mands of the divine law and juftice; fo that God can now be juft, and yet juftify him that believeth in Jefus. Hence God is in Chrift; observe in Christ, reconciling the world to himfelf. 2 Cor. v. 19. His heart is fet on it; and the fuccefs of this fcheme affords him the greatest pleasure. It is not only your intereft, but your duty to be faved. It is as much your duty to enter into heaven as to pray, or to perform any other part of religion. And your deftruction will not only be your righteous punishment, but your fin; the moft criminal felf-murder. God has been pleased to interpofe his authority, to give greater force to the principle of felf-love. Your intereft has this additional recommendation, that it is your duty; and you fin against God in ruining yourselves. Here again my fubject leads me to addrefs myself to the united principles of gratitude and felf-love. Will you not afford the Lord that made you this benevolent pleasure? Will you not gratify him in this, when it is your happiness he feeks? Has neither the pleasure of God nor your own immortal intereft any weight with you? Is fin dearer to you than both? Alas! if you are not to be wrought upon by confiderations drawn from the love of God, or love to yourselves, from gratitude of felf-intereft, from what topic fhall I reafon with you? If this be the cafe, you are no longer to be dealt with as reafonable creatures, but as natural brute-beafts, made to be taken and destroyed.

This work of faving finners, God has entrusted to Jefus Chrift; and he has chofen a very proper perfon for fo grand and difficult an undertaking. The plea fure of the Lord shall profper in his hand, or under his management. He knows how to carry on the scheme to the best advantage. The work has been going on from Adam to this day, in fpite of all oppofition; and it is not now at a ftand. O that it may profper among you, my dear people! O that the facred Trinity, and all the angels on high, may look down with pleafure this day on this guilty fpot, rejoicing to fee the

grand

grand scheme of falvation fuccefsfully going on! My brethren, will you not fall in with the defign? A defign fo favourable to yourselves. Will you not all concur to promote it, and carry it into execution upon a child, a friend, a neighbour, and efpecially upon yourselves? Or will you fet yourselves against the Lord, and against his Anointed, by refufing to fall in with this fcheme? Will you join in the confpiracy against it with the malevolent powers of hell, who oppofe it with all their might, because it tends to your falvation? You readily concur in any scheme for your temporal advantage, and why not in this? Is the happiness of heaven the only kind of happiness that you are carelefs about? Is the falvation of your immortal foul the only deliverance for which you have no defire? Alas! are you become fo ftupidly wicked?

This fubject affords ftrong confolation to fuch of you as have complied with the method of falvation through Chrift, fince the falvation of finners in this way is the pleasure of the Lord; and fince it is entrufted to the faithful and fkilful hands of Chrift, under whofe management it will profper, you may be fure his pleasure will be accomplished with respect to you, and that the divine scheme fhall be carried into complete execution, in fpite of all oppofition. Therefore rejoice in your security, and bless his name to whom you owe it.

I fhall conclude with a few advices adapted to this folemn facramental occafion.

The table of the Lord is juft about to be fpread among us. This is another inftance of the grace and benevolence of Chrift; for to remember him, who is the defign of this ordinance, is not only your duty, but your privilege and happiness. The remembrance of him has virtue in it to refresh your fouls, to heal your wounded confciences, and to revive your languifhing graces. Hence it is that this ordinance is not only a memorial of Christ, but a feast for your VOL. II. Y refreshment

refreshment and fupport; and confequently his making it a standing ordinance in his church is a standing evidence of his good-will to his people to the end of the world. It is true it is an inftitution little regarded, even in the christian world: to many the table of the Lord is contemptible, or they ftand by and gaze at it as unconcerned, or curious fpectators. But this does not depreciate it, nor is it a reason why you should defert it. Come, ye children, crowd round your Father's table to-day. Let Jefus fee his feed feafting together in commemoration of him, and in mutual love with one another. Let him now fee of the travail of his foul, the children with whom he travailed as in birth; let him now fee a goodly company of them around his table, that he may be fatisfied. Let me remind you that you have caufed him many an heavy hour, and much pain and forrow; therefore let him in return have pleasure and fatisfaction from you this day. O! rejoice the heart you have often broken, and let there be joy in heaven over you. Let the angels that are miniftering to the faints, and that are no doubt hovering unfeen over this affembly, viewing thofe humble memorials of that Saviour whom they behold without a veil in his native heaven, let them carry up glad tidings to their Lord this evening, and tune their harps above to higher ftrains of joy and praife. And O! that the loft sheep would this day return, that their kind Shepherd may rejoice over them: he came from heaven in fearch of you, and will you keep out of his way, and fear falling into his hands? Let wandering prodigals return, that there may be joy in your Father's houfe, whofe arms are ftretched out to embrace you, and who is looking after you with eager eyes. O let the pleasure of the Lord profper among us this day, and it will be a day gratefully to be remembered to all eternity.

This ordinance is alfo a feal of the covenant of grace; therefore come to it this day to renew your

contract

contract with your God and Saviour; to take him for your God, and to give up yourselves to him as his people, in an everlafting covenant never to be forgotten. Make a fure covenant; call heaven and earth, God, angels, and men to be witnefs to it and feal it with the memorials of your dying Redeemer. You had need to make it firm, for much depends upon it; and you have much to go through to perform the duties of the Chriftian life; to conflict with powerful temptations; to die; to ftand at the fupreme tribunal; thefe are the things you are to go through; and you cannot pafs through them with honour or fafety, unless you make fure of an intereft in God, and give up your all into his hands.

This inftitution is alfo intended to cultivate the communion of the faints; and therefore, as children, you are to fit down at the table of your common Father, with hearts full of ardent love to mankind, and efpecially to the houfhold of faith. Let no angry or malicious paffion pollute this facred feaft; but be all charity and benevolence, like that Redeemer whofe death you celebrate.

Finally, You are now to renew your vows and obligations to be the Lord's, and to walk in his ways all the days of your life. See that you enter into them with an entire dependance upon his ftrength: and O! remember them afterwards, to carry them into execution. One would think that all traitors would be for ever deterred from fitting down at the Lord's table, by the fhocking example of Judas, the firft hypocrite that profaned it. And O! one would think that vows, made in so folemn a posture, and with the emblems of Chrift's body and blood in your hands, would not foon be forgotten as trifles. It is, methinks, as an exploit of wickedness to be capable of this; and none of you, I hope, are hardy enough to venture upon it.

SERMON

SERMON

XXVII.

LIFE AND IMMORTALITY REVEALED IN THE GOSPEL.

2 TIM. i. 10. And hath brought life and immortality to light by the gofpel. *

O extenfive have been the havock and devaftation which death has made in the world for near fix thousand years, ever fince it was firft introduced by the fin of man, that this earth is now become one vaft grave-yard, or burying-place for her fons. The many generations that have followed upon each other, in fo quick a fucceffion from Adam to this day, are now in the mansions under ground. And there must we and all the prefent generation fleep ere long. Some make a fhort journey from the womb to the grave: they rife from nothing at the creative fiat of the Almighty, and take an immediate flight into the world of fpirits, without an intermediate ftate of probation. Like a bird on the wing, they perch on our globe, reft a day, a month, or a year, and then fly off for fome other regions. It is evident, these were not formed for the purposes of the present ftate, where they make fo fhort a ftay; and yet we are fure they are not made in vain by an all-wife Creator; and therefore we conclude they are young immortals, that immediately ripen in the world of fpirits, and there enter upon scenes, for which it was worth their while coming into existence. Others fpring up and bloom for a few years; but they fade away like a flower, and are cut down. Others arrive at the prime or meridian of human life; but in all their strength and

*This Sermon was preached at the Funeral of Mr. William Yuille, and is dated Sept. 1, 1756.