Εικόνες σελίδας
PDF
Ηλεκτρ. έκδοση

a weariness is it!" Or impatient of fo difagreeable a burden, they neglect them entirely. Religion is not natural to them, for want of a new nature. But to you that believe, Chrift is precious; all his ways are pleafantnefs, and all his paths are peace. His yoke is eafy, and his burden light.

2. Let us examine ourselves, whether the evidences of fpiritual life, which may be collected from what has been faid, give us reafon to conclude that we are poffeffed of it. Let us caft the difcourfe into a form of interrogation, and propofe the following inquiries to our confciences.

Do we feel, or have we felt a fupernatural princi ple working within? Is our religion heaven-born? or is it natural and felf-fprung? Is the habitual bent of our wills God-ward? Do our hearts propend towards Him, as their ultimate fcope? Do we delight in his law after the inner man, and will that which is good, even when we cannot do it? Do we perceive ourselves at times ftrengthened with might in the inner man? And that we can do all things through Chrift strengthening us? Have we ever experienced the important change of regeneration? are old things paffed away, and all things become new? Have we put off the old man with bis deeds, and put on the new man, which after God is created in righte oufnefs and true holiness?

Is our religion more than a mere acquired habit, originally obtained by our own industry only, and the exercife of our natural powers, excited and affisted by education, cuftom, the means of grace? &c. Was it begun in the inftantaneous infufion of a gracious principle, immediately by the Holy Spirit?

Do we derive our ftrength for obedience from Chrift by faith? Is he our life? Are we generally crying, Lord we have no ftrength; but our eyes are unto thee? Can we fay with the apoftle, I live; yet not I, but Chrift liveth in me; and what I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God?

My

My dear brethren, let us search ourselves with these and the like inquiries; for many are deftructively deceived in this matter. Living religion is wrapt in darknefs from the eyes of moft: they either place it in that in which it does not confift at all, or take the cir cumstances and appendages for the fubftance of it. Great is the mystery of godliness, not only objectively, as revealed in the fcriptures, but alfo fubjectively, as wrought in the heart of a believer. It ought therefore to engage our most serious and intenfe thoughts. 3. Let those who are made fpiritually alive, "acknowledge and admire the diftinguifhing grace of God, and act as it becomes their character."

You have seen that fpiritual life is not promifcuoufly difpenfed to mankind in general, but only to the regenerate, who are comparatively few. And can you reftrain your wonder, that you should be the chofen objects of fovereign grace? or avoid breaking forth into extatic praifes at fo furprizing a difpenfation?

Moreover, the design of your vivification, and the natural tendency of the principle of fpiritual life is, that you may live to God; and therefore, you are peculiarly obliged to make your whole life a series of obedience to Him. Indulge the propenfions and tendencies of the new nature: obey and cherish all the impulfes and motions of the divine principle within you. To offer violence to the new man, to cramp and fetter its powers, to refift its motions, and fuffocate its heavenly afpirations, is the moft horrid crime. It is to attempt to murder the child of grace in embryo; and fure, this is the worst of murder. Reckon ye yourselves, then, to be dead indeed unto fin, but alive unto God, through Jefus Christ our Lord. Let not fin reign in your mortal body, that ye fhould obey it in the lufts thereof: neither yield ye your members as inftruments of unrighteoufnefs unto fin; but yield yourselves unto God, as thofe that are alive from the dead; and your members as inftruments of righteoufnefs unto God. And if ye be rifen with Chrift, feek thofe things which are above, where Chrift fit

teth

teth at the right hand of God. Set your affections upon (favour and relish) things above, not things on earth. And when Chrift, who is our life, fhall appear, then fhall ye alfo appear with him in glory.

4. I request and importune thofe that are dead in fin, to "use all proper means for the obtaining of quickening grace." The exhortation implies no contradiction or impoffibility; for though they are fpiritually dead, yet their natural principles of reafon is ftill alive, and capable of exercising itself about fpiritual objects; and God has enjoined them to make the beft ufe they can of it, as the only way to obtain a better principle. God deals with us according to our nature and circumftances. We are corrupted creatures, and therefore He exerts his exceeding great and mighty power to work principles of holinefs in us; but ftill we are rational creatures, and therefore He uses the powers of moral fuafion with us, and juftly requires us to exert our rational faculties in all the inftitutions of the gospel.

Be perfuaded then, finner, no longer to lie ftill in fecurity; but arife, call upon thy God; if fo be that God will think upon thee, that thou perifh not. Lazarus! come forth. Awake thou that fleepeft, and arife from the dead; and Chrift fhall give thee light. Linger not, left eternal death overtake thee. Methinks I fee him juft at thy heels, for thy damnation now of a long time lumbereth not. Arife, come forth at the call of the gofpel; otherwise how wilt thou stand the fhocking terror of that final alarm, Awake ye dead, and come to judgment? But I must conclude with my hearty wish, That the hour may come, and O! that this may be the hour, in which the dead fhall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear fhall live.-Which gracious prediction may the God of grace accomplish upon us all, for Jefus' fake. Amen.

SERMON

SERMON

LI.

THE WAYS OF SIN HARD AND DIFFICULT.

ACTS iv. 6. It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.

YOU often hear of the narrow and rugged road

YOU

of religion, which leadeth unto life; and fome of you, I am afraid, have not courage enough to venture upon it. You rather choose the fmooth, broad, down-hill road of vice and pleasure, though it leads down to the chambers of death. It must be owned, that a religious life is a courfe of difficulties, a hard ftruggle, a conftant conflict; and it is fit you should be honestly informed of it: but then it is fit you should also know, that the difficulties arise not from the nature of religion, but from the corruption and depravity of the nature of man in its prefent degenerate ftate. A course of religion is difagreeable, is hard, is difficult to mankind; just as a course of action is difficult to the fick, though it is eafy, and affords pleafure to thofe that are well. There are difficulties in the way of fin as well as in that of holiness, though the depravity of mankind renders them infenfible of it. This is the view of the cafe I would now lay before you. There is a sense, in which it is true, that it is a hard thing to be a finner, as well as to be a faint : there are huge difficulties in the way, to hell, as well as in the way to heaven. And if you are infenfible of them, it is owing, as I juft obferved, to the corruption of your nature, and not to the real eafinefs of the thing in itself. It may be eafy and pleafing to you to fin, just as it is eafy to a dead body to rot, or pleafing to a leper to rub his fores. But to a reasonable creature, in a ftate of purity, with all his powers uncorrupted, it VOL. III.

Y

would

would indeed be an unpleafing, a hard, a difficult thing to take that courfe which is fo eafy and fo delightful to you; as it is hard and painful for a living man to fuffer the mortification of his limbs, or for a healthy man to make himself fore. If it be hard, in one sense, to live a life of holiness, it is certainly hard, in another sense, to live a life of fin; namely, to run against conscience, against reason, against honour, against interest, against all the strong and endearing obligation's you are under to God, to mankind, and to yourselves: or, in the words of my text, it is hard for you to kick against the pricks.

This is a proverb in ufe among various nations, which has received a fanction from heaven in this text. It is used by Pindar, Euripides, and Æfchylus, among the Greeks; and by Terence, among the Latins: and from the sense in which they use it, we are helped to understand it. To kick against the pricks, is an allufion to a lazy or unruly plough-horse or ox, that when pricked with a goad (an inftrument used in ploughing, in fundry places, inftead of a whip) refuses to go on, and spurns and kicks against the goad, and fo wounds himself, and not the driver. In fuch circumstances, it is much harder to kick against the goads, and refift, than to go on: if he goes on, he need not fear the goad; but his refiftance only hurts himself. It is to this that the phrafe alludes; and it fignifies a refiftance injurious to the perfon that makes it, when it would be both eafy and advantageous to obey.

Hence we may learn the precife sense in which it is ufed by the mouth of Chrift, in this pungent address to Saul the perfecutor, whom we now know under the higher name of Paul the apostle.

Saul, animated with a furious, mifguided, though honeft zeal, against the difciples of Jefus, was now on his way to Damascus in pursuit of them; and had a commiffion from the highest court of the Jews to apprehend them: a commiffion which he was impatient to execute. This, in human view, was a very unpromifing

« ΠροηγούμενηΣυνέχεια »