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to which human nature is ever liable, in this ftate of imperfection, prevent their enjoyment of them. The dejection and melancholy, which we fometimes meet with in good perfons, arife in a great measure from fome bodily diforder, which is to be removed only by proper medical applications; and it would difcover itfelf in fome other way, if religion, with which it hath no real connection, did not exist in the world. They may also in fome measure be occafioned by miftaken and contracted notions of the nature of religion, by viewing her under the gloomy and diftorted aspect of terror and vengeance, instead of contemplating her in her bright and genuine features of mercy and kindness. But this forms no juft exception against the benign and animating fpirit of true religion: it only proves, that the greateft of all bleffings, that heaven ever beftowed on man as well as thofe which are inferior, is liable

to mistake and abuse in the hands of fuch imperfect creatures. And this also is an infirmity like the others that have been mentioned, capable of being corrected, or at least capable of being prevented by proper difcipline and more enlarged information. But let the fenfualift and the worldling recollect, that if the gloom which is fometimes spread over the minds of the best of men, should continue unbroken by any gleam of comfort to the latest evening of their lives, and their fun should even fet in clouds, quickly fhall they behold it rifing again in the morn of eternal life, to shine with unfpotted and undiminishing fplendour.

SUCH then are the foundations of that faith which we are required to follow: fuch the obligation and inducements to follow it. It is not a cunningly devifed fable which we are required to follow, but a religion fupported

fupported by facts, teftified unto us by those who were eye witneffes of the majesty of our Lord Jefus Chrift. It is not a religion full of melancholy and unneceffary felfdenial and abstraction from the world; but it is the fource of comfort and delight, fecuring to us the best enjoyment of the nature which God has given us, and conducting us with safety through the dangers of life. It is only offered to our choice, not forced upon us, because we are free agents and must be in fome measure the framers of our own happiness: but we must remember, that, if it be true, to reject or difregard it, through pride, through indolence, through obftinacy, through false fhame, through a love of finful indulgence and attachment to the world, is, death; to embrace and hold it faft, life eternal.

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SERMON IX.

Acts, Ch. i. V. 21, 22.

66 WHEREFORE, OF THESE MEN, WHICH HAVE ACCOMPANIED

WITH US ALL

THE TIME THAT THE LORD JESUS WENT IN AND OUT AMONGST US, BEGINNING FROM THE BAPTISM OF JOHN, UNTO THAT SAME DAY WHEN HE WAS TAKEN UP FROM US, MUST ONE BE ORDAINED TO BE A WITNESS, WITH US, OF HIS RESURRECTION."

IF

F Chrift be not rifen, (fays St. Paul in that beautiful and pathetic exhortation, towards the clofe of his first epistle to the Corinthians,) then is our preaching vain, and your faith is alfo vain. On the truth of this fact the importance of every other recorded

recorded in the gofpels, and even the exiftence of the chriftian religion must depend. It will therefore be no unfuitable employment of our thoughts, on a day fet apart by the church to commemorate a perfon, who was elected into the number of the Apostles, exprefly because he was an unimpeachable witnefs of this great event, to confider thofe evidences which render it, at this remote period, to the moft fcrupulous inquirers, an object of rational belief.

THAT the fcriptures of the new testament were written by the persons whofe names they bear; that thefe perfons lived in Judea, and at the time when the events which make the subject of their several hiftories took place, that they all of them were the Disciples and conftant companions of Chrift during his miniftry upon earth, or derived their information immediately from 04 thofe

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