crucify an innocent person! if thou must oblige the chief priests, would it not be enough "to scourge 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," suggested to thee to oppose with boldness their clamors, and " to judge righteous judgment !" But, instead of yielding to her fuggeftions, he did not even restrain the insults of licentious fury; "they spit on him, covered his face, " buffeted him, and cried, prophecy unto us "who it is that smote thee;" intending either to excite in him a spirit of impotent resentment, or, on the other hand, hoping, if he were indeed the Christ, 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 fee, 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 sins 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 sport of wantonness, the scoff of brutality, the victim of rage, unable any longer to bear such exquifite pain, he cried, "It is finished: and he " bowed his head, and gave up the ghoft." In confirmation of what he had declared, that " he was the Son of God, there was darkness," though it was open day, " from the fixth to "the ninth hour." The fun was ashamed, the moon refused 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 " many bodies of faints which flept, arose, and " appeared unto many." At such unheard-of prodigies, what amazement, what consternation 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, "truly this was the Son of God?"

P

What ufe shall we make of this instructive leffon? Affured, Lord, of thy goodness, and awed by thy majesty, 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 wisdom, thou shalt 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 sense of our unworthiness, and worthy ' only through the merits of thy Blessed Son.

6

May the bread which came down from hea' ven, "the body of our Lord Jesus Chrift," • nourish our fouls unto eternal life, and may ' the cup of the new covenant, the blood of • Jesus, refresh us with its vivifying powers! • May our conduct testify the conversion of ' our hearts, and exhibit the practice of those 'virtues of which the life of our Redeemer

was

• was composed here on earth, and which are • the best of all oblations that are offered him now he is enthroned above all height! • As thou hast cleansed us, Blessed Jesus, of the * guilt derived from our first parents, do thou • graciously be pleased to present us spotless, • cloathed in thy righteousness only, to God • the Lord and maker of all. May our names, ⚫ through thy irresistible interceffion with the • Father, " be written in the book of life," ⚫ that, " when we have run the race set before " us, and finished our course," we may be * blessed, for ever blessed, with the light of thy countenance l'

3

SERMON

I

SERMON VII.

TITUS II. 8, LAST PART.

-Having no evil thing to say of you.

T is peculiar to the Christian Religion, to require of all who profess it, the practice of every virtue, and the cultivation of every grace, both civil, focial, moral, and religious. It enjoins the greatest care and circumspection, left others should be infected by the contagion, or influenced by the prevalence, of bad example. And to preserve that care and circumspection alive in the mind, it represents 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 easy, 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 such heed unto our ways that no evil thing may, justly, be faid

" of