must necessarily form the moral habits and moral characters of this people, and prepare them for the peculiar smiles or frowns of God. It is not so strange, that those young persons who have never enjoyed the peculiar privilege of family religion and family government, should enter their own houses without paying any proper respect to God and his word, and resolve to live like heathen. But it does seem strange, that those who have enjoyed the privilege of family religion and family government, and been statedly and practically taught to read and revere and love the word of God, and to call upon his name; should either desire or dare to shut God and his word out of their houses, and open their doors to the vicious and licentious. And are there not such families to be found? How must this grieve the hearts of their pious parents, if still living, to find their prayers, instructions, restraints, and examples, lost upon them! Can they hope to follow their deceased or their aged parents into the blessed mansions of heaven? They are entreated, if they have a Bible in their house, to sit down and read it; and hear, and understand, and feel, and love, what God has said to them by precept and example. He has commanded parents to bring up their children in the "nurture and admonition of the Lord." And he has recorded for their instruction and admonition the example of Abraham, who commanded his children and household to walk in the way of the Lord; the example of Job and David, who daily blessed their families; and the example of the mother and grandmother of young Timothy, who taught him from a child to read, to understand, to love, and to obey, the holy scriptures. Read the Bible, and see if you can find any excuse for neglecting to read it, and to call upon God, as a family duty; or for being conformed to the spirit, the customs and manners of a world that lies in wickedness. Though you may feel yourselves at liberty to regard or disregard the messengers of God, you have no right to feel yourselves at liberty to disregard the word of God, which is clothed with infinite authority. If you would read the word of God, he would preach to you every Sabbath, whether you are in his house or your own. This subject urges you to hear God preach to you every Sabbath and every day; which is a duty that the world cannot excuse you, and which you cannot excuse yourselves, from performing.

5. We learn from what has been said, the great criminality of irreligious children, who have been religiously educated. They have had religious instruction poured into their minds while their hearts and consciences were tender, and the most easily impressible by divine truth. But though they have had line upon line, and precept upon precept, they have hardened their hearts and seared their consciences, and resisted the coun

sel of God and man against themselves. Their guilt is in exact proportion to the light they have abused, and the obligations they have violated. They are vastly more criminal than those stupid and ignorant children, who have never heard the Bible read in the family, nor seen any forms of family religion performed. And there may be in this, as well as in many other places, children brought up in this irreligious manner. But there are but few of this description here. The great majority of irreligious children and youth have been better taught; and yet are as loose, unprincipled, and unrestrainable, as if they had never been taught to remember their Creator. If you look over the irreligious families in this place, how many unpromising branches will you see growing out of them, that threaten to corrupt and destroy all within the circle of their influence! How can irreligious parents bear to see the fruit of their negligence in their irreligious and corrupting offspring, when they reflect what a load of guilt they have brought upon them? And how can the irreligious children of pious parents, bear to reflect upon that final and eternal separation that must soon, at longest, take place between them, when they must feel that they have destroyed themselves?

6. It appears from what has been said, that God frowns upon any people, when he removes from among them pious families, or pious heads of families. Such persons and families are a great blessing to all around them, and especially to all their near relatives and connections. Their removal is an alarming providence. It indicates that they are taken away from the evil to come, and from preparing the means of temporal and spiritual calamities. God has, within a few years, been removing pious families, and the pious heads of families. Those houses which were bethels, and resembled the house and family of Obed-edom, are greatly diminished, and are now filled with those that know not, and serve not, the God of their fathers. The last week, two apparently pious heads of families have been removed by death. Though they lived to old age, still their near relatives and friends must feel and lament their loss. And so may others, especially the members of this church, whose numbers are diminishing, and few are coming forward, to stand in the gap, and fill up the hedge.

Finally, this subject calls upon all pious families not to relax, but increase their efforts to preserve the Bible, to restrain vice, and transmit religion to their latest posterity in this place. Treat God and his word properly, in private and in public, and you may deliver your own souls, and do much to prevent others from destroying theirs. Let your eyes affect your hearts. Can you see religion die in your own hands?

SERMON X X V.

THE SIN OF FOLLOWING THE MULTITUDE TO DO EVIL.

ANNUAL FAST, 1821.

THOU shalt not follow a multitude to do evil. - EXODUS, Xxii. 2

GOD requires men to do some things, and forbids them to do others; but his prohibitions are as binding as his precepts, because they are clothed with the same divine authority. The prohibition in the text primarily respects the giving of a false testimony before a civil tribunal, through fear or favor of a multitude who are disposed to do evil, and to lead others to follow their pernicious example. But this prohibition may be properly considered as a general caution to every one, not to follow a multitude to do evil in any of their wicked conduct or sinful courses. My present design is to consider what is implied in this solemn and extensive prohibition. And,

I. It implies that the majority or great mass of mankind are uniformly and constantly engaged in doing evil.

All men by nature are morally depraved; and a great majority of them are in a state of nature, and constantly act under the influence of their native depravity, which disposes them to do nothing but evil. Though God might have renewed and sanctified every person from the first apostacy to the present day, yet he has not seen fit hitherto to do it, but has left the great majority of the human race, from age to age, to walk in the ways of their heart, and in the sight of their eyes, and in a constant course of disobedience to his commands. God considers all men as either holy or unholy, either godly or ungodly, either righteous or unrighteous, either saints or sinners, either his friends or his enemies. His friends have always been a small

minority, in comparison with the large majority of his enemies, and hardly worth mentioning. Accordingly he generally speaks of the world as altogether corrupt and sinful. And he calls sinners the world, the men of the world, the children of the world, the world of the ungodly, and the world that lies in wickedness, in distinction from saints, whom he has chosen out of the world, whom he has set apart for himself, and whom he forbids to be conformed to the world, or to be in friendship with the world. This distinction has existed in fact, for the great majority of mankind have always been wholly disaffected to God, and in a state of actual rebellion against him. In this light he represents them in his word. "The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God. They are corrupt; they have done abominable works; there is none that doeth good. 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 altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one." The apostle gives a plain reason for this universal corruption of mankind when he says, "God in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways." This representation of mankind in general is corroborated by the history which God has given of their state and character, by the pen of inspiration. The Bible informs us that all flesh corrupted their way in the first ages of the world; that from the calling of Abraham, God suffered all nations but one to act out the depravity of their hearts without restraint; that the nation whom he did not give up were generally corrupt until the coming of Christ; and that since that day many have been called and but few have been chosen. Profane history concurs with sacred in representing the Egyptians, Babylonians, Chaldeans, Grecians, Romans, and all other nations, destitute of divine revelation, as sunk down in idolatry, superstition, and every species of moral corruption. And we know that the greater part of those who enjoy the gospel are atheists, or deists, or formalists, or open and avowed enemies to every thing sacred and divine; and that there is only a very few who really fear God and keep his commands. God knew, when he gave the solemn prohibition in the text, that the multitude, or the great majority of mankind, were then, and would be in time to come, uniformly and constantly engaged in doing evil in various ways.

Some, by opposing, instead of promoting, the gracious design of God in forming vessels of mercy, and preparing them for the kingdom of glory. This was the case in the earliest ages, before he chose the seed of Abraham for his peculiar people. Cain, and the posterity of Cain, and all that were born

after the flesh, were disposed to persecute the sons of God, who were born after the spirit. The nations round about Judea, were openly and avowedly hostile to the peculiar people of God, and did all in their power to prevent God's carrying on his gracious design among them. And there have been ever since, many among the men of the world, who have been openly and violently engaged in opposing the cause and the friends of God, by which they have obstructed the cause of truth, and done both temporal and eternal injury to mankind. While Paul and Barnabas were at Paphos, Sergius Paulus desired to hear them preach the gospel; but Elymas the sorcerer withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith. Then Paul, filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him, and said, “O full of all subtilty and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?" Such a spirit has often been cherished and expressed, by a multitude of those whose hearts were fully set in them to do evil.

Some among the men of the world do evil, by openly and grossly disobeying, instead of obeying, the express commands of God. They cast the divine laws behind their backs, and practically say, that he who hath made them shall not reign over them. They take the name of God in vain, profane his holy day, and treat his gospel as a cunningly devised fable; and at the same time practice every kind of iniquity with greediness. They set a visible example of unrestrained wickedness.

There are many more among the mass of mankind, who do evil by hating, instead of loving God. They as really hate God, as those who oppose his cause, disbelieve his word, or externally disobey his commands. They as clearly discover their unsanctified hearts, by their sins of omission, as others do by their sins of commission; and actually unite in their views, and feelings, and conduct, with the great majority of the ungodly world, in doing evil. All these classes of men which have been mentioned, are in the state of nature, and constantly acting under the influence of their native depravity; by which they are setting ten thousand evil and pernicious examples. This is the vast multitude of evil-doers, whom God in the text forbids every person to follow.

II. The prohibition which we are considering implies that every person is naturally disposed to follow a multitude to do evil.

We may presume that God would never forbid men to do what they have no natural disposition to do. He would not, therefore, have given the prohibition in the text, if he had not known that all men are naturally disposed to follow a multi45

VOL. II.