DISCOURSE I. 1$5. to a preaching without the Spirit, a preaching where the Spirit Of God was hardly found : And when they carne to a preacher with whom God was, no wonder they confessed something dif- ferent between him arid them. Now thispower, this secret power, that attended the ministry of Christ, had various remarkable effects upon the hearers, which leads me to Il. The second general head proposed, that is, " what were the effects of the preaching of Christ, whereby it is further differenced from that of the Jewish doctors." And in this part of mydiscourse I shall range all my thoughts under these three heads ; the effect it hadupon the multitude, the effect it had upon his own chosen ones, and the effect that it had upon his enemies. 1. Let us consider the effect that his preaching had on the multitude. It amazed them, it-gave them uncommon surprise; Mat. vii. 28. Thepeople were astonished at his doctrine. They wondered, not only at his miracles whereby he confirmed his sermons, but at the sermons themselves. We have a very par- ticular account of this in Mark vi. 2. Many that heard were astonished, saying, whence bath this man these things? It set many of them upon the enquiry, and upon a search of heart, what all this his doctrine might mean, and what they liad of coh- cern in it. They began to debate the case with themselves, whether he came from God, or no, and whether this was the Christ, or no. There was no such stir among the people while they attended upon the common sermons of the scribes, and the teachers of the Jewish church. They came back as they went, they sat unconcerned and unmoved. They heard the oration and the performance,- they seemed perhaps to be pleased with some of those that pronounced better than their neighbours, and they went away unimproved, unless in uncharitableness against the followers of Christ, the new preacher, and in zeal for cere- monies, some of which also God had not instituted : These were the improvements of the church of the Jews, that attended upon the common preachers of that day. When a nation had been a long time buried in ignorance and darkness, and been kept under by the sovereignty and policy of priests, and there springs up a new teacher among them, with some characters of divinity about hire, they are all awakened and set upon the enquiry ; they see the difference between their own dull hypocritical teachers, and the new Spirit of piety of and devotion. They never before troubled themselves about inward religion, but now there is a.public open acknowledgment of something uncommon, and they are willing to consider, whether it be divine or no. Such was the case of the Jews when our Saviour was sent among them ; such was the time of the reformation of this nation from popery ; and those that
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