The glory and interest of nations professing the Gospel preached at a private fast,…

Now this is the Glory of any people upon a three fold account.

1 This alone makes them honourable and precious before God. So says God of them Isa. 43. 1. I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name, thou are mine; those are they of whom I spake: what then, v. 4. thou art precious in my sight, thou art honourable, I have loved thee; how doth God manifest his valuation of them v. 3. Why he will give all the world, the greatest, mightiest, wealthiest nations for them. v. 5. all is as nothing in comparison of them, who are his portion and the lot of his inheritance. The Lord keep this alive upon your hearts, that, that may be in your eyes the glory of this nation, on the account whereof, it is precious to God, and honourable in his sight.

2. Because this presence of Christ makes men comely and excellent in themselves, with what eye soever the world may look upon them. The whole world out of Christ ⟨p. 11⟩lies in evil, under the curse of God, and defilement of sin: in all the glittering shows of their wealth and riches, in the state and magnificence of their governments, the beauty of their laws and order, (as they relate to their persons) they are in the eye of God a filthy and an abominable thing, a thing that his soul loatheth. Curse and sin will make any thing to be so: but now Christ is to them and in them beautiful and glorious. Isai. 4. 2. Christ is so in himself, and he is so unto them: and makes them to be so. There is through him beauty and excellency and comeliness, every thing that may make them lovely and acceptable. That the world looks not on them as such, is not their fault, but the worlds misery: it looked on their master Christ himself, the brightness of his fathers glory, who is altogether lovely, the chiefest of ten thousand, with no other eye.