There is a secret infidelity in the hearts of unregenerate men. They do not love that divine scheme of truths revealed in the Bible, nor cordially receive it for true. Men love to cut out a scheme of religion in their heads, to suit the temper of their hearts. And from this root do all the false and erroneous principles which fill the christian world originally take their rise. (2 Thess. ii. 10, 11, 12.) But when he that commanded the light to shine out of darkness shines in the heart, and gives spiritual light, then the reasonableness, beauty, and glory of the whole scheme appear, and the very resemblance of the divine perfections is to be seen in every branch of it; and now it is cordially believed. (John viii. 47.) And hereby a solid foundation is laid for a real conformity to the law, and a genuine compliance with the gospel; in both which true religion does consist.

Thus we have gone through what was proposed. And we see why God, the great Governor of the world, did consider mankind as perishing, fallen, sinful, guilty, justly condemned, helpless, and undone and we see that his design of mercy originally took its rise from the mere self-moving goodness of his nature, and sovereign good pleasure: and we see the necessity there was of a Mediator, and how the way of life has been opened by him whom God has provided: and we see wherein a genuine compliance with the gospel does consist, and the nature of a true faith in Christ: and we see what is implied in the everlasting life that is promised to believers, and how faith interests us in the promise, and how that the covenant is, in all things, well ordered and sure. And now there is a wide field opened for a large improvement, in many doctrinal and practical inferences and remarks. For,

1. It is very natural to make the same observations here, with regard to a genuine compliance with the gospel, as were before made with respect to a real conformity to the law: for, from what has been said, we may easily see wherein consists that life of faith in Christ, by which true believers live; that all unregenerate men are entirely destitute of this true faith in Christ; yea, diametrically opposite thereunto in the temper of their minds, and therefore cannot be brought to it but by the almighty power and all-conquering grace of God: that there

is nothing in them to move God to do this for them, but every thing to the contrary; that God is at perfect liberty to have mercy on whom he will, according to his sovereign pleasure; that it is reasonable to think that the same sovereign good pleasure, which moves him to be the author, will move him to be the finisher of our faith; that true faith, being thus specifically different from every counterfeit, may therefore be discerned and known, &c. But because I have already been larger than at first I designed, therefore I will omit these, and all other remarks which might be made; and will conclude,

2. With only this one observation, viz. That if these things be true, which have been said concerning the nature of faith and the way of salvation by free grace through Christ, and concerning that view of things which the true belieyer has, then nothing is more plain and evident than that the true believer must needs feel himself to be under the strongest obligations possible to an entire devotedness to Go D, and a life of universal holiness. Every thing meets, in that view of things which he has, to bind his soul for ever to the Lord. One main design of the gospel was to make men holy; and it is, in its nature, perfectly well adapted to answer the end. For now all the natural obligations we are under to love God and live to him, are seen in a divine light; such as arise from the infinite excellence of the divine nature; God's entire right to us, and authority over us and their binding nature is exhibited in a more striking and affecting manner in the gospel than in the law; the cross of Christ gives a more lively representation of the infinite evil of sin than all the thunders of Mount Sinai : and a sight of our natural obligations are attended with a sense of all the additional sacred ties, arising from the infinite goodness of God to a guilty, ruined world, in providing a Saviour; from the dying love of Christ; from the free gift of converting grace; from pardoning mercy; from God's covenant love and faithfulness, and from the raised expectations of eternal glory; all which must join to beget a right sense of sin, as being a thing, in itself, the most unfit, unreasonable, and wicked, as well as infinitely disingenuous and ungrateful to God, and concur to make it appear as the worst of evils; the most to be hated, dreaded,

watched, and prayed against. And a humble heart, full of self-diffidence, and under a sense of the divine all-sufficiency, and in a firm belief of the truth of the gospel, will most naturally, and, as it were, continually apply itself, by faith and prayer, to God through Christ, to be kept from all sin, and to be preserved to the heavenly kingdom: so that those views which the true believer has, have the strongest tendency to universal holiness, and do naturally lay a solid foundation for it. And those views are not only maintained in a greater or less degree, from day to day, by the gracious influence of the Holy Spirit, which dwells in them; but are increasing and brightening through the course of their lives: so that as the grand design of the gospel is to make men holy, so it is perfectly well adapted, in its nature, to answer the end. And therefore he that is born of God sinneth not; and how shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? And such like scriptures must, in the nature of things, be found to be true, in the experience of every real believer. Nor can any but graceless hypocrites be emboldened, by the doctrines of free grace, to sin, as it were, upon free cost; and a double vengeance will they pull down upon their guilty heads.

Particularly, the whole frame and tenour of the gospel naturally tends to excite us to an universal benevolence to mankind, in imitation of the infinite goodness of the divine nature; and even to be benevolent and kind to the evil and unthankful, and to those in whom there is no motive to excite our good will, but much to the contrary; and to love our enemies, and bless them that curse us, and do good to them that hate us, and pray for them that despitefully use us and persecute us. It is impossible, when we see the infinite beauty of the self-moving goodness of the divine nature, as exercised in the whole affair of our redemption and salvation, towards creatures so infinitely vile, unworthy, and ill-deserving, but that we should love that glorious goodness, and be changed into the same image, and have it become natural to us to loveenemies, and forgive injuries, and be like God. A malicious christian, a spiteful believer, is the greatest contradiction and the most unnatural thing.

That which has had no small hand in bringing the doc trines of grace into contempt in the world, as tending to li centiousness, is partly because they have not been rightly understood, and partly through the wicked lives of graceless bypocrites, who have made a high profession. What remains now, therefore, but that the people of God, by holy and exemplary lives, should convince the world that these are doctrines according to godliness?

I beseech you, therefore, by the mercies of God, that ye present yourselves a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service; for you are not your own, but bought with a price; and that not of silver and gold, but of the precious blood of the Son of God; and therefore live no more to yourselves, but to him that died for you. And be ye followers of God as dear children. Blessed be God for the unspeakable gift of his Son. AMEN.

A TREATISE

ON

THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST.

PHILIPPIANS ii. 6, 7.

Who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men.

HOWEVER clearly any may imagine, the chief principles of natural Religion may be found out by the mere light of nature, yet all are agreed, that matters of pure revelation are to be learned only from the holy Scriptures: and our sentiments, as to such points, are to be formed entirely from these sacred writings. Nor is it doubted, but that we may safely believe what we find there plainly revealed, although the things are not fully understood. There are many things we know to be true, from experience and reason, in the natural and moral world, the manner of which we can by no means understand. The husbandman knows his grass and corn grow; the philosopher knows his soul and body are united; the divine knows that God has existed from eternity; but these things, and a thousand more, as to the manner of them, are beyond their comprehension: yet their certainty is not for this reason at all called in question. So if some things, plainly revealed in the Bible, are as to the manner of them beyond our reach, it can be no objection against their truth. If we connot conceive, for instance, what there is in the divine essence, which may lav a just foundation for one true God, (and we know there is but one,) to speak and act as though he existed in three distinct persons; yet if we find this to be in fact the case from consulting God's holy word, we may as firmly believe it, as though we could fully understand it. And if we