When your hearers are deeply affected with these things (which is feen by the hanging down of their heads), preach Chrift. Lay open the Saviour's almighty power to foften the hard heart, and give it repentance-to bring pardon to the broken heart, a fpirit of prayer to the prayerless heart, holiness to the filthy heart, and faith to the unbelieving heart. Let them know that all the treafures of grace are lodged in Jefus Chrift for the ufe of the poor needy finner, and that he is full of love as well as power-turns no beggars from his gate, but receives all comers kindly-loves to blefs them, and beftows all his bleffings tithe-free. Farmers and country people chop at that. Here you must wave the Gospel flag, and magnify the Saviour fupremely. Speak it with a full mouth, (ore rotundo), that his blood can wash away the fouleft fins, and his grace fubdue the ftouteft corruptions. Exhort the people to feek his grace, to feek it directly, feek it diligently, feek it conftantly, and acquaint them that all who thus feek fhall affuredly find the falvation of God. Never preach in working hours; that would raise a clamour. Where you preach at night, preach alfo in the morning; but be not longer than an hour in the whole morning fervice, and conclude before fix. Morning preaching will show whether the evening took effect, by railing them up early to hear. Expect plain fare and plain lodging where you preach, yet, perhaps, better than your Mafter had. Suffer no treats to be made for you, but live as your host usually lives, else he may grow weary of entertaining you: And go not from house to house*. If the Clergy rail at you where you go, say not a word about it, good or badt. If you dare be zealous for the Lord of Hofts, expect perfecution and threats; but heed them not. Bind the Lord's word to your heart. The promife is doubled for your encouragement‡. The chief blocks in your way will be the prudent Peters, who will beg, intreat, and befeech you to avoid irregularity. Give them the fame anfwer that Chrift gave Peter; they favour of the things which be of men: Heed them not. When you preach at night, go to bed as foon as poffible, that the family be not kept up, and that you may rife early. When breakfast and houfe may be at liberty. Don't dine where you preach, if Morning family prayer are over, go away directly, that the You can avoid it: It will fave expenfe, and please the people. If you would do work for the Lord, as you feem defigned, * Luke, x. 7. Vol. I. Bb † Matt. xv. 14. Matt. xvi. 23. you must venture for the Lord. The Chriftian's motto is, Trust, and go forward, though the fea is before you*. Do then as Paul did, give up thyfelf to the Lord: work, and confer not with flesh and blood, and the Lord be with thee. Dear Brother, J. B. The Mysteries of Revelation, no proof that it is not of God. Great is the mystery of godliness. 1 Tim. xii. 16. GODI ODLINESS is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come:" Hence arifes the divine excellency and infinite importance of true religion. It fecures our interefts in both worlds. And as man it compofed of two parts, MORTAL and IMMORTAL, fo real godlinefs is calculated to promote the welfare of body and foul. It will create a calm in the mind in the midft of the ftorms of life, and speak peace to the troubled confcience. But more especially does it purify and expand the foul, elevate the proftrate affections, and capacitate us to hold communion with the Deity, which is the highest dignity and richest privilege of created beings. Godlinefs has various fignifications. But we are now to confider it as meaning the whole system of the Christian religion; and it may be ftyled godliness, because it teaches us how to worship God aright, and how to walk before him in all holinefs. And the infpired writers probably use this term, in oppofition to the mysteries of the Heathen philofophers (particularly the Pythagoreans and Platonists), whofe fyftem of religion had nothing more than the mere appearance of virtue and morality; for even the wifeft and the best of them were fhamefully deficient in the firft principles of integrity, and even recommended to their difciples fome habits and actions for virtue and duty, which in Scripture are reprefented as vices and fins. But herein does the GosPEL OF CHRIST tranfcend every other system of religion; *Exod. xiv. 15. it is a doctrine according to godlinefs; it is perfectly pure; holinefs runs through every part of its wondrous fcheme. This fyftem of religion the Apostle Paul styles, the GREAT MYSTERY OF GODLINESS. A mystery, in this connexion, fignifies a thing both facred and fecret; and the Gospel of Jefus may, with propriety, be ftyled a mystery for the two following reafons: Because it contains doctrines which could never have been discovered by the light of nature, or unassisted reason. Reafon alone did enable many of the heathens to difcern the degeneracy of the human mind. And they generally agree in this, that man did not come out of the hands of his Creator, in that corrupt ftate, in which they beheld him. But the grand difficulty, which puzzled the learned among them in every age was, UNDE PECCATUM, from whence thofe evils? By what means did man fall from his primæval ftate of purity and felicity? Reafon again taught them to confider the DEITY as omnipotent, pure, juft, and benevolent; therefore, they concluded, very properly, that he would receive the just, the pure, and the upright. But nothing in nature, or unenlightened reafon, could inform them, by what means an offending creature might receive a pardon. Therefore that precious truth, contained in the declaration of the apostle, was an entire secret to them, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin, and muft ever have been hid from them, without the aid of revelation. The resurrection of the body to a state of immortality is a truth which the heathen philofophers knew not; or, if they had any glimmerings of this grand and interesting doctrine, they were indebted to revelation for them, which they derived from tradition. Mr. Gale, in his admirable treatise, ftyled the Court of the Gentiles, has fatisfactorily proved, that every thing amiable and approaching truth, which is found in the heathen mythology, may be traced to that, fource. The Gospel is a revelation of the myfteries, which had been kept fecret from the former ages of the world: The preaching of Jesus Christ was a revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began. So teftifies the fame inspired writer: But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden mystery, which God ordained before the world to our glory↑. * Rom. xvi. 25. ↑ 1 Corin. ii. 7.-Vide also Ephes. iii. 9.; and Colos. i. 25. Again, the Gofpel of Jefus is a mystery, Because the truths it contains are beyond the power of human reason fully to comprehend. If it be granted that man is fallen from his original purity, it will follow that his intellectual powers must have been materially injured; the light of reafon greatly obfcured; the faculties of the human foul contracted. Thus man is not able to form adequate ideas of fpiritual things. The incarnation of the Son of God; the redemption obtained through his blood; the reconciliation of an offended God to guilty man, through the blood of his cross; and the reconciliation of the carnal mind to God, by the Spirit of God; the refurrection of the body, and the re-union of the foul and body, and the everlasting union between Chrift Jefus, as the head, and beleivers as the members of his myftical body: Thefe are myfteries-the deep things of God, which can never be fully comprehended by finite beings. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth; so IS EVERY ONE THAT IS BORN OF THE SPIRIT*. The redemption of a guilty world "outfhines the wonders of the fkies.' It is the product of fovereign love, infinite wisdom, inflexible juftice, omnipotent power, spotlefs purity, and unmerited mercy; there fore we need not wonder that it is myfterious. "Redemption! 'twas creation more fublime! But let it be observed that the Gospel of Christ being a mystery affords no argument against its being divine; because we must on the fame ground difbelieve creation, the exiftence of a GOD, our own exiflence, and a thousand objects of our fenfes. We need not afk, are there myfteries in nature? Yes, there are myfteries all around us! If we look upwards towards the heavens, and furvey that fuperb luminary the fun, which ruleth the day, the moon and stars, which give their light by night, and afk, Whence came they? the reply is, OUT OF NOTHING! How is the mind overwhelmed with the idea! and who will be hold enough to deny it? Look around and beneath, and we behold creatures, in an infinite variety, fwarm through the air, and earth, and fea; and all, all, from the huge Leviathan, to the smallest insect, * John, iii. 8. which eludes the eye, started into life by the FIAT of that dread BEING, who spake and it was done! The keenest philofopher meets a thousand proofs of the weakness of his reason, the fcantinefs of his mind, and the infinite wisdom and power of God. In a multitude of instances his mind is constrained to believe, where reafon cannot comprehend. Therefore the mysteries of Godliness afford no argument against its truth. It ought alfo to be remembered, that as we have a full proof of the divine inspiration of the Bible, we are bound to believe all it contains. That the Bible was writ ten by holy men of God, who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, has been proved by the fulleft evidence. This facred volume has stood the test of friends and foes, and been miraculously preferved through a thousand dangers in every age. And much of the wifdom and the goodness of God appears in giving a revelation of his will to men; for without this ftandard, this touchftone, by which all doctrines are to be tried, we should wander in the mazes of wild conjec- ' ture. Did men pay a greater veneration to the Bible, we fhould not hear of half the errors, which are now fo industrioufly circulated. And it is a prefumptive proof that a caufe is bad, when its advocates are under the neceffity to blot out of their Bibles many paffages, and call in question every verfe which bears teftimony against their favourite hypothefis. Interpolations, and falfe tranflations, are the grand refuge to which the advocates of error constantly fly. But every serious Chriftian will receive the Scripture as an unerring guide in all matters of faith and practice, neither will he pretend to dispute the reality of the doctrines, which he finds are plainly revealed in the oracles of truth, becaufe he cannot fully comprehend them. "We are to use our reafon" (fays the learned Abraham Taylor) "in inquiring after fupernatural truths, and we ought not to receive any thing as truth, which is directly fhocking to right reafon; for it is impoffible that a God of infinite wisdom. fhould reveal a thing which is inconfiftent with the highest reafon : but we have very little acquaintance with ourselves, and know scarce any thing concerning the weakness of our understanding, if we take upon us the freedom to arraign a thing revealed, as contrary to reafon, because the manner of it may perhaps tranfcend our low capacities. There would have been no need of a revelation, had we known all things neceffary for us to know; and it would fcarce have been worthy of God, had it contained nothing but what * 1 Pet. i. 21. |