The Prayer before Sermon. INFINITELY great, gracious, and glorious Lord God, who in Compaffion to Mankind haft caufed the Holy Scriptures to be. written for our Learning and Instruction; grant to us thy Divine Spirit to enlighten our Minds, that we may understand thy Word aright. Enable us to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digeft it, that by Patience, and the Comfort thereof, we may embrace, and ever hold fast the bleffed Hope of everlasting Life. To this important End, accompany with thy Bleffing what is about to be delivered. Remove groundless Prejudices; banish from our Minds every Unchriftian Thought; awaken every secure and careless Sinner; soften every hard and obdurate Heart; comfort the Mourners in Zion; relieve the Afflicted; ease the Pained; fuccour the Tempted; fupply the Neceffitous; be a Father to the Fatherlefs, an Husband to the Widow, and a Friend to the Diftreffed. Thefe undeferved Mercies we ask in the Name, and for the Sake, of Jefus Chrift, the great Redeemer; in whose comprehenfive Form of Words we fum up all our Petitions; Our Father &c. MEN and BRETHREN, Being called upon to preach you before you this Morning, I fhall not amuse for Half an Hour with curious and vain Speculations, but with Matters of infinite and universal Concern. It fhall be our Endeavor to speak in a plain, popular, practical Manner; and to advance only fuch Truths as are worthy of a wife Man's Ear and Attention. To your candid and unbiaffed Judgments therefore, O Chriftians, we make our Appeal. ROM. i. 16. For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Chrift: For it is the Power of God unto Salvation, to every one that believeth. HE BIBLE is a Book of fuch vaft Impor THE tance, that I would omit no proper Opportunity of recommending it to your serious Perufal and Regard. Loofe, profane, cavelling Witlings indeed, will harangue for Hours, among B mong their Companions, against the monstrous Abfurdities, the palpable Contradictions, the horrid Cruelties, and the incoherent Jargon, therein afcribed to the God of Order and Perfection. They fet the Bible at Defiance; and cry up Reason and Natural-Religion, as alone fufficient, to guide our Feet into the Way of Peace, Truth, and Happiness. But methinks, before we draw fuch poffitive and important Conclufions from Theoretical Reasoning upon the Strength or Weakness of the natural Powers of Man; we fhould do well to confider, what was the antient, and what is the modern State of those Nations, where the Gofpel never fhone. They have lived under the Conduct of unaffifted Reason (improved indeed by fome small Remains of traditionary Revelation) for the Space of near 4000 Years. During this long Period, they have had Time enough, one would imagine, to make a thorough Experiment, whether Reafon alone is fufficient to guide Mankind into the Knowledge of Truth and Duty. Let curious Theorists conclude as Pride and Self-Importance fhall dictate, the Matter Matter of Fact is well known and incontrovertable, That they were loft and bewildered in endless Mazes. "Even their Philofophers per petually disagreed, oppofed, and contradicted one another in all their Difputations to fuch a Degree, that Varro reckons up no less than 280 pinions concerning that one Question, What was the Chief Good, or Final Happiness of Man". Socrates himself, one of the wifeft, and perhaps one of the very best Men the Heathen World ever produced, after all his anxious Enquiries, wavered in his Belief, Whether the World was governed by One, or by a Variety of Beings. "He was not afhamed openly to confefs his Senfe of the Want of a Divine Revelation. He declares it as his Judgment, that it was most natural and truly agreeable to right and found Reason, to hope for Something of that Nature". Take his own Words: "It seems best to me, faith Socrates to one of «bis Disciples, that we hope quietly; nay, 'tis abfolutely neceffary that we wait with Pati"ence, till fuch Time as we can learn certainly “how we ought to behave our felves both to |