crease of corn and of wine," or whatever that they are no duties; or, if the evidence else this earth can afford. Now the for- of their authority is too strong to be evadmalist is an utter stranger to these ex-ed, he may attempt to do something like ercises of the heart: he feels no anxiety them in a cold and superficial manner; after communion with God: he prays, but but the things themselves he will not never troubles himself with inquiring if do. Whereas the godly man "esteems his prayer is accepted: he goes to church, all God's commandments concerning all not that he may wait upon God, or re- things to be right, and hates, with a perceive spiritual nourishment from the word fect hatred, every false and wicked way." preached; but merely to gratify his cu- This is the habitual language of his soul: riosity, and to get some addition to his "O that my ways were directed to keep stock of notional religion; he grows weary thy statutes! Show me thy way, O Lord, of the necessary bread of life: he loathes teach me thy path, lead me in thy truth, that dry manna, and reckons every Sab- and teach me; for thou art the God of bath and sermon lost in which he is not my salvation; on thee do I wait all the amused with variety and change. In day. What I know not, teach thou me: short, he looks upon the duties of reli- If I have done iniquity, I will do so no gious worship merely as a task imposed more. Let the words of my mouth, and on him by an arbitrary master, who is too the meditations of my heart, be acceptstrong for him to contend with; and there-able in thy sight, O Lord, my strength fore he performs them for his own safety, and is always glad when they are over, and thinks that God hath nothing more to require at his hand.

and my Redeemer." "His delight is in the law of his God;" and instead of complaining, that the duties required of him are many or burdensome, he rather reOnce more, in the fifth place, The power joices, that he is furnished with such a of godliness is manifested by a steadfast variety of means and occasions of testifycourse of holy living, by an uniform and ing his gratitude to that amiable soveunreserved obedience to all God's com- reign, to whom he hath devoted himself, mandments. I observed, in the entrance, and his all. Love makes the Redeemer's that godliness is the subjection or devot-yoke to feel easy, and his burden light; edness of the soul to God himself: and in and nothing grieves him so much, as that vain do we pretend to this, if we object he cannot do all that he would, in acknowagainst any of his laws; for the Apostle ledgment of those manifold, inestimable James hath assured us, that "whosoever favors he hath already received, or hopes shall keep the whole law, and yet offend to enjoy. in one point, he is guilty of all." "It is Such is the godly man; and after this not the calling Christ Lord, Lord, but manner doth godliness exert its power, the doing the things which he says," that "casting down imaginations, and every proveth us to be Christians indeed: "Yea, high thing that exalteth itself against the in this the children of God are manifest, knowledge of God, and bringing every and the children of the devil. He that thought," word, and action, into full doeth not righteousnes is not of God."" captivity to the obedience of Christ." The formalist, as I have already admitted, Here, then, let me entreat you, in the may go a considerable length in an out- serious review of what hath been deliverward reformation of manners; he may ed upon this branch of the subject, to abstain from pollutions of the grosser make a fair and impartial trial of yourkind, and even do many things that are materially good: but still he hath his exceptions: some sins are so dear to him, that he will by no means consent to part with them; and some duties are so displeasing to the flesh, that he cannot be reconciled to them at any rate; he therefore endeavors, either to suit his opinion to his inclination, by persuading himself

selves. God, who knoweth all things, is already acquainted with you: each of you must very soon be acquainted with himself, and all the world shall know you too: death is at hand to open your own eyes, and the last judgment shall publish your real character, and expose it to the view of angels and men; so that, upon all accounts, it is necessary that you be early

haps civility of temper, which will not suffer them to do any thing that may be shocking or offensive to their friends or neighbors. Of this sort numbers are to be found in every Christian society; they want boldness, or perhaps invention, to become originals, by striking out a new path for themselves; and therefore they go along with the multitude, comply with the prevailing custom, and have no other rule of life but this short convenient one, to be always in fashion, and to do what others are doing around them.

Ambition may be considered as another source of formality. Men have sagacity enough to discover that reputation is power; and that the more a person is esteemed, the greater authority and influence he will have; and therefore, when religion is in credit, the greatest enemies to the power of godliness often betake themselves to its outward form; which they employ as a ladder to help them to climb in to a higher place, where, with greater case, they may possess the means of gratifying their pride and lust of domination.

and thoroughly assured of your condition. of duties from a natural timidity, or perIf, when weighed in the balance, you are found wanting, you shall have this advantage by the discovery, that it will rouse you from that lethargy, out of which the unquenchable fire would at length awaken you; and powerfully incite you to do something for your safety ere it be too late; "God's arm is not shortened that it cannot save, neither is his ear heavy that it cannot hear." The Lord Jesus is still as (6 mighty as ever, to save to the uttermost all who will come unto God by him;" and there is nothing that puts you so far out of the road of his mercy as selfdeceit and presumption do. Let your case be ever so bad; yet if you are sensible of it, and apply to him for relief, you shall find him, at all times, ready with open arms to receive you; nay, he invites you to come to him in the mildest terms of condescension and grace; "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." So that the most compassionate and friendly office that a minister of the gospel can perform, is to call upon sinners loudly and repeatedly, "to examine and prove their own selves," that, from an alarming sense of It sometimes happens, too, that covetdanger, they may be compelled, by a ousness, or the love of money, hath no inhappy necessity, to flee for refuge to that considerable hand in making men assume almighty Saviour who alone can deliver the form of godliness. This was the just them from the wrath to come. This reproach of the Pharisees, those noted forindeed is the principal aim of my dis- malists in the Jewish church; they fasted course; I have furnished you with seve- often, they prayed long, they abounded in ral characters of true godliness, by the washings, and in many bodily austerities; help of which you may discover whether but our Saviour hath assured us that they you are possessed of it or not. These I did all "to be seen of men." They were now leave with you, that every man's con- mere pretenders to devotion; they lived science may apply them to himself in par- by that craft, and used the forms of reliticular, and pronounce sentence according gion merely as an engine for drawing the to the evidence it may find; and shall estates of widows and orphans into their proceed to inquire, very briefly, in the own hands, that, under the trust of managing them for their behoof, they might the more securely and successfully enrich themselves at their cost.

Second place, Whence it is that any who deny the power of godliness, should submit to the drudgery of maintaining the form of it?

With respect to many, it may be said, that they appear in the form of godliness by mere accident; because it happens to be in repute among those with whom they converse. They go to church purely because others do it; they observe an outward decorum of manners to avoid sin gularity; and walk the customary round

The two last are designing formalists, who know, or at least who may know, that they are hypocrites; strangers, nay, enemies to the power of that godliness which they outwardly profess to esteem and honor.

But there are others who practise the forms of religion to quiet and pacify a natural conscience; and do so many things,

how can you painfully adhere to the form of it? Or, when you go to the length of being very punctual in the externals of religion, why do you not go a little farther, and study to be really and inwardly what you outwardly profess, and would seem to be?

that, in appearance at least, they are not | the substance, which would certainly enfar from the kingdom of God; but still rich and save you? The prodigal's punthey resist the Spirit of grace, and will ishment is your choice; you feed upon not submit to the power of godliness. husks, when there is bread enough in your Reason teacheth them, that as their being Father's house, and to spare; you take is derived from God, so their well-being all the trouble of appearing religious, and must wholly depend upon his favor; taste none of the comforts that religion and revelation proclaims, in the strongest affords; you endure all the fatigue of actterms, that without holiness no man ing a constrained, artificial part before shall see God. Hence they see, that a men, when, by yielding to the power of grossly wicked and profligate course of godliness, you might, with less labor, and life would at once cut them off from all infinite delight, become the very persons hope of happiness; and as they cannot you feign yourselves to be. When you bear the thoughts of being eternally miser-reject the truth and reality of godliness, able, therefore something must be done in the mean time to keep the garrison in peace. Were they presently to conclude themselves in a state of condemnation, their sensual enjoyments would imme diately lose their relish, and the prospect of future approaching vengeance would embitter and poison every comfort they Is it the praise of man that you covet? possess. To remedy this, they advance This at best is but an empty, fading thing; a few steps in the ways of godliness, and neither can you be sure of obtaining it. frame a religion for themselves, composed At any rate, the foundation of it shall be of as much truth and duty as may consist taken away at the final judgment, when with their worldly prosperity and plea- every disguise shall be stripped off, and sures; which, while it leaves them suffi- the hidden works of darkness shall be cient room to prosecute their carnal aims, brought to light. Nay, Nay, God may detect doth at the same time serve for a sheath your base hypocrisy, even before you leave to conscience, to keep it from wounding this world; so that, as it is written, (Job them when they are busied in the brutish | xxvii. 23.) "Men shall clap their hands at service of their lusts. Present ease is you, and hiss you out of your place." Is what they chiefly covet; and they choose it riches you seek by your seeming religno more of religion than serves that pur- iousness? In this likewise you may be pose. disappointed, according to that other Thus have I endeavored to show whence threatening denounced against the hypoit is that men who deny the power of god-crite, (Job xxvii. 16.) "Though he heap liness submit to the drudgery of maintain-up silver as the dust, and prepare raiment ing the form thereof. Some do it to im- as the clay; he may prepare it, but the pose upon the world, that they may gratify their ambitious or covetous desires; and others do it to impose upon themselves, that they may not be "tormented before the time."

And

just shall put it on, and the innocent shall divide the silver." Besides, "riches profit not in the day of God's wrath." after all, "what is the hope of the hypocrite, though he hath gained, when the And now, let me address my discourse Lord taketh away his soul?" -"Can the to those who, from what they have heard, rush grow up without mire? Can the flag are in some measure convinced that they grow without water? While it is yet in are the persons described in this passage. its greenness, and not cut down, it with"How long, O ye sons of men, will ye ereth before any other herb. So are the love vanity? How long will ye spend paths of all that forget God, and the hyyour money for that which is not bread, pocrite's hope shall perish: whose hope and your labor for that which will not pro-shall be cut off, and whose trust shall be fit you? How long will you court the de- a spider's web. He shall lean upon his ceiving shadow of godliness, and fly from house, but it shall not stand; he shall

hold it fast, but it shall not endure." in yourselves nor give any assistance to And oh! how vain is that hope which shall "perish" at the very time when enjoyment is expected! Be awakened then, ye selfdeceivers, and know that your formality, like the harlot's paint, is only a false and borrowed beauty, which shall melt away when you draw near the fire; and how ever you may now hope, while under the threatenings of God, be assured that you shall not be able to hope when under the execution of them; despair shall then become essential to your misery. My brethren, a dream so transient, so momentary, is not worth the having. For the Lord's sake, then, awake in time, repent unfeign edly of your past hypocrisy, and "give no sleep to your eyes, nor slumber to your eyelids," till your souls be acquainted with the power of godliness, that you may have something better to lean upon than delusive forms, when all earthly props shall slide from beneath you. "O seek the Lord while he is yet to be found, and call upon him while he is near."

You

others; but, on the contrary, do much to
discourage and hinder them. But honesty,
you say, is the qualification you chiefly
value, and you are confident that your
claim to that is unquestionable. Not so
unquestionable as you imagine. As you
do not profess atheism, you must be un-
derstood to acknowledge the being of a
God; and as you have not publicly re-
nounced your baptism, you certainly mean
to pass for Christians. None of you, I
suppose, are willing to be reputed the
enemies of God and of Christ; on the
contrary, would you not exclaim against
that man as a censorious, malevolent hy-
pocrite, who should venture to hint the re-
motest suspicion of this kind? And now,
wherein doth your honesty lie?
would be thought to love God, yet you
live in open contempt of his authority,
while you withhold that worship and ho-
mage which are due to him. Is this hon-
esty? You call yourselves Christians,
yet you practically reject the institutions
of Christ, and cast his most sacred com-
mandments behind your back. Is that to
be honest, to profess one thing and to do the
contrary? This, I apprehend, is the very
essence of hypocrisy; so that, if you hate
hypocrites, you are bound in justice to
hate yourselves; for even you are hypo-
crites no less than the formalists, though
you are not commonly branded with that
opprobrious title. The difference betwixt
you lies chiefly in this;—the formalist
is a sort of bashful hypocrite, who, because
he cannot deny the debt, makes a show of
paying part, and would be thought to pay
the whole; whereas the profane sinner,
who retains the appellation of Christian,
though he pays no part of what he ac-
knowledges to be due, would nevertheless
be reputed an honest man; and therefore
he too is a hypocrite as well as the other,
with as little sense, and with much less
modesty.

But there are sinners of another kind, to whom this subject leads me to speak; those I mean who have not so much as the form of godliness. You, I doubt not, have got a great deal to say against hypocrites; perhaps, too, you are very well pleased that so much has been said to expose them in the course of this sermon; and now you exult in the thought, that such a hateful denomination cannot be applied to you; if you are not godly, yet surely you are honest, for you do not pretend to be godly. We shall by and by examine your boasted honesty; in the mean time, it deserves your serious consideration, that, by your own confession, you are in a great measure useless in the world; as you contribute nothing, either to the glory of God, or to the spiritual improvement of your brethren around you. Now, here the formalist hath plainly the advantage of you; for though he neglects and destroys his own soul, yet, by his fair outside, and perhaps by the exercise of his gifts he may recommend religion to the esteem and choice of others; like the sign-post which, though it hath its Let your religion, then, my dear friends, station without, doth nevertheless mark be principally seated in the heart; and the door to strangers, and invite them never reckon that you are possessed of it into the house; whereas you neither enter | so long as it lodges merely in the under

I shall conclude this discourse with a few advices, for the help of those who are aiming at real godliness, and would not be deceived with names and counterfeits.

opposite parties, the Pharisees and the
Sadducees, united their endeavors to dis-
credit his doctrine and mission: he was
condemned by the supreme council of the
nation as an impostor and blasphemer; nay,
the whole body of the people disowned him
in the most public and contemptuous man-
ner before Pontius Pilate, the Roman go-
vernor, crying out as with one voice, "Away
with him, away with him! crucify him, cru-
cify him!
cify him!" Thus was he despised and re-
jected of men, in the days of his humilia-
tion, to which the prophet more immediately
refers.

standing. Knowledge and faith are in ed, that I need not spend time in proving order to practice; and we neither know it; and whosoever hath read the history nor believe to any good purpose, unless of our Saviour's life with a proper degree our knowledge and faith influence our of attention, cannot fail to have remarked practice, and make us truly better men. the exact accomplishment of that part of Be sure to live upon the great fundamen- the prophecy which I have chosen for the tals of religion, and let not your attention subject of the following discourse; "Christ to these be diverted by an intemperate came unto his own, but his own received zeal about lesser things. Place not your him not." The learned, the rich, and the religion in disputable points and ineffec- mighty among the Jews, were almost unitual opinions, but in those weightier mat-versally combined against him; the most ters of the law and gospel, which are of undoubted importance, and in which holy men, among the different denominations of Christians, are better agreed than is commonly apprehended. Choose God for your portion and felicity; beware of thinking that any thing besides himself is necessary to make you happy; and live daily upon Christ Jesus, as the only Mediator by whom you can either have access to God, or acceptance with him. InIndulge no sin; plead for no infirmity; but make it the daily business of your lives to "mortify the deeds of the body," and "to crucify the flesh with its affections and lusts." Walk continually as in the sight of a holy, just, and heart-searching God; and study to be the same in secret that you wish to appear in public. Rest not in a low degree of holiness, but love, and long, and strive for the highest. And, for these purposes, pray without ceasing for those promised influences of divine grace, which alone can heal your diseased natures, and carry you forward from one degree of holiness to another, till, being ripened for glory, an entrance shall in due time be administered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To whom, with the Father, and the Holy Spirit, be glory and honor, dominion and thanksgiv. ing, for ever and ever.

Amen.

SERMON V.

CHRIST DESPISED AND REJECTED.

ISAIAH LIII. 3.—“He is despised and rejected of men: He was despised, and we esteemed him

not.'

But as the Jews are not the only people chargeable with this crime, as Christ hath been, and still is, despised and rejected by many, even by many of those who were baptized into his church, and are called by his name; we may be allowed to consider the prediction in my text as reaching beyond the time of our Saviour's abode on this earth, and looking forward to all that injurious contempt which, in after ages, should be cast upon the blessed Jesus by pretended friends, as well as by open and professed enemies.

In this large extent I shall at present take the liberty to discourse upon these words. And my design is, first, to show in what respects it may still be said that men despise and reject the Saviour; and, secondly, to inquire whence it is that they do this?-After which, I shall lay before you the heinous nature of their guilt, and direct you to the proper improvement of

the whole.

I begin with showing in what respects it may still be said that Christ is despised and rejected of men.

True it is, that his glorious person is no more exposed to the outrage of men. scourged," "buf

THAT the whole of this chapter relates to That body which was

the Messiah is so universally acknowledg-fetted," "spit upon," and "crucified," is