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unto eternity? Deal plainly with yourselves, Search out and fift your imaginations. Af certain what is that twig of hope to which you are clinging. Bring forth to the teft of fcriptural examination the fecret fupport, be it what it may, which buoys you up with expectations that there fhall at least be a partial remiffion of the doom denounced against guilt. Yea and why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right (e)? Bring it forth to a teft which you behold with more complacent eyes, the teft of reafon. Is it ignorance that you ascribe to the Omniscient? Do you prefume that He, to whom the future is naked as the past, perceives not as yet His own purpofes? From fuch a delufion folly itself turns afide. It is not on fuch a plank that you truft to furvive fhipwreck. Do you then flatter yourself that He with whom there is no variableness nor fhadow of turning, He who is the fame yesterday, and to-day and for ever, will fuddenly exchange ftedfaftness for inconftancy, and abolish His fixed and promulgated decree? You abjure this madness, "If the deftruction," you exclaim, "finner be indisputable until fickleness can "be imputed to the Most High; there re"maineth no refuge from despair." And

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(e) Luke, xii. 57.
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what refuge from despair remaineth to the perfevering finner? Produce your hidden confolation. Disclose the bottom of your heart. Tardy and reluctant as is the confeffion, it is at length extracted. You conceive that the Deity has decreed from the beginning to relax from His threatened judgements: that while, for the purpose of aweing men into righteousness, vengeance arrayed in fiery terrors affumes her feat in the clouds; mercy is at hand to avert the most formidable of her bolts, and to fhield the offender from all but that lighter chaftifement, the fear of which would have been inadequate to the prevention of tranfgreffions. Compare then thy theory, thou who adventurest to theorise concerning the counfels of thy God; compare thy theory with facts. If in the denunciations of future vengeance a part only be intended for accomplishment, while the refidue is empty air: whence is it that paft menaces have been fulfilled to the uttermost? Why was the old world destroyed by the flood? Why were Sodom and Gomorrah, and the incredulous fons-in-law of Lot overwhelmed? Why was Pharaoh cut off? Why did the Egyptian hoft perish to a man? Why was Jerufalem delivered unto Nebuchadnezzar to be uprooted from the foundations? Why was

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the king of Babylon driven out to dwell and eat grafs with oxen? Why were the Jews extirpated by the Romans from their native land? Proceed a ftep farther. Compare thy theory with the attributes of the Godhead. Is not thy God a God of truth and holiness? Yet thou chargeft Him with premeditated falfehood. Doft thou expect His promises to be punctually fulfilled? Why? Because He is faithful and righteous. And do not faithfulness and righteoufnefs equally require the punctual fulfilment of His threatenings? Do not promises and threatenings ftand equally on the word of God? Is not the truth of God equally pledged in both? Is it not equally falfehood to depart from either? ceived. If we believe not, yet God abideth faithful: He cannot deny himself. The wicked fhall be turned into hell; and all the people that forget God. The Son of Man fhall send forth bis angels; and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall caft them into a furnace of fire; there fhall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. These fayings are faithful and true. Thefe are the true fayings of God (f). Confider these things; left judgement and justice

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(f) 2 Tim. ii. 13. Pf. ix. 17. Matth. xiii. 41, 42. Rev. *ix. 9. xxii. 6.

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take hold on you, and there be none to `deliver. Close not your eyes against the warnings of the gofpel. Be convinced that God will bring upon the wicked all the punishment which He has denounced againft them as furely as He will beftow upon the righteous the glories, which Chrift has purchased for them with His blood. Remember the fonsin-law of Lot. Fly from the contagion of guilt: fly from fin, the certain forerunner of deftruction. Life is fet before you. Why will ye die?

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On the Guilt of establishing unfcriptural Principles of Conduct.

ISAIAH, V. 20.

Woe unto them that call Evil Good, and Good Evil; that put Darkness for Light, and Light for Darkness; that put Bitter for Sweet, and Sweet for Bitter!

THE fteps by which error gains posses

fion of the human mind are various. Sometimes it pushes its operations in fecrecy and filence. Sometimes it advances with a bolder aspect; and scarcely disguises its affaults on the bulwarks of truth. At one period it reforts to measures promifing immediate fuccefs. At another, it depends on the flow result of perfevering artifice. Now it afpires not beyond a temporary triumph.

Now

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