I. "fpeaketh of the earth; He that cometh DISC. "from heaven is above all; and what He "hath feen and heard, that He teftifieth, " and no man receiveth his teftimony. "He that hath received his testimony, hath "fet to his feal that God is true. For He, "whom God hath fent, fpeaketh the words "of God; for God giveth not the Spirit "by measure to Him. The Father loveth "the Son, and hath given all things into "his hand. He that believeth on the Son, "hath everlasting life; and he that be"lieveth not the Son, fhall not fee life; but "the wrath of God abideth on him "" DISCOURSE II. On Receiving the GOSPEL with MEEKNESS and HUMILITY. II. ST. JAMES, i. 21. Receive with meeknefs the engrafted Word, which is able to fave your fouls. DISC. THE perfons, whom the Apostle addreffes in this Epistle, appear, through the prevalence of a moft impious opinion, to have fallen into corrupt practices; and under the influence of vanity and presumption, to have refused paying that attention to the Gospel, which could be productive of right judgment and modeft temper. II. With respect to their firft error, we may DISC. observe, it has ever been a weakness natural to man, that he should impute the blame of committing a finful action to any and every, but the right caufe. Conftitution, fituation, condition, circumftances, all are brought forward as extenuations of guilt; nay, and though the object of religion is to promote benevolence, purity, and holinefs, yet the very name of religion hath been frequently used as a cloak for the groffeft enormities! But of such palliations, fome are wicked and blafphemous; all are weak, falfe, and groundless. God created man in a ftate of innocence: He implanted in him paffions, for the furtherance of his happiness: He gave the light of reason, and the direction of positive law, by which those paffions should be governed: He forewarned him that the effect of disobedience to what reafon and duty fuggefted, must be extreme mifery: He made his mind fufceptible of immediate apprehenfions upon any danger of fwerving from reafon and duty. Man, nevertheleft, DISC. nevertheless, fuffered his paffions to blind II. his reason, weaken his fenfe of duty, and allay, by fubtle perfuafions, the alarms of confcience. Under this infatuation man rebelled against his Maker; he yielded himfelf a flave to fin and Satan, and thus worked his own woe! In the fall of Adam, we not only fee the original fource of that depravity, which has fince vitiated human nature, but we behold alfo an exact picture of what happens to ourselves. Inordinate affections, and ungovernable appetites, are the inftruments by which the enemy of mankind feduces us from our duty. Affections and appetites are effential parts of our nature, interwoven in it for the purpose of increafing the enjoyments of the individual, and the comforts of focial life. Reason and religion exhort us to restrain, within their due bounds, our inclinations and propenfities: the experience of ages, no less than the Word of God, demonftrates to us that the confequence of intemperate and criminal indulgence must be bodily and fpiritual mifery : II. mifery yet, like Adam, we allow our DISC. paffions to mislead our reafon and overcome our fcruples; like him we tranfgrefs the commands of God, and render ourfelves captives to the vileft of mafters, our own lufts, and that fallen Spirit, whofe malignant delight is to triumph over virtue, and feduce man from the love and "obedience which are due to God! As the moft effectual method by which we may be refcued from the dominion of impetuous and imperious paffions, we are admonished by the Apoftle to "receive "with meeknefs" the Gofpel," the en"grafted Word.' And what fhould impede the reception of it? That by the profligate and abandoned the Gospel should be rejected, is nothing extraordinary: thofe, who "love "darkness rather than light, because their "deeds are abominably evil"," cannot be expected to embrace a fyftem, which prohibits altogether their vicious actions. But the generality of men are not fo entirely St. John, iii. 19. |