Page images
PDF
EPUB

goodness of God in having called and privileged you to draw near to him. And then what is to be expected from doing the work of the Lord deceitfully, or from holding that to be a vain or light thing which is indeed " your life?" Do consider, I beseech you, that if the care of your souls be any thing, it must be the one thing needful. Do reflect that you are always in the way of temptation, and that there is always need to seek strength from God. God saith,

[ocr errors]

They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength," but to wait is to be constant in attendance. Of such as you he saith, “I know thy works that thou art neither cold nor hot;"* and according to your lukewarmness will he deal with you.

3. A few words let me say to a class of persons concerning whom every Christian must feel a very peculiar interest, and whose instruction indeed I have had in view all along in the plainness of speech which it has been my endeavour to employ, -I mean young beginners in religion, or those who have but very newly entered with seriousness upon a Christian

course.

Let me entreat you, in the first place, not to be discouraged because when you pray you do not feel all that warmth and eagerness of devotion which you could wish. Only persevere, and it will come ere long. In the mean time let it always be one of your prayers that the Almighty himself would teach you how to pray: for it is written, "Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." *

* Rev. iii. 15.

Let me advise you also to make it your rule to pray to God solemnly, and as well as you can, at least twice every day. Set apart your particular seasons for this; as for instance, the moment you rise in the morning, and the last space of time at night. No doubt this is the practice of very many. Perhaps you have persevered in it for some time: but consider thisWhen the hour of prayer is come, there will be times when you will find yourselves not at all inclined to pray, but very much the reverse, and then you will be tempted to omit your prayers just for that once. But do not listen to the tempter-no, not for once. "Resist the devil and he will flee from you." ↑ If you find in yourselves an unwillingness to pray at your stated hour, no doubt you are in a wrong frame

* Rom. viii. 26.

+ James iv. 7.

of mind; and if so, this is the very reason why you should give yourselves to prayer immediately, in order that you may be brought into a right state again; therefore I say, however dull and dead your feelings may be, still endeavour to address yourselves to God. It will usually happen that before your prayer is over, your right affections and good desires will revive; but if not, do your best and trust in Christ, for depend upon it if you suffer yourselves to be overpowered by the unwillingness you feel to-day, and so omit your worship of God, you will be still more unwilling to-morrow, and still more the next day, and then you will not be long without a fall.

I am quite sure that there are not a few who could testify that this is the way in which awakened sinners have fallen from their own steadfastness. First they have grown languid and listless in prayer, next they have given way to this; then they have left their prayers off, though with a resolution to take to them again; then the resolution hath been broken; then sin, and sometimes a course of sinning hath succeeded. The case, God be praised, is not desperate, but the recovery is difficult, and much more difficult the longer it is delayed. Be exhorted then to return to God by the same

FF

way in which you approached him at first : "whilst it is called to-day, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin."*

4. There are another class of people to whom there is infinite need to speak, though it is hard to tell what may move them, I mean those wretched persons who never pray at all.

Your minds are quite departed from God, and from the business of his house, when occasionally you come to it, and at home you make no pretence of prayer at all. Do bethink you who can endure the fierceness of God's anger? Yet-I speak it in compassion-under the wrath of God you cannot but be abiding now; and if you die in your present state, nothing else but the award of his law against transgression and habitual rebellion can be your portion for ever. Be you ever so upright in your dealings with men, Christians you are not, and cannot be; for a Christian cannot live without God in the world, as most undoubtedly you do. "Awake then ye wretched sleepers, and rise from the dead, that Christ may give you light."† At present you have no religion at all; at present, therefore, there is nothing but the breath which is in your nostrils between you and perdition. But Christ is able to save to the uttermost all such as come unto God by him, and such as do come unto him, he will in no wise cast out.

* Heb. iii. 13.

† Eph. v. 14.

5. But I do trust that I may be addressing myself to many of a totally opposite character; to many who, through the riches of their Redeemer's mercy, have been enabled to give their whole hearts to God, and who are steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, and continuing instant in prayer."

66

Remember, how, even after God had declared that he would consume the congregation of Israel, "Aaron, the priest of the Lord, stood between the dead and the living, and the plague was stayed.* Do not ye give up your brethren's case as hopeless; but to all your other supplications add one fervent and faithful prayer for those wretched ones who never pray for themselves; who wilfully despising the cross of Christ, are indeed still aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. Beg of him, who hath been every thing to yourselves, to take the stony heart out of their flesh, and to put his Spirit within them; that so the plague may be stayed

* Num. xvi. 48.

FF2

« PreviousContinue »