SERMON XXIX.

ON INDECISION OF CHARACTER.

1 KINGS Xviii. 21. 24.

And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow Him: but if Baal, then follow him.-Call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord: and the God that answereth by fire, let Him be God.

THE chapter from which I have selected this passage, relates the solemn and triumphant appeal of the prophet Elijah to the idolatrous tribes of Israel. The example of surrounding nations, the influence of the kings, who had established the worship of idols, to prevent the people from going up to Jerusalem to the temple of Solomon, as the law of Moses commanded, together with the natural desire of the human heart to comply with the fashions of the world, rather than with the strict observances of religion, had all contributed to destroy the obedience of the people to the true God, and to confirm them in their apostacy from His service. It cannot, however, be supposed that the people

had entirely forgotten the law in which they had been educated. Wickedness and idolatry, however they might be encouraged by the united causes I have mentioned, could not so suddenly and so universally prevail, as to lead the people to revolt immediately and entirely from the religion of the one true God, and to forget all the happiness which they had experienced when they had faithfully served Him. It is not easy for those who have had a religious education, and who have known the power of religious impressions, to become all at once, very wicked, and very abandoned. The people of Israel, therefore, appear at this time to have been divided into three several classes, or descriptions of persons; namely, the professed idolaters the professed worshippers of the true God, the seven thousand who had not bowed their knee to Baal-and the wavering, undecided multitude, who halted between two opinions. To the last of these the prophet made his appeal. He met the king, who sanctioned and encouraged the public idolatry. He summoned the people and their priests to Mount Carmel, where their fathers had been accustomed to offer sacrifice, before the temple at Jerusalem was built. There he called upon them to submit their pretensions to an open and public trial. He proposed that both parties should build an altar, and lay a sacrifice upon it, and put no fire under to consume it; but that both should pray openly to the God they worshipped-and the God who answered by fire-he should be acknowledged

as God. There could be no objection to this proposal, because the god of the idolaters was the sun, who was worshipped as the god of fire, and he ought therefore to be able to send down the fire which should consume the sacrifice. But the God whom Elijah worshipped was the Creator of the sun, and of the stars, the God of all gods; and the prayer of the idolaters was made in vain. The fire of the Lord descended upon the sacrifice of Elijah; and the people fell upon their faces, and confessed that the God of Israel, the God of their fathers alone, was worthy of their homage, and of their worship; of their prayer, and of their praise.

Such is the narrative contained in this interesting chapter. And I shall address the same question, with which the prophet appealed to the Jews, to the same description of persons-to the wavering, the hesitating, the undecided. In considering this passage, I shall not, as is most usually done, make any observations upon the manner in which many persons halt between two opposite systems of religious opinions; and remain all their lives un-? decided, to which party, or Church, or sect, they shall belong. I shall address those only who are divided between obedience to God, and obedience to the world-who know what is right-but who from weakness, and indecision alone, do not live according to their knowledge. The very same three classes of persons which divided Israel in the days of Elijah, exist among us. They are these, the t openly wicked-the decidedly religious-and the

undecided, who halt between truth and error, right and wrong, good and evil. I am speaking neither to him who has forsaken the guide of his youth, and who is living year after year without hope, and without God in the world-neither am I addressing those happy persons who improve their time of trial by deep and anxious earnestness in securing the salvation of the soul-who regulate their hearts, and motives, by the principles of truth -and who can enjoy the consolations and comforts of Christianity, with a well-founded hope of immortality. I beg the attention of that large and numerous description of persons, who are represented by the prophet as halting between two opinions in religious obedience. I entreat such to bear with me while I attempt to describe their character-to reply to their arguments-and to appeal to them in the same language as that of Elijah— How long halt ye between two opinions-between happiness and misery-between the god of this world and the God of heaven? The God that answereth by fire, let Him be your God.

I am first to describe the character of the undecided.

Those may be called undecided, or halting between two opinions, who have much knowledge of religion, and many convictions of the necessity of obedience to that Holy Spirit which so often persuades and appeals to them, but who delay from time to time to act according to their knowledge and convictions. They are so divided between God

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and the world, that they derive no comfort nor happiness from either. They see the evil of sin, but they feel that they are not delivered from its power. They reverence, in some measure, the dictates of conscience, but they are not so governed by its directions as to obtain peace of mind. They understand the demands of their holy religion so well, that they cannot sin without uneasiness or remorse -while, at the same time, they yield so much to temptation, that they derive no satisfaction from the blessings of the gospel of truth. Like the idolaters in Israel, they remember their Lord, and faith, and reason, and conscience assure them that He is the true and only God; but they imagine themselves to be compelled to pay some regard to the worship of Baal, for it is supported by custom, it is honoured by fashion, it allows the indulgences which God has forbidden. The consequences of this indecision display themselves in their whole conduct. A wavering and undecided Christian will comply with every part of religious worship, which is attended with no trouble, no self-denial, but which meets, on the contrary, with general approbation-neither indeed can he bear to be guilty of any shameful or continued neglect of his public religious duties. He will often be found in his place in the church-he will sometimes attend the sacrament, and he will resolve, when he partakes of that holy ordinance, to become entirely and unreservedly devoted to God; but he returns to his home and when he is there, he remembers, that