the man that was healed, in the 19th verfe, holding his benefactors, Peter and John, entering into the temple with them, walking and leaping, and praifing God—the great concourfe of people, drawn together by this event, in the 11th verfe, for they all ran unto them, into the porch that was called Solomon's, greatly wondering. Sure never was fuch a fair opportunity for an ambitious mind to have established a character of fuperior goodness and power.-To a man set upon this world, who fought his own praise and honour, what an invitation would it have been to have turned thefe circumstances, to fuch a purpofe;-to have fallen in with the paffions of an aftonished and grateful

city, prepoffeffed, from what had haps pened, fo ftrongly in his favour already, that little art or management was requifite to have improved their wonder and good opinion into the highest reverence of his fanctity, awe of his perfon, or whatever other belief fhould be neceffary to feed his pride, or serve secret ends of glory and intereft.—A mind not fufficiently mortified to the world, might have been tempted here to have taken the honour due to God-and transferred it to himfelf-He might-not fo-a difciple of Chrift: for when Peter faw it,

when he saw the propenfity in them to be misled on this occafion,-he anfwered and faid unto the people, in the words of the text, Ye men of Ifrael,

8

why marvel ye at this? or why look you so earnestly on us, as though by our own power and holinefs we had made this man to walk?-the God of Abraham, and of Ifaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his fon Jefus.

O holy, and bleffed apostle!

How would thy meek and mortified spirit fatisfy itfelf in uttering fo humble and so just a declaration ? What an honest triumph wouldst thou taste the sweets of,-in thus conquering thy paffion of vain glory,keeping down thy pride,-disclaiming the praifes which fhould have fed it, by telling the wondering spectators, It was not thy own power,-it

was not thy own holiness, which had wrought this, thou being of like

paffions and infirmities ;-but that it was the power of the God of Abraham,—the holiness of thy dear Lord, whom they crucified, operating by faith through thee, who waft but an inftrument in his hands.-If thus honeftly declining honour, which the occafion fo amply invited thee to take;-if this would give more fatisfaction to a mind like thine, than the loudeft praises of a mistaken people, what true rapture would be added to it from the reflection,—that in this inftance of felf-denial-thou hadst not only done well,-but, what was still a more endearing thought, that thou hadft been able to copy the example VOL. V.

D

of thy divine Mafter, who, in no action of his life, fought ever his own praise, but on the contrary, declined all poffible occafions of it and in the only public inftance of honour which he suffered to be given him in his entrance into Jerufalem,-thou didft remember,it was accepted with fuch a mixture of humility, that the prediction of the prophet was not more exactly fulfilled in the hofannas of the multitude, than in the meeknefs wherewith he received them, lowly and fitting upon an afs.How could a difciple fail of profiting by the example of fo humble a mafter, whofe whole courfe of life was a particular lecture to this virtue, and, in every inftance of it, fhewed plainly he came