Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

deration of our fins and infirmities fhould render us all. To fuch is the Gofpel of the kingdom preached, and they with joy receive it. "Bleffed "are the poor in fpirit; for theirs is "the kingdom of heaven. Bleffed

are the meek; for they fhall inhe"rit the earth. Bleffed are they "that mourn; for they fhall be "comforted."

To these beatitudes let us add one more, with which our Lord concludeth his anfwer to the question afked by John's difciples, "Bleffed is he

"whofoever is not offended in me. In other words-And now, bleffed, thrice bleffed are all they, who shall fo confider the wonderful works done by me, as not to be offended at my poor and lowly appearance, during the

$ 2

the time of my humiliation and fuffering here on earth; or at the feeming harshness of my falutary doctrines to flesh and blood. For I well know, that many, though they have beheld me giving fight to the blind, and vigour to the impotent, cleansing lepers, making the deaf to hear, and raifing the dead to life again; yet, because the truths, which I deliver, are contrary to their interefts, their pleasures, their pride, their prejudices, which they are determined not to quit, even for the kingdom of heaven; many, I fay, will reject what they cannot but acknowledge to be the counfel of God, and put away the word of falvation from them. Let a man only fupprefs his inordinate defires of things temporal, and he will

be

be difpofed to hear what I fhall tell him of things eternal. Let him cease to love the world, and he will ceafe to have any objection to the Gospel. Let but his heart be open to conviction, and when the evidence hath been once fairly laid before him, he will never again ask the question, "Art thou he that should come, or "do we look for another ?"

[ocr errors]
[blocks in formation]

SECTION VIII.

Confiderations on the circumstances of St. John's Death.

WE

E have now accompanied St. John through the feveral stages of his life. We have rejoiced with his parents and kinsfolk at his birth, and spent fome time in contemplation with him in the defarts; we have stood by him, as a preacher and a baptift, at the river Jordan, and have been made acquainted with the repeated teftimonies born by him, at different times, to the Messiahship of Jefus; we have heard him, like another Elijah, reproving another Ahab,

Ahab, and have vifited him in prison, where the glory of his great Master, and the falvation of thofe committed to his care, ftill continued to be the objects of his attention. It remains only, that we behold him paying that debt to nature, from which the greateft of them that are born of women are not exempted. And here our acquaintance with him muft end, till we meet him in the kingdom of God. Thus do fcenes of real life pass swiftly away, and, when looked back upon, appear like those which are defcribed within the compafs of a small volume like this. In the course of a few years, the child, at whose birth we made merry, is become a man; he fickens, and dies, and we mourn at his funeral. Some gleams

« VorigeDoorgaan »