could not do, in that it was weak through the SERMON XXVIII. It does not mean any particular form of words whatever; it does not mean any service of the lips, any utterance or pronunciation of prayer, merely as such, but supplication actually and truly proceeding from the heart. Prayer may be solemn without being sincere. Every decency, effec-every propriety, every visible mark and token of prayer may be present, yet the heart not engaged. This is the requisite which must make prayer availing; this is the requisite indeed which must make it that which the Scripture means whenever it speaks of prayer. Every outward act of worship, without this participation of the heart, fails, not because men do not pray sincerely, but because, in Scripture sense, they do not pray at all. THE AID OF THE SPIRIT TO BE SOUGHT AND (PART III.) O, wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?-Rom. vii. 24. If these qualities of internal seriousness and impression belong to prayer, whenever prayer is mentioned in Scripture, they seem more peculiarly essential in a case, and for a blessing, purely and strictly spiritual. We must pray with the spirit, at least when we pray for spiritual succour. Furthermore; there is good authority in Scripture, which it would carry us too widely from our subject to state at present, for persevering in prayer, even when long unsuccessful. Persererance in unsuccessful prayer is one of the doctrines and of the lessons of the New Testament. Ir it be doctrinally true, that man in his ordinary state, in that state at least in which great numbers find themselves, is in a deplorable condition, a condition which ought to be a subject to him of great and bitter lamentation, viz. that his moral powers are ineffectual for his duty; able, perhaps, on most occasions, to perceive and ap- But again: We must pray for the Spirit earprove of the rule of right; able, perhaps, to will nestly, I mean with a degree of earnestness proit; able, perhaps, to set on foot unsuccessful, frus-portioned to the magnitude of the request. The trated, and defeated endeavours after that will, but by no means able to pursue or execute it:if it be also true, that strength and assistance may and can be communicated to this feeble nature, and that it is by the action of the Holy Spirit upon the soul, that it is so communicated; that with this aid and assistance sin may be successfully encountered, and such a course of duty maintained as may render us accepted in Christ; and further, that to impart the above described assistance is one of the ends of Christ's coming, and one of the operations of his love towards mankind:-if, I say, these propositions be doctrinally true, then follow from them these three practical rules: first, That we are to pray sincerely, earnestly, and incessantly for this assistance; secondly, That by so doing we are to obtain it; thirdly, That being obtained, we are to yield ourselves to its agency, to be obedient to its dictates. earnestness with which we pray will always be in proportion to our sense, knowledge, and consciousness of the importance of the thing which we ask. This consciousness is the source and principle of earnestness in prayer; and in this, I fear, we are greatly deficient. We do not possess or feel it in the manner in which we ought; and we are deficient upon the subject of spiritual assistance most particularly. I fear that many understand and reflect little upon the importance of what they are about, upon the exceedingly great consequence of what they are asking, when they pray to God, as we do in our liturgy, "to cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of his Holy Spirit;" "to make clean our hearts within us ;"" not to take his Holy Spirit from us;"" to give us increase of grace;" "to grant that his Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts.” These are momentous petitions, little as we may perceive, or think, or account of them at the time. It has been truly said, that we are hardly ever certain of praying aright, except when we pray for the Spirit of God. When we pray for temporal blessings, we do not know, though God does, whether we ask what is really for our good: when we ask for the assistance and sanctification of God's Spirit in the work and warfare of religion, we ask for that which by its very nature is good, and which without our great fault, will be good to us. First: We are to pray sincerely, earnestly, and incessantly, for this assistance. A fundamental, and, as it seems to me, an insurmountable text, upon this head, is our Saviour's declaration, Luke xi. 13,—“" If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" This declaration, besides expressing (which was its primary object) God's benignant, prompt, and merciful disposition towards us; which here, as in other places, our Saviour compares with the disposition of a parent But, secondly; We must obtain it. God is towards his children; beside this, the text un-propitious. You hear that he has promised it to doubtedly assumes the fact of there being a Holy Spirit, of its being the gift of God, of its being given to them that ask him; that these things are all realities; a real spiritual assistance, really given, and given to prayer. But let it be well observed, that whensoever the Scripture speaks of prayer, whensoever it uses that term, or other terms, equivalent to it, it means prayer, sincere and earnest; in the full and proper sense of these words, prayer proceeding from the heart and soul. prayer, to prayer really and truly such; to prayer, viz. issuing from the heart and soul; for no other is ever meant. We are suppliants to our Maker for various and continual blessings; for health, for case, it may be for prosperity and success. There is, as hath already been observed, some degree of uncertainty in all these cases, whether we ask what is fit and proper to be granted, or even what if granted, would do us good. There is this likewise farther to be observed, that they are what, if such be the pleasure of God, we can do without. I we will use them or not, still depending upon our- St. Paul, Rom. viii., represents the gift and pos But, thirdly, The assistance of God's Spirit being obtained, we are to yield ourselves to its direction; to consult, attend, and listen to its dictates, suggested to us through the admonitions of our conscience. The terms of Scripture represent the Spirit of God as an assisting, not a forcing power; as not suspending our own powers, but enabling them; as imparting strength and faculty for our religious work, if we will use them; but whether as are led by the Spirit of God," as many as yield themselves to its guidance and direction, "they are the sons of God." To conclude the subject: The difference between those who succeed, and those who fail in their Christian course, between those who obtain, and those who do not obtain salvation, is this: They may both feel equally the weakness of their nature, the existence and the power of evil propensities within them; but the former, by praying with their whole heart and soul, and that perseveringly, for spiritual assistance, obtain it; and, by the aid so obtained, are enabled to withstand, and do, in fact, withstand, their evil propensities; | mitted before you; and that you defile not yourselves the latter sink under them. I will not say that all are comprised under this description: for neither are all included in St. Paul's account of the matter, from which our discourse set out; but I think, that it represents the general condition of Christians as to their spiritual state, and that the greatest part of those who read this discourse, will find, that they belong to one side or other of the alternative here stated. SERMON XXIX. THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CANAANITES. So Joshua smote all the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings: he left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded.-Joshua x. 40. I HAVE known serious and well-disposed Christians much affected with the accounts which are delivered in the Old Testament, of the Jewish wars and dealings with the inhabitants of Canaan. From the Israelites' first setting foot in that country, to their complete establishment in it, which takes up the whole book of Joshua and part of the book of Judges, we read, it must be confessed, of massacres and desolations unlike what are practised now-a-days between nations at war, of cities and districts laid waste, of the inhabitants being totally destroyed, and this, as it is alleged in the history, by the authority and command of Almighty God. Some have been induced to think such accounts incredible, inasmuch as such conduct could never, they say, be authorised by the good and merciful Governor of the universe. I intend in the following discourse to consider this matter so far as to show that these transactions were calculated for a beneficial purpose, and for the general advantage of mankind, and being so calculated, were not inconsistent either with the justice of God, or with the usual proceedings of divine providence. therein." Now the facts disclosed in this passage, are, for our present purpose, extremely material and extremely satisfactory. First, The passage testifies the principal point, namely, that the Canaanites were the wicked people we represent them to be; and that this point does not rest upon supposition, but upon proof: in particular, the following words contain an express assertion of the guilt of that people. "In all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you; for all these abominations have the men of the land done." Secondly, The form and turn of expression seems to show that these detestable practices were general among them, and habitual: they are said to be abominable customs which were committed. Now the word custom is not applicable to a few single, or extraordinary instances, but to usage and to national character; which argues, that not only the practice, but the sense and notion of morality was corrupted among them, or lost; and it is observable, that these practices, so far from being checked by their religion, formed a part of it. They are described not only under the name of abominations, but of abominations which they have done unto their gods. What a state of national morals must that have been! Thirdly, The passage before us positively and directly asserts, that it was for these sins that the nations of Canaan were destroyed. This, in my judgment, is the important part of the inquiry. And what do the words under consideration declare? "In all these, namely, the odious and bru tal vices which had been spoken of, the nations are defiled which I cast out before you; and the land is defiled; therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it." This is the reason and cause of the calamities which I bring on it. The land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants. The very land is sick of its inhabitants; of their odious and brutal practices; of their corruption and wickedness. This, and no other, was the reason for destroying them: this, and no other, is the reason here alleged. It was not, as hath been imagined, to make way for the Israelites; nor was it simply for their idolatry. It appears to me extremely probable, that idolaNow the first and chief thing to be observed is, try in those times led, in all countries, to the vices that the nations of Canaan were destroyed for here described; and also that the detestation, their wickedness. In proof of this point, I pro- threats, and severities, expressed against idolatry duce the 18th chapter of Leviticus, the 24th and in the Old Testament, were not against idolatry the following verses. Moses in this chapter, after simply, or considered as an erroneous religion, laying down prohibitions against brutal and abo- but against the abominable crimes which usually minable vices, proceeds in the 24th verse thus: accompanied it. I think it quite certain that the "Defile not yourselves in any of these things, for case was so in the nations of Canaan. Fourthly, in all these the nations are defiled which I cast It appears from the passage before us, and what out before you, and the land is defiled; therefore I is surely of great consequence to the question, that do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land God's abhorrence and God's treatment of these itself vomiteth out her inhabitants. Ye shall crimes were impartial, without distinction, and therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, without respect of nations or persons. The words and shall not commit any of these abominations, which point out the divine impartiality are those neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger in which Moses warns the Israelites against falthat sojourneth among you: for all these abomi-ing into any of the like wicked courses; that the nations have the men of the land done which were before you, and the land is defiled; that the land vomit not you out also, when ye defile it, as it vomited out the nations that were before you. For whosoever shall commit any of these abominations, even the souls that commit them shall be cut off from amongst their people. Therefore shall ye keep my ordinances that ye commit not any of these abominable customs which were com land," says he, "cast not you out also, when you defile it, as it cast out the nations that were before you; for whoever shall commit any of these abo minations, even the souls that commit them, shall be cut off from among their people." The Jews are sometimes called the chosen and favoured people of God; and, in a certain sense, and for some purposes they were so: yet is this very people, both in this place, and in other places, over and the burning of cities, the laying waste of countries, are things dreadful to reflect upon. Who doubts it? so are all the judgments of Almighty God. The effect, in whatever way it shows itself, must necessarily be tremendous, when the Lord, as the Psalmist expresses it, "moveth out of his place to punish the wicked." But it ought to satisfy us, at least this is the point upon which we ought to rest and fix our attention that it was for excessive, wilful, and forewarned wickedness, that all this befel them, and that it is expressly so declared in the history which recites it. over again reminded, that if they followed the same practices, they must expect the same fate; "Ye shall not walk in the way of the nations which I cast out before you; for they committed all those things, and therefore I abhorred them: as the nations which the Lord destroyed before your face, so shall ye perish: because ye were not obedient unto the voice of the Lord your God." What farther proves not only the justice but the clemency of God, his long-suffering, and that it was the incorrigible wickedness of those nations, which at last drew down upon them their destruction, is, that he suspended, as we may so say, the But further: If punishing them by the hands stroke, till their wickedness was come to such a of the Israelites, rather than by a pestilence, an pitch, that they were no longer to be endured. earthquake, a fire, or any such calamity, be still In the 15th chapter of Genesis, God tells Abra- an objection, we may perceive, I think, some reaham, that his descendants of the fourth genera- sons for this method of punishment in preference tion, should return into that country, and not be- to any other whatever; always, however, bearing fore; "for the iniquity," saith he," of the Amorites in our mind, that the question is not concerning is not yet full." It should seem from hence, that the justice of the punishment, but the mode of it. so long as their crimes were confined within any It is well known that the people of those ages bounds, they were permitted to remain in their were affected by no proof of the power of the country. We conclude, therefore, and we are gods which they worshipped so deeply, as by well warranted in concluding, that the Canaanites their giving them victory in war. It was by this were destroyed on account of their wickedness. species of evidence that the superiority of their And that wickedness was perhaps aggravated by own gods above the gods of the nations which they their having had among them Abraham, Isaac, conquered was in their opinion evinced. This and Jacob-examples of a purer religion and a being the actual persuasion which then prevailed better conduct; still more by the judgments of in the world, no matter whether well or ill founded, God so remarkably set before them in the history how were the neighbouring nations, for whose adof Abraham's family; particularly by the destruc-monition this dreadful example was intended, how tion of Sodom and Gomorrah: At least these were they to be convinced of the supreme power things prove that they were not without warning, of the God of Israel above the pretended gods of and that God did not leave himself without wit- other nations, and of the righteous character of ness among them. Jehovah, that is of his abhorrence of the vices which prevailed in the land of Canaan? how, 1 say, were they to be convinced so well, or at all indeed, as by enabling the Israelites, whose God he was known and acknowledged to be, to conquer under his banner, and drive out before them those who resisted the execution of that commission with which the Israelites declared themselves to be invested-the expulsion and extermination of the Canaanitish nations? This convinced surrounding countries, and all who were observers or spectators of what passed; first, That the God of Israel was a real God; secondly, That the gods which other nations worshipped were either no gods, or had no power against the God of Israel; and, thirdly, That it was he, and he alone, who possessed both the power and the will to punish, to destroy, and to exterminate from before his face, both nations and individuals who gave themselves up to the crimes and wickedness for which the Canaanites were notorious. Nothing of this sort would have appeared, or with the same evidence however, from an earthquake, or a plague, or any natural calamity. These might not have been attributed to divine agency at all, or not to the interposition of the God of Israel. Now, when God, for the wickedness of a people, sends an earthquake, or a fire, or a plague among them, there is no complaint of injustice, especially when the calamity is known, or expressly declared beforehand, to be inflicted for the wickedness of such people. It is rather regarded as an act of exemplary penal justice, and, as such, consistent with the character of the moral Governor of the universe. The objection, therefore, is not to the Canaanitish nations being destroyed; (for when their national wickedness is considered, and when that is expressly stated as the cause of their destruction, the dispensation, however severe, will not be questioned;) but the objection is solely to the manner of destroying them. I mean there is nothing but the manner left to be objected to: their wickedness accounts for the thing itself. To which objection it may be replied, that if the thing itself be just, the manner is of little signification; of little signification even to the sufferers themselves: For where is the great difference, even to them, whether they were destroyed by an earthquake, a pestilence, a famine, or by the hands of an enemy? Where is the difference, even to our imperfect apprehensions of divine justice, provided it be, and is known to be, for their wicked- Another reason which made this destruction ness that they are destroyed? But this destruc- both more necessary and more general than it tion, you say, confounded the innocent with the would have otherwise been, was the consideration, guilty. The sword of Joshua and of the Jews spared that if any of the old inhabitants were left, they neither women nor children. Is it not the same would prove a snare to those who succeeded them with all other national visitations? Would not an in the country; would draw and seduce them by earthquake, or a fire, or a plague, or a famine degrees into the vices and corruptions which preamongst them have done the same? Even in an vailed amongst themselves. Vices of all kinds, but ordinary and natural death the same thing hap-vices most particularly of the licentious kind, are pens. God takes away the life he lends, without regard, that we can perceive, to age, or sex, or character. But, after all, promiscuous massacres, astonishingly infectious. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. A small number of persons addicted to them, and allowed to practise them with impunity or encouragement, will spread them through the whole mass. This reason is formally and expressly assigned, not simply for the punishment, but for the extent to which it was carried, namely, extermination. "Thou shalt utterly destroy them, that they teach you not to do after all their abominations which they have done unto their gods." in such a state, becomes the author of these warnings. It is his paternal care which admonishes us by and through the events of life and death that pass before us. Therefore it is a sin against Providence to neglect them. It is hardiness and determination in sin; or it is blindness, which in whole or in part is wilful; or it is giddiness, and levity, and contemptuousness in a subject which admits not of these dispositions towards it without great offence to God. A serious man hardly ever passes a day, never a week, without meeting with some warning to his conscience; without something to call to his mind his situation with respect to his future life. And these warnings, as perhaps was proper, come the thicker upon us the farther we advance in life. The dropping into the grave of our acquaintance, and friends, and relations; what can be better calculated, not to prove, (for we do not want the point to be proved,) but to possess our hearts with a complete sense and perception of the ex To conclude: In reading the Old Testament account of the Jewish wars and conquests in Canaan, and the terrible destruction brought upon the inhabitants thereof, we are constantly to bear in our minds, that we are reading the execution of a dreadful but just sentence pronounced by God against the intolerable and incorrigible crimes of these nations-that they were intended to be made an example to the whole world of God's avenging wrath against sins of this magnitude and this kind: sins which, if they had been suffered to continue, might have polluted the whole ancient world, and which could only be checked by the signal and public overthrow of nations no-treme peril and hourly precariousness of our contoriously addicted to them, and so addicted as to have incorporated them even into their religion and their public institutions-that the miseries inflicted upon the nations by the invasion of the Jews were expressly declared to be inflicted on account of their abominable sins-that God had borne with them long-that God did not proceed to execute his judgments till their wickedness was full-that the Israelites were mere instruments in the hands of a righteous Providence for the effectuating the extermination of a people of whom it was necessary to make a public example to the rest of mankind: that this extermination, which might have been accomplished by a pestilence, by fire, by earthquakes, was appointed to be done by the hands of the Israelites, as being the clearest and most intelligible method of displaying the power and righteousness of the God of Israel; his power over the pretended gods of other nations, and his righteous hatred of the crimes into which they were fallen. This is the true statement of the case. It is no forced or invented construction, but the idea of the transaction set forth in Scripture; and it is an idea which, if retained in our thoughts, may fairly, I think, reconcile us to every thing which we read in the Old Testament concerning it. SERMON XXX. NECLECT OF WARNINGS. Oh that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end! -Deut. xxxii. 29. THERE is one great sin, which nevertheless may not be amongst the number of those of which we are sensible, and of which our consciences accuse us; and that sin is the neglect of warnings. It is our duty to consider this life throughout as a probationary state, nor do we ever think truly, or act rightly, but so long as we have this consideration fully before our eyes. Now one character of a state, suited to qualify and prepare rational and improveable creatures for a better state, consists in the warnings which it is constantly giving them; and the providence of God, by placing us dition? viz. to teach this momentous lesson, that when we preach to you concerning heaven and hell, we are not preaching concerning things at a distance, things remote, things long before they come to pass; but concerning things near, soon to be decided, in a very short time to be fixed one way or other. This is a truth of which we are warned by the course of mortality; yet with this truth confessed, with these warnings before us, we venture upon sin. But it will be said, that the events which ought to warn us are out of our mind at the time. But this is not so. Were it that these things came to pass in the wide world only at large, it might be that we should seldom hear of them or soon forget them. But the events take place where we ourselves are; within our own doors; in our own families; amongst those with whom we have the most constant correspondence, the closest intimacy, the strictest connexion. It is impossible to say that such events can be out of our mind; nor is it the fact. The fact is, that knowing them, we act in defiance of them which is neglecting warnings in the worst sense possible. It aggravates the daringness, it aggravates the desperateness of sin; but it is so nevertheless. Supposing these warnings to be sent by Providence, or that we believe, and have reason to believe, and ought to believe, that they are so sent, then the aggravation is very great. We have warnings of every kind. Even youth itself is continually warned that there is no reliance to be placed, either on strength, or constitution, or early age; that if they count upon life as a thing to be reckoned secure for a considerable number of years, they calculate most falsely; and if they act upon this calculation, by allowing themselves in the vices which are incidental to their years, under a notion that it will be long be fore they shall have to answer for them, and before that time come they shall have abundant season for repenting and amending; if they suffer such arguments to enter into their minds, and act upon them, then are they guilty of neglecting God in his warnings. They not only err in point of just reasoning, but they neglect the warnings which God has expressly set before them. Or if they take upon themselves to consider religion as a thing not made or calculated for them; as much too serious for their years; as made and intended for the old and the dying; at least as what is un |