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SERMON VIII.

ST. MATTHEW,

Chapter xxvi. Verse 41.

The Spirit indeed is willing, but the Flesh is weak.

FEW EW Beings appear fo unlike to each other as Man does to himself when viewed in different lights; contemplate him on one hand; he is eminently fuperior to all the creatures around him, and confeffedly the Lord of the whole earth; he connects by his art and industry the most distant quarters of this earthly globe, making them fubfervient to his convenience, and

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pleasure ;

pleafure; he extends his view into the boundless regions of fpace, and eternity; he investigates in his way the course, and order of the heavenly bodies, and purfuing the great chain of caufes and effects, traces the divine power from the minutest atom to the firft great principal of all things, God himself.

Nor is the excellence of Man confpicuous only in the extent of his intellectual faculties: impreffed with a sense of good, and evil, he naturally approves the one, and condemns the other; he is confcious of the relation he ftands in to God, and his fellow-creatures, and even while in this state of mortality, feems already exalted above it by his hopes of enjoying a blessed eternity.-Viewed in this light, Man certainly is as the Pfalmift expresses it, little lower than the Angels in dignity, and perfection.

Contemplate the portrait in another point of view;-the likeness is still as ftrong, but not lefs unfavourable than the former

former is flattering. Behold the Lord of the visible Creation, a flave to his appetites, and paffions, yielding to what his conscience disapproves, and acting in direct Oppofition to thofe principles which he cannot but ftill confefs the most fit and proper for regulating his conduct.

He that was before feen to stretch forth his eye to the clouds, to measure the path of the Earth, and to fearch out the ordinances of Heaven, is at a lofs to account for the economy of his own existence; he knoweth not the period of his days, nor can add a single inftant to their continuance,

Behold him furrounded every where with objects, the most familiar of which has qualities far exceeding his comprehenfion. He is placed in the midst of danger, in a world, where the bite of an infect, a grain of fand, where indeed there is nothing which may not be towards him the inftrument of Death; and fhould the delicate machine of his bodily constitution efcape

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escape the rude accidents of violence and disease, yet the feeds of decay are set in it from its first formation, grow with it from infancy, and in a few years are fure to effect its diffolution.

The partial contemplation of Man under the first of these descriptions has given birth to the vain idea of human fufficiency. -An idea that the light of nature is adequate to all the purposes of existence has raised a system of prefumption, which sets forth, that Man is left altogether to the guidance of his own reason, and in a moral view is independant of his Maker.

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The effect of considering Man when placed in the unfavourable light only, has been to depreciate human nature below the standard of its real excellence, and the advocates for this humiliating estimation, maintaining that we are entirely incapable of good, would perfuade us, that our natural weakness and imperfection are a full apology for our vices, and our follies, if not a justification of them.

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