beforehand what the event would be, and he had reason to know it; God proclaimed it in a cloud before the face of all Israel, and made it to be his name: The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious,' &c.

1

You see the largeness of this treasure: but we can see no end, for we have not yet looked on the rare arts of conversion; nor that God leaves the natural habit of virtues, even after the acceptation is interrupted; nor his working extra-regular miracles, besides the sufficiency of Moses, and the prophets, and the New Testament; and thousands more, which we cannot consider now.

But this we can: when God sent an angel to pour plagues on the earth, there were in their hands 'golden phials:' for the death of men is precious and costly, and it is an expense that God delights not in but they were phials; that is, such vessels as out of them no great evil could come at once; but it comes out with difficulty, sobbing and troubled as it passes forth; it comes through a narrow neck, and the parts of it crowd at the port to get forth, and are stifled by each other's neighbourhood, and all strive to get out, but few can pass; as if God did nothing but threaten, and draw his judgments to the mouth of the phial with a full body, and there made it stop itself.

The result of this consideration is, that as we fear the divine judgments, so we adore and love his goodness, and let the golden chains of the divine mercy tie us to a noble prosecution of our duty and the interest of religion. For he is the worst of men whom kindness cannot soften, nor endearment

Exod. xxxiv. 6.

oblige, whom gratitude cannot tie faster than the bands of life and death. He is an ill-natured sinner, if he will not comply with the sweetnesses of heaven, and be civil to his angel-guardian, or observant of his patron God, who made him, and feeds him, and keeps all his faculties, and takes care of him, and endures his follies, and waits on him more tenderly than a nurse, more diligently than a client, who hath greater care of him than his father, and whose bowels yearn over him with more compassion than a mother; who is bountiful beyond our need, and merciful beyond our hopes, and makes capacities in us to receive more. Fear is stronger than death, and love is more prevalent than fear, and kindness is the greatest endearment of love; and yet to an ingenuous person, gratitude is greater than all these, and obliges to a solemn duty, when love fails, and fear is dull and inactive, and death itself is despised. But the man who is hardened against kindness, and whose duty is not made alive with gratitude, must be used like a slave, and driven like an ox, and enticed with goads and whips; but must never enter into the inheritance of sons. Let us take heed; for mercy is like a rainbow, which God set in the clouds to remember mankind: it shines here as long as it is not hindered; but we must never look for it after it is night, and it shines not in the other world. If we refuse mercy here, we shall have justice to eternity.

71

SERMON II.

WHITSUNDAY.-OF THE SPIRIT OF GRACE.

ROMANS, VIII. 9, 10.

But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead, because of sin; but the Spirit is life, because of righteousness.

PART I.

THIS day, in which the church commemorates the descent of the Holy Ghost on the apostles, was the first beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This was the first day that the religion was professed: now the apostles first opened their commission, and read it to all the people. The Lord gave his Spirit,' (or, the Lord gave his Word,) and great was the company of the preachers.' For so I make bold to render that prophecy of David. Christ was the Word' of God, Verbum æternum; but the Spirit was the Word of God, Verbum patefactum : Christ was the Word manifested in the flesh; the Spirit was the Word manifested to flesh, and set in dominion over, and in hostility against the flesh.

The gospel and the Spirit are the same thing; not in substance; but 'the manifestation of the Spirit is the gospel of Jesus Christ:' and because he was this day manifested, the gospel was this day first preached, and it became a law to us, called 'the law of the Spirit of life;' that is, a law taught us by the Spirit, leading us to life eternal. But the gospel is called 'the Spirit,' 1. Because it contains in it such glorious mysteries, which were revealed by the immediate inspirations of the Spirit, not only in the matter itself, but also in the manner and powers to apprehend them. For what power of human understanding could have found out the incarnation of a God; that two natures, a finite and an infinite, could have been concentred into one hypostasis, or person; that a virgin should be a mother; that dead men should live again; that the κόνις ὀστέων λυθέντων, ‘the ashes of dissolved bones' should become bright as the sun, blessed as the angels, swift in motion as thought, clear as the purest noon; that God should so love us, as to be willing to be reconciled to us, and yet that himself must die that he might pardon us; that God's most holy Son should give us his body to eat, and his blood to crown our chalices, and his Spirit to sanctify our souls, to turn our bodies into temperance, our souls into minds, our minds into spirit, our spirit into glory; that he, who can give us all things, who is Lord of men and angels, and King of all the creatures, should pray to God for us without intermission; that he, who reigns over all the world, should, at the day of judgment,' give up the kingdom to God the Father;' and yet, after this

1 1 Rom. viii. 2.

resignation, himself and we with him should for ever reign the more gloriously; that we should be justified by faith in Christ, and that charity should be a part of faith, and that both should work as acts of duty, and as acts of relation; that God should crown the imperfect endeavours of his saints with glory, and that a human act should be rewarded with an eternal inheritance; that the wicked, for the transient pleasure of a few minutes, should be tormented with an absolute eternity of pains; that the waters of baptism, when they are hallowed by the Spirit, shall purge the soul from sin; and that the spirit of man should be nourished with the consecrated and mysterious elements, and that any such nourishment should bring a man up to heaven; and, after all this, that all Christian people, all that will be saved, must be partakers of the divine nature, of the nature, the infinite nature, of God, and must dwell in Christ, and Christ must dwell in them, and they must be in the Spirit, and the Spirit must be for ever in them? These are articles of so mysterious a philosophy, that we could have inferred them from no premises, discoursed them on the stock of no natural or scientifical principles; nothing but God and God's Spirit could have taught them to us and therefore the gospel is Spiritus patefactus, 'the manifestation of the Spirit,' ad ædificationem,' as the apostle calls it, for edification,' and building us up to be a holy temple to the Lord.

2. But when we had been taught all these mysterious articles, we could not, by any human power, have understood them, unless the Spirit of God had given us a new light, and created in us a new

11 Cor. xii. 7.