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DISC. "received not the promise," THE promife,

X.

emphatically, the grand promife, in faith of which they died, and of which all other promises were only fhadows, and known by them to be fuch; "God having" all along foreseen and " provided fome better

thing for us," better than any of those figurative promifes which they did receive; to wit, an eternal redemption, and an eternal inheritance; that, in fuch eternal redemption and inheritance," they, with"out us, fhould not be made perfect"," as God intends that we, together with them, at the general refurrection, shall be made perfect in heaven.

If, then, the mothers in Judah and Benjamin had been properly inftructed in the faith of the ancient church, when Jeremiah addreffed to them the words we have been confidering, though they must understand them immediately as a promise that their children should be delivered from Babylon, and brought back again to

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their own land; yet their thoughts would DISC. naturally be carried on, for further comfort, to that other deliverance and reftoration from death, promised by all the holy prophets, fince the world began; even as we may presume the thoughts of a Chrif tian parent would now be, whose fon was a slave in Barbary, should a prophet be sent to him with the following meffage from God; "Your fon is gone into captivity, "but he shall certainly be redeemed from " it."

This, however, is indifputable; that in the application which St. Matthew has taught us to make of the paffage, it can admit of no other conftruction ; because there can be no deliverance from bodily death, but by a bodily refurrection.

Learn we, therefore, and a more important and useful leffon cannot be learned

whenever death deprives us of those who are near and dear to us, to comfort ourselves and one another with thefe words;

and

DISC. and let each of us, as occafion for con

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folation fhall offer itself, liften to Jeremiah's prophecy, as if it were fpoken to himfelf; "Thus faith the LORD; Re"frain thy voice from weeping, and thine 66 eyes from tears; for thy work fhallbe "rewarded, faith the LORD, and they "fhall come again from the land of the

66

enemy. And there is hope in thine end, "faith the LORD, that thy children,” thy relations, or thy friends, "shall come

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again to their own border;" that from the dark and defolate regions of the grave they shall come to the light and glory of the heavenly Jerufalem; where, as holy John tells us, "there fhall be no more

death, neither forrow, nor crying;" where Rachel fhall finally cease her lamentations, lay afide her mourning veil, and wipe away all tears for ever from her eyes.

e Rev. xxi. 4.

DISCOURSE XI.

THE CIRCUMCISION.

LUKE II. 21.

And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcifing of the child, his name was called JESUS, which was fo named of the angel, before he was conceived in the womb.

T

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HESE words conclude the Gospel DISC. for the day, taken from a chapter which hath afforded ample matter of wonder and delight through the course of the present joyful season, when the church, like the blessed virgin mother, is never feen, but with the holy child in her arms. By the portions already felected from it, we have been made to liften to the fermon preached by an angel upon the fubject of

the

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DISC. the Nativity; and the sweet notes of that anthem, sung by the choir of heaven immediately after, are ftill founding in our ears. With the happy and obedient shepherds we have been at Bethlehem, and there have seen this great thing which is "come to pass, which the Lord hath made "known unto us;" and have found reafon to return, like them, "glorifying and

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praifing God for all the things that we "have heard and feen, as it was told unto "us." Nor fhall we ever forget, it is to be hoped (at least, never, at this hallowed and gracious time), to imitate her example, who kept all these fayings, and pondered "them in her heart."

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We are now conducted from the birth to the circumcifion of our Redeemer, an account of which immediately follows the history of the shepherds, in the words of the text. And very meet, and right, and our bounden duty it is, that we should at this time, and in this place, employ our thoughts upon it; feeing it was the begin

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