Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, accept- The kingdom of heaven is as a man travelling into a far Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? There are not returned to give glory to God, save this stranger - 464 PAROCHIAL SERMONS. SERMON I. THE ILLUMINATING POWER OF THE GOSPEL 2 COR. iv. 4. The light of the glorious Gospel. THE natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; neither indeed can he, because they are spiritually discerned," is a declaration of holy writ, which finds its attestation in the innumerable prejudices and passions which cloud the researches of the understanding, and oppose the most formidable obstacles to the reception of divine truth. It is a declaration further and most conclusively established by the fact, that the human intellect, in its highest state of natural perfection, strengthened and sharpened by the discipline of intense and profound investigation, was unable to draw aside the vail that concealed the spiritual and eternal world. Reason, by her most vigorous efforts, could never settle on a certain basis the principles and rules of virtue; nor could she, by all her soothings, calm the solicitude with which man contemplated that futurity, into the dark abyss of which he was hastening. It is, therefore, an essential requisite in a system designed for the salvation of man, that it should reveal and establish VOL. III. 1 those truths necessary to his duty, and his happiness here and hereafter, which human reason could not discover. " The light of the glorious Gospel" possesses this illuminating power. It illuminates,— By the splendour and fulness of its revelations, By the simplicity and clearness of its precepts, By the brightness of its example, By the influences of its divine graces. The Gospel illuminates, By the splendour and fulness of its revelations. It sheds the brightest lustre on every subject connected with the spiritual welfare and happiness of man; it leaves nothing to conjecture, to uncertain deductions, to dubious hope; and brings down divine truth from her celestial abode, in that simple and resplendent form which is calculated to excite for her a cordial reception. That spiritual and divine knowledge which reason ardently but ineffectually sought, the Gospel has revealed to the humblest understanding. Before its glorious light appeared, various and contending deities divided among themselves the dominion of the universe, and received the acknowledgment and homage not only of the illiterate multitude, but of the learned and the mighty. But the Gospel places at the head of the creation, which he called into existence, and on the throne of supreme dominion, one eternal and infinite God. The sensual imagination of man clothed the deities to whom he rendered homage with corporeal natures, with the wants and imperfections, the licentious desires and criminal passions of the human heart. But the Gospel, discarding these absurd and corrupting notions of Deity, reveals God as an infinite and eternal intelligence, whose attributes place him at an infinite distance from imperfection and sin, and constitute him the source of purity and goodness as well as of power. The corrupt nations celebrated the worship of their divinities in rites the most licentious, and sought to propitiate their displeasure by sacrifices the most inhuman. But the Gospel of Christ directs the worshippers of the Almighty Father to offer to him the acceptable homage of an enlightened and grateful heart, and to worship him who is a spirit, in spirit and in truth. Ineffectual were the efforts of the human intellect to ascertain the mode by which the holy and just Sovereign of the universe could become reconciled to man, the wilful transgressor of his laws; painful was the suspense, whether all the costly splendour of heathen worship, whether the hecatombs that dyed the altars with human blood, could propitiate the wrath of an indignant heaven. But the Gospel of Christ exhibits the divine perfections meeting in holy concord at the cross of Christ, holiness vindicated, justice satisfied, and mercy triumphing in the allsufficient atonement which a divine victim there made. The feeble lights of reason could not unfold the destinies of futurity, nor quiet in the soul the dreadful apprehension, that the grave might extinguish the powers and sensible ties of that spirit which panted for immortality. But "the light of the glorious Gospel" dispels every doubt, and confirms every feeble hope. The dark recesses of the tomb are opened to the eye of Christian faitheternal day dawns upon it-it is the path by which the soul passes to the region of immortal joys. |