"Lord Jesus, receive my spirit," Acts vii. 59. | sistent with it. However, all that they aim Believe on the testimony of the inspired wri-at is, to unite heaven and hell, and, by a monters, that he is eternal, as his Father is; that, with the Father, he is the Creator of the world; that, like the Father, he is Almighty; that he has all the essential attributes of the Deity, as the Father has. You have more reason for these doctrines, and for this worship than the most refined sophists have for all their most specious objections, even for those which, to you, are the most unanswerable. "Hold that fast which ye have," let "no man take your crown," Rev. iii. 11. strous assemblage of heterogeneous objects, they propose to make us enjoy the pleasures of sin and the joys of heaven. If Satan were openly to declare to us, that we must proclaim war with God; that we must make an alliance with him against the divine power; that we must oppose his majesty: reason and conscience would reject propositions so detestable and gross. But, when he attacks us by such motives as we have related; when he tells us, not that we must renounce the hopes of heaven, but that a few steps in an easy path will conduct us thither. When he invites us, not to deny religion, but to content ourselves with observing a few articles of it. When he does not strive to render us insensible to the necessities of a poor neighbour, but to convince us that we should first take care of ourselves, for charity, as they say, begins at home:-do you not conceive, my brethren, that there is in this morality a secret poison, which slides insensibly into the heart, and corrodes all the powers of the soul? II. We have seen the darts which Satan shoots at us, to subdue us to the dominion of error: let us now examine those with which he aims to make us submit to the empire of vice: but, lest we should overcharge your memories with too many precepts, we will take a method different from that which we have followed in the former part of this discourse; and, in order to give you a more lively idea of that steadiness, with which the apostle intended to animate us, we will show it your reduced to practice; we will represent such a Christian, as St. Paul himself describes The Christian is not vulnerable by any of in the text, "wrestling against flesh and blood, these maxims. He derives help from the reagainst principalities, against powers, against ligion, which he professes, against all the efthe rulers of the darkness of this world, against forts that are employed to divert him from it; spiritual wickedness in high places." We and he conquers by resisting Satan as Jesus will show you the Christian resisting four Christ resisted him, and, like him, opposes sorts of the fiery darts of the wicked. The maxim against maxim, the maxims of Christ false maxims of the world. The pernicious against the maxims of the world. Would examples of the multitude. Threatenings Satan persuade us, that we follow a morality and persecutions. And the snares of sensual too rigid? It is written, we must "enter in at pleasures. a strait gate," Matt. vii. 13; "pluck out the right eye, cut off the right hand," chap. v. 29, 30: “deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Christ," chap. xvi. 24. Does Satan say it is allowable to conceal our religion in a time of persecution? It is written, we must confess Jesus Christ; "whosoever shall deny him before men, him will he deny before his Father who is in heaven; he who loveth father or mother more than him, is not worthy of him," chap. x. 32, 33. 37. Would Satan inspire us with revenge? It is written, "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves," Rom. xii. Does Satan require us to devote our youthful days to sin? It is written, "Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth," Eccles. xii. 1. Does Satan tell us that we must not aspire to be saints? It is written, "Be ye holy, for I am holy," 1 Pet. i. 16. Would Satan teach us to dissipate time? It is written, 19. 1. Satan attacks the Christian with "false maxims of the world." These are some of them. Christians are not obliged to practise a rigid morality. In times of persecution, it is allowable to palliate our sentiments, and, if the heart be right with God, there is no harm in a conformity to the world. The God of religion is the God of nature, and it is not conceivable, that religion should condemn the feelings of nature; or, that the ideas of fire and brimstone, with which the Scriptures are filled, should have any other aim, than to prevent men from carrying vice to extremes: they cannot mean to restrain every act of sin. The time of youth is a season of pleasure. We ought not to aspire at saintship. We must do as other people do. It is beneath a man of honour to put up with an affront; a gentleman ought to require satisfaction. No reproof is due to him who hurts nobody but himself. Time must be killed. Detraction is the salt of conversation. Impurity, indeed, is intolerable in a woman; but it is very pardonable in men. Human frailty excuses the greatest excesses. To pretend to be perfect in virtue, is to subvert the order of things, and to metamorphose man into a pure disembodied intelligence. My brethren, how easy" whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever conit is to make proselytes to a religion so exactly fitted to the depraved propensities of the human heart! These maxims have a singular character, they seem to unite that which is most irregular with that which is most regular in the heart; and they are the more likely to subvert our faith, because they seem to be conVOL. I.-19 66 we must redeem time," Eph. v. 16; we must "number our days," in order to "apply our hearts unto wisdom," Ps. xc. 12. Would Satan encourage us to slander our neighbour? It is written, "Revilers shall not inherit the kingdom of God," 1 Cor. vi. 10. Does Satan tell us we deserve no reproof when we do no harm? It is written, we are to practise stitutes virtue, whatsoever things are worthy of praise," Phil. iv. 8. Would Satan tempt us to indulge impurity? It is written, "our bodies are the members of Christ," and it is a crime to "make them the members of a har lot," 1 Cor. vi. 15. Would Satan unite heaven and earth? It is written, "There is no concord between Christ and Belial, no com loved you," chap. xi. 35. munion between light and darkness," 2 Cor. | each of which cries to us, "behold how he vi. 14, 15; "no man can serve two masters,' Matt. vi. 24. Does Satan urge the impossibility of perfection? It is written, "Be ye perfect, as your Father, who is in heaven, is perfect," chap. v. 48. 2. There is a difference between those who preach the maxims of Jesus Christ; and those who preach the maxims of the world. The former, alas! are as frail as the rest of mankind, and they themselves are apt to violate the laws which they prescribe to others; so that it must be sometimes said of them, "What they bid you observe, observe and do; but do not ye after their works," Matt. xxiii. 3. They who preach the maxims of the world, on the contrary, never fail to confirm the pernicious maxims, which they advance by their own examples: and hence a second quiver of those darts, with which Satan attempts to destroy the virtues of Christianity; I mean the examples of bad men. Each order of men, each condition of life, each society, has some peculiar vice, and each of these is so established by custom, that we cannot resist it, without being accounted, according to the usual phrase, men of another world. Vicious men are sometimes respectable persons. They are parents, they are ministers, they are magistrates. We bring into the world with us a turn to imitation. Our brain is so formed as to receive impressions from all exterior objects, and if I may be allowed to speak so, to take the form of every thing that affects it. How difficult is it, my brethren, to avoid contagion, when we breathe an air so infected! The desire of pleasing often prompts us to that which our inclinations abhor, and very few people can bear this reproach; you are unfashionable and unpolite! How much harder is it to resist a torrent, when it falls in with the dispositions of our own hearts! The Christian, however, resolutely resists this attack, and opposes model to model, the patterns of Jesus Christ, and of his associates, to the examples of an apostate world. The first, the great model, the exemplar of all others, is Jesus Christ. Faith, which always fixes the eyes of a Christian on his Saviour, incessantly contemplates his virtues, and also inclines him to holiness by stirring up his natural propensity to imitation. Jesus Christ reduced every virtue, which he preached, to practice. Did he preach a detachment from the world? And could it be carried farther than the divine Saviour carried it? He was exposed to hunger, and to thirst; to the inclemency of seasons, and to the contempt of mankind: he had no fortune to recommend him to the world, no great office to render him conspicuous there. Did he preach zeal? He passed the day in the instructing of men, and, as the saving of souls filled up the day, the night he spent in praying to God. Did he preach patience? "When he was reviled, he reviled not again," 1 Pet. ii. 23. Did he preach love? "Greater love than he, had no man, for he laid down his life for his friends," John xv. 13. His incarnation, his birth, his life, his cross, his death, are so many voices, Had Jesus Christ alone practised the virtues which he prescribed to us, it might be objected, that a man must be " conceived of the Holy Ghost," Matt. i. 20, to resist the force of custom. But we have seen many Christians, who have walked in the steps of their master. The primitive church was compassed about with a happy society, a great cloud of witnesses," Heb. xii. 1. Even now in spite of the power of corruption, we have many illustrious examples; we can show magistrates, who are accessible: generals, who are patient; merchants, who are disinterested; learned men, who are teachable; and devotees, who are lowly and meek. If the believer could find no exemplary characters on earth, he could not fail of meeting with such in heaven. On earth, it is true, haughtiness, sensuality, and pride, are in fashion. But the believer is not on earth. He is reproached for being a man of another world. He glories in it, he is a man of another world, he is a heavenly man, he is a citizen of heaven," Phil. iii. 20. His heart is with his treasure, and his soul, transporting itself by faith into the heavenly regions, beholds customs there different from those which prevail in this world. In heaven it is the fashion to bless God, to sing his praise, to cry, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts," Isa. vi. 3, to animate one another in celebrating the glory of the great Supreme, who reigns and fills the place. On earth, fashion proceeds from the courts of kings, and the provinces are polite when they imitate them. The believer is a heavenly courtier; he practises, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, the customs of the court whence he came, and to which he hopes to return. 3. Satan assaults the Christian with the threatenings of the world, and with the persecutions of those who are in power. Virtue, I own, has a venerable aspect, which attracts respect from those who hate it: but, after all, it is hated. A beneficent man is a troublesome object to a miser: the patience of a believer throws a shade over the character of a passionate man: and the men of the world will always persecute those virtues, which they cannot resolve to practice. Moreover, there is a kind of persecution, which approaches to madness, when, to the hatred, which our enemies naturally have against us, they add sentiments of superstition; when, under pretence of religion, they avenge their own cause; and, according to the language of Scripture, think that to kill the saints to render service to God," John x. 2. Hence so many edicts against primitive Christianity, and so many cruel laws against Christians themselves. Hence the filling of a thousand deserts with exiles, and a thousand prisons with confessors. Hence the letting loose of bears, and bulls, and lions, on the saints, to divert the inhabitants of Rome. Hence the applying of red hot plates of iron to their flesh. Hence iron pincers to prolong their pain by pulling them in piecemeal. Hence caldrons of boiling oil, in which, by the industrious cruelty of their persecutors, they died by fire | But when under Christian emperors, believers and by water too. Hence burning brazen enjoyed the privileges of the world, and the bulls, and seats of fire and flame. Hence the profession of the faith was no obstacle to skins of wild beasts in which they were wrap-worldly grandeur, the church became corrupt, ped, in order to be torn and devoured by dogs. and, by sharing the advantages, partook of And hence those strange and nameless pun- the vices of the world. ishments, which would seem to have rather the air of fables than of historical facts, had not Christian persecutors, (good God! must these two titles go together!) had not Christian persecutors Let us pass this article, my brethren, let us cover these bloody objects with a veil of patience and love. Ah! how violent is this combat! Shall I open the wounds again, which the mercy of God has closed? Shall I recall to your memories the falls of some of you? "Give glory to God," Josh. vii. 19. Cast your eyes for a moment on that fatal day, in which the violence of persecution wrenched from you a denial of the Saviour of the world, whom in your souls you adored; made you sign with a trembling hand, and utter with a faultering tongue, those base words against Jesus Christ, "I do not know the man," Matt. xxvi. 72. Let us own, then, that Satan is infinitely formidable, when he strikes us with the thunderbolts of persecution. Among the many different objects, which the world offers to our view, there is always one, there are often more, which the heart approves. The heart, which does not glow at the sight of riches, may sigh after honours. The soul that is insensible to glory, may be enchanted with pleasure. The demon of concupiscence, revolving for ever around us, will not fail to present to each of us that enticement, which of all others is the most agreeable to us. See his conduct to David. He could not entice him by the idea of a throne to become a parricide, and to stain his hands with the blood of the anointed of the Lord: but, as he was inaccessible one way, another art must be tried. He exhibited to his view an object fatal to his innocence: the prophet saw, admired, was dazzled, and inflamed with a criminal passion, and to gratify it, began in adultery, and murder closed the scene. My brethren, you do not feel these passions now, your souls are attentive to these great truths, and, while you hear of the snares of concupiscence, you discover the vanity of them. But if, instead of our voice, Satan were to utter his; if, instead of being confined within these walls, you were transported to the pinnacle of an eminent edifice; were he there to show you "all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them," Matt. iv. 8, and to say to each of you, There, you shall content your pride: here, you shall satiate your vengeance: yonder, you shall roll in voluptuousness. I fear, I fear, my brethren, very few of us would say to such a dangerous enemy, "Satan, get thee hence," ver. 10. A new combat brings on a new victory, and the constancy of the Christian is displayed in many a triumphant banner. Turn over the annals of the church, and behold how a fervid faith has operated in fiery trials. It has inspired many Stephens with mercy, who, while they sank under their persecutors, said "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge," Acts vii. 60. Many with St. Paul have abounded in patience, and have said, "Being reviled, we bless, being defamed, we entreat,' 1 Cor. iv. 12, 13. It has filled a Barlaam with praise, who, while his hand was held over the fire to scatter that incense which in spite of him, his persecutors had determined he should offer, sang, as well This is the fourth assault, which the demon as he could, "Blessed be the Lord, who teach- of cupidity makes on the Christian; this is the eth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight," last triumph of Christian constancy and resoPs. cxliv. 2. It transported that holy woman lution. In these assaults the Christian is firm. with joy, who said, as she was going to suffer, The grand ideas, which he forms of God, crowns are distributed to-day, and I am going makes him fear to irritate the Deity, and to to receive one. It inspired Mark, bishop of raise up such a formidable foe. They fill him Arethusa, with magnanimity, who, according with a just apprehension of the folly of that to Theodoret, after he had been mangled and man, who will be happy in spite of God. For slashed, bathed in a liquid, of which insects self-gratification, at the expense of duty, is are fond, and hung up in the sun to be de-nothing else but a determination to be happy voured by them, said to the spectators, I pity you, ye people of the world, I am ascending to heaven, while ye are crawling on earth. And how many Marks of Arethusa, how many Barlaams, how many Stephens, and Pauls, have we known in our age, whose memories history will transmit to the most distant times! 4. Put how formidable soever Satan may be, when he shoots the fiery darts of persecution at us, it must be granted, my brethren, he discharges others far more dangerous to us, when, having studied our passions, he presents those objects to our hearts which they idolize, and gives us the possession, or the hope of possessing them. The first ages of Christianity, in which religion felt all the rage of tyrants, were not the most fatal to the church. Great tribulations produced great virtues, and the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church. in opposition to God. This is the utmost degree of extravagance: "Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he?" 1 Cor. x. 22. Over all, the Christian fixes his eye on the immense rewards, which God reserves for him in another world. The good things of this world, we just now observed, have some relation to our passions: but, after all, can the world satisfy them? My passions are infinite, every finite object is inadequate to them. My ambition, my voluptuousness, my avarice, are only irritated, they are not satisfied, by all the objects which the present world exhibits to my view. Christians, we no longer preach to you to limit your desires. Expand them, be ambitious, be covetous, be greedy of pleasure: but be so in a supreme degree. Jerusalem, "enlarge the place of thy tent, stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations, spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes," Isa. liv. 2. The throne of thy sovereign, the pleasures that are at his right hand, the inexhaustible mines of his happiness, will quench the utmost thirst of thy heart. On the other hand, God, having redeemed you with the purest and most precious blood, having shaken, in your favour, "the heavens and the earth, the sea, and the dry land," Hag. ii. 6, still continues to resist Satan for you, to take away his prey from him; and from the highest heaven, to animate you with these grand motives, which we have this day been proposing to your meditation. To-day God would attract you, by the most affecting means, to himself. From what has been said, I infer only two consequences, and them, my brethren, I would use to convince you of the grandeur of a Christian, and of the grandeur of an intelligent soul. 1. Let us learn to form grand ideas of a Christian. The pious man is often disdained While heaven and earth, God and the world, in society by men of the world. He is often endeavours to gain your souls, do you alone taxed with narrowness of genius, and mean- continue indolent? Are you alone ignorant of ness of soul. He is often dismissed to keep your own worth? Ah! learn to know your company with those, whom the world calls own excellence, triumph over flesh and blood, good folks. But what unjust appraisers of trample the world beneath your feet, go from things are mankind! How little does it be- conquering to conquer. Listen to the voice come them to pretend to distribute glory! that cries to you, "To him that overcometh Christian is a grand character. A Christian will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even man unites in himself what is most grand, as I also overcame, and am set down with my both in the mind of a philosopher, and in the Father in his throne," Rev. iii. 21. Continue heart of a hero. in the faith, "hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown," ver. 11. Having fought through life, redouble your believing vigour at the approach of death. The unshaken steadiness of his soul elevates him above whatever is most grand in the mind of a philosopher. The philosopher flatters himself that he is arrived at this grandeur; but he only imagines so; it is the Christian who possesses it. He alone knows how to distinguish the true from the false. The Christian is the man who knows how to ascend to heaven, to procure wisdom there, and to bring it down and to diffuse on earth. It is the Christian who having learned, by the accurate exercise of his reason, the imperfection of his knowledge, and having supplied the want of perfection in himself, by submitting to the decisions of an infallible Being, steadily resists all the illusions, and all the sophisms of error and falsehood. And, as he possesses, as he surpasses, what-ever is most grand in the mind of a philosopher, so he possesses whatever is most grand in the heart of a hero. That grandeur, of which the wordly hero vainly imagines himself in possession, the Christian alone really enjoys. It is the Christian who first forms the heroical design of taking the perfections of God for his model, and then surmounts every obstacle that opposes his laudable career. It is the Christian who has the courage, not to route an army, neither to cut a way through a squadron, nor to scale a wall; but to stem an immoral torrent, to free himself from the maxims of the world, to bear pain and to despise shame, and, what perhaps may be yet more magnanimous, and more rare, to be impregnable against whole armies of voluptuous attacks. It is the Christian then who is the only true philosopher, the only real hero. Let us be well persuaded of this truth; if the world despise us, let us, in our turn, despise the world; let us be highly satisfied with that degree of elevation, to which grace has raised us. This is the first All the wars which the world makes on your faith, should prepare you for the most great, the most formidable attack of all, "The last enemy that shall be destroyed, is death," 1 Cor. xv. 26. The circumstances of death are called an agony, that is, a wrestling. In effect, it is the mightiest effort of Satan, and therefore our faith should redouble its vigorous acts. Then Satan will attack you with cutting griefs, and doubts and fears; then will he present to you a deplorable family, whose cries and tears will pierce your hearts, and who, by straitening the ties that bind you to the earth, will raise obstacles to prevent the ascent of your souls to God. He will alarm you with the idea of divine justice, and will terrify you with that of consuming fire, which must devour the adversaries of God. He will paint, in the most dismal colours, all the sad train of your funerals, the mournfully nodding hearse, the torch, the shroud, the coffin and the pall; the frightful solitude of the tomb, or the odious putrefaction of the grave. At the sight of these objects, the flesh complains, nature murmurs, religion itself seems to totter and shake: but fear not; your faith, your faith will support you. Faith will discover those eternal relations into which you are going to enter; the celestial armies, that will soon be your companions; the blessed angels, who wait to receive your souls and to be your convoy home. Faith will show you that in the tomb of Jesus Christ which will sanctify yours; it will remind you of that blessed death, which renders yours precious in the sight of God; it will assist your souls to glance into eternity; it will open the gates of heaven to you; it will enable you to behold, without murmuring, the earth sinking away from your feet; it will change your deathbeds into triumphal chariots, and it will make you exclaim, amidst all the mournful objects that surround you, "O grave where is thy victory? O death where is thy sting?" 1 Cor. xv. 55. My brethren, our most vehement desires, our private studies, our public labours, our vows, our wishes, and our prayers, we consecrate to prepare you for that great day. "For this cause, I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.Now, unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus, throughout all ages, world without end." Amen. Eph. iii. 14. 16. 21. your most turbulent passions, at the churchgates, in order to take them up again as soon as divine service ends? The king Messiah is about to make his triumphant entry among you. With what pomp do the children of this world, who are wise, and, we may add, magnificent, in their generation, Luke xvi. 8, celebrate the entries of their princes? They strew the roads with flowers, they raise triumphal arches, they express their joy in shouts of victory, and in songs of praise. Come, then, my brethren, let us to-day " prepare the way of the Lord, and make his paths strait," Matt. iii. 3; "let us be joyful together before the Lord, let us make a joyful noise before the Lord the King, for he cometh to judge the earth," Ps. xcviii. 6. 9; or, to speak in a more intelligible, and in a more evangelical manner, Come ye miserable sinners, laden with the insupportable burdens of your sins; come ye troubled consciences, uneasy at the remembrance of your many idle words, many criminal thoughts, many abominable actions; come ye poor mortals, "tossed with tempests and not comforted," Isa. liv. 11, condemned first to bear the infirmities of nature, the caprices of society, the vicissitudes of age, the turns of fortune, and Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; then the horrors of death, and the frightful and the government shall be upon his shoulder; night of the tomb; come behold "The Wonand his name shall be called Wonderful, Coun- derful, the Counsellor, the mighty God, the sellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace:" take The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his him into your arms, learn to desire nothing government and peace there shall be no end, more, when you possess him. May God enupon the throne of David, and upon his king-able each of you, to say, "Lord, now lettest dom, to order it, and to establish it with judg-thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes ment and with justice, from henceforth, even have seen thy salvation." Amen. for ever. SERMON XVI. THE BIRTH OF JESUS CHRIST. ISAIAH ix. 6, 7. I ANTICIPATE the festival which the goodness, or rather the magnificence, of God invites you to celebrate on Wednesday next. All nature seems to take part in the memorable event, which on that day we shall commemorate, I mean the birth of the Saviour of the world. Herod turns pale on his throne; the devils tremble in hell; the wise men of the East suspend all their speculations, and observe no sign in the firmament, except that which conducts them to the place where lies the incarnate Word, "God manifest in the flesh," 1 Tim. iii. 16; an angel from heaven is the herald of the astonishing event, and tells the shepherds, "Behold I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people, for unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord," Luke ii. 10, 11, "the multitude of the heavenly host" eagerly descend to congratulate men on the Word's assumption of mortal flesh, on his "dwelling among men," in order to enable them to "behold his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth," John i. 14; they make the air resound with these acclamations, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men," Luke ii. 14. What think ye? Does this festival require no preparation of you? Do you imagine, that you shall celebrate it as you ought, if you content yourself with attending on a few discourses, during which, perhaps, while you are present in body, you may be absent in spirit; or with laying aside your temporal cares, and You have heard the prophecy on which our meditations in this discourse are to turn."Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it, with judgment and with justice, from henceforth, even for ever." These words are more dazzling than clear: let us fix their true meaning; and, in order to ascertain that, let us divide this discourse into two parts. I. Let us explain the prediction. II. Let us show its accomplishment. In the first part, we will prove, that the prophet had the Messiah in view; and, in the second, that our Jesus has fully answered the design of the prophet, and has accomplished, in the most just and sublime of all senses, the whole prediction: "Unto us a child is born," and so on. I. Let us explain the prophet's prediction, and let us fix on the extraordinary child, to whom he gives the magnificent titles in the text. Indeed, the grandeur of the titles sufficiently determines the meaning of the prophet; for to whom, except to the Messiah, can these appellations belong, "The Wonderful, The Counsellor, The mighty God, The Prince of Peace, The everlasting Father?" This natural sense of the text, is supported by the authority of an inspired writer, and what is, if not of any great weight in point of argument, at least very singu |