IF F a serious endeavour to discharge the duty of a Preacher, and a defire to appear not unworthy of your choice and regard, could have supplied all that the Occafion required, I might without diffidence have offered this Difcourse to your Lordship, and to the Public. But, whatever our capacities may be, it is one of our principal concerns not to be deficient in the moral qualities. Amongst these Gratitude holds no in confiderable confiderable place; against which I should trefpafs, if I neglected this opportunity of acknowledging your favours. My prefent intention is to pay debts, as far as they may be paid, by owning them; and not to attempt any thing that looks like commendation and praife. I leave that to LONGINUS and to CICERO; and am, My LORD, Your LORDSHIP'S Moft obliged Humble Servant, JOHN JORTIN. A SERMON, 1 &c. HEBREWS X. 25. Exhorting one another. Ir appears from the whole tenor of the New Testament, that one of the great ends of Christianity was to produce and preferve amongst its profeffors a more surprising and a more amiable union and harmony than Legiflators had ever enjoined, and Philofophers had ever contrived and recommended; far furpaffing what the obedient disciples of Pythagoras, or the rigid Effenes had effected, or the ideal Republic of Plato had feigned. Our Saviour laid the foundation for this happy concord in his great commandment, Love one another: hereby fhall all men know that ye are my difciples, if if ye love one another. His Apoftles proceeded as he had begun, and their writings are a perpetual commentary upon their Master's favourite text. From all who took upon them the Chriftian name, they required a liberality, which fhould fuffer no brother to be in want. St. Paul-by an apt fimilitude, well known to Pagan writers, who made use of the same *—compares the focial to the natural body; and requires the close connection, and confpiring confent, and fellow-feeling, and mutual fupport in the one, which is obfervable in the other. He exhorts them to fubmit themfelves to one another, and in honour to prefer one another. This is affability of the heart, as well as of the demeanour: this is Chriftian civility; as many degrees above modifh civility, as to ferve another effectually is better than to be his most obedient fervant. Again; they are exhorted to lay open their doubts, their weakneffes, their defects, their wants, and their forrows to each other; to ftir up one another to good works; to forbear, to forgive, to fupport, to advise, to inftruct, to edify, and to com * Cor. 1. xii. 26.-Whether one member suffer, &c. Plato: Olav ημων δακτυλος το πληγή, πασα η κοινωνία η κατα το σωμα προς την ψυχήν τελαμενη εις μιαν σύναξιν την τ8 αρχοντος εν αυλη, ησθείς τε και πάσα αίμα ξυνήλγησε μέρος πονήσαίας ολη. De Rep. v. p. 462. Ed. Steph. Seneca: Quid fi nocere velint manus pedibus, manibus oculi? U omnia inter fe membra confentiunt, quia fingula fervari totius intereft; ita, &c. De Irâ, 11. 31. Others have collected other paffages. fort one another; to rejoice and to mourn with one another, and to pray for one another: All which supposes a mysterious and a spiritual union, not to be understood by profane and uninitiated minds, which, without destroying fubordination, produced a Chriftian equality: for, if the wife could teach the unlearned, and the rich relieve the poor, the unlearned and the poor could pray for his benefactor, and thereby make him no mean recompenfe. Nothing was more likely to difturb this facred union of good minds, than the extraordinary gifts then variously conferred upon Chriftians, which might excite a little vanity in fome, and a little jealousy in others: Therefore St. Paul took care to inform them that brotherly love was the faireft and the best of all endowments; that it was above all the miraculous powers that ever appeared, if they were all united in one person; and that it would Thine in heaven, when their tranfitory luftre fhould be extinct a declaration, which no frantic vifionary, or interested impoftor, who himself pretended to thofe gifts, would ever have made. When a man afcends in imagination to those times, and fancies himfelf a member of that innocent infant republic, and then awakes from the pleafing dream, and cafts his eyes upon the world about him, he cannot help thinking what an alteration corroding ages have made in this refpect; for Chriftianity is fecularifed to fuch a degree, that |