o ~ 9 ^^ c^OUxA-u**y SERMONS, PREACHED IN THE PARISH CHURCH OF HIGH WYCOMBE. BY THE REV. CHARLES BRADLEY, VICAR OF GLASBURY, BRECKNOCKSHIRE ; AND MINISTER OP ST. JAMES'S CHAPEL, CLAPHAM, SURREY. THE NINTH EDITION. VOL. I. LONDON : PRINTED FOR HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO. PATERNOSTER-ROW. 1833. LONDON : IBOT80N AND PALMED, PRINTERS, SAVOY STREET, STRAND. DEDICATION. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE EARL OF LIVERPOOL. V s7 I? 1 ! ~l*l ." ; TOltl 61 -'^I'^oH 'i ''ij ' MY LORD, X WHEN an unsolicited instance of your kindness first led me to wish that I might be allowed to offer you this public testimony of my gratitude, I was withheld from making this wish known to your Lordship, by a consciousness of the want of every pretension to literary excel- lence in my intended publication, and by con- siderations connected with the humble station of its author. A little reflection however convinced me, that the hesitation which originated in such IV DEDICATION. objections as these, ought not to have been in- dulged. I recollected that your Lordship sus- tained a higher character, than that of a peer or a statesman ; and I knew that the meanest volume might possess recommendations which a Christian would estimate more highly, than the brightest displays of intellect or the richest graces of lan- guage. That these recommendations are to be found in the following pages, is more perhaps than it becomes me to assert ; but they would never have appeared before the public under the sanc- tion of your name, had I not hoped that the principles inculcated in them are those of a book which you venerate, and of a church which you love. The efforts you have made to promote the religious education of the poor, and the zeal you have manifested in extending the circulation of the holy scriptures and in facilitating the public worship of the Almighty, are sufficient indica- tions that the value of these principles is not DEDICATION. V unknown to your Lordship ; and I feel assured that I cannot offer you a more acceptable tribute of the gratitude I owe you, than by earnestly praying that the influence of these sacred truths may daily become more powerful in your breast, and their blessedness more richly enjoyed in your heart. They can do more, my Lord, than render you a benefactor to the church, an ornament to your country, and a blessing to the world. They can make you the servant and the friend of God, the citizen of a kingdom which cannot be moved, and the heir of a glory which fadeth not away. I have the honour to remain, my Lord, Your Lordship's very much obliged and most obedient Servant, CHARLES BRADLEY. High Wycom.be, July 1, 1818. CONTENTS. SERMON I. THE WORSHIPPERS IN THE HEAVENLY TEMPLE. REVELATION vii. 14, 15. These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have wasJied their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple. Page 1. SERMON II THE WORSHIP AND PRIVILEGES OF THE HEAVENLY TEMPLE. REVELATION vii. 15, 16, 17. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he tliat sitteth on the throne, shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more ; nei- ther shall the sun light on them, nor any heat ; for the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne, shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters ; and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. Page 23. Vlll CONTENTS. SERMON III. THE DYING CHRISTIAN COMMITTING HIS SOUL TO GOD. PSALM xxxi. 5. Into thine, hand I commit my spirit; thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth. Page 46. SERMON IV. THE ADVANTAGES OF REMEMBERING CHRIST. ST. LUKE xxii. 19. This do in remembrance of me. Page 61. SERMON V. THE LEGACY OF CHRIST. ST. JOHN xiv. 27. Peace I leave with you : my peace I give unto you : not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Page 78. SERMON VI. THE NEWS OF CHRIST'S RESURRECTION SENT TO PETER. ST. MARK xvi. 7. Go your way ; tell his disciples and Peter, that he goeth before you into Galilee : there shall ye see him. Page 97. CONTENTS. 1 X SERMON VII. THE HUMILITY OF ST. PAUL. EPHESIANS iii. 8. Less than tJie least of all saints. Page 116. SERMON VIII. THE COMPASSION OP THE HIGH PRIEST OF THE CHURCH. HEBREWS iv. 15. We have not an high priest which cannot be touched with t/te feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Page 138. SERMON IX. THE- THRONE OF GRACE. HEBREWS iv. 16. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, tlutt we may obtain mercy, arid jind grace to help in time of need. Page 155. SERMON X. THE DEATH OF MOSES. DEUTERONOMY xxxiv. 5. So Moses, tlie servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. Page 172. X CONTENTS. SERMON XI. THE GOODNESS OF GOD TO ISRAEL. DEUTERONOMY xxxii. 10, 11, 12. He found him, in a desert land and in the waste howling wilderness ; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeih abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings; so the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him. Page 188. SERMON XII. THE CHRISTIAN JOURNEYING TO THE PROMISED LAND. NUMBERS x. 29. We are journeying unto the place of which the Lord said, I will give it you. Come thou with us, and we will do thee good, for the Lord hath spoken good con- cerning Israel. Page 207. SERMON XIII. THE CHRISTIAN'S SONG IN HIS PILGRIMAGE. PSALM cxix. 54. TJiy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage. Page 230. SERMON XIV. THE BREVITY AND VANITY OF HUMAN LIFE. PSALM xxxix. 5. Behold, thou /tost made my days as a hand-breadth, and mine age is as nothing before tlwe; verily, every man, at his best state, is altogether vanity. Page 250. CONTENTS. XI SERMON XV. THE GLORY OF THE GOSPEL. 2 CORINTHIANS iii. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. If t/te ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly be/told the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance, which glory was to be done away ; how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious ? for if the ministration of condemna- tion be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteous- ness exceed in glory. For even that which was made glori- ous liad no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excetteth. For if that which was done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious. Page 274. SERMON XVI. THE CONSTRAINING INFLUENCE OF THE LOVE OF CHRIST. 2 CORINTHIANS v. 14, 15. The love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead; and that he died for all, that they which live, should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again. Page 299. SERMON XVII. THE CONSTRAINING INFLUENCE OF THE LOV& OF CHRIST. 2 CORINTHIANS v. 14, 15. The lave of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then Xll CONTENTS. were all dead ; and that tie died for all, that they which live, should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again. Page 321. SERMON XVIII. CHRIST THE HEALER OF THE BROKEN-HEARTED. ST. LUKE iv. 18. He hath sent me to heal the broken- hearted. Page 333. SERMON XIX. THE TEARS OF JESUS AT THE GRAVE OF LAZARUS. ST. JOHN xi. 35. Jesus wept. Page 362. SERMON I. THE WORSHIPPERS INTHE HEAVENLY TEMPLE. REVELATION vii. 14, 15. These are they which came out of great tribu- lation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. There- fore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple. THE figure under which heaven is represented to us in this vision, is that of a temple crowded with worshippers and resounding with praises. The man who loves the tabernacles of the Lord as the saints of old loved them, will view this representation of his future residence with pecu- liar interest. There are indeed seasons in the life of the established Christian, in which the prospect of this heavenly temple brings to his heart a peace and a blessedness which pass all understanding. While his soul, in the secrecy VOL. I. B 2 THE WORSHIPPERS IN of retirement, is rising on the wings of faith to the footstool of its God, the veil which con- ceals eternity from his sight, seems to be drawn aside, and heaven, with all its glories, opens to his view. He beholds the splendour of the hea- venly house, he hears the songs of its redeemed inhabitants, and deems himself already a partaker in their joy. Would we, my brethren, enter into the Chris- tian's secret, and share his happiness ? Our affec- tions must first be fixed where his are fixed, on things above. We must have a treasure in eter- nity, and our conversation must be in heaven. Let us strive then, this very hour, to elevate our minds to the dwelling place of God. While seat- ed in this earthly house of prayer, let us lift up our thoughts to that glorious temple above us, in which all the triumphant church are at this very moment assembled, and pouring forth their praises. There dwells the Saviour who is all our salvation and all our desire, there live the Chris- tian friends who were once dear to our souls on earth, and there, if we are the redeemed of the Lord, when the days of our tribulation are ended, will be our own eternal home. O may we all enter that house of rest ! May we all love to fix our thoughts on it now, and contemplate its blessedness ! May we often experience, within these walls, a foretaste of its joys ! THE HEAVENLY TEMPLE. O The representation which the beloved disciple has here given us of the happiness of the heavenly world, suggests these four subjects for our con- sideration ; a temple, the worshippers in this temple, the nature of their worship, and the privileges they enjoy. We shall however find sufficient matter for our present meditation, if we confine our attention to two of these subjects, the temple and its worshippers. I. Let us consider, first, the temple here spoken of. It is a heavenly temple, a holy place, stand- ing not on this perishable world, but having its foundations laid on the everlasting hills of heaven. All other temples have been erected by man, but this temple has been built by Jehovah him- self, to be the eternal dwelling place of his be- loved church, and the seat of his own glorious throne. He dwelt indeed figuratively in the temple at Jerusalem, and had the chambers of his priests surrounding him on every side ; but he dwells visibly in this heavenly house, and is gradually collecting within its walls all the count- less myriads of his saints, and will make them for ever ministering and rejoicing priests around his throne. Where this temple is, we know not. We are indeed taught to consider heaven as a state, rather than a place ; but we have reason to con- B2 4 THE WORSHIPPERS IN elude from the testimony of scripture, that there is some portion of the universe set apart to be the palace of its great King ; that there is within the boundaries of the creation some glorious world, where Jesus in his human form now lives and reigns, and where he will eventually assem- ble, with the " innumerable company of angels," all the sinners of mankind whom his blood has purchased. All that we know of this world is, that it really exists, and that it is a world of purity and blessed- ness. Our Bibles indeed tell us something of its glories, and more than our limited capacities can fully comprehend ; but still the most glowing descriptions that language can convey, and the most exalted conceptions to which our imagina- tions can reach, fall infinitely short of that dazzling splendour which fills the courts of the living God. The world which we inhabit, though defiled by sin and under the curse of God, has yet so much order, beauty, and magnificence in it, that we are often delighted and astonished as we contemplate its scenes. What then must be the glory of that world which has never felt the polluting touch of sin, which was prepared before the foundations of the earth were laid for the thrones of the redeemed, and adorned with a full display of Jehovah's unclouded brightness ? Happy are they who dwell in such a temple ! Blessed is THE HEAVENLY TEMPLE. 5 the man who is but a doorkeeper in such a house ! II. The happy beings who are the worshippers in this splendid temple, are described in the pas- sage connected with the text, and our second sub- ject of consideration leads us to turn our attention to them. Who then are these rejoicing worshippers, and whence came they ? Many of them are natives of this heavenly world, and have been for count- less ages ministering servants in this house. These are described, in the eleventh verse of this chapter, as standing round about the throne, and falling before the throne on their faces, and wor- shipping God. But these are not the worshippers referred to in the text. There is another and a more numerous class of priests serving in this temple, singing another and a louder song, and occupying as honourable a place. " These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." 1. This description reminds us, first, of the former condition of these worshippers. It tells us that it was an earthly condition. They were not, like the angels, always in this house. They were natives of an apostate world, and had an earthly origin. The powers of their nature 6 THE WORSHIPPERS IN were once far less exalted than those of their fel- low-worshippers, and they were altogether inca- pable of sharing in many of their services. Their spirits were united to a frail body, a body of hu- miliation, taken from the dust of the earth, and rapidly tending to dust again. Their condition too was a sinful one. Their great tribulation was brought upon them by the greatness of their sins. Not that they were more sinful than the other inhabitants of the earth which they dwelt on, but they were once as much encompassed with infirmities as any of their bre- thren, as " dead in trespasses and sins." There is not one among them, who was not a transgres- sor while on earth, and who has not to this very hour a remembrance of his guilt. It is this re- membrance which makes their gratitude so fer- vent, and their song so loud. It is this which draws from them so exalted a hymn of praise, that the angels cannot reach its strains, and are forced to wonder at its sweetness. They were also in an afflicted condition. Not a single sorrow or care now enters their hearts, yet they were once in " great tribulation." Many of them came out of a state of peculiar distress and suffering. " They had trials of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea moreover of bonds and im- prisonment. They were stoned, were sawn asun- der, were slain with the sword. They wandered THE HEAVENLY TEMPLE. 7 about in sheep skins and goat skins, being desti- tute, afflicted, tormented." All of them were in some degree men of sorrows. They were as well acquainted with poverty and want, anxiety and care, as we are now. Their bodies were as weak and as liable to pain and sickness, as our own. Their houses of mourning were as frequent and gloomy, and their graves as dreary and cold. As many spiritual troubles also beset them. They felt, at seasons, the same painful and suspicious fears that we feel ; they were assaulted by the same temptations, stricken by the same arrows, and forced to struggle with the same enemies. Not a single temporal or spiritual sorrow can ever enter into our hearts, which has not been a thousand times felt, in all its bitterness, by these rejoicing inhabitants of the heavenly world. Such was the original condition of these wor- shippers ; it was an earthly, a sinful, and a suffer- ing one. 2. Let us look now at their present condition. Here however our knowledge again fails us. We know what it is to be sinful and afflicted crea- tures upon earth, but we do not know what it is to be holy and rejoicing beings before the throne of God in heaven. In this far distant world, we can neither see all the glories of the temple above us, nor enter into the full meaning of its services. Some particulars however of the present condition THE WORSHIPPERS IN of the redeemed saints, are given us by the be- loved disciple in this vision. It is represented to us as a state of peace, a state of freedom from sorrow and from pain. They are " come out" of their tribulation ; they have passed through it, and left it all behind. Their wearisome pilgrimage is brought to an everlasting end. They have exchanged an earth of labour and misery, for a heaven of peace and rest. The billows of adversity which once filled their souls with fear, still swell and rage, but they are all rolling far beneath them, and can never again toss them with their waves. We deem it a mercy to be kept for a day, yea, for an hour, free from anxiety and sorrow ; but some of these worshippers have not shed a single tear, nor been harassed by a single care, for ages. Their state is also a state of purity. " They have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." Without this washing, they could never have been admitted into the heavenly temple, for nothing that defiles has ever entered there. Even in that earthly house which was built for the Lord at Jerusalem, his priests were constrained to wash in the sacred laver, be- fore they approached the mercy-seat which was the symbol of his presence ; and surely he will not admit one who is unclean, to minister before him in his temple above. He that was so careful THE HEAVENLY TEMPLE. 9 of the purity of his earthly house, will not suffer his heavenly mansion to be defiled. The robes of these priests were once indeed as polluted as ours are now, and neither men nor angels could cleanse them. Ten thousand tears of penitence could not wash them white, nor the blood of martyrdom conceal their stains. How then was their filthiness removed ? By the water of baptism ? All these priests were indeed wash- ed in this water, but it was not this which puri- fied their souls. Daily experience proves that no outward means can remove the crimson stain of sin, or do away its filthiness. While we are con- tending that baptism has this power, thousands around us, who have been baptized in the name of Christ, are giving a death-blow to all our rea- sonings by their worldly and ungodly lives. This, as well as every other ordinance, is indeed some- times made the means of communicating blessings to the soul ; but there is no inseparable connec- tion between the outward visible sign and the in- ward spiritual grace of any sacrament. A man may go to the table of the Lord, and yet not dis- cern the Lord's body there. He may be washed in the water of baptism, and yet be as much " in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity," as Simon Magus or Judas Iscariot. Could we but once be brought, brethren, to see something of the real nature and extent of 10 THE WORSHIPPERS IN the depravity which reigns within us, we should be convinced, in that very moment, that no out- ward ordinances can cleanse the soul from its pollution ; that the evil is too powerful and too deeply seated to yield to such remedies as these. We should see that the matter will not admit, for a moment, of doubt or argument. Our feelings would at once refute the most subtle reasonings. There is indeed a fountain which has power to wash away sin and uncleanness ; but this is a spi- ritual fountain, and possessing in consequence a spiritual efficacy. These heavenly priests have discovered this sacred laver, and in their song's * O they point it out to us. We find them always ascribing the change which has passed on them, to one cause, and giving to one Being all the glory. " Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever." " They have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb ;" in that blood which, the Bible tells us, " cleanseth from all sin," and which can make the sinner's defiled robes as white as snow. " Therefore," says the text, " are they before the throne of God." This was the reason why the everlasting doors of the heavenly temple were opened to them, while thousands of their fellow-sinners are for ever excluded from its THE HEAVENLY TEMPLE. 11 courts " they were washed, they were sancti- fied, they were justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God." When once they had applied to this cleansing fountain, they were brought into a state of pardon and acceptance with God. " He blotted out as a thick cloud their transgressions, and as a cloud their sins." The guilt of their sins, strictly speak- ing, still remains on them. They still deserve, and ever must deserve the wrath of God ; but all their liability to punishment is completely and for ever done away ; so entirely removed from them, that their reconciled God deals with them in hea- ven, as though he remembered their sins and iniquities no more. In this sense, " he does not see iniquity in Jacob nor perverseness in Israel.'* God looks upon his saints as criminals, but he views them in Christ as acquitted criminals, yea, as beloved children ; as having obtained, by an act of grace, a complete and eternal pardon, and received from him a title to richer privileges than their sin had forfeited. They were indeed conti- nually contracting fresh defilement as long as they remained on earth, and were constrained to wash again and again in the same fountain that cleansed their robes at first ; but if this fountain had left the unpardoned guilt of only one sin upon their souls, that one sin would have disquali- fied them for the pure services of the habitation 12 THE WORSHIPPERS IN of God, and have barred for ever its sacred doors against their entrance. This free and full pardon of their sins is not however the only blessing, which the heavenly worshippers have obtained through the blood of the Lamb. Had this been all, they could never have joined in the worship of the heavenly world, nor sung the songs of Zion. The same fountain that freed them from the guilt of sin, washed away sin itself, freed them from its reigning power, and put a new and holy principle within their hearts. JVot that they were at once brought into a state of perfect purity. As the consecration of some of the Jewish priests was carried on for many days before it was completed, so the purification of these priests was a long and arduous work. Years passed away before some of them were completely sanctified, and made meet to minister among the saints in light ; and they were all harassed to their dying hour, in a greater or less degree, with the struggling corruptions of their evil hearts. But sin could not follow them beyond the grave. As soon as their liberated souls escaped from this world of pollution, they entered a world, where this enemy can never come ; and all is now un- sullied purity and perfect holiness. Their graces, which were so often obscured and tarnished here on earth, now shine forth with unclouded bright- ness and never fading lustre. " Christ," says the THE HEAVENLY TEMPLE. 13 scripture, " loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word ; that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish." We may observe, further, that the state of these worshippers in the temple of God is a state of triumph. The white robes in which they are clad, are not their only ornaments. We are told, in the ninth verse of this chapter, that they have " palms in their hands." The palm tree, among many of the ancient nations, was an emblem of victory. Hence its branches were used to adorn triumphal proces- sions. The general whose victories the triumph was designed to celebrate, carried a small branch of it in his hand, and was thus recognised as a conqueror. When therefore the redeemed are de- scribed as having " palms in their hands," we are reminded that they were once soldiers who were not ashamed to confess the faith of Christ cruci- fied, but fought manfully under his banner, and by the strength of his arm completely conquered every enemy. The saints on earth indeed are war- ring the same warfare in which these glorified beings were engaged, and are continually obtain- ing victories in it ; but then they must wait till all the days of their warfare are accomplished, 14 THE WORSHIPPERS IN before they can have the triumphal chariot and the palm. The soldier never triumphs till the war is ended, and the enemy completely subdued. The saints in heaven have finished the painful conflict, and are now gone up for their reward to Jehovah's temple. And O what blessed triumphs are theirs ! What glorious spoils ! What ever- lasting shouts of victory and songs of joy ! Their triumph is a never ending triumph. Their palms will never wither. Their robes of honour will never fade. The lustre of their crown never can be tarnished. The light of day will be extin- guished, and the stars of heaven be darkened, but the brightness of their glory will be as incorrup- tible as the throne of God. 3. As we look on these worshippers in heaven, we may observe, thirdly, the greatness of their number. They are said, in the ninth verse, to be " a multitude, a great multitude, a multitude which no man can number." But here it may be asked, " Whence can this great multitude come ? We read our Bibles, and we find the people of God spoken of there as a ' little flock.' We look around us in the world, and are sometimes tempted to ask, Where shall a godly man be found? How then shall this great multitude be brought to glory ? From what unknown globe has sovereign mercy fetched them ?" We dare not say, in answer to these THE HEAVENLY TEMPLE. 15 enquiries, that all who are now i-ejoicing in the heavenly courts, were once inhabitants of the earth on which we live. The benefits of redeem- ing grace may be as extensive, as the boundaries of the creation. There is however every reason to suppose, that the great multitude of saints who are spoken of in this vision, were originally strangers and pilgrims in this world of sorrow. It is true indeed that the way which leads from it to the heavenly mansions, is represented in the scriptures as extremely narrow ; we see too that there are few walking in it : but it does not there- fore follow, that the greater part of the human race descend by another road to another kingdom. Millions of the children of men are, we trust, carried yearly in their infancy to the realms of light ; and many an aged saint also is seen pa- tiently walking in the path which leads to God, and will soon be standing before him, a rejoicing priest. Satan does not number among his sub- jects all the inhabitants of our globe. The Re- deemer has a people on the earth. He is seeing of " the travail of his soul" in many places and in many hearts, where we see it not. Who can tell how many an humble Christian has been tra- velling to the land of rest, while almost all around him, and even the honoured instrument that first turned his soul to God, have been ignorant of his faith? The man has poured forth alone his 16 THE WORSHIPPERS IN prayers and tears. Men have not seen the up- lifted eye, nor heard the secret prayer for mercy ; but the angels of heaven have rejoiced over the weeping suppliant, and at length carried him in triumph to the temple of his God. We know too that before the destruction of this world of sin, it will become " the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ." A time is rapidly approaching, when the standard of the cross shall be erected in every land, and Jesus of Nazareth reign in every place. We need not fear being solitary inhabi- tants of the heavenly house. God has not built so splendid a temple to be the only blank in his crowded creation. We and all around us may make light of that voice which invites us to enter in, but still the marriage supper of the Lamb will be abundantly furnished with guests. A review of the cheering subject which we have thus briefly considered, leads us to observe, in conclusion, that the gospel of Christ does not promise to its followers any exemption from the ca- lamities of life. It tells us that " man is born to trouble," and that the servants of God shall have their full portion of the sorrows of mortality. The Bible does not attempt to cheat us into a profes- sion of religion by false representations. It pro- mises us happiness in heaven, and many joys in the road which leads to it ; but, at the same time, THE HEAVENLY TEMPLE. 17 it plainly tells us that this road is a path of trial. All the saints are indeed described as rejoicing, - but then they are said to be " rejoicing in tribu- lation." Their nearness to God has neither re- moved calamity from them, nor blunted their feel- ings when smarting under it. Who then are we, brethren, that some special exemption should be made in our favour ? David, and Paul, and every other servant of the Lord, has drunk of the cup of sorrow ; why then should we expect it to be always kept from our lips ? Have we deserved it less than others ? Do we need it less ? Have we fewer sins to be subdued ? less pride, less self-dependence, less earthly-minded- ness, to be rooted out ? Tribulation is the portion of all the redeemed, and we may be quite certain that, if we have ever tasted of redemption, it will, in some shape or other, be our portion. Our Sa- viour tells us so. This is one of the first sayings he addresses to them who follow him, and one of the first truths he generally makes them feel the meaning of, " In the world ye shall have tribula- tion." Let us then prepare to meet our promised trials, and not only to meet them, but to welcome them with cheerfulness and joy. They are de- signed to help us forward in our course, to lead us on in the road which will take us to the temple and the throne of God. "Our light affliction," says one who had tasted of much severer sorrows VOL. i. c 18 THE WORSHIPPERS IN than ever fell to the lot of any of us, and was quite as capable of forming a true estimate of their nature, " Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceed- ing and eternal weight of glory." There is another reflection suggested to us by the words we have been considering How great is the contrast between the present and the future condition of the followers of Jesus ! Those whom the apostle saw in this glorious temple, are all said to have come out of " great tribulation." They were probably some of the first and most persecuted members of the church. But what a blessed and wondrous change has passed upon them ! They were once perhaps wandering about in sheep skins and goat skins ; they are now clothed in white raiment, walking the streets of the new Jerusalem, and treading the courts of its splendid temple. They were once glad to fly for shelter to mountains, caves, and dens of the earth ; they are now occupying everlasting man- sions in Jehovah's house. Those heads which are now encircled with crowns of glory, were once bowed down under a sense of guilt. Those tongues which are now shouting, " Worthy is the Lamb," were once complaining of wretched- ness and sin. Those hearts which are now glow- ing with the most exalted happiness and rejoicing in spotless purity, were once full of corruption, and aching with cares and sorrows. THE HEAVENLY TEMPLE. 19 Has such a change as this passed on these once sinful and afflicted saints ; and is there no change awaiting those who are now following the same Lord in the same path of tribulation ? Shall they never exchange a world of suffering for a heaven of rest, a vale of tears for a mount of joy ? O look, my Christian brethren, to that glorious army of martyrs, to that " church of the first-born." See them on their thrones. Listen to their songs of triumph. Soon, very soon, shall you be numbered with them. Only tread in their steps ; wash in that fountain which cleansed them ; keep close to that Saviour in whom they believed ; serve faithfully that God whom they loved and feared ; and your robes shall soon be as white as theirs, your songs as joyful, your crowns as bright. But the voice of consolation is not the only language that the Holy Spirit addresses to us in the text. Here is, lastly, a loud call to self- examination. This great multitude may stand before the throne of God, and yet we may not be included in their number. The gates of this heavenly temple may be opened to ten thousand times ten thousand ransomed sinners, and yet closed against us. There is another and a very different house, in which we may be forced to seek an everlasting home. There is the dwelling place of Satan in eternity, as well as the temple c2 2(J THE WORSHIPPERS IN of the living God. To which of these mansions then are we hastening ? We must soon be lodged for ever in one or the other of them ; which will be our habitation ? Shall we be the ministering priests of Satan or of God ? If we would obtain a faithful answer to such questions as these, we must not be content with referring to our present troubles, and drawing an inference from them, that all will in the end be well. Tribulation, it is true, is the portion of the people of God, but it is also the portion of another and a more numerous people, the children of the wicked one. The severest afflictions prove nothing as to our spiritual state and character. We may be amongst the most wretched on earth, and yet, notwithstanding all our sufferings, we may be also amongst the most wretched in the world to come. O We may resemble the glorified inhabitants of heaven in their former state of tribulation, and yet never be made partakers of their present hap- piness. The question to be asked is not, Whether I have been afflicted ; but, Whether my afflictions have been sanctified afflictions ; whether, through grace, they have taught me to see my spiritual misery and wretchedness ; whether they have made me feel the plague of my sinful heart, and led me to seek for help in a crucified Saviour ; whether they have softened, changed, humbled me. The great question is, Have I washed in THE HEAVENLY TEMPLE. 21 that fountain which God has opened for sin and for uncleanness, and have I been really cleansed there ? Is the power of sin giving way, and is the love of holiness gradually gaining strength in my heart ? O brethren, how few among us can bear to bring our profession of Christianity to such a test as this ! We have no heartfelt sense of our spi- ritual pollution ; we feel not our need of Christ ; we desire not the washing of his blood. As for inward purity, purity of heart, we seldom think of it, and can hardly understand what is meant by it. But what is that hope of heaven worth, which is not accompanied with this inward purity ? Does not the scripture say, " He that hath this hope in him," a good hope of heaven, " purifieth himself, even as God is pure ?" and do not your consciences testify, that there is no communion between purity and you ? Dare not then, in direct opposition to the word of God, to hope for heaven till sin is become hateful to your soul, and perfect holiness the first wish of your heart ; till you have gone with a feeling, penitent, and believing heart, to the foun- tain which infinite mercy has opened for trans- gressors on the cross, and washed your defiled robes and made them white in its sacred laver. This fountain is still standing open for sinners. The Redeemer's work of salvation is not yet com- 22 THE HEAVENLY TEMPLE. pleted. Though he has already carried innu- merable thousands to his house, there yet is room, room for thousands more, room for you. Do you really desire to enter in ? Have you but a willing and an humble heart ? This is all a gracious Saviour asks. Go to his cross. Supplicate his mercy. Believe his promises. And however pol- luted by iniquity, he will sanctify and cleanse you, and make you a pure and rejoicing worship- per for ever in the temple of your God. SERMON II. THE WORSHIP AND PRIVILEGES OF THE HEAVENLY TEMPLE. REVELATION vii. 15, 16, 17. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple ; and he that sitteth on the throne y shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more ; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat; for the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne, shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters : and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. IN the preceding verse of this chapter, the be- loved disciple gives us a short account of the former condition of those, whose blessedness he here describes. He tells us that they were not always in that happy and honoured state in which he saw them ; that they were once inhabitants 24 THE WORSHIP AND PRIVILEGES of a ruined world, and had their full share of its cares, its sorrows, and its sins. He tells us also of the means by which the great change that has passed on them, was effected, and ascribes it solely to one cause, the blood of Christ. He then goes on to inform us what the merit of this blood has done for them ; it has washed them from their sins, lifted them out of their great tribulation, and carried them in triumph to the city of their God. Neither is this all. It has not only opened for them the everlasting doors of the new Jerusalem, but placed them in the very palace of its king, made them priests in the hea- venly temple, and the most honoured and blessed among them who worship there. They are " be- fore the throne of God ;" they " serve him day and night in his temple ;" and " he that sitteth on the throne," dwells among them, and wipes away " all tears from their eyes." It is plain from the words before us, that heaven, though a place of rest, is not a scene of inactivity. It is a temple, in the services of which all the redeemed saints are constantly and diligently employed. What then is the nature of its services ? and what are the privileges of those who are employed therein ? An angel from heaven, brethren, could not fully answer these questions in the language of mortals ; and if he could, we should not understand him. Before OF THE HEAVENLY TEMPLE. 25 we can form any adequate ideas of the employ- ments and joys of this heavenly temple, we must enter its doors and worship in its courts. We may however see something of its glories in the glow- ing description before us. It leads us to consider, first, the worship of the glorified saints, and, se- condly, their privileges. I. What then is the nature of that worship which is offered to the Lord in his holy temple in heaven ? We may obtain an imperfect answer to this enquiry, by contrasting the services of its priests, with the polluted offerings of the servants of God below. This view of the subject is, it is true, humiliating, but not humiliating only ; it is, at the same time, calculated to encourage and to cheer our hearts. It must however be previously observed, that the worship in this heavenly temple, is not ma- terially different in its nature from the worship of our earthly temples. The saints in glory may, it is true, have faculties and powers com- municated to them, of which we have not, in our present state, the slightest idea, and they may employ these powers in acts of worship, with which we are altogether unacquainted ; but as far as our limited understandings enable us to comprehend the descriptions given us of 26 THE WORSHIP AND PRIVILEGES their services, we can see nothing in them of a nature essentially different from our own. Some parts of our present worship may indeed be alto- gether laid aside or greatly altered in a holier world. We shall not have any new sins to mourn over in heaven, and the workings of repentance may consequently never .be experienced there, and the voice of confession be silenced. The soul will undoubtedly be still mindful of its for- mer state of iniquity and vileness, but the re- membrance will have no power to disturb its serenity, and serve only to give an additional sweetness to the purity with which it will be clothed, and fresh energy to the gratitude which its blessedness will excite. Prayer too seems to be principally designed for our present state of infirmity and want. It is true that we shall be dependent creatures even in heaven, and as much indebted to the divine good- ness for the blessings of every moment, as we are on earth ; but then we know that even here the rich bounty of God can anticipate our wants ; and he can surely fill the hearts of his servants with happiness hereafter, without keeping them con- tinually as suppliants at his footstool. Prayer is not the only means which he can employ to keep us mindful of our dependence and meanness. We shall stand before the throne, and the majesty and greatness of him that sitteth thereon, will force OF THE HEAVENLY TEMPLE. 27 us to see that no flesh can glory in his presence, and that the station which becomes the highest of his creatures, is the dust. But though the worship of the saints is pro- bably the same in its nature in heaven, as it is on earth, yet there is a great difference in the manner in which this worship is offered up in these two worlds a difference so great, that the liveliest earthly worshipper bears but a faint re- semblance to the meanest heavenly one. The same dispositions are in both places brought into exercise, but then these dispositions are freed in the one from all those counteracting feelings which are constantly felt in the other. They are enlivened, and refined, and raised to a fulness of vigour and of joy. 1. In contrasting the worship of these two worlds, we may observe, first, that the worship of heaven is uninterrupted, constant. " They serve him day and night in his temple." We are incapable of this continual worship in our present state. Our feeble bodies require us to give several hours of every night to sleep, and it is only a small part of the day, that the necessary concerns of life will allow us to set apart to God. Even the little time which we are enabled to de- vote to private, family, and public worship, is not all spent in the work in which we appear to be engaged. The cares of the world follow us into 28 THE WORSHIP AND PRIVILEGES our closets and our churches, and tie down to the earth the heart which should rise to meet its Lord. When too the soul does disengage itself from its bonds, it is but for a season. If it soars to its native heavens one hour, it sinks down into the dust the next. Its spirits are soon exhausted, and its powers fatigued and weakened. It is not thus however in the heavenly temple. They who worship there, never need repose. There is no weariness to put a stop to their ser- vice, nor any cares and anxieties to distract and pollute it. If we, brethren, are ever suffered to join that glorious assembly, all beyond the grave will be one never ending sabbath, and we shall always be in a sabbath-spirit. After millions of ages spent in the delightful service, instead of tiring or fainting, the soul will be hourly acquiring an increase of strength. The very work in which it is engaged, will enlarge and exalt its faculties, and add vigour to its energies. 2. The worship of the heavenly world is also pure. All who are engaged in.it, are holy wor- shippers. Into whatever assembly the Christian goes here, he must offer up his prayers and praises in company with some who love not his Saviour and who fear not his God ; but there the assembly is composed of those only who are spiritual and holy. Their number is im- mense ; they form a great multitude ; but not one OF THE HEAVENLY TEMPLE. 29 formalist, not one self-deceiver, not one hypocrite, can be found amongst them. And not only are all the worshippers pure, their worship itself is free from all mixture of imperfection and sin. There is no blemish either in the priest or in the sacrifice, but all is " holiness to the Lord." 3. Their worship too is fervent. If we know any thing of real religion, we know that our affections are not always in active exer- cise when we are engaged in the work of prayer or praise. Our hearts are often cold and dead. We strive to raise them up to something like de- votion, but they seem at seasons as though they had lost all feeling, and were become insensible as stones. This deadness must be ascribed partly to the weakness of our nature, and partly to its sin- fulness. The Christian mourns over it, and prays and strives against it, but his efforts will not be always successful. After all his exertions, his heart will sometimes be lifeless and his devotions languid. It is not so in heaven. They who sing of salvation there, sing of it " with a loud voice;" with an exulting and overflowing heart. No coldness of feeling, no deadness of love, distresses their souls. All is fervour and zeal, spirit and life. 4. Hence the worship they offer is a delightful worship. The services of our earthly houses of prayer 30 THE WORSHIP AND PRIVILEGES are in some degree delightful. The Christian finds them to be so. He feels it to be " good for him to draw near to God" in them, and is often refreshed, and comforted, and made joyful in his house of prayer. His Sunday is his day of joy as well as of rest. He loves it, and looks for- ward to it through the other days of the week with expectation and delight. In the midst of those cares and vexations which the concerns of the world occasion, he often says, " The sabbath will soon be here ; then shall I go up to the house of my God, and find a refuge from my anxieties and sorrows. My Saviour will meet me in his sanctuary, and I shall forget my poverty, and remember my misery no more. I shall hear of his tenderness and love, and my sorrowful spirit shall be comforted. I shall hear of his bitter agonies and death, and even my cold heart shall burn, and my unclean soul shall hope for salvation." But these expectations of the Chris- tian are not always gratified. The troubles and anxieties of the week too often follow him on the day of rest, and he eats his spiritual bread with tears, and sends up his languid prayers without enjoyment or delight. One sabbath his heart glows with a heavenly joy as he listens to the sound of the gospel ; the next, all seems changed. Ministers appear to have lost their energy, the name of Christ seems robbed of its sweetness, and OF THE HEAVENLY TEMPLE. 31 the gospel no longer retains its savour and its charms. But when once we have entered the courts of the heavenly Jerusalem, and joined the assembly of the saints who worship there, these seasons of mourning will be for ever at an end. All the difficulties of our service will have past away, and every act of worship will be delightful to the spirit, and bring with it " a joy unspeak- able and full of glory." 5. The service of heaven is, further, a united service. We are told, in the ninth verse of this chapter, that the multitude which fills the hea- venly temple, was taken from " all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues ;" and yet these glorified priests form here but one body. They worship in the same temple, and they are all en- gaged in the same work ; the same spirit lives in every soul, and the same song is heard from every mouth. All jarring contentions and frivo- lous distinctions have ceased, mutual prejudices have been forgotten, and sects and parties have been done away. Do we, brethren, hope to join this peaceful company in heaven ? Let us first learn to be of one mind here on earth. O what a lamentable difference is there, in this respect, between us and these inhabitants of the heavenly world ! What discordant sentiments and feelings reign among us ! What jealousies and bitter strifes 32 THE WORSHIP AND PRIVILEGES interrupt our harmony ! As for divisions, som of us have ceased to regard them as evils, and a spirit of schism and ambition begins to be looked on as a virtue, rather than as a sin. Brethren, " these things ought not so to be." They are sad " spots in our feasts of charity." They savour not of heaven. They are fruits of a tree which has never flourished there. Before we can ever enter yonder world of union and peace, the wis- dom which is from above, must have taught us to ' O root out pride and malice from our hearts, and bitterness and evil speaking must no longer be suffered to defile our lips. We cannot perhaps be all of the same opinion, but let us at least be of the same spirit ; and let that be " a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price ;" let it be the spirit of our Master, who was " meek and lowly in heart ;" who, " when he was reviled, reviled not again ; when he suf- fered, he threatened not, but committed himself to him that judge th righteously." 6. The worship of heaven is also humble. In the midst of all their glory, the redeemed saints appear in the heavenly temple in the character of creatures and of sinners. We see no presump- tion or pride in their worship, no unholy fami- liarity. The dignity to which they are raised, has not made them unmindful of the greatness of Jehovah, nor of that state of meanness and OF THE HEAVENLY TEMPLE. 33 sin, from which he has rescued them. " They fall down before the throne" when they worship him that sitteth on it, and " cast down their crowns before him." The very song which they sing, proves their great humility, and the lively sense which they still entertain of their former sinful condition. They were once employed in working out their salvation with fear and trembling ; but the work has now been done, and a glorious salvation has been obtained. Surely then if ever there was room for boasting, it is now. The battle has been fought ; the victory has been won ; and the warriors in the conflict may surely take some part of the glory. But no ; these triumphant conquerors give all the glory to another. We hear nothing from them of their own patience and labours, their own sufferings and martyr- doms. These are all forgotten, and nothing seems to live in their remembrance, but their former mi- sery and guilt, and the grace and mercy of their God. They cry with a loud voice, saying, " Sal- vation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb." The worship then which is offered in the tem- ple of God above, is uninterrupted, pure, fervent, delightful, united, and humble. II. Let us proceed to consider the privileges winch these heavenly worshippers enjoy. VOL. i. D 34 THE WORSHIP AND PRIVILEGES 1. We may notice, first, the dignity of their station in this temple. They are " before the throne of God." We may see something- of the greatness of this honour by looking back to the Jewish taber- nacle, the temple of the Lord in the wilderness. The Israelites in general were not allowed to come near this sanctuary ; and though the Le- vites were permitted to pitch their tents around it, it was only the consecrated priests among them, who dared to enter within it to minister before the Lord. Even these were not permitted to go into every part of the tabernacle. They might go to the altar of burnt-offering, but the holy place where the mercy-seat was, could be entered by the high priest only, and that, not when he pleased, but at a stated period once in the year. Now all this was done to impress on the minds of the Jews a deep sense of the divine purity and greatness ; but it may serve also to shew us the dignity of that station to which redeemed sinners are advanced in the king- dom of Christ. It would have been a miracle of mercy if they had been admitted into the outer courts of this house, where they might have be- held the worship of the angels, and listened to their songs ; but to be admitted into the temple itself, to be placed on an equality with the an- gelic worshippers there, to share in their services, OF THE HEAVENLY TEMPLE. 35 and to be brought close to the throne of Jehovah in the holy of holies surely this is a love " which passeth knowledge." The angels themselves can- not comprehend it. All that we can do is to won- der and adore. But let us take a somewhat closer view of the dignified station to which these priests are raised. To be before the throne of God implies that they are admitted to the enjoyment of close communion with him ; that they are brought into his imme- diate presence, and have an intimate, enlarged, and continual intercourse with him ; that they talk with Jehovah as a man talks with his friend. Here we worship an unseen God. We could not bear the glory of the divine presence in this earthly state. Even the work of his hands, the sun which he has stationed in the heavens, re- flects more of his splendour than our feeble eyes can bear. But if ever we reach the heavenly courts, we shall see him whom we worship ; and have faculties communicated to us, which will enable us to bear and enjoy the sight. The scriptures plainly intimate to us also, how the Almighty will reveal himself to our eyes. The glorified body of the once crucified Jesus will be the Shechinah in his temple, through which the full brightness of Jehovah will for ever shine forth. Hence we are told that the city in which this temple stands, has " no need of the sun, D2 36 THE WORSHIP AND PRIVILEGES neither of the moon, to shine in it, for the glory of God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof." To stand before the throne of God implies also a participation of his glory and happiness, an entering into his blessedness. " In his presence there is a fulness of joy," and all who are admit- ted into his temple, partake of this fulness, and taste of those pleasures which are at his right hand. We cannot describe these pleasures and this joy. All that we know of them is, that they comprehend the happiness of God himself, a shar- ing in his glory, a partaking of his bliss. We shall enter into that joy, the very prospect of which made the Son of his love willingly endure the cross, and despise the shame. " Beloved/' says Saint John, " now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be ; but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." 2. The text tells us also of the rich provision which is made for all the wants of the heavenly worshippers. As the priests in the Jewish tem- ple not only dwelt in the house of the Lord, but partook of the sacrifices which were offered therein, so the priests in Jehovah's temple above find in it all the spiritual provision that their souls can desire. Has want then ever found its way into this OF THE HEAVENLY TEMPLE. 37 kingdom of happiness ? Can its glorified inha- bitants need any provision ? The inhabitants of heaven are, in one sense, just as needy as any of the dwellers upon earth. The highest angel that treads its courts, is as dependent upon the Al- mighty, as the feeblest insect. In this respect, all the creatures in the universe are on an equality. They who are before the throne of God, are in- deed said " to hunger no more, neither thirst any more ;" but then it is plain from the following verse, that they have many desires which require to be gratified ; else why does the Lamb feed them, and lead them unto living fountains of waters ? They are strangers to that hunger which arises from want, and implies some painful sensation ; but they are not strangers to that hun- gering and thirsting after God, which arises from love to him, and includes in it the most earnest desire for the enjoyments of his presence. Their happiness consists in having all their spiritual desires kept in unceasing exercise, and in having them fully gratified. They still thirst after the water of life, and it is supplied to them largely from those rivers of pleasure, which flow around the throne of Jehovah. They still hunger after spiritual food, and their table is spread with pro- visions gathered from " the tree of life, which stands in the midst of the paradise of God." The happiness which results from this pro- 38 THE WORSHIP AND PRIVILEGES vision made for their souls, is uninterrupted and unmixed. Nothing can enter their habitation to disturb or mar it. " Neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat." " God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." They shall have an eternity of joy without one moment's sorrow, an immortality of bliss without one moment's pain. Their happiness too is everlasting. They are not supplied out of a cistern which may be broken or exhausted, but from a fountain which can never fail. " The Lamb which is in the midst of the throne, shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters." All our enjoyments here are precarious ; even our spiritual delights are often transitory; but let our souls once ascend into the heavenly kingdom, and we shall be far beyond the reach of precariousness and change. The temple which we shall inhabit, defies the hand of time to destroy or touch it. No earthquake can shake it, no fire consume it, no tempest beat it down. It is an everlast- ing habitation, " a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." The rest too into which we shall enter, will be " quietness and assurance for ever." The joy which will be upon our heads, will be everlasting joy. Millions of years will roll away, but we shall be still resting from our labours, we shall be still growing in blessedness and glory. " Thy sun shall no more OF THE HEAVENLY TEMPLE. 39 go down," saith the Lord, " neither shall thy moon withdraw itself, for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light ; and the days of thy mourning shall be ended." Observe too that the hand from which these heavenly worshippers receive this rich provision, this uninterrupted, full, and never ending happi- ness, is the same hand that snatched them from destruction, and gave them all the mercies they received on earth. It is the Lamb, who feeds them ; it is the Lamb, who leads them unto " living fountains of waters." Though seated on the throne of the universe, Jesus still sustains the character of their Saviour. He appears in his glorious temple as " the Lamb that was slain," and delights to minister there to his ran- somed church. He once shared in their sorrows, and, to comfort and cheer them, he fed them " in green pastures," and made them to lie down " beside the still waters ;" he now shares in their joys, and feeds them in far richer pastures than they ever saw below ; he leads them, not to the streams, but to the living fountains, of consolation and bliss. There is no happiness either in heaven or earth, in time or eternity, which does not proceed from the once crucified Jesus. He is as much the spring of all the glory of heaven, as of the pardon and grace bestowed on sinners upon earth. It is 40 THE WORSHIP AND PRIVILEGES this reflection, which so much heightens all the 7 O joys of eternity, and makes the thought of them so sweet to the Christian's soul he will receive them from Christ ; they will come to him from the hand of his beloved Lord. From this brief consideration of the worship and privileges of the heavenly temple, we may deduce a few practical inferences. There is one reflection which must immediately force itself on our notice No man can be happy in heaven, who has not first learned to delight in the worship of God. The text plainly tells us that the happiness of eternity consists in this worship, and in the spiritual privileges connected with it. If then we have no taste for these things, if the service of God be wearisome to us and the blessedness resulting from it without power to delight us, from what unknown source do we expect to derive that fulness of joy which we hope for in heaven ? Of what river of plea- sure do we expect to drink ? There are no sen- sual delights to be found within its courts. The heaven of the Bible is not a Mahometan paradise. It is a Christian temple ; and all the joys it has to communicate, must be found in its pure and spi- ritual services. It has no other blessedness to boast of, no other pleasures to bestow. We must either find happiness in these things, or, in the OF THE HEAVENLY TEMPLE. 41 midst of rejoicing angels and saints, we shall be wretched, and sigh again for the enjoyments of the earth we have left. How then do we at present stand affected to- wards this temple and its services ? Could we find happiness in them ? Does the prospect of them enkindle our desires ? If we were this very moment to be removed from this earthly house of God to his temple above, should we be satisfied there ? Alas, brethren, how many of us would find its heavenly courts just as irksome and weari- some, as we now find this house of prayer ! We should be as dissatisfied with the one, as we are with the other. We should have no other song in heaven than this, " What a weariness is it ! When will this sabbath be gone ?" Death will make no material, no radical alteration in our tastes and desires. What we love in time, we shall love in eternity. What is hateful to us now, will be hateful to us then. We must have a relish for the happiness of angels now, or we shall be utterly incapable of enjoying it hereafter. Heaven must be begun in our worship below, if we expect to partake of its blessedness above. And here we are brought to the same conclu- sion that every religious subject will bring us to, if we seriously consider it some great change must take place within us before we can be happy with God ; a change, not of sentiments and opi- 42 THE WORSHIP AND PRIVILEGES nions merely, but a great moral change, a change of dispositions and affections. We must be born " again of the Spirit ;" we must be " renewed in the spirit of our minds." We may infer, secondly, from the employments and privileges of the priests in the heavenly temple, the great importance and blessedness of the worship of God here on earth. This worship is not merely a duty which the Christian is com- manded to perform ; it is a privilege which it is permitted him to enjoy. The work of praise is the work of heaven ; it is therefore an honour- able and blessed work ; a work, which can make the meanest of the sons of men resemble, in some degree, the angels of God, and give him a fore- taste of their joys. That life is the happiest, which is the most devoted to this employment. That man is the holiest and the nearest to heaven, who has the greatest love for it. If then we would pass through the world in holiness and peace, and go, when we leave it, to a kingdom of glory, we must begin the work of heaven here on earth, and become the spiritual worshippers and ministering priests of the living God. The everlasting priesthood of all the re- deemed saints who are now before the throne, was begun here. Here their robes were washed; here their hearts were cleansed ; here they were anointed by the Spirit of grace, and consecrated, OF THE HEAVENLY TEMPLE. 43 and set apart for God ; here they began the wor- ship and the song which are now employing them ; and here they first tasted of the joy which now fills their hearts. Here too, if ever we would join their society, our own priesthood and wor- ship must begin ; nay, if we are really Christians, here they have already begun. We are already come to " the heavenly Jerusalem, to the innu- merable company of angels, and to the general assembly and church of the first-born." We have already shared in the work of the New Jerusalem, and had a foretaste of its happiness. May the prospect which has been vouchsafed to us of the worship and blessedness of its temple, animate us in the work we have begun, and lead us to aspire after a greater resemblance to its rejoicing inhabitants ! May it stir us up to make their chief employment our own ! Praise is the great work which employs the saints in heaven, and ought to be the great work of the saints on earth. Our wants constrain us to pray, and it is our interest and duty to pray without ceasing, but praise is as much the duty of a priest, as sacrifice or prayer. We have as much to praise God for, as we have to pray to him for. Our mercies are, if possible, more numerous than our wants. Our duty then is plain. It is the same that Saint Paul has marked out for us ; " In every thing give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you." 44 THE WORSHIP AND PRIVILEGES The last reflection suggested to us by the text is this How desirable is death to the spiritual and heavenly-minded worshipper of God ! The temple we have been contemplating, with all its holy services and glorious privileges, is very near us. Distant as that world may seem, on which its foundations stand, the hand of death can in a moment place us in its courts, and surround us with its splendours. Who then that loves the worship of the Lord, does not wish to die, that he may go and appear in this house before his God ? Our souls long for the enjoyment of his presence even in his earthly temples ; early have we sought him there, and desired above all things " to see his power and his glory, as his saints have seen them in his sanctuary." Shall we then be unwilling to leave this world of tribulation and of sin, that we may stand " before the throne of God," " serve him day and night in his temple," and have God continually dwelling among us, and the Lamb feeding us ? Have we no desire to exchange the imperfect and polluted worship of earth, for the pure services and glorious privileges of heaven ? Have we no wish to be where Abraham and Paul are worshipping, where David is singing ? Have we no longings after the society of the friends we loved on earth, and who are waiting for us to join their songs in heaven ? " We took sweet OF THE HEAVENLY TEMPLE. 45 counsel " with them here below, and our united worship often made our hearts burn within us ; but we shall derive far greater joy from mingling our praises with theirs in the land above. No coldness will be there to disturb our friendship, nor any cares, or anxieties, or separations, to in- terrupt it. We shall have no wanderings to mourn over in our united prayers, no deadness of spirit in our praises. The meanest redeemed sin- ner that enters the temple which has received their souls, will sing a louder and a sweeter song, than the brightest archangel there. The angels have never tasted of pardoning grace and redeem- ing love. They may say, " Worthy is the Lamb that was slain," but they cannot say, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain for us." They cannot sing this song of the redeemed ; " Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father ; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever." SERMON III. THE DYING CHRISTIAN COMMITTING HIS SOUL TO GOD. PSALM xxxi. 5. Into thine hand I commit my spirit; thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth. THESE words were spoken by David in an hour of trouble. His enemies were seeking to destroy him ; he knew that his life was in danger ; and he here flies for refuge to his God. He commits his spirit or life into his hands, in the full per- suasion that the same power and goodness which had often rescued him before, would rescue him again, and uphold and preserve him. The words of the text then were originally the words of an afflicted saint, committing his natural life to the care and disposal of his God. We shall however be doing no violence to them, if we consider them as the language of a depart- THE DYING CHRISTIAN. 47 ing Christian, commending his immortal soul to his heavenly Father. We know that they were thus regarded by Christ, for he made them his dying prayer. His martyr Stephen too em- ployed them in the same sense, and fell asleep with them in his mouth. Thousands of Chris- tians also have been heard to utter them on the bed of death. When flesh and heart have failed, they have taken them as their support and their solace, their prayer and their song. Viewed in this sacred light, they may lead us to enquire, first, with whom the dying Christian wishes to entrust his soul ; secondly, what is im- plied in his committing it into the hand of God ; and, thirdly, what warrant or encouragement he has thus to entrust it to him. I. With whom then does the dying Christian wish to entrust his soul ? The text tells us that he is anxious to commit it into the hand of God. There are only two beings who can take charge of the soul when it leaves the body. The one is the Lord of glory ; the other is the prince of darkness. Into the hands of one of these beings our souls must go when we die, and with one of these we must spend eternity. Now men in general manifest the greatest in- difference towards both of these beings ; or if they are not altogether indifferent towards them, 48 THE DYING CHRISTIAN they have no deep, no abiding concern about them. They hope that when they die, their souls will go to God, and they profess to have a fear of sinking into the dwelling place of Satan ; but of what nature are these hopes and fears ? They do not touch their affections ; they do not influ- ence their conduct. They feel and act, not as creatures full of hopes and fears about eternity, but as creatures who have nothing to do with O eternity, who are equally indifferent about God and Satan, equally regardless of heaven and of hell. We are troubled and concerned about our bodies, anxious to secure them from every trifling inconvenience and danger ; but as for our souls, we care not how we endanger them, nor into whose hands they fall. If we were really Christians, brethren, this indifference would pass away. The soul would become tremblingly alive to its present condition, and full of the liveliest hopes and fears about its future destiny. It would make an immediate choice between God and Satan. It would feel the greatest abhorrence of the one and his dreary kingdom, and as deep and fervent a desire for the other and his glory. It would fly for safety to its God, and cast itself into his gracious hands. Hence, through life, all our hope and confidence would be placed in the Almighty ; all our desires would centre in him : and in death it would be COMMITTING HIS SOUL TO GOD. 49 the same. Our first fear would be, lest our soul should take its flight to the dwelling of Satan ; our highest hope, that it may find shelter in the bosom of its God. This dread of hell, this long- ing after heaven, would acquire renewed energy as we drew nearer the grave and eternity ; and when at length our dying hour approached, with what an earnest desire should we long to be in our Father's hands ! not in his kingdom merely, not in his temgle only, but in his hands, in his arms, in his bosom ! With what an energy of feeling should we say, with a dying Saviour, " Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit !" II. The God of heaven then is the Being with whom the Christian wishes to entrust his soul. What therefore is implied in his committing it into his hands in a dying hour ? 1. There is evidently implied in this act of faith, a firm persuasion that the spirit will outlive the body, that it is an immortal spirit. If the soul did not survive the body, or if the Christian had not a firm persuasion that it sur- vived it, it would be but a mockery of God to profess to commit it to him. Before this profes- sion can be sincere, there must be in the mind a full conviction of its own immortality ; not that feeble hope of it which is drawn from reason, nor yet that common belief of it which professes to be VOL. I. E 50 THE DYING CHRISTIAN founded on the Bible ; but a heartfelt belief and conviction of it. The soul must not only know, but feel itself to be immortal. It must 'have no more doubt of the fact, than it has of its own existence. The Christian is not brought to this sense of the endless duration of his soul by the light of na- ture, or by a process of reasoning. These may satisfy a merely speculative enquirer, but they can never satisfy the man who is alive to the im- portance of eternity, and makes it the subject of his hopes and fears, as well as of his enquiries. Death and the grave laugh to scorn what we call natural religion. There corruption performs her work in triumph ; and he who rejects the Bible, must look on and despair. It is the gospel only, which brings " life and immortality to light ;" and it is by an honest belief in the gospel, that the Christian first learns really and habitually to re- gard himself as the heir of eternity. As he grows in faith and grace, this conviction is strengthened and established by the experience of his own heart, till at length he has a witness of its truth within him, and tastes " the powers of the world to come." 2. In committing the soul to God in a dying hour, there is implied also a high value for the soul, a regarding of every thing else as worthless, when put in competition with it. COMMITTING HIS SOUL TO GOD. 51 Not that it is sinful to feel, when we are about to die, some degree of concern about our bodies. Nature will often prevail even here, and cause our poor dust and ashes to become objects of our care. But then, if we are really Christians, this care for our bodies will be as nothing, when com- pared with our concern' for our souls. Whether we are buried here or there, whether our bones moulder away in this grave or in that, are points of but little interest. Where will my soul be lodged ? in hell or in heaven ? with Satan or with God ? This is the great subject of the dying Christian's enquiries. His soul is his treasure, and it is his main solicitude and care to have that safe in the hands of his Lord. He does not, it is true, wish to lose the casket ; he would rather have it preserved ; but as for the jewel, that must be saved. 3. There is implied too in this expression, a lively sense of the serious and awful nature of death, a conviction of our need of support and protec- tion in a dying hour. This is an hour, brethren, from which nature shrinks. The grave and the worm are appalling to the heart, and fill it with fearful apprehensions. " Through fear of death," thousands are " all their lifetime subject to bondage." From this un- due degree of fear the Christian is delivered. The terrors of the grave are so touched by the conso- E 2 52 THE DYING CHRISTIAN lations of the gospel, that they lose their power to harass and affright. But still, even to the Christian, it is a serious, a solemn thing to die. There are a thousand things connected with death, which clothe it with awful importance. Some indeed, who have made a profession of religion, have thought it a mark of a high degree of grace to make light of this last enemy of man ; but there is reason to fear that the Bible would call this boasted grace a high degree of insensibility or folly. No man will think lightly of death, who has ever thought himself near death. Let sick- ness and disease, let that dreadful weakness and sinking which generally precede death, once touch his frame, and he will feel that he needs an almighty arm to support him. The soul, in such an hour, will cling more closely to its God. There may be faith, there may be hope and joy, there may be the language of David, " Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil ;" but there will still be the language of prayer ; " Leave me not, neither for- sake me, O God of my salvation." 4. There is implied, lastly, in committing the soul to God, a belief that God Is willing to receive the soul, as well as able to protect it. There must be a sense of reconciling, pardon- ing love in the heart, before we can in good ear- nest commend our souls to God in our dying COMMITTING HIS SOUL TO GOD. 53 moments. There must have been a previous ac- quaintance with him as a God in Christ ; as a God " pardoning iniquity, transgression, and sin ;" as a God who is our covenant God, our re- conciled Father, our mighty Redeemer. Hence it is, that to a dying saint the cross of Christ be- comes so precious. He no more dares to cast himself into the hand of God without looking to the atoning sacrifice of his Son, than he dares ap- proach a consuming fire. But when he sees the infinite worth of that atonement, when he thinks of the all-prevailing efficacy of that sacrifice, he is enabled to say with humble confidence, " Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." III. But what encouragement, what warrant has the Christian thus to commit his soul into the hand of God? This is our third enquiry, and the text answers it ; " Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth." 1 . The psalmist here tells us, first, that God is the Christians Redeemer ; that he has purchased his soul, acquired a property in it, and made it his own. The souls of all men are, in one sense, the pro- perty of God. They are his by creation. But man makes himself over by sin to another lord ; he goes into voluntary captivity to Satan ; and becomes his property and his slave. This is the 54 THE DYING CHRISTIAN natural state of all men, and this was once the state of the servants of God ; but they have now been delivered from this vile bondage. The Father of their spirits has paid the price of their freedom ; and hence he has acquired a more en- dearino- claim to them, than he had before. He o ' is now their Redeemer, no common Redeemer, paying a common price for their ransom, redeem- ing them " with corruptible things such as silver and gold ;" but a Redeemer who has paid for them a price more costly than all the riches of the universe, even " the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot." We know not the reasons which led the Almighty to purchase so worthless a people at so costly a price ; but we know that he has thus dearly pur- chased them ; that he gave up for a season the richest treasure in heaven, that he might have a people on earth to shew forth his praise. This wonderful display of divine love is our en- couragement to commit our souls to God in the hour of death. " O Lord," the dying Christian may say, " I am thine ; save me. I am not only thine by creation, but thine by purchase ; thou hast bought me with a price. True, I am vile and worthless, but thou hast redeemed me ; and wilt thou refuse to take the wretched soul which thou hast ransomed? Wilt thou cast away that for which thou hast paid so dear ? Shall that which COMMITTING HIS SOUL TO GOD. 55 the blood of thine own Son has purchased, be de- spised ? O Lord, thou hast redeemed me ; and into thy hand I will commit my spirit." 2. The second ground of encouragement men- tioned in the text, is the faithfulness of God. He is here characterized as the " God of truth," as one faithful to his word and engagements. Now this expression sends us back to some pre- vious transaction between God and the Christian ; to some promise or pledge which Jehovah has given to him, and which his faithfulness constrains him to regard. It reminds us of that covenant, by which the Lord Jehovah graciously binds him- self to cast out no guilty sinner who comes to him through his Son ; to pardon the sins of every con- trite believer in his blood ; to take him as his child ; to receive his soul in the hour of death, and to save it in the day of judgment. As soon as the sinner once embraces by faith the offered mercy of the gospel, these promises become his own as much his own, as though they were im- mediately addressed to him from the throne of God. Will the Lord then fail to make good the words of his lips ? Will the God of truth forget the promises of his covenant, in those awful sea- sons when the fulfilment of them is most needed ? Is he u a man, that he should lie ; or the son of man, that he should repent ?" No. " The Lord thy God," says the prophet, " he is God, the OD THE DYING CHRISTIAN faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him." When he sees a trem- bl'ng sinner whom he has redeemed and whom he has engaged to save, coming to him in the fearful hour of death, with all the confidence of a child desiring to cast itself into a parent's bosom, he cannot refuse to receive such a supplicant; he cannot hesitate to take the treasure which he wishes to commit to his hands. A message of love shall be sent down from heaven to that sin- ner's heart. He shall hear a voice saying to him in the bitterness of death, " Fear not ; I have re- deemed thee. Thou art mine." The subject which we have thus briefly con- sidered, may remind us, first, of the great value uf Christian faith ; its value, not merely as it saves the soul from everlasting destruction, but as it saves it from fear and despair in a dying hour. We must all die, brethren, and those of us who have felt much of bodily weakness, know that it is a fearful thing to die. Others may for a season think lightly of death, but the hour will come, when we shall be all agreed on this point, that the soul of a dying sinner needs comfort and sup- port. Now a simple, honest, heartfelt belief in the gospel can bring this support and comfort to him ; it can make the pillow of a death-bed easy ? it can do for a dying sinner many sweet offices COMMITTING HIS SOUL TO GOD. 57 which nothing else can do for him ; and enable him to die as peacefully, as the wearied labourer lays down his head to sleep. This is the same faith that first leads the sinner to flee for refuge to the Saviour, that afterwards purifies his heart and regulates his life. It is that faith which is the gift of God, and which must be sought for by humble, fervent prayer. It is a gift which can make the most sinful man holy, the most wretched man happy, the most needy man rich. It can save the vilest sinner from destruction, and carry his soul in triumph to the temple of his God. Here too in the text, is a source of comfort under the loss of friends. Our friends may have been wrested from us by the hand of death ; they may have been taken from our arms ; but if they are the redeemed of the Lord, where are they now? In the arms and in the bosom of their God. And are they not better there, than in such a world as this ? Are they not happier with' God, than they could be with us ? If a wish could bring them back again to the scene of their former cares, and pains, and troubles, would you dare to offer it ? Would you dare to bring their glorified spirits from that ful- ness of joy which is at God's right hand, to that state of sorrow and tribulation in which you are struggling ? O no ! Rejoice then that they are gone to God. If you could but know all their 58 THE DYING CHRISTIAN blessedness, your tears of sorrow would be turned into tears of joy. You would take down your harps from the willows whereon you have hung them, and sing a new, and fervent, and lasting song of gratitude and love. We may draw another inference from the words before us. If the believer may safely commit his soul into the hand of God, how confidently may he commit into the same hand all other things I It is a strange fact, that some among us, who seem to trust God for the salvation of our souls and for the concerns of eternity, have not yet learned to trust him for the preservation of our bodies, and the concerns of this mortal life. We live too much by sense and too little by faith, and hence proceeds that unbelief which brings so many harassing anxieties and so much sin into our souls. We should struggle against this un- belief; we should mourn over it ; and humble our- selves on account of it. We should endeavour to trust God as implicitly for time, as we do for eter- nity. Can we commit our souls into his hands, and yet refuse to trust him with our lives, our comforts, our families ? He has not only said, " He that be- lieveth, shall be saved ;" but he has said also, " Thy bread shall be given thee, and thy water shall be sure." He has written this plain decla- ration in our Bibles ; " All things work together for good to them that love God." COMMITTING HIS SOUL TO GOD. 59 We are taught, lastly, by the words of the text, the great importance of our becoming now the re- deemed of the Lord. We all need this redemption. A very little acquaintance with the Bible and our own hearts would convince us, that we are not in that state in which, as immortal and accountable creatures, we ought to be ; that some great change must take place in our condition and character, before we can be happy with God. It is only the gos- pel of Christ, which can effect this change. In the redemption proposed to sinners in this gospel, the ground of our peace in death and of our hope in eternity, must be laid. If we are not made partakers of this redemption, we may profess on the bed of death to commit our souls into the hand of God, but he will spurn the offering. The soul indeed must fall into his hands as a Judge and Avenger, but it must go into other hands for its wages and reward. If we serve Satan here, no matter how decently and decorously we serve him, we must live with him and suffer with him in another world. Our souls may have what our neighbours may call a happy release from the body ; our dust may be honoured by as pompous a funeral, as folly and pride can furnish ; but our souls will perish. We shall go from death to judgment, and from judgment to a world of an- guish. O then who would not seek redemption 60 THE DYING CHRISTIAN. now ? There is no safety, no hope, no salvation, without it. Every unredeemed sinner will be a lost sinner. But where is this redemption to be found ? No prayers, nor tears, nor fancied works of goodness, can purchase it. The most decent and righteous are as unable to pay the price of it, as the most profane and sinful. It is treasured up in Christ, and must be sought at his cross. There all who would have it, must seek it ; there all who seek it with an humble and contrite heart, shall obtain it, and with it all the riches of grace and all the treasures of glory. SERMON IV. ^p THE ADVANTAGES OF REMEMBERING CHRIST. ST. LUKE xxii. 19. This do in remembrance of me. 1 o be remembered when we are dead, by those whom we love, seems to be one of the strongest desires that nature has implanted in our hearts. Hence, when we are about to die, tokens of affec- tion are given and bequeathed to our friends ; and after our death, our graves are preserved and memorials erected to perpetuate our names. Neither is there any thing sinful in this desire. Jesus himself felt and indulged it. When he took his last farewell of the beloved disciples who had been his companions upon earth, we find him anxious that they should not forget him, and instituting a memorial of his dying love. " He took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body 62 THE ADVANTAGES OF which is given for you ; this do in remembrance of me." Neither was it by his first disciples only, that our Lord wished to be remembered. He still de- sires to live in the hearts of all his people, and says to each of us this very day, in his word and in his ordinances, " Remember me." O then let us keep this dying request of Jesus ever in our minds, and strive to embalm him in our hearts ! To assist us in this work of gratitude and love, let us enquire, first, what is implied in remem- bering Christ ; secondly, why he has left us this command to remember him; and, thirdly, what are the benefits resulting to ourselves from an habitual remembrance of him. I. We are to enquire, first, what is implied in remembering Christ. 1. There is evidently implied in this remem- brance a knowledge of him, a previous acquaint- ance with him. We cannot be called upon to remember an object with which we are altogether unacquainted, or a person whom we never knew. Neither can we with any propriety be said to remember Christ, till we have in some degree become ac- quainted with him, seen his excellency, and ad- mired his loveliness.' Nor is it a superficial knowledge of the Sa- REMEMBERING CHRIST. G3 viour, that will lead us to an habitual remem- brance of him. It is the friend whom we have known intimately, that lives in our memory, while the mere acquaintance is soon forgotten. We must therefore not only have heard and read of Christ, but have often had him before us. We must have been, as it were, in his society, and tasted the sweets of friendship and communion with him. He must have occupied much of our thoughts, have entered into our hearts, and been lodged in the deepest recesses of our minds. 2. Hence to remember Christ implies, secondly, a heartfelt love for him. Who are the persons we remember ? Those whom we love. It is the departed parent and child, the lost husband and wife, whose memory we love to preserve, and over whose graves we can still weep. Thus, if we would remember a dying Saviour, we must first learn to love him ; to love him, not with a cold veneration merely, but with a lively, heartfelt, tender affection ; with a love which will make us often think of him, often talk of him, pray to him, and praise him. We must love him as that poor woman loved him, who " washed his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head ;" as that noble Paul loved him, who counted all things but loss that he might win him, and who could stand up among weeping friends and say, " I am 64 THE ADVANTAGES OF ready not to be bound only, but also to die for the name of the Lord Jesus." 3. Hence to remember Christ implies also a frequent and affectionate recalling of him to our minds. We are not merely to recollect him and think of him, when we hear others speak of him, and when we are in his house or at his table; we are to maintain an habitual remembrance of him; to carry him constantly about with us in our hearts wherever we go ; to have him as our companion in all our employments, pleasures, sorrows, and cares. This remembrance too must be affectionate ; it must interest the feelings, and touch the heart. It will not indeed always affect us in the same degree, for we are not always equally susceptible of the same tender impressions. The heart of even the established Christian is often cold and dead, so dead that nothing seems to have power to move it ; but even in its coldest seasons, a thought of Jesus will sometimes warm and enliven it. The remembrance of his dying love restores the soul to its wonted feeling, and reanimates its lifeless powers. There are indeed seasons in the Christian's life, in which the thought of his Sa- viour comes to his heart like a live coal from the altar, and brings with it a warmth, a feeling, and a joy, which an angel might be almost willing to come down from heaven to share. REMEMBERING CHRIST. 65 Without some degree of this affection, our re- membrance of Christ, however frequent, is an empty, formal thing. It is no criterion of sincere love to him, and proves nothing as to our cha- racter. The faithful wife, when she thinks of a husband in the grave, does not think of him with cold indifference. A tender parent does not think unmoved of the mouldering corpse of a beloved child. Religion must be tasted and felt, brethren, or it is nothing worth. If it does iiot get into our affections, it will never save our souls. To remember Christ implies then a previous acquaintance with him, a heartfelt love for him, and a frequent and affectionate recalling of him to our minds. But who is there among; us. O ' that thus remembers his Lord? And yet if we do not in some degree thus remember him, we can have no reason to think that we are in the number of his redeemed. If we feel for the dying Jesus in the same way only, as we feel for the death of a common acquaintance or a man who is almost a stranger to us, we can surely draw no other conclusion, than that we are equally unconnected with him, equally es- tranged from him. II. Let us proceed to enquire, secondly, why Christ has left us this command to remember him. VOL. I. F 66 THE ADVANTAGES OF 1. He has done this for a reason which ought greatly to humble us. He has said, " Remem- ber me," because he knows that we are prone to forget him. It might indeed have been supposed that such a Saviour could never for one hour, no, nor yet for one moment, be out of a dying sinner's mind ; that his last thoughts in the evening, and his first thoughts in the morning, would be welcome thoughts of Christ ; but is it so with us, brethren? Alas, no ! There is reason to fear that many of us seldom or never think of Christ at all, unless when we are reminded of him on the sabbath in his house. We do not indeed endeavour or per- haps wish to forget him at other times ; but our heads and hearts are too full of other things to leave room for Christ to enter into them. The cares and business of the world occupy all the energies of some among us, and dissipation and amusements engross the trifling minds of others. And how is it with those who have begun to think and act, in some degree, as rational and immortal beings ? Are not their hearts also ever ready to turn aside to vanity ? Even they can often suffer the meanest trifles to intrude into the place of a dying Jesus : and when they have any devout and lively remembrance of his love, it is but for a moment ; the savour of it is soon gone, and light- ness and vanity succeed. REMEMBERING CHRIST. 67 What a cause for humiliation is here ! Why do we not all abhor ourselves for this base ingratitude ? When we have buried a friend whom we love, though he is no better than a creature formed of dust, we carry him about in our hearts, and every thing which disturbs our remembrance of him, is for a long time sickening to the soul ; and yet Jesus, our best and heavenly Friend, is forgotten ; his agony and bloody sweat, his cross and passion, and all he has done and suffered for us, can find no abiding lodging place in our remembrance. What reason for shame is here ! And what a call for prayer ! Nor is this all. Here is a warning also. Am I thus prone basely to forget my Saviour ? O then let me fly from every scene, from every society, from every pursuit, which has a tendency to lead my thoughts from him. Let me remember this infirmity of my sinful heart, and watch and pray against it, mourn over it, and dread to increase it. 2. But our proneness to forget Christ is not the only reason, why he has commanded us to remember him. He has given us this command, because he desires to be remembered by us. True, he is now in the very highest heavens, seated on a throne raised to an immeasurable height above the thrones of angels, with all the exalted spirits that fill the realms of glory, worshipping at his footstool ; and yet his eye is fixed on a people F 2 68 THE ADVANTAGES OF on the earth, and his soul is as mindful of them, as when he groaned for them in the garden, or bled for them on the cross. Unworthy as they are, he loves them ; mean as they are, he is not ashamed still to wear their form, and to call them brethren. He forgets the songs of angels to listen to their sighs and prayers. It is his delight to minister to their wants, to protect them in their dangers, and to comfort them in their sorrows. Yea, even when they forget him, he thinks on them ; he watches over and pities them, when they are turning aside to vanity, and as soon as they have tasted the bitterness of their wanderings, " he restoreth their soul, and leadeth them again in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake." Nowhe does this, and more than this, for his people, simply because he loves them; and if he thus loves them, he would not surely be forgotten by them. By his word and ordinances, he tells them that he would not, and urges them to think of him. What a stoop then is this for such a Being to make ! and what an honour is here conferred on creatures such as we ! How ought it to ele- vate our affections and excite our love ! Shall he who made the worlds, desire to be remem- bered by us, and we forget him ? Shall he who " inhabits the praises" of eternity, call us bre- thren, and yet shall we forget such a brother in such a place ? REMEMBERING CHRIST. 69 The great reason however, why Christ has commanded us to remember him, is this he knows that we cannot think of him without de- riving much benefit to ourselves. III. What then are the advantages resulting from an habitual remembrance of Jesus ? This is our third subject of enquiry ; let us proceed to con- sider it. 1. The first of those benefits which flow from a remembrance of Christ, is comfort to the soul, when wounded by a sense of sin. What can be more relieving, what more cheer- ing, to the heart of a mourning sinner, than to think of a Saviour who "was wounded for his transgressions and bruised for his iniquities ?" to remember one whose blood " cleanseth from all sin ;" who has already saved thousands of the guilty sons of Adam, and who is still inviting all the weary and heavy laden of his sinful race, to come unto him for pardon and for rest ? It is sweet to think of such a Saviour as pouring out his soul an offering for sin, but it is still more sweet to think of him as at this very moment ap- pearing before God for us ; standing as the Lamb that has been slain before his throne, and still bearing in his sacred body the marks of his suffer- ings and death. This surely must be a source of strong consolation to the soul that is really mourn- 70 THE ADVANTAGES OF ing for sin. Here is something to lean on ; some- thing which can bear the weight of a sinner's doubts, and fears, and cares. Only let us once be brought to lean on it, and we shall have strength and peace in every hour of trial. The heavens and the earth may be destroyed on ac- count of the sin which has defiled them, but we shall be safe ; our souls will be unhurt in the mighty wreck. 2. An habitual remembrance of Christ has a tendency also to elevate our affections, to lead us to set them "on things above, and not on things on the earth." If we have a lively remembrance of an absent friend, our hearts will often be where he is; before we are aware, our thoughts will involun- tarily take to themselves wings, and go to him. Thus we cannot have a remembrance of Christ in our hearts, without having those hearts often in heaven. If we could but habitually carry him in our minds, the world would lose much of its power over us. We should have little time and less inclination to share in its vanities. Our souls would no longer cleave to the dust; they would soar to their resting place, and centre in their God. We should almost live the life of angels upon earth ; and all our words and conversation, our whole conduct, would savour of heaven. REMEMBERING CHRIST. 71 3. This heavenly-mindedness would lead us to a third benefit resulting from a remembrance of Christ patience and comfort in our afflictions. This is the use the apostle makes of this remembrance in his epistle to the Hebrews. " Consider him," he says, " that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds." Consider what he suffered, the greatness, the intensity, of his agonies. Consider how he suffered ; how patiently and cheerfully. " He was oppressed and he was afflicted : he was brought as a lamb * O to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. "- Consider why he suffered. " He had done no sin, neither had any guile been found in his mouth." " He died the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God." These con- siderations, if they had their proper effect on our minds, would repress all disposition to im- patience and murmuring, when we are in afflic- tion. Did Christ, who was altogether sinless, suffer so much, and surfer so patiently, and that for such a being as I am ? And shall I, who am altogether guilty, be impatient and com- plaining in the hour of my light afflictions? What are my sufferings, when compared with my Saviour's agonies ? Let me then be ashamed of my complaints. Let me endeavour to get the 72 THE ADVANTAGES OF lamb-like spirit of my Master. Let me strive to change my murmurs for praises, my sighs for songs. 4. The remembrance of Christ tends 'also to keep alive within us a holy hatred of sin. Nothing makes sin appear half so hateful, as the cross of Christ ; nothing so effectually checks it when rising in the soul, as the thought of a dying Saviour. Did Jesus suffer for my sins ? Was he wounded and bruised for my iniquities ? And shall I trifle with sin ? Shall I play with it, as though it were a harmless thing ? It nailed the man who is the equal of Jehovah, to a cross ; and has it no cross, no sting, no dreadful curse, for my soul? Was it for my sins that Christ died? And cannot I deny a single lust, or resist a single temptation, for his sake? O let me never crucify the Son of God afresh ! Let me turn my back on every scene and every society, which would tempt me thus to pierce rny Saviour. Let me watch and pray against iniquity. Let me steel my soul against all its treacherous pleasures. It may for a moment seem sweet to my foolish heart, but it cost my Saviour tears and blood. Such are some of the advantages resulting from an habitual remembrance of Christ, and only some of them. This remembrance is cal- REMEMBERING CHRIST. 73 culated also to increase our love for the Re- deemer, to excite in us a stronger spirit of obe- dience to his commands, to reconcile us to death, and to enable us to look forward to eternity with joy. Who then in a world so full of sin, of sor- row, and temptation, would not desire to remem- ber Christ ? But it is no easy task, brethren, to remember him. It is an easy thing to fill our hearts with vanity, but it is hard indeed to fix in them the remembrance of a Saviour's name. None but God can enable us to perform the work. He only can imprint on our hearts the name of Christ, and he only can preserve it there. The vanities of every passing hour can and often will efface it ; and God himself must write it again and again, or Jesus will be forgotten. Here then we may see our need of prayer ; but let us not stop here. We may see our need of exertion also. Must we know Christ, before we can remember him ? Then let us seek to know him ; to get every day a closer and more heartfelt acquaintance with his excellencies, his offices, and his ways. We may study Christ and his gospel for ages, and yet find in them much to learn. There is a depth in them, to which the minds of angels, after ages of en- quiry, have never yet penetrated, and a height to which they have not climbed. Let the Bible then, which testifies of Jesus, be often in our hands, and still more often in our hearts. 74 THE ADVANTAGES OF Are we prone to forget Christ ? Then let us not only avoid, as much as possible, every thing that seems calculated to increase this propensity, but let us also seek after those things which have a tendency to counteract and overcome it. Let us often speak to one another of Christ. Our social parties would be much more delightful and much more rational too, if the name of Jesus were more often heard in them, his gospel more frequently spoken of, and his memory more affectionately cherished. We love to talk of relatives and friends who are mouldering in their graves ; why then is a dying Redeemer always to be forgotten ? Is there no savour in his memory ? Are there no sweet associations connected with his blessed name ? All our employment and happiness in heaven will be to speak of him and sing of him ; and surely we might begin this work of heaven here, and find happiness in it also, if we were not wanting to ourselves. But if we would habitually remember Christ, let us not forget the command given us in the text ; " This do in remembrance of me." We soon forget objects which are removed from our sight ; and our Lord, who knows and pities this weakness of our nature, has given us an abiding memorial of himself. He has appointed an or- dinance for this very purpose, to remind us of his love. The sacrament of the Lord's supper is not designed to blot out our iniquities, as many REMEMBERING CHRIST. 75 suppose ; but simply to remind us of a dying Saviour. It was ordained, as our church tells us, for a continual remembrance of the sacrifice of the death of Christ. There we see Jesus " evidently set forth" before our eyes " crucified among us;" so plainly set forth, that if we have any serious- ness of spirit, we shall find it difficult not to see him. And yet from this ordinance many of us can often turn away without a struggle or a sigh. What does this conduct prove ? Our humility ? the tenderness of our conscience ? Alas ! brethren, it proves much more clearly that the dying re- quest of a crucified Redeemer is either forgotten or despised. We do not so treat a departed pa- rent or friend. His last requests are cherished in the memory, and we almost dread to violate or neglect them. How is it then that Jesus only is despised, when he says, " This do in remem- brance of me?" There is reason to fear that we must find an answer to this enquiry, not in a tender conscience, but in a cold, careless, worldly heart. There the evil lies, and there the remedy must be applied. Ministers may reason with us and expostulate, but our hearts must be changed, before we shall go to the Saviour's table with a desire of remembering him there. The love of the world and of sin must be rooted out of them, and all their energies and affections fixed on God. Deem not these hard sayings. It is a mere 76 THE ADVANTAGES OF trifling with the matter to stop short of this view of it. The heart must be won to Christ before sacraments and ordinances will be loved by us, or be made beneficial to us. If Christ is not re- membered in them, and remembered too with af- fection, they will be useless ; they will bring no comfort, no holiness, with them ; they will leave us just as they find us, trifling and reckless, earthly and sinful. The consequence of such a state is obvious. It is as sure and certain too, as it is plain. If we do not remember Christ, he will in the end cease to remember us. We need him now, but we shall need him much more soon ; and in that great day of our need which is fast approaching, he will act towards us, as we act to- wards others when we forget them he will take no interest in any thing that concerns us. He will leave us to be our own defenders and saviours, to plead our own cause at the bar of God, and to keep off with our own feeble arm the stroke of ven- geance. He will leave us to perish. We may not think much now of the misery of being thus forsaken. We may now have no spiri- tual feelings, and no dread of spiritual evils. But the dream of life will soon be ended, and we shall awake in a world, where our dormant powers will be roused to action in all their energy, either by that fulness of joy which fills the minds of exalted ungels, or by the bursting wrath of an insulted REMEMBERING CHRIST. 77 God. We shall then be forced to feel that there is nothing more desirable for an immortal being, than to be remembered by the Lord of glory in his kingdom, and nothing more dreadful than to be for- gotten by him there. If he were to forget us even here in this world of mercy, we should be undone. Thousands of our fellow-creatures might remem- D ber us, and millions of angels come to our help, but all the inhabitants of earth and of heaven could not supply the place of a departed God. All their united efforts could not keep for one moment our bodies from the grave, nor our souls from destruction. Who then among us can bear the thought of being forgotten by the Lord Jehovah ? Which of us will dare to forget him, and be easy ? O may we all be led this very hour to his throne ! May each of us offer there this simple prayer, which has never since the day of his agony been offered to him in vain, " Lord, remember me !" SERMON V. THE LEGACY OF CHRIST. ST. JOHN xiv. 27. Peace I leave with you ; my peace I give unto you : not as the world giveth, give I unto you. I.HAT the Son of God might become the " mer- ciful and faithful High Priest" of his church, " it behoved him to be made in all things like unto his brethren ;" not only to clothe himself in their outward form, but to take upon him also their inward nature. Hence in contemplating the wonderful history of his life, we see him influen- ced by the same affections that influence ourselves, and manifesting the same dispositions. From his cradle to his grave, we behold in him the Son of man, as well as the Son of God. When he " knew that his hour was come, that he should depart out of this world unto his Fa- ther," we find him feeling and acting as many of THE LEGACY OF CHRIST. 79 his brethren have felt and acted on the bed of death. He thinks of the beloved friends from whom he is about to be separated, and is troubled in spirit at the thought of leaving them. He calls them around him to take of them a last farewell. In the most gentle and affectionate terms that lan- guage can supply, he tells them of the scene of sorrow through which he is about to pass ; as- sures them that death itself shall not separate them from his love ; strives to cheer them with the hope of one day seeing him again ; gives them his dying blessing ; and at length, " lifting up his eyes to heaven," he commends them to his Father's care, and supplicates for them the richest blessings. Neither were these the only respects in which the dying Jesus acted as the dying man. When his end drew near, he maBe, as it were, his will and testament, and would not suffer the last inter- view with his disciples to close, before he had re- minded them of the precious gifts which he pur- posed to bestow upon them. Houses and lands indeed, silver and gold, he had none to give ; but he bequeathed to them a treasure far more valua- ble than splendid mansions and extensive territo- ries ; a treasure which silver and gold could never buy. " Peace," he says, " I leave with you ; my peace I give unto you : not as the world giveth, give I unto you." 80 THE LEGACY OF CHRIST. What then is this peace of which the Saviour here speaks ? In what manner has he given this blessing to his saints ? These enquiries are natu- rally suggested by the words before us, and they are enquiries which have surely a claim on our attention. We do not refuse to listen to the words of a dying friend. We examine with more than common interest, the will and testament of one who has nothing but perishable riches to leave behind him. Let us not then turn away our ears from the parting words of Jesus, our best Friend. Let us not look with indifference on the last will of him, who has all the eternal treasures of earth and heaven at his disposal. Let us open it with some sense of its vast importance ; and before our eyes are closed in death, may we all see our names written in it, and become the inheritors of its ever- lasting riches. I. What then is the blessing which Christ be- queaths to his disciples ? It is peace. Now if there is any word which can excite pleasing sensations in the human breast, it is this word. If there is any blesing truly desirable, it is this blessing. It is as sweet to the children of men, as the long wished for shore to the mariner who is wearied with the labours of the ocean. It is as reviving, as the warm breezes of the spring to the man who has just risen from a bed of sick- THE LEGACY OP CHRIST. 81 ness. How welcome are the tidings of returning peace to a nation which has been long accustomed to the sound of war ! How beautiful the feet of them who publish it ! What gladness fills every heart ! what joy sits on every countenance ! what praises and thanksgivings are heard from every tongue ! But it is not amongst mankind only, that peace is thus highly esteemed. It is declared by the Almighty himself to be among the things which he calls good ; one of the most precious mercies which he gives to his faithful servants. To bring down this blessing from above, was the great ob- ject of our Saviour's appearing on the earth. To this end was he born, and for this cause came he into the world, to establish " the covenant of peace ;" to preach " the gospel of peace ;" to say unto Zion, that " her warfare is accomplished," that peace is restored between her and her of- fended Lord. Hence the prophecies which an- nounced the coming of the Messiah, spoke of him under the character of " the Prince of peace." Hence, when he was at length born in the city of David, peace on earth was proclaimed by the re- joicing angels, and connected with the glory of their God. Hence too, when he was about to leave his beloved disciples and to lay down his life for sinners, peace was the precious legacy he left them. And what was his language after he was VOL. i. c 82 THE LEGACY OF CHRIST. risen from the dead ? No sooner did he appear among his dejected followers, than the sound of peace was again heard. Jesus said unto them, " Peace be unto you." What then is this peace ? Is it an exemption from the calamities of life, from sorrow and afflic- tion ? What says the great Giver of it ? " Ve- rily, verily, I say unto you, that ye shall weep, and lament, and be sorrowful." " In the world ye shall have tribulation." Is it peace with the world, an exemption from its hatred and persecution ? How then shall the scriptures be fulfilled? "The servant," says Christ, " is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you." " If ye were of the world, the world would love his own ; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." 1. The peace which Jesus came down from heaven to bring, is not an unhallowed peace with a sinful world ; it is peace with God, reconciliation with that great and holy Being " in whom we live, and move, and have our being." The man who inherits this precious legacy, was once the enemy of the Lord. He was one of those, of whom the Almighty says, " My soul loathed them, and their soul also abhorred me." He hated God, and God could not love him. THE LEGACY OF CHRIST. 83 He might indeed look on him with pity, but he could not regard him with approbation and de- light. This warfare is now for ever at an end. The sinner's heart, the sinner's character, are changed. The enmity of his carnal mind has been subdued. He has gone, as a repentant prodigal, to the throne of his heavenly Father, and has received a welcome and a pardon there. " Being justified by faith, he has peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." A covenant of peace has been entered into between the King of heaven and his once rebellious subject ; it has been confirmed and sealed ; and he has pledged his faithfulness and love, that it shall be " a per- petual covenant that shall not be forgotten." 2. From this covenant of peace results another blessing comprehended in the Saviour's legacy peace in the soul, peace of conscience, inward serenity and rest. This is a blessing which none but Christ can give, and none but his renewed people receive. Others may indeed seek it ; they may rise early and late take rest to obtain that which they think will purchase it ; but they spend their " money for that which is not bread," and their " labour for that which satisfieth not." They may perhaps find something which they may for a moment mistake for it ; they may grasp the shadow, and imagine that they have found the substance ; but c 2 84 THE LEGACY OF CHRIST. until a man Has been cleansed from his sins by the blood of Jesus, until his heart has been " sprinkled from an evil conscience" by the same blood, he must remain as far off from true peace of mind, as he is from God. He may possess the peace of Jonah who slumbered in the storm, a peace which is the token of approaching death ; but he must become an humble, believing sup- pliant at a Saviour's cross, before he can enjoy any peace that is worth possessing. " There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." It is his people only, who dwell in " a peaceable habi- tation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places." The peace which Christ bequeathed to his people, is further styled his peace. " My peace," he says, " I give unto you." It is the same peace that he himself enjoys ; the same peace that kept his soul tranquil in the midst of all his sorrows upon earth ; the same glorious rest into which he is now entered in his Father's kingdom above. As the precious oil that was poured on the head of Aaron, went down to the skirts of his garments, so the joy poured on Jesus as the Head of his church, descends to all his members, and the meanest of his people share in his ful- ness. He is gone into the kingdom of peace, as the forerunner of his saints. They are said to be " raised up together with him, and made to sit THE LEGACY OF CHRIST. 85 together in heavenly places." They have, in some degree, already entered into the joy of their Lord. Even in this house of their pilgrimage, they re- ceive at seasons " the first fruits of the Spirit," a portion of the happiness of their glorified Re- deemer, a foretaste of the eternal rest which re- maineth for the people of God beyond the grave. Thus then the peace spoken of by Christ in the words before us, is, first, peace with God, a share in that friendship which subsists between him and his well beloved Son ; it is, secondly, inward peace, peace of mind, peace of the same kind, as that which Christ himself enjoys in his kingdom of glory. It is indeed inferior to it in degree, but it is of the same nature, and flows from the same living fountain, as the happiness of heaven. II. Let us now proceed to enquire, secondly, in what manner this precious peace has been given by the Redeemer to his people. The word which is here translated " give," may be understood as signifying to bequeath, to give by will or as a legacy ; and it is in this sense probably, that it was used on this occasion by our Lord. Neither is a long train of reasoning neces- sary to convince us of the propriety and beauty of this term. A little attention to the circumstances connected with the text, will shew us at once its meaning and its force. 86 THE LEGACY OF CHRIST. What was the situation of Christ when he ut- tered these gracious words ? It was the situation of a man who sees himself standing on the brink of the grave, and who bequeaths to his friends all that he is possessed of, before he is taken from them. The Saviour knew that the hour of his departure was at hand, and he here leaves to his beloved disciples those blessings, which, as the Mediator of the church, he had at his disposal. 1 . The property which a man conveys by a will or testament, must be his own estate, his own pro- perty ; and he must also have a right of transfer- ring it to others. Thus the peace which Christ bequeathed to his disciples, was his own peace, a property to which he had an undoubted claim, and which he had also the power of conveying to others, of disposing of by will or in whatsoever manner he pleased. His blood purchased this property, his righteousness obtained it for his church. The price indeed was costly ; all the angels in heaven, with their united riches, could not have paid it ; but Jesus bought the blessing ; he .bought it by parting for a season with his throne and kingdom, with his honour and glory. He was the only being in the universe rich enough to purchase reconciliation for his people, and ra- ther than that his people should perish, he cheer- fully became poor for them, that they " through his poverty might be made rich." Hence the THE LEGACY OF CHRIST. 87 apostle says that " God hath appointed him heir of all things for his church ;" and that " it hath pleased the Father, that in him should all fulness dwell." Hence we find him bestowing the most precious blessings that he himself enjoys upon his children. " I appoint unto you," he says, " a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me." " To him that overcometh, will I grant to sit with me on my throne." 2. The peace which Jesus gives to his disci- ples, is like a legacy in this respect also it could never have been received and inherited, if the great Giver of it had not died. " Where a testament is," says the apostle, " there must also of necessity be the death of the testator ; for a testament is of force after men are dead, otherwise it is of no strength at all, while the testator liveth." A man may leave to his friends abundant riches and treasures, but these gifts will profit them nothing till after he is dead ; it is his death which gives them a title to the property, and puts them in possession of it. Thus if Jesus had not died, the blessings which he bequeathed to his people, would never have been theirs. He might have said, " Peace I leave with you," but there would have been no peace for them. He might have said, " I go to prepare a place for you in my Father's house," but not one sinner would have entered the heavenly mansion ; all the 88 THE LEGACY OF CHRIST. countless hosts of "just men made perfect," who are now singing " Worthy the Lamb," around the throne in heaven, would have been cursing the Being who mocked them, in the regions of despair. The blood of Jesus is the only claim, which a race of guilty creatures can offer to the offended Sovereign of heaven. It is only by means of his death, that they who are called, can receive the eternal inheritance promised to them. But notwithstanding these points of resem- blance, there is something peculiar in the testa- ment of Christ. " Not as the world giveth," he adds, " give I unto you." This language may be designed to remind us, that the blessings which Christ has left to his followers, are widely different in their nature from those things which men leave to their friends, far more valuable, more satisfactory, and more durable. They are more valuable. Men may leave behind them much silver and much gold, stately mansions, pompous titles, and proud distinctions ; they may give to their heirs crowns and kingdoms ; but what do these things profit them ? What is their value, when compared with peace of conscience, with the friendship of the Almighty ? They cannot make a man happy even in the day of prosperity ; while the legacy of Christ, even in the darkest night of adversity, can " satisfy the longing soul, and fill the hungry THE LEGACY OF CHRIST. 89 soul with goodness." Other legacies are all tem- porary ; the hand of time and of death wrings them from our eager grasp, almost as soon as we have obtained them ; but the gifts of Christ are all eternal. When heaven and earth shall pass away, there is not one of them that will perish, or be plucked out of its possessor's hand. They will remain precious as ever, when every earthly treasure shall be heard of no more. From the imperfect view which we have thus taken of the cheering words before us, the hum- ble and believing Christian may see the security and stability of the divine promises. Pardon and peace, grace and glory, are not only promised, but bequeathed, to him by the unalterable will of Christ, his Lord. The Testator is now dead, the testament is in force ; and though it were but a man's testament, " no man disannulled! or addeth thereto." " Let not" therefore " your heart be troubled," brethren, " neither let it be afraid." Possessed of such blessings as these, peace in your own consciences and peace with your God, let your souls " magnify the Lord," let your spirits " rejoice in God, your Saviour." Let the possession of these treasures cheer you in the want of every earthly good. Though poor and afflicted, let them make you more joyful, than the happiest heir to the most splendid riches. In 90 THE LEGACY OF CHRIST. every hour of trial and of sorrow, in every season of poverty and anxiety, think of the legacy of Christ, and be comforted. Do you say that you are strangers to the peace of Christ, although you have reason to cherish an humble hope that you have been made partakers of his saving grace ? If you are habitually going in sincerity and truth, with humility and faith, to the fountain which divine mercy has opened for sin and uncleanness, if you are really seeking there freedom from the defiling power of sin, as well as salvation from its fearful consequences, you cannot be destitute of peace with God. He never has regarded, he never will regard, with any thing short of the tenderest love, the sinner who is the beloved of his Son, who has been washed with his blood and sanctified by his Spirit. You may indeed be humble, believing Chris- tians, and yet be strangers to that inward peace which Christ has bequeathed to his people ; but there is only one reason to be given, why you are strangers to it you will not lay claim to and possess it. A man may have a precious legacy bequeathed to him, and he may be so infatuated as to refuse to accept it, or so indolent as to neg- lect the proper means of possessing himself of it; but still the legacy is his. It is his own folly, his own indolence only, that keep it from his hands. The very same causes, my Christian brethren, THE LEGACY OF CHRIST. 91 united with " an evil heart of unbelief," may keep you strangers to the peace of God. It was from all eternity the property of your Saviour ; by his agony and bloody sweat, by his cross and passion, he has acquired the right of giving it to whomsoever he will ; he has not only promised, but he has be- queathed it to all who seek and love him ; he has put his dying will and testament into your hands in his gospel ; he has bid you examine this will, and told you how to know whether your names are written in it ; he has died a cruel and bitter death, that there may be no impediment nor delay in your obtaining his precious peace ; he invites, he urges you to take it, and to enter into his joy ; the Lord Jesus Christ has done this, and more than this, to make you peaceful and happy ; and yet you are strangers to his peace, and unacquainted with his blessedness. " How can these things be ?" Either there is unfaith- fulness in the Holy One of Israel, or there is something wrong in you. Search well your hearts, and judge whether your want of peace arises from some defect in the will of Jesus, or from some evil in yourselves ; whether you have not abundant reason to trace your despondency to unbelief, to slothfulness, to a carnal and worldly mind. Although the pride of your heart may prevent you from at once discovering it, be assured that 92 THE LEGACY OF CHRIST. the cause of your doubts and perplexity is to be found in yourselves, and not in the faithful Jesus. Endeavour then to find where the evil lies, and, in dependance on divine grace, strive to root it out. Use the means appointed to establish yourselves in the faith ; labour to grow in grace and knowledge. Bring your hearts and lives more frequently to the test of scripture ; pray more fervently ; use more diligently all the ap- pointed means of grace ; watch more against sin; endeavour to get clearer ideas of the freeness and fulness of the covenant of grace ; strive to stir up your languid desires after spiritual blessings; seek for these blessings, not as things desirable merely, but as things indispensable to your happiness ; not as things beyond your reach, but as things at- tainable ; above all, look less to yourselves, and more to the great Redeemer ; and the day-star shall in the end arise in your hearts. " The peace of God shall keep your hearts and minds." " Your peace shall be as a river, and your righteousness as the waves of the sea." But have all amongst us a right thus to lay claim to the Saviour's legacy ? Are we all war- ranted to rejoice in our title to this precious gift ? There is reason to fear that the greater part of us have no more claim to it, than we have to crowns and sceptres. Before we can have a title to it, we must be united to Christ by a living faith ; THE LEGACY OF CHRIST. 93 we must become his people, his children ; we must seek our peace in him, and in him alone ; a great moral change must take place within us ; our affections must be withdrawn from the world and sin, and fixed on holiness and God ; we must be born again of the Spirit, and be renewed after the divine image. " There is no peace to the wicked;" the wicked have not only no title to this blessing, but they are altogether incapable of enjoying or receiving it. " Their minds are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest." And if God had not made this declaration, our own experience must have led us to a conviction of the same truth. Happiness has been the one great object which we have been seeking ever since we were born ; all the energies of our minds, and all the strength of our bodies have been em- ployed in the pursuit of it ; and yet we are not happy. We seem to be receding from the object of our labours, rather than drawing nearer to it. It is true that we are sometimes as happy for an hour, as the happiest insect that sports in the summer sun. Our efforts to stifle reflection are successful, and we are enabled to banish from our minds every thought, which, as rational and im- mortal beings, we might be expected to cherish there. But what does this profit us? We are the next hour a prey to disappointment, weari- ness, discontent, and a galling consciousness of y4 THE LEGACY OF CHRIST. our own littleness. In spite of ourselves, the mind will resume its hated work : thoughtfulness 7 O will seize upon us ; and conscience will make its voice to be heard. The consequence is, that ex- istence becomes an almost intolerable burden. Our hearts ache for relief, and we fly in search of it to those very pursuits of sin and folly, which we are conscious will again leave us to our own wretchedness. Thus have we gone on from day to day, " seek- ing rest and finding none," If then we have been strangers to peace in the season of health and prosperity, can we expect to be less un- happ^ in the day of affliction, and in the hour of sickness and of death ? This day and this hour may be much nearer to us than we are aware. We may indeed hardly see how it is possible for affliction or death to touch us. The amusements and business of the world may even have kept every thought of them out of our minds ; but neither business nor amusements can always keep sickness out of our houses, or death out of our chambers, or sorrow out of our hearts. There are a thousand unsuspected avenues by which grief can enter the soul. Are we then prepared to receive it as a guest ? Is there any thing within us, which will almost welcome it into our bosoms, mingle itself with it, and turn it into peace ? Are we possessed of any thing THE LEGACY OF CHRIST. 95 which can make the hour of tribulation an hour of joy ? Infidelity cannot do this. Scepticism never yet soothed one afflicted soul to peace, never lightened it of one sorrowful care, never smoothed the pillow of one dying man. Atheism has indeed been permitted to bestow on some of its most depraved and hardened victims, an awful insensibility ; it has enabled a man to trifle like a child even in the prospect of immediate death, and to be as thoughtless on the brink of the grave, as " the brute beasts that have no un- derstanding." But this insensibility, so far from being a blessing, is one of the heaviest curses that can be drawn down upon a sinner's head. <fcuch a peace would be well exchanged for the anguish of remorse. It is a death-warrant to the soul, the forerunner of eternal destruction. It is the re- ligion of the cross only, which can quiet the mind without degrading or brutalizing it. It is the gospel only, that can say to the agitated soul, " Peace, be still." Turn then, brethren, from the lying vanities of a sceptical and foolish world, and seek with your whole heart the peace of Christ. Seek, at the cross of Jesus, reconciliation with your offended God. Seek an interest in that blood which " cleanseth from all sin." " Draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith," to this fountain of blessedness ; and you shall at length 96 THE LEGACY OF CHRIST. find rest to your wearied souls. " Having- your hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience," a peace shall be poured out on you, " which passeth all understanding ;" a peace which none of the cala- mities of life can materially affect ; a peace which will keep your souls serene amidst the wreck of a perishing universe ; a peace which will endure for ever in the kingdom of your God. SERMON VI. THE NEWS OF CHRIST'S RESURRECTION SENT TO PETER. ST. MARK xvi. 7. Go your way ; tell his disciples and Peter, that he goeth before you into Galilee: there shall ye see him. IN the history which the Holy Spirit has given us of the life of Christ, there are many circum- stances related, which appear, on the first view, to be altogether unimportant. We consider them as not designed to convey to us any instruction, and pass them over as too trifling to occupy our attention. Here however we err. The Lord Jesus Christ never uttered one unmeaning saying; there is not a single action of his life recorded in the scriptures, which is not of some importance to us, and which may not furnish us with a useful lesson. We may apply this remark to the words before us. VOL. I. II 98 THE NEWS OF CHRIST'S On the third day after the crucifixion of Jesus, three faithful women came to his sepulchre, with the design of shedding their last tear over his remains, and of paying to them the last kind offices of love. The Saviour however had left the tomb, and as the women were entering it with mingled sensations of surprise, doubt, and joy, an angel appears to them, tells them that their beloved Master was risen, and commands them to carry the joyful tidings to his comfortless disciples. But in the command that was given them, we find one disciple singled out from the rest; " Tell his disciples and Peter." Now this circumstance may appear at first to be hardly worth a moment's consideration ; but let us not make light of it ; let us rather attentively consider it, and entreat the Spirit of God to make it the means of imparting instruction to us. In directing your attention to this circumstance, I purpose to consider, first, the person to whom the message in the text was particularly sent; secondly, the Being who sent it ; and, thirdly, the messengers who were the bearers of it. I. To whom was this message particularly sent ? To Peter. And who was Peter, that he should be thus singled out from among the disciples ? By what was he distinguished from the other ten, that he RESURRECTION SENT TO PETER. 99 should be thus honoured ? We know that at the period when he received this message, he was distinguished from them by a pre-eminence, not in merit, but in guilt. . But two days before, he had denied his Master, when his Master was about to die for him. " All the disciples forsook him and fled," but Peter went farther, and added the guilt of falsehood, curses, and oaths, to the base- ness of desertion. His sin was of the first magni- tude, of a crimson die. It had too this peculiar aggravation, that it brought a scandal on the church, when the church seemed least able to bear it. The Shepherd was smitten, the sheep were scattered ; and this was the season in which Peter dishonoured his Lord, and denied his con- nection with his persecuted followers. This then was the man to whom the risen Jesus specially directed his angel to send this joyful message. Had the faithful John who adhered to him in his sufferings and stood by his cross, been thus singled out, it might have excited no sur- prise ; but for Peter, the treacherous Peter, to be thus honoured, seems indeed mysterious. Who can fathom the depth of the Saviour's love ? Who can measure his unbounded grace ? Was Peter singled out then on account of his peculiar guilt ? God forbid. Never let us at- tempt to magnify the grace of God by making that abominable thing which he hates, a recom- H 2 100 THE NEWS OF CHRISES mendation to his favour. It is true that he is ready to pardon the greatest, the vilest sinner who really seeks his pardon ; it is true that he has sometimes shewn the riches of his grace by making a heinous sinner a holy saint ; but are we therefore to " sin that grace may abound ?" Does the greatness of the sinner's guilt plead with the greatness of divine mercy ? Never. Sin may draw down vengeance from heaven on a trans- gressor's head, but never has it drawn down mercy and grace. Why then, it may again be asked, was Peter thus distinguished and honoured ? We have hi- therto taken only a partial view of his conduct ; let us more closely examine it. Peter was not only a great and scandalous sinner, he was also a penitent, mourning sinner. Scarcely had he denied Jesus in the hall of Pilate, when a look of love and pity from his injured Master melted his heart, and filled him with the deepest sorrow. We do not see him trifling with sin, making light of his transgression, and at- tempting to excuse or palliate it. We do not find him comforting himself with the thought that he was a disciple of Christ, and therefore might sin without fear ; that though a heinous transgressor, he was a child of God, and could not be finally cast away. We see in him nothing but self-loathing and contrition, sorrow and tears. Saint Matthew RESURRECTION SENT TO PETER. 101 says that " he went out and wept bitterly ;" and Clement, an ancient Christian writer, relates, that throughout all his future days, every morning when he heard the cock crow, he fell down on his knees ; and, with tears streaming from his eyes, supplicated pardon for his dreadful sin. Here then we see that it was not the guilty Peter who was thus honoured ; it was the sor- rowful, contrite Peter. It was not his cursing and oaths, which brought this mercy to him, but his penitence and tears. There is no comfort then in this scripture for the careless, hardened sinner ; no comfort for the self-righteous sinner ; no com- fort for the man who, in the midst of his iniquity, feels no self-abhorrence, no deep contrition, for his guilt. There is no comfort for such characters as these ; but there is the sweetest comfort for the broken-hearted transgressor. If there be such a sinner here, may God, the Holy Spirit, enable him to derive peace and hope from this instance of his Saviour's love ! May he " draw water with joy " out of this well of consolation ! II. That those among us who are thus mourn- ing for sin, may be cheered and strengthened, let us proceed to consider, secondly, the Author of this message, the gracious Being who sent it to this fallen disciple. We are told that it was brought to the women 102 THE NEWS OF CHRIST'S by an angel ; but he brought it from Jesus, the risen Jesus, the same Jesus who is now seated on the throne of the universe, and who will one day come in the clouds of heaven to be our Judge. 1. Such a message under such circumstances may teach us, first, that Christ had just the same compassionate heart after his resurrection, that he had before it. Death changed the na- ture of his body ; the corruptible temple was made an incorruptible building ; but death did not make the least change in his heart ; it did not alter the dispositions of his soul. We saw him before his crucifixion weeping at the tomb of La- zarus, and shedding tears over the impending mi- series of Jerusalem ; and now after his resurrection from the dead, we see that his first concern is not to receive the congratulations of his friends or to put to shame the boasting of his enemies, but to dry the tears of a fallen disciple, and to speak peace to his troubled mind. Here then every spiritually-minded Christian may find a spring of consolation. Jesus, my Sa- viour, he who measures out to me my daily por- tion of sickness and of health, of sorrows and of joys ; he who is ever appearing as my Advocate at the throne of my God this Jesus has the same pitying heart in heaven, that he had on earth. He can still enter as deeply into all the workings of my fearful, fainting soul. He is still touched with RESURRECTION SENT TO PETER. 103 the feeling of my infirmities. He still looks on the people who seek him, with the same tender- ness, sympathy, and love. 2. The message sent to Peter shews us, se- condly, that the risen Jesus looks more on the graces, than on the sins of the penitent Christian. He seems to have thought more of Peter's sorrow, than of his curses ; more of his tears, than of his oaths. Thus too did he act towards his servant Job. We read the history of his life, and we see it stained with much that is evil. Complicated as his sufferings were, and great as was the submis- sion which he manifested under them, we are at seasons almost disposed to condemn him for his murmurings, rather than to admire him for his patience. And yet we do not find God condemn- ing this man. He calls him " a perfect and an upright man ;" and when his friends impeach his integrity, he descends in a whirlwind from hea- ven to reprove their injustice, and to vindicate the character of his servant. After the lapse of a thousand years, we find him exercising the same tender mercy towards this sorrowful saint. He calls upon us by his apostle James to remember " the patience of Job," while he says not a word of his impatience, his murmurings and complaints. We know not indeed how a Being of infinite purity can thus look with delight on any thing 104 THE NEWS OF CHRIST'S which he finds in any sinner's heart ; but the scripture repeatedly tells us, that though they are sinners, " the Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy ;" that the Redeemer is satisfied with " the travail of his soul ;" that he delights in the graces of his church, and greatly desires her beauty. The reason may be, that he sees so much of the desperate wicked- ness of our hearts, as to make him contemplate with pleasure the least good his grace enables us to bring forth. The natural barrenness of the soil may lead him to admire the fruit it produces. Who would not value a flower which he should find blooming on a rock, or throwing its fragrance over the sands of a desert ? Though we cannot comprehend all the riches of Jehovah's love, we may however believe the plain declarations of his word. He tells us there, that " a book of remembrance is written before him for them that fear him, and that think upon his name." He tells us too, that though he does not remember the sins of his people, he records in this book all their graces ; that there is not a de- sire in the heart of the humble, which he does not regard ; that he sees the tears of the contrite, and treasures them up as though they were precious pearls ; that they cannot give even a cup of cold water to one of his children, but he lays up for them a reward. While he sees such things as RESURRECTION SENT TO PETER. 105 these in his people, he will not cast them away on account of the sinful infirmities which still cleave to them. He will not despise the gold, because it is not wholly purified from the dross. He will not burn the wheat, because it is still mixed with the chaff. Are we then to conclude that God sees no sin in his people, or that, seeing their sin, he is not displeased by it ? Are we to suppose that he is an indifferent spectator of their transgressions, or become altogether blind to them ? God forbid. Such a conclusion would militate against some of the plainest declarations of his word, as well as against the whole course of his dealings with his church. It would impeach the perfection of his divine nature, his unalterable omniscience and his infinite holiness. If there could be sin in one of his creatures, and he not see it ; if there could be sin in any part of the universe, and he not be dis- pleased at it ; he would cease to be the God of the Bible, and we should be without a revelation of his will. Both his word and providence would be alike a riddle. O could the afflicted Jacob, the mourning David, the dying Moses, or the weeping Peter, hear some modern professors of the gospel speak of that bitter thing which planted so many stings in their hearts, and drew down so many sorrows on their heads ; how would they wonder and tremble ! They would tell us, in 106 THE NEWS OF CHRIST'S opposition to all the cunningly devised systems of man, that none of the sins of his people pass unnoticed by God, no, nor yet unpunished ; that although he may shew himself unbounded in mercy towards them, he will make them feel that he is a holy Saviour, and force the world to see that he hates their iniquities. A jealous God, brethren, has ever visited the transgressions of his children with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Thus has it been in every age and with every member of his church, and thus it was in the instance before us. Christ sends to Peter a message of comfort ; but did he suffer his sin to pass unnoticed or un- punished ? No ; he has recorded it to his everlast- ing shame in his holy word. Even to this very day, wherever his gospel is preached throughout the whole world, there also the treachery of his disciple is published. The sin is forgiven, but the remembrance and the shame of it still re- main. 3. We may observe, further, that Jesus some- times vouchsafes to the believer when bowed down with extraordinary sorrow, more than ordinary comfort. He who is the Comforter of his church, singles him out as the particular object of his grace, and stoops down from heaven to bind up his broken heart. A joyful message is sent to all the sorrowful disciples, but Peter is peculiarly RESURRECTION SENT TO PETER. 107 a mourner, and he receives from his Master a special and more personal message of joy. Such a message seemed necessary to restore him to his former peace. It is not a light thing, that will quiet the conscience of the Christian, after he has been overcome by temptation. The storm which sin occasions in his soul, cannot easily be soothed into a calm. The wells of salvation, from which he had before drawn water with joy, seem now to be utterly empty, or barred up against him ; all the common means of comfort have lost their power ; and the mourning Christian wants some special interposition of grace and mercy, before he can again cherish in his heart a hope of pardon and acceptance. In the mysterious riches of his goodness, the Lord sometimes vouchsafes to his saints, in these seasons, peculiar consolations. He recalls their soul, " tossed with tempest and not comforted," from the contemplation of its own depravity, and tells it to look again with the eye of faith on the cross of his Son. In the midst of their sighing and tears, he leads them to their Saviour, enables them to cast on him the heavy burden of their sin, and leaves them rejoicing in his salvation. He does not indeed hastily chase away their sorrows ; they are often left to feel much of the bitterness of their sin, and to mourn long over its shame ; but, in the end, the darkness which transgression 108 THE NEWS OF CHRIST'S has spread over their souls, is generally dispersed ; the day-star arises in their hearts, and the night of their mourning is ended. Year after year the fallen David had his sin ever before him, and watered his couch with his tears ; and yet a God of pardoning mercy met him at length, and brought peace to his soul. These were the last words of David, the son of Jesse, "Although my house be not so with God, yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure ; for this is all my salvation and all my desire." 4. By sending to his fallen disciple this mes- sage, Jesus reminds us also, that the contrite sin- ner may draw much comfort and hope from his resurrection. What was the joyful message that he sent to Peter ? It was this, that he was risen from the dead. Peter also, in the first chapter of his first epistle, seems to make a distant allusion to the means by which his heart was restored to its wont- ed peace. " Blessed," says he, " be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which, according to his abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." This too was the saluta- tion with which the primitive Christians cheered each other under their sufferings ; on the morn- ing of every sabbath, these joyful words were RESURRECTION SENT TO PETER. 109 heard in their assemblies from every mouth. "The Lord is risen." How is it then, brethren, that we draw so little comfort from a fountain, from which these early saints drew so much ? The great reason is, we do not go for it there ; we do not endeavour to know the power of the Saviour's resurrection ; we do not understand its importance, or feel its efficacy. If it were duly considered by us, properly un- derstood, and effectually applied by the Holy Spirit to our minds, we should see that it is able to cheer the most dejected soul, and to put life and spirit into the faintest heart. 4 III. Let us now take a hasty view of the mes- sengers who were employed to bear this message. 1. It was entrusted first to an angel. Saint Mark describes him as " a young man," but Saint Matthew calls him " the angel of the Lord." But why should an angel be called on to carry such a message as this ? The feet of the hum- blest messenger with these glad tidings of good would have appeared beautiful upon the moun- tains, and would have been hailed with acclama- tions of joy. It pleased Jesus however to entrust the news of his resurrection to a heavenly mes- senger. He had heard the multitude of his hea- venly hosts exulting with joy, when they were allowed to make known his birth to the wonder- 110 THE NEWS OF CHRISTS ing shepherds; he had experienced their sym- pathy in the wilderness, in the garden, and pro- bably on the cross; and now he singles out one from their number to proclaim his triumph over death and the grave. Neither was it a common angel, that he chose ; it was " the angel of the Lord," his own angel, the highest and most fa- voured archangel in his courts. Mark too how this dignified messenger seems to rejoice in his work, and to think himself ho- noured by it ! He descends from heaven to take his station at the tomb, as one bringing the news of a triumph, and arrayed in its emblems. " His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment," like a conqueror's robe, " was white as snow." Now this glorious spirit was employed on this occasion by Jesus, not only to do honour to him- self, but to teach us a lesson. He would teach us by it, that the breach between us and the angels is healed. The angels were originally the friends of the inhabitants of the earth. They had a different place of residence, but they were the children of the same common parent and members of the same family, and there was between them and us a sweet communion and friendship. But when man by his disobedience forfeited the favour of God, he forfeited with it the love of the angels. Sin disunited heaven and earth, destroyed the RESURRECTION SENT TO PETER. Ill harmony between them, and put an en d totheir intercourse. This separation however was not an eternal one. We are no sooner reconciled to God by the blood of his Son, than we become recon- ciled to the angels also. As holy and faithful beings, they were constrained to take part with Jehovah in his controversy with man, and they now rejoice to welcome back again to his family the pardoned rebel. Hence says the apostle, when speaking of the Redeemer, " It pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell ; and, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven." The angels therefore again regard us as friends, and love us as brethren. Nay, more ; they are made our ministering servants, and do not disdain the office. We are told that they are " sent forth to minister unto them who shall be heirs of salvation." And is it not a cheering reflection, brethren, that in all our trials, sorrows, and difficulties, not only is Jesus with us, but his angels also are round about us, and ready to guard and help us ; the same angels that fed Elijah in the wilderness, that released Peter from prison, that cheered Paul in the storm, and comforted and strengthened the Saviour in the hour of his agony ? But this thought is serious as well as cheering. 112 THE NEWS OF CHRIST'S Am I always surrounded by the holy angels of God ? Are they the constant witnesses of my conduct ? Do they see all the actions of my sin- ful life, and hear all the words of my unclean lips ? O how often then have I grieved them ! Into what scenes and into what society have I taken them ! O let me for the future reverence my heavenly attendants ! Let me watch my actions, and words, and thoughts, that I may grieve them no more. Never let me dare to lead them again into scenes of vanity and sin. We may learn also from the appearance of an angel on this occasion, that the contrite sinner is peculiarly an object of love to the heavenly hosts. We are told that " there is joy in heaven over a sinner that repenteth," and here is a confirmation of the saying. The angel of the Lord has compassion on the weeping Peter, and rejoices to take to him a cup of consolation. What a lesson for ministers, what a lesson for every Christian, is here ! It is a heavenly work to comfort the sorrowful. The angels delight in it; they are willing to leave heaven to be em ployed in it. Shall we then despise it ? Shall we turn away from the brother who is mourning for sin, and leave no word of comfort behind us ? No. Let us bear one another's spiritual burdens, and " so fulfil the law of Christ." Let us take up the words of the angel, and say to all who are RESURRECTION SENT TO PETER. 113 broken in heart and enquiring for a Saviour, " Fear not ye ; for I know that ye seek Jesus which was crucified." 2. But the angel of the Lord was not the only messenger employed to convey the news of Christ's resurrection to Peter. Three poor women receive the message from the lips of this heavenly herald, and carry it to the mourning penitent. It might have been supposed that Christ would have made known his resurrection first to Pilate and Herod who had crucified him, and to the Jews who had rejected him. He would thus have convinced them of their guilt, and wiped off the scandal of his cross. But if the punishment of his enemies and the vindication of his own character appear for a season to be forgotten, we shall surely find the risen Jesus anxious to put honour upon his disciples, and shewing himself first to them. But no ; the first tidings they hear of his triumph come from Mary Magdalene, and from two other women, her companions in poverty and meanness. O what a reproof must this have been, not to Peter only, but to all the apostles! And how richly had they merited it ! Peter had denied him, and they had all forsaken him and fled. But these faithful women had never de- serted him. Throughout his life, they were ever near him ministering to his wants ; and in his death, nothing could divide them from him. With VOL. i. r 114 THE NEWS OF CHRIST'S a fortitude which fills us with admiration and al- most with wonder, they stood near his cross, wit- nessed his agonies, and heard his dying groan. After his death, none of the cowardly apostles came near the mangled body of their Master, but these women assisted at his burial, and followed him to the grave. And when his funeral was over, they sat down over against his sepulchre to weep, and could be prevailed on to leave it only by the duties of the sabbath. Neither was their labour of love yet ended. " In the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn towards the first day of the week," the very first moment their duty to God allowed them to testify their affec- tion for their Friend, we see them going again to his sepulchre with." sweet spices, that they might anoint him." Here then we may perceive the reason why these three women were thus distinguished. They had been first in love, and affection, and service ; it was but right therefore, that they should be first in honour and reward. " Them that honour me," saith the Lord, " I will honour ; and they that despise me, shall be lightly esteemed." There is something remarkable too in the hasty manner in which these women were sent with the tidings of Christ's resurrection to Peter. We are told by Saint Matthew, that the angel invited them to attend the sepulchre of their risen Lord, RESURRECTION SENT TO PETER. 115 and to see the place where he lay ; but scarcely had they taken a glance at the empty tomb, when they were hastily sent away from it. " Go your way," said the angel, " go quickly and tell his disciples and Peter, that he is risen from the dead." They accordingly "departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy, and did run to bring his disciples word." Why then were these women thus hastily dismissed ? There was nothing sinful in the feelings which a view of the tomb of their Saviour was likely to excite ; but they were not suffered to stay there to indulge them, that we might be taught that pious feelings must lead to pious actions ; that religious medita- tion must often give way to the active duties of life. It is good and sweet to think of Christ, but it is better to act for Christ. " He is the best servant," says an old writer, " not that delights to stand in his master's presence, but that carefully minds and diligently goes about his master's business." One active Christian, brethren, is worth a thou- sand merely contemplative admirers of the gospel. It is the working servant, that receives wages ; it is the fighting soldier, that has for his reward a triumph and a crown. Religious actions must indeed have their origin in religious affections. The religion of the gospel cannot live in the heart, which has not first learned to think and to feel. i 2 116 THE NEWS OF CHRIST'S But then what are those feelings worth, which have no influence on the disposition and the con- duct ? They may resemble the workings of the pious heart, but there is no real piety in them, none of " the power of godliness." It is one thing to have a studious mind or a lively imagination, and another thing to have Christ in the soul, " the hope of glory." It is very possible too, even when the great realities of religion have been lodged in the mind, to raise one duty to an undue pre-emi- nence over others, to give to the exercises of de- 7 c3 votion a portion of that time, which ought to be devoted to works of charity and labours of love. We can never be too earnest then in watching our treacherous hearts, and bringing all their workings to this simple standard of the gospel, " By their fruits ye shall know them." We can never be too earnest in our endeavours to resem- ble him who " went about doing good ;" in aiming to bring forth much fruit to the glory of God. Go your way then, you who, like these women, profess to seek a crucified, and to rejoice in a risen Jesus ; go your way, you who, like Peter, know what it is to mourn for sin, and to receive pardon and comfort from a merciful Saviour ; go your way, and bind up the broken heart, and speak peace to the troubled soul ; go and comfort others with the comforts, wherewith you yourselves have been comforted of God ; go and publish to a world RESURRECTION SENT TO PETER. 117 of sinners, by all the means which a bountiful Providence has placed within your power, those joyful tidings which have been sent to you in your Bibles ; go and send this good news round a pe- rishing world, that " Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners ;" that whosoever cometh to him shall " in no wise" be cast out ; that all who are weary and heavy laden with the burden of their griefs and sins, may come to him and find rest to their troubled souls. SERMON VII. THE HUMILITY OF ST. PAUL. EPHESIANS iii. 8. Less than the least of all saints. THE man who has left us this record of himself, was one of the holiest and most exalted saints that ever graced the Christian church. He seems to have entered more into the spirit of his Mas- ter, than any of his followers, and to have re- ceived from him more abundant honour. And yet in the midst of his attainments, even while standing on the eminence to which divine mercy had raised him, we find this distinguished apostle humbling himself in the dust. He who has been for ages the delight and admiration of the church, here styles himself " less than the least of all saints ;" and as though even this were too honour- able a name for him to bear, we see him, in another place, abasing himself still more; he deems THE HUMILITY OF ST. PAUL. 119 himself unworthy to be called an apostle, and takes this as his more appropriate title, " The chief of sinners." This deep humility in a saint of this exalted eminence, may well excite our admiration ; but let not admiration be its only fruit. It invites us to go and sit at his feet, and learn of him. It calls upon us to be more " meek and lowly in heart ;" to have a more abiding sense of our meanness, unworthiness, and guilt ; to walk more humbly with our God. With these objects in view, let us enquire, first, in what the humility of Saint Paul consisted ; and, secondly, by what means that spirit of self- abasement which reigned in him, may be habitu- ally maintained in our own hearts. I. In what did the humility of Saint Paul con- sist? How did it manifest itself? The slightest acquaintance with his character leaves us no room to suspect that it consisted in words only. There is such an appearance of simplicity and honesty in his writings, that they give us at once a full conviction that the humility which appears in his language, was to be found also in his heart and life. A reference to his writings will con- sequently be just as satisfactory, as a reference to his history, and perhaps as instructive. 1 . We cannot take even the most hasty glance 120 THE HUMILITY OF ST. PAUL. at the writings of this apostle, without at once noticing the entire submission of his mind to the gospel of Christ, the simple and hearty reception which he gave to every divine truth. He had naturally just the same proud heart that we have, and hated the humiliating doctrines connected with the cross of Christ, as much as we hate them. Nay, they were more offensive to him than they are to us. They were opposed, not only to those common workings of pride which we all feel, but to a multitude of prejudices peculiar to himself, or to the age and country in which he lived. He was a Jew, he was a scholar of Gamaliel, he was a man of strong intellectual powers ; and yet all the prejudices of the Jew, all the pride of the scholar, and all the dictates of worldly wisdom, were torn out of his heart ; and the once proud and haughty Saul is seen sitting at the feet of the carpenter's son, humble and teachable as a little child. Read his epistles to the Romans and Galatians, brethren, and see how low the grace of God can humble the proudest mind. We do not find him endeavouring, in these epistles, to accommodate the doctrines of the gospel to his former opinions, reducing and qualifying them to make them square with the feelings of the Jew or the pride of the philo- sopher; he receives them, in all their humiliating force, with simplicity and godly sincerity. Every THE HUMILITY OF ST. PAUL. 121 imagination, " every high thing " which had so long exalted itself in his mind " against the knowledge of God," seems to be utterly cast down, and every thought brought " into captivity to the obedience of Christ." This entire submission of the mind to God is no common attainment. It is no trifling change of heart, no common humility, that will lead a man to it. We love to bring the declarations of God to the standard of our corrupt reason before we receive them. If they are opposed to this standard, we too often endeavour to wrest them from their meaning ; and when they will not bear to be thus misinterpreted, we do not hesitate to disbelieve and reject them. Thousands who seem as though they could have triumphed over the depravity of the flesh, have fallen a sacrifice to the corruption of their understandings, and the pride of their own foolish minds. 2. The writings of Saint Paul prove the great- ness of his humility by shewing us, secondly, that the highest spiritual attainments could not make him forget his meanness and guilt. There are indeed some professors of the gospel risen up in our day, who would object to such a test of humility as this. They seem to regard it as the very perfection of religion to forget their iniquities, and to look upon themselves as spotless in the sight of God. But mark the difference 122 THE HUMILITY OF ST. PAUL. between such professors and this humble Paul. He knew as much of the fulness of redemption as any of us, and had tasted as much of the savour of the grace of Christ. He had been taken up too into the third heaven, and beheld there glo- rious revelations which had never been beheld be- fore by mortal eye ; and heard there words which it is not lawful or possible for a man to utter. And yet what was his language ? What, in the midst of these attainments and honours, was his opinion of himself? Did he forget his sins ? Never. Throughout every period of his life, his guilt seems as present to his mind, as at the hour of his conversion. " I was," he says, " a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious." And lest we should suppose that he thought only of his former iniquities, he says, " I am the chief of sinners." " I am carnal, sold under sin." The fact is, that an enlarged view of the mer- cies of God in Christ Jesus must humble the soul, must remind it continually, not only of its former guilt, but of its present vileness. The Christian is always the lowest in his own esteem, when his hope in divine grace is the highest. He is always the poorest in himself, when he sees himself the most rich in Christ. 3. The sense which the apostle had of his own sinfulness, did not however prevent him from seeing and acknowledging what divine grace had THE HUMILITY OF ST. PAUL. 123 done for his soul, and what it had enabled him to do for God. He sometimes mentions these things in his writings, but he never mentions them without affording us another proof of his lowliness of heart a marked anxiety to give all the glory of all his labours and attainments to God. We never find him taking any part of the praise to himself, but always expressly disclaim- ing it. He seems afraid of ascribing something to his own merit or power, and of robbing his Saviour of his honour. Lest the glory of Jesus should be lessened, he takes the crown of excel- lency off his own head, and, like the angels in heaven, he casts it down before the throne of the Lamb, as though he were unwilling, as well as unworthy, to wear the meanest crown in his pre- sence. Thus we find him saying of himself in his first epistle to the Corinthians, " I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God : but by the grace of God I am what I am ; and his grace which was bestowed upon me, was not in vain, but I laboured more abundantly than they all ;" and then he adds, as though he had said too much, " Yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me." 4. The humility of Saint Paul was manifested also in the low opinion which he had of himself, when compared with his Christian brethren. He 124 THE HUMILITY OF ST. PAUL. speaks not, in the text, the unmeaning language of compliment, but the language of godly since- rity. The apostle wrote as he felt. His lowliness of mind had really taught him to esteem others better than himself. When he takes a view of his own character, he seems to find in himself nothing but infirmity and sin ; but when he looks at others, all their failings are out of his sight, and he sees only their excellencies. This spirit of charity was the natural result of the apostle's humility. The man who walks hum- bly with his God, will always be distinguished by it ; he will always deem his own guilt pecu- liarly aggravated, and greater than that of any of his brethren. The reason is obvious. He sees the iniquity which dwells in his own heart, while the corruptions that are struggling in the hearts of others, are hidden from his view. He has an intimate knowledge of the sins of his own life, but a remote and slight view of the sinful conduct of others. A wounded man feels the pain of his own wound, while he can only guess at the pain of his suffering neighbour. Hence we find, that true humility, while it brings to light our own sins, is ever sure to cover a multitude of the sins of others. The man who is the most sensible of his own failings, will always be heard to talk the least of the failings of others. It is the proud man, the proud professor of the gospel, who is the THE HUMILITY OF ST. PAUL. 125 reviling man, the censorious professor. Pride takes a pleasure in bringing to light the infirmities of others, that itself may be exalted ; while humi- lity delights in contemplating their excellencies, that it may be cast down by them still lower, and be led to imitate their graces. 5. The humility of Saint Paul consisted, lastly, in his simple dependence upon Christ. If ever man had any thing in himself, in which he might safely hope, it was surely this apostle. Read the account he gives us of himself before his conversion. " Circumcised," he says, " the eighth day ; of the stock of Israel ; of the tribe of Benjamin ; a Hebrew of the Hebrews ; as touch- ing the law, a pharisee ; concerning zeal, perse- cuting the church ; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless." And what had he to boast of after divine grace had brought him to a knowledge of the gospel ? If we would obtain an answer to this enquiry, we must not refer merely to his journey ings and labours in the cause of Christ, to his " weari- ness and painfulness," his " watchings and fast- ings," his " hunger and thirst," his " cold and nakedness :" we must ascend into heaven, and count the number of those rejoicing saints who, through his means, have been saved from destruc- tion ; we must estimate the glory which their re- demption will for ever throw around the throne 126 THE HUMILITY OF ST. PAUL. of Jehovah. When we have done this, we shall know something of what Saint Paul had to lean on. And yet what is it that we find him actually depending on, actually hoping in ? His graces as a Christian ? His labours as an apostle ? His success as a minister ? He seems to shrink from the very thought. We find in him the most sim- ple trust, the most undivided reliance, on the free mercy of his Saviour. He seeks the salvation of his soul, as though he were indeed the greatest of sinners, the vilest of the children of men. The source of this simple reliance on Christ must be sought for in that humility, in that deep and abiding sense of his own unworthiness, which the Holy Spirit had lodged in the apostle's heart. This was the one great reason why all the powers of his mind, and all the strength of his body, were employed in making known the salva- tion of the cross ; this was the reason why he endeavoured with so much fear and trembling to secure it for himself he felt, more perhaps than any other sinner ever felt, his wretchedness, his helplessness, without it. It was this, which made him so cheerfully " suffer the loss of all things, that he might win Christ." It was this, which made him so anxious to renounce all confidence in his own righteousness, and seek so earnestly that righteousness which is through the faith of Christ. It was this, which made him glory so much in the THE HUMILITY OF ST. PAUL. 127 cross of Jesus, and desire so ardently to be found in him. Without this deep conviction of the guilt and helplessness of our state, and that humility of spirit which flows from it, all that Christ has done and suffered for sinners will profit us nothing. Our proud hearts will never stoop to accept his terms of salvation. We shall either scoff at his gospel, and openly trample upon the blood which gives efficacy to its promises, or we shall corrupt and disfigure it. We shall not love it in its sim- plicity. In one shape or other, self will be intro- duced into it, and made the ground of our confi- dence. We may have too much knowledge of the scriptures to think of purchasing the glories of heaven by the decency of our conduct, or the be- nevolence of our hearts, or the usefulness of our lives ; but we may place the same self-righteous dependence in fancied excellencies of another kind, that our brethren around us are placing in these. We may rest our hope of acceptance with God on our faith, our knowledge of the gospel, our convictions of sin, our frames and feelings, or even on our pretended humility ; and as effec- tually ruin our souls, as though we hoped for sal- vation from our almsgiving and prayers. Nothing but a heartfelt sense of our sinfulness and wretch- edness will lead us to the cross of Jesus, and keep us near it. Dependence on Christ must flow 128 THE HUMILITY OF ST. PAUL. from humility of heart. If we are destitute of the one, we shall be destitute also of the other. We must know our need and danger, before we shall seek a remedy or look around for help. It is the sick man, who applies to a physician ; it is the man who feels that he cannot heal himself, that lets his physician do with him whatsoever he will ; it is the man who feels the pain of his sickness the most severely, that goes to his physician the most frequently. II. These then are some of the marks of true humility, which may be traced in the character of Saint Paul. Other proofs of the lowliness of his mind might be mentioned, but we must proceed to enquire, secondly, by what means that spirit of self-abasement which reigned in his heart, may be habitually maintained in our own. But in making this enquiry and others of a similar nature, let us never forget that we have no power in ourselves to do any thing as of our- selves. We are not able to plant a single grace in our hearts ; and when any spiritual seed has been planted there, we have no power to keep it alive, and cause it to bring forth fruit. Every grace is the gift of God, his free gift, a gift as freely bestowed, as the rain that comes down from heaven. If then we imagine that we can humble our own proud hearts by our own strength, we THE HUMILITY OF ST. PAUL. 129 shall be disappointed. That pride which is the curse of our nature, has struck its roots too deeply within us, for any human arm to pluck it thence. But though we are thus impotent in ourselves, the Holy Spirit generally works his purposes of grace by the use of means, and through these means he allows, yea, he commands us to seek his grace. He has thus given us ample encourage- ment to endeavour to stretch forth the withered arm. His invitations and commands afford us the strongest assurance, that he is at this very moment seated on a throne of grace, waiting there to be gracious, and ready to pour down his richest spiritual gifts on the head of every praying sinner. Are we then earnestly desir- ing a more humble frame of mind ? " Let us lift up our eyes to those everlasting hills from whence cometh our help." Let us seek it of God ; and entreat him to bestow it on us through those means and channels in which his servant Paul obtained it, and through which he is hourly be- stowing it on a thousand seeking hearts. 1. One of these means must immediately occur to our minds ; it is this a frequent remembrance of our former iniquities, and an abiding sense of our present corruptions. This consciousness of guilt was not only one of the effects of Saint Paul's humility, it was the VOL. I. K 130 THE HUMILITY OF ST. PAUL. principal root from which it sprung. In the midst of his greatness, he remembered Saul of Tarsus, and was humbled. He thought of the in- firmities which still cleaved to him, and was con- strained to abase himself before his God. We are much inclined to turn away from this contemplation of our sinfulness. It is humilia- ting, it is painful to us, and we endeavour to per- suade ourselves that it is unnecessary. Because God has graciously promised to deal with us as though he remembered our iniquities no more, we are tempted to think that he has really forgotten them, and that we need no longer have them in remembrance. Here however we err. The re- deemed and sanctified servant of God has just as much need to have a lively sense of his transgres- sions, as the most hardened and defiled sinner. Any system of religion, brethren, which tends in the least degree to make the soul regard itself in any other light than as altogether vile and sinful, is not the religion of the Bible. It may seem on the first view to magnify the Saviour, but it will most surely lower our conceptions of him. It may appear calculated to bring comfort to the soul, but it is much more calculated to bring to it per- plexity, conceit, and pride. The simple gospel of Christ, while it exalts the Holy One of Israel in the very highest degree, sinks the sinner, even the converted sinner, to the very lowest. Who ever THE HUMILITY OF ST. PAUL. 131 thought more highly of Christ, than Paul ? and who ever thought more lowly of himself? However high your attainments in religion may be, look therefore, with this great apostle, " to the rock, whence ye were hewn ; and to the hole of the pit, whence ye were digged." Think of the many hours, and days, and years, you once spent in the service of the world and Satan. Perhaps too you can remember the time, when you treated religion with derision. It opposed your sinful practices, and you hated it ; it wounded your pride, and you scorned it. You delighted in pour- ing contempt on the gospel of Christ, and on all who appeared to you really attached to it. Think too of the sins by which you have been denied since you began to seek heavenly things. Has your conduct during the latter years of your life been always " such as becometh the gospel of Christ ?" Have you always walked as " children of the light ?" Alas, no ! Into how many out- ward iniquities have some of us fallen, and of how many inward transgressions are we all conscious ! A disgraceful catalogue of sins might easily be enumerated, that would make us appear hateful to ourselves ; and if our sins are objects of ab- horrence to ourselves, what must they be to that holy Being, in whose sight the heavens are not clean ? He has seen them ; he remembers them all. He has " set our misdeeds before him, and K 2 132 THE HUMILITY OF ST. PAUL. our secret sins in the light of his countenance." Let this reflection lead us also to remember our iniquities. Let it influence us to strive daily to discover our own imperfections, what is amiss in us and wherein we are defective. Let us think more of what we want, than of what we have at- tained. Instead of being ready to pride ourselves on our knowledge and goodness, let us rather sit down and mourn that we are still so ignorant, still so corrupt. Remember, my Christian brethren, what you once were ; remember what you still are, notwithstanding all that divine grace has done for you : and if you can then find cause for pride and boasting, " Your spot is not the spot of my children," saith the Lord. 2. If we would habitually maintain an humble frame of mind, we must have a lively sense of the freeness and fulness of divine mercy, of that mercy which God has bestowed upon us through his Son. Saint Paul had tasted of this mercy. It had enriched his soul, and made him the most zealous preacher of its glad tidings, that ever graced the church of God. He seems to have had deeper and more enlarged views of its unsearchable riches, than any other saint ; and yet never was any man more humble than he. Nothing indeed softens and humbles the heart, like a sense of pardoning mercy and redeeming THE HUMILITY OF ST. PAUL. 133 grace. The Christian can sometimes think of his manifold iniquities, and be but little affected by the remembrance ; but a thought of the love of Jesus towards his guilty soul generally touches and abases him. It was pardoning mercy, that made the poor woman who had been a sinner, fall down at the feet of her Saviour and weep. It was mercy, that made David exclaim, " Who am I, O Lord God, and what is mine house, that thou hast brought me hitherto ?" It is mercy, that still makes the heart of many a sinner lowly and contrite. Fix your thoughts then, brethren, more fre- quently and more closely on that wonderful love, wherewith the Father has loved you. Think of its beginning in the councils of eternity. Think of its freeness, its greatness, its unchangeableness. Think of that depth of misery from which it has raised you, and of that height of blessedness to which it is gradually lifting you. If such thoughts as these never humble you, write bitter things against yourselves, and deem yourselves strangers to the grace of Christ. 3. The Christian will also find his humility increased by frequently meditating on the infinite purity and majesty of the living God. It is a sight of the divine greatness and ho- liness, which enables us to see our own meanness and guilt. It is this, that brings to nought the 134 THE HUMILITY OF ST. PAUL. glory of man and stains his honour. It was this, that drew from Isaiah so touching an acknowledg- ment of his pollution. " Woe is me !" he ex- claimed as he saw the Lord sitting on his high and holy throne ; '' Woe is me ! for I am undone ; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips ; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts." It was this, that made Job abhor himself, and re- pent in dust and ashes. It was this too, which made Saint Paul so conscious of his own im- perfections. In his way to Damascus, he saw something of the glory of Christ, and when he was taken up into the third heavens, he un- doubtedly saw more of it than it was lawful for him to utter. The effect which the view that had been vouchsafed to him, left upon his mind, may in some degree be seen in the first chapter of his epistle to the Hebrews, and in his epistle to Timothy, where he calls Christ, " The blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords; who only hath im- mortality ; dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto ; whom no man hath seen, nor can see." If we then would walk humbly with our God, let us set him always before us in his spotless holiness and awful greatness. With the Bible in our hands and a fervent prayer in our hearts, let us endeavour to behold him that THE HUMILITY OF ST. PAUL, 135 is invisible ; and even the distant prospect of the divine glory to which our feeble eyes can reach, will constrain us to feel that no flesh can glory in Jehovah's presence. 4. A due sense of the great importance of an humble spirit will also have a tendency to keep us low in our own eyes. The grace of humility is not a merely ornamen- tal grace, a something which it is desirable, but not absolutely necessary, to possess. It lies at the very root of all true religion. It is the source from which almost every spiritual grace must spring. Where this is wanting, every thing is wanting. We may appear very religious and have a high reputation for godliness, but if self- abasement be not the corner-stone of the spiritual temple, if the building rest not on this foundation, it is raised upon the sand. The house may be beautiful and even splendid ; it may appear to the spectator firm ; but when the rain descends, and the floods come, and the winds blow and beat upon that house, it will assuredly fall, and great will^be the fall of it. Humility too can adorn the house, as well as support it. " The Lord giveth grace to the hum- ble," and not grace only, but honour and glory. There is no mansion which he loves so well, as a sinner's humbled heart. Yea, that " high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is THE HUMILITY OF ST. PAUL. holy," dwells, not only " in the high and holy place," but " with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the hum- ble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones." Humility also can do much for a man in the present life. It can enable him, as it enabled Saint Paul, " in whatsoever state'' he is, " there- with to be content ;" it can fill his heart with thankfulness ; it can keep him dependent upon his God ; it can teach him how to bear the enmity and reproach of a persecuting world ; amidst all the ruffling storms of life, it can preserve within his breast a heavenly calm. 5. If we would become more lowly in heart, we must, finally, look more to Christ than we have hitherto looked to him. We must look to him for humility. We must regard him as our only Sanctifier, as well as our only Saviour. We must apply to him to subdue the pride of our hearts, as well as to blot out their sins. We must look to him also as a bright example of humility. Compared with his self-abasement, the humility of Saint Paul sinks into nothing. As we look on the Babe of Bethlehem ; as we behold the Master laying aside his garments, and girding himself, and stooping down to wash his disciples' feet ; as we follow the Man of sorrows to the cross, and witness the degradation which he suffered there ; the lowly Paul is no longer THE HUMILITY OF ST. PAUL. 137 thought of. We see the Son of God humbling himself in the dust. We see the King of heaven disrobing himself of all his glory, and clothing himself in the mean and wretched garments of fallen man. It was at the feet of Jesus, that the apostle learned how to abase himself; and there also, if we would have our lofty spirits humbled, he sends us. " Let this mind be in you," he says, " which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no repu- tation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men ; and, being- found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." SERMON VIII. THE COMPASSION OF THE HIGH PRIEST OF THE CHURCH. HEBREWS iv. 15. We have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. 1 HIS is one of the most gracious and encouraging declarations in the word of God. It has cheered many a fainting heart, and restored many a wan- dering soul to peace and hope. In the verse pre- ceding it, the apostle speaks of Jesus, the great High Priest of the church, as the Son of God ; as having passed into the far distant heavens, and entered into his glory. He speaks of him here as the Son of man ; as being still the same com- passionate Jesus that he was on earth, with a heart as tender, and a love as strong. THE COMPASSION, &C. 139 That we may draw scriptural comfort from his words, let us enquire, first, of what infirmities he is here speaking ; secondly, what is implied in Christ's being touched with the feeling of them ; and, thirdly, what reasons we have to believe that he really exercises this strong compassion. I. We are to enquire, first, what infirmities are spoken of in the text. The apostle calls them " our infirmities," the infirmities of himself and of the Hebrew Chris- tians to whom he was writing. His words must consequently be applied, in their full sense, to the true Christian only, to the man who, like Saint Paul, has been " washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God." In one sense indeed the ascended Jesus is touched with the infirmities of all mankind ; he pities and often relieves them, when suffering under them. But it is the sorrow of his beloved church, which affects his heart the most, and calls into exercise its deepest tender- ness. Still however the question recurs, With which of the many infirmities of his servants is Jesus touched ? And to this we may answer with con- fidence, that he is touched with all of them. All outward infirmities are the subjects of his compassion poverty and want, hunger and 140 THE COMPASSION OF THE thirst, weariness and pain, sickness and death ; and not only these natural evils, but all the cala- mities which a persecuting world can heap on the church contempt and disgrace, hatred and in- justice, " cruel mockings and scourgings," " bonds and imprisonment." All our inward in- firmities also, are comprehended in the apostle's words perplexity and trouble, fear and terror, grief and anguish, the temptations of the world and of Satan, a sense of the wrath of God. With all these sources of suffering, Christ himself was exercised or tempted, and the misery that flows from them, he doubtless can still commise- rate. II. Let us go on to enquire what is meant by his being touched with the feeling of them. The double negative which the apostle has employed in the text, is much stronger and more expressive, than a direct affirmative would have been, and seems to imply a livelier assurance, a deeper conviction, of the fact. Here also it must be observed that the word which is rendered " touched with the feeling of," signifies to suffer with another, to share his sorrows, to sympathize with him under them. We are taught then by this expression, that Christ sympathizes with his people, just as one man sympathizes with another; that he still retains all the affections of the human HIGH PRIEST OF THE CHURCH. 141 heart, and still delights to exercise them. We do not indeed attempt to say how these affections are exercised in a Being who is God as well as man ; but though we may not always be able fully to explain the declarations of God, yet if we have humble and simple hearts, we can believe them, and rejoice in the gracious truths they con- tain, and adore the goodness of that Father of mercies, who has caused them to be written in his word for our comfort and salvation. But let us take a closer view of this divine compassion. 1 . It evidently implies a knowledge of our injir- mities. The expression used by the apostle inti- mates that Christ sees, and notices, and remem- bers them. And his knowledge of them is an accurate, a perfect knowledge. Our infirmities may be as numerous as the sands on the sea-shore ; but none of them escape his notice. They may be more than we can number, but he numbers them all, and has the account of them ever before him. There is not one of them so small, as to be deemed unworthy of his regard ; not one so great, as to make him unwilling to concern him- self in it. His knowledge too is experimental, as well as accurate. He knows by experience what our trials are, for he has borne and carried them. He has felt their weight, and pressure, and smart, 142 THE COMPASSION OF THE and still remembers every painful feeling with which they wrung his soul. 2. This accurate and experimental knowledge produces another effect implied in Christ's being touched with a feeling of our infirmities sympa- thy, a tender compassion for us while suffering under our trials. We often know and see the afflictions of one another, without our knowledge ? O producing any effect upon our minds ; but it is not so with Christ. Our infirmities interest and touch him. And this not in a slight degree. His sympathy is a strong sympathy. When a good man sees another in distress or misery, though he be a stranger, he is moved with compassion towards him ; but if the sufferer, instead of being a stranger, be a beloved relative or friend, he feels a much livelier interest in his sorrow, and is more deeply affected with his condition. Thus the Lord Jesus Christ feels for us, not merely as we are objects of pity, but as the objects of his tenderest love. He feels for us as his own be- loved people, as those whom he has purchased with his blood, and whom he regards as the choicest treasures he possesses. He feels for his people, as a brother feels for his brethren, as a father for his child, as a husband for the wife of his bosom. The sympathy of Christ is as abiding too, as it is strong. It is a constant, never failing sym- HIGH PRIEST OF THE CHURCH. 143 pathy. He does not have pity on us one hour, and neglect us the next ; he does not weep with us in this trial, and turn away from us in that ; no ; he shares every sorrow with us ; and as long as we are encompassed with infirmities, so long will his compassion be exercised towards us. Nay more ; he will sympathize with us, when all our infirmities shall have past away ; he will share in our joys in heaven, as well as in our sorrows upon earth. Even in his kingdom above, whatever af- fects us will affect him. He now mourns with us in our sorrow, and he will there sing with us in our joy. 3. To be touched with a feeling of our infir- mities, implies, further, a readiness in Christ to succour us under them. The sympathy of Christ is not a merely senti- mental thing. It is not that fashionable and much applauded sensibility, which can weep over mi- sery, and yet not stretch out a hand to relieve it. It is an active principle. It leads the Saviour to do for us all that, consistently with our welfare and his glory, he can do ; to give us all the help, and support, and comfort, which we need under our afflictions, and, as soon as possible, a happy issue out of them. He is indeed a wise, as well as a tender Friend ; and he will not remove any infirmity from us one moment before it will be well for us to have it removed ; but then as long 144 THE COMPASSION OF THE as we are afflicted, he is afflicted. While we are suffering, he is suffering also. Let this satisfy us. Let it bring comfort to our souls under affliction, and convince us that help and deliverance will come in their proper season. III. We may now proceed to enquire, thirdly, what reasons we have to believe that Jesus is still exercising this love and compassion towards the infirmities of his saints. It is so great and won- derful an act of condescension, that many a faith- less heart may be ready to doubt its reality, or at best be slow to believe it. We seem to want something to encourage us to the belief of a fact so strange to reason, so far above all expectation, so much beyond all we could hope for or even think of. The apostle however has given us in this epistle abundant confirmation of the truth of his assertion. 1. He tells us, first, that this was one of the ends for which Christ took our nature upon him, that he might be touched with its infirmities. We read in the beginning of the chapter which follows the text, that every high priest taken from among men, must " have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way ; for that he himself also is compassed with infir- mity." It was necessary for Jesus therefore to be made such a high priest as this. ' Wherefore," HIGH PRIEST OF THE CHURCH. 145 says the apostle in the second chapter of this epistle, " in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merci- ful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people ; for in that he himself hath suffered, being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted." His assuming our nature did not indeed increase his mercifulness as God, for that, before his incarnation, was infinite ; but it ena- bled him, as man, to pity from experience. He submitted to our infirmities, that he might not only be merciful to us as a God of mercy, but tender-hearted and compassionate towards us as a Brother and a Friend. Now this being one of the ends for which he became man, the constant exer- cise of his sympathy is no more to be doubted, than his incarnation itself. He was made man not only that he might suffer for us, but that he might suffer with us ; and as long as he remains the great High Priest of the church, our sorrows will be his sorrows, our trials his trials, and our joys his joys. 2. The same truth will be evident, if we re- member that it is a part of the Saviour's office as the High Priest of his church, to be touched with a feeling of its infirmities. The appointment of the Levitical high priest, as we learn from the passage of scripture which VOL. I. L 146 THE COMPASSION OF THE has already been referred to, had mercy and com- passion in its very design. One branch of the duties of his office had a reference chiefly to God, and consisted in offering sacrifices to him ; while the' other had a reference principally to the people, and consisted in feeling for them, in being touched with a compassionate sense of their in- firmities and sins. Hence the names of the twelve tribes were to be written upon the breast-plate of the high priest when he went into the holy of ho- lies, to remind him that it was his duty to remem- ber all his brethren in the sacrifices and prayers he offered there. The same office Jesus has undertaken to sus- tain for ever in the Christian church, and bound himself to perform its duties. He has taken upon himself an unchangeable priesthood in the heavenly temple above, and will never be un- faithful to those covenant-engagements into which his love for his church led him to enter. He is gone into the holy of holies with the names of all his saints written on his heart, and he will for ever remember there all their wants. He delights to do all the will of God ; and he will not surely neglect that part of it, which is connected with the safety, the comfort, and the happiness, of the people whom he has suffered so much degradation and misery to save. HIGH PRIEST OF THE CHURCH. 147 The text which we have thus briefly considered, will suggest to us a few practical inferences. It reminds us, first, that the church of Christ has never lost a privilege which has once been granted to it, without receiving a greater. The sacrifices and intercession connected with the offices of the Levitical priesthood, were great and valuable blessings, and many of the Jews hesitated to embrace Christianity from a fear of losing the benefits resulting from them. Hence the apostle labours with a marked anxiety to convince them, that so far from losing any of their privileges by welcoming the gospel to their hearts, they would have them all confirmed to them, and unspeakably improved. Had they sacrifices for sin under the law ? He tells them that under the gospel they should have the same, even the blood of the eternal Jesus, a far more noble and effectual sacrifice than thou- sands of rams or ten thousands of rivers of oil. " Christ," he says, " being come an High Priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building ; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood ; he entered in once into the holy place, having ob- tained eternal redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying L2 148 ,THE COMPASSION OF THE of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your con- science from dead works to serve the living God?" Had the Israelites under the law a high priest, whose office was the life and glory of their worship ? The apostle assures them that the gospel of Jesus would not deprive them of this privilege ; that all his followers have a High Priest ministering and interceding for them in the heavenly temple above, one " who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens ; who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins and then for the people's, for this he did once when he offered up himself. For the law maketh men high priests which have in- firmity ; but the word of the oath, which was since the law, maketh the Son, who is consecrated for evermore." Let us then never fear for the church of Christ. From the creation of the world, the dispensations of heaven towards it have been continually changing, but by every change the church has been a gainer ; and thus it will continue to be to the end of time. Clouds may indeed rise at seasons to darken its prospects, but they are always big with mercy ; and will shower down a thousand blessings on the church, as they roll over it. HIGH PRIEST OF THE CHURCH. 149 There is also in the text a never failing source of consolation for every afflicted saint, a spring of comfort, which will reach to every sort of trial, and that too at every season. We are told that Jesus, our great High Priest, " was in all points tempted like as we are." Are we tried with poverty ? Are we sometimes so poor as to want even the necessaries of life ? We cannot be poorer than the ascended Jesus once was. Though he is now seated on a throne in a glorious temple, there was a time when he had not where to lay his sacred head. Are we ill-treated in the world, misrepresented, reproached, and hated ? Jesus too has suffered hatred and reproach. " He was despised and rejected of men," stricken, wounded, and bruised. Have we been bereaved by death of our friends? Does our sorrow spring from the grave of a moul- dering parent or child, husband or wife ? Jesus has stood by a grave, and groaned in the spirit as sorrowfully as we, and wept as bitterly. Are we friendless in the world, standing alone, abandoned and forlorn ? How many friends had Christ? A few poor fishermen. And how did they act, when he most needed their friendship ? They " all forsook him and fled." Do our sorrows flow from spiritual causes? from harassing temptations or the loss of religious consolations ? The Son of God is no stranger to 150 THE COMPASSION OF THE such sufferings as these. He was tempted; he was exceeding sorrowful ; he was forsaken by his God. However diversified our trials may be, our High Priest has felt the smart of them all. He has tasted of all the sorrows of life and all the pains of death, and knows by experience how to be touched with a feeling of them. What a source of consolation then is here opened to every dejected spirit ! In all my troubles and sorrows, Christ is near me, and pitying me, and suffering with me. My poor body may be racked with pain, my heart may ache, and my soul be filled with fear and anguish ; but Jesus, my Saviour, sees all my trials ; he has experienced them, and knows exactly what I am now feeling under them. While I am complaining, he is, as it were, hanging over me, and weeping with me. O then let me take contentedly my cup of suffer- ing, and cheerfully drink the bitter draught! Let me take up my cross, and rejoice to bear it, though it may seem heavy to my feeble frame. Let me look unto Jesus, and be comforted. There is also in the text encouragement for every penitent shiner who desires to return to God. Can such a Saviour as this, with such a heart, ever refuse to receive one contrite transgressor who casts himself on his mercy ? Can he turn away from one trembling soul ? Can he push back the perishing sinner who flies to his cross for refuge? HIGH PRIEST OF THE CHURCH. 151 Sooner could a mother refuse to have compassion on the son of her womb. Venture then to this Saviour, brethren, and make trial of his com- passion. He already knows all your misgivings and fears ; he is touched with the feeling of them, and is anxious to chase them all away. Take to him your weary and heavy-laden souls ; commit them into his hands ; and you shall find in him the richest comfort and the sweetest rest. The subject we have been considering reminds us, further, of the duty of feeling one for another, of making each other's sorrows our own. To have Christ for his compassionate High Priest, is the Christian's privilege ; to imitate his compassion, is the Christian's duty ; not a duty which may be dispensed with, but a duty which he will most assuredly be led to perform and de- light in, as soon as the love of God is shed abroad in his heart. O that the meekness, and gentle- ness, and tenderness, of Jesus may constrain us all to be pitiful and kindly affectioned one to another ! His compassion would produce this effect in us, if we were really " followers of him as dear children." The reason why we are censorious, and uncharitable, and hard- hearted, is simply this we have not the spirit of Christ, and are none of his. Never let us deem ourselves Christians, till we bear some faint resemblance to our com- passionate Master. The religion which he puts into 152 THE COMPASSION OF THE the heart of his followers, softens the character, sweetens the temper, enlivens all the tender affec- tions of the soul, and fills it with kindness and with love. The apostle calls upon us in the text, finally, to holdfast the prof ession of our faith. This indeed seems to be the great end, for which he alludes, in the passage before us, to the sympathy of Jesus. " Seeing then," he says, " that we have a great High Priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession." He then proceeds to tell us for our encouragement, that this Jesus is touched with the feeling of our infirmities ; that the ascended Saviour knows all the difficulties, all the trials and struggles, which we meet with in the profession of his religion, and is ready to help us in them all ; to strengthen us when weak, to refresh us when weary, to make us more than conquerors when tempted. The apostle well knew the liability of his fellow- Christians to turn away from the faith of the gospel, the great danger which they were in, of becoming apostates from the truth. The mere nominal professor of religion thinks nothing of this danger, and cannot perhaps be prevailed on even to acknowledge it ; but the real Christian sees it, he feels it hourly, and is sometimes ready to tremble on account of it. He is travelling the road, and sees all the dangers which surround it; HIGH PRIEST OF THE CHURCH. 153 while the other has never entered in at its strait gate, has never taken one step in its narrow path, and knows nothing of its difficulties. The wonder is, not that this or that man should turn aside from " the way which leadeth unto life," but that any feeble sinner should persevere in it to the end, so as to be saved. The true Christian therefore wants comfort and support under this fear and danger of departing from the living God, and the text gives him all he can wish for. His Redeemer knows his in- firmities. He sees all the ruggedness and dangers of the path in which he is treading. Will he then look on with indifference, and not help his beloved saints ? Will he suffer them to sink while striv- ing to draw near unto himself? No ; their foot may well nigh slip, but the Lord will place un- derneath them his own everlasting arm, and save them from falling, and sustain them. " My sheep," he says, " shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand." " Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." Here then, my brethren, is our safety and our comfort a leaning on Christ, a resting on his compassion, his faithfulness, and his power. If we rest simply on his almighty arm, we are as safe in the midst of our dangers, as though there were not a single danger in our path. If we rest 154 THE COMPASSION, &C. any where else, we are undone. No matter how near we may seem to have ascended to heaven, we shall sink into hell. Where we go for pardon, there we must also go for perseverance, and there we shall obtain it. " Let us then lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us; and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." SERMON IX. THE THRONE OF GRACE. HEBREWS iv. 16. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy , andjind grace to help in time of need. IN the two preceding verses of this chapter, the apostle sends our thoughts upwards to heaven. He shews us Jesus as having passed thither in the character of our High Priest, as pleading for us before his Father's throne, and as being still " touched," in the midst of the splendours around him, " with the feeling of our infirmities," and bearing a part of all our sorrows and trials. From this cheering representation of the Saviour, the exhortation in the text is drawn. " Let us there- fore," he says, " come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." 156 THE THRONE OF GRACE. Let us enquire, first, what those blessings are which are spoken of in these words ; secondly, where they are to be obtained ; and, thirdly, how they are to be sought. And O may he that sits on this throne of grace, send down his Holy Spirit from on high to rest upon us, and to take up his abode in our hearts ! I. We are to consider, first, the blessings spoken of in the text. 1. The first of these is mercy, pardoning mercy, reconciling mercy, saving mercy. This mercy is ever needful. The brightest saint needs it, as well as the greatest sinner. We need it every hour of our life, and in every action of our life. Whatever difference there may be amongst us in other respects, here we are all on an equality. We must all obtain mercy, great mercy, free mercy, or we must perish. The apostle mentions this blessing first, be- cause till it is made ours, we have no ground to hope for any other spiritual gift. Pardon is introductory to all the other blessings of the gospel. We must go to God as a Saviour, before we can go to him as a Comforter and a Friend. We must apply to him to pardon our sins, before we can apply to him to cheer and strengthen. our souls. 2. The second blessing spoken of in the text is THE THRONE OF GRACE. 157 grace, supporting, helping grace, " grace to help in time of need." All our times are times of need. There is not a moment of our life, in which we are not poor and altogether needy. But there are certain sea- sons, in which we especially need grace to help us. A time of affliction is one of these seasons, when our souls are ready to faint within us, and our hope to perish. A time of temptation is ano- ther, when sin seems to be forcing its way into the mind, and the corruptions of our depraved hearts stand ready to welcome it. There are sea- sons of perplexity and anxiety, which are times of need ; seasons of coldness, deadness, and spi- ritual desertion ; seasons of despondency on ac- count of sin, when the bewildered soul looks around for comfort and finds none, and is ready to fly even to despair as a refuge from its fears. A time of death too is a time of need, when our bodies are about to be broken to pieces and our souls to enter eternity, to go into that untried and unknown world of spirits, where all is either un- mixed anguish or perfect bliss. In these times of need, nothing can help us, but grace. It is grace only, that can subdue our cor- ruptions, resist temptations, warm our hearts, and bring strength, comfort, and hope, to our troubled souls. The language of the apostle seems to imply, 158 THE THRONE OF GRACE. that the grace which we are principally to seek, is grace for present, and not for future need. We are to come to the throne for grace " in time of need." There is a strange propensity in some minds, to be continually anticipating these times of need, to be incessantly looking forward to future trials and difficulties, and thus to bring dis- tress into the mind by a premature anxiety about the morrow. We often find ourselves enquiring, " O what should I do, if this or that affliction should befall me ? How would my poor soul bear to have this or that friend taken from me ? to be reduced to poverty ? to have to struggle with pain, and sickness, and death ?" Now this anxiety about future trials is often sinful. It occupies too much of our thoughts ; it has its origin in distrust of God ; it silences the voice of thankfulness, and leads to gloominess and discontent. " Take no thought for the mor- row," says Christ, " for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself." Grace to help shall come when it is needed ; but why should it come before ? We shall have grace to suffer in a suffering season, and grace to die in a dying sea- son. As our days are, so shall our strength be. The Bible gives us this assurance, and the expe- rience of some among us has fully confirmed it. We have looked forward in the days that are past to trials, and shuddered at the prospect. These THE THRONE OF GRACE. 159 dreaded trials however have come, and come per- haps with aggravations which we never thought of. We have been reduced to the poverty we shrunk from ; the disease and pain which we dreaded, have seized our frames ; our friends have been taken from us, the very friends, it may be, that we thought we could least spare ; and what has been the consequence ? Has our soul sunk as we expected it to sink ? No. It has risen stronger and stronger, and soared higher and higher, and at length bounded, as it were, over the trial, and left us a wonder to ourselves. What then does this teach us? Humiliation for the time that is past, and trust for the time to come. It tells us, when we find our souls begin- ning to be anxious about grace for future emer- gencies, to stop them short by asking whether we have all the grace that is necessary for our present need ; whether, at the present moment, we do not want grace to root out unbelief from our minds, and to teach us submission to the will of God. II. Let us now go on to enquire, secondly, where this mercy and this helping grace are to be obtained. The apostle sends us for them to " the throne of grace." 1. He tells us to seek them at a throne: he sends us therefore to a God of majesty. Thrones on earth are designed for those who are of the 160 THE THRONE OF GRACE. ~~^ greatest glory among men, and he who sits on the throne of heaven, is the most glorious Being in the universe ; " the Father of an infinite ma- jesty." A throne indicates too that the God who sits on it, is a God of dominion and sovereignty ; that he reigns over the universe, and is its lawful and supreme Governor ; that all the creatures in this lower world, the sun and the stars in the firma- ment, and all the angels in heaven, are under him as his subjects. " The Lord," says the psalmist, " hath prepared his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom ruleth over all." o A throne implies also that he is a God of power, of infinite, almighty power, in the universe over which he reigns. As the kingdom and the glory are his, so is the power also. There is nothing which he cannot perform. He could in a moment dash to pieces the millions of worlds which his hand has formed, and in a moment create a million more. All the spiritual part of his creation is as much under his control, as the material. He can bend at his will the minds of men and of angels, and make them subservient to his purposes of grace. " But this majesty, this sovereignty, this power," it may be said, " are nothing to me. They bring no comfort to my heart. They rather repel than invite. They excite terror rather than hope. THE THRONE OF GRACE. 1G1 They tell me that God is glorious, while I feel that I am vile as the dust I tread on ; that he has a claim on my allegiance and service, while I know that I have been a rebel against him, and been serving another lord ; that he has power to take vengeance on the sinner, while I am con- scious that I have hourly broken his laws." 2. The apostle meets this objection, and goes on to call this great and glorious throne a throne of grace. It has been supposed that there is an allu- sion in this expression to the mercy-seat in the temple. This mercy-seat was the golden cover of the ark. At each end of it was a cherub, and between these cherubim the Lord was said to sit or reside, as on a throne. This view of the text would recall to the mind of the expe- rienced Christian many interesting subjects of contemplation, but it will perhaps be more ge- nerally profitable to consider the language of the apostle in a more obvious point of view. When the apostle sends us to a throne of grace, he reminds us that he who sits upon this throne, has mercy and grace at his disposal; that he has removed out of the way all impe- diments to the exercise of his goodness ; that he can now be gracious to a world of rebel- lious sinners in a way consistent with his ho- nour, and shew himself a God of mercy with- VOL. I. M 162 THE THRONE OF GRACE. out tarnishing the glory of his other perfections. The awful display of his infinite holiness and fearful justice, which Jehovah gave to the uni- verse on the cross of Christ, can leave none of his creatures at liberty to suspect that he has ceased to be the hater of iniquity, when he re- deems from destruction and carries to heaven the sinful children of men. They are the trophies of his holiness and justice, as well as the mo- numents of his mercy and grace. The splen- dour which their salvation throws around his throne, was unknown to the creation before they were redeemed, and will for ever eclipse the glory of all his other works. Hence, though we have sinned against him, God can now pour upon us the richest blessings of his goodness, and at the same time bring glory to himself by the exercise of his mercy. He can give us, in the most free and honourable manner, pardon for our sin, strength for our weakness, and comfort for our sorrow. The expression used by the apostle tells us also that God not only has mercy and grace at his disposal, but that he is willing to bestow them on the sinners who seek them. The place on which he sits, declares his willingness. If he presented himself to us on a seat of judgment, a tribunal of justice, we might conclude that he was ready to discharge the offices of a judge, that he was THE THRONE OF GRACE. 163 sitting there to execute judgment. When there- fore he leaves this tribunal, and presents himself to us on a throne of grace, we may surely con- clude that he is ready to shew grace and mercy ; that he is willing to receive the petitions of the sinful, and to dispense help to the needy. This expression shews us also the manner in which the Lord exercises his mercy and grace. It tells us that he dispenses these blessings freely and royally. He dispenses them freely. If God i| a sove- reign on a throne, it cannot be consistent with his honour to receive ought for his benefits. Even an earthly monarch considers it a degradation to take a price of his subjects for his favours. Will the great Sovereign of heaven then demand a price for his mercy of such poor, mean subjects as we are ? Never. All his acts of mercy are acts of grace, of pure, unmerited grace. They must be so, or we could never receive them. Whatever is required, we have nothing to give ; for sin and misery are all we can call our own. God is ready to bestow his grace royally, magnificently, as well as freely. When he de- scribes himself as a king seated on a throne of grace, he assures us that he will give like a king ; that he will bestow upon us not a few trifling gifts, but such as are answerable to his greatness and magnificence. We dishonour him M 2 164 THE THRONE OF GRACE. therefore, if we do not expect great things at his hands. We must not regard the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ as a common benefactor. He is ready to give us not merely mercy to deliver, but grace to exalt us; "exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think," But here it may be said, " What if God has mercy and grace at his disposal, and is ready to give them thus freely and royally; is he not a Be- ing too great and too high to be approached by me? I need these blessings, and God maybe ready to bestow them according to his sovereign will ; but where is the sinner who will dare to go to so high a God, and ask for them?" The expression which the apostle uses, mee.ts this objection also. It tells us that the Lord is willing to be asked for his mercy and grace, and that too by the meanest sinner. When he offers himself to us on a throne of grace, he gives us the strongest assurance which he can give us, that he will admit dust and ashes into his presence ; that he will hear and answer prayer ; that it is the very season, the very op- portunity, to carry our requests to him, and to have them granted. He " sits" upon this throne, he abides and dwells there, for this very purpose, that he may be always ready to receive our peti- tions. He "waits " there to be gracious. III. In what frame of mind then does it be- THE THRONE OF GRACE. 165 come us to approach him ? How are we to seek of him mercy and grace? This is our third en- quiry, and this the apostle answers. " Let us come boldly unto the throne of grace." The sense in which he here uses the word "boldly," may be inferred from the expression with which it is connected, "the throne of grace." 1. It is plain, first, that if God is seated on a throne as a God of majesty and power, this boldness must be altogether different from fear- less presumption or irreverent freedom. The glory of Jehovah when seated on a throne, even though that throne is a throne of grace, is enough to make creatures whose " habitation is in the dust" and who are " crushed before the moth," fear before him, and approach him with reverence. " God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reve- rence of all them that are round about him." " The Lord reigneth, let the people tremble. He sitteth between the cherubim, let the earth be moved." There is in some professors of the gospel, an unhallowed familiarity with the sacred name of God, which makes some of their brethren trem- ble. They seem to forget both his character and their own ; to forget that he is that " high and lofty One who inhabiteth eternity," and they sunk almost to a level with the brutes that pe- 166 THE THRONE OF GRACE. rish. They appear as though they thought it a mark of a high degree of grace to bring down Jehovah from his lofty throne, and to degrade him to a level with themselves. Beware, my brethren, of this unholy boldness. It is not the offspring of grace, but of ignorance and pride. We stand before the throne of God as sinners ; what we ask for there is mercy ; and surely the conviction that we are sinners and need mercy ought to fill us with abasement, with reverence, and godly fear. We are criminals suing for a pardon ; our boldness then must be the boldness of an humble penitent, cherishing in his heart a lively sense of his meanness and a deep convic- tion of his guilt. 2. The boldness of which the apostle speaks, is opposed also to self-will, and must conse- quently include in it submission to the will of God. If he is a sovereign on a throne, we must give him, in our approaches to him, a sovereign's authority. We must go to him as those who de- sire to be wholly subject to him, to be govern- ed by his wisdom and ordered by his will. What- ever we ask for, we must ask for it with this prayer on our lips and in our heart, "Father, not my will, but thine be done." 3. This boldness is opposed further to restraint in prayer, and implies an humble and holy free- dom in our addresses to God. If we are habi- THE THRONE OF GRACE. 167 tually living in his faith and fear, we may come to his throne, not as strangers and foreigners, but as those who are of his household. We are not to go to him as a harsh master and unfeeling ruler ; we are not to appear before him, as the slave ap- pears before his tyrant ; but we are to go to him as children to a father, a forgiving father, a ten- der-hearted, yea, a heavenly father. If we could but always approach him in this spirit, how sweet would be our fellowship with him, how success- ful our petitions ! Nothing would appear to us too great, nothing too trifling, to lay before him. We should pour out our hearts before him ; open to him our every want, and fear, and sorrow; and find in him the sweetest sympathy and the tenderest love. 4. This boldness is opposed lastly to distrust and unbelief, and includes a persuasion that God has grace to bestow and is willing to bestow it, and that we are authorized to ask for and expect it. It is the boldness of faith, which the apostle recommends; a confidence, not in our own merits, but in sovereign mercy ; a faith in Jesus, and such a faith in him, as triumphs over fears and suspi- cions, and rises to the confidence of hope. This confidence is quite consistent with that humility which becomes us as sinners ; indeed it is closely connected with it. At the very moment when the Christian is enabled to exercise the 168 THE THRONE OF GRACE. greatest boldness in his wrestling with God, he has a far deeper sense of sin than he has at other seasons, a livelier conviction of his own utter vile- ness. The Christian's life is indeed a riddle, a mystery, to the merely speculative professor of the gospel. It brings together so many different and apparently opposite affections, and so sweetly and yet so strangely blends them together, that he who has not experienced " the power of god- liness," cannot comprehend it. O that our un- derstanding may be opened to understand the mysteries of the Christian's hidden life, and our hearts softened and enlarged to enjoy its secret pleasures ! From a review of the subject we have been considering, we may learn how mercy and grace may be obtained. They are to be obtained by prayer. But this implies more than appears on the first view. It implies that we deeply feel our need of mercy and grace. It implies, not a mere acknowledgment only that we are sinners, not a cold sense that we need mercy ; but such a con- viction of our sin and necessity, as fills our souls, interests our feelings, abides with us wherever we go, and daily sinks deeper and deeper into our minds. Without this, our prayers will be empty breath, our religion a lifeless form. Here it is where thousands err. Their religion THE THRONE OF GRACE. 169 has not their own utter vileness and helplessness for its foundation. Hence there is no abiding spirit of prayer in them, no settled love to Christ, no clinging to the cross, no cleaving to God. This deeply seated sense of poverty and guilt must precede every real prayer for mercy. The heart must be humbled, as well as softened. Till this point is gained, nothing is done. Here then let us begin. Let this be our first prayer, that we may have a heartfelt sense of our need of mercy and grace. If we have but this, brethren, O who can tell how ready God is to receive, how willing to pardon and to help us ? Could we but once see and feel the thousandth part of his willingness to bless us, we should want no further encouragement to lead us at once with boldness to his throne. Here too we may see apart of our vast obli- gations to the cross of Christ. How was this throne of grace erected? By whom was it built? Who prevailed on infinite Justice to sit and reign on it? We know the answer Jesus who died for us, and rose again, and is now seated on the right hand of God. It was the blood of the Lamb that was slain, which first made the throne of God a throne of grace to sinners; it is the Lamb that was slain, who still keeps it such. Though the building of this throne cost us nothing, it cost the man who is the fellow of Jehovah, 170 THE THRONE OF GRACE. tears and groans, a life of misery and a death of anguish. Who then that feels his need of mercy and grace, can make light of Jesus Christ, the Saviour? Who can hear of his dying love, and yet despise it ? We may infer, lastly, from the words before us, that the man who lives without prayer, lives without the mercy and the grace of God; that he who has never sought these blessings at a throne of grace, is utterly destitute of them. How then am I living? If I am a stranger to secret, humble, heartfelt prayer, my character is awful, and my state is perilous. I stand before the Almighty as an unpardoned, ungodly sinner. I am under the curse of the God who made me, and the object of his just abhorrence. What then will be my future condition, if I die in such a state? Where will my soul go, if death should come upon me, and find me destitute of mercy and grace ? It must go into devouring fire and everlasting burnings. How is it then, that know- ing and believing myself to be thus ready to perish, I can still live day after day without prayer ? How is it that I am not hourly going for mercy to the throne of grace? My heart tells me that though I in some degree know that I need mercy, I am indifferent about obtaining it. If I could go to the throne of an earthly sovereign, and get a splendid estate or a proud title by THE THRONE OF GRACE. 171 merely asking for it, I should at once go, I should immediately be found there ; but what are titles and estates, when compared with what God has to give, with mercy and grace ? They are nothing. My reason tells me that they are nothing. And yet I cannot bring my senseless heart to seek these precious gifts of God. Let me strive then to get this desperately wicked heart awakened, softened, and changed. It is a dreadful evil within me ; let me no longer trifle with it, lest it destroy me. Let me take it to Jesus, that it may be made a new and holy heart. Let me no longer keep from this blessed Saviour. I will this very hour begin to pray. This very hour shall see me a weeping suppliant in the dust before his throne. There will I lie, and pray, and plead ; there will I seek mercy and grace ; there will I smite on my breast, and say, " God be merciful to me, a sinner." SERMON X. THE DEATH OF MOSES. DEUTERONOMY xxxiv. 5. So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. THE chapter of which these words are a part, contains a short but remarkable account of the death and burial of Moses. To lead the chil- dren of Israel to the land of Canaan, this faith- ful servant of God had abandoned the fairest prospects of honour in the court of Pharaoh, and endured for forty years unceasing trials and difficulties in the wilderness ; and now at length, when the object of all his labours seems about to be attained, when he has arrived on the very brink of Jordan and within sight of the promised land, the hand of death removes him from the world, and leaves to us another THE DEATH OF MOSES. 173 striking instance of the mysterious nature of the ways of God. The circumstances connected with his death are as interesting as they are remarkable, and " they are written here for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come." Let us then direct our attention to them, and endeavour to draw from them instruction in righteousness. I. The first truth of which they remind us, is this The Sovereign of the world can carry on his purposes in it without the help of man. Who was this Moses, whose death is here re- corded? He was a man of the most eminent talents and most exalted piety. He had been for forty years the leader of the hosts of Israel, and, during the whole of that long period, their honour and safety, their meat and their drink, their very existence, seemed to depend on him. At what period was this Moses taken from this people ? At the very period when he seemed most necessary to them. Under his guidance they had overcome the dangers of the wilderness, but they had now to encounter still greater dangers. They had to pass over Jordan, to fio-ht with enemies stronger and more numerous o o than themselves, to drive them from their oefmtry, and to establish themselves in it. In this critical and dangerous situation, when every eye was 174 THE DEATH OF MOSES. turned to him for direction and assistance, and all their hopes of success were centered in him, their illustrious leader was taken from them, and all their prospects appeared at once blasted and de- stroyed. How mysterious was this dispensation ! And yet, brethren, the occurrences of every day are involved in almost equal mystery. A great and difficult work is to be accomplished in the church or in the world, and the Lord raises up and prepares an instrument for performing it. He calls him out into actual service ; he crowns his efforts with astonishing success ; but in the midst of his work, at the very period when he seems most necessary for the completion of it, he re- moves him from the world, lays him silent and inactive in the grave, and finishes his work with- out him. Do we ask why he acts thus ? why he thus breaks in pieces the instrument before the work is done ? He does it to teach us our nothingness and his greatness ; to shew the world, that al- O ' ' though he is pleased to employ human instru- ments, he does not need them ; to let his crea- tures see, that even if the hosts of heaven should cease to obey his word, he could form other hands to do his work, or accomplish his purposes without any instrument at all. He does it to bring the hearts of his people to a closer and more simple THE DEATH OF MOSES. 175 dependence on himself. He dashes to pieces the cistern, that they may go to the fountain. He breaks the reed, that they may be led to rest on the rock of ages. While therefore the King of Zion sits on his holy hill, we have no reason to fear for the safety of the church, or for the honour of our God. Israel passed over Jordan and triumphed over all their enemies, without Moses. The church of Christ also shall stand, and shall be established in the earth, though she may seem to be without a helper or a friend. Her lights may disappear, her ministers may be removed, and her enemies may rejoice ; but " God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved ; God shall help her, and that right early." As for her enemies, " he will clothe them with shame, but upon himself shall his crown flourish." II. We are taught, secondly, by the history before us, that sin is exceedingly hateful in the sight of God, and that he will mark it with his displeasure even in his most beloved servants. Why was Moses commanded to go up unto the mountain of Nebo, and die ? Although he was an hundred and twenty-three years old, he still retained all the vigour of youth, and seemed warranted to expect many years of life and usefulness. " His eye was not dim, nor 176 THE DEATH OF MOSES. was his natural force abated." Why again was not this eminent saint allowed to pass over Jor- dan, and to enter with his brethren the land of Canaan ? He had been a faithful servant of God. He had given up for him all the pleasures and honours of Pharaoh's court. He had chosen and cheerfully endured affliction and reproach with his people, and esteemed them " greater riches than the treasures of Egypt." He had made these sacrifices and suffered these trials, that he might obtain an inheritance in the promised land ; and now, when arrived after years of anxiety and labour on its borders and earnestly desiring to enter it, he is not allowed so much as to set a foot on it, but is removed from the world. Why was this holy man thus treated by a righteous God ? The scriptures inform us. He had sinned against that God. Though distin- guished by a uniform course of meekness and faith, he had on one occasion spoken unadvisedly with his lips, and manifested in his conduct anger and unbelief. The children of Israel had mur- mured at Kadesh for want of water, and to silence their murmurs, the Lord commanded Moses to speak unto one of the rocks around them, and promised that at his word it should bring forth water before their eyes. But the agitated prophet exceeded his commission. Moved with indignation, he called the murmuring peo- THE DEATH OF MOSES. 177 pie rebels ; and instead of speaking to the rock, he smote it twice, as though he doubted the efficacy of a word, and thought his rod necessary to effect the miracle. "Hear now, ye rebels," he cried, " must we fetch you water out of this rock ? And he lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice." This was the offence of Moses, the only offence recorded of him ; and though this ad- mitted of many excuses, and was repented of almost as soon as it was committed, the divine indignation was kindled against him and Aaron, and they were both condemned to die in the wil- derness. , ' How forcibly then does this history remind us, that we have to do with a God of awful holiness and fearful righteousness ; with one who will not bear with sin, though it be in the dearest and most distinguished of his saints ! Moses and Aaron among his priests, and Samuel and David among them that call upon his name, even these favoured men must be visited with judgments, when they dare to turn aside from his holy ways. It is true that his loving-kindness he will not utterly take from his ransomed people, nor suf- fer his faithfulness to fail ; yet if they break his statutes and keep not his commandments, he has pledged himself to " visit their transgressions with the rod and their iniquity with stripes." VOL. i. N 178 THE DEATH OF MOSES. Where he forgives, he will not wholly spare. He may so pardon the sin, as not to inflict on the sinner eternal condemnation ; and yet he may take a severe vengeance on his iniquities. He acts thus, that he may prevent any abuse of his grace, that he may manifest the holiness of his nature and his law, that he may excite watchfulness and circumspection in his people, that he may reprove and warn the ungodly sinner. Let us learn therefore, whatever our characters may be, to abhor and dread that which is evil. Are you serving and fearing God? Remember that God has other punishments for sin besides the woes of eternity ; ; and these punishments, if you dare to sin, will be poured out upon your head. Are you living without God in the world, strangers to holiness and grace? Remember that one transgression excluded the faithful Moses from Canaan; what then will be your doom, laden as you are with so many sins, and so hardened in guilt? God cannot endure sin even in the people who fear him, without testifying his sore displeasure against it; will he then bear with it in you? in you who despise his mercy, as well as mock at his laws? in you who brave his ven- geance and defy his power? "If these things be done in the green tree," will nothing be done in the dry ? THE DEATH OF MOSES. 179 III. We may learn, further, from the circum- stances attending the death of Moses, that the afflicted servant of God is generally enabled to submit with resignation to the chastisements of his heavenly Father. Moses anxiously wished to enter Canaan, and, as we are informed in the third chapter of this book, he at first besought the Lord to revoke the sentence past upon him. But when this request had been once denied him, he acquiesces in the justice of the sentence, and not a murmur escapes his lips. As his end approaches, he devotes the greater part of his time to admonishing Israel, and instructing them in the things of God. He at length receiveS4 the command to go up to the top of Pisgah and die, and no sooner is it re- ceived, than it is obeyed. With the praises of God in his mouth, he ascends the hill, and cheer- fully meets his end. Here then we may learn a lesson of meek sub- mission to the will of God. It is not indeed wrong to feel the smart of afflictions. Insensi- bility under them is not only unnatural, but sin- ful, for it subverts the purposes for which they are sent to us. Moses felt sorrow and pain, when he was forbidden to enter Canaan ; and a greater than Moses had his soul troubled at the thought o of approaching suffering. Neither is it wrong to beseech the Almighty to N 2 180 THE DEATH OF MOSES. withdraw from us the chastisements with which he has visited us. Moses besought the Lord that he might be allowed to go over Jordan ; and what was the language of the suffering Jesus ? " O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me." This was the beginning of the Saviour's prayer, but mark how he ended it ; " Neverthe- less not as I will, but as thou wilt." " O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me except I drink it, thy will be done." We see no insensibility here, no despising of the chasten- ing of the Lord. We see, on the contrary, the liveliest, the deepest feeling. But then this feel- ing is attended with a spirit of entire submission. Let the same spirit live and reign in you. It carried Moses to the top of Pisgah ; it led Jesus to the cross. Entreat the Spirit of God to fix it in your hearts ; and it will lead you rejoicing through all the changes and chances of your wea- risome pilgrimage. It will lighten the burden of sorrow; it will cheer the hour of sickness; it will enable you to go down to the grave in peace. Aim to have no will, brethren, but the will of God. Learn to put this question to yourselves, "Should it be according to my mind ?" Learn to take these words of the prophet into your lips, "I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against him." What, though you are poor, and sick, and afflicted; are you not sin- THE DEATH OF MOSES. 181 ners? and ought you not to wonder that your afflictions are so light, while your sins are so heavy? "Wherefore doth a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins ?" "It is of the Lord's mercies, that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not." Every breath we draw is a wonder of mercy, a miracle of pa- tience. If we know any thing of our real cha- racter, we must acknowledge that we deserve all the piercing anguish of eternity. O then let us never murmur against the Lord, because he sends us the light afflictions of time ! IV. This history reminds us also, that the death of the servants of God, with all the circumstances connected with it, is ordered by the Lord. Moses is commanded on a certain day to go to Pisgah, a certain place, and there to wait the approach of death. After his eyes were closed in death, even his lifeless body was not forsaken. Perhaps to prevent the Israelites from paying idolatrous worship at his tomb, as well as to do honour to his servant, it was buried in some un- known place by God himself. Equally " precious in the sight of the Lord, is the death of all his saints." Not only s the will of God concerned in the general sentence of mortality pronounced upon them, but death al- ways receives from him a particular commission, THE DEATH OF MOSES. before he dares approach to hurt them. It is the Lord that appoints the time, the manner, and the place, of their departure ; and he determines these by rules of unsearchable wisdom, as well as of love. There are undoubtedly great and wise reasons, why the death of every saint is appointed at this or that particular season, and in this or that particular manner; why some trees of righteousness are soon removed from the world, and transplanted into the paradise of God green and young, while others are suffered to remain here to a good old age. These reasons however are at present hidden from our eyes; but what we know not now, we shall know hereafter, and, in the meanwhile, all things are working to- gether for our good. With this assurance let us be satisfied. Our times are in the Lord's hands ; he measures out every day to us ; and will not allow death to touch us, till the hour he appoints for our change is come. Our Bibles tell us that he disposes of the meanest and smallest concerns of our life; how much more then of life itself! If a hair of our heads cannot fall to the ground without our Father, much less can we ourselves fall without him. We may conclude therefore that we shall go down to the grave at the very moment and in the very manner, that will be most conducive to the honour of our Redeemer and the welfare of our souls. THE DEATH OF MOSES. 183 V. The last truth of which the text reminds us, is this The people of God may confidently ex- pect from him support and comfort in the hour of death. Moses had sinned against the Lord, and though his sin had been pardoned as far as regarded another world, he must die. Yet the God against whom he had sinned, did not suffer his servant to close his eyes without a manifestation of his loving-kindness towards him. He met him on the summit of the hill, where he had appointed him to die; he " spake unto him there, as a man speaketh unto his friend ; " and shewed him all the country of Canaan. He saw the land of pro- mise stretching itself before his eyes, and whilst gazing on the prospect, he fell asleep. But O what a blessed transition did he experience ! He is taken indeed from one of the fairest earthly prospects that ever eye beheld; but his soul flies to the enjoyment of a still fairer inheritance, eter- nal in the heavens. He loses sight of the plains of Canaan and the goodly tents of Jacob, but he sees the plains of heaven and the throne of God. Thus did the Lord cheer the heart of Moses in the hour of death, and thus does he generally cheer his servants. It is indeed a fearful thing to die. Even the righteous often shrink from the dreary path which is to lead them through the grave to their desired home, and wish that heaven 184 THE DEATH OF MOSES. could be entered by some other way. All at- tempts to reconcile nature to her own dissolution are vain. Who can love to be, as it were, torn in two ; to have a wide separation made between the soul and the body; to have one part of him in an eternal world, while the other is lying in oblivion in the earth, and turning to corruption and to dust? In such an hour, flesh and heart must fail; the soul must need support; and they who fear the Lord, shall find all the grace and help they need. He who was with Moses, will be with them, as " the strength of their heart and their portion for ever." The Lord has said to each of his saints, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee;" and surely this promise will not be broken at the very time when the per- formance of it is most needed. What was the language of the believing David to his God ? " Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me: thy rod and thy staff they com- fort me." But God often does more than vouchsafe his presence to his dying saints. He sometimes opens their eyes, and gives them a distant prospect of the glories of the heavenly Canaan, as he shewed to Moses the plains, the vallies, and the palm- trees, of the promised land. How often has the soul of the dying Christian seemed to rise to THE DEATH OF MOSES. 185 heaven, even before it could disengage itself from the body ! It has been carried to Pisgah, raised above the earth; and heaven, with all its glories, has burst upon its view. If you, brethren, would enjoy this blessedness on the bed of death, strive to obtain it now. Strive to rise above the present scene, and to look forward to the eternal Canaan. Think of the riches of that goodly land, and your nearness to it. The sighs and struggles of the wilderness are drawing to an end, and you are about to dwell " in a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." Think of the great- ness of the change which awaits you. How wonderful the transition! to pass in a moment from this wretched world to the glorious skies! to go from obscurity to honour, from weariness to rest, from sorrow to joy, from a dungeon to a throne ! Does a change like this really await us ? Dare we look to it for comfort in the hour of death ? To answer this question, we must ask another How are we living now ? If we would die the death of the righteous, we must first learn to live the life of the righteous. If we would die with Moses on Pisgah, within sight of the promised land, we must first, like Moses, turn our backs on a tempting and ensnaring world, and live a life of faith on the Son of God. It is an easy thing for 186 THE DEATH OF MOSES. the most ungodly to flatter themselves that they shall die in peace and be safe in eternity ; but shall God descend from heaven to fill with joy, and to inspire with triumphant hope, the heart, which has always been shut against his faith and fear ? Shall the angels of light be commissioned to convey to their unsullied abode, the soul which delights only in sin and uncleanness ? Shall heaven throw open its gates to admit the child of hell ? Never. " The wicked shall be cast into hell, and all the people that forget God." " The righteous hath hope in his death, but the wicked is driven away in his wickedness." Lay these things to heart, brethren. You must soon die ; and if you continue to live as the greater part of mankind around you are living, death will be to you an hour of misery, and the beginning of an eternity of anguish. Expect to die, not as Moses died, but as thousands are daily dying, stupid and unconcerned, or groaning with terror and remorse. Your bodies will be com- mitted to the tomb and moulder in the dust, but the bitterness of death never will be past. The pangs of sickness and disease may be ended, but the pains of eternal death will never know an end. Make then your choice. Determine either to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season and the anguish of destruction throughout eternity ; or THE DEATH OF MOSES 187 choose rather to suffer affliction for a season with the people of God, and receive with them the recompence of an everlasting reward. God has joined these things together, and we cannot sepa- rate them ; indeed, if we are really Christians, we shall not wish to separate them. We shall " esteem the reproach of Christ greater riches" than all worldly treasures and enjoyments, and shall rejoice to " go forth unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach." We shall feel that " here we have no continuing city," and we shall " seek one to come." We shall " desire a better country, that is, a heavenly," and we shall live as strangers and pilgrims on the earth. This dead- ness to the world, this longing after heaven, are inseparably connected with a peaceful death and a happy eternity. If the grace of God has im- planted these things in our hearts, we shall " die the death of the righteous," and our " last end will be like his." We may not indeed see so much of Canaan on this side the river of death, as Moses saw of it ; but we shall see as much of it on the other side. We shall enter the goodly land, and have our inheritance in it with the Israel of God. SERMON XL THE GOODNESS OF GOD TO ISRAEL. DEUTERONOMY xxxii. 10, 11, 12. He found him in a desert land and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he in- structed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. As an eagle stirreth up her nest, flutter- eth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings; so the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him. THESE words are a part of that sublime song which Moses addressed to the children of Israel? a short time before his death. Having called heaven and earth to witness that his words were faithful and true, he tells them that though they were " a perverse and crooked generation," they had ever been the peculiar objects of Jehovah's regard; that when he first divided the earth THE GOODNESS OF GOD TO ISRAEL. 189 among the tribes of men, though ages were to pass away before Israel could be numbered among the nations, he had even then marked out for them the land of Canaan, and appointed the boun- daries of other kingdoms with a reference to their possession of it. In the words of the text he re- minds them, that, in conformity with his design of settling them in the land he had thus destined for them, the Almighty had brought them out of Egypt, saved them from the hands of their enemies, supplied their many wants, and led them through the difficulties and dangers of the wilderness to the borders of Canaan. His beautiful description of the loving-kindness of Jehovah towards the church in the wilderness, may be applied, with equal propriety, to his deal- ings with his people in every age. Scripture itself warrants the application. We ourselves, brethren, if we have indeed taken Christ for our Saviour and our Guide, are as much concerned in this declaration, as Israel of old ; we are as much distinguished and honoured, as they. We are the portion of the Lord ; we are the lot of his inheritance. Let us rejoice in that love where- with the Father has loved us ; but let us not be high-minded. The gracious words before us are calculated to humble, as well as to cheer us. They remind us indeed of the goodness of God towards his saints, but then they remind us also 190 THE GOODNESS OF GOD TO ISRAEL. of our natural state of degradation and guilt. We may derive from them therefore two subjects of consideration ; the state in which the Almighty finds his servants, and the manner in which he acts towards them. I. What then is the state in which Godjinds his servants? The text tells us that he found the Israelites " in a desert land, in the waste howling- wilderness." 1. Their condition therefore, if viewed as a picture of the original condition of man, teaches us, first, that the people of God were by nature at a great distance from him. It represents them as once a great way off from their Father's house. Between him and them, it says, was a dreary waste, which it appeared impossible for them ever to pass. The enemies of God by wicked works ; transgressors of that unalterable law which de- clares that " the soul that sinneth, it shall die ;" the willing slaves of Satan ; tied and bound with the chain of a thousand lusts ; with all their affections fixed on sin, and all their desires turned from God how shall they find him, how approach him? All who have been brought nigh to God by the blood of Christ were once thus far off from him : and he who has not felt this to be his state, is yet a stranger to the grace of Jesus. THE GOODNESS OF GOD TO ISRAEL. 191 2. The condition of the Israelites in the wil- derness was, further, a destitute condition. They were in a desert land, in a waste and barren wilderness. The provisions which they brought with them out of Egypt, were exhausted almost as soon as their journey was begun, and the desert afforded them no prospect of a supply. Without food, without water, without a place where to lay their heads, " hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them." And were not the people of God once as destitute as these Israelites ? Let us look back, Christian brethren, to the days that are past. We imagined that we had need of nothing, but what was our real condition ? We were wretched and miserable, poor and naked, ready to perish. The world appeared fair before us ; it promised us much, and we were willing to credit it. Fools that we were, we tried it ; but what could it do for us ? It gave us, among its briars and thorns, a few flowers to amuse us, but it left us starving for want. It brought us no pardon for our guilt, no peace for an accusing conscience, no deliverance from the grave, no refuge from hell. It left us destitute, forlorn, and wretched. 3. The state in which the Almighty finds his people, is, thirdly, a state of danger. The wilderness was dangerous to Israel, as well as barren and desert. It was a " howling wilder- 192 THE GOODNESS OF GOD TO ISRAEL. ness," full of ravenous beasts, which roamed about it with hideous veilings. It was a " terrible wil- derness, wherein were fiery serpents and scor- pions." The defenceless Israelites had to contend also with formidable enemies. Many of them pe- rished by the arms of Sihon and Og, and many more by the allurements of Balaam and Balak. Equally dangerous is the condition of the ser- vants of God in the world. It is the territory of an enemy who goes about " seeking whom he may devour." They are the inhabitants of a country which is at war with the only Being who can bestow mercy and grace on their souls. They are surrounded by thousands who have formed a league with the prince of darkness to rob the Redeemer of his jewels, and to drag to destruction the people whom he is anxious to save. It is indeed impossible to contemplate without wonder the escape of any sinner from the dangers which surround him in the world. The more we know of our own hearts, of their earthly and sensual nature ; the more we know of the world, of its unconquerable hatred to vital godliness, and its almost irresistible influence over our own minds ; the more shall we tremble at the greatness of the danger from which we have been rescued, dread the snares which surround us, and wonder at our escape. This then is the state in which the Lord Jeho- THE GOODNESS OF GOD TO ISRAEL. 193 vah finds his people in the world. It is a state of distance from God, of the greatest want, of the most fearful danger. This is the wretched wil- derness into which we and all mankind have wan- dered, and from which none but an almighty arm can deliver us. We may not indeed be aware of our condition. We may feel no want, and suspect no danger. Our bodies may be clothed and fed. We may deem all our spiritual necessities supplied. And yet, brethren, our souls may be in a desert, in a wilderness that borders upon hell. II. Let us now proceed to our second subject of consideration, and enquire in what manner the Almighty acts towards his people in this wretched and dangerous condition. His conduct towards them is illustrated in the text by the conduct of the eagle towards her young. This bird is said to bear a peculiarly strong affection to her offspring, and to manifest this affection in a very extraordinary manner. When she considers them sufficiently strong to leave their nest, she stirs it up or disturbs it, in order to induce them to quit it ; and, at the same time, she flutters over them, that they may be en- couraged to try their wings, and be instructed in the use of them. If these means do not succeed in drawing them from their nest, it is said that she spreads abroad her wings, and placing her VOL. i. o 194 THE GOODNESS OF GOD TO ISRAEL. young on them, she soars with them into the air, and then gliding from under them, she compels them to endeavour to bear themselves up, and attempt to fly. If however she perceives that they are unable to sustain themselves in the air, she darts under them, and receiving them again on her wings, prevents their fall, and places them once more in their nest. This beautiful similitude strikingly illustrates the tenderness with which the Almighty led Israel from Egypt to Canaan, and the loving-kindness which he still manifests towards all who seek him in the wilderness of this world. It shews us what he does for them, and how he does it. 1. It shews us what God does for his people. It tells us that he afflicts them. As the eagle disturbs her young in their nest, so the Lord suffers not his children to remain at ease in the world ; but renders them dissatisfied with it, and thus leads them to seek a better country. Is affliction then a blessing ? It was so to Israel. Their nest was stirred up in Egypt ; there the arm of a cruel tyrant was lifted up against them ; and what was the consequence ? They desired and obtained deliverance from the house of their bondage. They were dealt with in the same manner in the desert. He who had opened a passage for them through the Red Sea, could have made the waste and howling wilder- THE GOODNESS OF GOD TO ISRAEL. 195 ness blossom as a rose before them, and led them along- a fruitful and pleasant path to Canaan. But such a path would have ruined Israel. The foolish people would have lingered in the country, built their tabernacles in it, and thought no more of the promised land. But why need we enquire of these favoured people whether it is good for a sinner to be afflicted? Cannot our own experience decide the question ? Give it what name we may, be it in its nature joyous or grievous, is not that a bless- ing, which makes us dissatisfied with worldly enjoyments and worldly sins and follies ? Is not that a blessing, which forces the wandering pro- digal to think of the home he has forsaken, and brings him back again to his father's arms ? O brethren, if poverty and sorrow, if perplexity and trouble, if pain and sickness, will but wean our hearts from this wretched earth, and cause our souls to long .for heaven ; if they will but force the heart to feel, and the tear of penitence and love to flow; if they will but promote and sweeten our communion with God, and make us more meet for the enjoyment of him in his kingdom; let us ever regard them as blessings, let us welcome them as friends ; let us be thank- ful for tribulation. When tempted to consider our light afflictions as evils, let us look back on the days that are past, and let each of us put o 2 196 THE GOODNESS OF GOD TO ISRAEL. these questions to himself Where should I have been now, what would have been my present character and condition, if my God had never visited me with suffering and sorrow? What would have been my hope? what my eternal home? The figure in the text teaches us also that the Lord guides the people who are the lot of his inheritance. When the eagle has stirred up her nest, she flut- ters over her young as their instructor and leader ; and thus, we are told, the Lord led Israel about and instructed him. In a miraculous cloud and pil- lar, he went before him in the pathless desert, and led him "by a right way to a city of habitation." Now we need a guide to heaven, as much as these Israelites needed a guide to Canaan. We have wandered to an awful distance from God, and though a way back to him has been opened, we know not where to find it nor how to walk in it. But as soon as we feel the misery and evil of our wanderings, he who came down from heaven to seek and to save the lost, vouchsafes to be our conductor. He takes us by the hand, and leads us on step by step through a world of mi- sery, till he brings us into a world of glory. Not that we can always discern his guiding hand, or always perceive that the road in which he is lead- ing us, is the road to God. The path of life is often a mysterious path, and he who walks in it, THE GOODNESS OF GOD TO ISRAEL. 197 will soon be taught that he must walk by faith and not by sight. Our ignorance makes it mys- terious; but when we have arrived at the end of it, and look back on "all the way wherein the Lord our God has led us in the wilderness to humble us and to prove us," we shall see that we have been led by the right and the best way to the land of rest. "I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not, saith the Lord. I will lead them in paths that they have not known. I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them." We are reminded, further, by the words of Moses, that the Lord preserves his people, watches over and defends them. The eagle does not desert her feeble young when she sees them sinking in the air, but flies to their aid, and bears them up on her wings. Neither did he Father of Israel desert his children in the wil- derness. "He kept them as the apple of his eye." He visited them indeed with judgments, but he suffered none of their enemies to harm them ; and as for his own judgments, they were for the greater part only fatherly chastisements. Thus also does he continue to watch over his spiritual Israel. The Christian pilgrim has still the mighty God for his Preserver, as well as for his Guide. Surrounded by a thousand dangers, 198 THE GOODNESS OF GOD TO ISRAEL. and forced to war with a thousand enemies, as long as he is conscious of his own weakness and flies to his God for refuge, he is as safe, as though there were not a single danger or a single enemy in his path. And what, if he be led into new and untried scenes of difficulty and sorrow? What, if he be brought into fiery afflictions ? They may alarm, but they cannot injure him. They may instruct and benefit him, and help him forward on his sacred journey, but they cannot tear his soul from the hand of God. There are indeed some seasons in the Chris- tian's pilgrimage, in which he finds it difficult to believe that God has not forsaken him. Affliction heaped upon affliction presses on his head ; the consolations which he once enjoyed, are with- drawn; his way seems hedged up with thorns; and all aronnd him is mystery and darkness. And yet at the very moment when he is well nigh borne down with the weight of his sorrows and perplexities, and can scarcely lift up a last and almost despairing cry for help, he feels the ever- lasting arm of Jehovah placed underneath him; he sees his before invisible hand guiding him in the wilderness; he hears his voice saying to his fainting soul, u Fear thou not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed, for I am thy God. I have re- deemed thee ; I have called thee by thy name ; thou art mine. When thou passest through the THE GOODNESS OF GOD TO ISRAEL. 199 waters, I will be with thee ; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee. When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned? neither shall the flame kindle upon thee." 2. But in what manner does the Lord thus afflict, guide, and defend his servants ? He exercises his mercy towards them con- stantly. Not that he is ever afflicting his children. It is true that he loves them too well to with- hold affliction from them when they need it ; but he will never continue it one moment longer than their spiritual wants require. But though his afflictive mercies may endure only for a sea- son, his guiding and preserving care is never withdrawn from his church. " He withdraweth not his eye from the righteous," says Job. "Behold," says David, " he that keepeth Israel neither slumbereth nor sleepeth." In some season of perplexity and fear, Zion may say, " The Lord hath forsaken me and my Lord hath forgotten me ; " but what is the answer of Zion's God ? " Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb ? Yea, they may forget, yet will not I forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands ; thy walls are continually before me." The Lord exercises his mercy towards his ser- vants patiently. With what patience and gen- 200 THE GOODNESS OF GOD TO ISRAEL. tleness did he lead his ancient people to Ca- naan? Numerous as were their provocations, for forty years the guiding pillar never forsook them. Its progress too was regulated according to the weak- ness and infirmities of the people whom it was leading. When they were weary, it rested ; and when they were collecting their manna, preparing and eating it, it stood still and hurried them not. And does not this pillar remind us of the pa- tience and gentleness of one, who " feedeth his flock like a shepherd, who gathereth the lambs with his arm and carrieth them in his bosom, and gently leadeth those that are with young ? " No other guide could be thus patient towards us. The meekest man upon earth, yea, the most com- passionate angel in heaven, could not thus bear with us. Our continual arid aggravated provo- cations would soon force them to leave us. But God does not leave us ; Christ does not forsake us. He who once " bore our sins in his own body on the tree," bears with our infirmities now ; and when the Christian recollects how long and how patiently he has borne with him, and how gently and tenderly he is leading him to glory, his heart is filled with wonder, and his tongue ready to sing aloud with praise. The similitude in the text reminds us, lastly, that the loving-kindness which God exercises THE GOODNESS OF GOD TO ISRAEL. 201 towards his people, he exercises with delight, with the same pleasurable feelings with which a tender-hearted parent watches over and provides for his child. What the Almighty does for his pardoned children, he does, " not grudgingly nor of necessity," but bountifully and cheerfully, with the affection of a father as well as the liberality of a prince. The Bible tells us that the Lord 11 delighteth" in the mercy which he pours out on them that seek him, and " waiteth " and, as it were, longeth " to be gracious " unto them. It warrants us to conclude that his chief delight is not in the angels who surround his throne with rapturous hallelujahs, but in that broken-hearted, contrite sinner, who comes to him fearing his name, mourning over his rebellion against him, and thirsting for his salvation. " The Lord taketh pleasure," says the psalmist, " in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy." And this is the promise which he himself makes to his servants by his prophet, " I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly, with my whole heart and with my whole soul." The review which we have thus taken of the goodness of God to his ancient people, is cal- culated to remind his spiritual Israel of many grounds of consolation and thankfulness. It 202 THE GOODNESS OF GOD TO ISRAEL. suggests to them also a lesson which they some- times find it difficult to learn, but which, when it is once learned, can keep the most troubled soul in peace. It calls upon them to trust im- plicitly in God, and it shews them a solid foun- dation on which to build their confidence. It assures them that the Lord will not suffer his portion to be lost, nor his inheritance to be im- paired; that he will not suffer the people whom he has formed for himself, and on whom he has lavished so much grace, to be ruined by the ca- lamities of this life, or touched by the miseries of another. He has already removed the sorrows of eternity far from them, and as for " the afflictions of this present time," the text declares that he has turned them into blessings. It tells us that the trials which seem so grievous to us, are only a part of our purchased inheritance ; that our heaviest sorrows are among our highest privileges. Surely then it becomes us to receive every cup of affliction at least with patience and submission. It becomes not a child to indulge a fearful, dis- consolate, murmuring spirit, while receiving blessings from the hand of a father. O if there be a creature in the universe, who has reason to trust in God and to hope in his mercy, it is that inhabitant of the earth, whom affliction has stop- ped in his thoughtless career of sin, whom sorrow has taught to pray, whom adversity has led to THE GOODNESS OF GOD TO ISRAEL. 203 seek in Christ a refuge, a Comforter, and a Saviour ! Instead of drawing from painful trials, frowning- providences, and perplexing difficulties, grounds for fear, such a man has reason to rejoice exceedingly in tribulation, to weep with grati- tude, and to burn with love. Though he is in the waste and howling wilderness of the world, there is not an angel in heaven so rich in mercies as he, nor so beloved by his God; none whose inheri- tance in eternity is more glorious or more secure. As long as he continues to love and fear the Lord, he has not only his mercy and goodness to encourage him, he has his faithfulness, yea, his oath and his eternal purpose, to rejoice in. In every hour of suffering and sorrow, he has these words of his Saviour to think of and depend on ; " Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." He has these words of the psalmist, to think of and use as his own ; " Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever." "I am continu- ally with thee, O Lord; thou hast holden me by my right hand. Thou shalt guide me by thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory." But there is another class of persons to whom the subject before us speaks ; yea, it speaks to us all, and calls upon us to enquire whether we have any part in the blessedness we have been con- 204 THE GOODNESS OF GOD TO ISRAEL. templating, whether the happiness of Israel is our own. It is not all mankind, to whom the Lord is thus rich in goodness. "His tender mer- cies indeed are over all his works," and there is not a sinner living on the earth, who is not a mo- nument of his goodness, and a marvellous in- stance of his mercy. But then the loving-kind- ness which is spoken of in the text, is that special loving-kindness, that peculiar mercy, which he manifests only to his spiritual Israel; to those whom he has chosen in Christ out of mankind, and brought, by his grace, out of that state of distance from him, of danger and want, in which he found them, into a state of union with him- self, of pardon, security, and peace. Now if we are included in the number of these happy peo- ple, we have felt ourselves to be in a guilty, and consequently in a needy and perishing condition ; and we have fled to Christ as ruined sinners to a Saviour. We have learned to hope in him, and to tread in his footsteps. We have his Spirit reigning within us, and we are in some degree like him. If we have been visited with afflictions, they have done more for us, than fill our breasts with sorrow and our eyes with tears ; they have softened our hearts, taught us more of our sinful- ness and weakness, weaned us from the world, and made us long for heaven. If these feelings have not been excited within us, and if these THE GOODNESS OF GOD TO ISRAEL. 205 fruits of the Spirit are not visible in our disposi- tions and lives, we are not the portion of the Lord, we are not the lot of his inheritance. The God of Israel is not leading us to heaven, but we are following another guide to another and a very different place. We have Satan for our leader, and the land of darkness for our home. And yet, brethren, it is awful to think how easy many of us remain under such guidance, and with this dreadful prospect before us. We are far more careless and unconcerned, though tra- velling in the road to destruction, than they are, who are journeying to a land of life and rest. Whence arises our lightness of heart ? Have we really made a wiser choice than the people of God? Is the guide we have chosen a better guide than Christ? Has he a stronger arm to protect us ? Does he afford us greater consolation, and will he lead us to a happier place ? Alas, no ! Destruction and misery are in his ways, and his footsteps go down unto death. It is our thought- lessness, not our security, which keeps us so easy. It is our awful insensibility, which hardens our hearts, and blinds our eyes to the evils that sur- round us. But this thoughtlessness and this in- sensibility will not last for ever. When the journey of life is done, they will come to an everlasting end, and we know by what they will be suc- ceeded by the pangs of that worm which dieth not, and of that fire which is not quenched. 206 THE GOODNESS OF GOD TO ISRAEL. Strive then to be serious and thoughtful now, when seriousness may be made the means of leading you to Christ, and thoughtfulness to hea- ven. Pray for a feeling heart. Welcome the bitterest afflictions which, through grace, may force you to think of your souls and eternity. Be thankful for every thing which has a tendency to render you dissatisfied with the ways of sin, and to lead you to seek the paths of wisdom and God. These paths are lying open before you, if you have but a sincere desire to walk in them ; and there is a Holy Spirit appointed and waiting to lead you to them, to guide your wandering feet into the way of peace. Commit yourselves therefore to his gracious guidance. Seek it by prayer. You will not seek it in vain. He will restore your wandering soul, and lead you "in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake." He will instruct you, as he leads you about; and when he has taught you all that the waste and howling wilderness is designed to teach you, he will remove you from its agitating scenes, and place you in the peaceful and blessed paradise of your God. SERMON XII. THE CHRISTIAN JOURNEYING TO THE PROMISED LAND. NUMBERS x. 29. We are journeying unto the place, of which the Lord said, I will give it you. Come thou with us, and we will do thee good, for the Lord hath spoken good concerning Israel. I HE place referred to in these words, was the promised land of Canaan. The Israelites were now preparing to leave mount Sinai, and to renew their journey through the wilderness to this long wished for country. Before however they finally leave the mount, we find Moses endeavouring to prevail on Hobab, his brother-in-law, to accom- pany them in their pilgrimage, and to share in the promised advantagesof their future home. " Come thou with us," he says, " and we will do thee good, for the Lprd hath spoken good concerning Israel." 208 THE CHRISTIAN JOURNEYING Such was the primary meaning of the words before us; but the general tenor of scripture when referring to the journey of the Israelites through the wilderness to Canaan, will perhaps justify us in viewing them in another and a more spiritual light. They may be considered as af- fording us a simple but striking emblem of the state and conduct of the Christian in the world. He is here in a wilderness; the Lord has promised him beyond it a land of rest; he is journeying to this land, and would have all men become his fellow-travellers in the way which leads to it. Viewed in this light, the text furnishes us with three subjects of consideration ; the place spoken of in it ; the conduct of the Christian with respect to this place ; and the advice which he gives to others as he journeys towards it. I. The place spoken of in the text is Canaan, a type of heaven, that far distant but better country which all the Israel of God have ever regarded as the scene of their blessedness and their home. 1 . Hence it is, first, a much wished for place. It is a place to which the Christian is journeying, and consequently a place which he wishes to reach. Like the saints of old, he desires " a better country, even a heavenly." He is really anxious to be in heaven, and would gladly leave the world and go there. TO THE PROMISED LAND. 209 This desire is not natural to us. As long as our hearts remain in an unrenewed state, we feel nothing of this earnest longing after heaven. We are in fact altogether indifferent about it. We know indeed that we must die, and we wish to go to heaven when we die ; but why do we wish to go there ? Because we love heaven, and are thirsting for its joys ? No ; because we can- not remain any longer upon earth, and are not willing to endure the pains of hell. If we could remain here, though we feel that we are in a wilderness, here we should be anxious to remain, and be content to let heaven be peopled from some other world. Only let us stay on the earth, and give us our full share of its vanities, plea- sures, and riches, and we will willingly leave to the angels the joys of the heavenly kingdom. The cause of this indifference must be sought for in the earthliness and sensuality of our minds. We have lost that holy and heavenly principle which was at first implanted in our souls, and are become almost as low and grovelling in our de- sires as the brutes that perish. Now the gospel provides a remedy for this earthly-mindedness. It speaks to us not only of mercy to save the soul, but of grace to change the heart. It offers to bring back to the mind the principle it has lost, to lift its affections from the world, and to fix them on heaven and God. VOL. i. p 210 THE CHRISTIAN JOURNEYING Nothing but the gospel can effect this change, and none but the man who loves the gospel, has experienced it; yea, none other heartily desires it. It would mar all the sensual enjoyments of every other man, throw a sickening draught into his cup of pleasure, and make him turn with disgust from his much loved follies. Others may talk of heaven, and say that they wish to be there ; but the re- newed Christian is the only man in the world, who understands the nature of its joys, and habitually and heartily desires to have a place in its courts. If we ask how it is that he has thus learned to thirst after that which all other men despise, the answer is plain he is born from above, and he wants to breathe his native air, and to share in the enjoyments of his native land. 2. The text reminds us too, that heaven is a promised place. " We are journeying unto the place, of which the Lord said, I will give it you." The heavenly Canaan is as much a land of promise, as the earthly Canaan was. It has been as often and as solemnly promised to the spiritual seed of Abraham, as that goodly land was to his natural seed. " This is the promise," says the apostle, " that he hath promised us, even eternal life." And this promise has been made, not only to the believer, but to a greater than he on his behalf. In the councils of eternity, heaven was made over to the anointed Saviour, as an eternal TO THE PROMISED LAND. 211 dwelling place for his ransomed church. "In hope," says Saint Paul, " of eternal life, which God that cannot lie, promised before the world began." This divine promise is indeed the ground on which the Christian rests all his hope of life and immortality. The light of nature and the dictates of reason, tell him, it is true, that there may be a world beyond the grave, but it is the Bible which assures him that " verily there is a reward for the righteous;" it is the promise given him in the Bible, which leads him to look, with Saint Peter, for "new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwel- leth righteousness." He knows that if he has really " fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before him" in the gospel, he is the heir of a pro- mise which has been confirmed by the oath of Jehovah, and which has " the immutability of his counsel" to ensure the fulfilment of it. He draws from it therefore " strong consolation," and derives from it a hope which is " as an anchor to his soul, sure and stedfast." But why has the Almighty given the Christian this precious promise of everlasting life ? Not because the Christian has merited this or even the smallest blessing at his hands, but simply for this purpose, to magnify the riches of his grace. 3. Hence we may observe that the country which is promised to the believer, is the free gift of God. It is a place, concerning which the Lord has said, " I will give it you." P2 212 THE CHRISTIAN JOURNEYING The Israelites were frequently warned against supposing- that the land of Canaan was marked out for them on account of any goodness which the Lord saw in them ; and the people who are travelling to the heavenly country, are as often reminded that it is not in consequence of any merit or righteousness of theirs, that they will be allowed to enter into it. Eternal life is always represented in the scriptures as the gift of God through Jesus Christ, our Lord ; not as a gift partly merited, but as a gift wholly undeserved, given to the believing sinner as freely as the rain which falls down from heaven, is given to the earth. " By grace are ye saved," says the apos- tle, " through faith ; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast." This is a very humbling truth, brethren, and a truth which we are very unwilling to believe. We do not like the thought of entering heaven on such terms as these. We know indeed that we are sinners, and we are willing to be treated in some degree as sinners, and could even consent to be saved partly through grace ; but then we are not willing to be sunk so low, as to be accounted utterly undeserving, utterly worthless ; yea, it is to be feared that the greater part of mankind would rather lose heaven, than receive it solely as a gift of mercy. TO THE PROMISED LAND. 213 This truth however is as important as it is humbling. All the other truths of the gospel rest on it. It lies at the very foundation of all true religion, and no man is a Christian, who has not a heartfelt conviction of it. It must find its way into the understanding and affections, or the soul must be lost. We must not only perceive the neces- sity of entering the kingdom of God in the same humiliating way as the pardoned criminal on the cross entered it, but be willing to enter it in this way, rather than in any other. We must approve this way, love it, yea, glory in it. But though heaven is thus a free gift to the Christian, it is still, in one sense, a purchased possession. It was obtained for him by a costly price, even by the blood of him who now reigns in its courts, and gives it all its joys. Christ pur- chased the church with his own blood, and with the same price he purchased for his church an "inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, eternal in the heavens." This then is the place spoken of in the text. It is a much wished for place, a promised place, and a place which is the free gift of God. II. Let us proceed to consider, secondly, the conduct of the Christian with regard to this place. It is evident that this heavenly country has little or no influence on mankind in general. We 214 THE CHRISTIAN JOURNEYING profess to believe that there is such a land some- where in the universe, but we think and act just as though it could no where be found. If heaven were to be blotted out from the creation, or if an impassable gulph were to be fixed between it and the earth, our dispositions, our aifections, and our conduct, would, in too many instances, remain the same as they are now. But this promised land has a real and abiding influence on the people of God. They seek it; they travel towards it. "We are journeying unto the place, of which the Lord said, I will give it you." 1. To be journeying to heaven implies an ac- tual entrance into the path which leads to it. The Christian's desires after this goodly land have not ended in a few lazy wishes and languid prayers. They have excited him to action. The man has been roused from his spiritual unconcern ; he has been led to see the vanity of the world and all it possesses ; he has begun to make enquiries about a way to some better country; he has been shewn and taught this way by the Spirit of God; in the strength of the same Spirit, he has actually entered in at its strait gate, and become a traveller towards Zion. Hence it is plain that the Christian, at the very commencement of his course, gives up the world, turns his back on Egypt, and sets his face towards Canaan. No man must think himself a Christian TO THE PROMISED LAND. 215 traveller, till he has done this. Heaven and the world are places directly opposed to each other in the holy scriptures. We are repeatedly warn- ed against the folly of seeking both at the same time. We are plainly told that it is impossible to be travelling to the one, while we are dwelling contentedly in the other. 2. To be journeying to heaven implies also perseverance in seeking it. It is not the entering into a high road, that will bring a man to the end of his journey, but an active and continued travelling along it. Nothing less than forty years of patient labour and exertion brought Israel to Canaan. The kingdom of hea- ven must be sought with the same perseverance, or we shall never arrive there. We must travel on in "the narrow way which leadeth unto life," as well as enter it. We are too apt, brethren, to forget this truth. We seem to think that religion is the business of a few days or weeks only; that when we have passed through a certain train of feelings, and embraced a certain system of doctrines, all is done and over; that the work of conversion is finished, our salvation completed, and heaven made our own. But how unscriptural are these thoughts ! The Bible plainly tells us that our whole life must be a life of faith, of repentance, of wrestling and warfare. It intimates to us that 216 THE CHRISTIAN JOURNEYING the oldest and strongest servant of God has just as much need to "work out his salvation with fear and trembling," as the youngest and weak- est; that he has just as much need of sorrow for sin, of earnest prayer, of continual applica- tion to the cross, of the most striving exertion. 7 O The Bible goes still farther. 3. We are warranted to infer from it, that if we are journeying to heaven, we have not only kept in the road which leads to heaven, but have actually made a progress in it; that, instead of declining, we are growing in grace ; that we are gradually becoming more and more meet to be partakers of heaven, the nearer we draw to it. " The path of the just," it says, "is as the shi- ning light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day." "The righteous shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands, shall be stronger and stronger." There is no standing still in religion. We are either slowly climbing up the hill of Zion, or rapidly hurrying down it. If we are conscious that we are not gradually ascend- ing it, we can surely have no reason to hope that we shall ever reach the city of God on its sum- mit. It is however an easy thing to be aware of having lost our " first love," and yet to retain our presumptuous confidence. It is an easy thing to be for years strangers to the tear of penitence, TO THE PROMISED LAND. 217 and to feel nothing of the energy of faith, and yet to rank ourselves still in the number of the elect. But the only religion which will bring peace to a man's heart in the hour of affliction and death, and bear the fiery trial of the day of judgment, is that which is on the whole a growing religion ; which deepens day by day the workings of repentance and faith within us ; which enlarges year by year our views of our own depravity and Jehovah's grace ; which makes the fire of devo- tion burn with a purer and brighter flame the longer it remains on the altar of the heart, and fixes the soul more and more closely on its God. We are not indeed to suppose that this religion never receives a temporary check, or that the man who possesses it, is always aware of its progress in his mind; but we have the authority of scrip- ture for concluding, that, notwithstanding occa- sional declensions, it is habitually going on unto perfection ; that it is a plant which will strike its roots deeper, and send its branches higher, and bring forth in its season more abundant fruit, till it is removed to the paradise of God. 4. There is implied also in journeying to the heavenly Canaan, a Jixed determination to arrive there. The expression intimates decision of cha- racter; a willingness to sacrifice every thing, so that the soul may be saved and heaven won. Now this is not a common frame of mind, and 218 THE CHRISTIAN JOURNEYING yet the scriptures give us no reason to think that we are going to heaven, if we do not possess it. It is true, the Bible says that heaven is the free gift of God, and that no man can do any thing whatsoever towards meriting it; but yet this sa- cred volume as plainly declares that the gift will be bestowed on him only who is making it the great business of his life to obtain it. Half mea- sures are seldom attended with the desired suc- cess even in the common affairs of life; but how much less likely are they to succeed, when flesh and blood are to be wrestled with and overcome, when the immortal soul is to be saved, and a crown of eternal glory to be obtained! Are we then, my brethren, making it the one thing needful, the great object of our hopes and fears, to enter into the kingdom of God ? If this is indeed our conduct, we shall find that we have no time to trifle, as the world around us is trifling. We shall act like men on a journey which requires diligence and haste. We shall appear among our brethren as strangers and pilgrims, and declare by our conduct that we are seeking another country. We shall obey that command of the Bible, which calls upon us to " lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and run with patience the race that is set before us; looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith." TO THE PROMISED LAND. 219 III. In thus prosecuting his sacred journey to heaven, it is evident that the Christian must necessarily separate himself from many of his brethren, with whom he would otherwise have contentedly associated. But although he is con- strained by the command of his God and the very nature of the work in which he is engaged, to come out from among the ungodly and worldly, he does not consider himself as unconnected with them, nor does he cease to regard them as bre- thren. Moses dared not return with Hobab to his idols, yet we find him manifesting the greatest anxiety for Hobab's happiness. " Come thou with us," he says, " and we will do thee good." 1. If we regard this invitation as the advice of the Christian traveller to his fellow-sinners around him, it implies, first, that he has a sincere and earnest desire to bring them into that path to hea- ven, which he has himself entered. The Christian is not, he cannot be, a selfish being. That very love which saves him from spiritual and eternal death, constrains him to "live no longer unto himself;" it enlarges his soul, and fills it with the purest and most exalted benevo- lence. As soon therefore as he begins in good earnest to seek heaven for himself, he begins to desire that others also may seek it. He wishes for companions in his pilgrimage, and he invites and urges all around him to join him in his jour- 220 THE CHRISTIAN JOURNEYING ney; yea, there is not a human being on the earth, whom he would not rejoice to see treading the same way of pleasantness in which he is walk- ing, and sharing with him the blessedness of the same path of peace. We are sadly negligent, brethren, in the per- formance of this duty. We seem indeed to have almost forgotten that it is our duty to be deeply and tenderly concerned for the eternal happiness of others. We think it wrong to suffer their bo- dily wants to remain unrelieved, but as for the wants of their souls, we hardly think of them. We may indeed lament at seasons their ignorance and folly, and when they die, we may wish that they had died Christians; but sighs and wishes are not all that Christ requires at our hands. He reminds us of what he has done for our own souls. He points to the manger and the cross, and tells us to let the same mind be in us, that was in him. He bids us deny ourselves for the salvation of our brethren, to labour in the work, and, if need be, to suffer contradiction, shame, and reproach, rather than desist from it. And even if this command had not been ex- pressly given us, a regard to our own happiness might have suggested it to us. If we succeed in persuading others to join us in our journey to Canaan, we win souls, not only to Christ, but to ourselves also ; we increase the number of those TO THE PROMISED LAND. 221 \vho are the fellow-helpers of our joy. Those whom we prevail on to travel with us, " may be to us instead of eyes;" they may guide us, assist and comfort us, in our wearisome pilgrimage. We shall take " sweet counsel together, and walk unto the house of God in company." Who can tell how much we shall be animated by their love and zeal? how much the languid spirit of devotion within us will be quickened by their burning hearts? how much we shall be cheered in our spiritual trials by their sympathy and prayers ? And O who can say what our reward will be when we enter heaven? "They that be wise," says the scripture, " shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteous- ness, as the stars for ever and ever." Neither is success in this labour of love so diffi- cult to be attained, as our slothful and faithless hearts sometimes represent it. It is true that the chain which ties our brethren to the world, is too strong to be broken by our feeble arm ; but there is a Holy Spirit who has strengthened many an arm weak and feeble as our own, and enabled it to deliver many a wretched sinner from his bond- age. A sense of our weakness is indeed one of the very best qualifications with which we can begin this arduous work; but then let us remem- ber also, that with "the Lord Jehovah is everlast- ing strength;" that this almighty Being is himself 222 THE CHRISTIAN JOURNEYING interested in our success ; that he desireth not the death of a sinner, but rather that he should turn from his wickedness and live ; that he has said to every one of us who is seeking his glory and the salvation of his sinful creatures, " Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel ; I will help thee, saith the Lord and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. Thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff." We may remember too for our encouragement, that many who have at first turned a deaf ear to the invitations and warnings of pious friendship, have at length listened to them. The bread has been cast upon the waters, and we have thought it lost, but after many days it has been found again. We are told that Hobab refused at first to accom- pany Moses to Canaan. He said unto him, "I will not go, but I will depart to mine own land and to my kindred ;" yet Moses was not discou- raged by this refusal. He still entreated, and reasoned, and promised ; and there is some ground to suppose from a passage in the fourth chapter of the book of Judges, that he finally prevailed. Let his success encourage us to be as zealous and persevering as he was, and to be as unwilling to take a denial. Our feeble efforts may be blessed at a time when we least expect a blessing ; yea, though we may go down to the grave without TO THE PROMISED LAND. 223 seeing the fruit of our labours, our labours may not be in vain. Our words may be remembered, when we are almost forgotten, and the soul of our friend may be saved ; our child or parent, our husband or wife, may be snatched as a brand from the burning, and may be through eternity our companion in glory, our joy and our crown. 2. The invitation of Moses intimates also that the Christian is tenderly concerned for the spiritual welfare and happiness of his fellow-travellers, as well as for the repentance and salvation of the wandering sinner. Moses not only said to Hobab, " Come thou with us," but he adds to this invitation a pro- mise, " We will do thee good." " We will not make light of you or neglect you ; we will not regard you as a stranger after you have joined the camp of Israel, but we will treat you as a brother and a friend." " And it shall be, if thou go with us, yea, it shall be, that what goodness the Lord shall do unto us, the same will we do unto thee/' The spirit which dictated these words, is the same spirit that reigns in every Christian's heart, He desires to do good not in an ungodly world only, but also in his Redeemer's church. Hence he watches over his fellow-pilgrims in their jour- ney, not that he may gratify a proud and censo- rious spirit by the discovery of their failings, but 224 THE CHRISTIAN JOURNEYING that he may decide the wavering among them, stir up the slothful, comfort the feeble-minded, and support the weak. Like his compassionate Mas- ter, he enters into the difficulties, fears, and sor- rows, of those who are travelling to Zion ; he bears their burdens, and " so fulfils the law of Christ." 3. We may infer, lastly, from this invitation, that if we would ever reach the kingdom of God, we must join ourselves now to the people of God. " Come thou with us " was the advice given to Hobab. It was only in company with the Israel- ites, that he could share their privileges, and enter into the land which had been marked out for their inheritance; and it is only in the society of those who fear the Lord, that we can taste of the consolations of our God, and draw near to his kingdom. There is no going to heaven in com- pany with those who are going to destruction. Here then is a lesson for the young. In form- ing your connections and choosing your associates, take those only for your friends, who will consent to walk with you in the way to heaven, and who give you reasonable ground to hope that they will help you forward in your journey to it. It is quite sufficient to have the workings of your own worldly hearts to struggle with on the road. You will always find enough in their temptations to lead you from the path, without calling in to their TO THE PROMISED LAND. 225 aid the example and enticements of ungodly com- panions. And even if this were not the case, even if we could take the thoughtless and sinful as the friends of our youth without being impeded by them in our course, would it be wise to choose for our most beloved associates upon earth, those whom we should dread to meet in another world ? with whom we should tremble to have our portion in eternity? It is painful to say farewell, even for a short season, to those whom we love ; is there no pang then in bidding an eternal adieu to our bosom friends at the grave ? is there no an- guish in shuddering at the very thought of meet- ing them again ? We may see in some of the lovers of pleasure around us much to admire, and something perhaps to commend; their conduct may be decent, their dispositions amiable, and their society pleasing ; we may love their cheer- fulness and mirth ; but in a few fleeting years all these things will have passed away, and nothing will be left to us from our intercourse with them, but the mournful consciousness that we have friends in eternity, whom we shall see no more ; that we have friends gone into a world, where no sound of joy has ever yet been heard, nor one ray of hope ever dawned. It is evident therefore that our present happi- ness, as well as our future safety, is connected VOL. I. Q 22G THE CHRISTIAN JOURNEYING with the companions to whom we unite ourselves. Our duty then is plain. Let us love our fellow- sinners and seek to do them good ; but if they are determined not to accompany us to heaven, let us not, for the sake of their society and friendship, accompany them to destruction. It may some- times be difficult to avoid connecting ourselves with them ; many reasons may be brought forward to persuade us that it is impossible ; but let us oppose to all the dictates of cowardice, indiffer- ence, and worldly policy, these plain words of the scripture, "The friendship of the world is enmity with God. Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God." "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers, for what fellowship hath righteousness with unright- eousness ? and what communion hath light with darkness ? and what agreement hath the temple of God with idols ? for ye are the temple of the living God. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing ; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord al- mighty." Such are some of the truths, of which the words of Moses in the text are calculated to remind us. It now remains that we apply them to ourselves. TO THE PROMISED LAND. 227 There is one enquiry which seems to be at once suggested to us by the things that we have heard. We are called upon by them seriously to ask whither we are journeying. We know that we are going to the grave. This is a journey which we began as soon as we were born, and we have been ever since unceasingly pursuing it. But what is the grave ? It is not the final end of our journey; it is not our home. It is only a narrow pass out of time into eternity. There are two other worlds lying beyond it, a world of everlast- ing blessedness, and another of never ending mi- sery. To the one or the other of these worlds, we are all hourly drawing nearer. We shall soon arrive in one of them, and be lodged in it as our eternal home. O then, brethren, let us put this question seriously to ourselves Whither are we journeying ? Which of these kingdoms of eter- nity are we approaching ? Are we standing on the borders of heaven or on the brink of hell ? If we are living as mankind in general live, this question is very easily answered we are hasten- ing to a world of misery. " Wide is the gate," says Christ, " and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat; because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." The destruction to which the broad way we are treading in, will lead us, is not in- Q 2 i 228 THE CHRISTIAN JOURNEYING deed the destruction of our being, but it is the destruction of our well being ; it is not the loss of our existence, but the loss of every thing which can make that existence a blessing. It is the utter, the everlasting destruction of our hap- piness, and the beginning of an eternity of un- mixed misery. O what a gloomy end to his journey for a weary traveller to reach ! O how wretched a home ! But have we reason to think that we are not walking in this broad way of misery ? Have we turned from it with fear and trembling, and are we journeying along the narrow path of life ? Then let the promise in the text animate us, and excite us to diligence in our Christian course. We are journeying to the place, of which the Lord has said, " I will give it you." The way may be narrow, desolate, and dreary ; our diffi- culties may be great, and our weakness still greater; but if we lean on that everlasting arm which is underneath us, and "run with patience the race that is set before us," we are sure of heaven at the end of our journey. Neither can that end be far distant. A few swiftly flying hours will bring us to it, and then we have only to pass over Jordan, and the heavenly Canaan will be ours. Though our course may be weari- some, we shall finish it with joy. As the ran- somed of the Lord, we " shall return and come TO THE PROMISED LAND. 229 to Zion, with songs and everlasting joy upon our heads." We " shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall" for ever "flee away." SERMON XIII. THE CHRISTIAN'S SONG IN HIS PILGRIMAGE. PSALM cxix. 54. Thy statutes have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage. 1 HE author of these words appears to have been David. They were probably written towards the close of his life, and seem to have been drawn from him by a review of his past trials and mer- cies. Happy is the man who can look back on the years that are gone, and take this declaration as his own ! That man's sorrows will soon be ended ; his songs of joy will last for ever. He may be an afflicted, weeping pilgrim in a wilder- ness now ; but he will be a rejoicing inhabitant of a paradise soon. The words of the psalmist naturally suggest to us three subjects of consideration ; the light in which every good man regards the world ; the THE CHRISTIAN'S SONG. 231 cheerfulness which he enjoys as he passes through it ; and the source from which this cheerfulness is derived. I. The light in which David regarded the world, was that of a foreign country, through which he was travelling to his native land. He speaks of it as the house or place of his pilgrim- age. The world is often represented under this image in the sacred scriptures, and every man who is a Christian indeed, feels the justness of this representation. It comes home at once to his heart, and he wishes always to cherish the feelings which it is calculated to excite. It tells him of something which he loves to hear his small connection with this world, and his deep interest in another. 1. We may learn from this representation of human life, that the world is a place which the Christian has ceased to love. He once loved it. Its maxims and pursuits, its vanities and plea- sures, were suited to his depraved affections. He felt himself at home, in a house which he loved, and only wished that he could dwell in it for ever. The dream however is ended. The man is now awake, and views the objects around him in their proper colours. A great moral change has taken place within him. His principles, his dispositions, and his affections, have undergone a radical alter- 232 THE CHRISTIAN'S SONG ation. He loves not "the world, neither the things that are in the world." They have lost their charms. Pleasures, amusements, and pursuits, which were once the first objects of his esteem, are now tasteless, wearisome, sickening to his soul. But whence has this change proceeded? From the disappointments that embitter, and from the calamities that harass, the life of man ? No ; these indeed he feels in common with other men, but these things have no power to wean the heart from the world. They have made monks and hermits, but they have never made one Christian. 2. The follower of Jesus regards the world as a place which cannot make him happy. The reason why he has ceased to love it, is simply this it is not suited to his taste ; it cannot provide the food which his renewed soul desires. He wants the bread and the water of life, and the world offers him nothing better than husks and ashes. The taste of that man who is indeed a servant of Christ, is set very high. He has desires in his heart which reach to heaven, and which nothing short of the happiness of heaven can satisfy. Even in this life, he must be made happy in just the same way as the angels are made happy, or he is a stranger to blessedness. He must eat of the same spiritual bread that they eat of, and drink of the same cup that they drink of, or he is still hungry and thirsty, and his soul is fainting IN HIS PILGRIMAGE. 233 within him. He is born from above, and he wants the pleasures of his native land. The world can satisfy the brutes that perish ; it can satisfy at times the lover of pleasure and the sensualist ; but it cannot satisfy the Christian. If then we profess to be the followers of Christ, let us remember, not only that we must not seek our chief happiness here, but that we cannot. It is not enough to be separated from the world ; we must be weaned from it, lose our love of it, " be transformed by the renewing of our mind." 3. The words of the psalmist teach us too, that the Christian regards the world as a place in which he must expect to meet with trials and difficulties. A pilgrim in a foreign country reckons on in- conveniences, and prepares to meet them. If he cannot have things altogether to his mind, he sub- mits. If he is treated with neglect, it gives him not much concern. He is but a pilgrim ; and he looks forward to his home as the seat of his com- forts and the place, of his rest. Thus also the Christian expects trials in the house of his pilgrimage, and prepares to expe- rience them. He makes up his mind, when he first enters the path which leads to God, to deny himself and take up his cross. Looking on the world as a fallen world, he wonders not that he finds it a scene of suffering and misery; and he 234 THE CHRISTIAN'S SONG claims no exemption from the common lot of man. The Bible gives him no promise of worldly ease and prosperity. It places his paradise in scenes beyond the grave, and plainly tells him, that he must "through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of heaven." 4. We may observe, further, that the world is a place which the Christian expects soon to leave. It is "the house of his pilgrimage," not his home. He not only knows that he must die, but he acts consistently with his knowledge he prepares to die. He endeavours to loosen the cords which attach him to the world, and to be ready to quit it at a moment's warning. Nay, he is anxious to quit it. He is a weary pilgrim, who longs to be at home. How often does his heart ache for rest, and sigh for the peace of his Father's house ! And yet he travels on in his wearisome journey without a murmur. He is indeed heard at seasons to wish for the wings of a dove, that he may fly away and be at rest; but, the next moment, he checks the impatient prayer, and his language is, "All the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change come." My brethren, are these feelings ours ? Is this the light in which we regard the world ? Is it the house of our pilgrimage? Have we ceased to love it, and to expect happiness from it? Do we look on it as a place of trial and difficulty? Are IN HIS PILGRIMAGE. 225 we willing to leave it, that we may go home to heaven ? If we are Christians indeed, the world is really thus crucified unto us, and we unto the world. Though living in it, we are not of it. We are travelling to heaven, and so travelling there, as to make the men of the world see that we regard the earth merely as our dwelling place for a season ; that we are seeking a better country than any which occupies their thoughts, even a heavenly. O that these dispositions abounded in all our hearts, and had a greater influence on our con- duct! We cannot be Christians without them. This deadness to the world and this heavenly- mindedness are not merely ornamental graces; they are absolutely essential to the Christian cha- racter. Nothing can supply the want of them, no zeal for the truth, no form of godliness, no fan- cied experience of its power. And yet by nature we are utterly destitute of these dispositions. There is nothing spiritual and heavenly in us. We are altogether earthly and sensual. Heaven- ly-mindedness is as much the gift of God, and as much the work of his Holy Spirit, as repentance or faith. It must be sought for also in the same way. If we would possess it, we must first learn to feel our need of it and earnestly to desire it; and then we must go and ask for it, as a gift of mercy, at a throne of grace. 236 THE CHRISTIAN'S SONG II. Let us now go on to our next subject of consideration, the cheerfulness which the Christian enjoys in the house of his pilgrimage. The text tells us that he has songs in it; " Thy statutes," says David, "have been my songs in the house of my pilgrimage." It has been supposed that there is an allusion in these words to one of the Jewish customs. We are informed that the Israelites repaired three times in the year from the extremities of their country, to worship the God of their fathers in the temple at Jerusalem; and that they had songs composed for these occasions, which they sung at certain intervals as they travelled along. Thus the Christian pilgrim is represented as singing in his pilgrimage, as journeying on to Zion " with songs and everlasting joy upon his head." It may indeed seem strange that such a pilgrim in such a world should find any cause for joy, yet we know that he does at seasons go on his way rejoicing. He takes down his harp from the willows; and, even in this strange land, he can sometimes pour forth a song of the sweetest joy, gratitude, and love. 1 . His song is a heartfelt song. True religion is something more than a round of ceremonies, or a system of doctrines. It has its seat in the heart, and calls into exercise all its affections. Hence the Christian's joy is a deeply IN HIS PILGRIMAGE. 237 seated joy. It is not a smile on the countenance, whilst sorrow is striving to hide itself in the breast. It is not that lightness of mind, that dissipation of thought, to which worldly amusements give rise. Neither is it a merely intellectual gratification. It is the joy of the mind; the peace of the soul; a joy which can live in retirement, and which flourishes the most, when it is removed at the greatest distance from the gaiety of the world. Serious reflection dashes to pieces the worldling's happiness. It cannot bear the secrecy of the closet and the darkness of midnight. But the Christian's God gives him songs in the night, and as for re- tirement, it increases his blessedness. He loves his closet, and is sometimes so happy there, that he almost forgets that he is an inhabitant of this suffering earth. " But," it may be asked, " is not this joy of a very suspicious nature ? We admit that some who profess to love the gospel, seem to be pecu- liarly cheerful and happy, but does not their cheerfulness proceed from a distempered imagi- nation, from heated passions, from delusive fan- cies ? In short, is it not the effect of enthusiasm, rather than of sober piety ?" If enthusiasm, my brethren, can make a man holy and happy in a world so sinful and wretched as this, it would be well for us all, if we were this very hour to be- 238 THE CHRISTIAN'S SONG come decided enthusiasts. But the Christian's joy is not an enthusiastic joy. 2. His song is a rational, as well as a heart- felt song. He has really cause for joy. He can give a sober, reasonable account of the sources of his happiness. He can tell us of the pardon of sin, of reconciliation with God, of salvation from hell, of a promise of heaven. If the poor exile is allowed to exult, when he has escaped from captivity ; if the condemned criminal is permitted to leap for joy, when he receives the news of a reprieve ; why do we require the perishing sinner to stand unmoved, when he hears of redemption and a pardon ? It cannot be. Infidelity and un- godliness may require this at a pardoned sinner's hands, but reason calls upon him to sing aloud with joy ; to be " zealously affected always" in that good thing which he has chosen as his portion ; to "joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom he has received the atonement." Reason tells him that the religion which gets into a man's affections, and warms his heart, and makes him habitually happy, is the only rational religion, the only religion which is worth con- tending for or seeking. While she calls upon the atheist and sceptic to indulge gloominess and fear ; to look on death with horror and on eter- nity with dismay ; she says to the humble, pray- IN HIS PILGRIMAGE. 239 ing, believing church of Christ, " Ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace ; the moun- tains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands." " But of what nature," it may again be asked, " is this heartfelt, rational joy which the Chris- tian is said to feel ? We see those who seem to possess it, abstaining from every thing likely to make them happy. They condemn and avoid whatever is cheerful, and appear to welcome every thing that is wearisome and gloomy. As for those innocent and rational amusements which constitute the chief pleasures of life, they appear to pour contempt on them, and to regard them with a feeling bordering on disgust." But here we .mistake the Christian's character. He will never be found to despise any pleasures which are really innocent and rational. He is as much attached to them as other men, and draws from them a much greater degree of delight, than they afford to others. But then he can never think those amusements rational, which are adapted solely to the sensitive part of man, and many of which a brute may enjoy in common with him- self. Neither can he deem those pleasures inno- cent, which directly oppose the precepts of his Bible and his God ; which have a tendency to excite affections and lusts that he has been com- 240 THE CHRISTIAN'S SONG manded to crucify, and has solemnly promised and vowed to renounce ; which are accommo- dated to the pomps and vanities of this wicked world ; which have been applauded by all the foolish and wicked, and condemned by all the wise and pious, in every age of the church ; which bring him into the society of the most profane and vicious, and separate him from the company of the most godly and virtuous of mankind ; plea- sures, from which he himself would tremble to be summoned to the grave and the judgment-seat of a holy God. 3. As for the nature of his happiness, we may observe, further, that the Christian's song is a divine song. The joy which fills his heart, de- scends from heaven, and comes down from the throne of God. It has its origin in things above the world, and is but little affected by its changes. Poverty cannot silence the song which it pours forth. It can sing the praises of its God as loudly and as sweetly in a prison and at midnight, on a bed of sickness and in the hour of death, as in the day of gladness and the hour of health. It must indeed seem strange in its nature to the mere man of the world, for a " stranger intermeddleth not with it." He has no capacity for receiving it or comprehending its nature. Even if he were taken to heaven where this joy fills every heart, he would wonder at the happiness around him, IN HIS PILGRIMAGE. 241 deem himself in a strange and stupid place, and wish again for the vanities of the world he had left. To make this subject plain to us, let us take our Bibles, and read the account which is there given us of heaven. After seriously contempla- ting the glowing descriptions set before us, let us ask ourselves what ideas of heaven we have obtained. We think it a happy place perhaps, because we read that there will be no sorrow there, no crying, no pain ; but this is nearly all we have learned of it. Were we to be asked in what the positive happiness of heaven consists, we should find a difficulty in answering the question, and perhaps could give no answer whatever to it. Now if the Bible had spoken of riches and honours in heaven, of houses and lands, of sensual amuse- ments and delights, of the song and the dance, of festivity and mirth ; in short, if the Bible had ex- hibited to our view a Mahometan paradise, there would have been something tangible in the des- cription, and we should have been able to form some adequate conception of its happiness. Apply this observation to the subject .before us. The Christian seems to be destitute of joy ; and why? Not because he is really destitute of it, but because his joy is a divine, and not an earthly or a sensual joy. It is a joy of exactly the same nature, as that which reigns in heaven ; and it must therefore VOL. I. R 242 THE CHRISTIAN'S SONG be altogether hidden from those who are not hea- venly minded. We cannot be too often reminded that true re- ligion makes a great change in the heart. It takes from it many old desires and affections, and im- plants in it many new ones. It opens the mind to receive spiritual ideas and spiritual enjoyments. It gives it a new taste. When therefore the truly re- ligious man takes his Bible, and reads the des- criptions which the Holy Spirit has there given him of heaven, he sees something real in them, something infinitely desirable. He understands something of the meaning, and tastes something of the sweetness, of "being for ever with the Lord ;" of " standing before the throne of God, and worshipping him day and night in his temple;" of " seeing him as he is ;" of " awaking up in his likeness, and being satisfied therewith." To what conclusion then does this bring us ? It brings us to this conclusion, that if we have no joys but those which the world affords us, if we have no taste for spiritual delights, we have no true religion, no connection with Christ, no meet- ness for heaven. O brethren, it is awful not to find religious things pleasant things. It is awful to find the sabbath a weariness, the worship of God irksome, the sound of the gospel joyless. O let this simple and oft repeated truth reach every ear, and sink deeply into every heart there is IN HIS PILGRIMAGE. 243 no plainer mark of an unrenewed, unpardoned soul, than the love of the vanities of this present evil world, and an indifference to the great realities of eternity. III. " But how," it may be asked, *' is this heartfelt, rational, and heavenly joy communicated to the Christian's soul ? Whence does he derive it?" The text answers this enquiry, and reminds us of our third subject of consideration, the source of the Christian's joy. " Thy statutes," says David, " have been ray songs in the house of my pilgrimage." " I have found thy statutes to be right, rejoicing the heart. The precepts and promises of thy word have been the source of my blessedness, as well as the theme of my song." Here however it must be observed, that the holy scriptures have no power in themselves to make the Christian pilgrim happy. Thousands read and hear them without deriving, or expect- ing to derive happiness from them. To the Holy Spirit all the joy of the Christian must be traced as its Author, but one of the principal means which he makes use of to communicate this gift, is the word of God. 1. The Bible rejoices the Christian's heart by telling him, first, that, though a pilgrim in a foreign land, he shall have all his ivants supplied. R 2 244 THE CHRISTIAN'S SONG He finds in this blessed book the sweetest pro- mises of all he can need or wish for in his jour- ney. Wearied and dispirited by its difficulties, he reads here that he is not alone in the world ; that his heavenly Father is with him ; that his Saviour is bearing a part of his trials, and sharing all his sorrows ; that the angels of heaven are commissioned to watch over him, and to keep him in all his ways. With these assurances he is satisfied, yea, he is refreshed and comforted. He goes on his way with joy in his heart, and this song in his mouth ; " The Lord is my shep- herd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures ; he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul ; he lead- eth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever." 2. The Bible brings joy to a Christian's heart by reminding him of the end of his pilgrimage, even his home, and that a peaceful, glorious, and heavenly home. How sweet is the thought of home to the tra- veller who has been long absent from it ! How does the hope of again beholding it and its be- loved inhabitants, support him in his journey, and enable him, though wearied, to travel on with cheerfulness ! With such a prospect, the Bible IN HIS PILGRIMAGE. 245 supports and cheers the Christian traveller. He learns from it that heaven is not a fable ; that there is something real beyond the grave ; that there is a mansion prepared for him, yea, a throne and a crown awaiting him in the realms of eternity. He is told too that he shall soon take a last fare- well of this strange land, with all its cares, and sins, and sorrows ; that he shall see face to face that Saviour whom his soul loves ; press to his heart the fellow-pilgrims whom he has parted with on earth ; join the great company of ransomed, purified, and rejoicing saints, and have robes as white as theirs, and palms as green. Who then does not love the Bible, that can read in it of such a home as this, and look forward to it as his own ? 3. But the scriptures not only tell the Christian of this heavenly home, they cheer his heart by pointing out to him the way which leads to it. The word of God is " a lamp unto his feet, and a light unto his paths." He feels that he is very igno- rant and needs a guide, and he finds in the Bible just such a guide as he needs, one that is designed fox the ignorant, and able to make wise the sim- ple. He takes it therefore as his map through the wilderness of the world, as his chart across the troubled sea of life. 4. The same scriptures too, that tell the Chris- tian of his home, and point out to him the way which leads to it, give him the assurance that he 246 THE CHRISTIAN'S SONG shall soon be there. They remind him of the love, the power, and the faithfulness, of him who has said, " My sheep shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand." They assure him, that if only he will lean on the al- mighty arm of Christ, he " shall hold on his way," and grow stronger and stronger as he advances in his course. In the midst of his weakness and fears, they tell him of a multitude of pilgrims who were once travelling the same path in which he is treading, and travelling it too with the same trials and fears, but who are now walking the streets of the new Jerusalem, and rejoicing in its glorious temple. The Bible is not leading him through an untrodden path. It says to him, " Be followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises." " Take the prophets who have spoken in the name of the Lord, for an ex- ample of suffering affliction and of patience." " Consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds." The subject which we have thus briefly con- sidered, shews us, first, the reason why so many professors of Christianity are habitually gloomy and comfortless. They do not love the statutes of the Lord ; they do not seek their happiness in them. There is a well of consolation near them, IN HIS PILGRIMAGE. 247 but they turn away from it. They seek happiness in themselves, and forget to seek it in their Bible and their God. The only way to be happy, my brethren, in such a world as this, is to have the Bible often in our hands and still oftener in our hearts ; to meditate upon it ; to understand what David means when he says, " O how I love thy law ! it is my meditation all the day." " I will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways. I will delight myself in thy statutes ; I will not forget thy word." The text calls upon us also highly to value the scriptures; to esteem them "more precious than gold, yea, than much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the honey-comb." If David and Job, who had but a small portion of the word of God, esteemed it more than their necessary food, and took it as their heritage for ever ; if these ancient saints so highly valued this precious book and so much rejoiced in it, how ought we to prize it, who have it enriched with the clear, the " ex- ceeding great and precious promises" of the pro- phets, of the evangelists and apostles, and of Christ himself! Surely we should "bind it about our neck, and write it upon the table of our heart" We are reminded also in the text of the extent to which we should endeavour to circulate the scrip- tures. They are designed to bring comfort to the 248 THE CHRISTIAN'S SONG sorrowful, and peace to the wretched. Wherever therefore sorrow and wretchedness are found, there the Bible is wanted, and there it is our duty, if possible, to send it. Wherever a sigh is heaved or a tear shed in the habitation of misery, there we are called on to send the word of consolation and the gospel of peace. We ftiay infer, lastly, from the subject on which we have been meditating, that the spirit which be- comes the Christian pilgrim, is a cheerful and rejoicing spirit. Let the infidel and the ungodly man be gloomy ; but let not that man be cheer- less, who has the Bible for his comforter, Christ for his Saviour, God for his Father, and heaven for his home. Let him examine the book which contains the charter of his privileges ; let him turn over its leaves, and not a word of sorrow can he find addressed to him throughout its sacred pages. Pardon and peace, hope and joy, comfort in death and triumph in eternity these are the blessings it pours into his bosom, and tells him to call his own. It is true that it reminds him that he is a pilgrim on the earth, and teaches him to cherish within his breast the remembrance of this fact ; to let it moderate his desires after earthly things, wean him from the world, and enable him to bear with fortitude its sorrows and trials : but then it tells him also, that " the sufferings of this present time arc not worthy to be compared with the glory IN HIS PILGRIMAGE. 249 which shall be revealed in us;" that though we 7 O may " receive the word in much affliction," we should receive it also "with joy in the Holy Ghost." The Bible makes spiritual joy our duty, as well as our privilege. It calls upon us to " serve the Lord with gladness, and come before his pre- sence with a song ;" to let the world see that we have found that peace of mind in the gospel of .Christ, which they cannot find any where else ; that there is something real in religion, something which can enable a man to spurn the pleasures of time and sense, and rejoice in a crucified Jesus " with joy unspeakable and full of glory." SERMON XIV. THE BREVITY AND VANITY OF HUMAN LIFE. PSALM xxxix. 5. Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth, and mine age is as nothing before thee ; verily, every man, at his best state, is altogether vanity. IHESE simple words have an energy in them, which none but a dying man can fully under- stand. We may indeed have felt something of their meaning, as we have heard them read over the corpse of a beloved friend, but then this feel- ing has been neither deep nor lasting. We have heard the death-bell toll, we have followed the ashes of a fellow-mortal to the tomb, and we have perhaps breathed a sigh or shed a tear to human vanity; but we have not long retained the im- pression to which the mournful scene has given rise. The cares or pleasures of the world have again called for our whole attention, and we have THE BREVITY OF HUMAN LIFE. 251 again given it them. In one short day perhaps, we have forgotten that man is mortal and that his life is vanity. We have forgotten that the words we have heard read over our departed friend, must soon be read over our own cold remains; that the same death-bell will shortly toll for us ; that our poor bodies must soon be the tenants of a grave as silent and as dark as his. In compassion however to our thoughtless hearts, the Almighty sometimes steps out of the track of his ordinary dealings with us, and forces these truths on our recollection. By some sudden and awful stroke, he makes his providence preach them to us in a voice so loud, that all must hear it, and so plain, that all must understand it. Such a blow has been lately struck within our own borders.* That dark and mysterious provi- dence which the mind neither of men nor of angels can penetrate, has sent death, in one of its most affecting forms, into the very happiest of our palaces; and now calls upon a whole nation to look on, and remember that man, even in "his best state, is altogether vanity." The sad particulars of this solemn event are familiar to us all. They have fastened themselves * This sermon was preached November 19, 1817, being the day on which the lamented PRINCESS CHARLOTTE of Wales was interred. 252 THE BREVITY AND VANITY on every mind, and have deeply affected every heart. Of its consequences to our country, we know nothing. They are all hidden behind the veil of futurity, and no human sagacity can pene- trate them. There may indeed be mercy in the afflictive dispensation, but as far as our feeble eyes can reach, we see nothing but judgment for England in the stroke. O how loudly does it call upon every inhabitant of this sinful land to hum- ble himself before the Lord, and " to turn to him in weeping, fasting, and in praying!" It is not however my wish to call your attention to the political causes of this event. Neither will I pain your feelings by attempting any panegyric on her who has been made the subject of this mysterious providence. She is now removed far beyond the reach of any praise of ours ; or if her departed spirit is still permitted to hover over the country that she loved, she will find a panegyric, stronger than words can give, in the throbbing hearts and streaming eyes of a mourning land. Instead of dwelling on that conjugal affection and filial piety, that train of virtues, which graced her character and endeared her to us, let us rather strive to see our own nearness to that world whi- ther she is gone. Let us view this solemn visita- tion as dying men. It addresses us in this cha- racter, and speaks to us a language which affects not a nation only, but a world ; not time only, OF HUMAN LIFE. 253 but eternity. O may the Spirit of God send home its sacred lessons to every heart ! The psalmist's words lead us to consider, first, the reasons why the fleeting days of life are called our days ; secondly, the shortness of these days ; and, thirdly, their vanity. I. Why then does the psalmist call the days of life our days? There is not one of them which we can strictly call our own. The stream of time keeps rolling on, and not the smallest portion of it can we hold within our grasp. 1. But still the fleeting days of life may be 1 called our days, because they bring to us innume- rable mercies as they hurry on. We cannot stop' them, but there is* not one of them, that is not commissioned to drop many mercies on our heads as it passes over us ; mercies for our bodies, mer- cies for our families, mercies for our country, mercies for our souls. 2. These days too may be called our days, be- cause they are days in which we are allowed to work for eternity. We shall live for ever, but we shall not for ever have the power of benefiting or injuring our souls. There is no work of conversion beyond the grave, no work of salvation in eternity. There are no means of grace in that unknown world, no 254 THE BREVITV AND VANITY Bible, no ministers, no renewing Spirit, no invi- ting Saviour, no saving cross. All our work must be done before we come to the grave, or all be- yond it is one never ending night, " in which no man can work." All that a poor sinner can do for his immortal soul, must be done in that short span of time which intervenes between the cradle and the tomb. 3. The days of our life may be called our days, because they are days for which we must hereafter give an account. We have no real property in their hastening hours. They are one after another lent to us to be returned again. They are lent us to be employed for their Master's use. "Take this," he says with every hour that he gives us, " and occupy till I come." Every moment that fills up the measure of our time, comes to us like a messenger from another world, marks our con- duct, and then hastens back with its report to the throne of God. Before that throne, brethren, is an ever open volume, in which all our sad abuse of time is re- corded. Every sinful act of our lives is written there, every hasty word, and every unholy thought. Thousands of sins which we have long forgotten or never thought of, are still as fresh in that aw- ful record, as at the very moment when they were committed. They are all waiting there to meet us again at the bar of God. Where then is the. OF HUMAN LIFE. 255 man among us, who can seriously think of such a book as this, and feel no " searchings of heart " at the thought ? O if we could but be allowed to take one glance at one of its dark and crowded pages, with what trembling haste should we fly to a dying Saviour, and cling to his cross ! The re- cord of his sins for only one day, would be enough to fill the heart of the most careless among us with fear and trembling for his whole life. II. Let us proceed to consider, secondly, the shortness of these days which the psalmist calls our own. "Behold," he says, u thou hast made my days as an hand-breadth, and mine age is as no- thing before thee." We all know that when we speak of the short- ness of anything, there is always implied in the term a comparison with something else of longer duration. 1. Hence we may observe that our days are short, when compared, first, with the period once allotted to the life of man. Immediate death was the sentence denounced against the sin of our first parents. "In the day that thou eatest thereof," said the Lord, " thou shalt surely die ;" but the patience of God lingered nine hundred years before he demanded of the first criminals their forfeited lives. Their imme- diate successors too enjoyed, for the greater part, nearly as long- a respite. We count our years at 256 THE BREVITY AND VANITY the most by scores, but the men before the flood reckoned theirs by centuries. At an age when we are sinking into the grave, they were but just en- tering upon life. Their glass generally ran on for nearly a thousand years, while " the days of our age are three score years and ten ; and though men be so strong, that they come to four score years, yet is their strength then but labour and sorrow; so soon passeth it away, and we are gone." 2. Our life too seems short, when compared with the duration of many objects around us. The same sun that now shines upon us, shone more than five thousand years ago on our fathers. The moon that enlivens our nights, has seen nearly two hundred generations of men rise and fall. Even the works of our own hands remain much longer than we. The pyramids of Egypt have defied the attacks of three thousand years, while their builders sunk perhaps under the burden of four score. Our houses stand long after their tran- sient proprietors are gone, and their names forgot- ten. Where is now the head that planned, and the hands which built, this house of God ? They were all reduced to ashes five hundred years ago. The very seats we sit on have borne generations before they bore us, and will probably bear many after us. The remains of those who once occupied the places we now fill, are under- neath our feet, and we must soon join them in OF HUMAN LIFE. 257 their vaults to make room for other generations. Before another century has begun its course, these walls will resound with other voices, other feet will tread these courts, and another race of men will say of us, " Our fathers ; where are they ?" 3. How striking too does the shortness of life appear, when compared with the eternity of God! "Mine age is as nothing before thee," says the psalmist; " nothing in comparison of thee." The existence of the Lord Jehovah never had a beginning, and can never have an end. "From everlasting to everlasting," he is God. Compared with the eternity which he inhabits, the longest life shrinks into a mere point, a nothing. Indeed no duration of time, however long, will bear the comparison. Thousands and millions of years are no more here, than a day or an hour. If we take as many years as there are grains of sand upon the sea-shore, and as many more as there are par- ticles of dust in this huge globe of earth, and bring into one reckoning all these multitudes of years, the mighty sum bears no more propor- tion to eternity, than a moment, a twinkling of an eye, bears to ten thousand ages. Such a calcula- tion confounds the mind by its immensity; but the whole amount would be a mere point, yea, less than a point, in the reckoning of eternity. 4. We may see something also of the brevity of life, if we compare it with the work we have to do. VOL i. s 258 The eternity of which we have been speaking,' is our own. When God gave us life, he made us heirs of it. The immense inheritance has been entailed upon every one of us, and we must spend it either in the height of happiness or in the depth of misery. Now the present life is given us to lay up a treasure for this eternity ; to work out, by the power of divine grace, a salvation which shall stretch itself through its countless ages. Great as this work is, multitudes of the human race have performed it. They have been strength- ened by Christ, and, though utterly helpless in themselves, they have now obtained a treasure in eternity, with which the collected riches of a world cannot for one moment be compared. We our- selves also must work out this great salvation, and work it out too in this short life, or live for ever in hopeless misery. Viewed in this solemn light, as the only season of preparation for eternity, to what a fearful im- portance does time at once rise ! How ought we to value its fleeting hours ! Its shortness makes it infinitely precious. Tell a man that he has only a day to labour in order to secure food, and ease, and happiness, for a hundred years, and mark how that man will prize every moment of that short day ! how intent he will be upon his work ! how dead to every other object! Invite him, un- der such circumstances, to the song and the dance j OF HUMAN LIFE. 259 call him to scenes of revelry and dissipation; offer him the richest baubles the world can give; and the man will spurn them from him ; all the haunts and pursuits of vanity will be sickening to his soul. How is it then, brethren, that we who have but a few short days to live and to prepare for eternity, can be so idle and so easy? How is it that we have so much time to spare for the world, for vanity and sin ? This view of life shews us too the vast impor- tance of every thing we say and do in it. All our words and actions are connected with eternity by a chain which never can be broken. We shall hear of every one of them again in an eternal world. They are seeds planted' in heaven or in hell, and are producing for us there, this very hour, either the sweetest or the deadliest fruits. If we thus compare human life with the period once allotted to it, with the long duration of many objects around us, with the eternity of God, and the all important work of laying up in Christ a treasure for eternity, we shall be constrained to acknowledge that the psalmist's complaint is not an unmeaning one ; that our days are indeed as an hand-breadth and our age as nothing. Observe too that in making this comparison, we have given to life its longest duration. We have said nothing of the countless thousands of the human race, who are daily cut down in the s 2 260 THE BREVITY AND VANITY maturity of manhood and the bloom of youth. One half at least of those who enter this world of death, are called out of it before they have seen seven of its years. We have said nothing of the stroke which can reach the infant before it sees the light, and lay the mother in the dust, though shielded by health, and strength, and youth. Neither have we said any thing of the time that is consumed in sleep, and in procuring the supplies necessary for our existence. Many hours of all our nights are hours of oblivion, and many of our days are days of nothingness. Take these from human life, and how poor a pittance is there left ! If however we pass over all these things in silence, and give to life all the hours and advantages it can lay claim to, the conclusion is the same it is "a shadow that departeth;" a flower that "in the morning is green and groweth up, and in the evening is cut down, dried up, and withered ;" " it is a vapour that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away." Plain as this truth appears, it is by no means easy to get it permanently fixed in our minds. We acknowledge the shortness of life, and yet when we look forward to years to come, our feel- ings strangely belie our words, and life seems to stretch itself out a long extended line. But what do we know, brethren, of the years that are to come ? We must go for an estimate of life to the OF HUMAN LIFE. 261 years that are past. We know something of them from experience. What then is their language ? Ask the man who is bending under the weight of four score years. He will tell us, that " the days of the years of his pilgrimage" have been " few and evil ;" that his lengthened life appears to him only " as a tale that is told." Mark too the silence with which the few years allotted to us pass away. They make no noise as they roll over our heads. The stream of time flows on with the profoundest stillness. It passes by us, and we see it not. All that we know is, that it has passed us; and we can only wonder that it should so soon be gone. If we look back to that part of our life which has already run its course, we can retrace but very little of it. We remember it only as we remember a dream. It is full of confused images which we cannot distinctly recollect, and which serve only to perplex and be- wilder the memory. And yet the events of these years, which we now so indistinctly remember, once called into exercise all the energies of our minds. Some of them filled us with delight, and some harassed us with vexation and grief. All however from our cradle to the present hour, seems now but little better than one humiliating blank : and just the same, a few months hence, will the present time appear to us, crowded as it now is with pleasures, cares, and fears. 262 THE BREVITY AND VANITY There is also another painful thought connected with the silent rapidity of time the longer we stay in the world, the swifter does its flight ap- pear. A year to a man is not more than six months to a child. Our days seem to rush on with a more silent and rapid motion the nearer they draw to the goal of death, as though they were eager to bear us away to our destined eter- nity. The fact is, that time, correctly speaking, is> nothing more than a succession of ideas ; these ideas are less numerous, and the impressions they make less deep and permanent, in old age than they are in youth ; and consequently the road of life has fewer marks to remind us of our progress. III. But here perhaps it may be said, " What if the period of life is thus transitory ? Man is a great and noble being, and has powers that enable him to crowd into this short existence a conse- quence and dignity suited to his greatness." The words before us however speak no such language. There is another truth declared in them, which pours contempt on all human greatness. They tell us, not only of the shortness of life, but of the vanity, the utter nothingness, of man. This is the testimony they give ; " Verily, every man, at his best state, is altogether vanity." And is the Bible the only teacher of this humi- liating truth ? No. The events of every day, the OF HUMAN LIFE. 263 observation and experience of almost every hour, speak the same language. With what a mighty voice, my brethren, is the solemn truth now sounded in the ears of every inhabitant of this land j There is a tomb opened to-day, that sends it home to our very hearts. 1. It shews us the nothingness of man, by forcing us to remember the precariousness and. little worth of all the earthly blessings we call our own. There is not one of them, which we can be sure of retaining even for an hour. Have we a beloved child, our only hope and solace in a dreary world ? Death, before we are aware, may strike a blow which will leave us childless. Have we a wife, endeared to us by innumerable offices of love ? She may be a corpse to-morrow. O how loudly does such a stroke as this call upon us to have no idols upon earth, to sit loose to the dearest earthly connections, and to cling closely to our God ! A husband or wife, parents or children, are wretched substitutes for the rock of ages. We rejoice over them in the morning, but " the wind passeth over them in the evening, and they are gone." The same mournful scene shews us too the little use which earthly blessings are to us, while we retain them. Who more blessed with all the world can give, than she whose loss has filled our land with weeping ? And yet what could it all 264 THE BREVITY AND VANITY do for her in the hour of need ? Neither the skill of physicians, nor the tears of a beloved husband, nor the prayers of a trembling nation, could keep off even for an hour the hand of death, or mitigate its terrors. Why then do we so much love so weak and vain a world ? 2. We may be reminded of the nothingness of man, by looking also at the utter vanity of all his schemes and prospects. We are ever cherishing the most extravagant hopes, and creating in our imagination the most visionary prospects. We are the mere creatures of a day, while ages would be wanting to execute what we amuse ourselves with planning. But how often are we forced to observe the abrupt termination of human schemes ! Man dies, and " his expectations perish." Years were wanting to complete his plans, but they are all cut off in a moment. The thread is snapped asunder, almost before he has begun to wind it. We daily see that one man builds, but another inhabits the house ; one sows, but another reaps the corn. " Man heapeth up riches, but he cannot tell who shall gather them ;" and as for his honours, the laurel fades as soon as it is placed upon his brow, and the applauses of a world, if he obtains them, are soon no more to him, than the wind that blows over his grave. Who can tell how many hopes and projects OF HUMAN LIFE. 265 will be buried within that tomb which has been opened to-day? The hand that was so often stretched out in deeds of mercy, is now motion- less ; the head that seemed destined to wear a crown, is now encircled by a shroud ; the generous heart that once glowed with the thought of scat- tering blessings round a nation, is cold as a stone. All the thousand fond anticipations connected with the name of Mother, are buried in the tomb. O let the thoughtless young among us, who are planning schemes for the time to come, look here, and see the utter vanity of all human expectations. They may say within themselves, " To-day or to- morrow, I shall go here or there, and do this or that ;" but what answer does this coffin send them ? " Thou knowest not what shall be on the morrow. Thou mayest die to-day." O my friends, press home this answer to your hearts. Which of you is thinking with delight of the hour, that shall again bring you to the arms of some much loved friend or parent ? The next tidings which that parent hears of you, may be, that you are numbered with the dead. Which of you is ex- pecting with a trembling hope to be hailed a Mother ? Before that sound may reach your ears, you and your babe may say to corruption, " Thou art my father ; : * and to the worm, " Thou art my mother and my sister." 266 THE BREVITV AND VANITY The very general terms in which the psalmist speaks in the text, are also deserving of our notice. He does not say that some men are vanity, but " every man ;" not the poor and the ignorant, the feeble and the old only, but "man at his best state;" and not only is every man vanity, but " altogether vanity." His language is as strong too, as it is general ; " Verily," says he, " every man is vanity." He speaks of it as an incontestable fact, as the result of his own actual experience. The young and the healthy then, the wise and the learned, the rich and the great, are all inclu- ded in this saying. Every man is ready to think himself exempted, but we are all on an equality here. No rank, however elevated, can lift us above the common vanity of man, nor any degree of poverty sink us below it. The palace is as much the habitation of disappointment, infirmity, and disease, as the cottage ; and the robes of royalty, and the tattered garments of beggary, are alike preludes to the shroud. " All flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass." The flower may be finer in its texture than the common grass ; its colours may be more gay, and its properties more useful ; but it grows in the same soil, it has a common root, a common nature, and a common end. It is exposed to the OF HUMAN LIFE. 267 same scorching heat, the same frost, and the same scythe. When " the grass withereth, the flower fadeth." We have thus taken a hasty review of the pic- ture which the psalmist has given us of human life. It would, under any circumstances, suggest to us the same inference, but when viewed in connection with the mournful occasion which has brought us here, how forcibly does it remind us all of the great duty of consideration ! We are all most awfully careless, brethren, about every thing which relates to the soul and eternity. This carelessness is inherent in our nature, and no power but that of God can root it out. And yet we could not have within us a more fatal enemy than this. Inconsideration is as ruinous to the soul, as any sin can be. The God of mercy is acquainted with this bane of our nature ; and in compassion to our souls, he em- ploys his providence to awake us out of this dread- ful sleep. Has then the mournful stroke which is yet fresh in our memories, produced this effect? It has filled our eyes with tears and our hearts with grief; but has it made us feel the precarious- ness of all our earthly blessings ? the vanity, the shortness, the uncertainty, of our own lives? the nearness of eternity to our own souls ? Has it made us think and act as dying men ? Has it led 268 THE BREVITY AND VANITY us to put such questions as these to our hearts Am I prepared to die ? Is the great business of life begun? Have I made the days which have passed over me, my days, by employing them in seeking the treasures of salvation ? I see that I must soon be in eternity ; what have I to hope for there ? What is stored up for me in that everlast- ing home ? My Bible tells me that the pursuits of the world and sin can only lay up wretchedness in eternity for my soul; in what other pursuits then have I been engaged ? Have I been making a serious business of religion ? Has it occupied more of my thoughts, than all earthly objects have ? Do I know what is meant by that deep humility and self-renunciation, that renewal of the heart, that simple trust in the cross, that deadness to the world, that dedication of the whole man to God, which my Bible tells me must be found in me, before I can be prepared to die ? If I know nothing of these things, what is my state ? what are my prospects ? My life is vanity ; what will be my eternity ? A few such simple questions as these, pressed home to our consciences in the secrecy of retire- ment, would make us all confess, that a thought- less sinner in such a world as this, is a wonder in the universe. To see the daily ravages of death around us, to be standing on the brink of the grave, to have our feet on the borders of eternity, OF HUMAN LIFE. 269 and yet to be unconcerned about the never ending realities of that world which stretches itself be- fore us, and to be absorbed in the wretched vani- ties of that little spot of earth which lies behind us where is the being, not a partaker of our thoughtless nature, who does not wonder at our folly and mourn over our wretchedness ? The subject we have been considering reminds us, secondly, of the great evil of sin. Transgression and death both came into the world together; the one is only the appointed wages of the other. " Thou hast made my days," says David, " as an hand-breadth." He tells us here that it was not mere chance which made our years so few, and our life so full of vanity. He traces up the shortness of our days to the anger of an offended God. That holy Being who "inhabiteth eternity," will not suffer creatures such as we, to violate with impunity his sacred law. No sooner had man sinned against him, than he made a solemn display of his infinite justice by passing a sen- tence of mortality on our race. It is sin, which has lodged the seeds of death in our frame, and corrupted our nature. It is sin, which fills our graves, and lays generation after generation in the dust. O how inconceivable must be the mao;- o nitude of that evil which could make a God, so rich in mercy, display such fearful vengeance ! 270 THE BREVITY AND VANITY Let us then ever connect our sin with our mor- tality and nothingness. Let every pain that we feel in our mortal bodies, let every sick bed that we visit, let every corpse we see, and every knell we hear, remind us of the malignant nature of this evil, and teach us to regard it as the great enemy of man. Another serious thought follows closely upon this if sin is so dreadful a thing in this world of mercy, what will be its terrors in a world of un- mingled justice ? If it has brought disease and pain, corruption and death, into my body here, what will it bring into my soul there ? Brethren, lay this thought to heart, and may it lead you, this very hour, to that long heard of and long despised fountain of a Saviour's blood, which only can cleanse your soul from sin. This great evil requires a great remedy; and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has provided one of never fail- ing and boundless efficacy. " He hath sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins ;" and this mournful providence is a call to us from his throne to hasten to the Saviour, whom his love has provided. O may the Holy Spirit incline our hearts to listen to the call ! May none of us des- pise this great salvation ! We may infer also from the words before us, the necessity of a simple, undivided trust in God, We all feel that we need a helper, and we are OF HUMAN LIFE. 271 prone to look'to one another for the help we need ; but how unwise is it for an immortal being to place his dependence on a creature who is so near the grave, and who, " in his best state, is altogether vanity ! " We go to a broken cistern, when we need a fountain. We place our arm on a feeble reed, when we need the support of an everlasting rock. The natural consequences of this conduct are obvious ; we are daily experien- cing them. Our lives are filled with disappoint- ment and vexation. Either our prop is knocked from under us, or it sorely pierces the hand which leans on it. But no man ever yet trusted in God and was disappointed. There is no weakness, no vanity, no death, in him. How loudly is the Almighty now calling us off from every earthly ground of dependence, by that solemn dispensation which has assembled us here to-day ! He has laid in the dust one who seemed destined to be a blessing to our land. He appeared to have formed the instrument with peculiar care, and yet we have seen him dash it to pieces in an hour. The language of this afflictive stroke is plain. It calls upon us to "cease from man, whose breath is in his nostrils." It says to us, "Put not your trust in princes, or in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth; he returneth to his earth ; in that very day his thoughts perish. Happy is he that hath the 272 THE BREVITY AND VANITY God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God." It is true indeed that the man who has the strongest trust in the Almighty, cannot fathom this mysterious act of his providence ; but then it is enouo-h for him to know that Jesus, his Sa- o * viour, sits on the throne of the universe, and makes " all things work together for good" to his beloved church. Though he cannot see his God, he can trust him. If we are partakers of this spirit, if we have attained this simple dependence upon God, the blow which our country has sus- tained, however grievous, will not disquiet us. The kingdoms of the world are as much under the care of God, as the sheep of his own little flock ; yea, as his own eternal heavens. They are not outcast orphans, discarded by their hea- venly Father, but provinces of his immense em- pire; and he constantly watches over and manages all their affairs. Our own England is the object of. his tenderest care. He has " graven her upon the palms of his hands ; her walls are continually before him." " God is in the midst of her ; she shall not be moved. God shall help her, and that right early." True, we have lost an arm of flesh ; but the everlasting arms of Omnipotence are still underneath us. Let it be our concern to be the reconciled children of Jehovah in Christ Jesus, and amidst all the changes and chances of OF HUMAN LIFE. 273 this mortal life, we shall be safe. " God will be our refuge and strength ;" and this shall be our song ; " The Lord of hosts is with* us ; the God of Jacob is our refuge." The subject we have been considering reminds us, lastly, of the folly mid danger of indecision. The period of life is too short, and the work we have to do in it is too great, to allow us to hope for any thing from half measures. The case calls for the most prompt and unqualified decision. It tells us that to defer is to be in danger; that to hesitate is to be undone. How then shall we bring our worldly hearts to this . entire devoted- ness to God, to this earnestness in religion? Experience tells us that no resolutions of ours can effect the work. It bids us trust to no reso- lutions ; but to lie low, as weak, helpless, and guilty sinners, before the Saviour's cross. There is the source, not of pardon only, but of ever- lasting strength. There may be found victory over the world, temptation, and sin; a life of happiness ; a death of peace ; and an eternity of joy. VOL. I. SERMON XV. THE GLORY OF THE GOSPEL. 2 CORINTHIANS iii. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11. If the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance, which glory was to be done away ; how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious ? For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteous- ness exceed in glory. For even that which was made glorious, had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth. For if that which was done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious. IHE authority of Saint Paul, as a minister of Christ, was so much undervalued by some of the Corinthian converts, that he was often obliged to THE GLORY OF THE GOSPEL. 275 vindicate his own personal character among them, and to magnify the dignity of his office. The epistle before us was written partly with this ob- ject in view. In furtherance of it, the apostle draws in the text a contrast between the Mosaic and Christian dispensations, and shews how far the ministry of the one excels that of the other, by proving the superior glory of the gospel above the glory of the law. In endeavouring to derive instruction from his words, let us consider, first, the description which he has here given us of the law; secondly, his description of the gospel ; and, thirdly, the supe- rior glory of the one, when compared with the other. I. The words of the text afford us, first, a description of the law. We are not however to understand by this term that original law only, which is the universal law of God's kingdom, the law of the whole creation ; but rather that particular modification of it, which was given to the Israelites on mount Sinai, and which formed a principal part of the Mosaic dis- pensation. But as there is no essential difference between the moral part of this dispensation and the original law of God, they may, with the greatest propriety, be spoken of as one and the same law; and the words before us may be ap- T 2 276 THE GLORY plied to the one, with as much propriety as to the other. 1. Now the apostle calls this law " the minis- tration of condemnation." Not that it at once condemns all who are under it, irrespective of their obedience or disobedience to its commands. The angels have been under it from the hour of their creation, and yet we know that a great part of them have never been condemned by it. But being a "holy, just, and good" law, it cannot connive at sin. It requires perfect, sinless obe- dience in all who are under its authority; and it consequently condemns the creature, as soon as the creature becomes a sinner. Its plain and un- equivocal language to the Israelites was this, and it is the same to every rational being in the universe, " Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them." It is evident therefore, that the Israelites, and all who have been par- takers of human nature since it was defiled by sin, must be subject to this curse, must be under the condemnation of this law, must as sinners be brought in guilty before God, and stand before him as condemned criminals. 2. Hence the apostle calls this law " the minis- tration of death." Its sentence is a sentence of death. All who are condemned by it, are con- OF THE GOSPEL. 277 ned to die. This is its invariable decree ; " The soul that sinneth, it shall die." Natural death, the death of the body, is a part of this sentence, but it is not all of it. A more dreadful part is the death of the soul; not its annihilation, but that spiritual death -which makes us so careless about spiritual things in this world, and that eternal death which includes in it the utter loss of all that can render existence a bles- sing in the world to come. This death is nothing less than being cut off for ever from God, the fountain of happiness ; and connected by an eternal chain with that dreadful being who is the source of all misery. Now from this death, from the execution of this sentence, the law provides no resource. It flows indeed from the divine goodness, and was instituted and is maintained for purposes which, in their ultimate consequences, are purely bene- volent; but then it has nothing to do with mercy; it is a law of pure, unmingled justice. Sacrifices for sin, it is true, were added to it under the Mosaic dispensation of it; but these must not be considered as possessing any inherent power to remove its curse, or to atone for the transgres- sions committed against it. They were merely typical of that great sacrifice for sin, which was to form a part of another and more glorious dis- pensation. They could not expiate guilt, they 278 THE GLORY could not save the soul. Saint Paul declares in the plainest terms, that "it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins;" and even the more enlightened of those who lived under this dispensation, saw that it was in vain to "come before the Lord with burnt oiferings ; " that the high God could not be " pleased with thousands of rams or ten thou- sands of rivers of oil;" that he would not take even their " first-born for their transgression, the fruit of their body for the sin of their soul." The sinner therefore, under this law, becomes, on his very first transgression, a condemned sin- ner, a hopeless sinner. He has the curse of a holy God upon him, and he is without any means whatsoever of removing it. Justly therefore does the apostle call it " a ministration of condemna- tion and of death." II. But what names does he apply to the gospel, or the Christian dispensation ? He calls it " the ministration of the Spirit," and " the ministra- tion of righteousness." 1. It is " the ministration of righteousness." We all know what righteousness implies. It is a conformity to some moral standard, to some law; and the law here alluded to by the term, is the very law we have been considering ; not that modification of it merely, which was OF THE GOSPEL. 279 given to the Jews, but that universal and eternal law on which the Mosaic dispensa- tion was built, and agreeably to which all the dealings of God with his rational creatures are regulated. It has indeed been supposed that the scriptures occasionally speak of some other law, of some new and less rigorous rule of life, which God has given as a remedial law to fallen man ; but this opinion must be traced to mean and erroneous ideas of God. It is opposed to the whole tenor of scripture, as well as to many of its plainest declarations; and when brought to the test of reason and common sense, it appears altogether absurd ; yea, it is blasphemous ; for what does it imply ? Nothing less than this, that the all-wise Governor of the universe made some grand mis- take when he originally gave his law to this part of his creation ; that in consideration of our de- pravity, he is now constrained to repeal it, and to issue a new one. It makes the supposed ability, or rather the inclination, of a corrupt and change- able creature, the rule of his duty and the standard of his obedience. In fact, it removes from the throne of the universe a God of infinite wisdom, goodness, and purity ; and places on that glorious throne a mutable and capricious being, one who can look on sin with indiiference, and tolerate and almost sanction that dreadful 280 . THE GLORY evil, which has filled so fair a part of his creation with wretchedness. A very little serious reflection on this sub- ject will be sufficient to convince us, that God could never give to any one of his creatures any other law, than that which requires perfect obe- dience and spotless purity ; that this is the only law of his moral government, and must be as unalterable and eternal, as his own unchangeable throne. This law and no other is alluded to in the text, and it is in reference to this law, that the apostle calls the gospel a " ministration of righteousness." He does not call it so simply or chiefly because it enjoins and secures the prac- tice of righteousness among men, but for another and a higher reason because it provides for the penitent and believing sinner a complete satisfac- tion for the offences he has committed against the law of God, and an obedience perfectly commen- surate with its demands. It tells him of one who has redeemed him " from the curse of the law, being made a curse" for him. It assures him that God has sent forth his own eternal Son, " made of a woman, made under the law, to re- deem them that were under the law," to remove its sentence from them, and to save them from condemnation and death. But the gospel goes still farther. It tells the ransomed and pardoned penitent, that he who OF THE GOSPEL. . 281 endured the curse of the law for his sinful soul, fulfilled its. demands in his stead; that though his God regards him, and must ever regard him, as a sinner, yet for the sake of an obedience wrought out by another on his behalf, he will treat him as though he were righteous, and raise him to heaven. If we ask the name of this great and gracious Friend, this, he tells us, is the name whereby he shall be called, " The Lord our righte- ousness." And he has taught his apostle to give us this testimony concerning him, that " Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." Thus the gospel reveals to us a way by which sin may be pardoned and the sinner saved, in perfect consistency with the undeviating rectitude of Jehovah's moral government, and the honour of his inviolable law. This way of pardon and salvation is not opposed to the law; it does not make it void ; so far from it, that it is grounded on it ; it establishes its authority ; it magnifies it and makes it honourable ; it gives it the highest and most awful sanction it is capable of receiving. 2. But the apostle applies another name to the Christian dispensation, and calls it " the minis- tration of the Spirit/' He gives it this name on account of the great out-pouring of the Spirit with which this dispensation commenced, and the 282 THE GLORY abundant communication of the same Spirit with which it has ever since been attended. Not that we are to suppose that the church under the dispensation of the law, was entirely destitute of this Spirit. It was solely through his gracious and powerful influence, that Enoch walked with God and Noah feared him, that Abraham believed in him and Moses served him. It was he, who filled the souls of the prophets, and enabled them to foretell with such wonderful accuracy the advent, the death, and the glory, of the Messiah. But the great and general effu- sion of the Spirit was reserved for a brighter and more glorious day of grace. The Son of God, as the Mediator of his church, purchased on the cross all the fulness of the Spirit ; and when he ascended into heaven, he obtained the ministra- tion of it, and gave that full display of its power, which filled Jerusalem with astonishment on the day of Pentecost, and added to his persecuted church in one hour three thousand souls. He has ever since been bestowing the same gift, in a greater or less degree, on the world ; and has proved his gospel to be the ministration of an almighty Spirit, by the moral wonders which it has wrought among men. And this thought should much endear the gift of the Holy Spirit to all who are made partakers of it. It is the purchase of Christ ; his donation ; OF THE GOSPEL. 283 the legacy which he bequeathed to us when he left the world ; the gift which is to be our com- forter in his absence, and to abide with us till he comes again to take us to heaven. III. Let us now proceed to our third subject of consideration, the superior glory of the gospel above that of the law. The apostle does not assert that the Jewish dis- pensation had no glory. He speaks of it, on the contrary, as a very glorious dispensation. It had a glorious author, even the King of heaven and the Monarch of myriads of worlds. The object of it was glorious. It was designed to unfold many of the attributes of Jehovah, which the works of creation were not calculated to display ; to shew forth his infinite justice, purity, and ma- jesty. It was published in a glorious manner, in the midst of thunderings and lightnings, and all the magnificence of terror ; and when it was first written, it was not suffered to be transcribed by any human hand, but it was written by the finger of God on tables of stone hewn out by himself ; and after it was written, it reflected so dazzling a lustre on him who was appointed to carry it to them, that " the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance." But notwithstanding all this display of magni- 284 THE GLORY ficence, the glory of the law sinks into nothing when compared with the gospel. u That which was made glorious," says the apostle, " had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory which excelleth." The names which are here applied to the law and the gospel, shew us at once the propriety of this language. The one is the ministration of righteousness and of the Spirit ; it provides for the justification and sanctification of the sinner, while the other provides for neither ; it is the ministration of condemnation and death, and leaves the sinner to perish. But the superior glory of the gospel may be elucidated by other considerations. 1. // offers greater blessings to man, than were offered by the law. The Mosaic dispensation had a reference prin- cipally to the present life, and most of its pro- mises were temporal promises. And if we go back to the original law on which this dispensa- tion was founded, we shall find that it had not those blessings to offer even to the most righte- ous, which are offered in the gospel to the most sinful. Its language to the creature is, " This do, and thou shalt live ; thou shalt remain in thy present state of blessedness, and shalt still enjoy the same decree of divine favour, of which thou O * art now possessed." It is useless to ask what OF THE GOSPEL. 285 the present condition of man would have been, if he had never broken the law given to him. It would undoubtedly have been a state of hap- piness. But the gospel offers to his fallen race far richer blessings, than were forfeited by the sin of Adam. It offers us not an earthly paradise, but a heavenly one ; not the trees of Eden, but " the tree of life, which is in the midst of the pa- radise of God." The covenant of works found man in a state little lower than the angels ; and it promised him, as long as he was obedient to its precepts, to keep him there. The covenant of grace finds him degraded almost to an equality with the devils ; and yet it offers to raise the meanest of his race to a participation of the glory and happiness of the Son of God. The gospel does not merely tell us of the pardon of sin, of deliverance from the curse of the law, of salvation from hell ; it lifts up our eyes to the everlasting hills of heaven, and tells the redeemed sinner to hope for a mansion there, a crown and a throne. It bids him stretch his imagination to the very utmost ; and when he has heaped together all the joys which his imagination can suggest, it tells him that greater joys than these may be his own ; that his heart has not even yet conceived the things which God has prepared for the sinner who loves him. It places within his reach a share of that very joy which satisfies the Redeemer for 286 THE GLORY " the travail of his soul," and more than compen- sates the many woes of his life, and the bitter sufferings of his death. Well therefore may it be called " a better covenant, established upon better promises." 2. We may see more of the comparative glory of the gospel by recollecting, secondly, that it not only offers to man richer blessings than the Mosaic dispensation had to offer, but it offers these blessings more extensively. The promises of the law were confined to one nation only, and that not a numerous one ; and even of this nation, it was but a little remnant that inherited the spiritual benefits of the dispen- sation under which they lived. The blessings of the gospel, on the contrary, are thrown open to all the world without distinction of nation, sect, or person ; and there is not a sinner breathing on the earth, who may not come and take its richest mercies freely, " without money and without price," as soon as he hears of them. The field of the law was the land of Judasa ; the field of the gospel is the whole world. Already has the publication of it been the means of saving unnum- bered millions, whom the Jewish law, had it con- tinued to the present day, would have left to perish. In every part of the globe, thousands have experienced the saving efficacy of its re- deeming grace, and multitudes are daily ascend- OF THE GOSPEL. 287 ing from the once dark corners of the earth to the light of heaven, and are swelling there its chorus of praise. And yet extensively as the gospel has diffused its blessings and its conquests, the faithful word of prophecy assures us that it will diffuse them still more extensively. It has already spurned the narrow sphere of a single land, but all the kingdoms of the world are destined to be the scene of its triumphs and its glory. A time is rapidly approaching, when the King of Zion shall be the King of the whole earth ; when " every knee shall bow to him and every tongue confess" him to be the Lord. How many years or ages must roll away before this period arrives, we know not ; but there is reason to hope that we ourselves have seen the dawn of this glorious day. In our own honoured land a spirit has been excited, and from it has gone forth a voice, which have filled the Christian church with the liveliest expecta- tion. In the troublous times of contention and war, England has lifted up the banner of the cross, and has been calling a perishing world to salvation and to God. The ignorant and the vicious, the lukewarm and the selfish, have beheld her efforts and decried them ; they have deemed her labours of love the mere phrenzies of an en- thusiastic age ; but the hand of the Lord has been with her to strengthen her, and God, even 288 THE GLORY her own God, has given her his blessing. Already have her own borders been gladdened with more abundant means of grace, than ever land pos- sessed before ; and she has received many an earnest of future triumphs on foreign shores. Only let the sacred flame which Christian love has enkindled, be kept burning on her altars, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in her hand. Her success cannot be doubtful. It may be distant, but it is sure. The way of the Lord shall a be known upon earth, and his saving health among all nations." The people shall " be glad and sing for joy ;" and " all the ends of the earth shall remember themselves, and turn unto the Lord." 3. The gospel has a greater influence, on the hearts of men, than the Mosaic dispensation ever had, and is consequently more glorious. That dispensation published to the Israelites a pure and holy law, but it had no power to touch their sinful hearts, and to cause them to love and obey it. It gave them precepts, promises, and threatenings ; but it could do no more. It was not " the ministration of the Spirit," and the con- sequence was, that it left the greater part of them as rebellious and idolatrous as it found them. The gospel, on the contrary, was no sooner pub- lished, than it made glorious and surprising changes in the characters and lives of multitudes who OF THE GOSPEL. 289 embraced it. It was preached by poor and illite- rate men, but it made the ungodly tremble, and the hard-hearted weep. It induced the proud to give up the praises of men, and to take in ex- change for them the reproach of Christ. It se- lected its friends out of the fiercest ranks of its enemies ; and they who were violent persecutors one day, became willing martyrs the next. Under the influences of the Spirit, the gospel still proves itself possessed of uncontroulable power over every one who truly receives it. It pierces the conscience, it softens the heart, it pu- rifies the soul. The lover of pleasure hears it, and becomes a lover of God. The thoughtless trifler is struck by it, and, for the first time in his life, begins to think and pray. The sensualist, as he listens to its sayings, tears his lusts out of his heart ; and the man who before loved and served the world, turns his back on it, tramples its sins and follies underneath his feet, and fixes his eyes on heaven. Thus has the gospel brought thou- sands to righteousness, whom the moral law could not have reclaimed ; and thus has it proved its superior glory by its superior influence over the hearts of men. 4. The glory of the gospel is greater than that of the Jewish dispensation, because it is a glory which will last for ever. This appears to be the principal ground of su- VOL. i. u 290 THE GLORY periority on which Saint Paul insists in the text. He tells us, in the seventh verse, that all the glory of mount Sinai was to be done away ; and again, in the eleventh verse, he says, " If that which was done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious." Not that we are to infer that the moral law is or ever will be abolished. The apostle does not refer in these words to the law itself; but to that ministration of it which was established by Moses, and to those peculiar rites and ordinances which were connected with it under the Jewish dispen- sation. This dispensation was, in fact, designed to be introductory to the gospel. It was intend- ed, as the scriptures inform us, to be " our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ ;" to shew to the Israelites their need of a sacrifice and a Sa- viour, and to point out the Messiah to them as the great atonement for sin. When therefore the Messiah appeared, the design of the ceremonial law was answered, and it became a useless form. But the gospel is not thus temporary in its nature. Its duration will be commensurate with the existence of the world, yea, with the ages of eternity. It is called " an everlasting covenant ;" " a perpetual covenant, that shall not be forgot- ten." It is described as a covenant built on Christ who " abideth for ever," and partaking of the stability of its foundation. OF THE GOSPEL. 291 5. Tlie gospel is a brighter display of the divine per- fections than the law, and is therefore more glorious. All the attributes of Jehovah which were displayed in the one, are displayed also in the other, and that in a clearer and more glorious light. In this point of view, the mount of Sinai, with all its dreadful magnificence, sinks into nothing, when compared with the spot on which the Son of God gave up the ghost. The cross of Christ threw a lustre over the justice, the holiness, and the majesty, of God, which these attributes never had before; and gave them a glory, which the destruction of a whole world of sinners under the curse of the law, never could have given them. It was on this cross also that divine mercy was first displayed to a wondering universe ; and it was here that redeeming grace seemed to burst into existence. These perfections had been from eternity in the mind of Jehovah, but his creatures saw them not ; they knew nothing of them, till they were discovered on the cross of their suffer- ing King in all their infinite extent and boundless magnificence. Here also was seen unsearchable wisdom, glorifying itself in a plan of salvation by which all the perfections of the Deity are called into exercise, and all acting in perfect harmony, none of them eclipsing or darkening the others, but all mingling their beams, and shining with united and eternal splendour. u 2 292 THE GLORY These then are some of the points in which the gospel excels the Mosaic dispensation. It is the ministration of righteousness and of the Spirit, while the law is the ministration of condemnation and of death. It offers greater blessings to man, than were offered by the law ; it offers these blessings more extensively ; it has a greater in- fluence on the hearts of mankind ; its glory is of longer duration ; and it is a brighter display of the attributes of God. It now only remains that we deduce from this subject a few of the reflec- tions which it naturally suggests. How honourable an office is that of a minister of \ju j if Christ! The contrast in the text was drawn to shew the greatness of the dignity conferred on him, and the title which it gives him to the respect and love of mankind. They who brought to the Israelites a law of condemnation and of death, were thought worthy of honour; but of how much greater honour shall they be thought worthy, who are commissioned to make known to their brethren the gospel of peace ; that gospel which discovers to the universe the glory of God, and opens to a perishing world a way to heaven ! There is not an angel above us, who would not rejoice to come down to the earth on such an errand as this, and deem himself honoured above his fellows by the work. O that every minister OF THE GOSPEL. 293 of Christ made his dignified employment the great source of his happiness ! O that his bre- thren were ready to give him the affection and reverence which God has made his due ! May all the people of our Zion learn to value the faithful minister of the gospel ! and to all her ministers may this grace be given, that they may love to preach among her people " the unsearch- able riches of Christ !" How great is the privilege which we enjoy in living under the dispensation of the gospel! We have often heard of the great love of God to his people of old, and we have sometimes almost envied them the peculiar privileges they enjoyed; but what were their privileges, when compared with ours? They lived under a ministration of condemnation and of death, but we are living under a ministration of the Spirit and of righte- ousness. They had to learn all that they could learn of the way to heaven, from types and figures ; but " we with open face behold as in a glass the glory of the Lord," and see plainly marked out before us the path of life. Noah and Abraham, Moses and David, had promises to hope in ; but to us these promises have been fulfilled. " A rod" has " come forth out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch" has grown " out of his roots." The Mes- siah has been lifted up as an ensign to the people. He has risen as the Sun of righteousness on a be- 294 THE GLORY nighted world, and in him the nations of the O ' earth are blessed. Our eyes see and our ears hear what many prophets and righteous men, age after age, desired to hear and to see, but were not able. Let us rejoice then in our superior privileges. Let us be thankful for them. Let us be con- cerned to improve, and dread to abuse them. Let us remember these words of the apostle, " See that ye refuse not him that speaketh ; for if they escaped not, who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven." How great a debt of gratitude and praise does every Christian owe to his crucified Lord 1 It was Christ, who turned the ministration of death into a ministration of life and peace. It was Christ, who brought down glad tidings of good from heaven, and purchased the influence of the Spirit for mankind. All our spiritual bles- sings flow from him. Our adoption is by him. Our redemption and remission of sins are through him. Through Christ, God hears our prayers, and gives us freedom of access to his throne. Through Christ, he justifies and sanctifies us. Through Christ, he blesses and saves us. Our freedom from the law too must be ascribed to the same source. We were not free born, but Christ with a great price, even the price of his own blood, purchased our freedom. It was he, " who OF THE GOSPEL. 295 blotted out the hand-writing of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross." Let us therefore exalt the Saviour, and be ever ready to testify our obligations to him. Let us shew by the love and honour we bear him, that he is dear to our hearts; that we are not ashamed of him ; that we have learned to glory even in his reproach. How unwise are they who hope for pardon and salvation, on the ground of their partial and defec- tive obedience to the law of God ! This law has nothing to do with pardon ; it has no salvation to confer. Condemnation and death are the only boons it has for the sinful. Its un- varying language from the moment in which time first began to the present hour, is this, and through eternity it will remain the same, " The soul that sinneth, it shall die." Have you then never sinned ? Can you appeal to the great Searcher of hearts, and call him to witness that you have never left undone that which he has commanded? that you have never done that which he has for- bidden ? Can you say before him, that no one action of your life has been sinful ? that no word of your lips has been an idle word ? that no thought of your heart has been malicious, envious, or unclean ? You feel that you must shrink from such an appeal as this ; and yet the law requires 269 THE GLORY this appeal from you, before it can bless you. It can sanction and reward none but the spotless. The angels may hope in it, and be happy ; but the sinner who would be saved and blessed, must seek the salvation he needs far from this law He must flee from mount Sinai to mount Zion. He must see that " blackness, and darkness, and tempest," surround the one, while mercy and grace dwell only on the other. Renounce then, brethren, the hope you have so long and so fondly cherished, and seek another and a better hope in " the glorious gospel of the blessed God." Pray for an humble and believing heart ; and that which the merit of all the angels in heaven could never purchase, shall be freely given you by God. Your sins shall be blotted out ; you shall be reconciled and brought nigh to God by the blood of Christ ; you shall be saved in the Lord with an everlasting; salvation. o How ignorant are they of the gospel of Christ, who make the influence of the Spirit the object of their scorn ! The words before us plainly imply that from the ministration of the Spirit, the gospel of Christ derives much of its glory ; and yet what do some among us deem this Spirit ? A glorious reality ? No ; a fancy, a dream, a thing to be scoffed at, ridiculed, and despised. We acknowledge here perhaps that his sacred influence is a reality and OF THE GOSPEL. 297 a blessing, and we profess to pray for it ; and then we go home, and teach our children and our neighbours to gainsay and deride it. Now what is this conduct, but wretched hypocrisy and de- plorable folly ? It is treating with contempt that which God esteems glorious. It is mocking at that which is the greatest blessing of heaven. Let the starving man scoff at the food offered him ; let the dying man ridicule the only medi- cine which can save his life ; let the sinking ma- riner jest with the rope thrown out to save him ; but never, brethren, let us scoff at the influence of the Spirit; never let us do "despite to the Spirit of grace." How anxiously should every hearer of the gos- pel desire that it may be made the ministration of the Spirit to himself! that he may experience its softening and purifying influence in his own heart ! What is the ministry of the gospel without this influence ? An empty sound ; a cold, lifeless, powerless thing. But what is it with it ? The power and the wisdom of God ; the awakener of the thoughtless, the sanctifier of the ungodly, the comforter of the sorrowful, the saviour of the soul. Without this influence, we shall hear the gospel, trifle, and perish ; with this influence, we shall hear it and live. There is no blessing that we need more than we need this, and there is 298 THE GLORY OF THE GOSPEL. none which God is more ready to give. He sits on a throne of grace, that he may bestow it on the sinful children of men, and there is not a sin- ner upon earth, who is not warranted to approach his throne, and to supplicate it at his hands. May we have a heart to seek it ! May we be made partakers of it ! May our experience and conduct prove the gospel of Christ to be the ministration of the Spirit and of righteousness, "the power of God to salvation !" SERMON XVI. THE CONSTRAINING INFLUENCE OF THE LOVE OF CHRIST. 2 CORINTHIANS v. 14, 15. The love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead; and that he died for all, that they which live, should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again. THIS text may be considered as a summary of Christian faith and practice. All the great truths of the gospel are comprised or implied in it, and it delineates the practical effects which a sincere reception of these truths never fails to produce. Happy is the man who can enter into the mean- ing of these words, and has a heartfelt knowledge of their truth ! I. Among the many subjects of consideration 300 THE CONSTRAINING INFLUENCE which the text suggests to us, the condition to which sin has reduced man, appears to be the first. 1 . This the apostle describes as a condition of peculiar wretchedness. " If one died for all," he says, " then were all dead." Now this testimony concerning us sends us back to the scene of man's first transgression, and brings to our remembrance the sentence which was passed on him when he first became a sinner. " In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die," was the plain declaration of God, but man despised it ; he ate and died. He did the dreadful work which his enemy had given him to do, and he and all his posterity have received its wages. We are dead. The death which sin has thus brought on our fallen race, is something more than the death of the body ; it is a moral death, the death of the soul. The scriptures often describe our spiritual state under this figure, and they could not have employed a more natural or expressive one. It is a figure too which is easily understood. We all know that a man, when dead, is inca- pable either of action or enjoyment. He might yesterday have been possessed of much strength of body, and have prided himself on great energy of mind ; we might have seen him happy in the enjoyment of a thousand blessings ; but now all is over. The objects which busied him, and the OF THE LOVE OF CHRIST. 301 things he delighted in, still remain unchanged around him, but he heeds them not ; he lies un- moved in the midst of them all. The occupations of the world cannot rouse him to action, nor the pleasures of life wake him to joy. It is thus with our souls. They are dead. They have lost their spiritual life, and are become incapable of spiritual employments and delights. They still retain all their original faculties, as the dead body retains for a season its original mem- bers, but then the living principle which once animated them and called them into exercise, is gone. Heaven and hell are still awful realities ; the one is as desirable as ever, and the other as fearful ; but the soul has lost its feeling, and we are become alike indifferent to both. We hear of them, and we believe their existence, but this is all. They do not move us ; they have no prac- tical influence on our minds. 2. The figure which the apostle makes use of, shews us also the hopelessness of our condition. We are not dying, but dead. We are not like a tree which, though withered, may be brought into a situation where the sun may shine and the rain descend on it, and revive it. We are rather like those trees, of which it is said that they are " twice dead, and plucked up by the roots." The spiritual life of the soul is utterly extinct. Matter of fact proves that it is totally gone. We have 302 THE CONSTRAINING INFLUENCE all the means of spiritual restoration which a dying sinner could ask for. We have sabbaths and Bibles to awaken us ; we have ministers to quicken us ; we have afflictions to arouse us ; we have mercies innumerable to affect us. And what effect have all these means of grace produced ? Do the dry bones live ? Are our souls quickened, and forced to think and feel ? Alas, no ! We are, for the greater part, still dead, as dead to spi- ritual and eternal things, as though there were not a sabbath in our year, or a Bible in our land. But this spiritual insensibility is not all that the scriptures mean by the death of the soul. It is an earnest of the fruit we are to reap from our transgressions, rather than the fruit itself. There is a day approaching, in which the full wages of sin will be given us. The spiritual death which now incapacitates us for the services and enjoy- ments of heaven, will end in eternal death ; not in annihilation or nothingness, but in a living death; in those unknown and bitter pains, to which no earthly sufferings can be compared, but the pangs of the dying. These will at once call into action the dormant powers of the soul. These will em- ploy all its strengthened faculties in the eternity before us, and leave not a moment for peace or joy- Observe too that it is not some or a small part of mankind, who are in this wretched and OF THE LOVE OF CHRIST. 303 hopeless condition. The language of the apostle extends to all. It includes the decent and the virtuous, as well as the profligate and the vicious ; the man who calls himself after the name of Christ, as well as the heathen who has never heard of his name. " If one died for all, then were all dead." The death which the great Governor of the universe has made the wages of sin, is not the consequence of great and complicated iniquities only. It follows sin of every description, and guilt of every degree. The first act of trans- gression we ever committed, brought this curse on our souls, so that the condition of any one of us is, by nature, the condition of us all. We are all criminals condemned to die, and left for execu- tion ; respited indeed for a season by the clemency of our Judge, but still liable every moment to be called on and hurried to judgment. II. The words of the apostle lead us to notice, secondly, the interposition of Christ on the behalf of man. " He died for them and rose again." Observe who it is that is here said to have had compassion on man. This Christ was no other than the eternal Son ; the being who framed the world, and built the skies, and gives to his own glorious heaven all its joys and splendours. It was he who had existed from all eternity en- 304 THE CONSTRAINING INFLUENCE throned in light, and had never known in that eternity one moment's humiliation, pain, or sorrow. Observe how this Being interposed for man ; what he did for him. " He died." And how much, brethren, is comprehended in this ex- pression ! what mysteries of grace and love ! If we would see something of its meaning, we must lift up our eyes to the heavens above us, and be- hold the Son of God descending for the first time from his throne amidst wondering angels, and withdrawing himself from their sight. We must then bring down our eyes back again to the I earth, and behold "the high and lofty One" who I had hitherto inhabited eternity, dwelling here ; | appearing on our own sinful globe, in our own degraded form. He is seen at first lying in a manger as a helpless babe. A few years after- wards, we find him in a state of suffering, as well as of degradation ; wandering about on the earth which his hands had formed, without a place in it " where to lay his head ; ; ' " despised and re- jected" by all who behold him, and persecuted by thousands who pour contempt on his greatness, and thirst for his blood. And how did this de- gradation and these sufferings end ? Did he at length throw off the form which concealed his divinity, and shew himself to an astonished world in the glory of his greatness ? No. We see him wounded and bruised, crucified and slain ; ending OF THE LOVE OF CHRIST. 305 his sorrows as a malefactor, and expiring on a shameful cross. Observe further for whom this death was en- dured. He died for man. Not that he died in the same spiritual sense in which we are de- scribed as dead ; or that he endured those pains of eternal death, which are the desert of our sin. It was a natural death only which he underwent ; and though his soul was racked with anguish greater than man could bear, there were some of the peculiar torments of the accursed, which he did not taste. He died on the behalf and in the stead of man. His sufferings effectually rescue those who believe in him, from the punishment due to their guilt, and are therefore spoken of in the scriptures as an equivalent, and are called a " ransom" and a " price ;" but we must not give a pecuniary meaning to words which were de- signed to convey only a moral signification. We must not infer from this language, that Christ suffered on the cross just the same agonies that his people must otherwise have suffered in the kingdom of despair. The scriptures no where warrant such an inference ; and it would not be difficult to shew that it involves in it at least a moral, if not a natural impossibility. It becomes us to speak with the greatest caution on every subject connected with this great " mystery of godliness ;" but we may perhaps venture to assert, VOL. i. x 306 THE CONSTRAINING INFLUENCE that if only one sinner was to have been redeemed by the blood of Christ, it would have pleased the Father to have laid just as much grief on his be- loved Son, as he laid on him for the salvation of all the world. He would have made just as grand a display of his holiness, and as fearful a manifesta- tion of his justice. Hence we are told in the text, that Christ "died for all ;" in other words, that " he made on the cross by his one oblation of himself once offered, a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world." Not that we are to infer that the sins of the whole world, or of any one sinner in the world, are ne- cessarily pardoned in consequence of the death of Christ. All we are to conclude is this that in consideration of the sacrifice of Christ, the Al- mighty can now pardon every sinner whom his infinite goodness inclines him to pardon, without sullying the glory of his character as the Gover- nor of the universe, or impairing the authority of his law. I am aware, brethren, that it has been asserted, and by some who profess to have peculiarly clear and exalted ideas of the glory of Christ, that the atonement which he has offered for sin, was an atonement of limited worth ; that it was an im- perfect sacrifice ; of sufficient efficacy indeed to enable the Almighty to pardon all the transgres- OF THE LOVE OF CHRIST. 307 sions of a few sinners, but insufficient to enable him, consistently with his attributes, to blot out the iniquities of others. No opinion however can be more unscriptural than this, or more dis- honourable to the Redeemer. It militates against many of the plainest declarations of the Bible ; it impeaches the veracity of him who calls a whole world of sinners to the cross of his Son ; it impairs the glory of the gospel ; it limits the Holy One of Israel. The humble Christian, he whom an attachment to human systems has not yet cor- rupted from " the simplicity that is in Christ," shrinks from an opinion so bold and strange, and wonders that any of his fellow-Christians can have so faint a sense of the dignity of their Re- deemer, as to allow it for one moment to be har- boured in their breasts. He presumes not to mark out the men who will be savingly benefited oy the death of his Lord ; but he knows that his blood " cleanseth from all sin ;" that it is able to justify the ways of Jehovah to his creatures, though he were to pardon and save ten thousand sinful worlds. " What then," it may be asked, " becomes of those declarations of scripture, which seem to imply that it is only a chosen people on the earth, who will be made partakers of the saving efficacy of the cross ? Are they to be blotted out of our Bibles ? Or are we to wrest them from their x 2 308 THE CONSTRAINING INFLUENCE meaning and explain them away, before we re- ceive them ?" In no wise. All the declarations of the Bible are u the faithful and true sayings of God ;" and none of them, however offensive to human pride, are to be disbelieved or qualified by man. The doctrine which ascribes unlimited, infinite efficacy to the atonement of Christ, is not opposed to one of these declarations. It is per- fectly consistent with them all ; with those which tell us that the flock of Christ is a little flock chosen out of the world, as well as with those which call on all the ends of the earth to look to the cross and be saved. It is plain that there may be treasures in the mines of the earth, sufficient to enrich all who live on it, and yet but few of the inhabitants of the earth may be enriched by these treasures. And is it not equally possible that there may be undiscovered riches in Christ, a treasure of grace in an infinite God, sufficient to save a universe of sinners, though many are suffered to despise his salvation and perish ? Is the balm of Gilead un- able to heal, because the wounded sufferer refuses to have it applied ? Shall the deep and over- flowing river of life be said to be empty, because we refuse to drink of its waters, and perish with thirst ? Is the Holy One of Israel to be limited, because his creatures pour contempt on the glo- ries he offers them, and choose instead of them OF THE LOVE OF CHRIST. 309 the pleasures and wages of sin ? As well might a man contend that the sun has ceased to shine around him, because he closes his eyes against its light ; or that food is unable to support his body, because he objects to receive it. The suffi- ciency of a remedy to remove an evil, is one thing ; the application of the remedy to that evil, is another. The death of Christ is able to save every sinner, but it is the will of God that the contrite and believing sinner only should be inter- ested in its saving power ; therefore the penitent believer only is saved. Christ died for all ; he made on the cross so awful a display of the divine holiness, that the Most High can now pardon sin wherever he finds it, without militating against the honour or authority of his moral government ; this is the doctrine taught in the text. In dispensing his mercy, the Almighty passes by the angels that sinned ; he leaves them as awful monuments of his justice ; while he sets his love on a people on the earth, and carries them to heaven as mo- numents of his redeeming grace. " He chooses them in Christ out of mankind, and he brings them by Christ to everlasting salvation as vessels made to honour ;" this is the doctrine of sove- reign grace. Both these doctrines are plainly taught us in the scriptures ; they are both the doctrines of our church. Whatever contrariety 310 THE CONSTRAINING INFLUENCE we may see between them, he who wrote the scriptures, sees none. He has left them upon record in his word, and he calls upon us to re- ceive and believe them ; not to contend for them as the tenets of a sect or the badges of a party, but to embrace them as the faithful sayings of God ; not to view them merely as subjects of speculation and controversy, but as designed to produce a practical and holy effect on our hearts and lives. But the interposition of Christ on the behalf of man was not confined to dying for him. " He rose again." Had Christ only died for us, his death would not have materially pn^fited us ; at least, it would not have effectually rescued us from our lost condition. It might have saved us from eternal death, but we should still have been spiritually dead. It might have procured heaven for us, but we should have been incapable of sharing in its services and joys. The blessed Jesus therefore, after he had opened a way for the salvation of his church by his death on the cross, began to prepare and qualify his church for the enjoyment of that salvation. He rose again to complete the work which he had begun. He returned to heaven in the same character in which he left it, as the Saviour of sinners. Nearly two thousand years have past since he OF THE LOVE OF CHRIST. 311 gave up the ghost on Calvary, but not a moment has past in which he has not been employed in the salvation of his church. God exalted him to be a Saviour, and he is faithful to the office he has received. He delights in communicating to sinners the spiritual life which they have lost ; in calling them out of the world, convincing them of sin, leading them to his cross, comforting them in their sorrows, making them meet for their eter- nal inheritance, and leading them by " a way which they know not," to the kingdom he has purchased for them. III. The next subject of consideration sug- gested by the text, is the .principle or motive from which the interposition of Christ on our behalf proceeded. The apostle traces it in the text to love. " The love of Christ constraineth us." It was not an act of justice. We had no claim whatsoever on the compassion of Christ. Instead of expecting him to come down from heaven as a Saviour to die for us, we have reason to wonder that he had so long delayed to come down as a Judge to con demn, and as an Avenger to destroy us. Neither did his interposition proceed from a regard to his own honour only. He was "glorious in holiness" and " fearful in praises" long before we were created ; and as for the lustre which he 312 THE CONSTRAINING INFLUENCE has shed around his throne by the redemption of man, there were other sinners in the universe for whom he could have died, and whose salvation would perhaps have shewn forth his praise as brightly and widely as ours. He has never yet needed the aid of any of his creatures to make him a glorious God. It was love alone, free and unmerited love, which brought Christ down to the earth. It was O love, which caused him to dwell on this accursed world as a man of sorrows, and to take so large a share of its degradation and miseries. It was love, which made him so willing to be " despised and rejected of men," and to be bruised and l, put to grief by his God. It was love, which enabled him to bear the exceeding great trouble of his soul in the garden, arid the mysteriously racking agonies of the cross. All that he suffered for us when on earth, and all that he has been since doing for us in heaven, he has done and suffered solely for this one reason, because he loves us. This is the divine attribute to which all the blessings of redemption must be traced. This is the attribute which shines with the brightest lustre in the gospel of Christ. The work of redemption reveals to us treasures of wisdom and power. Matchless wisdom devised its stupendous plan, and infinite power executed it ; but it was love, OF THE LOVE OF CHRIST. 313 which called this wisdom and this power into ex- ercise. It was love, which made these attributes so glorious to God, and the instruments of such rich blessings to man. IV. But although the interposition of Christ on our behalf proceeded solely from love, it was never- theless designed to answer a great and gracious purpose. The apostle accordingly points out to us in the text, the end which Christ had in view in dying and rising again for man. It was this " that they which live, should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again." This language plainly implies that by nature we are all living to ourselves ; that our own will is the law of our actions, and our own gratifica- tion, our own interest or pleasure, the end of them. It is not thus with some of the rational creatures of God, neither was it always thus with man. The selfish and independent principle within us, is one of the sad fruits of our depra- vity. It is a part of that spiritual death, that alienation from God, which sin has spread over the soul, and which nothing but a new birth unto righteousness can remove. It is directly opposed to our happiness, for all the happiness of the creature is derived from the service of the Crea- tor, and all his blessedness Hows from a conformity 314 THE CONSTRAINING INFLUENCE to the divine law and will. It is also in the high- est degree hateful to God. We shew by it that we do not consider him as having any claim on us or our services. It is an open denial of his authority as the Sovereign of the universe. It is an act of rebellion. Now the design of Christ in dying for man was to root out this selfish principle from his heart ; to save him from it ; to bring the rebel back again to the forsaken service of his heavenly King. The gospel finds us in a state of bondage to Satan, and it delivers us from it ; but it does not leave us lawless ; it does not make us our own masters. It sanctions and strengthens all the original obli- gations which we are under as creatures to serve the God who formed us, and it gives him a new and more endearing claim on our services. He has bought us with a price ; he therefore deems us his own, and calls upon us to glorify him " in our body and in our spirits which are his." He points to the cross and the tomb, and tells us that it was " for this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and the living." Shall we then hesitate to admit the lawfulness of a title, obtained by so much degradation and suffering ? Shall we rob the blessed Jesus of the purchase of his blood ? Shall we keep back from its proprietor so worthless a possession, after it OF THE LOVE OF CHRIST. 315 has been purchased by him at so costly a price ? No. We are not our own. We cannot be our own. If we have ever tasted of redeeming grace, we shall not even wish to be our own. As for living to ourselves or to the world, the very thought of it will be a grief and shame to us. It will be the first wish of our soul to be entirely de- voted to God ; to consecrate to him every action of our life and every thought of our heart; to give to him every moment as it flies. V. Such was the end which Christ had in view in dying for man ; but has this end been answered? Have the sinners whom he has redeemed, ceased to live unto themselves ? and are they really living " unto him which died for them and rose again ?" The text answers this enquiry, and reminds us, lastly, of the influence which the interposition of Christ on the behalf of man has on his people ; of the effect which his dying love produces in the hearts and lives of those who really believe in him. The apostle says that it " constraineth" them. " The love of Christ constraineth us." There is much meaning and force in this ex- pression. It signifies to bear away, to carry on with the force and rapidity with which a torrent hurries along whatever it meets witli in its course. As the word is used here, it implies that the love 316 THE CONSTRAINING INFLUENCE which Christ has manifested for man, has a mighty and irresistible influence on the hearts of his ser- vants ; that it fills their whole soul, and forces them, as it were, to obey its dictates. 1. It intimates that it lays hold of their affec- tions ; that it touches their hearts, and calls into the liveliest exercise every feeling within them. It has indeed been contended that the religion of Christ has nothing to do with the affections; that to look on his cross and be moved by the sight, is enthusiasm and weakness ; that a sinner who is going into eternity, ought to hear the tidings that hell is escaped and heaven won, with as much coolness, as a man at his ease would examine a mathematical problem. But what are we to think of such an opinion as this? In what light are we to regard the men who maintain it ? Shall we say that they are sober-minded, rational Christians ? Reason and Christianity disclaim the alliance. They pronounce that reli- gion only to be rational, which calls into action the hopes and the fears of a man ; and that Christianity only to be genuine, which fills the heart to the full with feeling, and puts into it a love which "many waters cannot quench, nor many floods drown." He who can look with cold indifference on the blessed Jesus lying on the 4- ground in the garden of Gethsemane, and crying out in the extremity of his anguish for deliver- OF THE LOVE OF CHRIST. 317 ance ; he who can see him patiently bearing his , cross, and quietly yielding his sacred body to be tortured on it ; he who can hear him uttering his mysterious complaint to his Father, and pierc- ing the air with his dying groans ; he who can contemplate such a scene as this, and remember that all these sufferings were endured for his worthless, rebellious soul, and yet remain unaf- fected at the thought such a man, brethren, may be a decorous, an upright, a useful man, but he is not a Christian. He may have " a form of god- liness," but he knows no more of its power, than the ground he treads on. He may have a high reputation for wisdom in the world, but in the estimation of God he is a very fool. But while we do not undervalue lively affec- tions in religion, let us not overrate them. It is possible for the heart to be affected by the love of Christ in dying for sinners, just as it is affected by the contemplation of any other noble and generous act, and yet the heart remain a stranger to itself and to God. The feeling may be strong, but it may be a merely natural, and not a spi- ritual feeling. There may be no more religion in it, than in the feelings which are excited, and in the tears which are drawn forth, by some of the narratives of history, or the pictures of ima- gination. 2. Hence we must observe further, that the 318 THE CONSTRAINING INFLUENCE love of Christ influences the conduct of his ser- vants, as well as excites their affections. It not only makes them feel, it makes them act for Christ. It teaches them to do good, as well as to praise and to pray. It changes their life, as well as their heart. There was a time, when they thought that religion required of them only a certain measure of devotedness to God. They thought it possible to serve him too well, as well as to love him too much. But now nothing appears too afflictive to be endured for his sake ; no act of self-denial too painful to be undertaken ; no labour of love too arduous to be performed. They were before cold and formal worshippers of the Lord, or at best lukewarm and hesitating professors of the gospel; but now the love of God has been shed abroad in their hearts, and given a decision, a life and a soul, to their religion. It has made them active Christians, decided Christians, laborious Chris- tians. There is no more halting between two opinions ; no more striving to serve God and mammon ; no more conferring with flesh and blood. There is an open avowal of their attach- ment to their crucified Lord, a glorying in his reproach, a holy reverence for his laws, a willing- ness to spend and be spent for his sake. Will any one say that these things are not to be found in the world ? that the love of Christ OF THE LOVE OF CHRIST. 319 never has produced and never will produce such effects as these ? Look at the history of the man who wrote the words in the text. Follow him through the course of his life. Contemplate the sacrifices he made, the trials he endured, the labours of love he performed. Behold him suf- fering the loss of all things, and taking the loss with joy. Hear him singing at midnight in a prison the praises of his God. View him boldly preaching Christ in his chains. Trace him through his scourgings, shipwrecks, and perils ; hear him exclaiming in the midst of them all, " None of these things move me ; neither count I my life dear unto myself." Behold the man ; and see what a triumph for the gospel was here ! And what was it that obtained this glorious triumph ? What made Saul of Tarsus so noble a spectacle to angels and to men ? It was love ; love for the Saviour who had died for him, and the God who had redeemed him. And is the power of this principle lost ? No. It is reigning in the hearts of thousands around us, and pro- ducing the most blessed effects in a thousand places, where we little suppose it to exist. We may know nothing of the men whom it governs, and may hear nothing of their zeal for the Lord ; they may never be found in the societies in which we delight, and may be treated by us and our associates as the very refuse of mankind and 320 THE LOVE OF CHRIST. " the offscouring of all things ;" but the influence of the love of Christ is felt, in all its energy, in their houses and cottages ; the voice of prayer and of praise, of peace and of joy, is heard in their habitations. There the power of religion is seen, and there the works of righteousness abound. There man is holy and happy, and there God is worshipped and feared. SERMON XVII. THE CONSTRAINING INFLUENCE OF THE LOVE OF CHRIST. 2 CORINTHIANS v. 14, 15. The love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead; and that he died for all, that they which live, should not henceforth live unto them- selves, but unto him which died for them and rose again. 1 HE truths brought before us in this declaration, are the most important that the Bible contains. The chief of them are these five ; the wretched and hopeless condition to which sin has reduced man ; " Then were all dead ;" the interposition of Christ in his behalf; " He died for all ;" the principle or motive from which this interposition proceeded ; " The love of Christ ;" the end which Christ had in view in it ; "That they which 322 THE CONSTRAINING INFLUENCE live, should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again ;" and then, lastly, the influence which this amazing effort of love exercises on the hearts and lives of all true believers ; " The love of Christ constraineth us." An attentive considera- tion of these truths will suggest to us several practical inferences. I. The first is this The conduct of a Christian is closely connected with his principles, with his religious opinions, with the doctrines he believes. The text represents it as influenced by the judg- ment which he forms of the great truths of the gospel, and produced by the reception which he gives to these doctrines. And yet it is often asserted that it matters not what doctrines we believe or what creed we embrace, so that our dispositions are holy and our lives sober and righteous. In one sense the assertion is true. We admit that holy dispositions and a godly life constitute the sum and substance of genuine religion ; that the man in whom these are found, is a servant of God and an heir of heaven. But how are these holy dispositions to be produced ? How is the life to be made thus conformable to the righteous law of God ? This is not a trifling work. These effects are too great to be produced without an adequate cause. OF THE LOVE OF CHRIST. 323 Where then shall we look for this cause ? Can we find it in carelessness, in ignorance, in un- belief? No. It can be found only in a right knowledge of God and of ourselves ; in a simple and heartfelt belief of the Bible ; in an unfeigned reception of the great truths of the gospel. Right dispositions and right conduct can proceed only from right principles. These are the springs of action ; and as long as we are destitute of these, neither our tempers nor our conduct will bear to be tried by the standard of God's holy law. The reason why many of us hold the great truths of the gospel in such low estimation, is simply this we are not striving to do the will of God ; we are not practical Christians ; we are in- dulging unhallowed dispositions, and living care- less and worldly lives. We desire not the fruit, and the consequence naturally is, we pour con- tempt on the tree which produces it. The Christian, on the contrary, highly values these doctrines, because he has been taught their practical efficacy. He desires to be holy, and he therefore prizes the springs and the means of holiness. He has felt the constraining influence of the love of Christ ; and as long as he knows that his happiness is centred in the service and enjoyment of his God, he will hold fast the profession of his faith ; he will rejoice in " the glorious gospel of the blessed God." Y 2 324 THE CONSTRAINING INFLUENCE II. The text leads us also to infer that they are not Christians, whom the love of Christ does not Influence. They may call themselves after the name of the Saviour who bled for them, but they have not the distinguishing characteristic of the people who belong to him ; they are not con- strained by his love ; they are not living " unto him which died for them." This devotedness to Christ is essential to the Christian character. Nothing can supply the place of it ; no correct system of opinions, no zeal for doctrines, no lively feelings, no tears or prayers. As long as we stop short of this, we are destitute of spiritual life, we are " dead in tres- passes and sins." " Every one that loveth," says Saint John, " is born of God and knoweth God ; he that loveth not, knoweth not God." The end of Christ in dying for us cannot be defeated. If through faith we are become savingly interested in his death, the effect of the love which he mani- fested in it, is certain we are affected by it ; we are constrained by it. " We are alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Are we then thus influenced by the love of the dying Jesus ? We may admire the character which this love has a tendency to form ; we may delight in tracing its effects in the apostles and martyrs of the primitive church ; we may be gra- tified by contemplating its quickening and trans- OF THK LOVE OF CHRIST. 325 forming efficacy in those around us ; but these are not the turning points. Is my own soul affected ? Does the love of Christ force my own hard heart to feel, and my own dry eyes to weep? Have I experienced in my own breast its enliven- ing, warming, constraining power ? Has it sanc- tified my dispositions and changed my conduct ? Am I making the glory of my Saviour the great business of my life ? Are his people dear to me ? Do I make his cause my cause ? In the midst of my many infirmities and sins, is my family, are my neighbours, constrained to see that I am not acting as though I deemed myself my own, but as though I regarded myself the servant of a holy Redeemer, who has bought me with his blood ? Happy are we, brethren, if we can press home such questions as these to our hearts, and have the testimony of our conscience that our Christian profession will bear to be tried by them. These are " the things which accompany salvation." These are the things which will bring a man peace at the last, and bear the fiery trial of death and of judgment. III. The words of the apostle remind us, fur- ther, of the superior excellence of the religion of Christ ; its excellence, not only as it saves the soul, but as it affords to man a new, a nobler, and a more powerful motive to obedience. 326 THE CONSTRAINING INFLUENCE This motive is love, love to a dying Lord ; a motive unheard of in the world before the pub- lication of the gospel of Christ. And what motive can be nobler ? It appeals to the finest feelings of the soul, to the most generous emo- tions of the heart. As for its efficacy, it is stronger than that of all other motives combined. The world has heard for ages of the beauty of virtue and the deformity of vice. The hopes and the fears of mankind have been appealed to, by promises of reward and threatenings of punish- ment in eternity. And what has been the result ? Men have lived, for the greater part, just as they would have lived if these things had never been heard of. Here and there indeed an appearance of virtue has been produced ; even a form of god- liness has been put on, and man has become superstitious and wretched. But has the heart been touched ? Have the sins of the heart been re- strained ? Has passion been subdued ? Has pride been rooted out ? Has selfishness been overcome ? Has there been a single human being prevailed on by these motives to live no longer unto himself, but unto the God who created him ? Not one. It is the love of Christ only, which can effect such a work, and win such a triumph as this. It is the love of Christ only, which can reach the heart of a man, root out its sins, and give its affections to God. Our duty then is plain. It is to get the OF THE LOVE OF CHRIST. 327 love of Christ shed abroad in our hearts ; and when we have received this gift, to seek that it may be preserved to us and increased. We profess to lament our selfishness, brethren, and to mourn over our unfruitfulness and cold- ness. Here then is a remedy provided. Here is a principle which will make our hearts burn within us, and bring forth in our lives all the fruits of the Spirit. If your professions and sor- row are sincere, seek this principle, have recourse to this remedy ; apply for a sense of this love at the throne of grace. You cannot obtain a more useful gift from heaven, or a sweeter comforter. It will enable you to face any difficulties, to weather any storms, and to endure any sufferings, so that your God may be honoured, and the name of your Saviour praised. It will overcome ini- quity and lusts within you ; it will render even self-denial easy ; it will make your duty your delight. It will soothe your soul in affliction, strengthen it in trials, cheer it in death, and ex- pang! it with joy in eternity. IV. The text also plainly accounts for the pe- culiar conduct of Christians. In whatever age or country he may live, the man who is a Christian indeed, will always have something peculiar in his conduct. There will be an outward, as well as an inward difference 328 THE CONSTRAINING INFLUENCE between him and others. Now this difference cannot be concealed from the world. It will be visible and marked, and the men of the world will be sure to discover it. The most io-norant and O vicious of them will be offended and perhaps incensed by it. They will impute it to hypocrisy, to enthusiasm, to fanaticism ; to every source which they deem dishonourable and base. Others will view it with a mixture of pity and admiration. They cannot altogether approve it ; they are forced to ascribe it in some degree to mental weakness ; but they are at the same time convinced that the men are sincere and in earnest, and that they are acting under the influence of some secret and powerful motive peculiar to themselves. They cannot ascertain the nature of this motive. They are sure it exists, but it baffles all their efforts to discover and comprehend it. Now the text points out the secret spring of the Christian's conduct, and solves the difficulty. Indeed it was written for this very purpose. Influenced by the arts of the false apostles, who, by tolerating their corruptions, had intro- duced themselves into their church and obtained their confidence, some of the Corinthians began to cool in their attachment to their early and faithful teacher. His earnestness in rebuking iniquity offended them, and they first ceased to love, and then proceeded to censure him. The OF THE LOVE OF CHRIST. 329 character of Paul was not however a very vulner- able character. They could not accuse him of hypocrisy. His spotless integrity and disinter- ested zeal would have at once repelled such an accusation. They charged him therefore with being beside himself, with acting under the in- fluence of enthusiasm and madness. The apostle did not directly deny the charge. With an ad- dress and dignity altogether his own, he seems to admit it, and then traces the conduct that filled them with so much wonder and displeasure, to a cause which at once vindicated his earnestness and reproved their lukewarmness. This was the answer with which the noble apostle repelled their accusation ; " Whether we be beside our- selves, it is to God ; or whether we be sober, it is for your cause ; for the love of Christ con- straineth us." Here then the source from which the peculiar conduct of the Christian originates, is laid open. It is the constraining love of Christ. It is this, which bears him away like a torrent, and leads him to feel and to act, while others are coldly speculating and disputing. It does not make him an enthusiast or a fanatic ; it does not deprive him of humility and meekness, prudence and wis- dom ; but it burns like a fire within him, warming him to energy and zeal ; and it renders him a 330 THE CONSTRAINING INFLUENCE blessing to the world, and an honour to the religion of his Lord. Dare not then, brethren, to censure the conduct which flows from a principle so hallowed. Con- demn fanaticism and intemperance wherever you find them, but revile not the zeal which has the love of God for its source. It is a sacred thing, and there is danger as well as folly in as- sailing it. Instead of rashly condemning the warmth of the Christian, enquire how it is that so much in- difference and apathy are to be found in your own temper and conduct. Ask how it is that profess- ing to serve the same God, and to hope in the same Saviour, you are spending your days in worldly vanities, while he is spurning all the follies of the world, denying himself, taking up his cross and following; Christ. The conclusion to which such o enquiries will bring you, will be humiliating. You will discover that while you have been suspecting the religion of your neighbour, you ought to have suspected your own. You will find that your con- duct has been different from his, because the state of your heart has been different ; because you have wanted that spiritual life which has quickened and animated him. You will feel yourselves to be spiritually dead ; strangers to pardoning grace ; strangers to the power of redeeming love ; stran- gers to religion, to Christ, and to God. OF THE LOVE OF CHRIST. 331 But what, if these conclusions be humiliating and painful ? Is it not better to be humbled here, than to be condemned hereafter ? Is not the pain of a broken and contrite spirit easier to be borne, than the pains of eternity ? Paul him- self was once forced to open his mind to such convictions as these. He too was constrained to see himself ungodly, unpardoned, and perishing, after having for years deemed himself righteous and blameless. And did he ever regret the dis- covery ? Never. As long as he remained on earth, he always spoke of it as a marvellous in- stance of mercy ; and when he thinks of it now, the thought adds fresh warmth to his gratitude and gives a new burst to his song. Could he now speak to us from his heavenly throne, he would tell us that the convictions against which we are struggling, are the very convictions which were once lodged in his own soul ; that they were the beginning of his spiritual existence, the forerunners of his present blessedness and joy. He would tell us that there is not a ran- somed sinner exulting around him, who has not tasted of their bitterness and shame ; and he would call upon us to welcome them into our hearts, as messengers sent to us on an errand of mercy from heaven. Why then should we refuse them admission ? Why should we any longer resist the Holy Ghost ? Let us cease to cavil and 332 THE LOVE OF CHRIST. dispute, and learn to pray. Let us entreat the Father of mercies to open our hearts to the hum- bling influence of his life-giving Spirit. Then shall we experience the transforming power of the love of Christ ; the efficacy of that grace which brings to the soul righteousness and peace, hope and salvation. SERMON XVIII. CHRIST THE HEALER OF THE BROKEN- HEARTED. ST. LUKE iv. 18. He hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted. IHESE gracious words proceeded out of the mouth of Jesus in the synagogue of Nazareth. He declares in them the errand on which he came down to the earth, and points out to us the work which, as Mediator of his church, he still de- lights to perform. Never was any messenger sent forth from heaven on so merciful an errand as this. Never was the eternal Son employed in a more blessed and honourable work. In meditating on the words which the Saviour has here applied to himself, we may consider, first, the distressed condition of the persons spo- ken of in them ; secondly, the reasons why they are brought into this condition ; and, thirdly, 334 CHRIST THE HEALER the encouragement which the declaration before us is calculated to afford them. And may that Holy Spirit who has caused this gracious say- ing to be written for our learning, so bless our meditations on it, that all the mourning and con- trite amongst us may be enabled to bear this tes- timony concerning it, " This day is this scripture fulfilled in our ears !" I. The condition of the persons spoken of in the text is one of extreme distress and misery. They are broken-hearted. All their happiness is gone. All their hopes are blasted. Nothing is left to them but wretchedness and despair. The world has many such sufferers in it. The calamities of life are daily breaking a thou- sand hearts, and bringing down multitudes of the children of men with sorrow to the grave. Now all these sons of affliction Christ is ready to heal ; but the greater part of them are either ig- norant of him, or refuse to avail themselves of his aid, choosing despair and death rather than the healing balm provided for them in his gospel. It is however the spiritually broken-hearted who are the special objects of the Saviour's compas- sion ; they who are brought by spiritual trials into the same state of despondency, as that into which others are brought by worldly calamities. These are the sufferers to whom the text princi- OF THE BROKEN-HEARTED. 335 pally refers. It seems to speak of them as labouring under a painful disease, as fainting and sinking beneath the power of sin, that spiritual malady which has polluted, racked, and destroyed, so many immortal souls. 1. It implies that they have a sorrowful con- sciousness of the existence of this evil within them. They feel sin to be deeply lodged in their hearts, and they are filled with shame and grief at the thought of having so loathsome a disease raging there. But it was not always thus with them. They were once light-hearted. They had the same cause for spiritual sorrow, which they have now, but they were not sensible of its existence. They thought but little of their iniquities, and when they did think of them, it was without feel- ing or seriousness. " Dead in trespasses and sins," they were strangers to spiritual sorrows and joys. But now the Holy Spirit has quickened them, and awakened them to a sense of their wretched condition. They find that there is no health in them. They feel themselves to be miserable sinners. They are pricked to the heart by a consciousness of their transgressions, and are weary and heavy laden with the burden of their sins. 2. They are also dissatisfied with their condition, and earnestly desire deliverance from it. Like men oppressed with sickness, they are not in a 336 CHKIST THE HEALER state in which they can be at ease. They want health, and nothing but health will satisfy or relieve them. In other troubles, earthly comforts may be of some avail, but in this they are of none. They have lost all their power to delight. In the midst of them all, the heart still throbs and aches, and is dead to every thing but a sense of its misery and sin, its sorrow and its shame. Deliverance from sin is the mercy they sigh for, and as long as this grievous burden presses them down, they must still, like the contrite publican, smite upon their breasts ; they must still, like the psalmist, go mourning all the day long. 3. They are sensible likewise of the deadly na- ture of the disease under which they are suffering. They know that it is a mortal disease ; not merely debasing and loathsome, but dangerous and fatal ; a disease which has already brought spiritual death upon their souls, and is hourly bringing them nearer to everlasting destruction. The dread of final perdition is not indeed the only reason why they look on iniquity with hatred. Were death to be no longer its wages, it would still be the object of their abhorrence. But they know that sin has a curse connected with it, which they are not able to endure ; and they never look forward into eternity without shrinking with terror from it. 4. To this sorrowful consciousness of their de- OF THE BROKKN-HEAKTKU. 337 pravity, this dissatisfaction with their condition, and this dread of futurity, is added a despair of healing their spiritual diseases by means of their o-wn a hi lily or strength. There was a time when they imagined that their case was not altogether hopeless; They felt themselves to be sinners, and they knew that the wrath to come was the just desert of their trans- gressions ; but they still hoped that by their prayers and contrition this wrath might be averted. They accordingly wept and prayed. Day by day they cried for deliverance, and night after night they watered their couch with their tears. But still they were sorrowful. They still seemed as far from pardon and heaven, as they were before, and condemnation and hell appeared as dreadful and as near. They had recourse to other expedients, but these were found to be equally ineffectual. Driven from refuge to refuge, from one ground of hope to another, they are at length forced to abandon them all ; and find them- selves to be not only guilty, but helpless and hope- less. It is this feeling of despair which breaks the heart, and which, if not counteracted by a rising hope of deliverance through the gospel of peace, would end in the anguish of Cain and the horror of Judas. Such is the afflicted condition of the persons spoken of here, and all who are Christians in- VOL. i. z 338 CHRIST THE HEALER deed, have tasted of its wormwood and its gall ; they have been broken-hearted with spiritual sorrows. Not that they have all suffered in the same degree, but they have all suffered from the same cause. They have all felt that there is no health in their souls, and have mourned over the deadly disease which they have found themselves unable to heal. Yea, many of them are still at seasons mourners in Zion. The workings of faith, even in the mind of the re- newed Christian, are not always mingled with the feelings of penitence. A hope in infinite mercy does not always brighten the eye which is wet with the tears of contrition. The grace O of the Saviour is sometimes forgotten, and the repentant believer thinks only of his own depra- vity and guilt. Sometimes too he suffers him- self to be overcome by the power of temptation, and he yields at other times to the influence of spiritual sloth. Watchfulness and prayer are remitted, and worldly-mindedness and uncon- cern take possession of his heart. These sea- sons of declension he must expect to be suc- ceeded by bitter convictions. He must look for a partial return of that painful remorse which once harrowed up his soul, and must deem him- self peculiarly favoured when peace is again restored to him. Temporal afflictions are often made the means OF THE BROKEN-HEARTED. 339 of renewing this work of repentance, and some- times materially increase the penitent's despon- dency. In days that are past, he has rejoiced in tribulation, and viewed it as the chastisement of a Father who loved him ; but now he regards it as a token of wrath, and infers from it, that the divine mercy towards him is "clean gone for ever," and that his God will " be favourable no more." The believing Christian then, as well as the returning sinner, may often be numbered among the broken-hearted. The spiritual sorrow of both is of the same nature, and flows from the same source. It is a godly sorrow, divine in its origin, and the immediate work of the Spirit of God. The calamities of life cannot produce it. In one sense, they may break the heart. They may put into it that " sorrow of the world," which "worketh death," but they cannot soften it; they cannot fill it with spiritual mourning. They may lead us to madness or suicide, but they cannot draw from our eyes the tears of Peter, nor lodge in our souls the contrition of David. Neither have sermons or ordinances any power in themselves to accomplish this work. Thou- sands who habitually hear and attend them, remain altogether unaffected by them, and can even scoff at the penitence which they seem calcu- lated to produce. The outward means of grace are as unable to discover to the sinner his malady, z2 340 CHRIST THE HEALER as they are to heal it when it is discovered. The work of conviction is as much the work of the Spirit, as the work of consolation. It is God, who teaches the heart to feel and the eye to weep. It is he, who makes the hard- hearted trifler a thoughtful, serious, and contrite mourner. II. But why does the Physician of souls thus deal with the sinful children of men ? Why cannot he apply his healing balm to their wounds, without first afflicting them with so much wretchedness ? Why must they be brought into so disconsolate a state, before they are made acquainted with pardon and peace ? 1. In answer to these enquiries we may ob- serve, that God thus afflicts his penitent children, in order that sin may be embittered to them; that they may have a heartfelt knowledge of the misery and shame which it is able to implant in the mind, and thus learn to regard it with hatred and fear. By nature we love sin ; we think it calculated to make us happy ; and all the representations of scripture, and all the sufferings under which the world is groaning, though strengthened by our own experience and the testimony of the wisest and best of mankind, cannot change our opinion concerning it, or cause us to regard it OF THE BROKEN-HEARTED. 341 in any other view, than as a source of happiness. It is the will of God, therefore, that we should be taught the real nature of sin by feeling some- thing of its spiritual consequences. Hence he fixes within us the arrows of conviction, and makes us taste of the bitterness of iniquity. He causes us to feel the smart of our wounds, that we may no longer love and caress the hand which inflicted them. He lays upon us spiritual troubles, and in the midst of them, he causes the voice of conscience to address us in these words of his prophet, " Thy ways and thy doings have procured these things unto thee. This is thy wickedness, be- cause it is bitter, because it reacheth unto thine heart." 2. The sinner is made broken-hearted, that he may be willing to be healed by Christ in his own way and on his own terms. Before a sick man can be prevailed on to apply to a physician for his aid, he must feel the sick- ness which has seized on him, and know that he stands in need of a physician. If the remedy which is prescribed to him, be a painful remedy, or repulsive to his prejudices or feelings, he must undergo much suffering before he will consent to submit to and apply it. Thus no sinner will ever accept the salvation of Christ, till he understands something of his sinful and perishing condition. It is not a way of salva- 342 CHRIST THE HEALER tion suited to our taste. It is opposed to our fancied goodness, and it pours contempt on our imaginary greatness. It wounds every proud and self-righteous feelino; of our hearts. No- o o thing but a deep conviction that our state is des- perate, will bring us as suppliants to the cross of such a Saviour as Jesus Christ. Like sea- men in a storm, who see that they must sink if they do not cast every thing out of their ship, we give up our beloved merits only when we see that we must give them up, or perish with them. Christ therefore, before he heals us, shews us our lost condition, and thus makes us willing to submit to whatever method of restoration he may prescribe. The soul becomes humble and obedient, and is ready to welcome whatever may save it from hell and lead it to heaven. Thus was it with the Jews to whom Saint Peter preached on the day of pentecost. Before they were " pricked to the heart," they mocked ; but when their guilt and danger were laid open be- fore them, they said with one voice unto Peter and the rest of the apostles, " Men and brethren, what shall we do ?" Thus was it with Saul of Tarsus. He was no sooner convinced of the enormity of his conduct in opposing the gospel of Christ, than he also asked, " Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ?" It was the same with the OF THE BROKEN-HEARTED. 343 gaoler at Philippi. As soon as he was made to tremble under a sense of his sins, he fell down before Paul and Silas, and said, " What must I do to be saved ?" 3. A further reason why the returning sinner is thus torn and smitten, may be this that the deliverance vouchsafed to him may be more highly valued. We consider the removal of a disease which has brought us to the gate of death, a greater in- stance of mercy, than restoration to health from a slighter attack. So likewise the more a sinner sees of the danger and horror of the state into which sin has brought him, the more will he value the grace which has rescued him from it. * We do not know how to estimate the worth of salvation, till we have seen ourselves standing on the verge of perdition, and find ourselves snatch- ed as " brands from the burning." Never is the news of a pardon heard with so fervent a joy, as when the sentence of death has been passed, and the prisoner has arrived at the place of ex- ecution. 4. It may also be the will of God to give the penitent a deep sense of his wretchedness, that the great Physician of his soul may be more warmly loved. The man who has been made the means of raising from the bed of sickness a sufferer who 344 CHRIST THE HEALER thought his condition desperate, and who had ap- plied in vain to other physicians, will be thanked with greater ardour of gratitude, than one who has rendered assistance in a less dangerous case. It is the same with the spiritual sufferer. He who has felt " the plague of his heart" the most keenly, will value most highly the heavenly Friend who has healed him. His love will be proportioned to the depth of his penitence, and the sense which he experiences of the greatness of his guilt. Hence it is generally found that they whose convictions of sin have been the deepest and most abiding, have manifested the greatest zeal in the service of Christ, and become his most eminent servants. They love much because they feel more than others have felt, how much has been forgiven them. They have seen more of " the unsearchable riches of Christ," more of his suitableness to their necessi- ties, more of the tenderness of his heart, more of his power and his goodness, more of the greatness of his salvation. Thus was it with Paul. He deem- ed himself the chief of sinners, and the conse- quence was, that he became the very chief of saints. It was the same with the woman who had been a sinner. Simon received the Redeemer into his house, but he gave him no water for his feet and no oil for his head. This woman, on the con- trary, "stood behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with OF THE BROKEN-HEARTED. 345 the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with ointment." These then are some of the reasons why the feelings of repentance and sorrow are wrought in the soul, before it pleases the heavenly Physician to heal its diseases. III. Let us proceed to consider, thirdly, the en- couragement which the declaration before us is cal- culated to afford to every broken-hearted mourner. 1. It plainly implies, first, that it is the will of God that the broken-hearted should be healed. He has sent a Messenger from heaven to bring peace to them, and parted for a season with the delight of his soul, that his sorrowful children may be healed and cheered. When the mind is filled with despondency under a sense of its guilt, we are apt to look upon God as taking pleasure in our anguish, and rejoicing as an enemy in the bitterness of our grief. We hear of his mercy to the sinful and of his compassion for the wretched, but we cannot be persuaded of our interest in either. We see in him a God of inexorable justice only, incensed against us by our manifold provocations, and treasuring up for us wrath and fiery indignation. And yet this dreadful Sovereign is a God of unbounded benevolence and love. " His tender mercies are over all his works ;" and there is not 346 CHRIST THE HEALER a creature in his universe, whom he does not wish to see holy and happy. His indignation against iniquity springs from his love, and even his jus- tice may be regarded as a modification of his benevolence. He hates and discourages sin, be- cause sin is calculated to destroy the happiness of his creatures, and to involve them in wretchedness. He willeth not the death of the most rebellious sinner, neither does he delight in the misery of the vilest. When therefore the transgressor is anxious to be saved from his sin, from its guilt, its power, and its bitterness, he may think of the general benevolence of God, and learn to hope in his mercy. He may think of the text, and be taught that the Lord is waiting to be gracious to his soul ; that he wishes its wounds to be healed, and its grief to be changed into joy. Yea, he may even take encouragement from his present sor- row, and draw hope out of his misery. Why has the Holy Spirit vouchsafed to him a discovery of his wretchedness ? Why has he broken his heart ? That he may fill it with fear in this world, and rack it with pain in the next ? No. It is a work of compassion, and not of vengeance ; the fore- runner of mercy, and not an intimation of wrath. He has shewn the man his disease, that he may seek a remedy against it ; he has opened his eyes to his danger, that he may escape it. He has torn OF THE BROKEN-HEARTED. 347 him, that he may be healed ; and smitten him, that he may bind him up. The assurances of God in his word fully war- rant the most exalted ideas of his compassion and mercy, which a returning sinner can form. He claims the work of consolation as his own peculiar work ; and represents himself as delighting as much in comforting the mourner, as a mother de- lights in chasing away the fears and the sorrows of a beloved child. This is his language to all his broken-hearted children, " As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you ; and ye shall be comforted." He is indeed a wise, as well as a tender Parent; and he will not sacrifice the future and permanent happiness of his children, for the gratification and ease of the present hour. He will send them, for a moment, any " light affliction" which is likely to work out for them " a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." He will sow in their hearts any seeds of sorrow, which are likely to produce for them a har- vest of joy. 2. The declaration in the text teaches us also, that God has given to Christ authority and power to heal all the broken-hearted. He has given him authority. Long before he was born, he was set apart for this work, and when he was sent into the world, these were the words with which he opened his commission, 348 CHRIST THE HEALER " The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, be- cause the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek. He hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted ; " " to comfort all that mourn ; to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion ; to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." Christ has received also power to comfort. His Father has not only sent him on this gracious errand, but furnished him with all the qualifica- tions which are necessary for the faithful dis- charge of it. " It hath pleased the Father," says the apostle, " that in him should all fulness dwell ;" a fulness of pardon for the guilty, a fulness of comfort for the sorrowful, a fulness of strength for the weak, a fulness of life for the dead. The persons to whom he is sent, are lying under a sentence of condemnation ; and before they can be happy, this sentence must be re- pealed, and the criminals pardoned. God there- fore has " given his Son power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as he has given him." He has promised that " who- soever believeth in him shall be saved ;" shall have the curse of the law removed from him, and all his multiplied transgressions freely and com- pletely remitted. He has given to the blood which flowed from his cross, such infinite virtue, OF THE BROKEN-HEARTED. 349 that it can cure the deepest and deadliest wounds, and " save to the uttermost'' all who are sprinkled by it. He has given also to his Son the ministration of the Spirit, and empowered him to bestow on mankind his enlightening, quickening, sanctifying, and comforting influence. By this sovereign re- medy, the great Physician breaks the power of sin, and implants within the soul a principle of holiness. By this he communicates faith and gives birth to hope. By this he enables us to rejoice in the exceeding great promises of his gospel, and shews us our interest in his special love. By this he makes his word and ordinances effectual to solace us, and causes even the afflic- tive dispensations of his providence, our troubles, and difficulties, and temptations, to be " helpers of our joy." 3. The declaration before us assures us, lastly, that Christ is willing to heal all the broken- hearted who apply for his aid ; that he is ready to exercise the authority and power which he has received. The Father has sent him from heaven to execute this gracious work, and he will not be unfaithful to the trust committed to him, As Mediator of the church, Christ became the servant of Jehovah. In this character he is spoken of by the prophet, and called "a righteous servant." " Though he were a son," says the 350 CHRIST THE HEALER apostle, " yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered ; and being made perfect, he became the Author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him." In the councils of eternity he voluntarily took on him the office of " Mes- senger of the covenant," and fulfils all the duties of it with faithfulness and delight. " Sacrifice and offering," says he, " thou didst not desire ; mine ears hast thou opened : burnt-offering and sin-offering hast thou not required. Then said I, Lo, I come ; in the volume of the book it is written of me ; I delight to do thy will, O my God ; yea, thy law is within my heart. I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation. I have not concealed thy loving-kindness and thy truth from the great congregation." But the readiness of Christ to heal all the broken-hearted, must be traced to a source still more encouraging than obedience to his commis- sion. His heart is as full of love for the sorrow- ful sinner, as of reverence for the commands of his Father. The work which has been given him to do, is consequently a work in which he de- lights. The errand on which he came down from heaven, is an errand which brings to him more happiness, than all the services and worship of his angels. He voluntarily left the praises of eternity to be employed in it. He came down to the earth, and " bore our griefs, and carried our OF THE BROKEN-HEARTED. 351 sorrows ;" lie was stricken and afflicted, wounded and bruised ; and yet he is satisfied. His infinite mind is filled with unspeakable satisfaction as he contemplates the fruit of his labours, and through eternity he will never look back without joy on " the travail of his soul." And whence does this satisfaction arise ? From the mercifulness of his nature ; from the delight which he takes in the happiness of his creatures ; from his great love to his people. Here then is a rich source of encouragement to every desponding mourner. The God against whom he has sinned, has sent a Messenger from heaven to heal him ; and he whom he has sent, rejoices to bind up the broken-hearted. He has infinite compassion to pity, as well as infinite power to relieve. He has assumed our nature and partaken of our sorrows, that he may know by. experience how to discover and feel for our miseries ; and he has had his soul pierced with unutterable anguish, that he might procure a balm for our wounds. This balm he freely communi- cated to all who came to him for it when he was on earth, and the Bible tells us that he has lost none of his compassion and tenderness by going to heaven. He has commanded his apostle to assure us, that he is still " a merciful and faithful High Priest," and thousands of his people are daily experiencing his sympathy and aid. They 352 CHRIST THE HEALER are all ready to testify that "he delighteth in mercy," and knows how to pour consolation into their sorrowful souls. A review of the siibject on which we have been meditating 1 , points out to us, first, the persons to whom the ministers of the gospel are to admi- nister comfort. Some of their brethren would have them speak peace indiscriminately to all, and are sometimes ready to censure them, because the careless, the worldly, and the proud, derive no comfort from hearing them. But where, brethren, can we find in our Bibles any consolation for characters like these ? Where is our warrant to speak peace to them ? Our commission is in substance the same as our Master's. We are sent on the same errand of mercy, and to the very same description of persons. We have a message of consolation en- trusted to us, but then it is to be delivered only to the poor in spirit, the broken in heart, the bruised. In proportion as we are faithful and skilful ministers of the word, and as God blesses our labours, these humble sinners will be com- forted and others disquieted ; the poor and the hungry will be filled with good things, and the rich will be sent empty away. Indeed there is no greater proof of the faithfulness of a minister of Christ, than his being made a son of consolation OF THE BROKEN-HEARTED. 353 to some of his brethren, and the means of dis- turbing the false peace of others. He who has a message of comfort for all, may be caressed by men, but he will not be commended by God. He may quiet the conscience of the worldly and lukewarm professor of the gospel, but he will not be the instrument of saving his soul. He will not advance the glory of the Redeemer, or the spiritual prosperity and salvation of his fellow-sinners. The text affords us, secondly, a test by which we may try our spiritual comfort. Whence did it spring ? Did your light arise out of darkness ? Had your spiritual joy its origin in godly sorrow? Did your heart bleed before it was healed ? Then be thankful to that gracious Saviour who has given rest to your soul. But if your religious consolations were not preceded by the deep work- ings of contrition, if your conscience was quieted before sin was embittered to you, you have no cause to rejoice. Your peace is not the peace of God ; your joy is not the joy of the Holy Ghost. It is the joy of the man who eats, drinks, and is merry, while his habitation is on fire over his head. It is the peace of the mariner who slumbers while his vessel is sinking in the storm. Not that every Christian can retrace all the various steps of spiritual sorrow, through which he has passed ; nor that all who have been VOL. i. A A 354 CHRIST THE HEALER brought to the great Physician of souls, were led to him by precisely the same degree of apprehen- sion and misery. In some cases, it has pleased God to carry on his work of grace in the heart by such gentle and insensible degrees, and so to modify the feelings of repentance almost from the first by a hope in his mercy, that the mind has been saved from that acuteness of suffering, which has generally been the portion of sinners when returning to the Lord. But in every case there has been some sense of guilt, and some deep and humbling apprehensions of the danger and wretchedness in which it has involved us. In every case the heart has effectually been broken. There has been a mourning for sin, and a con- sciousness that without the interposition of Christ, fear and despair must be the everlasting portion of the transgressor. We may infer also from the text, that true contrition of heart is one of the greatest blessings which God can bestow on man. Not that it is in itself a blessing, for " no affliction for the present is joyous ;" but it will eventually terminate in all the blessedness which the God of heaven can give or his creatures receive. It brings the sinner within the reach of the commission of a gracious and powerful Saviour. It opens his mind to re- ceive all the healing and cheering influences of the Spirit of grace. It is the first step by which OF THE BROKEN-HEARTED. 355 a God who loves him, is guiding him to heaven, and preparing him to share in its joys. We have no reason therefore to mourn over those of our friends, whom the Lord has taught to weep over their manifold sins. Their sorrow, we are told, sends up a new ray of joy into the kingdom of the blessed ; and if we were holy and wise like the angels, we too should rejoice " over the sinner that repenteth," and his complaining and sighs would be as music in our ears. And yet, brethren, it is painful to think how many of us would rather see our children and friends trifling in the most humiliating scenes of folly, than see them retiring from the crowd, as the stricken deer retires from the herd, to mourn and to bleed alone. In the one case, we applaud them ; in the other, we harass and deride them, as though they had no hearts to be wounded, and we no pity to bestow. Cruel as this conduct is to our friends, it is still more cruel to ourselves. They can find in their closets something which can bear them up against all the revilings of men ; but we shall soon have nothing to bear up our souls under the aggravated displeasure of God. They can go and read in their Bibles, that though " their father and mother forsake them" for righteousness' sake, " the Lord taketh them up ;" while we are forced to read and understand these prophetic words of the psalmist, " Pour out thine A A 2 356 CHRIST THE HEALER indignation upon them, and let thy wrathful anger take hold of them. Let their habitation be desolate, and let none dwell in their tents ; for they persecute him whom thou hast smitten ; and they have talked to the grief of those whom thou hast wounded." But here it may be asked, " Is all spiritual sorrow to be accounted a blessing? Is there no spiritual sufferer, over whom they who love him, may be allowed to grieve ? We saw our friend retire, in the midst of gaiety and youth, from a world which courted his friendship. We saw him burst asunder bands which we once, thought too strong to be broken. We beheld him meekly and resolutely devoting himself to the service of the God who had redeemed him. With mingled feelings of anxiety and hope, we watched his conduct after he had openly taken the side of the Lord, and we witnessed in it an ardour of love, which is seldom surpassed. Many of his former associates thought him wretched, but he opened his heart to us, and we found it to be as full of peace and of blessedness, as heart could hold. Such was year after year his enviable state ; but now all his happiness is gone. His harp has been long hung upon the willows, and his mind overwhelmed with anguish and despondency. We see in him the same holy fear that we saw in him in his happiest days ; the same deep humility, OF THE BROKEN-HEARTED. 357 the same hatred of sin, the same love for his Saviour, the same benevolence to man ; but we no longer hear from him the song of trembling joy, nor see his countenance brighten with the same sacred delight. His soul is afflicted, tossed with tempests, and not comforted. May we not then be allowed to mourn over such a sufferer as this ? Can such spiritual sorrow be esteemed a token of mercy, a blessing of grace ? We dare not arraign the dispensations of the Holy One, but we are constrained to say, " Verily, thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour." In reply to such enquiries as these, it must be admitted that the dealings of God with his saints are often dark and mysterious, and that the mind which attempts to penetrate them, will often ache in the effort. It must be acknowledged also, that the servant of God may sometimes be left for a season a prey to despondency, even when his des- pondency has not been preceded by any visible or known relapse into sin. But let us not blindly impeach the loving-kindness and truth of Jehovah, nor rashly suspect the healing efficacy of his gospel of peace. Are we sure that the sorrow we deplore has its origin in spiritual causes ? On the contrary, have we not abundant reason to suppose that it must be traced principally or solely to natural causes ? In almost every in- 358 CHRIST THE HEALER stance, it will be found to have been preceded by bodily indisposition, long continued affliction, or excessive mental exertion; and to be uniformly attended with a greater or less degree of mental O c5 debility. The bewildered and throbbing head, the pallid countenance, the failing voice, the shivering frame, plainly tell us that the anguish of the spirit must be ascribed to the weakness and wretchedness of the habitation in which it is lodged ; and that the efforts of the bodily phy- sician must be blessed in restoring strength to the frame, before the spiritual Physician can bind up and heal the soul. The gospel of Christ was never designed to remove natural diseases, or the apparently spiritual diseases which are connected with them, and which are in reality occasioned by them. It can do little more in some cases to keep off the pressure of melancholy, than it can to enable a man to resist the attack of a fever. While therefore we weep with our disconsolate friend, and endeavour to lessen the burden of his wretchedness, let us not harbour any suspicion against the mercy and faithfulness of the great Physician of souls. He has not deserted the sufferer, though he may seem to have forsaken him. Even the bitterness which has been poured into his cup, may prove a salutary medicine. It may be the means of saving him from many OF THE BROKEX-HEARTED. 359 dangers and sins, into which he would otherwise have fallen ; or of raising him to a degree of holiness, usefulness, and happiness, to which he would not otherwise have attained. It may make him patient and gentle, tender-hearted and piti- ful ; the soother of the sorrowful, and the skilful comforter of the distressed. The same work may be going on now, which we once saw going on in the day of his blessedness. Yea, he may be growing still more rapidly in grace than he ever was before, and may soon come forth out of the furnace rejoicing and purified. The rising sun is not impeded in its course, when its glory is obscured by clouds. We see not its progress, but while concealed from our view, it climbs higher and higher, and at length bursts forth from the mists which concealed it, shining in meridian splendour. And what, if the friend whom we love, should never again rejoice in the hope of salvation? What, if he should go down to the grave bowed down with sorrow ? One moment of heaven will recompense him for all the bitterness of his life ; and one smile from the throne of Jehovah raise him to the summit of joy. The text reminds us, lastly, of the sin and Jolly of despair. If God has sent his Son from heaven to heal the broken-hearted, and if the Son whom he has 360 CHRIST THE HEALER sent, is a faithful Servant and a merciful and skilful Physician, where is the broken-hearted sinner who has not a ground for hope ? Where is the dejected penitent who will look on the compassionate Jesus, and dare to pronounce his case hopeless ? Your condition may be pitiable. No heart but your own may know half the depth of your iniquity, nor half the greatness of your fear. But do not make your guilt and your wretchedness greater, by adding the sin of unbelief to all your multiplied transgressions. Christ has again and again invited all the weary and heavy laden to come unto him for rest. He has promised that he who cometh unto him, " shall in no wise be cast out." He has said that " whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." Now you cannot treat these invitations and promises as insincere or unmean- ing, without impeaching the veracity of him who is more faithful than any of his creatures, and who, in all the ages of his existence, has never once altered the thing that has gone out of his mouth. Why then should this faithful God single you out to mock and deceive you ? He has healed many sinners as great as you, and comforted many as sorrowful ; and he is as ready to heal and comfort your hearts whenever you apply for his aid, as he was to put away the iniquity of David, or to pardon the transgression of Peter. OF THE BROKEN-HEARTED. 3G1 The greatness of your guilt is no obstacle in the way of his bestowing a pardon upon you ; neither is your unfitness to receive it any disqualification for asking it. Do you need it ? Do you desire it ? * Do you find that you can never be happy without it ? Are you ready to sacrifice all your sins to obtain it ? Then this is the language which a God of infinite mercy addresses to you from heaven, " Return unto me, for I have redeemed thee." "Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord ; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow ; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." SERMON XIX. THE TEARS OF JESUS AT THE GRAVE OF LAZARUS. ST. JOHN xi. 35. Jesus wept. IHE history with which these words are con- nected, is familiar to us all. It is the history of the resurrection of Lazarus from the dead. Never perhaps was a more interesting narrative penned. It is crowded with the most affecting incidents ; but still the most affecting of them all is that recorded in the text. In proceeding to enquire into the probable causes of the tears it speaks of, it will perhaps be well to consider our Lord in two points of view first as the Friend of Lazarus and his sisters, and then as the Redeemer of mankind. I. 1. As the Friend of Lazarus and his family, THE TEARS OF JESUS. 363 our Lord certainly wept from compassion to the mourners whom he saw around him. lie was never a hard-hearted spectator of human misery. It was compassion for a wretched world, which prevailed on him to leave his hea- venly glories the only time he ever left them, and to take in exchange for them the degradation and miseries of the earth. It was the same principle, that led him to shed tears over the impending miseries of Jerusalem, and to weep on the pre- sent occasion with his sorrowful friends. His tears are expressly ascribed to this source in the thirty-third verse of this chapter. " When Jesus therefore saw Mary weeping and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled." The original expres- sion signifies, he troubled or afflicted himself; that is, he yielded to the power of that sympathy which was struggling within him for the mastery in his heart, and suffered compassion and sorrow to take possession of his soul. Observe too, it is said in this verse, that the sorrow of the Jews affected him, as well as the sorrow of Mary ; " When Jesus therefore saw her weeping and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned." Now we have no reason to think that these Jews were eithejr believers in his Messiahship or friends to his person. We may infer therefore, that the com- 364 THE TEARS OF JESUS passion of Christ is as extensive as human misery ; that while the sorrows of his beloved church touch his heart the most deeply, he has a soul which can feel for the sorrows of his ene- mies, and compassionate the wretchedness even of the most guilty. What rich encouragement then is here for every afflicted sinner ! What a source of con- solation and hope ! What though I cannot per- suade myself that I am one of the renewed people of God ; yet if my heart is broken with godly sorrow, and I feel a desire to take the burden of my grief to Christ, let not a conscious- ness of guilt hold me back ; let not my sinful- ness keep me away from the throne of grace. Only let me go to this compassionate Saviour as a care-worn, helpless, perishing sinner, and I shall be sure to find a welcome, yea, and something more than a welcome, at his throne. He who once wept on earth, has still a heart as tender as ever. He will be sure therefore to give me pity, and may give me pardon and rest. 2. Another cause of the tears of Jesus was the loss of a friend. The brother for whom Mary and Martha were now weeping, was not a stranger to Christ, but one who was peculiarly dear to him, and had been particularly distinguished by him. The evangelist tells us, in the fifth verse of this AT THE GRAVE OF LAZARUS. 365 chapter, that " Jesus loved Lazarus," and, in the eleventh verse, he describes him as announcing his death to his disciples under the name of a friend ; " Our friend Lazarus sleepeth." Even the word " sleepeth" which he here uses, may shew us perhaps the strength of his affection, as well as the greatness of his grief. He does not at once say, " Lazarus is dead ;" but, " Our friend Lazarus sleepeth," as though he knew not how to connect the idea of death with a name so dear to him. The Saviour felt perhaps as we feel, when we are bereaved of a much loved friend. We cannot at first persuade ourselves that the loss is real. As we look on the quiet corpse, we almost expect the eye-lids again to open and the lips to move. And after we have seen our friend buried in the earth, the same strange feeling is still alive. We know that he is dead, but it seems at seasons as though he were only gone on a journey, and would soon return to us to take his usual share in our sorrows and joys. This feeling aggravates rather than ame- liorates our grief, but it shews the strength of our affection for the friend we have lost. As we trace it working in the breast of Jesus, we may not only behold with the Jews how he loved Lazarus, but we may infer that there is a sorrow of the acutest description, which is not forbidden us, when we are bereaved of those we 366 THE TEARS OF JESUS love. We are indeed forbidden in the gospel to sorrow as " they that have no hope ;" but we are no where commanded to root out of our hearts that feeling and tenderness which, for the wisest of purposes, our merciful Creator has implanted within us. Insensibility forms no part of Chris- tianity. The religion of Christ has nothing to do with hardness of heart. It exalts us to the dignity of children of God, but it does not de- stroy in us those natural affections which are com- mon to the children of men. While it modifies and governs, it strengthens them, and bends them to its own gracious purposes. Hence the liveliest feelings of sorrow are not inconsistent with the Christian character. Abra-% ham was an eminent servant of God and full of faith in his promises, and yet when his beloved wife died in Kirjath-arba, " Abraham came to mourn for Sarah and to weep for her." They were devout men who carried Stephen to his feurial, and yet " they made great lamentation over him." A want of feeling under affliction, a despising of it, is as much to be guarded against as fainting or despair. " My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord," is as much the language of God, as the command not to faint when we are rebuked of him. To be stricken and yet not to grieve, is to expose ourselves to the displeasure of the Almighty and to the sharpest arrows of his quiver. AT THE GRAVE OF LAZARUS. 367 While our grief therefore is mingled with re- signation, and a child-like submission to the will of that heavenly Father who has smitten us ; while it is not suffered to impair our spiritual comforts, our hopes and graces ; let the heart mourn, let the tear flow. The man of the world may condemn us as childish and weak, and here and there an inexperienced professor of religion may suspect the sincerity of our faith ; but the Lord Jesus Christ will neither condemn nor sus- pect us. He will remember his own tears, and will not be offended by ours. 3. The tears of Christ might be occasioned, thirdly, by the instance before him of the insta- bility of human happiness. The habitation he now found a house of mourning, he had often found a house of peace. He had seen it the abode of as happy a family as ever the sun arose on. Formerly Mary used to sit at his feet, listening with the most profound attention to every word that he uttered, and* treasuring up his sayings with gratitude and reverence in her heart ; now she lies prostrate before him, bathed in tears, unable even to wel- come him to her sorrowful home, and only able to say, " Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died." Thus short-lived and precarious is the earthly happiness of man. The scene before us is an 368 THE TEARS OF JESUS everyday scene. It is only a picture of what is happening continually in the habitations around us, and may soon happen in our own. Our family may be as united as the family of Mary, and her sister, and Lazarus, once was ; we may, like them, honour the blessed Jesus, and Jesus may love us and take up his abode with us ; but mutual love, and heartfelt piety, though they may heighten the joys of our household and alle- viate its sorrows, will not keep sickness and death away from us. Our children are still sub- ject to the stroke of death, and are as liable as others to become orphans and fatherless. We may still be called on to follow our brothers to the grave, or they may soon have to shed their unavailing tears over us. The wife of our bosom may be as pious as Ruth or as Hannah, but her piety will not exempt her from that mortality which is the common lot of man, nor will her love for her husband cause him to live for ever. It is a difficult lesson to learn, brethren, but it is one which can never be learned too soon, that all our earthly comforts are merely lent to us for a season, and that an uncertain season ; that we may be required to part with them long- before we have ceased to love them ; that the prop may be knocked from under us, at the very moment when it seems the strongest, and we AT THE GRAVE OF LAZARUS. 369 most need it to bear our weight. Tims it evar has been, and it is for our good that thus it ever should be. We are ready to make idols of our blessings, even though we are aware of their frailty ; but we should cleave to them still more sinfully, if we knew that they were never to be removed. Our duty then is plain. We must cease to make flesh our arm. Let us love our children and our friends, but let us not lean on them ; let us not deem them essential to our hap- piness. God can make the Christian happy with- out the help of any of his creatures, and he must not deem himself a Christian, who is not satisfied with his God ; who is not content to lay his head on his heavenly Father's bosom and say, "This is my rest for ever. Here is the source of my blessedness, and the spring of my joy. What, though I be left childless and friendless on the earth ? My Saviour is not dead ; my Father has not ceased to be with me. What though all the streams be dried up ? The fountain of living waters is full, and as long as this fountain is open to me, I can be happy. I can drink of it, and forget my poverty and remember my misery no more." Here also is a lesson for those in whose families God is not feared or loved. .And it is mournful to think how many such families there are in this Christian land. The great mass of us VOL. I. Ji B 370 THE TEARS OF JESUS are conscious that the name of the Being who made us, is not honoured in our habitations. We do not call upon our households to worship him in the morning, nor to praise him in the evening. But this conduct is as much opposed to our own interest, as it is cruel to our families and ungrate- ful to our God ; for what shall we do, brethren, when trouble, disease, or death, comes into our habitations, and strips us of every thing we love? What shall we do, when we look around us for consolation, and, like Noah's dove, find no resting place even for the sole of our foot ? It is an easy thing to laugh at the Bible and despise the gospel in the hour of health and ease ; but health and ease will not last for ever. An hour of tri- bulation may come ; an hour in which we would give the world to have the faith and hope of the Christian ; to have that ark to flee to, which shelters him so peacefully amidst the storms of life ; to have but that simple belief in the Bible, that simple dependence on God, which we now make light of and perhaps turn into a jest. O if there is a foolish being in the universe, it is the man who finds himself living in a world so full of trouble as this, and yet despises the only thing which can support and comfort him under its sorrows ! II. Let us now proceed a step farther, and view AT THE GRAVE OF LAZARUS. 371 the tears of our Lord, not merely as those of a tender-hearted and benevolent man, but as the tears of the great Redeemer of the world. His sorrow undoubtedly arose in part, and perhaps principally, from those feelings which he possessed in common with his brethren ; but we must not forget that he was the Son of God, as well as the Son of man, and must conse- quently have had thoughts arise in his mind, as he looked on the grave of the departed Lazarus, into which no merely human mourner can enter. 1 . Of many of these sources of sorrow, we are unable to form the faintest conception ; but we may reasonably suppose that his tears were drawn from him partly by the view afforded him of the degradation of human nature. He was now standing near a grave, and with a mind such as his, he could not forget the original condition of the creature who was there turning to rottenness and dust. His thoughts must have gone farther back than the house of Mary. He must have contrasted the scene now before him with that which he once beheld in the garden of Eden, the earthly paradise of God. He remem- bered what man once was ; he thought of what he might still have been ; and as he looked on the tomb of Lazarus, he wept. And who, brethren, can seriously think of the B D 2 372 THE TEARS OF JESUS grave, and not see it to be, in this point of view, a most mournful spectacle ? It was not originally " the house appointed for all living." God did not design it as the end of all men. We chose it for ourselves. It was our own hand which im- planted the seeds of death in our frames, and made them the heirs of a loathsome corruption. When also we look on the two worlds between which the grave is situated, and view them as the habitations of our fallen race, our painful searchings of heart are not diminished. It is not a flowery path which leads us to the tomb, neither is the country beyond it always found to be a land of rest. We pass through many a scene of sorrow to this dreary home, and, in many instances, we find it to be only the way into a world of greater suffering and still keener an- guish. Who can contemplate the millions of mankind thus going century after century to the grave and thus issuing out of it, and not drop a compassionate tear over the awful degradation of our state ? Man indeed is guilty. No load of misery will ever outweigh his offences. But then the guilty may be pitied, and our compassion may be extended even to the sinful. It must be remembered also that our degraded state was more likely to affect Christ, than it is us. None can behold a stately building beaten down by violence, without being moved ; but it AT THE GRAVE OF LAZARUS. 373 is the architect, the man whose skill and industry raised the fabric, who weeps the most bitterly over its ruins. Now man was the workmanship of Christ. He built him at first a pure and holy temple for the residence of Jehovah. How then must his soul have been grieved when he beheld the work of his hands laid waste ! when he saw the building he had raised, forsaken by its great Inhabitant and made a desolation, retaining indeed amidst its ruins some faint traces of its original glory, but only enough to shew the greatness of its degradation ! 2. Christ might have been led to weep at the tomb of Lazarus by the unbelief and obstinacy of many who surrounded him. He had already performed many miracles and done many mighty works, in order to convince the Jews that he was indeed their long promised Messiah, but they still called him the carpenter's son, and refused to receive him as the Son of the Highest. But he did not abandon them. He was now about to perform in their sight a miracle of a still more extraordinary nature than any they had witnessed before ; one which seemed calculated to overcome the most deeply rooted prejudices, and to remove the most stubborn infidelity. He foresaw however that even this exertion of his power would be lost on the greater part of the multitude around him ; that A A 3 374 THE TEARS OF JESUS while some of them would be led to believe on him, others would only have their hatred against him increased, and be more earnest to effect his destruction. Hence perhaps he was troubled in spirit, and wept. It might indeed have been supposed that even the compassionate Jesus could not have wept over such obstinate sinners as these ; that he would have left them to the misery they chose, with emotions of indignation rather than of sorrow ; but he tenderly loved the Jews. He remembered that they were the children of Abra- ham, his ancient friend ; and he could not see them madly rushing on to destruction, without shedding over them the tear of pity. Though they were his enemies and were thirsting for his blood, he could not willingly abandon the house of Israel to the miseries prepared for them ; but, like a merciful judge, he wept over the obdurate crimi- nals whom justice required him to give up to vengeance. Indeed one of the chief and most constant sources of the Redeemer's sorrow while he dwelt on the earth, was the ingratitude which he received from the sinners whom he was endur- ing so much to save. " He came unto his own, and his own received him not;" and when he went to others, .he experienced the same treat- ment. They poured contempt on him, and would not take him for their Saviour and their Lord. AT THE GRAVE OF LAZARUS. 375 " He was despised and rejected of men ;" and it was this which made him so much "a man of sor- rows," and so deeply " acquainted with grief." We know not how much our own unbelief con- tributed to fill up that cup of sorrow, of which he drank. He foresaw how many of us would make light of him, and of all that he was about to do and suffer for our sakes ; how contemptu- ously we should treat his gospel, and how cruelly we should throw away our souls. Who can tell but that even when weeping at Bethany, he thought of some careless sinner now in this house of prayer ? some poor trifler who is now hearing with unconcern of his love and tears ? some hard- hearted transgressor who, rather than part with his follies and sins, will consent to lose heaven and his soul? Who can tell but that some of us might have caused the blessed Jesus to heave an additional sigh in this sorrowful hour, and have given to his troubled breast an additional pang? How is it then, brethren, that we ourselves are so little affected by that which affected Jesus so much ? How is it that while he wept over our contempt of his gospel, we can so often be warned of it, and yet never be moved ; we who are so deeply concerned in it, and on whose heads it is bringing down so much misery ? The reason is plain. We know not the value of salvation. 376 THE TEARS OF JESUS We know not the worth of our souls. Sin and the world hold undivided possession of our hearts, and we have not a serious thought to spare for eternity. These then were some of the probable causes of the tears which the Redeemer shed at the grave O of Lazarus. As a man, he wept over the sorrows of his brethren, at the loss of a friend, and from a contemplation of the instability of all human happiness. He wept as the Redeemer of men over the degradation of mankind, and the guilt and wretchedness of impenitent sinners. The first and most obvious inference we may draw from his tears is this Tenderness of heart is not inconsistent with greatness of mind. We see both these graces exemplified in the highest degree in the history before us, and throughout the whole course of the Redeemer's life. And yet many of the followers of Jesus have represented the lively emotions of sympathy as a weakness which, as Christians and men, we ought not to encourage. It is true that these emotions ought to be modified and duly regu- lated ; but as for suppressing the warm feelings of friendship, the workings of compassion, or the tears of pity, the religion of Christ requires not this at our hands. On the contrary, it calls upon us to cherish these affections; to send every AT THE GRAVE OF LAZARUS. 377 caviller against them to Bethany and Calvary, and bid him look on the Being who is weeping and dying there. How lovely a character is the character of Jesus Christ! Nothing more endears to us a man of exalted rank, than to see him entering into the sorrows of the poor and the mean ; but here is one weep- ing with the sorrowful, who is higher than the highest angel, and in comparison with whom the greatest of the sons of men is but as a worm or a moth. How is it then, brethren, that many of us think so meanly of this Jesus ? The great reason is this we love sin, and we therefore hate every thing which is opposed to it. If Christ did not wound our pride and condemn our practices ; if he sanctioned our opinions, our follies, and vices, in this world, and promised us something like a Mahometan Paradise in the next, all would be well; we should admire his character, and instead of pouring contempt on his gospel, his ministers, and his servants, we should uphold and applaud them all. We may infer, lastly, from the text, that they who are the friends of the compassionate Saviour, may jind in the tenderness of his heart a never failing source of encouragement and consolation. Where is that Jesus now, who once wept with 378 THE TEARS OF JESUS. Mary and Martha at the grave of their brother ? " He is exalted to the right hand of the Majesty on high." How is he there employed ? " He ever liveth to make intercession for us." But does he remember the feelings and workings of his mind when on earth ? Does Bethany still live in his memory ? It does, and all the sorrow and anguish he experienced there. The Bible tells us that he still retains the same human nature that he had then, and is touched as deeply with our infirmities, and can enter as experiment- ally into our sorrows. This thought is an encouraging and blessed one, brethren, and cannot hold too high a place in our minds. The more it is cherished within us, the more shall we enjoy of the blessedness of religion ; the more peaceful shall we be in tribu- lation, and the more thankful in prosperity. It will make our heavenly Friend still dearer to our hearts, increase our longings after the heaven in which he dwells, and give a new and unspeakable sweetness to our communion with God. LONDON: IBOTSON AND 1'ALMER, FRINTLHS, SAVOY STREET, STRAND. By the same Author, SERMONS, preached in ST. JAMES'S CHAPEL, Clap- ham, Surrey. Third Edition. Price 10*. 6d. CONTENTS Sermon I. The Cities of Refuge. II. The Christian in the Wilderness. III. The Multitude fed in the Wilderness. IV. The Lost Sheep brought Home. V. The Complaint of St. Paul. VI. The final Glory of the Church. VII. The History of Jonah's Gourd. VIII. The risen Jesus questioning Peter's love. IX. The Christian taught to pray. X. The Peace of God keeping the Heart. XL The Visit of the Wise Men of the East to Christ. XII. The Plague in the Wilderness XIII. The Rich Man and Lazarus. XIV. The Prayer of Christ for his Church. XV. The Baptism of Christ. XVI. The Unbe- lief of Thomas. XVII. The redeemed Sinner made a Temple of God. XVIII. The Woman of Canaan. XIX. The Promise of God to the Israelites at Sinai. PAROCHIAL SERMONS, preached at GLASBUBY, Brecknockshire. Fifth Edition. Price 10*. 6d. CONTENTS Sermon I. The End of Man's earthly History. II. The Labourers standing idle at the eleventh Hour. III. The Building of the Heavenly Temple. IV. The Vicissitudes of Human Life. V. The Prayer of Moses for a View of God. VI. The Two Builders. VII. The Unbelief of the Samaritan Lord. VIII. IX. X. The Widow of Nain. XI. XII. Sins remembered by God. XIII. Sins blotted out by God. XIV. The Character of the Pardoned. XV. The afflicted David a par- doned Sinner. XVI. The Message sent to St. Paul in the Storm. XVII. The Condescension of God. XVIII. The Foolish Virgins. XIX. XX. XXI. The Rock at Horeb. XXII. The Duties of Chris- tians towards the Heathen. A SELECTION of PSALMS and HYMNS for Public Worship. Second Edition. Price 2s. 6d. THE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW. Series 9482