in, let us come lower: if you care not to be a reprover or rebuker of this iniquity, yet furely there is no neceffity for you to be an admirer or encourager of it: it is no great facrifice you make to Chrift, when you refign your fhare of the applaufe, which belongs to thofe who perfecute and blafpheme him. In a word, confider with yourselves that religion is, of all others, the most ferious concern. If its pretenfions are founded in truth, it is life to embrace them, it is death to defpife them. We cannot in this cafe ftand neuter we cannot ferve two mafters; we must hold to the one, and defpife the other. If we confefs Chrift before men, he will alfo confefs us before God and his holy angels: if we deny him before men, he will deny us at the last day, when he fhall come in the glory of his Father to judge the world.

Had our Lord been merely a teacher of good things, without any special commiffion or authority from the great Creator and Governor of the world, it would have been highly abfurd to affume to himfelf this great prerogative of being owned and acknowledged before men. Several have from the light of reafon taught many good leffons to the world: but are we bound to take every reasonable man, who recommends the practice of virtue, for our mafter? to own his authority at the peril of our lives? No man ever thought fo. Socrates taught many great things to the Greeks before Chrift came into the world. If he followed reason, he did well; and we shall do well to follow it too, and farther we have no concern with him. But, if there be any truth at all in the Gofpel, the cafe is far otherwise

with refpect to our bleffed Redeemer; we must own his authority, we must confefs him before the world, be the danger of fo doing ever fo great or extreme. Whence arifes this obligation? It cannot reft merely upon this, that he was a teacher of reason and good morality; for in that cafe it would be fufficient to fubmit to the reason and the rules of morality which he taught, without concerning ourfelves with his authority, which was no more than what reafon and virtue give every man. But the cafe with us is otherwife: our Lord requires of us, that we should confefs him before men; and has declared, that if we deny him before the world, he will deny us in the prefence of God and his holy angels, when he comes to judge the quick and the dead. Confider what manner of person is this, who requires fo much at our hands. If he is indeed the Son of God; if all power in heaven and earth is given him by the Father; if he is conftituted by God judge of all men, there is a clear reafon to justify his demand, and our obedience: but if he was only a mere teacher of morality and religion, how is he to be juftified in pretending to be the only Son of God, in pretending to have all power given him in heaven and earth, and to be appointed judge of all men? You must either own him under these characters, or you must condemn him as an impoftor for claiming them. How far those who are willing to admit Chrift to be a good teacher, but refuse to acknowledge him in any other character, are chargeable with feeing this confequence, I know not; nor can I fee, if they confider it, how they can avoid

it.

When therefore we read that our Lord require's of us to confefs him before men, the true way to know what we are to confefs, is to reflect what he confeffed himself; for it cannot be supposed that he thought it reasonable for himself to make one confeffion, and for his difciples and fervants to make another. Look then into the Gofpel, and fee his own confeffion: he confeffed himself to be the only Son of God; to come from the bofom of the Father to die for the fins of the world; to have all power given to him in heaven and earth; to be the judge of the world. When you have weighed these things, read his words, and judge what your duty is: Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and finful generation, of him also shall the Son of man be afhamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father, with the holy angels.

DISCOURSE XLIX.

2 CORINTHIANS V. 10, II.

We must all appear before the judgment-feat of Chrift, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. Knowing therefore the terrors of the Lord, we perfuade

men.

IT is the privilege and distinguishing character of

a rational being to be able to look forward into futurity, and to confider his actions, not only with respect to the prefent advantage or difadvantage arifing from them, but to view them in their confequences through all the parts of time in which him-, felf may poffibly exift. If therefore we value the privilege of being reasonable creatures, the only way to preserve it is to make use of it; and, by extending our views into all the fcenes of futurity, in which we ourselves must bear a part, to lay the foundation of folid and durable happiness.

By the exercise of this power of reason, the wifeft among the heathens difcovered, that there was ground for men to have expectations beyond this life. They faw plainly that themselves, and all things that fell under their observation, were de

pendent beings on the will and power of him who formed them; and when they fought to find him, they were led by a neceffary chain of reasoning to the acknowledgment of a fupreme, independent, intelligent Being. They faw in every part of the creation evident marks of his power, wifdom, and goodness they difcerned that all the inanimate parts of the world acted perpetually in fubmiffion to the law of their creation; the fun and all the host of heaven were conftant to their courfes; and, in every other part, the powers of nature were duly and regularly exerted for the prefervation of the prefent fyftem: among men only they found disorder and confufion. That they had reason, was plain; that they were intended to live according to reason, could not be doubted; and yet they saw virtue often diftreffed and abandoned to all the evils of life, vice triumphant, and the world every where subject to the violence of pride and ambition. How to account for this they knew not: this only they could óbferve, that man was endowed with a freedom in acting, which the other beings of the lower world wanted; and to this they rightly afcribed the diforders to be found in this part of the creation. But though this accounted for the growth of evil, yet it rendered no account of the juftice or goodness of God in permitting vice oftentimes to reign here in glory, whilst virtue fuffered in diftrefs. Upon these confiderations they concluded, that there must be another ftate after this, in which all the present inequalities in the administration of providence should be set right, and every man receive according to his works.