every particular person's rank and station will be determined in the world to come. If it is not constantly observed in the present world, the necessity of departing from it is either the result of that disorder and irregularity which man's degenaracy hath introduced, or it may be an essential part of the constitution of a probationary state. Still, in general, it is resonable to suppose that the external light of revelation, like the internal influences of the Spirit, when no particular good purposes of Providence are to be answered by a more arbitrary and unequal distribution of it,-in general, it is reasonable to suppose, that it is dispensed to different persons in proportion to the inclination and ability to profit by it which the Searcher of hearts discerns in each. Where, then, is the wonder, that our Saviour should declare himself so openly to these honest Sycharites, who were then earnestly looking for the great redemption, whose hearts were ready, and whose understandings were prepared, to receive such a deliverer as Jesus pretended to be-to acknowledge the Christ, the Son of God, although he came in the form of a servant? Where is the wonder that he should make this great discovery in the first instance to a weak woman, laden with the follies of her youth, if, notwithstanding the irregularity of her past life, he discovered in her heart a soil in which his holy doctrine might take root and flourish? The restriction laid upon the apostles, in their first mission, not to visit the Samaritans, was probably founded on reasons of policy, not on any dislike of the Samaritans. It might have obstructed the accomplishment of our Saviour's great design, had the Samaritan multitude at that time risen on his side; as the Jewish multitude, if I conjecture aright, was ripe to rise, had he declared himself the temporal Messiah which they expected. But how, then, would man's redemption have been effected, which required that his blood should. flow for our crime-that he, as the representative of guilty man, should suffer capital punishment as a criminal? It was probably for this reason that

the public call was not to be given to Samaria in his lifetime, lest Samaria should obey it. This, at least, seems consistent with the general politics of our Saviour's life; for it is very remarkable, that as he grew in public fame, he became more reserved with his friends and more open with his enemies. This appears in a very striking manner in the circumstances of his last journey to Jerusalem, when he went up thither to return home no more till he had finished the great atonement. From Galilee, where his friends were numerous and his party strong, he stole away in secret: through Samaria, where he was then less known, he made a more public progress: Jerusalem, where the faction of his enemies prevailed, he entered in open triumph in the temple, he bid defiance to the chief priests and rulers; telling them, that if, at their request, he should silence the acclamations of his followers (which he refused to do), the stones of the building would proclaim his titles, and salute the present Deity. From similar motives, it may reasonably be presumed, our Saviour, in the beginning of his ministry, honoured the forward faith of the Samaritans with an open avowal of his person and his office. In a more advanced period, bent on the speedy execution of his great design, he would not call them to his party, lest, by securing his person, they should thwart his purpose.

And now, from these contrasted examples of Samaritan faith and Jewish blindness, let every one take encouragement, and let every one learn the necessity of assiduity in self-improvement. Does any one whose thoughtless heart has hitherto been set upon the lust of the eye, the pomp of the world, or the pride of life, begin now to perceive the importance of futurity? Does any one whom the violence of passion hath carried into atrocious crimes, which repetition hath rendered habitual and familiar, begin to perceive his danger?-Would he wish to escape it, if an escape were possible?-Let him then not be discouraged by any enormities of his preceding life. To become

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Christ's disciple, every one who wishes is permitted: every one's past sins are forgiven from the moment that he resolves to conform to the precepts and example of his Saviour. He who made an open discovery of himself-an early proffer of salvation to a people who, though not idolaters, had but imperfectly known the Father,-he who, in a conference, the occasion of which was evidently of his own seeking, revealed himself to a woman living in impure concubinage with the sixth man she had called her husband, he who forgave the sinner that perfumed his feet, and bathed them with the tears of her repentance, he who absolved the adulteress taken in the fact, he who called Saul the persecutor to be a pillar and an apostle of the faith he had so cruelly oppressed, he who from the cross bore the penitent companion of his last agonies to Paradise,―HE hath said—and you have seen how his actions accorded with his words-he hath said-" Him that cometh to me, I will in nowise cast out." "Him that cometh to me in humility and penitence, I will in nowise cast out. In nowise, in no resentment of any crimes, not even of blasphemy and infidelity previous to his coming, will I exclude him from the light of my doctrine-from the benefits of my atonement-from the glories of my kingdom." Come, therefore, unto him, all ye that are heavy laden with your sins. By his own gracious voice he called you while on earth: by the voice of his ambassadors he continueth to call; he calleth you now by mine. Come unto him, and he shall give you rest,—rest from the hard servitude of sin and appetite and guilty fear. That yoke is heavy,—that burden is intolerable: his yoke is easy, and his burden light. But come in sincerity;— dare not to come in hypocrisy and dissimulation. Think not that it will avail you in the last day, to have called yourselves Christians-to have been born and educated under the gospel light-to have lived in the external communion of the church on earth,-if all the while your hearts have holden no communion with its Head in hea

ven. If, instructed in Christianity, and professing to believe its doctrines, ye lead the lives of unbelievers, it will avail you nothing in the next, to have enjoyed in this world, like the Jews of old, advantages which ye despised, -to have had the custody of a holy doctrine, which never touched your hearts-of a pure commandment, by the light of which ye never walked. To those who disgrace the doctrine of their Saviour by the scandal of their lives, it will be of no avail to have vainly called him "Lord! Lord!"

SERMON XXV.

We have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.-JOHN iv. 42.

SUCH was the testimony which, in an early period of our Saviour's ministry, the good people of the town of Sychar, in Samaria, bore to the truth of his pretensions. They makė, you see, a double profession,-first, of a previous faith in a Christ that was to come; then, of a faith now wrought in them by the preaching of Jesus, that Jesus himself was the person they expected.

From this public confession of the Sycharites, connected with the sentiments which had been expressed by a woman of the same town, in her private conference with our Lord at Jacob's well, these facts, as I showed you in my last Discourse, may readily be deduced: that the Samaritans of our Saviour's day, with advantage of less light from revelation, no less than the more instructed Jews, expected a Messiah, that they knew, no less than the Jews, that the time was come for his appearance,-that, in the Messiah who was now to come, they expected not, like the mistaking Jews, a Saviour of the Jewish nation only, or of Abraham's descendants, but of the world, that they expected a Saviour of the world from moral evil--- from the

misery of sin and guilt-from the corruptions of ignorance, hypocrisy, and superstition.

Of these facts, I now purpose to investigate the causes. I am to inquire, therefore, first, on what grounds the previous faith which we find in the Samaritans-their faith in a Christ to come, was founded; and, in the next place what particular evidence might produce their conviction that Jesus was the person they expected actually arrived.

The first question, what were the grounds of their previous faith, may seem naturally to divide itself into two parts, as it respects this previous faith in that part which was peculiar to the Samaritans; or in that more general part of it in which they only concurred in the universal expectation of all the civilized nations of the world. The expectation of an extraordinary person who should arise about this time in Judea, and be the instrument of great improvements in the manners and condition of mankind, was almost, if not altogether, universal at the time of our Saviour's birth; and had been gradually spreading and getting strength for some time before it. The fact is so notorious to all who have any knowledge of antiquity, that it is needless to attempt any proof of it. It may be assumed as a principle which even an infidel of candour would be ashamed to deny; or, if any one would deny it, I would decline all dispute with such an adversary, as too ignorant to receive conviction, or too disingenuous to acknowledge what he must secretly admit. This general expectation was common, therefore, to the Samaritans with other nations: and, so far as it was common, it must be traced to some common source; for causes can never be less general than their effects. What was peculiar to the Samaritans, was the just notion which is expressed in my text, and in the private professions of the Sycharite woman, of the nature and extent of the benefits men were to receive from the expected deliverer, and of the means by which the deliverance was to be accomplished.

The subject, therefore, before us, in its first general