laws of God. They argue that they have inherited, through no fault of their own, a proneness to sin; that they have been born with strong passions and appetites, and placed in the midst of the very objects which their desires solicit; and they are disposed to ask, whether it can be quite fair to expect them to be virtuous in spite of all these disadvantages, quite just to condemn them for doing that which, after all, they had scarce the power of avoiding. Well, let them urge their complaint: God is willing to hear; but let them, on their part, give heed to what he will plead in reply. The accusation is this-human nature became corrupt through the transgression of Adam, a transgression in which we had certainly no personal share. As a consequence on this, we come into the world with corrupt propensities, propensities moreover which there is every thing around us to develope and strengthen; and nevertheless we are to be condemned for obeying inclinations which we did not implant, and gratifying passions which are actually a part of our constitution. If we had not inherited a tainted nature, or if we had been, at least, so circumstanced that the incentives to virtue might have been stronger than the temptations to vice, there would have been justice in the expect ing us to live soberly and righteously, and in the punishing us if we turned aside from a path of self-denial. But assuredly, when the case is precisely the reverse, when there has been communicated to us the very strongest tendency to sin, and we have been placed amongst objects which call out that tendency, whilst the motives to withstanding it act at a great comparative disadvantage, it is somewhat hard that we should be required to resist what is natural, and condemned for obeying it-ay, and we think that here, in the presence of the mountains and strong foundations of the earth, we may venture to plead the hardship, seeing that God himself hath said, "Testify against me." But now the accusation must be sifted: it is a controversy which is being carried on; and whatever is urged, either on the one side or on the other, has to be subjected to a rigid inquiry. It is, of course, to be acknowledged, that, as a consequence on the apostacy of our forefather, we receive a deprav ed nature, prone to sin and averse from holiness. It has undoubtedly become natural to us to disobey God, and unnatural, or contrary to nature, to obey him. And we are placed in a world which presents, in rich profusion, the counterpart objects to our strongest desires, and which, soliciting us through the avenues of our senses, has great advantages over another state of being, which must make its appeal exclusively to our faith. All this must be readily admitted: there is no exaggeration, and no misrepresentation. But if this may be said on the side of man, is there nothing to be said on the side of God? Has God made it absolutely unlawful that you should gratify the desires of your nature? is it not rather the immoderate gratification which he denounces as criminal and is it not actually a law of your constitution, that this immoderate gratification defeats itself, so that your choicest pleasures, taken in excess, pall upon the appetite, and produce but disgust? In all accusations which you bring against God, you assume that he requires the surrender of whatsoever constitutes the happiness of beings so conditioned as yourselves: whereas it is susceptible of the fullest demonstration, that the restraints which his laws put on your desires, and the bounds which they set to the indulgence of your wishes, do nothing but prevent these desires and wishes from becoming your tyrants, and therefore your tormentors. And what have you to say against restrictions, which after all are but safeguards for yourselves and your fellow-menrestrictions, the universal submission to which would turn the world into one peaceful and flourishing community, and the setting which at nought is certain to be followed by the worst consequences to individuals and society? It is idle to contend that God requires from you a moderation and selfdenial, which, constituted and circumstanced as you are, it is unjust to expect, when he asks only what you cannot grant without being incalculably benefited; nor refuse, without being as much injured. We are not here speaking, be it observed, of the benefit and injury which are distinctly annexed, as reward and penalty, to the several divine laws; for we could hardly expect you to admit that these bear directly on our argument. We speak of the benefit and injury which follow in the way of natural consequence, and which therefore may be regarded as resulting from the human constitution, rather than from specific enactments of the universal Ruler. And we may confidently assert, that, if there were nothing to be considered but the amount of enjoyment, that man would consult best for himself who should impose such restraints on his desires as God's law prescribes, inasmuch as he would never then become the slave of those desires: unlimited indulgence makes slavery, and slavery misery. And though you may further plead the amazing power of temptation, and the known inability of man to resist the solicitations of the objects of sense, we plainly tell you that herein you exaggerate the strength of an enemy, only that you may apologize for defeat. You speak as if God offered man no assistance, whereas the whole of his revelation is one proffer of such helps as will suffice to secure victory. It is altogether a misrepresentation, to dwell on the vehemence of passions and the energy of solicitations, as though there were nothing to be said on the other side; whilst it is certain that there has been made such provision on our behalf, that he who will seek the appointed aids may make sure of conquest. Add to this, for we have higher ground on which to meet you, that God has not required you to live righteously, without proposing an adequate motive. Estimate at what you will the present sacrifice-though we are persuaded, as we have already stated, that you are asked to surrender nothing which you would be the happier for keeping-but make what estimate you choose of the present sacrifice, you cannot say that God does not offer vastly more than its compensation, in offering eternal life to such as subjugate themselves. Take then the matter under every possible point of view, and we think that you must be cast in the controversy into which you have entered before the mountains and the strong foundations of the earth. You have urged your plea, and now it behoves you to be silent whilst God shall urge his. You have virtually contended that God has done something unjust by placing you in your present condition, and that he has wearied you by imposing on you grievous commands. But hear, if we may venture on so bold an expression, hear his defence. He rises up to plead with you, and these are his words. are I did all which could be done for your forefather Adam, gifting him with high powers, and subjecting him to slight trial. If therefore you have inherited a corrupt nature, it was not through defect in my arrangements for your good. I did what promised most for your advantage, and what you would have thankfully consented to, had you been present when Adam was made your representative. And though, when you had fallen, I might justly have left you to your misery, I determined and effected your redemption, though it could only be achieved through the death of my well-beloved Son. By and through this redemption, I provided for you the means of subduing passions however strong, and withstanding temptations however powerful. And whilst I made it your duty, I made it also, in every sense, your interest, "to live soberly, righteously, and godly in the world." My commandments" not grievous:" "in keeping of them there is great reward." Nothing is forbidden, which, if permitted, would make you happier; nothing enjoined which could be dispensed with without injury. The ways in which I require you to walk are ways of pleasantness" and peace; and they terminate, in a happiness which would be incalculably more than a compensation, even if the path lay through unvaried wretchedness. Where then is the justice of your complaint, or rather of your accusation? O it is thus that God may expose the hollowness and falsehood of all that reasoning, by which those who love sin would prove themselves excusable in yielding to its power. I hear him appeal to the mountains and the hills, as though these were more likely than the stony heart of man to answer him with truth. And when he has shown how much he hath done for man, what provisions he has made for his resisting and overcoming evil, what present and future recompenses are annexed to the keeping his commandments, I seem to hear the mountains and the hills giving forth their loud verdict-yea, the forests which are upon them bow in assent, and the rivers which flow from them murmur their testimony, and from summit to summit is echoed the approving plaudit, as the Almighty again utters the challenge, "O my people, what have I done unto thee, and wherein have I wearied thee? testify against me." And thus far the accusation has only been, that God asks from man what, under man's circumstances, ought not to be expected man being, by nature, strongly inclined to sin; and God's law requiring him to do violence to inclinations, for whose existence he is in no degree answerable. But the court is not dissolved, and fresh indictments may be brought. Let, then, men approach, and complain, if they will, of the dealings of God, of the unequal distribution of his gifts, of the prevalence of misery, and the successfulness of wickedness. It is not to be disputed, that numbers are disposed to murmur against the dispensations of providence, and even to derive from them arguments against the impartiality of God's moral government, or the advantageousness of adhering to his service. They count it surpassingly strange that so much wretchedness should exist beneath the sway of a Being as benevolent as powerful; and, if possible, yet more strange, that no amount of piety should secure an individual against his share in this wretchedness; nay, that, in many cases, piety should seem only to make that share greater. Well, there is now nothing to prevent the complaint from being urged; God has himself invited you to state every grievance, so that, without incurring his displeasure, you may bring your charges against his dealings with yourselves. We may however suppose you, in this instance, to limit the charge to his dealings with those who are emphatically his people: you will hardly throw blame upon him for that misery which results purely from vice, and which would almost wholly disappear if men submitted to his laws. If you put out of the account that unhappiness which is the direct consequence on i wickedness, and for which therefore it would be palpably unjust to reproach. God, you have all the human misery which can excite wonder, or furnish, even in appearance, any groundwork of complaint. And undoubtedly there is thus left no inconsiderable sum: the righteous may be exempt from many afflictions which their own sins bring upon the wicked; but nevertheless their share of trouble is very large, and includes much which is peculiar to themselves. It is against this that men are disposed to make exceptions; arguing that it can scarce be equitable in God to allot so much of trouble and pain to those who love him in sincerity, and serve him with diligence. They object indeed, as we have already said, to the whole course of the divine government; contending that there is too much of permitted evil, and too little of bestowed good to make that government worthy of God. But if the objection be of weight in any case, it must be in that of the righteous; so that to remove it in this will be to destroy it in every other. And if it be easy for God to vindicate himself against any charge, it is against that which impeaches his dealings with his people. He has no difficulty in proving that "he doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men." Let him enter into controversy with you, and then see whether you will venture to maintain your accusations. It is in terms such as these that he may be supposed to justify his dealings. It is true that those whom I love I chasten, even "as a father the son in whom he delighteth." But it is because I have to deal with an ungrateful and stubborn nature, which cannot be trained by any other discipline for the joys of mine own immediate presence. If the hearts of my people were not so prone to the attaching themselves to earth, I should not use such rough means of loosening the bonds: if they were not so ready to fall into slumber, I should not so often speak to them with a startling voice. I might indeed have annexed temporal prosperity to genuine religion, so that whosoever served me in truth should have been thereby secured against the chief forms of trouble. But wherein would have been the mercifulness of such an ar-dations of the earth give a verdict. rangement? Who knows not that, even "O my people, what have I done unas it is, life with all its cares is clung to to thee, and wherein have I wearied with extraordinary tenacity, and that thee?" I have suffered trouble to the present, with all its sorrows, is come upon you, but only as an instrupractically almost preferred to the fu- ment for good; and never have I left ture? Those who have set their "af- you to bear it alone, but have always fections on things above," can hardly been at hand to comfort and uphold. bring themselves to the entering on I have suffered death to enter your their possession, though urged by va- households, but only that you might rious disappointments and disasters; be trained for immortality; and there and they who have been the longest has not been a tear which you have engaged in preparing for death, and been forced to shed, which I have not who seem to have least of what can been ready to wipe from the eye. I make earth desirable, show a reluc- have suffered schemes to be disaptance, as the time of departure ap- pointed, expectations to be baffled, proaches, which proves them still un- friends to prove treacherous; but only duly attached to what they must leave. that you might more prize and strive What would it be, if the arrangement after the "better and enduring subwere altered, and piety conferred an stance ;" and never have I thus brought exemption from suffering? There would you into the wilderness, without going then be a continual strengthening of the before you in the pillar of fire and ties which bind the soul to earth: the cloud. Do ye then arraign my deallonger the term of human life, the ings? do ye accuse them of severity? greater would be the unwillingness to The inanimate creation shall utter my depart, and the more imperfect the pre- vindication. The solid rocks which paration for a higher state of being. have beforetime been rent at my voice; And though it be thus needful that the lofty eminences which have bowed many should be the troubles of the and done homage at my presence; the righteous, are those troubles unmiti- trees which have waved exultingly, gated are there no compensating cir- and the floods which have lifted up their cumstances which make a father's chas- waters, at fresh manifestations of my tisement prove a father's love? It is in greatness-to these I appeal; let these the season of deep sorrow that I com- decide in this strangest of controvermunicate the richest tokens of my fa- sies. And so evident is it, brethren, vor. Then it is, when the spirit is sub- that God chastens for your good, and dued and the heart disquieted, that I afflicts only to bless, that we seem to find opportunity of fulfilling the choi- hear the sound as of an earthquake in cest promises registered in my word; reply to this appeal, the sound as of so that even mourners themselves of rocking forests, the sound as of rushten break into the exclamation, "It is ing waters; and all gathered into one good for us that we were afflicted." emphatic decision that your Creator is If I take away earthly wealth, it is that clear in this matter, and that, therefore, there may be more room for heavenly: it must be on some fresh charge, if if I remove the objects of ardent at- you would so testify against him as tachment, it is that I may fill the void to prove that you have ground of comwith more of myself. Thus with every plaint. sorrow there is an appropriate consolation; every loss makes way for a gain; and every blighted hope is but parent to a better. And what is to be said, men and brethren, against the vindication which God thus advances of his dealings? Is the complaint substantiated which you ventured to produce in that magnificent chamber which he reared for his controversy with his people? Let the very mountains judge, let the strong foun But we must change the scene. Having allowed you to produce your accusations against the laws and dealings of God, it is time that we suppose God the accuser, and put you on your defence. We stated, in an earlier part of our discourse, that, since there was to be a controversy, both parties must be heard; that each must produce his cause, and plead his matter of complaint. The court has been hitherto occupied with your alleged grievances, but you have failed to make good any charge against God. But you now appear in an opposite character: God has accusations to prefer against you; prepare then yourselves, and meditate your answer. Ah, my brethren, however bold you were before, when you were permitted, yea, bidden to testify against God, you seem ready to shrink away and hide yourselves, now that God is about to testify against you. These mighty rocks, these towering hills, by which you are encircled, you would fain call upon them to cover you, that you might be hidden from one who can bring against you, as you too well know, such overwhelming charges. But this cannot be. God condescended to listen to your accusations, and you must stay, at whatever cost, and abide his. With what words shall the Almighty commence his indictment, if not with those which were the first which he charged Isaiah to utter? "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me." There is not one of you on whom he has not bestowed countless mercies: he has been about the path, and about the bed, of each: and had it not been for the watchfulness of his providence, and the tenderness of his love, there is not one of you who would not have been long ago crushed by calamities, and stripped of all the elements of happiness. But you have been guarded and sustained from infancy upwards; you have been fed by his bounty, warmed by his sun, shielded by his power; and thus has he been to each of you as a father, a father in comparison of whom the kindest earthly parent might be counted a stranger. And what he has done for you in temporal respects may almost be forgotten, when you come to consider what he has done for you in spiritual. There is not one amongst you for whom he did not give up his only and well-beloved Son to ignominy and death: not one on whom he has not wrought by his preventing grace: not one to whom he has not sent the tidings of redemption: not one to whom he has not offered immeasurable happiness in his own glorious kingdom. And what has he received in return for all this? However persuaded and thankful we may be, that there are those in this assembly who have been softened and subdued by what God hath done on their behalf, and who have cordially devoted themselves to his service, we dare not doubt that numbers, perhaps the majority, perhaps the great majority, are still at enmity with the Being who has striven by every means to reconcile them to himself. There are the young, who are refusing to remember their Creator in the days of their youth. There are the old, who think that repentance may be safely deferred, whilst they enjoy a little more pleasure, or accumulate a little more wealth. There are the rich, who make gold their hope, and fine gold their confidence; there are the poor, whom even destitution cannot urge to seek treasure above. And what can such say, now that they are standing in controversy with God? Let us pause yet a moment longer, that we may hear what God has to urge against men. There occur to the mind those striking words in the book of Revelation, "Behold I stand at the door and knock." God seems to enumerate the modes in which he has knocked at the door of our hearts, and to appeal to them in proof how just are his complaints of our obduracy. We might almost say that he knocks by every object in creation, and by every provision in redemption. If I look abroad upon the magnificence of the heavens, there is not a star in all that glorious troop which comes marching through immensity, which does not summon me to acknowledge and admire the power of Godhead, and which may not therefore be said to make an appeal at the door of the heart, audible by all who yield homage to a Creator. If I survey the earth on which we dwell, and study its marvellousa daptations to the wants of its inhabitants, and scrutinize what goes on in the vast laboratories of nature; or if I descend into myself, "fearfully and wonderfully made," and examine the curious mechanism, the beneficent contrivances, and the exquisite symmetries, which distinguish the body-why, there is nothing without, and there is nothing within, which does not call to the remembering and reverencing God: eve |