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they might, at being raised from this depth of error and depravation; at having the true nature of God explained with clearness and proved with certainty, not so much by abstract arguments, as by undoubted miracles, at once establishing the existence, the power, the providence, the pardoning grace and redeeming love of their God.

I am well aware, that these motives of joy and gratitude for the blessings of the Gospel, may seem in this age and in this land inapplicable and weak. Removed far from the period and the scene of those gross absurdities and enormities, the recital of them, in place of rousing those strong emotions which the early Christians felt, scarcely excites our attention: and because we clearly perceive the reasonableness of those truths of natural religion which the Gospel teaches, and the consistency of those expectations which it holds out, we conceive ourselves capable of having originally discovered them, without any divine instruction.

But are there any who think, that however necessary the Gospel may have been to instruct the ignorance of ancient days, or to reform the vices grafted on superstition and idolatry, it has become unimportant and unnecessary in this enlightened and philosophic age-are there any who conceive, that now after the lapse of eighteen hundred years, the lights of reason alone are sufficient to instruct usin religion; and civil government of itself competent to direct and restrain mankind? Let me entreat such men to reflect-have not the very same writers, who have questioned the evidence, denied the necessity, and renounced the authority of the Christian scheme, have not these very men most actively contributed to confound all distinctions of virtue and vice, to sap the foundations of natural religion, and to burst asunder the bonds of civil society? Have they not shaken off the reverence due to the Supreme Being, and doubted or denied a future life, exactly in proportion as they have receded from the belief of true Christianity?

I forbear the dreadful catalogue of the dreadful effects thus produced. But from experience of the principles, which have been thus in various instances substituted for the pure and beneficent religion of the Gospel, and the miseries which have flowed from this substitution, let us be roused to vigilance, and humbled to repentance; lest our neglect of true religion should be

punished by a similar delusion; and our licentiousness be corrected by a similar visitation.* a

Let us then encourage every pious emotion in our minds, which due reflection on that wonderful display of divine mercy we now commemorate, is calculated to excite. On us that Sun of righteousness, which arose with healing on his wings, now shines with full lustre : it has penetrated even here to the ends of the earth. It has dispersed the darkness of error and idolatry, and now continues to guide our feet into the paths of peace. To that glorious event do we owe, that we are not like our ancestors plunged in the depths of superstition; that we are not, even at this moment adoring idols with absurd and polluted, or with cruel and sanguinary rites, instead of being thus assembled by the call of grace and mercy, in this the temple of the Lord of Hosts, to worship him in spirit and in truth, to celebrate his glory with enlightened piety, and offer upon the altar of redeeming love the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving.†

To the coming of the Son of God do we owe the righteous and holy law, which purifies the issues of the heart; which enjoins every virtue that can improve and ennoble the soul, harmonise society, and prepare for heaven. Whether we view the darkness that preceded the introduction, or the miseries that have chastised the neglect and the abuse of this sacred deposit, all alike evince its high utility, and its all-wise, all-merciful original. Every page of classical learning is a comment illustrative of its superiority; and the annals of history from the commencement of the world to this hour, form an experimental and decisive proof of its salutary tendency to produce individual virtue, social peace, and national prosperity.

But above all, and to crown all, it is by the mission and mediation of the Son of God, that we are assured of commiseration for our fallen and wretched state; of a perfect and sufficient atonement for the sins of the whole world; of renewing and sanctifying grace freely offered to all; of unreserved pardon to the penitent; and of unalloyed felicity and eternal glory, to the faithful followers of the meek and holy Jesus. These are the bright revelations which have "called us from darkness to mar

Rev. ii. 5; iii. 15, 16, 17.
Revolution.-ED.

This Sermon was preached soon after the French † Mal. i. 11. Ps. xix. 7, 11. § 1 Pet. ii. 9.

vellous light,"§ which have delivered from the power of the grave, those "who through the fear of death, were all their life time subject to bondage:"* which have cheered the hearts of the disconsolate ones, by the bringing in of a better hope;"t"a hope that maketh not ashamed;"‡ a hope "that worketh by love ;"§ that looks forward to his glorious appearing, "whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." These are the "good tidings" with which he has descended to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound," "to comfort all that mourn," "to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness."T

**

How different, then, is our situation-who can look up to "our Father which is in heaven"-from that of the ignorant and doubting, the perplexed and disconsolate heathen! Do calamities assail us; we know his guardian providence will not suffer a hair of our heads to fall unseen. We are assured, that his chastisements are not the wounds of caprice, or the visitations of wrath, but the trials of virtue, and the means of happiness. Do the objects of our fondest affections sink into the grave-we commit "ashes to ashes, and earth to earth," secure that we shall meet with joy at the resurrection of the just.

Thus does "this dayspring from on high," the sacred light of the Gospel, perpetually direct our steps, and cheer our way. Oh, then, with what gratitude should we commemorate its appearance! With what steady perseverance should we pursue this heavenly guide! With what distrust, and jealousy, and terror, should we regard every thing, which tends to involve us again in the cheerless gloom of infidelity; which would rob virtue of its support, misery of its consolation, and death of its hope!

But above all, with what anxious vigilance should we guard our own steps, conscious that as to us "much is given," so of us "much shall be required;"†† lest the clearness of this heavenly light, instead of conducting us to virtue and to happiness, should only serve to aggravate our guilt, and to ensure our condemnation. Let us all then both individually and nationally, with one heart and one mind turn unto our Lord, and our Redeemer,

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who has so especially favoured these lands, by bringing home to every one of us these "good tidings of great joy," while millions of mankind still "sit in darkness," "being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world :"* nay, while in the greater part even of professing Christendom, "gross darkness" and degrading demoralization, extinguish or obstruct the struggling beams of divine revelation; and while men abandoned to their unruly passions destroy one another, "nation rising against nation, and kingdom against kingdom,"† where there is "distress and perplexity, men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth," and where, nevertheless, they "repent them not of their deeds, but blaspheme the name of God, which hath power over these plagues."§

Let us then praise God "with our lips and also in our lives,” for these our glorious privileges; and while we rejoice in them ourselves, let us use our best endeavours to communicate their blessings to others, both at home and abroad. And let the present unprecedented activity and success in diffusing pure Christianity, encourage us to expect, and excite us to look forward to the happy completion of those glorious prophecies, which direct our glowing hopes to those times of grace and mercy, when the "day-spring from on high" shall burst on every nation, when the fulness of the Gentiles shall embrace the Gospel of Christ, and the hearts of the Jews be again turned to their God; when violence and war shall cease from the land, and "the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea."||

Eph. ii. 12.

St. Luke, xxi. 25, 26.

+ Matt. xxiv. 7.
§ Revelations, xvi. 8, 11. ]
Isaiah, xvi. 9. Hab. ii. 14. Mal. i. 11.

337

SERMON XXXIII.

CHRISTIAN FORBEARANCE.

ROM. XII. 21.

"Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.”

[Epistle for the Third Sunday after Epiphany.]

THIS precept, one of the most important, but at the same time the most difficult in the Christian code, closes an animated exhortation of the apostle, contained in the epistle of this day; the entire of which I shall endeavour to expound; as it illustrates the precept of my text with a clearness, and enforces it with an authority, which no mere human comment can convey.

The apostle, in the preceding part of this epistle to the Roman converts, had pointed out the unspeakable mercy of God in admitting the gentiles into the Church of Christ, in common with the Jews; the great majority of whom, by rejecting the Gospel, forfeited the privileges they had hitherto enjoyed as the chosen people of God. Privileges which were now extended to those heathens whom their overweening pride so entirely despised, that rather than allow such to be equally with themselves partakers of the blessings of the Gospel covenant, they spurned that Gospel itself, and pursued its teachers and professors with inveterate hatred and unceasing persecution. Such conduct had a natural tendency to awaken a spirit of hatred and revenge in the minds of the gentile converts, entirely inconsistent with the genuine temper of Christianity. While there was no less danger that a high degree of spiritual pride might also be excited, by comparing their own state as Christians-received into communion and fellowship with apostles and saints, and martyrs-admitted as heirs of salvation, members of Christ, and sons of Godwith the fall and rejection of the Jewish Church and nation, in whose place they were grafted in.

VOL. IV.

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