the chapter is employed in giving them inftructions. Such paffages as are more difficult, I fhall endeavour to explain to you. If the house be worthy, your peace fhall come upon it-it fhall enjoy the benefit of your preaching: but if the house be not worthy, your peace shall return to you again you fhall be bleffed, though it refufes the bleffing. The meaning of shaking the dust off their feet, is this:It was a custom among the Jews, when they travelled into any foreign coun try, to shake the dust off their feet when they returned home, left they fhould pollute their own holy ground with the foil of a heathen country. To this cuftom our Saviour alludes; and what he says amounts to this :-That if they. would not listen to the gospel, they should be accounted as heathen people. When Jefus tells his difciples, they should be brought before governors and kings, for a teftimony against them, and the Gentiles, he means, that when they answered for themselves, if their preaching and miracles were not attended to by those who heard them, they should be left without excufe.—Jesus then tells his disciples what great opposition his religion fhould occafion in the world: it fhould even make quarrels among the nearest relations. Ye shall be hated of all men, fays he, for my name's fake; but he that endureth to the end fhall be faved: that is, he who endureth the perfecutions of the world for the fake of the gospel, shall be rewarded with everlasting life. Jefus farther tells his difciples, that they fhall not have gone over the cities of Ifrael, till the Son of Man fhould come that is, they fhould not have preached through the country of Judea, till Jerufalem fhould be destroyed; for that is in many places, and apparently in this, the meaning of the coming of the Son of man.-Our Saviour then adds this reafon for their not fearing the perfecutions of the world: There is nothing covered, fays he, that fhall not be revealed; nor hid, that shall not be made known:-a time will come, when every thing shall be brought to light; when the secrets of all hearts fhall be revealed, and the cause of the good christian fhall appear in the fairest point of view. He orders them, therefore, to Speak in the light, what they should hear in darknefs that is, to speak publicly what they should hear in private, and preach it upon the house-tops; that is, in the plaineft and openest manner: for the houses in Judea had flat roofs, where the people used to walk, and from thence to speak to to thofe in the ftreet. To this cuftom our Saviour alludes.-The next paffage which requires explanation, is that in which our Saviour fays, he is not come to fend peace, but a fword, into the world; and then mentions his setting families at variance among themselves. Now the meaning of this is no more, than that the purity of the gofpel is fo contrary to the prejudices of the world, that it will of courfe fet the bad part of mankind in oppofition to the good; and when there are good and bad of the same family, they will of course be divided.-Our Saviour lastly pronounces a bleffing on all who fhall receive the gospel entirely for its own fake, without any worldly confideration; and fhall fhew a fincere regard for it, merely for the fake of God and Jefus Chrift. And though they can only in the smallest degree promote its influence, yet they give that evidence of their religion, which shall certainly find its reward. THIS verfe concludes the tenth chapter. In my next discourse I shall begin with the eleventh. SERMON XX.. 1 JOHN, V. 29. SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES; FOR IN THEM YE HAVE ETERNAL LIFE. THE eleventh chapter begins with a very extraordinary circumftance. John the Baptift, who is now imprifoned by Herod, fends two of his difciples to Jefus to enquire, whether he was the Meffiah? Who could have imagined that John, who was himself the exprefs forerunner of Jefus -who had feen the Holy Ghost defcend upon him, and had himself borne the strongest witness to his being the Meffiah, fhould now begin to doubt! We cannot therefore, by any means, admit this fuppofition. We have no reason, therefore, to believe, that John had himself the leaft doubt about the matter.-The cafe, then, feems to be this:-John was now in prison: his miniftry ministry was at an end; and he expected every day to be deprived of his life by the wicked tyrant, who had deprived him of his liberty. In this fituation he was uneafy about his difciples, who had followed him to prifon; and would be left greatly at a lofs, when he fhould be taken from them. He feems defirous, therefore, of turning them over, as it were, to Jefus; that they might find a better mafter when they should lofe him. But as there had been fome little jealoufies between the difciples of John and thofe of Jefus, as we read in the fourteenth verfe of the ninth chapter, the Baptist might wish to have all thefe at an end; and to have his difciples convince themfelves of the great truth, that Jefus was the Meffiah. With this view he fent two of them to Jefus to make the enquiry, well knowing how convincing an answer they should receive. Jefus accordingly, instead of giving them a direct anfwer, wrought feveral miracles in their fight the blind faw, the lame walked, the lepers were cleanfed, the deaf heard, and the dead were raised. Now these were exprefsly thofe very miracles which the prophet Isaiah foretold the Meffiah fhould work *. The argument, there *Ifa. xxv. 6. and Ixi. 1. fore, |