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whose heart the love of a crucified Saviour has been shed abroad by the Holy Ghost, when you look forward to that glory, to purchase which for you, the Son of God laid aside the glories of the Godhead, and stooped to the humiliation of Bethlehem's manger; when the remembrance rises before you of the unutterable agony which, in His love for you, He endured in Gethsemane's garden, and on Calvary's cross, would you not rather be an instrument in the hands of the Almighty, to bring one perishing sinner to the knowledge of the only Saviour, than have the riches, the pleasures, and the honours of ten thousand worlds lavished at your feet. Oh, yes, I know you would. Behold, then, the most effectual means in your power of gratifying this generous, this grateful, this God-like ambition of winning souls to Christ. There is a powerful efficacy in the silent eloquence of a holy life, exhibiting the attractive loveliness of the Saviour's character, which preaches to the heart in a language that even the children of this world, amid all their spiritual ignorance, can in some measure understand, and are constrained to reverence, even while they affect to despise, or dare to condemn. They cannot, it is true; go up with you to the holy mount of sacred meditation, where you hold high converse and

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secret communion with your God; but they can see the reflected lustre which you have caught from the light of His countenance, and which should still be seen beaming round your character when you return to the world; and this light shining before men, may constrain them "to take knowledge of you that you have been with Jesus," and lead them to glorify your Father which is in heaven; and so may you cheer yourself amid all your toils, and comfort yourself amid all your sorrows, by the tranquillizing elevating hope, that when He who came the first time to our earth in great humility, shall come again in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory, you shall receive from Him that unspeakably rapturous welcome, "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord;" and shall sit down with Him on His throne in that kingdom, "where they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness, as the stars for ever and ever."

49

SERMON III.

Numbers xvi. 48.

AND HE STOOD BETWEEN THE DEAD AND THE LIVING, AND THE PLAGUE WAS STAYED."

It is a subject perhaps not sufficiently considered, that the whole word of God, containing such a variety of matter, is written not only for general information, but individual instruction; and each part, whether history, prophecy, precepts, or doctrines, are all fit subjects for the Christian ministry-" All profitable," when rightly set forth, "for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and instruction in righteousness."

The history of Israel, if considered as a mere correct relation of historical truth, though it may afford information to the curious, can never be individually useful; but if taken as an unerring representation of human nature— as a complete delineation of the human heart -its obstinacy, blindness, sin, and folly, shewing itself under various and changing circumstances-it becomes then the mirror in which Second Series.

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we may view ourselves in true colours ; in which we may indeed, as in a glass, behold our real state and character.

It cannot be supposed that the people whom the Lord God chose for himself to be his own peculiar people, and to put his name amongst, were worse, although undoubtedly they were no better, than their brethren of mankind; and it is equally certain, that the same number of persons, chosen out of any other nation or country, and proved in the same manner, would have exhibited, if left to the folly of their own hearts, just as melancholy a picture of guilt and depravity. This is a point little considered, and, I fear, greatly misunderstood. Many persons, when reading the history of gainsaying and rebellious Israel, are apt to conclude that they were a people altogether peculiar in wickedness, and unparalleled in ingratitude. When they read of their repeated provocations of the Most High-their desire to shake off his authority, though that authority had been still exercised for their deliverance and preservation-their continued relapses into idolatry, and their perpetual disobedience towards Moses, their great lawgiver and ruler, appointed by God himself, and honoured before them as never mortal man was honoured, (being permitted to have free and constant intercourse

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