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ful is the thought of everlasting burnings? Who indeed can dwell therein? When the great day of his wrath shall come, who shall be able to stand? Beware of treating these awful thoughts as trifles, or with carelessness. We may trifle while every thing is serious, said once a great man. Indeed, it is so. Time is serious in passing away; death and eternity are serious in coming on; Christ is serious in his calls and invitations, as well as in his sufferings and death; and we may be assured that he will be serious when he comes to judge the world in righteousness. Provoke him not to laugh at your calamity, nor mock when feet cometh, O kiss the Son, lest he be angry with you, and swear in his wrath, ye shall not enter into his rest.

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O YE heirs of glory! followers of the lamb! you see the foundation of all your hopes is in the love of God, manifested in the glorious undertakings of your friend and advocate. O love him, cleave to and confide in him. He will help you; he does help you, and his grace shall be sufficient you. If yé love him keep his commandments. Follow the Lamb wheresoever he goes. He has passed through this world of woe, and knows what pain and poverty, shame and temptation mean; yea, he has passed through the gloomy region of death,

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and knows what it means. He can feel for you, and having overcome all, is ascended to plead for you at his Father's right hand. He is now your life, your peace and comfort; as such, cleave unto him with all your soul, so that when Christ, who is your life, shall appear, ye also shall appear with him in glory.

TO THE READER.

1HERE are two names given to the blessed season, which the ensuing Sermons refer to, not well understood by many persons who may read them. The one is, Pentecost. When the day of Pentecost was fully come, they, the Disciples, were all with one ac cord in one place. The word comes from the Greek TX05050 That is, fifty, because it was kept fifty days after the passover, in commemoration of the Law being given on Mount Sinai; and was one of the three. grand Festivals at which every man was to at Jerusalem. See Exod. xxiii. 17, appear xxxiv. 23. Deut. xvi. 16. It is also called the Feast of Harvest; because it was the beginning of harvest, when the first fruits were offered, with this humiliating language, A Syrian ready to perish was my Father, and he went down into Egypt, and sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation great and mighty. (a)

Ir is also called the Feast of Weeks, (b)

(a) Deut. xxvi. 5. (b) Exod. xxxiv. 22.

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because of the numbering the seven weeks from the passover.

AT this feast there was always a very great concourse of Jews, as we read Acts ii. 5-12, and this made the Apostle haste, that if it were possible, for him to be at Jerusalem the day of Pentecost; doubtless, that he might have the greater opportunity of addressing his countrymen. For every messenger of Jesus is willing to lay hold of every opportunity of doing all the good he

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WE find our blessed Lord attended all these feasts, partly for example, and partly for the same reason of his servant Paul, namely, to have the greater probability of doing good to the needy children of men. Besides, as all these feasts were of Divine appointment, our blessed Lord was to be a perfect model in fulfilling all righteousness, and all righteous Institutions; even those of human appointment; and therefore he attended the Feast of Dedication, instituted by Judas Maccabeus, when he purified the Temple, after it had been polluted by the idolatry of Antiochus. (a) Indeed it is well to attend to every ordinance which is countenanced in the New Testament; for we often need to be put in mind of these things, in which our future bliss is concerned.

(a) John x. 22. Maccab. iv. 52, 54, 55.

IN our country, for some centuries past, the day above referred to, has been called Whitsunday; because it is said to have been a general time of baptizing the Catechumens, and after their baptism, they put on white garments, signifying that they had put off the old man, and put on the new, and that they were washed from all their impurities. But I apprehend that custom must have taken place when the power of religion was upon the decline, if it had not well nigh ceased; we find no intimation of any such custom in the Acts of the Apostles.

FROM thence I suppose it came into the minds of creed makers to assert, that baptism is regeneration, and that the child is to say, "In my baptism, I was made a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheriter of the kingdom of God." From the same principle it is that multitudes think that receiving the Lord's Supper is eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ. How careful ought we to be, not to put the shadow for the substance, or put the emblems for the things emblemized !

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