which pufillanimity prevented, and rendered the feed of falvation (that you have planted in every rational being) from profiting by an increafe of merit to claim your mercy through the infinite ranfom you have purchased us with, abortive. O my God, the fcriptures that you depofited with our fathers, to enlighten our understanding and guide us in an unerring direction to the altar of redemption, on which you, my Lord and my God, was pleafed to be immolated, I have made ufe of to my own deftruction and by perfuafive allurements enticed and fettered many in the fhackles of impiety, blafpheming our God, whofe Majesty we received our being to adore. O my Creator, my Saviour and Redeemer, my God and my All, your bleffed name be for ever adored, and if your creature was capable of infinite adoration, O my God, I would with my whole heart and powers of my foul lay it with myself buried at your facred feet. My Jefus, my Lord. and Meffiah, how could your juftice, my God, fo far give place to your mercy as to fcreen and fuffer fo base a reptile to go on for a series of years depreciating your adorable and moft facred Deity with impunity. True it is, my Lord, as the fcripture tells us, that you will have mercy and not facrifice, and in this your mifcreant creature is this fcripture verified. O my God, can I ever cease thanking, praising, loving and adoring your infinite goodness, pouring out my foul and devoting the fmall remains of life in the love and fervice of your omnipotent Majesty, and forrow for the impious years I have Bb I have lived. I will now turn my eyes upon this child of the devil, unworthy to lick up the mire of the infernal lake, actuated by vain conceit, erroneous and irreligious principles, from which proceed a reftlefs and malignant zeal, a firebrand, irksome and irreconcileable; with this fetid monfter you grew up and made your league. What distant clime have you not trod in queft of that very peace your callous heart, as a ftill-born foetus, was not capable of perceiving; though you were continually with every enticement invited to its banquet. Proverbs, chap. 9. Wisdom hath builded her houfe, fhe hath hewn out her feven pillars; the hath killed her beafts, fhe hath mingled her wine, fhe hath alfo furnished her table; fhe has fent forth her maidens; fhe crieth upon the highest places of the city. Who is fimple, let him turn in hither; he that wanted understanding, the faith to him. Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled. Forfake the foolish and live, and go in the way of understanding. He that reproveth the scorner, getteth to himself fhame: and he that rebuketh a wicked man, getteth himself a blot. Reprove not a fcorner, left he hate thee: rebuke a wife man, and he will love you. Give inftruction to a wife man, and he will be yet wifer: teach a juft man, and he will increase in learning. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the Holy is understanding. For by me your days fhall be multiplied, and the years of your life fhall be increased. If thou art wife, thou shalt be be wife for thyfelf; but if thou fcorneft, thou alone fhalt bear it. Man being invested with the most noble quality of free-will, to reject, or accept at pleafure, the divine feed being fown in his heart, his falvation depends on himself. O mifadvifed culprit, to reftrain and mortify your paffions and various inclinations, that your life might pass unsullied, emaciating your body and reftraining your will from common neceffaries, that the poor might find a refuge, and in you a common father; what other delight have you feeked from your youth, and considered it your duty to fort with the needy and bear their burthens to inculcate religion in their hearts, root out vicious habits, and in all things make them happy; and this not confined to your own nation, but univerfal, the whole ftock of the human fpecies. And yet vain man, the Imperial or Royal duty from which the other fhould proceed and draw its effects, you have not alone flighted, but thundered forth from a malevolent and mifchevous heart, the most fpiteful and wicked blafphemy; fo that while your morals and duty to your neighbour remained unim. peachable (your wicked inftruction excepted) you were in a far more wicked and deteftable ftate, than the reprobate angels or devils. They ftood part of the Celestial Hierarchy, and thro' the excellency of their fuperior quality were worthy the immortal thrones they were feated on, but contemplating as they conceived their irrevocable fubiim ty, and being ftruck with a fecret paffion of fondnels at the exquifite and Bb 2 spotlefs fpotless beauty, height of magnificence, with crowns, and exceeding great weight of glory they had attained to, dazzled thofe high intelligences, and formed a fecret attachment which was the nurfe-egg that produced felf-love, pride and rebellion. Their wages are a total feclufion from their God, ftript of their captivating ornaments, taken from their thrones, and metamorphofed into frightful fiends of hell. Man being, at the fall of the angels, created to fill their vacant thrones, that there might be no excitement to pride (the cause by which the angels fell) was vefted in a humiliating garb compofed of flime. In this dirty coat he was to remain until a reasonable trial fhould be the teft of obedience and reverence to the Divine Decree. Satan obferving these dirty creatures and judging they were formed to fill the thrones from which himself and affociates had been degraded, refolved with contemptuous fcorn to allure them into the fnare themselves had been entrapped, and reasonably confidering the dif parity, betwixt an angel and the man of mud, contrived his fall in due progreffion adequate to the disparity. He therefore made use of the moft vile reptile (by which fubtlety he retains the name of the old ferpent) to accomplish his plot. In the garden of delights man had free accefs and his enjoyment unreftrained, but the tree of knowledge, which as a teft of his obedience to his Creator he was forbid to tafte. Satan made ufe of this ftratagem, by twining about the tree of knowledge in the prefence of Eve, inviting her to the banquet, who, obferving obferving the delight of enjoyment painted in the countenance of the ferpent, and that he furvived the pleasure, was raised by curiofity and defire to try the experiment which nurfeegg proved fatal, being of the fame species with that of the devil's felf love, pride, and rebellion. Let us view thefe created gods, Great Lucifer or Satan, prince of the first tribe, who, before his godfhip, was one of the most bright, glorious and refplendent princes of the heavenly hierarchy, new habited in the coat of the most vile reptile, and with the brotherhood are condemned to eternal perdition. Man's fall entailed an equal punishment on himself and pofterity. The humiliating state of man presented no enticement to his fall, which renders him lefs excufable; but shame and remorfe obtained at the Divine Tribunal, mercy and the promise of a Meffiah to reinftate him in his original birthright. The promise, after two thousand years, was fettled in the family of our fathers Abraham, Ifaac and Jacob, continued in the tribe of Judah, and allotted to the lineage of David 100 years before his manifeftation. The Royal Prophet, in his Pfalms, fpeaks fully and in the most clear terms of the Divinity of the Meffiah, his Prieft hood, his offering bread and wine, his life of humiliations, fufferings, death, refurrection, afcenfion, and seating his glorious humanity on the Right-Hand of his Father. The Lord faid unto my Lord, "Sit thou on 'my Right-Hand until I make thy enemies thy foot-ftool." The latter part of this prophecy took place forty years after Ifrael put our MefBb 3 fiah |