Page images
PDF
EPUB

of religion? No more, my friends, than a drop to the ocean! No more than an indivisible point is to the immensity of space! That holy law, which the Psalmist describes as "exceeding broad," spreads all over performances such as these, and covers and swallows them all up. We must love God, at all times, in all places, and with all the heart. We must fear and serve him, and him only, constantly and for ever. We must glorify him in all our faculties of body and of soul, so that whether we eat, or drink, or whatsoever we do,—even the most common actions of life, such as eating, and drinking, and ministering to our bodily necessities,—all must be done to the glory of God. This is the standard by which we are to decide upon our characters here, and according to which we must be judged in the future world. We cannot alter it if we would; for it is immutable as the eternal throne. Heaven and earth might sooner pass away, than one jot or tittle be taken from this holy law. We may spin out as many theories, and frame as many inventions, as we please; they are all as things of naught, and can never supersede, for a moment, the holy and unchangeable law of God.

Let, then, the man who is living upon his relative and social duties, and superficial observances, and thus laying the flattering unction to his soullet him throw away the false standards of character which he has adopted, take the rule which God has given him, and faithfully apply it. The application may cause him pain and alarm, but let him not shrink back. He must come to this rule sooner or later, and he had better come honestly to it in season. "True," he may say to himself, "I have endeavored to be just and honest in my intercourse with others; I have the reputation of being a good neighbor, and a good member of society; I have even assumed the Christian profession and name;-but is this all that God requires of me? This is all I have to offer;-is it enough? The Divine law, I find, reaches to the heart; and it becomes me carefully to look within, and see what has been passing there. Has the love of God reigned within me; or the love of self and the world? Have I been serving God, or myself? Has it been my habitual, predominating purpose to glorify God, or to promote my own supposed interest and happiness? In all I have done, have I kept God in view, and acted from a regard to his authority and glory? Or have I not often forgotten him, thought little of him, and lived much as though there was no such Being ?"

Let the self-righteous and self-confident deal with themselves after this manner, taking the holy law of God as it stands, and fearlessly and faithfully applying it to their souls; and they cannot long be altogether blinded in respect to their true characters. "The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes ;" and if they take it and use it as they ought, it will, it must enlighten them. They will soon see how the case stands with them. In the great extent of the Divine requirements, reaching to the thoughts, the affections, to all the secret springs of action, and requiring that the love of God move and direct all; the sinner will see the number and extent of his transgressions. He will see ten thousand things to be sin, which he never supposed were sin before. His transgressions will rise up to view one after another, till, like black and gloomy clouds, they completely overwhelm him. He will find them to be, like the stars in the sky, or the sands on the ocean shore, innumerable.

In the inviolable strictness of God's law, and in the awful sanctions by

which it is enforced, he will see that not one of these innumerable transgressions is a trifle. Every sin he has committed is a great sin, imposing a debt which he cannot cancel, imprinting a stain upon the soul which he cannot wash away. What, then, he may well exclaim, is the amount of them all! What the insupportable burthen which they all impose! What the crimson

stains imprinted by them all!

In the perfect purity and propriety of the law of God, the convicted sinner will come at length to see, that his sins are as base and detestable as they are numerous and great. He is not only ruined and lost, but guilty and vile. He cannot now bear a view of his own character. With humbled Job, he begins to "abhor himself, and repent in dust and ashes."

Bring now the Savior before this weeping, trembling, relenting, though almost despairing penitent; let in a ray of light from Calvary upon his dark, and troubled, and tossed soul; and Oh how he will catch it! With what earnestness and gratitude will he greet it! It will be to him as life from the dead! He feels now his need of a Savior-his perishing need; he sees the Savior presented to be just what he needs; and with emotions unutterable he casts himself upon his mighty arm. And can it otherwise be than that the Savior, thus embraced, will be precious to him? precious incomparably beyond all others?

、 The inimitable Cowper relates, that for months after his conversion, he could not speak or bear the name of Jesus without weeping. The very mention of this precious name would at once melt him into a flood of tears. And, my friends, there was no enthusiasm in this. Why should he not weep? And why should not every Christian weep, when he thinks of the dying love of Jesus, and of his own infinite indebtedness to this bleeding love? Why should not every Christian weep, when he thinks from what merited degradation and misery he has been delivered, and to what glorious hopes and prospects he (an unworthy sinner) has been exalted, through the sacrifice. and sufferings of a bleeding Savior?

be

The subject to which we have attended is one of great interest and importance in its application to several classes of persons; and, in the first place, to professing Christians. Would you, my brethren, be engaged, active, growing, useful Christians? Do you desire and pray, that your love may ardent, and your repentance deep, and your faith strong, and your zeal constant, and your hopes substantial? You will then cultivate an intimate and thorough acquaintance with your own hearts. And in order to this, you will look into them often, in the clear light of God's holy law. Remember that

this is your standard; carry it always with you; apply it frequently, and apply it with an unsparing hand. Thus, you will see, and feel, and lament your deficiencies. You will grow in a knowledge of your sins. And growing in this important knowledge, you will grow in every thing which stands connected with it; will grow in humility, grow in penitence, grow in faith, grow in love, and in all the graces and virtues of the Christian. Your course

will thus be triumphant and happy, while you press onward and mount upward in your preparation for eternal rest.

There may be some present who have been aroused from carnal security -in whose minds the slumbers of sin have been broken-but who think that they are not yet sufficiently convinced of sin, and have not that deep and painful sense of it which is necessary, in order to their conversion and salva

tion: This subject, my friends, addresses itself to you. If you need more deep and thorough convictions, you here see how they are to be obtained. Acquaint yourselves fully with the law of God. Study it, think of it, understand it, and measure and judge yourselves by it. "By the law is the knowledge of sin." If you have not yet come to a knowledge of your sins, it is because you have not tried yourselves faithfully, and by the proper standard. You have not yet searched your deceitful hearts to the bottom, and brought home the commandment with light and power. Begin now to deal more faithfully with yourselves. Be willing to know the worst of your case. And humbly implore the Divine Spirit to search you as with candles, and set your sins in order before your eyes.

There may be those present-it would be strange if there were notwhose sins have never given them any trouble, and who feel no concern respecting the future destiny of their souls. They have endeavored to live decently-have never done any thing which they think very criminal-consider themselves as good as their neighbors-and why should they be troubled or afraid? Just so, my friends, the apostle reasoned and comforted himself in his state of blindness and stupidity, while he was " alive without the law." He regarded himself as very moral, very religious; and who had more reason to hope than he? But you will remember, that if Paul had not become an altered man-if he had lived and died in this state of formality, he must inevitably have perished. So he judged himself afterward, and do not think me uncharitable when I say, that unless you become very different persons from what you are at present-unless you wake up to new views respecting your character and wants, you too must perish. For, secure and blinded in your sins, feeling in no need of a Savior, spurning at the offers of his bleeding love, and trusting to the works of your own hands-how can you expect salvation, on the ground of the gospel? How shall you be brought to repentance, while you feel that you have done little or nothing to repent of? And how shall you come to Christ for help, or entreat his mercy, while you do not feel that you need the one or the other? What remains, then, persisting in your present course, but that you must flatter and dream life away, and never awake to the reality of your condition, till you wake up in eternity?

But why persist in the course you are now pursuing? Why not begin to think, reflect, and be wise in season? Why not awake now? Why not take the holy rule which God has given you, apply it to your deceitful hearts, and bring out the result? Such a trial, if faithfully undertaken and accomplished, may terrify and distress you, but it cannot injure you. It may, and it will, destroy all your carnal peace; but this peace must be destroyed, before that peace of God, which passeth all understanding, can be the portion of your souls. It will open your eyes to new views of your character, destiny, and wants, and will lead you to pray, as the beggar did, "Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me." And the moment you utter this prayer in truth and sincerity, that Jesus who had mercy on the imploring beggar will doubtless have mercy upon you. He will wipe away your tears, and wash out your sins, and comfort you with consolations of which the world are ignorant. "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; the statutes of the Lord are right, REJOICING THE HEART."

[blocks in formation]

MEANS OF A REVIVAL OF RELIGIÓN.

AMOS vii. 2.—By whom shall Jacob arise ?—for he is small.

THE prophet Amos, though of humble origin and occupation, was distinguished for the loftiness of his conceptions, and the energy and pointedness of his ministrations. In this chapter he is represented as beholding in vision the judgments of God about to visit the people of Israel. His benevolent spirit was excited, and he earnestly besought the Lord to stay his anger and avert the threatened evils. The text contains the argument of his prayer. If the wasting calamities denounced should come upon Israel and cut off the sources of subsistence, and thus diminish their numbers and weaken their strength, how could the Church recover from its depression, how could the breach be repaired? By whom shall Jacob arise? for he is small? The argument prevailed. The Lord repented him of the evil and delayed the deserved judgments.

The text, independent of its particular application, may be regarded as a question of great interest to churches under trying circumstances. Jacob reThe obvious import of the inquiry is, presents the people of God.

How SHALL A CHURCH THAT IS SMALL, OR IN A LOW STATE, BE BUILt up, REVIVED, RAISED FROM ITS DEPRESSION ?

In furnishing an answer to this question it will be necessary to examine those parts of Church history, inspired and uninspired, which record revivals of religion. In discussing the subject we intend to guard against speculation and theory, and refer only to facts. It ought to be distinctly stated, that the great principle of God's moral government is to be acknowledged, as well in attempting to promote the salvation of others as in working out our own,-that it is God who worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure. For it is as true of three thousand as of a few truly converted, that they are born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God; and after all the well directed and long continued efforts of men to build the Church, it is not by might nor by power, but by the Spirit of the Lord. This should always be mentioned both to chasten pride and to encourage faith. The object aimed at is not merely an increase of numbers, but a revival of pure and undefiled religion. A numerous or a wealthy church is not necessarily an efficient one. Numbers often weaken the moral influence. A revival of religion is a resuscitation of the graces of God's people, connected with the conversion of sinners. Christians then begin to live, for a time, as they ought always to live. What question can possess more interest to a minister or a VOL. VII.-No. 9

up

church, than this, how can the number of deeply pious, devoted servants of Christ be increased?

I. The first step preliminary to every other, is a PREPARATION OF THE SOIL. Thus saith the Lord, break up the fallow ground, and sow not among thorns. Every church, from which the converting influences of the Spirit are withdrawn, must have within it some evils which need to be removed. For the Lord is with a people, while they are with him; if they seek him, he will be found of them, but if they forsake him he will forsake them. When his special presence is withdrawn they have provoked him by their sins. A single Achan may arrest the victories of Zion. The message from Zion's King to such a church is, Cast ye up, cast ye up, prepare the way, take up the stumbling-block out of the way of my people. Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you. If the sin of broken vows, of blood-guiltiness, of worldly conformity, of idolatrous pursuit of wealth or honor, of contention and strife, of alienation of heart among brethren attach to the garments of professors, the evil must be ferreted out and repented of before a blessing can be expected. In many cases the observance of a day of humiliation and prayer in the Church has been followed by happy results. The people of God, humbled for past delinquency, deeply affected to think of the ruin they have been instrumental of bringing upon sinners, by the unchristian examples they have set, the levity and folly of their lives, their remissness in duty, and especially their reluctance to speak to them on the subject of salvation, have openly and publicly made confession before the world, and renewed their covenant before the Lord.

II. As there is a fixed and invariable connexion between the faith and faithfulness of God's people and the conversion of sinners, the Church is next to be urged TO CULTIVATE A SPIRIT OF GRACE AND SUPPLICATION. This is agreeable to the order mentioned in prophecy. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, It shall yet come to pass, that there shall come people and the inhabitants of many cities: and the inhabitants of one city shall go to another, saying, Let us go speedily to pray before the Lord, and to seek the Lord of hosts. And again, I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and supplication. These predictions, it is believed, refer to those seasons under the gospel denominated revivals of religion, when multitudes are gathered into the kingdom of God. The members of the Church individually should be reminded that the success of the cause in a measure depends upon them; they are to aim at more spirituality, more habitual seriousness, more holiness of heart and energy of character.

The grace of supplication is uniformly poured upon the members of Christ's Church previous to an extraordinary visitation of mercy. This point may be illustrated by a reference to facts. This was eminently true of the national reformation under Josiah, when the whole aspect of the Church was changed, and the leaven of piety diffused through the entire mass of the people, when the foundations of many generations were rebuilt, and the worship of Jehovah was restored.

The surprising change effected by the ministry of Ezra, that issued in the renovation of all Israel, was preceded by special humiliation and prayer. Previous to the opening of the windows of heaven to pour out a blessing upon the Jews in the days of Malachi, we are told that they that feared the Lord spake often to one another; they assembled for social worship and united in earnest prayer; and the Lord hearkened and heard it: and a book of remembrance was written before him, for them that feared the Lord and that thought upon his name.

A continued season of prayer was connected with the great revival at Jerusalem. The day of Pentecost was fifty days after the resurrection of Christ. He was with his disciples forty days speaking of the things pertaining to the

« PreviousContinue »