Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

Are not these the glad tidings of great joy which are there made known to us? that though we have offended and provoked our Maker, times unnumbered, by our sins, yet if He beholds us truly penitent, and trusting only in our Saviour, for the sake of Him, the Lamb slain for the sins of the world, we shall, freely and entirely, be forgiven. Let all them, therefore, who know that they have been sinners, but now know also, that, with God's grace, they are desiring and striving to amend, take comfort in the sure promises of God, for He is faithful that hath promised. Let them that seek the Lord be joyful and glad in Him.

Finally, my brethren, I beseech you once again to live with those great truths impressed upon your minds, of which the Apostle makes mention in the words from which I have been preaching to you; that at the coming of the day of God this world must be destroyed, but that we Christians look forward to another far happier and better, into which we shall certainly be received, if we be found by Jesus Christ, when

He shall come to judge the world, through penitence, without spot and blameless. Be stedfast, my beloved brethren, be stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.

SERMON XIV.

LUKE xviii. 11, 12, 13, 14.

The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself; God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

In this parable, or story, told us by our blessed Saviour, a most instructive lesson is taught us: a lesson which men have always wanted, and, to all appearance, ever will want, as long as the world shall last. Perhaps there is no fault into which even

L

the best of men are more apt to fall, than that one which this parable was intended to correct, namely, thinking of ourselves too well, and of others too ill and the reason is this, that we judge ourselves by our fellow-creatures, instead of by the commandments of God, contained in the Bible; and not considering whether we are as good as we might and ought to be, we are too readily filled with self-conceit and pride, if we can bring ourselves to believe, as we do very easily, that we are a little better than our neighbours.

It was to prevent and destroy such vain, sinful, and dangerous feelings, that our blessed Saviour spoke the parable which I have taken for my text. He knew what was in man: He knew, as He still knows, the secrets of every heart, and He saw, that, among those who were met together around Him to hear His words, there were some who had not that humbleness and lowliness of mind, which He expects in all his followers some who despised others whilst they trusted in themselves that they were righteous, though by their proud contempt

of their fellow-creatures, they were giving the best proof that they were not so. Το them, (and to such as them amongst christians for ever), He spoke the words of my text, which must have served to make them despise themselves instead of others, by convincing them that self-righteousness is far from being acceptable to God, and that many who are lightly esteemed amongst men, are of the most value in His sight.

Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a pharisee, the other a publican. The Pharisees were a class of people among the Jews, whose whole religion lay in outward forms. They knew nothing, because they felt nothing, of that inward religion of the heart, without which no outward forms can be acceptable with God. To make long prayers in public, to be seen of men in every thing that they did, to fast with mournful countenances, that their fastings might be known and observed, this was what they most thought of and most attended to. They sought the good opinion of the world more than the approval of their own consciences: they loved the praise of

« AnteriorContinuar »