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not forget the wondrous mercy and pardoning love of Him who is the perfect pattern of every excellence, our holy and most merciful Saviour. Let us remember all our manifold and frequently repeated offences against him, and his as manifold and as frequently repeated forgivenesses of us. With what patience has he borne with our perverseness, pride, and rebellion against him on many occasions! "He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities." How admirable does he also appear to us in the character of an Intercessor! Now that he has ascended up on high, and is seated on the right hand of the throne of God, he ever lives to make intercession for us. That is one of the glorious offices which the exalted Mediator now performs in the behalf of his people, nor is there a single character in which we can regard him that does not call for our highest adorations, and our warmest gratitude and love; and in this place we may especially contemplate his unparalleled meekness and humility, and learn of him who was meek and lowly in heart. "When

he was reviled, he reviled not again, but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously."

The subject surely speaks loudly to us all to beware of sin. It will not go unpunished. Even should it be committed by one who had previously been much favoured of God, for Miriam was a prophetess, or by one who on other occasions had been conspicuous in his praises or for his service, as Miriam had been after the passage through the Red Sea; still it will not go unpunished. I know not whether the Lord's people must not even look for more certain and more severe chastisement than others, not only to shew to all his just indignation at their inconsistency and ingratitude, but also that they may be themselves convinced of their fault, and return the sooner to him. They are "chastened of the Lord, that they may not be condemned with the world." We fancy that we have often observed instances wherein the Lord has dealt most severely with his offending children in temporal judgment, while he has suffered still greater offenders of the world

to escape any such inflictions. The reason is assigned in the scripture, he "dealeth with them as with sons, for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not."

But let not any persons think that sin will ever escape altogether with impunity. Sooner or later the judgment of God will fall upon it. And have we not all sin upon us by the natural depravity of our flesh? Have we not all reason to cry out unclean, unclean? Particular acts of sin are but the fruit of this seed which is sown in all human nature; and no one will ever feel the real emotions of true repentance, or heartily apply to that one Saviour, until he becomes truly sensible of his naturally sinful state. This is most strongly stated in the scriptures; this you are led to acknowledge in the confessions of our church. May the Almighty Spirit convince you of it in your soul. He alone can give you to see and to feel this momentous truth: he alone can bring you to that spirit, through which the publican "smote upon his breast and cried, God be merciful to me a sinner." This is the first effectual operation

of the Spirit's grace upon the soul: it is necessarily connected with every view which can be taken of divine truth. Except it be seen and felt nothing can be understood of the sacrifice of Christ, nor of the sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit. This statement of your condition you should deeply consider; you should make it a matter of constant prayer. And I too will pray that the Lord may wholly enlighten your minds, and suitably affect your hearts, on this first step of an entrance into the kingdom of God.

SERMON XXIII.

THE SPIES' REPORT.

NUMBERS XIII. 32, 33.

And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, the land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature. And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants; and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.

THE children of Israel were going to a land of which God, as we saw in the declaration of Moses to Hobab, had said that he would give it them. When they quitted Egypt they did not go out as their great ancestors

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