in good earnest, then dropping it again; sometimes seeming to be really engaged in seeking salvation, and very earnest in religious duties'; at other times wholly taken up about the things of the world, while religion is neglected, and religious duties are omitted.

These things show that you are yet unsettled, have never yet come to a full determination concerning religion, but are halting between two opinions, and therefore are thus unstable in all your ways, and proceed thus by fits and starts in relig ion, James i. 6, 7, 8. "But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed, For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A doubleminded man is unstable in all his ways." If your determination were fixed in religion, you would be more steady in your practice.

4. It is a sign that you are halting between two opinions, if it be your manner to balk your duty whenever any notable difficulty comes in the way, considerably cross to your interest, or very inconsistent with your ease or convenience, or your temporal honor. Whatever zeal you may seem to have, whatever concern about the things of religion, and however strict you be in ordinary, you have never, if this be your manner, come to a full determination; have never fully made choice of religion and the benefits of it for your only portion; and at best have got no further than king Agrippa, who was almost persuaded to be a Christian, Acts xxvi. 28. You are in the state of the stony ground hearers, you have no root in yourselves, and like a tree without root, are easily blown down by every wind.

II. I shall conclude with an earnest exhortation to all, no longer to halt between two opinions, but immediately to come to a determination whether to be Christians or not. Let me insist upon it, that you now make a choice, whether you will have heaven, with a life of universal and persevering obedience for your portion; or hell, with a life spent in the pursuit of this world. Consider those things which have been said,

shewing the unreasonableness of continuing in such irresolution about an affair of infinite importance to you, and as to which you have so short an opportunity to make your choice. Consider two things in addition to what hath been already said.

1. Those who live under the gospel, and thus continue undetermined about religion, are more abominable to God than the heathen. God had rather that men should either be Christians or downright heathens. He hates those persons who continue from year to year, under the calls, and warnings, and instructions, and intreaties of God's word; who yet can be brought to nothing; who will come to no determination at all; will neither be Christians nor heathens. These are they who are spoken of in Rev. iii. 15, 16. “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot: So then, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my month." Ezek. xx. 39. “As for you, O house of Israel, thus saith the Lord God, Go ye, serve ye every one his idols, and hereafter also, if ye will not hearken unto me; but pollute ye my holy name no more with your gifts, and with your idols." These are they spoken of in 2 Tim. iii. 7. Ever learning and never coming to the knowledge of the truth."

2. If you still refuse to come to a determination whether to be Christians or not, how just will it be, if God shall give you no further opportunity! If you refuse to make any choice at all; and after all that hath been done to bring you to it, in setting life and death, so often before you, in calling and warning you, if you will not come to a determination, how just will it be, if God shall wait no longer upon you, if he shall, by his unalterable sentence, determine the case himself; if he shall fix your state with the unbelievers, and teach you the truth and eligibleness of religion, by sad and fatal experience, when it will be too late for you to choose your portion, and the offer will be no more made you!

SERMON XII.*

Unbelievers contemn the Glory and Excellency of

Christ.

ACTS iv. 11.

THIS IS THE STONE WHICH WAS SET AT NOUGHT OF YOU BUILDERS.

IN the foregoing chapters we have an account of the ⚫utpouring of the Holy Ghost on the apostles at Pentecost, and of the extraordinary effects of it, in their speaking boldly in the name of Jesus, and speaking many strange languages, and so being made the instruments of the sudden conversion of vast multitudes. And in the chapter immediately preceding there is an account how Peter and John miraculously healed a man who had been a criple from his birth; which, together with the word which they spake to the people that flocked together on the occasion, was the means of a new accession to the church; so that the number of them that heard the word and believed, as we are told in the fourth verse of this chapter, was about five thousand.

This sudden and extraordinary progress of the gospel greatly alarmed the priests and scribes, and other chief men among the Jews; so that they laid hands on Peter and John, and put them in hold, and the next day brought them forth to

Dated, May 1736.

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appear before them, and called them to an account for what they had done. They asked them particularly by what power, or by what name they had wrought the miracle on the impotent man. Upon which Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, makes answer, "Ye rulers of the people, and elders of Israel....Be it knownunto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole. This is the stone which was set at nought by you builders, which is become the head of the corner." In the verse of the text the apostle mentions to them as now fulfilled, that in the 118th Psalm verse 22. "The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner." This text, in that psalm, the apostle applies to them:

1. By telling them, This is the stone, i. e. this person of whom he had spoken in the foregoing verse, viz. Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom they had crucified, and whom God had raised from the dead.

2. By telling them, that they were the builders spoken of. They, before whom the apostle then was, and to whom he was speaking, were rulers and elders and scribes of the people, the high priest and other priests. They, as they were set to be rulers and teachers among God's people, by their office, were called to be builders of the church of God.

3. By telling them, that they had set this stone at nought. They had so done by refusing to accept of him. Christ came to his own, and his own received him not; and not only so, but they had openly manifested the greatest contempt of him. They had mocked him, scourged and spit upon him, and in derision crowned him with a crown of thorns, and arrayed him in a mock robe, and then had put him to a most ignominious death.

4. By telling them, that notwithstanding this, he was become the head of the corner. In spite of all that they could do, he had obtained the chief place in the building. God had made him the main foundation of it, by raising him from the dead, and so putting great honor upon him, and by pouring

out his Spirit, and enduing his disciples with extraordinary gifts, and by suddenly converting so many thousands to be the followers of Christ. They put him to death that he might have no followers, concluding that that would utterly put an end to his interest in Judea. But they were greatly disappointed; For the gospel had incomparably greater success after Christ's death than before. God had accomplished that very thing which they endeavored to prevent by Christ's crucifixion, viz. Christ's being believed in and submitted to, as the great Prophet of God and Prince of his people.

DOCTRINE.

Unbelievers set nothing by all the glory and excellency in

Christ.

I. They set nothing by the excellency of his person. Christ is a great and glorious person, a person of infinite worthiness, on which account he is infinitely esteemed and loved of the Father, and is continually adored by the angels. But unbelievers have no esteem at all of him on that account. They have no value at all of him on account of his being the Son of God. He is not set the higher in their esteem on the account. of his standing in so near and honorable a relation to God the Father. He is not valued at all the more for his being a divine person, or one that is God. By his having the divine nature, he is infinitely exalted above all created beings. But he is not at all exalted by it in their esteem. They set nothing by his infinite Majesty. His glorious brightness and greatness excite not any true respect or reverence in them.

Christ is the holy one of God: He is so holy that the heavens are not pure in his sight. He is possessed of all that holiness which is the infinite beauty and loveliness of the divine nature. But an unbeliever sets nothing by the holiness of Christ. Christ is the wisdom of God and the power of God, as he is called, 1 Cor. i. 24. But an unbeliever sets nothing by his power and wisdom. The Lord Jesus Christ is full of