were then the benevolence of a divine SERMON Nature? Where, the compassion of that Mediator who was trained to mercy in the school of sorrow? Far from us be such ungrateful suspicions of the generous friend of human kind!-Let us exert ourselves as we can, and we shall be assisted. Let us pray and we shall be heard; for there is one to present our prayers, whom the Father beareth always. These, will he say, are my followers on earth; passing through that thorny path of temptation and sorrow which I once trod. Now I am no more in the world; but these are in the world. Holy Father! thine they were, and thou gavest them me. Keep them through thine own name. Sanctify them through thy truth. Keep them from the evil one; that they may be where I am, and may behold the glory which thou hast given me

Such is the comfort which arises to us from our Saviour's participation of the infirmities of human nature; and thus it may be applied to various situations of anxiety and distress.

SERMON

V.

WHEN we review what has been said, it is necessary that, in the first place, I guard you against a certain misimprovement which may be made of this doctrine. The amiable view which it gives of our Lord's clemency, may flatter some men with unwarrantable hopes, and lead them to imagine, that in his experience of human weakness an apology is to be found for every crime. Persons of this character must be taught, that his compassion differs widely from that undistinguishing and capricious indulgence which is sometimes found among men. It is the compassion of an impartial mind, enlightened by wisdom, and guided by justice, extending to the frailties of the sincere, but not to the sins of the presumptuous, and least of all to the crimes of those who encourage themselves in evil from the hope that they shall meet with compassion.

A course of deliberate guilt admits of no apology from the weakness of human nature. For, notwithstanding all the infirmi ties incident to it, no man is under a necessity of being wicked. So far is our Saviour's experience of our nature from

afford

V.

affording any ground of hope to presump- SERMON tuous offenders, that it ought to fill them with terrour. For it shews them how thoroughly qualified he is he is to discriminate accurately the characters of men, and to mark the boundaries between frailty and perverseness. He who from his own feelings well knows all the workings of the human heart, clearly discerns how different their temper is from what was once his own. He perceives that vice, not virtue, is their choice; and that, instead of resisting temptation, they resist conscience. He sees that infirmity affords them no excuse; and that the real cause of their acting a criminal part, is not because they cannot do better, but, in truth, because they will not. Having forfeited every title to compassion, they are left in the hands of justice; and according as they have sown, they must expect to reap.

BUT, in the next place, to such as are sincere and upright, the doctrine which I have illustrated affords high encouragement, and powerfully recommends the Christian religion. It places that religion in its prc

V.

SERMON per point of view, as a medicinal plan, intended both for the recovery of mankind from guilt, and for their consolation under trouble. The law was given by Moses; but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. The Law was a dispensation of mere authority. The Gospel is a dispensation, not of authority only, but of relief. If it discovers new duties and imposes new obligations, it opens also sources of comfort which were before unknown to the world.

2

A Mediator between God and his creatures, was an object after which men in all nations, and under all forms of religion, had long and anxiously sought. The follies of superstition have served to disclose to us, in this instance, the sentiments of nature. The whole religion of Paganism was a system of mediation and intercession. Depressed by a conscious sense of guilt, nature shrunk at the thought of adventuring on a direct approach to the Sovereign of the universe; and laboured to find out some auspicious introductor to that awful présence. With blind and trembling eagerness the nations fled to subordinate deities, to tute

lar

V.

lar gods, and to departed spirits, as their SERMON patrons and advocates above. Them they studied to sooth with such costly gifts, such pompous rites, or such humble supplications as they thought might incline them to favour their cause, and to support their interests with the Supreme Divinity. While mankind were bewildered in this darkness, the Gospel not only revealed the true Mediator, who in this view may be justly called the desire of all nations, but placed his character and office in a light most admirably fitted, as has been shewn in this Discourse, to support the interest of virtue in the world; and to encourage the humble, without flattering the presumptuous. What plan of religion could be more suited to the circumstances of man, or more worthy of the goodness of his Creator? What more animating to the pious worshipper, in performing those solemn acts of devotion to which we are called by the service of this day?

I

CANNOT

conclude without taking

notice how remarkably this dispensation of

K 4

religion