in so different a manner, from the different points of view in which they stand, as well as their diversity of judgments, that it is generally a very unacceptable piece of officiousness to fix any certain degrees of approach. In this case, it seems sufficient that those who will discern the least resemblance will discern enough to make them seriously comply with the devotion of the day; and that those who are affected with it in a stronger manner, and see the blessing of a Protestant king in its fairest light, with all the mercies which made way for it, will have still more abundant reason to adore that good Being who has all along protected it from the enemies which have risen up to do it violence, but more especially, in a late instance, by turning down the counsels of the froward headlong, and confounding the devices of the crafty, so that their hands could not perform their enterprise. Though this event, for many reasons, will ever be told amongst the felicities of those days; yet for none more so, than that it has given us a fresh mark of the continuation of God Almighty's favour to us: a part of that great complicated blessing for which we are gathered together to return him thanks. Let us, therefore, I beseech you, endeavour to do it in the way which becomes wise men, and which is likely to be most acceptable; and that is, to pursue the intentions of his providence, in giving us the occasion; to become better men, and, by a holy and an honest conversation, make ourselves capable of enjoying what God has done for us. In vain shall we celebrate the day with a loud voice, and with shouting, and with trumpets, if we do not do it likewise with the internal and more certain marks of sincerity, a reformation and purity in our manners. It is impossible a sinful people can either be grateful to God, or properly loyal to their prince. They cannot be grateful to the one, because they live not under a sense of his mercies; nor can they be loyal to the other, because they daily offend in two of the tenderest points which concern his welfare,-by first disengaging the providence of God from taking our part, and then giving a heart to our adversaries to lift their hands against us, who must know that if we forsake God, God will forsake us. Their hopes, their designs, their wickedness, against us, can only be built upon ours towards God. XLI.-FOLLOW PEACE. Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.'-HEBREWS XII. 14. THE great end and design of our holy religion, next to the main view of reconciling us to God, was to reconcile us to each other; by teaching us to subdue all those unfriendly dispositions in our nature which unfit us for happiness, and the social enjoyment of the many blessings which God has enabled us to partake of in this world, miserable as it is in many respects. Could Christianity persuade the professors of it into this temper, and engage us, as its doctrine requires, to go on and exalt our natures, and, after the subduction of the most unfriendly of our passions, to plant, in the room of them, all those (more natural to the soil) humane and benevolent inclinations which, in imitation of the perfections of God, should dispose us to extend our love and goodness to our fellowcreatures, according to the extent of our abilities, in like manner as the goodness of God extends itself over all the works of the creation; -could this be accomplished, the world would be worth living in, and might be considered by us as a foretaste of what we should enter upon hereafter. But such a system, you'll say, is merely visionary; and, considering man is a creature so beset with selfishness, and other fretful passions that propensity prompts him to, though it is to be wished, it is not to be expected. But our religion enjoins us to approach as near this fair pattern as we can, and if it be possible, as much as lieth in us, to live peaceably with all men; where the term, if possible, I own, implies it may not only be difficult, but sometimes impossible. Thus the words of the text, Follow peace, may by some be thought to imply that this desirable blessing may sometimes fly from us; but still we are required to follow it, and not cease the pursuit till we have used all warrantable methods to regain and settle it; because, adds the Apostle, without this frame of mind, no man shall see the Lord. For heaven is the region, as well as the recompense, of peace and benevolence; and such as do not desire and promote it here are not qualified to enjoy it hereafter. For this cause, in Scripture language, peace For if they did not think we did evil, they is always spoken of as the great and compredurst not hope we could perish. Case, therefore, to do evil; for by following righteousness you will make the hearts of your enemies faint, they will turn their backs against your indignation, and their weapons will fall from their hands. Which may God grant, through the merits and mediation of his Son Jesus Christ, to whom be all honour, etc. Amen. hensive blessing, which included in it all manner of happiness; and to wish peace to any house or person was, in one word, to wish them all that was good and desirable. Because happiness consists in the inward complacency and satisfaction of the mind; and he who has such a disposition of soul as to acquiesce and rest contented with all the events of Providence, can want nothing this world can give him. Agree able to this, that short but most comprehensive hymn sung by angels at our Saviour's birth, declaratory of the joy and happy ends of his incarnation,-after glory, in the first, to God, the next note which sounded was, Peace upon earth, and good-will to men. It was a public wish of happiness to mankind, and implied a solemn charge to pursue the means which would ever lead to it. And, in truth, the good tidings of the gospel are nothing else but a grand message and embassy of peace, to let us know that our peace is made in heaven. The prophet Isaiah styles our Saviour the Prince of Peace, long before he came into the world; and, to answer the title, he made choice to enter into it at a time when all nations were at peace with each other, which was in the days of Augustus, when the temple of Janus was shut, and all the alarms of war were hushed and silenced throughout the world. At his birth, the host of heaven descended, and proclaimed peace on earth, as the best state and temper the world could be in to receive and welcome the Author of it. His future conversation and doctrine here upon earth was every way agreeable with his peaceable entrance upon it; the whole course of his life being but one great example of meekness, peace, and patience. At his death, it was the only legacy he bequeathed to his followers: My peace give unto you. How far this has taken place, or been actually enjoyed, is not my intention to enlarge upon, any further than just to observe how precious a bequest it was, from the many miseries and calamities which have, and ever will, ensue from the want of it. If we look into the larger circle of the world, what desolations, dissolutions of government, and invasions of property, what rapine, plunder, and profanation of the most sacred rights of mankind, are the certain unhappy effects of it!-fields dyed in blood, the cries of orphans and widows bereft of their best help, too fully instruct us. Look into private life: Behold how good and pleasant a thing it is to live together in unity! it is like the precious ointment poured upon the head of Aaron, that ran down to his skirts, -importing that this balm of life is felt and enjoyed, not only by governors of kingdoms, but is derived down to the lowest rank of life, and tasted in the most private recesses; all, from the king to the peasant, are refreshed with its blessings, without which we can find no comfort in anything this world can give. It is this blessing gives every one to sit quietly under his vine, and reap the fruits of his labour and industry; in one word,-which bespeaks who is the bestower of it,-it is that only which keeps up the harmony and order of the world, and preserves everything in it from ruin and confusion. There is one saying of our Saviour's recorded by St. Matthew, which at first sight scems to carry some opposition to this doctrine: I came not to send peace on earth, but a sword. But. this reaches no further than the bare words, not entering so deep as to affect the sense, or imply any contradiction: intimating only that the preaching of the gospel will prove in the event, through sundry unhappy causes,-such as prejudices, the corruption of men's hearts, a passion for idolatry and superstition,-theoccasion of much variance and division even amongst nearest relations,-yea, and ofttimes of bodily death, and many calamities and persecutions, which actually ensued upon the first preachers and followers of it. Or the words may be understood as a beautiful description of the inward contests and opposition which Christianity would occasion in the heart of man, from its oppositions to the violent passions of our nature, which would engage us in a perpetual warfare. This was not only a sword, a division betwixt nearest kindred; but it was dividing a man against himself, setting up an opposi-tion to an interest long established-strong by nature-more so by uncontrolled custom. This is verified every hour in the struggles for mastery betwixt the principles of the world, the flesh, and the devil; which set up so strong a confederacy that there is need of all the helps which reason. and Christianity can offer to bring them down. But this contention is not that against which such exhortations in the gospel are levelled; for the Scripture must be interpreted by Scripture, and be made consistent with itself. And we find the distinguishing marks and doctrines, by which all men were to know who were Christ's disciples, was that benevolent frame of mind towards all our fellow-creatures which by itself is a sufficient security for the partieular social duty here recommended: so far from meditations of war-for love thinketh no ill to his neighbour;-so far from doing any, it harbours not the least thought of it, but, on the contrary, rejoices with them that rejoice, and weeps with them that weep. This debt Christianity has highly exalted; though it is a debt that we were sensible of before, and acknowledged to be owed to human nature,-which, as we all partake of, so ought. we to pay it in a suitable respect. For, as men,, we are allied together in the natural bond of brotherhood, and are members one of another. We have the same Father in heaven, who made us, and takes care of us all. Our earthly extraction, too, is nearer alike than the pride of the world cares to be reminded of; for Adam was the father of us all, and Eve the mother of all living. The prince and the beggar sprung. from the same stock, wide asunder as the branches are. So that, in this view, the most. upstart family may vie with antiquity, and com-pare families with the greatest monarchs. We are all formed, too, of the same mould, and must equally return to the same dust. So that, to us to follow peace with all men: the first is the root,-this the fair fruit and happy product of it. let us be kindly affectioned one to another, following peace with all men, and holiness, that we may see the Lord. love our neighbour, and live quietly with him, is to live at peace with ourselves. He is but self multiplied, and enlarged into another form; and to be unkind or cruel to him is but, as Solomon Therefore, my beloved brethren, in the bowels observes of the unmerciful, to be cruel to our of mercy let us put away anger, and malice, and own flesh. As a further motive and engage-evil-speaking; let us fly all clamour and strife; ment to this peaceable commerce with each other, God has placed us all in one another's power by turns-in a condition of mutual need and dependence. There is no man so liberally stocked with earthly blessings as to be able to live without another man's aid. God, in his wisdom, has so dispensed his gifts in various kinds and measures, as to render us helpful, and make a social intercourse indispensable. The prince depends on the labour and industry of the peasant; and the wealth and honour of the greatest persons are fed and supported from the same source. This the Apostle hath elegantly set forth to us by the familiar resemblance of the natural body; wherein there are many members, and all have not the same office, but the different faculties and operations of each are for the use and benefit of the whole. The eye sees not for itself, but for the other members, and is set up as a light to direct them; the feet serve to support and carry about the other parts; and the hands act and labour for them all. It is the same in states and kingdoms, wherein there are many members, yet each in their several functions and employments; which, if peaceably discharged, are for the harmony of the whole state. Some are eyes and guides to the blind; others, feet to the lame and impotent; some supply the place of the head, to assist with counsel and direction; others the hands, to be useful by their labour and industry. To make this link of dependence still stronger, there is a great portion of mutability in all human affairs, to make benignity of temper not only our duty, but our interest and wisdom. There is no condition in life so fixed and permanent as to be out of danger, or the reach of change; and we all may depend upon it that we shall take our turns of wanting and desiring. By how many unforeseen causes may riches take wing! The crowns of princes may be shaken, and the greatest that ever awed the world have experienced what the turn of the wheel can do. That which hath happened to one man may befall another; and therefore, that excellent rule of our Saviour's ought to govern us in all our actions, -Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do you also to them likewise. Time and chance happen to all; and the most affluent may be stript of all, and find his worldly comforts like so many withered leaves dropping from him. Sure nothing can better become us than hearts so full of our dependence as to overflow with mercy, and pity, and good-will towards mankind. To exhort us to this is, in other words, to exhort Which God of his infinite mercy grant, through the merits of his Son, our Lord and Saviour. Amen. XLII. SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES. 'Search the Scriptures.'-Sr. JOHN V. 39. THAT things of the most inestimable use and value, for want of due application and study laid out upon them, may be passed by unregarded, nay, even looked upon with coldness and aversion, is a truth too evident to need enlarging on. Nor is it less certain that prejudices, contracted by an unhappy education, will sometimes so stop up all the passages to our hearts, that the most amiable objects can never find access, nor bribe us by all their charms into justice and impartiality. It would be passing the tenderest reflection upon the age we live in to say it is owing to one of these that those inestimable books, the Sacred Writings, meet so often with a disrelish (what makes the accusation almost incredible) amongst persons who set up for men of taste and delicacy; who pretend to be charmed with what they call beauties and nature in classical authors, and in other things would blush not to be reckoned amongst sound and impartial critics. But so far has negligence and prepossession stopped their ears against the voice of the charmer, that they turn over those awful sacred pages with inattention and an unbecoming indifference, unaffected amidst ten thousand sublime and noble passages, which, by the rules of sound criticism and reason, may be demonstrated to be truly eloquent and beautiful. Indeed the opinion of false Greek and barbarous language in the Old and New Testament had for some ages been a stumbling-block to another set of men, who were professedly great readers and admirers of the ancients. The sacred writings were by these persons rudely attacked on all sides; expressions which came not within the compass of their learning were branded with barbarism and solecism,-words which scarce signified anything but the ignorance of those who laid such groundless charges on them. Presumptuous man! Shall he who is but dust and ashes dare to find fault with the words of that Being who first inspired man with language, and taught his mouth to utter; who opened the lips of the dumb, and made the infant eloquent? These persons, as they at There are two sorts of eloquence; the one, indeed, scarce deserves the name of it, which consists chiefly in laboured and polished periods, an over-curious and artificial arrangement of figures, tinselled over with a gaudy embellishment of words, which glitter, but convey little or no light to the understanding. This kind of admired by people of weak judgment and vicious taste, but is a piece of affectation and formality the sacred writers are utter strangers to. It is a vain and boyish eloquence; and as it has always been esteemed below the great geniuses of all ages, so, much more so with respect to those writers who were actuated by the spirit of infinite wisdom, and therefore wrote with that force and majesty with which never man writ.-The other sort of eloquence is quite the reverse of this, and which may be said to be the true characteristic of the holy Scriptures; where the excellence does not arise from a laboured and far-fetched elocution, but from a surprising mixture of simplicity and majesty, which is a double character, so difficult to be united, that it is seldom to be met with in compositions merely human. We sce nothing in holy writ of affectation and superfluous orna ment. As the infinitely wise Being has con descended to stoop to our language, thereby to convey to us the light of revelation, so has he been pleased graciously to accommodate it to us with the most natural and graceful plainness it would admit of. Now it is observable that the most excellent profane authors, whether Greek or Latin, lose most of their graces whenever we find them literally translated. Homer's famed representation of Jupiter, in his first bookhis cried-up description of a tempest-his relation of Neptune's shaking the earth, and opening it to its centre-his description of Pallas' horses, with numbers of other long-since-admired passages,--flag, and almost vanish away, in the vulgar Latin translation. tacked the inspired writings on the foot of -critics and men of learning, accordingly have been treated as such; and though a shorter way might have been gone to work, which was, that, as their accusations reached no further than the bare words and phraseology of the Bible, they in no wise affected the sentiments and soundness of the doctrines, which were con-writing is for the most part much affected and veyed with as much clearness and perspicuity to mankind as they could have been had the language been written with the utmost elegance and grammatical nicety. And even though the charge of barbarous idioms could be made out, yet the cause of Christianity was thereby no ways affected, but remained just in the state they found it. Yet, unhappily for them, they even miscarried in their favourite point; there being few, if any at all, of the Scripture expressions which may not be justified by numbers of parallel modes of speaking, made use of amongst the purest and most authentic Greek authors. This an able hand amongst us, not many years ago, has sufficiently made out, and thereby baffled and exposed all their presumptions and ridiculous assertions. These persons, bad and deceitful as they were, are yet far outgone by a third set of men. I wish we had not too many instances of them, who, like foul stomachs, that turn the sweetest food to bitterness, upon all -occasions endeavour to make merry with sacred Scripture, and turn everything they meet with therein into banter and burlesque. But as men of this stamp, by their excess of wickedness and weakness together, have entirely disarmed us from arguing with them as reasonable creatures, it is not only making them too considerable, but likewise to no purpose to spend much time about them, they being, in the language of the Apostle, creatures of no understanding, speaking evil of things they know not, and shall utterly perish in their own corruption. Of these two last, the one is disqualified for being argued with, and the other has no occasion for it; they being already silenced. Yet those that were first mentioned may not altogether be thought unworthy of our endeavours; being persons, as was hinted above, who, though their tastes are so far vitiated that they cannot relish the sacred Scriptures, yet have imaginations capable of being raised by the fancied excellencies of classical writers. And indeed these persons claim from us some degree of pity, when, through the unskilfulness of preceptors in their youth, or some other unhappy circumstance in their education, they have been taught to form false and wretched notions of good writing. When this is the case, it is no wonder they should be more touched and affected with the dressed up trifles and empty conceits of poets and rhetoricians, than they are with that true sublimity and grandeur of sentiment which glow throughout every page of the inspired writings. By way of information, such should be instructed: Let any one but take the pains to read the common Latin interpretation of Virgil, Theocritus, or even of Pindar, and one may venture to affirm he will be able to trace out but few remains of the graces which charmed him so much in the original. The natural conclusion from hence is, that in the classical authors the expression, the sweetness of the numbers, occasioned by a musical placing of words, constitute a great part of their beauties; whereas in the sacred writings they consist more in the greatness of the things themselves than in the words and expressions. The ideas and conceptions are so great and lofty in their own nature, that they necessarily appear magnificent in the most artless dress. Look but into the Bible, and we sce them shine through the most simple and literal translations. That glorious description which Moses gives of the creation of the heavens and the earth, which Longinus, the best critic the eastern world ever produced, was so justly taken with, has not lost the least whit of its intrinsic worth; and though it has undergone so many translations, yet triumphs over all, and breaks forth with as much force and vehemence as in the original. Of this stamp are numbers of passages throughout the Scriptures;-instance, that celebrated description of a tempest in the hundred and seventh Psalm; those beautiful reflections of holy Job upon the shortness of life, and instability of human affairs, so judiciously appointed by our Church in her office for the burial of the dead; that lively description of a horse of war, in the thirty-ninth chapter of Job, in which, from the nineteenth to the twenty-sixth verse, there is scarce a word which does not merit a particular explication to display the beauties of. I might add to these those tender and pathetic expostulations with the children of Israel, which run throughout all the Prophets, which the most uncritical reader can scarce help being affected with. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. What could have been done more to my vineyard that I have not done? Wherefore, when I expected that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?—And yet ye say, the way of the Lord is unequal. Hear now, O house of Israel, is not my way equal? are not your ways unequal? have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die, and not that he should return from his ways and live? I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me. The ox knows his owner, and the ass his master's crib; but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.There is nothing in all the eloquence of the heathen world comparable to the vivacity and tenderness of these reproaches: there is something in them so thoroughly affecting, and so noble and sublime withal, that one might challenge the writings of the most celebrated orators of antiquity to produce anything like them. These observations upon the superiority of the inspired penmen to heathen ones, in that which regards the composition, more conspicuously hold good when they are considered upon the foot of historians. Not to mention that profane histories give an account only of human achievements and temporal events, which, for the most part, are so full of uncertainty and contradictions that we are at a loss where to seek for truth; but that the sacred history is the history of God himself-the history of his omnipotence and infinite wisdom, his universal providence, his justice and mercy, and all his other attributes, displayed under a thousand different forms by a series of the most various and wonderful events that ever happened to any nation or language ;-not to insist upon this visible superiority in sacred history, there is yet another undoubted excellence the profane historians seldom arrive at, which is almost the distinguishing character of the sacred ones; namely, that unaffected, artless manner of relating historical facts, which is so entirely of a piece with every other part of the holy writings. What I mean will be best made out by a few instances. In the history of Joseph (which certainly is told with the greatest variety of beautiful and affecting circumstances), when Joseph makes himself known, and weeps aloud upon the neck of his dear brother Benjamin, that all the house of Pharaoh heard him;-at that instant none of his brethren are introduced as uttering aught, either to express their present joy, or palliate their former injuries to him. On all sides, there immediately ensues a deep and solemn silence ;-a silence infinitely more eloquent and expressive than anything else that could have been substituted in its place. Had Thucydides, Herodotus, Livy, or any of the celebrated classical historians, been employed in writing this history, when they came to this point, they would doubtless have exhausted all their fund of eloquence in furnishing Joseph's brethren with laboured and studied harangues; which, however fine they might have been in themselves, would nevertheless have been unnatural, and altogether improper on the occasion. For when such a variety of contrary passions broke in upon them, what tongue was able to utter their hurried and distracted thoughts? When remorse, surprise, shame, joy, and gratitude struggle together in their bosoms, how uneloquently would their lips have performed their duty!-how unfaithfully their tongues have spoken the language of their hearts! In this case silence was truly eloquent and natural, and tears expressed what oratory was incapable of. If ever these persons I have been addressing myself to can be persuaded to follow the advice in the text, of searching the Scriptures, the work of their salvation will be begun upon its true foundation. For, first, they will insensibly be led to admire the beautiful propriety of their language. When a favourable opinion is conceived of this, next, they will more closely attend to the goodness of the moral, and the purity and soundness of the doctrines. The pleasure of reading will still be increased by that near concern which they will find themselves to have in those many important truths, which they will see so clearly demonstrated in the Bible, that grand charter of our eternal happiness. It is the fate of mankind, too often, to scem insensible of what they may enjoy at the easiest rate. What might not our neighbouring Romish countries, who groan under the yoke of Popish impositions and priestcraft,— what might not those poor misguided creatures give for the happiness which we know not how to value, of being born in a country where a church is established by our laws, and en |