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SERMON IV.

The Character of a Good Man.

GEN. Xviii. 19.

For I know Him, that he will command his children, and his boufebold after bim, and they fhall keep the way of the Lord, to do Juftice and Judgment.

T

IV.

HESE words are part of the SER M ̧
character, which God him-
felf, in different places of
the Old Teftament, has gi-
ven of that Great and Good

Man, the Patriarch Abraham. And they

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SER M.are spoken in this place, as a ground or IV. reafon of the great and lafting Bleffings

which God declared he intended to confer upon him. Ver. 18. Abraham Shall furely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the Earth fhall be bleffed in Him: For I know Him, that be will command his children and his housebold after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do Justice and Judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham, that which he hath spoken of him. Upon account of This character, and the Bleffings confequent upon it, he is elfewhere ftiled in Scripture The Friend of God, and the Father of all them that believe, And in the book of Ecclefiafticus, ch. xliv. 19. his history is thus briefly and elegantly fumm'd up: Abraham was a great Father of many people, in glory was there none like unto him: Who kept the Law of the most High, and was in covenant with him; he established the Covenant in his flesh, and, when he was proved, ke was found faithful: Therefore be affured him by an Oath, that he would bless the nations in bis Seed, and that he would mu tiply him as the Duft of the Earth, and

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exalt

exalt his Seed as the Stars, and cause them SER M. to inherit from Sea to Sea, and from the IV. River unto the utmost part of the Land.

THE Virtues, upon account whereof these great Bleffings were promised to Abraham, were perfonal: But the Blef fings themselves, 'tis evident, were, with regard to Him, figurative only; being fulfilled not till fome hundreds of years after, upon his Pofterity; whereas He himself did but fojourn in the land of Promife, as in a frange country, and confeffed that he was a Stranger and Pilgrim on the Earth. From whence the Apostle to the Hebrews very juftly infers, That Abrabam understood the promised Bleffing, with regard to Himself, to be of a Spiritual and better kind. Ch. xi. 14, 16. 10. For they that say fuch things, declare plainly that they seek a country; a country; a better country, that is, an heavenly; For ke looked for a City which hath foundations, whofe Builder and Maker is God.

THE particular Virtue which procured to Abraham the character given him in my Text, was his keeping the way of the Lord, that is, his adhering to the Belief and Worship of the One True God of the G 3

Univerfe,

SER M.Univerfe, in oppofition to the general

IV.

corruption of the idolatrous Nations among whom he lived; and his commanding his children and his boufehold after him, to do the like. 'Twas his exemplarily putting in Practise, what Joshua publickly declared before all the tribes of Israel, that He also would do in the like cafe: Ch. xxiv. 15. If it feem evil unto you to Jerve the Lord, chufe ye this day whom ye will ferve; whether the Gods which your Fathers ferved that were on the other fide of the flood, or the Gods of the Amorites in whofe land you dwell: But as for Me and my House, we will ferve the Lord. In the New Testament, This practice is ftiled, [xar ix To Incio,] Rev. xv. 2. not (as we render the words,) getting the victory over the Beast; but, getting the victory (or overcoming) from out of the midft of the Beast; That is, adhering ftedfastly to the True Religion, in the midst of ido latrous and corrupt Nations.

THE Great and Principal Defign of every man's life, ought to be the promoting the Glory of God; the encouraging of Virtue, and discouraging every kind of Vice. Not that any man is obliged to be perpe

tually

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