DISCOURSES, OR SERMONS,

AS INTENDED FOR THE PULPIT.

Στόλος και εδραιωμα της αλήθειας. Και ομολογουμένως μέγα εστι το της ευσέβειας μυστηρίου. Θεοσες τρώθη I σ- TIM. iii. 15, 16.

PREFACE.

THE following Discourses were drawn up about twelve months since, when I expected a speedy opportunity of delivering them from the pulpit. As the views I then had are now over-ruled, I take this method of laying them before the public; that those who have thought proper to foretell the part I would have acted, and the doctrine I would have taught, if my desires had taken place, may be either satisfied or silenced.

Yet I should not have thought it worth my while, to give either myself or others this trouble, merely for my own vindication. Attempts of this kind usually imply too much of a man's importance to himself, to be either acceptable or successful. Or, at best, it can be a point of no great moment to my real happiness, what the few persons to whom my little name is known, are pleased to say or think of me. Nothing but great inattention to our true circumstances, can afford us leisure either to censure others, or to justify ourselves; unless when the interests of religion or morality are evidently concerned. A few years will fix and determine our characters beyond all possibility of mistake; and till then it would be vain to hope for it.

The true reasons, therefore, of this publication are, the importance of the subjects treated of; and the probability that, upon this occasion, many persons who have not yet considered them with the attention they deserve, may be induced (some from a motive of friendship, and others from curiosity) to read what might appear in my name, the rather for being mine. Had I written with a design to print, I should have chosen to put my sentiments in another form; and perhaps a desire to avoid the censure of severe critics, would have made me more solicitous about expression and method. But as I profess to publish not what I might, but what I really would have spoken, I could not allow myself to deviate from my first draught, except in a few places where I thought the sense entangled, ambiguous, or defective. For the same reason, I am forced to decline the judgment and correction of my friends, the advantages of which, as well as my own great need of them, I have more than once experienced.

If there is found in some places a coincidence of thought or expression, I hope it will be excused; as I had not the least apprehension, at the time of composing, that what I designed for distinct and separate occasions, would ever appear abroad in one view.

In a word, so far as these Essays are mine, I entreat a candid perusal; and that those who read them in order to form their judgment of the author, do not make their estimate from a sentence here and there, but have the patience to read them throughout. So far as what they contain is agreeable to scripture, reason, and experience, any apology would be impertinent. In this case they deserve attention. Every particle of truth is valuable in itself, by whatever means or instruments it may be conveyed to us; and, like a torch, displays itself by its own light, without any relation to the hand that bears it.

Liverpool, January 1, 1760.

381

DISCOURSES, &c.

SERMON I.

ON THE DECEITFULNESS OF THE HUMAN HEART.

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.-Jer. xvii. 9, 10.

THE prophet Jeremiah had a hard task. He | our excuse, if at any time we seem too urgent, was appointed to inculcate unwelcome truths upon a vain, insensible people. He had the grief to find all his expostulations and warnings, his prayers and tears, had no other effect than to make them account him their enemy, and to draw reproach and persecution upon himself. He lived to see the accomplishment of his own predictions; to see the land of his nativity desolated, the city destroyed, the people almost extirpated, and the few who remained, transported into a distant country, to end their days in captivity.

But, without confining the words to the first occasion of their delivery, I shall consider them, as teaching us a doctrine abundantly confirmed by many other passages of scripture, "that the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked;" which I shall endeavour to illustrate in a plain familiar way. I shall, secondly, from the next verse, enforce this observation, that the heart (bad as it is) is incessantly under the divine inspection and examination; "I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins." I shall, thirdly, consider the issue and design of this inquest; that every man may, in the end, receive according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings. And may the Lord enable us so to try and examine ourselves here, that hereafter we may be found unblameable and without rebuke before him, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

said, or an assigned cause of that obstinacy | sibility of man! The wisest of our species, and perverseness he had complained of; in those places where divine revelation was "The heart is deceitful above all things, and not known, ever mistook the effect for the desperately wicked; who can know it!" cause, and ascribed that honour to the creature which is due only to the Creator. This was the very best of the case; for, in general, they sunk still lower to worship stocks and stones: nay, to the eternal reproach of the natural understanding in the things of God, the more civilized any nation was, the more renowned for arts and arms, the farther they were removed from those they termed barbarians, so much the more vile and contemptible the idolatry they established generally proved. The wisdom of the Egyptians paid divine honours to cats, monkeys, and the vilest reptiles. The fine taste of the Greeks consecrated those for gods, who, if they had lived amongst men, would have been deemed the pests of society; gods who were, professedly, both patterns and patrons of the most shameful vices. The prowess of the Romans established altars to fear and paleness. So deeply were they infatuated, so totally lost to common sense, that the apostle Paul's worst enemies could find no more plausible accusation against him, in one of the politest cities then in the world, than that he had ventured to affirm, "they were no gods who were made with hands."

I. The heart is here characterised, first, As deceitful, and that above, or in all things: secondly, As desperately wicked; in so dangerous, so deplorable a state, as is not to be conceived or found out. Who can know it!" The word in the original [s] which we translate desperately wicked, signifies a mortal, incurable disease: a disease which, seizing on the vitals, affects and threatens the whole frame; and which no remedy can reach. This idea leads us to that first transgression, whereby man departing from God, fatally destroyed his soul's health, and sunk nto that state so pathetically described by Isaiah, chap. i. "The whole head is sick," all the powers of the understanding disordered; "and the whole heart faint," all the springs of the affections enfeebled. "From the sole of the foot, even unto the head, there is no soundness, but wounds, bruises, and putrifying sores:" the evil growing worse continually, and no help or helper at hand: "they have not been closed nor bound up, nor mollified with ointment." In consequence of this deep-rooted disorder, the heart is deceitful; that is, it deceives and fails us in every instance; it promises more than it can perform; it misleads us with vain desires; and mocks us with unsuccessful efforts; like the faint attempts of a sick man, to perform those actions which require a state of sound health and strength. That this is indeed the case, will (I think) appear from the following particulars; to which I entreat your attention. Scripture and reason do jointly assure us, that all we see is the work of an Almighty Being. The heavens and the earth, the sun, moon, and stars, and even the grass and flowers of the field, loudly proclaim the presence, the power, the wisdom, and the goodness of God: yet behold the extreme insen

Thus stood the case with heathens: let us now come nearer home. It is to be feared, the greatest difference between them and the generality of us called Christians is, that we do not partake in their gross outward idolatry. In other respects, our insensibility is perhaps as much greater than theirs, as our superior knowledge renders it more inexcuseable. We acknowledge a God: that there is but one; that he is the cause of all things; that in him we live and move, and have our being. Had the poor heathens known this, we may judge by their application to their mistaken worship, it would have had some influence on their practice. But what numbers of us live altogether as “without God in the world." I come not here to make invectives; let conscience judge and give evidence accordingly. What do we think of the perpetual presence of God around us, and within us? We know that he is acquainted with all our thoughts, words, and actions; yet are we not more effectually restrained and awed by the presence of our fellow-worms, than by the regard of that eye which is ten thousand times brighter than the sun? How are we affected by the works of God! Has not the appearance of a fine day, or the beauty of an extensive prospect, a force to extort a sense of satisfaction from every one! but how few are there of us that can realize and acknowledge the hand of the glorious author of these things? How seldom, and how faintly, do we adopt the reflection of David?" When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers,

the moon and the stars which thou hast or- | from heaven, and caused streams to flow in dained; What is man, that thou art mind- the sandy desert; he made a covenant with ful of him and the son of man that thou them, and chose them for his peculiar people; visitest him?" Psal. viii. What is our judg- he destroyed all their enemies before them; ment of the word of God, that glorious mes- and, at length, put them in the full and peacesage of love, in which he has pointed out to able possession of a land flowing with milk us the way of salvation? Is not this book and honey. Interwoven with the history of the least read, the least admired, and the God's gracious dealings with them, we have least understood of any? We are presently an account of their behaviour towards him, affected, we enter with all our spirit into the which was a continual series of rebellion, moving incidents (as we term them) of a ro- perverseness, murmuring, and disobedience. mance or tragedy, though we know they are And are we better than they? In no wise. If not founded on truth, nor have any relation we had leisure to consider the natural, civil, to ourselves; but we can read the history of and religious advantages we enjoy as a nation, Jesus Christ, his life and doctrines, his death it would appear that we likewise have long and passion, with indifference, though we been a peculiarly favoured people. The eye say, all he spoke, or did, or suffered, was for of the Lord our God has been upon us conour sakes. What are our thoughts of that tinually for good, and we have reason to say, eternity to which we are posting, and to "He has not dealt so with any nation." The which, for aught we know, a few hours may history of all ages and countries affords us no introduce us? Is it not in the power of the instance of national prosperity that can be merest trifle that occurs, to hide this import- compared, either for degree or continuance, ant point from our view? It were easy to with what we have enjoyed since the Revolu multiply particulars: but are not these suffi- tion: nor would it be easy, I fear, to find a cient to show the deceitfulness, the desperate parallel in any history of our great ingratiwickedness of the heart? Let me add one tude. What I have said in the former artimore: the judgments of God are now abroad cle will necessarily infer this; for it is imposin the world for these things. We have sible that those who have so little sensibility, warnings all around us. We know that either of the value of the gifts of God, or of many fruitful lands in our neighbourhood are his hand in bestowing them, can be grateful. in a manner turned into a wilderness, for the The seat of ingratitude is in the heart: the sins of the inhabitants. Every post brings proof appears in words and actions. Now, us tidings of some new desolation, and we what are the prevailing subjects of conversa cannot tell how soon the case may be our tion amongst us? Are the great things that own; but we have neither sympathy for our God has done for us, the high obligations we fellow-creatures nor concern for ourselves. are under to him, the comforts of our holy We hear, we pity, we forget in the same in- religion, and the nature of that blessed hope stant: but these things are remote. Is, then, set before us by the gospel, in the number? what we see and feel more laid to heart? On the contrary, is not the least hint of Our friends and acquaintance are taken from these things in company, for the most part, amongst us daily, some of them suddenly, in received with reserve, if not with contempt the midst of their warmest pursuits, or just and disgust? "Out of the abundance of the upon the accomplishment of their most fa- heart the mouth speaketh." God, and the vourite schemes: we drop an unmeaning things of God, have little place there; but tear, and fly to every officious vanity for re- levity, detraction, ill-temper, and, not sellief. Perhaps we are visited ourselves, and dom, profaneness and obscenity, in our disbrought down to the borders of the grave; courses, too plainly discover the nature of the but even against this we are, for the most fountain from whence they flow. And if we part, proof, or, if we feel a slight impression, look upon the actions of men in general, they it gradually wears off with the disease, and are but of a piece with their words; enwe return, as soon as we recover, to our for- grossed by business, or enslaved to pleasure; mer follies with redoubled ardour. for a season all upon the stretch in amassing treasures, and then perhaps as restless and eager to dissipate them. Whatever passion rules them for the time, or whatever changes they may admit in their schemes, it is too plain, that a principle of gratitude to God, and a conscious desire to please him, base little influence either in forming or executing their plans. If these things are so, we have another instance of the deceitfulness and desperate wickedness of the heart: it is full of the blackest ingratitude.

This is a slight view of the insensibility of the human heart: let us now consider its ingratitude. The Israelites were a sample of all mankind in this respect. God visited them in Egypt in the midst of their affliction. Without any application on their part, he undertook and effected their deliverance: he brought them from among their enemies "with a high hand, and a stretched-out arm;" he led them safely through the wilderness; he screened them with a cloud, from the piercing beams of the sun; he gave them light by night, in a pillar of fire; he fed them with bread

Need any thing be added to these two charges? Have we not said enough to con