LECTURE XXVIIK n his past and prefent mercies, the firm affurance, which born his attributes and his promifes furnish, that the fame loving kindness fhall follow us all the days of our life*; and be exerted, though fometimes for our correction or trial, yet always for our benefit; and fo as to make our lot fupportable in every variety of outward circumftances. Let your converfation, therefore, be without covetousness; and be content with fuch things as ye have: for he hath faid, I will never leave thee, nor for fake theet. Another very important confideration, and neceffary to be often brought to mind, is, that the feason both of enjoying the advantages, and bearing the inconveniencies, of life is fhort; but the reward of enjoying and bearing each, as we ought, is eternal and inconceivably great. Together with thefe reflections, let us exercife a fteady care to check every faulty inclination in its earliest rife. For it is chiefly indulging them at firft, that makes them fo hard to conquer afterwards. And yet we fhall always find the bad confequences of yielding to outweigh vaftly the trouble of refift ing: and that to bring our defires, when they are the ftrongeft, down to our condition, is a much eafier work, than to raife our condition up to our defires, which will only grow the more ungovernable, the more they are pampered. Further: whatever share we poffefs of worldly plenty, let us beftow it on ourselves with decent moderation, and impart of it to others with prudent liberality: for thus knowing how to abound, we shall know the better how to fuffer need, if Providence calls us to it. And lastly, instead of fetting our affections on any things on earth §, which would be a fatal neglect of the great end, that we are made for, let us exalt our views to that bleffed place, where godliness with contentment will be unfpeakable gain ||: and they who have restrained the inferior principles of their nature by the rules of religion, shall have the highest faculties of their fouls abundantly fatisfied with the fatnefs of God's boufe, and be made to drink of the river of his pleaJures T. Thus then you fee both the meaning and the importance of this laft commandment: which is indeed the guard and fecurity of all the preceding ones. For our actions will never be VOL. IV. Pfal. xxiii. 6. + Heb. xiii. 5. 1 Tim. vi. 6. 3 K Phil. iv. 12. right Col. iii. 2. right habitually, till our defires are fɔ. Or if they could, our Maker demands the whole man, as he furely well may: nor till that is devoted to him, are we meet for the inheritance of the faints of light *. And now, both the first and the fecond table of the ten commandments having been explained to you, it only remains, that we beg of God fufficient grace + to keep them; earnestly entreating him in the words of his church: Lord, have mercy upon us, and write all these thy laws in our hearts, we beseech thee. Of Man's Inability, God's grace, and Prayer to Him I for it. Have now proceeded, in the courfe of thefe Lectures, to the end of the commandments; and explained the nature of that repentance, faith and obedience, which were promifed for us in our baptifm, and which we are bound to exercise, in proportion as we come to understand the obligations incumbent on us. You cannot but fee by this time, that the duties, which God injoins us, are not only very important, but very extenfive. And therefore a confideration will almoft unavoidably prefent itself to your minds in the next place, what abilities we have to perform them. Now this question our catechism decides, without asking it, by a declaration, extremely discouraging in appearance; that we are not able of ourselves, to walk in the commandments of God, and to ferve him. Indeed, had we ever fo great abilities, we must have them not or ourselves, but of our Maker: from whom all the pow er LECTURE XXIX. 443 ers of all creatures are derived. But fomething further than this, is plainly meant here: that there are no powers, belonging to human nature in its prefent ftate, fufficient for fo great. a purpose. The law of God is fpiritual, but we are carnal, fold under fin*. And that fuch is our condition, will appear by reflecting, first, what it was at our birth; Secondly, what we have made it fince. 1. As to the first: We all give proofs, greater or less of an inbred disorder and wrongness in our understandings, will and affections. Poffibly one proof, that fome may give of it, may be a backwardness to own it. But they little confider, how fevere a fentence they would pafs, by denying it, on themfelves, and all mankind. Even with our natural bad inclina- ' tions for fome excufe, we are blameable enough for the ill things that we do. But how much more fhould we be so, if we did them all, without the folicitation of any inward depravity to plead afterwards in our favour? In point of intérest therefore, as well as truth, we are concerned to admit an original proneness to evil in our frame: while yet reafon plainly teaches, at the fame time, that whatever God created was originally, in its kind, perfect and good. To reconcile thefe two things would have been a great difficulty, had not revelation pointed out the way, by informing us, that man was indeed made upright, but that the very first of human race loft their innocence and their happinefs toge-. ther; and tainting, by wilful tranfgreffion, their own nature, tainted, by confequence, that of their whole pofterity. Thus by one man, fin entered into the world, and death by fin; and fo death pafed upon all men, for that all have finned. We find in fact, however difficult it may be to account for it in fpeculation, that the difpofitions of parents, both in body and mind, very commonly defcend, in fome degree, to their children. And therefore it is entirely credible, that fo great a change in the minds of our firft parents from abfolute righteousness of temper to presumptuous wickedness; accompanied with an equal change of body, from an immortal condition to a mortal one, produced perhaps, in part, by the phyfical effects of the forbidden fruit, that these things, I fay, fhould derive their fatal influences to every fucceeding generation. For though God 3 K 2 will *Rom. vii. 14. † Eccl. vii, 29. + Rom. v 12. will never impute any thing to us, as our perfonal fault, which is not our own doing; yet he may very juftly withhold from thofe privileges, which he granted to our firft parents only on condition of their faultlefs obedience, and leave us fubject to those inconveniences, which followed of course from their dif obedience: as, in multitudes of other cafes, we fee children in far worfe circumftances by the faults of their diflant forefathers, than they otherwife would have been. And moft evidently, it is no more a hardfhip upon us, to become fuch as we are by means of Adam's tranfgreflion, than to suffer what we often do for the tranfgreffions of our other ancestors; or to have been created fuch as we are, without any one's tranfgreffion which laft, all who difbelieve original fin, must affirm to be our cafe. But unhappy for us as the failure of the first man was, w fhould be happy in comparifon, if this were all that we had to lament. Great as the native disorder of our frame is; yet either the fall of Adam left in it, or God restored to it, some degree of difpofition to obedience, and of ftrength against fin: fo that tho' in us, that is in our flesh, dwelleth no good thing*, yet after the inward man, (the mind) we delight in the law of God; and there are occafions on which even the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, though neither all, nor any, without fault. And on us Chriftians our heavenly Father confers, in our baptism, the affurance of much greater ftrength to obey his commands, than they have. But then, if we confider, 2. What we have made our condition fince, we shall find, that inflead of ufing well the abilities which we had, and taking the methods, which our Maker hath appointed for the incrcafe of them, we have often carelessly, and too often wilfully, mifemployed the former, and neglected the latter. Now by every inflance of fuch behaviour, we difpleafe God, weaken our right affections, and add new strength to wrong paffions: and by habits of fuch behaviour, corrupting our hearts, and blinding our underflandings, we bring ourfelves into a much woife condition, thar that in which we were born; and thus become doubly incapable of doing our duty. This experience proves but too plainly; though feripture did not teach, as it dot!:, *Rom. vii. 18. + Ver. 22, 23. Rom. ii. 14. doth, that the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth*: that we were hapen in iniquity, and in fin did our mother conceive us that the carnal mind is enmity against Godt: that without Chrift we can do nothing§; and we are not fufficient to think any thing, as of ourselves | Yet, notwithstanding this, we feel within us an obligation of conscience to do every thing that is right and good. For that obligation is in its nature unchangeable: and we cannot be made happy otherwife, than by endeavouring to fulfil it; though God, for the fake of our bleffed Redeemer, will make fit allowances for our coming short of it. But then we must not hope for fuch allowances as would really be unfit. Our original weakness indeed is not our fault; but our neglect of being relieved from it, and the additions that we have made to it are. And whatever we might have had the power of doing, if we would; it is no injuftice to punish us for not doing especially when the means of enabling ourselves continue to be offered to us through our lives. Now, in fact, the whole race of mankind, I charitably hope and believe, have, by the general grace or favour of God, the means of doing so much, at least, as may exempt them from future fufferings. But Christians, by the Special grace mentioned in this part of the catechifm, are qualified to do fo much more, as will intitle them, not for their own worthinefs, but that of the holy Jefus, to a diftinguishing fhare of future reward. : Now the special grace of the gospel confifts, partly in the outward revelation, which it makes to us, of divine truths ; partly in the inward affiftance, which it beftows on us, for obeying the Divine will. The latter is the point, here to be confidered. That God is able, by fecret influences on our minds, to dif pofe us powerfully in favour of what is right, there can be no doubt: for we are able in fome degree to influence one another thus. That there is need of his doing it, we have all but too much experience: and that therefore we may reasonably hope for it, evidently follows. He interpofes continually by his providence, to carry on the courfe of nature in the material world: is it not then very likely, that he should inter pofe ཝཱ * Gen. viii. 21. Pfal. li. 5. Rom. viii. 7. § John xv. 5. |