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every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life:" John vi. 38, 40. Such persons as are thus taught and led by the Spirit unto Christ, will always be looking out of themselves unto Him. And such who are looking at inherent grace, and deriving all their confidence in the Lord, and comfort therefrom, will be continually poring on the same. I would have such know, that they are, in this, altogether wrong. They cannot live Christ so long as it is thus with them; and to live Christ, is the only life worth living; it is the very life which is only worth living out of heaven; it is the very best preparation for the state of eternal blessedness and glory.

I submit, Reader, to thy own consideration, what hath been dropped. May the good Lord bless the same unto thee! Thou wilt find the work of God within thee, very greatly strengthened, excited, and drawn out into open act and exercise, as the Lord the Spirit is pleased to teach thee how to live on Christ without thee, and without all consideration of what thou art in thyself. May the Holy Ghost bless the following Sermons, to the praise of the glory of his grace, and the real and spiritual advantage of his saints,

is the desire and prayer of

the least of all the servants of his Lord,

SAMUEL EYLES PIERCE.

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AN EXPOSITION

OF THE

FIRST EPISTLE GENERAL OF JOHN,

IN A SERIES OF SERMONS.

SERMON I.

"That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life."-1 JOHN i. 1.

THIS Epistle, written by the Apostle John, concerns the subject of communion with God the Father, and his Son Jesus Christ, through the grace and influence of the Holy Spirit, which is the very essence and uttermost perfection of grace, either on earth, or in glory. This apostle was in the New Testament church, what the prophet Daniel was in the Old. He was addressed by the angel, "O man greatly beloved," Dan. x. 19, and our apostle was known by the title of that disciple whom Jesus loved. He was a high favourite with our Lord Jesus Christ. He was admitted to lay in his bosom; and like as Christ lay in the bosom of his Father before all time, and drew out all the love of his Father's heart into his own, and shines in the full splendour of it, and reflects the glorious shine of it on his church; so this apostle, being admitted to such free and intimate converse with our Lord, drew out the very heart of Christ into his own. And he was thereby most eminently qualified to write concerning one of the greatest of all subjects-communion with the divine Persons, in the incomprehensible essence as they stand related to us, and are personally interested in us, according to their own sovereign will and grace.

John was a witness for Christ. He saw him in the flesh; he beheld him on the mount of transfiguration, when he shone forth in majesty and glory, such as carried its own evidence with it, that he was the only begotten of the Father. He saw him transfixed on the cross. He saw him in his agony and blood-sweat.-He saw him as he hung a breathless corpse on the tree.—He saw him pierced in his side by a soldier, when blood and water flowed out, in consequence of the bag which surrounded the heart being touched by the spear which entered it. He saw and conversed with our Lord after he was risen from the dead, and during his continuance in his resurrection state.-He saw him when he left our world, and ascended up on high, and sat down at the right hand of God.-He saw him after his entrance and coronation in heaven, in a vision in the Isle of Patmos, at which time he was so struck with the glory, majesty, dignity, and shine of his visionary appearance, that he says, " And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon

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