Page:Great duty of confessing Christ before men, stated and recommended.pdf/20

20 the palm shall be put into their hands, the new song in their mouth, mortality shall be swallowed up of life, death of victory, their bodies shall be fashioned like unto Christ’s glorious body, and they shall be for ever with the Lord! Who would not wish, in the prospect of that eternal weight of glory, to have confessed Christ before men?

3. That he will vindicate the cause itself for which they contended on earth. Christianity has been the subject of much debate, animosity and ridicule, since its first introduction into the world. It has been execrated by Jews, reviled by Mahometans; and the heathens, when it appeared, deemed it a cursed superstition! But its deepest wounds have been received in the house of its friends. Many who bear Christ’s name, deny the peculiar doctrines of the cross, and sap the foundations of a sinner’s hope for eternity. Others, in a Christian country, affirm, that the Bible is not from God, but a fiction of men! Another class of Christians, perhaps falsely so called, are fierce for moderation, and assert, that contending for a pure profession of religion, is but another name for a party spirit, and is, as matters now stand, altogether impertinent: But, when Christ cometh the second time, things shall be seen in a different light, the controversy between him and all his rivals shall be ended. Great is the truth, and it shall then have prevailed! The authority and excellence, and triumphs of Christianity shall then appear, in their utmost evidence, in opposition to deism in all its shapes. The necessity of a public and spirited stand for the peculiar doctrines of the gospel, in opposition to slothful, covetous, and cowardly temporizers, shall, doubtless meet with the divine approbation. The stedfastness of the church in her principles, in opposition to the wavering and unstable in religion, will be fully vindicated. Let us act now as we would wish to have