. )5 . /S Srom f^e &i6rari? of (ptofmox Wiffidm (Btiffer (|)a;irton, ©.©., fefe.®. to f 3e fetfirart of (Princeton C^eofo^icaf ^eminarg jToTSiS FEB 13 1912 ^^(?IGAL Vi^ ^ SERMONS BY THK •/ REV. THOMAS HOUSE TAYLOE, D.D. FOR MANY TEARS RECTOR OF GRACE CHURCH, NEW YORK. WITH A PORTRAIT FROM A PAINTING BY ELLIOTT. NEW YORK : G. P. PUTNAM & SON, 661 BROADWAY. 1869. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by GEORGE P. PUTNAM & SON, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York The New York Printing Company, 8i, 83, and 85 Centre St., New York. CONTENTS. Consecration op Grace Church, New York, March 7th, 1846 9 The Revelation op the Scriptures 27 The Saving Truth op our Religion 36 Christ our Refuge 50 Justification by Faith 63 The Revealed Requirements op the Creator 74 Importance of Religion to the Young 86 The Sacrifice of all Things Hurtful to the Soul . . 101 All Our Trials a Source of Blessing 109 The Christian Armor 134 The Crucifixion 137 The Resurrection op Christ 150 The Trinity ,163 The Sin unto Death 173 Christian Principles— The Ruling Motives op our Lives 187 Spring — An Emblem op the Resurrection 198 viii Contents. Charactek and Employment of the Angels 200 The Intermediate State 224 Jacob and Esatj 239 Repentance 255 The Prodigal Son 209 Selp-Denial 281 Charity 295 The Close op the Year 310 The Power of Christianity 323 The Atonement 337 The Duty of Observing the Sacraments 350 The Immortality op the Soul 363 SERMONS BY THOMAS HOUSE TxlYLOR, D.D. ^^ THE CONSECRATION OF GRACE CHURCH, NEW YORK, MARCH 7th, 1846. " The silver is mine and the gold is mine^ saith the Lord of Hosts. " The glory of this latter house shall he greater than of the former^ saith the Lord of Hosts.'''' Haggai id, Sth <& 9th. v FIESE words were spoken by the Prophet to tlie enfeebled people of Israel, when, in a spirit-stirring address, he sought to ronse them from the criminal lethargy in which they slumbered, in regard to their high duty of rebuilding the fallen Temple of Grod. The language may be regarded as a direct assertion on the part of God, that the boundless treasures of the universe belong of right to Him who created them : and it conveys the cheering assurance to His earthly servants that the means shall never be want- ing for the accomplishment of every wise and righteous design, for the advancement of His glory. 1* 10 Consecration of Grace Church. Although, my brethren, it may be safely said that outward splendor can never add anything to the overpowering majesty of God ; and that the prayers of penitence and faith will rise as accept- ably from the rude hut of the savage convert, as from the most gorgeous exhibitions of architectural skill, enriched witli earth's accumulated stores of silver, and glittering with the gold and gems which the far-reaching arms of commerce may have gath- ered from the four quarters of the globe ; yet, may it with equal truth be said, that we can never stand acquitted from the blighting charge of selfish and sordid ingratitude, if, in cold calculation, we set apart for devotion to the God of all only tliat which is coarse and mean ; while, as faithless stewards, we continue to repose amid the refinements of cultiva- ted taste, or to riot in the costliness of luxurious liv^- ing. In every age of the world, men, either in obe- dience to the express teaching of their Maker, or else following the example of others who were so taught, have erected places of public worship, in admirable adaptation to their condition of advance- ment in intelligence, wealth, and power. So, my brethren, ought it ever to be, and so do we trust it will be, in this wide and beautiful coun- try of our love ! While we were yet in our infancy — and wherever the population is yet scattered and feeble, it is to be expected that our houses of prayer should be of the simplest construction. But as fast as Christian communities gather strength, and God blesses them with prosperity, and extends their world- Conseoration of Grace Church. 11 ly trusts, then must the unslumbering sentinels upon the watchtowers of Faith stir up the hosts of the Lord to the solemn and ennobling duty of devoting the best of everything intrusted to them by the Mas- ter of all to that Master's use, — to the consecration of sanctuaries of religion, as monuments to His glory, of the most imposing and enduring magnificence ! Yea, there must be nothing kept back of the best which can be given, — of science, of learning, of wealth, and of labor, — toward the erection of houses sacred to God, which, in their vast and harmo- nious proportions, shall fill the mind with awe — in their rich and chaste decorations, shall soothe us with those grateful emotions which the combination of beauty and grace so naturally awaken, and which shall stand through many generations as memorials of our national piety and high civilization ; Yea, shall stand, amid the abodes of earthly strife and pol- lution, as stainless asylums, for the worn and weary victims of warring passions, pointing always to Heaven ; and with their open doors inviting the be- reaved and bleeding hearts of time to seek for the light, consolation, and healing balm, which comes only from God ! My brethren, how barbarous, and destitute of everything calculated to inspire reve- rence and love, must that country be, where no sa- cred edifices of suitable magnificence meet the eye of the stranger, to relieve the pain and weariness with which he gazes upon the wide-spreading tokens of human guilt and misery ! — where there is nothing to bespeak the ever-present sense of rehgion over 12 Consecration of Grace Church. the liearts of the people — nothing to stand perpet- ually before the eyes of the joung, calculated to train their fresh and ardent feelings into a channel of admiration for what is good and great, for what is beautiful in art, or elevating in the successful tri- umphs of architectural science, and thus building up that enthusiastic and unconquerable love of country which an early and intelligent contemplation of its noble monuments of piety and greatness is sure to inspire, while it familiarizes their thoughts with all that is transporting in the prospects which Christian- ity unfolds to the eye of Faith ! Let no man say, then, that it is but a vain thing to rear by the side of our thronged thoroughfare such a sanctuary as this. It is a common spiritual home, the completion of which calls forth the most earnest congratulations, and constitutes a bond of most in- dissoluble union to the people whose liberality, prayers, and toil have made it what it is. "We have surely not now to learn how extensively national morals are influenced by the cultivation of the na- tional taste ; and how ennobling is the influence of the finer arts upon the grosser and lower nature of man. Friends, and Christian patriots ! if you would refine, purify, and impart moral energy to the people who are to give character, power, and destiny to this young country, strive to difi'use widely, and in the most enduring forms, these models of excellence in all that is grand, harmonious, and beautiful — which through along, long course of wasting time have con- trived to command the world's admiration, in undi- Consecration of Grace Church. 13 minished freshness. Above all things else, let noth- ing of supineness nor of selfishness deter you from aiding to the utmost of your power, in the highest and most solemn of all public duties, that of studding every corner of our land with houses of glory and beauty ; upon which shall be inscribed in letters of light, " Holiness unto the Lord." Let us strive with an industry that never flags nor tires, to plant tliem on the streets and lanes of our cities, in the hamlets of our counties, and by the side of every high- way and path, as husbandry advances its peaceful conquests over the ruggedness of the wilderness. Let us resolve, that so far as in us lies, they shall everywhere meet the eye in a fulness of stature meet for their position, and for their high and solemn uses. And never, my brethren, let us pass a sanctu- ary of the Lord, rising in its beautiful proportions, and in its vastness and chaste majesty admonishing us with silent impressiveness of the pollution and in- significance of man, without a silent ejaculation of thanks and praise that our land is blessed with a people who thus adore and magnify the God of na- tions; and that as countless blessings are thus won down for us all, no matter under wliat standard we may have enlisted in the army of Christ, yea, bless- ings won down for us all, as we and they who are to come after us shall continue to run a long career of national glory. So, too, may we meekly trust that with all our errors blotted from the book of God's remembrance through the merits of a common Redeemer, we shall all at last be found together at His 14: Consecration of Grace Cliureh. right hand, as friends and fellow-citizens in the city of our God. I do not believe it possible for the humblest laborer who has toiled to lay these huge stones one upon another ever to look back upon the work he has wrought, with its " long-drawn aisles and vaulted roof," without a feeling of awe and veneration — with- out being lifted for a moment, at least, above the fascinations of base and brutal joys — M'ithout reali- zing a passing breath of inspiration, leading him to devotion — without a leaning of the weak and stained soul towards sanctity, and yearning of the worn and weary spirit for the rest of Heaven, Who can estimate the value of such impressions as the subduing influence of ten thousand times ten thousand temples shall be felt, as they may be multi- plied by all Christian sects, in continually increas- ing power and splendor, as the world rolls on its sw^eeping tide of passing mortals. But mark it, I say not that all churches which we are to build are to be enriched alike by the same unstinting application of the silver and the gold which God supplies. But I do say, that the wealth with which God may arm us for good, is to be applied without rest and without nig- gardliness towards supplying the stream of immortal minds which is perpetually flowing in upon us with houses of prayer, with solemn places of training for their duties to God and man, I say that these sa- cred places are always to be adapted, in the wisdom which prayer will win for us, to the condition of the people who are to use them. Consecration of Grace Church. 15 The poor man, lifted by the expansive and liber- alizing faith of Christ above the evil eye of jealousy, is so far from repining that his own lot should save him from the harassing cares of opulence, that he rejoices with grateful joy that although he has not been thus charged, yet that instruments are employ- ed by Heaven to bless and embellish society in its high places. I say that he is not only content to have it so, and to cherish a generous pride that his religion should be thus honored, and the country which his children are to inhabit be thus adorned, but he feels that it is his privilege and high duty, in the " liberty with which Christ has made him free," and in the boldness of a soldier of the cross, to cry aloud to his richer neighbor, and to admonish him of the expectation which the people cherish that he would employ his high trusts for usefulness lu- minously. That he should be forever active in set- ting forth before men the honor of the God he professes to serve ; and so to set it forth, that the chil- dren of the poor, as their young eyes open upon these noble monuments of pious liberality, may glow with virtuous pride, and be early fired with a secret de- termination always to love what is great, holy, and divine, never to give up the religion of their fathers, and never to desert the country where these sacred feelings have been formed and cherished ! But the Christian man of low position in the scale of this earth's w^ealth must not stop here ; it is indeed his duty to cheer on his richer friend to do all these great things with his great means, but then he, too, 16 Consecration of Grace Church. must go on, anxiously to remind him that his work can never be done while life lasts. He must carry him to the narrow lanes of our city where poverty dwells, poverty ghastly with disease, and famishing in wretch- edness. He must show him what an immense amount of spiritual ignorance and awful wickedness is congregated in our midst, which no light of Chris- tian education has ever reached, and where no sound of the glad tidings of salvation is ever heard. He must show him in the startling colors of the most awful reality, how pressing is the necessity for him to be active in devising and executing schemes for dispersing moral darkness, for breaking the fetters of sin, for relieving human misery, and in providing institutions for the constant diffusion of the life- giving words of eternal truth, O ! it is in this way that the labors of the poorest among men are oftentimes of priceless worth ; labors of persuasion and importunity, in unfolding evils to be corrected, in discovering wants to be supplied, and in leading others to accomplish what he convinces them that they should do. Ay, it is this way that the prayers and toils of the lowly disciple of Christ, although not so dazzling to the outward eye as the doings of some men, are yet of inestimable value to the world ; and perhaps not the less worthy of the highest rewards of that great day, when the rich and the poor shall meet together before the Lord, who is the Maker of them all. It is in this way, my brethren, that I, in my simple earnestness, would seize upon this occasion of joyous Consecration of Grace Church. IT congratulation, to lead yon on from one good and glorious work to another, perhaps more really GOOD, perhaps more truly glorious still. You have, indeed, provided for yourselves, and for the deathless spirits of your little ones, this place of prayer, in all of its soothing and subduing associations of solem- nity and beauty ; and now have I come to persuade you to go on and provide for the spiritual and eternal wants of the poor, whom God has commanded to be always with you. My object is to ask you — and I am made bold by the consideration that I have never yet asked anything and have been refused by you — my object is to ask, that you will give me the means of building, and pre- paring for the most efficient and the most immediate operation, Grace Church Chapel, a church in which the word and sacraments shall be administered accor- ding to our forms, and the sittings shall always be free, to all who will use them for their souls' good. My brethren, how graceful, how complete, how en- tirely satisfying to the heart of the philanthropist and the Christian, will be such a conclusion to this our noble beginning ! Can any one doubt as to his duty in this matter, when I tell him that we are at this moment surrounded by more than 200,000 souls who are without any possible means of religious in- struction and comfort. With a population of more than 370,000, we have but about 200 churches of all denominations ; and if we allow an average of 800 to each church, it will leave us with the enormous ainount of 210,000 humau beings for whom there is 18 Consecration of Grace Church. no room, no sanctuary, to which they can retreat when fretted, fevered, and enfeebled by their conflicts with the enemies of Christian peace and salvation ; no fountain of spiritual light and comfort to which they can resort, when perplexed and stupified by the dark- ness and crushing difHculties of their lot, and when bowed and broken by a deep sense of guilt, and un- der the heart-wringing anguish of bereavement. Is this state of things to continue, without one Chris- tian effort to amend it ? With a population in- creasing with a rapidity altogether unexampled, and destined, as I verily believe, to advance still more rap- idly than it has ever yet done, shall our means for religious training keep no sort of pace with the per- petually advancing demands which will thus be made upon us ? Shall the swarms of children from these accumulating myriads of human beings continue to rise into life only to fill up the measure of their pa- rents' wickedness, living in profligacy and degradation, setting light by father and mother, despising govern- ment, vexing the widow and robbing the fatherless, defiling the land with lewdness, and with their fright- ful profanity and shameless contempt for God's Sab- baths ; provoking God's righteous anger, until they shall draw down upon us His blighting vengeance, to wrap our dwellings in fiames and bathe our homes in blood. My brethren, the ear of our God is not heavy, that it cannot hear, nor His eye dim, that it cannot see, nor has His arm become powerless, that it cannot strike. He has not ceased to regard iniquity with Consecration of Grace Church. 19 tlie same abhorrence which brought its sweeping desolation over the countries of old ; which gave the palaces of Tyre to the flames falling from above; which purified the plains of Sodom and Gomorrah by the fires of hell bursting out from beneath, and render- ed Jerusalem, once the chosen city of His love, no more than a proverb and a by-word — no more than a blast- ed monument of departed grandeur. " The things which have been shall be." With our God is neither " variableness nor shadow of turning ;" only let • the same cause exist, and the same result will be inevita- ble. Only let the flood of ungodliness go on increas- ing in volume and in violence, until it sweeps away every vestige of reverence for the God of purity and right, and the voice of supplication shall no more be heard in the land, and then will the flood-gates of God's all-sweeping wrath be opened upon us, and all our boasted glory be no more than a tale upon the rec- ords of the past ! But, my brethren, will you not say with me that this shall not be so, if ten righteous men, in God's forbearing justice, can save a city? This shall not be so, if we are only permitted to plant temples of solemn worship wherever worshippers can be gathered, whose prayers and alms shall go up as a memorial for us before God. Their pleadings will be the bulwarks and safeguards of our people. They will reflect God's moral image in beauty and bright- ness over the dark mass of pollution that swells around them, and we shall be spared and blessed for their sakes. Only let the State be true to herself in imparting 20 ConseGration of Grace Church. to the children of her people the light of education, and then we shall not be true to ourselves, as the un- slumbering disciples of Him who is Himself the light and the life, if we fail to show to the little ones thus enlightened " the way and the truth " — if we strive not to gather them into that fold from which the j may- no more go out — if we leave anything undone by which we may indelibly impress them with the true nature of that priceless blessing of liberty which is so well their boast — if we do not show them in the lessons of all human experience, that freedom does not consist in doing what they please, but only in doing what is right. Because, if all men were free to do just what their corrupt passions would lead them to do, without regard to the restraints of law and the sanctions of justice, then no man would long be at liberty to pursue the glorious path of honorable rectitude. Each one would soon find himself bound in the chains which are forged by the fires of hell. " Passion would be in the place of principle, and lust would be law "—every man's hand would be armed against his brother ; the strong would be cruel tyrants, and the weak would be cringing slaves ; all men would be enemies to each other, and all alike blasted outcasts from the glorious favor of their God. Yea, my brethren, well does it be- come us to teach it to our sons, that the only true liberty in man rests in that wise submission to the beautiful law of right, which leaves each one free from all other men, and, through the grace of God free from the bonds of his own sins and evil Consecration of Grace Church. 21 habits, and thus left to do only what is pure, just, and true. This is the highest liberty in man ; it is the liberty of angels ; it is the liberty of God ! This liberty is the boon of the gospel, not the pur- chase of the sword ; and the weapons with which we must contend for it, in its fearful conflicts with the brutal passions and sordid interests of the world, must be polished for our successful use in the armory of God. Now, it is for these high objects, as lasting as eternity, and as transporting as the sublime prospect of immortality can render them, I have come to ask your charity. I ask it in the name of Him whose solemn whispers of persuasion may be heard in every breast, giving utterance to that solemn truth, '* The silver is mine and the gold is mine." You are the tenants, not the owners. You hold in trust, not of right. Give me of that which is mine, and by this act of free and ready obedience, lay up in store a resource of strong consolation for the remaining years of time, and which may serve to lighten the pressure of that sense of unprofitableness wliich may weigh heayily upon your last hour. But to end as I began, let me recur to our text. " The silver is mine and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of Hosts. The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of Hosts." God grant it, brethren, that this assu- rance of our God, when applied to our present cir- cumstances, may indeed be fulfilled in a far higher Bense than that of merely outward splendor. And 22 Consecration of Grace Church. yet who is there of us that can recall the many touching associations connected with that former house, where our fathers worshipped, without being melted with irrepressible feelings of sadness ? As a parish, our annals are brief and simple. Grace Church was organized less than forty years ago, by a portion of the congregation of Trinity Parish, for whom there was no room in the mother church. As our origin was peaceful, so has our con- stant progress been harmonious and steadily prosper- ous. No contentions have arisen to disturb us. No root of bitterness has sprung up to spread its poisonous influence through the atmosphere of peace and love in which we have lived. From our earliest existence as a parish, down to this very hour, have we been most pre-eminently blessed ; and indeed, my brethren, our hearts should swell with boundless gratitude, while we tremble at the thought of the perils and re- sponsibilities amid which we stand. The first Rector of Grace Church was the Rev. Nathaniel Bowen, D. D., whose faithful, affection- ate, and efficient labors continued through a course of more than nine years, and can only be forgotten when death shall have removed from among us the last of that devoted band of worshippers trained by him for their journey along the narrow way toward the gate of Heaven, and whose delight it was to cherish him as their pastor, counsellor, and friend. In the year 1817, Dr. Bowen removed to South Carolina, and was soon afterward chosen to be the Bishop of that diocese. In 1839 he passed away Consecration of Grace Church. 23 from the earth, amid the tears of his diocese, and, as we trust, in the sure hope of a glorious immortality. In 1818, Dr. Bowen was succeeded in the Rector- ship of Grace Church by the Rev. James Montgom- ery, D.D., a man of unusual powers, of fervent zeal, of transparent frankness of character, and sin- gular purity of life. After a brief ministry of two years, Dr. Montgomery removed to Pennsylvania ; and in the midst of a bright career of usefulness, and in the meridian of his days, he was summoned to his eternal reward ! The next name upon this list of Rectors, is that of a gentleman whom I need scarcely name to this congregation ; and with the expression of my regret that the delicacy which is due to the feelings of a present friend must restrain me from the utterance of panegyric upon a course of twelve years' pastoral service, so faithfully and suc- cessfully conducted as to be rarely equalled, I will only mention, as links in our historical chain, that the Rev. Jonathan M. "Wainwright, D. D., became the Rector of Grace Church in 1821, and in 1833 he re- signed his charge and removed to the city of Boston. In 1834 the care of this large congregation of souls passed into the hands of him who now so feebly ad- dresses you. The amount of good he may have achieved, through the strength of Jesus, in this lapse of irretrievable time, can be known only at that great day which is before us, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed. But one thing you will, in your clemency, pardon him for saying, and that is, that his insufficiency for the duties with 24 Consecration of Grace Church. which he has been charged, could never have been perceived half so clearly by any one as by himself, and can never be lamented half so keenly by any heart as by his own. Brethren, my task for this day is done. We have consecrated this beauti- ful temple to the Majesty of Heaven — to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. Henceforth let it be sacred, and preserved in holiness and beauty forever. Let nothing that is unclean ever enter to defile it. Let no feelings be cherished here inconsistent witli the deep emotions of penitence — ^the transporting views of faith — the serene joys of hope, and the bland delights which spring witli per- petually renewing freshness from the never-failing fountains of God-like charity. Let no voice ever be heard here other than in the language of praise and thanksgiving, the voice of supplication, of religious warning, and instruction. Let no shibboleth ever be sounded here only to summon cold hearts and fiery tempers into the rancorous phalanx of party. Let no bitter denunciation of other men's errors ever ring harshly against these harmonious arches. Let the banner which is here unfurled in the name of Christ be stamped with "the truth and charity." Let us always remember that we war with principles, not with men, and that error in opinion may not al- ways be damning crime. Let no boastful and offen- sive assumption of superiority ever be heard here, only to provoke opposition, to stir up the embers of pre- judice and passion, and thus to deter men from ad- vancing into the full, clear light of what we believe Consecration of Grace Church. 25 to be truth. Let no cold indifference to the eternal sacredness of truth ever here take the prostituted name of liberality, only because it is wide enough to comprehend all opinions, and deep enough to merge and sink all creeds. Let no craven cry of adulation and subserviency to the vicious fashions of the pow- erful ever rise from the lips of mortal man, who may here be clothed in the mantle of a soldier and ser- vant of the most high God. Let no man venture to minister here whose shrinking timidity or vacilla- ting imbecility may render him an easy prey to the tempter, who is ever busy in seducing men to tamper with those unrelaxing laws of morals which were written in the lightning of God upon the stones of Sinai, and sealed with His thunder. Let neither frown nor favor, no consideration of earth or power of hell, ever lead here to the concealment of any one feature in that glorious covenant of mercy which was the object of faith and fountain of hope in fall- en man, from the hour of his expulsion from Eden until it was confirmed on Calvary, when the shrouded sun and trembling earth, the bursting rocks and yawning tombs, attested God's love to man in thus redeeming him from the debasement and ruin of sin and evil. Ay, my brethren, it is to the diffusion of all the regenerating, sanctifying, ennobling and trans- porting influences which are associated with that cov- enant of grace and mercy, that we have consecrated our house of prayer. Here, then, let our little ones be brought, to be sealed as His own with God's own signet, while we make our humble prayers that He, 2 26 Consecration of Grace Church. by His spirit, would keep them firm and fast in the same faith and fold in which our fathers fell asleep, and where they will find their best comfort in life, and only hope in death. Here, too, let us bring our dead, and while pouring forth the tears which may be wrung from our bereaved and bleeding hearts, let the associations of this place remind us of Him who is the " resurrection and the life," and may we thus be consoled by knowing that the dead — even our own dead — shall " rise again," and be clothed with immortality. Brethren, may the glory with which this house shall be covered be not the glory of the silver or of the gold, but, bearing it in our honest liearts to the throne of Grace, may God pour out upon its wor- shippers, encircled in the humility of penitence, such abundant means of His spirit, that the peace, par- don, and safety which shall here be found may in- deed pass all human understanding. ^^^ ^^^^^g ^^ ^1 ^^^g^^ r^^^^^mnfflo ^^^^ WiR^ i^HSBB ^^^^^^^ ^^^ ^^ T^^ REVELATION OF THE SCRIPTURES. " Understandest thou what thou readest? And he said : How can I, except some man should guide me? " Acts 8ih, SOt/i. |UCH, my brethren, was the question proposed by Philip, the teacher sent by God ; and such was the answer of that illustrious Ethiopian convert, who was meekly searching for the will of his God, in order that he might do it. It is a question which every humble-minded Christian must frequently put to his own heart, no matter at what part of the sacred book he reads the words of his God, And the more that he reads, and the more that he prays, so much the more will the majesty and vastness of the themes open before him ; and the more that the greatness, the depth, and the comprehensiveness of the truths are unfolded, so much the more will his humility of heart and dis- trust of his own powers be increased, and the more will he sigh for some man to guide him to a perfect understanding of all these things. I have selected the words before us, as the basis 28 The Bevelation of the Scri/ptures. of my remarks to-day, not so much to draw your attention to the incidents with which they are con- nected, as to apply them in their spirit to the whole volume of Revelation. Believing, as I do, that upon the grand points of faith and duty the Scriptures are so plain, that it is impossible for the most simple- minded of the earth to err fatally as to what they must believe and do, in order to obtain salvation, yet I am persuaded, that there are but few of us but must feel, as we advance in life, that there is much more to be known in every part of the Scriptures than we have ever yet been able fully to master. And as the sun of our day of life declines, and our time grows hourly shorter, we become more anxious to avail ourselves of all the helps which God may graciously provide, to guide us to a full understand- ing of the words of immortal life. The more that we read, and think, and pray, the more are we sure to be made to see meaning where we saw none before. The more we are in this way permitted to know, so much the more are we desirous of knowing ; and we are constantly led to exclaim, " How can I understand these things except some man should guide me ? " But while I urge you to meek and prayerful study of the oracles of everlasting life, let me at the same time warn you against the unreasonableness and folly of expecting too much, in the way of curious informa- tion, upon subjects not immediately connected with salvation. Because industry and learning, directed with meekness and prayer, may expect to be rewarded TJie Revelation of the Scriptures. 29 with the discovery of many truths not lying upon the surface, nor always plain to the indolent and the careless reader, we are not, therefore, to expect that we shall ever in this life be permitted to know everything.^ or that our vain wislies will ever be gratified with re- gard to those mysteries in nature and in religion which our present faculties are incapable of compre- hending — which it would be not only useless, but positively injurious for us to know— and which will, therefore, always remain as dark and impenetrable to man as they now are. Our inquiries, therefore, must always be limited to reasonable and profitable exercises. Men may perplex themselves with abstruse and puzzling speculations, in trying to analyze the plans of Providence. But they forget that these subtle inquiries, if entirely suc- cessful, cannot sanctify the soul — they cannot renew the heart of man — they cannot bring the joys of Heaven any nearer to us than we have them. It is easy to ask questions about the eternity of matter — the origin of evil — the place or part of the immensity of God where Heaven is — and what is the nature of those employments amid which glo- rified spirits are rejoicing. But to what end is all this ? How would we be better ofi" by knowing the origin of evil ? Is it not enough for us to know that if we would ever get to Heaven, we must resist evil in our own hearts % Why should we seek to know HOW rr IS that God will ultimately bring good out of all evil ? Is it not enough to know, that God offers us all the help we can ever need, to subdue the evil 30 The Itevelaiion of th^ Scriptures. that is in us ? Why should we seek to explore the length and breadth of immensity and eternity? Is it not enough that we have been born inhabitants of that immensity ; and that, being made in God's image, we will endure throughout the endless cycles of that eternity; that our happiness there will just depend upon our conduct here? Why should we inquire into the lines and boundaries which separate free-will in man from fore-knowledge in God ? Is it not enough that reason, conscience, and revelation combine to assure us that we are free to do good, and can always find strength to subdue evil ? Why should we puzzle ourselves about the difference between matter and spiRrr ? Is it not enough for us to know that it will little avail us if we were to gain the whole universe of matter, and lose that little particle of spirit which we call our own ? Why should we inquire too anxiously into the local position of the home of the blessed? Or why should we ask to be told where the place of pun- ishment is fixed ? Is it not enough for us to know, that there is happiness without alloy and without end for them who are faithful to duty even unto deatJi — and that crime and wrong-do- ing bring misery now, and must bring misery here- after ? Why should we pry too curiously into the employments of the saints in bliss ? If the blue curtain of yonder skies were to be withdrawn, and the abodes of the blessed unfolded to our wondering view, would it not overpower us ? Would not our thoughts and aifections be absolutely and always ab- The Revelation of the Scriptures. 31 SOEBED in the contemplation ? "Would we not hasten, in rash impatience, to be ourselves partakers in a bliss so ravishing? Would not everything that detained us from it be looked upon as chains and prisons and torture ? Would not all industry stag- nate, and the wide earth become one vast scene of desolation, famine, and death ? Why should any mortal desire to hold intercourse with the spirits who have already crossed the dark gulf of death ? Can any one really and truly believe that such an extravagant wish was ever actually gratified, and yet that the privileged few beyond the lot of mortals would retain tlieir sanity, and continue capable of the ordinary and tame occupations, the innocent en- joyments, and the imperious duties of life ? The delusion in all such cases is never so complete — the certainty is never so free from doubt — -but that it leaves its bewildered victims still the creatures of time and of sense, of passion and of sin. It may, in- deed, minister to a morbid self-conceit, and foster an inordinate love of notoriety, but the delusion has never yet been known to increase the purity or the ennobling joys of earth, or to lit its victims better for their passage to the tomb. It cannot be sup- posed that so serious and imposing a departure from the ordinary providence and the constant laws of God, as the free intercourse of a spirit in glory with a spirit in the gross veil of the flesh, would be per- mitted by God without some good and sufficient end. But where has such high and holy object ever yet been manifested? On the contrary, have not the 32 The Revelation of the Scriptures. occasions upon which all such fancied intercourse has been enjoyed been of the most trivial and showy character ; and have not the pretended revelations been so obviously without any aim or object higher than the vanities of the earth, as to throw ridicule and contempt upon the morbid and sickly fancies of presumptuous mortals? No, no, my brethren; if our departed fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, children and friends, were permitted to hold audible communion with us here, then what frowning canon of God, what meas- ure of care for the welfare of the earth, could restrain us from cutting the cords that bind us here, so that we might hurry away to be with them forever ? How would we shun the presence of our fellows upon earth, with tlieir sordid, prudent, and irksome cares! The whole business of life would cease, its laborious round of duties would be intolerable, and our powers, feel- ings, and faculties would be lost, in the thirst for the perpetual and transporting rapture of communing with the translated and unseen spirits of our love. Is it not, then, wise, merciful, and best, that Paradise — the invisible place, with its host of sainted spirits — should be most absolutely shrouded from our most anxious powers of observation ? Any further disclo- sure would most surely render the world a prison, and a place of torment. We would no longer walk by faith. We would act by constraint, not willingly ; nor would it be by " putting our trust in God." This world would be no theatre for the trial of virtue, or the discipline of faith ; and its wide and active career The Revelation of the Scriptures. 33 of duties would cease! Let us, then, be content to wait for a further revelation of His dispensations in that higher state of being for which God is now pre- paring us. The development and explication will be the food and rapture of the soul, as ages roll on through our eternity of being. Angels and ripened saints will then be with us to guide and instruct us, while we " read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest." Yea, when death shall bring us into the society of perfect spirits, then shall we be furnished with the key which can unlock the mysteries in the deep coun- sels of God. As they are gradually unfolded, we will see with redoubled force the utter vanity of all our foolish repinings and doubting thoughts about the mysteries of nature, the ways of Providence, and the wonders of Grace ! The conclusion of the matter is, that after the ex- ample of our blessed Lord, we are to check all pre- sumptuous prying into knowledge which would be only injurious to us. We must be satisfied with the grand doctrines, general truths, and practical pre- cepts revealed to us in the gospel, and not care to dwell upon matters either of inferior moment, or else too high for human solution, and in no way connected with human salvation. As long, my brethren, as we continue to see the wicked prospering upon earth, while the good are trodden to the dust — as long as we see selfishness driving through a long, reckless, and triumphant career, while hearts full of generous love are remorse- lessly lacerated and lie at our feet, torn and bleeding, 2* 34 The Revelation of the Scriptures. for their trustful tenderness— so long will human life continue to be a problem, enlisting our deepest feel- ings, and leading us to cry anxiously for some man to guide us to a wise understanding of the perplexing mysteries of our lot. The only solution to which any man can bring us is to be found in the teaching of the man Christ Jesus ! He who, leaving the glory which He had with the Father before the world was, became God with us, that He might reveal the ways of heaven to man. That revelation is our only guide to human history and human destiny. It is a record of the past, a teacher for the present, and a light revealing the future. The future ! Ah, who is there of us who would not know something of the future ? How common, how insatiable, have ever been the cravings in the human breast to look into the future ! How vain and silly have been the sources to which men have resorted for its gratification ! Alas ! there is nothing to be known, there is nothing to be hoped for in the future, beyond that which Christianity reveals. How anxiously and honestly then should we come to the study of its sacred, its transporting truths. In this matter, never suppose that contented ignorance is a Christian grace ; never confound uninquiring indifference about religious knowledge with the excellences of the Christian char- acter. The more the mind is informed as to the true ways of God, so much the more is it strengthened to encounter the perils and to discharge the heavy duties of life. The more that the vessel is enlarged with which we are to draw water from the " wells of sal- The Revelation of the Scriptures. 35 vation," so much the more will we be disposed to advance knowledge, truth, and charity throughout the world. To this study, then, let us meekly and devoutly come ; with all the means of grace, and all the light of guidance, with which our God may provide us. We will then see through the dark cloud of mystery that surrounds us— we will see the bright jnercies of redeeming love, shining sweetly amid all the perplex- ing calamities of life. We will everywhere see evil working out good ; confusion generating harmony, and our Father's mighty plans moving steadily on, for the display of His own glory in the happiness of His creatures. When depressed, as we often may be, amid the disappointments, the bereavements, and the bitterness of our lot — we can here be sustained and refreshed by the sweet assurance of a Parent's al- mighty care, and a Parent's love, that never sleeps nor is wearied. And then, when for us the last hour shall come, and the grave is seen to be opening to receive us, we will here calmly learn that as the cross is the ensign of glory, so too is the tomb the birth-place of immortality to man ! THE SAVING TRUTH OF OUR RELIGION. " To thin end was I horn, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should hear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my words. " Pilate saith unto him, What is truth ? " John 18th, Blth. OW simple and how holy is our idea of truth ! How open and how honest is her aspect ! How sweetly does she invite pui'suit ! How calmly and how surely does she reward her votaries ! How pure, and perma- nent, and satisfying is the light which she dispenses ! There is around her no dazzling brilliancy to bewil- der, no splendor to overpower, no sternness to repel, no uncertainty to perplex. All men must love and reverence \\\e poetiy of truth. But yet, amid the ceaseless conflicts of human opin- ion, and while sick with strugsrlinsi; to free ourselves from the entanglements in which the jarring systems of parties and sects would involve us in religion, where is the thoughtful mind that is not perpetually led to exclaim in meekness, " "What is truth ? " If she be so transparent, undisguised, and easy of access as we have fondly pictured her, why is it that in religion all men find her not ? Oh ! why is it The Sa/oing Truth of our Religion. 3T that the gospel of truth, instead of brining to all men the glad tidings of certainty and peace, should ra- ther continue to fill the earth with perplexity, conten- tion, and bitterness ? All men will admit that nothing can be more dis- tressing to the human mind than continued anxiety and doubt in reference to the momentous interests of eternity. And it is equally certain that all of the conflicting systems of religious doctrine, which pro- fess to rest upon the Bible, cannot be equally true. How then are we to test the caprices of private judg- ment ? How are we to discriminate between holy truth and pernicious error ? My brethren, perverted as the Scriptures vasij have been by human ignorance, and by the licen- tiousness of individual caprice, yet the unerring oracles of God are our only standard of right ; and the perfect exercise of that liberty with which Christ has made us free, in the interpretation of these ora- cles, can never be surrendered by us without sub- jecting the mind to the most intolerable and blight- ing of all the forms of human despotism. I will venture, then, to assert, that the multitude of speculative opinions connected with religion, which are to be met with in the world, are not to be attri- buted to any real ambiguity in the Scriptures them- selves ; but rather to the mode in which the Bible is studied ; to the improper purposes for which the Bible is consulted ; and above all, to our disobedi- ence to the acknowledged will of God, as the Bible reveals it. 38 The Saving Truth of our Religion. There is nothing either in the revelation of God or in the nature of truth to occasion disappoint- ment, or to create contention. But it is the impurity of the human lieart and the restless perversity of the human passions which convert the clear lamp of God into the false lights which men pursue, and turn the stable foundation of our immortal hopes into the ever-shifting quicksand, which continues the more to change, to sink, and to fail us, the fur- ther that we advance upon it. The Bible, my brethren, is an exposition of certain truths, which, as mere matters of fact, lying beyond the range of our observation, we must assent to upon the Divine authority of Sim who thus reveals them. But along with this revelation of facts, the Bible contains such practical laws of holiness as ad- dress themselves equally to all classes of persons ; and, speaking at once to the understanding, the heart, and the feelings of every reasonable being, they require only to be stated in order to be under- stood and appreciated. God has given us a written code of doctrine and of practice as our guide to duty on earth, and thus to prepare us for Heaven. To this code, then, legibly and specifically written, must we continually appeal and inflexibly adhere in all of our religious investiga- tions. The oracles of God — how read they ? is the only question we are at liberty to propose, and the only one to which for ourselves we are bound to re- turn a prompt, an open, and an honest answer, be our own feelings, wishes, and prejudices what they may. The Sa/ving Truth of our Religion. 39 Now, it is to the wide and manifest neglect of this most absolutely important principle of religious in- quiry that we are to attribute the vast variety of discordant systems of religious faith which we see around us, and which, under the name of Chris- tianity, have imposed themselves upon the world. It has well been said, that in the pursuit of religious truth men have not yet learned to conduct their studies with that dispassionate temper, that sacrifice of an- ticipated inferences, and that unreserved acceptance of undoubted truth, which is the first and universally admitted condition in the investigation of truth in outward nature. Until mankind shall learn to treat the REVEALED BOOK precisely as sound philosophy has found it necessary to treat the book of nature, it is impossible that it should be otherwise than it now is. The searchers after truth in religion have as yet done little more than trace and re-trace, generation after generation, the same course of mistaken inquiry which enslaved the human mind in the pursuit of general knowledge, until the introduction of the philosophy of Lord Bacon. If, without a close analysis of nature and a stern adherence to facts, as given out by the material world, the systems of learned men of science would not now be precisely what we know that they were for so many ages, — highly-wrought, beautiful, and plausible theories, but yet in reality narrow, baseless, and unprofitable delusions, — so, too, all sys- tems of religious faith which are not founded upon the certain, clear, broad, and full teaching of the in- spired word, however plausible they may appear, will 40 The Sa/uing Truth of our Religion. still be as unsubstantial as the exploded systems of the schoolmen. What the material universe is to the student of nature, the Bible is to the student in religion. It is a magazine of truths, from the faith- ful, cautious, and full induction of which all sound knowledge must be deduced. Here I would that you should most carefully observe that it is not enough that SOME TRUTHS are taken from this sacred repository as the basis of our faith, because everybody knows that partial truth is oftentimes equivalent to absolute falsehood. Nothing was so fatal to the philosophy of the olden time as partial induction ; and so, too, nothing has been so injurious to the cause of Christian truth in our own days, as the assumption of isolated TEXTS of Sceiptuee for complete truth from God. It was not that the philosophers before the days of Lord Bacon did not consult nature for facts ; but the mischief was, that every speculative mind would begin by looking around for the sect or school of science with which to unite himself; and then he would search the book of nature, for facts to support the favorite views of his own school. Precisely so has it ever been with religion. The various denom- inations of Christians have each read the book of God ; and each of them have found, as they sup- posed, enough to justify them in holding their own peculiar views. They have so found it, because they have read the Scriptures to measure ihemi by their preconceived theories^ and not to measure their theories by the teaching of the Scriptures. If every The Saving Truth of our Religion. 41 disjointed text wliicli may be found in the Scrip- tures is to be presumed to convey a complete truth in itself, then there is no absurdity which may not be supported by the Bible. And the wonder is not that we have so many sects in Christendom, but the greatest wonder is that they have not been in- creased ten-fold. In the incident connected with the text, Pilate had inquired of Jesus whether He pretended to be a King. Our Lord, without replying directly to the question, proceeds to remark, with calm and solemn dignity, " To this end was I born, and for this pur- pose came I into the world, that I should bear wit- ness unto the truth." And what did He mean by this ? Did he mean, as the pagan judge may have supposed, some new notion in philosophy ? Did He mean, as fallible men in after-time would gladly have us to suppose, that the truth to which the Di- vine Jesus was come to bear His testimony in the agony of a cruel death, and in the triumph of a glorious resurrection, was the certainty and neces- sity of their own narrow, peculiar, and exclusive views of heavenly doctrine ? Did He mean to say, that the Truth for which He had been born, and which He would establish by His death, was inseparably associated with the supreme dominion of one of His followers at Kome ? That it was to be identified with the impossible doctrine of transubstantiation, or with the more revolting, and, if anything can be so, the more impossible teaching, that w^ithout any regard to their works, the larger 42 The Saving Truth of our Religion. portion of mankind were from all eternity condemned to everlasting torment? My brethren, was it, think you, for any one, or for all of those shades of difference in religious opinion, about which vain and captious men have contended so bitterly, that the Divine Redeemer came to this earth, to water it with His tears, and to stain it with his blood ? Or was it, more likely, that He, the Di- vine One, by the truth of which He spake, had a di- rect and simple reference to the grand, the pure, and the sublime doctrines of that religion which was of God, which was inseparably associated with His life and with His death, and which through His testimo- ny would become the universal religion of mankind, in opposition to the blasphemous absurdities of Pa- ganism ? The TKUTH of which He spake was the ex- istence of ONE God, the intelligent Father and Ruler of all : One Redeemer from the consequences of human folly and crime, and who should forever be the " ONE Mediator between God and man : " One Spirit of God, forever working in the hearts of mor- tals, and thus persuading them to holiness, and stim- ulating them to charity. Yea, the great and over- wdielraing truth which He came to bring to the clear light of human comprehension, from the darkness, obscurity, and doubt in which it then slumbered, was the all-glorious, all-consoling, all-controlling doctrine of human immortality : the doctrine of an univer- sal resurrection from the dead, and of an exact distri- bution of rewards and punishments, according to the deeds done in the body. Yea, it was the solemn and The Saving Truth of our Religion. 43 startling truth that " the hour cometh m which all who are in tlieir graves shall hear His voice and shall come forth ; they that have done good unto the res- urrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation." Yea, my brethren, who is there that does not feel with me how completely, before the contempla- tion of such awful truths, all the points and shades between contending Christians (created by ignorance, continued by craft, and stamped by passion) sink into the most contemptuous insignificance ? " To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, to bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth my words." Every one ! And what are we to understand by that ? What else can we understand by it, than that every meek and earnest-hearted lover of truth ; every one who in true humility of spirit is ready to be made wiser and better ; every one whose heart is attuned to welcome tidings of celestial purity and immortal peace ; every one who, putting away from him the pride of understanding, the fascinations of passion, and the warpings of prejudice, is content to be guided as a little child through the darkness and the tangled ways of earth, to the light, purity, and peace of Heaven ? It is thus that every one who is of the truth heareth the words of the God of Truth. My brethren, we have here instruction of inesti- mable value to every religious inquirer. We are taught that not only must our purpose be good in entering upon such an inquiry, but also that our 44 The Sa/oing Truth of our Religion. hearts must be disciplined, purified, and prepared for the reception of the teachings of Heaven. Not only must you pray to the Father of Light, that He would open the eyes of your understanding, but more especially should we pray that our hearts may be delivered from the cold insensibility of a worldly life. We must earnestly pray, and hope, and strive, that some true sympathy may be awakened between us and the object of our search ; so that if we are permitted to find it, we may embrace it with fondness and with gratitude. For nothing is more certain, than that a veil of most impenetrable obscurity is thrown over the understanding of a man whose heart is not attuned to sympathy with the great truths wliicli the Scriptures teach. The lovers of this earth's power and renown will lend a willing ear to him who ex- patiates on the pleasures of knowledge, and the enjoyments to be purchased by wealth, and secured by authority. But should you, with an angel's tongue, unfold the glories of an angel's dwelling- place, they will hear you with impatience, and quickly prove what an enemy to Scriptural knowl- edge is an heart incrusted with the selfishness and tlie cares of time. The Scriptures never afibrd their truth to the man who examines them only to find support for his own opinions. His labor is sure to be fruitless, because liis purpose is evil. He meets with darkness in the daytime, and gropes in the noontide as in the night. But with the man of true humility of heart, the purpose with which he searches, and the reward of his labor, is far difterent. The Sa/oing Truth of our Religion. 45 He is " of the truth," He proceeds humbly, because he truly desires to be informed. With the purpose of true wisdom he proceeds, simply because he desires to be made wiser and better. He has no end to answer but that he may know the truth, and find peace in heaven ; and the best commentary upon his reading will be his own heart. The conclusion is, that if we would get truth from the Scriptures, we must read them for the single pur- pose for which they have been given to us ; and we may rest assured that if we come to their examina- tion from any other motive, then no acuteness of in- tellect, however rare, no learning, however deep, no information, however varied or extensive, can pre- vent you from being outstripped in your pursuit by men of far meaner capacity, but stimulated and enlightened by purer intention. It is so, then, that if we would secure those fruits of truth which the Scriptures were designed to yield us, our purpose in searching them must be honest and earnest ; and our hearts must be disposed and prepared for their reception. But this is not all ; there is still another requisite, which is, as it were, the very key to truth. It is this, that our obedience must go hand in hand, and step by step, with our ad- vancement in Scriptural knowledge. Without prac- tising according to what we know, our knowledge is worthless, and more will not be given to us. The sacred writings abound with examples of the neces- sity of holiness of heart and life, in order that we may know the will of God. " If any man," said the 46 The Saving Truth of our Religion. Saviour, " will do His will, he shall know of the doc- trine, whether it be of God."—" What is truth ? " asked Pilate, but neither his purpose in asking, nor the purity of his heart, nor the holiness of his life merited any reply. And precisely in the condition of Pilate must stand every unworthy inquirer after religious truth, to the end of time. If we keep not God's commandments, we are not to expect that He will manifest Himself unto us. If we feel a dark- ness of understanding in reading the Scriptures, it becomes us to inquire in what particular it is that our lives are not as they should be. If we are ever disposed to murmur because the truth does not burst upon us with the same cheering brilliancy as it seems to come to some other men, let us pause and inquire at our own hearts whether we have not already as much knowledge as our practice equals. And, ah ! my beloved brethren, how solemnly is this necessity for holiness of life, in order that we may know the will of our God, impressed upon us by the testimony which Jesus has given, to that most awful, most important, most certain of all truths, that " the hour cometh when all who are in their graves shall come forth." That God has appointed a day in the which He shall judge the world in righteousness. " That we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ; that every one may re- ceive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad " (2 Cor. V. 10). This is for us the truth of all truths. It is that which He taught in His life ; sealed by His The Saving Truth of our Religion. 4Y death, and confirmed by His resurrection. It is that which stamps responsibility upon all that we have, all that we think, and upon all that we do. It is that, at the thought of which all the splendors of earth — the pride of genius and learning — the dignity of power — the brilliant achievements of the sword, and the luxury of wealth, lose their fascina- tions, because they are associated with the recol- lection of the fearful responsibility under which they are held. It is that which enables us to see and feel, with a vividness which nothing else can do, that wrong-doing is infinitely the most fearful of all things. My brethren, let us hourly live and act under a calm and steady conviction, that if we would be happy with the wise and the good of all time, under the smiles of God, we must prepare for it by doing the will of God here. There can be no concord between a depraved and bad heart and that world of pu- rity. It has been my aim and object to show you, that to the pure in heart, the meek in temper, and the blameless in life, the will of God will always be made known. IS.0 human being who cherishes a fear of his God, and then humbly sets himself to use the means which that God has given to train his immor- tal spirit for its high destiny, need for one moment fear but that he will arrive at all the truth which it is essential that he should know. If it were possible for one sincerely honest and humble, man to err fatally in this, the most unutterably important of 48 Tlie Saving Truth of our Religion. all possible things, then it would be equally possible for ALL MEN to err without remedy. If I could believe that, Christianity, instead of being as it is, a message of celestial love, would at once become a cause of unutterable apprehension and dismay. It is always wrong to speak of the exclusiveness and the singleness of truth — to say that there can be but one right and one wrong. This abstraction, this power of seeing and holding truth in its abso- lute simplicity, belongs only to the Deity, and never to us erring mortals, who are permitted " to know only in part." The truth, sufficient, sanctifying, and saving, may be held along with a great mixture of error. Oh ! that mankind would but remember this ; what rivers of -blood would it not have saved in times past ! What rancorous bitterness would it not now dissipate ! What foul stains would it not blot from the escutcheon of our faith ! What disgraceful obstacles to the progress of Christian truth would it not remove ! Come, then, my beloved brethren, and let us re- solve that we will always cultivate the most ardent, single-hearted, and enlightened zeal for truth ; but never — no, never, let us forget that error may not be damning crime, and that as hateful as heresy may be, yet that the worst of all heresies is a bad and brutal heart and an uncharitable tongue. The lead- ing, practical, saving truths of our religion, those which most affect the heart and control the life, are written for us in characters of burning light. As well might we complain of darkness in the blaze The Saving Truth of our Religion. 49 of noonday, as of the want of evidence as to what we are to believe and do in order to salvation. That we may go on from truth to truth, and from grace to grace, let us strive to keep steadily before us the eye of Him who is Himself" the Way, and the Truth, and the Life," and without whom we " can do nothing." Can we not fancy even now that we see Hhn^ " the Mighty One^'' surrounded by our own loved spirits of glory, all bending towards us from their seats of bliss, while with one hand they point us to the dark page on the book of life on which our crimes and deficiencies are written, while with the other they show us the fountain which has been opened for all sin and uncleanness, and by which every mark and stain can be washed from the book of God's remem- brance ? Is there an eye undimmed, while in fancy it gazes upon the sight ? Is there a heart that does not throb with anxiety to follow in life where the Saviour calls, so that in death it may be covered with the mantle of the Saviour's love % CHRIST OUR REFUGE. And a man shall he as an hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place; as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." Isaiah 32d, 2d. pIm MiM HIS imagery of the Prophet is derived from the peculiar circumstances of Eastern life. In comparing the blessings of the Messiah's benignant reign to a place of refuge, and covering from the perils of a terrific tempest, his illustrations are drawn from the vast deserts of Arabia, upon which, when the whirlwind lights in its fury, the sun is darkened by the clouds of fiery dust that it raises ; and which, as an over- whelming tide, rolls on its sweeping and resistless billows ; while pilgrims and caravans, proud kings and armed hosts, disappear before it; leaving neither trace of their mighty pomp, nor footprint of their march, to tell where they so ingloriously perished. In the text, the traveller is represented as shudder- ing before the terror of the rising storm ; and as fleeing anxiously for an hiding-place to some strong rock ; which in the midst of the far-stretching deso- Christ our Refuge. 51 lation raises high its black summit, to part and throw back the rushing torrent of sand. Nor is the whirlwind's fury the only danger to which the pilgrim is exposed in his passage through that wilderness of life. The glassy and burning sur- face of the desert may lie before him, without a zephyr to fan the dust, and without a cloud to dim the dazzling fervor of the brazen heavens, while the sun sheds fiercely down the intolerable glare of day. But no iron frame could long withstand this melting heat, or the exhausting fatigue of his weary way ; and while his soul faileth within him for thirst, he is almost ready to sink down and die. How exhilarating at such a moment is the sight of some rocky hill, throwing its cool and grateful shade far across the plain ! His languid limbs are nerved with new vigor ; his fainting heart breathes more freely, and with what eager gladness does he press towards the place of promised rest and relief ! How sweet to his ear is the first sound of murmuring waters, to- wards which he rushes to bathe his burning brow and satisfy his feverish thirst. Such, my brethren, is the emblem. The reality is the Christian's passage through the wilderness of sin, and Christ is the hiding-place from danger. The man Christ Jesus, in the splendor of oriental and prophetic diction, is the sheltering covert ; the rock of refreshing shade, provided by Almighty Pro- vidence for the Christian pilgrim, in his passage through the wilderness of life ; in whom, if he will but understand and use his privilege of access, he 62 Christ our Refuge. will find abundant security and refreshment, under all of the fierce storms and exhausting toils to which he can ever be exposed. I shall first, my brethren, draw your attention to the "Man Christ Jesus," as the believer's security amid all the storms of earthly agitation and bereave- ment. My brethren, we have not now to learn that this world is a restless and troubled scene ; that its skies are not always blue, its lights always bright, its winds always balmy, nor its waters always smooth ; but that it is a scene of ceaseless change, and oftentimes of tempestuous and frightful agitation. Swift as the winds of the desert, and oftentimes as fierce as they, do the elements of moral convulsion break loose upon the earth, and stir up the wide ex- panse of society into uproar and confusion. Not only on the broad theatre of public affairs, but in the narrow corner of every private heart, there is constant agitation. Beneath the calmest aspect, troubles are brewing and brooding, and amid the most smiling scenes of prosperity, trials, deep, agoniz- ing, and desolating, are preparing for us. We know that when the sun is brightest, the elements are often only gathering strength for the tempest ; and so, too, while smiles play upon the cheek, and gayety sparkles in the eye, it is too often only as the lightning, which flashes to dazzle for a moment, and then leaves the gloom which overshadows the spirit deeper and darker than before. It is as if the momentary sun- shine of the soul had warmed into new life and rigor the hidden canker-worm of the heart, which Christ OUT Refuge. 53 is to prey upon its peace, and turn all things there into dreariness, decay, desolation, and death. Yes, my brethren, there may be much in the aspect of the world's history, and much in the prospect which spreads before our own most anxious hopes, that, to earthly reason and earthly feeling, is troub- lous and alarming. There may be much that is so dark and threatening, so tempestuous and discourag- ing, that we are ready to lift up our weary and heavy hearts in the prayer of the Psalmist : " Oh ! that I had the wings of a dove, for then would I flee away and be at rest ! " Ah ! know you not, my brethren, that the wings of the Heavenly Dove are actually provided for you ? That, upborne upon the wings of faith, guided and sustained by God's Holy Spirit, you can flee to the Redeemer's footstool and be at rest. You can there be relieved of all your solicitude, save the grateful solicitude worthily to adore untiring Good- ness. You may " throw all your care upon Him, for He careth for you." You may repose confidingly on His covenant faithfulness. His unerring wisdom, and exhaustless love. Thus staying yourself on Him, you will be kept in a frame so tranquil, and a peace so stable, that the firmest objects in creation can only by contrast shadow forth its stability. " For the moun- tains shall depart, and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee." Come, then, my brethren, and let us flee away upon the wings of faith to the Redeemer's gracious pres- 64 Christ our Refuge. ence ; and there we shall learn that we are all under the guidance of a better wisdom than our own, and that all things are working together for the most glo- rious and the most desirable ends. Ay, my brethren, we may there obtain a iirm and steady hold of the cheering truth, that all things are ordered by Him who holds the supremacy for the truest and most perma- nent good of each individual soul that loves Him. Who, now, is there that can know these things, without deriving from the recollection the strongest assurance of security and comfort amid the darkest aspects, and wildest and most terrific agitations of sublunary things? Who is there that can know these things, and yet not possess his soul in patience and peace ? My brethren, the revealed name of our Saviour God is indeed to us a " strong tower ; the righteous runneth into it, and is safe." On the power, wis- dom, and faithfulness of our exalted Saviour the spir- its of the faithful may repose, as in a serene and un- troubled sanctuary. What though, amid the dark storms of the desert, some temporal hopes are blight- ed ; yet are all the rich hopes of eternity promoted, brightened, and secured by the purifying commo- tions of external circumstances. And well may the Christian believer look to the all-ruling Son of Man as his hiding-place from the wind, and his covert from the tempest, when he has been assured of His pledged and covenanted friendship. How well and how calmly may he flee to Him amid the most ap- palling storms of Providence, and in every season of Christ our Refuge. 55 danger and convulsion exclaim with the Psalmist, " Therefore in the shadow of Thy wings will I make my refuge until this calamity be overpast." This brings me to another, and far more important sense in which the " Man Christ Jesus " is the source of the sinner's security. My brethren, the " Man Christ Jesus " is the be- liever's security against the storm of the Divine dis- pleasure. And tell me what image — what emblem — shall rightly represent all that the wrath of Omnipo- tence implies, when it is spoken of as being let loose upon the soul ? What image of whirlwind and of storm can be too strong to represent such a vengeance as is described in the literal statements of God's infal- lible word ? This tempest, this horrible tempest, as it is called, is fast approaching for the unrepenting and the unfaithful. It is coming upon the never-resting, ever-hasting wing of time. Turn ye, then, turn ye to the Stronghold, to the Rock of Refuge — to Christ, the hiding-place. For towering high above the storm shall the Rock of Ages stand — even Jesus, who deliv- ereth from the wrath to come ; the predicted "hiding- place from the wind," and the promised " covert from the tempest." My brethren, if there be any truth in the delineation of God's spirit, the day is coming when the retributions of God will fall upon the earth, and His long-suspended wrath shall sweep its pollu- ted lands with a burning surge. And shall we, although so constantly warned and warmly entreated, shall we continue to linger without the walls of sal- vation — without the city of refuge — until the gates 56 Christ our Refuge. of entrance be closed against us forever ? Shall we continue to loiter, with stupid infatuation, upon the narrow isthmus that is left to us, from the steadily en- croaching ocean of eternity, until its dark waves break with overwhelming fury at our feet, and the ark of safety which we have refused to enter shall then be far, ay, far and hopelessly beyond our reach ? God for- bid that we should be content thus to continue, while the tempest thickens and the peril is hourly drawing nearer and nearer. Let us rather flee while we can to the sanctuary of the Saviour's mediation, and to the covert of the Saviour's protection. To believe and obey the Gospel is thus to turn and flee. To receive the offered Saviour for your own, with an humble submission of mind and heart, this is to en- ter the hiding-place, this is to pass under the covert, this is to repose under the rock of safety and unfail- ing refreshment. Be persuaded, my brethren, thus to turn and flee; for the invitation is free. Be persuaded to obey with- out hesitation or delay, for the time is alarmingly short. Why do you hesitate? After what do you search ? Of what do you fear we may deprive you ? Is your soul athirst for happiness ? Is it for enjoyment that you seek ? And do you fear that we shall rob you of the fugitive raptures of the world ? We grant you, that the soul's deepest, most insa- tiable, and most incurable thirst is for happiness. It is for satisfaction and repose that it pants with an ardor that is painful and absorbing; and after which it cries with a voice that is never silent. It is Christ our Refuge. 57 for this that it eagerly explores all the vast range which is opened before it of sense, imagination, in- tellect, and affection. But amid the harvest of light and joy with which God crowns the industry and prudence of His creatures, there is still a felicity of ampler reach and loftier value — a chief good of which the soul always feels the need, and for which the world, and all its forms, is vain and unsatisfac- tory. What the soul demands is an enjoyment that shall leave us nothing to want, and nothing to fear from deprivation or decay ; which shall prove itself to be THAT for which man is made ; suited to his nature, adequate to his capacities, and commensurate with his being. It is for this that all have sought ; and it is precisely this that all have missed. It is for this that sages have toiled, with all the powers of sublime comprehension and subtle analysis. It is for this that sensualists have ransacked the fields of vision, and exhausted the powers of sense. It is for this that the wisest of men and the most powerful of kings — the man whose conception extended far beyond the reach of other mortals, and whose abi- lity to test and try was as boundless as his heart was restless to devise and to desire — who had only to wish, and it was so — who had only to open his hand, and pleasures dropped into it — who satisfied his grasping intellect in boundless fields of know- ledge ; and satiated his senses with every variety of sensual joy — who put trouble and darkness far from him — clothed himself in brightness, surrounded him- 3* 68 Christ our Refuge. self with melody, and then sought to repose amid perfumes and beauty, that his dreams might be only of gladness. But he awoke to sickness of heart ; for his flowers were faded, and their sweetness passed away. The voices of his minstrels were silent in death. The heavens were clouded in frowns. The earth was wet with the dewy tears of sorrow ; and as his spirit sunk within him, he pronounced it all to be " vanity." Yea, he has left this testimony to all succeeding ages, inscribed upon the imperishable pages of truth, that " all is vanity ! " That man was permitted to make his wide and vast experiment, that all generations might know how hopeless is his labor who takes the world for his confidence and his portion; who seeks only here for what is to fill " the aching void," for the " rivei-s of water " to satisfy his undying thirst. Give to him all the world has to offer, but the " void" is still there, and he is thirsty still. Give to the man who is gasp- ing for life, under the burning fever that is drying up the fountain of the heart, all of the glittering gems and jewels of the East, or the massy gold from the miser's hoarded heap, and will you meet his wants? Alas! alas! will he not bid you "away with your idle mockery ? " Will he not tell you that the silver and the sumptuous fare will little avail him now ; that he will gladly exchange them all for medicine to heal his sickness ? So, too, is it with the man who has already realized all of good which the world has to offer him ; but yet, how often does the morning light awaken him from the trance of feverish pain, Christ our Refuge. 59 or to encounter anew the overwhelming pressure of despondency ; and he perceives that the current of life is ebbing slowly away, and that the grave is opening before him, without ever being able to put to repose the ever-restless and most anxious craving of the heart. He sees that the world's fairest promises are no more than a cheating mockery. They are as false as the illusion which oftentimes, in the East- ern deserts, turns the reflection of the glowing sand into the likeness of a bright and breezy lake, to which the weary traveller hastens with hurried and feeble footsteps only to experience a keener disappoint- ment, and to encounter new and unlooked-for suf- fering. Ah ! who is there that does not know that to seek for the soul's supreme felicity in this barren and fading world is to search for water in dry places that yield none. It is wilfully to forsake the fountain of living waters, and to pursue the desert's cheating visions ; or it is to exasperate and not to relieve your thirst at its unsatisfjang, and oftentimes bitter pools. Then, when disease or age have left you nothing to enjoy, in the hour of crushing sorrow, or in the stupor of despair, to sink unaided, unconsoled, unsheltered and untaught, into the dark, deep, and shoreless gulf of oblivion ! Oh ! turn, my brethren, at the voice of Jesus, which, in the far-sounding and attractive call, invites all " who thirst to come unto Him and drink." Thus it is that I have now come to point you to where the happiness you have so long and so eagerly sought is 60 Christ our Refuge. surely to be found. T point you to a portion that is full and forever satisfying, because it is infinite. The " INFINITE " and unchanging is what we want, in op- position to the finite, the mortal, and the fading. I, then, will guide you to a spring of living water, of which he who drinks will never thirst again. My brethren, this portion and this happiness is to be found in the favok of the God of the soul. This favor is to be won through the believing acceptance of the Saviour. Here is the fulness of repose for a soul that has found the object of its search. To repose now upon the blessed hope, and hereafter upon the glad inheritance of immortal life. The foretaste now, and at length the perfection of enduring felicity. And what, my brethren, can you conceive better calculated to be a well-spring of rich and overflowing consola- tion and comfort to the heart, than to know that,, prompted by infinite love. Infinite Wisdom has un- dertaken to guide and supportus ? that Infinite Power is engaged to defend us, and that all infinite attributes are pledged to be with us eternally ? What is the condition of perplexity or peril, of prosperity or of threatening ruin, in which this conviction does not contain resources of abundant and overflowing con- solation ? — the conviction, my brethren, that through all the horrors of the gloomy wilderness through which we must pass, Jehovah's rod and staff will point out the way, — there will be for us a " pillar of cloud by day," and a " pillar of fire by night," — that, finally, with God's right hand around us, we shall pass forever from this realm of darkness into that of unclouded and un- Christ our Refuge. 61 sullied liorht. "We shall enter on a world where the SHADOW OF DEATH hath never fallen — which, through all of its immeasurable regions, contains no valley of tears ! where the variety in its scenery is a variety of bliss, and where, guarded by the tenderest and mightiest of friends, we shall pass forever onward, through richer and richer fields, watered by brighter and more sparkling streams, and redolent of sweeter flowers ; perceiving, as we advance, that the immor- tal landscape is perpetually waxing more refulgent and more fair. We shall feel that our spirits, in pass- ing from joy to joy, are translated from one region of our heavenly home to another, more exalted and more ecstatic still. Our happiness shall be that we have ETERNAL LIFE, and that Ikfinity is before us to engage our powers and absorb our love. I have thus, in explaining and illustrating the sense of the prophet, endeavored to show you that his al- lusion in the text is to the Man Christ Jesus, and that Christ is most emphatically the believer's hiding- place and rock of refuge, — his unfailing source of security and defence against all the depressing trou- bles and disastrous commotions of time. Still more is He our refuge and strength against the coming storm of righteous and eternal anger. Not only is He our hiding-place and covert, but, as sparkling riv- ulets of water are to the faint and failing traveller in the parched desert, and as the cool shade of a great rock is to the weary pilgrim when ready to sink down and die under the burning glare and dissolv- ing heat of Eastern skies, so too is the Man Christ 62 Christ our Refuge. Jesus, in the ennobling principles and the boundless and immortal hopes with which He inspires us, our all-sufficient and unfailing source of tranquil joj, for- ever and forever ! To Him, my brethren, be persuaded to come, if you would enkindle in the immortal mind the lamp of life and happiness, a lamp that, amid all the sweep- ing tempests to which we may be exposed, will still burn on unextinguished ; — which even the dull and deadly breath of the last enemy shall not be able to quench ; which, while we are passing through the shadow of death, shall suddenly leap out into an ef- fulgence far brighter than the sun, and then enable us to begin our celestial and interminable progress of holiness and joy towards the still inaccessible Source of all bliss and all glory. mm^^m^^^MtimMmm: B^g^^.^P^^PH JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. " What doth it profit^ my brethren^ though a man say he hath faith, and have not works ? Can faith save Jiim / " James 'id, 14th. IHE apparent discrepancy between the teaching of the Apostle Paul and St. James in refei'ence to the influence of religious faith upon human salvation, has been the occasion of much perplexity to Chris- tian minds. But as " all Scripture is given by inspi- ration of God," and as He is a God of unchangeable truth, it is evident that the difficulty of reconciling apparent differences arises from our own want of attention to the differing and distinct objects of the respective writers, and to the peculiar connections in which their language is used, rather than to any possible want of agreement and consistency in the divine teaching. The doctrine of " justification by faith only " is taught too positively and distinctly by St. Paul, to be either misunderstood or resisted by the most su- perficial reader. My brethren, it is the doctrine of the Scriptures, and it is therefore the doctrine of your Church. But then the faith upon which the 64 Justification by Faith. Scriptures and your Church equally insist, for your present justification and your eternal safety, is an intelligent and productive faith. It is no idle gibberish nor senseless profession of the lips. The word is used to denote the living graces of the Chris- tian character, and the rich virtues of the Christian life. Now nothing could possibly have been further from the purpose of St, James than to resist or con- fiite this truth as it is in Jesus. His clear object was to strengthen and sustain it, by freeing it from the perversion and abuse to which impure minds had subjected it. That this was his object, and that the two Apostles were entirely harmonious and con- sistent with themselves and with each other, will appear by the slightest reference to the general design of the writers, and the class of persons to whom their respective epistles are addressed. St. Paul is writing to Jewish converts, who, from the narrow prejudices in which they had been educated, were almost irresistibly disposed to attach a most ex- travagant and saving efficacy to the merely mechani- cal observance of the Mosaic ritual. It was difficult to persuade them that oblations and animal sacrifices were no longer required; and still more difiicult was it to impress them with a conviction of their inability to render themselves entirely acceptable to God by their own unaided and imperfect compliance with the requirements of the moral law. St. Paul, then, was contending against this prejudice of the times, and the sect, and he labored to show them how impossi- ble it was for any man to be justified and delivered Justification hy Faith. 65 from the consequences of sin by an unmeaning ob- servance of the ceremonial law ; — that it was impos- sible for the blood of animals, when shed without re- gard to the thing it was designed to signify, ever to take away sin. He contended, with an irresistible power of argument and illustration, that all of these ordinances were but the types and shadows of other and far higher things ; that they were useful only as they were observed in faith, and as they served to keep alive the sense of religious obligation to sustain a devout confidence in the high promises of God. The shadow, he contends, was no longer useful when tlie substance had been received. The sign was no longer to be used, when the thing signified had been obtained. The instrument was no longer to be em- ployed, when the end for which it had been appointed had been answered. If, then, they could no longer expect justification and acceptance on account of an idle observance of rites and ceremonies, which had ceased to be either wise or useful, so neither could they rest their hopes of salvation on their meritorious observance of God's moral law, as deliv- ered from Sinai. The requisition of that law was nothing short of universal holiness — but holiness in motive and in action, in thought, word, and deed, is per- fection, and perfection is manifestly impossible for an imperfect creature. " Sin is any transgression," or any falling short " of the law," and the certain " punishment of sin is death." How delusive and how fatal, therefore, are any hopes of salvation which are rested only on their own merits ! But, says the eloquent Apostle, in the tri- Q6 Justification by Faith. amph of enlightened faith, " Where sin abounds, there doth grace much more abound," and " Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ," He then goes on to prove that the only founda- tion on which the world can ever rest for etern al safety is on their faith in the sufficiency of Christ's righteousness as " the propitiation, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world." And that the sincerity of such a faith was always to be attested by the meek- ness with which it led its votaries to persevere, with a caution that never slumbered and a zeal that never relaxed, in the straight and narrow way of holy liv- ing — such was the simple and direct object of St. Paul. St. James, on the contrary, was directing his pointed and withering rebuke against the blighting heresy of supposing that a profession of belief in the divine mission of Christ was inevitably to secure them eternal safety, without any consideration or care for the fruits of the Christian life. The infinite peril of cher- ishing this blasphemous and revolting persuasion he portrays in the most fearful colors. St. James is by no means denying what St. Paul had taught — that we are all and only to be saved by faith in the right- eousness and atonement of Christ — but he goes on to contend against a ruinous perversion and abuse of that sacred truth. He insists, too, as St. Paul had insisted, that the sincerity of a Christian faith is only to be tested and proved by its ever-increasing anxiety to walk in the paths of purity and holiness, and thus to fulfil all righteousness. The very name of faith im- plies obedience to the beautiful law of holiness and Justification hy Faith. 6T truth which Christ came to obey and fulfil. " As," says he, " the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also." It does not exist, and it is worse than folly to talk about it. '* What doth it profit though a man say he hath faith, and have not works ? " Can a faith that is only talked of save him ? " If a brother or a sister be naked, or destitute of daily food, and one of you say unto them, ' Depart in peace — be ye warmed and filled,' notwithstanding thou givest them not the things that are needful to the body, what doth it profit ? " What a cruel insult is your hollow courtesy to the destitute and shivering petitioner for your bounty ! And is it less a mockery, think you, to insult the majesty of God by an idle talk of faith, without any pretension to obedience? The faith of which St. Paul speaks, and for which St. James contends, " works always by love, and purifies the heart." " By their fruits,^'' says the blessed Saviour, " ye shall know them." I think, my brethren, I have said enough to sat- isfy you of the true intention and meaning of the two Apostles of Jesus, and that there is no discrep- ancy between them. But let me here beg you to ob- serve that the term justification, as used in the Scrip- tures, has two very dififerent senses applied to it. A sinner is said to be justified before God, when he is reconciled and accounted righteous by his Creator. This is the sense in which the term is used by St. Paul, and is, indeed, its general acceptation. But it is sometimes used in another sense, and is made to sig- 68 Justification hy Faith. nifj the vindication of a person's character in the eve and the judgment of men. (Dent. xxv. 1 ; Job xxxii. 32.) Now, it is quite evident that St. Paul is speaking of justification in the former of these senses, and St. James in the latter. St. Paul is speaking of the justification of the sinner's person ; St. James, of the justification of his faith and reli- gious character. St. Paul was laboring to show how a guilty and condemned sinner might yet be account- ed righteous, and rejoice in the gladdening smile of a reconciled Father. He speaks of mankind as hav- ing destroyed themselves by rebellion and crime ; as being speechless under the irresistible evidence by which they are " brought in guilty before God " (Kom. iii. 19) ; as having " all sinned," and as being utterly unable by all they can do to reconcile them- selves to God, for to the last they will be no more than unprofitable servants : they will be deficient and still guilty, and still condemned. If, then, they can never of themselves stand before the throne of a righteous God as righteous and justified mortals, then must they consent to seek for their justification in some other way. And he faithfully and earnestly points them to the only way of acceptance with God: "Even through the righteousness of God which is by FAITH IN Jesus Christ." All have sinned, but all may be "justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is by Christ Jesus." (Eom. iii. 24.) St. Paul is thus teaching the way of salvation, through the righteousness and atonement of Christ. St. James, on the contrary, Justification hy Faith. 69 is sternly rebuking the injurious and Antinomian professions of unsanctified and disobedient men. He declares that the faith which is to save us must stand forth to the eye of men justified and approved by its manifest results, by its meekness and its abounding fruits. It is no empty and speculative assent to spec- ulative truth, but rather a deep and subduing con- viction of the head and the heart, which leads to the most anxious diligence to enrich and adorn the character with the practical and ennobling virtues of Heaven. The profession of faith without the spir- itual energy that leads its possessor to press on after purity and righteousness, to hunger and thirst for them with the avidity of one who knows that he will perish unless he attains them — the profession, I say, without the heartfelt affection which leads surely and inevitably to active obedience, is an abomination. It is a solemn mockery to the eye of Heaven, and must aggravate the sinner's condemnation. It is no bet- ter than the statue chiselled from the marble, and sculptured into symmetry and fair proportions by the accuracy of genius and the deceptiveness of art, but in which the soul is wanting. It is cold, motionless, and speechless, without life, and without power to proclaim, with the resistless eloquence of its example, the purity and excellence of Heaven-descended truth. My brethren, let me conjure you, then, to cherish the doctrine of salvation by faith in the righteousness and atonement of Christ as lying at the foundation of yom' religion, as being the very diamond pivot upon which turns the entire system of the gospel : it is the 70 Justification hy Faith. very mainspring of active and stirring piety. But fancy not that this principle, which when received and sustained in its purity must propel to purity in practice ; fancy not that it is taught by St. Paul so as to be justly liable to Antinomian perversion and abuse. When not teaching abstractly the plan of human salvation, not even St. James himself is more urgent and clear in insisting upon good works as being the only evidence of the sincerity of the Christian's faith, as being indispensable for the justification of HIS PROFESSION. My brethren, tm'n to the Epistles of St. Paul, and open them where you may ; how full and how rich do you find him in his representations of the necessity of holiness, as being the very high- est end and object of our election and redemption. " God," says he, " has chosen us in Christ, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love." He exliorts us to " give all diligence to make our calling and election sure." He tells us that " without holiness no man shall see the Lord," and that " Jesus came to redeem us from all iniquity, and to purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." (Titus ii. 14.) He tells us, too, that " Jesus became the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him." We thus see, my brethren, that Christian faith is the fountain from which the streams of goodness must flow to make glad the city of our God. Good works, you will observe, are not thefountain, but they are the streams which tell us that the fountain is there. They are not the founda- tion upon which we can rest our eternal hopes, but Justification hy Faith. 71 they are the rich superstructure which tells us with irresistible power that the foundation which supports the temple of holiness is laid fast and firm in Christ Jesus. Faith is the tree of righteousness, planted by the Lord's own spirit in the heart ; and good works are the blossoms and fruits of holiness that grow upon it. Faith is the principle by which our mo- tives of religious actions will be tested; and good WORKS are the witnesses by whose testimony we shall stand or fall, in that awful day when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of His Son. I say not, you will observe, my brethren, that any good works which we can do will purchase exemp- tion for us from condemnation, in that tremendous hour of trial ; but I do say, that good works are in- dispensably necessary in order to make manifest our possession of that saving interest in Christ Jesus which secures for us the blessings of the redeemed. The sinner is justified before God by his faith in Christ Jesus, and then the measure of his reward will be just in proportion to the weight of testimony which shall be given in favor of the purity and sin- cerity of his faith by his witnessing works. This view of the subject will at once make plain to your under- standings not only the apparent difference between St. Paul and St. James, but also the seeming contra- diction in different passages of St. Paul's own epis- tles. "We are justified by faith, but yet shall every one of us receive hereafter according to the things 72 Justification hy Faith. done in the body, whether they have been good or evil. What doth it profit, brethren, for a man to say he hath faith, while he hath not the works by which alone our Lord hath told us that we are to show forth our faith to the eye of the world, or repose upon its saving efficacy for the peace of our own con- sciences. What profit is it, though a man say he hath faith, and hath not works ; can his saying he hath faith save him ? Such is the meanino- of our text. My brethren, it is a consideration which ought to be deeply engraven upon every thinking heart, that the motive must consecrate the action. Deeds, there- fore, that are wrought without any regard for the will or the law of Jesus, can never purchase for us an in- terest in the atonement of Jesus. Works which are wrought without any consideration for the Almighty Lawgiver, and even while rebellion is nourished in the heart, and withering scorn is uttered by the lips; such works, although they may appear beautiful to men, are yet nothing worth in the eye of Him who " seeth not as man seeth." They will purchase no re- ward from the offended majesty and withering frown of the King of Glory, Alas ! alas ! my brethren, I can fancy that I even now see the shame and everlasting contempt that is depicted in the aspect of the proud assertor of his own righteousness, when he shall feel the arm that he stretches forth towards " the crown of unfading glory " withered and paralyzed by the grasp of Satan, who claims him for his own, and exults in having se- Justification hy Faith. 73 duced him from the shelter of a Saviour's atoning blood, and led him, in his own mad and rebellious pride, to exalt himself on the frail and ruinous ped- estal of his own self-righteousness. And now, may the thought of this dreadful fate touch and subdue our hearts, and lead us to rest our hope of acceptance more completely and anxiously upon the justifying blood of our Kedeemer. And then, while the spirit of God pours its melting consolations into our hearts, and beareth witness with our spirits, that we are the children of God, so, too, let our constant walk in righteousness and true holiness give meek evidence to the world and to our own consciences that we are sealed unto the day of redemption. That day, my brethren, when He in whom we have believed shall come in His own glory, and the Father's glory with Him, and while the guilt-stained universe trembles and melts away, we shall hear His own gentle voice declaring in sweetest accents, " The Lord knoweth them that are His," and behold " I have caused thine iniquity to pass away from thee." And then attend- ant angels shall hasten to enrobe us in His own spotless vesture of righteousness, and amid the tri- umphant hallelujahs of seraphs we shall be welcomed to the "joy of our Lord." THE REVEALED REQUIREMENTS OF THE CREATOR. " And what doth the Lord require of thee, hut to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God ? " Micah 6th, 8tk. |]Sr the striking and eloquent chapter from which these words are taken, the God of Israel is represented as calling upon the extremities of the earth, from the top of its everlasting hills to the depth of its strong foundations, to bear witness to the ingratitude and rebellion of his people. The Israelites are then rep- resented as crying out in the wildest alarm before the indignation they had provoked, and praying to be guided to the means of appeasing His righteous anger. Should they come before Him with sacrifices and oblations ; would thousands of rams or ten thousands of rivers of oil be accepted by Him ? Or should they pour out the blood of their children, whom they loved as their own souls, as an atonement for their sins? These absurd and abominable sugges- tions represent most forcibly the eifect of ignorant and superstitious terror upon the sinner's conscience. And how impious, how frivolous, and how cruel The Hevealcd Requirements of the Creator. 75 have its devices ever been to secure the favor of the Deity, without faith, penitence, and purity ! The reply of the Creator to these monstrous and impossible propositions of the terror-stricken soul is given in the simple and impressive words of the text : " He hath showed thee, O man, what is good ; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God ? " This beautiful text is sometimes misunderstood, and men are led by it to argue against the importance of doctrines of faith and the positive institutions of religion. Why is it, they ask, that the peculiarity of our faith and the forms of religion are so strictly insisted on, when we find it expressly written, that the Lord requires nothing more of us than that our lives should be marked with justice and benevolence to man, and an humble reverence to our Maker? The dangerous fallacy of this reasoning will at once appear, when you consider how absurd it would be to suppose that the sacred prophets of God would be engaged in depreciating and destroying the very institutions which God Himself had established. In all those instances, therefore, in which the vanity of ceremonial observances is pointed out, and the necessity of moral duties insisted on, you are to understand the sacred teachers as laboring to free the positive institutions of God from the abuse to which the ignorant superstitions of men have subject- ed them. You nowhere find prophets teaching the people that the ceremonies of the law were not to be observed ; but with solemn earnestness they con- 76 The Revealed Requirements of the Creator. stantly admonish them of the awful danger and folly of mistaking the shadow for the reality ; the sign for the thing signified ; the means and instruments ap- pointed by God to lead to holy things for holiness itself. "When therefore it is said, that God requires nothing more from us than the practice of the moral virtues, they speak truly, but yet comparatively. For while the love and practice of those virtues is the end and object of all the discipline to which God subjects us in this life, yet no man is at liberty to rebel against that discipline which God in His in- finite wisdom has contrived and positively appointed for our advancement in holiness. " He hath showed thee, O man, what is good." Where hath He showed it ? In the sacred writings, surely ; and upon their general teachings, then, must we rely, as to what we are to believe and to do. And although the final cause, the end of all their training, the sum and substance of their teaching, may be to bring us to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God ; yet surely we are not permitted to refuse to pass through the steps, or to despise the means, by which God, who knows our hearts, would gradually train and prepare us for this perfection of virtue. Of a character similar to our text, and, like it, liable to misconception and abuse, are those well-known words of St. James: "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the father- less and widows in their affliction, and to keep him- self unspotted from the world." Will any sound mind argue from this that we are at liberty to throw The Repealed Requirements of the Creator. 77 aside all the other teaching of God, as to what may be implied in the term religion ; and resolve that we will believe nothing and do nothing but jnst what this isolated verse points out ? The idea is too absurd to be refuted. "We perceive at once, that tlie Apostle did not mean to give us articles of faith, or to lay down a code of morals ; and, in short, meant nothing more than to affirm that personal purity of character and active benevolence of life were leading; duties of the religion of Heaven. But to return to our text. " "What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God ? " Now, although a nar- row and partial conception of these words may serve to flatter the indolent, the selfish, and the worldly, in their neglect of religious doctrine and ordinances, yet, when fully and fairly considered and explained, I want no other nor better foundation for everything essential to salvation. We are to do justly. A wide, elevated, fearful requirement. I ask you not to remember that it embraces what is due to God, as well as what we owe to man. I am willing that you should consider it in the restricted sense in which it is commonly received among us, and still it implies a vast and wide-spreading responsibility, a high and dignified measure of virtue. My brethren, it is a most exalted quality, and there is good reason to fear that it is too rarely exercised. But of this we shall leave you to judge, after we have explained what it fairly and properly means, and what He w^ho knows and will judge the heart does now hourly exact from it. 78 The R&vealed Requirements of the Creator. We all know that there are certain violations of honesty which the laws define and punish, and the turpitude of which the world acknowledges. But I ask you to remember that every abuse of confidence is injustice. Every species of deceit, dissimulation, and evasion, in the dealings of man with man, is downright dishonesty, and is oftentimes a serious aggravation of the crime of taking what does not belong to us. The prowling robber, who creeps from his loathsome hiding-place under the curtain of night, to take by chance that which will not impoverish or destroy the loser, is partial in the mischief he creates in comparison with him who, under the disguise of integrity and fair-dealing, succeeds in dissipating dis- trust, and then preys upon the confiding. He is a monster, for whom no weight of punishment is too severe which universal detestation, derision, and scorn can inflict. Confidence is the golden chain that links the great interests of society togetlier, that joins heart to heart, and thus softens human man- ners and sweetens human intercourse ; but he who, by dissimulation, impairs confidence, is the most serious of the enemies of human happiness. The effect of his mischief can hardly be calculated. He clothes life in coldness and suspicion, dissipates candor, and generates selfishness ; makes men timorous and re- served, chills the warmth of benevolence, and checks the working of the amiable virtues. The robber by night lurks in secret by day, or flies for his life from the frown of society and the sword of the law. The abuser of confidence steals The Revealed Requirements of the Creator. 79 in the smile of friendship, and with the cant of hon- esty he carries the fruit of his horrible iniquity in his hands at noonday, and bids defiance to detection and to punishment. The triumph of dissimulation and secret fraud may defy the light of time, but the light of eternity is breaking, which it cannot defy. The hour will come, brethren, ay, and come quickly, too, when he who has been unjust in small matters must stand before that Judge whom it will be impos- sible to deceive, and who will read to the universe the recorded history of our secret doings. Although we may now move lightly with the spoils of our wicked doings held closely to our hearts, the time is coming when, without repentance and prayers for mercy, they will lie with crushing weight upon our souls. My brethren, the possible cases in which the laws of justice may be violated are innumerable ; and however common certain deviations from the strict rule of right may be around us, however slight the consequences may be, and as gentle as the names may be by which they are known and marked, it is still the same crime. I would that he who boasts of his trust to be rewarded with the happiness of heaven, in return for his pure and just deeds on earth, should remember that he deals not jnstly when he avails himself of the forms of law to shelter him in the vio- lation of equity. He deals not justly when, by any subtlety of management, he withholds or takes from any body, whether it be an individual or a society, the Government or the public, anything, be it more 80 The Revealed Requirements of the Creator. or less, which is fairly their right. He deals not justly when, through reckless prodigality and ex- travagance, he deprives himself of the means of meeting his honest engagements. He deals not justly w^hen he ascribes to his goods, either directly, indirectly, expressly, or by implication, qualities which he knows they have not, or conceals faults which he knows they have. He deals not justly who borrows upon false representations, or buys when he has no reasonable prospect of repay- ing. Alas ! my brethren, no Christian can think of the extended requirements of the virtue without agitation. Amid the excitement and ceaseless competition of a widely-extended commerce, our situation is re- plete with temptation, and it is to be feared that conscience is too often overpowered by cupidity, and the sense and shame of guilt is lost in the pride of acuteness and the thirst of accumulation. These dangers, and all other temptations in life, can only be resisted by solemn resolutions, constant vigilance, and earnest prayer ; by measuring every action on the scale of eternity, and by the controlling help of God, fervently and diligently implored. However much men may flatter themselves as to the firmness and consistency of their uprightness, we admonish you that it is only that man who habitually feels that he is under the eye of Omniscience — that his heart is read by God, and his thoughts registered in Heaven, who is influenced by a steady regard for the will of his Creator and the retributions of eternity — he alone The Revealed Requirements of the Creator. 81 it is who will be as faithful to the high principles of justice in solitude and secrecy, as in the midst of an assembled universe. He alone it is upon whom you can safely rely as one without guilt, and free from unhallowed deception, artifice, and subterfuge; and who will never "palter in a double sense," although it would be to realize the wildest dreams of ambition, and to induce wealth to pour its glittering tide at his feet. But, my brethren, it is not enough that we do justly — it is not enough that we neither defraud nor ofiend in word or in deed — it is not enough even that our religious faith is clear and settled — if that religion leaves us cold and selfish ; if our feelings rise within and return only upon ourselves ; if we are content to walk in the narrow and confined cir- cle of duty, rendering to all exactly their due, but caring not to diffuse light and dispense happiness, and leaving the track of our existence, like a barren spot in creation, neither irradiated by the sunshine of Christian love, nor refreshed by the showers of heavenly compassion. "We must love mercy. It must be a cherished and ruling principle of our hearts. It is not enough that we give way to occa- sional and capricious flights of compassionate feeling; it is not enough that we pour forth luxurious tears over artful tales of romantic distress. We must re- member that Christ descended from the mercy-seat, and took up His abode with man, that He might train the world to mercy. We must love mercy as the highest and sweetest attribute of Divinity. "We must remember that we must be merciful; if we 4* 82 The Revealed Require7nents of the Creator. would obtain mercy ; that our charity for the wants and infirmities of frail humanity must be no osten- tatious softness of feeling, but a deep, strong, and imperative conviction of the duty we owe to our God and to our race. This is the charity that par- dons, toils, and suffers — which no labor wearies, no ingratitude disgusts, and no honor sickens ; that treads in secret the paths of misery which no man sees, and which cares for no man's praise, but which, like the great laws of nature's God, does the work of God in silence, and looks to Him for direction and reward. My brethren, when we think of these things — when we think of the wide-spreading obli- gations which this law of mercy imposes — when we think of the purity and simplicity of heart in which our Lord has taught us to love and exercise it — and then look into our own hearts, and perceive their selfish and sordid indifierence, their pride, vain-glory, love of human applause, and restless thirst for ex- citement, who will not tremble lest the incense which rises from our altars should be no more than a polluted ofi'ering to the Majesty of heaven ? The third and last requirement of the text, my brethren, is, that we should "walk humbly with our God." Where now is the proud and inconsistent boaster of merit on the score of humility ? I will ask you whether you have succeeded in tearing up by the roots every emotion of pride and self-conceit from your heart ? Under a sense of unworthiness, do you shrink into nothing in His awful presence ; and while bowing before His grandeur, His purity, The Revealed Requirements of the Creator. 83 and the throne of His mercy, is every feeling of ar- rogance, of rancor, of envy, jealousy, and revenge, subdued ? Do all human claims and worldly honors sink into insignificance? Are you so deeply imbued with the true spirit of humility, with love, reverence, and gratitude, that you are willing to submit without a murmur, and with cheerful obedience, to all of His dispensations, no matter how withering may be His rebukes, or how bitter may be the bereavement ? Do you feel — as a child of frailty, error, and sin, drinking in iniquity like water, and fading before the moth born of the dust, and kindred of the grave^ that your intellectual powers are feeble, and too much confined to the earth to penetrate the arena of hea- ven — that your love is best shown by an unrepining deference, in singleness of heart, to the well-authen- ticated declarations of His will ; and in all mys- terious and perplexing questions, by a calm and conscientious selection of that side which appears beset with the fewest difficulties, and in which our purest moral feelings coincide with the verdict of the intellect % But if nothing of this be true — if, while talking of humility to God, you are exclusively en- grossed with conscious self-complacency, actually swelled into imaginary importance, and ready to throw out the most haughty disdain upon all the sources of spiritual instruction with which God has surrounded you ; and so far from submitting your feeble and darkling intellect to the Divine teach- ing, you are actually, with the most daring presump- tion, picking among the demonstrable truths of re- 84 TJie Revealed Requirements of the Creator. ligion, as to which you will obey or reject! Horrible mockery ! Dreadful delusion ! My friends, let there be no mistake or concealment in this matter. The indolent, the sensual, the votary of this world, beings who pass through life in cold and supercilious indifference with regard to the most important of all questions — namely, the re- vealed requirements of the Creator ; who close their eyes upon the stupendous and elaborate arrange- ments of the Christian dispensation which are work- ing around them, and which are urged upon their attention, not more by the most cogent external tes- timony than by the cravings and necessities of their own moral constitutions — these men walk not hum- bly with their God. The conclusion, then, to which we bring you is this : that those persons, who through some loose feeling of deference to the authority of the Scriptures have fastened upon some occasional text as the sum of their faith and the rule of their practice, to the ab- solute neglect of all other teaching, are not only guilty of the most unreasonable presumption ; but, even when tried by their own principles, must inevi- tably be found wanting. The sweeping requirements of any one moral virtue are infinitely more than any one child of the dust can fully meet; and if we have no other refuge or remedy than the attainments of our own strength, we must prepare to brave the condemnation of our Judge. In opposition to this, the course to which we would persuade you is to submit with a cheerful, un- The Revealed Requirements of the Creator. 85 doubting, unreserved obedience, to all things taught or appointed us by God. Let our faith derive con- eistenc}^, substantiality, and efficacy from our works, and let our works derive holiness and value from our faith; and thus form the only true and noble combination of moral excellence: separate them, and the value of each is lost. The one degenerates into turgid self-righteousness, without a heavenly motive and without heavenly worth; the other be- comes offensive profaneness, by a horrible perversion of the sacred promises of Scripture to purposes of licentiousness. With anxious and humble spirits, let us gratefully avail ourselves of every ordinance appointed by God, as an instrument of holiness ; and while we feel that our best works, when measured by the eternal standard of heavenly purity, are sad- ly defective, let us look back upon the "black and grained spots" of many a crime, and let us eagerly seek for safety in the stupendous atonement that Christ has made for all human sins. I would lead you, my brethren, to Him who is able to deliver you, alike from the power and the punishment of sin ; who can give you a meetness for Heaven imparted by His Spirit, and a title to Heaven written in His own blood. Yes, I would lead you to fix your hope of Heaven on a stable foundation, that when the tempest of God's anger shall blacken the earth, the sweeping rain shall descend, and the deluge of fire shall roll its heavy billows over every false foundation, and every refuge of lies, that then you may find yourself reposing in calm safety upon the everlasting "Kock of Ages." THE IMPORTANCE OF RELIGION TO THE TOUNG. " I discerned among the youths a young man void of understand- ing.'''' Proverbs 1th, 7th. X the Scriptures, the terms wisdom and understanding are constantly used to denote the religion of God. And so, too, where we read in the sacred writ- ings of a fool, a simple one, and of a man without understanding, we are not to suppose that any im- perfection or imbecility in the natural endowments of the individual is intended ; but rather it is de- signed to impress us with the solemn truth, that the most awful perversion of the high powers with which God has enriched us is witnessed when men wilfully reject the teachings of their Creator ; when they choose, under the influence of distempered passions, to wander amid the frightful perils of life, and riot amid its brief and debasing pleasures, while scornfully rejecting the guiding light and the en- nobling counsels of that Celestial Messenger whom God has sent to the earth to direct their inexpe- rienced steps. Our text is taken from the writings of Solomon, and forms a part of his recorded experience of those Importance of Religion to the Young. 87 sad delusions under which men pursue the phantom of happiness, over the treacherous quicksands which everywhere lie so near the surface in this dangerous ocean of life. Well and truly, my brethren, has it been said that the picture with which we are here presented is a most striking and affecting exhibition of many a scene in real life. At the most interesting and critical season in the span of human existence, "a young man void of un- derstanding" is brought clearly before us. At his right hand stands the Genius of Evil, arrayed in an angel's garb of beauty, and with seductive smiles alluring him to her home of impurity. Behind the youth I see in the distance, but advancing with sure and rapid steps, shame, remorse, disease, poverty, incurable misery, and eternal ruin ! Above him I see the angels and spirits of the just, looking dowTi from their abodes of light and bliss, with eyes full of the most anxious concern. On one side stands the Father of the young man : his gray hairs wave in the wind, and the brow which is thus left bare I see to be furrowed with care ; while his bosom heaves with unutterable anguish, as he follows the object of his fondest hopes in his reckless career of ruin. But there is still another figure in the picture — it is a personification of Faith — it is the heart -stricken Mother of the " young man void of understanding." I can see her on her bended knees, with her stream- ing eyes raised to heaven, while in the smothered and broken tones of a grief too deep for utterance, 88 Importance of Religion to the Young. she supplicates the God of her hopes that He would save the child of her love. God of mercy ! how little do the young know how great the interest is which they excite in heaven and on earth. How little do they consider how deep, how very deep, is the cup which their conduct may fill with bliss, or else with bitter wretchedness. My brethren, it is now my privilege to address the young ; and here you will permit me to say, once for all, that in speaking of youth we confine ourselves to no particular sex. There are no pictures we can draw, there are no truths we can utter, there are no habits or qualities of character we can depict, as in- dicating a want of understanding in youth, which will not apply to the maiden as well as to the man. Indeed, if the want of all religious faith, all religious sensibility, all religious principle and control, be dreadful in man, it is infinitely more revolting and more to be dreaded in woman. It is to woman that the world is largely indebted for the diffusion of that faith, which, as the preserv- ing salt of the earth, serves to correct its deeply-seat- ed tendency to corruption. But, alas ! when the salt has lost its savor in woman, she is then but rarely fit for aught else than to be cast out and to be trodden un- der foot of men, as a worthless and a loathsome thing. Women, my brethren, are rarely bad by halves. As in general they are far purer and better than men, so too, when we once discover them to be bad, they are almost sure to be very bad. "When once the re- straining sanctions of religion, and the sense of shame Importance of Religion to the Young. 89 before men, have lost their hold upon the heart of woman, she is no longer to be trusted save as a mon- ster, hideously and fearfully stained with iniquity. I repeat it, then, that if the " want of understand- ing," in the high sense in which the Scriptures use that phrase, is to be deplored in man, then more, and far more, is it to be deplored, as the most serious of all evils, in woman. I will now go on to say, that the first mark of a want of understanding in youth, is to be discovered in their lending a listening ear to the sneers and spe- cious objections of the base and the blasphemous of the earth, as to the truth of the religion of their fa- thers. My young friends, let me conjure you to re- member that the great and the good of the earth have not been persons likely to be deceived by " cun- ningly-devised fables." They have reposed their clear and unwavering trust in the revelation of their Creator's will, because they saw that it contained truths of eternal importance ; because it was that by which alone they could be consoled amid the bitter and crushing bereavements of life, and because it alone could sustain them when they should be called to lie down upon their beds of death. My brethren, the wise and pure in heart, throughout all Christian time, have reposed with the most unyielding trust in the religion to the profession of which I would now persuade you all, because its truth was supported by all the evidence that can well be given to anything ; because it is supported by prophecies which are con- nected with all time, and which are rendered unques- 90 Irrvportance of Religion to the Young. tionable by past, as well as by present fulfilment ; be- cause it is supported by miracles which are most in- contestably proved, and because it is itself, in its whole nature and character, essentially miraculous. I mean, that it professes to be a supernatural communication from Heaven, and from the unearthly character of its teaching we conclude irresistibly that it never could have been otherwise produced. From its entire superi- ority to all the efforts of the human intellect through- out all past ages, we are bound to infer that the human mind would never have produced such doctrines in its ordinary exercise. And then in their absolute puri- ty and excellence, and in their beautiful congeniality to our loftiest views, best sensibilities, and deepest wants, we must see that they are in every way wor- thy of a Divine origin. Oh ! suffer not yourselves, I conjure you, my brethren, to be beguiled by the se- ductive speculations of any of the tribe of misguided men whose labors are directed to poison, if they can, the purest and sweetest fountains of human hap- piness ; to deprive us of our dearest hopes and most elevated sources of joy ; to rob the sick of the conso- lations of religion, and to deprive the dying of their hope of immortality ; to lay the axe at the root of all moral obligation ; to throw open the floodgates of licentiousness, and to sap the foundations of social or- der. Ah ! my young friends, if it be so, that so long as conscience retains her empire in the human breast, the stain of blood can never be washed away from the murderer's hand ; although the tears of repentance Importance of Religion to the Young. 91 may have blotted the record from the book of God's remembrance, yet neither the pardon of man, nor the forgiveness of God, can ever erase from the memory of the once guilty man the terrible story that is writ- ten there in characters of fire ; nothing can remove the horror with which he gazes upon the hand that was busy in the dark tragedy, nor can anything ever drive away the gory phantom of the dead that haunts the murderer's retirement, — which is with him in the sunshine and in the shade, draws aside his curtains at midnight, and governs the current of his dreams ; so too do I believe, that it is not in the power of the deepest repentance and the sincerest faith ever to cure the burning agony which will prey at the heart of him who has once acted the part of a corrupter of the young ; who has successfully whispered his infidel precepts into the pure warm bosom of ingenuous youth; who with fiendish cruelty has put forth his hand to sever the ties of religious restraint, and has rejoiced to see his victim rushing headlong through the paths of licentiousness in the downward way of the de- stroyer. My brethren, he is a criminal of the deepest dye. He is a murderer in the worst and darkest sense in which the word can be used. The stain, the black, indelible stain of a brother's blood is upon him. He has not only been the slow but sure executioner of the body, but he has been the fell murderer of the IMMORTAL SOUL, and a murderer's fate is his ; he has murdered his own peace forever. Whatever may ultimately be his own prospect for personal salvation, through the repentance that has humbled him, yet 92 Importance of Religion to the Young. the perdition that he sees and feels he has brought upon another hangs upon his heart, as a weight al- most too grievous to be borne, and yet too heavy to be ever removed. The horrid, the blasting, the heart-withering prospect is before him, of hearing in that day when we shall all stand before the judg- ment-seat of Christ, of hearing the piercing shrieks of the souls he has ruined, falling in curses on his head. Oh ! turn, my young friends, turn with shuddering from the presence of the scorner, who with horrid daring would mock at your Saviour, and deride the sacredness of your religious feelings. Those men, of every grade and class, are lying and seducing spirits with which God permits the earth to be cursed, for the punishment or trial of his creatures. Let it be enough for you, that all which is great and imposing, all that is tender and affecting, all that is sublime and terrific on earth, in heaven, or in hell, is now addressed to your hopes and your fears in the Gos- pel of the Son of God. On the one hand, there is presented to the obstinate and impenitent transgressor Divine Justice, arrayed in all the terrors of Almighty power ; and on the other hand, there is graciously held to the humble believer the atoning and peace- speaking blood of the Saviour. They who can remain uninfluenced by these considerations, who reject this Gospel, with its life-giving precepts, and who alto- gether spurn at its restraining discipline, must be deemed irreclaimable ; must be given over to their evil heart of unbelief ; and they will be found without Importance of Religion to the Young. 93 remedy and without excuse in their eternal and dis- astrous submission to the tyranny of the evil one. But again. A second mark of a " want of under- standing " in the young is when they are found pro- fessing an entire belief in the truth and sacredness of the religious principles of their fathers, yet studi- ously postponing their entrance on a religious course of life ; and through a most unworthy timidity, or a criminal fear of the laugh of a guilty world, they carelessly neglect every sacrament and every ordi- nance to which their dying Saviour has called them, as the avenues through which He will impart His blessings and strength to them, and as being, at the same time, the appointed means and ordinances through which they were required to manifest their discipleship and obedience to their Divine Master. Oh ! what can I say to rouse you to a proper sense of this ruinous insensibility to the loud calls which your Saviour God is making upon you for visible communion and fellowship, for a prompt decision and open avowal of the trust you repose in His power to bless and save you forever? Why is there so much of frigid indifference in a concern of such overwhelming importance ? If your religion is worth anything to you, is it not worth everything ? If you cultivate it not in life, can you expect it to afford you its consolation in death? Is it not the most ex- traordinary of all possible infatuations, that you should repose in the hope that you have the Almighty God for your Father, and Jesus the Son for your everlast- ing Friend, and yet that you should be ashamed to 94 Importance of Religion to the Young, profess this hope before dying men ? You believe the Scriptures ; you are shocked at the daring and mischievous incredulity of infidels ; you think of the horn- of death, and of your accountability in the fu- ture life, with the deepest anxiety ; you believe that the Son of God came down from heaven to reveal the way to the eternal favor of the Creator, but yet you fear not to stifle all these momentous considera- tions ; you fear not practically to deny, by refusing to acknowledge, the supremacy of Christ and all His requirements ; you fear not to dishonor and provoke your God, but you do fear the sneer and the laugh of man, who to-day is and to-morrow is not; you fear to profess the faith you cherish in your Almighty Redeemer, lest it should subject you to the ridicule — not of the truly great and good of the earth — not of the wise and pure in heart — but of the " young men who are void of understanding " — perhaps the most senseless, profligate, and abandoned of the earth. My brethren, let me ask, with the most solemn earnestness, whether the everlasting judgment of a frowning God and the eternal safety of the soul can be put in the balance against a look, a word, a sneer from a poor, perishing, wicked creature of the dust, without the most egregious and infinite folly ? Alas, alas ! what a " want of understanding " is here. My young friends, may the Spirit of the living God bring these things home to your consciences with His own almighty energy ; may He enable you to balance wisely between the empty opinions of men and the eternal approbation of your God ; and then Importa/nce of Religion to the Young. 95 may you simply, modestly, and from the heart con- fess the faith which you have in Jesus the Mediator before the world, so that in the great and awful day which is to come, He too may confess you before His Father and the hosts of holy angels which are with Him ! But if it must be, that all of the warnings of celestial wisdom are to fall upon you like idle say- ings which you regard not ; if the dread of unwise and wicked men is more powerful with you than the approbation of the good and the favor of your God, then tell me, what is there to secure you from show- ing still further your "• want of understanding," by running with the licentious and the guilty into all the horrible excesses of debauchery? If, in your sim- plicity, you have in any way become the victim of the unprincipled and profligate, what is there to secure you from the still further effects of their enticing words, and all the seductive artifices by which thou- sands and thousands around you are daily lured on, step by step, through the orgies of folly, the haunts of vice, the abodes of pollution, and the yawning gates of present ruin, into the gulf of eternal death ? Yes, yes, my brethren, they who, in the language of the wise man, are so " devoid of understand- ing " as to forget their God, neglect the command- ments of their Saviour, and to postpone, without rea- son and without excuse, the clear duties of their re- ligion, have nothing whatever to secure them froni the awful condition of the thousands around them who have utterly renounced all the obligations of virtue. They are of like passions with other mortals, 96 Imjportance of Religion to the Young, and vice is forever busy in spreading before the young her bewildering allurements. It is only high princi- ple, it is the sense of religious restraint alone, which can secure us from the blight of her fascinating temp- tations. Let these be lost sight of, and, O God of my children, Thou alone canst tell how soon I may be called to pour forth floods of tears from my broken heart over the victims of the maddening riot of dis- sipation, the shameless frequenters of haunts of all that is debasing, and the mournful, heart-rending exemplifiers of all that is wildly dreadful in the gam- bler's home. Let no infatuated youth who has been tempted to wander from the ways of the wise, and to depart from the path of understanding, here say, that he will never go to such lengths as these. As well might the charioteer who has thrown the reins from his hands, while drawn by his spirited and foaming steeds, still expect to control their rapid movements. As well might the enlisted soldier expect to be con- sulted as to the battles he will fight, or how long he will continue the contest, as for him who has once given himself up as the servant of sin to say how low he means to descend in the ways of profligac}', and how soon he intends that the blush of shame shall return to that cheek from which he has driven all the coloring with which ingenuous innocence gazes upon impurity and crime. Oh, my young friends, let me warn you against the contagion of evil example. "If sinners entice thee, consent thou not." " Cease to hear the instruc- Imjportance of Religion to the Young. 97 tion that causeth thee to err from the words of knowl- edge." " Enter not at all into the paths of the wick- ed, and go not into the way of evil men. Avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it, and pass away." "When- ever the tempter would lure you with his blandish- ments, let the spectres of the victims, careworn as they are, murdered as they were, who were in this way beguiled to their destruction, rise up before you. Let the shades of your pious ancestors stand before you in the path ; let reason proclaim your danger, let conscience whisper the awful guilt of yielding ; yea, let the voice which speaks from the flaming throne of God be heard when it exclaims, " For all these things will I bring thee into judgment." My young friends, I have no time to dwell longer upon the many considerations which have suggested themselves to my mind in connection with the many mournful exhibitions which we are called to witness, of the young who, in the language of Solomon, are " void of understanding." Permit me now to say, in conclusion, that if the call we so urgently make upon you for an open dedication of yourselves to the ser- vice of the God of your lives, was a call for separa- tion from the pleasures of society ; if religion was all sacrifice and no reward, all self-denial and no indul- gence, all darkness and mortification, with no light and encouragement ; still, if this were clearly the call and the command of God, then all of it ought to be endm'ed, and endured with cheerfulness. If this path, so thorny and narrow, were the only path which could lead to the glories of immortal life ; if this 98 Imjportance of Religion to the Young. avenue, so dark and dreary, were the only avenue which would open at last upon the bright and sun- clad regions of the celestial country, then should we promptly enter upon that way and pursue it joyfully without fear and without fainting. But so far is any- thing like this from being true, that God has most mercifully connected your duty to Him with your best and purest happiness on earth. Religion calls for no sacrifice which a true regard for your own best inter- ests would not lead you to make. There is surely nothing austere or terrific in her aspect. "Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and honor ; " " her ways are w'ays of pleasant- ness, and all her paths are paths of peace ; " " Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace." But one consideration more, and I must leave yon. My brethren, as common-place as it may be, yet must I, in conclusion, suggest to you the awful un- certainty in which you hold existence. I know that you will all be ready enough to admit the possibility of your being cut off by death before the rising of to- morrow's sun. Let, then, the controlling thought, while yet it is present with you, lead yoni to resolve now to give your hearts to that God before whose tribunal you must so soon appear. Defer not until to-morrow — to-morrow may never dawn for you ! Dream not that you are for one moment safe, when all human experience should go to satisfy you that every moment as it comes is fraught with danger. How many are the budding roses that you have seen iTnjportance of Religion to the Young. 99 blasted before they could unfold their bloom ! How many bright mornings have you seen darkened by storms, before the sun has reached his noon ! And ah ! how many trophies have you known death to gather from souls in the morning of their days, while the aged and decrepit have been left to water the earth with their tears 1 Ah, how many are the cheeks of early beauty which you have seen grow pale and ghastly with the fatal disease ! How many strong arms have you seen to fall languid, palsied, and lifeless ! How many eyes, kindling with love, have you known to be closed in death, and how many untimely graves have opened beneath your eye, to receive the ruins of youth, beauty, and hope ! Where, then, Oh ! tell me where, is the ar- mor of adamant in which you trust, as proof against the darts of death ? Where, Oh ! tell me where, are your grounds for presuming that He will spare you who spares none else beside ? No, no, my young friends, you have no chartered exemption from the strokes of death. You have been granted no monopoly of life. Consent then to be warned of the necessity of doing that at once, which delay may forever prevent you from doing. Oh ! let not the shades of the many who have died as young as you are hover around you in vain ; let not the cries of the many who are hourly perishing in their youth reach us in vain ; let not the tears of the fathers and mothers who are following their children to their graves, be poured forth in vain ; let not our places of sepulture, crowded as they are with the 100 Importance of Beligion to the Young. mouldering remains of the young, admonish us in vain ; let not Heaven unfold before the eye of faith the vast harvests it has gathered from tlie young and lovely, and thus appeal to us in vain. And Oh! let not the hell that is beneath lay bare its places of tor- ment in vain, while it leads us to think of the many who have been cut down by death in the midst of their wickedness, and while fancying themselves only in the spring-time and morning of their days ! My young friends, if you would ever know the full joy and peace of believing, give to God your heart in the days of your youth. In the bright and buoyant hours of health and early strength, listen meekly to the voice of celestial wisdom, and " let thine eyes observe the ways of understanding," Then shall the bosoms of the parents who gave you being be filled with unutterable gladness. Then shall the Church on earth open her arms to welcome and to bless you. Then shall the angels in Heaven rejoice to become your ministering spirits of love. Then shall the Saviour God be ready to clothe you with His own spotless robe of righteousness ; and, if not wanting to yourself, in His own good season you will be called away to run with Him the immortal race of glory. THE SACRIFICE OF ALL THINGS HURTFUL THE SOUL. TO ^^ And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee ; for it is projitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy ivhole body should be cast into hell. '■'■ And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee ; for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be caM into hell." Matthew 5th, 29th and 80th. EFORE proceeding to what I have to re- mark upon these words, permit me to say, my brethren, that it is important you should keep in mind that our Lord had already expressly declared his intention to uphold the author- ity of the moral law. He had also openly rebuked the pretensions to righteousness on the part of the Scribes and Pharisees. He had most completely proved the extent and universal application of the moral law of which He spake, by showing the spirit- uality of its precepts ; while He had at the same time substantiated everything He had said against the Pharisees, by proving their insincerity, their hypoc- risy, and the falsehood and insufficiency of their doc- trines. He evinces most clearly that these evil-mind- ed men sapped most completely the very foundation of true holiness, by confining the prohibitions of the 102 TJie Sacrifice of all Things^ etc. law to the outward deed ; while they left free, and entirely uncontrolled, those inward dispositions of the heart from which all practical wickedness must proceed. The words of the text convey an illustration of the most resolute self-denial and self-sacrifice in everything of a guilty nature. In the words of the text we are distinctly taught that we cannot cherish unhallowed and irregular passions, wilfully and per- severingly, without being in danger of the consum- ing anger of God ! Our Lord most plainly teaches that there is no alternative in the case. The cause of oflence must be avoided and given up, or the loss of the soul is the inevitable consequence ! He then goes on to com- pare a besetting sin of this fatal character to an in- curable unsoundness in any part of the body. As, for instance, a gangrene or mortification, if neglected, in any one limb or member of the bodily frame, would most surely infect and destroy the whole body ; so, too, and just as sm'ely, will any one unhallowed passion or vicious propensity, cherished without restraint in the heart, ultimately and infallibly taint and destroy the whole soul ! Just in the same way, as it is often found necessary, and constantly acknowledged to be best, to endure the pain and loss of cutting off a diseased member in order to save the whole body from destruction ; so, too, is it just as necessary, and so, too, is it just as profitable and wise, to give up every bad passion, and to abandon every debasing habit, rather than to run the risk of losing the happi- The Sacrifice of all Thmgs, etc. 103 ness of the immortal spirit forever and forever ! " If thy right hand or thy right eye oifend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee ; it is better for thee to enter into life having one eye or one hand, rather than having two eyes or two hands, to be cast into hell ! " That is, if any profession or pursuit, any passion, habit, or tendency — if anything whatsoever be to you an occasion or source of sin, then, however dear it may be to you, or however essential you may esteem it to your present comfort, you must remove it forever. In the language of the Saviour, it is profit for you to do so ; when the health and safety of the body is concerned it is what no man hesitates to do, and is it what you now hesitate to do when the eternal safety of the soul is at stake ? All that our Lord requires is, that we should show the same regard for the spiritual and deathless that we are ready to do for the material and dying part of our nature; that we should make the same ex- ertion to secure the life which is to come, that we are ready enough to use to prolong the life that now is. For the sake of health and strength, men are everywhere seen to abstain from many indulgences which are calculated to yield them present delight ; they submit to restraints which are annoying and painful ; they resist the most powerful allurements to injurious gratifications ; they will, to restore health when it is impaired, cheerfully employ the most un- pleasant remedies, and they willingly undergo the most painful operations. Who would not gladly and thankfully give up a part of this wonderful cor- 104 The Sacrifice of all Things^ etc. poreal machine in order to preserve the rest from decay and death % Now, all that the Saviour asks is, that we should do as much for the sanctitication and salvation of the spirit as we thus do for the perish- ing body. Can anything be more reasonable than this, or could the Saviour have required anything less from the thoughtless and ungrateful creatures He died to save? Have we not infinitely better reason to exert the spirit of resolute self-sacrifice in behalf of the soul rather than of the body ? "Which of the two is most valuable in itself, most exalted in its nature, most susceptible of improvement, and most fitted for happiness ? Which of the two distinguishes you most from the other creatures of God's creation ? Which is it that gives you the resemblance you bear to the divine nature? Which of the two is the anxious object of the Redeemer's care, and intended by Him to live forever in His own unfading kingdom? Is it not the soul ? For which of the two, then, would you be willing to do most and to suffek most ? Is it not the soul ? May not the question, then, be fairly put, whether you do bestow upon the soul your prin- cipal care, whether you ever allow it an equal share of your anxiety and your attention ? You are careful enough, no doubt, for the health of the body. You avoid unnecessary exposure to peril ; you avoid the contagion of infectious disorders ; you are thankful always for friendly advice, and for useful and timely warnings upon these points. You are grieved when the health of the body has been impaired. You are alarmed upon the very first symptom of a dangerous The Sacrifice of all Things^ etc. 105 distemper, and you fly anxiously to the use of the remedies which may be within your reach. But again does tlie question occur : Are you as reasonably anxious for the health and safety of the immortal spirit, which is equally subject to disease, to the fatal effects of contagion, and to a moral death infinitely more to be dreaded than the dissolution of the perish- ing body ? My brethren ! the question is, are you at pains to secure yourselves from the contagion of evil example, and the temptation of evil company? When the effects of sin begin to show themselves in your hearts, do you apply yourselves earnestly to be relieved from its debasing influence ; are you touched with sorrow and alarm lest its sway over you should be perma- nent and fatal ? Are you willing to receive warnings of your peril ; are you grateful for the intimations which may be given you as to the way of escape from the path of the destroyer ; and do you thankfully take hold of the hand held out to you from the skies, to lead you into the way of eternal safety \ My brethren, are you willing to renounce everything which you know to be contrary to the will of God, and hurtful to your spiritual progress % Although it may be a source of pleasure, although it may be a means of gain, although it may be your stepping- stone to the honors of the world, although it may be as dear to you as the right eye, or the right hand — yet must you cut it off! You must count it as nothing in comparison with the hazard of losing the true life of the soul throughout the wasteless ages of eternity ! 5* 106 The Sacrifice of all Things, etc. No one can deny but there is as raucli spiritual wickedness in the world, as there are bodily diseases ; and that there is as ranch risk of being corrupted by the one as of our being infected by the other. No one will doubt but that as many persons have suffer- ed in their morals by wicked example as have lost their health by contagious disorders, Nor will any one for one moment doubt but that the consequences of exposing the soul to injury are infinitely more dreadful than anything that can befall the body ! How, then, my brethren, is the conduct of those per- sons to be excused who are known to shut their eyes, wilfully and perversely, against their greatest spirit- ual errors, and most imminent spiritual perils ; to treat such matters as if they were the most trivial of all things ; to go on their way in the downward road of their folly without consideration, and without the slightest apprehension of the consequences that may befall them, and, therefore, utterly neglecting all the means which their Creator Himself has graciously recommended for the purity, the security, and the eternal peace of their immortal souls ! How can conduct like this be reconciled in rational beings with the profession of any sort of religious prin- ciple ? How can any man complain of the severity of our blessed Lord's requirements, when He manifestly requires notliing more from them, in order to secure the welfare of the immortal spirit that animates them, than they themselves are perfectly willing to do for the body,- which is hourly dying, — and must die inevitably, do for it — suffer for it — what they may ? "Who now will pre- The Sacrifice of all Things, etc. 107 tend to say, that our Lord's requirement in the text is " a hard saying," when He only tells us that we must be prepared to exercise the same attention, the same anxiety, the same resolution, and the same fortitude, in the case of the soul's eternal welfare, that we are always ready to exert in behalf of the body ; when at best we can only hope to extend its being for a brief and fading moment of time ! My brethren, it becomes us to lay these things seriously to heart. Who is there "without sin amongst us" in this particular of caring far more for the interests of the body than of the soul ? Of being careful and troubled about many things, while we overlook the " one thing " which of all other things is most needful? Of acting well our part in all things else, while we neglect that "good part the fruits of which shall never be taken away from us ! " The conclusion of the whole matter is, that we must fear and avoid more carefully than we have ever yet done, not so much those things which can only hurt and kill the body, but rather those things which can occasion both soul and body to be cast into hell ; that, however painful may be the sacri- fice, and at what cost soever it may be to us, yet our plain duty to the God we serve must be met ; it must be met cheerfully, calmly, and with a resolute spirit ! Come, then, my beloved brethren, and let us this day resolve that for the future we will labor more earnestly, not so much for the meat which perisheth as for the meat which endureth unto ever- lasting life ; that we will seek more diligently, not so much those things which are only profitable for 108 The Sacrifice of all Things^ etc. the life that now is, but for rather those things which are profitable also for the life that is to come ! Let us strive to cherish a more constant intercourse with our Maker, and to live always as if in His pres- ence ! Let us abstain, more and more, from every practice and every pleasure which by experience we find to lessen our relish for divine things and to attract us inordinately to the present life ! And, my brethren, be constantly looking forward to the end, and ask yourselves, what labors, what sacrifices, what self-denials shall we regret in that mighty and imposing hour when we shall exchange our sackcloth of fasting for those robes that have been washed in the blood of the Lamb ; and when we shall hear our blessed Saviour say, " "Well done, good and faith- ful servant, enter thou into the joy of your Lord." ALL OUR TRIALS A SOURCE OF BLESSING. imSmSBm '■''And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man who teas blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? '''■Jesus answered: Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents ; but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.''^ John Wi, 1st, 2d, Sd. HIS inquiry of the disciples is remarkable, and to ordinary readers it may be hard to understand. It would seem to imply the possibility either of a man's having sinned before he was born, or that the sins of his parents might have been the direct cause of his blindness. With regard to the man's sinning before he was born, it will perhaps relieve the text of all difficulty, by considering that the doctrine of the philosopher Pythagoras was currently received before the coming of our Lord. The teaching of his philosophy amounted to this : that souls once created could neither be annihilated nor withdrawn from active existence in the present condition of things; but that they migrated from one body to another, as living bodies were successively cut down and mouldered into ruin. Some teachers appear to have held that the air was filled with these flitting 110 All our Trials a Source of Blessing. and unseen spirits, hovering anxiously around to be in readiness for the bodies whicli the gods might prepare for them ; and that the change of habita- tion was either for the better or worse, as the spirit had used or abused its freedom in a previous condi- tion of existence. It will scarcely be necessary for me to argue that this idea of transmigration was a ridiculous delusion ; it is certain, however, that the doctrine very generally prevailed at that day, and there can be no doubt that the notion was present to the minds of the disciples who proposed the inquiry we are now considering. It is remarkable, too, that the same sentiments should even now be widely held by the Hindoos, and perhaps some other pagan nations. The Hindoos go so far as to judge with great pretended accuracy of the character of the crimes committed in a previous probation, according to the nature of the bodily infirmity to which they are now subjected. It is enougii for us to know that the doctrine is entirely at variance with the uniform teaching of the Scriptures on the subject of a day of general resurrection and final retribution, when we are ex- pressly assured that to every " seed shall be assigned its own body." The body in which Christ appeared after His resurrection was precisely the same body in which He had been known to move on earth. With regard to Jacob and Esau, and in reference perhaps to this very philosophy, St. Paul declares, " the children, being not yet born, had done neither good nor evil." And our Lord promptly assured His All our Trials a Source of Blessing. Ill disciples, that it was not for any sins of his own that the blind man before him had been brought into the world in his present pitiable condition. The second object of their inquiry is, perhaps, deserving of more attention. " Who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind ? " Now, as extraordinary as it may appear that, in the arrangements of infinite benevolence, a child should come to suffering in consequence of a parent's ini- quity, yet we are from hourly experience compelled to know that although so far as the child is concerned it may not be regarded in the light of punishment, yet that nothing is more certain than that the conse- quences of parental crime do constantly descend upon the head of his offspring. In a temporal point of view we see it all around us, that the threatening of the law as it came from Sinai is not confined to the people of God's first love. With them the children never failed to reap the proper fruits of their fathers' sowing. If the parents chose to depart from the light, the elevation, the glory of the true God, the children were of necessity left to the darkness, degradation, and infa- my that the practice of idolatry was sure to induce ; and with us we see that the wicked principles of a parent are almost infallibly sown in the hearts of his children, and are as certainly productive of the fruits of bitterness and sin. The parent whose pro- digality squanders the patrimony with which God has enriched him, most certainly bequeaths to his children the evils of poverty. 112 All our Trials a Source of Blessi/ng. The poisonous draught from the cup of forbidden pleasure, which a sinful parent has dared to drink, not only saps and destroys the springs of his own existence, but the disease continues to run in a poi- sonous current through the veins of his children, circulating pain, misery, and premature death. Because of Eli's misconduct in conniving at his son's wickedness, it was declared that all the increase of his house should " die in the flower of their age." Saul treacherously slew the Gibeonites, and his seven sons were hung. David sinned, and his child was struck with death. Ahab was wicked, and it was declared, not only that he should be punished, but that in his " son's days evil should be brought upon his house." Jeroboam impiously trifled with the sacred priesthood of God, and the child of his love was blighted and withered beneath his eye. Indeed, not only the historical pages of Scripture, but the pages of ALL HISTORY, and our every-day acquaintance with human life, will furnish us with innumerable instances in which the consequences of parental folly and wickedness are inherited directly by those who are to come after them. All of this, my brethren, is no more than a part of the mixed and admirably balanced system amid which we live. Wherever in this life there is pleas- ure, there will also be pain, and wherever there is a conspicuous source of good it will surely be attended by its corresponding train of evils. As the character and fortunes of our parents are our own peculiar fountains of comfort and happi- \ All our Trials a Source of Blessing. 113 ness, so it is neither unnatural, unreasonable, nor unjust that we should inevitably partake of the con- sequences of their slothfulness, indiscretion, and crime. So much for the general rule as it runs. If the arrangement has its incovenience, so it is attend- ed with manifest and incalculable advantages. It is a powerful stimulus to well-doing, and the strongest bond that can bind communities together. We have, however, the assurance of Christ that neither had this man sinned nor his parents. The calamity had not fallen upon him as a judgment for any particular sin, either in the sufferer himself or those who gave him birth. It came as a part of the general curse and ruin in which our fallen nature is involved. It was permitted, as all our evils are sent and permitted, to advance our ultimate good, to enable us to see and rejoice in the benevolence and power of God. The immediate end for which this particular case of suffering was permitted would be sufficiently important and striking were it only that it might be the occasion of manifesting the miracu- lous character of Christ to the world. And you will here permit me to say that in this view of it, the narrative affbrds us a most delightful evidence of the perpetual providence of God. No condition can possibly be conceived more utterly insignificant than that presented by this case ; and yet we are assured that even this depressed and hopeless individual was cautiously preserved in his calamitous condition, to answer an important end in the mysterious economy of the divine government. It has been remarked, 114 All our Trials a Source, of Blessing. with great pathos and beauty, that '" no situation in human life could possibly have been more apparently useless, lost, and forgotten, than that of the blind man that sat by the wayside." He was born in utter poverty, and born blind ; his parents deserted him to the cold compassion of the world, and he sat upon the sterile wayside of life to implore it. It was accident alone that seemed to bring him within the notice of our Saviour. But as we follow the story to the conclusion — when we see that even over this seemingly deserted and hopeless individual the eye of Providence was immediately and steadily impend- ing — when we see an important destiny which his calamity is about to fulfil — when we see that in him the works of God, and the omnipotence of the Son of God, are about to be manifested — when we see that the cure of an individual so deserted and obscure was to be the source of instruction and comfort to all succeeding ages, — there is nothing in language, nor in all the powers of reasoning, that can. so forcibly evince to us the great and consoling truth of the perpetual Providence of God. It tells us at once that to His eye all hearts are open, and all sorrows known ; that no secret suffering is hid from Him ; that wherever the creation of God extends, there, too, the providence of God must be seen and felt. If such, my friends, be the condition of our being that evil in some shape is to assail us, of what possible consequence can it be whether the evil descends upon us through the instrumentality of some persons rather than other persons ; of our parents, or of some All our Trials a Source of Blessing. 115 other men. It is enough for us to know that the visitation is ultimately to be referred to the will of God. When things are measured upon the great scale of eternity, apparent evils are not necessarily to be regarded as misfortunes ; and it is in this light that much of the natural evil which exists in the world should be viewed. Facts, the most unimposing in themselves, and in- cidents apparently the most casual, may yet be destined to produce the most important effects upon individual happiness, and the destiny of empires. The peculiar purposes of God, in cases of individual deprivation and grief, are never to be too curiously sought for ; but rather let us bow in unwavering con- iSdence to the wisdom of Him whose all-glorious mercy will be manifested when we come to know as we also are known. Cheerless and helpless was the condition of the blind man who sat by the wayside, but how unspeakably fortunate was he whom Prov- idence had thus deprived of the light of day, if it prevented him from pursuing the steps of those who were thirsting for the blood of the Lord of life, and if it were directly the means of winning for him the present blessing and eternal salvation of the Kedeera- er. Let us but suppose that he is now permitted to look back from the region of the blessed, upon the season of his blindness, degradation, and darkness, and with what unspeakable joy will he regard the calamity, and every circumstance connected with it, through which and to which he must attribute his present illumination and glory. 116 All our Trials a Source of Blessing. Thus too, mj brethren, the period will come when we may all look back upon the trials through which we may have passed in life, and if we be not now wanting to ourselves, we will then rejoice in their purifying and sanctifying influence upon our ran- somed spirits. Here, some of us may be blessed by the outward light of day, while our heajkts are as desolate and dark as that of any blind and cheerless beggar who sits by the wayside of life ; we have been bereaved, perhaps, of our children and our friends ; the lives that rendered our own lives desirable have all passed away, and with them the light has expired M^hich alone could render the world bright and joyous for us. My brethren, it is not for him to repine whose affections have been effectually weaned from the infatuating joys of this dark, cold earth, and who is free to carry them beyond the gulf of death, and give them to Him who alone can fill and satisfy them, without change and with allo3\ If there be any of us who are struggling with reverses of fortune, or who are groping alone the by-paths of life, in the darkness of penury, we may at least rejoice that we are delivered from the temptations, the trials, and toils of opulence. We may not have goods laid up for many years, but we can look down into the grave to which we must soon descend, and be glad that they will not be wanted there ! Here, we may be poor in spirit, and doomed to toil our wearisome way nnder the clouds of misfortune, but we may rejoice that we are permitted to be rich in faith ; and that All our Trials a Source of Blessing. 117 it is our privilege to look above the dust of time, and to repose in the hope that our hearts may be wisely fixed where our only treasure is. Yea, we may re- joice that it is permitted us to be etch in faith ; and we can look cheerfully above us, for there is neither cloud nor darkness in those regions whither the soul will soon be summoned to wing its untiring and its triumphant flight. If health has now forsaken us ; if the rose has faded from the cheek, and the beams of hope play no longer in the eye — if the springs of life are relaxing, and the damps of death gather frequent and fast upon the brow, oh ! let us rejoice with solemn joy in the kind and emphatic warning with which the King of terrors would prepare us for his coming. Let us lay aside promptly the vain thoughts and criminal toys of time ; there will be no trifling in eternity ! We come now to throw out a few thoughts which have been naturally suggested by the subject before us, and which have reference to the most portentous and perplexing problem exhibited in the universe of God ! Wherever we move in life, we are perpetually summoned to witness scenes of melancholy, and to hear the cries of wretchedness — and every benevo- lent mind is instinctively led to inquire, why is it that evil is thus blended with the works of God ? What benevolent end can possibly be answered by so much bitterness and sorrow in the arrangement of a scheme of infinite wisdom and goodness ? The Stoics of old, in defiance of reason and common- sense, boldly asserted that what we call evil is not 118 All our Trials a Source of Blessing. really such, and that it was the part of wise men to despise suffering and the painful vicissitudes of life. Some infidel philosophers of Christian time, while admitting the existence of evil as it universally pre- vails, have agreed in regarding it as inherent in the nature of things — as existing independently of the Divine will, and as being that which no omnipotence in power can ever, by any eventual change in cir- cumstances, entirely remove. It will scarcely be ne- cessary for me to prove that the philosophy cannot be founded in truth, which is hourly contradicted by the lessons of universal experience ; nor can that be- lief be better entitled to respect which is reconciled to the existence of evil, only because it supposes God to be too weak to counteract it. The Christian rev- elation stops not to inquire why God permitted evil to exist, but contents itself with teaching that this very perplexing mixture of good and evil is a pre- paratory contrivance for the production of blessings far exceeding everything that our darkened faculties are capable of conceiving. It asserts simply and ex- plicitly that, constituted as human nature is, it can only be prepared for its advancement to the spiritual perfection and glory for which it is destined by a process of discipline in time ; and that what we call evil is essentially connected with such a system of probation. There is one striking analogy between the works of God as observed in nature and an- nounced in revelation, and that is, that the Great Creator never proceeds directly to His end by an in- stantaneous and unrestrained exertion of power ; but All our Trials a Source of Blessing. 119 that in His wisdom He chooses to operate gradually, indirectly, and through the agency of cause and ef- fect. So, too, has He ordained that positive and sub- stantial good shall rarely accrue to man without some definite effort on his part ; some exertion, some toil, some anxiety, some pain or peril is essential to win it down. The body is connected with this world only, and therefore the reward of toils undertaken for the good of the body must be reaped in this world. We accordingly find that in all temporal concerns, the connection between cause and effect is clearly marked. Harvest follows seed-time, and industry secures the bread that sustains life. But this close connection between cause and effect — this open and manifest link between labor and its reward, is not discoverable in the system of moral retribution under which we live ; and it is this seeming anomaly in the moral government of God that has constituted the insuper- able diflaculty in the speculations of philosophy. But how simple and satisfactory is the solution afibrded by the Scriptures of Christian truth ! They tell us that we LIVE not only for time, but also for eter- nity, and that our Creator has wisely marked our immortal nature by placing the recompense of our ef- forts to do His will beyond the narrow and perish- able limits of this world. The reward annexed to every expenditure of honest effort for spiritual amelioration is as certain and uniform in the moral as it is in the physical world ; but there is no neces- sary reason why that reward should be always pal- pable — should be always seen in the present life. 120 AU our Trials a Source of Blessing. "We are expressly directed to sow in time, that we may reap in eternity ! And thus it is seen that the postponement of moral retribution, of spiritual re- wards, beyond the present life, so far from marking any deficiency in justice or mercy on the part of the Creator, or any indifference to the moral conduct of His creatures, is most legibly stamped with wisdom and consistency. Let us never faint, my brethren, in our struggles after imperishable good. If Ave reap not our reward in this life, let us steadily remember that it is only because we are passing from the earth, and this world is too gross, too transitory, too fading and narrow, to produce the full and exliaustless reward for the death- less soul. Let us cherish the conviction of the in- finite goodness of the Creator, as the most certain of all certain truths. Let us rely upon the whole con- nected course of htiman events as abounding in positive sources of comfort and encouragement. Let us look upon every vicissitude of life as a means to be employed by infinite wisdom for the production of one grand result, one determinate purpose of spiritual happiness. If we are anxious to be true, enlightened, and cheerful Christians, this conviction should never for cJne moment be absent from our thoughts ; it should never be suffered to slumber nor sleep. This world is no theatre of unmixed enjoy- ment ; it is no state in which goodness has invariably its own reward, and wickedness its punishment. But it is rather a system wisely and wonderfully contrived for the single and distinct object of our spiritual All our Trials a Source of Blessing. 121 probation and discipline. The whole moral machinery of life is directed to this great end. There is not a single virtue that can adorn our characters, nor one active quality of the mind, nor one noble feeling of the heart, that can urge us on towards heaven, but must derive its efficiency and its worth from that mixture of evil with which God has attempered the condition of the w^orld. Our obedience, were there neither difficulties nor temptations to seduce us from duty, would possess no worth. Without suffering, there could be no patience ; and without the wretched- ness of want there could be no exercise of benev- olence; without ignorance and uncertainty there could be no room for faith, and without saddening experience of the wokthlessness of all woeldlt ENJOYMENT there could be no longing after the joys of ETERNITY. It is tlius sccn that the existence of evil is employed to call forth the loftiest qualities of our nature. It is the light of Christianity that en- ables us to see how the course of practical training to which we are thus subjected is most admirably adapted to fit us for that wide and harmonious circle of willing and obedient souls who are to derive happiness forever and ever from the great centre of purity and joy. Our Christian discipline is efficient when it is successful in breaking down the rebellious suggestions of the world and the flesh— in subduing our evil passions, spiritualizing our aspirations, and bending every proud feeling to a state of humble reliance upon the revealed will of our Maker. Let, then, these great ends but be accomplished, and 6 122 All our Trials a Source of Blessing. whether our allotment be to pass through good or evil fortune, as believers in Christ we will strive to possess our souls in patience and in the strength of God's Holy Spirit, to perform each task that awaits us with cheerfulness and hope. But to return to our text : Let me in conclusion conjure you to remember that, like the beggar who sat by the wayside, we are all in a spiritual sense horn Hind I — blind to our duty — blind to our true source of happiness — blind to the danger that threatens us, — and blind to the only true path that can conduct us to eternal safety. Christ has been sent into the world for our resto- ration to sight ; He is the light of the world, without which no man can see. If our eyes have not yet been opened to the light, or if the light has been proffered us and we have refused to receive it ; if we are wandering, benighted, hopeless, and guideless in the wilderness of sin ; if we can see nothing behind to comfort or console us — nothing before to allure or to terrify us — nothing to charm or nothing to alarm — oh ! then, let me arrest you by my cries of warning and entreaty. Jesus of I^azareth now passeth by. Oh ! call upon Him while He is near, seek Him while He may be found, arrest Him in His progress by your prayers for help and salvation. He is ready and willing to hear, He is mighty to save, and has promised to be with them forever who will call upon Him in faith. Come, then, let us all confess before Him our infirmities and blindness. He will raise whatever within you is low. He will All OUT Trials a Source of Blessing. 123 illumine whatever within you is dark ! He will point you to the avenue — straight and narrow, and stained with His own blood as it is — the only avenue which can lead you triumphantly to the splendid portals of immortal renown ! He, too, will give you strength, and fire you with confidence; and when thus enlightened and animated, with the clearness of an eagle's eye and the steadiness of an eagle's flight, you may wing your way towards the eternal source of light and truth and happiness ! THE CHRISTIAN ARMOR. " Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of Ood, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand." Ephesians 6fh, ISth. |N the Scriptures, the life of man is con- stantly represented as a condition of cease- less conflict. From the dawn of reason to the night of the grave are we required to bear our armor, and be always on the watch" for the assault of foes the most insidious and deadly. When, in the humility of faith, we bring the infant of days into the presence of the Lord of Hosts, and seal him with the signet of the Great Captain in whose service he is thus enlisted, it is in token that here- after he " shall fight manfully under His banner, and continue Christ's faithful soldier and servant until his life's end." And it is, too, in keeping with this view of our condition, that God is everywhere represented as having most abundantly provided the soldiers of the cross with the means of present security and the instruments of eternal triumph. In the eloquent chapter from which the text is taken, St. Paul, after admonishing the Ephesian The Christian Armor. 125 believers of the perils to which they were exposed from spiritual and unseen foes, goes on to exhort them to array themselves in the perfect and invul- nerable armor which God has so graciously placed within their reach, so that they might stand erect and unharmed amid all the shafts of their malevolent and invisible destroyers. " Wherefore," says he, " take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand." " Stand, therefore, having your loins GIRT ABOUT with TRUTH." The allusion here is to the GraDLE, a most important part of ancient armor, because it connected and compacted all the other pieces ; and the propriety of the figure will be per- ceived when we reflect that the only bond of har- monious union in the points of Christian character, and the only ground upon which we can rest for consistency and firmness, is a deep and intelligent conviction of the truth of the principles we profess. The Christian must stand encircled by the imper- vious panoply of truth. He must be true to him- self; without guile and without hypocrisy ; with- out specious and hollow pretensions ; without doubt or misgiving as to the honesty of his own direct and simple purposes ; and then must he rest in the firm and fast conviction that God is true — a living and unfailing " God of truth ;" true in the covenant of His glorious promises, and true in the threatenings of His writteii word. Yea, he will thus stand, having all the parts of his Christian armor compacted and knit together, by the unyielding and Kfe-giving per- 126 TJie Christian Armor. suasion that the eye of the all-searching God of truth is upon him ; that Christ is a faitliful and true wit- ness of all that has been done for man, and of all that is now required for him to do ; that the Holy Spirit is a " Spirit of truth," stirring up and persuad- ing all men to what is true, pure, and holy. But after being thus " girt about with truth," the Christian must put on the " breastplate of righteous- ness." Now, the object of a breastplate in armor is to protect the most vital part of the body ; and it ought, therefore, to be composed of materials wrought with the utmost care, and polished and tempered with the highest degree of skill, so that the weapons of the enemy may fall from it pointless and harmless at our feet. So, too, it is required of the Christian that he should toil most anxiously to prepare his breastplate of righteousness, so that when the dark and evil day may come, he may not be found utterly naked and defenceless. But while it is thus required of him to toil vigilantly and vigorously at his work, after the pattern which has been set for him by Christ, yet, in tlie end, he will find that neither his own strength nor his own skill will avail him to bring the " breast- plate " to the measure of perfection required ; and he will rejoice to seek for the aid and direction of One who is higher, wiser, and better than he is. Then the righteousness in which he will hasten to cover himself, will be the righteousness of that One who alone is mighty to save. The Prophet of old, in describing the Christ — the Saviour, affirmed of Him, that " He put on righteousness as a breast- The Christicm Armor. 127 plate," — and so, too, must we seek for Christ's right- eonsuess, after having toiled to the utmost to follow the example he has left us, — we must, I say, betake ourselves to Him for the righteousness which alone can avail us in the hour of trial. Only let us thus fly to him, and thus trust in Him, and we shall possess a breastplate against which the arrows of the enemy, however admirably they may be aimed, will fall power- less as the drops from the clouds upon the roof above us. But it has well been said, that all warfare is not open and visible ; nor are the weapons employed by the enemy those only which are aimed directly at the more conspicuous and vulnerable parts. The "girdle" may be absolutely necessary to consolidate the armor, and the "breastplate" may protect the heart, but yet snares may be set for the feet, so that he who treads heedlessly may be entangled in his walk, and therefore the soldiers of the Cross are re- quired to have their " feet shod with the preparation of the Gospel of peace." A Christian, my brethren, may be entirely sincere in his profession ; he may confide in his Redeemer's righteousness, and not in his own — yet his Christian consistency may be often broken in upon, and his advancement in divine life impeded, unless he be cautious to take with him, wherever his feet may carry him, the spirit and temper of the Gospel of peace. The Gospel we know is a Gospel of peace in more senses than one. It speaks peace from God to man, 128 The Christian Armor. and it is the principle of unity and the bond of peace between man and man. It proclaims God's readiness to forgive, and sets forth the terms of re- conciliation. It calls upon its professors to " follow peace always " and by " all means," in our families, in the Church, and in the world. I only ask, then, that the Christian should take with him in all his walks and conversation, the true and full spirit of the " Gospel of peace," and I am sure of his rising superior to those sordid, selfish, and all- contracting feelings which act upon religious char- acter as the frost upon the opening blossom, and are everywhere blighting the buds and the ripening fruits of human charity. Not only so, but he will have, also, that sense of peace which results from the con- sciousness of the security in which he moves, who reposes his trust always on the everlasting arm of the One mighty to save ; he walks amid thorns and briers, over traps and pitfalls as one who is secure- ly SHOD, and feels that he is in no danger from the treacherous character of the soil on which he treads ; *' for the ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them, but the transgressors shall fall therein." I come next to that part of a Christian's armor which is, if possible, even more important than the girdle, the breastplate, or the covering for the feet. " Above all," says the Apostle, " take the shield of FAITH, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the finery darts of the wicked." The great enemy, my brethren, with whom we have to contend, is provided The Christian Armor. 129 with instruments of attack, differing in their charac- ter and in the effect wliich they produce, according to the uses to which they are applied ; and he al- ways applies them with the most exquisite skill. Some of these weapons, from their more dangerous and penetrating power, are expressively called "fiery darts." From the attacks of these no believer must ever expect to be entirely free. The evil heart, lead- ing to doubt and distrust, and to the most plausible sophistry to excuse the strong leadings of its wicked passions — this evil heart, however it may be disci- plined, can never be rooted out or destroyed as long as life continues to be a season of trial. Now, it is through this evil heart that the enemy finds room to aim his keenest shafts. At the moment that the slightest circumstance occurs to shake our trust in God, he takes instant hold on the advantage to press his exquisitely skiJled attacks. "We have only, then, my brethren, to watch with unslumbering eye the secret workings of our own hearts, and as soon as we are able to discover the very slightest temptation to doubt that revelation which God has made of Him- self as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost — to doubt the severity of the Divine displeasure against sin, or to distrust, on the other hand, the readiness of God to forgive and to accept the sinful, then let us promptly realize the danger to which we are ex- posed, and let us retreat at once behind our " shield of faith ; " then, as fiery as may be the darts with which our enemy may continue to assail us, there is no fear but that they will all be quenched, and fall 6* 130 The Christian Armor. powerless on our right hand and on our left. But then the faith through wliich we are thus secure must be implicit and unbounded. "We must learn to trust God with all our souls. We are never for one moment to harbor either doubt or suspicion. We are to repose in the fullest and most confiding assurance that He, who has made us and always preserved us, can do better for us than we can do for ourselves. Far different, yea, very far, must our faith be from that which too often passes current in the world ; a mere listless, heartless, negative, uncontrolling notion, which, so far from oifering any effectual resistance to the arrows of the enemy, is sure to yield and be borne away by the first vigorous assault that is made upon it. The faith we need is that which keeps us steadily in the view of the All-gracious Disposer of our lot ; and while it enables us to see and feel how completely our thoughts and doings are known by God, so, too, does it enable us to trace the cause of all present evils to that sinful and rebellious nature which needs to be disciplined and weaned from its idols, and brought to the true and living source of its happiness. It enables us to see that when the Father chastens the children of His providing care with earthly sorrow, it is only because He loves them. And it enables us, too, to see that as our exalted Saviour has redeemed us from the present evil world, so, too, is He ever ready in His loving-kind- ness to succor all those who are tried and tempted ; and to assure us, in the fulness of His compassion, that there is no stain of guilt so deep that it cannot The Christian Armor. 131 be washed out by His blood, and no aggregate of iniquity so weighty that He cannot and will not en- dure it on our behalf. All of these things our faith sets before us in a light so clear, so vivid, and so strong, that our souls are raised superior to every present evil, and made more than conquerors over every foe to their peace. Thus it is that our faith becomes the impenetrable shield, against which no darts of the wicked, however fiery or poisoned with malice, shall ever be able to prevail. But I must pass on to the next piece in the perfect armor in which God ofiers to clothe the Christian. " Take," says St. Paul, " the helmet of salvation." The apostle will himself explain his meaning more fully if we will refer to a correspond- ing passage in his Epistle to the Thessalonians, where he writes, " and for an helmet the hope of salvation." The Christian's hope of salvation is then the helmet, which, so long as he keeps it bright and strong, no sword shall ever cleave nor arrow penetrate. Like the breastplate that covers the heart, it is made up of the perfect and unyielding righteousness of Christ, and it rests on the word of Him who cannot lie, on the promise of Him who cannot deceive, and on the oath of Him who can never forget nor fail. We come now to the last piece with which the Apostle exhorts us to be provided as an instrument of defence and means of safety : " The sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." Yes, soldiers of the cross, if you would indeed be victorious in the arduous and awful conflict to which 132 The Christian Armor. you are called, you must learn to wield the same weapon which was used by the great Captain of your salvation in His well-known contest with the prince of the power of the air and the leader of the hosts of darkness. This sword has come from the arsenal of heaven, and is of celestial temper and power; it was wrought by God himself, and it is impossible that any weapon brought against it should prove stronger or better for the uses to which we are required to apply it. The sword of the Spirit is the word of God, and this sword must every Christian learn to use. You observe that the Christian must not only read " the word," but he must accustom himself to apply it to all the ever-varying necessities of his life, to the claims of business, and the seductive calls of pleasure. Weak as he may be in himself, if he will only study the true power with which this sword of the spirit was designed to arm him, he will have nothing to fear, although the combined hosts of hell were to direct all their concentrated eftbrts of malignity, subtlety, and power against him. You are to go forth to the fight against principali- ties and powers of darkness with this sword of the Spirit ever ready for use, and your heart ever ready to be lifted up in prayer ; then will the strength of the God of Hosts be yours, and you will hear His voice whispering those blessed words : " Fear not, for I am with thee ; be not dismayed, for I am thy God. Yea, I will help thee — yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness." The Christian Armor, 133 Such, then, is the armor with which the believer must stand clothed as in a panoply of strength, if he would withstand even to the end of the evil day of life ; and if, after the enemies of his salvation have directed against him their fiercest assaults, and after he has done all that life was charged with, he would still be found standing. My brethren, the period of our warfare is called by the Apostle an " evil day," and an evil day will the best and strongest of us most assuredly find it. Life is at the best a checkered and uncertain scene ; everywhere subject to change and disappointment. Bright and beautiful as the morning sun may be, yet before the noon the horizon may be overcast with clouds, and the evening sky veiled in darkness and in gloom. To-day, the blessings of Providence may be descending upon us in an uninterrupted and un- mingled stream, and we may be floating upon a cur- rent so placid and so noiseless, that we are scarcely sensible of our progress. But, how sudden and how sad are the changes which are perpetually coming over scenes like these. Calamity, sorrow, and sick- ness take the place of joy, gladness, and health. " Beauty is changed to ashes, the oil of joy into mourning, and the garment of praise into the spirit of heaviness ! " As the aspects of the heavens are clouded and changed, so does the Providence of God change the hearts and the faces of men. There is no possible condition of our being, and no vicissitude in the ever-varying phases of our lot which does not bring with it circumstances to test our Christian 134 The Christian Armor. vigilance, and the steadfastness of our faith. It is precisely at such seasons of trial, whether in the deceitful calm of prosperity, or in the sinking of our spirits under adversity, that the assaults of the enemy are most likely to be made. If, then, we would that our hearts should stand fast and firm, no matter how thickly the darts of the dreaded one may be falling around us, let us feel that we cannot sustain or keep OURSELVES, but that there is One, and He the Al- mighty, who can and will preserve us, if we will only employ the means of safety to which He points us. God provides the armor, but we must put it on. God provides the armor ; but if we suffer it to lie unused by us, and trust to the chance of arming our- selves when the hour of conflict arrives, we may dis- cover too late that the fiery darts of the Evil One can- not be escaped from by the careless and slumbering soldier, and that they will enkindle a flame which can never be quenched. "Put on therefore" in season, the " whole armor of God," and be not, I conjure you, the less anxious to clothe yourself with it, only because you do not yet feel the necessity for it. Remember, that the "wiles" of your insidious foe may at this moment be exerted, and his devices extending themselves on all sides of you; he may now be busy weaving the web which is to enthral you, and you may find yourself encircled and fatally entrapped when you least suspect it. Remember, too, that the armor of Christ once put on, must never again be put off while life lasts ; but every part must be kept bright and sound, and you must ever be on The Christian Armor. 135 your guard to defend, for your enemy is ever on the watch to attack. By day and by night must your preparation be complete. Like the builders of the temple, in the olden time, you must work by day as if you were never secure from harm, and at night must you repose with your armor on, and your drawn sword at your side, lest in the unsuspecting and un- guarded hours of darkness, Satan should inflict a deadly blow. Nor must you ever hope to lay aside your watchfulness, until the God of your salvation shall send His messenger to tell you that your war- fare is accomplished, and that He is waiting to wel- come you to the home of eternal triumph which He has prepared for you! But now, my brethren, apart from figures of speech, or metaphorical illustration, permit me to say with all plainness, that the design of St, Paul was to teach us, that the great, all-controlling, elevat- ing principles of our religion must be so complete- ly embraced by us, and so entirely adopted as our habitual and universal rule of life, that every eye should see that we go forth to every duty and every enjoyment under their protecting influence. They must encase, as it were, our whole being ; but at the same time, sit upon us so easily and grace- fully as to free us from all stifiness and restraint. The outward and celestial habit which is thus exhib- ited, must indicate the form and shape which the inward spirit has assumed. It must be the index of its highest feelings and purest and best sensibilities. My brethren, it is only when the principles of our 136 The Christian Armor. religion, have thus become, as it were, identified with our whole being, so that they can never again be separated from us, that we can hope to move on- ward to our long home, unharmed by the attacks of temptation, before which so many thousand of our fellow-beings are hourly falling to rise no more. It is only when thus influenced that the dark storm of earthly affliction will beat upon us in vain ; and the heavier that the blows are made to fall, so much the more will our powers of resistance be increased. While the bitter tears of anguish rise in the eye of the bereaved, so, too, will the clearest, strongest, most beautiful, and most consoling thoughts come thronging into our hearts as so many bright messen- gers of love, from the God of all truth and all con- solation. Since, therefore, death is an enemy whose fatal dart is ever poised before us ; since sin is the foe whose poisoned arrow is ever fitted to the string ; and since Satan is the seducing spirit, who never relaxes his vigilance in watching and plotting to bring you within the power of evil, — oh, then, if you would be safe, hasten to clothe yourself in " the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to with- stand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand !" TEE CRUCIFIXION. '•'' Daughters of Jerusalem^ weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children." Luke^d, 28th. HIS, my brethren, is the language of con- solation, not of command. It is an expres- sion of exquisite tenderness, not of stern reproof. Our Lord had been arrested by the minions of perverted power; He had passed through the mockery of a public trial ; He had been cruelly derided ; He had been inhumanly scourged ; and was now passing from the hall of justice, to en- counter a cruel and ignominious death; He was faint from the oppressive burden of the cross they had compelled Him to bear ; and He was stained and dripping with the blood from His lacerated body. In this extreme of misery He turned to look upon the lawless and inflamed mob which followed Him, when among them He recognized some of His own faithful female followers, bathed in tears. Always alive to the sufferings of humanity. He appeared for the mo- ment regardless of His own sorrows, and in the warmth of His commisei'ation, He endeavored to alleviate, 138 The Crucifixion. by diverting their grief. Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but command your tears and your fortitude for the trials that await you, from the storm that now lowers over your devoted city. No, my brethren, our Lord forbids us not to weep for him. No, it can never be that He in whom our nature was perfect — He who knew all the sympathies and sor- rows of humanity — He who Himself so pathetically deplored the desolation of the City of the Temple — He who " saw Jerusalem," and wept over it — He who bedewed with His tears the tomb of His friend — He who, while He hung in the cold agony of death upon the cross, was still thoughtful of the necessities of His bereaved and wailing mother — it cannot be that He would wish to extinguish the sensibilities of the soul ! It was natural, my brethren, that the daughters of Jerusalem sliould weep, when they were called to witness the sufferings and sad destiny of Him who had lived only to bless them ; who had trained their children for Heaven ; who had restored them from disease and rescued for them from death their fathers and friends, their husbands and brothers. And it is natural for us, too, to be sorrowful, when we bring fairly before our minds these melancholy circumstances. When we reflect upon the awful suf- ferings and death of the Son of God ; when we remember the high errand of love upon which He came in the garb of humanity; when we consider His pure and harmless life ; and then, when we travel back in imagination to the scene of His sufferings, and behold Him in the garden of Gethsemane, with a frame dis- The Crucifixion. 139 torted and convulsed by agony ; when we see Him betrayed by a wretched hireling in the person of His own familiar friend — one who had been cherished in His bosom, and should have been unto Him as a brother ; when we witness his dignified endurance of the scoffs and contumely, the insults and cruelty of His infuriated enemies; when we see Him con- demned to death by the very judge who had declared Him guilty of no crime ; when we see His temples pierced and lacerated with the thorns with which, in unfeeling derision, they had crowned His brow ; when we see Him drenched in His own blood, and staggering under the weight of the cross they had laid upon Him; when we see Him unresistingly extended upon that cross, and His hands and His feet transfixed with nails; when we hear the piercing tones with which, in anguish, He prayed to His Father ; when, I say, we witness all this — when we see the excruciating tortures of the man, endured with the sublime tranquillity of a God, it is natural for us to be sorrowful ! But then it is not meet, my brethren, that these mournful considerations should entirely possess our souls, for the sufferings of the Son of God are ended! Our great Emanuel has tri- umphed gloriously ! It was not, however, until He had robbed death of its sting ; it was not until He had deprived the grave of its victory ; it was not until He had bound in everlasting chains the powers of darkness, that he exclaimed in. rapture, "It is finished ! " In all the majesty of His own unaided greatness, 140 The Crucifixion. Christ achieved the work of our redemption. He de- spoiled His enemies and wrought out a pardon for the offending children of men, while he upheld the pillars of Jehovah's throne, and preserved the harmony of Jehovah's attributes. He then ascended with a retinue of adoring angels to His own throne in the heavens. He forever sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. Yea, my brethren, as a re- turning Conqueror, with all His captive and ransomed millions. He entered heaven's everlasting doors, while love ineffable beamed from His father's face, and ten thousand hallelujahs sent forth in loud har- mony, rang through the eternal regions. We will, then, no longer weep for Him, but we may weep for ourselves and for our children. We will separate our thoughts and affections from the occupations and pursuits of the world, and we will strive to form some proper conception of the dark enormity, of the mysterious nature of sin. We will endeavor to realize the deep malignity which must attach to offences against an infinitely holy God, when it was necessary to expiate them by so infinite a sacrifice. And then, my brethren, we will in faithful review assemble around us our numberless deficiencies, our sins of infirmity, and our sins of presumption, and we will weep for ourselves. If, my brethren, we would but reflect upon the graces which shone so resplendently in the Son of God ; His meekness. His humility. His forgiving temper, His boundless charity. His ardent desire to promote the happiness of men, and His inextinguishable zeal The Crucifixion, 141 to extend the glory of God : and then, if we will but be feithfiil to our own hearts, and seriously con- sider how much of impurity and imperfection has been associated with our very best services; — how often we have relaxed the vigilance that became us ; how often we have suffered ourselves to be engrossed with the cares and the pursuits of this world, with its wealth and its pleasures that perish, and its honors that fade away ; how often we have slumbered in indolence and inglorious sloth, when we should have been active in the duties that fairly awaited us ; when, my brethren, we consider how entirely we have fallen short of our duty to ourselves, our fellow-men, and to God — oh ! when we look back upon the days that are forever gone, and compare what we are with what we might have been, when we compare what we have done with what we might have accom- plished, — who is there of us who would not weep for himself? But we will weep not only for ourselves, we will look abroad upon the face of human society, and we will weep for the children of our common nature. As disciples of the Son of God, will we weep over the infatuation which would seem to have possessed so many of the great family of men with regard to their immortal interests. Yea, we may well mourn over the contempt and indifference with which they receive the great salvation that has been purchased for them ! Yes, we will mourn, when we reflect upon the weight of punishment which might justly fall from the hands of a righteous and merciful God 142 The Crucifixion. upon the heads of those who have added to the criminality of violating His law, the guilt, too, of despising the saving provisions of His Gospel of Grace ! My brethren, the voice of nature in every breast, and the history of man in every age, will tell us of his mournful infirmity ; of a perpetual tendency to evil, of sad debasement, and of the most positive and wilful criminality. Now, if there be any settled and immutable principle of right and wrong, then it is certain that no creature, disfigured by crime and pollution, can ever expect to be received into that kingdom whose laws proceed from a Being of infinite purity and perfection. A perfect law must require a perfect obedience ; and whatever falls short of obedience is crime. It is, then, for the hosts of criminals around us of every sex, age, and degree, who are without remedy and without refuge from the frowns of insulted Justice, to think of these things ! My brethren, it is for each one and all of us to think of these things, because we must see and feel that upon each and every one of us, according to all the conclusions we can draw from the dictates of nature and the perfections of God, must the sen- tence of guilt and condemnation be pronounced, unless we will consent to avail ourselves of some in- terposition of infinite mercy in our behalf. The stern and unyielding law of right is frowning over us, and from every suggestion of reason we turn away in trembling and in doubt. We see that a measure The Crucifixion. 143 of obedience is required, to which no mortal can hope to rise ; and that we must be left to the wretchedness of guilt, and the rigorous exactions of justice. We see that sorrow for the consequences which are to follow upon crime, are nowhere deem- ed sufficient to amend a violated law. Much less can such sorrow entitle us to transcendent rewards from the Lawgiver, We see from the very im- perfection of our nature, from which our sins origi- nate, that our repentance, too, must necessarily be imperfect and incomplete, and can never, therefore, be rested upon to satisfy the demands of infinite perfection. God alone can reveal to us how the violated provisions of His perfect law may be satis- fied, and yet His immutable truth sustained. He has so revealed Himself, my brethren. He has so interposed in behalf of His frail and erring creatures. He has remitted nothing whicli was due to His inexorable justice ; but he has consented to an equivalent which, in power, is far more than equal to the sacrifice of all created beings, throughout all time. It was God, in the form of man, who redeemed us from the curse of the Law. It was His own Almighty arm that brought us salvation. Such, my brethren, is the mighty mystery of our redemption ; and who now shall penetrate into the secret counsels of the Almighty, and impiously pre- sume to say that it is not so ? There is surely nothing in the idea of Deity that confounds our powers of belief; but there is everything that sur- 144 The Crucifixion. passes our power of comprehension. And wliy may not the same self-existing Spirit, eternal, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent, whose divine essence is necessarily one, but whose ubiquity is unquestionable ; who may and does exist in all forms, or in no form — why, I say, may not that same all-creating and all- controlling Spirit, in His dispensations toM-ards our race, assume, for His own blessed purposes of mercy, the human form ? Or why may He not, for other purposes of mercy, manifest Himself in three distinct characters, and require our worship according to that manifestation ? I will only say, my brethren, that this scheme of salvation is inseparably connected with the whole tenor and texture of our written rev- elation, and that all attempts to deduce any other form of Christianity from the Bible must involve us in the most inextricable difficulty and confusion : difficulties infinitely greater than those from which, in their proud and disdainful sense of independence, men vainly seek to free themselves. Wonderful indeed, my brethren, in every view of it, is the stupendous sacrifice which your pious feel- ings have this day assembled you to commemorate. Wonderful indeed is the vast purpose of the Saviour's death, when it is considered in connection with all time, past, present, and to come, and if it be confined to this world of beings only. But who can say that our imperfect knowledge embraces all the relations of this stupendous ransom? Who can say but this world of fallen creatures may be the very lowest in the scale of created intelligences, and that the The Crucifixion. 145 emotions which this manifestation of the Saviour's love has awakened in us, may not at the same moment be acknowledged by endless millions of far higher orders of spirits, in a perpetual ascending series ? Who can say but that angels, and principal- ities, and powers may at this moment be bending in deep humiliation before the memorials of the Sav- iour's sacrifice ; and while they too, under a sense of their insufficiency, commemorate His death, they too seek for their share in the benefits of His atonement, and thus to secure some further advancement in a career of spiritual exaltation and glory ! But how- ever this may be, and whatever may be the efiect of Christ's redemption upon other and distant worlds, we at least know that the Scriptures speak of the knowledge of our scheme of salvation having been disseminated among higher orders of intelligence. This is enough to bespeak its dignity and vast im- portance. Let us not therefore seek, in petulance and pride, to be wise above what is written ; but let us rather wait, in meekness and patience, to see and understand all of its bearings and vast results at that final and glorious consummation, when we shall know even as we now are known. Such, then, was the character in which the incarnate Word appeared, when, prompted by His own myste- rious love. He gave himself for the Church, — when He delivered Himself up to death for us all ! And to what death? Let us never forget, my brethren, that it was the death of the cross ! A death which was attended with the bitterest pangs of 146 The Crucifixion. agony, and over which hung a cloud of darker ignominy than over any other of the punishments that the ingenious cruelty of man has ever devised to be inflicted upon the basest and most enormous crimes ! It was a death that, as the great Roman orator has most emphatically declared, deserved to be forever banished from the eyes, the ears, and the very imaginations of mankind. Often before this had God lifted up His voice, and that an awful and a startling voice, to proclaim the hatefulness of sin in His sight. But how faint and feeble were all His previous manifestations, com- pared with the overwhelming testimony that burst upon the trembling world from the hill of Calvary ! Not the desolating plagues of Egypt — not the mirac- ulous fires that fell upon the polluted cities of the plain — not all of the waters of the deluge that covered a guilty world— evinced so fearfully to mortals the great Jehovah's hatred of sin, as one single drop of the blood which was shed upon the cross. Could all the cries of all that have ever perished under the just judgment of an avenging God — yea, could all the cries of all the souls lost, that are at this moment lifting up their voices of wailing in the dark prisons of the condemned — could they all, I say, be at this moment combined into one wild piercing shriek of anguish, it would not strike upon my heart with half such convincing power to satisfy me of God's righteous abhorrence of sin ; no, it would not appal nie half so much as that cry which burst from the Saviour God amid the dark scenes of His mysterious TTie Crucifixion. 147 suffering — " My God, my God, why hast thou for- saken me ! " My brethren, while my mind is thus impressed and I look out upon the earth, which sin has made so full of " lamentation, and mourning, and woe ; " and when, in imagination, I survey the gloomy depths of hell, where sin has kindled the unquenchable fires of re- morse, anguish, and despair, I shudder at the con- sequences of evil and crime. But it is not until I turn to Judea, shrouded in darkness and trembling to earth's inmost recesses, while the everlasting rocks are rent, and the dark graves are opened, and I see through the gloom of the covered sun the Lord of Life and Light hanging upon the accursed tree. Oh ! it is then that I realize in all its fulness the dark enormity of moral evil ! It is then that I feel the odiousness, the black ingratitude and unpardonable guilt of wilful rebellion against the Giver and Ruler of our lives. Yea, it is then that I see that no blood could expiate its guilt, and no death could procure its pardon, but the blood and the death of Him who was " God manifest in the flesh." Shall we not, then, my brethren, shrink away with trembling and watchful solicitude from all contamination and from every con- tact with evil ? Will you not consent with me to vow a vow promptly and cordially, — a vow of unqua- lified abhorrence and renunciation of all sin ? Oh ! may the everlasting Spirit of God, " without whom nothing is strong and nothing is holy," enable you to resolve, and, by keeping your resolution, to show forth ceaseless praises to the God of holiness ! 148 The CruGifixion. My brethren, when you fancy that you hear the merciful Saviour, in His absorbing devotion to the happiness of His creatures, exclaiming to the wail- ing mourners that surrounded His cross, "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for your- selves and for your children " — let it be to your own hearts that he speaks. From the awful hour in which the Jews invoked the blighting blood of Jesus to be upon them and upon their children, have they and their children's children, through a long and countless line, been afflicted and forsaken ; an astonishment, a proverb, and a by- word among all nations ! It was a fearful imprecation, and most fearfully was it answered. That generation had not passed away, when such multitudes upon multitudes of that devoted people were crucified at Jerusalem, that there was no longer room for the crosses to stand beside each other ; nor could they at last find wood to make as many as they wanted. Appalling fulfilment of prophecy ! The destruction of Jerusalem was but the emblem of the great day of the world, yet before us. Let us think, then, of the sins by which we have too often crucified the Son of God afresh, and let us weep for ourselves and for our children, when we think that the day is coming when not only over the land of Judea, but over the whole earth, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall be turned into blood ; when not only the rocks of the earth shall be rent, but the powers of heaven shall be shaken ; when not the bodies of a few saints shall arise, but all who TTi& Crucifixion. 149 are in their graves shall come forth ! when before the impious apostates of earth there shall be opened the immeasurable gulf that separates heaven from hell, and the last words of their angry Judge shall ring in their astonished ears, " Behold ye despisers, and wonder, and perish ! " At the same time, my brethren, the awful veil in the temple not made with hands, the temple in the New Jerusalem, shall be " rent in twain," and the everlasting Jesus shall be seen in the true Holy of Holies, as the one High Priest of His people, having by the one sacrifice of Himself made eternal redemption for them that are His. My brethren, let us think of these things for our- selves and for our children, and let us turn to Him who alone can deliver us, with weeping, and fasting, and prayer ; that in another, a better, and a far loftier sense, His blood may indeed be upon our souls; that it may indeed be upon us in peace, and not in destroying wrath ; yea, that His blood may be upon us and our children in all of its purifying, pardoning, and comforting influences; that it may be upon us as a mark of His covenant mercy, the token of His adopting love, so that when the destroy- ing angel shall go forth to smite all the enemies of the Lord with an everlasting destruction from His presence, we may be passed over in triumph, as being sprinkled with the saving blood of the Lamb ! THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. " ^f y^ then be risen with Christy seek those things which are above." Colossiana Zd, \st. K the Scriptures the power and proper ten- dency of the Christian faith to elevate its followers above the corruptions of the world is often compared to the resurrection of Christ from the grave. In the undoubted and animating pledge which we have received of our own immortality in the rising again of the great Captain of our Salvation, we are regarded as being already above the world, as being dead with Christ unto sin, and alive with Christ unto God ; as being new ceeatubes, who are hence- forth to live not unto themselves, but unto Him who died for them and rose again. Thus are we con- stantly exhorted to direct the purest and deepest aspiration of our hearts towards our heavenly and eternal inheritance. " If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above." Of all the subjects which can engage the powers of the human mind, its keligion is unquestionably the most important, because it relates to the im- perishable soul rather than to the wasting body, and The Resurrection of Christ. 151 to the eternal Creator rather than to the fadin^^ forms of creation with which He has surrounded us. He who has once been convinced of the truth of this must surely return to the contemplation of such absorbing subjects of thought with perpetually in- creasing force and frequency ; he must surely regard it as THAT for which everything incompatible with it must at once be sacrificed without awakening surprise, or creating any suspicion, even, of weakness or irra- tionality. My brethren, if the certainty of another and a better existence than the present has been clearly revealed to us, is it not the most exalted distinction of our nature ? Shall not all our best wishes be enkindled and our best powers be active in the pursuit ? Shall mem, the lord of all this lower creation, and the heir of immortal glory, forget his truest dignity and neglect to employ his high endowment of rea- son when that reason might anticipate its noblest triumphs? While we leave nothing to hazard that belongs to this fleeting existence, shall we leave everything that pertains to eternity to accident and chance 1 Oh, no ! if we are all pilgrims of time, risen with Jesus from the dust and darkness and pollutions of earth, redeemed, disenthralled, and des- tined for the skies, then let us seek first and most anxiously those things whicli are above. Let me here pray you to remark that, in the words of our text, the certainty of the resurrection of Christ is assumed as a truth beyond the possibility of dispute 152 The Resurrection of Chrht. or denial. And you will permit me to say in passing, that we cannot well conceive of anything more mani- festly open to refutation, if it had been false. So, too, is it difficult to conceive of any fact in the whole wide range of historical truth whicli could by any possibility be fenced around by a greater amount of irrefragable testimony than is actually concen- trated upon the great event which we this day com- memorate. If there be a God, He certainly never would allow the sublimest of all doctrines, and the purest and profoundest of all subjects of human faith and hu- man hope, to be disfigured and trifled with by the cheateries of imposture. The certainties of eternity are too overpoweringly important to be allowed to rest upon vague tradition or upon the dim conjecture of philosophy, and we accordingly find that God in His mercy has added to the teaching of revelation the unyielding guarantee of one of the most com- pletely ESTABLISHED FACTS iu tlic whole compass of history. That great fact, thus established, established also the whole of Christianity, Brethren, it con- verts into certainty the sublime and transporting HOPE that every victim of death, every prisoner of the grave shall also hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. It is the stu- pendous FACT thus established that has fulfilled the words of prophecy, and awakened "the voice of rejoicing and salvation in the tabernacles of the righteous." It is this which lias inspired the whole Christian The Resurrection of Christ. 153 Church with a transporting animation, so that amid all the dispersions, and all the diversity of languages, and kindred, climes and sects, she still prolongs the joyous anthem of more than eighteen hundred years — " The Lord is risen," "The Lord is risen indeed ! " It is well and wise that this should be so, for the same causes for holy joy and spiritual triumph still remain with us, in all their force, and in all their freshness. The certainty of Christ's resurrection has not been in the least degree dimmed or diminished by the lapse of centuries. The ocean of time, as it rolls on its obliterating waves over the baseless structures of falsehood, has only served to render more conspic- uous and more impregnable this rock of eternal Truth. It was because the doctrines of Christianity were thus supported, that it so miraculously forced its way over every obstacle that the iron power of the nations could array against it, until it triumphantly overthrew their religions, convicted their philoso- phers of folly, subdued the triumphant legions of haughty Rome, and clothed itself in her imperial purple ! "While Rome continued in splendor, Chris- tianity, thus resting upon the mighty truth of Christ's resurrection, continued to rule and guide her spiritual hopes; and then throughout all the ages of her de- cline, and amid all the wasting confusion of unceas- ing revolutions — amid the changes of empire and the fall of nations — did Christianity still live, to triumph over the barbarism and Pagan heresies of the wild hordes of ruthless men who brutally contended for empire. Calmly, and surely, did she take possession 7* 154 The Resurrection of Christ, of each kingdom that arose in its turn. It was in this way that the Goth and the Vandal, the Hun, the Frank, the Saxon, and the Norman, yielded, each in his turn, to the resistless force of miraculous truth. Through gloomy ages of ignorance, and through bright times of classic refinement — through blighting reigns of religious despotism, and through seasons of liberty, civilization, and intellectual development — has Christianity, resting upon the stupendous fact of Christ's resurrection, advanced over the ruins of a thousand superstitions, and planted herself, as we now behold her, in a gigantic and gloriously illumined temple of everlasting teuth ! I repeat it, then, that Christianity, with all its soothing and all its fearful doctrines, rests upon the certainty of the great event we this day commem- orate ! And then, while we consider how it has lived and advanced; how it has promoted the spiritual, in- tellectual, and political welfare of our race ; how it has delivered us from the slavery of the sin, the debasement of superstition, and enriched us with the blessings of holiness and charity, can we for one mo- ment suppose that it has done all this without the Divine Messing and without the Divine power, and that its wretched author now lies mouldering in the grave of the malefactor ? Of all conceivable absur- dities this would be the greatest ! Well, then, does it become us to join in the songs of joy, and soothing anthems of thanksgiving and praise with which the universal Church are this day offering adoration to their Divine Redeemer. " Now is Christ The Resurrection of Christ. 155 risen from the dead," and because " He lives, so shall we live also." "It is appointed unto men once to die." A few more brief and hurrying seasons, and we all, my brethren, must yield to that universal law. A few more passing hours, and our voices will all be hushed in the stillness of death. The roses upon the cheek of youth; manhood in its strength, and with its fretting cares ; old age with silvery locks, and its treasures of experience ; all the pomp of wealth and all the glitter of station will have passed away forever. Brethren, it is a solemn reality. It is an overpowering thought. But ah ! how support- ing, how consoling, how enrapturing is it to know, that " as we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." Glorious is the assurance that, althouo;h " the wao;es of sin is death, yet the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord," " and when Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with Him in glory." Oh ! how blessed is it to know, amid the waste and desolation of death, amid all the bereave- ments of our homes, and the disappointment of our brightest hopes — the blight that has fallen upon our hearts, and the tears which we have poured out like water over the memory of the loved and the lost of the earth — oh ! how blessed is it to know, that " the dead shall be raised incorruptible ! " that we all shall meet again ; not as we parted, brethren, op- pressed with care, worn with sickness, faint from grief, and faded by time, but all of us clothed with immortality and unfading glory. " Death is indeed 166 The Resurrection of Christ. swallowed up in victory," " Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." My brethren, these are impressive subjects of thought, and how extraordinary — how passing strange — is the practical indifference with which they are regarded by multitudes around us, who yet profess to wear the Gospel to their hearts as the charter of their immortal rights. If these doctrines were merely met as physical abstractions not bearing upon the business of this life, nor coming home to the bosoms of men in reference to their dearest hopes for eternity, we would not be surprised at the indifference with which they are regarded by thousands who would yet shud- der to deny their truth. Of all the possible subjects which can be presented to the thoughts of men, Chris- tianity is essentially the most practical. It speaks directly to the heart, and to the most intensely anx- ious feelings of the heart ; and through the heart it regulates the passions and controls the conduct of mankind. Christ did not descend to this earth to weep, to bleed, to die, and then to raise Himself in- corruptible from the grave, only as a theme of useless wonder. It was not that He might exercise the acuteness of human intellect or feed the human mind with worthless subtleties. He did not come to fill the world with better reasoners, but rather to enrich it with better men. Christianity is no history of man's progress ; it is no theory by which he may be restored to innocence and glory, but rather is it the prepara- tion, the education, the discipline necessary to fit us The Resurrection of Christ. 15T for the enjoyment of beatitudes to come. Christ did not come only to point lis to the straight and narrow way that leads to the lost fields of glory, but rather was it to enlighten that path with His own unfailing light of life, and to extend His own helping arm of strength to all who, conscious of weakness, would meekly invoke His aid. But what now has been the effect of all manifesta- tion of boundless love, and these ceaseless efforts for our celestial training ? Cast your eyes over the map of Christendom, and then turn to the regenerating and ennobling doctrines of the Gospel, and tell me, how are men influenced by God's purposes of ever- lasting mercy, and by the retributions which we must perceive to be reserved for the guilty and unrepenting of our race ? Alas ! my friends, how terrific is the demonstration which is given of the debasing tendencies of the hu- man heart, when we see how lamentably short and feeble is human practice, in comparison with what the elevating doctrine of our faith would have us to be ! Indeed, my friends, Christianity is something more than a name. It has come from heaven, and it is armed with heavenly power ; and if men did not resist it in their perverseness, and smother its fires by their wicked works, it would soon be seen and felt to be working widely and deeply. It would inspire our minds with an unconquerable energy in sacred pur- poses, and it would enrich the earth by raising to itself everywhere the most imperishable monuments of holiness, purity, and truth. 158 The Resurrection of Christ. But alas ! alas ! how extraordinary is the anomaly which Christian lands will everywhere present, of thousands who yield their belief to the Christian records as containing truths of eternal importance, but who yet continue to live as thoughtlessly and as flagrantly negligent of all the duties of the Christian profession, as if no such controlling law of right existed ! I speak not now of speculative infidelity^ but rather of practical disobedience. I speak of what 1 fear we all experimentally know — that while we are far from rejecting the sublime and all-consoling doc- trines of Christianity, yet we suifer no impress to be made upon our minds and no direction to be given to our conduct by the regenerating spirit of the faith in which we profess to confide. This, my brethren, is a common-sense view of the matter, and it has well been said that the senseless laugh of an idiot, wdien in the hurrying waters of a foaming and a fatal cataract, is but a feeble illustra- tion of the infatuation which is so common around us, and which is credible only because it is so common. It could be looked upon with no other feelings than those of astonishment and sickness of heart if the con- templators of the scene were the inhabitants of some other sphere, and unacquainted with the secret springs which influence human actions. Alas ! my brethren, how else must the scenes of this world appear to those angelic beings who are the invisible spectators of our doings, when they see so many of us under the influence of the be- The Resurrection of Christ. 159 wildering infatuation of which I speak ! Although the curse of a broken law is hanging over us, and the frown of an angry God is lowering on us, and we are hourly tottering on the brink of eternity, yet the smile of reckless gayety sparkles in the eye, and the loud laugh of merriment bursts from the lips ! and too many of us, in the thoughtlessness of guilty revehy, exhibit the spectacle of maniacs, dancing in their chains on the precipice's edge ! My brethren, it sometimes happens that the ma- niac, in the creative working of his disordered brain, converts the place of his confinement into a palace, his fantastic dress into royal robes, and the compan- ions of his captivity into the attendants of his court. Tell him that you are come to release him from his confinement, and to restore him to society and to his friends, and he hears you without gratitude or pleasure, perhaps rejects with scorn your offer of deliverance ; but point to the imaginary splendors which surround him, and he laughs and dances in the wild delirium of frenzied enjoyment. And know you not, my brethren, that for us an Al- mighty Deliverer has come down from Heaven to rescue us ? He offers to open for us the prison- doors, and to give deliverance to every captive of the evil one. But so it is, that when the Deliverer thus comes, and offers to release us (victims that we are of bewildering imagination) from our degrading bondage to the powers of sensuality and sin, we turn from Him in cold contempt ; refuse His offers with scornful disdain ; rush again upon the seductive 160 The Resurrection of Christ. joys of the world, and plunge with fresh zest into its scenes of frenzied riot! Soon, alas! with every power and faculty of mind and body absolutely enthralled amid its wild and delirious enjoyments, we lose all thought of Him the Mighty One; all recollection of His offers of mercy ; of his visit of redeeming love ; and of all His precious gifts of present grace and promises of future glory ! Oh I there is no madness so stupid, so fatal as this ! Oh ! that I could but arrest the attention of the heedless and open the eyes of the sinful, so that they might see the unutterable euin in which their self- willed perversity must terminate 1 Oh! that I could but induce you to listen to the persuasive voice of that celestial Messenger, who entreats with the tenderness of a Saviour's love that you would come unto Him, so that He might give you an inheritance among those who are sanctified by His spirit and saved by faith in His atoning blood! But, alas! the power for this is not with me. T can only tell you, on the strength of God's promises of mercy to a guilty world (and may the Holy Spirit, whose province it is, carry the message with subduing power to your hearts), that no matter how far you may have wandered from your Heavenly Father's home, no matter how prodigally you may hitherto have squandered in the service of the world those talents which He intrusted to your keeping to be employed to His glory, yet, if you will but arise with Jesus from the death of sin, confess your error, The Resurrection of Christ. 161 and ask for pardon in the name of His risen Son, He will not reject you— He will rather hasten to receive you with the overflowing tenderness of a Father's joy, and with the endearing expressions of a Father's forgiveness. He will invest you with the tokens of His covenant mercy ; He will bring you under the sunshine of His smiles, and place you under the training of His Spirit, so as to render you meet to be a " partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light." My brethren, while death is everywhere defeating the calculations of human wisdom and advancing in cold and ghastly triumph over all human strength and human glory ; while we see the beggar in his tattered covering, and the ruler of nations in robes and ermine of office ; while we see the infant of days and the old man who little thought that he had ful- filled his days, all alike palsied by the blighting touch of Death, can nothing arouse us to a wise and enduring sense of our uncertain condition and absolute responsibility ? Can nothing enable us to see through the blaze of enchantment the world throws around its votaries ? Can nothing succeed in bringing the awful reality of eternity before our minds in all their tremendous proportions, so as to lead us to estimate things temporal at their true value ? Oh, brethren, " if ye be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above ! " As members and parts of the body of Christ, ye are heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ ! and it is thus that I would persuade you to think of your 162 The Resurrection of Christ. higli and holy calling — your true and loft destiny! It is thus that I would persuade you to maintain and manifest the character and feelings becoming the expectant of such an inheritance as is laid before you. Ah ! what purity ! what sanctity ! what heavenly-mindedness! what true nobility of spirit, what stainless integrity of heart and character should be found in one standing in such a relationship with Divinity ! Come, then, and let us resolve that we will strive so to live, as men should live who hope soon to be with the angels, with Jesus, and the host of His redeemed, to be in the presence of our God ! Yea, live hourly and continually with the land of our eternal inheritance steadily in view, as if we stood in waiting upon its borders, and knew not how soon we may be summoned to cross its charmed boundary ! Yes, brethren, " if we be risen with Christ, let us seek those things which are above." Let us live with Heaven, our last and highest home, always in view — its inhabitants, its joys, its love, its glories — until the influence of Heaven so descends upon us as to form its temper within us ; until all the tumultuous waves of this earth's passions are calmed, and all the distracting feelings of our troubled hearts are tranquillized into that sweet and holy rest which is an emblem and foretaste of the happiness of the blessed ! THE TRINITY. ^'■Hardly do we guess aright at things that are upon the earthy and with labor do we find the things that are before us ; but the things that are in Heaven^ who hath searched out ? And Thy coun- sel^ who hath known, except Thou give wisdom, and send Thy Holy Spirit from above '^ " Wisdom 9th, IQth, nth. LL human knowledge is founded on belief. "We must receive facts without being able to explain them ; and adopt prin- ciples as of undoubted soundness, which yet, if pursued to extremes, will unsettle all truth and land us in absurdity. Now, if this must be affirmed of everything which we call knowledge, can we expect to be relieved from the difficulty in our religious knowledge ? Throughout the whole of nature, in every sphere of human investigation, there are innumerable phe- nomena presented, which we readily receive upon unquestioned testimony ; and yet to any or all of these facts, subtle objections may be urged, which we are unable to answer, and difficulties may be presented which we pretend not to obviate. Yet we repose our confidence in these things with a tranquil and unwavering constancy. We know them as far as it is necessary for us to know them. 164 The Trinity . We reject them not as false because difficulties meet us in every view ; because this may be said of all things, and some things must be true. In religion God has revealed to us, as facts, many important truths in reference to His own nature, which He has not enabled us to account for, or ex- plain in terms to other minds. But in this God has made no unusual exaction on our faith. We know not the essence of our own minds. We know not the union and distinction of its several faculties. We know not how it is that soul and body — united and yet distinct — make one man. We know not how our united and yet differing sensations are ex- perienced. We know not how it is that the will controls the eye or moves the arm. We know not how it is that the vicissitudes of heat or cold are pro- duced — how it is tliat bodies attract or repel each other. We know not what is matter, nor how it is that gravitation preserves the harmony of the out- ward universe. My brethren, we know not why our knowledge of nature is so confined — why it is that God did not enable us to comprehend nature in all the glory, grandeur, and beauty of her inscrutable mysteries. But this we do know, that our inability to comprehend nature in all the modes and reasons of her operation is no ground for disbelieving all the phenomena of nature ; and surely we maybe content to act in the moral world, and in matters of faith, precisely as we do in the natural world, and in mat- ters of sight and sense— to receive everything which we are permitted to read and understand as coming The Trinity. 165 from God, although there may be curiosity awakened as to modes, circumstances, and degrees of knowledge, which we are utterly unable to gratify — I say that we are to receive what we can understand as being revealed — the fact itself. More than that Grod does not require of us, and it is presumption in us to go beyond what He requires. Here I will remark, that we cannot be guilty of more serious injustice than to say that Christianity requires us to believe what we cannot understand. The very language is absurd. To believe is to un- derstand. And we assert fearlessly that Christianity never requires us to advance one single step beyond the rational dictates of that common sense with which God has endowed us. When facts are revealed, the reasons or modes of existence connected with which are beyond our un- derstanding, the FACTS alone are presented to our faith. Thus, in reference to the doctrine of the Trinity, or of the responsibility of man in connection with the foreknowledge of God, or of prophecy in connection with the freedom of human actions, we are never required to quit the guidance of reason — we are never required to believe what we cannot un- derstand. The facts themselves are presented upon the sure warrant of God's word. Their agreement with our ideas, and with the character of God, is not for us to determine, because we know nothing of the character of God. What is revealed we must receive, as we do a thousand things in nature, as so many ascertained facts. The mode is not revealed, and 106 The Trinity. what is not revealed cannot be a subject of faith. Now, my brethren, were a doctrine presented to us which we saw at once to be self-contradictorj, and opposed to the clearest dictates of reason, nothing could make such a doctrine an object of faith. By no possibility can we admit that to be true which we plainly see to be false, for to admit anything contrary to our reason would be to destroy both reason and revelation. But if our assent be required to a doctrine full of meaning, and without inconsistency, un- doubtedly assured in a revelation well supported, the mere circumstance of its being beyond the power of reason to follow and comprehend in all its bearings is no ground for rejecting it. In the revelation of God we believe many things which are above our reason ; and so is the wide creation of God in every one of its parts above our reason ; but who will therefore say that the creation of God is a contra- diction, an absurdity, and inconsistent with reason ? In material nature it is utterly impossible that those objects which we perceive and know to be distinct should at the same time be one. But there is no analogy whatever between such a proposition and the simple revealed fact that the Divine attri- butes are manifested to the world in three distinct characters, a threefold manifestation of the same one, eternal, indivisible essence of Divinity. This is a proposition to be deduced clearly, as we think, not from a few insulated passages, but from the whole tenor of Scripture and the whole scheme of Christian- ity. It therefore demands our assent. But the mode The Trinity. 167 of its existence is beyond the power of our poor concep- tion. Confusion follows every proud effort to fathom the mysteries of the Godhead. " He maketh darkness His secret place, His pavilion round about Him with dark waters, and thick clouds to cover Him." So much, then, for mysteries in nature as leading us to expect mysteries in religion. We would go on to say, however, that we are far from admitting that every seeming difficulty in religion is a real difficulty. Some things are by some minds clothed in hues far darker than they really are, and others are presented in lights far brighter than they should be ; in this way unmeaning words and unwarrantable notions are oftentimes added to the Scriptures, and they are charged with saying what they never meant to say. It sometimes happens that men who are far from re- jecting the Scriptures, yet think that they do them an essential service by bringing down all their high mysteries to the level of human comprehension. Now nothing can be more dangerous than this habit of explaining things away, — of wresting the written lines from their obvious meaning, to fix upon them a more rational interpretation. The sacred authors are not to have a forced interpretation put upon them only to suit our notions. In our ignorance and con- ceit we are not to make the Scriptures speak what we please, in opposition to what they really deliver. The obscurities of the Scriptures may be designed for the moral exercise of our understandings. "We are to keep close to God's word. We are not pre- sumptuously to exalt our reason against our Maker. 168 The Trinity. The obscurities of the Scriptures may be left so for the wisest motives. In the scheme of Providence we everj'where perceive the strongest evidence of designing wisdom and goodness ; and yet are there not many things in nature, the utilit}^ of which we perceive not ? Yet we never think of saying that these things are not the work of God ; we never doubt but they are designed for good ends. And so, too, in the system of revelation ; the general plan, in its evident bearing, is adapted to promote the Divine honor, and human virtue and happiness. But how some particular points may conduce to these ends we see not, yet we are not to doubt that these are parts of a system confessedly wise and good. And we are not to expect to comprehend all the hidden connections and references in God's moral govern- ment, which must extend to eternity, and may at this moment be extending to worlds far beyond our sight and knowledge. My brethren, is it not the most unreasonable of all things to refuse to believe anything until we can know the reason and end of everything ? Is it not the most revolting irreverence scornfully to reject the teaching of our Creator, only because we cannot understand all His reasons and trace His vast designs ? With suicidal infatuation do you plunge into the dark, fathomless, raging, shoreless waters of unbelief, only because you are unable to measure infinity with the finite line of human reason ? But we must come now to lay down this truth, that there is no essential doctrine of the Christian Scrip- The Trinity. 169 tures which is without its practical influence and purpose. We will illustrate this by inquiring into the importance of the sacred manifestations of the Deity in the doctrine of the Trinity. Is it a mere theological subtlety, requiring us to prostrate the un- derstanding without any influence upon the heart ? On the contrary, my brethren, it is a discovery of the true, holy, and eternal character of God ; and it just rests with you to determine whether the revelation of that character be not calculated to exert the most momentous influence over the whole moral existence of him who receives it. And it strikes me that to exhibit the Christian revelation without this doctrine is to rob it of its meaning and glory. It is the life- less skeleton without the soul. Now, the great design of all revelation is to draw back rebellious man to his Creator. It is to rescue him from the impiu-e fascinations of the outward world — from the debase- ment of his senses. It is to restore health to his diseased heart, to restore him to the image of his Creator, in which he was made, and to bind him by every holy and lofty association to a pure, heartfelt, and eternal allegiance. The man, then, who receives the Deity as I take it He is revealed in the Scrip- tures, finds himself encircled by the joys of everlasting love. He perceives God to be his Father, his Saviour, and unfailing Comforter. He perceives that rebellion had exposed him to its frightful penalties, but the Father has not abandoned him without hope to this merited forfeiture. That Father yields nothing of His jealous and inexorable regard for His own honor, 8 170 The Trinity. but reveals a plan of mercy which, while it infinitely transcends all our notions of clemency, overpowers us with its picture of the terrific enormity of human guilt. The Son is next seen assuming our nature ; and while wielding all the high attributes of Divinity — omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence — con- sents in the form of humanity to present Himself as a spotless lamb for the sacrifice. And after this mani- festation of the requirements of justice, after this ex- hibition once made of the eternal connection between sin and misery, God delights to dispense the fullest and freest mercy. He invites the degraded victims of transgression and the rebellious outcasts of every degree ; — yes, they are now most tenderly invited to cast away their guilt, and their fears, and their hatred of the divine government, and to come back as re- pentant prodigals to the bosom of the Father, to be there welcomed and cleansed through the Spirit, and pardoned through the Son — to be reinstated in all the high privileges of children — to be made nothing less than joint heirs with Christ in the vast heritage of eternal felicity. The Son is thus seen to be our Mediator, Saviour, and Intercessor: "The way, the truth, and the life." We joyfully repose the burden of our sins and sor- rows upon His atonement, strength, and life-giving virtue, and are sustained both as to the past, the present, and the future. In His hands the honor of God and the safety of man are alike secured. The claims of the law-giver, and the hopes, peace, and pardon of the offender, are equally an defi'ectually recognized. The Trinity. 171 But although the full atonement has thus been offered, and a complete reconciliation effected be- tween God and man, through the mediation of the Son, yet we are assured that we in whose behalf this mediation is instituted, would not, through the ignorance, pride, and degrading passions of our nature, accept these conditions of safety, did not the Holy Spirit pour His illuminating influence upon our understanding, and thus soften and subdue our hearts. The influence of the Spirit is just as essential to our purity and eternal welfare as the love of the Father, and the mediation of the Son. Indeed, the whole efficacy of the Gospel is universally ascribed to the exciting, soothing, and restraining influence of the Spirit. The rule of religion is built up and sus- tained in the human heart, "not by power or might, but by ray Spirit, saith the Lord." It is the Spirit which is forever working its way into the dark re- cesses of the bosom of guilt, and bringing forth there the fruits of faith, contrition, and holiness. It is the Spirit alone that can arrest attention amid the boisterous cries of passion, sooth the warring aft'ec- tions, open the history of redeeming love to the soul, stimulate it to prayer, lead it to obedience, and pos- sess it with the abiding conviction that nothing can be so unspeakably precious to the wants, sorrows, and flickering inconstancy of the heart as the gift of Christ. My brethren, how practical is the manifestation of the Deity ! How intelligent, how pure, how conso- latory, becomes our intercourse with such a God! 172 The Trinity. How essential to our happiness is this Father of un- bounded love ! How efficient to sooth the wild tu- mults which the reproaches of conscience create, is the record of the great atonement which the Son has made! How deep and healing the aspirations of prayer, while the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, is breath- ing His whispers of peace to the subdued and sancti- fied heart! And tell me, now, of what part of this glorious exliibition of the Godhead would you rob us? Let each one consult his own heart, with its weak- ness and its wants, its guilt and sadness, and then turn to this doctrine, interwoven as it is with the very texture of Christianity, and we fear not for the reply. Talk not to me of idle dogmas. Talk not of a dry and unprofitable subtlety. Can that teaching be unimpressive and nothing worth which unfolds to us the effective character of the Deity, and the unutterable value of the human soul ? — which shows us the tender anxiety of God to rescue that soul from the perils of its degraded condition?— which shows us the fearful malignity of moral evil, and the sin- ner's sure refuge from its final desolation ? Ah ! my brethren, let us be content to receive joyfully the great facts of revealed trutli, although all reasons and methods of being, beyond those facts, are hid from our view. Yes, touched by the affecting tenderness of God — oppressed with the sense of guilt, weighed down by sorrow and convinced of the insufficiency of the world to make us happy, let us seek for safety and repose under the almighty Shield which is offered to us by the Father ^ the Son^ and the Holy Ghost! THE SIN UNTO DEATH. '•'■ If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and He shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death : I do not say that he shall pray for it." 1st John 5ih, IGth. HE explanations which have sometimes been given to this obscure passage of Scripture are so manifestly unsound and illiberal as to strike at the root of all moral responsibility, and destroy the first principles of human charity. Although it may not always be consistent with the modesty of true wisdom to teach with positiveness upon the mysterious and obscure allusions of the sacred writers, yet will it ever be the privilege of sound learning to expose the false- hood and absurdity of such interpretations of narrow ignorance as would cast a shade over the glory of the divine character, darken the human understand- ing, and chill the benevolence of the heart. Much of the obscurity to be found in the Scriptures is, no doubt, to be referred to their allusions to local circum- stances, ever-changing customs, and to the peculiari- ties of a miraculous age. The difficulty which my text presents to the minds of ordinary readers is a 174 The Sin unto Death. remarkable instance of this sort. In inquiring for the true meaning of the verse, it will be my object to show you that it has no reference or connection with eternal life or eternal death, but was written in allusion to the miraculous gifts which were bestowed upon the fii'st preachers of the Gospel, and through which they were enabled to remove the temporal punishments of sickness and suifering with which sin was visited. " There is a sin unto death : I do not say that ye shall pray for it." There is something terrific and appalling in the words, to every mind that makes a literal and universal application of every sentence of Holy "Writ. What is the tremendous crime, they instinctively ask, which renders condemnation unavoidable, and to which the cries and prayers of Christian sympathy are utterly denied ? That it cannot be any of the most notorious and daring of offences against the inflexible rectitude of tlie Divine law, or the most sacred institutions of human society of which we can conceive, is evident from the fact that some of the best men that have lived in every age of the world have been guilty of some of these crimes, but upon repentance and reformation have been forgiven, and planted as guiding lights to safe- ty in the path to glory. There is no human being to be found in whose bosom the blossoms of inno- cence have not been blighted, or in whose life the rigors of virtue were never relaxed. And I lay it down as a maxim irresistibly clear from the whole tenor of the Scriptures, that there is no sin, how- The Sin unto Death. 1Y5 ever malignant in itself or aggravated by the circum- stances of its commission, that shuts the door of the Divine mercy against tlie sinner, or excludes him from the possibility of pardon. The consequence which I deduce from this maxim is, that it is the duty of every Christian to pray for the forgiveness and salvation of every sinner, whatever may be the number or magnitude of his sins. It is impossible, therefore, to suppose that the Apostle ever meant to teach that the prayers of Christians were to be with- held from sinners. From a doctrine so inhuman, 80 uncharitable and blighting, the most pernicious and destructive consequences would ensue. Harmo- ny and sweet peace would bid adieu to the habitations of men. The flames of animosity and bitter hatred, fanned by the breath of selfish conceit and spiritual pride, would rage through all the departtnents of human society. Every sect and division of Chris- tian men, limiting the orthodoxy of belief and the purity of practice within the narrow circle of their own self-erected standards, would soon come to regard all others as hopeless and abandoned sinners and apostates ; and instead of pouring forth prayers from hearts full of the tenderness of Christian chari- ty for their reformation and eternal felicity, they would rather, by the warrant of their doctrine, con- sign them, in the narrowness of blighting self-com- placency, to the woes of everlasting perdition. My brethren, there can be no question but that some feelings of this kind have served to diffuse their malignant poison of exclusiveness and secret hate 176 The Sin unto Death. through the ranks of Christendom. It is from this cause that we have so often beheld humanity bleed- ing as a victim on the altar of cruelty, and the fair face of charity stained and bloated with the blood of persecution. But the conclusion is instantly and irresistibly received, that no doctrine productive in the remotest degree of any such effects can ever be derived from that religion whose emblem and whose only end is charity, which requires us to live like one wide family, bound together in the bands of indissoluble love, and preserving always the "unity of the spirit in the bond of peace." If, then, the Apostle did not mean to say that any human crime was so deadly as to place the wretched victim beyond the reach of everlasting mercy, as it has been purchased by the saving blood of Christ, and if he did not mean to forbid or check the gene- rous impulse of nature which leads us to seek by prayer to enlist Almighty strength in ^id of human weakness, and to secure pardon for human infirmity, then the question recurs as to the true meaning of the text, I think, my brethren, that no one can read the chapter from which the words are taken, with judg- ment and candor, and with a constant recollection of the miraculous cures which were performed through the efficacy of prayer at that period of the Church, but must perceive that the Apostle is not treating of future salvation, but only of the recovery of sinners from such diseases as were at that day the direct consequences of sin. The Sin unto Death. 177 " Thy sins be forgiven tliee " was our Lord's usual form of expression when, by the instantaneous exertion of His Divine power, He healed the sick, and by which we are not to understand spiritual deliverance, so much as the remission of a temporal punishment of sin. The words of the text, "let him ask, and He shall give him life for them that sin not unto death," are precisely parallel with those of St. James (5th chap., 15th verse), " The prayer of Faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up." It is expressly promised that where the prayer of the ministers of Christ was attended by that faith in God, which, as a miraculous and extraordinary gift, was capable of performing the most difficult and extra- ordinary things, even to the removing of mountains, it would always be successful in raising up the sick from their beds of suffering. In connection with these words from St. James, it is also said, " And if he hath committed sins, they shall be forgiven him." Meaning clearly such sins as God is pleased promptly to chastise witli bodily disease, as He did the mem- bers of the Church at Corinth, who on account of their disorderly abuse of the Lord's supper were rendered sick and weakly, and many passed into the sleep of death. Wherever, therefore, the sickness was in the way of chastisement, delivery from the sickness was an evidence of God's forgiveness. Wliile I thus strive to illustrate the nature of the deliverance which was at that time effected by the prayer of Faith, I cannot leave the fifthchapter of St. James's Epistle without 178 Th& Sin unto Death. seizing upon the occasion to draw your attention to that ancient ceremony of anointing with oil there spoken of, and from which a large branch of the Christian Church have drawn their '*' sacrament of extreme unction." It was a very ancient custom of Eastern nations to employ oil in the cure of diseases, and it would seem that the Apostle directed the natural remedy to be continued, with a constant reference to the Lord of Life, from whom alone the blessing was to come. But I must profess myself utterly unable to discover what foundation can be found to build up a perpetual sacrament from an accidental usage, only connected with extraordinary powers of healing the sick — a sacrament now deemed proper only for the dying — from a ceremony employed to PREVENT PERSONS FROM DYING. IIoW, I Say, it is possible to derive authority for using extreme unc- tion from an unction which was so far from being extreme, that it was expressly used to prolong life. But I must return to our text. " If any man see his brother sin a sin not unto death, he shall ask, and He shall give him life for them that sin not unto death," These words, we repeat, have a direct ref- erence to minor sins, which were visited with bodily sufferings. " There is a sin unto death. I do not say that he shall pray for it ! " And wdiat sin was that? Most probably, brethren, any sin to which the punishment of death was attached by the laws of the land. Christ did not come to arrest the laws of Cffisar, and the Apostle says no more than that he who, by the enormity of his offence, had forfeited The Sin unto Death. 179 his life to the laws of his country, had no warrant for expecting deliverance, even through the miracu- lous prayer of faith. Or else it might have refer- ence to the deadly sin of apostasy from the faith of Christ, and if God saw fit to visit the crime with sickness unto death, the Apostle only says that he knows not if it would be right in them to pray that he might be continued on the earth, only as an instrument of persecution and mischief to the Church. This I consider sufficient for the proper understanding of the passage. It is enough for us to know that it has a local and peculiar bearing, — has reference exclusively to a miraculous condition of things, and can by no possibility be made to apply to after ages or present persons. Some interpreters of the Scriptures have supposed the " sin unto death " here spoken of to be the same as the sin against the Holy Ghost, to which a most fearful penalty was annexed by our Lord. But the error of this will be manifest when we remember that the sin against the Holy Ghost, as our Saviour states it, consisted in the daring impiety of making a wilful and blasphemous imputation of those stu- pendous miracles which they knew to be performed by the power of God, to the power of the devil. It was an obstinate and presumptuous resistance of the highest evidence God could give in support of the truth. It was a crime committed by Scribes and Pharisees, by Jews and Heathens, but never was, and never can be, committed by a Christian. But the sin unto death spoken of in the text is said to 180 The Sin unto Death. have been committed by a brother — that is, by one that had embraced the Gospel, had been baptized, and made a public profession of the religion of Christ. And hence I conclude that the sin to which the text refers is altogether a distinct thing from the sin against the Holy Ghost. The one has ref- erence to temporal sickness and death ; for the other forgiveness was not to be expected, either in this world or in the world to come. But now, my brethren, although there can be no application of this particular text to our times or characters, and nothing is found in it to check the rising prayer of Christian sympathy in behalf of the most debased and hardened wretch that ever gloried in his proud rebellion against the Majesty of Heaven, and gentle spirits are thus relieved from an unreasonable and groundless cause of alarm and anxiety, yet the occasion must not pass until I have pointed you to the long black catalogue of sins, against eacli of which the punishment of death has been written by the finger of Divinity, — a death infinitely more to be dreaded by every rational soul than that of which the Apostle spoke. It is the second death, the eternal death, the irretrievable loss of the soul to all purposes of elevation and hap- piness ! Here is indeed ground for the most con- stant and anxious fear in every bosom that hears me. Here is indeed the prospect of punishment, to avert which the most earnest prayers of faith, for ourselves and for each other, may well be addi'essed in pierc- ing cries to the merciful ear of Heaven ! But it is The Sin unto Death. 181 a penalty against wliicli no prayer can prevail, unless the subject himself shall consent to obey the gentle persuasion of God's Spirit, always working in his heart. To obey, I say, the gracious leading of the Divine Grace, so far as to break away from the sin that, in its deceitful witchery, is leading him to the awful precipice of everlasting degradation and ruin. The punishment of which we speak is that before which the wicked, while trembling in the hour of judgment, will raise their woful and vain invocation to the rocks and the mountains to fall upon them, and hide them froni the face of Him that sitteth on the Throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb. How dreadful is this language of insupportable misery! How wild and startling is the ejaculation of settled despair ! So strong, my brethren, is the love of life in the nature we bear, and so terrifying is any prospect of annihilation, that while one ray of hope remains, no elFort will be spared to save ourselves from destruction. What, then, can more strikingly evince the inex- pressible horror with which the wicked will contem- plate the destiny before them in the hour of judgment than the image of the Scriptures, in which they are represented as seeking to be blotted into absolute oblivion from the works of God ! Life, which on earth was the supreme object of hope, becomes then the supreme object of dread. And death, which here was more to be avoided than all things else, becomes now the one great object of desire and prayer. All the 182 Tlie Sin unto Death. original instincts of nature are inverted and destroyed by the overwhelming consciousness of guilt and the proper desert that awaits it, and to which their eyes are now fairly opened. Even the strong principle of self-preservation is overcome by the hopeless apprehen- sion of suffering. Oh ! I can fancy that I see the wretched victim of crime, as he starts from his dream of folly, and awakening to a full sense of all that he has lost, and of all the bitter fruits that he is doomed to gather, as the return of his own vicious sowing ; and in the vain rage of his tumultuous feelings and appalled imagination, he calls upon the deaf earth to conceal him in its hollow caverns, and invokes the everlasting rocks to crush him into nothing, so that he might escape from the corroding reproaches of conscience, — from the withering frown of Him that sitteth upon the throne, and from the reproachful eye of the Lamb, whose saving truths of gentleness and mercy he has despised — whose redeeming blood and persuading tears he has laughed to scorn. Who, oh ! w^io are they who will thus seek to hide themselves in the dark caves of the earth, and cry to the vast mountains to cover them forever and ever? My brethren, they are the kings of the earth, and the beg- gars in their tattered raiment. They are the great men, and the men unknown to fame — the chief cap- tains and the common soldiery in the battles of time ; they are the scoffers and the hypocrites of every rank in life, and the common abusers of God's freedom and immortal privileges. They are all those who are here polluted with unpurity, stained with the blood of The Sin unto Death. 183 cruelty, and branded with dissimulation, injustice, and dishonesty. All, all of these must depart in speech- less submission from the light, liberty, comfort, and glory of heaven, and descend into the darkness, the bondage, the sorrow, and infamy of debased and lost spirits. The splendor of diadems, the glare of wealth, the lustre of birth, the pride of learning, the renown of victories, and the pompof power will avail them not against the eternal decisions of Unerring Rectitude, as it proceeds to vindicate the impartial justice of its outraged laws; and they shall all be compelled to give evidence even "to the teeth and forehead of their faults." Great God ! who in the day of Thy wrath shall be able to stand before Thee, in a spotless robe of his own righteousness ? Merciful Saviour ! who may not thus stand before Thee, in garments of stainless white, if he will but be persuaded to wash them in the foun- tain which Thou hast freely opened for " sin and for uncleanness ? " My brethren, there are sins unto death; and can it be conceived possible that any thinking being should know that the hour is coming when the unbelieving, the unholy, and the impeni- tent—the wicked of every class — shall be involved in shame, consternation, and ruin ; that the presump- tion of the infidel shall be confounded, and the im- pudence of the profligate abashed ; the hypocrite stripped of his mask ; the secrets of all hearts laid open ; and that all of the workers of iniquity shall go where furies dwell and devils rage ; where the laugh of gladness is never heard, and no angel's voice shall 184 The Sin unto Death. ever proclaim a release or a jubilee — can it be pos- sible, with this prospect before us, with a certainty from which no arguments of reason or religion can relieve us, that crime must at some period of dura- tion meet with its desert — can it be that we will yet continue to live in the deliberate commission of those known sins which are thus to sink the soul? Oh, no ! my brethren, it is not possible, that if these things were kept steadily before the eye of faith, the blandishments of this false and fading world should any longer have power to seduce us from the paths of innocence and safety. The mo- mentary pleasures of time would lose their charms, and the painted beauties of iniquity would glare hideously in our ej^es. The impure transports of sen- suality would shock the delicacy of our hearts, and the perversion of God's sacred gift of intellect to purj)oses of deception, corruption, and fraud would revolt every generous feeling of our nature. The lustre of gold would no longer make us covetous or dishonest ; nor would the splendor of power make us criminally ambitious. Our own treasures of learning would not make us contemptuously proud, nor would the more brilliant attainments of others provoke us to the guilt of jealous hatred ; the possession of wealth and power would not corrupt us to their abuse, nor would the remembrance of injuries lead us to revenge and cruelty ; but rather would an abiding sense of the solemn truths of God — of the great realities before us — of the high and overpowering destinies of our nature, sustain us in a cause of consistent and unfal- The Sin unto Death. 185 tering virtue. " "Watch ye, therefore, and pray al- ways, that ye may be counted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand be- fore the Son of Man ! " My friends, upon a subject like this I would present you with no glaring images ; I would startle your imagination with no exaggerated metaphors ; I would labor at no horrid and terror-striking descriptions in order to fill your hearts with tumultuous alarm and dread ; but I would come openly and frankly to your understanding ; I would address the nobler feelings of your hearts ; I would appeal to the laws of mind, the dictates of reason, and the strong instincts and analogies of nature, so to convince you of the vast importance of immortal truth, that conscience may be always awake to the insidious advances of evil, and that Christian virtue may be always strong, in the strength of God's Holy Spirit, to resist the torrent of folly and crime. But alas! my brethren, it is so, that as the clouds which in a dark and wintry day are suspended over us and hide from our view the beauty of the blue sky and the gorgeous brightness of the sun, so tlie clouds of passion and of vice which, in this career of folly, are suspended over our souls, to fatally conceal from us the unchanging beauty of the Heaven of Hea- vens, and prevent us from feeding our sacred hopes on the unfading brightness of its glories. But the hour is before us — the hour of sickness and death — in which the clouds will all be dispersed ; when the clamors of passion will be heard no longer, 186 TJie Sin unto Death. and the world, with its bewitching vanities, will fade from onr eyes, and the broad, trackless ocean of eternity will be spread before us. It is then that we shall think of the inheritance prepared for the saints in light, of the society of angels, of Jesus the Medi- ator, and God the Judge of all. May the Spirit of the God we serve be ever now- present with us, so as to train our undying spirits with its exciting and restraining sanctions; that we may at the last dwell with joy unspeakable upon the boundless contemplation. Mnmiina CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES THE RULING MOTIVES OF OUR LIVES. '■'■ Whatsoever ye do in word or deed., do all in the name of the Lord Colossians 3d, llth. HIS precept of the Apostle is equivalent to an exhortation to Christians to make the great principles of their religion the actuating motives and all-controlling laws of their conduct. To do everything " in the name of the Lord Jesus," does not mean that every word we utter and every action we perform should be accompanied with an audible acknowledgment of our submission to the sovereignty of Christ. This would be the extreme of pharisaical ostentation, and a mournful exhibition of the wildest fanaticism. But the precept does mean that the ruling spirit and prevailing tone of our characters and our con- versation should be formed and regulated by the teaching we have received as disciples of the Son of God. It means, that in every word and action of our lives, capable of being referred to the Divine will, we should strive to realize a wise sense of the Divine presence, and of our responsibility to Him 188 Christian Principles the Ruling Motmes. for. all the light and all the privileges with which He has blessed us, as the redeemed spirits of His love. My brethren, the precept means, that as beings bearing the name of Christ, it becomes ns to be always alive to the necessity of illustrating the principles of our Divine Master in every word and action of our lives ; that in the whole course of our conduct and conversation we should evince the most unfaltering determination to imitate and obey Him in all that He has done and in all that He has commanded. It means simply, that as Christians we must take care that Christian principles be the ruling motive of our actions. Now, surely nothing can be more reasonable and clearly proper than this, for if we are all the creatures of a common Creator, and the dependent subjects of one great moral Gov- ernor, then must our obedience be rendered to Him just in the way and manner in which it may have pleased Him to reveal His will. If the mode of obedience and the motive of obe- dience have been clearly prescribed, then can it be for men to say that their doings will be acceptable to God, although they choose to live and labor without any sort of regard to the requirements of His law ? If the principles of obedience which the Creator has pre- scribed be few in number, clear in their requirements, and powerful in their influence, then is the neglect of them more presumptuous and more inexcusable, and more dark and more dreadful must be the crime. I think that you must begin to perceive, my brethren, Christian Principles the Ruling Motives. 189 that when the Apostle says, " Whatever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus," he lays down a proposition simple in its language, but broad and all-pervading in its nature. He lays down the Divine principle upon which every duty rests, as upon its true and proper basis. He tells us emphati- cally that whatever duties have been charged upon our consciences by precepts, and whatsoever practice has been enforced by example, it is through their union with the Christian faith that their moral obli- gation has been constituted and confirmed. It is thus that we are enabled to see how it is that the faith and the morals of the Gospel are inseparably joined to- gether ; how it is that they mutually support and confirm each other. We see that the connecting and indissoluble chain which binds the whole is the " name of the Lord Jesus." It is the spirit, the authority, the command of his Master and Redeemer, which in the breast of every Christian ought to bind precept with practice ; the doctrine of faith with the duties of life in everlasting union, and giving reality to the whole ; enriching faith with the power of practical obedience, and sanctifying the actions of every-day life as being the natural fruits of an humble and lively faith. Whatever, then, my brethren, may be the field in which we may be required to labor as the servants of the common Master — wherever our lot may be cast, in high life or in low, amid arduous or perilous scenes, or in tranquil and cheering duties — yet let every action be governed, every thought be controlled, and every duty enforced, by those eternal principles to which 190 Christian Principles the Ruling Motives. the " name of Jesus " gives all-pervading authority and everlasting worth. Christian conduct, springing from Christian motives, was one great end which Christ descended to this earth to illustrate and en- force. It was for this that He toiled and taught. It was for this that He established His Church, en- riched it with the high and ennobling doctrines of His Gospel, and appointed in it His perpetual order of ministering agents to extend its empire. How false and fatal then, my brethren, is the notion that, while the practical duties of Christianity are all-important to all men, yet that the doctrines of the Christian faith are not so decidely essential. Now, if by the doc- TKiNES OF FAPiH be meant the varying shades of opinion in the Christian world — if they are to be judged by the amount of virtue which they recipro- cally produce — do not differ essentially one from the other, I reply that I stop not to argue that point. But if, on the other hand, it be said that the reception of Christianity as a revelation of the requirements of God is not a matter of essential importance, provided the virtues of practical life be equivalent to what Chris- tianity is seen to produce, then do I say there never was a more serious delusion. My brethren, if there be any principle in the heart leading to moral duties, then that principle must derive its power from the idea of the Supreme Moral Governor, and of the ne- cessity of obedience to His will. But how is any knowledge of the Deity sufficiently clear and distinct to influence the conscience to be obtained, without some revelation from Himself of Christian Principles the Ruling Motives. 191 His nature and His will ? Yirtne and vice are terms strictly relative, and always refer to some standard right, and there can be no such standard independent of some law from the Supreme Ruler. Conscience is in itself a blind and uncertain guide — an arbitrary and capricious judge of duty. It is misled by educa- tion ; it is deluded by fancy ; it is stupified by habit; and it is perverted and destroyed by passion. If, then, a knowledge of the Deity, and of the require- ments of His will, abundantly sufficient and satisfac- tory for all the ends of practical obedience, has actually been given to the world, can it be possible that any man is at liberty to denominate such a revelation a mere system of speculative and abstract doctrines, which may be received or discarded with impunity, as caprice may dictate or fancy direct ? If the motive to obedience and the mode of obedience be both pre- scribed from above, then the wilful neglect of either the one or the other must be alike presumptuous and wicked, No man can come acceptably to Grod, or be an object of Divine favor, whose character is not formed on those principles which God has seen fit to prescribe as the rules of his life. Nothing, I think, can possibly be clearer than this. Nothing can be clearer than that to pretend to arrogate merit to our- selves before God for a course of life which we pursue, either without any regard to His will, or else in di- rect opposition to what he has required, is dark and flagrant impiety. Nothing, again, can, I think, be clearer than that, if the Divine will has been made known, it must be 192 Christian Principles the Ruling Motives. promptly and unhesitatingly obeyed, and obeyed uni- versally and always ; not occasionally consulted as a temporary counsellor, but steadily followed as a per- petual guide. The Son of God has visited this sin- stained earth, not merely to instruct us in certain particulars of duty, but rather to shed the divine light upon the whole system of life. He did not come to excite us to occasional bursts of zeal, but rather to train us to steady habits of virtue. Being, then, thus taught of Heaven, he alone is the true servant of God who exercises a universal vigilance, and cherishes perpetually the full purpose of obedience ; who guards the issues of his heart, and strives to bring every thought into subjection to the will of the High and Holy One. Such must be the mark we strive to reach ; such must be the character after which we most earnestly aspire. In thus aiming we may often fall short of our object, and often be subjected to the most humiliating defeats and saddening disappoint- ments ; but the measure of oue success is not the question upon trial at the bar of God, but rather, if we have sincerely intended and constantly striven to obey. Perfect and undeviating obedience to God's perfect law may be beyond the power of frail and fallen man. We may at times be overpowered by temptation, or betrayed by unsuspected infirmity, and all this may be forgiven. But if we do not begin by resolving, through the grace of God, that we will wilfully offend in no one point, but that we will strive and aspire to conform ourselves to the divine will in ALL THnjGS — then, my brethren, I am con- Christian Principles the Ruling Motives. 193 strained to say, that we are deficient in the most essential and vital principle of Christianity. We want the spirit which the Apostle so clearly and de- cidedly requires in the text ; the %^\Y\i which would lead us in whatsoever we did — whether in word or in deed — to " do all in the name of the Lord Jesus." "We are guilty, my brethren, before God, not because we fall short of our desires to be good and perfect, but ratlier because we never desire to be as good as we MIGHT BE. We do not really intend to be as per- fect as the Spirit of God is ready to help us to be ; nor do we, in sincerity and in truth, wish to obey our Heavenly Father in all the actions of our lives. We are all ready enough to condemn the profane scofier, who in profligate courses shows that he disregards the control of Heaven's law ; but the plain question here presents itself, is there not in all reason precisely the same ground for condemning every man who, in his general course of life, persists in an habitual disobedience to the simple and plainest precepts of the Gospel of his God, and thus evinces a determined disregard for the authority of his Redeemer and his Judge ? Tell me why it is that every man will not be subject to condemnation, who employs his time, his intellectual gifts, his wealth, his power, and all of his privileges only according to his own sinful whims, and in obedience and submis- sion to the corrupt fashions of the world, and without one thought, without one moment's regard for the will or the requirements of the God who alone has thus given him richly all things to enjoy? No, no, 9 1 04 Christian Principles the Ruling Motives. my beloved brethren, there is no safety — believe me, there is no safety for any man who does not in every part of his life endeavor at least to do rightly, as God has decided what eight is ; who does not intend, at least so far as in him lies, to submit in all things to the Divine will ; to obey the precepts and to imitate the example of his Redeemer and his God ! This alone is Christian consistency; this alone is Christian smcEKriY. Now the only test of sincerity is consistency. No man can be relied upon for per- severance and uniformity in virtue, whose principles of action are not sound and controlling; and no man's principles can be uniformly controlling, unless they be founded on the fear and the love of God. There is no adequate rule for the government of human life in all circumstances of prosperity and adversity, of secrecy and in the public way alike, which is not founded in a religious reverence for the will and the power of the ever-present God. Religion, my brethren, is the only true foundation for morals. I speak not now in reference to some men, and at SOME TIMES, but with respect to all men, and at all TIMES ! I am not saying but that, in a refined condition of society, the generality of men may conform to the decent usages of society, without much sense of religion in the matter ; but I do say that, with the great mass of mankind, religions fear and religious reverence are absolutely indispensable to the security of peace and purity, and to the formation of the more elevated virtues of the human character. Christian Principles the Ruling Motives. 195 Expediency may, I grant you, be a tolerably safe rule for a tolerably good man to go by. But I am not speaking of a man who in general or in certain particulars is a good man, but rather of one who is thoroughly sound in principle, — one who is able to sustain his purity and his integrity unstained equally at home and abroad, in secret and in public, in the solitude of the desert, and before an assembled universe. Now I say you must not expect to find any such man, unless it be one who is influenced by a steady regard to the will of God, and the retribu- tions of eternity ; who remembers that God hears him always, and that his word as well as his oath is registered in heaven ; that his actions are all under the eye of Omniscience, and if he will only fear Him who reads the inmost thoughts, he surely need not fear the keenest inquisitions of his fellow-men. No, my brethren, there are no motives of action which this world can produce and sustain, capable of yielding the true fruits of those nobler sentiments which elevate us above the low calculations of mere worldly advantage ; nothing of that integrity which can neither be seduced nor intimidated ; nothing of that fortitude which will stand firm in a good cause under the assaults of ridicule and through every species of sufiering ; nothing of that true elevation of feeling which leads us to look down with pity or with contempt upon even the triumphs of him who elevates himself by wrongdoing, while we regard with sympathy and approbation the very worldly disgrace of another whose ennobling principles have 196 Christian Principles the Ruling Motives. led him to believe that all the sufferings which the whole world can bring upon him are as nothing, so long as the torture of self-reproach are not among his sorrows. But not only is it utterly hopeless and in vain to look for the glorious fruits of this sublime degree of virtue in the life of him who is actuated by no higher motive than this world's expediency or interest ; I will go further, and say that such motives are utterly inefficient in securing the world from the worst forms of vice. And to prove this, I beg you to consider that the calm flow of the tide in this world's ordinary affairs, where everything is tranquil and prosperous, affords us no test of the stability and worth of any man's principles. The ship that rides safely upon the bosom of the unruffled sea may prove utterly weak and worthless amid the fury of the raging storm. And the house which rests securely upon the sand when no waters rise and swell, may prove but a false and treacherous home when the clouds gather over it, the tempest bursts upon it, the winds of Heaven exert their awful power, and the waves of the fathomless gulf yawn and swell to swallow it up forever. So, too, the times to try men's principles are not those times when the passions are all at rest and no temptation is nigh; but it is rather when everything is in a state of excitement, and perhaps every in- terest is in jeopardy; when purity, honesty, and virtue can only be sustained by letting go present advantages. Aye, my brethren, it is in these mo- ments, when the breast is agitated by anxiety, when Christian Principles the Ruling Motives. 197 desire is inflamed, and passion is raging, when no eye can see you, and no tongue can tell of your doings ; these, aye these are the times to test the sincerity and the strength of the principles by which you are actuated in the sight of that God who reads the heart. Consider then, my brethren, that he who does everj'thing " in the name of the Lord Jesus," that is, one who is steadily influenced by a sense of his responsibility at the bar of the Lord Jesus Christ, while he has every motive to goodness that can act on the mere man of this world, has at the same time others also of a far weightier character, because he is influenced by a controlling belief that the con- sequences of his actions extend beyond the present world. The attractions to sin lose their power, and the motives to virtue are unspeakably dilated while he remembers that although he should seclude him- self by bolts and bars, and walls of stone — though he should seek to ascend up into heaven, or to make his bed in hell, yet it would be impossible to escape from the all-searching eye of Him who can make the darkness of night to be light around him. SPRING AN EMBLEM OF THE RESURRECTION. " For lo ! the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come. Song of Solomon 2d, 11th. |N a rich and beautiful description of the Springtime of the year, the wise man has reference to the religion of the Messiah. The season which preceded the coming of our Lord was the moral winter of the world — a season of spiritual darkness and torpor — and in the enlivening, refreshing, and renovating influence of Spring, we have a just and striking emblem of the new light, animation, and happiness which was im- parted to the world bj the coming of the Son of God. It is in this view that the Gospel is so con- stantly, so fondly, and so poetically pictured by the inspired writers. It is the sun of righteousness and truth, rising upon them that sat in darkness. It is the morning light, spreading upon the mountains. It is the day-spring from on high that hath visited and cheered us. The desert has been made glad by it, and the barren and desolate wilderness of life has blossomed as the rose. Spring an Emblem of the Resurrection. 199 My brethren, what an exciting and joyous season is the present ! It was but a short time since, that dreariness and death seemed to be brooding over the face of nature, and the breath of God was exerted only to chill and to destroy. But now, every element seems to be full of the principle of life. " Every breeze that blows calls up some new species of existence from the dark womb of nature, and every returning sun seems to glory with increasing splendor over the progressive beauty which his rays have awakened." The vegetable world is hourly bursting into life ; " waving its gorgeous hues, and spreading its fragrance round the habitations of men. The animal world is marked by still deeper charac- ters of life and happiness. Myriads of seen, and still greater myriads of unseen beings, are everywhere enjoying their new-born existence, and hailing with inarticulate voice the Power that gave them being." My brethren, in this annual renovation of the earth man himself is renewed. The bright thoughts, and stirring feelings of his youth, are revived ; his once ardent dreams of hope and visions of long-forgotten joy, reanimate his heart ; the fountains of sensibil- ity are unlocked ; and as his softened affections ex- pand to take in this wondrous circle of glory and joy, he is readily led to cherish with deep and adoring gratitude the recollection of the great Parent of ex- istence, who has thus given him richly all things to enjoy. Oh ! who is there that can look forth upon the green earth, exulting in the glorious livery of Heaven, everywhere dispensing its flowery per- 200 Spring an Emblem of the Resurrection. fume ; the painted insects revelling in their sweets ; the free birds carolling their songs of gladness, while they fan with their wings the fragrant air; and then considers that all this system of beauty, order, and harmonious design was contrived for the happi- ness of man ; that it is placed gratuitously within his reach, and in its sounds of melody, and its beau- tiful forms and radiant colors, everywhere allures his pursuit and gladdens his enjoyment ! Oh ! who is there, that in calm and peaceful contemplation, can consider this, without turning with disgust and sickness of heart from the scenes of selfish rapacity, pollution, and crime, which deaden the heart to feel- ings of grateful piety, and darken the clear eye of reason to such deeply-written evidences of mercy and exhaustless goodness. Indeed, my brethren, I believe that something at least of the grateful en- thusiasm inspired by the return of spring is univer- sally experienced. Poets have everywhere labored to illustrate it, and preachers of righteousness have anxiously seized upon it, to enforce their lessons of eternal worth ; " nor has the most luxuriant imagi- nation," says a great moralist, " been able to describe the serenity of the golden age otherwise than by giving a ])erj)etual spring as the highest reward of uncorrupted innocence." Living, my brethren, as we do, amid the scenes of artificial life, and in the crowded haunts of selfish and jostling men ; our sensibilities when once enlisted, are, perhaps from the very circumstance of our con- fined existence, more keenly alive to the emotion Spring an Emblem of the Resurrection. 201 which this animating season is calculated to excite. It would, indeed, be strange, if none of these emotions were acknowledged by us. It would, indeed, be passing strange, if, when we are permitted to escape for an hour from these worn and wearying streets, these dark, close, and dusty lanes, which are the work of men, and are permitted to look abroad upon the impressive manifestations of the Creator's wisdom, power, and beneficence, with which nature will present us— it would, indeed, be strange, if our hearts were not lifted up in feelings of awe and grate- ful piety to Him, "whose are all these glorious works ; " and who, as He wields the elements of nature at His will, so has He power to spread over our future prospects constant smiles, animation, and hope ; or else to cloud it with darkness and desolating storms. Yes, my friends, while the fields and gardens are richly clothed in beauty, while the sweet and balmy air resounds with songs of gladness, while the hosts of animated nature are rioting in their fragrant realm, prodigal of joy, it would be dark and deep ingrati- tude if our thoughts were not attuned to praise and happiness. And just in proportion to the extent and elevation of our capacity for happiness, should be our relish for the promise and glory of this grateful season. Naturally and cheeringly should our views pass on from this annual theatre of revivification and joy, and be directed to those perennial scenes of health and blessedness, which spread before the eye of faith in the immortal home of man ! You must forgive me, my brethren, for having thus directed 9* 202 Spring an Emhlem of the Resurrection. your minds to some of the beautiful and impressive associations which the return of spring should always awaken ; and you must bear with me, too, while I go on to point out the analogies by which, at this season of renovated being, we argue the high proba- bility, and sustain the reasonableness of the Chris- tian's hope of renovated being for himself. Who can compare the promises of the Scriptures with the scenes of annual revival in all creation from the apparent dreariness of death — such a revival as that which will at this time meet our eye on all sides — without beinsi; struck witli the wonderful analosries which they exhibit, and without receiving the strongest conviction that their Author is the same ? Who can compare the complete and glorious resto- ]-ation which this season gives to nature, without cherishing a similar hope for the destiny of man — without anticipating the time when the winter of death shall for us, too, be over, and the dominion of the grave destroyed; — when eternity, like an unfad- ing spring, shall awaken the righteous to the joys of immortal day ; where age shall put oif its infir- mities, and be renewed to the vigor of iinfading youth ; where the youth shall forget their bright visions of delight, in the surpassing realities of en- joyment ; where the sorrowing shall cease to weep over misfortune, and mourners forget the cause of their anguish ; where the lost shall be restored to the weeping, the wept greeted with new gladness, and the loved reunited forever ? I know, my brethren, nor would I teach you other- Spring an Emhlem of the Resurrection. 203 wise, that it is to revelation alone — confirmed as it is in its teaching by the rising again from the dead of our Lord Jesus Christ — it is revelation alone which can inspire a trust that never falters in the expectation of immortality. It is revelation alone which can enable us to know; to feel assured of that subhme and fearful truth. But notwithstanding that, I still delight to recur to the confirmation which our faith receives from the beautiful analogies of nature. And we all know that our Saviour Him- self illustrated His teaching by a reference to these very phenomena. " Except," said He, " a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." And He^ my brethren, hath died, and the fruit which He will bring forth for the mighty harvest are all of those confiding souls who meekly strive to do the things which He commands. So, too, is it that the Apostle Paul replies triumphantly to him who thought it an " incredible thing that God should raise the dead. " " Thou fool, that which thou so west is not quickened unless it die ! " Who can ever behold the dry and lifeless seed committed to the earth, and then reviving out of apparent cor- ruption and death, rising daily in beauty, and seem- ing to rejoice in its strength, expanding and waving its broad leaves to the sun of heaven, unfolding its rich and glorious blossoms, and spreading its perfume upon the air — oh who can behold it without being led to confide in the truth and the power of Him who has promised us that although this frail and 204 Spring an Ernhlem of the Resurrection. mortal body must be committed to the earth — " al- though it must be sown in corruption, yet shall it rise in incorruption ; although it be sown in dis- honor, it shall rise in glory ; although it be sown in weakness, it shall rise in power ! " Indeed, everything around me presses upon my thoughts the certainty of the Christian's hopes ; and I am animated with enlarged perceptions and im- mortal aspirations. All nature bears the traces of Divine working, and is visibly stamped with the most beneficent designs. I look forward upon life, and see it full of vast responsibilities; and tending to infinite results. I look forward to the grave, and see it the gate of immoktality ! I think of the DEAD, and ask, where are they? And a voice from heaven whispers sweetly to my ear : " Already ripe, and gathered by the Lord of the Harvest for His own eternal purposes ! " Indeed, my brethren, we are at this season sur- rounded by everything that is bright and joyous in the outward creation ; and our thoughts should be carried forward to those far higher scenes where " one unbounded spring shall encircle all ! " Can there exist, think you, one human being who, with the explicit teaching of revelation in his hands, and with the almost demonstrative analogies of nature before him, can yet suppose that the Creator has en- dowed man with the noble faculties which distinguish him, only to fit him for this low, brief, and uncertain scene? Who looks abroad and above him, upon the horizon that bounds his view of earth, and then upon Spi'ing an Emblem of the Resurrection. 205 the trackless canopy of the skies, and will tell me that these are all he can either know or care for ? That this dreary region of woe, where the groans of anguish resound, and the tears of sorrow flow like a stream, and over which Death and Despair have stretched their iron sceptre, is his only home ? Who mourns for his dead, as one without hope ; and looks forward to his owni grave as the dark, cold pit of obli- vion ? Oh ! if there, indeed, lives and breathes one such man, how deeply is he to be pitied! How cheerless and dark is the destiny to which he has been born! My brethren, under the light with which Christian truth has covered the nations, I do not believe that this persuasion ever completely and finally prevails ; although I do believe that, under the depraving in- fluence of sinful habits, and under the hopelessness with which they feel they ought to view everything connected with God and futurity, there may be many hearts who secretly wish there may be no HEKEAFTEB. Let me now turn to those of you, my brethren, who believe that there is another life than this ; that we shall sink into the dust only to rise again, when all the wintry storms of time shall be over ; who believe that there is a God, and that they have need of His protection and favor, but yet have none of the intelligent confidence of the Chris- tian's faith that they shall hereafter enter joyously into His presence. If any such there be within the reach of my voice, let me entreat you to seize upon the present, to thinkdeeply and wisely upon your con- 206 Spring an Emhlem. of the Resurrection. dition, your destiny, your danger, and your duty ! As you value your present and everlasting peace; as you value the smiles and the power of God in seasons of sickness and calamity, in the hour of death and in the day of judgment, — listen to truth as we would persuade you to receive it, and be prompt and earnest in devoting yourselves to the reason- able and ennobling service of your God ! Cannot that bright and glorious sun, which shines so broadly upon your path, enable you to read the capitals in which your immortal destiny is written ? Raise yonr eyes to yonder skies, and cannot you see with me the heaven-born spirits of Truth, Mercy, and Justice, arrayed in their robes of uncreated light, bending towards you with their anxious smiles, while they point you to the clear, bright path of everlasting safety ? But I turn to the young of this my own house- hold of faith. To those of you I turn who have known the Scriptures from your childhood ; who know full well that there is no safety but in Christ risen from the dead ; that the harvest of eternity can only be secured by the repentance, the faith, the daily working of the renewed heart ; and that the sustaining and renovating influence of the Spirit is hourly to be sought for. Ay, it is to you I turn, and entreat you to remember that this is the spring- time of your life ; it is emphatically and precisely the season in which you are to sow and to toil, if ever you hope to reap in heaven. In this precious, this golden season, when the mind is throwing out its Spring an Emblem of the Resurrection. 207 brilliant creations, and clothing futurity with its hues of enchantment ; when the heart is gushing out with fulness of feeling, and its pure affections — oh ! this is the season when God is calling to you with a father's tenderness, and more than a mother's love, to seek Him early if you would ever find Him: " To receive His instructions and not silver ; and his knowledge rather than fine gold." Your Re- deemer is now clothed in smiles, and calls you, in a voice softer and sweeter than angels' music, to take of the water of life freely ! Continue not to provoke Him with cold neglect, until the seed-time be over, the summer ended — your face be covered with wintry wrinkles, and your head with the hoary frosts of age ; when for you the harvest shall be for- ever past, and no fruit be found for eternity! Let me repeat, then, that this, my young friends, is indeed the spring-time of your being. The blossoms of im- mortal hope are springing up in rich luxuriance around you. Oh ! that with a siren's witchery — shall I say? — no, no, but surely and simply with the touching tones of sincerity and truth, would I persuade you to come with me, and let us gather the rosebuds of heaven before they wither ! Let us trans- plant them to our own humble hearts, and strive to nourish them there from the chilling blights of this wintry world ; and they will grow and unfold in sweetness and unfading beauty for life's eternal day ! It now only remains for me to remind you, my young friends, that in the changes of the seasons we have a faithful and touching picture of the changes 208 Spring an Emhlem of the Resurrection. to which we all are subject. Time sweeps surelj on, and has already overwhelmed much of the bright- ness and beauty, the eloquence and taste, the toil and the power of the past. It will bring, as you well know, a speedy desolation over all the rich verdure and gaudj hues with which the earth is now covered. My brethren, it will as surely bring dreariness over all your most cherished scenes of joj. Spring, with its genial warmth, will soon give way to the parching heat of summer ; summer will yield to the feebleness of autumn ; and autumn will quickly be followed by the chilling winds of winter. So perish the roses of the peasant, and the flowers of kings ! "So fades, so languishes, grows dim and dies, All that the world is proud of! " Impressive emblem of human life ! THE CHARACTER AND EMPLOYMENT OF THE ANGELS. ^'■Neither can they die any more, for they are equal unto the Angels." Luke 20th, SQtfi. HESE words refer to the souls of the re- deemed at the resurrection of the just. My brethren, while death is steadily pursuing his desolating triumphs over the generations of our race ; while we see that none can escape his cruel ravages ; that the countless millions of nations that have covered the earth are all fallen into dust ; that the heroes who have guided the storm of battles, and the monarchs who have wielded the sceptre of empires, and devoted thousands to death, have themselves become his prey, and are now lodged in silence, their dust mingling with that of their slaves, and their splendor and pageantry all covered by the clod of the valley ; when we see the aged forms, before which we have bowed in reverence, and the little infant, smiling in innocence and help- lessness ; when we see the strong man glorying in his strength, and the gay companions of our days rejoicing in the sprightliness and the bloom of youth, 210 Character and Employment of the Angels. all cut down and falling to the earth like the morn- ing flowers that bow their heads in death, — ah ! ray friends, how overwhelming would be the conscious- ness of these sad realities, if death were no more than one dark and everlasting sleep of the grave. But, with the clear and bright prospect of immortal life before us, with the strong assurance that when the soul shakes off the body as a useless shell, and leaves "this earthly load" "of death called life, which us from life doth sever," that we shall neither know sickness nor death an}^ more forever, but shall be as the angels, having perfection for our portion, and eternity for our inheritance, then, my brethren, though deep the " love we bear unto the dead," yet we cannot mourn for them ; they want neither tears nor lamentations ; they have exchanged the fleeting span of time for the bliss of angels : and when the heavens and the earth shall be dissolved, they shall shine forth like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. You will observe that it is said of the souls of the faithful, that when once elevated, as the sons of God, to the place which Jesus has gone to prepare for them, that then " they can die no more, but are equal unto the angels," Now, the question naturally presents itself — Who and what are the angels ? That there are in the universe of God orders of intelligent beings separated from matter, and there- fore imperceptible to our senses, more elevated than man, purer in their aspirations, more sublime in their understanding, and bearing a nearer aflinity to the Character and Employment of the Angels. 211 supreme and universal mind ; that these beings were created bj God, are subject to God's prov- idence, and are perpetually engaged by Him in the government of the world, — are truths clearly revealed in the Scriptures, and are entirely consistent with the general analogy of God's works. The course of reasoning, by which such an order of beings is rendered highly probable, independent of the direct light of revelation, amounts to this: We see, wherever the works of God extend, that various gradations of existences mark his operations. We begin with the inert and unorganized elements, ascend to the exhibitions of vegetable life in the living plant, pass on to the perceptive brute, and thence to the reasoning man — to the being who is alone capable of investigating the hidden properties of things mate- rial, and of tracing the nature and destiny of what is immaterial and divine. Now, having thus arrived at something immaterial, something endued with such powers and faculties as the human soul, can we suppose that the scale of being ends there ? Will it not appear reasonable to believe that between us and the Deity there must intervene beings possessed of power and excellence beyond our present experience or observation? As man, by his inferior and animal nature, is evidently connected with the brutes below him, are we not naturally led to suppose that in his intellectual nature he must be allied to the spiritual existence above him ? If the earth be peopled with beings capable of knowing and rendering glory to the great Creator, 212 Character and Emjployment of the Angels. can we, without the grossest stupidity, rest in the persuasion that anthems of praise rise only from our lips? Can we believe that the boundless regions above us, that spread far into the immensity of God, are altogether void of intelligences ; and that no hom- age is ever rendered there to the great God of all ? How impressive is the supposition of a .state of things in which no human being, no mind, should move upon the earth ! And yet, my brethren, it would not be more extraordinary than if the worlds upon worlds above us were without the understanding to be impressed with the wonder-working power of God! The analogies of nature, then, would lead us to conclude that the immensity of God is filled with intelligent creatures, who as they are further removed from the impurities in which we are immersed, so are they more refined and excellent than ourselves, and far exceed us in their capacities of knowing and rendering homage to the Being who made us all! The uNiv^ERSALrry of this belief is also a strong; argument in favor of its truth. And whether we refer the origin of it to the remains of primitive rev- elation, or to the instructive teaching of nature, it does not lessen its force. Kothing is more certain than that, however they may differ on every other subject of belief, yet that nations of every age, who have entertained even the most crude notions of reli- gion, have agreed that between ourselves and the supreme God there are innumerable orders of spirits. But we are not left to arguments of probability or Character and EmployTnent of the Angels. 213 conjecture. The Holj Scriptures are full and ex- plicit, not merely upon the fact of their existence, but also with regard to the duties with which they are charged, in the care of the faithful in their pro- gress towards the perfections of heaven. The Apostle Paul, speaking of angels, affirms that they are all " ministering spirits " sent forth to minister to all such as shall be the " heirs of salva- tion." In the historical books of Scripture they are spoken of directly, and instances are oftentimes mentioned of their direct interference in human affairs. The whole history of our Lord presents a continued series of angelic manifestations. They are called angels or messengers, as denoting the employment in which they are engaged in exe- cuting the will of God. They are called " cheru- bim," or winged creatures of wonderful agility and swiftness of motion. They are called " sekaphim," or BURNING SPIRITS, to cxprcss their fervent zeal and love. They are called " spirits," or immortal beings of a most subtle and attenuated substance. They are called the " hosts of heaven," and also thrones, DOMINIONS, principalities, and powers, because of their high dignity and elevation. They are called " morning stars," from the splendor of their nature, and " SONS of God," from the impress which they bear of His perfections. With regard to their numbers, the Scriptures would impress us with their uncounted hosts. Daniel saw thousands of thousands ministering to the An- cient of Days. Our Lord speaks of summoning more 214 Cha/racter and Employment of the Angels. than " twelve legions " to His rescue. St. Paul, who had been caught up to the third heaven, speaks of an " innumerable company," and the Apostle John, when wrapt in prophetic vision, saw " ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands !" The POWER with which these sublime intelligences are endued, although it be strictly limited, is yet of prodigious extent, and the Scriptures abound with the most striking examples of its exertion. They are emphatically called the " mighty angels ; " they are said to " excel in strength." One of them passsed through the land of Egypt in a single night, and destroyed all the " lirst-born " of the land, from the first-born of Pharoah on the throne, to the first-born of the meanest of his abject people. Again, what an overpowering display of might was there in the sudden deliverance of Israel from their malignant enemies, by the overthrow of the proud army of Sennacherib — a miraculous slaugh- ter of an hundred and four score and five thousand men in one night ! But again, these angels are immortal beings, living forever, without the fear of dissolution or decay. They are created in all their countless numbers by the exertion of Almighty power, and they will con- tinue to endure after the sun and moon have been blotted from the heavens, even forever and ever. It is in this respect that the children of faith are to be "equal unto the angels" — equal in duration. Having been subject to the temporal punishment of death, and being purified by the blood of the Re- Character and Emjployment of the Angels. 215 deemer, and the grace of the Holy Spirit, they will continue to rejoice in the favor and the service of God while eternity endures. Here I must pray you to remember that, while the angels are the most excellent of created things, still they are but creatures ; and surely to no creatures can we, without impiety, offer the homage of our worship. The angel that appeared to St. John in the Apo calypse would not suffer him to fall down before him, for the very reason that he was his " fellow- servant." And again, my brethren, I must pray you to keep in mind that the Scriptures most distinctly teach us, that the providence of God in this lower world is in a great measure carried on by the instrumentality of angels. He who produced all things by the word of His power, could, no doubt, govern all things with- out the instrumentality of inferior agents ; but it is enough for us to know that this is not His ordinary mode of operating. He works everywhere with instruments, and it must be for reasons full of wisdom and goodness that He employs the ministry of angels to accomplish the designs of His providence. It is indeed a beautiful idea, that the harmony of the universe is sustained by thus connecting together in the tenderest bonds of mutual service, superior and inferior creatures, things visible and invisible. It is thus that the ties are endearingly cemented, which will forever unite angels and believing men with Christ, the Head of all splendid hosts. 216 Character and Employment of the Angels. My brethren, how will it fill us with grateful wonder to look back from the regions of the blessed, and see how early and how continually this celestial vigilance has been exerted on our behalf. From our tenderest years, through the vicissitudes of life, even to the dreariness of old age, have those sleepless eyes been upon us. In the vigor of health and in the languor of disease ; in the gloom of affliction and in the sunshine of prosperity ; amid the tears of sorrow and the smiles of joy ; in the helplessness of sleep, and when we awake refreshed by sleep — equally in all times and in all places have the direct- ing angels of God had their charge over us, and never for one moment will their vigilance be relaxed until we reach the Paradise of the blessed. More especially are we to cherish the persuasion, that the care and vigilance of holy angels are steadily directed towards us, to sustain us against the mis- chievous designs of the powers of darkness. For of the existence of wicked angels we can no more doubt than of the existence of holy angels. We see that there are wicked men around us, and why should there not be wicked spirits above us ? If evil exists here, so too have we reason to believe that it exists in some shape everywhere. The Scriptures in their teachings proceed constantly on the presumption that the existence of evil spirits is universally known. Our Lord would never have worked miracles to confirm a delusion, and to the reality of their existence His miracles had constantly reference. But as Satan and his fiends perpetually compass the Character and Employment of the Angels. 217 earth, seeking whom they may devour, and are for- ever weaving the snares of temptation for the right- eous ; so the angels of God are ready to resist their assaults, by extending aid to the feeble whose humil- ity may merit it. My brethren, they are with us in every peril and every conflict. They rejoice at the first sigh of repentance ; and they eagerly sustain us in every step towards perfection, until the last struggle is over with the " King of Terrors," and then they mingle the song of triumph with the wailings of human afiection, while tliey receive the disembodied spirit, and bear it exultingly to the home of the blessed. My brethren, how consoling, how exciting, how salutary are reflections like these. How inexpressibly animating are the glorious models of moral beauty, thus brought before us. How rich are the examples of prompt and willing obedience, by which we too are inspired to do the will of Grod " as it is done in heaven ! " How awful is the reflection that, even in the dark- est hours and most sacred retirements, that we are acting in the presence and under the inspection of the angels of light. Especially are they present with us when we are engaged in the worship of God. It is their own peculiar and most delightful duty, and they are especially anxious to bear up stainless ofier- ings from sincere and humble hearts. Let it then control your wandering thoughts in every approach to your Maker, while you remember not only the greatness and majesty of the Being you adore, but 10 218 Character and Employment of the Angels. also the dignity, the purity, and fervent feelings of the celestial companions who surround us, and who w^ould animate us with their own zeal and fill us with their own undying joy ! My brethren, it is only because we more readily retain the remembrance of injuries than cherish a sense of mercies, and are more willing to escape from the responsibility of our sins than to account for the means of grace and help that we have abused, that Christians are much more prompt to complain of the malice and temptations of Satan than to be grateful for the unwavering friendship of the Angels of Merc3^ My brethren, if it be so, that God com- mands and commissions His own glorious retinue, the brightest and best of the orders in creation, to serve as guides and comforters to us, shall no grati- tude swell our hearts, and no feelings of thankfulness burst from our lips ? " Oh, that men would there- fore praise the Lord for His goodness, and declare the wonders that He doeth for the children of men ! " " Therefore with angels and archangels, and with all the company of Heaven, we laud and magnify Thy glorious name, evermore praising Thee, and saying : Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of Thy glory : Glory be to Thee, O Lord most high ! " Such, my brethren, are the nature, the names, the employments, and the sources of happiness of those exalted beings, whom, through the strength of Jesus, we hope to equal in duration, and to resemble in char- acter ! Who is there of us, my brethren, with this Character and Employment of the Angels. 219 rapturous prospect before him, would jet desire to protract his stay amid these bewildering scenes of excitement and sufi'ering for one moment longer than God is pleased to continue him in his stewardship? " If I live in the flesh let me strive to show the fruit of my labor," but to " depart and be with Christ is far better ! " Ah ! who is there, as he wanders on through scenes over which sin has spread its blight and its desolation, and while he mourns over the destroyers of their own souls, and is hourly required to struggle with increased earnestness against the enemies of his own salvation, from within and from without, until faint and weary from the conflict, until bowed and almost broken with the sorrows and trials which he is made to feel from the strife, the hatred, the falsehood, the malice, and uncharitableness of men, and from the subtle temptations of Satan — Ah ! who is there that will not lift his voice in meek prayer with the Psalmist: "Oh! that I had the wings of a dove, for then would I flee away and be at rest " ? Oh ! the joy of believing that this troubled scene is not my abiding-place ; that I look for other and brighter scenes than these, scenes in which all capacities for pure, peaceful, and heavenly joys shall be fllled and satisfied; where the toils and pains which now oppress me shall be known no more. My brethren, we have here no " continuing city," but we seek one to come. And who would have it otherwise ? who would choose the world for his PORTION rather than for his passage ; for his PLACE OF KEST rather than for his scene of trial ? 220 Character and Errvployment of the Angels. "Who would live alway amid this abounding iniqui- ty and general forgetfulness of God — where men's hearts are insensible to holiness, truth, and celestial joy, and where God's pleasure is known only to be despised % Where happiness is permitted to be sought, only to satisty us it is nowhere to be found ! That although it may glitter in a thousand propects, yet when pursued, it will retire before us, or termi- nate in vanity ! That although it may seem to rest upon riches, or to hover over the haunts of pleasure, or to move in the paths of fame, yet have you reaped nothing in the pursuit but anxiety and dis- appointment. You have perhaps grasped the ob- ject of your fretful toil in every avenue in which you have pursued it, but it lies in your hand like flow- ers that are withered and dead, and you are ready to throw them to the ground from which they sprung, with their gay colors and bitter fruits ! But come now with me, and I will carry you upon the wings of faith to the regions of celestial joy, and I will point you to the spirits of martyrs who have risen from their beds of flame, and to the sainted spirits of meek, retiring piety, who have risen from their beds of wasting disease — I will point you to the angelic hosts who, with rejoicing songs of surpassing melody and sweetness, are continually bearing up the souls of thousands who have " washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb ! " Ko moment passes but some one is seen to enter. Blessed spirits ! how glorious is the light which irradiates their course, as they contend upwards with Character and Em(ploym.ent of the Angels. 221 joyful wings, until they join the circle of " blessed voices uttering joy ! " Yea, the circle of redeemed souls, united in glory, to go no more out, but to dwell forever with each other, and forever with the Lord ! Beholding these things, my brethren, what spirit shall be left in us ? Shall we not be swallowed up with one thought and desire, that we too may enter into that blessed inheritance of glory ? With this glimpse of the splendors of the beatific region through the open door of Heaven, how shall we be able with sufficient earnestness of feeling, with sufficient fervency of utterance, to pour forth our heart's desire and prayer to God, that we too may be saved % My brethren, with this glorious vision before us, who would for one moment think of calline; back, if he could, the departed spirits of our love % They have gone, indeed, from amongst us. They shall cheer us with kind looks and sweet words no more, but we can still see them clothed with smiles, which pain can never cloud ! They shall never again kneel with us here, around the altar of a Saviour's love, but we can see them theee, even at the very side of Him who has redeemed them by His blood ! They shall no more sport with u's in the bright beams of the summer's sun, but they have gone to " the city which hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof! " 222 Character and Employment of the Angels. No more shall tliey mingle with us the tears of sympathy in the hours of bereavement ; but they are in a land where deaths are unknown, where there are no graves, no mouldering urns, nor touch- ing epitaphs. " Blessed indeed are the dead who die in the Lord ! " " Even so saith the Spirit ! " My friends, I stop not to inquire into the destiny of the unrepenting, unfaithful, unpardoned, and unjustified spirits. It is enough that I suggest the THOUGHT. It is enough that we know, if any perish, if any are driven away into the dismal shades of woe, upon their own heads and upon their own hearts be the blame. It is their own obstinate per- versity and hatred of holiness that have rendered their fate unavoidable. It is not but that every means have been tried that infinite compassion and infinite wisdom could contrive for their safety. It is not but that God has given a proof of His desire for their salvation which amazes the angels them- selves. Think of the tears and blood which have been shed on their account. Think of all the ago- nies — bitter, insupportable agonies — that have been endured for their redemption ! Oh ! think of the gift of the Son of God, for them and their salvation ! My brethren, with the close view of death and eternity before us, let us listen, I conjure you, to the offers of mercy which are held out to the guilty; let us listen to the offers of divine aid, freely made to all who need it ; let us listen to the voice of God's word, and to the warning of God's providence Character and Employment of the Angels. 223 which are hourly repeated before us ! My brethren, let us flee for safety to the refuge which God's mercy has provided; let us consent to lay hold on the hope set before us in the Gospel ! Let us not bring de- struction upon ourselves ; but rather let us flee from the wrath, prepared not for man, but rather for the devil and his angels. TEE INTERMEDIATE STATE. This day shalt thou he with me in Paradise.'''' St. Luke 23rf, 4&d. IHESE words of the afflicted and careworn Soldier of the Cross have often been re- echoed by weary pilgrims of time, and amid the ravages of death establish con- clusively the continued existence of the soul. With the advocates of the blighting doctrine of absolute materialism we have nothing to do. With the men (if any such there be) who can contend that man is no more than we see him, and that death is the ter- mination of existence, this is not the place to reason. But among the professors of the Christian faith there have been persons, and some of them of high distinction, who, while they have contended strongly for the doctrine of human accountability, have yet held to the gloomy notion that death was the sus- pension of consciousness until the period of the resurrection. The leading principle in this philoso- phy is "that man is simply a material being, and that what is called mind is merely the result of animal organization ; that there is no foundation in The Intermediate State. 225 nature for the usual distinction between soul and body ; that mind, or the power of thought, is a mere quality of the brain — resides in it as its proper organ, and by it exhibits all of those phenomena that are denominated mental ; that when the human body is completely organized and combined, and all of the senses operated on by their appropriate objects, the result is the power of thinking — just as inusic proceeds from a complete instrument when struck by a skilful hand." Upon tliis scheme, you will perceive that mind can have no separate existence ; demolish the organization of the body, and man ceases to be, until the almighty voice of God shall reanimate the unconscious dust, at the hour of uni- versal resurrection ! " That then, the body being reorganized, the power of thought will reappear, consciousness will resume its empire, and the man will find himself the same person that he was before his dissolution ! " Now, my brethren, although this teaching may not be positively hostile to human virtue, inasmuch as it does not pretend to interfere with the doctrine of a minute retribution and tlie certainty of a com- ing judgment, yet it is a most d]smal persuasion, and it is as manifestly repugnant to all sound philo- sophy as it is to the language of Scripture. It is enough that I say here, that to reject the distinction between mind and matter is to reject the distinc- tion between cause and effect, and must ultimately plunge us into atheism. If there can be no mind apart from matter, then there can be no Supreme 10* 226 The Intermediate State. Mind— NO God ! A greater discrepancy cannot be conceived to exist than that between the qualities of mind and the qualities of matter. The material universe is no more than a temporary modification of power, and power is a quality of mind. This world is, then, no more than an outward exhibition of the invisible grandeur and majesty of the spiritual God ; and will most surely, when His purposes are answered by it, revert to its original immaterial and elementary source. How absurd is it, then, to talk of MATTER as if it were the chief thing in nature, when it is no more than Nature's dress. Mind is the only agent in the universe, and it is mind that constitutes man. The body is no more than a tem- porary covering, connecting man with the present world ; but which, when its purposes are answered liere, will be thrown aside, and be succeeded by a body spiritual and indestructible. But thanks be to God, that on a question so vast and so deeply interesting as this, we are not left to the dim conjectures of philosophy. We can confi- dently refer to the written words of God's unerring truth. And I think it impossible for the most su- perficial reader of the sacred Scriptures not to per- ceive that the distinction between soul and body is constantly referred to as a fundamental truth. " The dust," said Solomon, " shall return to the earth as it was; but the spirit shall go to God, who gave it." " Fear not them," says our Lord, " who kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul." "Lord Jesus," exclaimed the expiring martyr Stephen, "receive my The Intermediate State. 227 spirit ! " When Christ appeared to His disciples after His resurrection, they M^ere at first petrified with astonishment, "su]3posing that they had seen a spirit." "A spirit," said our Lord, "hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have." At our Lord's transfiguration there appeared "Moses and Elias, talking with him." This would have been impossible, if Moses and Elias had not been in existence in the spiritual world. And again, "God," said our Sa- viour, " is not the God of the dead, but of the living ;" and as He declares himself to be the " God of Abra- ham, of Isaac, and of Jacob," then are these holy men alive ; they have survived the destruction of the body, and are now living with Jesus, "I have a desire," said the Apostle Paul, "to de- part and to be with Christ, which is far better " (Phi- lip, i. 23). " We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord" (2 Cor, v. 8). Now, if we are not to infer from all this that there is a distinction between body and spirit, or soul, and that the mind survives the destruction of the body, then it is im- possible for language to be made to teach those truths. To the same purpose is the language of our Lord in that other text of Scripture : " Verily I say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise," It would seem, then, that as Christians we are re- lieved from all doubt as to the continued existence of the soul. The dreary doctrine of materialism, and the comfortless creed of a period of suspended con- sciousness, must alike be false. The soul can never 228 The Intermediate State. for one moment cease to be. But here another ques- tion, of the deepest interest to the heart, suggests it- self, and it is one for which it will be wise and proper in' us to search for such satisfaction as God, in His transcending goodness, has afforded to us in His word. If the soul neither dies nor sleeps, then where is the soul, and what is its condition, in the interval between death and the resurrection ? It is not enough to say that the faithful and righteous are in Heaven, and the wicked are in Hell. To the inquiring and thoughtful mind the questions instantly recur, What is Heaven? What is Hell? How are these terms to be reconciled with much of the teaching of the New Testament ? " To-day," said Christ, " thou shalt be with me in Paradise ! " But where is Paradise ? It is certainly where our Lord went as soon as He had fulfilled the condition of hu- manity here ; and it is where He no doubt con- ducted the purified spirit of his justly suffering, but humble penitent. But that it is not the very " Hea- ven of Heavens," or where the throne of God is displayed in all its dazzling glory, I would infer from this : that our Lord, after His return to this earth from Paradise, commanded the affectionate Mary, who would have embraced Him, to touch Him not, for, said He, " I have not yet ascended to my Father ! " He had been well-nigh three days away from this earth ; He had ushered the spirit of the penitent thief into the society of the saints in bliss, and yet He had not been to His Father. Does not the con- clusion seem to be irresistible, that the souls of the The Intermediate State. '229 faithful do not pass immediately from the trials of the flesh into the highest and unveiled presence of God, but that God has prepared for them a paradise of bliss, where, under the smiles and encouragement of their Redeemer, they repose in unruffled tranquillity, with the brightest visions of hope playing before them, and in the enrapturing view of continual advancement in glory ? This, which has been the creed of tlie Church in every age of its history,: — long before either Romanism, with its purgatory, or Puritanism, with its lack of reverence for antiquity, was ever heard of, — and has never been doubted until the want of deep learning in modern times has led men, in their horror of purgatory, to deny a most important fact in the history of redemption, and to pervert the plainciit texts from their direct and sim- ple meaning. In corroboration of this view of a Scriptural truth, permit me now to draw your atten- tion to those ver}^ remarkable words which are quo- ted by the Apostle Peter from the Psalms (Acts ii. 27) : " Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hell : neither wilt Thou suffer tliy Holy One to see corrup- tion," This means, say some commentators, that the body of Christ should not be left in the grave. But the Apostle is speaking of the soul ; and surely the soul never goes to the grave; least of all did the soul of Jesus descend there. The design of Peterg in quoting these words, was to prove the resurrec- tion of Christ. The words were spoken by David, but Peter goes on to show that they were not fulfll- led in David ; for, says he, " David is both dead and 230 The Intermediate State. buried ; and his sepulchre is with us unto this day." David, being a prophet in this as in many other in- stances, personated Christ. He spake, says the Apos- tle, " of the resurrection of Christ." It was His soul that was not left in Hell ; neither did His flesh see corruption. Kow, if the soul of Christ was not left in Hell, then it must have been there. What, then, are we to understand by this ? Why, we are to un- derstand precisel}^ the same thing as we do when we repeat our Creed, and say, " He descended into Hell," or the place of departed spirits. The whole difficulty consists in the idea which we now attach to the word Hell. Whenever it is used, we under- stand by it the place of torment ; the habitation of the condemned spirits. But in the olden times, in the days of Prophets and Apostles, it was used to signifj^ the invisible place, the general mansion of disembodied spirits. The Greek word is " Hades." The Hebrew is " Sheol." Learned men tell us, that these words are never used to mean the grave or the place of punishment. They always designate the in- visible place of spirits. The Hebrew word for grave is " Keber," and the Greek, " Taphos." The word which is used in the iSTew Testament to designate tlie place of torment, as distinguished from the grave and Hell, is " Gehenna." Unfortunately, in oui- translation these distinctions are too often confound- ed, and the same word is sometimes rendered HjcU and sometimes the grave ; error has thus been pro- duced and perpetuated. But as soon as we come to understand that by Hades or Hell we are to con- The Intermediate State. 231 ceive of the invisible place of departed spirits, tlien we are no longer in doubt as to that part of the Apostles' Creed which says that Christ " descended into Hell." This place of spirits, according to the ancient Hebrew writers, was divided into Paradise, or the home of the blessed, and Gehenna, or the place of torment. Paradise is a place of security, of hope, of happiness, of unmingled but not of finished bliss. Gehenna is the prisori of the profligate and rebellious. It is where they are reserved in their own corroding wretchedness, in their restless and moody anticipations, and in a fearful looking-for of the judgment and fiery indignation, when the day of the Lord shall come, when the trumpet shall sound, and the avenging God shall be revealed in His tre- mendous majesty. Now, as our SavioiTr took on Him the whole condi- tion of humanity, it became necessary, as a part of His wonderful humiliation, that He should share its whole destiny. Having done this ; having gone where all men go at death ; having there accom- plished His work, in proclaiming His victory over the grave, and all the triumph of redeeming love. He returned on the third day and " assumed His body," so that it saw no corruption. And thus was it that the prediction was entirely fulfilled. His soul was not left in Hell, or the place of departed spirits, whither it was necessary it should go ; nor did His flesh see the least corruption in the grave where it rested. But, my brethren, there is another passage to 232 The Intermediate State. which you must let me direct your attention, as tending to iUustrate the doctrine of the Church, that the present home of the departed is distinct from Heaven, their last and highest home. I allude to the following words, wliich are applied by the Apostle Peter to Christ, in the third chapter of the First Epistle, and eighteenth verse : " Being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit ; by which also He w^ent and preached to the spirits in prison ; which sometime were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah." Commentators have been sorely puzzled by this text ; and many of them, lest they should seem to countenance the exposition of the Romish doctrine in their views of purgatory, have gravely assured us, in direct contradiction to the words themselves, that Christ, by His Spirit, went in the days of Noah, and preached to the inhabitants of a for- mer world. But by no possibility can the words be fairl}"^ made to imply any such meaning. They plainly declare that Christ went after His death, and preached, not to men in the flesh, but to spirits ; and to spirits that were in prison, or a place of safe keeping ; to spirits which sometime were disobe- dient ; which infers that they were not always so. The sense of the passage I take to be this : when our Lord passed into the region of disembodied spirits, He there, in His ever-active mercy, pro- claimed the glad tidings of His victory over death, and of the accomplishment of man's redemption. To the illustrious line of patriarchs, prophets, and The Intermediate State. 233 holy men of old, who had received the promises and died in their faith ; and not to these only, but also to the disobedient men of the antediluvian race, whom the judgments of God had at the last reclaimed from their delusions — to all of these He proclaimed the triumphant tidings that the one great sacrihce was oiFered. " It was finished ! " The claims of the divine law were satisfied ; and eternal salvation was achieved for all saints. He proclaimed to them tliat He had vanquished him who had the power of death ; that He Himself held the keys of Death and Hell, and that in His own good season He would open w^ide Heaven's everlasting doors, and translate His chosen to their eternal seats of light and glory. The reason why the spirits of those who had been disobedient in the days of Noah are so particularly mentioned has been reasonably conjectured to be, that we might be assured that the antediluvians were not uninterested in the work of redemption. It is delightful to the feelings of Christian benevolence to believe that although the general iniquity of the world was so great as to lead the Almighty to over- whelm it in the mighty waters, yet the spiritual condi- tion of many is not to be decided upon from their tem- poral ruin. It is altogether probable that, although no more were preserved in life than the purposes of God rendered necessary, yet that very many, when they beheld the signs of the approaching deluge thickening and gathering upon them ; when they felt the earth trembling and bursting under tlieir feet ; 234 The Intermediate State. when they beheld the fountains of the great deep breaking up ; when they saw the windows of Heaven opened and the floods pouring down, and in their wide, wasting sweep burying all in ruin, many of them repented, deeply repented of their enormous sins, and found refuge in the mercy of God. Al- though the flood took them all away, yet those of them who in repentance cried for pardon were ac- cepted, and their humble spirits transported to the habitation of the spirits of the just. Our ideas upon the subject before us receive, I think, additional strength from every allusion made by the inspired writers to the circumstances of the geijeral resurrection and the future judgment. Is it not exceedingly difiicult to perceive the necessity for any such solemn and general development as Prophets and Evangelists have so imposingly pictured, if the destiny of each individual is permanently fixed at death ; if the righteous pass directly to the very highest fruition of their joy ; and if the countless hosts of the redeemed have already been in the most unclouded and transporting presence of God for ages ? How, then, it may be asked, are we to understand the term " Heaven," which is so often used in the Scriptures ? And what, too, is meant by the presence of God and of Christ, to which the souls of the faithful are said to pass after death? What means the Apostle, when he desires to depart and to be with Christ ? I reply, that by Heaven we are to un- derstand no more than a place of unmingled bliss. But the observant reader must have remarked that The Intermediate State. 235 we are elsewhere referred to the " highest Heaven ;" to the " Heaven of Heavens," and to the " third Heaven." It is there, then, and there only, that God unveils His face in perfect glory, and that our joy shall be full. So, too, when men are said to die and go to God — to go to where Christ is — we are to under- stand that God has removed them from the impu- rity of the world, and elevated them to a higher de- gree of bliss, and a nearer approximation to His own glory. It means that He hath transported them to mansions in His vast palace of happiness which Christ has prepared for them, and where Christ is forever manifested as the Kedeemer to the hosts He has saved ; where they continually feed upon the most transporting views of the celestial glory which He opens before them, and live in hope of what is yet to be revealed to them. It is, then, I think, abundantly evident that in the interval between His death and resurrection, the spirit of our Lord visited the region which is peo- pled by the populace of buried nations ; and it is there, too, that our own souls will be wafted, as soon as we are permitted to escape from the burden of the flesh. That this region is not the highest Heaven, or the abode of final and finished happiness, has, too, I think, been sufiiciently evinced. The final reward of hap- piness or of misery will not be made until the uni- versal judgment, at the great and terrible day of the Lord. But until that day, in which the Lord Jesus Christ shall be revealed in His stupendous greatness, 236 The Intermediate State. to advance His chosen in the spheres of glory, and to condemn those who have scorned His offered safety to the punishment of the second death — until then, 1 say, the spirits of the pure are all preserved by the unslumbering vigilance and everlasting power of Him whose they are ; they repose in the calm con- sciousness of peace and eternal salvation ; they are cheered by the perpetual applauses of conscience, and they are animated by the new and ever-bright- ening visions of hope. The wicked are there, too, in their own proper horrors. They are tortured by the raving fury of guilty and debasing passions ; they bow under the consciousness of degradation, and the stings of remorse ; they are preyed upon by the corroding anguish of malignant envy, and the restless, dark, and unavailing thirst for revenge; and they are forever in fearful anticipation of some more dreadful doom. But what can be more dread- ful than this ever-burning but never-consuming lire of the mind? Alas! alas! my brethren, the worst of all anguish, the anguish before which I chiefly shrink, is the anguish which may be wrought by the treacherous host of inward foes — the foes which wicked men, with an infatuation which is awful, cherish and nurture in their own evil hearts, until the}^ grow strong enough to fan the fires of Hell into a deathless flame. My brethren, the foes of which we speak can only be subdued in the strength of God's Holy Spirit ; and for the illuminating and sanctifying influence of this celestial agent must we constantly ask in The Intermediate State. 237 faith. And if we are but true to ourselves in this asking, we shall most surely receive. The Spirit, if sought, will always be found of us, and it will do what it alone can do — open for us the gate of Heaven. It will lead us to Christ, and induce us to build all of our hopes of salvation on Ilim. It will manifest to our dull and worldly perceptions — it will apply to our frail and anxious hearts — it will render effec- tual to our everlasting safety — the redemption obtain- ed by Christ, notwithstanding the perversity and waywardness of our inward host of rebellious pas- sions. My brethren, let us submit to this training- let us turn our eyes to the illumination which is ready to beam upon us from the throne of God — let us, under the conviction of the peril that it unfolds, pros- trate ourselves before the Divine mercy, in the hu- miliation of penitence, and then, in the confidence of a Heaven-inspired faith, let us cherish, let us feed upon a hope full of ardor, full of immortality. Yea, brethren, let us watch, and pray, and strive, that we may yet reign and triumph with Jesus in the kingdom of the Father. Let us doubt not, but earnestly believe that we shall pass through the ave- nue of death to be united to the society of the bles- sed from every kindred, and tongue, and people, who are engaged in mutual offices of ceaseless love. In that bright mansion we shall all rejoice together, from the patriarchal form, before whose honored and hoary head we shall remember to have bowed in our youth, to the infant innocent that we have lodged in the freshly-opened grave. 238 The Intermediate State. Then, my brethren, at the sound of the Archan- gel's trump, we shall be translated to the still higher city of the living God, where dwell an in- numerable company of Angels and Archangels clothed in glory, and where God, the Judge of all, sits arrayed in light ! Come then, my brethren, and let us ascend upon the wings of faith to the abodes of the blessed ; and let me conjure you by all that is sublime, by all that is bright and blessed in Heaven, by its everlasting songs of joy and halle- lujahs of thanksgiving, to come to the almighty Saviour who is waiting to receive, to pardon, to sanctijpy, and to save you. His offers of pardon, of grace, and eternal safety are indiscriminate and un- conlined. Let, then, your eye be constantly glanc- ing from the cross where He died to redeem you, to the throne of light where He is ready to receive you, and you will see the dark valley of the shadow of death through which you must pass illu- mined by the light of His countenance, and then, when the Angel of Death shall appear to summon you to His presence, you will see Him throw aside the curtain before the open gates of Heaven, and the spirits of our owm loved ones of the earth waiting to welcome us to their eternal home of lory. » KgfcoC^^fS ^^^^^s g^^^^i kTji ffi^^^Jf^^^E a JA COB AND ESA U. *'■ And ivhcn Esau heard the luords of his father, lie cried taith a great and exceeding bitter cry. Bless me, eve?i me also, my father f" Genesis 21th, Uth. Y brethren, is tins the cry of vexatious disappointment, or is it the utterance of anguish, wrung from a wounded spirit under the sense of spiritual destitution and religious loss ? I know that it is usual to represent the character of Esau as being but little worthy of the Christian's sympathy. I know that it is usual to regard him as a " profane person," but little influenced by the restraining sanctions of religious fear, and holding cheaply the entrancing associations of religious hope. But, at the same time, I know human na- ture too well not to understand how difhcult it is for a heart which has been early under the discipline of religious training, and is steadil}^ surrounded by religious associations and religious examples, entirely to escape from shuddering thoughts connected with religion. As little sympathy as that heart may have by nature with spiritual truth, yet there will be seasons of darkness in which it will be found 240 Jacob and Esau. bowing beneath the subduing influence of the Spirit, and in whicli it would most gladly exchange all the most coveted triumphs and treasures of earth for a warrant to yield its confiding trust to the peace- giving promises of God ! Esau was probably a man but little swayed by the religion of his fathers. Feebly animated by that flame of divine love which had glowed in the bosom of Abraham, and but rarely yielding to that dread of the divine anger which had controlled the life of Isaac, still, how- ever, as the first-born of his mother he was of right the priest of his father's house, and the di- rect channel through which, to all human expecta- tions, the all-glorious promise of the Messiah should descend and be realized. Although it is entirely in keeping with such a character that, in a moment of fretful impatience, he should consent to barter away these high privileges of his birth for a mo- mentary gratification which he coveted, so also is it entirely characteristic, that in the solemn hour in which his aged and decaying father had alluded to his approaching death, and had touchingly reminded him of the necessity of his receiving, in the solem- nity of a religious rite, the awful trust of preserving the knowledge of a Redeemer, and of bequeathing the promise to posterity ; it is altogether in charac- ter, I say, that the same man should be smitten with a sense of his insane and impious folly — that he should evince the most absorbing anxiety to re- trieve, if possible, the consequences of his thought- lessness, by securing the blessing from the divinely- Jacob and Esau. 241 commissioned lips of his departing parent, and that he should utter the most bitter and piercing cries of anguish when, in utter desolation of heart, he found, as he supposed, every religious prospect dark- ened, and all religious hope entirely blighted forever. The portion of Scripture with which our text is connected is as intricate in its bearings, and perhaps as perplexing to ordinary readers, as any other in the whole volume of revealed truth. The history of Ja- cob and Esau has been assailed by the scoffs of the infidel, and it has embarrassed the faith of the believ- er ; and yet is it susceptible of the most satisfactory explanation, and in every part is it replete with les- sons of impressive worth to all the generations of our race. The first rule that I would venture to sug- gest, as being highly important for our guidance in examining the characters in sacred history, is this : that we are never to suppose that God approves of all the doings of those frail creatures whom, in dif- ferent ages. He has selected as instruments by means of which He was to carry out His purposes of mercy to mankind. In employing them to deal with men, He employed them as men ; He did not make them angels ; they did not cease to be human, or to be ex- empt from human weakness. Imperfect as they were, free to fall as they were — and fall as they did, grievously and again — yet were they the best of their kind, and amid all their infir- mities they were still endued with qualities and attributes of character most admirably adapted for the great ends they were designed to 11 242 Jacob and Esau. promote. In selecting them from tlie great mass of corruption and idolatry which covered the earth, as the foundation upon which God would build up His spiritual house — the Church, — God no doubt did wisely and for the best, but in doing so He did not take from them their moral liberty, nor is He ever to be understood as sanctioning and approving any of the follies and crimes into which the abuse of that liberty might lead these His responsible creatures. Amid general irreligion and wickedness, these men were in general luminous models of faith and righteousness, to be reverenced and imitated; but OCCASIONALLY they became as striking examples of the uncertainty of all human virtue ; and as such they are to be marked of all men, most cautiously shunned and humbly lamented. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, David, Solomon, and Peter are names most intimately associated with the true and lasting glory of God upon the earth ; but yet we are never to suppose that these were sinless men, or that their sins were ever suffered to be unre- buked by their Maker. From the earnest penitence and deep humility of soul under which they sought to rise from the debasement and misery of their sins, they were still recognized as the friends of God ; and God, in consideration of their steadfast fidelity to His worship amid an almost universal idolatry, was not, as the Apostle has it, " ashamed to be called their God," notwithstanding their occasional and mournful lapses from virtue. This brings me to the suggestion of the second rule Jacob and Esau. 243 which I would that you should keep in mind in all your examinations into the characters of sacred his- tory. The rule is this : that you are to understand commendations which are so constantly and sweep- ingly bestowed upon these characters, as having a direct and almost exclusive reference to their freedom from the all-withering sin of idolatry. It is difficult for us to enter into the spirit of the sacred writings in reference to that particular sin, unless we will con- sent to remember that the very object of all the dis- pensations of God to which they relate was to preserve the world from its dreadful influence. When, therefore, the enemies of God are spoken of, idola- ters are alluded to; and when the fkiends of God are named, the allusion is to men who were not idol- aters. If one King of Israel is said to be a man af- ter God's own heart, although his life may have been deeply stained with moral guilt, the commendation has reference only to his freedom, as a king, from the guilt of idolatry. If another king, Jeroboam, for instance, is represented as being one who above all others " made Israel to sin," although the nation were as morally corrupt as they well could be before his day, then are we to read the condemnation as reaching to his abominable tendency to the worship of false gods. We can only understand, brethren, why it was that this sin eclipsed all others in the sight of God, by reflecting that the direct tendency of idolatry is to disturb all moral distinctions, to confound virtue with vice • and by obliterating from the human mind 244 Jacob and Esau. every standard of purity and right, and all sense of law, with its restraining sanctions, it leaves the world without security from the wasting influence of vio- lent and debasing passions. I come now to the par- ticular case of Jacob and Esau, Jacob had been se- lected by God as the channel through which the en- trancing promise of the Messiah was to receive its fulfilment. It had been so announced to his mother ; nor are we at liberty to doubt the propriety of the divine choice in this respect, when the religious char- acters of the two men are fairly weighed. He was, indeed, the younger son, but the general rule that the elder should take precedence in spiritual matters carried with it no binding force in opposition to su- perior fitness in the character of the younger man. Before the days of Jacob, Seth had been chosen as the keeper of the promise, before either Cain or Abel ; Shem before his elder brother; and Isaac himself before Ishmael, the first-born of Abraham his father. The fact, then, had been most clearly revealed to Ja- cob, that in him should the promise rest. "In him and in his seed should all the families of the earth be blessed." The accomplishment of this promise was the great thing to which the good men of the earth had looked from the earliest ages ; and in the religious bosom of Jacob it seemed to have been cherished with an intensity of feeling which consum- ed all other considerations. In this was exhibited his frailty, and from this proceeded his folly and his crimes. My brethren, how important, how solemn is the lesson which is thus conveyed to all human consid- Jacob and Esau. 245 erations ! How imposing is the reflection, that even the holiest motives and the soundest principles of faith, if their exercise be not kept in check and subjection by a vigilant regard to God's laws, may at any time lead us into the most blighting errors of conduct, or to the perpetration of the most enormous crimes ! The whole history of our race will go to prove the truth of this. Men in every age, when burning with religious ardor for the accomplishment of high hopes, have too often, in the vehemence of their feelings, passed every bound and barrier, and because their end was good, they have too easily for- gotten that the means to which they have resorted were unholy and absolutely blighting ; that al- though their motives were not depraved, yet that the deeds to which those motives led were every way unsanctified and darkly criminal ! Ah ! who does not know how constantly, in small things as well as in great matters, " good men and true " have forgot- ten that the " end does not sanctify the m.eans^'* and that " we are never to do evil that good may come from it ! " The great and peculiar excellence in the character of Jacob was the religious faith with which he cher- ished the Divine promise of a Redeemer, who should remove the curse and repair the ruin wrought by the Fall. The striking and ruinous defect in the char- acter of Esau was a reckless indifference to all the controlling motives and transporting associations connected with this high and holy promise — an in- difference which led him to evince contempt for the 246 Jacob and Esau. promised Saviour in despising the birthright which led to that Saviour, and afterwards to forsake the worship of the God of his fathers through the for- bidden alliance with the heathen daughters of Heth. "With such differing and conflicting attributes of character as these, is it at all a subject of surprise or complaint that the frail and guiltj Jacob should still in his faith be more an object of the divine care, and be more extensively employed to carry out the divine purposes, than Esau could possibly be, who, although an injured brother, was a faithless and irreligious man? And this brings me to the most interesting divi- sion of our subject : it brings me to consideration of the doctrine of a retribution for sin, even in the pres- ent life. It brings me to the duty of showing you that although, in the wise economy of God, we may be blessed with the highest and most precious of spiritual privileges ; although, in the use of those priv- ileges, we may be devoutly zealous, and while thus acting we may be instrumental in winning down an inestimable amount of good for our fellow-men, yet never let us suppose that any departure from the un- bending and eternal law of right can ever go with- out its proper and sure return of misery. No mat- ter what may be the motive which leads to wrong- doing — no matter how effectually the sin may be blotted out of the book of God's remembrance for eternity, in consideration of our present humility and penitence — yet I believe that it is impossible from the very nature of things but that weong-doinq Jacob and Esau. 247 SHOULD PRODUCE SORROW, So, at least, I tliink tliat saddening experience must have taught every lieart that hears me. So, too, must we all read the record- ed dispensation of God's righteous providence in His dealings with our race. In the remarkable history before us, all and every one were sinners ; and so too did each one receive the punishment due to his measure of guilt, and in a mode most strikingly an- alogous to the nature of his crime, /^aac, the father, to gratify a foolish partiality for his elder son, would have counteracted, if he could, the designs of Al- mighty Providence. Esau^ the elder son, after hav- ing in irreligious levity bartered away the high spirit- ual privileges of his birthright, would yet have in- iquitously retained the blessings and benefits pertain- ing to that birthright, Rebekah, the mother, con- trived a scheme of fraud in order to defeat the in- tentions of Isaac and Esau, when she should have re- lied, in the confidence of faith, upon the sure workings of God's just providence. And Jacob became the co-worker and willing instrument for carrying out the subtlety of his mother in a scheme of wicked de- ception which he knew to merit a curse rather than a blessing. Thus were all of them sinners, and so too did each one reap the bitter fruits of his unright- eous sowing. God, in visiting upon each one precise- ly the measure of suffering which his offence requir- ed, has vindicated before angels and men His un- yielding respect and support for what is virtuous and good, and His absolute hatred for what is wick- ed and evil. An examination of that most exqui- 248 Jacob and Esau. sitely dispensed retribution will, I trust, impress upon our hearts the caution and solemn warning which our proneness to evil demands, while the mekcy which we will find most beautifully mingled with the judgments, will sustain the hope which ought to save the most guilty from despair. If, my brethren, it has been impossible for us to trace anything in the development of this history sufficient to satisfy us that any punishment had fallen upon these guilty agents on this side of the grave, yet would it have afforded us no ground for distrusting the retributive justice of Heaven. For while the Bible represents the practice of holiness as having a general tendency to secure serenity and happiness, even in the present life, yet does it at the same time caution us against the error of sup- posing either that this world's outward prosperity is to be the reward of goodness, or that the practice of iniquity is to be necessarily attended with all sorts of evil fortune. On the contrary, the Scriptures uniformly exhort us to look to eternity rather than to time for the full development of God's retribu- tive justice. Although, if we could but read the heart, I am quite sure we should discover that out- ward prosperity was no index of happiness to the guilty mind, yet here, to all outward appearance, " the same events too often happen alike to all," and we are taught to look to futurity for the reward which shall be openly annexed to each man's deeds. The wicked may now seem to flourish, amid all the changes of time and the revolutions of the world, Jacob and Esau. 249 which bring dark misfortune upon other folk ; jet must we look forward to the retribution which awaits them with shuddering and horror — and most anx- iously should we warn them of the necessit}'^ of avert- ing, by faith and penitence, the recompense that awaits the guilty and unrepenting at the resm-rec- tion of the dead. The principle, then, to which I cling is this : that BETKiBUTioN FOLLOWS CRIME ; — to the heart and secret feelings of the sinner it is always so, even in THIS LIFE. To the superficial observation of others, this may not always be apparent here; but as sm-ely as there is a God that judgeth the earth, just as cer- tainly will the beautifully proportioned arrangements in the retributive justice of that God be seen and known of all men in the great day of account that is before us ! In the history we are considering, as it has been written for the instruction and warning of all men, so may all men see the Divine Providence vindi- cated in the punishments which clearly follow upon the crimes of each of the agents in the scene, — pun- ishments which were not only speedily inflicted, but which were in the most striking harmony with the natm-e and measure of their offences. Tlie crime of Isaac consisted in his permitting his heart to yearn with a misplaced and overweening fondness upon a less deserving child, and in seeking to bestow upon that child a religious blessing, notwithstanding the child's religious disobedience and waywardness, and the divine teaching to the con trary^ miraculously 11* 250 Jacob and Esau. given. His punishment consisted in the bitter disap- pointment he experienced in finding the long-cher- ished purpose of his heart frustrated and defeated forever, at the very moment of its fancied fulfilment. All ! how dreadful must have been the anguish of wounded feeling in the bosom of the poor old man, to find that, while he supposed he was manifesting his tenderness for the son of his love, and conferrino- upon him an inestimable blessing, he was abso- lutely (and through the execrable duplicity of the wife of his bosom) alienating " the promise " from Esau forever, and pouring out the warmest and weightiest wishes of his dying heart upon the head of Jacob. Upon the erring and guilty mother the punishment was as direct, and far more severe ! The pui-pose of God with respect to Jacob even her wicked devices could not be permitted to defeat, but the very success with which her subtleties seemed to be crowned became to her a source of incurable wretchedness and desolation of heart. From the horn- of her guilt, the child of her heart's best love, long and anxiously as he had been cherished, was separated from her forever. He was driven as a fu- gitive and houseless wanderer from the home of his father ; and never, no, never did the eye of his loving mother light upon his face again ! With the re- jected and injured Esau was she compelled to make her home. He was the ruler of his father's house, and the heir of his substance ; but from him she had no right to expect sympathy or consolation. As a child so deeply injured, she could scarcely look to Jacob and Esau. 251 him for either confidence or afiection. In the midst of her dark desolation and the multitude of her sor- rows, she had no one to comfort her. In the feeble- ness of her waning years, she could weep at the recollection of the loved and the lost ; but she could only weep " unpitied and alone ! " "We come now to glance at the influence which his crime exerted upon the after-events in the life of Jacob. We have already seen him flying as a crim- inal into the vast and howling wilderness, and toiling his anxious way towards distant lands ; without friends to succor or servants to guide, without tent, and with- out camel ; as a lonely " Syrian, ready to perish," with his staff" only did he pass the waters of Jordan. And then, as we continue to trace his movements, how continually and how wonderfully did each re- markable misfortune of his life serve to bring back upon his bleeding heart the recollection of his fault ! " By subtlety he had imposed upon his father, and by subtlety did Laban, the father, impose upon him ! He had betrayed his father into the acceptance of the less beloved instead of the more beloved son, and by a father was he himself betrayed into the accept- ance of the less beloved instead of the more beloved daughter ! Isaac supposed it had been Esau, and he blessed him. Behold it was Jacob, and yet he was constrained to confirm the blessing ! Jacob himself supposed it had been Rachel, and he married her. Behold it was Leah, but yet he was constrained to confirm the unwilling choice ! " In a most impor- tant and deeply interesting matter he had wounded 252 Jacob and Esau. tlie affections of another, and so, too, in a matter the most important and deeply interesting of his life, were his affections wounded in return. Late was Rachel gained, and early was she lost ; and as he had caused his father to grieve at beholding the promise descend to Jacob's, and not Esau's seed, so was he also grieved at beholding the same promise continued in Leah's, and not Rachel's line. It was to Judali, and not to Josej)h, that the sceptre was given. Instead of being " Lord over his hrethren^'' as the literal reading of his father's blessing would have led him to expect, he lived to bow down in abject humility before his brother. As his crime had brought dissension into his father's family, and in- flicted upon the venerable old man the misery of seeing his sons at enmity with each other, the elder seeking for the blood of the younger, so also was dissension brought into his own house, and hatred, variance, and bitter strife were the sad portion of his parental days. Our limits will not permit me to trace him through all the sorrows of his life, but the wonderful propriety and appropriateness with which his pimishment fol- lowed upon his crime cannot escape even the most thoughtless reader of the sacred pages. Jacob himself appears to have been most deeply affected by the sadness which had given its hue to his lot in life ; and the pathetic testimony which he bore, in the evening of his days, to the melancholy which had covered them as they rolled away from him, is worthy of more attention than mere words of Jacob and Esau. 253 course from a repining old man. " Evil " as well as " few," said he, " have the days of the years of my pilgrimage been ! " Now, my brethren, when we thus see how surely and appropriately retribution follows upon wrong- doing, even in the greatest and best of men — if we see that even the elect of God, they to whom apper- tained " the adoption, the glory, and the covenants," were made to suffer long for the evil they had done, then let us not suppose that the seeds we may have sown in the fields of the wicked one will ever fail to produce their proper return of sorrow and of shame ! And, oh ! let us heed the warning that is thus loudly spoken to our hearts against being beguiled anew into the deceitful ways of sin ! But conscience-stricken as we may be under the reflections which these suggestions are calculated to awaken, yet how comforting is it to know that it has ever been the way with God " to dress with His own hand the wound which the sins of His creatures have compelled Him to inflict," and so to prove that He smote them with a Father's love. Scarcely had Adam fallen when He hastened to publish to him the method He had appointed for his recovery. It was thus that the etjin and the kaijsom entered Paradise together. Scarcely had Nathan uttered his parable of keen reproach to David, when he was taught to add, " The Lord hath put away thy sin ! " Scarcely had Peter denied his Lord, and wept bitter tears in the humility of his repenting heart, when Jesus sent him merciful tokens of His forgiveness. And so, too. 254 Jacob and Esau. in that forlorn moment when Jacob, as a wretched wanderer, had not where to lay his head in the cold and desolate wilderness, did God, even the justly- offended God of his fathers, open the Heavens before the outcast, to assure him that He had not forgotten to be gracious, nor had He shut up His loving-kind- ness in everlasting displeasure ; that perverse as his way had been, and loudly as it called to Heaven for the punishment it would receive, yet still the bruised reed should not be broken, nor should God's favor be cancelled forever ; that, notwithstanding God's dis- pleasure for a season, yet might the sufferer find cause for triumph and cheer in the blessed assurance of his final interest in a Saviour to come. Ah ! how delightful it is thus to be able to vindicate the merci- ful dealings of our God with man ! And although, my brethren, we may here be troubled on every side, never, while the bow of promise spans the heavens, will we be distressed without hope. We may be perplexed, but we will not be in despair. We may be persecuted, but we will not be forsaken. We may be cast down, but never — no, never, through the strength of Jesus, will we be destroyed ! REPENTANCE. " Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Gali- leans, because they suffered such things? I tell you, Nay ; but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.^'' lAike ISth, 2d, Sd. HO these Galileans were whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices history does not tell lis. It is j)resumed, however, that they were a set of factious men, professing to be the followers of one Judas of Galilee, who taught that the Lord was the only King of His people, and that it was not lawful to pay tri- bute to Csesar. A party of these men Pilate had surprised and slaughtered, while engaged in the sol- emn offices of their religion. And to show his con- tempt and wrath for their seditious doctrines, he had caused their blood to be mingled with that of the animals they were consuming in sacrifice. Because this butchery was permitted by Providence, the Jews regarded it as a strong manifestation of the Divine anger, and as a direct judgment upon the sufierers for their great impiety. But when the circumstance was mentioned to our Lord, He promptly rebuked the popular but mistaken view of it, as being neces- 256 liepentance. sarily a direct judgment from Heaven upon more than ordinary wickedness. He tells them that the visitations of God's providence are not always to be construed into punishments for flagrant iniquity, nor are we with spiritual complacency to draw conclu- sions as to our own superior righteousness because we are exempt from such calamities, " These Gali- leans were not sinners above all the Galileans, be- cause they suffered such things," nor were those upon whom the Tower of Siloam fell and slew them, greater sinners than other men in Jerusalem. " I tell you, nay ; but except ye repent, ye shall all like- wise perish ! " The first important truth with which I would seek to impress you from these words is this : That we are never to conclude that we are better than other men only because we do not suffer so much. The habit of forming private judgments as to the end and objects of the Divine providence is delusive and dangerous, and calculated to foster spiritual arro- gance. That the occurrences of time are regulated by Him who will rule through eternity, it would be impiety to doubt or deny. But who can suppose that we should be permitted to understand the end of His doings from their beginning; or that the final cause, the design of the Deity, in the opera- tions we witness should always be known by the weakest, the most ignorant, and the most fallible of mankind ? Yet to draw the most absolute conclu- sions as to the Divine approbation or displeasure from the apparent manifestations of His providence is too Bepentance. 257 often considered to be the legitimate dictate and duty of religion, and has too often been the occasion of self-righteous and malignant persecutions, but little consistent with the humility of the Christian faith. Although, my brethren, the moral retril^ution for crime is far more certainly and more extensively felt, even in this life, than superficial thinkers are apt to imagine, yet it is in general a secret and personal ex- perience ; and so far as the eye of the world is con- cerned, this life is not the season for the necessary and manifest punishment of guilt or the reward of righteousness. It is precisely because we do not per- ceive a regular system operating here in the distri- bution of happiness and misery that the human heart argues so strongly for a future and more per- fect system of existence — where the rewards shall be reaped for which our present discipline is preparing us, and the happiness we enjoy shall be proportioned to the discipline we have cherished, and the works of holiness and charity by which our lives have been marked. If we accustom ourselves to believe that serious misfortunes in this life are always judgments sent from God, we must, of course, come to regard suc- cess as the measure of merit, and agree that a cause must be just which for the moment is triumphant. But how dreadful would be the teaching of this philosophy ! Who does not perceive that it is indeed pregnant with evils, against which true religion has never ceased to frov/n and to protest ? That " God will prosper the right " is strictly true, if it be con- 258 Repentcmce. sidered in reference to the ultimate and final conse- quence of actions. But the maxim is sinful and im- pertinent if it be applied to the petty and impure contests for power, or to the passionate struggles for triumph in the sublunary world. Nothing can be more directly contrary to religion than to sup- pose that the Deity should immediately manifest the intention of His doings to the demands of human curiosity. It, on the contrarj", constitutes the very test and triumph of religious faith, that God's ways are not as our ways, nor His judgments as ours. Joseph, as the slave of Potiphar, and in the dark- ness of his prison-house, was to all human appear- ance an unfortunate and degraded man, nor could any human wisdom have predicted that he should so soon have become tlie lord of all Egypt. And so, too, the outlawed and condemned Daniel was raised, by the almighty providence of his God, from the den of fei'ocious beasts to the enjoyment of the princely magnificence of the East. It is thus that God mocks and defeats the calculations of human wisdom. But goodness does not always rise upon the ruins of crime in the present life. The pure spirit of the martyred Stephen reaped the only re- ward of faith and of a cruel death with the Lord Jesus in heaven. And the example of the Lord Jesus Himself should surely be sufiicient to satisfy us that, according to the measure of God's justice, virtue is not always to look for its triumphs in time. Oh, no ! this earth is not the inheritance of the just ! Many, very many have been prepared for Repentance. 259 heaven only through humbling vicissitudes and heart- rending bereavements. In common, m)" brethren, I fear we all talk too presumptuously of the dispen- sations and designs of God. Narrow, selfish, and superstitious notions of the Deity and of His providence are in every way mischievous. Alas ! my brethren, with the historj-- of the world before us, and with our own observa- tion of every-day life, who will venture arroga.ntly to pronounce upon this thing, that it is a blessing, and upon that thing, that it is a curse ? That this man God is exalting, because the sun now shines on his path, and that another man God means to depress and destroy, because present misfortunes cloud his path with gloom ? Who can ever know how far God designs to discipline us by apparent prosperity, or when or how we are to be advanced to future exaltation through the ministry of present sorrow and pain ? But one thing we may know, and that is, that while in humility and patience we are to commit our souls, with their immortal interests, to Him who has formed them for His glory, and from whose knowledge no littleness can escape — whose power no magnitude can resist, whose kindness no ingratitude can exhaust, and of whose goodness every creature partakes — we are never at the same time to demand that He would evince His approbation or displeas- ure to suit the vain or captious fancies of conceited man. It was once, as we know, a part of English law 260 Repentance. that miraculous support should be the test of inno- cence. And the judge who calmly expected that the trembling prisoner before him should prove his innocence by walking harmlessly over red-hot iron was not more irrational than the enthusiastic secta- rian of our own times, who contends for the truth of his peculiar doctrines only because they have met with a temporary success in the world. There is no absurdity so glaring, there is no superstition so blighting, there is no heresy so seriously injurious to the progress of truth, that may not at some time or other have been sustained, if tried by a test like this! But a second lesson, my brethren, which we are at liberty to draw from this portion of the Scripture is this, that the visitations of God's providence, whether they be designed as immediate punishments for personal transgressions or not — a matter at no time within our province to decide — may yet, al- ways and at all times, be ordered to exert a salutary influence upon other minds. The man who is cut off by a sudden and violent death may not have been moke criminal than other men ; but it may be that his God removes him in mercy, just when He perceives that he is as good as he ever would be. It may be that he is at that time better than other men, and therefore better prepared to go ; or it may be that he is perversely and hopelessly wicked, and therefore deserving of any fate. But however this may be, who is there of us that can at any time see a fellow-creature Repentance. 261 overwhelmed in a moment, and consigned to bis great account, whether it be in yonth, in manhood, or in age : whether it be in virtue or in wicked- ness, without being instinctively led to inquire. Why have I been spared while he is removed ; am I prepared to go ? Who is there that has reached half the term of human life, and when he looks back upon the catalogue of the associates of his early years, and asks, where are they ? but must feel a sense of desolation chilling the life-blood of his heart, and is not instinctively led to ask, Why am I thus alone in the world, of all the warm friends of by-gone times ? Why am I not with them where they now are ? My brethren, mark this : we may have been spared, not because we are purer and bet- ter, but because we were more impure and defiled, and less prepared to go. We have been spared, it may be, in God's forbearing mercy, that we might reform our lives ; or it may be that we are preserved to be made use of as instruments for the discipline of others ; and then perhaps, if we reform not, to be ourselves the more conspicuous monuments of the folly and infatuation of perverse and sinful courses. " Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish ! " Let us never then, my brethren, dwell with com- placency upon the guilt or the misery of othere. Let us rather contemplate all calamity with pity, and all flagrant wickedness with shuddering and with hor- ror. Let us always pause with solemn feelings before the extraordinary manifestation of God's providence. 262 Repentance. and on the instant, faitlifuUy communing with our own liearts, let us strive to discover what we have of ourselves to answer at His awful bar, if our sum- mons should now come. Ay, every visitation that overtakes others is a warning to ourselves to con- sider the condition and fate of humanity. Thej require us as rational beings to recall our scattered thoughts, to examine our past conduct, and to pon- der the consequences of our actions, to repent of our iniquities, and thus to prepare for our summons, lest we perish eternally. My brethren, it is the property of true wisdom to draw from all human experience something for our own improvement ; and if our observation of the orderings of Providence are not directed to this end, they are worthless. It would rather seem, however, from the practice of mankind, that they used the merciful warning which God is affording them in the fate of others only as food for their self-right- eousness. They too often silently attach merit to themselves because they have not been visited with calamity; and they learn to magnify the frailties of the unfortunate, that their own deficiencies may be concealed by the comparison. Now it is against all this that I would most anxiously warn you. My brethren, we know not the hearts of other men ; we know not the ways of God ; but this we may know, that if God should be extreme to mark iniquity against us, we must all die ! Let every heart realize its own responsibilities and its own deficiencies, and then let every ear drink in the solemn declaration of Repentance. 263 the text — Except ye repent ye shall all perish ! My brethren, it is a guiding maxim of inestimable wortli ! Let us then engrave it on our hearts, and carry it on the palms of our hands. Let us write it upon our door-posts, and upon the foreheads of the children of our love, that we may read it with the morning light, and with the shades of evening. It reduces us to the very point from which the first step in the way of salvation must be taken. Repentance is the "strait gate" through which we are to enter into life. If the way be narrow it is pl