In order not to break the continuity of the subjects treated in these Sermons they are each printed as a whole. Yet the substance of twelve Sermons is contained in the six, each having formed two discourses when delivered from the pulpit. MAN'S HELPLESSNESS. "Without me ye can do nothing." HOWEVER repugnant to the taste of the world the doctrine of man's native helplessness be, it is a truth, not merely derived by inference from certain doctrines, clearly and unequivocally laid down in the Sacred Volume, but is one that is fully, and frequently, and unambiguously defined: and were there no other passage upon which to found it, the words that I have read from the 15th of John are sufficiently explicit for its establishment. The want of relish for a statement purporting to proceed from the Spirit of God-the want of disposition towards it, becomes no argument against the truth thereof, nor does it make the detail of the statement in its several particulars, unnecessary. On the contrary, this very indisposition to what comes from God-this very disrelish to what His Spirit affirms, corroborates the doctrine inculcated in this passage; affords a most powerful argument for its support; and proves the necessity of its being peculiarly insisted on. It is useful to enter into the particulars of this native helplessness of man, because we find many, who, while they admit a general statement of the subject, recoil with undisguised horror and aversion from the details which such a statement logically includes. It is useful to bring them before the view of the unconverted; because, by a clear and scriptural exhibition of them, such persons may perceive how erroneously they proceed, and with what little sanction from the Scriptures, in supposing themselves capable of doing what is plainly the expression of spiritual life; thus deluding themselves with the notion that they are alive from the dead, and not so “poor, and miserable, and wretched, and blind, and naked," as the Word of God describes them to be (Rev. iii. 17). It is useful to bring them before the converted; because, when rightly apprehended, they serve to keep them abiding in Christ, and to preserve them from trusting in an arm of flesh. Men are perpetually depending in a greater or less degree, upon their own strength and attainments, and the children of God, even as others, are liable in this respect to be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ; but the remem 1 brance of this truth, in connexion with the Redeemer's fulness, is calculated to preserve them from "making shipwreck concerning the faith" (1 Tim. i. 19); and the consciousness of Jesus' all-sufficiency, in connexion with man's utter inability to help or benefit himself in things pertaining unto God, is calculated to arouse the disciples of the Lord to a more urgent and affectionate display of the Gospel of His grace; and to a more zealous and unwearied pressing of its high authority upon the consideration of their fellow-sinners, since Christ is therein revealed as doing, in the sinner's room and on his behalf, that which he can never do himself for the reconcilement of his soul with God. My design at present is, to point out some of those particulars which make up the idea of man's spiritual helplessness. I shall first state what the unconverted man can not do: and next, I shall shew wherein the spiritual privileges of the regenerate consist-I shall state what the children of God can do. But, previously to our proceeding to an enumeration of the several topics contained under those heads, it may be necessary to enquire, what is meant by being without Christ, and by having Christ: and I would here remind my own soul, and the souls of those whom I address, that without Christ standing with the preacher, and teaching him, and strengthening him, what he preacheth cannot be fully known (2 Tim. iv. 17); and I would, under this persuasion, look up myself, and beg those who have access to the throne of grace, to look up to Him who sitteth thereon, both for me and for themselves, that he may be pleased to vouchsafe a copious effusion of the Spirit of Truth, that our consideration of these subjects may be "for the better, and not for the worse" (1 Cor. xi. 17). We learn what it is to be "without Christ," by attending to what Paul says concerning the state of the Ephesians in the sight of God, before the Gospel came to them, "preaching peace by Jesus Christ" (Eph., ii. 11, 12); "Wherefore remember, that ye being in times past Gentiles in the flesh-that at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world." —Although they were obviously involved in guilt, their own consciences testifying against them, by their having recourse to propitiatory sacrifices, yet were they without a Saviour-they had no "Days-man" (Job, ix. 33) between God and their souls-no one upon whom they might roll the burden of their iniquities, and in whose Almightiness to save they might take refuge. They were not reckoned among the subjects of Jehovah, but were servants of the "god of this world," they had no Divine Revelation to guide them into the way of peace-they had no hope of eternal life; and although they had what they "called gods many, and lords many," (1 Cor. viii. 5) yet being in ignorance of Jehovah's real character as declared by His Son, with all their devotion and religious zeal they were in His sight "Atheists" (A680) in the world. The beloved disciple John, in his first Epistle, in |