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The third will be such ministers as have been followers of the apostles, even as they also were of Christ. I think I see these ministers, humbled for their faults, convinced of their frailty, imploring the divine mercy for the blemishes of their ministry: but yet with that humble confidence which the compassion of God allows, and saying, behold us, the doctrine we have preached, the minds we have informed, the wanderers we have reclaimed, and with the hearts which we have had the honour of animating with thy love. What, in that great day, what will be your destiny, christian people? Will yours be the hearts, which we shall have animated with divine love, or those from which we never could banish the love of the world? Shall you be among the backsliders, whom we shall have reclaimed, or among such as shall have persisted in sin? Shall yours be the minds we have enlightened, or among those, who shall have lain in darkness and igno

rance?

Ah! My brethren, the first of our wishes, the most affectionate of our prayers, our secret meditations, our public discourses, whatever we undertake, whatever we are we consecrate to prepare you for that great day, What is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? Ye are our glory and joy, 1 Thess. ii. 19, 20. To God be honour and praise for ever and ever. Amen.

VOL. V,

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SERMON

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SERMON XI.

THE DEEP THINGS OF GOD.

ROMANS xi. 33.

O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!

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NE of the principal causes of the depravity of mankind is, that they form mean ideas of God. The idea of the God we adore, and the notion of the morality we ought to practise are two things closely connected together. If we consider God as a being elevated, great and sublime, our morality will be great, sublime and elevated too. If, on the contrary, we consider God as a being, whose designs are narrow, whose power is limited, and whose plans are partial, we shall practise a morality adapted to such an imaginary God.

My brethern, there are two very different ways of forming this sublime idea, which hath such an influence over religion, and morality. The magnificence of God may be understood by what is known of God by the things that are made, by the brilliancy of the sun, by the extent of the firmament, and by all the various creatures which we behold; and judging of the workman by the work, we shall exclaim in sight of so many wonderful works, O Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth! Thou hast set thy glory above the heavens. When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, what is man, that thou art mindful of him? And the son of man that thou visitest him? Rom. i. 19, 20. Psal. lviii. 1, &c.

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But there is another way to know the magnificence of God, a way less accessible indeed, but more noble, and even more plain to the man, the eyes of whose understanding are enlightened, Eph. i. 18. that is, to judge of God not by the things that are scen, but by the things that are not seen, not by what we know, but by what we do not know. In this sublime way the soul loseth itself in a depth of divine magnificence, like the seraphims, covers its face before the majesty of God, and exclaims with the prophet, verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, Isa. xlv. 15. The secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong unto us, and to our children for ever, Deut. xxix. 29. It is on this obscure side, that we propose to shew you the Deity to day.

Darkness will serve us for light, and the impenetrable depth of his decrees will fill our minds with sound and practical knowledge. O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!

In order to enter into the mind of the apostle, it is necessary to observe the subject to which he applies the text, and never to lose sight of the design of this whole epistle. The apostle chiefly proposes to counteract a scandalous schism in the church of Rome. This church was composed of two sorts of christians, some converts from judaism, others from pas ganism. The Jews considered the Gentiles with contempt, as they always had been accustomed to consider foreigners. For their parts, they thought, they had a natural right to all the benefits of the Messiah, because being born Jews, they were the legitimate heirs of Abraham, to whom the promise was made, whereas the Gentiles partook of these benefits only by mere favour. St. Paul attacks this prejudice, proves that Jews and Gentiles, being all alike under sin, had all an equal need of a covenant of grace; that both derived their calling from the mercy of God; that no one was rejected as a Gentile, or admitted as a Jew: but that they only should share the salvation published by the Messiah, who had been elected in the eternal decrees of God. The Jews could not relish such humbling ideas, nor accommodate this doctrine to the prerogatives of their nation; and much less could they admit the system of the apostle on predestination. St. Paul employs the chapter, from which we have taken our text, aud the two chapters before to remove their difficulties. He

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torns himself, so to speak, on every side to elucidate the subject. He reasons, proves, argues: but after he hath heaped proofs upon proofs, reasonings upon reasonings, and solutions upon solutions, he acknowledgeth, in the words of the text, that he glories in falling beneath his subject. In some sense he classes himself with the most ignorant of his readers, allows that he hath not received a sufficient measure of the Spirit of God to enable him to fathom such depths, and he exclaims on the brink of this great profound. O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! The apostle therefore wrote these words of the deep things of God chiefly with a view to the conduct of God with regard to such as he appoints to glory, and such as he leaves in perdition. I grant, were this text to be accuFately discussed, it ought to be considered in regard to these events, and these doctrines: but nothing hinders our examining it in a more extensive view. The apostle lays down a general maxim, and takes occasion from a particular subject to establish an universal truth, that is, that such is the magnificence of God that it absorbs all our thought, and that to attempt to reduce the conduct of God to a level with our frail reason is to be guilty of extreme rashness.

This is what we will endeavour to prove. Come, christians, follow us, and learn to know yourselves, and to feel your insignificance. We are going, by shewing you the Deity in four different views to open to you four great deeps, and to give you four reasons for exclaiming with the apostle, the depth!

The four ways in which God reveals himself to man, are four manners to display his perfections, and at the same time they are four abysses, in which our imperfect reason is lost. These ways are-first an idea of the Deity-secondly of na→ ture--thirdly of providence--and fourthly of revelation: four ways, if I may venture to speak thus, all shining with light, and yet all covered with adorable darkness.

I. The first mirror in which we contemplate God, and at the same time the first abyss in which our imperfect reason is lost, is the idea we have of the divine perfections. This is a path leading to God, a mirror of the Deity. To prove this, it is not necessary to examine how we came by this idea, whether it be natural or acquired, whether we derive

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