CONTENTS. Upon Human Nature, or Man considered as a Moral Agent. For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: so we, being many, are one body in For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neigh- bour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and perse- When I applied mine heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done upon the earth :—then I beheld all the work of God, that a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun because though a man labour to seek it out, yet he shall not find it; yea further, though a wise man think to I exhort, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; for kings, and 311 A Charge to the Clergy of the Diocese of Durham, SERMON I. UPON HUMAN NATURE. ROMANS xii. 4, 5. For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. HE Epistles in the New Testament have all of THE them a particular reference to the condition and usages of the Christian world at the time they were written. Therefore as they cannot be thoroughly understood, unless that condition and those usages are known and attended to: so further, though they be known, yet if they be discontinued or changed ; exhortations, precepts, and illustrations of things, which refer to such circumstances now ceased or altered, cannot at this time be urged in that manner, and with that force which they were to the primitive Christians. Thus the text now before us, in its first intent and design, relates to the decent management of those extraordinary gifts which were then in the church, but which are now totally ceased. And even as to the allusion that we are one body in Christ; though what the apostle here intends is equally true of Christians in all circumstances; and the consideration |