ness of Christ's human nature, all evil though his flesh be; and if ye would see the goodness to which this creation is to come, and be filled with the glory of its goodness, see, see, the glory to which Christ's fallen flesh came by the resurrection from the dead. The whole mystery of being able to love the good, consisteth in being able to apprehend that Christ was in sinful flesh, and yet not sinful: the whole mystery of being able to delight yourselves in the creation of God without sinning, is to see it living in the promise of a resurrection, and having in its womb the child of the resurrection. We love the mother for the child which the mother is to produce; into whose being the being of the mother shall pass; for, like Rachel, she shall die in giving birth. As the great hope of the world, the crucifixion of Christ, was an act of sorrow and an act of might, Benoni and Benjamin; so shall this sorrowful estate of the creature die, to give birth to that which shall be mighty and glorious and therefore we love and we pity the creature, who hath been brought into bondage not willingly, by seeing the glory to which it is destined, and the good which is actually in it, under the promise of the word of God. Therefore, meditate the incarnation of Christ, the death of Christ, the resurrection of Christ; which is the beginning and the ending, the first and the last of all God's works as a preparation for which, the world

was good in its creation state; as the ground and promise of which, the world is good in its fallen state in the consummation of which, at the resurrection of the saints, and the restitution of all things, and the coming of Christ, the great Redeemer, the great Physician, the great Inheritor, the great Christ and Lord, all shall be for ever and infallibly good.

This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come: for men shall be.........traitors.

THE word traitor, in common speech, hath come to be restricted in its application to one who is guilty of the crime of high treason-that is, the betrayal of his allegiance unto the king, and the taking of measures which make against the dignity and prerogative of the king. Of which crime, the essence consisteth in the breach of the allegiance and fealty to which every subject is bound. This, which is the highest and worst kind of treachery that can occur in human laws, hath, as is often the case, appropriated the word traitor to itself: which, in its proper and large sense, signifies one who gives forth unto another, or unto many, without consideration, that which was committed to himself in confidence and trust; a betrayer; a publisher of what is committed to his faithfulness; a giver abroad before he hath liberty to do so; a deliverer up of that which he ought not to surrender. It

is applied to Judas, because he delivered Christ by his information; and so it came to be applied, in the primitive church, to those who, in their zeal against the Christian religion, forgot all the ties of nature and of friendship and of hospitality, and informed against, and delivered up, their nearest of kin, and their dearest in affection, to the tribunals and prisons and deaths of the Pagan persecutors: as it is written, "The brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child; and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death." The like breakingup and contempt of the most sacred obligations, which it is the care of religion to bind faster and faster, by giving them Divine sanctions and a Divine end, we have seen accomplished by that infidel or liberal spirit which broke out in Papal Europe at the era of the French revolution; when it was thought the highest pitch of noble-mindedness, and the utmost attainment in morality, to go forward, and give forth into the hands of the public executioners every friend, and every relative-the nearer, the greater the honour, because, as they said, the greater the sacrifice-all, as their intoxicated reason taught them, for the advancement of the commonwealth, and for the good of human kind. It is this spirit, of setting at nought bonds, trusts, and confidences, however holy, under some false persuasion of virtue, and specious name of disinterestedness, which is de

clared in our text as being about to characterize the last times. And we have now, by the grace of God, to endeavour to shew you, that this form of the mystery of iniquity is even now working in the midst of us, and will speedily, if not prevented by the grace of God, manifest the same dissolution of all the ties and obligations of human life, under the pretence of liberality of principle and zeal for the common good. In doing which, I shall invert the order of my discourse; and shew, first of all, the form of the evil, as it now existeth; then expose the false view of duty and interest, from which it proceedeth; and, lastly, teach you how you may best be preserved holy and blameless in the midst of the common danger.

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Now, with respect to the existence of such a characteristic in the midst of us as the betrayal of those whom obligation of various kinds bindeth us to protect and preserve, I have no doubt whatever of being able to shew you the proofs of it in every quarter of society and life in doing which, I shall ascend from the lower unto the higher,arming myself at once with all charity, and with all faithfulness. I begin, then, with servants, to whom their master's property, and house, and honour are committed; and I boldly ask, if it is not a universal complaint that these trusts are neither felt nor performed as sacred, but set to a side, for ease, for convenience, for pleasure, for vice; yea, for a share of the plunder unto which they betray