Now, while he is publishing his command to a guilty country to repent, by the horrid found of trumpets and cannon: * Now, while you have time, which may be taken from you the next year, the next week, or perhaps, the very next moment: Now, while you enjoy health of body, and the exercise of your reafon; and your attention is not tied down to pain and agony: Now, and not to-morrow; not upon a fick bed; not in a dying hour: Now is the time, in which God commands you to repent: he does not allow you one hour's delay; and what right have you to allow it to yourselves? Therefore, now, this moment, let us all repent; all, without exception. Why fhould there not be one affembly of true penitents upon our guilty globe? And, Ó! why should it not be this? Why fhould not repentance be as univerfal as fin? And, fince we are all finners, O! why should we not all be humble penitents? Repent you must, either in time or eternity, upon earth, or in hell. You cannot poffibly avoid it. The question is not, Shall I repent? for that is beyond a doubt. But the queftion is, "Shall I repent now, when it may reform and fave me? or fhall I put it off to the eternal world, when my repentance will be my punishment, and can anfwer no end but to torment me?" And is this a hard question! Does not common fenfe determine it in favour of the present time? Therefore, let the duty be as extensively obferved as it is commanded: Let all men every where repent. Bleffed God! pour out upon us a fpirit of grace and fupplication, that there may be a great mourning among us, that each of us may mourn apart, and our wives apart; that we may mourn, as one that mourneth for an only fon; and be in bitterness, as one that is in bitterness for a first born. Zech. xii. 10. for Jefus's fake! Amen. Grant this, SERMON This Sermon is dated New-Kent, May 22, 1757. SERMON XLV. THE TENDER ANXIETIES OF MINISTERS FOR THEIR PEOPLE. GALAT. iv. 19, 20. My little children, of whom I travail in birth again, until Christ be formed in you, I defire to be prefent with you now, and to change my voice; for I fand in doubt of you. NOTHIN OTHING could be more agreeable to a generous fpirit that loves God and mankind, than to be Fully fatisfied of the real goodness and happiness of his fellow-creatures; and nothing is more painful than an anxious jealousy and fear in a matter he has so much at heart. Some profefs themselves very cafy in this refpect, and they glory in this eafinefs as a high pitch of charity and benevolence. They hope well of allexcept, perhaps, their personal enemies, who, for that very reafon, muft be very worthlefs and execrable creatures. Though fcripture and reafon do jointly declare, that men of bad lives, who habitually indulge themselves in fin, and neglect the known duties of religion and morality, are no objects of rational charity at all, but must be judged deftitute of true piety by all that would judge according to evidence; "yet, God forbid, fay they, that they fhould judge any man. They are not of a cenforious spirit, but generous and benevolent in their hopes of all." They can venture to hope that the tree is good, even when the fruit is corrupt; that is, that a good man may lead a bad life. But this temper ought not to be honoured with the noble name of Charity. Let it be called ignorance, grofs ignorance of the nature of true religion; or infi delity and avowed disbelief of what the fcripture determines concerning the character of a good man; or let it be called indifferency, an indifferency whether men be now good or bad, and whether they fhall be happy or miferable hereafter. Where there is no love or affectionate concern, there will be no uneafy jealoufy. Or let it be called a mere artifice for self-defence. Men are often cautious of condemning others, not from benevolence to them, but out of mercy to themselves, not being willing to involve themselves in the fame condemnation; fince they are confcious they are as bad as others, they must be fparing to others, in order to fpare themselves. Thefe are the true names of what paffes current under the name of Charity in the world. St. Paul, whofe heart was capable of the kindeft fentiments to mankind, could not enjoy the pleafure of this promifcuous charity. He could not thus conclude well of all, not even of all under the chriftian name; not of all whom he once hoped were his fpiritual children; no, not of all the members of the once flourishing churches of Galatia, where he met with fo friendly a reception, and had fo much promifing appearance of fuccefs. Iftand in doubt of you, fays he. The ftate and character of thefe churches, we may partly learn from this epiftle. A confiderable number of Galatians had been converted from heathenifm to christianity by St. Paul's miniftry; and in the tranfports of their firft zeal they made very promifing appearance: hence he puts them in mind that they had begun in the fpirit (ch. iii. 3.) that when they first ftarted in the chriftian race, they had run well (ch. v. 7.) that they had fuffered many things in the caufe of the gofpel; (ch. iii. 4.) and as to their affection to him, it was very extraordinary. Te received me, fays he, as an angel of God, even as Jefus Chrift. I bear you record, that if it had been poffible, you would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me. (ch. iv. 14, 15.) But alas! how naturally do the most flourishing churches churches tend to decay! How frail and fickle is man! How inconftant popular applaufe! These promifing churches of Galatia foon began to decline; and their favourite, St. Paul, their apoftle and fpiritual father, appeared in quite another light, appeared as their enemy, because he told them the truth. There was a fpurious fet of preachers in that age, who corrupted the pure gospel of Chrift with Jewish mixtures. The ceremonies of the law of Mofes, and the traditions of their elders, they held as of perpetual and univerfal obligation; and as fuch they imposed them even upon the chriftian converts from among the Gentiles, who never had any thing to do with them. Had they been recommended to their obfervance as indifferences or prudentials, it would not have had fuch bad influence upon chriftianity. But they continued to impose them as abfolutely neceffary to falvation, and reprefented the righteoufnefs revealed in the gofpel as infufficient without these additions. Thus they laboured to corrupt the great doctrine of a finner's juftification by faith alone, through the righteousness of Jefus Chrift, that grand article upon which the church ftands or falls, according to an old obfervation of Luther. These judaizing teachers had artfully infinuated themselves into the Galatian churches, and spread the poifon of their legal doctrines. This funk St. Paul in the esteem of his converts, and they exchanged his pure gofpel for another, more adapted to their tafte. In confequence of this, religion was declining faft among them; and St. Paul is alarmed left he should have bestowed labour in vain upon them. This epiftle is an affectionate attempt to recover them. It is for the most part argumentative; for its author was not fond of moving their paffions without enlightening their understandings. But fometimes he melts into the most pathetic strains, and gives the most affecting touches to the heart. Such a tender, paffionate address is this in my text. My little children, of whom I travail in birth again, till Chrift be formed in you, I deVOL. III. G fire fire to be prefent with you now, and to change my voice; for I ftand in doubt of you. What a tender, moving, paternal addrefs is this! My little children-This is a fond affectionate appellation; the language of a tender father. It ftrongly expreffes his paternal love and folicitude for the Galatians. The fame ftyle he uses to the TheffaloniansYou know, how we exhorted and comforted, and charged every one of you, as a father doth his children, 1 Theff. ii. II. He may also call them his children, to imitate that he had begotten them by the gospel as fpiritual children to God: or rather, as the following words fuggeft, he alludes to the fickness and anxiety of a mother in conception, and the pangs and agonies of child-bearing; and by these he illuftrates the pangs and agonies of zeal, and the affectionate folicitude he had felt for them while Chrift was forming in them under his miniftry, and they were in the critical hour of the new-birth. He might well call them his children, because he had fuffered all the pains of a mother for them. He adds the epithet little, my little children, because the fond language of a parent affects fuch diminutives, or perhaps to intimate their small progress in christianity. They were but little children in grace ftill. My little children, of whom I travail in birth againI have juft obferved, this is an allufion to the painful diforders and pangs of conception and birth; * by. which the apoftle ftrongly represents the agonies of affectionate zeal, and tender anxieties he felt for the Galatians. But what rendered them doubly painful to him, was, that he was obliged to feel them more than once-I travail of you in birth again. He had cheerful hopes that Chrift was indeed formed in them, and that they were born from above, and confequently that he fhould have no more occafion to feel thofe agonies and throes he had fuffered for them. But alas! he had * Critics observe, that the word dw is expreffive of the fickness of conception, as well as the pangs of birth. |