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Since, then, God cannot be wise, nor good, nor just, nor powerful, if we be not judged; since the only religion that hath any right to the title of truth hath given us strong and repeated assurances of a judgment to come; 'what manner of persons ought we to be, in all godliness and true holiness!' This is an event we cannot possibly shun, and ought therefore continually to apprehend. What are the things of this world, that they should turn our eyes aside from that awful throne, from whence we are to be either carried to the eternal enjoyment of God, or sent away to the endless torture of fire! What are the pleasures and honours of this life, when compared with the joys and glories of heaven! What are the sufferings of the righteous here, when set against the miseries of the damned hereafter! What is reason, if she cannot apprehend a difference that is so immensely wide! And what is the will or heart of man, if, when his reason rightly apprehends the difference, it cannot be brought to submit itself to reason, and act accordingly!

But as our hearts are indeed 'very deceitful, and desperately wicked,' insomuch that reason can by no means govern them, let us, in the spirit of deep contrition and fear, smite upon our breasts, and cry aloud to God for the assistance of his Holy Spirit, that he may enliven our faith, and, through that only instrument of salvation, strike upon our insensible hearts such an impression of God's final judgments, as cannot be resisted, nor for a moment suspended; that we may so conduct our lives, as if the whole of them were to be passed at the very footstool of God's throne, and we saw him entering every thought, word, and action, in the great book of our account, so shall we please and honour him here, and he shall bless and make us happy hereafter.

Grant this, we most humbly and earnestly beseech thee, O Fountain of all good, for the sake of Christ Jesus, our dear Redeemer; to whom, with thee, and the Holy Ghost, one glorious and eternal Trinity, be all might, majesty, dignity, and dominion, now and for evermore. Amen.

DISCOURSE XVII.

JUDAS A PREACHER OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The argument in favour of Christ and his miracles, drawn from the history of Judas, and here beat out, was briefly sketched in the fifth dialogue of Deism Revealed, and, some years afterward, enlarged on in a pamphlet published in Scotland, which the author of these sermons did not see, till a good many years after this discourse was written and preached. From hence it may be with probability inferred, that the reasonings here urged are conclusive, as they have had considerable weight with others, as well as with the author, Basnage having touched on it long ago.

ST. MARK XIv. 43—45.

And immediately, while he yet spake, cometh Judas, one of the twelve, and with him a great multitude with swords, from the chief-priests and the scribes and the elders.

And he that betrayed him had given them a token, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he; take him, and lead him away safely.

And as soon as he was come, he goeth straightway to him, and saith, Master, Master; and kissed him.

I HAVE not chosen these words to be the subject of an invective on the baseness of that man who hath outdone all other traitors in villany, and hath made the name of Judas, to all succeeding generations, as strong an expression for ingratitude and falsehood, as that of the devil himself; but from this passage I shall take an occasion to try, whether the whole of his history, as set forth here, and elsewhere in Scripture, doth not furnish us with a good argument in favour of the Master he betrayed, and the religion he deserted.

If, on the one hand, the great facts of our Saviour's history are fully proved to be true by the readiness of his first witnesses to brave the fury of persecution in its utmost cruelties, rather than to give up the truth of those facts, or even to stifle it in silence; an argument as strong, on the other, for the reality of his miracles, and the purity of his whole

life, may be brought from the spirit and conduct of those who persecuted him, as also of the wretch who betrayed him.

The chief-priests, the scribes, and elders of the Jews, despised him for the meanness of his parentage, and lowness. of the character he appeared in. They hated him for the freedom of his reproofs. They envied him for the superiority of his wisdom. They persecuted him, because they could not refute him. They ascribed his miracles, which they could not deny, to the devil. They purchased evidence against him; and, when that evidence proved insufficient, they helped it out with factious clamours, and a popular demand for his blood. They bought off the soldiers, who otherwise would have been witnesses of his resurrection. And, as his disciples were poor and needy men, the money of these wealthy enemies was always ready for such of his followers as would betray him.

These things considered, we may reasonably presume such adversaries would leave no methods untried to destroy him, or throw discredit on the work he had in hand. Nor are we to wonder, if among so many necessitous followers of Christ, one was found, who was base enough to prefer their money to the service of a Master so often in distress for the necessaries of life.

If this traitor was capable of selling the liberty of his Master, and betraying his person into the hands of his most virulent enemies, we may be sure he would have made no scruple to expose the artifice of his preachings, or to detect the deceit of his miracles, had there been any thing dark or fraudulent in either. In the first place, this would have better served the purposes of the Jewish rulers, than any thing that could have been done to Christ's person; for this would have ruined his cause, and suppressed his religion, the propagation of which, did not depend, as the event fully proved, on the liberty or life of Christ. What was the life of Christ, considered in itself, to the Jews, more than that of another man? Or had they any other reason for desiring his death, but that they might by that means stop the progress of his religion, by destroying its author, and intimidating his disciples? Judas, therefore, could by no means have

merited so great a reward from them, as by proving his Master to be an impostor, and furnishing them with materials whereby they might expose his miracles to the contempt, his doctrines to the suspicion, and his name, of consequence, to the abhorrence of mankind.

In the next place, This was what Judas would have much rather chosen to have done, because this would have given him the character of a friend to truth, not a traitor; and would have really been the action of an honest man, rather than of a villain. It would have been no fault in him to follow Jesus, while he thought him the Messiah; and, when he found him to be a cheat, it would have been a virtue to expose his practices, and to prevent the credulity of the world from being abused by falsehood instead of truth, and legerdemain instead of miracles. Besides, if we may judge by his conduct, we cannot help concluding, that, next to the enriching himself, his grand aim was to assist the chiefpriests and elders in stifling the new sect and religion of his Master but by no means to take away the life of that Master.

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How the thoughts of Judas wrought from the time that Satan entered into him, and put him upon consulting with the enemies of Christ, he who tempted him to so foul a treachery may best explain; or they, who have hearts like his own, may guess; but it is pretty clear from his conduct, that he rather intended to strike at his Master's credit and liberty, than his life; for, when he saw how things were going, and that Christ was condemned, he repented of what he had done, returned the money, and destroyed himself, either by hanging himself, as the word in St. Matthew is translated, or rather, as Dr. Hammond expounds it, by giving himself up to an outrageous fit of despair, that strangled, and tore him to pieces. Be this as it will, it is plain the effects of his treachery had taken a turn he by no means expected, or indeed had any reason to expect; for he knew nothing could be laid to his Master's charge, which either the Jewish or Roman laws had made capital; he knew the Jews, who alone were his enemies, had no power at that time to put any man to death; and he thought it highly improbable, that the Roman equity would take away the life

of a man who could be accused of nothing but what related to the religion of the Jews, which the Romans laughed at, as a matter altogether superstitious and trifling.

From hence it appears, as clearly as any thing can do, that Judas, in betraying his Master, had no design to assist the Jews in the murder of that Master. What, then, was his design? Why, it was to get money for gratifying the Jews, by putting Christ into their hands, in order, at most, to stop the progress of his religion by the imprisonment, banishment, or disgrace, of its author. Something he must do, to earn the money he coveted; and this seemed more agreeable to his nature, which was treacherous, not bloody, than any other service he could do.

But if, notwithstanding all that hath been said, it is still insisted, that he must, all along, have had the death of his Master in view, inasmuch as he could have expected nothing less from the implacable spirit of the Jews, and the iniquity of the judge; it will follow, that Judas could have had no thoughts of sparing the practices of his Master, since he had no tenderness for his life. If he could resolve to spill the blood of one who had treated him, and every body else, with a mildness and sweetness exceeding those of all other men, he could not, surely, think of concealing the disingenuous artifices, or screening the pretended miracles, of a man whose life he hunted with the heart of a blood-hound.

In whichever light we take his conduct, he must have been ready to do all the mischief in his power to the religion from which he had apostatized. Now, could he have shewn the miracles of Christ to have been wrought by magic, or the power of natural causes, or to be no miracles, but mere tricks or deceits; or could he have proved his Master, from any thing in the secret instructions he gave his disciples, or from any thing in his private life or conversation, to be a bad man, and an impostor; these proofs, put into the hands of the Jewish rulers, must have enabled them all at once to throw contempt on the apostles, and to ruin the religion they preached.

It is now time to observe, that, had Christ been only a mere man, or any thing less than what he gave himself out for, the Messiah, and the Son of God, he must have been an impostor; and Judas must have known it, and been able

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