you muft kneel and fall down before him, by whom you were thus fearfully and wonderfully made.

But the first pair, now fufpicious of each other, banished the more immediate influence and prefence of their Almighty Protector, were liable (naked and diftreffed as they were) to be entangled by the thorn and the brier, and torn by the lion and wolf, who have ever fince been prompted to fly in the faces of the detefted ingrates: therefore the encreasing world, for their defence against themfelves and other animals, were obliged to go into contracts and policies, so that human life (by long gradation) ascended into an art the tongue was now to utter one thing, and the bofom to conceal another; and from a defire of fuperiority in our depraved natures, was bred that: unfatisfied hunger, ambition; a monstrous excrefcence of the mind, which makes fuperfluity, riches honour, and diftinction, but mere neceflities of life, as if it were our fate in our fallen condition, (left a supply of what frugal nature defires fhould be obtained) to find out an indigence foreign to us, which is incapable of being relieved, and (which to confirm our want and mifery) increases with its acquifitions: under this leading crime, are envy, hatred, cruelty, cunning, craft, and debate, mustered and armed; and a battalion of difeafes, torments, and cares, the natural effects of thofe evils, become our bofom companions; from which no arms can rescue, no flight fecure us but a return to that God, in whofe protection only is our native loft feat of rest and tranquility. To which abode, fince our expulfion, we cannot dare to approach, but guilt which runs even to fuccours it knows vain, makes us, with our first parents in the fame circumstances, hide from

commipotence: I faid in the fame circumftances, for we have not only implicitly committed their crime, as we were in them, but do alfo actually repeat it in our own perfons: for when a created being relinquishes the power of its creator, and instead of relying on his conduct and government, draws to itfelf an independent model of life, what does it but pluck from the tree of knowledge, and attempt a theft of understanding, from him who is wifdom itself? This is a tre.nendous consideration, yet is there not that man breathing, who has any where placed his confidence but in God, and confiders ferioufly his own heart, but feels its weight, nor can the bofom under it receive any impreffion, but that of endless despair.

But behold the darkness disperses, and there is ftill hope breaking in upon our forrow, by the light of which we may again lift up our eyes and fee our Maker: for in the midst of our deserved mifery, our reconciliation in coming on through a mediator, who is perfectly unconcerned in our crime: but though innocent of our tranfgreffion,affumes that and our nature, and, as an atonement for us, offers his life a ranfom, with this regard on our part, that as it is an expiation, it is alfo an example: an example to inftruct us, that not only the first command laid upon us was a reasonable one, but also the prefent life easy and fupportable, for he himfeif voluntarily undergoes it in its greatest calamities: he who had all things in his power, and wanted all things, by enforcing an obstinent ufe of wealth, and patient enduring of poverty, reftores us not only to the blifs of leading this life with fatisfaction and refignation to the divine will, (which only is our true life) but by a short paffage through a momentary death, tranflates us to an hap

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py everlasting existence, incapable of forrow. Wearinefs or change: to accomplish which great revolution, our glorious deliverer from ourselves defigned to eftablish his empire, not by conqueft, but a right much more lafting, arduous and indifputable conviction,; for our flavery being intellectual and in our own bofoms, the redemption must be there also; yet the world, inchanted with its own imaginary notions of freedom, knew not how to receive so abstracted a manumiffion, but contemned the promise of restoration to life and liberty, from a poor man who himself enjoyed none of the advantages which arife from thofe dear (but misunderstood) appellations.

May we then without blame approach and behold this facred and miraculous life? How, alas! fhall we trace the mysterious fteps of God and man? How. confider him at once in fubjection to, and dominion over nature?

The more oppofite, (though most flow) method of reducing the world to its obedience, was that our bleffed Saviour fhould appear in the defpicable attire which he did, without any of those attendant accidents which attract the eye, and charm the imagination: for the knowledge which he was to introduce, being an eternal truth; the proper manfion for it was in the reason and judgment, into which when it had once entered, it was not to be removed by any impreffions upon the lower faculties, to which it was not to be beholden for a reception. There is not therefore one inftance in the new teftament of power exerted to the deftruction, though fo many to the preservation of mankind: but to a degenerate race, he that heals, is lefs valued than he that kills: .confufion, terror, noife, and amazement, are what only

ftrike

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ftrike, fervile minds; but order fymmetry, filent awe, bleffings and peace are allurements to the open, fim-` ple, innocent and truly knowing; yet the very nation. among whom the holy Jefus defcended to converse, had (if we may so speak) in a manner tired heaven with appearing in the more pompous demonstrations of its power: they paffed through waves divided, and erect for their march, they were fuperlatively fed in a wilderness, a mountain hook, and thunder uttered their law; nations were deftroyed to gain them inheritance! But they foon forgot thefe benefits, and upon the leaft ceffation of fear and miracle, they deferted their Creator, and returned to their own handywork deities, who were as fenfeless of their makers, as themselves were of theirs.

Thus fhort-lived is wonder, and thus impotent to fix (what we have faid our Law-giver defigned) conviction. For which reafon our aftoishment in the new teftament is more fparingly raifed, and that only to awaken our attention to plain, easy, and obvious truths (which fupport themselves when received) by the authority of miracle.

We read that he was led into

a wilderness, where he wonderfully Matth. iv. bore hunger and thirft for forty

days; in the height of which exigence and neceffity, the tempter came to him and urged him, if he were the Son of God, to relieve his prefent mifery, by turning the ftones into bread; which attempt when he found fruitlefs, and obferved that he would ufe no fupernatural relief, but bear human nature and its infirmities, he attacks him the moft acceptable way. to our weakness in the fupplies of pride and vanity: he thewed him the kingdoms and glory of the world,

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(which he had purchafed from man by his defection from God) and offered him the dominion of them if he would worfhip him; but our Lord contemned this alfo, and in his want and poverty retired into a private village; where and in the adjacent parts if the neceffitous man lay in obfcurity, the merciful God did not, for he never difcontinued his visible benign affiftance, to the relief of the difcafed, the poffeffed and the tormented.

In his admirable fermon upon the Matth. v. mount, he gives his divine precepts in fo eafy and familiar a manner, and which are fo well adapted to all the rules of life and right reafon, that they must needs carry throughout a felf-evident authority to all that read them; to thofe that obey them, from the firm fatisfaction which they infpire; to thofe that, neglect them, from the anxiety that naturally attends a contrary practice: there is the whole heart of man difcovered by him that made it, and all our fecret impulfes to ill, and falfe appearances of good, expofed and detected: among other excellent doctrines, one which methinks mùft be, to those who are fo hardened as to read the divine oracles with unbelief, an irrefragable argument of his divinity: But when Matth. vi. 6. thou prayeft, enter into thy clofet, and when thou haft thut the door, pray to thy Father which is in fecret, and thy Father which feeth in fecret fhall reward thee openly." Now it cannot enter into the heart of man, that any but God could be the author of a command fo abftracted from all worldly interests; for how abfurd were it in a being, that had not an intercourfe with our fouls, or knew not their mot fecret motions, to di

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