trary their religious sentiments to each other, and to his own.

IV.

If it be pleaded against our never being ashamed of Christ, but publicly bearing testimony to the truth, though to our loss and detriment, that all men are not called to bear witness to the truth as were his apostles; it is in some degree most true. Others have not the same dangerous and toilsome part assigned to them. We are not commissioned and sent forth to travel through the world friendless and alone, Providence only our guide, to awaken men out of sin and darkness, and bring them to truth and virtue.

But every one is called to bear his testimony in his place to what he is persuaded is the doctrine of Christ; to be honest and sincere, and never to act a dissembling part, especially in what immediately concerns God, and the honour due to him and his truth, whatever inconvenience or suffering he brings on himself by it.

In this we are confirmed by the example of God's most approved servants in all times. The three Hebrew captives might have been

in no danger of the burning fiery furnace, if they would have bowed down to the idol of gold at the command of the king Nebuchad

nezzar.

If Daniel had obeyed the royal decree, and refrained for thirty days from his open customary worship of Jehovah, the only living and true God, he had not been cast into the lions' den.,

Had the first christians, immediately after the apostles' days, of whom Pliny speaks in his letter to Trajan, and others after them, consented to swear by the fortunes of that emperor, and to make supplication to his image, they might have escaped the most inhuman tortures, and their lives have been preserved.

Or, to mention a more recent instance, had those ministers, in number little less than two thousand, who at the Restoration were turned out, many of them wholly destitute, into the wide world; had they only conformed to some things in the liturgy and service of the established church, which their consciences disapproved, they might have enjoyed their dignities and preferments, which they all in one day nobly gave up; and, by so doing, left a brave

inheritance and example of true piety and integrity to their posterity.

How are all these, and others like to them, our predecessors in the faith of Christ, now honoured and esteemed, who chose to obey God rather than men; and at the dear expense of worldly losses, sufferings, and death itself, bear their testimony to truths which they believed of the utmost consequence to present and everlasting happiness!

men's

V.

Our Lord's requisition of his followers, to confess him publicly, teaches us, that it is the duty of all men, who believe in him as the promised Messiah, and a teacher sent from God to bring mankind to eternal life, to own him as such; and let it be known that they are his disciples by such ways and methods as that all may understand it.

It is not sufficient to keep their faith and knowledge within their own minds; but they must be studious to hold forth the light to others, as well as to regulate their own life and conduct by it for, if this had not been done by some, the gospel would have nearly expired

with

with the apostles and first preachers of it; since it is by an open public profession that it has been kept up in the world.

This seems particularly required in times and places of great ignorance what is the true gospel of Christ, and where few are willing to bear their testimony.

It is also in an especial manner incumbent on those christians, who, from their general character, profession, or any other circumstance, are in high esteem for rare abilities, for nice discernment of evidence and superior learning, openly to confess Christ; because the world is wont to look up to them, and to be much swayed by their example. For, if they appear lukewarm or indifferent, they will be supposed to rank with unbelievers; by which means, as one strongly but justly remarks; "whether they attend to it or no, they become the seducers of mankind, and rocks of offence to the weak and ignorant, and load themselves with the guilt of other men's sins.'

VI.

An attendance on the stated christian worship of the great God and heavenly Father of all, after the example of Christ and the apo

stles,

stles, must appear to every thoughtful mind a fit and natural way and method of obeying this injunction of our Lord's, of openly testifying our regard for him.

For it is perhaps chiefly owing to this, as one of the special means of divine Providence, that the knowledge of Christ and his gospel has been preserved among men. For on this first day of the week, in memory of Christ being raised from the dead, and all our hopes in him confirmed by that event, from the time of the apostles to the present hour that we are met together, assemblies for social worship among christians have been held, wherever the reli gioh of the gospel hath been known.

'

And the reading of the divine scriptures, particularly of the memoirs of the life of Christ, and of the correspondence of his apostles with particular churches and persons, in the New Testament; and the lessons of piety and moral righteousness drawn from these writings, and enforced by the powerful motives of the gospel, which at first and since have generally made a principal part of the worship and service of the day ;-these must have mainly contributed to keep up and spread the knowledge of Christ and his teachings so