Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

him that treadeth in the wine fat? I have trodden the wine press alone: for I will tread them in my anger and trample them in my fury, and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment. For the day of vengeance is in my heart, and the year of my redeemed is come." Terrible things are to be accomplished upon the wicked, which will cause men's hearts to fail for fear. "And the kings of the earth and the great men and the rich men and the chief captains and the mighty men and every bond man and every free man," shall hide "themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; and" shall say "to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?"

SERMON XXXVII

SALVATION TAKEN INTO GOD'S OWN HANDS.

JER. XXXI. 31-34.

"Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; (which my covenant they broke, although I was a husband unto them, saith the Lord.) But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel: After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, Know ye the Lord, for they shall all know me from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more."

It is sometimes useful to contemplate the duties which devolve on us as agents, and sometimes the hopes which arise from the agency of God. To the latter of these subjects our text naturally directs our attention.

The old covenant referred to in this passage, was that which was made with the Hebrew nation at

Sinai. It was the covenant of grace couched under types; types which had the "shadow of good things to come," but "not the very image" nor the substance "of the things," and could never "make the comers thereunto perfect." Besides, it was in no sense an absolute, but in every sense a conditional covenant; the agency of God not being pledged for those supplies of the Spirit which would ensure a fulfilment of its conditions. In this respect it resembled the law. It is added as a consequence of all this, "which covenant they broke.” Though it was sent forth from among the glories of the burning mount, while Sinai quaked under the weight of the incumbent God and the earth trembled beneath his feet,-"which covenant they broke." But it pleased God to promise a new dispensation of his covenant in the latter day, not indeed exempt from conditionality as addressed to agents, but accompanied with effectual power. In this new dispensation he brings out to view his own agency upon the heart and takes the salvation of his people into his own hands, and engages to accomplish it himself. The tenor of this covenant is more distinctly stated in the next chapter: "They shall be my people and I will be their God; and I will give them one heart and one way that they may fear me forever; and I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts that they shall not depart from me."— Had only a covenant of works been held out to the world, suspending the salvation of men on their

perfect obedience; or had a covenant been proposed which offered pardon, without engaging the spiritual influences necessary to a fulfilment of its conditions, a covenant which offered pardon and yet suspended salvation on the unassisted or unsecured exertions of men, not a child of Adam would ever have reached the kingdom of heaven. Both of these covenants have been tried; the one with sinless man in Eden, the other with sinning men at Sinai and although the Spirit was granted to the nation of Israel, it was because to Abraham had been made the promise of a holy seed, and "the covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after," could not "disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect." And blessed be God, the covenant that was made with Abraham is still in force and is extended to the Christian Church. It will be my object to show,

I. That according to the plan of grace revealed in the Gospel, God has taken the work of salvation into his own hands;

II. That this circumstance lays the only foundation of human hope.

I. According to the plan of grace revealed in the Gospel, God has taken the work of salvation into his own hands. The great design originated in the mind of God. In the ages of eternity it arose out of his own self-moving goodness, without the counsel of any creature, without the intercession of any creature, without respect to the merits of any creature. It was his own purpose,-his own faVOL. II.

69

« AnteriorContinuar »