ever love you. You have left all in order to follow me; relations, friends, country, possessions-but the peace which I give you should assure you, that you are already citizens of heaven. You have been expelled from the synagogue; but the peace which I give you ought to convince you that you are already incorporated in the assembly of the first-born, whose names are written in the book of life. In me you had found every thing-maintenance, instruction, comfort; but you have lost nothing; the peace that I give you will furnish you with food, with instruction, with comfort, for ever. You have wrought some miracles, you have expelled some demons; but henceforward you shall perform greater wonders; I give you power to walk upon serpents and scorpions. You were hoping for great things under my reign, and you misunderstood me with regard to the twelve thrones that I promised you; but the peace which I give you ought to confirm you in the belief, that one day you shall sit upon my throne. You expect sorrow and distress in my absence, and it is well that you do, for indeed you will have trouble in the world; but take courage, I have overcome the world.' You will be publicly beaten, you will be thrown into prison, you will be taken before governors and magistrates; but, fear not, be not anxious what you shall say to them, for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which none shall be able to contradict or resist. It shall be with you as with a tender mother, who, having been for some moments in violent pains, is again exhilarated by the birth of a child, which is henceforth to be the object of all her care and affection. Thus you, after some transient labours and sorrows, will have the unspeakable satisfaction of having introduced Christianity on the earth; and your joy none shall take from you. You shall triumph over the malice of men and the rage of demons; with the sword of the Spirit, which is my word, you shall conquer the whole universe, and train up captive and imprisoned souls in obedience to me, to be at length received into my rest. Be easy then, your sorrows will not continue long, you will suffer with me for a time, but you shall also reign with me for ever. I leave unto you, &c." Peace Such are the import and design of the words of our text. Let us now come to a close APPLICATION. I do not doubt, my brethren, but that you have been surprised at the subject I have chosen. What, you will say, to come and talk to us about peace, at the very time when we are involved in the troubles of a long and cruel war!* We did hope to see peace, we were on the point of obtaining it, but it has escaped from us; the scene again presents to our view troubles, tumults, * The original Sermon was preached at Amsterdam, 18th January, 1711, * 3Q 2* sieges, battles, horrors; we are occupied and exercised by the same distresses. The labourer, who of all his possessions has nothing left but his but, still trembles at the approach of the soldier; the soldier still remains, sword in hand, either to guard, to defend, or to attack; the merchant in his business calculates on new losses every day, through the decay of commerce; and the cabinet counsellor always has his eyes open, to prevent, to shun, or to remedy evil. Even the philosopher and the ecclesiastic are moved on the occasion, and tremble lest the efforts of tyranny and ambition should be as prejudicial to truth, as they may be to liberty. But whence, my brethren, all this agitation? This is the cause; we all naturally love peace, it is the greatest of all temporal blessings, the parent of plenty and joy, the protectress of the arts and sciences, a source of comfort to angels, and of despair to the devil. We can do any thing in the world for peace. In order to secure it, we raise armies, equip fleets, lavish treasures, and set all the elements in motion; in order to preserve or regain it, every one makes some effort, every one lays himself under restraint, and contributes liberally. This it is that swallows up a part of your goods and riches. Now there's the point that I wish to touch upon; since you do so much for the peace of the world, for a temporal peace, which after all does not extend beyond this life, how is it that you do nothing, or scarcely any thing, for the peace of God? Our care should certainly be proportioned to the nature and excellence of things, and since you employ your all to procure the less, how can you possibly neglect the greater? Do not you know, Christians, that your spiritual enemies are even more formidable than your temporal enemies? You have them without and within; the world and its lusts are perpetually laying snares for you, and amidst the numerous temptations with which you are surrounded, it will be very difficult for you to escape all its attacks. Then you have the devil, that sly and malicious dragon, who is continually going about to see how he may devour you. And, finally, your own flesh, the lusts and passions of which constantly war against the soul, and which is the more pernicious as being a domestic enemy, and therefore the less suspected. But do you know which is the greatest enemy that you have to fear? It is Godhimself; we cannot be on good terms with him while we are sinners and worldlings; the friendship of the world is enmity with him; "There is no peace for the wicked, saith my God." The oracle is pronounced, and it is verified by experience; "there is no peace for the wicked"neither from conscience, nor from men, nor from God. Yes, thou worldly and profane sinner, thou extortioner, corrupter, calumniator, thou infidel or voluptuary-whatever pretences thou makest outwardly of enjoying true tranquillity, thou canst not, at any rate, escape thy own conscience. From time to time it awakes and reproaches thee for thy black injustice, thy base conduct, thy horrid enterprizes; condemning thee beforehand by the gloomy presentiments it brings of the wrath to come. As to men, thou mayest for a time deceive them, but sooner or later thou wilt discover thyself, and thy shame will be fully displayed. And, finally, with regard to God, thou wilt never have any rest; thou wilt always see before thee a destroying angel, armed with a flaming and two-edged sword, who will thwart thee in all thy proceedings, and hinder thee in all thy designs. In vain wilt thou rage against heaven, against men, and against thyself; the presence of an avenging God will confound thee in thy darkest recesses, and constrain thee to say beforehand, "My punishment is greater than I can bear! Ye mountains, fall on me; and ye hills, cover me from the face of a consuming God." Aftert his, my brethren, will you do any thing for the peace of the world, but nothing for that of heaven? be happy, quiet, voluptuous, here below, and do nothing at all for eternity? Expose yourselves to the wrath of the Most High, and engage in war with him, and you will see who is the strongest, and whether it be not a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, when his anger is excited! Ah! my brethren, let us rather raise our slack hands and our feeble knees; let us labour for temporal peace, but also and especially for spiritual peace. Let us be on good terms with God, and our enemies will be dispersed; let us fear God, and pray to him with a fervent heart and a good conscience; then let us go to arms against the enemy, and we shall gain the victory. May God grant us the victory over ourselves, and at length receive us to his rest. Amen. W. P. B. Ebenezer-Place, Plymouth, 1817. THE TRUTH OF GOD DEFENDED. REVIEW of "Sermons on various Subjects and Oocasions. By GEORGE STANLEY FABER, B.D." SERMONS, in this enlightened age and country, in order to be popular, must be well written as well as orthodox. Both these requisites the work before us possesses. The respectable author, in whom orthodoxy and charity are happily blended, maintains, in a manner worthy of so good a cause, the grand doctrines of Christianity. He fairly meets the opponents of what he conceives to be religious truth, in the field of legitimate controversy; and, confident that the ground which he occupies is tenable, he maintains it by arguments drawn from Scripture, reason, com mon sense, and matter of fact. Where he hesitates, as in the discourse on "the Predestinarian Controversy," he expresses the grounds of his hesitation, with such candour as cannot fail to ensure him the approbation of pious and intelligent readers, whether decided Calvinists or Arminians. The former of these may not discern the difficulties with which he maintains their system to be clogged; and some of the latter will be astonished to find, that, after having described the peculiarities by which Calvinists are distinguished from their not less orthodox Arminian brethren, he should hesitate in rejecting those peculiarities in toto. That he is not a Calvinist we have his own declaration to prove, and that he is not a thorough Arminian is equally evident. But as we purpose to pay more than ordinary attention to the discourse in question, we shall not at present enter upon its contents. It may not, however, be improper to observe, though no man either rises or sinks in our estimation, from the circumstance of his adopting or rejecting either the one or the other of the two rival systems, we are decidedly of opinion, that hesitating betwixt them has, at least, an indirect tendency to divert the attention, more or less, from the important concerns of practical religion. But while we could urge many arguments to prove, that halting betwixt the two systems is naturally productive of that tendency, and hence ought, if possible, to be avoided; we readily admit that such scepticism may, by the operation of Divine grace, in conjunction with sound religious principles, be so counteracted as to prevent its producing any bad moral effects. The first sermon has for its subject 2 Tim. iii. 16, 17, and is entitled, "The Universal Profitableness of Scripture." Having maintained that "no sound church wishes to impose any summary of religion on the consciences of its members, any further than it can be proved by most certain warrant of Holy Writ;" and asserted, that "religion, in all its bearings, is a strictly personal matter," and that hence no one can be everlastingly saved or lost by proxy; the author proceeds to shew how profitable Scripture is for doctrine. "The basis (saith he,) on which rests the truth of Christianity, is the scriptural doctrine that we are very far gone from original righteousness, and that we are inclined by nature to evil, insomuch that we cannot turn and prepare ourselves by our own physical strength and good works to faith and calling upon God; but that, by reason of our manifold sins, both original and actual, we all justly deserve God's wrath and damnation.* "Such being the case, how shall we flee from the wrath to come? "The answer is afforded in Scripture, Believe in the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved.' * Article ix. x. "But how are we to believe in the Lord Jesus, since we are assured, that we cannot turn ourselves to faith and calling upon God? "The answer again is ready: though we have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God WITHOUT THE GRACE of God by Christ preventing us, that we may have a good will and working with us when we have that good will; yet wITH the grace of God, which will never be refused to earnest and persevering prayer, we may have both the will and the power to believe and to do good works. The Holy Trinity have covenanted from all eternity: the Father, to accept the meritorious sacrifice of the Son; the Son to take our nature upon him, and to offer himself up a ransom for the many, the just for the unjust; the Holy Ghost, to comfort, strengthen, and support us, to enable us to turn unto God, to renew our fallen nature by his mighty, though secret influence, to bring us by regeneration, and consequent sanctification, from darkness into light, and thus to make us meet for the inheritance of the glorified saints.* "As we are both depraved and utterly unable to help ourselves by any good deeds, it necessarily follows, what we further learn, that, touching the article of our justification, we are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by faith, and not for our own works or deservings. When we have done all, we are still but unprofitable servants. Instead of being inflated with I know not what vain notion of our own meritoriousness for the few and imperfect good actions which we have done; we each of us rather have need to smite upon our breasts, and to exclaim with the humble publican, 'Lord, be merciful to me a sinner." (p. 6-8.) The author proceeds to guard the doctrine of grace from Antinomian abuse; and this he does by sober scriptural arguments. The error of those who infer, from the doctrine of human depravity," that it is a vain labour for them to attempt to repent and turn to God," is properly confuted, under the division in which the profitableness of Scripture for correction is considered. Nor does the unscriptural notion, that in our own strength we are able to perform the Divine will, escape without its merited censure. Having, by scriptural authority, confuted both those popular and dangerous errors, Mr. Faber adds: "Others again have become Antinomians, and have madly decried all good works as mere servile legality, because the Bible teaches us, that we are justified solely by grace through faith, and not for our own works or deservings. "Here likewise the Scripture will be found profitable for correction. We are not to give up the sound doctrine of justification, Articles i. ii. xii. xvii, |