LECTURE V. GENERAL MEANS OF PRODUCING AND PROMOTING PHLIPPIANS I. 27. -Striving together for the faith of the gospel. The Apostle uniformly manifested a cordial regard and complacency towards all who loved the Lord Jesus Christ. But there were reasons why the Philippian Christians occupied a higher place in his affections than many others. It was through his instrumentality that they had been converted to the faith of the gospel. They had manifested a faithful adherence to their principles in the midst of much opposition. They seem moreover to have given some special evidences of sympathy and attachment towards him, during his imprisonment at Rome-such as became the relation they sustained to him as his own children in the gospel. Hence it is not strange that he should have honored them with an epistle; or that it should have been characterized by expressions of most affectionate regard, and of the deepest concern for their spiritual welfare. At the date of the epistle, he was still con fined in prison; and it does not appear that the time of his release was then fixed: hence, in exhorting them to fidelity and perseverance, he alludes to the fact that he might or might not make them a visit ; but in either case, he earnestly desires that they may continue stedfastly engaged in the cause to which they were devoted. "Only let your conversation be as becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel." The direction contained in the text may properly be considered as pointing in a general manner to the duty of Christians in relation to a revival of religion. In a preceding discourse, we have contemplated the agency of God in a revival: in the present, we are to contemplate the agency of man; in other words, we are to consider some of the more prominent MEANS in the hands of the church, which the Holy Spirit honors in reviving, and sustaining, and advancing his work. These means may be considered as of two kinds : those which are expressly prescribed by God, and those which are adopted by men professedly in accordance with the spirit of the gospel. In respect to the former, viz. the instituted means of grace-we must suppose that they are fitted to accomplish their end in the best possible manner. He who devised them, made the mind, and is fectly acquainted with all its moral disorders, and per knows by what means it can be best approached, and what kind of instrumentality is most in accordance with its constitution. Unquestionably then, in all our efforts to cure the disorders of the mind, or what is the same thing, to produce or promote a revival of religion, we are to depend chiefly on the means which God himself has appointed; and we are to expect the greatest and best effect from them, when they are used in their greatest simplicity-precisely in the manner in which God designed they should be used. It is possible, no doubt, that a divine institution may be so perverted, that nothing more than the form of it shall be retained; and it is possible that it may be so incumbered with human additions that, though the substance of it may be said in some sense to remain, yet it loses in a great degree its life and power. In opposition to this, we are to retain both the substance and the form of God's institutions: let his word be preached; let his worship be celebrated; let all the appointed means of grace be used, exactly in accordance with his own directions, and then we may expect, with the greatest confidence, that he will honor them with his blessing. But God has not limited his people, in their efforts to advance his cause, to what may properly be called divine institutions: he permits them to adopt means to a certain extent of their own devising; though, in exercising this liberty, they are to take heed that they depart not at all from the spirit of the gospel. In all the departments of benevolent action, the invention of man is, in a greater or less degree, laid under contribution: the great system of moral machinery which has been put in operation in these latter days for evangelizing the world, is to be attributed immediately to the wisdom and energy of the church; and every one knows that this has been crowned with the special favor of God. In the same manner, he permits his children to exercise their own judgment, to a certain extent, in the adoption of measures for carrying forward a revival; and if those measures are in accordance with the general tenor of his word, though not in all cases expressly enjoined by it, they have a right to expect that he will affix to them the seal of his approbation: but if they are contrary to the spirit of the gospel, they must inevitably incur his displeasure. What then are some of the general characteristics of those measures which the Bible authorizes in connection with a revival of religion? The true answer to this question may not only enable us to distinguish between right and wrong measures of man's devising, but also to decide when the instituted means of grace are, or are not, used in a scriptural manner. 1. All the means which God's word authorizes, are characterized by seriousness. It will be admitted, on all hands, that if any subject can be presented to the mind which claims its serious regard, it is religion; or if any occasion ever occurs, in which the semblance of levity is un seasonable and revolting, it is a revival of religion. For then the world, for a season at least, falls into the back ground; and the interests of the soul become the all engrossing object. Then men are letting go the things which are seen and are temporal, and grasping after the things which are not seen and are eternal. The work which is attended to then, is deep reflection, and earnest prayer, and agonizing conviction, and effectual repentance, and the forming of holy resolutions, and the renewing of spiritual strength. Many sinners are coming into the kingdom; and saints, and no doubt angels, are looking on with deep concern lest others should abandon their convictions, and provoke the Spirit to depart from them forever. I may appeal to any of you who have been in the midst of a revival, whether a deep solemnity did not pervade the scene; whether, even if it is your common business to trifle, you were not compelled to be solemn then? And you have wished at such a moment to be gay, have you not felt that that was not the place for it; and that before you could get your mind filled with vain thoughts, and your heart with light emotions, you must withdraw and mingle in some different scene? if Now then, if there be a high degree of solemnity belonging essentially to a revival of religion-if there never be a scene on earth more solemn than this-surely every measure that is adopted in connection with it, ought to partake of the same character. It were worse than preposterous to think |