we die, we have gained the decisive Victo-SERM. II. ry: and when we come before the Throne of Grace, we shall receive a glorious Triumph; a Triumph indeed, where instead of the senseless Noise of an undistinguished and undistinguishing Populace: a numerous Choir of ennobled Spirits shall hail with joyful Acclamations their happy FellowServant: While, to crown all, the great Judge pronounces the blessed Sentence: Well done, thou good and faithful Servant ! Enter thou into the Joy of thy Lord.

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SERMON

SERMON III.

On Faith, Benevolence, &c.

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Being a Farewel SERMON preached in Twickenham-Chapel, June 20, 17425 and published at the Request of the

I TIMOTHY I. 19.

Holding Faith, and a good Conscience.

T

HIS being the last Time, that I SERM.III. shall speak to you in the Capacity, which I now bear, of your Preacher and Minister; I have chosen these Words, the Advice of St. Paul to Timothy, as containing the Sum and Substance of our Duty. In difcourfing upon which, I fhall throw together fome few Thoughts;

Ist, Upon Faith,

II'dly, Upon a good Confcience;

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SERM.III.

IIIdly, Take my Leave of you, with a short Address to you.

:

I. The first Point is, that you would seriously confider the strong Evidences of your Faith; Evidences so strong, that he would be deemed a Madman, who was not determined by much less in his secular Affairs. If any one should go about to disprove the Conquests of Alexander, he would be thought not to be in his found Mind: And yet there are much stronger Proofs for the Reality of the Miracles recorded in Scripture, and particularly in the New Testament; than there are for the Victories of Alexander, or even for the Being of such a Man,

Let it no more stagger your Faith, that there are so great a Number of Unbelievers; than it ought to influence your Practice, that there are so great a Number of wicked Men. Befides, you may be deceived, by mistaking second Qualities for first. A Propensity to think out of the common Road, may be by no Means the leading Quality among those that are stiled Unbelievers : It may be only a fecondary one, and subservient to a primary Defire, that of being in the Fashion, Those very Men, who now affect affect to be thought Unbelievers, might, SERM. II. probably, if they had lived in the Times of the Grand Rebellion, have set up for Saints: Because a reputed Sanctity was as much the Mode of that Age, as Infidelity is of this. There is a Torrent of Opinions peculiar to almost every Age: Men of light unbalanced Minds, like light Matter, are borne down by the Current; and Men of folid Sense do not always meet with the Success, which they deferve, in stemming and oppofing it. The Principles of Christianity may be out of Fashion: But what they want in the Fashion, they make up in Weight, Solidity, and intrinfic Worth.

For one, that has been made a Proselyte to Deism, by Reading, Thinking and Studying, there are Multitudes, who become so by Conversation with those, who have no Way of keeping themselves in Countenance, but by discountenancing Religion. And what Wonder is it, that Persons should be laughed out of Religion, who never reafoned themselves into it? A Man in his younger Years must be well-disposed, and of a serious thinking Turn, to converse at large, and yet continue a Christian: But if he be of a serious Turn, and impartially VOL. II.

F

weigh

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