Twenty-four Discourses: On Some of the Important and Interesting Truths, Duties, and Institutions, of the Gospel, and the General Excellency of the Christian Religion; Calculated for the People of God of Every Communion, Particularly for the Benefit of Pious Families, and the Instruction of All in the Things Which Concern Their SalvationPerkins, Nathan
Religion
Twenty-four Discourses: On Some of the Important and Interesting Truths, Duties, and Institutions, of the Gospel, and the General Excellency of the Christian Religion; Calculated for the People of God of Every Communion, Particularly for the Benefit of Pious Families, and the Instruction of All in the Things Which Concern Their Salvation
Perkins, Nathan
Christian life -- Early works to 1800; Congregational churches -- Sermons -- Early works to 1800; Sermons, American -- Early works to 1800
3. The light of reason, and conscience, which last, all mankind have,
and which, also, is essential to moral agency and accountableness to
God, farther teaches all men that _worship_ and _obedience_ are due
from the Creature to the Creator. Every rational creature, throughout
all worlds, is indispensably bound by the very laws of his existence,
to pay reverence and honour, worship and fear, gratitude and
obedience to the author of the Universe. If reason can only once
discover that there doth exist an almighty, first, intelligent Cause
of all things--and that he is possessed of such attributes as wisdom,
goodness, omnipresence and omniscience, its voice will call all men
to pay divine honours to this great, eternal, almighty Being. It will
inform us, that such perfections as inhere in his nature, necessarily
claim from all men, homage and submission. Had we no divine
revelation, or suppose God never gave one to man, at all, but had
left him to the mere light of his own mind to find out the paths of
duty and of felicity, we should be indispensably obliged to pay honor
and homage to the ruler of the world. If we can prove that he made
us, and is the Creator of all things, we can, also, prove that we
ought to fear, reverence and worship him. That the Maker of the
world, the Father of our spirits and former of our bodies, deserves
our grateful acknowledgements and devout adorations, is one of the
most obvious dictates of reason. Before we can deny this, we must
have perverted our reason, or shut our eyes upon a very plain truth.
We can prove, from reason, the obligation to pay divine honours to
God, as clearly as we can the duty of justice between man and
man--the offices of humanity--and kindness--or any part of morality.
And, by similar arguments. Our obligations to moral Virtue--to do
justly and love mercy, to speak the truth and to relieve distress,
result from the relation we stand in, towards each other. Man bears
such a relation to man that he is bound to be just, faithful,
tender-hearted:--to mitigate the grief which he beholds, if in his
power, and to advance the welfare of society. We are all brethren. We
had our beings from one divine Author. We participate in the same
common nature. We are exposed to the same calamities, and are
Candidates for an endless existence, beyond the grave. We are,
therefore, bound, by our very make and station, in the universe of
the Almighty, to certain moral duties to each other. These moral
duties cannot be omitted or violated without high criminality. Our
obligations to pay divine homage to God, in the same manner, result
from the relations in which we, as rational Creatures, stand, towards
him, the greatest and best of all beings. He is our Creator--our
Preserver--our Benefactor. He is the sovereign Lord, legislator,
all-wise disposer, and proprietor of the world. _The earth is the
Lord's and the fulness thereof, the world and they that dwell
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