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their practice to the faith of Christ; in SERM. consequence of which by the grace of God and through the merits of a Saviour they obtained the remission of their sins, were received into the household of his Church, were admitted to the name of Children, and were invested with the noblest privileges of the Christian covenant.

This indulgence to persons, who had long been considered out of the pale of God's promises, was however not agreeable to the Jews; and of them more especially to the Pharisees and Scribes; who, presuming on their merits in a strict and literal observance of the Mosaic law, assumed to themselves an exclusive title to the divine approbation and reward. When therefore they saw the partition wall broken down, and the Covenant of grace extended to those whom they reputed aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel, they were angry and would not come in; while to all the parental intreaties of God by Jesus Christ and his Apostles the answer of their hearts was this," Have

we not continually served thee all "our days, and punctually complied with all thy commandments? And

"shall

SERM.

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"shall those benefits of divine grace, "which have hitherto been confined "to the faithful Seed of Abraham, the

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peculiar Heirs of promise, be now "extended even in more abundant "measure to Publicans and to Heathens, who are strangers to thy law, "and by their idolatrous and irreligious "lives have shewn themselves unworthy of all sacred knowledge, all divine indulgence?"

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In reply to this ungracious remonstrance God is here represented as expostulating with them for their unreasonable umbrage: "Admitting what you 66 presume, that you have continually "served God all your days, and never "at any time transgressed. his com"mandment, yet why should you mur

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mur at his benevolent decree to ex"tend the benefits of the New Cove"nant to all other nations of the earth? Though under the new dispensation "of the Gospel greater mercies are “shewn, and more precious promises are given, than under the Law of Moses, yet on condition of complying faithfully with the will of God "you are still regarded in the light of an "Elder Son, who has a prior and supe

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“rior portion in his Father's inheri- SERM. "tance; for to you before all other x. "nations are proposed the gracious "terms of the gospel covenant. But "the blessings now imparted unto the "world are of too valuable a kind to "be circumscribed within the limits of "any order or of any nation. Do not "therefore indulge these uncharitable "murmurs against the gracious decrees "of God in admitting others out of "your own community to participate "with you as Brethren in these ines

timable benefits; but rather rejoice "with the Inhabitants of heaven on "the grace thus accorded to a sinful "world. For what is more worthy of "the joy and gratulation of the heavenly Host than the recovery of sin"ners from the death of sin unto the "life of righteousness, from the sen"tence of eternal wrath to the glorious hope of pardon, peace, and happiness?"

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Thus the parable appears designed to have borne a special reference as well to those two Classes of men, to whom our Saviour spoke, as to those two great Divisions of mankind, that

sub

SERM. subsisted at the time when he came

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into the world.

BUT in order to draw a lesson from it of more immediate application to Christians of the present day, it may be an useful argument of discourse to dwell more at large on the behaviour of the Younger Son, as it represents the conduct of a Sinner un'der the light of the Gospel.

In the morning of his days, when the power of reason begins to operate in his understanding, he finds himself endowed by the bounty of God with talents and capacities for living in his favour and obtaining his inheritance. But unhappily for his future peace he misapplies them to a very different use. That he may not be interrupted in the pursuit of his own imaginations, he endeavours to withdraw himself from his heavenly Father's eye and though he cannot but be conscious if he thinks at all, that the eye of God is in every place beholding the evil and the good, yet he contrives to put him out of his thoughts by neglecting his service, and shutting his ear against his word. Thus having rejected the influence of God's parental

grace,

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grace, having stifled the voice of the SERM. monitor within him, he fatally wanders into evil ways, he gives himself up to a reprobate mind, and miserably wastes the endowments of heaven in the gratification of his corrupt and vicious appetites. In this unworthy course he perseveres till he is reduced to a most deplorable state of spiritual want, and at length surrenders himself to a most debasing servitude to all his inordinate affections.

In this unhappy state we may suppose him to be judicially visited by some severe disease, affliction, or calamity. But in the midst of judgement God remembers mercy. By the wise destination of an all-controlling Providence the just corrections of his sins are rendered the gracious calls to repentance. He now becomes awakened to a sense of his miserable condition. His conscience sets the catalogue of his sins in terrible array before him. And now that he reflects on his unhappy degeneracy from God and goodness, he looks back with regret and self reproach on that season of his former life, when he was in a state of comparative innocence, a Child of grace, an