il A It PRINCETON, N J. No. Case, Div No. Shelf, No. Book, -SeG4K)-ftJB-^ The- John M. Iircl>s Donatioii. V, 2- DOCTRINAL SERMONS. SERMONS OP REV. ICHABOD S. SPENCER, D.D. LATE PASTOR OF THE SECOND PRESBYTERIAN CIIXJECn, BROOKLYN. L. I, AUTHOR OF "A PASTOR'S SKETCHES." A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE, By EEV. J. M. SHERWOOD. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. NEW YORK: PUBLISHED BY M. W. DODD Corner of Spruce St. and City Hall Square 1855. Entered, according to Act of Congrress, in the year 1855, by HANNAH SPENCER, a Clerk>3 Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York. TnOMAS E SMITH, BILLIN AND EUOTHER, STEREOTYPER AND ELECTROTYPER, PRINTERS, 82 & 84 Reekman St., N. Y. 20 North William St. CONTENTS. • • •- I. PAGE The Light of Naturjj 1 II. Vanity of the "World's "Wisdom 29 III. The Truth held in Unrighteousness 59 IV. The Magnificence of God 83 V. The Divine Character Pre-eminent 99 On Knowing God 120 VII. "Wisdom of God in Mystery 136 VIII. P^lection 154 IX. Atonement 1'73 X. Mystery Appropriate in Redemption 192 XI. Legal and Evangelical Justification Distinguished 211 VI CONTENTS. XII. PAGE Vanity of Man if not Immortal 229 XIII. The Mercy of God 249 XIV. The Mercy of God, continued 266 XV. God no Pleasure in the Death of Sinners 285 ' XVI. God no Pleasure in the Death of Sinners, continued 305 XVII God no Pleasure in the Death of Sinners, continued 325 XVIII. Help in God for Sinners 345 XIX. Forgiveness 360 XX. The Depths of Salvation 315 XXI. Sketch of the Plan of Salvation 391 XXII. Christ Stricken 412 XXIII. Christ Delivered up 432 XXIV. Rejoicing of Faith, 449 XXV. The Lamb Slain Worshiped ln Heaven 464 THHOLOGIOlL J The Law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.— Psalm xrx. 7. npHERE is sometHng not a little remarkable in the -*- manner in whicli this expression is introduced bj the inspired author. He had been up on the mount of contemplation. Standing on its loftiness, his mind felt the grandeur of the things around him. He was wrapped in the study of the stupendous works of God ; and on that lofty eminence, where every breath must be poetry, he breathes forth a strain of sublimities and beauties, like one of the fondest admirers of the works of nature. The very first thought is poetry ; it is the genius rush of a lofty imagination. Hear him : The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handy work. His mind took in the compass of the heavens. It roved among the worlds of light hung out on the firmament above him. These worlds, their order, beauty, and movement, were instructive. They told him something : day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. They told every body. These heavens, these illuminated worlds above us, suns and stars, carry their tuition to every child of mortality : there is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line (of in- struction, their lucid lesson) is gone out through all the earthy 8 THE LIGHT OF NATURE. and their words to the end of the world. Yes, for in them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun^ which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it, and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof Thus he talks about the heavens. He is moved bj their sublimity ; and commends their in- struction in a style of impassioned ardor, which that Deism, that so much extols the light of nature, can very well afford to admire. But he was no Deist. After all this poetry about nature, the heavens, the tabernacle of the sun, he knew what it was all good for, and knew where its utility stopped. He comes back from this venturesome flight to read a lesson in another place : The LAW of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. It was not in the material heavens, with all their grandeur, that he found the lesson of perfection. He turned from them to the Law of the Lord, and there he found it. This LAW is perfect : it converts the soul. This is the remarkable con- nection and instructive sense of the text. History furnishes us with many remarkable confirma- tions of its accuracy. Among all that poetic excursive- ness, which has delighted to roam over the "" works of Nature" (as they are called) ; and all that sedate philos- ophizing, which has often boasted of its pure reason- ableness and its practical utility, there have been no well- attested instances of a regenerated spirit in the poet or the philosopher, coming from the influences of the mere book of Nature. Poetry could sing in life and health ; but her voice faltered and her lip quivered in death! Philosophy could speculate, and then expire in despair I Human nature never took a promise from even the taber- THE LIGHT OF NATUEE. 9 nacle of the sun, that would do any good to a dying man. The damps of the sepulcher put out its light; neither poetry nor philosophy can make it burn and shed light on that dark pathway by which a mortal travels to an- other world. The truth is, these " works of Nature" were not made to last: they shall be burnt up ; and a reasonable man ought not, therefore, to expect them to teach him lessons for his immortality. They may furnish him use- ful hints while here ; but they never put into his hand or his heart a promise to carry out of the world with him. They may aid his piety, too, if he has gone to the foundation of the Prophets and Apostles, and, by yielding to Divine truth and seeking the Holy Spirit, has got his soul converted. But without this, the " light of Nature" will never cultivate piety. It never did. Hope has ransacked history for an example. So has Deism. So has a proud philosophy. But they have found none. The world has been barren of piety wherever there has been no revelation of God, or none of its light remaining among the glimmerings of tradition. Man needs the Bible to convert him to God and fit him to die. This is our theme : the absolute necessity of special communications from God himself, to teach human nature those truths about God, about man's self, his duties, and his destination, which are necessary to his virtue, peace, happiness, and stable hope. God's Word, as sole authority and guide in religion, is, in some places around us, getting jostled out of its place; and religion is judged of, its regeneration and cast of character, not by inspired thoughts, so much as by something to tickle human fancy and please human pride. Among statesmen, politicians, there seems to be 1* 10 THE LIGHT OF NATUEE. a growing disposition to forget Divine Eevelation, tlie just foundation of law and obligation, and to exalt human wisdom and dreams about buman progress into its place. Our scientific and literary institutions, not always destitute of pride, nor always superior to a passion for novelty which endangers truth, fond of speculation, and fond of talking about " the progress of the human mind," have some of them too much forgotten the difference betwixt human science and divine teaching — forgotten where the one ends and the other begins — forgotten, too, that religion is not a human science, and can not, therefore, be improved like all human sciences. A growing error seems to be rapidly creeping into many writings, professedly religious, and which, formed for youthful minds, are the more perilous to truth and the salvation of souls. " The Light of Nature^'' is an idea that beams out largely in some of these modern produc- tions. Their authors do not, indeed, all of them, o,ffirm its sufficiency to save men without the Bible ; but they represent it as teaching many fundamental truths, and their mode of thought is such as to invite us to study re- ligion in the Bible, only so far as Nature confirms it ; — while they are so much afraid of offending a disguised infidelity, or half infidel philosophizing, that they will not tell the truth about reason's pretended '^discov- eries," and plainly call them what they are, — pre- tences^ impositions^ every one. The danger is, that our delicate, and gentle, and illustrative, and what is called " philosophical and natural" method of teaching Chris- tianity, will utterly undermine her foundations, and con- vert her so-called disciples into a race of Deists. We maintain that the Light of Nature is insufficient : THE LIGHT OF NATUKE. 11 Eeason reading it will not do. Man needs an immediate revelation beyond Nature. Let us see. We know of only tlnee great sources of proof to bear on this proposition. Let us examine tliem, and decide the question. I. The first is Fad^ History. We call your attention to what men have done in studying religion by the Light of Nature, through the powers of their own reason and without any special revelation from God. Glance at the heathen world. Let travelers tell you. Ask the missionaries of the Cross now scattered round the world. What will all these tell you ? Do they say that the heathen know God ? that they have any just ideas of his providence, of his government, or their own duty ? that they have any tolerable system of morals ? nay, that they have any tolerable notions of those very works of nature, which are so much relied upon as going far to teach them religion? It is all contrary to this. These people are in gross darkness. And, what is very noticeable, that which they call religion is the very worst thing there is among them ! (not universally, I admit, but generally.) Their religion is baseness! It is cruelty ! It is crime! Their very gods have the attributes of devils ! And this is the " religion of Nature !" Now travel back into heathen antiquity. It has always been so. Not a nation can be named, among all those that have come up in the long march of centuries, who ever had any clear ideas of the living and true God, or the duties they owed their Creator. What could any one of them tell you about the soul of man? Had thej^ found out whether it was mortal or immortal ? Did they know what holiness is ? what is " the chief end of man" ? Not one ! Your child that answers the 12 THE LIGHT OF NATtJKE. first question in the Catecliism knows more theology than thej. The plain matter of fact is, these nations without the Kevelation of Grod never had any natural religion I Their religion was all it?matural, monstrous, absurd, as distant from the teachings of the Light of Nature, as it was from the meekness and sweet hopes of a blessed Christianity. Eeason has failed^ there ; always failed, and every where ! The Light of Nature has been no better than nothing ! Not a people can be found, on the wide map of nations and during the long roll of centuries, whose religion, without the Bible, ever did them any good ; made them any better to live, or any happier in dying. Be it remembered, they had no natural religion. Their religion was all t^?inatural, unreasonable, superstition, vanity, and lies, which never could make men any better. One thing more. Scholars have been accustomed to extol some of the sages of heathen antiquity. I will not say too highly. There were master-minds among them. Aristotle, Plato, Euclid, Cicero, deserve still their stand- ing in the libraries of the learned. But mark : When they studied science, they excelled ; when they studied religion, they were fools ! They could not take a step rightly. They stumbled and fell at the very threshold. Cicero says, in his celebrated treatise, '' Concerning the nature of the Gods," " those who affirm that there are such beings as Gods, have such strange varieties and contradictions of opinion, that it is impossible to classify them." On the primary article of natural religion, there- fore, the very being of* a God, these master-spirits were full of absurdities, conjectures, and confusion. They knew nothing, certainly ; not an article ; not a single THE LIGHT OF NATURE. 13 truth. If heathenism ever had a creed, it was a creed of folhes, absurdities, and contradictions. But still, scholars will call to mind some of the digni- fied sentiments scattered through the classics ; express- ions of high morality, as they call them, and some ex- pressions which sound like piety ; and modern religious literature is making a foolish use of them. True, there are such expressions. In reference to them, we have these seven things to say ; and scholars will allow us to condense when we answer their assumption. 1. All these expressions put together, all that scholars can rake up, are not worth so much for the religion of man, as these four words in the Bible, — there is one God. 2. Most of these ideas so much commended came, prob- ably, not from the Light of Nature, but from tradition, handed down from ISToah or Abraham; or they were derived from intercourse with the Jews. They could have been so derived ; they probably were. The advo- cate for natural religion has no right to assume that they were deductions of reason made from the Light of Kature. It is more probable that they were derived from the Jews. Pythagoras traveled much in the East. He lived for years on Mount Lebanon, where surely he must have learnt much about religion from the people of Grod. Herodotus, the father of history, traveled. Plato traveled. The Jews themselves were scattered the world over, and carried their religion along with them. Horace sneers at their credulity ; " credat Judeus, non ego." And it is a matter of astonishment to any good scholar, how it could have come to pass, that the learned, at least among the heathen, were as ignorant of religious truth as they were. The Christian knows very well how it came to pass ; he knows they did not like to retain God in 14 THE LIGHT OF NATUKE. their knowledge. (Eom. i. 21.) They lost as sinners what they had learnt as scholars, by testimony and tradition. 3. The knowledge which men need to have of Grod, if it had been gained (as it was not) by the scholars and sages among the heathen, and gained from the Light of Nature by reason, would not prove that to be a sufficient light for the religion of man. All men need to know God. It would not be enough, when we are inquiring, for the sake of the whole race of humanity, after some sufficient guide in religion, if you should be able to hunt up some instances of great men, of great minds, great leisure, great opportunities, who have found such a guide. Little men die, as well as great ones. A man does not need to be a scholar in order to have a soul. You must not, then, bring up your scholars as examples. Here every human being has an equal interest. If there lives a man, or ever did, who, by the common exercise of his powers, cannot attain the knowledge of God, that fact is fatal to the scheme of a natural religion. Such knowledge needs to be as universal as souls. It needs to be clear to the weakest understanding. 4. It needs to be well proved. A guess is bad foot-hold for an immortal soul ! And if you could make it out (as you cannot) that some of your sages guessed right, that will not do ; that will not demonstrate the suffi- ciency of the Light of Nature. 5. On a matter of so much moment as our chief interests, our duties, our destiny in another world, and how our God will judge us, we can not affi^rd to have a single hngering particle of uncertainty on vital points. If we have, it may be fatal to us. We may imagine we are pleasing God when we are displeasing him. We may think we are going in the way of life while we are only on THE LIGHT OF NATURE. 15 the down-hill of perdition. The uncertainty, the lack of proof among your sages, makes chaff of their speculations. 6. Our knowledge needs to be extensive. A hint or two flung out in the dark cannot answer our purpose. Those other points, of which we are ignorant, may be the vital ones ; the very points essential to our duty and our everlasting peace. 7. If scholars will search a little, they will find dem- onstrations, thick and dark enough, of the entire ineffi- cacy of all this boasted knowledge of heathen sages and scholars, to turn them from the grossest indecencies and immoralities ; things so gross, that there is not a promis- cuous assembly in Christendom that would endure even the mention of them. The light which only leads to such a religion cannot claim any excellence or even efficacy. These seven ideas are enough to silence every word that can be spoken about some of the expressions of ancient heathens, which sound like religion, and which are taken to prove the great extent to which nature can conduct men in the knowledge of God and their own duties and destinies. JSTow let us gather up the substance of all this, and bring this argument to a conclusion. The substance is Fact — History — the record of human nature. And it is this : mankind never have learnt any thing about true religion from the Light of Nature — ^not an article, not the very being of a God, not the most necessary vital truths. This is the premises. The conclusion is irresistible ; they never can ham in that way. It is folly to maintain, that men in all ages, and of all degrees of intellectual advancement, can learn what no man ever yet did. The revelation of God is, therefore, indispensable, and indis- pensable every where. The sage, the scholar among his 16 THE LIGHT OF NATUEE. books/ needs it, as really and as mucli, as tlie boor over his mattock. All fact — tlie history of ha man nature, proves that men can learn nothing at all of religion by the Light of Nature alone. II. The second source of proof is the Scriptures them- selves. We call your attention to the fallacy of those ideas about the Light of Nature, into which so many of the well-meaning, but weak, (in the Church and out of it,) have fallen. If we have in one article corrected their history, let us have a second to correct their Scripture interpretations. These men open the Bible and read, — the heavens declare the glory of God. But they forget, while they thus summon Scripture witness, two very important matters. One is^ that the Scriptures do not say that men are converted by the declaration of these heavens. They attribute conversion, all religion, to the Divine revelation, accompanied by the Divine Spirit. The other is, that the Scriptures never say that men see and under- stand what these visible heavens declare. Our stripling philosophers, and poet Christians, proud of their so-called " Light of Nature," and disposed to teach Christianity to men very much as they would teach botany or astronomy, must not think to press the Bible into their service, to make it countenance their errors. It neither says that Nature's light converts men, (makes them relig- ious,) nor that men understand nature. The fallacy of the conclusions drawn from Scripture by these dreamy natural religionists, may be detected by any example. How often is that passage in the Epistle to the Romans quoted, only to be perverted for bolster- ing up a conclasion directly the opposite of its own. The invisible things ofhim^ from the creation of the world^ are THE LIGHT OF KATURE. 17 clearly seen, even Ms eternal power and godhead. What is the Bible conclusion ? It is this : so, then, they are with- out excuse. Excuse for what? For having a knowl- edge of God ? That would make the apostle talk like a a madman ! No. Without excuse for not knowing God. But what is the conclusion of our poetic and naturaliz- ing Christians? It is that the Light of Nature, the creation, the things that are made, are quite sufficient to give men a knowledge of God! And this conclusion they take as a foundation for theories^ and songs, and lectures; though directly in the face of the conclusion stated in the text itself. The text plainly affirms the practical inefficacy of the works of God to teach men religious truth. It says they are not taught — they are without excuse. They are only condemned, instead of being enlightened and saved. They do not read nature rightly. This text and its misinterpretation may stand as an example of all the passages in the Bible which have been pressed into this bad and mistaken service. Every one of them has been perverted. The case is simply this : the Bible tells us of the evidences of himself which God hath imprinted upon the works of his hands. It does not tell us, that men, unaided by another revelation, have ever read one of these evidences rightly, or ever can. It does not tell us that man, corrupted, fallen, blinded by sin and in love with darkness, can ever read and under- stand those lessons of light, which illuminate the heavens, and lie, more or less clear, over all the works of God. Mistaken men have concluded that, because there is light in Nature, therefore men could see it. They for- got that men had no eyes ! The Scriptures, and God their author, did not forget it. This Bible came out 18 THE LIGHT OF NATUKE. from behind tlie curtain wbicb. hides invisibles, to open the eyes of the hlind^ and teach men how to read those lessons about God, which are scattered over creation, and echoed so often in the language of Divine Providence. Without this special Kevelation, however effective these lessons might be to a sinless man, to link him to the Deity in light and love^ thej have utterly failed to profit sinful man. These lessons are clear. We will not yield to the most poetic naturalist in admiration of them. For our part, we cannot conceive how God Almighty could have fitted up a material machinery which should have more clearly unfolded his wonderful power and wisdom, than this moving, visible universe. But men see this machinery and know not God. The sun is in his pavil- ion above them by day, and the stars roll in the gor- geous heavens of midnight ; but men look out upon all these things of materiality and movement, and, until the Bible tells them how to understand them and reason about them, and guards them from error at every step, they never learn a single religious truth rightly I And the clearness, the multitude and glory of these bright lessons about God, only ought to serve to con- vince us, therefore, to what an awful depth of degra- dation and darkness sin has flung man. The firmament that bends above him — ^the sun in his pavilion of glory, does him no good I He can see it all ; he does see it ; he has seen it for centuries ; he has seen it from New Zea- land to Nova Zembla — from Labrador to Patagonia; and, without the Bible, has remained an idolater still ! The Bible never says that the Light of Nature alone can lead man a single step in religion. It says only that men ought to be instructed by it, but are not. Let not our THE LIGHT OF NATURE. " 19 moral philosopliers, and our tasteful Christians, misinter- pret it. Let them remember that the Bible appeals to the works of Nature, for the purposes of impression^ not for those of instruction — for devotion, but not for doc- trine. in. The third source of proof is found in the incon- clusiveness of the arguments employed by the disciples of Kature. We take it for granted, that they have done the best they could ; and if their arguments are not suf- ficient, no sufficient ones are to be found. Turn, there- fore, your attention to those premises, processes and con- clusions of reasoning, by which the Light of Nature is said to be shown as sufficient to teach a reasonable man some important religious truths. This is a wide field. We cannot examine the whole of it. We select only a few prominent matters. Take six articles. 1. The existence of one God, the Creator and Euler of the world. Men have said, that this is one of the plainest truths of natural religion, demonstrable without the Bible. I deny this assumption. I demand the proof. Speak, thou disciple of Keason : tell me how you know there is one God, and not twenty, till the Bible has taught you. The disciple of reason gives me this answer : He says there is a unity of design in all the works of crea- tion and providence ; and he says, it is just, reasonable, unavoidable, to infer, from this unity, the unity of God, the Author of creation and providence. But I am not ready for that inference : three difficulties lie in my way. Lift out these stumbling-blocks from my path, and I will go along with you. First Difficulty. I do not see that unity of design, 20 THE LIGHT OF NATURE* (unless you allow me to take tlie Bible explanations.) I never did. I cannot. What do I see? I see trees growing np in the forest; but, lightnings rive them! hurricanes dash them down ! Where is the unity there ? I see health and beauty mantling the cheek of youth ; but they fade away while I look ! disease, death have done their dreadfal work ! Where is the unity there ? I see nations living in harmony, and happiness growing out of it ; but soon my ear is startled with the trumpet- summons, and the next post brings me the tale of blood, under some such name as Cerro-Grordo, or Marathon, or Waterloo, or Bosworth fields ! — These things do not look like unity. The world is full of them. And I am ready, therefore, to fling into the face of this disciple of Keason, this strange question : Is it not more reasonable to infer, that there are two Deities, a good one and a bad one ? He is dumb. He cannot answer that ques- tion, till he^ calls the Bible to his aid. The Second Difficulty about the inference of the unity of God, from the unity of design seen in the operations of Nature, is the link that joins these two unities to- gether. I do not see it. If there was a unity of design seen in the world, how would that demonstrate the unity of God ? Why, says the reasoner, (very acute,) " dif- ferent Deities could not harmonize." Ah ! who told you that ? How do you know it ? If there are twenty Gods, must they necessarily quarrel ? especially if they are good ones ? Why is it at all unreasonable to sup- pose that several Deities should perfectly agree and act together ? The reasoner is baffled again ! He can not lift the stone of stumbling out of my way, till the Bible puts the lever into his hand. The Third Difficulty is, that men without the Bible THE LIGHT OF NATURE. 21 never made this inference. They never did. I defy you ; you can not find it. If the unity of God is such a plain inference of common sense, how came it about that common sense never made this inference alone? The disciple of Eeason is confounded again. He cannot answer. This fact annihilates his theory. "We dismiss this article. Unaided reason cannot prove there is but one God. Man needs the Bible. 2. A second Article ; the attributes of Deity. The same processes of examination may be applied to all of them. "We name two, as examples — immutability and goodness. Firsts the immutability of God. How does the Light of Nature demonstrate this attribute ? It needs to be demonstrated. If God is one thing to-day and another thing to-morrow, we have no firm foothold — no ground of hope or peace. But reason alone can not demonstrate it. The government of the world certainly appears un- stable. Examine it. Ancient cities have crumbled down : arts have been lost : oceans sometimes gain upon the dry land, and sometimes the dry land pushes back the ocean : barbarism reigns now, where once science built her temples : the bones of animals are dug out of the earth, belonging to races now utterly extinct, per- haps : aye, and a sensation of mournfulness comes over the heart from the distant heavens, when we remember the lost Pleiad ! There is no rock here to stand upon, to demonstrate the unchangeableness of God. Eeason can not prove it. Second; the goodness of God is a still greater diffi- culty. For, behold ! Wars follow peace : famine treads on the heels of plenty : earthquakes shake down cities, and, amid their shock, all that felicity which you relied 22 THE LIGHT OF NATURE. •upon to prove the goodness of God, perishes in an hour ! The rich yellow harvest, ripe for the sickle, seems like a proof of goodness ; but what will you say, when mil- dews have blasted it, or agues hinder the strong men from the gathering ? The Light of Nature cannot tell us, how a God of infinite goodness can inflict so many woes upon the world. And if you take a step more and try to tell, the existence of the very moral evil you mention, as deserving chastisements, introduces you into a worse difficulty. How came sin ? How does its very existence comport with the goodness of the Deity ? The mere disciple of Keason cannot touch the question I he stands aghast and dumb ! and he will stand thus forever, if revelation does not help him ! We dismiss this article. Unaided Eeason staggers, when attempting to demonstrate the attributes of God. She needs the Bible. 3d. A third article — the mode of the Divine existence. K the knowledge of the true God is essential to our religion, to our duty and happiness, we ought to know something about the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Creation says not a word about this, — Providence not a word, — Eeason alone never even ventured a conjecture. And if the reasoner should affirm, that this knowledge of the Trinity is not necessary to true religion, we might beg his permission to affirm, that it is ; and who, then, shall decide betwixt us ? We need the Bible to decide, after all. But, how does he know it is not necessary ? How little may a man know about God, and yet have true re- ligion ? Whatever he might respond to this question, the great fact remains, that the Light of Nature gives THE LIGHT OF NATURE. 23 not even tlie faintest glimmering about the Trinity of the Godhead. Man needs the Bible. 4:th Article — the knowledge of God's will. — Probably none but an Atheist will deny, that, in order to our hav- ing any religion, we need to know the will of God ; and that our religion must consist somewhat, at least, in a designed conformity to that will. But Nature's light does not teach it to me. It does not tell me how to worship my Maker, or how to act towards mor- tals like myself. If any one says I must seek a knowledge of God's will in his works, I look abroad on the earth and upward to the heavens, and con- fess that I behold splendid and innumerable proofs of power, of design, of wisdom unfathomable. I see how God wants matter to act ; but what good does that do to my immortal soul ? I do not see how God wants mind to act. His works do not tell me what to do to secure the favor of God, and my own eternal hap- piness. I cannot find in them the record of his will. I want his favor. If there is a God who hath made me, and who hath spread out these visible heavens and laid the foundations of the earth beneath my feet, I dare not have him up in arms against me ! But wliere^ in the Light of Nature, do I perceive any atonement for sin ? — — where any proof of its possibility, or of its acceptance ? where any ground of certainty, that God will not yet embark all his power to make me miserable, do what I may ? Nowhere ! nowhere ! The whole Universe has not a hint visible to man ! Man needs the Bible. 5 th Article — the penalty of transgressing against the will of God, and the results of conformity to it. 24 THE LIGHT OF NATURE. If I am to act in religion, in an intelligent manner, I wisli to know what is before me. If I act on a mistake, my mistake may be fatal. If I act on a mistake, my religion may all be false. Penalties and rewards form an important part of a system of moral government ; and the governed need to know something about them, Now, what says the Light of Nature ? Not a syllable ! Felicity, it is true, as a general thing, follows one class of actions in this life, and infelicity another. But I wish to know if this is all. If not, what rewards and punishments are reserved in another world, and how long the one and the other are going to last. If your conjecture should whisper in my ear that punishment will come to an end, my fears, my hopes will both urge the inquiry, how can I be certain, then, that rewards will not come to an end ? show me some bond of security to spread over my eternity ! You perceive we are afloat — out of sight of land ; and thick darkness is around us, not a star to twinkle on our midnight, when we study these matters in the mere school of Reason ! Man needs the Bible to give him unfoldings of futurity. Yes, of futurity altogether : for the 6th article is, the utter insufficiency of Nature's light to demonstrate even the immortality of the soul. Such a demonstration, the disciples of Reason tell us, is to be found in its capacities. Their argument is this : these capacities are not fully unfolded here, and the Creator never would have formed them, to have them perish at death. But this is no proof. It is miserable conjecture, and nothing but conjecture — a mere assump- tion. Besides, there are thousands of things, having valuable properties, which are never permitted to be un- THE LIGHT OF NATURE. 25 folded. Seeds rot. Gold is hidden in tlie bosom of the earth. Not human beings only, but brute ones, die in infancy. And does the reasoner tell us, that these seeds, this gold, these perished young brutes, are going to have an immortality for the unfolding of their proper- ties ? And more : talk about valuable properties ? what are our httle capacities to the infinite God? If he should annihilate us, he could easily fill our place with more noble beings. Where does Nature tell us he will not do so ? But the disciples of Keason muster a little poetry, and tell us of " This pleasing hope, this fond desire, This longing after immortality." And this desire for perpetual existence, they take as demonstration that the soul is immortal. The argument runs thus : God would not have implanted such a desire to mock it with disappointment. The argument is weak. Three ideas are each one of them enough to overthrow it : First, it is only an assumption. It does not belong to man to tell what God would not do. Second, this very desire for immortality may be one of the fruits of sin : Nature does not prove it is not, and how can she prove that the desire itself may not fall under the displeasure of God ? And the third idea is, that men have other longings, besides that after immor- tality, w-hich God does utterly disappoint. They long for power, for honor, for wealth ; and the longing often goes for nothing. Death finds them longing to live longer ; and if the longing could demonstrate the immortality of the soul, it would demonstrate the immortality of the body too ; and we should have few friends to bury and 2 26 THE LIGHT OF NATURE. few tombs to build. And if it should be granted, tbat the longing proves tbere is an immortality somewhere^ it does not prove tbat immortality is for me. It may be denied to me, as are many tilings I long for. But again, these disciples of Eeason resort to "philoso- phy," (as they call it,) and tell us the soul must be im- mortal because it is " immaterial " — a spirit, and cannot perish. This argument might be sufiiciently answered by asking, if it applies to all spirit? to the ox in his stall, and the oyster in his bed of mud ? are their spirits to be immortal ? and by asking, if it just brings us down to a level with the theology of the poor Indian — " Who thinks, admitted to that equal sky, \. His faithful dog shall bear him company " ? Is the immortality of man on a level with the immortal- ity of horses, in this natural religion? But we have another answer. Our spirits came from God. He can annihilfite them if he please : at least, Nature's light is unable to show that he can not, and unable to show that he will not cast back our immaterial spirits into their original non-existence. Perhaps he has some unknown, but wise purpose to answer by us for a little while ; and then will order that we exist no more ! Where, in Nature, do you find any thing to demonstrate the con- trary? Nowhere! God has not assured us by this earth, or these heavens, that the immaterial spirit shall not perish for ever ! And once, once the boastful "reign of reason " did write over the entrance to the grave-yards the strange words — " death is an eternal sleep ! " It was an impious falsehood ; but its authors were the disciples of "reason" and "philosophy," and talked proudly about the advance of mind. Man needs the Bible to teach him his immortality. THE LIGHT OF NATUKE. 27 We have done. As mucli as possible we have con- densed these arguments. You see how it is. The history of what man has done in attaining religious knowledge without the Bible's aid, by the mere Light of Nature ; the use which the Bible itself attributes to that light; and the weak, sophistical, and unsatisfactory arguments of Keason about religion, all of them put together, not enough to furnish the least satisfaction to sinful and dying man ; demonstrate to us the insufficiency of Nature, and our need of the Word of God. Speculation will not do. You must have faith to take God at his word, and die on the pillow of the promises. The real utility of all the Light of Kature on the subject of religion consists in this : that it demonstrates its own insufficiency for teaching us a single important truth, and thus turns us over to the Word of God ; and having done so, shines as a constant witness, and every where to impress the lessons of Bible-teaching upon us. It strikes the Infidel dumb, and aids the devotions of the Christian, living or dying. But alone it teaches nothing. It never did. God never said it could. And its reasonings, proudly called in the schools " science" and " philos- ophy," vanish into smoke when we touch them. That philosophy is good for nothing. It cannot teach relig- ion. All it can do is to demonstrate its own darkness, and turn you over to the Word of God for every truth and every certainty. You will never read God's world rightly, till his Word teaches you how. After it has taught you, you may gather proofs of religion from Nature, which you could not gather before. If we take his Word first to teach us, we may understand the Light of Nature rightly, and may derive some advantages by appealing to these heavens 28 THE LIGHT OF NATURE. whicli declare the glory of God. The lesson is in Nature ; but Nature is a sealed book to a sinner. Alone, thoug:li it may silence a skeptic, it cannot satisfy a soul. If we do not take God's Word to guide us, we shall grope our way to eternity in tlie dark. Eeason cannot support the staggering footsteps of humanity on the dark mountains of death. She has no Christ to tell of, no atonement, no pardon, no firm foothold on immortal rock, no friend to take us from the grasp of death upward to " Jerusalem, our happy home." Man needs the Bible. Under lucid skies men are perishing without it. The Light of Nature does not suffice to make them wise, or good, or happy ; to pacify conscience, or light "up the eternal world with the certain- ties of a blessed hope. But, the Law of the Lord is per- fect^ converting the soid D'aiiitg; ot t|i£ ^^torU's ^^lisiJom. For after that in the wisdom of God the -world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that be- lieve. — 1 Corinthians, i. 21. rpHE grandeur of Christianity and its value very mucli consist in the two facts, that it reveals a peculiar system and accomplishes peculiar effects. Christianity is unlike every thing else. It is not a matter of nature, and is not to be explained by nature. It is a miracle from beginning to end ; it is all miracle. It is an inter- position of God, doing what he has no where else done, and among the ravages of sin setting up the signals of recovery. He who approaches this system, therefore, either to understand it or be saved by it, must not approach it as he approaches an ordinary subject. He must give to it its own high place and the distinction of its own high peculiarity, else he cannot be saved by it — he cannot understand it. This idea enters into the text before us. It pervades it. The apostle draws a distinction betwixt the attempts of men and the revelation of God. Such attempts, without revelation, accomplished nothing ; the world by wisdom knew not God. This was one side of the matter. On the back of this failure came the other side: it 80 VANITY OF THE WORLD'S WISDOM. pleased God hy the foolishness of PREACHING to save them that believe. This was no failure. The thing was ac- complished by preaching which could not be accom- plished by all the wisdom of men. A new system came in. Divine revelation was different from all human wisdom, and its results were different. The general idea of the text, therefore, is the peculiar superiority of Christianity over all human Science on the subject of religion. But, in order to understand the meaning of the apostle, let us, I. Explain the terms and clauses of the text. II. Let us explain and demonstrate the general prin- ciple it lays down — the superiority of Revelation. III. Let us glance at some items of application. I. In explaining the terms of the text, let us take them in their order. In the wisdom of God: This clause is employed here just to account for a thing mentioned in the next. It was by the wisdom of God^ that the world by ivisdom hneio not God. A large portion of mankind had been left for centuries, (as some are left still,) destitute of Divine Revelation, to try their power and follow the dictates of their own boasted reason. The apostle gives no other account of this, than that it was done by the wisdom of God. He does not assign any reason for it. Probably he did not know any. He knew how far to go in his explanations, and where to stop. He does not speculate : he merely states a matter of historic fact, and says this occurred by the wisdom of God. It was a matter of Divine sovereignty and Divine wisdom ; a thing of the Infinite One, and not to be complained of, or even understood, except as a naked fact. VANITY OF THE WORLD's WISDOM. 81 Why men were left then, and some are left now, with- out revelation to try the powers of their own reason, is a mystery we cannot penetrate. Paul did not try to penetrate it. He only refers it to the wisdom of God, and leaves it there. This is characteristic of him. I do not recollect a single instance in all his Epistles wherein he attempts to speculate. He explains ; he reasons like a giant to demonstrate the great doctrines of Christianity ; he embarks all his severe logic to convict men of sin and persuade them to fly to Christ ; but in reference to any of the matters which he discusses, I recollect no instance wherein he ventures a conjecture, or attempts a single step of unfolding, by any reasoning powers of his own, a single step beyond the revelation which was given to him. He knew the peculiarity of Christianity, and was willing to let it remain peculiar. He did not aim to level it down to the reason, the sciences, the philosophy of men. Nobody ever knew better than Paul knew how much the feelings of human nature will sometimes rise in opposition to facts transpiring under the Divine government, and in opposition, too, to the doctrines of Divine grace. But in all such cases, the apostle's answer is just like the clause in the text before us ; he refers the matter to the wisdom of Ood. If, for example, he is pro- claiming the Divine sovereignty in election, and a man chooses so to pervert or misapply the doctrine as to cast off the matter of personal accountability, ivhy doth God yet find fault f who hath resisted his will ? then Paul's ready response is, nay^ hut, oh man, who art thou that repliest against God? If, e. g., again, Paul is proclaiming the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, and some one reasoning on the mere principles of Nature (like our infidel, Bush), and knowing that the body is decomposed 32 VANITY OF THE WORLD'S WISDOM. b}^ putrefaction in the grave, chooses to ask, (Bush's question,) with what body do they come? the ready answer of Paul is, thou fool I God giveth it a body as it pleaseth him. It is God with Paul — not Nature, but God — as in the text, in the wisdom of God. The next clause is : the world hy wisdom knew not God. This was the thing which Paul affirms to have come to pass in the wisdom of God. It was an inscrutable wis- dom, and there we must leave it. We cannot explain it. Perhaps our limited minds could not understand it if it were explained. We must leave it to the wisdom of God, just where we leave a hurricane, an earthquake, a pestilence, Herculaneum, Pompeii, and the graves of ten thousand infants born only to die. The world hy ivisdom. The word wisdom is not to be taken here, perhaps, in the same sense as in the preceding clause, where the wisdom of God is spoken of. The sense may be — after that in the wisdom of God^ the world by Philosophy knew not God, it pleased God to save men in his own way. The wisdom of the tuorld^ therefore, of which Paul speaks, means simply human reason and speculation, in which the Corinthians so much gloried, as they extolled their " age of improvement," as they called it, and wanted to introduce their improvement into the churches, where Paul did not want them. It was not Philosophy that founded Christianity or rea- soned it out — Philosophy knew not God, and now let Phi- losophy keep her own place and mind her own business, and leave Christianity to the wisdom of God which origin- ated it. This monition and advice of Paul were not more needed then than they are now. Ivnew not God. Unquestionably the Apostle means by this expression, that the world, with all its boasted VANITY OF THE WORLDIs WISDOM. 33 reason and proud learning, had not derived from all the works and Light of Nature any true knowledge of God, or any sufficient principles of true religion. Men are accustomed now to extol the ''Light of Nature," (as they call it,) the power of Keason, "improvements," "the march of mind." And some Christian ministers some- times think to do Christianity a very good service, by philosophizing it to make it keep up with the times. In all this, they do Christianity no other service than rob it of its power by robbing it of its peculiarity, and do no other service to the "philosophic minds" which they say they would influence, than just to mislead them, and keep them away from true faith in Christ and reliance on his great atonement. It is a historic fact, the world hy wisdom knew not God. Eeason had tried her powers and failed . She was foiled in every attempt. She knew not God. And this simple fact, a matter of history, of history spread over centuries, ought to be enough to silence for ever every claim of Philoso- phy to teach a sinner any thing which could benefit his soul. That Reason should now pretend to be able to make independent discoveries in religion, or dare to arraign Christian doctrines at her bar and explain away their old-fashioned peculiarities, is such a combination of foolishness and impudence as is to be found no where else, but in the range of a proud, boastful and super- ficial Philosophy. Surely a religion which knows not God is a very contemptible religion. It will do sinners no good. But it is all that Philosophy can furnish. But there is another thing to be noticed in this clause : It is the nature of the expression, knew not God. This was the sum and substance of the matter with Paul. He does not say, knew not principles^ or doctrines, or deduc- 84: tions, or truth even. He sajs^ knew not God. The Apostle, in all he has written, shows in what order he was wont to consider the things of religion. He did -not begin with man and reason upwards — he began with God and reasoned downwards. The world bj wisdom knew not God. That was enough. That fact was fatal to all their schemes. The starting point, the heart of all true religion, was wanting in their speculations; and through whatever courses their speculations might run, therefore, or on whatever landing-place thej might stop, both courses and landing-place would be error. Men like the Corinthians are alive yet. It is not un- common, yea, it is very common, to find even in the Church, men who are very much enamored with a specu* lative Christianity. They want speculative sermons, philosophical, philological, natural, some importation from Germany, or some invention more fit for the patent office than the pulpit. They are not willing to begin with God. As they would know how to be saved even, they are unwilling to have us tell them that they must obey only the written Word, must take every lesson and every step by prayer, must turn directly unto God on the revealed foundation of an infinite atonement, and by faith, not in Philosophy, but in a revealed redemption, must learn to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent, for this is eternal life. The next clause proves this : it pleased God by the fool- ishness of preaching to save them that believe. It pleased God. No other account can be given of it. All nature is silent. The universe has not a hint any where in all its matter and movements. It pleased God — it came from infinite sovereignty and infinite love. By the foolishness of preaching. Paul never quarrels VANITY OF THE WORLD's WISDOM. 35 about names. He is too mucli in earnest for that. If he can get the thing he wants, men may call it by what name they please. He consents even himself to call the Gos- pel by a name not at all descriptive of its own nature, or the views he entertained of it ; but by the same name which the men of the world gave to it, and which was ex- pressive of the views which they entertained of it. On this principle he speaks of the foolishness of preaching — just because men of the world called it foolishness. In another place he calls it the foolishness of God, and says, the foolishness of God is wiser than meii. And he says, too, God hath chosen the foolish things of the ivorld to confound the wise. In another place he says, the natural man re- ceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, because they are foolishness unto him. Paul, therefore, calls the utterance of the Gospel, the foolishness of preaching, just because other men called it so ; and the man without any re- ligion is apt to esteem it such, if the preaching will not take his speculative turn and put on the literary taste which suits his refined ears. It was foolishness to the Greeks to speak of Christ crucified, of the great atone- ment, because their philosophy was dumb, utterly and for ever dumb, on the whole subject. Eeason could not touch it. She could not take a step in it, or utter a syl- lable on the whole matter. The Greeks might call the fundamental doctrine of the Gospel foolishness if they pleased, they might reject the atonement of a crucified Christ ; but Paul assures them that in this way God was pleased to save them that believe. Thus the Apostle brings round the whole matter to faith — just to faith. No man need speculate. No Philosophy would do him any good ; — no efforts of a mustered and proud reason would land him in the kingdom of heaven. 36 VANITY OF THE WORLD'S WISDOM. The sum of the whole matter then is, that all the efforts of human reason are utterly insuffi.cient for at- taining the knowledge of religion ; and after the lapse of centuries had demonstrated their insufficiency, God gave the Gospel to do for man what Philosophy could not do — to reveal to man what Keason could not discover, and by a peculiar system to lead those to eternal life, who would trust the Bible to lead them there. Lay your pride in the dust. Dismiss your vain pbilosophy. Cease to dishonor Christianity by attempting to conform it to a fashionable literature. Obey it. Flee to Christ. Best on the great redemption ; for it pleases God to save them that believe. IL We proposed to explain and demonstrate this great principle of tbe text. The submission of reason to faith, is one of tbe dif&- cult things for human pride and depravity to endure. Science is not to be despised. Human reasonings are not to be undervalued. But though they are of vast moment when they are confined to their proper place, they become s.ources of error and danger when they are extended beyond it. This is one of the present dangers of the Church. The boast of human progress leads many a one of the proud boasters to undervalue the old truths of Divine Bevelation. Under the pretense that philoso- pby and reason have made great advances, revelation becomes pushed out of its place — Divine doctrines are proclaimed as obsolete and behind the age. We pro- pose to defend the sense of the text. We propose to show that the wisdom of men, unaided by Divine Kevela- tion, can learn nothing in religion, and, therefore, that speculation is out of its place, when it brings in its inno- vations, and discards our old doctrines. We name par- VANITY OF THE WORLD'S WISDOM. 37 ticular items : A future state. Human duty. Tlie char- acter of God. The pardon of a sinner. 1. "We call your attention to the matter of a future state. What does mere Philosophy know about it? what can Eeason alone teach you ? Eeason, you know, must have some materials to work with — some grounds to go upou' — some premises of truth to start with. But in respect to another world, another life beyond this, w^hat materials has she got? what ground to stand upon? what sure premises of truth to start with? A dark, deep gulf separates this .world from another. We can not pass it — we can not see over it. From that other world, (if there is one,) no man can bring forth, with all his philosophy, a single fact for his philosophy to work upon. Our question is about another world : is there one ? Show me a fact to prove it. Show me one of its inhabitants — one of its productions — one of its opera- tions — one of its any thing that shall constitute to me a demonstration that such«a world exists. If Philosophy- will only furnish me one solitary material, one single fact, clear and unquestionable, which shows me that there is such a world beyond this ; then I shall feel that I have got something to begin with — and I consent to take that fact and make the most of it in reasoning from it to reach something else. But Eeason has no such fact. She has nothing to start upon. She has got no foothold upon the shores of eternity, (if there is one.) If you take up any of the materials or existences of this world, you have a perfect right, I admit, to reason from them to conclusions which lie in this world. But how can jovl reason upon them to reach conclusions which lie in another. You yourself admit, (for j^ou cannot deny,) that that other world is most wrilike this — S8 VANITY OF THE WORLD'S WISDOM. tliat vast and mysterious clianges are to transpire before jou shall be an inhabitant of another world. Your blood is to stagnate — your breath is to stop — your im- material spirit is to come out of its earthly temple — it is to have new powers of perception given to it, (if its future existence is to be of any value,) for its organs of perception, its sight, its hearing, and all its instruments of perception and knowledge, are left behind it. How shall it talk, to tell other spirits what it thinks ? How shall it hear, to receive any knowledge or idea from them ? How shall it become acquainted with either matter or spirit, or whatever it is that goes to make up the world to come ? And if such wonderful changes are to take place, how can you reason from any thing here to reach any certain and indubitable conclusion about any thing there? How can you be certain that there is any thing there, and that the spirit itself does not become extinct, instead of passing into another state of exist- ence — a state confessedly mystel-ious and inexplicable ? How shall Keason demonstrate that the soul survives the death of the body ? There is so close a connection betwixt all the known operations of the soul and the operations of the body, that when one set of operations ceases, it would seem reasonable to suppose that the other set of operations ceases also, and all the philoso- phers in the world cannot furnish a particle of certain proof to the contrar}^ A body is in perfect health, and the mind is regular : in a few days that body is dis- ordered, and the mind suffers more or less of disorder also. If anger ruffles the mind, it also ruffles the blood. If fever burns in the veins, the brain is soon disturbed, and the mind loses its regularity. If melancholy settles upon the soul, the appetite is irregular, the blood slow, VANITY OF THE WORLDS WISDOM. 39 the body becomes sluggisb and lean. As years creep on, and the joints become stiff, the pulse low, the muscles rigid, the blood cold ; the soul, at the same time, true to her sympathy, puts on the equal signals of decay — ^the memory fails, the imagination becomes inactive, the wings of fancy are folded or broken, and even the judgment becomes feeble and loses its sound- ness. And, finally, death comes and dissolves the body to dust — and now, what does Reason say ? how can she demonstate that that soul, which, all along from infancy to age, was affected so intimately with every fortune of the body, shall not be dissipated into nothing when the body crumbles back into dust? or, at least, when the body returns again to form a part of its original earth, how can all the philosophers in the world give any cer- tain proof that the soul does not return to its original, to be absorbed and lost in it, retaining no more individ- uality than the crumbled body that mingles with the common earth? You perceive Reason can do nothing with the question of a future existence — she has no materials to work with. She cannot give an item of certainty whether the soul survives, or becomes involved in the ruins of matter. Reason cannot bridge the gulf that lies betwixt this world and another. But the philosopher tells us there are some grounds of probability, if not of certainty, that the soul shall survive death and inhabit another world. And this probability, this perhaps, this lean and trembling peradventure, is Philosophy's security for another life ! This is her foot- hold on eternity ! I appeal to the wants and aspirations of any soul that ever lived, if this is not an insult to it. What ! die on a probability ? my soul staked on a per- 40 VANITY OF THE WORLD's WISDOM. haps ! my whole eternity hanging on a mere, uncertain probabihty ! If that foundation meets the wants of any human soul, that fact alone would make me doubt whether such a soul can be immortal : if it has no more reason in it, than to be willing to die on a bed of '■'• proh- ability ^''^ it seems hardly worthy of an immortal exist- ence, or reasonable to suppose it shall have it. But, says the reasoner, the soul has some qualities about it — qualities of reasoning, of enjoyment, of ad- vancement indefinitely in knowlege and felicity — which would seem to make it worth preserving for ever. What does this mean ? Worth whose preserving? Who wants it to live in eternity ? Who needs it, and would suffer a loss if it should cease to exist ? You talk of God as if he were a man, and would lose some of his property or advantage if a soul should go into non-existence ! Let it go, and God has lost nothing. He can instantly make another soul as valuable, as noble, and with as high and far-reaching aspirations. You cannot reason for God. For aught you know, the infinite Creator has some mys- terious purposes to answer by the soul's existence here for a little while ; and when those purposes have been accomplished, Avill annihilate it. We solemnly protest against your reasoning about God as if he were a man— reasoning that something is so valuable to him that he will take care to preserve it ! Reason cannot touch the matter. Your very probability trembles and shrinks into a corner before that great truth, the infinitude of God, the incomprehensibility of his plans and purposes. But Philosophy (unwittingly, I believe, very often undesignedly, not knowing that she is giving the first lesson to make her disciples materialists, or some other kind of infidels) does not like to have the nature of God VANITY OF THE WORLD'S WISDOM. 41 come in, and therefore she takes her appeal to the ''nature of things." She says, e. ^., the soul must be immortal because it is immaterial, and therefore indivisi- ble, and therefore indestructible. She says we have no idea of destruction but by division — as a tree is destroyed when it rots down — as a rock is destroyed when the hghtnings, the frosts, the winds and rains have shivered it into pieces, and allowed it to be rock no longer — as the human body is destroyed when the jDutrefaction of the grave has dissolved it, and divided it into particles among the common dust. Division, she says, is indis- pensable to destruction, and as the soul is indivisible it must be indestructible. How can she prove that divis- ion is necessary to destruction ? She cannot. It is an assumption. For aught we know, any existence, body or spirit, can as easily perish all together as perish by division. Yea, division, as far as Keason knows, can make nothing perish. Divide your tree. Has any of it perished? Divide it again. Has any of it perished? Keep on with your division till the minuteness of the particles makes further division impracticable. Has any of it perished now ? Not a particle. Every atom exists somewhere, or at least you cannot prove the contrary. You said the soul must be immortal, because it is indi- visible; but now it appears your argument does not even touch the question of perdition at all — or if it does, you have as much proved the eternity of matter as of mind, and so far established an equality betwixt the two. This is the result of appealing from the nature of God to "the nature of things," as Philosophy is fond of doing — and, I must add, heresy is fond of copying her example. This appealing from faith to " the natin-o of things," 42 VANITY OF THE WORLD's WISDOM. as it is called, is a very delightful affair to two classes of minds — superficial ones, and skeptical ones. It is not the nature of the soul that makes it immortal. Matter is as much eternal by its nature as the soul is eternal by its nature. Neither of them has any thing wrapped up in its nature which secures it an immortality. The argument for our future existence, which is taken from the spirituol nature of the soul, is another of the attempts of the wisdom of the world. We need not expand the argument. To state it will be quite enough. It is this : The soul must survive the dissolution of the body, because the soul is capable of ideas, conceptions, thoughts ; and a thing of such capabilities is altogether superior to matter, and can not, therefore, be involved in the dissolution of the body. What an argument ! How do you know it is superior to matter ? It is to you, but how do you know it is to God? It seems so to you, but who can tell how it seems to Him ? Your reason knows nothing about it. This is one link in the argu- ment. But there is another. Beasts think. Nobody would venture to affirm that they are mere machines, self-moved. What, then, becomes of them when they die, on your ground that nothing capable of ideas and thoughts can perish? Ah! the reasoner, full of his philosophy, stands in his study among his books, and specimens, and apparatus, and contemplates his hold on future existence. He says : I know this hody will die. It is doomed to the dust, and cannot avoid it. It will be taken to pieces — dust returning to dust, and ashes to ashes. But within it there is an indestructible principle. It must be indestructible, because it thinks — it is spiritual — it has ideas and conceptions, and therefore qualities of inconceivable value, far too precious to perish. So he 43 meditates and reasons. Then let him leave his books, and go out into the fields among the herds that crop the grass, and meditate and reason there. This ox, says he, this ox — yes, I know his body will die ; it is doomed to the dust, and cannot avoid it. But within him, this ox has an indestructible principle — it must be indestructible, because it thinks, it has ideas and conceptions, and therefore qualities of inconceivable value, too precious, far too precious, to perish. This ox and I, precious creatures — this ox and I are the children of immortality, destined to an imperishable existence in another life. This is the argument of spiritual value. If it is good in the library, among the books ; it is just as good in the field, among the cattle. The proud reasoner, therefore, finds what level his immortality stands upon. As an immortal being, to survive death, and live beyond it in some future state, he stands on the same level, according to his own argument, as a beast. With a mere philoso- phy, after all her thirsting for a future existence, and attempts to demonstrate it, darkness and perplexity hang round the bed of death, and rest like an ocean of mid- night over all the eternity beyond it. The tvorld by wis- dom knew not God. The doctrine of Immortality which the Bible advances, is not founded on any metaphysical ideas — not on any ideas of valuable qualities in the soul, even. Far from it. Our revelation founds the doctrine on a basis firm enough to sustain all that rests upon it. That basis is simply the will of God. I recollect no other idea than this in the whole Bible. The Bible assures us of a future existence, because such is the will of our Creator. This is all. Immortality hangs solely on the naked will of God. 44 VANITY OF THE WORLD'S WISDOM. The disciple of Christ, therefore, is not condemned to tremble amid a few items of probability, gathered from the nature of things, every one of which sinks into nothing the moment the mind recurs to the nature of God, which gives him an infinite supremacy of will above all that is or can be in the nature of things. The disciple of Christ is not compelled to float and fluctuate betwixt hope and fear, doubt and confidence, and be tossed about upon a shifting ocean of probabilities, and possibilities, and conjectures, at one moment seeming to have got foothold upon the rock, and the next moment dashed ofP again by some wave of uncertainty, or some dark billow of doubt. The disciple of Christ rests his immortality upon the rock. Such is the revealed will of God. 2. We turn from human duration to human duty. Every body will admit there is such a thing as duty. Every reasonable man acknowledges that religion has an intimate connection with it. It is an important part of religious instruction to tell us what our conduct should be. Now, on this important matter, how far can the unas- sisted wisdom of man go. She can not go into eternity, certainly, for her materials, for'we have just seen that she can not reach eternity with even her conclusions. She must take her stand here upon the earth, then, and from what is visible around her, she must find facts to teach what is duty, to teach it in the way of a reasonable conclusion. We admit, she may do something by a mere philoso- phizing. Man is a social being. As such, obligations rest upon him. Truth is beneficial to societ}^, and there- fore men ought to speak truth. Kindness is beneficial, VANITY OF THE WORLD'S WISDOM. 45 and therefore men ouglit to be kind. Gratitude is bene- ficial, for if men will be "ungrateful, they will discourage a beneficence and charity which are very much needed in such a world as this ; and therefore men ought to be grateful. Thus Eeason can argue for a little way, we admit ; and we have no disposition to quarrel with her conclusions. But there is a weak point in her argument- ation, and there is a spot beyond which she can not con- duct us ; and beyond that spot (it may be) lie our most important duties and interests. Let us see. There is a weak point in her argumentation. Just notice on what her argumentation turns. It turns on benefit — as truth is beneficial, gratitude is beneficial, kindness is beneficial, to society ; therefore truth, grati- tude and kindness are duties. This is the reasoning. But now, let me pu.t a very plain question to this tm'sdom of ike world: May I do whatever I deem benefi- cial to society? or if I may not be the judge of what is beneficial, who shall be ? If benefit or utility is to be the criterion of duty — ^here is a man a great deal richer than any man ought to be for the good of society. He has vast possessions — vast amounts of lands, houses and gold. But he keeps all to himself; he gives away nothing ; he lives at ease, though very well able to work ; he receives rents which his tenants can very ill afibrd to pay, and which he can very well dispense with ; he rides in his carriage, though strong and vigor- ous enough to go on foot ; he has vast grounds around him, which he keeps covered with a forest, and which might furnish food enough to feed a hundred poor fami- lies around him, if he would allow them to go in with axe and cut away the trees, and bring the plow, and the hoe, and the sickle, to produce and secure a crop. But 46 VANITY OF THE WORLD'S WISDOM. he will not allow it. He will neither do it himself, nor allow them to do it. Besides, though he has got a thou- sand-fold more than he needs — ^more than he uses — ho is growing richer and richer every day, and never does any other good with his riches than to live at his ease, and perhaps in a luxury which will ruin his health and shorten his life. Manifestly, it is not useful, not "bene- ficial to society," that this man should have so much wealth, particularly when he makes such a use of it. May I, therefore, just take some of it away from him ? May I enter his grounds, and cut down his trees, and sow wheat, and plant corn, and thus turn his useless forest into a useful field ? Or if I may not do it alone, may Society do it ? May the government of the State, just for the general good, lay hands upon his wealth, and divide it among those that need it, and leave him only such a portion as they judge best, on the whole, for him to possess? If this philosophy of "utility" says "720," I ask, why not? Her argument turned on the point of benefit, of utilitj^ ; and since it would be benefi- cial to have this old miser's wealth divided among the people, where it would do some good, why not divide it, since he never will ? How far is this argument of philo- sophical utility to go? where shall it stop? who shall enforce its conclusions ? You perceive there is a weak point in it — there are several weak points. And I have never yet heard of any natural religion which could ever suit itself in the application of its own reasonings, even on mere social duties and obligations. The ancients, full of the world's wisdom, tried it. First, they maintained that a private man had no right to deprive such an afiluent man of his affluence, because that affluence had been of no detriment to any one private VANITY OF THE WORLD'S WISDOM. 47 man in particular, and, because, if private men should undertake to do it, they would be sure to quarrel among themselves in the division of the spoils. So they con- cluded society or government might do it; and then kings, who had power enough, took advantage of the philosophical conclusion, and very beneficently robbed the rich, just for the general good. But when it was discovered by these ancient philoso- phers (who tried to find out duty by the mere light of nature) that the argument of utility had a difficulty about it, because there were many actions which might be useful and still were very objectionable, they invented another criterion of duty to join with this utility, and thus aimed to make a perfect rule of moral duty. They said, an action must not only be "beneficial" in order to be right, but it must also, at the same time, " look well ;" it must be "decorous:" they had their " t6 Tr^jenor," and their " t6 ayaddf^^^ the beneficial and the beautiful. They dragged in this idea of beauty to help their philosophy out of a " useful" difficulty. They found that human nature possessed within itself something which revolted from many of the conclusions to which the mere argu- ment of utility would lead. It might be useful to de- prive a rich man of his wealth when he had too much for the general good, but then it did not " look well^^^ when he had committed no other offense than to be in- dustrious, and ingenious, and frugal, and thus get rich. It might be useful (and this is their own example) for a child to take away the life of a parent when too old and infirm to do any good in the world, but they confessed there was something in such an action which did not "look well" — was not decorous. And, therefore, in order to make a perfect rule of duty, they just joined 48 VANITY OF THE WORLD's WISDOM. the beneficial and tlie beautiful together ; an action was right where it was both " useful" and " decorous." This was their religion of nature. But this, again, was a very troublesome rule to apply. Whose eyes should be used, in order to tell what did " look well," was a difficult question which they could not solve very clearly ; but when they finally came to the conclusion that what looked well in every body's eyes must certainly be beautiful, every body chose to think war, slavery, and suicide, and revenge, looked well enough to be free from any moral blame. Eeason made bad work, you perceive, even in Greece and Kome, in teaching morality ; the world hj luisdom knew not God. I am quite willing that the natural religionist should make the most of it, as he finds that man carries along with him in his own soul something which compels him to respect virtue and contemn vice. But as he attempts to employ this fact, he labors under two difficulties : First. This fact only proves there are such things as virtue and vice without telling us what they are, so that we are none the wiser about our duties and obligations than we were before ; and. Second. Where shall we stojD when we attempt to reason unto righteousness from the innate feelings of man ? If, in spite of all my sinful indulgence, I am still compelled to respect virtue, and, therefore, you draw the conclusion that my Creator designed I should be virtu- ous, because he compels me to respect it by an implanta- tion of his own, let me apply your species of reasoning to another implantation within me, thus : If, in spite of all my aims to be virtuous, I have that within me which still makes me love vice, may I, therefore, draw the con- clusion that the Author of my being will never punish VANITY OF THE ^^ORLD'S WISDOM. 49 me for obeying tlie impulses of his own implantation — the dispositions with which he w^as born ? If you reason from one implantation, why may not I reason from an- other? Is not the God of my nature, the God of my re- ligion also ? Will the God of religion forbid that con- duct to which the God of my nature inclines me ? and if I follow the inclinations which come from the God of nature, am I to be punished for so doing by the God of religion? Thus, you perceive, that y/hen Ave would apply the argumentation of our natural religionists, it just leads us into immorality as fast as into good morals ; or, at least, it brings us into a difSculty from which phi- losophy can never extricate us. Tlie world hy wisdom knows very little. Philosophy can not reconcile the God of nature and the God of virtue. But, I spoke of a limitation. Suppose you could find out by your philosophy, the duties which lie upon you in re- gard to one another, and as inhabitants of this world; what can your philosophy, and light of nature, and reason, teach you about your duty to your God, and as a being moving into eternity to meet him ? I think it reasonable to suppose these latter duties are the most important. God is a more important being than my fellow creature. He made me, as my fellow did not. He owns me, body and spirit, as my fellow does not. Therefore, my obliga- tions respecting him, who can dash me to pieces when he will, surely rise above any obligations to my neighbor over the way, who, at most, can but Idll the hody^ and after that hath no more that he can do. Tell me, then, by the lamp of your reason, wdiat duties do I owe to my God ? How, where, will he punish me if I omit them ? Where, how, when, how long, will he reward me if I perform them? Shall I worship him? How shall I 3 50 VANITY OF THE WORLD'S WISDOM. worsliip him ? How shall I serve hhn? Where zs the code of mj duty ? Show me the rock on whose engrav- ing I may read it. Show me the grass, the field, the sky, the cloud, the sea, the clod of earth, the ayiy tiling^ which shall answer any one of these questions, and un- fold to me the most important of all duties and obliga- tions which rest upon me. Natural Religion can not do it. However she may be able to grope her way along among men, by some little twinklings of light flung out just to render her darkness visible, she can not take one single step towards God, without walking right into the bosom of a double midnight 1 The loorld hy wisdom can only grope in darkness in respect to the most moment- ous obligations. 3. From duiy^ we turn to the character of God. Men who reason from the mere Light of Nature, certainly present to us some very pleasant ideas. They tell us of the order of this vast universe — how one star does not dash upon another — how day and night succeed each other, exactly adapted, the one to our necessity for labor, and the other to our necessity for repose — how the eye, made to love beauty, may riot upon a landscape, upon the evening cloud, upon the tints and touches of the flower garden, and how the ear, formed for melody, may teach us to say — ■ "Sweet is the laugli of girls, the song of birds, The voice of children and then* earliest words.' All very pleasant : all very good poetry. And the con- clusion from all this is, that Ood is a henevoJent heing. But there are some difaculties standing in the way of this argumentation. Look at it. A large, very large VANITY OF THE WOELD's WISDOM. 51 portion of mankind are so poor, so oppressed, so hungry, or so dissatisfied, that tliey never stop to enjoy the beauties you mention; and they would be very well satisfied to have you remove the beauties of the land- scape, the tints of the flowers, and the melody of the bird's song, if you would give them an atmosphere never loaded with the pestilence, food that never deranges while it supports, a body never tormented with pain, and keep their hearts from being pierced through with many sorrows. They would sjoare you all the poetry, if you would take all their pain. If this world does pre- sent to our view some things which would seem to prove God to be a beneficent Being, it also presents other things, Avhich, to mere Eeason's eje, seem to conflict with that conclusion. To consider human disappoint- ments^ human pains, and sorrows, and dissatisfactions, how few are happy, how many are miserable, how often we are incapacitated in old age to enjoy the things for which we labored and studied, and met the buffetings of the world through all our youth and manhood — and then to consider how death robs us of all, bows every head to the dust, and brings us to the spot where the bones are scattered at the grave's mouth — I say, to consider these things is enough to make a serious doubt with a reason- able man, (who has not the Bible,) whether it was a benev- olent disposition or an opposite one, which inclined the Author of our being to bring us into existence. How can the world^s wisdom solve this doubt ? how prove Grod benevolent? at least, how c?i5prove that this attribute of God is very imperfect — disprove that God is of a mixed disposition, sometimes delighting in our happiness in years of plenty and health, and at other times delighting in our misery in years of pestilence and famine ? The 62 VANITY OF THE WOHLD'S WISDOM. world hy wisdom knows not God. His character is a mystery to Philosopliy, if not a contradiction. Take any other attribute of God — yea, any other, and mere natural religion can get along no better. To see here, unjust princes driven from their thrones — avarice working out its own punishment — idleness cursed into beggary — injustice punished by the scorn of the world without, and the stings of conscience within — ambition 23unished b}^ sliding down to the bottom of the hill — • voluptuousness finding its pleasures turned into poisons ; this sight might almost lead to the conclusion, tliat the God and Governor of the world is a righteous Being, and has so made us and made the world, as to demonstrate that he is in favor of righteousness by the punishments he has af&xed to iniquity. But here comes up another difficulty out of which the world's wisdom is insufficient to extricate us. Not every tyrant's throne is dashed to pieces — not every avaricious man is gnawed to death by his avarice — not every idle man is in rags — not every unjust man is either scorned or stung — not every ambi- tious man fails of his wish — not every voluptuous man torments himself first, and kills himself afterward by his voluptuousness : haughtiness sometimes lives in high places, and humility in mean ones; unrighteousness stalks abroad in robes of honor among a community, where there is not virtue enough to scorn the wicked holder of a bribe, and make that scorn burn and blister upon him, till it drives him out of all society but that of villains like himself; in one word, holiness itself, the love of God and his truth, brings many people into intolerable afflictions, and the opposite brings others to exaltation and felicity. A man, by the mere Light of Nature, therefore, will never be able to solve this diffi- 53 culty, and justify God amid tlie darkness wliicli enwraps his equit}^ The world hy wisdom knows not God. 4. TJie i^ardon of a sinner rests in the same darkness. Man is a sinner. He knows that; he feels it. But is sin pardonabl e ? Is there — is there ajiy where^ in all the field of Natural Eeligion, among all her materials, growing out of all her arguments, is there any proof that a sinner can be forgiven ? Where is it ? what is it ? Show it to me, and lift the intolerable burden from a sinner's soul. Such a demonstration of a sinner's forgiveness is no- where to be found in all the field of Natural Religion. It is not beamed from the sun ; the stars do not twinkle it; the winds do not whisper it ; the fields do not promise it ; it is not penciled on the bosom of the flower, nor engraven on the bosom of the rock ; the sea saith, it is not in me, and the depth saith, it is not in me. You can not find a single intimation of pardon, where the Avorld furnishes most to exult in, among the bounties and beauties of a smiling earth ! And certainly, pardon is not promised by our calamities: the storm doth not speak it ; the pestilence doth not bring it on her death- wing ; the thunder doth not mutter it ; it is not h}' mned in the hurricane ; it is not shrieked on the bed of death ; it doth not come up in the hollow moan from the deep, damp vault of the grave, the voice of putrefaction and dead men's bones ! and you can not hear it in the deep anthem of the ocean, beneath whose waves in the coral cavern, the sailor-boy sleeps with the sea-weed wrapped ahout his head — the waters his winding sheet, the deep roar of the ocean his dirge ! Do you say, yo^i would forgive a sinner? Presump- tuous man ! daring creature ! You are not Goa ! Ir- reverent wretch ! how dare you set yourself as a pattern 64 VANITY OF THE WORLD'S WISDOM. for God to follow ? But liow do you know you would forgive a sinner, if you sat on the throne ? Have you seen all the -results of such an act of forgiveness ? Can you tell the effects of it upon the government of all worlds ? Can you be assured that such an act would not do more evil than good, and that you would not feel bound, if you were on the throne yourself, to execute punishment with the exactest justice upon every offend- er? You have no right to say you would forgive a sin- ner ; and if you would, you have no right to conclude that the great Euler of the universe will do as you would. You can not prove that it would not be an im- perfection in God to forgive a sinner. The innumerable benefits of God go a little way, I admit, to assure us that God loves to bestow favors upon us ; but the attri- butes of God are unfathomable, boundless oceans. You can not traverse them. All nature can not measure them. And it is evidence of impiety and unreasonableness in man, when he thinks to gauge the dimensions of the mind and will of the Eternal One, and, by the mere efforts of his puny reason, come to conclusions for Him who sittetli upon the throne. Do you say you have inti- mations all around you, that God is kind, and you only want him to be infinitely merciful ? Do you not want him also to be infinitely just? If his justice gives way, what security have you against dropping into hell, how- ever innocent you may be ? Do you say you want him to be infinitely merciful and infinitely just at the same time? This idea may be sufficiently answered by the remark, that you have very often yourself found that God wnll not be what you want him to be, and will not do what you want him to do ; but there is another answer : how docs it appear in any of the wisdom of VANITY OF THE WORLD's WISDOAT. 55 your philosophizing, that infinite justice and infinite mercy are compatible with one another, and can exist in the same Being? If justice is infinite, where is mercj^? If mercy is infinite, where is justice ? If either of them is not infinite, where is God ? And if mercy is not in- finite and alone too, justice sunk and forgotten, where is your hope, thou sinner against God? You perceive the wisdom of the luoiid must be dumb for ever before such questions. The forgiveness of a sinner has neither cer- tainty nor intimation in all that mere reason can reach. But all these difficulties vanish in an instant the mo- ment Divine revelation comes into our hands. The most reasonable thing, therefore, which a reasonable man can do, is to fling away his Philosophy and cleave to his Bible. The submission of Eeason to Faith is the de- mand of this discussion. III. The application of this subject is extensive. We name only a few items, briefly. Be on 3^our guard against a style of reasoning on moral and religious subjects, which is fast creeping into our hterature and lectures, and, I am compelled to say, into many of our sermons. Every thing is coming to be philosophized. Many a minister in the pulpit — shame on him — betrays his trust to the Bible and his God, by teaching religion very much as if it were a mere matter of reason, and human progress, and human dis- covery, instead of taking God's Word as his authority and instructor, and uttering in \h.Q ears of the people, like the old prophets. Thus saith the Lord God. Beware of such proceedings. They tend to infidelity. Learn duty from God. The Bible is safe. Philosophy is blind. Be attached to the great distinctive doctrines of the 56 VANITY OF THE WOULD's WISDOM. Bible. These old doctrines are now sneered at in some quarters and slided over in others. But they are founda- tions. For true religion, indeed for a decent morality, you can find no other. Such doctrines as the depravit}^ of man, the sovereignty of God, the necessity of the Holy Spirit, the need of faith in the atonement, of re- pentance, not simply because sin is against nature, and society, but more especially because it is against God — • in one word, those doctrines which begin with God, and, unfolding his character and high sovereignt}^, place every thing beneath the infinity of his attributes — these doctrines, old-fashioned and unchangeable, and these only, will teach you your right place and guide you to truth and eternal life. In his own Word God has re- vealed his mercy and the mode for our securing it. It admits of no innovations, no new developments. Woe to us, if we heed not his revelation ! Woe to us, if we refuse to bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ! Woe to us, if forsaking \\\q^q fountains of living waters^ v/e attempt to hew out for ourselves broken cisterns of speculation and the wisdom of this world! Our phi- losophy can teach us nothing to solace or save. It can not know God. It can not leave duty. It can not gild Avith a single ray of light the bed of death. It can not write a promise upon the grave. It can not bridge the gulf that yawns betwixt this world and another, and furnish light and a landing-place on the shores of eternity. Prize the pure Gospel. Never say that you can accept and sign any creed that you ever saw : a sillier expression never fell from the lips of a fool. Value the truth. It gives you an inestimable privilege, life and immortality. You are not compelled to say what Cicero said about future existence: "I do not pretend to say VANITY OF THE WORLD'S WISDOM. 57 that my idea is infallible as ttie Pjtliian oracle — I speak only by conjectured Conjecture ! probability 1 what a pall to hang over eternity ! what a word to tremble on a death-struck tongue ! The world hy wisdom knew not God! You are not compelled to talk to your families as Xenophon says Cyrus, the king of Persia, spoke to his children : "I know not how to persuade myself that the soul lives in this mortal body, and ceases to be when the body dies. I am rather inclined to thinh that after death it acquires more penetration and more purity." Eather inclined to think! What an idea to wrap round futurity! How insufficient for a soul — a soul approaching — perhaps immortality — perhaps annihilation ! If one of your children dies, you are not compelled to say, as Tully said, in his grief at the death of a favorite daughter, "I hate the gods." You are not compelled to say, as the learned philoso- pher, Socrates, said to the judges who had sentenced him to death: "And now we are going to part; I to suffer death, and you to enjoy life; and God only knows which is best." You need not die with your soul whelmed in such a sea of uncertainty. If you have faith, you may say, / am ready to he offered up. I know that my Redeemer liveth ; and though after my skin worms destroy this hody^ yet in my flesh shall I see God. Such is your privilege. Immortality is vouchsafed by the will of God. But it is a strange thing — yes, it is passing strange — that after the sure word of prophecy has been given to us, as a light shining in a dark place — after God has made duty known to us, redemption known, salvation, heaven known, and cleared away all the difficulties and dark- ness which trouble speculation, confound reason, and 58 VANITY OF THE WORLD'S WISDO:vr. make mere natural religion useless, leaving ns as it does without God and loithout hope — it is passing strange to see here so many immortal souls wlio have never heeded the words of God's redeeming mercy ! Many of you have never obeyed the Grospel ! Oh, sinner ! impenitent sinner ! blind unbeliever ! I warn you, in the name of reason and of God, I warn you it is a solemn thing for you to live under the Gospel and not obey it — to have in your hands the book of life, and make it to your immortal soul the book of death ! If you obey it, you will live for ever. If you only hear it, and cast off its faith from your heart, its duties from your conscience, and its promised grace from your soul, the day is coming when your Bible w^ill be your accuser at the tribunal of God, and demonstrate your desert of the condemnation of those who love darkness rather than light ; yea, and your very minister will be to yon a savor of death unto death! Stop in your mad career! Take not another step towards hell ! God, your Maker, calls to you. You must believe. You must trust Christ- You must be horn of the Spirit. Lay your pride in the dust. Dismiss your vain philosophy, for it pleases God to save them that helieve. To-day^ if ye luill hear his voice. God grant you ears. Amen, C|e Cnit!] Ijcltr in eliirigljteousttess. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all imrightoous- ness and ungodliness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness. — EoiTANS, i. 18. TUST before this text, Paul liacl affirmed that those ^ only could Hue, that is, could be saved, who were justi- fied by faith. He meant to declare what he has else- where declared so often — that no righteousness, except that which is of Grod, through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, can avail for the justification of men. In this verse he proceeds to assign the reason. The reason is, that God is just. Men must be justified by faith in Christ, if they are justified at all, for the lurath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness ; that is, God's disapproval of sin, and determination to punish it, are things clearly made known, revealed from heaven. The Apostle does not here tell us hoio this is made known. In other places he has told. He has given us two explanations of it. One is, that the Divine revelation discloses it. The other is, that it is made known by nature — that is, by the natural conscience and reasonings of man, as he studies the things of the imiverse around him, and studies his own heart. But here he does not stop to explain the method of the revelation. He had just asserted the necessity of fiiith in Christ, in order to any sinner's justification with God ; and in this verse he 60 THE TRUTH HELD IX UNEIGHTEOUSNESS. assumes it as a fact forced upon the full conviction of the sinner, that God will punish sin. This is the reason whj the sinner must believe in Christ. He can escape wrath in no other waj^ That man is a sinner, and that God will punish sin, are among those manifest truths whicli are proved in so many ways, and which lie so clearly in man's own con- victions and conscience, that they may fairly be assumed as already known, and beyond the necessity of demon- stration. Paul's reasonings all proceed upon tlie ground of God's retributive justice. If such justice forms no part of the Divine character and Divine dominion over sin- ners, then it may be admitted that they are ever so sin- ful, and yet may be consistently maintained that their justification is possible in some otlier way than by faith in Christ who died for them — possible by any work, moral or ceremonial, by outward rights or their own good works, as God may appoint. But if sin must be punished, then pardon, dispensed to the sinner, must not only be perfectly free and gratuitous to him, but it can never be bestowed upon him even as a gratuity, only on the foundation of a suf&cient atonement. Such punitive justice, Paul says, is revealed from heaven, and therefore faith is indispensable. The sinner must accept the atonement which alone God will accept for him as a sinner. This justice is against all unrighteousness and ungodli- ness of men. It condemns and will punish all immorality and all impiety. Men who hold the truth, even if they hold it in luwiglUeousyiess, cari not escape. In the sacred Scriptures, the word truth is often used to signify the system of true religion, all its doctrines. THE TRUTH HELD IN UNEIGHTEOUSNESS. 61 and all its duties. It is so used here ; that is, it is used to signify true knowledge about religion, whether that knowledge is more or less extensive. Such knowledge many do possess, but thej hold it in unrighteousness; they are unrighteous still, they do not ohey the truth, and they are not justified and saved. There may be some doubt whether the apostle, in this latter clause, has reference to the heathen, (as manifestly he refers to them in the twenty-first verse,) or has refer- ence to those who have the written Word of God. We will not attempt to decide that question. But if the heathen are justly condemned because they do not obey the little truth which they do know, certainly those under the Gospel may expect a much sorer condemnation if they hold the truth in unrighteousness. To hold^ sometimes means merely to j^ossess ; and some- times it means to confine^ to hinder^ or impede. Its sense can not be mistaken here. Those spoken of are said to hold the truth in unrighteousness ; they are not benefited by it — they are not justified and saved. It is manifestly implied, that the due influence of the truth which they do understand would lead them to righteousness, if they would consent to be influenced hj truth ; and, therefore, their holding it must mean that they hinder it — they limit its influence — they deny to it its just sway over them. To this latter clause, with the interpretation we have thus given it, we now invite your attention. We are going to maintain the following proposition : That the truth, which establishes the religion of Jesus Christ, has no defects which can account for the rejection of that religion ; but that its rejection is attributable solely to an unrighteous disjoosition, which refuses to truth its due influence. 62 THE TEUTH IIEL]) IN UNEIGIITEOUSNESS. This is our tlieme. We maintain, that, on this ground, so many immortal souls under the Gospel's light are still in darkness, and hasting awfully onwards to the bar of a just God, having no other prospect before them than the wrath mentioned in the text. To substantiate this pro|)Osition, we select from a mul- titude which occur to us, twelve ideas respecting this re- jected ti^uth: 1. Its powerful nature. 2. Its clearness. 3. Its strong evidence. 4. Its important matter. 5. Its reasonable terms. 6. Its manifest obligation. 7. Its ease of acceptance. 8. Its frequency of solicitotion. 9. Its felicity in obedience. 10. Its adapted motives. 11. Its striking arguments. 12. Its feeble antagonists, These are the items to occupy us now. It would be easy to compose a whole sermon upon each of them. But sometimes it is beneficial to condense and group together into a small space those particulars which would naturally fill up a larger one. Our memories are not very retentive ; and most of all do they fail us when we are called on to remember for God and our own salva- tion. As the preacher expands one idea, the hearer loses the influence of the one which preceded it ; and thus the very perfection of the logician diminishes the force of his arguments. We condense, therefore, to mere hints, what might well afford materials for elab- orate discussions. THE TRUTH HELD TX UNRIGHTEOL'SXESS. 63 1. l^hQ powerful nature of truth. The human mind is so formed, that to it truth is omnipotent. The mind has no abihty to resist it. The mind is, and must be, in re- spect to its convictions and conclusions, perfectly passive under it. If the mind only understands it, it can not disbelieve it. Evidence compels assent ; demonstration conquers, controls, and carries the mind captive at its will. Just the moment that truth is perceived, and it is perceived to be the truth, the mind can no more refuse its convictions, than the body refuse to feel the fire that burns it, or the frost that freezes it ; no more than the opened eye can refuse to see the light of the sun poured on its naked ball ; or the ear refuse to hear the thunder that bellows in the heavens. No volition, no purpose, no fixed resolution, has any influence directly in the matter. Man can avoid conviction by truth, just as he can avoid burning by fire — getting out of its way, refus- ing contact with it — and in no other way. So of the frost, so of the light of the sun, so of the thunder. These may be shunned, but not directly resisted. The truth is just like them. Such is truth to the mind ; and such is the means ap- pointed by God for man's salvation. If, therefore, men did not hold the truth in unrighteousness ; if they did not, by evil disposition, refuse to it its due influence, it would be impossible that they should be lost. But they avoid truth. They refuse to open their eyes to its evidence. The heart of sin leads the mind ofP. And even when the mind is vanquished, as often it must be, the sinner will scarcely undertake a single duty of religion, even in external form. He limits truth's influence. He does it in unrighteousness, from the evil of his own disposition. 64 THE TRUTH HELD IN UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. Nothing but sucli intentional iniquity can resist tlie powerful nature of truth. This is the first argument. We could write a book to illustrate it. Let us name to you the outlines of some of the chapters. One chapter should treat of those whose minds are solicited by different themes of thought, whose libraries contain different kinds of books, who have opportunity to hear different kinds of discussions, but whose indis- position to obey God in righteousness leads them to lend their attention to themes which they know will never influence them towards religion, and deny it to the truths of God. Another chapter should treat of infidels. It should show that men like Gibbon, and Voltaire, and Yolney, and Bolingbroke, and Paine, and Hume, and even Herbert, were ignorant of the contents and evidences of the very Bible they attacked; or else filled their writings with intentional misrepresentations and false- hoods. Another chapter should treat of men's practices. It should show that society is filled with men, who have Bibles in their houses, and seats in the churches, who acknowledge the truth of Christianity and the obligation of its duties, but who rarely or never attempt to dis- charge them. Some of them indulge avarice, some sen- suality, some pride, some never pray in secret, some never in their families ! Another chapter should treat of men's different tastes in the things of nature. It should show how strangely they use the world. It should tell of the astronomer among the stars, the geologist among his rocks and fossils, of the painter and the poet enraptured among THE TRUTH HELD IN UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. 65 the beauties and grandeur of creation, catching dehght and breathing ecstasy every where ; and all of these minds suffering but ONE kind of truths to escape them, those truths that lead to God ! These shouhl be some of the chapters. And all of them, combined or singly, we are sure could be made lucid illustrations of the point before us, that nothing but an evil disposition can account for the inef&cacy of those truths about duty and about God, which lie in the Bible, and which are scattered every where over crea- tion, and which would vanquish mind, if a heart of sin would allow mind to touch them. 2. The clearness of the system of religious truths. For the use and influence of mind, according to the very nature of mind, it is not enough that truth should be powerful. It must be clear. No man can justly expect its influence to be quick and common, if it is wrapt in obscurity. But religious truth is not. It is very remarkable, how all the duties of morality and piety are made perfectly plain in the Bible. No man can mistake them, except by evil disposition. Who ever doubted the meaning of the first commandment ? Who was ever misled by our Saviour's golden rule? What sinner on earth is ignorant of what prayer means? or ignorant of its duty and its necessity for salvation ? Is there a single accountable creature in the universe who can not see, as clearly as he can see any thing, that honesty is right? dishonesty is wrong? that revenge, cruelty, debauchery, irreverence, and disobedience to- wards God, his Maker, are sins ? Not one ! No, never a man ! They can as soon doubt the light of the sun, or the sound of the thunder. Well, so it is. All the essen- tial truths of morality and piety are clear. We do not 66 THE TRUTK HELD IN UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. know as God could make tliem any clearer. We do not know as eternity itself shall ever do it. Mind, if a wicked lieart does not in unrighteousness liold it back from tlie study, sliall understand all the truths essential to salva- tion, with as much clearness as its very nature will admit. Nothing could make them clearer. In eternity, in heaven, or in hell, a man will not, probably, perceive that he ought to obey God and love him, any more clearly than he perceives it now. He perceives it, or can, and ought to perceive it, as clearly as he perceives his own existence. What, then, is the conclusion ? It is, that um^ighteous' ness holds truths limits, hinders its influence ! That an evil disposition, and not any lack of truth's clearness, keeps sinners from morality, piety, and salvation. This is the second argument. We could write another book to illustrate it. Let us name to you some of the items in its table of contents. One chapter should compare the science of religion with human sciences. It should show, that there are none of the human sciences (no, not even the science of mathematics) so clear. Some of you are scholars. You recollect the mathematical demonstration of the con- tinual convergence of two extended lines, which can be infinitely extended, and always approaching each other, and yet, in all that infinite extent, never meet. Your mind sees no defect in the demonstration ; every link of its chain looks firm as steel. But think of it. Your converging lines were, at first, but a single inch from one another. They are extended onwards and onwards^ and perpetually approaching each other to an infinity. What have you, then, but an infinite inch ? a single inch in measure, which you shorten for ever and ever, and THE TEUTH HELD IN UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. 67 never exhaust your diminutive little incli ? Our chapter should show, that there is not a single essential truth in religion so difficult for the human mind to perceive with clearness, as this. And yet, men act in difficult sciences, and refuse to act in an easy religion. Another chapter should be entitled, " Commerce." It should show that men of trade are acting every day, and must, (if they act at all,) act on the basis of information, whose clearness has no comparison with the clearness of the most difficult truths in religion. Yet, they neglect a clear religion, and attend to a cloudy commerce. Another chapter should be entitled, " Political Econo- my." It should have two sections in it. The first one should attack the very foundations of Smith and Malthus, and the rest, maintaining that the " vfealth of nations" consists in the piety of the people ; and that this truth about the value of religion is more clear, (substantiated, as it is, in all the history of human poverty and compe- tence,) than are those truths on which these writers have founded their systems, and on which men are con- stantly acting. — The second section should illustrate the foct, that there is no principle of Political Economy so clear, as is the sense and propriety of that question of Jesus Christ, wltat shall a man he profited^ if he shall gain the lohole luorld, and lose his oivn soul? And all the chapters of this book should combine to show, that men in every department and occupation of life are constantly acting on systems of truth, which are less clear than all the truths essential to salvation. The cause^ therefore, of your impiety, if you are an impious man, is not that religious truth is not clear, but that your evil disposition holds it in, limits it, denies to it its due influence. 68 THE TRUTH HELD IN UNRiaHTEOUSNESS. Mind lias light enough. Keligious truth is clear enough. Its light shines on infancy, manhood, and old age. It shines on us in society and in solitude, at home and abroad, in the field of work and on the bed of pain. Its light shines every where. It is on Sinai, on Calvary ; it beams upon Lebanon, and along the vales where molder the bones of the prophets. It shines along the track of the Apostles. It enters their jails. It reaches every hut of poverty and ignorance ; and there is not a mind so dark, uncertain, and untutored, among human kind, but it may have knowledge enough. If man can know any thing clearly, he can know how to be saved. Unrighteousness alone can hinder him. 3. The strength of evidence which belongs to religious truth. Mind needs this. It is not enough that the meaning of truth is clear. In order to its proper claim for acceptance, its character as truth needs to be evinced to us. And so it is. It is evinced powerfully and variously. Here is the Bible. I ask history where it comes from ? who wrote it ? when ? where ? History takes me back into the shades and among the relics of antiquity. It brings up ancient Chaldea and Persia, ancient Syria and Egypt, and Greece and Kome — their kings, and generals, and conquests — their commerce, arts, and bat- tles. She points me to Horeb, still there with its rock ; to the wilderness of sand ; to the ruins of cities ; to the Lake of Gennesaret ; to the Mount of Olives. And thus she compels me to confess, that, if pen ever wrote facts to be believed afterwards, this Bible is to be be- lieved. Here is the Bible. It is full of prophecies. Every body knows there is but one eye which can penetrate down THE TPvUTII HELD IN UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. 69 into the mysteries of the Future. God, not man, can write the history of cities and kingdoms in advance. I ask the traveler what Tyre is now ? what Babylon ? what Nine- veh? what Jerusalem? Tyre, Babylon, Nineveh, Jerusa- lem, are just what the Bible said they should be. Titus, though its conqueror, could not save Jerusalem's Temple ; and Julian, though Emperor, could not rebuild it. Jesus Christ had said, one stone should not he left upon another. Ah ! this is God's Word. And as centuries march on they are constantly fulfilling more and more of the pre- dictions recorded here, and rolling up an accumulation of evidence down to the period when time shall he no longer. Here is the Bible. Who love^ it? The good, the moral, the kind, the honest, the sober ; the men of mind and heart such as mind and heart should be ; the men of prayer. Who hate^ it ? The bad, the immoral, the revengeful, the dishonest, the men of sin. This evi- dence is clear. Good men do not love falsehood ; and bad men are prone to hate propriety and truth. Here is the Bible. It takes more venturesome steps than any book that was ever written. It ventures into the inside of every man's heart. It foretells every man's moral history and habits, if left without the Holy Spirit. It tells all man's character, all his wants. It tells what shall comfort him. It tells what it is, that shall satisfy man's conscience, as he is a sinner ; shall soothe his fears ; gild the curtains of his death-bed ; make his grave light, and put alleluiahs into his lips, as his spirit forsakes its clay. This is evidence enough. Every man knows the truth of the Bible, just as well as he knows his own heart and the real wants and woes of his own moral and immortal being. 70 THE TEUTn HELD IN" UNEIGHTEOUSNESS. It is liardlj conceivable in what manner the truth of our religion could be evinced to us with more strength of evidence. Miracles could not do it. They have done what they could. Bad men said, when they saw them, that Jesus Christ wrought them by the power of the Devil, and bad men would say it again. If ye helieve not Moses and the Prophets^ ye luould not believe though one rose from the dead. The truths of religion have such a strength of evidence that they would per- fectly vanquish every mind in the universe, and control all the hearts, and habits, and hopes of sinners like us, if an evil heart did not unrighteously limit their influence. 4. The importance of its matter. This is a thing of necessity, in order to just claim for influence. Man can not be expected to give himself up to the influences of truth, evinced to him ever so clearly, if the matter of the truth is a thing of little moment to him. But relig- ious truth is of moment to him. He sees something of its moment here ; and he shall see more of it when the hand of death shall lift the curtain which hangs over the entrance-gate into eternity ! Every man knows the importance to human happiness that the morals enjoined in the Bible should prevail. Every man knows, or may know, if he is willing to know it, that the most of the ills which afflict men in health, which diminish their felicities, and enhance their v»^oes, come from their own disregard, or the disregard of other people, for the morality of the Bible. Its truth is of mioment. If obeyed every where, we should have no murders, no thieves, no bank-robbers and swindlers, no jails, no gib- bets, no angry law-suits, no cruel slaverj^, no slanders, no locks, and bars, and bolts on our houses. Maj^ we ask you to study the question, when you have leisure, THE TKUTH HELD IN UKRIGHTEOUSNESS. 71 how mucli of tlie present misery of man is entirely unnecessary — entirely of his own creation? and how great an amount of misery would be no more, if Bible piety and morality prevailed? It is admitted, men would still have religious trials, and fears, and despond- encies; men would be sick; men w^ould die. But if true religion prevailed with all men, there is not a living man whose felicities w^ould not be doubled. It would gild every path of life, and make the world and life in it more valuable. Bat death is in it! And heaven and hell, built for eternity, are separated from us only by a few hours of mingled smiles and tears, and a few death- struggles. In one or the other of them we shall dwell eternally ! As far as nature v/ill permit, we shall resem- ble God or resemble devils ! All the felicity of eternal glory, or the wrath of God, revealed from heaven, awaits us! The importance of the matter, therefore, which religious truth brings before us cannot be enhanced. Its matter is more important to men here than any other system to make life happy, from the cradle to the cofB.n. And after coffins shall be emptied of their tenants, its importance lies out beyond the resurrection of the dead — immortal weal, or immortal woe 1 All this God says ; the mind can understand, the heart fear or hope. No- thiDg, therefore, but a heart of unrighteousness can breast the influence of such truth as this. It would overwhelm mind, it would control the habits, hopes and aims of every djdng sinner on earth, if he were not unrighteous in his treatment of it. 5. Its reasonable terms. It is difficult to conceive how any body can quarrel with them. Their whole nature is formed on this principle, namely, to make every sinner on earth as happy as he is capable of being, and lead 72 THE TRUTH HELD IN UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. Jiim to heaven in the best way he could ever get there. The account of their origin is, GorJ so loved the loorld that he gave his only-hegotten Son. Let God tell us the terms themselves : Let the iviched forsake his luay^ and the unrighteous man his thoughts^ and let him return unto the Lord^ and he ivill have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. If a?iy man thirst, let him come unto me and drink, without moiiey and luithout price. The Spirit and the Bride say, Come ; and let him that heareth say, Come; and let him that is aihirst, come; and whosoever will, let him take of the loater of life FREELY. What say you, sinner ? These are the terms, and what quarrel have you with them? God hath made a free grant of his Son to every sinner that wants him. And if the sinner will turn from his sins (through offered grace), and take God at his word, he need do no more. Are not the terms reasonable ? And if you would let reason, and not unrighteousness, prevail with you, this system of kind and blessed truth would instantly bear sway, and set you out on the way to the final city of God. 6. The manifest ohligation of the truth. Every body can understand that the obligation is perfect and infinite. Man is a creature. He is dependent, sinful and helpless. God is the proprietor of his being. He has made him with a conscience, and a heart of sensibilities, as well as with a mind of intelligence. And (to greater or less extent), sinner and dark as he is, all these faculties, and all this feebleness and dependence, conspire to show him, that if any one obligation is more incumbent upon him than another, that obligation is, to do as God bids him. It is impossible that any other obligation should equal this. None ever can; the sinner must have another THE TRUTH HELD IN UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. 73 God and another Maker first. If lie will not obey God, lie is doing tlie worst thing he can do He is a rebel against his Maker. He is unjust, ungrateful! He is battling his own mind, his own conscience, and the better sensibilities of the heart within him ! Truth of such obligation would instantly dash the weapons of rebellion out of his hands, if he did not love to be a rebel against God. His imrighteousness hinders its influ- ence. 7. Its ease of acceptance. We are not going to main- tain that it is an easy thing to become a Christian. But we do maintain, that the only great difficulty in the way, lies simply in this, namely, really desiring to he a Chris- tian. Nothing hinders a sinner from accejoting easily and willingly all the truths of God and all the terms of salvation, except that one thing we have mentioned so often in this sermon — his own imrighteousness^ his evil disposition. That is a difficulty. That is the only great difficulty. God is willing to save him. Jesus Christ is willing to accept him. And the Holy Spirit's influence, if he had not resisted it, would long since have subdued his stubbornness, and brought him to rest sweetly on the mercy of God. But he never will rest there, without the special influences of the Holy Ghost. His need of Divine aid is an infinite need. He can do nothing with- out it. He is a dead man. But he is dead in sin. Un- righteousness makes him need the special influences of the Holy Spirit infinitely, and in every thing. Oh ! that he knew it — realized it. -Then he would rely no longer upon his own shattered strength, vain purposes, and un- aided attempts to master the sturdy rebellion of his dreadful heart. He would fall into the hands of God. All the sinner has to do, is simply to let God have his 4 74 THE TRUTH HELD IN UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. heart, and lie down on the everlasting arms stretched out to receive him. Salvation is so easy, that if a sinner's whole heart seeks it, if he is really willing to have it, the promise of God puts it into his hands. Ye shall find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart. 8. lis frequency of solicitation. It would be impossible to give you any adequate description of the frequency with which we are solicited towards God and salvation by the truths that meet us. We are solicited every where. In every object of vision, in every subject of thought, there is something which would naturally bring religion to mind. Consider the lilies of the field, and their beauty shall teach you, that Solomoyi in all his glory teas not arrayed like one of these; the penciling of God's fingers is upon them. The sparkling diamonds of a summer's morning ask you the question. Who hath he- gotten the drops of the dew f It rains : How natural tire question, Hath the rain a father f It snows : How natural to ask, the hoary frost of heaven, ivho hath gendered it? It is midnight : You may look upon the orbs of light that lie out on that bosom of blue, and ask of any being but God, Canst thou hind the sweet infiuences of the Pleiads? or loose the hands of Orion ? Canst thou hi'ing forth Maz- zaroth iii his season? or guide Arcturus and Ids sons? You are a child, and the lessons of piety are poured into your ears. You are a youth, and the Bible is put into your hands. You are a man, and resort to the house of God ; and, no older than I am, I am now preaching to you the four thousand five hundred and fourteenth ser- mon that I have been permitted to preach. It is impos- sible to go on with this illustration. Let me say, and ask you to remember it, that there is no other class of truths THE TRUTH HELD IN UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. 75 in existence which is so frequently soliciting your atten- tion as the truths of religion. Eeligion is the lesson of the universe. God's fingers have written it every where. It solicits you at every step, in every breath, in every beating pulse. From this frequency of solicitation, no- thing can escape, but a willing unrighteousness. This universe of truths, this life of lessons, would gather every body into heaven, if every body was willing to be right. Ko other thing has any thing like such frequency of suggestion to the human mind as the subject of religion. 9. li^ felicity in obedience. If it made men miserable, we could not so readily expect men to embrace it.. But look at the world. Judge for yourself Who are the happiest people ? You must be blinded indeed by sin, if you can not see that even present felicity is increased by obedience to God. But, go ask the men of God. Moses will tell you that he chooses affliction in godliness before royalty in Egypt. Paul and Silas ^^dll tell you that they love that midnight song in the prison. Ask where you will, the poorest, lowest, most miserable dis- ciple of Jesus Christ on earth, and he will tell you that he would not exchange the felicity of his hope in God for all your wealth, and pride, and power, could give him. Why, then, will not you be a Christian ? You would ; the truths of Christianity would vanquish mind if the heart of sin would allow mind to touch them. That heart holds them in unrighteousness^ limits their influence, or their attraction would draw every living sinner to the felicities of forgiveness. 10. Its adapted motives ; and, 11. Its striking arguments. (We are compelled to fling away half our materials, and, even then, blend these two ideas together.) Adapted motives — striking 76 THE TRUTH HELD IN UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. arguments. That the motives of religion are most per- fectly adapted to our condition, and that its arguments for acceptance is most striking, need scarcely be men- tioned to a dying man. Death is an idea which strikes the mind as no other earthly idea does ; and death is a motive for religion. Religion changes death from an enemy into a friend. He comes to the believer only to put him into the arms of Jesus Jehovah, while his stiff- ened lips are saying, Come^ Lord Jesus, come quichly. It is a striking idea, that all these living bodies of this great congregation, now animate with life, and elasticity, and vigor, shall be crumbled down into the dust ; and, after moldering among the clods of the valley, shall be flung up, perhaps, by the spade of the grave-digger, and scattered to the winds ! But what a motive for religion 1 God shall gather the scattered particles. The resurrec- tion morning shall reanimate the believer's body ; while those that have done evil shall come forth from their graves to shame and everlasting contempt — the resurrection of damnation ! If some visitant, from some distant planet where sin never was, should light on this miserable world, proba- bly nothing would strike him more forcibly, than the wants and the woes that are in it. That is a striking idea. Strange, strange world! Fears fill it! Tears are streaming from the eyes of its inhabitants ! Hearts bleed ! And, as this race of humanity tread on, covered with crape, towards the spot where they have buried their kindred, the most awful of all ideas is the anger of God — after death the judgment! But how adapted the motives of religion here. Religion tells you, too, of the strangest things in the universe. One is, that God can forgive a sinner, and love him, and save him! The THE TRUTH HELD IN" UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. 77 otlier is, that if the sinner will accept his love and his Son, all his miseries, from that very moment, shall be turned into mercies; he never shall have a sorrow too deep, or shed a tear too much, or die too painfully, or too quick ! A II things shall work together for his good. God will lead him to heaven in the best way. For my part, I can not, after repeated trials, think of any other subject which has such striking arguments for attention, as religion has ; or think of a single point, wherein its motives are not perfectly adapted to such a creature as man. Why, then, does not man attend to it, and yield to the motives which grace brings down to his miseries, his sin and his sepulcher, and stretches out on the bosom of eternity bej^ond it ? There is but one answer, and the old one : these truths are held in righteousness. Nothing, nothing but wickedness hinders their influence from urging every dying sinner to repent- ance and salvation. AVho can doubt, that this sturdy rebellion needs the direct influence of the Spirit of God ? Finally ; \h.Q feeble antagonists of this truth. The rejec- tion of true religion would not be so wonderful, if the things which oppose it were not of such meanness. Wherever you find them, you find they are little in themselves, mere trifles, the veriest dreams. We have already alluded to that infidelity, which openly denies the truth of Christianity, and whose most gifted champions, in every chapter of their arguments, expose either their contemptible ignorance, like Herbert and Bolingbroke, or their intentional falsehood, like Paine and Gibbon, or both ignorance and falsehood together, like every flippant fool, who glories in dogma- tizing over others, as weak and wicked as himself All these have expended their force, and the strongholds of 78 THE TRUTH HELD IN UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. Christianity are unsliaken. A mere scliolar in the Sunday-school can often confute the champions of infi- delity. But that opposition to true religion, which is most influential, is to be found in the pleasures and prom- ises of sin. And, let any man think, what are these ? How strong an argument for irreligion do you find in the oaths that come from the blasphemer's lips ? in the dishonesty, which ends usually in disgTace and prison ? in the rags, poverty, and death, of the drunkard ? in the little and vanishing pleasure of the theater, the dance, the honors of ambition, and the coveted wealth of the world ? For these, and things like these, men neglect religion ! And what do they gain ? What does any sinner on earth gain, that ought to weigh a feather in that scale of judgment, whereby he decides for the pres- ent against religion, and concludes to live on, without prayer, without piety, and without Christ? Hearer, what are you gaining, for which you continue to offend God, and expose, every moment, your immortal spirit to his final anger ? What would you lose^ if you should now obey God and live ? Ponder it, ponder it well I It does seem to me, that one of the most marvellous things in the universe is this, how a rational being can, for all that sin, and Satan, and the world can give him, neglect, for a single hour, to set his heart fully to seek God ! Is he rational ? Is he 720^ a madman or a fool ? See what trifles he is after ! what dreams ! what bubbles ! what vanishing visions ! what nothings ! And these are the antagonists of religion ! For these he lives ! for these he dies for ever, smitten with the frost of the second death ! Truth would have saved him, if his wicked heart had allowed it. We have done. As much as possible, we have con- THE TEUTH HELD IN UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. 79 densed tliese articles, and the argument is closed. It shows, that there is no defect in religious truth ; and the rejection of the religion of Christ, of pardon, of holiness, and heaven, is to be accounted for only on the ground of a sinner's own loved and voluntary wickedness of heart. Let the rejecters remember, that the ivroili of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness and un- godliness of men^ who hold the truth in unrighteousness. My hearers, you ought not to reject this truth and its salvation. Be persuaded to yield to it. In order to eternal life, this truth must prevail. You must heed it. It must conquer your mind, and heart, and will, through the Holy Ghost, and lead you in a new and living way. It is the instrument of all the good that God has to bestow upon sinners. Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth, is a passage in the Saviour's prayer. For proclaiming this truth, this ministry exists, and we come here this day to set over you, in the gospel of Jesus Christ, the man of your own choice.'^* With his full heart's consent we give him to jou, in the name of our God and your God, our Father and your Father. We know he will be an able and faithful minister of the Kew Testament. We know he will love you ; and both our faith and our knowledge of you would be at fault, if we did not add, we know" you wdll love him. Come, hear his words. Standing on the high vantage- ground of this truthful Gospel, with trained mind and holy lips, he wdll demonstrate to you the justice and the mercy of God. He will tell you the best news your ears can hear. He w^ill prove to you that God loves to save sinners, loves to forgive them, to adopt them into his * Preached at the instaUation ol Rev. J. M. Sherwood, at Bloomfield, N. J., nnd also at the installation of Rev. Wm. Van Dyke.^ at Brooklyn. 80 THE TEUTH HELD IX UXRIGHTEOUSNESS. famHy, and invite tliem to pour tlieir sorrows into his bosom. He will render yon familiar witli such names as Bethlehem, and Bethanj^, and Nazareth, and Jerusa- lem ; and, pointing j^ou to the blood-dyed wood, the vinegar and the gall, the nails and the spear, he will demonstrate to you that the most needless of all calami- ties in the universe is the loss of a poor sinner's soul ! He will go with you along the path where Joseph of Arimathea bore the mangled body of the Son of God, and lead you down among the bloom and roses of that garden where there was a sepulcher. And then, leading you away over Mount Olivet to Bethany, and pointing you to the glory that lingers around the ascension-track of the Eedeemer of men, he will aim to conquer you by the love of God, and allure you up to brighter worlds on high. His argument v/ill defy your despair ; "/S'ayW/ the deed shall spread new glory O'er the crowds, the throne above ; Angels tell that blissful story, A sinner sav'd — our God is love." And, having pointed you to that bright ascension-track, he will invite your ear to listen to that mingled melody that comes floating down from the lips of saints and the lyres of angels — ■ "From the highest throne of glory To the cross of deepest woe, All to ransom guilty captives — Flow my praise, for ever flow." Would you go up in that bright track, and join in that happy song? Come in hither from Sabbath to Sabbath, and hear the minister we give to you to-da}^ From the Bible truth, if you will not hold it in unrighteousness^ he THE TRUTH HELD IN UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. 81 will give you sucli consolations as dying sinners need — as deathless spirits long for. Come here, ye guilty children of the fall, be made heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. Come here, ye pious, love truth more, and Jesus Christ more. Pour your prayers around these altars, and depart with the song, / shall he satisfied^ when I awake with thy likeness. Come here, ye worldly, never-satisfied and often mis- erable ; let this Gospel of truth correct your error — love not the world^ neither the things that are in the world. Ye rich, often-tempted, and tried, and miserable, bit- terly learning how hard it is for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God ; come, hear this truthful Gospel ; it shall tell you of durahle riches^ even righteousness. Ye may be saved, for with God all things are possible. Ye poor, oppressed with daily toil, and afflicted and tearful, come, hear this Gospel, for God hath chosen the poor of this tuorldj rich infaith^ and heirs of the kingdom. Ye strangers, separated from the homes and churches of your childhood, while " Mountaius rise, and oceans roll between," we invite you to this house of God, and the hopes of this Gospel. Though you worship not by the altars of your fathers, and may not sleep beside them in the sepulcher, come, learn righteousness^ and you shall meet the whole family of your pious kindred in heaven. Come, ye ignorant, this Gospel is for you. The words of Christ shall teach you, shall dissipate your darkness, and bring the balm of comfort to your troubled bosoms. Come, blooming youth, this message is for you; 82 THR TRUTH HELD IN UNRIGHTEOUSNESS. come, make your home in this house of God ; its minis- try will proclaim to you the promise : those that seek me early shall find me. Come, little children, the Gospel is for you ; here you shall be told of that Saviour who took little children in his arms and blessed them, and said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and forhid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven. Come, ye aged, trembling with the palsy of the tomb I come here and learn your departing song: Lord, noio lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation. Come 3-0, holding the truth in unrighteousness, ye pro- fane, ye careless, ye bold and stout-hearted, be persuaded to frequent this house of God, make you a new heart and a new sp)irit, for ivhy will ye die? though your sins he as scarlet, they shall he as wool ; though they he red like crim- son, they shall he made whiter than snow. Come, any sinner, of any condition, any dying mortal, come ; yield up your unrighteousness ; this Gospel shall pour . words of comfort upon your ear. Obey it, and you shall pass through life's trials, and through death's dark stream, sweetly singing, In the time of troulAe HE shall hide me in Bl^ pavilion ; in the secret of his tahernacle shall he hide me. God grant these blessings here, dwelling in these courts, henceforth and for ever. Amen. Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my foot- stool. "Where is the house that ye build unto me ? And where is the place of my rest ?— Isaiah, Ixvi. 1. TT is often beneficial, when we are studying tlie sacred ■*- Scriptures, to examine minutely all the circumstances under which, the part we would understand was penned. Such circumstances may throw light upon the text. They may explain its imagery, and thus give it a vivid- ness and force unseen before ; and they may unfold its design, and thus guide us into a just application of it. But this is rather the office of the scholar, than of the preacher. The Apostles, Jesus Christ himself, seldom labored much on the circumstances of the passages the}" quoted from the Old Testament, if we may judge from the specimens of their preaching recorded in the New. They took the fact, the command, or the promise, as it stood, and, without any elaborate display of scholarship, employed it for the purpose in hand. We now follow their examjole. We have not time for any thing more than an attempt to lead you to understand and apply the sentiment expressed in this text. Please to notice the subject of remark here, and the manner in which it is remarked upon. The subject of remark is, God himself. TIjq prophet Si THE MAGNIFICENCE OF GOD. is sent to exclaim, Thus scnth the Lord, the heaven is my throne, the earth is my footstool. The attention is turned simply to God — ^his grandeur, Lis magnificence, if you please, his immensity, his omnipresence. He abides in heaven, he puts the earth under his feet. The manner in which the remark about God is con- ducted, is that of a kind of contrast betwixt him and men. Where is the house that ye huild unto me, and ivhere is the place of my rest? God is unlike man. He challenges any comparison. The heaven, even the heaven of heavens, can not contain him. Ancient kings aimed often to impress their subjects with an idea of their mag- nificence, and surrounded themselves with a solemn and salutary av/e, by rearing palaces of the most imposing splendor and magnificence. They wished to overawe the multitude. On this ground, God himself seems to have ordered the unequaled grandeur of the ancient temple. But in doing it, he took care that its dazzling beauty and stateliness should only be an aid, a stepping- stone, to assist the imagination in its upward reach towards the grandeur of God. In the prayer of the dedication, Solomon's devotion soars infinitely above the temple. Here, the majesty of God, and the littleness of man, stand side by side. After mentioning the earth and the heaven, God says. All these things hath my hand made. But yet, lest dread should too much terrify the wor- shiper, or a high and just idea of God's infinite majesty should lead the humble into the error of supposing that such an august Being would not regard such an insig- nificant creature as man, he adds, To this man ivill I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and tremhleth at my luord. A turn of thought well worthy THE MAGNIFICEXCE OF GOD. 85 of our admiration. A contrite sinner has nothing to fear from God. His very majesty need not terrify him. Indeed, his majesty constitutes the very ground for his encouragement. It can condescend. It operates hy condescension. Just as much does the King of kings and Lord of lords glorify himself, when he consoles, by the whisperings of his Spirit, the poorest and most unworthy sinner that ever felt the pangs of a bruised heart, as when he thunders in the heavens as the Most High^ and gives his voice^ hail-stones and coals of fire. With this idea, sinners should approach him and medi- tate his grandeur. In his kindness, in his pardoning mercy, in his condescensions of grace, he displays the ineffable majesty of his Godhead — reaching as far down to a penitent creature's littleness, as he reaches up above his imagination. First, therefore, we direct your attention to the style of the text. What we mean is this : God speaks of him- self. He seems to aim to fix the mind on Him as the subject of contemplation. The heaven is my throne, the earth is r)iy footstool This style of religious address is especially common in the Scriptures. We dare not un- dertake to describe it, and descant upon it. We can only give the fact in the language which no mortal pen has ever yet equaled, or ever will. There is something peculiar in this. Hear David, when, in a style resembling the text, his mind soars to God: 0, Lord, thou has searched me and known me. Thou hnowest my down-sitting and mine up- rising : thou imderstandest my thought afar off. ... . Whither shall I go from thy Spirit f or luhither shall I flee from thy presence^ Lf I ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If 86 THE MAGNIFICENCE OF GOD. I take the loings of the morning^ and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me^ and thy right hand shall hold rue. If I say^ surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall he light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee : hut the night shineth as the day, and the darkness and the light are both alike to thee. For thou has possessed my reins; thou has covered me in my mother'' s luomh. I will praise thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works, and that my soul knoweth right luell. What a chapter upon God I what an amazing chapter ! Hear Job : I have heard of thee by the ear; but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor 'myself and repent in dust and ashes. Again hear him : Camst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty to perfec- tion ? As high as heaven ; ivhat canst thou do f deeper than hell ; what canst thou know ? (xi. 7, 8.) Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering. He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing. He bindeth up the ivaters in his thick clouds^ and the cloud is not rent under them. . . . The pillars of heaven tremble, and are astonished at his reproof. . . . Lo, these are parts of his ivays ; but how little a portion is heard of him? but the thunder of his power loho can understand? (xxvi. 6-14.) Gird up now thy loins like a man ; for I loill demand of thee, and answer thou me. Where ivast thou luhen I laid the foundations of the earth ? . . . . when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy ? . . . Ha.st thou entered into the springs of the sea ? . . . hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death? Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiads? or loose the hands of Orion? canst thou bring forth Mazza- roth in his season ? or canst thou guide Ai^cturus unth his THE MAGNIFICENCE OF GOD. 87 sons f . . . Canst thou send ligliinings^ that they may go^ and say unto thee^ Here we are ? What sketclies of God I wliat unequaled sketclies ! How diminutive and mean does man appear before sucli an incompreliensible Being I Hear Isaiah: Who hath measured the icaters in the hollow of his handj and meted out hcaveii ivith a span^ and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure^ and weighed the mountains in scales^ and the hills in a balance ? Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord^ or heing his coun- selor hath taught him ? . . . Behold the 7iations are as a drop of the bucket^ and are counted as the small dust of the balance. All natioiis before him are as nothing ; and they are counted to him less than nothing^ and vanity He sitteth upon the circle of the earth ; . . . he stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain. . . . Why sayest thou, oh Jacob^ and specdcesf, oh Israel, My way is hid from the lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God? Hast thou not known ? hast thou 7iot heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary f (Chap, xl.) These passages all have a resemblance to one another ; and they all resemble the text. They all speak of God, and speak of him in a style which we can not attempt to analyze. Their aim appears to be two-fold. First, to lead us to make the idea of God himself the leading idea in religion; to have it preside over the whole system and pervade every part of it ; just as if a correct idea in religion could not even exist without it. And, second, to have this idea, which we are to entertain about God, an idea of the utmost grandeur, of the most amazing magnili- cence, and solemn sublimity. So the Divine writers speak of God. So they aim to have us filled with the awe of him. So they place his ineffable grandeur to m THE MAGNIFICENCE OF GOD. preside over religion and animate the whole. This is their stjde ; this is the style of the text. 11. The design they have in view can not easily be mistaken. They would give us just ideas of God. The impression they aim to make is simply this, that God is incomparably and inconceivably above us — an infinite and awful niystery ! "We could name to you a philos- opher, (and his name is too famous in history to be spoken of by us with any disrespect,) who has maintained that the mode in which men are to arrive at the most just idea of God, is to suppose a man clothed with every pos- sible excellence of character, wisdom, equity, goodness, justics, and so on ; and then to suppose these excellences all anited in the same being, and extended and exalted beyond measure : that Being, he tells us, is God. There may be some truth in this. We are such creatures of littleness, that our imperfections seem to need some gra- dations, some stepping-stones, some scaffoldings, to con- duct us up to the Deity. And in the sacred Scriptures, this mode may have some few exemplifications. But after all, this is not their ordinary stjde. More com- monly, they adopt an opposite one. At a single dash they portray an infinitude. At once they introduce us to an infinite mystery. Instantly, when they would give us a just impression about God, they bring up something to show that he is beyond description, beyond mind, be- yond all conception, that high and lofty One who inhahiteth eternity. This is their aim. They form no comparisons. They are not accustomed to conduct us on httle by little ; and, through steps and resting-places, and measuring of dis- tances, tempt us to think that we have attained any thing like a comprehensive idea of the Infinite One. They rather fling us back from any such mental stair-case: THE MAGNIFICENCE OF COD. 89 High as heaven^ what canst thou do f deeper than hell, what canst thou know f They would impress upon us tlie in- conceivable and awful grandeur of God. Just experi- ence does tlie same thing. III. The call, the necessity oH\i\^ may exist on different grounds. 1. Our littleness. In the nature of the case, there can be no comparison betwixt man and Grod. All is con- trast — an infinite contrast. At least, we arrive at the most just impression by that mode of conception. You can not form of human excellences any measuring-line for the Deity. You can not stretch it along his character, and apply it to such an extent, that you can ever pause and say, that you have come anj^ nearer to the whole than when you first commenced. After all you can do, there is still an infinity beyond you — just as exhaustless and inconceivable as when you started. All you have measured is not God ; it is no comparison for God ; it is only a diminutive little something which lies in an inex- pressible contrast with his immensity and magnificence. Our littleness renders this mode of the Scriptures, of the text, necessary to us. 2. So does our sinfulness. Sin never exists aside from the mind's losing a just impression of the Deity; and wherever it exists, there is a tendency to cleave to low and unworthy ideas of him. Sinners do not think of him justly. Their ideas degrade him. This is the cause of their rejecting so often many of the vital doctrines of religion, and neglecting so many of its duties. For ex- ample, the doctrines of human depravity, and the neces- sity of being born again. They reject these, or think lightly and wrongfully of them, because their low ideas of God have sunk infinitely below the holiness and 90 THE MAGNIFICENCE OF GOD. spirituality of Lis character. They do not see their de- pravity, and see they must he horn again^ because they do not see God. Again, for example, the eternity of punishment for the wicked. Men are staggered on this, they doubt it, they sometimes reject it ; and all this comes to pass because they have such imperfect and erroneous notions of God. They do not so perceive his ineffable grandeur, holiness, and immensity, as to understand the infinite ill-desert of sin, and understand that any thing short of an eternity of punishment would only be a bur- lesque on God's retributive government. What is it, in our assemblies, where the solemnity of our business ought to secure a solemnity of mind, where God speaks and we listen, where hang the interests of our immortal being, interests high as heaven and deep as hell ; what is it here that allows so many wandering thoughts, so much levity of heart, such lack of homage, and allows so many worshipers to come up hither without earnest prayer, and depart hence, ready, as soon as they have crossed the threshold of the tabernacle, to take up their interest and employ their tongues in the veriest trifles of a contemptible, little world ? The same answer comes back upon us. They have no just sense of the awful majesty of God, his magnificence, his ineffable grandeur. Our sinfulness renders the style of the Scriptures, the style of the text, necessary to us. 3. So does our materiality^ the connection of our minds with material and gross bodies. This connection renders it difficult for us to soar beyond matter. We are in danger of introducing the imperfections of our existence into our religion, even into our ideas of God. Conse- quently, when God speaks to us of himself, he speaks in a manner designed to guard us from error. He speaks THE MAGNIFICENCE OF GOD. 91 with an elevation of tliouglit whicli makes language labor. It is a distinctive mark of our littleness, depend- ence, and imperfection, when we are so united to matter that the east wind troubles our mind, that the flesh and blood of our mortal bodies has power over us, and often determines our purposes, and decides our happiness or misery, not to say virtue or vice. What more distinct mark could we have of our dependence, of our creature condition, of our helplessness, than when we find our- selves insecure against the very dust which rises from the footsteps of the passing traveler, and may put out our eyes ? when the sun may smite us by day and the moon by night ? when the change of a few particles of matter in our blood or in our brain, over which we have no control, and which we can not even understand, has an effect to fill our bosoms with hope or sadden them into despondency and gloom ? We are such creatures, such beings connected with matter. Being such, it is very dif&cult for us to rise above the influences of our condition upon our religious conceptions. We are prone to feel them even in our conceptions of God. Conse- quently, few things are more labored in the Scriptures than the attempt to lift us above this. God will not alloy/ us to think of him as we think of ourselves. We build houses to dwell in. He says to us. The heaven is my throne^ and the earth is my footstool. Where is the house ye build unto me ? We are limited to the world. We can not get foothold or resting spot any where else. We are circumscribed within very narrow limits. But God asks us. Where is the place of MY rest f He would elevate our conceptions of him above matter, beyond it, out of the reach of its bounds. And even when, in ac- commodation to our material connection, he speaks of 92 THE MAGNIFICENCE OF GOD. himself as possessing a resemblance to any of our faculties or qualities, so that we may be able to have some little glimpse of his ineffable grandeur, he does it in a mode to carry a caution along with it, and give us, after all, more the impression of a contrast than of a comparison ; and an impression of himself, as a high and incomprehensible spirit. Listen to him. If he speaks of his eyes, they are eyes that run to and fro through the earth ; eyes to which the darkness and the light are both alihe^ to which night shineth as the day. If he speaks of his feet, they are feet before which burning coals go forth when he moves ; and when he rests, which reach from the throne of his loftiness to the earth — heaven is my throne^ and the earth my footstool. If he mentions his hands, they are hands which take up the isles as a very little thing^ which mete out the heavens as a span^ which iceigh the mountains iji scales and the hills in a balance, which measure the waters of the ocean in the hollow of his hand. If he men- tions his voice, it is a Yoice full of majesty, which divideth tlie flames of fire, which shakes the heavens, which wakes the thunder, which wields the lightning, which breaketh the cedars of Lebanon, which maketh them skip like a calf and maketli Lebanon and Sirion skip like a young iinicorn. "Wonderful imagery ! amazing grandeur and magnifi- cence ! God would evidently fill us with an awe of him, and represent himself to our conceptions as unutterably above us, ineffably unlike man, an amazing and incom- prehensible Spirit. The influences of our bodily condi- tion render this style of the Scriptures necessar3^ 4. So does the nature of God. Man is only a creature. He owes his existence to a cause without him. That cause still rules him. That cause allows him to know but little, and often drops the veil of an impenetrable THE MAGNIFICEITCE OF GOD. 93 darkness before his e3^es just at tlie point, the very point, where he is most desirous to look further, and it drops the veil there, in order to do him the two-fold office of convincing him of the grandeur of God and his own littleness, and of compelling him, under the influence of those convictions, to turn back to a light which concerns him, more than the darkness beyond the veil can, to a light, where are wrapped up the duties and interests of his immortal soul. God would repress his curiosity, and make him use his conscience. Therefore, he makes darkness preach to him. Therefore, he speaks of him- self in a mode to admonish every student of his perfec- tions, that he must not think of God as he thinks of himself, but must think of him as un-caused, self-exist- ent, and eternal — as having no derived ideas, but as having such an infinite supremacy that he has no need to observe any thing, in order to knoAv every thing: in his own mind were treasured eternally the models of all that exist. Hence, the mode in which God speaks to man of himself is demanded by the nature of his perfec- tions. His essence, the efficiency of his will, his spirit- uality, his supremacy, his justice, his mercy, all that belongs to him, demand the ideas of amazement, mag- nificence, and grandeur — the idea of the text, which we dare not attempt to explain, but only cite other passages to exemplify. TV. But we must stop on the borders of this ocean of thought. We have only taken a little glimpse : Let us make some little application. We have seen that God would impress our minds with an idea of his amazing grandeur — that this object governs the style in which he speaks of himself to us. Hence, 94 THE MAGNIFICENCE OF GOD. 1. Let us be admonished to apj)roacli the study of religion with an awe and solemnity of mind which belongs to it. It is the study of God ; it is the science of his infinite perfections. He himself has emblazoned it before us, as we have seen, wrapped in the dark grandeur of an amazing imagery ! Evidently he would make us tremble. The voice comes from the burning bush, draw not nigh liithev^ 'put off thy shoes from off thy feet^ for the ground whereon thou standest is holy ground. How unlike all other subjects is religion ! How differ- ently we should approach it ! How little should we expect to prosper in it, in the mode whereby we prosper in other studies; and make genius, judgment, and sagacity, and the talents of discrimination, percept tion, and other faculties, contribute to our success, on the same principles as they contribute to it in other studies ! No, never ! never ! The first impression should be a solemn awe, mingled with a deep sense of our own insignificance and sin. No sinner need expect to understand religion without this. No sinner need expect to find his pathway up to the Cross, without the aid of the Holy Spirit. Never did a mind take a more unreasonable, more un appropriate, more unpromising course, than does that sinner who studies religion without prayer ! Fall on your knees, mortal man ! Prostrate yourself in dust, and lift up your imploring cry to the Infinite One, or you can not have either the attitude or the spirit which belongs to the subject, and without which all your endeavors will be vain ! 2. This mode in which God teaches us — this grandeur and magnificence which belong to him — ought to re« move a very common difficulty from our minds, and prepare us to receive in faith, those deep and dark doc- THE MAGNIFICENCE OF GOD. 95 trines, wliose mystery is so apt to stagger us. What can we expect ? God, the infinite God, is the presiding genius of religion. Keligion takes all its nature from his nature. Eeligion is what it is, simply because God is such a Being as he is. If it had no depths about it, it would therefore be false : it would neither come from God; nor conduct to him : it would be infinitely unlike him, and would cultivate in us a set of ideas and impressions, which would be an infinite insult to his amazing magnificence. It would be superstition, indeed, if we were to receive a doctrine, simply because it was deep and mysterious. But to reject it, for such a reason, when God hath re- vealed it, is infinitely unreasonable. Deep it must be, if it comes from God, accords with God, or conducts us towards him. As we contemplate the grandeur of God, as we look out on that boundless ocean, without a bottom or shore, nothing should surprise us, nothing make our faith stagger, if God has spoken it. Once lost in his im- mensity, and flung into our just place, by a just idea of his inconceivable greatness ; we can not but understand, that religion can not teach us a single lesson about God, unless it teaches something beyond our abilities fully to comprehend. A reasonable mind will be willing to stand on the borders of this vast ocean, amazed and awed ! After this — after God's magnificence, what word of God shall stagger us ? After this — three persons in one God- — the efficiency of a Divine control closely linked with man's perfect freedom — election linked with human accountability — the incarnation of the Son — ^the love to sinners which prompted it — Divine justice satis- fied with a Divine atonement — none of these mysteries will trouble a reasonable mind ; it will be willing to let 96 THE MAGNIFICENCE OF GOD. God he God ; and standing, amazed, but comforted and satisfied, on the borders of this fathomless ocean of truth, will be willing to exclaim, OA, the depth of the riches^ both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ; how unsearchoMe are his judgments^ and his ivays fast finding out. On the infinite field of religion we are to expect the foot-prints of an infinite God. 8. Since God is so vast a being, how deep should be our humility ! Proud man I what art thou ? an insect, an atom, a worm of the dust ! a vapor ! a nothing I 4. How deep should be our homage ! At what an inconceivable distance is God above us ! We may approach him for ever, and be no nearer! With an unlimited awe it becomes us to regard him ! The spec- ulative worshiper, who examines here his truth as he would examine a question of trade, or science — the for- mal worshiper, with heart untouched and unamazed— the fashionable worshiper, here tempted to allow his thoughts to rove on every vanity — these must depart from these courts under a cloud, if not under a curse ! What are they doing? What ideas and impressions have they of God ? Let them laugh at the thunder — let them play with the lightning — let them dance to the bowlings of the hurricane and over the heavings of the earthquake ; and none of this shall be so un appropriate, or so untasteful and stupid, as their presence here, with- out a deep reverence for God, without the spirit of solemnity and supiDlication. 5. The greatness of God should gauge the depth of our repentance. Our sin is against him. It has pro- voked him. It has insulted his infinite majesty. It has poured contempt upon his law, that law which pro- ceeded from his infinite rectitude ; and, while it continues THE MAGNIFICENCE OF GOD. 97 witliout repentance and turning to God, it pours con- tempt upon his love, that love which produced the flowing blood of his Son ! 6. The greatness of God should invite our faith. His greatness is so vast, that we know he can condescend to Tis : he can over-step every barrier, and reach down to every depth. Sin, do thy worst — law, muster thy thunders — hell, make thy claims ; if God he for us, who can be against us ? 7. The magnificence of God should be a motive to our service. He is able to turn our smallest services to an infinite account. He will. It will not be long before the poor disciple, who has nothing else to give, shall stand before the great luhite throne, and hear the King say unto him, because thou liast given a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, thou shalt have thy reivard; and then, on the harvest-field of eternity, he shall gather the fruits of his sowing here to the Spirit — ^fruit, life everlasting. The unsearchable God can accept the smallest service, and knows how to make vast and eternal benefits grow out of it, as easily as out of the most magnificent. 8. The greatness of God ought to encourage the timid. Miserable mortal ! poor creature of tempestuous circum- stances, tossed with fear, shipwrecked in storms, forsaken by friends, pained with sickness, and, after having aimed to live godly in Christ Jesus and maintain a good name, aspersed with foul slanders — poor mortal, fear not ! The great God reigns ! And because he is great, his regard reaches to every one of 3^our annoyances. Your enemies can not hurt 3"ou. They may pain you ; but God shall make them profit jovl. He has his hook in their nose, and. his bridle in their lips. Be God's friend, and if your enemies touch you, they touch the apple ofliis eye. Be his 5 98 THE MAGNIFICENCE OF GOD. friend, and if poverty trouble you liere, it shall not trouble you long. 9. The grandeur of God ought to rebuke our reliance upon creatures. All creatures are his. He made them. He governs them. He will govern. Not a sparrow falls, or an angel sings, or a devil blasphemes, without him ! We have not, and we can not have, any resource but in him. All else shall fail us. They will soon fail. They are even now failing. Friends sink around us! Hopes perish ! We carry the seeds of death in our mortal bodies ! And this wide world, and these sweet heavens themselves, shall pretty soon vanish away at the sound of the final trumpet ! "Our God in grandeur and our world on fire I" Oh, give me hope and treasure in God! Give me some solid foundation to build upon ! Give mc my house founded upon the Eock of Ages I Give me this, and soon, when I stand a disembodied spirit on the ashes of a burnt world, and see tlie heavens rolled together as a scroll^ I shall be able to say, I have lost nothing ! And then, taking my way up to that Mount Zion which can not he movedj I shall be able to exclaim, I have gained every thing ! Because God, speaking in the grandeur of power and grandeur of grace which belongs to him, has issued the promise to the poor and contrite spirit — the mountains shall depart, and the hills he removed, hut my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace he removed. Would to God, that we could persuade every immortal soul here, to give up the treacherous world, and rest itself on the bosom of this vast and gracious God — immeasurably great and immeasurably good. Eender unto God the things that are God's. — Matthew, sxii. 21. TT7E do not propose to examine with minuteness the ' * occasion which gave rise to these words of Jesus Christ. It will be sufficient to remark, that they were uttered on an occasion when some of those who disbe- lieved in his Divine mission sought to entangle him in his talk. Passing by the matters of religion, and desirous to bring down upon him the displeasure of the civil government, the disciples of the Pharisees and the Herodi- ans were sent to him to ask him, (after some empty and insincere compliments,) is it lawful to give tribute to Ccesar or notf Jesus knew their wickedness. He answered, ivhy tempt ye me? show me the tribute money. And they shoived him a penny. And he said unto thern^ whose is this image and superscription? They say unto him,^ Coisar''s. Then saith he unto them^ Render^ therefore^ unto Caesar the things that are Ccesar^ s, and unto God the things that are God^s. He met their temptation by laying down a great principle. This principle was to give Ctesar his own, and God his own. Eights never conflict with one another. Duties never conflict with one another. Right- eousness has no inconsistencies. It is error that is fall of absurdities and contradictions, while truth has none ■* Delivered before the Synod of New York, at Brooklyn, Oct. 20, 1S51. 100 THE DIVINE CHARACTER PRE-EMINENT. of them. Eeligion will blame no man for rendering unto Ccesar the things that are Ccesar^s, but it demands of every man to render unto God the things that are God^s. The text, therefore, implies the necessity of knowing the character, standing or office of Caesar, that he may receive his due ; and the necessity , of knowing the standing of God, what God is, that we may render unto him the things that are his. To this latter necessity we propose to attend in this sermon. Render unto God the things that are God's. We have no special reference now to an}^ civil or po- litical duties ; but we propose to consider the importance, in religious respects, of our having just ideas of the being and character of God. We lay down this principle ; — that, for the purposes of correctness and security in our religion, it is an indis- pensable thing for us, that we know the character of God correctly, in order to know what to render to him, in homage, service and love^ — in every emotion and duty of religion. This is our doctrine. We proceed to sub- stantiate it. We name to you only four general ideas : the purpose of creature existence — a correct conscience — the foundation of religion, and the manner in which re- ligious character is formed. I. God is the Head of the universe, in a sense peculiar and without comparison. He is not only supreme over it, but he made \tfor himself. It exists, all creatures in it exist, not for their sakes, but for his own. He hath made all things for himself He took the motives for his work of creation from his own infinite existence and character, and planned the whole, when nothing existed but himself, standing alone in the solitude of his vast THE DIVINE CHAEACTER PRE-EMINENT. 101 and unpeopled eternity — not a creature to praise him — • not a being to move. There was nothing but God. Nothing else, therefore, could bring into action his creating power. The universe exists for the sake of God, its Author. Over this universe he presides. And his rule is as pe- culiar, and as much beyond comparison with any other, as his existence is. He needs no machinery to aid his strength : his will is his power. He needs no study to perfect his wisdom — no experiments — no time. He is infinitely above all this. Indeed, he needs no inspection or examination in order to his knowledge. He has only to have recourse to his own plans — the eternal models of all things, which have existed for ever in his own infinite mind. His control, therefore, is peculiar and beyond all analogy. His volition is his omnipotence — his thought is infinite wisdom — and infallibly he directs all things under his government to the accomplishment of his designed ends. Now, if we have not these and such like correct ideas of his character and attributes, how is it possible that we should render him his due ? He is head over all. He is infinitely and peculiarly supreme. Every thing else may give way, but God will not. The universe must bend to him. He will not bend to the universe. If we have not just ideas of him, to give him his own place, we can not have just homage for his high and eternal attributes, nor take our own fit place in the humility of our littleness, and the unquestioning promptness of our obedience and faith. It would seem, certainly, that if it is important for us to know any thing correctly, it must be important to know Hiin correctly, under whose gov- ernment we are, and who will dis^^ose of us eternally 102 THE DIVINE CHARACTER PRE-EMINENT. just as he pleases. We want to know his character. We want to know what will please him, and what will displease him. We can not afford to be in ignorance on a pointy whereon hinges every duty in time and every destiny in Eternity. Kule, he will. Nothing shall hinder him. The efficacy of his character shall be carried out in the destinies of our future life; and we must know what that character is, if, under his supreme government, and creatures as we are, we would have a single hope to cheer us, as our face is tamed towards the opening portals of a never-ending eternity. Ignorance, error on any other point, may be endured ; but not here. This is the supreme point. According to what God is, the universe must be treated. He is its head. He made it for himself He will not give it up. It can not be plucked out of his hands. We need to know what that character of God is, on which hinges all that can interest us, as long as eternity shall roll on its vast and immeasurable ages. We need to have just ideas of God, because he main- tains and will maintain a supreme and peculiar headship over his universe and all that is in it. We could dis- pense with minor matters of knowledge, but not with this. And just here, therefore, we can not but remark, how far from the proprieties of truth and the prospects of an ultimate benefit those persons do wander, who, in at- tempting exhibits of religion, fail to exhibit God as he is, and, in accommodation to the taste of the age, descant upon visible utilities merely, on what befits us according to the mere tuition of Nature or the injunction of our social relationships. A very tasteful and polite method of crowding God out of his world ! In any foundation of moral obligation to be laid by such a mode, there is THE DIVINE CHARACTER PRE-EMINENT. 103 nothing stable. Moral essaying, the dreams of an in- fidel socialism, the fancies of an ntilitariaii schem.ing, all as superficial and silly as they are proud, will not do. The character of God gone — all is gone ! We are afloat then — out of sight of land — on a sea of midnight — not a star to steer by ! Philosophy is not faith. The world is not God. The little taper lights of time will go out. We need the great Sun of Righteousness to illume the skies of eternity. Accordiug to wdiat God is, we must be, and the world must be, or rectitude and happiness will soon perish together. 11. As the creatures of God we are capable of moral control. We have conscience. We know rio'ht from wrong — not merely capable of discrimination betwixt truth and error, but capable of discrimination on those moral matters, about which conscience wields her energies, and whereon the foundations of divine government do rest. God is the infinite Governor, the infinite Legislator and Judge. That system of government which he has or- dained, expends its supremacy, not on natural or intel- lectual matters, things of science, taste or materiality, but on moral (spiritual) matters ; and the ultimate des- tiny of every being possessed of conscience hangs on the simple question of the manner in which he uses it. The felicities and the miseries of a future and intermin- able life are to be determined by the holiness and the sin of God's moral and immortal creatures. Holiness indeed may have much misery on this side the tomb, but none beyond it. Sin may have much felicity in this life, but none at all in another. Such are the Law and gov- ernment of God that the question of right and ivrong will decide the destinies of eternity. 104" THE DIVIXE CnARACTER PRE-EMIXEXT. Xow this law and government, (whicli are of so much moment to ns, which shall fix iis unalterably in weal or woe,) this law and government are as they are, simply for one reason, namely, because God is what he is. If God were different, law would be different. If we have unjust ideas of God, we shall have unjust ideas of law. If we have -wrong ideas of God, we shall have wrong ideas of duty. Then, conscience will be misled, and the misleading will by no means be the worst of the matter : it will be a worse matter, that its exercise, its application, its purity and strength, will be hindered. For illustration — take a naturalist, (I know not what else to call him,) a man who has such ideas about God as to ascribe to him nothing more than a control over visi- ble and material things, and giving laws to us only in respect to the duties begun and ended on these shores of time — a man who judges of God merely by what he sees, as he calls it, by Nature. Such a man may have a conscience about buying and selling, about decency, kindness, and all fit demeanor, down to the last breath of life, and deem it his duty to resign the last breath con- tented and peaceful. But he has limited his conscience. He has confined it very much to these little and tem- porarj^ scenes. He has felt it his duty to live well with his fellow-men here, till he has filled up the little space allotted to him ; but he has put this minor duty before a greater one — (if, indeed, he has not made it every thing) — ^he has not felt it to be his first and supreme duty to prepare his immortal soul to live well with God and the holy inhabitants of heaven, through the interminable spaces which stretch out beyond the resurrection of the dead, and reach down to the remotest distances of eterni- ty. This is a naturalist's conscience. It is confined : it THE DIYIXE CHARACTER PRE-EMINENT. 105 is trammeled and laid asleep on the main points. The man who only consults the rocks and trees, the skies and seasons, the relations of life here, and the results of action here, to teach him duty and impel him to recti- tude, ought never to die ! He is unfit to die. His moral principles and all the moulding of his moral feelings have done nothing more for him, at most, than make him a good citizen of the world, and prepare him to be a very bad citizen of the world to come. His false ideas of God have led him to all this. He did not think of God as enacting a law for us here, for much other reason than to afiect our destinies here ; and especially, he did not think of him as enacting a law, which makes every thing beneath the sun subordinate to interests which shall swell out in ever-increasins^ maornitude on the bosom of eternity after the sun has gone out — extin- guished for ever ! Consequently, all of this man's moral sentiments are confined to one field. He has only half, or less than half a conscience. He had false ideas about God to begin with, and they led him into this moral limi- tation and moral stupidity. He may be partly fit for time, but he is not fit for eternity. He may be fit for an earthly inheritance with men in temporal things, but he is not fit for intercourse with disembodied spirits and with God in the high society of an eternal heaven. He may be fit— partly — partly fit to have a wife here, but he is not fit for that society and those relationships, where they neither marry nor are given in marriage^ hut are as the angels of God. Just so in all respects. False ideas about God will debauch human conscience. If our ideas about his purity are false, our ideas about his law of purity will be false. We shall never rise higher than our standard. 106 THE DIVINE CHAKACTER PRE-EMINENT. If we think of God as hating injustice only a little, we shall ourselves feel bound to hate it only a little. So of all else. False ideas of God, as far and as fast as they go, tend to the utter subversion of the conscientious principle. And if it is of any moment to us to under- stand and be influenced by that system of moral govern- ment and law, which shall dispose of the destinies of eternity, weal or woe ; of the same moment is it to us, that we have just ideas of that character of God, which makes law and government what they are. His will is the foundation of right — right, never conflicting with the just decisions of science and nature indeed; but making all nature and all science subordinate to ends eternal. This world, this life, with all its delightful scenes — its scenes of poetry, taste, science, and affection ; this world, this lifetime, constitute only a machinery, the issues of whose movements lie off beyond the valley of death. To be educated, and trained, and morally molded for this transient scene only^ will not answer God's will. It will not be right. It will be a training of only half our moral sensibilities and principles, and a mis- guiding of them even in that half. We are not at home here. Our home lies in another country with God. We need just ideas of his infinite and presiding character. III. Just ideas of the character of God are important also, because that character is the foundation of all relig- ion. IP there were no God, there would be no religion ; and if God were different from wh;it he is, true religion would be different from what it is ; and if God should change, religion would change. True religion is that system which aims to bring our principles, feelings, and THE DIVINE CHARACTEU PRE-EMINENT. 107 habits into conformity with Grod. It is the stamping of that image of God on the soul, which Avas eiFaced by the falL "We have borne the image of the earthly : to be saved, we must bear the image of the heavenly. Be ye holy^ for lam holy. Without holiness no man shall see the Lord. Be ye reconciled to God ; not to nature, time, society, or even law, but to God. Whatever it is that true religion embraces within itself, it takes the whole of it from one eternal fountain — from the depths of the character of the Deity. W^e must obey Him, W^e must love Him. We must serve Him. We must be like Him. To begin to be so is the only beginning of religion, and advance- ment in it consists simply jn being more and more trans- formed into his likeness. If, therefore, we have false ideas of God, we can not fail to have false ideas of the very foundation and nature of rehgion. Error on this point is fundamental error. It is error at the fountain-head, at the very life-spring of the whole matter; and, according to its extent, will pervert and poison all the rest. It is not like error on some subordinate part — some filling up — or some outwork — or adjunct — some shade or coloring. It is just building upon the sand ; and, when the winds blow and the storms beat, the whole edifice must fall — it was founded upon the sand. It will never do for us to think of religion as founded in the nature of things. It is not. It is founded in the nature of God. God is a spirit ; and they that worship him must luorship him in spirit and in truth. " Things " are only his machinery, temporary machinery. The present relations of things shall soon be altered. Men die. The world shall come to an end. The sun shall go out in blackness. The purpose of religion is not 108 THE DIVINE CIIARACTEll PRE-EMINENT. merely, or mainly, to guide our footsteps, so that we may not stumble in the rough paths of this life, but to gaide our souls, so that they may enter upon the life to come, in holy and happy relations and intercourse with God for ever. Just ideas of the character of God are important and indispensable, because there lies the very foundation of religion. IV. This doctrine, perhaps, may become still more clear to our mind, if we consider the mode in which the religious character of creatures, like ourselves, is influ- enced. We are susceptible of influence from various quarters, indeed ; but there is one fountain of influence superior to all others. It is the influence that comes from our conceptions of God. This is the supreme matter in all true religion ; and not only so, but it comes in to qualify all other influences, which are beneficial in any part of true religion. There will be a defect — a signal if not fatal defect — in all other motives and arguments, if this does not go along with them. For example, all the alignments which you weave to enjoin the observance of the second table of the law, would be defective, and could be but partially influential for good, if you should forget that another table of law comes before it. The propriety and obligation of loving your neighbor as yourself may have some salutary enforcement, it is true, as you consider how much felicity would spring from such an affection, and the acts which flow from it, and how much misery would result from the opposite affection. But this enforcement is not all. You are bound to love your neighbor, not merely for his sake, but for God's sake — not merely for time's felicities, but for eternity's felicities. You are bound to feel^ and you THE DIVINE CHARACTER PRE-EMINENT. 109 need to feel, that, if you injure your neighbor, you offend Mm not only, but God also. The main and most influen- tial idea, therefore, is gone^ if you only consider your rela- tion to your neighbor, but do not consider that the high and infinite authority of God has itself flung a rampart around your neighbor's rights, which you may not scale. You are to remember, and you need to remember, that if you sin against him you sin against God. In your quarrel with him, if you were unjust to him, you might hope to get along without much trouble, and come off victorious in the end. But if you are unjust to him, you have another quarrel. It is a quarrel wdth God. He will call you to an account. And that idea is indispensable for the just influence of the law upon your heart, and conscience, and habits, and all your character. So that not only the supremacy, but the universal extension of the idea of God's chai'acter makes that idea a very momentous one. You can not spare it. You can spare it nowhere. It covers, and must cover, the whole field of duty. Blessed be God, if the wicked man would devour widows' houses^ he must know that the infinite Power above him is the luidow^s God and Judge ; if he would defraud the defenseless orphan, and have more courage to attempt it because he is defenceless, he must know that He who is the Father of the fatherless will hold him doubly guilty! I would not have his curse for all the sun shines on ! And he w^ould not dare to perpetrate his iniquity, if he had any just ideas of the character of God, and justly felt its influence. Nothing else can be substituted for this idea. In no spot of duty, in no question of morals, can you bring in any other idea to take the place and answer the purposes of this. Nothing can hold its place for an instant. 110 THE DIVINE CHARACTER PRE-EMINENT. Nothing can answer its purposes. If you would bring in tlie authority, and character, and wisdom of man — of any finite being — and hold them up as injunctions to any supposed duty, and tell the transgressor what an authority, what a wisdom, what a character, he comes into conflict Avith when he transgresses, you have dimin- ished the power of your persuasion to duty, to an extent equal to the distance between finite and infinite — between a creature and God. If you would bring in the nature of things, philosophy, utility, to enjoin duty, and if, doing so, you would show that sin must and will, in the end, work out its own punishment, because of some pervading principle which, in the end, will bring it to misery, you have diminished the power of your persua- sion to the full extent of the difference betwixt a princi- ple and a person. God is more than a principle — he is a person. It was not a principle which built hell ; God built it. It was not a principle which built heaven; God built it. To be punished by a principle is quite another matter than being punished by a person. To be rewarded by a principle — a principle of utility, of philosophy, of nature (call it what you will) — is quite another matter than being rewarded by a person. A mere principle has got no heart in it. It can not love you — it can not hate you — it can not sympathize v/ith you. You can not hold any fellowship with it, as you can with a kindred spirit. You can not pray to it, as you can to God, and lose iialf your misery b}^ the very act of ]3raying, and the other half by God's answer to his child. Your principles will not do : they Avill never reach hearts. In morals, as in sociality, we want a place for hearts. What would your home be to you, with all its loaded table, its bed of down, its books, and THE DIVINE CHARACTER PRE-EMINENT. Ill all its adoruings, if tliere you could never meet the smile of "Avife, cliildren, or friends"? Cold home! a hermit's cell ! worse than any cabin or cave, and but a single crust to be shared with some loved one ! Cold religion, too, if we must put out of it that Father, God, and in exchange for his person take only some jprinci'ple that can never love us. We want a friend — a friend to lean upon, amid the duties and difQ.culties of life ; and when we depart out of it, we want something more than a -place to go to ; we want what Paul had — the privilege to be with Christ, evidently to him the best part of his heaven. The heaven of a principle is only half a heaven, at best — we want the heaven of a person. We must not think, therefore, that in any part of our duties we can take in some idea of utility or philosophy, or I know not what, and dismiss the idea of God. We need the whole influence of his character — of his understood character^ — of his character known through Christ, who loved me, and gave himself a ransom for me. If you examine into the mode in which the Scriptures aim to affect us, and form our religious habits, and hopes, and emotions, you will find that they rely much upon impressing upon our hearts right conceptions of the Supreme Being. Naturalists, materialists, may quarrel with them, but still they do it. The superficial, silly philosopher, who imagines he can work out religion enough, as he carries his taper into the wilderness of this world's analogies, may quarrel with them, also, but the Bible will go beyond all his analogies; it will let him know there is no analogy for God — he can stretch no measuring-rod upon the immensities of his being. And nowhere else but in God himself can he find a sin- 112 THE DIVINE CHARACTER PRE-EMINENT. gle gleam of light tliat sliall sliine down to the grave's depth, and give hope that " Beauty immortal shall wake from the tomb." Examine the Scriptures. How do thej expect to affect ns ? In what mode do they attempt to form our religious character ? It is very remarkable how steadily they insist upon the character of God ; God revealed in Christ ; Christ incarnate, and dying to save sinners through the great atonement ; and, if at any time they employ the machinery of created things, they do employ it only as machinery. All their sublimity, and poetry, and tenderness, and taste, and kindness, about earthly things, are only smiles to lead us on. They employ the seas and mountains, the storms, and thunder, and stars, only as scaffoldings and stepping-stones to help us away towards that high and lofty One that inha.hiteth eter- nity. The sea is his, he made it Before him, the nations are hut as the drop of the bucket. He taheth up the isles as a very little thing. He weigheth the mountains in scales and the hills in a, balance. God is a Spirit^ and they that ivorship him must loorship him in spirit and in truth. This is life eternal that they might KNOW thee^ the only true God, and Jesus Chi^ist ivhorn thou hast sent. Thou thoughtest that I luas cdtogether such an one as thyself but I ivill re- prove thee and set them in order before thine eyes. Now con- sider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver. I remember THEE upon my bed ; I meditate on THEE in the night-watches. It is good for me to draw nigh unto God. I shall be satisfied when I ivahe luith thy likeness. Acquaint now thyself toith HIM, and be at peace. Tlie kindness and love of God our Saviour to- vxirds man hath appeared. Behold /, even I am HE, that THE DIVINE CHAPwACTER PRE-EMINENT. 113 hlotteth out thy transgressions for mine own name^s sake. lAke as a fatJier pitieth his children^ so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. God noio commandeth all men every where to repent^ because HE hath appointed a day in the which HE will judge the world in righteousness^ by that man whom he hath ordained^ whereof he hath given assurance unto cdl men in that he hath raised him from the dead. I am the Lord , I change not^ therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. Be ye holy ^ for I am holy. Our God is a consuming fire But we can not go on with such passages. This princi pie of quotation would bring in literally more than half the Bible. We can not pursue it. Kot only are those passages which would form our religious principles, practices, and emotions, by the character of God, of every possible variety, but the character of God is the ONE IDEA which presides over all, and without which, (whatever you may have,) the Bible has no reliance upon any other. You may find a thousand exemplifications. When Peter would silence the scoff of the skeptic, who thought he could sneer very safely and philosophically, because he imagined he could press the visible world into his service — ivhere is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they ivere from the beginning of the creation ; Peter takes the poor fool from things to God — one day ivith the Lord is as a thousand years^ and a thousand years as one day. The poor skeptic was going to vitiate a Bible "promise" by the " things" of nature. Because he did not see the sun growing dim, or feel the earth giving way beneath his feet, he supposed he could conclude triumphantly and with a sneer, that the promise of Christ's coming and the end of the world was contradicted or refuted by the ^Uhings^^ 114 THE DIVINE CHARACTER PRE-EMINENT. that " continued as thej were," bj every solid mountain, by the burning sun, and by every glittering star. Peter lets him know that " continuance," time, is nothing to God; God never grows any older, any more than he grows wiser ; years are nothing to him ; ages are the same as moments. Just ideas of Grod would postpone his scoffs, till he could find some measure or comparison for Grod's eternity, and tell how old God is. When Paul stood on Mars' hill, surrounded by the pride, and pomp, and taste, and philosophy of Athens, the most refined city in the world, whose learned men had invited the apostle to explain his religion, he did not commence Avith any refined disquisition about men or things, or the nature of the things, social right or visible utilities, as Aristotle would have done, or about moral agency, as certain of our theological professors, I am afraid, would have done. He broke ground with God : Qod that made the ivorld and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands. At a single dash the apostle goes be- yond every spot where philosophy could reach him. He preaches God. He gives God the throne. He makes all men alike. He preaches repentance to all — not in view of the nature of things, philosophy, the utility of virtue, or moral agency — ^but in view of this God, his promised resurrection of the dead as Christ rose, and the final judgment. The mode of Peter and Paul w^as the mode of the Prophets before them. The Bible relies upon the character of God to teach men religion and turn them to it ; God revealed in Clirist and his cross. It is just as plain that the character of God is the life- spring of influence in every part of experimental religion. For example : THE DIVINE CHARACTER PRE-EMINENT. 115 There is such a thing as conviction of sin. Under its influence the soul has some unwonted emotions. It has realizations then which it had not before. What and whence is their peculiarity? Just this: God is better known; against THEE, THEE ONLY, have I sinned. Thee ONLY ! Sin might be against other beings, but that was nothing with, the convicted sinner. It was against God^ and that was every thing with him : I have done this evil in THY sight. There is such a thing as re'pentance. "Whence does it spring? and how bear influence ? I have heard of thee hy the hearing of the ear^ hat now mine eye seeth THEE, loherefore I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes. God's character laid him in the dust. There is such a thing ixs faith. Where does it look? " The Lord 's my Shepherd, I 'U not want, He makes me down to lie In pastui-es green. He leadeth me The quiet waters by ;" He restoreth my soul. Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God^s elect f It is Christ that died; yea^ rather that is risen again., ivho is even at the right hand of God. There is sucb a thing as love. What kindles it ? We love HIM, hecause HE first loved us. If Christ so loved us, we ought also to love one another. There is such a thing as hoipe. And it casts anchor within the veil, whither and hecause the Forerunner hath himself for us entered. There is such a thing as resignation. Whence comes it? It is the Lord; let him do lohat seemeth good in HIS sight. Tlioiigh HE slay me, yet will I trust in HIM. This is a strange world. We often tread in rough 116 THE DIVINE CHARACTER PRE-EMINENT. places. Dark days will come. How different the lot of many of us, from what we expected, when the sun of our youth rose smiling on us, and the blood of our youth leaped joyfully in the channels that God made for it. In times of the heart's desolation, our props knocked away, our comforts gone, the past too painful to remem- ber, and the future promising to be more painful still ; — ■ oh, we could not bear up under life's sorrows, much less be profited by them., if we might not learn to say, in the time of trouble HE shall hide me in HIS pavilion^ in the secret of HIS tabernacle shall HE hide me. This conviction, and repentance, and faith, and hope, and love, and resignation, and sweet confidence in God, all lie among the experiences which go most certainly to form our religious character ; and they all exist as sim- ply the results of just ideas of the character of God, imprinted upon the soul by the Holy Spirit. As you trace (so far as it belongs to human sagacity to trace at all) the advancement of any human soul in holiness and ripeness for death and heaven, you will always find that advancement just connected with a clearer conception of God's character, and an additional intimacy of communion Avith him. In the infancy of religion, men think much of moral machinery to do them good. In the old age of religion, they think much of God. They have got beyond other reliances and resources. The whole history of their religious training and maturing has consisted very much in this, that they have learned to think of creatures less, and to know God better. More just and more perfect ideas of his whole character, as holj", just and good, as Governor, and Redeemer, and Guide, and Friend, have helped them on in the pathway of holiness, and now throw an THE DIVINE CHARACTER PRE-EMINENT. 117 additional light upon it, as it winds down to the tomb. To tbem God is every thing. Thej have learnt to know him better than they used to know him. His character has become more amazing, grand and good — more awful, but more sweet and attractive. The effect has been, that they lie before him more low in humiliation, but more happy in hope — deeper in reverence, but more satisfied to let God reign. They are glad he does reign. They are amazed at his mercy to them as sinners, but they know it all, they hope in it all, they rejoice in it all, without doubting or fear, because they know God — grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life^ hy Jesus Clirist our Lord. Because God is the Head of the universe — because rectitude and good conscience are vital matters in relig- ion — because all religion is founded upon the being and character of God — and because that character is the great moral and spiritual means for training all true piety — for these reasons, just ideas of God's character are of infinite moment to us. Render unto God the things that are God^s. The conclusions from this subject, such as the follow- ing, can only be named, and left to your reflection. We see from this doctrine : 1. That any error about the character of God is vital error. It changes the whole of religion. It may do for us to mistake his works, but it will not do for us to mistake his will. An error on nature, on providence, on science, on scholarship, is only a little matter, and can not corrupt every thing — it may leave a thousand other truths unharmed ; but an error about God flings its evil over every thing else — every thing in both 118 THE DIVINE CHAKACTER PRE-EMINENT. worlds I It makes duty different, and holiness different ; it makes heaven and hell different ! 2. Therefore you need have little fear about any error in religion which leaves the character of God to stand in its own place, and unchanged. That one thing right will put every thing else right. That wrong, all else will be wrong. That character stands in the way of all falsehood and error. 8. Familiar expressions about the Deity are alwaj^s utterly inappropriate and untasteful. Awe becomes us — solemn reverence before Him, our ideas about whom, just, shall help us toward heaven, unjust, shall help us toward hell. Put off thy shoes from off thy feet^ the ground whereon thou standest is holy ground. It is no place to trifle, by the burning bush ! 4. We see from this subject, that the fit mode of studying religion, even intellectually^ is to begin with God, and keep the character of God the presiding idea at every step, and in every reflection. The Bible does this — you should do this. According to what God is, you must be — and all the universe must be. If ever you lose sight of him, you are afloat on an ocean of midnight — nothing to moor to, and not a star to steer by. The stars were not made for eternity. 5. Speculations, governmental or economical — social- ism — utility — doctrines about human rights and duties, drawn from the world merely — all such things are so far from being Biblical or Christian, that they are unworthy of a sober Deist. God rules his world, and not his world him. The principles of his government are as high and deep as the attributes of his character ; and to forget God and look at mere things and their relations, is to turn from the fountain of light to the bosom of THE DIVINE CHARACTER PRE-EMINENT. 119 darkness. Ministers of the Gospel ought to feel that thej stand upon firmer and loftier ground than those speculations which profess to learn truth and duty from mere yisible things and earthly analogies. They have God's eternal Word. That is eternal rock. Yisibilities go but a little way. The lost Pleiad! it has left a vacancy in the heavens ! and Avhat speculation or anal- ogy could dare to conjecture, aside from the character of God; the duties of the beings who once inhabited it ? We live for Eternity — for God! Preach God, my brethren, God in Christ, God more revealed, and more glorified, and more august and attractive in the great Eedemption than in any thing else. Let the Divine character be your guide, and you may resemble the angel standing in the sun — you will be bathed in light, and light to reach all luorlds. 6. Finally. For all and every one of the purposes of piety, you need much converse with God. Piety can not grow or be secure without it. Every plant of Para- dise must be watered with the dews of heaven. Walk with God. Eender him his due. See him everj^ where, and reverence him every where. Love him and serve him in the faith of Christ, if you would have peace in the hour when the dust shall return to the dust, as it was, and the spirit shall return to God ivho gave it. Render unto God the things that are God^s. #11 ^nctotng (®alr. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, anu Jesus Christ, whom thou has sent. — John, xvii. 3. rpHESE are the words of Jesus Christ. They occur in that intercessory prayer which he offered on the eve of his crucifixion. At such a time, his mind naturally lingered around the essential principles of that august mission which brought him into the world, and was now taking him out of it. Keady to shed his blood to give eternal life to as many as the Father had given him ; his prayers take hold on this principle of the eternal cove- nant, and then he adds. This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true Ood, and Jesus Christy whom thou hast sent. The expression is remarkable. He speaks of knowing God. Omitting all other ideas and suggestions of the text, let us attend to this. He speaks of knowing God. It is not nature — system — destiny — contrivance — plan ; it is God. The mind of the Saviour passes over all things else, and centers upon the Infinite One, and the Christ sent to reveal him, when he considers the method in which eternal life must come to his disciples. The method of Christ and a Christian's heart is very different from the loved method of an unsanctified understanding. Christ and a Christian's heart find the essence of all that is desirable in the knowledge of Ood. ON KNOWING GOD. 121 An unsanctified ■anderstanding, darkened and deceiving, is mucli more prone, even in religious investigation, to study man and what befits him, than to stud}^ the charac- ter of God, and thus be led to see, that all the universe must bend to the infinite and changeless nature of him who presides over it. But we must not stop in these minor truths ; we must know God^ if we would have eternal life. Hence, as the plan of this discourse, we pro- pose, # I. To make some general remarks on this subject of study and knowledge. And, II. To present some more direct arguments for induc- ing men to aim at knowing _God. I. "We are to make some remarks of a general nature on the knowledge of God. 1. The first remark is, that the existence of God is that grand fact which lies at the foundation of all true relig- ion ; and therefore, the knowledge of God himself is the touch-stone of its principles. Error and falsehood are not going to yield to any science but that of Deity. Sin is not to be reasoned out of the world, or out of the Church, by any of those demonstrations which do not fling man, and all his reason together, in the dust, befoi'e the awful glories of the Infinite One. Keligion will be superficial, proud, arrogant, worldly, and, therefore, cor- rupted and deceitful, if it is not first formed, and then tempered, and purified, and guided hj tlie knowledge of God. 2. A second remark. It is the lack of this kno\vl< i ;<. which sustains impiety. The stupidity of unconvwrlud sinners would be gone if they saw clearly what God is. G 122 ON KNOWING GOD. It could not continue. Their hearts would trouble them. They would see they are more fit for hell than heaven. They would perceive themselves to be less like God, than like any other being ! The depravity of their hearts would fill them with confusion and shame ; and before the fears of a deserved condemnation, they would cry out, IVhat must tve do to he saved? Bat to avoid this distress, they choose to study religion (if tliey study it at all) by some other light and gaide than the character of God. That one thing they shun. They do not like to retain God in their 'knoiuledge. Oh ! how often, very often, they will abandon the ministry, which would teach them the only true God, and take refuge under that teaching which comports better with their erroneous feelings, and the equally erroneous and dangerous principles of their own dark and unconverted souls ! If impenitent sinners knew what God is, their stupidity would be gone. 3. If Christians knew God better, their piety would be increased. Those ancient saints, whose happy attain- ments held them superior to the world, always nurtured their piety by much study and fellowship Vvdth God. They were nursed on the bosom of God. Yery likelj^, they have not been eminent in mere speculative views of other things. Human science did little for them ; and even religious systems of human coinage, though formed on the foundation of the Apostles and, Projjhets^ lent them little aid in comparison with what they gained by direct contemplations on the Deity, and a holy intimacy with him. Enoch 'walked witJi Ood^ is a description which intimates his manner of religious study and living. A Christian's piety is not to be nurtured, merely by con- sidering the blessings he needs and receives, and the sins he repents of. Oh ! no : it will be better nurtured when ON KNOWING GOD. 123 he stirs up his soul to the study of God himself, and fixes his heart to come directly into the presence-chamber of the Kiwj of kings. 4. This subject of knowledge can never be exhausted. Piety on earth and piety in heaven will never exhaust it ! A finite mind, perhaps, beginning here its stud}', and continuing it beyond the tomb, mastering one diffi- culty after another, may reach some point in its eternity, when it shall have compassed all other subjects, and be able to look down upon and over all other fields of knowledge without darkness and without a doubt. But God stills lies above it — ^beyond it ! From that won- derful point in eternity, and that wonderful elevation, which not even an angel has yet reached, the soul will see depths in the ocean of the Divine Nature yet to be explored, and, sanctified and sublimated, will be invited to stir up its powers to more wonderful and blissful views of the Infinite One ! Let us begin now. Let us know God better. Many bright lessons are within our reach. They are lessons of eternal life. Acquaintance with God is the felicity and the security of heaven, and on earth our profit and bliss will bear a near proportion to the clear discernment we attain of his character. 6. This knowledge of God is not confined to the understanding. It occupies the understanding, but not that alone. There is a vital difference between all the knowledge of the Deity ever attained by mere specula- tion and that intended in the text. By a true knowl- edge of God, we shall have a clear and experimental dis- cernment of his glory — of the excellency, and beauty, and grandeur^ and loveliness of his character. Hence, we shall feel the desirableness of being like him. The 124 OK KNOWING GOD. mincl, the heart, will go out in delightful exercises; and we shall begin to realize how blessed and glorious a Being God is, and how blessed we should be, if we should cease to be sinful, and selfish, and worldly, and should be taken up into heaven, to dwell with him, and behold his face, and be like him for ever and ever! This is the knowledge of God. It takes hold on the heart. It is experimental. It is sweet, precious, solid, calm. It is what the most favored saint enjoys when, embracing Jesus Christ by a living faith, he sees the glory of the Father in the face of the Son, and delights to lay himself down in the hand of God, as a helpless, believing, and happy child ! This knowledge of God, therefore, includes clear intel- lectual discernment and right affections of heart. It is spiritual. It is the experience of a heart linked wdth God. It includes extensive understanding, and that understanding gained by the filial and family spirit of an adopted child. Mind and heart both know God. 6. That our relations to God are such that we ought greatly to desire to know him as he is — to know him well. He is our Maker, and therefore the proprietor of our being. From his fingers drop all our mercies. We have not a comfort but he gives it — and never shall have. He will be our final Judge. He holds our eter- nal destinies in his hand. To know ffim, therefore, is of more moment to us than to know all other beings in the universe. We have more to do with him than with all others. We have to do with him every moment of our lives^ and ever shall have in all our eternity. According to what he is, we must demean ourselves, or we must suffer. We are anxious to know the men we have to deal with^ and how strange it is that we should ON KNOWING GOD. 125 be indifFerent about knowing the God we have to deal with ! Did some earthly prince hold dominion over us, through the actions of whom we were daily receiving manifestations of kind disposition, mingled with tokens of no small displeasure against us, we should be anxious to know all about him, and learn what he was going to do with us at last. Should some unseen friend send us daily comforts, whose heart would not desire to know the individual whose daily kindness was a daily bless- ing? But this our God scatters his mercies all along our path. We have them in the earth, the air, the sea, the skies. Midnight and noon teach them. He blesses us with bounty in summer and winter. He makes the bird's song to cheer us, and the blushes and fragrance of the wild-flower to make us happy. He puts kindness into the hearts of the friends that take care of us when we are sick. It was he who guided the hand of the mother and the father, which wiped the tears of bitterness from our youthful cheek. Surely, if we ought to desire to know any thing, we should desire to know God. II. Let us, then, in the second place, present some direct arguments for this study. We name five of them, and leave you to fill up the lesson for yourselves. 1. This knowledge of God tends, above all things, to humble us. Humility, the true and happy humility of the Chris- tian, comes, most of all, from a clear knowledge of God. It is when we know him best that we know ourselves best. It is knowing God that dissipates oar delusions. AVe need to come near to him, to gaze directly at his character in all its glorious excellences — to see his holy and lovely purity, and justice, and mercy — to have an 126 ON KNOWING GOD. intimate and spiritual discernment of liis spotless excel- lence, of liis holy hatred of sin, of his infinite love of holiness — ^before we shall ever attain the due humility of a Christian. This humility is not going to be engen- dered by the considerations and glooms of guilt. All our tremblings at deserved and dreadful wrath, all the terrors of hell, are not enough. Kemorse, its stings and terrors, a sense of guilt, and fears and tremblings, exist in hell — ^but there is no humility there. Man, as a Christian, as a sanctified and safe-guided sinner, is led to a true sense of sin far more by seeing what God is, than by considering the iniquities which he himself has com- mitted. When one has a near view of God, a clear dis- covery of the excellency and majesty of his holiness, he sees most clearly the evil of sinning against him. Such a sight lays the soul in the dust, not so much by the sadness of guilt as in adoring and humble wonder at the mercy of God. This was the experience of David in his conviction : Against thee, thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight. The most humbling idea there is about sin is, that it is against God. It is true, the Christian will find arguments for humil- iation in the remembrance of his sins, and he ought never to forget them. But after all, his holiest and sweetest humility will come from his acquaintance with God, and contemplations on his character. There is a vast difference between the humility produced by con- templations of guilt and the contemplations of God. Views of our guilt may humble us (if we are Christians), but they are agitating; the soul is troubled, and agi- tated, and uneasy. Views of God, showing us what sin deserves, and wiiat we are, make the soul calm — its mere feelings lie still, hushed and overawed hy the ON KNOWING GOD. 127 holiness and excellences of God. As we contemplate our guilt, our bumilit}^ is apt to be bitter and passionate ; as we perceive the holiness and majesty of God, our humility becomes deep, still, subdued and satisfying. Views of our guilt give rise to feelings tormenting, desponding; and hence remorse, under the scorpion stings of a guilty conscience, sometimes drives one to vio- lence against himself — Judas hangs himself, and plunges to his own place ! But that humility which arises from a clear view of the nature of God, is solid, peaceful, hojje- fal. Yes, it cherishes hope, because the very views of God which flung the sinner in the dust teach him he can hope, and may hope. God was the leading object in the knowledge which humbled him, and he keeps on thinking of God, and loves to be humble. He sees the fitness of it, and sees his infinite perfections can reach down comfort to his sackcloth and ashes. Those very perfections of God which humble him most are the very perfections which tell him to sa}^ to his soul, My soul, hope thou in God — I shall yet irraise him. That kind of humiliation which springs from the mere contemplation of guiltiness and ilhdesert, often gives rise to the sensibilit}^, that one can not endure to feel so criminal, and unworthy, and vile : that which springs from the knowledge of God shows one the fitness of just such feelings : the believer would not have any other ; he would lie in the dust, speechless and satisfied ; and lifting a beseeching look to Christ, he loves to lie in- finitely low before God, and be an infinite debtor to Di- vine grace. He loves to feel his unworthiness. The more he feels it, the happier he is. Views of God re- vealed it to him, and he saw the fitness of lajnng him- self in the dust. He would not be any where else if he 128 ox Kxowixa god. could. And a sense of guilt leads him back again, to adore and wonder at the precious mercj^ of his Grod and Saviour ! Hence, in his humility he is happy in think- ing of God ; and he thinks of him, his character, and glories, and excellences, far more than he occupies him- self about his own character or destiny. He is taken up with thinking of God. He loves to lie at his feet, a humbled, hoping, and happy spirit, and look up on the excellences of God, and let him do as he will. Convicted sinners often try to humble themselves by recollecting and weighing their sins. Such a mind ex- pects humility from the power of a remorseful con- science. Such a sinner calls himself base, unworthy, guilty ; he multiplies epithets upon himself, and strives to feel the burden of all his deformity and guilt, and then wonders that his heart don't give way — bow or break ! But such views are not going to break or bend it. Animal feelings may be crushed by them, and nothing but animal feelings. The spirit itself will yield up its self righteousness and pride, not by a stronger sense of guilt, but by clearer views of God. A spiritual knowledge of the Divine character — to perceive God to be so holy and excellent, that eternal woe is due to the being who does not love him; to see with a spiritual eye, that God could not and ought not to do less than turn the sinning angels down to hell, and turn this sin- ning world into a place of groans and dying, and smite the head of his own Son to save a sinner from hell — these are views which will bring the power of the Divine char- acter on the spirit of the sinner, and teach him to feel (if any thing will) that his humblest spirit can say, " If my soul were sent to hell, Thy righteous law approves it well." ON KNOWING GOD. 129 But sucli a humbled soul does not much fear hell. There are mainly three reasons why he does not. (1) He loves a sense of his guilt and ill-desert. He is Qever so happy as when he realizes his unworthiness and takes his place in the dust. It is his own place. It is fit he should be there. He would not be any where else before God. He would not desire to lose a sense of his guiltiness if he were in heaven, but sing on for ever, Unto Him that loved us, and luashed us from our sins in his own blood. It is so fit, therefore, and so good to him, to realize with humbled spirit his pollution and guilt, that fears vanish ; and the deeper his sense of guilt, the hap- pier his humbled spirit is. (2) A second reason why he does not fear hell is, that while he lies thus in the dust, and wraps his face in the sackcloth that covers him, he is just thinking of God — of God, and half-forgets himself. (3) A third reason is, that while his mind is wrapt in the vision of his God, his humility consists very much in wonder and amazement at the patience and mercy of God that have spared him ; and the same patience and mercy he sees can do any thing — can even save him, guilty as he is, if they could spare him so long. He sees the reason why he is not already in hell is to be found in the Deity, not in himself; and in that wonderful ocean, the mercy of God, he casts anchor for his ship- wrecked and troubled soul. Hence, that mystery is explained, how the deepest humility is connected with the most enduring and un- yielding fortitude. Such a humihty converses with God, and is indifferent to human distinctions and mere human rewards. And that other mystery is explained, how the humblest soul is the least fearful and the happiest. 130 ON KNOWING GOD. Sucli a soul is satisfied that God should do as he will. And that other mystery too, how the deepest sense of Divine things is without show, and makes one very modest, and retiring, and stilh Such a one resembles Eh'jah on Mount Horeb. It was not the great and strong wind, that rent the, mountains and hrahe in irleces the rocks ; it was not the earthquake, nor the fire, that moved him ; but he felt that God was in the stilly small voice, and he wrapped his face in his mantle. It is always so. A true sight of God is most efficacious of all things to humble us. Woe is me I lamiindone. Why! Mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. 2. We name a second argument. This knowledge of God tends most of all things to crucify us to the world. To have a spiritual understanding of the exceeding excellences of God, to perceive the delights of contem- plating him and communing with him, makes the world seem but a very little thing. It shows us its emptiness, its vanity and nothingness. It lifts us above it ; and thus does most to fit us to live for God and eternity. Con- siderations of another nature, designed and adapted to crucify us unto the ivorld and the world unto us, often ex- perience a very signal and sensible failure. There are such ; and we are sometimes compelled to wonder that they have no more abiding power over the human mind. We can easily and vividly paint the littleness of the world, and all that is in it. Dismal facts, which form the burden of its history, are too numerous and too thick, to leave any doubt of the fidelity of the picture, which would represent its entire worthlessness as a ] ortion for the human heart. It takes, moreover, but a moment to lead the imagination down to the general conflagration of the world. And there is scarcely a worldling in ex- ON KNOWING GOD. 131 istence who does not know and feel that we speak truly when we paint his prospects — few smiles, and many sor- rows, and a dark and dreadful end beyond them. But, after all, the worldly heart turns back ; the cold Christian heart lingers and hesitates to step off, and let go of a world crumbling into nothing ! Thus we are baffled. The world ivill attract — will appear lovely — and the power of the most appalling demonstration vanishes be- fore the rising emotions of a worldly and deceitfal heart. But when we can get the eye turned on God, on the glories of his character — when we see his loveliness in being just such a God as he is, and the desirableness of being like him ; then, the sweetness of his majesty, the friend we want attracts us — riches, honors, the world are dead, and the heart uses that new arithmetic, to count all things loss for the excellency of the knowledge of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. It is by the knowledge of God, and by nothing else. Things seen and tew.poral sink be- fore the discovered excellences of things unseen and eternal. Not so much by discovering that the world is not worth our having, as by discerning that God ^5, are we ever crucified unto the luorld and the world unto zis. You m.ay make the worldling behold desolation stalk over all his pleasant fields ; you may make him behold his honors withering at the touch of truth and time ; you may force him to lift the bitterest chalice of luormivood and gall that ever cursed human lips ; and after all, he will love the world and have his hopes in it. And so far as the Chris- tian, in any undue sense, is worldly, he will be like him. He needs, therefore, to know God. He needs to feel the attractions of his character and his communion. He needs to lift his eyes from the top of Pisgah, and fcel^ that if he had not another portion or another friend in 132 ON KNOWING GOD. the universe, he would be Imppj : TJiou art my portion ; lohom have I in heaven hut thee ? and there is none in all the earth that I d'^sire besides thee. 3. This having a spiritual knowledge of God tends most of all things to purify the heart. No sight is so transforming as that of God. When we can have our minds and hearts brought so as to see with open face the glory of the Lord, toe are changed into the same image from glory to glory. When the believer has a clear spiritual discernment of God, he sees it is reason- able, yea the most delightful duty^ to devote himself and all he has to God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. He takes motives for holy living from God himself; sin puts on the appearance of ugliness, and the v/orld, its honors and once coveted emoluments, lie dead and forgotten at his feet. Christians do not cease to sin, so much by the horrors of conscience and fear, as by the love of God. The attempt to beat sin out of the heart by a lash of scorpions, fails. Views of God are more purifying than all the fears, and glooms, and distresses of a convicted spirit. You can't reason sin out of the heart, or love into it. It must be faith in God as he is, reconciling the world unto himself, seeing him, knowing him as he is, that must purify the heart. This wins it. This delightfully fills, and satisfies, and attracts it. This brings the awe of the upper sanctuary down to hush the commotions of siu. Sin never appears of such horrid magnitude as when we see how it offends Deity, outrages all his loveliest attri- butes, and requires the labors, the life, and the death of the Son of God to atone for it. Sin never appears of such horrid deformity and unloveliness, as when God is so known, that sin is seen in malignant contest against all that is amiable and good. ON KNOWING GOD. 183 4. This knowledge of God tends, most of all tilings, to confirm and establish the believer's heart. Speculation can not do it. Self-examination, submission to creeds and forms, and all study of doctrines, can not do it. One must be established, by a conscious and vital expe- rience — such experience as shall make the soul feel that it rests on God, an everMsting rock. To have full views of God; to know him by direct fellowship and com- munion ; to live in his presence, and lie down and feel that the everlasting arms are around him, shows to the believer the fullness and the faithfulness of God, and confirms his heart in something like the full assurance of hope. iSTow he can call God his Father. He can look at that house not made with hands^ and call it his own. His heart, his whole soul, has gone directly to his cove- nant God in Jesus Christ, drawn hy the cords of that per- ftct love which casteth out fear. Hence, finally, such a knowledge of God is most satis- fying and safe. Direct views of God — a solemn and holy intimacy with him — the study of him, such as the heart takes when he communes with us from of the mercy-seat, and breathes into the soul the spirit of adoption, are more secure and more blessed than any others. These satisfy the soul. They meet its immortal wants. God, a cove- nant God and Saviour, fill the mind, and satisfy its longings, as nothing but the knowledge and enjoyment of God ever can. Then, to have such a God is enough. His glories fill the eye. His love satisfies the heart. Human passions lie still ; and a hol}^, calm, and solid peace possesses the tranquil and happy spirit. My Christian brethren, if these things are so, how ear- nestly ought you to devote yourselves to knoiu the only 184 ON KNOWING GOD. true Ood and Jesus Christ luhom he has sent This is your felicity, your usefalness, and your life. A field is open before you, on wliicli the most precious fruits may be gathered, and fi'uits for eternal life. You ought to be ashamed and confounded, when you are satisfied with small measures of the knowledge of God, and are not aiming, with a longing intensity*T>f desire, to know your God and Saviour better ! In reading, in meditation, and hearing, and praying, and in the sacraments, you ought to aim at attaining a more deep, and clear, and thorough knowledge of God. By noticing his providences, and most of all, his gracious and wonderful providences re- specting your souls, you ought to gain more clear and transforming views of his glorious attributes. The chil- dren of his adoption, if you are Christians, you ought to live in his family, and daily behold the face of jowc Father. You ought to see the glory of God, the beauty and desirableness of existing only to serve and enjoy him. You ought not to rest satisfied with only a trem- bling hope, and leave it to death, eternity, and heaven, to disclose to you the wonders and excellences of the Divine character. You ought to partake of the heavenly spirit. The grace and glories of redemption are revealed to you ; and as you lift your eyes from the top of Cal- vary to the throne of the Majesty in heaven, j-our souls ought to become more and more like heaven ; when you see how such a God can save such sinners, by the grace of redeeming love, and by the groans and blood of his Son! Oh ! it is not fit, it is shameful that a Christian should live in the world, under such a government of God, and have such chances to know him, and love him, and serve him better, and, after all, be satisfied to have his mind ox KNOWING GOD. 135 ill ignorance, and the lights and comforts of his religion little! Such be not ye. Awake, and learn to know God as he is. Arouse yourself, and enter into the knowledge of God ; and let this science drive out sin, and selfishness, and worldliness, from your happy and heavenly hearts. But some of you, my beloved hearers, are still impeni- tent sinners ! One of the dreadful descriptions of your condition contained in the Bible is this — them that knoio not God. And can you, will you rest thus ? You are hasting to meet him. To you, that great ivhite throne will soon be clothed in the majesty of redeeming attractions, or rocked with thunders ! Prepare for that hour ! Go not up to that throne an enemy of God ! I beseech you by all that is sacred, learn to know God ! By the terrors and mercies of that tribunal — by the songs of bliss and groans of despair beyond it — by all the desirableness of eternal life and the blood that bought it — I beseech you, my beloved, but unhappy friend, awake, and learn to know God! acquaint noiv thyself ivith him, and he at peace. Mishitt of 6o& ill ^^steriJ. We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery. — 1 Cor. ii. 7. T)AUL, the author of these words, here gives a charac- J- teristic mark of the gospel message. He is speaking of this message ; and with appropriate and characteristic pecuharity, when he would depict it to us, and set before our mind a just delineation of its nature, he dips his pencil in colors of mingled glory and darkness. No man ever knew better than he, the depth of blasting and pollu- tion which sin hath brought down upon all mankind ; and no man ever understood better, the mingled mystery and brightness of the scheme of God which saves them that believe. And no man was ever more skillful and more truthful, in saying just what he ought to say — in carry- ing his explanations as far as to the just point and no farther, making even every hint and every suggestion conducive to the true end of study, and leaving off at the true point of propriety — a point, beyond which curiosity and caviling may delight themselves with vain questions, but neither reason nor piety can be profited. This he does in the text. He calls the Gospel the ivisdom of God in a mystery. It is both. Light and darkness are here mingled together. It is wisdom^ but it is wisdom m a mystery. We may know from it enough to make us ivise unto salvation^ to guide us through the changeful and often trying scenes of a wiidnerness-pilgrimage, and to WISDOM OF GOD IN MYSTERY. 137 plant our footsteps firmly and safely on the happier soil of our promised land. But we can not know every thing. This wisdom toill he a mystery. The most limited genius might ask the Gospel a thousand questions, to which it would deign to give liim no reply. And he would be wiser than unbelief generally is, if he would never reiterate them again, if he would only use, for its glorious purpose, the light that is given him, and be cheered by it, and walk on in that grace-illuminated track, where beams of brightness shine, and not turn himself so foolishly to be bewildered in the dark way which he ought never to tread, and which neither cheers him nor saves him. The Gospel never proposes to give answers to the catechism of curiosity. Bat it does pro- fess to tell every sinner, that will heed it, all he needs to know about God, about pardon, holiness, and every thing else embraced in his being ivise unto salvation. Mystery though it be, it is the ivisdom of God. It could not be the wisdom of God, if it were not mystery. This is the idea of this text, and this is the theme of this sermon. We are going to show, that the Gospel is the wisdom of God in a mystery — that it reveals a way of salvation marked with the traits and unity of God's wisdom, and comporting with the "clouds and darkness that are round about him." That this discussion may not become too long to be definite, and, more especially, that we may have before our mind the precise point which the Apostle had before his, let us notice the matter on which he was speaking. "We can not mistake it. It was the mighty theme on which he loved to expatiate. Here his thoughts centered. Here his heart exulted. Here his hope soared and his love sung. It was the salvation of men through the 138 WISDOM OF GOD IN MYSTERY. sacrifice of the Son of God. Just before the text, in the second verse of the chapter, this is made manifest : / determined not to hnow any thing among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified. He is talking about the death of Christ. He wants faith to stand there — not in tlie tvisdom of men, but in the power of God. And after the text, and in the very sentence of which it constitutes only a single clause, he brings out the same idea of the crucifixion. We speak the luisdom of God in a mystery, even tl^e hidden wisdom ivhich God ordained before the ivoiM unto our glory ; lohich none of the princes of this ivorld knew ; for had they known if, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. The Apostle speaks 6i the death of Christ for our salvation ; and this, with him, is the ivisdom of God ill a mystery. This remark will limit our range of thought, Avhile it comports with the duties of this day, and justifies the plan of this sermon. I. Let us fix in our mind the matter of mysteriousness which the Apostle had in his. II. Let us demonstrate, that this mysteriousness is wisdom especially in one respect, that is, that it is just so great as we ought to expect, and no greater, on the subject-matter and in the field of its operation, wherein it accords with all the other arrangements of the plan of redemption. We speak on the principle, that human reason expects God to be uniform, and consistent with himself — like himself— analogical every where — not b}^ mere nature's analogies, but by his own. This is one mark of wisdom. The mystery of the expiation com- ports with the mystery of sin itself, and with the whole matchless procedure of that grace which conducts a sinner to heaven. WISDOM OF GOD IJ; MYSTERY. 139 I. We remark the mysterj^ wliicli lies in the cruci- fixion of Jesus Christ as he was slain for us. It would certainly be no evidence of either Christian wisdom or humility in any man, if he were to pre- tend, that to him there is nothing of mysterious aspect in the showing of the Gospel, when it speaks of the death of Christ, its necessitj^, and the benefits that grow out of it. We need not largely explain what we mean by mystery. We take the term in its every-day signifi- cance. It imports something inexplicable — something which at present we do not fully understand. In every affair of science or business, there is not a more distinct mark of a clear mind or a great one, than the discrimi- nation which the mind makes between the matters of its knowledge and those of its ignorance. On the contrary, there is no more certain sign of a confused or contracted intellect, than for a man to imagine he knows every thing. That is the mark of a novice, a sciolist, a pre- tender. Invariably you may take it as a certain proof of an ignorant mind and a weak one, whenever you come in contact with a man never willing to say, " I do not know." And if you can find a Christian man or a Christian minister professing to see all things clearly, avow- ing that his mind finds no difficulties in any of the ideas that occur to it on the subject of religion — that he can explain every thing, decrees for example, just as easily as duties ; you may be assured on the spot, both that he is a novice on the subject, and that his mental powers are of very limited comprehension. Up to a certain and a ver}^ intelligible point, every man may know and ought to know, on the subject-matters of religion. The point is this : he may know and ought to know just those clusters of facts which concern him, and wliich the 140 WISDOM OF GOD IN MYSTERY. Gospel Tinfolds to him. Beyond these, inquisitiveness and curiosity may range, and imagination conjecture, and fancy dream, and hope inquire and long ; but the mind can not have a single bright item of satisfying and substantial knowledge. And it ought to be enough to warn a man effectually off from the confines of that dark region which lies beyond the field of revelation, when at every step he takes in that region, he is com- pelled to feel that his eyes are dim and fog-bound — that he has no firm foothold — ^that the ground is un- certain beneath him, and can not furnish' to him the com- forts of an unquestionable security. This ought to con- fine him effectually and gladly within the limits of that bright field, bathed in sunshine, over whose surface prophets and apostles and all the army of the faithful have delightfully walked before him. But, whether he will or not, he must stay there. He can not overstep the boundaries and gain the fruits of knowledge beyond. On the other side of the boundaries lie the fields of a Divine mystery ; and he will be nothing better than a foolish dreamer, if he does not let them alone, till the coming of brighter and eternal day. Let him attend to duty, and leave the darkness. Let him use his con- science, and leave his conjecturing. The subject on which the mystery of the text lies, is that of the atoning work of Christ accomplished in the crucifixion. Now, it is perfectly clear in the Gospel, that Christ was crucified' — that he died for sinners — that the punishment due to us was laid on him — that Divine justice was satisfied by his death, the Divine Being- rendered at least reconcilable — and that, by this august and amazing expiation, an everlasting righteousness is procured, through which believing sinners may be for- WISDOM OF GOD IN MYSTERY. 141 given and entitled to the favor of God and all the bliss of a revealed immortalitv. Thus far, there is no mys- tery. All is open : all is clear and certain as the dis- closure of words can make it. But beyond this lies the region of an inaccessible mys- teriousness. It is overhung with clouds, whose borders only are tinged with the glory that lies hidden behind them, and which no eye will see till the curtain of eter- nity is lifted. To shorten the matter, let us name a few of the items. It is entirely a mystery to us, how it could comport with the justice of God to lay the punishment of our sins on the head of an innocent Being, holy, harmless, un- defiled, and separate from sinners. He has done it. There is no mystery about that. And those astounding accom- paniments of the crucifixion seem to mark the deed with signals of amazement. The sun went out! Solid rocks were rent asunder ! Graves opened ! and buried saints walked from the door of their sepulchers back again into the holy city. Nature, as she hung a pall over the heavens, seemed to be astonished at the transaction, and well may we join in the solemnity of her wonder! We can do nothing but wonder, and love, and adore. We can not explain. No man can tell us, how justice, puni- tive justice, the justice of God, could ordain that trans- action — a holy Being standing in the place of guilty ones, and receiving the strokes of an offended justice upon his devoted head. This is one mystery. A second one is, how justice could be satisfied through such an infliction. We can not tell. We know no- thing about it. All we know is, that Divine justice positively did receive there the very last item of her de- mands, when her heavy sword drank the blood willingly 142 WISDOM OF GOD IN MYSTERY. offered for the ransom of sinners. But it was innocent blood. And how justice could take it, and he justice — and how justice could be satisfied with it as justice, is all a mystery to us ; and perhaps it will be a mystery for ever. This is a second mystery. A third one is, how Jesus Christ could render satisfac- tion to Divine justice, while, at the same time, he was the Being to whom satisfaction was rendered, and the very Being who rendered it — the Avenger and the SufPerer un- der vengeance. He teas so. There is one God, and God was the satisfied party ; while we can not be ignorant of that inspired description of the Church, the flock of God which he hath purchased with his own blood. It is a mystery to us, how it can come to pass, that, while the Divine nature is utterly unsusceptible of pain and death, nevertheless the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ have all their value and efficacy from the Divine nature of the Victim. AYe know it is so ; but we know nothing further. We know that the blood of hulls and goats can not take away sin ; we know that when the Father bringeth his only begotten into the luorld, he saith^ Let all the angels of God worship him. It is a mystery our reason can not explain, how there could be, in the " one person" of Christ upon the cross, such a wonderful union of grandeur and humiliation — of glory and ignominy — of complaining and omnipo- tence — in one word, such an inexplicable union of immor- tal Deity and expiring humanity ! How do these things comport with one another? No tongue can tell! A prophet, an apostle never tried. They are truths, but they are mysteries. They are the Divine mysteries of Divine truth. Our reason can not explain the mystery, how that Son WISDOM OF GOD IN- MYSTERY. 143 on the cross, in wliom tlie Father luas well plerised^ and who at that veiy moment (with an obedience never equaled) was doing the very will of the Father in a most amazing transaction, could have been abandoned b}^ him at such a moment, and left to that bitterest wail- ing, My God, my God, why hast thou for sal :en mef Even an earthly kindness will pillow the bead of a dying son. Profligate as he may have been, and now dN'ing for his crimes, parental affection will take him up in that hour, and soothe him if it ca,n, and catch his last breath, and speak words of tenderness to his death-struck bosom. But Grod did not treat Jesus Clirist so ! ISTot even a look of tenderness did he bend upon his dying Son ! Jesus Christ was no martyr ; and God forbid that herein he should be an example for us. We can not afford to die so. He died thus that we might be free. He v/ailed, that we might exult. He died in gloom, that we might die in glorj^ It is a mystery beyond our reason to fathom, that the love of God should ever have brought Jesus Christ to the cross. There is a hell. It has victims in it. It has room for more. Sinners deserve it. Oh ! how could God, so infinitely great and exalted, ever love sinners, beings so contemptible and mean, well enough to per- form in their behalf all the wonders of the crucifixion ? Bend, bend, proud reason, under the burden of these mysteries ! Learn the narrow limits of thine empire ! Take, as thou oughtest to take, at the hand of God, the testimony that he has given thee, the ivisdom of God in a mystery. Redemption would be ^mreasonable, if there were not in its achievements something which reason can not fathom. What reason could calculate the price of an immortal soul ? or gauge the depth of its bottom- 144 WISDOM OF GOD IN MYSTERY. less abyss, its home, but for the high and mysterious ransom ? II. We turn to the demonstration, that all this mysteri- ousness is no greater than we ought to expect on the subject-matter before us. We are going to show that all this mysteriousness perfectly accords with all the facts and all the other arrangements of the plan of redemption. In this accordance beams out the wisdom of God. Be not offended, if we beg your most definite atten- tion. We desire you to fix precisely in mind the exact point with which we are dealing, and remark how it bears on the matter on hand. We maintain, that re- demption for sinners by the death of the eternal Son of God has something about it of amazing mystery ; but that the mystery in this case is a manifestation of the wisdom of Ood ; and, so far from constituting any difii- culty to a wise man, this mystery ought itself to incline him to accept the doctrines, and instantly venture his soul upon it as a reasonable duty. Faith, on this ac- count, is the more reasonable; and that, especially, be- cause the Deity herein accords with all the other mysteries connected with this subject. We select five items to illustrate this principle. 1. Sin was the great evil which brought our Saviour into the world and took him to the cross. And the ex- istence of sin is just as mysterious a matter to us, as its expiation on that blood}'- tree. Sin is an exception to all that could be expected under God's attributes. It is in- finitely hateful to his infinite holiness. It is just as hate- ful to his infinite goodness. It is the only thing wiiich has ever dishonored him, or thrown a single look of con- temptuous disregard upon his high and holy character. WISDOM OF GOD IX MVSTEEY. 145 It constitutes the only tiling wliicli has ever dared to impeach his wisdom ; tlie only thing which, b}^ marring felicity, and spoiling holiness, and building hell, seems to frustrate the great ends for which God's high attri- butes are all embarked. How could God permit its in- troduction ? Where slept the arm of his omnipotence in that dark hour when sin first sprang into existence ? Where was goodness, infinite goodness, that it did not wake the energies of Omnipotence, and prevent that awful act which dishonors God and dooms immortal spirits to the pains of hell for ever ? How could such a God ever permit such a monstrous evil ? Awful mystery ! Human reason would have supposed it impossible that sin should come into existence, except by dashing into pieces the throne of Omnipotence ! Yet, here it is I Its effects are visible. Its history is written in tears, in hearts that bleed and break ! It is written in the birth-cries and death-groans of a dying humanity, and spread out in the line of march over which every mortal travels from his cradle to his coffin ! Well may the spectator, in such a world as this, ask, where is the goodness of God ? The world, indeed, read by the light of Divine Revelation, may give numerous proofs of it, but it is very noticeable how the admirers of nature flul in one signal matter. In no instance that I recollect, has any one of those impassioned children, who revel so delightfully in the mere fields of nature and taste, ever looked only on one leaf of nature's volume. His ecstasy has been experienced, and his poetry has sung, and his taste reveled, only when reason has reeled — when he has turned away from the dark mj-ste- lies of a miserable world, atid opened his eyes only on the few bright spots before him. He maj^ have been happy 7 146 WISDOM OF GOD IN MYSTERY. in tbe sunsliine, but not in tlie dark and stormy day. He may have been satisfied v/itli nature's revelations and tuition wlien he saw health, strength, and happiness, but not when the life-blood stagnates at the bidding of inex- orable death ! Nature builds coffins ! Nature digs graves ! Nature takes from us our dearest solaces — the sweetest she ever gives ; and, when we have deposited them in the tomb, she settles down upon them the darkness of an impenetrable midnight to brood over them for ever ! How can these things be ? How can a good God per- mit them? In vain do I put these questions to all Nature around me. She gives me no answer. Silence, an awfal silence, is her only reply ! Something more, therefore, is indispensable. And when God comes to give me that something — when he tells me that these dispensations shall receive the visitings of mercy — when he assures me, that, though sin exists, and men die, and death-struggles and deep graves are facts, yet still he is good, and his goodness is yet going to be manifested when a whole army of believers shall fling off their wind- ing-sheets, and take their flight from the grave-yard up- ward to glory; can I not afford to have God just as mysterious in the mode of recover}^, as he ivas when sin began, and has been all along the tearful line of its dread- ful history? Is it not wisdom in God to accord with himself? And if I can not stand before his attributes of infinite goodness and power, and tell how he could per- mit sin and its evils, and if all nature can not tell me, do I not need something beyond nature, and something just as amazing and mysterious in curing sin and its evils, as there is in its daik existence and dark miser- ies ? as there is in its dark graves and deep hell ? If such a mystery as the existence of sin could be, and the WISDOM OF GOD IN MYSTEKY. 147 attempt to atone for it and undo its evil had no mystery about it, my faith never could fix, and my heart never could rest on that attempt. I should be afraid that there might be hidden somewhere, in the darknesses of sin, evils and dangers that the remedy could not reach. If sin is a mystery, the expiation of it ought to be a mystery also. And so it is : Great is the mystery of godliness, Ood manifest in the flesh, seen of men, helieved on in the ivorld, received up into glory. Yes, 2. He was manifest in the flesh, seen of men, believed on in THE WOKLD. And why did the Son of God select this world as the theatre of his redeeming wonders ? There had been sin in heaven. Spirits as precious as ours had fallen. Like us they were the creatures of God. Like us they were immortal. Like us they were capable of never-ending felicity and glory. Capable are they, too, of an awful misery, as they know full well, reserved in chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. As in our contemplations we mount up to the city of God, and gaze at those vacated seats whence angels fell, with " Lucifer, son of the morning," and then turn and look at the redeemed myriads of happy spirits taken home from this dark and miserable world, how can we solve the mystery, ivhy the Son of God took not on him the nature of angels, hut took on hira the seed of Abraham f Why did God pass angels by when he rescued us ? Why is not every one of us manacled in chains that weigh down devils in hell ? It is all a mys- tery ! ISTo answer to the question comes to us, except, even so^ Father^ for so it seemed good in thy sight. There we must leave it. And if it is all mystery to us, how God came to select this apostate world for the work of redeeming mercy, it accords with God that that work 148 WISDOM OF GOD IN MYSTERY. itself should be a mystery also. The mystery of the work assorts with the mystery of its field. The wonders of the incarnation, of the " man of sorrows," of his death of agony, of the ef&cacy of his great atonement for our souls, are things which perfectly correspond with the other mystery, why God dooms sinning angels to hell, and invites sinning men to believe in the Saviour and go to heaven. And if any unbeliever among us will reject the doc- trines that Christ bore the penalty for us, and made an efficacious atonement, because there are mysteries in these doctrines ; for the same reason he may just as well reject Christianity t^ltogether, cut himself off entirely from the Gospel, and afiirm that the angels sung a falsehood in the anthem of the incarnation ! Our redemption is all alike : we speak the wisdom of Ood in a mystery. 3. There is an entire correspondence between the doc- trines of Christ's effectual expiation of sin, and satisfac- tion of justice by his death, and all the other information we have about the Saviour himself. The incarnation of Jesus Christ is just as mysterious to us as his atonement. So is his person, that he should exist "in two distinct natures and one person for ever." There is something inexplicable in this. The fact is so ; but how it can he a fact, no prophet or apostle has even undertaken to tell. That Jesus Christ should be able to give strength to the poor cripple's bones, and yet be himself weary and way-worn, and sit down to rest — that he should feed thousands of men, and yet be a man of hunger — that he should control the stormy elements, and yet have not where to lay his head — th'rit he should soothe anguished hearts, and yet himself breathe the bitterest prayer that ever quivered on anguished lips — that he should control i WISDOM OF GOD IN MYSTERY. 149 death, and yet be its wailing victim — that he should please the Father, and yet the Father be pleased to bruise him and put him to ano2)en shame; these are things before which faith and love may wonder and adore, but which reason can never explain ! The great atonement, which we remember to-day, corresponds, in mystery and gran- deur, with all else that belongs to its wonderful Author. 4. There is something truly amazing in the mode of the redemption of sinners. It is not less amazing than the fact, whose mysteries we mentioned in the first part of this sermon. If it were so, that justice could turn aside from the guilty, that Jesus Christ were coming into this world to ransom sinners, we should naturally have expected that he would come in the chariots of his omnipotence ! We look for victories, for high and won- derful achievements, in something which comports with their own magnificence. And if Jesus Christ were to come out from heaven on a high embassy of govern- ment, and visit this rebellious ^orld, and wipe out its sin, and recover back to a heavenly allegiance its sinning inhabitants, our reason, all the reason we can bring to bear upon the matter, would have expected him to come laden with the honors of his high commission. Not only would our reason look for his honorable credentials, but look to have his person held sacred, and guarded by all the thunders of the throne he had left behind him. Reason would expect him to stand here in the acknowl- edged 'majesty of a high and mighty deliverer. And even if Revelation had taught her, that his life must be given a ransom for the redeemed, she would still expect to see him, in all the might and majesty of his Godhead, grappling with the king of terrors ! And, whatever might befall him, she would expect the eternal Father, whose 150 WISDOM OF GOD IN MYSTERY. name and government lie came to honor, would never forsake him. But, how different the facts ! He was a poor man I His mother was a poor woman ! He was born houseless, and fled defenceless from the sword, whetted for his infant blood ! He stood on the world he came to rescue, an outcast, and almost unbefriended ! The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, hut the Son of man hath not where to lay his head! Approach- ing nearer to the end of his work, instead of receiving any signals of triumph, he was dragged from court to court as a culprit, insulted bj a bantering Pilate and a covetous Herod ! He was mocked as an impostor — he was spitted on as a man — he was scourged as a villain ! And when the last hour was come, he was not permitted that poor boon, to die in peace ! They insult his lips with vinegar and gall ! while the forsaking of his Father forces from him the only complaint his tongue ever uttered ! This is the mode in which God treated his Son ! It is most mysterious, most amazing ! It corre- sponds with the mysteries of its design — the satisfaction of justice and the salvation of the guilty. It is the tvisdom of God in a mystery. We can not stop till we have named one more article. 5. Through this Christ, some sinners are brought into favor with God. They are believers. They are adopted into God's family, and he loves them with an unequaled tenderness and strength. But how does he treat them ? Does he free them from suffering, since Christ suffered for them ? Eegenerated and made saints, does he never suffer them to fall into sin? Must they weep, since Christ wept for them ? Will they die, since Christ died for them? Along their track of life, and then in the hour of their coming dissolution, will God's treatment of WISDOM OF GOD IN MYSTERY. 151 his people be according to their character, so tliat the hohest of them shall have fewest griefs, and die the hap- piest deaths ? We should expect it ; but it is not so ! The very pathway by w^hich believers travel to the city of God is a matter corresponding in wonders with all the rest of their redemption ! Sometimes they fall into sin ! Sometimes, brethren though they be, they do not love one another ! Sometimes they will be forced to writhe in anguish imder the thought that their God has taken away from them the mercy w' hich they could least of all spare ! Some of them will bur}^ their children, and some of them will die, leaving them behind in such circum- stances that they could die happier if their children had died before them ! — they must leave them, unbefriended, to a tempting, and cold, and comfortless w^orld ! We ask you, if your very way into heaven, along the path of tem.ptation and tears, and winding down rapidly into the darkness of the tomb, does not correspond in mysteriousness with that great work which shall beam brightness on that tomb in the day of a coming resurrec- tion? Go on joyfully in that path. Lie down quietly in that tomb. The darkness of your allotments is no evidence against your adoption into the family of God. If 3'ou are a believer, your life, like your adorable Redeemer, will be the tuisdom of God in a mystery. This afternoon, some of you, my dear hearers, are going to pour dishonor on this wisdom of God ! You will not be at the Lord's table! Most solemnly and most affectionately, I ask you, ivliyf What do you wait for, before you will believe in Christ — before yon will consent to trust 3'our soul to his blood ? What do 3^ou want the Almighty God to do for you, or to teach you more? He has done, and has tauglit, and has 152 WISDOM OF GOD IX MYSTERY. promised, and lias called and invited, precisely as your situation, your sins, and }- our souls need ! If any thing is reasonable and trustwortliy, it is this blood-bought redemption. If you will not take up with this, a wise, unique, appropriate, consistent system — a system that reaches aid this moment to your guilty helplessness, and stretches on to your death-bed and eternity — it becomes a serious question to jou how you will answer it at the bar of God. If you will not believe God, what will you believe ? If you will not trust God, what are you going to trust ? If you recoil from the mystery of the atone- ment, and fall back on Nature, you can find neither light nor hope there ! Wherever the Bible is mystery, Nature is more so. If you will reject a redemption which accords with all w^e can know of God, and which corre- sponds to your sins, your consciousness of want, and your dying condition, then you must perish! You must perish ! but when you perish, the justice and mercy of God will be faultless! Oh! that you were wise ! You would then take God at his word. You would renounce sin and the w^orld. You would be a miracle of grace, and an heir of bright and happy immortality. My brethren, you are going to commemorate, this afternoon, the greatest wonder in the universe. Your exercises of adoring love and trust ought to have some correspondence toHhe love that has saved you. At the table of the Lord you will remember the adorable love which made Jesus Christ a victim, that you might be delivered from the depths of ignominy, and pain, and shame everlasting. Aim to have your faith, 3' our filial confidence, your spirit of adoption, as freely draw you to take Clirist as he has given himself to ransom you WISDOM OF GOD IN MYSTEPwY. 153 from going down to the pit. Ye are tlie children of God. Come and take, at your Father's table, the chil- dren's portion. Come with a child's confidence, a child's heart. Come to assure your hearts. As you lift that cup to your lips, say freely, He that spared not Ms own Son, hut freely delivered him up for us all, how shall he not icith him also freely give us all things f And then drink of it in filial confidence, as a child of God. Let no fear dis- quiet you. If he loved you to the dearth while you were yet enemies, much more will he save you as friends. He will perfect all his mysterious redemption. He will attend you in your sometimes dark pathway, as you tread onwards toward the tomb. He will not leave you there. You have contemplated him mysteriously dying in ignominy upon the cross — you shall yet see him com- ing in the clouds -of heaven to judge the quick and the dead! As your soul has sorrowed for sin, and your heart sunk within you, you have heard him wonderfully saying. Be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee. You shall yet hear from his lips that crowning wonder, Come^ ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you before the foundation of the tvorld. Christ on the cross, and a ransomed sinner in heaven, are the two greatest wonders in the universe — they both exhibit the luisdom of God in a mystery, 7* Blessed be tlie God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as he hath chosen us in him, before the foundation of the world, that should we be holy and without blame before him in love. — Ephesians, i. 3, 4. TpOUR ideas are peculiarly prominent in these words : -^ The first is, the ascription of praise and blessing to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Apostle, just commencing his Epistle to the Ephesian converts, has barely announced to them who it is that addresses them, and wished them grace, mercy and peace, before he breaks out into a kind of rapturous exclamation, Blessed he the Ood and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! He could not proceed (it would seem) to impart to them those counsels and consolations of which his heart was so full, before he had lifted up his heart in holy and devout thanksgiving and praise to God. He loved the Ephesian converts. He rejoiced in all their spiritual good. He delighted to unfold to them the riches of the Eedeemer's grace, and furnish them (through the inspira- tion of the Holy Spirit) with such principles, and prom- ises, and timely admonitions and warnings as should aid their advancement in the Divine life. But all that he could do, or they anticipate, flowed from the wonders of grace. There was nothing in all his enrapturing theme, ELECTION. 165 Christ, and pardon, and lieaven, wliicli would let liim, for a moment, forget that praise and blessing for it all was due to God. He seems to have felt that he could not ent-er into the consideration of Christian subjects — could not unfold or enjoy the rich provisions of Chris- tian grace — without remembering at every step that it all came from the bounty of Heaven — the wonderful overflowings of the grace of God! The very first thought of the Gos|)el brought the Apostle directly to the grand, and the glorious and the delightful sover- eignty of God: Blessed he the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ Then follows the reason for this : His second idea is that of the spiritual blessings which God has bestowed ; Who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. The word places is not found in the original. Perhaps some other word would be as appropriate: Blessed us luith all sjnritual blessings in heavenly THINGS ; that is, in grace, mercy and peace, pardon, redemption, and the fruits of the Spirit, may, perhaps, be the meaning of the passage. But I am of the opinion that heavenly places is a phrase that more perfectly presents to us the idea which was in the Apos- tle's mind. The 7node in which his mind revolved the matters of the Gospel seems to me to have been this : he considered the whole as one connected, consistent, certain system, tuell ordered in all things, and sure, from the beginning to the end, established in the covenant, and resting on the faithfulness of God. He considers heaven, therefore, as already bestowed upon believers. It is theirs by promise, and theirs by the possession of something of that holiness which qualifies for it. And when ho says, blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, he means that all the privileges and 156 ELECTION. places of holiness are already bestowed upon believers — they are given in the covenant — they are promised, and believers have an invested right in them — they are theirs. The same idea is found in the sixth verse of the second chapter of this Epistle : God, who is rich in mercy, .... hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly PLACES in Christ Jesus. Where there is grace, there is something of heaven. Spiritual blessings are eternal blessings. Divine life is immortal life. But we need remark, at present, only the spiritual bestowments. It was on account of them that the Apos- tle makes such an ascription of blessing and praise to God. The third idea is that of the rule ot arrangement by which God hath blessed us ivith all spiritual hlessings. It is the rule of Divine, eternal election — the sovereign choice of God ; Messed us . . . in Christ ACCORDING- as he hath CHOSEN us in him BEFORE the foundation of the world. The fourth prominent idea is the ohject of the Divine choice, or the explanation of what it is to which God hath chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world. He chose us that lue should be holy and without blame before him in love. He elected believers that they should be holy — not because they were going to be holy and he foresaw it, but to cause them to be holy. It was his object in election to render them holy and blameless before him in love — a company of holy men and holy women, maintaining a careful and blameless walk, and growing up in holiness and love, till they should be ripe for a translation to heaven. The amount, therefore, of what is prominent in these words, may be briefly expressed in this way : ELECTION. 157 1. The Apostle blesses God (when he thinks of the Gospel). 2. He does it on account of bestowed spiritual bless- ings. 3. He tells how they came to be bestowed — we were cliosen. 4. He tells the design of God's choice — that we should he holy. The DOCTRINE, therefore, to which we invite your attention in this discourse is, that The election of God effectually secures holiness in the elect, and thus, w^e may be assured, prepares them for heaven. In substantiating this doctrine, our appeal is, I. To the Law and to the testimony. The sacred Scrip- tures, in places too numerous to mention, teach us that God hath chosen saints, elected them in Christ Jesus, before the foundation of the world. Some of these passages we are going to recite. And you will notice, while you listen to them, how commonly election and sanctification are coupled together not only, but more particularly, how election is mentioned as the cause of sanctification ; how the believer's holiness, all his holiness, originates in the election of God. Our text is of this nature: God hath blessed us ivith spiritual blessings ; why ? according as lie hath chosen us. It was his choice, his election, which secured spiritual blessings. It was not because we ivere spiritually blessed, or because he foresaw we should be, that he chose us ; but we are spiritually blessed according as he hath chosen us. He hath blessed us w^ith spiritual blessings according to election, and not elected us according to some foreseen 158 ELECTION. spiritual cliaracter of good in us. This is one demonstra- tion from tlie text itself. There is another. He hath chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the luorld, that we SHOULD he holy. He chose "US to holiness, therefore, if we are holy. God hath elected believers, that they should be holy, not because he saw they were going to be holy. Their holiness was embraced among the purposes of election. When God elected them, he elected them to be holy. It was his object in election, that they should he holy, and ivithout hlame before hw% in love. And either HE (all holy, and om- nipotent, and changeless as he is) must fail to accomplish the purposes of his choice, or the elect will assuredly receive, at his hands, all spiritual blessings^ and finally be made holy and ivithout hlame before him. He chose them for this ; and his choice effectually secures it. Eom. 8 : 29. Whom he did forehnoio, he also did jpre- destinate to be conformed to the image of his Son. Conform- ity to the image of his Son consists in sanctification ; and this sanctification, the Divine writer tells us, springs from predestination. God predestinated this conformity. Kom. 8 : 30. Whom he did predestinate them he also called. This calling is to holiness, and it comes from predestination. '^Efiectual calling" is one of the results of election. 2 Thess. 2 : 13. We are hound to give thanks always to God for you^ brethren, beloved of the Lord, because Ood hath from the hegi7ining chosen you to salvation, through sanctifi- cation of the Sjjirit and belief of the truth. Salvation is included in election ; but not merely freedom from punishment, and admission into the presence of God. There is something more. We h.ave a very imperfect idea of salvation not only, but we have a very erroueous ELECTION. 159 one, when we conceive of it merely as pardon and a residence among the saints before the throne. Salva- tion includes holiness of nature. The sanctified alone can be saved, let pardon and the mansions of heaven be as they may. The sanctified alone are qualified to get good — ta receive blessing, and glory, and joy from standing in the presence of God. And God hath., from the beginning, chosen to salvation THROUGH sanctificatlon of the Spirit. The choice, the election of God, effect- ually secures sanctificatlon of the Spirit. 1 Thess. 5 : 9. Oocl hath not appointed us to wrath, hut to obtain salvation. Believers are saved by the appointment of God. In holy, sovereign wisdom he has ordained the end from the beginning ; and the means for its accomplishment will not be unappropriate to the objects designed. Eph. 2 : 10. We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. God hath foreordained the good works of his people, as the fruits of holiness, and not merely their new creation by the Holy Spirit. 1 Pet. 1 : 2. Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience. A sanctified mind leading to obedience is, therefore, the result of election. But we need not multiply quotations, ^ou aie famil- iar with passages like these. Such ideas are scattered every where throughout the New Testament, and blind- ness alone can miss them. The character of believers, their disposition, their quali- fication for the service and enjoyment of God, their obedience, their holiness — some one of these things is 160 ELECTION. usually mentioned in the Scriptures in connection witli their election, and as the result of it. Indeed, wherever the method in which election operates is brought to mind that method is sanctification. Believers are elected to salvation, it is true ; God is said to have chosen them to salvation. But when the medium of salvation is men- tioned, the nature of it, the means of it in the creature ; then holiness, sanctification, the qualities of the believer are suggested to us. Men are sometimes fond of separa- ting these things. God put them together. Men, who would fondly indulge the hope of salvation while neglecting the cultivation of a holy temper of mind and holy habits of living, often connect the election of God with the eternal felicity of the elect, but separate the idea of that felicity from the idea of the believer's separation from sin. Men, too, whose wicked hearts are opposed to the sovereignty of God, who hate the doc- trine of election and desire to make it appear odious or absurd, often take the same course, and represent the doctrine of election as teaching that eternal life is secure to the elect, let their course and their character be what they will. But this is not the election of the Scriptures. They make no mention of such an election. They mention holiness as the result of election, and heaven as the consequence and reward of holiness. This is their universal sense, and in numerous passages it is fully and clearly expressed. II. We make an appeal to the nature of the case, to show that election secures holiness in the elect. The election of believers is no singular and isolated thing in the economy of God. It is only one item of a great and universal system — the system of predestina- ELECTION. 161 tion. '' God, for liis own glory, hath foreordained what- soever comes to pass :" — not some things, but all things. His predestination is just as extensive as his providence. Predestination is God's eternal purpose to rule his uni- verse just as he does rule it. (And if men are recon- ciled to the manner in which he does rule it, it seems to me they need have no quarrel with his determining to rule it so.) Election, then, is embraced in predestination. It is only one item of the eternal purposes, the decrees of God. Now, the purposes of God are wise. They are reasonable, and consistent with the proprieties of things ; for God is not the author of confusion and absurdity. And, therefore, when he determined any end to be ac- complished, he must have determined the means for its accomplishment : when he chose his people unto salva- tion, he must have chosen them unto holiness. A re- newed soul, a soul conformed to the image of God, a soul disposed to holiness and finding felicity in it, is in- dispensable to salvation. Without it, salvation is an absurdity, an impossibility. When God elected saints, therefore, he elected their sanctification. When he chose them in Christ, he chose them that they should he holy. His election effectually secures their sanctification, be- cause, as the universal Lord, he determined how to rule all things ; determined all means for all ends ; deter- mined to maintain one reasonable, connected, consistent system, wise in its purposes and wise in the method of their accomplishment. The in:finite wisdom of God would be as much dishonored as his rectitude, by sup- posing that he resolved to save some of our fallen race, without any regard to the means of their salvation, or the qualities of those who should be admitted into heaven, where there is fullness of joy. The nature of the 162 ELECTION. case, therefore, demonstrates the position, that election secures holiness in the elect, because. First, election is a part of God's universal predestina- tion ; Second, holiness is the means of which salvation is the end; and Third, holiness is a quality aside from which no elec- tion could secure to the soul the felicities of heaven. III. Let us now advert to the tendencies of this doc- trine on the minds of men. Before entering into the particulars of this article, we wish it to be noticed in what manner it applies to our subject. Our doctrine is, that election secures holiness in the elect ; (ye have not chosen me^ hut I have chosen you;) and, consequently, we should expect that the knowledge and belief of this doctrine would have a sanc- tifying tendency : we should expect that its effect upon the minds of men, (as a means,) would be a happy effect. Or, to express the idea in another form, when we show that the doctrine of election preached to the people tends to make them hol}^, then we have presented a very strong kind of proof that election secures their holiness. We thus show the practical influences of the doctrine, its operations and tendencies. "We do not attempt, indeed, to solve its difficulties. We pass by what is unknown and mysterious, to examine the plain facts which every body can see. We do not attempt to lift the veil which hides the mysterious agencies of the Divine hand ; but we look on this side the veil, taking the place of an open spectator, beholding the effect wrought on human sensi- bilities and human character by the great doctrine we preach. That effect is holiness. The tendency of the ELECTION. 163 doctrine of eternal election is to lead men to the attain- ment of all spiritual blessings. Listen to five items of illustration. 1. The first is taken from the history of holiness among men. We wish, my hearers, that you were better acquainted with the history of the Church. We invite you to that branch of study. And we do not hesitate to afl&rm, that you will find the most holy, and firm, and devoted peo- ple, to have been those whose hearts embraced the doc- trine of the sovereign election of God. This was one of those great principles which laid the foundation of that heroic and devoted piety, which achieved the wonders of the Eeformation. Those great minds, whose ener- gies, tempered by piety and guided by God, possessed power enough in holy science to fling abroad a light that chased darkness from nation after nation, were trained and tutored under the doctrine we preach. Those great hearts, devoted entirely to the truth, un- daunted by terror and not discouraged by difficulty, and ready, if need be, to sprinkle with their life's-blood the pathway of discipleship, beat quick, and beat strong, and beat true to the doctrine we preach. This doctrine has always been dear to the most signal and devoted piety. Those churches have always been the most firm which have embraced it. The whole history of holiness among men will demonstrate to you (if you will exam- ine) that this and kindred doctrines have always been among those fundamental jirinciples, which have found- ed, and fostered, and guided the most pure and perfect holiness ever witnessed among human kind. Look over Christendom. Select those times, or those countries, wherein holiness, true holiness has been most manifest 164 ELECTION. and pure, and you have selected the very times and places wherein this doctrine of election was most preached and most believed. Again, look over all Christendom. Select those times or places wherein the doctrine of election has been opposed, disbelieved, and stricken out of men's preaching and the creeds of the churches, and you have selected the very times and places wherein Christianity has been shorn of half her power ! How England and Scotland contrast with one another at the present moment. In the established Church of England, it is well known that this doctrine and those kindred to it have been very commonly reject- ■ed for a series of years ; and a system of Arminianism has usurped most of the pulpits of the establishment ! And what is the result ? At this moment, not a few of her ministers are more Popish than Protestant ! In Scotland, in the established Church, the doctrine of elec- tion and its kindred truths were never rejected. And what do you see there? A purer virtue than the English Church ever had ; hundreds of ministers and thousands of private Christians giving up all their churches, and all their church property at once, sooner than allow a corrupt civil government an opportunity to impose a corrupt ministry upon them. You will never see such a spirit of sacrificing and suffering for Christ and his truth, where such doctrines as we preach have been discarded. The Puritans, the Covenanters of Scotland, and the In- dependents of Kew England, have been trained, from the cradle, under the doctrine of election and its kindred truths ; and among these men there has appeared, from age to age, the most active virtue, the purest holiness the world has ever seen. History proves that the doc- trine we preach tends to holiness. ELECTION. 165 And so plain and indisputable is this, that an able writer of the Edinburgh Review, who seems to have no friendship for this doctrine, was compelled, by the force of a truth so plain in history, to make this remark : " Predestination, (says he,) or doctrines much inclining towards it, have, on the whole, prevailed in the Christian churches of the West, since the days of Augustine and Aquinas. "Who were the most formidable opponents of these doctrines in the Church of Rome ? The Jesuits — the contrivers of courtly casuistry and the founders of lax moralit}^ Who, in the same church, inclined to the stern theology of Augustine ? The Jansenists — the teachers and the models of austere morals. What are we to think of the morality of Calvinistic nations, espe- cially of the most numerous classes of them, who seem, bej^ond all other men, to be most zealously attached to religion, and most deeply penetrated Avith its spirit ? Here, if any where, we have a decisive test of the moral influence of a belief in necessarian opinions. In Prot- estant Switzerland, in Holland, in Scotland, among the English Non-conformists, and the Protestants of the North of Ireland, in the New England States — Calvinism was long the prevalent faith, and is probably still the faith of a considerable majority. Their moral character was, at least, completed, and their collective character formed, during the prevalence of Calvinistic opinions. Yet, where are communities to be found of a more pure and active virtue ?"^ Thus spake a mere political, liter- ary writer. He knew from history, that such doctrines as we preach universally give rise to the most active virtue. They tend to holiness. * Edinburgh Ecvlew for Oct. 1821. 166 ELECTION. 2. This doctrine tends to holiness, because its proper and common effect is to make men humble. There are few obstacles to holiness more powerful than human pride. Pride of heart is opposed to gospel grace. God often complains of it in men, and often enjoins the opposite graces of meekness and humility. The doctrine of election has a tendency to diminish it, and finally eradicate it from the hearts of his people. This doctrine admonishes them of their obstinate and wicked state by nature. It shows them that they were so deep in sin, and so attached to it, that they had not delivered them- selves ; that they are indebted to the electing love of God, (choosing them for himself in Christ Jesus,) for their present state and joy as Christians, and for all they hope ever to attain. They have not become Christians be- cause they were any better than other people. They are Christians because they were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world that they should he holy ; and in his own time, and by his own Spirit, it pleased God to make them willing in the day of his power (Ps. ex. 3), and bring them to Christ. It has a very humbling effect upon the Christian's heart to reflect, that he must for ever owe it to the choice of God, and not to himself, that he has been saved. To account for his repentance, for his faith, for his love of holiness, for his prospect of heaven, he must go away from himself, from his merits, and his powers : he must go to the unmerited grace of God : he must go back to the eternal election which God made of him, a poor helpless sinner, before the world was. Thus pride is humbled ; not unto us^ not unto us, hut to thy name give glory. — (Ps. cxy. 1.) And thus the believer, under view of this doctrine, becomes more and more meek and lowly of heart. He is subdued. The asperities of his ELECTION". 167 character are softened. His loftiness is laid low ; and he attains more and more of the child-like, meek, single- hearted, and holy temper of the man of God. Election strikes at the root of pride. It was not any thing in man — it was the sovereign election of God which first opened the least prospect that a sinner could be saved. 3. This doctrine tends to holiness, because it is emi- nently calculated to awaken feelings of gratitude towards God. What were we that we should have any expecta- tions of good? What were we that God should look on us, and pity us, and love us, and choose us in Christ to be his ? The believer is thankful, when he remembers the electing goodness of God. God did not pass him by, and leave him, as justly he might, to the darkness of his sinful condition, and finally to the sadness and despair of eternal death ! " He saw him ruined by the fall, But loved him notwithstanding all ; He saved him from his lost estate — His loving-kindness, oh ! how great." 4. This doctrine tends to holiness, because it tends to show iho, evil nature of sin. We can not fully unfold this idea ; we hope, however, to be understood. Sin is a thing so improper for the practice of moral beings, such a contradiction to the demands of their nature, such an exception among the things for which moral nature has an}^ provision for resistance, that when it has once com- menced, it requires the counsel and control of God to arrest its ravages. Were it not for this counsel, it would have gone on in the heart of every sinner for ever. His own counsel or power never would have arrested it. It is that one mighty evil, which required the action of the Eternal Mind ; and is never arrested from working out "V 168 ELECTION. tlie damnation of the soul, but by tlie election of God. To recover from it, to save the sinner, occupied the thoughts, and fixed the choice of God, before the founda- tion of the world. God elected, and Christ covenanted to die, and the voice of mercy burst from the skies, De- liver him from going down to the pit ; I have found a ran- som. (Job, xxxiii. 24.) This doctrine wonderfully dis- closes the strange nature of sin, and thus leads the be- liever to shudder at its perpetration. 5. This doctrine tends to produce holiness, because it increases veneration and reverence for the Deity. The fact is not to be denied, that those v/ho reject this doc- trine and its kindred truths, do manifest a most sad want of solemn veneration and awe for the names, and the word, and the attributes of God. They have a lightness of manner, and an unbecoming familiarity when speak- ing of the Deity, and even when addressing him in prayer, which are often painfully unpleasant to many pious hearts ! That awe, that solemnity, that solemn rec- ollection of the distance between God and us, which ought ever to prevail, are wonderfully wanting! Ours is a doctrine which exalts God upon the throne. It shows him as the infinite, sovereign dispenser of bounty, by his own holy unchangeable will, accomplishing all the purposes of his eternal election — restraining the wrath of man., or causing it to praise him — bringing, by his own Spirit, to the feet of Jesus Christ, the objects of his love, and, at the same time, hindering no sinner from salva- tion, but olfering it without money and without price. In this doctrine, God is like himself— sovereign, hol}^, mys- terious, and good. Such views of the character of tlie Deity are just, and sober, and humbling, and holy in their influences. ELECTION. 169 Omitting further arguments, we mention, in conclu- sion, some of the lessons of instruction which the view we have taken of this subject furnishes : 1. This discussion shows us the error of those persons who pretend that the election of God is only a national election, or an election to the enjoyment of privileges, and not pergonal, relating to individuals. We have seen that believers are elected, that they should be holy. God chose them for this. His choice, then, was no mere determination to furnish nations with privileges, but a choice of individuals, that they should be without blame before him in love. His choice related to character, and not barely to opportunities and privileges. 2. We see from the view we have taken of the doc- trine of election, the great mistake of those who repre- sent the doctrine sls fatalism — a system fixing the eternal destinies of men, without regard to their character. AYe preach no such doctrine. This representation is a mon- strous, and (I am afraid) a wicked misrepresentation of one of the doctrines of grace which we preach. Our doctrine is diametrically opposed to this. It represents the character of the Christian, his regeneration, his holi- ness, to be just as much a matter of God's eternal choice as the salvation of the Christian. It connects these two things together. Indeed, it makes the one stand as the constant and unvarying cause of the other : chosen, that we SHOULD be holy. There is no fatalism here. 3. Our subject shows us the monstrous error of those who tell us if the doctrine of election is true, it is no matter what they do, for if they are elected to be saved they shall be saved, and if not, all attempts would be in vain. The doctrine of election says no such thing ! It tells us directly the contrary. So far from assuring us it 170 ELECTION. is no matter what we do, it assures us most definitely that it has regard to those who are holy and luithout blame before God in love. God does not hinder our becoming such. On the contrary, he oflfers us every motive and every aid. It is the election of God, and that only, which effectually and for ever cu.ts off all hope of salvation without holiness. Election excludes from heaven the unholy. Were there no decision of God on this matter, the wicked, in their darkness, might hope, perhaps, in some way to be saved in their sins. But election dashes down such hopes. It assures them that the election of God, befoi^e the foundation of the world, embraced holiness. Those who would be saved must aim to be tvithout blame before him in love. There never was a more monstrous perversion than the pretense that if election is true it is no matter what we do ! It is for this very reason that it does matter what we do. Election is the very thing which calls on us to cultivate holiness and love, because these are the qualities which election will welcome into heaven. Hence, 4. We perceive the strange mistake of those who tell us that this doctrine leaves them nothing to do in pre- paring for salvation. It gives them every thing to do. They must learn to become holy, as God is holy. Elec- tion never saves men in sin. They must repent of it, hate it, forsake it. They must follow holiness (Heb. 12 : 14). Their very calling is to holiness (1 Thess. 4 : 7). They must cultivate the fruits of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance (Gal. 5 : 22). They are to be made free from sin, to become servants to God, to have their fruit unto holiness, if their end shall be everlasting life (Rom 6 : 22). Elec- tion makes it certain, that without holiness no man shall ELECTION. 171 see tlie Lord. And fallen sinners like ns have mucli to do, if we would mortify sin in our members, and become fit subjects of all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ 5. Finally : we learn, from this subject, the great mis- take of those who represent the doctrine of election to be a very discouraging doctrine. It is not. It is the very foundation of hope. Had it not pleased God to choose some to be holy and ivithoiU blame, what ground could you now have for entertaining the most feeble hope of eternal life? You could find none in your merits — none in your powers — and, if this doctrine were gone, none in the provisions, the securities of God ! But since he has chosen some, there is reason to hope. All will not perish. Christ has not died in vain. Election hin- ders nobody from holiness ; and every sinner on earth may have just as much evidence of his own election as he has of his own true holiness. Let him be holy, and he may know God has chosen him. God chooses men to holiness, and, therefore, in every effort they make to be holy, they may have the consolation of reflecting that the electing God beholds their efforts with an approving eye ; and not only so, but every step they take in holi- ness is an evidence of their election of God. If this is not ground of encouragement, what is ? Men may go on working out their salvation, making their calling and ELECTION sure, and be cheered by the unequaled encouragement, that from eternity God had them and their salvation in his eye — that he who has begun a good work in them will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1 : 6), because, if they are holy at all, God IS blessing them ivith spiritual blessings in Christ, ACCOED- ING as lie hath chosen them in him, before the foundation of 172 ELECTION. the world, that they should BE holy and vjithout blame before him in love. We leave this subject to your reflection. It calls you, my dear hearers, to the most carefal and blameless walk. Election and holiness go hand in hand. Never separate them. The Divine word puts them together. What God's election is you know not ; it is hidden among those veiled mysteries which lie beyond the darkness that envelops his throne. But you do know you are called to holiness. Election calls you to it. It dashes down your pride. It tells you that God reigns, and will reign, and assures you that there is no election or calling of God but this, that ye should be holy and luithout blame. Go, then, submit your soul to a sovereign God. Submit it to him in Christ. Go, luorh out your salvation with fear and trembling. Go, make your calling and elec- tion sure. Go, where God is calling you in the footsteps of Jesus Christ ; and though you are dead in sin^ you shall be made alive unto God ; and, finally, you shall go to the full and eternal enjoyment of all spiritual bless- ings in heavenly places in Christ. God grant it to you, through infinite grace in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. %tovitmt]\t Christ hath once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God. — 1 Peter, iii. 18. rpHE central point of Christianity is tlie Cross of tlie Eedeemer of men. Around this point, the whole Divine system encircles itself; and whatever it is, in the principles of instruction, or in the sensibilities of experi- ence, that does not feel the paramount and supreme attraction of the Cross, is something false, empty, delu- sive; and its erratic tendency must be corrected, or it will wander off, alike beyond the securities of truth, the mercies of God, and the felicities of man. The Cross — the sacrifice of the Son of God — the atonement made for sin, where Chrid suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust^ is the central and supreme idea in the system of salvation. It ought to be enough to convince us of this, when we find the holy Scriptures constantly referring every general and every special subject to the sacrifice of the Saviour for its elucidation. They always do so. Things most unlike, most distant from one another, most oppo- site to one another, are referred to the Cross. For ex- ample, at once the attributes of the Deity and the malig- nities of sin ; the justice and the mercy of God ; the boundless majesty of the Eternal Throne, and the smallest, gentlest sympathies a dying sinner needs, are brought to 174 ATONEMENT. tlie sacrifice of the Saviour, to teacli us what they are, and give them their due influence over us. This is the style of the Holy Ghost speaking in the Scriptures. This is the method of Divine tuition. - The text is an example of this. It is not one of the most prominent and leading things in religion of which the apostle is speaking, but one of those unobtrusive and every-day duties which might find their enforcement and the principles of their exercise almost every where ; and yet he brings it to the primary idea of Christianity : It is tetter^ if the will of God he so^ that ye suffer for well-doing than for evil-doing ; and even this plain idea, to give it its proper shape in the mind of the Christian, and its proper impression upon his sensibilities, must be re- ferred to the atonement of Jesus Christ : For Christ hath once suffered for siris, the Just for the unjust, that he might biding us to God, This is the method of Chris- tianity. It baptizes every idea with the baptism of Christ. It is because of this connection of a minor idea of re- ligion with the Atonement, that I have chosen this text, and formed the plan of this sermon. The Atonement comes in every where. This is the remark I make u]3on this text, and the idea on which I found this discourse. And hence, it is easy to see the necessity of having correct sensibilities of the nature of the Atonement itself This is the life of the Christian system. It is the spirit which animates it ; and if our apprehensions and impress- ions about this are wrong, our religion will be wrong. In proportion to our error on this point will be our un- happiness in Christian experience. If we do not catch the true sprit of the doctrine of the Atonement, we shall not catch the true spirit of Christian life ; and if we live ATONEMENT. 175 at all to Christ then, it will be a diseased and sickly life ; and, instead of resembling those wlio breathe the pure atmosphere that quickens a heavenly existence, we shall resemble those who breathe the poisoned and pestilent vapors that sometimes float even over the green fields of the Zion of God. The Atonement is the believer's breath of life. He can not take a step, he can not speak a word, he can not feel an emotion in religion without it. It tempers all his hopes, his fears, his faith. It governs his humility, his peace, his love. It guides his gentle- ness, his goodness. It opens the fountain of his tears. It is the key-note of the song he sings. And, when he goes forth to do good, it turns him from the track of the Levite and the Priest^ to the better path of the good Samar- itan^ who bears his oil and his wine. If this pervading principle, therefore, becomes corrupted, all else will par- take of the taint. If the truth of the principle is all lost, grace will not exist in the soul, and the soul will not be saved. As the plan of this discourse, therefore, I will mention and explain two different methods of apjDrehending the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and point out their distinct- ive characteristics. This shall be the first thing. And, having thus shown their diversity, I will demon- strate which is the proper method of influencing a be- liever's sensibility. This shall be the second thing. But the nature of this subject is such, that we need some caution in speaking and hearing. Allow me, by way of preface, therefore, to remark : 1. That in treating of this theme, I have no reference to that long-continued dispute in the Church, about the extent of the Atonement, whether it is universal or par- ticular, general and unlimited, or special in its nature. 176 ATONEMENT. 2. Tliat the error at whicli I aim is found (for auglit I know) as frequently among those who adopt one of these theological systems, as among those who adopt the other. It is an error compatible at once with the idea of general, and the idea of particular atonement. 3. That the evil of which I shall speak, and the oppo- site excellence w^hich I shall aim to commend, are not so much matters of theology as of experience ; that they are things affecting tlie sensibilities of a Christian's piety, far more than the principles of a believer's creed. 4. Final remark ; that, so far as I am going to say any tbing of principles, and views, and doctrines, as connected with Christian unbappiness or mistake in this matter, I do not mean to censure any principle, or view, or doctrine hy itself: I do not complain of any one as false. The evil at which I aim is more subtle, more deep, more difficult of detection, more difficult to be spoken of in such a manner as to be understood. We must bespeak your attention. The evil in principle (if there is any except in mere sensihility) consists, not in false principle, necessarily, (mark this distinction,) but in giving to differ- ent TRUE principles an improper proportion of importance. It makes a secondary truth a primary one, and degrades a primary truth to a secondary station. This, if any, is all the doctrinal evil connected with the matter, which I would lead you to deplore and shun. With these cautionary and explanatory remarks re- tained in the mind of the hearer, we shall not be likely to be misunderstood in the heart of the subject on which we now enter. I. We are to mention and explain two different ATONEMENT. 177 methods of apprehending the atonement of Jesus Christ, and point out their distinctive characteristics. There are two very different methods of being affected — (that is the word — I do not say, opinionated^ or indoctrin- ated — I say affected — every word has been carefully studied ;) there are two very different methods of being affected by the idea of the sacrifice of the Saviour. Prob- ably these methods arise from different methods of apprehending the Scripture doctrines on this point. Principles govern the believer. They must govern him. They mould his sensibihties, they rule his heart, as he is a child and disciple of the truth. In both these methods the truth may be embraced ; but one way of embracing it is very different from another, and gives rise to a very different habit of religious thoughts and impressions. In one case, the essence of the atonement seems to be a satisfaction rendered to Divine justice and authority for the indignity done to them by sin : its object seems to be, to sustain the honor of the Divine law ; to vindicate the rectitude and wisdom of the Divine legislation; and maintain, in all its unimpaired vigor, the energies and respect of the Divine government. Its origin seems to be, that infinite and holy regard, which the infinite and holy Kuler of the world has, and must always have, for his own holy law, which sin has broken, and for that whole system of moral control, by which he is pleased to administer the government of the world. Sin (the folly and the hardihood of man) has committed the enormity of transgressing the law. In doing so, it has trampled an infinite authority, called in question the infinite wisdom of God's legislative requirements, and dared to break in on the order, and beauty, and har- mony of that system of Divine rule in which the 178 ATONEMENT. Deity delights. Hence, God is offended ! His system of wisdom has been set at nought ! His broken laws are scattered around him ! Disorder has marred his plan ! And if something is not done to maintain the respect due to his authority, and to preserve the integrity of his government, the Deity will be for ever dishonored, and the sinner for ever undone. To pardon will not do, for the law has a penalty and will not relax — for the verac- ity of the Deity must be true to the threatening — for government must be maintained ; and, if one guilty race of the rebellious shall be acquitted and go free, no fear, no respect, no effective motive will be found, to influence other races, in perhaps other worlds, and other ages of time or eternity, to abstain from sin. Hence, Jesus Christ must die, or the sinner can not live. Law, order, the Divine government, demand the death of the Saviour. God's own love of holiness and hatred of sin demand it. His regard for his own honor and the preservation of that moral system, by which he rejoices to rule his moral creatures, demand it. On this ground many a believer apprehends that the Atonement for sin was made ; and its essence, its leading idea seems to him to be an offer- ing to Divine justice, or a plan to sustain Divine law and government, while a guilty creature is forgiven and saved. This is one method of apprehending the doctrine of atonement. The ideas of one, who apprehends it in this way, will recur naturally to the law, the justice, the government of the Deity, whenever the expiation made by Christ is considered. The sensibilities, the emotions, the habitudes of pious feeling with such a one, will all be connected with the proprieties of holiness, the Divine government and honor. These things will be first. ATONEMENT. 179 They will take the lead. They will temper the grateful piety of the heart ; and, when the blood of Atonement comes into view, one who views it in this way will see that the law is magnified and made honorable^ and a door of hope opened to the guilty. This is one method of apprehending the Atonement. And all these ideas, taken separatel}^, are just. God does love his Law ; his government and authority must be maintained ; and it did enter into the reasons for the Saviour's death, that God might he just and the justifier of him who believes in his Son. But there is another style of apprehending the Atone- ment. It makes the illustrious sacrifice of Jesus Christ less public, but more personal in its aims. In this case the sensibilities of the believer, his habits of feeling as he resorts to Christ and his cross, are not ]^Timarily affected by any ideas of a public nature or governmental transaction. With such a one, the essence of the atone- ment seems to be, a satisfaction rendered to the Deity for the offence of the sinner, (I do not say for the offence of sin, but the sinner^) so that the sinner can be saved : its ohject seems to be to make peace for the sinner with his offended Father, so that the alienated may be rec- onciled, and God, in the fullness of his tenderness, may throw the arms of his fatherly embrace around his guilty, but forgiven child : its origin seems to be, that tender and wonderful love which God has for even poor, guilty sinners; so that, even when justice demands it, and the throne of God would be for ever spotless, if they should all sink to perdition, God will not give them up. But while justice is offended, author- ity outraged, law and government dishonored, and the sinner himself is as ungrateful, as rebellious, as undesir- 180 ATONEMENT. ous to be reconciled as he is guilty, the kindness of God still pursues him and pours on his deafened ear that flood of persuasion, God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten So7i, that whosoever helieveth in him should not jierish hut have everlasting life. In this case, sin is re- garded as having ruined the sinner, and Christ as having died out of love to save him ; and the sensibilities of a believer's piety, instead of being affected, as in the other case we mentioned, by a great governmental transaction, are far sooner affected by such ideas as that — " This was compassion like a God, That, when the Saviour knew The price of pardon was his blood, His pity ne'er withdrew." In this case, it is not the government of God but the com- passion of God — not the honoring of law, but the par- doning of the sinner, that seems to come most naturally and sweetly over the heart of the believer. This is his method of Christian affection ; this is the way in which the believer is accustomed to have his impressions regu- lated, his faith, his hope, his love, his sacred confidence quickened by the ideas of the Atonement of Christ. His sensibilities, his habitudes of pious feeling, are all con- nected, firsts with that paternal but infinite love which followed hard after him in his prodigal wanderings, and would sooner give up the Son to bathe, with his blood, the sword of Divine justice, than leave even such a guilty sinner to his deserved doom. In this case, whenever the Atonement comes to mind, the love, the kindness, the compassion of God come with it. These things are first. They will take the lead. They will temper the grateful piety of the heart. And as believers, who ATONEMiJNT. 181 apprehend tlie Atonement in this method, indulge the hopes and tenderness of their piety, they learn to say : We love him, because he first loved us — he is our j)eace — he hath reconciled us to God^ not merely to his government, but to God, by his cross. And all these ideas, like those we have mentioned in the other case, are true. The difference between these two methods of apprehending the Atonement does not con- sist in the fact, that either of them embraces falsehoods ; or in the fact that any particular ideas of the one method are, in themselves^ incompatible with any particular ideas of the other method. The difference consists rather in the order, the arrangement of truths, in the shape in which they lie in the mind, and the method in which they influence the feelings of piety. The same believer may, at times, employ both, without changing one of the principles of his creed. The difference is more a matter of sentiment than of doctrine. It belongs to the heart, not to the head. But it is certain there is a difference. These methods are not the same. Perhaps I shall be more clearly un- derstood, if I place in immediate contrast some of their distinctive characteristics. Let us see. One method of apprehending the Atonement makes it governmental, the other individual. In the one case, the believer sees first, that law must be honored, Divine government maintained : in the other, he sees first, that the love of God yearns over the poor sinner. One method makes the Atonement honor law : the other makes it save the sinner. One method makes it a public thing : the other makes it one of the actings of special love. One makes it great : the other makes it affectionate. 182 ATONEMENT. One represents God as glorifying liimself in tlie "wliole ; the other, as endearing and glorifying liimself in a single sinner that repentetli. One method exalts his authority as king : the other, while it exalts, endears his authority as a Father. The one makes God a contriver of matchless wisdom : the other makes him a friend of matchless tenderness. The one method makes individual sinners happily subordinate to a plan of infinite wisdom which (while it saves sinners) is going to manage a universe, and, by the mighty vastness and harmony of its great redeeming transactions, give lustre to the diadem that crowns the brow of the King of kings and Lord of lords : the other makes the great plans of eternal and infinite love sub- ordinate to the felicitous interests of the least of God's moral creatures, and gives the brightest glory to the dia- dem of God, when it writes upon it, for the sinner's view — Father of 'mercies, King of saints. Tiie one method would lead the sinner to stand by the cross, as the centurion stood ; and, while the rocks were rent and tlie heavens grew dark as the Saviour groaned, would lead him to exclaim, Surely this was the Son of God : the other would lead him to stand there, as John and Mary stood — silent, subdued, and satisfied, not a word to say, but every thing to feel, as the august but dying Victim exclaims, It is finished — and gives up the ghost. These, as near as I am able to express them, are some of the distinctive traits of these two methods of being affected by the sacrifice of the Saviour. They both em- brace the same truths, but they yield to them different degrees of proportionate regard. ATONEMENT. 183 n. I am to demonstrate wliicli of these two is the proper method of Christian sensibility. I name to you six or seven proofs, to show that our hearts ought to apprehend the Saviour's atonement, not so much as a plan to prepare the way to save sinners — not so much as a public governmental transaction due to law, to holi- ness and the authoritj^ of the Deity — as a more personal and special sacrifice to meet the sins, and sorrows, and wants of the soul itself 1. The first proof is taken from the manner in which the origin of the redemption purchased by Christ is usually spoken of in the Scriptures. It originated in the kindness of Grod for ruined man — God so loved the world. Here is the fountain of it. It flows from the depths of the compassion of God. It originates in the love of a Father's heart over the misery, and profligacy, and rebelliousness of a ruined child. He has wandered from home. He has abandoned his best interests, while he has rebelled against the most kind and holy authority. He has lost every thing. He merits nothing. And the true method of appreciating the Atonement — the Scrip- ture representation of its origin, is this : that God feels toward the sinner just as a father would feel toward a prodigal son. What is it that makes such a father's heart bleed? What is it that fills his eyes with tears, as the recollection of the ruined child presses upon his bosom ? It is not the disregard of his authority — it is not the dishonor of his family and his name — it is not the dreadful ingratitude of his ruined child. All these he could have borne. But that his child himself should be miserable and guilty — his son, his beloved son, over whose infancy he watched, and prayed, and jpoured out his tears — over whose youth his heart beat such unutter- 184 ATONEMENT. able emotions, as lie hoped that son would be useful, and honorable, and happy — would stay up the trembling steps of his age — would smooth his dying pillow, and lay him in his grave — that this son should be miserable and guilty, is more than the father can bear! This is his anguish ! This is his wormwood and gall ! And this is the primary feeling which would influence him to do any thing for the recovery of the wanderer : almost the only feeling. It overshadows all others. Make that son happy, and the father would be willing that his own gray hairs should descend dishonored into the grave. It is thus that the Scriptures represent the origin of the Atone- ment. It comes from the LOVE of God toward sinners, not from his mere attachment to a holy moral govern- ment : T]ie kindness and love of God our Saviour toivard man hath appeared, 7iot hy ivorhs of righteousness lohich ive have done, hut according to his mercy he saved us . . . that being justified hy his grace, we should he made heirs accord- ing to the hope of eternal life. This is the Scripture representation. The Atonement originates, not in the love of God for a holy system, which sin has broken and dishonored, but in the love of God for a precious being whom sin has ruined. His holy system might have been honored, his justice hon- ored, his government honored, without it. Thej^ ivere honored when Sodom burnt and when Satan fell. The spirits in prison, reserved in chains unto the judgment of the great day, demonstrate that the Deity has a method of maintaining his authority aside from the cross of his Son. 2. The second proof is found in the style of the Scrip- ture expression respecting the ohject of the Atonement. I am not aware that that object, in a single passage of ATONEMENT. 185 Divine writ, is said to be to honor the Divine law, or sustain the authority of justice and the Divine govern- ment. These things are often spoken of, indeed, as being done by the sacrifice of Christ — he magnified the law, and made it honorable. But if you will particularly notice the manner in which they are spoken of, you will perceive these are merely incidental., or secondary, while the primary ohjeci of the Saviour's sacrifice was another thing. It is the persons that are first had in view to be saved — not the great plan of holy and uni- versal government to be honored. He ivas wounded. For the honor of a broken law ? How dreadfully that would change the sentiment of the Scriptures ! I per- ceive, while I utter it, the very idea makes your heart sink within you ! No, no ! He luas wounded for OUR transgressions^ he was bruised for OUR iniquities, the chas- tisement ofoVR PEACE tuas upon him, and by his stri2:>es WE are healed. This is the style of the Holy Spirit- The sacrifice of the Son of God was no mere exhibition — no mere public opening of the way of mercy. He was slain for us, the Just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God. 8. The third proof is taken from the proper and most distressful feelings that we experience about sin. What are these feelings ? Not that the Divine government has been dishonored — not that the proprieties of a system of righteous conduct have been disregarded — not even that the thunders of Heaven are aroused and ready to burst upon the sinner's devoted head. All this he can feel in his impenitence, and before the Holy Spirit has made on his heart the most proper and distressful impressions of the evil of sin. These impressions are different. They contain the deep sadness of the conviction, that God's 186 ATONEMENT. love is forfeited — that the anger of God (the most dis- tressful of all ideas) is righteously incurred — that of our- selves, we are so undone, and guilty, and unworthy, we cannot attain peace. Sin itself is then a burden to us ! Our Father's heart is estranged from us 1 Our own heart is void, and blank, and bleeding! It wants something — - something to lean upon ! not a plan^ but a friend. Con- viction of sin is the dreadful desolation of a robbed soul ; guilty, unworthy, helpless, fatherless ! it is cut off from God! Now, if such is the essence of conviction, what is the essence of the sensibility which the heart experiences, as it closes with the Saviour ? Does it close with a a plan ? or with a friend ? Does it close with a governmental con- trivance? or close with a precious Christ? You have often sung its experience : " That blest moment I received him Filled my soul with joy and peace, Love I much, I 've much forgiven; I 'm a miracle of grace." The believer through Christ is something more than reconciled to righteous authority; he is restored to a Father's heart. 4. We take a fourth proof from the method in which believers, all those of the most sweet and marked piety, have rejoiced. They have rejoiced exactly like young converts — in the sweetness and simplicity of a blessed confidence — in what God calls the hindness of their youth, the love of their espousals. When piety has been pure, when they have had grace enough not onlj'- to be re- ligious, but to be happy in religion, all their joy, their peace, their triumph, has been intimately connected with ATONEMENT. 187 a personal reception of Jesus Clirist as their own Saviour, tlieir friend, tlieir elder brother. They take his righteousness : tliey are sprinkled with his blood : they enter into all such arguments as breathe in tliat passage, because I live, ye shall live also. Notice this, when, by the power of Divine grace, they can tread the world under foot : Ood forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by lohom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. Notice this, when the confidence of faith challenges the claims of righteousness : Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Ood''s elect? It is God that justifieth : Who is he that coyidemiieth ? It is Christ that died, yea rather that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. It is^or US. Christ hath been delivered up for vs. This is the idea ; not for a plaii^ but for his peoi^le: this is the leading and the sweetest impression. Notice this, when the power of religion transports a believer beyond himself, in his desires to serve God and win souls to Christ : The love of Christ constraineih us, be- cause tve thus judge that if one died for all, then vjere all dead; o.nd that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him who died for them and rose again. Henceforth, know ive no man after the flesh : if any man be in Christ, he is a neio creature ; old things are passed away, all things are become neiu, and all things are of God, ivho hath 7'econciled US to HIMSELF by Jesus Christ. We are embassadors for Christ. As though God did beseech you by us, we p)ray you in Chrisfs stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin for US, that we might be made the righteousness of God in HIM. For us — in him: The Apostle can not speak 188 ATONEMENT. without indicating in wliicli method he apprehends the Atonement of Christ. This is the style of feeling in which all happy and triumphing believers speak ; and this comes from the very nature of spiritual life. " Jesus, I my cross have taken, All to leave, and follow tliee ; Naked, poor, despised, forsaken. Thou from hence my all shall be. Farewell, every fond ambition, All I 've sought, or loved, or known ; Yet, how blest is my condition, — Christ and heaven are still my own." 5. We bring a fifth proof from the nature of that faith that saves. What is its nature ? what does it do ? It is the gracious and indissoluble bond of union that connects — what? the soul to an economy? — to a con- trivance ? — no, nothing like it ; but, the sinner to Jesus Christ. / am the vine ; ye are the branches. Faith re- ceives him and rests on him. He is the offer that God makes to a sinner. My beloved is mine, and lam his^ are the two exultations of faith. 6. You may find a sixth proof in the best frames of heart which ever cheer and comfort the people of God. Their frames are not all alike. The believer's heart does not always burn luithin him, but only while he talks with a risen Christ. In the times of your coldness you still feel that Christ honors law ; in your best frames you feel that Christ is your friend ; this is the sensibility of your sweetest and tenderest moments : *' He saw me ruined in the fall, But loved me notvvitlistandiug all ; lie saved me from my low estate, — His loving-kindness, O how gi*eat I" ATONEMENT. 189 Sucli is the strain of tlie songs that the Christian loves to sing in times of revival ; and with which he loves to in- dulge his heart when alone in the sweet solemnity of his closet he communes with God. Plan, government, is forgotten ; but Christ has come into his hanquetmg-house, and his banner over you is love. 7. I find a final proof in the necessities of my own nature. Man is in the world but a little while. Through distressful changes he is hurrying on to another. His experiences often convince him that he knows but little of what it is that can make him happy ; and, whether in this world or in another, his nature is such that, among his vicissitudes and his trials, he needs a friend. As he looks forward to the uncertainties before him — ■ to his death — to his eternity — he cannot be satisfied with any plan for his felicity, with any profusion, or promise of bounty, without something more. The heart demands more. It has a want, a void, that no mere arrangement, or economy, or plan can fill. The child would not be satisfied, and could not long be happy, without something more. His parents may sup- ply all his outward wants, may protect, defend, and teach him ; but if he is a virtuous and afiectionate child, all this can not make him happy. He needs their LOVE. This is the want of his heart and he can not, if he would, dispense with it. The wife could never be satisfied (and ought not to be) with all the attention and care, and all the protection and supply that the most vigilant husband could fnrnish. Amid all this, she would pine and languish — grief would, consume her heart, if she knew all this attention and arrangement were dictated by no afiection for her, but only by a cold sense of propriety. Give her the confidence of requited 190 ATONEMENT. love, and slie will bear any thing without a murmur, side by side with him round whom her heart clings. She will share his crust, and his cabin or his cave, if he can do no better for her. It is nature that works thus. The heart demands something to repose upon. Plans, ar- rangements, contrivances will not do. Affection would spurn them when substituted in the place of the com- munion, the tenderness, the sympathies of love. Pro- fusion, bounty, promise will not do. There is one thing, and there is but one, that can fill up the void and pour happiness into the aching bosom. Just so, only a thousand-fold greater in degree, are the sinner's wants for eternity. He can see but a little way. Death will soon remove him into a state of untried being. He is going to leave all the sympathy and fellowship that have cheered him here. He must take a final leave of his family. He is bound to eternity, and can not tarry. And he is going there, a poor, helpless, and unworthy sinner. He is going to be judged. All his sins shall come to light. He who sits upon the judgment-seat is holy and just, and holds all the destinies of a dreadful eternity in his hand. Now, the Atonement of Christ is enough to meet all this. It perfectly answers to the sinner's wants, and per- fectly satisfies his heart, and many a dying believer has longed to dejoart and he luiili Christ. But it could not do these things, if Divine grace only taught him to repose upon the abstractions of wisdom, and left him without a friend. But it has not. It has taught him that there is One whose love will not fail him. He needs not only to be provided for, to be pardoned, but to he loved. He needs to have God love him — the holy Judge and Father of Eternity. And all his want is supplied, when, in the ATONEMENT. 191 true metliod of apprehending the Atonement, he says of the Saviour, Who loved ME, and gave himself a ransom FOR ME : Christ hath once suffered^ the Just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God : He luill come again and receive us to himself, that ichere he is there we may he also: " He near my soul has always stood, His loving-kindness, oh ! how good." This subject needs not a word of application to be- lievers. They have made the application as we have gone along. I should be ashamed to insult you with any other. But, in view of this subject, ought we not to wonder and exclaim, over the senseless hearts of these sinners, who will not be drawn by the love of Christ ? and who, on the next Lord's day, when Christ will meet his loved ones at his sacramental table, and pour the balm of com- fort upon their wounded hearts, will turn away from the banqueting-house of God's eternal love ! I would not do it for a thousand worlds. How can you treat so one who has loved you as Christ has loved you, and done for you what no other being could? Be astonished, oh heavens ! Here, on this sin-cursed world, which has drunk the blood of the Son of God, a sinner turns his back upon him ! If there is compassion in the universe, it is God's ! If there is kindness, tenderness any where, it is found in that Saviour, whose blood you are tram- pling under foot ! If you have got a friend in the uni- verse, it is Christ ; and yet, " You treat no other friend so ill." IBtti'i ^iiropiatf ill °|l«i)em|)tiou. For I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you, and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh ; that their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledg- ment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ ; in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. — Colossians, ii. 1-3. TN few words, we desire to give the briefest possible exposition of this passage. Five points will suffice. 1. You will notice the apostle' speaks of his own Chris- tian desire, of the great conflict in his own mind, as he ex- presses it, in behalf of other Christians, some of whom he had never seen. As is common with him, he speaks out of the fullness of his heart as a believer and a Christian minister, and, therefore, you need not expect him to be confined to the intellectual mode of a mere human rea- soning. He will reason like a child of God — as if he had a heart, and an immortal soul. 2. You will notice that his desire for these Christians was, that they might be comforted. 8. You will notice that the mode in which he expected them to be comforted, embraced two things, love, that their hearts might he knit together in love^ and, UNDERSTAND- ING, i. e. knowledge, the desirableness or value of which he expresses by speaking of all riches of the fall assurance of understanding. By this love^ and this assured and rich MYSTERY APPROPRIATE IX REDEMPTION. 193 knowledge of the Christian system, he desired that be- lievers should be comforted. He supposed they had some comfort ; and, by growth in affection and knowledge, he desired they should have more. 4. If they had it, he supposed it would lead them to the acknowledgment of, i. e. to the avowed confession and glorying in, the mystery of God, even of the Father and oj Christ. And then, 5. You will notice, that, having mentioned Christ and mystery^ he adds, in respect to Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Of the Christian system he speaks as a mystery^ and yet he speaks not only of an acknowledgment of it, but of the riches of a full assurance of understanding, just as if there were some way of coming into the mystery, and he speaks of our Lord Jesus Christ as being that way — the grand treasury of the wisdom of God. This is a brief exposition of the text. There are other texts much like it. In 1 Cor. iv. 1, he speaks of ministers of the gospel as stewards of the mys- teries of Qod ; because they are to unfold his ni}' steries to men, teaching them Christianity. In 1 Tim. iii. 16, this same Apostle affirms: Great is the mystery of godliness ; God was manifest in the fleshy justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, helieved on in the world, received up into glory. It is very evident that the redeeming work of Christ is the special matter which the Apostle has in his mind, when he mentions the mystery of God, and that he expects believers to have the comfort which he so much desired for them, just by a full assurance of understanding respecting it, or by an established and intelligent faith. It would be easy to demonstrate, were it necessary, that just Christian comfort is to be attained in no other way. 9 194 MYSTERY APPROPRIATE IN REDEMPTION. It is faith whicTi botli establislies and purifies tlie heart. Thus it saves. When the Apostle mentions the mystery of God^ I sup- pose he employs the word mystery in its general New Testament sense, to signify that which is wonderful, or something beyond the ordinary manifestations of God, and therefore something beyond all the discoveries of an unaided reason, and yet (when once revealed and understood by faith) of such a nature, as to be capable of an assurance of understanding^ so that a believer may justly and reasonably make an acknowledgment of this mystery of Grod, or, in other words, glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. We propose to attempt this subject. We propose to show that the mysteries of God^ the wonders of redemption by Christ, have their excellency, and their appropriate- ness, and their comforting nature, just because they have this cliaracter of mj^stery, of marvelousness, of some- thing beyond all the range of nature and all the powers of an unaided human reasoning. I have often been struck with the idea that the difficul- ties and objections that some men find in the system of our religion, and on account of which they tell us they find it hard to embrace our doctrines, are all founded on the very same things w^hich make true believers adhere to the system with most confidence and most comfort. The very things which have been objected to, as unrea- sonable, or as hard to believe, or as having no analogy in all other works and ways of God, are the very things which, to the believer, make Christianity most valuable. The atonement made for sinners by the death of Christ, is perhaps the most signal instance of difficulty. Men have said, and are still saying, that this is a hard matter MYSTERY APPROPRIATE IN REDEMPTION. 195 for human reason to believe. That God should inflict misery and death upon an innocent Christ, and on that account deliver from punishment a race of sinners — that the guiltless should be put into the place of the guilty — ^that the justice which condemned some should be satisfied with a substitute whom no justice could condemn — that an unchangeable law should turn aside its penalty from its manifest violators, and should pour out its dreadfulness upon Him who never violated it ; such things have constituted a difficulty and a ground of objection to Christianity with thousands of human reason- ers. They cannot see the justice of this transaction. They cannot conceive how law is thus satisfied, or God thus honored. They tell us that this is a transaction which certainly seems contrary to all human notions of retributive justice, and certainly finds no analogy in any thing else which the Lord God is known to do — no analogy in nature. Perhaps it is not unnatural, and ought to be expected, that these men should bring up these objections, and be staggered at such formidable difficulties. Two causes •contribute to lead to this — their principles, and their perceptions. First : The principles of these men are all principles gathered on other subjects, on other fields, relate to other matters, are after the rudiments of the world — as the eighth verse has i\r— philosophy and vain deceit^ and therefore ought not to be introduced here, as fit principles of judg- ment and reasoning. They appeal to nature ; and they ask us, where in nature do you find any analogy to the atonement? They appeal to human justice; and ask, where among all the decisions of a respectable jurispru- dence, or among all the sane ideas of men in respect to 196 MYSTERY APPROPRIATE IN REDEMPTION. retributive justice, can you point to any tiling whicli re- sembles tlie atonement of Christ and its claimed con- sequences? Nowhere^ we rejoice to answer, nowhere. And we remind men who find this difficulty in their way, that when they come up to the subject of religion, they enter upon a matter infinitely higher than any mere matter of nature, of human jurisprudence, or man's injustice to man, and, therefore, their princi- ples — their mere philosophical principles — which may do very well for the little fields of this world, and its life, will not answer for them on the higher and wider fields of religion. But they are all the principles they have got, and we may expect them to use them. Secondly : The perceptions of these men contribute to their embarrassment. There is a wide difference betwixt a convicted and an unconvicted sinner. With one who justly sees his sins, there are perceptions about character, and condition, and unworthiness, which enter much further into the matter than any perceptions of a mere reasoner. There are things about God, about his holiness, and the dreadfulness of his indignation, perceived very clearly by men when conscience is alarmed, and the Holy Spirit brings the light of truth into the deep recesses of the soul, which unconcerned men know very little about. Till they have more just perceptions, and those more appropriate to the great subject-matter of religion, it is no wonder if they object to the very things in which a believer most rejoices. If you will attend to a few of the particulars which we are going to name, you may perceive, by even an ordinary reason, as I think, at least something of the pro- prieties of those strange wonders for which nature has no analogy, and which do not come within the scope of MYSTERY APPROPRIATE IN REDEMPTION. 197 mere human reasonings. These particulars may at once be comforting to the Christian, and a reproof to an unbeliever. Men are staggered by the mysteries of God; such things as the incarnation, the atonement, the justice of Grod satisfied for sinners by the death of Christ. I. Let them consider, that this salvation is itself a high and peculiar matter. There is nothing else like it. The affair has respect, too, to the high and aiuful awards of eternity. An immortal soul is to be saved or lost. Heaven is built for it. Hell is dug for it. The celestial inhabitants of another world are bending over the battle- ments of heaven, to take cognizance of the mortal beings who are soon to leave this world, and ready to rejoice over one sinner that repenteth. The devil and his angels wait amid their glooms and the fire prepared for them, to hail with a hellish malignity the addition to their companion- ship, to be made when a sinner dies unforgiven. Such is the matter in question. Now, what shall we say in respect to the fit modes of meeting its high and awf al exigences ? Will any ordi- nary procedure do? Will it be reasonable in such a case? Will it suit the occasion? Will it be trust- worthy ? An immortality is periled ! An eternity is at stake ! And I appeal to all that is sense, and all that is sensibility, if it is not wrong to bring up the ordinary proceedings of this little world, and ordinary principles and practices of this little race of mortal creatures, and this little inch of time to meet the high exigences of the case. I appeal to all that is sense and sensibility, if, in such a case, there is not occasion for some new machinery or movement, some grand, and peculiar, and unparalleled work of God, which shall cope with the natui-e of th« 198 MYSTERY APPROPRIATE IN REDEMPTION. matter in question — wliicli shall cope with all the gran- deur of God, and the grandeur of eternity, and throw the strength of its security around all the majesty and mag- nificence of immortality. We ivant the atonement — we want the incarnation — want the wonders of the crucifix- ion, the resurrection, all the miracles, from the manger of Bethlehem to the ascension from Mount Olivet. "We want something which goes beyond all analogy, and all nature, and all human reason ; else the mode of our salvation cannot correspond with the salvation itself, and by such a correspondence confirm our reason, and com- fort our hearts with the confidence that God himself has undertaken for us. You may take your ordinary principles, and analogies, and reasonings to guide you, in all other matters, as you will. We have no quarrel with you about that. But when we come to a matter of eternity, of immortal life for a sinner, or everlasting death ; both our understand- ing for its full assurance^ and our heart for its comfort^ demand that you fling your analogies to the winds, and let us have something coming out of the mystery of God^ even of the Father and of Christy which shall assort with the thing to be done for a sinner — with all the deep importance and high splendors of immortality. The salvation of a sinner is not a temporal matter to be provided for — not any earthly exigency to be met ; and, therefore, the plan that shall save him ought to rise infinitely above the principles of mere nature, and the analogies of this world, and be peculiar, august, and grand, as his hoped-for glory, and honor, and immortality. II. In this matter of a sinner's salvation, the eternal God himself forms a special part of the question. His MYSTERY APPROPEIATE IN REDEMPTI0:N^. 199 demands are to be met. He is angry with sinners, and his anger is to be pacified. We should, indeed, have a very erroneous idea of his anger, and an idea derogatory to his character, if we were to conceive of him as having an anger similar to the anger of men. His anger is not passionate; not hasty, and agitating, and unseasonable; it ruffles no composure ; there is no perturbation about it. It is cool, calm, determined, reasonable, and there- fore the more dreadful. It moves to the performance of its purposes with a holy and settled decision, just, inflexi- bly j ust. The quarrel which a sinner has with God is, therefore, very unlike his quarrel with any other antag- onist. God cautions him of this, when he says to him, / will not meet thee as a man. The most awful of all ideas, that I know any thing about, is the idea of the anger of God. With a reasonable creature, every hope dies, and every joy sinks in that abyss of horror — God his enemy ! The very character and person of God are involved in this matter of a sinner's prospects. What, then, shall be done for such a sinner? Will you resort for an answer to this question, to those systems of justice which prevail betwixt man and his equals, and thence determine a matter which lies betwixt man and his God ? Will you demand that this high and awful business shall be settled on principles which find some analogy among the little interests, and on the little fields, of an earthly existence? Impossible! Absurd! per- fectly absurd ! You can find no analogy for God — no analogy for the anger of God. You can not fathom the offence against sin which lies in the depths of the Divine mind, and your puny reason can not touch the question, what shall pacify it. You can only know, that the magnitude of the recovery must assort with the magni- 200 MYSTERY APPROPRIATE IN REDEMPTION. tude of God ; and, therefore, a sinner needs for his salva- tion some mighty achievement, some untold wonder Avhich shall be able to cope with the difficulty — the anger of God. Who can tell what this shall be? God only can tell. Not a created being in the universe could answer the question, or reason about it. Christ could answer it, because he was God. He did answer it: a hody hast thou ^reipared me. Lo, I come to do thy will, oh God ; and now the august and adorable wonder of the sacrifice just assorts with the magnitude of the diffi- culty, and thus opens a highway for the sinner up to the very favor of God. The Divinity of the atonement is the foundation of its efficacy. Its mystery, its adorable wonder, its being something beyond all the analogies of nature, and all the explanations of human reason, is the very thing which carries its efficacy where sinners need it, to quench that anger of God which he has told us hums to the lowest hell. III. This matter of salvation has most, if not the whole of its nature, from the matter of sin. It must save sinners. Sin is the strangest thing, save one, in the universe. Nothing but the Christ who died for it equals its wonder. It is an infinite marvel how a holy and almighty God could ever have permitted it to come into existence. It seems to be an exception in the universe — a dark exception to all God's other permissions. Its existence is an infinite wonder. Why did not God pre- vent it, if he could ; and if he could not, where was his omnipotence? If he did not choose to prevent it, where was his benevolence? If he is good, where slept his goodness, when he permitted a creature of his own for- mation to ruin himself by becoming his enemy ? Strange MYSTERY APPROPRIATE IN REDEMPTION. 201 questions ! Who can answer tliem ? What finite mind can grapple witli the dark grandeur of sucli interrog- atories, which have respect to the very wonders of God ? But sin is here : strange thing as it is, it is here. Power- ful, holy, and benevolent as God is, sin is here. Here it has begun its mischiefs, loading our air with its sighs, and making our world a grave-yard ! Now, in the nature of the case, on an occasion like this, what shall be done ? Sin is to be met, and sin is an in- finite mystery, whose very existence you can not explain. And in such a case, to meet the demands of such an em- barrassment, to come in upon this field of eternal won- der, would your heart be satisfied, your reason be satis- fied, to have God Almighty do nothing more than he does in his ordinary government over the world ? Must there not be a proportion betwixt the thing to be done, and the means for its performance ? Would you send an infant to lift a mountain ? would you expect the dew to extinguish a volcano ? would you raise your puny arm to stop a hurricane ? If God had not gone beyond his other performances in this matter of sin, this eternal wonder, you could not trust him, for you would not be- lieve him to be in earnest, or that his means met the de- mands of the occasion. The human mind seeks a pro- portion betwixt means and ends ; and, if the wonders of redemption do not assort with the wonders of sin's ex- istence, they are insufiicient to grapple with the difficult- ies of the case. The means of salvation for sinners must be able to carry their wonders as far as sin carries its wonders, and, among graves and the bones of the dead, show that they are means adequate to what is expected of them ! Yea, they must be such as to be able to carry their wonders up to the very character of God, and wipe 9* 202 MYSTERY APPROPRIATE IN REDEMPTION". out that stain upon his benevolence, which the existence and miseries of sin seem to have placed there! Oh, Deist! oh, materialist! oh, thou fond child of nature, striving to pick up among the analogies of this world a religion which shall suit you and save you, remember you are a sinner : look on a corpse, cast your eye down to a grave's depth, and tell if you do not need all the wonders of God in an atoning redemption, in order to see light in that grave's depth, and see life coming back into the cold marble of that corpse ! Give me the Gospel, its Christ and its crucifixion, and I can see that, after all sin's strangeness and evils, there is a power at work which shall yet show that sin and the benevolence of the Deity are not at war with one another ; or, if they are, that the benevolence of the Deity is, after all sin's doings, unstained and infinite, and shall come off victorious. Give me the wonders of the Gospel, and I can see that, when I stand by my pious friend in the stragglings of his death-hour, and then bear his corpse to the land of silence, nothing has happened to him which shall not be good for him, and was not ordered by the benevolence of God. He shall be happier in heaven eternally, than if he had never been a sinner, and had never died and been buried. The wonders of sin are surpassed by the wonders of Christ. Blessed be God. TV. Sin is the transgression of GocVs Law. God has acted as an infinite moral Legislator, and thus committed himself in the sight of a universe of intelligent creatures. Law is a matter of inconceivable moment. Obedience to it among men is the grand means for securing earthly interests; and Law is the security of heaven. " Its seat is the bosom of God." Every one of its enactments pro- MYSTERY APPROPRIATE IN REDEMPTION. 203 ceeds from his infinite benevolence. His government is just one of the workings of his infinite good- will towards his creatures. But sin has violated his law, and on his veracity, as the guardian of his universe, he is committed to sustain it. What, then, shall be done? This sin is not a mere matter of acting contrary to human enactments and human relationships — it is a matter of acting against the relationship which a sinner sustains to God, and against the duties which bear on the destiny of his whole eter- nity. No mind can gauge the dimensions of importance which belong to this violated law. And, therefore, does it belong to human reason to contrive any means which shall save the sinner and not tarnish the law? Since all the stretch of human reason can not measure the importance of the law of God which sin violates, does not reason itself demand that something shall be done (if a sinner is to be saved) which reason itself can not comprehend ; something which shall be able to reach as far as law reaches, and carry its influences as far as sin could carry its consequences, and thus cope with all the magnitude of that difficulty in which a sinner is floundering, when the thunder of God's law is out against him, to guard God's rights, and the eternal weal of God's creatures ? I declare to you, if I have an item of understanding, a single ray of reason, I can not con- ceive how any reasonable being could rest his hope of escape from the eternal penalty (if he is a sinner) on any thing which should not stretch itself beyond his compre- hension, and put on the character of an eternal wonder, a mystery of God. If I could e:j^plain the atonement, I should spoil it I I want it to be an inexplicable wonder. I want it to reach sin's evil. I want it to satisfy God's 204 MYSTERY APPROPRIATE IN REDEMPTION. law. I want it to silence God's thunders not only, but turn them all in mj favor, and let every one of my enemies know, that, if he touches me, he touches the apple of God's eye. My reason demands miracles in this awfully gi\and matter. It welcomes, it hails the miracle of the Incarnation, of Gethsemane, of the Crucifixion, of the announced Atonement, of a Law honored by a Sub- stitute, and a sinner saved by the blood of another. My God here is like God, an infinite and eternal wonder, in- conceivably great and inconceivably good ! Praise him ! oh my soul, praise him ! Earth, a world of sinners, praise him ! His redemption copes with the grandeur of his government, and brings the aids of its security to a sinner who deserves eternal wrath ! V. This business of a sinner's salvation stands con- nected with God's honor and glory as a moral governor : sin is against his moral government, and therefore comes into conflict with the highest department of his glory. The essential glory of God, indeed, remains ever the same, and nothing can ever conflict with it. But his declarative glory, or that excellency and honor which his intelligent creatures can perceive to belong to him on account of his works, has different degrees belonging to it, and may be greater or less according to the nature of bis operations intelligently perceived and contem- plated. In the works of nature, as we call them, we have some of these different things which honor him in different degrees. He himself often appeals to them. The mountains ivhich he lueigheth in scales and the hills in a bal- ance, and the isles which he taketh -up as a very little thing, are manifestations and claims of an honor which belongs to him. A still higher honor is his due, when he gives life to MYSTERY APPROPRIATE IN REDEMPTION. 205 matter, clotbes the grass of the field with its green, paints the lilies of the field, and animates the wild-bird that carols on the wing. His honor rises still higher when he gifts with intelligence and reason, malceth his angels spirits, and man capable of studying his works. But his highest glory lies in none of these. He is a moral gov- ernor. He is a holy God. There, on that field, in that department, above mere matter, mountains and seas — above the high kingdom of intelligence, and in the de- partment of right and wrong, of moral beauty and ex- cellency, there lies the most valuable of God's declarative glory. Nature is but a subordinate system. Nature must give way to moral purposes. " The Ked Sea must give way : Sinai must tremble : the sun must stand still : the widow's cruise of oil and barrel of meal must forget to diminish, and dead men must leajo into life, if the moral purposes of God demand it. Scholars would do well to remember this, and remember how, in all God's moral dealings with men, he has steadily shown that even the ways and laws of Nature shall stop, if a moral purpose require it. God puts all such things sub- ordinate to something higher, and scholars have no right to reason on what they may find in nature, as if nothing but natural laws, in common operation, had any thing to do with it — as if Chemistry, and Botany, and crys- tallization, and air, and fire, and water, were of such station that they must act only on their own common laws. They shall all act for God's moral purposes. Let geologists remember it. And now, when sin is a matter which comes in upon this moral department of God's empire, where lies the highest glory of God ; when a sinner is to be saved whose sin has dishonored God on this high ground, is 206 MYSTERY APPROPRIATE IN REDEMPTIOIS^ * there not a demand for something high above all the analogies of nature, and fully coordinate with the high majesty of God ? Give me only something which shall assort with nature to save me, or something which shall assort with the kingdom of mind ; and, however grand it may be, you have not touched even the borders of that field, that moral field, on which sin does its dishonor to the Deity. There is a seen and felt necessity of some- thing beyond — something which shall bear a proportion to the wonder of sin's malignity, and, by its inconceiv- able greatness, carry relief to God's honor, and fling the grandeur of its security around the sinner who hath touched that awful thing. Come, wonder — come, mys- tery of God — come, Immanuel God ivith us — welcome, Christ, Calvary, the crucifixion, the vinegar and the gall, the death-groans of the Son of God : your wonders, miracles, every one, are needed to show that God can he just and yet justify the sinner who has dishonored the highest matter of his majesty ! YI. I have only one point more. It relates to affec- tion — ^human affection. You know that in affection lies the very essence of religion. Men must love God. Sin has estranged their affections from him, and, if they can not be won back to him, the sinner can not be saved. What shall win them back? On what ground can a sinner ever be led to repose such confidence in God, that his heart shall yield him its love ? What shall the Lord God do which shall avail to convince a sinner that God still loves him, especially when here he has so many miseries to suffer which he knows can not cease, till he sleeps in his winding sheet ? Examine affection for a moment : think of the nature of love. There is nothing MYSTERY APPROPRIATE IN REDEMPTION. 207 SO tender as aifectioc, nothing so delicate, nothing so de- manding. It looks on its object with a scrutiny which nothing escapes ; no little thing — no trifle. It wants the heart, the whole heart. It wants evidence that the heart requites love, or love can not be satisfied. An affection- ate wife wants this evidence in her husband. It is not what he shall do for her; she does not care so much about that, if he only does the best he can, and requites her love. If she is sure of his heart, that is enough. With happy heart she will share his cabin, his cave, his scanty morsel, without a murmur, if she only knows he loves her. But she must have his heart : it is at once her right and her necessity. Without it she can not con- fide in him and be happy. Such is the nature of affec- tion. And now, when a sinner's affections are estranged from God, and need to be attracted back to him — when sin makes him suspicious, and an accusing conscience makes him distrustful of God — when the affections, the most sensitive and tender of all things, and which can not bear a single item of doubting, are to be influenced — what shall be done, what shall God do to convince a sinner that he loves him? — to lay a foundation, of confidence for a heart whose delicacy and hesitancy are such that a single item of doubt or difficulty would be an eternal barrier, and would fling a sinner into despair, instead of attracting his faith and his love? Something must be done, of more than ordinary character. Some demonstration of God's kindness and love must be made, which shall defy doubt, and meet the timid delicacy of an indescribable fearfulness. Well, God has done the best he could ! — just what love wants — the best he. could! He has sur- 208 MYSTERY APPROPRIATE IN REDEMPTION. passed herein all his other wonders. He has put his own Son into human flesh — into the Ijiw- place of sin- ners ; he has held him to the penalty of death on their account ; and if, in order to be convinced of God's love, your heart demands the most precious of God's things, you have had it — he has withholden nothing. If you could possibly conceive of any thing which God could possibly do for you more — if you saw God staggered at any thing, holding back any thing, refusing any thing, you might feel that something was wanting in your ground of confidence, when your poor soul would rise to peace and love with God, and enter into the high sacred- ness of his eternal fellowship as a loved child, your home the bosom of God. But you have no occasion to feel so now. Demanding as your love may be, it has got all that it can demand. God has done what he could. He has held back nothing. The matchless won- ders of redemption have unfolded to you his heart, and to-day claim your own. These ideas ought to be suffi- cient for the full assurance of understanding, to the acknoiul- edgment of the mystery of God, even of the Father, and of Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Communicants, you have high and adorable reason to have your hearts comforted. God has done wonders for you which surpass all his other wonders. Be of good courage. What have you to fear? "What shall make you hesitate to open your heart to God when God opens his heart to you ? What shall make you afraid to come to him, as friend meets friend, and brother meets brother, and enter with all sweet and blessed confidence into the sacred intimacy of his fellow- ship? Stir up all your faith. Call all your sweetest, MYSTERY APPROPRIATE IN REDEMPTION. 209 tenderest and most confiding love into exercise. Come near to your soliciting God, who, with the amazing wonders of his love, aims to win your own. Tax your heart to make itself large enough to take in the over- flowing kindness of God. Consent to be his child, his humble, happy child. This is what he wants of you. Shall he not have it ? Will you not love him ? Will you not confide in him ? Will you not consent to dis- miss every doubt, hush every fear, and be as happy as God wants you to be, on the high ground of your glo- rious redemption? Be assured you honor God most, you please him best, when you take his Divine comforts most fully to your soul, sprinkled, and guarded, and sealed by the blood of the great atonement. I know that there is something terrible in being a sinner, but all that terror is most triumphantly met by what God has done for you. I know that some fearful things are before you which may well make nature shudder — death, the grave, the judgment, to all which you must come, are solemn and awful realities. But you will not come to them alone. Christ will come with you. He will take you out of the arms of your friends, to bear you to the house provided for you. He will set his seal upon your grave, and claim your reanimated dust in the day of the general resurrection. He will claim you when the hooks are oiiened^ and crown you with immortal- ity. Be not afraid. Eat that bread, and drink that cup with holy, solemn, happy love. But who are these that turn their backs upon the table of the Lord? Why do they thus? If God has wrought such wonders to redeem sinners — if herein he has embarked all his love — what shall become of those whose cold hearts this love can not win ? Oh ! sinner, 210 MYSTEKY APPEOPRIATE IN REDEMPTION. if the demonstrations of the appropriateness of this redemption to the wants of your immortal soul can not convince your understanding — if the adorable love which prompted it can not affect your heart — I do not know what you can expect. Nature can furnish you no aid, and Grod has nothing more to offer you ! Dark and dismal are your prospects ! Dreadful is the cloud that hangs over all your eternity ! It need not be so with you. I beseech you by all that is sacred — by the won- ders of God, and all the solemnities of eternity — let the recollection of that seat whicli you leave vacant at the communion table to-day follow you ; and, if you live till another such season, come and occupy it, a penitent and believing sinner, a happy child of God, and an heir of immortal life. May the God of mercy bring you to this. Amen. f ^pl u)i i^tongelicnl |itstiftcati0ii; gisthipisIrA, That no man Ls justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident, for the just shall live by faith. — Galatians, iii. 11. rjlHERE is something strange in that principle of -*- human nature which leads us to be most ignorant of things most easily known. But this is common. We often wonder at the want of knowledge discoverable in those who have the best means for attaining it. This is true not only in religion, but in every thing else. The man who has the daily opportunity of learning, and knows he can learn whenever he desires to do it, rests contented in his ignorance. He satisfies himself with the reflection that he is not debarred from knowledge — he can attain it w^henever he will. The man who lives in the neighborhood of the most wonderful curiosities, the most towering mountains, lifting their granite battle- ments into the region of eternal frost, the most stupen- dous cataracts or deepest caverns, lives on from year to year with little desire to visit them. He can do it with ease, and is therefore indifferent. Place some obstacle in his way, render it difQ.cult for him to gratify his curi- osity, and his indifference vanishes; his desires are excited by the very obstacles to their gratification. This is a very common principle of human nature, and is often remarked. And it is this which does much 212 LEGAL AND EVANGELICAL to keep men in ignorance on the plainest topics of Chris- tianity, and consequently renders it necessary for the preacher to guard against presuming too much on the knowledge of his hearers. It is this which often forces him to define and explain, when definition and explana- tion seem almost unnecessary, and are pretty sure to be regarded as uninteresting and dry. There is another reason for this humble procedure in teaching the truth. We are ignorant of many things we ought to know, merely from the supposition that we know them well. We have had them taught and explained to us from our childhood. We have our- selves learnt to talk of them, and perhaps begun to prac- tice upon them, and therefore suppose we are not igno- rant and in any danger of error. The truth is, we have a general notion, but not a particular one, of many sub- jects about which we converse, and with which we sap- pose ourselves well acquainted. Our general idea may be correct, while, at the same time, it is too general to be secure — we may not be able to give it a just particu- lar application. Often this is the case in religion. We have heard of faith, hope and love all our days, of the just and the unjust, of repentance, and holy zeal, and charity — we have learnt to use these words and converse about these things, and therefore we are led to suppose we understand them well, while in reality our knowl- edge of them is extremely small. And because we sup- pose we understand them, we are impatient in listening to them — we think our preachers insult our understand- ings, and treat us as novices. The great evil that arises from this is, that when we come to give our principles an application^ we err. This is inevitable. For our knowledge is only general, and JUSTIFICATION DISTINGUISHED. 213 is not, tlierefore, fitted for particular application; and we have neglected to make our knowledge more special under tlie influence of the impression that we did not need it. This limitation of our real knowledge, and the evils naturally arising from it, render it necessary to define, and specify, and apply, when treating of even the most common subjects. Hence the plan of this discourse. We will explain the terms of the text, and its proposi- tions^ in their general significance. And we will connect with these explanations those particular ideas and spe- cific applications necessary to render our knowledge secure ; and will attempt to show how, for the want of these particulars, we are exposed to run into danger- ous errors and delusions. This is the plan we shall pursue. No man is justified hy the law. . . . The just shall live by faith. Here two kinds of justification are spoken of: justification by the Law (which the Apostle rejects), and justification by Faith (which he espouses, or adopts), through which he tells us the just shall live. What are we to understand by Justification by the Law f The man who seeks justification in this method, approaches God directly ; he relies on his own character ; he puts himself on trial, and claims to receive salvation as a merited reward. According to the character of the law of God, he consents to be judged. Perhaps he con- fesses some sin — perhaps he acknowledges he has in many points violated the law ; but he brings up argu- ments from the other side; he counts over his good works, and presents them as an offset to compensate for his transgressions. He places his goodness in a balance 214 LEGAL AND EVANGELICAL against his iniquities^ and fancies that it weighs them down. He keeps a book of debt and credit with his Maker ; and when he strikes the balance claims salva- tion as his pay. This is the general principle on which he proceeds who is seeking justification by the law. There are several particulars into which this general principle enters, and the individual sometimes proceeds on one of these particulars, and sometimes on another. At one time he relies upon the good he has done. He may be sensible that he has done some evil, but, on the whole, he thinks he has done more good than hurt, and therefore must be saved. At another time his repentance is placed in the scale against his sins, and he claims salvation because he has been so good as to repent and be sorry for his iniquities. When he is doing this, he is often entirely insensible that he is claiming justification by the law. He thinks himself a sinner and acknowledges it, and therefore supposes he is not pretending to be just with God. But he is. All this while he is relying upon his repent- ance to be a compensation for his sins, and is claiming to be, on the whole, more worthy of life than of death. At another time his humility and self ahasement are brought in to be an off-set for his sins. He humbles himself, as he imagines, to a most holy degree. He places himself, as more low, and mean, and worthless, than the least of God's creatures ; and because he is so self abased and dependent, thinks God is under obliga- tion to save him. He has placed himself in the dust, and asks, what can he do more? All this time he knows not that it is his pride which has placed him there, and never imagines that he is claiming justification by JUSTIFICATION DISTINGUISHED. 215 the law, because he confesses he has broken it. But all this time he is relying upon his confessions and humility to make satisfaction for sins, and claiming to be, on the whole, more worthy of life than of death. In these, and a thousand other methods, men are left to seek justification by tlie law without suspecting their error. They not only throw in their good works, but throw in their graces, to bring their Maker in debt to them. It matters not what particulaks men present in their own behalf They may plead their good works, or they may plead their graces ; it is all the same. They may talk of their being full of love and zeal ; they may boast of being altogether spiritual, and ardent, and engaged in religion ; they may tell of their orthodoxy ; they may tell how they live nigh to God, and how bright and strong are the graces that burn in their bosom; and all this only shows them to be deceived, and blinded, and in danger. They are keeping an ac- count-current with their Maker; they are self-confident, and proud of their graces ; they are really seeking to be justified by the Law in the sight of God. Whenever men approach God directly^ and put their whole character, their sins, their good purposes, and good works, and graces on trial, to stand or fall, according as the balance shall be for or against them — then they are seeking justi- fication hy Law. And now, in order to bring the principle and its application side by side, let us ask ourselves if there is not reason to fear that many do this who little suspect it ? We speak not of those who put in their innocence, their good works, their common morals, as their claim for salvation ; we speak not of those who deny the Deity 216 LEGAL AND EVANGELICAL of Christ, and consequently destroy the whole of his atonement, taking him only as an example in godliness, and claiming salvation because they pretend to follow it, and to be fit for heaven. These are manifestly expecting justification in that way in which the Apostle tells us no man shall hQ justified in the sight of God. But we now speak of those whose error is more secret and obscure ; of those who do not pretend to be j ust before God ; of those who confess their sins, and think themselves peni- tent and humble, and having no thought of being justified by law. And have we not reason to fear that too many, even of these, have mistaken the foundation on which they are building ? and too many of those who are Christians indeed have mistaken the nature of Christianity so much, as to be ignorantly running into the same error in some of their practices and some of their feelings? K this is not the case, I ask, whence comes it, that we hear of pro- fessing Christians rejoicing so much in their own graces? Why are they sometimes so happy in thinking of their own zeal, and ardor, and love, and thus gathering their joy from their own hearts ? Will not the rejoicing of the individual arise from that source whence he expects his j ustification ? I wish you to contemplate this ques- tion ; will not the rejoicing of the individual arise from the same source whence he expects his justification? Does not the proud moralist, who expects salvation by his own merits, derive his satisfaction from contemplating his morality ? Does he not dwell upon it, and rejoice over it as his title to heaven ? Does not the deluded heathen, who expects to propitiate his gods by the ofier- ings and sacrifices he presents, derive his satisfaction from the idea of those sacrifices? Docs he not rejoice over them as the foundation of his hopes ? (if, indeed, JUSTIFICATION DISTINGUISHED. 217 lie can be sufficiently deluded to rejoice at all.) And is it not universally the case, tliat the joy and satisfac- tion of the individual will arise from the contemplation of that source whence he expects his justification ? What shall we say, then, of those people who rejoice in their onere feelings ? who look into their hearts, (with an Arminian eye,) and tell us how full they are of the fruits of the Spirit? whose rejoicing arises from contem- plating the mere feelings of their heart ? who boast of being wholly in the Spirit, and full of grace? Since their rejoicing is in themselves^ I can not see why they are not expecting justification in themselves. Probably they do not know it. Probably they have never once suspected it. But since their joy rises from the con- templation of their graces^ I can not understand why they are not as much expecting justification from their graces, as the moralist is from his morals, or the heathen from his offerings ! I see not but they are presenting their graces in which they rejoice, their love, zeal, and prayers, as the offset for their sins, and their title to heaven ? It is to be feared, that there is very much of this bribing heaven in the world ! We know that many are seeking justification by the law, who confess them- selves sinners ; but who plead, that, on the whole, there is more good than bad about them. And there is reason to fear that others, who confess themselves sinners, are expecting justification bylaw, when they are rejoicing in their hearts merely, and thinking how evangelical, how zealous, and prayerful they are. Surely there is no im- possibility in this. We may as easily offer our peni- tence, our faith, our zeal, and our prayers, as a compen- sation for our sins, as we can offer our morality or our sacrifices. And when we gather our joy from these 10 218 LEGAL AND EVANGELICAL acts of penitence, and faitli, and zeal, thinking how good they are ; when we take our comfort from the idea that we have a great deal of religion^ I can not understand why we are not relying upon these things to be just before God : God, I thank thee that I am not as other men. If people look into their own hearts and examine their experiences, only to prove whether they are Christians or not, only to exaiinine themselves whether they he in the faith ^ they are doing only as they ought to do, they are acting wisely. But when they are looking into their hearts to find how good they are — ^to live upon their ex- periences — (as the old Divines used to say, "to feed upon experience ") — to find their religious rejoicing in the ex- cellence of their graces, they are acting unwisely, they are deluded, and in danger. And we have heard of those who found abundant joy in themselves ; who were so deceived in this matter, that they imagined they were full of grace, and piety, and spiritual life, and felt entirely happy in themselves! Sink, sink thyself in the dust, deluded sinner ! Lift up thy voice in lamentations, and cry for mercy ! Grace never yet made a child of God to rejoice in the perfection of his graces ; and thou couldst present no stronger proof that thou hast little grace, than the confidence that thou hast so much. If thou wert near to God in the exercise of spiritual affection, thou wouldst see thy deficiencies ; thine unholy heart would be the burden of thy comj)laint, instead of the source of thy rejoicing ; and thy graces (however much thou hast) would seem in the midst of thy heart, like a feeble spark flung loose amidst the heaving surges of the ocean, to be preserved only by a constant miracle of God ! Thou wouldst cry, God he merciful to me a sinner/ If thou^ Lord^ shouldst he strict to JUSTIFICATION DISTINGUISHED. 219 marh iniquities, oh Lord^ who could stand! Oh ! lor etched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death ! The more near any individual lives to God the more humble he will be ; the more he will behold his deficien- cies and in-dwelling corruptions ; the more he will see of the extreme littleness of his graces. God is a being of spotless holiness, and the more near we come to him, the more striking will be the contrast between his awful holi- ness and our own base pollutions and sins. We never seem so vile in our own eyes as when we are admitted to close communion with God. Our graces never seem so little as when we rise to try them in heaven. We never realize our want of grace, our deficiency in love, and penitence, and holiness, and zeal, so much as, when in the exercise of them, we have come nearest to God- Where, then, should this boasting of being full of grace, this self-confidence, this rejoicing in one's self, be ranked ? Surely, we must place it among those strong delusions ; too strong to be corrected by proofs, and too obstinate to feel the power of the clearest demonstrations. And we leave it for you to judge, whether there is not some reason to fear, that those who are so self-satisfied, and think themselves so perfect, or so near perfection, are really (though unconsciously) seeking j ustification by the law. We leave it for you to judge, whether they are not rejoicing in their imagined religion, their love, zeal, ardor, prayerfulness, only because they are expecting justification from them, and claiming heaven because they are so well entitled to enter into its rest. The Apostle speaks of another method of justification. The just shall live by faith. We have seen what it is to seek Justification by Law, and have pointed out some instances in which men may 220 LEGAL AND EVANGELICAL be doing it, when tliey a,re far from knowing wLat they do, and when their self-confidence renders it vain to attempt to correct them. Let us now see what it is to seek Justification by Faith. The man who expects to be justified by faith, acknowl- edges himself guilty of sins which deserve the utmost rigor of punishment. He dare not approach God directly, and put himself on trial. He confesses that he deserves to wear eternally those chains of darkness that weigh down the damned, and dwell eternally amid the flames of that fire that is never quenched ! But he is not afraid of these punishments. He hopes to be justified of God, and live for ever in heaven, because he believes God will deal with him, not according to his own character but according to the relation he bears to Jesus Christ. It is through the medium of Jesus Chkist, and not through the medium of his eeligion, that he approaches God. He trusts Jesus Christ to save him^ a poor sinner. He does not yield to that gloomy despair, to which the sense of his sins would hurry him ; but he hopes to be saved from his sins and from their punishment through the medium and mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. Con- sequently, he counts all things hut loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ. Why ? that he may he found IN HIM, not having his own righteousness^ WHICH IS OF THE LAW, hut that which is through the faith of Christy the righteousness which is of God, hy faith (Phil. iii. 8, 9). He sees that pardon is by no mere act of amnesty from God. He sees iniquity lifted off" from him and laid upon another. In that other alone he trusts to be just with God. There he rests : there he hopes : there he hides. This is the general idea of Justification by Faith. But this is too general for entire security ; and, conse- JUSTIFICATION DISTINGUISHED. 221 quently, we find tlie Divine writers defining it more particularly. They not only present Jesus Christ as the great and supreme object of Faith ; but they trace out the exercises of that Faith, and secure us from error by particular illustrations. Jesus Christ dying for sinners — • offering himself a sacrifice to the justice of the Father, is the SOLE OBJECT on which the mind of him fastens who shall be justified by his faith. But as this idea is still genera], as it is not specific and particular, men are liable to think themselves seeking to live (like the just) by faith ; when, in reality, they have none of the faith that saves. Let us examine the matter. Faith is a term of very indefinite signification; and the indefiniteness of the word is the source of danger. Sometimes faith is put for mere historical belief: through faith ive understand that the ivorlds were r)iade (Heb. xi. 3). Sometimes it is put for those special acts of confidence with which the working of miracles was connected: if ye have faith as a grain of mustard-seed^ ye shall say unto this mountain remove hence to yonder jylace, and it shall re- move (Matt. xvii. 20). Sometimes it is put for the credence exercised by devils : the devils also believe and tremble (James, ii. 19). This word, therefore, is of vague signifi- cance; and, therefore, the Christian should heed well what is the object of saving faith, and what are the par- ticulars of its exercise^ lest he should suppose himself to have faith when he has none. Jesus Christ offering himself a sacrifice to satisfy Divine Justice for sinners, is the object of saving Faith. Now, men are exposed to think themselves living in the exercise of this faith when in reality they are not. There are numerous methods in which they err, and 222 LEGAL AND EVANGELICAL usually they err because all their ideas are too general — not clearly definite enough and particular. 1. There are those who make their faith itself the meritorious ground of their justification. They know how much efficacy the Scriptures ascribe to it: they delight to dwell upon the commendations bestowed upon it in the Word of God. And when they imagine they have this faith, they rejoice in it and hope in it, as that which lays the foundation of their expected eternal life. Their joy, their hope, is vain. It is not the faith of the believer which constitutes the meritorious cause of his justification, and he has no right to rejoice in it or hope in it as such. The meritorious cause of our justification is Jesus Christ alone ; and all our hope and joy should be in him^ as our foundation-rock. It is he who justi- fies us, and not we ourselves, not our faith. Had not he left heaven on his high mission of mercy to tabernacle in the flesh — had not he borne for us the wrath of God — had not he stood in our law-place and been ivounded for our transgressions and hruised for our iniquities — ^had not he died for us that we might live ; all our repentance and faith in God, (if such things could have been,) and all our efforts for eternal life, would have been of no avail. It is not faith that merits eternal life. Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid^ which is Jesus Christ. (1 Cor. iii. 11.) Faith is not the foundatio7i, it is only the instrument of justification. What is faith? " Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ is a saving grace, whereby we receive and rest upon him alone for salvation as he is offered to us in the gospel." Faith is that act of the be- liever, which God has made it necessary that he should exercise, in order to be interested in the salvation which Jesus Christ has procured for him, and without which JUSTIFICATION DISTINGUISHED. 223 act, Jesus Christ hecomes of none effect unto us. Jesus Christ is the foundation and cause, and faith in him is the instrument of justification. Jesus Christ is the meritorious and efficient cause of our justification, and faith is that act by which we are made partakers of his benefits. Now, when men are hoping IN their faith, instead of hoping in Jesus Christ, they are evidently building upon a wrong foundation ; they are taking credit to themselves ; they are claiming merit for their faith. It is true, the just shall live BY faith ; but it is not said the just shall live upon it. Let us learn to discriminate. Let us not rely upon our faith to justify us, insteading of relying hy faith upon Jesus Christ. Let us not create a fictitious zeal, a false hope, a blind reliance, a vain 5e?/-confidence, by mistak- ing the means for the end, and trusting in our faith in- stead of trusting in the Lord that bought us. Let us build on the sure foundation, and be cautious that we build there alone. Let us always take our places in the dust as sinners, confessing that all our graces, our faith, repentance, and zeal, and love, are far too feeble. Let our rejoicing and our hoping be in Jesus Christ, and not in our graces ; and then^ let us not fear that we shall ever rejoice or hope too much; let hope brighten and zeal burn in our hearts ; let our prayers be fervent as our desires for heaven ; let all the feelings of our soul kindle into a sacred ardor, as we love God, and live, and labor, and pray for the cause of our Eedeemer and Lord. We need not fear any excess of hope, and zeal, and happi- ness in religion, when we have secured the right kind. But let us beware how we forsake Jesus Christ and build upon our faith. Let us beware how we hope, and trust, and rejoice in ourselves^ instead of rejoicing, and trusting, 224 LEGAL AND EVANGELICAL and hoping in him. Let us beware how we have more FAITH IN OUR FAITH, than we have in the merits and words of our Saviour. 2. We have said that Jesus Christ, suffering and dying for a sinful world, is the great object of saving faith, the meritorious cause of our justification. We have said that saving faith is that act of the believer which unites him to Jesus Christ and makes him a partaker of the benefits of his death. Kow, there are others, who, on the point of faith, run into error, and a very different error from the one we have been considering. They err, like the former, for want of discrimination and particular knowledge. They have asked themselves, and perhaps others have asked them, if they desire to be saved by Jesus Christ? if they are willing to be wholly indebted to his grace for the pardon of sin and all the benefits of salvation? These questions they can answer in the affirmative. It is their desire to be saved by Christ, and they seek no heaven but that offered through his blood. And be- cause they desire to be saved in this method, they con- clude they have faith, and are in a state of salvation. This is all the foundation of their hope. This hope i^vain. The mere desire to be interested in the salvation of Jesus Christ is no proof that we are Christians. It is proof that we are welcome to his mercy, and that we may come at once to him to save us. But to have a mere desire for his benefits, without taking into the account the metliod in which we may have them, is no good proof that we are Christians. On this point I desire you to treasure in your memory the four follow- ing considerations : (1) There may be a desire to be saved without any JUSTIFICATION DISTINGUISHED. 225 desire to be sanctified. There may be a kind of faitli wbicli may rely upon Cbrist for salvation, and yet not trust his rules to guide the soul to heaven. That faith is not only imperfect but spurious which does not as much to confide in Jesus Christ to qualify for heaven as to entitle to it. The Gospel does not merely propose to us the pardon of our sins but the subduing of them. And, therefore, one may desire salvation by the mercy of Christ, and still not desire it in the way it is ofifered ; not desire it in the way of holiness, and by a heartfelt sub- mission to the rules which promote the growth of holiness in the soul. Yet, if any one, who possesses only this presuming and fictitious faith, is led to suppose himself a child of God and an heir of heaven, may he not rejoice and he exceeding glad, though still in carnal security, not a sinner subdued ? (2) A mere desire to be interested in the merits of Christ, may be, at best, no better than a dead faith. It may be inoperative. It may not purify the heart, or work hy love. It may be as much dissevered from holy affec- tion as it is from humble obedience. Still, if one with an unmoved heart imagines that Christ will save him merely because he has a desire he should, will he not rest in hope, and rejoice in hope, though possessing only a dead faith ? a heart cold towards God ? (3) True faith unites us to Jesus Christ, makes us one with him, crucifies us with him. It animates us with desires to be partakers of his redemption, notwithstand- ing all the self-denial required of us. But the mere de- sire for his benefits is not a willingness to bear the cross, and how can it be a proof of faith ? It may be only a faith that presumes in hope, but not a faith in following. Yet, if any one, on account of his mere desire, believes 10* 226 LEGAL AND EVANGELICAL Jesus Christ will save him, lie will hope, and may rejoice and exult, though never united to Christ and crucified with him. (4) The mere desire of salvation by Jesus Christ does not include in itself a single principle of faith — has no- thing of the nature of faith. This desire does not neces- sarily give up the mind in faith, to be taught by his in- structions ; the heart in faith, to rest upon his sacrifice ; the will in faith, to trust and obey his rules. Therefore, it does not even resemble faith at all. These considerations may convince us that, to have a mere barren recourse to the satisfaction of Christ for sin, and to entertain an indolent desire to be saved by him, are no good evidences of faith, and no good reason for peace of mind. And yet, is there not reason to believe that some are resting on this rotten foundation; and then taking credit to themselves because their faith is so unshaken? And is there not reason, also, to fear that some true believers, when they would build themselves up on their most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, <'Jude 20,) often cultivate this fictitious faith, and rejoice that they have so much ? joy in their religion, instead of having joy in God? It were easy to point out other methods in which souls are liable to err on this subject. This is a fertile source of danger and delusion. But we leave the whole matter to your reflection. You see there is a heaven-wide dif- ference between aiming after Justification by Law, and after Justification by Faith. Bear it in mind, in every part of your religion, that that faith by which the just shall live, has one great object, Jesus Christ, and him crucified. To him it yields up the mind to be taught in religion — it receives his word — ^it believes the whole JUSTIFICATION DISTINGUISHED. 227 Bible. To him it yields up the heart, to rest in lioije of the glory of God "apon his sacrifice, and to love Christ, and love that kind of felicity (viz., holiness) which Jesus Christ proposes to the soul : it trusts him solely — em- braces him gladly — and expects salvation through his unmerited mercy. To him it yields up the will^ in de- lighted obedience to follow the supreme authority of Jesus Christ : it trusts his rules to fit the immortal spirit for heaven : it loves his laws, as well as his mercy ; and seeks holiness with the same ardor it seeks heaven. Thus it embraces the whole man — mind, heart, and will — and makes him feel that he is dead, and his life is hid luith Christ in God. REMARKS. 1. Ko wonder the Scriptures are so much taken up in setting forth Christ, and his crucifixion. Christ is the sole foundation — Christ is all in all to a sinner. 2. Ko wonder the Scriptures insist so much upon self- examination. Christ must be in us the hope of glory, or we can not be saved. There are many ways of missing him. 8. No wonder that the Scriptures steadily insist upon the necessity of faith. It is the one requisite which can never be spared. Without it all that is done on God's part, and all that can be done on the sinner's, must for ever be vain. Faith is that one link that unites us to Christ, and shelters us from the deserved curse of God's law. 4. There is a vital difference between a legal and an evangelical spirit. An eye on Law is one thing — an eye on Christ is quite another thing. The first is the attitude of Nature, the second the attitude of Grace. 228 LEGAL AND EVANGELICAL JUSTIFICATION. 5. Hence we see tlie justness of tlie Bible descriptions of tlie first step in religion. They speak of it as conver- sion: Turn ye, turn ye. The sinner must turn. Over his legal path lightnings flash, and thunders peal ! He must turn him to that track sprinkled with redeeming blood, and over-arched with the bow of a promising God ! While he stands between Sinai and Calvary, by nature and disposition, his face is directed only toward the mount of thunders : no hope for him is there ! only blachiess, and dai^hness^ and tempest ! Let him turn to the hill of crucifixion : the light of Heaven's love for sinners beams on its top ; and, while it throws a new glory over the Godhead, it invites and sanctions the hope of the darkest sinner that lives ! 6. Finally : That convicted sinner whose eye is direct- ed only to the evil of his own heart, and who expects to find cheering from something within him, is greatly mis- taken. It is not by looking to the darkness there is within him, but to the truth there is without him, that he may find jDeace. It is not by contemplating what he will do for himself, but by trusting to what God has done for him, that he will find his obsti- nacy give way, his suspicions of God take their de- parture, and his heart move towards God as one that loves him. Let him turn off his eye from the darkness of that abyss within him, and lift its cheered vision to the light that shines above him, and he will see that God is his best Friend, and is holding out signals of relief, and hope, and love, to his dark and troubled soul. Only let him believe, and he shall see the salvation of God. f aiiitjr 0f ^taii if net ImiiiffrtaL Remember how short my time is : wherefore hast thou made all men in vain ? — Psalm, Ixxxix. 47. rpHE vanity of human life is a theme mucli dwelt upon -^ in the "Word of God. The sacred writers seem dis- posed to impress upon the mind of their readers such a sense of the utter worthlessness of the world, to a being who is so soon to leave it, that the mind shall be con- strained to turn to the world to come. Vanity of vani- ties is the inscription they write upon the world. They have such an impression of the frailty and brevity of human life, that they borrow their imagery to describe it from the most tender, and fragile, and fleeting things that meet the human eye. It is the flower of the grass ; just the little fragile blossom, that dies, even beneath the tenderness that touches it ! It is the tale that is told ; just the little story, to which even the child can lend its at- tention, and then it is done ! It is the vapor ^ that appear- ethfor a little time, and then vanisheth away : the eye sees it — and it departs on the breath of the feeblest wind that moves ! There are probably different reasons why human life is spoken of as a thing so very vain. Its brevity ; the smallness of its pleasures ; the frequency of its disap- pointments ; the number and severity of its pains, are 230 VANITY OF MAN IF NOT IMMORTAL. all of tliem evidences that man, in his earthly state, is little else than vanity. The occasion of the expression in the text was proba- bly some of the calamities which befell the kingdom of Israel. In the reign of Eehoboam, ten tribes of Israel had revolted. Their king was the powerful adversary of the king of Judah. The honor and power of the family of David seemed to be almost extinguished. While the kingdom was rent by internal dissensions, foreign foes were watching for its ruin. Egypt poured forth her legions to bring the shock of war against the throne of Jerusalem. The Psalmist had probably wit- nessed the glory and felicity of the nation, in former years ; and now, when he beholds that felicity and glory no more, the bitterness of his feelings appear to be too much for expression. Even in prayer to God, he ex- claims: Thou hast made void the covenant of thy servant: thou hast profaned his crown hy casting it to the ground. Thou hast broken doivn all his hedges: thou hast brought his strongholds to ruin. All that pass by the way spoil him : he is a reproach to his neighbors. Thou hast set up the right hand of his adversaries ; thou hast made all his enemies to rejoice. Thou hast also turned the edge of his sword, and hast not made him to stand iji battle. Thou hast made his glory to cease, and cast his throne down to the ground. The days of his youth hast thou shortened: thou hast covered him with shame. How long, Lord, will thou, hide thyself for ever? Shall thy wrath burn like firef Remember how short my time is: wherefore hast thou made all men in vain? Seeing the vanity of life in the mournful example he was contemplating, the Psalmist is led on to the vanity of all human existence, and utters the distressful inter- rogation, Wherefore hast thou made all men in vain ? VANITY OF MAN IF NOT IMMORTAL. 231 It is manifest, that tlie Psalmist utters these words while his thought is confined, to this world ; and not in reference to that eternal existence which awaits man be- yond the grave. And, in speaking from them, we pro- pose to show, that, Man, considered merely as a creature of this world, and without respect to his eternal existence in another world, may be said, without extravagance, to have been made in vain. This is our theme. In pursuing it, we propose, I. To present some direct proofs of the vanity of human life ; II. To continue the illustration, by examining into the real value of those things which seem to render our existence of most worth ; and III. To make the same conclusion more plain, if pos- sible, by closing with such reflections as the subject sug- gests. 1. How short my time is, is the lamentation of the text. The brevity of our mortal existence can not fail to have affected every contemplative mind. We look around us, and the oldest persons we see have lived but a little while. They are passing away, and anothei generation is pressing upon their heels ! We look back upon the past, and we find it dressed in sadness ; those aged people^ whom we used to know and reverence when we were children, are numbered among the dead. Our mothers, young as we are, we have many of us buried them! Our fathers, where are they? Sweet be their memory — but they are gone ! And even many of those who entered upon life when avc did, have passed away. So soon do we pass off the stage of life, that our business here seems to be little else than to be* born and die. All 232 VANITY OF MAN IF NOT IMMORTAL. Human kind seem to be engaged in one united rush toward the end of our present existence. To make up for the deficiencies which death causes, we are obliged to be perpetually forming new acquaintances. Without this, we should very soon be almost strangers in the world. How vastly few of those whom we knew twenty, or even ten years ago, are now in the land of the living ! There is no extravagance in the expressions of the Scrip- tures : My days are siviftei' than a post ; they are passed away as a shadow ; thou hast made my days as an hand- breadth^ and mine age is as nothing before thee ; as for man, his days are as grass : in the morning it flourisheth and groweth up ; in the evening it is cut doivn and loithered. The brevity of human existence demonstrates the unutterable littleness of man — the utter worthlessness of his being — if he exists only in time. But, transient as human existence appears to any casual observer, it is, on the whole, far more transient than even a careful observer would be apt to imagine. One fourth part of all that are born into the world die before they have lived one year ! Another fourth does not survive to see twenty-one ! Thus one half of mankind are swept into the grave before they have scarcely reached the years of maturity. The average length of human life is by no means so great as as we should sup- pose, when we look around upon a promiscuous assem- bly, and behold clusters of the 3^oung among a multitude in middle life, and the whole assemblage graced with not a few whose locks are silvered with the frosts of age. Those youth, those children, have been spared from among as many more that have died. Young as they are, they have buried half their cotemporaries. Those middle-aged people (little as they think of it) have out- VANITY OF MAN IF NOT IMMORTAL. 233 lived almost three-fourtlis of their generation. And those venerable in age are but a little fraction of a gene- ration that will soon be entirely extinct. On an aver- age, the lives of mankind do not amount to more than about twenty-three years. In the city of New-York, the average length of life is less than twenty years. Only one tenth of mankind ever sees fifty years. Surely, aside from his immortality, man was made in vain. The little time that is allotted to him is scarcely suflS.cient to learn how to enjoy what good the world does contain and offer to his enjoyment. But this is not all. Short as life is, there are some large deductions to be made from its hours when we are counting up its value. Let us see what they are : There are hours in human life which seem to be (for their own sake) not worthy of being reckoned valuable. They are hours (so to speak) of indifference^ in which we are sensible of neither joy nor grief; in which we do neither good nor hurt ; and, therefore, during their con- tinuance, our existence can be little more than a mere matter of indifference to us. Such are those seasons of musing thoughtlessness, when we are destitute of mental movement — when the mind roves over every thing, and fixes on nothing — when thought has no object, and, therefore, neither in its exercise nor in its attainments, can be of any value — when we are so lost to consciousness and to sensibility that we seem scarcely to be thinking beings. These are hours of a kind of indifference, and surely these are not worth living for. In them we gain nothing, we enjoy nothing, we do nothing. Such, too, are those seasons which we spend in sleep. Whether our business is to do or to suffer; whether 234 VANITY OF MAN IF NOT IMMORTAL. grief or pleasure is our portion ; wlietlier virtue or vice occupies our waking moments, we must have some repose. Sleep locks up our senses, and consigns us to a state of uselessness and indifference — a state, surely, scarcely worthy of being coveted for its own sake. If we could do nothing but sleep, our existence would be valueless. And yet, so worthless, or worse than worth- less, are our waking moments, how often are we glad to escape from trouble by consigning ourselves to an oblivious repose by sinking into a state of indifference, in which we are alike incapable of vice and virtue, and scarcely sensible of either good or evil? And in this valueless state of existence, we are forced, by the infirm- ity of our nature, to spend nearly one fourth part of the transient life we have to live. But this is not all. We must add to these all those por- tions of lime which we regard as a kind of necessary evil : in which we are not living in enjoyment, but only in hope, and which are regarded by us as valuable, not for their own sake, but only because they help us onward toward what we expect to attain. I mean such seasons as we are constantly wishing to annihilate. It can not have escaped you that there are many of them. We find them when we are just entering upon life, and they are seldom corrected by the wisdom of maturer years. For instance, the child would be, at once, a youth ; he would willingly annihilate the years that separate him from the age and the companionship of those who are older, and, he thinks, happier than himself. The youth longs for manhood. The years that he must pass away before reaching it, are a burden to him. He would gladly give speed to the flight of time, and rush, in a single moment, over a period of years. And even the wiser man often VANITY OF MAN IF NOT IMMORTAL. 285 finds himself not much wiser ; and is so dissatisfied with the present that, in order to arrive at some future and expected good, he would most willingly " Lash the lingering moments into speed." Thus we are perpetually wishing away different por- tions of our existence. They are portions which we do not esteem worth having for their own sake, but regard them as a kind of necessary evil. Now, if we take away these seasons of indifference, these seasons of sleep, and these seasons of expectation, which we are constantly wishing at an end ; if we take them from the length of our very short hfe, how much will there be left that can wisely be regarded of any value ? Surel}^, the hours of enjoyment in human life are extremely few. All the real felicity that we attain here is of small amount. If this life is all, there is no extrava- gance in the idea that all men are made in vain. The shortness of human life furnishes, at best, but a little time for any thing desirable ; and even that shortness, in order to find what is valuable, must be diminished by many hours of indifference, many hours of rest, and many hours regarded by us as an evil, or at least as worthless in themselves. The extreme shortness of human life, and the still shorter period of happy human sensibility, stamp an unutterable worthlessness upon man, if there is no immortahty beyond the grave. 2. Let us now consider some of the positive evils that are in the world, and see if we shall not be furnished with another proof of the vanity of our existence, con- sidered aside from another world. But, before entering upon this point, pardon us for detaining you to listen to three remarks in relation to it. 236 VANITY OF MAN IF NOT IMMORTAL. One remark is this : that when we are speaking of evils, of the miseries which afflict our race, we do not pretend to decide whether pain or pleasure weighs heaviest in the great scale of human destiny. Some have thought that the world contained more happiness than misery. Others have maintained the contrary. It is not easy for us to decide the question. And it is prob- able, that those who have given their opinion on this point have been much influenced in their decision by the temper of their own mind. Those of easy, contented temper, disposed to make the best of every thing, have examined the brightest side of the question, and con- cluded that the happiness of the world outweighed its miseries. Those of fearful and desponding temper, ever on the look-out for some calamity, have examined the darkest side, and concluded that the miseries of the world are greater than its joj^s. It is probable, that in the most favored regions, and in the most happy periods, there is more of enjoyment than of suffering ; while in regions and periods less favored, suffering outweighs enjoyment. What the truth, on the whole, is, we know not. When we mention the evils of life, w^e do not mean to afiirm that they excel its joys. The second remark is, that when our thought is turned to consider the misery of the world, we should be on our guard lest we become dissatisfied with the allotments of Divine Providence, or acquire a diminished idea of the goodness of God. There w affliction in the world, but still God is good. This life is not our time of blessed- ness : this world is not our heaven. The blessings our Saviour intends for us are to be found in those mcuii/ mansions, where death never dissolves friendships — where tears never embitter joy — where God pours the VANITY OF MAN IF NOT IMMORTAL. 237 full tide of his love upon souls ransomed for immortal- ity. So short is this life, that if our Maker, during its whole continuance, were to bestow upon us all the feli- cities we are capable of receiving, it would be a mere trifle, a bestow men t scarcely worthy of God to give, or worthy of us to receive. Not that we are to despise the enjoyments God gives us here ; but that we ought not so to overvalue them, as to have a low or limited idea of the goodness of God, when we find them few. The third remark is, these very evils that we experi- ence, though they do prove to us the vanity of this life merely, yet, considered in reference to the life to come, may be some of the most beneficial bestowments that God ever makes. There are virtues that we could never exercise in prosperity. Adversity is needful to give exercise to fortitude and patience, if not to faith. It is suffering over which Pity sheds her tears, and there is pain in that wound into which the good Samaritan pours his oil and his wine. Let us not think that, to the Christian^ the evils of life are useless, although we may be forced to conclude that, if there were no hereafter, our multitude of ills would demonstrate that we were made in vain. What are they ? Let us take a hasty view of them. Our plan compels us to be general. We are looking at the worth of all human existence on earth. (1) It is scarcely possible for us to be happy, when tortured with sickness and pain. And it is no small portion of our time that a disordered body is our lot. Disease stalks over the world, assuming every shape of terror and affliction. What multitudes of our race are, every moment, tossed and racked with pain! Thou- sands, this moment, are in the agonies of death! It 238 VANITY OF MAN" IF NOT IMMORTAL. furnislies us a striking view of tlie disorders and mala- dies of life, when we behold more men employing their time and talents, throughout the country, in the practice of medicine, than in any other of what are called the learned professions. Indeed, the great aim of the human sciences seems to be, to learn how to escape disease, want, and other " ills which flesh is heir to." And after all, the world is full of sickness. Its pains and its maladies would make man's existence vain, if he were only a mortal. (2) Wars and fightings are a source of misery. (We are obliged to name these. Our subject calls us to view the world and its history.) War is a giant evil. As if disease were not enough — as if the pestilence^ that wcdketh in darkness, did not sweep away his race fast enough to satisfy him — man rushes to the field of battle, breathing that destruction that wasteth at noonday. The first man that died, died by violence. And ever since that time the history of the world has been written in blood. In the wars of Napoleon, for example, from 1802 to 1812, there perished more than five millions eight hundred thousand men. This is a world of blood. Nation is armed against nation. Towns are sacked. Cities are plundered. Villages are burned. And, when the din of battle is hushed, and the thunder of the battle-field dies away in the distance — what do you see ? David mourn- ing for Absalom ! Eachel weeping for her children ! Ah! yonder is a host of trembling fugitives, helpless women and children, hurrying from the scene of desola- tion, and scarcely daring to turn a single glance back- ward to the spot where lies the husband and the father in his blood ! It is no over- wrought picture. OjDen almost any Nation's History, and you will find the burden of that history consists in accounts of warfare. VANITY OF MAN IF NOT IMMORTAL. 239 There is an inconceivable amount of misery from this source. Attractive as is the laurel of victory, it is colored with blood ; and grows only on the soil which has drunk the tears of the widow and the orphan ! (3) Famine often follows in the track of war. N"o mat- ter what causes it, the miseries it produces can be calcu- lated by no arithmetic, nor expressed in the language of man. And this is no unfrequent calamity. Even in enlightened and Christianized nations, and in this im- proved age of the world, many men die for want of food. And in less favored nations, the evil is a thousand-fold more appalling. It would make a most fearful amount, if Ave were able to reckon up the whole number of our race that have perished by famine. (4) And, finally, time would fail us to tell of the mis- eries produced by earthquakes, shaking down cities and burying their inhabitants beneath their ruins ; by volca- noes, pouring their liquid fire over hamlet after hamlet, and sometimes burying whole cities beneath ashes and burning lava, not a soul left to tell the tale ; by swelHng floods ; by stormy wind ; by lightning, hail and tempest ; by southern heat and northern cold, and the thousand causes which seem to sport themselves with human life, and delight in the miseries of man. The positive evils of life are not to be numbered. They are so many, that we are forced to the conviction, that, apart from their immortality, all men have been made in vain. But you will say, there are, at least, some things of value in the world ; some sources of felicity open to us, so full, so flowing, that it is no vain thing to enjoy them. This would seem to be true ; and to examine them, con stitutes the n. Part of the train of thought we proposed to 240 VANITY OF MAN IF NOT IMMOKTAL. jou. As we enter into it, let us not forget our limited time of enjoyment — let us not forget our positive miseries. There are things in the world which we value highly : we will not now say too highly. But, after all the good we can derive from them, it may fairly be questioned, whether a reasonable man would say they were worth living for, and would not the sooner say, if there be no immortality, all men are made in vaiyi. What are they? We name four, the most distinguished that we can think of — possessions, intellect, friends, religion. From all these we derive, indeed, no little present good. But still let us examine them. 1. Those who have extensive worldly possessions, a superficial observer might conclude to be in so happy a condition, that, if this life were all, they would not live in vain. They seem to possess all they can use — they gratify every desire — they bask in the sunshine of pros- perity — and therefore their present life, short as it is, being filled up with happiness, is no vain existence. Thus a casual observer might think, and thus, perhaps, most men do believe. But, my hearers, I am persuaded this is a delusion. Let us see. Worldly possessions are mostly employed for two pur- poses ; for the gratification of pride and vanity, and for the gratification of the senses. (1) It may be gratifying to vanity and pride, to be in distinguished condition — to be surrounded with splendor — to be able to command the homage of those around us, and flatter ourselves that we are better than other people. But is this gratification of much value? Is it a worthy end of our existence ? Is it as extensive or as real as we are prone to think ? By VANITY OF MAN IF NOT IMMOKTAL. 241 no meaus. It consists only in a vain elation of mind, an imaginary, dreaming felicity. There is nothing sub- stantial in it. It is mere fanc}^ The child of imagina- tion, building his castles in the air, is just as really and as permanently blessed. One idea of the reality breaks both alike. If wealth brings the joleasure of pride, it brings the pain of envy ; and the ostentatious and proud have more misery by envying those above them, than they have felicity in ostentation and pride before those they deem below them. At least, it is usually so. Moreover, those who value the outward respect they re- ceive on account of wealth and splendor, have often the extreme mortification to know — (and if the}' but knew men's hearts they would have it oftener,) they have the extreme mortification to know, that this respect is ren- dered to them most insincerely, and by those who, at the very time, despise them in their heart. This also is vanity. (2) The gratification that worldly possessions furnish to the senses is very much qualified. That gratification, pursued beyond a very limited ex- tent, destroys itself, and often the life of him who pur- sues it. Excess disqualifies, and soon ruins. And the rapidity with which it hastens to ruin, may be intimated in the history of him, who said. Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years, take thine ease. Ood said, thou fool, this night shall thy soul he required of thee! And if there is no excess, the pleasures of sense can scarcely be worth living for, because of the care neces- sary to restrain from improper indulgence ; because, afler all sensual enjoyment, the soul is not satisfied Avith that ; because, it is not to be supposed that man's existence is of much value, if he must find his enjoyments merely where the brutes find theirs, in animal gratifications. 11 242 VANITY OF MAN IF NOT IMMORTAL. After all the failure, and fiction, and insincerity, and envy, that attend worldly possessions, we cannot surely suppose them of much real value. They may cheer human life, but, ordinarily, they do not make the rich man any happier than the poor man ; and, if we had only what they afford, Ave should be compelled to confess we were made in vain. 2. But intellect J it may be said, is no vain thing. To acquire knowledge, to discover truth, to exercise those faculties that lift man above the brute, is a dignified and noble employment : it is a source of high felicity ; and the existence that is employed in this way, short as life is, ought not to be stigmatized as in vain. My hearers, I suppose I have as high an idea of the dignity and felicity of intellectual employ, as any one that hears me. But still, let us see how this source of good is qualified. Knowledge is not necessarily happiness. "We are not going to say, that increase of knowledge is always in- crease of sorrow (putting an extravagant interpretation upon the words of the wise man — Eccl. i. 18) ; but we believe most of the happiness that we find in knowledge, in exercising intellect, in discovering truth, springs from the hope we entertain of making our knowledge subserve our happiness in other respects. If our only felicity con- sisted in knowing^ we believe it would be extremely small. And how little, even men called learned, suc- ceed in making their acquisitions advance human felicity, the whole history of cultured intellect too sadly tells. As man improves in knowledge, it is true, he invents and discovers many things tending to make him happy ; and it is just as true, that he strikes upon many things to make him miserable. If he invents printing, he in- VANITY OF MAN IF NOT IMMOKTAL. 243 vents fire-arms, and gunpowder, and implements of death ! If lie discovers medicines that do him good, he discovers also what does him hurt; and the fiery deluge of intemperance may illustrate the idea, as it rolls misery over the world, and wafts thousands down to the drunkard's final doom. So that neither knowledge, nor the results of it, forbid the exclamation, man was made in vain ! But this is not all. It is only a small part of the human family that have the opportunity of cultivating mind. It is so here. It Ls so every where. It always was. Even in the most enlightened countries, there is an immense mass of our race whose whole intellectual improvement does not ex- tend beyond the skill necessary to manufacture a button or a pin. Poverty is too pressing for mental culture. Hunger has more powerful arguments than science can present. Valuable, therefore, as intellectual action and acquisitions may be, they are valuable to only a few ; and if man were made for these, he was made in vain. But this is not all. Examine the lives of the most distinguished proficients in knowledge, of those most eminent in all that pertains to cultivated mind, and you will find their intellectual feli- city extremely small. Disordered passions, disappointed hopes, defeated designs, make them very much like other men. Intellect is neither virtue nor felicity. As man is here, power of mind may be only power for misfortune. The fact is before us, the trained intellect of men does not make them happy men ; they have much the same woes as others. Were there no life but this, in the halls of the Academy, and on the temples of Philosophy, we would write the inscription, this also is vanity ! 3. We mentioned friends as a third valuable item. 244 VANITY OF MAN IF NOT IMMORTAL. "We thoTiglit some one might saj to us, tlie jojs of friendly attachment are neither few nor small ; they are pure ; they are peaceful ; they are noble. "What excel- lence in that affection which binds families together, and makes home an image of heaven! Is there nothing good in that love which binds the heart of the mother to her children ? which fastens the whole soul of the f.ither upon his sons ? which calls into action all that is tender in sentiment and all that is dignified in virtue ? Short as life is, is that life vain in whose circles such joys are clustering ? My hearers, this is an enchanting picture. It seems like malice to ruin it. But let us rem.ember there are regions where the husband and the father is the tyrant ; where the mother murders her offspring ; where the wife is the slave ; and where the widow burns on the funeral pile of her husband ! Let us remember, too, how often friendships give place to enmity; how often the tenderest affection, the fondest, the purest, receives a most sad requital in coldness and indifference, in the dis- obedience or profligacy of some abandoned child ! Let us remember how often we are miserable because we can not make our loved ones happy. And, if all this is not enough, let us hear the lamentation that love utters in its bereavement : Oh my son Absalom ! my son^ my son Absalom/ ivould God I had died for thee, oh Absalom^ my son, my son I When half the world is dressed in mourn- ing, its friendships can scarcely convince us that, apart from another world, all men have not been made in vain. 4. We mentioned religion as a fourth item, seeming to qualify, if not contradict, the sentiment of the text. There are those who make religion the great object of their life ; who serve God and love to serve him ; who disregard things seen and temporal in comparison with VANITY OF MAN IF NOT IMMORTAL. 245 tilings tmseeii and eternal ; wlio hope in God, and believe that he has pardoned their sins, sanctified their hearts, accepted their persons, and will finally take them to heaven through the mediation and redemption of Jesus Christ. They have joys the world knows not of; peace the world meddles not with. Sometimes troubled and dark as their hearts may be, still they find seasons of rest, and never would they give up their hope in God for ten thousand worlds. They love communion with their God and Father. They count it joy to deny themselves, to hring every thought into caiAivity^ and look forward to the final appearing of Jesus Christ to come and receive them to himself. ISTow, what is all this religion good for, if there is no future life ? If this life is all, even these people of God have been made in vain ! If in this life only we have hope in Christ ive are of all men most miserable^ (1 Cor. xv. 19.) Religion is vain, if the world is all. Its votaries are miserably deluded. They have renounced the world, but gained nothing. Verily, they have cleansed their hearts in vain, and washed their hands in innocency^ (Psalm Ixxiii. 13.) They are going to be utterly disappointed, if there is no immortality. They live, they labor, they pray in vain ! For a mere fiction — a dream — a lie — they sacrifice their best interests and devote their best powers ! They give up the world and devote their life for a falsehood ! All their joys and hopes are only imaginary ! Their labor is lost, and their hopes perish for ever ! Thus, on the suppostion of no future life, we confess the worthlessness of even the Christian's existence, and write upon his altars the vanity of his being ! But no : now is Christ risen from the dead^ and become the first fruits of them that slept ; and all them that sleep 246 VANITY OF MAN IF NOT IMMORTAL. in Jesus will God bring with him. Religion is as reason- able as it is consoling. III. Some of tlie conclusions we draw from tliis sub- ject ought to give depth to its general impression. 1. We learn from this subject the amazing difficulties of that species of infidelity, which denies a future state. On that system, all the world — man — ^body — soul — virtue — vice, are vanit}^ ! On that system, we see no reason why man should have been created ! why the world should exist ! Man is vain ; the universe is vain ; the Creator himself has been guilty of the most arrant folly ! On that system, every thing is involved in per- plexing mystery, in confusion, darkness, and uncertain- ty ! How true it is, that Christianity is the best phi- losophy. 2. This subject teaches us that the doctrine of immor- tality, the truths of religion, are very needful to us, in order to make us happy even here. Remove these — and what is the universe f a vain show, a worthless bubble ! Remove immortality — and what is man ? a distressful dream ! a throb — a wish — a sigh — then, no* thing! But, blessed be God, life and immortality are brought to light. Yes, 3. This subject teaches us, that the true Christian is the happiest man. He is not perplexed with a thousand doubts and difficulties that trouble the unbeliever. He knows lohat it is, that has produced the miseries of the universe ; and why it is, that the world is full of evils. He knows man has revolted, rebelled against his Maker, and therefore the curse is on the world. He knows that Chance does not rule ; that Accident does not make hearts bleed and make men die. He knows that, after VANITY OF MAN IF NOT IMMORTAL. 247 all, God is good, and man was not made in vain. He knows that God hath reconciled believers to himself— thsit God is in Christ reconciling the luorld to himself, not imputing to them their trespasses. His religion, therefore, teaches him the reason of the ills of life, and furnishes him with motives and grace to bear them. He sees immortality before him. True, he must suffer — must pass through many fiery trials ; but — hear him, as he enters into the furnace : What is he saying ? This light affliction, which is hut for a moment^ worketh for me a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. True, he must part with many that are dear to him ; he must commit his fathers, his children to the grave ! But — hear him, as he stands by the earth just lifted over his friend by the spade of the grave-digger : Lazarus sleepeth ! Jesus Christ is the resurrection and the life! True, he must lie down and die 1 But — hear his broken accents, amid the crumblings of nature : This corruptible shcdl put on incorruption, this mortal shall put on immortality — death is swallowed up in victory ! 4. This subject teaches us the powerful urgency of re- ligion. Keligion is every thing to man. Without it, man is nothing : his value, is a song ; his life, a sigh ; his property, a grave ! 5. And, finally, we can not but think that this subject should be peculiarly impressive to the young. Many of my young friends here are thinking much about the world. Your hearts are warm : your bosoms beat high with hope. You are looking forward to much joy, to many days of happiness. The world seems pleasant to you. Your sun is rising brightly in the heavens, and your prospects promise much good. My young friends, believe me, I would not stand over 248 VANITY OF MAN IF NOT IMMORTAL. your joutli to prophesy evil. I would not poison your bliss, nor say one word to make you unhappy. But I must tell you, you are going to be disappointed ! The world is not what you think it ! If your hopes and heart center upon it, you will gain but very little ; and even that little mingled and imbittered with much that is sad ! As you pass on in life, your expectations will often be frustrated, your plans deranged, your prospects darkened ! the buoyancy of your spirits will cease, pain will press upon your bosom, and tears be sprinkled along your path ! This life, merely, ts a vain thing ; the world is not worth your having ! There is but one way in which you can be happy. Be Christians — love God — and trust in his Son, and set your heart on heaven. At most, you can get but little good out of this world, and you can live to enjoy it but a little while. Eeligion will deprive you of none of that good, not an item, and you will be the more happy by becoming Christians. Let me warn you not to be tempted by what the Avorld offers, to neglect eternal life. The world will never satisfy your heart ; and if it did, it will soon be burnt up, and your spirits will be in Eternity ! I be- seech you, think often, think deeply, where you will be, when this short life is done ! Eemember your immor- tality ! Yea, remember now your Creator in the days of your youth, tvhile the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh when you shall say^ I have no pleasure in them. CI]^ Itn-tj) of iolJ. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. — Psalm ciii. 8. ITTE invite your attention, to-day, to a wonderful sub- *' ject. It is the mercy of God. If we are able to understand this subject rightly, we shall be furnished with an attractive argument to draw us toward salvation. If we shall understand it rightly, there will be no gloom of guilt, no trembling of fear, no despondency, no dread, no darkness, no sense of unworthiness, no horrors of judgment, that can prevent our being drawn toward our God and Father, as with the cords of love, and the hands of a man. David celebrates the mercy of God in the Psalm before us. In the beautiful poetry of an Eastern fancy, and, what is more to our consolation, in the poetry of an inspired and sanctified mind, he contemplates this mercy of God, diffusing itself over both worlds. While it reaches down to the minutest wants of a single sinner, forgiving his iniquities^ healing his diseases^ satisfying his mouth with good things, it reaches abroad over the extended world, encompassing the whole family of man, executing judgment for the oj^pressed^ and not rewarding according to iniquity. And while it does not forget this temporary world, and the little interests which figure in 11* 250 THE MERCY OF GOD. it, between the time of its rise and the time when it shall be devoted to ruin, the inspired writer sees this mercy lying back in the remoteness of a past eternity, and extending onward to the remoteness of an eternity to come — encompassing the very period of the Divine existence. There is something very beautiful in this. It meets nature. It satisfies us amid the tearfulness and tender- ness of our experience. Kead from the eleventh verse, onward : As the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his inercy toward them that fear him. Till you can meas- ure the distance to his throne in the third heavens, you can not tell the magnitude of his mercy : As far as the east is from the west^ so far hath he removed our transgress- ions from us. Like as a father pitieth his children (you see he passes beyond mere thought^ and speaks to the experience of those human sensibilities which no language can paint) — like as a father pitieth his children^ so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. This is the heart of the Lord God. For he knoiveth our frame and remembereth that we are dust. As for man^ his days are as grass ; as a flower of the field^ so he flour isheth ; for the wind passeth over it^ and it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more. But the MERCY of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him. The mournfulness, therefore, that weeps over a dying race, may dry up its tears, as it turns to the everlasting mercy of God. It is from everlast- ing to everlasting — " Yes, spring shall revisit the moldering urn, And day shall yet dawn on the night of the grave." For the Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens^ and his kingdom ruleth over all. How delightful the ideal THE MERCY OF GOD. 261 Man fadeth like the flower of the field, but God's mercy is froTfi everlasting to everlasting^ after all ! Well may the cheered author finish his song: Bless ike Lord., ye his angels ; bless the Lord, all ye his hosts . . . bless the Lord., all his ivorhs . . . bless the Lord,, my soul. The mercy of God is the theme of the Psalm. The Psalm is designed to set forth, as the text itself does, THE PEEEMINENCE OF THE DiVINE MeRCY. This, then, is our theme for to-day. We commence it this morning, we propose to finish it this afternoon. This subject is not without its difficulties. It has some difficulties for the hearer, and it has more for the preacher. Yours we intend to remove; ours we are constrained to weep over. You know Ave are not accus- tomed to complain and to draw on your partiality or indulgence for any undue sympathies in our trials ; and we would not now mention this, only we wish you to remember more carefully the need of prayer, and the impropriety of reliances upon a ministry of imperfection and sin — a ministry of dust and ashes ! Brethren, pray for us. Our trial is this, and it is one of no minor sort. There are texts and themes, there are subjects in the Gospel, which seem, more than others, to lie in the very depths of redemption, and to embody in themselves the very essence of all that a sinner's soul needs to expe- rience in order to fit it for heaven. To be able, at all, to enter into such subjects, regeneration, repentance, faith, love, are not enough! The minister needs something more — he needs the full of these ; he needs to walk ivith God, like Enoch ; he needs the resting-place of John (when he rests), on the bosom of Jesus; he needs to have his delight when he culls the flowers that bloom in the garden of Arimathea; he needs to have his heart 252 THE MERCY OF GOD. hum within him, like the disciples conversing with the unknown but risen Christ. And the conviction of this — the sad and sinking conviction of it — has often compelled us to turn away from those august themes of the won- ders of redemption, to which any strength, and light, and faith, and piety in us were manifestly unequal. One of our heaviest trials is, that there are texts in the Bible we can not preach from. But this is one of those difficult themes. And we mention this for the double purpose of cautioning you not to estimate the mercy of God by our explanation of it, and of eliciting prayer from your hearts that the God of mercy will not allow his truth to become like tvater spilled upon the ground, vjhich can not he gathered tqj again. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. The idea is, the preeminence of the Divine Mercy. This idea is repeated in different forms, according to the custom of the inspired author, when aiming to express his own strong and vivid emotions. In attempting to understand this subject as well as we may, let us, I. Define the idea of mercy, and give as much precis- ion and exactness to our notions of it as we can. II. Let us guard against an error to which we are exposed in relation to it. III. Let us explain how it comes to pass that the mercy of God, which ought to affect our hearts so much, really docs affect them, while unconverted, so little. And IV. Let us enter more fully into the wonderful sub- ject, and endeavor to gain some just ideas of the mercy of God. The first three of these things occupy us this morning ; THE MEECY OF GOD. 253 and we hope may prepare us for the more interesting one in the afternoon. I. The definition of Divine Mercy need not detain us long. Mercy is the exercise of benevolence, of good- will, toward those who do not deserve it ; and, in especial manner, toward those who have merited anger and punishment. Mercy is favor to the guilty and undeserv- ing. As God exercises mercy, he extends forgiveness to those who have broken his law, provoked his anger, and forfeited all claim to his favor. Unworthiness and criminality in the recipient, and good-will in the other party, are essential to the exercise of mercy. As the Deity exercises it toward us, it is a modification and a part of his infinite benevolence. It respects us as utterly unworthy of his kindness, and by our own deservings eternally undone. Without it, our guilt would ruin us ; a broken law would be against us with all the weight of its penalty ; and hope and happiness would finally ex- pire together, under the frowns of an angry God. It is important for us to have some precision in our ideas of this. Divine Mercy is not mere Divine good- ness: That is, there are a thousand expressions of Divine goodness, which have no mercy in them. And it lies among the common errors of unconverted men, that they confound the ideas of goodness and mercy, and solace themselves with a hope that rises out of the confusion. Goodness is exercised toward the inno- cent sometimes : mercy, only toward the guilty. Good- ness is shown toward angels that never sinned. It was shown toward Adam before he fell. God's goodness pervades every part of his universe, save one; and 254 THE MERCY OF GOD. carries felicity, more or less, to every order of sensi- tive beings, save one. Hell only, and those miserable reprobates who inhabit its eternal abodes of despair, experience nothing of it. Grod's goodness fills the earth. It extends to man everywhere. It extends to beasts, happy in their sunny fields, or roaming the forests amid the wilds and richness of smiling nature. It extends to the birds of the air, singing their songs of joy, and war- bling out the expressions of their felicity from melodious throats, as they mount, buoyant and happy, on the wings that God has feathered for them. The Divine goodness reaches all sensitive being. It reaches down to the worm beneath your feet, and the insect decked with its gilded colorings, to make them happy according to their measure. And the order of irrational creatures would be more happy, were it not for man's sin. They suffer, and they die as they would not have done, had not sm entered into the world. The world groans under the dis- orders sin has brought ; and the inferior order of beings would have enjoyed more than they do from the good- ness of God, if sin had not introduced irregularity, and mischief, and perversion. Mercy is something more, therefore, than mere com- mon goodness. Divine Mercy is what no man can claim from God. It is the exercise of a Divine benevo- lence in respect to a guilty being, and such an exercise, that if it had been wholly wanting, if the God of heaven had stood unmoved over the miseries of man, and seen this guilty world sink down to eternal ruin, no reason, no just judgment could ever have impeached the benevo- lence of God. Mercy is the intervention of gratuitous goodness. It is benevolence, bending in pity and com- passion over the very creature, whose guiltiness has THE MERCY OF GOD. 255 deserved tlie frown, and tlie everlasting abandonment of Heaven. Aside from it, no attribute of the Godhead would have been dishonored — no injustice done to man — no ground of complaint could have been found in the depths of his miseries and the dark eternity of his despair. This is sufficient explanation of what is meant by the mercy of God. II. Let us guard against an error to which we are ex- posed in relation to it. We are in danger of misconception at the very out- set. When we speak of the preeminence of the Divine Mercy, we are in danger of conveying the idea, that the mercy of God infringes upon his other attributes, or over- shadows them, and flings them into the shade. It is vital to the accuracy and truth of our ideas, that we avoid this. The error we wish you to avoid consists pre- cisely in this — precisely in the difference there is between the notions of Divine Mercy entertained by an intelligent and humble Christian, and those entertained (commonly, if not always) by unconverted sinners at ease in their sins. If you who are believers, therefore, will cast back your thoughts to that unhappy period of your lives, when you lived (as multitudes now live around you) unalarmed and fearless, though still the enemies of God — if you will recollect your ideas of Divine Mercy then^ and compare them with those you have now^ you will see precisely the error against which we would caution you. We need not describe it. Your hearts feel it. You have often prayed God to forgive you for the offense of your former thoughts of his mercy and grace. But you who are not Christians can not be cautioned thus. You have never experienced that transition from 256 THE MERCY OF GOD. darkness to light — from error to accuracy — from aliena- tion to adoption. Your hearts are no guide to truth. And we can only tell you, that, when we speak of the preeminence of Divine Mercy, we are speaking of that thing which we, as Christians, feel to be of all things most calculated to make us fear and hate sin. .We love the Divine Mercy. We love to take shelter under it. We have higher ideas of it than we can give you. But we see clearly that it does not countenance impiety and sin. We see clearly that it does not encourage us to live prayerless lives. We see it does not render the Deity indifferent to his laws; it does not infringe upon his justice, or make him less terrible, but more terrible, to all who will indulge themselves in sin. But still the Divine Mercy is preeminent. By this attribute God peculiarly shows himself And while his justice is in- finite, his purity infinite, his wisdom, his holiness, his faithfulness infinite ; and while his mercy, as infinite as any of these, is in perfect and unbroken harmony with them all, at the same time there is something in the Mercy of God which stands up in solitary magnificence and grandeur. And if you knew how much you are in- debted to it ; if your unconverted souls but realized how wonderful it is that God has borne with you ; if your de- lusions in sin did not diminish your ideas of your un- worthiness, and thus diminish your ideas of the mercy of God, we should have no fear that this text or this ser- mon would aid your indifference, and make you more ready to continue in an unconverted state. If you did not pervert the Divine Mercy, you would feel it as an in- finite attraction ; you would hear its voice whispering comfort into your ears ; you would find its solace reach- ing the deepest woes that ever trouble your agonized THE MERCY OF GOD. 267 spirit ; on tlie everlasting arms it extends to jou, you would lie down soothed and satisfied — Grod a friend, and hope stretching to immortality ! And it is with the hope of being able, by Divine grace, to affect your hearts, that we ask you to consider the mercy of God to-day. Ye indifferent sinners — ye hard-hearted and far from right- eousness — ^ye prayerless, rebellious, hardened, guilty, yet unconcerned, our message is to you ! Hear it. Heed it. We stand up in the face of all your sins, your fears, your guilt ; ah ! in the face of all your hardness of heart, and tell you you need not die ! You may be saved ! Your magnitude of sin weighs nothing before the magnitude of mercy ! Will you give ear to the message ? Will you allow yourselves to be attracted by it towards God's forgiveness and a glorious immortality ? You reluctate ! You are not more than half ready to allow Heaven to win you. Therefore, III. Let us explain how it comes to pass that the Mercy of God, which ought to affect sinners like us so much, really does affect us (especially in an unconverted condition) so little. This explanation ought to prepare us better to attend to the truth which we have assigned to a fourth head, and which we reserve for a separate sermon. You can not be insensible to the very remarkable fact that the human heart is naturally very slow to be affected by any idea of the mercy of God. No doubt the sinful- ness of human nature renders us less sensible to any of the Divine perfections. And it is noticeable in every believer's experience, that his religion not only gives him more sensibility to the attributes of God, and gives the idea of these attributes more influence over him, but 258 THE MERCY OF GOD. his religion, his very experience, consists very much in this. The existence of God, the omniscience of God, the omnipresence of God, his power, his faithfulness, his holiness and merc}^, all that God is, becomes more influ- ential to a believing heart, and in that influence experi- mental religion very much consists. The believer walks loith God and lives in Christ. The believer has his con- versation in heaven. He sees God in all things, and all things in God. He knows what it means when he sings, and loves to sing, " Within thy circling powei' I stand, Upheld and guarded by tliy hand ; Awake, asleep, ftt home, abroad, I am surrounded still with God." The influence, and a sweet and sensible influence of the perfections of God, all his perfections, comes over the re- newed heart. An unregenerated heart fails in this. And it fails in a very remarkable manner to be affected by the Divine Mercy. The very child, who trembles when it thunders, as if syllables of anger were uttered from the lips of a just God, is unaffected by the mercy that sends the lightning harmless over his head ; or he can go out under the brilliancy of the cloudless heavens, and never see any thing of the goodness of God " In those bright skies that bend above Ilis childhood like a dream of love." The man, who, in his sickness, is ready to fear the jus- tice of his Maker, in his returning health forgets the mercy that has made him well. The man of adversity realizes that God is dealing with him then ; but in his prosperity he did not look up to God, and say, thou crownest my life luith loving -kindness and tender mercy. THE MERCY OF GOD. 259 And he can see then, when it is too late to remedy the evil, that in his prosperity he did not use his gifts as be- stowments coming from the goodness and mercy of Grod. The world is full of such examples. Human nature is more 'reluctant to be properly influenced by the Divine Mercy than by any other perfection of God. And this is especially the case in respect to that mercy in the highest sense — the forgiveness of sin and eternal life through the redemption of Christ. There are several things which conspire together to cause this. The first is found in the nature of mercy itself Sin in the human heart tends always and uniformly (when the heart is unaffected by the Divine Spirit) to put God out of mind. That is a graphic description of its tendency, not willing to retain God in their knowledge. And there is no possibility of presenting the Divine Mercy to the mind of a heedless sinner, in that bold and commanding method in which other perfections come up before him, and compel him to feel their influence. The very nature of mercy forbids this. What is its nature ? It is gentle- ness, clemency, forbearance, kindness. It is a tenderness which scarcely probes the wound it would heal. It would not drive, but win the sinner. It would not alarm him willingly ; and not at all, if alarm were needless. Its delight is in soothing every affliction; in making the sinner happy ; in putting out of his heart the miseries which afflict him ; and causing him, in the fullness of his enjoyed felicity, to forget (as far he can either safely or happily forget) that he ever had an affliction to weep over. All this is un-terrible and mild. It is the tenderness of Heaven. It is the clemency, the gentleness of God. In this, therefore, there is nothing to challenge and arrest 260 THE MERCY OF GOD. tlie atheistical tendencies of sin ; there is nothing to com- mand and compel the reluctant heart into sensibility to this attribute of God. Justice has her sword, and shows it, whetted and bathed in heaven! Judgment has her scales, and hangs them up, balanced on the throne of God ! Omnipotence has its thunders, and at the voice of its bidding, worlds leap into existence, and worlds are blotted out ! But Mercy comes to sinners with the still- ness and gentleness of the dews of the night. It comes down to the deep and hidden miseries of the human heart. It comes to whisper peace in a still, small voice^ and draw us to the God of mercy by cords as gentle as they are strong — ^by cords, whose strength itself consists in their gentleness. This is one cause of the little influ- ence of this attribute of God upon us. Its nature is such that it does not challenge and force the tendencies of sin. This fact is no compliment to the human heart — a heart unfit for every thing but the strokes of severity. The second cause is connected with this. It is found in the fact that sin, in the human heart, has made its most perfect triumph over those very sensibilities which mercy aims to affect. Mercy aims to affect our sense of kind- ness and good-will in God — our sensibility to clemency and compassion — our filial affections — those feelings which would lead us to say unto God, Ahha^ Father^ in which the exercise of a holy faith and happy faith so much consists. Sin hath left us the power of fear — the power of ambition — the passion for glory ; and it hath done its worst work in the human heart, by making it most of all insensible to the love and mercy of God. It is the office of faith to embrace this mercy, to believe in it, to rejoice in it, to love it, and lean upon it. It is the effect of unbelief to spread insensibility toward God, in THE MERCY OF GOD. 261 an especial manner, over those sensibilities wliicli mercy solicits. Go round these seats, and look into the hearts of these unconverted sinners, and you will find more sensibility toward God in any other respect, than in respect to his kindness. The reason is, that the opera- tion of sin on the human affections tends to perpetuate its own dark empire, and works worst of all, on those views and feelings necessary to be exercised in a believ- ing return to God. Convicted sinners often err on this point. They are sensible of their hardness of heart. They mourn over it, and wish it would break. They strive to render their terrors of God more dreadful, their sense of guilt more oppressive, their fears of hell more distressful. They suppose they must. By this, they suppose their hearts must be made to yield. But they err. It is not so. The fires of hell convert nobody. The torments of hor- ror and despair tend to confirm unbelief, but they never awaken faith. Let such sinners cast aside their dark, and gloomy, and unjust suspicions of God ; let them know that they fail, most of all, to be duly affected by his kind- ness, love, and mercy ; let them yield their hearts to his free grace, and requite him with love for love, and ten- derness for tenderness ; let them turn from their prodigal starving to rush into the arms of their forgiving Father ; and then, and not till then, their hearts will meet, when they hear him saying. This my son luas dead^ and is alive again; was lost, and is found. A third reason is found in the sufferings that fill the world ; i. e., the ideas of irreligious people about these miseries give them a wrong idea of the Mercy of God. The world is full of affliction. It is little more to us than a place of tears, and then, a place of burial! unless, 262 THE MERCY OF GOD. in tTie vanity of our mind, we make it a place of vision- ary dreaming ! As a sober mind contemplates the miseries that fill it, and remembers its own sad experi- ence of ills ; such a mind, while without religion, is very apt to have erroneous ideas of the Mercy of God. If God is merciful — is so merciful — is merciful like a God — why are such tears of bitterness streaming, such griefs, such fears, such disappointments, such mountains of sorrow, resting on so many thousands of hearts ? And especially, why do immortal souls experience such per- plexity and anguish, in relation to the attainment of that very salvation, to bestow which is the very office of God's highest mercy ? Such thoughts will come up. A sin- ner cannot always avoid them. And we dare not say that they are always to be reckoned among the worst, though, surely, they are among the most unhappy of his sins. Such ideas are wrong. They do not invite faith. They rather drive toward despair. They are wrong. They are superficial. They are false. Three errors, especially, enter into them. The first is, they forget that these very miseries are mercies. Heaven means them as such. They are such. The mercy of God has made this world so full of evil, in order that a wise man looking on it, and gauging the dimensions of its miseries, if you forbid his faith to antic- ipate an immortality, will be obliged to look up to the Infinite Creator of all things, and ask that question, Wherefore hast thou made all r}ien in vain f These miseries, therefore, compel us to take in futurity. Without that futurity, the world is useless — our existence useless — and this fabric, soon to be fuel for the last conflagration, had better never have risen out of its primitive non-existence [ If an atheist is a fool, a murmurer is a fool also ! THE MERCY OF GOD. 263 The second error, in those impressions against the mercy of God which are derived from the miseries of the world, is this : these persons do not reflect that sin maintains its empire over the human heart bj putting the world in the place of God. Eeligion says to man, Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. And mercy. Divine Mercy, flings poison into our earthly cups of bliss, flings pestilence upon our winds, and plants thorns in our path, in order to drive us off from this world, and lead us to give God our hearts. When we have hewed out our cisterns, laboriously chiseled from an earthly marble, mercy. Divine Mercy, does us the kindness to dash them into pieces, and show us that they are broken cisterns^ ivhich can hold no loater^ in order to turn our parched lips to the living fountains of God. And if sinners, still charmed with the world, would but see this — would but understand that the world is that which satisfieth not, and Mercy has made it so ; they would begin to cluster around our altars ; they would say to us — " People of the living God, I have sought the world around, Paths of sin and sorrow trod, Peace and comfort never found ! Now to you my spirit turns, Turns, a fugitive unblest ; Brethren, where your altar burns. Oh, receive me into rest ! " Lonely I no longer roam. Like the cloud, the wind, the wave ; Where you dwell shall be my home, Where you die shall be my grave ! Mine the God whom you adore, Your Kedeemer shall be mine ; Earth can fill my soul no more. For God, for heaven, I all resign." 264 THE MERCY OF GOD. The third error in these impressions is, that when earthly miseries seem to us to limit the mercy of God, or constitute an argument to qualify its significance, we ourselves do limit the range that is due to our thinking capacities ; and limit, too, the very mercy Avhose narrow- ness afflicts us. Truth, grace, spreads out this mercy to overshadow an eternity. This is its main object. It cares very little about time. God cares very little, com- paratively, what we enjoy or what we suffer here. Let us not be Deists. Let us be Christians. Let us not be materialists, to weigh nothing but dust and ashes, and the earthly felicity that springs out of them. Let us think as immortals — feel, hope, and fear, as immortals. Let us go out in our contemplations, and plant our feet on the borders of that unbounded field, as wide as eter- nity, and, by the Mercy of God, as blissful as heaven ; and then we shall not be tempted to think God's Mercy little and unworthy to be trusted, though he should give us but few joys here. He intends to give us but few. He means to show us that he cares very little about the dying bliss of this dying world. And if we understand his "Word rightly, we shall understand that he mentions his earthly mercies to us, not on account of any value he puts upon them, but only as tokens and attractions to that infinite Mercy which would save, eternally save, our sinful and immortal souls. God cares every thing for these. Divine Mercy brought Christ from heaven to save them ; and not a want, no, not a single want that takes hold on eternity, is now denied to a sinner's soul. Mercy stretches over his immortality ! From his bed of death, she stoops from heaven, to lift him to his home, his Christ, his God ! This is Divine Mercy. And this THE MERCY OF GOD. 265 only is worthy of God to provide, and worthy of you to prize and to receive. On next Lord's day, the table of mercy will be spread here. The covenant of mercy will be rehearsed, and some will enter into it. How happens it that some of you will turn jour backs upon the table of the Lord? Is there no mercy for you ? I know some of you think so; but, my dear friends, your unbelief malces God a liar! It is, therefore, a great sin — a horrid sin! It is bad enough that you have broken God's law. It is still worse that your unbelief rejects God's offered Mercy ! Christ, forgiveness, heaven, is offered to you in all the sincerity of God ! All that poor, guilty, helpless sinners need, is offered to you without money^ and ivithout i^Tice. This is certain. Will you believe it ? Will you open your eyes and behold God's infinite readiness to receive you, love you, save you ? There will be room for you at the Lord's table on next Lord's day ; and if you are not there, the reason must lie in your unbelief, and not in God's Mercy. I call on the sacred emblems, on the covenant, Christ, on heaven and earth, to witness, that if you perish, your blood will be upon your own head, for the Lord is gracious and onerciful, slow to anger ^ andt plenteous in mercy. 12 t ^^rtji erf (Scir [CONTINUED.] The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.- Psalm ciii. 8. rriHE existence of God is that great truth whicli lies at -*- the foundation of all true religion. The attributes of God give true religion its character. True religion, with man, is what it is because the attributes of God are such as they are. The text speaks of one of these attributes, and would affect us by it. In this Psalm, David celebrates the Mercy of God. The text is only a declaration of a fact which gave rise to all the expressions contained in it : The Lord is gra- cious and merciful^ slow to anger and plenteous in mercy. Mercy is good-will to the undeserving. It is the exer- cise of good-will toward those deserving of anger and punishment. It is a modification, therefore, of benevo- lence or love. We have not time now to recapitulate even an outline of what we advanced this morning on this wonderful subject, the Mercy of God. We need not. It is one of the happinesses of this ministry we exercise so unwor- thily, and with so much anxiety and pain (and it is a THE MERCY OF GOD. 267 happiness for wHcli we ouglit to be deeply affected), that the attention of this congregation, as we preach to them, furnishes reason to hope that thej^ retain some knowledge of what they hear. ly. Leaving, therefore, the ideas of this morning to the fidelity of your recollection, we enter upon the fourth head of discourse that we announced — ^to endeavor to gain just ideas of the preeminence of the Mercy of God. This is the precise sentiment of the text. David's mind lingers around the idea. He will not let it go. He repeats it in different forms : The Lord is merciful . . . and gracious . . . slow to anger . . . and plenteous in mercy. His sentiments of piety and praise give an eminence, an exaltation to the Mercy of God. There is something singular in this. Divine Mercy has a Divine preemi- nence. While God is infinite in every perfection, in his wisdom, power, holiness, justice, truth ; and while his mercy, infinite also^ stands in harmonious combination with all these ; at the same time, there is something in the Mercy of God which rises up to the wonderfulness of an amazing and solitary magnificence ! It is not easy to give you a clear explanation of what we mean. You will know before we have done. But as the basis of our meaning, it will be sufficient here to name to you two ideas of explanation. The one is direct, the other is taken from the application of the subject. l}h.Q first is, that while they are all infinite, still, all the perfections of God do not hold the same rank in the Di- vine character. One perfection ma}^ be more glorious than another. That omnipotence which weigheth the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance, may yield to the gloriousness of the eternity, and the infinite truthful- 268 THE MEKCY OF GOD. ness of God. That omniscience yvhicli embraces, every moment, all the very thoughts of all the creatures in the universe, possesses not such eminence in the Divine char- acter as belongs to that infinite wisdom that infallibly produces the best of all possible results, by the best of all possible means. There is no error nor irreverence in saying that in the Deity, infinite every vfhere, one per- fection has not the same eminence as another. On this ground it is that we are speaking, when we mention the preeminence of the Mercy of God. This is the direct idea in the explanation. The other is taken from the application of the subject. The Deity manifests something of his perfections to his creatures. On earth, and in time, they are visible, even to eyes like ours, so soon to be dimmed and extinguished in death ; and in that brighter world to which faith in" vites us, they will be more gloriously visible, as the saints of the most high God enjoy the vision of the Lamb in the midst of ike throne^ and have thoughts and senti- ments worthy of God, and worthy of eternity. But as the attributes of God apply to his creatures, they do not all apply alike : they do not all produce the same wondrous views, and the same elevation of sentiments. The pre- eminence in this respect belongs, and Avill ever belong, to the Mercy of God. Let us, then, enter into the theme as well as we may. We have seven sources of argument, taken from, •1. The peculiar delight of the Deity ; 2. The nature of the Divine Kevelation ; 3. The method by which Divine Mercy operates ; 4. Its unlimited extent ; 5. Its equal readiness for all sinners ; 6. The smallness of its requirements ; and THE MERCY OF GOD. 269 7. The greatness of tlie sin of neglecting it. These are our topics. Let us consider them as well as our time will allow. 1. Mercy is that attribute, in which the Deity peculiar- ly delights. It has been styled, " the darling attribute of. God." We do not like the expression. To many minds, it seems to imply that some of the perfections of God are no favorites with him, and must be made to yield and give way before this. Nothing could be more untrue. Entire harmony reigns among the attributes of the Deity. But after all, though there may be an error in this phrase, there is a truth in it, too. It is a truth, that the Infinite One peculiarly delights in the exercise of his Mercy. You may apprehend the meaning of this idea by what takes place in your own mind. You are a citizen of this commonwealth. As such, and as a good citizen and subject of the laws, you owe various duties which you delight to discharge. But they are not equally delightful. Some of them fall in with your own preferences more than others You lend your influence and labor to render property secure, law domi- nant, and to prevent violence and disorder : you delight in this. But, as a wise citizen, you have more delight in aiming to secure the same benefits in another way ; you have more delight in giving your influence and labor to render all classes of society industrious, intelligent, con- tented and happy ; so virtuous, so conscientious, that they sball be a law unto themselves^ and have no need of legal sanctions to keep them in order. As a member of societ}^, you delight to render even justice to every one, in all your various intercourse — intercourse of trade — intercourse of science, of literature, 270 THE MERCY OF GOD. of society, of religion. But you have more delight, as a good member of society, in being able to go beyond tbe mere measure of justice, and, even at some personal sacrifices, in doing something to dry up the streams of human misery ; your kindness wipes away the orphan's ^ tear, and carries gladness to the heart beating such un- equaled throbs under the weeds of the widow. In all these duties you may be equally perfect, but you are not equaly happy. This illustrates what we mean by the peculiar preferences of God. His delight is in the exer- cise of his Mercy. He delights, indeed, in justice, holi- ness, faithfulness ; and he has an infinite delight in them ; that is, his delight accords with the infinity of his nature, and is perfect in relation to the importance of the attribute he exercises. But in Mercy he peculiarly delights. This is his own repeated testimony. He is not willing that any should perish. He affirms that he has no pleasure at all in the death of him that dieth. All that he has seen fit to teach us in his "Word, respecting his own infinite and holy feelings, gives preeminence to his Mercy. Mercy, indeed, has its methods — its way of wisdom — its rules : if it had not, it would lose its nature and become something else. The poet failed in that so much admired conception, "A God all mercy is a God unjust." ^ That is truth, but it is not all the truth — it is too feeble for the fact. Such a God would be something more than unjust ; and the licentiousness of the attribute among a world of sinners would turn the mercy into unkindness itself. Still, the Divine Being has peculiar delight in the exercise of his Mercy. God loves to forgive sinners. He loves to save them. He loves to adopt them into his THE MERCY OF GOD. 271 family. He loves to cheer them with his promises. And never did a saint on earth have so much delight in re- j ceiving the grace of God, as the infinitely gracious God ( has in bestowing it. Much as you may find in the Bible to teach the infinitude of all the attributes of the Deity, and their preciousness to him, you can not fail to see the jus- tice of the idea that he speaks in most singular style of his Mercy. The delight which he has in it, the singular and peculiar delight, demonstrates that kind of preeminence which we have affirmed belongs to it. It is Mercy that unfolds to us the heart of the God of heaven ! It is Mercy which he most of all things delights to exercise. His glory, his infinite and eternal blessedness, stand in peculiar connection with this. Justice, judgment, the vengeance he takes upon the wicked, even he himself denominates his strange work (Isaiah, xxviii. 21). It is not what God likes. Mercy is more natural to him. It is more like God. Even when Mercy is refused — ^re- jected — spurned; and judgment is compelled to act on the wicked, Mercy goes out upon the Mount of Olives to shed her tears over the devoted city ! He wept over it: Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, lioio often tcould I have gathered your children together^ even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wingsy and ye would not! 2. A second argument is found in the nature of the Divine Eevelation. The great purpose of this Eevelation is to disclose to us the Mercy of God, and lead us to accept it. Other things which we need to know about God, are more dis- closed to us in his works than this. The light of nature teaches them, we mean, they are taught hy nature ; we do not mean, that man understands the teaching, unless the Bible aids him to understand it. With that aid, the 272 THE MERCY OF GOD. exercise of sober reason acting upon tlie things seen in creation and providence, leads us to quite a tolerable knowledge of the attributes of God ; only with this singu- lar exception. The Mercy of God toward us guilty and unworthy sinners is of such a nature, that the magnitude, the wonders, the grandeur and combination of all that is contained in creation and in the common providences of God, could not disclose it to us. This wonderful creation (we will not dispute the Psalm), fitted up with so much wisdom and magnificence, is full of lessons about God. "We may read them in the vast worlds hung out, like gems, above us, in the midnight skies, as if to deck the pathAvay for the footsteps of the Deity. "We may read them in the dews of the night, in the wild-flower's beauty, and in the wild-bird's song. The power, the in- telligence, the wisdom, the goodness, the justice of the Deity — these are to be learnt, and pretty well learnt, as we look out on Nature, investigate her laws, and study the various orders of beings and the changes which we behold. But the Mercy of God creation can not tell us. The declaration must come from his own lips. It is something which lies so deep in the depths of the Divine nature, that this material universe, with all its magnifi- cence, and variety, and order, and wisdom, cannot tell it to us ! Aside from direct revelation, indeed, we may learn something by the power of our own reason. We may find proofs that God is merciful ; but there we must stop. We can find no proof, perhaps not a hint, that that merciful God will ever forgive a sinner! The human understanding can not see this. It can only see a little way. By three different considerations, indeed, it may properly be led to conclude, that God is merciful ; but none of these will furnish a single i#em of assurance that THE MERCY OF GOD. 278 Divine Mercy will ever forgive a sinner. Let us see — let ns learn to understand liow dumb all Nature is, and how deep in the perfections of God lies the Mercy which can pardon us. The first consideration is, that our Creator has formed us with such minds and hearts, that we esteem Mercy an | excellence. This is a decision of human nature. We can not do otherwise. Singular enormity of wickedness and vice may furnish some exceptions, perhaps, but they are few. You must descend to the very worst classes of \ human kind, before you can find a single individual! who does not regard mercy as an excellence of character. God has so constituted the human understanding, as to . compel it to do so. But it is unreasonable to suppose that God would form his intelligent creatures with understandings compelling them to dis- esteem himself. He must, therefore, be merciful. It is unreasonable to suppose that he would have made our souls such as to deem mercy an excellence, if he were destitute of it. Mercy is indispensable to a character of perfection, ac- cording to the decision of the human understanding. But here reason must stop. She can not go a step farther. Nature can not lead her a step. In all her con- clusions, there is no assurance of the forgiveness of a single sin ! Human reason can only discern a general mercifulness in God. She can not demonstrate from man's mental formation — from the esteem he has for a character of mercy — that Divine Mercy will ever reach, or can reach the worst wants of the world, and grant the pardon of even the smallest transgression ! Human reason can not tell us, but our guiltiness, as sinners, surpasses all the mercy there is in God I She can not decide by any indication, much less 12* 274 THE MERCY OF GOD. by any proof, that it would not be an imperfection in the Deity to forgive sin. One of the most masterly minds among the Grecian philosophers doubted whether it were possible for the Deity to pardon a sinner. He was a \ heathen, without the Bible; and this shows us at what point the human mind will stop, must stop, unaided by the revelation of God. It may deem God merciful, and that is all ! What it will be proper for a perfect God to do unto such rebellious and guilty creatures as we are, the human understanding has no means of determining ! It casts not a single ray of light on the abodes of guilt ; it flings not a hope into our coming eternity. It can not tell us but our own minds, formed as they are to esteem mercy an excellence, when they come to under- stand, in eternity, what a perfect God ought to do, will see that it is indispensable to his perfections to punish us eternally ! A second consideration is the treatment that we receive. We experience mercies every day. We are guilty of sinning, as all men well know, even without any Divine Kevelation. Strict justice would punish us at once. But it does not. We are spared, and not only spared, but loaded with providential favors. This is mercy. God positively does exercise it towards us. And, there- fore, by our own reason we may know that he is merci- ful. But here again we are limited. Keason can not tell us that this Mercy shall ever reach beyond outward good- ness — reach a sin and blot it out. It can not assure us r- of favor for eternity. It conveys no hint of any Mercy beyond our earthly allotments ; but, on the contrary, all the mercy there is in them seems to be more and more forsaking us as we draw nearer the tomb. Pained THE MERCY OF GOD. 275 limbs, dimmed eyes, hearts incapable, in age, of enjoying the delights they once relished, the distresses of our last illness, and the pangs of death, seem, and must ever seem, to unaided reason, as indications that God's Mercy is fast forsaking us, and as cause for a fearful loolcing-for of judgment in another world; a world not reached by the Mercy of God ! A third consideration is the goodness of God. All his works contain prodTis of his goodness. The Deity is in- finitely benevolent. Mercy is a part of benevolence — a modification of it. Human reason can discover this, and properly conclude, therefore, that Mercy belongs to the Divine character. But here again it must stop. Human reason can not discover that propriety and justice will ever permit the Mercy of God to extend to the forgiveness of iniquity, and the communication of future happiness to the sinner. Whatever is best to be done in time and in eternity, reason teaches us that God will do. But what is best — whether final forgiveness can ever be granted to the sinner — is something which Keason can not tell; she knows nothing on this point. As Keason looks out upon this strange and tearful world, she sees God doing things contrary to all that she could expect. He fills every chapter of the world's history with wonders. He sends famines ! he shakes down Lisbons with earthquakes ! he buries Herculaneums with lava ! he drowns Limas with the waves of the sea ! Pestilences do his bidding ; and even without their death-march, one fourth part of our race goes down to an infant's grave ! These things are beyond our understanding. Beason, therefore, can never decide for God, and know that the Divine Mercy is so great as to reach the pardon of sin, ^ 276 THE MERCY OF GOD. Besides, as she turns from the manifestations which God makes of himself in such things, to consider the ex- tent of his kingdom and all its vast and eternal concerns, Eeason can not but see that the interests of that kingdom demand things which she can not at all understand. She is forced, therefore, to be silent — dumb ! She can dem- onstrate no Mercy for sinners beyond the tomb ! The patience of God exercised towards the unworthy here, and the blessings his goodness pours out on guilty heads, manifest a disposition and a degree of mercifulness, and lay the foundation of that habit of prayer which the heathen exercise in their miseries and fears. But this is all! The world — ^the whole world — all the goodness sprinkled over it, all the forbearance exercised towards it by God himself, furnish no evidence that a just and holy God is still mercifal enough to restore a sinner to his heart's favor and final salvation. The Mercy of God has such an eminence that material worlds can not dis- close it. Their order, their beauty, their ranks of beings, their laws, are unable to whisper a single syllable of comfort into the ears of a. dying man ! As this clay tabernacle is crumbling, they never teach him to say, this dead body shall rise. As the spirit is torn from this temple, human reason never pron^ises it wings of angels to bear it to the bosom of God ! God has trusted his world to demonstrate his other attributes, but not to dem- onstrate his Mercy. His mountains and his seas — his winds, his lightnings, and his thunders — his worlds wheeling in infinite space around his throne — suns, stars, and comets in their order — the existence and nature of this material universe, God has trusted to unfold to us his wisdom, his omnipotence, his justice. But the Mercy of God can not be told by matter. It has such a pre- THE MERCY OF GOD. 277 eminence that lie himself must speak it out to us from his hiding-place in eternity ! The purpose of this book is to disclose to us the Mercy of God. It tells more in a single page than all the universe tells. This is the second demonstration of the preeminence of the Divine Mercy. 8. We pass to a third. We find it in the plan by which Divine Mercy operates. This plan is evidently singular, and an infinite remove from all the possible dis- coveries of reason, and, be it remembered, from all the analogies of the universe ! Other attributes can operate in the other plans of God; and it is an exercise of filial piety, we admit, to be attracted to the Deity by the road of creation and providence. But there is a better road. The way of redemption is the way of sufficient mercy .8-- Divine Mercy is of such preeminence, that its method of operation is entirely singular, and unlike any thing else which God Almighty does. It operates by the incarna- tioU; life, and death of the eternal Son of God. He who thought it not rohhery to he equal ivith God^ for our sakes became poor, that we, through his j)0vert7/, might he made rich. He connected himself, in a manner miraculous, intimate, and eternal, with flesh and blood. He became allied to sinners, and was not ashamed to call them his hrethreii. He was born in a stable and laid in a manger. His mother was a poor virgin, and her betrothed husband a poor man. Destitute of protection, his parents fled with him by night from those who sought his life ; and destitute of wealth, he laboriously wrought in the busi- ness of a common carpenter to earn his bread hy the sweat of his face. He suffered fatigue, hunger, and weariness. He was tempted of the Devil. He preached the Gospel to the poor. He healed their sick. He wept in their 278 THE MERCY OF GOD. sorrows. He raised their dead. He went about doing good. He had not where to lay his head. He died the death of a malefactor, most humiliating and distressing. Other good men have died in triumph, but he died in the bitterest agony. The foresight of his sufferings in the garden of Gethsemane forced him, with all his un- equaled submission and iron fortitude, to sweat great drops of blood falling down to the ground. Lifted up on the cross, God his Father removed the light of his counte- nance from him at the very moment when we should have expected something else, and extorted from his dying lips the bitterest of all wailings, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me f This was Jesus Christ I This was the Son of God I . This was he who had power to raise the dead, and could easily have changed the sneers of his murderers to confu- sion, and come down from the cross. But then there would have been no sufficient Mercy for sinners. Mercy, to reach the forgiveness of sin, and secure us the favor of God in another world, requires all this. It asks the heart's- blood of the Son of God ! It demands the wonderful singularity, that the eternal Son shall leave the bosom of the Father — shall be allied to sinners, worms of the dust — shall be tempted — ^shall suffer — shall die under the wrath of God, endured for us, and go down in tears, and ignominy, and blood to the tomb! This is Mercy's operation, and surely it is singular. There is nothing else like it. God himself never did any thing else like it ! Infinite power, infinite intelligence, infinite holiness, ^ have no such exercises as infinite Mercy. Mercy, then, has a Divine preeminence. It makes God act as nothing else makes God act ! The angels knew what they were doing, when, over the plains of Bethlehem, they came, THE MERCY OF GOD. 279 *' where the infant Eedeemer was laid," to sing, Glory to God in the highest, because, on earth, on this wicked and sinful earth, there could be peace from God, and good-ivill could reach and save — eternally save — guilty, unworthy, rebellious man. The Apostle knew what he was doing, when he puts the very creation of God under the feet of Divine Mercy : Who created all things hy Jesus Christ to THE INTENT, that now unto principalities and powers in heavenly places^ might he known hy the CHURCH — a body of forgiven sinners — the manifold wisdom of God. 4. We pass to a fourth consideration. And would to God it could reach every hard heart in this assembly ! It ought to do so ! And especially, there are some of us grown gray in sin — and others of us, whose hardihood has greatly enhanced our offences — whose hearts ought to entertain this consideration. It is this : the promises of Mercy in the Gospel are absolutely unlimited by human guilt. They furnish refuge for every penitent from the demands of Divine justice. There is no excep- tion. There is no crime so odious, no circumstances of sinning amidst light and warnings, and the strivings of the resisted Spirit, so aggravating, no gray head so guilty, as not to be pitiable and pardonable, when the sinner affectionately and sincerely turns him to Jesus Christ. This is singular. This is wonderful ! Human reason could never have conjectured this. Human sen- timents, without grace, never have any thing like it. Let us see. You can presume more on a mother's affection than on any thing else I can think of Alas! filial in-\ gratitude and disobedience have often tried it ; and an I unkind and reckless son has given woes to a mother's X 280 THE MERCY OF GOD. heart surpassing all others that spring from mere earthly affliction. But that mother's heart still hangs round her cruel child ! It will bear with him, and hope in him, longer than any thing else 1 It will forgive him, and pour out midnight prayers for him, to the merciful and forgiving God ! But if you remove from it the senti- ments of Christianity, and leave it to the mere sentiments of nature, you can never be assured that that cruel son can not sin beyond the extent of her forgiveness. There is a point where even maternal affection will die, (especially if not sanctified affection,) — killed, crucified, and blasted by filial ingratitude and cruelty ! But God's Mercy is not so. It has no limits on this side the tomb I The greatness of sin, the enormity of sin, the aggrava- tions of sin, the multitude of sins, a7iy, yea, all of these put together never exclude a penitent from the blessed forgiveness of God ! Who can limit the Divine Mercy ? To Avhich of you, in your old age of guilt, or in the sturdiness of your younger rebellion, do not its offers extend ? What sinner did the Mercy of God ever repel? what wounded heart did it ever fail to heal ? If you will turn to it, you may leave all your fears behind you. Mercy, God's Mercy, will never ask how you have sinned — how long you have sinned — or through how many Divine influences you have gone on hardening your heart I 17ie Lord is 2)lenteoics in mercy. The extent '^ of Mercy has forgiven Nebuchadnezzar and Manasseh. It has forgiven Paul, who persecuted the Church, and Peter, who denied his Master. It has forgiven David, his conscience polluted with lust and blood, and the woman taken in adultery ! This extent demonstrates its preeminence. God is merciful, beyond all that human hope could conjecture. He is willing to forgive any THE MEECY OF GOD. 281 sinner. If obstinate perseverance in evil, if the sin against the Holy Ohost^ ivhich hath never forgiveness^ forms an exception, it is not because Mercy is insufficient, but simply, solely, because there is no disposition to seek it. But this is not all. Take a 5th Argument ; for its readiness ought to affect yon. There is something singular in this. There is something wonderful. It surpasses the measure of human senti- ments, and sometimes staggers even a Divine faith. What we mean is this, that the extent of the sinner's guilt makes no difference about the readiness of his for- giveness — that the Mercy of God will forgive him if he repents at any stage of his sin on this side of hell, with precisely the same facility and readiness ! This is pre- eminence in Mercy. God pardons all the penitent with equal readiness — the greatest and least offenders. This doctrine may seem strange to those whose sentiments have not drunk deep at the Gospel fountain, and been formed amid contemplations of the infinite atonement of the Son of God. But we dare affirm it. We challenge your examination of the whole Gospel, to detect any difference in the readiness with which God forgives peni- , tent sinners. You would make a difference ; but God''s thoughts are not your thoughts. You would find it a more difficult thing to forgive the enemy, who had loaded you with insult, and abuse, and injury, all your days — who had wantonly destroyed your happiness, marred your peace, insulted your kindness, and done all in his power to make you contemptible and miserable ; you would find it a more difficult thing to forgive such a one, at the last, than at the first of his offences. You would do it^ if you are a Christian ; you would do it, when he said, I repent^ even to seventy times seven. But you would find 282 THE MERCY OF GOD. it a trial of your Christian temper ; and probably, if you are not a Christian, all your feelings would refuse it. But it is not so with God. He forgives the greatest offender, when he repents, as readily as he forgives the least. Not a hint in the Gospel opposes this idea. Not a single hint or suggestion flings any difficulty in the way of the most free and ready forgiveness of the most guilty sin- ner that ever lived. That guilt makes no difference about the readiness of his forgiveness. It does make a difference about the probability of his repentance, and d his seeking forgiveness ; but it makes no difference about the readiness with which the God of mercy will throw around the penitent the arms of a forgiving and fatherly embrace. It makes no difference about the readiness with which your heavenly Father will give the Holy Spirit to them that ash him. Mercy, Divine Mercy, is preeminent. It surpasses all the extent of human reason, human expectation, human sentiments and hopes. It not only reaches the greatest offences, but the greatest as readily as the least. We had marked two other aguments. One was, the small requirements that Mercy makes of us — only to re- pent and fall into the arms of God for eternal favor and eternal life. The other was the most bitter dreg in the cup of a sinner's condemnation — that he rejected Mercy, while mercy might be had, and will find the preemi- nence of his woes in the remembrance of the preeminent Mercy that offered to save him from the anger of God and his bed in hell — that the rejection of Christ digs his pit deeper ! We must leave these two ideas to your own contemplation. But, my dear friends, this eminence of Mercy ought not to be in vain to you. It is this which solicits your THE MERCY OF GOD. 283 faith. God, the infinite God, has done more to convince you of his boundless Mercy to sinners, than to convince you of any thing else. The tendency of sin is to make your hearts insensible to the powerful attractions of God( and suspicious of his kindness towards you. In the revelations of his mercy, he is striving to affect your hearts. You mistake your own nature, if you think the terrors of judgment and the fears of hell are ever going to bring you to God in faith. They never will. They may bring you to despondency — ^to a life of gloom, and to a death-bed of despair ! But they will never bring you to a happy faith. "We know there is reason to fear God — but there is more reason to love him. He has done this most won- derful of all his works, out of love to us, poor, guilty and dying sinners ; and if we would only believe God, and turn ourselves to his compassion, there is no depth of sin — no extent of it — no gray -haired iniquity, his Mercy would not forgive ! Eevealed Mercy is the very burden of the Gospel. Ye, impenitent and unbelieving sinners, ought to be melted by it. Ye, fearful and sus- picious of God, ought to bear the message of Mercy home to your own souls. You ought to say to yourselves, each one of you : I see how it is ; I see God is of such mercy, that all the magnificence and goodness of the material world could not reveal it ; I see how it operates ; I trace it from the manger-cradle to the marble tomb of the Son of God ; I see where it extends ; I stand on the outskirts of an opening eternity, and, glancing my eyes upward to the throne of the Almighty God, I perceive its thunders are hushed, and an innumerable company of happy spirits, once sinful and unworthy as I, now forgiven and loved of God, bathed in the light 284 THE, MERCY OF GOD. and glories of immortality : I see (ye ouglit to say it), I see, there is mercy for me : the Gospel takes me Tip, where Keason and the Light of Kature forsook me, and tells me what the infinite God can do, about the sins of this guilty soul, and its deathless destinies in eternity. Iiuill arise and go to my Father. Yes, God is my Father still ; I will say unto him, Father^ I have sinned against heaven, I am, no rnore worthy to he called thy son ! Well, Go ! go in welcome ! go, and live ! go now ! go, to fall into the hands of the Lord, for his mercies are great ! (jo, and guilt can not ruin you — hell can not claim you ! He that sitteth upon the throne, will say. This my son was dead and is alive again, was lost, and is found. " Saved ! the deed shall spread new glory Through the courts, the crowds above ! Angels tell the blissful story, A sinner saved — for God is love 1" What will you do ? Put the question to your own soul — ^thou, my immortal spirit, bound to eternity and cannot tarry, my own soul, what will you do ? Will you have this mercy, this heaven for your own ? " Say, will you to Mount Zion go ? Say, will you have this Christ or no ?" When God shall make up his jewels, it shall be known in heaven whether you spurned his Mercy to-day ! do^ iia Iteasitre in tlje §m\\} of t|e aalicfuif* (shown fkom the purposes of god.) As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked. — Ezekiel, xxxiii. 11. TN" these words, God affirms sometliing about himself. It is no new idea to the minds of this congregation, that the character of Grod is the leading idea in religion. Scarcely any theme of instruction is more difficult than the regard of the Deity for a sinner. To give to the revolted subject of Grod's righteous government a correct apprehension of the feelings with which his God regards him, is an attempt attended with peculiar embar- rassments. These arise, not so much from the obscurity of the subject itself, as from the strong tendency to mis- apprehend it. There is something in the nature of the case which contributes a great obstacle to correct appre- hension. "When we speak of the Deity as righteous, and man as under his rule, there is something of accusation immediately conceived. Conscience goes to work. The hearer at once feels that there is a design to reprove him ; and the consequence of this feeling is, he puts him- self on the defence. And even if we avoid all accusing- terms — ^if the Bible avoids them — if we do not say that man is unrighteous — if we take pains to avoid all 286 GOD NO PLEASUSE IN THE metliods of expression whicli bring his own character to mind, and strive to present the subject in such a manner that he may examine it without the excitements of preju- dice, and as an unbiased spectator, we are not able, after all, to accomplish the designs — the failure always shows our deficiency of skill in persuasion, and should humble us as preachers. The truth is, if we present the subject in the abstract, it will not be received so by the hearer. If we do not bring him into the question, he will bring himself in ; neither our art nor eloquence can avoid it. And he usually comes prepared to defend himself, in some manner or in some degree, from the imputation which his own consciousness has suggested. Guilt is suspicious : This is John the Baptist risen from the dead. We can not speak of those attributes of the Deity neces- sarily associated with his being reconciled to an offender, without awakening something of the self-love and pride, if not something of the prejudice of him who still needs reconciliation. The nature of the case, therefore, renders it hard to give the proper impression to such a one. The Deity will be regarded, by those who have never been taught by the Spirit, in some measure as an enemy; and in such a case, surely, it would be the hight of human candor to examine his character and his offers with unprejudiced fairness. We are far from believing that most men design to run into this abuse. However self-love or self-respect might lead them to plead their cause strongly if they were to speak upon it, we are far from supposing they soberly intend to be uncandid when only called upon to think. To deceive and willingly ruin themselves is a thing distant from their designs. No man is willing to deceive and destroy himself. DEATH OF THE WICKED. 287 But men desire to avoid the present unhappiness which the truth might create. Their hearts are opposed to it. And for these reasons they hazard the unhappy- consequences of the future. In this sense they are guilty of wiUing self-deception and its wretched results. For these reasons they are not apt to look impartially at the character of God. But this matter is no less important than difficult. An error here is particularly unfortunate and hazardous. All our ideas of religion are intimately connected with the character of God. That character lays the founda- tion of all that man can hope, and of what man must be. And if we have a false notion of that character, we shall have false notions of religion ; the God we worship will be an imaginary God ; the homage we render will be agreeable to our misconceptions ; our religion, begun in error, will end in wretchedness, and we ourselves shall become those of whom it is said, deceiving and being de- ceived. It becomes us, therefore, to examine such a subject in all its connections and with the utmost candor. To shield ourselves from the truth can be of no lasting benefit, and may be, in the end, of most awful disad- vantage. And, perhaps, there are few points where we need this caution more than we do when God tells us of his mercy. The text we have just read to you is one of those passages in which God condescends to meet one of those complaints which our hearts are apt to make against him. He here exonerates himself. He declares what is his disposition in regard to sinners, and thus removes one of those vain excuses which men sometimes weave to themselves for continuing in their wickedness. As I 288 GOD NO PLEASURE IN THE live, saith the Lord Ood, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked. The design of this expression seems to be, to correct our ideas of the feelings of God, when we have run so far into error as to think him capable of pleasure in our destruction. Human hearts do often meet the pecu- liar emphasis of this declaration. There are those who have no religion, and who are prevented from making any determined efforts to attain it, because they are un- happily persuaded into the opinion that the pleasure of God is opposed to their salvation. This passage was de- signed to correct them. There are those who allege the controlling power of God, their dependence upon him, and his designs and dispositions, as a kind of apology for their irreligion. This passage was designed to rebuke them. There are those (and would to God there were more of them) who are desirous of securing eternal life, but, sensible of their sins, are afraid to approach God, lest there be something in his character unfavorable to their salvation. This passage was designed to encourage them, to remove that despondency which prohibits action, and animate with that vigor which hope alone inspires. The text is in itself an unqualified declaration of God, that he does not take pleasure in the destruction of the wicked. The declaration is needed. The wicked some- times half believe he does. Such a belief is an injury to them. God would have them abandon it. He here condescends to exculpate himself, and, consequently, his conduct in relation to sinners, and thus would bring them to take courage in seeking God, or take the blame of their ruin upon themselves. Now, the sentiment which this declaration opposes takes its rise, and is sustained in the mind of the wicked, by considerations drawn especially from three sources : DEATH OF THE WICKED. 289 The Purposes of God ; The Nature of Beligion ; and The Condition of the Wicked. Could we give men just impressions about God, they would need no other instruction on these points. If we could throw the blaze of purity across these springs of error, it would dry up the fountains of falsehood, and stop the flow of those streams that waft so many down to the abysses of the damned. A just impression about God would teach man that the Divine purposes do not oppose his salvation. A just impression about God would teach man that the religion enjoined upon him is not so severe as to compel him to be lost. A just im- pression about God would teach the wicked that God has not placed him in such a condition in this world that his ruin is unavoidable. But to meet definitely the sentiment to which this text is opposed, let us consider its three sources separately, and endeavor to justify the declaration of the text. I. The Purposes of God. This will occupy us in the present discourse. The others will occupy us in two other discourses, to come afterward. The perfections which enlightened reason always con- cedes to the Deity, oblige us to believe that he has created nothing which he did not want — nothing which has frustrated his expectations. Before he exercised one act of creating power, he saw all the consequences of his creation, knowing then, as perfectly as now, and as per- fectly as he ever will know, all the results of felicity and wretchedness that would ever be realized in heaven, earth, and hell. And with all these before him, as the certain consequences of that constitution of things he was 13 290 GOD NO PLEASURE IN THE about to establisli, and that creative energy lie was about to exert, still he resolved, that under such a constitution, such a creation should rise. He spake and it was done. Having acted with previous knowledge of all the results of his actions, nothing that occurs can be contrary to his expectations. So far, enlightened Eeason coincides with the Word of God, and is satisfied with it. But here they sepa- rate. Not that they are contrary to each other ; but that reason has reached her limits, beyond which she can never pass, except under the guidance of revelation, and she must trust that revelation henceforth at every step, or wander in darkness and error. Because God is the author of all creatures that exist, and knew, before their existence, all the results of it, we are sometimes apt to conceive of him as the sole author of all the miseries of his creatures. And as his power is sufficient to accom- plish all his purposes, we draw the conclusion, that if we perish, it must be because he is pleased with our de- struction. Now, I wish, 1. To convince you that we have no right to draw any such conclusion. 2. To show you where such a principle of reasoning and drawing inferences would lead. 8. To name to you the considerations which should correct us. 1. We have no right to conclude that the Almighty is the sole cause of the miseries of his creatures, from the fact that he is the Author of their existence, that he knew, before he created, all the consequences of his creating, and that none of his expectations and purposes are frustrated. DEATH OF THE WICKED. 291 The error of this method of reasoning lies in the in- ferring of consequeiices from principles that are unknown. "What are the principles? The purposes of God. What are the consequences ? God's pleasure in the sinner's destruction, and the sinner's unhappiness that he is subject to the purposes of God. But who is acquainted with these principles ? Who has fathomed the eternal purposes of Jehovah ? Who has known the mind of the Lord, or^ being his counsellor^ has taught him? The purposes of God are beyond our reach. We know he has his purposes and will accomplish them, because he has told us so, and because they are necessary to the perfection of his character. But who knows what they are ? Who has plunged into their depths ? Who has traced their arrangements, their combination, their extent ? Who will undertake to spread them out before us, and tell us how they affect us ? They are placed beyond our reach. They are deep in themselves, and obscurely taught in the Scriptures, and no man can boast of understanding their nature, their combination, the mode of their application. How, then, can any man presume to draw conclusions from them. (We never do. Oar hearers should not.) They are premises which a man does not know. He knows only in the general. He is ignorant of their nature, their power, their com- bination, and he can tell of no instance of their ap- plication, except those which God has taught him. What kind of logic then, must he use who will draw inferences from such unknown premises ? Tell me in what method the Purposes of God apply to the ruin of a sinner, and I will consent, for ever afterwards, that you make the application. Unfold to me the Divine Pur- poses — tear away the clouds and darkness that are round 292 GOD NO PLEASURE IN THE ohout the Deitj — "iinseal the secret book of God, never yet read by the bigbest serapbim ia glory ; and then I will confess your right to reason from the purposes of God. All that we know of the purposes of God is general. There is nothing special or particular in our knowledge. Our conclusions, therefore, must not run beyond our premises. Our knowledge of God's purposes is not so particular that we can tell how they affect any action or any result. God has not told us ; and when men have attempted to tell, they have always become bewildered. We have no right, therefore, to attempt to determine particular questions by all that we know of these obscure general principles. When we attempt it, we are wield- ing an instrument too heavy for us, whose edge and temper are unknown. It was made, not for an arm like ours, but for the arm of the Omnipotent One. Before we can apply the purjooses of God to particular things — to our conduct, our destiny, or the pleasure of the Deity — we miist know the method of application ; we must know the particular character of the purposes ; we must be able to understand hoiu they affect the par- ticulars. Before I can draw safe conclusions from the principles of science, I must know what these principles are ; I must understand the manner in which they apply to the subject; and, theirefore, I must understand their nature and their combinations. But no man has such knowledge of the purposes of God. And, consequently, no man has any right to make such an application of them as implies this knowledge. No man has any right to conclude that God has any pleasure in the death of the wicked, on the ground that his purposes are at all opposed to their salvation. This is the first thing we proposed to show. DEATH OF THE WICKED. 293 2. The second was to show to what results the prin- ciple of reasonings against which we contend would inevitably conduct us. If it is lawful for us to infer, from the purposes of God, that he has pleasure in the destruction of the wicked, then it is lawful for us, on the same principle, to infer that he has pleasure in that wickedness itself, which leads to destruction. For what is the principle on which the first inference is made? It is simply this — that because God is the author of every being that exists, and every thing that results from that existence, he must be the sole cause of all the miseries of his creatures, and, conse- quently (as he has every thing in his own way), must have pleasure in the destruction of the wicked. But the wickedness which ends in misery is as much a result of his having formed his creatures, as is the misery itself And, consequent^, if he is pleased with all the results of his creating power, he is pleased with the luichedness of men. The principle will apply here as well as to their destruction ; and you may say, therefore, that be- cause God is the author of every being that exists, and every thing that results from that existence, he must be the sole cause of all the wickedness of his creatures, and, consequently (as he has every thing in his own way), must have pleasure in the wickedness of the wicked ! There is no avoiding this argument. If God must have pleasure in the death of the wicked, because he foresaw it^ and yet determined to create them, he must, for the same reason, have pleasure in their iniquity I We may conclude, therefore, on this principle of reasoning, that God is pleased with sin 1 This is the result of attempt- ing to reason from the secret purposes of God. Again. The design of the argument we are combat- 294 GOD NO PLEASURE IN THE ting, is to prove that men do not destroy themselves. The argument itself is, that such destruction is agreeable to God's purposes, and, therefore, is unavoidable — it was predestinated. But if such destruction is agreeable to God's purposes, and is, therefore, unavoidable, then, on the very same principle of reasoning, the guilt which incurs it is agreeable to God's purposes, and is, therefore, unavoidable. We may conclude, therefore, on this prin- ciple, that there is no such thing as accountahiUti/- — all the conduct of men being the result of an unavoidable necessity. Yea, therefore, we may conclude also, that there is no such thing as sin, all the conduct of men being the result of an unavoidable necessity ! We may call, therefore, the incendiary with his torch, the drunk- ard with his bowl, and the assassin with his steel, as innocent and pure as the spirits that never fell ! These are other results of attempting to reason from the secret purposes of God. The inevitable consequence, therefore, of this method of reasoning would be to destroy all idea of moral char- acter among men ; and, consequently, to prove him as pure, who is suffering for his crimes, as he who is honored for his virtues. That man who excuses his irreligion by the argument of God's purposes, has no right to resent an insult or resist an injury, to the inconvenience of its perpetrators. How could they avoid it? This is an- other result to which this style of argument would lead. It would overthrow all human law, and all common sense. 3. The consideration Avhich should correct this error is, the narrow limits of our understandings. We ought to bear in mind, that there are depths into which it is dangerous to plunge ourselves. The purposes of God DEATH OF THE WICKED. 295 he has never unfolded to us. He has nowhere shown us how far thej extend specifically — how they apply, nor traced for us their combinations. He has not told us to receive them as our rule of action, to employ them to justify our conduct, or to measure our innocence or our criminality. The connection which these purposes of the Deit}^ have with what he is constantly bringing to pass, is a connection wholly unknown to us: God has not told us what it is, nor given us sagacity sufiicient to discover it. And here is the primary error of attempt- ing to draw conclusions from the Divine purposes. AYe are pretending to employ in our reasoning a connection of which we are utterly ignorant. We have not the least knowledge of the nature of the connection which exists between the purposes of Jehovah and the actions of his creatures. And yet, we are apt to think and talk about this connection as if it were a thing we well understood — as if it were just the common link which joins causes and effects. Let the recollection of our incapacities — our limited understandings — our small degree of knowledge, correct our error. And what, as ministers, we say to other people, we are willing to apply to ourselves. If it is Avrong for the hearer to argue his innocence from the purposes of God, we confess it is no less erroneous for the preacher to attempt, from these purposes, to prove that his argument is false. The attempt has been made a thousand times, and a thousand times it has failed. Should any assert that his impiety is not his fault, and that his condemna- tion would be not from any fault of his own, because it would be the consequence of the purposes of the Deity, and so connected with these purposes, that he could not avoid it; we confess our inability to show directly 296 GOD NO PLEASURE IN THE from tliose purposes that lie is mistaken. We have other ways of showing his mistake ; but we confess our ina- bility to show it in this way. We could show, in this way, that his argument was not conclusive, and that is all ; we could not prove from these purposes the opposite doctrine. We shall see pretty soon in what manner this error might be corrected, when we show, from other sources, that the pleasure or purposes of the Almighty are not the reason of the sinner's ruin. But we know so little of the eternal counsels of God, that we are unable, from that kind of knowledge, to affirm what is or what is not their influence. To have the power to make such an affirmation, we must attain a perfect knowledge of the purposes of God ; we must know all their combinations ; we must unfold to ourselves the manner of their influ- ence ; and then we must place them side by side with the dispositions of the sinner, and compare them with those dispositions so exactly as to prove by that com- parison the precise nature and extent of their influence. But if we should attempt to do this, we should be run- ning into the same error in reasoning of which those are guilty who reason from the purposes of God to show their innocence, and the pleasure of God in their ruin. This error consists, as we have just seen, in reasoning from unknown premises. We will take, therefore, to ourselves the caution we gave to them. We will confess we can not fathom the purposes of God. Standing by the darkness that girds the throne of the Eternal, we will confess our eye is too dim to penetrate the cloud, and pass onward to the glories that lie beyond. Contemplating the infinity of the Divine Mind, we will receive the rebuke of our little- ness: It is as high as heaven^ what canst thou do? deeper DEATH OF THE WICKED. 297 than hell, what canst thou know ? But we will never mourn the darkness of the cloud that pavilions the habitation of God, as long as the bow of promise sweetly rests upon its bosom, and, spanning heaven, extends its covenant arch down to earth to embrace it. Bat though we are incapable of unfolding the Divine Purposes, and proving thereby, that the Deity has no pleasure in the destruction of the wicked, and that these purposes do not render sin and death unavoidable, yet we have other methods of showing this. He who alone knows perfectly those purposes and the dispositions of the wicked, has told us, and we have, therefore, the strongest of all possible evidence. If he had not told us, we confess our utter inability to have ever proved, from all we know of these purposes, that they do not violate our liberty, and render sin and its eternal punishment una- voidable. But he has told us they do not ; and if we will not credit his testimony, what will we credit? 1. He has told us, in the language of the text: As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the iviched. If the purposes of God were of such a nature as to compel the wicked to his wickedness, and thus bring him to eternal death unavoidably, this declaration could not be true. 2. He has told us so in those explicit declarations which charge our destruction upon ourselves : Oh, Israel^ thou hast destroyed thyself. NoW; if the Divine purposes forced men to sin, or placed insurmountable obstacles in the way of their salvation, I can conceive of no sense in which this declaration could be true. 3. He has told us so in those numerous passages which expressly declare, (what our text implies,) that is, he is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come 13* 298 GOD NO PLEASUKE IN THE to repentance. Now, if the purposes of God were of sucTi a nature as to prove the pleasure of God in the destruc- tion of the wicked, we might change this declaration of Holy Writ ; we might affirm, he loould not that all men should be saved ; he is willing that some should perish, but not that all should come to repentance. But who dare thus trifle with the Bible? Let God he true^ hut every man a liar. 4r. He has told us so in those tender expostulations and earnest entreaties, which he employs to win sinners to himself. Turn ye, turn ye^ for why luill ye die f is only one among a thousand passages which express the same tender sentiment. Now, did the purposes of the Deity force the sinner — did they confine him in the bondage of corruption — did they prohibit success in attaining the favor of God, (as some of you sometimes affirm;) where would be the sincerity of God in calling him to iurn^ while he himself had rendered it an impossible thing ? 5. He has told us the same thing in those lamentations which he utters over the doom of the wicked. Oh that my people had hearkened unto me! Oh,, Jerusalem^ Jeru- salem ! Now, how unworthy of the Deity would such utterances be, if he had pleasure in the fact that they had not hearkened unto him, so much as to have rendered it impossible by his immutable purposes that they should ? 6. He has told us the same thing when he calls us to contemplate those attributes with which he clothes him- self — attributes of mercy, forbearance, long-suffering and tender compassion. Take one of them, his long-suffering,, as an example. He exalts his mercy, by naming the long-suffering which continues the offer of it : The Lord God^ gracious, merciful^ long-suffering. So he speaks of himself. But now, if the purposes of God prohibit re- DEATH OF THE WICKED. 299 pentance, how can lie be any more merciful by exercis- ing long-suffering witli a sinner, and giving liim year after year to repent in, than if he exercised no such forbear- ance, but cut him off the moment he began to sin? More : if the predestination of God prohibits repentance, then the long-suffering of God seems to be directly the o])posite to mercy ; for surely, by granting a wicked man three-score years and ten, while all the time he prohibits his repentance, he is only forcing him to enhance his wickedness, and ripen for a deeper condemnation. Were this the case, long-suffering would be the most dreadful attribute of God ; and you ought to pray God — Smite me now ! Wake thy thunderbolts of vengeance ! Execute now on my devoted head the penalty of my guilt, before my unavoidable sins have prepared me for a deeper hell! Now, in all these ways (and we could name a thousand others), God has told us that his purposes do not violate our liberty, and never can show that he has any j^leasure at all in the death of the wicked. Let us believe, my hearers, what he has told us. Let us not pretend to reason from the secret purposes of God. Those pur- poses are not the rule of our conduct or the measure of our innocence. They rest with God. They are the rules which he has been pleased to establish for his own con- duct, not for ours. They are only his determination to govern his universe, just as he does govern it. With God let us leave them. He has not so definitely taught us what they are, and how they affect us, that we have any security at all when we take them as the basis of our reasonings. We have other premises, from which we may reason securely, because they are definitely known. But when we plunge ourselves into those ob- 300 COD NO FLEAS UBE IN THE sciirities where the Bible slieds no light, our way is dark- ness, and commonly its end is error. Let ns confine ourselves within the limits that God has assigned to ns. Let ns believe that God has his purposes, because he has told us so, and because they are necessary to the perfec- tion of his existence ; and let ns be willing to preach, and willing to hear of these purposes all that the sacred Scriptures contain. But let us not pretend to understand the connection of these purposes with our conduct or our destiny ; for this God has not told us. We are left in ignorance of many points respecting these purposes. Their combinations, their efficiency upon the universe, the mode of their application, are all beyond us. Let not the preacher, therefore, vainly imagine that he can so unfold them as to silence every objection, or satisfy every honest difficulty ; and let not the hearer, with the same audacious vanity, suppose that he knows enough about the purposes of God to prove that the wicked must unavoidably perish as they do, because God has phas- ure in their death. Let the preacher silence objection and solve difficulty by employing other truths — truths more fully revealed and more accurately understood ; by pronouncing the language of this text : As I Uve^ saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked ; by saying to the sinner, Thou hast destroyed thyself. And let the hearer believe it. It is the direct testimony of Him who can not lie. How much more worthy of credit than those foolish conclusions which men foolishly gather from premises unknown. This text is a vindication of God's character. He comes down to meet the prejudices and difficulties of sinful men, to teach them that their ideas about the DEATH OP THE WICKED. 801 pleasure of God in purposing tlieir eternal death, are altogether false. He announces their falsehood in the most emphatic manner : As I Uve^ saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the luicked. As Hive: he knew what difficulties would perplex our minds ; he knew how often the idea would intrude itself into the heart of a sinner, that the benevolence of God toward him is very questionable. He knew what a gloomy use Satan would make of it to bind the captive in his chains. He, therefore, utters the declaration in the most solemn style: As I live, saith the Lord God, I have 7io j^leasure in the death of the wicked. He would convince every wicked man that he has not, in any way, on any account, the least pleasure in his death. He would drive that gloomy opinion from every mind that ever dares to entertain it. He would break that bond of Satan, and let the captive go free. Of this whole subject, then, you may make specific ap- plications. There are those who have such ideas of God as to keep them from repentance. Through the devices of Satan and the deceitfulness of sin, they are led to think of God's purposes as an apology for their courge ; they say, if they are on the road to ruin, it is God's pleasure. But what daring impiety is this! They give to the Deity the most unlovely of all characters ! They turn his benevolence into malignity, and his long-suffering into a trap and snare ! They dare to lift up the voice of a worm of the dust, and contradict the very oath of God ; they say he has pleasure in the death of the wicked ! Let this affirmation of God rebuke them ! There are those who have sometimes struggled against the power of sin within them, impelled by fears of the 802 GOD NO PLEASURE IN THR wrath to come, but wliose attempts, few, perhaps, and feeble, have not been successful. Hence they conclude there is something in the purposes of God which hinders their deliverance. They are not (like the others we just mentioned) accustomed to make the purposes of God their apology for sin, and the cause of their feared con- demnation. But still, the purposes of God are their stumbling-block. They imagine that they should long since have been Christians had not God's purposes op- posed them. It would be barbarous, inhuman, to utter a harsh word to such persons. We pity them. We could weep over them. We know the deep misery of their situation, for we have been in it ; and may the God of all mercy de- liver every such soul from the bitterness of its bitter bondage ! And if there is one such in this assembly, let me tell you the idea which afflicts you is all delusion ; it is a device of the Devil to keep you in your sins. God has no pleasure in your destruction. His purposes are not opposed to your salvation. They offer no violence to your liberty. They constitute no obstacle to your religion and your eternal life. Let me expostulate Avith you. Tell me, my dear fellow- sinner, my immortal companion, hastening with me to the tomb, how do you know that the purposes of God oppose 3^ou ? Show me in what manner they affect you ? Point me to the connection between one sinojle desisfn of Deity and one single instance of your unhappiness? Prove to me that the purposes of God have^ in any in- stance, so applied to you as to become the least obstacle to your salvation? Do this, and I will weep tears of blood over you, and blot for ever from my creed the arti- cle that seals your doom ! But no — you can do none of DEATH OF THE WICKED. 803 tliese things. Sucli an opposition, such a manner, such a connection, such an application, can never be shown. Then why will you believe it ? It is unsustainecl by the least evidence. It is opposed to the very oath of God. Let this oath correct you. God knows better than you do, and his word assures you you are mistaken. Cast aside, then, this gloomy delusion. Watch and pray. Seek, and struggle, and agonize. Be assured the pur- poses of God do not oppose you in your attempts, for he has no pleasure in your being lost, but in your being saved. There are those who are sensible of their sins, but who fear to approach the Lord God, lest there should be something in his purposes opposed to their acceptance and salvation. This is a fear which the great deceiver would foster, to keep such a sinner at a distance from God. And this is a fear which the declaration of the text ought for ever to dispel. Ko sinner, who desires to be recon- ciled to God in Christ, ever finds the purposes of God opposed to him. Great and long-continued as may be his sins, God is ready to forgive. Let him not despair on account of their number or their enormity. Let him count them all over — let him weigh their aggi^avation — let him tell against how many monitions he has offended, how many cautions he has abused, how many warnings he has slighted, how many sermons have been lost upon him; let him swell the catalogue till memory has reached her limits, and weigh his crimes till thought is lost in the wilderness-account ; and, after all, it will be true that the purposes of God are no obstacle to salva- tion — he has no j)l^asure in tlie death of the wicked. Perish who will, the character of God will be for ever untarnished and lovely. He desires the happiness, but 804 GOD NO PLEASURE IN THE DEATH OF THE WICKED. not the damnation of sinners. He does not say to the wretcli delighting in liis iniquity, It is my purpose that impels you to it. He does not say to the once inquiring, but now careless or lingering sinner, You failed, because my purpose must be accomplished. He does not say to the anxious, trembling mortal, now asking what must I do to be saved ? — You must perish, because your sins are so great, and my purpose is fixed. No. On the con- trary, he opens the gates of heaven ; he offers the blood of Christ ; he sends the Holy Spirit ; he tells of mercy, forgiveness, and free grace ; and, to take out of the mouth of the lingering sinner his last apology, he records here his oath, As I live, I have no 2)leasure in the death of the wicked. It is not his decree that fastens you in sin, and pro- hibits your repentance. It is not his decree that bars heaveu, and denies grace. It was not his decree that dug hell, and kindled the fire that is 7iever quenched. No^ sinner, no, no I The chains that bind you are of your own forging. The grace you need is freely offered. And the hell into which you are plunging is kindled up only by the cherished wickedness which God entreats you to abandon ! Hear — hear this declaration of the Lord God ! He has no pleasure in your deoih. Let neither earth nor hell persuade you that the merciful God would have you perish! Cast aside your irrational conclu- sions! Believe the testimony of the Eternal! Break the enchantment of your gloomy conclusions, and an- chor your eternal hope in the ocean of God's mercy. You may be saved — ^j^ou can be saved. For the Lord God has no pleasure in the death of the loiched. Do not destroy thyself (Soir iia llea^ur^ iit tlje §m\\} of tlje SEicfut (SHOWN" FKOM THE NATURE OF RELIGION.) As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked. — Ezekiel, xxxiii. 11. ITTE said, on a former occasion, when we addressed '^' you from these words, that there were, with some people, three matters of difficulty in religion, against which this text is uttered : — I. The Purposes of the Deity. II. The Nature of Eeligion. in. The Condition of Man. From all these sources an unbeliever is sometimes accustomed to draw conclusions unfavorable to his sal- vation. The partial view he takes, as well as the erroneous opinions he entertains, is apt to sustain the misfortune of his conclusions. He beholds, in the pur- poses of the Deity, as he believes or half-believes, an insuperable obstacle to his salvation. In the Nature of Eeligion — that religion which the Bible teaches him is necessary to his salvation — he finds difficulties which he is unable, as he imagines, to overcome. The condition in which he finds himself, as a sinner, is made to plead 806 GOD KO PLEASURE IN THE his excuse for neglect of salvation, and speaks to him a comfortable solace, even while he continues in his sins. These are his difficulties — these the sources of his objec- tion — these his errors. To the first of these, the Purposes of God, we have already attended. The second, the Nature of Eeligion, occupies us in the present hour. Those whose minds have surmounted one difficulty in religion often meet with another. Driven from one stronghold of error, we are apt to betake ourselves to another. Such creatures we are. One mistake is cor- rected, but we are not safe. One delusion is dispelled, but another delusion rises before us. Thus we are beset with hinderances. When we have learnt that the Pur- poses of the Deity do not infringe upon our liberty, and oblige us to be lost, the Nature of Eeligion comes up to lend to our mistake a lame apology. Nor can we be surprised at these frequent difficul- ties, when we find them in our own mind, or in the minds of other people. "What is there that is valuable, whose acquisition is not attended with some trouble? The riches you covet cost you many a day of laborious diligence, and many a weary pain. The learning you value has been acquired only by laborious study, care- ful attention, diligence, and self-denial. There is scarcely any thing of value, whose acquisition is perfectly easy and unattended with difficulty. Difficulties will arise, either from the nature of the object sought, or the im- perfection of the creature that seeks. It IS in the latter method that the difficulties of our salvation assail us. Our obstacles lie in our own nature — in that inherent wickedness which we love to foster, and are unwilling to eradicate. DEATH OF THE WICKED. 807 But, if we are inclined, after all, to murmur tliat Religion — a thing so indispensable — is beset with so many difficulties, let us hush the murmur with two reflec- tions — the one humbling to our pride, the other com- plimentary to our nature. The first one is, that the difficulties which beset us in our attempts after religion are mostly, if not altogether, placed there by ourselves, through our own wickedness and folly. The other is, that that very characteristic of our nature which renders us capable of religion, or of sensibility to its difficulties, is the very characteristic which distinguishes us from the lower order of creatures. Our Creator, in forming us such as we are, has given us an exaltation. We are not created merely capable of enjoyment ; we are created for attaining it. "We are not formed to be the mere passive recipients of good ; but formed with a far more exalted nature ; formed with capabilities for seeking and attaining good. And when we complain that all needful religion is not bestowed upon us as a free gift, without any efibrts or attention of our own, we are, in reality, complaining of our high station in the scale of existence. God requires of us a religion suitable to our nature ; and by it he would lead us to excellences of duty and of enjoyment, of which that nature is capable. Had he enjoined upon us no such religion, we should not have in prospect any higher kind of felicity than that of which the brute is suscepti- ble. And if we still complain that we have so much to do in the religion that God requires, let us remember that this activity is absolutely to the enjoyment of that felicity which religion proposes. We are moral beings, and religion treats us as such. We are moral beings, and religion rewards us as such. In the nature of 808 GOD NO PLEASURE IN THE things, it is wliollj impossible (as I apprehend) that one should be the mere passive recipient of the enjoyment tliat religion proposes to man. And if you complain of this state in which you are placed, then envy the brute — covet the enjoyment of the reptile in his dust — take from the beast his stall — and envy the stupidity of the ox or the oyster. Still, men are accustomed to render a sort of apology for continuing in their unbelief, by alleging the difficul- ties of religion. And we are not surprised to find it so. It is the very nature of criminality to excuse itself; and you know the religion of the Bible supposes all men to be criminal — guilty before God. You can charge iniquity upon scarcely any being deserving the charge, who will not strive to invent some apology for it. And though the apology may not be expected fully to justify, 3^et it is relied upon at least partially to excuse. There is but one exception — that is, when the transgressor is either reclaimed, or so powerfully convinced of his need of reformation that he fears to add to that necessity by denying it. Always, when the evil of sin is 7iot deeply felt, there is a secret, if not a manifest disposition to pal- liate it and apologize for it. And I am persuaded that if we should thoroughly examine our own hearts, we should find this disposition often influencing us when we little suspect it. We are not to be surprised, therefore, if we find men alleging the difficulties of the religion that God enjoins upon us as a kind of excuse for the neglect of it. If they do not suppose these difficulties will justify them, they have a sort of secret hope that they will render them more excusable, and relieve them from any punishment. Here, then, is one reason why such apologies are uttered — to soothe fear by pacifying con- DEATH OF THE WICKED. 309 science. There always is, and must be, a kind of torment- ing fear attending known and acknowledged sin. And tke sin is palliated to diminish the torment of the fear. Another reason is found in the power of pride. There is something humiliating in the feeling of guilt. Guilt is degrading; and every guilty creature feels that moral beings look upon him as more unworthy and mean by reason of being criminal. He can not bear the contempt (and perhaps can not bear the pity) of those who behold him. Hence the unconscious blush of even the uncon- trite culprit at the bar ; and hence even innocence, sus- pected of evil, is compelled to wear the burning blush of shame. And, therefore, both are disposed to plead some apology. Another reason is found in the disquietudes of con- scious sin. Sin is a great tormentor of our peace. When we feel ourselves guilty, it is not in our nature to be un- disturbed by it. The Author of our existence has stamped upon our soul itself this testimony to his own holiness, and his abhorrence of sin. We may turn away from it — we may forget it — we may obscure it and cover it over ; still it is tliere^ living in the hand-writing of the Creator and can not be blotted out. Conscience is as immortal as the soul. And though for a time she may sleep, yet she never dies ; and when in the light of eternity she shall unroll her scroll, the record of even her slumbering moments will be found to wear a most fear- ful accuracy. But, to avoid the torment of her present reproaches, men are accustomed to make some apology for their present wickedness. This apology may com- fort for a moment, and we render it instinctively. But when it is torn away from the heart, our unhappiness returns. And I suppose in this consists much of the 310 GOD NO PLEASURE IN THE supreme infelicity of devils and lost spirits. They are unable to quiet conscience with an excuse. Their guilt, in burning lines, is drawn upon the spirit! Nothing can hide it from their view. No sophistry can conceal it, and no apology excuse ! How much, better to feel it now, than vainly lament it then. These are some of the reasons whicli lead men to excuse themselves. And when, by false reasonings, they can not force the Purposes of God to plead for them, they bring in the Nature of Eeligion to perform this ofi&ce, and pretend that the religion whicli the Bible imposes is so dif&cult that tbey can not attain it and be saved. They will not, perhaps, boldly contradict this text, but they will speak in such a manner of the religion of the Bible, of tbe obscurity of its instructions, of the multi- tude of its mysteries, tbe absurdity of its doctrines, the difficulty of its duties, the rigidity of its morals, that they almost persuade themselves to believe that, althougli the decree of the Deity may not have bound them over to destruction, his religion has. But now, in the face of all these prejudices, let us vindicate the religion of the Gospel. Let us show that it contains nothing to contradict our text, and by its difficulty to prove that men do not destroy themselves. We are far from saying there is no difficulty in relig- ion. We only contend there is nothing insuperable. Some have sadly erred on this point, when they have tried to vindicate religion from the aspersions of unbelief. They have made it more easy than the Gospel makes it ; and while they supposed they were smoothing the path to heaven, were really widening the road to hell! There are difficulties in religion. We would have you all be- lieve it. We would not persuade you it is so easy a DEATH OF THE WICKED. 811 matter, that a few moments' attention will be abundantly sufficient. We dare not tell you that you need devote to this subject only the last energies of an exhausted body, and the last sighs of an expiring life. But there are no difficulties which are insurmountable. There are no obstacles which may not be overcome. There is nothing in the nature of religion to justify your gloomy opinion that you can not be saved — that, somehow, relig* ion lies beyond your reach. What is there, then, in the religion which God pro- poses — (not in his anger to bind you over to hell, but in his compassion to guide you to heaven) — what is there in it, that makes it an impossible thing that you should attain it and be saved ? Take any item you will. I. Do you allege its mysteries ? Do you say it con- tains and claims to contain many things mysterious, of which you know not what to think ? Then let us ex- amine this. Its mysteries perplex you. But what have you to do with its mysteries? Are you required to understand them ? No, not at all — you have simply to believe them ; that is, to believe what is recorded concerning them. Are you required to regulate your practices by them ? ISTot an item, not a single item, any further than they are plainly revealed, and have thereby lost (so far) the character of mysteries. But 3^ou say you would have no mysteries in religion — ■ you would have every thing plainly revealed — and you are doubtful of a religion which contains any thing high and mysterious. Before replying to this objection, I will only say it deserves no reply. It contains the im* 312 GOD NO PLEASURE IN THE piety of pointing out to God what kind of a religion lie ought to have given to man ! This is impudent daring I But we are vindicating religion, and will therefore answer, 1. If a religion required of me to practice upon its mysteries, the meaning of which I did not understand so far as my practice must extend, I should be doubtful of its truth. My mind is so constituted, that I always re- quire to understand what is the meaning of the conduct which I am commanded to pursue. And I could receive no religion as coming from my Creator which did not agree with this original principle which my Creator has implanted in the soul. The reasons for that conduct I can dispense with. If God speaks, I confess I ought to obey, whether he tells me reasons or not. The highest of all possible reasons for believing any thing or doing any thing, is simply this — ^God has said so. 2. I confess the mysteries of a religion would render me doubtful of its truth, if they were contradictory to reason. I never could believe that true which contra- dicted the reason which God has given to me. I avow my readiness to receive a religion which contains many things wholly superior to the highest efforts of unaided reason — wholly above it, beyond — ^but I can receive nothing which I know to contradict it, and hence, no- thing which contradicts my senses. I require my religion to agree so far with my nature as not to show that it can not proceed from Him who is the Author of my na- ture. And if it contained that which I could prove to be contrary to reason, I could not but reject it. At the same time my religion might contain many things so mysterious, that I could not prove them agreeable to reason, though nothing which I could prove contrary to it. DEATH OF THE W ICKED. 813 3. I confess that mysteries would render me doubtful of a religion, if its mysteries were favorable to immorali- ity and vice. Nothing could convince me that the Author of my existence looked with approbation upon vice, especially when I behold his standing testimony against it, written out in that wretchedness to which I see it leads. Yice is ruinous and degrading. The attri- butes with which my mind is compelled to clothe the Deity, oblige me to believe that he would enjoin no re- ligion productive necessarily of such effects : on the con- trary, that a religion coming from him would have a tendency to reform and exalt. If, therefore, the mys- teries of a religion were favorable to immorality, I could not receive it. Here, then, are three classes of mysteries, any one of which (to say the least) would render me doubtful of the truth of a religion, and constitute an insurmountable difficulty to my receiving it. In compliment to skepti- cism and infidelity we will add a 4th. I confess, then, I should doubt the divinity of that religion which contained such mysteries that I could reject the religion and not involve myself in still greater difficulties. Prove to me that the difficulties of infi- delity are not still greater than the difficulties of Chris- tianit}^, with all its mysteries, and I promise to you never will I attempt again to persuade you to be Christians. For, by the constitution of my mind, I must believe that the Deity could never propose to man a religion, the re- ception of which would involve him in greater difficul- ties and uncertainties than the rejection of it ; and if the religion is not from God, of course I could not re- ceive it. In all these four cases of mystery, I confess I should 14 314 GOD IS'O PLEASURE IN THE not be able to become a believer. But there is nothing like any one of these cases in the religion of the Bible. Still, you would have a rehgion that contained no mystery. Let me tell you, then, it would be a religion which you could never receive. Could you receive a re- ligion as coming from God, which was manifestly dis- cordant with the works of Creation and Providence ? Must you not have the God of your religion and the God of Creation correspond? You allow it, and so will every man of any respectable intelligence and candor. But the works of Creation and Providence embody many mysterious things. Every where we are meeting with things we can not unfold — depths we can not fathom. Tell me why is that young man cut down in the vigor of life, while the aged is spared ? Why is the house of the widow burnt up, while that of the strong man (able to erect another) stands safe by the side of it ? Not to trouble you with examples, let me say to you, that if your religion contained nothing mysterious, 3^ou would reject it : you vv^ould say it did not agree with the aspect of Providence and Creation. You would say, that when God speaks to you in creation, his language brings up that which is mysterious : looking at your own frame you would exclaim, I am fearfully and luonderfully made. You would say that when God s|)eaks to you in Provi- dence, his language brings up that which is mj^sterious : looking at the bereaved, (for example.) you would ex- claim, why should the mother weep for her darling daughter, and the father live to build the sepulcher of his sons ? You would demand, therefore, that when God speaks to you in religiou, his language shall sometimes bring up that which is mysterious — that it must sound like the same voice which speaks to you in nature, and have DEATH OF THE WICKED. 315 at least a general correspondence witli the language of Creation and Providence. And if it did not so corre- spond you would be obliged to reject it ; you could not worship one God in nature and another in religion. For immortality, for the great and amazing matters of an eternity to come, for the unseen spirit that taber- nacles within you, soon to be out on the fields of a spirit's existence, you can not only afford to have God more high and mysterious, but your mind demands to have him more mysterious and high above you, than he is on these fields of matter, and for the little lapse of your three-score years and ten. Religion is a deeper system than nature, reaches further, lasts longer. You 7ieed to have him here more grand, mysterious and amazing. True reason, therefore, instead of being staggered at a religion containing mysterious things, is compelled to reject a religion which contains none. And, after all, what are these mysteries? They are not things needful for us to understand — desirable to be known — perhaps not things which, from our limited minds, we could understand if they were unfolded before us. Who can understand God to perfection ? There is nothing, then, in the darknesses of our relig- ion, which ought to trouble you ; nothing that excuses you from embracing it ; or proves by its difl&culties that God has any pleasure in your death. II. You are troubled with the obscurity of its doc- trines. You can not embrace them. There are some things hard to he understood^ which you are required to believe ; and some things, you say, apparently inconsist- ent with one another; and this renders Christianity so perplexing to you, that to require you to accept it, you 816 GOD KO PLEASURE IN THE think is little less than to delight in your ruin. Let me answer this. I grant that the Bible contains some things hard to be un- derstood^ ivhich they that are unlearned and unstable do wrest, as they do also the other Scriptures^ unto their own destruction. But every thing necessary for us to know is fully reveal- ed, as far as it is necessary that we should know it. There is an extent, indeed, to most, if not to all the doc- trines of Christianity, which we are unable to measure ; for there are connections, and combinations, and applica- tions too numerous for our limited powers of mind. But the fact which we are to receive is fully set before us; the doctrine itself is clearly taught ; and we are, therefore, acquainted with it as far as necessary for us. The object of the instructions of our Bible is our sanc- tification ; and in giving us instruction, God has pursued that mode best adapted to promote our sanctification. It might gratify our curiosity, and perhaps our pride, to have the deep things of God more fully unfolded to us. But it would not advance our holiness. Indeed, we should find ourselves injured by having these deep things presented as objects of study and necessary knowledge. Suppose the Word of God contained a full illustration of all those abstruse points which so often trouble you ; suppose it revealed to you the reason of every act of God — unfolded to you the whole counsels of the God- head respecting our world — gave you the rule by which you could trace out every thing mysterious — and left out nothing for you to ask ; what an immense volume your Bible would become ! You could not lift it ! Your life would be too short to read it ! much less would your life suffice to understand it ! Even now, though our Eevela- tion records nothing useless, how extremely imperfect is DEATH OF THE WICKED. 817 that understanding of it wliich the best of us ever attain I Were we to enter upon the study of those deep things of God which he has mercifully concealed from us, and were it needful for us to comprehend them in order to be saved, we should at once sit down in despair ! How much time, and attention, and careful study it requires for us to attain any considerable knowledge of an earthly science ; even with all the assistance which the best books and the best teachers can give us ! We are forced to labor year after year, and yet how small is the portion of knowledge that we attain. And where is the perfect master of even the simplest science ? Where is the pro- fessor who will pledge himself to solve any problem in his favorite department that I will propose to him? pledge himself to clear up any obscurity that I will name, and satisfy the longings of my utmost curiosity ? Should any one avow himself adequate to such a task, you would smile at his conceit, and say that his pre- sumption was equaled by nothing but the stupidity which allowed it. It takes much time and study to un- derstand things intricate and perplexed. And if we are unable, in the few days we have to spend, to attain a per- fect knowledge of earthly science ; how should we be able, in the few years we stay on earth, to attain a per- fect knowledge of those eternal truths which God has wisely and mercifully concealed from us ? This, proba- bly, will be a work for eternity. Here it may be com- menced. God has furnished us the means for knowing all we need to know here, in order to secure our salva- tion. The rest he has wisely concealed. Had he called us to plunge into the deep things of God — to study the infinite combinations and dependencies of things, and lose ourselves in intricacies which it may take us age after 818 GOD NO PLEASUEE IN THE age of our eternity to compreliend, what time should we have left for the common duties of life ? what moment could we spare for the duties of charity to the poor, for the consolations we owe to the sick, and for the relief our religion sends us to carry to the distressed ? Indeed, what hour could we devote to our own hearts, to study their dispositions and eradicate their evil propensities ? It is of God's goodness that he has called us to study only those things which tend to promote our holiness and comfort, and thus prepare us to study more deeply the world to come. If he has taught us any doctrine, he has told us all in relation to it that would he of any avail for us to know. The fact we are taught. The manner of the fact would do us no good. Hence, God has concealed it. Every thing necessary to our present duty is placed before us. More might flatter our pride, but could not promote our piety. There is nothing, therefore, in the obscurity of our doc- trines which conflicts with our text. Our Kevelation on the darkest side wears the light of that glorious truth, that the Lord God has no pleasure in the death of the ivicked. III. It is worthy of remark, that Christla.n morality is extremely plain. All those things which concern our present and immediate conduct are not difficult to bo understood. It is only those things, the knowledge of which could do us no good, and the study of which (as it would draw us off from more important matters) would probably do us much hurt — it is only such things that are concealed from us. What we ought now to do, and how we ought now to feel toward God and toward man, are things too plain to be misunderstood. And if DEATH OF THE WICKED. 819 we still complain that our Revelation does not lead its further, let us liush tlie complaint with one reflection. It is this : that the religion of the Gospel is so practical and progressive, that the further we advance in it, the more perfect will the guidance of our revelation appear. The Bible will scatter the doubts of that man who will reduce the Bible to practice. It will unfold itself more and more to him. If he will not be 2^ forgetful hearer^ hut a doer of the word^ he will find it will lead him much further than at first he anticipated. The novice in Christianity may not be able to decide in advance those questions which concern one only who has been going on year after year in the growth oi grace andhioidedge of his Lord and Saviour. But let the novice in Christianity pass beyond his novitiate: following the light he now has, and performing the duties which now concern him, let him grow up to such an age and such a stature that those questions shall concern himself and he will find little difficulty in deciding them ; he will find the Bible a more perfect guide than he supposed. The cloud so dark at a distance will brighten as he approaches it. The light that tinged its edge will grow broader and bolder, till, all luminous with Deity, it pours a flood of light upon the path once so dimly seen. Let no man, then, complain of the obscurity of our doctrines. Let him put duty before curiosity or cap- tiousness, and reduce the doctrines to practice so far as they now concern him ; and, as he advances in religion, their obscurity will be done away as fast as his necessi- ties require it — and his pathway, like that of the just, will shine brighter and hrighier unto die perfect day. The manner, therefore, in which all Christian morality 320 GOD NO PLEASURE IN THE is taught, bears its full testimony that God has no pleasure in the death of the ivicJced. TV. There is self-denial in religion. Men often think it too severe. An idea of blended folly and sin floats around their mind, that if God had been sincerely desir- ous of their salvation, he would have made the way into heaven more easy, and sinners might have walked in it without finding it to cross their inclinations at every step. But whence does the necessity of this self-denial arise ? It arises wholly and in every part of it from sin. It is benevolence, therefore, which imposes it. I grant it is severe, (if you choose to employ such a word to describe it.) It is the plucking out of a right ez/e, and cutting off of a right hand. But for what purpose ? To preserve the ivhole man from hell. The necessity of it arises from corruption alone. We are required to deny ourselves in that which is sinful, and God requires this self-denial in love. He would lead us from sin, and thereby lead us from misery. Sin is the great destroyer of happiness, and God would have us forsake it. He would not have us forfeit heaven for the pleasures of sin for a season. He does not require us absolutely to hate ourselves, but, in reality, directly the contrary. He would have us love ourselves, and by a wise mortification, for a little time, of those appetites which plunge us into misery, he would have us secure to ow^qqIyq^ pleasures for evermore. This is the reason for the self-denial of religion. And what less would you have ? Would you have a religion proposed to you which should leave you at liberty to sin ? a religion which should impose no restraint ? a re- ligion which should plunge you into immorality and vice ? a religion which would multiply your crimes thick DEATH OF THE WICKED. 821 upon you, and promise to take you to heaven at last ? You would reject such a religion. You would say it was an absurdity — an impossibility. You would declare that a religion which left you to delight in sin here could not prepare you to delight in holiness hereafter ; you would affirm that such a religion could not make you relish heaven, and it would be no heaven to you. You would say it was unworthy of God and unworthy of yourself. You would say it was contrary to the con- stitution of things, for you could every where behold the proof, that the tendency of sin is to lead to misery. And much sooner would you accept the self-denial of the Gospel, and by a few acts of transient mortification pre- pare yourself for a superior felicity. V. But perhaps you are troubled with the humility of our religion. But why should this trouble you ? Does the requiring of this prove to you that the Deity would confine you in sin, taking pleasure in your destruction ? Then, what is humility? Is it a thing degrading to your nature ? Is it shocking, revolting to reason ? Is it any thing more than justice ? Not at all. It only demands of us to be just and reasonable ; to estimate ourselves according to truth — not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think. More than this. The very aim of this humility is to exalt us. It would have us put together the knowledge of what we are and the knowledge of what we are capable of being, and, by the comparison of the two, teach us to think meanly of what we are, and learn to aim at being more exalted, more use- ful, and more happy. God would have us humble, because he would have us just, and wise, and happy. Pride is not just. Pride is not wise. Pride is not happy. It is 822 GOD NO PLEASUKE IN THE not just, because it leads us to exalt our present worth beyond its value. It is not wise, because it leads us to rest in what we are, instead of aiming at something better. It is not happy, because it feels its claims dis- puted, or fears they will be ; and because its aims are so often defeated. And God, in requiring us to be humble, only requires us to be just and reasonable, and aim at the highest good. There is nothing, then, in this feature of our religion which goes to show that God would not have us accept it and be saved. But, YI. Repentance. Men must repent ; and this troubles you. You ask, if God had not been willing that I should ^em/i, would he not have dispensed with such difi&cult thing as my repentance ? What, then, is repen- tance. It is sorrow for sin — hatred, abhorrence of it, and forsaking of it. Yery well : if you have sinned, erred, done wrong, should you not be sorry for it ? If your sin has already destroyed much of your felicity, and threat- ens to destroy it all, ought you not to abhor it? If, by transgression, you have offended the best and wisest of Beings, ought you not to confess it, and forsake it? What less could justice, propriety, truth, order, demand ? What less would you yourself be satisfied to render? A religion that did not require repentance, you would not hesitate to reject. You would say it was not consistent with justice, propriety, truth. But, YII. You are troubled because God requires you to trust in his mercy — to believe in Jesus Christ. But if you can not trust in Jesus Christ for salvation, where can you trust? Can you rely on your own righteousness? Can you lift up your voice to heaven, and say, I am DEATH OF THE WICKED. 323 pure^ oli^ Lord tlwu knowest ? You shudder at the idea. What, then, can you trust ? Would you have religion propose to you a more precious and exalted Saviour ? You dare not pretend it. And does the free gift of such a Saviour — the free offer of pardon and eternal life, peace and heaven, through his blood, prove to you that God has pleasure in your death ? And, YIII. Finally. Do not the motives of religion compel you to believe that God has no pleasure in your death? What can you soberly and really desire, that religion does not offer to you ? Do you pant for exaltation ? Eeligion offers it to you : not the exaltation of a moment of life, but that of eternal ages. Do you love pleasure ? Eeligion proposes it to you : not that which you drink from a poisoned bowl, and imagine felicity in the deadly delirium which drinks up 3- our spirit, but that which is worthy of a human soul — that which is gathered from converse with the Deity — -joy unspeahable and full of glory. Do you pant for riches ? Eeligion proposes to you the acquisition of such riches as no earthly charter can se- cure — durable riches^ laid up in heaven, safe from the vicissitudes of time, and secured by the promise and the pledge of Jehovah. Such are some of the articles of that religion which the Lord proposes to you. We have spoken only of those from which the unbelieving are apt to recoil ; we have taken only those items which they imagine unin- viting. And now let me ask, is there any thing in all this which makes you look upon the religion required of you as a thing so dififi.cult that you can not be snved — bo difi&cult as to contain any indication thnt Go'l. while 324 GOD NO PLEAS miE IN THE DEATH OF THE WICKED lie enjoins sucli a religion, is not sincerely willing tliat yon should be saved? Indeed, I put it to yonr own reason and conscience, what less could God have re- quired, and what less would you be willing to receive ? I do not believe there is one ingenuous mind in this as- sembly that does not confess that nothing but wickedness 4l can reject such a religion. The most difficult features of our religion, and those of which we are most apt to complain, prove to us, most conclusively, that God has no pleasure in the death of the toicked. And if we are lost, we are not lost because the conditions of our deliverance are hard. The mysteries, the doctrines, the morality, the mortification, the hu- mility, the repentance, the faith, the motives of Chris- tianity, will all bear the examination of the most difficult mind. There is not one appearance of severity or rigor in all the religion of the Bible, which is not absolutely indispensable in the nature of the case, and which is not proposed in love, and to exalt our felicity. In conclusion, then, I have but this one question to pro- pose to you : What degree of misery will he deserve who will reject such a religion, in order to lose his own soul?