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Would any Prince, who had a mind to reclaim his rebellious Subjects to Obedience, not rather chufe to fend a Person of Honour with a fuitable Retinue, whofe Appearance might command Respect and Credit, than an Ambassador clothed in Rags and Poverty, fit only to create in the Rebels a greater Contempt both of himself and his Prince? If it was the Purpose of God, that the World through Faith should be faved, would not the World more fecurely and readily have confided in one whofe very Appearance would have spoke his Dignity, than in one who seemed to be even more miserable than themselves, and not able to rescue himself from the vilest and most contemptible Death?

But let us now, in the fecond Place, confider what Foundation there is in Reason for this great Prejudice.

It is no Wonder to hear Men reafon upon the Notions and Ideas which are familiar to them. Great Power and great Authority are connected with the Ideas of great Pomp and Splendor; and, when we talk of the Works of God, our Minds naturally turn themselves to view the great and miraculous Works of Providence: And this is the Reason why Men are flow to difcern the Hand of God in the ordinary Course of Nature, where

Things,

Things, being familiar to us, do not strike with Wonder and Admiration.

When Naaman the Syrian came to the Prophet of Ifrael to be cured of his Leprofy, Elifba fent a Meffenger unto him, faying, Go and wash in Jordan feven Times, and thy Flefh fhall come again unto thee, and thou shalt be clean. The haughty Syrian disdained the eafy Cure, and fcorned the Prophet: Is this your Man of God, and this his mighty Power to send me to a pitiful River of Ifrael? Behold, fays he, I thought he will furely come out to me, and stand and call on the Name of the Lord his God, and ftrike his Hand over the Place, and recover the Leper. Are not Abana and Pharphar, Rivers of Damafcus, better than all the Waters of Ifrael? may not wash in them, and be clean? So be turned, and went away in a Rage. But his Servants, not a little wifer than their Master, thus reason the Cafe with him: My Father, if the Prophet had bid thee do fome great Thing, wouldst thou not have done it? how much rather then, when he faith unto thee, Wash and be clean? Upon this gentle Rebuke his Stomach came down, and he condefcended to follow the Prophet's Direction; and his Flesh came again, like the Flesh of a young Child, and he was clean. Not

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unlike

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unlike to Naaman's Folly is theirs, who take offence at the Poverty and Meanness of the Author of our Redemption. His Sentiments and theirs agree: He expected to have seen some surprizing Wonder wrought for his Cure; and, when he was bid only to wash, he thought there could be nothing of God in fo trifling a Remedy. And is not this their Sense, who think that fo obfcure, fo mean a Perfon as Jefus could never be the

Meffenger of God upon fo great an Errand

as the Salvation of the World? who thus expoftulate, Why came he not in a Majesty fuitable to his Employment, and then we would have believed him; but how can we expect to be raised to the Glory of God by him who was himself the Scorn and Contempt of Men?

If we fearch this Prejudice to the Bottom, we shall find that it arises from a falfe Conception of the Power and Majesty of God, as if the Success of his Purposes depended upon the visible Fitness of the Inftruments he made choice of. With Men we know the Cafe is fo; they must use Means which they can judge to be adapted to the End they aim at, if they intend to profper in what they undertake: But with God it is otherwife. To ftop the Current even of the

fmallest

DISCOURSE III. ΙΟΙ

smallest River, Banks must be raised, and Sluices cut, when the Work is done by Man: But in the Hand of God the Rod of Mofes was more than fufficient to curb the Rage of the Sea, and force it to yield a Paffage to his People. The Foolishness of God, fays the Apostle, is wifer than Men, and the Weakness of God is ftronger than Men: Teaching us that we should not prefume to fit in Judgment upon the Methods of Providence; fince, how foolish or how weak foever they may seem to us, they will be found in his Hand to be the wifeft and the strongest. And this Reasoning the Apostle applies to the Cafe now before us: The Crofs of Chrift was a Stumbling-block to the Jews, and to the Greeks Foolishness; but unto all them that are called, the Power of God, and the Wisdom of God; because the Foolishness of God is wifer than Men, and the Weakness of God Stronger than Men. However the Jews, or however the Greeks conceived of the crucified Jefus, yet to every Believer he is the mighty Power of God to Salvation, becaufe God ordained him fo to be; and this Ordination gives full Efficacy to the Cross of Chrift, however in itself contemptible, and to all human Appearance unfit for the Purpose. The Watersof Jordan had no natural Efficacy to cleanse a Leper;

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a Leper; in the Rod of Mofes there was no Power to divide the Sea: But, when ordained by God to these Purposes, the Sea fled back at the Touch of Mofes's Rod, and the Leprofy of Naaman was purged by the so much despised Waters of Ifrael. If we would judge truly, the more fimple and plain the Methods of Providence are, the more do they speak the Power of the Almighty, When God faid, Let there be Light, and there was Light, his uncontroulable Power more evidently appeared, than if all the Angels of Heaven had been employed to produce it. When our Lord faid, I will be thou clean, and the Perfon was cleanfed, his Divinity fhone forth more brightly, than if he had commanded all the Powers above visibly to affist him. So likewife, when God committed the Redemption of the World to Jefus, a Man of Sorrow and Affliction, and of no Form or Comeliness, and gave him the Power of doing fuch Works as never Man did, in confirmation of his Commiffion, he appeared as plainly in him, as if he had clothed him with visible Majesty and Power, If we confider him afflicted and tormented, and given up to a cruel Death, it proves indeed that he was weak and mortal; but ftill God is strong, and not the less able to establish

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