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of death. Approach his cross and fix your attention on the prodigies which signalize his sufferings, and stamp divinity on his martyrdom !.....Think not that Lallude to the terrific drapery which in that dread hour was flung around the great theatre of nature. No; 'tis not the darkened sun, the bursting tombs, the quaking mountains, or the trembling world, that I allude to! These indeed are prodigies; but these vanish before the still greater prodigies of meekness, humility, and sin-forgiving goodness, displayed in the dying Savior.......When I behold him amidst the last agonies of dissolving nature, raising his dying eyes to heaven, and forgetful of himself, interceding with the God of mercy, with his last breath, and from his very cross, in behalf of those wretches whose insatiable malice had fixed him there...then it is that the evidence of his claims rises to demonstration, and I feel the resistless force of that impassioned exclamation which burst from the lips of infidelity itself, "If Socrates died as a philosopher, Jesus Christ died as a God!"

And shall a worm covered with crimes, and living on sufferance, in that same world where the agonizing Savior uttered his dying supplication and left his dying example for imitation....shall such a worm, tumid with resentment, lift his proud crest to his fellow worm, and, incapable of mercy, talk of retribution? No; blessed Jesus, thy death is an antidote to vengeance. At the foot of thy cross, I meet my enemies, I forget their injuries, I bury my revenge, and learn to forgive those who have done me wrong, as I also hope to be forgiven of thee.

But not to the clemency alone of Jesus Christ would I direct your attention. Rather let me place his " entire character before you as a PERFECT MODEL, in the imitation of which will alike consist your happiness and glory.

On every important question, in every trying situa tion, ask what would have been HIS opinion; what HIS conduct; and let the answer regulate your own."

ALMIGHTY GOD, GIVE US ALL THIS GRACE,

AND TO THY NAME SHALL BE THE GLORY.

THE

Star in the East:

SERMON,

PREACHED IN THE PARISH CHURCH OF ST. JAMES BRISTOL, ON SUNDAY, FEB. 26, 1809,

FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE

"Society for Missions to Africa and the East."

BY

THE REV, CLAUDIUS BUCHANAN, L. L. D,

FROM INDIA,

for we have seen His Star in the East, and are come to worship him.”.

MATT. i, 2.

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"FOR WE HAVE SEEN HIS STAR IN THE EAST, AND ARE COME TO WORSHIP HIM."

WHEN, in the fulness of time, the Son of God came down from heaven to take our nature upon him, many circumstances concurred to celebratę the event, and to render it an illustrious epoch in the history of the world. It pleased the Divine Wisdom that the manifestation of the Deity should be distinguished by a suitable glory and this was done, by. the ministry of Angels, by the ministry of Men, and by the ministry of Nature herself.

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First, This was done by the ministry of Angels; for an Angel announced to the shepherds "the glad tidings of great joy which should be to all people;" and a "multitude of the heavenly host sang Glory to "God in the Highest, on earth peace, good-will tow ard men."

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