Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

and garments of everlasting praife for your present spirit of heaviness. This holy grief, as you learn from the context, may be a means of fecuring you against temporal judgements; at any rate, it will fweeten them, and fhall undoubtedly be fucceeded with fulnefs of joy at God's right hand.

But you will remember, that grief for abounding iniquity, if pure and genuine, is always accompanied with vigorous endeavours to reclaim tranfgreffors. This, then, my brethren, is what God demands and expects from you. Let every one in his station contribute his aid for the fuppreffion of vice, and for promoting the interefts of pure and undefiled religion. Let us join hand in hand in this neceffary work and labour of love. Fired with zeal for the glory of God, and fervent charity to the fouls of men, let us not only figh and cry for the abominations that are done in the midst of our land, but do all that we can to prevent the ruin of a finful nation.

Hereby we shall become public bleffings

while we live, and fhall at last, through the mercy of God in Chrift, have an entrance miniftered unto us into that better world, where all tears fhall be wiped away from our eyes, where the inhabitants are altogether unftained, and the joys abfolutely perfect; where, with one heart, and one voice, we shall celebrate the praifes of Zion's King;-afcribing glory and honour, dominion and power, to him that fitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb, for ever and ever. Amen.

SER

39.

SERMON II.

ECCLESIASTES Viii. 11,

Becaufe fentence against an evil work is not executed speedily; therefore the heart of the fons of men is fully fet in them to do

evil.

TH

that

[ocr errors]

Hough God had not favoured us with. an explicit revelation of his will, yet abfolute perfection which reason must attribute to the Supreme Being, would naturally lead us to conclude, that he cannot look upon fin without the greateft abhorrence'; and in confequence thereof, that his impartial justice, and almighty. power, will not always fuffer that abominable thing which he hates, to pass unpunished. Accordingly we find, that the confcience of man, till a long habit of finning hath rendered it callous and infenfible, gives a reluctant affent to the equity of fuch punishment, by that anguish which it raiseth in the finner's mind

upon

[ocr errors]

upon the commiffion of any grofs and heinous tranfgreffion. This made Judas to cry out after his vile treachery, "I have betrayed innocent blood." Nay, fo powerfully was his heart fmitten with a fenfe of the demerit of his crime, that, despairing of pardon, he in a manner anticipated the fentence of condemnation, and became the executioner of Divine justice, by laying violent hands upon himself. And the Apostle Paul teftifies concerning the Gentile world, that even they, by the light of nature, and the dictates of unaffifted reafon, "knew "the judgement of God;" and univerfally acknowledged, with refpect to many acts of atrocious wickedness, "that they who "committed fuch things were worthy of "death."

But the facred records have put this mat

ter beyond all uncertainty. "wrath of God is revealed

There" the from heaven "against all unrighteoufnefs and ungodlinefs of men:" and a curfe is denounced against every one, without exception, "who "continueth not in all things which are "written in the book of the law to do them."

[ocr errors]

So that a fentence is paffed, and stands in force, against every evil work: and the words of Solomon, which I have chofen for the fubject of the following difcourfe, reprefent to us, on the one hand, the marvellous patience of God in fufpending the execution of this righteous fentence ;—and, on the other hand, mens vile abuse of this unmerited goodness. Instead of being led to repentance, they grow bolder in fin; and because fentence against their evil works is not speedily executed, therefore their heart " is fully fet in them to do evil.”

[ocr errors]

66

There is an awful emphafis in the last of thefe expreffions: it denotes the extreme wickednefs that finners may arrive at; not only to commit fin when affaulted with violent temptations, but to make an habitual trade of it; nay, to employ themselves in it with delight. Their heart is so fully fet in them to do evil, that all their faculties bend that way. Thus we read of fome "who drink iniquity like water;"" who "devife mifchief upon their beds, and fet "themselves in a way that is not good;" who put themselves to incredible pains, VOL. II.

nay,

D

and

« ForrigeFortsæt »