Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

you do not think it worth your asking for, It is presumptuous, it is impious, to expect the Almighty to bestow on you a blessing, of whose value you clearly prove yourselves insensible. True faith knows well the emptiness, the feebleness, nay, the positive mischief, of all natural and acquired powers, unless the minister of Christ be anointed with the illumination and sanctity of the Spirit of God. True faith knows, that the united prayer of the Church of Christ is that, which can alone draw down the dews of His heavenly blessing. It is, therefore, to the want of faith, that we must ascribe the almost universal neglect of a duty so evident; a duty so manifestly coincident with our interest; so plainly carrying along with it its own reward.

SERMON XIV.

THE DAILY SERVICE.

PART III.

HEBREWS X. 25.

"Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is."

I HAVE already stated the reasons, which have compelled me to regard the neglect of the daily service, as indicative of want of faith, in the power of the word of God, and in the efficacy of prayer.

III. It now remains for me to observe, in the last place; that the neglect of the daily service, is indicative of want of faith in the promises of Christ to his church.

To any attentive reader of the New Testament, it would be wholly incredible,

if the fact were not continually obtruding itself on his notice, that Christians in general should, for a long time, have, to such a degree, lost sight of the nature of their connexion with Christ. The language and sentiments current, for some years back, among religious persons, have gone altogether upon the supposition, that each particular Christian is severally connected with Christ, without any necessary mode of mutual conjunction or dependence among the whole society. Whether the extremely false and mischievous notions upon this subject, that have too long passed unquestioned, may not have been, to say the least, encouraged by various well-intentioned plans and schemes for associating Christians on a platform of unity, broader and more comprehensive than that which any known terms of Church communion could supply, we cannot now inquire. One thing, however, will appear pretty certain, to any calm judging observer of what has been going on for the last forty years; namely, that, if these modern ideas of conciliation and

liberality had been prevalent in the days of the Apostles, the Christian church,—as one society, united in faith, sacraments, and discipline, would never have existed. The "Holy Catholic Church," and the "Communion of Saints," are two of the articles of the Christian faith: articles, to which so few persons latterly appear to have attached any definite meaning or importance, that, had the creed been drawn up in the nineteenth century, it may well be doubted whether we should have found them inserted in it at all.

Christians now-a-days seem to look on themselves merely in their private and personal capacity. True religion is doubtless, in a most important sense, a private and personal matter. Nor can the whole church subsist or flourish in a state of life and healthiness, except just in so far as secret and internal religion are cultivated by particular persons. Yet still, even the most secret and personal acts of private devotion, are not, in the contemplation of Scripture, performed on the supposition of isolation and detachment. Even in the re

tirement of his closet, the child of God approaches the footstool of divine grace, as one of a common family and fraternity. Forgetfulness of this community of interest with his brethren, therefore, is unnatural, and, by consequence, is displeasing to God.

For, indeed, the promises of Holy Scripture are based on this foundation, that there is no such thing in existence, as a spiritual being, who has not a community of interest with the whole family in heaven and earth. The promises are framed, in accordance with the mode in which grace is really conveyed; and not, as seems generally assumed, grace communicated, in accordance with whatever interpretation our fancy or caprice may choose to impose on the promises. Now, every figure in the New Testament, which is used to denote the mode, whereby grace, or holiness, or spiritual life is conveyed, implies, by absolute necessity of construction, that these supernatural blessings,-whether derived mediately through human instruments, or immediately and directly from God, - yet, in the latter case, precisely as much as in

« AnteriorContinuar »