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glorious book of God, filled with providential interpositions, judgments, deliverances, prophecies, miracles, all pointing to the Creator, Redeemer, Comforter, and in them to the eternal life of its attentive, its humble, and mortified reader. As such, let us now read, mark, and learn who he is, and what he came to do for us. In this it is your business, and must be mine, to be as brief as the infinitely important matter will permit.

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Christ, then, the eternal God, by whom, and for whom, all things were made, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions, or principalities, or powers; who was before all things, and by whom all things consist,' Col. i. 16, 17; moved by infinite pity for us, came down from the throne of glory, and from the hallelujahs of the heavenly host, and took on him the form of a servant,' Phil. ii. 7; that is, the soul and body of man; became a teacher to us, who sat in darkness and the shadow of death,' Job. iii. 3; and became obedient unto death, even the' shameful and most miserable 'death of the cross,' for us despicable wretches. He did not appear among us as a great earthly lord or king. No, he came as the son of a poor virgin; and in the eyes of ignorant and haughty men, as the reputed son of a carpenter; was born in a stable, and cradled in a manger. Neither was 'there any beauty in his face or person, that we should desire him,' Isa. liii. 2; for he was to teach women as well as men. All outward worldly shew and pomp, which he utterly despised, all carnal pleasure, which he abhorred, he came to teach us to despise and abhor; knowing, and teaching us to know, that pride, and the love of pleasure, were the original fountains of all our corruption and misery. If, therefore, most dearly beloved in the Lord Christ, you are not already ashamed of your pride, and tired of your vain and unsatisfactory pleasures, you cannot come to the humble God of your salvation to be taught; for, as his disciples, you must be carried forward to more than that shame, and that disgust; you must even die to sin, and to these sins of pride and fleshly pleasure more especially. For you Christ descended from all the glories of heaven, and denied himself those rivers of pleasure which flow from the right hand of his Father. You are required to come down only from that

poor inch of height, to which you may be raised above your ragged neighbour, and to disrelish the pleasures of a swine. But that you may thus fully humble yourselves, and mortify the deeds of your fleshly and corrupted nature, Christ and his Holy Spirit will enable you, for they come, not only to guide you as blind, but to help you as weak creatures. They will lead you in the way to life eternal, and lend you their almighty arms to lean on. Naaman, one of the proudest men in the world, came to the mean habitation of Elisha to be healed of his leprosy; was healed, and from a haughty idolater, became an humble worshipper of the true God. Will you, already knowing somewhat of Christ, the true God, do less for the leprosy of your souls, than he did for that of his body? Or is bodily health better worth seeking for than spiritual? Of common sense I ask these questions.

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The office of Christ was twofold, to reform and to atone; first, to reform you from sin as far as was possible, without laying an absolute force on your will, and then by his death to atone for such sins as you had committed before your conversion, but repented sincerely of; and even to satisfy the justice of his Father for such sins, as through mere human infirmity, and the violence of your temptations, you might be guilty of after that conversion, in case of a deep repentance of them on your part. But it is only by a firm faith in the mercy of God the Father, in the merits of God the Son, and in the aid of God the Comforter, that you can hope for the benefit of that atonement. Faith is the spring of repentance, and of such good works as are mete for repentance.' It is therefore most true, that as the good Christianis kept by the power of God, through faith to salvation,' 1 Pet. i. 5; it is his business not to look at things that are seen' in this worthless world, but at the much better things of a future life, which are not seen,' 2 Cor. iv. 18; which he can never do, if he hath not, with his whole soul, received the evidence of things not seen,' Heb. xi. 1; namely, of Christ, his miracles, his death, his resurrection, and of a future judgment, with a heaven or hell, to follow it. In this place I earnestly call on your common sense to consider, that as the imputation of original sin in the first Adam goes down to all his posterity by the corruption of human nature, and its effect, actual sin; so the imputation of ori

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ginal righteousness in Christ, the second Adam, and of his atonement, must descend to all his children through faith, and that reformation of nature which he preaches, and its effect, an abstinence from sin, together with the performance of good works; for our faith is no otherwise to be perfected or proved but by our works,' James ii. 18. 22. Just so it is, that a good tree is known by its fruit. It is most true that, if you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in your heart that God hath raised him from the dead, ye shall be saved.' Faith is therefore the immediate principle and cause of salvation in and to the believer; but if it is not seconded in him by a good life, 'it is dead,' and only the same with the faith of devils,' who are forced to believe by irresistible evidence, but still continue in their former wickedness, and feel no other effect of their involuntary faith, but trembling and despair.'

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Our blessed Redeemer, as soon as he took on him his priestly office, that is, about the thirtieth year of his life, began to preach his gospel, in other words, to publish the good tidings of salvation offered to all men, and in order to it to call all men to repentance' and newness of life, with such wisdom, authority, and power in speaking, as was never heard from the mouths of angels or men. He taught us to know, so far as man can know, the one only true God, who is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and declared to us, that all who believe in this one only God, and are baptized into his name, shall be saved;' and 'whosoever shall not believe,' particularly in this form of baptism, 'shall be damned,' Matt. xxix. 19. Mark xvi. 16. He taught us to know God in his attribute of justice, satisfied for the. repented sins of mankind, by the blood and death of him. our sacrifice; and in his mercy, promised to us, if we believe and repent, for the sake of that sacrifice. In this we learn how justice and mercy, both infinite, are reconciled, and both take place in man, a mystery, unfathomable before, not only to man, but angels, 1 Pet. i. 10-12. He brought life and immortality to light by his gospel;' that is, into a full and clear light, which had been seen, before he revealed it, only in a kind of twilight. On this most important point of knowledge he founded our expectation of a judgment, to pass at the last day on all the thoughts, words, and actions

of mankind, with a heaven or hell immediately to succeed that judgment. Of this judgment, to be passed by himself, (for the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son, that all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father,' John v. 22, 23.) he gives a full view, Matt. xxv.

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As to the two great original sins, the fountains of all other sins, pride, and the love of pleasure, he prescribes a total mortification of both in commanding us to shut out the world from our thoughts, to deny ourselves,' and' to take up our cross and follow him,' both as to his precepts and example. His precept in regard to pride is, that we should be meek and lowly like him.' His example, as to pride and pleasure, is amazingly striking. All the delights and glories of heaven belonged to him, yet he came into this miserable world, into one of its lowest conditions, renounced its pleasures, suffered poverty, contempt, and persecution, and the death of a slave. What Christian then can think of passing his days in pomp and pleasure? As to pride, it hath been the chief cause of all the quarrels between man and man, and of all the wars between nation and nation, and therefore is not to be admitted into a society of peace and love, such as the Christian. The proud man seldom believes what he hears, not always what he sees. He must therefore be a stranger to faith. How could he, in heaven, bear the shock of so many beings above him? Were it possible for pride and Christian faith to take place in the same mind, they could not, for a moment, subsist together. The one must quickly destroy the other. Self-sufficiency, both as to understanding and merit, is always the ruling principle of the proud. In this, like the devil from whom he hath his pride, he sets up for an equality with God. Eve, at the instigation of the devil, aimed at being as God. And as to the love of pleasure, the fruit was fair to her eye, and so she eat it, though God had forbidden it. Adam too so loved the woman, and had such pleasure with her, that he rebelled and eat. You see here how infidelity, or want of faith in God, began. Their disbelief in God, their reliance on the devil, rather than him, and their appetite of pleasure, have so gone down among their posterity, as to produce all manner of wickedness, and shut the minds of most men against

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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 miseth 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

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