be, of pious parents, over whose in-cloth of hair, the worm that dies not, fancy a godly father hath watched, the fire that is not quenched-should and whose young years have been I array against them these terrible guarded by the tender solicitudes of a righteous mother-you may win to yourselves a heritage of shame and confusion, and go down, at the judgment, into the pit of the unbelieving and scornful. Better, infinitely better would it have been, that your parents had seen you coffined and sepulchred, ere as yet ye knew evil from good, than that they should have nursed you, and nurtured you, to swell, in latter days, the ranks of the apostate. Be admonished, by the subject which we have this night discussed, to distrust yourselves, and to depend on a higher teaching than human. Difficulties there are in the Bible: but they ought rather to assure, than make you doubtful of, the divinity of its origin. And if you are assailed with sceptical objections which you are unable to answer, have the candor and modesty to suspect that a straight-forward and sufficient answer there may be, though you have not the penetration to discover it. Lay not the blame on the deficiencies of christianity, when it may possibly lie in the deficiencies of your own information. The argument was never framed against the truth of our religion, which has not been completely taken off, and triumphantly refuted. Hesitate, therefore, before you conclude a sceptic in the right, just because you are not able to prove him in the wrong. We give you this advice, simply and affectionately. We see your danger, and we long for your souls. Bear with us yet a moment. We would not weary you: but speaking on the topic of things hard to be understood," we feel compelled to dwell, at some length, on the sceptieism of the age. I can never dare answer, when I stand up in this holy place, and speak to you on the truths of our religion, that I address not some who throw on these truths habitual contempt, who count christianity the plaything of children, invented by imposture, and cradled in ignorance. And if I knew that even now there were such amongst you; if they were pointed out to me, so that I might stand face to face with the despisers of our Lord-the thunder, the sack things, and turn upon them the battery of the denunciations of God's wrath? Alas, alas, I should have no moral hold on them with all this apparatus of wo and destruction. They might wrap themselves up in their scepticism. They might tell me they had read too much, and learned too much, to be scared by the trickeries of priestcraft: and thus, by denying the authority of Scripture, they would virtually blunt all my weapons of attack, and show themselves invulnerable, because they had made themselves insensible. There is nothing that the minister could do, save that which Elisha the prophet did, when speaking with Hazael: "he settled his countenance steadfastly, until he was ashamed: and the man of God wept." 2 Kings, 8:10. Who could do otherwise than weep over the spectacle of talents, and hopes, and affections, tainted with the leprous spots of moral decay, the spectacle of a blighted immortality, the spectaclea glimpse of which must almost convulse with amazement the glorious ranks of the celestial world-that of a being whom Christ purchased with his blood, whom the Almighty hath invited, yea besought, to have mercy upon himself, turning into jest the messages of the Gospel, denying the divinity of the Lord his Redeemer, or building up, with the shreds and fragments of human reason, a baseless structure, which, like the palace of ice, shall resolve itself suddenly into a tumultuous flood, bearing away the inhabitant, a struggling thing, but a lost? Yea, if I knew there were one amongst you who had surrendered himself to the lies of an ensnaring philosophy, then, although I should feel, that, perhaps even whilst I speak, he is pitying my credulity, or ridiculing my fanaticism, I would not suffer him to depart without calling on the congregation to baptize him, as it were, with their tears; and he should be singled out-oh, not for rebuke, not for contempt, not for anger-but as more deserving to be wept over and wailed over than the poorest child of human calamity, more worthy of the agonies of mortal sympathy than he who eats the bitterest bread of affliction, and in whose ear ring mournfully the sleepless echoes of a funeral bell. Yea, and he should not leave the sanctuary till we had told him, that, though there be in the Bible "things hard to be understood," there is one thing beautifully plain, and touchingly simple: and that is, that "the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin." 1 John, 1: 7. So that it is not yet too late: the blasphemer, the scorner, the infidel-trate myself, it is with deep gladness oh, the fire is not yet falling, and the earth is not yet opening-let him turn unto the Lord, and confess his iniquity, and cry for pardon, and a sweep of joy from the angels' harp-strings shall tell out the astounding fact, that he is no longer a stranger and foreigner, but a fellow-citizen with the saints, and of the household of God. vanquished, minister to our assurance that a wider sphere of being, a nearer vision, and mightier faculties, await us when the second advent of the Lord winds up the dispensation. Thus should the mysteries of the Bible teach us, at one and the same time, our nothingness, and our greatness; producing humility, and animating hope. I bow before these mysteries. I knew that I should find, and I pretend not to remove, them. But whilst I thus pros But we hasten to a conclusion. We again press upon all of you the importance of reading the Bible with prayer. And whilst the consciousness that Scripture contains "things hard to be understood" should bring us to its study in a dependent and humble temper, the thought, that what we know not now we shall know hereafter, should make each difficulty, as we leave it un and exultation of spirit. God would not have hinted the mystery, had he not designed hereafter to explain. And, therefore, are my thoughts on a far-off home, and rich things are around me, and the voices of many harpers, and the shinings of bright constellations, and the clusters of the cherub and the seraph; and a whisper, which seems not of this earth, is circulating through the soul, "Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known." 1 Cor. 13: 12. May God grant unto all of us to be both abased and quickened by those things in the Bible which are "hard to be understood." SERMONS PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE. February, 1836. The Author begs to state that he prints these Sermons in compliance with the wish of many Members of the University. Immediately after their delivery he received an address from the resident Bachelors and Undergraduates, headed by the most distinguished names, and numerously signed, requesting their publication. The same request was also made from other quarters. Under these circumstances the Author felt that he had nothing to do, but to regret that the Sermons were not more deserving of the interest thus kindly manifested, and to commit them at once to the press. CAMBERWELL, March 10, 1836. SERMON I. THE GREATNESS AND CONDESCENSION OF GOD. Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion endureth throughout all generations. The Lord upholdeth all that fall, and lifteth up all those that be bowed down."-Psalm 145 : 13, 14. What we admire in these verses, is their combining the magnificence of unlimited power with the assiduity of unlimited tenderness. It is this combination which men are apt to regard as well-nigh incredible, supposing that a Being so great as God can never concern himself with beings so inconsiderable as themselves. Tell them that God lifteth up those that be bowed down, and they cannot imagine that his kingdom and dominion are unbounded; -or tell them, on the other hand, of the greatness of his empire, and they think it impossible that he should uphold all that fall. If you represent Deity as busied with what they reckon insignificant, the rapid impression is, that he cannot, at the same time, be equally attentive to what is vast; and if you exhibit him as occupied with what is vast, there is a sudden misgiving that the insignificant must escape his observation. And it is of great importance, that men be taught to view in God that combination of properties which is affirmed in our text. It is certain that the greatness of God is often turned into an argument, by which men would bring doubt on the truths of Redemption and Providence. The unmeasured inferiority of man to his Maker is used in proof, that so costly a work as that of Redemption can never have been executed on our behalf; and that so unwearied a watchfulness as that of Providence can never be engaged in our service. Whereas, no reason whatever can be derived from our confessed insignificance, against our being the objects whether of Redemption or of Providence-seeing it is equally characteristic of Deity, to attend to the inconsiderable and to the great, to extend his dominion throughout all generations, and to lift up those that be bowed down. It is on this truth we would employ our present discourse, endeavoring to prove, that human insignificance, as set in contrast with divine greatness, furnishes no argument against the doctrine of our Redemption, and none against that of an universal Providence. Now a man will consider the heavens, the work of God's fingers, the moon and the stars which he hath ordained, and he will perceive that the earth on which we dwell is but the solitary unit of an innumerable multitude. It appears to him as though, if this globe were suddenly annihilated, it would scarcely be missed from the firmament, and leave no felt vacancy in the still crowded fields of the heavens. And if our earth be thus so insignificant an unit that its abstraction would not disturb the splendors and harmonies of the universe, how shall we think that God hath done so wondrous a thing for its inhabitants as to send his own Son to die in their stead? Thus an argument is attempted to be drawn from the insignificance of man to the improbability of Redemption; one verse of our text is set against the other; and the confessed fact, that God's dominion is throughout all generations, is opposed to the alleged fact, that he gave his own Son that he might lift up the fallen. can be nothing fairer than the expectation, that he would provide for our well-being as moral and accountable creatures, with a care at least equal to that exhibited towards us in our natural capacity. So that it is perfectly credible that God would do something on behalf of the fallen; and then the question is, whether any thing less than Redemption through Christ would be of worth and of efficacy? It is certain that we cannot conceive any possible mode, except the revealed mode through the sacrifice of Christ, in which God could be both just and the justifier of sinners. Reckon and reason as we will, we can sketch out no plan by which transgressors might be saved, the divine attributes honored, and yet Christ not have died. So far as we have the power of ascertaining, man must have remained unredeemed, had he not been redeemed through the Incarnation and Crucifixion. And if it be credible that God would effectively interpose on man's behalf; and if the only discoverable method in which he could thus interpose, be that of Redemption through the sacrifice of his Son; what becomes of the alleged incredibility, founded on the greatness of God as contrasted with the insignificance of man? We do not depreciate But it ought at least to be remem- the wonders of the interference. We bered that man was God's workman- will go all lengths in proclaiming it ship, made after his image, and endow- a prodigy which confounds the most ed with powers which fitted him for masterful, and in pronouncing it a myslofty pursuits. The human race may tery whose depths not even angels or may not be insignificant. We know can fathom, that, for the sake of benothing of the orders of intelligence ings inconsiderable as ourselves, there which stretch upwards between our- should have been acted out an arrangeselves and God; and we are therefore ment which brought Godhead into incompetent to decide what place we flesh, and gave up the Creator to ignooccupy in the scale of creation. But miny and death. But the greatness of at the least we know, independently of the wonder furnishes no just ground Revelation, that a magnificent scene for its disbelief. There can be no was appointed for our dwelling; and weight in the reasoning, that because that, when God reared a home for man is so low and God so high, no man, he built it of the sublime and such work can have been wrought as the beautiful, and lavished alike his the Redemption of our race. We are might and his skill on the furniture of certain that we are cared for in our its chambers. No one can survey the temporal capacity; and we conclude, works of nature, and not perceive that therefore, that we cannot have been God has some regard for the children neglected in our eternal. And thenof men, however fallen and polluted finding that, unless redeemed through they may be. And if God manifest a the sacrifice of Christ, there is no supregard for us in temporal things, it posable method of human deliverance must be far from incredible that heit is not the brightness of the moon would do the same in spiritual. There as she travels in her lustre, and it is not the array of stars which are marshalled on the firmament, that shall make us deem it incredible that God would give his Son for our rescue: rather, since moon and stars light up man's home, they shall do nothing but assure us of the Creator's loving-kindness; and thus render it a thing to be believed though still amazing, still stupendous-that He whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and whose dominion endureth throughout all generations, should have made himself to be sin for us, that He might uphold all that fall, and lift up all those that be bowed down. But it is in regard to the doctrine of an universal Providence that men are most ready to raise objections, from the greatness of God as contrasted with their own insignificance. They cannot believe, that he who is so mighty as to rule the heavenly hosts can condescend to notice the wants of the meanest of his creatures; and thus they deny to him the combination of properties asserted in our text, that, whilst possessed of unlimited empire, he sustains the feeble and raises the prostrate. We shall not stay to expose the falseness of an opinion which has sometimes found advocates, that, having created this world, God left it to itself, and bestows no thought on its concerns. But whilst few would hold the opinion in the extent thus announced, many would limit the divine Providence, and thus take from the doctrine its great beauty and comfort. It is easy and common to represent it as incompatible with the confessed grandeur of our Maker, that he should busy himself with the concerns of the poorest of his creatures: but such reasoning betrays ignorance as to what it is in which greatness consists. It may be that, amongst finite beings, it is not easy, and perhaps not possible, that attention to what is minute, or comparatively unimportant, should be com bined with attention to things of vast moment. But we never reckon it an excellence that there is not, or cannot be, this union. On the contrary, we should declare that man at the very summit of true greatness, who proved himself able to unite what had seemed incompatible. If a man, for example, be a great statesman, and the management of a vast empire be delivered into his hands, we can scarcely expect that, amid the multiplicity of mighty affairs which solicit his attention, he should find time for the duties of more ordinary life. We feel that, engrossed with occupations of overwhelming importance, it is hardly possible that he should be assiduous in the instruction of his children, or the inspection of his servants, or the visiting and relieving his distressed fellow-men. But we never feel that his greatness would be diminished, if he were thus assiduous. We are ready, on the contrary, to admit that we should give him, in a higher degree than ever, our respect and admiration, if we knew that, whilst he had his eye on every wheel in the machinery of government, and his comprehensive mind included all that had a bearing on the well-being of the empire, he discharged with exemplary fidelity every relative duty, and entered with as much assiduousness into all that concerned his neighbors and dependents, as though he had not to extend his carefulness over the thousand departments of a complicated system. What would be thought of that man's estimate of greatness, who should reckon it derogatory to the statesman that he thus combined attention to the inconsiderable with attention to the stupendous; and who should count it inconsistent with the loftiness of his station, that, amid duties as arduous as faithfully discharged, he had an ear for the prattle of his children, and an eye for the interests of the friendless, and a heart for the sufferings of the destitute? Would there not be a feeling, mounting almost to veneration, towards the ruler who should prove himself equal to the superintending every concern of an empire, and who could yet give a personal attention to the wants of many of the poorest of its families; and who, whilst gathering within the compass of an ample intelligence every question of foreign and home policy, protecting the commerce, maintaining the honor, and fostering the institutions of the state, could minister tenderly at the bedside of sickness, and hearken patiently to the tale of calamity, and be as active for the widow and the orphan, as though his whole business were to light |