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Being subservient to each others present and future happiness, and be approved of by him

in the end.

PRAYER.

O God, blessed for ever! the source of all being and happiness! who lovest all thy rea-sonable offspring with a most tender affection.

For thou art no respecter of persons, nor overlookest the meanest of thy creatures; but in every nation he that feareth thee and worketh righteousness, is accepted of thee.

Make us duly sensible of thy boundless goodness to us, whose ancestors were heathens, worshipers of idols, and knew not thee; but thy mercy, and the light of thy holy truth revealed by Jesus Christ, hath extended itself to us, and we have been delivered out of great errors and darkness.

And although, righteous Father! none shall suffer, or miss of attaining thy favour, who have acted up to the light afforded them, however dim and dark; for, that where thou givest little the less will be required:

Yet, as it hath pleased thee to bless us, the people of this land, with the full sunshine of the gospel, whereby we have superior advantages for holiness, enable us to walk in it,

and

and to make proportionable advances in piety and all virtue; lest we be deprived of the blessings we slight and abuse, and become delivered over to an insensible unreproving mind, the worst state of all others.

Give us, therefore, we pray thee, O God, that well-grounded faith in Jesus our Lord and Master, the messenger of thy favour and love to us, that it may produce in us those fruits of holy obedience and all virtue, which he so highly commended in all those, in whom he found them in his lifetime here upon earth; and, without which, none shall gain admittance to thee in the heavenly mansions.

And because, thou, O God, who art so high, hast respect unto the lowly; to those who, being empty of all vain self-conceit, are more open to receive thy communications, and, sensible of their own manifold defects, are the more desirous and earnest to correct and amend them; and it was this grace divine, in which the blessed Jesus chiefly excelled, and because he so humbled himself, he is therefore now exalted by thee above all others.

Inspire us, we beseech thee, with that deep and just sense of our small attainments, and

the

the deficiencies of our best services, as may sink us low before thee; and in the midst of our endeavours after true wisdom and virtue, and labours to do good to others, still to strive to be clothed with humility, which can alone fit us to stand before thy presence in heaven; and to bear a part with the celestial choir who cast their crowns before thee, acknowledging that all they are or have is from thee, and that they, with all their attainments, are nothing compared with thee, O thou eternal source of all being, perfection, and blessedness!

Unto thee, therefore, O Father, who art the only living and true God, be praise, thanksgiving, and an increasing obedience by us, and by all thine intelligent creation, for ever and ever!

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SERMON XIII.

ACTS xxvii. 35, 36, 37.

And when he had thus spoken, he took bread, and gave thanks to God in presence of them all: and when be bad broken it, he began to eat. Then were they all so took some meat. ship, two hundred threescore and sixteen souls.

of good cheer, and they al

And we were in all in the

Ir appears from this last verse, that the writer of this book, St. Luke, was himself one of the company, whose situation he is here describing; so that he relates the things to which he was present, which cannot but give us great satisfaction.

You need not to be informed, that the person of whom he speaks was St. Paul, who was now on his way to Rome, a prisoner under custody, to be tried before the emperor Nero himself, to whom he had appealed from the unrelenting persecutions of his countrymen

for

for preaching the gospel; finding that there was no other possibility for him, however innocent, to be delivered out of their hands. Herein, however, he was overruled, and secretly directed by that Providence which ordereth all things, that he might bear testimony to the truth with more freedom, and have the opportunity of delivering it in such a manner, so as to have the greater attention paid to him in that imperial city, the metropolis of the world at that time.

As they were on their voyage, the vessel, in which he sailed with many other prisoners and passengers, was overtaken by so violent a storm that they were in imminent danger of perishing; when the apostle made this very extraordinary speech of encouragement to them; (ver. 21-26.) "Sirs, ye should have hearkened unto me, and not have loosed from Crete, and have gained this harm and loss. And now I exhort you to be of good cheer: for there shall be no loss of any man's life among you, but of the ship. For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve, saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought before Cæsar and lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee."

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