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SERMON I

The Love of God a rational principle; and a moral virtue.

MATTH. Xxii. 37, 38.

----Jefus faid unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy foul, and with all thy mind. This is the firft and great command

ment.

T the time of our Saviour's SERM. appearance the world was

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extremely depraved, and

ftood in great need of a

reformation. The prin

ciples, and practice of true religion were very much corrupted, and its influence

VOL. IV.

B

upon

SER M. upon the hearts and lives of men was in I. a great measure loft. Even among the

Jews, who were the peculiar people of God, religion feems to have been degenerated into outward pomp and formality. Their great and leading men, and most eminent and celebrated fects, affected chiefly to be masters of ceremony and devout grimace, and wore the garb of religion, in order to advance their honour and influence among the people; and having refolved the whole of it into external rites, and a multitude of vain traditional obfervances, were generally regardless of the obligations of moral virtue, and the fubftantial immutable duties of a holy life. The Scribes, and Pharifees, and Doctors of the law were, in the main, men of profligate and abandoned principles, a fet of defigning hypocrites; who made ufe of an aukward fingularity of drefs, a demure mortified look, and the artifice of a specious devotion, to fkreen their tyrannical impofitions on conscience, their injustice, fraud and cruelty, from public cenfure. And, therefore, as our bleffed Saviour, instead of complimenting their vanity, took very

great

I.

great and unusual liberties in reproving SER M. their vices; as he endeavour'd to expose their abfurd traditions and fubtle pretences to piety, by which they had cheated and amufed the ignorant and credulous vulgar; and instead of ceremony and affectation, which had too long ufurped the venerable name of religion, to introduce fincere and undefiled religion, confifting in purity of conscience and a virtuous life-They apprehended that their craft was in danger, and that if he fhould fucceed in his attempts to establish this new reforming doctrine, their credit and authority muft fink; upon which account, they had recourse to the vileft and most fenfelefs methods of calumny to blacken his reputation, and profecuted his ruin with indefatigable zeal and malice. But because they could find nothing worthy of public difgrace, or death, in his regular unblemished character; and if they should lay violent hands on him, it might then have rendered them obnoxious to the refentment of the people (many of whom had fome kind of reverence of him, on

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account of the force and excellency of his doctrine,

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I.

SER M. doctrine, and the mighty works which he performed, generally of beneficence and friendship to mankind) they endeavoured to enfnare him by captious questions, that they might find fome matter of plausible accufation against him, and take away his life under the colour of law and justice.

OF this we have feveral instances in the chapter of my text.Their first Atratagem was to inquire of him about the lawfulness of paying tribute to Cæfar, expecting, perhaps, that he would have faid fomething in prejudice of Cafar's authority, and injurious to his imperial dignity; and thereby have exposed himself to the cognisance of the Roman government, as a fomentor of fedition. The reply he gave to this, which could neither alarm the jealoufy of the Romans, nor incense his own country-men against him for publickly defending their unjust ufurpation, is an undeniable proof of his confummate wisdom in a thorough knowledge of Human nature, and fuiting his difcourfe to feafons and circumstances. After thiscame the Sadducees, and put to him, as they thought, a nice and critical queftion con

cerning

cerning the refurrection; but were an- SER M. swered, with great ftrength and fuperiori- I. ty of judgment, even from the writings of Mofes, the divine authority of which themselves acknowledged, to their own entire confufion, and the great furprise of the multitude.- Being disappointed in this scheme likewife, we read next of a certain Lawyer, or a teacher and expounder of the law of Mofes, who asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Mafter, which is the great commandment in the law? To this our Saviour replies in the text: And his words contain notions of religion fo fublime and rational, so full and comprehenfive, and affert, with fuch clearness and strength, the neceffary subordination of pofitive and ritual, to irreverfible moral ordinances, that their being recorded muft be to the eternal bonour of Christianity. Jefus faid unto bim, Thou fhalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy foul, and with all thy mind: This is the first and great commandment. And the fecond is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thy felf. On these two commandments bang all the B 3

lave

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