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placed in difficult and trying circumstances of one kind or other. All these things, Brethren, are to be regarded as preachers in your ears, saying "This is not your rest. Fix your

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hearts upon other joys and seek a more enduring substance." They are admonishing you to look up to Him, who governs all things according to the counsel of his will, who only wounds to heal, and kills to make alive. They caution you not to kick against the pricks, but seasonably to submit, to repent, and to be saved. Oh! how foolish to contend with infinite power! Think of this in time, O ye people! while the day of grace remains. Accept of the mercy, which the gospel offers you through Jesus Christ; and remember, that for this end the Captain of your Salvation was made perfect through sufferings, that you might be enabled patiently to bear your respective crosses after Him, and thus to enter with Him into glory. Blessed indeed is the man, whom God correcteth, therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Lord,

SERMON X.

ON THE TESTIMONY

OF

CONSCIENCE.

SERMON X.

II CORINTHIANS, i. 12.

For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world.

THE words, which I have just read, contain sentiments which ought to be cherished by every Christian, and in discoursing upon them, I intend to observe the following things:

I. That the principle, by which all, who belong to Jesus Christ, are actuated, is the grace of God.

II. That thereby are produced simplicity, and godly sincerity, for the regulation of our conversation with the world.

III. That, acting with these dispositions, we may rejoice in the testimony of our consciences. I am to shew,

1st. That the principle, by which all, who belong to Jesus Christ, are actuated, is the grace of God. Grace is a word of very extensive signification in the Holy Scripture, and

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usually means all the favour, freely bestowed by God upon his sinful and undeserving creatures. On this account, as it would take up too much time to speak of all the bounties of Providence, we must confine our observations to some particular senses, in which the phrase is to be considered; and here I would chiefly direct your attention to the two following things.

First, I would have you meditate upon the grace of God, which bringeth salvation. Every thing that was done upon the part of our Creator, in order to recover the lost and ruined race of Adam from the miseries of the fall, was a display of sovereign mercy, a mercy so great, that the more any one discovers of the plan of redemption, the more is he convinced of the wisdom, the goodness, and the love of God, and consequently the more does he feel disposed to praise Him for all the great and wonderful things, which he has done for him; but as he does not at every instant meditate upon this display of grace, and as, in the common course of life, circumstances continually occur to call his attention to things of a very different nature, he feels what Saint Paul so bitterly complains of in the 7th chapter to the Romans, that when he would do good evil is present with him, and if he have any

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