Sivut kuvina
PDF
ePub

66

God, it must be because God is unwilling; if so, the language of that sinner's heart is "why doth he yet find fault?" Nay, but O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, why hast thou made

me thus ?"

Sinners are apt to confound a willingness to escape hell, with a willingness to come to Christ; and a desire to be happy, with a desire to be holy. But these things are widely different, the one from the other. This confusion of distinguishable desires, arises out of imperfect and erroneous views of the nature of heaven, and of its happiness and employments. It is said of sinners that they "hate knowledge and do not CHOOSE. the fear of the Lord." Prov. i. 29.

Indeed when a sinner is made willing to come to Christ, he is not able of himself to follow him, and to hold on his way of faith. After he has received Christ Jesus the Lord, he needs continued help and grace, to walk in him. The spirit may be willing, but the flesh weak. Paul declared that to will was present with him, but how to perform that which is good, he found not. Rom. vii. 18. For the good he would, he dia not, and the evil which he would not, that he did; verse 19. This he attributed to sin that still dwelt in him; verse 20. Hence he complains of a warfare between the law of his members, and the law of his (now renewed) mind; verse 23. "So that it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy." Rom. ix. 16. The apostle calls his inability his sin. Rom. vii. 20. And yet it was an inability which he could not remove: for he cries out "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" verse 24. He did not suppose that he could deliver himself, on the contrary he attributes to God his ability to serve Him with his mind. "I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord;" verse 25. This indwelling sin which hindered him from doing the good he would, was not laid to Paul's charge for his condemnation, because he consented not to it, but delighted in the law of God after the inward man; verse 22. But in the case of an impenitent sinner, who serves God neither with his mind nor flesh, this inability is regarded as a sufficient ground of condemnation; and cannot, therefore, be named as his excuse for impenitency. Besides, it ought to be borne in mind, that sinners plead their inability as their infirmity, and not as their sin. They overlook the fact that their inability is their sin. Viewing inability in this light, they are not fully convinced of its existence; for a sinner is described in the third chapter of Revelation, verse 17, as saying "I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing," and yet as

Knowing not that he is wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked." To plead inability as an infirmity, is to be ignorant of its criminality, and is only equalled in perverseness and folly by the plea of a murderer, who relies, for an escape from punishment, upon the excuse that his aversion to the man he has slain was unconquerable, and his inclination to take his life, was irresistible; a circumstance which enhances his guilt rather than extenuates his offence.

The design of this discussion has been to show that there is in the doctrine of human helplessness and dependence, no impeachment of the divine character and justice. David confesses and bewails his wilful transgressions, and his native depravity, in which latter this inability consists, in order that God might be justified when he speaks, and clear when he judges. Ps. li. 1-5. It was the further design of this discussion, thus to wrest from the sinner's hand the feeble and unhallowed weapon with which he would contend against God and his government; and in love to the sinner, to tear away from beneath him the sandy foundation on which he stands, in self-justification, and in the wilful indulgence of vain, delusive, and destructive hopes of ultimate acquittal at the bar of God; and thus arouse him from the dream of a false security, before it be forever too late, and bring him, if possible, to the foot of the cross, without excuse, convicted and self-condemned, to look upon Him whom he had pierced, and mourn.

THE END.

THE

SABBATH AT HOME

BY THE

REV. SILAS M. ANDREWS.

PHILADELPHIA:

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION.

Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1836, by

ALEXANDER W. MITCHELL, M. D.,

in the office of the Clerk of the District Court for the
Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

THE SABBATH AT HOME.

It is not proposed to dwell, in the following pages, upon the arguments that might be brought forward to prove that the Sabbath is a Divine institution, established and sanctified by the Creator on the seventh day, after all his works were finished, and renewed to Israel on the descent of the manna. Nor shall I attempt to show, from the Scriptures, that the Sabbath is a Christian institution, as well as a Jewish ordinance; or call your attention to the satisfactory reasons we have for observing, as holy time, the first day of the week, and not the seventh. No controversy will be maintained with any who object to the Sabbath as commonly acknowledged by Christians. He who sincerely seeks for instruction, has no need of such argument; he already believes the Sabbath is the Lord's, and that it is to be sanctified by a holy resting all the day.

The design of this Tract is to point out and illustrate the most profitable manner of spending that part of the Lord's day which is not employed in the public exercises of Divine worship.

That your family, in each of its members, may profitably spend the Sabbath at home,—

I. By Saturday evening have your worldly business arranged to keep the Sabbath.

Few families pursue their business or trade, the same on the Sabbath as on any other day. But there are many who do not keep it as a sacred rest. If they do not plough and sow; if the sound of the anvil and the saw is not heard in their shops; if they do not, with open doors, buy and sell, and get gain; there is another species of worldly business to which they do attend, which, though not so much noticed by others, properly belongs to the six days in which work may be done.

Such persons may be said to make arrangements, not to keep, but to profane the Sabbath. "This matter need not be attended to now, while other things press upon us— -it may be postponed until Sunday. That journey must be performed that plan laid with my neighbour-that errand accomplished next Sabbath, or it will interfere with the business of the week."

To persons who thus feel, and who can thus act, I do not propose to address myself; they do not desire information; they have no wish to be instructed how they may more profitably spend the Sabbath. They would like best to hear of some new plan of retaining the Christian name, while they drive on their own trades and find their own pleasures.

No

« EdellinenJatka »