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DISCOURSES
ON
VARIOUS POINTS
OF
CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE
AKD
PRACTZCS.
By ROBERT BRUCE, D. D.
Principal of the Western University of Pennsylvania.
PITTSBURGH. PRINTED BY D. ATTD M. MACLEAN.
m 1829.
WESTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA, to tcii:
Be it remembered, That on the twelfth day of May, in the fifty-third year of the Independence of the United States of America, A. D. 1829^, ROBERT BRUCE, D. D., of the said District, hath deposited in this Office the Title of a Book, the right whereof he claims as Author and Proprietor, in the words following, to wit:
'^ Discourses on various points of Christian Doctrine and '^ Practice. By Robert Bruce, D. D., Principal of the Western
'''■ University of Pennsylvania."
In conformity to the Act of the Congress of the United States, entitled, " An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the Authors and Proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned." — And also to the Act entitled, " An Act supplementary to an Act entitled, ' An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the Authors and Proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned,' and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other prints." E. J. ROBERTS,
Clk, West, Dist. of Penmyhania,
INTRODUCTION.
The object which the Author had in view in publishing these dis- courses, was to present, under as condensed a form as possible, several articles of divine truth, and the principal arguments by which they are supported. The present method of prosecuting an inquiry after truth being essentially ditFerent from that which was pursued in any age pre- viously, it was supposed that the results in which our forefathers rested would nnt hfl altered by the most particular appeals which couJd be made to the principles of human nature, and to the voice of scripture as address- ing itself to the common sense of mankind. Hence the reader will not find many minute criticisms on particular passages of scripture in these discourses; but rather an attempt to catch the impression which an intel- ligent reader would, in resting upon the authority of the word of God> necessarily receive on the paiticular subject in question. This principle it will be necessary to keep in mind, to understand the method of rea- soning which on the most of the doctrinal subjects has been adopted.
In the discourses on Heb. 13:12, the view of salvation by Christ, and particularly that of faith, is the same with that which, about two hundred years ago, divines generally expressed after the following manner. '•' The grace of God is manifested in the second covenant, in that he freely pro videth and offereth to sinners a Mediator, and life and salvation by him: and, requiring faith as the condition to interest them in him, promiseth and giveth his holy Spirit to all his elect, to work in them that faith with all other graces." — In these discourses, the definite nature of Christ's satisfac- tion is attempted to be placed on the pure relations of justice; and though God could not appoint a Mediator for man till man needed him, and the grace of God might be sovereignly manifested in deUveringto death the jusi for the unjust; yet it is attempted to demonstrate, that faith is a moral duty, presupposing the original moral law concreated with man, and arising out of this moral law absolutely and necessarily whenever God set up his Son in the offer of the gospel as our Mediator. Faith is considered undeB two aspects, as a duty appointed, and as a grace received; and while the duty by the authority of the moral law is indispensably required, the grace
ly INTRODUCTION.
which comes from the spirit of Christ enables to perform that doty; and ihus our faith, as all the celebrated reformers stated, precedes the actaal pardon of our sins. " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved."
In the discourse on John 5:18, mysteiious as is the doctrine of regene- ration, yet an attempt is made to penetrate as deeply as possible into the subject, oa this general principle, that when scripture deviates from the common language of mankind, it is intended to present to their common sense semething that has a peculiarity in it. In the most of divines which the author of these discourses has had an opportunity of consulting, beau- tiful metaphors and expressions are often used respecting regeneration; but while they are professing logically to discuss the subject, he could not ascertain that they communicated any very determinate views in relation to it. — I have attempted to show, that as God breathed into man the breath of life, so there is a supernatural principle of life and action breathed into the soul in the day of its creation anew. ^^
It struck me, tnat oy leaving uui oumv. '^r.»,^poii(.afion8 to the doctrinal discourses, the arguments would appear more a naked whole to operate on the understanding; and especially that this would be proper with those ftrgumeatative discourses which succeed one another on the same subject. Several of these diseoWTBes are therefore presented without any particular application. It seemed not to be a practice recommended by the habits of mankind, to make every thing of one form; and therefore, though some may think that the want of sat application in some of these discourses is a great deficiency, yet with many judicious people it is hoped that this will not be the case.
The Author had another reason: he was desirous to give to his sub- scribers, and to the public, a more extensive range of subjects than, in the volume proposed, could be done, unless the plan pursued had been adopt- ed. Consequently there is to be found, in addition to those mentioned in the prospectus, in this volume, h discourse on the Signs of the Times, on the Holy Sabbath, on the Creation of Light, on the Training up of Child- ren, and on the Conversion of the Ethiopian Eunuch. These discourses, it is hoped, will, by the generality of readers, be considered a great addition of important subjects— exaented, Indeed, aa the rest are, with many imper- fections.
Part of this volume consists of discourses which were composed when the author was a student In divinity, and when he had much time to devot« to the study of the most eeleWated authors. That on the evidences of the resurrection of Christ, those on Heb. 13:12, and that on Ist John 5:18, were composed then nearly as now presented. It was shortly after he enter- ed on the ministry tJhat he eowfosed the last in the volume, and that on the
INTRODrCTION. ▼
Training up of Children. That on the Signs of the Times was delivered before the Associate Synod a good many years ago; and that on Brotherly Love about 1818, when there were some serious disturbances in the Asso- ciate Presbyterian Congregation of Pittsburgh. That on the Divinity of Christ was principally composed to complete the contemplated arrange- ment of this volume. Those on the Sabbath and on Light are newly composed. — In respect to t-his last, (on Light,) I am sensible many will not be much pleased with it; but others, it is hoped, will be of a different opinion; for the author thought that those immense discoveries which are made in modern science could not be supposed absolutely all incapable of being applied to the religious character of man; and he has attempted to make a slender experiment on some of the properties of light.
If there be any thing erroneous in these discourses, the Author most sincerely wishes that ^^od would prevent any injurious consequences from following;^nd what is ruth and just piinciples of conduct , he hopes God will bless, tosome at lei st, to show that, when there are so many evidences, as in this volume, of the ueasure being put in an earthen vessel, the power whioh folighteuB ».^j „,VPK men is from God himself.
CONTENTS.
DISCOURSE. PAGE.
I. The Duties of the Preacher and Hearer of the
Gospel; Acts 10:29. .... 9
II. Chris fs Resurrection; 3Iath.2Q: 6. - - 45
in. Chrisfs Divinity; Heh. 1:6. ... 73
IV. Chrisfs Suffering without the gate; Heb. 13: 12. 95
V. The People Sanctified hy Chrisfs Blood;
Heb. 13:12. 115
yi. Sajictification from Guilt; Heb. 13:12. - 131
y II. Sanctification to Life; Heb. 13:12. - - 153
VIII. Hewhois BornofGod sinnethnot; 1 John 5: IS, 183
IX. The Signs of the Times; 3Iath. 16:3. - - 206
X. The Sabbath; Exodus 20: 8. ... 234
XI. Brotherly Love; 1 John 4:11. - - - 257 Xli. The Duty of Parents to their Children; Prov. 22: 6. 277
XIII. Light; Gen. 1:3. 290
XIV. The Conversion of the Ethiopian Eunuch; Acts 8: 39. 307 XV. God''s Blessing to his People; Rev. 22:21. - 328
DISCOURSE !•
ON THE DUTIES OF THE PREACHER AND HEARER OF THE GOSPEL.
Acts 10:29. I ask, therefore, for what intent ye have sent for me?^
When, my brethren, an important affair occasions the meet- ing of parties, an explanation of the sense in which the one party understands the other, is of great utility to both. On the rise of a confederacy, from the reciprocal exigencies of those communities whose respective interests cannot be consulted but by measures which promote that of the whole, an explica- tion of the articles of agreement and conjunct interest takes place. All are sensible that they cannot, unless they under- stand the views from which they are united, act so as to obtem- perate the laws of their mutual obligation, and to secure the objects of their general interest. How, says the sacred pen- man, can two walk together except they be agreed? Every nation, and every society, in every agreement of lasting im- portance, most solemnly ratify their stipulations, and preserve records which contain the rules of their interchangeable duties.
This right of understanding, in affairs of mutual concern, one another's mind, obtains no less in spiritual than in secular transactions. God, the great administrator of the covenant of grace, graciously displays, on his part, the order of all liis
2
10 DUTIES OP THE PREACHER AND
councils and procedure, for our salvation ; and the duties and exercises which, on ours, must be supported, are equally clearly revealed. In the manifestation of this grand transaction, the whole mind of God, in commands and threatenings, in doctrines and gracious promises, as they compose the dispensation of his will to us, is prominently presented ; and every part of the corresponding exercises, faith, love, and obedience, by which we should receive and improve these truths of God for our salvation, is no less pointedly inculcaled. Greatly does reve- lation illustrate the grand and endearing truth which these words sum up, " I will be to you a God, and ye shall be to me a })eople.'"
VVliat obtains in the affairs of the Vv^orld, and between the gracious and almighty God, in his dispensation of mercy, and the saints who are to improve it, the language throughout this passage of holy writ, whence we have extracted die subject of OUT discourse, instructs us, should obtain between the appoint- (^d ministers of the gospel, and those v.rho send for them.
Cornelius, a centurion of the Italian band, a devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, had a messenger sent from God, expressly to announce to him the joyful news that his prayers and alms had come up for a memorial before God, and that he should now send to Joppa to call Simon the apostle. This apostle, at the same time, had a vision, the mterpretation of which revealed to him, that, in the progress of the kingdom of Christ, the Gentiles had actually come to be fellow-heirs of the grace of God with the Jews; and that he should go down with those men whom Cornelius sent to inquire for him, though Cornelius was a Gentile. Following the dic- tates of the spirit of God, Peter the zealous apostle of our Lord Jesus, goes down witlr the men who were sent for him, doubt- jng nothing; — and his language to this first fruit of the Gentiles is : — Therefore came I unto thee, without gainsaying, as soon as I was sent for: I ask, therefore, for what intent ye have $ent for me?
HEARER OF THE GOSPEL, 1 1
The accommodation of these words to our present situation is natural and inviting: and the proposition which the accom- modation recommends to our illustration, is, That it is the privilege of a minister to know, from itself, for what particu- lar purposes he has been called to the inspection of a particular part of God's church.
No doubt, my brethren, the reasons of this doctrine are pre- sumed by you; and its illustration may, in a great measure, have been anticipated, both by you, in your solicitations as a branch of God's church for my labors, and by myself, in pre- ferring the sound of his voice as uttered by you, to many other instances in which it was heard with an equally urgent tone, and nearly expressive claim.
With respect to the reasons, let us only apply the introducto- ry idea to our present case, and ask. What would be the disad- vantages that would necessarily follow from a misunderstanding of that connexion which is now formed — whose influences will not be bounded by time, but which will reach throughout eternity? Were you, for instance, or any part or you, to sup- pose that I am to circumscribe the subjects about to be chosen for your instruction, to the purity of moral duties only; that the amiableness of moral virtue, and the motives which encou- rage it, were to form even the piincipal part of my instructions, you would entertain a very erroneous notion of my intentions as a minister of the gospel. Were any of you to presume that 1 would certainly rise above the useful and rational principles of morality, and the enforcement of the practice founded in them ; but that I would not go beyond the statement of that doctrine which affixes eternal life to the merits of our own obedience, supported and encouraged by the promises of divine assistance and acceptance, still you would have a misjudged and an imperfect view of my intention. On the other hand, did I think that you intended that I should not be careful for the preservation of all the government and discipline of the church; that I should reprove vice by the delivery of truth from the
12 DUTIES OF THE PREACHER AND
place only where I now stand, and not by that authority which ecclesiastical judicatories exercise; would not I have a very different view of your mind from what is the true state of your expectations ?
What 1 intend, then, in the further illustration of this subject is, first. To enumerate and define to you the ends for which I understand you to have sent for me; secondly, To give you some directions upon the view which I have of your invitation, in regard to the exercises which, on your part, originate from the connexion which is now formed ; and, thirdly. To apply these respective views.
I do not presume any of you so ignorant of the end of a gospel- ministry, as to suppose that any one, in this assembly, or any whose voice may have co-operated with it, could have wished that solemn connexion, which has now taken place, to be form- ed, from other motives than what lead to a design of promoting tlie welfare of the church of Christ, and also the interests of religion in your own hearts. There may be some within the iiurizGu of tha visible church whose mir^ds are so wofuUy be- clouded, that they will desire the privileges of God's ordinances, merely that they may have the opportunity of maintaining the appearance of a religious character among men: that on the Sabbah day they may spend an hour in that place and society, that will throw a veil of sanctity over their persons, and give their names, when they stand candidates for the business or offices of mankind, a savor of sweetness in the christian com- munity. And there may be some who will desire these ordi- nances administered by a particular individual, from motives which are not more estimable. But, my brethren, I am per- suaded better things of you. I will not entertain the belief that a part of God's church would have chosen me a minister of the gospel, from such unworthy views : and I hope that if any has done so, the necessity of enlarging upon the unadvised proce- dure at present, will be superseded, by the the divine blessing on future administrations, which shall be, if Jehovah assist, as
seareH op the gospel. 13
far as possible from countenancing such mean views of religion and of the ordinances of the gospel. Passing over the consi- derations, then, which, though too prevalent and influential in these hypocritical and infidel times, we are unwilling even for a moment to believe, to form the least part, or to modify in the smallest degree, the least feature of the intentions which you have had in calling me to break the bread of life amongst you ; we shall specify a few of the outlines of thought, which some may be apt to misunderstand, but which, however, in our views, distinguish and mark the very intent of the invitation which you have sent me.
I remark, then, first, that I believe 1 am sent for to reprove and discountenance error. The preservation of truth in the church is a duty of primary obligation, whether we consider its relation to the present's welfare, or its inestimable utility to the generations that are to succeed. Error springs from the limited views of mankind, has no foundation in the general order of the universe, and will never in itself, by the God of perfection and truth, be made subservient to an useful purpose. Truth in the moral, is correspondent to order in the natural arrangement of things : and as the perfection, and indeed character of the ma- terial universe, arise from the harmony of its exquisite relations, so in the moral world, truth hath all its foundation in the quali- ties and relations of moral and intellectual beings : and error must,in the latter case, be analagous to it, and equally pernicious with disorder in the former. As soon may we think to behold tlie darkness of night serve the purposes of day; as soon may we think to behold our world leaving its orbit, and forgetting its duty of summer and winter, of seed-time and harvest, and thus contributing more than ever to the felicity and comfort of the millions of its inhabitants; as soon may we think to see all the stars of night blotted out to give us, by the void abyss of ether, an amazing idea of the wisdom and glory of their Crea- tor, as we can expect, that error will promote an useful design, <»• fm\ to mar the harmony and order of truth.
2*
14 Dt/TIES OF THE PREACHER AND
If error, however, be of this baneful tendency, with what exertions should it be opposed and discountenanced, by the ministers of the gospel, whose office is appointed the shield of immortal souls, and the watchful defence against every ar- row of destruction ? Even the smallest growth of error should be exposed and broken down, with that zeal, with which the careful householder would endeavor to extinguish the small unfavorable spark of fire, which threatens to break out imme- diately into a devouring flame. For, says our Saviour, speaking of this subject, a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. Some are of opinion that a teacher of truth may permit, without injury to the cause of religion, veniable mistakes, as they term them, to be professed and maintained at pleasure; but our concep- tions are, that whilst the servant of the Lord, as Paul exhorts his son Timothy, is not to strive, but to be gentle to all men, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves, he is not to fail, in this meek spirit, to expostulate with every one who, un- der his care, has embraced and propagates the most plausible, and apparently least hurtful error. This minister of the gospel may be mistaken in many instances himself, and may be hesi- tating in many more ; but whilst he attends to his duty in seek- inff that the Lord would make darkness light before him, and crooked things straight, he must not neglect to hold fast what he hath already. On the supposition that erroneous tenets were not, in meekness indeed, and in a consistency with the character of the messenger of peace, to be opposed and sup- l^ressed, what, considering the noxious tendencies of error and its opposition to the order of truth, would be the consequences to which it might ultimately lead? This destructive pestilence, cipjjearing in its inimical operations to the majesty of truth,like an imperceptible deadly seed of a malignant fever, might first work, according to that unhappy quality of it, which our Saviour hath exemplified by the little leaven which leaveneth the whole lump, till it would destroy the whole soul in which it originated ; then spread in the atmosphere of conversation and discc irse
HEARER OP THE GOSPEL. 15
among his associates; then widen with their connexions and relations to other men, till the error darkened an extensive region, and the following generation of mankind had the poison of death put mto their cup, from their fathers, instead of the waters of life. What father would thus give the stone that hath no nourishment to his children, asking the bread of life? What guardian of the interests of a people would thus bequeath to them a scorpion, as tiiey, in extensive nations and commu nities, prayed for their rightful provisions. — On the administra- tors of truth there are, from the honor of the majesty of recti- tude itself, from the relation which their office bears to the welfare of the souls of those to whom their instructions are tendered, from the necessity of transmittmg to future genera- tions the truths which Providence has entrusted to their pro- tection, and from the consideration of the increasiug contami- nations of error, obligations to watch against every appearance of it, and to endeavor to eradicate every scion of it, threaten- ing to strike its roots deeper and to gather strength in the erring human mind. I know, times are foretold to arrive, when men will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lust shall heap up to themselves teachers having itching ears ; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables ; but as the same inspired writer adds, we must watch in all things ; endure afflictions, do the work of an evan- gelist, make full proof of our ministry.
1 observe, secondly, That I believe I am sent for to declare to you the doctrine of salvation with plainness and precision. We find, in the perusal of some authors, an indecision of opin- ion even on the most momentous and prominent topics in the system of religion. A timidity of giving offence to particular persons, or a carelessness about precision in the doctrinal de- partment of godliness, has led some men to blend into one promiscuous confusion the most distinct Tiews in theology. That doctrine which appends eternal life to the terms of our faith, and the merits of our sincere endeavors, has been so pal-
16 DUTIES or THE PREACHER AND
liated with excuses, and mended by favorable constructions, that, using similar accommodating explanations with the doc- trine of salvation by free grace, they have concluded, that the one is very nearly allied to the other, and may, according to the choice of different persons, be received for it. But this is that indistinct sound which the apostle supposes may be given, and respecting which he asks. Who can by it prepare himself for the battle? And even things without life, says he, giving sound, whether pipe, or harp, except they give a disiinction in the sound, how shall it be known what is piped or harped? for if the trampet give an uncertain sound who shall prepare him- self to the battle? 1 Cor. 16:7, 8.
We have already remarked that truth springs from the foun- tain of unalterable rectitude; and it may now be added, that though its light issues in innumerable rays, these are all in &t.raight lines, and they will not, in a single instance, form an accommodating winding throughout the whole region which they illuminate. Sooner may we think to see pure oil mix ^5^ith water and incorporate with its substance, than we can expect to perceive truth descending to mix for useful purposes with error. That ingenuity which shines so brilliantly in the explanatory and adjusting compositions of those refining geni- uses, who trim along between the borders of evangelical and legal doctrine, so artfully, and so pleasingly to many, may be displayed a thousand times more brightly ; but still all the exertions which could be made, and all the coloring whicli ambiguous language could impose to beguile, would not, in the least, really elevate the baseness of the one to the first- born excellence of the other. Truth is like ancient Jerusalem, established on a rock; and all those who would worship ac- ceptably under its sanctuary, and by its light, must, from every quarter, go up to the temple where this shekinah, this divine brightness itself shines. To the law and to the testimony ; if ye speak not according to it, it is because there is no light m you.
HEARER OF THE GOSPEL. H
If truth voluntarily recognizes no accommodating sympa- thies, the necessity of adhering to it without deviation is more, apparent still, from the consideration that it is often involunta- rily pressed into relations and services where it loses its charac- ter and usefulness. You know two armies may contain many equally choice spirits, dressed in the same uniform, and accou- tred with the same weapons; but that one alone is reckoned under complete array, that has its banners displayed, and whose attitude looks to the great object of all their movements and operations. In that view of doctrine, then, which would make two varying systems nearly meet and embrace one another, there may be a great many important truths detailed by the author of such a scheme, and, independently of their present relations, they may be pearls of inestimable value; but as they stand obedient and subservient ministers to his system of dis- order and vanity, to which his prejudice or ignorance is bend- ing all the materials which his power can arrange, these bright and lively appearances lose their true character, and receive justly no other designation than what his tyranny and control over them impose. — Yes, not only is plainness and precision in the preaching of the gospel indispensable from the inflexi- bility of truth ; but this is equally necessary, because, where many truths are posted, and while they abstractedly maintain their true character, the assemblage and attitude of them pre- sent them as disorder and error. Were, therefore, the practice of the ministry of the word, which is now enlisted into your most solemn service and sworn by the oath of its ordination to faithfulness amongst you, to neglect to lead you to the truth where she stands and ought to be viewed alone in her separate existence; were I not to tear from their unnatural stations the truths that have been artfully blended into systems of error, and exposing their coverings, show you the precious jewels in their native worth and brightness; and moreover endeavor to arrange them according to their respective places in the great casket of heavenly doctrine, would not you declare ihdi 1 am
18 DUTTES OF THE PREACHER AND
breaking engagements with you, and that I could not escape the vengeance of the Lord? You know it is written, He that hath a dream let him tell a dream ; and he that hath my word let him speak my word faithfrlly : for what is the chaff to the wheat, saith the Lord ? It is truth, truth elevated above collu- sion; truth torn from the bosoms of artifice and false opinions; and presented, as far as can be, in all the grace and majesty of her various members, that the minister of the gospel should endeavor to preach, how disagreeable soever some of its parts to prejudiced and ' misinformed minds may be. You justly expect, that by patience and study, by prayer and meditation, I am to endeavor to buy the possession of the truth; and then never carelessly to barter it f jr falsehood, or sell it for the spe- cious appearances of error.
I observe, thirdly. That 1 believe I am sent for to declare the whole truth unto you. Shun not, saith the apostle, to declare the whole counsel of God. Some men have hesitated about the propriety of preaching iijany truths that are clearly revealed, and acknowledged to b^ expressly taught in the volume of inspiration. They doubt the safety of declaring to men, what God himself hath declared, and what he hath made it their duty to know and believe.
Remembering, however, that abstruse and mysterious sub- jects must be treated with caution, and mysteries themselves handled with that touch of reverence, which will pay a respect to the secrets which they infold, without the impiety of daring to disclose them, we hold, that it is the duty of a gospel minis- try to bring every subject, which is contained within the com- prehension of revelation, into that series of instructions which may edify the church of Christ. Is there any doctrine taught in inspiration which will not be for the benefit of those who are acquainted with it; either in giving them a knowledge of the glorious character of Jehovah, or in directing their homage, or their practice in the world, or in enabling them to refute the cavila and sophistry of those v/ho may attack the principles
HEARER OF THE GOSPEi. 19
of their belief? A clear, candid, and scriptural statement of the most abstruse points of religion, has, from the considera- tion that they are, like the inexplicable parts of nature, what contain most of the divinity within them, a tendency to give OS the most august view of God's revealed character ; and if they are truths, this is the only way by which the minds of those who profess their belief of them, can, in these instances which will be most readily attacked, be qualified to give a reason of the hope that is in them.
If, for instance, the propriety of stating cautiously the doc- trine of the divine purposes, — particularly as they respect the actions and fixed condition of God's rational and dependent creatures, — were bitterly denied, what degradation to the di- vine prescience, which can foresee events as absolutely certain only,*v/ould ensue, and what a baseless fabric is the whole building of evangelical tmth thus left in the mind of every hearer of the gospel? The dcctriiits of revelation are, indeed, in s^aay instances, deep waters in which the sacred student will have to wade Tvith great hazard cf endangering the sta- bility and steadfastness of his step; yea, in many instances, he must halt in his preparations, and with a hand lifted up to heaven, put forward his foot with the deep caution of review after review amidst the sea of his subject, which is like to overwhelm his thoughts ; but still he must not cease to go backward and for^vard to find out the mind of the Lord, and what of divine knowledge is discovered to himself, is not given unto him only, but to them who hear the word at his movitb. The treasaie cf truth, you know, it is said, is put into un earthen vessel, that tlie power thereof may appear not to be of man, but cf God ; and its ministry, as Paul adds, must say, we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. There may be some precepts, the difficulty to show to the satisfaction of some minds tlie reasonableness of which, would be no less a dis-
20 DUTIES OP THE PREACHER AND
suasive from touching upon the subject, than the groundless offence which, by the thoughtless, may be taken at the attempt to elucidate the subject of their dislike ; there maybe some threatenings, the harshness of whose denunciation creates the cold sweat of appalement ; there may be some truths of the gospel at which the impious will spurn, and to which their opponents will start a thousand plausible and puzzling objec- tions ; there may be some promises, which the believer may be anxious to hear presented in their proper connexions, and the hand of the speaker unable to present them, without the utmost pains and solicitous preparation, in such relations; there may be some delicate characters to draw, where a blot even from an unskilful pencil, would wound a saint of the living God; and there may be some nice distinctions to form, where an error on the one side, or the other, would be either bartering the precious truths of Jehovah for the errors and vices of men, or giving the latter a preference to the former: — But still, it must be remembered, that the law and gospel of Christ must be preached ; that the character of the saint, and of the sinner, must be drawn, and that not a flattering error, though it should adhere to it , like alloy to the precious metals, but which must be separated from truth. For all scripture is given by inspira- tion of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for cor- rection, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished to all good works. 1 Tim. 3:16,17.
Behold, my brethren, from the observations already made, what important duties draw daily upon the stock of time, in- dustry, and faithfulness of him, whom you have called to the inspection over you : — and permit it now to be added, as tt consideration enhancing the duties of his station, that the suppression of error, the definite deckration of the truth, and the entire presentment of it, must always be gone through, with that genius and spirit, which, whilst it ia
HEARER OF THE GOSPEL. 21
hoped that your minds will be daily advancing in the know- led f^e of the truth as. it is in Jesus, will yet create nothing of that uncharitable bigotry and aptitude to separation and schism, which operate so prevalently in our day, and into an excuse for which an unguarded practice on the foregoing principles might be so apt to inflame the unwary. I have enumerated and endeavored to illustrate the upright mles which ought to guide a teacher of immortal souls, and a stew- ard of the mysteries of God ; but this has been done as I view- ed myself merely as an ambassador, with the messages of Jesus in my ministrations as the blessings of the gospel to be bestowed upon your immortal spirits. And the law of that charity which, in this militant and imperfect state of Zion, must move under some degree of both " mixture and error," with respect to christian fellowship, " even in the purest churches," founds a distinct and arduous branch of duty, which, I own, it will be indispensable in me always to maintain. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling symbal.
But 1 observe, fourthly. That I believe I am sent for to dis- courage and reprove sin. The dispensation of the gospel ad- dresses men on the supposition that they are sinners ; and the manifestation of the whole mercy of God, in the appointment of his eternal and only begotten Son to be our mediator, and in the erection of a church upon earth, is, that sin might be effectually reproved and destroyed, and the sinner, stripped of his character, eternally saved. " For this purpose," says the apostle John, " was the Son of God manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil." Gladly will a great many hear the sweet sound of the gospel, which promises to them life, and the forgiveness of all their trespasses, and will hear, too, with admiration and delight its doctrines explained to thera, who, however, feel deeply offended when their sins arc smartly reproved, and when it is threatened tliat, unless tl>ey make a sacrifice of their unworihy attachment to this or th«
22 DUTIES OF THE PREACHES AND
other prevalent lust or passion, they never shall experience the blessings which the gospel bestows. There are, says our Sa- viour, in the parable of the sower, some who receive the word with joy; but by and by when persecution or tribulation be- cause of the word ariseth, they are offended. But the station, you see, of the gospel minister, is not occupied correspon- dently to the original design itself of the gospel, nor, let me add, to the example of all the sacred penmen ; nor to the very lan- guage which defines and points to the end of his office, unless he expose and reprove sin in every distinction of character, and under all the unamiable aspects it may assume. Already having pointed out the primary intention of that dispensation of grace under which we happily live, I direct your attention to the voice of the prophets. They proclaim the sins of the children of Israel under every variety of language, and by every similitude whose pointed reproof may expose the guilty. The iniquity of the heart, the transgression of the thoughts, and the sins of the practice, are all laid open, by the expressive language of prophets crying aloud and sparing not; showing the Lord's people their transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sin. This people's heart, exclaims Isaiah, is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed: and putting his finger to each of the gray hairs of his reprobation, Hosea thus awakens us: The Lord hath a contro- versy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land; by swear- ing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adul- tery, they brealv out, and blood toucheth blood. Indeed the whole penmen of revelation exemplify in themselves and enjoin upon others, the tone and attitude of that exhortation which we liavc from the apostle of the Gentiles expressly on the sub- ject : I charge you, therefore, says Paul to his beloved son Timothy, before God and tlie Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick, and tl-o dead, at his appearing and kingdom, preacii the word, be instant in season and out of season, re-
HEARER OP THE GOSPEL, 23
prove, rebuke, exhort, with all long suffering and doctrine. What advantage could the proclaiming of the good news of the gospel, which will instil their blessings into the heart of the penitent only, serve, if we do not prepare the way, by striking conviction into the conscience, and by opening a door of ad- mission into the shut heart, for these momentous concerns? That minister who will permit a single violation of the divine law to entwine itself around the heart of a single member of the church under his care, without reproving it, and stretching forth his hand to tear it off, whether the person be high or low, rich or poor, friend or foe, is not consulting this man's true interest — is not offering him the great blessing of salvation, along with the inculcation of that holiness, without which no man can see the Lord. As soon may we think to see a beau- tiful and stable building erected on the tottering and rcgged ruins of an ancient foundation, as we can reasonably hope, that the most emphatical display of the doctrines of the gospel, will be of avail to the person whose sins call for reproof and chastisement, but which do not receive them.
Brethien, you have chosen the ministry of holiness, that through its instrumentality, you may, at last, be presented without spot, or blemish, or any such thing, before God. It must not, therefore, be taken amiss, when I state, that this min- ister of Jesus, if he wishes to discharge his duty, and to escape the divine vengeance, requiring, in awful punishment, the blood of the lost members of his congregation at his hand, musi, without respect pf pereons, or without a more tender regard to feeling than an adherence to truth, reprove, with the meekness, steadfastness, and edge of scripture example, the impiety of the ungodly, the crimes of the vicious, the delinquencies of the backsliding, the rash steps of the unwary, — the follies of the young, yea, even the failures of old age. Oh thou son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore, thou shalt hear the word at my mouth and warn them from me. When 1 saj ui>to tjie wicked^ O wickefl man, thoji
24 DUTIES OF THE PKEACHER AND
shalt surely die: if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will 1 require at thine hand : Nevertheless if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it, if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity, but thou hast deli- vered thy soul.
I observe, fifthly, That I believe I am sent for to encourage and promote holiness amongst you. Subserviently to this all the preceding observations have been made. The refutation (terror clears the foundation on which the building of holiness may be erected ; the precise and definite view of the truth se- lects the proper materials; the full exhibition of it collects them all together; and the suppression of iniquity corrects every negligent and irregular hand that is engaged in laying them.
This duty of rearing you a holy nation, a peculiar people, requires a review of the truth which has been doctrinally pre- sented, and a gathering of the lines of it into a focus that will form a vivid and living image of him from whom they originally shine. We will not disguise the duty, because of the difficulty which may be experienced in its accomplish- ment, of arranging revelation into the precepts of its law, the light of its doctrines, the grace of its promises, and the exem- plars of its characters, so as to bring it on to your awakened attention a great practical system, which you are to put on as the garment of your salvation. I believe it my duty to announce the law in all its direction, its rewards, and its terrors, that it may erect its throne in the judgment, and sway its sceptre over the conscience; — I believe it my duty to arrange the doc- trines of scripture and present them in all their excellence, that your faith may feel its foundation, and your love may be kin- dled at the torch of divine mercy; — I believe it my duty to pro- claim the promises in all their freedom and suitableness, that whilst you live in faith and love, it may not be to yourselves, but to him who loved you and gave himself for you ; — and I
HEATiER OP THE GOSPEI, 2S
believe it ray duty to place you along side of the saints of reve- lation, that you may be excited to perseverence and com- forted by their example. Oh! that I could collect these rays of divine truth; and that then the spirit of God, bearing them from the forms of ministration, would pencil them on your understanding, till you be transformed in the renewing of your minds ; that he would direct this image of the eternal to look in faith, like the form of the sun from the placid stream, al- ways to himself the primary source; that he would enliven them into that flame of love that might resemble that operating though imperceptible transcript throughout our globe, of the fountain of heat as well as of light; and that he would reflect and diffuse this illuminating and warming principle through all the fields of obedience, that being thus oTthe new creation of God, you may shine, when they themselves are blotted out, like the stars in the firmament, for ever and ever.
Leading him to bend all his exertions to this great and dif- ficult object of his office, the minister of the gospel has, indeed, many powerful inducements. The momentous concenis which the office itself displays; the everlasting love of God, the atone- ment of his only begotten Son, the operations of the Holy Spirit, and God's authority binding all these to the duty of our ministry, are instigations which must be felt. The worth, too, of those immortal souls to which our ministrations are directed; their character as the noblest piece of divine forma- tion on earth; the truth that as rational and reflecting agents they are capable of enduring pain or of enjoying happiness, throughout all eternity ; the fact that all the dispensations of God's providence take place that circumstances may be ar- ranged that these immortal spirits might be purified and sn ved ; the erection of the grand fabric of the church, purely that they might be accommodated, as spiritiial heirs of heaven ; and the institution of a gospel ministry in this great house, merely that all the prophets and apostles, and pastors of everv rge. might own themselves their servants for Jesus' sake — tliese
3*
26 DUTIES OF THB PREACHEH AXD
all preach the necessity of encouraging and promoting holiness amongst you. And the reward which, whilst we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen, is set before us — the declarations of our Saviour whilst not exclusively, yet prominently addressed to the ministers of the word: Blessed are ye when men revile you, and perse- cute you, and speak all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake; rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven; — they shall shine as the stars in the firma- ment for ever and ever; — -these also clap their hands before us, and cry, go on and prosper.
But whilst all these things are felt, esteemed, and surveyed, yet, as I view my station, and again further view it, I acknow- ledge my fears increase in relation to the great end of it that is now under consideration. My brethren, must there be any thino- more done by the minister of Christ to promote and en- courage holiness than a suppression of error, a candid and full statement of truth, — a reproof of transgression, and a concen- tration of all these principles into a line of promising operation towards holiness? We own that the difficult task of a fair, clear, and full statement of all instructing and improving know- ledge might be performed; and yet were the speaker to forget to set the first example of holiness enjoined by his instructions, far, far would this man be from promoting the hallowed end of his office. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of this- tles? To purity of doctrine, and the edging of it to discern the thoughts and the intents of your hearts, I must afford that {^ttern which is enjoined in that peculiar precept, not to walk disorderly, but for an example to the flock. — And whilst I rejoice to own that I am called to this honorable and highly accountable station, and hope through that grace which is sufficient for me, to be enabled in some becoming measure, not to disappoint the invitation which this part of God's flock has sent me, I must intimate that you must not be discouraged from pressing forward to perfection, though you may not per-
hA-RER of the GOSPEl, 27
ceive, in this militant state, in him who should always lead you, that spotless perfection which will be bestowed upon none of us, till a higher state of existence bestow it. Far be it from a minister of holiness to seek to palliate his faults which are so influential, before they take place; but the inti- mation may be of importance, when I reflect on the mournful fall of a David, of a Noah a preacher of righteousness, of a Job a perfect and an upright man, and of a Peter the most zealous apostle of our Lord, and consider mine own weakness for the singular and distinguished station to which I am now appoint- ed. Oh! that these promises were fulfilled in the experience of him who is to direct you, " I will make darkness light before thee, and crooked things straight; these things will 1 do unto thee, and not forsake thee. Fear not, for I have called thee by my name, thou art mine; when thou passest through the waters I will be with thee; when thou walkest through the fire thou shall not be burned ; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee." — I hope that I will be enabled, by an exhibition of the true rules and motives of it, and discrimination from every counter- feit that would imitate it, to present holiness, in its laws and principles, before you, both by an attention to them in the exercises of the pulpit, and in the offices of ecclesiastical juris-, diction : — and my warmest prayer is, that, the seed which is sown may take deep root, both in your hearts and in mine own, that the connexion which is now formed in the Lord, may not be in vain, but that we may grow up as trees of righ- teousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.
The Becond head of our method was, To give you some di- rections upon the view which I have of your invitation, in regard to the exercises, which, on your part, originate from the connexion which is now formed. When Cornelius had heard Peter's question, arid told him the reason why he had sent for him, he adds, verse thirty-third, " Now, therefore, we are all here present before God, to hear all things that are command-
28 DUTIES OP THE PREACHER AND
ed thee of God." There are no duties to be performed, nor privileges to be enjoyed, on the one hand, but which occasion obligations and correspondent exercises on the other.
On this part of our subject, I observe, first. That you are to be careful to put a proper estimate upon a gospel ministry. Let a man, says the apostle Paul, so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. Not a few have formed very degrading notions of the office which clothes the minister of the gospel, and which leads him, correspond en tly to the expectations of the more reflecting and serious, through a variety of duties, and to a station the most important. He is frequently viewed, even in the most solemn exercises of his office, reduced to the low rank of those that relate their own opinion only, and tell the truths which they utter without the investiture of an authority that may enforce the belief and practice of them. The men who wear this character, may, in many instances, be little deserving in- deed either of respect or obedience from others ; yea, they may "be really the gilded offscourings of all things, daily assuming -more of their detested hue, reprobate silver, which , in passing through the furnace of public experience, is to be rejected and forever cast away; but the office itself, and as becomingly BWpported, is what presents him who bears it in the room of •Christ before you, and brings in his own person the Saviour '<!)f the world, and administrator of life and death, to teach and instruct you. "Now, then, we are ambassadors for Christ," gays Paul, "as though Christ did beseech you by us; we pray you, in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." A minister at a foreign court presents in representation, the majesty of the s&vereign who has deputed him ; and acts as if the whole sovereignty of that country from which he came were present, pleading and adjusting its own concerns; and the ambassadors of Christ, the great king and head of his church, walk, in all the duties of their office, an example of an equally strict and aacred representation. As an official messenger cannot be
HEARER OP THE GOSPEt. '29
despised without contemning the sovereignty of that power which delegated him, nor can Iiave his claims acknowledged, without doing justice to the desires and wishes of the country which all speak in him ; so the messenger of Jesus, while he presents in due form, and with suitable views of his station, the intentions and will of his great sovereign, cannot be eitlier rejected or accepted without in reference to him a choice of this alternative. He, saith our Saviour, that heareth you hear- eth me, and he that despiseth you despiseth me, and he that despiseth me, despiseth him that sent me.
I make these observations with the intention of preparing you by the duty of just esteem, for the execution of those other duties which, on your part, could not, in relation unto the new connexion in which this day finds us, be performed, without such a view of the character of the ministers of the sanctuary as I have presently set before you. Destitute of this correct conception of the ministerial office, you might always advance to the ordinances of grace and withdraw from them, without ever perceiving that point of authority that sanctifies and solemnizes them; and so might treat the whole ritual of the temple of the most High, with that indifference of m.ind and ease of conscience, with which you hear and dismiss the opinions of men, whom accident may make your companions, and who in no sense have ties of authority over you. But were the Saviour of mankind, the administrator of all things, and the jud^e of the world, to descend from his glorious throne in heaven, to command your obedience to that gospel which you have received for his, to lay down your duty before you, to^ press you forward through its various departments, would not you believe that in his commands and threatenings, his pro- mises and exhortations, it behooved you to hear his voice, and to remember the divine instructions which it distils into yoiir ears? It is not the arrogance of the preacher, it is not igno- rance of the charter by which he holds his commission, that makes him assert, that Jesus has devolved this authority, as
so DUTIES OP THE PREACHER AND
his will is exhibited in a ministry of reconciliation, upon the office which this preacher supports. And I will give unto thee, saith Jesus himself, the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. — Not that the ministers of truth have a discretionary power to decide thus upon the states of men; or that they can absolutely make the application of their sentence to distinguish eternally the conditions of immortal souls; for in this sense, none can forgive sins but he who can try the heart and reins. But in their administrations of the law and doctrines of the unerring word of revelation, they can pronounce that sentence on the sinner, whose crimes clearly manifest his impenitence, which, if the grace of God alter not his state, will be an echo to his tremendous award at last, and a formal presage of it — and they can bestow that titled encouragement upon the saint, whose light shines before his conscience and before men, that, on their ministerial right to do so, will be an earnest of his blessed sentence hereafter.
We know that these words of our Saviour, " 1 will give un- to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatso- ever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven," have prominently a respect unto the ambassadors of Christ, as they are a divinely selected and qualified jury to sit in courts of ecclesiastical order. Sanctified by the spirit of judgment, and crowned with the authority of the majesty of their great head, the ministers of the gospel do afford us here a most striking view of their own highly responsible, and yet authoritative representation; and show us that along the lines of their rela- tions their upright deeds ascend to heaven and are there rati- fied and recorded. But these ministers of Christ, separated in their individual capacity among the societies of the faithful, also proceed in the robes of their office proclaiming the mes- sage of their great King, — he that believeth shall be saved, and
HEARER OF THE GOSPEL. 31
he that believeth not shall be damned. Were a blasphemer, long noted for his impiety,- blackening, too, daily, in all the foul offspring of such a parent, to enter into one of these as- semblies; were he to court attention by the smile of contempt, the grin of ridicule, the attitudes of mockery, and all the name- less movements that are most congenial to his heart ;— were this unhappy creature ever to appear in our assembly, is there not a power to single him out, to carry to him the messages of heav- en, and on the last demonstrations of his obviously hardened impenitence to pronounce " When we are gathered together,'' anathema maranatha?
But I observe, secondly, That you are to be careful to meet the minister of the gospel with such suitable preparation as you may have ground to expect that his labors shall be profitable to you . It is an incorrect view of the means by which the spiritual interests of his flock are to be promoted, to hold that all the administrations of the regularly called and qualified servant of Ihe Lord, will be successful, or even of promising influence, without an attention on your part to personal reli- gion. The ministry of the word does not work like the chisel upon the stone, or like the hammer upon the anvil, where ex- ternal operations only, produce all the desired effects ; but it resembles more the labors of the husbandman who commits the seed to the earth which has many co- operating and active principles, that benignly receive and nourish, night and day, what has been entrusted to its improvement. Go view the seed which has wandered from the hand of the sower, upon stony places or the surface of the naked rock, where the pow- ers of vegetation do not operate ; and beholding how soon it withers and dies, learn hence the inefficacy of the ministry of tlie word without principles of operation in )'our minds in- viting to a hopeful reception of it. There may be cast to the station of the ambassador of Jesus, an eye that at once recog" nizes all the marks of its spiritual authority ; and there may
32 DTJT1E3 or THE PREACHER AND
be lent an ear which equally readily attends to the truths which it proclaims; but unless there are the effects of a frame warmed and enlivened by the exercises of private preparation, It is not to be expected that these views and perceptions will identify themselves with our nature, and swell the dimensions of our spiritual stature. On the other hand, that ultimate pow- er and supreme authority, which hath suited the means to the end, demolishes these perceptions, and lets them break away, baseless visions, without a wreck behind,— That seeing they may see, says God, and not perceive, and hearing they may hear and not understand. Mark 4: 12. It is highly consis- tent with the free offer of the gospel, and its invitations to .x>me and buy the wine and milk of salvation without money and without price, thus to describe the christian's path <^ duty to you: for I am not speaking of the merciful oHer of the gospel to sinners; but of the prayers and alms of them whose devotion and charity come. up for a me- jiional before God. My object is to direct you through the secret chambers of preparation, where the christian ought to dress himself every day before he appear in the temple of the great God.
It is suspected that the momentous duties on which we have our eye, are, in general, by far too little thought of by many, when desiring that one may be appointed to break the bread of life amongst them. On you of this congregation is now particularly binding that exercise which, we are permitted to flatter ourselves, has been no less salutary in its performance in time past, than the prospect of it is, we hope, pleasing to you now — of enriching your understandings with a know- ledge from themselves of the scriptures. Of the duties in which you will be conjointly engaged with your pastor, nono is of simpler complexion, than what partakes of the solemn nature and relations of divine worship. In our supplications and praise, your wishes and desires, your extacies and adora-
HEARER OP THE GOSPEL. 33
rations, are mine, and mine yours ; and our prayer and anthem ascend to the throne of him who commands us to ask for things agreeable to his will, and to sing with grace and melody in the heart. And in the preaching of the gospel, whilst 1, as the ambassador of Christ, enforce and carry home to your con- sciences the law, spread out and place before your eye the truths of the gospel itself, and cluster them and pour on your heads the anointing of the promises; you attend to these as the law, and gospel, and promises of Christ; and this not so much with the design of receiving instruction, as of re- viewing what truths are already known, of surveying their mighty importance, and of being thus warmed and enlivened by the spirit of truth. Preaching is chiefly a watering of God's vineyard, where the plants are already rooted and need only the influences of heaven, the dtws and rain, to nourish and bring them forward, to perfection. Behold, then, the God of perfection accepting of our prayers and praises only when they are directed by the light of his word, and remember that, the instructive part of our exercises, the preaching of the gos- pel, has more of the intention of cultivating holy dispositions and of solemnizing our minds as worshippers in the temple of -God, than of the communication of instruction to the under- standing, and the duty of private preparation by deep research- es into the word of revelation, must be acknowledged. Search the scriptures, for in them ye think ye have etenial life, and they are they, says Christ, that testify of me. This habit ad- vantageously cultivated will enable you to correct in your wor- ship an incorrect sentence which at times may drop unwarily from the mouth of him who leads your devotions ; for none of US are elev2.ted above imperfections : or it may enable you to perceive what is the scriptural idea which his words would con- vey, were they arranged precisely in that construction, which, in some instances, he may rather aim at, than accurately form. The Bereans are placed on a high eminence in re?elatio», because, though immediately instructed by an inspired 4
34 DUTIES OF THE PREACHER AND
apostle, they yet searched the scriptures whether these things were so.
But, my brethren, that the ordinance of a gospel ministry now enjoyed by you may have its full effect, I must direct you to an improvement of your knowledge by bowing the knee in prayer, both for yourselves and your minister, when engaged in the public ordinances of the gospel, God alone can rear the building of Zion either in the church at large, or in the hearts of her members; and our entreaties at the throne of his grace should be, " where two or three are met together in thy name, be thou in the midst of them to do them good." Is there not a great obligation springing from their authority, and a great encouragement arising from the vast condescension which they display, as, adverting to the comiexion instituted by God between means and ends, we read these commanding and authoritative words of his own — " put me in remembrance ?" Were the minister of the gospel on the one hand to be left by God shorn of the blessings and assistances which, through the importunities of prayer alone, we have ground to expect, how could he appear copiously furnished with the word of truth — prepared to give each his portion in due season, and this with that perspicuity and promptitude of language which resemble the pen of the ready wTiter : and Ijow could you yourselves favor the preaching of the gospel witli that attentive ear which it so loudly demands, or open for its reception that understand- mg heart, which it will so amply fill ? But recall, my brethren, to mind, the importance of the ministry of the gospel, and also your relation to it; that by this supposition of its being wrong per> formed, and ill received, I may awaken your consciences to a lively sense of tJie indispensable need of ahvays bearing both your own case, and also mine, to the throne of him, who saith, Aslt and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you. Can it be forgot that the preach- ing of the gospel challenges your attention to consider the chgice of eternal life or death, by turning the immediate view
HEARER OP THE GOSPEL. 35
of your minds to the perception of (hat truth which, on all oc> casions, but particularly as dispensed from the authority which clothes the ministers of the gospel, provides a refuge for the righteous, and erects an instrument of destruction over the heads of the wicked ? See, that 1 have set before you life and good, and death and evil: in that I command thee this day to love the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments, and his statutes, and his judgments, that thou mayest live and multiply; and the Lord thy God shall bless thee la the land whither thou goest to possess it. But if thine heaut turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away and worship other gods and serve them; I denounce un- to you this day that ye shall surely perish. This considera- tion that the preaching of the gospel will be either the savor of life unto life, or of death urjto death, taken in connexion with the fact that the preparation of the heart is from God alone, conveys to your hearing with the highest emphasis, in regard unto your pastor, the former, and in regard to both him and yourselves, the latter of these inspired exhortations.-^ Brethren, pray for us, that tlie word of God may have free course and be glorified,— Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the spirit which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; and for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that 1 may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gos- pel. Eph. 6:17,18,19.
But I observe, thirdly. That you are to be solemn and at- tentive in the performance of those duties which are dis- charged when your minister and you meet, to present your^ selves in religious services before God. This observation, one should think, needs no more to prove and enforce it, than a right understanding of the condition to which oui public religious ordinances exalt us. What must be the impiety of that man's conduct who either behaves disorderly in the courts of God*^
S5 DUTIES OP THE PREACHEB AND
worship; or who incurs the guilt of drawing near to him with the mouth and of honoring him with the lip, whilst the heart is removed far from him ? A dependent will not approach his earthly superior without an attitude of respect; the supersti- tious will not survey the images of his veneration without the emotions of religious awe; the heathen nations cannot enter the temples of their idols without their consciences being aroused into an anticipation of that dread immortality, which their feelings, more than their judgments, predict shall take place; and the angels in heaven bow down veiling their faces with their wings as they beholdjthe throne of the Eternal, and certainly God must be greatly feared, and had in reverence by all his' saints. The compliment of visiting the house of God with the design only of countenancing the exercises which his genuine people support, by a mere appearance, and tlie stupid and wearisome continuance of the body in the consecrated as- semblies of the faithful, without the spirit which animates and elevates them by the most joyous energies of life, is equally to be reprobated and abhorred. I hear the voice of the prophet guardmg our assemblings, like the angel's flammg sword, the tree of life, in the appalling language of assertion and interroga- tion : " The sinners in Zion are afraid, fearfulness hath sur- prised the hypocrite, who among us can dwell with devouring fire, who among us can dwell with everlasting burning ?"
Perhaps, indeed, some will plead as an excuse for their in- attention, the lifeless and unanimated manner, as well as the flimsy and light matter, which,' at times, the minister of the gospel may manifest before you. It would savor of vanity, and mark with utter ignorance of the experience of God's servants, were we, christians, to challenge your attention al- ^7ays, on account of the excellence of our performances. We own that the servant of the Lord often finds his work drag heavily with him in his preparations ; and not rarely too, when he I thinks that he has reared the fabric of his discourse in perfec- tion, will a stone slip in the foundation, and overthrow his
HEARER OP THE GOSPEts 37
hopes. The priests, the Lord's ministers mourn, saith the prophet, for their field is wasted, their land mourneth. Joel, 1:3. The Lord has to teach his servants their dependance upon him; and often from them in their ministrations, as well as from the christian in his experiences, he hidethhis face and they are troubled. Oh! exclaimed the inspired Job. that it were with me as in months past, in the days when God pre- served me, when his candle shone upon my head, and when by his light I walked through darkness. — The dew does not distil witirequal copiousness every night in the sea- son of dew, the rivers do not always flow with the same abundant stream, the fountains do not always pour forth an equal birth of waters, the fields do not bring every season the sama plentiful harvest, the sea waxes and subsides again, the moon becomes sickly and black, the sun himself puts on his robes of mourning, the temple of Jehovah has been in ruins, and the Lamb himself that is in the midst of the throne in heaven, was covered by the cold hand of an accursed death, and the ministers of righteousness, in this changeable world, must experience, in some degree or other, this vicissitude of dispensation, to which all nature and the church herself are •subjected. But is not the scarcity of articles the very con- sideration which on that occasion enhances their importance ? Consider how attentive the hungry are to collect and preserve in tlie years of famine the equally coarse and scanty provision ; consider how the thirsty soul will exult to quaff the grass- grown stream from the expiring fountain ; consider how refresh- ing is a breath of wind in a sultry day; and consider how joy- ful is the sickly beam even of the rising moon to the mid- night and bewildered traveller, and^ we hope, we have convin- ced you, that it is incons'istent with your duty, to despise the day, in God's providence, of mourning to us, and of small things (o you. Moreover, on this subject, I would tell you that often the 'day of our calamity is the time of God''s op- portunity, for accomplishmg the most unexpected and interest-
38 DUTIBS 6t !*«« PfifiA-CftfiH AXO
ingends by the small voice of the gospel. Jesus himself, who spake as never man spake, was yet less successful than any of his disciples. God is frequently not in the earthquake of the moving orator's voice, nor in the whirlwind of his discourse, by which he strikes and carries the passions in a thousand directions; but he appears, where he is least expected, in a still small unanimated voice. The treasure is often put into a weak and despised vessel, that its virtue and power may ap- pear to be of God shining upon his ordinances, and not on man, the mere administrator of them. 1 tho i^hi^ says Naa- man, he will surely come out to me, and stand and call on the name of his God, and strike his hand over the place, and re- cover the leper; but, says the prophet, by his met-enger only, go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean.
But I observe, lastly, That you are to meditate on the ex- ercises in which we have been employed when you retire from them, and to implore the divine blessing upon them. Wearied of the burden which has hung heavy upon them during their journey through the public services of Zion, careless professors of religion go, like the ox loosed from his yoke, to feed on the pleasing pastures of amusement and recreation; of idle speculations of honor and wealth ; and of aggrandizing pur- suits of time; and they never review a th 'ight that has been set before them, nor an expression of adoration in which they have joined, nor ask the divine blessing upon them. He also that received seed among thorns is he that heareth the word, •md the care of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful. Look, however, to the tender babe who is abandoned in the desert to all th^ rigors of winter, to the dangers which then and there walk unmolested around him, death clothed in a thousand forme; and expect to see the helpless infant reared unto the abilities of manhood amidst all these dangers, as soon as you can ex- pect to entertain a hope, that the tender seed of the word will
HEARER OP THE GOSPEL. 39
live many moments, without even a dew of meditation, or of the divine blessing, amidst such worldly pursuits, pleasures, and plans, to destroy it. If you are to improve the adminis- tration of ordinances with which you are now favored you must not, immediately on your withdrawing from public wor- ship and duties, bind up the talent that has been entrusted to you, and deposit it in the earth of forgetfulness; but you must lend it out to the improving hands of meditation and prayer. Men are s- little acquainted with the great art of meditation to increase th:ir stock of spiritual possessions, that it is difficult to lead them through its operations and to point out the many advantages to which it is subservient. Meditation on know- lege which has once entered the mind, diffiises its influences through the affections, and roots it so in the memory, that all the changes and gusts of time never can thoroughly overturn it. This takes the food which has been immediately administered, digests it, like the bile the nourishment of our animal frame; sends ft in the circulations of its own reflections, like the chyle converted into blood into all the parts and cavities of the soul; and thus filling the whole intellectual system of man with enlivened views, extends and increases his stature. We all, says the apostle Paul, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to [ -ory, as by the spirit of the Lord. — And ought any christian to forget that the grace of God which gratifies all that expectation that in prayer animates us, and that carries all our affections to seize upon the throne of the eternal, is the sole prin- ciple of our spiritual life. Paul may plant and Apollos water, says the apostle of the Gentiles, but God alone can give the increase. They are the benign influences of the holy spirit descending like rain upon the mown grass, and like the showers that water the earth, that quicken and invigorate the exercises of the people of God. Except the Lord do build the house they labor in vain that build it; except the Lord do keep the city the watchmen watch in vain. As soon may the
40 DUTIES OF THE PREACHER AND
christian acquiesce in the atheistical assertion that this universe moves through all its changes and events independently of the will of its creator; as soon may he expect to see all the ver- dure and enamel of the spring arise, and display their vigor and beauty without light or congenial heat, as he dares plume himself upon the growth and comeliness of his virtue and holi- ness, without the operative and all powerful influences of Go blessing. Heirs of the grace of life, 1 do not miscalculate the value of your privileges, any more than I overrate the duty by which you are to open the bosom of desire to receive their in- valuable communications, when 1 thus point out to you, as the herald of divine mercy, the mouth that is to be opened at the throne of Jehovah, and the fulness that is to enter by it. For God says, as the rain cometh down, and snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it biing forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goeth out of my mouth, it shall not return unto m.e void, but it shall accom- plish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto 1 sent it. Isaiah, 55. 1 will be as the dew to Israel, he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon; they that dwell under his shadow shall return, they shall revive as the corn, and grow as the vine, the scent thereof shall be as the wine of Lebanon. Hos. 14:5 — 7,
My brethren, I add one remark applicable to all the obser- vations I have made : that whilst this preparation is always to precede, this attention always to accompany, and this medita- tion and prayer always to follow the common administration of the ordinances of grace ; they are to rise with every striking emergency, such as the dispensation of the sacraments, and not to be forgot in any of the duties of discipline, examina- ation, or visitation. These latter will bring you before the minister of God's sanctuary, either, to be immediately in the name of Christ, approved or condemned, or to have your pro- gress 'm knowledge and practice estimated, that it may be
HfiAREH OF THE GOSPEL. 41
transmitted through the instrumentality of your minister, to occupy its place in the records of Zion, and to stand there a perpetual remembrance of your character in your generation. And in proportion to the solemnity of bringing Christ under the visible symbols of his death and sacrifice, of laying him be- fore you as wounded and bruised for your transgression, and as eixpiring under the hands of an accursed death to wash and cleanse you from the stain that omnipotence could not other- wise efface, you are to reflect and pray, to call upon all that is within you to be stirred up in attention ; and then to reflect and pray again, — that you may thus worthily partake of the body and blood of the Lord.
Whose eyes, my brethren, are now upon us? — The observa- tion of tlie wicked will spitefully desciy every failure, either on your part or mine, and like an object at a distance in a foggy day, this will be magnified by the malign power of their ima- gination. The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. These will think that our imperfections and misimprovements afford them a triumph not only over ourselves, but even over that re- ligion which we profess. — The eyes of the saints are likewise, though with a more friendly aspect, turned towards us. Would you wish to hear of their bowels of mercy towards us, to hear them saying, like the apostle of the gentilei, ye are our joy and crown of rejoicing; would you wish to enlist all their prayers and sympathies into your services — you must improve their privileges which will make you their brethren in Christ. Where- fore I also, says Paul, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. — Invisible angels watch over us, and mark the regularity or irregularity, the ardor or indiflference, of our religious course. He maketh, it is said, his angels spirits and his ministers a flame of fire. And God who sitteth upon the circle of.tha
42 DUTIES OF THE PREACHER AND
heavens and beholdeth the nations as grasshoppers; who weigheth the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance ; who can toss us before the wind of his displeasure like the small dust in the balance, is an awful spectator of our character and conduct. A negligent preparation on your part or mine, a lame and sickly performance of duty by either of us, and a carelessness about what will be the consequences which may follow, may escape the inimical inspection of the wicked, the pitying observation of the righteouf^ the keen look, it may be, of angels; but throughout the whole exercises, in which, in years of conjunct privileges and duty, you and I may be em- ployed, in every word that is spoken by me, and in every word that is heard by you, God's eye surveys them, and his hand marks the qualities of c>jr exercises. The eyes of the Lord are in every place behold i'ig the evil and the good .
Were your pastor left so destitute of that grace in which he trusts for all his help, as to fcii obviously in ail the important duties of the station to which he is exalted, what ridicule would exulting enemies throw upon us, what embittering mix- ture of frowns and condolence would saints pour out; what a look of indignation -nd compassion would those seraphim that always behold the face of our f^ither who is in heaven, dare to bestow, and what a reproof and severe chastisement from the Lord of all must I expect! Were this supposed sin of mine to be the sin of impenitence, what, though I might escape in a great measure by unworthily purchasing the veil of hypocrisy, all the censure and reproof of men, and displeasure of pure in- visible intelligences, would yet be my state, though exempt from temporal chastisements in the divine providence, at last on the gi-eat and terrible day of accounts? To an immortal being placed in a station which honors him with the duty of bringing hundreds of his immortal bretinen to eternal felicity, but who has betrayed his trust, and hath neitfter come himself, nor done his utmost to show thfera the way, the judge of the universe will say, I demand the blood of the souls, whom you have left to
HEAKEB OF THE GOSPEL. 43
perish, at your hand, — In proportion unto the value of his immor- tal soul; in proportion unto its honor before an assembled uni- verse at the great day of accounts; in proportion unto the eternal thrillings of joy in the general assembly and church of the first born in heaven, I am constrained, oh ! my breth- ren, to entreat your supplications at a throne of mercy in my behalf. — Hov/ happy when carried along through an arduous course in the bosom, of the prayers of the righteous which avail much! A conscience void of offence towards God and man, disregards all the persecution of the world, procures th^ approbation and love of men and angels, and the everlasting friendship of God himself. For they that bring many to righteousness shall shine as the stars in the firmament for ever and ever.
But heirs of God and joint heirs of Jesus Christ, is not the preaching of the gospel as trying a criterion in your ears, as it is in the mouili of him who is an ambassador to you in Christ's stead ? — whether there be a respect, to the influence of your lives and behavior amongst men, to the eternal welfare of your immortal spirits among the spirits of the universe, or to your answering, on the last day of this created state of things, to the judge of the quick and of the dead? None of us liveth to himself, and no man dietli to himself, — every one of you must have an influence to assist or to deter travellers on the same road to immortality ; every man's soul that is saved will be saved yet so as by fire; and that inlfferitance which is incorruptible and undcf^led and that fadeth not away, is equal- ly invaluable to both you and me.
Our prayers, ray bretliren, to the one God in the moments of preparation should continually be, " clollje thy priests with strength, and let thy saints shout aloud for joy:" — Our pray- ers to the one God in the solemnity of public adoration and worship should continually be, " stay our minds upon thy= self:" — Our prayers to the one God on leaving the courts of
44 DUTIES OP THE PRBACHEH, &C.
his Zion, should continually be, " pour out thy spirit upon thy seed and thy blessing upon thine offspring." — Oh I God, in- crease us and we shall not be small, multiply us and we shall not be few. — Feedthy flock like a shepherd, gather thy lambs in thine arms, and carry them in thy bosom, and gently lead those that are with young. — Be as a wall of fire around us and a glory in the midst of us. — Where we go, do thou go, and where we lodge, do thou lodge. — Oh! Eternal Judge, may these people be my joy and crown of rejoicing, in the day when thou makest up thy jewels, and may I be as a signet en- graven upon their affections, whilst 1 minister in thy temple amongst them, and till, we shall all appear in the New Jerusa- lem where all affections centre upon thyself. — Father — Son Spirit — bless — save — sanctify. — Amen.
DISCOURSE II.
ON CHRIST'S RESURRECTION.
Matth. 25:6. He is not here, for he is risen.
The scriptures, my brethren, inform us that early on the morning of the first day of the week, Christ, by his own power and that of his Father, arose from lying on the sepulchre, and leaving his grave-clothes behind him ascended from the tomb, — the stone which closed its mouth being rolled away by the ministry of an angel sent from heaven. The reason that this angel was sent on such a mission, was not that Christ was unable to accomplish the object of it himself. Though he v/ay newly risen from the cold and stiffened stretch of death; yet his members were not discomposed for any undertaking, nor was his power in the least diminished for any exertion. Vea, let me intimate, that he who said, I have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again, in the act of fulfillmg these words, must have called into action immediate principles of power that could effectuate any thing which the combined influence of wisdom and omnipotence could achieve. The angel was sent as the messenger of God the Father to wel- come Christ from the dead ; to begin the glory with which, on his finishing the work of redemption, it was promised, he shonld be invested; and to announce by his visible appearance from iho lieavenly throne, that the work of man's salvation was thcui accepted as fully accomplished.
46 Christ's restterectioit.
In describing the manner of the resurrection of Christ, I must lead you to a circumstance meriting a particular atten- tion, though rather a connected than an included circumstance. Whilst all I have now mentioned was carrying on at the tomb thus early in the morning, the disciples of Jesus, these our witnesses, had no knowledge of it; they had not yet arisen to visit the supposed dark and dreary abode of their former Lord and benefactor. None saw the splendid sight of the descend- ing angel whose countenance shone like lightning, and whose raiment was white as snow; none saw the stone that shut up the tomb of the crucified Saviour, but still remaining Lord of the universe,, spoiled of its seals, and heaved from its position ; none saw the hope of Israel ascending from the bowels of the earth as the first fruits of that resurrection of which all are to partake, but the profligate Roman soldiers, who utterly unac- customed to such miraculous and marvellous appearances, lost their powers of observation in a swoon of amazement. The angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat upon it; his countenance was like lightning, and his raiment was white as snow, and for fear of him the keepers did shake., and became as dead meUo.
But though the resurrection of Christ was thus secret, and by the wise providence of heaven secluded from the view and observation of the very men who were to be the witnesses of it to all ages, yet this fact does not in the least impugn the moral certainty of his resurrection. Yea, this very circum- stance, no doubt, was wisely contrived, that it might contribute to disentangle our inquiries, and to finish off our belief. Had the disciples been at the tomb, some hesitation might have remained in the mind unable to repose in the full freedom of absent. The prerogatives of reason would ask: if Christ rose by his own power, if he is that mighty one which his historians affirm him to be; if his resurrection is to be the great polar star to guide through all ages the voyage of so many followers into the regions of certainty respecting his character," what
Christ's resurrection. 47
need was there to confirm jealousies that were already aroused, by assembling around it, and looking wishfully towards his tomb? Why were the disciples there at so early, and so suspi- cious an hour? Did they await to salute Christ from the grave? They believed not that he was to rise. They must have had a plot: it seems that they were characters deter- mined to deceive.
Permit me, my brethren, to make one other remark as I ad- vance in clearing the foundation on which I would lay tlie positive evidences which construct the fabric of undoubted certainty in the resurrection of your Redeemer. The resurrec- tion of man from the dead, whilst the experience of every generation hears the voice of the grave, saying, it is not enough, is yet in itself an event possible; and the peculiar reasons which his historians assign, sufficiently proclaim the wisdom of early interposing, and making Jesus the first fruits of the resurrec- tion from the dead. Are not the admirable order of the universe, the relative organization of every part, and mechanism of all animal ed natures, an indubitable evidence that an infinitely intelligent and omnipotent being is the author of our existence? And cannot this supreme Creator restore that connexion which binds into the unify of a person the soul and body of man, though it has been once dissolved?— And will he not do this, when his word is pledged for it; when the work of redemption calls for its reward ; when a spiritual society is to be reared under the government of its own head; when the hopes of so many are to be enlivened by the certainty that their mansions in heaven are already taken possession of in their name ; and when the fact itself of the resurrection is to difl^use such a light of evidence over all the system of truth to which he is to call the faith of mankind ?
Being thus assured that the matter of their testimony is a thing possible, and that it might, by the cause to which it is ascribed, the mighty power of God, which is said to have wrought in Christ mightily, when he raised him from the dead,
48 chkist's resurrection,
be effected, — I must now, my brethren, challenge your atten- tion to the positive evidences of the great doctrine we are establishing, — The credibility of the witnesses of the resurrec- tion of Christ. And on thib part of our investigation, there are four things to which 1 must call your attention. The first is, That we be well assured that the witnesses of Christ's resurrection were men of discernment and penetration enough to ascertain this great fact: Secondly, That we be well as- sured that they have clearly declared that they had these op- portunities of information, and did improve them, which we presume requisite: Thirdly, That there area sufficient number of witnesses to vouch for this great fact; and that these are all consistent in their testimony : Lastly, That the witnesses of this crreat fact were men of moral honesty and had no mten-
o
tions to deceive.
Our first object is to show, That we have satisfactory proofs, tliat the witnesses of Christ's resurrection were men of discern- ment and penetration enough to ascertain this great fact. Many are the affairs about the nature and production of which, few men are competent judges. Their nature is too refined or intricate, or their production proceeds from too many co-opera- ting causes, or these act too secretly before their dull curiosity, for the powers of ordinary men's observation to justify us in a reliance upon their testimony. Of this nature are all vegetable and animal bodies, in the principles on which their parts cohere, and in the mechanism by which their vegetation and life are nourished and supported. Many moral and metaphy- sical truths also, lie far beyond the utmost possible view which can be taken by the eye of an ordinary man. But what 1 must remark to you, in estimating the qualifications of the witnesses of the resurrection of Christ, is, that the subject of their ob- servation, the point on which the reputation of these unlettered men is to rest, is none of these abstruse and difficult matters of knowledge. The resurrection of Christ was an obvious matter of fact; and the most illiterate and rude of understand-
Christy's resitrrectioi!?. 49
ing, tax gatherers and fishermen, were equally capable of judging of its certainty, with the most learned and most pene- trating of mankind. To be assured of any obvious matter of fact that falls under our observation, requires only that our senses be not disordered, and that we use them to ascertain it. In this way, indeed, we may not comprehend all the concomi- tant circumstances so well, and their relations as causes or consequences of the event; yet, where such an event takes place, so obvious to our senses, we can no more doubt of the fact itself, than we can doubt of our own existence.
1 am not, ray brethren, fabricating an excuse for the acknow- ledged simplicity, and unlettered character of the witnesses of the resurrection of Christ. These men, who, though never classed in the schools of philosophy, nor taught the arts of artificial disputation, are yet proclaimed^ by their writings, to be both great and good, to be men of sound understandings, and of hearts deeply interested in the welfare of mankind, had, I aver, a plain and obvious matter of fact to ascertain and propagate. An object of sight, an object of touch, an asso- ciate in conversation, describe the palpable and prominent criteria about which the apostles of our holy religion are con- cerned. They were not at the sepulchre at its eventful period ; and if they knew certainly of his resurrection at all, it could be only by seeing him, by conversing with him, and by touch- mg Christ after his resurrection. Besides these, there is no other possible way which can be satisfactory to human nature, and this even after immediate revelations and miracles shall have ceased: and could there be a case in which it would be more impossible for men to be mistaken? Could they, if they used [heir senses and that common judgment v/hich belongs to all men, not ascertain, beyond the possibility of a doubt, the identity of his person, — from those views their astonished and eager eyes would take of him; from that embracing and handling which an object, that awakened to the last degree the hands of curiosity, would excite; and from that conversation
5*
50 Christ's resurrection.
which winds through all the circles of former interest and partici^' lar friendships, and places before them, that delicate field, where art must soon be ineffectual in endeavoring to impose upon genuine and unsophisticated principles of common sense? Was there no peculiarly discriminating mark in his counte- nance, his gait, his manner of address, his voice, or in a word, in the whole of those personal distinctions, which bring at once acquaintances, even after years of separation and feeble reminiscence, most certainly to the knowledge of their friends , to present before the disciples of Jesus, the real person of that master whose image is yet playing so vividly on every power of their mind? Are there no particular incidents, no private transactions, no pledged promises, in that great and compli- cated design, which, before his death, both he and they were prosecuting, for their conversation to call up and review, that from the vivid intellect of the leader and author of all their movements, touching, with perfect remembrance, all the lines of his own delicate fabric, his disciples might most certainly learn the identity of his person? — There were to be reviewed, not only the observations made before one another when the disciples were first called to enrol their names in his service j on his discourses and parables delivered generally to the mul- titudes, and particularly explained to themselves in the intima- cies of friendship; but there was, as yet, the secret and most memorable transaction of Christ's transfiguration; and above all, the complicated, affecting, and distressing scene, through which they had all passed, that night in which Christ was ap- ^>rehended by his enemies; — and could any other have started t ) the high and distinguished station, which the leader in all \ lese transactions, is now supposed to occupy, and not be detect- ed and abandoned in a few moments ? Yes , christians, the par- ti v^ular features and appearance of his person, and the subjects of their necessary conversation with Christ, must have preclu- ded all possibility of an impostor recommending himself to the acceptance of the disciples of Jesus, after his resurrection
Christ's REstrRRECTioN. 51
is said to have taken place. It was never instanced in another case, nor is it possible to be believed in his, that one should be so like Christ in every personal peculiarity and distinction, and that this one should, in the complicated, affecting, and un- finished scheme which had been carrying on , start up before the sight of the disappointed disciples, should procure their assent to the belief of a miracle in the resurrection from the dead; and should so conduct himself afterwards, that, although he knew nothing of their plans or conversations before, he should, in no instance, deviate into mismanagement or demur in ignorance to create a suspicion ; but should, with as much knowledge and discernment of all their connected interests, as their real master and leader himself could do, conduce to the establishment of their belief.
But is it suspected that they were imposed upon by the arts of an apparition. Many of the ancients believed they saw visions, and heard them speak to them. Brutus, the Roman general, believed himself warned in this manner of his fatal end. Phi- losophy ought to admit of supernatural appearances, if she admit of the possibility of the communication of a supernatu- ral revelation, and particularly, if the object of this revelation be to lay open the invisible world, by bringing life and im- mortality to light. She cannot, indeed, admit of them if she restrict, with some modern philosophers, the Creator of nature, in all his intercourse with his intelligent creatures, to the ex- pression of his mind by the signatures of his wisdom as they are enstamped upon the phenomena of the visible universe. The people that argue against a stream of testimony in favor of extraordinary facts, because of the perceptible uniformity in their own age of nature, forget that if a supernatural revela- tion be possible, it must at some time or other take place; that when its visions are descending, and taking root in our world, extraordinary phenomena must in some way or other attend them; and that, therefore, to apply to this particular period, and to the place of the earth where the inspired men reside, the
CHRIST'S RESURRECTION.
laws of providence upon other occasions, is quite unphilosophi- cal. If a revelation be to be made by God to man, it must be at some period of his history, and may occupy a greater or a less duration according as infinite wisdom pleases ; but it must be effected either by God's miraculous appearance, or voice, or impression, or by some supernatural messenger : a revelation without a miracle or a deviation from the laws of nature, is a contradiction in terms.
But that the re-appearance of our Saviour after his death, though in case of a revelation supernatural appearances must be supposed possible, was not an apparition, is clear, from these simple considerations — Because malign agency must be sup- posed inconsistent with the whole moral strain of the gospel, whilst benevolent power could never urge and press so upon the senses, the genius of imposture. Because, the tomb of Christ was, on the morning of the alleged resurrection, indu- bitably found empty, and the body of Jesus was never discover- ed by the Jewish rulers, nor, as it is asserted, by the disciples themselves, unless in the resuscitated person of him who bore all the personal features of their former master, and who knew all his concerns. And because, Christ was crucified, and had flesh and bones to be examined by the hands and senses of his dis- ciples ; and if they felt that he had the tangible properties of a real body, and that too on which were the expressive marks of his crucifixion, the very prints of the nails, and the wound made by the soldier's spear; they could not be mistaken, either re- specting the reality, or the identity of his person. An individu- al might be supposed deceived by the schemes of his own fancy ; but that such a number should all bring forth such an unexpect- ed vision of joy at the same time; should see it always in the same manner in which every other one saw it; should ail hear the same words pronounced by it, is to suppose such a sister- hood of imaginations as bewildered nature never could create. No, if the disciples be honest men, there is before them no apparition arising from the womb of surrounding elements, or
Christ's resureection. 63
the disorder of human imagination, but their Saviour, the man Christ Jesus, risen from the dead.
Secondly, Have the disciples of Christ clearly declared that they had the opportunities of information, and did improve them, which we have shown necessary? And here do they not declare that on the morning of the resurrection, the sepulchre was visited by several of themselves and others, and unexpect- edly found empty ; that it was searched and the grave-clothes only found; and that it contained a deputation recognized as suitable to the magnitude of the occasion, an angel at the head , and another at the feet, of the position which Jesus had occupied; and who uttered the words of our text, He is not here, for he is risen? Do they not aissert that Jesus himself appeared to two of them as they journeyed towards Emaus ; and entering into conversation with them revealed himself to them, till they would constrain him to abide with them, and that on this occasion he told them all things which he spake to them whilst he was with them, from the law, the psalms, and the prophets, concerning himself? — a conversation interlacing - with former situations and occurrences, which, at this early stage of the report of a resurrection, bestowed the most dis- criminating opportunity of awakening, by certain criteria, jealousies, or of confirming belief. — Do they not further aver that he appeared to the eleven, as they were in the best con- dition for recognizing who he was — as they sat at meat, all composed, and in readiness, to make just observations? Do they not assert that to a part of them he showed himself af- terwards ; and who durst not now ask who he was — knowing, by their familiarity with him, that he was their Lord? Yea, do they not proclaim that they all accompanied him as far as Bethany, whfere, receiving bis best blessing, they witnessed ^lat naturally to be expected consequence of a resurrection, his ascension into heaven, by parting from them, and a cloud re- ceiving him out of their sight? — Do they not tell us that he remained forty days on eartli after his resurrection, speaking
54 Christ's resurrection.
too of those things that pertained to that kingdom of God which he had instituted? — And by consequence affording many stages of particular interrogation and of recurrence to former times — points, as aheady intimated, of observation that could not by men of common understanding be mistaken. I see, on one occasion, for instance, Peter standing surround- ed by his companions, and I hear Jesus exciting the curiosity, and trying the faith and fortitude of Peter, by alluding to a circumstance of affecting and intricate remembrance, and re- peating it again and again, as he stands an object of the highest veneration before the company, — Simon son of Jonas, lovest thou me?
Yes, christians, the witnesses of the resurrection particular- ly assert, that Christ himself challenged their attention in the highest exercise of its powers in conversation, and also to an examination of those unerring marks, by which they could not fail to ascertain both the reality and identity of his person. He saluted them, i^t is said, saying peace be unto you, and in this calm and fiiendly disposition, he stood before them, and showed them, they say, his hands and his side. Yea, they add, tliat the incredulity of Thomas was overcome, before the eyes of them all, by his compliance with this affecting exhortation, — Thomas reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side, and be not faithless but believing. In a word the disciples have cleai'ly declared that they both had it and improved every opportu- nity of satisfying themselves respecting the fact of the resur- rection of their own great teacher and master, who was so recently crucified; — and who, besides the usual wounds of crucifixion, presented a deep wound in his side, which had been pierced to ascertain whether a member and feature of the deceased would writhe from remains of life in the centre of the human frame.
Our third inquiry was, Is there a sufficient number of wit- to vouch for this great fact, and are these consistent in
Christ's REstTRREcnoN. 65
their testimony? In an affair of ordinary and frequent oc- currence, the testimony of one man of credit and character, about any mat er of fact, is sufficient to procure our assent; but where the case is such as falls seldom under observaticm corroborative evidence becomes necessary. If it be a matter of extraordinary occurrence, and above the course of the common operations of nature, we cannot rely on less than the concurrent testimony of severals. To rest, in such an extraordinary and plainly miraculous instance as that of the resurrection of Jesus, on the testimony of one man, however well his character in every respect for a witness might be established, would evi- dently, in the view of all considerate men, be to incur the imputation of credulity. In estimating its evidence, then, it is indispensably necessary for our own satisfaction, that we know that there is a sufficient number of vouchers to attest this momentous fact. — But respecting this we cannot hesitate. We have the concurrent testimony of the eleven disciples, with many others. These all saw him after his resurrection, they all conversed with him, and they all examined, or saw examined, the wounds of his crucifixion. — It is in vain to say in attenuation of this evidence, that all these have not left us a record of it. The resurrection is attested by all those who have written, both in their histories and epistolary writings, either in express language or in presupposed and granted principles and allusions ; and the other witnesses are often men- tioned and their names particularised ; and would the writers of the New Testament have done this, had they not stated about them an irrefragable truth ? Would not enemies have told them that they were fools and worse than madmen, to par- ticularise -fikssoci^tes whom they knew either not to have exist- ence at all, or to be the very opposite of those witnesses they were affirming them to be? Does not this particularly appear to be the ease, when we reflect that their names are all men- tioned, as for a long time previous to his death attendants of Christ; attendants too, who are all reassembled after hig re-
66
surrection and asserted to be present at his appearances ; at- tendants who remain associated together till they have con- verted thousands that are to read and examine the written assertions repecting the primary witnesses of the great fact of the resurrection; attendants, many of whom are alive, long after the writings appear, and can either confirm or refute the assertions respecting themselves? Indeed it is demonstrable that the case of the resurrection of Christ can never be reject- ed for want of a sufficient number of witnesses to attest it; and whilst all the writers of the New Testament relate the fact of the resurrection expressly, except James and Jude, who presuppose and allude to it, as the ground of all their ex- ertions and writings, — The truth is, that many of these writings of the New Testament are epistles directed to parti- cular societies or individuals ; and so most in con trover tibly lead us to the origin of the New Testament scripture, in the very age in which the facts that are related in them, took place; — and hence, the genuineness of these books, as written by those authors whose names they bear; — a circumstance, which, though not of vital importance, is yet morally certain, and never was even attempted to be denied by infidels in the first age of Christianity.
Is it suspected that the historians of Jesus are embarrassed in their testimony? The scriptures, it must be observed, are supposed revealed for the use of man to the end of time; and, to make it obvious that their contents are written by different hands, it is necessary, that they present not merely a variety of style; but also that freedom, which, whilst it moves free of contradiction, manifests a liberty of choice, by each, of mate- rials, so as to mark his production a distinct production, and worthy of a place amongst the rest. This principle must have been particularly kept in view amongst the writers of the life of Christ; since the taste of men in their own day called for all the variety that could assemble with consistency, in order to procure a perused to contemporary histories of the same
chrkt's bisuerhc^on. 57
individual; and since the jealousy of distant future ages could not be suppressed, without enlisting all the prudence that could make arrangements to scatter the appearances of contrivance and design. You ought to remember that a liberty of trans- lating into their pages, from the great mass of materials that on the field of events lie before them, the particulars which seem to them most proper, and of dispensing with many others, is a privilege which all historians vindicate as belonging unto them. This is more especially the case with those who pro- fessedly give an abridgment only of transactions; and above all, with contemporary abridgers, who all write to be esteemed useful, and to be read. Hence a variety in the narration of the incidents of his life, and of the circumstances attending his death and resurrection, is necessarily to be anticipated in the historians of Jesus: a variety which, whilst it is disentan- gled, must comport with their respective desires to be perused, and esteemed, and with their obvious design of particular dis- tinct histories, and yet all marked abbreviations. The appli- cation of some or all of these principles affords a key to open the most intricate interference among the historical accounts of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.
Much has been objected by infidels to the different relations of the evangelists respecting the supernatural appearances or angels, who attended on the occasion of the resurrection, and who addressed the women that went soon after the moment at which it happened to the sepulchre, and informed them of its having taken place. Thus Matthew says, that there was one angel, that descended, and rolling back the stone, sat upon it; Mark says, that there was a young man, clothed in long white raiment, and in the tomb ; Luke says, that there were in the tomb two men in shining garments; and John says, that there were two angels in the tomb, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, of the position which Jesus had occupied. But, it is evident, that both Mark and Luke suppose their ap- pearances in human shape to spring from an unexpected and
5S chkist's resttrreciiok,
supernatnral origin; whilst Matthew and John speak of their angels as assuming particular positions which a bodily frame only can occupy. Remembering this fact, we have only fur- ther to recollect, in order to see the consistency of their varia- tions here, that the Hebrews, when they spoke of angels ap- pearing in human shape, indifferently called them, as in the case of their famous visit to Abraham and Lot, men or angels f and that in many instances of the mission of angels, there is a chief in the delegation , who sometimes engrosses the appella- tion to himself, and sometimes is only classed with his as- sociates ; as, in the same instances of Abraham and Lot's men or angels, who are again and again mentioned, in the recital of the same transactions, both in the plural and singular number. For, let me remark, there is not the shadow of an incon- sistency in their accounts of the position of these angels at the trnie the women arrived at the sepulchre. The women, it is beyond a doubt, did not arrive till some short time after the resurrection; — a period from the descent of Matthew's angel and from his rolling back the stone and sitting upon it, more than sufficient to permit his removal into the sepulchre; where all the other historians speak of the abode of this heavenly de* putation at the moment of the women's arrival.
But, my brethren, what I would particularly remark to you here is, that whilst, with all of their profession, the historians of Christ exercise a distinguishing prudence in the choice of those particulars they are to narrate respecting its concomitant circum- stances, they all assert, most positively, the main point, the re- surrection itself There is the utmost freedom of heart appa- rent in all their declarations of this, and the utmost ardor shown to present it as the centre around which all their powers of belief are collected and gathered together. No reader of the New Testament can peruse its pages, without seeing that the alleged fact of a risen Saviour, is the call which reassembles his disciples; is the spirit which animates them unto a unity of proposed exertions; is the bond which binds them, in all
CHRISTY'S EESUREECTIOX, 59
regions, with equal firmness to the same cause; is the object wliich inspires them to write of Jesus of Nazareth ; and is the foundation on which they would build the whole of that society they are travelling so far and wide to establish.
Oar fourth and last inquiry is, Are the witnesses of Christ's re- surrection men of moral honesty; and in the propagation of this doctrine are they without ail intentions to deceive? This is the great point now to be established. For if the resurrection is an event possible, and if it may be effected by the cause to which it is ascribed; if the disciples were competent witnesses to ascertain this great, inviting, and prominent fact; if they have declared that they both had and improved every desira- ble opportunity of ascertaining it, by all the unerring marics which a risen friend and master, absent part only of three days, and bearing the green wounds of crucifixion, could present: if as a cloud of contemporaneous and personal witnesses they hive roost unfeignedlv declai'ed that they did ascertain it; — it will follow, if they are not determined to urge an imposition upon the world, that the matter of their concurrent testimony is entitled to our belief, and the rejection of it is highly un- rCvisonable, But how sincere, and fully persuaded of the truth of what they propagated they were, will clearly appear from the following considerations.
Had they been hypocritical impostori?, how could they have given us so many excellent instructions as they have done m their writings? Had they been men of this description would they have been so careful to have their writings so replete with &o many excellent moral precepts and so many pious sentiments ? In this character, could they have exix)sed vice in so odious a light, and have been ever so watchful to drag into view and reprobate, with such a sincere countenance, the ways and mo- tives that conduct unto itf Would such, impossible! have portrayed it in all its aggravated circumstances in their own cases? Could feigned characters have explained so clearly to ii» the reality of the hidden religion of theljeart? Or would
60
they, in a word, have breathed in all their writings such a sa- vor of genuine unpolluted holiness?
But what I have now mentioned I intend as presumptive evidence only, — L bring human nature to bear testimony, by all her possible capacities of acting, to the sincerity of the apostles of Christ. And be it remembered that all I am proving on this head, is, — That the apostles were men of moral hones- ty and had no intentions to deceive. My brethren, had not the apostles been thoroughly persuaded of the certainty and truth of the fact which they propagated, is it credible that such a number of them, after having been so easily dispersed by the melancholy prospect on the cross, would have all reassembled and united to propagate the greatest falsehood that ever was imposed upon the world ; and that every individual of them af- terwards, should, in the midst of the most discouraging difficul- ties and dangers, and even under the arm of death, have continued to assert, maintain and propagate this most palpable falsehood, though little honor, wealth, or prospect of promotion of any kind, could operate to purchase his perseverance? Ne- ver did it happen in another case, tliat even one man, far less a number of men, all at the same time, and about the same affair, were of so odd a turn of mind; so easily attached to a glaring scheme of imposture; and then so stubborn and so de- void of the common principles and feelings of humanity in his dissemination of it; so bold in the face of every enemy, so nn- shackled by the remonstrances of friends ; so ready to tear him- self from the bosoms of the most intimate relations — all to sound abroad a known and fabricated falsehood ; proclaim it too, at the peril of his own reputation, at the expense of that ease which we all ultimately seek; at the risk from daily in- creasing persecutors of his own life, and under those sad anti- cipations of an awful reckoning at last which even the hypocrite must often feel.
Zoroaster, the author of the superstition of the Chaldeans, indeed, maintained some of tJie grossest errors he at first broael>
CSRIST^S REStrRE^C-flON. 61
ed, and propagated them till the day of his death. But in this there was nothing wonderful. He had few and feeble ene- mies to encounter ; the most exalted and powerful princes and nobles, in most of the circumjacent regions, soon appeared upon his side. As a reward of his perseverance, his ambition, his ease, his convenience, his honor, his worldly interest, had all a prospect, daily brightening too, that they w^ere to be ef- fectually consulted. To stand the first man in ecclesiastical matters in all the kingdoms of the east; to appoint laws and ordinances which as lights from his singular wisdom were to be received ; and to behold kings, princes, and magistrates, look up to him for laws, liberty, and instruction, were the pow- erful motives which influenced and led forward the conduct of this ancient and admired chief of the wise men of the east.^ — Besides they were doctrines, not obvious facts, which this phi- losophical individual strove to establish; and great as his mind was, many of his errors might have beguiled him into a belief of their better foundation, either by their venerable parentage for many generations among the nations whence he imported them, or by those specimens of plausibility by which error so frequently imposes upon the greatest of mankind.
Similar things must be said of Mahomet, that false though admired prophet, among the nations which he deceived. This extraordinary man exhibits a mixture often operative though seldom so successful in human nature, of insatiable desires of glory and power, of carnal gratifications and delights, and of religious respects, on the one hand; and on the other, of that wild enthusiasm which creates to itself heavenly nsions, cul- tivates an intercourse with them ; and then devotes all time and talents in obedience to their supposed mandates. Even in some of his alterations and changes of formerly written revela- tions which lead the unreflecting reader of the Koran to won- der at the stubborn impudence of the Arabian impostor, there appears to be no less the operations of a heated imagination, fiauringto itself heaven subduing all inconsistencies to gratify
6*
62 Christ's resurrection.
the desires, and to supply the wants of its greatest favorite, than of that inclination which so visibly reaches forth its hand to turn an acquired exalted station to administer to the tastes and passions, it is known, can now be gratified. A vast fabric has been erected by Mahomet, but its loosely jointed parts are obviously the brood of an imagination which had been active in silence; whose images brightened daily and gathered life upon it; which had returns of those that were most congenial, ' till it bowed in reverence and heard their divine mandates; which led to withdraw into retirement till all was supposed de- livered that was to qualify the legislator ; — and which after suc- cess commanded by other powers and this confidently inspi- red preparation, believed alteration to succeed alteration among his former revelations, in order to reward so prosperous and high- ly favored a messenger of heaven .^I ascribe the success of Ma- homet to other causes than to his wild enthusiasm ; because, in his instance, there were many other causes that evidently operated ; and are, indeed, sufficient to account for all the spirit and fury of his perseverance, although we should suppose that he, as an individual, started from motives of imposture only. The pri- vate fortune of the Arabian, previous to his assumption of the character of the prophet of God, was great and influential : His uncle, who though late in becoming a convert, yet in all dangers of the early part of his progress proclaimed himself his pro- tector, was a great and powerful prince; and could, and did effectually protect him : And he was early inured to warfare, which, it is known, he soon applied to the propagation of his religion ; and the success of which promised always to raise him, and soon did so, to the highly gratifying station of being the prince and priest of his people. Once start the son of Ab- dallah, and every motive that lies within his view points to per- severance, and comes in the lines that will push him forward. — The honor of the last and greatest prophet of God ; the glory of ihe founder of a new religion; the influence which his own cir- cumstances can procure him; the protection that bis uncle
christ''s resurrection. 63
actually affords him ; the spirit which the manner in which he enrols the names of proselytes inspired ; all attest the known principles in human nature on which this great deceiver propa- gated his cause. I ask, is it possible for the common prin- ciples of human action to stop the course which is once bo- gun, bribed, solicited, and steeled to further exertions, as both the early and more late progress of Mahomet's ambition, enthu- siasm, or military renown, is perceived to be? He has great difficulties to encounter, and at length his life is threatened more than once; but by this time he is a warrior; and are not the glancing of arms, the parade of martial order, the noise of musters, the hardships of marches, the dangers of baUle, what breathe, independent of all other causes, a spirit into man, which leads to its own cultivation ; and when the laurels of victory have already adorned the brow, can any thing farther be needful to keep for ever the name of the first captain on the roll of danger?
But, my brethren, very different from the situations no^ described, were those of the continually persevering disciples of Jesus. They could not be mistaken respecting the matter they propagated — it was no doctrine formerly disputed or re- ceived amongst men, nor was it a delusion that could rise by degrees upon their rehgious feelings by the assistances of fan- cy ; it was a palpable matter of fact ; a matter to be turned and examined on all sides by marks that their senses and their rea- son could not mistake. On a doctrinal point, the greatest mind may be deceived, and a single imagination may burst into a blaze of enthusiasm by the images that court admittance into it ; but in the concurrent matter of the testimony of the apos- tles, we have a fact only ; a fact that invites to its examination their reason and their senses; and which, as it is impossible to suppose such a number transported into a trance of enthusiasm in a moment, so it presents none of that unsettledness in which imagination wanders when it loses itself in religious frenzy, but it ties down every power of their minds to a palpa- ble object of observation only.
64
Is it said that they started and pursued their course from the glory of being the founders of a new religion ? An indivi- dual may arise, feel his ambition, and swear undaunted perse- verance from such a motive: — But could a number of men do so? Could a number of men, collected together as Christ's disciples were, and untutored as their education proclaims them to be, do so? Could they rJl agree to remain on the same level, and would never an one of them feel an ambition to out- strip the rest of his companions? Teeming with the vanity of imposing upon the whole world, are these men so profoundly artful that they will never show a shadow of desire to pilfer from one another a portion of that glory which is so dear to them in its divided state? If the disciples of Christ buy the renown of founders of a pure religion at the expense of present reputation, ease, and life, can it be supposed, that these men, these men thus breathing ambition only, would all seek a por- tion, and a small portion only, of the general stock in the firm of glory which belongs to the apostles? Do men thus peaceably trade in the world of ambition, and thus for many years, though in different circumstances and possessed of different talents, yet remain the contented and humble sharers of a general treasury? Can ambition thus content itself, when its zeal has snatched up a falsehood, for the maintenance of the truth of which, against conscience and honor, life is sacrificed, and when after long fatigue in the propagation of it, contentions arise and reproofs are administerd ? Ambition might fire Ma- homet and other individual impostors, with a desire to shine through all difficulties and dangers, the authors of a new reli* gion ; but we think it impossible that this ambition could enter into the minds of so many men at once, and the peculiar aspiring nature of the principle not shoot forth, in their in- stances, into that individual and selfish aggrandizement which it assumes on every other occasion where circumstances can remonstrate so feebly against its most characteristic operations. But why do I reason in this manner? What glory or honor eould possibly accrue to the undaunted and continually per-
Christ's KEstRREcnoN.. $5
severing disciples of Jesus? Was not the fame of Jesus grea* in the world before his disciples entered upon the propagation of their cause ; and was it not as the servants of this renowned master that they encountered their perils and death? Jesus of Nazareth, a man mighty in word and deed, is the confessed author of all the doctrines they preached, the precepts they inculcated, and the ordinances to which they challenged an at- tention ; and before those who then, or ever will, believe them, they are only the immediate disciples of a great teacher that obscures them, and hides them in his shade; whilst before their opponents, they are, and will ever be, the most wretched and vile of characters. — It cannot be from ambition that the disci- ples of Christ enrol in a common cause their names ; travel through all lands, amidst all hardships and dangers; and ever with their life in their hand ready to be laid down as the only stopping place they will allow to their progress.
But is it said that the prospect of worldly protection and ag- grandizement bought their singular and unwearied endeavors? No protection, no emolument, no preferment, could long in the propagation of their undertaking, be expected from the princes ^nd great ones of the earth by those that could not expect them and did not receive them at the origin of their undertaking. The treasures of the rich and powerful never opened to the first preachers of the gospel. Where they staged all the great and influential were already exasperated against them and rea- dy to destroy them for the very name which they proclaimed* And in all places of the world the discouraging faces of want and poverty soon presented themselves as the only supposablfl circumstances in which they could ever afterwards struggle ^^f'ith their cause. My brethren, the whole history of the dis- ciples, and their declarations, in their epistles, before thousands in their own day, who could easily have contradicted them, instead of receiving their statements on this head as the dic- tates of inspiration, show us that the apostles did not act from pure principles of avarice; whilst, let me add, that instead of
66 Christ's kesubrectiojn.
being allured m any respect by the protection of the rulers and nobles of the world, they receive, wherever they show their countenances and broach tlieir cause, scarcely any thing but contempt, insult, threatening, imprisonment, scourging, and death. Men that started from concerted measures of avarice, and schemes of applause from the governors of nations, could not, all, long have pocketed this sheer emptiness of disappoint- ment, and all this catalogue of evils and death into the bargain.
Is it suspected that they were warmed into a forgetfulness of the main subject, by the activity, the promises and dangers of distinct and collateral pursuits? A practice of this nature it is possible to engraft on the principles of human nature. Ma- homet's military glory and activity were quite sufficient, accord*- ing to the laws of human action, to nourish his zeal and perse- verance towards the close of his life, even on the supposition that he commenced his course from entirely different motives. But it ought to be remembered, that the disciples of Christ had none of the activity, the splendor, or renown of a hero, to gather up all reflections to the present moment and impending pressures of futurity; and to make them forget vs^hat was the primary and professed object of their undertaking. Were the disciples impostors, they kept the only thing which could have been the most galling and teasing to their feelings always be- fore their eye; and, wonderful indeed ! they never sought to taste of the least solace under this image of their hyi3ocrisy, in all tho various expedients of human contrivance.
Thus, my brethren, if the apostles were not acting in the cause they propagated as honest men, seriously convinced that what they affirmed was the truth, they all acted a part the most singular and without a parallel in the whole history of man. It proceeded from such motives as no other ever practised upon, and on these motives it was pursued with a constancy of which the most engaging and profitable inducements have seldom furnished us an example. The poor, the despised, the perse- cuted apostles, take up, knowingly and deliberately, a most dis-
Christ's resurrection. 67
reputable and execrated topic, the resurrection of a crucified inipostor; about this they all agree at once- honor does not in- duce them to propagate it, wealth does not bribe them, security does not allure them; on the other side, poverty hangs upon tliem, imprisonments arrest them, awful deaths thin their num- bers, and yet to the last they are zealous and unshaken. Hence, christians, I am forced to allow, that to have thus pursued such a conduct, as supposing them disingenuous they must have done, would have been to counteract, in their instances, in the most violent manner, and for a long tract of time, the constituent principles of action in human nature— on wliich mankind in all ages have judged that men are to act, and which they have never been known in a single instance so far to pervert.
That, however, they were so far perverted by the apostles of of our holy religion I would now demonstrate impossible, by an appeal to the principles of human nature in every man's own breast. Look inwards, my brethren, and examine and feel, if it be possible for human nature so far to divest herself of her common desires, her rooted inclinations, and her ruling propensities? Can you believe that the apostles, plain and simple fishermen so lately, are now these strange monsters which a supposition of design and imposture so preeminently proclaim them to be? Where truth is concerned, indeed, and conscience is about to be injured, there are often surprising and in all other circumstances incredible heroism and stead- fastness displayed by the human mind in encountering and overcoming difficulties and dangers of every kind. A sense of duty braces and fortifies the mind ; and suppresses the rising bent of natural inclination, fear, and self-love,- and thus will keep on the arena the wrestler, whatever enemies he has to engage, and whatever wounds he may receive while life and strength remain. But that independent of this principle, yea, in direct opposition to It, under the uneasiness of a guilty conscience, a number of common men , all as already remarked, at the same time, and
03 Christ's resttrhectton.
about the same affair, should, together with this burden of a mind inwardly dissatisfied with their cause, without any known or assignable operating motive, encounter, during years, every hi- deous form of danger, should see their fellows for the same cause dismissed from the abodes of light, and dismissed by the most dis- graceful and excruciating torments ; should be in prisons and un- der scourges themselves^ and yet no one of them, during fifty or sixty years, should seem to hesitate even in the prosecution of their undertaking; but should, on the tide of years, wax bolder and bolder, and proclaim more zealously their persecuted truth; should swear to it at his own block and on his own cross ; should, with his last breath, obtest the world to believe him, and even to die thus for the great truth the world must receive.— That a number of men, I say, should thus start, and thus for ever act, passes all the bounds of credibility with any reasonable man. Will any bold champions of the infidel world assume any false tenets they please, they may have the most delightful and spe- cious, and let them go progagate them through the nations far and wide; under the scorn and contempt, till the termina- tion of their mortal career, of the virtuous rulers of their own country; a pestiferous nuisance by their' unheard of novelties in the eyes of the learned and great, in all places of the earth; at the expense of every convenience, at the combating of so many dangers, at the loss of many of their own lives, at the daily peril of them all, and then returning let the remainder tell us, that it is possible for human natuie to perform such an incredi- ble and tragical scene as they feign the witnesses of the resur- rection of Christ to have done? In the meantime, we pronounce that their stout hearts will fail them, and that notwithstanding they practise on the principles of emulation, yet, in their in- stance, human nature will declare that she is unable for such a soul-abhorrent undertaking.
My brethren, almost all infidels attack the honesty of the apostles. They seem willing to grant that the fact of the ra- pid spread of the gospel in the first age of Christianity is evi-
CHRET's BJStrREECTION, 69
dence that there were a sufficient number of men proclaiming it ; and they can with no steadfastness assert that the disciples could not most undoubtedly ascertain whether Christ, who had been absent from them only part of three days, rose from the dead. — But the determined deceit and hardihood of imposture of the apostles, they think, introduced that mighty revolution of religious sentiment into the world, which took place eigh- teen hundred years ago.
But 1 must urge this view of the subject which we have been taking. Could, oh! infidels, so many men as were employed obviously from the very commencement in propagating the resurrection of Christ, have been enlisted, by their own volun- tary choice, into the ranks of the propagation of a known and fabricated falsehood ? If there can be in Asia, Europe, Africa, or America, so many, savage or reiBned, learned or unlearned, collected together to thinkseriously even of propagating among the nations, a known fabrication, then, I will venture, oh! enemies of our heavenly bom hopes, to stipulate for the chris- tian world that they will renounce their faitt And I will ven- ture upon another proposal. Supposing so many men to start in any manner whatsoever which exhibits the fact, if each and all of them, for years, wear eountenances of sincerity, speak the very feelings of the heart, and die under the robes of their solemn mockery, then we shall permit these competitors of the apostles to ^tinguish that star of immortal life which the re- surrection of Christ has brought over our world, and to bury in the dust those sublime anticipations which our fashioning like to his glorious body begets. — But till this takes place, we hold, my christian brethren, that the principles of human na- ture, in all ages, and under all climes, is bearing silent testi- mony, solid as the foundations of the earth, and unextinguish- able as is the light of the sun, to the character of the witnesses of Christ's resurrection, and to the divine cause Id which they were engaged. 7
70 Christ's resurrection,
A word more, my brethren. About any matter of fact of importance, all the connected chcumstances have a powerful kifiuence in regulating and confirming our assent. But as connected with every other affair there is no instance in which they conduce so much to the establishment of the main point aa in that of the resurrection of Christ. Could more suitable and worthy ends be proposed to be attained by an event, or could they be better proportioned to its importance, than those \¥h:ich are proposed to be attained by, and are set forth as the equitable reasons of this great occurrence? The redemption of the world, and the government of the redeemed society by him who hath established it, are the dignified and justly pro- portioned ends, proclaimed to be attained by the death, and miraculous resurrection from the dead of man's mediator.
I>o we attend to the circumstances amidst which this event took place? How could Jesus be absent from the tomb whilst soldiers were standing over it to prevent the felonious endeav- ors of former friends, — in any other way than what we have related ? After the affair was over they might easily adopt any excuse for their cowardice or inattention, which their own ingenuity, or the craft of others might suggest. But are they not driven to a most miserable shift, though no doubt they adopted the most plausible, to give their story the least ap- pearance of coloring? The best that they can say is, "His diijciples stole him away whilst we slept." Wise men, who^ though so wrapt up in a profound sleep, that the necessary noise of rolling -back the stone from the sepulchre could not awake, yet heard, and saw, in the midst of this their profound sleep, and remembered and could tell too, with the morning's %fet, the, vei'y conduct and its quality, which the disciples o^-Jesus did lead I — They stole him away whilst we slept!
Do we attend to the consequences which followed? How could tlie belief of a ris^i Saviour have so rapidly diffused itself
Christ's restjrrecIion. 71
on all sides, if, besides the disciples having countenances beaming with ardor and sincerity on all occasions, they had not had an evidence correspondent to the extraordinary nature of the fact they propagated, always attending them? Nations, you know, were subdued at once and kingdoms as in one day, by the power and prosperity of the witnesses of Christ's resur- rection. To what are we to attribute the unexampled suc- cess respecting such an extraordinary cause? Is it not to a birth of miracles which succeeded to the great miracle of Christ's resurrection m the persons of the apostles, who wrote and spike daily of miraclss; of miracles too of the most public and palpable nature, and which could not but be scrutinized by the public in the most particular manner? Did the apostles pro- claim the wonder of the resurrection and ascension of Christ, and then allege their own sufficiency to work miracles, be as- sured that mankind would not admit an imposition to be pat upon them from men of such high pretensions, and in such a serious concern. Enemies in that age of general superstition might ascribe the miracles of Christ and of his apostles, to a malignant cause, and thus might elude the force of the miracl es to produce a conviction in their mind of the truth of the doctrines in a subserviency to which it was alleged thev were performed; but since they never denied the fact of their ex- istence, the certainty that millions were converted by them and always acknowledged their history as even the dictates of inspiration, puts it beyond doubt that these miracles did take place; and that the unexampled success of the apostles was owing to their discerned sincenty in asserting the resurrection, and these prominent and congenial operations which could be produced by their hand. Yes, the power of working miracles, they declared, was in Clnist, their crucified but now risen Saviour, and they said tliey received it from him; and all men are looking to this long contested cause of half a century's standing for the proofs of which it so higlily boasts, and this
72 CSRIST's eesurbection.
is given them till in every quarter the morally lame world arise and walk. — Our faith, my brethren, is in God : For, it is still the voice of heaven which continues, and will to every age continue, through these evidences that are bright as the robe of the angel, to say, respecting Christ our Saviour, He is not here, for he is risen. — Amen.
BISCOURSE III*
ON THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST.
Heb. 1:6. Let all the angels of God worship him.
Many controversies, my brethren, have been agitated m the christian world about matters of little moment. Topics which early education, in a divided state of the church, has engrafted upon our minds, grow up v/ith our years, and, in respect to the greater part of professing christians, maintain a strength either of independent or of associated importance, far beyond that to which enlightened and charitable christians can consider them entitled. In the mind of man there is a strong and operative principle of self-love, predominating more secretly in some than in others, but generally in a higher de- gree in the leaders of parties than in other men ,• and when this principle has been warmed by opposition into action, whatever it has once espoused, must be protected, with equal zeal and tenacity; and thus these leaders, who have always some re- tainers, devote their whole talents and time to subjects which appear indeed to be fairly fought into importance, but which otherwise could never interfere with christian character, with christian duty, nor with christian happiness. The past cen- tury and the present have presented perhaps more instances of the honesty but frailty of the human mind in this respect, than all the ages that have preceded since the christian en. The wrangling of the schools, previous to the introduction of the proper naethod of philosophizing, about being and its propei;
7*
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74 Christ's divinity.
ties, lost itself in airy distinctions which no man could under- stand; but after all these absurdities were banished from purely philosophical pursuits, the church, in many corners, with aw- ful sublimity, held the thunderbolts of her power, her anathe- mas, over the heads of those who could not understand the distinctions of leading men, and who would not speak and act respecting these, as if, in the eye of Providence, they were the sum total of present truth.
But while, with the general voice of the more considerate and pious, we regret that christian fellowship is often embitter- ed or interrupted by a zeal that outstrips knowledge, we can- not agree with some, that all controversy is foreign to Chris- tianity. The zeal of the prophets, the edge of the expressions of the Prince of peace himself, the attitudes of Paul in his fighting the good fight of faith, and the common feelings of all parties of christians, show that we ought not tamely to permit the foundations to be destroyed.
There is no truth, however clear, which has not had its op- ponents. The being of a God, the existence of the material world, the immortality of our souls, the divinity of the scrip- tures, have all been denied : and that some of the most impor- tant truths which are contained in these scriptures would be denied, is what every reflecting man, from the principles of human nature and from his knowledge of its tendencies, would be ready to predict: nor is a continued and determined oppo- sirion to them, any presumption against their truth, any more than a continued and bitter opposition is a presumption that the scriptures are not the word of God, or that God himself does not exist. The being of a God is a fundamental truth iliroughout the universe, the existence of the material world IS a fundamental truth to man that is its inhabitant, the in> mortality of intellectual natures is a fundamental truth to all them who dread annihilation; and the son is not more neces- sary in the centre of the planetary system, than is the light of knowledge, respecting the character of Christ, to his church.
Christ's DiviNiTr, 73
The opponents of the divinity of our Saviour may think tha4 our error is but an error of the judgment, and not of the heart; and, therefore, like other errors of the kind, to be supposed entertained without depravity and ahenation from God: but let us suppose that our side is true, and that this truth is sup. ported by evidence.
We would not restrict the mercy of God, but if he did love us as our views suppose, if our Saviour be as glorious as we believe, if he humbled himself, as we think we see that he did, if he has bound us to his Father and to himself by so many expressions of authority as are scattered throughout every page of his word, and if he has sanctioned all the laws of faith and the covenant of his church, as we understand, by the sanctions of eternal life, and eternal misery, themselves being judges, would they not suppose us more vile, if we did not endeavor to defend these doctrines, than they can suppose the doctrines themselves 10 be erroneous ? Take away the divinity of Christ and that which is necessarily connected with it, his atonement, and is not its very life, in our view of Christianity, destroyed? There are indeed no men who have illustrated the relations of moral agents and who have spoken of the extent and purity of the moral law, to better purpose, than those who believe in the divmity of the Saviour; and there are no men whose lives have been more irreproachable; but take out of their system of re- ligious thoughts, their view of the character of the Son of God and of his work, and you leave them with the whole uni- verse essentially changed; God is not the same, his govern- ment is not the same, their motives to action are not the same, and their prospects are not the same. Of all the controver-' sies that can arise among professing cliristians, there is none that can approximate the singular preeminence of this contro- versy. Though the opponents of the doctrine of Christ's di- vinity rest secure in the confidence with which they entertain their sentiments; yet, they must see, what, we think, from their own familiarity with the Saviour as a mere man, they are apt to
75 Christ's divinity,
overlook in respect to us, That we dare not deny the Lord
who bought us, but must defend his cause.
In deciding any controversy it is necessary that there ho some fundamental principles in which both parties are agreed. Now, in prosecuting this controversy, we declare, that it is our belief, that it cannot be decided, but by the authority of revela- t^on To presume that we can decide it upon principles of natural religion, is to suppose that we know the will of God mdependently of any revelation, and that revelation itself is a superfluity, 'indeed, so obvious is it, that this question must be decided bv revelation, that our opponents seem to concede this to us. So obvious a principle is it that if God be reveal- incT himself to us, he will give a better account of his charac- ter and actions, than we can by the utmost stretch of reflec- tion acquire; it is only after we have lost ourselves m the dif- ficulties of our subject, that we can venture, even implicitly, to deny it. Unitarians do, indeed, insist, purely from the dictates of reason, that it is impossible for three persons to subsist in one essence; but the weight which they obviously lay upon this principle, is to free themselves the more success- fully, from certain views and expressions of scripture with which the Trinitarians press them.
The leading object, brethren, which God has in view in re- veaimg himself to man is to preserve the purity of roligious worship. The adoration of the one God is the first and fun- damental commandment to which all others are subservient; and to guard men against idolatry is the very end for which the prophets and inspired men were sent by that God, who saya that he will* not give his glory to another. Indeed if a religion were to encoifrage idolatry by the whole tenor of its communications, we might at once state, that it overturns its own purposes, and that it cannol be true.
But in all the nations where the religion of Christ was about to be propagated, idolatry was established and rendered endear- ing to the people, by the beauties of poetical composition, by
CHBIST's DIVIXITY. 77
the splendor of consecrated temples, and by the costly rituals on which they were in the habit of attending; and the false Gods themselves whom they adored, sprung up among them from their renowned warriors and legislators. These had all a hu- man origin ; and a revelation was required that would clearly state God's holy jealousy, and mark what characters were to be adored and what it would be blasphemy to worship.
There is no character spoken of in the scriptures, in respect to which, men were eminently in danger of falling into an idolatrous adoration, except that of the Messiah. This char- acter, however, had been so long expected, so many figures of him had been displayed, and so many advantages had been pro- posed to arise from his government, that, when he appeared, if he surrounded his path with a train of miracles, died, rose again from the dead, and ascended into heaven, men could scarce refrain from adoring him.
But, my brethren, if he be only a mere creature, all this splendid train of events in his history, can never entitle him to religious homage, but, in the revelation which is given, calls for precautionary admonitions and w^arnings in every pige not to raise that adoration which belongs to the great God, to any creature however beneficent. The whole of revelation, my christian brethren, instead of suspending the thunders of divine vengeance over the gross idolatry of the heathen, which by the natural progress of society in sci- ence and knowledge, might, in some degree, have begun to totter, and which could by no means stand long before the de- claration, 1 will have no other Gods before me, ought to have directed its energies against this germ of idolatry which grows out of its own husbanding, and which, if not fully and distinclw ly reprobated, will rob God of his glory till the end of time.
But instead of this, what do the scriptures do ? — They begin with the declaration, at the time of the giving the law to Israel, My name is in him, whilst yet this name has been no othev wise explained than by, Almighty God, or I am that I Jifn.
78
When the church was provided with a system of praise, she was taught to speak of him as the Son of God, as God whose throne is forever and ever, and as the Lord to whom it is said, sit thou at my right hand. Isaiah, in the most solemn circum- stances, has to tell us that his name is to be called Emmanuel, and Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, and the Prince of peace. Daniel proclaims him to be the Ancient of days; Micah calls him the ruler in Israel whose goings forth are from of old, even from everlasting; and Zach- ariah pronounces him the man who is God's fellow.
These are extremely dangerous expressions to announce for the regulation of the worship of nations, which, for so many ages, had laid hold upon the slightest encouragement to idol- atry. One would have been apt to think that the God of Is- rael who had chosen a particular people for the express piir- pose of preserving the worship of the one Gcd unadulterated, would, in some way or other, have restricted the tendency of this language respecting the Messiah, so that he might not have been stript of his peculiar glory, by its being bestowed upon another. But what is very remarkable in the revelations of the Old Testament, is, the longer the Spirit continues to epeak on the subject, the more bold and unrestricted is the language used, to press this Messiah forward as an object of adoration. The nations must do him service, and kiss the Son least he be angry, in the songs of their praise; but, at last, he comes to his temple as his own house, and receives the adora- tion to which he who sits between the cherubims is entitled. Behold, 1 will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant whom ye delight in: behold he shall come saith the Lord of Hosts. Mai. 2:7.
But if the writers of the old Testament all conspired to bring forward the Messiah as an object of that adoration which belongs to God alone, let us see how the more clear light of
Christ's divixity. 79
the New Testament directs our conscience upon the subject. Undoubtedly, if Christ be God, he will be worshipped in the New Testament, both by men and angels; but, if he be not God, while very eminent language may be used respecting hmi, yet, the diamonds of the crown of heaven will be guard- ed, so that no one shall wear them, but the eternal and uncre- ated God who alone has a right to have them upon his head. But w^onderful to tell, the very forerunner cannot think himself worthy to stoop down and to unloose the latchet of his shoe; while the ]\Iessiah himself, who reveals his Father, says that he came down from heaven, that he is m heaven, that his Father worketh hitherto and he works, that his Father and he are one, that he hath given him to have life in himself; and while he receives homage from all that offer it. An angel will say lo the most venerable and beloved of inspired men, f am thy fel- low servant, worship God : but when there was the greatest danger of enthusiasm in his cause setting an example which men would forever follow, as Jesus stood the risen Saviour before the disciples, and Thomas exclaimed, my Lord and my God, he took no care to correct the expression, as if it were un- guarded; but, on the other hand, received it, as that to which he was entitled. Indeed, he did believe himself to be enti- tied to adoration, and adoration equal with his Father: for when he was about to call the nations of the earth from their idolatry and superstition, and to bring them under the light of the truth of heaven, he said to his disciples. Go preach the gospel to every creature, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. He will not permit an individual to enlist under his banners, but him who bows in the solemnity of the initiating ordinance, equally to the Father, Son and Spirit; as if to preclude, in future ages, any dispute about the genuineness of this sentiment, TFiere are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one.
fiO Christ's diviniti:.
The apostles and evangelists rise far above the prophets and even Christ himself, in their declarations, that the Son of God is to be worshipped. As the tree of revelation grows and its peculiar fruits look more distinctly displayed to the eye, that adoration, which the apostle emphatically calls the fruit of the lip, clusters on every branch as belonging to Christ. So the disciples in taking the first preparatory step in the great work to which they had been appointed, prayed, saying, thou Lord who knowest the hearts of all men, show whether of these two thou hast chosen; and Stephen who led the way to the faith and devotion of martyrs, said, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Indeed, to the name of Jesus every knee does bow and every tongue does confess, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth. Says our text, let all the angels worship him; and the whole of the heavenly host, in the book of the Revelation, worship equally him who sitteth upon the throne and the Lamb. It is astonishing, in what climaxes of praise, this adoration is presented. Unto him who loved us, and washad us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made ns kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. And every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Bless- ing, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb for ever and ever. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, salvation to our God who sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.
It may be said that it is only a secondary worship that in these passages, by all created existences, is given to the Son of God. But we have no hint of this in all revelation ; there is the same ecstacy when the mind is turned towards him that sitteh upon the throne, or towards the Lamb. , In reality, this inferior kind of adotation, which in the writings of men we find so often mentioned, is nothing else than a figment which
Christ's Divir^iTv. 81
false systems of religion have led them to adopt. We acknow- ledge an homage among men which our manners easily inter- pret ; but that homage which is directed from earth to heaven, must, if there is any meaning in it, acknowledge necessities and dependence on the one hand, and omniscience and infin- ite care on the other. Adoration supposes an actual inter- course carried on intelligibly between the parties ; we confide in a knowledge which at the moment attends to us, and in a care which cannot be disappointed in its exertions for our welfare. The adoration of saints, or angels, or any mere created exis- tence, is the most abandoned rejection of reason that ever su- perstition adopted; for while there are millions in diiTerent places and different situations in the world, who are filling ■ their mouths with arguments, it is supposed, that a mere crea- ture, whose existence is confined to a point in the creation, may yet, like the great God himself, see millions of objects, in different places, all at the same instant of time; and also ef- fectually attend to them. If Christ be not God, those only act a consistent part who intrepidly and boldly assert that Paul and other wTiters of the New Testament often reason incon- clusively, and who refuse all adoration except to the one God the Father. If the Son be not divine, he is not entitled to di- vine homage; — but we apply our reasoning to the case in hand. Christ is worshipped, he is worshipped by m.en and angels ; he was worshipped in the days of his flesh, and is to be worshipped till the end of time. — Such are the clear and re- peated appointments of heaven. Why so? He has the omni- science, the omnipresence, and omnipotence of Deity,
Indeed the great God knew that adoration could not be con- sistently and contentedly given to his Son, by those whose religion was purified by the fountain of revelation, unless his character were presented with the attributes and properties which belong to the divine nature. Hence not only were the prophets commanded to speak of him as God's fellow, as the Ancient of days, as Emmanuel, as the everlasting Father, and 8
82 Christ's divimtv^
God whose throne is for ever and ever; but the New Testa- ment writers were directed to present him, more especially, as God, as having God's attributes, and as performing God'^g works. By their declarations are the lights thrown around us which send off to an infinite distance all the darkness and idol- atry which otherwise would necessarily seem to attend the worship of the Son of God.
We proceed in addition to what we have heard, — Feed the church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood, — Paul, when he began to speak about his Saviour, sometimes became most deeply interested, and his words flowed in the most ecstatic eloquence. This was the case v/hen he was taking a final farewell of the elders of the church of Ephesus; and when, by the spirit of inspiration, he saw the grievous- wolves that were to enter not sparing the flock; and amongst his last words, to melt them, and to gain them, he says to these elders, Feed the church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood. It is supposed that the word, God, was not oiiginally in this expression of the deepest earnestness from the apostle Paul ; because it is not found in a few ancient man- uscripts. But the form of his eloquence which is so fair, is mu- tilated, and its life departs, when we alter the reading, which all the most ancient and authentic manuscripts contain, and which is so like that wonderful expression in his epistle to the Romans, respecting J esus Christ, which he spake as he re- flected on his brethren, his kinsmen according to the flesh: ^' who is God over all, blessed for ever, Amen."
A similar observation is applicable to that language, Great is the mystery of godliness, God was manifested in the flesh ; where it has also been stated that an unhallowed hand of inter- polation had been successfully employed ; and to the celebra- ted passage in John's first epistle. There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one. The anti-trinitarians imagine no ju- dicious critic would be willing to allow a place to this last
CHRIST''s DIVCflTY, 83
passage, in the page of inspiration. This much we must re- mark, that what they tear out obviously leaves a chasm ; while, it may be asserted, that the trinitarians have never, in fact, been detected in the very act of amending the originals of rev- elation to aid their argument, whereas tlieir opponents are by no means scrupulous, in laying their hand on the sacred originals, and erasing from them every text which their ingenuity may suggest to them probably to be an interested amendment. It has been alleged that we alter scrip-^ ture; but on the evidence of experience, and as opposed to gratuitous suggestions from our opponents, we hold that we are immaculate. The trinitarians need not be afraid of the curse of God, ^' Whosoever shall add to this book, to him shall be added the plagues which are contained therein ;'* for though the whole of their ranks were reviewed there will not be found a single name that actually has been detected in offer- ing the strange fire. But on the other hand, my brethren, the unitarians never make a new translation into any lansur.oe, or give to the world an edition of the originals; but you hear them grumbling about innumerable passages as of doubtful authenticity, and tearing out others with as much confidence of their being spurious, as if they could refer to some histori- cal records of the impious alterations. There have been some of their belief in every age since the christian era, and nearly equally without scruples about erasing what is particularly dis- pleasing; and hence it is a thing necessarily to be expected, that some passages, which are supposed to enter vitally into the controversy between us and them, should be <ioubted, and that others should be discarded.
But there are, my brethren, by the New Testament writers, as a proof of his divinity, the attributes of God , ascribed to Christ : eternity in these words, « In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God:^ uncharge- ableness in these, « before Abram was I am; I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last:" omnipresence in these, « irf) ! 1 am
84 Christ's divinity.
with you always:'' omnipotence in these, " upholding all tilings by the word of his power :" universal dominion in these, "all things are put under him, and there is nothing which is not put under him, God the Father f;xcepted, who put all things under him :" and sovereignty in these, " for as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom he will." — These attributes of deity are, indeed, more frequently implied than expressed. So, where it is said, that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us; that God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law; who being in the form of God and thought it not robbery to be equal with God, made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant; and though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, we have an evidence that pre- existence is predicated of him, and that it was by a sovereign act of his own, that he assumed our nature and appeared as our mediator. When we see him acting on the principle in the days of his flesh, that he knows what is in man, and when we now behold him in the administration of his universal kingdom, sending the angels as ministering spirits, superintending the faithfulness and love of his followers, examining their wants and advocating their cause, his omnipresence necessarily ap- pears. And when we reflect that the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son; there is so obvi- ously omniscience required to fit him for this station, that one might say, solemn as is t^ie general judgment in itself, and so- lemn as it is presented in revelation, accounts after all must be settled, if he be a limited creature, without knowledge either to condemn or acquit. A judge who is to bring into judgment for every thought and for every secret thing, who is to try the heart and the reins of the children of men, can be no other than the omniscient God.
But there are divine works which the New Testament as- cribes to Christ. He is the creator ; " and without him was not any thing made that is made," « For by him were all things
t!fiRIST''s DIVINITY. 85
'Created that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and in- visible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principali- ties, or powers, all things were created by him and for him." — The first of these expressions is found in the beginning of John's gospel; and as Matthew and Luke had both written before John, and given an account of the lineage and birth of Christ according to his human nature, John will follow some- thing of their manner, and present us^ not with the history of the child born, but of the Son given; and so the Word is in the beginning with God, is God, without him nothing is made that is made; but afterwards he becomes flesh and dwells amongst us. What imprudence in the beloved disciple, if Jesus be only a mere man, after the prophets had spoken so unguardedly, after Christ himself had said so much that might be followed with the most dangerous consequences ; and after Paul had settled it, by the character of his writings, that he was to be received as God over all blessed for ever, amen, to commence that book, in which he was to bring forward Christ's expressions, about coming down from heaven, about being in heaven, about being before Abraham, about having life in him- self, about being one with his Father, in which he w^as to be addressed by, my Lord and my God, with such an introduction as he here makes ! The very words which he uses are applied to no created existence. The man who was born of a woman , who had flesh and bones, and was crucified, retires, in these introductory conceptions of John, from all created forms, and appears, — what is he? — the word of God, in the beginning with God, yea, God, and all things are made by his hand. In John's conceptions, his Saviour, though he becomes flesh and taberna- cles^among men, is originally, no other tlian he who dwells in light inaccessible and full of glory.
But as he created all things so he upholds them. In him all things consist; He upholdeth all things by the word of his pout- er.— If these expressions were spoken respecting tlio Father, their philosophy and sublimity would be marked by oui- oppo-
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nents and presented as an argument for the divinity of the scriptures, arising from the sublimity of their language. In- deed, while the expressions are inimitably sublime, I must re- mark, that it is blasphemous to refer them to a mere creature. Let us try the last of these expressions as appropriated to cre- ated energy. The construction in which the words lie, forbids their application to God the Father. Whom shall we bring forward with such a fountain of power and with such a facility of communication? Shall we imagine them appended to Moses or Elias, to Paul, or to the angel Gabriel? — The words suit not any creature . They remind us of that omnific voice, Let there be light, and it was.
But it may be said we fill the scriptures with mysteries, and militate against philosophy. But such is our case, my breth- ren, we cannot avoid mystery . The greatest mystery of all to me would be, since it must be so abhorrent to revelation to present a mere creature as God, since it would be so easy to establish the truth on this subject; and since there was only one character mentioned in the whole scripture that men were eminently in hazard of being beguiled by, that, instead of the truth being told about this character, the very reverse is not only alluded to and stated in innumerable passages, but it is interwoven with the whole plan of the divine government, and with that salvation, as scripture would seem to state it, which is bestowed upon the meanest of the saints.
The alcoran is an honest book compared with the bible; for there the distinction of persons in the one godhead is rejected: reason is a better guide than revelation ; for she has a greater prospect, by the light of science, of dispelling the clouds of superstition ; and of all things in the universe, that are inapt to accomplish their own ends, infinite wisdom has been the least successful in guarding her own honors.
For, my brethren, Christ will be believed to be God, and will be worshipped, till the end of time. In every age almost all who have read the scriptures, believe that it is stated in them.
Christ's divinitt. B7
that our Saviour is God. There are some exceptions, and a few of these are men of very considerable talents and learning ; but they are not more than we would expect to meet with in this part of that great field of controversy which encompass^ the paths of men.— The operations of Providence, my brethren, are translating into all languages the original books of inspira- tion ; they are carried into all lands in the hand of those servants who have the most august view of their Saviour's character; who cannot utter the word salvation without connecting it with an omnipotent procurer ; and who, as if to confound the philosophy that would lay a hasty hand upon any portion that has fair claims to be considered a part of inspiration, triumph- antly bear along those passages which criticism has supposed that she has expunged. The world, at present, has something of the christian activity of the days of the apostles; but it is all under trinitarian banners.
We know there are many objections started to the divinity of Christ; some founded on the supposed absurdity attending the doctrine itself, and others arising from what is said in scrip- ture about Christ's inferiority to the Father. We acknowledge that we cannot comprehend the doctrine of the trinity. It is a mystery far surpassing the comprehension of man. But so is eternity, so is self-existence, and so is omnipresence. Yea, so is almost every thing in nature : The principle of the attraction of cohesion, magnetism, and gravitation, the connexion between mind and matter, and the manner of perception of external objects. It is but little we know of ourselves or all that is around us; and we may surely grant that when the eternal, self- existent, and infinite being, reveals himself, there will be something about his purely revealed character, that will as infinitely transcend our capacity, as do his eternity and im- mensity in his natural character. But, my brethren, if we can reason in any respect from analogy, the absolute simplicity of the divine existence, both in nature and in personality, is not recommended to us by any thing that exists. There are certain
^ Christ's divinity,
elementary substances, simple and unmixed in themselves, but they always coexist in nature with other elements to make up the actual unities which creation presents. TThe light of the sun has several primary rays, the particles of heat have not all the same degree of refrangibility, the air has three elements in its composition; water, though so like an unity, is made up of distinct substances, every vegetable has three elements, every animal is composed of matter and the principle of anima- tion, and all the stones which form the great body of our earth, are formed of several primary elements, which cannot be sepa^ rated without breaking up the very properties which are so distinct and have been so permanent. The elements of the divine character, are, indeed, transcendent in their distinction and union. All other things being created, their unity arises from tlie combination of distinct natures ; but the godhead, being uncreated and eternal, there is only one simple element of nature in it, and the distinctions, different from all other beings, arise from the form of subsistence : a mystery unlike to any thing else, and which men always degrade and injure when they would attempt to explain it, or to place it on any other foundation than the dictates of revelation,
Christ is inferior to the Father as mediator. In this charac- ter he is his father's servant, he is clothed with human nature, the Word is made flesh, the Son of God is born of a woman, he that was in the form of God puts on the fashion of a man, he grows in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man, he is hungry, he is weary, he rejoices, he weeps, he prays, he complains, he suffers, he dies. When we join the company of the Son of man there is nothing within the whole circle of human duty or privilege which we do not see him perform. That he should say, his Father sent him, that he does not d^ his own will, that he can do nothing of himself, that his Father is greater than he, that the Father heareth him always, that he could send his angels to strengthen him, that he is an heir ander hira, and that at last he will surrender his kingdom to
Christ's DiviNirr. 89
him, are expressions which he ought to use, and ideas which he ought to repeat and vary by every form of lan- guage, to let his true character be known, and to explain the circumstances of his history as they really took place. Nothing can be more astonishing than that the adversaries of Christ's divinity should insist on the innumerable statements in scripture which present Christ as inferior to the Father, when we grant, that, although it be clearly and fully stated that he is divine, yet, the general line of the whole business of the mediator, was to act on earth as man, and to state what were llie results of his acting in this character. The unitarians in laying hold of one side of Christ's character and denying the other, remind us of the modern Jews, who, to reconcile the prophecies respecting their Messiah both suffering and reign- ing, imagine two Messiahs, the one tentative and unsuccess- ful, and the other persevering and triumphant. We believe tliat both characters meet in the one Messiah; that Clu^st both suffers and reigns,- but his sufferings are correlative to a state of humiliation, and his dominion is correlative to a state of exaltation : and we believe that his character qualified him for even the extremes of both these states. As man he was born, as the Word he was in the beginning; as man he was laid in a cradle, as God he was worshipped there; as man he grew in wisdom and in stature, as God he was the same yesterday, to- day and for ever; as man he was tempted of Satan, as God he said. Get thee behind me, for it is written thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve; as man he was baptised in Jordan, as God he kept the fan of vengeance in his hand thoroughly to purge his floor; as man he walked about the regions of Galilee, as God he called his disciples and said to them, I will make you fishers of men; as man be was wearied and sat on Jacob's well, as God he told the wo- man of Samaria all that ever she did ; as man he attended the marriage at Galilee, as God he turned the water into wine ; as man he was hungry, as God he fed five thousand on a few
90 Christ's divinity,
loaves and fishes ; as man lie wept at the grave of Lazarus, as God he said, Lazarus come forth; as man he was in agony in Gethsemene, as God he instituted the sacred ordinance of the New Testament passover; as man he expired on the cross, as God, when in death, he wrote a charter for life, and rose tri- umphantly over death; as man he was seen ascending, as God he made good his way, leading captivity captive; as man he is our forerunner entered into heaven, as God he is heir of all tilings; as man he presents the sacrifice of himself within the veil, as God he sits on the right hand of the majesty on high, angels, authorities, and powers being made subject to him; as man he is the head of his body the church, as God he reigns in Zion, and has all things put under his feet.
But while there are two distinct natures in Christ they are united in one person. This is my beloved Son in whom 1 am well pleased. He that ascended is the same that descended, first into the lower parts of the earth, and then ascended far above all heavens, that he might fill all things. For he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righte- ousness by that man whom he hath ordained. Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.
Two natures and one person in Christ: — A mystery again! But it is a mystery not like that of the trinity, where the divine nature alone is concerned; it is a mystery, which, as the properties of a creature are connected with it, comes recom- mended to us, by all the individualities of organized existences in the universe; all are unions of diflTerent natures. All or- ganized existences derive their perfection and are adapted to the end of their formation from the combination of elements that are dissimilar; and Christ's character is adapted to the accomplishment of the great work which was appointed to him, by his being the omnipotent and adorable creator of all things, and by his being man who is both capable of sufiering and of dying.
chbist's divinity. 91
We would not have Christ considered to be God by all men. The infidels, who deny the authority of his religion and who acknowledge that Jesus of Nazareth did exist, and gave origin to that religion which bears his name, can consider him in no other light than as a man, artful, eloquent, success- ful, and revolutionizing. The Jews themselves are in every respect greatly excusable, if he was only a mere man; for be- fore them he pertinaciously adhered to language which they understood to claim divinity, and made himself undoubtedly in their presence equal to God. Indeed his whole ministra- tion was criminal, and polluted their land, their city, and their temple, if he was a man only. Moses, their lawgiver, was afraid to speak in his own name, and always bespeaks the ear of piety, with, The Lord spake unto Mose.:. saying; he trembled at the introduction of idolatry, and said. Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve. Their prophets had no other spirit than that of their great law- giver. But Jesus had no scruples of introducing idolatry among them, and of condemning them to the fire of hell if they refused to follow him. Ye believe in God, said he to the Jews, believe also in me. For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son ; that all men should honor the Son even as they honor the Father. But Jesus answered them, my Father worketh hitherto, and I work : therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him ; because he not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.
Our Saviour, my brethren, is not to be blamed for forming a contrast to Moses and all the prophets in their zeal for the glory of the God of Israel. Revelation is all of a piece as it respects Christ. It is a great army of prophets, of priests of the most high God, of princes, and of seers, collecting to- gether, under the Old Testament dispensation, to destroy the mouldering idols of idolatry, and yet to place, permanent as
92 Christ's divinity.
is time, and unfading as is tiie sun, an object before men, clothed in all the attributes of human nature, to be adored. The New Testament takes up the determination received from so many voices, and at the very first begins to add every fea- ture that can awe imagination and instil hope. Wise men worship, and angels sing, glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, and good will towards men; the mother nurses in Bethlehem him whose goings forth were from of old, even from everlasting, and of whose kingdom there shall be no end ; and Zacharias prophesies to the infant John, and thou, child, Shalt be called the prophet of the highest; for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways. The whole disciples, listening to his claims and attending to his miracles, by sea or/^nd, on the mountains or in the valleys, keep up the sound of adoration. Lord save, thou hast the words o^ eternal life, Lord thou knowest all things, thouknowest that I love thee. My Lord and my God.— The universe, my brethren, is startled and does homage when the moment of the fulness of time arrives.— The sun looked on the death of Moses as a common occurrence, of Abraham, of David, and of Isaiah. Though perhaps some of these \;vere sawn asunder, the earth felt no commotion, the graves maintained their silence, and the veil of God's temple knew no violence. But this is no common death, it is not the death of an inspired legislator, of a prophet, of a mere friend of God; for the sun is darkened, the earth shakes to its foundations, the graves are emptied by the entrance of the breath of life, and the veil of the temple is rent from top to bottom.— And this strain of adoration, and of homage, which, from the beginning the world has circula- ted from age to age, the disciples of Jesus adopted, and ^yherever they went they taught the knee to bow to the name of Jesus. And the christian world have bowed, and will for ever bow: for our religion should either be discarded as blasphemous and idolatrous, or our mediator ghould here-
93
ceived as truly divine, the brightness of his Fathers glory, and the express image of his person. Yes, my brethren, for the great God, and the Holy Ghost, if Christ be only a creature, is chargeable, immediately and directly, above all others, with overspreading our world with this blasphemy. The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee, therefore, that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called tlie Son of the Highest. If this lan- guage was to signify that the Ancient of days was appearing among men, it was a beautiful and well timed expression which announces that the thing which was born, though seemindy insignificant, was the Son of the Highest ; but if it was to signify that human nature was a more immediate effect of divine pow- er in Christ than in other men, and so exalting him to divine honors; it was an expression, which is like the tongue of sin- ful man, an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. For, my breth- ren, no creature, angel or archangel, though new from the hand of God, bright as the gold dropt from tlie furnace which formed the hinges of Milton's gates of heaven, can be entitled to any of the peculiar honors of Deity. — The opponents of Christ's divinity speak highly of the morality of the gospel ; it is pure and untainted, say they; a peculiar blessing to our world; but if morality, in any point of view, respects the rela- tions of the creature to his creator, the principles of the scrip- tures and their expressions, if Christ be a created existence only, are what overturn the very foundations of that moral order which is supposed to support the pillars of the divine govern- ment throughout the universe, and give to it its sublime char- acter. Yes, if other worlds are like ours, if God hath revealed himself to them, and told them that all the angels around his throne worship one who has been born amongst them, and that they must worship him; that they must use expressions in their nK)st solemn language, of him being the Lord of all, in whom all things consist, and by whom all things were created in beaven and in earth, the universe, which is so fair, and the 9
94 Christ's DivmiTr,
perfection of whose physical form is so absolutely finished^ has been, and by its creator himself, turned, in all its moral in- habitants/into perpetual idolatry. The most polluted of all systems of morality is that which dresses up a creature by names, attributes, works, and stations, to appropriate to itself the homage of the Eternal, and which states that all this is the doing, through ages and generations, of God himself.- — —But enough !
Revelation is the covenant and promise of God. Its propo- sitions may contain mysteries, but cannot inculcate blasphe- mies. They may humble the pride of reason, but they cannot mislead devotion.- — All is well. — Thou Lord Jesus in the be- gmniiig hast laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the works of thine hands; they shall perish but thou re- mainest, and they shall all wax old as a garment, and as a ves= ture shalt thou fold them, and they shall be changed; but thou art the same and thy years shall not fail The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen.
DISCOURSE IV.
CHRIST'S SUFFERING WITHOUT THE GATE,
Heb. 13: 12. Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with hi^ oicn blood, svffered without the gajte.
A STRIKING adaptation, my brethren, to all their intended relations, subsists amongst the works of God. Every object in nature is exactly suited to the circumstances of its condi- tion. The beauty and wisdom of its m.aker are fully perceived only when its relations are considered. Not an object in the natural world undisturbed by the injurious hand of a sinful agent, but smiles on the prosperity of all those with which it is intimately connected; these bear the same benign aspect to those that environ them; this circle the same to that which en- compasses it, till the immense fabric of the universe stands ar- rayed in the utmost exactness of harmony and order. In the providential dispensations of God the exact subserviency of eventtoevent, of series of operations to mighty evolutions, of predisposed circumstances to what are to fulfil them, gives us the same view of the boundless symmetry established in the divine operations. Do we survey the kingdom of grace, coq- sider it in the predictions and types that, in the first ages of the world, and particularly under the Jewish economv, bore a re- spect to the displays and realities of New Testament times, still we are led to admire the correspondence of one thing to another, and to say of God's works, in wisdom he hath made them all
96
What has suggested this introductory train of ideas is the view we take of the subject of discourse we have now read to you, as we have considered it, not merely in its connexion with tlie immediate context, but as a constituent part of this admi- rably arranged, and beautifully constructed epistle. This text, we suspect, is often read without the mind being led into a just view of all those points of exact correspondence, to which, in that delicate and copious contrast that the author must be supposed triumphantly to consummate in this epistle, the dis- tinguished station of this text towards tlie close of it, and its character as the last touches he puts upon his perfect picture, must be supposed to conduct the mind of tlie more attentive and reflecting.
In the preceding part, my brethren, of this epistle it has been sliown, That every high priest taken from amongst men must offer both gifts and sacrifices unto God : That the Aaronical priesthood did offer botli gifts and sacrifices, which, however, could not make him that did tlie service perfect as pertaining to the conscience: And that Christ being come, an high priest of a greater and more perfect tabernacle, did obtain eternal re- demption for us. Already, by the writer of this epistle, have these three points been regularly adverted to, and fully de- monstrated.
What, then, the relations of our text lead us to ask, is the reason of the apostle's returning here towards the conclusion of his epistle, in the midst too of his impressive practical ex- hortations and injunctions, to a subject, all the parts of which, he hath already apparently exhausted ; and in what manner does his contrast of the sin-offering of the Jews, and sacrifice of Christ here, illustrate, still more clearly tlian has yet been done in preceding points of comparison, the harmony of the system of truth, exhibited first in a shadowy, and tlien in a real manifestation? Is it true that the apostle has no higher motive for returning to a subject, to which he has done so much justice, than, as some commentators would appear to main-
WITHOUT THE GATE. 97
tain, to account for the literal fact of Jesus' crucifixion without the gate of Jerusalem?
When I meditate on the relations of this text; when, in par- licular I look into the commandment mentioned in the prece- ding verse, and which is the hinge of the apostle's argument here; a commandment which I recollect their law expressly enjoined upon the Jews,— to burn the bodies of their sin-offer- ing without the camp of Israel; I see I cannot add to this re- collection, a view of Christ's crucifixion on the desecrated ground where the anathematized suffered their accursed death, without convictions arising, that many have neither fully ex- amined the typical system of ancient sacrifices, nor the admira- ble and connected structure of this epistle, the design of which is to illustrate to Hebrew converts the doctrines of Christianity, by leading the mind through the whole field of their own pro- phecies and ceremonies of worship, while every prophecy is* placed by the side of its own event, and every type is read in the light of its own antitype.
If my text, however, my brethren, be the marrow of this won- derful epistle— if this epistle collect into a focus all the scat- tering rays that presaged the rising sun of righteousness— if the whole of the loose tints that wandered: on the dark shadows of the patriarchal and Mosaic economy, be collected into the cloudless noon which warms and fills us with life, as we read it— and if my text be to the epistle, like the divine light, that at his conversion, emerged, brilliant as the sun, from the noon- day that surrounded the author of it, what abilities are ade- quate to the task that is now before me? Who can travel through the lines of its relations; show it in all the bearings of its respective parts; and do justice to the general sentiment which the proposition conveys? This text, oh God, leads us to interpret the principal emblems thou sawest proper to insti- tute previous to the fulness of time; to investigate the extent of the efficacy of the great sacrifice of the New Testament; and to establish from tlie treasures of revelation, the general senti-
9*
P8 Christ's suffering
ment which is here so prominently propounded. Thy grace, oh God, is sufficient for us; and under thy direction I would first, investigate the import of the respective clauses of this text; and then, secondly, demonstrate the general truth which it declares.
We begin our inquiries by ascertaining tlie import of th8 dause which the immediate context presses upon our notice, — For the bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp : Wherefore Jesus suffered without the gate.
In a preceding part of this epistle, let me remark, we are ex- pressly informed -that Christ, who is here said to have suffered without the gate, was constituted a priest, not after the order of Aaron, but after the order of Melchisedec. Now both Aaron and Melchisedec, we have seen, must be supposed to offer both gifts and sacrifices; and Melchisedec's oblations being merely typical as well as Aaron's, could make a typical atonement only. What then is peculiarly taught us in this epistle by Christ's being made a priest, not after the order of the former, but after that of the latter?
Aaron was the priest of the Jewish nation only, but Mel- chisedec, who lived four hundred years before the Mosaic economy, and to whom Abraham the father of circumcision paid tithes, was absolutely a priest without respect to any pai^ ticular people, and adumbrated Christ as the Saviour of the Gentiles no less than of the Jews. Had the high priest of our profession sprung up under the order of Aaron, as the Le\'itical priesthood was appointed expressly for the Jew- ish nation, whom God had chosen from amongst all the na^ ;.ions of the earth to be, for a time, a separate and a peculiarly sanctified people, none could have obtained salvation by Clirist but the Jews only. In the steps of divine providence which led the church through all previous changes and ripened her for the fulness of time, Egypt aijd her first born, at the epoch of the passover, strictly represented tlie world deserving
WiTHOrt THfi GATE. 99
God^ wrath ; and the children of Israel, whose first bom were saved by the atonement of the paschal Lamb, and in whom all the rest of their brethren found protection, strictly represented the members of the true church ; and Aaron and his sons, who were chosen to officiate to a people so separated and sanctified, could not widen the circle of their relations beyond the de* finite character of their original call, and that end to which the people for whom they were appointed to minister in the priest's office, had been so especially separated. The sons of Levi were not shadows before the vision of sinners of mankind sim- ply, of a Saviour to be revealed, but they were types of this great cliaracter, under the circumscribed relations of that cove* nant which separated them and their people from the accursed nations immediately represented by Egypt ; and which placed themselves and their people, as it were, in a city of refuge, till the death of their priesthood, and the cessation of their obla- tions take place at an appointed time. To the Levites,, indeed, for whom to be his own, God released the first born to the com- monwealth of Israel, — the first born whom he had had a right to destroy, but whom he had admitted to be exchanged for the Lamb of the passover, tithes are appointed to be paid by all the tribes of Israel, as an evidence that it is from the blood of atonement they have a right to live ; but while all Israel ac- knowledge their dependence upon the priesthood, the means of their reconciliation to Deity, in the tenth of the increase of their hands ; yet, these very characters themselves occupy their preeminent station in Israel, only by substitution in the room of the first born, the heirs of the inheritance of Jacob; and even on this ingrafted stock where we see them, they them- selves must acknowledge, that they are only the interior arch of that great rainbow, which to the world at large was an emblem of the real priesthood and atonement for sin. And, as I may so say, Levi also, who received tithes, paid tithes in Abraham : For he was yet in the loins of Abraham when Melchisedec mel hitn. Melchisedec before the eye of mankind sinners standi
100 Christ's suj?fering
arrayed in absolute relations ; no nation in respect to him is an emblem of our world, and none presents a people separated for bis peculiar ministrations; his lineage is not marked on any re- cord; his office does not date its origin from any epoch of time; its exercise is not cut off by predictions and decrees that scatter the people whom he serves from the sacred eminence he and they occupy; — " He is without father and mother, without de- scent, having neither beginning of days nor end of years; but made like unto the Son of God, abideth a priest continually."
But, my brethren, if Aaron officiated not in the open world, but under the cover of a restricted economy; if this cover be a"ected not by his own performances, but by the blood of that sacrifice which a particular people, under a previous protection from divine predictions and promises, presented each family for itself; it is obvious, that his sacrifices respected God, not in his absolute character of governor of the universe, but of go- vernor of a peculiar people by positive institution : And hence his sacrifices, that were formally sin-offerings, could not, from the very nature of relations, be admitted to the eminent station of absolute and formal emblems of the great sacrifice for sin- ners of mankind.
If these observations be well founded, then, it is obvious, that though, on the one hand, our apostle hath already shown the inefficacy of the blood of bulls and of goats, and the sprink- ling of the ashes of an heifer, to purge the conscience from dead works to serve the living God ; and, on the other, the efficacy of the death of Christ to obtain eternal redemption for us ; yet he hath not exhibited the true character of the type, as contrasted with the antitype in the formal sin-offerings of the Jewish economy, whose blood on the great day of atonement was carried into the holiest of all, and whose bodies were burnt without the camp.
My brethren, an offering for sin that is in every respect per- fect and accepted of under a typical economy, must not only haye it3 blood carried into the figure of heaven, or holy of ho-
\\TTHOUT THE GATE. 101
lies J but the priest and people themselves must eat of it, and live upon the nourishment it is supposed to yield them. Of the peace-offerings and burnt-offerings of the Jews, so distinct throughout their divine ritual in character from the sin-offerings, the priesthood and people could eat; and their blood being sprinkled before the vail, they could thus behold in them an emblem of a perfect sacrifice, though not before the governor of the world, yet before that merciful God who had, in relation unto them, left, as it were, his seat in heaven where he views our world as such, and had entered with themselves within the circumscribed circle he had been pleased, by the blood of the paschal Lamb, to draw for them. The blood of these peace- offerings and burnt-offerings, however, never could venture in- to the holiest of all, because the first tabernacle being yet stajid- ing, — the tabernacle of the priesthood and people of Israel, — no sacrifice could be a feast even ceremonially whose blood should dare to meet the eye of the Eternal, beyond the contract- ed canopy under which he had condescended to reside with them. Hence, says the apostle, in the 9th chapter of this epistle, " Now when these tilings were thus ordained the priests went always into the first tabernacle, accomplishing the service of God; but into the second went the high priest alone, once every year, not without blood, which he oflfered for him- self and for the errors of the people; the Holy Ghost this signi- fying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, wliile as the first tabernacle was yet standing." — The Jewish tabernacle in its two apartments of Holy and Mosl Holy, admitted of being interpreted three ways : As an emblem of heaven and earth; of the church militant and church triun> phant; and of the circumscribed and indefinite economies of the dispensation of God's grace. Considering themselves as sinners, and God absolutely holy, the first view, and thai through which all the rest are happily perceived, that they can take of the tabernacle, is, that in which they see in the first ta- bernacle, the peculiarity of their own separated station ; and in
102 Christ's suffering
the second, the Judge of the world yet hiding himself from them. Yes, at the era of the erection of the tabernacle God withdraws from the world at large, and dwells in the holy camp of Israel; at the termination of this dispensation he breaks down the wall of peculiar~separation which he had built, and on the theatre of the world calls, Ho! every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters and drink; and when he shall have gathered the subjects of his kingdom from the four winds of heaven, and placed them on the thrones of glory to which he has destined them, then will he connect himself to these his creatures by an im.mediate dominion ; and the Jews, who as a people related to their tabernacle were only cerem.onially sanctified, as they interpreted this tabernacle itself, could see im- mediately in it, nothing but the figure of their own happy privi- leges, and a representation of privileges upon earth that were yet beyond them; and through these glasses they could con- template the real chQrch militant and triumphant; and, imagin- ing the veil to be removed, even the absolute kingdom of the Mediator surrendered up to the Father.— But, is it said, that the high priest enteredinto the holy of holies ? He did so once every year: But it was m the character of the representative of God's firstborn, who, in Egypt, in the night of their sanctifica- tion, had been cerem.onially redeemed to be, till the wall of par- tition then erected were cast down, a peculiar people; it was with the memorial of the passover he entered; and by his enter- ing in this manner, he was permitted, as his dispensation was of a restricted and temporary nature only, to view, once every year, the station from which God had condescended to choose the Is- raelites, and to which afterhehadservedhispurposes with them he would return; the station from which he addresses mankind sinners in the privileges of the dispensation of mercy ;— that dis- pensation which applied to the sinner changes his character and nature, and clothes him with the garments of salvation; — those garments which in the kingdom of heaven will be eternally the pure and white robes of the saints.
WITHOUT THE GATE. 103
But if the blood oftlie sin-offering on the great day of atone- ment be only a renewal of the passover, and in this relative sense only, an atonement for the high priest himself, and for the errors of the people, what difference, we are led to ask, is there between the original passover, and the sin ofierings on the great day of atonement in the Jewish constituted economy? The original passover was a formal sin-offering, its blood was sprinkled towards the naked eye of heaven, on the door posts and lintels of the door, and the people all eat of it. Out of the original paschal Lamb was begotten by a new birth the person of a people, that as a vine was to be planted in a fruitful land : and which, though changing often individual leaves, and often torn and broken in its members, was yet to grow till the great husbandman should clear the ground for another more pure and promising stock. The Levitical sin-offering of the passover, on the other hand, never could beget a new people: it could only raise into immediate view the primary fountain from which their life sprung • and calling their faith to this, year after year, it was a means, in its character of reminiscence, of washing from ceremonial defilement. Christians, every Israel- ite had as much a ceremonial, as every real christian has a spiritual new birth ; and his character of born of God all flow- ed from that blood of atonement that was the basis of the Jews' peculiar economy, as the christian's new birth all issues from the great passover at the fulness of time; and in their con- stituted economy, the memorial of their passover was a means of daily washing them, as our remembrance of the death of Jesus in our New Testament supper, is a means of our puri- fication.
But if the sin-offering on the great day of atonement must be viewed, not as a formal pattern, before the sight of heaven, like the original passover, of the great sacrifice for sin ; and if it is not to be viewed, like the burnt-offerings and peace-offer- ings, as real patterns shown for their instruction and comfort^
104 Christ's svttbhtsq
to a peculiar but already reconciled people, how, let me in- quire, since its blood has entered into the holiest of all, does it discriminate itself from all other sacrifices?
Here, I beg your attention to the fact that the variety of sin- offerings which on the great day of atonement was first pre- sented, and being a memorial of the passover, took off, from the original deed, a copy of its privileges for that year, and so paved the way during that period of time, for their bornt-offerings, peace-offerings, and ordinary siii-offeringg^ tJiough consisting of bullocks, rams, goats, and lambs, was in effect only one offering. Remembering this, we have only to add farther, that while all other sacrifices are erablem.s of a real purification from sin, either in the open world, or to a pe- culiar people within the circle of their separation; yet, the offering in question, will support neither of these characters. During the encampment of the children of Israel in the wil- derness their camp encircled their privileges, whilst all without it was unhallowed ground ; in the desert, it represented Ca- naan, in the world ; and on the altar that was in the midst of their holiness they saw the fat of their sin-offerings laid by the consecrated sons of Aaron, but it is thoroughly consumed, while the fire is yet unsatisfied : for over the heads of the offerers^ breaks a voice which pronounces them unclean, and drive3 tiiem, with the remainder of the offering, from the holy ground oai which they stand, into the profane world, and there the fire is rekindled and burns till all is destroyed. The bullock-, the sin-offering, and the goat, the sin-offering, whose blood was brought in to make an atonement in the holy place , shall one carry forth without the camp ; and they shall burn in th© fire their skins, and their flesh, and their dung ; and he that bumeth them shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in wa- ter, and afterward he shall come into the camp. Lev. 16.
But we will analyse another instance of the Levitical sin- offerings on the day of the commencement of the ecclesiastical
WITHOUT THE GATE. 105
year of Israel. The scape-goat makes an atonement for Israel ; but this is in the same lot with another which has been slain - whose blood has been sprinkled towards and upon the mercy seat in the holy of holies ; and whose hide, flesh, and dung are burnt without the camp. What is the import of this wonder- ful manner of oblation on the great day of atonement? Does not this machinery of expiation show us, that, though the blood of the latter has been admitted to renew the memorial of the passover, and to afford for a moment protection to the representative of Israel, while under the darkening cloud of in- cense he views, on the day that recals the origin of their economy, the glorious character in which God originally chose them- yet, the blood which he scatters around him in the em- blem of heaven, having served its present purpose, loses all efficacy; the guilt, which was supposed buried for a moment, rises from under it ; this being all Israel's is thrown back upon them ; and there is no way of their being freed from it, but by the happy institution of the other ceremonial sacrifice, that, without attempting to expiate it, carries it, on its living head, into the wilderness? The scape-goat is a type of the Messiah, as it is generally viewed, only, in as far as it is a ceremonial atonement for the sons of Jacob in the city of their refuge ; but, in as far as it is the winding up of that offering which, in its complicated process, has touched upon the eye of Deity as he sits upon the circle of the heavens, it proclaims to the Jews, That the offerings of the children of Israel are of no avail ; that the moral relations of the people, notwithstanding all their of- ferings, are still the same : It says, ye peculiar people, ye race already sanctified, may be saved, to all the ends of your sancti- fication ; but the moral character of man — the world and all that dwell in it, are yet absolutely guilty. Yes, my hearers, the representative of the first born of God in Egypt, did slay his offering and was permitted to view the formal emblem of heaven annually; and by this review of their original privi- leges to refresh the spirit, renovate the vigor, and purify from 10
t06 Christ's suFFERiJfG
filth, for the passing year, the whole ritual of the Jewish na- tion ; iie was permitted to reconcile the holy place, and the tabernacle of the congregation, and the altar: But yet every time he finished his service he might liave cried out, " We need a greater and more perfect tabernacle, one not of this build- ing.'* Looking around him^ this high priest might have ex- claimed, oh ! ye sons of the promise, we have not a perfect image even of a sin-offering. — I perceive that the blood of our sin-offering which is permitted to reach the mercy seat, and to remain there covering our guilt, while 1 stand for a short space on this day, as the representative of the sons of Jacob ; yet, as soon as my presence withdraws, the guilt that seemed buried, rises from under the temporary shadow; and that we may find safety, it must again be transferred to another offering whicli bears it away into tlie wilderness, the located emblem to us of an accursed world — where it abides, never expiated by blood And. moreover, the whole original sacrifices, instead of affording any communion v/ith God and with one another, are consumed in the same world of our sinful nature. As the sons of a promising God, the seed of Abraham, the children of the birthright of Jacob, as a people ledeemed by God at a marked period of time, I see, indeed, that God does admit our sacrifices for sin, to renew, for a few moments^ the paschal sacri- fice, through which, from every one's own hand, God originally sanctified his people to himself; but while this is the case, the ceremony breaks av^ray among my hands, and, just having announced our positive economy and the privileges which it free- ly contains; it escapes from our view, like an image in a dream that changes and moulders away while we contemplate it. To behold a perfect ceremonial sin-offering from the hand of "a priest separated from among the people, and sanctified to his office, as I am, it is necessary to look without the orbit of our restricted economy, it is necessary to look into the wide thea- tre of the world itself, where guilt in its naked character ap- pears ; and to see presented there a sin-offering whose blood
WITHOUT THE GATE, 107
has been accepted of by God, and whose flesh feeds the people that offer it. Yes, children of Abraham, to explain our sa- crifices which have not merely a typical character, but as con- trasted with sacrifices previous to our economy, have this char- acter particularly modified according to our subservient dis- pensation, I must tell you, that the law of our sacrifices must be interpreted by a connexion with the history of our religion. When we sing the Lord hath sworn and will not repent, thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchisedec— Mel- chisedee who blessed Abraham and all us in him, — then, and then only, do we see that great high priest, and his sacrifice that in the accursed world, is a perfect emblem of the great sacrifice for sin.
Guiding our thouglits, my brethren, by the discriminating principles of this epistle — that every high priest must oiier both gifts and sacrifices unto God, and that Aaron's priesthc-;d v/as cerem^onially inferior, and included under that of Melchisedec, we have, in some measure, illustrated our prospects, and are now ready to telJ you, that this doctrine is the subject warmly presented in our text and context. When it is said in the 9ih verse, tliat it is a good thing to have the heart established by grace, not with meats, which hav:© not profited them tliid have been occupied therein, it is obvious, that by meats the apostle intends sacrificial meats, and that his aim is to convince us, that all the sacrifices of which the Jews could eat were such as presupposed their God already reconciled to them and were not strictly sacrifices of expiation or sin-offerings. For it is im- raediatelly subjoined, verse 10th, We have an altar whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle. This was the altar of sin-offering; an altar which though materially the same with the altar of burnt-oflferings and peacerofferings, had yet a peculiar character as related to the sin-offering, and consumed all the marrow and fat that was imposed upon it, without pro- ducing, on the great day of atonement, a sweet smelling savor nnto God; as, in the common sin-offerings, and tlie offerings of
108 Christ's suffering
ignorance, as well as the burnt-ofterings, the peace-offerings, and the drink-offerings, on the same day, and ail the other festi- vals and dedications, and in the daily sacrifice was produced. This altar, the 11th verse shows us, yielded the honor of per- fecting an emblem of expiation, and leaving priest and people under ceremonial defilement, saw them carry off to a clean place without the camp of Israel, the remainder of that sacri- fice, its virtues could not sanctify. " For the bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin evei7 year, is burnt without the camp." Failing within the circle of their sanctification to produce a savor of a sweet smell, the sacrifices of the sons of Jacob are tried on the open theatre of our world, and all that we can learn from these sin-offerings is, that though the God of Jacob be pacified, the ruler of the universe is yet offended, — absolutely offended — that his wisdom and jealousy demolish the very shadows of a sin- offering.
But although the Israelites durst not eat of their sin-offer- inas, and although in the open world they were entirely con- sumed, and both in relation to them, and to tlie condition of the scape-goat, their sin is yet crying for vengeance; yet, our apostle informs us, that we have a right to eat of this altar of sin- offering . Melchisedec, who blessed Abraham in the character of priest of the most high God, has offered his emblems of ex- piation, and in the world of mankind he maintains the charac- ter of king of righteousness, by the perfect acceptance, as it is supposed, of his sacrifice, and as the relations of his priesthood, a perfect image of the eternal priesthood of Jesus Christ, de- monstrate; and the apostle now exhibits to our view the great antitype of this priest, that was made like unto the Son of God. In our text we are called to behold Jesus, the substance of all predictive forms; Jesus who has taken from the head of the scape-goat all the sin of the true Israel it ever bore into the wil- derness; who has carried it back to the seat of the ineffectual sacrifices of the sons of Jacob; and who, demolishing entirely
WITHOUT THE GATE. 109
their whole restricted and emblematical ritual, by a legislative anathema of your house is left unto you desolate; then stands on the bare bosom of our accursed earth, on that station that had been so long awaiting him; and on this station of our open world he purifies the things of heaven itself by his blood, and he gives us his flesh to eat. " Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people w^ith his owm blood, suffered without the gate." Yes, thou, oh! Jesus, a priest, not after the order of Aaron, but after that of Melchisedec, wast, on the scene of the death of persons excommunicated and anathematized from the peculiar people that God had chosen, subjected to the fire of tlie ^vrath of the Judge of the spirits of all men, which no sa- crifice could ever endure; and on this accursed scene, thou didst endure, sustain, and exhaust it: like the bush, which was a figure of thee, and which grew in an unhallowed region, except what its own light and heat consecrated, burning and not con- sumed.
Having authoritatively revoked their subservient economy, and thus having also by his death redeemed the faithfulness of God that had been pledged under the emblems that had been shown to the Jews of a real sacrifice, as well as having fulfilled all shadows that ever prefigured him,— is it not with propriety, my brethren, that the apostle continues the subject, and urges the improvement of this great prospect that he has opened in the world at large on them, who by a wall of separation, had been so long preserved a peculiar people? He has just been telling the Jews, that in the dispensations of God, their emblems have passed away, and that now they are come to Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to the church of the first born, to God the judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to tlie mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel: to beseech them, therefore, to leave their camp, the image of it, and to enter into the city itself, is what is to be expected. Hence these subsequent verses — Let us therefore go fortli
10*
] 10 Christ's sufferixg
unto him without the camp bearing his reproach, for here we have no continuing city of abode, but we seek one to come. — The blood of Abel, my brethren, being the first that was shed in our world, stands, in our apostle's reasoning, opposed abso- lutely to the blood of Christ; it opens a mouth of vindictive justice, Vv'hich has blown from the field of truth the sacrifice of Melchisedec and left only the mystery of his names, from which to learn the extent and formalities of his office, which has held the first born of Israel for ever forfeited unto God, and which has consumed the sin-offerings of Israel's peculiar economy as a standing testimony that God is a consuming fire : But while Christ vindicates the propriety of instructing the world by those mere images that divine justice tears asunder in the history of its procedure, he does yet take upon himself the whole task of opposing the fury of divine vengeance, and his blood speaks better things than the blood of Abel. Hence follows this ex- clamation of the apostle: By him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lip, giving thanks to his name.
But against the general view of the subject which we have exhibited, it may perhaps be objected, that we place the Jewish types in such an inferior station among the emblems that God had appointed to prefigure Christ, that we invert the order of a gradual increase of light and privilege till the fulness of time. But, it is obvious, our view militates against this idea in the clearest and most forcible manner. The introductory econo- mies that God had established in our world, as already hint- ed, were pure expressions of his free and sovereign grace; the limited or unlimited nature of them, might have been changed or continued according to the divine pleasure. Nothing can be more erroneous than to suppose that the Jewish economy was capable of being formally repealed only in the death of the Saviour of the world. Had it not been for the prophecies that carried down its existence till the fulness of time, this restricted and positive econemy, might, at any time, have been as sover-
WITHOUT THE GATE. Ill
eignly revoked as it had been freely instituted. Being indeed, established upon divine promises and predictions as the last typical dispensation, it was indispensable that it should con- tinue till tlie Messiah arrived ; and containing real types and shadows which he alone could fulfil, this Messiah must be said to have nailed it to his cross, since in this way only could forms be displaced by their substance; but considering the economy by itself, it was the subject of authoritative establish- ment or revocation only. Jesus nailed to his cross all pre-ex- isting shadows, as well as those in the Jewish economy; al- though, this being the last typical dispensation, and containing the privileges of all previous times, and many pre-eminent excel- lencies of its own ;— privileges and excellencies, however, that the world at large might have forever enjoyed, but which were sovereignly bestowed, for the wisest purposes, upon a peculiar people,— it is said^ in relation to this people, that as the Sun himself arose and dispelled all shadows, the wall of their separa- tion disappeared. The Jews from the epoch of their deliver- ance from Egypt, represented, by the peculiarity of their privi- leges, the world, as it had once been placed under a dispensation of mercy ; and all the rest of the nations are viewed, during this period of time, as under the region and shadow of death; and when the light that is the fulfilment of prophecy and prediction is now about to visit the long abandoned nations, Jesus dis- pels the shadows of the world, dispels them from under the re- stricted and particular pavilion under which they had been all grouped together; and breaking down thus a partition wall that a particular dispensation had erected, he gives to the world the realization of all types, and those privileges they once enjoyed, but which had been long withdrawn from them.
Remembering, then, that the world in every age had had figures of Christ, we see clearly, how the Jewish economy was inferior among the types, and yet its privileges must be con- sidered an advancement on the scale of light and privilege in the dispensations of God. A perfect figure might easily have
112 CHRIST^S StJPFERI^^G
been mistaken for the reality. But while the Jewish burnt-offer- ings and peace-offerings were shadows that, under their restrict- ed economy, taught them the true relations of a formal sacrifice for sin ; while the blood of these was sprinkled before the vail, and they themselves eat of the sacrifice ; their sin-offerings that ventured to purify the representation of heaven itself, the abode of Deity by his presence, his law, and his yet covered mercy, taught them, in the most practical and convincing manner, that the blood of bulls and of goats could never take away sin. The ordinances of all previous types were merely sovereign and admirably adapted methods of teaching mankind, in the first and rude ages of the world, the fiict of a real atonement; and the machinery of the Jewish economy in its ordinances of expiation merely, was prominently superior to all previous in- stitutions, reflecting the shadow, though not the formal image, of a sin-offering, and also proclaiming in the most pointed man- ner the worthlessness and insufficiency of them all. "For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never, with those sacrifices which are offered year by year, make the comers thereunto perfect." A perfect image of a sin-offering once presented and formally ac- cepted by God, would ceremonially have forever taken away all conscience of sin; and as there could be only one offering by Christ in making a real atonement, so, had the sin-offerings of the Jews displayed a perfect image, they could have been only once presented ; the majesty of equity would have forbidden the presumptuous ceremony, that attempted to appease, what "was already pacified. The Jews' sin-offerings were only the shadow of an image, they were only the remembrance of sin once every year; of sin, which though expiated ceremonially in the original passover, was yet morally unbroken and untouched, and which cried annually before them for that vengeance which it merits. The law, as well as reason, or the inspirations of the New-Testament, enstamped its seal of imperfection upon its own methods of expiation ; Its usages suggested to our
WITHOUT THE GATE. 113
apostle, what his reason, and the spirit of inspiration, so power- fully urge in these subsequent words, " For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers onoe purged should have had no more conscience of sins : But in tliose sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year: For it is not possible that the blood of bulls, and of goats should take away sins."
Thus we have illustrated our first object, — we have shown what is meant by Jesus suffering without the gate. And the sum of our remarks is, That a leading object of this epistle is to convince us that the Jewish dispensation was confessedly a restricted and subservient economy; that it never in its priest- hood and sacrifices formally typified Christ; and that wlien Christ offered his great sacrifice it was as the antitype of M^l- chisedec; Melchisedec who was priest of the most high God, and who blessed Abraham and filiated to his sons tlieir right of priesthood; Melchisedec who officiated without a respect to any people, and adumbrated Christ as the Saviour of sinners of mankind; Melchisedec who directs the eye to our Saviour in the open and accursed world — without the purlieus of the Jewish sanctified economy — without the camp of Israel — without the city of Jerusalem — on Golgotha the scene of the death of the excommunicated and cut off from ancient Israel. — Here Paul has shown us that Christ trode the winepress alone, and tliat of the people there was none with him.
Neither is our view of the subject idle speculation. It il- lustrates in a wonderful manner the absolute purity of God, and his perpetual jealousy of his honor; it shows us that the practical ceremonies of the Jews, as well as the prophecies, proclaimed, that the Messiah respected in his office, not any particular nation, but the world at large; and it leads us to trace the free dispensation of mercy, its offices, and its bless- ings, to the point in history, where we see Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation, elevated above the temporal, and shining by the spiritual promises that God made to him ; promises that of
114 CHBIST's SUFFEEING, &C.
themselves were worthy of God, and justified the propriety of eaacting and establishing those that were temporal emblems, and subservient to their manifestation. In a word, it frees the New Testament dispensation from that influence which the economy of circumcision is so apt to exert over the spiritual body of the redeemed. In respect to the external character of the New Testament church, we are taught that we are to re- gulate it, rather by what prevailed previous to the Mosaic economy, than by the usages and practices of that subservient and evanescent dispensation; that as Melchisedec blessed Abraham as the temporal ally of Sodom and in the open air, ^ our New Testament churches need no consecration like posi- tively separated materials of ceremonial worship; nor is the kingdom of Christ to be viewed as necessarily connected with those temporal supports that upheld, on a particular spot of our earth, for a limited period, and for a subservient purpose, the material fabric of ceremonies that adumbrated it.
DISCOURSE T*
THE PEOPLE SANCTIFIED BY CHRIST'S BLOOD.
Heb. 13:12. Wherefore Jesus also, tlurt he might sanctify the'peaple with his own blood, suffered without the gate.
The second thing, my brethren, that in the explication of our text demands our attention, is " the people" to sanctify whom Jesus suffered without the gate. Who are those that are here called " the people?" We are still presented with typical language, and language that is immediately drawn from the Jewish economy. Because of their separation to God and of their enjoyment of his institutions, the children of Israel were called, m contradistinction to all other nations, the Lord's people.
When Abraham was called to sojourn in a strange land, and when tliis land became his own by the charter of a divme promise, a seed, to spring from his loins like the stars in hea- ven for multitude, was planted upon it; this seed was guarded through the generations of Isaac and Jacob; and both from their original separation, and this guardianship to preserve them from intermixture with others, did the Israelites enjoy the appellation in our text. Afterwards by G od there was given unto them a law which still more particularly distinguished them, and separated them from all other nations. Not only did the rainbow of a faithful promise silently surround and en- close them, and a law incorporate the variety and singularity of their privileges; but miraculous providences further pro
116 THE PEOPLE SANCTIFIED
daimed their character; while living prophets. correcting their tendencies to deviation, and stimulating their endeavors to maintain that eminent and happy station above all people to which God had been pleased to exalt them, uttered, from generation to generation, the most unequivocal voice. Hence, on the records of the Jewish nation we have evidences that while all other nations are considered, not as the Greeks and Romans viewed people of other regions under civil barbarism, but under a religious degradation; they themselves are the chosen and sanctified people of God. Thus Isaiah, when prophesying of the Messiah, says, I will give him for a cove- nant of the people, and a light of the Gentiles.
The name, Sons of God, however, was known in our world long before the promise of a holy seed was made to Abraham as the father of the Jewish nation. The worshippers of the true God obtained this appellation even in the antediluvian world. Hence, when the promise of a seed was made to Abraham, it was that he should be the father of many na- tions,— intimating, that as he alone was particularly chosen as the person in whose family the worship of God should be preserved, and from whose privileges the visible church should derive her character and deduce her history; so this character and history, although eminently characteristic of his own liter- al offspring for a time, yet would at length diffuse themselves over a wider field, and show that the God who had chosen Abraham, was the same God, who had spread the rainbow of his promise over the sons of Noah. Yes, Abraham , as has been demonstrated, is blessed, not by a messenger who re- sides within the circle of his own family, but by the priest of the most high God as he dwells in the world at large. Hence, all the prophecies and predictions that are made to the chiU dren of Abraham according to the flesh, lead them to remem- ber, that, in the great plan of God's mercy, of which at]present they display the only visible part, they are only a very subor*
117
dinate wheel, which, in performing its revolutions, will neces- sarily bring into view the rest of the machinery that is all compacted and jointed together with it. Consequently Ra- hab and Babylon, Tyre and Egypt, Philistia and Ethiopia, arc, though present enemies, yet received in the mouth of prophecy, and hailed with the lips of praise, as people of the future joy- fu-l privileges of Zion. The wilderness and solitary place change their appearance before the Jews and grow into the richest verdure. As the sun of righteousness arises, they in- vite the kings of the earth to advance, and behold his glory.
On this principle Jeremiah, a prophet of the Jews, declared, After those days I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant which I made with your fathers, when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt ; but this is the covenant that 1 will make with the house of Israel, after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. True Israelites were under the Jew- ish economy purified and sanctified by the spirit of God, as well fas saints are under the New Testament dispensation. Hence this prediction, which our apostle quotes three times in this epistle, was not intended, in its primary and literal ac- ceptation, to teach, that in New Testament times, God would sanctify men internally, nor is it applied for this object in a sin- gle instance in this epistle. The object of it, defined and in- terpreted by our apostle, is, to convince the Jews of an ulterior and spiritual dispensation to which theirs was introductory, and in comparison with which it was material : a dispensation before which theirs would vanish away, and which in its own attributes would ultimately and permanently sit down the gen- uine form of the worship of a spiritual society. After ih.o apostle, in the preceding chapter, has illustrated the priesthood after whose order Christ is constituted to his sacerdotal office, he, in the eighth chapter, produces this prophecy, to teach the 11
II B THE PEOPLE SANCTIFIED
Jews, from their own scriptures, the designed abrogation of their former dispensation, and the inspired fact of a new cov- enant : and while the names of Judah and Israel are still used in speaking of this new dispensation j yet, these titles, so en- dearing to the ears of Israelites, obviously widen their em- brace and exalt their dignity, by designating the spiritual in- stead of the literal seed of Abraham.
Thus the people for v/hom Jesus suffered without the gate are they who enjoy the privileges of the dispensation of mercy. Their character is relative to the priesthood of Christy who was formally typified by Melchisedec, that priest of the most higb God who blessed Abraham, and through him the Jewish priesthood and people; and after their subservient economy, the people of every kindred, tongue, and nation, that are called to be the spiritual seed of this great progenitor of the faithfuL It would be the common, but a lame view of the subject, to suppose the objects of mercy under the New Testament dis- pensation interested exclusively in the happy character of those people for whom Christ suffered without the gate of Jerusalem. The Jews, while ceremonially distinguished from the people who enjoy the happy privileges of the new covenant^ or dispensation of the gospel, yet, had under the cover of their ceremonies, spiritually and morally the very same offers and calls of mercy that we enjoy. Their ceremonies, we have al- ready remarked, were merely methods of instruction J and im- plied, as obtaining at tliat time, a spiritual and moral dispen- sation, of which they were the material external expressions. When we answer the question then, who are the people for whom Jesus suffered without the gate? we must reply, all that have enjoyed the dispensation of his grace since the first prom- ise on which it was founded, and all that ever will enjoy it till the end of time.
But here we must ask, did Christ suffer promiscuously for all to whom an offer of his gospel is made? And let me ob» serve, that we are expressly informed that there is one God and
BY chjiist's blood. 119
one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. This decision of holy writ shows us that the character of me- diator IS relative to mankind sinnei-s, and not to the sovereign and immanent acts of Deity, I\Iany divines in order to estab- lish the definite satisfaction of Christ for thoso only who ulti- mately obtain salvation by him, have appeared, either to shun, or very slightly to pass over, all that the scripture declares re- specting the formal relations of our Mediator's character, in- stead of considering it as correlative to sinners of mankind, they have put out of sight the law to which he was made sub- ject, and have expressed themselves as if the decree of election were the rule formally of our Saviour'^s obedience.
But many passages of scripture make it obvious that it was human nature that Christ took upon him, and that it was to the law of this nature he yielded his obedience. " Verily he took not upon him the nature of angels, but he took upon him the seed of xA.braham.*'' Every gradation of intelligent being has a law founded in the comparative principles of its own nature in the great scale of existence; and this text of scripture demon- strates that while it was the law of God that Jesus obeyed; yet, it was not the majesty of Deity, as it appears in a law ne- cessarily concreated with the angels and suited to their grada- tion of being, but this majesty, as it appears in that law which was concreated with man, and founded in the peculiar princi- ples of his nature. Hence says another passage enstamped with the same authority, He was made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might leceive the adoption of sons.
If I understand many divines, they consider Jesus as acting tinder a law peculiar to himself as Mediator; correlative to the supposed dignity of his person as God-man, They reduce the form of his character from the dignity of Deity, and elevate it far above humanity; whereas, if I understand the scriptures, the Mediator supports two forms of character, — the representa- tiye of God towards us, and the representative of man towards
120 THE PEOPLE SANCTIFIED
God ; but, in no instance, are these distinctive features of his character coufounded in the discharge of his office, any more than are his natures in the constitution of his person. No, the person of Christ is one, and can in relation to its actions be viewed two ways only — as God, or as man. As God, how- ever, it is obvious, he can be the formal subject of no law. Hence it must be as man, that he is considered as our acting Mediator, in the achievement of the work of our redemption. The form of his character is that of man ; that he may repre- sent man, and that he may reindenmify the rule of justice that man had broken. It is, indeed, a truth that the Mediator is God as well as man, and that both the nature of God and the nature of man, meet essentially in the constitution of his me- diatorial person; but the light in which the Son of God the Father's servant, not by a delegated authority of headship over all things, in which sense he is the Father's representative majesty and glory to us, but as he is viewed a subject of law, of the law founded essentially and immutably in the principles of our nature, and as he is viewed under the authority of this law accomplishing our salvation, he is the man Christ Jesus.
Now relative to this view of the Mediator's character, it is obvious, that ths satisfaction of Christ must be viewed as in- definite. Omniscience is not the prerogative of man, nor a perfect knowledge of the secret purposes of God. Accident- ally to the character he is now actuating, the Mediator may in- deed have a restricted and definite intention in his death ; but to make the formal object of man's Mediator, as. he sustains the character of a creature composed of flesh and blood and limited intellectual powers, to be the stamp of an immanent eternal purpose of God, and not the penalty and precept of the immutable law of man's nature, is to invert the unequivocal language of the Spirit, " Secret things belong to God, but those that are revealed to us and to our children." Neither does it alter the matter to say his divinity might have made revela- tions of the particular persons that were to be saved to his
iBY daRlsf^S BLOOD, 121
bumanity ; for we are not now speaking of the natures of Christ, and what his human nature might have been accident- ally endowed with, but we are speaking of the character which in law the Mediator sustained, as by suffering and obedience he achieved our salvation.
From what I have said it would be inconclusive to infer that the satisfaction of Christ was absolutely indefinite. It was in- definite in reference to the voice of the law that called for it, luid in reference unto the aspect of the character which the Me- diator, as mane's representative, turned to this law : but he who planned the universe, and knows the end from the beginning, is concerned about the business of our salvation, and we must not only consider it as correlative to tlie character of the Medi- ator, but as related to the omniscient and alkperfect Creator. Now here, it is undoubted, that both in the mind of God the Father, and of God the Son, who is the first-born of every creature, by whom are all things, and for whom are all things , as well as he is our Saviour, there are and must be, among tliose under the dispensation of grace, a definite number in whose stead Jesus stands. God sees the end from the begin- ning; and as in revelation we are expressly informed, that there were a certain definite seed, whom God the Father gave to his Son in the covenant of peace between them both, to be redeemed by him ; so for this seed and this only, did Christ, as before the eye of his Father, suffer. That God thus knew the end from the beginning, and that he left many to perish from an act of his sovereignty, were, we further remark, subjects of revelation, and objects of man's knowledge: hence Christ as Mediator knew that there was an election that was to be saved, and that he as their Mediator represented this election — that it was their curse that he endured and for them alone that he obeyed. These are things we know; but we do not know the particular persons whom God placed in the election; neither is this the prerogative of the Mediator — in any view of his char-
11*
122 THE PEOPLE SANCTIFIED
acter as Mediator, far less as man's representative; — but his prerogative as he is the great and omniscient God. Pre- science and omniscience are not predicates of man or of man's representative, but of the eternal and omniscient first cause of all things, — as he is viewed, too, as this first cause.
Nor does this view of the subject militate against the death of Christ being considered as a procuring cause of particular redemption. Christ's death is definite — first, in relation to the divine purpose — secondly, as it is an estimated price by suffering, for them whom God hath chosen, and who are known to himself; — himself who cannot subject to a greater or less degree of ignominy and affliction, than his sense of justice and knowledge of all things and their qualities, will lead him, in the station of righteous judge, to express : and being definite in these senses; it is so, both as related to God as his mind views the subject in his purpose or intention ; and as it is a price of redemption given to him — given as he himself a righteous judge exacts and gathers it till justice is satisfied: but it is not definite as related to the preceptive will of God, and as the divine intention runs along the line of the law which pre- scribes to him his duty, and guides God's Son, in the charac- ter of his Father's servant, and as our obedient and suffering surety.
An attention to the simple distinction now made, we think, would necessarily, among all who allow of the absolutely per- fect character of God, and his absolute knowledge of all things, put a stop unto disputes about the definite or indefinite na- ture of Christ's satisfaction. Viewed simply in relation to the character of man's representative and Mediator, it can be no ■ nore definite, in the nature of moral relations, than man can be supposed possessed of them, and suited to exercise the pre- rogatives of prescience and omniscience; but viewed in rela- tion to that mind which from eternity has had an absolutely perfect view of its works, their properties and relations; and
BY chrkt's blood< 123
viewed as a price estimated by God, and taken by his own hand that must do right, it is as absolutely definite, as God's character is perfect, both in knowledge and holiness.
We are aware that the view which we have just taken of the people sanctified by the blood of Christ, has been considered as destroying that freedom of will which, it is supposed, all the commands, promises, and threatenings, of revelation necessa- rily presuppose. But it ought not to be forgotten that the character of God is of that perfect kind, which, while it neces- sarily involves a mystery in its connexion with all its works, yet is never to be robbed of its essential and unalienable pre^ rogatives because of such an inscrutable mystery. Matter is extended, and its different globes roll at immense distances from one another, and God is coexistent with all of them— he is present every where; and yet, he who is a pure spirit, in this omnipresence, certainly has no relation to our ideas of ex- tension. No, here is a mystery, respecting the divine na- ture, equally impenetrable with the mystery of self-existence itself.
The connexion, however, between God and his rational creatures no less overwhelms our capacities of comprehension We cannot know how the absolutely perfect God sustains our mmds every moment, and comprehends all their motions and actions in his infinitely wise plan from which all things have originally sprung, and of which the least atom or its move- ments form a definite part; but we must acknowledge that it is equally possible for God, mysteriously indeed to us, to connect himself so, according to his character of absolute perfection, with immaterial and rational agents, and yet to leave unim- paired the distinctive properties of their moral nature, as it is possible for him to be every where present with material crea- Hon, and yet to leave to it the properties of extension and figure. That we act freely is a dictate of consciousness, and that we are accountable for tliese free actions, is a dictate of conscience— the highest authorities from which our reason can
124 THE PEOPLE SANCTIFIED
receive testimony; but how we are as necessarily dependent creatures, to reconcile this freedom of action and this account* ableness, with the relation in which the all-perfect, intelligent first cause, stands to us, is a matter that we can no more ac- count for, than we can account for God's ubiquity, and coex- istence with figured and extended matter : and it is equally unphilosopbical and unreasonable to dispute the former as to deny the latter. From everlasting God in absolute perfection looked through the whole system of his creation, and saw all things in themselves and their relations; beheld every wheel turn, and the influence it produced on every other; saw all acting, and each in its own sphere and on its own points of contact ; — till both in material and immaterial things, the great drama of nature, which God had planned, even to the least particle that enters into its composition, or ray of intelli- gence that illumes the dark material pillars of the great fabric, closed its actings.
From what we have said, it is obvious, that under the ex- pression, " the people," in relation to the external covenant which subsists between God and man by the great high priest of our profession, and as sprinkled with his blood in the privileges that invest them, all those, as already remarked, to whom the call of the gospel has come, must be supposed inclu- ded. The blood is the blood of Jesus an high priest, not after the order of Aaron, but after that of Melchisedec; this high priest of Jews and Gentiles is the Mediator between God and sinners of mankind ; and the offer of the peace that is by his blood, must comport with the nature and relation in which we are led thus to contemplate his character. The proffer of the waters of life must be, Ho! every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters and drink.
But this general dispensation of his grace must, like all the other works of God, be traced to God himself, and tried by his perfect knowledge of the end from the beginning; and as we umioubtedly know that under the general cover of offered mer»
BY Christ's blood. 125
cy many are left utterly to perish; so God the judge of all the earth that will do right, must, in the character of the author of his secret purposes, and of righteous actings, be viewed as definitely ordaining what takes place within the happy circle of salvation; and this as justly connected with that person to whom he hath sworn, and who by sufferings and punishment hath achieved our redemption. In the spirit of true philoso- phy and sound reason, we must view an expression of the sovereign will of God, that teaches the properties of the crea- ture, recognizes their nature, and does justice to their capaci- ties of acting, called by divines his preceptive will ; and we must also acknowledge an intelligent, energetic will, that looks through all parts of his vast works, and as the first cause di- rects and moves them; and though, in relation to the former of these, the proffer of the gospel is to all indefinitely as people separated by the appointment of God to have the blood of the great sin-offering of Christ sprinkled towards them; yet, in re- lation to the latter, the people must mean, those that Christ was appointed in the decree of the covenant of redemption to represent; whose debt he actually paid to justice; and who, in a subordination to this decree, and as the fruit of this pur- chase, believe in him. The rigliteousness of the antitypical and real passover is to all Jews and gentiles that hear of Christ's name; but it is upon all them only who believe. — Yes, my brethren, we may be called saints because of our privileges issuing from the sufferings of Christ; but unless we be united to him by faith, unless we believe the testimony of God re- specting his Son, and fromi the matter of this testimony, which sets his obedience unto the dealh before us as the foundation on which our hopes of eternal life are to rest, we receive him, never can we be entitled unto the high and interesting charac- ter, which the spirit of inspiration sets up, purified and washed, in our text, and, as the antitype of the holy people of God of old, calls theni, " the people."
From the view taken, it is evident, that the first promise to Adam and to his immediate descendants, comprised the matter
126 THE PEOPLE SANCTIFIED
of a covenant respecting salvation by the Messiah : that the covenant made with Noah, a preacher of righteousness, exhib- ited the faithfulness of God under the same solemn aspect: that Abraham's covenant began to withdraw from them the light that in faint rays had previously wandered through the world at large, and to direct them into a more bright but con- tracted incidence on his own posterity : that the covenant with the nation of Israel actually enclosed them upon the people and spot of the earth, which, during the Mosaic dispensation, were peculiarly separated and sanctified by them : and that at the end of this dispensation, when the sun himself arose, the same hath taken place with respect to all that he hath yet visit- ed in his progress over our world. The almighty God con- siders himself bound b\ his promise and oath, to give eternal life to as many as believe in his Son ; and he condescends to pr^ent himself in this character to all to whom he proclaims his gospel. His voice announces, " he that believeth shall he saved."
I would remark further here, that it appears that Christ, in suffering for those whom according to the purpose of God he represents, did not suffer to an abstract relation of the law. While we cannot enumerate the variety of their trans- gressions, nor estimate the different shades of their guilt; yet God must perceive the sins of all men, and decide at once on the amount of their desert; and as he must calculate the just and immutable demands of his law, so, when he imposes upon man's surety, what, in moral reckoning, his absolute know- ledge perceives, and his holiness detests, it must be the exact weight of punishment which the balances of his holy sanctuary have adjusted.*
*The Hopkinsians assert that justice is satisfied so that, in moral reck- OQing, were it not for the decrees of God, all men might be saved; there being put into the cup of the death of Christ all that justice for all men could prepare. But in opposition to this, the justice of God here is kept immaculate, by his omniscience presenting to it the amount of the desert
BY Christ's blood. 127
To speak of an intriDsic merit in the punishment of Christ, ofitselfsufficient for the salvation ofall men, is both to mistake the attributes of punitive jusrice, and the nature of Christ's substitution; as well as to involve the extent of Christ's sati^ faction under the grasp of that decree of God which appoint- ed the Mediator to his office, and which connected him, as an effectual means, with the end of salvation to be obtained. If Christ was appointed by a decree of God to his office; if this decree, in laying out the extent and formalities of it, contem- plated, in its bosom, .merit for the salvation of all men; and if this means is connected with its end, which, in the na'ture of tlnngs, can be only conditional or absolute, then it will foU low, either according to the view of Armenians, that Christ died conditionally for the whole worid, or according to the view of some others, that he died absolutely for 111 man- kind.
The intrinsic excellence which" fills us with admiration as we contemplate Christ, was not in the cup of his death itself appointed by God as the specific indemnification of his law, but m the dignity of his person, which, had it been so appoint- ed by God, might have satisfied for a thousand worids; and m that exuberance, which, from this essential dignity, made the death of Christ of immeasurable value. The mistake of many on this subject is, they forget that the death of Christ with respect to its merits, must always be estimated by the judge who inflicts it, and that whatever his sense of justice
of the ains of all men. and by this justice laying no more of it npon Chnst, than the weight which belongs to the persons whom he repre- sents.^ The method of a settlement on general terms with justice origi- nates m the absolute weakness of men; and reminds us of the views of mankmd formerly respecting the constitution of material things It was flnpposed that in the bodies of matter the elements were huddled fortui- tously together; but modern science teaches us that through all nature the elements unite together on the principles of absolutely definite r,to^ portions. *^
128 THE PEOPLE SANCTIFIED
imposes as the punishment due from the penalty of the law, that, and that alone, whatever be the overflowing excellency of the person, can be denominated the merit of his achievement by suffering. The surety of the elect could give no more than justice exacted. I came not, says he, to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.
The decree respecting the appointment of the Mediator to his office, and which must decide the extent of object con- templated in his death, exhibits itself, in scripture, in two as- pects the first respects his relation to mankind sinners, and
the sec5ond respects the individuals whom, from amongst these, God had sovereignly chosen, and in this decree of the Mediator to his office, had united to him; and whose punish- ment, as thus represented in him, he had adequately and just- ly to endure. " I lay down my life for the sheep."
The offer of the gospel is not founded on a physical suffi- ciency in the death of Christ for the salvation of all men; but in the relation of the Mediator's office to sinners of mankind ; nor can it be objected to this view of the subject, that since men are called by the gospel promiscuously, it would be inviting those who are not interested in the death of Christ by the intention ofGod, to partake of a feast which had not been prepared for them. The call of the gospel simple and undefined, does in- deed address every ear, it sounds an alarm to every description of sinful character, and proffers the blessings of life to it: but it ought never to be forgot, that the present subject of our discus- sion always presupposes an inquiry on the part of the persons addressed; an inquiry invited by the known prerogatives of God's sovereignty, and a knowledge of the distinction be- tween his secret and revealed will— whether all men are to be saved, or part only; and here the minister of truth must re- peat what God himself hath said on this very subject, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy." Hence Jesus, who is the great prophet of liis church, stood himself and cried,
12f
<' If any man thirst let him come to me and drink ;" he com- manded his prophets and his apostles to do the same; and yet Jesus said, in the ministry of the same office, " I know whom I have chosen."
Again, we would still further remark on this clause, that our view exhibits the Mediator as officiating between two parties — representing God to us — and us to Gad. His two natures meeting in the constitution of his mediatorial person, occasion actions sometimes to be ascribed to the one nature which logically belong to the other. Feed the church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood ; — God can neither suffer nor die; — God hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the world by that man whom he hath ordained : It is not the prerogative of man to try the heart and reins, and decide eternally upon their qualities. Hence we must remark that Jesus as Mediator has a twofold head- ship in heaven; a headship as the representative and forerun- ner of his people, in which character our title to heaven is re- alized in his person ; and a headship over all things and re lations extrinsical to his church, and by the authority of which he makes all things work together for her present and eternal welfare. To the first of these stations he hath made his way through the perfect discharge of the duties of the law of man's nature. Qualifying himself for it by the assumption of h»- manity, he merited it by obedience and suffering, and now possesses it as the strict legal issue of the work which he per- formed. But to the second he hath been appointed, as a fre<? and honorary reward sovereignly bestowed as he is the repre- sentative of his Father in the glorious dominion which has been disponed to him. Hence in this character he directs all things; will judge the world; and, when the drama of the universe is wound up, he will retreat from the immediate sta, tion he now occupies — that, in this sense, the Son himself, who had in his humiliation to say, My Father is greater than I, may, in his exaltation, be subject to the Father. 12
130 THE PEOPig SANCTIFIED, &a
We may just add one other remark, connecting the pieced- ing, and the present discourse, and the members of the pres- ent among themselves,^ — that the first born of Israel were the life and lords of their brethren , and so when Christ is con- nected with every creature as its first born, he is viewed as the Creator and Lord of it; when again he is connected with the redeemed as their first born, he appears before us as the origin of their life, and the sovereign of their conduct; and when as Mediator he has a name given him which is above every name, it is the majesty of Deity that shines upon the robes of his character, and makes every knee in heaven, and in earth, and Tinder the earth, bow to him. — As God then, my brethren, Christ is our Creator; as God's vicegerent in the kingdom of the universe, he is our guardian, in life, in death, and in the state of the dead , and as he is our proper representative, he is aur life itself,— having begotten it, and preserving it- — distil- ling the dew of grace from his own fulness to increase and ripen the field of his saints, till, as a holy nation, a peculiar people, a royal priesthood, the image of himself, they sit down on his throne in the highest heavens. — Oh ! Jesus, we are thy people by profession; make us thy people, not by the will of the flesh, nor by the will of man, nor by the blood of our privi- leges, but by the water and spirit of life
BISJCOUKSE VI*
SANCTIFICATIOxN FROM GUILT.
Heb. 13:12. Wherefore Jesus also, that he mighi semctify the peaple idth Ms own blood, suffered without the gaie.
Having explained, in the two former discourses, the two clauses which communicate separate and distinct ideas, we come now, my brethren, to show that Jesus sanctifies ^' the people'^ with his o^^n blood. This is the most interest^ ing part of our undertaking, instructive of itself, reflecting light on what has preceded, and connecting the whole into a mag- nificent and solid structure.
It must be remembered tliat the sanctification which k •effected by Christ, according to the import of the word sanc- tification in this espistle, comprises purification from guilt, a title to the possession of heaven, and internal purity conforma. ble to the high pretensions of this title. The Israelites were purified ceremonially by their passover, from that sin the wages of which is death; they passed through the wilderness living upon manna, heavenly food; and thay never rested till they entered into their promised land. Hence, when the true Isra- elites are sanctified by their great high pnest, there are thret relations in their purification. Yes, as Christ is anointed with the spirit, justified in his resurrection from the dead, and as- cends into heaven; so his people are anointed, justified and glorified. *«For both he that sanctifieth, and they who are sanctified^ are all of ona "
132 8ANCTIFICATI01!? FROM GUILT,
In entering on the illustration of this momentous portion of our work, we premise, that Christ who sanctifies the people with his blood, and whom we have, in all our preceding reasonings, presumed to be peculiarly connected with them, is strictly and piwperly, by the appointment of God, the representative in law of his people.
The principle of representation, though, in this case, oppo- sed by many, is yet recommended to our belief, by its practi- cal interpretation in all departments of natural and human op- wation. Every company transacts its business by agents, every nation has its ambassadors, every people organize and carry on their affairs by representatives ; the planets, in their respective orbits, bear along, under their immediate attraction, their respective satellites ,• and philosophy says that the sol^r system itself describes a slow path, in the boundless regions of ^ace, around an unknown and distant centre, felt by the sun, and tacitly submitted to by his attendents. The angels are ranked under orders of precedency ; the messengers of dark- ness appear in legions, and their mighty captain to whom they iook gives his commissions and receives congratulations ; and the race of men make way for succeeding generations, through that dreary state which is abhorrent to their nature, and which scripture informs us is an entail from the unhappy purchase of our common father. — But this truth, thus formally stated, will interweave itself, and glean strength to its character, sometimes more and sometimes less perceptible, throughout all our sub- sequent reasonings.
We are to prove, to-day, that, in sanctifying them, Christ purifies his people from guilt.
This is evident, in the first place, because Christ suffered, and his sufferings must have obtained the forgiveness of the sins of his people. Jesus, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. Jesus, in his estate of humiliation, suffered hunger, cold, thirst, watching and care, slander and reproach, every kind of temptation,
SAJfCTIFICATION FkOM GUILT. 133
agony, and death. Standing the substitute of that man whose history informs us, that, as all objects attract or repel one an- other in nature, so, even malign intellectual beings are permit- ted to interfere actively with his concerns, Jesus 'fulfilled all righteousness by satisfying the law of man, in those trying cit^ cumstances, where this his foe could make the most dismal attack. The legions of darkness carried the waters of bitter- ness into the soul that v/as holy, harmless, and undefiied, but which was pierced with the sliarpest arrows that ever inflicted a wound. The sons of men, who look upon appearance only, dipped in malice their shafts, and reached the heart in the in- stance of the Son of man. They rejected his title, they con- demned him for blasphemy, they pierced his hands and his feet on the accursed tree. And God, in his*ci]aracter of holy judge, met with him in Gethsemene, and wrung his frame in agony, and his soul with exceeding sorrow even unto death; and at death, when all truly rigliteous martyrs, in the heroism of their minds, and from the ardor of their rigliteous cause ex- claim, that they would not exchang-e their situaUon for a thous- and worlds, Jesus, on the cross, in the mystery of his suffer mg, stood alone, and exclaimed, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!
Now, did providence inflict these sutferings on one that was free from personal fault, and also imputed sin? Could God thus bring every kind of misery, cruelty, and death itself, — an ac- cursed death, upon him that was personuily sinless, and separ- ate from «in in every respect? — The reaiizLiiion of this supposi- tion would give us a strange and an unf.ivtrable idea of that supreme and guardian in teliigence, whom rer.ron pronounces eve- ry way just and righteous. What injustice,in ^he view of reason, to inflict, in an unpaialleled manner, those very siuTerings which we suppose a consequence of sin, and whicii on all hands are allowed to be what are to punish it, on him tbjt is absolutely in- nocent; or how does this agree with what G'l ' hath declared in his own word? Is it ever there said that God aiaj punish such
12*
134 SANCTIFICATION FROM G^ILT.
innocence? Is it ever there said, that however inoffensive, how- ever holy and harmless one may be, yet, he will not spare this one, but will exceed his ordinary course to punish and afflict him — snatching off the martyr's joy when all .leave him but his God ? Against this scripture and reason remonstrate.
But, my brethren, it is not more impossible to account for the singular sufferings and death of Christ, without supposing them all to take place in our guilty room, than it is possible to reflect upon them in his instance, and not perceive that they must be a real sacrifice for sin. If Christ voluntarily under- took to satisfy for iniquity ; if he had a right to do so, and did voluntarily subject himself to man's obnoxious relation to the law of God; then God the Father could subject him to all the sufferings he underwent. As the wages of sin is death, he could pour into his soul all the bitterness of it, and produce on his body all its immediate effects. This was what equity on the supposition of a substitution authorized and required, and could not but inflict. — Are Christ's sufferings, then, we ask, the real demolition of it, as well as the effect of guilt?
Christ, my brethren, is God and man in one person. We would not at present prove but presume this; asking if any language could be supposed so unguarded as that of scripture respecting Jesus, if he is not to be viewed as a divine person? He is called God in climaxes of language where the mind is led to the belief of the most exalted acceptation of words ; the name Jehovah, peculiar to God in the vocabulary of Israel, is given to him, and affixed upon him by interpretations that at- tempt to show us the true mystery of this peculiar name; his agency in the creation of all things is exhibited as a subject never to be questioned ; providence is in his hand as in that of one who, not like a creature, but the omnipotent preserver, continually manages all its concerns; worship by angels and men, is, in its highest attributes of praise presented to him; be possesses, in the field of revelation, the natural and moral attributes of Godhead; and, what no other is deemed able to
SANCTIFICATION FROM GUILT. 135
perform, he saves the souls of men, and at judgment will jii4ge their most secret thoughts.
If Christ be the true God, for himself in this character lie is under no law, and in the same act in which his Father sover- eignly appoints him to undertake it, he must be supposed equal- ly sovereignly to accept the work of our redemption ; hence his human nature, which is personally united to the divine, is justified, in its moral acquiescence to suffer for us, from the digni- ty of the union to which it is admitted, from the promises of assis- tance and acceptance in the work to be accomplished, and from the glorious reward of it, heir of all things, and judge of the world, to which, in the person of the Son of God, it is exalted.
Now what end must be supposed accomplished by this per- sonal glory and dignity, mixed with those sufferings and death, which this son of God underwent? — The moral works of God have all an end correspondent to the dignity of the means which he employs to accomplish them; as is clear from the perfection of his nature, and wisdom of his plans. How. then, could such glory be obscured by such ignominy, could such life be supposed subjected to such an accursed death, could such innocence be involved in the deepest consequences of guilt? Is there within the scope of human imagination an end that will justify this dispensation of the Almighty; but that great and singular one which justice and wisdom, in the absolutely perfect progress of their procedure could not at- tain, but by thederth of that person, who could both die, and, in the dignity of h\> character, give infinite value to the act of his death? No! ' ' e sufferings of the Son of God, inourna- ture, were what i!c • Unn of guilt demanded, and the ex- cellence of his c' r/eifects this expiation. The word was made fl^sh -r mongst us, and we beheld his glory, the glory . of h :.>2oUen of his Father, full of grace and trut)} ^V' enemies we were reconciled to God by tl
136^ SANCTIFICATION PEOM GUILT.
But I remark, in the second place, that Christ must have by his blood obtained the remission of the sins of his people, from the contrast which is stated in the scriptures between the purifica^ tion obtained by the sacrifices under the law of the Jewish economy, and that purification which they ascribe to Christ
That the sacrifices under the Jewish dispensation did make an atonement, according to the end for which they were ap- pomted, IS mdubitable from the whole voice of scripture The unanimous voice of the innumerable passages which mention he Jews sm-offerings is, that, in one respect, a ceremonial, they make an atonement; and their burnt-offerinas, which were the first transcript in their positive economy ta^ken from their sin-offerings on the great day of atonement, and were dis- tinguished from them only by producing a sweet smelling savor , unto God, in all their history among the patriarchs, where they were alone simple as the first passover, and in the Mosaic econ- omy, where they spread out into a great variety, are uniformly said to be an acceptable atonement unto God. Whatever is the pollution or vice, the trangression or offence of Israel these sacrifices purge them by their blood.-To this view, therJ IS not the shadow of an objection, in the fact, that there were some sins m Israel, such as murder, adultery, and idolatry, for which no sacrificial atonement was appointed nor allowed- The perpetrators of these sins, as soon as their guilt was a- certamed, and the unhappy character into which they had en- tered appeared, died, and absconded from the name and privi- leges of Israel. We speak of Israelites as the sons of Jacob ~ purged and preserved till the circle of their emblematical econ- omy is filled up and evanishes.
This atonement, however, which was made for ancient Israel was typical and ceremonial only,- and Christ is the substance of which these sacrifices that so undoubtedly made it, were a shadow.-In many places of the New Testament, and indeed m the; whole of this ep^s le to the Hebrews, is Christ oppo-
SANCTIFICATION FROM GUILT. 137
»ed to the Jewish sacrifices, and exhibited as the antitype of them. Remembering that particulars are included under gen- eral views, we see, that the whole of the Jewish dispensation \3 contrasted with that of the Christian; particularly in Paul's epistles to the Galatians, the Ephesians, and the Colossians, and the subservient, introductory, and typical nature of the former, clearly and incontrovertibly established. In particular, as evidencing a typical relation to Christ, the great antitype that gives virtue and efficacy to every dispensation, it is said, in almost interchangeable expressions in all these epistles, that Christ by his death exhibited the body of which the legal sa- crifices were a shadow, and abolished in his flesh the law of commandments contained in ordinances. He blotted out, says Paul expressly to the Colossians, the hand writing of ordinan- ces that was against us, and which was contrary unto us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross. Indeed, the whole of the writings of the New Testament conspire to the establishmen: of this very point. Christ came, say the gospels, to destroy the Jewish temple, and to raise it up again, in its spiritual character, in three days. What the law, says Paul to the Romans, could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God, in sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, hath performed. Before the Corinthians, Christ is the passover sacrificed for us, and the rock smitten. And in all tiie speeches recorded in the Acts of the Apostles — the sacred orators, in the solemnity of persecution and death, review the promises of the Fathers, and the privileges that were once so discriminative of the beloved of God, and proclaim that their reign is terminated, and that the kingdom of heaven, under the Prince of Life, whom they had crucified, has now appeared amongst men.
But for the establishment of this momentous truth, the man- ner in which the spirit of inspiration conducts this epistle, af- fords us the most clear, decisive, and irrefragable proofs. The whole scope of tliis epistle is to establish, from the Old Testa-
138 SANCTIFICATION FROM GUILT.
raent scriptures, the divinity of the New Testament dispensa- tion, and the superiority of this dispensation to that which was introductory to it. In the beginning of it, its superiority in regard to its author in his official character, as the great pro- phet and high priest of our profession, is elucidated; and then comes before our view the shadowy and ineffectual temple and sacrificesof the priesthood of Aaron, compared with the sub- stantial and efficacious sacrifice of him, who, by the oath of God, had been constituted a priest after the order of Melchise- dec. In particular, in the ninth and tenth chapters, the inferi- ority and typical import of the Jewish sacrifices, and on the other hand the effectual and all-prevalent virtue of the sacri- fice of Christ, is proved beyond the power of sophistry to be- stow the least coloring on a contrary opinion . Here the chain ofnervous and close reasoning, of appropriate and unambigu- ous expressions, will neither yield nor be mistaken. For the law, having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never make the comers thereunto per- fect; but (it is spoken in immediate contrast) Christ, by the one offering of himself, for ever perfected them who are sancti- fied.—In a word, two priesthoods are, from the fifth chapter of this epistle, obviously compared ; both are ordained for men in things pertaining to God ; both offer gifts and sacrifices; the sacrifices of the one may satisfy to the purifying of the flesh, but cannot purge the conscience — their economy therefore waxeth old and vanisheth away : the other purges the conscience by being once offered, ceases to be repeated because the end of perfection is attained ; and it is the whole and only oflfering of fJie piiesthood of that moral dispensation where the character is cleansed and the heart is purified. If the sacrifices of the law, those sacrifices that made an atonement, were not types of Christ and he their formal antitype, contraries ought not to be contrasted, shadows ought not to be either compared with them, or to be distinguished from their substances .
SANCTIFICATION FROM GUILT. 139
I^ however, my brethren, the sacrifices under the law made a typical atonement, and if Christ be the antitype of these sacrifices, it will follow, that he made a real atonement. For does not the very notion of a figure and that which it repre- sents establish this part of our inquiry? Are not the sign and the thing signified relative concerns; and the reality found always in the principal, the appearance of which is exhibited in a portraiture of representation ? Is the image reflected in the mirror without the reality presenting itself before it? Is the shadow ofthe forest on the mountain's top seen waving in the breeze, and fonning with surrounding objects a beautiful landscape in the lake below, without the existence of such a mountain and forest really in nature? No, every shadow must bear a relation to a substantial object, every figure to a reality; and the types which under the Old Testament dis- pensation by ceremonial expiations prefigured Christ, and which only prefigured him, must present him to us as making a real atonement. Yes, if the whole ofthe language of scrip- ture and reasonings of the apostles in stating a contrast be- tween the Jewish dispensation and its sacrifices; and the diristian dispensation and its great sacrifice, which sprinkles every page of its law, and every person of its spiritual Israel, be not beyond parallel unapprqpriate and unmeaning, we have a second demonstrative argument that Christ has purified his people from guilt.
But I observe, thirdly, that it appears that in sanctifying his people by his blood, Christ procured remission of sins for them, fi-om the attitudes and stations which his death is re- presented to assume in the field of revelation.
In the first stay and prop of fallen man, the words which are both prophetical and promissory, present Christ as combat- ing Satan the old Serpent, as wounding and being wounded, and thus achieving our salvation. The seal of that promise of God to Abraham which begat his faith and preserved
14b SANCTIFICATION FROM: GUILT.
it, distilling joys and consolations, as he wandered a pilgrim on earth without any fixed habitation, was a sign of blood in the flesh of Abraham, which taught him that the joy and con • solation which he experienced, were not from the simple exer- cise of faith on the promise of an absolute God, but of that faith which feeds upon its peculiar object that is afterwards to be revealed as bearing, the cup of salvation filled from its own blood. When the first born of Israel were dedicated to the Lord, as a type of the seed of him who is the first bom of every creature, they were sanctified by the blood and death of those victims, which we have already shown to be figures of the real sacrifice of the Son of God. When the psalmist is about to predict that a seed shall serve Christ in every age, h« jg-eviously surveys the dismal scene on which he purchases the honorable prospect; and beholding the dark clouds that gather around him, and the tempest they pour upon his head, about to write it in a song of mourning for the church, in the very first words, he anticipates the expressions of the expiring Jesus, " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?'* Isaiah looks into his endless kingdom, and sees in Chrisfs hand the grand plans of infinite wisdom advancing; he sees him prolonging his days, and the pleasure of the Lord pros- pering in his hand ; but just before this grand prospect arises to view, the spirit has been leading the prophet to see him as a lamb led to the slaughter, and as a sheep before his shearers is dumb, so opening not his mouth. Daniel who saw kingdoms rise and fall, saw, among the rest of his illustrious visions, that holy city audits walls, for the present restoration of which he so successfully prayed, after it had been built and had stood for ages, yet overturned and its sanctuary destroyed, — lie saw the sacrifice and oblation of Israel cease for ever; and yet he sees an end made of sins, reconciliation made for iniquity, an everlasting righteousness brought in, the vision and prophecy sealed up, and the most holy anointed ; — and all
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this at the moment when Messiah is cut off, but not for him- self.
The prophecies reach their fulfilment on the page of historv, and the morning star that ushers in the clear day of New Tes- tament privileges appears :— the voice of one crying in the wil- derness, says, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight :"~the children of Israel assemble around John the Baptist, and believe him a prophet :— he solemnizes them by preaching the doctrine of repentance :— he fills them with the wonders of faith, saying, I baptise you with water unto re- pentance, but he that cometh after me, is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear; he shall baptise you with the Holy Ghost and with fire:— heaven marks this great and expected character by a sign, and a voice, saying, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased: — and, after all this preparation, and amidst all this solemnity, John, the har- binger, says of this Son of God, as he advances towards him, and has attracted his eye among a great crowd of spectators, «« Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world."— On thepassover wherej the lamb was sacrificed that occasioned this beloved Son to be thus called the Lamb of God, Jesus and his disciples attend, when all things are ready for the Son of man going as it had been written of him; and with a certain prospect of his death just before him, he takes the cup which contains the wine of the paschal feast, and abroga- ting the Old Testament institutions by virtue of the introduc- tion of a new and better testament, he says, " this cup is the . new testament in my blood shed for the remission of the sins of many ; drink ye all of it."— Miracles, my brethren, of various kinds, and of a stupendous nature, did Christ perform, and into glory was he transfigured ,• but although some of the former might have been selected, and made to be the admiration and praise of the church to the end of time, had Jesus' death been an evidence only of his divine mission, and not our sanctifica- tion from the guilt of sin; and although the latter shone the
142 SANCTIFICATION FROM GtTILT,
brightest of the marks of his history, if his honor only had to be kept in perpetual remembrance; yet, we see, that when Christ is to summon the world around him, and to enlist all their admiration and praise towards his character, he does not show himself with the dead rising at his call ; or the sea subsiding at his reproof J or in the glory of transfiguration, where his countenance is like the sun, and his raiment like the light of the sun; but he singles out the sign of the prophet Jonas, the death that he is now to accomplish at Jerusalem, on this event he hangs the whole glory of the New Testament dispensation, and to it he turns the admiration and praise of his followers till the end of time, — Do this in remembrance of me.. The saints in the heavenly Jerusalem have attained perfection; their knowledge is unclouded, their halleluiahs need no more the incense of intercession; and yet by the laws of their glorious abode and as the natural birth of their attained perfection^ they, looking on the Son of God as a Lamb that had been slain, exclaim, " unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and to his Father, be honor and glory forever and ever, amen. — Great God* can any believe that the death of Jesus, which is the burden of Old Testament prophecy, which, in the inspirations of the New Testament, throws into shade all the miracles and glory of Christ, which stands alone as the great object of wonder and sacred praise to all his followers, anti which tlie triumphant church still alone celebrates, is intended for no higher purpose, according to the opinion of some pro- fessing christians, than an evidence of sincerity in a great pro- phet?—as the death of Paul, and of Peter, and of all martyrs is an evidence that it is truly their belief they delivered to the world? Is not the cup of the new testament in Christ's blood, filled with the blood of a real atonement, the blood shed for the remission of sins?
Let us look around through the wide prospects of revelation : if it be the sanctification we have pointed out, those scriptures
S A NOTIFICATION FROM GUILT. 143
which address men in all circumstances and conditions of life, and which borrow language from all the scenes of their joy or mourning, will not leave us without gathering illustrations from all quarters to this momentous topic. Throughout the. whole world at the time that J esus suffered, and when his disciples described in writing the nature and end of his sufferings, there were sacrifices offered, and it was believed that those whose blood was shed were sacrifices expiatory of guilt: But while the offerers might have been mistaken as to the particular at- tainm.ent of the victims which they led to the altar to render their Gods propitious to them ; under the spirit of inspiration, the language which expressed their belief, is borrowed by the apos- tles and applied to Christ's death, without explanation or hesi- tation; and they distinguish it from all sacrifices of thanks- giving in this pointed manner, " He was sacrificed for us, he is the propitiation for our sin, through whom we have the atone- ment, but now once in the end of the world Iiath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.^' — But the world long oppressed in misery, cannot be mistaken' respecting the language which describes the redemption of those captives whose definite character, and substantial ransom, ancient war- fare had so long established. Is Jesus' death called a ransom? is it so called without hesitation? is the language repeated by the spirit of inspiration and still supposed sufficiently clear? — Be assured, it is not intended, by this artless but impressive use of the instrument of conveying human thought, to steal unawares the chains of falsehood upon the disciples of the i'€- ligion of Christ, and to immure them for ever in the darkness of error. No, I see the light of the Sun of Righteousness and feel his warmth, under a cloudless sky, whenever I read these ex pressions and such like, " He gavehimself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity. In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins: He was made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were un- der the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons,'" —
144 SANCTIFICATION FROM GUILT.
Moreover, a sense of property is a principle that has ever oper- ated in human nature, it has operated by leading one to view his own stock, and to compare it with the stock of thousands around, and then to seek to transfer the least desirable in his own possession for what he esteems more highly in the posses- sion of his neighbors; and the words to buy, to purchase, never floated, in the atmosphere of human society, vague and unde- fined, but in all ages comprised the discriminations which hu- man interests ascertain and so often review; and when meta- phorically applied to moral subjects, the analogical meaning which truth and justice affix to them is equally strict, and equally recognizes a change of relations on the principle of a standard of equity. But Christ hath bought us with a price, he hath purchased to himself a people, he hath bought us not with corruptible things as silver and gold, but with his own precious blood. — Hence I am forced to conclude that though the love of God to us be the spring of our salvation ; yet God is so holy, and so determined to show his perfect equity to all his intelligent creatures, that, in his character of moral gover- nor of the universe, he will not part with a sentence of pardon for the robbery that has been committed on the prerogatives of his holy law, till , in moral reckoning, the last farthing has been paid to punitive justice. — But, in a word, we are sinners, God, as scripture declares, has been offended by us; and our reconciliation to this offended God has been effected by the death of Christ. When we were enemies we were reconciled ' to God by the death of his sou. Collect, my brethren, your powers of reason around this view of the sufferings and sacri- fice of the son of God. — ^Reconciliation to God is not said to be accomplished by persuasion, by peculiar words that dropped from Christ upon the cross, and which appeased an offended Deity, and turned the hearts of sinners towards him. Throughout revelation, it is the act of Christ's death itself, that is represent- ed as the cause of reconciliation, and in numberless forms is shown to our eye, as the only object, that God will admit to
SANCTIFICATI(S?f FROM: GtJILT, l45
be honored with the renown of this blessed achievement. Truth never flowed so sweetly from the lips of the speaker as from those of Jesus, and never were such incontrovertible evi_ dences of this tmth being delivered by a messenger of heaven, as shone in the miracles, which, during his life and at his resur- rection, took place; but the excellence of his instructions, and the omnipotence of his miracles, lie in undisturbed obscurity, and not an object does the spirit of God, in this great and joy- ful business of reconciliation, press on our sense, as the noble cause of accomplishing it, but the sufferings and death of him who is the Son of God, Why, oh! hearers, has murder been condemned by the eternal law of righteousness, why has the murder of the innocent been considered an aggravation of the crime, why has the murder of the prophets, and holy men of God, been branded with marks of his hottest displeasure, if the death of the apostle and high priest of our profession, is, thus viewed in tlie light of simple death only, an odor of a sweet smell unto God ? This death of Christ i-econciies ail things in heaven and in earth unto God; but if this be not, by being a satisfaction to infinite justice, reason is bewildered; eternally bewildered, in reflecting upon God*s passing by all wonders of providence, and all other points of the miraculous history of Jesus, and fixing the eye of men and angels upon this one event as the only means of reconciliation of sinners to himself; this event which is so abhorrent eveiy where else; this event, the ignominious nature of which would have made his histo- rians, had they considered it as a violent natural occurrence only, seldom advert to it, whilst every page would have teemed with the splendor of his miracles, and the glory of his resur- rection; this event which stands as a mere account of murder i>etween God and ancient infidel Israel, who imbrued their hands in hisViood, that Israel, who for this daring crime, are, in their children, under a rod of vengeance to this day ; the event which, however, distinguishes the believing Israel, throughout scrip- ture^ with that adoption which is a complete contrast to this
33*
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miserable rejection of the Jews ; the event which stands and will stand on every leaf of the New Testament, the joy and exultation of those apostles who saw it once as the death only of their master, and all forsook it and fled; but who received the promise of the Father, and then received it, as the redemption, not by the power of their Mesiah's life of temporal Israel, but by the atonement of his death, of that Israel with whom is made the new covenant in his blood.
Bat I have not yet done with my elucidation of the scriptu- ral station of the death of Christ. Christians, the apostles and prophets were inspired in all the messages which from heaven they bore to men, and the truths which they uttered were the uncontaminated favors of infinite wisdom. In vindication of their sincerity in communicating the impulses of the spirit only, they submitted to every hardship, and to death itself; they w^ere stoned, they were sawn assunder, they were slain with the sword, they were crucified; but wonderful to tell, revelation has passed over, after giving long histories of their lives, all these memorable exits of apostles and prophets, as if their death, after they had served their generation, were not worthy to oc- cupy a line of revelation, or a thought of immortal man. Mo- ses was a prophet and legislator; but what says the spirit of his death? His life is minutely described His birth, his expo- sure, his flight, his marriage, his circumcision, his miracles, his grief, his divine conferences, his intercessions ; but his death is out of the view of men, and is reckoned unworthy of a single letter from the pen of inspiration. Some have said that Isaiah was sawn assunder. Who knows? Is Isaiah's death of any interest to the world? He was a holy man$ but his death is less taken notice of in inspiration than the path of the raven which Noah sent from the ark, and which went to and fro till the waters were abated. Of Peter it has been said that he was crucified, and with his head downwards at his own request. But is this a certainty? Ancient history states it. But whether it was so or not is a matter of no more moment to us,
SANCTIFICATION FROM GUILT. 147
than what became of the blossoms of Aaron's miraculous rod. Of Paul it is said that he was beheaded. It may be so. Is it any matter to angels or men whether it was so or not? His exertions may have had a greater influence on the condition of mankind than those of any other man ; but his death has no more connexion with their welfare than have the particles of the dust of his body which lie in total unconcern to mankind till the morning of the resurrection. But the death of Jesus — this is portrayed in every page, this is declared by God to be the cause of reconciling the world to himself, this borrows il- lustrations from all the practices and ways of men to recom- mend it as a real satisfaction ; it is called a sacrifice, a sacrifice for sin, an atonement, a propitiation, a redemption, a price, a value of purchase ; — this is made the great centre around which the songs of the church militant and triumphant for ever ascend and swell into the highest anthem ; — this appears in all the visions of the prophets as the cause of all things dedicated by blood. Oh! my hearers, this is the event which arises amidst the rise and fall of empires, to connect into a focus, the scatter- ing rays of r: evidence amongst the nations, where God's good- ness had V 261 known by rains and fruitful seasons only, or where it ha 1 sitone brighter in emblems of the unspeakable gift of God; thi: is the event that brings heaven and earth into per- petual fellowship and one eternal family. For it pleased the Father th '-~ *'rrs siiould ;ill fulness dwell, and having made peace thro . )d of his cross : by him to reconcile all
things to ;tfn&elf, by Jiim, I say, whether they be things in hea- ven, or th -- ^n eaith. Col. 1:19, 20.
Oh! m; ren, wh? ^ ^.n empty concern engages the atten-
tion of t^ ^ its of this universe, if the death of
Christ b'^ _ : teinal justice has set upon the re-
lease c:^ - \ The creator, by his words, by tlie
usages h- .-^ he prophecies he hath uttered, by
the d .3'-" th given, by the ordinances which he
hatb inst , eniy exercises wliich he hath lighted
!48 SA?fCTIFICATION FROM GtJILT.
up among the angels and the spirits of the just, is making a chorus as when at the birth of creation the sons of God shouted for joy -.—And for what is it? I intend no impiety by what ! gtate. — It is to afford a complete contrast to the wisdom of the morning stars when they sang together. Nothing is more sublime and beautiful than this expression respecting the de- votion of the heavenly host when the foundations of our earth were laid. But now the creation tunes its harps, and not for a morning, but for eternity, to celebrate a fabric that is made mighty and grand by false colors only ; as if the Deity had be- come weak, and yet still wanted his renown. — My brethren, I believe that if the death of Christ had not been an atonement, the creator of this universe would not have spoken of it from the beginning of time, and in every page of the New Testa- ment, as he has done ; but would have given a different charac- ter to the whole of his revealed will. Had not Christ been his eternal Son and his death the redemption of the world, I be- lieve he would have put another subject into the mouths of immortal beings and especially those who are immediately around his throne ; I believe he would have given them some- thing worthy of his wisdom and omnipotence to celebrate; — if it had been only his sweeping off, in the last and most perfect of his dispensations, the refuge of lies into which, in some sense, the whole world, in its expiatory sacrifices, had entered. Yes, God ought, my brethren, to have banished not only the su- perstition of the Gentiles and the ceremonies of the Jews from our world; he ought to have set his mark of reprobation on the very language which had become so saci'ed and so deceitful by its use on the most solemn occasions. — But while the sun and the moon endure every thing will be the very reverse.
For, my brethren, I must be permitted a word further in sup- port of the atonement of Christ, from the solemnities of the offering of this day. This is the day of our great New Testa- ment festival. Some have supposed that there are many days of sacred commemoration, if not instituted, at least authorized
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by God J such as solemn memorials of the resurrection and as- cension of Christ. But I must state my belief to you. Had God appointed a commemoration of the resurrection of Christ, or of any miracle wrought, in confirmation of the truth of our holy religion, as he has appointed the solemnities of this day, I would tell you, that though the expressions of revelation and innumerable views in it, seem to proclaim the truth of the atonement; yet it wants that singularity of elevation to which, on the supposition of its being the price paid on the table of eternal justice, I would anticipate that it would he exalted. Elevate any thing else,- the brightest of divine operations which can be the evidence of the heavenly origin of our hopes into the station of a commemorative ordinance to which God binds our conscience, I must believe that there is a singular worth and substance in it exactly proportioned to the dignity to which it is supposed elevated.
Had God commanded, my brethren, the children of Israel to keep up the memorial of Abraham's standing beside the three angels while they feasted at his table; had they been directed to commemorate the passage of the Red Sea, or the manna which supported them forty years in the wilderness; had chrism tians been bound in the temple of the Lord, to commemorate the power of Christ when he said, Lazarus come forth; had they been bound to commemorate his ascension, or the descent of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, 1 would have said that the divine ordinations place many things on a parallel, and the design of the one must, in the estimation of God, be equal to that of the other.
But, my brethren, the scriptures from beginning to end are astonishingly cautious on this head. They will exalt nothing to the dignity of a commemorative ordinance, but blood. The manna will be allowed its little pot, the Red Sea will have a historical record; but circumcision and the passover are the solemn sacraments of the Old Testament.
150 SANCTIFICATION PROM GTTILT.
. And what is the sun of the New Testament dispensation, which presents to our eye heaven's unequivocal appointment of an ordinance where we dare not eat and drink unworthily with- out being guilty of the body ^md blood of the Lord? Ah! my brethren, remember what Moses and Elias came from heaven to speak about; remember what the angels desire to look into; remember your Saviour with the bread and the cup in his hands; and hear his voice, — this is my body broken for you, this do in remembrance of me — and this cup is the New Testament in my blood, shed for the remission of the sins of many, drink ye all of it, — and you will see that in divine reckoning there is an event which has a spirit and substance in it above all others.
What an ordinance, my brethren, is this which to-day we are to celebrate? It illustrates divine justice; interprets the ritual of Israel; it is a key to the predictions of revelation; it in- troduces God as a wise teacher speaking plain and intelligible language tp his children about the death of his Son ; it justifies the solemnity of our religious assemblings to hear of the blood of sprinkling, and it shows us that there is some meaning in this song of the triumphant church, " Thou art worthy to take the book and to open the seals thereof; for thou wast slain and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood."
This blood, in the cup of our new covenant, is the blood of sprinkling; but, ah! my brethren, is there any unholy and im- pious communicant? He will besprinkled as with the drops of metal from the glowing furnace; for our God is a consuming fire. He that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drink- eth damnation to himself. But a worthy communicant! what is said of him ? He is sprinkled with the spirit of promise and of assistance ; and will appear, after a little, in heaven, among them who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. — Ye.:, my brethren, for you are called in scripture priests of the most high God, and you are called the
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temple of God ; and you see the exquisite propriety, from the whole tenor of the ritual of the Old Testament, and from the fundamental principles of the New Testament, of God's be- stowing upon you these appellations. — Aaron was called of God ; but the call was given to him through Moses ; and the authority of it was not expressed in all its formalities till Moses sprinkled him, and every part of his garments, with the blood of sacrifice. In this manner he was dedicated unto the ser- vice of God ; and it is as you are sprinkled with the blood of the great sacrifice which was offered up through the eternal spirit without spot unto God, that you are purged from dead works, to become a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people unto God. — They were not the materials of the tem pie considered in itself, not even the ark of the covenant, and the law and the mercy-seat, which made it a holy fabric of di- vine service ; the book of the law, the ark of the covenant, and the mercy -seat, and all the furniture of the tabernacle, were all sprinkled with the blood of atonement, and thus they were dedi- cated unto God; and so, as you are God's temple, there is not an inward recess of your nature, nor a plan of holiness in your heart, nor a form of it that appears in your life, but which, in the estimation of heaven, is dedicated to divine acceptance by the blood of Christ *' And almost all things are by the law purged by blood ; and without shedding of blood is no remis- sion.. It was, therefore, necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these ; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us." — Yes, ye firstborn, whose robes are whiter than any fuller can whiten them, the de- stroying angel may pass around us ; but as we are God's Israel, our names are written in heaven, and the angel has received a command to mark the door-posts and the lintels of our door
152 SANCTIFICATION FROM GUILT.
on which is the blood of sprinkling. As he passes, he must utter the declaration, Behold the blood that cleanses from all sin. There they eat, and drink, and are satisfied ; and start with tlieir loins girt and their lamps burning to the possession of their promised land. — Yea, I hear the angel of the covenant himself speak; what says he? Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from th« foundation of the world. Amen.
DISCOURSE VII.
SANCTIFICATION TO LIFE.
Heb. 13: 12. Wlierefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate.
The next thing, respecting the sanctification of the peopl« by the blood of Christ, to be demonstrated, is, that Christ puri- fied tliem by that perfection of obedience, which bestows, in the eye of justice, a claim upon tbem, to the holiness and glory of the heavenly state.
There are some who have imagined that the atonement of Christ, or his sufferings relative to the penalty of the law, was all that justice could demand in order that eternal life might be enjoyed by those in whose stead his sufferings were sus- tained. Many, otherwise correct in their sentiments, assert that the law of God is fulfilled by punishment only. They aver that punishment is, in moral reckoning, a reparation of the law, restoring to it, through its penalty, every iota of which the transgression is supposed to have bereaved it in its precept ; and so, say they, it must be esteemed a full comple- tion of all its demands. Sin, say they, is exactly the couiv- terpirtof the duty that was to be performed, and the sufferings of Christ were exactly answerable to the demerit of the sin for which he suffered; therefore, they conclude, the law of our nature must be fulfilled merely by the sufferings of Christ.
Were this to be granted, it ought to be remembered, that if from scripture we could establish to a moral certaintv, that th« 14
154 SArrcTiFiCATiox To life,
virtae of the sacrifice of Christ, viewed thus more simply in its nature, did establish the rights of his people to heaven on a foundation of holiness, then, the issue of our inquiry on this part of our subject, would be the same» as if his obedience did divide into another and kindred relation.
But the reasoning we have repeated, in our view, evidently embraces an ingenious sophism. The law of God requires direct and uninterruptal obedience from his creature, no less whefi suifering for his offences, than when in an innocent state; obedience, too, not only in voluntarily suffering the punishment due to it irom the immutable majesty of justice; but obedience to the primary precept of the law which imposes our duty upon us just as creatures of God. The remunerative obedience that encounters and satisfies punitive justice, is per- formed, in another moral habit of character, and to another vie?/ of the law, than that which lays hold upon tis, and with an attribute of immutability correspondent to the perfection of God's holy character, of which it is r transcript, leads us for- ward, through the lines of our existence, just as the moral and accountable creatures of God. It ought never to be forgotten that the original relations of the intelligent creature, subject it to a Qfecessity of direct and continual compliance with the pri- mary laws of its nature, into what state soever it may accident- aiJy precipitate itself by its own transgressions. Hence even m 8 gtate of suffering, deemed satisfactory for the offences for which tl^ person has been subjected to it, there must be, in the form of duty, positive obedience, distinct from this voluni- tayy fttld penal suffering, in order that ali- the relations of the law of God may be fully obtemperated.
Nor, let me remark, can this relation of the law be fulfilled, as some others vrould appear to think, by that faith, which un- der th« dispensation of mercy, is presented as the mean* of Tjnitii},^ ns to Christ, our representative; and who is supposed to have satisfied the penalty of the law for us. The mind that wouW rest in this view of the subject, that would consider
SAXCTIFICATION TO LIFR. J5a
faitli nnder the gospel dispensation as substituted for the origi> nal duty of man, never has investigated them, and thoroughly misunderstands the fundamental laws of morality, Ciyigtian faith, indeed, as soon as ever the relation in which the Media- tor stands to sinners is made known, becomes a moral duty, and man is bound to the exercise of it, no less than to that of the duties which spring out of the original relations of his Con- stitution,* but it can never be said that it is substituted io the room of these duties, and that faith in Christ is now the primary law of the creature. What! can God free his creature absolute- ly, and in every respect, from those original laws by which its moral nature is constituted — which give it, morally considered, its very existence? No, faith under the gospel, as it is a dutv, presupposes the moral character of the creature, and the bw which governs it; the inftaction of this law, and its reparation by our surety; and then it enjoins a dependence upon him ht salvation: but faith in the IMediator, never can be consider- ed formally a part even of the original law of ouv natU'"?. The perfections of Deity, while they enjoin always a circle of obedience that is as wide as existing moral relations, yet, coi;ld never enjoin the exercise of faith in a Mediator, in those re'i^ tions, the moral voice of which excluded the exhibition c--^ ^ mediatorial character. We are not now speaking of faith ^^i God, as he is our Creator; and that faith which in the dispen- sation of grace, God enjoins, by an expression of his will pure- ly moral, (since, it is obvious, he could no more appoint hM eternal Son to be our Mediator without requiring faith in h':« mediatorial character, than he could create an intelligent ere-; ture without requiring faith in himself as Creator,) this faith, we say, thus morally founded and enjoined, and the actual ex- ercise of obedience relative to which, scripture informs us, is ?. pure grace, embraces Christ, its object, as a complete Savio.^ir, who, in order that the sinner might be saved, hath fulfilled the law, in both its claims of punishment and obedience, which it !iad upon the sinner, and it tells that his salvation comes, not
156 SAKCTIFICATION TO LIFE.
by the works of the law, but by the free grace of God; but this faith, on the scale of moral relations, ean never rise ic a Jiigher station than this, nor a greater end.
i am aware, that against the actual purchase of heaven by the merits of Christ, and particularly by his positive obedience, as we presume it necessary to be, there have been especially two prejudices entertained. Some have maintained that the actual purchase of heaven by that price on account of which the law must proclaim it to be ours, militates against the free and gracious origin of our salvation; while othets say, that it de- stroys, by laying a moral claim upon God's justice, the duty and necessity of believers, during the course of their life of faith, pleading sincerely and humbly for the blessings of God's mercy.
But, have not the former forgot, that a sinner's salvation, can be, by an absolutely perfect God, only relatively free? The origin of our salvation is the offspring of mercy, unmixed as the purest ray that shone on Eden, and the application of it to us as miserable and wTetched criminals on whom the axe of justice is falling to destroy, is as much the sovereign grace of God, as Israel's manna that came from the chambers of the dew; but as we are represented in Christ, our salvation is strictly the reward of the duty that had been appointed to us, and which we, through him, do perform. The promises of God are all unmerited, primarily viewed; but none of these promi- ses are made to us but through Christ; and while the promises themselves have all the character originally considered we have ascribed to them; both the promises to the Mediator him- self, and also to us by him; yet, the blessings which are the realization of these promises, we aver, are strictly, in moral reckoning, the reward of obedience perfectly performed. If they be not, why is heaven expected for Christ's sake? Why are we begotten through a lively hope by the resurrection of Christ from the dead to it as incorruptible and undefiled? Why does Paul, in his reasoning in his first and second chap-
SAT^crrFicAHo:^ to iife, 157
t4grs in his epistle to the Ephesians, not only set us in heavenly places in Christ in the spiritual dispensation of the gospel, but in the conclusion of his admirable reasoning on this subject, personally with Christ in the heavenly inheritance itself?
In relation unto tlie other objectors, I would ask. is it from a doubt or disbelief of any part of the law of our nature bein<T fulfilled by Christ, or of the rights of our eternal possession being settled in the court of heaven by ouradvocate within the vail, that they imagine, that the propriety of a Christianas press- ing his humble petitions before his sovereign Father, is to ap- pear? Does not the christian pray, and become animated with importunity, that his interest in Christ may be secured, and that God's glory by him in this relation of dependence on Christ, maybe promoted? Does the christian in his prayers actuate the character of a creature purely, or is it that of a re- deemed one, and a new creature? Opens he his eye under the absolute throne of the eternal, or as he would beliold the face of God reconciled to him by Jesus Christ? By Christ as the way he approaches; on his name, as the foundaticm of his hope, he takes his stand; and he believes that he is to obtain mercv, and find grace to Iielp him, by this confident method only of access to God. Heaven, then, may be secured lo the elect by a title that justice will infallibly protect; and yet, at the same time, the members of the visible church of Chris% so weak, so tempted, so ready to forget God, have a foundation for prayer equally disencumbered here, as the duty of the creature is, compared with the immanent acts of Deity; and, as we should expect it tu be, bearing a striking analogy to that mvsterious relation.
That Christ did fulfil the precept of the law, and in fulfilling it procured actually that title to eternal life which is the sub- ject of our inquiry, is clear from the following considerations.
First, the precept of the law of God must be fidfilled pre- viously to any creature coming to heaven. If we have been correct in our analysis of the original relations of the creature
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158 SANCTIFICATION TO LIFE.
and of the unalterable voice of the law in its primary feature of obligation, it is impossible, that this creature can be admitted into heaven and happiness, unless the law of his nature be ful- filled , either by his own obedience, or that of an approved sub- stilule. The law of God, founded in the relations of the creature, is of eternal obligation, and must, if God be just and righteous, ere this creature enter into the enjoyment of the ho liest of all, be entirely clothed with perfect obedience. Hence, say the scriptures, heaven and earth may pass away, but one iota of the law never shall fail. — This precept of the law, in- deed, reaching to the heart and reins, and regulating all the movements and actions of life, man himself, it must be ac- knowledged on all hands, never could array vnth the beauties of perfection. It is not in man so to direct his steps as to strike out that lustre of universal and animated obedience, which, on tlie solemn day of God's adjusting accounts, will command his approbation ; and may for ever after do honor to the lineage which has filled the heavenly inheritance. But, could the Me- diator, the beloved Son of God, be made under this law, could his essential holiness and activity, be viewed as subjected to it, v/ithout magnifying and making it honorable? No! the Son of God was made of a woman ; made under the law, to re- deem them that were under the law. That we might receive the adoption of sons. The word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
Is it supposed that the law of our nature, in its penalty and precept, might be fulfilled ,- and yet, since the law of faith has a moral foundation, and comes into operation in the christian dispensation by the appointment of the Son of God to be our Mediator, that a title to heaven by the obedience of Christ can-, not be supposed absolutely secured for sinners ; — since it may be argued, that the dispensation which is founded in the rela- tions morally constituted by the appointment and offer of the Mediator, call for the discharge of a duty the matter of which
SANCTIFICATION TO XIPB. 159
is extrinsical to the primary circle of duty that encompasses and binds man as a creature merely?
This inquiry is seasonably made, to lead to its own answer, and also to assist us in illustrating the true relations of chris- tian faith. It is obvious that the mediation of Christ can be viewed in relation to this duty only two ways,- either as a foun= dation on which God addresses us as in general reconciled to mankind, and from which he offers us salvation on condition that we believe; or as a means intellectual and moral by which, in a consistency with the principles of our nature, and the offer of Christ in the divine testimony, we may be actually united to him as our representative head. Whether with those who as- sert the gospel dispensation to be a new law to man of obtaining life, on a condition whose realization must ultimately be re- solved into the determinations of our own natural powers; or whether this dispensation only authoritatively prescribes the duty of faith as a means of effecting our union to Christ, must be ultimately determined, by an induction of evidence from the scriptures. They are the sacred records that develop the plan of our salvation, and which will lead us to conclude whether we are to consider Christ as a star with which we are to connect ourselves by independent appetencies of faith ; or whether, in the heavenly places where Christ and his people are joined to- gether, God has made them all one planet, where the great central body describes the path that all the attendants follow, and follow, too, by the fundamental laws of their union; whether faith, in a word, has the power of self-direction, or whe- ther it be only a simple dependency on him, in whom our indi- vidual character is legally lost — till the last judgment is past, the mediatorial kingdom surrendered up to the Father, and God himself is all in all.— For, my brethren, if Christ could fully satisfy the law of our nature in all its demands; if he did do it, and if, in doing it, he did acquire a title actually to heaven for his people; then it will follow, if God is to ratify this right for his Son's sake, that their faith to whom it is rati-
160 SANCTIFICATION TO LIFE.
fied forms a part of the plan of their salvation ; and that, though it be extrinsical to the obedience of the law of their nature, yet its operations are as infallibly secured, as the perfection of Christ's obedience is supposed necessarily to be approved of. In this way, indeed, of union to our head, the moral justifica* tion of man takes place purely for Christ's sake on the original law of the creature, and the faith and every grace of this crea- ture come to him through Christ, and it grows up itself unto the measure of the stature of a perfect man in him : while the despiser of the gospel will be condemned, not for the want merely of internal grace, but for rejecting and contemning a method of salvation, and neglecting an exercise, both of which are so suitable to his state and intellectual condition.
Can any thing, my brethren, be more clearly proved from scripture, than that the economy of grace secures, by the moral value of the obedience of Christ, the title of his seed to heaven j and that the life of faith is begotten by his spirit's gracious operations, not to co-operate to the same end wilh Christ's merits, but to fie and qualify for the enjoyment of what they pro- vide?— But our way is not yet prepared to see clearly how our views of this subject evolve from our general method of illus- trating the obedience of Christ. The relations of faith cannot spring up clearly and forcibly, till our proofs of Christ's positive obedience, and his purchase of heaven by it, collect their materials, and are about to finish with a full display of all their strength.
I remark, therefore, secondly, that it appears that Christ prepares a title to heaven for his people, from all those passages of scripture which prove that Christ purchased his church to himself, compared with those that teach, that through him she obtains eternal life. The passages which show tiiat he pur- chased the persons of his people, are, taking the word purchase as a general term answerable to all those that are equivalent to it in scripture, very many. We shall select a few only, where the words are most express and decisive. " Feed the church
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of God which he hath purchased with his own blood :" " He shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of die Lord shall prosper in his hand :" " He hath purchased ns to himself, a peculiar people, zealous of good works -." " He has bought us with a price." If the church be not the body of Clirist, why is he the vine and she the branches? — why is he the foundation and she tlie building? — But if he did purchase her, from what state, and to what end, did the exchange take place? Without doubt, he redeemed her from the captivity of sin, and reinstated her in the privileges of that liberty, which he himself had provided for his bride, the Lamb's wife. Every one of the foregoing quotations, and all passages of scripture that are similar to them, incontestably aver, that this church, thus pur- chased, is Christ's own. — But for what could he purchase her as his own? Let the following scriptures answer this question : ^ That he might present us as holy and unblameable before him, namely, his Father, in love :" " That he might make us kings and priests unto God and his Father." — But could Christ thus present us before his Father, or, which is the same thing, put his people, free from all sin, into the possession of heaven, and this, too, under the notion of his own property and pur- cliase, if he had not obtained a right, in the court of eternal justice, to introduce them into that holy place, and this, too, in such a relation to himself? No: these considerations, that Uiey are said in scripture to be introduced into glory by Christ, and to be introduced as Christ's own body, make it incontro- vertibly certain, that his people possess their title to the man- sions above, in the right of Christ's obedience. Hence it is expressly said in scripture, " your life is hid with Christ in God, and when he who is your life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son."
We observe, thirdly, in order to prove that Christ procured a spotless title to heaven for his people, and puts them in posses- sion of it, that this appears from all those passages of holy writ
162 SANCTinCATION TO UFE.
which declare that Christ is already in possession of heaven in their name. When one receives possession from the proprietor and disposer of an important situation, as a forerunner and representative head, it is granted, by him who bestows the exalted blessing, that all the representees have a right to enter, in their contemplated order, upon the enjoyment of it. This truth as naturally and necessarily evolves from the notion of representation, as heat does from the glowing furnace.
But many passages of scripture declare that Christ is enter- ed into heaven in the capacity of our representative head, and that this is only in consequence of his having obtained a title to the distinguished eminence, by the performance of that obe- dience which had been assigned to him upon earth. To be sure, Christ even as man, might have been, in a private capa- city, exalted to heaven, and immortal glory, as soon as ever the human nature was united to the divine. For this, the union of his humanity to divinity, and its own spotless innocence, undoubtely laid a foundation. But he could not be elevated to it as the representative head of his people, till, by his death, he had sanctified all whom he represented, for entering, legally and virtually in him, and actually in due time, in their persons, into that pure and holy place, which exceeds all others and is less so only than its maker. The high priest of the Jews could notenter into the holy of holies, until he had sanctified himself and all the people whom he represented, by the efficacy of sacri- ficial atonement; and no more could Christ, as the representa- tive head of his people, enter into heaven, till he had prepared his way, and obtained a title to it, both for himself in this capa- city, and all those who were represented by him. We do not say, that Christ purchased heaven for himself, considered merely as God and man in one person; in the sense we have just now said, that even his human nature had a right to it, as soon as united to the divine; but, we say, that it was only in this way, that the Mediator, possessing all prerequisite reasons in the dignity of his person, could be exalted unto it, in the capacity
SANCTIFICATION TO LIFE. 16S
of representation which he bears . Hence Christ is said to be sanctified with his own blood. And hence the scriptures which speak of Christ only in this relation of our representa- tive head as seated at the right hand of God the Father, al- ways connect together as reason and consequence, the humil* iation and sufferings of Christ upon earth, and his exaltation and glorification at the Father's right hand in heaven. Were it necessary we could quote many passages pertinent to this purpose. Let the following instances suffice. « The God of our fathers hath raised up Jesus whom ye slew and hanged upon a tree; him hath God exalted with his own right hand to be a Prince and Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. Acts 6:30,31. But we see Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels for the sufferhig of death crowned with glory and honor, that he, by the grace of God, should taste death for every man : For it became him for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bring- ing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. Heb. 2:9,10. Looking unto Jesus who is the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured his cross, despising the shame of it, and is now set down on the right hand of the throne of God. Heb. 1 2: 2. And being found in the fashion of a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross j wherefore, God hath highly ex- alted him, and given him a name which is above every name, Phil. 2: 8,9. These passages put it beyond a doubt, that, to allude to his own words, it behooved Christ to suffer, ai^ then, as a consequence of his suflferings, to enter into his glory.
Is more proof, however, of his entering into heaven, as our representative head, demanded? The whole language of scripture, and the whole connexion of the system of divine truth, proclaim, that when Christ did enter into heaven
164 BANCTIFICATION TO LIFE.
through the merits of his sufferings, it was in the capacity of our representative. What is the meaning of Paul's reasoning Jn tlie epistle to the Romans, where it is shown that we are planted together with Christ in the likeness of his death, and raised together with him in the likeness of his resurrection, that we are heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ? what is the meaning of his reasoning in the fifteenth chapter of his first epistle to the Corinthians, where it is demonstrated that " Christ is risen, the first fruits of the resurrection from the dead, and that if we rise not," so close is the connexion, "neither is Christ risen?" what is the meaning of his rea- soiling in his epistle to the Colossians, where it is shown, that we are buried with him in baptism, and risen with him unto newness of life? what is the meaning of all that reasoning in this epistle to the Hebrews, where, in language that almost defies a misinterpretation, he is said, not only to be our fore- nmner, but to be our forerunner entered into heaven for us? in a word, what is the meaning of almost all the scriptures, if Christ has not entered into heaven, and this, purely in his awn right, as the representative head of his people? The scriptures are addressed to the common reason of mankind, and intend not, on the most important of all subjects, to be*- guile; and the following particular passages sum up the scriptural doctrine upon this interesting topic ; " He is the head of the body the church, who is the beginning, the first born from the dead, that in all things he might have the pre- eminence." In whom we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated, according to the purpose of him, who worketh all things according to the council of his will. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Christ from the dead ; to an inheri- tance, incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you. If children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Clirist."
5A^-CTIFICATI0N TO LIFE. 165
But, in a word, 1 observe, that it appears that Christ purcha- sed heaven for his people, and that they come to the possession of it only by him, because his spirit is expressly said to seal them as the spirit of promise, Eph. 1:13. From what the metaphor of sealing is here borrowed, appears, notwithstanding the views of some eminent interpreters, capable of being ascer- tained to a moral certainty. This epistle is obviously greatly indebted for its particular language, to the Old Testament dis- pensation; and above all, is it indebted to it, in the immediate context. There was a promise made to Abraham that the land in which he sojourned should be given as an inheritance to his seed; and of the certainty that this promise would be fulfilled circumcision was given as a seal. Had any question- ed the truth that the children of Israel, at the end of the four hundred years mentioned to Abraham, would be redeemed from that country into which their great progenitor foresaw they were to descend and where they would be afflicted, the Israelite had only to call to remembrance the mark of the flesh of his foreskin, in order to return an answer, from the covenant of God, ratified in the vivid evidence of blood, to show the impossibility of his not enjoying his promised inheritance. In the same manner, a covenant in which heaven is promised is supposed made, in the moments of the christian's union bv faith to Christ, between him and that God who proclaims by his oath, in the ofl^er of the gospel, that whosoever believes shall be saved; and this passage shows, that, in the economy of grace, the spirit is dispensed from God, by Christ, to an- swer, with respect to the christian, in relation to the heavenlv inheritance, the same end, that circumcision did to the Israel- ites, in their bondage and expectation in Egypt. The sons of Abraham, if God be faithful, must be redeemed by power, and actually set on their heavenly places of divine promise; and the spiritual seed of a greater one than Abraham, and whose sign of sanctification is in his own blood, must come to their heavenly Canaan. Hence the spirit here as a seal, is called the spirit 15
f66 S A NOTIFICATION TO LIFE.
of promise; and hence his relation to us by Christ is thus ex» hibiled, in varied but exegetical language, in the subsequent verse. " Who is the earnest of our inheritance until the re- demption of the purchased possession," Hence the water from Christ, by this Spirit, is living water springing up to everlast- ing life. How happy, oh! christian, that he who hath begun a good work in us, will carry it on until the day of Jesus Christ.
Thus, it is unquestionably the doctrine of revelation, that Christ who could not but magnify the law of our nature, in both precept and penalty; Christ who was voluntarily active in yielding obedience wherever the law demanded it, and ready to submit to the degree of punishment which justice could in- flict, hath, in obeying the law unto death, the original law of our nature, not only redeemed us from the fetters of guilt, but hath also infallibly secured our title to heaven: and hence the relations of faith must now appear in their true colors. — Faith is not connected in a meritorious co-operation with the obedi- ence of Christ in procuring heaven ; but it is an exercise neces- sarily enjoined by the preceptive will of God in the dispensa- tion of the gospel; and its actual manifestation in a reliance on the divine testimony is the mysterious ligament which, though Christ be in heaven and we upon earth, God himself u^es to unite the members to their own head.
But if this be the case, faith must grow up amongst the other precious productions in the garden of our intellectual sanctifi- *i cation, and this internal sanctification must all flow from Christ as our representative. The body would have a contin- g^ent member engrafted upon it in any other view ; a hand, for instance, living and operating whose movements originate not in the unity of personal existence, but which is connected with it in respect to origin and vegetative life, like the mistletoe with the oak. But faitli has the same source with every other grace, and issues from that cistern which represents all the streams of Ufcy fills them with their copious abundance, and which through
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them sends forth that refreshment which keeps green and flourishing the fields of new obedience. By grace ye are save<i through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. But this brings us to the last of the three things that we were to demonstrate respecting the sanctification of his people by the blood of Christ, namely, that he separates or sanctifies the principles of their nature inwardly from all pollution and contamination; and this we continue to illustrate in the pre- sent discourse, as forming a component part of our present subject. Here, my brethren, let me premise that the excel- lence of the mediatorial character of Christ, his being God, as well as man, was a thing absolutely requisite to give dignity and worth to all his actions; but it is not a consideration that formally makes any part of that sanctification which purifies us for heaven. The excellence which entitles him to adoration and worship, and by which he performed what the most exalt- ed creature could not achieve, all resides in his divinity; and the spotless holiness of his humanity, all terminates in the suitableness of the constitution of his mediatorial person. The righteousness which is imputed to us for our justification, and the holiness which is communicated to us for our internal purification, were either wrought out by the energies of this glorious personage, or communicated to him from the original fountain of our free salvation; and they are not his natural or essential holiness or righteousness, either as he is God or man. This internal holiness of ours, after which we are inquiring, must, indeed, manifest itself in the person of Christ, as he stands our representative; and the estimate that infinite holi- ness makes of it in him, in the business of imputing his righ- teousness to us for our justification, must, in equity, be corres- pondent to that internal defilement of ours, which, by commu- nication from Christ, it is intended that this holiness shall dispel. But this holiness is not the holiness of the person of the Mediator; it is the qualification of his office; for itmustall be transferred to the happy representees, when they enter into
Ib^ 8ANCTIFICATI0?f TO LIFE,
that pure and holy place, into which nothing that is unclean m its properties can enter. In heaven the joint heirs with Jesus Christ will not have a relative perfection of nature in their head; they will be the spirits of just men made perfect,- tiie water of life will fill them to the brim; each one will walk in his uprightness; the new creature of grace shall be the per- fect man of glory r and yet Christ, even when he has finished this mystery of grace, and has delivered up the kingdom to his Father, and God is all in all, will retain the perfection of his divine and human natures. The simple apprehension of the Son of God's assuming human nature is, on all hands, allowed not to be a formal part of his humiliation, but a prerequisite to both states of his mediation ; and the constitution of his per- son, in the perfection of both natures respectively, is only a personal prerequisite to the accomplishment of our salvation, in both its branches of justification and sanctification.
By the holiness of our nature manifesting itself in Christ, as just mentioned, it is not meant, though it be not the essen- tial holiness of either nature in him, that it is the same as holiness of obedience, or the effects of volition. This is the anointing of the Mediator which we consider as the cistern in him, from which our holiness flows. The high priest under the law was consecrated not by blood only, but also by the oil of anointing. The one signified his legal separation, and right of actual ministration ; and the other was a sign of a concomi- tant qualification, fitting him for the discharge of his duty; and so Christ is anointed with the graces of our inward holiness.
Some divines would appear to think that Christ was anointed merely to answer to the type in the Levitical priesthood. Nothing, however, can argue less reflection, less acquaintance with the language of scripture, less knowledge of the attributes of justice, or less extensive views of the harmony of type and antitype, than this method of stating the subject. Christ's relation to his people required that he should be sanctified in
S ANCTIFIC ATIOX TO XIFE. 169
reality; and as every shadow under the patriarchal and Mosai- cal economies arose into being, to reflect and give some idea of the great subtance from which they sprung; so Christ must be considered as the original character, for the sake of whom they were invested with whatever they did display. The priesthood of old was anointed to prefigure Christ-s anointing; but Christ himself was anointed, because the eternal relations of justice, in the station which he occupied, required it. Standing our great high priest while the sacrifice of himself received infinite value from the altar of his divinity which sustained it, Christ, anointed with all grace, the grace of the internal purification of his people, showed to the eye of eternal justice, that the salva- tion which he achieved surveyed all moral relations of sinful man, and provided his recovery wdth honor to these relations. The penalty of the law he repaired, and the precept of it he magnified ; — but every being which has properties to be esti- mated, has a substance in which they inhere, — every intellec- tual existence has a moral being previous to his actings, — a being which may be afiected by natural deformities, and which, if tainted with corruption, must be healed, not by obe- dience nor suffering, but by a communication of principles, that will insinuate themselves into our moral existence and renew its nature. Hence, when Christ oflTered himself to divine justice, it was not the sacrifice of himself simply, infi- nitely valuable as it was, that he presented, but this sacrifice through the eternal spirit; and thus he oflfered himself, not only a sacrifice of a sweet smell unto God, but this same sacrifice purges our conscience from dead works to serve the living God, When the spirit descended, at his baptism, on our great high priest, the visible form which he assumed was a sign of that anointing above measure, which at that moment was supposed diffused on the Mediator to qualify liim for his office. What, indeed, was the essence of this anointing, whether a substance or a modification that, in moral reckoning, answered to real
existence in the natural world, is a subject equally mysterious
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170 SANCTIFICATION TO LIFE.
m whatever way we consider it; but notwithstanding, we loss sicht of absolute justice as the meridian line of our reasoning, if we do not include the fact of Christ's unction to the moral amount we have stated, among the elements of our moral rep- resentative perfection. In the eye of strict law Christ has in his Mediatorial person a holiness which is ours in him, of which he is only the depository for a time, and which from him to us must be communicated. Hence he is said to have been anointed v\'ith the Holy Ghost above measure, and hence it is said that out of his fulness we receive and grace for grace.
This holiness in Christ it is not necessary to consider, as a suffusion at the moment of his baptism only: — his baptism was hi visible inauguration into office; and yet in one respect he always acted as our Mediator; but, as this transaction was viewed as a formal declaration of his official character to angels and men, so, though the graces of the spirit always in some respects resided in him, yet, this was the moment that, as it were, summed them all up, and brought them to a perceptible and visible character; and which, setting aside all shadows, presented to man his Mediator, the Christ.
Bv this anointing of our Saviour,'- however, he was not com- pletely qualified to do the distinctive office of a great high- priest ; or rather, as all the rest of the priesthood who could all slav sacrifices of every kind, derived their office by filiation from the Jewish high priest, in whom the whole family of priesthood had tlie fountain of their rights and privileges, but could not enter into the holy of holies ; — so Christ is not fully consecra^ ted to discharge all the parts of his office by this anointing alone. As he bears before the eye of the eternal into the highest heavens, the names of his people, he must conjoin with this holy oil of the spirit''s unction, the blood of his eternal separation unto God. We know that Christ from his first ap- appearance on the stage of our earth, and even in all his an- cient seers and prophets, acted in virtue of his right to exercise mercy and power, as this right was acquired by his own death:
SANCTIFICATION TO LIFE. 171
—but these were only anticipations in acting, on a foundation that, in truth, was always sure, but which, in fact, was laid only when he was sanctified by dedication, and his people by re- demption, through his own blood.
The character of Christ's priesthood is, in our day, so dress^ ed up in the language of a technical phraseology, that it is diffi- cult to penetrate to a just view of its scriptural simplicity, and particularly as explained in this epistle. In the second chap- ter of this epistle, Christ is called the captain of our salvation made perfect through sufferings ; and this is an intended view of him subservient to that contrast with Melchisedec and Aaron, which the apostle comes so soon to draw. In the machinery of thought which starts from this point, which is contemplated within the circle of the apostle's views at it, and which diver- ges into those lines of illustration, which are so suitable to the people to whom he is writing, it is difficult, without the most strict attention to ihe fundamental principles on which he rests the whole weight of his reasoning, to advance with him to the eminent conclusions in which he rests .
Some professing christians have said that Christ is not to be considered as acting in the character of a priest, or as offering a sacrifice, till after his ascension he appeared in heaven, where he pleads from the wounds of his flesh, not as the strokes of a victim, but as the affecting signs which may command the compassion of Deity ; as the pains and tears of a child com- mand the sympathy of his father. But it is clear, that the apos- tle in this epistle, distinguishes between priesthood and .sacri- fice; he states distinctly two priesthoods; but while both of these must offer both gifts and sacrifices, what, it may be asked in the language of estimation, was the value of these sacrifices? Are we to view them as in form a variety, or a unity included under the same character? We speak of expiatory sacrifices only ; for we have already remarked, that the burnt offerings of the Levitical priesthood were a transcript from the sin-offerings on the great day of atonement, and that all the other offerings
172 SANCTIFICATION TO LIFE.
were transcripts from these; — hence as the sin-offerings were only a remembrance of the passover, which, though offered by many hands, yet must, in relation to Israel as a body politic, be considered in denomination only one sacrifice, it is obvious, that the value of all the Levi deal oblations was unity. But from this unity Aaron derived his investiture of priesthood, and all the variety of offerings whose blood was shed at his conse- cration, and afterwards in his office, were in value simple as this original seed, that thus in its growth spread into so many opening branches. The end for which Aaron was consecra- ted to minister in the priest's office, and for which he filiated the right of priesthood to his sons that assisted him, was no- thing more than to carry on by the emblems of sacrifices, an instructive course of religious services among a people already redeemed ; — redeemed, however, only ceremonially and to a typical inheritance; and who consequently are still to be taught by the most impressive symbols which may remind them of their twofold relation in which they stand to God — -ceremo- nially redeemed, and yet morally sinful. Thus the Aaronical priesthood offered daily, without, in their own view, as, at least, from the nature of their ordinances, they ought to have consid- ered the subject, making the comers thereunto perfect.
But the whole services of the Jewish economy, and even the original sacrifice of the passover, were founded in it, and in- cluded in the blood of the covenant of circumcision ; and to un- derstand fully the apostle's doctrine respecting priesthood in this epistle, we must trace the typical blood of sacrifice up to the period of the life of him, in whose loins, Levi, as the father of the Aaronical priesthood, did homage to a greater and more irenerable priest than ever were any of his sons. At the time when the great circle of circumcision, which distinguished the Jew from the Gentile, was described, lived Melchisedec, Mel- chisedec whose very office as priest of the most high God, sup- posed that he had offered an expiatory sacrifice: — and taking his standing into our calculations, we have two priesthoods,
SANCTIFICATION TO tlFE. 173
inclosing the same general line of typical oblation.— Henoe though Aaron's character of office supposed as he exercised it, that the sacrificial blood which was the foundation of his right to officiate was already offered, and to the eye of heaven spread abroad in the passover ; and consequently that he could resemble Christ as a priest, as he would be supposed clothed in heaven, with the office of priesthood, after his blood, which gave him a right to it, was shed, in the Egypt of our world; yet the apos- tle, in his beautiful compound reasoning, will not fall into the solecism of calling Christ's death a sacrifice, without a priest to make the offering. On the other hand, Christ's sacrifice is viewed, all the time that it is contrasted with Aaron's sacrifices, as appended to its true priesthood — that after the order of Mel^ chisedec ; and hence though this was in the heaven of the Jewish economy, in the place where the holy law and original mercy of God reposed in arms of reconciliation, it was yet in the world of our accursed nature. Christ, then, was a priest upon earth, a priest by the oath of God, and offered up the one of- fering of himself, perfect as was this oath by which he was constituted ; and hence he is said to have now entered into the true heavens, having obtained eternal redemption for us.
But Aaron's economy is intended in this epistle, to give us particular information especially in two points. As he is the representative head of the people in the heaven of their pron> ised land, he presents a sacrifice for them ; and among their family, as a holy people, and the sons of God, born of blood and water in Egypt and at the Red Sea, he himself is compre- hended . He ventures, too, to go with blood beyond the borders of their peculiar land ; into the mystery which contains secrets that whisper into his ear, that the Israelites, by faith, sho'ild leave their present transitory inheritance, should go beyond the borders of their present abode, and should seek another that is yet to come. Yes, Aaron under a cloud of incense en- tered with the blood of atonement into the holiest of all; at his hand it was there ceremonially accepted, but morally re-
174 SANCTIFICATION TO LIFE.
jected ; and the sin of the sons of Jacob was sent away to dwell in the wilderness of our earth, till a more hopeful sacrifice should bear it into the regions of death ,• — and Christ who did offer the sacrifice of himself in the kingdom of our corrupted nature must carry from the scene of his death, in the outer court of our world, his blood to sprinkle and consecrate the mercy seat that is eternally within the veil. Hence, it is said, that <' he is able to save to the uttermost, all them that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them."
But, my brethren, what is this intercession of Christ? It is not his literal blood that Christ exhibits in heaven; it is the value of his death; — but it is not simply this as it is estimated and accepted of by God; — it is this as heaven has been given to Christ as our forerunner, who hath merited it for us, — and as God, in all the perfection of his nature, is supposed promising to Christ the possession of heaven indubitably to all his repre- sentees.
If, however, this be a just representation which describes his intercession by the strict legal relations of his character as our forerunner, then it will follow, that Christ, who dispelled all shadows, those under the law, and those in that great line up to Melchisedec and the first promise from which they sprung as branches from the same stem, — and who was alone morally the priest of sinful man, — must, in the very act of dying, have consecrated himself, with his own blood, to an everlasting priesthood, and obtained for the whole body, head and mem- bers, the possession of heaven. This was undoubtedly the case. As every priest according to the scriptural nomenclature must be dedicated by blood, it appears, that in his own death, Christ actually became a priest; and though he acted in his priestly character, and was the lamb slain from the foundation of the world, this was only symbolically and by anticipation. — The death of Christ is the luminous point from which diverge all the rays of glory to himself as our Mediator, and of felicity
SANCTIFICATION TO LIFE. 175
of heart or dignity of character to his followers. From this point he started to his glory as head of Zion, and head over all things, animate and inanimate, angels and archangels, for her welfare; from this fountain he sent forth all his seers and pro- phets, and spake himself the will of God to sinful men : and from this sun before it did itself arise to view, he sent all those reflected rays of the morning of priesthood that crimsoned our world with a garment as dyed in the wine fat.
Some have said that Christ was actually a priest from all eternity, and that he really acted in the peculiar robes of his office from the era of the visitation of mercy. But a funda- mental principle of the apostle is, that every high priest must be taken from amongst men; real human nature must be put on, before the formalities of the priestly office can be display- ed ; and hence though Christ in substance supported by anti- cipation his sacerdotal office, and revealed it to the world from the earliest notices of redemption ; yet it was only in the moment of his dying that he stood recognized by God, angels, and men, as our great high priest, sanctified by blood. Im- agine him then in all the relations of his acting in this mo- ment of offering up the one sacrifice of himself. To this mo- ment we carry forward his anointing; and by his own blood, and the oil of the spirit, we see him now standing, under the hands of consecration to an everlasting priesthood — his blood flows, and tlie work is done, — his people are redeemed, heaven is eternally purchased, — from this chamber issue all the twi- light rays before the day arises, — and when it does arise, every shadow flees away; and the great temple of the Lord, com- prehending all that are in heaven, and that are in earth, stands resting upon this foundation of the oath of God, the death of his Son, the grace of the Spirit, — as all conspiring to perfect for us a priest and a sacrifice for evermore.
But if this be a just view of the subject then all the lan- guage of this epistle concerning priesthood must be consider-
176 SANCTIFICATION TO LIFE.
ed as descriptive, and intended only as a means of guiding the mind into logical principles, which might be stated in other Janguage: and then Christ our representative being consecrated to be a priest for evermore by his own blood, will mean nothing else, than that he purchased heaven for himself in this charac- ter of representation, and for all that are represented by him. This accords delightfully with the contrast in which the lan- guage of this epistle stands to that of the rest of the writings of the New Testament ; and, indeed, to the logical statement from which, in this epistle itself, the apostle sets off into the illustration by typical representations of his logical concep- tions. In the second chapter the apostle says that Christ is the captain of our salvation made perfect through suffering ; and in almost every other place of the New Testament Christ is spoken of in plain terms, or in such as must be converted into the same import, — as dying and saving us by his death : — or which is the same thing, possessing heaven in our name on the footing of his perfect obedience to the law of our na- ture.— Had Christ had any defilement of his own he could not have purified others; hence in his obtainment of a station " eternal in the heavens,'*' there could be no respect, in relation to himself, to a satisfaction ; but as his character espouses, as bone of its bone and flesh of its flesh his people, their redemp- tion on their part, in the language of priesthood, must answer to his consecration on his, as heaven is respectively and certainly in the contemplation of them both. For both he tliat sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one, wherefore he is not ashamed to call them brethren.
That this holiness which is the anointing of our great high priest, and which thus co-operates with the blood in his conse- cration; which was poured upon him at his baptism j but which we have carried forward to be contemplated in its effi- cacy at the moment of his death; must have appeared in the representative character of the Mediator, is clear from tlie
SANCTIFICATION TO LIFE. 177
fact that he as our consecrated high priest has already entered into heaven as our forerunner for us. When, my brethren, it is said if any man sin we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, it is to be remembered, that this attribute of righteousness presents our advocate, as one vi^ho has the pledge of the success of his advocation in the station which he occupies; who must be hurled from his glorious and well merited throne, before the cause of his people can be ulti- mately unsuccessful. All the relations of the Mediator in hea- ven recognize him as the vine planted by the throne of God, and which will shoot forth its branches, till it shall cover para- dise v/ith the whole of the ever-living fruit of the tree of life.
Every individual who is thus represented in heaven, it is known, is by nature depraved and the inward beauty of his nature defaced by sin. The image of God consisting in the moral rectitude of our nature, the adequacy of our know- ledge to our situation amongst the works of God, and the in- variable direction of our desires and aifections according to the dictates of the understanding, was lost on man's first dis-^ obedience to the divine law. Justice, however, rendered it impossible that Christ should enter into heaven as the repre- sentative head of his people, without displaying, in his Media- torial person, all the brightness of that image of God which was the constituent glory of our natures, and which we had entirely dissipated by our apostacy. The strict law of God necessarily excludes from the gates of bliss the admittance even representatively of sinfully imperfect creatures; repre- sentation in law being the same as personal appearance. Is it said, that this is a great mystery, that Christ should have trea- sured up in his Mediatorial person, all the holiness that is to purify and sanctify his church throughout all ages? We grant it is. It is that inconceivable subject to human capaci- ty of which the apostle Paul says, " this is a great mystery.'' We cannot comprehend the nature of it, any more than tla I 16
i7S SATvCTIFICATION TO LIFE,
of any other mystery^ whose dark side only is revealed to us; but this much we must assert respecting it, that the contrary doctrine is opposite to pure law, and morally impossible in ah ail-perfect dispensation.
But that Christ is really anointed with the graces of our sanctifi cation, is evident from all those passages of scripture whichj presuming it to be in him, present its streams as issu- ing from him and flowing into his members. If our union to Christ be described as that of nourishment from him, as the branches are nourished by the root ; if it be portrayed as that of vital connexion and direction, such as subsists between the head and the body ; if it be compared to a sustaining influ- ence, like that of the foundation to the building; and if these representations do respect, even inclusively, our internal holi- ness,— then, does it not follow, clear as the eye of the morn- ing, that he both possesses our sanctification in his Mediato- rial "person, and communicates it unto us? The root has first the vegetative juice which its laboratory prepares to invigorate the branches; the understanding has first the plan of opera- tions which the hands may put in execution; and the founda- tion is first laid correspondent to every intended part of it, and then is reared the superstructure. — But does not John, the be- loved disciple, describe the union between Christ and his people at great length, and in language which principally has a respect unto a vital connexion, when he speaks of Christ as the vine and we the branches? Does not Paul teach us the same truth, when he says, that the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love? Does not Peter paint his beloved master as the living foundation stone, disallowed indeed of men but chosen of God and pre- cious; and one to which believers, coming as unto a living stone, are built up a spiritual house ? We cannot receive liter-
SA^CTIFICATION TO LIFE, i19
al descriptions of things purely spiritual; but could expressions be better contrived or similitudes be better selectedj to con- vince us, that in the dispensation of grace, there is an internal sanctification, that we, who are morally depraved, receive; and that the lines of this sanctification are all to be traced into the person of our great representative head, the anointed high priest of his people? No! "In him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and ye are complete in him." " The word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us, and we beheld its glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth; and out of his fulness we all receive and grace for grace.''
In one word, it is undoubted, that Christ is anointed with the graces of the Spirit, and that his people receive an unction from this holy one, from those passages of scripture, which show to us the relations of the sanctifying influences of the Holy Ghost. This Spirit does reside in us as in his temple; lie works in us both to will and to do,; he distributes to every one grace, and gifts of free favor; — but he only takes of the things of Christ and shows them unto us. — When Christ as- cended into heaven the first fruits of the resurrection from the dead, every lineament of moral perfection, which the eye of heaven could approve as the qualification of the full harvest of his people, in every ear that shall grow, in any age or nation, tongue or kindred, till the end of time, appeared in him, or was on its wing in the hand of his Spirit to those saints that lived upon tlie radiations from his fulness, or shone in those spirits of just men made perfect tiiat bow to him who is made higher than the heavens themselves.
We have now, my brethren, advanced to a station whence we may take a retrospective view of the road we have travelled in these discourses, and see how appositely the most exhilarating reflections arise, from the disentangled course the path we have laid out pursues. Locking to the prominence from which we
180 8AXCTIFICATI03e TO LIFE.
Started, we perceive, that there arise beyond it, the original state and fall of man. In the former of these Adam was created, 'with the perfect law of God impressed upon his nature, promis ing endless happiness m case of obedience, and threatening endless misery and death in case of disobeniience. Thus stood Adam as on our earth fresh from the hand of his Maker. Into paradise, a garden to be dressed, and the emblem of social abode, the man of the earth was by the kindness of his creator conveyed .; and all things were sovereignly put under his feet; neighbors such as the world could afford were marked out by God, a tree of knowledge of good and evil, and a tree of life; and in this state of society, the law of his nature, which before was a covenant of life and death for himself only, now became, by God's appointment, a covenant for the family of mankind. So- ciety was organized not upon mere principles of nature, as the relation of Adam and Eve the parents of all living, but upon sovereign and representative relations ; — a v/arning voice open- ed to its lord from diilerent quarters of that world whose wel- fare he repiesiented, and to dress his tenantry in wliich was his positively appointed employmient.
The trees of the garden are in a little hid from our view by the brandish'ng of a sword of fire turning every vv'ay to guard the tree ojf life. Adam is driven from paradise; the gold of his creation is dim, the most fine gold is changed. ■ But though he be driven into his native earth, and sees its briers and thorns springing up from his fatal change in paradise, is there no hope for him w^ho was so lately the glory and head of the iiew born v/orld?
Faint, yet genuine, is the color vWnch streaks the horizon to shoyf that the hopes of the human "family may one day ripen into perfection by efficacious means of restoration. The rcbe of ' mercy mantles our first parents, and it is put upon them by the hand of a kinsman's redeemer, whose flesh is supernatural seed from the woman, and whose power is divine to vanquish
SAKCTiri€ATION TO LIFE. ^181
every foe. The hope of life by this Mediator arises, sorneiimes here and sometimes there, among the posterity of Adam, till, in the days of Abraham, he and his posterity are inclosed within the circle of the covenant of circumcision, and mankind become distinguished into circumcision in the flesh and im- circumcision. The former are the adop'ed sons of God, and tiie latter are without God and without hope in the world, in Egypt the respective states of the two people is brought to a perceptible bearing — light is on the one, and darkness on the other; death reigns on the accursed, and life from the chambers of mercy alights upon the redeemed. Sprinkled with the blood of their covenant the sons of promise enter upon their holy land and enjoy a lioiy habitation — till a better is provided for Israel by the Mediator of a better (estanaent established upon better promises. At this period of time the genealogy of Jew and Gentile is lost in the object of the divine dispensations; and circumcision and uiiclrcum- cision, barbarian and Scythian, are all one in Chri>5t. — Tiie Mediator, who has been collecting his followers fi-om among a particular people, and the nations at large, and who bow again collects them out of every kindred by public and ex- cernal means suitable to an indeiiiiive and general call, has, as related to the eye of omniscience, the church invisi- ble, whom, in the office of his mediation he represents. 0( these the punishment he exhausts, the duty he fulfils, the purity he provides — and whilst they are called promiscuously with others, yet the mercy of God pardons their sins fr)r Christ's sake, his grace gives them a title to liie heayealy inheritance, and his spirit of grace imbues their heaits and natures, with the inward principles of holiness, — 3esas, holy, harmless, undefiied, and separate from sinnere, is their forerunner made higher than the heavens, and they are fast arriving, in their respective generation3, wi'Jiout spot or wrinkle, at the imraaculale glory of which their
16*
182 SANCriFlCATION TO WFB.
head is in possession. — Oh ! that we could make our calling and our election sure — We are not our own we are bought with a price. — Blessed God, work in us both to will and to do of thy good pleasure; that wlien he who is the life of his people shall appear, we may also appear with him in glory. — Amen,
DISCOURSE VIII.
HE WHO IS BORN OF GOD SINNETH NOT.
I. John 5: 1 8. We know that whosoever is born of God, sinneth not.
The objects, my brethren, of religious knowledge are very various. The books of creation, providence, and revelation, afford, each of them, many striking and important lessons on which the thoughts of man considered as a religious being, may be employed to the greatest advantage. In creation the power, wisdom, and goodness of God exhibit themselves to the most inattentive in no less a clear than' diversified a manner; and if any be more careful to search more narrowly into its various departments, the more bright and more numerous dis- plays of these attributes continually present themselves to his view. Providence also, while by its undoubtedly suitable and continued disposition of things towards their proper and lauda- ble ends it has a tendency to confirm and establish us in the belief and the better understanding of these sjjme important objects of religious knowledge, has also a tendency to acquaint us, either in a less or a greater degree, with others no less mo- mentous and interestincr. Some faint idea of our own weakness and depravity, of the patience and forbearance of God, and of his justice and mercy, may, by an attentive perusal, be perceiv- ed in the book of God's providence.
184 HE WHO IS BORN OF GOD
Narrow, however, at best, as well as obscure and indistinct, would be our knowledge of divine things were it confined to these two sources. True, indeed, they contain much objective- ly considered; but many of the truths lie at too great a dis- tance, or are too much concealed under the thick cover of seeming perplexity, for the weak and unimproved faculties of the greater part of mankind ever to acquaint themselves with them. Neither in fact, although they should, do they contain in themselves all that knowledge that is necessary to conduct us, in our presently depraved condition, to an approvable dis- charge of our duty. To accomplish this is the prerogative of supernatural revelation alone. They are the scriptures of truth which bring forth the hidden plans and purposes of God respecting the recovery of a sinner to his acceptable obedience. The book of nature might be read all over, creation's hid,den treasures laid open, and the mysterious procedure and involv- ed connexions of providence unravelled and clearly explained ; and yet the least intelligence in this important affair never could be attained. It could never be said, we know^, it is by being born of God. We know, saith our apostle, that whoso- ever is born of God, sinneth not.
We see in this text, a person standing in a peculiar and dis- tinguished relation, one born of God: we see an endearing line of conduct which he leads, expressed negatively, he sinneth not : and we behold our apcstle's confident declaration with respect to this attribute of this son of God, he knows it. Three important inquiries, therefore, occupy to-day our deliberations. . — What is meant by being born of God? What is the import of the language, whosoever is born of God sinneth not? and what are the reasons which lead the christian to exclaim for himself and others, we know, that whosover is born of God sinr neth not.
First, What is meant by being born of God? la divinity there is sometimes an advantage obtained from adopting the form of theory for the sake of perspicuity of arrangement j and
smNETH NOT.
IB6
believing that this method will conduce, in the present inquiry, to the most satisfactory result, we beg leave to present you with an answer, to this particular inquiry, in the form of a de- finition. By being born of God, it is presumed, is meant, that after his natural birth there is a real change produced by a di- vine operation in all the faculties of the soul of man, by the implantation into it of a spiritual and supernatural principle of life and action. It will not admit of a doubt that these ex- pressions of scripture, born of God, born of the spirit, born again, born of the spirit and water of life, do all imply some great change which passes upon a man after he is supposed in natural existence, and is exercising the natural powers of his mind.
To procure assent to our defiaition as a proposition of divine- ly revealed truth, we are aware, that the inquisitive mind calls for some remarks explanatory of this spiritual and supernatu- ral principle of life and action, presumed to be implanted into the soul ; and then for proofs of its implantation.
We remark, in the first place, that this principle is, in its na- ture and manner of implantation into the mind, truly mysteri- ous. Here we know not the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb. This new birth, near as it is unto us, and apparently under our observation, is yet as the wind which beateth our outward frame and roareth in our ears, but is that of which we can give no account. The wind bloweth, saith our Saviour, where it listeth, and thou hearest the- sound there- of, but canst not tell whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth, 80 is every one that is born of the Spirit.
Not to acquiesce, however, in this, as well as in many other mysterious cases in nature, would be highly unreasonable. We know no more, perhaps, far less, how our minds, the nobler part of our constitution, actuate our gross bodies, than we do of this new birth. The true christian, though from its spiritual quality, and from the instantaneous direction of his thoughts to the objects which the change fits him to perceive, he be able to
186 , HE WHO IS BORN OP GOD
say little as to the precise nature of the change itself, can yet, both from his knowledge of the word of God and his own hap- py experience, say a good deal both of its gently but power- fully operating cause, and of its pleasant and comfortable ef- fects.— Which brings us to remark,
Secondly, That this is a principle implanted into the mind by the agency of the divine Spirit. It is this great teacher who, not by constraint, but willingly, leads and conducts the chris- tian into the genuine knowledge of the truth, and makes him feel its real efficacy and power. True, indeed, we are said to be born again," not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God. The word is the unerring rule by which, in all cases, the Spirit operates; and is with regard to adults what is termed the moral cause. It inculcates the necessity of regeneration ; it points to the true efficient of it; and it ex- hibits the glorious privileges and advantages that are conse- quent upon it. It is, however, an instrument only of which the Spirit makes use. To the Spirit himself, in scripture, is attributed the real eifectuating of the change. " According to his mercy he saved us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost." " Who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God."
But we remark, lastly. That this is a principle, which, be- ing implanted, restores the whole soul, in a certain degree, to that state of purity and holiness in which it was originally formed. In man's primeval state he was constituted in per- fect rectitude after the image of God. His understanding, his will, his affections, and indeed every power he possessed as a religious and moral being, were free from the least taint of cor- ruption or weakness, to disable him for acting his part in the sphere which was assigned to him. This was the happy state in which he knew perfectly the rule of his duty in every occur- rence of life, and delighted to comply with it. Now this spir- itual principle recovers him to this state; though not perfectly?
SINNETH NOT, |g7
but somehow as a child is to a full grown man. He sees though his view be not a little indistinct, objects in their native colors. Whereas in his original state he knew, as far as concerned the nature of his situation, on every object which God had made, or relation which he had instituted, the impresses of divine authority; so now, in some degree, he re- cognizes the same dignified and interesting points of know- ledge. Whereas he then knew that the creation, animate and inanimate, and the law of obedience, proceeded from God • so now he knows that the scriptures, which no less than the works of creation and providence, are enstamped with impressions of divine authority, spring from the same original. God hath shined, as the scripture saith, into his heart to give him the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Je- sus Christ, that his faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.
But it is not divine light alone of which, by being bom again, this man is made a partaker. As in his original state he not only knew but delighted in his duty, so now he has not only his understanding enlightened to perceive it, but his will, and every active principle of his constitution, perverse and alienate from the life of God as they were before, are, in this day of God's power, altered and restored, in a great measure, to their primitive order and ability. His desires, his affec- tions, his sense of right and wrong, or conscience, are all purified; and while the two foraier are put under a happy regulation, and directed to suitable objects, the latter is restored to ite rightful authority and dominion in the soul. The man is now no longer constrained to obey merely from the com- manding voice of the law without him : this is the day in which it is put into his heart. By the new birth he has an inward feeling of his obligation; a knowledge how his duty is to be performed; and a principle prompting him to the performance of that which is holy and upright. But we cannot sum up the state into which his mind is put by regeneration, so well as
1 88 HE WHO IS BORN OP GOD
by saying, that, in truth and earnest, he is begun to realize the words of our Saviour: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself."
Having made these remarks on the principle itself, we come now to adduce the proofs that, in the new birth, this principle of life and action, whatever be its nature or manner of implanta- tion, is infused into the soul.
There are many who allow of the necessity of an operation of the Spirit on the mind in order to accomplish regeneration, who, notwithstanding, deny that there is any real change which takes place intrinsically in the faculties of the mind itself. They say that to deny an operation of the Spirit on the mind, would be to obscure and unstring all those clear and nervous passages of scripture, which we find so pointed, and so often repeated on this head. But at the same time that they allow this, they deny that it is of any other nature than what is extrinsical and moral in its. effects: that is, the Spirit operating externally on it influences the mind to attend to tlie word, the rule by which the man is to be reformed, but he produces no change on the nature or in the quality of the soul itself. Indeed we willingly allow that there is no change produced in the essence of the mind, or in its necessary and physical modes of acting. These are still the same, and can- not be altered while human nature is human nature. But we assert that, considering the mind in a moral point of view, and with regard to the qualities of its actions, it is, as a prin- ciple from which these actions spring, greatly changed; and this, by the implantation of the spiritual and supernatural prin- ciple we have m.entioned.
Our first proof is from the nature of the change itself Here it will be necessary to glance a little at the state of man, .as represented to us in scripture, previous to regeneration . Not to make much research, nor to adduce many passages, we havo this clearly depicted in the two following apposite ones, from
SINNETH NOT. 189
the Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians. In the beginning of the second chapter he says: "You who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in times past you walked according to tlie course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air; the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobe- dience." Again, in his fourth chapter and eighteenth verse : <* Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their hearts." Here the understanding, the will, and the conscience, not only the leading powers in the soul, but powers which either presuppose or comprehend in their exercise all the rest, are represented in indeed a very dis_ ordered and perverted condition. Is it said that it does not sufficiently appear from tiiese passages that it is the mind itself that is enfeebled and morally corrupted ; but that they only evince that they are the exercises of it which are disordered and perverted? We might, granting this, (what the words quoted will not allow us to do, without the most violent dis- tortion,) reply and urge with our Saviour, that a tree is known by its fruit. But we shall turn the argument into another channel.
At man's first appearance in the world he was unquestionably furnished with moral endowments far superior to what by nature he now possesses. He was then in the image of God. God created man, it is said, in his own image; in the image of God created he him. It is not the soul as acting, nor the exercises of it, to which there is here a respect, and on account of which man is said to hare been created after the image of God. It is the frame and constitution of the man previous to his acting. He is created in it. But though he was created in this state, mark what is bis natural condition now . He is born as the wild ass's colt; his frame is shapen in sin, and con- ■ ceived in iniquity; his hearty the moving principle to action^ is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Thus, it
is clear, that previously to regeneration, not only the exercises 17
190 HE WHO IS BORN OF GOD
of the soul, but the soul itself is spiritually enervated and morally depraved. — The consequence to the establishment of a principle of grace implanted in regeneration into the soul is undeniable. Regeneration reverses the state of man^ and whatever was deficient in the soul by sin, must be supplied by grace.
Secondly: This truth is confirmed from ail those passages of scripture which ascribe actions to the renewed man as really his actions, but which, in his natural state, he has no ability to perform, Heie it may be laid down as an undoubted truth, that an action can never be ascribed to a person as his action, if he has no capacity in his nature suitable to the peiformance of that kind of action, but is carried forward to it merely by an external impulse. It is an absurdity to say that it is in any respect his ; the intent, matter, end, and consequences of it are ascribable to the external agent only who operates upon him. Indeed we willingly allow that we are dependent upon God every moment of our existence, and even for that particular disposition in which our minds are when about to act or when acting; but then we assert that we have within ourselves a fit- ness or capacity suitable to the performance of the actions which are termed ours, and on account of which they are so denominated. Now, the new man performs spiritual actioifB; he CO mpareth spiritual things with spiritual; he eateth spiritual meat, and he drinketh spiritual drink; he prayeth in the spirit, and he singeth spiritual songs. Previous to his regeneration, however, he had not a fitness or capacity congruous to the per- formance of these actions. " The natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discern- ed.'" Here his inability is plainly declared, and the reason is assigned — spiritual tilings are spiritually discerned. There is, on the perception of spiritual objects, a new simple idea in the mind, v;hich, in its unrenewed capacit)^, it could not re- ceive. Thus, if we allow not of a spiritual principle of life and
SIN7?ETH NOT. 191
action implanted into the soul, capacitating it, or should it be better expressed, giving it a fitness of nature for the perform- ance of these spiritual actions, the inevitable consequence will be, that the actions which are ascribed to the renewed man are not at all ascribable to him, but to the Holy Spirit who operates upon him ; a consequence which will overturn the very funda- mental principles of morality and man's accountability; and hence the true account of the inhabitation of the Spirit is as we have presented his operations.
Other arguments might have been drawn from other general considerations, such as regeneration is termed a new birth and a new creation; but passing these, we shall only mention, and consider a little, three passages of scripture, which will admit of no other explication than what clearly and pointedly coincides with this opinion.
" That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." That the spirit here, which is said to be produced by the Holy Ghost, can be referred to nothing else than a supernatural principle of life and action, is clear from the carriage of the context, from the opposition in which it stands to the flesh, and from the character and circumstances of the speaker. If this language denotes not this principle, why did the Saviour lay such emphasis on these words? If by being born again were meant a reformation only of the exercises of the soul, could the teacher sent from heaven, and who was in heaven, find no more clear and perspicuous method of expressing himself to the laudably astonished and inquiring mind of Nicodemus, than by asserting that the change was spirit; a word always used to denote some real sub- stantive existence. In the preceding verse he had stated the absolute necessity of it to salvation; and by his solemn assevera- tion, he must have thrown the mind of the man into the greatest anxiety and solicitude; and are we to suppose, that notwith- standing this was a case in which doubts were the most easily resolved, and views the most easily rectified, that however
192 HE WHO IS bor:? of &qd
Christ, in this very verse, the only one where he professes to explain himself, used language which, to Nicodemus, conveyed nothing but the contrary idea to a common reformation of life, and which, to all men, must convey the same?
Again : The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh ; and these are contrary the one to the other. That by the flesh are here meant inclinations to vice and wicked- ness, is obvious from the common acceptation of the w^ord flesh in the New Testament ; but especially from the description given of it in the imm-ediate context. In the same soul, how- ever, in which are these inclinations, there are others of an opposite nature. The spirit lusteth against the flesh, as well as the flesh against the spirit, — It cannot be said that the lustings of the spirit here are the twinges and strokes of natural conscience, considered merely as a natural faculty of the mind, enlightened by the external word, to a perception of its duty. Though it be allowed that this faculty, after that the mind by the aid of revelation is led to understand, in a good de- gree, the distinction between right and wrong, often exerts itself in severe reproofs of the conduct of the natural man ; yet, it would be a fond interpretation indeed, to understand its exercise for what is here termed the lustings of the spirit. A person is said to lust when he indulges those principles of his nature which are incentives to action, and which show them- selves previous to the operation of conscience, and the proper or improper indulgence of which is the subject over which con- science exercises its authority. Hence the spirit here must be some principle in the soul, or some seat of the affections, which, from its very nature, exerteth itself as a new creature, against the lustings of the unsanctified part of the soul, which is here termed the flesh.
But lastly: That by these ye might be made partakers of a flivine nature. It cannot be asserted that this divine nature of which we partake is that of the Deity. This is incommunica- ble to any creature. If it be any thing inherent in us at all^
SrN^ETH XOT. 193
it can be only some divine and supernatural quality graciously and freely communicated to us. But that it is this is obvious. ^ For, why should it be called a nature, a permanent and an abiding thing, if it were not some real inherent quality? Nature denotes not any adventitious and extrinsical con- nexions, but always the internal state and properties of any subject. It may be termed a divine nature, because it assimi- lates the christian, in some degree, in the correctness of his understanding, the uprightness of his intentions, and the holiness of his desires, to God, whose nature is truly divine.
The second general object of inquiry in our discourse was, what is meant by the language, " Whosoever is born of God sinneth not?"
In what sense we are to understand the phrase, sinneth not,
is a matter about which there has been some difference of
opinion. Some have said that all that is intended by it is,
that the persons who are here said to be born of God, cannot
commit that sin unto death, which is the subject of
which the apostle has been immediately speaking, and which
is mentioned in the sixteenth verse. But since it is here used
as a part of a general and an unlimited proposition, and since
the same mode of language is used in a preceding part of the
epistle, evidently from the connexion in a greater latitude of
meaning, we think, that though it be past all doubt that this
sin is not excluded, the phrase, however, must have a more
extensive signification. On the otlier hand, it is obvious
that it cannot be understood in an absolute and unrestrained
sense; so that no one who is, as here said, born of God, can
commit any sin. Scripture in innum.erable instances, and the
experience of the best of saints, in all ages, declare against
this view of the subject. Job, a perfect and an upright man,
one that feared God and eschewed evil, cursed, in impious
ingratitude, the day in which he was bom, and the night in
which he a man child was conceived. He asked in earnest
17* '
^
194 HE WHO 19 BOSN Ot GOD
impious questions, why died 1 not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I camo out of the belly? David, a man after God's own heart, perpetrated iniquities, and often laments over them. " Mine iniquities have gone over mine head as a burden too heavy for me to bear." And Peter the most zealous apostle of our Lord, sinned, till he wept in repentance; for he had denied his Lord and master. "]f," says this apostle John, in this very epistle, " any man say that he has no sin, this man deceiveth himself, and the truth is not in him."
To answer this inquiry, therefore, f?e would remark the following things :
First: That he who is born of God doth not sin, inasmuch as he has a settled disposition of mind to guard against every means that may have a tendency to urge him to the perpetra- tion of iniquity. In this respect, as is added in the following part of the verse, he keepeth himself. Satan's temptations, into however enticing and seemingly advantageous forms they may be thrown, are all detested by him. Conscious of the justness of the exhortation, resist the devil, he strives to oppose him, although he should appear as an infuriated lion, menacing to deprive him of every thing which men count valuable in this world, should it be even life itself; or should he appear, not in this terrifying aspect, but in that more mild one, in which he often traverses the world, exhibiting vices under the semblance of present interest or advantage, or as a means to obtain some future apparejitly valuable end. With what is called the world, he is also no less unwilling to yield a compliance. Whatever may be its urgencies, or whatever arguments it may use to support and render current the evil customs, habits, and practices, which but too often and too pow- erfully prevail in it, his mind is continually set against them, and earnestly expresses itself to be kept far from the wicked. Gather not my soul with sinners, saitb the Psalmist, nor my
SINNETH NOT. 195
hands with bloody men. But they are not external enemies only that make assaults on the interests of the soul of man. The worst enemies whom he has to contend with are those of his own house. Even the person who is farthest advanced in sanctification, has a law in his members warring against the law of his mind, and about to bring him into captivity to the law of sin . Now to guard against the machinations of this restless and wicked foe within him, is what the true christian has an established resolution always to do. [t is the lanauage of which his heart approves, I would do good, though evil be present with me.
But, secondly, He w^ho is born of God does not sin, inas* much as he does not commit sin with deliberation and premed- itated device. The natural man is not only off his guard with respect to the ensnaring enemies of his soul; but it is charac* teristic of him, that he often lays, with all the depth of his penetration, schemes by which he may accomplish some great wicked design. Should his pride, his vanity, his malice, hia envy, his ambition, his revenge, or his avarice, create to him a desirable object, for the attainment of this, he is often seen td introduce into his system of practice, every species of iniquity; no murder, no perjury, no profanity, no acts of impiety, appear too great for him to be guilty of. But he who is born of God cannot sin after this manner. He is one who keeps the ways of the Lord; who does not so wickedly depart from his God- his judgments are ever before him, and he puts not away hia statutes from him. He may appear indeed at times to' per* form ablameable action, which apparently has its origin in evU intention; but this is to be imputed rather to the imperfection of his state, or to his ignorance of his obligation in that particu- lar instance, than to any premeditated and settled design of do- ing evil. This is the case in which is exemplified in his chai^ acter, the truth of the saying, that he is one who fears tlie Lord, and obeys the voice of his servant, and who yet walks in dark'
1 96 HE WHO IS BORN OP GOD
ness, and has no light. — When to will is present with him, but to perform that which is good he finds not.
But, thirdly, He who is born of God cannot sin, inasmuch as he does not perpetrate evil actions with affection and love to them. The unrenewed man not only deliberates how he may accomplish a wicked action, but he even executes wicked designs with eagerness and delight. He works all unclean- ness with greediness. To slander and despise just and sacred authority both human and divine, to interrupt and mar the hap- piness of others, to bring into disrepute and render useless the best and most momentous concerns, civil and religious, are un- dertakings in which he often embarks with the greatest alacri- ty, and which by one step after another he pursues with increas- ing joy. But the renowned son of God has no such affection towards evil deeds. On the Other hand, this kind of sin is the burden of his soul. He crieth when he feeleth this law in his members, these corrupt affections of the old man, warring against the law of his mind, and about to lead him intocaptivi- ty to the law of sin, Oh ! wretched man that J am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death! The idea of proceed- ing to a wicked action with delight shocks his frame. His bones quake under it, and the blood altereth its course in his veins. It is to him an oppressing and an overwhelwing burden ; it ends his peace, it stuns the man, it is upon him the weighty and insupportable body of death. Oh! wretched man, said Paul, that I am, w^ho shall deliver me from the body of this death!
But, fourthly. He w^ho is born of God does not sin, because he does not run on in a perpetual course of iniquity. The wicked not only deliberate about it, and enter eagerly on a wicked action ; but the imaginations of their thoughts are evil and that continually. That end which dignifies the actions of men, and that authority of an upright rule which stamps their worth upon them, are, in actions which often have a specious
SINNETH NOT. 197
appearance, really neglected A man may be industrious from self-interest ; patriotic from ambition or natural feeling ; osten- sibly religious from habit or a desire to obtain a devout reputa- tion; a scholar may traverse the fields of science from mere curiosity; and a legislator may be just purely to fill the circles of society with encomiums upon his conduct. And, as it can- not be denied that men may often act thus, so we may aver, that conscience, were her dictates alone to be recorded, would represent all the world that lieth in wickedness, by those spe- cious but unapproved lineaments of character. Day and night their thoughts weave schemes over which the genius of inter- est, curiosity, ambition, or instinctive patriotism, presides. Not a dictate of conscience is revered purely for its majesty, nor is a glance of the great end of human actions, the glory of the Creator, permitted to rule and govern them. They are all gone out of the way; they are altogether unprofitable, there is none that doeth good, no not one.
Than this conduct, however, the christian maintaineth, in regard to the rule and end of his actions, a line of life much more amiable. He is one who can say, though not in an abso- lute sense, I was upright before him, and I kept myself from mine iniquity. Yes, this man about whom there is much sin- ful imperfection, strives to rise above his infirmities by all the operations of sincerity; by the spur which every failure gives to his conscience; by redoubling his resolutions; and by press- ing forwards toward the mark of perfection. " I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do; forget- ting those things that are behind, and reaching forth unto those things that are before, I press toward the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." — I cannot but weep here over some on whom a trembling observation has been suspended, and for whom agitations have increased. Have the motives, my brethren, of the unsanctified, the thousands of earthly and carnal conceptions which sit brooding on their minds and generating the labyrinth of their schemes, and which send
^Q HE WHO IS BORN OP GOD
forth in life and vigor so many renewals of them, been the par- ent of your morality and religion? Ah! what a corrupted heart under a profession so honorable !— Wo unto you hypo. crites,foryou are like to whited sepulchres which appear beau- tiful outwards; but within are full of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness.— Thisis the doom of the wicked j but happy is the righteous; fori remark,
Lastly, That he who is- born of God does not sin, inasmuch 83 he does not commit that sin which, in the tenth verse, is said to be unto death. By this sin is meant either the sin of total apostacy or the unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost; of which our Lord speaks, Mark 3: 29. Whichever of these it be; or should it be both; for it seems somewhat difficult to de- termine, whether a person can make a profession of the gospel for some time and then finally apostatise, and not be chargeable with blasphemy against the divine Spirit; and certain it is, that there cannot be this blasphemy, without at the same time final apostacy; we say, whatever he the nature of this sin we do not determine. Suffice it to say, that it is certain, that it is a sin for which there is no forgiveness: and that as our text says, he who is born of God cannot be guilty of it.— Which brings us to our last inquiry,
Which was, lastly, What are the reasons from which he who is born of God exclaims for himself and others, we know, that whosoever is born of God, sinneth not. Various are the considerations from which we might show you the christian adopting this language with respect to the sin unto death, so awful in itself, and so prominently included in our text; but we look for arguments and demonstrations which will not only secure against this final catastrophe; but which will inspire us to adopt this language in regard to the other sins, which we have asserted the saint has, in these words, before his eye. Desirous to maintain as far as possible the same line of thought unbroken before your view, we recur to the spiritual and supernatural principle of life implanted into the soul; to a
SIKNETH NOT. 199
review and amplification of its relations; to the sure influences which water it; and to the parental care of him who is the head of these influences.
We remark, in the first place, That this principle of life and action, proved to be implanted into the soul in regeneration, ever abides in it, and is never eradicated from it. True indeed, the fruits and eflfects of it, the exercises of the habit of faith, love, and every other grace of the christian, may fade, and fail of giving either examples to others, or comfort and assurance to the person himself. The phrase " sinneth not," does not plead absolute exemption from iniquity. But though this be the case, the habit of grace in the heart does not lose its seat, nor the seed of life the germinating quality of sending forth a beautiful and fruitful produce. The artificer, when he lies down to rest, loses not the knowledge of his art, nor the capa- city of putting it in execution. Neither does the seed, though during the cold and inclemency of winter it lie dormant, and discover no inclination to break the clod, fail, when the genial season and warming influences of the sun return, to send forth that verdant and flourishing vegetation which, in the spring, adorns the face of the earth. The same is the case with the christian. Though he may be so fatigued and overcome, not indeed with the delightful task of making christian attainments, but with the wrestling and war, which, with innumerable ene- mies, he has to maintain, as to desist from his laudable employ, and to lay himself down for a time to take a culpable and an ill- timed rest; though he may be in the winter of desertion; though that enlivening influence which sent forth in its vigor the growth of the seed of life which is in his mind, may have withdrawn itself, yet the habits and principles of the man are not lost: on the other hand, when the day alters, and the lime of the Lord's visitation draweth nigh, the seed which seemed to be dead is quickened, and the man who had resigned him- self to a forbidden rest is restored to his former glorious exer- cise. Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body
^0 HE WHO IS BORN OP GOD
shall they arise; awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs; and the earth shall cast out her dead. Is more proof of this important point asked? Are not the gifts and callings of Grod without repentance? Is it not said, the truth dwelleth in us, and shall be in us? And that whosoever is born of God cannot commit sin, for his seed re- maineth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God ?
But we observe, secondly, that this gracious principle of life and action which is implanted into the soul in regeneration, and which always abides in it, gives to the mind of the chris- tian such a peculiar turn and disposition, as fully justifies, respecting him, the assertion made in our text. His under- standing is truly and correctly enlightened to a considerable degree, in those momentous matters which present themselves as injunctions or motives to universal obedience; and in those instructive points that are to direct him both positively how to maintain his duty, and also how to avoid the implicated and ensnaring cases of human life. He is sensible of the authority of God, and knows the obligations to gratitude; he sees, by the penetrating eye of his faith, in their own aspects, the future endearing objects that are to meet obedience ; and he remem- bers the awful nature and threatened consequences of vice. He knows, too, the promises of God, and how richly they are provided with every thing suitable to his exigencies; he is acquainted with the ordinances and institutions of his worship, and he cannot be forgetful of the need of circumspection to escape the entanglements of a circumventing world.
Having thus his understanding properly enlightened, is it possible that he can forego this genuine knowledge of his, and diJiberately persevere in a line of conduct which his own mind reprobates? Can he, for instance, notwithstanding the proper impressions he has received, deny and contemn the authority of God ; reject from his view the most inviting, delightful, and invaluable objects ; or live careless of the known and direful consequences of iniquity? — But why do we insist upon hii
SINNETH NOT. 201
knowledge? The active principles of his mind are no less renewed than is his understanding. His affections sweetly and powerfully incline liim, as a dutiful son, to receive and obey the equitable commands of his righteous Father; his de- sires prompt him to the pursuit of the glorious objects which his faith discovers; and, as an encouragement to him, his con- science intimates to him the present pleasures of godliness. The saint is of the same turn of mind with his Saviour, and desires to adopt the words, which, as uttered in prophetic vision, he used : " 1 delight to do thy will, O my God ; thy law is within my heart."
Thus, though because his knowledge is not absolutely per- fect, he may take some unwary and forbidden steps, or because he has a law in his members warring against the law of his mind, ' he may at times yield to the importunities of the former, when he should be going along with the dictates of the latter, he is not, however, without grieving for his indiscreet rashness in the one case, or his too easy compliance in the other. He is not like the dog that returns to his vomit again, or the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire. He commits not this sin, for which, as Peter insinuates, there is no forgiveness. Neither does he, like the dissolute man, abandon himself to work all uncleanness with greediness. 15ut he is like a man who has some desirable object in view, and whose inclinations go all out after it; but who, in the rough and perplexed places tlirough which he has to travel, or from the false information which envy, malice, or enmity, may suggest to him, at times, notwithstanding all his caution and circumspection, deviates into by-paths that are prohibited and unlawful to be troddwi, but who, however, deeply laments over the unhappy situation into which he has fallen, and longs to be recovered to the right road again. Hence says the royal singer of Israel, mine iniqui- ties have gone over mine head as an heavy burden, they are too heavy for me. 1 have roared by reason of the disquietness of my heart; Lord all my desire is before thee, and my groaij^f
202 HE WHO 19 BORN OF GOI>
mg is not hid from thee; make baste to help me, O God, mj salvation.
But while we feel a principle of life, and while this principle inspires confidence, and prompts, by the light and fervor of its operations, to the adoption of the language in our text^ we must remark, ray brethren, that this new creature is not an indepen- dent existence; but the relation it daily bears to its authory and the connexion in which it stands to the exalted and glorious head of the new creation of the saints, have further to bespeak the reasonableness of our confidence. Which brings us to remark,
Thirdly, That it is not to be thought that the believer actuates bis graces without the immediate agency of the divine Spirit, Man is not more dependent upon God for his preservation in na- tural being, or for the physical support of his powers in any aetion, than is the believer on the Holy Ghost for the exercise of his graces. Though he may say with Paul* in all his labors, " It is no more I that do them; but grace that dwelleth in me;'* yet the Spirit is he to whom, as the great supplier of Christ's piesence, he must add, " Without thee we can do nothing."
To perform this the Holy Ghost is represented in scripture as- dwelling in the hearts of believers. " Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Holy Ghost dwelleth in you except ye be reprobates." The Spirit of God is as really, not with regard to what we have termed his graces only^^but with regard to personal operation and efficiency, in the mind of the renewed man, aa God with regard to operation and effi- ciency pervades all his works. We do not say that the essence of Deity is any way more peculiarly in the saint, tlian in any other thing, or any other part of space. This is infinite, eter- nal, and unchangeable, and can never undergo the least altera- tion, whatever eveiits take place among the works of God without him; should their intrinsic natures be changed, or their qualities either for the worse or for the better. But we say th^ there are peculiar effects which take place in the mind of
SINNETH NOT. 203
the saint, by the Holy Spirit residing in it, in a peculiar maii- ner, with regard to power and efficiency; as a person of the Trinity employed on a particular work, in a particular econo- mical character.
Now, since the Holy Spirit dwells in tlie saints, and since it is appointed him as his work, (for sanctiiication is the work of the Spirit.) to operate upon them, and to lead forth their graces into exercise, is it to be supposed that he will fail of performing tliis office? Are we to suppose that the love of God contem- plated salvation, and that Christ paid a full price of redemption in order that his people might attain it^- but that the Holy Ghost failed in the essential work of sanctifieation^- — that he resigned some to the sin unto death, and otliers to drink iniquity Jike waters? Though for wise ends he permits at times the ■man in whom he dwells to taste of iniquity, yet surely he allows not thus his affections to be altogether alienated, nor his inten- tions to become thoroughly perverse . That all the graces of sanctification may be exercised, in the mystery of his opera- tions, he permits, at tunes, ground for the exercise of repen- tance. By this, under his direction, the character of the christian, while it forever remains sensible of the necessity of humility in its own estimation, is led to be more mild and gen- tle in the sight of others. This is one way in which the Spirit brings good out of evil, and makes all things ultimately to conduce to make a perfect man in Cin-ist. But though the Spirit may permit the christian to proceed thus far, he effica- ciously forbids him to proceed farther, and to falsify the language contained in our text. The renewed son of God is kept bjr the Spirit, even in his worst condition, in the same state in which the spouse of Christ was, when she said, I sleep, but my heart waketh. Hence the true reason of tliat saying in Isaiah, " I the Lord do keep it,- I will water it every moment, lest any hurt it; I will keep it night and day." The flowers in the garden of Grod fade, in some seasons greatly languish ; but they never diGc
204 HE WHO IS BORX OF GOD
Bat this Spirit, as dwelling in us, is the representative only of Jesus Christ, the head of the mystical body the church. Hence we observe,
Lastly, That the intercession of our great head, in his glori- fied state in heaven, secures the realization of the language in our text; and urges, the more that his relation to us is surveyed, the more earnestly upon us the repetition of it. To the office of our high priest, Jesus, my brethren, was appointed by these solemn words: "The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchisedec." When God thus addressed his Son, what immutable promises, in this solemn transaction, must have been made by the Father respecting them who stood by representation in Christ ! Under the oath are surely comprehended all qualifications for the dis- charge of the mediatorial office; all support during its accom- plishment ; and all adequate rewards of his meritorious work. — When, then, Christ our head pleads thus qualified, and on tlie infinite merits too of his satisfaction — satisfaction estimated and approved, for the reward that is due to him : yea, when he pre- sents, in his glorified person, that right which all his followers have to the inheritance he preoccupies in their name, must it not appear, that this language, and this alone, can convey the truth : " This is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day?" When God shall alter the word that hath gone out of his mouth ; when he shall alter this to his own Son ; when he shall alter it to deny him his reward promised in eternity ; promised with his oath ; promised as an encouragement to him to submit to his agony and accursed death ; then may the christian desert his confidence, and seek a new key to many passages of scripture ; passages which pre- sent Jesus standing over us, and pouring into our minds the water of life which issues from the throne of God and of the Lamb. — Jesus, thou Son of God, this is thy language, and it must be fulfilled. " Whosoever drinketh of the water that I
SJ5^NETH >fOT. 205
Shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that 1 snail give him, shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life, I am confident that thou who hast begun a good work in me, wilt carry it on unto the day of perfection.'- Yes, tlte relation of thine all-prevalent intercession to my eternal welfare:; the emotions I experience, not of might, nor power, but of thy Spirit, taking of the things that are thine, and giving them to me; the glorious views which this grace creates, and the affections which it inspires; the peraianent nature of tlie principle of life and action which the Spirit keeps for ever aliv« and growing in its season — all — all make me, amidst the temptations and evils of this trying world, though oppressed with weakness, yet breathe this paraphrase on the text. "^ I am persuaded tliat neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things pi-esent. iior things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other crea- turre, shall be able to separate me from the love of God, whicti is in Christ Jesus my Lord.'"
My brethren, many of you are weak; but the subjects throughout ail nature swell not into perfection in a moment. On the other hand, they grow imperceptibly, and arrive at p'erfection under the operation of many elements, which m their changes and ultimate settlement are never perceived. So says the language of scripture respecting you : ^ 1 will be as the dew unto Israel; he shall grow as the corn, and flourish as the vine, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon," — And is any of you at present mourning? Hear these words. "For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but m. great mercies will I gather thee; in a Kttle wratli 1 hid myself from thee for a moment ; but with everlasting kind- nesses will I have mercy upon thee; I am the Lord, thy Redeemer.'^ Yes, christians, you are the sons of God; and ii sons, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Jesus
Christ-— of heaven and of glory. Amen^
18*
DISCOURSE IX*
THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES.
Matthew 16: 3. Oh, ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky, but can ye discern the signs of the times?
It has been the common topic of declamation amongst those more zealous for the welfare of mankind, than they are observant of their principles and informed of their history, that their own generation is the deepest sunk in depravity. The world, however, has been on the whole nearly equally depraved in every age; though sometimes it has been more veiled by the similitudes of virtue than on other occasions, Nevef were men better pleased with themselves, nor had they ground to be so, where likeness passed for reality, than that generation whose era was denominated the fulness of time,- and which our Saviour addressed in these severe words : " Wo unto you hypocrites, for you are like unto whited sepulchres, which appear beautiful outwards, but within are full of dead men's bones and of all uncleanness." These Pharisees, with whom the Sadducees at times associated against our Saviour, were particularly careful to make clean the outside of the cup and platter, and to maintain, according to the letter of long esta- blished and venerable institutions, the fairest characters. Had a disinclination to innovation, and a scrupulous regard exter- nally to what God had once instituted, been the criterion of man's duty in their days, little ground for blame would have been found amongst them.
THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 207
But whilst the world, under varioils attempts to cover wick- edness, is nearly the same in all ages in the substance of her character, the scheme of God's grace has actually been advan- cing, by the operations of his providence, with a steady and frequently an imperceptible pace, to its final accomplishment. From the beginning of the world each age has been distin- guished by its own peculiar marks. From the obscure and twilight view of it in the first promise, it advanced, distinctly marking on the great dial of time every degree, until it arrived at the fulness of it; and every intelligent and attentive observer could be at no loss to calculate the precise character of his own days, and the relations they bore to a hopeful futurity.
This scheme is still opening ; and its particular character, were it not for the prevalence of a pharisaical disposition, might, in our own age, if not accurately estimated, admit of an approxi- mation. Our Lord, we apprehend, does not, in these words of the preceding context, " When it is evening ye say it will be fair weather; for the sky is red: and in the morning, it will be foul weather to-day; for the sky is red and lowering," purely have a regard to the innocent observation of the com- plexion of the heavens, which, indeed, is at times even the use- ful director of the husbandman. But it is his intention to apply it to that discommendable disposition which, in the ad- vancing kingdom of God's grace, would forget its improving tendency, and consider it, in the very midst of its progress, as if it had settled down into that unvarying aspect which marks the usual appearances of nature.
The sky , my brethren, exhibits the same appearances in all ^ges ; but the times, in a moral point of view, have a varying and an advancing stamp upon them ; and particularly as they respect the great scheme of salvation. How many, in every age, fall into that reprehensible state in which our Saviour here reproves the Pharisees ! Many sincere and pious shepherds of Israel will read the history of the church, and consider the signs of other times; but the criterions of their own, they appear, at
208 THE SIGNS OP THE TIMES.
least, in the sense in which our text requires us to consider them, afraid to state in their own colors.
Our text presents before us the glorious period of the arrival of the long promised Messiah, and calls us to mark it, not so much by the signs of depravity, as by the wonderful develop- ment of the glorious means of salvation. Perhaps a fear of not being severe enough on the prevalent sins of the age, or a tenderness in interpreting too forwardly the great lines of pro- vidence that are bearing on their wings the coming of Christ's kino-dom, may be assigned as part at least of the reasons why the watchmen upon the towers of Zion have been more forward to record and proclaim her dangers than to hail her brightening prospects. Had we, however, lived in the days of our Saviour, as far as our fears were influenced by Pharisaical mistakes, and our tenderness helped on by our indifference, the language of that merciful and just one to us would have been, " 0,ye hypo- crites, ye can discern the face of the sky, but can ye discern the signs of the times?"
To mark the signs of the present times, in their cheering as- pects, would require a judgment matured for drawing general results from a detail of particulars in the history of past years, and which bear a comparative relation to the present day; a conception stored with all the facts that are living in the system of providence, and operating with much probability to the ad- vancement of Christ's kingdom; and a perception into the departments of prophecy that will seize the line of termination to which the progress of the kingdom of grace will at last arrive. It is comparatively easy to mark the face of the clouded and lowering sky of usual errors and common vices; to tell, as has been done of old, that socinian, arminian, pelagian, and latitudinarian. errors, are prevailing. — The draught of the state of the present age which we will attempt to offer, will be some very general and imperfect outlines; from which the attentive may form some just idea of the character of his own times; and which, we hope, the better informed will clothe with his
THE SIGNS or THE TIMES. 209
own reflections and remarks, to approach as near as possible to what is his incumbent duty.
From the nature of Christ's kingdom, we must expect that, in our age, very forward advances are made to its ultimate per- fection. A tree that is perpetually growing, however imper- ceptible its progress in barren seasons may be, yet, in the accumulation of ages, exhibits a trunk and boughs that bespeak firmness and strength, and show the marks of the long and steady influences of heaven. The traveller who has been long on his journey, though he may have many an impassable mountain around which to form a vastly retarding circuit, yet is considerably advanced towards the grand object of it, although at the moment of reckoning, his face, in his winding way, may be partly turned backwards. The river is considerably ad- vanced, even in one of those great doublings which send some of the greatest rivers on our globe, at hundreds of miles from their source, much farther from the spot of the earth where they disembogue their waters into the ocean, than when they started. — The church has had a stream of vast length in our w^orld ; and by this time it must have gathered much strength, and be considerably advanced on its course to its highest attainable perfection. The vine which our heavenly Father hath planted, must be supposed spreading forth now many a promising limb of undoubted fertility.
This church had its origin in that promise which secured her privileges and foreboded her future prosperity : " The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent.*" In after ages, she kept a steady pace of that mysterious advancing, which, whilst her changes afforded occasions of laying the most solid foundation, had evidently striking marks of a rapid pro- gress. When the world was swept of its wicked inhabitants by the deluge, though the numbers of the church were neces- sarily restricted to a very few, yet there was a character, in the brightness of typical representation, given to the church, which, in no previous age, had she at any time displayed. A cloud
210 THE SIGNSOr TH3S TIltXES.
covered her countenance in Egypt j but whilst her character lay in a manner buried in that oppressive and idolatrous empire, there were the most rapid preparations making, under the hand of a mysterious providence, for bringing her forth in a far more advanced stage of her existence, than that in which she had ever before appeared, and of clothing her with a brightness, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners. It has been remarked by some zealous and candid defenders of the truth, that their ingenious opponents, by the edge of their opposition, did more to lead to the genuine re- sults of things than they themselves did^- and while this was far from an encomium on their depravity, it may tend to illus- trate the mysterious ways in which the church of Christ has been advancing to the highest possible perfection of her cha- racter, whether she has been among the hands of her enemies or those of her friends. The destruction of the temple of Jeru- salem, and the desolation of the land of Juda at the Babylonian captivity, were events vyhich equally reflected condemnation on the ambition of the Babylonians, executed vengeance on the guilty Israelites, and advanced the interests ultimately of that society around wliich the wheels of providence continually play. An era was now marked for the commencement of the glory of the second temple, and for fixing, under arithmetical numbers, the period when the long promised Messiah was to be cut off, but not for himself; for arranging the rise and fall of empires, to introduce among their own peculiar circum- stances the last times of the world; and for summoning the expectation of mankind to look for the arrival of the desire of all nations. The appearance of Christ himself was at a period when great darkness seemed to cover the church ; but this was nothing more than another of those mysterious steps, which, while man's wickedness appeared enormous, was to mark the steady development of God's well ordered covenant of grace; and hence, by the adjustment of the previous courses, and this rich flow, the river of life now stretched over its former banks,
THE SIGXS OP THE TIMES. 211
and blessed the fields of the gentiles, as well as those of the Jews. Happy indeed was the state of a great part of the world in consequence of this great and mysterious event; an event which destroyed the wall of partition between Jew and gentile; an event which gave birth to the most striking miracles in confirmation of the true religion ; an event which interpreted the great chain of prophecy; and an event which led to an immediate effusion of the Spirit hitherto unknown.
Many have indeed supposed, that in the dark ages of popery which succeeded the primitive and pure times of the New Testament dispensation, the progressive scheme of salvation received a wonderful check. — That it was then workingr its way under a cloud, raised too in the most discommendable manner, by its professed friends, cannot be denied. Yea, the mystery of iniquity was then in the power of its operations. But to conclude from these appearances that there really was a retardation of the operation of causes, which, on the whole, were best calculated to subserve the ultimate designs of the church, and which, though concealed in mystery from the eye of humanity at the time, were clearing their way to break forth, like a powerful torrent that has been obstructed in its course, into immediately happy effects, would be no less rash and un- advised, than injurious to infinite wisdom, and unobservant of its results. Was it not the occasion of the awful degeneracy of the church of Rome that the Spirit of God made the motive of determined opposition to her on purely scriptural principles only ? And will not the corruptions of the mother of harlots be beacons which, on many critical points, will have settled, to every future age, the safe course which inquiring men are to take?
But to ascertain the character of our times, it is not sufKcient to consult the history of the churc?i, and to show how God has uniformly brought good out of evil — making all things to work together for her advantage; we must contemplate the actual victories which she has obtained. "VVIien there is a powerful
212 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES.
resource of new armies which may be still brought forward with some hopes of success, the state of any cause is yet far from the enjoyment of perfect tranquillity. The armies of errors, to be sure, that could at any time be mustered against the truths of the gospel, were feeble compared to the divine omnipotence of these truths; but where men are engaged in the contest, to produce victory, it is usually necessary that a conspicuous display of principle be actually made.
Many an advocate, my brethren, has pleaded with tenacity and zeal that either the whole gospel, or some of its radical tenets, should be given up; and the way in which the sovereign providence of God has been permitting these errors to be mar- shalled against the truth, and has always been overturning them, together with a statement of an approximation to the condition of the controversy at present, must be brought for- ward, to discern in any accurate view the particular signs of our own times.
The gospel, my brethren, has completely sapped the founda- tions of the pagan temples; and no man, who is in the least ac- acquainted with the principles of the religion of Christ, will now venture the reputation of his understanding, by attempting to prove any system of ancient or modern heathen worship equal to that of Jesus. — A system, however, which boasts that it could procure the glory of the victory which the gospel itself, and that alone, did obtain over the polytheism of the heathens, but which would rob the gospel of this honor, and then dismiss it as un- worthy of the wisdom of the human intellect, was made, not long ago, to dispute the field with our holy religion. The evidence of our religion is of itself divine, and of itself it pro- duces the highest moral certainty . In this state of it, Christ and his apostles left the world possessed of the greatest treasure it could receive. But there was still a possibility that wicked minds would exert their ingenuity to enlist plausible pretences, founded in sophistry or the varying manners of mankind, to combat the sovereign truths of the gospel. Accordingly evexy
THE SIGKS OF THE TIMES. 213
age has had its free-thinkers and its opposers of revelation; and particularly since the happy period of the reformation. In opposition to these Deists, however, men of genuine abili- ties and patient investigation have, by providence, been uni- formly raised up; so that, in our day, demonstration is almost joined to moral certainty in support of the religion of Christ ; and so feeble have their suppositions and surmises become among their hands, that these opposers of revelation scarce ever now openly and boldly take the field. Above all others does the following circumstance afford an evidence, that the most profound schemes of its enemies tend only to advance the reputation of Christianity. A number of men of great and distinguished talents united their activity to their cunning, and their reputation as men of letters to the impudency of their promises of success, and flattered themselves tliat they were now much more powerful than the first propagators of Christianity, and it was detennined thai they should subvert the whole of our religion! They were enthusiasts in the be- lief of the truth of their philosophical systems, and they bound themselves by the most solemn oaths, that they should efface the object of their dislike from the earth; but the fabric of our religion was too powerful to be shaken. Their complete fail- ure, and their utter denial of their principles when exposed to trial on account of them, only add new evidence to it, by the contrast which their pusillanimity bears to the undaunted car- riage of the apostles, and by the utter abortion of their deep- est and best laid schemes. Many had before talked of their enmity to Christianity ; but till the time referred to, there never was an actual practical attempt most seriously made to imi- tate by co-operating powers, the propagators of our religion with a view to destroy it. This evidence in its favor in the awful light of contrast, God, however, did at last permit; and this where the most powerful geniuses of human nature were united, and where circumstances, as it was supposed, flattered still more the hopes of success. Hence while philosophy Wus 19
214- THE SIGNS OP THE TIBIES,
purifying unintentionally the doctrine of miracles, by showing the unifcrmitY of the laws of naturej and consequently the im- possibility cf an agent inferior to the great creator altering them : and while she was separating testimony to the dignity of keeping the great post office of all past ages, and showing us that experience is a little runner among the lanes of our own observation and experiments only; v/e see, that the proud and bitterest enmity of her most gigantic opponents h made to con- tribute Its share to the overflowing stream of evidence, enrich- ed from so many sources, in favor of our holy religion.
The same holds good with respect to those malicious at- tempts that have been made against parts of our holy religion by men who are otherwise its professed friends,. Arianism had once a general currency of which the christian world at large have not now even an historical acquaintance; but they have been pursued out of every lurking place of false criticism, and for shame they will be afraid ever afterwards to show such a barefaced audacity. Socinianism has been followed so hotly, and plied with such steeled weapons, that it has been driven to make so many scriptural criticisms, and all almost equally unsatisfactory to itself, it appears now to plead the basis of philosophy only; and to own that perfect inconsistence between a belief of revelation on the whole, and a denial of it by detail, that wiir lead its professors to deliver up their churches to the moles and to the bats: for, in fact, a consciencious preaching of the gospel, and a keeping of the Sabbath day, may be ob- serv^ed while th^y are stimulated and kept warm by controvert- sial zeal ; but when this cools off, all that seems to be gained by the sounds of words which in themselves always seem more favorable to an opposite creed than to their own, cannot, in these days of common sense m philosophy, long please their continually increasing philosophical taste. Arminianism, ac^ knov;ledging the great principles of revelation, and supporting itself by allowing of a part of each topic for the whole, requires a greater acumen of distinction and nicety of investigatiojQ
THE SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 215
than almost any other controversy; and while it has many abettors all must own that much is done in our day to settle this controversy, above what was before the public some cen- turies ago. Yes, my brethren, it may not be observed by the careless who look at their immediate neighbors in their own day only; but it is a glorious and a momentous truth, that the society of the church, which was weak at first and is advancing to perfection, has a steady and progressive increase; an in- crease precisely such as her character would require— remov- mg every error that can spring up, that at last she may sit down, on the glorious seat of her most eminent attamment, as that sword of the Spirit, which has slain every enemy, and is to possess the brightness of tlie glory of the last days amongst intelligent beings, by giving them the pure results of truth tried on every possible touchstone, and universally found gen- uine. It is astonishing that so many please their indolence and want of reflection, by considering every opposition to the gospel as a means of postponing the most glorious state of the church, and expect that this state is just to arrive as a great and dictating prince among men. No, all things that we see and hear, however wicked many of them are from men, are yet preparations, from her own wise and mysterious economy, for the last and most glorious days of the church:— the thunders of her enemies tend only to purify her atmosphere that the day may afterwards shine more brightly.
But to obtain the object of our research, we must add to these promises from her character and history, and these evi- dences from the removal of all rubbish that would weaken or conceal her foundations, a slight review of the present relations of the church.— At the Reformation the doctrine of the scripture was most clearly stated, and the means of the salvation of the soul presented in their unadulterated purity. But the econo- my of grace advances gradually, and at that time, whilst the mdividuai possessed ail that he could wish for his edification and comfort, there were most heavy burdens that were oppress-
216 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES,
ing and bearing down the facility of the progress of the church to her last and most perfect state on earth. There is a great difference between the privileges of church members, and that pregnant crisis of circumstances which is to produce the most distinguished events in behalf of Zion. The progress of the economy of salvation is from the beginning to the end of time, and in the mystery of providence, God sometimes makes the greatest dearth of spiritual provisions to the individual, the most fertile source of operation to push forward the progress of the society to which he belongs. A powerful principle on which to predicate the dissemina- ■* tion of christian knowledge and privilege in our day, and which had not come into operation in the first periods of the reforma- tion clearly among the reformers themselves, and not at all among their opponents, is a recognition of the rights of con- science. The manner in which this seems now to be adopted, and the endeavors that are made to interweave it with the very manners of the people, augur prosperously for the interests of religion far above what the unreflecting are apt to imagine, and deserves particularly to be considered as a striking sign of our times. This principle never before was embraced by the ene- mies of the reformation, and when many of its principles were actually living among them to aid the purification of their for- mer corruptions. But the providence of God seems now to put into the heart of every one some degree of the benevolence and philanthropy of this principle, and to open a door at which the righteous may enter. The way in which God hath in many pla- ces of the world established it, is truly wonderful ; this bright sun of the most hopeful encouragement to the prosperity of the religious world having arisen out of indiSerence to all religion. But his wisdom chose this state of the manners of mankind, that the benign light itself might first break forth unimpeded by opposition ; and then the seeds of the truth would grow up under the open and propitious day. Truth has a peculiar and a commanding character, and when a free inquiry after it is
TUB SIGNS OF THE TIMES. ^17
pennitted, though some may wander from its path by the vani- ty and waywardness of their minds, yet, through the divine blessing, the multitude are disposed tt) receive it^ — and how hopeful nov7 is the prospect, in those regions of tlie globe, where the inquisition and implacable persecution suppressed once the most promising buds of the reformation ! To be sure, in several parts of the continent of Europe where even tyrannical and persecuting courts themselves thought that they had exterminated the seeds of the refonnation en tirely, there were thousands who met in the darkness of the night to worship, under the sweets of an approving conscipnce, the one God by the one Mediator between God and jnen. This was a plant which Jehovah was covering in the ItoIRjw of his hand, till the day of liberty should arrive; and hence the multitudes of protestants who are now found, daily increasing. m those countries, where, a few years ago, it was believed tiiai superstition universally reigned. When the arm of man is long stretched, its tension naturally begins to relax and its grasp to become feeble, if there b^ little to rewai'd by the gratification of passion; and hence the inquisition was m a great measure of itself failing to operate before it received any formal an-d legal check; but what an alteration m tli« pros- pects of the reformed world have we now by the revolutions, which, by the mysterious hand of God, have taken piace throughout the extent of our continent! Previous to tfeese revolutions the diabolical spirit of the inquisition througit- out those extensive regions was indeed dying away; and books by some of the natives were written with impunity against it; but now it appears consigned to oblivion and free inquiry after truth invited to assume its place. This inquiry in many parti prevails, and we must hope that its results, m many instances, will be highly favorable to the pure re!ig4on of Christ.
The forms of religion, ray bretferwi, which have obtii4ied among men have been either vast fkbrics of superstitioii, or 19*
218 THB SIGNS oy THB TIMES,
bodies clothed with some of the more refined coverings of it; and all nations, fond to protect what they enjoyed, have con- ferred dignity on certain tenets by a national establishment of them, and have thus given them, among the people at large, an adventitious aspect, as privileges which the fathers confer upon their children. People who are so eager to bequeath, un- der the sanction of law, their earthly possessions to their off- spring, think, under the influence of their religious feelings, that they cannot consult their affections for future generations, without, under the laws which possess physical force in their execution, transferring also their tenets of religion to them; and hence those establishments.
The christian religion asks not, however, this aid; and is dis- tinguished from all others, by its being the only system that ever ventured into a nation with the scrip and sandal only to adventure its hopes. If it be divine, this was noble, and a fair method of making, on such a momentous inquiry as the means of preparation for the eternal world, proposals to the sons of men. Every man has to learn for himself, and to de- cide, as in the presence of God, on that to which his con- science is to submit, and the christian religion being divine, assumes, in the last and most perfect dispensation, an emin- ence of fair and spiritual teaching which sanctifies and separ- ates it, like the temple of Jerusalem, from all which would aspire afler the name of religion. It is mighty to the pulling down of strong holds; but the weapons of its warfare are not carnal but spiritual.
Ever, my brethren, since the period of the reformation this primitive principle of Christianity, which makes God alone, the Lord of the conscience, has been working keenly after an ascendency among men ; but these after days, on which provi- dence has bestowed so many favors, have the pre-eminent honor of loosing from the shackles of confinement the hea- venly o^spring. The recognition of the rights of conscience so extensively in several porta of the civilized world, is not
!rHE SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 219
an attainment of speculative inquiry ; but the result of the neces- sary progress of human improvement, under that rapid current, which, for a century and a half, in science, arts, and govern, ment, has taken place. Nor .will it be overthrown or weaken- ed, as speculative opinions receiv-e currency for a time, and are afterwards altered or abandoned. The right of conscience, in modern christian society, is like Newton's discovery, of the principle of gravitation ; which by honesty and ingenuity waa opposed for a time, but which was afterwards universally adopted to account for all the harmonious movements in the universe. The rights of conscience, from the supposed dignity of ancient systems, will, in different parts of the world, meet with obstacles various and powerful,- but the voice of the im- provements of mankind in every sense in which they can be considered, is, that they are an element which, accompanying originally the infant progress of Christianity, now, when she verges towards her ultimate perfection, cannot but appear as a leader and divine vindicator of the progressive improvement of the human race.
Every nation indeed in modern times, when they established what they believed to be the true religion, professed also to establish the rights of conscience; but their definition of these rights accords ill with the free air of primitive Christianity, which boasted of living peaceably with every kind of idolatry that might be without; and, before the present progress of human society, these views seem sophistical, and the practice of them, in every protestant nation, is almost entirely set aside.
There is a holy guile in the rights of conscience ; for while beloved establishments of false religions would never surrender tlieir fortifications to a direct attack, the claims and arguments of these rights, finding no fault with existing errors, obtain the free discussion of every important principle; and in a little truth alone is found to stand the severe trial to which every topic is subjected ; and ever afterwards what has been found to triamph on the fair field of inquiry stands erect and immove-
220 tTIE SIGNS OF THE TIMES.
able. The principle of the rights of conscience will sap the foundations of popery; will overthrow the fabric of mahome^ tanism; and will level with the dust the altars yet remaining of heatlien idolatry. These things are certain ; else the current of human improvement must forever run in a narrow channel, or its streams must be absorbed in a desert which neither our phi- losophy nor religion can believe to be before us.
But not only are the rights of conscience in the most influ> ential parts of the world now recognized ; the rights of man appear to be beginning to be universally respected. While one part of men professing the true religion, continue to plunder the other of the most valuable of the blessings of heaven, liberty and all its train of indescribable advantages, it may well be said, that it is impossible for the former to make many religious proselytes among the latter. It is a deduction from the most simple principles of our nature, that that religion cannot be from God which destroys man. But of late years wonderful are the efforts of providence to put a final and an universal termination to the iniquitous traffic in human kind, and to remove one great obstacle to the general spread of the gospel. Effectually to accomplish the grand object, it would be necessary that providence put into the heart of some great power, able to accomplish the design, the determination that emancipation shall be effected. This has been done. With more spirit and with more unanimity than is usual in that great body, has the Parliament of Britain decreed, " that to traffic in human flesh is contrary to the law of nature and nations, and that slave vessels, to whatever nation Ihey may belong, or in whatever latitudes of the ocean they may be found, shall be captured as pirates and treated accordingly." This law and others of a similar nature, which in that and other nations have since the passing of it followed, are in the true spirit of out reliction, and will still lead to further enactments — all of which measures will excite an inquiry among the formerly oppressed, and bereave them of every antipathy to that religion which has
THE SIGNS OP THE TIMES. 221
effected such an universal change in behalf of oppressed huma- nity. The results of these regulations will necessarily operate, together with other circumstances, to stimulate prudence to provide, by some means or other, for those who are already domesticated in bondage. When the light of the sun, as Isaiah says, becomes seven-fold, and the glory of the Lord appears to all nations, not only will the images of superstition be melted down, but the chains of the oppressed will be dis- solved.
But the horizon of the present age is brightened by other views than these we have presented before you. To the recog- nition of the rights of conscience and the rights of men, there are in our day made the most particular active exertions to dis- seminate the gospel. Providence, for some centuries past, has been insensibly, by the ambition of princes and the interest of the commercial world, making the whole regions of the globe subject to the knowledge, and in some respects familiar to the manners, of christian European nations and our own. This was an admirably preparatory and singular step, far preferable to all the ignorant crusades of men; though of itself it might have been too feeble to attain the grand object of ultimately making the kingdoms of this world the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. Hence, at the proper crisis, when manners were becoming somewhat common between us and these once entire strangers, and when a commanding commercial inter- course might have threatened to decline, God put it into the heart of men to prepare a translation of his holy word into its vernacular language, and to have it left as a legacy with every tribe and nation almost on the face of the earth. There may be some things respecting these bible societies we would desire altered; but certainly when we consider their assiduity and their success in making translations, the light which their en- deavors throw on the christian world's prospects , and the ends to which God will ultimately make their endeavors subservient, compel us to record such peculiar traits of them, as a striking
222 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES.
feature of the christian world in our days. Long has the church prayed for the knowledge of the Lord covering the earth as the waters do the sea ; and these means appear in some respects to grasp at the whole of the great circle which the faithful predictions of Code's word have described. Many ages may elapse before the plants which are thus sent abroad into all parts of the earth grow up unto perfection ; but as the book of the law found among the Israelites, produced, after a long oblivion, a wonderful revival of religion ; and as the scriptures presented among the papists, but almost forgotten in the dark ages, gave birth to the reformation; so may the holy word of God ornament, for many days, a library, as a monument of curiosity only, and then afterwards, by the blessing of God, be turned into its native utility. Yea, we may verily believe that these scriptures will make some converts wherever they are sent, and these living, as the first fruits in all lands, will secure the ensuing harvest.
But another sign of our times, favorable to the interests of religion, is the introduction and the establishment among men of the proper method of philosophising. In almost all ages of the world theory has prevailed, and that knowledge which is founded in facts was disregarded. In all the sciences, how- ever, it is the method of reasoning from facts that is now established. No inquirer after truth in any department of knowledge considers theory as a sure foundation on which to rest; and till he is satisfied, nature herself must be interrogated, and her voice distinctly marked, in instances of proof which are permanent as the laws of the universe.
This general method of inquiry is highly favorable to Chris- tianity ; for all its evidence resolves itself into facts, and all its doctrines refer through enlightened and candid criticism to the authority of its inspiration. Some men, indeed, have imagined that the facts which form the external evidences of Christianity are not the pillars on which our belief of its truth is to rest, but weapons which are put into our hand to overthrow its
THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 223
enemies. But we are rational beings, and it is in this character only that God deals with usj and the external evidences of revelation are as much arrangements of divine wisdom ftjr the attainment of a particular end, as the supernatural system of divine truth itself is an arrangement of it for the accomplish- ment of its important designs. The rational evidences of Christianity are as really divine, viewed as they ought, as the scriptures themselves are. They are not accidental traits or vague traditions, but marks placed by the great Architect in the very building itself, or growing out of it, in such a manner as to be inseparable from ii; and they have as evident charac- ters of divinity upon them as any of the works of God; and this too in relation to the very end for which they were intend- ed. We might, in reference to our belief of a Creator, equally exclude the wisdom and signatures of power in the universe from having any legitimate influence in regulating our faith on this point, as we can exclude the wisdom of prophecy and the omnipotence of the miracles wrought in confirmation of out holy religion, from having any just influence in producing our assent to its truth.
There are on which to depend, the fact of its obvious supe- riority to all others ; the fact of many prophecies contained tn it, and many of these undoubtedly fulfilled ; and the fact of miracles. The passage of the Red Sea, and the manna enjoyed for forty years, are evidences of God's presence and operation j an account of whicli, we may remark, we have in the very midst of the laws which regulated the politics and justice of a nation that was singularly separated from all others, and which had used the same laws ever since that very age which witnessed these miracles, and which could not therefore be mistaken re- specting them. — The miracles of Christ, too, and of his apostles, are extraordinary facts which were not denied in the age in which they took place, and in respect to which the first propa- gators of our holy religion could not be mistaken — they were
224 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES.
facts for which we have more testimony, and this better tried, than respecting any thing else found in history.
In a word, my brethren, there is in the back ground of the cheering picture of our times the images of decay which repre- sent all false systems of religion, and onwards to which these powerful principles which we have presented are moving, effec- tually to overturn them. The knowledge of the Lord, it is said, shall cover the earth as the waters do the bed of the ocean. Tlie waters of the sea roll irresistibly ; so the advancing progress of the church, and the improvements of human society, in the arts of government, in science, and in civilization, will roll on, refluent only in some parts, and for a little time, under a powerfully adverse wind ; but at last they will overpower all opposition, in every bay and channel of the world, and will settle over the face of the earth in tranquillity. And provi- dence, as presumed throughout our discourse, is prominently making way at present for this happy period. For while the religion of Christ always proffers peace on earth and good will towards men, it has in our day a vigor and a nerve in its arm, which show that it will flourish in perennial youth. Heathen- ism is mouldering to the extremities of the earth into dust ; and imagination, in the present state of improvement, cannot devise a prop to promise aid. Mahometanism was originally built on the successes of the sword; but the glorious days of the reformation, and the light shed throughout Europe for three centuries past, have already, around all the borders of the prophet, palsied enterprise, and shown us how, even at a distance, the light of knowledge, the prerogatives of conscience, and the rights of humanity, will intimidate and destroy that power which is actuated by a consciousness of its own weak- ness and decay. And notwithstanding popery, by learning from the principles of the protestants, has silenced the inqui- sition; has guarantied in many places, in some degree, the rights of conscience, and has promised to keep faith with
THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 225
heretics; yet. while she, in these enlightened times, withholds the word of God from the people and pleads the authority of tradition, she must meet with that fate, which a dislike in very distant nations to submit to an authority in a moulder- ing city among the ruins of an ancient empire, cannot but hasten more and more in every age. The very extent of the geography of our earth as at present known, and the elevation mto independence of the minds of men, proclaim a certam and an entire overthrow to every system which is not suited with facility to that geographical extent, and which does not rejoice to go hand in hand with this manly spirit of men's in- dependence. •• For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds; casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into cap- tivity every thought to the obedience of Christ."
But while the signs of our times are on the whole, as ar- ranged by the providence of God, very encouraging; there are some amongst them which, in defining their character, will lead us to consider the economy of God's church, as requiring many great changes of providence to display her ultimate per- fection. Indeed much of her jQattering character at present consists of ripening prospects only; and these may have many a storm to shake some of them altogether from the tree on whicli we nov/ see them, and there may be many a cold night to retard the mellowing into perfect ripeness the rest.
In the first place, there are stiil in the christian world many grievous errors fixed by a tenacious hold in the minds of men. We have intimated the wonderful ways of infinite wisdom, by which victory over error is in the christian world obtained ; and both from the very nature of the christian dispensation, and tlie gradual steps by which the human mind will part with its prejudices, we are yet to suspect many grievous errors oppressing the church. Before these can be banished, every '20
226 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES,
hold of false criticism throughout the field of revelation must be completely broken ; and to accomplish this many years are indeed required. And oh! that the Lord would pour out his Spirit as a Spirit of guidance into the truth ; for our gener- ation is particularly disgraced by talent and inquiry being discouraged in the great concerns of religion ; and a striking sign of our time is the lamentable difficulty of reconciling this indifference about investigation, with the cold tenacity with which many move on in their former and unfounded sen- timents. The scismatics of old were not more erroneous than their endeavors were active to defend by resemblances of proof the tenets they espoused ; but their followers present little more in support of their schemes, than that they are so, and every thing else is absurd. This is a speck in our pros- pects of such an inveterate hue, that it is calculated to shun the common weapons of attack, and demands our warmest supplications to heaven, that the Lord himself would revive his work.
This indifference it is indeed not difficult to account fbr^ even in respect to the most fundamental of religious opinions. Whilst the church, my brethren, is so greatly divided as it is at present, many of the tenets maintained by the respective di- visions as characteristic of their distinct existence, are, in the general view of the religious world, held in very small estima- tion ; and the carelessness of inquiry which is directed to- wards these points, aided by a dislike to that bitternesss of dispute which they see so prevalent, leads insensibly those who dijBer on the most fundamental questions to consider th ir subjects of controversy as only the common occurren- ces respecting religious opinions. It is a masim in logic that what proves too much is good for nothing; and the profusion of trivial disputes, among the few zealots who are to be found in almost all societies, tends to introduce into the general mind, the sentiment that religious truths are not subjects of
THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 227
investigation but gifts of birthright or accident, and men gen- ■erally submit to what is so easy and cheap a possession. In our own happy country, where the protestant phalanx is so completely broken up, popery in many places is viewed as on- ly a common division among the ditferent denominations of the christian world; andsocinianism claims a brotherhood, be- cause the most orthodox churches are as bitter against one another, as they can be against it; and it is to be feared that many an honest mind embraces it as little more at any rate, than one of the common sections of Christianity, Which brings me to remark.
That another uncomfortable sign of our times are the divi- sions which prevail among christians. The devious errors into which many wauder occasion the consciencious to shield himself under the arm of the Lord,— by assuming a singular but necessary station from the fundamentally erroneous; and by preferring the character of a sincere and faithful follower of Christ, to that of having the general approbation of men. But a spirit of division, my brethren, is contrary to the unity of the church ; and that not only the beauteous graft appears separated from the corrupted stock, but that among the trees of God's own vineyjtrd there should be a withering influence universally dis- played from day to day, is certainly a great grievance in our time, and what both hinders the spread of the gospel in other parts of the world, and weakens its influence where it is pro- fessed. God's church will advance to her greatest attainable perfection; but surely, while every infidel can tell us that christians are endlessly divided among themselves, the state of their society is not of itself calculated to aid much in forward- ing God's designs. It is a truth that the principles ofnata- ral religion of late years have been as much questioned, as those of supernatural revelation; that difference of sentiment on the very first principles of morals has abounded; and that an univei^sal agreement of men in the principles of our holy jeiigion in the present stage of the church's progress cannot
228 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES,
be expected : but whilst we can plead the difference of men^s views on all subjects, as an apology for our difference in mat- ters of religion, it certainly is our duty, not to run the race j of division unsent by necessity, nor to widen the gap of separ- ation by adding dislike and invective against those who may differ from us. Were the character of the true church left to be formed by men, each would make his own opinions the , standard ; but the pattern of the temple of the Lord is delinea- ' ted in his word, and to it we are to conform; but self-love, an overweening conceit of one's own views of controverted pas- sages of scripture, and a zeal unbridled by charity, may possibly urge this one to embrace an extreme of inflexibility, which but ill corresponds with the weak nature of man and his opportu-^ nities in many classes of society of impi:ovement, the general ' ) tenor of scripture towards weak brethren, and the examples of | the great in the purest periods of the church towards their brethren in Christ. A love properly manifested towards our ! christian brethren in other societies, and reciprocated general- ly, would be an antidote, in the spirit of our religion, to the cavils of its opponents, who differ more in their own systems, ■ than christians in the interpretation of theirs, and it would be i an effectually preparatory step to that future harmony and uni- "" ty which must prevail. Loving friends soon see with the same eye and come to a unity of conviction respecting the truth; but enmity clothes itself in its own robes, and nurses an opposition I where the very spider could scarce fix a line to effect her murder-^ I ous intent. Our divisions then are another sign which make as ] yet very great deductions from the felicity of the prospects, which, in other respects, promise so fairly; and while these exhibit often a bitterness of party feeling which tosses with in- fidel disdain to a useless distance the new commandment of our Saviour, " Love one another," our only comfort is, that God may bring good out of evil, and that this will ultimately be the case. — For the time must come when there will be one Lord,, one faith, and one baptism.
THE SIGXS OF THE TOIES, ^ 229
•
My brethren, I may just remark here, that some great men ftave thought, that though the churches may have something of «xtemaily different forms, and different churches may have ■different degrees of purity; yet, as long as any symptoms of life remain, and as long as our conscience dictates to us that they are x^hurches of Christ, there should be, at all times, some practical circulation of christian offices and duties taking place. There is one passage in Durham on the Revelation, which, in feeling and sincerity of expression, excels all the rest of his admirable dissertations in that excellent work. The words {low so sweetly and the candor appears so triumphant, that one would think an angel had been a ministering spirit to hira, and had suggested some of his thoughts. The disserta- tion is entitled, "The unity of the catholic visible church;'' and in it he proclaims that ther« is one heaven^ and one earth, and one Jerusalem the mother of us all ; and this, taken in connexion with these words upon the same subject in another place, ^*' there is an union and communion in the catholic visi- ble church, which is one body, one city and house, one com- monwealth, one bride and spouse,'' shows us that we might, in his view, as well stop some of the blood in our veins from vis- iting every member of the body, as absolutely break up all fel- lowship with the parts of the visible church which the great head hath thrown around us. This man lived in the very brightest period of Scotland's ecclesiastical purity; and as her greatest ornament was promoted to the most sacred station which her wisdom and piety had to bestow: and he and sever- al others inspired into their own age a terror of separating, in the house of God, chamber absolutely from chamber, by hold- ing up the seamless coat of Christ, and the breast of the one woman who, in the Revelation, 'gives milk to us all
But another sign of an uncomfortable aspect in our time, is, many of the most influential characters of the world are indif ferent about the concerns of religion or enemies lo them. The latter day glory is to be distinguished by the kings and queens
20*
230 THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES.
of the earth becoming iiursing fathers and mothers to the church; and while in the ages that are past the irreligion of many of these and other great ones has been obviously administering an evi- dence to the truth of that religion, which infallibly predicts that not many mighty are chosen ; the fact tliat this is still the case with them is a proof that the church is only advancing, through >• very powerful difficulties, towards her ultimate perfection. I
The causes which have to account to us for this prevalency I of irreligion among the most influential men in society are, " principally, the deceitfulness of riches, and the allurements of the world which they can easily command ; but perhaps the present guardians of the church are not altogether blameless . jj It is our duty to be careful to keep our garments clean, and not * to be partakers in any respect of other men's sins : but since the youthful education of the eminent members of society cul- tivates the taste, and enlarges the mind with scientifical know- ledge, perhaps, as a great divine remarks, the unnecessary homely style in which the great truths of salvation are often set before them in writing and speaking, and the undigested effusions of sentiment which are exhibited to them as their spiritual fare, are great part of the occasion of their irreligion and indifference. A minister's lips should keep knowledge, not only of the generally known doctrines of religion, but of that high quality that will make him appear a leader in every species of ornamental or useful knowledge. A simplicity of style is admired in all compositions: it shines in the best histo- rians; it is the very dress that genuine philosophy will wear; poetry weeps when she is divested of it, and divinity is stripped i of her indispensable ornaments when she is otherwise dressed ; but to present that which disgusts in style and confounds in sentiment for simplicity, is a disagreeable usage, no less incon- gruous in tlie christian writer than hurtful and common. That seriousness alone will consecrate ignorance, and childish inno- cencies fit for the great office of instructing the human intellect, is an error no less prevalently adopted in some departments of
THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 231
the christian world, than mischievous throughout a vast series of relations. The priest's lips should keep knowledge; and they should seek the law at his mouth; for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.
Thus, without looking at the face of the sky, which presents in all ages the same indications of fair weather and foul, and which stretches behind the neighboring hills only, we have endeavored to catch the spirit of the exhortation of the great Redeemer of mankind ; and as his church is increasing from small beginnings so as to cover the earth, we have attempted to mark, throughout the field she occupies, the signs which dis- tinguish her. If the ideas which have been suggested tend to animate the prayer of a heart attached to the welfare of Zion, or to direct in lines which before were not contemplated, your time is not altogether lost. But the thoughts have been pre- sented to them whose observation and knowledge can supply my deficiencies and correct my mistakes; to them who lead hundreds every Sabbath day to the throne of grace, to pray for the very object, the marks on the way to which we have been endeavoring to ascertain; and to tliem who are particularly related to the church of Christ and the management of her concerns.
My fathers and brethren, we cannot forget to lead the Lord's people under our charge into the knowledge of those prospects for the interests of Zion that seem to break upon our view, and to engage them to plead with him who is to pour out his spirit on all flesh, that he would hasten the period of his appearance. Though we be a small portion of the christian world, our exer- tions, if marked with prudence and determination, may be attended with happy results. An uniform and a fair vindica- tion of injured truth is the province of every disciple of Christ; and an exhibition of the beauty of tlie temple of the Lord, in a pre-eminently holy life, may be a blessing to those around us and to future generations. Almighty Saviour, be with us always, that we being fellow workers with God, thy church
232 THE SIGXS OF THE TiaTES*
may be presented, in the ministry of thine ordinances, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, before thee at last.
Brethren, we are about to meet as the supreme ecclesiastical judicature in one branch of the divided church of Christ, in a land of vast extent, and in a period of the world pregnant with hopes to the cause of the Redeemer; and each one of us, to do his duty, should single himself out, under the dignity of the light of his conscience, from all accidental habits and associations, and ask, before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, how am I now most prosperously to promote the cause of Christ; This is not to be done to break up our association ; but to make each individual appear, as before himself and these heavenly witnesses, a good soldier of Jesus Christ, and to make him remember that the enemy may come in like a flood. Yes, my fathers and brethren, and he comes with the cunning of the serpent and the stilness of the pestilence. Saul could mark the enmity of the Philistines, and Ahab could prepare his chariots and his horsemen to go with Jehoshaphat to the battle from which he was not to return in peace; but it needed the divine know- ledge of our Saviour himself to discern the torrent which, in his day, expended itself in hypocrisy, and zeal for the washing of cups and platters. " Oh ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye discern the signs of the times?"
It is usual with us, my brethren, to appoint a day of humilia- tion and fasting. This is well; but with us here it is the dis- charge of a duty which only prepares a fonu. We should endeavor strictly to ascertain what is the knowledge of the word of God which is among our people; what are their habits of religion; and what is the punctuality of their morality.
I charge you, my brethren, as stewards of the mysteries of God, that you be not imposed upon by the hypocrisy of men. Your people may look at the horizon that is immediately around them, and they may tell you of the collected clouds of error which they see, and of the boding aspect of the heavens in this and the other quarter; and you may be ready to accept of
THE SIGNS OF THE TI3IES. 233
this knowledge of external things for that religion which is pure, peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, without par- tiality and without hypocrisy; which denies itself, and is in all meekness and humbleness of mind; and which says, be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.
In a word, my fellow laborers in the vineyard of Christ, remember that we ought to water with an equally tender and an attentive hand the whole garden of God; — we should water what is enclosed within our own apartment, and the souls that are about all its borders: — For the voice of Christ is to them that are afar off, and to them that are nigh, " Go preach the gos- pel to every creature, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and lo I am with you always :" — a saying incorruptible as the light of heaven, and which will let no man, that is a minister of Christ, think that he can possibly do his duty, without his prayers and his exertions being directed to the universal spread of the gospel. Amen.
DISCOURSE X.
ON THE SABBATH.
Exodus 20: 8. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.
When, my brethren, there is any ordinance that universally and vitally enters into the movements of society, it is a delight- ful thing to be able to trace it to some certain origin. Of the religious observances on which men have attended, few, in the greater part of the history of the world, are traceable to any acknowledged source. The mythology of the heathen fabri- cated a genealogy for the gods, and the festivals which were kept in honor of them were ascribed to some feat in their life, which had as gratuitous an origin, often, as the divinity of the character in honor of which they were observed.
But the Sabbath, which is intended to maintain a station among all the days of existence, and to justify its origin and obligation by the relations which it assumes, and by the duties which it enjoins, presents itself as putting on its robes of sanc- tity in the very morning of creation. " And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made ; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it."
This is the first precept which surveys the heaven and the earth and all the host of them, and which connects the creature, through the wisdom and beauty of creation, with its Maker. When the universe was formed, God could not consider the fabric as suited unto the residence of man, until after he had
ON THE SABBATH. 235
surveyed all the steps of his creative energy, saw the spheres movhig in their order, and the earth stored with the first gene- ration of organized existences, having their seed in themselves. Then, however, he rested on that day, which was to return as regularly as time is measured by the perfection of the workman- ship of his hand, and which to its end is to proclaim to man how solemnly the wisdom of Deity retires, on the concluding of its works, into its rest.
There was compassion in the appointment of this day of re- pose. For all things had been put under the dominion of man ; and to give to those which were more immediately subject- ed to the labor of his command, a period of rest, which by heaven's command is their own, was kind in itself, and showed that even the lower creation have rights which we ought not to disregard. There is something that is pleasing to a benevolent and contemplative mind on seeing those companions of our toil, whose strength requires only our wisdom to direct them, in order to accomplish for us what otherwise could not be attained, set at liberty to pluck the herbs of the field, and to breathe the air of freedom, untrammelled by our arts or orna- ments.
But the sanctification of the Sabbath respects principally man himself. The inanimate creation has retired into the rest of forms of crystalizations, or organized bodies which form their seed by the processes of vegetation ; and while to these all days are alike, yet the very appendages of human society assume, as we have just seen, an attitude which bespeaks the voice of this day to man On it, while his body rests, his mind is to pass over all that he can direct it to of those works of creation, " the heavens, and the earth, and all their host," which the eyes of Jehovah surveyed, and with which the Eternal was so particu- larly pleased. There is not a flower of the field but on that day might communicate to him some evidence of the exquisite wisdom which had been exercised, till the covering of our erith was mantled over so as to satisfy the eye of its Creator.
236 ON THE SABBATH.
Not an insect which he sees on the wing, or creeping on the ground, but has members which he perceives can be fully un- derstood by their Creator only. And before him all things flourish to bring forth food for man and beast, so richly and abundantly, that he is lost no less under a sense of amazing goodness, than in the contemplation of wisdom. — Yet man cannot be satisfied with all this. His mind must pierce be- yond unto the original cause of all this great and marvellous fabric. Yes; for this day places him not merely in the building of the universe to survey its beauties, its riches, the lines of its order, and the extent of its dimensions; but it places him in it to hear the voice which breaks from every part, — the voice of the Creator, "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy." On this day, my brethren, the mind familiarizes itself with the character of him who himself dwells in light which is inaccessi- ble and full of glory. It reflects on his eternity, his omnipre- sence, his infinite power, his wisdom, and his majesty of com- mandment.
But the Sabbath soon came to connect itself with the econo- my of man's restoration from sin. The sons of God, indeed, in the patriarchal ages, were so few in number, and so separated by holy habits from the heathen nations among whom they lived, that the seventh day is not prominently presented to our view as a holy Sabbath, till after a whole people could put on its covering, could write its history, could bow to its sanctions, and could edify us by their examples of piety on the one hand, or of punishment for Sabbath violation on the other.
When Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt, God, who had originally instituted the sanctification of the seventh day, filled the ^vhole economy of Israel with memorials of the Sabbath. The manna which came from heaven commenced the high veneration which God's command enjoins, by keeping within its chambers on that day. Their fields had a rest spread over them every seventh year; and all prison doors opened to receive the refreshments of liberty on their sabbatical jubilee.
ON THE SABBATH. 237
There is, indeed, no boasting about their primary Sabbath, the duties of which were inculcated by the voice of crea- tion, and interpreted by the history of the sanctification of the Jews ; for during the days of David, Solomon, and others of the kings of Israel, the silence of patriarchal times descends again upon the history of this day ; and it is only by the spirit of praise which was so regular in its courses ; the rearing of the temple according to the directions of Jehovah ; and some incidental circumstances connected with the building of that sacred fabric, that we know that the memorial of creation was devoutly remembered by them who so fervently served the Creator as the God of Israel. The odour of the sweet smell from the sacrifice which was of double magnitude on the Sabbath, must indeed have ascended in these times ; because the priesthood was regular and its character estimable: but it is the commandment and sanctification of the Sabbath, not its histories, that revelation particularly regards; and also the sanctions and punishments of this day. For, my brethren, though, during many reigns, God says little about how men are observing his Sabbath ; yet, he comes forth at last, when Israel are* in a miserable situation, and tells them, in anger, that his land shall enjoy her Sabbaths. '^ And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon : where they were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia. To fulfil the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiab, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths; for as long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath, to fulfil threescore and ten years.""
It was a comparatively liglit thing for other nations to be conquered and led into captivity ; but for the Jews who had the ordinances of the true religion, and the protecting favor of the omnipotent God pledged to preserve them, to see their city destroyed, their temple overturned, its sacred furniture scattered among the heathen, and themselves made the sub- jects of derision and bondage, was an evidence of a tempest 21
2.58 ON THE SABBATH.
from their righteous sovereign; which, though many other causes are detailed in their history, shows how deeply God was displeased with their neglect of the solemnization of crea- tion, and of the most remarkable feature in their own privileges, when, at the end of the period of their punishment, he seems to forget all other causes of his displeasure, and fixes on this one of their violation of his Sabbaths. People and nations may think that God is as careless about the moments of sacred time, as their minds are thoughtless or their habits are regard- less; but though he speak little of the history of national observances, and of individual duties, yet he views those terms on which he originally entered with the inhabitants of our world, with all the majesty with which the heavens and the earth and all the host of them were surveyed, and, on his part, he maintains, with all this solemnity, the covenant that was made respecting the seventh day. It may be late before he speak to nations of their dereliction of duty ; but when he does speak it may be among those ruins and desolations which were little anticipated ; — and the individual's fate,, at last, can- not be light or easy. When Corah, Dathan, and Abiram, my brethren, rebelled against Moses and against Gody he gave them a summary punishment, and his own hand alone pre- pared the instruments of execution; but when a man was found gathering sticks on the sabbath day, he was taken from the camp of Israel, he was followed by God's commandment and Israel's vengeance, and stoned, as one accursed, till, rejected by heaven and earth, he perished. "And the Lord said unto Moses, the man shall surely be put to death ; all the congregation shall stone him with stones without the camp. And lA the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the Lord commanded Moses."
But while the Sabbath connected itself with the introduc- tory dispensation of the Jews, it was at the commencement of the New Testament dispensation, my brethren, that it became
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more vitally incorporated with the economy of salvation, and took a higher stand among the relations of the kingdom of grace, and to benefit the world. It had, indeed, been lending an improving hand to the whole economy of circumcision^ by it5 sacrifices, by bestowing at times its sacred name upon its most solemn festivals, by subjecting the people and land to civil arrangements which its influence suggested, and by the solemn warnings which Nehemiah and Isaiah presented to the heirs of the promises ; but it was only when that dispensa- tion commenced, which is to circulate to the extremities of the earth, and to continue till the end of time, that it condescended formally to modify its relations to creation, and to command its observances on the first, instead of the seventh day of the week.
There is an exquisite beauty in this change of the sabbath day. For it is only as we return to God by the preparations in tlie covenant of redemption, that we are considered God's acceptable children; that we can consider ourselves among the concerns of creation, as in the house of our Father; and that we can, in a conformity to our redeemed character, suitably employ our meditations on many of the most endearing sub- jects which revelation presents. On this day, as changed, we look back to the redemption of Israel, to their kw as given at Rlount Sinai, to their Levitieal priesthood, to their sacrifices^ and all their festivals; and we see thera all incorporated with tlie sabbath day si because while their God is the author of nature, he is also the author of redemption; and while they adore him as the origin of tiieir being and of all things, they remem- ber that their ordinances and events in history are shadows of good things to come; and this redemption of the world itself of which we speak, is even more than the moving of the spirit an the face of the abyss; it is the renovation of spiritually d^d men; if is the recovery of them from the regions of death, that they might enjoy the Creator of all, and the heir of all, in tJje ^ame moments of time. By ihe New Testament Sabbath
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we are presented to ourselves as coming forth from the regions of destruction ; as opening our eyes upon the beneficent Sa- viour who leads us forth, as looking into all the relations of his character, — the previous figures of it, the great redemption which it achieves, the wonderful kingdom which under his government is to be maintained, and the glory of eternity in which at last it issues; and thus we appear again in the holy temple of the universe: and though the form of death may for a time cover us, yet of necessity this passes away ; and we stand with God, immaculate, as was creation on the day of his highest satisfaction, and with his Son who is on his right hand forever more. — Surely men think little of the annunciations of the Eternal ,- else when attended by the retinue of creation and all the happiness and hopes of redemption, he speaks of a day of rest to us, and commands our enjoyments upon it, men would not be so heedless and disobedient. But this day, which now pays such an homage to the redemption of man, has w^atched, in the revelation of itself, the character of man; and while it propounds to liim such great things in the land of promise which for the present is afar oflf, it has never viewed his character but in a state of alienation from God, and diso- bedience to his will; and hence, my brethren, while in the primitive revelation of it, there was a simple annunciation on- ly, never has heaven mentioned it in subsequent communica- tions, but it has enjoined, as if there would be an unwilling- ness to obey, and commanded, as if excuses would be devised. Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy. They shall keep my laws and hallow my Sabbaths. Verily my Sabbaths ye shall keep, for it is a sign between me and you throughout your generations; that ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you. Ye shall keep the Sabbath therefore; for it it is holy unto you. Every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death; for whosoever doeth any work in the Sabbath day that soul shall be cut oflf from among his people. Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the Sabbath of
OJi TTtt^B SABSXT&. ^41
rest, holy to the Lord: whosoever doeth any work on the sabbath day he shall surely be put to death. Oh! my breth- ren, man being in honor did not abide in it, for while the Sab- bath has to be guarded for us by these commandments, warn- ings, and threatenings: while our worldly spirit cannot be sub- dued by them ; Adam in a state of innocency had to hear the command of God on all the economy of his worldly concerns, " be fruitful, and multiply and replenish the earth;"" but this holy day, which elevated him above all created things, and which led him to the wisdom of his Creator, and communion with him as the Lord of all, needed only to be announced to him ; and he embraces it — favorably, too, as his heavenly la- bored frame did the breath of life which was breathed into his nostrils. " And God blessed the seventh day and sancti- fied it."
Some, under the influence of limited views, are indeed unwil- ling to acknowledge that there is a christian Sabbath. We would not dispute about the meaning of a term. Our Saviour is called the Redeemer, the Mediator, our passover, a sacrifice, an atone- ment; and these terms lead us, when fully unfolded, to the same mental conception; and so the first day of the week, and the Lord's day, when unfolded in their import in our New Testament Israel, mean precisely what is signified by the sab- bath day. We have, and must have, in the New Testament church, a day of regular occurrence to the world, when men, who are all descended from one parent, and form one slock ; who are immortal beings, and destined toiramortahty,butwhosfe business is to cultivate the earth and to subdue it, siiall, in a body united as is their lineage, present themselves before the K)lemn aspect of heaven, and claim that they have an interest in the institutions of the universal Creator, This duty is a standing duty to mankind, while the heavens and the earth remain; and though the day, for reasons of vast moment in the economy of our world, may be changed, yet the seventh part of our time remains sanctified unto God, as firmly as are laid the
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foundations of the everlasting mountains, or as the sun that endures forever.
And the wheels of Christianity, my brethren, could not long turn without the assistances of this day. Christianity is mighty when you set it forward with all the appointments which belong to it; and though the world be depraved, and its principles are divine, yet it will gradually remove barbarity, introduce morality and civilization, dispel superstition, and bring forward the Creator of this universe with his name hallowed among his crea- tures. Christianity seemed to be a strange religion as at first propagated : a person whom his nation had crucified as a male- factor, is presented to men as immediately presiding over this universe. — The world nevei could have received this, if, as some great enemies have remarked, it had come forward seconded by no other means of propagation than the ideas of immortality nfitural to men, and the zeal of its preachers. No, the omnipo- tent truth prevailed ; because it was accompanied by miracles, and because the great miracle of the resurrection of Christ which the disciples witnessed, bound their consciences to water with the comforts of sincerity every step, prosperous or adverse, they took in this great cause. And the Sabbath, my brethren, the New Testament Sabbath, is to Christianity what the reality of the resurrection was to the consciences of the ajKJstles and evangelists. Were it not for this day, how could mfaa meet to obtain an acquaintance with each other as mem- bers of a common profession? How could a ministry, which is so often and so emphatically spoken of in the New Testament, calculate on meeting their audience, and feeding them as the iiock of Christ? How could the New Testament passover be cffflerly kept, if there were no orderly revolutions of christian time? How, in a word, could churches be formed, or remain, as all on the holy hill of Zion, if there were not a particular day appointed for people to come together as into the immediate presence of God?
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Our conceptions are, that if the Sabbath were dropped out of christian observance, the whole fabric of the charter of our illumination and immortality would soon be given up to the moths and to the worms. The most pious parents are often too negligent of their children ; the children when young are fond of any excuses which can free them from the task of perusing the scriptures ; and if we have not a taste formed for religious knowledge when we are young, it is seldom of strength sufficient to be very beneficial to the world, when begun to be cultivated in riper years. — But were it not that the Sabbath occurs, reminding ministers of their station, attacking the con- seiences of parents by the appointed duty of the preaching of the gospel, and inculcating upon children the learning of that wisdom which is from above, the christian world would soon relax in all these exertions, and the consequence would be, that the scriptures would be consigned to neglect. Yea, the Sab- bath, like Enoch, and Noah, and Abraham, often preserves, amidst an universal corruption of principle and practice, the knowledge of God on the earth, and by its connexions with public society is used for the spreading of reformation, and watering, like the river of Paradise, the garden of God. In the dark ages, men's minds were in general as destitute of the genuine knowledge of the religion of Christ, as the trees in winter are of leaves j but yet people could not bury the form of the sabbath day ; it remained a pledge that the clnistian con> munity might be easily attacked, and carried triumphantly back f like the ark of God into its habitation in Israel. Had il not been for this day, the reformers never could regularly ha^e assembled the people, to tell them of the lights of humanity, of the arrogance of spiritual power, of the vengeance of God against idolatry, and of the sacrifice that he had been long pre- paring to have offered up, to satisfy for that darkness and idolatry which tarried so long, like an eclipse of the sun, o^ our world.
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The Sabbath comes, my brethren, at proper intervals of time, tvhen the nature of man, his dispositions, and his circumstances of life, are considered. Came it more frequently, the urgen- cies of labor would plead their cause so effectually, that arrange* ments could not be made; and the refreshments for the weary could not be so properly relished. And were the time much longer, the joy at the meeting of friends might, in process of time, degenerate into those tumults which all distant and regu- lar assemblings of men create. The festivals of the heathen gods, which brought acquaintances to their solemn devotion, without any intermediate preparation, at somewhat distant intervals of time, soon wrought them into an effervescence of carnality and religious frenzy ; by which reflection may proceed to make an estimate of that precautionary wisdom which ana- lyzed the circumstances and constitution of man, and left nothing out of account which could possibly impair the bless- ings of this day of rest.
Returning as it does, the Sabbath is not only the depository of the riches of our religion for the world, but it is the principal spring in the great machinery of human improvement. Men are ill judges of events and divine institutions. Had an infidel been present when Abraham circumcised himself and his son Ishmael, he would have laughed at the folly of connecting that event with all ages of the world, as about to exert a powerful influence over them ; but he cannot now deny, that it was the claim of Abraham which encouraged his children to put tliem- selves in possession of the land of Canaan; that Moses' institu* lions aspired to an immediate subserviency to the accomplish- ment of the covenant of circumcision ; that the attachment of Israel to the holy land arose not from its hills and mountains, but was a holy patriotism, which, under the forms of religion, descended from father to son ; that the controversy about the Messiah, who was expected to be king of the Jews, issued in the death of Christ; that, somehow or other, immediately after
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this event,aportionof the Jews disseminated a new religion, and enclosed in it circumcision not made with hands, and a change of the sabbath day; that this religion has to number among its professors the most enlightened nations of the earth; that it seems not to be waxing feebler, but to be gathering strength; and that there can be no bounds set to the circulation of events which can be all traced, as connected wdth it, to Abraham's circumcision of his son and of himself. So the Sabbath inter- feres with all events, ecclesiastical and political. The world is filled with projects, and there is science and art to put them all in execution. The family of mankind, in that portion of their habitations with which we are concerned, have elements of power and arrangements of wisdom which are truly admirable. But how has society been stimulated to all this successful exer- tion? The greater part of human society are what seek the comforts and necessaries of life, and never aspire after the mean spirit of the miser. The Sabbath visits and invites them into its assemblies, and they are desirous to have themselves waslied and dressed, as Abraham had the angels of heaven's feet washed before they sat down at his table. It is the call throughout Christendom for the decencies and comeliness of clothing for our Sabbath's assemblies, that brings forth and sustains so many of God's poor and laborious citizens in their workshops, not only among christian nations themselves, but even in some degree among mankind to the extremities of the earth. It is this taste which principally commands navigation to spread her sails, and to go from nation to nation in quest of what art has prepared ; and bespeaking new flights of science, by the encouragements of which the arts may be still further improved. The sabbath day is like the words of Moses, who first revealed it, to the poor of the cities and villages of our earth: these dropped as the rain, and distilled as the dew; as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass. Where the Sabbath has not been known, indeed, there have been some cities apparently very rich and splendid ;
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such as Tyre, Memphis, Athens, and ancient Rome. There were, however, only some of the people in these great cities that were arrayed like princes; the multitude were mean and desti- tute; and the influence of the riches of these great cities could not spread itself over all ranks of the community, reaching to every hamlet, and spreading improvements throughout every cottage. It was necessary in order that this might take plr.ce, that there should betimes which would bring people regularly together, where solemnities of exercise must be maintained, and where decencies of appearance would be indispensable. The hermit may live in superstition, the anchorite may place virtue in filthiness and in rags; but it was not without a pro- phetical import, that the high priest of the Jews, on the great passover Sabbath at the commencement of every ecclesiastical year, clothed himself in all the comeliness of dress, with the urim and thummim on his breast; for while the ornament of a meek spirit is the chief thing with the christian, yet this ap» pearance of his, was an emblem of what the world would put on, in after ages, through its improvements, by means of the eabbath day.
It was a congenial and an apparently providential arrange- ment, which gave origin to that system now so extensively in operation of organized sabbatical instruction of youth, in a great manufactory of the most manufacturing city which our world ever beheld : for were the Sabbath given up in its obser- vance among mankind, in its influence over society, both religious and irreligious, the manufactories might have a few supporters among the affluent and the great, but the multitude, the power- ful and unbounded family of consumers which now support them would disappear. You manufacturers who happily have almost every where connected with your institutions a sabbath day's instruction of your youth, inculcate particularly on them two principles of belief; that the Sabbath is of perpetual and immutable obligtition, and that, as their industry is so regular and mechanical here, so there is a free and an intellectual rest
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for them in a better life than this. Instructers of youth on this day, who so benevolently assist parents and guardians of child- ren in tlieir rearing them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord ; recollect that you have the most difficult prophecy in all revelation to aid in its fulfihnent. A single orator can change the sentiments of a whole assembly, and a single re- former can carry after him a nation ; but youth must be indi- vidually led into knowledge, and it will require great perseve- rance and care to clothe them with those principles and prac- tices, by which, according to the scriptural use of language, it can be said of them, that they know the Lord from the least to tlie greatest.
There are some people who exclaim against the ministers of the gospel, as idle and unproductive members of the community, and who live to consume the earnings of others. But this is the most inconsiderate and superficial of views. Without the ministers of the gospel the sabbath day could not be observed with its improving tendencies and relations. The ministers of the gospel are, among other designs, an especial ordination of providence to stimulate to the cultivation of those arts of life which would necessarily languish if the consumers of their products w^ere essentially reduced. An army might as well cast off its recruiting officers, as wisdom in modern politics can seek to cast off their greatest and most effectual aids, who not only promote science in many instances themselves, but whose administrations stimulate every art, to increase population and to ornament it, so that the lowest of the christian race are bet- ter educated, better fed, better clothed, more healthful from their activity, and more moral from their habits of industry, than ever the poor were, or can be, in any other possible situation. It requires reflection indeed to see this ; a comparison of ancient with modern times, and of the other nations of the earth with christian communities : but the man or the woman, who could make these comparisons, and would then wish to keep uj) an op- position to the preachers of the gospel, has never considered the
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springs of the improvements of the human family, and is an indi- vidual who might deny the existence of mind because he never sees it but in its effects. The religion of Christ as administered by his servants and in support of his ordinances , is carrying for- ward the human family, with the wheels of improvement turn- ing in every chamber where utility or ornaments can be pro- duced, to the highest state of civilization here, and prepares for happiness hereafter.
Considering that the sabbath day was appointed at the com- mencement of time, it is wonderful in its adaptations unto the extent and character of revelation. The scriptures are what contain many histories; a wonderful intricacy of divinely ap- pointed ceremonies; many prophecies about individuals, cities, and nations; many duties, spread over every relation of life; many doctrines sublime in mystery, or elevating by their imme- diate connexion with eternity ; and many promises to infancy and old age, to us here and hereafter ; and to become familiar- ly acquainted with all these requires that conscience be awed to take its seat for the business of education very frequently, and without much distraction from the urgencies of business,, or the impertinence of visitation. — The heathen world in its famous schools educated a few individuals, and from despair delivered up the rest to comparative neglect ; and the modern world in relation to the sciences never can promise itself any thing more; but the religion of heaven, the most benevolent of all systems, takes men under the chair of its wisdom, to train them in the principles of morals and in the hopes of piety; and to obtain this grand purpose, the sabbath day, particularly, is set apart to this end. The bible is a vast volume wilh its treasures rich and momentous before the eye; but they are like the stars of heaven thrown loosely into their habitations; and we have to search every part, and gather them up into particu- lar arrangements for our edification ; and to enable us to do this there is thrown around us the stillness and peace of crea- tion, the seventh part of our time. Some of you, my brethren,
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have had ten years given to you by God to learn his will from revelation, — ten years of holy Sabbaths ; and yet with many of you there is a barrenness like the borders of the Dead Sea ; a sad evidence of man's depravity, and of the justice of God, when, in punishing professing nations, he forgets all other transgressions, and reckons with them only for his Sabbaths.
The busy cannot, from the nature of the human mind, be very apt to learn those spiritual truths, the nature of which differs so immensely from the objects with which they are usually conversant; but the Sabbath is to them a benevolent and most wisely adapted appointment. It never takes them at unawares, and it consecrates to their service a momentous part of their time; more days to the most of men than genius pleads for its cultivation in seminaries of learning : and this is granted to them with formal expositions of scripture and expla- nations of texts, which, in the preaching of the gospel, are always applied to the conscience: — to make them appear, while all other arrangements among men seem to abandon them, the particular children of their heavenly Father, who is training them up for himself. Yes, the sabbath day, to the poor and laborious, comes in many blessed characters; among which this is not the least remarkable, that it is to them like God^s voice to Noah when it commanded him to enter into the ark of his rest. — There, my brethren, he saw the justice of God, the mercy of God, the majesty of the divine dispensations, and hopes which were beyond the surrounding chaos, in a school where education went on irresistibly ; and the busiest of mortals and dullest of mankind have such a concentration of privilege on the sabbath day, — time to read the word of God, and to hear it preached; that whatever may be the personal improvements which may be made in it, yet this much is clear, that it enters into the economy of preparation for the eternal world, like the mysterious principle of life, which leaves not uninfluenced a
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The very philosophers are elevated by this day. It, as we have seen, has been to them the great magneticai polarity, that, in the moral world, steered through the dark ages the vessel, which ultimately brought to be easily and extensively spread among men, the treasures of knowledge and the blessings of free inquiry. And when they have wearied their intellect in the pursuit of science, and find themselves by its little steps mounted somewhat above the multitude, this day brings them to consider themselves and the virtuous around them, as raised, in character and relations, above all visible things ; and con- templating, in its sanctification, and in the resurrection of Christ, with which it is immediately connected, the general resurrection, and the new heavens and the new earth, they are placed in an august temple of wisdom, where infinite perfection presides, and eternity is the period for philosophy to sit in humble contemplation. — As there are seven planets which appear to the naked eye, and the sun throws his light over the rest; so the Sabbath gives light to all the rest of the days of the week, presenting man, whether in a high or a low station, whether learned or unlearned, upon these as still an immortal being, — who, on the day which remembers creation, comme- morates redemption, and anticipates a glorious repose hereafter, puts on all the solemn reflections of a religious being, and advances forward to immortality.
This is a day, the duties of which are not easily performed. When it returns, the busy world might cast their tasks from their hands, and on it might be silent as the assembly of Israel when Solomon prayed at the dedication of the temple , and yet the spirit of pious awe and gratitude which this day inculcates not appear among them. The meditation of this day, having glanced, through the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, as was remarked in the beginning of the discourse, enters into the fields of what is emphatically called the kingdom of hea- ven, and there, we must now state to you, the understanding re-
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poses with amazement and gratitude upon the monuments of divine love, God is heard saying to his Son, " I have called thee in righteousness; I will hold thine hand and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant to the people and a light to the gen- tiles;" and the Son replies, " Here am I, send me/' This Son appears in the propliecies, like the ascending rays of the sun, gilding the hemisphere, and diffusing brightness as the morning advances. At length he appears in the full resplendence of his power. Every prophecy is fulfilled, miracles are performed, the spirituality of the law is interpreted, justice is satisfied, a resurrection from the dead takes place, the ceremonies of the law are abolished, the spiritual ordinances of the New Testa- ment are established, life and immortality are brought to light, the resurrection and the judgment are seen; and while all these things are attended to, it is as in the immediate presence of God, and while the offer of life and death is made imme- diately to the conscience. That man, my brethren, keeps not the Sabbath, who sends his beasts of burden to the pastures, or who closes the doors of his workshop ; who is displeased and mur- murs at the unhHllowed steps of his neighbor in pursuing his profit on that day : the Sabbath is kept when the great works of creation and redemption impress our mind and heart, and when our affections are set, not upon the things of the earth, but upon the riches, the profits, and the honors of immortality. We are not opposed to national laws which may break down the folly and depravity of men, in their interference with the rights of heaven on this day: this day is the world's privilege, and the powers of the world have a right to protect it; but they are not the laws of man, nor the laws of God as administered by man, that can give, before the eye of heaven, a fairness to the face of this day. I have no doubt but the children of Israel had some fine forms of observance, and little more interruption on some of their Sabbaths than the lowing of their herds and the bleating of their flocks; but the Lord was angry, and thu« remonstrated with them: " Who hath jequired this at your
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hand to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons* and Sab- baths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is an iniquity, even the solemn meeting." The majesty of heaven de- scending upon the nations of the earth, the nations which enjoy revelation, and have the relations of this holy day explained to them, should make them, by their rulers and magistrates, try to prevent, around the whole borders of their habitations, a stick even from being picked up by an unhallowed hand : — but sup- pose that this were attained ; the holiness of this day would, after all, like the vision of the prophet, have only some dry bones: — the Spirit of God must breathe upon the forms of rest which the nation would present; must give life to them, and make them stand up in the attitudes of acceptance.
The duties of this day are suitably performed when the mind commences it with meditation on the works of God and the salvation of sinful man; when it proceeds to personal acts of devotion, and a careful consultation of some part of revelation ; when the family society which providence keeps together acknowledge their dependence on the Almighty's goodness and grace, and express their gratitude for his care and mercy ; when men go to the temple of God to hear of his greatness, his holiness, his moral government, his displeasure at sin, his commands to repentance, his promises of assistance, his offers of the pardon of sin, his communication of holy dispositions, his diffusion of the Spirit as the spirit of perseverance, his gathering of his people to the joy of immortality, and his placing of them forever at his own right hand; when, on their return home, families continue their devotion-r^ parents meditate on the various changes of providence which may befall members of their family, and ask the divine blessing on all such that have passed, or may yet pass over them; and strive to keep the whole always like the patriarchs, pilgrims here, and still seeking after a better country .
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How elevated is a christian as he is contemplated on the sabbath day! In the midst of his relations, he thinks of the uni- verse throughout boundless space, and with every part of it this day solemnly connects him . He is redeem.ed to immor- tality, and is presented to him^lf as an heir of the enjoyments which all things present ; and as the angels of heaven ascend and descend quick as thought; as Christ ascended without being impeded by gravitation on his journey any more than is a ray of light; and as Moses and Elias, at the transfiguration of Christ, appeared and disappeared, as common visitants make their morning calls^ so in the ceaseless ages which are before him, he has the prospect, in the immediate presence of the universal Creator, of visiting all, and of enjoying all. "All things," says the scripture, " are yours; for ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's."
Some, indeed, in respedt to the rest which remains for the people of God, suppose that the general assembly of God's righteous creatures is forever to sit, in our acceptation of the term, around the throne of the Eternal. We do not deny that in the highest heavens, of which the scriptures speak, there is a more immediate display of the divine glory than any where else, and that as the children of Israel returned on their most solemn festivals to the tabernacle in which was the divine presence, so the saints in heaven will return from every corner of the new heavens and the new earth to this most glorious habitation: but as the word " heavens" includes the creation of God, we apprehend, that as all his works are said to praise him, so, in the ceaseless ages of eternity, the righteous will visit every quarter, increase their admiration over every object, and make the boundless creation, in some respects, the temple of their praise. The law of the Sabbath, indeed, almost necessarily connects itself with this boundless field of the praises of the glorified saints. It was enacted by tlie divine majesty, as his eye surveys the heavens and the earth, and all
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their host, and it descends upon all the concerns of life; upon empires and upon states, upon sons and upon daughters, upon man servant and upon maid servant, upon cattle, and upon the stranger who is within our gates ; and it collects matter for its praise from the throne of God and of the Lamb, from the ministry of angels, and all the mighty acts of the Lord, from the history of past ages, and from the prospects of those which are to come, from dragons and all deeps, from fire and hail, snow and vapor, and stormy wind fulfilling his word, from mountams and all hills, from fruitful trees and all cedars; — but if the child of a day goes thus round creation to enrich his melody of praise, what must the inhabitant of eternity do with all the glories of the new heavens and the new earth in which dwelleth righteousness? There remains a rest or Sab- bath for the people of God; but it is an eternal Sabbath, in which they will praise him in his sanctuary, and from every part of the firmament of his power.
Some have supposed that it is not necessary to keep holy the whole of the Sabbath. Some divines of great eminence have written in support of this view of the subject; and no doubt among many professors of religion have encouraged that carelessness which is so prevalent. But the views of these men, though gilded by specious reasonings, it is impos- sible to reconcile to the language of scripture : " Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy, six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; on it thou shalt not do any work:" and it is mconsistent with the interminable exercise and praise of eternity. Yet I would grant that the Sabbath might authorize ;&ports, recreations, amusements, and theatrical exhibitions, if it were first demonstrated that the word of God, with all the extent of which, it is intended, that the Sabbath shall afford an opportunity of becoming acquainted, is to be withheld from our perusal and from the perusal of our children. The
ON THE SABBATH. 255
Sabbah would be a most incongruous and a tyrannical appoint- ment, if to the multitude of mankind, who have no science to engage the mind, nor any turn for speculation, the authority of it enjoined stillness and rest only ; for the mind of man must be employed in some way or other: it cannot remain contented in a situation of stillness any more than a prisoner could do under the galling restrictions of his chain. No, if our Sabbaths are in any measure to be kept holy, we must cast into the arms of the illiterate, and also of the learned, the sacred scriptures, and inculcate upon their consciences the reading and study of them. We must tell them that while in these scriptures they will find many duties prescribed on which they are bound to attend, yet they are not to occupy themselves in these duties only; but they are to search the scriptures themselves: for the Sabbath and they are necessarily connected together; the Sab- bath is the sacred time for our going to school, and the scrip- tures are the lessons which, under our heavenly Father's appointment, we are to learn there.
The Jews were in the habit of dividing the scriptures into portions which might be successively read on their sabbath days. This was a wise arrangement, suited to the nature of man, and to their circumstances in the world. The primitive christians made selections from the sacred oracles, and appoint- ed them to be read in their assemblies on the Lord's day. Thus, there was a prudential arrangement also to employ the Sabbath, by that variety of instruction which might keep up an awakened attention, and which would occupy those houra which God had commanded to be devoted to himself. Now, indeed, that the art of printing puts the scripture into every one's hand, the gathering of the people around us to hear the scriptures read, or a particular portion of them, is entirely superseded. The command from the mouth of our Saviour ia to every one who hears him, " Search the scriptures, for in them ye think that ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of me." And it is to bear these explained, to attend to
256 ON THE SABBATH.
their principles as inculcated under the preaching of the gos^ pel, to hold communion with God, and to look for his blessing on his ordinances of the preaching of the word and the break- ing of the bread of life, that is the end for which we are still to come into the public assemblies of Zion.
And why should any refuse to attend on these public exer* (Jises? The Sabbath is publicly proclaimed to the universe; the resurrection of Christ is the great sun of the christian sys- tem ; the preaching of the gospel is to every creature, and the Sabbath, with all its variety of exercise, holds on to accommo- date us in the solemn regions of immortality. Do some think that they need not to attend ? that they are already wiser than their preachers? All this may be granted; but good men must keep up communion with their God, and with the heirs of eternal rest. Is it said that they can read the scriptures in private? This is a part of the exercise of the day: but it is not like the public institution of the Sabbath, in the face of the universe; it is not like the salvation of men, which is to be proclaimed to the ends of the earth; and it is not like that public employment in the regions of immortality, where all perpetually, and as in one assembly, raise the voice of their adoration. "For as the new heavens and the new earth, which 1 will make, shall remain before me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord," Amen.
DISCOURSE XI.
ON BROTHERLY LOVE.
1 JoHX 4: 11. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
My brethren, the inspired author of this epistle says God is love. Of the truth of this we have evidences in all the works of God. The harmony of the material universe is admirable. The planets play in their respective orbits with amazing friend- ship; the sun blesses them all equally with light and heat, according to their respective neighborhood to himself; the winds blow and the rain descends, that the air may preserve its salubrity for animal life, and that the whole kingdom of vege- tation may be nourished and flourish night and day. In the providential dispensations of God there is indeed some appa- rent mixture; but the more minutely and attentively they are surveyed, the features of love and benevolence become more conspicuous. When we attend to the laws of nature, and be- hold the boundless exactness in which the great bodies of the universe and all general assortments of things are unremittedly conducted, though the partial disorders and evils, which we see on the face of our earth, cannot fail to lead us to the melancholy remembrance of its degeneracy from its original perfection, yet we cannot but behold, even through this obscurity, the well marked lines of benevolent operations; — and when we add, as we must do in relation to our earth, a view of the dis- pensation of mercy, which diffuses rays of joy over the whole
258 ON BROTHERLY LOVE.
plans of providence, and even on the face of tremendous judg- ments, our language must still be, " God is love."
Of this attribute of Deity some of his intelligent creatures seem to be feelingly sensible. The angels in heaven adore the fountain of their life and beneficence, by singing, " holy, holy, holy. Lord God Almighty, the whole earth is full of his glory." The saints make the love of God the theme of their warmest praises. Paul exclaims, '^Oh! the height, and depth, and breadth, and length, of the love of God to sinners, which passeth knowledge." And this apostle John, wherever he goes, has his way, like the bottom of Solomon's chariot, paved with love. This epistle is directed to christians in all lands, and whilst the writer of it never loses sight of God as the fountain of all love, he is diffusing the rays of it amongst men in every region into which the epistle can travel. Hence in particular the language of this chapter, which breathes nothing but the purest love; and two regions of whose most happy operations — the one our privilege, the other our duty — are contained in the words of the preceding verse, and in those of our text: " Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sin. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another."
This epithet, beloved, which in our text John bestows upon tliose to whom he wrote, is no doubt dictated in some measure from a sense of their worthiness, as entitled to the exercise of his most amiable affections ; but principally from that fulness of love which could not but overflow from his own heart. That stream which carried the Son of God into our world, a propitia- tion for sin, has just laved anew this aged and benevolent apostle; and as these waters issue from the fountain of free grace, so, washed and strengthened by their influence, he can- not but stand arrayed in the beauties, and elevated by the emotions of love : and as an eminent instance himself of the un- merited and efficacious love of God to guilty and lost sinners, this messenger of the good news could not fail to designate
OJT BROTHERLY LOVE. 259
those who make the same profession with himself, by the most endearing epithet amongst men, and the one that is the justest transcript of his own feelings.
The reason, however, I must remark, of writing the epistle obviously reflects upon some symptoms of those dissocial and discommendable affections which, even amongst brethren, are, in this frail state of man's existence, found frequently gnawing the vitals of social felicity, and rendering the outward charac- ter of the beautiful fabric of the church, like a building from the walls of which much of the cement at least has been washed away. The point which he wishes to gain amongst them is, that as ''God so loved us, we ought also to love one another," — an emphatical expression, which glances at a contrary state, which, though his benevolence would willingly cover in his affectionate and parental address to them, yet his sense of jus- tice cannot but broadly insinuate throughout the epistle.
This state, presupposed in a greater or less degree in all societies to which this general epistle is directed, is predicable, in some sense, of all christian societies in every age. It needs but a slight acquaintance with the members of any particular association of less or greater numbers, to be convinced that the law in the members warring against the law of the mind justi- fies a minister of the gospel in endeavoring to awaken his hearers, by explaining and inculcating the great doctrines of the gospel, so as to promote the most essential and fundamental views of morality. In no place could the minister of the gos- pel, in all the varied circumstances of the church, have erred far from the dictates of his situation in choosing our text : but when his intercourse for months, and even years, has led him more certainly into the channels where their affections are either verging to flow or actually running, he sees not only a suitableness in his choice, but a singular propriety, which en- forces his duty upon his mind with all the precision and pointedness of a particular command.— To-day, therefore, I
260 ON BROTHEKLY LOVE.
have to address you, my brethren, in these words : " Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another."
This text cannot be fully understood without explication, nor felt without deep reflection : hence our method, first, to make you understand it; secondly, to make you feel it.
Our text infolds a comparison : " If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." This love of God is operative to- wards us — not a mere affection ; it is tlie spring whence arose that wonderful scheme of beneficence and mercy recorded in the preceding verse. Some would flatter themselves that they discharge the duty enjoined in the subject of our discourse, if they have a mere affection of esteem and regard for those who are their brethren in Christ ; but the love which is here incul- cated resembles the love of God towards our guilty and lost world; a love which gave birth to the most illustrious of the divine contrivances, and which shines throughout every part of a series of operations that are the most astonishing. Love, as beautifully exemplified in the sovereign love of God in the pre- ceding verse, prompteth us to action, and breathes nothing but the good of its object; and as well might we think that the principle of vegetation could answer its end by lying dormant in the root of the tree; as well indeed might we suspect to see a full fountain forget to send forth its playful streams, as we can entertain the idea that love can be genuine amongst men and be inoperative. Whilst a man is alive the wheels of life con- tinue to play, and love being the very life of intellectual society will, where it is unadulterated, exert its influence throughout the whole range of objects contained within the circle of its relations. It resembles in the moral world that mysterious principle of gravitation in the natural, by which all objects are continually kept in motion ; and as soon should we expect to see the sun neglect to rise and set, and the seasons of summer and winter, of seed time and harvest, to return, as we can expect to see genuine love defined by a mere affection only.
ON BROTHEKLT LOVE. 261
No, God loved us, and sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins, and as he loved us, so we ought also to love one another. To mark all the channels through which this love flows, and by a survey of which we will learn its true character, would lead into an endless field ; and at present we shall direct youf attention to a few only of the most copious and interesting. Jt would be unnecessary to mention the concealed but all-power- ful channel by which our love promotes the good of one another by our most fervent devotions at the throne of God. Our Maker is the primary source of all good, and as the blood which is sent from every part of the system to the heart, thence de- parts with new life and vigor throughout every part again; so our love for one another, wliich concentrates in the fountain of life, is sent forth in such purity and renewed vigor, as emi- nently entitles this course to the first place, and supersedes the necessity of our insisting much upon it. Hence says the apostle James, the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Hence, too, the many instances in which judg- ments have been averted, and showers of unmerited blessings have fallen in their stead. Thus when Moses, in the first noted experiments of war by the children of Israel, held up his hands in adoration of the God of armies, the Israelites turned the tide of victory. Thus Elias, who was a man subject to like passions with ourselves, prayed earnestly that it might not rain, and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months; and he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. Well does Paul, who fervently remem- bered the churches in every prayer of his, exhort us, saying, " Pray 'always, with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints :" — For the love which we thus bear our brethien ascends to the God of love, and from him it descends to fruc- tify and render fertile the w^hole hill of Zion. Yes, as the rain is first collected in light vapors by the heat of the sun from the waters of our earth, and afterwards falls in copious showers to 23
2j62 on bkotherly love,
fertilize it, so our benevolence, which is so feeble often in itself^ ascends to heaven on the rays of supplication and prayer j and again returns in drops of divine mercy till the wildernesses of human society blossom as the rose, and the desert becomes a fruitful field.
But whilst we are not to forget to love one another at the throne of grace, there are lines of intercourse amongst men where this love immediately and visibly operates. The first we mention is in that benevolent and candid disposition which thinketh no evil. Because it gratifies our self-love to possess estimable qualities which others do not wear, or at least with very faint colors, no passion of the human mind is more apt to betray us, than a disposition to allow, in the fairest of charac- ters, some secret and hidden weakness, which is more indebted for concealment to tranquillity of situation than to real virtue, and which we may expect to break out when the storms of provocation wax high. This was the way that the author of malice himself reasoned against the holy patriarch Job; and there are in the hearts of many some concealed but active drops of that poison which the Spirit of God here indeed represents m the mouth of Satan, because of the lamentable prevalence of the fact amongst men respecting estimable and highly favored characters. Says Satan, "Does Job serve God for nought?" and we are apt to ask, does such an eminent saint maintain his integrity from no other motives than what feed the flame of pure religion and virtue?
Owing to this discommendable disposition, a report which the slightest breath of pure candor would strike to the ground, will not accidentally arise, without lessening greatly our esteem of the person on whom it hath alighted ; without making us shy in the support of our friendship towards him; without being circulated to every opening avenue of society, and without being permitted to wander at pleasure, and sting to death like an adder. Respecting his venerable and virtuous father, Absalom insinu- ated the most groundless and wicked report — presuming him«
ON BROTHERLY LOVE, 263
«elf more fit to reign than he, saying, "Ohl that I were made judge in Israel:*" and the covenanted people, actuated by prin- ciples too common in human nature, unfurled the banners of rebellion against their aged and venerable sovereign, and the Lord's anointed. — This disposition is at the deepest enmity with the laws of love — it wars against the very principles of it, and endeavors to overthrow them ; — and hence an inadvertent expression or an unguarded action frequently blows it up into that flame which burns through life, which destroys societies, and effaces nations from the earth. On the other hand, my brethren, accompany me to the endearing and pleasing field where candor and liberality reign. All the malice of his father, and the influence of his splendid court, could not bias Jena- thane's mand towards his beloved and innocent friend. Jonathan undoubtedly was one of the most spotless characters among mankind, unlike the ambitious and ungracious princes of the earth; — for though he loved his father^ and fought and died with him, yet his love was such a pure diamond, it cut every glass which the furnace of malice could blow and tinge with the colors of deception, and then looked at the supposed enemy of his father, and the divinely appointed heir of all his illustrious possessions, in the pure and direct rays of the sun of love. Thinking no evil, his conduct shines out from amonggt a corrupted and prejudiced court and family, no less bright an example to every succeeding age, than a happy instrument of saving at present the anointed of the Lord. " And Jonathan said unto David, come and let us go out into the field. And they went out both of them into the field. And Jonathan said unto David, O Lord God of Israel, when I have sounded my father about to-morrow any time, or the third day, and, behold if there be good towards David and 1 send not unto thee . the Lord do so and much more to Jonatliant but if it please my father to do thee evil, then I will show it thee, and send thee away that thou mayest go in peace; and the Lord be with thee as he hath been with mj father. And thou shalt not only,
264 ON BROTHERLY LOVE.
while yet 1 live, show me the kindness of the Lord, that I die not: but also thou shalt not cut off thy kindness from my house forever: no, not when the Lord haih cut off the enemies of David, every one from the face of the earth. So Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David, saying, let the Lord even require it at the hands of David's enemies. And Jona- than caused David to swear again, because he loved him : for he loved him as he loved his own soul."
But I observe, secondly. That this love discovers itself in tlie words of the mouth. Perhaps there never was on moral subjects an expression v/hich conveyed the truth only, and yet approached apparently so near to exaggeration, as that which the spirit of inspiration puts into the page of the Apostle James, " The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity/' To govern the tongue according to the circumstances in which we are placed, in such a manner as to manifest that we love our neighbor as ourselves, is a much more difficult task than what many are apt to imagine. This requires such a nice discrimination of human character, and of the particular humors of men, as few attain to; and then such a delicacy of our words themselves, and even of our manner of uttering them, as still fewer, in this state of turbulent passions, are in any suitable degree able to enrol under their authority. Yes, reflecting on what an inconsiderate word, or an unguarded tone even of voice, will occasion amongst the irritable and proud ; reflecting that a single word dropped among the influential but haughty members of society will loosen and tear from their roots the most populous com- munities and beneficial institutions, we see an eminent beauty and force in the inspired proverb, " How great a matter a little fire kindleth." To do our duty properly here, we ought to remember that our love towards our brethren should resemble that forgiving and conquering love of God, by which he loved us, and gave his Son to be a propitiation for our sin : — a love which will reign, and has a determination not to be offended, till the last possible means of communicating its treasures and
ON BEOTHEBtt^ LOVE, 266
riches are neglected and despised. **I am not willing that 'any should perish, but that all should come unto repentance.'' My brethren, 1 doubt many of us seldom consider how diffi- cult a matter it is to tame that unruly member of which the Spirit says: "So is the tongue among our members that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of jia- ture, and is set on fire of helh for every kind of beasts and of birds, and of serpents, and of things in the sea, is tamed and hath been tamed of mankind: but the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison."— I say 1 doubt many of us seldom reflect how difficult a matter it is to order our speech aright, else the ties of friendship would not so often appear a Tope of sand,— else the little societies of families would not so often resemble the meetings of the lion and the tiger,— else the sacred associations of christian com- munities and congregations would not so often bear an analogy to a bomb-shell of war, which destroys itself and all within its influence.
The most difficult part of our duty here is where we conceive ourselves to have been previously injured. TJie principles of retaliation, on this occasion, are apt to overcome our sense of these moral obligations, so beautifully illustrated by the dis- pensation of mercy: '■'Love your enemies; render not evil for evil, nor railing for railing." It is pitiful to see the boldness with which many will assume a right, they flatter themselves lawfully accrues to them, to indulge rancorous and malicious dispositions, and spiteful and inimical language, when thoy conceive that they were not originally in the fault. In such a case, they think that justice inspires them with the inclinations they feel, and that she will record their deeds as lier objects of protection ; and forget that our religion swears us to render Ro man evil for evil, but contrarywise blessing. There is perhaps no instance in which the frailty of human nature and its depravity hav€ such irresistible proofs, as in tliat trait of 23*
266 ON BROTHERLY LOVE.
human character by which individuals, when the breath of an inadvertent or passionate expression touches them, turn in- stantly off from the paths of friendship, and stand aloof on the narrow pinnacle of their resentment — a source of grief to the reflecting, and an object of pitiful weakness in themselves.
Is it asked where is an antidote to this evil? — It is in Love. Love makes us consider attentively the constitutional weak- ness of those around us, and will inspire us with charity to cover the multitude of their sins. Whilst it will neither encourage a wayward inclination, nor surrender the real rights of man, it will use every method to live at peace with all men, and to go and be reconciled to an adversary quickly. Charity beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, en- dureth all things; charity never faileth.
But, thirdly. This love displays itself in our practice. " Do to others as ye would they should do to you," is a prin- ciple of which the christian feels the force,- and in clothing it with his practice, there are added to the pure dictates of justice those affections by which it appears that he rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth. We see this character illustrated in the instance of that person who takes up the words of the prophet : " 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?" And having this for his christian coat of arms, proceeds through the world, meeting the objects of real compassion, and dispels their fears, relieves their wants, inspires them with hopes, and directs them to the goal of honor and virtue. I see this character in the compassionate and loving father, who says of his profligate and repentant son, " He was dead and is alive, he was lost and is found: bring forth the best robe and put it on him." J see it in the pastor who says , " My brethren, dearly beloved, and longed for, ray joy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord, my dearly beloved." I see it in the friend
ON BROTHERLY LOVE. 1^67
who knows me in prosperity, but sticketh closer than a brother in adversity. J see it in the husband who says to his spouse, '' Thou art all fair, there is no spot in thee." f hear it in the spouse who exclaims, " My beloved is mine, and I am his ." I admire it — for it receives a brightening lustre from its move- ments— towards an adversary. The heathens of old tell us that he was a great example who would give every one his own • and the Arabian hath long told us, trouble no man unneces- sarily, there are enow of thorns in the path of human life ; but the christian is beheld ambitious to answer these heavenlv ex- hortations : " Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you." — Infidelity, you err egregiously in ascribing malice, v;ar, and bloodshed, to our holy religion. What a happy world should we have, Oh ! enemies, Oh ! friends of Christianity, did christian prmciples prevail ? Did a love any way proportioned to the love of God to us, pervade as the rays of the sun our world? — Christianity thou art well calcu- lated to bring about that glorious state of things to which our faith, with great clearness from the prophecies of revelation looks forward, but which is yet a dim view indeed in the gene- ral practice of the world — " When the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice den, and they shall not hurt nor destroy in all God's holy mountain ."
My brethren, distant, distant indeed is this happy state of things from the present frame and appearance of the christian world. Many, instead of loving one another, are full of envy murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, de- spiteful, proud, boasters; inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful. The works of the Spiiit, I remember, are these: love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance; but many do I see wallow in the lusts of the flesh, envyings, murderg^
$68 , ON BROTHERLY LOVE.
drunkenness, revellings, and such like. — Little indeed is christians' love towards one another; for they make no suitable exertions to instruct the ignorant, to help the weak, to reclaim the vicious, to console the wounded spirit, to relieve the distressed; to cement human societies, to open the sources which contain their strength, or to arrange the circumstances and conveniencies which enrobe them with happiness and sta- bility.— In concluding this head of my method, I must ask, where are the prayers of christians for one another? — where is their meek and self-denied conversation? — where is their practice of love? — where, in a word, is that delicate, that ten- der remembrance of the words of our Saviour, " Whosoever shall give a cup of cold water to drink to one of these little ones only in the name of a disciple?" — for in our days a single word will alienate the heart, will embitter the tongue, and will purchase years of distant coldness and dislike. We have reversed this brightest gem in the crown of the apostle, and presented its dark coating to the world. — " Let each esteem other better than themselves."
But, my brethren, I would be persuaded better things of you, and things that accompany and adorn the salvation procured for your souls. I would be persuaded that henceforth at least you will have a work and labor of love which God will not forget. And to induce you to this, I proceed to our second head of method, which was to make you feel the truth, " that if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another."
First. Can we reflect upon the love of God to us, and not feel ourselves constrained to love one another? We read in profane authors of a friend at times laying down his life for his friend ; we read of sons interposing their own breasts between their fathers and the spear of the enemy ; but though for good men some have even dared to die, the spirit and dimensions of love here are nothing in comparison to the height, the depth, the breadth, and the length, of the lov« of God to us. I wonder not that all heathen antiquity should admire the Grecian youths,
ON BROTHERLY LOVE. 269
whose confidence and friendship were so pure and unalloyed, that the one should propose, after the other was unjustly condemned to death, to guarantee his absence to see his friends, by submitting ihis own person to the chams of a prison, and to death itself, should the other not return before the period appointed for his execution; and that this other should hasten over sea and land his return, to save his beloved friend from death by interposing his own neck to the hand of the executioner; and that, arriving at the very moment when the fatal blow was to be struck upon the substitute, he should cry out, " I am the man," and flee to sacrifice himself to leputed and inexorable justice, to save a life dear to him as his own soul. But pure as this ray of love appears, it is like tlie sickly beam of the smallest star to the radiance of the sun himself, compared to the love which we contemplate. When we were enemies, followers of the prince of darkness, clothed with his uniform, guilt and depravity, and marching with a front of rebellion against the throne of heaven, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son; — a Son sacrificed for strangers and enemies by wicked works; an only begotten Son; a Son who dwelt in God's bosom from everlast- ing; who rejoiced always before him, and was daily his delight; a Son who was the brightness of his Father's glory, and the express image of his person : this Son was wounded for our transgressions, was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was laid upon him, and by his stripes we are healed : this Son was cut ofl^, but not for himself; this Son was made a curse for us, and evidenced it wlien he hung upon the accursed tree. Oh ! Jesus, thou hast shown us an example of love; — thou who art the Creator of all things, who upholdest them by the word of thy power, whom the angels adore and worship; for thou madest thyself of no reputation, and tookest upon thee the form of a servant, and wast found in the fashion of a man, and humblest thyself, and becamest obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. This is love, divine, trans- cendent love ; love which never can be paralleled ; but which
270 ON BROTHERLY LOVE.
certainly ought to make us feel the force of this language: "Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one an- other."— We should feel the force of these words : " The love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead; that henceforth we should not live unto ourselves, but unto God that loved us and gave himself for us." — Well surely, my brethren, does the apostle command us to " put on as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long suffer- ing: forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, even as Christ forgave us." Divinely does John reason, " Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he first loved us, and sent his son to be a propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." — It is lament- able that christians, who have such a transcendent example, feel so little the force of it; and that the river of this love flow- ing into the church of Christ does not diffuse itself over every object in it, till she appear altogether lovely.
But, secondly, Youmust feel the force and life of this text as you mingle amongst its advantages. There is so much selfishness prevailing amongst professors of religion, that, in general, they stand aloof from the works of brotherly love; and so catch not the flame which warms and animates the society of the church in its purest character and liveliest colors. But, my brethren, what will not love effect? and are not all its objects sources of felicity? Attend to this principle as it prevailed in the minds of Christ's apostles. Great and momentous was the cause in which they were engaged, and feeble was their strength for its accomplishment; but they were a band of brothers, and the love which they bore to their cause and to one another, whilst it distilled a sweetness out of their sufferings, made them glori- ously triumphant. Often I reflect on the divine society of primitive christians, with all things common, the same cause, the same affections, the same providential sustenance of life, and admire its suitableness to the prospects before it, and its
ON BROTHERLY LOVE. 271
resemblance to the general assembly and church of the first born in heaven, of which it was an emblem; and contrast this state of the christian society with its less happy condition in after ages. I behold that the primitive christians and apostles knew what it was to love one another; that they stood not at a listless distance from that scene which animates, which grows, and which consolidates into that unity of life, whose voice is, " We are members one of another;" whose exertions may be persecuted, but not destroyed ; and whose blessed endeavors will fill empires with their most joyful fruits. I hear one saying to another, '' 1 bear you record how greatly I long after you in the bowels of Christ; I will very gladly spend and be spent for you ; and we are ready to impart to you, not the gospel of Christ only, but our own souls also." 1 see all waving the banner which angels bequeathed, and their affections unfurl, and bear along this vale of tears, " Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, and good will towards men."
But, christians, how has our gold become dim, our most fine gold changed? The building of living stones is rent and scat- tered in ruins, and daily there are some new stones falling off from their former connexions. The field of our Zion does not wave in that golden harvest where every ear is ripe, and vies with every other in its richness for the honor of their common soil. We have need to pray, " raise up the fallen down taber- nacle of David, and build it up as in the days of old; pour out thy spirit upon us as the rain upon the mown grass, and as the showers that water the earth." — Let me lead you, my friends, into the great city where there are many active men, and only this one principle of love reigning, that you may behold its opera- tions, and catch its flame. Jerusalem lying in ruins, with the holy sepulchres of their fathers profaned, is visited by the sons of Judah, and whilst their enemies daily attack them, and would demolish their works, they build with the one hand, and defend themselves with the other, and Jerusalem thus arises out of its ashes, beautiful and girded with strength. Let me
272 ON BROTHERLY LOVE.
lead you into the army whose banner over them is love: how determined is their bravery, how lively are their evolutions, how impenetrable is their line, how sure is their victory ! Let me lead you among the great wheels of this universe itself. This vast machine is the offspring of love; and except where a few have left their axle by divine permission, all you see is harmony — all is life — the most glorious issues forever appear, and shine the parents of new results. — But this sight may be too amazing. — 1 descend to make you feel the truth of our text by the ope- rations of love in your own hearts. You feel the love ye have for yourselves, — your life, your reputation, your favorable cir- cumstances, are all so dear to you, the world could not purchase them. What activity does not self-love inspire? what watch- fulness over character, what jealousy of honor? What would a man give in exchange for his soul? What would he give for his good name, better than precious ointment? — Is it thought that what is so advantageous to ourselves, and which we most certainly feel to be so, must sink into indifference in regard to our fellow men? No; those views and truths which form the basis of our intellectual worth, are common to us and them ; that end which our individual existence is to promote, is the very end for which they were created ; and this principle, the happy advantages of which we so much feel, and so necessarily feel, in our own instance, we should carry into operation in all human societies; particularly in the society of the church of Christ; that we may stand and act amidst the claims of our common nature, and of our common christian privileges. Whether, saith the apostle, one member suffer all the members suffer with it, or one member be honored all the members rejoice with it. — Love, my brethren, inspired to sow the seeds of our holy religion among the nations of the earth; love pro- tects cities and nations ; love shines throughout God's universe, and love clothes Zion fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners; and I feel that he who is destitute of this principle can neither be a follower of the
ON BROTHERLY LOVE. 273
example of the saints, nor a warm and genuine patriot of his nation, nor a reflector of a beam of the glory of this universe, nor that tender hand, that, in the desert of extreme poverty where the christian is often placed, will bear a cup of cold water, and show himself his disciple by crying, "I give this for the sake of Christ." Oh! my brethren, are we wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest ; to whom the mist of darkness may be reserved forever? But, thirdly. The force of our text must be felt by contem- plating the miserable wildernesses of human nature where love does not reign. I visit the family of the poor and needy, where love and nmtual kindness might be balm to every wound, and medicine to every disease; and the wretched creatures are effectually drying up the few remaining sources that might still keep some spots green in the great field of human expe- dients and expectations. Love having departed, they chide, they rail, they accuse, they criminate, till they weary them- selves into the silence of melancholy, which continues till exhausted nature is refreshed on its own peevish indulgences, to renew in endless revolutions the same most miserable con- duct. I enter into the families of the great, where affluence purchases the most desirable objects that are wafted over everv sea, and where honor receives the homage of thousands of attendants; and all appears splendor except the countenances of the proprietors and heirs, who are stung with furies, and tear each other in their rage. But I would particularly direct you here to the fruits of want of brotherly love in the church of Christ. Who would.not weep over that blood of Abel that still crieth for vengeance? Who does not feel when Canaan's disrespect draws forth from his aged father (he bitter curse, ■ ' a servant of servants shall he be to his brethren?" Who would not join the lamentations of Jeremiah when Jerusalem that was full of people sat solitary, and weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheek; among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies? Who does not de- 24
274 ON BROTHERLY LOVE.
^iote the bitter enmity that so early shook the New Testament church, and like a mighty earthquake cleft it into sundry pieces? Who does not bewail the baleful effects of this prin- ciple as yet prostrating the unity of the church of Christ? — I need not call your attention unto • the acrimony and violence that in general prevail among different denominations of chris- tians towards one another, to illustrate the subject. While the 'Operations of an enlightened conscience has every encomium from me, the violent animosities which are handed down from father to son, and which usurp the place of our prayers and exertions for the return of those who differ from us, I cannot but deplore and reprobate. — 1 direct you to a single congrega- tion. I shall suppose it flourishing, and its prospects still increasing; I shall suppose the blessing of God eminently resting upon it — sinners converted, the saints edified and com- forted. This congregation is visited with a blast of ill-will and contention among its members. At first it touches slightly a few of the more prominent branches only; but in a little time it diffuseth itself over the whole, till all is withered and dead. Jn that place no praises of God are heard, no accents from the tongue of his servant, the pulpit is forsaken, the pews are empty. The Sabbath returns over God's world ; but it is not here the day of joy and gladness. All that pass by clap their liands at thee ; they hiss and wag their heads at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, " Ts this the city that men call the per- fection of beauty, the joy of the whole earth?" — My brethren, is it not an unjust procedure to sell our petty passions, and the overflowings of ill humor, at the great expense of God's glory, and of the salvation of generations that are yet unborn? Where are the seven condlesticks emblematical of the seven Asiatic churches? — Their lamps are gone out, and these lands are in darkness.
Christians, I look into the word of God, and I see the church delineated in perfection ; I raise my view to the present aspect of the horizon of the christian world, and I see prospects open- ing for the kingdom of Christ: I meditate on the glory of the
ON BKOTHERLY LOVE, 275
latter days, and find that the Prince of peace shall reign upon earth ; — and 1 ask how shall 1, and those that J should feed like a flock, rise above the rust that eats and consumes the beauty of the temple of God, and that threatens now to corrupt and gan- grene this congregation, and the answer is — add to our obser- vations the impression of the following passages from the mouth of the Holy Ghost. "Lord who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? He that walketh uprightly and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart; he that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbor, nor taketh up a report against his neighbor, and in whose eyes a vile person is contemned. Ye have heard it said of old time thou shalt not kill, and whosoever shall kdl shall be in danger of the judgment: but 1 say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment, and- whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council; but whosoever shall say, thou fool, shall be in danger of iiell fire. This is a new commandment that I give unto you, that you love one another. Be of the same mind one towards another. ^Mind not hiirh things, but condescend to men of low estate; be not wise in your own conceits. Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men. Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, vengeance is«iine, I will repay saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hunger feed him, if he thirst give him drink ; for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and angej, and clamor, and evil-speaking, be put away from you, with all malice; and be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiv- ing one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love^ if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels
276 Olf BROTHERLY LOVE.
and mercies, fulfil ye my joy, that ye be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory ; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. — Now we exhort you, brethren, warn them that are unruly, comfort the feeble minded, support the weak, be patient toward all men. See that none render evil for evil unto any man; but ever follow that which is good, both among yourselves and to all men. — Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you : because the darkness is past and the true light now shineth. He that saith he is in the light and hateth his brother is in darknesF even until now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occa- sion of stumbling in him; but he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes. — And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. Wives submit yourselves to your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord. Husbands love your wives, and be not bitter against them. Children, obey your parents in all things; for this is well-pleasing unto the Lord. Fathers, provoke not your children to anger lest they be discouraged. Ser- vants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh. Finally, be all of one mind, having compassion one of another: love as brethren, •be pitiful, be courteous; not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing; but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing. For he that will love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile: let him eschew evil, and do good; let him seek peace and ensue it. For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers : but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil." Amen.
mSCOURSE Xllt
THE DUTY OF PARENTS TO THEIR CHILDREN.
Peov. 22: 6. Train up a child in the vmy he should go; and when he is old he icill not depart from it.
My brethren, every man wishes to lay a solid foundation for the structure he is desirous to raise, for his honor, his interest, and his permanent satisfaction. The builder removes from the foundation the unstable and deceptious earth, that would en- danger the safety of the superstructure, and rears on a chosen basis the fabric that proclaims his name and secures his accom- modations. The monarch who forms designs of extensive empire assiduously studies the art of war, and diffuses it through the immense numbers of his army, on which he builds his hopes of success. The sage patriot spends his days in devising systems of political law, that are to conduct liie nations of the world to the palace of peace and impartial jus- tice. And the vast system of the material universe shows us with what infinite wisdom its omnipotent Creator hath com- bined its elementary principles, so as to effect that liarmony of operation, and that unison of design, which bespeak so iire- sistibly the character of the great Parent of all.
No earthly parent can object, that his child is an object of less moment than any of these we have presented in the analogy before his view. An infant, to be sure, in many respects has,
before the natural eye of curiosity, little on which to support
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278 THE DUTY OF PARENTS
its prospects of celebrity, like the far-famed buildings and palaces of the monarchs of the world ; like the armies of vast kingdoms; like the more peaceful operations of systems that would plant tranquillity and prosperity, not amongst a few, but amongst the nations of the human race; and like the vast works of nature, the sun, moon, and stars, the world, and all that dwelleth in it: but to the view of reason and reflection the child of man is a more noble object than any of these. On his nurse's knee, with a smile towards her countenance and a toy in his hand, he is the bud of an opening character that will immensely outstrip every object we have brought into the comparison. Properly instructed, it is himself who com- mands the noblest expressions of art to rise; who forms and commands empires; who digests and applies the instruments of their felicity and prosperity; — and when the great fabric of nature shall have waxed old and vanished away, he will be beginning to expand in his strength, and to display fully his powers. The tender blossom of the tree in the early spring is subject to ruin by the breath of the wind, and the grasp of the smallest particle that floats in the frozen air ; but it is train- ed up by the providential hand of the great Father of life, till it becomes a large tree, loaded with a profusion of fruit; which again springs up into other trees, till the eflfects of the tender bud cover immense regions of the earth : And in a far higher sense does the delicate scion of human nature spring up from insignificance unto incalculably glorious eflJects and iramea* surable relations.
That the wisest of men and most glorious of kings, there- fore; yea, that the Creator of all, should pass over directions necessary for the infancy of other concerns, and yet enjoin the duty in our text, is the most reasonable of choices. Says the inspired Solomon, who spake from the cedars of Lebanon to the ivy that begirts the wall, " Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."
TO TnEIR CHILDREN. 279
Every command given by infinite wisdom has a reason for its promulgation, and the duty directed by it motives highly calculated to produce a compliance. The reason arranges the circumstances of the case, and would reprove and expel the unhappy occasions which required and warranted the present command: the motives again lead into view the smiling advantages which primary integrity would have ob- tained, and which amendment alone can now possess. — Our thoughts, then, are principally to be directed to the reasons which have occasioned this divine particular revelation of duty, and to the encouragements which may create and pre- serve its discharge.
Parents are addressed ; and however much they may flatter themselves of their love for their children; though they should think that they count their welfare dear to them as their own life; yet in their sinful negligence, or misapplication of tte means of instruction, are we to look for the reasons of this precept. Parents, remember the charge which is committed to you; its qualities have no objects of comparison; the sun, that bright luminary in heaven, darts its vivid and indestructi- ble rays through a vast expansion; but immense as the region which he enlightens is, there is a darkness in boundless space beyond; but the candle you are now called to light will emit his radiance bounded by no space, and darting into eternity. Little, surely, do tlie guardians of youth reflect upon the trust which is committed to them; else in the parlor immediately under the parental eye, and in the streets, where parents' negligence speaks through the voice of their children, so much immorality and impiety would not prevail. What do you think, for instance, of the name of God being blasphemed, his attributes tarnished, and his holy Sabbath profaned, by children pressed into the awful service by the tyranny of ignorance, and the woful blank in the book of their instruc- tion? As sure as the word of God is true, as certain as the practice is unamiable and unprofitable, the idle blasphemer, and the impertinent transgressor of God's holy Sabbath, will,
SSQ THE DUTY OF PAREXT9
if grace prevent not, find prepared for him a doleful retribtK tion, — which will bear hard upon parents in the case of chiU dren; for the former are more properly accountable than the latter. In the mismanagement of an estate which is under guardians, the loss is sustained, not by those in whose effects the injury has immediately appeared , but by the administrator; and God, who is impartially just, will require, at the hands of thje guardians of children, the vast estate of privileges and ad- vantages which he had provided for them, but which is squan- dered away. " And the Lord said to Samuel, behold I will do a thing in Israel, at which both the ears of every one that beareth it shall tingle. In that day I will perform against Eli all things which I have spoken against his house ; when I begin I will make an end. For I have told him that I will judge his house forever, for the iniquity which he knoweth ; because his sons made themselves vile, and he restrained them not; and therefore I have sworn unto the house of Eli, that tlie iniquity of Eli's house shall not be purged with sacrifice nOr offering forever." — 1 Sam. 3: 11 — 15.
But methinks I hear some parents, whose children are a heaviness and grief to them, plead that the refractoriness of youth has overcome them. The truth that man is bent to go astray from the womb, embitters in some degree the cup of delight in the hand of every parent ; and in that of some much more than of others; but before this can be pled by any with success^ it must be obvious, that he has used all the means which are provided for the attainment of this end. The means of accomplishing it are as diversified, as it is fre- quent to divide and neglect great part of them. Were the different dispositions of children carefully studied ; were there but half of the ingenuity employed in ascertaining the parti- cular springs of action in each that is often employed in forming an adaptation of instruments for the accomplishment of a trivial affair, and then a steady and vigorous application of tliem made, success could scarce fail to be secured. But kmentable to contemplate, the particular turn of the child
TO THEIH CHILDREN. 281
scarce ever has a thought steadily directed towards it; whilst of the combination of means to be employed, there is bestowed one scanty portion only. Some flatter themselves that they are exerting their powers to the utmost for the formation of the characters of their children, when they invest them with the thin garment of a common education, which is only the groundwork of a temporal honorable subsistence, or when they have superadded to this a knowledge of some of the most obvious principles of religion. Attending to the relation of parents in general upon this subject, you hear them exultingly declare that such has been the education of their children; and then either exclaiming against their abuse of their instructions, or applauding their improvements on them. We would not condemn any part of useful education, much less when under tlie eye of this inspired text of religious education : but, ray brethren, all this may be attended to, and yet small proficiency made in the great art of training up a child in the way he should go. Can you expect to find the various subordinate parts of a machine turning regularly, when the principal wheel stands still; or perhaps when through some malign power it is inclined to move backwards? Well, in proportion to the wide em.brace of the road of the child, comprehending both moral and religious principles, the parent should walk before and show the way. They are lame views of the education of an immortal and dependent soul, that will not endeavor to build the practice, the most estimable feature of the character of man, on every religious principle the knowledge of which is attained. But instead of this, how many parents are loose in their own morals, and profane in the circle of the other table of God's holy law, instead of pious and godly? Such monsters of absurdity meet us as pride themselves on communicating lessons of reli- gion and probity to their offspring, while they are found blas- pheming the name of God themselves, and ridiculing in their pestiferous mirth every thing that is sacred. But a man might
582 THE &UTY (9F parents
as well spread poison, like the diseases from Pandora^s box, on every walk of his garden, and scatter it over the blanches of every tree, to be carried around in deadly effluvia by the wind ; and ask his friends to take an airing amongst its bowers, and flatter himself that he was actually thus to promote their health, as calculate on this method of education succeeding. Man in his infancy is like the tender flower,- it will rear its head even in a barren soil, if frosty winds do not shrivel its leaves, nor pestilential seasons wither its stem : but if these visit it, all the care of art and spirit of vegetation cannot sup- port and preserve it. — A hint of comfort to the weak and helpless. — A child, through the blessing of God, is often marvellously trained up amidst almost a famine of the common means of edu cation; but with the pestilential breath of a profane conversation, or an immoral practice, all, all the instructions which wisdom can devise, or precept can enjoin, will be of no avail. " Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles V
But from this inapplicable and wicked character, I know many assure themselves they are entirely free; and I will say it with confidence, that I am persuaded many are so : but be- ware, my brethren, of the general principle from which we have shown you the pernicious influence of the practice you are sa forward to condemn. Our general principle is, that example must go hand in hand with precept. Now, though you are not wicked, yet in one respect are not many of you negligent? If you do not put a scorpion alive into the hand of your chil- dren to bite them, yet do not ye, instead of bread, give them the cold stone of neglect? A principal part of the great sys- tem to which children are to be trained, is religious practice: — the adoration and worship of God; the habitual inclinations for regular returns to duty; and the lively spirit of true piety in them. It is not known what numbers of you may be deficient here; but the fact we have mentioned as of the most ruinous consequence in the education of youth, with respect to piety
TO THEIR CHILIXREN. 283
and religion, cannot be too earnestly recommended to your consciences for a personal application. Suppose, you who wish to teach your children the principles of religion, and this for the purpose that henceforth they should not serve sin, that you had prepared the fields and sown your seeds by the strictest rules of agriculture; but that the providence of God blesses the earth with no dew nor rain ; what would be the harvest you promise yourselves ? Suppose that lectures for years, by the greatest master, were given on the most useful and noble arts; but that the teacher never took into his own hand, nor put into that of his students, the instruments of their operation; what sort of practical mechanics would such a seminary produce? In the same manner, it is equally absurd to look for the field of youth, with the seed only, without the enlivening dews and rains of religious communion seasonably and frequently be- stowed, bringing forth a ripe and matured character. It is equally absurd to look for a trained christian in the greatest and noblest art of living to God, without initiation into the practice of the art, as to look for the approved workman where we have directed you. — Consult the history of the human race, its impiety, its malice, and its revenge, and ask yourselves then if there were not great reasons for God, by the wisest of men, addressing parents in the language of our text , and for us still, from time to time, thus most seriously to review it.
But as children, we plead, are more obedient to example than precept, we will not lead you, as some would, into the regions of terror, by supposing their upbraidings of you in a state of misery from which there is no release, in order to com- mand you to your duty : we will, in the spirit of that religion which says, " Suflfer little children to come unto me, and for- bid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven," now, in the second place, turn your attention to the motives which should lead you to this desirable and honorable employment.
First. This is the means that will obtain your parental desires in regard to them. That children should be respected, happy,
284 THE DTTTY OF PARENTS
and even good, is a wish which is unalienable from the heart of a parent. The heads of the family may be abandoned to every vice themselves, and may appear the offscourings of mankind ; but except where their own glaring iniquities will not permit them to speak their secret desires, or where the habits of the children have grown inveterate, under their too irresolute dis- cipline, parents will weep over the absence of the welfare and respect of their offspring, where they would find a thousand pert excuses for their own misdemeanors. — Good men consider themselves as either undone or comforted in this life, by the untoward or obedient conduct of their children. Hence sayg Solomon, " A wise son maketh a glad father, but a froward son is the sadness of his mother. A foolish son is a grief to his father, and bitterness to her that bare him." The agonies of David with his rebellious and wicked family, are a lively picture of the grief which preys upon the bowels of a parent. Well, would you desire your children to reflect an honor upon the name they bear, and to cheer your declining years with filial kindness and independent worth, consider that the mate- rials are in your hand, and that the attainment, through the promise and blessing of God, depends upon your care and endeavors. To see a son growing into manhood, not in bodily dimensions only, but in the talents of the mind ; for a father to contemplate him as prepared for useful employment, in the state and in the church, scenes where the interest of man and the glory of God are strikingly promoted ; and above all, to behold him a star of benign influence in the domestic circle where he resides, and daily treading himself and endeavoring to lead others to eternal enjoyments, must be one of the live- liest and brightest of this world's possessions. A parent invested with these riches might challenge the treasures of kingdoms, however destitute of gold and silver, of food and raiment, he himself was, to produce such stores of wealth, either for the admiration of Others or the felicity of himself. But on the other hand, to behold children wasting their
TO THEIR CHILDREN. ^QJJ
Strength, and substance provided for them through years of hardship and toil; to see them Sink the honor of their family in disgrace, and entail perpetual ignominy upon their own ckaracters; to augur their eternal destruction from the fore- bodings of a uniform vileness, must wring the hearts of parents with agonies which they alone can describe. For their own sakes, then, they should be abundantly careful, to train up a child in the way he should go, that when he is old he may not depart from it.
But secondly. They are to do this duty because of the great honor of such an employment. God their Creator could have formed children independent, for the obtainment of knowledge, of their parents; and could have invested them with other means as the only ones for the direction of their practice: but as they bear the most intimate natural relation to them here, he did not deprive parents of what would be so truly lionorable exercises for them. To the memory of those who have acliieved great conquests, or acted in the hour of danger as the fathers of their country, there have been monuments raised, and marked with every expression of gratitude and every encomium. But as no enemies are so numerous, subtle, and powerful, as the temptations and passions of youth, the trophy which is erected for the memory of him who has subdued and foiled these, though in the eye of the world at large less brilliant, is yet both bettcF founded and more substantial, than the laurels which crown the brow of the successful patriot and conqueror. In truth, more assiduity, and even ingenuity of such a kind indeed as is more common amongst men, are necessary to rear children in the empire of virtue erected upon the ruins of prevalent vices aini immoralities, than are required to plant the standard of conqnest and victory on the walls of an enemy. Never was a more suo- cessful warrior than David, King of Israel, in every engagement- but he who could rout the Philistines and Jebusites and every enemy of the people of God, yet found himself weak and unsuccessful in vanquishing the temptations which surrounded them, and the passions which impelled his own family to t]:ei: ruin an<3 disgrace.— Bui though difficult, a diligent apphcation S5
285 THE D?JTY OF PARENTS
of the means cannot fail to attain the end. David, it is suspect- ed, was a more watchful shepherd over the floek of Israel, and a more attentive general to array their ranks, than a leader to the members of his own family. — Innumerable parents have beheld a living image of all their pious desires, liberal instructions, candid advices, and commendable examples, shining in their trained and tutored children. Except where there are dangers to brave G.nQ. difficulties to overcome, there is little glory to reap • and God, who knows what joy it must communicate to a parent to have been the principal instrument of rearing his son to all the ends of r-As existence, hath allotted to him, in this endearing connexion, opportunities for those endeavors that will procure such a revenue of honor to his success. What incalculable happiness in the state of estimation and reward hereafter, for parents to reflect, that though their children fell into their arms Vt/ith inclinations to every vanity; that although the sparks of knowledge and piety they endeavored to kindle in them were likely to be extinguished by the floods of temptation; yet their perseverance, by the blessing of God, brought them, througli these seas of danger, and landed them their honorable and joyful companions in the land of everlasting life. You whose cir- cumstances are straitened, and whose qualifications make you timid, reccilect what glory a conquest of your difficulties will diffuse over your character, and what a happiness your feeble exertions here will provide for you hereafter. Jn every other, but especially in this, can you say with truth, " For our light afHiction. which is but for a momeni, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.*" Oh, what a gracious God, to make the most indispensable duty of man, and the most difficult to be properly performed, the most rich reward and most copious source of enjoyment, both in this world and that v/hich is to come.
But thirdly. This command is given, because children look up to parents for their information and instruction. We have classed this idea amongst the motives, because the helplessness of infancy draws forth the deepest care under the attire of parental aflfection and sym.pathy. The pleasure which the parent
TO TIIEIR CHILDREN. 287
has in rescuing his chiidren from the devouring flames, must be equal to the solicitude into which his mind was plunged by the magnitude and imminent nature of the danger which threatened them. Well, the consideration of children being so destitute of genuine principles of religious and moral conduct, and so devoid of inclinations for commendable practice, certainly will engage the thoughtful parent to very strenuous exertions. You may imagine what would be your feelings, did you see these pledges of your love and affection secluded fiom every earthly happiness in the miseries of n dungeon, or under ihe slavei7 of a cruel tyrant. Tears would speak emphatically the affection you bear them, and the desire you have to relieve them. But is there any prison so truly deplorable, any tyranny so bitterly un- mixed, as that prison of ignorance, and that tyranny of unsub- dued, unruly passions, where are beheld the babes of the careless and the profane? No; if there is a principle implanted in the breast of man, that would prompt him to interpose in behalf of his son perishing in the devouring whirlpool, standing unsus- pected on the tottering precipice, or assailed by the poniard of the assassin, here is an opportunity for him to give full play to his sympathy. The child of his affections, unless properly trained, is, in the glory of his being, his morality, and his reli- gion, more apt to perish, than is any earthly danger to issue in its fatal effects. The bent of his own soul is to evil, and amid the innumerable snares which are laid for him, he is ready to fall a prey to the evil one. The imaginations of the heart of man are only evil, and that continually; and if the <:ompass of this heart be not under the attractions of mild, generous, pointed, and prudent direction, it is not to be expected that the voyage of life v/ill be happily made, or his landing felicitous hereafter.
But fourthly and lastly. VVe would engage you to this duty, because of the confidence with which you may expect success. It is the Spirit of inspiration who here declares, that if a child be trained up in his youth in the way he should go, he will not when old depart from it^ and whilst it is obvious that this pro- verb is founded on the general experience of mankind, and admits of some dishonorable exceptions, the certainty that it is
268 THE DUTY OP PARENTS
founded, like every other proverb, on the general results in life, places before our view the most distinctly marked encourage- ment. In many instances, the most hazardous experiments and the most expensive are made by individuals, and the most labo- rious and daring expeditions are undertaken by states and nations, wrhere the permanency of the advantages to be secured rests upon the most suspicious basis: but the stream of the child's life which is properly conducted, gathering strength as it iiows, bears down every opposition, and will not be diverted from its course. No ; guided by the light which has been infused into his mind, and guarded by the holiness of the character he has been ever accustomed to wear, the vices which prevail around him, and the irreligion which marks the most of the age he lives in, instead of surprising or beguiling him, as they do the unprepared and the defenceless, only stimulate and fan his virtues. "The path of the just is as the shining light, which shineth more and more unto the perfect day." To be sure, the infirmities of human nature will discover themselves in all men; and there may, in many instances, be in the conduct of manhood a lamentable desertion of the principles of youth ; but at a later period there may be a happy returning ; a declaration of repentance in these mournful words: "Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son ; make me as one of thy hired servants." In many instances has there been an imitation of that example, which is so much to our present purpose, and which is so generally known, of a great man that was stung through every scene of a loose life, by the maternal instructions and lessons of piety, which, in very early infancy, he had received, and who, at last, through the grace of God, has presented us with the example from which we must insist so much upon the efficacy of the doctrine taught in our text. Yes, the formation of an estimable character will weather the storms of temptation in general ; and when at any time the violence of them may carry him far out of his course, it will recover the distressed and miserable mariner to the latitudes along which he should bear. " Train up a child in the way he should go, and ^hen he is old he will not depart from it."
•no TBienR CHILDREN. 289
Terrible must be the wickedness of some individuals; for though they have got the most eligible education, yet they hav€ contemned its blessings, and live devoted to every kind of evil. They are the exceptions from the general truth mentioned in our text,- and as they are wandering stars of such irregular orbits, the reprobation of mankind is fixed upon them, and their end can scarce fail to be the blackness of darkness for ever. How low human nature sinks, when the son of a respecta- ble and religious father, who lias been the centro of his care and hopes, withers in the bloom of life, and languishes out a de- graded existence, low as that of the brutes which perish; whose breaili. by his sensual indulgences, taints the air, and whose words, by his profanity, pollute the walk on which piety may meet him. Such reminds us of the reprobate Cain, of Esau, and Judas, the wandering star from tlie divine instructions of the great parent and teacher of mankind, and who perished to go to his place. On the other hand, what happiness does a youth properly educated, and remaining under the blessings of this education, enjoy? The sweets of knowledge, which are pure as the light of heaven, are his possession; and when this knowledge is clothed with piety, he is fitted for every dispen- ■ sation of providence and every station of life here, and for the eternal house itself of his heavenly Fatlier. When I attend the remains of a holy youth to tliO bed of his long repose, there is a swell of thought runs in my mind, and spreads itself, iike the circles on the tranquil lake, tilMostin the indefinable distance — a presage to me that he has died as if an Iiundred years old, and that mortality is about, undoubtedly, in his in- stance, to be swallowed up of life. I return and repeat to the pious parents, that tiie Lord God orimiiX)tent roigneth, and that this day he hath rewarded them for all their toil and labor about •the little plant in his nneyard, which he hath now taken to grow on the borders of the river of life which issues out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. — The parents are tender, and their aifections are moved by that cold earth which covers him. — I leave them with uttering, " This corruptible mnst put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality," Amen,
25*
DISCOURSE XIII.
ON LIGHT.
OzN. 1:3. God said, let there be light: and there was light.
The beauty of scripture composition, my brethren, is seldom seen at first sight. Indeed, where there is order, it seems, to a superficial review, that there is confusion. This apparent con- fusion never appears greater than when light, the ornament of all the works of God, is the subject. " And the life," says ^ohn, "was the light of men." What life? That which, according to him, existed long before it appeared. — For tliis evangelist presents us with a beautiful gradation which the Spirit of God maintains in expressing the wisdom of his arrangements. Matthew, the first of the evangelists, rehearses the record of God respecting his Son, in whom is eternal life, as it traces the genealogy of Christ according to the flesh to David, King of Israel; Luke carries it up to Adam, who was the son of God; and John, who wrote the last of the evange- lists, passes on with the genealogy of the Messiah into eternity. ** In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God." And then as the joy of all the patri- archs and holy men of God, as Zacharias said, came to his temple, John, wrapt in the robe of the visions of the prophets, exclaimed, ^' the life," which was "in the beginning, is the light ofmen."
The expression in our text is uncommonly sublime. It is, indeed, not like the roaring of thunder, nor the noise of the whirlvvind: it is not like the earthquake, nor the foaming of the
ON LIGHT. 291
cataract; it is not like the moving of the mountains from their places, nor the laying bare the foundations of the deep: but it is something far more grand. These are the sublime objects of untutored minds; sublime to the herdsman and shepherd, to the husbandman, and hunter with his bow and arrow in the forest: but light is the object of admiration and astonishment to all the inhabitants of the universe. When the young man, Elisha's companion, had his eyes opened, and saw all the mountain full of horses and chariots of fire, he saw a sight that was wonder- fully sublime; and were JohnVnew Jerusalem, with its walls and streets of pure gold, and its gates of pearl, really to appear, it would be the grandest of objects made out of the most pre- cious materials which our earth affords: but it would be grand in a small chamber in the house of creation, and would not be the ornament and life of the whole.
This light is first said, in this chapter, to have been created; and then several days afterwards, says Moses, " God made two great lights and placed them in the heavens; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night." This is by many supposed an inconsistent account. But it is simple and beautiful. In the materials of the very stones of our earth there is combined light, many of its strata yield it in the great- est splendor, and water when inflamed is a lamp of sparkling brightness. The air which we breathe in the darkest night has, asleep in its bosom, a vast possession of it, which, when the air is suddenly condensed, escapes from it like the lightning of heaven. Our earth then has the matter of light, like the matter of heat, diffused through all that abyss on which the Spirit of God was moving, when God said, "Let there be light, and it was." Besides, light disdains the humble abode of one particular habitation. The sun was formed and clothed with his robe of radiant light, and the moon on her surface, like our earth, received illumination from him; but tliere are millions of suns which had each to get their portion; ai.d as light, not for our little world, nor for our solar system, was, as we must believe, created by these words, "let there be light," but for the uni- verse; it must have been first formed, siid then collected
292 ON LIGHT^
afterwards to the various stations where in majesty it w.as to shine.
I intend to show you, to-day, that light by its properties ele- vates the understanding of man, guides him in all the practice of life, illustrates the moral relations of the universe, and insi- nuates to man that in soul and body, as a creature of God, he is an immortal being.
First. Light improves the understanding of man. The gar- den of Eden, had it not been for the light of the sun, would have been a poor habitation fdV man; to illuminate which even the flaming sword of the avenging angel might have been adopted in preference to the darkness which hung over it. There was not a flower in Eden but which was painted into every tint of beauty by the light of day. They are the rays of light which to our eye form the blue sky and arch the heavens; which gild over the clouds, and give them comeliness to variegate at times the face of the firmament; that the heavens may declare the glory of God, and the sky show forth his handy works. In the morning they are the rays of light that sit in ornaments of gold upon the mountain's brow, and fire the youthful imagination with those sensations which teach patriotism, and begin the attempts of poetry, ^' Come with me from Lebanon, my spouse, with me from Lebanon; look from the top of Amana, from the top of Shenir and Hevmon, from the lions' dens and mountains of the leopards." Light is airy, and seemingly very unsubstantial, as in the rainbow; but it stretches itself in that sublime arch of heaven, that it may appear alone, and away from all gross earthly objects which we think have colors in themselves; and that it may teach us that all the beauties which are spread over nature are from these rays that thus, in the covenant of God, are a pledge of his mercy that he will destroy our earth no more by water.
It is light which enables us to command, with the greatest ease, the most extensive prospects on the surface of our earth; that presents to us, in an instant of time, the extensive range of distant mountains, the valleys with their winding streams, their cities, their villages, and fertile fields. It is light which enables
ON LIGHT. t93
US to stretch our eye over the ocean, and qualifies the mariner, by a single glance, to return with the picture of an unknown country which accident may have cast within some miles of his course. It is light, in a word, which makes man an inhabitant of this world, and identifies him with its fields, its forests, its valleys, its hills, its seas, its islands, its continents; for, were not this element of our accommodation provided for us, our condition in this world, as respects itself, might justly be compared to the oyster in its shell, or the passion flower, which feels but has no range of enjoyment beyond itself.
But light guides the eye of research in all the attainments of knowledge. Light not only touches the leaves of the flowers with their inimitable colorings, so that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of them ; but it leads the eye of the pliilosopher to these gentle offspring of nature, and enables him to observe the wisdom which is contained in the cup of every flower; and thus, while it makes him devout, it fills his pages with descriptions of the works of nature. But it guides him further; it enables him to assort the fruits of creation, and to observe what his experience teaches him is useful upon the soil, and to reject what encumbers it only. But it goes farther; it qualifies him to lay open the interior of the productions of nature, and apply to all the uses and ornaments of life the pine and the cedar wood, the oak, and every tree of the forest. But this is by no means the highest attainment of vision. Light submits to accommodate us, so that by a little artifice we may behold mil- lions of creatures in the family of our heavenly Father, which even our natural sight cannot perceive. Indeed, it is the eye of man that peoples creation with all the most delicate and gentle of the objects in the vegetable creation, and with those myriads of animal existences, the properties of which blindness could never ascertain, but which are such amazing evidences of the wisdom and beneficence of the glorious Creator.
Connecting us with the myriads of living and organized exis- tences which here have members of the most beautiful symmetry and color, and are totally unknown to darkness; it is light, too, which enables us to walk through the vast regions of the fixed
294 ON LIGHT,
Stars, and to consider ourselves as inhabitants of the universe. How enlarged we feel ourselves, when by light aided by a little artificial contrivance, we examine the environs of the most dis» tant planets, see their retinue of magnificent attendants, and then pass on to observe those stars which, appearing to the naked eye as one body only, divide into brilliant companions at immeasura- ble distances from one another. How vast is the capacity of man when it is thus stretched ; and still he is conscious of a power to continue his observations at much greater removes from his little home.
Well may it be said, God made man in his own image; for while this image, under the freshest appearance of its coloring, was indescribably faint; yet man is not like any of the lower species of creation. Light is, indeed, useful to them; but it cannot conduct them, by the beauties which it spreads before them, to seek entertainment from kindred beauties in other parts of our earth. Some things which they have seen they remember; but tliey cannot picture to themselves the beauties of the valleys and mountains of the world, nor travel over its surface to reap the pleasure of actual enjoyment. Their eye is, indeed, in some instances, better formed than that of man; but their instincts are narrow and circumscribed; whereas man opens his eye and feeds on the prospect which is immediately before it, receives descriptions of other visible scenes from other men, is delighted with meditation upon them, leaves the earth, and pursues new enjoyments in the distant regions of unbounded space. God said let there be light; and man, by means of it, connects him- self with the life that sports in the summer's ray, and with the furniture of the creation through an amazing chamber of her works.
But secondly. Light directs the practice. Nothing through perhaps creation can be done without it. This may be the rea- son why it is so universally spread, and why no place is left abso- lutely without it. The stars are delicate lamps which perpetu- ally shine, and enclose us on all hands. Some creatures, indeed, are overpowered by the effulgence of day; but the night has beams sufficient for them. This arrangement of the Creator
ON LIGHT. 295
may be intended to point out to the least observant of man- kind, how easily God can suit, in the most remote corners of a solar system, his creatures to the condition of their habitation. — Yes, some creatures can live only in the purest emission of the summer's rays,— indicative to us of the happy regions of those globes which move near to the sun; and others retire into the cool shade and the caves of the earth till the chill of our
evenings, when they can enter on the fatigues of their labor
a proof how delightful may be those habitations which lie far beyond us.
Indeed, the economy of our world, as connected with light, illustrates in some respects to us the expedients which must render delightful the most apparently dreary suburbs of any system. As light is absolutely necessary to the business of life, so many creatures here have the power of laying up a trea- sure of it, and of drawing it forth only when it is in demand. Indeed the depths of the plans of providence in this respect are astonishing. We are delighted with the green color of the sea ■ but we little think that the rest of the rays are absorbed by those invisible animalculsB, which fill every drop of the water where it has this color, and that support the larger inhabitants of the deep, and supply them with that light which those that live at the bottom of the abyss can bring to play around their path at their pleasure. The very vegetable creation cannot carry on any pro- cess to advantage, without both the heat and the light of the sun. Throughout all existences that grow on our earth, light seems tlie source of their joy. It gives health and vigor to every flower and plant, and even the very shells of the fish of the sea seem greedily to absorb it; as if without it no enjoyment could t^ke place. When the heathen philosopher passed a high encomium on Moses for the sublime conception in our text he knew little of the reasons which might have been assianed for his observation; but modern science has supplied the deficiency; and it may be truly said, that as God dwells in light inacce^ sible and full of glory; so all creatures that have the life even of organization are, for their joy, absolutely dependeat upon it.
296 ON LIGHT.
I cannot run over the departments of the business of human life to exemplify its utility to man . Look at his eye and his implements, and you will at once see how necessarily, in ail instances, these are connected together. Life itself is not more necessary in the agent than vision in the eye. I direct you to the confidence which every step betokens, and the ease and expedition with which it is taken ; and I direct you to the diffi- culties of darkness. " Come near me, my son, that I may feel whether you are my very son Esau: and he said, the voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of Esau. — Arise, my father, and eat of my venison. Who art thou ? I tim thy son Esau. And he trembled with an exceeding great trembling, and he said, who is he, where is he, who hath come, and with subtlety hath taken away thy blessing?" 1 direct you to the joy of the business of life. The morning sun gladdens creation; the firmament is filled with music; the labor of the day increases; but man wipes from his brow the sweat, and throws a glance, forgotten indeed the next moment, over the Burrounding scenes of nature, and gathers a refreshment sweeter than a mere imagination bred in darkness could ever present.
But light would have availed nothing to the business of life, separated from the end for which here it was prepared. Beforo the divine mind, when God said, " let there be light,*" the sub- stance and forms of all eyes, for air, earth, and water, stood in- fallibly connected with the realities to be prepared. How admi- rahle an organ is the eye of man! There may be as much wisdom indeed in the construction of the ear, and of the organ of taste or smell ; yea, in the formation of a hair of the head ; but the eye expresses its wisdom more openly to our capacity,. Our eye is the most delicate of all our members, and yet the rays of light never injure nor weary it; and with a rapidity little infe- rior to the velocity of light itself, it changes its form for every new point of the scene which it wishes to survey. Above all things in our constitution that is inexpressibly wonderful, this of the accommodation of our vision according to the distance of mety object proclaims, to the few people who have adverted to
ON LIGHT. 297
it, the delicacy of the divine wisdom, and the minuteness of ifs attention to our happiness in our situation. The labor of the eye, too, in turning in its socket, is always gone through with so much ease, that though it traverses with its axis a loncrer journey every day, than would weary any other member of our frame, it never since creation uttered a complaint.
ft is with propriety, my christian brethren, that the heathen, who lost sight of the intellectual and moral beauties of creation, are represented as a people who sit in darkness and have no light; and that revelation, the word of divine knowledge, is always presented to us as the light of the world. Where there is no vision, the people and all the business of life perish, even in a literal point of view. It is often by critics quoted as a remarkably heroic and courageous expression of one of Homer's heroes, who, when stopped in the heat of the fight by impracticable darkness, prayed to Jupiter to give light, if he should then slay him when it would direct his steps. Milton'? lamentation over the loss of his sight is by all admired as one of the most natural and pathetic passages to be found in any composition; but to a philosophical mind the inimitably fine scenes in " Paradise Lost" show that the writer of them, after blindness had seized him, could find no enjoyments but in re- calling and contemplating those beauties, the elements of which had entered by the eye. Of all productions in poetry, those which have proceeded from men who by age have lost their sight, are the most admirable: but the reason of this is very obvious; present objects of interest are very scantily presented to them; and the past objects of delight are pursued, caught, aew moulded, and formed into the brightest attitudes. Some of these productions are, therefore, airy and i)right; the fancy of youth having clothed the knowledge of experience and of age: but when they touch on their present feelings and their rela- tions to the universe, their strains are like the sound of the birds that sing by night, melancholy and doleful; and thougli
some of the strains may be sweet, these are like the notes"./ 26
298 ON LIGHT.
the nighTingale, that seem to spring from a perpetual foimtaixy of sorrow.
But thirdly. Light is indicative of the character of the moral government of the universe. We have^ from a minute exami- nation of them, many evidences, from other things, of the cha- racter of the divine government in our world. The fact that the proportion of original elements in all compound substances of the same nature, are always invariably the same; that the air never varies in the proportion of the elements which com- pose it ; that water never in its composition will admit one particle more or less at one time than at another; that crystali- zations of the same substance are invariably under the same angle, and in the same proportions; that the forms of the organs of plants never deviated from their order since creation^ nor is even a color of their leaf changed; that every thing brings forth i^s kind in perfection of parts and organs— these things clearly show that there is a plan of perfection connected with the natural government of the world; and also that if any of God's creatures here be under a moral law proceeding from tlie same origin, it must have a definite perfection, as well as all other emanations from the divine councils. This is the very truth which the sense of religion in all men appears weakly to have laid hold of; for sacrifices of expiation have been offered in ail places and ages; but the view of it waSy like the rest of their knowledge of divine things, extremely imperfect among the heathen nations. But these words, " the Judge of ail the earth will do right," receive from the light of modern science a strictness and an inflexibility of interpretation which are grand and majestic. Science has passed into every chamber of the divine works; and all things are definite and unchangeable in the principles which form their nature and regulate their character. There is one common law to every existence of the same species; and this is as permanent as the order of the universe, and cannot be altered without the anni hilation of a species of being.
ON LIGHT. 299
It may make man stand amazed at the accumulation of guilt which thus the order of the universe brings against him for his transgressions; but it is the very view of the subject the scriptures present. To a christian, whose faith is founded oh the immediate communications of revelation^ the view we have exhibited has nothing alarming. Re may not have so minutely analyzed the mind of the great and universal Governor as 1 have attempted to do; but his belief is not in the least differ- ent.— Is it said that we know nothing of the perfection of the divine works, unkss in this small corner of them where we reside? . The rays of light, ray brethren, convey a knowledge to us of the order of the heavens. The stars all shine invari- ably brightly^ or change by some know-n law wliich adds only to the wisdom of the economy by which they are governed. There is the power of attraction which binds our solar system into an order, which in some degree we can estimate ; and this order is nover disturbed, any more than the wisdom of the Maker of all could find any diiSculty in adjusting that admi^ rably perfect plan which from his will the system exemplifies.
But it is light itself that is the universal herald of the abso- lute ])erfection of the creation. It travels through all space, and it has no variety in any portion of its journey different from what it had in any other. It moves universally in the same straight lines when left to itself, and with the same velocity. And the rays which come from the most distant stars are affected, in all instances, precisely in the same manner as is the light of our sun. The light of a star which is invisible entirely to the naked eye, on entering our atmosphere, pays an equal duty of refraction with a ray from the moon or sun, or any other heavenly body. Its progress, as learn-ed from its aber- ration, is precisely with the same rapidity; and it disdains equally to be a messenger to us of any thing but brightness on iQvery beam, and order in every movement. When the moon rises from the bosom of the ocean, her li^ht plays on the siw-
5^ 0I« LIGHT.
face of every wave, and so does the light of the most distant and smallest star, to show that this inhabitant of the universe has unchangeable laws of order, to make known every where to his intelligent creatures. That he who dwells in light inaccessi- ble and full of glory, is absolutely perfect; and this, too, as his authority stands over those rational existences who were origi- nally created with powers to examine and estimate this universal state of things. — My God, I thank thee that Christ said, •' I am (he light of the world :" for wdth this night of sin, there is a horror and a darkness which, from all the images of divine perfection in heaven and in earth, bear in upon the sinner j and how awful must be the naked arm of justice, when it strikes to realize the truth which is thus sketched before us in all the works of God.
In the plan of salvation, my brethren, by Christ, the law of God may be supposed as perfect as are the laws which he has assigned to light, not a particle of which since creation ever erred; yet we are safe. Yea, were not the moral law of God equally inflexible in its majesty, as the laws of nature are in their order, the v/hole of our religion would be a fabric without a principle to cement its parts. But they are in an error, deeply in an error, who illustrate the beauty of the crown of heaven, and the original lines of order among the intelligences ,of this universe, by sometimes one vague view, and sometimes another; and who think that the sinner returns back to his God, like a child who is wearied of its waywardness to his father. No, the angels might desire to look into the plan of our restoration ; for they have some knowledge of the perfection of this building of creation; and they will see, that high as its order is, there IS no infringement of it as we return to God. The wages of sin is death: its cold hand was felt; justice spared not; but out of the state of the dead, came life and immortality to light. Christ, the Lamb of God, that takes away the sin of the world, had his countenance like the sun, and his raiment like the light
■OS XlfiHT. aOl
*dt the sun ; and a voice eomes to us from heaven, as Moses and Eiias talked about his decease, saying, ^« This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased,'"
But lastly. Light insinuates to man that in soul and body he is an immortal being. When we look at the lower species of the creation, they are as devoid as the rocks of the mountam of any turn for speculation on any object which they see. Thej often exhibit considerable talent and address in arranging thieii habitations, in providing their food, in attarcking their enemies, and in lying in ambush to make them their prey. Never, how- ever, has an individual of them brought forward the ieact feature of that philosophy which we recognize in the eye of ' -every infant; and which^ while ail appetite and selfishness are at a distance, commences an inquiry into the nature of sur- rounding objects, and the relations of their component parts. Every creature of the lower species of creation has the bounds of its habitation circumscribed by a line on the earth which is never far distant from it; and beyond this all the objects which " the Creator could make and ornament have no relations whicls interest it. The natures of these creatures never identify them with the universe, and fill their souls with the images of beauty -and order from every thing that is great or small Their eye IS an organ of utility indispensable to their existence; but y^hea It guides them to the pasture, or to the stream, to the prey, or to the danger which threatens existence, it ha@ accomplished ' its highest attainments.
But man never appears before the door of his habitation b«S • you perceive that, by means of the rays of lightj his mind is ' travelling over scenes, which, though often viewed, may yet he supposed to have something to please his curiosity. When tlie - fields have any thing uncommon on them, every man ^ould • make the whole prospect his own, by the eager curiosity winch he summons up upon it, and by the examination to which he subjects it. Should the heavens put on a new array, towards them he directs an equal interest. The contemplation of eves
26*
362 ON LI&HT.
the azure canopy of the sky often begets in him a tranquillity as indefinable as is the boundary of our vision, and as rich in eEijoyment as imagination can provide. Man by the proper- ties of his mind, and the faculty of vision, is not a local insu- lated existence; but connects himself with all God's works > that are around him, and cultivates an acquaintance, intimate and deep, v/ith the most transitory or permanent on the earth or in the heavens over it. Yea, he starts off to the most distant of the visible works of God, and cultivates with more joy an acquaintance with them, than he does with the familiar envi- rons of his habitation. Man is an inhabitant even here of a ¥ast part of the possessions of the universe.
Now, my brethren, while not a particle of matter, as far as we know, is annihilated, while the rays of light, feeble as they are, all yet play throughout boundless space, are we to sup- pose that the mind of man, that existence which travels throughout a great part of tiie works of God, and examines them as it passes along, is just as the leaf of the grass, or that creature which can think of nothing but feeding upon it? No, I hold that the human mind has a testimony from every star, and the more distant the clearer, that it is an heir to the enjoy- raents which the permanency of tlie heavenly luminaries pre- sents. God could have given us more light by situating one of the stare a little nearer to us, and making it move so as to rise fcSvhen the sun set, and thus hide as the sun does all the rest ^ from our view; but he has hung out to us the splendors of crea- tion, and arranged them so as to invite our intelligence and numbers among them.
But it may be said we leave every thing here by death; and why not all things every where else? — When the building is great and full of chambers, the members of the family are not kept eternally in one little corner. They walk throughout the hdib and apartments, and occupy what they see to be all suita- ble cKid delightful.
ON LIGHT. 303
But it may be said, my brethren, that this reasoning though splendid and specious, is yet overturned by one consideration, level to our capacity, and easily estimated. Men, it may be said, cannot be immortal, else these vast views to whichlhey are heirs, the works of God, and all which he has provided for us of a still more exalted character nearer to himself, would not be put out of view by indifference, or be trodden upon by that madness of impiety which we see every where so preva- lent.— I am not attempting to prove the immortality of man from his conduct. I grant that the gold of his creation has be- come dim; I am proving it from the creation of God, and from that relation to it, which his intellectual nature still yet pre- sold ts.
Were I to prove it any way connected with his moral habits I w^ould first recall the truth that the idea of morality connects immediately with the throne of heaven; and then 1 w^ould di- rect to the judgments where a fire goeth before God and burn- eth up round about him. Yes, 1 would direct to the flaming sword, that, in respect to the sinner, guards the tree of life; I would direct to the top of Sinai and the terror of its flames; I would direct to the fire which men kept perpetually burning as an emblem of justice to consume the sacrifice; and 1 would repeat the prophecy, that the Lord shcdl be revealed from hea- ven, in flammg fire, to take vengeance on them who know not (jod, and who believe not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished w^ith everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.
Bat light affords us also an evidence for the resurrection of the body. The ancients thought meanly of matter, and spake of it as the prison of the soul. But the light of modern science ?hows infinite space filled with it, and the wisdom of Deity unfolded in ail its forms. The book of creation is written on material leaves; and no creature which we see, can perceive any thing out of himself but by the intervention of it. It is the soul which perceives; but the consciousness of its own
304 ON LIGHT,
operations is not more certain, than are the intimations of the senses. — We do not say that the angels have bodies. On the other hand, their spiritual nature is an evidence that our souls may exist by themselves with powers of enjoyment, before the resurrection. But we say, that the angels never visit our world without putting on a form like to a friend or a foe. They eat with Abraham; Manoah sees their wonderful opera- tions ; they speak to Zacharias ; they roll back the stone from the sepulchre of our Saviour and sit upon it; and they say, ye men of Galilee why stand ye here gazing into heaven, this same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven. — These angels no doubt visit other parts of the creation, and accommodate themselves to the material forms and organs of iheir inhabitants. — Spiritual existences as they are, we do not suppose, that it is for their own enjoyment, that tliey put on the material forms in which they appear. This is to befriend those to whom they are sent. — But, my brethren, since crea- tion in its material parts is so vast and magnificent, since the ansels of heaven robe themselves at times in material cover- ings, and since we can form no conception how matter can be |)erceived, and its magnitude and beauties be properly estima- ted, but by material organs; — if our souls be immortal, the union of them to what is a constituent part of our nature here, would only prepare us for being companions to the works of our creator as we see them at present existing, and as in the new heavens and the new earth they will continue for ever to exist. The works of God are spirit and matter; the one is powerful to examine and comprehend ; and the other is spread every where throughout boundless space with its beauties and marks of divine wisdom to employ us by endless variety through an endless duration.
There may be some tie which our Maker will have to break to set us loose from our present abode. But it is easy to ima- gine this. Light is incident upon the earth, but it is not at-
ON LIGHT, 30«
traded by it; nor is it by a single body of the universe. It leaves the sun, and steps off to the most distant of the planets; but it returns to us with the utmost ease, and with the same velocity. The Creator, to the glorious bodies of the saints, has only to communicate the independence which light pos- sesses in respect to attraction, its incorruptibility in all situa- tions, and its speed on its journey, to prepare them for occupy- ing the whole building of creation, and throughout eternity for making all his works to praise him.
What a beautiful passage is that in the nineteenth chapter of Job! Job says that God hung our earth upon nothing; tliat he bringeth forth Arcturus with his sons, and he speaks of Orion and Pleiades and the chambers of the south. — Having exclaimed, Oh! that my words were now written in a book, tliat they were engraven with an iron pen and lead in the rock for ever, he adds, in the passage referred to, For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and though after my skin worms destroy this my body, yet in my flesh shall I see God, whom mine eyes shall behold and not another. Job's deep distress was like the picture of our sinful world, and his body that was scraped with a potsherd, was a fit emblem of the realization of these words of his, "I have said to corruption thou art my father, and to the worm thou art my sister and my mother;" but this sigh of faith, is like the light of God's creation ;— this may be absorb- ed by all substances, but it has in itself a principle of inde- structive purity, and always clears off from them in its original brightness; so Job shakes off from him in these words, every thing that is vile and corrupting, and stands arrayed, as on the last day, ready to meet that Judge who in his character pre- sents that absolute perfection which is the intellectual light of the whole creation.
That which thou sowest, says Paul, is not quickened except it die.— Parents you may sow in death your children, children you may sow to corruption your parents: but why those tears? Look at the field. The seed cannot be barren. The blessing
306 ON LIGHT.
of heaven is upon it. That which is sown in weakness shall be raised in power; that which is sown a natural body shall be raised a spiritual body; that which is sown in corruption shall be raised in incorruption ; and that which is sown in dishonor shall be raised in glory.
My brethren, what hopes the religion of Christ gives! Man comes forth as a flower and is cut down ; but all things change ; the light was a while without a permanent abode; but was then gathered into a glorious habitation; so man, redeemed to his orignal perfection, may wander about for a little among the toils and the tombs of this earth; but at last he will be gathered to an eternal home, to shine as those stars in the firmament for ever and ever. — For this corruptible must put on incorruption ; and this mortal must put on immortality. Ohl infidels why rob us of these hopes? Does not the Creator of the universe connect us with it far and wide; and is he, as soon as we begin to open the eye of enjoyment, to dash his children from the breast which he has hung out so rich and so desirable? Chris- tian this cannot be. For we have instructions beyond the beauties of creation.- — When this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass, the saying that is written, Death is swal- lowed up in victory. — Oh' deatii where is thy sting, ohl grave where is thy victory I Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord. — The day spring from on high hath visited us — the light of the new creation shines.— Amen.
i
DISCOURSE XIV*
THE CONVERSION OF THE ETHIOPIAN EUNUCH.
Acts 8:39. And he went on his way rejoicing.
There are, my brethren, particular providential occurrences in one's life which, though not in the least anticipated, are the sole spring of his power, aggrandizement, or happiness. Saul had not the slenderest expectation, when in rural simplicity, he went in search of his father's asses, that before his return a prophet of the Lord should anoint him king of Israel. Joseph, persecuted by his brethren, and sold into Egypt where he ex- perienced treachery and imprisonment, had not himself any knowledge or belief, that the Lord was doing these things, that he might preserve Jacob a posterity upon the earth, and save lives by a great deliverancTe. The disciples of our Saviour said in despair of its being the case, we thought that this was he who j5hould have redeemed Israel, and it was the very event which interpreted to them the whole of the sacred oracles, and started them in that honorable cause for which they took joyfully the spoiling of their goods.
The Ethiopian eunuch, whose exultation is the subject of our discourse, met with an equally unexpected but happy providen- tial occurrence in his behalf. This minister of Candace, queen of Ethiopia, went to Jerusalem for to worship. The light how- ever which he received from the interpreters of the Jewish law and prophets, threw but little information upon the true nature of the ordinances on which he attended, or the scriptures, which
308 THE CONVERSION OP THE
to the Jews themselves, as well as all their proselytes, were the rule and spirit of true and undefiled religion. Returning from his religious performances this man read Isaiah the prophet, and in that particular place of him too, which more clearly tlian all the rest explained the intention and spirit of the Jewish institu- tions, and yet he understood not what he read. Verse 29. And the spirit said unto Philip, go near and join thyself to this cha- riot, and Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the pro- phet Isaiah, and said, understandest thou what thou readest? and he said how can I except some man guide me. Poor had been the instructions of the Jewish teachers, else this man who was of those distinguished talents that advanced him to the charge of all the affairs of his mistress' kingdom, and who peruses the sacred scriptures as he journeys along in his chariot, would have had some conjectures at least about the true import of this peculiar and striking passage of Isaiah. But his lines are falling to him in pleasant places above his expectation. That unanticipated and striking occurrence to which we allu- ded, and which was the great spring of joy to all his future life, now takes place. — It is added, "and he desired Philip that' he would come up, and sit with him." And Philip, it is said, verse 35, " opened his mouth and began at the same scripture, and preached unto him Jesus:" — Jesus whom this prophetical passage led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so opened he not his mouth; who was wounded for our transgressions, was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was laid upon him, and by his stripes we are healed. — The light which was cast upon the sub- ject was irresistible : the eunuch is converted ; the greatest and most blessed change that can happen to mortal man. Verse 36. " And as they went on their way they came unto a certain wa- ter, and the eunuch said, see, here is water, what doth hinder me to be baptised? and Philip said, if thou believest with all thine heart, thou may est; and he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And he commanded the chariot to stand still; and they went down into the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptised him. And when
ETHIOPIAN EUNUCH. 3Q9
they were come up out of the water, the spirit caught away Philip, and the eunuch saw him no more. And he went on his way rejoicing."
What we intend, in the further prosecution of this discourse, shall be, in the first place, to present before you the causes of the rejoicing of this convert; secondly, we will inquire how such an effect could be so suddenly produced on him,- and thirdly, we will ascertain why this event is so particularly men- tioned.
And no wonder that the eunuch went on his way rejoicing; for, in the first place, he now received a key to the prophecies contained in what he esteemed the word of God. When an honest man believes that God is speaking to him, if he cannot understand what has been communicated, he is filled with deep anxiety; and his relief from it must fill his mind with a propor- tional joy. But we see from a preceding part of this chapter, tliat the eunuch was equally ignorant of as desirous to know the true import of one of the most remarkable and singular predic- tions of revelation. The Jews had sought the fulfilment of this prophecy in the character of Jeremiah, and several other illustri- ous sufferers: yea, they had feigned two Messiahs in order to answer to the description of power and distress; but at the pe- riod of the commencement of the New Testament worship, they appear to have lost its true and legitimate import. And of many of the rest of the predictions of revelation were they, and all their disciples, equally ignorant : in particular of all those which delinea • ted the person and work of the great Mystery of Godliness, God manifested in the flesh. To find a meaning to these passages, " he shall make his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death ; his flesh shall rest in hope, and his soul shall not be left in hell; unto us a son is given, and a child is born, and the gov- ernment shall be upon his shoulders, and his name shall be call- ed Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace; Messiah shall be cut ofl", but not for himself;" necessitates an interpreter to believe in Jesus of Nazareth, and to bring him to the explication of what other- Tyise cannot be resolved. Indeed to him gave all the law and 27
310 THE CONVERSION OF
the prophets witness. What is the meaning of all those illustri' Qus predictions which describe the typical nature of the land of Canaan, and promise it to the seed of Jacob; of those which define and bewail the captivity of Judah, and secure her subse- quent restoration ; of those which tell us of the rise and fall of empires ; if they derive not to themselves an importance from the great event of the redemption of mankind ; for which any other events could become worthy of a particular divine record ? The Saviour of the world is the true key to the prophecies. In his incarnation, miraculous birth, mean life, accursed death, and glorious resurrection from the dead, many of them have met with their literal and only interpretation: and even the more distant and scattered among the affairs of the world, receive their great value, for which they must be recorded by God, from him in whom all the promises and predictions of revelation are yea and amen. No wonder then, when the genuine key was put into his hand, that the Ethiopian, the eunuch of great au- thority, should proceed on his way rejoicing. Having the charge of all her treasures this minister of queen Candace could no doubt open many a door, and unlock many a bolt that admitted to the most valuable of earthly concerns, of precious jewels and gold with which that court abounded. But this key lets him into secrets which the topaz of Ethiopia could not equal, neither could they be valued with pure gold. He saw here that pearl of great price, in order to buy which, a man would with advantage, yea even a king, sell every other concern.
But we observe, secondly. That he went on his way rejoicing, because he had found a rational interpretation to all the institu- tions of that religion on which he attended. The supporters of superstition flatter themselves that every part of their ritual has a significancy, and every feature of their practice a religious meaning : otherwise they could not content themselves in sup- porting often a burdensome and an expensive system of ceremo- nies. There was in all the heathen devotees an imagination which pleased them with their external forms of worship, and which was equally rooted and easy of furious agitation, with that which stimulated the Ephesians to cry out "great is Diana of
THE ETHIOPIAN ET7NT7CH. 311
the Epbesians.'''' The Jews' religious institutions were of divine origin, and had actually the most pointed import; every type might find a principal, every ceremony a substance, and every figure a reality; but at the commencement of the christian dis- pensation, the most of that people had lost sight of the real im- port of those institutions that were so truly significant. They made clean the outside of the cup and platter, and neglected the weightier matters of the law. They thought that he was a Jew that was one outwardly, and that that was circumcision, which was outward in the flesh. It was the certainty that their ordinances had been instituted by God, and the backwardness which every one feels to condemn himself, that led them to feel such satisfaction with the external appearance without the ra- tional and necessary substance. For the law, says truth, hath a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things.
This fond flattery of themselves in the utility of that which they presently professed, did not however, either among the Jews or gentiles, give satisfaction unto the impartial and the reflecting. The intelligent and learned in the pagan world re- jected, as below the reasonableness of things, the superstition which had overrun their respective regions, and longed in deep anxiety for a revelation to direct them: and the wise of the Jews were waiting, as is instanced in good old Simeon, for the consolation of Israeb It was impossible for them to be com- j^-etely satisfied, and each of them nmst have desired like this eimuch with regard to the portion of scripture he was reading, to have some one to guide him. Generation after generation, however, in the heatheji world, had passed away without seeing the light of revelation arising upon them.; and few of the Jews were directed to the genuine sight of divine doctrine. The one remained enveloped in the clouds of their impenetrable ignorance, and the other might be asked and reproved by, ^' To what pur- pose is the mutitude of your sacrifices? will the Lord he pleased with the blood of bullocks, or of rams, or of lambs, or of he- goats?'' But that ignorance which had involved all nations of the gentiles, and that perversion of divinely instituted ordi-
521 l-HE CONVERSION OP
Ranees among the Jews, which might expose them to the ridi- cule of the more reflecting, are now completely overturned. Jesus the Saviour of the world, whose death appeases the jus- tice of God, and reconciles the obstinate sinner; in regard to the sacrifice of whom all expiations througliout the world must have been instituted; and whose death gives so full an account of the reasonableness of the Jewish rites and ceremonies, is pro- claimed in the preaching of the gospel. The great difficulties of the light of nature, how a sinner is to appear before a holy God, and on what evidences the souPs immortality rests, are now resolved. The divine Mediator makes a real atonement, and presents us without spot or blemish before the Holy One; whilst his resurrection brings life and immortality to light; and whilst thus all oblations throughout the world may be traced to their origin, sacrificing amongst the Jews in particular is explain- ed, by this one offering of him who hath for ever perfected them that are sanctified. Yes, the ignorance which involved his fathers is now dispersed ; and his religion, to the ceremonies of wliich, he has travelled so l\r, he can clearly show to all the world, is worthy of his long journey. Hence the eunuch goes on his way rejoicing.
But we observe, thirdly, That he went on his way rejoicing, because that great personage, expected over all the nations, had actually arrived. Not only v/as there an anticipation among the Jews who were immediately directed by the piophecies and ordinances of the Old Testament, that at the time of Christ's appearance in our world, a mighty personage should show him- self on the stage of time; but there was a general expectation of him throughout almost all nations. Tlie woman of Samaria said, that she knew that the Messiah who is called Christ should come; and even Virgil and Julius Marathus spake of a great, personage to appear; which idea could not be supposed to occur to them, but by some adulterated and faint tradition of the ex- pected Messiah. And the very manner in which the latter speaks of him, is particularly to be observed. He says that nature was about to bring forth a Son that should be king of the nations. Tacitus and Suetonius, Roman historians of
THE ETHIOPIAN ifeTT^^CH. 313
^reat celebrity, mention too this general expectation of man- kind, and even say that he is to arise out of Judea. In the east, in Persia and Babylon, they were so vigilant in their outlook for this adrnirahle person, that they believed, even before it happen- ed, that men were to be directed to him by a supernatural star; — the reason, no doubt, why the wise men came to our Saviou?, saying, -'^ Lo! we have seen his star in the east." The dispersion of the Jews among the rest of the nations of the earth, as well as the prophecies of Balaam, Daniel, and others, we may jusl remark, no doubt occasioned this general expectation. Now a knowledge that this general expectation of all nations was fully gratified, could not but infuse joy unspeakable into the breast of the Ethiopian eunuch. He would say to himself, it has been no unfounded fancy of which poets have sung and philosophers have conjectured, and by which distressed nations have consoled themselves with the prospects of deliverance. Greatly have they been mistaken about the real manner and design of his -appearance. The Jews calcidated on a great king, and tem- poral Redeemer only, to rodeem from Roman bondage the disho- norably mortgaged inheritance of tlieir peculiarly promised land ; and the rest of the nations looked to him, some with joy, and some with fear; the oppressed that perhaps he would break the chains of their oppression, and the oppressors that perhaps their instruments of power would be broken. But he is a deliverer most glorious indeed: not as either Jew or gentile were expect- ing him to be; not a temporal Saviour, to place justice among the nations; but a spiritual Redeemer, to deliver both the victor and vanquished from the most disgraceful and miserable of all conditions, bondage to sin, and tlie displeasure of an angry God. Which brings us to remark, fourthly. That he went on his way rejoicing, because he saw the salvation of mankind accom- plished. It appears that this eunuch was truly a man desirous of religious attainments, and not satisfied with every form of worship, else he would not have travelled from the court of Ethiopia to Jerusalem, to the temple of God, for his devotions. But whilst his religious affections were warm, and he sought the end of religion, the salvation of his immortal soul, many doubts,
27*
314 THE COA'VERSION OP
even at the altars of the Jews, must have arisen in his mind. The superstition of all nations around him, he saw, was gross and abhorrent, and even the most systematic and rational under the wings of the temple of God had many infirmities. Can reason believe that the blood of bulls or of goats expiates sin? No; the sinful world, for all this good man can yet see of its redemption, may be lost for ever. His religion is only the best with which he can obtain an acquaintance, in an age universally sunk in superstition or deceived with mere obseivances. But the hopes of the human race he sees are now established; their salvation on the most firm grounds is come to pass. The only begotten Son of God could not be crucified and raised from the dead, without our being saved. No; when the Creator of the world makes an effort to destroy death in his own territories, the world must be redeemed. It is impossible that the source of all life should pass through the regions of death, and not sweep them of every mortal seed and mean of destruction, as far as his omniscience saw was for his glory. Hence the inspired inter- pretation which Philip gave him of the prophecy of sufferings and punishment, which he was reading, could not but show to his understanding the real redemption of the world, and fill his heart with joy proportioned to this great achievement. When a kingdom is emancipated from the successful tyranny that for years has oppressed it, joy beams on every countenance within the realm, and friendly nations light the torch of sympathetic rejoicings ; but how much more genume, as well as deep, must have been the gladness of this pious and sincere eunuch, when he, in light clearer than noonday, saw the world through to the latest age delivered from the worst of all thraldoms, condemna- tion and eternal death.
But we observe, fifthly, That he went on his way rejoicing, because he had received in his own instance this salvation which was provided for all nations. The welfare of our own immortal souls is of such vast moment, that whilst great and beneficent objects draw forth our exultation, the security of our own eternal existence amongst the intellectual natures that are to live for ever, cannot but form a copious source of it. Our immortal
THE ETHIOPIAN EUNUCH. Sl8
souls look into the awful pit of ignominy and disgrace from which they are saved, and to the eternal inheritance to which they are destined; and a sense of rescue from the former, and preparation for the latter, is a perpetual spring of vivid enjoy- ment. Hence the language of the jailer, " What shall 1 do to be saved?" hence the commendation of our Saviour to Mary, for attending to the one thing needful; hence the propriety of the precept to lay up treasures where neither moth nor rust can corrupt, nor thieves break through to steal; and hence the true emphasis of that language from the mouth of an apostle, " Wo is m.e if I preach not the gospel ;" hence, indeed, the very end of Christ^s death, the reason of the revelation of all the doc- trines of salvation, and the whole meaning of religious exercises. —The value of an immortal soul is seldom duly estimated. But the worth of the whole world is nothing to it; yea, of a thousand worlds, which are only transitory connexions. " What is a man profited if he should gain the whole world, and lose his own soul; or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?" Could we read the countless objects that would define its value, as it appears to the eye of Jehovah, who hath redeemed it by the blood of his Son, we would see that worlds, countless as the leaves of the forest, the drops of water which roll in the ocean, the stars of night, which are innumerable, could not make the most distant approximation to its surpassing excellence. What- ever a person possesses and enjoys may be considered his subservient and ministering property; and worlds more numerous than the sand on the sea shore may, in the ceaseless ages of exis- tence, be surveyed by the saints, in the glorious character too of the new heavens and the new earth. " And he that overcometb shall inherit all things." Sensible of this great value and these prospects of his own immortal spirit, he goes on his way rejoicing.
But we observe, sixthly, That he went on his way rejoicing, because he had the most joyful news to carry home to his coun- trymen. No doubt although his talents must have procured him very great respect, and his high and dignified office hushed to silence the malicious whispers of the interested, yet thin
316 THE CONVERSION OF
eunuch had many in the Ethiopian nation, and strangers at Queen Candace's court, who must have suspected him as under the influence of it, and putting himself to great hardships in order to support a grievous superstition. Apt would many of the wits of court and many of the profane of the country be, to ask him many questions about the great advantages he certainly had from his long and rugged journey, under a burning sun, and through a barren country, to the temple of a mean and despised people. But this day a field of thought and argument has indeed burst upon his view. Every prophecy has found a meaning, every divinely instituted ordinance a solid substance, every obscure doctrine a heavenly light, God's temple a real inhabitant, and his altar an effectual sacrifice. The eunuch could tell them that those prophecies which he always expected to be divine, that those ordinances which had been established by the evidence of such miracles, and that those doctrines which appeared to be so sublimely expressed, were really to a demon- stration what he believed them to be. Attend, he would say, to the prophecies of Jacob which promised the Messiah at the departure of the sceptre from Juda and the lawgiver from between her feet; and see how well this prediction, though delivered many ages ago, answers to the period of the manifestation of the Son of God. Consider Balaam's star out of Jacob, and hig sceptre of righteousness out of Israel; and see how fully the one beams in the all-powerful light, and the other rules in tlie dominion, of the Redeemer of mankind. Turn over to the pro- phecies of Daniel, where his seventy weeks are determined to build the city of Jerusalem and its walls in troublous times, be- fore Messiah the Prince be cutoff but not for himself; and see how admirably the time answers to this era of the redemption of our world. In a word, consider that portion of Isaiah, that portion which I was reading, when an apostle, divinely directed, ran to me and asked me, " Understandest thou what thou readest?" — that portion which admits of no application but to the promised Messiah, and which from him receives such a divine light; and you will behold what reason I have had to attend upon the passover and feast of unleavened bread at Jerusalem. At the
THE ETHIOPIAN ETTNUCH. 317
temple of Jerusalem there was appointed the sacrifices which typified the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world; there was ordained, in every preceding age, the means of the salvation of mankind. Oh ! Ethiopians, I have to tell you of the Saviour of sinners, who, in the fulness of time, when all things, by predictions, and types, and revolutions of kingdoms, had prepared his way, actually in a correspondence to these, and indeed a general expectation of mankind, died in our world to redeem it, and hath really saved it from its sin. You, Ethio- pians, cannot change your skin, nor the leopard his spots; but to you now will be administered the laver in which, black as yoa are in a moral point of view, you may wash yourselves whiter than the snow. The middle wall of partition which till now has separated the Jew from the gentile is broken down, and the religion of the Saviour of the world will be preached at your gates. The apostles of the Lord of glury, invested with the power of working miracles, are sent out to all nations, and their signs, and their wonders, and the life, the life and immortality of their doctrines, will now appear amongst you. Contemplating these things he went on his way rejoicing.
But we observe, lastly. That he went on his way rejoicing, because he saw that dispensation of mercy which was to visit all lands established and unfolding its principles. It was impossi- ble to have been baptised in the name of Jesus, and to have had all the scriptures which respected him unfolded, and not see the advantageous nature of that dispensation of mercy under which be now lived . Following the streams of the prophecies which must have been discovered to him, he could not but be greatly delighted as he rode along, with the belief that the barren wil- dernesses must become fertile lands, and that streams of living water are to break out in every desert. His imagination musl have wandered into the distant periods of time, as well as tlia distant regions of the world, and must have felt a joyful enthu^ fiiasm from the prospect of the true religion to be disseminated fi-om sea to sea, and from the rivers to the ends of the earth. I am baptised, he would say, in the name of Jesus; and tha water with which I have been baptised will he consecrated £bj
318 THE CONVERSION OP
thJ3 blessed purpose to the ends of the earth. Yes, hail ye streams and ye sacred Ibuntains; ye have been often celebrated in the song of the muses, and been highly useful in refreshing our weak and exhausted natures; but ever after, you may con- tain some drops that represent the blood of the Son of God, and may be employed in washing an immortal soul from its sins; you are now the ordained symbols which on the earth are to purify the church of God. Hail ye many nations who will drink your sacred fountains; and as you drink may you always recol- lect that these streams may be a mean of sealing your rescue from the burning flame of divine wrath. Thus looking forward among the ages to come, he would sing at every stream the remembrance of the Lord, and go on his way rejoicing.
The second thing we proposed to investigate was, how could such an effect be so suddenly and so effectually produced on his mind? This is a most important inquiry; differing immensely from that inquiry which the divine institutes in respect to those instances of conversion which take place under an acknowledged and professed system of religion. Our present inquiry cannot be rationally satisfied, till we analyze the whole of the circum- stances attending the life of the convert, and the time and place of his conversion.
The history of the Ethiopian eunuch is known as far as we can desire. He was a minister employed in a political office; which both requires talent and is disposed to remain contented with existing institutions. He is particularly connected with the Jewish nation, and travels far to do honor to the institutions of the Jewish people. His conduct is the very opposite of levity, and his mind is not distracted by any terrors of con- science. Indeed he starts into view most respectable, and lie seems to act from the deepest conviction. With the time and place of his conversion we are equally acquainted. It was not far off from the city of Jerusalem, and in the midst of that ground which was tearing up and changing its appearance, by a whirlwind which made every spot feel its influence, and which left no one without exciting his feelings to the highest degree. A^ immense number of men have been driven off from the city
THE ETHIOPIAN EPNUCH. 319
of Jerusalem; but wherever they appear they have a sternness in their look, and a determination in their step, which clearly show that whether they be managing their cause in their metro- polis or any where else, it is their resolution that it shall prevail. It was, indeed a peculiar cause. An illustrious master had be- gun it; had given it renown by the reputation of miracles; had been arrested, however, in his progress by an ignominious death; and yet had started it anew by an astonishing fact, his own resurrection from the dead. If the whole Jewish nation had become converts to this extraordinary cause, it might have been suspected that the people, who had so many miracles in their national records, were determined that they should crown the history of the whole, by the resurrection and ascension into heaven of their Messiah; and it might have been suspected that the Ethiopian eunuch could not, when he came to the city of Jerusalem, withstand an impulse which was so irresistible. But the resurrection and ascension of Christ were observed by some particular witnesses, who could not possibly be mistaken about the identity of his person; and the rest were left with the un- doubted absence of Christ's body from the tomb; the continu- ance of the train of miracles which they thought to stop by the crucifixion of Christ; and the zeal and sincerity of the apostles and disciples. By these means a part of the Jewish nation underwent a most astonishing revolution of sentiment. Many who had before his crucifixion continued incredulous in respect to Christ's pretensions, became, after his death, not only converts to his cause, but attached to it above the love of life itself. Eight thousand at the city of Jerusalem were proselyted by the address of Peter on the day of Pentecost, and of the apostles on a subsequent occasion; and the cause gathered an increase daily.
When the Ethiopian eunuch, therefore, came to Jerusalem, the national agitation could not possibly have concealed itself from him. Indeed it is implied in the history of his conversion that he was acquainted with it. Had he not known of the gene- ral and interesting topics of the day, when Philip approached him, and when he preached to him Jesus, he would have replied
S20 THE CONVERSION OF
to him, these things cannot be as you state them: a man so famous in his life, so remarkable in his death, and who rose again from the dead ; who has produced such a deep sensation as you say on the minds of the Jews, and even on surrounding nations, cannot have been in this place else 1 would have heard of it. What, do you require me to believe, as a great and mira- culous fact, that which is even more extraordinary than the passing of the Red Sea, and which, however, instead of being the national song of the Israelites, is not attracting the least attention, nor exciting the least inquiry? It is surely'a sublime dream that you are introducing to interpret this passage of our prophets.
But, my brethren, if this minister of Queen Candace, when at the city of Jerusalem, heard any narration of the cir- cumstances of the times; if he heard what the high priest and the rulers had lately done, and what a new party were deter- mined to establish; if he heard that both parties appealed to facts and to scripture, he could scarce fail, if met near the city of Jerusalem, to be either thinking on these things, or to be reading the predictions respecting them.
The celebrated historian of '• the decline and fall of the Roman empire," in his enmity to the christian religion, states, that he will pass over the supernatural evidences of it, and attend to the human causes which operated to its rapid diffusion and establishment among men. But though it may be granted that in general, in our day, converts are made to a religious life without particularly fixing their minds on the miracles of Christ, especially that of his resurrection ; yet this could not be the case in the first instances of its triumph in the world. After converts became numerous in any country, and their manners exerted an influence over neighbors, inducing them to put on the same habits, we grant that those principles in liuman nature which copy generally the religion which is prevailing, would not be, in respect to the christian religion, without their effect; and that even in the first century many might be brought to embrace the religion of Ciirist from the holy lives and doctrines of the apostles, and the professedly pious habits of its converts.
THE ETHIOPIAN EtJNUCH. 32 1
But Still we do not think that any man of judgment in our own time embraces our religion without a respect to its miraculous origin ; and far less that any man of reflection could, in the first age of Christianity, cast off his former religious sentiments, and become a disciple of the new religion, without adopting those miraculous traits which were the most prominent points of its history, and which, by men of judgment and feeling, could never, when the subject came to be mentioned, but sum- mon upon themselves all their powers of reflection. When Peter and the rest of the apostles, on the day of Pentecost, stood arrayed under the miraculous appearance which de»- scended from heaven upon them, and when they spake of the death and resurrection of Christ, had the converts, so numerous among their hearers, no respect to any thing but the zeal of the apostles, the sublime doctrine of immortality, the resurrec- tion from the dead, and the promise of the forgiveness of all their sins ? As Jews, the doctrine of immortality, of the resur- rection, of the pardon of sin by the promises of God, had been a subject of perpetual exultation to them; and nothing but the naked miracle which addressed their eyes and ears, and the resurrection of Christ and his ascension into heaven, could operate to prick them to the heart, and to make them cry out, " What shall we do to be saved?" Infidels may suppose what they please about the truth of the history of the propagation of Christianity; but if the facts respecting the conversion of men are not to be denied, from the very principles of human nature, they were not human arts and arguments that succeeded in making proselytes: but, howsoever we are to account for it, it was a belief in divine evidences which no man nor assemblage of men could of themselves promise to aflbrd. — For let us draw near to this one man, this Ethiopian eunuch of intelligence and of enterprise. — The whole country where he has been, and through which he is passing, is convulsed by the events of the times; and after the explication of the passage which he is found reading, and the statement of tlie events of Jesug' 28
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history, he believes with all his heart. What does he believe? The zeal of his teacher^ and the common doctrines of his reli- gion? No, he believes that the Messiah was cut off out of the land of the living, and that yet he sees his seed and prolongs his days. They are the miracles, the death, the resurrection, and ascension of Christ that he believes; and had not he believed all these, his heart, at the sight of the water, never would have suggested to him to make the solemn change m his religious profession which, in our text, is stated to be the source of his joy.
Indeed, the conduct of infidels never will permit us to be- lieve, that any thing else than the deepest conviction of the truth of the miracles, in the history of Christ and of his apos- tles, could, in the first age of Christianity, induce any man however little he might reflect, to enrol his name with sincerity among the followers of Christ. The infidels are continually talking against the miracles of our holy religion , insisting on the uniformity of the laws of nature; and the impossibility of a real interruption of these laws. And the enemies of this religion among the Jews and among the Gentiles could find no successful means of attacking it, but prejudices in favor of the ancient systems of their fathers, and the falsehood of the doctrine of Christ's resurrection. This point of his resurrection was the great bone of contention : a miraculous evidence which its friends could never leave behind them, could never put out of sight, on which alone they must risk the prosperity of their cause, and which with every opponent they must dispute. If they could have shut it up in neutrality; then men might speak about the mere human means that were in operation, but the disciples could no more do this, than they could tear the sun from the firmament; nor at that time could any man, even of the most moderate capacity, have turned, under the banners of his conscience, to the new religion, but as a sincere believer in all its miraculous history, and this as in opposition to those who were around him still of a different sentiment.
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All disciples went on their way rejoicing; but it was from the deepest convictions of the miraculous fact of Christ's resurrec- tion.
But, in the last place. We ask why is this occurrence so par- ticularly noticed? This is for the most important ends. The names of hidividuals mentioned throughout the Acts of the Apostles, and in some other parts of revelation, present to us a view of the vast fabric of the church as she existed in the days of the apostles; for we see the extent of the society, in the number of those who managed her concerns. When the Euro- peans first sailed round Africa they were astonished to find the vast nation of Ethiopia possessed of the religion of Christ; but while indeed they might have received it from Egypt, it is highly probable that they date the entrance of the waters of life from the time of the return of this eunuch. Of the introduction of Christianity into Africa we in scripture have no account. Yet Ethiopia must stretch out her hand to God; and when this eunuch passes through the messengers of the new covenant, th^ spirit hails him, and sends forward for her acceptance wisdom which the topaz of Ethiopia cannot equal. Egypt is tavow a vow and swear to the Lord of hosts; but one would be apt to think, that the apostles designed to let the prophecies adjust their own concerns; for they tread where the prophecies had scarcely ventured to prepare their way, Egypt is just once allu- ded to; but the allusion is like the prophet's cruise of oil to one who reflects upon it: we cannot exhaust it, — Apollos is stated to have come from Alexandria, the capital of Egypt. This man was mighty in the scriptures; and although he needed some little information about some of the concomitant parts which attended the main concerns in the history of Christ and of his apostles, yet he is esteemed by many superior to Paul himself. Why did he leave Africa, the place of his nativity, and the school of his education? Was the ministry of Christ so flourishing and abundant there, that they could spare with ease one of their most protoising students? It would
324 THE CONVERSION OF
that this was the case; for the christian history of Egypt and of the adjoining regions, soon comes forward in maturity of attainments, and rivals, if not excels, the triumphs of our reli- gion in the most favored spots of the world.
The historian we alluded to, does more justice to the gene- ral and rapid spread of the gospel, than many of the warmest friends of Christianity. He was too well acquainted with an- cient history to err in respect to the facts on this head; but many individuals will make the apostles travel with innumera- ble assistants into the most populous cities of the world, where in many places a hundred numerous congregations might have been collected ; and yet they will not concede that we ought to persuade ourselves that they gathered together in the ut- most tide of their success more tlian one congregation. Even in the alarm excited at Ephesus for the general overthrow of idolatry in that uncommonly populous city and throughout Asia by the success of the apostles; yet it is believed, that not more than can be edified in one congregation had left idola- try and enrolled their names under the banners of the gospel. But the word church, in scripture, though sometimes applied to to a single congregation, is not equivalent to it, and generally means the whole converts to Christianity in the region in ques- tion, however numerous they might be; because they had all one faith and one profession. Hence the word church, as in this passage, " he is head over all things to his church which is his body," at times comprehends the whole New Testament congregation of the Lord, dispersed far and wide as they were, and clustered in immense multitudes as in some cities took place.
There are two or three things which bring the religion of Christ before us as most extensively spread, and in many places closely planted in the days of the apostles. Paul, after he had been long in the ministry, and had had on his mind the care of the whole churches, yet does not seem, throughout all the lines of his intercourse, to have learned the christian settlements.
THiE ETHIOPIAN iitrfucH. 325
wliich were making and gathering strength. Tyre, which now answers in its desolation wonderfully to the dress of the fish- erman's nets which Isaiah put upon it, was however to be pre- served till after the diffusion of the gospel, and with Rahab and Babylon, Philistia and Ethiopia, was to present sons to God ; but when Paul came to it, he was unexpectedly greeted by the brethren whom he found there. It was especially pro- phetical ground, and for any thing that we can see, was left, like other such portions of the earth, to present to us the fact only of a rich harvest of converts to Christ.— Paul says that when he would take his journey into Spain, he would visit the disciples in Italy and in Rome; but why leave the populons regions of Asia, of Greece, and pay only a passing visit to the metropolis of the world? Why leave Egypt behind, the cradle of the sciences, and the scene of ancient renown? It is impos- sible to account for these things on any other supposition than that he saw a solid and permanent foundation for the prosperity of the religion of Christ already laid in all these countries, and that therefore he might leave them safely to others to water, whilst he himself passed on to a region in which he would be building on no other man^s foundation. — But Rome, containing three millions of people, has it only one little society, which a single voice might edify and command? We see the flourishing state of the Italian churches in Paul's salu- tations to his fellow lalDorers in that country, in the sixteenth chapter of his epistle to the Romans. That chapter seems to have been written to proclaim to the world, at tljat lime and in every future age, the wisdom of an intended journey into a distant and partly savage colony, by leaving every renowned and populous region, where there had been already plantings xind waterings with wonderful success.
Yes, my brethren, wherever Ham's children were, they were gathered by the prophecies among the fulness of the gentiles; but as our Saviour was sent to the lost sheep of the house of
Israel^ so his apostles seemed, under the providence of God,
28*
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to direct all their energies to the fulfilment in its order of the declaration, that Japheth should dwell in the tents of Shem. Hence as many colonies in Spain were from Africa, Paul can only speak of his journey thither; Egypt is only once alluded to ,• and Ethiopia has in revelation no more provision made for it, than this eunuch on whom a few moments of Christ's ministry has been bestowed, and then his Spirit calls off the minister. " And the Spirit caught away Philip, and he went on his way rejoicing." — This conversion, however, is an instance of the small mustard seed beginning to take root, and which, belong- ing to the kingdom of heaven, is, under the watering of Christ's prediction, to spread into a great tree. In it we see Ethiopia's ancient promise fulfilled for a rich and powerful increase. The expression is incidental j but it is connected with the illu- mination of a quarter of the world.
For while among the Jews and among the gentiles so many converts were made, in the very earliest periods of the propaga- tion of our holy religion, to convince every future ^ge that a conviction of the truth of the miracles and resurrection of Christ and the miracles of the apostles produced on human nature such a total change in so many thousands of indivi- duals ; we must state to you that this very nation to which the eunuch belonged comes to occupy afterwards a very important feature in the history of our world. Ethiopia and many other churches, scattered in the providence of God over the face of the earth, are evidences, and will be to the end of time, that God hath never acknowledged, in the actual state of things, for one moment, that there shall be, visible or invisible, any uni- versal head of the church but the Lord Jesus Christ alone. And when that spirit of joy in spreading the religion of Christ which now operates on the north, south, east, and west of Ethiopia, shall enter among that people, as in some degree it can scarcely fail to do, they may bear the scriptures to many surrounding nations of kindred languages; and remem- bering what was done of old, they may long keep on their way
THE ETHIOPIAN EUNUCH. 327
rejoicing. — For these things are certain, that in the first age of Christianity the ministers of Christ were flocking in every quar- ter; convinced, of the wonders of their religion, men of the most respectable characters and estimable judgment; attacked cities, countries, and individuals, and shook off the dust of their feet against only a very few; in the issue, by the belief of miracles, they turned the world upside down ; and what they so successfully began, under God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, their successors, in every nation, should endeavor to carry, by the means in their hands, to the extremities of the earth. The word of God is called " glad tidings;'' and its converts should always send it on its way rejoicing; while for themselves, each individual, in looking after the risen Saviour, should utter this beautiful language: "Whom having not seen we love; in whom, though now we see him not, yet believing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." Amen
DISCOURSE XV.
GOD'S BLESSING TO HIS PEOPLE.
Revelation 22:21. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ he icith you all. Amen.
There are, my brethren, as respecting the lives of individual persons, so particular periods in every important transaction, peculiarly impressive. The solemnity which marks the com- mencement of any great city which it is intended to build, or of any kingdom which is projected to be raised ; the inscrip- tions which are engraven upon the first laid stone of the foun- dation of the first house of that city, and the royal ensigns which are first dedicated to the promised empire, fill the be- holders with emotions that are deep and awful. We see in history the grandees of the nation assembled to behold the foundation of their capitol laid, and to bestow an august solemnity on the deed ; and we see, with bended knee, the victorious army, or the strangers in the infant colony, kneeling around the regalia of their infant nation, and laying them up in custody as the pledges of their mutual fidelity, union, and independence. The end of great achievements kindles still more lively emotions. The palaces of kings are finished with shouts of exultation, wars are terminated by universal testi- monies of joy, and the great designs of good men are finished i like that of the temple of Jerusalem, with shoutings, crying grace, grace, unto it.
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This certainly proceeds from some principles in our nature- inclined to produce such a conduct. For the Saviour of the world himself, when finishing the arduous and magnificent work of our salvation in regard to the procurement of the blessings which compose it, said, with solemn emotion, " It is finished;" the sun withdrew his shining, and the dead arose.
The relations of our text have led us into these reflections. These are the last words God will ever reveal to men ; these are the copestone of the great building of Zion, as it is reared in perfection in revelation; these stop the mouths of the pro- phets of the living God ; and these impress our minds with emotions of sublimity from the lapse of time, and the abun- dance of benediction which they contain. — " The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen."
What, in the further prosecution of the discourse, we intend is, in the first place, to illustrate the solemn relations of this verse; secondly, to unfold the abundance of benediction which it contains; and, lastly, to conclude by an application.
We are first to illustrate the solemn relations of this verse. We observe, first, That these are the last words ever God will speak to men. When men were few, God frequently uttered his voice among them; and the divine instructions were com- mitted as a treasury to man for the use of future ages. Men under the immediate guidance of the Holy Ghost illumed, in every age, the stage of human life, and corrected, with the authority of divine ambassadors, the abuses that prevailed; instructed how difficulties were to be overcome; and pointed out the path of duty to individuals, states, and nations. God's voice was always to be heard either immediately from the clouds, or where the divine communications could not be doubted, from the venerable lips of commissioned seers and prophets, accredited by miracles. But God had the full sys- tem of truth which unfolds the contents of the covenant of grace only to reveal; and while he displayed his sovereignty in selecting the state of human society -to which to manifest his
330 god's blessing to his people.
will, and his wisdom in the choice of the early time when to reveal it, he hath impressed our minds with solemnity in read- ing this verse, which concludes the whole of the revelation of it, by the reflection — that God's voice shall never more be heard.
Individuals may be placed in situations where nothing but a heavenly voice could resolve their doubts and direct their course; nations may be so shaken and agitated, convulsed by internal divisions or terrified by external enemies, that a gleam of heavenly light to bestow direction would be a blessing lo be obtained from no other quarter: but the visions and the prophe- cies are over. The command, benign and merciful, which led Noah to build the ark of his preservation from the deluge of waters that overwhelmed the whole world besides; the intima- tion which was no less mercifully given to Abraham than sub- missively received, to leave the idolatrous and destructive land of his nativity; the words which taught Isaac and Jacob and conducted the retreat of Lot; the divine communications made known to Moses, when God spake face to face with him; the knowledge from the urim and thummim on the breast of the high priest of the Jews; and God's instructing mankind in dreams, trances, and visions of the night, meet no longer the deluded or ignorant, the harrassed or afflicted individual, or the convulsed and expiring nation. We may throw our eye over the millions that now people our globe; we may survey the innumerable kingdoms of the heathen world, whose regions live with inhabitants; and we may imagine what superstition might be expelled, and what souls might be saved, by the erec- tion of divine oracles and the immediate utterance of Jehovah's voice among them; — but the idea only heightens the solemnity of these words, which prevent the opening of such gates of divine instruction, at the same time that they seal up the very treasure of divine knowledge which, at its appointed period, is to accomplish this happy end. — Reflect upon the relations of this verse in regard to God's speaking to our world. It marks
god's blessing to his people. 331
the precise point when God, who spake for many ages to man- kind, stops his voice; it hushes into silence the expectations of all men in all nations respecting further communications of knowledge from heaven ; and it seals the very book which con- tains all that is necessary to be known for the present and eternal welfare of all men; and that very book too, which, at their respective times when it was ordained by God that they should receive it, will be delivered into their possession.
God has always, my brethren, hastened to have his works transferred to the ends for which they are destined, finished and consummated in every part. What wisdom in the arrangements of nature for the support, conveniency, and happiness of his sentient and intelligent creatures! But God hastened over the hours of the economy of creation ; and interesting as it might be to see new species of plants springing from the soil, or new animals arising from the clay, the period of all such operations is past. So revelation was not deferred in its origin beyond the earliest period of a proper commencement, and in its consum- mation beyond the formation and arrangement of the materials which had to enter into the great building which he was con- structing. God made all mines of gold and silver, of iron and copper, and of the minerals which support the useful arts in all their departments; but these were laid up in treasures in the very morning of creation; and just as the whole process was finishing, with the most of them in the crust of the globe; and so revelation, as soon as its elements were all prepared, tarried not, but came to a definite and joyful conclusion in the mellow and rich language of the subject of our discourse.
But we observe, secondly. That this verse completes revela- tion as a perfect system. Jehovah, who had a grand design of mercy to display, did not stop short, at these words, from the revelation of any truth that was necessary to be known in order to perfect the magnificent fabric of the revelation of his will. Some would detract from the merits of the grand building of revelation, and the distinguished impressions made by this verse, by uncharitable and impious surmises, that there are defi- ciencies in the interior of the noble work, and that these words
332 god's blessing to his people.
do not finish a perfect performance, but mark where the hand of the workman slopped. But where is there a want or a flaw in that structure, which, like the works of nature, is not indeed reared by the rules of human composition and art, but with a divine magnificence which is at once inimitable in stately gran- deur and appearance, and in a singular adaptation to the needs and wants of all who will accept the benefit of it? They who have seen it may consider the lofty palace, which, when viewed at a distance, appears a confusion of broken casements, roofs, and turrets, but which, on a near approach, bespeaks itself finish- ed by the hand of a master, and accommodated to enter- tain the state and to please the taste of a sovereign ; and he will see a faint emblem of the sacred temple of divine truth, as it is designed and built, in perfection and magnificence, in the volume of inspiration; and reflecting on the shouts of joy which the sight of a fabric as incomparably more grand than any reared on earth, as the glorious and eternal truths of the gospel surpass cement and stones, he may thus acquire some idea of the solemn and impressive relations of our text.
Yes, God, in his eternal councils which arranged all events, great and sniall, that will ever take place, appointed the whole of the matter, instituted its order, and circumscribed the extent of revelation; and every part of the great whole made, like the successive steps of creation, its appearance at the appointed time, among its appropriate circumstances, and adjusted to its own peculiar relations, till the magnificent structure appeared completed, without a word wanting or a syllable to be added, by the words of this verse. The ignorance of sinners could not require another doctrine to be revealed , or the same to be pre- sented in a more diversified aspect; their misery could not justify the wisdom of proclaiming another promise, or presenting with a more pointed edge the abundance of them that are promulgated ; and their obedience could not desire to be set on a more sure foundation, or directed to a more glorious end, than what the explained connexion between the gospel and God's perfect law, written and defined in every point, and enforced by example, affords. The dead spring up anew by the incorruptible seed of
god's blessing to his people. 333
this word of life; the tender offspring are fed by the milk which it bestows, and are fostered by the nursing care which it exer- cises. " Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, but I will not forget thee; I have engraven thee on the palms of my hands, and thy walls are continually before me." The child of the new birth is reared to all the duties that are required from him, and to all the dignity of character which he should support. Difficulties are presented, but he overcomes their embarrassment and opposition. " I can do all things through him that strengtheneth me." Temptations assail him, but he sets at defiance their disguised allurements and their bewitching enticements. "With the temptation he will aftbrd a way to escape.'" Enemies surround him, but he foils their power. " The Lord is on our side." The man advanced to full age stands the centre of approved goodness, and difiuses his uprightness in every direction where the light of his duty prescribes. He is humbloj in the abgdes of humility; patient, where this grace should particularly shine; and active, where there starts up a good cause; zealous in religion, and warm in his friendship to men. "The fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth." But mark this man at the end of his days: he re- treats from the world, like the setting sun in a cloudless sky and serene evening, clear and enlarged to our view, and shedding abroad over the face of nature, streams of light in all directions; — an evidence to the most inattentive, that he retires only from the view of men, and does not lose a single ray of his vigorous brightness, " Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth and forever; yea, saith the Spirit, for they shall rest from their labors, and their works shall follow them." But truth enjoins us to tell it; this new creature which the scripture thus forms, rears, establishes, and leads into the eternal world, enlarging in life and glory, may be multiplied into all the indi- viduals that ever were, are, or shall be, true members of the church; and placing them in this united capacity, every siflo^le instance, and the whole built together, are prepared, cemejited, and sent off the stage of time, with this question from God him^ 29
534 GOD S BLESSDCG TO HIS PEOPLE.
self, to every plant in it, and to the whole sacred inclosure, '♦ What could 1 have done more to my vineyard that I have not done?*' The individual is formed, reared, and led into eternal glory, and the church of God is established, filled, and perfected, by the volume of inspiration exactly adapted, and no more, to the promotion of the glory of God, in the accomplishment of these two illustrious ends; and the solemn and concluding words of this exactly adapted and perfect system of revelation are, " The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen ."
But thirdly, we observe, with a view to illustrate the solemn relations of this verse, That this verse forever stops the mouths of the prophets of the living God . When a society of men is about to be abolished, and never more is that character which they have long supported to utter another syllable in our world, the last words which are spoken by the last man in it derive peculiar solem- nity from the occasion of their utterance. All connexions which- have arisen before, and all events which the existence of their order may in the least influence among men to the end of time, rush in forcible remembrance or anticipation upon the mind. With a peculiar increase of emotions is this the case, when the order has been instituted by Jehovah himself; when it has lived for many generations ; when it has been the conveyance of all the knowledge and felicity among men, — light to them here and glory to them hereafter. We cannot approach in our imagi- nation the land where the prophets of the living God consulted his oracles, saw his visions, disclosed his secrets, and acted with a divinely delegated character on earth, without feeling a reve- rence, and having our minds impressed with the august and sacred character of the scenery amid which we are placed. On John's mind was impressed the solemnity which the consecrated scene of the prophets retiring with all the robes of their order, the form of their amazed countenances, and the power which executed in miraculous achievements God's will upon earth, could produce; on John's mind was impressed the solemnity which the anticipation of all events predicted by himself and preceding prophets could occasion, or which might fail out bj
3S6
the influential relations of their words among unborn genera- tions; and on Johns's mind was impressed the solemnity of standing in the eventful crisis between the states of the world, when all divine inspiration and inspired men retired from the face of the earth, and a new scene of things appeared — mea left to themselves with the book of revelation consummated in their hand ;— when he held his pen to transcribe this last portion of heaven^'s discoveries for the salvation of sinful men. The prophets, where are they now? Holy men of God of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost; but is there a. voice from such now ever to be heard? The vision and the prophecy are sealed.
Yes, my brethren, God never demonstrates his wisdom and his power by new acts of creative energy. Men must learn the invisible things of God by what is already made and fixed under laws which alter not So the prophecies of revelation are pre- pared for the observation of men, and no power is permitted to interfere with them; they spread themselves over the face of tlie earth, and collect matter from particular nations, and by the rise and overthrow of particular societies, as well as the most cheer- ing prospects in the faith and improvemets of mankind; but whether all these things shall be realized to do honor to the scriptures, and those holy men who wrote them and sprinkled them with so many predictions, is left as nakedly to the liaeft- ments of truth in these declarations themselves, as the voice of nature is left to utter God''s existence by marks which have con- tinued since the morning of creation, as unvaryingly as is the cloudless countenance of the stars. Whosoever addeth to this book, to him shall be added the plagues which it contains.
Nor does this view of the subject hinder our utmost activity in the discharge of our christian duties for the purpose of spreading the gospel, any more than the intense application of philosophical research, which has in modern times been crowned with such wonderful success, interferes improperly with the les- sons taught in the school of nature. If the prophecies of scrip- ture be not trees of God''s planting, they would soon wither, notwithstanding the waterings pf men; hut if he has planted
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them, as christians we ought to copy something of the spirit of primitive innocency ;— While Adam could not make a single ti-ee of Paradise grow, he could be busy pruning and dressing it ; and so, though our feeble hands can do nothing to make even a limb spring forth where God has not prepared a bud for it, we are yet to be active and assiduous for the very end of making the garden of God prosper. " For God hath established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed .a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children, tliat the generations to come might know them, even the child- ren who should be born, who should arise and declare them to their children." The prophets and seers have withdrawn; but we have their visions and prophecies, sealed, like the work of creation by the sabbath day, in these most solemn and suitable words: " The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen."
Lastly, we observe, That these words impress our minds with emotions of solemnity, from the lapse of time and the abun- d nee of appropriate benediction which they contain. Vast and jjloriGus is the stupendous fabric of nature, and six days com- pleted it; but the structure of revelation, having to adopt itself to the various v/ants and circumstances of successive genera- tions, had to rise gradually, and was completed only at the ter- mination of more than four thousnnd years after its foundation h-id been laid. The rude and beggarly elements appearing at first in the uncompounded substance of a single promise, in- creased and multiplied afterwards into the various forms of an imperfect 'dispensation, with the light, as in the original state of material nature, scattered through the whole, but affording an imperfect vision; and this continued to be the case till the sun of righteousness himself shone upon our world, and all the light being concentrated in him, the day broke forth in perfection . after the revolution of many ages. " God who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past to the fathers by the pro- phets, hath in these last days spoken to us by his Son." Vast, however, as was the time which the manifestation of God's will, in the wisdom of its adaptations, occupied ; long as his oracles
god's BLESSlJfG TO HIS PBOl»LE. 337
continued to speak, and his prophets to awe men by the immc- diafe revelation of his will, the period is long since past. Many multitudinous generations of those unborn ages to vvhich the prophet looked forward, and by the sight of which his mind was filled with benevolence, and to which he bequeathed his parting benediction, " The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all, Amen,^ have appeared upon the current of time, sailed down the stream, and are gone on the ocean of eternity, — And our days are equally rapidly passing away.
Oh! my brethren, do you measure your time hy the solemn relations of this verse? How long is it since the last time yoa read through the scriptures, and stopped, pausing, and praying, and blessing, all nations and ages of mankind that are yet to come, from a heart full and engaged in their interest, in the language of this appropriate benediction ? Were not too many of your days spent in the time which was occupied in perusing from the beginning Ihe sacred records, till you came to thesfe concluding words? Consider, my young friends, what a flock of your sportive days have fallen behind, in the time which is necessarily employed in attending to that indispensable duty, which will not leave you, nor can be transferred from you, of reading through the sacred records ; and while you mark your days by the lapse of your time, and learn to number them so ^ to apply your hearts to wisdom, double your vigor of application : For these words, while you read through the preceding pages, can never be too often made a resting place, and a point of solemn reflection; whether we consider the instruction you will have received, the view of the transitoriness of time that the reflection will present before you, or the divine sensations and wishes with which these last words themselves will fill you. — My aged parents, how often have you paused and reflected on your concluding the perusal of the contents of revelation? The more often you have done it, the more solemn does this verse, by its relations to your time and the abundance of blessing which it contains, become before you. Telling you that the more of your days are num- bered, and that you are the nearer to the eternal world, I hope it has found you conscious of the character of the^aint, whio« •
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path is as the shining light, which shines more and more unto the perfect day; and that you are now, suppose this to be even the last time that you are to hear them, walking in those antici- pations of blessedness which are thus expressed : " I have fought a good fight, 1 have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give unto me; and not to me only, but to all them who love his glorious appearing.'" — We grow up, my brethren, like the seeds of the trees which the wind, after a little, scatters over the face of the earth, some here, some there: but it matters not; the dews and the rain are the blessings of every region and of every clime. Which brings me to the second head of my method, which was,
Secondly, To unfold the abundance of benediction which my text contains. Surely there is something very full and very substantial in these words, with which the great God stops his mouth from speaking any more to the sons of men ; with which he would finish his great system of evangelical communications; with which he would dismiss from our world the only rank of men to whom he had condescended to manifest himself; and with which he would mark such an important era of time. In tlie material creation we see him rising in each successive day's work to more and more exquisite displays of his omnipotent power and infinite wisdom. Chaos, a rude and undigested mass, first appears; forms afterwards assume their organization, life moving but irrational follows, and then last of all man, bearing the image of his Maker, erect in stature, comely in fea- tures, and endowed with rational faculties, crowns the whole work. Something very grand, then, must surely be comprised in these words, which are the last of the whole structure, and mark the perfection of revelation.
This verse comprises, like man, who is a compend of God's creation, organized matter and intelligent spirit, the whole of the substance of inspiration.
In the first place. This benediction reaches to all men to whom the scriptures come. The scriptures were revealed with the intent of offering life and salvation to all who receive them; and
GOD S BLESSING TO HIS PEOPLE. 339
correspondently to this design of theirs, these concluding words pour forth their blessing upon every one who is so happy as to lay hold upon them. We are not to consider these words as containing the fervent prayer and wishes of the last penman of revelation for the people alone who professed Christianity in his own time, and on whom their blessing primarily rested; but we ought to contemplate this sacred penman walking among all the generations of mankind that have received the gospel since his day; yea, visiting in their respective nations all races of his chris- tian brethren, that have been, are, or will be, to the end of time; and saymg, with the proffered system of perfected revelation in his hand, " The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen." He follows the streams of the prophecies which break out in the wildernesses of the gentiles, and goes from sea to eea, and from the rivers unto the ends of the earth ; and he gathers their sons from far, and their daughters to be nursed at his side. He pours out his benediction among their kingdoms, till a little one becomes a thousand, and a strong one a great aation. He turns also to God's ancient people, who have been deserted of God and scattered among the nations; and seeing them visited after many days, he encourages them, as well as the gentiles, by the appropriate benediction of our text. To this view he is influenced, not by his own affections merely as gathered upon the prospect, but by the light of the Spirit which shines around him from the innumerable passages of the Old Testament which present Christ a covenant of the people and a light to the gentiles. For his heart swells with the thought, that though the Jews crucified the Prince of life, and exclaimed, « We liave Abraham to our Father, and we are Moses' children," yet the world are never to put on the circumcision of Abraham, nor the ceremonies of Moses. It is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that suits to the future improvements of mankind ; which aspires after universal dominion, and which will ultimately com- mand it. Laying hold upon the borders, then, of the universal empire of his exalted master, and remembering that his kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, he looks on the high and the low, on the rich and the poor, in their successive generations ; and as he
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looks he pours, like Aaron's oil that flowed to the skirts of his garments, his benediction over all of them.
But we observe here, in the second place. That as this bene» diction reaches to all christians, in all ages and nations, so it bestows all the blessings which the supernatural scheme of God's salvation of sinful man infolds. Who can lay open the import of the word grace here? God himself began the work, and he was four thousand years before he finished it. Suiely the matter of this benediction is surpassing human cal- culation or expression. Moses, their lawgiver, and David, the king of Israel, Isaiah, the evangelical prophet, and each of the apostles of our Saviour, may present portions of it; but since God himself spent age upon age in telling us of the substance of it, must we not ask, in unfolding this concluding and alU comprehensive benediction, who is sufficient for these things? Let a guilty sinner, who has defiled his way through life by a mournful course of impiety and profanity, of immorality and licentiousness, seek for an atonement for his sins, he will find it prepared and perfected in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Let the polluted heart, whose affections, like as a foul and flooded fountain wells out impure waters, discharge every hate- ful abomination, pride, malice, envy, revenge, blasphemy, and every evil thing, ask for a laver in which to wash itself from all its defilement, the purifying fountain is opened, and will forever flow, in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Such, says the apostle, were some of you, but ye are washed, but ye are sancti- fied, but ye are justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.
But it may be asked, in order to perceive the abundance of the blessing contained in this benediction, what is the demerit of a single instance of that iniquity, all the guilt of which it til us cancels ; and how hateful to the eye of holiness is a single stain of that corruption, the whole soul polluted with which it cleanses? That act of transgression which is the most naked of aggravations incorporates in its frame this perversion — a denial that God is just and righteous, and that he has a supreme prero- gative over his creatures. Sin is not only virtually, but it is
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explicitly a denial that God's glorious plans, by which he governs the universe, are equitable plans; a bold and daring assertion in the very face of Jehovah shining on his laws by his authority, that we will not be directed by them; that better rules of conduct than his law might be adopted; that we will assume opposite and independent methods of practice; and that we will act, in spite of him, just according to our own inclinations. Multiply this iniquitous deed, this impious and impotent attempt to set aside the governmeat of the Almighty, into all the iniqui- tous thoughts which you have devised, the words of evil you have spoken, and the actions your hands have unhappily per- formed; and add to the sum the innumerable aggravations which attend many of the more enormous of your offences; and laying this mass of guilt .te*de that &ink of corruption whichls in the heart, learn heiTfTe'lhe abundance of that grace which washes an individual whiter than the snow. And multiply this individual into all the tongues, people, and nations, upon whom tlie last prophet of God has here his eye, in all generations to the end of time; and you will perceive in some faint view the abundance of this concluding benediction of God's word, as it happily discovers itself in these two primary and distinguishing characters of it — the justification and sanctification of sinners.
But the plenitude of its benedictions has relations far more extended than these. That not an arrangement of circumstances c-an injure our state, that not an enemy can overcome us, and that no less than an entrance into the heavenly stale is provided for us, are blessings which are comprehended in this valedictory benediction of revelation. Let the kingdoms of this world, with all the iron chains of persecution, and the deadly axe and block, unite with the tempf^itions of Satan to stop the man who is under the influence of that grace which is the matter of this benediction; still we may as soon expect to see the waters return to their fountains, and the rain stopped in mid-air, and returning to the clouds, as we can expect that we can witness the man whose guilt is washed away by this grace, and who is under its sanctifying influences, endangered in his hapjiy condition, op prevented from the attainment of his celestial possessions
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" For I am persuaded," says Paul, " that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, is able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." By the ultimate eiFects of this grace, judg- ments issue in mercies, diseases in salutary medicines, hardships in opportunities of zeal and holiness, the bravery of numerous and powerful enemies in occasions of splendid victories, life possesses glorious enjoyments, and death is the gate into ever- lasting rest. "For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, our inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and an eternal weight of glory, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen ; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal ; for we know that if the earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." The latter end of Job was better than when he was the greatest man of the east; it was the furnace heated seven times hot, their steps in the midst of it with one like to the Son of Man, and the smell of fire not marking their garments, that gave renown to the three children; and we never feel more true amazement at the early disciples of Christ, than when we read that they rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his sake. Said a virgin, whose beauty was inferior only to her piety, and her modesty to her faith, and who, in the time of the heathen persecutions, had been silent beside the scene of the execution of many of her brethren, but broke silence as she was called to the block, and waved then her white hand to the multi- cude, <* This is a day of receiving crowns, and my head is about to be encircled with mine."
But we observe, lastly, with a view to unfold the abundanc6 of benediction which this verse contains. That all this grace is bestowed with a reiterated affection. " The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen." This last word of inspi- ration always returns upon the thoughts preceding, and repeats
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in a single annunciation the whole mental reflections to which it relates,— so let them be. In all occurrences this is its import; but where has it such an emphasis as here? Here, as it is a word from God, it reviews and seals the whole of that revelation which unfolds the supernatural dispensation of his grace. As it is a word from the last of his prophets, it cements together and brings into one blessed possession the whole of the laboi-s of his acknowledged brethren. And as it is a word from God's Spirit, influencing with groanings which cannot be uttered, a man, a christian, and a prophet, it desires with a twofold desire that the whole of the contents of God's everlasting covenant of grace, in the application of the very means which are appointed for the end, may be ours.— What a word is this Amen ! This is a word which takes the manlle of the prophets, and spreads it with a double portion of aflTection over us, as the eye is turned to the last sight of inspired men, ascending in a whole cluster the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof.
I chose these words, my brethren, for our text to-day, the last of Revelation, because this is the last time that I am to address you ; and because, as a minister of the sanctuary, I was unwilling that the word of God should not be presented by me, both as perfect, and as rich in its gracious communications.
The word of God, my brethren, is so perfect, in its adaptation to the great end for which it was revealed, that the Eternal, who continued for so many ages to aid it by miracles, and guard it by the hands of a particularly chosen people, might well throw it naked and alone upon the theatre of our world, like the globe which we inhabit, transferred from creating energy to the management of common providence. The sacred oracles are designed to be read by all; by the young and by the busy, by the illiterate, and by the rude of understanding, in the urgencies of life, and in the hours of distress; and they contain all the rules of duty, and all the blessings of privileges, so prepared and immediately adapted that they are nourishment to the very babes in Christ. But it was intended by the author of this revelation, that as our nature was pleased with variety and delighted with research, so an extensive field should be prepared for our labors;
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and some parts should contain mines of precious materials which we should have patiently to open and dig, to arrive at our de- sired object. It was, moreover, contemplated that it should adapt itself to times, and seasons, and fellowships, when those ministers whom Jesus sends to preach the gospel to every crea- ture will come to bless the sacrifice; and hence it contains" depths which require a general knowledge of the history of the world in order to successfully sound them, intricacies of thought and language which enlightened criticism only can unfold, and mysteries which knowledge and science alone can adequately defend.
It is a puerile taste that finds fault with revelation because it borrows not, in the general form of its whole fi'ame, and in its particular members, the exact symmetry which particular pro- vincial compositions adopt ; for the production that is to suit to all climes, and continents, and ages of the world, had at first to put on that perfection which, in the highest speculations of intel- lectual science, is absolutely supposed to be the most perfect in its kind — the form which is the most general in its application. The outside of the great works of God are never extremely comely. The whale is shapeless compared with many of the inhabitants of the deep; the elephant is far from excelling in proportions many of the quadrupeds ; our beautiful cities, and the inclosures of civilization, are laid out by rules; but the world casts its mountains into groups or ranges, sometimes high and sometimes low, most carelessly thrown from its hand ; its valleys sweep along as if accident had placed her foot in them; the rivers wind as if bewildered in their courses; and the ocean has not a regular border on any part of all the regions which it visits. Yes, no part of the system of God's works, when viewed on a great scale, appears at first sight perfect. The sun is irre- gular in his motion* ; the planets seem to move, to stand still, to return upon their path ; the comets are wandering bodies which visit the blackness of darkness; the constellations sometimes gather the stars into clusters, leaving empty spaces, as it would seem to us, to the very borders of creation ; but these things, to reflecting and scientific minds, only proclaim the absolute
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perfection of the works of God. It was once supposed tliat in our solar system there are evidences of decay; but it has been demonstrated, that all the apparent imperfections which were observed are real excellencies, which proclaim the permanency and perpetuity, till their Maker shall alter them, of these works of his hand; and so revelation, my brethren, 1 wish to leave with you, in its adaptation to so many ends, ages, and purposes, under its broad but divine exterior; and as recon>. mended by that principle of absolute suitableness to all intend- ed ends which pervades this universe, and is seen by the mind which assiduously inquires after it.
As a steward of the mysteries of God, I wish to manage in relation to you and myself, that benediction which is amonast our hands. In eternity God existed, and space had no births nor changes among children; but the Almighty created the heavens and the earth; and since they were created all things have been changing; there is nothing great or small whidi alters not. But whilst the Creator has placed us in a universe that changes, yet every thing returns into the habitation from whrch at set out. The history of the heavens is kept in periods and that of our world in successive generations. But the indi' vrduals of the human family are each on a journey which admt s of no returning, but keeps forward, like the vista among the stars, to the very borders of infinity. Each of us, then my brethren, needs a blessing,_a blessing from the Creator of the universe, that he may be fitted for his high destiny
That we should be separated for a little, that I should leave you here, and that you should see me take a step in the duties of the journey of life which bids adieu to kindred and acquaint ances, is a matter in the instances of many to be calcula ed on, and can be of little serious moment-because the time is 12 and because in the providence of God this is the place of vo5 duty and pilgrimage, but mine is far hence
TviSlTv'T'""' ""^ "'^°" '"" ''^" 'oolittle impressed wtth that vast prospect « the heavens, where many shall ahine
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as the stars in the firmament for ever and ever.— But my parting voice is not to complain. — I am going where God has a vine- yard for me. My God, on me and on those to whom you send me, may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ descend. My brethren, you will bear me on the wings of your supplication to the throne of the Eternal, and pray that the word of God may have free course and be glorified in the ministrations of him who is separate from his brethren.
I have no energy. I have no efficacy ; but I have a form of office; a form which sprung from the mind of the Creator of this universe; a form which the Son of God, the Saviour of the world, the faithful and true witness, upholds upon his ser- vants; a form which the Eternal Spirit fills with all the energies of new life; and from this form, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, I communicate, on each and all of you, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.— Holy Three, water what is planted. Amen.
ERRATUM.
The reader will please to correct the following error, in page 162, fifth line from the foot: for " in the sense," read " in this sense."
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