Page images
PDF
EPUB

now knocking at the door of our hearts, through the medium of this sacred season, and its ap

pointed services; calling upon us to repent and humble ourselves before him, demanding of us a more solemn cast of feeling, and greater sequestration of soul, and a more than ordinary course of self-denial ? Has not his spirit-stirring appeal been sounded in our ears, "Rend your hearts, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God," adding, for our encouragement, that "he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness ?"

Remember!

Oh, then, shall we not hearken? he speaks not for ever. A time is coming when his gracious overtures will be closed. The ears of Manasseh and of his people were at length no more assailed by the warnings and the deprecations of the prophetic ministry. But when this voice of the Lord was silent, what succeeded? Their period of probation was at an end. The agents of Almighty vengeance were let loose upon them, and utter destruction succeeded.

Brethren, to us also there is an allotted interval for amendment of our lives. There is

a time when the Spirit of God ceases to strive with us Christians, as with the Jews of old. Let the sinner, then, bethink himself at once of the perilous situation in which he stands. Let him act upon the admonition of the prophet, "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon."

Our God is the Lord Jesus Christ, who invites every class of transgressors to come to him and be saved. He is our mediator, our intercessor, our atonement, the giant barrier between sin and vengeance. Manasseh knew him not, until the iron of affliction had entered into his soul. May we know him without being subjected to the painful ordeal of adversity. if no other means will answer to save our souls, let misfortune come with its dark and frowning train, to subdue us into contrition; and let us welcome its approach as a benignant messenger from heaven. Such it proved to the idola

But,

trous king of Judah in his subsequent state of captivity in Babylon. And in this condition of abasement, remorse, and repentance, I purpose to view him in an ensuing lecture on this subject.

38

SERMON III.

MANASSEH A CAPTIVE IN BABYLON.

2 Chron. xxxiii. 11.

Wherefore the Lord brought upon them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, which took Manasseh among the thorns, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon.

WE have already viewed Manasseh, king of Judah, in his wild career of guilt and folly. We have likewise seen that the Lord was mercifully pleased to speak to him and to his people; but they would not hearken. We come now to the consequences of their perseverance in iniquity, and their refusal to listen to the admonitions of God's prophets. The troops of a mighty empire were put into commotion against them. The

mustering of their squadrons was no capricious movement of their own. God ordained it all himself, for the fulfilment of his great and important purposes, in the execution of his wrath against an idolatrous nation.

Let us first take a brief historical survey of the kingdom of Assyria, thus chosen as the instrument of divine vengeance. In that remarkable chapter, (Genesis x.) which gives an account of the peopling of this globe from the descendents of Noah, we find the name of the founder of this illustrious empire. "Nimrod," says the sacred writer, “was a mighty hunter before the Lord, (i. e. a hunter in a very eminent degree.) And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh."

Let me not be thought too minutely critical, when I remark that instead of "out of that land went forth Asshur," we should better render it by the marginal translation, which the original language will justify, "Out of that land he went forth into Asshur, or Assyria." That is, Nimrod, the beginning of whose kingdom was Babel,

« PreviousContinue »