most perfect in its parts, which has the surest foundation, the fullest sanction: But till we have done this, let us beware how we enlist ourselves under his banners, or engage in so dangerous a party. Secondly, The rank we hold in the chain of created beings, affords another motive for entering upon this important task: Beings as we are, dependent on a God, from whose free gift we hold the glorious faculty of reason; a gracious God who seems, by the method in which he has revealed himself to us, to expect we should use that faculty in discovering the truth of his revelation. But the Enthusiast denies this, and tells us that he demands a blind submission of our reason; that he requires it to be absorbed in implicit uninquiring faith. We ought therefore to inquire what is the truth on this weighty subject; and, happily for us, the Scriptures, where only it is to be learned, are open to our inquiry. If therefore we are by them permitted to try all things, in order to find out and to abide by that which is right, let us not vainly imagine we ought to quench the light, which alone can enable us to make the trial. Lastly, Let me enforce the necessity of this investigation from our particular situation as Englishmen ; as the free subjects of a Protestant Prince, who governs us by laws, which, be it ever remembered, receive their sanction and vitality from that religion, the firm belief of which must be admitted into our bosoms, before their authority can have its genuine influence over our actions. Under such a government, therefore, how necessary is it to be fully established in the true faith, in order to avoid Infidelity, which weakens the springs of government, and Fanaticism that destroys them. The last century is pregnant with examples of both these evils; for when Enthusiasm took the lead in opposing the oppressive measures of the first Charles, what but anarchy resulted from the opposition? And when Infidelity, imported with other French fopperies, by the second Charles, trampled on the ruins of demolished Fanaticism, what but Popery and arbitrary power followed in her train? Soon, indeed, did the mercy of the Almighty deliver us from the then impending ruin, and long has the same mercy preserved us in the purest state of civil and religious freedom. Let us then, with all thankfulness to the great Author, from whom every good and perfect gift cometh, stand fast in that liberty in which Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again in that yoke of bondage, which Enthusiasm on the one hand, and Infidelity on the other, mutually concur to fasten on the human mind. SERMON V. John xi. 35. JESUS WEPT THE Son of God shed tears; not those which spring from partial or private grief, but generous, social, sympathetic tears; for it is well known that this effusion of his divine tenderness was poured forth only a few moments before he exerted his miraculous power in raising Lazarus from the dead; when, meeting the afflicted sisters and relations of his deceased friend, and beholding the extremity of their distress, he instantly caught the soft infection, and lamented that calamity as a man, which he was about to relieve as a God. The Jews, it is true, who were spectators of the solemn scene, imputed these tears to the tenderness of private friendship. -"Behold," say they," how he loved him." And in their circumstances, surely, the reflection was natural, but the event points out to us another cause; for why should he weep at the death of a person, however dear to him, who, by his divine prescience, he knew would so shortly be restored to life and his society? No, it was |