SERM. VII. Upon the Character of Ba- NUM B. xxiii. 10. SERM. VIII. IX. Upon Resentment, Te have heard that it hath been faid, Thou fhalt love thy Neighbour, and hate thine Enemy: But I fay unto you, Love your Enemies, bless them that curfe you, do good to them that hate you, and pray fort hem which difpitefully use you and 137, ISS And if there be any other Commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this Saying, out the Work that is done under the Sun: Because though a Man labour to feek it out, yet he shall not find it; yea fur- SER M- SERMON I Upon Humane Nature. RO M. xii. 4, S. For as we have many Members in one Body, and all Members have not the fame Office: So we being many are one Body in Chrift, and every one Members one of another. T HE Epiftles in the New Serm. I. Teftament have all of them a particular Reference to the Condition and Ufages of the Chriftian World at the Time they were written. Therefore as they cannot be thoroughly understood, unless that Condition and thofe Ufages are known and attended to: Serm. I. fo further, though they be known, yet if they be discontinued or changed; Exhortations, Precepts, and Illuftrations of things, which refer to fuch Circumftances now ceafed or altered, cannot at this Time be urged in that Manner, and with that Force which they were to the Primitive Chriftians. Thus the Text now before us, in its first Intent and Defign, relates to the decent Management of those extraordinary Gifts which were then in the Church *, but which are now totally ceased. And even as to the Allufion that we are one Body in Chrift, though what the Apostle here intends is equally true of Chriftians in all Circumstances, and the Confideration of it is plainly ftill an additional Motive over and above moral Confiderations, to the Discharge of the feveral Duties and Offices of a Christian: Yet it is manifest this Allusion must have peared with much greater Force to those, who by the many Difficulties they went through for the fake of their Religion, were led to keep always in View the Relation they stood in to their Saviour, who had undergone the fame; to those, who from the Idola * 1 Cor. xii. ap tries |