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SERM.

II.

2. Men are generally more willing and more heartily defirous to be delivered from their bodily Distempers than from their fpiritual ones.

And the reason of this I have juft mentioned; viz. because they are generally more fenfible of them.

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3. Some Diftempers of the Body evade all power of Medicines, and baffle the Skill of the most able Phyficians, and are abfolutely incurable: whereas under every Diftemper of the Soul there are the most fovereign Remedies, and a never-failing Physician at hand who is always ready to help us.

What thofe Remedies are, and who that Physician is, will be feen in the following Discourse. In the mean time I proceed with my Remarks.

II. This Subject may fuggeft to us many useful Thoughts, and may be improved by us for our Comfort and Inftruction under every Illness or Diftemper that may hereafter

befall us.

What a fad Variety of Pain and Sickness do we see Mortality fubject to! and what kind or measure of them may fall to our

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II.

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fhare before we are absent from the Body, we SERM. know not. However, as they are defigned for wife Ends, fo they are capable of being improved to very good purposes, whilst we reflect with ourselves thus:

"How grievous is this Affliction to my "Body! O that Sin were as grievous to my "Soul! Alas! How much more fenfible "am I of Suffering than of Sin! though the " latter is by far the greater evil: because it "is the cause of the former; for had there "been no Sin, there had been no Suffering.

This Disease of my Body, perhaps,

was fent to cure the Disease of my Soul. "Lord, let that be the Effect. And I will "fubmit to and blefs the Remedy. The "moft effectual Medicines are fometimes "the most diftafteful.- -How defirous am "I to have this bodily disorder removed? O "that I were as defirous to have the Dif "tempers of my Soul cured! How affiduoufly do I apply to a Physician for my

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Body, and punctually follow his Prefcrip"tions and Directions to regain my Health! "O that I could but as earnestly by Faith "and Prayer apply to Chrift, the fovereign

Physician of Souls, and as carefully ob

" ferve

SERM. "ferve the infallible Directions of his Word

II.

"and Spirit."

I fhall conclude all with one Remark
And that is,

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III. What hath been delivered upon this Subject does very happily illuftrate one great Truth, which Scripture feems plainly to reveal, but which fome have found it difficult to conceive of; and that is this, That though a Sinner's Deftruction be owing to himself, yet his Salvation is owing to the free Grace of

GOD.

I say, what hath been delivered illustrates this Principle, and fets it in a plain and easy Light. For when a Perfon, by applying to an able Phyfician, and carefully following his Directions, is raised up from a dangerous Fit of Illness, is he faid for that reafon to cure himself? No, next to the Bleffing of GoD, his Recovery is juftly attributed to the Phyfician to whom he applied; but, had he not applied to him, and used the proper means for his Recovery, he might be justly faid to have caft himself away; efpecially if he had brought the Distemper upon himself. So when a Sinner, by apply

ing

ing to Chrift by Faith and Prayer, and following the Directions of his Word and Spirit, is delivered from the power of Sin, which would otherwise prove the Death of his Soul, his Salvation cannot be attributed to himself, but to Christ alone; whereas, had he not thus applied to him, his Condemnation and Ruin would have been owing to himself,

SERM.

II.

SER

SERMON III.

CHRIST the PHYSICIAN of the SouL,

LUKE V. 31.

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And Jefus answering faid unto them, they that are whole need not a Phyfician; but they that are fick.

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N thefe Words of our Saviour, I observed, there are two Propofitions plainly implied, viz.

I. That Sin is the Sickness of the Soul,
II. That Christ is the Physician of it.

The first of these Propofitions I have endeavoured to open and improve in the pre

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