AS the Christian Religion comes addressed to the reason and un­derstanding of men, so the more we examine and consider it, we shall find it to be one vast consistent scheme, commencing almost as early as the cre­ation of the world, and terminating on­ly in the redemption of all mankind. INFIDELS who have neither temper nor abilities for investigating the merits of Christianity, may cavil at particular passages in sacred history, and bring the [Page 6] charge of absurdity against the whole.—RELIGIONISTS may urge the various tenets they have adopted, with an un­hallowed and illiberal zeal; adducing each in support of his opinion some texts of scripture—But men who have taken up their religion from the con­viction of their minds—from calmly revolving the evidence by which it is supported—as well as its conformity to the reason and fitness of things—are not to be shaken in their principles by the scoffs of unbelievers, or the bigotry of professing christians.

As this therefore is the day on which the great founder of our religion deign­ed to become flesh and dwell among us, I cannot more usefully employ your time and my own than, in pointing out the harmony which subsists between the [Page 7] Old and New Testaments in relation to the promised MESSIAH. And let me be permitted to hope that, as every in-individual is concerned to "know the certainty of those things wherein he hath been instructed,"^* you will favour me with a serious attention, whilst I endea­vour, in as summary a way as the sub­ject will admit of, to prove, that all things which were written in the law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms, concerning the Messiah, have had their literal completion in the per­son of Jesus Christ.

One of the brightest ornaments of this or of any other age,^† after having himself written very excellently upon the character of St. Paul, hath taken upon him to affirm, that if every part of the [Page 8] scriptures was lost, save what related to this Apostle's conversion, he would undertake to prove the truth of the Christian Religion from it alone. If then it shall appear that a series of pro­phecies, the last of them written near four hundred years before the events they pretend to foretel, at this time preserved entire in the original Chaldee and Hebrew languages, and translated into Greek by seventy interpreters two hundred and sixty years before the birth of Christ, have all had their critical ful­fillment in HIM; surely, such demonstra­ble evidence must operate with all its force upon every sincere and candid en­quirer. And when we further consider that prophane history, from its earliest dates, all along concurs with the ac­counts left us by the sacred writers, we [Page 9] are compelled to exclaim with the Jew­ish High-Priest, though with a very different meaning, "what need have we of further witnesses!" Many of the antient prophecies indeed are so strong and pointed, that they seem ra­ther to be an history of facts transacted during the lives of their authors, than the predictions of men inspired with the knowledge of future events. Of this sort is the prophecy of JACOB—who, at least a thousand years before the last destruction of Jerusalem, so exactly fore­told the aera of the Messiah's birth, that we may venture to say of it what the noble author already quoted said of St. Paul's conversion, and rest the proof of Christianity upon this prophecy alone.

[Page 10] But this will be considered in its pro­per order. Previous to it, let us take notice of the promise made by the Al­mighty, immediately after the disobe­dience of our first progenitors—"I will put enmity, saith God, between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed, it shall bruize thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel"^§—Here opens the first scene of that grand dra­ma, which was to be accomplished at Jerusalem. No sooner had Adam fall­en, than a deliverer was proclaimed—a deliverer, whose entrance into the world should denote him to be the SEED OF THE WOMAN in a sense in which no other ever was; metaphorically, "a root out of a dry ground."^¶ And such was Jesus. The son of a spotless [Page 11] virgin, his errand into the world was to overthrow the combined powers of Sin and Satan, and to erect a pure king­dom of his own upon their ruins.

FOR more than two thousand years after the date of this promise, no fur­ther intimation was given of the Messi­ah, idolatry had spread itself almost uni­versally throughout the world, and even the memory of the creation seem­ed to be gradually wearing away. Amidst this universal depravity, it plea­sed God, "whose promises are yea and amen," to ratify the covenant made with our first parents, and to declare that in the family and line of ABRAHAM, "all the nations of the earth should be blessed."^‡ And surely—if a deliver­ance from the curse of a violated com­mand, [Page 12] a restoration to the favour of an offended God, and the extension of a kingdom founded in peace and righte­ousness are to be esteemed blessings—these are what all the nations of the earth have enjoyed in the advent of that Jesus, whose extraction from Abraham hath never yet been questioned.

JACOB, the grandson of this illustri­ous Patriarch, seems to have been fa­voured with a more than ordinary por­tion of the prophetic spirit, by which he was enabled to foretel from what par­ticular tribe of his family the Messiah should derive his pedigree. For on his death-bed, when he was drawing to the conclusion of a long and honorable pilgrimage, and his children were anx­iously soliciting his blessing, he thus ad­dresses himself to Judah—"Judah, thou [Page 13] art he whom thy brethren shall praise thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies, thy father's children shall bow down before thee. The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until SHILOH come, and unto him shall the gathering of the people be."^§ In this most re­markable prophecy, we behold, as at one view, the history of the whole Jew­ish nation. The privilege of primoge­niture is dispensed with, and Judah, the fourth son of Jacob, declared to be Lord over all his brethren—his enemies are to lick the dust before him—and his scepter, or preheminence over the other tribes, is to remain, until that great personage, em­phatically stiled SHILOH, shall appear—And appear he certainly did, in the reign of Augustus Caesar, as will be seen in the [Page 14] application of this grand prophecy to JESUS who was born at Bethlehem.—

THE first particular predicted of Ju­dah is, that he is the person whom his brethren should praise—And it is one of the most singular circumstances in his­tory, that, whilst the several tribes were dispersed by contending Monarchs, through various and distant kingdoms, and no longer subsisted in their nation­al capacity, the tribe of Judah alone preserved, even in captivity, the liber­ty of being governed by its own laws and ordinances. To account for this stupendous occurrence from the com­bination of what are called natural cau­ses, would be as weak as impious. We must look up to an higher source, to to the great FIRST CAUSE of all, whose wisdom and goodness were [Page 15] concerned for the preservation of the true religion, and whose om­nipotence effected so wonderful an event.

AND, that the hand of the descen­dant of Judah was in the neck of his enemies, let the miraculous establish­ment of Christ's religion declare. So rapid was its progress, that, within a single century after the resurrection, the sound of the gospel had literally gone forth into all lands, and there was not a nation in the then known world, in which it was not embraced by many. Philosophy had previously exerted its whole force for the reformation of man­kind, and was proved to be insufficient. But no sooner did the great Legislator of the Christians enter upon his office, [Page 16] than the establishments which men had combined and set up, fell prostrate be­fore him—superstition retired to her cell—and the kingdom of Satan trem­bled to its center. Idolatry, which had so long maintained its empire, began gradually to decline—the boasted Del­phic oracles forbore to give responses—and thousands and ten thousands were daily brought home to Jesus.

BUT enquire now, what is become of the tribe of Judah, and history will in­form you that, not long after the birth of Christ, it was stripped of all its privileges, and reduced to a state of the most abject vassalage. Its scepter, and whatever else distinguished this once famous tribe, were forcibly taken away, and vested in a foreign power— [Page 17] the Temple and Altar were no more—the holy city was levelled with its proud foundations—and the land, which was once "the joy of the whole earth," be­came the bloody theatre of wars and desolations.^* Thus faithfully accom­plished was this prophecy of Jacob; which so exactly foretold the time of the Messiah's coming, that when the man of Nazareth was born, all the east­ern world was "looking for the con­solation of Israel"—And the Jews, in excuse for their rejecting Jesus, were driven to assert, either that the true [Page 18] Messiah was indeed born, but lay con­cealed, or that his coming was defer­red on account of the sins of the peo­ple. Strange! to make sin the hind­rance of his coming, when he himself made the atonement of sin the very reason why he did come.

MUCH depends upon ascertaining the precise period of the Messiah's appear­ance; and it has therefore been unan­swerably shewn by the labors of the learned, to have been immediately af­ter the expiration of the Prophet Dani­el's weeks, [or years,] and at the time predicted by Haggai and Malachi. Daniel had been meditating on the Ba­bylonish captivity, and the seventy weeks fixed upon by Jeremiah as the term of his people's servitude—when his thoughts are instantaneously hurried [Page 19] forward to a more exalted subject—to behold, in strong prophetic vision, the deliverance of all mankind from the servitude of heathenism and idolatry, "the reconciliation for iniquity, the everlasting reign of righteousness, the full accomplishment of the prophecies, and the anointing of the most holy."^* The two prophets Haggai and Mala­chi give us to know, that the second temple should continue till the Messiah should appear, and that after his com­ing [Page 20] it should be destroyed; which it undoubtedly was, soon after the cru­cifixion, having been reduced to ashes by the Romans. As certainly there­fore as the second temple is destroyed, so certainly is the Messiah come.

AND here we are surrounded with the full blaze of prophecies. Moses, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Mi­cah, Zechariah, with those already men­tioned, all, under different figures and expressions, prophesy of Jesus—

"A PROPHET will the Lord your God raise up from the midst of thee, like unto me; unto him shall ye heark­en.^† "These be the last words of the Anointed of the God of Jacob, the sweet Psalmist of Israel—He that ruleth [Page 21] over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God—And he shall be as the light of the morning, when the Sun ariseth, even a morning without clouds; as tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain. Al­though my house be not so with God, yet he hath made with me an EVER­LASTING COVENANT; ordered in all things and sure—For this is all my SAL­VATION, and all my desire."^* "Drop down ye Heavens from above, and let the Skies pour down righteousness; let the earth open, and let them bring forth the SAVIOR, and let righteousness spring up together."^¶ "Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous BRANCH, and a KING shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the [Page 22] earth—And this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS."^* "All my people shall have one SHEPHERD, and my ser­vant David shall be their Prince for­ever; and I will make a Covenant of peace with him, it shall be an everlast­ing Covenant."^§ "I saw in the night visions, and behold one like the SON OF MAN came with the clouds of Heaven, and he came to the Antient of Days, and they brought him near before him; and there were given dominion, and glo­ry, and a kingdom, that all people, na­tions and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting domini­on, and his Kingdom that which shall not be destroyed."^† "But thou Beth­lehem [Page 23] Ephratah, though thou be little among the Thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall come a GOVERNOR, that shall rule my people Israel."^‡ "Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the Heavens and the Earth, and the sea and the dry land, and I will shake all nations, AND THE DESIRE OF ALL NATIONS shall come."^§ "Hear now O Joshua the High-Priest, thou and thy Fellows that sit before thee; behold I will bring forth my servant the BRANCH—And in that day, ye shall call every man his neighbor under the vine and the fig-tree. He shall speak peace unto the Heathen, and his dominion shall be from sea even unto sea, and from the river even unto the ends of the earth. Turn ye to the [Page 24] strong hold, ye prisoners of hope."^‡ From the rising of the sun to the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles, and in every place, incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering—For my name shall be great among the Hea­then, saith the Lord of Hosts.^¶

BUT, above all the prophets, David and Isaiah so minutely describe the birth, the sufferings, and death of the pro­mised DELIVERER, that we are lost in holy wonder, whilst we are comparing their predictions with the accounts rela­ted of their exact fulfillment by the evan­gelists. From the former of these pro­phets, the Messiah was to be lineally descended; and to this he makes very distinct allusions throughout his Psalms [Page 25] —"once I have sworn by my holiness, that I will not lie unto David. His seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the sun before me."^‡ Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee; ask of me, and I will give thee the hea­then for thine inheritance, and the utter­most parts of the earth for thy possessi­on."^† "The Kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents, the Kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts."^‖ "All they that see me laugh me to scorn; they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, he trusted in God that he would deliver him, let him de­liver him, seeing he delighted in him. I am poured out like water, the assem­bly of the wicked have enclosed me. [Page 26] They pierced my hands and my feet, I may tell all my bones, they stare and look upon me."^¶—In the sublime lan­guage of Isaiah, "a virgin shall con­ceive and bear a son, and shall call his name IMMANUEL."^§ Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoul­ders, and his name shall be called WON­DERFUL, COUNSELLOR, the MIGHTY GOD, the EVERLASTING FATHER, the PRINCE OF PEACE:—of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end on the throne of David:—The zeal of the Lord of Hosts shall perform this."^‖—And again—"he is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; he was wounded for our transgressions, he [Page 27] was bruised for our iniquities, he was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, and was cut off out of the land of the liv­ing."^§

COMPARE now these prophecies with the records of the Evangelists, and you will find them most critically fulfilled in the person of the SON OF MARY, and in the revolutions which his gospel hath cau­sed throughout the globe. Not only the facts foretold are established, but even the very expressions of the Old Testa­ment writers often adopted, with little variation, by the authors of the New. Had he been a impostor, he would no [Page 28] doubt have fallen in with the prejudi­ces of the whole body of the Jews, would have affected great temporal magnificence, and labored to have ascended a throne. But, though de­scended from a long line of royal ances­tors, he disclaimed every appearance of grandeur, and was born of an humble virgin. Nothing could have been more fortuitous than the circumstance which determined the place of his nativity. Judging by human probability, NAZA­RETH was necessitated to be the spot. Yet in the providential course of things, it happened that, about that time, an edict was issued by Augustus Caesar, enjoining all persons within the Roman empire, and all the other empires sub­ject to his dominion, to repair to cer­tain appointed places, in order to be [Page 29] enrolled according to the respective fa­milies and districts to which they be­longed. And as Mary as well as Jo­seph was of the stock and lineage of David, she was compelled, by the ne­cessity of the case, to accompany her espoused husband in a long and fatigu­ing journey from Nazareth to Bethle­hem.

And whilst they were there—there as it should seem by accident, but led however by the same SPIRIT which en­lightened the soul of Micah seven hun­dred years before—the days were ac­complished that she should be delivered; and she brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him in swaddling-clothes, and laid him in a manger. ^*—

As his entrance into the world was miraculous, so an unusual star shone [Page 30] out in the firmament, and hovered over the humble village^‡ which had the honor of his birth. Con­ducted by the splendor of its ap­pearance, some pious sages had travel­led from the east to Jerusalem, with a view, it may be, to some new disco­very in the planetary system, as well as to satisfy, a curiosity, which about that time universally prevailed, respecting the coming of CHRIST. The fame of their arrival very early reached the ears of Herod, who, having given into the vulgar belief that the Messiah was to be a temporal Prince, became jealous for the safety of his own Crown—and ac­cordingly having summoned the whole body of his Sanhedrim and demanded their opinion where Christ should be [Page 31] born—and having also privily enquired of the wise-men the particular time of the star's appearance—he dispatched them to Bethlehem, with orders to search diligently for the young child, and to return with the earliest tidings—for the King wishes to lay his scepter at the feet of the illustrious babe, and to join in the adorations which are paid him!—"When lo, continues the Evan­gelist, the star which they had seen in the east went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.—And when they were come▪ into the house, they saw the child with Ma­ry his mother, and fell down and wor­shipped him—And when they had open­ed their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. And being warned of God in [Page 32] a dream, that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way. Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise-men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the child­ren that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under;—according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise-men."^§—The truth of this most barbarous deed remains as incontro­vertible to this day, as that there was once such a King as Herod—And as he is always represented to have been a man fond of popularity, and was more­over answerable for his conduct to an Emperor ambitious of the same cha­racter, nothing could have driven him [Page 33] to cover his Kingdom with the blood of infants, but the cause already assign­ed—Jealousy the foulest of human pas­sions.

YET hadst thou, bloody King! been contented to have become tributary to the PRINCE OF PEACE, thou wouldst have been under an infinitely milder authority than that of thy Augustus—the diadem would have encircled thy brow securely to the last hour of thy life—and so many weeping mothers had not been seen in Palestine!

But whilst humanity shudders at the recital of this execrable tale, a very pow­erful argument hence arises, in confir­mation of our holy religion. The massacre of the Bethlehemitish child­ren by Herod, will be mentioned [Page 34] whilst any trace of history remains—and the motive which alone could have in­stigated to such savage cruelty, must have great weight in establishing the truth of Christianity.

WITHOUT wishing however to lay too much stress on any single circum­stantial proof, the positive evidences for the divinity of our religion crowd so fast upon us in almost every page of the Sa­cred Writings, that, to a candid mind it seems unaccountable, how it should ever have entered into the heads of any to set up themselves for Infidels by pro­fession. All the proofs of which the subject is capable have been afford­ed us; for it would be a reflection upon the Supreme Being, even to suppose that he should give a religion to the [Page 35] world, unsupported by proper evidence. No, my brethren—God exacts not impossibilities from his creatures.—He calls upon us to reason with him.—Be­fore he requires us to believe that Jesus is the SENT of Heaven, he shews us signs and wonders, suspends the laws of nature at his word, and makes every thing above and around him subject to his control. Well therefore might the trembling mariners exclaim, "What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the seas obey him?" Confi­dently may we affirm, that the lawless surge would never have grown calm, nor the furious wind have abated at the command of a voice merely human, nor is it reasonable to believe that any one less divinely commissioned than Je­sus would have been mad enough to have made the experiment.

[Page 36] BUT my subject is PROPHECY, and I find I am insensibly entering upon a new field of argument. Here then—but that the time would fail me—I should speak at large of antient types and symbols—of the Paschal Lamb slain at six in the evening, the hour when Jesus gave up the Ghost—of the sprinkling of the door-posts with blood—of the brazen serpent erected in the wilderness—of Moses, Isaac, and Jonah—with many others strongly fi­gurative of Chirst. His name, his na­tion and his family—the minute circum­stance of his riding into Jerusalem on an ass and a colt the foal of an ass—his being betrayed by the man in whom he trusted, and sold for thirty pieces of silver—his having vinegar given him to drink—a bone of him not being bro­ken [Page 37] —the soldiers parting his raiment, and casting lots upon his vesture—his making his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death—all these were minutely foretold, and tend not more to prove that Jesus is the true Messiah, than to shew the goodness of God, in thus leading us, through an awful series of prophecies, to a myste­ry which Angels behold with adorati­on, but cannot fully comprehend.

THE most important predictions, which refer to the time of the Messiah's Advent and the circumstances of his nativity, have been spoken to: and so clearly were these pointed out by a suc­cession of prophets, that, as the antient Jews expected him at the time when he was really born; so our modern in­fidels, [Page 38] overpowered by a blaze of evi­dence, have thought proper to acknow­ledge his birth, whilst they deny him to have been, what his miraculous works abundantly proclaimed him, the SON OF THE MOST HIGH GOD. Alas! was it ever well attested, that any one but Je­sus, and the few Apostles whom he dele­gated to act in his name, unstopped the deaf ear—restored the sightless eye—unloosed the speechless tongue—and roused the dead from their eternal slum­bers—no—and the attempt to prove it tacitly implies, that the God of truth once gave his sanction to an impostor.

Look into the world immediately before the Christian aera, and see it every where over-run with the most idolatrous and immoral practices, po­lytheism [Page 39] openly countenanced, and re­venge deified as a manly virtue. Eter­nity lay hid in impenetrable darkness, nor could the most enlightened philoso­phers say, but that when they resigned their being, they were never to resume it more. Look into it, shortly after our SAVIOR's entrance upon his public ministry, and behold idolatry almost every where abolished, men no longer disgracing their maker's image, by bowing to stocks and stones—the inani­mate work of their own hands—but calling upon the one true God, in places dedicated to his name, and forming their conduct upon a better system than that of SOLON and LYCURGUS, or even of MOSES—a system which, in­stead of requiring an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, instructs us, [Page 40] "if our enemy hunger, to feed him; if he thirst, to give him drink." By the preaching of Jesus the future world became unfolded—life and immortality, judgment, heaven and hell—were brought to light, and the terms of our final happiness and misery fully made known. By his stripes we were healed—by his crucifixion, death lost his sting—by his resurrection from the grave, he hath assured us of our re­surrection—by his ascension into heav­en, he hath opened unto us the gate of everlasting life—and by the effusion of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost, he hath shewn us that he will be with all who call upon him in sincerity to the end of the world.

NUMBERLESS were the converts to this new religion, within a very short [Page 41] space after its promulgation—wherever it was preached, it was believed—and so rapid was its progress, that it is said to have subdued the vast Roman em­pire before Constantine possessed the throne. Thus faithfully was Christ's own prophecy, in conjunction with those which went before concerning him, fulfilled, "the gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations."^‡ The law and the sacrifice, which were to last till the coming of the Messiah, were abolished at the manifestation of Jesus,—Within forty years after his prediction Jerusalem was compassed about with armies, and torn with intestine broils—the kingdom itself, previously weaken­ed under the base administration of He­rod [Page 42] and that of his successor, became a neglected province,^† and its once-fa­vored inhabitants were scattered as sheep without a shepherd. The cause of this sudden declension of Jewish grandeur was, their crucifying the Lord of Glory. And it is a little re­markable that as they put our Savior to death on a charge of treason against Caesar; so their national ruin was com­pleted by their refusing to own allegi­ance to a Roman Monarch.

[Page 43] To what new subterfuge then, will the cavillers against the Christian system betake themselves, in excuse for their unnatural scepticism. Still to urge the same dull round of objections, which have been exploded as fast as they have arisen, argues as great a want of genius as of grace. The prophecies have all been proved over and over, by learned men, to be really of the dates they as­sume. They all point to a determinate period when a REDEEMER should be born. They describe his birth, his person, his character, his sufferings, his death, his resurrection, in language too plain to be mistaken. The three Evangelists, who give us the account of the accomplish­ment of these prophecies, were dead before the last destruction of Jerusalem—so that their relation stands clear of the [Page 44] suspicion of being the work of later ages^*—

THEY declare that, exactly at the time foretold, a BABE was born, in whom all the seemingly jarring prophe­cies were reconciled—poor, and laid in a manger; and yet his nativity pro­claimed by an host of Angels. The next account we have of him, after his return out of Egypt, which was also foretold, is his reasoning with the Jew­ish doctors; where the Divinity of his youth discovered itself in "both hear­ing them and asking them questions," and astonishing them with the wisdom [Page 45] of his answers, and the penetration of his enquiries. When he comes to be baptised, the spirit of his Father des­cended upon him, in an embodied form, and at the same instant a voice was heard out of Heaven—"This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased." And when he expired on the cross, the rocks were rent—the graves were opened—the dead stalked forth—the earth shook—and the sun veiled his orb in a pre­ternatural eclipse. His life was one continued series of benevolent miracles—his doctrines breathed nothing but the most pure and exalted morality—and whilst his death evinced him to be the Son of Man, his resurection loudly declared him to be the Son of God. More than seventeen hundred years have elapsed since the Holy City with [Page 46] its Temple was in ruins; and the vain attempt to rebuild them, in the fourth century, served only to establish more fully the credibility of Gospel History. The Jews still continue dispersed—the Messiah's banner is erected in almost every clime and nation—and, notwith­standing that the conversion of countries is a slow and progressive work, the FULLNESS of the GENTILES is evident­ly approaching. It is scarcely two hun­dred years, since the oldest of our CO­LONIES, now flourishing in commercial opulence, in arts and sciences, emerged from the night of heathenism. The sun of righteousness, in his course, will next rise upon the immense regions be­yond us, with healing under his wings; and will dispel that gloom of ignorance and barbarity, under which they have [Page 47] lain through a long succession of ages. And in the end, the NEW-WORLD shall reach the limits of the OLD^†—God's antient people shall be restored—and the knowledge of the Great Creator and his laws shall cover the earth, as the waters cover the sea. Nation shall no more fiercely rise against nation, but men shall beat their spears into prun­ing-hooks, and their swords into ploughshares—having no further use for them. And then shall commence the GRAND THEOCRACY, when we shall ALL be one flock under one shep­herd, even Christ Jesus the Lord.

And here I should conclude, but that the CHARITABLE OCCASION of the day, demands a particular applica­tion—

[Page 48] THROUGH the whole of this discourse, in order to give the subject a consisten­cy, I have been obliged to suppose my­self addressing a people yet unsettled in the fundamental article of our faith, that Jesus is the true Messiah. If there be any such persons in reality among us, let them seriously consider the con­sequences of rejecting a religion, sup­ported by such demon­strable evidence as the Christian—which an omniscient God saw necessary to communicate—and which is so well adapted to all the exigencies of mankind. Doth it incul­cate one sentiment, in the least incom­patible with either the natural or moral attributes of the great Being we adore?—Doth it prescribe one doctrine or pre­cept, in the smallest degree unfriendly to human nature? So far otherwise, [Page 49] that it is a faith in which we may inno­cently live; and in which, should it at last even prove an erroneous one, we need not be afraid to die. For the great design of it is, to give us the most rational and exalted ideas of God—to amend our hearts—to soften our dispo­sitions—to make us better parents, brothers, neighbors—to give a sweet­ness and relish to life—and, in a word, to enlarge the circle of our good offices as wide as that of humanity itself.

As to you, my brethren, who have assumed the sacred name of Christians, let me exhort you, to be studious not to bring a reproach upon your most ex­cellent religion, by the immorality and inhumanity of your lives. Let it never be in the power of an enemy to say, [Page 50] that you profess a religion full of good­nature and civility, and that, dead to the spirit of it, your hearts are estrang­ed to every tender sentiment, and ut­terly insensible of the wants and mise­ries of your poor fellow-mortals, in these cold and pinching times.—Chari­ty is the sweetest flower in the garland of Christian virtues, and the man who hath never worn it at his breast, may blush to want the best characteristic of a disciple of the merciful Jesus—A disciple of Jesus!—alas! he is unworthy the image of humanity, who can reflect upon the calamities which this season never fails to introduce, without in­dulging a wish to remove them.—

I WOULD not be thought an advo­cate for the wandering beggar—and yet [Page 51] of that sort too, there must no doubt be some objects deserving much chari­table pity—But I would remind you, whilst "your houses are wainscoted with cedar," and your boards groan with plenty, that there are many POOR FA­MILIES—some of which have once seen happier days—now drooping be­neath the complicated load of penu­ry and disease, in the obscure streets of your city—having no shelter, but in your bounty, against the inclemencies which surround them—and who would receive with gratitude, even the crumbs of your luxurious tables—

O YE who know what it is to make generous allowances for the infirmities of men like yourselves, forgive these the pride—the modest pride—which [Page 52] forbids them to unveil their necessities to every eye, and to solicit that mercy which they so much stand in need of—Spare a venerable FATHER of a FAMILY, the pain of relating the circumstantial story of his woe; how—crossed in eve­ry virtuous endeavor to secure a sub­sistence in the world—torn down by sickness—melancholy with disappoint­ment—and shunned by the faithful friend in whom he trusted—Nature is at length giving way, and nothing now remains to him but to steal behind the scene, and leave the stage to more suc­cessful characters.—O spare his blushes and his tears, and save a whole family from destruction, by staying the single prop on which all its hopes depend. Approach him with the delicacy which his situation requires—cherish his deject­ed [Page 53] spirit—prevent even the asking eye—and, if heaven hath allowed the means, enable him by your liberality, to rise superior to his misfortunes. The blessings of an ingenuous heart, thus ready to perish, shall follow you through life; and your own reflections, at the close of it, afford you a better consola­tion, than if you had spent whole years in attempts to unravel the mysteries of godliness, and in adjusting those modes and doctrines of faith, about which the sentiments of men will differ so long as they are men.

BUT would you see the reverse of the medal, enter for a moment yon lowly habitation!—Behold there a WIDOW, up­on whom the creditor hath come, weeping over her helpless offspring, and bemoan­ing the day when she first became a mo­ther! [Page 54] —The cries of her famishing lit­tle ones plant daggers in her soul—See, in that disfigured countenance, the struggle between despair, and the prin­ciples of a religious education—Hark! she is just making her appeal to Heaven for integrity of her heart—

‘O my God, look down in pity upon ME, the unhappy work of thine hands!—Thou gavest me children, and behold they cry for bread, which I have not in my power to bestow—I have been visited with sickness; yet have I not murmured at thy will. I have been poor; yet have these hands ministered to our necessities, and thou sawest me resigned under all the changes of thy providence— [Page 55] But my orphans—my orphans—their innocent sufferings wring my spirit—Alas! my Almighty Creator, the bruised reed is almost broken—the partner of my cares thou has taken from me—and all the miseries of widowhood and famine have spread themselves in array against me’—

GOD, in mercy, visit the hard heart which cannot melt at distress like this.—Fly to its relief, YE OPULENT and HAPPY ONES; and bear to be remind­ed, whilst you are rioting upon the bounties of Heaven, that many such scenes, with others equally calamitous, present themselves at this time, even in your hospitable city—

THE miseries which inhabit yonder Jail, wherein upwards of an hundred persons [Page 56] are confined, and many of these for in­considerable debts, can only be known to those, whose office occasionally leads them to visit such melancholy abodes—They are miseries however which call for pity even from the INJURED, and for re­dress from every good Member of So­ciety. Undoubtedly the VIRTUOUS POOR have the first claim to our fa­vor; but, when a fellow-creature is struggling with every species of wretch­edness, it is not a time to enquire, whe­ther his dis-tresses are the fruit of his own vices and indiscretions, or whether they have been inflicted by the tyranny of others—'tis enough that he is a MAN, and that he needs our assistance.

[Page 57] IT is my duty however to acquaint you, that it hath been judged necessa­ry to restrict our CHARITABLE FUND this year, solely to the uses of the Poor of these congregations—a people daily increasing in proportion with your own growth and that of the expences of life, and whose number upon your Commu­nion list is at this time more than dou­ble what it was seven years ago.—This being the case, I trust no one will be offended at the hint, that, as a society, we have yet to learn the art of regulat­ing and providing for our Poor from the example of our neighbors.—Their good police, in this respect, hath attract­ed the notice of foreigners, is quoted among ourselves as a proverb, and cer­tainly deserves a general imitation.

[Page 58] WOULD you then convince the world, O Christians, that you have embraced the religion of your Savior upon prin­ciple, produce your sign—evidence the same compassionate spirit which he evi­denced—and by this shall all men know that you are his disciples, "because ye have love one to another." Perhaps too the DEIST—beholding the benevo­lent influence of your religion upon your conduct—may be won by it to ac­knowledge Jesus as his Redeemer, after every argument had proved vain for his conversion.—But whether, or not, you will hereby discover the sincerity of your professions; and if men, by feeing your good works, will not be led to glorify your heavenly father—You will always have the conscious ap­probation of your own hearts—peace will be your portion through this vale [Page 59] of vanity—and, when the curtain drops—you will behold face to face that JESUS, whose doctrines and precepts you had thus studied to adorn.