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You see therefore what you must be, in order to receive and value the gospel; you must put away those sins and corruptions which hinder the reception of it. Into the place of greediness and insatiableness, you must admit self denial: for impudence you must admit of an humble, contrite spirit; intemperance and uncleanness must be exchanged for holiness and purity: then will you love the truth, and delight to hear it preached. Then shall we ever be ready to give you that which is holy, and cast pearls at your feet; knowing that they will be taken up with reverence, and valued according to their worth. The text says, cast ye not your pearls. What a blessing is that! the gospel hath put us in possession of them: these pearls are our property: God hath given them; and all the world cannot take them away: neither moth nor thieves can touch them: nothing can forfeit them but our own unworthiness, and the indulgence of base and grovelling affections. Which may God Almighty prevent, for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, &c.

SERMON

SERMON X.

Christ the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

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JESUS SAITH UNTO HIM, I A AM THE WAY, AND THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE.

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HE who would be happy in this world, and

in the world to come, must know Jesus Christ, and love him, and keep his commandments. By knowing him, I do not mean that we should have personal knowledge of him, as Peter had, when he said, Lord, thou knowest that I love thee. It is sufficient for us to know what he is: receive him with the heart and affections;

it be not possible that we should see him he eyes of the body. To the eye of 132 faith

faith he is visible enough, for all the purposes of salvation; and so the words of St. Peter imply, where he says-whom having not seen ye love : in whom, though ye now see him not, yet believ ing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Such joy must every man feel, when his eyes are opened, and Jesus Christ is revealed to him; and no words can reveal him to us more effectually than the words of this text.Blessed are the eyes which can see him as he is here described! That you may be able to do this, I shall make them as plain and easy as I can: and if there be any among you, who have not seen him yet, may God bring such out of darkness into light; that their eyes may not be closed in death, till they have seen the salvation of God!

I proceed to shew you, how truly these three terms, the way, the truth, and the life, describe to us the character of Jesus Christ: and first I shall shew, how he is the way.

We are all departed from God: our disobe dience drove us from Paradise, to wander about this world; and nothing but disappointment and misery can attend us, till we find God whom we had lost, and return to him again. We are all gone out of the way: and instead of seeking after God, we are always seeking after some

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thing else. We have some vision of happiness before us, to which God is not necessary; in which he has no share-God is not in all their thoughts, saith the prophet. Here are two very bad circumstances: first, that we are lost, and next, that we have neither power nor inclination to return. The poor sheep, straying in the wilderness, when wolves are abroad, cannot be in a worse case. It was the wolf which first made us wander. Such doctrine as a wolf would give to a sheep, such did the tempter give to man; and in consequence of it, he has been wandering ever since he is in a wilderness where there is no way; no footsteps are to be seen: we may go over the whole world, and find no way that will lead us to God: every way of man carries us farther from him. The way in which he commonly walketh is called a shadow; it is only an image and outward semblance of life, which, like a shadow, soon departeth. Try all his ways by this rule, and you will find them all alike. When he is in the way to be rich, he is laying up for some other to gather when he is gone. If he is in the way to be happy, his pleasures turn into thorns and vexations. If he is in the way to be great, a short time will put him upon a level with the west of mankind. If he is in the way to be

wise, his wisdom is a wisdom of words. If he is a discoverer, he brings in a fresh generation of terms; persuading the world that he has new knowledge, because he has new expreffions. Thus is man constantly seeking the way, but he is still estranged from it, and misses his true object. It was therefore intimated of old that a way is prepared, which man can neither make nor find. Jacob's visionary ladder had this use; it foreshewed, that there should be a communication between earth and heaven: a method of descending from heaven, and of ascending from the earth. This our Saviour applies to his own person. He is that ladder by which man is to ascend to God: and to attempt it without him, is to think we can step into the clouds. Man can no more make his own communication with God, than he can make a ladder to heaven. Christ must be our mediator, before he becomes our teacher; and of this we can give you another proof. When man was shut out of paradise, a flaming sword was interposed to keep the way of the tree of life. When man left that seat of bliss, labour and death were before him, and vengeance was behind him. There was no return for him into paradise, without passing the fire of that sword. This is the thing which Christ did for us: he

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