perfuafion be not your crime: the people of Chorazin and Beth faida did not believe in Chrift Jefus ; yet the evidence placed before their eyes was fuch, that their disbelief was the very circumftance which rendered their cafe more deplorable than that of Tyre and Sidon. The people of Jerufalem were also unbelievers; yet fuch was their unbelief, that at laft the things which made for their peace were hid from their eyes. Here then is your cafe: you have the Gospel of Chrift Jefus before you; it claims your obedience upon no flight credentials ; it was introduced by greater works than ever man did; it was fealed with the blood of its great author, and has been handed down to you by those who facrificed all that was dear to them in the world in confirmation of its truth. Think not then that it can be an indifferent matter whether you receive or reject this law; or that it matters not by what light you walk, fince you expect so much equity from God that he will judge you according to the light you have: for if the Gospel be the law of God offered to you, as it certainly is, and you are in the number of those unto whom much was given, of you therefore fhall much be required.

The mercy of God offered to you in the Gospel through Chrift Jefus is a call to repentance from dead works it is a fummons to you, to turn to the living God in works of righteousness and holiness. When John the Baptift gave notice of the near approach of our bleffed Lord, the fum of his doctrine was, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Our Saviour and his difciples introduce the Gospel with the fame warning; and St. Paul teaches,

that God, who winked at the times of ignorance, now, under the Gofpel, calleth all men every where to repentance; and hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness. If then the great promises made through Chrift Jefus belong only to penitents, who forfake fin, and turn to God in newness of heart, how fadly do men impose upon themselves, who truft to be faved by God's mercy, without doing the work of God, and continue in fin in hopes that grace may abound? Little do they confider, that thofe falfe prefumptuous hopes will prove in the end great and real aggravations of their iniquity. To fin in hopes of mercy, is abufing the mercy of God, and making the goodness of our heavenly Father a reason for difobeying him. To plead the death or merits of Chrift in excufe or in juftification of iniquity, will fo little avail, that it will amount to a condemnation out of our own mouths. Chrift died to deftroy the works of the devil, to redeem us from fin, to fanctify an elect people to God: every Christian knows this, or may know it, if he looks into his Bible. Confider now what the plea in excufe for fin amounts to: in the mouth of a Chriftian it must come to this; I know that Chrift died to deftroy fin, but I will keep my fins, and truft in his death: I know that the promises of God are made to those only who forfake their evil deeds; but I will depend on his promifes for the pardon of my evil deeds, though I forfake them not. These are the perfons, who, by abufing Chrift and his redemption, do put him to open fhame in the world, and, in the language of the Apoftle, do crucify to themselves afresh the Son of God. Happy had it been

for fuch men, had they been born in the darkest corners of the earth, to which the glad tidings of the Gospel never came: then they might have pleaded ignorance, and weakness, and want of the knowledge of God's will; but now they live, and act, and reafon like heathens in the noon-day light of the Gospel. And what can be the consequence of fuch a life, and fuch a knowledge, but this only, that they shall be beaten with many ftripes?

As to ourselves, we have great reafon to bless God daily, that by his good providence we have been born and educated in a Chriftian country; that we have been admitted into the church of his bleffed Son, and have had betimes the means of knowledge and of grace communicated to us: but let us take heed that we do not turn these bleffings into curses upon ourselves by our abufing them. These are great talents which our bleffed Lord has entrufted us with, if we use them as we ought: if we improve them to the glory of God, and the good of them about us, happy will it be for us, and we fhall one day hear that bleffed fentence, Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. But if we neglect these great opportunities of falvation which God now affords, they will one day rise up in judgment against us, and condemn us. And it fhall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in that day, than for wicked Chriftians who were redeemed by the cross of Chrift, but who accounted the blood of the covenant a vain thing; who were fanctified by the Holy Ghost, but did despite to the Spirit of God; who were bought with a price to be the fervants of God, but who fold themselves for flaves to iniquity.

Lay hold therefore, my brethren, of the mercy of God, while the day of mercy lafts; for, if you neglect or despise the goodness of God, which calleth us to repentance, this will be your condemnation, that light is come into the world, and you chofe darknefs rather than light.

DISCOURSE XXI.

LUKE iv. I, 2.

And Jefus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being forty days tempted of the devil.

AFTER our Saviour had washed his difciples' feet, and wiped them with a towel, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you? None answering this question, he explained to them himself the meaning of what he had done: Ye call me, fays he, Mafter, and Lord: and ye fay well; for fo I am. If I then, your Lord and Mafter, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I fay unto you, the fervant is not greater than his Lord, neither he that is fent, greater than he that fent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them. Should you ask the like. queftion concerning the history in the text, our Saviour's temptation in the wilderness, and say, What is this that has been done unto him? How came the Son of God to be thus infulted by the powers of darkness? Whence arofe the tempter's confidence and power? or why were confummate virtue and innocence fubmitted to this proof and trial? You