vation by faith, they were not sufficiently apprized of the difference between a servant and a child of God. They did not clearly understand, that even one "who feareth God, and worketh righteousness, is accepted of him." In consequence of this, they were apt to make sad the hearts of those whom God had not made sad. For they frequently asked those who feared God, "Do you know that your sins are forgiven?" And upon their answering, "No," immediately replied, "Then you are a child of the devil." No; that does not follow. It might have been said, (and it is all that can be said with propriety,) "Hitherto you are only a servant, you are not a child of God. You have already great reason to praise God that he has called you to his honourable service. Fear not. Continue crying unto him, and you shall see greater things than these.'” 12. And indeed, unless the servants of God halt by the way, they will receive the adoption of sons. They will receive the faith of the children of God, by his revealing his only begotten Son in their hearts. Thus, the faith of a child is, properly and directly, a divine conviction, whereby every child of God is enabled to testify, "The life that I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." And whosoever hath this, "the Spirit of God witnesseth with his spirit, that he is a child of God." So the apostle writes to the Galatians: "Ye are the sons of God by faith. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father:" that is, giving you a childlike confidence in him, together with a kind affection towards him. This then it is, that (if St. Paul was taught of God, and wrote as he was moved by the Holy Ghost) properly constitutes the difference between a servant of God, and a child of God. "He that believeth" as a child of God, "hath the witness in himself." This the servant hain not. Yet let not man discourage him: rather, lovingly exhort him to expect it every moment! 13. It is easy to observe, that all the sorts of faith which we can conceive, are reducible to one or other of the preceding. But let us covet the best gifts, and follow the most excellent way. There is no reason why you should be satisfied with the faith of a materialist, a heathen, or a deist; nor indeed with that of a servant. I do not know that God requires it at your hands. Indeed, if you have received this, you ought not to cast it away you ought not in any wise to undervalue it, but to be truly thankful for it. Yet in the mean time, beware how you rest here: press on till you receive the Spirit of adoption. Rest not, till that Spirit clearly witnesses with your spirit, that you are a child of God. II. I proceed, in the second place, to draw a few inferences from the preceding observations. 1. And I would first infer, in how dreadful a state, if there be a God, is a materialist! One who denies not only the "Lord that bought him," but also the Lord that made him. "Without faith it is impossible to please God." But it is impossible he should have any faith at all;any conviction of any invisible world; for he believes there is no such thing-any conviction of the being of a God; for a material God is no God at all. For you cannot possibly suppose the sun or skies to be God, any more than you can suppose a god of wood or stone. And farther, whosoever believes all things to be mere matter, must of course believe, that all things are governed by dire necessity! Necessity that is as inexorable as the winds; as ruthless as the rocks; as merciless as the waves that dash upon them, or the poor shipwrecked mariners! Who then shall help thee, thou poor desolate wretch, when thou art most in need of help? Winds, and seas, and rocks, and storms! Such are the best helpers, which the materialists can hope for! 2. Almost equally desperate is the case of the poor deist, how learned, yea, how moral soever he be. For you likewise, though you may not advert to it, are really "without God in the world." See your religion, the "religion of nature, delineated" by the ingenious Mr. Wollaston (whom I remember to have seen when I was at school, attending the public service at the Charterhouse chapel.) Does he found his religion upon God? Nothing less. He founds it upon truth: abstract truth. But does he not by that expression mean God? No: he sets him out of the question; and builds a beautiful castle in the air, without being beholden either to him or his word. See your smooth tongued orator of Glasgow, one of the most pleasing writers of the age! Has he any more to do with God, on his system, than Mr. Wollaston ? Does he deduce his "idea of virtue," from him as the Father of lights, the source of all good? Just the contrary. He not only plans his whole theory without taking the least notice of God, but towards the close of it proposes that question, "Does the having an eye to God in an action, enhance the virtue of it?" He answers, "No; it is so far from this, that if in doing a virtuous, that is, a benevolent action, a man mingles a desire to please God, the more there is of this desire, the less virtue there is in that action." Never before did I meet with either Jew, Turk, or heathen, who so flatly renounced God, as this Christian professor. 3. But with heathens, Mohammedans, and Jews, we have at present nothing to do: only we may wish that their lives did not shame many of us that are called Christians. We have not much more to do with the members of the church of Rome. But we cannot doubt, that many of them, like the excellent archbishop of Cambray, still retain (notwithstanding many mistakes) that faith that worketh by love. And how many of the Protestants enjoy this, whether members of the church, or of other congregations? We have reason to believe a considerable number, both of one and the other, (and, blessed be God, an increasing number,) in every part of the land. 4. Once more. I exhort you that fear God and work righteousness, you that are servants of God, first, flee from all sin, as from the face of a serpent; being, "Quick as the apple of an eye, The slightest touch of sin to feel;" and to work righteousness, to the utmost of the power you now have; to abound in works both of piety and mercy and, secondly, continually to cry to God, that he would reveal his Son in your hearts, to the intent you may be no more servants but sons; having his love shed abroad in your hearts, and walking in "the glorious liberty of the children of God." 5. I exhort you, lastly, who already feel the Spirit of God witnessing with your spirit, that you are the children of God, follow the advice of the apostle: "Walk in all the good works whereunto ye are created in Christ Jesus." And then, "leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, and not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith towards God," go on to perfection. Yea, and when ye have attained a measure of perfect love, when God has circumcised your hearts, and enabled you to love him with all your heart, and with all your soul, think not of resting there. That is impossible. You cannot stand still: you must either rise or fall; rise higher or fall lower. Therefore the voice of God to the children of Israel, to the children of God, is, "Go forward!" "Forgetting the things that are behind, and reaching forward unto those that are before, press on to the mark, for the prize of your high calling of God in Christ Jesus!" SERMON CXII. On God's Vineyard. "What could have been dore more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?" Isa. v, 4. THE vineyard of the Lord, taking the word in its widest sense, may include the whole world. All the inhabitants of the earth, may, in some sense, be called, "the vineyard of the Lord;" "who hath made all nations of men, to dwell on all the face of the earth; that they might seek the Lord, if haply they may feel after him, and find him." But, in a narrower sense, the vineyard of the Lord, may mean, the Christian world; that is, all that name the name of Christ, and profess to obey his word. In a still narrower sense, it may be understood of what is termed, the reformed part of the Christian church. In the narrowest of all, one Inay, by that phrase," the vineyard of the Lord," mean, the body of people commonly called Methodists. In this sense I understand it now, meaning thereby that society only, which began at Oxford, in the year 1729, and remain united at this day. Understanding the word in this sense, I repeat the question which God proposes to the prophet: "What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?" What could God have done more in this his vineyard, (suppose he had designed it should put forth great branches and spread over the earth,) which he hath not done in it; I. With regard to doctrine ? II. With regard to scriptural helps? IV. With regard to outward protection? These things being considered, I would then briefly inquire, "Wherefore, when he looked it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?" a I. 1. First, What could have been done in this his vineyard, which God hath not done in it? What could have been done more with regard to doctrine? From the very beginning, from the time that four young men united together, each of them was homo unius libri; man of one book." God taught them all, to make his "word a lantern unto their feet, and a light in all their paths." They had one, and only one, rule of judgment with regard to all their tempers, words, and actions; namely, the oracles of God. They were one and all determined to be Bible Christians. They were continually reproached for this very thing some terming them, in derision, Bible bigots: others, Bible moths: feeding, they said, upon the Bible, as moths do upon cloth. And indeed, unto this day, it is their constant endeavour to think and speak as the oracles of God. 2. It is true, a learned man, Dr. Trapp, soon after their setting out, gave a very different account of them. "When I saw," said the Doctor, "these two books, 'The Treatise on Christian Perfection,' and The Serious Call to a Holy Life,' I thought these books will certainly do mischief. And so it proved; for presently after up sprung the Methodists. So he (Mr. Law) was their parent." Although this was not entirely true, yet there was some truth in it. All the Methodists carefully read these books, and were greatly profited thereby. Yet they did by no means spring from them, but from the Holy Scriptures ; being "born again," as St. Peter speaks," by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever." 3. Another learned man, the late bishop Warburton, roundly affirms, that, "They were the offspring of Mr. Law and count Zinzendorf together." But this was a greater mistake still. For they had met together several years before they had the least acquaintance with count Zinzendorf, or even knew there was such a person in the world. And when they did know him, although they esteemed him very highly in love, yet they did not dare to follow him one step farther than they were warranted by the Scripture. 4. The book which, next to the Holy Scripture, was of the greatest. use to them, in settling their judgment as to the grand point of justification by faith, was the book of Homilies. They were never clearly convinced, that we are justified by faith alone, till they carefully consulted these, and compared them with the sacred writings, particularly St. Paul's epistle to the Romans. And no minister of the church can, with any decency, oppose these; seeing at his ordination he subscribed to them, in subscribing the thirty-sixth article of the church. 5. It has been frequently observed, that very few were clear in their judgment both with regard to justification and sanctification. Many who have spoken and written admirably well, concerning justification, had no clear conception, nay, were totally ignorant of the doctrine of sanctification. Who has wrote more ably than Martin Luther, on justification by faith alone? And who was more ignorant of the doctrine of sanctification, or more confused in his conceptions of it? In order to be thoroughly convinced of this, of his total ignorance with regard to sanctification, there needs no more than to read over, without prejudice, his celebrated comment on the epistle to the Galatians. On the other hand, how many writers of the Romish church (as Francis Sales and Juan de Castaniza, in particular) have wrote strongly and scripturally on sanctification; who, nevertheless, were entirely unacquainted with the nature of justification? Insomuch that the whole body of their divines at the council of Trent, in their Catechismus ad Parochos, (catechism which every parish priest is to teach his people,) totally confound sanctification and justification together. But it has pleased God to give the Methodists a full and clear knowledge of each, and the wide difference between them. 6. They know, indeed, that at the same time a man is justified, sanctification properly begins. For when he is justified, he is "born. again," ," "born from above," "born of the Spirit :" which, although it is not (as some suppose) the whole process of sanctification, is doubtless the gate of it. Of this, likewise, God has given them a full view. They know, the new birth implies as great a change in the soul, in him that is "born of the Spirit," as was wrought in his body when he was born of a woman: not an outward change only, as from drunkenness to sobriety, from robbery or theft to honesty, (this is the poor, dry, miserable conceit of those that know nothing of real religion,) but an inward change from all unholy, to all holy tempers; from pride, to humility; from passionateness, to meekness; from peevishness and discontent, to patience and resignation: in a word, from an earthly, sensual, devilish mind, to the mind that was in Christ Jesus. 7. It is true, a late very eminent author, in his strange treatise on regeneration, proceeds entirely on the supposition, that it is the whole gradual progress of sanctification. No; it is only the threshold of sanctification; the first entrance upon it. And as, in the natural birth, a man is born at once, and then grows larger and stronger by degrees; so in the spiritual birth, a man is born at once, and then gradually increases in spiritual stature and strength. The new birth, therefore, is the first point of sanctification, which may increase more and more unto the perfect day. 8. It is, then, a great blessing given to this people, that as they do not think or speak of justification, so as to supersede sanctification; so neither do they think or speak of sanctification, so as to supersede justification. They take care to keep each in its own place; laying equal stress on one and the other. They know, God has joined these together, and it is not for man to put them asunder: therefore they maintain, with equal zeal and diligence, the doctrine of free, full, present justification, on the one hand; and of entire sanctification both of heart and life, on the other being as tenacious of inward holiness, as any Mystic; and of outward, as any Pharisee. 9. Who then is a Christian, according to the light which God hath vouchsafed to this people? He that, being "justified by faith, hath peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ;" and, at the same time, is "born again," "born from above," "born of the Spirit;" inwardly changed from the image of the devil, to that " image of God wherein he was created:" he that finds the love of God shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost which is given unto him; and whom this love sweetly constrains to love his neighbour, every man, as himself: he that has learned of his Lord to be meek and lowly in heart, and in every state to be content: he in whom is that whole mind, all those tempers, which were also in Christ Jesus: he that abstains from all appearance of evil, in his actions; and that offends not with his tongue: he that walks in all the commandments of God, and in all his ordinances, blameless he that, in all his intercourse with men, does to others as he would they should do to him; and in his whole life and conversation, whether he eats or drinks, or whatsoever he doeth, doeth all to the glory of God. Now what could God have done more for this his vineyard, which he hath not done in it, with regard to doctrine? We are to inquire, II. Secondly, What could have been done which he hath not done in it, with regard to spiritual helps? |