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DISCOURSE,

ON THE NATURE AND INFLUENCE OF

GODLY FEAR,

&c.

BY CHARLES BACKUS, D. D.

PASTOR OF A CHURCH IN SOMERS.

1 PETER i. 17.

Pass the time of your sojourning here in fear.

IF the Holy Spirit, who dictated these

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words, should touch our hearts, we shall learn the uncertain and transient nature of our abode on the earth, and in what manner we ought to spend the present momentary state of our existence. We do but sojourn in this world; and this time of our sojourning should be passed in fear. Let these thoughts occupy our minds. They are of infinite importance to creatures who are soon

to go into eternity, and to appear before Him who doth not respect persons, but judg eth according to every man's work.

I. LET us consider our state as sojourn, ers in the present world.

A SOJOURNER, in its primary meaning, is applied to one who resides in a place not as a settled inhabitant, but as a stranger, or as one who expects to remove from it. When there was a famine in the land of Canaan in Abraham's time, he " went down into Egypt to sojourn there." (Gen. xii. 10.) He did. not expect to continue in Egypt any longer than while the famine should last: he expected to leave the country, as soon as plenty should be restored in other places. When Jacob, on his return from Padan-Aram, sent messengers before him to Esau his brother, "He commanded them saying, Thus shall ye speak unto my Lord Esau; Thy servant Jacob saith thus, I have sojourned with Laban, and stayed there until now." (Gen. xxxii. 3, 4.) Jacob lived with Laban twenty years; but he laboured with him on hire, and expected to return to his father's house.

The word sojourning, in the text, is ap plied to the state of the human race in the present world. Man has no permanent a

bode on the earth, and he soon is called to bid an everlasting farewell to every thing here below. 1 Chron. xxix. 15.-" For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding." Psalm xxxix. 12, 13.-" Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear unto my cry; hold not thy peace at my tears; for I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were. O spare me, that I may recover strength before I go hence, and be no more."

Pious men have always accounted the present life a state of pilgrimage, according to the passages just quoted. They have not felt themselves to be at home while they have tabernacled in the flesh. They have viewed life in its true light, in proportion to their degree of conformity to God.

We are all of us but sojourners, while we vemain on this side of the grave. However stupid any may be, they cannot change the transitory nature of the present life. Like a shadow it is void of substantial happiness; it is constantly changing; it will soon come to an end, and will leave no traces behind. Earthly pleasures, riches, and honours, can

not afford true felicity to creatures designed for an immortal existence: they continue but a short time in the same hands; they are rapidly passing away; and their present possessors will be wholly stripped of theni when soul and body shall be separated.

The members of the family of apostate Adam fall victims to death, in every period. from infancy to old age. The few who ar rive at threescore years and ten, are taught by experience, beyond all others, that the present state of man, is a state of change. They have witnessed a course of events very different from their calculations when they were young; and they have seen many flattering worldly hopes dashed in pieces, in themselves and in others. They are furnished with facts without number, to prove the mutability of earthly things; from the dealings of divine providence with indivi duals, with families, with neighbourhoods, with towns, with states, and with kingdoms. When they seriously reflect on past life, they feel that their progress was swift from childhood to youth, from youth to manhood, and from manhood to old age. They can adopt the words contained in the prayer of Moses, the man of God, in the xc. Psalm

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