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What evil have Christians done, to merit this treatment? Have they injured these enemies? Have they injured the public? Are they not as industrious, as peaceable, as just, as sincere, as kind, as useful, as other men? Do they not, as parents, children, friends, neighbours, magistrates, and citizens, perform the duties of life as faithfully, as those who are not Christians? Do they transgress the laws, oppose the government, or disturb the peace, of society, more than their enemies themselves? If they are guilty of such crimes, it can undoubtedly be proved; it ought to be proved; and they ought, accordingly, to be condemned and punished. To this no fair objection can be made even by Christians themselves.

But how far from these dictates of reason has been all the conduct of their adversaries? Have they even attempted any proof of this nature? Have not their accusations been general and indefinite, like the outcry raised against Paul and his companions; These, that have turned the world upside down, have come hither also the mere exclamations of undiscriminating malevolence; not the specific charges of sober conviction.

To this malevolence what an endless train of men, women, and children; of men, covered with the hoary locks of age, of children, scarcely escaped from the cradle; have been offered up on the altar of persecution? What multitudes by the ancient Heathen; what multitudes by the idolatrous Apostates from Christianity; what multitudes by the Infidels, of modern times?

Where law and government have prevented these atrocities, how many private and personal injuries, how many sneers and taunts, how many stings of gall and bitterness, has Christianity been obliged to endure? How many aspersions have been cast on their doctrines, designs, and characters, merely to load them with shame? How frequently are their best intentions misconstrued, and their most benevolent labours perverted, in this very land, originally peopled by Christians, and consecrated to religion this land converted by Christians from a wilderness into a habitation of industry, peace, civilization, and happiness: to change which from a howling wilderness into an asylum of persecuted piety, Christians encountered the perils of the Occan, and the sufferings of the desart; sustained all the horrors of saVor II.

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vage war, and all the evils of famine, disease, and death. In this very land, how many enemies have risen up to the Church of God, among the descendants of these very Christians, and among the brethren of those who are persecuted? They know not, perhaps, that their curses are directed to the fathers who begat them, or that their eye is evil towards the mothers who bore them; nor mistrust, that their scorn is pointed against the source, whence, under God, they have derived every enjoyment, and every hope.

Against this source of blessings, the religion of Christians, they are more malignant, than even against Christians themselves. The Bible is hated more than those who believe it; the doctrines and duties of Christianity more than its professors. What are those duties? They are all summed up in those two great precepts, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself; and in the means of producing obedience to these precepts in the soul of man. What is there in these precepts, which can be the object of vindicable hatred? Who will stand up, and say; who will say in the recesses of his own heart; "It is an odious and contemptible thing to love God; to obey his voice; to believe in his Son; to shun the anger of God; to escape from endless sin and misery; and to attain everlasting virtue and happiness?" Or is it, in the view of common sense, wise to choose the anger of God rather than his favour, a depraved character rather than a virtuous one, the company of apostates and fiends rather than of saints and angels, and hell rather than heaven?

Is it odious, is it contemptible, is it ridiculous, does it deserve obloquy and persecution, to love our neighbour as ourselves; to exhibit universal kindness; to deal justly; to speak truth; to fulfil promises; to relieve the distressed; to obey laws; to reverence magistrates; to resist temptation; to be sober, chaste, and temperate; and to follow all things, which are honest, pure. lovely, and of good report?

Is it, on the contrary, honourable; is it praise-worthy; does it merit esteem and reward; to be impious, profane, and blasphemous; to be infidels; to have a seared conscience; to possess a hard heart; to be unjust, unkind, and unfaithful; to be

false, perjured, and seditious; to be light-minded, lewd, and gluttonous ?

Is not the true reason of all this hostility to Christians, the plain superiority of their character to that of their enemies? Does not the hatred arise from their consciousness of this superiority; from the impatience which they feel, whenever they behold it; from the wounds, which neighbouring excellence always inflicts? Do they not feel, that good men cast a shade upon their character; reprove them, at least by the silent and powerful voice of their own virtue; serve as a second conscience, to hold out their sin before their eyes; and alarm their hearts with a secret and irresistible sense of future danger? Do not wicked men say in their hearts, as they said at the time, when the Wisdom of Solomon was written; Therefore let us lie in wait for the righteous, because he is not for our turn; and he is clean contrary to our doings. He upbraideth us with our offending the law; and objecteth to our infamy the transgressings of our education. He professeth to have the knowledge of God; and calleth himself the child of the Lord. He was made to reprove our thoughts. He is grievous unto us, even to behold: for his life is not like other mens'; his ways are of another fashion. We are esteemed of him as counterfeits; he abstaineth from our ways as from filthiness; he pronounceth the end of the just to be blessed; and maketh his boast, that God is his Father. Let us see, if his words be true; and let us prove what shall happen in the end of him. Let us cxamine him with despitefulness, and torture, that we may know his meekness, and prove his patience. Let us condemn him with a shameful death: for by his own saying he shall be respected. Apply this description; and you will find it as exact, and just, as if it had been written yesterday, and intended to mark out, in the most definite manner, the loose and profligate of our own land.

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But let Christians remember, that these things will not always be. The time will come; it will soon come; when their enemies, however numerous, proud, and prosperous, will, like sheep, be laid in the grave. Death shall feed on them; and the worm shall cover them. Their beauty shall consume away; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning. Then shall all the just be far from oppression; for they shall not fear;

and from terror; for it shall not come near them. God shall redeem them from the power of the grave; and shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. Then shall it be seen, that their light affliction, in the present world, was but for a moment, and that its real and happy efficacy was no other, than to work for them a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

SERMON LIX.

CHARACTER OF CHRIST,

AS A KING.

EPHESIANS i. 20-22.

Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places; Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come. And hath put all things under his feet; and gave him to be the head over all things to the Church.

I HAVE now in a series of sermons examined the character of Christ, as the prophet, and high priest, of mankind. Under his prophetical character I have considered his Preaching, by himself, and by his Apostles; the Things, taught by both; the Manner, in which they were taught; and their consequences. Under his Priesthood I have considered his personal holiness; his atonement; and his Intercession.

I shall now, according to the original scheme, mentioned when I began to discuss the mediation of Christ, proceed to consider his character as a King.

That this character is given to Christ in the Scriptures, in instances almost literally innumerable, is perfectly well known to every reader of the Bible. In the second Psalm, there is a so

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