IMPORTANT PRINCIPLES

IN TWO VOLUMES.

BY ALEXANDER MACWHORTER, D. D.

1803

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Reprint and digital 14, 2004.

Alexander MacWhorter, D.D., ( 1734-1807 ) received schooling at the West-Nottingham Academy under Samuel Finley ( later President of Princeton College). Thereafter, MacWhorter at age 22 joined the junior class at the College of New Jersey with Rev. Aaron Burr, which later moved to Princeton, graduating in the first commencement there in 1757. Afterwards, he entered upon the study of Divinity, under the instruction of the Rev. William Tennent, the pious and justly celebrated minister of Freehold, in New Jersey. He was an active Pastor, and in 1772 was elected a Trustee of the College of New Jersey at Princeton. Yale honored him with a Doctorate of Divinity in 1776, which followed with his active involvement in the Revolutionary War, as an advisor to Washington, and as chaplain under General Knox at White Plains, where again he was a frequent guest of Washington's. The Newark Presbyterian Church extended a call to the pastorate to him in 1781, which was accepted.

"He was one of those great and good men, who, in 1788, had principal influence in settling The Confession of Faith, and framing the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church in the United States; and in transferring the authority, of the highest judicatory from the Synod to a General Assembly, which met first in May, 1789.—Ten years afterwards, when a board of trustees for the General Assembly was incorporated by the Legislature of Pennsylvania, at their session in the winter of 1798- 9, he was named in the charter as one, of the board, and continued to hold this trust, until the growing infirmities of age induced him, in 1803, to resign it."

The biographical summary is taken from Edward Dorr Griffin's Funeral Sermon for Dr. Macwhorter ( 1807). This title may be found at The Willison Center http://willisoncenter.com/

On the Princeton Page, Link 13. and more titles on Page 16. ---Willison Ed.

Alexander MacWorter published a two volume collection of sermons in 1803, from which the following title was selected.

Page numbers in the original are shown as: ( 474 )

The following begins the original text:

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SERMON XXI.

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Psalm . xlix. 8.For the Redemption of their Soul is Precious, and it ceaseth forever.

OUR existence is not confined to this state; neither our happiness, or misery. We are all capable of, and formed for an eternal duration. And this interminable duration will be filled up with perfect felicity or perfect misery. When death shall have performed his office, and put a period to our present existence, we will have a full experience of this most solemn truth. Whatever may be our condition at this concluded moment of the present existence, that will be our condition throughout eternity. All change and deliverance after this event, has impossibility sealed upon it. This is ordained in the eternal nature of things, and in the immutable decrees of heaven. " As the tree falls so it must lie. There is no work, labour, wisdom, or device in the grave whereunto we are hastening." A short time, and we shall all know, and saints and sinners will prove, the truth of the account of the eternal world. We must quickly pass into and feel in our souls the

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joys of Paradise, or torments of the infernal regions. One or the other of these conditions await each of us, we draw near, we hasten towards them as fast as moments fly. The last moment will soon be here, and when it comes, we must pass into eternity prepared or unprepared. No circumstances can procure us a moments stay. We may plead the dreadfulness of our condition, and cry for a suspension of the stroke of death. We may groan with the most dolorous importunity, for the mercy of another day or hour; but in vain. We must pass to be swallowed up immediately and forever in the felicities of Seraphs or sorrows of the damned.

In what a solemn point of view does this doctrine set the eternal world? How precious and invaluable does it render our present time, as the only season of preparation for it? What high conviction does it afford of the wisdom importance and necessity of seeking the salvation of our immortal souls? And how clearly does it show the extreme folly and madness of hesitating, or being unwilling to submit to any labour or self denial, that may be required, to obtain redemption of them from everlasting misery?

This is the doctrine on which the discourse of the Psalmist in our text is founded. He is showing the vanity of all worldly things as a ground of confidence and trust in the day of death. Wealth or riches cannot support a man at that tremendous period. They cannot purchase or effect the continuance of his life. They can give him no relief, nor afford him deliverance. "They that trust in their wealth, or boast themselves in the multitude of their riches, none of them by any means can redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him, that he should lstill live forever, and not see corruption." The special reason is assigned in our text, why riches cannot purchase life or redeem from death. "For the redemption of the soul is precious, and it ceaseth forever."

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That is, it is an article of too great value to be purchased by riches. All the walth in the world is not an adequate price for this privilege. The whole sum, that all the sons of fortune can collect, cannot procure for them one moment beyond the time assigned them. Like other poorer mortals they do but stand their glass ; they cannot stop the running sands. And when their glass is out, the redemption of their souls ceaseth forever.

The addition of this clause, " It ceaseth forever," has occasioned some variation among commentator respecting the sense of it. Some suppose that "The redemption of soul" in our text, refers to the redemption made by Christ Jesus, and it being once performed and never repeated, it ceased forever. And it is an established truth, that the redemption of the soul from death and hell, is precious and important, it could be obtained by no less a price than the death of the Son of God. And there is now no other method for a person to secure the salvation of his soul, than becoming interested in the redemption of Christ according to the constitution of the Gospel. Hence, it is said, " There is no other name given under heaven, by which any one can be saved, but the name Christ Jesus."

But the words as they stand in their connection seem more directly and evidently refer to the absolute insufficiency of all riches and wealth as forever incapable of making so high a purchase as the redemption or salvation of the soul. The original word which is translated ceaseth, never signifies to cease from a thing by way of rest or quiet; but either because it is impossible to be performed, or to cease from a thins by way of contempt and rejection. In the former sense it is thus used, "Joseph gathered corn as the sand of the sea, until he left numbering," or as the Hebrew is, until he ceased from numbering it; and the reason is given because it was impossible, "For it was without number." It is likewise used to express

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contempt and rejection, as in the prophet Isaiah, "He was "rejected of men." The word rejection is the same as in our text.

These observations seem to settle the precise meaning of our text, that it is impossible, that wealth can redeem a soul from death, and it contemns and rejects all riches as entirely insufficient for this purpose. Hence this is the idea, to which your attention is invited in the present lecture.

That the salvation of the soul is incomparably inure precious than all the riches and treasures of this world.

When any one considers what is here asserted by the Psalmist, and afterwards advanced by our Lord, that the acquisition of the whole world could not profit a man who lost his soul, the truth of the doctrine must remain undeniable. For the sake therefore of proving this proposition, it were entirely needless to add any thing further. But the design of the gospel ministry is not merely to establish the doctrines of divine revelation, but one principal end is to represent and illustrate those doctrines, so that they may be most likely to strike the careless with conviction of their reality, and importance, and rouse them out of their natural inattention, and regardlessness of the matters of religion.

In this view I would lay before you the following considerations, tending to illustrate this truth, that the soul is incomparably more precious than all the riches and treasures of this world.

First, the soul is capable of and designed for an eternal existence. The body must soon return to its original dust. The time is short, and this world with all its riches and treasures, in regard to us, will be no more. A few years will close our

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eyes, on all below the sun. As we brought nothing with us into the world, we can carry nothing out of it. "Wise men die, likewise the fool and the brutish person, and leave their wealth to others." But when the body dies, and the world and its honors and pleasures are no more, the soul is as capable of existence as ever. It is not subject to corruption and decay like material things. It is a spirit and immaterial, having no corruptible principles in its constitution. There is no tendency in its nature to extinction or death; neither can this be effected by its own will, nor by the will of any other creature. None but God who gave the soul existence, can extinguish it.
His power is only adequate to this effect, and we are sure, he
never will exert his power for any such purpose. As God
made the soul capable of an eternal existence, so we are assured
by himself, he designed it should endure forever. There will
be no end of its duration. The sun and moon and stars must
cease, the world with all its works must be burnt up, but the
soul exist immortal, and forever. When millions and millions of ages are run out, the souls capacity of existence will be the same. When as many millions more will be finished, it will be still as distant from end of its duration, as remote from any tendency to non existence, as the first moment it began.

The sacred pages abound with confirmation of this truth, that God made and designed the soul of man for an everlasting duration. When the body returns to dust, the soul returns to God who gave it. Not to have an end put to its existence, but to be fixed in an unalterable state of happiness or misery forever, according to its character as being righteous or wicked. For on these two characters depends the eternal destiny of every soul of man. There is no third character among the human race. As a person is of one or other of these when he dies, so will his eternal state be, unspeakably happy or miserable.

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The rich man we are told died. Is this an end of his existence? No, immediately he lift up his eyes being in torment. While his body was taken care of suitably to his rank in life, while perhaps with the utmost funeral pomp and solemnity they convey it to the vault of his ancestors, his soul is suffering the pains of eternal death. While hireling orators it may be are pouring forth upon him the finest eulogiums, celebrating him for every social and divine Virtue, and in their wanton charity enrolling him among the blessed above, he is wailing under the execution of divine justice in the infernal regions where a drop of water cannot be administered to allay the anguish of his burning tongue.

In like manner when Lazarus dies, we find his soul still in existence after the death of his body. It was conveyed by angels to Abraham’s bosom. But there would be no end of citing authorities to prove the future existence of the soul, or retailing the evidence of its being formed by God for an eternal duration. Let it be observed, that the whole system of revealed religion supposes the endless existence of the souls of men, as one of its essential grounds. Did not the soul live forever, there would have been no necessity for divine revelation, or law or the gospel, for the incarnation and death of Christ, for ministers, sabbaths, or ordinances; but the soul will interminably exist, therefore this laid an important foundation for the whole of that religion taught us in the oracles of God.

Now if these things be weighed in our serious thoughts, what compassion is there between the riches and treasures of the world, and the soul, in point of value, preciousness and importance? Does not even reason reject the idea, of any equality or competition between them/ Is not the difference as great as between a point and eternity, as between finite and infinite And yet is there need of labour and pains to convince men of the superior preciousness of their souls Must there be line upon

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line, precept upon precept argument upon argument, and persuasion upon persuasion for this purpose ? And yet after all thousands and tens of thousands remain unconvinced to their dying day, manifesting by the whole of their conduct that they esteem the treasures of this world beyond their souls. Do they by some superior sagacity discern a mistake in the calculation, and so are confident that riches are of the highest value—hence act the part they do? Nay, this is far from the case; for the more closely men attend to the position, with brighter, evidence it appears. And nothing hinders men from receiving the conviction of their souls being infinitely more valuable than the things of time, but the blindness of their minds and conception Of their hearts. The gloomy god of this world hath so perverted their judgments and darkened their understandings, that they do not receive the evidence of the plainest truth in religion.

Secondly, the soul is capable of inconceivable felicity of suffering throughout the whole of its eternal duration. That the our souls are capable of happiness or misery, or pain and pleasure, we are assured from experience. All capacity of this kind which we find originates from, and

depends upon our souls. To the body, nor to any other system of mere matter, does such a capacity belong. Our bodies indeed, in this present state of union, are subject to innumerable pains and pleasures, but it is evident, this arises entirely from their connection with our souls, and depends upon it. For let this union be dissolved, and our bodies are immediately as insusceptible of these impressions, as any other masses of matter whatever.

In the same way of experience we are likewise sure, that our souls are capable of happiness and misery very high degree. There are none who have lived many years in this world, but must have had abundant evidence of this truth, either by experience in themselves, or by observation of others.

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every age and almost every year, produces instances of the exceeding greatness of misery and pain the soul is capable of. The distresses of heart in some arises to that degree, that they not only wish they had never been born, but even curse the day of their birth. Nay, so exquisite is their anguish, that they are brought to be utterly weary of life, and their misery becomes so intense, that they put an end to themselves. They perform that awful act, which is the utmost exertion of their will and power, to extinguish forever that existence, which they can no longer endure.

On the other hand, the felicity of some have become so great that their frail bodies have been incapable of sustaining the extacy. It is wrought up so high that the body sinks and faints. The joy and rapture of the soul causes it to burst its way through the clay tabernacle, and rejoice unincumbered with the drossy mass.

What these instances are produced for, is to show the greatness of the pain and pleasure, or happiness and misery, of which our souls are capable. But this is not the state any of these matters arrive at their highest degree of perfection. This is not the case with respect to sin or holiness, so neither with respect to happiness or misery. The present is a state of great imperfection in regard to all the concernments of our souls. The sin and holiness, and the happiness and misery of the present, are as nothing compared with that future state into which we are passing. Thus the apostle Paul speaks of the felicity of believers in heaven, " That eye hath. not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." Some christians have felt as much of the joys of the Holy Ghost as their present condition of mortality could bear, yet all this, is as nothing in comparison of the felicity they will experience in the celestial world.

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Thus likewise the scriptures speak of the miseries of the wicked in a future state. "Is there not a strange punishment to the workers of iniquity?" " That is, there remains punishment, misery and anguish to the wicked, unknown and unexperienced in this life. The torments of the damned have not entered into the heart of man to feel or conceive. And yet men have felt such misery that they could endure life no longer, and their existence has become quite insupportable.

The reflections serve to convince us that our capacity of happiness and misery is vastly large; that the degrees of pain and pleasure our souls are capable of are exceedingly great. For if in the present state of imperfection and weakness our felicity and wretchedness may rise to such a height, how inconceivably great must they be in that world where all things will be in a state of perfection

It is impossible for us either to ascertain or conceive the extensiveness of the measure of pain or pleasure which souls experience in the future state. Thus much is evident, that the soul's capacity of happiness or misery is beyond the power of numbers to calculate, and the force of words to express.

These things must set the worth and value of the soul very high to one who seriously realizes them. They exalt its salvation far above all the riches and treasures of the world. But what is the effect produced upon the minds of the most of mankind, when the amazing extent of the capacity of their souls is exhibited before them When men hear what vast degrees of happiness and misery of which their souls are capable does it move them ?—does it awaken their serious attention and consideration ?—does it cause them to set a high value upon their salvation or are they filled with a deep solicitude how to escape the one and obtain the other? No quite the reverse of all this. Notwithstanding it is laid before themem by the

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strongest evidence and clearest demonstration, that the salvation of their souls is incomparably more precious than all the treasures and riches of the world, yet they are incomparably more engaged to acquire the latter than secure the former. They plunge into the world with all their heart and strength, as tho’ it were to last forever and could alone make them happy. How careless, unconcerned, and thoughtless is man with regard to his future state "The ox knoweth his owner, and the "ass his master’s crib ; but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider." With regard to the present life mankind in general are very foresighted, anxious and careful. They are greatly solicitous in making provision for times of sickness, and to have a support for the season of old age. But with respect to their souls and how it will fare with them in a future state of existence, there is little or no attention or concern. The most precious interest is neglected, while that which is of inferior worth has immense pains and care bestowed upon it. The workings of unbelief are either so great that they do not realize the immortality of their souls, or if they grant that they are immortal, it is in so cold and indifferent a manner, that it makes no impression upon them. If at times they have any remonstrances of conscience or misgivings of heart aboutthe state of their souls, they ordinarily suppress such reflections by promising to consider these things hereafter and commanding their mind to a more close attention to the world. "This their way is their folly, and yet their posterity approve their sayings," and their practice.. But whether men will hear or whether they wilt forbear, and reject the counsel of God against themselves, the fact remains perfectly certain, that the soul and its salvation is incomparably more precious and valuable than all the things of time.

Many are the considerations which might be produced to illustrate and administer conviction of this, but I must not enter farther into them at present—And shall close the subject with one short reflection. It is this:

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If men are not convinced of the superior worth of the salvation of their souls, it is not for want of light and evidence, but because they will not receive it. "Light is come into the world, but men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil." There is no man, who will allow himself to consider the nature of his foul, and its relation to eternity, and the nature of wealth and riches, supposing he could gain all the vast portions of the world, but must be satisfied, that the salvation of his soul is incomparably more precious than the other acquisition. And if persons who live under the gospel are not convinced of this truth, there is no possible reason can be given for, it, but that they do not choose conviction. They hate the light and evidence which would discover this truth, and so they will not come to the light. They will not fairly consider the matter in their own mind, lest it should reprove their own deeds, and show them the horrid nature of their own conduct, and thus oblige them to alter it, or live under insufferablelashes of conscience and terrors of divine wrath. If after we have had sufficient light and evidence to convince us that our souls are more precious than the things of the world, and yet labour and toil more for the fading profits and pleasures of the latter, than for the salvation of the former, our mouths must be forever stopt. We know what would be the consequence of this conduct from the unerring oracles of God, that if persons would chuse, seek and pursue the riches of the world beyond the glory of God and the enjoyment of him, they have nothing to expect but everlasting ruin. Thus men who act this part are wilfully their own destroyers. Their final destruction is entirely of themselves. They act contrary not only to the commands of heaven, but they violate the dictates and conclusions of their own reason. For they cannot but admit, in case they consider and allow they have immortal souls, that they ale infinitely more precious than the things of the world, and therefore the salvation of them ought to be set higher than any

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temporal acquisition, and sought and pursued exceedingly beyond it. They knew and their judgments declare, where their conduct must lead and land them forever, even in unutterable misery, anguish and horror, "Where the worm "dieth not and the fire is not quenched."

Let us now be seriously exhorted to attend to the concerns of our souls above every other acquisition. Let us remember how much it cost Christ Jesus to procure the redemption of them. Consider his bloody sweat in the garden, and how he groaned and died on the cross in order that pardon and salvation might be purchased for your souls. Wherefore, if we now neglect our souls, not only must we suffer the torment of our loss, but all the encreased wrath of Jehovah for despising the blood of his son. O let us therefore humble ourselves before God, because of our worldly-mindedness and carnality. Let us repent of our sins and turn unto God by faith in Jesus Christ. Remember how our blessed Saviour esteemed the riches of this world, how indifferent he was to them, and let us imitate his example. Let it appear that we are christians in reality, by living above the world and laying, up our treasures in heaven. " Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof." Look not at the things which are seen and temporal, but at the things which are unseen and eternal."