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the eternal Damage of our Damage of our Souls, we fhall have this Aggravation of our Guilt and Tor ment that we received the Grace of God in vain, and that our Ruin and Destruction is entirely of ourselves: And how deplorable foever our Condition fhall prove in the future State, our Blood will be upon our own Heads, God's Juftice will triumph in our Ruin, and our own Confciences with all the World will be forced to pronounce him boly in all his Ways, and righteous in all his Doings. danaviy off poet

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Yet of you, my Brethren, I hope better Things, and Things that accompany your Salvation, even whatsoever Things are just, whatsoever Things are pure, whatsoever Things, are boneft, and of good Report, if there be any Virtue, if there be any Praife, that you will study and practise these Things.---And I pray God, who alone can order the unruly Wills and Affections of finful Men, that he would grant unto us, that we may know and. love the Thing which he has commanded. Give us, O God, the Spirit to think and do VOL. II. always

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always fuch Things as be rightful. Keep us, Lord, we beseech thee, with thy perpetual Mercy; and because the Frailty of Man without thee cannot but fall, we pray thee, that thy Grace may always prevent and follow us, keep us ever from all Things burtful, and lead us to all Things profitable to our Salvation through Jefus Christ our Lord:

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SERMON VIII.

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GEN. xxviii. 16.

Surely the Lord is in this Place!

ND is not God in every Place, pre

fent at all Times, and with all Perfons? Is there a Creature that is not manifeft in bis Sight? Are not all Things naked and open to the Eyes of him, with whom we have to do? Which Way foever you turn, are you not fure to meet with God? For can any Thing be void of him who filleth all in all? Undoubtedly the good Patriarch knew and believed all this, and wanted not to be told

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what his Royal Descendant so sublimely expreffes; that God fearcheth us out and knows us, knows our down-fitting and up-rifing, and understandeth our Thoughts afar off; that he is about our Bed, and about our Path, and ac

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quainted with all our Ways, that he hath befet us behind and before, and the Darkness bideth not from God. But what fo awed the Patriarch's Spirits, fo excited his holy Reverence and Wonder, the Verfes preceding the Text will inform us. Forced into Exile by a Brother's unnatural Defign upon his Life be lighted on a certain Place, and tarried there all Night.And he dreamed a Dream, and behold a Ladder fet, whofe Top reached unto Heaven, and the Angels of God afcended and defcended upon it. And left the Heir of the Bleffing of Abraham expelled from his own Country, and from his Father's House, and wandering in a ftrange Land, fhould defpond. or doubt the Performance of those Things which had been told him; the Lord God of Abraham appears, repeats and enlarges the promised Bleffing, and affures him

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that none of his Words fhould fail. The

reft is Jacob's Reflection upon the heavenly Vifion Surely the Lord is in this Place! This is none other but the House of God, and this is the Gate of Heaven.

The Solemnity of this Day will suggest to us fuitable Meditations on these affecting Words.---Let me befeech your Attention to a few Obfervations on the Nature of the facred Office performed on this Occafion : After which I fhall enquire how fit and reafonable it is, that fuch Places fhould be confecrated to God, and separated from common Ufes.

And would God, that every Man would adopt the Patriarch's devout Sentiments! Places confecrated to religious Worship are in the full Senfe of Ifrael's ftrong Expreffion none other than the Houfe of God, and the Gate of Heaven. The God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, is likewife the God of Chriftians, infinitely prefent to hear the Prayers

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