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palpable sin: while the indifferent to religion and virtue will make it their boast, that we aim to be as like them as for shame we can; and will blaspheme, on our account, the worthy name, by which we are called*.

Possibly so many cautions against fondness for pleasure may seem to leave those who regard them, in a very joyless and uneasy condition. But indeed they are only plain and very practicable rules for that discipline of our temper and conduct, which is necessary for our true happiness even here, and for our eternal felicity hereafter. Christian piety allows us, under such regulations as are evidently reasonable, every enjoyment of sense, every delight of elegant taste, every exertion of social cheerfulness; and forbids nothing, but mischief, madness, and misery. Then besides, it heightens to the utmost all the nobler satisfactions of the mind: that of sincere good will to all men; that of tender complacency in those, to whom we are united more nearly: whence proceed honourable esteem, and affectionate returns. Or, though we miss the regard we deserve from men, we shall have a reviving consciousness, that we have acted worthily, that we have laboured to promote goodness and happiness on earth, that the sins and sufferings of our fellow-creatures are not owing to us. This applauding testimony of our hearts will indeed be mixed with the grief of many failings: but also, with the assurance, that our heavenly Father forgives them, for the sake of our gracious Redeemer; with the experience, that he is enabling us to overcome them, by the grace of our inward sanctifier, and preparing us daily for the blessedness, to which he invites us. For such mercies we cannot but love him:

* James ii. 7.

and whoever doth so, is in proportion beloved by him. The sense of this must give us great composure about every thing worldly, disdain of every thing vicious, and comfort in going through the very lowest and hardest acts of duty. We shall pass the days of our pilgrimage in as much delight as the nature of it affords and when we come to our final abode, every capacity of spiritual enjoyment, to which we have improved ourselves here, shall be inconceivably augmented, and completely filled: we shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of God's house, and drink of the river of his pleasures*. For in his presence is the fullness of joy, and at his right-hand there are pleasures for evermore†.

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SERMON VI.

HEB. XII. 2.

Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our Faith: who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right-hand of the throne of God.

DIRECTING our eye is necessary for guiding our steps; and therefore the Apostle here directs the eye of our mind to Jesus Christ: whom if we so contemplate, as to learn what he was, and expects us to be, nothing will be wanting to carry us happily through the journey of life. And it may be useful to begin with considering his familiar manifestation of himself on earth, whence we shall naturally be led to consider his higher and more awful glories.

Now in this lowest view, we shall find him to have been the most amiable and the most venerable person, beyond all comparison, that the world ever knew. Meditate only with serious attention on the evidently artless account given of him in the Gospels, and you will see, with an admiration continually increasing, how perfect his character was in every point: how warm his sentiments, yet how just his notions, of piety to his heavenly Father; how strong and affectionate his expressions of it; yet how rational, and how peculiarly suitable to his very peculiar situation: how composed his resignation, though with the acutest feeling of all that he underwent; and how firm his trust in God even at the hour of death, under

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the most painful sense of the light of his countenance being withdrawn from him: how regular his practice of the whole of religion, yet how accurate his preference of one part of it to another: how active and bold and persevering his zeal; yet how completely free from all the weakness, and all the bitterness, with which zeal is too often accompanied; how intimately tempered with patience towards the slow of apprehension; esteem for the well meaning though erroneous; pity for the bad, though perverse and incorrigible: what perpetual demonstrations he gave, of benevolence and purity in his teaching, of goodness and condescension, meekness and tenderness, in his behaviour, to all persons, however provoking, on all occasions, however trying: yet goodness judiciously exercised, condescension with dignity, meekness with due severity against sin, tenderness without partiality, or improper compliances, to the nearest of his kindred, or the dearest of his disciples: how compassionate a love he shewed to his country; yet how unlimited a good will to all the world: how remote he was from self-indulgence, yet how far from encouraging useless rigour and austerity; how diligently he turned the thoughts of the multitude, from empty admiration of his discourses or his works, to the conscientious performance of their own duties; declined the most favourable opportunities of rising to worldly power, and inculcated on his followers the strongest warnings of what he and they were to suffer: with what plainness he reproved both the people and their rulers, yet with what care he secured the respect owing from the former to the latter: with what simplicity and upright prudence he answered the objections and captious questions levelled against him, however suddenly attacked by them; and, though in

so public a life tried every way continually, never once was overcome, never once disconcerted: how surprisingly he avoided all the artifices and all the violence of his enemies, as long as he chose it; and how much superior, not only to them, but, if possible, even to himself, he appeared, after he had put himself into their hands, during the whole of their barbarous and despiteful treatment. Nor can it fail to be observed, as a most important circumstance, that all his wonderful perfections were evidently natural to him, and sat absolutely easy upon him, without the least variation or inequality, or effort exerted to raise himself up to, or support, the highest excellence that he ever displayed. In short, the character of Jesus Christ, like the frame of God's creation, the more deeply it is studied, the more respectfully it will be admired. Some small particulars in each, yet much fewer than superficial observes imagine, it may be easier to cavil at, than to account for distinctly but look at the whole of either, and to every eye that is capable of taking in a whole, it will approve itself uniformly great and good.

Now that he, of whom these things are recorded, was a real man, and not a phantom of the imagination, infidelity itself hath never denied. And that he was truly the excellent man, that the gospels describe him to have been, we have the testimony of numbers that knew him, of more who conversed with those that knew him; who all asserted it in the strongest terms, and suffered every thing terrible for so doing. Their enemies were never able to disprove them: if they had, Christianity must have sunk: and indeed some of the most considerable of their enemies, in all ages, have owned them to be so far in the right. But if still it be pretended, that his portrait was drawn

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