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XX

SERMON VI.

How to judge of Moral Actions.

LU K. vi. 44.

For every Tree is known by his own Fruit: For of Thorns men do not gather Figs, nor of a Bramble-bush gather they Grapes.

T

HERE are some Figures of SER M.
Speech founded upon Simi- VI.
litudes fo obvious, fo natu-
ral, fo expreffive, that whilst
they convey into the minds

even of Those who have the meaneft
capacities, a Notion or Doctrine altoge-
ther

SER M. ther as diftinct and as easy to be underVI. ftood, as any Literal expreffion whatso

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ever; they at the fame time illuftrate it moreover with the clearest Light, and confirm the Truth of it with the strongest Reason or Argument. Of This kind, there is great Variety of Inftances of Scrip

ture.

THUS when St Paul exhorts Christians to present their Bodies a Living Sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God; and elsewhere tells them, that they themselves are the Temple of God; and threatens, that if any man defile the Temple of God, Him shall God destroy: Under the strong image of the Unfitness and Abominableness, the Deteftableness and Profaneness, of any Uncleanness or Impurity appearing in the Temple of God; the odioufnefs of all moral impurity, of all debauched Practices whatsoever in Any perfon who profeffes himself a Worshipper of God, is set forth after a more lively and affecting manner, than it could be by any literal description whatsoever: And, under the clvicus and fenfible idea, that a Sacrifice offered to God, even of a Beaft flain, could not, with any juft fenfe of the Greatness of the

Divine

VI.

Divine Majefty, but be without Blemish; SER M., is reprefented the Acceptableness of a Living Rational Perfon, dedicating himfelf to the Service of God by a fiber and virtuous course of life, in oppofition to every kind of Debauchery, more strongly and pathetically, than it could any way have been done in plain and direct Terms, without fuch a figurative expreffion.

IN like manner, in the words of the Text, the neceffary Connexion between the nature of mens Actions, and the Principles from which they flow; and the Abfurdity of fuppofing, that good Actions can ever flow from ill Principles, or ill Actions, from good Principles; is expreffed with greater Clearnefs and Strength, under the fimilitude of the regular Productions of nature, than it could have been by the most literal and direct Assertion. Every Tree is known by its own Fruit: For of Thorns men do not gather Figs, nor of a Bramble-bush gather they Grapes.

OUR Saviour, in his Parable of the Sower, St Matt. xiii. under the fimilitude of different forts of ground, wherein good Seed being fown, brought forth fruit according to the nature of the Soil, in fome

places

SER M. places plentifully, in others thinly, in VI. others none at all; gives a very empha

tical and accurate defcription of the different Effects, which the Doctrines of True Religion, or the Teaching and Exhortations of Virtue, have upon the Lives and Actions of different Sorts of men. As the fame Seed, fown in a good Soil or a bad, brings forth much Fruit or little, or perishes entirely and never grows at all; fo the Knowledge of Truth, and the Inftructions of Righteoufnefs, according to the different difpofitions of the minds of Those, to whom the Arguments of Reafon and the Motives of Religion are proposed; are either entirely fuppreffed by them, and extinguifhed, or elfe, fometimes in a greater, fometimes in a lefs degree, they produce the Fruit of Virtuous Acts and Habits, in the courfe of at righteous and religious Life. And from hence, throughout the whole Scripture, by a figure of Speech grounded upon the analogy of This Parable, the Acts and Habits of every Moral Virtue, founded upon the Motives of the Gofpel, and fpringing from the Principles of True Religion, from the Belief of God and of a Judgment

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