Charity Illustrated and Recommended

George Wyllys, Sec'y

An Election SERMON.

I TIMOTHY I. V.

NOW the End of the Commandment is Charity, out of a pure Heart, and of a good Conscience, and of Faith unseigned.

THIS short but pithy sentence, contains in it all the virtues of the divine and the social life. If we might be so happy as to penetrate to the bottom of it, to reach the quintessence, to unfold the subject matter of it, Charity, in its nature and rise, its genuine tendency, effects, objects and operations, we should see that it will dilate and expand itself so as to reach every order of men, not only p. 6in their general callings as christians, but in their particular callings, connexions and relations to each other as members of community. For as the truth contained in it, is not too low for the greatest monarch on earth, so neither is it too high for the meanest peasant to be conversant with. And were the hearts of men generally opened to give entertainment to it, they would instantly become the epistle of Christ, and presently be known and read of all men. And the law of charity being written not with ink, but by the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in the fleshly tables of their hearts; of a cursed and miserable, this would soon become a blessed and happy world!—It was a quality radically concreted with the human nature; but by the seduction and apostacy was lost.

As the creation sprung from the Creator, all was good: And as man came forth of the hands of his MAKER; (man, the beauty and glory of the lower creation) he was innocent and upright: In the moral image of his glorious author, —all was love—all was harmony. But when pride entered some of the celestial inhabitants, and proved the defection of those prime apostates, the devil and his angels, envy and malignity wrought for the seduction of man made in the image of God; and proved fatally successful. Man was lost! his heart was turned off from its proper center and objective blessedness. p. 7That sense of moral excellence, (the light of the knowledge of the glory of God,) in which radically lay his spiritual life, was gone. Pride, malignity, discord and enmity took place. His sun was set! darkness and the shadow of death overspread him. His appetites, which were made and designed to be subordinate, gained the ascendent. Man fell under the curse: and instead of an innocent regard to that felicity which arose from the heart's being swallowed up primarily in love to the glorious Being, and a sense of moral beauty, a supreme regard to self, and to creature good, took place. Hence all that jarring, discord, confusion and bloodshed which ensu'd, all over this miserable world; as well as all those pains, disorders, and distresses of human nature; which finally reduce us to the dust, whence we were taken. The curse of God's law fell upon us, which condemns to eternal pain for every transgression and disobedience. And the very ground is cursed for man's sake, in consequence of his sin. Yea, the animate and inanimate world sustains the weight. The creature or the creation groans, being burdened and pained for deliverance. And from this guilty depravity, in which lies our spiritual death, and has so universally spread itself through the human nature, arises all that unkindness from friends, and all that bitterness from enemies, which we see and feel in this apostate world. In a word, mankind p. 8were ruined and lost: Death entered by sin, and passed upon all, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

p. 8UPON this plan proceedeth the wonderful work of redemption and recovery for lost man, by the Redeemer and Sanctifier: by the Son of God who came to seek and to save that which is lost, and by the Spirit of God to make application. Here was room for mercy, mere mercy to take place;— divine wisdom and counsel found out the way, for the exercise of it. A way glorious, clear beyond the reach and penetration of the most exalted of created nature, till it was opened to view by the man whose name is the Brouch; who was to build the temple of the Lord; to build the Temple of the Lord, and to bear the glory. [Zech. 6.12.] Of which early discoveries began to be made soon after the apostacy; and were after renewed and made more plain to Abraham, Moses, David and Isaiah, who saw his glory and spake of him. And when the fullness of time was come that the predictions which went before of him should be accomplished; such as this with many others; Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call his name Emanuel; the Spirit of the Lord came upon her, and the power of the highest over shadow'd her. And the holy thing born of her;—Here, note, is an exemption from all the human race by ordinary generation; the holy p. 9thing born of her is call'd the Son of God. In a time of general expectation he made his entrance into the world, in a way not agreeable to the general taste; not with public observation; not in worldly splendor, as the princes and nobles of this world—but in humble obscurity, he made a stable his birth-place, and a manger his cradle. However, it was to the observation of the upper world, attended with a pomp and magnificence truly caelestial; becoming the dignity of the Person. The heavenly inhabitants were active and admiring spectators of the surprising scene. The morning stars sang together, &c. A caelestial messenger brought the tidings down to earth. And immediately there was with the angel an innumerable multitude of the heavenly host: Those aetherial minstrels fill'd these lower regions, singing praises, and giving glory to God in the highest, and proclaiming peace, good-will to men. Thus was fulfilled that prediction; when he bringeth his first-begotten into the world, be saith; And let all the angels of God worship him. And what was the occasion of all this sublime solemnity? This day is born in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And he was designed to save them from their sins, (and therefore not agreeable to men's taste, for they love their sins) and to recover those who were ruin'd and lost by sin; to restore them to the image of p. 10God; to the cordial practice of the duty and felicity pointed out in our text, CHARITY.