XVII. ROM. vii. 24. O WRETCHED MAN THAT I AM! WHO SHALL DELIVER ME FROM THE BODY OF THIS DEATH? THANK GOD, THROUGH JESUS CHRIST OUR LORD. IN N this paffage is held out the great contrast between the voice of Nature and the voice of Grace. Nature begins with lamentable complaints. I feel myself subject to a variety of wayward paffions and appetites, which are continually misleading me; and I live in a world which abounds with objects suited to them. Every sense hath its gratification; and every gratification leads to fin. I refolve one day, and fail the next. I am overwhelmed with iniquity. Wherever I look, I fee the gloom of mifery,-nowhere the beam of hope. If 1 If there be a righteous Ruler, and a state of retribution, what have I to expect but eternal perdition! O wretched man that I am! who fhall deliver me from the body of this death? To these despairing moans of Nature, Chriftianity graciously replies, I will deliver you. Take refuge under the promises of the Gofpel. Tafte and fee, how gracious the Lord is. The Gospel will teach you how you came into this miferable ftate. The Gofpel will fhew you the remedy which God hath provided to deliver you from it. It will furnish you with motives, and with affiftance also, to calm your paffions, and moderate your love for the world. It will fhew you the neceffity of repentance. It will grant you pardon for your fins, through the death of a Saviour.It will teach you how to die-and conduct you after death to everlasting happiness. In this view of things, naturè revives, and Breaks into a fong of praise. I am satisfied-I am happy-I thank my God, through Jefus Christ our Lord! XVIII. LUKE, vi. 26. WOE UNTO YOU WHEN ALL MEN SHALL SPEAK WELL OF YOU! THIS HIS text is fometimes applied by divines to modern times *. Whereas, I apprehend, it fhould chiefly be applied to the Chriftians of the first age. Mankind in Our Saviour, with a view to fortify the early preachers of the Gospel against the ill-ufage of the world, tells them plainly what reception they fhould find after his departure. general should be armed against them-fhould hate them-fhould feparate from their company -should reproach them, and caft out their name as evil. He foon after adds the text, Woe unto you when all men fhall fpeak well of you! As they were *See a fermon by Bp. Hurd on this fubject. about about to establish a new inftitution, intended to overturn all the religious prejudices, and idolatrous practices of the world, it would certainly follow, that if they and their doctrine were received with general respect, they must have been remifs in the execution of their commiffion. In the parallel place of St. Matthew, we find perfe cution coupled with defamation: bleffed are ye, when men fhall revile you and perfecute you. We may as well, therefore, fuppofe a woe pronounced upon all who do not fuffer perfecution. The whole hiftory of the apoftles fhews religion, in thofe early times, to be always under the fame cloud of defamation. Do I feek, fays St.Paul, to please men? If I pleafed men, I should not be the fervant of Christ. And this is a language which all the apostles might have held, as well as St. Paul. Upon the whole, I would obferve, it seems to be of no fervice to religion, to draw paffages of Scripture from apoftolical to modern times. Error is often engrafted on fuch violent applications. The application of the woe, therefore, to modern, times, may miflead weak Chriftians to form undue eftimates of their own lives, and falfe judgments of the characters of others, For, in truth, the text text taken literally, feems to oppofe experience. Though all men may not speak well of the good Christian, who may have his various failings, and indifcretions; yet in a Chriftian country, the woe, I think, chiefly belongs to him of whom all men Speak ill. It may be added, that a man's character is a pledge to the community; and it is not agreeable to the Gospel to destroy any bond of union among men. |