Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

All this demonstrates the necessity of that new birth which the sacred. Scriptures enjoin upon us, so seriously and so often. Well might the Redeemer say, "Except a man be born again he cannot enter the kingdom of God." This birth also must involve something distinct from and greatly superior to water-baptism of any sort it can be effected only by the baptism of the Holy Spirit, shedding his light upon the darkened spirit, and pouring his transforming and quickening power over the chaos of the deadness of the human soul. This is obvious where there is the slightest degree of earnest desire to be taught; for how is it possible it should be otherwise? He that is born after the flesh minds the things of the flesh, but he that is born of the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. The tendencies of men are naturally to be careful of what they shall eat, and what they shall drink, and wherewithal they shall be clothed; and those who rise at all above this, still rest in the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life. The present, the earthly, constitute the boundary of hope; the region in which the objects are found call forth the solicitudes and the energies of the human soul. Only admit the broad and obvious fact of man's immortality, and who can believe that this is a proper spirit for humanity to be found in, that a being should be destined to live for ever, and yet be unmindful of that for ever!—that he should be born for good or evil throughout eternity, and live in carelessness of that eternity! This is not according to the nature or fitness of things: far, indeed, is it from being according to what is stated in the Scripture, as necessary to well-grounded hope for the future. There must be the change of heart which the Scripture enjoins the mind must be brought under the teaching from on high, the heart brought under the renovating power from on high, under the influence of faith, and hope, and love, and the dispositions which fit us for the service of God and the kingdom of God. These must be ours, and we must become, in some measure, aware that in us the change has been wrought, that enables a man to say, "My treasure is in heaven, and my heart is there also. Place before me this world's gain, even in the form in which it has been most attractive; and place before me the hope of the upper, and the better, and the purer world, and I will part with all that is present for the hope of that which is future. I will forego every gratification that is unlawful for those pleasures that are in store at the right hand of God." Now, without this state of mind, there is no religion. If the condition of human nature be what it is, you will not wonder that so much importance is attached to this state of mind in the language of Holy Writ.

Learn from this subject, further, to see your need of an interest in that Saviour whose salvation it is the great object of the Scripture to announce to men. Can you hope for the favour of God on any other ground than the merit and intercession of a higher and purer nature than your own. What can be so fit to culprits like ourselves as that there should be a Mediator between us and God? Where is the service to which we can look as that which we will take to us as our ground of claim into the presence of God? Is there a single moral achievement-not to say a religious one-that we can coolly review, and feel ourselves satisfied concerning it, that it is altogether even as the eye of infinite purity would have it? When our dying moments come, it must be indeed a strange amount of infatuation that would allow us to suppose this concerning any action of our lives. But if this be not in view, What shall we say of the amount of impurity attaching to all the rest? Our

guilt is accumulated also before the bar of God by our neglect of duty as well as by our violation of duty: that which we have left undone, there will meet us along with that which we have done contrary to the divine will. These things, if we have moral courage, moral honesty, to keep them still (if I may so speak) before the eye of conscience, that we may examine and judge well concerning them, will bring us to his state of mind who said, "Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord; for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ; the righteousness which is of God by faith." "Men and brethren, be it known to you, therefore, that through this man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins, and that those who believe on him shall be justified from all things from which they could not be delivered by the law of Moses."

Finally, learn self-examination. It is important to us in all departments, but in reference to every thing religious, where we are most disposed to err in this respect, it is of the utmost consideration. "There is a way that seemeth good unto a man, though the end are the ways of death." "There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness." These are only some of the many Scriptures that occur to tell us of our liability to err in this respect. How often will the formalist be found to be among the most ardent in anticipating the favour of heaven and admission there! "Lord, Lord, open to us," is the very language with which they are described as approaching the gates of the celestial city itself. The man, also, who is a talkative professor of religion, the man who, because he holds certain doctrines, and professes to be attached to certain articles, but whose spirit is unamiable, censorious, in whom there is little, if any thing, to be seen indicating the spirit of the Gospel, will entertain the same confidence as the former, and is as sure to consider himself right because of his being persuaded that certain things are true. Extremes meet in this case, and no man can have been long acquainted with religious parties, and not have met with instances of this kind. Now the escape from this is obvious and imperative: the men who are thus self-deceived are self-deceived with the means of instruction; and it is because

they have not yielded to that instruction. There is an awful passage in 2 Thessalonians, ii. 11, 12, where it is said that God would "send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." We have reason to believe that it is the law of the divine government that the time comes when men who have trifled with the convictions of conscience, the solemn warnings of Holy Scripture, the affectionate expostulations of Christian ministers, and who have continued formalists in the face of all this, or who have continued to rest their hope of heaven more upon their own creed than upon the Christian character of their heart and feelings-after a while they are led to believe that these things are as they would have them to be: the Pharisee dies, and the Antinomian dies, and a lie is in their right hand. Brethren, guard against this. "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting"

THE DUTY OF THE STATE TO PROVIDE RELIGIOUS

INSTRUCTION FOR THE PEOPLE.

RIGHT REV. C. J. BLOOMfield, d.D., LORD BISHOP OF LONDON.
ST. JAMES'S, PICCADILLY*, APRIL 20, 1834.

"Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching."-HEB. X. 25.

THESE words are part of a solemn address, in which the Apostle enumerates the principal duties and privileges of the Christian, as a member of the visible Church upon earth-faith, charity, steadfastness, devotion, and, as instrumental and conservative means, baptism and the ordinances of common worship. "Having," he says, “an high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering (for he is faithful that promised); and let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching."

"The day" which was then approaching, was that fearful day of retribution which was about to terminate the existence of Jerusalem, and the national polity of Israel; a day of such calamity and woe as hath never passed on any nation-so indiscriminate and overwhelming, that the believers would have perished with their brethren, had not their Master prayed, that for the elect's sake those days might be shortened. At such a crisis, when the approach of tribulation and anguish was preceded by the malignant activity of error, the members of Christ's Church, which was then but newly planted in the world, and at enmity with the world, would stand in need of all the consolations and supports which their religion could furnish-all those blessed assurances and convictions which the Spirit of life and help could fix in believing and fainting hearts, and all those aids and appliances which were found in the ministry of the Word, and the ordinances appointed by the Founder of the Church, and his Apostles, for its edification and security.

This was no time, then, for carelessness, or indifference, or selfishness: nothing but the "full assurance of faith," an ardent and devoted zeal, an abiding remembrance of their baptismal covenant, holy emulation, charity, continuance in prayer, mutual encouragement and consolation-nothing but this, applied and made effectual by the Comforter, would be sufficient to bear them up against the trials of that awful scene. Therefore we find many passages in the writings of the Apostles, as well as the writings of our blessed Lord, intended to prepare them for the moment of conflict, to increase their diligence, to quicken their * For the Incorporated Society for Building Churches and Chapels.

faith, to strengthen their confidence in God. They are exhorted to be "instant in prayer;" they were to be "sober;" to "gird up the loins of their mind;" to admonish and teach one another; to be strict and regular in the assemblies of their religious worship, as well as mutual edification and comfort. And powerful, no doubt, was that consolation which those holy men experienced in the stated ministry of the faithful, where the Apostles themselves, or those who had been ordained by the Apostles, enlarged upon the divine truths and precepts of the Gospel, set before them in vivid portraiture the example of the Holy Jesus, conducted the common sacrifice of prayer and praise, and administered the sacred symbols of Christ's body and blood. No wonder if, as we are informed, "they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers."

It appears, however, that there were, even then, some careless or conceited persons, who purposely and habitually neglected the ordinances of public worship, and refused to imbibe the graces of the Spirit through channels of his own appointment; it was "the manner of some" to "forsake the assembling of themselves together." These, no doubt, were of the number of those persons who, as the Apostle says, "consented not to wholesome words;" whom another Apostle describes as being "presumptuous and self-willed”—as having "once known the way of righteousness," and afterwards "turned away" from it. Some, perhaps, there were who contended that there was no outward service due to God from the disciples of a Master who had taught them that his Father was to be worshipped in spirit and in truth; a precept which, although it was most positive and precise as to the necessity of spiritual worship, did not exclude, nor even by implication condemn, but rather takes for granted, the use of outward means and formularies: and they might have learned from the example of Jesus Christ himself, and from the practice of his Apostles, that the "assembling of themselves together" for religious purposes, was a duty that they owed to God, to their brethren, and to themselves; to God, as a mark of their dependence upon his power and goodness, and an expression of the honour due to his name; to their brethren, for example's sake, and for encouragement in times of rebuke and blasphemy; to themselves, for edification and spiritual strength.

And these are reasons for the duty of religious assemblies and observances which are of perpetual validity: the lapse of time, far from impairing, has strengthened the obligation of that duty. For if it were necessary for those who had received the word of revelation from the Apostles themselves, confirmed with signs and wonders following, who had witnessed the special operations of the Holy Spirit, and had themselves partaken of his more direct influences-if, I say, it was necessary for them to assemble themselves together for the purpose of mutual exhortation, and refreshment, and for performing the common exercises of piety, much more requisite must it be for us who have derived our religious belief and principles through the ordinary channels of information, and who are exposed to spiritual dangers of a more varied, if they be of a less appalling kind.

When the Church of Christ was persecuted from without, when, even if its members escaped the dreadful alternative of apɔstacy or death, the least they could expect was that all men should speak evil of them for their Master's sake-they were forced to a nearer consideration of that momentous questionWhich is to be adhered to, Christ or the world? Religion became, of necessity,

a matter of the most personal concernment; it was the chief subject of inquiry and reflection. The awful importance of the question would drive them to earnest and frequent prayer, and the endurance or the anticipation of evil would make them feel the necessity of seeking all the means of consolation which religion had to offer; fellowship in prayer, the spiritual communion of Christ's body and blood, and the ministry of his blessed Word. But in times when the profession of Christianity is neither dangerous nor discreditable, when the course of this world is peaceably ordered, and the visible Church is permitted to serve God in quietness and security, there is nothing in the constitution or circumstances of society which forcibly directs the attention of mankind to the awful business of religion; there is nothing which constrains them, by an over-powering necessity, to consider the grounds and obligations and assurances of the faith which they profess: and if they had nothing to remind them of this duty but the suggestions of their own conscience, or the occasional recurrence of providential warnings, experience teaches us it would soon cease to be performed. Some authoritative ordinance, some duly appointed memorial is required to recall the thoughts of mankind to the most important of all questions-some perpetual and conspicuous monument which shall rise above the dead, unprofitable level of worldly cares and enjoyments, and point the way to eternity.

If Jesus Christ founded a Church upon earth, and that, too, with peculiar emphasis of authority-if he appointed a ministry, and that, too, with a commission at once universal and perpetual-it was that the light of his Gospel might be placed upon an eminence, a beacon-fire to a benighted world, a visible But this end memorial of religion, a city set on a hill that could not be hid. can only be answered by the public performance of the common acts of religion. without them not only would private devotion be ineffectual for the purpose of example and edification, but it would soon cease to exist. The duty, then, of public and common worship is a duty which we owe to the honour of God's name: it involves the very maintenance of true religion; it is the visible expression of its supremacy; and, as practised in the Christian Church, it is the perpetual record of the sealing miracle of the Gospel covenant: for if Christ be not risen from the dead-as every Lord's day observance proclaims he is risen-then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.

Were we to regard it only in this point of view, a strict attention to the public ordinances of our religion would be a duty binding upon the conscience of every true servant of Jesus Christ. The assembling of ourselves together on the day of sacred rest, is a grand and solemn attestation to the truth of the Gospel revelation. Observed at the same moment in every part of the civilized world by the members of Christ's Church, it is a standing and continually recurring confutation of infidelity-it is a perpetual renewing of belief. The whole Christian family lays aside those pursuits which have reference only to While the a transitory state, and turns its eyes towards the glory of eternity. sounds of business and pleasure are hushed, it raises its voice in glad acclaim to Such at least ought to be the Him that sitteth on the throne for ever and ever. case: such ought to be the Sabbath triumphs of the Gospel over the pageants and the cares of the world that abideth not: and oh, that every one who nameth the name of Christ would consider how glorious would be the consequence, if all would, in good earnest, set themselves to sanctify that day, the great object of which is the doing honour to the name of God and Christ. How would

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »