Page images
PDF
EPUB

And how is this conscience to be appeased? Will philosophy avail? Will scepticism avail? Will pleasure avail? Miserable comforters are they all: a guilty conscience, like the barbed arrow in the panting sides of the wounded deer, adheres to him wherever he goes, and every attempt to eradicate the fatal shaft only lacerates the wound the more. Am I addressing such a being this evening; and do you ask, with anxious palpitating breast, "How shall I escape the wrath to come?" O, I rejoice that I stand before you with "the glorious Gospel of the blessed God." That very atonement that satisfied the claims of justice, will satisfy the claims of conscience: that very blood that expiated the guilt of sin, will allay the throbbings of an anxious mind. Here is the balm, the vital and all-healing balm, that alone can reach the emergency of your case: all else is but moral empyricism, that mocks the misery it proposes to alleviate, and deepens the wound it proposes to heal. Come to the Cross; come, and by faith apply the precious blood of sprinkling, and you will have peace within and peace above, "a tranquil conscience, and a smiling God;" a peace which, built on a firm foundation, and supported by principle, cannot be shaken by aught that time can develope, or eternity conceal; a peace, which, like the unruffled surface of the lake on a calm summer's evening, is not only tranquil, but reflects on its bosom the very tranquillity of the skies. O, could I but persuade you to come and allay the throbbings of your mind, by the application of this precious blood; then you would feel the truth of the declaration, that it is "the glorious Gospel of the blessed God,"

This Gospel is adapted to man as an immortal being. That it he so, I need not now pause to prove; our sense of right and wrong, our insuppressible forebodings, the apparent disorders that obtain in the moral government of the universe, all combine to fasten on our minds the truth, that we shall be called to a final and definite account-" Apart from which consideration" (to use the language of the finest orator of his day) "our life is a shadow, our very existence itself is a riddle, and the mysterious events that obtain in the world around us, are as incoherent as the leaves which are scattered by the wind."

But what relief can be afforded to the inquiry-whether it be prompted by the moody spirit of unhallowed scepticism, or the trembling anxiety of unsatisfied conscience-Is this soul of mine immortal, or does it die with the body? Is this eye, before which the wide domain of nature lies spread in beautiful perspective, to be for ever quenched in darkness? Is this spirit, that seems like the master spirit of this lower world, that can penetrate the profoundest with the keenness of intuition, and embody the loftiest in the colours of a vivid imagination, to sink into gloom and annihilation, and to be notwithstanding all its mental appliances, as though it never had been? To lull these anxious inquiries-inquiries suggested by the loftiest mind that ever descended on this orb, and to which they found no satisfactory reply-we return an unhesitating answer: "the glorious Gospel of the blessed God." There we learn that our soul is as immortal as the source from whence it came: that it may change the mode of its existence, but that its existence can never close; that it will pass through the valley of the shadow of death, but only to enter its magnificent residence, where it will find objects corresponding to its nature, and commensurate with its duration: and that which pours such a flood on

the eternal destination of man, and not only points out heaven, but bestows the boon, must be "the glorious Gospel of the blessed God.“

It is so, in the last place, because it is adapted to man as an impotent being. For vast and important as are the blessings to which I have adverted, if they were bestowed on conditions with which we could not possibly comply, the exhibition would only serve to mock our misery and enhance our despair; we should only be in the predicament of the wretch of antiquity, who was suspended over a running stream, which, when he attempted to partake of it, rushed from him, and left him more wretched than before. The blessings to which I have adverted, are not more exalted in their nature than free in their disposal; they are without money and without price:; and to be without money and without price is all that is required on your part and mine, in order to receive them as the express gift of heaven. When our first parents were expelled from Paradise, there was an angel with a flaming sword placed to guard the entrance to that Paradise, and to prevent their return. But here is no angel. I recall the expression-there is an angel ; but instead of an angel of justice with its flaming sword, it is the angel of mercy; and a voice is heard on every passing breeze, exclaiming, "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters; and he that hath no money, come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." And do you wonder, brethren, that our feelings are kindled, when we state truths like these? It is an impious calumny; and, whatever might be our feelings, I should blush for myself if I could speak on such a subject, without a desire of speaking thoughts that breathe, and in words that burn, while I proclaim to guilty, rebellious, miserable, dying, immortal beings, "the glorious Gospel of the blessed God."

Thirdly, it is "the glorious Gospel of the blessed God," because IT is DESIGNED TO ACHIEVE ULTIMATELY THE MOST IMPORTANT BLESSINGS TO THE WORLD AT LARGE. The reign of sin and misery is not to exist eternally on this lower world; it is to be brought to a close. Standing on the mount of Scripture prophecy, and looking down the vale of time, we con-" template a scene such as earth saw never; such as angels stoop down to see. The language of beauty and blessedness is employed to depict, as with the colours of heaven, this unearthly scene. The effects of the Saviour's death will flow down the tide of eternity, will increase with the increasing gratitude of successive generations, and be prolonged, even after it has been hymbed over the habitations of this lower world. But what is to produce this change? Will philosophy and civilization accomplish it? The experiment has been tried for four thousand years philosophy had its reign; and it is a wellattested fact, that, at the time in which philosophy shone with its greatest › splendour, in which philosophers themselves were men of the highest repute, and when it was the pride of kings and emperors to patronize them, and raise them to honour-at that very time men were sunk in the depth of moral degradation; sable night spread her canopy over this darkened world, under which the most detestable rites were perpetrated in rapid succession. A by-stander might say, Philosophy, it is true, instructed their minds, and civilization reformed their manners;" but there is nothing that can stop the course of that infernal pit, the pestilence of which continually rises before our

[ocr errors]

view, and produces all monstrous things. But the Gospel will come into our view, and achieve all that, in the praises of which poets sung and martyrs bled. O, what visions of glory-you who love the Saviour, and desire now to encircle his brow with mediatorial glory-what visions of glory rise before our view! In the prospect of those scenes we discover the truth: eternal truth, which has so long laboured through the darkness of an eclipse, shall shine forth in its own splendour; and men will acquire a knowledge of subjects, equally important in their nature, and imperishable in their duration. "Holiness"—consisting in the supreme love of God, and of conformity to his image-will be written on the very bridles of the horses, and mingle with the commerce of the nations. The heart of man-now a fountain from which all fetid streams are perpetually pouring forth-will then give birth to all that is holy in principle, and bland in disposition. The breath of heaven has originated more enlightened systems of civil government than any the world ever discovered. Then, indeed, philosophy shall refine the minds, and civilization reform the manners of mankind : but, above all, the Gospel, under its plastic influence, shall mould this world into such a scene of moral beauty, that the Deity shall again look on it with complacency, and pronounce that all is very good. The love of the Saviour shall warm every heart, and dwell on every tongue-now rising in solitary strains of gratitude, now combining in hymns of praise-till it shall roll through creation, and the very thunder of God awaken the universe to new and rapturous delight: the dwellers in the valleys and on the rocks shout to each other; the distant hills and mountain-tops catch the swelling joy, till nation after nation join in the choir, and earth rolls the rapturous song around. Brethren, these are scenes which we are warranted to contemplate, through the medium of the prophecies of the Gospel; and that which the prophecy announces, the truth shall achieve; and, under the influence of this "glorious Gospel," this new and better order of things shall surely arise.

I must now come to the concluding part of the subject, TO DEDUCE SUCH REMARKS AS ITS NATURE WILL SUGGEST.

First of all-for I shall be very simple and obvious in the inferences I shall draw-I remind you both of the privileges and the obligations with which you are invested who possess this Gospel. May I not take up the language of benediction in this assembly this evening, and say, "Blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. For verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them." You are guilty, and you know the medium of pardon: you are unholy, and you know the medium of sanctification: you are miserable, and you know where to flee for comfort: there is no form of evil to which you are exposed, for which there is not a commensurate remedy in the "glorious Gospel" and you are intrusted with privileges above millions. O, think of them. Your privileges and your obligations keep pace with each other; and to whom much is given, much will be required. What if this evening I were empowered to stand in the midst of the dense population of India or Chinawhat would be the emotion of some broken-hearted wretch if he could have caught the sounds to which perhaps some of you have listened this evening with

unconcern! And what if, still further, I had been commissioned to traverse the hills, and valleys, and plains, of those lands, and pronounce to its wretched inhabitants the invitations of that Gospel to which you have listened: would they not rise from their abodes of wretchedness, and make the very vault of perdition to echo with the song of gratitude and praise? Remember that you possess that, this evening, for which the lost in hell would give millions of worlds. By this Gospel you will be saved: by this Gospel you will be condemned. "Hell," said a pious writer, "is truth seen too late." Be careful, I beseech you, half-hearted, undecided, impenitent, perishing hearers of the Gospel; lest you pluck yourselves, with a suicidal hand, by your own impenitence, from the elevation you now occupy; and sink, like Lucifer, never to rise again.

Secondly, we infer from this subject how pitiable must be the condition of those inhabitants of the earth to whom this Gospel has never been sent! Ignorance there has no guide, misery no asylum, despair no hope; society itself is only a scene of wretchedness, where we behold, in awful combination, all that is ferocious in aggression on the one side, and all that is ineffectual or timid in compliance on the other. But it is to man individually that the situation is most terrible. View that hoary savage. He sees about him the scenes of his youth; his hands are stained with blood; he sinks at once under an accumulated load of crimes and years. He would look to the grave for succour; but alas! all there is dark-the darkness of the shadow of death. See that poor inhabitant of Hindostan. He resorts to the most detestable orgies to allay the throbbings of a guilty conscience: he offers "the fruit of his body for the sin of his soul." And what can meet their case? They are wretched here, and eternity to them is only a dark and dreary scene, where they are mocked with the unreal illusions of a vain imagination, or appalled by the spectres of guilt and sin. What can meet their case? In this fearful condition they are passing on from what is temporal to what is eternal; and, as they vanish from our view, we seem to hear the shout of anguish, or the sullen groan of despair. What can meet their case? Why, brethren, you possess that which will meet their case, which will enlighten their darkness, comfort them in their sorrow, and pour the very radiance of heaven over the valley of the shadow of death.

Now, I would ask, while you behold millions of your fellow beings, allied to you by the common sympathies of nature, perishing in the situation to which I have adverted, and you possess that which will meet the urgency of their case— can you lie down on the bed of repose, and slumber unconcerned and unaffected by the piercing shrieks that arise from the agonized hearts of perishing millions? Remember that he who refuses to extend the key of knowledge to those who are in ignorance is, as Johnson has said, guilty of all the crimes that ignorance may produce; in the same way that he who extinguishes a light-house, would be guilty of the horrors of the shipwreck. You possess the means by which this Gospel may be extended. Institutions have arisen so vast as to embrace empires, and yet so minute as to receive the smallest contribution that may be poured into its treasury. We invite, then, young and old, master and servant, rich and poor, literate and illiterate-we invite you all to link every energy of your nature with the cause, and to devote yourselves, at once, with the firmness of a principle, and the ardour of a passion, to those big and busy enterprises which are designed to tell on the moral destiny of a lost and ruined world.

THE DEATH OF CHRIST THE LIFE OF HIS PEOPLE.

REV. J. CUMMING, A.M.

SCOTCH CHURCH, CROWN COURT, COVENT GARDEN, NOVEMBER 11, 1834*.

"He saved others, himself he cannot save."-MAtt. xxvii. 42.

THERE can be no question that many of the Jews applied the words of the text, either to deride the pretensions of Jesus to the Messiahship of Israel, or to shew that his obvious inability to save himself demonstrated that, after all, his miraculous power was not a match for the resources of the Priests and the Scribes. It may also be admitted that many used the language of the text with emotions of the deepest surprise. We may conceive that some of those on whom he performed most marvellous cures, were standing around the cross, and were penetrated with the deepest amazement, that He who healed them could not heal himself that He who raised others from the grave by a word, could not come down from the cross and rescue himself; and those that had been blind, in all probability, looked up and around, scarcely believing that Christ could have opened their eyes; and they that had been deaf, listened, not sure whether they heard or not; and they that had been halt and maimed, leaped and ran again, scarcely persuaded that vigour and strength had returned to their limbs. These men, the monuments of his mercy and power, felt themselves perfectly puzzled to determine how he could save others, and yet not save himself; how power, without limit, could go forth from him to thousands around him, and no portion of it alight on himself.

Thus while the words of the text were the language of derision and insult, as uttered by some, they were the language of wonder and inexplicable amazement as employed by others. All these erred because they knew not the Scriptures. Isaiah had proclaimed him, in one breath, to be the Everlasting God, the Prince of Peace, the Wonderful, the Counsellor; and, in the next, to be “led as a lamb to the slaughter, and, as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth." He had announced in the one page, that he would open the eyes of the blind, let the prisoner and the oppressed go free, preach the gospel to the poor; and yet declared in the next, that he should be "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” In other words, the pens of the prophets had written, centuries before, that he should save others, and yet not save himself; and, widely as the Scribes and Pharisees that stood by the cross differed from Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and Daniel, in their meaning and intention, they, nevertheless, uttered the echo of their sentiments when they lifted up their voices and cried, "He saved others, himself he cannot save." Thus, from the bitterest enemies of * Preached before the Rev. the Scottish Presbytery of London.

« PreviousContinue »