delivered to Timothy, that it might be the rule of his preaching: All Scripture is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for inftruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works (k). If you love not to hear the strict and holy morality of the New Teftament preffed and enforced upon you by Christian principles; is it not a proof that you do not relish the ftrictness and holiness of that morality? Is it not a proof of a fecret confcioufnefs that your morality is not of that strict and holy nature? If it is with reluctance that you lend your ear, whenever the terrors referved for the wicked are proclaimed; is it not a proof either that you prefumptuously. imagine yourself unconcerned in those denunciations of divine vengeance; or that you wish to fmother and lay asleep your inward mifgivings of fin? Injudicious and dangerous is that spiritual physician, who administers little except opiates and cordials. Ignorant and deluded is that private Chriftian, who condemns and rejects every other mode of treatment. Let your wounds be fearched to the bottom, if you are fo (k). 2. Tim. iii. 16, 17, licitous licitous that they fhould be healed. Wel come every degree of difcipline necessary to your everlasting health. Apply not to yourself the comforts of the Gofpel farther than the predominant ftame of your tempers, difpofitions, and defires, and the ha bitual course of your life and conversation, afford evidence on which you may fcripturally authorised to hope that, at prefent, you belong to the people of God. If you are not living unto Chrift through faith; if your conversation is not such as becometh the Gospel of Chrift; if be you walk not worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called; if you are not proved to be one of the peculiar people of Christ by being purified from the dominion of corrupt tempers, principles, and practices, and by having become zealous of good works to prefume on the comforts of the Gospel is unwarranted and destructive. But if, after deep and devout felf-exami nation, you have folid reafon to hope that faith in the Son of God has led you to delight in his commandments; if it be your prevailing defire that the renewing grace of the Holy Spirit fhould fanctify your heart unto obedience; if it be your habitual study and endeavour to bring every thought, every 2 every temper, every action, into fubjection to the laws and conformity with the example of your Lord; to love God above. all things, and man, in the next place, for the fake of God; and to manifeft the ftedfaftness and fervency of your love to God and man by uniform and unequivocal deeds, by living to the glory of your heavenly King and the good of your fellowcreatures: then may you humbly confide that you are at present one of the people of God; then may you regard yourself as entitled by the mercy of Chrift to apply to your own comfort the promises of the Gospel. Remember, however, the ground on which you ftand. Remember that, if your obedience begins to flag; if a worldly spirit gains ftrength in your bofom; exactly in the fame proportion your title to comfort is undermined. The righteousness of the righteous fhall not deliver him in the day of bis tranfgreffion. When the righteous turneth from his righteousness and committeth iniquity; be fall even die thereby. Remember that when St. Paul befeeches God to comfort the hearts of the Theffalonians, that petition is connected with a fecond prayer indifpenfable to the fuccefs of the former; that He would establish them in every good word and work. Blessed are they faith our Saviour, by the mouth of St. John, almost as it were closing the volume of Scripture with the momentous warning; blessed are they that do bis commandments, that they may have a right to the tree of life (1) Brethren! remain ftedfaft in obedience. So fhall the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost (m)... 189 SERMON XVII, On religious Defpondence. PSALM XXXviii. 6.. I am troubled; I am bowed down greatly; I go mourning all the day long. THE eyes of the mind, no less than thofe of the body, are incompetent to sustain, without being dazzled and bewildered, a fudden tranfition from darkness to light. The objects which float before them, new, dimly viewed, imperfectly comprehended, are divefted of their proper shapes, their native colours, their genuine dimenfions, their wonted accompaniments, their obvious ufe and application; and not unfrequently prefent themfelves as gigantic phantoms, arrayed in imaginary terrors. It is only by collecting the powers which Providence has implanted, Z4 1 |