Monday, November 06, 2006
Religious History
Nothing, my friends, is more profitable to Christians, than frequent meditations on what they once were, and what has a done for them by divine grace. Meditations on these objects are exceedingly well suited to increase, at once, their gratitude, love and humility. To such meditations our text naturally invites us. The apostle here reminds the Ephesian Christians of their former state and character, and contrasts it with their then happy situation, and mentions the Author of the at change, in consequence of which they had passed from death unto life. And lest any should suppose that such a change s necessary for none but those, who like the Ephesians had n heathen and idolaters, he intimates, that he and his fellow apostles, who were Jews, had been by nature in a similar state, and had experienced a similar change. To all the true disciples of Christ, then, whether Jews or Gentiles, and to you, my Christian friends, among the rest, the language of our text may, with propriety, be addressed. You know, that once you were dead in trespasses and sins; you know, that you once walked according to the course of this world, as children of disobedience, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind you know that you were by nature children of wrath, even as others; and you hope that God has quickened, or made you alive, and raised you up to sit together in heavenly places with Christ Jesus. This passage, then, contains your religions history. It describes what you once were, and shows what you are now, and what God has done for you. To illustrate more largely these several particulars, is my present design. To you the subject cannot but be interesting, and it will be little less so to you, my impenitent hearers, if you recollect, that in describing what Christians once were, we are describing what you are still.
-Edward Payson
Post a Comment
-Edward Payson
Post a Comment
How To Kill And Be Killed | Blogger Templates by Gecko &
Fly.
No part of the content or the blog may be reproduced without permission.
Learn how to make money online.