Christ and his apostles. Let us never receive or reject a maxim because it favours or opposes our passions, but as it agrees with, or opposes the laws of that tribunal, the basis of which are justice and truth. Let us be fully convinced that our chief study should be, to know what God determines, and to make his commands the only rules of our knowledge and practice. 2. The second cause of the evil we would remove is, The choice of teachers. In general, we have three sorts of teachers. The first are catechists, who teach our children the principles of religion. The second are ministers. The third prepare the minds of young people for the ministry itself. hood, faithful in conjugal life, tender parents, good citizens, and able magistrates. Yet The pastors of our churches are our second class of teachers. I know that all our sufficiency is of God, 2 Cor. iii. 5; that though Paul may plant, and Apollos water, God only giveth the increase: that holy men, considering the end of the ministry, have exclaimed, Who is sufficient for these things? 1 Cor. iii. 6. the ordinary means which God uses for the conversion of sinners, are the ministry of the word. and the qualifications of ministers, for faith cometh by hearing, Rom. x. 17. Now this word, my brethren, is not preached with equal power by all; and, though the foundation which each lays be the same, it is too true that some build upon this foundation the gold and while others build with the wood, hay, and stubble, 1 Cor. iii. 12, of their own errors, the productions of a confused imagination, and a mistaken eloquence. And as the word is not preached with the same power, so it is not attended with the same success. But when the word proceeds from the mouth of a man whom God has sealed, and enriched with extraordinary talents; when i proceeds from a man, who has the tongue of the learned and the wisdom of the wise, as the Scripture speaks, Isa. 1. 4. When it proceeds from a Boanerges, a son of thunder, from a Moses, mighty in words and in deeds, Mark iii. 17. Acts vii. 22, who maintains the dignity of his doctrine by the purity of his morals, and by the power of his good example, then the word is heard with attention; from the ear it passes to the mind, from the mind to the heart, from the heart to the life; it penetrates, it inflames, it transports. It becomes a hammer breaking the hardest hearts, a two-edged sword, dividing the father from the son, the son from the father, dissolving all the bonds of flesh and blood, the connexions of nature, and the love of self. The carelessness that prevails in the choice of the first sort of teachers cannot be suffi-precious stones of a solid and holy doctrine, ciently lamented. The care of instructing our children is committed to people more fit for disciples than masters, and the meanest talents are thought more than sufficient to teach the first principles of religion. The narrowest and dullest genius is not ashamed to profess himself a divine and a catechist. And yet what capacity does it not require to lay the first foundations of the edifice of salvation! What address to take the different forms necessary to insinuate into minds of catechumens, and to conciliate their attention and love! What dexterity to proportion instruction to the different ages and characters of learners! How much knowledge, and how many accomplishments are necessary to discern what is fundamental to a youth of fifteen years of age! What one child of superior talents cannot be ignorant of without danger, and what another of inferior talents may remain innocently unacquainted with! Heads of families, this article concerns you in a particular manner. What account can ye render to God of the children with whom he has intrusted you, if, while ye take so much pains, and are at so much expense to teach them the liberal arts, and to acquaint them with human sciences, ye discover so What precaution, what circumspection, and, much negligence in teaching them the know-in some sort, what dread, ought to prevail in ledge of salvation? Not only in a future state the choice of an office, which so greatly influ ought ye to fear the punishment of so criminal ences the salvation of those among whom it is a conduct; ye will be punished in this present exercised! There needs only the bad system world. Children ignorant of religion will but of a pastor to produce and preserve thousands little understand their duty to their parents. of false notions of religion in the people's They will become the cross, as they will be minds: notions, which fifty years' labour of a the shame and infamy of your life. They will more wise and sensible ministry will scarcely shake off your yoke as soon as they have passed be able to eradicate. There needs only a pastheir childhood; they will abandon you to the tor sold to sordid interest to put up, in some weakness, infirmities, and disquietudes of old sort, salvation to sale, and to regulate places age, when you arrive at that distasteful period in paradise according to the diligence or negliof life, which can be rendered agreeable only gence with which the people gratify the avaby the care, the tenderness, and assiduity of a rice of him who distributes them. There needs well-bred son. Let us unite all our endea- only a pastor fretted with envy and jealousy vours, my dear brethren, to remove this evil. against his brethren to poison their ministry Let us honour an employment which nothing by himself, or by his emissaries. Yea, somebut the licentiousness of the age could have times, there needs only the want of some less rendered contemptible. Let us consider that, essential talents in a minister to give advanas one of the most important trusts of the state, tage to the enemies of religion, and to deprive one of the most respectable posts of society, the truths which he preaches of that profound which is appointed to seminate religious prin- respect which is their due: a respect that ciples in our children, to inspire them with even enemies could not withhold, if the gospel piety, to guard them against the snares that were properly preached, and its truths exhibit they will meet with in the world, and, by ed in their true point of view. these means, to render them dutiful in child It would be unreasonable, perhaps, to de velope this article now. How many of our people would felicitate themselves if we were to furnish them with pretences for imputing their unfruitfulness to those who cultivate them! But, if this article must not be developed, what grave remonstrances, what pressing exhortations, what fervent prayers, should it occasion! Let the heads of families consider the heinousness of their conduct in presuming to offer impure victims to the Lord, and in consecrating those children to the holy ministry, in whom they cannot but discover dispositions that render them unworthy of it. May ecclesiastical bodies never assemble for the election of pastors, without making profound reflections on the importance of the service in which they are engaged, and the greatness of the trust which the sovereign commits to them! May they never ordain without recollecting, that, to a certain degree, they will be responsible for all the sad consequences of a faithless or a fruitless ministry! May they always prostrate themselves on these occasions before God, as the apostles in the same case did, and pray, "Lord, show whom thou hast chosen," Acts i. 24. May our rulers and magistrates be affected with the worth of those souls whom the pastors instruct; and may they unite all their piety, all their pity, and all their power, to procure holy men, who may adorn so eminent, so venerable a post! What has been said on the choice of pastors still more particularly regards the election of tutors, who are employed to form pastors themselves. Universities are public springs, whence rivulets flow into all the church. Place at the head of these bodies sound philosophers, good divines, wise casuists, and they will become seminaries of pastors after God's heart, who will form the minds, and regulate the morals, of the people, gently bowing them to the yoke of religion. On the contrary, place men of another character at the head of our universities, and they will send out impoisoned ministers, who will diffuse through the whole church the fatal venom which themselves have imbibed. 3. The third cause which we have assigned, of the infancy and novitiate of most Christians in religious knowledge, is the multitude of their secular affairs. Far be it from us to aim at inspiring you with superstitious maxims. We do not mean that they who fill eminent posts in society should give that time to devotion which the good of the community requires. We allow, that in some critical conjunctures, the time appointed for devotion must be yielded to business. There are some urgent occasions when it is more necessary to fight than to pray: there are times of important business in which the closet must be sacrificed to the cares of life, and second causes must be attended to, even when one would wish to be occupied only about the first. Yet, after all, the duty that we recommend is indispensable. Amidst the most turbulent solicitudes of life, a Christian desirous of being saved, will devote some time to his salvation. Some part of the day he will redeem from the world and society, to meditate on eternity. This was the practice of those eminent saints, whose lives are proposed as patterns to us. The histories of Abraham, Moses, Samuel, and David, are well known, and ye recollect those parts of their lives to which we refer, without our detaining you in a repetition now. The last cause of the incapacity of so many Christians for seeing the whole of religion in its connexion and harmony: the last cause of their taking it only by bits and shreds, is their love of sensual pleasure. We do not speak here of those gross pleasures at which heathens would have blushed, and which are incompatible with Christianity. We attack pleasures more refined, maxims for which reasonable persons become sometimes apologists: persons who on more accounts than one, are worthy of being proposed as examples: persons who would seem to be "the salt of the earth," the flower of society, and whom we cannot justly accuse of not loving religion. How rational, how religious soever they appear in other cases, they make no scruple of passing a great part of their time in gaming, in public diversions, in a round of worldly amusements; in pleasures, which not only appear harmless, but, in some sort, suitable to their rank, and which seem criminal only to those who think it their duty not to float on the surface of religion, but to examine the whole that it requires of men, on whom God hath bestowed the inestimable favour of revealing it. We may presume, that if we show people of this sort, that this way of life is one of the principal obstacles to their progress in religion, and prevents their knowing all its beauties, and relishing all its delights, we shall not speak without success. In order to this, pardon me if I conjure you to hear this article, not only with attention, but with that impartiality which alone can enable you to know whether we utter our own speculations, or preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. Recollect here that general notion of religion which we have laid down: it contains truths of speculation, and truths of practice. Such sensual pleasures as we have just now mentioned, form invincible obstacles to the knowledge of both. I. To the knowledge of speculative truths. How is it possible for a man to obtain a complete system of the doctrines of the gospel, while he is a slave to sensual pleasures! 1. To obtain a complete system of the doctrines of the gospel, there must be a certain habit of thinking and meditating. In vain ye turn over whole volumes, in vain ye attend methodical sermons, in vain ye parade with bodies of divinity, ye can never comprehend the connexion of religious truths unless ye ac quire a habit of arranging ideas, of laying down principles, of deducing consequences, in short, of forming systems yourselves. This habit cannot be acquired without exercise, it is unattainable without serious attention, and profound ap plication. But how can people devoted to pleasure, acquire such a habit? Sensual pleasure is an inexhaustible source of dissipation: it dissipates in preparing, it dissipates in studying, it dissipates after the study is at an end. 2. To counterbalance the difficulty of meditation and study, there must be a relish for it. Those who make study a duty, or a trade, seldom make any great progress in knowledge; at least a prodigious difference has always been observed between the proficiency of those who study by inclination, and those who study by necessity. But nothing is more capable of disgusting us with the spiritual pleasures of study and meditation, than the love of sensual pleasures. We will not intrude into the closets of these persons. But is there not a prodigious difference between their application to study and their attention to pleasure? The one is a violence offered to themselves, the other a voluptuousness, after which they sigh. The one is an intolerable burden, eagerly shaken off as soon as the time appointed expires: the other is a delicious gratification, from which it is painful to part, when nature exhausted can support it no longer, or troublesome duty demands a cessation. In the one, hours and moments are counted, and the happiest period is that which terminates the pursuit: but in the other, time glides away imperceptibly, and people wish for the power of prolonging the course of the day, and the duration of life. subverted, the name of God blasphemed: and he must hear all these without daring to discover the sentiments of his heart, because, as I just now observed, patience and compliance animate that body to which he is attached by such necessary and intimate ties. In your system of morality, what becomes of those Scripture maxims, which threaten those with the greatest punishments who in jure others? The love of sensual pleasure causes offences of the most odious kind; I mean, it betrays your partners in pleasure into vice. Ye game without avarice; but do ye not excite avarice in the minds of those who play with you? Ye do not injure your families; but do ye not occasion other men to injure theirs? Ye are guilty of no fraud; but do yo not tempt others to be fraudulent? What becomes in your moral system of those maxims of Scripture that require us to contribute to the excision of "all wicked doers from the city of the Lord," Psal. ci. 8; to discoun tenance those who commit a crime as well as to renounce it ourselves? The love of sensual pleasure makes us countenance people of the most irregular conduct, whose snares are the most dangerous, whose examples are the most fatal, whose conversations are the most pernicious to our children and to our families, to civil society and to the church of God. 3. To acquire a complete knowledge of religious truths, it is not enough to study them in the closet, in retirement and silence; we must converse with others who study them too. But the love of sensual pleasure indisposes us for such conversations. Slaves to sensual pleasures have but little taste for those delicious societies, whose mutual bond is utility, in In your system of morality, what becomes of which impartial inquirers propose their doubts, those maxims of Scripture which expostulate raise their objections, communicate their disco- with us, when the Lord chastiseth us, to "be veries, and reciprocally assist each other's edi- afflicted and mourn, to humble ourselves under fication: for, deprive those who love sensual the mighty hand of God; to enter into our pleasures, of gaming and diversions, conversa-chambers, and shut the doors about us, to hide tion instantly languishes, and converse is at an end. ourselves until the indignation be overpast; to examine ourselves before the decree bring But, secondly, if the love of sensual pleasure forth; to prepare ourselves to meet our God, to raise such great obstacles to the knowledge of hear the rod, and who hath appointed it," speculative truths, it raises incomparably great- James iv. 9. 1 Pet. v. 6. Isa. xxvi. 20. Zeph. er still to the truths of practice. There are ii. 1, 2. Amos iv. 12. Micah vi. 9; to mourn in some Scripture maxims which are never sackcloth and ashes; and while we feel present thought of by the persons in question, except miseries, to remember those that are past, it be to enervate and destroy them; at least, tremble for those that are yet to come, and they make no part of their system of morality. endeavour, by extraordinary efforts, to avert In your system of morality, what becomes the anger of heaven? The love of sensual pleaof this Scripture maxim, "evil communications sure turns away people's attention from all corrupt good manners?" 1 Cor. xv. 33. Nothing these maxims, and represents those who forms connexions more intimate, and at the preach them, as wild visionaries or dry desame time more extravagant, than an immode-claimers. The people of whom we speak, these rate love of pleasure. Men who differ in manners, age, religion, birth, principles, educations, are all united by this bond. The passionate and the moderate, the generous and the avaricious, the young and the old, agree to exercise a mutual condescension and patience towards each other, because the same spirit actuates, and the same necessities haunt them; and because the love of pleasure, which animates them all, can only be gratified by the concurrence of each individual. In your system of morality, what becomes of those maxims of Scripture, which say that we must "confess Jesus Christ before men," that "whosoever shall be ashamed of him before men, of him will he be ashamed when he cometh in the glory of his Father?" Matt. x. 32. Mark viii. 38. A man who is engaged in the monstrous assembly which the love of pleasure forms, must hear religion disputed, the morality of the gospel attacked, good manners pious people, these people who love their sal- few days, people who perhaps have only a few days to bid their last adieus, to embrace their families, to settle their temporal affairs, to examine the neglected parts of religion, to re-establish the injured reputation of a neighbour, in a word, to prepare themselves to appear before that terrible tribunal to which death cites them: the love of sensual pleasure inclines these poor creatures, who have so short a time to live, and so great a task to perform; the love of sensual pleasure inclines these people to waste a considerable part of this fleeting life in amusements, that obliterate both the shortness of life, and the necessity of death. How often have we seen old age as greedy of pleasure as youth! how often have we seen people bowing under the weight of age, how often have we seen them, even when their trembling hands could scarcely hold the cards, or the dice, make their feeble efforts to game; and, when their decayed eyes were incapable of distinguishing the spots, assist nature by art, their natural sight with artificial glasses, and thus consecrate the remains, those precious remains, of life to gaming, which God had granted for repentance! All these causes of the infancy and novitiate of Christians in regard to religion, unite in one, which in finishing this discourse, we cannot but lament, nor can we lament it too much. We do not understand our own religion: we are, most of us, incapable of perceiving the admirable order, the beautiful symmetry, of its component parts. Why? It is because we have so little zeal for our salvation; it is because we form such languid desires to be saved. Indeed I know, that, except some unnatural creatures, except some monsters, to whom this discourse is not addressed, every body professes to desire to be saved, yea, to prefer salvation to whatever is most pompous in the universe, and most pleasant in this life. But, when the attainment of it in God's way is in question, in the only way that agrees with the holiness of his nature to direct, and with our happiness to obey, what a number of people do we meet with, whose desires vanish? I desire to be saved, says each to himself; I desire to be saved, but not by such a religion as the gospel prescribes, such as Jesus Christ preached, such as, the apostles and ministers of the gospel preach after him; but I desire to be saved by such a religion as I have conceived, such a one as gratifies my passions and caprices. I desire to be saved, but it is on condition, that, while I obey some of the precepts of Jesus Christ, he will dispense with my obedience of others. I desire to be saved: but not on condition of my correcting my prejudices, and submitting them to the precepts of Jesus Christ; but on condition that the precepts of Jesus Christ should yield to my prejudices. I desire to be saved: but on condition of retaining my prepossessions, the system that I have arranged, the way of life that I pursue, and intend to pursue till I die. To desire salvation in this manner is too common a disposition among Christians. But to desire salvation in saying to God, with a sincere desire of obeying his voice, "Lord, what | wilt thou have me to do?" Acts ix. 6.; Lord, what wilt thou have me to believe? Lord, what wilt thou have me to love? Lord, what inclinations wilt thou have me to oppose, to mortify, to sacrifice? To be willing to be saved in receiving, without exception, all the practical truths, which compose an essential part of that religion which God has given us: Ah! my brethren, how rare is this disposition among Christians! Without this disposition, however, (and let us not be ingenious to deceive ourselves,) without this disposition there is no salvation. It implies a contradiction to say that God will save us in any other way: for, as it is contradictory to say that he will give to an equal number the qualities of an unequal number, or to bodies the properties of spirits, or to spirits the properties of bodies; so also is it a contradiction to say, that vice shall reap the rewards of virtue, that the highway to hell is the path to paradise. So that nothing remains in concluding this discourse, but to ask you, what are your intentions? What designs have ye formed? What projects do ye resolve to pursue? What are your aims? Have ye any thing more precious than your souls? Can ye conceive a nobler hope than that of being saved? Can ye propose a more advantageous end than your own salvation? Can ye persuade yourselves that there is a greater felicity than the fruition of God? Will ye destroy yourselves? Do ye renounce those delightful hopes that are set before you in the gospel? And shall all the fruit of our ministry be to accuse and confound you before God? Young man, thou mayest live fifty or sixty years: but at the expiration of those fifty or sixty years, time finishes and eternity begins. People of mature age, your race is partly run; ten, fifteen, or twenty years more, through the dissipations and employments inseparable from your lives, will vanish with an inconceivable rapidity; and then, time finishes and eternity begins with you. And ye old people, a few years, a few months, a few days more, and behold your race is at an end; behold your time finishes and your eternity begins. And can we resist this idea? Alas! what hearts! what Christians! what a church! Grant, Almighty God, that our prayers may supply the defect of our exhortation; may we derive from thy bosom of infinite mercies what we despair of obtaining from the insensibility of our hearers! O thou Author of religion, thou divine Spirit, from whom alone could proceed this beautiful system which thou hast condescended to reveal to us, impress it in all its parts on our minds. Pluck up every plant which thy good hand hath not planted. *Triumph over all the obstacles that our sins oppose to thine empire. Shut the gulfs of hell. Open the gates of heaven. Save us, even in spite of ourselves. Amen. To the Father, to the Son, to the Holy Ghost, be honour and glory, dominion and power, for ever. Amen. SERMON II. THE ETERNITY OF GOD. Preached in the French Church at Rotterdam, on the first Lord's Day of the Year 1724. 2 PET. iii. 8. Beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. WE could not meditate on the words which you have heard, my brethren, without recollecting that miraculous cloud which conducted the Israelites through the desert. It was all luminous on one side, and all opake on the other. The Jews say that it was the throne, or the triumphal chariot, of that Angel who marched at the head of the camp of Israel; of that Angel whom they call the Prince of the world, the Schekinah, the presence of the divine Majesty, the Deity itself. It is not needful to examine this opinion. I do not know whether the pillar of a cloud were a throne of God, but it was a beautiful symbol of the Deity. What is the Deity in regard to us? If it be the most radiant of all light, it is at the same time the most covered with darkness. Let the greatest philosophers, let the most extraordinary geniuses, elevate their meditations, and take the loftiest flights of which they are capable, in order to penetrate into the nature of the divine essence, the stronger efforts they make to understand this fearful subject, the more will they be absorbed in it: the nigher they approach the rays of this sun, the more will they be dazzled with its lustre. But yet, let the feeblest and most confined genius seek instructions, in meditating on the divine grandeurs, to direct his faith, to regulate his conduct, and to sweeten the miseries that embitter this valley of tears; he shall happily experience what the prophet did: "does he look to him? he shall be lightened," Ps. xxxiv. 5. gard larly, if ye desire to consider them in St. Peter aims to rouse the piety of Christians by the idea of that great day wherein the world must be reduced to ashes; when the new heavens and a new earth shall appear to the children of God. Libertines regarded that day as a chimera. "Where (said they) is the promise of the Lord's coming: for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation?" 2 Pet. iii 4, &c. The words of my text are an answer to this objection; an idea which we will presently explain, but which ye must, at least in a vague manner, retain all along, if ye mean to follow us in this discourse, in which we would wish to include all the different views of the apostle. In order to which three things are necessary. I. We will examine our text in itself, and endeavour to establish this proposition, That one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. II. We will prove what we have advanced; that is, that St. Peter's design in these words was to answer the objections of libertines against the doctrine of the conflagration of the world; and we will show you that they completely answer the purpose. III. We will draw from this doctrine, secured against the objections of libertines, such motives to piety as the apostle presents us with. In considering these words in this point of light, we will apply them to your present circumstances. The renewal of the year, properly understood, is only the anniversary of the vanity of our life, and thence the calls to detach yourselves from the world. And what can be more proper to produce such a detachment than this reflection, that not only the years which we must pass on earth are con suming, but also that the years of the world's subsistence are already consumed in part, and that the time approaches, in which it must be delivered to the flames, and reduced to ashes God presents himself to your eyes to-day, as he once presented himself to the Israelites in that marvellous phenomenon. Light on one side, da.kness on the other. "A thousand years are with the Lord as one day, and one day as a thousand years." Let the greatest philosophers, let those extraordinary beings in whose formation God seems to have united an Let us first consider the words of our text angelic intelligence to a human body, let them in themselves, and let us prove this proposipreach in our stead, let them fully explain the tion, "one day is with the Lord as a thousand words of my text. From what abysses of ex-years, and a thousand years as one day." istence does the perfect Being derive that du- The notion which I have of God is my prinration, which alike overspreads the present, the ciple: the words of my text are the consefuture, and the past? how conceive a continu-quence. If I establish the principle, the conation of existence without conceiving a suc- sequence will be incontestable. 1. Eternity.cession of time? how conceive a succession of 2. Perfect knowledge, and, in some sort, the time, without conceiving that he who is subject sight and presence of all that has been, of all to it acquires what he had not before? how af- that is, and of all that shall be.-3. Supreme firm that he who acquires what he had not be happiness: are three ideas which form my nofore, considers “a thousand years as one day, tion of the Deity: this is my principle. "A and one day as a thousand years?"" So many thousand years" then "are as one day, and questions, so many abysses, obscurities, dark- one day as a thousand years with the Lord:" nesses, for poor mortals. this is my consequence. Let us prove the truth of the principle, by justifying the notion which we form of the Deity. But if ye confine yourselves to a conviction of the truth of the words of my text; particu See Rabbi Menachem in Parasch. Beschalec. Exod. iv. 19 fol. 63. edit. de Venise 5283. S. Voz. I.-7 1. God is an eternal being. This is not a chimera of my mind; it is a truth accompanied |