and bewailed your own sins which were the cause of them, receive greater satisfaction than can possibly arise to you, from any addition made to your wealth by an unremitted attendance on your ordinary secular employments. You too who live at ease, whom the Providence of God has exempted from the common cares and employments of life, and who have thereby more leisure to attend on the duties of religion, are without excuse, if you neglect those which the solemnity of that day requires you to perform.

And now, my Brethren, I have only to beseech you, to give the subject which we have been treating, such serious consideration as the importance of it demands; and to express my hope, that what I have said, will induce you to spend much time in meditations on the momentous transactions of this week, both privately and publickly. In the former your own discretion must be your guide, assisted by that ample provision which our Church has made for the latter, in the service appointed for every day of the week.

Allow me to hope also, that the assistance which I offer and mean to give towards both, may incline you to pay your own personal attendance here in the evenings of the week, and persuade you to require those over whom you have influence, to do the same; that we may preserve the solemnity of the season.

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And that our endeavours may be effectual, let us humbly beseech Almighty God to prevent us in all our doings with his most gracious favour, and to further us with his continual help, that in this and in all our works begun, continued, and ended in him, we may glorify his holy name, and finally by his mercy obtain everlasting life, through JESUS CHRIST our LORD." Amen.

LECTURE II.

Matthew xxi. 4, 5.

ALL THIS WAS DONE, THAT IT MIGHT BE FULFILLED WHICH WAS SPOKEN BY THE PROPHET, SAYING,

TELL YE THE DAUGHTER OF SION, BEHOLD, THY KING COMETH UNTO THEE, MEEK, AND SITTING UPON AN ASS, AND A COLT THE FOLE OF AN ASS.

WHEN I formed the design, which

I communicated to you this morning, of endeavouring to assist your meditations on the important transactions of the present week, it was also necessary for me to consider, by what manner I could make my discourses most instructive to one part of my hearers, I mean those who are more ignorant, and have less time for private reflections; and, at the same time, not unedifying or tiresome to the other part, who have both time and abilities to inform themselves, not only from the writings of others, but also from the observations which they themselves are capable of making, and from the conclusions which their own judgment enables them to draw.

My design being to act in conformity with that of our Church, who uses all the means she can to retain the decent and pious custom of observing devoutly this Holy Week, and has for that purpose made sufficient provision for the exercise of the devotion of her members in publick*, I cannot better effect it than by discoursing, in as plain a manner as possible, so that I may be thoroughly understood by the ignorant, without occasioning weariness to the better informed, on some of the various occurrences by which the present week has been distinguished from all others.

In pursuance of my design, and to render it as beneficial to you as I could, I meant in this discourse, as briefly as the subject would admit, to lay before you the outlines of what passed in the course of the week in which our Saviour suffered the ignominious death upon the cross for our sakes; and then to select from the whole some of the most remarkable occurrences, to be subjects of the discourses which, by God's blessing, I should deliver from this place on this and the following

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evenings of this Great and Holy Week. But when I began to examine what those outlines were, I instantly perceived, that they would take up much more time than is usually occupied at these meetings; and therefore determined to confine my plan, as nearly as I could, to the occurrences of each particular day, beginning with this day, which is generally known by the name of Palm-Sunday: the reason of which, it is to be wished, should be familiar to the mind of the most igno

rant.

On this day then did our blessed Saviour make his public entry into Jerusalem. But how did he enter it? Not in a splendid chariot, drawn by stately horses richly caparisoned-not attended, as was the manner of victorious kings and emperors, with long trains of conquered and mournful captives; but according to the prediction of the Prophet Zechariah, in the spirit of meekness and humility, riding on a Colt the Fole of an Ass*; which, by his exact knowledge of every minute particular, he had directed his disciples, where to find; and which they accordingly had brought away, having satisfied the owners thereof by answering