DISC. "received not the promise," THE promife, X. emphatically, the grand promife, in faith If, then, the mothers in Judah and Benjamin had been properly instructed in the faith of the ancient church, when Jeremiah addreffed to them the words we have been confidering, though they must understand them immediately as a promise that their children fhould be delivered from Babylon, and brought back again to X. their own land; yet their thoughts would DISC. naturally be carried on, for further comfort, to that other deliverance and reftoration from death, promised by all the holy prophets, fince the world began; even as we may presume the thoughts of a Chriftian parent would now be, whofe fon was a flave in Barbary, should a prophet be sent to him with the following meffage from God; "Your fon is gone into captivity, "but he shall certainly be redeemed from " it." This, however, is indifputable; that in the application which St. Matthew has taught us to make of the paffage, it can admit of no other conftruction; because 篚 there can be no deliverance from bodily death, but by a bodily refurrection. Learn we, therefore, and a more important and useful leffon cannot be learned whenever death deprives us of those who are near and dear to us, to comfort ourfelves and one another with these words; and DISC. and let each of us, as occafion for con X, folation fhall offer itself, liften to Jeremiah's prophecy, as if it were fpoken to himself; "Thus faith the LORD; Re"frain thy voice from weeping, and thine 66 eyes from tears; for thy work fhallbe "rewarded, faith the LORD, and they "fhall come again from the land of the 66 enemy. And there is hope in thine end, "faith the LORD, that thy children," thy relations, or thy friends, "shall come again to their own border;" that from the dark and defolate regions of the grave they shall come to the light and glory of the heavenly Jerufalem; where, as holy John tells us, "there fhall be no more "death, neither forrow, nor crying;" where Rachel fhall finally ceafe her lamentations, lay afide her mourning veil, and wipe away all tears for ever from her eyes. • Rev. xxi. 4. DISCOURSE XI. THE CIRCUMCISION. LUKE II. 21. And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcifing of the child, his name was called JESUS, which was fo named of the angel, before he was conceived in the womb. Τ XI. HESE words conclude the Gofpel pisc. for the day, taken from a chapter which hath afforded ample matter of wonder and delight through the course of the prefent joyful feafon, when the church, like the bleffed virgin mother, is never feen, but with the holy child in her arms. By the portions already felected from it, we have been made to liften to the fermon preached by an angel upon the fubject of the DISC. the Nativity; and the sweet notes of that XI. anthem, fung by the choir of heaven immediately after, are still founding in our ears. With the happy and obedient shepherds we have been at Bethlehem, and there have seen "this great thing which is "come to pafs, which the Lord hath made "known unto us;" and have found reafon to return, like them, " " glorifying and praifing God for all the things that we "have heard and seen, as it was told unto "us." Nor fhall we ever forget, it is to be hoped (at least, never, at this hallowed. and gracious time), to imitate her example, who kept all these sayings, and pondered "them in her heart." JI We are now conducted from the birth to the circumcifion of our Redeemer, an account of which immediately follows the history of the shepherds, in the words of the text. And very meet, and right, and our bounden duty it is, that we should at this time, and in this place, employ our thoughts upon it; feeing it was the begin |