Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

time and attention to it, who does not often shut himself up in his closet to confider whether he is in the right road to it, whether he is taking the most efficacious means to accomplish his end? We all know that this, and much more than this, is, and must be done, in fuch cafes. And yet, in a case of infinitely greater moment, we conceive all this care and attention to be perfectly needlefs. We expect to go to Heaven without fo much as giving ourselves the trouble to enquire, at proper intervals, whether we poffefs the qualifications required of all who are allowed to enter there; whether the course of action we are pursuing will lead us to the point we profess to have in view. The church calls upon us to give up a few hours at stated times, for a few weeks, to those great objects which we all acknowledge to be the most important that can engage the attention of a human being. But the world calls us another way; it calls us a thousand different ways; and which call is it that we obey? Look around and fee what it is that now occupies, and is likely to occupy, for the next fix weeks, the greater part of the inhabitants of this gay and. diffipated

VOL. II.

Z

diffipated metropolis.

Is it retirement, is it prayer, is it self-examination, is it repentance, is it proftration and humiliation of their fouls before God? It is almoft prepofterous to ask the question. Some, it is true, there are, and, I trust, not a few, that have not yet bowed the knee to Baal; who have not yet fallen down before thofe idols of fin, of pleasure, of interest, of ambition, which the world has fet up to worship; who love God with all their heart, and foul, and mind, and strength; who dedicate not only this day and this season, but a large proportion of every day to his fervice, and pay an uniform and conftant obedience to his commands. But great numbers, it cannot be denied, (would to God it could) purfue a very different courfe, and think it meanness to adore the God that made them. Far from rending either their hearts or their garments on fuch occafions as the prefent, they treat, with fovereign contempt, every ordinance of the church to which they belong; and this, above all others, they affect not only to defpife, but to deteft. They cannot bear, it seems, they fhudder at the very thought, they cannot bear to draw down imprecations, fuch as the

fervice

fervice of this day contains, on themselves and their neighbours, and to pronounce their own condemnation with their own mouths. Abfurd and thoughtless men! Do they, then, imagine, that if these imprecations are not fanctioned by their own lips, they will be of no avail? From whom do they originally pro ceed? From God himself.

They are the terrors, not of man, but of the Lord.

And do the threatnings of God want the confirmation of man, before they can take effect? Will not the unmerciful, the drunkard, the extortioner, the fornicator, the adulterer, the murderer, the curfer of his father and his mother, will not these, and all the reft of the black catalogue of finners enumerated this day, receive their due punishment hereafter, if you are only fo tender-hearted, and fo indulgent, as not to pronounce their fentence here? Alas! that fentence is already pronounced by their Almighty Judge. It is recorded in the books of Heaven; and though every tongue on earth were filent, nay, though every tongue should join in gloffing over, and even justifying all or of these crimes, that fentence will affuredly be pronounced on all impenitent offenders.

any

[blocks in formation]

Deceive not, then, yourfelves with any fuch vain imagination, as if any thing you could fay, or forbear to say, would alter one iota in the judicial decrees of the Almighty Sovereign of the universe. There is, indeed, one thing that can change them. But that depends

not on you, but on the finner himself. It depends not on what he fays, but on what he does. "When the wicked man turneth away "from his wickedness that he hath commit

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

ted, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall fave his foul alive*." This is the only way of averting those dreadful maledictions you have this day heard denounced; and it is to bring men to this way, to stamp upon their fouls a strong conviction of the danger of fin, and the neceffity of a fpeedy repentance, that our church has thought fit to make use of such strong and impreffive terms. It does not, it must be owned, prophecy smooth things. It does not, in a mortal disease, deceive and flatter the patient with foft and foothing palliatives. It tells him what, in his condition, it is highly fitting he should know, the plain truth in plain words. Ezek. xviii. 27.

It felects, out of Scripture itself, the most awakening admonitions which that facred book contains. It makes ufe of that inspired language which is quick and powerful, and sharper than a two-edged fword, which probes our wounds to the bottom, and reaches the moft fecret maladies of the heart. In fact, almost the whole of the fervice of this day, which has been fo often, and fo unjustly cenfured, is expreffed in the very words of Scripture; and whoever thinks fit either to condemn or to ridicule it, is not condemning the English liturgy, but the word of God.

It

But I am, perhaps, taking up too much of your time in combating this pretended objection to the forms of the day. The real objection, I apprehend, does not lie here. lies much deeper. When so much pains are taken to find fault with words and phrafes taken from holy writ, it creates a strong sufpicion, that all is not as it fhould be in another place. Let us confefs the truth. The fault is not in our Common Prayer-books, but in our hearts. "My brethren, if our hearts "condemn us not, then have we confidence "towards

Z3

« AnteriorContinuar »