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1. Confider, it is too evident the Lord has forfaken this generation in great measure. He is writing bitter things againft this church and land. Her beauty is marred upon all her affemblies; where the cloud of glory fome time rested, we may write Ichabod! Hence it is fo few are converted in our day; and the Lord's own children, though they get fome food, yet they fare not fo well as in former times. Why? because the Lord is withdrawn in his anger. The fun of the gospel in Scotland is as a winter-fun, and looks as if near the fetting, at leaft getting under a dark cloud: Ifa. lxiv. 7. " There is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold on thee, for thou haft hid thy face from us, and hast confumed us, because of our iniquities."

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2. This would be the way to get a bleffing; importunity prevails much in heaven. Were we thus exercifed, we might get a bleffing to this church, a bleffing to this communion: Cant. iii. 4. "I found him whom my foul loveth; I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother's houfe, and into the chambers of her that conceived me:" a bleffing we should seek from him to ourselves. Though the Lord is fometimes fo angry with a generation, that there is no turning away of his wrath, yet the ferious feekers of his face will always get the bleffing: Ifa. iii. 10. " Say ye to the righteous, it fhall be well with him, for they fhall eat the fruit of their doings."

3. The door we fet you to is a door where many have been liberally helped before you, and the Lord's arm is not fhortened. The faints that were richest in experience got them all there, and all the fair ones now in glory, he was their God,

that

that was with them in life, death, and now after death. Let the good report of his houfe, then, make you flock about his door, for there is no ground for that temptation, Job. v. 1. "Call now, if there be any that will anfwer thee, and to which of the faints wilt thou turn?”

4. It is a door where there is nothing given for perfonal worth. All that ever was given there to any of the children of fallen Adam, was given with that protestation, Ezek. xxxvi. 32. "Not for your fakes do I this, faith the Lord God, be it known unto you: be afhamed and confounded for your own ways, O houfe of Ifrael!" That the moft unworthy in all fucceeding generations might fee they were welcome, it is for his own fake; and that cannot change.

Laftly, What will ordinances avail without his prefence? Nay, they will do ill, instead of doing us good; they will bring on us a curfe inftead of a bleffing; and therefore wrestle with him, and proteft, Exod. xxxiii. 15. "If thy prefence go not with us, carry us not up hence." The fermons will be to you as an empty found, the Lord's table as an empty chair of ftate, when the King is away.If his prefence be not given you, you will get no spiritual feast; and one had better be at a common table, than at the Lord's table, when they do not feed: 1 Cor. xi. 29. "For he that eateth unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself." If the King be away,Then there will be no furniture for trials, none for the evil day, that seems to be approaching quickly; none for a dying-day, that is awaiting all of us. Now, if ye would find him,-Seek him in Chrift, look for him in the feveral means of his appointment, streets, courts, &c.--Put away every thing that mars his prefence with you.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED. *

SERMON XII.

2 KINGS, ii. 14.And he took the mantle of Elijah, that fell from him, and fmote the waters, and faid, Where is the Lord God of Elijah?

I

SHALL NOW,

III. Give the reasons of the doctrine, or fhew, that the confideration of God's prefence with his people in former days, fhould bring the fucceeding generation to the fame God for the fame enter

tainment.

This confideration may and ought to work upon us two ways.

1. By way of fimple excitation and upftirring. When Elifha confidered what God had done for Elijah, it fet his foul on fire, inflamed his defires, fet his heart a-longing after the Lord, that he might deal the fame way with him. Thus the confideration of God's gracious appearances to and for his people in former times, fhould be a powerful motive to labour for the fame or like experiences. It should inflame our hearts with a holy emula

Delivered August 16, 1713; afternoon.

tion, and earneft defire of the bleffed entertainment others have got before us at God's door; for the following reafons.

(1.) Because, so far as we come short of it, it is a fign we are fo far off the way where the footfteps of the flock are to be seen, Cant. xvii. 8.; and that is fo dangerous, that it may well strike a nail to our heart to think of it. What is the reafon we fare not fo well about the Lord's hand as others before us? Have we not the fame God to go to, the fame covenant-promises? We have the fame breafts of divine confolations, as full as ever, but it seems we have much loft the art of fucking them, that fometimes has been our experience.

(2.) Because, fo far as we come fhort, it is a fign of God's anger against us, that he hath fome quarrel with us he had not with his people in former days of the right-hand of the Moft High; and may not this prick us to the heart, and fet us to our knees? Ifa. lix. 12. "For our tranfgreffions are multiplied before thee, and our fins teftify against us." What is it but the fins of the generation, that stops the communication of the divine goodnefs? Does the Spirit of the Lord depart till he be grieved, or the holy fire go out till it be quenched? Does the Lord clofe his diftributing hand till his people close their mouths? or does not the oil run while there are empty veffels to receive it? While the furious wind of perfecution blew on God's people in Scotland, and the fweeping rains fell, fweeping away their earth from about them, the fountain of the divine goodness to them ran freely; but now, alas! through long ease, we have got the fprings ftopt with our mud and earth.

(3.) Because we have as much need as they had: Luke, xv. 17. "And when he came to him

felf,

felf, he said, How many hired fervants of my father's house have bread enough, and to fpare, and I perish with hunger! I will arife, and go," &c. If we be lefs at God's door than others before us, it is not, I am fure, for any wealth we have at home, more than they had; it is not that we do not stand in need, but that we are not so fenfible of our need. Many of the Lord's people have taken little reft, when they had more than we can pretend to; they have been very anxious to increase their flock, when it was far above ours; and when we confider how faft they ran, when they had reached far above our fmall measure, fhould not that ftir us up to mend our pace? Phil. iii. 13. 14. "Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended; but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things that are before, I prefs towards the mark for the prize of the high-calling of God in Chrift Jefus."

(4.) Because these glorious examples should not be without due influence upon us. Example is a moft efficacious incitement; Cæfar grieved when he faw the ftatue of Alexander, and confidered how he, at the age of thirty, had conquered the world, and himself, being older, had done nothing: Heb. xii. 1. "Wherefore, feeing we alfo are compaffed about with fuch a cloud of witneffes, let us lay afide every weight, and the fin which doth so easily befet us, and let us run with patience the race that is fet before us." How may we blush when we confider the ftature of those before us, that have been as the palm-tree, while we, growing in the fame foil, are like pitiful fhrubs! Surely, if our fpirits were not mightily funk and degenerate, the glorious example of the

Lord's

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