Sermon after the Communion: Alas! perimus licitis [We perish by permitted things], inordinate love to, and immoderate pursuing after things lawful in themselves destroy more souls than things sinful and unlawful in themselves do. The excuses of those invited to the marriage of the king’s son are founded not on things simply sinful, but on lawful things: the farm, oxen and married wife [cf. Luke 14:16–24]. Now the house is swept [cf. Matt. 12:44], and you are in hazard, if you guard not, to return to a greater and greedier feeding on those vanities. I dare say there are multitudes of men and women, who never so much hungered for the communion as they have longed to have these solemn days over and by, that they might win back to their callings, worldly businesses and pleasures. O! what a weariness have they been to them? As sacred solemnities were to those spoken of in Amos 8:5, who cried, When shall the new-moon be gone, that we may sell corn; and the sabbath-day, that we may set out wheat? To many these days of fasting and spiritual feasting and communicating have been as a bridle bit in their mouths, to restrain them from running on the mountains of their vanity; and who knows but, ere another communion comes, the Lord may feed you as a lamb in a large place [Hosea 4:16]? “A Sermon Preached After the Communion on Psalm 85:8 (He will speak peace to his people, and to his saints. But let them not turn again to folly),” in The Unserarchable Riches of Christ.
Now in print in Collected Sermons of James Durham, 2 vols. (2017). https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/collected-sermons-of-james-durham-2-volume-set.html
Now in print in Collected Sermons of James Durham, 2 vols. (2017). https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/collected-sermons-of-james-durham-2-volume-set.html
