If a Pagan Cato defied death, what cannot a Christian Cato do? If a disciple of Plato could pierce through the clouds, which hid futurity from him, what cannot a disciple of Jesus Christ do? If a few proofs, the dictates of unassisted reason, calmed the agitations of Cato; what cannot all the luminous proofs, all the glorious demonstrations do, which ascertain the evidence of another life? God grant we may know the truth by our own experiences! To him be honour and glory for ever. Amen.

SERMON II.

The Enemies and the Arms of Christianity.

PREACHED ON EASTER DAY.

EPHESIANS Vi. 11, 12, 13.

Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand.

IT is a very remarkable circumstance of the life of Jesus Christ, my brethren, that while he was performing the most public act of his devotedness to the will of God, and while God was giving the most glorious proofs of his approbation of him, Satan attacked him with his most violent assaults. Jesus Christ, having spent thirty years in meditation and retirement, preparatory to the important ministry for which he came into the world, had just entered on the functions of it. He had consecrated himself to God by baptism; the Holy Spirit had descended on him in a visible form; a heavenly voice had proclaim

ed in the air, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, Matt. iii. 17. and he was going to meditate forty days and nights on the engagements on which he had entered, and which he intended to fulfil. These circumstances, so proper, in all appearance, to prevent the approach of Satan, are precisely those, of which he availed himself to thwart the design of salvation, by endeavouring to produce rebellious sentiments in the Saviour's mind.

My brethren, the conduct of this wicked spirit to the author and finisher of our faith, Heb. xii. 2. is a pattern of his conduct to all them who fight under his banners. Never doth this enemy of our salvation more furiously attack us, than when we seem to be most sure of victory. You, my brethren, will experience his assaults as well as Jesus Christ did.Would to God, we could assure ourselves, that it would be glorious to you, as it was to the divine Redeemer! Providence unites to day the two festivals of Easter, and the Lord's supper. In keeping the first, we have celebrated the anniversary of an event, without which our preaching is vain, your faith is vain, and ye are yet in your sins, 1 Cor. xv. 14, 17. I mean the resurrection of the Saviour of the world. In celebrating the second, you have renewed your professions of fidelity to that Jesus, who was declared, with so much glory, to be the Son of God, by the resurrection from the dead, Rom. i. 4. It is precisely in these circumstances, that Satan renews his efforts to obscure the evidences of your faith, and to weaken your fidelity to Christ. In these circumstances also, we double our efforts to enable you to defeat his as

saults, in which, alas! many of us choose rather to yield than to conquer. The strengthening of you is our design; my dear brethren, assist us in it.

And thou, O great God, who callest us to fight with formidable enemies, leave us not to our own weakness: teach our hands to war, and our fingers to fight, Psal. cxlvi. 1. Cause us always to triumph in Christ, 2 Cor. ii. 14. Make us more than conquerors through him that loved us, Rom. viii. 37. Our enemies are thine: arise, O God, let thine enemies be scattered, let them that hate thee flee before thee! Amen. Psal. lxviii. 1.

All is metaphorical in the words of my text. St. Paul represents the temptations of a Christian under the image of a combat, particularly of a wrestling. In ordinary combats there is some proportion between the combatants; but in this, which engageth the Christian, there is no proportion at all. A Christian, who may be said to be, more properly than his Redeemer, despised and rejected of men, Isa. liii. 3. a man, who is the filth of the world, and the offscouring of all things, 1 Cor. iv. 13. is called to resist, not only flesh and blood, feeble men like himself; but men, before whom imagination prostrates itself; men, of whom the Holy Spirit says, Ye are gods, Psal. lxxxii. 6. that is, potentates and kings. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of

this world.

Moreover, a Christian, who, whatever degree of light and knowledge grace hath bestowed on him, whatever degree of steadiness and resolution he hath

acquired in Christianity, always continues a man, is called to resist a superior order of intelligences, whose power we cannot exactly tell, but who, the scripture assures us, can, in some circumstances, raise tempests, infect the air, and disorder all the elements; I mean devils. We wrestle against spiritual wicked

ness in high places.

As St. Paul represents the temptations of a Christian under the notion of a war, so he represents the dispositions, that are necessary to overcome them, under the idea of armour. In the words, which follow the text, he carries the metaphor further than the genius of our language will allow. He gives the Christian a military belt, and shoes, a helmet. a sword, a shield, a buckler, with which he resisteth all the fiery darts of the wicked. But I cannot discuss all these articles without diverting this exercise from its chief design. By laying aside the figurative language of the apostle, and by reducing the figures to truth, I reduce the temptations, with which the devil and his angels attack the Christian, to two general ideas. The first are sophisms, to seduce him from the evidence of truth; and the second are inducements, to make him desert the dominion of virtue. The Christian is able to overcome these two kinds of temptations. The Christian remains victorious after a war, which seems at first so very unequal. This is precisely the meaning of the text: We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual nickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God,