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to execute their plans, or to attain their ends. Let perfonal reformation, therefore,

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be our first care; and having given all diligence to make our own calling and election fure, let us, in our refpective stations, join heart and hand to difcourage vice in every form, and to promote the interefts of pure and undefiled religion in our land.-Unless we do this, our national faft, instead of af cending to God with acceptance, will fink down into the measure of national guilt, and will only haften the execution of that fatal fentence," Put ye in the fickle, for the har"vest is ripe, the prefs is full, and the fat "overflows, for their wickedness is great." -On the other hand, by turning to God through Jefus Chrift, and bringing forth fruits meet for repentance, we may not only avert those heavy judgements with which we are threatened, but on fcriptural grounds may take encouragement to hope, that God will return in mercy to Zion, and will yet make our Jerufalem a praise in the earth. Amen.

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SERMON XIII

I CORINTHIANS iv. 7. *

Who maketh thee to differ from another? and what haft thou that thou didst not receive?

"T is not to be fuppofed, that any perfon

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endowed with reason can be in fufpenfe for a moment about an anfwer to these queftions. I am confident, that there is not one in this affembly who is not ready to reply, It is God alone who maketh me to differ from any other; and I have nothing which I did not receive from his bountiful hand. No man who believes that God is, will hefitate to confefs, with the Apostle James, that " every good gift, "and every perfect gift, is from above, and " cometh down from the Father of lights.

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* Preached before the Managers of the Orphan Hofpital of Edinburgh, Auguft 7. 1775.

Yet fo little attention is paid by the bulk of mankind to the confequences of this commonly acknowledged truth, that I fhall make no apology. for employing the first part of my difcourfe, in reminding you of the evidence by which it is fupported :I fhall then lay before you fome of those practical leffons; equally obvious and important, which with ease and certainty may be deduced from it:-And conclude with that improvement of the fubject which hath a more immediate reference to the occafion of our present meeting together at this time.

First, I begin with reminding you, that every bleffing we poffefs is the gift of God, and that we have nothing which we did not receive from him,

That this is the cafe with respect to natural endowments, will readily be admitted. Men are apt enough to boast of the improvement of their faculties; but the faculties themselves are univerfally acknowledged to be the gifts of God. "There is a fpirit in man," faid Elihu in the book of

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Job, " and the infpiration of the Almighty "giveth him understanding." A quick apprehenfion, a retentive memory, a lively imagination, and other mental these are

powers, favours which the great Author of our being difpenfeth to whom, and in what measure, it pleaseth him; and never was any man fo arrogant as to pretend, that he bestowed thefe qualities upon himself.

It is no less evident, that the light of divine revelation is an additional bleffing, which flows immediately from the fame fountain of beneficence; according to that grateful acknowledgement of the Pfalmist, "He fheweth his word unto Jacob, his ftatutes and his judgements unto Ifrael: He "hath not dealt fo with any nation." And we must be fenfible, that it is purely owing to "the tender mercy of our God, that the

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day-fpring from on high hath visited us, "to give light to us, whofe fathers fat in "darknefs and in the fhadow of death, to "guide our feet into the way of peace."

Nay, we are taught, that the virtue and efficacy of this external light must be wholly attributed to the bleffing of God. This is

plainly

plainly and strongly afferted at the 6th and 7th verfes of the preceding chapter: " I "have planted, Apollos watered; but God

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gave the increase. So then, neither is he "that planteth any thing, neither he that "watereth; but God that giveth the in"crease." "It pleafed God," faith our Apoftle, fpeaking of himfelf, Gal. i. 15. "who separated me from my mother's "womb, and called me by his grace, to "reveal his Son in me." And in another part of his writings, By the grace of God "I am what I am." Nor did thefe expreffions of humility take their rife from the peculiar circumftances of his own converfion; for he applies the fame principle to the Chriftians at Corinth, and urgeth it as an argument against every degree of boasting or felf-attribution, 1 Cor. i, 26. &c." "For ye fee your calling, brethren, how "that not many wife men after the flesh,

not many mighty, not many noble, are "called. But God hath chofen the foolish

things of the world, to confound the "wife; and God hath chofen the weak things of the world to confound the "things

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