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crucify an innocent perfon! if thou must oblige the chief priests, would it not be enough "to fcourge him and let him go?" Happy would it have been for thee, had thy con Icience, which acknowleged him righteous, enforced by thy wife's admonition, "Have "thou nothing to do with that just man,” fuggefted to thee to oppofe with boldness their clamors, and "to judge righteous judgment !" But, instead of yielding to her fuggeftions, he did not even reftrain the infults of licentious fury; "they fpit on him, covered his face, "buffeted him, and cried, prophecy unto us "who it is that fmote thee;" intending either to excite in him a fpirit of impotent resentment, or, on the other hand, hoping, if he were indeed the Chrift, that he would miraculously deliver himself out of their hands. Between two malefactors, men notorious for their atrocious deeds, they inhumanly crucified him, a death, of all others, the most painful and ignominious. There "behold, and see, if "there be any forrow, like unto his forrow, "wherewith the Lord afflicted him !" Behold our high priest offering up the great facrifice for the redemption of fouls! pouring out his

own

own blood on the altar of his cross! and thereby making an atonement for the fins of the whole world! Behold thy Saviour in all the torments that malice can inflict, in all the agonies that nature can endure! Behold him pale and languid, bleeding on the cross; his head encircled with thorns, his hands pierced with nails, his feet all torn and mangled! When he had hung three hours, the fport of wantonness, the fcoff of brutality, the victim of rage, unable any longer to bear fuch exquifite pain, he cried, "It is finished: and he « bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.' In confirmation of what he had declared, that " he was the Son of God, there was darknefs," though it was open day, "from the fixth to "the ninth hour." The fun was afhamed, the moon refufed her light. "The vail of "the temple was rent in twain from the top "to the bottom, the earth did quake, the "rocks rent, the graves were opened, and

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many bodies of faints which flept, arose, and appeared unto many." At fuch unheard-of prodigies, what amazement, what confternation must have fallen upon those who cried out, "crucify him, crucify him?" What fear

and

and trembling must have seized their hearts, when the confeffion was extorted from them.

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truly this was the Son of God?”

What ufe fhall we make of this inftructive leffon? Affured, Lord, of thy goodness, and awed by thy majefty, we dedicate our lives to thee. We are henceforward what thy holy religion requires, and our own hearts approve.. We are willing to be, to do, to fuffer, whatever, in thy wifdom, thou fhalt ordain. What will promote thy glory, the good of men, the falvation of our fouls, That, we embrace with cheerfulness, and purfue with ardor. We approach thy table, Lord, with the deepest humility, penetrated with a fenfe of our unworthiness, and worthy only through the merits of thy Bleffed Son. May the bread which came down from hea6 ven, "the body of our Lord Jefus Chrift,'

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• nourish our fouls unto eternal life, and may

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the cup of the new covenant, the blood of Jefus, refresh us with its vivifying powers! May our conduct teftify the conversion of

our hearts, and exhibit the practice of those virtues of which the life of our Redeemer

was

⚫ was compofed here on earth, and which are

the best of all oblations that are offered him now he is enthroned above all height! • As thou haft cleanfed us, Bleffed Jefus, of the guilt derived from our first parents, do thou graciously be pleafed to present us spotless, ⚫ cloathed in thy righteousness only, to God ⚫ the Lord and maker of all. May our names, through thy irrefiftible interceffion with the Father, "be written in the book of life," • that," when we have run the race fet before and finished our courfe," we may us, be

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• bleffed, for ever bleffed, with the light of thy ⚫ countenance !'

SERMON

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SERMON VII.

TITUS II. 8, LAST PART.

-Having no evil thing to fay of you.

is peculiar to the Chriftian Religion, te require of all who profefs it, the practice of every virtue, and the cultivation of every grace, both civil, focial, moral, and religious. It enjoins the greatest care and circumfpection, left others fhould be infected by the contagion, or influenced by the prevalence, of bad example. And to preserve that care and circumfpection alive in the mind, it reprefents us as living, continually, under the Providence, and accountable to the Justice, of Almighty God. That the yoke of Christianity, at the fame time, might be eafy, and the burden of Religion light, all its Ordinances are calculated to inspire us with ardent hope, and invigorate us with invincible perfeverance. But there is one diftinguishing Ordinance, the celebration of the Holy Sacrament, which has a powerful tendency to make us take fuch heed unto our ways that no evil thing may, justly, be faid

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