Fourthly. This awful fact shall sooner or later be stated to their conviction, confusion, and terror. They shall know that they are found wanting in the balance of God; that how fair and specious soever their character may have appeared to the world; that whatever pains they may have taken, and with whatever success to impose upon themselves and others, they could pass no imposition upon him. They shall find that the righteous God who searcheth the hearts and the reins, has formed a true estimate of their character, and that he will in due time set it forth in its genuine colours. And they shall also know that it is a lamentable case to weigh much in their own balance, and to be found wanting in that of God; for they shall see that his is the standard of true value, and of ultimate decision. That the refuse and the dross shall be detected and cast away, and that none but the pure and sterling gold shall be permitted to pass. They shall see the vanity and folly of their own self-complacency and self-delusion; of that pride, and indolence, and prejudice, which prevented them from inquiring into the state of their own hearts, and from examining thoroughly their own conduct and character. They shall see how vain the attempt to impose upon omniscience, and how wretched a thing it is to stand high in their own esteem, and in that of the world, while they fall short of that true excellence and worth of character which he justly requires. Happy indeed, if they see this before it be too late; yea, even though, as in the case of Belshazzar, God should appear to step aside from the usual course of his providence, to alarm conscience, and to set conviction home upon the heart. But thrice wretched they, who like this unhappy monarch, know not their true character and danger till repentance is too late, and destruction is become inevitable. For know that there is a day approaching beyond which this self-ignorance and self-delusion shall not extend; a day in which the secrets of all hearts shall be open, and when every one shall see his character in its true light. O, what surprise and dismay will then seize upon multitudes, who now trust in themselves that they are righteous, and who fancy that their characters will easily stand the test. How well soever they may now succeed in drawing a bandage over the mental eye, how completely soever they may now impose upon themselves, and buoy themselves up with delusive hopes, all these self-delusions will then be at an end. Conscience will present her faithful mirror, and it will not be in their power to turn aside their eyes therefrom. Wretched beyond expression, they who having all along been guilty of the most grievous imposition upon themselves, shall then first learn that they are found wanting in the balances of God; shall then first learn it, when, like Belshazzar, they hear the truth of their character in the denunciation of their doom. SERMON IX. TRUE RELIGION DISTINGUISHED FROM ERROR AND SUPERSTITION. 1 Cor. x. 31. Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. IT has long been a prevailing opinion among christians of almost all denominations, that religion is a state of mind totally different in its nature, origin, and progress, from every other habit and affection; and that there is little or no analogy between them. This error has been productive of many evil consequences. It appears to have originated in a misconception of the language of the New Testament; those phrases having been understood in a literal and a moral sense, which by the sacred writers were intended figuratively, and as expressive merely of an external denomination. When an idolatrous heathen was converted to the christian religion, he renounced at once that multiplicity of false, obscene, and immoral deities, which, from his infancy, he had been taught to acknowledge and adore. He abandoned the pompous pageantry of idle worship, he abjured all those immoral and licentious practices which were tolerated, and sometimes even required, by heathen superstition, and embraced a profession which taught him the worship of the ONE true and living God, to the total exclusion of all other objects of worship, whether equal or subordinate; which required the strictest purity of morals, and which elevated him to the hope of immortal life, by a resurrection from the grave. The change introduced into the views, the principles, the habits, the affections, the language, and the manners of such a convert, were so new, so extraordinary, and so astonishing, that it is continually represented in the New Testament, |