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which brings us to obey the laws of our being, as well as those of revelation, would serve to improve our systems and prolong our days on the earth.

Cannot eminent piety live here? What says the history of the church on this subject? Did not Abraham and Job and Paul and Hooker and Davenport live to a good old age, and, for many years, bring forth the ripest fruits of piety? Their religion did not kill them. Christians must walk with God, and that too more closely than the church is now accustomed to do, or a perpetual revival can never be enjoyed. But this thought is worthy of more particular consideration. The conclusion from this branch of the subject is this-God is willing to abide with his people by his reviving Spirit, and there is nothing in his nature or condition, or in the circumstances of his people to render necessary that he should leave them.

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III. But there are some conditions which we must notice, in the third place, on which a perpetual revival may be enjoyed. These are referred to in the text "The Lord is with you while ye be with him." Christians are with God in a season of revival, and they must continue with him if they would have such a season perpetuated.

They must be with him in communion. Those christians whom the Lord employs as the instruments of promoting his work of grace have fellowship with him. They have fellow feelings and fellow principles with God. They come to his mercy seat and lay hold of his omnipotent arm. In the closet, at the communion table, and in all the services of religion they have true enjoyment. This arises, not from animal excitement, which, like the flood-stream, will soon be lost, but from a hearty agreement with God about the principles of sin and holiness. No one can live in the indulgence of sin and be useful in a revival. Secret as well as open transgression creates an insuperable obstacle to communion with God. "If I regard iniquity in my heart," says David, "the Lord will not hear me." There is no such thing as praying and sinning together. And if one attempts to call upon God while in a course of sinful indulgence, he mocks God, and will be treated as a mocker. God will not be gracious to him; He will not incline his ear to his cry; He will not lift upon him the light of his countenance, but leave his soul in horrible darkness. "What communion hath light with darkness? and what concord hath Christ with Belial ?" To walk in darkness, i. e. in the ways of sin, renders communion with God impossible, for "if we say we have fellowship with Him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth." When laboring successfully in the work of the Lord, christians walk in the light, i. e. in the paths of truth and holy living, and in this way have true fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.

A perpetual revival depends on this continued communion with God. His people must not rest satisfied with such tokens of his favor as they have received; but strive to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. They should not content

themselves with occasional glimpses of their Father's face in the closet, and at the sacramental feast; but seek a renewed sense of his love day by day. "Many of the better sort of professors are too negligent in this matter;" says Dr. Owen; "they do not long and pant in the inward man after renewed pledges of the love of God; they do not consider how much they have need of them, that they may be encouraged and strengthened to all other duties of obedience; they do not prepare their minds for the reception of them, nor come (to his worship) with expectation of their communication to them; they do not rightly fix their faith on this truth, namely, that these holy administrations and duties are appointed of God, in the first place, as the means of conveying his love and a sense of it to our souls. From hence spring the luke-warmness, coldness and indifference in and to the duties of holy worship; for if men have the principal design of faith in them, and disesteem the chiefest benefit to be obtained by them, whence should zeal for them, delight in them, or diligence in attendance to them arise? Let not any please themselves under the power of such decays; they are indications of their inward frame, and those infallible. Such persons will grow cold and negligent, as to the duties of public worship; they will put themselves neither to charge or trouble about them; every occasion of life diverts them, and when they do attend upon them, it is with great indifference. These things openly discover an ulcerous disease in the very souls of men, and I would avoid the society of such persons as those who carry an infectious disease about them, unless it were to help on their cure." (Spir. Mind. 169.)

In these remarks we have a graphic picture of the decline of christians of the manner in which the Spirit is grieved from the church and revivals are stopped. Here let christians be on their guard. Let them not forsake God, or seek only at long intervals to come near to him. They should not live a day without going to heaven many times, and in all that they do, they should set the Lord before their faces. By so doing the light of God will be their light. They will be in sympathy with him: the feelings and principles of the divine mind will be theirs. And as He is ever active in pouring forth the flood of his benevolence throughout his boundless kingdom; so christians, partaking of his spirit, would do good to all as they have opportunity. They would comfort, warn, rebuke and encourage each other, and pray one for another. To sinners they would often speak about the soul, and the blood of its redemption. And more than all their example, like the voice of many waters, would make a dreadful sound in the ears of the ungodly. Disciples of Jesus, do you doubt about the result of such a course? Do you not perceive how a perpetual revival may be enjoyed? All that is needful is to be with God, to live like christians. How simple the rule! Will you not strive to walk by it.

If this is so, how great the responsibility of christians! If a perpetual revival is not enjoyed, they are chargeable with the crime of

forsaking God, and rendering his instrumentality for the salvation of men, ineffectual. He is the same. The Sabbath, the preached word, and the Spirit are the same; and why should not the church labor for, and expect the same blessed fruits of conviction, conversion and sanctification from week to week, and year to year? Why not be "steadfast, immoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labors are not in vain in the Lord ?" Why not enjoy a perpetual revival? God is willing to grant it and can we live without it and not incur great guilt and provoke heavy judgments?

Ministers of the gospel, I am aware, come in for a great share of responsibility in this matter. There is meaning in the proverb-like priest, like people. If we stand aloof from revivals-view them with suspicion, or pronounce them spurious; if we dictate to the Lord, and stand against reviving influences unless they come in the way that we prescribe; above all, if we live at a distance from God ourselves, and have not the light of life in our souls, we and our people will greatly suffer. He may visit other churches and multiply converts to righteousness, but we shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh. We must be filled with the Spirit and walk in the Spirit, if we would make full proof our ministry. Without these qualifications we shall run uncertainly, and fight as one that beateth the air. Said Brainard on his death-bed, "When ministers feel these special gracious influences on their hearts, it wonderfully assists them to come at the consciences of men, and as it were handle them with their hands; whereas, without them, whatever reason and oratory we make use of, we do but make use of stumps instead of hands."

How often have ministers realized the truth of these remarks in their own experience. How often they preach without getting hold of their hearers, and holding them close to the truth. But when they feel aright, when they go into the pulpit in the strength of the Lord God, they generally preach in demonstration of the Spirit, and with power. The eye of the hearer is fixed-his ear attent, and his heart is moved. God sets the seal to his truth, and makes it his wisdom and power to salvation.

Ministers, as well as churches, should aim at great things, and expect great things. If they do not expect revivals only at great intervals, they will not labor to secure them; they will not enjoy them. But let them believe that a perpetual revival is possible, then, if they have the right spirit, they will aim to secure it. Let them also enjoy the hearty co-operation of praying, believing churches, then the word will run, have free course, and be glorified. O, come the day when holiness unto the Lord shall be upon the bells of the horses, and the pots in the Lord's house shall be like the bowls before the altar! May not that day be near? Let us see. Let us bring all the tithes into the store-house, and prove the Lord therewith, and see if He will not pour us out a blessing, so that there shall not be room enough to receive it.

SERMON CCCLIV.

BY REV. GORHAM D. ABBOTT,

NEW YORK.

THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.

Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that"

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"A KING shall reign and pros "and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS."-Jer. xxiii. 5, 6; and xxxiii. 16.

THE Bible represents OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST in many and different points of light. As a Prophet, a Priest, and a King, the Son of God appears, in the Sacred volume. The various views of his character, office and work, traced by the pen of inspiration, constitute one harmonious and perfect whole. There is nothing conflicting in all the glorious assemblage of excellencies, that unite in the character of the Redeemer of the world. Nothing can be added to it. Nothing can be taken from it. It stands, and will forever stand, ALONE,-a model of spotless perfection.

I propose to exhibit one of these views, as it appears extending through the Sacred volume, from Moses to Malachi, and from Matthew to the end. All parts of the book seem to combine to set forth, in the strongest relief, one peculiarity in his character, indicated in the title, THE KING OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.

In order to accomplish the object I have in view, I shall confine myself closely to the Scripture testimony; and to this single element in the regal glories of our Redeemer ;-and invite attention, first, to those considerations and statements which bear upon the subject, in Moses and the Prophets.

WHAT IS RIGHTEOUSNESS?

This term, as applied to God, signifies that perfection of his nature and attributes, by which he is infinitely just and holy in himself, and in his dealings with all his creatures. Righteousness, as applied to

man, signifies his conformity to this attribute in the Divine character, manifested by obedience to the Divine law. This is in accordance with the definition of righteousness as given by Moses. At the second giving of the law, narrated in Deut. vi., before the children of Israel were permitted to enter into the promised land, Moses was directed to assemble all the tribes in the peaceful valley of Beth-Peor, and to rehearse to them again, in the seclusion and stillness of that scene, the same sublime commands that had been promulgated forty years before, amid the thunderings and lightnings of Sinai. After the repetition of the Decalogue on this occasion, the honored herald of Jehovah declares:

"And it shall be OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS, if we observe to do all these commandments before the Lord our God, as He commanded us."

Thus it plainly appears that Righteousness in man, implies the keeping of all God's commands. This is its primary Scripture signification. But all mankind have failed in the requirement, and are consequently utterly destitute of righteousness.

THE DESTITUTION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS AMONG MEN ABSOLUTE AND

UNIVERSAL.

The two-fold law of love to God, and love to man, on which all the divine commands depend, the whole human race have violated. There is no nation nor kingdom, under the whole heaven, where such principles and obligations are recognised in human codes. The very first and chief of all the commandments, and which, in the spirit of it, embraces every duty that man owes to his Maker, every human being has broken. Not a single individual of all the race of Adam, (with one exception,) has ever obeyed it. Not a man, not a woman, not a child, (who has reached the period of moral action at all,) of all the generations, during 4800 years, has been exempt from the universal charge of transgression.

The second command, to "love thy neighbor as thyself," embracing in its spirit all the duties which human beings owe to each other, has been likewise and equally disobeyed. The world have trampled them both under foot. They have rejected the commands of Almighty God, and laid them in the dust.

The first thing which the ancient lawgiver did, as he brought down from Horeb's top, the stone tablets which God had given him there, for man, was to dash them in pieces-at his feet;-an expressive but melancholy type of what Moses and all mankind have done. They have said, "We will not have the Almighty to reign over us.""The tables of the testimony," "the tables of stone written with the finger of God;"-" the tables which were the work of God; the writing, which was the writing of God," they have dashed in pieces! And this is the testimony of God's word, "The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are al

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