposed : Sin must be reproved : Pride must be detected : Self must be humbled: Christian principle inculcated: the obedience of faith required. And truly privileged is that people, who, in their Minister, possess a man devoted first to the Lord, and then to them, and whose one sole aim it is, as much as in him lieth, to teach his people "the good and the right way," and to "save their souls alive." Such an one shall not labour for nought and in vain. The will and purpose of God shall be accomplished, and his " Word shall not re- turn unto him void." This will appear in the effect which Ezekiel's pro- phesying produced. " So," says he, " I prophesied as I was commanded, and as I prophesied there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came toge- ther, bone to its bone. And when I beheld, lo ! the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them above : but there was no breath in them." '*As he prophesied" this effect was produced. Bone met its kindred bone. A trembling apprehension pervaded them. The whole multitude of bones were chastened ' Exek. in, 17. k Jer. xxiii, 2P. OF THE DRY BONES. 97 as with pain' and shook by alarm. Flesh and sinews came upon them and skin covered them above. The form and fashion of a Man appeared but still there was no breath to animate the newly organized body. An effect similar exactly to this may be produced un- der the ministry of the Gospel. As we preach, im- pressions may be made ; convictions may be felt ; a " noise and a shaking" may be heard amongst the dry bones ; sinners, before careless and unconcerned, may begin to enquire ; bone may meet its kindred bone ; knowledge may increase, and profession follow it, and i/cf no breath may animate the whole. Often do vte see all the parts of a religious profession almost perfect and entire : but, on closer scrutiny we find there is no real sensibility or life. We might suppose a man lying in yonder field to be only asleep ; when we come to him we may find him dead. So, many have "a. Name to live, that are really dead." Many are convinced that are never converted Many are brought out of darkness into light, that are not turned from Satan unto God. ra "A spirit of bondage" may be endured, where " a spirit of adoption" is never enjoyed. A way may "seem right unto a man" that does but "seem" so, and "the end of which is death. 3 " 1 The prophet saw the bones of the valley brought together and re- organized ; but there was still no breath in them. In like manner may we see our people congregated, and "theyi;vw of godliness" assumed, but no vitality may be felt no "power'' of godliness experienced. This the Lord knows, and therefore condescends still further to direct his servant's labours. T \\i\s further direction now calls for our attention. " Prophecy unto the wind, prophecy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God; come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain that they may live." Human eloquence, combined with human effort, may effect somewhat of a moral 1 Job. xxxiii, 19 AoU xxvi, 18 Pror. xiv,|12 II 9& ; EZEKIEL'S VISION change in a people; but it is not, as we have seen, even in an Ezekiel's power to impart life to the soul. Hence was he directed to beseech a breath to come from the four winds, and breathe upon the slain of Israel that they might live. Here we observe that " breath," or "wind," is in Scripture frequently significant of the Holy Ghost. It is somewhere said, " By the Word of the Lord were the Heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth r" that is, Jehovah, the Word, and the eternal Spirit, by their individual and united energy, created the Heavens and their host. In John Tii, 8, the Spirit's agency is com- pared to the wind which bloweth where it listeth, We are told also, that before our Lord reassumed his glory, he "breathed" onhis disciples ; p indicating, doubtless, thereby, that they should receive a por- tion of that Spirit which was given without mea- sure unto him, and thus be animated with the breath of a Spiritual and Heavenly existence. On the day of Penticost, the Spirit, as "the Spirit of promise,'" 1 came upon the infant Church of the Redeemer te like a rushing mighty wind," filling the house wherein they were assembled with his influence, and the hearts of the Redeemer's followers with joy and gladness/ Still is this celestial breath necessary to give vigour to our word and life to our souls. The word alone and of itself quickens not : for then all our hearers would be "alive unto God." Nor does the morality or the wisdom of man give power and unc- tion to our word : for then would not the most moral and the wisest be the first to receive the truth ? whereas they are usually the last. 8 ' Unless the Spirit be with the heart of the hearer, the Word of the teacher is barren. Let no man attribute to the teacher what he understands from his mouth ; for, unless there ' Ps. 33, G. P John xx, 22. q John xv, 26. Eph. i, 1& Acts ii, 2,46. * Matt, xxi, 31, 32. OF THE DRY BONES. 9 be an internal teacher, the tongue of the external one labours in vain. Why is there such a difference in the sensations of hearers, all hearing the same words? It is to be ascribed to this special teaching. John him- self, in his Epistle, teaches the same; 'the anointing teacheth you of all things.'* This is "the unction" which alone can give vitality to the soul and reality to religion. Bones there may be ; sinews, flesh, and skin : but only God the Holy Ghost can infuse a principle of animation and existence. ' His presence is living and powerful; it awakens the slumbering soul : it moves, softens, wounds, and heals the hard, stony, and distem- pered heart. It waters the dry places, illumineg*the dark, inflames the cold, makes the crooked straight, and the rough ways plain"/ This, be it observed, is no doctrine of human devising: "Tnus SAITH THE LORD GOD." It is the LORD GOD who teaches the necessity ofspiritual influence: it isthe LORD GOB who bids his servant say, " Come from the four winds. O breath, and breathe upon these slain that they may live." Let none, then, fear to call upon "the Lord the Spirit,'* as if it were derogatory to the Father's glory, or to the Saviour's honour, to pray to the Hot// Ghost. The Church of England directly and repeatedly addresses the Spirit in prayer, and therefore surely fault cannot justly be found with those of her Ministers who im- plore his aid, and pray him to make his word effectual to the regeneration and salvation of their people. 'Though we know not whence he comes or whither he goes though we feel not his entrance or his exit, yet,J}-om the motion of our heart, we understand that he is present.' And since the Holy Ghost is given to be "ever" with the Saviour's Church, and must ever, till the time of the restitution of all things, " be the * Quoted by J. Milner, in his History of the Church of Christ, vol. I'M, from the Homilies of the Fi ret Gregory. See also in the same vo'. page 406, a very beautiful extract from Bernards 74th sermon. 100 EZEKIEI/S VISTO\ Spirit of Promise/' how should we be stimulated to pray for his new-creating influences! how importu- nately should we cry, Come, O Breath ! how should we " put Jehovah in remembrance" of his own com- mand, and pray him, by his omnipresent, all-pervading*, and eternal Spirit, to breathe upon our slain that they may live! To this, I hope, we shall feel encouraged when we notice the result of Ezekiel's labours. ' ' So I pro- phesied, says he, as he commanded me, and the Breath came into them, and -they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army/' Wonderful re- sult of Ministerial labour this! But why should we call it wonderful? Cannot he who first formed man of the dust, and breathed into him the breath of life, easily cause him to live anew ? The prophet's hope of Israel's restoration was now confirmed. In vision he already saw them freed from their bondage, and re- stored again to existence as a nation. Their harps were resumed. The Lord's song was sung not now in a strange land. Zion once more reared her drooping head, and the Lord had a people in Israel. And do we not see the same or similar effects resulting from the same cause amongst ourselves? Where " the word comes in the Holy Ghost and with power," are not the dead revived? Again do " the lame walk and the blind receive their sight ; the dead are raised," and immortal souls are saved. r l he Spirit broods over the universal void, and reduces all things to order, harmony, and beauty. 1 c From the expulsion of vices, and the sup- pression of carnal affections, we perceive the strength of his power: from the discernment and the conviction of the very intents of our heart, we may admire the depth of his wisdom : from some little improvement in our temper and conduct, we experience the good- ness of his grace: from the renovation of our inward 1 Gen i, 2. original. OF THE DRY BONES. 1 01 man, we may perceive the comeliness of his beauty : and from the joint contemplation of all these things, \ve should tremble at his majestic greatness.' "Trem- bling rnay at first make our bones to shake ;" v our bones may be waxen old or even consumed ; w but when the Lord brings us up out of our grave, (as he promised to bring his Israel, Ezek. xxxvii, J3,) we greatly, nobly, live: life assumes a reality unfelt before: we remain no longer "strangers and aliens," but become "fel- low-citizens with the saints and of the household of God." The joys and sorrows, the hopes and fears, the temptations and consolations of the Lord's people be- come familiar to us. We triumph in Christ, our "resur- rection and our life." We "stand (raised up upon our feet by the Spirit which raised Jesus our Lord from the dead) fast in the liberty" wherewith we have been freed. In duty, we feel a liveliness we never felt be- fore. Our feet move with cheerful willingness obedient to the will of God. Our baptismal vows cease to be unmeaning sound. Gladly do we perceive the banner of love" to wave over us : putting on "the whole ar- mour of God," gladly do we swell the ranks of the ar- mies of the true Israel, and gladly now would we *' spend and be spent" in the service of a crucified Je- sus. Such is the effect resulting from the Spirit's in- fluence on the mind of sinful man ! such the delight- ful consequence of ministerial labour when wrought "not with the enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power !" We have now noticed the several things narrated in our text the valley ; the bones scattered so abundant- ly over it; the Lord's inquiry respecting them; the prophet's answer to it; the direction given him how to act ; his observance of it ; a. further direction ; and the result of all his labours ; and I would, in closing, only SAY, v, 14 w Sain, xxxi, 10, xxxii, 3 * Cant, ii, 4 102 EZEKIEL'S VISION OF THE DRY BONES. See here a picture of jour natural state, and the means whereby alone your state can be bettered and improved. Ye are morally and spiritually dead '* dry, very dry." Quicken yourselves ye cannot " No man hath quickened his own soul/' The Lord God and his Spirit alone can re-organize and exalt to their proper and legitimate use your powers and faculties. Heworksby/ttewzs means he hath devised that his ba- nished ones be not for ever expelled from him. y " Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. " z Then, " O ye dry bones, HEAR the Word of the Lord." Attend with diligence the ministration of it. A Mi- nister (as one once said) may pray at home, but he cannot preach at home. Beware how ye neglect the preaching of the Word. And while we " prophecy upon you," join us when we cry, "Come, O Breath !" Only observe what a continual reference there is in all our services to the Holy Spirit's agency. Beware of the glaring (I had almost said, the stupid) incon- sistency of such as boast of their membership with us, and yet dare to treat our mention of the Spirit's agency with contempt. Be ye consistent. Mean your prayers as well as say them. So will the Lord revive us. In his own good time will he raise us up, and we shall live in his sight. We shall come to the Mount Zion with, singing; everlasting joy shall be upon our head ; we shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and mourn- ing shall flee away. y 2 Sam. xiv, 14. * Rom. x, 17. DISCOURSE VIII. FAITH AND UNBELIEF IN THE SON OF GOD ; WITH THEl# CONSEQUENCES, JOHN Hi, 36. He that believeth on the Son, hath everlasting life : and he that believeth not the Son. shall not see life : but* / * the wrath of God abideth on him. THE separation of the soul from the body is temporal death ; the approach of which is usually marked by fail- ure of strength, painful .weariness, increasing debility : the separation of both body and soul from the Divine favour and influence in this world is spiritual death ; the usual symptoms of which are, ignorance of God, contempt of his Word, worldliness of mind, careless- ness about the soul and the soul's salvation : the sepa- ration of the whole man from the Divine presence and glory in the world to come is eternal death; the ills of which, we believe, are, hope destroyed, despair pos- sessed, desire insatiable that can never be gratified, a sensibility of sin that proves a poisonous arrow in the very heart of existence, woe unutterable and irremedi- able. Hence, you sec, there are three kinds of death temporal) spiritual t and eternal. To all these kinds of death, Adam and all his descendants in him became 104: FAITH AND UNBELIEF liable by eating the forbidden fruit. " By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and .vo death passed upon all men, for all have sinned.'" 1 Whether but for sin, we should have died at all, or been subject to any kind of death, we can hardly say ; probably, I think, not: for, together with " the Tree of the know- ledge of Good and Evil," there grew in the midst of the garden " the Tree of Life," the fruit of which, when Man was fallen, was guarded, "lest he should put forth his hand, and take also of the Tree of Life, and eat and live for ever." b Besides, the threatened penalty of transgression was death : " in the day tliou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." The bodily life, indeed, of Man was spared ; he did not immedi- ately return to the dust from whence he was taken : but Man died spiritually, and in the very day he ate of the Tree of knowledge of Good and Evil, the symp- toms of spiritual death were at once perceivable in apostate Adam. He shunned his Creator's presence ; a shame unfelt before suffused his countenance; a dis- position to extenuate the sinfulness of sin and to exon- erate self, prevailed within him; impiously did he re- flect upon his kind and beneficent Creator relative to Eve as if she had not. been " an help meet for him"- all which proves how truly Adam had ceased to be "alive unto God." Die he did spiritually, and die eter- nally he would have done but for ' ' the seed" in whom himself and all the families of the earth should be blessed. And " in Adam all die," d The portrait of )iis every son and daughter may be seen in Ezekiel xvi, and Romans 1. We have no wish to aggravate the evils of fallen human nature or disgustingly to pourtray them ; but from the records of inspiration it appears too surely true that "Man is very far, if not rather #,9 far as possible, gone from original righteousness, and v, 12 > (Gen. iii, 22 * Gen. ii, 17 J 1 Cor. v, 22 IN THE SON OF GOD. 105 is, of his own nature, corrupt and inclined to evil ;"* " alienated from the life of God," and ' dead in tres- passes and sins." f Now, in such a case, if the high and lofty One should deign at all to notice us, it would be, we might reasonably have supposed, "to appoint us unto wrath," and to give us up a prey to ' the bitter pains of eternal death:' but, no! (and here "behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us," how free, how rich, how merciful !) " God hath wo/appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ." 8 Satan, the thief, came to kill and to destroy: Jesus came that we might have life, and hate it in a richer and a more abundant mea- sure than ever life was possessed or enjoyed by man before. 11 Hence the life we lost in Adarn is restored in Christ : and now " He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life ; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." In these words we see both the happy consequence of believing on the Son of God, and the unhappy con- sequence of not believing on him. Let us consider I. The happy consequence of believing on the Son of God, And what is the happy consequence of believing on the Son of God ? It is " Life, everlasting life" to the believing soul. " As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."' Here our Lord Jesus Christ is presented to us in a point of view in which, I conceive, we too seldom consider him ; namely, as the Head or Representative of his people. That he is our federal Head, in whom we are represented, is clear from Rom. v. 18. 19. and from all those various Scrip- Art. ' Eph.ii, 1-amliv, 18 s 1 Thess. v, 9 h John x, 10 j 1 Cor. xv, 22 106 FAITH AND UNBELIEF tures which speak of our being " circumcised in Christ;" " crucified in him ;" "(buried with him ;" "risen with him;" IC found in him ;" "accepted in him;" and "seated in Heavenly places with him." This we can only be but as as being represented in him, and as be- ing 1 also interested in him by a true and lively faith. Wh it Adam was, we were ; what he did, we did. What Christ is, believers are, and their's is the plen- teous redemption that is with him. * He is the God which of his own mercy saveth us, and setteth out his charity and exceeding love towards us, in that of his own voluntary goodness ; when we were perished, he saved us, and provided an everlasting kingdom for us.' k " The first man was of the earth, earthy ; the second man is of the Lord from Heaven. As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the Heavenly." 1 Adam we may call our death : Opposed to him ; Christ is " our life." " God hath given to his Son to have life in himself," n and as having life in himself he is " the head" of all influence and the source of all spiritual existence to his people. We " through grace believe" in him. p Faith inter- ests us in Jesus. The believer's union with him is of a vital influential kind : and " he that belie veth on the Son hath life" hath life in his Redeemer, in him- se^f, i Promise, and in prospect. He hath life in his Redeemer : " God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son." q God gave us life in Adam ; this we lost : He-gave us life again, and to secure the gift to his believing children, He gave it not di- rectly to us, but to us in his Son. Hence is Christ 'the life of them that believe, and the resurrection from the dead.' The believer, too, has life in himself. Once he was as dead as others that are still buried in the k Homily on Mis. of Mank. 1 1 Cor. xv, 47-49 m Col.iii, 4 John v, 25 Col. i, 18 v Acts xv, 11 q Uohnv,ll. IN THE SON OF GOD. 107 cares and businesses and pleasures of the world : now he lives. The Spirit of the Lord hath breathed upon him. He has heard the voice of the Son of God. He is alive from the dead. He feels other desires than he once felt : enjoys other things than he once enjoyed. He now no longer lives or wishes to live without God in the world. He becomes concerned for his own soul and for the souls of others. Frequent and earnest en- quiries about " the way, and the truth, and the life" stir within him. The followers of Jesus are in his judgment " the excellent of the earth." To them his "goodness extendeth." With them he "takes sweet counsel." The life he now lives in the flesh is by faith upon the Son of God. He is a lively branch in the living vine, a lively stone in the living Temple/ This life is both derived from Jesus Christ, and main- tained by faith in him. The believer's resources are not in or from himself: te His fresh springs" are in his Lord, and " out of his fulness do we all receive." Such an one hath, moreover, life in promise. " He that be- lieveth shall be saved.'' 8 "I give/' says the Good Shep- herd, " unto my sheep, eternal life, and they shall never perish/' 1 And again, " Whosoever liveth and be- lieveth on me shall never die," v " Exceeding great and precious promises" are these to the believer. They are (C the rod and staff" of his mind whilst passing through the wilderness to Canaan. Amidst his con- flicts and his failures, the pulse of his spiritual life sometimes beats feebly : the promise of life, continued and increasing life, by Jesus Christ, supports him. Sweeter sound than music knows dwells in the Word, " He that believeth shall not come into condemna- tion. " w Cannot He who kindles the spark of spiritual life, keep it alive even amidst an ocean of natural cor- ruption ? Shall the promise of a faithful God be r John xv, 1-1 Pet. ii, 4-5 Mark xvi, 16 1 John x, 26 r John xi,26 w John v, 24 108 FAITH AND UNBELIEF otherwise than faithful ? Truly, " the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed : but my kindness, O believer, shall not depart from thee, neither shall the Covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee." x And if so, may \ve not with propriety say, the believer hath life in prospect ? Yes : " he that belicveth on the Son hath everlasting life." In a Paradise, fairer and more beautiful than that of Eden, will the believer live : and live, not ag he may do now, a period of three or four score years, but through everlasting ages ; and not, as now, compassed with infirmity, oppressed with care, and liable to tem- poral disease and death, but free, fully and entirely free, from sin, and therefore fully and entirely free from sorrow, suffering, pain, and death. All the felici- ties of a world of glory will he enjoy. Because his Redeemer lives, he shall live also, yea, and shall live on with him for ever. The every known, conceivable, or possible good of the Redeemer's everlasting king- dom will form the everlasting heritage of the redeem- ed. Death will be " swallowed up in victory." Death temporal, death spiritual, death eternal, there shall be no more. 7 The Grave itself shall te spoiled of its possessions Every " friend*' of Jesus " shall rise again." At his bidding " the Earth shall cast out her dead and shall no more cover her slain." The soul of the believer, purified and exalted in all her powers and faculties, shall re-occupy her once sinful, frail, and perishable, but now re-organized and glorified tene- ment, and in the immediate vision of her Lord shall live for ever. Such will be the happy consequence of believing in the Son of God. Let us now consider II. The unhappy consequence of not believing on him. Our text tell us and a most solemn declaration it * Jsu liv, 10 y Rev xxi 4 IX THE SON OF GOD. 109 is Zech. xiii. 7, DISCOURSE IX. THE BELIEVERS REFUGE. _ PHILLIPPIANS iii, 8 and 9. That I may win Christ and be found in THERE is scarcely one of the Inspired Writers but may truly say with Hosea, Ch. xxriii, 17. THE BELIEVER'S 'REFUGE. take rest." So that their " corn and wine and oil increase" and the temporal wants of themselves and their families be supplied, they are little concerned about " treasures in heaven" or provisions for their deathless souls. I mean not to say that a man ought not e?en carefully to " provide for those of his own house;" did he not he would be "worse than an infi- del :" but I do say that the ease in whieh many pass the days of the years of their earthly pilgrimage, is ruinous to the peace and eternal interests of their souls. They cry " Peace, when there is no peace." Their peace is like that deadly stillness which those who have sailed some distant seas, inform us always precedes a ruinous and destructive storm. " Soul/' say they, "take thine ease :" but " when they say, Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them.'' " Tremble, then, ye that are at ease ; be troubled, ye careless ones/' 6 for your state ill comports with the watchful care, the prayerful diligence, the laborious love, the patient hope, of a Child of grace. The refuge of carnal ease shall be proved a lie. But others shelter themselves in worldly- pleasure. This is the refuge of the many, and particalaply of Youth. They are athirst for happiness : forsaking "the Fountain of living waters," they endeavour to satiate their desires at the polluted streams of sensual mirth. They deem Religion a source of gloomy care and melancholy sadness. The sober joy,, the believ- ing hope, the tender seriousness, of the Christian, is, in their view, any thing but pleasurable and desirable. But pleasure, of whatever kind it be, unblessed with the presence and the smile of a " reconciled Father in Christ/' is vain and delusive.. It may seem a flower to be innocently gathered on our way through life ; but it conceals a thorn. It may seem a refuge fair and c Isaaih xxxii, 11*. THE BELIEVER'S REFUGF. 121 beautiful to behold, but it is a refuge bordering close on wretchedness and woe. " Who hath woe?" asks Solomon: " who hath sorrow ? who hath contentions? who hath babbling ? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of the eyes ? They," he answers, " that tarry long at the wine 1 " 4 And "-woe unto them that laugh now," says a greater than Solomon/' for ye shall mourn and weep."" And " she that liveth in plea- sure," adds an Apostle of Jesus Christ, " is dead while she liveth. " f Surely, then, the pleasure in which so many live, which Jiath a " woe" appended to it, and which shall issue in fruitlesss mourning and weeping, can be no safe refuge for a man's immortal souh There are, too, refuges of a still more deceitful kind than those we have already noticed. There is one which, from the peculiarity of its nature, we may de- nominate the sinner's "stronghold" I mean, self- rightcousness. Nothing has the Minister of Christ so much to contend with in his people as a disposition to seek, to affect, to approve and justify self. Self is man's golden god. Even after we are regenerate, this corrupt propensity of our nature doth remain. Selfishness prevails in all we do or think or say. But it is the allowance and indulgence of it that endangers the soul's security. When men are "whole and need not a Physician," the Physician's skill will not be valued. When men are satisfied in and with and from themselves, there will be no desire to "win Christ and be found in him." And such as are so, are l( blind ;" they feed "on ashes ; a deceived heart hath turned them aside ; EO that they cannot deliver their souls, or say, Is there not a lie in our right hand ?" s This self-com- placency it is Satan's great endeavour to induce, be- cause he knows full well its mischievous effects, and * Prov.xxiii, 29-30 Luke vi, 25 ' I Tim. y, 6 e Isa. xliv. 2U 122 THE BELIEVER'S REFUGE. how certainly " God resisteth the proud and heholdeth them afar off." The refuge of multitudes, alas ! it is : but like every other refuge of man's devising, it will be found ' ' a house builded on the sand" and whose ruin must inevitably be "great." One other refuge we shall notice ere we contem- plate that of the believer's afalse profession of religion. Some persons, we believe, deem a profession of religion becoming or respectable. Some have sinister and world- ly ends to answer by becoming professedly religious : others again would ingratiate themselves with their minister, and be gratified to be reputed for their piety. Hence the garb of piety is assumed : the language of religion is acquired, and the (e I am holier than thou" of the Pharisee, is seen depicted in their whole deport- ment. This is their refuge. But follow them into their families ; go with them into their closets, and what may you see ? You may see all the unholy tem- pers, angry looks, and sinful negligences of the natural man. Now could a "a good tree bring forth cor- rupt fruit ?" Their profession is unsound. They are " men-pleasers." Their religion is not the religion of the Holy Ghost, nor is their faith the faith of the Re- deemer's people. They make them, indeed, a wall ; but they "daub it with untempered mortar." 11 And as a poor mud-walled cottage can ill endure the rains and winds of Winter, so no more will a false profession of religion endure the righteous scrutiny of God, or the fiery trial of the Judgment Day. And now opposed to the foregoing "refuges of lies" is the Believer's Refuge. And what is it ? It is CHRIST Christ in his person, Christ in his love, Christ in his birth, life, work, death, resurrection, ascension, session at the right-hand of his eternal Father, and his me- diatorial office there : " that 1 may win Christ," says h Ezck. xiii, 11 THE BELIEVER'S REFUGE. St. Paul, "and be found in him.*' Winning Christ and being found in him must doubtless mean some- what more than a mere knowledge and profession of Christianity. We believe many to know and profess the truth of the Gospel who yet manifestly feel no- thing of its humbling, cheering, hallowing tendency : otherwise, why do we pray (as we are wont to do) that they may be led into it ? The very expressions to "win Christ" and be "found in him," imply a way-worn weary traveller's earnest wish to find repose. " It is written in the Prophets, All the Redeemer's children shall be taught of God;" (Seelsa. liv. 13, Mic. iv.2.) and there is no man te that hath heard and learned of the Father, but cometh unto" Christ.' In all times and places, Christ has been the refuge of every Hea- ven-born and Heaven-directed soul. This the whole inspired volume testifies. To Adam, to Noah, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, was Jesus Christ the promised "Seed." These all died in the faith of Christ, and found rest to their souls in him. k " Stran- gers and pilgrims" here ; they sought another and a Heavenly country: and as they journeyed through the wastes of time, their faith became to them "the Substance of things hoped for/ and the evi- dence of things not seen." Describing the glory of Emmanuel, Isaiah says, " Behold a King shall reign in righteousness, and Princes shall rule in judgment ; and A MAN shall be as an hiding-place from the wind and a covert from the tempest, as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." 1 And lest we should be mistaken in our refuge, and put that confidence in a creature which the high and lofty One claims as his exclusive ho- mage, the Prophet declares this refuge from the storm, this shadow from the heat, to be GOD, JEHOVAH, LORD / John vi, 45 k Heb.xi, 13 ' Cb.xxxii, 1-2 THE BELIEVER'S REFUGE. OF HOSTS. Amos also writes, " The LORD is the hop? of his people :" n that is, if you will observethe margi- nal reading of our larger Bibles, " JEHOVAH ?V the place of repair or harbour'' of his believing Israel. Then is the Believer's Refuge both God and Man ' perfect God and perfect Man ; of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting : equal to the Father as touching his Godhead ; and inferior to the Father as touching his Manhood: Who, although he be God and Man; yet he is not two, but one Christ ;' and as "the Christ of God, full of grace and truth," he is ' the strong tower of defence," " the quiet habitation and the sure resting place" of every one that really be- lieves in him. " By two immutable things (His oath and promise) in which it was impossible for God to lie, we have strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold on the Hope set before us in the Gospel." As under the Jewish Dispensation, one fearful and ap- prehensive of danger, " laid hold on the horns of the altar," p so under the dispensation of the Gospel, the alarmed and guilty sinner lays hold on, Him whom the altar typified and finds in Christ a re- fuge from all he deserves and dreads. NOT (let me ob- serve) that even Christ, in all the exalted nature of his person and all the excellence of his mediatorial work, is usually the fast refuge to which a regenerate sin- ner will resort. No: such is the unholy propensity and disposition of our fallen nature, that we common- ly fly to our tears, repentances, prayers, duties, or any thing for refuge from apprehended wrath rather than to Jesus Christ. But these, equally with wilful igno- rance, carnal ease, worldly pleasure, self- righteousness, and mere profession, are ultimately found to be inse- cure and unkindly refuges. There is no place in them Is. xxv, 1-4 Ch. iv, 1(5 o Heb. vi, 1* p 1 Kings ii, 28 TOE BELIEVER'S REFUGE. 125 whereon the foot of hope may rest. The gracious "Testifier of Jesus" leads whom He teaches to see and feel that ' other Refuge there is none' save Jesus and him crucified Jesus and him alive again Jesus and him ''over all GOD blessed for ever.'"* Weary, at length, of " going about to establish his own righteous- ness," the Believer learns meekly and gratefully to sub- mit to the righteousness of the incarnate God/ Self, indeed, still lives ; but he "that is Christ's hath crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts ;" and though not quite dead, it is dying. The Christian allows not boasting : he would that every lofty imagination with- in him were brought low, and would willingly be no- thing for Christ to be " all in all." Foregoing every other ground of confidence, the language of his heart is " That I may win Christ : too long have I stopped short of him : too long have I been resting in "lying vanities" hovering in uncertainty and doubt at a dis- tance from my Saviour-God, as if he were unable or unwilling to befriend and succour me ; but now I per- ceive his graciousness and view his loveliness. O, let me win him and be found in him ! Jesus invites the weary and heavy-laden to him ; a weary heavy-laden soul is mine, and therefore, Lord, " I stretch forth my hands unto thee : my soul thirsteth after thee in a barren and a dry land where no water is."* Thus, " the Munition of rocks" becomes the Believer's strength and salvation. He wins Christ and is found in him. What are the great and pecu- liar excellencies of his Refuge, we cannot, in our present state of imperfect being, adequately conceive ; One that hud been caught up into the third Heaven, and been taught the Truth by immediate re- velation from Jesus Christ himself, declares them to be "unsearchable."' His Name is "Wonderful" and * Rum. ix, 5. r Rom. x, 3. Ps. 143,6. *Jiph.iii,8. 126 THE BELIEVER'S REFUGE. wonderful are all his works and ways. Uncreated glory he inherits. Knowledge and power are his in infinite degrees. His kingdom is divinely spiritual,, pure, and blissful. The every trembling penitent that applies to him in the day of his soul's humiliation, Jesus is "mighty to save.'' In short, "there is no end of his greatness ;" and all which a sinner could wish to find in a Saviour may be found in him. Not that a Be- liever apprehends directly and at once all that for which he is apprehended of God in Christ Jesus : no ; not so : this would be to exceed the experience even of Paul himself : v commonly, years of our spiritual life must elapse ere we can cordially and unhesitatingly " re- joice in Christ Jesus." Every child of God, however, will gradually be led to do so, and to the view of his enlightened understanding new discoveries of his Sa- viour's person, love, birth, death, and every thing will be made as he needs, and is able to bear them. Christ ever becomes, as Peter says, " precious," or rather preciousness itself, to " them that believe."^ They would not but be "found in him" for ten thousand worlds. He is more to them than the city of refuge was to the man- slayer in Israel. You probably recol- lect that in the division of Canaan by Moses and Joshua, six cities were selected as cities of refuge for any one who killed his neighbour unawares and hated him not in time past.* The roads to these cities were requir- ed to be well kept up, and on posts by the way was written in characters so distinguishable that " whoso ran might read" " To your Refuge." Would, then, one of these six cities be dear as a refuge to the man- slayer ? Infinitely dearer is Christ to any that are found in him. No avenger of blood may dare to touch one " accepted in the Beloved." y The life of "the . * Verse 12, of the Context. w 1 Peter 11, 7. * Num. xxxv. > Eph. i, G. THE BELIEVER'S REFUGE. 127 High Priest of our profession" secures the Believer from death : His death only procures him enlargement and freedom. 2 He wins more and more of Christ con- tinually ; is found dependant on Him more and more simply, and longs with all that ' spiritually eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ, to dwell in Christ,' te not having his own righteousness, which is of the Law," for any ground of hope or personal safety, "but that which is through the faith of Christ, the right- eousness which is of God by faith." Such is the Believer's Refuge : and from contem- plating his Refuge, let us proceed to contemplate II. His SAFETY in it. "When the Almighty " shall lay judgment to the line, and righteousness to the plummet ; when the hail shall sweep away the refuges of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding-places" of human contriv- ance and worldly wisdom, the Believer's will be found " a quiet habitation and a sure resting place," 8 Whilst ignorance, ease, self-love, worldly pleasure, and a mere name to live, crumble into the dust of shame and the ruin of despair, the Believer's Refuge will outbrave every trial, and be to him a safe retreat amidst even ' the wreck of matter and the crush of worlds.' Hath he enemies? They may assail his citadel, but they shall not fakeit : He is "kept (or garrisoned, as the ori- ginal imports) by the power of God through faith unto salvation. " b Are his enemies Mighty? " He that dwelleth in the secret places of the Most High, shall abide under the shadow of the ^//-mighty."' Doth "this present evil world" allure him? Christ hath overcome the world, and by faith the Christian overcomes it too. d While passing through it and 1 Jos. xx, 6. * Isa. xxxii, 18. k 1 Pet. i, 5. c Ps. 91, 1. d John xvi, 33. 128 THE BELIEVERS REFUGE. contending with it, the promise "Whoso overcometh shall sit down with me on my throne, even as I also over- came and am set down with my Father on his throne" sounds sweetly in the Believer's ear.' It is commanded him "not to love the world nor the things of the world," and a SAVIOUR'S commandment is not griev- ous/ " Fears within and fightings without," demand perpetual diligence and watchfulness: but " strong in the Lord," the believer wages a successful warfare, and the conqueror's palm and robe ever and anon cheer and animate his hopes. 8 Worldly cares of a necessary and lawful kind, it may be, frequently en- gage the attention and occupy the time of a good man : but 'These, will he say, are not rny divinities/* 1 He will not bury himself in them, nor say, when disen- gaged from them, " What have I more ?" He wants no tabernacle in a world the fashion of which passeth away. He has no abiding place below, and will ever feelingly be saying with Israel's sweet Psalmist -"Re- turn unto thy rest, O my soul."' Lusteth i\iQJlesh against the spirit ? Doth the Be- liever feel not merely the frailty, but the depravity of his nature? He knows that " in Christ was no sin," and he has the promise of his Lord that " sin shall not have dominion over him." k ' Though this infec- tion of nature doth remain even in them that are re- generate, yet is there no condemnation to them that believe and are baptized." The Believer is safe in his Refuge. In the pure and now glorified human nature of Jesus Christ, he sees what one day he himself shall be. Even now is his sin forgiven in its guilt, and de- stroying, if not perfectly destroyed, in its power. No Jebusite allowedly lives in the land, however obstinately he may retain his hold in it. In the atoning blood of Rev. iii, 21. f 1 John v, 3. f Rev. vii, 9. > Jud.xviii, 42. * Ps. 110,7. * Rom. vii. U 1 Art, ix. THE BEUEVER'o REFUGE. 129 his Redeemer, the Believer has a "fountain for his sin and uncleanness" wherein he may daily and hourly wash ; m and in his Redeemer, an Advocate to "bear the iniquity of his holy things."" Some- times, perhaps, he " groans, being burdened :" he looks to his Lord and is lightened. So severe, it may be, are sometimes the contentions between the opposing principles of flesh and spirit, that he can only breathe the sorrows of his heart in the " O wretched man that I am' of St. Paul. p " Who, asks the strugg- ling Believer, shall deliverine from the body of sin and death ?" He asks not in vain : the Spirit who groans unutterable requests within him, leaves him not com- fortless, but enables him, perhaps in the moment of his greatest extremity, to say, " / thank God who deli- rers me through Jesus Christ." Thus does hetrinmph with thanksgiving inChrist," and shall "always" do so q For God " GIVETH us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord?' "Believing," amidst all our remaining" imperfections, "we rejoice rejoice in hope rejoice in hope of glory :" and our very conflicts with sin en- dear to us our hope, and add to the splendour of our brightening prospects. Sweet to the believer is the thought, ' I shall one day be likened to my glorious Lord and stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.' s In Christ is there " Salvation with eternal glory." But, doth Satan harras and perplex the believer ? Hath he to "wrestle not with flesh and blood only, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness (or wicked spirits ) in high places? 1 He knows that his Lord and Saviour was " tempted of the Devil," and that now from a fellow-feeling Jesus Christ is dis- posed to " succour them that are tempted. ' T The " Zech. xiii, 1. n Exod. xxviii, 38. Ps. 34, 5. P Rom. vii, 24. > 2 Cor. ii, 14. r 1 Cor. xv, 57. Phil, iii, 21, Eph.vi, 12. Heb. ii, 18. 130 THE BELIEVER'S REFUGE, Devils are et subject unto Christ." They can do no more than Christ permits them. To him they crouch.* And soon may the believer expect the Angel that is to come down from Heaven, having the key of the bot- tomless pit, and a great chain in his hand, to bind that old serpent which is the Devil and Satan/ The saints in glory " overcame him by the blood of the Lamb ;" by the same sure and unfailing means shall those who are yet maintaining the fight of faith, overcome him too. The armies of the Redeemer's Israel must tri- umph ultimately. Their GOD is their strength : and soon will He call them to puttheir feet upon the necks of their enemies, and award to tbem the glories of the heavenly Canaan. (See Joshua x. 24, 25). But, whilst thus contending with the world, the flesh, and Satan, the Believer, possibly, becomes some- times cr weary in the greatness of his way." " LEST he be weary and faint in his mind/' he is commanded to fc look unto Jesus/' and to "consider him that en- dured the cross. " y Looking unto Jesus and consider- ing his cross, the Christian's cross becomes easy and tolerable. If he (e walks in darkness" darkness so total that he has te no light," he is still privileged to * f trust in the Name of the Lord" and to stay his sor- rowing soul upon his God. z If he be perplexed or troubled about any affair of moment ; ignorant how to act or unknowing what conduct to pursue : he may "commit his way unto the Lord," and if it be really conducive to his good, " the Lord will bring it to pass."* If, in a time he is not aware, the Believer be overtaken by some unthought-of calamity : " The Name of his Lord is a strong tower ; he runneth into it and is safe." b The storms which well-nigh over- whelm others, scarcely affect him. " His heart stand- eth fast, trusting in the Lord." ct No plague comes nigh his dwelling." He " dwells safely." Whilst w Luke viii, 28. Rev. xx, 1, 2. y Heb. xii, 2, 3. Isa.1, 10. * P. 37, 5. b Prov. xviii, 10. THE BELIEVER'S RKFUGE. 131 other refuges are proved tobefalseand insecure, Jesus is " the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.'' Whilst the many pass their davs in time-consuming, soul- destroying follies, the Believe/ is satisfied with the ful- ness of Christ. A fulness of every good he finds in Jesus : a fulness of mercy, a fulness of love, a fulness of strength, a fulness of life, a fulness of glory : and " out of his fulness do we all receive." Here are rich " provisions by the way." By faith the Christian Pil- grim lives upon them. Still that he may " win Christ and be found in him" is his prevalent desire. He hastens by anticipation to the time when his soull shall be satiated with fatness and replenished with goodness, when he shall hunger no more neither thirst any more, and he shall be " saved IN THE LORD with an everlasting sahation."* Such, then, Beloved, is the Believer's Refuge, and His Safety in it. I would now, to all who believe among you, SAY, Abide in your Refuge, and Welcome others to it. And 1. Abide in your Refuge. lt Abide in me" says Jesus Christ himself to his believing followers." Unless the man-slayer abode within the appointed bounds of his refuge, he became exposed to the sword of the avenger. If then he valued his life and wished its preservation, he would surely suffer no trifling thing to induce him to wander from his retreat. Imitate the man-slayer in this particular : Abide in Christ. Nor deem our exhortation needless and unseasonable. If Man could be beguiled when innocent, much more may he be so when fallen and depraved. Now, " I fear, lest by any means, as the Serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ/" Beware, then, of those things that will corrupt you, and make you other c John 1C. a Isa. xlv, 17. Rer.vii, 10. John xv, 4. ' 2 Cor. xi,3. 132 THE BELIEVER'S REFTGE. than simple, humble, holy, followers of Jesus Christ. Nature will be nature still, nor will " the flesh" be other than fleshly and carnal in its propensities, till the morning of the resurrection dawn upon the dark- ness of the tomb, and the body be built anew from the dust. Believers have especially to beware of slothful ease, watchlesssecurity, and spiritual pride. Even David was not exempt from these evils. " My mountain, said he, standeth strong ; and I shall never be moved." 6 God hid his face from him and he was troubled. He said it, he tells us, in his t( prosperity ;" and it was his prosperity that injured his simplicity. Humbled, however, for his fault, David presently prays " In THEE, O Lord, do I put my trust : J3e THOU mi/ strong rock, for an house of defence to save me." h " Let him, therefore, among you, that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall." Beware of every thing like presumptuous confidence. How experienced soever you may be, there will come no period in your life of faith, when you may conclude that you have attained all you may attain. Never will you spiritually exist without Christ and a believing union with him. Him you must daily win and in him be ever found. You came to him indeed only as you were drawn : You abide in him only as you are " preserved in him :"' nevertheless, this does not supersede the necessity of your " keeping yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life:" k Your Lord's command is "Watch:" and we cannot think He would have enjoined watchfulness Lad there been no occasion for it. In watchfulness, therefore, and " in all things," be emulous to adorn the Doctrine of God your Saviour. Let us see that you are in Christ and partakers of his Spirit, by your fruits of righteousness. This is the test whereby your Christianity will be proved. For " he that saith, I know" him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a 8 P.30, 7. * Ps. 31, 12. * Jndel. k Jude 21. THE BELIEVER'S REFUGE. 133 liar, and the truth i not in him. But \\hoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected : HEREBY Icnon- ice that ire are in him. Pie that saith he abide th in him ought himself also so to ICY///', EVEN AS he walked.'* Then abide in your souls' dear refuge and beloved retreat, and thus evidence your abiding in him ; so shall you say " Unto thee, O my strength will I sing ; for God is my defence, and the God of my mercy/'" 1 and be prepared to 2. Welcome others to your Refuge. Our experience of the Divine goodness must be small and our enjoy- ment of the Divine favour weak and languid, if a fel- low-sinner's penitence fills not our heart with joy and gladness. What ! shall angels that never felt the sweetness of redeeming mercy look down from their high abode and watch with joyous gratulation the pro- gress of a soul returning to its God ; and we, the sub- jects of redemption, feel no or, at best, but a cold and thankless interest in an event so interesting ? I have observed, and with sorrow, in persons whose piety we could not doubt, a shyness and a reserve towards others that had not, it might be, attained to their knowledge or to their love of the Truth, not at all to be com- mended. O, it should not content us to be secure our- selves : our " desire and prayer for Israel should be that they may be saved :" and to our desire and prayer should be added endeavour to save them. With sacred gladness should you hail and bid " God speed" every one whom you see " enquiring his way to Zion with his face thither-ward." With Laban should you say, " Come in thou blessed of the Lord: why furriest thou without?" Our once weary and heavy-laden souls have found rest in Jesus : and ' ' YET there is room.'* With John should you say, " Behold the Lamb of God ;" and from a grateful iense of security and ac- ceptance through his blood, go on to say with Moses, " Come with us and we will do you good." Thus by your "good conversation in Christ;" enquirers will * 1 John ii, 46. Ps. 59, 17. THE BELIEVER'S REFUGF. be taught; mourners will be comfored ; Jesus, your Lord, will be glorified ; and you will with the whole family of the redeemed in heaven and earth, rejoice together in one common but all-and-infinitely- glorious salvation, enjoy the same security in your Common Refuge, and unite in the same song of (t Worthy is the Lamb'' with hearts and tongues in sweet and de- delightful unison to all eternity. DISCOURSE X. FORGETFULNESS OF GOD; ITS EVIL, PSALM 50, 22. Now consider this, yc that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver you* FORGET God? is it possible? What 1 , when we see his "eternal power and godhead" in all things above us and around us? If we look up to the Hea- vens, te the Heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handy work." If we look around us here, "the earth is full of his goodness." God's is the sun that makes our day; his the moon that cheers our night. Because he is merciful and true the varying seasons of summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, therefore, fail not. He it is that clothes our vales and hills with fruitfulness ; at whose bidding the Heavens drop down their dew, and the earth yields her increase. He, more than all, it is who pitied man when fallen, loved us when sinful, and saved us when lost. He it is who gave an only-begotten son to be " a light to lighten the Gentiles and to be the glory of his people Israel ;" who hath given us the Gospel * The Author remembers to have heard, when a child, thjs text discoursed on : the remarks then made very powerfully bis mind; some of these way here possibly be repeated. 136 FORGETFULNEHS OF GOD : ITS EVIL. of Jesus Christ, and therewith his Holy Spirit to un- fold and apply its mysteries, and to dispose our natu- rally unwilling hearts to receive its truths. And is it possible that men should forget this kind and gracious God ? Yes : certain it is men do forget him, and forget him, too, to such an extent as they are little aware. These characters are described in the Psalrn before us. They may, indeed, take God's covenant in their moulh ; but they hate instruction, and cast his word behind them. When they see a thief, they con- sent to thieve with him, and are partakers with the adulterer in his crimes. They give their mouth to evil, and their tongue frameth deceit. They sit and speak against their brother, and slander their own mother's son. These things they do, and a merciful God keeps silence ; because he forbears to avenge the wrongs they do him, they think him such an one as themselves regardless of human actions and disposi- tions ; and because sentence against their evil works is not executed speedily, they think, forsooth, it will not be executed at all. But "I will reprove them, saith the Lord, and set their doings in order before them." And now succeeds the solemn caution in our text "Consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver." Forget- fulness of God is the source of their wickedness, and this persisted in, will induce a punishment from which there will be none to deliver. Now here are three things for our consideration : I. An Evil spoken of: II. A Punishment denounced against it: And III. A Means whereby to remedy the evil and to avoid the punishment. There is I. An Evil spoken of - The Evil spoken of in our text is. for get fulness of God. That many do forget God is, unhappily, too FORGETFULNESS OF GOD: ITS EVIL. 137 easy to be proved. Some there are so foolish as to say, '* There is no God."* Pharoah-like, they proudly ask, "Who is the Lord?" and ignorantly say, "I know not the Lord." b Such particularly are atheists. They would rather "the Lord God of Israel should cease from before them." c But you will find on en- quiry, that they are " become corrupt and are abomi- nable in their doings," and that therefore they wish there was no God, and hence in the foolishness of their heart, they try to persuade themselves that there is none. Such persons may be said willingly to forget God. Many, again, there are who though they believe there is a God, yet believe not in the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible is a just, pure, and holy being: lov- ing righteousness and hating iniquity ; approachable only by a Mediator and worshipped "in vain" unless worshipped " in Spirit and in truth:" their God is a God ' all mercy/ easily appeased when offended, in- dulgent to human frailty, and, in short " such an one as themselves" and as their own depraved imaginations choose to make him. But, the altar, surely of such persons is reared "To the linknovn God," and it can- not possibly be said that they remember or revere " the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent." Others there are who allow that "" doubtless there is a God that judgeth the earth," and rules his rational and intelligent creatures by a law "holy, just, and good :" and yet through the whole course of their lives have paid no respect to the word, will, or autho- rity of their Sovereign Creator. With regard, for in- stance, to the Sabbath, how many have attained, it may be, to manhood and old-age who have never yet kept a single Sabbath holy! " Thou shalt keep my Sabbath, and reverence my sanctuary : I am the Lord." d And again, " Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy," e saith the Lord. And yet multitudes there are * Ps. 14, 1. " Exod. v, 2. e Isa. xxx, 11. d Lev. xix, 30. c Exod. xx, 8. 138 FORGETITLNESS OF GOD : ITS EVIL. who make little or no distinction between the Sabbath and another day. They can cheerfully even trouble and inconvenience themselves, to " find their own ways and to do their own pleasure on God's holy day ;" but where is their readiness to do the will and pleasure of their Lord ? To see a friend or to settle an ac- count, many will travel miles on the Sabbath : whereas, they cannot come to the House of Prayer though it be but a few yards from them. Must not such forget God? How common a thing is Sweating! Upon the least provocation, about things the most trivial and unim- portant, and often without any provocation whatever, foul and impious oaths fill the mouths of many. We can hardly pass through the streets and lanes of our towns and villages, but oui ears are assailed with dread- fully profane and terrifying expressions. Men seem proud to resemble the Devil and to use the Devil's language. Genteel, it may be in the opinion of some persons to swear ; but fashion cannot change the tur- pitude of moral guilt. Can the swearer be said to re- member God ? Rather, does he not impiously forget ic/io hath said, " Swear not at all?" How commonly, too, do we hear the Lord's name taken in vain ! The name which is above every name the name which all the hosts of Heaven hallow and adore the name at which every knee shall bow, is used as familiarly and irreverently in the conversation of many people as any word whatever. Now God has (and for reasons, doubtless, wise and good) forbid- den the vain mention of his name ; and has, moreover, solemnly declared He will not hold him guiltless who dares to do so. Then, surely, those who take the name of the Lord in vain, must be forgetful of Him. How eagerly by many arc the pleasures and the fa- shions i nd the favours of the world desired and sought ! God has said, te Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." f f Rom. \\\, 1. lORGETFt LNESS OF CUD : ITS EVIL. 139 Now where the mind is devoted to pleasure, to fa- shion, or to " men-pleasing," is it possible that God can be supremely loved and gratefully remembered ? People excuse indeed their worldliness, and say, ' Where is the harm of a little innocent pleasure ? Is it not allowable and right to enjoy ourselves ?' Yes, truly, we reply : but, nothing is innocent, nothing is allowable, nothing is right, in which God is forgotten, His authority contemned, His glory not designed, and His blessing not to be expected. And you will very generally find that those who are the most worldly and most conformed in disposition and habit to the ways and customs of the world, are the most forgetful of God. But further : Many there are who when the morn- ing dawns upon them, and they wake from the slum- bers of the night, rise and go forth to their daily occu- pations, without ever bowing their knees in humble adoration of their Almighty Guardian and Protector. And when the evening closes and the shades of night once more invite them to repose, they do not think "in whom they live," by whom they have been strength- ened for labour, and on whose bounty they daily and hourly exist. Of this careless forgetfulness of himself the Lord complains, saying by his servant Isaiah, " The <> v knoweth his obiter, and the ass his master's crib; but Israel cloth ntft know, my people doth not consider" 5 May not the Lord justly ask, " If I be a Father, where is mine honour?'" 1 Could we forget a Father whom we loved, and whose smile was both the propelling motive and the approving plaudit of our obedience? Again, How many Masters and Parents are there who never call their children and their households round them for the worship of the God of our Lord Jesus Christand the Father of mercies ! In many families God seems totally forgotten. In others he is acknow- ledged just once a- week : some will just repeat the t Cb. i, J. > Mai. i, 6. HO FORGETFULNESS OF GOD: ITS EVIL. Catechism or it may be read a Chapter and say a pray- er on a Sabbath evening, and on no other occasion through the week. Bui, this manifests a very reluct- ant remembrance of God, if lie deems it any remem- brance of himself at all. He says in Deut. vi., 6 and 7. '* These words which 1 command thee shall be in thine heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkcst by the way, and when thou liest down and when thou risest upS Must not God, then, most certainly be forgotten by those who attempt not his worship, read not his Word, nor endeavour practically to enforce it, statedly and constantly, in their families ? Prayer, too, before and after meals is, in many houses, lamentably omitted. Many sit down to their meals, and partake of those things which a bounteous God gives them richly to enjoy without the slightest possible ac- knowledgment of his mercies. The every good they possess cometh down from above ; but, alas ! no thanksgiving goes back to Heaven in return. Some indeed mutter a something over their board, but there is plainly no heartfelt remembrance of God in the ser- vice. There is, commonly, no mention whatever of the Mediator, by the purchase of whose blood alone goodness and mercy are bestowed upon us. The lips of many freeze while uttering the name of Jesus. They shrink from the utterance of it and instead of it will say ' Thank Providence or thank Heaven,' ashamed, in truth, to acknowledge their Redeemer. Whereas, the precept of the Gospel is, "Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus"' 1 He that honoureth not the Son, ho- noureth not the Father that hath sent him. And since it is the Father's will that all men should honour the Son, even as they honour himself, those who do not J 1 Cor. x, 31, FORGETFULNESS OF GOD: ITS EVIL. HI so must forget God and treat his will with indifference and contempt. From I Cor. x, 7 it should seem that a graceless meal was an idolatrous feast the worship of an idol-god. Still nearer to your bosoms and to your consciences than we have done, might we come: and we would fain do so, did we not fear too lengthened a discussion of our first head of discourse. Forgetfulness of God must already appear to you to be an evil awfully pre- valent. But, suffer me to ask, do not many forget God even in his more immediate presence and service? Even in the great congregation, it may with truth be said, " God is not in all their thoughts/' 11 A thousand things come into their minds and find a ready lodge- ment there, but God is not among them all. Many at- tend their church merely because it is Sunday, or be- cause others do so, or because they have, perhaps, no- thing just now to call them elsewhere, or because it is one part of their "will-worship" and self-righteous- ness to keep (as they say) to their Church. But, in all this God may be forgotten. How many when at church are too lofty in their imaginations to kneel while we pray, or to stand while we sing ! Wandering eyes betray a vacant mind. The utmost inattention is apparent in many. Their whole deportment mani- fests forgetfulness of God, and all their religion ter- minates with the close of the sabbath and its services. And shall we pretend that there is little or no evil in this forgetfulness of the glorious and eternal God ? How does that God himself regard it ? How, I would know, would you regard the forgetfulness of a child whom you had tenderly nourished, or a friend to whom you had shewn gieat and abundant kindnesses ? Would it not grieve you ? Would you not feel it to be an evil ? Then, be assured, "an evil and a bitter thing it is to sin against God," nor can our forgetfulness of him be otherwise than offensive to him. This will ful- ly appear whilst we consider Ps, 10, 4. 142 FORGETFULNESS OF GOD: ITS EVIL, II. A Punishment denounced against it : 16. Dent, xxxii, 2a. FORGETFULNESS OF GOD: ITS EVIL, 143 cies yet he can himself be a terror to those who for- get him.* Instead of the smiles, " the terrors of God do set themselves in array against them/' 1 When the Word of God, which is the sword of the Spirit, pierces to the discerning of their thoughts and intents, or when their sin finds them out, how do the wicked tremble I "They are utterly consumed with terrors. " v What ap- palling terribleness is there in the idea of being torn in pieces by a lion, a leopard, or a bear ! How surpassing- ly terrible, then, must be the wrath of an angry God ! With the wicked God is angry every day : w and though he may forbear for a season to destroy them in his wrathful displeasure, yet do they live to heap up wrath against the day of wrath, and the revelation of the righteous Judgment of God." And what a wrench, oftentimes, is the separation of the careless and ungod- ly from the world by Death ! They are absolutely torn away from all they value or enjoy. The shadow of death comes upon them fraught with terrors ; their very souls are agonized : O might they live ! but no: a forgotten God will remind them of himself, and be- cause they forget him in time, they shall remember him to their utter confusion in eternity. Where the groans of expiration cease, the bowlings of the damned commence. Thus we see the Punishment which for- getful ness of God induces is terrible. But the bitterest ingredient of the punishment re- mains to be told It will be without remedy : From it there will be "none to deliver :" No, NONE to de/ii-cr. Not the Lord Jesus Christ ; for he says, " Because I have called, and ye refused ; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded ; but ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof; I also will laugh at your calamity, I will mock when your fear cometh : When your fear cometh as a deso- lation, and your destruction corneth as a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you : Then Jer. xvli, 17. * J. if H4 FORGETFl LNESS OF GOD: US EVIt, shall they call upon me ; but I will not answer : they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me. For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord."* In this world only can deliver- ance from wrath be obtained: beyond it there is no Saviour. Nor can Angels save us. They acquiesce in their Sovereign's pleasure and approve the sentence which he passes on all who forget him. " True and righteous are thy judgments" forms part of the song of the angels and the redeemed in glory . a Nor can )nen deliver from the wrath to come. In Ps. 49, 7 and 8, we read, " None of them can bij any means redeem his brother, or give to God a ransom for him : for the re- demption of their soul is precious, and it ceaseth for ever"* You know one is represented to us as ap- plying to a redeemed saint for ease and comfort amidst his woeful torments; but, the application was made in vain. He could not obtain even "a drop of water to cool his tongue ;" much less could he be redeemed from punishment. His punishment was remediless. You may hear indeed of some who invoke the saints pray to the deadyor the dead; but it is "a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of God. " b It is indeed a doctrine befitting "the Beast/' "the Man of Sin ;" but it is utterly at variance with the Word of God, (Matt, iv, 10. for instance) and there- fore to be utterly rejected and contemned by all whose rule of faith and conduct is the Bible. Thus it ap- pears how truly there are " NONE to deliver." " His calamity cometh suddenly ; suddenly shall the wicked be broken, and that without remedy."* And now to confirm what has been advanced, allow me just to refer you to a text or two of Holy Writ * Let this text be well considered : Can we w mder at the Pa- pisti withholding the Spriptures from their laity ? z ProY. i, 4, &r, a *'-Rev. xvi, 7. b Our xxii Art. c Prov. vi, 15. FORGETFULNESS OF GOD: ITS EVIL. 'which contain, in substance, all that we have said. In Jcr. xxiii. 39 and 40, we read, " Therefore, I, even I, will utterly forget you; and I will forsake you and cast you out of my presence : And I will bring an ever- lasting reproach upon you and a perpetual shame that shall not be forgotten." Observe these words : 4t I, even I, will do it," saith the Lord God. And what will he do? Not "forget" those who forget him merely; but "utterly forget" them: Not " for- sake'' them merely; but " cant them out of his pre- sence :" Nat " bring a reproach upon them" which the lapse of time shall wipe away; but " an everlast- ing reproach" and fe a shame" of " perpetual' en- durance " that shall not be forgotten" And again in Ps. 9, 1 7, we read," The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the people that forget "God." Saith the Lord these things? Shall then his Ministers be blam- ed for saying them ? Should we fulfil our embassy to a u world lying in wickedness" and asleep, too fatally secure, in the arms of the wicked one, did we al- together exclude " the terrors of the Lord" ftom our ministrations? Certainly we should not. The thun- ders of Sinai must alarm before the consolations of Zion can be felt. And when we declare the punish- ment denounced against forgetfulness of God, it is ia order to consider III. A Means whereby to remedy the evil and to avoid the punishment. The means our text prescribes is Consideration- *' Now, consider this," and do so, " LEST I tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver." The sinful in- considerateness of our wicked heart is the occasion of the evil, and consequently is the ruin of the many who live and die forgetful of God our Saviour. "Thej consider not that they do evil." e " They consider not * Ecc. v, 1. L 146 FORGETFULNESS OF GOD : ITS EVIL. in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness," saith the Lord by Hosea the prophet/ "Now, there- fore, thus saith the Lord- CONSIDER. " g Consider your- selves. Call home to you your vagrant thoughts. Fix them with scrutinizing earnestness on your state ; your character; your motives, hopes, and aims. "See what manner of spirit you are of/' Inquire whether you remember God at all ; in what way you remember him, and whether your remembrance of him be sweet, affectionate, and kind. Thus sweet were the Psalm- ist's meditations on God. h Low and unprofitable is your religion, if your thoughts of God be cold, distant, and reserved. You may judge of your spiritual state bv your taste or distaste of spiritual things. Then ft know this and consider it in thine heart." 1 Consider also your obligations to the Author of all being and existence. How manifold, how various, liow great, are his mercies! Before you were born was he mindful of you, and since you were born has he unweariedly been mindful of you. By mercies daily multiplied upon you, does he beseech you to be recon- ciled to him. He commcndeth his love to our consi- deration ; k and lest we should doubt his loving-kind- ness and truth, he " spareth not his own Son, but freely gives him up for us all." 1 Your privilege it is to eat even " angels' food" ;" for on you doth God be- stow " the Truth as it is in Jesus," and you does he " feed in green pastures and lead beside waters of com- fort." The Lord has, moreover, seta Watchman upon your walls that dares to sound the trumpet of alarm, and to warn you of the danger inseparably connected with forgetfulness of God, and that lest He tear you in pieces, and the sword of his justice be bathed in your blood. Then " think of these things," and consider how surely the very "goodness of God," unless it lead you to repentance, will increase and aggravate your *Ch. Vii,2, Hag. i, 5. ' Ps. 104 34. ' Deut.iv,39. k Rom. v, 8. Rom. viii, 32. m Ps. 78,25. FORGETFULNESS OF GOD : ITS EVIL. condemnation. " Consider how great things he hath done for you." Consider, too, how lamentably God is forgotten inthe World. How few remember him at all ! How few of the few who do remember him, think of him cordially and gratefully ! Because, then, so many " live with- out God in the World," it should be your determina- tion to " remember him in his ways," and habitually to *' consider the operations of his hands." Do some fools say in their heart, There is no God ? Ask them, How came the Universe into being; How they them- selves exist ; and whether but for the corruption of their hearts and the abominations of their lives, they would not most readily allow that there is a God. Do some doubt whether the Bible be a Revelation of the Divine Will ? Ask them how far they have examined its pretences to credibility and the truth of its state- ments. Sec whether but for the holiness of its pre- cepts, the sublimity of its doctrines, thetremendousness of its sanctions, they would not believe and admit the Bible's every portion. It is the heart, not the head, that makes our infidels. Is the Sabbath by many unob- served, and its means neglected? Do you hallow it, and give the Day, not merely some two or three hours of it, to devotional and religious duties. Is swearing common? Let oaths and blasphemies, "foolish jest- ings and talking," share no part of your conversation* <( let them not be once named among you" Whenever you hear an oath, reprove it ; and whilst the swearer prays to be 'damned/ do you lift up your heart to God for his soul's salvation.* Is the Lord's Name com- monly profaned ? O let the mention of that " great and fearful Name" fill you with solemn awe and reve- rential dread. Is this present World the all of the * See Ne. 76 of Series the First of the Tracts of the Religion* Tract Society. It is peculiarly striking and impressive. See, too, Ley. xiiv, 1016. , 1 Sam. xii, 4. FORGETFULNESS OF GOD: ITS EVIL. majority of its population ? Affect ye a better portion : be Marys choice your choice." " Come out from among" its votaries, " and be separated" from their ways, vanities, and pursuits. Prefer a Church to a Theatre,* communion with God, to the " filthy con- versation of the wicked." What are the pleasures of sense and sin, to the pleasantness and peace of Piety ? Earthly pleasures may have, >g and designed so kindly by the World's great Master to further the best in- terests of man's better part. It is God's express com- mand that " thy servant may rest as well as thou," k and you cannot needlessly, (observe, I say, needlessly} employ a servant about household affairs, worldly busi- ness, or manual labour, on the Sabbath without vio- lating the command of God. By the will and word of the Lord, the soul of every man has a right to the Sabbath's hallowed moments, means, and mercies. It may be said again, ' Servants are untractable :' be it so; in certain instances, they are rude, ignorant, and lawless ; but their rudeness, ignorance, and lawless- ness, does not affect a Blaster's duty to care for their souls. A Master most surely ought to possess authority in his own house, and whatever may be the disposition of his dependants, he ought., at least, to 'endeavour the * Rom. iv, 12. ' fial. yi, 8. t Mark ii, 27. h Deut. v, U. 184; CARE FOR THE SOUL. spiritual good of all within the sphere cf his influence. And I may, I think, dare to say that there cannot be a daily reading of God's Word, thankful acknowledge- ments for mercies received, and prayer for other and more abundant blessings, without good being done. The attention will be roused and won, the mind will be impressed, and it may be, in some favoured instances, the soul will be effectually benefitted. But, even should not these consequences follow, a servant should never have to say, ' No one of all my Masters cared for my soul.' But, 3. How many a Neighbour may say, {f No one careth for my soul." If a Neighbour meet with some sad accident, or what we usually call, misfortune, what a concern we all feel for him! how desirous are we to hear the particulars of the event ! and how wil- ling, generally, to communicate them unto others ! but, who cares for his soul ? who feels concerned foi that? Even if it be said a neighbour is '' sick unto death," or such an one is dying: ' poor thing/ it is* replied ; and there the matter rests : but the soul is not dying ; that is about to pass into the world oi spirits, and where there shall be no more death ; and who is solicitous aboutits pardon and justification here, and its safety and acceptance there ? The mere mani- festation of any carefulness for it, is quite sufficient to displease many : a doubt of its peace and hope almost criminal uncharitableness. Now, ought this so to be ? may we innocently be thus careless for each other's souls? Let us suppose a plague to be prevailing here: many are dead and others dying : One there is who possesses a remedy suited to the disease a remedy, which, if imparted and applied, would heal and save the diseased : He refuses or neglects to impart it : Do you think his conduct neighbourly and kind ? No : and yet a plague is begun amongst us : the dire conta- gion spreads : many are dead out of the Lord and therefore, we are sure, not blessed ; others are dying daily, and, we may justly tear, ' perishing for lack of CARE FOR HIE SOUL. 185 knowledge," and yet, Q-i/et, how many a perishing soul may say, ' No man cares for me !' Oh ! how unkind it is in one that knows the way of salvation and experiences the sweetness of pardoning mercy, not to communicate that knowledge unto others. It is not our's to say with the murderous Cain, ft Am I my brother's keeper?" 1 We are our brother's keeper; " and this commandment have we, that he who loveth God, love his brother also." k It should be to us a pri- velege to do a Neighbour good spiritual good espe- cially, and, if possible, to win his soul to Christ. If, then, fl great things" have been done for you ; go home to your house, among your kinsfolk and ac- quaintance, and tell thenrWho hath done these things for you, and by you let " the savour of His know- ledge be made manifest in every place :" 1 So that a Neighbour whom it isiu jour power to care for, may not henceforward say, * No man careth for my soul.' 4, and finally, How many a Parishioner may say, ' No Minister careth for my soul !' It is true, we pro- fess to trust that we are inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost, and called according to the will of our Lord Jesus Christ, to take the Ministerial Office on us : we are exhorted, as Messengers, Watchmen, and Stew- ards of the Lord, to seek for Christ's sheep which are scattered abroad ; to teach, to premonish, and to pro- vide for, the Lord's family ; and warned, too, of the greatness of the fault and the horrible punishment that must ensue from a neglect of our people's souls ;* but where or in whom shall we find all that fervour of spirit, humbleness of mind, kindness of manner, easi- ness of access, and unreserved devotion of self, strength, and time, which should mark a Minister of Jesus Christ, and the care of immorial souls? Alas! how rarely found is this ! How many Parishes we see with * The Author is aware of having quoted these words before : but he conceives they cauuot be too constantly remembered. 1 Gen. ir, 9, * 1 Johu iv, 21. 2 Cor. ii, 14, 186 CARE FOR THE SOUL. no resident Minister whatever in them : and oftentimes where a Minister resides, is it not too apparent that many a Parishioner may truly say, ' He careth not for my soul?' Seen on the Sabbath for a few hasty minutes, many see no more of theirMinister till the Sabbath comes again. Cared for professionally then, they are cared for no more through the greater remnant of the week. How beats the pulse of spiritual life: how fares the soul whether alive or dead, whether mournful or joyous, whether fed or starved, whether found and safely lodged in the fold of Christ or still a wanderer in ' this naughty world/ is no concern of the gay and worldly minded Minister.* Think : and you will not dispute our say- ing. Many a people now are like the Jews of old " sheep having no Shepherd." Now, I do but notice this in order to excite gratitude for yourselves and sympathy for others. More than one Minister have you whose happiness it is to care for your souls :| and, * How pitiable is it that any one vested with the character and the authority of a Clergyman, should manifest more, far more, care and anxiety about the pedigree of a horse or a dog than for the spi- ritual birth of his people ! Did the reader ever see 'An Essay on the Signs of Conversion and Unconversion in Ministers of the Church ?' By S. C. Wilks, A.M. Printed for Hatchard : Price 3s. See under the head ' recreations.' f The People here addressed, the Reader should be aware, were, at this time, under the united (and, that people will justify the re- mark) affectionate care of the late Rev. T. Martyn, Professor of Botany iu the University of Cambridge, and the Author. The dear and venerable man alluded to, was wont to say, 'He did not wish to live a day longer than he could do good.' Whilst in a conversa- tion memorable for the spirit, animation, and courtesy, with which it was conducted, Professor Martyn, once said, ' C/trist crucified is the only foundation on which we can trust, take that away, and we sink for ever; but give us that, and we are safe;' and declared distinctly, with reference to himself, that the cross of Christ was his only hope : it may, at the same time, as strictly applicable to him, be said, " When the ear heard him, then it blessed him; and when the eye saw him, it gave witness to him : because he delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him. The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon him; aud he caused the widow's heart to sing for joy."* So truly Job. xxix. 1113. CARE I OR THE SOUL. 187 however feeble or unworthy may be our services, 1 be- lieve there is not so much as one individual of the en- tire population of our parish that can say, ' our Mi- nisters care not for our souls.' With self prostrate in dust and ashes, I would observe that this is no small mercy. Next to the gifts of his Son, his Spirit, and his Word, Almighty God himself could not bestow upon you, this side the eternal World, a greater gift than "a Minister of his that will do his pleasure,""* and whose one sole, simple, and sincere desire it is to " spend and be spent" for your souls. Then, pray ye that your Ministers may indeed be " men of God," and that their care for you all may abound yet more and more. From the several instances of carelessness for the soul, we have now adduced, you may, 1 conceive, see clearly, How USUALLY the soul is cared for* I come to say II. Why ESPECIALLY it should be cared for. There are many and cogent reasons why especially the soul should be cared for. Mark the following : 1. The soul should especially be cared for, Because it is the noblest and most enduring part of the visible creation. Not till God had created man upon the earth and breathed into him the breath of life, did he behold with supreme complacency all things which he had made, and declare them to be "i;6vv/good.'' n Man was the master-piece of the Eternal's workmanship. If we contemplate the body with its various parts in our venerated Pastor and Father did " faith work by love." May the Author further be permitted to observe, our People were em- phatically "one." The Church was usually crowded. Communion days were indeed "high days." And though the population of the parish, by the last census, did not exceed 326, yet we numbered 128 communicants four of whom only did not positively belong to UK as parishioners. The life and labours of Professor Martyn closed A.D. 1825. Ps. 103. 21. Gen. i, 31. 188 CARE FOR THE SOUL. the bones, the flesh, the skin covering it above ; the veins, the arteries, the blood in its mysterious flow ; the pulsation, and in short, the every thing connected -with the human frame, we are constrained to acknow- ledge ourselves to be " fearfully and wonderfully made." But what comparison bears the body, with all its variety of parts, with the soul with that rational and immortal spirit that actuates and con- trouls the whole? It is in what regards the soul that " man is but a little lower than the angels." It is the soul that reasons, hopes, fears, recollects, antici- pates. It is the soul that is imperishable : the body returns to the dust again ; the spirit to him who gave it. Only a spiritual substance thinks ; think our soul does ; it must therefore be in its nature spiritual ; and what is in its nature spiritual must necessarily be im- mortal. Our's is a "living soul"* and live it will amidst the decay of nature and after the dissolution of its earthly tenement. If any thing can add weight to the testimony of Scripture on this interesting point, it is that love of life we feel within us and that thrilling shudder which passes sensibly through our mental powers at the thought of ceasing finally and for ever to exist. A dream shews man to be immortal.* And is it not a fact ascertained most truly that through the lapse of years, the particles of our body change, so that the body of the man is not the body of the child, and yet there is in the individual a continued life and a conscious sameness ? On what ground can we account for this, if man hath not within him a living and en- during soul ? Because, then, of the soul's essensial and peculiar excellence should it especially be cared for. 2. The soul should especially be cared for on ac- count of its vast capabilities. The tc soul of a beast," of which in Eccles. iii. 21. we read it "goeth down- * See a beautiful little Poem on * Dreaming-,' Book II. of Olney Hymns. Ps. 8. 5 P Gen. ii, 7. CARE FOR THE SOUL. 1S9 ward," soon arrives to its maturity of existence : it reaches a point beyond which it cannot go. Not so a human soul : there comes no period in its existence at which it may be said John xr, 19. e 2 Tim. i, 9. d Eztk. xvi, 5, 6. LOttD'S MERCIES ENFORCED. 215 jclive by faith on Jesus Christ." It is a new and spi- ritual existence. A something stirs within you that was never felt before. There is an energy of thought, desire, perception, and enjoyment, that proves vitality. Your will that was once obstinately depraved and averse, totally averse, to spiritual good, the Lord hath won, subdued, and made obedient to himself. You cannot now but love what God loves and hate what God hates. His service (which forms the drudgery of the unregenerate man) is your easy, perfect, and de- lightful freedom. And those to you are the sweetest moments of your spiritual life when you can most sim- ply aad truly say C( The will of THE, LOHD be done." The Lord, moreover, hath blessed you with alender -sensibility of conscience. He hath taken " the stony heart out of you and hath given you a heartof flesh/'* With your tears for sin, there mingle joys sweeter far to your spiritual taste than were all the pleasures of sin to sense. You know what that meaneth, " Sorrowing, jet alway rejoicing :" { and " your rejoicing is this, the testimony of your conscience ; that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleihly wisdom, but, by the grace of God, ye have your conversation in the world. " ff You feel what you say and enjoy what you profess. Once ye professed to know God and in works denied him : now you really know him, and in your every act acknowledge him. Once with almost unmeaning; for- mality ye occupied your wonted sittings in the House of Prayer hardly knew wherefore ye were come thi- ther, and expecting, least of all, to meet ^ourGod and Saviour there: now the House of Prayer is to your souls a " Bethel" you feel " the Lord to be in this Place;" and a " PenieP' where the light of God's countenance shines brightly on you. Conscience is be- come the enlightened eye of your understanding : the smallest mote (a thing which, perhaps, the natural man Ezet. xxxvi, 20. * 2 Cor. vi, 10. e 2 Cor. i, 12, 216 CONSIDERATION OF THE discerneth not) distresses it ; and on nothing 1 does it gaze with more intense and rapturous delight than " the glory of God in the face or person of Jesus Christ." Again : You hath the Lord united in one loving and beloved brotherhood. I may truly say as Moses said, " Sirs, ye are brethren/" 1 Anger, and wrath, and cla- mour, and evil speaking cease, in some measure, among you ; and in their stead, the Lord hath given you, "as the elect of God, holy and beloved, to put on bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering/" We " behold how pleasant and joy- ful a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity/' k You can "love your enemies :" and to every one " that names the name of Christ and departs from iniquity," you can give " the right hand of fellow- ship." If one member of your body suffers, ye can sympathize with it in its sorrow; if one be honoured, ye can rejoice with it in its prosperity.* How allow- edly then may we say, "Happy are the people that are in SUCH A CASE; yea, blessed are the people who have the Lord for their God !" But again, the Lord hath united you under one Head, even his Son, Jesus Christ. Your Ministers are no more than instruments whereby ye believe : they are not the Lords of your faith. 1 " One is your Master, even Christ." He is " Head over all things to the * These expressions contained no fulsome adulation when spoken, nor is Ministerial commendation (though to be used sparingly and with judgment) always used without beneficial effect. St. Paul commended his converts often particularly the Thessalonians. (See 2 Epis. i, 3 7.) The truth is Christian principle will inva- riably produce Christian conduct. " Faith works by love:" and how necessarily it does so, may be seen in that very admirable Ho- mily of our Church on ' Good Works.' Let the reader notice par- ticularly tlie FIRST Part on Fasting. The morals of a people will ever correspond with their " belief of the Truth." h Acts vii, 2(5. ' Col. iii, 12. k Ps. 133. 1. 2 Cor. i, 24. LORD'S MERCIES ENFORCED. 217 Church'' the " Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End" of your faith and hope and love the " All'* in all your present and everlasting Salvation. " It pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell." In all respects our Saviour is the Saviour which we need. If we would have in our Saviour a God to save and a man to suffer : in Christ the divine and human natures meet. 1 If we would have "the government" of all things on his shoulder : it is so. m If we would that he who saves should judge us, it shall be so. n If we would " reign in life" behold and share the glory of our Lord ; the recorded promise is, "Where 1 am, there shall my servants be." Such is your ex- alted Head, my People : And how cheeringly sounds the angelic tidings "Unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." p Never be it forgotten by you that though, as concern- ing the flesh, Christ came of the Jewish fathers, yet is he, notwithstanding his human birth, " over all GOD blessed for ever." q His power, truth, faithfulness, and love, are all engaged to succour and befriend you. Be- cause he lives, you shall live. And while you "rejoice in Christ Jesus," and experience the blessedness of communion with him, sure 1 am, you will not refuse to ' bring forth the royal diadem and crown him Lord of all.' With his Son, the Lord hath given you another Comforter, one that is to abide with you not as did your Lord, a period of three and thirty years, but " for ever;" for ever till the ransomed of the Lord re- turn and come to ihe heavenly Zion, and be, like their Divine and gracious Saviour, crowned with everlasting joy. The Holy Spirit is among you as the testifier and gloi ifier of Jesus. It is his office to " take of the things that are his and to shew them unto you." He it is who wins your souls to Christ opens to you the 1 1 Tim. iii, 16. m Isa. ix, 6. " Act? xvii, 31. John xii, 26. f Luke ii, 11. 1 RomJ ix, v. 218 CONSIDERATION OF THE Scriptures sheds abroad the love of God in your hearts strengthens you with all needed might in your inner man enlightens you in darkness and comforts you in sorrow guides you when doubtful prepares you for glory, and leads you on toward "the land of uprightness." Oh! what " great things/' what clustering mercies, are these ! Feel ye but their value and importance, and the expression * Take not, Lord, thy Holy Spirit from us,' will be the prayer not of your lips only. Other and great things hath the Lord done for you. On you he hath bestowed precious means of grace means, without which all that he hath done for you might be unknown to you. Ye have means wherewith few are favoured. Ye will bear me witness that I have kept back nothing that was profitable for you ; but (according to the ability given to me) have taught you both publicly and from house to house, testifying to all repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ/ You have been warned, reproved, be- sought, consoled, counselled and advised, almost indi- vidually : nor has the gracious Bestower of your means left them unblessed to you. O how sweetly sensible have you often been of your Redeemer's presence ! how has the Word come to you with power and in much assurance ! how have you rejoiced in a felt de- liverance from all wrath and condemnation ! And even now it is given you once again to circle round the table of your Lord. May you receive the emblems of his * most precious body and blood" to your 'great and endless comfort!' Go with the shepherds to Bethlehem : gaze on the infant stranger that lies cra- dled in a manger there ; follow him from that manger to the cross, and from the cross to glory ; and me- thinks it will be hard for you to forbear exclaiming, 4 ' What hath God wrought?" " this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes." * Acts xx, 21. LORD'S MERCIES ENFORCED. cr Meditate, then, Beloved, on these things." Yea, think of still greater things than these. There is no- thing which a God of infinite power cannot do : there is nothing which a God of infinite love will not do for his believing and obedient people. Remember " the Everlasting Covenant" God hath made with you, and which is " ordered in all things and sure."* Here to you hath he " given exceeding great and precious promises/' which are all "yea and amen" to everyone that believeth ; l hereafter will he give you to partici- pate his kingdom and his throne/ And the hour ap- proaches when your enemies shall say of you as Israel's enemies said of them, " The Lord hath done great things for them ;" and it will be yours to reply as Israel did, "Yea, the Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we rejoice."" And remember too, "the gifts and callings of God are without repentance:"* free as the air you breathe ; firm as the everlasting hills ; durable as the throne of God ; endless in continuance as eternity. Such are some few of the great things the Lord hath done for you. Let us now inquire II. Why you should consider them : You should consider them, (1.) For the humiliation of your souls; (2.) For the encouragement of your hopes; And (3.) For the excitement of your thanks. Consider what great things the Lord hath done for you (I.) For the humiliation of your souls. Perhaps nothing more effectually humbles the soul than a view of God's gracious goodness contrasted with our deep unworthiness. When like Jacob, you have been fa- 2 Sain, xxiii, 5. * 2 Cor. 1, 20. * Rev. iii, 21. w Ps. 126. 2,3. Rom. xi, 29, 220 CONSIDERATION OF THE voured with rich communications of love and mercy, you will then find Jacob's language expressive of your feelings, " I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which thou hast shewed unto thy servant." y Or when, like Isaiah, you have seen the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filling the Temple, and heard, as it were, the seraphims crying one to another, Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of Hosts ; the whole Earth is full of his glory : then will you most readily acknowledge yourselves to be " a people of unclean lips" and pros- trate your souls most humbly before the infinitely holy Lord God. 1 The God that is " glorious in holiness/' will be to you u fearful in praises." Whilst he is " doing wonders" for you, you will feel sensibly un- worthy of them. Whilst his "mighty hand" upholds and blesses you, you will " humble yourselves under" it. And never are we so secure and happy as when with lowliness and contrition of spirit " we hold us fast by God." The " great things done for you," be it remembered, were, and could, in no wise, be merited by you, " While we were yet enemies," were they wrought out for us. Our Church believes and teaches that no ' works' whatever of our's either make men meet to receive or to deserve grace : a So effectually would she humble the pride of human nature. When, therefore, you consider the graciousness of God's deal- ings with you, let the consideration of his mercies humble your souls before him. But consider them (2 ) For the encouragement of your hopes. Hath the Lord done so great things for you ? Hath he not spared even his own Son ? Then, arguing in the manner of St. Paul, we say, " He that spared not his own Son, but delivered HIM up for us all, how shall he not with him ALSO freely give us all things."* Thus y Gen. xxxii, 10. Isa. vi 1-5. * Art, xiii. * Rom. viii, 32. LORD'S MERCIES ENFORCED. 2*21 may you certainly encourage your hopes in the Divine goodness. " All things are your's" in promise; and what the Lord hath promised, a believer may ask. Every already experienced mercy, should be to you a plea for other and more abundant mercies. Look at Abram as he stands before the Lord interceding for the cities of the Plain. (See Gen. viii. 23 33 ) Every answer to his prayer emboldens him to ask the more ; and it is observable Abram gives over ask- ing before the Lord ceases to bestow. Look at David, too, when he was in the wilderness of Judea : " O God, says he, thou art my God Because thou hast been my help, therefore under the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice." And again, see how beau- tifully the Psalmist encourages his hopes from a con- sideration of what had been done for him " Thou hast delivered my soul from death : wilt thou not deliver my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the land of the living ?" d He had been, you observe, delivered from death : he prays now to walk before his Deliverer, and to be upheld in the paths of righteous- ness and truth. u Go ye and do likewise." The Lord bids you " open your mouth wide," and to encourage you so to do, he adds, " and I will fill it." e You are coming to " the mercy-seat :" bring with you large petitions : ask what ye will ; and doubt not but " he who hath delivered, and doth deliver, \\ill yet deliver you." And consider what the Lord hath done for you. 3. For the excitement of your thanks. What doth the Lord especially require of us in return for all his benefits ? Nothing so much as a grateful acceptance of them. "What shall I render unto the Lord, in- quires the Psalmist, for all his benefits towards me ? 1 will take, he says, the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord." f And in the last verse of the c Ps. 63, 7 d Ps. 5fi, 1.3. < Ps. 81, 10 ' Ps. HC, 1-213. 222 CONSIDERATION OF THE 50th Psalm, the Lord himself says "Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me." God is not so "wonderful in counsel, so excellent in working," or so supremely happy amidst the halleluias of the heavenly host, but he bows down a listening and delighted ear to the whisper of thanksgiving upon earth. " Praise is comely for the upright." " A joyful and a pleasant thing it is to be thankful." Thankfulness is the plea- sure of piety : and to excite your thankfulness con- sider. While you muse, the fire will kindle in your heart, and at the last you will speak with your tongue. The things done for you demand perpetual praise. " Ponder" on them like the Virgin Mother of our Lord : Do so till your " mouths praise him with joy- ful lips/' Draw nigh with faith unto the table of Jesus Christ. Feed on him by faith in your heart with thanksgiving. So will " the Father of mercies" te rejoice over you to do you good ;" and in your hum- ble, hopeful, thankful, spirits, will he "fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness and the work of faith with power." I have now inquired What great things the Lord hath done for you, and Why you should consider them. And dividing you into two parties, I say 1. To those who to-day partake of the Communion, We hope, Beloved, that you both have considered and will consider the great things which the Lord hath done for you. To you " he yet waits to be gracious." Be, then, all alarm and terror put away from you. " Have faith in God." Come " upon the multitude of his mercies" to his altar. "God is Love," and in love has appointed this holy ordinance for the suste- nance and comfort of your souls. Love will excuse infirmity and accept desire. Sinful your heart may be : but God asks you to give it to him : if he asks he will accept it : and accepting it, he will renew and heal and gladden it. And then shall you, with a heart sprinkled from an evil conscience, go your way LORD'S MERCIES ENFORCED. 223 " rejoicing for all the wondrous things which ye have seen and heard." 2. To those who will not to-day partake of the Com- miurion, I say, We trust that though you turn from us and go away, some of you will yet leave your desires and hearts behind you. We do not advise an inconsi- derate coming to the Communion. No ; by no means. We would rather much that you should t( sit down first and count the cost" of a religious profession. We would have you, however, to consider the great things God hath done, is doing, and will do for his servants. Consider them till you " covet earnestly" to share them. Think how doubtful your Christianity must be while ye call Jesus " Lord" and " do not the things which he says." Think as you homeward go, ' Well, I have left many to do what Jesus Christ com- mands us in remembrance of him : Can / be like them ? Where is my love to Jesus ? Why am 1 not prostrate at his table Most in wonder, love, and praise' in the consideration of his mercies ? Shall I be wel- comed to the Marriage Supper of the Lamb in glory, if I continue still to slight and neglect it here?' Thus think and enquire : and it may possibly lead to discoveries sad, perhaps, and humbling on your part, but great and merciful on God's part that will in- duce you to exclaim on every Christmas- Day which succeeds the present and to exclaim with still new and increasing fervour, " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men/' DISCOURSE XVI, PARTICIPATION OF THE LORD'S SUPPER IMPROVED. PSALM 116. 12. What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits towards me ? WHEN the Heaven and the Earth were made and all the host of them, God rested? The mighty energy of His mighty mind, had produced this material Universe. With feelings of Divine complacency, ' ' God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." 5 Thus (in a degree vastly interior, we must, indeed, allow ; but thus} it is with ourselves. When our attention, strength, or time, has been occupied about anything more than usually important, there is a disposition in us to rest ; and either to enjoy the sa- tisfaction of having accomplished our object of to an- ticipate the result of our labour. This disposition I believe to be prevalent in many among you at this mo- ment.* You have been doing a great work: You have been making a public avowal of your faith in a * Preached in the evening of a day on which the Sacrament had been administered ; and on which (if the Author mistake^ not) 116 of his beloved Flock communicated. Exod. xx, 11. b Gen. i, 31. PARTICIPATION OF THE LORD'S SI P PER 225 crucified Redeemer : Angels and men, yea, the Lord of both, have witnessed your " professed subjection" to Jesus Christ: With more than ordinary solemnity you have taken " the cup of salvation and called upon the Name of the Lord:" Now, then, you pause: You look upward to the world where yourRedeemer reigns, and you feel, perhaps, that to depart and to be with Christ, would be "far better" than to sojourn longer here : You look inward on yourselves, and behold, with humble and adoring thankfulness, what great things God hath done for you: Contented, if it be his will to "abide in the flesh" and therein to serve your Lord, you look around you here and enquire how you shall best fulfil your duties; how most surely "pay that ye have vowed ;" how most surely, amidst the ne- cessary cares and businesses of life, keep alive the ar- dour of the fire which grace hath kindled in you ; how, in sho*t, " adorn in all things the Doctrine of God our Saviour." In this state of calm tranquillity and sober joy, the question " W licit shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me ?" naturally presents itself. Accommodating this text to our purpose, let us consider I. The benefits to be derived from a worthy participation of the Lord's Supper. And II. The duties immediately connected with our partaking of it. We are to consider I. The BENEFITS to be derived from a worthy partici- pation of the Lord's Supper., These are great and estimable. We mean not to say they are necessarily derivable from a participation of the Ordinance : The Ordinance is appointed for '* the Faithful' only; and by ' the Faithful' only are ' the body and blood of Christ verily and indeed taken and received in the Lord's Supper/ To those, then, who worthily partake of it, there is derived 226 PARTICIPATION OF THE (1.) A stronger Jaith. We, in our present state of imperfect being, are creatures of sense. Any thing; risible and tangible, therefore/ makes a much more powerful impression on our mind than mere abstract truths or spiritual things. Hence, when we see the bread broken and the wine poured out, we can more sensibly realize the facts implied the body and blood of Jesus Christ broken and poured out for sin. Our faith becomes "theevidence of things not seen." And as we exercise it on the work, the life, the death, the love of Jesus, our faith "grows," and, in some fa- voured seasons, " grows exceedingly" The Holy Spirit especially blesses meditation on "the cross of Christ" to our "furtherance and joy of faith." Like as Abraham after he had offered the ram in sacrifice in the stead of his Son, was " strong in faith, giving glory to God ;" so the Christian Worshipper, after a worthy participation of the commemorative Supper of his Lord, "waxes stronger and stronger." He be- comes more simply and entirely dependent on "the dying of the Lord Jesus." With lessening hesitation lie grounds his eternal all on the atonement of the Son of God. He receives evident and sensible pledges of his Saviour's love. His faith becomes to him " a sub- stance" a felt reality, the worth of which is "Jar more precious than of gold that perisheth." This is one benefit to bederived from a believing participation of the body and blood of our Saviour, Christ. Another is (2.) A more full persuasion of the Di- vine favour. Some pretend we cannot be persuaded of the Divine favour, and. that as to any persuasion of God's love toward us and our acceptance with him, it is all enthusiasm, nonsense, or something worse. But Avhat says St. Paul ? *' I am persuaded that neither life nor death shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." c And what mean we when we pray for 'such a sense of c Rom. viii, 38, 39. LORD'S SUPPER IMPROVED. 227 God's mercies,' as will fill our hearts with thankful- ness, and dispose us unreservedly to serve and honour Him ? When, by the Holy Spirit's quickening and regenerating power, we become sensible of our sinful- ness and aware of our desert, we are ready almost to conclude, "There is no hope." d We struggle, how- ever, for deliverance : we " hope even against hope : and under the gracious guidance and efficacious influ- ence of the Holy Spirit our trembling hope gradually ripens into sweet persuasion : and when, by faith, we take the holy Sacrament, this persuasion becomes more full and general. We learn to "joy in God" Our conviction of his favour becomes as real and percepti- ble to our souls, as the kindness of any earthly friend would be to our bodily senses. We " walk in love;" and though all beside should frown upon us, yet the smile of a u reconciled Father in Christ" would make us gladsome and happy. A further benefit will consequently be (3.) An in- crease of love to Jesus Christ and to each other. We are naturally averse to Jesus Christ : no one naturally wills that this man should reign over him : it is, too, the Enemy's one great effoit to keep us apart from Christ and ignorant of him. But, when we have found pardon and peace through his blood, how can we but desire and love him ? Now, it is in the Communion of his body and blood that Jesus Christ, in a more pe- culiar and gracious manner, presents himself to our acceptance and our love. Our mind's eye sees him t( led away to be crucified :" we follow him in thought to Calvary: we behold him there suspended between the Heavens and the Earth as an outcast from both ; his hands and feet and head lacerated and torn with wounds ; his body besmeared with blood, and his soul the seat of agony and woe unutterable. " Lovcst thou me ?" seems the enquiry wherewith this scene is prsg nant : "Lord," reply our grateful hearts, "Thau * Jer. ii,2*. PARTICIPATION OF THE knowest all things ; Thou knowest that we love thee." And this love, though it falls, confessedly, far short of what we owe a dying Saviour, will yet, we trust, be increased in us ever more and more.' And to each other, also, we feel more and more attached as partak- ers together of that Stephen calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, re- cieve my spirit. And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said thls t adds the sacred Historian, he fell asleep" We will now inquire I. What death is to the Believer ; And II. Whence it is he dies so calmly. In inquiring, I. What death is to the believer, We observe that it is H sleep ; a. peaceful sleep ; a sleep from which he wifl awake ; and, finally, a sleep into which j when once awakened) he will Jail again no more, ft DEATH TO THE BELIEVER, Death is to the believer a sleep. This is the simple and beautiful term by which the inspired writers de- signate death. The term conveys to us an idea of the placidity and calmness m which a believer dies. Be- fore Christ came., a future state of immortal being 1 wa& revealed, indeed, and believed ; but not so distinctly revealed aod so fully believed, as it was after the birth and ministry of our Lord. Abraham saw the day of the Redeemer and looked for an heavenly country ; Jacob waited for his Lord's salvation ; Job knew that his Redeemer lived and that he should in his flesh see God ; David anticipated a re-union with his departed son, and expected to join him in a world of spirits; but it was reserved for Jesus Christ more fully to de- clare the reality of that heavenly country, the nature and the means of the Lord's salvation, the certainty of the body's resurrection, and the re-union of believers- with their Head and with each other in a world of light and glory. A believer's death is now no more than the transition of the soul from a tabernacle of clay to a " house not made with hands." The day of his natural life declines ; the shadows of its evening fall around h m ; wearied and exhausted nature needs repose ; its strength is weakness, yea, it may be, labour and sorrow, and in the appointed moment the believer falls "asleep." Nor is it a troublous rest: no; it is a peaceful sleep. "Mark the perfect man, and be- hold the upright, for the end of that man is peace."* The stroke of death the pain of dying, is, as it were, the kind alarm which leads a child to shelter and repose in the bosom of Paternal love. Since the Re- deemer died, death hath been abolished. By descend- ing, too, into the grave, he hath dispelled the grave's dark horrors, and sanctified the resting-place of his dear and believing people. Thus is that saying ful- filled, " O death, I will be thy plagues ; O grave, I be thy destruction. " b The grave, therefore, is a Ps. 37. 37. * Hos, xiii. 14 r DEATH TO THE BELIEVER. now no more than the bed where all that can die of a believer rests in peaceful hope. No cares disturb him ; no pains, no fears, no doubts, molest him. Peaceful sleep his ashes, whilst his soul is peacefully at ease where " there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, and where there shall be no more pain." c A fairer, holier, and therefore happier, world than our's receives the believer till all that could die of him has slept its destined sleep and wakes again : For hia death, we observe, is but a sleep, and a sleep from v/fic/i he shall oicake. " I heard a voice from Heaven, saying," and what said the heavenly voice? "Blessed are the dead :" and wherefore blessed ? Because " they rest from their labours and their works do fol- low them ;" and because, too, " them that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him" from the chamber of the tomb d The night of death will pass away ; the morn- ing of the resurrection dawn, and " the dead in Christ shall rise." "The righteous shall have dominion over them (/. e. their enemies, and among their enemies, Sin, Satan, Death, and Hell) in the morning." 6 " Lazarus shall rise again" said "the Resurrection and the Life" to the sorrowing Martha : and at his bidding Lazarus arose. In like manner, in what age soever the believer slept in Jesus, he shall " rise again/' Nothing shall resist the voice which says ce Come forth." " Death and the grave must yield up their dead." "That which was sown in weakpess, shall be raised in power; that which was sown a natural, shall be raised a spiritual body." The pains and the diseases of the believer shall be felt no more. He shall come forth from his chamber, rejoicing as the sun, to pursue a sinless, cloudless, glorious, course : There shall be night no more ; nor need of the sun or of the moon to lighten him : for the former things are pa&sed away, and the Lord shall be his everlasting light, and his God hi* glory. Hence we are led to observe that the believer's xi. 4. d Rev. xiv. 13. t Thss, iv, 14. e Ps.49. 14. DEATH TO THE BELIEVER. death is a sleep into ic/tick when once awakened, he will fall again no more. No, no more for ever ! tc Death hath no more dominion over" twist our Lord : Death shall have no more dominion over owe- that believes and loves a-n-d server him, and is u risen together witb him." As surely as "He that was dead is alive again and liveth for evermore," so surely shall the Believer live for ever. IH the new heavens and the new earth '* there shall be, says the beloved John, no more death."* No : the pu- rified and ennobled powers of a redeemed Saint, will be too vigorous ever to need repose. Enfeebled age ; woFn-otrt strength ; wasting disease ; tears of separa- tion ; pangs of dissolution ; funereal pomp-; theslumt- toers of death ; will never be wititessed or experienced in the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour. No "second death" awaits the Believer. Eternal life i* tl>e gift of God in his dear Son ;; and " whoso liveth and belie veth- ia hrrn shall never die." "The Right- eous hath hope in his death :" that hope contains the germ of immortality, and beyond the sigh of expiration that germ shall bloom in rich, luxuriant, and unfailing blessedness. Such is Death to the Believer. We come n.ow to enquire II. Whence it is he dies so calmly. And whence 1 is it ? Simply because he is a Believer. By faith he becomes interested in all the benefits which result from ' the meritorious cross and passion' of Jesus Christ. He believes, as? the hearers of Apollos did " through grace, " g and by faith he lives upon the treasured and exhaustless fulness of his Lord. While, therefore, viewed in Nature's light, there is a some- thing terrible in Death, yet faith 1 in a crucified and exalted Saviour, spoils Death of its apparent terror, and discovers through 1 its momentary gloom a land of Kev. xxi. 4. See,- too, cti. ixii. 1 5.- % Acts xviii. 27. DEATH TO THE BELIEVER. 245 light and life and glory. Hence Paul desired "rather to depart/' and was assured that it would be " gain to die." Hence Stephen also with a calmness and com- posure the most dignified and beautiful, " kneeled down" amid the stones his murderers were showering on him, and after praying for the remission of their sin, he closed his eyes and calmly slept in Jesus. Now like the martyr Stephen, the Believer partakes of the Holy Ghost ; sees Jesus standing on God's right hand ; and has a Friend to whose care he way commit his de-> parting spirit. And ( 1 . ) He partakes of the Holy Ghost. Stephen was "filled with the Holy Ghost:" Some measure of the same Divine and Gracious Spirit does every Be- liever possess. He it is who makes the Word of truth effectual for the regeneration and conversion of the soul. He it is who shews a man his sinfulness ; humbles him on account of it; wins him to Christ; disposes and enables him to glory only in the cross ; draws lip his mind to high and heavenly things ; leads him to see how good is the will of the Lord concern- ing him, and how surely in keeping God's command- ments there is a great reward. Happy, because holy, to the Believer are the ways of Piety. Swiftly obe- dient is he, because obedience to him is sweet. At- tractless and tasteless are the things of sense, because he walks and lives by faith. He feels a stranger here and waits to see "the* land that is very far off" far off and infinitely removed from sin, sorrow, pain, and death ; and where his te King reigns in his beauty." 1 * Then, what has the Believer to fear from Death ? What is there to prevent his falling calmly to sleep ? He sees " the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ ;" he sees it, too, in the humiliation of his own soul and in the renovation of his own heart : he "looks up sted- festly into Heaven," and anticipates with humble con- b Isa. xxxiii. 17, 246 DEATH TO THE BELIEVER. fidence a personal possession of its blessedness. The Spirit which conies to convince the world of sin, to testify of Jesus, and to win and sanctify the soul, will take with him back to the throne of God and of the Lamb every sinner that shall " believe with the heart unto righteousness.'' If so, then has the Believer cause to reckon Death amongst his treasures,' and to look with patient resignation and cheerful hope for "the rest which remains for tiie people of God." But (2.) Pic sees Jesus standing on God's right hand not indeed us the martyr Stephen Mas favoured to see him, visibly, but \>y J'ailh. And whilst the Be- liever sees the Son of Man thus standing on the right hand of God, he recollects the Saviour's prayer that " where He is those who believe on him may be also." k Him the Father heareth alway with acceptance and delight ; and whatsoever he may ask, the Father will doubtless vouchsafe. In a per- suasion of this sweet truth, the Believer may smile in Death, and even desire rather to close his eyes on all terrestrial things. He that was " delivered for our of- fences and raised for our justification," now " ever liveth to make intercession for us." In dust he lay; from the dust he rose ; now he livetb, and is, he says, "alive for evermore." ' If then, may the Believer say, I die with my Lord, I shall also live with him : The Spirit which raised up Jesus my Lord from the dead shall also quicken my mortal body : this mortal shall put on immortality : I shall not die, but live : I have an Advocate with the Father : spiritual blessiogs in heavenly places await me : a blood-bought crown, a golden harp, victorious palms, and conqueror's robes, are reserved for me beyond the Grave ; why, then, should 1 fear to die ? why fear to die even a Martyr's death, since, amid the murderous persecutions of his enemies, the believing Stephen died so calmly ?' Oh ! * 1 Cor. iii. 22. k John xvii. 20. 24. DEATH TO THE BELIEVER. what an antidote to the fear of Death should be tl6 sure undoubted fact of Jesus being at the right hand of God. " For the suffering of Death, he was, in- deed, made a little lower than the angels;" but now do we see him " crowned with glory and honour:" -and looking heavenward, the Believer may fearlessly close his eyes on things troublous at best and afflictive, to open them in a world of cloudless glory and unsul- lied purity. And in life's last conflict, when the sleep of death steals over him, he has (3.) A Friend, to whose care he may commit his de- parting spirit. Either with David he may say, tc Info thy hands I commend in if spirit, for thou hast redeemed it, O Lord, God of truth?' or with Stephen, " Lord Jesus, receive mij Spirits' Unspeakably pre- cious is this privilege. Our earthly friends may, in their love, go with us to the verge of the valley ef the shadow of death ; but there the dearest tics must be severed, and a last adieu be bidden. One there is, however, that can be with us in the shadowy vale, support and cheer us through it, and while our eyes are closing in death, can give to our souls such brightening views of celes- tial glory as will enrapture our departing spirits and fill them with desire to wing their upward flight. As amidst the ocean's billows, the shipwrecked mariner clings with increasing earnestness to the floating plank, so amidst the agonies of dying the Believerlays a firmer hold upon the hope of life in Christ. He sees his Lord above him in the world of blessedness;: and whilst he hears the gracious words, " Fear not, for I am with thee ; be not afraid, for I am thy God.: When thou passest through the waters, they shall not over- flow thee : Thou art mine ; I have called thee by thy name : Nothing shall by any means hurt you : Be- cause I live ye shall live, and where I am, ye shall be" how certainly may he commit the keeping of his soul to Jesus! "Receive my spirit" may he cry; 1 Ps. 3L Su Isa. idiiu 248 DEATH TO THE BELIEVER, and " very gracious will the Lord be to him at the voice of his cry." m And when he hath said this, se- renely, hopefully, happily, may he fall asleep. " So doth the Lord give his Beloved sleep;"" 1 and hence it js the Believer dies so calmly. We have now inquired what Death is to the Be- liever, and whence it is he dies so calmly. Permit me, in conclusion, my Brethren, to EXHORT you 1, To awake from the slumbers of sin: Hovr many, alas ! are there " dead in trespasses and sins !" How many with no spiritual life what- ever within them ! Such, while they continue so, cannot possibly " sleep in Jesus" or " die in the Lord." You must be enlightened with " the light of life," if ye would be peaceful and happy when the curtains of death are drawn around you. As, therefore, Paul said to the careless among the Ephe- sians, so say I to you " Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee lis:ht." u Do not be saying in your heart, "A little more sleep, a little more slumber, a little more fold- ing of the hands to sleep." Take care lest your sleep in sin be perpetuated till you sleep in death. Take care lest when rt many of them, who sloep in the dust of the earth awake," you rise not to shine as the firmament and as the stars for ever and ever, but, to shame and everlasting contempt.? You may suppose it time enough jet to enquire into your spiritual state, character, and situation. Because the Bridegroom tarrieth and the Lord delayeth his coming, you may therefore, you conceive, securely " slumber and sleep :" but, O, remember, the (f Be- hold, he cometh !" may be said in a moment of which P?. 127. 2. Ch. v. 14. Piov. vi. 10. p Dun, xii. 2. DEATH TO THE UELIEYER. 249 you arc not aware ; and when ye should be ready to go forth to meet him, what an awful discovery will it be to find you have "no oil in your vessels," and yourselves all-unprepared for the marriage Supper of the Lamb ! The unbeliever will know no sweet repose in death. He is represented as being " driven away in his death ;" >l and whither is he driven ? On the shore of what world will his immortal spirit land ? Which will he swell, the halleluias of the blessed or the bowlings of the damned ? " If he die, shall he live again ?" Shall even the hope of life alleviate the pains of "the second death?" Shall the unregenerate unforgiven soul find rest or repose in hell ? No : he may seek death seek to lose all conscious being, but he shall not find it/ I would, then, that ye should "give no sleep to your eyes, or slumber to your eye- lids" until you are "alive from the dead," and recon- ciled to God through the death of his Son. " Awake, O sleeper, and call upon thy God," if so be thou mayest yet live the life, and die the death of a Be- liever in Jesus. I exhort you 2. To believe on tlic Lord Jesus Christ. Be not satisfied with the notion that such an one as Jesus Christ exists, or that he is the Saviour of the world, and therefore as a thing of course, your Sa- viour. His being a Saviour and the Saviour of others, will avail you nothing unless you knov him to be your Saviour. In the days of health and strength, while imagination places death far from you, you may not deeply feel your need of Jesus Christ : but, however men may live without him, it is dreadful to die with- out him. With him and by faith in him, even a Mar- tyr, as you have seen, could die in peace ; without him, to die peacefully in the true sense of the word, is impossible. There must be a simple affiance in the Lord's atoning blood, an affectionate deference to his i Fiov. xiv, oi. ' [lev. ix, 6. 250 DEATH TO THE BELIEVER. l, and a believing dependence on his power, ere you can " die the death of the Righteous." We must come to him now if we would go to him hereafter. Believe, then, on the Lord Jesus Christ. If it be hard and contrary to Nature to believe on him, cry, "Lord help thou our unbelief: Lord increase our faith ;" and you will sooxi find that " nothing is too foard for the Lord." Let what has so lately happened among you enforce my exhortation- You have seen both the flower nipped in the bud* green in the morning, in the evening cut down, dried up, and wi- thered ; and you have seen (if we may so say) the sturdier oak that had endured the winds and storms of fourscore years and six, laid prostrate in the dust. What say these things ? They say that " man which is born of woman hath but a short time to live :" that though a man may reach to fourscore years, yet is life, at its utmost period, but as " a vapour which appeareth for a little while and then vanisheth away." And yet in this little while, how great is the work we have to do! Ask ye, "What shall I do that I may work the works of God?" I answer, "This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent." 3 Then, be doing it. I do assure you that it is a work which even the longest life will not suffice perfectly to do. He to whom we have before alluded told me his lengthened life seemed to be almost nothing when he reviewed it. I lately stood beside his dying bed, and it is from watching the closing slumbers of a dying man, that I come to tell you that NONE BUT CHRIST can make a death-bed happy, that NONE BUT A BELIEVER in Christ can die happily. Christ was the " All" of his dependence whose passing bell so lately met your ear. f Blessed and heavenly/ did he call his Saviour, and with his almost expiring breath did he say, ' There is * Allusive to an Infant's death which occurred the day after J. L.'s John vi. '28. 29. DEATH TO TIIL BEL1EVKR. none else can do me good.' " And when he had said this, he fell asleep" asleep, we hope, in Jesus ; and will, we trust, be found, at least * a little one" in the Redeemer's everlasting kingdom. Think now of this ; and may ye be " of those ic/io believe to the saving of the soul /" I exhort you 3. and finally, To do now what you purpose doing. te Now is the accepted time :" now is the Lord dis- pensing mercy and salvation. Delay is the parent of bitter regrets. Bitter were his regrets who has just been taken from us. I recollect his calling himself one day, while tears of anguish rolled down his fur- rowed cheeks, ' A poor, miserable, wretched man for not remembering his Creator and Saviour all his life long.' ' Can God (he added) have mercy upon me? Will Christ receive my soul ? Oh ! that I had sought and served him from my youth up! 1 * Beloved, this powerfully speaks to you all : to you, ye aged ; to you, ye young ; to you, ye friends of the deceased. If be could speak to you from the eternal world, me- thinks he would say to one and all of us, " What thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might ; for there is no work or device in the Grave whither ye are hasten- ing." And here let me observe if a few more weeks of health and strength had been added to the earthly life of this poor man, he would probably have approach- ed the Table of his Lord : There now he has never been ; and be assured his neglect of the holy Com- munion was any thing but consolatory to his depart- ing spirit. Hear this, ye that despise, or lightly re- gard, or willingly neglect, the sacred Mysteries of our Faith. Beware how death comes and finds you forget- ful of your Lord's command ; and ifye desire to remem- ber " the dying of the Lord Jesus," and, as ft bought with ? price, to glorify Him in your bodies and in your * From my youth up," 1 was a favourite expression of J. L's. 252 DEATH TO THE BELIEVER ; spirits which are his" delay no longer : pray for grace M hereby to bring your good desire to good effect so shall your last end be honourable to your Lord, and blessed to yourselves : " 4 peaceful sleep ; A gentle wafting to immortal rest," DISCOURSE XVIIL YOUTHFUL PIETY, ECCLESIASTES Xll, 1. Remember now thij Creator in the days of thy youth, PIETY is amiable and lovely in all., but peculiarly so in young people. It gives an excellence and a worth to character which education of the most va- ried and costly kind cannot give without it. It is piety, rather than birth or wealth or learning, that gives (he most pleasing polish to both the mind and manner of our youth. It is eertainly conducive to their highest and noblest interests ; for why else should its adoption come recommended to us both by Scrip- tural precept and example ? We may gather, I con- ceive, from Scripture, that though " His tender mer- cies are over all his works," yet the Lord's loye to- wards the young is a very gracious and peculiar love. In Isaiah xl and 11 he is compared to a Shepherd who whilst he leadeth his sheep leadeth the elders of his people, carrieth h lambs carrieth the little ones of his Jlock in his bosom, and foldeth them in his arms. When too, "the High and Lofty One" humbled him- self, took upon him our nature, and became "the Man Christ Jesus/' we find him regarding children with peculiar favour, reproving those who would have kept them from him, and saying, "Suffer little chil- dren to come unto me ana forbid them not, for of such 254 YOUTHFUL PIETY. (and like such, in their dependence, humility, meek- ness, and teachableness) is the kingdom of God. " a Re- peatedly also are youth exhorted to be pious in holy Scripture : and among the many exhortations to youth- ful piety with which the Bible is stored, our text forms one of a singularly apt and beautiful kind. " Remem- ber remember now- remember now f/u/ Creator remember now thy Creator in the duijs ojthy ijouth." Favour me, then, with your attention while I en- deavour I. To say wherein Youthful Piety consists : II. To obviate some Objections to it : III. To state some Reasons for it : And IV. To recommend it earnestly to the Young among you. As we discuss these several heads, the subject of Youthful Piety will come fully, And, I trust, profit- ably under our consideration. I will endeavour I. To say wherein YOUTHFUL PIETY consists: It consists in a ready, filial, and grateful remem- brance of God a remembrance which induces ac- quiescence in the Divine will and subjection to it. 1 John iii, 23. c 1 Thess. iv, 3. a .'er. iii, -k TOOTHFUL PIETY. 255 Christ, and in the Spirit of adoption, is Youthful Piety. But it will more easily appear wherein Youthful Piety consists if \ve instance the family of a truly Christian Parent. As a truly Christian Parent, he will, of course, have the well-being of his children very nearly at heart. In all his conduct towards them ; in all his treatment of them ; in all he requires of them, he will design only their improvement and happiness. His children may not always be told the reasons of the Father's conduct towards them, or be satisfied as to its wisdom and propriety : but this, if they be meek, yielding and submissive, will not much concern them, nor will it be otherwise than pleasant and delightful to honour and obey a Father whom they love. Now r their Father may know them to be in a world of sin and danger: Calling tohimone of his youthful charge, we may suppose him to say, ' My child, you live in a wicked ensnaring world ; its people are generally vain, and foolish ; its ways are frivolous and absurd ; its friendships are hypocritical and delusive ; its god is the Devil; him and all his works you have promised to renounce ; I must require you, therefore, not to af- fect the world, not to court its society, or to desire its pleasures.' What duteous child would question the Father's judgment or refuse to acquiesce in the Fa- ther's will ? The Father too may see the youthful mind of a child set with intense delight upon some mere trifle. He watches fora favourable moment, and says, f Come here, my child ; you seem greatly pleased with that trifle : now listen to me ; go and throw that thing into the fire, and I will give you something really valuable/ The countenance of the child is clouded. It has yet nothing in the stead of what it so much loves and and longs to retain. The Parent, however, must be obeyed : He is known to be too kind to require any thing for his children's hurt : With, perhaps, a sor- rowing heart and a tearful eye, the trifle is thrown 256 YOUTHFUL PIETY. away; the Father's promise is believed and his com- mand obeyed : When it pleases him, he fulfills his word; the child becomes fully satisfied with his good- ness, and enjoys with mingled feelings of surprise and pleasure, the richer good it has acquired. A child may, moreover, be sick, and, to human view, declining for death. A tender Parent is all- anxious to ease and save him : He prepares a medicine: it maybe bitter and nauseous to the taste: there may be, at first, unwillingness on the part of the child to take it. ' My child, may we suppose the Father to say, you are very ill; you must die without relief: 1 have procured a medicine which, if you will take it, may do you good : Do, I intreat you, take it.' Possi- bly with hesitation and reluctance, it is taken ; it avails for good ; pain* is alleviated ; ease is afforded ; health is restored, and the life is saved. What now will be the feelings of such a child towards its Parent ? Will the Father's love be forgotten ? Surely not; but ra- ther a deeper and a more grateful remembrance of the Father and the Father's love will be felt within the bosom of the child. Or should, unhappily, the child fce forgetful of its Parent and his kindness abuse au- thority, or act contrary to known commandments, the Father's "loving correction" shall humble it, bring its fault to remembrance, and induce a purer and more earnest desire to tc walk in all pleasing" than was ever felt before. Now, let the Father we have supposed be tc the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ/ 1 and the child we have supposed be the child of God's gracious adop- tion, and the conduct we have described will be Youthful Piety. The Lord Almighty says to his every son and daugh- ter Matt. x,28. YOUTHFUL PIETY. 203 ment of self their one great and exclusive aim ? If we differ in taste, sentiment, feeling, desire, and hope, from the worldling, the " would-be rich," and the sen- sualist, it should be to us matter of devout thanks- giving, and one pleasing proof to our minds that we are "born of God," and really his children. "If," says the once despised Jesus, and poor Immanuel, "ye were of the world, the world would love you : but be- cause ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." k Let it hate you, thou Youthful Christian: it hated your Lord before it hated you : and if you suffer with him whether in the word or by the conduct, of the world, you shall also reign with him, and acquire that honour and advancement which the words " Come ye blessed children of my Father," so abundantly imply. Having now endeavoured to obviate some objec- tions to Youthful Piety, I come III. To state some REAsoNsybr // .' There are many and powerful Reasons for Piety in early life : Mark the following : (1.) It is reasonable in itself. When the Holy Spirit by the Apostle Paul, beseeches us by the mercies of God to present ourselves, as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to him, he calls our so doing a ^reasonable service." 1 And surely it can be none other than rea- sonable that a creature should remember his Creator ; a redeemed creature his Redeemer ; and an immor- tal creature that immortality which awaits him. We execrate ingratitude one towards another : is there no- thing execrable in an ungrateful forgetfulness of our Maker? Soon, then, as reason dawns, should it be exercised in acquiring the knowledge of God, and of Jesus Christ whom he hath sent. If Piety be ever a reasonable thing, it cagnot be unreasonable in Youth. k John xv, 19. l Rom. xii, 1. 264 YOUTHFUL PIETY. (2.) God requires if. It is GOD who says, "Re- member now thy Creator in the days of thy Youth." f( My son, says he again, give Me thy heart ;" Let me be throned in your affections and desires : (< I will not give my glory to another : Thou shalt have no other gods but me : It is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth ; take, therefore, my yoke upon you." Now, "will a man rob God?" Yet, " ye have robbed me," may God justly say to those of our Youth who forget him and refuse him the homage of their heart. They rob him of the best, because the earliest, of their time and strength. God requires our remembrance of him for our good. " Great peace," says the holy Psalmist, "have they that keep thy law ; and nothing shall of- fend them." When, therefore, the Father of our spirits says, et Remember ME," he says in effect, "Be peaceful and be happy." In this way, then, O young man, mayest thou "rejoice, and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy Youth." (3.) The mind when young is more susceptible of im- pression. There is in youth a susceptibility of mind, very rarely to be found in grown or elderly people. Well known it is to those who are at all conversant with aged persons, how hard, in general, it is to make them understand things. Whereas, the truths of Re- velation plainly and affectionately stated, will often produce impressious of a most pleasing kind in earlier life and on the more youthful mind. A character will thus be formed of sterling and substantial worth. Where a filial fear of God becomes the grand and rul- ing principle of action, the reply of the young man Joseph will be present in the hour of temptation and trial "How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God ?" n Nature, indeed, and sense, will still be opposed to truth and holiness : but the corruption of Nature will yield to the prevalence of grace ; and w Ps. 119. 165 n Gen. xxxix, !). YOUTHFUL PIETY. 265 the "babe" will eventually attain to "manhood," and become