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fluence of the tenets which Dr. receive my spirit.' St. Thomas, who, Priestley so confidently reduces to a mere nullity?

"A mind exercised," says the Bishop of St. David's, "by affliction, is tenderly alive to the impressions of religious truth. In such seasons, the emptiness of earthly comforts, and the want of some consolation which the world cannot give, prepare it effectually for the reception of those promises of light and aid which the Scriptures abundantly supply. How sweetly then are those passages of David and Isaiah in unison with the feelings of a resigned and believing spirit! Tarry thou the Lord's leisure; be strong, and he shall comfort thine heart; and put thou thy trust in the Lord.' Who is he that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh on still in darkness, and hath no light? Let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God.'

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"Our beneficent Creator, who, for the wisest purposes, has implanted in us affections and sensibilities, which attach us closely to those whom we respect and love, but which by the loss of such connexions give occasion to the most acute and painful trials; has also blessed us with à religion, which, above all other means, can mitigate the visitation which deprives us of them. I need not remind you of His promises, who said, My grace is sufficient for you; nor bring to your recol lection that those consolatory words were in answer to St. Paul's request, addressed in prayer to our Saviour. Such trust in his assistance, Christ had encouraged by his promise, • Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, I will do it; and Lo I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.' And, therefore, St. John said, This is the confidence we have in him, that if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us.' The same confidence in Christ's Divine power to hear and to save, induced St. Stephen to say, in his last moments, Lord Jesus, CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 271.

in the public service of the synagogue, had been accustomed to hear Him, whom they expected as the Messiah, called the Mighty God,' and the Lord our Righte ousness,' when he saw his Lord after his resurrection from the dead, exclaimed, in a transport of conviction and joy, My Lord, and my God!'

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"Nothing but belief in Christ's Divinity-his omnipresent influence and omnipotence could have induced his Disciples and Apostles to honour him with Divine worship, and to endure the privations, indignities, and sufferings which they underwent for his sake. The Divinity of Christ was not with them a speculative notion,' a disputable dogma,' as the Unitarians represent it, but a great practical principle, which influenced their whole conduct, and infused into their minds a fortitude and constancy which made them rejoice that they were counted worthy to suffer shame and death for his name. To die, and to be with Christ, they counted better than life.' What things were gain,' in a worldly sense, they counted loss for Christ; yea, they counted all things loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus.'

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"Their belief in Christ's Divinity their confidence in Him, as God ever present to sustain them in all difficulties-was the governing principle of their minds through this life; and their trust in his Atonement was the ground of their hope of happiness in the next. knew, that the blood of bulls and of goats could not put away sin;' and the Psalmist had long before declared, that man was utterly unable to redeem his brother. But in Christ, who was with God, and was God,'-' who was over all, God blessed for ever, their great God and Saviour, God manifest in the flesh,' who was made flesh,' and

came in the flesh,' that he might, by his death, be a propitiation for the sins of mankind; ' iş 3 H

Him they trusted, as a Saviour, ' able to save to the uttermost all who should come to God by him.' "Their belief in that truth, which Christ himself declared, which his contemporaries testified, proclaimed and arraigned as blasphemy, and for which Christ was crucified; which the Apostles preached and recorded; which the primitive church received, and transmitted to succeeding generations; was their warrant for the reception of the other great doctrine, which their sins and imperfections, and their inability to save themselves, had rendered necessary for their salvation."

It is singular enough, that with innumerable averments of this nature upon record, from the lips of believers in the Divinity and Atonement of Christ, such men as Dr. Priestley, who boast that they build their moral as well as physical philosophy upon ascertained facts, and not upon hypotheses, should affect to account for the supports and consolations experienced by saints, confessors, and martyrs, upon the vague principles of we know not what, generalized Christianity-a Christianity which has nothing distinctive or worth the name. But we are far better pleased with the following observations of Dr. Priestley; in which he exhibits with much feeling, one of the important lessons to be learned from such narratives as that under consideration.

"When I am sitting," he remarks," in a cheerful room, by a comfortable fire-side, with my family about me, attending without restraint to any pursuit of philosophy, theology, or general literature for which I have inclination, visited by my friends, and corresponding with whom I please; when I see the cheering rays of the sun, and the fair face of nature, and make what excursions I please, and in what manner I please, to distant places, as health, convenience, or pleasure, may require; I think of M. de Marolles, who, after having been accustomed to enjoy all these

blessings, voluntarily incurred the loss of them all, and, without repining, thought himself abundantly recompensed by the peace of his mind, and his future prospects. How strenuously, then, should we exert ourselves to make the best use of the liberty we enjoy! Deus nobis hæc otia fecit."

FAMILY SERMONS.-No. CLXXXVII.

2 Thess. iii. 5.-The Lord direct

your hearts into the love of God. WHEN Naaman, the Syrian, angrily refused to wash in the river Jordan, for the cleansing of his leprosy, his attendants remonstrated with him; "My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it? How much rather then when he saith to thee, Wash and be clean?" And thus oftentimes it is that the very easiness of God's commands causes mankind to slight them. Had the forgiveness of our sins, and an eternal reward of glory in heaven, been. promised to us, upon condition of some severe act of penance, who would be so careless or insensible to his own highest interests as not to be willing to undergo its rigours? We see by the austerities which misguided men have imposed upon themselves in various ages and countries, by the painful rites of heathenism and superstition, how great sacrifices of this kind persons will make, to secure, as they suppose, an infinitely greater good, or perhaps even for the mere sake of gratifying their ambition and love of worldly applause. Yet, when our Creator addresses us and says, "What doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, and to walk in all his ways; to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, and to keep the commandments of the Lord;" and when he tells us further, that this very requirement includes our best

interest, our highest welfare; that his yoke is easy and his burden light; that the service of the world, and sin, and satan is toilsome, and its end everlasting ruin,-but that the service to which he mercifully invites us is perfect freedom, and its reward an eternal weight of glory, we slight the offer and refuse to obey the command. Though our Almighty Benefactor has made the ways of heavenly wisdom ways of pleasantness, and all her paths peace, we too often shun them as if they were beset with thorns and dangers, and prefer to them the world's broad way that leads to certain destruction. Surely we may be asked, had God required of us some severe rite as an atonement for our sins, would we not have practised it? how much more then should we obey him when he asks our love and gratitude, and commands, for our purification from our spiritual leprosy, only that we should wash in the Fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness; that we should make our robes white in the blood of the Lamb? Is it then so painful a sacrifice to love and serve the best and highest of all Beings, the infinite Creator, the God of our life, our Guardian, our Friend, our Protector as well as our Lawgiver, our Saviour and Comforter as well as our Judge, that it should be necessary so often and earnestly to enforce the duty, and point out the blessedness of complying with this command? We might have supposed that to love God would be our constant wish and prayer and effort; that to inculcate this love upon us would be needless, for that it would spring up naturally in every breast; that it would entwine itself with all our feelings; and that nothing could root it out of our hearts. But such, alas! is not the testimony of experience; and the sacred Scriptures also shew how far distant we are from such a pure and devout state of the affections, by the frequent mention made in them of this delightful obligation, their remonstrances with us for our neglect of

it, and their promises of Divine assistance to incline our hearts to its performance. The text grounds upon the duty a fervent wish and prayer; "The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God;" a prayer which would be superfluous, if there were not an averseness in the heart of man to this sacred principle, and a consequent necessity that it should be implanted in us by the power of the Holy Spirit, inclining us to new and heavenly affections.

In reflecting upon the words of the text, several points present themselves for our consideration; which we shall now proceed to examine.

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1. In the first place, then, we find that the Scriptures inculcate the love of God in the form of an express command.—It is the first injunction of the Moral Law: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength." The whole tenour of the Old and New Testament is, "My son, give me thy heart." All the dispensations of God towards his chosen people Israel were, prove them whether they would love him with all their heart and with all their soul." The great complaint made against sinners is, that the love of God is not in their hearts; and a constant exhortation to the faithful in Christ Jesus is to advance in this Divine grace. "Take good heed," said Joshua to the people of Israel," that ye love the Lord your God." This is called the great commandment; great in its dignity, as referring to the high and holy one who inhabiteth eternity; great as involving the highest duty of his rational and accountable creatures; and great as the foundation of all other virtues; for though we could speak with the tongues of men and of angels, though we had the gift of prophecy, and understood all mysteries, and all knowledge, and though we had all faith, so that we could remove mountains, and had

not the principle of love to God shed abroad in our hearts, and attended by love to our neighbour for God's sake, it would profit us nothing.

2. But, further, love to God is not only enjoined upon us as a command, but is shewn to be our reasonable service.-God deserves our love as the infinite fountain of all that is good and worth our affections. We should love him with all our heart and mind, for what he is in himself; just as we regard with affection the amiable qualities of a fellow-creature, none of whose excellencies bear the most distant proportion to the perfections of God. But still more will love to him appear to be a reasonable obligation, when we consider what he is to us. It was he who gave to us our being; who breathed into our nostrils the breath of life, and endued us with all our capacities for enjoyment. We are his, therefore, by the highest possible title, that of creation; all our faculties, our affections, our services are his of right, and to alienate them from him is to defraud him of what he created for his own glory, and what no rival has any authority to claim. The life and powers thus communicated, he mercifully sustains, and thereby adds a new demand upon our gratitude and obedience. Nor is this all; for continued life might have been but aggravated wretchedness: he therefore shelters us from evil, and bestows on us innumerable comforts and blessings. Above all, he deserves our love for benefits of a still higher nature; for in this was the love of God towards us chiefly manifested, that he gave his Son to die for us. By our sins we had poisoned all former blessings: our creation and preservation, which were intended to open the way to innumerable enjoyments, had been made by our transgressions the forerunners of eternal destruction.

Had

we remained in this state, it had been well for us had our existence never been bestowed; but our gra

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cious Creator, Preserver, and Benefactor did not thus suffer his purposes of mercy to be frustrated; he devised a way of salvation; he revealed it to us in his word; and he freely invites us to become partakers of it. To sum up all, his Holy Spirit is promised to renew our hearts; so that, through faith in Christ, we may be made inheritors of his everlasting kingdom of glory. are his benefits towards us; benefits bestowed not upon meritorious and thankful creatures, but upon those who were guilty and unworthy, who were both ungrateful to God and blind to their own best interests. Ought we not then to love him who is thus bountiful and patient towards us; who spares us when we deserved instant punishment; who has provided for us the means of reconciliation with his offended Majesty, and of restoration to his image; and who demands of us nothing, in return for his gifts, but that we should believe in him, love him, and serve him all the days of our lives? Is not this a reasonable command? Is it not the height both of folly and ingratitude to refuse to comply with it?

3. But still further, love to God is not only enjoined upon us, and a bounden and reasonable obligation, but it is also connected with our own highest welfare.-Do we wish our nature to be raised from the state of degradation into which it was plunged by the Fall? what is there so elevating, so ennobling as the love of God? Whatever we habitually cherish in our minds with affection and delight has a tendency to impart to them corresponding tastes and feelings. We may endeavour to engraft into ourselves what we admire in another, till by long habit our character and dispositions may become strikingly changed. And thus the love of God fostered in the heart leads its possessor to imitate him; to approve what he approves, to hate what he hates. and to perform with pleasure what he enjoins. He becomes, in part

at least, and progressively, holy as God is holy: he is thus raised above the ruins of his fallen nature, and enters on a state of new and heavenly privilege. He now enjoys communion with God: he thinks no duty burdensome which is laid upon him by the great object of his ardent affections; and he enjoys the humble consciousness that his services, imperfect and worthless as they are in themselves, are mercifully accepted by Him who can discern the secrets of his heart, and to whom he appeals with St. Peter, "Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee." Does he labour to suppress every wrong desire, to bridle his tongue, and to guard his conduct? Does he endeavour to live above the vanities of life, to crucify the flesh with its affections and lusts, and to endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ? Does he wish and strive to be pure and heavenly minded; gentle and self-denying; lowly in his own eyes; full of love to God and to his neighbour; and in all things to adorn the doctrine of his God and Saviour? This is to him no unwilling task; for he delights to do the will of his heavenly Father, whose law is in his heart as well as merely in his memory and understanding. Such are the blessed effects of this divine principle upon his character. And besides, the presence of this principle further shews the genuineness of his Christian profession, of which love is the cardinal grace; and his meetness for the heavenly world, where love reigns in its best and brightest dominion. The diffusion of this grace in his heart also indicates not only his love to God, but God's love to him; for if we love God, it is because God first loved us. It brings him also within the sphere of the Divine declaration made" to them that love God," that all things shall work together for their good; and it proves his title to that "crown of life" which "the Lord hath promised to them that love him."

But it is impossible to enumerate all the benefits which flow from the prevalence of this principle in the soul; and the only subject for surprise is, whence it happens that a duty so reasonable, an obligation so authoritatively enjoined, a privilege so enviable, should yet be almost universally neglected. Why, it may be asked, should it be necessary so frequently and earnestly to insist upon love to God; why should the Apostle pray in the text, that the hearts of those to whom he was writing should be directed into it; when our reason and our affections, our hopes, our fears, and our enjoyments, would seem all to unite to render it our constant wish and effort to live under the dominion of this blessed principle?

4. Let us then inquire, Why do not all mankind love God? It is not because they do not know that it is a duty; for this all will allow, and most will even acknowledge that it would be well for them if they complied with the command. But unhappily their sins separate between them and God: they are alienated from him by wicked works; they set their affections upon rival objects: they do not love his commands, because his commands are holy, while they are deliberately attached to their own evil ways: they dread his threatenings; and even his promises awaken in them no grateful emotions, because they are conscious they belong not to them, at least while they continue in their present ungodly state, which state they have as yet no wish to change. Here then is the solution of the difficulty: man is a fallen and sinful being, and he naturally delights in his sinfulness; whereas God is infinitely holy, and of too pure eyes to behold iniquity without abhorrence. Like Adam, therefore, after his transgression, the sinner would gladly conceal himself from the eye of God: he dreads that omniscience which discerns all his sins; that justice which threatens punishment on account of them; and that infinite

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