to injure us in our Body or Eftate, and with what Spirit of Oppofition fhall we turn upon him? Yet we fuffer our Souls to be poison'd with Patience, and our eternal and heavenly Inheritance to be rifled from us with Satisfaction; and thus is the Bleffed Jefus crucified afresh among us with Infidelity on the one hand, and Complaifance on the other; they pierce his Side, but we look on with Indifference; they nail him to the Crofs, but we by ftanding by unmov'd, are con fenting, are acceffary to his Crucifixion.

Ir is the boasted Profeffion of our Age that the Gospel is hid; and it is the Apostle's Inference, that if the Gospel be bid, it is hid to them that are loft; but on whomfoever that Perdition falleth, through wilful Unbelief; let us who are perfuaded of the Truth of Chriftianity, fecure to our felves the Benefits of it; by a stedfaft Adherence to our Faith, by a zealous Performance of every Virtue ; let us curb the Infolence, and oppofe the İmpiety of thofe, who do Defpite to the Gospel of Chrift: And thus having with the Openness of fincere Confidence con

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feffed

fessed the despised and crucified Jefus to be our true Meffiah before Men; let us beseech the fame Jefus to confess us to be his redeemed and fanctified People, when he cometh in the Glory of his Father with the Holy Angels.

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SERMON II

ACTS xiv. Part of Ver. 13. -We also are Men of like Paffions with

you

HESE Words were spoken by St. Paul and St. Bar

T

nabas to correct an In

ftance of idolatrous Fren

con

zy, and to restrain the People of Lyftra from offering to them Divine Adoration; in order to vince the People that they who were efteemed Gods, were but Men: The Apoftles declare themselves to be of like Paffions with those who did fo highly efteem them; of what Paffions they were,

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the

the Context will beft inform us : The miraculous Cure of a Man lame from his Mother's Womb, rais'd them into a blafphemous Admiration of the Workers of that Miracle; they cried, The Gods are come down to us in the Likeness of Men! and they call'd Barnabas, Jupiter, and Paul, Mercurius, becaufe he was the chief Speaker. Then the Priests of Jupiter, which was before the City, brought Oxen and Garlands unto the Gates, and would have done Sacrifice with the People: But we read in a following Verfe, that these extravagant Paffions (like heavy Bodies when once put in Motion according to any Direction, always running into Extremes) upon fome Suggeftions of the Jews, that came thither, took a quite different, but equally violent Turn; they chang'd their Adoration into Infults and Barbarity; their Intentions of Sacrifice into Endeavours of Murder; they ftoned Paul, and drew him out of the City, fuppofing he had been dead. But how did the Apostles behave under thefe Circumftances? The Divine Honours, with which they were addreffed, raised in them the warmest

Refent

Refentments of impatient Zeal, in order to restrain the People from doing Sacrifice unto them: How they receiv'd their injurious Treatment, we may collect from their ufual Behaviour; viz with Patience, with Joy, for being thought worthy to fuffer for the Name of Jefus; and is this an Argument of their being fubject to like Paffions with other Men? To ftrive against those Honours, when voluntarily conferr'd upon them, which the Lords of the Heathen World did at the Expence of Force and Bribery, by the Means of their own Pomp and the Flatteries of their Servile Devotees, in vain aspire after; to choose and court the rude and cruel Outrages of an incens'd Rabble, rather than to accept of Deification, are Inftances of Behaviour which feems to contradict their Affertion, and fhow them to be of different Paffions from all the World befides: Different indeed they were, not in the Nature of their Paffions, but in the Manner of exercising them; they were liable to the fame Emotions, but with-held by the Reftraints of Virtue and Religion from incurring every wild Disorder. B 4

Thus

then