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fed; "And thefe"-fuch as had neglected DISC. to perform works of charity-" these fhall

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go away into everlasting punishment; "but the righteous," they who had performed them, "into life eternal." The brethren of Chrift are before you Make your choice.

XIII.

DISCOURSE XIV.

THE PARALYTIC HEALED.

MATT. IX. 2.

And behold, they brought to him a man fick of the palfy, lying on a bed: and Jefus feeing their faith, faid unto the fick of the pally, Son, be of good cheer; thy fins be forgiven thee.

HE active and elementary parts of DISC.

TH

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nature, wherefoever they exist, will manifeft themselves by their effects ; fire will warm, light will shine, aromatics will fend forth fweet odours. Jefus, in like manner, on all occafions discovers himself to be what his names implies, the SAVIOUR; leaving behind him, in every place,

VOL. III.

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XIV.

XIV.

DISC. the warmth of fervent charity, the light of evangelical doctrine, and the fragrance of a good report concerning fomething done for the benefit of man, and the glory of God. He goeth about, not to gratify or to profit himself, but to diffuse his beneficence. He either teaches, or comforts, or raises from the dead, or heals, or feeds, or delivers, or departs into folitude to pray. And all for us. For us he preaches, that we may learn the truth; for us he heals, and performs other miracles, that we may believe him ; for us no less he retires, for us he prays, for us he gives thanks to his Father. Thus he changes his fituation often, his disposition never; in this, as well as other things,

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leaving us an example, that we should fol"low his fteps," and not suffer any outward difference of circumftances to make us forget our Chriftian profeffion.

The Gergefenes, as we find by the conclufion of the preceding chapter, preferring the prefervation of their swine to the falvation of their fouls, and therefore de

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XIV.

* firing him to depart out of their coafts; DISC. " he entered into a fhip, and paffed over, * and came into his own city, Capernaum," i. e. the city not where he was born, but where he lived; a trafficking, luxurious, proud city; and for that reason, as mercy looks out for the miferable, and a physician for them that are fick, chofen by him who, though the only man that ever was without fin, difdained not to dwell and converse with finners, feeing he came to call fuch to repentance.

Here it was that he performed the mi→ racle mentioned in the text, which it is the defign of the following discourse first to il luftrate, and then to apply.

It being "noised about" (as St. Mark in his account informs us) that Jefus was returned to Capernaum, and was in a certain house in the town, "ftraightway many "were gathered together, infomuch that "there was no room to receive them, no not "fo much as about the door; and he," who

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