a fatal art, which some men have found out, and daily practise by strength of liquor, a round of company, a hurry of business, and so on. When Cain, the first murderer, was first called to account for his brother's blood, and told, "Thou art cursed from the earth, a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be," he said, "My punishment is greater than I can bear:" it should seem, his sense of guilt must shorten his life. No, he went out, took a wife, builded a city, called it after the name of his son, Enoch, and in these employments got rid of a horror which otherwise must have shortened his days. It is at the peril of bad men to be idle, it is the high road to melancholy or madness. There are, however, times in which guilt will rise like a ghost, and haunt every sinner; and there is no real relief except in the path struck out in the Gospel. Though comfort may come slowly, it is sure to come that road according to the express appointment of the God of the spirits of all flesh, who hath said, "Though the vision tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come, at the end it shall speak and not lie;" it saith, "The just shall live by faith, but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him."

Consider death. How different is the dying of a good man from the dying of the wicked! The latter is against his will "driven away in his wickedness:" the former placid and happy, at peace with God and with all mankind," hath hope in his death." What makes the difference? It is not the room in which or the bed on which he dies. It is not the property he hath acquired, or the rank he hath occupied among his fellow-creatures. It is his character, his true and real character, his moral or immoral state, which now is just finished, and therefore may now be judged. This makes all the difference, and it is impossible to make any thing supply the place of goodness. Now the understanding recovers its discernment of right and wrong now the memory faithfully records the whole history of life: now the conscience rises from the meanness of a slave to the majesty of a judge: now the heart meditates terror, and feels the approach of an Almighty Judge: now the

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whole world retires, and something within saith, “ One thing thou lackest," while every thing without, saith, "Behold, the Judge standeth before the door." A man must be wilfully blind, not to foresee this; and desperately wicked, if he doth foresee it, not to provide for it, especially as the provision is set before him as a present from his God. One may very well say in this case what was said in another, "My father, if the prophet had bid thee do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it? How much rather then, when he saith to thee, Wash and be clean ?"

Can any man say, I hope to prosper, I expect also to suffer, I sometimes blame my conduct, and have a sense of guilt, and as surely as I stand here to day, so surely must I die, and pass from death to judgment, and from thence to a state either happy or miserable forever: but I will venture all these, and run all hazards rather than receive the Gospel for a rule of my faith and practice. It may be good for others for any thing I know: but it is not, it never can be good for me. I ask, can any man say this, and be reckoned a reasonable creature? Methinks I hear you say, God forbid we should "refuse him that speaketh! for if they escape not who refused Moses that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven. Let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire." May the Lord cherish these good resolutions in your hearts! My prayer for you shall be, "Oh Lord God, who triest the heart and hast pleasure in uprightness, keep this for ever in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of thy people, and prepare their hearts unto thee!" Amen.

DISCOURSE V.

JESUS CHRIST THE PRINCIPAL PERSON MENTIONED IN SCRIPTURE.

[AT FULBOURNE.]

BEFORE I read my text, give me leave, brethren, to open my heart to you. As I was coming hither this evening, and meditating on my text, I thought, Suppose, instead of going alone into the assembly this evening, as I shall, suppose it were possible for me to have the honour of leading by the hand through this numerous congregation up to the frame on which I shall stand, the Lord Jesus Christ in his own person, "the first-born of every creature, the image of the invisible God." Suppose I should then open the twenty-second chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew, and with a clear, distinct voice summon each of my hearers to give me an answer to the questions contained in the forty-second verse, which are these:

What think ye of Christ? Whose son is he?

Affection for you set me a thinking further on such answers as the most strict attention to truth would compel you to give. I thought, Suppose one should say, I never thought about Christ, and I never intend to think about him; suppose a second should say, I have thought of him, and I despise him, because he is not " a minister of sin ;" and suppose a third should say, I hate him, and, as it is not in my power to persecute him, I express my hatred of him by ridiculing and tormenting all who respect and resemble him. My brethren, it is not for

me to pretend to know your hearts, or to pronounce any thing certain; but the bare apprehension of such dispositions excited in me, as it must in every one who loves his neighbour as himself, a thousand suspicions and fears.

Dreading such answers as these, I thought again, What if I should bend my knee to the insulted friend of sinners, and humbly ask, O Son of David! what think you of these people? Whose children are they? Alas! I thought I saw him looking round about on you with anger, being grieved for the hardness of your hearts; then turning about, melting with compassion, going down the steps, walking slowly out of the assembly, and all the way weeping, and saying, "O that thou hadst known, even thou, the most inveterate of the congregation, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace; but now, but now they are hid from thine eyes."

Alas! thought I, suppose this inveterate enemy of Christ should recover his reason after he is in bed tonight, what sort of a night's rest would he have? Ah! miserable man! I see you start out of your sleep, as if a thunderclap woke you, with the last words of Jesus sounding in your ears, "But now they are hid from thine eyes!" and "This night thy soul shall be required of thee." Alas! disobedient Jonah! where are you now? "Waves and billows pass over you, and the earth with her bars is about you forever." Is this unjust? Why should you have any more opportunities of rejecting mercy, and insulting your only friend? What hath all your life been but ruin to yourself, and a cruel snare to others? No, you "would none of my counsel, and despised all my reproof;" now, you may " call, but I will not answer; ❝ seek me, you may but you shall not find me; yea I will laugh at your calamity, and mock when the whirlwind of distress and anguish cometh upon you."

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Jesus Christ could have done all this, this day month, when you set at nought all his counsel before, for all power is given unto him in heaven and in earth; but see what a merciful use he makes of his dominion over

you! He pities your condition, loves you better than you love yourself, and proposes the questions in the text, with a design to prepare you to meet his messenger, Death," the king of terrors."

Christians, hear this, and know it for your good. "The king of terrors," Death, large as the space which he occupies in Scripture is, Death is not the principal king mentioned in Scripture; there is a king mightier than he, a "King of kings, and Lord of lords," who "must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet," the last enemy, death, not excepted, and so bring to pass the saying of a prophet, "Death is swallowed up in victory." This is the delightful subject which I am going this evening to teach, for to this end come proper answers to the questions proposed by our Saviour in the text, "What think ye of Christ? Whose son is he?" You know, we hold it a just and sacred law of preaching from Scripture, from which we never allow ourselves on any consideration to depart, to give the literal and true sense of the writer, and never to warp the word of God from its own meaning. However, when the sense and scope of a passage is easy, and not perplexed by popular errors, we do not think it always necessary to speak of the context, that is, the words before and after a text. Sometimes we take the general truth, on which a particular text is founded, and at other times one out of many truths contained in it, and provided we establish the literal and true. sense of Scripture, nothing of this kind is improper, and the public edification must be our guide. The text before us is a particular question leading to a general truth; for by inquiring what family Christ was of, we shall find he was a descendant of David, and that his ancestor David, though himself a king, and an inspired prophet, thought his son Christ a greater person than himself, and "called him Lord." If we pursue the subject further, and examine the reasons which induced David to give him the preference, we shall be convinced that the same reasons, which prove him a person of more dignity and worth than David, prove him also superior to all the first characters among mankind. This was the declaration of an apostle, "The