SER M.

IV.

This Completion of our Defires the prefent Solemnity amply yields: It fhews us here the Friends we have longed for; and returns them to each other laded with Riches, and dignified with Honour, the Fruits of Wisdom, Prov. iii. 6. Ch. viii. 16. human and divine, the encrease of thofe Seeds we once fo amicably took in together. And whom our School, with a Parent's Fondness, anxioufly entrusted to the Univerfity or Courts, to the Counting-house or Shop; he now receives, or expects at least, with open Arms, remitted with Thanks, the Glory, Phil. iv. 1. 1 Theff. ii. 19, 20. of each of them, their Joy and their Crown; affembling from the Pofts and Stations of Honour to which they have feverally advanced; from the Palace, the Bench, the Camp, and the Exchange; Ornaments of the Senate, the Pulpit, and the Bar ; eminent in the City, the Church, and the State; dignified with the highest Honours in each; filling or afcending, fome the prætorial, others the epifcopal, or primate's Chair.

On fuch an Occafion, and fuch a Call, what fund for Eloquence can the Orator want, whose Office is to perform the Compliments of the Day? Leaving it therefore on

IV.

him to celebrate the Triumphs of our Feaft, SER M. permit me to congratulate you on the much more folid and substantial Glories; the Luftre you caft on our School will again reflect on yourselves, if so be you make the Talents and Honours you shine with here, the Inftruments and Means of fecuring to your felves greater Glories hereafter. And on your felves it must lie, if you do not rife proportionably in the next World, as you are eminent in this: Since the Gifts and Endowments which God bestows (of whatever Nature or Kind they be) he has faithfully promifed (if duly improved) to acknowledge and reward. Whilft therefore we are exulting and boafting how many Profeffions and Callings our School has contributed to supply and adorn; it may not be amiss to season our Joy with a few religious and ferious Thoughts, and to endeavour to impress it in fuch Manner on our Minds, as may continue to be of Use to us when the Day is paft. Not that I would damp or allay your Joy, or abate that Chearfulness we are met to promote : On the contrary, I would endeavour to make your Relish of it more exquifite and fine, by extending the Feast to the Entertainment of your rational as well as fenfitive Soul. In Order to this, I would

2

invite

SER M. invite you to feaft a little on yourselves:

IV.

I would fet before you the Thoughts of whose Aid and Affiftance it is to which you owe your Abilities and Skill: I would fhew you how closely you are interested, and, as it were, in Partnership with God, in the Exercise of your most fecular Business and Trades ; -and even when pursuing your own Interest and Gain, how much you are employed in his Service and Work.

To introduce me to this, I have fet the Words I read to you for my Text at the Head of my Discourse Though a little Explanation of the Occafion and Sense of them, will be neceffary to fhew how they answer my Defign.

I must therefore premise, that in the Chapters foregoing GOD had been giving fome Instructions to Mofes concerning the Fabrick and Utenfils of the Tabernacle which was then in Defign, and the holy Garments for Aaron and his Sons. This was to be a Work very curious and exact, and to be formed according to a heavenly Model, which God himself had fhewed to Mofes, Exod. xxv. 9, 40. when he called him up to the Mount. Mofes therefore, being at the Head of a People who

· IV.

had been inured, in Egypt, only to bafe and SER M fervile Employments; to the Plough and the Spade, to the digging of Clay, and making of Bricks, Exod. i. 14. * might well doubt how he should find any Perfons amongst them fit to undertake fuch a Work as this. For though there might be fome ready enough rightly to take his Defign, and to conceive and understand what he wanted to be done; yet amongst Men that had learned and feen nothing all their Lives, but to flave in the Ground, where should he meet with Hands to perform a Work to which fo many different Arts, and the Exercise of fuch difficult Trades were required ?-To rid Mofes of these Fears, GoD bids him, in my Text, not to be careful and folicitous about this ; for that he himself had provided Men that fhould have Skill enough to perform whate ver he required. And two of these he noti→ fies by Name; Bezaleel, in the second verfe, and Aboliab in the fixth, whom he nominates and appoints for Mafter-Workmen. And to fatisfy Moses that these were equal to the Business to which he had affigned them, GOD further acquaints him, that he himself would be their Mafter and Inftructor, and,

*Patrick on the Place.

VOL. I.

K

by

SERM. by the Infpiration of his Holy Spirit, would IV. infuse that Wisdom, Understanding, and

Knowledge in thefe Matters, which their natural Genius, though never fo great, could not of themselves fo fuddenly attain. The LORD fpake unto Mofes, faying, See, I have called by Name Bezaleel, the Son of Uri, the Son of Hur, of the Tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of GOD, in Wisdom, and in Understanding, and in Knowledge, and in all Manner of Workmanship, to devife cunning Works, to work in Gold, and in Silver, and in Brass, and in cutting of Stones to fet them, and in carving of Timber, to work in all Manner of Workmanship: And I, behold I have given with him, Aboliab, the Son of Abifamach, of the Tribe of Dan. These are the two principal Men he calls to the Contrivance and Work, and thefe he promises fhall want no Skill that is neceffary to the making the Things he had commanded: The Jeweller's and the Engraver's, the Weaver's and the Embroiderer's, the Carpenter's, and every Workman's Art, fhould all concenter and meet in them, and in those he had given to operate under them. For in the Hearts of all that are wifehearted (faith GoD) I have put Wisdom, that they

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may