Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

in the text "Which the Son of Man

fhall give unto you"- this is an infallible direction whither to apply for our fpiritual food, even to Chrift and his gofpel. He alone is the root and fountain, through whom and by whom we receive all the bleffings and benefits we enjoy from God the Father. Without faith in his name, and hope in his promifes, without remiffion of our fins through his merits; and the guidance and fanctification of that Bleffed Spirit which proceedeth from the Father and the Son; our fouls were truly in a languishing condition; deftitute of what alone is able to nourish them here, and fatisfy them hereafter.

Upon which account it is that our Lord himself, when converfing with the Jews, calls himself the Bread of Life. They had alledged the great obligation they were under of adhering to Mofes,

in that he had given attestation to the divinity of his miffion, by miraculously feeding their forefathers with manna in the defert:-" He therefore anfwer"ed and faid unto them, I am the Bread " of Life, he that cometh to me shall "never hunger, and he that believeth " on me shall never thirst." And again,

"I I am the Bread of Life; your Fa"thers did eat Manna in the Wilder"nefs, and are dead: This is the Bread "which came down from Heaven; that

a man may eat thereof, and not die: "I am the living Bread, which cometh "down from Heaven; if any man eat "of this Bread, he fhall live for ever. "And the Bread that I will give is my

[ocr errors]

Flesh, which I will give for the Life " of the World. Verily, verily, I fay " unto you, except ye eat the Flesh of "the Son of Man, and drink his Blood, "i. e. that fpiritual food which I came "to adminifter, ye have no Life in you.” Seeing

1 2

[ocr errors]

Seeing then how properly and fignificantly we are exhorted by our Bleffed Saviour to labour after divine inftruction, under the notion of meat which endureth unto everlasting life, and which He, the Son of Man, fhall give unto us: Herein too we fee clearly the importance of the exhortation; and how indifpenfibly obliged we are both in reafon and duty to attend to, and comply with it. Our immortal part, we must allow, is of infinitely greater value than these frail and perifhing bodies: How much more concerned therefore ought we to be for the improvement and falvation of them? And fince our very bodies, we well know, are not to be fupported without labour and trouble; let us not think it hard to lay out fome portion of our time and care for the good of our fouls; for the making of our election sure through Chrift Jesus. The hand of the diligent, faith Solomon, maketh

maketh rich: It is obvious it doth fo, with refpect to temporal riches. Nor is it to be expected that spiritual bleffings, the riches of God's grace and favour, (for which our Lord observes, a kind of holy violence is to be used) fhould come unfought.

[ocr errors]

After all Should any afk, as did the Jews, "What shall we do that we might work the works of God?" let them take their answer from the mouth of Jesus himself in this very chapter"This is the work of God, that ye be"lieve on Him whom He hath fent" that ye believe the divinity of his person and of his doctrine; putting an entire confidence in the merits of his all-fufficient obedience unto death; and endeavouring always by an honeft, a fober and religious life, to render yourselves worthy to partake of it's benefits.

So may ye reft yourselves fatisfied, whatever be the event of your labour in the fight of men, it fhall not be in vain in the Lord: Who will give us to drink of the Fountain of living Waters, and feed us fecretly with that heavenly Bread, which endureth unto everlasting Life-through Jefus Chrift our Lord.

SERMON

« AnteriorContinuar »