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bafe and how miferable we are, when we offend. What is beyond this is the work of nature, which will ever ftart and grow afflicted at the fight of misery, and knows how to lament its own afflictions without a guide. When therefore we find ourselves truly affected with the fenfe of our fins, and in good earneft lament our disobedience and ingratitude to God, we have the best indication that we can have, that the spirit of religion is ftill alive within us, and that we are not given up to a reprobate obdurate heart.

Laftly, There is one obfervation of a more general concern, that naturally offers itself upon the view of this cafe. The inftruction of this example to private Chriftians is very great; but yet there seems to me to be fomething more intended in the transmitting this hiftory to all ages in the facred writings.

The Gospel was the work of God; and though we were to receive it by the hands of men, yet was our faith to be founded not in the ftrength or policy of man, but in the power and wisdom of God: for this reafon God chofe the weak things of the world to confound the ftrong. The difciples, upon whom the weight of the Gospel was to reft, and upon whose management the fuccefs feemed to depend, were men of no diftinguished characters; their fimplicity and honefty were their beft commendation: thefe our Lord elected, well knowing, the weaker the inftruments were, the more evidently the hand of God would appear in the mighty things performed by them. Among these St. Peter plainly had the greateft fpirit and the strongeft refolution; his

readiness and vivacity diftinguished him in every step; he was the mouth of the Apoftles, and always ready to undertake and execute the commands: of his Lord. If there was any of the number that could be thought capable of entering into and managing fo great a defign as the propagating a new religion in the world, it was St. Peter: he therefore is called to the trial. And how able he was of himfelf to encounter the difficulties that were to attend the Gospel in every ftep, you have already feen. Had the Gospel been left to have been conducted by him merely, it is probable that the fame of it would not have reached our times. And yet this. fame man, not many weeks after, appears before the tribunal of the magiftrates, preaches to his judges, and teftifies that of a truth Jefus was the Christ, and that whom they flew, and hanged on a tree, God had raised from the dead, and exalted him to the right hand of his glory. Whence this mighty difference? or to what can it be ascribed, but to that great Spirit, for whofe coming their Lord commanded them to wait in Jerufalem, and not to enter upon their office till they should receive power from on high? If the Gospel was an imposture, and if Chrift died to rife no more, what gave this fresh courage to St. Peter? Had he more confidence in a dead man, than in his Mafter whilft on earth? If he had not feen Chrift come from the grave, nor received the power of the Spirit, what could move him to expose himself for the fake of Chrift, far whose fake whilft on earth, and whilft the hopes of his being the Son of God were ftrong, he dared not to expose himself?

This plainly fhews that the hand of God was with him, and is an evidence to us that our faith is the work of God, and not of man.

And thus, whether we confider St. Peter's cafe as an inftruction to ourselves, it affords us many useful leffons and many encouragements to direct and support us in our spiritual warfare; or whether we confider it in a more general view, and as affecting his character as he was a minister of the Gospel, and an apoftle of Chrift Jefus, it yields us a great affurance and confidence in our faith, whilst through the weakness of the man we evidently difcern the power of God, which wrought effectually with him; fo that, knowing in whom we have trufted, we need not be ashamed.

DISCOURSE XXXI.

MATTHEW xiv. 1, 2.

At that time Herod the tetrarch heard of the fame of Jefus and faid unto his fervants, This is John the Baptift: he is rifen from the dead; and therefore mighty works do fhew forth themfelves in him.

WHETHER this thought was first started by Herod himself, or no, is not very certain: the accounts given of it by St. Matthew and St. Mark make it probable, that Herod was the first who fuppofed Jefus to be that John Baptist risen from the dead, whom he had cruelly and wantonly put to death in prison. St. Luke's account makes the cafe rather to be, that the feveral reports and opinions of others concerning Jefus, either that he was Elias, or one of the old Prophets, or John the Baptift from the dead, were brought to Herod, and that he was in great perplexity and concern about them. But be this as it will, whether he imposed on himfelf, or was imposed on by others by this vain and improbable ftory, yet evident it is, how far his imagination was poffeffed, and his reason weighed down by guilty fear; and how eafily he believed whatever seemed to threaten that punishment, which

his confcience told him was his due. How came it to pass, that, whilft others were bleffing themselves with the hopes of having a great prophet among them, Herod alone was perplexed and difmayed? or, when there were fuch various accounts of this perfon, fome saying that he was Elias, others that he was one of the old prophets, and others that he was John the Baptift, how came Herod to take up with the most improbable account of all, and for which there was not the leaft foundation? The Jews had from ancient prophecies, however miftaken, an expectation that Elias fhould come, or fome of the old prophets; and those who were of that opinion were in the common error, which was countenanced by tradition, and the prevailing interpretation of the prophecies. To their expectation the character and perfon of our bleffed Saviour did very well answer: he was a preacher of righteousness, and mighty in figns and wonders: fuch was Elias, fuch were the old prophets: they had read of them, what they now faw performed by Jefus ; and, their perfuafion being allowed them, that Elias, or one of the old prophets fhould come, the words and works of Jefus tended extremely to confirm them in the opinion that he was the perfon whom they expected. But with respect to John the Baptift the cafe is quite otherwife; there was no ground to build this imagination on; there was neither tradition nor prophecy to support it: John indeed was a juft man, and a preacher of righteousness, and had been barbarously murdered; and fo had many before him, who never returned again from their graves; and what better reafon was there to expect

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