Job ix. 3.

ings, and received into heaven with him, through his merits and interceffion.

But have we a juft fenfe of this redemption? Are our actions governed by the fense of it? Ask us, in your turn, every one of the fame questions: can we anfwer one of a thousand? Where are all the graces and virtues fuitable to our holy Faith, and bound upon us by fo many obligations? Do our actions, any more than yours, correfpond to our principles? Are we better than other perfons whose Gal.ii. 20. belief is different? The life which we now live in the flesh, as the Apostle speaks, do we live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved us, and gave himself for us?

We stand difputing and quarrelling about the religion of Nature and Revelation; but regard neither, much further than the mere profeffion: Zealots for a fystem which has no effect on our heart and life; contending each with eagerness

for

for the articles of his faith; agreeing, on both fides, to forget the duties of it.

Alas! the very reverse of this is the method which reason and Christianity alike prescribe; to live every one of us according to the rules of that religion which we believe and profefs, and recommend it to others by all fair arguments, and by an upright example; but by no other motives. I conclude with that short precept of the Apoftle: Follow Hebr.xii. peace with all men, and holiness without which no man shall fee the Lord.

14.

SER

SERMON III.

LUKE i. 34.

THEN SAID MARY UNTO THE ANGEL, HOW SHALL THIS BE, SEEING I KNOW NOT A MAN?

HE miracles attending the reve

Tlation of Christianity may be con

fidered as divided into two claffes, and called the publick miracles, and the private.

Of the former fort were the many cures performed by our Lord and his

Apostles;

Apoftles; the dark nefs at his crucifixion, his Afcenfion into heaven, in the prefence of many fpectators; prophecies of future events taken together with their accomplishment; the very propagation of the Chriftian religion in the world; and above all, that capital miracle, the best attested, and yet moft amazing, the principal pillar on which the fabrick of Christianity refts, The Refurrection of the Lord Jefus from the dead.

Among the fecond fort, the private miracles,may be reckoned the appearance of an Angel in a dream to the husband of the Virgin Mary, more than once; the vision of Zacharias in the Temple; the divine glory feen by St. Stephen at the time of his Martyrdom; and any other fupernatural events, of which there was no teftimony, but that of the fingle perfon on whom the miracle was wrought, or before whom it was exhibited; and among these, especially that great miracle

of