"Behold, I fend you forth as fheep in the midft of wolves; be ye therefore, wife as ferpents, and harmlefs as doves. But beware of men; for they will deliver you up to the councils; and they will fcourge you in the fynagogues; and ye fhall be brought before governors and kings for my name's fake, for a teftimony against them and the Gentiles; and the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child; and the children fhall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death; and ye fhall be hated of all men for my name's fake*."

What now fhall we fay to this extraordinary and unexampled declaration ?

When a fovereign fends his ambassadors to a foreign country, he makes an ample provifion for their journey, he affigns them a liberal allowance for their fupport, and generally holds out at the same time the profpect of a fu ture reward for their labors and their fervices to their country on their return from their embaffy. And without this few men would be difpofed to undertake the commif fion.

But here every thing is the reverfe; inftead of fupport, they were to meet with perfecution; inftead of an honorable reception, they were to experience univerfal hatred and deteftation; instead of reward, they were to be expofed to certain ruin and destruction, and to be let loose like fo many fheep among wolves.

Can we now conceive it poffible that any men in their fenfes fhould, without fome very powerful and extraordinary motive, voluntarily undertake fuch a commiffion as this, in which their only recompence was to be affliction, mifery, pain, and death; in which all the natural affections of the human heart were to be extinguished or inverted, and their nearest relations, their parents, children, or brethren, were to be their perfecutors and executioners? Is it ufual for human beings wantonly and needlessly to expose themselves to fuch evils as thefe, without the leaf

* Matth. x. 16, 17, 18, 21, 22.

profpect of any advantage to themselves or their families? You may fay perhaps that fimple, ignorant, uneducated men, like the apostles, might easily be deluded by an artful leader, and betrayed into very dreadful calamities, and that we see multitudes thus deceived and ruined every day. It is true; but where in this cafe is the art of the leader, or the delufion of his followers? In the cafes alluded to, men are induced to embark in perilous undertakings, and to run headlong into destruction, by fair promifes and tempting offers, by promises of liberty, of wealth, of honor, of popularity, of glory. But here, instead of employing any art, or making any attempt to deceive his followers, our Saviour plainly tells them they are to expect nothing but what is most dreadful to human nature. Whatever they fuffered, therefore, they suffered with their eyes open, and with their own free choice and confent. It is true they were plain ignorant men; but they could feel pain, and they could have no more fondness for misery and death than other people. Yet this they did actually and chearfully, undergo at the command of their Lord. How is this to be explained and accounted for? Is there any inftance upon record before this in the annals of the world, where twelve grave fober men, without any reason, and without being misled by any artifice or delufion whatever, voluntarily expofed themfelves at the defire of another perfon to perfecution, torment, and deftruction! There must have been fome cogent reafon for fuch a conduct as this ; and that reafon could be nothing lefs than a full and perfect conviction, arifing from the miracles which they faw with their own eyes, and which they themselves were enabled to perform, that Chrift was what he pretended to be, the Son of God; that all power was given to him in heaven and on earth; and that he was able to fulfil the promifes he had made them of a recompence in a future life, infinitely furpaffing in magnitude and in duration all the fufferings they could experience in the prefent world.

This is the only rational account to be given of their conduct, and it prefents to us in a fhort compass a strong convincing evidence of the truth of the Chriftian revelation.

In order to fortify the minds of his disciples against the fevere trials they were to undergo, our bleffed Lord, in the 28th verfe, adds the following exhortation: "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the foul; but rather fear him which is able to destroy both foul and body in hell,"

This paffage contains a decifive proof of two very important doctrines, the existence of a foul diftinct from the body, and the continuance of that foul after death (both of which, in direct oppofition to this and many other paffages of fcripture, fome late writers have dared to controvert ;) and it plainly refers the apoftles to the confideration of a future life, in which all their views, their hopes and fears, were to center, and by which their conduct in this vrld was entirely to be regulated. The worst their enees could do to them in this life was to kill the body, ich muft fome time or other be deftroyed by age or disease. But God was able to kill the foul, which was formed for immortality, to annihilate it at once, or to condemn it to everlasting punishment. It was, therefore, of infinitely more confequence to avoid his difpleasure, and to fecure his approbation by performing their duty, than by fhamefully deferting it to escape the infliction of the bittereft evils that their fellow creatures could bring upon them.

In conformity to this advice he tells them, "that he that endureth to the end fhall be faved: and that he who lofes his life for his fake in this world, fhall find it in a far more exalted fenfe in the next*.”

But

This was folid comfort and fubftantial fupport. unless our Lord had given them irrefiftible miraculous evidence of the reality of this future reward, unless they had abfolute demonftration of its certainty, it was utterly impoffible that they could be fo mad as to facrifice to this expectation every thing moft valuable in this life, and even life itself.

Matth. x. 22-39.

As a ftill further fupport under the terrifying profpet which our blessed Lord had held up to the apoftles, he a fures them that the providence of God would continually fuperintend and watch over them.

"Are not two fparrows, fays he, fold for a farthing and one of them shall not fall to the ground without you Father; but the very hairs of your head are all numbered Fear ye not, therefore, ye are of more value than many fparrows."

Here we have that most important and comfortable doc trine of a particular Providence plainly and clearly laid down.

That he who erected the immense and magnificent fab ric of the univerfe will continue to regard and to preferve the work of his own hands, and maintain what is called the general order of nature, and the ordinary course of human affairs, is fo confonant to reafon and common sense, that few even of the pagans who believed the being of a God, entertained any doubt of this general fuperintendence of the Deity over the worlds he has created, and the inhabitants he has placed in them. But when we descend from this comprehenfive view of things to the feveral constituent parts of the general fyftem, and to every individual of every species of animated beings difperfed throughout the whole; when we reflect how very inconfiderable a place this globe that we inhabit holds amongst the celestial bodies, how very small a portion it occupies of unbounded space, and how infinitely minute and infignificant every human creature must appear in the vaft mafs of created beings, we can hardly think it poffible that the care of the Supreme Being fhould extend to ourselves; we cannot help fearing that we fhall be loft and overlooked in the immenfity of creation, and that we are objects far too fmall and minute to fall within the sphere of our Maker's obfervation. The more we reafon on this fubject, the more ground we fhall find for these apprehenfions; and there is nothing, I will veature to fay, in the whole com

* Matth x. 29, 30, 31.

pafs of what is called natural religion or modern philofophy, that can in the smallest degree tend to allay or to remove these natural, thefe unavoidable mifgivings of the human mind.

Here then is one of those many instances in, which we can have no certainty, no folid ground for the fole of our foot to ftand upon, but in the Gospel of Chrift. Our reafon, though fent out ever fo often in fearch of a resting : place, returns to us, like Noah's dove, when the waters covered the earth, without any token of comfort. It is fcripture only which in this important point can give rest unto our fouls. There we are assured that every individual being, even the least and most contemptible, even the fparrow that is fold for less than a farthing, is under the eye of the Almighty; that fo far from man being too inconfiderable for the notice of his Maker, the minutest parts of his body, the very hairs of his head, are all numbered. These very strong inftances are plainly chofen on purpose to quiet all our fears, and to banifh from our minds every idea of our being too small and infignificant for the care and protection of the Almighty.

This moft confolatory doctrine of a particular Provi dence, of a Providence which watches over every individual of the human race, places the Christian in a fituation totally different from that of every one who disbelieves revelation. The latter muft conceive himself under no other government but that of chance or fortune, and of course must confider the whole happiness of his life as expofed every moment to the mercy of the next accident that may befal him. The true believer on the contrary has the most perfect conviction that he is conftantly under the protection of an almighty and merciful God, in whom he lives, and moves, and has his being; "whose eyes are over the righteous, and whose ears are open to their prayers;" that therefore if he lives, fo as to merit the approbation of his heavenly Father, he has every reafon to hope for fuch a degree of happiness, even here, as the imperfection of human nature will admit; and he is cer tain that nothing dreadful can befal him without the know