Εικόνες σελίδας
PDF
Ηλεκτρ. έκδοση

subject, too great to be comprehended in all its height and depth, or be enforced in all its ineffable strength, by the limited and languid efforts of a mortal man. After all, I feel that I must have spoken often feebly, and fear that I may have spoken sometimes foolishly. Here, then, where is the termination of my duties is the commencement of yours; and we would exhort you ever to bear in mind that those that teach, as well as those that hear, are but men; and to look with all patience and long-suffering upon their infirmities; and what you perceive to be foolish, correct in the spirit of charity; and what you hear to be feeble, receive in the spirit of meekness and docility. Lay not the errors of the advocate to the unsoundness of his cause; nor judge of it by the imperfections of his manner or his reasoning. Rather lay to heart the unspeakable importance of the question itself, and pray to God with fervency and frequency, that he would give you a right judgment in all things, but especially in that upon which eternity depends. I say not this, as in complaint for any neglect or severity I may have endured. I ought rather to pour forth my gratitude for the attention and seriousness you have bestowed. Neither do I mention this merely to obtain an opportunity of expressing my feelings of thankfulness; but to press with affectionate earnestness upon your

memories, how much the energy and excellence of instruction depend upon the qualifications and conduct of those that hear. Little do they, whose listless countenance and wandering eye betray the indifference of a vacant mind-little do they know how much they deaden the future efforts of the minister of God, and how much they diminish the profit they might have derived, through God's blessing, from his words, and how fearfully they endanger the final salvation of their souls. We all know where it is written, that death and judgment are appointed to all; and it is to prepare you to meet that death with pious resignation, and to come unto that judgment with the steady calmness of a reasonable hope, that I have laid these considerations before you. The ordinances of God, whether of prayer or preaching, are ordained for the spiritual edification of the Church; and each member of the Church will be questioned in the last awful day as to the profit he has drawn from these opportunities of good. There the employment of all our years, our days, our hours, nay of this very hour itself, will be scrutinised. It will then be no excuse for our inattention and carelessness, to urge that the instructor was wanting in the powers of reasoning, the energy of diction, or the beauties of imagination. To this only will it be required that we should give an änswer, whether he spake the things which be

[ocr errors]

long unto salvation in the words of soberness and the accents of solemnity; and whether we listened in the spirit of reverential seriousness, and engrafted the virtues he recommended into the tenor of our lives. Let us, therefore, so struggle against the infirmities and propensities of our nature, as to consider only what is the profit which we may draw from our hearing. Let us regard the temple of the Lord, not as an intellectual, but as a spiritual school; not merely as a place where we may strengthen the understanding and increase our knowledge, but as it is indeed and in truth, a place appointed for the improvement of the soul-the seed-time of eternity, and the providential means of enabling us to accomplish the holy end and hope of Christianity -the preparation of the heart to meet its God.

DISCOURSE XIII.

1 COR. XII. latter part of verse 3.

"No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost."

THROUGH ten long Discourses have I been labouring to establish the truth of Christianity upon the foundations of reason. I have taken the subject of religion as I would have taken a subject in philosophy; and, viewing it in all its different bearings, have considered the principles of Christian evidence, and the objections of unbelievers, as if every thing that is valuable in this world and the next, the faith of every Christian, -the very existence of the Gospel itself depended upon the force of my answers, and the truth or untruth of my own peculiar views. I have spoken as to unbelievers, and reasoned as with unbelievers; and gathering the various weapons of warfare from the writings of the most powerful divines, would trust, that infidelity, when comparing the strength of the argument on both sides, can have no very great cause to triumph

in her superior strength. Such inquiries and occupations as these are most holy and most useful, when applied to those who believe not, and belong not to the Gospel; because they may teach them the necessity of distrusting the firmness and beauty of the temple of Reason, when brought into competition with the temple of Christianity. They may also be satisfactory to ourselves, as believers, because they tend to improve our conduct, and increase our faith, by giving us a means of appreciating the security of our trust, and furnishing us with a shield against those arrows of the enemy, which, however severely and frequently defeated, he still continues, whilst flying, to throw back, like the Parthian, against his pursuing conquerors. But never, never should we forget, that the perpetuity of the Gospel depends not, for its defence, upon carnal weapons alone. That the gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church, is a promise and a prediction of the Lord which will be fulfilled; not because the defenders of the Church are able and eloquent, and their reasonings deep and sound-not because it stands in the words of man, but because it is built upon the rock of ages, and standeth in the power and in the wisdom of God.

By reflections like these, I would humble my own understanding, and I would humble

« ΠροηγούμενηΣυνέχεια »