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SERMON I.

On Hearing of Sermons:

2 TIM. iii. 7.

Ever learning, and never able to come to the Knowledge of the Truth.

A DESCRIPTION equally emphatical and difheartening! But to whom is it applicable? If there were fuch characters in an age painfully emerging from Jewish and Pagan darkness; are there fuch in modern days? If such characters are to be found among the most obscure and mifguided fects; are there fuch in the bofom of the national church? In ancient and in modern times, among fects and in the establishment, of such characters there have been and there are multitudes. Is it poffible? Shall man be ever learning, and never able to attain knowledge? Shall man labour, fhall he labour in the pursuit of re ligious truth, and reap no fruit from his exVOL. IL ertions?

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ertions? The event is poffible and frequent. In vain the husbandman fcatters, the feed, if the foil is not duly prepared to receive it. The foil may be well prepared, and the feed may spring up green among the farrows but it is in yain that you expect aplentiful harveft, if you permit the rifing plants to be fmothered by weeds. Is it rea fonable to imagine that the feed of the Gospel, the feed from which you look for the bread of life, will flourish and arrive to maturity; if you bestow on its cultivation Jefs reflection, lefs folicitude, than are ngccifary for the grain which is to fupport your mortal body? The word of God will in vain be preached unto you, if you be not. difpofed to embrace it. The word of God will in vain be preached unto you, if afterwwards you fuffer it to be overwhelmed by the business or the pleasures of the world. banMy purpose is to endeavour to lead you 139 that frame of mind, with which a Chrifstian ought to confider the difcourfes which •he hears from the pulpit, Let me request • your ferious attention. For on the attention with which you regard the general truths now to be laid before you depends not only the benefit, fuch as it may be, which might be received, under the divine bleffing,

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from the present difcourse: but much also of the advantage to be derived from the future difcourfes, which the minifters of religion may address to you. T、 ji

That you may survey with a comprehen, five eye the extent of your duty, it may be afeful that you should previously turn your thoughts to mine. In the firft place, therefore, I fhall briefly mention the duties of a Chriftian Preacher and fhall then proceed to the duties of a Chriftian Heatersond oft Motterthur wood Dog ti vism

1. Go ye into all the world, laid our Lord to his difciples, and preach the Gospel to Wee unto me, Taid's every creature. Taid St. Paul, if I preach not the Gospel. I determined to know nothing among you, faid the fame Apoftle on another occafion, but Jefus Chrift, and him crucified (a). A Christian preacher is not to fet before the congregation á fyltem of religion in part deviled or modified. by his own fancy. He is not to confider what fpecies of doctrine will prove most agreeable to the natural imaginations of the -heart. He is not to follow the fpeculative Lopimons of the wifest of men; nor to estabJith moral truth and moral duty on the bafis ♫of human authority. He is to look to the gameld suitihedatabas berggaz od ulyim (4) Mark, xvi. 15. 1 Cor. ix. 16. ü. 2.

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vealed Word of God. There is his com miffion to preach: there is the religion which he is to preach. He is to preach the Gofpel. He is to preach Jefus Chrift, and him crucified. He is to unfold the great plan of falvation for fallen man through faith in the atoning blood of a Redeemer. He is to teach the indifpenfable neceffity of the renewal of the heart unto holiness through the fanctification of the Spirit of grace. The corner ftone on which he is to build is Jefus Chrift. On that corner ftone he is to build, not bay and Stubble, but found and precious materials, materials which will endure the trial even of fire; pure and genuine Christianity, the unchangeable doctrines and commandments of the Son of God.

Again; the Chriftian Preacher is to preach the whole of the Gospel. He is to magnify the justice no lefs confpicuoufly than the mercy of Jehovah. He is to proclaim the eternal vengeance referved for the impenitent no less loudly than the glories prepared for the justified fervants of Chrift. He is not to dwell chiefly upon doctrines to the neglect of practice; nor on practice to the difparagement of doctrines. He is to preach true doctrine as the ground-work of holy practice: and to inculcate holy practice

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practice as the fruit of true doctrine. He

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ening the understanding, and alfo of purifying the heart. While he teaches that man is juftified by faith alone, not by the deeds of the law; he is to convince his hearers that their hope will be vain, unless they add to their faith virtue. How fhall the architect raife the palace, unless an immovable foundation fhall firft have been established? But how fhall the pile be completed, if year after year his mind be wholly abforbed in illuftrating and difplaying the foundation? With his plummet and his fquare continually in his hand, he unremittingly proves every part of his work whether it refts on the foundation. To the foundation every apartment, even every ornament, of the ftructure has an ultimate and a difcernible reference. But he fails not to beftow diftinct and due regard on the form, the proportion, and the purpose, of every apartment; on the na ture and the pofition of every ornament. How fhall the preacher, like a wife masterbuilder, edify his hearers into a spiritual. boufe, a living and holy temple in the Lord(b); unlefs he founds it on the appointed rock,

(b) Pet. ii. 5. Cor. iii, 16, 17. Ephef. ii. 21.

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