Page images
PDF
EPUB

as it might well be expected that the peculiar blessing of the providence and good spirit of God should attend those who are so rightly employed. The sacred writers often mark out this difference, and the superior wisdom and dignity which it confers upon their character.

How different the man who at all convenient opportunities gives his mind to these lessons of divine truth, that he may there become wise and good, from those who trifle away their time, without thought or acquisition of any thing useful! They seem creatures quite of another species.

To draw to a conclusion.

The secret satisfaction which is felt by the pious mind in the perusal of these sacred volumes, is not easy to be described. Penetrated, as one well speaks, with gratitude in the thought of the divine goodness therein displayed, we feel a present recompense, and cannot refrain from thanking the divine bounty for giving us beforehand such an earnest and foretaste of those joys and consolations, which will be poured out hereafter on those who have profited here by these precepts of heavenly wisdom.

This study will likewise divert our minds

from

from those vain things which inflame our passions, and fill us with a just disgust of, and an earnest desire and endeavour to be delivered from, those selfish desires, and pride, and animosities, which are apt to cleave to us, and disturb our peace. And we shall long for that day, to which night will no more succeed; when we shall be admitted to those mansions, where, without partial remorse or interruption, we shall enjoy the bliss that will arise from the knowledge and assured favour of the best and most perfect Being; and from a benevolent exertion of those powers which he has bestowed upon his creatures for their mutual happiness and perfection.

And may this, this present and future blessedness, which flows from the study of the divine scriptures, and a life led in conformity to them, be the portion of all!

Unto God be glory and praise in all things, and for ever!

PRAYER.

O thou Father of lights, and fountain of all good!

Blessed be thy name and thy goodness for

ever! that thou hast not left us to ourselves, to the light of reason alone, to find our way to thee; but hast graciously revealed thyself, and thy will and ways unto us; and hast appointed holy men, thy servants, to deliver and write down thy truth for our instruction: by which the knowledge of thee, our Creator, and of thy being, has been preserved in the world thou hast made; and we especially, that are now before thee, have been called out of heathen darkness into the marvellous light of thy gospel.

Suffer us not, O Lord our God, at any time to consider this, thy holy revealed truth, as a matter of fine speculation only, to fill us with curious sublime notions concerning thee and thy laws, O thou Most High! but help us evermore seriously to consider it as given by thee to make thy creatures of mankind holy and good, and thereby to fit them for the improvements and felicities of that eternal state of being for which thou hast graciously designed us.

We thank thee, O righteous Father! that when the world through wisdom and vain philosophy had lost the knowledge of thee, then did thy holy gospel, which appeared

[ocr errors]

fool

foolishness unto men vainly wise, spread abroad the knowledge of thee, the only true God and in all times and periods since, where this thy truth and holy word has been searched into, the shades of darkness, idolatry, and superstition, have fled before it.

But do thou be pleased, O Lord, of thy goodness, to make our advances in the knowledge of thy sacred will, to which we shall attain, effectual to produce its genuine work of holiness in the heart and life: for, without this, all our knowledge will be vain.

It hath pleased thee, O Lord, to speak to us in the language of men, which is fluctuating and imperfect, so that labour and diligence is required of us, rightly to understand thy truth.

Make us to love thy testimonies; and fill us with ardent zeal to search the sacred volumes of thy holy word, that we may find the treasures of wisdom that are hidden therein.

But above all things, inspire us with holy and humble dispositions, with a love to thee and thy truth, and a delight in it because thy wisdom will not enter into an evil heart, or dwell in a body given to sin.

Assist us, finally, O heavenly Father, to grow in holiness and in the knowledge of thee, and in the practice of all virtue, till at length we become fitted for the regions of thy glory; and, in thy good appointed time, attain to the perfect unspeakable happiness reserved for thy faithful servants in heaven, and which of thine infinite goodness thou hast promised by Christ Jesus our Lord.

May 9, 1779.

SERMON

« PreviousContinue »