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traveller who hath loft his road and finds himself wandering, paufes, ftands ftill, and recollects where he is fure he was right, and returns by the fame track, however mortifying, tedious and irksome, and perfeveres till he finds himself right again, and then with more vigilence and industry, he pursues the well known way, that he may recover the time he hath loft. Thus let the wandering chriftian go and do likewife. "Thus "faith the Lord, ftand ye in the ways and fee, and afk for "the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein and "ye fhall find reft to your fouls." Every wrong ftep leads farther from God and happiness, encreases guilt and danger, and the return more difficult, the heart becomes more eftranged and alienated, the fense and relish of divine things more languid. Let wanderers and backfliders be speedy therefore in their return to God. Whoever defers things necessary to be done, never performs them fo eafy as at first. If we delay in this important bufinefs, and fhould be vifited with fickness or the fymptoms of death, what anguish muft feize the foul, what terrible and difmaying fears, what ftings and reproaches of conscience muft the creature feel, who in this condition apprehends himself juft ready to appear before the bar of God. Let a dying profpect aroufe us from our leathargies, flumbers, and flee from the awful danger. If we would wish to die in peace and in fweet ferenity of foul, and have the confolations. of the divine prefence in that folemn hour, let us inftantly remember from whence we have fallen and repent and do our first works.

Fourthly, make a new and folemn dedication of yourselves to God. When you have fuitably confidered and inquired into your departures from a precious Chrift, when your hearts become affected with your evil conduct, are touched with the unhappiness of your condition, begin to relent, foften and break, then take with you words and return unto the Lord,

and fay with the Pfalmift; "Against thee, thee only have "we finned; pardon our iniquities for they are great,"-Or cry with the repenting and broken hearted publican, "God "be merciful to us finners:" Let the language of every christian who hath forfaken his first love be, "O Lord my God, I blufh to call thee mine, or by my name, which exprefses thy relation or right to me, or my obedience and love, for I have unreasonably and wickedly departed from thee, and in ftrict juftice thou mighteft take no farther notice of me, but discard me forever, as hell deferving, ungrateful wretch; from my heart, I humbly acknowledge and own that utter deftruction is my rightful portion; yet, O Lord God, thou keepest covenant, and art full of compaffion, who repenteft thee of the evil, and paffeft by the tranfgreffion of the remnant of thy people, accept, thro' the atoning merits of thy dear Son, the devout purpose of my heart, and this renewed furrender I make of myself to thee. I refolve now, in thy grace, to clowe to thee forever, and never more to wander or depa from thee, take not thy spirit from me, but reftore, O God of my falvation, thy forfeited countenance and favour; deliver my foul from guilt and the other effects of my wanderings, then fhall my tongue fing aloud of thy righteoufnefs."

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Fifthly, be watchful and vigilent when thou art restored to thy first love and do thy first works, and by fervent and affiduous prayer deprecate a relapfe into that evil condition. "Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation. What "I fay unto you, I fay unto all, watch." Let your paft deviation teach you circumfpection, and your palt follies wif dom. Endeavour to avoid the like departures for the future, Keep thy heart with all diligence for out of it are the iffues "of life." Confider how you were first beguiled; recollect how it advanced till it arrived at the dreadful iffue in our text. Learn no more to truft in yourself, or rely upon your ewn ftrength, but confide in divine grace, and lean continually

upon your beloved. Maintain a deep and tender impreffion of your conftant dependence upon God. Keep up a conftant tenderness of heart, and thus you will be preferved in peace and comfort, and in the love of your precious Saviour.

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Laftly, all this counfel, exhortation, and admonition, is enforced by a ftrong argument of threatening and terror, if it fhould be neglected or contemned. "I will come unto thee "quickly, and remove thy candlestick out of his place." If the love of Chrift be uncultivated, and the fpirit of his grace be flighted, he will defcend in tremendous judgments upon backfliding churches and declining chriftians. The threaten. ing comprehends in it every spiritual evil. He will unchurch them, take from them and their posterity the means remove his gospel, his ministers and his ordinances, his spirit fhall no more ftrive with them, their houfe will be left unt them defolate. And what will the churches, or the angels of the churches do when these fatal calamities fhall come upon them? What has been the gloomy ftate of that once flourishing city and church of Ephefus, to which St. Paul wrote an inftructive and comforting epiftle, and the reft of the other glorious churches in the extenfive province and proconfulate of Afia? They are gone, and hardly a veftige of them has appeared for many centuries. That fine country is wholly loft, overwhelmed and buried in the thick gloom of Mahometan fuperftition and delufion. Let all churches and individual chrif tians be all attention to their unhappy example, to the warning voice of Chrift, and the folemn monitions of heaven. This is a great and flourishing church of ours, it has been founded more than an hundred and thirty-five years, yet for our fad decays God may remove our candlestick from hence; wherefore let us always keep alive our first love; let us be living penitential lives, and working the works of righteousness.

SERMON XXIII.

Jefus Chrift the good Shepherd.

John, x. 11. I am the good Shepherd.

JESUS CHRIST is reprefented in the facred oracles as fuftaining the greatest variety of characters. There is no of fice or relation which implies any advantage to the object of it, but Chrift is defcribed as fuftaining and difcharging every branch of duty belonging to it. He is filed a prophet, ordained a priest forever, and is exalted as a king. The Saviour is his appropriate and exclufive character. An hufband, an head, a brother and a friend are familiar titles of Immanuel. In our text and many other paffages he is held forth to view under the vigilent, careful and tender image of a Shepherd.

Here is a ftriking accumulation of offices, wherein ambition has no influence, neither can envy find a ground of imputation. He did not affume thefe offices, nor does he execute them for his own benefit. It was inconceivable condefcenfion in him to fuffer the most exalted of them; and he executes them for

the advantage, the fole advantage of those who are in themfelves, and in their own opinion among the vilest and most unworthy creatures. Who is a God like unto our God?-He is exalted above all bleffings and praife-he humbles himself to behold things done in heaven, and yet he ftoops to perform the part of the most condescending friend--to every act and every fervice of the most endearing and compaffionate name. Be astonished, O ye heavenly hofts, at this! Ye inhabitants of the earth, ftand amazed and wonder! Blefs the Lord, all ye his faints; blefs the Lord O my foul. The flock, his sheep, are the objects of all thefe offices, of every tender and affectionate part he performs, in all the variety of relations he bears. For them he left his fathers bofom, the adoration of angels, and all the celeftial glories; for them he affumed hu man nature--fuffered poverty and reproach-laid down his life for them, and endured the excruciating pains of the cross.

Chrift is every where fpoken of as a fhepherd. In the Old Teftament he was abundantly prophecied of under this title, and in the New he is the great fhepherd, the shepherd and bishop of fouls; and here in our text, he calls himself the good fhepherd. "I am the good fhepherd." And in evidence of his worthiness of this character and in proof of his goodness, he gave his invaluable life for the fheep. All that your at tention can be invited to in a contracted difcourfe will only be,

First, to confider what this character, when afcribed to Chrift, implies in it with refpect to his flock.

Secondly, what are the important acts denoted by it, which he performs towards his fheep. In regard to the

First, many things are involved and comprehended herein. It implies that Chrift's flock are the obje& of his peculiar care.

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