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SERM.
XIII.
HERE
AND
HEREAFTER,
231
of
this life,
God should
be
our chief
hope, much more
in
things
of
another,
Ps.
lxii.
5.
lily
soul,
wait
thou
only
u
on God, my
expectation
is
from
him.
How
ready are
we,
even in
spiritual cancernments,
to
epend
on
outward
forms
and ceremonials! and
to hope,
or
despair
of
success,
according
to
some
circumstantial
attendants on worship? One
is
ready
to
say,
" if
it
were a nice
enquiry into
some
deep doctrine, I should
get something
by
hearing the
word."
Another
complains,
"
Alas
!
if
it had been a sermon
of
grace and
privileges,
I
had
not
been
so
careless
in
my
attention, nor
wasted
my time."
And
a third
satisfies
his
conscience
with this,
"
If
I
had heard moral
duties enforced powerfully
on
our
practice, then
I
could profit
by
the
preaching
:
or
if
he
who
ministers
had but
more
skill in
composing,
more
fervency
of
speech, more
warmth
in delivery,
more
graceful pronunciation, more strength
of
argument;
surely I should
feel
more lasting impressions
of
religion
under
every
sermon." And thus
we go
on from week
to
week,
and worship without any
sensible benefit,
because
we
seek
all
from men.
But, alas
!
if
all these
things were exactly suited
to
our
wishes,
the
matter
ever
so
agreeable, the
manner ever
so
entertaining, the
voice ever
so
charming, and
the
performance ever
so
affectionate,
if
God
be
not there,
there
is
no lasting benefit
:
Paul
may
plant, and Apollos
water,
but God
gives
the increase,
1
Cor.
iii. 6.
The
ministration
of
the word
is
committed to man,
but not
the
ministration of
the Spirit.
What
can
a
man
do to
give
eyes
to the blind
?
To
give
ears
to
the deaf? Can
a
man make the lame
to walk?
or raise the dead
to
a
divine
life? and
turn
sinners into saints? Who
is
sufficient for
these things
?
A minister
is
ready
to
say,
"
When
shall
I
preach
to
such
a.
people
!
they
would
learn
and profit
by
my
ser-
mons." A christian
is
ready
to
say,
When
shall
I
hear
such a minister, or
partake
of.
such an
ordinance, or
hear
a
discourse
on such
a
subject, managed
in such
a
particular method
?
And they
are ready
to
go
away dis-
.couraged,
as
though
all
hope
were gone, when they
find
a disappointment
in
the
pulpit
;
as
though
the graces
of
God
were confined to a
particular instrument,
or
as
though the words
of a
man were
our
only
hope.
J
Q4