ing world were indisposed to attend to, and incapable of estimating rightly the worth of their character, and the importance of their labours; and, obstinately attached to their foolish and criminal pursuits, they willingly consigned to oblivion both their reprovers and reproofs. It is owing to these, and similar causes, that so many great and good men are entirely forgotten; and, but for the unperceived, yet frequently very powerful influence of their exertions on the minds of those with whom they were connected, are as if they had never been. Their memorial is perished from the earth.Yet shall they be "held in everlasting remembrance." Their names, though not inserted in the records of worldly honour, are "written in the Lamb's book of life." They "honoured God, and he will honour them." "They turned many to righteousness, and they shall shine as stars in the firmament for ever and ever." It cannot be doubted, that of those prophets whom God raised up for the instruction of the Jewish church, as well as of those ministers whom he raised up for the instruction of the Christian church, there were many thousands, venerable for their piety, respecta ble for their talents, and highly useful in their stations, of whose very names we are totally ignorant : Of many more we know nothing but the names: Of a much less considerable number we have some slen der memorial: and of a very few we have full delineations of their characters, and extensive specimens of their labours. In these dispensations we may notice, and ought to adore, the sovereignty of Divine Providence, who does what he wills with his own, and who distributes posthumous honour and usefulness on principles certainly wise, just, and good, but to us altogether inscrutable. Of the Prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, we have considerable volumes: Of Micaiah and Gad we know little more than that they were prophets; while Nathan, Obadiah, and some others, hold a kind of intermediate station-slender portions of their prophetic instructions having found a place in the inspired canon. To this third class belongs Azariah, the son of Oded, from whose short and solitary recorded prophecy, I have chosen the subject of the present discourse. J The words of the text are the conclusion of a solemn and animated address, delivered by Azariah under the impulse of inspiration, to the pious Asa, on his return from the miraculous overthrow of Zerah the Cushite, and his prodigious army. The prophet assures the monarch and his people of the continued protection and blessing of Jehovah, if they remained faithful to their duty,-puts them in mind of the dilapidated state in which the true religion had for a long period been,-points out the necessity of an immediate and thorough reformation,-and concludes all with the exhortation in the text, "Be strong, and let not your hands be weak: for your work shall be rewarded.” Without doubt, these words have a primary reference to Asa, and the people of Judah and Benjamin, in the particular conjuncture at which they were spoken. They are an exhortation to activity, vigour, and perseverance, in the great work of national reformation, enforced by a declaration, that their labours should be crowned with an abundant reward. It is obvious, however, that they admit of a wider application, and that both the command and the encouragement may, without impropriety, be considered as addressed to men and saints in every country and age. In this avowedly accommodated sense I shall consider it in the subsequent part of this discourse, in which N your attention shall be successively directed to THE DUTY ENJOINED, "Be strong, and let not your hands be weak;" and to THE MOTIVE PROPOSED, work shall be rewarded." "Your I. I do not know, if, in the whole compass of inspired scripture, there is to be found an injunction so frequently repeated, as that to which your attention is now to be directed: "Be strong," said Moses to Joshua, when he publicly declared him his successor; and the same laconic exhortation was repeated immediately from heaven, when he entered on the discharge of the duties of his office *. "Be thou strong," said David to Solomon, when he gave him his last advice respecting his conduct as a man and a king †. "Be strong," is a part of the evangelical message, according to the prediction of the evangelical prophet ‡. "Be strong, O Zerubabel; be strong, O Jeshua; be strong, all ye people of the land," was the command of God by the Prophet Haggai to the restorers of the temple |. "Be strong," is the injunction of the Apostle Paul on his son Timothy, and on the Corinthian and Ephesian believers §. A mandate so frequently repeated by men who spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, must be important, and an enquiry into its meaning cannot surely be deficient either in interest or instruction. The divine injunction is by no means obscure. It obviously enjoins alacrity in undertaking, activity in prosecuting, perseverance in continuing, a course of dutiful conduct. The general command, "Be strong," implies in it an injunction to acquire those principles and dispositions in which * Deut. xxxi. 7. Josh. i. 7. Isa. xxxv. 4. +1 Chron. xxviii. 10. § 1 Cor. xvi. 13. Eph. vi. 10. 2 Tim. ii. 1. moral strength and spiritual vigour consist; and to display those principles in their appropriate employment, of performing duty, resisting enemies, and enduring affliction. The duty enjoined, then, seems to be twofold-first, the acquisition; and, secondly, the exertion of spiritual strength. 1st, The command, "Be strong," enjoins the acquirement of spiritual strength. Were a person worn out by disease addressed in these words, "Be strong," the most rational course which he could adopt, in order to comply with the advice, would be carefully to use every means which promised to re-establish his health and restore his vigour. The application of the remark to the moral state of mankind is obvious and easy. That men are naturally destitute of all moral vigour, all spiritual strength-that they are morally incapable, or, in other words, very strongly indispos◄ ed, to perform actions acceptable to God, is most decidedly the doctrine of scripture. "Without strength, dead in trespasses and sins," are the expressive appellations given in scripture to all men in their natural state: 66 They who are in the flesh cannot please God *." This moral inability seems owing to two causes— the divine curse, and the depravity of human nature: "All men have sinned," and, of course, are under the curse which God has denounced against all the transgressors of his law. To this most holy and righteous ordinance of heaven, I impute no active energy in paralysing the native powers of the human mind but, without doubt, the object of the divine curse *Rom. v. 6. Eph. ii. 1. Rom. viii. 8. cannot be the subject of that divine influence, which is the sole source of moral goodness in created minds. The divine curse cuts off, as it were, the supplies of the divine life, and man, of course, continues “dead in trespasses and sins." It is thus that "the law is the strength of sin." It is, however, to the depravity of man's nature-to the wilful delusions of his understanding and the determined wickedness of his heart, that man's moral inability is to be traced as its operative cause. It is because men will not do their duty that they cannot do it: "Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life." From this view of the subject it is plain, that in or der to our acquiring spiritual vigour, two things are necessary-we must obtain deliverance from the divine curse, and we must be " renewed in the spirit of our minds." I trust none of you are ignorant of the manner in which these blessings are to be obtained; yet, as it is scarcely possible to present the truth on this subject too frequently to the mind, I shall state the leading doctrines of the Christian scheme of restoration:"Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, having himself become a curse for us. When we were without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. God, sending his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and a sin-offering, has condemned sin in the flesh; which the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh." By faith in Christ Jesus, we are "made the righteousness of God in him," and become partakers of all the blessings which he has procured by his death. God, well pleased with him, and with us in him, "blesses us with heavenly and spiritual blessings ;" and, among these blessings, one of the first and most important is spiritual ability, a disposition and a power to do our duty. This is conferred through the agency of the Holy Ghost enlight |