175 / 674
SERM.
XXXIX.]
TIIE
RIGHT
IIVIPROVFAIPXT OF
LIFE.
155
disciples,
Mat.
v. 13, 14.
What
a
dark
dungeon would
this
world
be,
if
it had never
a
saint
in
it
?
"
Ye
are the
salt
of
the
earth
:"
What
corruption of
manners would
overspread
the face
of
the
earth! What
vile
communi-
cations, and odious
practices
would
defile
the world in
a
few
ye4rs,
if
every christian were
dead
!
What
shameful
and abominable works had over -run the
heathen
nations,
before
Christ and
his gospel
appeared, and the idolaters
were made christians
?
A
saint
in
a
family,
is
like
the
ark
of God
in
the house
of
Obed- edorn;
2
Sam. vi.
12.
"
For
the Lord blessed
the house
of
Obed
-edom, and all
that
pertained
to hinr,
because
of
the
ark
of
God."
;A
pious
soul
is
a
Joseph
in
,thefamilyof
Potiphar;
Gen. xxxix.
5.
"When
the
Lord
blessed the Egyptian's house for
Joseph's
sake, and
the
blessing
of
the
Lord
was
upon all
that
he
had
in
the
house
and
in
the field."
A number
of
saints
in
a
city,
or a nation, are many
times
like
Noah, Daniel, and
Job,
in
the midst
of
them.
They guard
the
public
by
their prayers
from mighty
ruin
and
wide
desolation.
Sodom
itself had
been
saved,
if
there had been ten righteous souls
in
it.
And I
am
per-
suaded,
Great
Britain had been a kingdom
of
idolaters
and
slavery,
or a heap
of
confusion and slaughter,
and
a
field
of
blood long
ago,
because
of
the
provoking
wick-
edness
in
the midst
of
it,
had
it
not
been for the
few
righteous
that
have
always
stood
in
the gap
:
There
have
been
always some
powerful
pleaders
at
the
mercy
-seat,
when the wrath
of God
and
the destroying angels have
been breaking
in like a flood
upon
us,(some
Moses
and
Samuel
to with
-hold the desolation, when popery
and
tyranny
have,
been
just
at
our
gates,
and
ready
to
over-
whelm
us.
Q
how
many
unknown blessings
do
these
sinful
orations
enjoy, because
of the
lives
and
the
prayers of the saints
that
are
in
it! Holy
souls,
who
though they are divided
into different parties,
and,
practise their different
forms,
yet
worship
the
same
God, through the
same
Mediator,
and
by
the
same Spirit, who
are
ever
welcome
to
Ole
throne of
grace,
who
are
all saints
in
the esteem
of God,
and
in the
language
of
scripture.
Strange,
that
the
name
of
a
saint should
be used as
a terni
of reproach
amongst
us,
and cast upon one party
in
a way
of
scorn,
3