Of these things, I most solemnly warn you, as knowing that "for every idle word" which you shall here speak, you shall hereafter be judged. And I exhort you to remember, that however high may be your advance in holiness in other respects, however high your professions, if you give way to sins of the tongue, your labour will be all in vain: that if you offend in this one point, you shall be held guilty of all; that though you had all faith so that you could remove mountains, and had not charity, (in word as well as deed) it would profit you nothing: that there is one text laid down in Scripture, by which you may try yourselves, with the certainty that you cannot be misled by it: and that text is this: "If any man among you, seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain." SERMON VIII. CHRISTIAN REVERENCE. MALACHI i. 6. A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a Father, where is Mine honour? and if I be a Master, where is My fear? saith the Lord of hosts. THERE is a sin which is so common among us, and which is so bound up with our whole tone of thought and action,—which pervades the people of this country, high and low, so universally, that we have almost ceased to look upon it as a sin. Many of us, probably, if charged with it, would be quite unconscious of having been guilty of it, and still more of us would, in all likelihood, feel themselves injured if it was hinted to them that, as a nation, we are altogether defective in one of the very first principles of all religion, whether true or false. The sin to which I allude is that of Irreverence,—a want of respect for the presence, power, and majesty of God, arising from thoughtlessness or practical unbelief. Now, I shall not deem it necessary to prove to you, that God has a right to expect from us the fullest tribute of veneraration which we can offer, for this truth is a self-evident one. He is the Creator; we are the creatures: He is the Redeemer; we are they whom He has purchased to Himself: He is the Sanctifier; we are they who need sanctification: He is Eternal, Almighty, Infinite; we are mortal, weak, finite: He is all light and goodness, and purity, and truth; we are poor miserable sinners, grovelling on the earth, lying in darkness, and in the shadow of death, full of guilt and corruption, and unable, by any efforts of our own, to guide our feet into the way of peace. To Him we owe every thing that we are, or have, or hope for, and therefore to Him is due the acknowledgment thereof. As His mercy claims our love, so do His power and goodness our reverence. This is a conclusion at which we must have arrived, if we had only the light of nature, as it is called, to direct us; but in addition to this kind of witness within ourselves, we have the testimony of Scripture afforded us in the fullest manner; so much so, indeed, that there is, perhaps, no one duty so continually enjoined upon us in the Sacred volume as this of Reverence. 266 366 The very beginning of wisdom, we are taught,-its foundation as well as its superstructure is to be laid in "the fear of the Lord." Him, the Psalmist tells us, we must serve with fear, and rejoice before Him with reverence." "His secret is with them that fear Him,”—“ His eye” is "upon them;" His "Angel encampeth round about them, and delivereth them," His "blessing," His "salvation," and His mercy," are "with them that fear 4 6. 3 Psalm xxv. 14.; xxxiii. 18.; xxxiv. 7. |