Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

that God communicates to such men a supernatural witness of the religion they embrace? But we will pursue the subject no farther.

concern.

My dear brethren: In the truths which have now been announced, we have each a personal and an eternal When I look over this audience, and reflect on the diversity of character which it exhibits, when I imagine what a dreadful separation would ensue, were the heavens to ring with the Archangel's trump before you rise from those seats,-I confess my feelings are very solemn. Destined, as I probably am, to meet you no more till the resurrection, what shall I say? How shall I speak to you for the last time? Would to God I could address you all as real Christians. For them every promise in this Bible was written. In their felicity, all the changes of Nature, all the movements of Providence, all the exhibitions of grace, will finally result. Mind it not, then, disciple of Jesus, when the mistaken worldling shall brand you with the charge of credulity. You have here a security against delusion-a witness in yourself which the world can never give, and, thanks be unto God ! can never take away. Believing in Christ, you may rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Lift your eye to the sceptre of mercy, and remember that the first and feeblest exercise of Gospel faith makes your salvation as sure as if you were now in heaven.

But we must change our language. Not to aggravate the misery of the impenitent. Ah, no! that cannot be. Were the sky to open this instant, with its descending Creator, you would see that your case can have no coloring too high. Hear ye not the voice of the Deity, "He that believeth not shall be damned"? O! God of mercy, what a sentence! And yet will you sleep? Have you believed? Where, then, is the witness in yourselves? Can you appeal to the Searcher of Hearts, that you have it? Or rather, can you stand unconcerned on the breaking brink of eternity, and confess you have not? Will you dream along till the thunders of the judgment crash over your heads? Votary of fashion ! lover of wealth! admirer of genius! man of the world!-who has told you that next Sunday you will not be laid in the dust? And yet will you sleep? Go for one hour into the silence and solitude of the closet, compose your feverish mind, ponder on the meaning of immortality, call up before you the glories of heaven, and contrast them with the agonies of final despair. And yet will you sleep? Follow that procession which moves towards the hill of Calvary. Yonder he is, driven on by a shouting infuriated crowd. He reaches the ground faint, and bleeding, and exhausted. Unmoved by his sufferings, the executioners raise him up, and nail him to the Cross. -That was your Saviour. There he hung for three long hours; then the sword of Justice was buried in his heart ;there he expired. Standing on that same Calvary, me. thinks the angel of the everlasting Gospel proclaims this day, in your ears, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved." And yet will you sleep? Can you sleep? Dare you sleep?

May God add his blessing, for Christ's sake. Amen.
July 5, 1817.

SERMON IV.

"We have thought of Thy loving kindness, O God, in the midst of Thy temple."

Psalms, xlviii. 9.

AND where, my hearers, if not in the temple, shall the loving kindness of God awaken and employ our recollections? Where ought the hallelujahs of praise to burst from our lips, if it be not before the mercy-seat, which embodies into one view all the magnificent provisions of Divine grace, and throws over the transientness of this world's pleasures, the high and holy hopes of immortality? I know, indeed, that even here, we may remain unimpressed. The career of thoughtlessness in the human heart is sometimes too impetuous for any place, however awful, or any motives, however affecting to restrain. But, I also know, that if we could rouse ourselves to-day from our lethargy; if we could adapt our feelings at all to the considerations which are presented to inspire them; if we could assemble before us in their native glory, the great and the lofty attributes of the Godhead, and become absorbed by the presiding solemnities of His presence, and lost in the amazing displays of His majesty and grandeur;-if, besides this, we could appreciate the august and imposing character of the present occasion, and the impressive recollections it is suited to recal; if we could look, as now we may look, at a whole nation celebrating the day of its birth-and then see one of its greatest cities suspending the triumphs of the festival, to consecrate to Onnipotence another place for his worship-and then, while we are doing this, compute the immense interest which posterity may

have at stake in the transaction and calculate how much we may now be helping on those mighty instrumentalities by which God himself is pledged to enlighten and enrapture the earth with the exhibitions of his glory;-I say, if with such views we could cluster around the altar of wor. ship, we should feel that our proper business here is one general thanksgiving-and we should lay aside for the time, all the littleness of our worldly wishes, and all the frivolity of our worldly enticements and we should take up the resolution of the text, to think of the loving kindness of God, in the midst of His temple.

I have not hinted at our National Anniversary for the purpose of travelling back to the events which preceded and occasioned it; for I hope, in heaven, the lapse of forty. three years has blotted them from our memories. I would not willingly think, and much less speak, of that gloomy period which palsied the charities of a previous alliance, and unsheathed the sword of war, and laid out for it the work of desolation and blood. But there is one thing, which, at such a time as this, I am compelled to do and that is, to thank my God for the blessings which He has poured so profusely over the land of my birth. I thank Him for the splen. did success, which nearly half a century has shed on the experiment of American Independence. I thank Him for the institutions of that country, where law is but benefi. cence, acting by rule, and comfort one of the necessaries of life. I thank Him for that Government which hangs out the signal of friendship to the exile, and throws around him the moment he touches our shores, the shelter of a free and equal constitution. I would not forego the opportunity, even in the temple, of tendering my gratitude for mercies so high; and yet I know not, but we ought rather to drive out our feelings from all the localities of soil, and rejoice in a consideration still more important;-rejoice, I mean, that the olive branch has so long budded on the spot where once it was blasted, and that between two countries of the same origin, and language, and habits, and reciprocating so many resemblances of character and policy, there is resumed the attitude of amicable relations. It is true, indeed, that, in the progress of events, a cloud has once risen and burst over the cordialities of our peaceful intercourse; but it is gone, and I hope it is forgotten, and I trust it will operate only like a storm in the natural world, to purify the atmosphere through which it passes. The interchange of friendly feeling is once more restored. The basis on which it rested for thirty-six years without interruption, is again established, and it is a call for our warmest thanksgiving, that the little period of contest which has just gone by, is calculated to brighten, rather than obscure, the prospect of future harmony. Nor is this all: The single fact of peace between Great Britain and America is not the only consolation we can claim. There is one still richer engrafted on the union of their efforts in the cause of Christianity. They have both changed their employment. They have turned aside from the arena of conflict, to combine the tremendous strength of their moral resources. They have hidden the sword in its scabbard, and taken up the Bible, to extend and facilitate, and multiply their remaining conquests. And what, let me ask, what is there glorious on earth, if it be not to see two of its greatest and loftiest nations travelling hand-in-hand through the rest, and leaving in their footsteps the blessings of Christian hope, and proclaiming, as they move triumphantly along, the tidings of life and immortality, brought to light in the Gospel?

But apart, my hearers, from these reflections, the great weight of our text falls directly on ourselves. It demands our gratitude, not only in the temple, but for it-for the presiding Providence that has erected these altars, before

« VorigeDoorgaan »