Twelve Discourses on Different Subjects Volume 1 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1795 Excerpt: ... DISCOURSE II. On Receiving the Gospel with Meekness and Humility. St. James, i. 21. Receive with meekness the engrafted Word, which is able to save your fouls. TpHE persons, whom the Apostle addresses in this Epistle, appear, through the prevalence of a most impious opinion, to have fallen into corrupt practices; and under the influence of vanity and presumption, to have refused paying that attention to the Gospel, which could be productive of right judgment and modest temper. With respect to their first error, we may D observe, it has ever been a weakness natu-u ral to man, that he should impute the blame of committing a sinful action to any and every, but the right cause. Constitution, situation, condition, circumstances, all are brought forward as extenuations of guilt; nay, and though the object of religion is to promote bepevolence, purity, and holiness, yet the very name of religion hath been frequently used as a cloak for the grossest enormities But of such palliations, some are wicked and blasphemous j all are weak, false, and groundless. God created man in a state of innocence: He implanted in him passions, for the furtherance of his happiness: He gave the light of reason, and the direction of positive law, by which those passions should be governed: He forewarned him that the effect of disobedience to what reason and duty suggested, must be extreme misery: He made his mind susceptible of immediate apprehensions upon any danger of swerving from reason and duty. Man, nevertheless, his reason, weaken his fense of duty, and allay, by subtle persuasions, the alarms of conscience. Under this infatuation man rebelled against his Maker; he yielded himself a slave to fin and Satan, and thus worked his own woe 5 Iri the fall of Adam, we not only fee the o...