One would have imagined, that as he came cloathed with divine efficience, as he came with divine credentials, as he spake as never man spake, that no one should have been able to have resisted the wisdom with which he spake; one would imagine they should have been so struck with the demonstration of the Spirit, that with one consent they should all own, that he was that prophet that was to be raised up like unto Moses. But you seldom find our Lord preaching a sermon, but something or other that he said was cavilled at; nay, their enmity frequently broke through all good manners; they often, therefore, interrupted him whilst he was preaching, which shows the enmity of their hearts long before God permitted it to be in their power to shed his innocent blood. If we look no farther than this chapter, where he represents himself as a good shepherd, one that laid down his life for his sheep; we see the best return he had, was to be looked upon as possessed or distracted; for we are told that there was a division therefore again among the Jews for these sayings, and many of them said, he hath a devil and is mad, why hear ye him? If the master of the house was served so,. pray what are the servants to expect? Others, a little more sober-minded, said, these are not the words of him that hath a devil; the devil never used to preach or act in this way. Can a devil open the eyes of the blind? So he had some friends among these rabble. This did not discourage our Lord, he goes on in his work; and we shall never, never go on with the work of God, till, like our master, we are willing to go through good and through evil report: and let the devil see we

are not so complaisant as to stop one moment for his barking at us as we go along.

We are told, that our Lord was at Jerusalem at the feast of the dedication, and it was winter the feast of dedication held, I think, seven or eight days for the commemoration of the restoration of the Temple and Altar after its profanation by Antiochus: now this was certainly a mere human institution, and had no divine image, had no divine superscription upon it; and yet I don't find that our blessed Lord and Master preached against it; I don't find that he spent his tim about this; his heart was too big with superior things; and I believe when we, like him, are filled with the Holy Ghost, we shall not entertain our audiences with disputes about rites and ceremonies, but shall treat upon the essentials of the gospel, and then rites and ceremonies will appear with more indifference. Our Lord does not say, that he would not go up to the feast, for, on the contrary, he did go there, not so much to keep the feast, as to have an opportunity to spread the gospel-net, and that should be our method not to follow disputing; and it is the glory of the Methodists, that we have been now forty years, and, I thank God, there has not been one single pamphlet wrote by any of our preachers about the nonessentials of religion.

Our Lord always made the best of every opportunity; and we are told, he walked in the temple in Solomon's porch. One would have thought the Scribes and Pharisees would have put him in one of their stalls, and have complimented him with desiring him to preach, no, they let him walk in Solomon's porch; some think he walked by himself, nobody choosing to keep company with

him. Me-thinks, I see him walking and looking at the temple, and foreseeing within himself how soon it would be destroyed; he walked pensive, to see the dreadful calamities that would come upon the land, for not knowing the day of its visitation; and it was to let the world see he was not afraid to appear in public: he walked, as much as to say, have any of you any thing to say to me? and he put himself in their way, that if they had any thing to ask him, he was ready to resolve them; and to shew them, that though they had treated him so ill, yet he was ready to preach salvation to them.

In the twenty-fourth verse we are told, Thencame the Jews round about him, and said unto him, how long dost thou make us to doubt? They came round about him when they saw him walking in Solomon's porch; now, say they, we will have him, now we will attack him. And now was fulfilled that passage in the Psalms, they compassed me about like bees to sting me, or rather like wasps. Now, say they, we will get him in the middle of us, and see what sort of a man he is; we will see whether we can't conquer him; they came to him and they say, how long dost thou make, us to doubt? Now this seems a plausible question, how long dost thou make us to doubt ? Pray how long, sir, do you intend to keep us in suspense ? Some think the words will bear this interpretation; pray, sir, how long do you intend thus to steal away our hearts? they would represent him. to be a designing man, like Absalom, to get the people on his side, and then set up himself for the Messiah; thus carnal minds always interpret good mens actions. But the meaning seems to be this, they were doubting concerning Christ;

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doubting Christians may think it is God's fault
that they doubt, but God knows it is all their
own. How long-dost thou make us to doubt ? I
wish you would speak a little plainer, sir, and not
let us have any more of your parables; pray let
us know who you are, let us have it from your
own mouth; if thou be the Christ tell us plainly;
and I don't doubt but they put on a very sanctified
face and looked very demure; if thou be the
Christ tell us plainly, intending to catch him: if he
does not say he is the Christ, we will say he is
ashamed of his owncause; if he does tell us plainly
that he is the Christ, then we will impeach him to
the governor, we will go and tell the governor that
this man says he is the Messiah; now we know of
no Messiah but what is to jostle Cæsar out of his
throne. The devil always wants to make it be-
lieved that God's people, who are the most loyal
people in the world, are rebels to the government
under which they live; if thou be the Christ tell us
plainly. Our Lord does not let them wait long
for an answer; honesty can soon speak: I told
-you and ye believed not: the works that I do in my
Father's name, they bear witness of me.
Had our

Lord said, I am the Messiah, they would have
taken him up; he knew that, and therefore he
joined the wisdom of the serpent with the innocence
of the dove: says he, I appeal to my works and
doctrine, and if you will not infer from them that
I am the Messiah, I have no further argument.
But, he adds, ye believe not, because ye are not of
my sheep. He complains twice; for their unbelief
was the greatest grief of heart to Christ: then he
goes on in the words of our next, My sheep hear
my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
And I give unto them eternal life, and they shall

never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand, My sheep hear my voice; you think to puzzle me, you think to chagrin me with this kind of conduct, but you are mistaken; you don't believe on me, because you are not of my sheep. The great Mr. Stodart, of New-England, (and no place under heaven produces greater divines than New England) preached once from these words, but ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep; a very strange text to preach upon to convince a congregation, yet God so blessed it, that two or three hundred souls were awakened by that sermon: God grant such success to attend the labours of all his faithful ministers.

My sheep hear my voice and they follow me. It is very remarkable, there are but two sorts of people mentioned in scripture; it does not say the Baptists and Independents, nor the methodists and Presbyterians; no, Jesus Christ divides the whole world into but two classes, sheep and goats: the Lord give us to see this morning to which of these classes we belong...

But it is observable, believers are always compared to something that is good and profitable, and unbelievers are always described by something that is bad, and good for little or nothing.

If you ask me why Christ's people are called sheep? as God shall enable me, I will give you a short, and I hope it will be to you an answer of peace. Sheep, you know, generally love to be together; we say a flock of sheep, we don't say a herd of sheep; sheep are little creatures, and Christ's people may be called sheep, because they are little in the eyes of the world, and they are yet less in their own eyes. O some people think if the great men were on our side, if we had king,