Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

to tread the paths of peace and wisdom, which seeks to win our souls from those vanities by which they are misled, and points to honour and immortality as their true pursuit and their glorious reward! To those who hear the call and obey it, it will prove a constant source of comfort. Although adversity may assail, and friends forsake them, yet the voice which they cheerfully follow will speak peace and consolation to their hearts. As they advance in life, and see more of the plan of Providence, its sounds will continually become clearer and more distinct; on the bed of death they will swell into a note of triumph; and, finally, in better worlds will be heard to utter those welcome words: "Well done, good and, faithful servant, thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

SERMON II.

ON THE CHARACTER OF SCRIPTURE.

ST. JOHN, v. 29.

"Search the Scriptures."

"THE heavens," says the psalmist, "declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handywork." This is the universal revelation which " is gone out through all the earth, and to the end of the world." To us who, from our earliest years, have been taught to observe those manifestations of Deity, they seem to be so simple, so beautiful, and so conclusive, that we are sometimes disposed to undervalue every other source of religious instruction. When we reflect, however, my brethren, it cannot but occur to us, that those traces of the divine hand, which to us appear so distinct, are beheld without any emotion by the greatest portion of the human race; that the sun rises upon many regions without reminding the unthinking inhabitants of that eternal fountain of light from whence he sprung; and that the savage may say of the book of nature, as he has said of the book of revelation, that "it speaks not to him." Nor can we ascribe it to the progress of reason and philosophy alone that the simple truths of natural religion are so clearly discerned

B

by our eyes; for there have been ages before us, distinguished for the highest mental superiority; ages to which we still look back with reverence approaching to adoration, that yet, in point of religious knowledge or sentiment, were scarcely at all advanced beyond the miserable ignorance and superstition of barbarians.'

Without denying the influence of other causes, it is therefore by no means hardy in us to affirm, that the perfection of natural religion is greatly to be imputed to the progress of revelation; and that the truths taught in the book of the Scriptures have at least tended to open the eyes of me to those sublime lessons which nature herself may convey to them. This indeed would be going but a little way, and it would be betraying our trust to say, that these sacred oracles contain only a mere perfect species of deism. The truths which they peculiarly teach are those which our Saviour refers to in the words immediately following the text: "Search the scriptures (says he), for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me." It is through them that man becomes weil instructed in the doctrines of immortality and salvation, that he learns his superiority to the fleeting things of the world, and perceives the relation in which he stands to that great person who undertook and accomplished the work of his redemption. My present intention, however, is not to enter into any particular consideration of those great doctrines revealed to us in scripture, and which are only to be found there: I propose, from the words of the text, to draw your attention rather to a more general series of reflections, founded on the beautiful truth conveyed to us in the assertion that there are scriptures open to our

search, and that the Author of our being hos, in a peculiar manner, deigned to hold communion with man.

In entering upon this point, allow me first to suggest to you, that human nature has always seemed to require some communication of this kind. However beautiful the instances of divine goodness and providence display. ed in the works of creation, yet they are not quite adapt. ed to satisfy our hearts. Although he is near, and round about us, yet the Author of our being seems somehow to be remote from us: we enjoy, indeed, the fruits of his bounty; we even seem to hold a conspicuous place among his works. Yet nature is so vast a system; every thing around us is so prodigious and great, that the notion of our insignificance cannot but overwhelm ús, and we seek for some more touching assurances than the “still small voice" of nature conveys to our ear, that we are not overlooked and forgotten in the immensity of creation.

It is this feeling, my brethren, which probably has operated as one cause to give birth to all that monstrous assemblage of superstitions which degraded the ancient world, and which now appear to us so extraordinary and unaccountable. Amidst all the folly and abomination which may attach to them, they yet occur to us, in this view, as a very interesting picture in the history of our species. They were the attempts,—the vain, the erring, the disappointed, but the earnest and persevering attempts,-of the creature to approach its Creator; of a being who felt the sublimity of his nature, however clouded and obscured, to advance to the source from which he sprung; and who, amidst the disasters and melancholy of human life, sought consolation from a

more direct intercourse with the great

the Father of his existence.

Universal Spirit,

It is sometimes the fashion with philosophical inquirers to ridicule, in the superiority of their own knowledge and reason, the simplicity of the savage who "sees God in clouds, and hears him in the wind:" but perhaps they would find upon consideration, that however he may err in the course which he pursues, yet the sentiment which guides him is congenial to the heart of man; and if these inquirers have lost it amidst the pride of system and reasoning, they are only perhaps more liable than he to the charge of error and delusion.

This sentiment, then, being natural to man, let us, in the second place, consider how beautifully it is met in the volume of the Scriptures. However unexpected many things in that book may be, however little they yet this must be al

may suit the taste of a refined age, lowed to them, that in every page they meet this sentiment of our nature. They meet it in all its forms, and they are only perhaps the more truly divine, inasmuch as they meet it with a peculiar condescension, suited to all the varying circumstances of the human race. In the language of St. Paul, "they are made all things to all men, that they may by all means save some." In the early parts of the sacred records in particular, we find many narratives which to us appear rude, and adapted only to the conceptions of a barbarous age. The Deity seems to condescend to the wishes of his creatures in a manner that may appear to contradict the lofty and exalted views which we are now taught to form of his nature. Yet, my brethren, in all such scenes, the thing which must strike us most is the fact of the

« AnteriorContinuar »