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cannot change their hearts. They cannot extinguish the feelings of enmity that reign there. They cannot bring a clean thing out of an unclean. But there are some things which they can do, as co-workers with God in this mighty achievement. They can prepare the way of the Lord. They can remove impediments, existing in themselves, to the conversion of the carnally minded. They can aid in the preparatory measures to this great work. They can show forth, in their spirit and example, the genuine nature of religion. They can proclaim abroad, by the eloquence of a holy life, the true gospel of salvation. They can preach the truth as it is in Jesus, in the mute and silent rhetoric of a meek and quiet spirit. O, they can do yet more; they can warn and entreat and persuade the wicked. They can urge them to search the scriptures-to listen to the preached word to bend their stubborn knees-to bow their

stubborn hearts in prayer. And they can do yet more. They can pray.

Ye children of God, what say ye to these things? You love the Lord. You behold his unspeakable loveliness. You see how infinitely deserving he is of the love of all created minds. You feel the blessedness of his love. You expect to enjoy its increasing measures forever. You feel for sinners perishing in their enmity. I know your hearts sometimes bleed for them. I know you long at times to bring them to the Saviour that they may be cured; that they may see his beauty, and feast on the provisions of his love. And would you do this? Then let your hearts burn within you in constant communion with Christ, until the flame of your fervent charity shall blaze forth, and allure sinners to him. O, if you have any sensibility to the value of spiritual blessings; if you have any bowels of christian compassion, you will do all you can, to save the perishing by pulling them out of the fire!

And is there no duty for you, ye perishing ones? Enemies to God, must it not be your duty to be recon

ciled to him? Is it not your present duty to become his cordial friends? Rebels against his government, and despisers of his grace, is it not your present duty to exercise ingenuous sorrow and deep repentance? Since you have lived up to this hour at ENMITY AGAINST GOD your Saviour, ought you not this hour to begin to love him, trust in him, obey and serve him? O, this is the duty of the lost spirits in the world of despair. And it is your duty. Ah! it is more, it is your interest, it is your happiness, it is your salvation. Until you do this you cannot be saved. So long as you cherish this carnal mind, you cherish the very elements of perdition in your bosoms. It is not possible for God to save you in your existing state. O, you must repent-You must believe-You must love God, or heaven can never be yours.

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SERMON IV.

There is no Peace to the Wicked.

ISAIAH LVII. 20, 21.

THE WICKED ARE LIKE THE TROUBLED SEA, WHEN IT CANNOT REST, WHOSE WATERS CAST UP MIRE AND DIRT. THERE IS NO PEACE, SAITH MY GOD, TO THE WICKED.

THE distinction between the righteous and the wicked, is not more clearly asserted in the volume of inspiration, than it is made to appear in their respective existing conditions. This economy in the divine administration, is marked with his own peculiar wisdom and benevolence. Consistency and uniformity might pervade all the diversified arrangements of his government of the world, and yet not stand out so conspicuously as to meet the notice of all. The language of his providence and of his word, might be entirely Harmonious, and yet to minds like ours, so liable to misinterpret both, there might appear a very palpable contradiction between them. So that without the actual existence of the remotest occasion for it, we might be perplexed, embarrassed, and distressed, in witnessing before our eyes, events and circumstances apparently at variance with the plain statements of scripture. But we are relieved from all painful embarrassments of this nature. God never appears to contradict, by what is taking place around us, what he has written on the pages of the bible. By neglecting this light, and endeavoring to as

certain the character and mind of the Holy One by the light of nature, men have become involved in perplexing difficulties at once. They have been stumbled at every step in discovering some imagined anomaly in the divine government-something contrary to their previous notions of his character-something which almost drove them to the gloomy refuge of atheism. Through this neglect, even good men, from partial and mistaken views, have scarcely escaped falling. Their feet have been almost gone their steps have well nigh slipped. Their embarrassment has generally arisen from contemplating the apparently felicitous lot of the wicked. But, their difficulty has all vanished, the moment they have gone to the bible. There they have understood, not only their end, but their present state. There they have learned, that, however prosperous, cheerful, gay, and happy, the wicked may seem, they are nevertheless, like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There too, it has been found out, that, though they may speak peace to themselves, and declare of themselves, that they enjoy peace, yet as God is true, there is no peace to the wicked.

The text I have thus introduced, will lead me to consider,

I. The fact, that the wicked are strangers to true

peace.

And

II. The reasons why they are so. III. To notice more particularly their condition as indicated by the figure in the text.

I. I am to consider the fact, that the wicked are strangers to real peace. It is proper here to observe, that in the scriptures the term wicked is not applied exclusively to the openly flagitious and abandoned. All are wicked, in the sense invariably attached to the word throughout the bible, who are not righteous-who are not spiritual believers who are not renewed in the prevailing habits and taste of the mind. A righteous person may conduct wickedly, and a wicked person may

do many things bearing an external conformity to a righteous rule, and yet the one is a new creature, alive to God, the other is dead in trespasses and sins.

Allow me to observe likewise, in this place, that when the scriptures pronounce the wicked strangers to peace, it is not intended that they never have a state of mind, which they regard as yielding them slight and transient emotions of peace. They have something, which may be called composure or peace of mind. Some are constitutionally placid. Their thoughts and feelings flow in an even current. They are not susceptible of high excitement, or strong emotions of any kind. This sluggish tide of feelings resembles peace, is sometimes mistaken for it, and called by the name. Others, by long habits of sin, by withstanding the peculiar motives of religion, and resisting the convictions of a gracious Spirit, so deaden their original sensibilities as to remain unmoved and undisturbed by considerations, which otherwise would put an end to every thing, that might be mistaken for rest or peace. Another class,

who flatter themselves that they have peace though they walk in the imagination of their own hearts, derive it from a view of their attention to many of the relative and social duties of life, and of their exemption from many of the prevailing sins and vices of mankind. This often pacifies conscience, calms rising fears, and quells those alarms, which in spite of all their exterior piety, will, at times, awaken troublous commotions in the mind. Thus I would not deny, for it is not denied in the scriptures of truth, that persons belonging to either of these classes of the wicked, may occasionally experience intervals of quietude and serenity of mind, which, because their experience reaches no farther, they may suppose to be true spiritual peace, or the peace of God which passeth understanding. But the number of those to whom this concession is made, has always been exceedingly small. So that, were the peace they enjoy less decidedly spurious-were it any thing real, sub

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