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1. You who have never yet turned to the Lord, but have been going afide from him all your days, know, that ye are yet in a ruinous condition; there is nothing you can call yours, but what is vanity, and cannot profit or deliver. Ye will not be perfuaded of this; but remember it is explicitly told you; and if grace do not open your eyes to fee it timely, death will open them to fee it when it is out of time to mend the matter.

2. Backfliders, be all of you convinced of the foolish choice ye have made, repent, and turn again unto the Lord. What have you gained by your departures from him? Where is the advantage of the fad exchange? Blafted profits! fhortlived pleasures! leaving a fting behind them in the confcience! thefe will not compenfate for what ye have loft.

you are.

3. Ye who have got near God in this ordinance, ye may fee that it is your duty and intereft, by a holy tender walk, a living by faith, to hold where If you ftep afide from God, you may well mar your cafe, you will never mend it this way. Entertain no curiofity to be on the other fide of the hedge; fatisfy yourfelves that there is nothing there but vain things, which cannot profit nor deliver, for they are vain: Ifa. xxx. 7. << For the Egyptian fhall help in vain, and to no purpose; therefore have I cried concerning this, Their' ftrength is to fit ftill."

4. Difappointed communicants may hence be fatisfied, that if you love your own fouls, it is not for your profit to go afide to another door, to get your lofs at the door of God's house made up another way. Your cafe, it is likely, is fad, and Satan will strike in with the occafion to make you a fair offer. But know of a truth, if you embrace it, instead of mending your condition, you shall make

your

your fad cafe yet fadder. Be peremptory in your refolutions, that you will wait upon the Lord, and not give over, how long foever ye be without fenfible fuccefs: Gen. xxxii. 26. " And the angel faid to Jacob, Let me go, for the day breaketh; and he faid, I will not let thee go, except thou blefs me." Go thou, and do likewise.

5. Ye carnal ones, who are weary of waiting on about the Lord's hand, and are longing to be back to the world as your element, faying in your heart, “When will the Sabbath be over?" ye may fee the propriety of checking these carnal motions; ftir up yourselves to feek the Lord, and to improve the prefent opportunity for making a happy fettlement for your fouls; otherwife, if ye mifs fuch an occafion of mending your condition, ye know not if ever ye fhall have it again; and by neglecting it, ye run towards the ruining of your fouls.

Let all be exhorted to cleave to the Lord, and tremble at the thought of turning aside from him. Be exhorted, with purpose of heart to cleave 'unto the Lord, Acts, xi. 23. Turn not ȧfide from his precious truths, his holy ordinances, the way of holiness and tenderness in the whole of your converfation; but cleave to the Lord, his word, his way, and to whatever bears his ftamp. Turn not afide, whatever may be the temptation or allurement. Know of a truth, that it is but poifon prefented in a golden cup to you, which will work the ruin of your condition; it is but a gilded vanity, to cheat you cut of a fubftantial good: it is what will not fail to be bitterness in the end. Have your eyes in your head, then, and forfeit not God's favour or fmiles for lying vanities.

Again, Turn not afide, whatever be the hazard of holding on. Let devils and men run that as

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high as they will, as fure as God's word is truth, the greatest hazard is ever on the other fide; and they who turn aside run the most fearful risk.Wherefore, take it home with you, lay it up in your hearts, and improve it in your daily walk; decide all your controverfies with temptation, managed by a fubtile devil, a carnal heart, or the men of the world, by this,―That you cannot turn afide, but " after vain things, which cannot profit, nor deliver, for they are vain."

Amen.

VOL. III.

B

JESUS

JESUS COMPLETELY QUALIFIED

FOR HIS WORK*.

SERMON

XLVI.

ISA. xi. 1. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me.

THIS

HIS text is that upon which our Lord Jefus himself preached to the congregation of Nazareth, Luke, iv. 16.-19. And if ye afk of whom the prophet fpake, Jefus tells you, ver. 21. that it was of him. Though the prophet perhaps had an eye to himself, and to the promised deliverance from the Babylonish captivity; yet certainly Chrift, and the fpiritual deliverance by him, is the principal fubject. Jefus is here defcribed as the Mediator between God and man. In the words we have two things.

1. The glorious qualifications of our Mediator: The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me. Here are the three perfons of the Trinity diftinguished. The Lord God, his Son, and his Spirit. Our Lord Jefus

*Delivered Sept. 1718.

Jefus being both God and man, the Holy Spirit, with all his gifts, was put on the man Chrift. At his baptifm the Spirit defcended upon him like a dove, Matth. iii. 16. On him alfo the Spirit refted, and never again departed. from him, but continued filling him at all times with graces and gifts for the discharge of his great truft. So that he fays the Spirit is upon me, not is come upon me. -We have,

2. The reafon of thefe glorious qualifications. This was, because they were 'neceffary for the office to which he was called: Because the Lord God hath anointed me. It behoved him to be both God and man. As he was God, he could have nothing added to him; but as he was man, it behoved him to be endowed with unparalleled qualifications. for this unparalleled office.-Here confider his call. to the work. The Lord anointed him, as prophets, priefts, and kings were wont to be, and thus were called and fet apart to their respective offices; in like manner was Chrift called of the Father to the Mediatorial works, not with material oil, as they were, but with the Holy Spirit, which was fignified by that oil. Again, confider his miffion: The Lord fent him. He did not come unfent to the world; but his Father having called him, and furnished him for the work, fent him away to exercise his commiflion, and to perform his work. Confider, next, the work he was called to, and fent out upon. Confider this work with refpect to Christ himself; and it is threefold. Firft, As a prophet or preacher of the gofpel, revealing the Father's mind. Secondly, A prieft or healer, a fpiritual physician, for fin-fick fouls, to bind up the broken hearted. Thirdly, As a king, to iffue out proclamations, far more joyful than thofe

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