Page:Last and great sermon, of the Rev Dr William Dodd.pdf/7

( 7 ) wants: What then are we whose crimes are hastening us to the grave before our time? Let us work with fear and trembling, but still let us endeavour to work out our salvation. Let us hope with out presumption; let us fear without desperation; and let our faith animate us to that which we were to consider.

Secondly, “Sincere Obedience to the law's of God." Our obedience, for the short time yet remaining, is restrained to a narrow circle. Those duties, which are called social and relative, are for the most part out of our power. We can contribute very little to the general happiness of mankind, while on those whom kindred and friendship have allied to us, we have brought disgrace and sorrow. We can only benefit the public by an example of contrition, and fortify our friends against temptation, by warning and admonition.

The obedience left us now to practise is, “submission to the will of God, and calm acquiescence in his wisdom and his juftice.’ We must not- allow ourselves to repine at those miseries which have followed our offences, but suffer, with silent humility and resigned patience, the punishment which we deserve; remembering that according to the Apostle’s decision, no praise is due to them who bear with patience to be buffeted for their faults.

When we consider the wickedness of our past lives, and the danger of having been summoned to the final judgment without preparation, we shall, I hope, gradually rise so much above the gross conceptions of human nature, as to return thanks to God for what once seemed the most dreadful of all evilsour detection and conviction!We shrink back, by immediate and instinctive error, from the public eye, turned as it is upon us with indignation and contempt. Imprisonment is afflictive, and ignominious death is fearful! But let us compare our condition with that which our actions might reasonably have incurred. The robber might died in the act of violence, by lawful resistance. The man of fraud might have sunk into the