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your privilege, ye poor, ye unlearned, ye ignorant, ye weak; however, through want of books, education, or abilities, ye may be prevented from feveral outward evidences of the truth of our holy religion; yet the inward teftimony, the convictions wrought by God's Holy Spirit, of your own fin, of Chrift's righteoufnefs, and of his future judgment, by that which he already executes over the power of Satan in your breafts, may all be yours. If ye be "poor "in fpirit," they will be fo. So will they be to all who anfwer that defcription, whatever their rank, their station. their learning, or abilities. And, bleffed be God, fuch have been fometimes found among the most noble, the moft learned, the most able. "To these men will God look, with them "will he dwell." wherever they may be," even "to them that are of an humble and contrite fpirit, and tremble, at his wordt." The office

of our dear Lord was not only to " preach the "gospel to the poor, but to bind up the broken"hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives "unto Satan, and recovery of fight to the fpiritual

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ly blind And his Holy Spirit is ever ready to pour his divine convictions into the breafts of fuch as are willing to receive his gofpel, and forfake their fins. It fhall come to them "not "in word only, but in demonftration of the "Spirit, and of power §;" not as the word

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of

lvii. 15.
§ 1 Cor. ii. 4, &c.

Ifa. lxi. 1.

of man, but as it is in truth, the word of God,* "Spirit and lifet."

God grant that we may all feek, cherish, and çuluvate these convictions of God's Holy Spirit, being ever careful not to "relift and grieve "him, "fo as to " quench his facred influences; that we rey thus not only be made "pertakers of the divine

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Late f, but be filled with the Spirit ||," even "with all the filnels of God (a)," Then fhall we poffefs indeed a fure and firm conviction, of the gofpel being the word of God, aring not merely from the arguments of men,----from its own native excellence, or even what it has done in the world; but, from that which it has accomplifhed in us, in our hearts and lives, through our fecking the divine influences, and following the other directions which that divine gofpel has pointed out. Even fo, bleffed Lord God, for the fake of thy dearly beloved Son Jefus Chrift our Saviour!

*

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John vi. 63.

A&ts vii. 51.

1 The T. ii. 13. Eph. iv. 30. 1 Theff. 5. 19. § 2 Pet. i. 4.

Eph. v. 81. (a) Eph. iii. 19.

EW. Appleton, Printer, Stockton.]

PRAYER

PRAYER BEFORE OR AFTER THE SERMON,

The Third Collect for Good-Friday.

O merciful God, who haft made all men, and hateft nothing that thou haft made, nor wouldeft the death of a finner, but rather that he should be converted, and live: Have mercy upon all Jews, Turks, Infidels and Heretics; and take from them all ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of thy word; and fo fetch them home, bleffed Lord, to thy flock, that they may be faved among the remnant of the true Ifraelites, and be made one fold, under one Shepherd, Jefus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end!

SERMON

ON

2 COR. xiii. 5.

Examine yourfelves whether ye be in the faith; prove your own felves. Know ye not your own felves, how that Jefus Christ is in you; except ye be reprobates ?

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T must be manifeft to every person, who seriously confiders the nature of the gospel, that not every one born in a Chriftian land will

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Printed by W. Appleton, Stockton.

receive

receive actual and lafting benefit through the fufferings of Chrift. I fay, actual and lafting benefit, because in the offers of mercy, and the opportunities of falvation, all perfons are benefited, while they who, notwithstanding these advantages, obftinately continue in unbelief, have their finfulness only thereby increafed. The gofpel, which is the favour of life unto life" to fo many, becomes to them "the favour of death ❝ unto death "God (we are informed) fo loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whofoever believeth in him 'fhould not perifh, but have everlasting life +:" But they do not believe, and are confequently left to perish in the mifery defcribed as death eternal. "They are condemned already :" "the wrath of “God abideth on them "" and this is the ❝ condemnation," the great aggravation of their guilt, that light is come into the world, but "they loved darknefs rather than light, because "their deeds were evit." "Go ye (faid our Lord to his minifters) into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth, and is baptized, fhall be faved, and "he that believeth not (i. e. whether baptized or "unbaptized) fhall be damned."

In exact correfpondence with thefe paffages is the original word in our text tranflated" reprobates." the very fame as occurs, among other places

2 Cor. ii. 15, 16.
John iii. 36.

John iii. 16. Johniii. 18. | Ver. 19.

places of Scripture *, in the first Epistle to the difciples at Corinth, in which St. Paul applies the term to himself, who had long been a believer. "I therefore (fays he) fo run, not as uncertainly, "fo fight I, not as one that beateth the air. But, "I keep under my body, and bring it into fubjec"tion: left that, by any means, when I have "preached to others, I myself fhould be a caft46 away: or, as it might be tranflated, in like man"ner as in our text, a reprobate +." The original word itself indeed, in both places, means fimply disapproved or rejected," i. e. of God, and will apply equally to perfons who have been believers, and who have not, fince they, and they only, who endure unto the end," being "faith"ful unto death, fhall inherit a crown of everlast ing life §."

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All perfons therefore in unbelief, to whom the gospel has been preached, are reprobates, or caftaways, in a state of condemnation, with the wrath of God abiding on thein, and fhould they continue and die in this ftate, must be eternally damned muft hear the awful fentence, "Depart, ye curfed, into everlasting fire, pre"pared for the devil and his angels :" muft undergo, without intermiffion, the utmost extent of A 2 God's

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*Heb. vi. 8. 2 Tim. iii. 8. Tit. i. 16. Alfo Rom, i. 16. where it will certainly admit of a paffive, as well as an active fenfe; a reprobate abominable mind, a mind to be abs "horred by God and man." Vid Parkhurst. Lexicon in loc. text.

+ 1 Cor. ix. 26, 27. ‡ Parkhurft. Mat. x. 226. Rev. ii. 19.

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