I will conclude with one word of exhortation to those of my audience who may humbly hope that what has been said has a particular reference to them. Brethren, abjure inconsideration. It has a most unpropitious influence upon your present peace and satisfaction; and in proportion as it is submitted to, it will disqualify you for the better life of the world to come. Be instant in self-examination, meditation, and prayer. Commune with your own hearts. Consider your ways; and take heed unto your doings. Remember that religion is a serious thing; salvation an arduous work; the soul precious beyond calculation; life short, frail and precarious; death certain, and near at hand; eternity before you; and a deceitful world labouring to detain you from its joys. Be sober; be vigilant. Grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. "Now, the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ: to whom be glory forever and ever."*—AMEN. Heb. xiii. 20. 21. SERMON XII. ON INCONSIDERATION. AS CHARGEABLE AGAINST THE MERELY NOMINAL CHRISTIAN. ISAIAH, i. 3. "My people doth not consider." My design, on the present occasion, with the blessing of God, is to offer a few remarks on this charge of inconsideration as lying against a very different class of persons in the church from those to whom it was applied in the morning's discourse. Among the outward professors of the gospel faith, there are, undoubtedly, very many who, having a name to live, are yet, to the best of purposes, dead; and who, submitting in speculation to that doctrine which is according to Godliness, are, in practice, sinners: for, that there are sinners in Zion, is no new thing. Now, that such people are inconsiderate, in a very conspicuous degree, and to a very deplorable extent, may be made appear from the following observations. FIRST.-"The wicked, through the pride of his countenance," says the Psalmist,* "will not seek after God; God is not in all his thoughts." The nature and perfections of the Divine Being; especially his essential disapprobation of moral evil, and his fixed determination to avenge the violated laws of virtue in every unrepented instance; these are things which are rarely permitted to occupy the meditations, or disturb the enjoyments, of worldly men. They do not • Psalm, x. 4. reflect that while God, being a spirit, is imperceptible by mortal eyes, he is yet every where present; and that the eye of infinite purity is in every place, beholding the evil, as well as the good. They banish the remembrance of what his inspired servants have written for their instruction; "that the foolish," or ungodly, "shall not stand in his sight;" that he "hateth all workers of iniquity;" that "he is not a God that bath pleasure in wickedness, neither, shall evil dwell with him;"* that "indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish," shall be the inevitable portion of the impious and unrighteous; of all those who shall be found ignorant of God and disobedient to the gospel. They will not allow themselves to think on the immutability of him who, to mark the perfection and stability of his works, is in soripture denominated a rock. They lose sight of the sword of justice suspended by Heaven's unchangeable decree over the heads of the impenitent. They try to forget that what God hath once spoken, that will he infallibly perform; the threatenings of his tribunal, being, like the promises of his mercy-seat, sure of their accomplishment. Were these awful truths received into the bosom of serious consideration, sinners would no longer persist in treasuring up unto themselves wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. Were these awful truths received into the bosom of serious consideration, the vestibule of the temple would, as in primitive times, be crowded with weeping penitents, and the altar encompassed with contrite adorers. SECOND. The mass of nominal believers take no thought respecting the end of their being, and the true felicity of their nature. They may speculate handsomely upon the subject, perhaps, but in this case they treat it rather as an exercise of ingenuity, than as an inquiry fundamentally connected with their salvation. The business of glorifying their Creator and Redeemer is not in their contemplations. † Rom. ii. 8. 9. • Psalm, v. 4. 5. 1 Their happiness is not found in the joys of the Divine Presence, because they will not suffer their thoughts to run in such a channel, or to rest on such an object. They seem to be industrious in forgetting that in their formation God had designs more exalted than in giving a temporary being to the beasts that perish; that the superiour faculty of intelli gence with which he has endued them, indicates a superiour destination, and should conduct to superiour pursuits and attainments; and that the interests of the soul require to be consulted in preference to the demands of the flesh, and of the sensual appetites and passions. They push from them the reflection, as often as it intrudes, that, in the nature of things, the chief good of a human being can no where be found but in the bosom of his Eternal Parent: that to fear God, is the beginning of wisdom, and its final issue, to be received into his glorious and happy presence. THIRD. The inconsideration of most men is but too evident, if we regard the inexcusable ingratitude manifested in their deportment. Where is the tongue that can count up the mercies of God's throne? Where is the power of calculation that is not left behind by those compassions of his which fail not--which are renewed every morning and repeated every evening? Hath he not made us? Hath he not endued us with the capacity to know him? Hath he not opened his hand liberally and supplied our fast recurring wants? Hath not his kind providence prevented our wishes? Hath he not healed our diseases, and preserved us alive amidst countless invisible deaths and dangers? Hath he not borne with our provocations-our treasons-our infidelities our stiff-necked, rebellious, and ungodly murmurings? Hath he not given us redemption by the blood of his Son, even the remission of sins? Is he not now in Christ reconciling us unto himself, not imputing to us our flagrant trespasses? Does he not bestow his holy spirit on all who ask him? Does he not seal to us and to our children the grace of his gospel in the laver of regeneration? Does he not give us line upon line and precept upon precept; and does he not send to us messenger after, messenger, rising up early and sending them-and sending them even at the eleventh hour-warning us to break off our sins by repentance, and adjuring us to live, and not die? O, my soul! what wilt thou--what canst thou render to the Lord for all his benefits? Great as these benefits are, however, there are men who can forget them; there are multitudes--yes--multitudes-whom we cannot persuade to think upon them with any degree of seriousnes. If it were not so, would the sinner persevere in iniquity? If it were not so, would persons in covenant with God repay his goodness with ingratitude? Impossible! Men sin, because they undervalue that goodness which should lead them to repentance; and that goodness they undervalue, because they will not suffer their meditations to rest upon it; because they do not consider. Shameful inconsideration! The most stupid of reasonless animals are wiser than the professed children of light; for thus saith God, of old; and in every age the complaint is justifiable"I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib; but Israel doth not know--my people doth not consider." FOURTH.--The indevout and impenitent do not reflect upon the nature and inestimable value of the Christian salvation. With eminent truth may it be said of them, that "this so great salvation, they neglect." Little do they think on that tremendous wrath which awaits the unrepenting children of disobedience, and from which this salvation shields the returning sinner! Little do they think what an awful fate it is, to fall into the hands of the living God--to die in sinto come forth out of an unblest grave, and go away into everlasting punishment! And not much more do they think of those eternal abodes of sinless virtue, of cloudless enjoyment, and unsullied glory, to which the justifying, adopting, |