You see by what kind of reasoning it is, that I encourage myself to lay my Addresses before you. Try to read them in the same spirit with which they have been written. Oh that I could pour balm into every wound, and comfort every sorrowful breast! My prayer is, that God in mercy may open every blind eye, unstop every deaf ear, subdue every hard, unbelieving heart, scatter with a flood of heavenly light every cloud of unbelief and doubt, and spread, widely, through this jarring world the soothing influence of the gospel of peace! Oh that all nations, kindred, and tongues, would look up as different branches of one great family to their heavenly Father, seeking, next to his glory, each other's welfare, and desiring to promote each other's peace! Now enter on the Addresses of Your friend, OLD HUMPHREY. OLD HUMPHREY'S ADDRESSES. ON SANCTIFIED SORROW. COME, listen to an old man, and let him catechise you. I do not ask if your heart be well bound up, but whether it be well bruised and broken? I do not ask if you have rejoiced for righteousness, but whether you have sorrowed for sin? for sure I am, that hearts well broken by God's holy law, are the easiest bound up by the gospel of Jesus Christ; and that those who have in their souls a godly sorrow for sin, are not far from bursting out into a song of thanksgiving: "Come, and let us return unto the Lord: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up," Hos. vi. 1. B ON A COMFORTABLE HOME. I AM not going to fire a shot from a distance, that may never reach you; I am not about to draw a bow at a venture, where the arrow may miss its mark; but, on the contrary, to come to close quarters, to grapple with you at your own door, and to enter, like a strong man armed, into your habitation. sort of a question, What sort of a home have you? What sort of a home have you? You may think this an odd but I will repeat it: What sort of a home have you ? If it be comfortable, may it ever remain so; and if it be far otherwise, willingly would I tell you how to make it comfortable. It is a miserable thing to have a comfortless home. It is bad for the husband, bad for the wife, and bad for the children. Where the hasty heart, the angry eye, and the clamorous tongue, wage war together, peace is banished from that habitation. |