And what hinders but we may be thus minded? Is Jefus Chrift our great High Priest altered from what he was? No, he is the fame yesterday, to-day, and for ever---And tho' he is exalted to the Right Hand of God, is not afhamed to call us Brethren.---The Power of his Refurrection is as great now as formerly, and the Holy Spirit, which was affured to us by his Refurrection, as ready and able to quicken us who are dead in Trefpaffes and Sins, as any Saint that ever liv'd.---Let us but cry, and that inftantly, to him that is mighty and able to fave.—Let us in Sincerity and Truth, without fecretly keeping back the leaft Part, renounce ourselves and the World,---And then we fhall be Chriftians indeed---And tho' the World may caft us out, and separate from our Company, yet Jefus Chrift will walk with, and abide in us,And at the general Refurrection of the laft Day, when the Voice of the Archangel and Trump of God fhall bid the Sea and the Graves give up their Dead, and all Nations fhall appear before him, then will he confefs us before his Father and the Holy Angels, and we fhall receive that Sentence which he fhall then pronounce to all that love and fear him, faying, Come, ye blessed Children of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the Beginning of the World.

Grant this, O Father, for the fame thy dear Son's Sake Jefus Chrift our Lord, to whom with Thee, and the Holy Ghoft, &c.

The Duty of Searching the Scriptures.

A

SERMON

Preached at the Parish-Church of

St. MICHAEL, Cornhill.

W

JOHN V. 39.

Search the Scriptures.

HEN the Sadducees came to our Bleffed Lord, and put to him the Question, whofe Wife a Woman fhould be in the next Life, who had seven Husbands in this, he told them they erred, not knowing the Scriptures-And if we would know whence all the Errors that have overspread the Church of Christ first arofe, we fhould find they in a great Measure flowed from the fame Fountain, viz. An Ignorance of the Word of God.

Qur Bleffed Lord,tho' he was the Eternal God, yet as Man, made it his conftant Rule and Guide ---And therefore when he was asked by the Lawyer, which was the great Commandment of the Law, he referred him to his Bible for an Anfwer, What readeft thou?---And thus when led by the Spirit to be tempted by the Devil, he repell'd all his Affaults, with "it is written."

A fufficient Confutation this of their Opinion who fay," the Spirit only, and not the Spirit "by the Word is to be our Rule of Action--If fo, our Saviour, who had the Spirit without Measure, needed not always have referred to the written Word.

But how few copy after the Example of Chrift? how many are there who do not regard the

the Word of God at all, but throw the Sacred Oracles afide, as an antiquated Book, fit only for unlearned and illiterate Men?

Such Men do greatly err, not knowing what the Scriptures are, and for what they are defigned.

I fhall therefore in the following Discourse,

First, Shew that it is every one's Duty to fearch them.

And Secondly, lay down fome Directions how to search them with Advantage.

By the Scriptures I understand the Law and the Prophets, and all thofe Books which have in all Ages been accounted Canonical, and which make up that Book commonly called the Bible.

These are emphatically ftiled the Scriptures, and in one Place the Scriptures of Truth, as tho' no other Books deferved the Name of true Writings or Scriptures in Comparison of them.

They are not of any private Interpretation, Authority, or Invention, but Holy Men of Old wrote them, as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

The Foundation of God's revealing himself thus to Mankind, was our Fall in Adam, and the Neceffity of our New Birth in Chrift Jefus. And if we fearch the Scriptures as we ought, we shall find the Sum and Subftance, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and End of them, has no other Tendency but to lead us to a Knowledge of thefe two great Truths.

All