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lustre. It is really a more trying time to professors, than a time of revival of religion. Then insincere professors are naturally, though reluctantly, carried along with the current. But in a time of degeneracy, they are pleasantly and insensibly led astray from God. Though the world be not so universally corrupt now, as it was about the time of Enoch; yet it is more deeply corrupted. Wherever the gospel does not purify, it corrupts the hearts of men. The christian world is far more corrupt than the heathen world. And though the hearts of many individuals, at this day, are softened and sanctified; yet a vast many more are hardened and corrupted: and especially in some places; and in none, perhaps, more than in this.— How small is the number of those, who walk closely and constantly with God, and, like the patriarchs, condemn the world!

6. This subject calls upon all, who have professed to walk with God, to inquire whether they have walked worthy of the vocation, where with they are called. Have you received and given evidence of this? Enoch who walked with God, received testimony, that he pleased him; and he gave testimony to the world, that he walked with God, and they saw and hated his testimony. If God gives some tokens of his favor to those, who walk with him, you ought to inquire, whether he has given any of these tokens to you.--Has he given you that peace, which the world cannot give? Has he given you the assurance of hope? Has he kept you near to himself and not suffered you to wander from him? Have you given evidence to the world, that you have walked with God, not only in his special ordinances, but in your daily concerns and in

tercourse with the world? Have the world claimed you, or opposed you? It is impossible for any to walk closely and constantly with God and not manifest it in a greater or less degree to the world. The men of the world do not feel indifferently to those, who forsake and condemn and oppose them. If you have walked with God, he has given you evidence of it; and the world have given you evidence of it. Be entreated to ascertain, what evidence you have for you, or against you. You may and ought to do this, for your present and future peace.

Finally, this subject exhorts all, who have not hitherto walked with God, to walk with him. He commands you to walk with him. He invites you to walk with him. He promises you the highest tokens of his favor, if you will walk with him. He will protect you from your visible and invisible enemies; he will give you inward peace and tranquility; he will prepare you for a peaceful death and a blessed immortality. But if you refuse to walk with him, he has threatened to banish you from his presence. And he has recorded for your warning and admonition his awful treatment of those, who have refused to walk with him. The old world refused, and were swept away by the besom of destruction. Sodom and Gomorrah refused to walk with him; and he set them forth as ensamples, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. The Jews in Christ's day refused to follow him and walk with him, and he destroyed them by most exemplary judgments. And And God still says, "Vengeance is mine, and I will repay." Are you prepared to meet such tremendous consequences of divine wrath? Turn, turn ye, therefore, for why will ye die?

SERMON IX.

THE TRIAL OF ABRAHAM.

GENESIS XXII. 2.---And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains, which I will tell thee of.

This is the most extraordinary command, which we find in scripture. In order to set it in the most intelligible and instructive light, I shall make the following inquiries.

I. Let us inquire, whether God had a right to give this command to Abraham. The enemies of divine revelation allege this command, as an unanswerable objection against the inspiration of the Mosaic history. They challenge all the divines in the world, to reconcile this command with the law of nature written in every human heart. They say it is a plain violation of that rule of right, which is founded in the nature of things, for any man to imbrue his hands in the blood of his child. They say, if such an action be not wrong, it is impossible to prove any action to be so; for it is nothing less than murder, which is repugnant to every dictate of justice, benevolence, and humanity. But however plausible these objections against the divine command may appear, at first view; they are entirely groundless. For,

In the first place, God did not command Abraham to murder Isaac, or take away his life from malice

It

prepense. He required him only to offer him a burnt sacrifice, and though this implied the taking away of life; yet it did not imply any thing of the nature of murder. God required Abraham to take his son, his only son, whom he loved, and in the exercise of love to him, to offer him a burnt sacrifice. This was essentially different from requiring him to slay his son, as Cain slew is brother Abel, from malice prepense. is impossible to see, that there was any thing morally evil, or in its own nature wrong, in the divine command to Abraham. God required nothing of Abraham, but what he could do in the exercise of that love, which is the fulfilling of the law. It was no more intrinsically wrong for God to require Abraham to sacrifice his son in the exercise of pure benevolence, than it was to require him to leave his country, his kindred, and his father's family, and sojourn in a strange land. None can object to this command, as being wrong in the nature of things, without first perverting the plain and obvious meaning of it. According to both the letter and spirit of it, it was entirely consistent with the moral rectitude of the Deity, to require Abraham to sacrifice his son.

In the next place, it must be allowed, that God himself had an original and independent right to take away that life from Isaac, which he had of his mere sovereignty given him. It is a divine and self-evident truth, that he has a right to do what he will with his And this right God not only claims, own creatures. but constantly exercises, in respect to the lives of men. He taketh away, and who can hinder him? And he takes away when, and where, and by whom he pleases. He sometimes takes away with a stroke of

SERMON IX.

THE TRIAL OF ABRAHAM.

GENESIS XXII. 2.---And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains, which I will tell thee of.

This is the most extraordinary command, which we find in scripture. In order to set it in the most intelligible and instructive light, I shall make the following inquiries.

I. Let us inquire, whether God had a right to give this command to Abraham. The enemies of divine revelation allege this command, as an unanswerable objection against the inspiration of the Mosaic history. They challenge all the divines in the world, to reconcile this command with the law of nature written in every human heart. They say it is a plain violation of that rule of right, which is founded in the nature of things, for any man to imbrue his hands in the blood of his child. They say, if such an action be not wrong, it is impossible to prove any action to be so; for it is nothing less than murder, which is repugnant to every dictate of justice, benevolence, and humanity. But however plausible these objections against the divine command may appear, at first view; they are entirely groundless. For,

In the first place, God did not command Abraham to murder Isaac, or take away his life from m

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