Redeemer : and that, as we shovdd live altogether by faith in him, so we should live altogether to his glory. Now, if we are habitually neglecting these duties, and living to ourselves and to the world, what is our life but one continued course of pre- sumptuous sin? 1 wish that the more moral, decent,
and conscientious part of my audience would attend to this, that they may see how great their deficiencies are, and how awful their guilt.]
To these we are ever prone —
[Every man by nature rushes into them, even as a horse into the battle : nor can any but God "keep us back" from them. How daring we are in the commission of them, is plain from numberless passages of Scripture, where the language of the carnal heart is depicted ; " Tush ! God shall not see ; neither will the Almighty regard it." We have a general notion about God's mercy : and from the very hope that he will forbear to execute the award of justice, we are encouraged to proceed in our career of sin ; thus " turning the very grace of God into licentiousness," and " continuing in sin with the hope that grace will abound." And what an ascendant these sins will gain over us may be daily seen, not only in the impieties of those who never knew any thing of God, but in the degenei'acy of many, who once gave promises of better things. The gradations of such persons' departure from God are strongly marked by the Psalmist : they first " walk (trans- iently) in the counsel of the ungodly, (who, from their want of real piety, are dangerous advisers ;) they then learn to stand (deliberately) in the loaij (and habits) of the wicked ; and then come to sit (habitually and at their ease) in the seat of the scornful^." And this is no other than what every presumptuous sinner has reason to expect: for God is indignant against him, in proportion as his transgressions partake of this horrid aggra- vation. Of the heathen it is said, " They liked not to retain God in their knowledge ; therefore God gave them over to a reprobate mind^:" and even of his own people Israel them- selves, God says, " Israel would none of me : so I gave them up^." What wonder, then, if he should say of us also, " They are joined to idols: let them alone'?" If instead of crying mightily to God to " keep us back" from presumptuous sins, we yield ourselves willingly to the commission of them, we can expect nothing, but that they should " have the entire dominion over us," and constrain God to " swear in his wrath, that we shall never enter into his rest." This, I say, we may well expect : for God has declared, that]
f Ps. i. 1. g Rom. i. 8.
h Ps. Ixxxi. 11, 12. i Hos. iv. 17.