thing to be faid upon the fubject, and I readily allow it but the most that can be made of it is, that we shall be entitled to equitable allowances in the course of an imperfect obedience: but it does not come up to the cafe of fuch, who, under all thefe allowances, fall from their obedience, and forfeit the favour of God. But these are the perfons for whom we feek relief.

Upon the whole, it does not appear that natural religion has any certain cure for the terrors of guilt; because the title by obedience being forfeited, there are no certain principles of reason from which we can conclude how far, and to what inftances, the mercy of God will extend; because we can have no affurance of ourselves, that our forrow is fuch, and our refolutions of amendment fuch, as may deferve mercy; and laftly, because this whole matter, whatever there be in it, is founded upon reasons and fpeculations too exact, and too refined, to be of common ufe to mankind. And this last reason alone will, I think, fufficiently juftify the wifdom and goodness of God in propofing to the world a fafe and general method for the falvation of finners for what if you have penetration enough to fee a way for finners to escape under natural religion; muft your great parts be a meafure for God's dealing with all the world? Shall thoufands and thousands live and die without comfort, because they cannot reafon as you do? This confideration fhould make thofe who have the higheft opinion of themselves, and therefore of natural religion, adore the goodness of God, in condescending to the infirmities of men, and fhewing them the way to

mercy, which they were unable to find out. This he has done by the revelation of the Gospel of Christ Jefus, which is the finner's great charter of pardon, a certain remedy against all the fears and terrors of guilt.

Here then is a fafe retreat for the guilty conscience; here God appears, and gives his own unalterable word for your fecurity: the Son of God is your Mediator and High Prieft, to offer up and fanctify the forrows of a broken heart; and to bring down fpiritual ftrength, joy, and comfort to the penitent, and to perfect the word begun in you by his grace and affistance. Let no man therefore fink under the terrors of guilt, but let him approach the throne of grace; but if in no confidence of himself, yet in full confidence in the promises made through Chrift, by whom, and through whom, every finner, who returns to God, fhall be faved.

After so much done for the fecurity of finners on God's part, and fuch great confolations provided against the terrors of guilt, it is much to be lamented there should be any ftill incapable of comfort yet fuch there are, of whom I propofed to speak in the last place, whose religious fears arise from accidental diforders of mind or body. This cafe is not subject to reason, and therefore much cannot be faid upon it. Whatever the union of foul and body is, fo united they are, that the diforders of one often derive themselves to the other. A melancholy mind will wafte the ftrength, and bring paleness and leanness upon the body: diforders in the body do often affect the mind; a ftroke of the palfy will rob a man of the use of his

understanding, and leave him difabled in mind as well as body. For this reafon it is that I afcribe fome religious fears to the disorders of the body, though they properly belong to the mind. We call only great diforders in the mind madness; but all disorders, as far as they extend, are of the same kind: the melancholy man, who thinks himself in a ftate of damnation, without any reason, or power to reafon upon his cafe, is as certainly in this point a madman, as the poor wretch, whofe diforder has taken another turn, and makes him believe himself to be a king or an emperor. There are many inftances of this kind abroad in the world: the unhappy fufferers, were they capable of receiving the advice, fhould be directed to seek their cure from phyficians rather than divines. Were I to give you inftances in what manner these religious fears work, what unreasonable fufpicions and jealoufies they create, how full they oftentimes are of abfurdity and manifeft contradiction, it would evidently appear to you, that they are truly distempers either in the mind or body; but this would be but melancholy entertainment, and of no great use. Such perfons as these are not chargeable with feeking false comfort for themselves; for it is part of their diftemper to refufe all comfort. The true comfort we have for them they are unable to receive, that they are not capable of judging of themselves, and that he, to whom judgment belongeth, will deal with them not according to their imaginations, but according to the rules of his own goodness and righteousness.

These terrors cannot be imputed as a blemish to

religion; not by him at leaft, who acknowledges the providence of God, and whofe principle of religion is reason for all madness is destructive of reafon, as much as these terrors are of religion: they are both destructive: they are evils to which we muft fubmit: and if we cannot account for the reafon of them, it becomes us to be dumb, and not open our mouths in his prefence, whofe ways are paft finding out.

DISCOURSE XXVIII.

PSALM xix. 14.

Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy fight, O Lord, my ftrength and my redeemer.

I HAVE made choice of these words, with which the holy Pfalmift fhuts up this nineteenth Pfalm, intending to open to you the scheme of thought which runs through the whole. It contains one of the completeft forms of devotion, and of the moft general use, of those recorded in his writings. When his thoughts turn upon his own circumftances, which were in all refpects great and uncommon, and fuch as the generality of men can never experience, it is no wonder to find his prayers and his fongs of praises conceived in no common ftrain. When a king stands before the altar, we may well expect a royal facrifice; fuch an one as is not expected from a private hand, nor fit to be offered by it. But here, in the Pfalm before you, the crown and the fceptre are laid by, his own dignity is forgotten, and his whole mind employed in contemplating the mighty things of Providence, dif played in the works of nature, and of grace. Ex