Parochial Sermons Author:Edward Wilson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: themselves in faith and prayer, He will ' give them repentance and forgiveness of sins,' and grace to be better in time to come. Thus did John preach repentance;... more » thus did he humble sinful men, and .hen point them to the Lamb of God that they night be 'justified by faith,' and, being baptized )y Him ' with the Holy Ghost and with fire,' might themselves become, in their respective stations, ' burning and shining lights.' In these respects the Baptist is a wonderfully clear and safe guide to us who have now ' to preach unto the people.' We must preach to them distinctly their fallen, defective, sinful, and guilty state. All scripture is but the iteration, and amplification, and application of the affecting words, 'The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which is lost.' Nothing can be more certain than that all men are naturally lost—' very far gone from original righteousness.' Hence we must press ' upon them ' repentance toward God,' showing them, in particulars, what abundant cause they have to ' repent them truly.' In other words, we must preach the Law, remembering it is God's own instrument in the hands of the Spirit for producing conviction of sin, rising superior to the idle clamour that our office is to ' preach the Gospel.' So it is; but our gospel must comprise the Law, if we would preach it 'lawfully.' John went before Jesus, and the Law must go before the Gospel. Indeed, the Gospel is no gospel except as it comes after the Law. We truly act the part of John to our people, and lead them to Christ, when we point out to them their duties clearly and fully, burden their minds with the feeling that they have not done them, and trouble their hearts with the discovery that they cannot do them, and yet are condemned in leaving them undone. It is thus, if anyhow, th...« less