this is the first source of the duties of his subjects, and of the dispositions with which they ought to celebrate his nativity, and with which alone they can celebrate it in a proper manner. To celebrate properly the festival of his nativity, truth must be esteemed; we must be desirous of attaining knowledge; we must come from the ends of the earth, like the wise men of the East, to contemplate the miracles which the Messiah displays in the new world: like Mary, we must be all attention to receive the doctrine that proceeds from his sacred mouth; like the multitude, we must follow him into deserts and mountains, to hear his admirable sermons.This is the first duty, which the festival that you are to celebrate next Wednesday demands. Prepare yourselves to keep it in this manner. You want reconciliation with God, and this is the grand work of the king Messiah. He is the Prince of Peace. He terminates the fatal war which sin has kindled between God and you, by obtaining the pardon of your past sins, and by enabling you to avoid the commission of sin for the future. He obtains the pardon of sins past for you. How can a merciful God resist the ardent prayers which the Redeemer of mankind addresses to him, in behalf of those poor sinners for whom he sacrificed himself? How can a merciful God resist the plea of the blood of his Son, which cries for mercy for the miserable posterity of Adam? As the king Messiah reconciles you to God, by obtaining the pardon of your past sin, so he reconciles you, by procuring strength to enable you to avoid it for time to come. Having calmed those passions which prevented your knowing what was right, and your loving what was lovely, he gave you laws of equity and love. How can you resist, after you have known him, the motives on which his laws are founded? Every difficulty disappears, when examples so alluring are seen, and when you are permitted, under your most discouraging weaknesses, to approach the treasures of grace, which he has opened to you, and to derive purity from its source. Does gratitude know any difficulties? Is not every act of obedience easy to a mind animated by a love as vehement as that, which cannot but be felt for a Saviour, who in the tenderest manner has loved us? This is the second idea of the king Messiah, this is the second source of the duties of his subjects, and of the dispositions essential to a worthy celebration of the feast of his nativity. Come next Wednesday, deeply sensible of the danger of having that God for your enemy, who holds your destiny in his mighty hands, and whose commands all creatures obey. Come with an eager desire of reconciliation to him. Come and hear the voice of the Prince of Peace, who publishes peace; (6 peace to him that is near, and to him that is far off," Isa. lvii. 19. While Moses is mediator of a covenant between God and the Israelites on the top of the holy mountain, let not Israel violate the capital article at the foot of it. While Jesus Christ is descending to reconcile you to God, do not declare war against God; insult him not by voluntary rebellions, after | he has voluntarily delivered you from the slavery of sin, under which you groaned. Return not again to those sins which "separated between you and your God," Isa. lix. 2, and which would do it again, though Jesus should become incarnate again, and should offer himself every day to expiate them. You need support under the calamities of this life, and this also you will find in the king Messiah. He is THE MIGHTY GOD, and he will tell you, while you are suffering the heaviest temporal afflictions, "although the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed, yet my kindness shall not depart from you, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed," chap. liv. 10. Under your severest tribulations, he will assure you, that "all things work together for good to them that love God," Rom. viii. 28. He will teach you to shout victory under an apparent defeat, and to sing this triumphant song, "Thanks be unto God, who always causeth us to triumph in Christ," 2 Cor. ii. 14. "In all these things we are more than conquerors, through him who loved us," Rom. viii. 37. This is the third idea of the king Messiah, and this is the third source of the duties of his subjects, and of the dispositions which are necessary to the worthily celebrating of the festival of his nativity. Fall in, Christian soul! with the design of thy Saviour, who, by elevating thy desires, above the world, would elevate thee above all the catastrophes of it. Come, behold Messiah, thy king, lodging in a stable, and lying in a manger: hear him saying to his disciples, "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head," Matt. viii. 20. Learn from this example not to place thy happiness in the possession of earthly good. Die to the world, die to its pleasures, die to its pomps. Aspire after other ends, and nobler joys, than those of the children of this world, and then worldly vicissitudes cannot shake thy bliss. Finally, you have need of one to comfort you under the fears of death, by opening the gates of eternal felicity to you, and by satiating your avidity for existence and elevation. This consolation the king Messiah affords. He is the "everlasting Father, THE FATHER OF ETERNITY, his throne shall be built up for all generations," Ps. lxxxix. 4; he has received "dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed," Dan. vii. 14, and his subjects must reign eternally with him. When thou, Christian! art confined to thy dying bed, he will approach thee with all the attractive charms of his power and grace: he will say to thee, "Fear not thou worm Jacob," Isa. xli. 14, he will whisper these comfortable words in thine ear, "When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee: and when through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee; when thou walkest through the fire thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee," chap. xliii. 2. He will open heaven to thee, as he opened it to St. Stephen; and he will say to thee, as | he said to the converted thief, "To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise," Luke xxiii. 43. This is the fourth idea of the king Messiah, and this is the fourth source of the duties of his subjects. How glorious is the festival of his nativity! What grand, noble, and sublime sentiments does it require of us! The subjects of the king Messiah, the children of the everlasting Father, should consider the economy of time in its true point of view, they should compare "things which are seen, which are temporal, with things which are not seen, which are eternal," 2 Cor. iv. 18. They should fix their attention upon the eternity, fill their imaginations with the glory of the world to people! Assemble all this congregation, when thou shalt come with thy host in holy pomp! Let not the flying of the clouds, which will serve thee for a triumphal chariot; let not the pomp of the holy angels in thy train, when thou shalt come to "judge the world in righteousness;" let not these objects affright and terrify our souls: let them charm and transport us; and, instead of dreading thine approach, let us hasten it by our prayers and sighs! "Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly, Amen." To God be honour and glory, for ever and ever, Amen. SERMON XVII. CHRIST. come, and learn, by just notions of immortality, THE VARIETY OF OPINIONS ABOUT to estimate the present life; the " 'declining shadow; the withering grass; the fading flower; the dream that flieth away; the vapour that vanisheth," and is irrecoverably lost, Ps. cii. 11; Isa. xl. 7; Job xx. 8; and James iv. 14. These, my brethren, are the characters of your king Messiah, these are the characters of the divine child, whose birth you are to celebrate next Wednesday, and in these ways only can you celebrate it as it deserves. We conjure you by that adorable goodness, which we are going to testify to you again, we conjure you by that throne of grace, which God is about to ascend again; we conjure you by those ineffable mercies which our imaginations cannot fully comprehend, which our minds cannot sufficiently admire, nor all the emotions of our hearts sufficiently esteem; we conjure you to look at, and, if you will pardon the expression, to lose yourselves in these grand objects; we conjure you not to turn our solemn festivals, and our devotional days, into seasons of gaming and dissipation. Let us submit ourselves to the king Messiah; let us engage ourselves to his government; let his dominion be the ground of all our joy. "O most mighty! thou art fairer than the children of men. Grace is poured into thy lips, therefore God hath blessed thee for ever!" Ps. xlv. 3. 2. "The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion, saying, Rule thou in the midst of thine enemies! Thy people shall be willing in the day, when thou shalt assemble thy host in holy pomp!" Yea, reign over thine enemies, great King! bow their rebellious wills; prevent their fatal counsels; defeat all their bloody designs! Reign also over thy friends, reign over us! Make us a willing * We retain the reading of the French Bible here; because our author paraphrases the passage after that ver sion. Ton peuple sera un peuple plein de franc vou loir au jour que tu assembler as ton armee en saincte pompe. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness. The passage seems to be a prophetical allusion to one of those solemn festivals, in which conquerors, and their armies, on their return from battle, offered a part of their spoil, which they had taken from their enemies, to God, from whom the victory came. These free-will offerings were carried in grand procession. They were holy, because agreeable to the economy under which the Jews lived; and they were beautifully holy, because they were not exacted, but proceeded from the voluntary gratitude of the army. In large conquests, the troops and the offerings were out of number, like the drops of such a shower of dew, as the morning brought forth in the youth, or spring of the year. See 2 Chron. 13-15, and xv. 10-15. We have ventured this hint on a passage which seems not very clear in our version. MATTHEW xvi. 13-17. When Jesus came into the coasts of Cesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am? And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist; some Elias, and others Jeremias, or one of the prophets. He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father who is in heaven. Ir any prejudice be capable of disconcerting a man's peace, it is that which arises from observing the various opinions of mankind. We do not mean those which regard uninteresting objects. As we may mistake them without danger, so we may suppose, either that men have not sufficiently considered them, or that the Creator may, without injuring the perfec tions of his nature, refuse those assistances which are necessary for the obtaining of a perfect knowledge of them. But how do the opinions of mankind vary about those subjects, which our whole happiness is concerned to know? One affirms, that the works of nature are the productions of chance: another attributes them to a First Cause, who created matter, regulated its form, and directed its motion. One says, that there is but one God, that it is absurd to suppose a plurality of Supreme Beings, and that to prove there is one, is thereby to prove that there is but one: another says, that the Divine Nature being infinite, can communicate itself to many, to an infinity, and form many infinities, all really perfect in their kind. Moreover, among men who seem to agree in the essential points of religion, among Christians who bear the same denomination, assemble in the same places of worship, and subscribe the same creeds, ideas of the same articles very different, sometimes diametrically opposite, are discovered. As there are numerous opinions on matters of speculation, so there tents himself with half a system, containing are endless notions about practice. One cononly some general duties which belong to worldly decency: another insists on uniting vir tue with every circumstance, every transaction, every instant, and, if I may be allowed to speak so, every indivisible point of life. One thinks it lawful to associate the pleasures of the world with the practice of piety; and he pretends that good people differ from the wicked only in some enormities, in which the latter seem to forget they are men, and to transform themselves into wild beasts: another condemns himself to perpetual penances and mortifications, and if at any time he allow himself recreations, they are never such as savour of the spirit of the times, because they are the livery of the world. I said, my brethren, that if any prejudices make deep impressions on the mind of a rational man, they are those which are produced by a variety of opinions. They sometimes drive men into a state of uncertainty and skepticism, the worst disposition of mind, the most opposite to that persuasion, without which there is no pleasure, and the most contrary to the grand design of religion, which is to establish our consciences, and to enable us to reply to every inquirer on these great subjects, "I know, and am persuaded," Rom. xiv. 14. Against this temptation Jesus Christ guarded his disciples. Never was a question more important, never were the minds of men more divided about any question, than that which related to the person of our Saviour. Some considered him as a politician, who under a veil of humility, hid the most ambitious designs; others took him for an enthusiast. Some thought him an emissary of the devil: others an envoy from God. Even among them who agreed in the latter, "some said that he was Elias, some John the Baptist, and others Jeremias, or one of the prophets." The faith of the apostles was in danger of being shaken by these divers opinions. Jesus Christ comes to their assistance, and having required their opinions on a question which divided all Judea, having received from Peter the answer of the whole apostolical college, he praises their faith, and, by praising it, gave it a firmer establishment. My brethren, may the words of Jesus Christ make everlasting impressions on you! May those of you who, because you have acted rationally, by embracing the belief, and by obeying the precepts of the gospel, are sometimes taxed with superstition, sometimes with infatuation, and sometimes with melancholy, learn from the reflections that we shall make on the text, to rise above the opinions of men, to be firm and immoveable amidst temptations of this kind, always faithfully to adhere to truth and virtue, and to be the disciples only of them. Grant, O Lord! that they who like St. Peter have said to Jesus Christ, "Thou art the Christ the Son of the living God," may experience such pleasure as the answer of the Divine Saviour gave to the apostle's soul, when he said, "Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven." Amen. The questions and the answers which are related in the text will be our only divisions of this discourse. Jesus Christ was travelling from Bethany to Cesarea, not to that Cesarea which was situated on the Mediterranean sea, at first called the tower of Strato, and afterwards Cesarea, by Herod the Great, in honour of the emperor Augustus; but to that which was situated at the foot of Mount Lebanon, and which had been repaired and embellished in honour of Tiberius, by Philip the Tetrarch, the son of Herod. Jesus Christ, in his way to this city, put this question to his disciples, "Whom do men say that I, the son of man, am?" or, as it may be rendered, Whom do men say that I am? Do they say that I am the Son of man? We will enter into a particular examination of the reasons which determined the Jews of our Saviour's time, and the inspired writers with them, to distinguish the Messiah by the title Son of man. Were we to determine any thing on this subject, we should give the preference to the opinion of those who think the phrase Son of Man, means man by excellence. The Jews say son of man, to signify a man. Witness, among many other passages, this well-known saying of Balaam, "God is not a man that he should lie, neither the son of man that he should repent," Numb. xxiii. 19. The Messiah is called the Man, or the Son of Man, that is, the Man of whom the prophecies had spoken, the Man whose coming was the object of the desires and prayers of the whole church. It is more important to inquire the design of Jesus Christ, in putting this question to his disciples, "Whom do men say that I am?" It is one of those questions, the meaning of which can be determined only by the character of him who proposes it; for it may be pit from many different motives. Sometimes pride puts this question. There are some people who think of nothing but themselves, and who imagine all the world think about them too: they suppose they are the subject of every conversation; and fancy every wheel which moves in society has some relation to them; if they be not the principal spring of it. People of this sort are very desirous of knowing what is said about them, and, as they have no conception that any but glorious things are said of them, they are extremely solicitous to know them, and often put this question, "Whom do men say that I am?" Would you know what they say of you? Nothing at all. They do not know you exist, and except a few of your relations, nobody in the world knows you are in it. The question is sometimes put by curiosity, and this motive deserves condemnation, if it be accompanied with a desire of reformation. The judgment of the public is respectable, and, to a certain degree, it ought to be a rule of action to us. It is necessary sometimes to go abroad, to quit our relations, and acquaintances, who are prejudiced in our favour, and to inform ourselves of the opinions of those who are more impartial on our conduct. I wish some people would often put this question, "Whom do men say that I am?" The answers they would receive would teach them to entertain less flattering, and more just notions of themselves. "Whom do men say that I am?" They say, you are haughty, and proud of your prosperity; that you use your influence only to oppress the weak; that your success is a public calamity; and that you are a tyrant whom every one abhors. Whom do men say that I am?" They say, you have a serpent's tongue, that "the poison of adders is under your lips;" Ps. cxl. 3, that you inflame a whole city, a whole province, by the scandalous tales you forge, and which, having forged, you industriously propagate; they say, you are infernally diligent in sowing discord between wife and husband, friend and friend, subject and prince, pastor and flock. "Whom do men say that I am?" They say you are a sordid, covetous wretch; that mammon is the God you adore; that, provided your coffers fill, it is a matter of indifference to you, whether it be by extortion, or by just acquisition, whether it be by a lawful inheritance, or by an accursed patrimony. who believe them. In this disposition Jesus Christ proposed the question in the text to his disciples. Benevolence directed all the steps of our Saviour, it dictated all his language, it animated all his emotions; and, when we are in doubt about the motive of any part of his conduct, we shall seldom run any hazard, if we attribute it to his benevolence. In our text he established the faith of his disciples by trying it. He did not want to be told the public opinions about himself, he knew them better than they of whom he inquired: but he required his disciples to relate people's opinions, that he might give them an antidote against the poison that was enveloped in them. The disciples answered: "Some say that Revenge may put the question, "Whom do thou art John the Baptist; some Elias; and men say that I am?" We cannot but know others Jeremias, or one of the prophets." They that some reports, which are spread about us, omitted those odious opinions, which were are disadvantageous to our reputation. We injurious to Jesus Christ, and refused to defile are afraid, justice should not be done to us, their mouths with the execrable blasphemies, we, therefore, wish to know our revilers, in which the malignity of the Jews uttered against order to mark them out for our vengeance. him. But with what shadow of appearance The inquiry in this disposition is certainly could it be thought that Jesus Christ was John blameable. Let us live uprightly, and let us the Baptist? You may find, in part, an answ^, give ourselves no trouble about what people to this question in the fourteenth chapte say of us. If there be some cases in which it this gospel, ver. 1-10. It is there said, tuat is useful to know the popular opinion, there Herod Antipas, called the Tetrarch, that is, are others in which it is best to be ignorant the king of the fourth part of his father's terof it. If religion forbids us to avenge our-ritories, beheaded John the Baptist at the selves, prudence requires us not to expose request of Herodias. ourselves to the temptation of doing it. A heathen has given us an illustrious example of this prudent conduct, which I am recommending to you: I speak of Pompey the Great. He had defeated Perpenna, and the traitor offered to deliver to him the papers of Sertorius, among which were letters from several of the most powerful men in Rome, who had promised to receive Sertorius into Italy, and to put all to death who should attempt to resist him. Pompey took all the papers, burnt all the letters, by that mean prevented all the bloody consequences which would have followed such fatal discoveries, and, along with them, sacrificed that passion, which many, who are called Christians, find the most difficult to sacrifice, I mean revenge. But this question, "Whom do men say that I am?" may be put by benevolence. The good of society requires each member to entertain just notions of some persons. A magistrate, who acts disinterestedly for the good of the state, and for the support of religion, would be often distressed in his government, if he were represented as a man devoted to his own interest, cruel in his measures, and governed by his own imperious tempers. A pastor, who knows and preaches the truth, who has the power of alarming hardened sinners, and of exciting the fear of hell in them, in order to prevent their falling into it, or, shall I rather say, in order to draw them out of it: such a pastor will discharge the duties of his office with incomparably more success, if the people do him justice, than if they accuse him of fomenting errors, and of loving to surround his pulpit with " devouring fire and everlasting burnings;" Isa. xxxiii. 14. Benevolence may incline such persons to inquire what is said of them, in order to rectify mistakes, which may be very injurious to those Every body knows the cause of the hatred of that fury against the holy man. John the Baptist held an opinion, which now-a-days passes for an error injurious to the peace of society, that is, that the high rank of those who are guilty of some scandalous vices, ought not to shelter them from the censures of the ministers of the living God; and that they who commit, and not they who reprove such crimes, are responsible for all the disorders which such censures may produce in society. A bad courtier, but a good servant of him, who had sent him to "prepare the way of the Lord, and to make his paths straight," Luke iii. 4, he told the incestuous Herod, without equivocating, "It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother Philip's wife," Matt. xiv. 4; Herodias could not plead her cause with equity, and therefore she pleaded it with cruelty. Her daughter Salome had pleased Herod at a feast, which was made in the castle of Macheron, on the birth-day of the king. He showed the same indulgence to her, that Flaminius the Roman showed to a court lady, who had requested that consul to gratify her curiosity with the sight of beheading a man. An indulgence, certainly less shocking in a heathen, than in a prince educated in the knowledge of the true God. It was a common opinion among the Jews that the resurrection of the martyrs was anticipated. Many thought all the prophets were to be raised from the dead at the coming of the Messiah, and some had spread a report, which reached Herod, that John the Baptist enjoyed that privilege. The same reasons, which persuaded some Jews to believe that he, whom they called Jesus, was John the Baptist risen from the dead, persuaded others to believe, that he was some "one of the prophets," who, like John, had been put to a violent death, for having spoken with a similar courage against the reigning vices of the times in which they lived. This was particularly the case of Jeremiah. When this prophet was only fourteen years of age, and, as he said of himself, when he could not speak, because he was a child, Jer. i. 6, he delivered himself with a freedom of speech that is hardly allowable in those who are grown gray in a long discharge of the ministerial office. He censured, without distinction of rank or character, the vices of all the Jews, and having executed this painful function from the reign of Josiah to the reign of Zedekiah, he was, if we believe a tradition of the Jews, which Tertullian, St. Jerome, and many fathers of the church have preserved, stoned to death at Tahapanes in Egypt, by his countrymen: there he fell a victim to their rage against his predictions. The fact is not certain; however, it is admitted by many Christians, who have pretended that St. Paul had the prophet Jeremiah particularly in view, when he proposed, as examples to Christians, some who "were stoned," Heb. xi. 37, whom he places among the "cloud of witnesses." However uncertain this history of the prophet's lapidation may be, some Jews believed it, and it was sufficient to persuade them that Jesus Christ was Jeremiah. of Israel come? Are the prophecies accomplished? Is the Son of God among us, and has he brought with him peace, grace, and glory? What kind of beings were the Jews, who left these great questions undetermined, and lived without elucidating them? Are you surprised at these things, my brethren? your indolence on questions of the same kind is equally astonishing to considerate men. The Jews had business, they must have neglected it; they loved pleasures and amusements, they must have suspended them; they were stricken with whatever concerned the present life, and they must have sought after the life to come, they must have shaken off that idleness in which they spent their lives, and have taken up the cross and followed Jesus Christ. These were the causes of that indolence which surprises you, and these were the causes of that ignorance which concealed Jesus Christ from them, till he made himself known to them by the just, though bloody calamities, which he inflicted on their nation. And these are also the causes of that ignorance, in which the greater part of you are involved, in regard to many questions as important as those which were agitated then. Will a few acts of faith in God, and of love to him, assure us of our salvation, or must these acts be continued, repeated, and established? Does faith consist in barely believing the merit of the Saviour, or does it include an entire obedience to his laws? Is the fortune, that I enjoy with so much pleasure, display with so much parade, or hide with so much niggardliness, really mine, or does it belong to my country, to my customers, to the poor, or to any others, whom my ancestors have deceived, from whom they have obtained, and from whom I withhold it? Does my course of life lead to heaven or to hell? Shall I be As Elias was translated to heaven without dying, the opinions, of which we have been speaking, were not sufficient to persuade other Jews that Jesus Christ was Elias; but a mistaken passage of Malachi was the ground of this notion. It is the passage which concludes the writings of that prophet; "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord," Mal., iii. 5. This prophecy was perfectly plain to the disciples of Jesus Christ, for in him, and in John the Baptist they saw its accomplish-numbered with "the spirits of just men made ment. But the Jews understood it literally. They understand it so still, and, next to the coming of the Messiah, that of Elias is the grand object of their hopes. It is Elias, according to them, who will "turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers," ver. 6. It is Elias who will prepare the ways of the Messiah, will be his forerunner, and will anoint him with holy oil. It is Elias, who will answer all questions, and solve all difficulties. It is Elias, who will obtain by his prayers the resurrection of the just. It is Elias, who will do for the dispersed Jews what Moses did for the Israelites enslaved in Egypt; he will march at their head, and conduct them to Canaan. All these expressions are taken from the Rabbins, whose names I omit, as well as the titles of the books from which I have quoted the passages now mentioned. Such were the various opinions of the Jews about Jesus Christ; and each continued in his own prejudice without giving himself any farther trouble about it. But how could they remain in a state of tranquillity, while questions of such importance remained in dispute? All their religion, all their hopes, and all their happiness, depended on the solution of this problem: who is the man about whom the opinions of mankind are so divided? The questions, strictly speaking, were these: is the Redeemer perfect," Heb. xii. 23, after I have finished my short life, or shall I be plunged with devils into eternal flames? My God! how is it possible for men quietly to eat, drink, sleep, and, as they call it, amuse themselves, while these important questions remain unanswered! But, as I said of the Jews, we must neglect our business; suspend our pleasures; cease to be dazzled with the present, and employ ourselves about the future world: perhaps also we must make a sacrifice of some darling passion, abjure some old opinion; or restore some acquisition, which is dearer to us than the truths of religion, and the salvation of our souls. Wo be to us! Let us no more reproach the Jews; the causes of their indolence are the causes of ours. Ah! let us take care, lest, like them, we continue in ignorance, till the vengeance of God command death, and devils, and hell, to awake us with them "to everlasting shame," Dan. xii. 2. Jesus Christ, having heard from the mouths of his apostles what people thought of him, desired also to hear from their own mouths (we have assigned the reasons before) what they themselves thought of him. "He saith unto them, but whom say ye that I am?" Peter instantly replied for himself, and for the whole apostolical college, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." St. Peter was a man of great vivacity, and |