SERMON XXVII.

THE DEPARTURE OF A PEOPLE FROM GOD.

ANNUAL FAST, APRIL 6, 1823.

WHY then is this people of Jerusalem slidden back by a perpetual backsliding? they hold fast deceit, they refuse to return. -JER. viii. 5.

THE Israelites were the peculiar people of God, whom he more highly favored than any other people in the world. He had peculiar reasons to expect that they would cleave to him, and pay a cheerful and constant obedience to the commands which he had given them for their good. It seems strange that they should ever forsake him, and stranger still that they should perpetually backslide, and refuse to return. He directs the prophet to go and tell them in his name, that their conduct appeared to him very unaccountable. "Moreover thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord, Shall they fall and not rise? shall he turn away and not return? Why then is this people of Jerusalem slidden back by a perpetual backsliding? They hold fast deceit, they refuse to return. I hearkened and heard, but they spake not aright: no man repented of his wickedness, saying, what have I done? every one turned to his course, as the horse rusheth into the battle. Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed time; and the turtle, and the crane, and the swallow, observe the time of their coming: but my people know not the judgment of the Lord." Thus God the searcher of hearts represents his own peculiar people as bent to backsliding from him, notwithstanding all their solemn professions of love and obedience to him, and notwithstanding all the external forms of religion which they generally maintained and preserved amidst all their backslidings. This description will apply to any other religious people who are backsliding from God, and warrants us to say,

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That when any religious people backslide from God, they will persist in backsliding. I shall consider,

I. What denominates a religious people.

II. What denominates a religious people a backsliding people. And,

III. Why such a backsliding people will persist in backsliding.

I. Let us consider what denominates a religious people. The Jews were a religious people in distinction from all other nations, who were given to superstition and idolatry. They professed to believe the existence of the only living and true God. They professed to believe the truth and divinity of his holy word. They also externally maintained that public and social worship which he enjoined upon them. And so long as their external conduct agreed with their public profession, they were properly denominated a religious people. And so long as any other people make the same profession, and conduct in the same manner, they come under the same denomination. All the nations at this day, who profess to believe the truth of christianity, and who observe the public worship of God and the ordinances of the gospel, are called religious nations, though the great majority may be totally destitute of vital piety. It is the explicit profession and external conduct of a people that give them their religious character. Though we as a nation are not in covenant with God in the same sense that the Jews were, yet we either expressly or implicitly profess the true religion, and may be properly called a religious people. Let us next consider,

II. When a religious people may be said to be a backsliding one.

nature.

All nations derive their origin from the same stock. They are all the descendants of Adam. They are all alike sinful by It is true some may be sanctified and reformed by grace. Yet grace, in the present state, does not entirely destroy nature. Large measures of moral corruption remain in the hearts of the best of men in the most religious nations. Their wh hearts are like a deceitful bow. While it appears to be bent right, it always has a tendency to spring back to its natural state. So, every people, who profess to believe the gospel and live under its influence, have something in them, that dislikes the character, the laws and the government of God. On On this account, they are bent to backsliding from him. It appears from the character the scripture draws of every religious people in every age of the world, that they have always had a revolting and rebellious spirit. They have universally manifested a strong propensity to forget and forsake God. This is true of

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every religious people at this day, whether they have experienced the common, or special influences of the divine spirit. Among every religious people, there is a great, if not the greatest part of them, who are under only the restraining, and not the sanctifying influence of the gospel. They, as a body, are perpetually prone to wander and love to wander from God. The question now before us is, when may a religious people be said to backslide from God? The answer to this question is very plain. It is when they break over such restraints as ought to keep them from backsliding from him; and they are perpetually backsliding, while they are constantly breaking over one restraint after another. This was the manner in which the people of God were perpetually backsliding in the days of the prophets. Every religious people, in backsliding from God, proceed gradually, and break over one restraint after another, which he has laid upon them.

In the first place, they break over the restraints of his goodness. God is good unto all, but more especially to a people who profess to love and serve him; and his goodness has an alluring and restraining influence upon them. It is suited to restrain both saints and sinners from disobedience. This strong and tender restraint he laid upon his backsliding people of old. "He drew them with the cords of a man, with the bands of love." He not only separated them from other nations, but raised them above them, in respect to national prosperity. He promised to make them the most numerous, the most wealthy, and the most respectable, nation on earth. He said they should be the head and not the tail; that they should lend to many nations and not borrow; that all the people of the earth should fear them; and that he would open his good treasures, and send them a profusion of all temporal good things, and bless them in their basket and store. These great and distinguishing promises he faithfully fulfilled, while they continued steadfast in his covenant, and persevered in obedience. So they had ample evidence of the continuance of the divine goodness while they continued grateful and obedient. But they soon broke over the kind restraint of divine goodness, and began and continued to backslide. This God resented, and appealed to them and to the world, whether they had any good reason for their ingratitude and backsliding. "Hear ye now what the Lord saith. Arise, contend before the mountains, and let the hills hear thy voice. Hear ye, O mountains, the Lord's controversy, and ye strong foundations of the earth for the Lord hath a controversy with his people, and he will plead with Israel. O my people, what have I done unto thee? and wherein have I wearied thee? testify against me. For I

brought thee up out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed thee out of the house of servants; and sent before thee Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. O my people, remember what Balak king of Moab consulted, and what Balaam son of Beor answered him, from Shittim unto Gilgal; that ye may know the righteousness of the Lord." So far as divine goodness could allure and restrain, God allured and restrained Israel from backsliding. But all his restraints of goodness were ineffectual. They would break over such tender ties, and backslide from their kind and constant benefactor. This is the character of every backsliding people. They despise the riches of divine goodness, and take occasion from the forbearance and long-suffering of God, to become more and more ungrateful, disobedient, and hardened in their evil courses.

In the next place, a religious people who are perpetually backsliding, grow worse and worse under the restraint of divine authority, as well as of divine goodness. God binds every religious people by the whole weight of his infinite authority, to obey all his precepts and prohibitions, without the least deviation or imperfection. He gave his peculiar people his judgments, his statutes, and his laws, which were far superior to those of any other nation. By these laws he made a high and strong partition wall between them and all other nations. He required them to worship him alone, and renounce the worship of all other gods; to trust in him to protect them from all their enemies; and to avoid connection and alliance with any other people. He prohibited them from going into the temples of the heathen, and from symbolizing with them in any of their customs, or manners, or modes of religious worship. These were sacred and strong restraints sanctioned by divine authority, to prevent their backsliding. Yet they were far more prone to forsake their own living and true God, than the heathen were to forsake their false gods. Of this, God pointedly upbraids them. "Hath a nation changed their gods? which are yet no gods; but my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit. Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be ye horribly afraid, saith the Lord. For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water." They despised divine authority, and cast the laws of God behind their backs, for which God severely reproves them in the words immediately following our text. "I hearkened and heard, but they spake not aright: no man repented him of his wickedness, saying, What have I done? Every one turned to his course, as the horse rusheth into the battle. Yea, the stork in the heaven knoweth

her appointed times; and the turtle, and the crane, and the swallow, observe the time of their coming: but my people know not the judgment of the Lord. How do ye say, We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us? Lo, certainly in vain made he it: the pen of the scribes is in vain. The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken; lo, they have rejected the word of the Lord, and what wisdom is in them?" Such was the folly, perverseness and backsliding of God's people of old. Any people, who constantly violate the laws of God, and walk in their own ways, are perpetually backsliding from God.

There was another way by which God often laid a restraint upon his backsliding people, and that was by his rod of correction; but they often broke over this restraint, and persisted in their wicked ways. When they walked contrary to him, he walked contrary to them, and made them feel the bitter effects of their disobedience, by visiting them with his righteous judgments. So he expressly says by Jeremiah, "Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee; know therefore and see, that it is an evil thing and bitter that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord God of hosts." God always held in his holy and sovereign hand the rod of correction, to restrain his backsliding people. He reserved some of the seven nations of Canaan to scourge them when they went astray. He held up before them the terrors of the sword, the pestilence and famine, to restrain them from evil. He often slew them by thousands and thousands for their national sins. But he plainly told them, that they had proved incorrigible under the rod of correc tion. "Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more." A perpetually backsliding people will hold fast deceit, and refuse to return to God from whom they have revolted, even under the severest tokens of his wrath. Such is the character of a perpetually backsliding people, that they will persist in their habitual course of sinning, and break over all the restraints of divine goodness, divine authority, and divine corrections.

I now proceed to show,

III. Why a backsliding people will persist in backsliding. This is owing to some great delusion. It seems as though no religious people would perpetually backslide from God, unless they were one way or other insensibly deceived or deluded. Accordingly we find that God himself ascribes the perpetual backsliding of his people to this, in the text. God puts the question and answers it. "Why is this people of Jerusalem, where I have nourished and brought them up, slidden back by