many undeserved comforts of our condition, that we may bear the afflictions of it more patiently; reasoning with Job, "Shall we receive good at "the hand of God, and shall we not receive ❝ evil ?" 2 Nor should we fail to join with our meditations on his past and present mercies, the firm assurance, which both his attributes and his promises furnish, that the same "loving kindness "shall follow us all the days of our life;"3 and be exerted, though sometimes for our correction of trial, yet always for our benefit; and so as to make our lot supportable in every variety of outward circumstances. “Let your conversation "therefore be without covetousness; and be con"tent with such things as ye have; for he hath "said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”+ Another very important consideration, and necessary to be often brought to mind, is, that the season both of enjoying the advantages, and bearing the inconveniences of life is short; but the reward of enjoying and bearing each, as we ought, is eternal, and inconceivably great. Together with these reflections, let us exercise a steady care to check every faulty inclination in its earliest rise. For it is chiefly indulging them at first, that makes them so hard to conquer afterwards. And yet we shall always find the bad consequences of yielding, to outweigh vastly the trouble of resisting; and that to bring our desires, when they are the strongest, down to our condition, is a much easier work, than to raise our condition up to our desires, which will only grow the more ungovernable, the more they are pampered. Further whatever share we possess of worldly plenty, let us bestow it on ourselves with decent moderation, and impart of it to others with prudent liberality; for thus "knowing how to (3) Psalm xxiii, 6. (4) Heb. xiii. 5. : (2) Job ii. 10. 66 "abound," we shall know the better "how to "suffer need,"5 if Providence calls us to it. And lastly, instead of "setting our affections on any things on earth," which would be a fatal neglect of the great end that we are made for, let us exalt our views to that blessed place, where "God"liness with contentment will be unspeakable 66 gain ;" and they who have restrained the inferior principles of their nature, by the rules of religion, shall have the highest faculties of their souls abundantly satisfied with the fatness of "God's house, and be made to drink of the river "of his pleasures."8 Thus, then, you see both the meaning and the importance of the last Commandment; which is, indeed, the guard and security of all the preceding ones. For our actions will never be right, habitually, till our desires are so. Or if they could, our Maker demands the whole man, as he surely well may; nor, till that is devoted to him, are meet for the inheritance of the saints in we 66 "light."" And now, both the first and the second table of the Ten Commandments having been explained to you, it only remains, that we beg of God "suffi"cient grace" to keep them; earnestly entreating him in the words of his Church-" Lord have mercy upon us, and write all these thy laws in our hearts, we beseech thee." 66 66 (5) Phil. iv. 12. (6) Col. iii. 2. (7) Tim. vi. 6. LECTURE XXIX. Of man's inability, God's grace, and Prayer to him for it. I HAVE now proceeded, in the course of these Lectures, to the end of the Commandments; and explained the nature of that repentance, faith, and obedience, which were promised for us in our baptism, and which we are bound to exercise, in proportion as we come to understand the obligations incumbent on us. You cannot but see by this time, that the duties, which God enjoins us, are not only very important, but very extensive. And, therefore, a consideration will almost unavoidably present itself to our minds in the next place, what abilities we have to perform them. Now the question our Catechism decides, without asking it, by a declaration, extremely discouraging in appearance, that "we are not able, of ourselves, "to walk in the Commandments of God, and to serve him." Indeed, had we ever so great abilities, we must have them not of ourselves, but of our Maker ; from whom all the powers of all creatures are derived. But something further than this is plainly meant here; that there are no powers belonging to human nature in its present state, sufficient for so great a purpose. The law of God "is spiritual, but we are carnal, sold under sin.”1 And that such is our condition, will appear by reflecting, first, what it was at our birth; secondly, what we have made it since. 1. As to the first, we all give proofs, greater or (1) Rom. vii. 14. less, of an inbred disorder and wrongness in our understandings, will, and affections. Possibly one proof, that some may give of it, may be a backwardness to own it. But they little consider, how severe a sentence they would pass, by denying it, on themselves, and all mankind. Even with our natural bad inclinations for some excuse, we are blameable enough for the ill things that we do. But how much more should we be so, if we did them all, without the solicitation of any inward depravity to plead afterwards in our favour? In point of interest, therefore, as well as truth, we are concerned to admit an original proneness to evil in our frame; while yet reason plainly teaches, at the same time, that whatever God created, was originally, in its kind, perfect and good. 2 To reconcile these two things, would have been a great difficulty, had not Revelation pointed out the way, by informing us, that man was, indeed, "made upright," but that the very first of human race lost their innocence and their happiness together; and tainting, by wilful transgression, their own nature, tainted, by consequence, that of their whole posterity. Thus, "by one man, sin "entered into the world, and death by sin; and "so death passed upon all men, for that all have "sinned."3 We find, in fact, however difficult it may be to account for it in speculation, that the dispositions of parents, both in body and mind, very commonly descend, in some degree, to their children. And, therefore, it is entirely credible, that so great a change in the minds of our first parents from absolute rightness of temper to presumptuous wickedness; accompanied with an equal change of body, from an immortal condition to a mortal one, produced, perhaps, in part by the physical effects of the forbidden fruit; that these (3) Rom. v. 12. (2) Eccl. vii. 19. things, I say, should derive their fatal influences to every succeeding generation. For though God will never impute any thing to us, as our personal fault, which is not our own doing; yet he may very justly withhold from us those privileges, which he granted to our first parents only on condition of their faultless obedience, and leave us subject to those inconveniencies which followed of course from their disobedience; as in multitudes of other cases, we see children in far worse circumstances, by the faults of their distant forefathers, than they otherwise would have been. And, most evidently, it is no more a hardship upon us to become such as we are by means of Adam's transgression, than to suffer what we often do for the transgressions of our other ancestors; or to have been created such as we are, without any one's transgression; which last, all, who disbelieve original sin, must affirm to be our case. But unhappily for us as the failure of the first man was, we should be happy in comparison, if this were all that we had to lament. Great as the native disorder of our frame is, yet either the fall of Adam left in it, or God restored to it, some degree of disposition to obedience, and strength against sin; so that though "in us, that is, in our flesh, dwelleth no good thing-yet, after the "inward man, (the mind) we delight in the law "of God;" and there are occasions on which even "the Gentiles which have not the law, do 66 by nature the things contained in the law," though neither all, nor any, without fault. And on us Christians our heavenly Father confers, in our Baptism, the assurance of much greater strength to obey his commands, than they have. But, then, if we consider, 2. What we have made our condition since, we (4) Rom. vii. 18, 22, 23. 5) Rom. ij. 1. |