Oldalképek
PDF
ePub

rule of the Scriptures; or it may prove a most pestiferous wild-fire, and scatter delusions and ruin with its flames. To ask some of these uninformed and unprincipled ones what they believe, puzzles them; and the answer is commonly crude and incoherent. How they feel, or rather how they dream, is their all in all. It is not surprizing, therefore, if ships with such high and wide-spreading sails, dashing on without chart, or compass, or ballast, are often wrecked among the quick-sands of apostasy, or fall to pieces upon the rocks of worldly trials and temptations. If it be meant, however, only to object to a system of doctrines, when merely cold, dry, and speculative; that objection will hold, at least, equally strong against all crude, undigested, unsystematic, doctrines; and perhaps more strongly; because, if these are untrue or misapprehended, as most probably some of them may н 2

be

be upon investigation, it is impossible that they should become experimental; and can, therefore, tend only, through perversion or falsehood, to lead the mind to wild, delusive, and perhaps dangerous, consequences. We are not pleading for airy theories or metaphysical speculations of man's imagination or devising, but for those solid and solemn truths, which God himself hath revealed, and which are reduced into gracious fact and experience, by his own power, in the bosom of every real believer. And if a man may have (as doubtless he may) dry and barren speculations upon the truth itself, rich and fruitful as it is in its own nature; what epithets shall we find for the speculations of error?-But, to return to our principal subject:

§ 50. If any man be in Christ, (said the Apostle,) he is a new creature, a new creation. The old things of the flesh are passed away: the flesh itself,

is crucified with Christ; and all things are become new. He hath new hopes, new cares, new desires. He prays by the Spirit for the Spirit; and, being brought into the new state of adoption as the reconciled child of a heavenly Father, he hath the temper and prospects of such a child, and asks, and delights to ask and live, as becomes. his new condition.* O what pleasant hours

H 3

# "It is the Holy Ghost, and no other thing, that doth quicken the minds of men, stirring up good and godly motions in their hearts, which are agreeable to the will and commandment of God, such as otherwise of their own crooked and perverse nature they could never have. That which is born of the Spirit, is Spirit: As who should say, Man of his own nature is fleshly and carnal, corrupt and naught, sinful and disobedient to God, without any spark of goodness in him, without any virtuous or godly motions, only given to evil thoughts and wicked deeds. As for the works of the Spirit, the fruits of faith, cha

ritable

hours is such a one privileged to enjoy in conversing with his gracious Lord by prayer and praise, by meditation on his holy Word, by faith and hope in his sure and indefectible promises, by love shed abroad in the heart, and in the practice of that true holiness, which, receiving every good and every power to do good from God, returns the praise of having done it, by him and for him, to the heavenly Donor alone! "Surely may such a one say, the Lord hath loved me with an everlasting love; therefore, with loving kindness hath he drawn me, even when I was far from him; and now, having brought me nigh, through the blood of the everlasting Covenant, he will

ritable and godly motions, if he have any at all in him, they proceed only of the Holy Ghost, who is the only worker of our sanctification, and maketh us new men in Christ Jesus." HOм. on

Whit-Sunday,

preserve

preserve me to the end, as much by his unvarying truth as he led me at first by his spontaneous mercy. What

shall I render then unto the Lord for all the benefits which he hath bestowed upon me? I can only render to him by receiving from him. The more I know of his goodness and taste of his bounty, the more am I indebted to his grace. He himself must, and (I doubt not) will, enable me to receive the cup of salvation, and to call upon his holy name, as my Lord and my God!" And, "when the heavens are "rolled together as a scroll, and the "elements melt with fervent heat; "when the earth, with all the inhabi "tants of it, are dissolved; then may 1, and each of my brethren,

66

[ocr errors]

66

say; I have lost nothing: still I can rejoice in the Lord, and joy in "the God of my salvation!"

51. With respect to others; what have these to say? From the corrúp

[blocks in formation]
« ElőzőTovább »