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that faith, which prescribes humility and self-denial. Hence it is, that we are so much more apt to be taken with the things that are seen, than the things that are not seen,' and to be lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.' Not all our other corrupt dispositions so harden our hearts towards God and our neighbour, as pride and self-preference. A man, addicted to these two horrible vices, would rather hear God blasphemed, and see his neighbour perish, than abate one tittle of the honour he claims, or of the pleasures he doats on. Our blessed Saviour, however, saith to us, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, thy mind, thy strength; and thy neighbour as thyself.' As to our neighbour, whom we see every day, if we love him, God, whom we have not seen, will take that love, as shewn to himself. For this and many other reasons, Christ prescribes not only forgiveness of injuries until seventy times seven,' but doing good for evil' as a necessary duty, and going still farther requires that we should love our enemies;' and makes love the distinguishing character of his disciples, summing up all the ten commandments in love to God and our neighbour. His whole religion indeed is light and love. He himself is our light, that great and glorious light, which lighteneth every man that cometh into the world,' by that reason, which, as our Creator, he bestowed on all men ; and when this light had been almost blown out, he revives and enlarges it by that revelation, which he amply communicates to every man, who cometh into his church. That he too is love we know, for God is love;' and we know it by what it cost him to redeem us. As through natural corruption and sin there was enmity between God and us, he not 'bearing to look on iniquity,' nor man bearing to abstain from it, Christ by his cross having slain that enmity,' on the part of his Father, to slay it on ours, calls us by his gospel to repentance and newness of life;' and to secure the peace, made by the blood of his cross, founds on that blood a covenant between his Father and every particular Christian, entered into through him our only Mediator, when we are baptized. In this most solemn covenant the Father promiseth to unite us to his Son, to take us out of this wicked world into his own family, the church, and, adopting us for his own children, to provide for us, as such, an inheritance

of eternal joy and glory in heaven; in consideration of which high and happy privileges, the new Christian solemnly vows to God a total abhorrence of the devil, the world, and the flesh, with all the sins they tempt him to; a firm faith and trust in God as the spring of good works, and an humble and dutiful obedience to his commandments, as the only proof we can give of our gratitude and love. We must however consider, that we cannot possibly have this faith, but so far as we understand its articles, nor pay this obedience, but so far as we understand what God requires or forbids in each commandment. Both will be very easy to him, who in worldly matters clearly understands a much greater number of things, and much more difficult to be understood.

But whereas the Christian, thus admitted to a covenant of peace with his heavenly Father, is not able, of himself, to renounce, believe, and obey, as he hath vowed to do, the gracious Mediator hath appointed a second sacrament, whereby the poor frail Christian, having fallen into a breach of the covenant, may by faith and repentance renew that covenant, and wherein he may receive assistance from the Holy Spirit to keep his part of it in a better manner, during the remainder of his life. This is the supper of our Lord, in which every faithful and penitent communicant receives the food of everlasting life, to nourish and support his soul in all its conflicts with the enemies of God and its own salvation. In this holy ordinance the bread broken represents to the grateful heart the flesh of Christ torn; and the wine, his blood poured out on the cross for the redemption of all men. To keep up the knowledge of this redemption, to preserve the Scriptures pure and uncorrupted to all ages, to administer both sacraments, and to enliven in the minds of mankind a right sense of the aforesaid inestimable benefits, Christ hath united all his true and faithful followers' into one society or church, whereof he himself is the head and governor, and charity, or the mind of Christ, is the soul, which gives life to all the real members of this holy and happy body. This is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth,' 1 Tim. iii. 15, with which Christ hath promised to be present to the end of the world.' To feed this church as his flock, with the pure milk of the word, and under him, to tend and govern it by his mind and

Spirit, he hath personally, and by the Holy Ghost, appointed a ministry of bishops, priests, and deacons, who must, at the last day, severely account with him for the discharge of their respective offices; and the flock committed to each of them, for their attention or inattention to this his sacred ordinance; Matt. x. 40. Luke x. 16. The abuse of an ordinance in the men appointed to fulfil it, or the contempt of it in such as ought to be subject to it, especially if it is an ordinance of God, can neither annul it, or justify such as presume to make a material alteration in it.

It would ask more time, our lives indeed, to enlarge sufficiently on the wisdom and goodness of Christ in the gospel dispensation. Our understandings and hearts should widen themselves to the uttermost to receive the instructions, and feel the infinite mercy, afforded therein to creatures, so every way unworthy of them. This is, indeed, a very short and imperfect account of either the light or love he hath poured upon us. But what tongue of angels can

sum up either?

and

Let me, in a few words try to bring them a little nearer to your common sense and hearts. You cannot help admiring his goodness and power in giving bodily light to the blind, and bodily agility to the lame. But was not your soul so blind, that it could not see its way to God and happiness? Was not your soul so lame, that it could not walk in that way, if it had seen it? And hath not Christ, by his gospel and Spirit, given your soul light to see that way, and strength to walk in it? Sure it is, at least he hath offered you both, and if you have not common sense enough most gratefully to embrace his offer, you must even grope limp on in a by-way of your own. Thus, and infinitely more abundantly than thus, hath Christ imparted his wisdom to you. And that his wisdom might be acknowledged to be the very wisdom of God, and dispensed with sufficient authority and power, he fully proved his mission from God by the completion in him of all the prophecies, and by such gracious and astonishing miracles, every where openly wrought by him, as carried conviction with them to common sense in every mind, wherein total blindness had not taken place. Common sense said aloud, noné, but the true Christ and Redeemer could thus fulfil the prophecies.

Common sense in a voice still louder, if possible, cried out, none but God can do these works, nor would God ever give this power to any being, but his own messengers, nor for any but the most excellent purposes. See, reader, with wonder and gratitude, how the laws of nature yield to the God of nature! How the dumb speak, the lame dance, the blind see, the sick are healed, the dead rise, and devils fly, at a single word of Christ! Behold him feeding five thousand men with five barley loaves and two fishes; and after they had eaten to their full satisfaction, look at the twelve baskets, filled with the fragments of these little loaves and fishes! See the God who made them, silencing the tempestuous winds, and smoothing the raging waves, with a word! Did he work these wonders by connivance, at set times or places? Or did not the multitude flock to him by thousands, here, there, or at any time, with their diseased relations or neighbours? Or did they ever come in vain? How good and great! All this time he was one of the poorest among mankind, and therefore held in the utmost contempt by the great ones of the world. With such his wisdom passed for madness, his miracles for the works of Belzebub, and his patience, meekness, and return of benefits for injuries, went all for nothing. Yet inconsiderable as they affected to think him, kings, priests, councils, governors, did not think it beneath them to persecute him with infernal malice, to suborn witnesses against him, to bribe one of his own disciples to betray him, to acquit and condemn him to death at a trial, and after scourging him, and loading him with spittle, to crown him with thorns, and crucify him between two thieves. Not satisfied with all this horrible cruelty, they stood about his cross deriding his last agonies, his only return to which was, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.' They know not that I, whom they thus murder, am thy only-begotten and well-beloved Son;' know not that in this act of cruelty they are permitted by thee to become instrumental in the happy work of salvation to all men. Thus in his humiliation his judgment. was taken away,' Acts viii. 33, and thus he died for you.

You cannot help feeling a degree of affliction at this dreadful recital. But know, that if you continue in unbelief or sin, you act this tragedy over again. The Spirit of God

tells you, Heb. vi. 6. You crucify Christ afresh, and put him to open shame again.' Can you so much as think of doing this? of doing this while you profess yourselves his disciples? Oh no, my brethren, leave this to his declared enemies, the infidels, the Pilates, the Caiaphases, the Judases, of the present times, of whom there are enough to do it; but do you love the Lord that bought you with his blood,' and be ready to sacrifice to him your corrupt affections, your passions, your pride, your lust of pleasure, your lives, if the cause of him and his religion requires it, as undoubtedly it does. Your own eternal happiness requires it too. Your lives are not more precious than his. If you are Christians, you are dead' to pride, to pleasure, to this world, and your lives are hid with Christ in God,' Col. iii. 3. But how can your lives be safely hid in him, if you put him to death, in whom your true and only life is hid and laid up with God, as in a treasury? If you murder him, you must, at the same time, murder yourselves, like wretches, not less foolish than ungrateful.

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Our blessed Saviour had repeatedly foretold to believers and unbelievers, the death he died, and his rising the third day after to complete life. Aware of this, his enemies took care that he should be most certainly dead before his body was taken from the cross, whereof they had undoubted proof from one of their soldiers, who, suspecting even the apparent signs of death in his body and face, thrust a spear through his side into his very heart, and from the wound there issued 'both water and blood.' The bag therefore about the heart of every animal, wherein is contained a certain quantity of water, was pierced in the body of Christ, insomuch that this must have killed him, had he been most perfectly alive the instant before. From the cross his dead body was carried and buried in a new tomb, sunk down in a rock, and a very great stone rolled over the entrance. This not perfectly satisfying the suspicious priests, they prevailed with the governor Pilate to seal the stone to the rock, and set a guard of soldiers round it, to prevent his disciples from stealing away his body. These poor cowardly men, who had all forsaken him, and one of them forsworn him in his lifetime, were not likely persons to attempt so desperate a theft for a corpse, of which they could not have made the smallest use.