Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

is now conscious of believing, and is sure of being guided by his counsel until he is received to glory.

"And am I chosen," says he, "by eternal love? Am I redeemed by blood and owned as a child? Are all my crimson stains washed out? Am I to reign on an eternal throne, while my companions in sin welter in hell? O grace, grace! O the ocean without a bottom or a shore !"

My brethren, how much calmer, brighter, happier our lives might pass in this communion with Christ and in this assurance of a blessed immortality, than by degenerating into pride and worldliness, filled with darkness and shaken with fears. How much better to be an humble, heavenly minded christian, dead to the world and bearing the cross, whatever mortifications it may bring, than to be a Cæsar in all his glory. Ah how different is religion from nature! How different is the sanctified from the unsanctified part in every feeling, view, motive, and motion !

This knowledge of Christ is most precious.— This to repentance from dead works, is what manhood is to infancy. How many, by frequently laying again the foundation of such repentance, are continued babes. Others get before them and are pressing towards the mark, while they are lagging far behind.

It is the cross of Christ that must crucify a wicked world. That is commonly the best preaching which has the most of Christ in it. Paul in his ministry knew nothing "save Jesus Christ and him crucified." And all preachers are to draw their

most powerful motives, and to draw them often, from the cross of Christ. But they need spiritual discernment to do this skilfully and with effect. Without this they will be in danger of speaking of these high and mysterious things in a manner either awkward and frigid, or light and frivolous. Before the uncovered majesty of these sublime and awful truths, how do the little arts of seizing the passions by loosely and lightly, and I had almost said, profanely, talking of Christ's scars and sighs, bow and flee away! In how unhallowed a manner, O my soul, hast thou treated this infinitely dignified, this holy and heavenly theme! We ought to bow in humble awe before the substance, and not be always playing with the shadows.

By this high priest all the ends of the earth may approach God and be saved. How lamentable that any should spurn the infinite blessing and lie down in everlasting sorrows. How can any think it a privilege to be excused from using this medium in their approach to God? Do they not know that God without Christ is a consuming fire? What a heaven of delight would break upon the soul that should open its eyes upon this glorious Saviour! They who refuse, lose more in the present life than all creation can bestow. I would rather sit at his feet and see his glory, than to reign eternal emperor of this lower world.

"Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the apostle and high priest of our profession." Firmly believe the testimony of God concerning him. Place unwavering

confidence in him; "looking to" him as "the author and finisher of" your "faith." Let his love fill your hearts. "Let" your "mouth be filled with" his "praise and with" his "honor all the day." Devote to him your ransomed lives. "Ye are not your own,-ye are bought with a price." Shrink not from "the reproach of Christ." "For the bodies of those beasts whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burnt without the camp. Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach." "For the joy that was set before him, [he] endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." And it will be no grief of heart to us, when we shall sit down with him on his throne, that we took up the cross and followed him, and became followers of others who through faith and patience inherited the promises. Amen.

SERMON VII.

CHRIST THE RESURRECTION AND LIFE.

JOHN, XI. 25.

Jesus said unto her, I am the Resurrection and the Life: he that be lieveth in me, though he were dead yet shall he live.

There are certain expressions in the Scriptures which seem to contain a sermon in themselves, and cannot be dilated or put into different words without losing much of their fullness and force. Like the bow in the clouds, they display a beauty formed of different shades, which charm the eye more than the shades separately viewed. Hence when we analyze the compound thought, and in a sermon give you the ideas one by one, we do not increase the pleasure of the first impression. The mind turns from the exposition and delights to dwell on the text itself.

Such, I apprehend, is the character of the text which I have just read in your ears. I know not in what manner I can expand it without weakening VOL. II.

13

« AnteriorContinuar »