Page:Sermons by Richard Fuller.djvu/18

8  tween this positive assurance of safety to all and the subsequent warning as to the impossibility of saving the passengers unless the crew remained in the stranded bark.

Our philosophers, however, are astonished at your simplicity, and, of course, at the simplicity of the Apostle and the inspired historian. For if God had determined that all should reach the land in safety, how could it be affirmed that in any case some would be lost?

The Roman centurion had, I dare say, quite as much sagacity as these cavillers, yet he urged no objection, but at once complied with Paul's counsels. And just so now. When in earnest, no man ever pretends that predestination has anything to do with his free agency. No farmer though in theology the most fierce hyper-Calvinist was ever heard of, foolish enough to neglect the cultivation of his fields, because nothing can be left to contingencies, and, therefore, it is predetermined whether he shall reap a harvest or not. In a shipwreck no fatalist ever folded his arms, saying, "If I am to perish, I will perish ; if I am to be saved, I will be saved." When danger presses, the peasant and the philosopher alike cry to God for deliverance, and put forth all their efforts. It is only in idle speculations, or when seeking to lull their consciences in impenitence and disobedience, that the enemies of God insult him, by pleading his decrees as a pretext for their indolence and passions.

I am going to offer you some thoughts upon this difficult subject, treating it first doctrinally, and then practically. It is very seldom that such abstruse discussions find a place in this pulpit; and now nothing is farther from my wishes than that any of you should be encouraged to leave the paths of pure undefiled simple piety, for the mysteries of tangled metaphysical polemics. " The secret things belong unto the Lord our God ; but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law." If we are properly engaged about the plain duties of the Gospel, we will not be tempted to perplex ourselves with the subtilties of controversial divinity, any more than will a traveller pressing homeward, wish to leap into