Sermons; With a Brief Memoir of the Author. with a Brief Memoir of the Author

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: SERMON IV. GOD NO RESPECTER OF PERSONS. Acts x. 34. Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons. The observation here made by Peter, and so appropriate to the occasion on which it was uttered, frequently occurs in the divine word; and as the repetition of it shows its importance, so it calls for your diligent attention, whilst I show— I. What is implied in it; and, II. In what particular instances the truth of it appears. I. I am to show what is implied in this declaration, " God is no respecter of persons." 1. It cannot imply that God has no regard to one person more than another, for this is contrary to scripture experience and observation. Thus Noah, David, and other great and good men of old, are said to have found favour in his sight; and we are expressly told, that the " Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in them that hope in his mercy." With some he is angry, with others pleased; on some he smiles, on others he frowns; he deals with them according to their different characters. " The Lord had respect to Abel and his offerings, whilst to Cain and his offering he had not respect." " That the righteous should be as the wicked," says Abraham, " that be far from thee; shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" As men distinguish themselves by their piety or impiety, God will distinguish them by his favour or displeasure. 2. Neither doth it imply, that where persons' character and conduct are precisely the same, God's conduct towards them is always so. He is angry with all the wicked, but he does not carry them all away by a flood, or rain fire and brimstone upon them, as he did upon the inhabitants of Sodom. Some he endures with much long-suffering, whilst others are cut off'in the midst of their days, as Absalom, or like Ananias an...