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much pains, and strive so hard to be damned? Befides, the difficulties in the heavenly road refult from the weak, disordered, and wicked state of human nature, as the difficulty of animal action and enjoyment proceeds from ficknefs of body; and confequently, every endeavour to furmount thefe difficulties tends to heal, to rectify, to strengthen, and ennoble our nature, and advance it to perfection. But the difficulties in the way to hell proceed from the contrariety of that course to the best principles of human nature, and to the most ftrong and rational obligations; and confequently, the more we ftruggle with these difficulties, the more we labour to fupprefs and root out the remains of all good principles, and break the most inviolable obligations to God and ourselves. The easier it is for us to fin, the more base and corrupt we are: juft as the more rotten a limb is, the easier for it to drop off; the more disordered and stupified the body is, the more easy to die. To meet with no obftacle in the way to hell, but to run on without restraint, is terrible indeed; it shews a man abandoned of God, and ripe for deftruction. Such an ease in finning is the quality of a devil.

Upon the whole, you fee, that though there be difficulties on both fides, yet the way to heaven has infinitely the advantage; and therefore, let me again urge you to choose it. You have walked long enough at variance with God, with your own confcience, with your own intereft, and duty: come now, be reconciled: make these your antagonists no longer. While you perfift in this oppofition, you do but kick against the pricks; that is, you make a refiftance injurious to yourselves. For the future, declare war against fin, Satan, and all their confederates, and ere long ye fhall be made more than conquerors; and for your encouragement remember, He that overcometh fhall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my fon, faith the Lord God Almighty.

SERMON

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THE CHARACTERS OF THE WHOLE AND SICK, IN A SPIRITUAL SENSE, CONSIDERED AND CONTRASTED.

MATT. ix 12. But when Jefus heard that, he faid unto them, They that be whole need not a phyfician, but they that are fick.

HERE is no article of faith more certain than

THE

that Jefus Chrift is an all-fufficient and most willing Saviour, able to fave to the uttermost all that come unto God through him, and that those that come unto him, he will in nowife caft out. They that intruft their fouls in his hands he keeps, and none of them is loft. It is also certain that all the guilty fons of Adam ftand in the moft abfolute need of him: in vain do they look for falvation in any other. Without him, they are undone for ever and without him, their very existence becomes a curfe, and their immortality but the duration of their mifery. The difeafe of fin has fo deeply infected their fouls, that none but this divine Phyfician can heal them.

Since this is the cafe, who would not expect that Jefus would be univerfally the darling of mankind? Who would not expect that as many as are wounded, and juft perifhing of their wounds, would all earnestly apply to this Physician, and feek relief from him upon any terms? Who would fufpect there should be fo much as one heart cold and difaffected towards him? Muft not all love and defire him, since all need him fo extremely, and fince he is fo completely qualified to be their Deliverer?

But

But, alas! notwithstanding fuch favourable prefumptions from the nature of the thing, it is a moft notorious fact that this divine Physician is but little regarded in our dying world. This all-fufficient and willing Saviour is generally neglected by perifhing finners. There are thousands among us that have no affectionate thoughts of him, no eager longings after him, they exert no vigorous endeavours to obtain an interest in him, nor are they tenderly folicitous about it. They indeed profefs his religion, and call themfelves chriftians after his name: they pay him the compliment of a bended knee, and now and then perform the external duties of religion, and thus have high hopes they fhall be faved through him; but as to their hearts and affections, he has no fhare there: these are referved for the world, which, in practical ef timation, they prefer to him, whatever they profess.

Now whence is this ftrange and fhocking phenomenon in the rational world? Whence is it that the dying are careless about a Phyfician? that a Deliverer is neglected by those that are perishing? The true reafon we may find in my text, They that be whole need not a phyfician, but they that are fick; that is, "they who imagine themselves well, however difordered they are in reality, do not feel their need of a physician, and therefore will not apply to him; but they who feel 'themselves fick, will eagerly apply to him, and put themselves under his care."

This is the anfwer of Christ to the proud cavilling Pharifees, who cenfured his free converfation with publicans and finners, at an entertainment which Matthew had prepared for him. The publicans were a fort of cuftom-houfe officers among the Jews, appointed by the Romans, whofe tributaries they then were, to collect the levies or duties impofed by the government. They were generally perfons of bad morals, and particularly given to rapine and extortion in raifing the taxes. On this account they were particularly hated by the Jews, especially by the ftrict fect of

the

the Pharifees. Their very office would have rendered them odious, even though they had behaved well in it; for it was a public badge of the flavery of the Jews to the Romans; which, to a people fo proud and fo fond of liberty as the Jews, was a mortification they could not patiently bear. The publicans therefore were objects of general contempt and abhorrence, as an abandoned fort of men; and the Jews, particularly the rigid and haughty Pharifees, held no converfation with them, but kept them at a distance, as tho' they had been excommunicated. Hence, fays Christ, concerning one excommunicated by the church for incorrigible wickedness, Let him be to thee as an heathen man, and a publican, Matt. xviii. 17. that is, have no intercourse with him, but treat him as the Jews do the publicans.

The condefcending Jefus, who came to feek and fave that which was loft, did not conduct himself towards thofe poor outcafts, upon the rigid principles of the Pharifees. They held them in fuch contempt, that they did not labour to inftruct and reform them.But Jefus preached to them, converfed with them freely, ufed the most condefcending, affable, and ingratiating measures to reform them, and called fome of them to the honour of being his difciples of this number was Matthew, the author of this history; once an abandoned publican, afterwards a disciple, an apostle, and one of the four evangelifts, whose immortal writings have diffused the vital favour of the name of Jefus through all ages and countries. and countries. O! the condefcenfion, the freenefs, the efficacy of the grace of Chrift! it can make a publican an apostle! an abhorred outcaft the favourite of heaven, and the companion of angels! What abundant encouragement does this give to the most abandoned finner among you to turn unto the Lord! Let publicans and finners despair of mercy and falvation if they continue in their prefent condition; but if they arife and follow Jefus at his call, and become his humble, teachable difciples,

they

they need not despair; nay, they may rejoice in hope of the glory of God, and be affured they fhall be admitted into the kingdom of God, when the self-righteous children of the kingdom are shut out.

When Matthew had embraced the call, he made a feaft for his new Mafter, that he might fhew his refpect and gratitude to him, and that he might let his brother publicans and old companions have an opportunity of converfing with him, and receive his inftructions. How natural is it for a finner juft brought to love Jefus, to use means to allure others to him, especially his former companions! Having feen his own guilt and danger, he is deeply affected with theirs, and would willingly lead them to that Saviour who has given him fo gracious a reception. Indeed his generous endeavours of this kind, though the most fubftantial and difinterefted evidences of friendship, often excite the contempt and ridicule of his former companions; and the more fo, as they are generally attended with the imprudent, but well-meant blunders of inexperience, and an honeft zeal mingled with wild-fire. But at times fuch a convert is made the inftrument of bringing those to be his companions in the way to heaven, who had walked with him in the ways of fin and this is fufficient encouragement to fuch of you as have been called, like Matthew, to use your best endeavours with your fellow-finners. Who knows but you may fave a foul from death, and hide a multitude of fins? And what a noble, beneficent exploit

is this!

The bleffed Jefus, who was always ready to embrace every opportunity of doing good, whatever popular odium it might expofe him to, cheerfully complies with Matthew's invitation, and mingles with a crowd of publicans at his table. Like a phyfician, he employs himself in an hospital, among the fick and dying, and not among the healthy and gay. The converfation of finners could not be agreeable to him for itself; but as it gave him opportunity of doing them VOL. III.

Аа

good,

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