elevated to the pinnacle of terrestrial grandeur, may God elevate you to everlasting glory! I turn myself also to you, illustrious personages, who represent in these provinces the chief heads of the christian world, and who in a manner exhibit in this assembly princes, electors, republics, and monarchs, may God open his richest treasures in favour of those sacred persons, who are Gods upon earth, and whose august characters you bear, to enable them to support sovereign power with dignity! God grant, they may always have such ministers as you, who understand how to make supreme authority both respected and feared! God grant, a confederacy formed for the security of all nations and people may be continued! And, that my wishes may be more worthy of the majesty of this place, and the holiness of my ministry, I pray God to unite you not only by the same temporal interest, but by the same religion; may you have the same God for your Father, the same Jesus for your Redeemer, the same Spirit for your guide, the same glory for your hope! I own, at the sight of these lords of the universe, to whom I have the honour to address myself, I feel my insignificance, and I had suppressed all these wishes in my heart, had I not known that I speak the sense of all this assembly, the benedictions of all the church, and the congratulations of the state. You also we bless, Levites holy to the Lord, ambassadors of the King of kings, ministers of the new covenant, who have written on your foreheads holiness to the Lord, and on your breasts the names of the children of Israel: and you, elders and deacons of this church, who are as it were associated with us in the work of the ministry, may God animate you with the zeal of his house! God grant, you may always take for your model the chief Shepherd and Bishop of our souls! God grant, after you have preached to others, you may not be cast away! May you turn many to righteousness, and afterward shine as the stars for ever and ever! Receive our benediction, fathers and mothers of families, happy to see yourselves born again in the persons of your children, happier still to bring those into the assembly of the first born, whom you have brought into this valley of trouble! God grant, your houses may be sanctuaries, and your children offerings to the Father of spirits, the God of the spirits of all flesh! Accept our good wishes, Officers, and Soldiers, you who after so many battles are going to war again, you who after escaping escaping so many dangers are entering upon a new march of perils: May the God of battle fight incessantly for you? May victory constantly follow your steps! While you subdue your enemies, may you experience this maxim of the wise man, he that ruleth his spirit is better than he that taketh a city. Young people receive our blessing: may you ever be preserved from the contagion of the world you are entering ! May you devote the inestimable days you enjoy to your salvation! Now may you remember your Creator in the days of your youth! Receive our good wishes, old people, who have already one foot in the grave, let us rather say, who have already your heart in heaven where your treasure is: May you find your inward man renewed day by day, as your outward man perisheth! May you feel your souls strengthened as your bodies decay, and when your house of clay falls, may the gates of heaven open to you! Desolate countries, to you also we extend our good wishes and prayers. You have been many years the unhappy theatre of the most bloody war that ever was. May the sword of the Lord, drunk with blood, retire into its scabbard, rest and be still! May the destroying angel, who ravages your fields, cease to execute his commission! May your swords be beaten into plough shares, and your spears into pruning hooks, and may the dew of heaven succeed the shower of blood that for so many years has been fallen upon you. Are our benedictions exhausted? Alas! on this joyful day can we forget our griefs? Ye happy inhabitants of these provinces, so often troubled with a recital of our afflictions, we rejoice in your prosperity, will you refuse to compassionate our misfortunes? And you, fire brands plucked out of the burning, sad and venerable ruins of our unhappy churches, my dear brethren, whom the misfortunes of the times have cast on this shore, can we forget the miserable remnants of ourselves? O ye groaning captives, ye weeping priests, ye sighing virgins, ye festivals profaned, ye ways of Zion mourning, ye untrodden paths, ye sad complaints, move, O move all this assembly. O Jerusalem, if I forget thee, let my right hand forget her cunning. Not remember thee! let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy! O Jerusalem, peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces. For my brethren and companions sake, I will now now say peace be within thee! May God be moved, if not with the ardour of our prayers, yet with the excess of our afflictions, if not with our misfortunes, yet with the desolation of his sanctuaries, if not with the bodies we carry all about the world, yet with the souls that are torn from us ! And thou, dreadful prince, whom I once honoured as my king, and whom I yet respect as a scourge in the hand of almighty God, thou also shalt have a part in my good wishes. These provinces, which thou threatenest, but which the arm of the Lord protects; this country, which thou fillest with refugees, but fugitives animated with love; these walls, which contain a thousand martyrs of thy making, but whom religion renders victorious, all these yet resound benedictions in thy favour. God grant, the fatal bandage that hides the truth from thine eyes may fall off! May God forget the rivers of blood, with which thou hast deluged the earth, and which thy rain hath caused to be shed! May God blot out of his book the injuries, which thou hast done us, and, while he rewards the sufferers, may he pardon those who exposed us to suffer! O may God, who hath made thee to us, and to the whole church, a minister of his judgments, make thee a dispenser of his favours, an administrator of his mercy! I return to you, my brethren, I include you all in my benedictions. May God pour out his holy Spirit upon all this assembly! God grant, this year may be to us all an acceptable year, a preparation for eternity! Drop down, ye heavens, from above, let the skies pour down righteousness, let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation ! It is not enough to wish for these blessings, they must be procured, and we must derive them from the source. It is not sufficient that a frail man utters benedictions in your favour, we must pray for a ratification of them by the happy God. We must go to the throne of God himself, wrestle with him, earnestly beseech him with prayers and tears, and not let him go, except he bless us. Magistrates, people, soldiers, citizens, pastors, flock, come let us bow our knees before the Monarch of the world: and you birds of prey, devouring cares, worldly anxieties, be gone, and interrupt not our sacrifice, SERMON SERMON X. THE DIFFERENT METHODS OF PREACHERS. I CORINTHIANS iii. 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. Other foundation can no man lay than that, which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man's work shall be made manifest; for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is. If any man's work abide, which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burnt, he shall suffer loss: but he' himself shall be saved, yet so, as by fire. HAD AD rules of preaching sermons no connection with those of hearing them, we would not have treated of this text in this place. Satisfied with meditating on it in the study, we would have chosen a subject, in which you would have been more directly interested. But what doctrine can we preach to you, which doth not engage you to some dispositions, that cannot be neglected without hazarding the great salvation, for the sake of which you assemble in this holy place? Are we such enemies to truth, or do we so ill understand it, as to teach you a doctrine contrary to that, which the holy Spirit hath laid down in scripture? If so, you should remember the saying of an apostle, and, animated with a holy indignation, should exclaim, Though you, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto us than that, which we have received, let him be accursed! Gal. i. 8, 9. Do we always keep in sight, while we are working in the building of the church, the pattern shewed to us in the mount, Heb. viii. 5. you ought to be attentive, diligent and teachable. Do we make an VOL. V. odious Сс |