Page images
PDF
EPUB

and if the words above quoted apply to yourselves, Jesus Christ is amongst us now. Your own consciences will tell you in what capacity he is here. If you have prayed really with the spirit, though you have not seen his presence in that visible glory wherein Jehovah was wont to appear in the tabernacle or the temple, you have perceived his gracious power in your souls, kindling your piety, and strengthening your infirmities. If there has been carelessness or coolness in his service, it is a fearful thing to reflect, that he is here to record those offences against you in the book of judgment. And oh! if there be any here who are disposed to mock at the presence of Christ, and believe that, because he is invisible to us, he is therefore absent, let them pause ere they indulge too hastily this vain and presumptuous confidence. Let them know that Jesus is not only the Saviour, but also the judge of mankind. Let them know that, though they see him not, yet all the dark secrets of their own hearts are unveiled to his view; that, though his hand be now stretched forth in mercy to save, yet that same hand shall be held out hereafter in vengeance and just retribution. In vain then shall they say, with the prophet, "Hide away, for the Lord cometh out of his place to punish." "Where, alas! shall they hide? What

* Isaiah xxvi. 20.

But,

Be

undiscoverable corner of creation shall conceal them from the lightning glance of their judge? In vain shall they cry even to the hills to fall on them, and the mountains to cover them; no depth of darkness shall conceal them, for before him the night itself shall be turned into day. O gracious Saviour! be thou with this congregation in mercy rather than in judgment. with us in prayer,—in active life,-in solitude,in the busy world. Be with us in our weary pilgrimage through this scene of trial; be with us to achieve anew the victory of the grave, and to banish the sting of death. And grant that when we have ceased to need thy protection on earth, we may enjoy thy eternal presence in heaven!

SERMON V.

ŞIN A STATE OF DEATH.

Colossians ii. 13.

And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him.

THESE are strong and alarming figures to describe the state of nature as contrasted with the state of grace. The scriptures, in various other places, have illustrated to us the spiritual things of which they speak by comparisons from the objects of sense. Heaven and hell are brought before our eyes by lively images from the visible creation, descriptive of the most intense enjoyment, or the utmost conceivable pain. The secret operations of the Holy Spirit are placed within the reach of our comprehension by beautiful emblems from

the dews or rains of heaven descending to fertilize the earth, or from the winds, whose influence we perceive, but whose viewless and mysterious pathway we cannot trace. And so also the imperfections of our fallen nature are described by figures from the constitution of the body, as a dulness of sense, a blindness, and deafness, and grossness of the heart, rendering us insensible to the glories. we were designed to contemplate, and the happiness we were made to enjoy. But the words

now before us contain a stronger and more terrible image than all. Here, as well as in a corresponding verse of the epistle to the Ephesians, which says, "you hath he quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins,"* the apostle speaks of no partial imperfection in sinful man, no mere defect of the spiritual eye or the spiritual ear, but an entire extinction of vitality in the soul, the absence of all power, and energy, and life; and tells us that those who persist in their sins, and the uncircumcision, as he calls it, of the flesh, (that is, the determined resistance of all those remedies of law or gospel which were designed to heal the evil,) are no less than actually dead; while they only, in the true sense of the word, can be said to live, who have been "quickened together with Christ," and have been reanimated, * Ephesians ii. 1.

as it were, by the vivifying spark of his saving and inspiring grace.

Such an account of nature and of sin, given too by one who was no mean judge of humanity, well deserves our examination. Death is, in every sense of the word, to us a frightful and alarming image. It is associated in our minds with fearful thoughts of sorrow and mourning, of wounded friendship and dissevered love, of painful separations and agonizing regrets. It is drawn too

on our imaginations in still more gloomy colours as connected with the terrors of the grave,-the mouldering body, the devouring worm, the silence and solitude, the darkness and the gloom, and all the terrible accompaniments of decay. And when such a comparison is applied to us, perhaps in all the pride of life, and the full joyousness of health and prosperity, there is, methinks, a something of awful interest in the application which should lead us, with peculiar earnestness, to inquire how far it belongs individually to ourselves. Let us therefore, in endeavouring to interpret the apostle's words, examine

I. How we are said to have been dead in our sins.

II. In what sense Christ may be said to have quickened, or given us life, together with him.

« PreviousContinue »