SERMON I THE PRISONER OF HOPE. ZECH. IX. 12. Turn ye to the Stronghold, ye Prifoners of Hope N addreffing an Audience under now before me, it is neceffary, that the great truths of Christianity fhould be inculcated with fincerity, and that the hearts of all the prisoners of hope fhould be ready to receive them. Never are we more in need of divine confolations, than when we begin to feel the preffure of CaB lamity: lamity and never does calamity more grievoufly afflict us, than when it is the confequence of Guilt. Under these circumstances, it may well be prefumed, that your hearts are now foftened, that your prefent Situation hath impreffed itself ftrongly upon your minds, and that, in the true Spirit of devotion, each of you is ready to exclaim, My Soul longeth, yea even fainteth for the courts of the Lord, my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. * Left at leifure to meditate on a variety of Scenes, now paft and gone, and which cannot be recalled, it is natural for the mind to turn inward on itself. Confcience will take the advantage of Solitude, to place before our Eyes a train of Images, which, it was our wifh, never to have seen again. From the most diftant corners of the world, from * Pfalm lxxxiv. 2. the deepest receffes of the defert, from the bowels of the earth, it brings forth witneffes of our Guilt. When all around us is buried in darkness and obfcurity, it darts into our cell a penetrating ray, and prefents before us an Object of Horror and difmay. Can any hide himself in fecret places, that I fhall not fee him, faith the Lord? Do not I fill Heaven and Earth, faith the Lord? * Within these walls, tho' fhut out from the rest of the world, are yet to be found men of various tempers and difpofitions. Some, I fear, hardened and hackneyed in atrocious crimes, are brought hither without any Sense of duty or religion, having no hope and without God in the world. Some, better educated and inftructed, fuffer the fame difgrace from the violence of temptation, and the influence of corrupt paffion. B 2 Jer. xxiii. 24. + Eph. ii. 12. paffion. Some too-may I prefume? -misfortune hath brought hither: a train of confequences, which, perhaps, could neither be foreseen nor prevented, hath placed these unhappy mourners in this melancholy Situation. While, therefore, I endeavour with the terrors of the Lord to perfuade others, with thefe I must drop the fympathizing tear; must refer them to the comforts of Him, who came to heal the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prifon to them that are bound. * May the divine Spirit of Grace make me diligent to teach, and you attentive to hear! The condition of Sinners is, in the language of the Prophets, frequently compared to that of Prifoners, confined in chains and darknefs. Ifaiah lx. I. |