SERM.

God for all His love and kindness to you? What could He LXVII. have done, what could He have suffered, what could He have procured more for you than He hath done? And is all this nothing? not so much as the dreams and shadows of this transient world?

[1 John 1. 7.1

But I hope there are not many such amongst you, and heartily wish there were none at all. Howsoever, give me leave to deal plainly with you. Do ye really believe that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, or do ye not? If you do not, what make you here, especially upon this day? Why are ye not rather at some Turkish mosque, or idol-temple, or else about your worldly business? What need you concern yourselves about the Death of Christ, if ye do not believe that He died to save sinners? But do you really believe that He died to save sinners? Then He died to save you, who cannot but acknowledge yourselves to be sinners. And if so, what mean you, that ye mind not your Salvation by Him, more than all things in the world besides? Is it not the greatest, the only happiness you can ever attain to? Did the Son of God Himself think it worth His while to lay down His Own life to procure it for you, and can you think it not worth your while to lay out your lives in the pursuit of it? Certainly you cannot think so. But why then is it that you do not do it?

Especially considering, that how great an happiness soever it be, there is not a soul here present but may attain it, if you will but set yourselves in good earnest about it: Christ's blood being of that infinite value and virtue, that it can both expiate and "cleanse you from all your sins." As many thousands have found already by their own experience, who once were miserable sinners upon earth, as you now are; but are now by Christ made glorified Saints in Heaven. And why may not you be made so as well as they? You have all the same Saviour as they had, and He is both as able and as willing to save you, as He was to save them. Insomuch, that if any of you perish, your blood will be upon your own heads. And not only yours neither, but His too : in that you neglect and trample upon it, and will not make use of it to the saving of your souls, for which He shed it.

But let others do what they please, and take what follows.

Let us who believe what we have now heard, even that Jesus Christ being in the form of God, took upon Him the form of a servant, the nature of man, and in it was obedient to death, even the death of the Cross, that He might save us from our sins, and make us happy; let us, I say, who profess to believe this, endeavour to live accordingly, that we may lay hold on that eternal life which the Son of God hath purchased for us at so dear a rate: for which purpose let us apply ourselves to Him in the sincere and constant use of those means which He hath appointed for our obtaining Salvation by Him; such as praying and fasting, reading and hearing His Holy Word, and receiving His mystical body and blood, still trusting in Him to assist and influence. them so with His Holy Spirit, that they may be effectual to the ends for which He hath ordained them, even to the begetting and confirming our faith in Him, and so to the mortifying our lusts, and to the quickening us with newness of life. Let us study His Gospel, and whatsoever He hath there said let us therefore believe it because He Who is Truth itself hath said it; and whatsoever He there commands, let us therefore do it because He hath commanded it Who coming into the world on purpose to save us, would be sure to command us nothing but what is absolutely necessary for our Salvation.

Wheresoever we are, let our eye be still upon Him as always present with us, and interceding with His Father for

us.

"Whatsoever we do in word or deed," let us "do all in [Col. 3. 17.] the Name of the Lord Jesus," trusting on Him for His assistance of us in the doing it; and for God's acceptance of it when it is done. Let our minds be always running after Him, and our faith so steadfastly fixed on Him, that we may continually derive grace and virtue from Him, to subdue our corruptions, to withstand temptations, to live above the world, and to "walk in all the Commandments of [Luke 1.6.] God blameless." Whatsoever our condition be in this life, let us still believe in Him that died for us, to bless and sanctify it to the end for which He died, even to the Salvation of our souls. Let us not despond or despair of God's mercy to us, nor of any thing that is, or can be good for us;

"For He that spared not His Own Son, but delivered Him Rom. 8. 32.

SERM. up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?"

LXVII.

Being thus prepared and qualified for it, let us put our whole trust and confidence in Him, to pardon and absolve us from all our sins, to defend and protect us from whatsoever is really evil for us, to "guide us into all truth," to confirm and strengthen us in all goodness, to direct, assist, and bless us through the whole course of our pilgrimage here below, that when we depart out of this miserable and wicked world, we may go with Him Who hath done these great things for us, and enjoy that life which He hath purchased by His Own death, even life with Him, the Eternal Son of God our Saviour, to Whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost, be all honour and glory, now and for ever. Amen.

SERMON LXVIII.

THE MYSTERY OF OUR RECONCILIATION BY CHRIST

EXPLAINED.

2 COR. v. 18, 19.

And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation to wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

As man is properly called a reasonable creature, notwithstanding there may be here and there one that never had, or hath lost, the use of reason, and few that use it aright; so although there may perhaps be some particular men in the world which have no knowledge of God, and few that live as if they had; yet nevertheless mankind in general may be truly said to agree in the acknowledgment of that Invisible Being which we call God, that made and still presides over the whole world. There being no nation we know of upon earth, so barbarous and savage, but where people some way or other express their sense and fear of such a Being, and do something or other, whereby to get Him to be favourable to them. And it is much to be observed, that almost all mankind in all ages and places upon earth have concurred in the use of blood for that purpose; some killing beasts, others men, and some their own children, thinking thereby to obtain the favour of Him that governs the world, and so procure something which they think would be good for them, or else avert some evil which otherwise might fall upon them.

U

SERM. LXVIII.

How this should come about, deserves our most serious inquiry. That all mankind should have some general notions of God we cannot wonder, seeing the knowledge of Him was imprinted at first upon our very minds; and though the first impressions be much defaced and worn out, yet there are such footsteps of them still remaining as are plainly visible to the very light of nature; so that no man that useth his reason can deny or doubt of the existence of the Deity, without offering violence to himself.

But that God should be pleased with men's taking away the life which He Himself gives to His creatures, is not only above, but seems contrary to, our natural reason, and to those common notions of the Divine perfections, which are interwoven, as it were, in our frame and temper. And therefore, as no man could ever have thought this to be an acceptable service to God, unless He Himself had appointed and declared it; so the knowledge and practice of it could never have spread itself, as it hath, all over the earth, unless it had come from some common root or stock. But how it should do so, he could never have known, but only from the Holy Scriptures: this being one of those many wonderful things, which no certain account can be ever given of, but only by Divine Revelation.

But there we find, that the common parents of all mankind having transgressed the command, and so incurred the displeasure of Almighty God their Maker, and thereby made themselves and their whole posterity liable to the death which He had threatened in case of their disobedience; He was graciously pleased to promise and declare to them, that one should be born of the seed of the woman, who should suffer death for them, and so redeem all from it who would believe the said promise and trust on His word for the performance of it; which therefore that all might do, He was pleased to ordain that the death of this great Redeemer of mankind should be foreshewn and represented by sacrificing or killing of beasts all along, until it should be actually done, which was not to be till many ages after; that mankind might all the while depend wholly upon His word for it, and so give Him the glory due unto His goodness and truth. And accordingly the first of Adam's children that is reckoned