SERMON VI. A Farewell Discourse, DELIVERED BY THE RT. REV. DANIEL WILSON, A. M. BISHOP OF CALCUTTA, TO HIS PARISHIONERS, AT ST. MARY'S, ISLINGTON. But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying for the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life."-Jude 20, 21. in fearful terms the character and miserable end of such profane abusers of the gospel in the verses preceding the text, we have the prediction of the apostle as to the appearance of such seducers"But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; how that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts. These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit." And then the apostle introduces his main exhortation in the words which I have read, and in which he appears to me to point out a remedy for all the evils he had been deploring, in an elevated and unvaried tone of spiritual religion centred in the love of God. THERE is nothing more important than | Lord Jesus Christ:" and having described to maintain a consistent, elevated tone of practical piety. This is important, not only because it is that kind of religion that most glorifies God, edifies our neighbour, and brings comfort to our own minds, but because it is the only means of securing ourselves against the seductions of erroneous teachers—of our being preserved amidst the snares and temptations of the world and of Satan-and of introducing us into God's heavenly kingdom. Nor is the difficulty less than the importance of maintaining this high tone of practical religion. Nothing is so difficult as to act up to a holy, wise, scriptural standard of religion. To a Christian, nothing is so difficult as to rise above the habits and feelings generally prevalent in the day in which we live: in fact, like most other valuable attainments, it is difficult in proportion as it is important. This is our subject, in pursuing which we shall follow our apostle, In this view, I have thought that the First, IN DIRECTING YOUR ATTENTION TO subject presented to us in the words of THE MAIN POINT IN WHICH A TRULY ELEmy text (which is precisely that which I VATED AND CONSISTENT PRACTICAL RELIhave intimated), would not be an inap-GION CONSISTS-THE LOVE OF GOD: "KEEP propriate one on the occasion of my tak-YOURSELVES IN THE LOVE OF GOD." ing farewell of my beloved flock and Secondly, WE SHALL CONSIDER THE CHIEF parish. The apostle is exhorting the primitive converts to contend against the false teachers who had "crept in unawares, and turned the grace of God into lasciviousness, and denied the only God and our MEANS OF ATTAINING THIS MAIN POINT WHICH THE APOSTLE RECOMMENDS—FAITH TO CONSIDER THE INSPIRING ENCOURAGE- nation of the Holy Spirit, he begins to as men. discover that the main point of his apostasy consisted in his having an alienated, estranged, and apostate heart; and by degrees he discerns what claims Almighty God has on his creatures' hearts-what infinite perfections the Almighty posses And now may God be pleased to assist us, that our minds may be calm and col-ses, which constitutes the just object of lected, that we may be preserved from his creature's love-what infinite benefits the great danger of looking for any bless- he has moreover bestowed, which increase ing from the occasion itself, from the ex- those original claims of the divine excelcitement of feeling in itself; this, that, lency. He perceives by degrees that he is or the other circumstance of itself. None bound to love God, because God is the best of these things, nor all of them, can im- of beings, because he has been to him the part any solid blessing; it is only when most munificent of benefactors. But espewe look through them, and above them, cially the love of God, in the gift of a to the God and Saviour of all, that we Saviour, to die for guilty man, fills the can hope for any blessing from this or penitent with admiration, and draws forth any other discourse addressed by a min- deep convictions of his guilt, in never havister of the gospel to such feeble creatures ing loved this God, who hath so loved the world. In this way he comes back to his God and Father; and in proportion as his mind is rendered peaceable by the application to his conscience of the atoning blood of Christ, and a sense of the forgiveness of his sins-in proportion as there is established something like a tranquil state of mind by the operations and influence of redeeming grace, so the man begins to love God, and in this begins the sum and substance of his religion. He who loved every thing but God, now love's God above every thing, and every thing in subordination to God. "God is love," is now the doctrine, and sum, and substance of the penitent's language—“ God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." In considering, then, the importance of maintaining a high and scriptural tone of practical piety, let me, with our apostle, direct your attention, First, TO THE MAIN POINT IN WHICH THAT ELEVATED TONE AND STANDARD OF PRACTICAL PIETY CONSISTS-AND IT IS IN THE ARDENT, UNDECAYING LOVE OF GOD IN THE HEART. "BUT YE, BELOVED, KEEP YOURSELVES IN the love of God." Persevere, guard your hearts from decays in that main affection; keep up a high and genuine flame of holy love to Almighty God continually and unfeignedly, in all its principles and all its affections and consequences, in your souls. Man was made to love God and to glorify him. Adam in paradise loved God perfectly, and found in that love his happiness and his honour. When man fell, he lost his love to God; and he began to love, with an idolatrous attachment, carnal and sensible objects, external nature, the secular concerns of life, ambition, glory, fame, his family, his children, himself. The sum of the moral law is, "thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and all thy soul, and all thy strength, and all thy mind ;" and when the penitent is brought back to God in true contrition and brokenness of heart, and the mist and confusion hovering over a fallen state are dissipated by the illumi This now becomes the object of his pursuit, his continual aim, the point to which his vigilance is directed, the topic of his vigilant thoughts and meditations. He aims to have such a sense of God's love to him, as may bind his soul to God in return; leading him to serve him, to desire to please him, to delight in him as the source of felicity, to find all his happiness in him, to walk under a sense of his favour, to enjoy the light of his countenance, to rejoice and solace himself in God as his exceeding joy. He desires, so far as he can fulfil his purpose of mind, to feel no pleasure but in communion with God, in the conviction of his presence every thing else will go on right: but if love decline, if the heart be open to every evil, if the understanding be ungarrisoned, as it were, and the love of God be absent from the heart and affections, then the first seducer finds it an easy prey; and then, if those arise that creep in unawares and turn the grace of our God into lasciviousness on the one hand, or deny our only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ on the other, the heart has but little guard— it has but little from the education of early instruction, and the remains of conscience. What an amazing blessing is a national entering his soul, in the society of his holy | people, and in every expression that becomes him as being under infinite obligations to divine love. With these views he seeks to render a moral obedience to the ten commandments, the fulfilment of every relative duty, and the conscientious discharge of all his various obligations. Every thing, in short, that pleases God is a part and parcel of the love of God. "He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me." "This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments." Again; The avoidance of all that dis-church! It upholds all the doctrines of pleases God, the mortification of inward and outward sense, the separation from the world which extinguishes the love of God, so that "if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him"separation, I say, from the world, in its amusements, vanities, companions, maxims, spirit-separation, I repeat it the third time, from the world, the love of which constitutes of itself enmity to God -all this is included in the love of God. This, in fact, as you have heard me declare, brethren, from my lips I trust a hundred and a hundred times, is the sum of all religion. That which was the sum of natural religion before man fell, was the love of God; that which constitutes heaven is the love of God, and the whole of the gospel, as I shall presently have occasion to show, is a remedial dispensation to bring us back to that which we lost, the love of God. This prepares us for that which nothing but the blood of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit can prepare us for-the perfect love of God in heaven. the gospel, and all the framework of Christianity, and does not leave us to the moving sands of human passions. It is well if the man be kept in the way at all, by the sacraments and by the means of grace; but without the love of God he has no inward guard. You will ever find that those who go away into any of the superstitious novelties, corruptions, follies, and extravagances of any particular day, are those in whom the love of God is declining in the heart; and be it remembered that our own day is not different from others, and that what we observe is merely the last edition of Satan's follies; for they have been continually published. From the very first moment that the authentic book of God came out into the world, Satan's surreptitious editions have been ever attempting to palm themselves upon the church. Then it is in this way, brethren, that we are to keep ourselves: "Keep yourselves in the love of God." Let nothing else satisfy you; never let the world draw you off from this high ground; labour to Again; The elevated tone of a scrip-rise higher and higher in the scriptural tural piety centres here, that you keep love of God, in this principle, in its proper yourselves "keep yourselves, beloved, in the love of God." Guard against those declines which are perpetually coming on; watch, lest the flame languish and expire; guard it with a holy jealousy, as the priests did the fire on the altar of old. Here is the great secret of maintaining a scriptural, consistent, evangelical piety in the heart and conduct. Our religion is as our hearts are. If we really love God above all things, and walk in his love, effects, in all its experience, till it comes down to the ten commandments, and has its fruit in holy lives, righteous conduct, upright demeanour, and a loving, gracious temper-temper and spirit formed by the love of God. There are many, beloved, that go some length in religion, but do not come up to this point, nor do they aim at it. There are, it is to be feared, too many that are content with the common run of religious feeling and evangelical practice, but never think of rising up to the real stand- | examine their hearts, will find themselves ard of Scripture in the prevailing, supreme in this state. Young people, I ask you, love of God in the heart. 66 Keep your-have you ever thought in your lives, seriselves therefore, beloved, in the love of ously and practically, of proposing this God." It is, indeed, God alone who can main point as the end of your religion? keep the feet of his saints. The Chris- My prayer this morning is, to gain every tians are described in the beginning of heart that is within the hearing of this the epistles as "the preserved in Christ voice, to the love of God; and if there be Jesus." It is God only that is able to any present destitute of it, however opkeep us from falling, and we are kept by posed, however they may resist, howhis power through faith unto salvation. ever prejudiced, however ignorant, here But still we are to keep ourselves. That is the object I have in view this morning, is the way that Scripture puts things. We to put them in the way of discerning what are to be diligent in the use of all the ap- is the main scope of practical religion, pointed means, to be active as reasonable and then of beginning to seek it. And I and accountable creatures. "He that is have another design, which is, that all of born of God sinneth not; but he that is us who have any measure of this sacred begotten of God keepeth himself, and affection may have it kindled to a brighter that wicked one toucheth him not." "As flame; that we may be humbled in the the Father hath loved me," says the Sa- dust under the petty measure of our habiviour, “so have I loved you: continue tual love to God; that we may be preparye in my love❞—that is, keep yourselves ing and seeking more and more to know -"continue ye in my love. If ye keep ourselves. From henceforth to your my commandments, ye shall abide in my dying hour "keep yourselves in the love love; even as I have kept my Father's of God." commandments, and abide in his love." But you will naturally ask, What are the appointed means?-what are the chief methods by which, in a world of sin like ours, we can pursue this high attainment? This is our Second point. THE CHIEF MEANS OF ATTAINING THIS HIGH AND LOFTY STANDARD OF PRACTICAL PIETY, and these ticular doctrines of revelation on which the gospel rests-prayer, as to the strength and consolation of the Spirit which the gospel promises. "Building up your selves in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost." Now, brethren, how far have we acted on this great principle during the course of the ministry which is now terminating in this particular part of our Lord's vineyard? How far have I succeeded, and my brother ministers, in our public and private instructions, in bringing you up to this point, of receiving and understand-are faith and prayer-faith, as to the paring in what essential religion consists? I apprehend, take the world in general, they know not what the love of God means; nor what it is to have the heart filled with it; nor what is the standard Scripture proposes. They satisfy themselves with some mere carnal expression of admiration of God's goodness-God the moral governor and God the judge; but as to any distinct and practical idea of the love of God in the operations of his grace upon the heart; the holy flame of contemplation of his divine excellences the memory of his mercies-the labour to keep the heart by prayer, by meditation, by secret devotion, by the study of the Scriptures, as well as by the sacraments and the means of grace, they are totally ignorant of it. Why, there are many before us, I cannot but fear, if they will honestly Religion in the heart of man is here compared to a building, the foundation of which is faith in Christ. That is the foundation of heavenly truth which faith embraces and builds upon as the foundation of that spiritual edifice laid in the human heart by regenerating and sanctifying grace. This faith is not a mere assent, a mere historical notion, a mere agreement with a national creed, a mere not opposing certain practical truths, but it is a spiritual, holy affection, wrought in the heart by the blessed Spirit. "He that hath received his testimony hath set ness. to his seal that God is true." "With God; that corruption and alienation of the the heart man believeth unto righteous- heart which is enmity against the scrip"For by grace are ye saved tural character and government of God; through faith, and that nct of your- the false estimate of virtue and religion selves:"-the faith is not of ourselves-prevalent in the world; the vain and in"it is the gift of God." Unto you it is sufficient sparks and spangles, as it were, given on behalf of Christ to believe on of piety, of which the world glories and him. The doctrine thus received by an boasts, all this revelation lays open and obedient faith is laid straightway as the makes known as the disease. It comes foundation of the divine building in the as a faithful physician, and instead of soul. The whole revelation made by Al- skinning over the wound as the empiric mighty God to man in his word is that would do, and as all false religions do, which faith embraces, seizing, grasping, Christianity probes the corrupt sore, and then applying to its proper purpose. opens it to the very bottom, deepens it, There is the foundation of the spiritual and puts the patient to increased pain for building. the moment; but it is in order to pour in But this faith more especially relates the heavenly balm, to begin an effectual to two great points of revealed religion- and a permanent cure, to raise to health, the fall and the recovery of man. What to vigour, to peace, to joy, to soundness is your Bible? It contains the fall and in future life. The doctrine of the fall the recovery of man. What is the gos-may, indeed, be overstated, and so may pel? It contains the fall and the recovery every thing else. It may be so put, in of man. What are the great means by which all the operations of God and the designs of benevolence are to be accomplished? By the knowledge of the fall and the recovery of man. I the heat of controversy, as to appear to deny man's responsibility-the faint remains of moral feeling which he possesses-the duty of exciting him and urging him to act as an accountable beingNatural religion is the love of God. the capacities of restoration which still mean by natural religion, not the religion | hang about him ; but in its genuine scripthat man can practice in a fallen state, tural tenor, as laid down in the Holy but that which was adapted to man before Bible, and as laid down also in the artithe fall, and results from the primary cle of our own church upon original or quality of his nature-that essential rela- birth sin, it is essential to the entrance of tion between such a creature as man, and all truth. Till this is learned, nothing is such a glorious being as God in every learned; but the moment the penitent sinpossible circumstance in which their ner begins to discover his state by nature relation may vary. That is an intelligi- as a transgressor, not merely against his ble meaning; Bishop Butler and all the fellow-creatures, not merely from the greatest writers use the expression, "na- miserable consequences of sin, not merely tural religion," in that sense. Then because he feels the lapse of rectitude, revealed religion is all the system, which and the disappointment of hope, but beI am now going to mention, of revealed cause he has sinned against God, because truth, all the particular scheme of re- his heart is apostate and in rebellion demption, which is the remedy for bring- against his Maker, and his Redeemer, ing man back from the fallen state into and his Lord, that moment the man is which he had lapsed, and for raising him prepared for the gospel. Tell him of the again partially in this world, and com-name of Jesus, hold up the light of the pletely in another, to the love of God for which he was formed, and without which he can neither be happy here nor hereafter. Man is ruined by sin; the wrath of Almighty God in which he lies by nature; the evil nature of sin as committed against VOL. I.-11 gospel to his now darkened and benighted soul-because the vain, flowery vision, and the magical arts of Satan, have been now extinguished-and the man feels the darkness in which he is groping; tell him now, that the Son of God came down from heaven to "reconcile the world unto |