SERM. If therefore we expect favour or protection from our Almighty Friend and Benefactor, we on our part must be diligent obfervers of his word, grateful acknowledgers of his bounty, fincère and pious followers of his doctrine; if we expect that our bleffed Saviour and Redeemer should intercede for us at the throne of grace, we must study his gofpel, embrace his holy faith, and practise his divine laws; as he hath himfelf informed us, that whosoever shall be ashamed of him and of his words, of him alfo fhall the fon of man be ashamed when he cometh in the glory of his father; -for with the fame measure that we mete withal, it shall be measured unto us again. SERMON XVI. MATTHEW XXVI. 75. Peter remembered the words of Jefus, which faid unto him, Before the Cock crow, thou fhalt deny me thrice: and he went out, and wept bitterly. T is impoffible to read with IT de any SERM. gree of attention, the account of our Saviour's life and fufferings, without being fhocked at the inconftancy and ingratitude of his difciples, who when he was furrounded by dangers, oppreffed on every fide, and juft on the point of being delivered up to his inveterate enemies, instead of affifting and supporting him in the hour of terror and distress, forfook him and fled; that those who not long before had left all to follow XVI. SERM. him, thofe who had been fellow-travel XVI. ~ lers and fellow-fufferers with him, fhould thus tire at the end of the journey, and totally defert fo good a mafter, was a melancholy inftance of human frailty and irrefolution, that must greatly aftonish us whenever we ferioufly reflect upon it. But amongst all these ungrateful and unprofitable fervants, Peter feems to have acted in a manner the' most inexcufable. If we confider with any degree of attention, the manner in which Peter was called to the ministry, the extraordinary trust and confidence placed in him by his divine mafter, the affection which he conftantly expreffed for him, we must acknowledge that he was in reality the laft of our Lord's difciples from whom he |