thufiafm of pious affection and gratitude towards our Redeemer, which make us difcover. in his character plain and evident marks of the SON OF GOD. They have been difcovered and acknowledged by men who were troubled with no fuch religious infirmities; by one man who was a profeffed Pagan, and by another man who, without profeffing it, and perhaps without knowing it, was in fact little better than a Pagan. On the strength of these teftimonies, then, added to the proofs which have been here adduced, we may fafely affume it as a principle, that Jefus is the Son of God. The neceffary confequence is, that every thing he taught comes to us with the weight and fanction OF DIVINE AUTHORITY, and demands from every fincere difciple of Chrift implicit belief, and implicit obedience. We must not, after this, pretend (as is now too much the prevailing mode) to select juft what we happen to like in the Gospel, and lay afide all the reft; to admit, for instance, the moral and preceptive part, and reject all thofe fublime doctrines which are peculiar to the Gospel, and which form the wall of partition between Christianity, and what is called natural Religion. This is as fuming a liberty, and creating a diftinction, which no believer in the divine authority of our Lord, can on any ground juftify. Chrift delivered all his doctrines in the name of God. He required that all of them, without excep→ tion, should be received. He has given no man a licence to adopt juft as much, or as little of them as he thinks fit. He has authorized no one human being to add thereto, or diminish therefrom. Let us, then, never presume thus to newmodel the Gospel, according to our own pȧrticular humour or caprice, but be content to take it as God has thought fit to leave it. Let us admit, as it is our bounden duty, on the fole ground of his authority, thofe myfterious truths which are far beyond the reach of any finite understanding, but which it was natural and reasonable to expect, in a revelation pertaining to that incomprehenfible Being," the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity*.” “Let "us not exercise ourselves in great matters "which are too high for us, but refrain our fouls and keep them low t." Laying afide all the fuperfluity and all the pride of human * Isaiah lvii. 15. + Pf. cxxxi. 1. wisdom, wisdom, "let us hold faft the profeffion of "our faith," without wavering, without refining, without philofophizing. Let us put ourselves, without delay and without reserve, into the hands of our heavenly Guide, and fubmit our judgments, with boundless confidence, to his direction, who is “the way, "the truth, and the life *." Since we know in whom we believe; fince it has been this day proved by one kind of argument, and might be proved by a thoufand others, that he is the SON OF Gop; let us never forget that this gives him a right, a divine right, to the obedience of our understandings, as well as to the obedience of our wills. Let us, therefore, refolutely beat down every bold imagination, every high thing that exalteth itself against "the knowledge of God; bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of "Chrift, and receiving with meekness the "ingrafted word, that is able to fave our "fouls t." 66 * John xiv. 6. + James i. 21. SERMON SERMON XV*. PSALM XXvii. 16. TARRY THOU THE LORD'S LEISURE; BE THINE HEART; AND PUT THOU THY HAT this life is not, and was not in ΤΗ ness, or even of constant ease and tranquillity, is a truth which no one will be difpofed to controvert. That we are beset with dangers, and exposed to calamities of various kinds, which we can neither foresee nor avert, is equally certain. It is a fact, which, probably, most of those who now hear me know too well, from their own experience; and the rest will most affuredly know it, full time enough: for there cannot be a weaker or more childish * Preached at St. Paul's on the Thanksgiving-day, April 23, 1789. imagination, 21 imagination, than to flatter ourselves with the hope of paffing through the world without our share of those calamities, which are inseparable from mortality. Affliction, then, of one kind or other, being unavoidable, it is evidently a matter of the very laft importance to every human being, to enquire carefully what are the best and most folid fupports and confolations under it; where they are to be found, and how to be fecured. Now, the shortest and most effectual way of obtaining fatisfaction on these points is, to apply to men of the best judgment, and most experience in the cafe; to those who have themselves paffed through, the greatest variety of fufferings, have fought for every poffible alleviation of them that could be found, and are therefore the best able to decide on the value and the efficacy of the remedies they have actually tried. If we turn our thoughts to men of this defcription, we fhall find few perfons better qualified to give us compleat information on this head, than the Royal Author of the text before us. He was initiated early in the school of adverfity; and though he was afterwards raised, by the hand of Providence, to a throne, yet, in that exalted fitu |