Page images
PDF
EPUB

Christ? An enemy might as well think to deprive a man of his understanding, or his conscience, or any of the faculties of his soul, as of his religion; for religion is nothing else than the impulse, the direction which the soul has received. You may confine a man in a dungeon; you may throw him into chains; you may bring him to the scaffold, or even light the fagots upon his body; but you cannot wrest from hm his religion: that immortal spirit you cannot harm that principle of divine grace in the heart you cannot reach; and you need not wonder if it should mock your impotent efforts, and even neutralize torture, and make him serene and joyful while the flames or the rack are liberating the spirit for its ascension to glory. Read the records of Christian martyrdom, and you will be convinced that I am not supposing an impossibility.

How unlike in this respect is this good part from any thing that is pursued or valued as a portion by the children of the world! Your riches take to themselves wings and they are gone. Your splendid mansions, with all that they contain, burn down at midnight. Your ships laden with the treasures of other lands go down in the dark ocean. The laurels which decorate your brow fall off, and the high ground of honour on which you had stood sinks from beneath your feet, and perhaps a grave is opened in which is buried even your good name. Health too-Oh how it flies before the withering power of disease; and those roses that bloomed with so much verdure and beauty fade; and the countenance grows pale, and the eye deathlike! And even life —life, on which every other earthly good depends-we hold it by so frail a tenure that it can scarcely stand before the touch of an insect. But not so with this blessed portion of the soul. Come poverty, come sickness, come bereavement, and religion will shine out upon those dark scenes, in all her brightness and all her majesty, just as the setting sun tinges with a hue of glory the evening cloud. Come death, that enemy at which nature shudders, and reason justifies the shuddering; come dressed in thy darkest attire, and armed with thy sharpest arrow, and moving as if there were vengeance in thy footsteps,―and religion will look thee in the face and smile: she will not resist, nor desire to resist thee in thy work; for what thou art doing is necessary to the accomplishment of her purposes; but she will protect the spirit whilst thou art exerting thy power upon the body; and then she will open the door of the sepulchre with one hand, and the door of the palace of the King of Glory with the other. Oh, the triumphs, the immortal triumphs of religion! 1. On a review of our subject, we remark, first, that if sinners perish, the blame must be upon themselves. Sinners in this world, when they are pressed with the obligations of religion, not unfrequently put their consciences to sleep by cavils respecting their inability, or the decrees of God; but at the judgment, if not before, they will see that all this was a miserable course of trifling, and that the reason why they are on the left-hand is, that they chose a course which they knew would prevent their being on the right; that the reason why they are not admitted to the joys of eternal life is, that life and death being placed before them, they madly chose death. Does the question arise, why all who are before me are not Christians? With the Bible in my hand, I dare give no other answer than that uncomfortable and condemning one, that it is because you do not choose to be Christians; in other words, you do not choose to yield yourselves to the influences of the Holy Spirit, or to make all the sacrifices which are involved in giving the heart to God. That

you would be willing to live a life of sin, and go to heaven when you die, admits of no question; but to deny all ungodliness and every worldly lust, and engage actively and perseveringly in the service of Christ-this is more than you choose to undertake. Say then, if you perish, where will the blame of your perdition rest, if it do not rest upon yourself? When God says to yöti, "Thou hast destroyed, or art destroying thyself," what hast thou to answer? What answer will you be prepared to give, when that fearful charge shall ring in your ears, in connexion with the irrevocable sentence that dooms you to everlasting burnings?

2. You may gather some light from this subject, in respect to the process of becoming a Christian. It often happens in respect to persons under the awakening influences of God's Spirit, that they are exceedingly perplexed in respect to the course they shall pursue; in respect both to the nature of the desired `change, and the means by which it is to be effected. But if what you have heard be correct, this difficulty must be in a great measure removed. What you have to do is to choose God as the portion of your soul; his service as the employment of your life; his will as the rule of your duty; his glory as the end of your actions. Now I admit that you cannot make this choice unless you really see ground for it; but if you do not see it, remember it is your sin, not your apology. Yield yourself then, I pray you, to solemn reflection on your own wretched condition as a sinner; on the character of God; on the law of God; on the reasonableness of the claims which he makes upon you; on the provision which he offers for your salvation; and in all this cast yourself on the influences of his Spirit, beseeching him to work within you both to will and to do. You see then that religion begins in reflection; and reffection, under a divine influence, leads to that decisive act by which Christ is chosen as the soul's everlasting portion.

3. Finally Happy they who have secured this good part! Only let me be assured that a fellow-mortal is interested in Christ's salvation, and in the estimate which I form of his happiness, I will not ask whether he is a king or a beggar; whether he is clothed in rags, or in purple and fine linen; whether the dark cloud of affliction is hanging over him, or he is rejoicing in the effulgence of earthly prosperity. Because, whether his home be a cabin or a palace, whether his path through the world be planted with thorns or strewed with roses, I know on the authority of Eternal Truth, that ere long he will be a king and a priest unto God, will breathe the air, and rejoice in the beams, and join in the melody, and walk about the golden streets of the heavenly paradise. I know that there will be a crown upon his head, and that his heart will be full of ecstasy, while he casts that crown at his Redeemer's feet, and bows and sings and shouts with holy reverence and seraphic fire. Art thou afflicted then, Christian? Bear it without a word. Art thou poor? No, thou art heir to all the treasures of heaven. Does thy conflict seem sharp and bitter? God thy Redeemer is coming to terminate it quickly, and cause that spirit now struggling with corruption to rise, and soar, and range upon the plains of immortality. Oh is it any wonder that the dying Christian, with heaven in his eye and heaven in his soul, longs to depart? Is it any wonder that it is so often the last office of the faltering tongue to exclaim, "Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly!"

[blocks in formation]

Preached on the Sixtieth Anniversary of his ministry at that place.

THE DOCTRINES ESSENTIAL TO SALVATION.

2 PETER, i. 12, 13, 14, 15.-Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth. Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up, by putting you in remembrance; knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath showed me. Moreover I will endeavor that you may be able, after my decease to have these things always in remembrance.

THIS day is peculiarly interesting, as it completes the sixtieth year of my ministerial labors in this place. Ten years ago I preached my half-century sermon, which was published at your request, and is probably in most of your houses. I now feel it proper to add some things, suggested by my advanced age, and the return of this anniversary. I am now the oldest officiating minister of the gospel in this state, or, as far as I can learn, in the United States. And I cannot learn, from the history of churches in Con ́necticut, that there has ever before been an instance of one of its ministers preaching for sixty years uninterruptedly to the same congregation; nor, during a life of eighty-three years, have I ever met with one who had preached the gospel of the grace of God to one and the same people for so long a period. This, therefore, is a singular instance; and the words selected for my text may be regarded as peculiarly appropriate to the occasion. In them, the apostle Peter informs those whom he addresses, that he was now advanced in age, but that he judged it to be his duty, as long as he continued in the world, to put them in remembrance of the great and essential doctrines of the Christian religion, which he calls "the present truth," as they were then, and always, equally important and necessary. He tells them that he expected VOL. VII.-No. 8.

soon to go the way of all the earth; and that he was anxious that after his decease they might rightly understand and invariably cleave to these essential principles, and never forget or depart from them. Placed in like circumstances, and affectionately desirous of your welfare, I propose in the present discourse,

Concisely to state and explain the essential doctrines of the gospel, and to commend them to your permanent and habitual remembrance.

"Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth." The apostle Peter felt towards the essential doctrines of grace as all the truly pious do. He wished those to whom he wrote rightly to understand them, and to receive them in their hearts. He resolved that as long as he should be permitted to live, he would not cease-would not fail to state and explain and urge them on the conscience. And had these doctrines been always plainly urged, clearly taught, and solemnly presented to mankind, by the successors of St. Peter, the world would have been comparatively free from gross error and religious contention, and the gospel gloriously`triumphant. No preaching can be useful, or acceptable to that God" who will have all men come to the knowledge of the truth," which does not keep these essential doctrines in habitual remembrance. For a minister to neglect them for the indulgence of a fervid imagination, or the pride of learning and philosophy, is to treat with absolute contempt the message with which he is charged.. "Preach the preaching that I bid thee," saith the Lord. These first principles of the oracles of God, Paul denominates "sound doctrine," and "the truth as it is in Jesus." The apostle Peter calls them "the present truth,” and "the sincere milk of the word;" and the apostle Jude, "the faith once delivered to the saints." Our Lord himself calls them "the truth.". Nor shall we be likely to mistake the mind of God, if we have that reverence for his authority which leads us directly, habitually, and prayerfully to his Word, and that love to souls which makes us willing and desirous to urge upon the conscience the known and established truths of God, rather than any original"inventions" or theories of our own. The apostles were not ambitious of novelties: they were not ashamed of the simple gospel with which they were charged-were not ashamed or negligent to put men in remembrance of its principles, though they already knew them, and were "established in the truth."

[ocr errors]

With such examples before me, I now proceed to state and explain what. are the essential truths of the gospel, though they have been exhibited to you a thousand times; for I never preached a sermon to you in which they were not either expressed or implied. “And while I am in this tabernacle, I think it meet to stir you up, by putting you in remembrance of them."

The first which I shall notice, is the fulness and sufficiency of the Scriptures, both as a rule of life and standard of faith. If a merciful and gracious God should condescend to give us a revelation of his mind respecting our salvation, we might safely conclude, from his wisdom and benevolence, that he would give us a full and sufficient one; for a defective one would not answer for man, or be promotive of his own glory. We have, in the holy Scriptures, a perfect and infallible guide in the path of duty, and in the path to glory. Abraham is introduced by our Savior, in a beautiful par

able, as arguing with the rich man, who was lifting up his eyes in torment, in the following manner, in respect to his brethren on earth-"They ha ve Moses and the prophets, let them hear them. And he said, Nay, father Abraham, but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one went from the dead." Our Savior says, "Blessed are they that hear the word of the Lord and keep it." The word of God, then, must be a perfect and infallible directory in the way to eternal life. It contains every doctrine we are to believe, every duty we are to perform, and every ordinance upon which we are to attend. Its very purpose is to build us up in holiness to a blessed immortality. Reason and conscience, or the light of nature, can teach us something of God and of duty, but cannot teach us the essential things of salvation. Natural religion, as far as it goes, is to be obeyed; but it is altogether defective in making known to us the most essential things concerning our salvation. For instance, the light of nature cannot teach us many of the attributes of God, or how he will be worshipped, or whether sin can be forgiven, or whether the soul be immortal, or whether there be a future world, or a Savior, or a day of judgment, or an everlasting heaven, or an eternal hell. But the Bible is explicit on all these points. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. "For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book. And if any man shall take away from the words of the prophecy of this book, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book."

[ocr errors]

Another essential doctrine of the gospel respects the being, attributes, and glory of God, together with the mode of his existence, purity of his laws, and wisdom of his government. All creation proclaims, in a language which none need misunderstand, his being, and many of his attributes. He is the one, living, and true God, in opposition to all idols, which can neither see, nor hear, nor move, nor help. His own word, however, only reveals to us fully his true character, attributes, and glory. He is light, and in him is no darkness at all; the creator, preserver, and benefactor of all worlds. He is also the legislator, disposer, and judge of the universe; possessed of all possible perfections; worthy to be loved, to be feared, to be adored, to be admired, and chosen as a portion by all rational creatures. He may justly and equitably claim from us, on account of the infinite excellence of his nature, all possible expressions of obedience, the warmest affections of our hearts, the highest services of our lives, the sincerest praises of our tongues. Moreover, his Word states to us the peculiar mode of his existence, as ONE God, in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and we never think rightly of him, unless we take into view this his peculiar mode of existence, and contemplate him as the triune God. And as God himself is infinitely glorious, so his law is infinitely just, and his government is infinitely wise and holy.

Another fundamental principle of the Christian religion is the divinity and atonement of Jesus Christ. Christ must be divine in order to be qualified

« PreviousContinue »