Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

days and years enough to furnish you with a thousand future seasons of repentance. To one of these many seasons, far more suitable for the purpose, in your view, than the time present, you concluded to postpone the work; resolving, when the happy period should arrive, to begin it in earnest. Days and years have, through the mercy of God to you, flowed on; but have you found this happy season?

My brethren, the world is filled with those who say to repentance, to faith, to holiness, to Christ, to God, "Go thy way "for this time, and when I have a convenient season I will "call for thee." To procrastinate the business of salvation is the real madness, the crying sin of man. "Procrastination "is the thief," which steals away not only our time, but our hopes, our souls, our all. Ourselves and those around us, however contentious in other things, are agreed wholly in this, that we will delay that which alone ought never for a moment to be delayed. Behold, now," saith the Apostle, "is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation!" "Behold, now," we reply, "is the time of business! Behold, "now is the day of amusement?" But the accepted time, the day of salvation, is to-morrow; a season always one day before us, and never overtaken.

66

Can this conduct, my brethren, be justified? Can it consist with wisdom, with duty, and with common sense? "Hear, "ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see." Is not the attainment of eternal life the only end for which you live? And shall the only end of life be postponed to its close? Judgment and eternity, heaven and hell, hang on this little period. Shall it be wasted in blowing bubbles, in picking straws, in gathering cockle shells? Will you sit down to eat, and to drink, and rise up to play when God is commanding you from heaven "to do what your hand findeth to do with "your might; and declaring, that there is no work, nor device, "nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave whither you go. "When Christ is calling on you to strive to enter in at the "strait gate, and assuring you that strait is the gate, and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life; and that wide is "the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth unto destruction.

66

"Is it a time to bustle, and toy, and trifle, when hell is naked "before you, and destruction hath no covering;" when the door of life is ready to be shut, and the voice of mercy to sound no more for ever?

But when is the work of salvation to be begun? Is it to be begun to-morrow, the next year, or at some distant period? "Boast not yourselves of to-morrow, for you know not what a

66

day may bring forth." Allow, what you have no right to expect, that these promised seasons will all arrive, and find you here. Will you be at all better disposed to begin it then. than now? Why are you now indisposed? Because your hearts are opposed to repentance, and absorbed in the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. At every future period, your opposition to repentance will be stronger, and your absorption in the world and its lusts more entire. "Now, therefore, while it is called to-day, harden not your "hearts as in the provocation."

You, with all men, condemn the procrastination of Felix; but, while you condemn it, you act it over again. Where is he now? What would he give, what would he not give, to have the day return to him, in which Paul preached before him in so faithful a manner? His interest, under this preaching, was the same with yours under the faithful preaching of your own ministers. Procrastination ruined him for ever; continued, it will ruin you. Whenever, therefore, your preacher comes out to address you with independent honesty and sincere affection, and sets your sins and duties, your danger and safety, before you in the strong light of the Gospel; whenever you, at the same time, acknowledging the truth and importance of all his solemn declarations, begin to postpone your obedience and salvation to a future day, let each of you recite to himself, When "Paul reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and "judgment to come, Felix trembled; and answered, 'Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will "call for thee."" Thus he acted and perished. If I act in the same manner, I shall perish also.

66

SERMON XXX.

THE PURITY OF THE MINISTERIAL CHARACTER.

A Sermon preached at the Ordination of the Rev. Moses Stuart, as Pastor of the First Church and Congregation in Newhaven, March 5, 1806.

MATTHEW v. 13.

"Ye are the salt of the earth; but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men."

THESE words are a part of Christ's sermon on the Mount, and immediately follow the Beatitudes. From the place which they hold in this wonderful discourse of our Saviour, it will naturally be supposed that they are of peculiar importance. They are addressed to his disciples, a considerable part of whom were afterwards Apostles, and most, if not all, of the others, were ministers of the Gospel. It is, however, undoubtedly directed to all Christians, and is true of them all; but it is particularly applicable to Ministers of the Gospel, such as most or all of those were, to whom it was immediately addressed, and peculiarly to the Apostles, who were ministers in a higher sense than any others.

To these ministers it is declared by the Redeemer that they

are the salt of the earth. Salt, among the Hebrews, and, it would seem, among several other eastern nations also, was the emblem of purity, wisdom, and perpetuity. The Israelites were directed to offer salt with all their offerings, as a symbol. of the purity of mind with which these offerings were to be made. In Numbers xviii. God gave to Aaron and his sons, by an ordinance for ever, certain offerings presented by the children of Israel, and styled this ordinance a covenant of salt. "Let your speech," says the Apostle to the Colossians, "be always with grace, seasoned with salt," i. e. with wisdom, referring, perhaps, to the pungency with which observations, eminently wise and useful, affect the minds of those who hear them. Salt was also an emblem of several other things which need not now be mentioned.

As the emblem of purity, salt is chosen with singular propriety, on account of the peculiar power which it possesses of preserving all things enclosed in it or impregnated with it in their sweet and natural state, or securing them from corruption and decay. This, however, it accomplishes only when possessed of its proper and perfect nature. This it is capable of losing, and when it is lost, the salt becomes useless. Mr. Maundrell, journeying in the Valley of Salt, about fifteen or twenty miles from Aleppo, broke off a piece of this substance from a small precipice from which the salt was continually taken away by the inhabitants of the neighbouring country. This piece he found, though resembling perfect salt in its appearance, had yet, by exposure to the rain, air, and sun, entirely lost its savour, and speaks of it as being the kind of salt intended by our Saviour in the text.

This savour, or, as it is called by Christ, Mark xi. 50, saltness, is the property which constitutes the only value of salt; for when this is lost, "it is thenceforth good for nothing but "to be cast out and trodden under foot of men." It can no more be employed for human use, and is fit neither for the purposes of seasoning or preserving our food, nor indeed for any of those ends for which it was especially designed.

In the same manner, the purity of ministers is the founda

tion of all their usefulness; all the means of seasoning themselves and others; all the means of rendering themselves and their ministry acceptable and useful to mankind, and preserving themselves and their hearers from corruption and ruin.

The purity of ministers may be advantageously considered as internal, and, in this sense, invisible, except to the eye of God, or as external and visible to their fellow-men, by manifesting itself in the life and conversation. It is my design to consider it particularly in the latter sense. As we can never know the internal character except by its manifestations, so it is plain that it can, in no other manner, have any influence in the affairs of mankind. It must exist in the soul, or it cannot be manifested; it must be manifested, or it will not be useful. The importance, therefore, of this subject commends itself very forcibly, as well as immediately, to the mind, and demands the very serious attention of both ministers and their fellow-men. Ministers cannot but see that, in this sense, they are bound to have salt themselves," according to the command of Christ; their fellow-men cannot but see that they have a right to expect and require it at their hands.

My own views concerning the purity of the ministerial character, in the sense specified, I shall endeavour to express, so far as the present opportunity will conveniently permit, under the following heads:

I. Purity of preaching;

II. Purity of administration; and,

III. Purity of life.

I. Purity of preaching includes the doctrines which are preached, and the manner in which they are preached.

First, Purity of doctrine denotes that the Gospel be faithfully and exactly preached.

If I were asked what I intend by the Gospel in this observation, I should answer, that I intend the following doctrines, and others revealed in that sacred book, which in my view are inseparably connected with these:

« AnteriorContinuar »