their dispersion over the whole earth, without proper habitation, country, or national connexion. For a fixed abode, as the head-quarters of a powerless people, seems to be a kind of preservative against extinction; and as we are told (by those who would willingly lessen the miracle of this punishment) hath actually kept in being, the Guebres and the Parsis in some retired corners of India. And yet the TEN TRIBES, when doomed to the like destruction, found a fixed habitation; who nevertheless are absorbed and lost as if they had never been. Now, though the philosopher and politician will but badly account for this; the religionist can resolve it with ease. He says, that God Almighty had decreed and foretold that the first dispersion should absorb the name and memory of the people punished; and that the last should preserve and hold them up, the visible objects of his present vengeance, and of his future mercy.

But then, how are they held up? As the refuse of the earth, the outcast of nations, and the opprobrium of humanity; equally hated and detested by all the differing religions and various policies of mankind. For, in order to convey down the justice of the sentence, along with the execution, (so wonderful are the ways of God) the VICE of this abandoned people continues to this day, as inseparable from their persons, as the punishment it produced upon their race. And avarice, fraud, and a savage inhumanity, like an incurable leprosy, as effectually distinguish their obduracy from the shifting follies of mankind, as does the adherence to their rabbinical superstitions.

Το

To resume then, and to conclude with the main question, which led us into this inquiry, The consistency between the openness and evidence recommended by Jesus to his followers; and the parables and dark speeches delivered by himself.

We presume, it now appears, that there is a perfect harmony and agreement between the precept and the example: that the first is declarative of the essential genius of the Gospel; the second only an occasional appeal to the evidence of Jesus's Messiahcharacter: and consequently, which is the inference to be drawn from both, that throughout the course of Christ's ministry, every thing, as well what was kept back from some, as what was clearly and fully revealed to others, equally tended to the advancement of God's GLORY, and the GOOD of mankind.

SERMON VIII*.

THE EDIFICATION OF GOSPEL

RIGHTEOUSNESS.

2 PET. i. 5-7.

GIVING ALL DILIGENCE, ADD TO YOUR FAITH VIRTUE, AND TO VIRTUE KNOWLEDGE, AND TO KNOWLEDGE TEMPERANCE, AND TO TEMPERANCE PATIENCE, AND

то

PATIENCE

GODLINESS, AND TO GODLINESS BROTHERLYKINDNESS, AND TO

CHARITY.

BROTHERLY-KINDNESS

HE holy Apostle beginning his farewel epistle

TH

to the Churches with a commendation of their FAITH, takes occasion from thence to instruct them in the nature of that CHRISTIAN EDIFICATION which they were to raise on it; and, as his last labour of love, brings together, and lays in, all the various materials proper for so great a work.

But we shall have a very wrong, and much toọ low, conception of our Apostle's skill, if we consider

* This Discourse was printed and published while the Rebel Army was in England, in the latter end of the year 1745.

these but as materials rudely thrown together without art or choice; and standing in need of other hands to range them in that architectonic order wherein they are to be employed. For on a careful survey of his plan it will be found, that no other than that Spirit which directed the workmen of the old tabernacle could give so artful a disposition to the materials of this new building not made with hands, whose builder and maker is God *.

He hath marked out the Foundation, he hath fixed the Basis, proportioned the Members, adorned the Superstructure, and crowned the Whole with the richest of materials. And all this with such justice of science, sublimity of thought, and force of genius, that every foregoing Virtue gives STABILITY to the following; and every following imparts PERFECTION to that which went before: Where the three Orders of this heavenly achitecture, the HUMAN, the DIVINE, and SOCIAL Virtues, are so masterly disposed, that the human and social have their proper strengths and graces heightened and supported by the common connexion of the divine : Where every thing, in short, concurs, in its proper station, for the perfecting of the Saints, for the edifying of the Body of Christ †.

In conformity to the Masters of Science, who deliver it to their disciples as a first principle, that no considerable advancement is to be expected without much pains and labour, our holy artist in troduceth his rules with this preliminary precept, GIVING ALL DILIGENCE. And if this be necessary 2 Cor. v. 1, Heb. xi. 10. + Eph. iv. 12. g

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