their deviations from thy holy laws, which can alone affect their happiness with thee, excite our compassion, and most fervent endeavours to win them to thy truth and to the love of it, that they may be saved.

Finally, O Lord, help us always to bear true and faithful allegiance to thee, and to the laws of thy holy Gospel; that having confessed Christ upon earth, he may confess us at the last day before thee, our Father in heaven!

Unto Thee, who art the only living and true God, &c.

January 30, 1780.

SERMON

SERMON XXI.

MATTH. Xviii. 7. .

Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe unto that man by whom the offence cometh!

OUR Saviour Christ is here warning his first disciples, and all others in after times, against the heavy crime of doing any thing to hinder the divine truth of the Gospel from being propagated and received among mankind.

It was the repeated discovery of worldly ambitious views lurking in the hearts of these his few chosen followers, that excited him to speak in such severe terms; because a temper of that kind would utterly defeat their usefulness in the honourable office intended for them as teachers of the Gospel after he had left the world, and would incline them to preach it only so far, and in such a way, as might serve

their interests and promotion in this world, -whereas they were to look for their reward from God only.

He therefore sets himself first, in his wonted beautiful manner, to impress better principles upon their minds, by taking a little child that happened to be near them, and placing it before them; and thence taking occasion to inculcate that innocent simplicity and disregard of the great things of the world, which they were to endeavour to attain; and at the same time assured them of the especial blessing from the heavenly Father that would attend all those who in the least degree favoured the Gospel, and encouraged those who promoted what was so essential to men's present and future happiness.

But, on the contrary, whoever hurt or discouraged any mind that was in the least degree well-disposed, and turned them away from embracing the Gospel,-happy would it have been for that man, that he had been taken out of the world by a violent untimely death, rather than to have lived to commit so great wickedness. "Whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were

hanged

hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”

After this come the words prefixed to my discourse in which he takes the opportunity. to foretell to his disciples the great obstructions to the success of the Gospel that would arise among his followers: but that, although the Almighty Being permitted such pernicious characters to oppose his benevolent designs and do such great mischief to others, they would suffer most severely for their evil doings in a future state. "Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that of fences come; but woe unto that man by whom the offence cometh!"

I shall now beg your attention to such remarks as may serve to illustrate this declaration of our Saviour, and point out some of that instruction which we are to gather from it. And,

I.

The great end of Almighty God, in the extraordinary favour and revelation of his will by Jesus Christ, was to lead his degenerate creatures out of a state of sin and darkness and idolatry, in which they lay involved, to the knowledge of himself, the only true God,

and