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[SERM. little they fignified: Ifa. i. 11. To what Purpose is the Multitude of your Sacrifices unto me? faith the Lord: I am full of the Burnt-offerings of Rams, and the Fat of fed Beafts, and I delight not in the Blood of Bullocks, or of Lambs, or of He-goats. And to these Sacrifices, are added the other ceremonial Parts of their Religion, and all are equally rejected, when feparate from Holiness of Heart and Life. The new Moons and Sabbaths, the calling of Affemblies, I cannot away with, it is Iniquity, even the folemn Meeting. Your new Moons, and your appointed Feafts, my Soul bateth; they are a Trouble unto me, I am weary to bear them, ver. 13. And all this was because of their Immoralities, their Hands were full of Blood. And in order to their purifying, instead of Sacrifices and Ceremonies, they are exhorted to Amendment of Life: Ver. 16. Wash you, make you clean, put away the Evil of your Doings from before mine Eyes, ceafe to do evil, learn to do well, feek Judgment, relieve the Oppreffed, judge the Fatherless, plead for the Widow; and upon thefe Terms they are promised Pardon of Sin; Come now and let us reafon together, faith the Lord; though your Sins be as Scarlet, they shall be as white as Snow; though they be red like Crimson, they fhall be as Wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the Good of the Land; but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the Sword: for the Mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. There is a great Number of Paffages in the Prophets to the fame Purpose. I shall quote but one more; and it is, I think, a very remarkable one, both to fhew that no costly Services or Sacrifices would have been stuck at,

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and that nothing would be accepted without Obedience to the moral Precepts: It is Mic. vi. 6. Wherewith fhall I come before the Lord, and bow myfelf before the high God? Shall I come before him with Burnt-offerings, with Calves of a Year old? will the Lord be pleafed with Thousands of Rams, or with Ten Thousands of Rivers of Oil? Shall I give my Firft-born for my Tranfgreffion, the Fruit of my Body for the Sin of my Soul? The Answer to all thefe extravagant Inventions is this: He hath fhewed thee, O Man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love Mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? Our Saviour and his Apoftles go on in the fame Strain: Think not that I am come to deftroy the Law or the Prophets: I am not come to deftroy, but to fulfill, fays our Saviour. And I think it is very plain, that this whole Sermon on the Mount has made this Text good: being all an Improvement of the Moral Law, and a carrying it to higher Perfection than the Scribes and Pharifees, the best Jewish Doctors, carried it. Our Saviour affured all of his Friendship that kept his Commandments; and that he would look upon them that did the Will of his Father in Heaven, as his Mother, and Sifter, and Brother. And the Apostles defpife all the Jewish Privileges in Comparison of Faith which worketh by Love, or, as they exprefs it elsewhere, in Comparifon of a new Creature. And this is the chief Mark they give of a Man's being a good Chriftian; If any Man be in Chrift, he is a new Creature: old Things are past away, behold, all Things are become new, 2 Cor. v. 17. The Dispensations,

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and Penances, and Maffes for the Dead, in the Church of Rome, and all Inventions of any Church whatsoever, to spend their Zeal for or against any Things of an inferior Nature, without Obedience to the Gospel Precepts, is all to no Purpofe; this is the main Fundamental we ought to fecure, fincere Obedience to the Laws of Christ.

2. Inconfideration is not more fatal, in any Thing, than in building our Hopes of Salvation without taking a Profpect of, and preparing for Trials and Perfecutions. There was no Part of Christian Morals for which our Saviour took better Care to arm his Disciples, than for the Cross, he taught them all to expect it, and fortified them with the great Duty of Self-denial, and gave them a noble Pattern in his own Sufferings, with what Patience and Conftancy of Mind they were to undergo all fuch Trials for God and their Duty. And it must needs argue a very great Stupidity, that being fo carefully forewarned of thefe Trials, we do not lay in for them, and prepare ourselves accordingly.

3. In Confequence of this Inconfideration, as in the foolish Builder, there appeared a most egregious Piece of Folly, in laying out his Money, and Trouble, and Pains, all to no manner of Purpose; fo in this foolish fpiritual Builder, who never fet about the Severity of Duty, the greatest Folly and Imprudence appeared in laying out his Time and Talents upon what stood him in no ftead in a Day of Trial, especially in the Trial of the great Day of Judgment. We think it an Argument of great Folly in any Man, to have spent his Eftate on an idle Project,

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which turns to nó manner of Account; fuch will be found the Folly of all fuch Projectors in Religion, who think to gain Heaven by their Knowledge, or Faith, or high Profeffion, or Zeal for the ceremonial Part, or any Thing else feparate from fincere Obedience to the Christian. Precepts. And this leads me to the Third and laft Thing I observed in the Words.

III. The Unfuccefsfulness of this foolish Builder: The Rain defcended, and the Floods came, and the Winds blew, and beat upon his Houfe; and it fell, and great was the Fall of it. By this Part of the Similitude, our Saviour foretels the fad Fate of fuch nominal, formal, and hypocritical Chriftians, who build their Hopes of Salvation upon fuch fandy Foundations. In this Part of the Text, we may briefly obferve these three Things :

1. The great Temptations and Trials which in our Chriftian Course we may expect to be expofed to, fignified here by the Rain defcending, the Floods coming, and the Winds blowing, and beating upon the House.

2. That that Chriftian who builds upon a bad Foundation, will not be able to hold out in a Day of Trial. His Houfe fhall fall; i. e. all his Profeffion and Hopes fhall come to nothing.

3. The Greatnefs and Irretrievableness of that Fall; intimating that there will be no Recovery of it: And great is the Fall of it.

But I need not infift particularly on these Heads, there being little or no Difficulty in them; it was fairly and freely done in our SaviVOL. IV.

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[SERM. our, to forewarn his Hearers of the Trials they were to undergo; and of the Deceitfulness and Fallacy of all their Expectations in his Service, if they did not firft take Care to amend their Lives according to the Doctrine he had delivered them: That unless they defigned that, they fhould never be able to hold out against the many Troubles and Perfecutions to which they should be expofed; and if after they had taken upon them the Chriftian Profeffion, they should then fall away, it would be a moft ruinous Downfal to themselves, and most dangerous to their FellowChriftians for the bad Example of it, and exceeding fcandalous to the World.

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And therefore the natural Conclufion of all is this, that if they intended to become his Difciples, they muft firft, by a diligent practifing upon his Precepts, learn the Habits of all Chriftian Virtue, which in this Sermon he had plainly taught, that fo they might be prepared for undergoing cheerfully thofe great Trials which were to attend the Chriftian Profeffion, for that through many Tribulations they were to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven: And that if any of them was not willing to go by this Way of his Precepts, but thought to be Chriftians at a cheaper Rate, by indulging themselves in their finful Courfes, they would only egregiously deceive themselves, and had better never take on with him at all, than after a fruitlefs Profeffion, to lofe all their Labour, and end shamefully and fcandaloufly in Ruin and Destruction.

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