Secondly, We will go a step farther, and show you a whole community, who, amidst the light of the gospel, reject the doctrines of the gospel, for the same theological reasons for which the Jews rejected it.

Thirdly, We will produce an object yet more astonishing: a multitude of Christians, whom the light of the reformation has freed from the superstition that covered the church, guilty of the very excesses which we lament in the Jews and in superstitious Christians.

Fourthly, We will go farther still, we will suppose this congregation in the place of the ancient Jews, and we will prove, that, had you been in their places, you would have done as they did.

The last is only supposition; we will, therefore, in the fifth place, realize it, and show you, not that you would have acted like the Jews, had you been in their circumstances; but that you really do act so; and we will show you an image of yourselves in the conduct of the ancient Jews.

Were the descendants of this patriarch multiplied into a nation, and loaded with the distinguishing blessings of God? They dis tinguished themselves also by their excesses. Under the most august legislation, and against the clearest evidence, they adopted notions the most absurd, and perpetrated crimes the most unjust. They carried the tabernacle of Moloch in the wilderness; they proposed the stoning of Moses and Aaron; they preferred the slavery of Egypt before the liberty of the sons of God.

Were these people conducted by a train of miracles to the land of promise? The blessings that God bestowed so liberally on them, they generally turned into weapons of war against their benefactor. They shook off the gentle government of that God who had chosen them for his subjects, for the sake of submitting to the iron rods of such tyrants as those who reigned over neighbouring nations.

When there was only one man and one woman in the world, and when these two, who came from the immediate hand of God, could not question either his existence or his perfections, they both preferred the direction of the devil before that of the Supreme Being, who had just brought them into existence, Gen. iii.

Did God give them a posterity? The children walked in the criminal steps of their parents. The fear and the worship of the true God were confined to the family of Seth, to a small number of believers, whom the Scripture calls, 'sons of God,' chap. vi. 2, while the sons of men,' acknowledged no other religion but their own fancies, no other law but their own lust.

Did mankind multiply? Errors and sins multiplied with them. The Scripture says, 'All flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth. The Lord repented that he had made man on the earth,' ver. 12, and by a universal deluge exterminated the whole impious race, except eight persons,' 1 Pet. iii. 20.

was due to none but to the supreme God.

2. The people, of whom we have been speaking, lived before the time of Jesus Christ: but I am to show you, in the second place, a whole community, enlightened by the gospel, retaining the same principle which was the chief cause of the infidelity of the Jews; I mean a blind submission to ecclesiastical rulers.

The Jewish doctors, who were contempo rary with Jesus Christ, assumed a sovereign power over the people's minds; and the Rabbins, who have succeeded them, have done their utmost to maintain, and to extend it. Hence the superb titles, Wise man, Father, Prince, King, yea God. Hence the absolute tyranny of decisions of what is true, and what is false; what is venial, and what is unpardonable. Hence the seditious maxims of those of them, who affirm that they, who violate their canons, are worthy of death. Hence those blasphemous declarations, which say, that they have a right of giving what gloss they please to the law, should it be even against the law itself; on condition, however, of their affirming, that they were assisted by, I know not what su pernatural aid, which they call Bath-col, that is, the daughter of a voice.'

Were these sons of presumption dispersed? Their depravity and their idolatry they carried with them, and with both they infected all the places of their exile. Except Abra

astics to exercise such a dominion, there is no opinion too fantastic, no prepossession too absurd, no doctrine too monstrous, to become an article of faith. It has been often objected against us, that, to allow every individual the liberty of examining religion for himself, is to open a door to heresy. But if ever recrimination were just, it is proper here. To give fallible men the power of finally determining matters of faith, is to throw open

propositions, which would have been rejected with horror, had they been affirmed in times of liberty, would now be maintained with the utmost zeal. But how comes it to pass, that what was formerly unwarrantable now appears just and true? The pliant artifice of the human mind has wrought the change. The corruption of the heart knows how to fix the attention of the mind on objects which palliate a criminal habit; and most men understand the secret art of seducing themselves, when their passions render a seduction needful.

At first, they required only the liberty of considering the bearing of the storm before the thunder burst the clouds, that if they should be obliged to flee, it might be from real evils, and not from imaginary panics. At length the tempest came crushing and sweeping away all that opposed its progress. When the body must have been exposed for the salvation of the soul, the trial, they said, was severe, their hearts were intimidated, they fainted, and durst not flee. Moreover, till they had amassed enough to support them in that exile, to which they should be instantly condemned, if they owned Jesus Christ; and lest they should leave their innocent children destitute of all support they abjured their religion for the present. Abjuration is always shocking: but if ever it seem to call for patience and pity, it is in such circumstances! when pretexts so plausible produce it, and when solemn vows are made to renounce it. When the performance of these Vows was required, insurmountable obstacles forbade it, and the same reasons, which had sanctified this hypocrisy at first, required them to persist in it. When vigilant guards were placed on the frontiers of the kingdom, they waited, they said, only for a fair opportunity to escape, and they flattered themselves with fixing certain periods, in which they might safely execute what would be hazardous before to attempt. Sometimes it was the gaining of a battle, and sometimes the conclusion of a peace. As these periods were not attended with the advantages which they had promised themselves, they looked forward, and appointed others. Others came. No more guards on the frontiers, no more obstacles, full liberty for all, who had courage to follow Jesus Christ. And whither? Into dens and deserts, exposed to every calamity? No into delicious gardens; into countries where the gentleness of the governments is alone sufficient to indemnify us for all we leave in our own country. But new times, new morals. The pretext of the difficulty of following Jesus Christ being taken away, the necessity of it is invalidated. Why, say they, should we abandon a country, in which people may profess what they please? Why not rather endeavour to preserve the seeds of the reformation in a kingdom, from which it would be entirely eradicated, if all they, who adhere to it, were to become voluntary exiles? Why restrain grace to some countries, religion to particular walls? Why should we not content ourselves with worshipping God in our closets, and in our families? The ministers of Jesus Christ have united their endeavours to unravel these sophisms. We

have heaped argument upon argument, demonstration upon demonstration. We have represented the utility of public worship. We have shown the possibility, and the probability, of a new period of persecution. We have conjured those, whom sad experience has taught their own weakness, to ask themselves, whether they have obtained strength sufficient to bear such sufferings as those under which they formerly sunk. We have proved that the posterity of those lukewarm Christians will be entirely destitute of religion. In short, we have produced the highest degree of evidence in favour of their flight. All our arguments have been useless; we have reasoned, and written, witnout success; we have spent our strength in vain,' Lev. xxvi. 20. And, except here and there an elect soul, whom God in his infinite mercy has delivered from all the miseries of such a state, they quietly eat and drink, build and plant, marry and are given in marriage, and die in this fatal stupidity.

Such is the flexible depravity of the human mind, and such was that of the Jews! Such is the ability of our hearts in exercising the fatal art of self-deception, when sinful passions require us to be deceived!

Represent to yourselves the cruel Jews. They expected a Messiah, who would furnish them with means of glutting their revenge by treading the Gentiles beneath their feet, for them they considered as creatures unworthy of the least regard. Jesus Christ came, he preached, and said, 'Love your en emies, bless them that curse you,' Matt. v. 44. Revenge viewed the Messiah in a disadvantageous light. Revenge turned the attention of the Jews to this their favourite maxim, The Messiah is to humble the enemies of the church,' whereas Jesus Christ left them in all their gayety and pomp.

Represent to yourselves, those of the Jews who were insatiably desirous of riches. They expected a Messiah, who would lavish his treasures on them, and would so fulfil these expressions of the prophets, Silver is mine, and gold is mine,' Hag. ii. 8. The kings of Tarshish, and of the isles, shall bring presents,' Psal. lxxii. 10. Jesus Christ came, he preached, and said, 'Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth,' Matt. vi. 19. Avidity of riches considered the Messiah in a disad vantageous light. Avidity of riches confined the attention of the Jews to this favourite maxim, The Messiah is to enrich his disciples,' whereas Jesus Christ left his followers in indigence and want.

Represent to yourselves the proud and arrogant Jews. They expected a Messiah, who would march at their head, conquer the Romans, who were become the terror of the world, and obtain victories similar to those which their ancestors had obtained over nations recorded in history for their military skill. They fed their ambition with these memorable prophecies: Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost part of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron: thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. He shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river unte

the ends of the earth. They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him, and his enemies shall lick the dust,' Psal. ii. 8, 9; and lxxii. 8,9. Jesus Christ came, he preached and said, Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,' Matt. v. 10. He marched first at the head of this afflicted host, and finished his mournful life on a cross. Arrogance and pride considered Jesus Christ in a disadvantageous light. Arrogance and pride confined the attention of the Jews to this maxim, The Messiah is to sit on a throne: whereas Jesus Christ was nailed to a cross. When we know the pliant depravity of the human heart, when we know its ability to deceive itself, when its passions require it to be deceived; can we be astonished that Jesus Christ had so few partisans among the Jews? 4. But our fourth reflection will remove our astonishment; it regards the presumptuous ideas which we form of our own virtue when it hath not been tried. For this purpose, we are going to put you in the place of the ancient Jews, and to prove, that in the same circumstances you would have acted the same part.

There is a kind of sophistry, which is adapted to all ages, and to all countries; I mean that turn of mind which judgeth those vices in which we have no share. The malice of our hearts seldom goes so far as to love sin for its own sake. When sin presents itself to our view, free from any self-interest in committing it, and when we have the liberty of a cool, calm, and dispassionate sight of it, it seldom fails to inspire us with horror. And, as this disposition of mind prevails, when we think over the atrocious vices of former ages, we generally abhor the sins, and condemn the men who committed them. They appear monsters to us, and nature seems to have produced but a few. We seem to ourselves beings of another kind, and we can hardly suffer the question to be put, whether, in the same circumstances, we should not have pursued the same conduct? In this disposition we usually judge the ancient Jews. How could they rebel against those deliverers, whom God, if I may speak so, armed with his omnipotence to free them from the bondage of Egypt? How could they possibly practice gross idolatry on the banks of the Red Sea, which had just before been miraculously divided for their passage, and which had just before overwhelmed their enemies? While heaven was every instant lavishing miracles in their favour, how could they possibly place their abominable idols on the throne of the living God? How could their descendants resist the ministry of such men as Isaiah, Jeremiah, and all the other prophets, whose missions appeared so evidently divine?

In the same disposition we judge those Jews, who heard the sermons, and who saw the miracles, of Jesus Christ. Their unbelief appears a greater prodigy than all the other prodigies which we are told they resisted. It seems a phenomenon out of the ordinary course of nature; and we persuade ourselves, that, had we been in similar circumstances,

we should have acted in a very different man

ner.

As I said before, my brethren, this sophistry is not new. When we reason thus in regard to those Jews who lived in the time of Jesus Christ, we only repeat what they themselves said in regard to them who lived in the times of the ancient prophets. Jesus Christ reproaches them with it in these emphatical words: Wo unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers,' Matt. xxiii. 29, 30. 32. Let us not lightly pass over these words. I have read them as they are in the Gospel of St. Matthew. St. Luke has them a little differently, Truly ye bear witness that ye allow the deeds of your fathers; for they indeed killed them, and ye build their sepulchres,' chap. xi. 48. Both express the same thing. The Jews, who were contemporary with Christ, having no interest in the wickedness of their ancestors, considered it in the disposition of which we have been speaking, and were ashamed of it, and condemned it. They considered themselves in contrast with them, and gave themselves the preference. 'If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.' Jesus Christ undeceives them, and rends the veil with which they covered the turpitude of their own hearts from themselves. He declares, if they had lived in the days of their fathers, they would have imitated their conduct; because, being in similar circumstances, they actually pursued similar methods. And he assures them, that, if they were judged by their fruits, their zeal in repairing the sepulchres, and in embellishing the monuments of the prophets, proceeded less from a design to honour the memories of the holy men, than from a disposition to imbrue their own sacrilegious hands in their blood, as their ancestors had formerly done.

The duty of my office, and the subject which Providence calls me to-day to explain, oblige me to make an odious, but perhaps a too just, application of these words. When you hear of the unbelief of the Jews, you say, If we had lived in the times of them, who heard the sermons of Jesus Christ, and who saw his miracles, we would not have been partakers with them in the parricide of the prophets.' Alas! my brethren, how little do we know of ourselves! How easy is it to form projects of virtue and holiness, when nothing but the forming of them is in question, and when we are not called to practise and execute them! But what! you, my brethren! would you have believed in Jesus Christ? You would have believed in Jesus Christ; you would have followed Jesus Christ, would you?

Well, then, realize the time of Jesus Christ. Suppose the Hague instead of Jerusalem. Suppose Jesus Christ in the place of one of those insignificant men who preach the gos

pel to you: suppose this congregation instead of the Jews, to whom Jesus Christ preached, and in whose presence he wrought his miracles. You would have believed in Jesus Christ, would you? You would have followed Jesus Christ, would you?

What! thou idle soul! thou, who art so indolent in every thing connected with religion, that thou sayest, we require too much, when we endeavour to persuade thee to examine the reasons which retain thee in the profession of Christianity, when we exhort thee to consult thy pastors, and to read religious books! What! wouldst thou have renounced thine indifference and sloth, if thou hadst lived in the days of Jesus Christ? Would thy supine soul have aroused itself to examine the evidences of the divinity of his mission, to develope the sophisms with which his enemies opposed him, to assort the prophecies with the actions of his life, in order to determine their accomplishment in his person? What! thou vain soul! who always takest upper hand in society, who art incessantly prating about thy birth, thine ancestors, thy rank! Thou who studiest to make thy dress, the tone of thy voice, thine air, thy gait, thine equipage, thy skeleton, thy carcass, thine all, proclaim thee a superior personage! wouldst thou have joined thyself to the populace, who followed Jesus Christ; to poor fishermen, and to the contemptible publicans, who composed the apostolic school; wouldst thou have followed this Jesus?

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What! thou miser! who wallowest in silver and gold; thou who dost idolize thy treasures, and makest thy heart not a temple of the Holy Ghost, but a temple of Mammon; thou, who art able to resist the exhortations and entreaties, the prayers and the tears, of the servants of God; thou who art insensible to every form of address which thy pastors take to move thee not to suffer to die for want of sustenance,-whom? A poor miserable old man, who, sinking under the pains and infirmities of old age, is surrounded with indigence, and even wants bread. Thou! who art so ungenerous, so unnatural, and so barbarous, that thou refusest the least relief to an object of misery so affecting; wouldst thou have believed in Jesus Christ? Wouldst thou have followed Jesus Christ? Thou! wouldst thou have obeyed this command, 'Go, sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and come and follow me?" Matt. xix.

21.

Ah! Wo unto you scribes and pharisees, hypocrites! Ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.' But with too much propriety may I apply to some of you the following words, Behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes; and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye Scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city; that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel, unto the blood of Zacharias, the son of Barachias,' Matt. xxiii. 29. 34, 35. Yea, behold God

sends ministers unto you, who preach the same doctrine now that Jesus Christ did in his day. Resist them, as the Jews resisted Jesus Christ; withstand their preaching, as the Jews withstood the preaching of Jesus Christ; ridicule them, as the Jews ridiculed Jesus Christ, call them 'gluttons' and wine-bibbers,' Matt. xi. 19, as the Jews called Jesus Christ; contemn the judgments which they denounce, as the Jews contemned the judgments which Jesus Christ foretold; till all the calamitous judgments which are due to the resistance that this nation has made against the gospel ministry, from its beginning to this day, fall upon you. But cease to consider the infidelity and obstinacy of the Jews as an extraordinary phenomenon. Do not infer from their not believing the mi racles of Christ, that Jesus Christ wrought no miracles. Do not say, Religion has but few disciples, therefore, the grounds of religion are not very evident. For you are, the greatest part of you, a refutation of your own sophism. You are witnesses, that there is a kind of infidelity and obstinacy, which resists the most powerful motives, the most plain demonstrations. And these public assemblies, this auditory, this concourse of people, all these demonstrate, that wisdom has but few disciples. This is what we undertook to prove.

5. But all this is only supposition. What will you say, if, by discussing the fifth article, we apply the subject? and if, instead of saying, Had you lived in the days of the ancient Jews, you would have rejected the ministry of Jesus Christ as they rejected it, we should tell you, you actually do reject it as they did? This proposition has nothing hyperbolical in it in regard to a great number of you. Nothing more is necessary to prove it, than a list of the most essential maxims of the morality of the gospel, and a comparison of them with the opposite notions which such Christians form.

For example, it is a maxim of the gospel, that virtue does not consist in a simple negation, but in something real and positive. Likewise in regard to the employment of time. What duty is more expressly commanded in the gospel? What duty more closely connected with the great end for which God has placed us in this world? Is not the small number of years, are not the few days, which we pass upon earth, given us to prepare for eternity? Does not our eternal destiny depend on the manner in which we spend these few days and years on earth? Yet, to see Christians miserably consume upon nothings the most considerable parts of their lives, would tempt one to think, that they had the absolute disposal of an inexhaustible fund of duration.

The delaying of conversion would afford another subject proper to show the miserable art of the greatest part of mankind of shutting their eyes against the clearest truths, and of hardening themselves against the most powerful motives. Have not all casuists, even they who are the most opposite to each other on all other articles, agreed in this? Have they not unanimously endeavoured to free us from this miserable prepossession,