you to that region, where storms and tempests are altogether unknown; and where you shall not thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on you, nor any heat; but where the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall lead you unto living fountains of waters, and God shall wipe away all tears from your eyes. (Rev. vii. 16, 17.)

109

SERMON VII.

THE DIVINE RECORD.

1 JOHN V. 11, 12.

“This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath no life."

It is obvious that the designs of God respecting the work of his hands entirely depend on his own will, and rest within his own bosom: and, this being the case, it is equally obvious that, unless he please to favour us with an express declaration of those designs, we may, indeed, by debating and disputing about the probabilities of the case, bewilder ourselves in all the mazes of metaphysical conjecture; but, as for anything like certainty respecting what so deeply concerns us, that is a point which it is utterly beyond our abilities to attain. Such a declaration, however, God has been pleased to make; he has explicitly testified

his designs concerning us; and, in the record of the Old and New Testaments, we have an express revelation of his will. And, under such circumstances as these, what is the course which reason would prescribe to us? Is it our business previously to determine what such a revelation ought in our superior judgment to contain, and then to receive or reject its contents according as they coincide, or not, with our preconceived notions? or can it be befitting us to wrest and torture the terms in which it is conveyed, until it is made to speak a language agreeable, indeed, to our will, but in direct contradiction to the will of him that indited it? Ought we to adopt any such methods of proceeding as these? or, laying aside all our preconceived notions, sit down with the simple desire of submitting our understandings to the dictates of divine wisdom and goodness? Clearly, if we impartially listen to the voice of reason, it will teach us, that, having in ourselves no adequate means of ascertaining what a being so mysterious, and so infinitely exalted, would condescend to communicate to his creatures, it is our part thankfully to receive the record which God has given us, and attentively to study its contents. It will teach us that, having first satisfied ourselves as to the evidence on which the authority of this record rests, our grand business is, not to

conjecture, but to learn: and the question which sound philosophy would henceforth direct us to put, is, as has been well remarked, not "what thinkest thou?" but, "what readest thou?"*

Such, then, are the views with which we ought to communicate and to prosecute the study of the divine record: in this manner we should attend constantly to the whole and to every part of it: and in this way, not proudly summoning its contents to the tribunal of our darkened understandings, but humbly submitting all our lofty imaginations to the unerring truth of its decisions, let us now attend to that brief, but comprehensive, summary of it, which is contained in the words of the text. This record relates to,

I. The unmerited grant of our God: "This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life."

II. The channel through which this grant is conveyed to us: "This life is in his Son." And,

III. The character of the individuals who will obtain the benefit of this grant, and of those who will fail of it: “He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life." The record sets before us,

* Dr. Chalmers.

I. The unmerited grant of our God. Mark for a moment,

1. The nature of the blessing here said to be granted to us. It is life, life worthy of the name, a life perfectly exempt from every kind and degree of evil, and accompanied by every conceivable and by every inconceivable good. This life, too, thus worthy of the name, is further especially worthy of the name, because it is eternal; not like our present life, which is but as a hand-breadth, which is but as a vapour that appeareth for a short time, and then vanisheth away: but a stable, enduring life; a life which, after the blissful revolutions of centuries, of thousands, and of millions of years; after the lapse of the utmost period which human arithmetic can count, or human imagination conceive, and incomparably more still, shall not, even by the space of one single moment, be nearer its termination than it was when it first commenced. It is a life, to represent which to our imperfect powers of perception, every image is resorted to in Scripture that is calculated to raise it in our estimation; and which, for instance, is successively held up to our view as a crown of righteousness, and a kingdom which cannot be moved; as a city which hath foundations, an incorruptible and undefiled and