Page images
PDF
EPUB

SERMON VII.

The Compassion of God.

PSALM ciii. 13.

Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord piticth them that fear him.

AMONG many frivolous excuses, which mankind bave invented to exculpate their barrenness under a gospel-ministry, there is one that deserves respect. Why, say they, do ye address men as if they were destitute of the sentiments of humanity? Why do ye treat Christians like slaves? Why do ye perpetually urge, in your preaching, motives of wrath, vengeance, the worm that never dies, the fire that is never quenched? Isa. lxvi. 24. Motives of this kind fill the heart with rebellion instead of conciliating it by love. Mankind have a fund of sensibility and tenderness. Let the tender motives that our legislator hath diffused throughout our Bibles, be pressed upon us; and then every sermon would produce some conversions, and your complaints of Christians would cease with the causes that produce them.

I call this excuse frivolous: for how little must we know of human nature, to suppose men so very sensible to the attractives of religion! Where is the minister of the gospel, who hath not displayed the

charms of religion a thousand, and a thousand times, and displayed them in vain? Some souls must be terrified, some sinners must be saved by fear, and pulled out of the fire, Jude 23. There are some hearts that are sensible to only one object in religion, that is hell; and, if any way remain to prevent their actual destruction hereafter, it is to overwhelm their souls with the present fear of it: "knowing therefore the terrors of the Lord, we persuade men."

Yet, however frivolous this pretext may appear, there is a something in it that merits respect. I am pleased to see those men, who have not been ashamed to say that the Lord's yoke is intolerable, driven to abjure so odious a system: I love to hear them acknowledge, that religion is supported by motives fitted to ingenuous minds; and that the God from whom it proceeds, hath discovered so much benevolence and love in the gift, that it is impossible not to be affected with it, if we be capable of feeling.

I cannot tell, my brethren, whether among these Christians, whom the holiness of this day hath assembled in this sacred place, there be many, who have availed themselves of the frivolous pretence just now mentioned; and who have sometimes wickedly determined to despise eternal torments, under an extravagant pretence that the ministers of the gospel too often preach, and too dismally describe them. But, without requiring your answer to so mortifying a question, without endeavouring to make you contradict yourselves, we invite you to behold

those attractives to-day, to which ye boast of being so very sensible. Come and see the Supreme Legislator, to whom we would devote your services ; behold him, not as an avenging God, not as a consuming God, not shaking the earth, and overturning the mountains in his anger, Job ix. 4, 5. not thundering in the heavens, shooting out lightnings, or giving his voice in hailstones and coals of fire, Psa. xviii. 13, 14. but putting on such tender emotions for you as ye feel for your children. In this light the prophet places him in the text and in this light we are going to place him in this discourse.

0 ye marble hearts! so often insensible to the terrors of our ministry; may God compel you to-day to feel its attracting promises! O ye marble hearts! against which the edge of the sword of the Almighty's avenging justice hath been so often blunted; the Lord grant that ye may be this day dissolved by the energy of his love! Amen.

"Like as a father pitieth his children, so doth the Lord pity them that fear him." Before we attempt to explain the text, we must premise one remark, which is generally granted, when it is proposed in a vague manner, and almost as generally denied in its consequences: that is, that the most complete notion which we can form of a divine attribute, is to suppose it in perfect harmony with every other divine attribute.

The most lovely idea that we can form of the Deity, and which, at the same time, is the most solid ground of our faith in his word, and of our confidence in the performance of his promises, is that

[blocks in formation]

which represents him as an uniform being, whose attributes harmonize, and who is always consistent with himself. There is no greater character of imperfection in any intelligent being than the want of this harmony: when one of his attributes opposeth another of his attributes; when the same attribute opposeth itself; when his wisdom is not supported by his power; or when his power is not directed by his wisdom.

This character of imperfection, essential to all creatures, is the ground of those prohibitions that we meet with in the holy scriptures, in regard to the objects of our trust. "Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth, in that very day his thoughts perish," Psa. cxlvi. 3, 4. "Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm," Jer. xvii. 5. Why? Because it is not safe to confide in man, unless he have such a harmony of attributes, as we have just now described; and because no man hath such a harmony. His power may assist you, but, unless he have wisdom to direct his power, the very means that he would use to make you happy, would make you miserable. Even his power would not harmonize with itself, in regard to you, if it were sufficient to supply your wants to-day, but not to-morrow. That man, that prince, that mortal, to whom thou givest the superb titles of Potentate, Monarch, Arbiter of peace, and Arbiter of war; that mortal who is alive to-day, will die to-morrow, the breath that animates him will evaporate, he

will return to his earth, and all his kind regards for thee will vanish with him.

But the perfections of God are in perfect harmony. This truth shall guide us through this discourse, and shall arrange its parts: And this is the likeliest way that we can think of, to preserve the dignity of our subject, to avoid its numerous difficulties, to preclude such fatal inferences as our weak and wicked passions have been too well accustomed to draw from the subject, and to verify the prophet's proposition in its noblest meaning, "Like as a father pitieth his children, so doth the Lord pity them that fear him."

Would ye form a just notion of the goodness of God, (for the original term, that our translators have rendered pity, is equivocal, and is used in this vague sense in the holy scriptures.) Would ye form a just notion of the goodness of God? Then, conceive a perfection that is always in harmony with,

I. The spirituality of his essence.

II. The inconceivableness of his nature.

III. The holiness of his designs.

IV. The independence of his principles.
V. The immutability of his will.

VI. The efficacy of his power. But above all,
VII. With the veracity of his word.

1. The goodness of God must agree with the spirituality of his essence. Compassion, among men, is that mechanical emotion, which is produced in them by the sight of distressed objects. I allow that the wisdom of the Creator is very much dis

« PreviousContinue »