A

SERMON

PREACHED BEFORE

THE INCORPORATED SOCIETY

FOR THE

PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL IN FOREIGN PARTS;

AT THEIR ANNIVERSARY MEETING

IN THE PARISH CHURCH OF ST. MARY-LE-BOW,

ON FRIDAY FEBRUARY 16, 1781.

VOL. VIII.

At the Anniversary Meeting of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, in the Vestry-Room of St. Mary-leBow, on Friday the 16th Day of February, 1781;'

AGREED, That the Thanks of the SOCIETY be given to the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, for the Sermon preached by his Lordship this day before the SOCIETY; and that his Lordship be desired to deliver a copy of the same to the SOCIETY to be printed.

William Morice, Secretary.

SERMON, &c.

HEBREWS, xiii. S.

Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.

THESE words, if considered with an eye to the preceding verses, may mean, "That our "Lord Jesus Christ is always attentive to the "wants and distresses of his faithful followers, "and always at hand to relieve them:"` Or, if we connect them with the verse immediately following, we may understand them as expressing this proposition, "That the doctrine "of Jesus Christ is always one and the same, independently of the wayward and changeable "fancies of men." In either way, I say, the words may be taken; and they do not necessarily imply more than the one or the other of these two senses, which the context will oblige us to bestow upon them.

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But the minds of the Apostles, full of the greatest ideas, and swelling with the suggestions of the holy Spirit, which, in no scanty measure, was imparted to them, perpetually overflow, as it were, the subject of their discourse, and expatiate into other and larger views, than seem necessary to the completion of the argument, immediately presented to them.

This being the manner of the inspired writers, it can be thought no forced or violent construction of the text, to take it in the full extent of the expression; which is so striking and awful, as naturally to turn our thoughts towards the contemplation of the three following par ticulars :

First, The ineffable glory of our Lord's Person;

Secondly, The immensity of the scheme of Redemption through his blood; And

Lastly, The unchangeable nature of his Religion.

In these several senses, it is truly and emphatically said of Jesus Christ, That he is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.

a Eph. i. 7.

I. The transcendant dignity of our blessed Lord's PERSON is expressed in these words.

For what less do they imply than a perfect state of being, a proper eternity of existence? Agreeably to what we read elsewhere, That he was in the beginning before all things-that he is Alpha and Omega, the first and the last

that his throne is for ever and ever and his goings forth from everlasting: Nay, and suitably to the very turn of phrase, which the Holy Ghost employs in characterizing the Supreme Majesty of Heaven, I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty 5.

When Jesus Christ, therefore, is held out to us in the text, as being the same yesterday, today, and for ever, we may be allowed, or rather we are required, to elevate our thoughts to the utmost, and to conceive with inexpressible awe and veneration of that glory which he had with the Father, before the world wasǹ.