lives of those of its communion! O that the great and continued mercies of God to us, and his intermingled judgments too, might awaken us in this our day into a feeling sense of the things that belong to our peace, before they be hid from our eyes; and soften our obdurate hearts, and lead us to repentance!

Let every one of us pray earnestly for the peace of our Jerusalem, and live as those that heartily wish her prosperity; for nothing will so ascertain God's constant favour to her, and protection against all her enemies, as a daily and plentiful offering of those fruits of holiness, which she continually exhorts all her children to bring forth!

And, blessed be God, her serious and affectionate exhortations have not been wholly in vain: and whatever high pretences some may make to extraordinary sanctity, who are not of her communion, and whatever aspersions their envy may throw upon us, I believe from my heart there is not more sincere true goodness, both of clergy and people, in any part of the Christian church, than in this: and this, we trust, will incline God to continue to be our support and defence.

But still we must own our defects; and those that have none, let them cast the first stone at us. And as we must own them, so, for the sake of all that is dear to us, let us never rest till we have supplied what is wanting to make us throughly acceptable to God. And the way to do it is to live up to our profession, to walk by our excellent rule, to have our conversation and our doctrine all of a piece, and as becomes those who are so happy as to be members of the purest Christian church in

the world; and which constantly teaches us the same lesson our blessed Master and his apostles did, that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works P. This is our doctrine, and these are the fruits which God expects from us, and which we earnestly urge every one to produce; and if our practice were but agreeable, we should be as dear to God as the apple of his eye, and have a praise and a name among all people of the earth. O when

shall this once be!

And thus much for an explication of this parable, and a brief application of it to ourselves.

II. I proceed now to make some more particular improvement of the 37th verse, But last of all he sent unto them his son. Which words are of great regard, and signify, that the Christian religion is the last and most complete revelation of the divine will to mankind; by which, as it now is, without any revisals of it, or additions to it, all the world, both Jew and Gentile, that have heard of its glad tidings, shall stand or fall for ever at the day of judgment. Or, in other words, the Gospel state, or the new covenant which God hath made with man in Christ, is his final dispensation in order to man's · eternal happiness; and whoever hears of this new covenant, and is invited to enter into it, and either wholly rejects it, or neglects to perform the con

P Tit. ii. 11, &c. BRAGGE, VOL. III.

" Deut. xxxii. 10; Zeph. iii. ult.

H

ditions of it, must perish without remedy. Last of all, says the parable, the lord of the vineyard sent his son, to require the fruits of it, saying, They will reverence my son; but when, instead of this, the husbandmen cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him, nothing follows but their most miserable destruction.

Divers dispensations have there been of the merciful God, in order to fallen man's recovery of his favour, and attainment of that happiness for which he at first designed him; and which it will not be amiss to touch upon a little.

Noah, who was the tenth in a direct line from Adam, (so soon had all flesh corrupted his way upon the earth,) was the first we read of that was sent as a preacher of righteousness to the wicked world, to try if he could reform them, and persuade them to such a repentance as might avert those judgments which they had so much deserved, and which, upon their obstinate impenitency, after a long time of trial and forbearance, God was resolved to shower down upon them, and did so, to the destruction of all but Noah and his little family ".

After the renovation of the world, when the waters of the flood were retreated to their proper mansions, but wickedness, like a second deluge, had overspread the face of it again, the God of compassions revealed himself and his will in some measure to the patriarchs, and in the families of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, which, by his blessing, soon grew very numerous; he sowed the seeds of true religion, and put a very great check to that idolatry and iniquity with which the world was so generally r Gen. v. and vi; 2 Pet. ii. 5; 1 Pet. iii. 20.

corrupted; and by his extraordinary favours to those good people, and their pious conversation and good example, gave great invitation and encouragement to the rest of mankind to leave their wonted vanities and delusions, and worship him, who is the only true God, and a bountiful rewarder of those that diligently seek him.

Afterwards, when by a particular and very remarkable providence the children of Israel were removed from their own land into Egypt, and there cherished during the life of Joseph, but after his decease dealt very hardly with, God then more openly shewed himself to be their God, and by a high hand and outstretched arm, by many stupendous wonders, wrought their deliverance from that insupportable slavery they groaned under; and was their guide to conduct them to the promised land, and gave them laws from his own divine mouth, and written with his own finger, and took them into his own immediate government. And because they were a very rebellious people, continually provoking their great governor to anger, therefore sacrifices, which had been for a great while disused, were again revived by his special command, as atonements for their sins; whereby God at once demonstrated to them what they themselves had deserved, and what his justice strictly required; and likewise how gracious he was to admit the life of a beast in the room of that of the miserable offender.

By this means great advances were made under the Mosaic economy towards lost man's recovery; but still there wanted something to render it complete; and indeed that was designed but as a preparatory institution, a kind of schoolmaster to bring

or educate to Christs. It consisted chiefly of rituals and outward observances, which could make little or no improvement of the soul of man; without which it was impossible for him to recover that likeness to God in which he was created, and in which consists his happiness. The gifts and sacrifices that were then offered could never make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience; it being not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins, as the apostle to the Hebrews excellently argues. No, these were only figures and types of what should really be in the days of the Messias; when those shadows of purity of heart and life in their frequent washings and circumcision; of pardon of sin in their sacrifices, through the merit of the blood of that great sacrifice, which in the fulness of time should be offered once for all, for the sins of the whole world; of true devotion in their incense, and of heaven in their temporal promises: when these and the like shadows should be happily changed into the substance of the things themselves; and the happiness which mankind lost, by the disobedience of the first Adam in Paradise, be recovered and improved by the second, who came down from heaven. This was the true high priest, who successfully mediated between God and man; appeased our Maker's anger by the sacrifice of himself, and made a full revelation of the divine will, by a sincere and hearty, though not perfect observance of which, we should continue in his favour, and be happy in this world, and become capable of the pure joys of heaven, whither the blessed Jesus is gone before, to appear