DISCOURSE I. 143 Let us remember, that when the chief priests, and rulers, and and pharisees, sent to apprehend our Lord Jesus, for preach- ing such doctrine as did without their commission, the offi- cers who were sent, were impressed in their consciences with sudden convictions under his sermon, and they would not seize him. And God may give such instances of deliverance as divine attestations to our preaching, if we keep close to the example of our Lord Jesus, and have much of his Spirit with us. II. The next practical inference, is addressed to those who attend such ministers as have no commission from the 'established church: If ye have found spiritual edification from our labours, you may be encouraged to proceed. Such were many of the people who attended on the sermons of Christ, in the days of his flesh. They were sufficiently vin- dicated in this their following after him, not merely by the miracles that he wrought to prove his divine commission, but by the convincing, converting and sanctifying influence which accompanied his preaching. Let this appear in your whole conversation, in order to vindicate our ministry, and your atten- dance. Was it said, even by the officers of the ecclesiastical court, concerning him, Never man spade like this man, let it be said by all the world concerning you, " never men lived better than you do." Let it be acknowledged in the eyes even of all those that hate you, that the lives of none of them are comparable to your lives for strict holiness and religion. And this will give a conviction to the hearts of men, and go a great way tojustify your preachers, and your attention to their sermons. This justified the officers to their own consciences, in their neglect to seize Christ the Lord, though they could not learnedly make out his commission : Nor could they give, it may be, a very rational account of the preference of Christ to their na- tional and established preachers, yet they could say : we have felt something in our hearts from this man's preaching, that we never felt from the preaching of other men, therefore we could not seize him, we durst not apprehend him, we believe he bath something divine in him. It may be, many of you know not how to argue upon the reasons of your separation, or non - conformity, but if you feel such inward evidence in your hearts, and if the evidence witnesses also in the holiness of your lives, and runs through all your conversation, if you have felt in the sermons of those that are not commissioned, some divine influences that you never felt elsewhere, then you will say, these are the servants of the most high God; and without any particular reflections upon the public church, or the public way of worship, you
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=