And are your hearts so filled with self-importance, that you scorn to use your lips as suppliants, in addressing the throne of divine grace for mercy, and pleading earnestly for the pardon of your sins? Does the blessed Redeemer admonish you to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness? and do you make it your main concern to ornament the body, accounting its pleasures as your chief joy? Alas! what folly and madness, so to think and act, as most fatally to ruin both the body, and your immortal souls! Notwithstanding all your care and indulgence of your mortal frames, if you die in impenitence, they will be raised to shame and everlasting contempt. If they come forth with the attributes of incorruption, strength, and activity, how will they express with awful horrour, the direful passions and torments of your wretched existence! They will not lessen but augment your intolerable, eternal pains.

Doleful reflection! to endure the curses of the God of heaven in your souls and bodies for ever and ever, without any mixture of mercy! Those bodies which appear in the house of God, in the time of his solemn worship, in a careless and indecent manner, will be far from levity when summoned to the judgment. The wicked will be filled with horrour, when their eyes shall behold the Lord Jesus revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Those ears that now listen to the enchanting sounds of temptation with eagerness and delight, and hear the inviting calls of the gospel with indifference and disgust, will be everlasting inlets of anguish to the soul. How will both the soul and body of every Christless sinner be overwhelmed with agony and seized with eternal consternation, when their final sentence, Depart from me, ye cursed, shall be pronounced! Let me remark, that as glorious and delightful as the

doctrine of the resurrection is to saints, so inglorious and dreadful must it be to sinners.

7thly. This subject is precious and profitable to saints.

By living a few years in these animal bodies, we naturally become attached to them; and it is affecting to think they must shortly decay, become putrefaction, and a mass of vile dust. With secret disgust, and painful sensations, our minds turn from the thought.

But in joyful contemplation, the believer with an eye of faith, can look beyond the grave to the resurrection, which will cause an amazing and glorious exchange. Is such a one afflicted with bodily infirmities, pained with acute diseases? Do any bear a weak, decaying body, which retards them in their journey towards the heavenly Canaan! Let such take courage, and not despond. Be comforted and strengthened; for in the resurrection God shall wipe away all tears from your eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying; neither shall there be any more pain. Yes, your light and temporary afflictions will shortly be exchanged for an eternal and inconceivable weight of glory.

They who have lost near and dear pious relatives and friends, may receive consolation in the view of this subject. Have some of you, my hearers, seen the eyes of such, which once sparkled with life and beauty, rolled in death; that tongue, which once instructed and encouraged, sealed in solemn silence; and the whole frame a lifeless corpse, turning to the food of worms? Console yourselves. At the resurrection, their bodies will be rendered incorruptible, glorious, spiritual bodies, fashioned like unto Christ's own glorious body. Then let divine light illumine your understandings. Let heavenly rays beam with consolation upon your souls.

Christian friends, O! frequently contemplate the wonderful, the delightful, and glorious change your frail, decaying tabernacles will experience in the

morn of the resurrection. Extend your thoughts a little forward, what divine and blessed realities are presented! Shortly the trump of God will proclaim, Awake, ye dead, and come to judgment. That is the all-powerful voice, which will refine and purify the sleeping dust of every believer, and change it into all the attributes of a spiritual and immortal body. What a glorious morn will burst upon your sight, when the archangel shall summon you to come forth to all the excellence and blessedness of the endless day of your God! And shall not the prospect of the glories of the heavenly world inspire you with Christian fortitude, under the trials of your pilgrimage state? It is your privilege to be profited here below, in the view of the precious, extatick truths flowing from this subject. Yet a little while, and you will mount triumphing on the celestial wings of a glorified body, soaring for ever higher in degrees of perfection; and with seraphick love, shouting God's praises in endless day. Amen.

SERMON XXVIII.
XXVIII.

MINISTERS OF THE GOSPEL ENCOURAGED TO HOLD FORTH VARIETY, AS A PROMINENT TRAIT IN THEIR PUBLICK DISCOURSES.

MATTHEW XIII. 52.

Every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven, is like unto a man that is a householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure, things new and old.

THESE Words the Saviour addressed to his disciples immediately after the delivery of a number of important parables. While apart from the multitude, he demanded whether they understood the things he had related. They readily answered in the affirmative, though perhaps too confidently. Christ, however, did not administer rebuke; but his answer tended to show the importance of their being skilled in the mysteries of the kingdom of God. Jesus saith unto them, Have ye understood all these things? They say unto him, Yea, Lord: Then said he unto them-"Therefore, every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven, is like unto a man that is a householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure, things new and old."

Let us attend to a brief exposition of these words. The scribes were at this time the teachers of the Jews, under the Jewish dispensation; and the Apostles, with their successors in the ministry, were to be the teachers of the Gentiles, under the Christian dispensation. Every one of them, therefore, ought to be a scribe well instructed in all things pertaining to the kingdom of heaven. This the Saviour represented under the similitude of a householder, who has to provide for a large family. Such a one will take care to have a stock of provisions on hand

for their supply, to which he will be continually adding those things which he judges needful or useful. Thus the people would depend on the Apostles, and other ministers of Christ, as stewards of the mysteries of God, who were appointed to dispense to them the bread of life. They should, therefore, carefully treasure up in their understanding and heart, what they had learned; and add to their fund of knowledge continually, by deriving fresh instruction from what they see, hear, and experience. Then they would be able to bring forth old truth, with new observations, illustrations, and exhortations; and to lead the people forward in knowledge, as they made progress themselves. In accordance with these remarks, the apostle Paul addresses his Corinthian brethren in the following terms: "Let a man so

account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God." Moreover, it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful. Thus we are reminded, that they ought to be diligent, who have not only to be wise for themselves, but to dispense the wisdom of God to others.

These introductory observations serve to show that by the term scribe, is to be understood a minister of the gospel. But to be qualified for this important office, a man must be taught of God, by having his heart renewed by his Holy Spirit, and his understanding richly stored with the manifold truths of divine revelation. Such a one will bring forth from his extensive store of knowledge, things both new and old, to the people of his stewardship. One * great object in his studies and researches will be to have variety in his instructions.

In the prosecution of the present subject, my design is to exhibit some of the encouragements, and show how important it is that ministers of the gospel hold forth variety as a prominent trait in their publick discourses. But while at the threshold, let⚫ me remark, that I am not presuming to give directions to those men whose eminent piety, experience, profound erudition, or elevated stations, have ren