BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the 22d day of March, in the fifty- In conformity to the Act of Congress of the United States, entitled, "An Act for CHA'S A. INGERSOLL, Clerk of the District of Connecticut. A true copy of Record, examined and sealed by me, CHA'S A. INGERSOLL, Clerk of the District of Connecticut. PRINTED BY HEZEKIAH HOWE-NEW HAVEN. CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME. page. 20 35 97 114 184 200 228 Sermon for the New Year, Jan. 1807.-Jer. xxviii. 16. 243 The Final Interview.-Eccles. xii. 7. . Considerations on the Final Trial.--Eccles. xii. 14. SERMONS XXV. XXVI. The Dignity and Excellence of the Gospel.-1 Peter ii. 12. Preached at the Ordination of the Rev. William Lock- The Preaching of Paul before Felix.--Acts xxiv. 25. Preached SERMON I. A JUST SENSE OF THE CHARACTER AND PRESENCE OF God a SOURCE OF REPENTANCE. JOB xlii. 5, 6. I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth Thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes. Joв, as every person who reads his Bible knows, was an eminently righteous man. God himself testifies, that there was none like him in the earth; that he was perfect and upright; that he feared God, and eschewed evil. Still he was afflicted beyond most other men. He lost his property, and his children. He was distressed with a most painful and loathsome disease. His wife treated him with the bitterest unkindness; and his friends put a finishing hand to his sufferings by insisting that they were all exhibitions of the anger of God against him, on account of his peculiar guilt. Job vindicated his character against these charges with firmness and zeal. In the progress of the debate both parties evidently passed the bounds of moderation. While his friends attributed to him crimes which he had not committed, and guilt which he had not incurred; Job strenuously challenged, in terms too unqualified, an innocence and a purity, to which his claims were certainly imperfect. When their dispute was ended, Elihu, a young man, who had been a witness of their zeal, censured them all for their heat, for the intemperance of their sentiments, the unreasonable imputations of the one party, and the unwarranted self-justification of the other. At the same time he vindicated, in a becoming manner, the justice of the Divine dispensations towards Job; exhihVOL. II. 2 ited in a strong light the greatness and perfection of JEHOVAH; and urged, irresistibly, the duty of implicit submission to his will. When Elihu had closed his discourse, God manifested himself to this assembly of disputants in a storm, accompanied with thunder and lightning; and answered Job out of the whirlwind, by which they were borne along. In a series of sublime and wonderful observations he displayed his own supreme excellence; the immeasurable greatness, the incomprehensible multitude, and the unfathomably mysterious nature, of the works of creation and providence. With these observations he interwove, also, strong and overwhelming proofs of the littleness, ignorance, and imbecility, of man; and shewed, unanswerably, how impossible it was, that such a being should judge, with any propriety, concerning the divine dispensations. By these discoveries of the true, great, and perfect character of God, Job, as we might well expect, was deeply humbled, and led to genuine self-abhorrence, and sincere repentance. The great evangelical truth, which is contained in this passage, thus illustrated, and on which I mean to insist in the following discourse, is this: That clear and just views of the character, and presence, of God naturally produce in the mind abasing and penitential thoughts concerning ourselves. This doctrine I shall attempt to illustrate by the following observations. God is our Creator, Preserver, and Benefactor. He formed us out of nothing; breathed into our nostrils the breath of life; and caused us to become living souls. He made us wiser than the beasts of the field, and the fowls of heaven; and enabled us by the light of reason to discern his character and his agency; and, by our moral powers, to love, and serve, and glorify, him forever. The being which he gave, he upholds by the word of his power; and renders desirable by the exercise of his goodness. His mercies to us are new every morning, and fresh every moment. Life, and breath, and all things which we enjoy, are among the good gifts, which come down from the Father of lights, with whom is |