Page images
PDF
EPUB

which thou hast given us by the holy Jesus thy servant, and our honoured Lord and Master!

And as it is thy command unto us by him, O Lord our God, that we should openly confess him before men, that thy name and goodness may be known to all others for their benefit, and that they may be partakers of thy great salvation, and come to eternal life;

Make us thankful for the unspeakable honour done unto us, in thus condescending to employ us in thy service, and to labour earnestly therein, lest we lose the opportunity of recommending ourselves to thee by contributing to the virtue and eternal good of others, which may never return.

And, forasmuch as we are beset with various temptations to draw us from this our great business, as the disciples of Christ, preserve us from all mean compliances with the guise and fashion of this world, in stifling thy truth for selfish purposes, and through a mean fear of men and their displeasure, lest we forfeit thy loving-kindness and favour, which nothing can repair.

Give us, therefore, we pray thee, the continual assistance of thy good spirit; that, by a life devoted to the obedience of thy laws,

and

and an attention to bring others to the knowledge of thee and thy truth, we may not live for ourselves only, but for others; and that when we leave these transitory scenes, as ere long we must, we may have the consolation of reflecting, that we have not misled any of our fellow-creatures, or drawn them to offend against thee to their ruin; but have been made instruments, through thy blessing, of bringing some to a better knowledge of thee, and to walk in the paths of piety and virtue : and that we, together with them, may be admitted to the participation of that pure and perfect bliss, which is thy promise to us by Christ our Lord! and may rejoice with all thy faithful servants over the dangers and difficulties of this our mortal probationary state.

Now unto Thee, O Father, &c.

November 14, 1784.

SERMON

SERMON X.

MATTHEW vii. 24-27.

Therefore, whosoever heareth these sayings of mine and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock : and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell not for it was founded upon a rock. And And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, and it fell; and great was the fall of it.

THIS is the winding up and conclusion of the longest of our Lord's discourses, replete with such excellent rules for the attainment of piety and virtue, and the highest felicity, as were never before delivered to mortal men.

VOL. II.

P

The

The audience was extraordinary; consisting of vast numbers who had seen his various miraculous cures, by a word's speaking, of the sick and diseased, the proof of his divine mission, and had attended to his heavenly preaching. For the historian acquaints us immediately before, that "Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness, and all manner of disease among the people. And his fame went throughout all Syria; and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with demons, and those which were lunatic, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them. And there followed him great multitudes of people, from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judea, and from beyond Jordan."

Retiring, therefore, to a place apart from noise and disturbance, he sat down upon an eminence, and addressed himself to them with great solemnity, and a dignity becoming one invested with such high authority from God; "Blessed are the poor in spirit," and so on. He thus begins with laying before them the

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »