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SECTION I.

Confiderations on the nativity of St. John, and the circumstances that attended it.

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HE lights of the intellectual, SECT. I. like thofe of the natural fyftem,

are not all of equal magnitude and luftre. In the church, as in the firmament," one ftar differeth from

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SECT. I. "another star in glory." Each contributeth it's fhare towards diffipating the darkness with which we are furrounded; but fome, by their fuperior fplendor, immediately attract and dazzle the eye of the beholder. Confpicuous, above others, is the character of St. John the Baptift, that bright precurfor of the fun, and harbinger of the morning, who arofe to give notice of Meffiah's approach, and to prepare the world for his reception burning, and shining, he ran his courfe, proclaiming to the inhabitants of the earth, "Repent, for the kingdom "of heaven is at hand;" in other words, "The night is far spent, the day is at "hand; caft off therefore the works "of darkness, and put on the armour "of light. Awake, thou that fleep"eft, and arife from the dead, and "Chrift shall give thee light"."

PRAISE is ever valuable in proportion to the judgment and integrity of him who beftoweth it; and the panegyric is truly honourable, when the panegyrift is one who will not flatter, and

Rǝm. xiii. 1'2.
Epnef. v. 14.

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who cannot be deceived., How then shall SECT. I. we raise our thoughts to conceive adequately of a perfon, whofe encomium was fpoken by the Son of God, and concerning whom that Son of God declared, "Among them that are born of "women there hath not arifen a greater "than John the Baptift"." After this declaration made by the mafter, the difciples cannot well be hyperbolical in their praises of St. John, as the great pattern of repentance; the relation of Chrift; the friend of the bridegroom; the herald of the king immortal; the glory of faints, and the joy of the world. Ir is obfervable, that the Baptift's nativity is the only one (that of Chrift excepted) which the church has thought proper to celebrate. The days appointed for the commemoration of other faints are generally thofe on which they respectively ceafed from their labours, and entered into their everlasting reft; the day of a good man's death being indeed the day of his birth, and this world no more than the womb in which he is formed and matured for his admiffion

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SECT. I. into a better, where there is neither crying nor pain. But the nativity of St. John being defigned, by the remarkable incidents that accompanied it, to turn the eyes of men towards one who was far greater; one, the latchet of whofe fhoes he confeffed himfelf not worthy to unloose; the church keeps a day facred to it, and directs us to begin our meditations by confidering, as all Judea did when it happened, "what manner of child that should be, which was fo wonderfully born.

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HE whofe works are all wrought in number, weight, and measure, bringeth every event to pafs in it's proper season. The time approached which had been decreed in the counfels of the Moft High, foretold by the Prophets, and ardently defired by holy men of old, when the Son of God fhould be manifefted, to redeem his people from death, and to lead them in the path of life. As this redemption was not to be effected by fleshly might and power, the fpiritual king of Ifrael chofe to make his appearance, when the house of Da

a Luke i. 66.

vid was like a root buried in the earth, SECT. I and therefore his forerunner was born "in the days of Herod the king *;" days, when his countrymen were under a foreign jurisdiction, and the profpect on all fides was gloomy. True indeed it is, that the facred lamp went not out in the temple, where the good old Simeon and the devout Anna ferved God instantly with fastings and prayers, and waited, as many others did, with earneft expectation, for the confolation of Ifrael. They were not difcouraged by the grofs darkness which then covered the earth, but rather concluded from thence, that the dawn of day could not be far off; as the mercies of heaven generally come when man most wants, and, humanly speaking, has leaft ground to hope for them; to the end that he may with thankfulness receive the benefit, and with humility give God the glory. And this may be an ufeful leffon to those who shall live in the lattér days of the Gentile church, which are to precede the fecond advent of Christ, when they will behold the religion of a Luke i. 5.

Chriftians

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