checked with this confideration, that their case is determined, that God is implacably offended with them, and is inexorably and peremptorily refolved to make them miferable for ever; and during this perfuafion, no man can return to the love of God and goodness, without which there can be no repentance.

This confideration, of the immutable state of men after this life, should engage us with all feriousness and diligence to endeavour to secure our future happiness. God hath fet before us good and evil, life and death, and we may yet choose which we please; but in the other world, we must stand to that choice which we have made here, and inherit the consequences of it.

By fin mankind is brought into a miferable state; but our condition is not defperate and past remedy. God hath fent his Son to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance and remiffion of fins. So that though our cafe be bad, it need not continue so, if it be not our own fault. There is a possibility now of changing our condition for the better, and of laying the foundation of a perpetual happiness for ourselves. The grace of God calls upon us, and is ready to affist us; so that no man's cafe is so bad, but there is a poffibility of bettering it, if we be not wanting to ourselves, and will make use of the grace which God offers, who is never wanting to the fincere endeavours of men. Under the influence and assistance of this grace, those who are dead in trespasses and fins, may pass from death to life, may be turned from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God. So long as we are in this world there is a possibility of being tranflated from one state to another, from the dominion of Satan, into the kingdom of God's dear Son. But if we neglect the opportunities of this life, and stand out against the offers of God's grace and mercy, there will no overtures be made to us in the other world. After this life is ended, God will try us no more: our final miscarriage in this world will prove faral to us in the other, and we shall not be permitted ted to live over again to correct our errors. As the tree falls so it shall ly; fuch a state as we are fettled in, when we go out of this world, shall be fixt in the other, and there will be no poffibility of changing it. We are yet in the hand of our own counfel, and by God's grace we may mould and fashion our own fortune. But if we trifle away this advantage, we shall fall into the hands of the living God, out of which there is no redemption. God hath yet left heaven and hell to our choice, and we had need to look about us, and choose well, who can choose but once for all and for ever. There is yet a space and opportunity left us of repentance; but fo foon as we step out of this life, and are entered upon the other world, our condition will be sealed, never to be reversed. And because after this life there will be no further hopes of mercy, there will be no possibility of repentance. This is the accepted time, this is the day of falvation; therefore to day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts; left God fwear in his wrath that we shall not enter into his reft. I proceed to a

Sixth observation, that a standing revelation of God is evidence sufficient for divine things. They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them; that is, they have the books of Moses and the Prophets, written by men divinely inspired, these do sufficiently declare to them the will of God and their duty; and it is unreasonable to demand or expect that God should do more for their conviction and fatisfaction.

I know very well the text speaks only of the scriptures of the Old Testament, those of the New being not then extant when this parable was delivered. But what is here said concerning the scriptures of the Old Testament, is equally applicable to the New; and though Abraham does only recommend Mofes and the Prophets, there is no doubt but he would have faid the fame concerning Christ and his Apostles, if the books of the New Testament had been then exSo that what I shall say upon this obfervation, does indifferently concern the whole fcripture. And And that I may make out this observation more fully, I shall take these five things into confideration:

1st, What we are to understand by a divine revelation.

it.

2dly, Give a brief account of the several kinds of

3 dly, Shew what advantage this standing revelation of the scriptures hath above any other way of conveying the will of God to the world.

4thly, That there is sufficient evidence for the divinity of the scriptures.

5thly, That it is unreasonable to expect that God should do more for our conviction, than to afford fuch a standing revelation of his mind and will. I shall go over these as briefly as I can. I begin with the

1st, What we are to understand by a divine revelation. By a divine revelation we are to understand a supernatural discovery or manifestation of any thing to us; I say supernatural, because it may either be immediately by God, or by the mediation of Angels, as moft, if not all the revelations of the Old Testament were. A fupernatural discovery or manifestation, either immediately to our minds, by our understandings and inward faculties; (for I do not so well understand the distinction between understanding and imagination, as to be careful to take notice of it,) or else mediately to our understandings by the mediation of our outward fenfes, as by an external appearance to our bodily eyes, or by a voice and found to the sense of hearing: a discovery or manifestation of a thing, whether it be fuch as cannot be known at all by the use of our natural reason and understandings; or such as may be discovered by natural light, but is more clearly revealed or made known, or we are awakened to a more particular and attentive confideration of it. For it is not at all unfuitable to the wisdom of God to make a fupernatural discovery to us of such things as may be known by the light of nature, either to give us a clearer manifestation of fuch truths as were more obfcurely known, known, and did as it were ly buried in our understandings; or else to quicken our minds to a more ferious and lively confideration of those truths.

adly, For the several kinds of divine revelations. That they were various, the Apostle to the Hebrews tells us, chap. i. 1. God who at sundry times, and in divers manners, spake to the fathers by the Prophets; where by Prophets we are to understand not only those who did foretel future things, but any perfon that was divinely inspired, and to whom God was pleased to make any fupernatural discovery of himself.

Now the several kinds of revelation taken notice of by the Jews, are visions; dreams; prophecy; oracle; inspiration, or that which we call the Holy Ghost; voice Bath-col; or that which was the highest of all, which they call gradus Mosaicus, the degree of revelation which was peculiar to Mofes. The Jewish writers, especially Maimonides, have many fubtile observations about the differences of these several kinds of revelation, which depend upon fubtile and philofophical diftinctions of the faculties of perception, as that fome of those revelations were by impression only upon the understanding; some only upon the imagination; fome upon both; fome upon the outward senses; but the simple and plain difference between them, fo far as there is any ground in scripture to dittinguish them, seems to be this; vision was a representation of something to a man when he was waking, in opposition to dreams, which were representations made to men in their leep. Prophecy might be either dream or vision; and the Jews observe, that it was always one of these two ways, which they grounded upon Numb. xii. 6. If there be a Prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known to him in a vision, and will Speak unto him in a dream. But prophecy in the strict notion of it, had this peculiarly belonging to it, that it was not only monitory, or instructive, but did fortel fome event of concernment to others; and the Jewish doctors tell us, that it was a clearer revelation, and carried a greater affurance along with

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it,

it, and that this was common to all the three, that there was fomething of extasy and transport of mind in all these.

The fourth fort of revelation, which was by oracle, which is called Urim and Thummim, was a rendering of answers to questions, by the High-prieft looking upon the stones in the breast-plate; which how it was done, is uncertain.

The fifth fort of revelation is that which they call the Holy Ghost, which was a more calm and gentle inspiration, without extraordinary transport any extra mind or extasy; such as David had in the writing of the Pfalms.

of

The lowest of all was that which they called Bathcol, which was by a voice from heaven; and this is the way of revelation, which the Jews observed, did only continue among them from the days of the Prophet Malachi to our Saviour.

The highest of all was that which they called gradus Mofaicus, to which the Jews gave several prerogatives above all the other ways of revelation; as that it was done by impression merely upon the understanding, without extafy, or rapture, or transport, when he was waking, and in his ordinary temper, and his fenfes not bound up either by extasy or fleep; that it was a revelation immediately from God himfelf, and not by the mediation of Angels, without any fear, or amazement, or fainting, which was incident to other Prophets; and the spirit of prophecy rested upon him, and he could exert it arbitrarily, and put it forth when he would. Of which thus much is evidently true from the story of him, that the spirit of prophecy did rest more constantly upon him, and that he could exert it with greater freedom, and without any difcernible amazement or transport from his ordinary temper. But that it was by impreffion merely upon his understanding, as that is a diftinct faculty from the imagination, is not so certain: that it was always by an immediate communication from God, without the mediation of Angels, seems not to be true; for St. Stephen tells us, that the law was given by the disposition of Angels,

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