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dogs of hell, already gnawing the soul, forbidding happiness to approach? Did not even the Heathens see this? What else means their fable of Tityus, chained to a rock, with a vulture continually tearing up his breast, and feeding upon his liver? Quid rides? "Why do you smile ?" says the poet :

Mutato nomine, de te

Fabula narratur.

"It is another name; but thou art the man!" Lust, foolish desire, envy, malice, or anger is now tearing thy breast: Love of money, or of praise, hatred, or revenge, is now feeding on thy poor spirit. Such happiness is in vice! So vain is the supposition that a life of wickedness is a life of happiness!

11. But he makes a Third supposition,―That he shall certainly live forty, or fifty, or threescore years. Do you depend upon this? on living threescore years? Who told you that you should? It is no other than the enemy of God and man: It is the murderer of souls. Believe him not; he was a liar from the beginning; from the beginning of his rebellion against God. He is eminently a liar in this: For he would not give you life, if he could. Would God permit, he would make sure work, and just now hurry you to his own place. And he cannot give you life, if he would: The breath of man is not in his hands. He is not the disposer of life and death: That power belongs to the Most High. It is possible indeed, God may, on some occasions, permit him to inflict death. I do not know but it was an evil angel who smote an hundred fourscore and five thousand Assyrians in one night: And the fine lines of our poet are as applicable to an evil as to a good spirit:

So when an angel, by divine command,
Hurls death and terror o'er a guilty land;
He, pleased the Almighty's order to perform,
Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm.

But though Satan may sometimes inflict death, I know not that he could ever give life. It was one of his most faithful servants that shrieked out some years ago, "A week's life! A week's life! Thirty thousand pounds for a week's life!" But he could not purchase a day's life. That night God required his soul of him. And how soon may he require it of you? Are you sure of living threescore years? Are you sure of living one year, one week, one day? O make haste to live! Surely the man that may die to-night, should live to-day.

12. So absurd are all the suppositions made by him who gains the world and loses his soul. But let us for a moment imagine, that wickedness is happiness; and that he shall certainly live threescore years; and still I would ask, What is he profited, if he gain the whole world for threescore years, and then lose his soul eternally?

Can such a choice be made by any that considers what eternity is? Philip Melancthon, the most learned of all the German Reformers, gives the following relation: (I pass no judgment upon it, but set it down nearly in his own words:) "When I was at Wirtemberg, as I was walking out one summer evening with several of my fellow-students, we heard an uncommon singing, and, following the sound, saw a bird of an uncommon figure. One stepping up, asked, In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, what art thou?' It answered, I am a damned spirit; and, in vanishing away, pronounced these words, O Eternity, Eternity! who can tell the length of Eternity ? And how soon would this be the language of him who sold his soul for threescore years' pleasure! How soon would he cry out, O Eternity, Eternity! who can tell the length of Eternity ?""

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13. In how striking a manner is this illustrated by one of the ancient Fathers! " Supposing there was a ball of sand as big as the whole earth. Suppose a grain of this to be annihilated in a thousand years: Which would be more eligible,-to be happy while this ball was wasting away at the rate of one grain in a thousand years, and miserable ever after?-or to be miserable, while it was wasting away at that proportion, and happy ever after?" A wise man, it is certain, could not pause one moment upon the choice; seeing all that time wherein this ball would be wasting away, bears infinitely less proportion to eternity, than a drop of water to the whole ocean, or a grain of sand to the whole mass. Allowing then that a life of religion were a life of misery; that a life of wickedness were a life of happiness; and, that a man were assured of enjoying that happiness for the term of threescore years; yet what would he be profited, if he were then to be miserable to all eternity?

14. But it has been proved, that the case is quite otherwise; that religion is happiness; that wickedness is misery; and that no man is assured of living threescore days: And if so, is there any fool, any madman under heaven, who can be compared

to him that casts away his own soul, though it were to gain the whole world? For what is the real state of the case? What is the choice which God proposes to his creatures? It is not, "Will you be happy threescore years, and then miserable for ever; or, will you be miserable threescore years, and then happy for ever?" It is not, "Will you have first a temporary heaven, and then hell eternal; or, will you have first a temporary hell, and then heaven eternal ?" But it is simply this: "Will you be miserable threescore years, and miserable ever after; or, will you be happy threescore years, and happy ever after? Will you have a foretaste of heaven now, and then heaven for ever; or, will you have a foretaste of hell now, and then hell for ever? Will you have two hells, or two heavens ?"

15. One would think, there needed no great sagacity to answer this question. And this is the very question which I now propose to you in the name of God. Will you be happy here and hereafter; in the world that now is, and in that which is to come? Or will you be miserable here and hereafter; in time and in eternity? What is your choice? Let there be no delay: Now take one or the other! I take heaven and earth to record this day, that I set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. O choose life! The life of peace and love now; the life of glory for ever! By the grace of God, now choose that better part which shall never be taken from you! And having once fixed your choice, never draw back; adhere to it at all events. Go on in the name of the Lord, whom ye have chosen, and in the power of his might! In spite of all opposition, from nature, from the world, from all the powers of darkness, still fight the good fight of faith, and lay hold on eternal life! And then there is laid up for you a crown, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give you at that day!

SERMON LXXXV.

ON WORKING OUT OUR OWN SALVATION.

"Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling: For it is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." Philippians ii. 12, 13.

1. SOME great truths, as the being and attributes of God, and the difference between moral good and evil, were known, in some measure, to the heathen world. The traces of them are to be found in all nations: So that, in some sense, it may be said to every child of 66 man, He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; even to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God." With this truth he has, in some measure, "enlightened every one that cometh into the world." And hereby they that "have not the law," that have no written law, are a law unto themselves." They show "the work of the law,”—the substance of it, though not the letter," written in their hearts," by the same hand which wrote the commandments on the tables of stone: "Their conscience also bearing them witness," whether they act suitably thereto or not.

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2. But there are two grand heads of doctrine, which contain many truths of the most important nature, of which the most enlightened Heathens in the ancient world were totally ignorant; as are also the most intelligent Heathens that are now on the face of the earth; I mean those which relate to the eternal Son of God, and the Spirit of God: To the Son, giving himself to be "a propitiation for the sins of the world;" and to the Spirit of God, renewing men in that image of God wherein they were created. For after all the pains which ingenious and learned men have taken (that great man, Chevalier Ramsay, in particular) to find some resemblance of these truths in the immense rubbish of heathen authors, the resemblance is so exceeding faint, as not to be discerned but by a very lively imagination. Beside that, even this resemblance, faint as it was, is only to be found in the discourses of a very few; and those

were the most improved and deeply-thinking, men, in their several generations; while the innumerable multitudes that surrounded them were little better for the knowledge of the philosophers, but remained as totally ignorant even of these capital truths as were the beasts that perish.

3. Certain it is, that these truths were never known to the vulgar, the bulk of mankind, to the generality of men in any nation, till they were brought to light by the gospel. Notwithstanding a spark of knowledge glimmering here and there, the whole earth was covered with darkness, till the Sun of righteousness arose and scattered the shades of night. Since this dayspring from on high has appeared, a great light hath shined unto those who, till then, sat in darkness and in the shadow of death. And thousands of them in every age have known, "that God so loved the world, as to give his only Son, to the end that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life." And being entrusted with the oracles of God, they have known that God hath also given us his Holy Spirit, who "worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure."

4. How remarkable are those words of the Apostle, which precede these! "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God,"-the incommunicable nature of God from eternity,-" counted it no act of robbery,”—(that is the precise meaning of the word,) no invasion

of

any other's prerogative, but his own unquestionable right,— "to be equal with God." The word implies both the fulness and the supreme height of the Godhead; to which are opposed the two words, he emptied and he humbled himself. He "emptied himself" of that divine fulness, veiled his fulness from the eyes of men and angels; "taking," and by that very act emptying himself, "the form of a servant; being made in the likeness of man," a real man, like other men. "And being found in fashion as a man," '—a common man, without any peculiar beauty or excellency," he humbled himself" to a still greater degree," becoming obedient" to God, though equal with him, "even unto death; yea, the death of the cross:" The greatest instance both of humiliation and obedience.

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Having proposed the example of Christ, the Apostle exhorts them to secure the salvation which Christ hath purchased for them: "Wherefore, work out your own salvation with fear and

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