and said, So is this people, and so is this nation before me, saith the Lord; and so is every work of their hands; and that which they offer there is unclean." 99* To be under the power and pollution of sin is to be odious in the sight of God; and what inexpressible degradation is comprehended in this idea! For the eye of God's holiness to be averted from us, to have no share in his complacency, to be in a situation in which his essential attributes are engaged for our destruction, is a conception which, if you come to realize it, is replete with horror. To have "the wrath of God abiding on you" is a calamity which, one would suppose, must drink up your spirit, and completely destroy whatever satisfaction you might naturally derive from other objects. Till this plague is removed, cheerfulness is folly, and laughter is madness. However prosperous your outward condition, however successful your worldly pursuits, however ample your fortune, or elevated your rank, they are no just occasion of joy to you, any more than the garland which decorates the victim prepared for slaughter. "Rejoice not, O Israel, for joy, as other people: for thou hast gone a whoring from thy God."† There are many circumstances calculated to afford a degree of joy; the blessings so plenteously showered down on the path of life are adapted in themselves to exhilarate the heart, and to diffuse a ray of cheerfulness over the soul; but to him that is under the wrath of the Almighty, if they afford high gratification, it must be in consequence of his forgetfulness of his true situation. We should pity the insensibility of the man who could delight himself with the dainties of a feast, while a sword was suspended over his head by a single hair;‡ the danger of whose situation is, however, not to be compared with being every moment exposed to "the wrath of God." While you continue in your sins, you have not the shadow of security against overwhelming and hopeless destruction: at any moment, in the midst of your amusements, your business, your repose, whether at home or abroad, in company or in solitude, you are liable to the arrest of justice; to be cast out into that eternal prison from whence you can never escape "till you have paid the uttermost farthing." The Being that fills with his presence the immensity of space-the Being "in whom you live, and move, and have your being," who can crush you in a moment, and who has engaged to recompense his enemies, and "reward them that hate him," is incensed at you, and laughs at your insensibility, because he knows that your hour is coming. III. The subject before us suggests the strongest motives for an immediate application to the methods of cure. Were sin a tolerable distemper, it might be endured; were it entirely or in every sense incurable, it must be submitted to. But as things are actually situated, there is no necessity for you to pine away in your iniquities; for though you cannot recover yourselves by any native unaided power of * Haggai ii. 13, 14. Hos. Ix. 1. See Horace, lib. iii. carm. 1. yours, though in this light your [hopelessness] be deep, and your wound incurable, yet there is a method of recovery revealed in the gospel, which millions have tried with success. "There is balm in Gilead, there is a Physician there."* By the discoveries it makes of the placability of the Divine Being, and the actual constitution of a Redeemer, the gospel is essentially a restorative dispensation. "It is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth."† We have observed, in the course of our discussion of the subject, that the evils attached to sin are twofold: guilt, which is a legal obstruction to an approach to God, and renders the sinner liable to eternal death; and pollution, which disqualifies him for happiness. To the former the blood of the Redeemer, "sprinkled upon the conscience," is a sovereign antidote: "the blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin." The great design of his coming into this world was to render that reparation to divine justice for the injury it had sustained by the transgressions of men, which it had been otherwise impossible to make; and thus, in consistency with the divine law, to admit repenting sinners to mercy. "Having boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; and having an High-priest over the house of God; let us draw near."§ With respect to the power and pollution of sin, its efficacy in retaining the soul in bondage; this also admits of relief in the gospel. There is a Spirit, we have often occasion to remind you, which can liberate the soul, and diffuse freedom, light, and purity through all its powers. "The Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made us free from the law of sin and death."|| "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." If you are willing to be made clean, if you sincerely implore the savour of Divine grace, it will not long be withheld from you. 66 He will give his Holy Spirit unto them that ask him.”** "If you will turn at his reproof, he will pour out his Spirit unto you, and make known his words unto you." "He is willing to heal your backslidings, to receive you graciously, and love you freely."# If you are so much in love with your distemper, indeed, as to determine, at all events, not to part with it, your case is hopeless; and nothing remains but for you to die in your sins, under the additional guilt you incur by refusing the remedy which Infinite Wisdom has prepared. At present, God is expostulating with you, in the language of an ancient prophet, “O Jerusalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayst be saved. How long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee?"§§ "Wo unto thee, O Jerusalem! wilt thou not be made clean? when shall it once be?”|||| You have met with many occurrences calculated to bring your sin to your remembrance; in various respects God has walked contrary to you, and has probably often visited you with severe chastisements. Your bodies have been reduced by sickness, your families visited with * Jer. viii. 22. Rom. viil. 2. #Hos. xiv. 4. † Rom. 1. 16. T2 Cor. ill. 17. Ø Jer. iv. 14. 11 John 1. 7. Heb. x. 19-22. ft Prov. 1. 23. death; and under some of these strokes you were for a while stunned, and formed some feeble resolution of forsaking your sins, and devoting yourselves to a religious life. But what are the fruits? No sooner was the first smart of your affliction [abated,] than you returned to your course, and became as inattentive to the concerns of your soul as ever. God only knows whether he will grant you any more warnings; whether he will wait upon you any longer; whether he will ever again visit you in mercy; or whether he will pronounce on you that awful sentence recorded in Ezekiel,-"Because I have purged thee, and thou wast not purged, thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness any more, till I have caused my fury to rest upon thee. I the Lord have spoken it; it shall come to pass, and I will do it; I will not go back, neither will I spare, neither will I repent: according to thy ways and according to thy doings shall they judge thee, saith the Lord God." XIX. ON COUNTING THE COST. LUKE xiv. 28.—For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? AMONG the many excellences which distinguish the character of our Lord, as the author and founder of a new religion, we perceive, throughout the whole of his conduct, a most transparent simplicity and candour. He disdained, on any occasion, to take advantage of the ignorance or inexperience of the persons with whom he conversed; never stooping to the low arts of popularity, nor attempting to swell the number of his followers by a concealment of the truth. He availed himself of no sudden surprise, no momentary enthusiasm arising from the miracles which he wrought, or the benefits which he conferred. The attachment which he sought, and which he valued, was the result of mature conviction, founded on the evidence of his claims, and combined with a distinct foresight of the consequences, near and remote, which would follow from becoming his disciples. Conscious of the solidity of the foundation on which his title to universal and devoted obedience rested, he challenged the strictest scrutiny. Knowing that his promises would more than compensate all the sacrifices he might require, and all the sufferings to which his disciples might be exposed, he was not solicitous to throw a veil over either; but rather chose to set them in the strongest light, that none might be induced to enlist under his banners but such as were "called, and chosen, and faithful." He felt no desire to be surrounded by a crowd of ignorant and superficial admirers, * Ezek. xxiv. 13, 14. ready to make him a king to-day, and to cry, "Crucify him, crucify him," to-morrow; but by a band "whose hearts God had touched," prepared, through good and evil report, to follow him to prison and to death. Such, with the exception of one, were his twelve apostles; such the hundred and twenty disciples who were assembled at Jerusalem after his ascension; and such the character of those whom he will acknowledge as his at a future day. Let me request your serious attention while, in dependence on Divine assistance, we attempt the improvement of this passage, by showing, I. What is the cost attending the Christian profession. II. Why it is necessary to count the cost: and, III. The reasons which ought to determine our adherence to Christ, whatever that cost may be. I. We are to consider the cost of the Christian profession. The cost attending [this profession] relates, either to what it requires us to renounce, or what we are to expect, or the term and duration of the engagement. 1. In order to be the disciples of Christ, there is much that we must instantly renounce. It is a profession of holiness: it therefore demands the immediate renunciation of criminal and forbidden pleasures. The moment we become Christ's disciples, we commence a warfare with the flesh, engaging for its crucifixion, with all its sinful lusts and appetites. "They that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts."* To the severities of monastic discipline, in which the body is torn by scourges, and emaciated by abstaining from the nourishment required to sustain it in health and vigour, the religion of Christ is a stranger. "For every creature of God is good, if it be received with thanksgiving." But a soft, voluptuous, and sensual life is repugnant, not only to the example of Christ, but to the whole genius and spirit of his institutes. By his gospel, and by his Son, God has "called us, not to uncleanness, but to holiness; so that he that despiseth the precepts of purity despiseth not man, but God: "This is the will of God, even our sanctification, that every man should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour; not in the lust of concupiscence, as the gentiles which know not God." However painful the sacrifice of forbidden gratifications may be, however deep and inveterate the habit of indulgence,-though it may seem as necessary to us, and as much a part of ourselves, as the right hand, or the right eye, relinquished it must be, or we cannot be Christ's disciples. A life of sinful pleasure is not the life of a man, much less is it the life of a Christian: "He that liveth in pleasure" (it is the language of inspiration) "is dead while he liveth." Let me urge every one present to count the cost in this particular, and if he is not firmly determined, in the strength of divine grace, "to abstain from those fleshly lusts which war against the soul," let him not pollute the name of the holy and immaculate Lamb of God by associating it with * Gal. v. 24. † 1 Tim. iv. 4. $1 Thess. iv. 7. his own. Such an association is his abhorrence, which he will testify in a future day; and he will vindicate his insulted purity by a final renunciation and disclaimer, saying, "Depart from me, ye that work iniquity: I never knew you.' 2. The Christian profession is spiritual, and therefore requires the renunciation of the world. The words of our Lord in this particular are decisive: "So, likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, cannot be my disciple." In the interpretation of these words, we must undoubtedly distinguish between the spirit and the letter. In the ordinary circumstances of the Christian profession, a literal compliance with this requirement would lead to pernicious consequences; to a relinquishment of the duties proper to our station, and a disorganization of society: but still they have an important meaning. They present the relation of a disciple to the present world in a very solemn and instructive light. They intimate, at the lowest estimate, that the relation he bears to the present state and world, is that of "a stranger and pilgrim;" that the relation in which it stands to him is that of an entire and absolute subordination to the glory of Christ and the interests of eternity. At the first opening of the gospel dispensation, the sacrifice of all secular advantages, the disruption of the tender ties which connect parents and children, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, and the dearest friends, was not unfrequently the inevitable consequence of an adherence to Christ. The necessity of literally forsaking all was a usual appendage of the Christian profession. There was therefore a great propriety in placing the engagements of a disciple in this strong and forcible light, which, however, prescribe nothing more than what is irrevocably binding on us under similar circumstances. To regard every worldly interest, at all times, with an attachment subordinate to the love of Christ, to treasure up our chief happiness in him, and to be willing to "forsake all" whenever the following him renders it necessary, are absolutely essential to the becoming his disciples. On this ground, my Christian brethren, let each of us try our religious pretensions. If you wish to carry into the Christian profession the weight of worldly encumbrance, a heart corroded by its passions, and agitated with its cares; if you are desirous of uniting the service of God and of Mammon, and think of presenting to Christ a few small relics of your time, occupied in the cold formalities of a dead and heartless religion, you cannot be his disciples. The world must be displaced from the throne, or Christ will not, cannot enter; since he will never condescend to occupy a subordinate place. Alas! what multitudes are there (there is reason to fear) who are fatally deceived in this particular; and who, while they form a high estimate of their character as Christians, have not "the Spirit of Christ," and are therefore"none of his !"‡ 3. In order to be a disciple, it is necessary, in the concerns of conscience, to renounce every authority but that of Christ. The connexion * Matt. vii. 23. ↑ Luke xiv. 33. Rom. viii. 9. |