fought after the gods of the people of Edom, which could not deliver their own people out of thine hand (i)?" How did the King receive the message from God? When the former prophet had delivered his meffage, Amaziah obeyed the command. Did he now humble himself before His Maker? Mark how obftinately his heart was fixed in apoftacy. He charged the prophet with infolent obtrusiveness for daring to reprove him: and ordered him to be filent on pain of punishment. The King faid unto him; "Art thou "made of the King's counfel? Forbear. Why Shouldst thou be fmitten?" Then the prophet, perceiving him not to be reclaimed, pronounced his doom. "I know that God hath determined to destroy thee, because thou haft "done this, and haft not hearkened unto my "counfel." Hence followed the disastrous refidue of his life, and his miferable end. Learn from this example that no former acts of righteousness, no former facrifices of present intereft for confcience-fake, will avail you as an excufe for indulging afterwards in fin. If you would the rewards which are provided through the blood of Chrift for those former acts of righteousness, for those former facrifices; feek the grace of the Holy reap (i) 2 Chron. xxv. 15, 16. Spirit Spirit that you may continue a confiftent and zealous fervant of your God and Redeemer to the end of your life. Truft not in ftrength of your own. How were you turned unto God from your original corruption? Entirely by the renewing influence of His Spirit. How are you to be enabled to perfevere? Entirely by the operation of the fame Sanctifier. But I beseech you, my brethren, that ye receive not his grace in vain. Be not you of the number of those who draw back unto perdition. If any man draw back, My foul, faith the Lord, fhall have no pleasure in him. When I fay to the righteous that he fball furely live; if he trust to his own righteoufnefs and commit iniquity, all his righteousness fhall not be remembered, but for his iniquity that he hath committed he shall die for it. When the righteous turneth away from his righteousness. and committeth iniquity, and doth according to all the abominations that the wicked man dotl i fhall be live? All his righteousness that be hath done fhall not be mentioned: in his trefpafs that he hath trefpassed, and in his fin that be bath finned, in them shall be die (k). (k) 2 Cor. vi. 1. Hebr. x. 38, 39. Ezek. xxxiii. 13. xviii. 24. SER. SERMON X. On CHRISTIAN BOUNTY. DEUT. XV. II. Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy. THE word of God, folicitous, while it commands obedience, to approve its precepts to the understanding, very frequently accompanies the injunction with a brief remark fuggefting the reasonableness of the duty. How manifeft is the obligation to love God, when we are instructed to love Him because He first loved us (a)! How equitable the love of man, when we read that, if God fo loved us, we ought also to love one another (b)! How fatisfactory the argument for universal forgiveness of injuries: Even as Chrift forgave you, fo alfo do ye (c)! How decifive the plea for the reception of (a) 1 John, iv. 19. (8) 1 John, iv. 1I. (c) Col. iii. 13. the the ftranger as a brother: The Lord loveth the ftranger in giving him food and raiment: love ye therefore the ftranger (d). How obvious to the man who feels the truth of the introductory memento, The Lord thy God bleffeth thee (é), is the duty of opening the hand wide to the brethren, to the poor, to the needy ! What then if, for an inftant, we might fufpend the obligation to Christian bounty, in our own cafe, on the truth of that introductory memento as applicable to ourselves? What if, placing out of fight every other paffage in the Scriptures which can be suppofed to bear, either in the way of commandment or of exemplification, upon the duty, we reft the authority of the precept before us as to ourfelves, the authority of the only precept, according to our present af fumption, which prefers a claim to our regard on the fubject of bounty, upon the refult of the enquiry, Has the Lord our God bleffed us? Be it allowed, for a moHas the Lord our ment, there to reft it! God blessed us? Be the enquiry proposed. What is he who fuggefts it? What are they to whom it is fuggefted? My brethren; What are we? We are intelligent beings; beings formed out of nothing; beings in (d) Deut. x. 17-19. (e) Deut. xv. 6. vested vefted with capacities for various kinds and modes of happinefs; beings placed in a world furnished with objets correfponding to these capacities; beings thus created, thus endowed, thus stationed, by the fpontaneous bounty of God. We are rebellious beings, on whom God, of His own free and immeasurable goodness, has had mercy: whom. He has fo loved, that He fent His fon to be the propitiation for our fins, to redeem us by His blood; gave His only begotten Son, that whofoever believeth in Him fhould not perish, but fhould have everlasting life (f). Let us advance to particulars. We have been brought into the world not in the days of ancient obscurity, when the Sun of Righteoufness had not yet arisen to enlighten the gloom, but in the season of His meridian luftre: not in a region yet lying in the shadow of death, overspread with Pagan or Maho metan darkness; not in a land where the beams of the Gospel are dimmed and repelled by the mists of Popish superstition; but in a country where they shine at large, and shine with primeval purity. We are inhabitants, not of a land where defpotifm tramples on the rights of millions, or anarchy levels all things in mifery; but of a ✔) John, iii. 16. 1 John, iv. 1o. Rev. v. 9. realm |