Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

If you would wish to be perfectly happy then: why should you decline this day, this hour, to be made exceeding glad in the light of his countenance, and to have the peace of God reigning in your heart, and keeping your heart and mind? If you are longing for an abundant entrance at death into the everlasting kingdom and joy of your Lord; is there any reason why, in the meantime, you should refuse the first-fruits of the Spirit, and a foretaste of that rest which remains for the people of God? Is there any reason why you should postpone your bliss, and tie yourselves to distraction and misery for another hour?

na.

If there is no cause at all for lengthening out your wretchedness, be persuaded instantly to banish all your doubts and fears; to secure clear and scriptural views of the fulness and freeness of the Gospel, of the compassion, the power, and all-sufficiency of Jesus; of your own right and title by his own word and promise to all the riches of his grace and all the blessings of his salvation. You shall then know your calling and election of God. You shall then be feasted with fat things and fed with hidden manYou shall know the things that are freely given you of God: and though not so high, you shall be as safe, and almost as happy as the spirits of the just made perfect. Can they possess a right of nearer access into his presence, than what you enjoy; who are permitted at all times to approach boldly to his throne; to come near unto him, even unto his seat, and to order all your cause before him? Can they possess a more intimate union with Immanuel, than that which is formed betwixt him and the subjects of his saving mercy, who already are joined to him, and made one spirit? Can they enjoy the protection of a God more powerful, than Him who speaketh, and it is done, who commands and all things stand fast? Can they be blessed with the affection of a more ardent and faithful friend, than him who sticketh closer than a brother? Can they be enriched with the munificence of a benefactor more liberal and kind, than him who spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all? Can they claim a portion more immense, than the

fulness of him who filleth all in all? or an inheritance more comprehensive and inexhaustable than that of being heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ?

The highest around the throne can possess nothing nobler nor better than the presence and the favour of Him in whom all fulness dwells; who wields the universe at will, and is in all, and through all, and over all. Yet if you are Christians, all these inestimable privileges and honours are your own. Can any thing therefore on this side of heaven contribute more to your real dignity and delight, than to clear up your right to the provisions of the everlasting gospel, to realize your interest in the love of God, and live upon your spiritual and eternal portion? If therefore you value real felicity; if you covet solid and Jasting peace, learn the sacred art of living wholly upon the Lord Jesus Christ, and of abiding in the joys and comforts of the Holy Ghost. This will raise your mind above all that is vain, or low, or painful. This will sweeten every trouble, and enhance the value of every blessing. This will fortify you against every danger, and carry you in safety and comfort through every difficulty and trial. This will teach you to rejoice in tribulation, and to glory in the cross. This will enable you to look forward to heaven as your home; and, long before you leave your cottages of clay, give you a specimen of its elevated honours and ineffable enjoyments.

Many things concur to deprive believers of their religious comfort. In the Gospel, however, there is enough to meet every case of spiritual distress and trouble, to relieve you from all your embarrassment and melancholy, and to establish and maintain the most delightful and stable peace and joy.

We shall now consider in detail some of the principal causes of religious distress, and the means by which they may be most effectually met and removed.

3

CHAPTER II.

ON DISTRESS ARISING FROM THE GREATNESS

[ocr errors]

OF SIN.

Why, thus, my soul, with sin opprest?

And whence these woes that fill my breast?

In all thy care, in all thy woes,

On God, thy steadfast hope, repose."

SECURE and hardened sinners give themselves little or no concern about their souls, and the means of laying hold on eternal life. They take pleasure in unrighteousness; roll iniquity like a sweet morsel under their tongue; make a mock at sin, and sport themselves with their own delusions. From their systematic neglect of the Bible, of prayer, of the ordinances of religion; and the pertinacity with which they persevere in habits of ignorance, indolence, and impiety; instead of regarding religion as the one thing needful, they seem to consider it as the only thing that is needless; and instead of believing that there is any exertion necessary to get to heaven, they appear to imagine that the great difficulty lies in getting to hell.

No sooner, however, does the Holy Ghost set home the commandment upon the conscience in its purity and power, than the man obtains clear and impressive ideas of the exceeding sinfulness of sin in general, and of the number and enormity of his own transgressions. He discovers that all unrighteousness is sin, and that the wages of sin is death. He finds that all his righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and that that heart of his, in which he had trusted as generous and good, is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Salvation now becomes the

supreme object of his desire and pursuit. His great solicitude is to be delivered from the wrath to come. His

earnest and unceasing inquiry is, What must I do to be saved? He hears of the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ: but he has lived so long in sin, he has done so much to grieve the Spirit of grace, and provoke the God of glory, that he is terrified lest grace will not reach, lest mercy will not pity, nor the adorable Redeemer, all kind and compassionate as he is, spare a rebel so unworthy, nor extend forgiveness to a criminal so vile and abandoned as he.

If this is the case with any of my readers; think not that I can provide for your relief, or minister to your comfort, by declaiming on the general mercy of God, by palliating the evil of your trespasses, or by extenuating the danger of a carnal and irreligious life. I dare not insult nor deceive you by representing that base and abominable thing as possessed of slight and trifling demerit, which has defaced the image of our Maker on our hearts, unhinged the frame of nature, and brought the Lord of glory to the tortures of the cross. Neither the tongue of men nor of angels can express the turpitude and malignity of sin, nor the horrors of a ruined eternity. And though God is rich in mercy unto all them that call upon him; he is a God of purity. He is glorious in holiness; and will by no means clear the guilty without satisfaction to his justice. Unless, therefore, your transgressions are forgiven, and your sins covered, you are under sentence of condemnation, and exposed to all the power of his anger. And "who knows the power of his anger? Who can dwell with devouring fire? Who can lie down with everlasting burnings?"

To provide for your encouragement and comfort, I must renounce all these false and ruinous delusions, and lay before you more Scriptural and solid grounds of consolation. I must reason with you respecting the power and the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the fulness and freeness of his salvation. And here I may observe that, though there is an exceeding sinfulness in sin, and its just and natural wages are eternal death; though your

:

offences have been infinitely heinous; and, criminal and profligate as others have proved, the number and flagitiousness of your provocations have exceeded: yet if after all you loathe yourselves for your iniquities, and are grieved and heart-broken for your transgressions; if after all you are longing for reconciliation to God through the blood of his Son, and will only come to Christ, and cleave to the atoning efficacy of his death; I can assure you that you have no cause of discouragement, nor any reason for despair.

If you have any ground for considering your case as desperate, this must be, either because you believe that your guilt is too great for the blood of Christ to wash away, or that its magnitude has rendered him unwilling to impart to you the blessings of his salvation. It must be because you suspect that he wants either the ability or the will to save you.

But is there any foundation for either of these awful suspicions?

I. Do you fear that your guilt is absolutely too great for the power and the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ to remove?

Jesus is the Saviour. He is the Mediator betwixt God and man. He was given for a light to the Gentiles, that he might be the salvation of God to the ends of the The Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the

earth. world.

And is Jesus unfit for his office? In selecting a Saviour for the common benefit of our race, did the Father lay our help upon one unequal for the mighty and appalling task? and, while our world was occupied by wretches, covered with the deepest crimes, and polluted with the foulest abominations; did he commit the work of redemption to one unable to bear the iniquities of us all, and incapable of saving every soul that sought his aid? When he lighted up the bright and beauteous sun, within his fair and splendid orb he lodged a plenitude of light and heat sufficient to illumine and to cheer all that live. When he formed the firmament of heaven, and poured

« ForrigeFortsæt »