he will give it you:" pardon, peace, holiness, heaven, "through him, this saving grace hath appeared unto all men. —Tit., ii., 11. Now this grace is to be "received." 1. The mind must have a clear perception of God's method of justifying the ungodly-his method of saving sinners. Many call this head-knowledge; what else would they have it? Is not our religion to be "in all knowledge and spiritual understanding?" If we knew more, we should love more. How few of us can give such "a reason of the hope that is in us" as to justify the ways of God to man. We live on frames and feelings produced by public means of grace, but have no "manna" laid up at home. 2. The heart must receive the Saviour. "With the heart man believeth unto righteousness." Our affections must choose and submit to him, and our entire selves must be presented as a "living sacrifice."—Rom., xii., 1. Every other trust or dependance must be rejected: "I nothing have, I nothing am, But Jesus died for me." 3. There must be a practical reception of this "grace of God"—an adorning of it in the conduct; not talking, but working. Thus the judgment, the affections, the life, all receive the grace of God. Now this grace must not be received “in vain." Many have so received it, and I appeal to many in this congregation if they are not awful witnesses of the fact. 1. The light within has become darkness; and "how great is that darkness!". * 2. The love they once had, where is it? Would they were even lukewarm! but alas! they have waxed cold! their hearts are a moral icehouse; the cold damps of death have gathered round them; their atmosphere chills you and drives back the heart's blood! 3. Their ways now have no tendency to glorify God. * Thus is the case, the grace of God has been received in II. The exhortation enforced.-By what arguments? Our difficulty lies not in the paucity of reasons for enfor cing the subject, but in the selection. We could urge it upon you by motives drawn from heaven and from hell; from time and from eternity. By motives from the word of God, &c.-in a thousand forms. By motives drawn from our highest hopes and most alarming fears, &c., &c. But to enumerate a few particulars, we urge it, 1. From a consideration of the value of the benefit-God's greatest gift! the astonishment of heaven! We value a thing occasionally by the amount it cost us. But ah! we know not what was the value of this; for though it was bestowed freely, it cost heaven all!-the pearl of great price! The treasury exhausted. (The painter who gave away his works because they were above price.) We prize a thing occasionally by considering what it purchased for us. Value the grace of God thus. It redeems from death and purchases heaven-a double benefit. Oh! for an angel's tongue to enlarge on its value! Omnipotence bounded!-the mighty God circumscribed! We were not redeemed by corruptible things, as silver and gold, from our vain conversation, received by tradition from our fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot." Behold, then, the value of the benefit!-receive it not in vain; "For how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation ?" If this be received in vain, every other benefit is in vain. All the sermons you have heard-and how powerful !—all the prayers-and how mighty!-all your afflictions, &c. -your convictions-and how painful!-all the strivings of God's Spirit, &c. The ordinances of his house, the efforts of his ministers, all admonitions, threatenings, promises, all in vain. You have lost the Full reward!—in vain!! In vain pious parents, a religious education, early impressions, good resolutions, &c. In vain the prayers of the church, the sympathy of angels, &c.-all, all in vain! "Let him alone." Oh! terrible word! Conscience, trouble him no more-seared over! Spirit of God, withdraw; he shall grieve thee no longer. Ministers, alarm him no more-he is asleep "Let him alone." 3. Consider the punishment awaiting such a one. It is bad enough for heathens to perish without law; "But of how much sorer punishment, think ye, shall he be thought worthy i who hath trodden under feet the only-begotten Son of God, and counted the blood wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing." Oh! he shall be "beaten with many stripes." "O Capernaum! it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom, in the day of judgment, than for thee." There are different degrees of misery in hell, as of happiness in heaven: the lowest place is the backslider's: the nethermost hell is reserved for him who received "the grace of God in vain!" Oh! could I but mourn thy fall aright! "How art thou fallen, Lucifer, son of the morning!" "How is the gold become dim and the fine gold changed!" Oh! could I but sing a requiem to thy soul! But the howlings of despair will prevent thy rest: as in heaven, "They rest not day nor night!" *** Oh! thou intruder into hell! prepared not for thee! Thou wast born a king! an heir of glory! has no operation on a Again, the judgment "When, therefore, the 4. Because this is the only day in which you can receive the grace of God. of God. Be not deceived by the delusion of universalism! When time ends with thee, then eternity; but time is the term for thy salvation. When faith ends, vision succeeds; but faith is the way, and it flaming world or descending Judge. is to be for deeds done in the body. Master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not, whence you are." Oh! then, to-day, after so long a time, harden not your hearts; "receive not the grace of God in vain!" for if thou do, thy punishment will not only be great, but sealed up on thee forever!-Perpetuity of wo is wo! Application. 1. To ministers. "Take heed, therefore, unto yourselves, and to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers; to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood." Oh! apostate ministers! Wandering stars to whom is reserved the "blackness of darkness forever." If the backsliding professor has the nethermost hell, I know not what hell a fallen minister shall endure!! Oh! the awful consideration that, "after having preached to others, I myself should be a castaway." O if we receive the grace of God in vain, better never to have been born! We have a depositum to keep, &c. "I be 2. To people. With you I have mainly to do. seech you, therefore, that ye receive not the grace of God in vain." I? nay, "We," all; I would cluster around me every minister you have ever heard, and with one voice, "We beseech you." But many of them have gone home! Their voice was as a skilful instrument, but they can beseech you no longer. But could they, heaven would echo back, "We beseech you that ye receive not the grace of God in vain." Nay, apostles, martyrs, would join in the solemn expostulation, and with united voice exclaim, "Receive not, oh! receive not the grace of God in vain." And now I warn you of your danger. What! What! you cavil at it and think it vain! "In danger?" Yes, else you are not in a state of probation; else the heart is not deceitful; else "the devil goes not about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour!" "In danger?" Yes, or all the exhortations of the apostles are vain, nay, deceitful, false alarms; for say they not that you may forget that you were ever "purged from your old sins?" I appeal to yourselves; all preconceived opinions apart, do you not feel your danger? Is there no consciousness of it? Have you never lost any part of the grace you have received? If so, why may you not lose the whole? If every part is incorruptible seed, why has any part died away? "In danger?" Yes, if any ever did fall, even one, from Adam to Christ, from Christ till now.-Have you not seen the beacon which Paul set up? Holding faith and a good conscience; which some having put away concern ing faith, have made shipwreck: of whom is Hymeneus and Alexander." Many of you are near it-in shoal water. Oh! pray for a spring-tide of grace, to get you off the shoals-you have often scraped the bottom-often struck, &c., &c. SERMON XVI. CHRIST'S LEGACY TO HIS DISCIPLES.* John, xiv., 27.-Peace I leave with you. THE dying words of a friend are much valued. We view the soul as on the wing, and eagerly catch its last accents. It is impossible to consider the situation of the apostles of our Lord and Saviour, at the time when these words were addressed to them, without feelings of tenderest sympathy. Their Master knew that his time was drawing near, when he should be parted from them, and seemed scarcely to know how to introduce the painful relation. He had put off the subject till the very evening before the event took place, and to within a few hours of the time when he knew he should be betrayed. He had taken his leave of the world, as we see in chapter xii., from the 44th verse to end, in which he sums up the whole of that doctrine which he had been preaching during his three years' ministry. He asserts his own divinity: "He that seeth me seeth him that sent me ;" and his atonement: "I came to save the world." On these two hangs all the mystery of our salvation; he also shows how these truths are to be operative in man, and produce in him the effect intended, even by faith; for that, though God has done all that he could do on his part, yet it is left to us to receive or reject the salvation he has provided; hence he says in the 46th verse, "Whosoever believeth on me shall not abide in darkness." He then enforces the necessity of receiving him as the promised Messiah by the consideration *This was Mr. Summerfield's first sermon in Dublin. + Verse 47. |