Page images
PDF
EPUB

SECT.V. much anxiety and wretchedness might be relieved, much despair and fuicide might be prevented among us of this land, if the members of our church would but follow her direction, and as often as their minds were oppreffed, and they could not quiet their own confciences, go "to fome discreet and "learned minifter of God's word, and open their grief, that they might re"ceive the benefit of abfolution, together with ghoftly counsel and ad"vice."

[ocr errors]

66

66

THE wisdom and goodness of God are feen in his manner of proportioning his aids to the exigences of his people, and raising up reformers, when religion most needs their help, to revive the true fpirit of it among men. If we view the ftate of things in Judea at two different periods, we shall foon perceive how feasonably Elijah was fent at one time, and John the Baptist, that second Elijah, at another. Each was an aera of distinguished corruption, but corruption of a different fpecies. During the former, idolatry was the fashionable error, which had found it's way into the

court,

court, and overfpread the face of the SECT.V. church. The characteristics of the latter were, on the one hand, a pharisaical hypocrify, a boast of moral rectitude, which exifted only in theory, and a vain confidence in a law which nobody obferved; on the other, a Sadducean infidelity, opposed to the national faith and hope, denying a refurrection, and future ftate of retribution. Elijah reclaimed the people from the worship of Baal to that of the true God; John called his hearers from unbelief, hypocrify, and vice, to faith and holiness.

AN ambaffador of heaven, fent to preach truth to thofe who are captivated by error, and righteousness to those who are enamoured of fin, will never proceed far in the discharge of his trust, unless he be endued with a fervent zeal for the cause and the honour of him that sent him. Every holy perfon is not bleffed with a fpirit, any more than he is invefted with a commiffion, to appear in a public capacity, to reprove rulers and kings, to look an angry world in the face, and overcome all the oppofition it can raise against him. Zeal,

with

[ocr errors]

SECT.V. without holiness to fupport it, like a meteor, will blaze and expire. Zeal, without knowlege to limit and direct it, will waste and destroy, like the element from the effect of which it takes it's name, when that has burft it's bounds, and rules where it ought to be in fubjection. But when knowlege and holinefs are firft obtained, it is zeal which muft quicken and diffuse them, as the fun doth light and heat, for the benefit of the universe. "Then stood 66 up Elias the prophet as fire," faith the fon of Sirach," and his word burnt "like a lamp." And our Lord, speaking of the Baptift, gives this account of him, "He was a burning and a fhining light"." His zeal was tempered with knowlege, for it gave light; and his knowlege was actuated by zeal, for it was burning as well as fhining. His fermons came warm from the heart of the speaker, and therefore found their way to that of the hearer, which was inflamed by them with the love, as

66

[blocks in formation]

his understanding was enlightened with SECT.V. the knowlege of heavenly things.

LET us view and compare together the zeal of Elijah, exerted before idolatrous Ifrael affembled at mount Carmel, and that difplayed by St. John, when he faw the Pharifees and Sadducees come to his baptism.

FOR the fins of the people, and the iniquities of the prince, in the days of Elijah, heaven was clofed over their heads, the bleffings of rain and dew were withheld till the divine author of them should be again acknowleged, and famine stalked through the land, preaching repentance as he went. Ifrael felt the wound, but owned not the hand that inflicted it. The Almighty had conftituted the prophet. his vicegerent, and enjoined the elements to fecond him in the work of reformation. Ahab and his subjects, instead of consulting Elijah about the removal of their calamities, regarded him as the occafion of them, and the fole "troubler of Ifrael.” At the command of God, he presents himfelf before the king, and tells him * See 1 Kings xvii, & xviii.

plainly

SECT.V. plainly, "Thou art the man." Ifrael is convened at mount Carmel, and reproved.

[ocr errors]

Why halt ye between two opinions? "If Jehovah be God, follow him. But "if Baal, then follow him." The falfe prophets appear on the fide of Baal and his kindred idols, to the number of nine hundred and fifty: on the fide of the true God, Elijah ftands fingle. The trial is made, and the grand queftion determined by a visible token of the di vine presence. The nation returns to it's duty, idolatry is punished in it's votaries, the heaven gives rain, and the earth brings forth her increase.

ON the banks of Jordan we behold, in the perfon of St. John, another Elijah, reproving the people of Ifrael, again departed from the Lord their God, while fome, as the Pharifees, were hypocrites, and others, as the Saddu cees, were unbelievers. Equally a stranger to fear and partiality, and endued with a prophetical power of difcerning that ferpentine fubtlety and malignity which lurked under a fpecious outfide, he rebukes them fharply, if by

a See Matt. iii. 7, &c.

any

« PreviousContinue »