easily conform to without his help. It is because you have not been made to see the curse of sin, and the extreme danger of your condition, in Christ hanging on the cross; it is because you do not know and consider that he died in vain as to you, if you do not come to him with a faith of the Spirit's working, for healing in his blood. You do not show your love to him by keeping his commandments, by owning him in the world, by living as his disciples, because you have so little sense of his benefits, and of the greatness of his love to you. Nay, you think lightly, and many speak reproachfully, of the peculiar Scripture doctrine of salvation by faith, from a secret suspicion that it will carry you farther into the depth of your hearts, oblige you to a greater strictness of living, put you upon doing more than at present you find yourselves inclined to, and lay a heavier cross upon you than you are willing to bear. But if you would have hope towards God, or comfort of your religion, see to it that you receive Christ as a Saviour indeed; so lost in yourselves as to perish for ever without him; so helpless in yourselves as to need the aid of an Almighty Spirit to bring you to him in repentance and faith, and keep you faithful to him in obedience and submission to his commands.

For I must now tell you that this is a very precious part of his salvation, necessarily included in Peter's confession of him; and that if you do not give yourselves up to his teaching and authority, to be renewed by him to the image of God in holiness, you cannot say by the Spirit that he is "the Christ, the Son of the living God." One great end of his coming into the world to die for us, was to show us the abominable nature of sin, and the death to which it subjects us in the just judgment of God; certainly, not to make it a less evil in itself, for that, we may venture to say, is one of the things which

God cannot do; nor to make it appear less in our eyes, or less dangerous than it was before; but that we might for ever abhor and cast it from us, seeing it could be purged, and the foul stains of it washed out, with nothing but his blood. The Scripture will not suffer us to be deceived in this great point. The whole and every part of it, from beginning to end, is a design for holiness; and it knows of no "grace of God which bringeth salvation," but that "which teacheth us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world," Titus, ii. 11, 12. You can bear me witness that I so preach Christ, namely, as the Lord and Governor of a willing people, and " the Author of eternal salvation to them that obey him," Heb. v. 9. I would be very thankful to God for Christ, and know I must receive his salvation as a gift, and not the purchase of my own works; and am continually advising you to rest your souls upon this belief, that, being "justified by faith, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord," Rom. v. 1; but I could have no hope of being accepted to this blessed peace, if I did not preach him to you and myself as our lawgiver and example. His own words are too plain to be denied or disputed, and I pray God write them all in our hearts: "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that doth the will of my Father which is in heaven," Matt. vii. 21. But besides his authority and positive declarations in the case, many times repeated, the faith by which we believe in him is founded on a supposition of the danger of sin, and the necessity of obedience. Its nature, I mean, in the Spirit's hands, and as wrought in us by him, is to purify the heart, and bring us to a better kind and higher degrees of holiness, than we could possibly attain without it. I shall endea

vour to make you sensible of this in few words, and so conclude.

Faith is looking to Jesus, as "the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world ;" believing that he died for it, and that, therefore, we could be freed from the condemnation of it only by the sacrifice of his death. And there is no way of coming to this faith but by repentance, which is the knowledge of sin, sorrow for sin, and a will to forsake sin. And again, why do we believe that Christ died for this end? How is it possible we should believe on him as appointed by God to deliver us from the guilt and punishment of our sin, if we do not feel it as a load upon our consciences, and dread it as the plague of our natures, and the bane of our happiness? But if we thus feel and fear it, and heartily repent of it, and know how much it cost to redeem us from it, as we must in order to faith, what shall persuade us to return to it, and resume the curse of it? How is fearlessness of sin, or a purpose of continuing in it, consistent with repentance for it? And if we do not repent of it, what hope can we have of being saved by Christ, or benefit of that faith in him, which supposes that we do truly repent of all sin, requires it of us, and is certainly false if it does not turn our wills against it? You see, therefore, that faith, in the very notion of it, wherever it is true, and a faith of the Spirit's operation, worketh to the destruction of sin, and purifieth the heart.

But it does still more, and has a virtue and power in it to place us upon a right foundation of obedience, and to engage and confirm us in the pursuit of holiness, from a root of love. "We love him," saith St. John, "because he first loved us," 1 Epist. iv. 19; meaning, that otherwise we do not and cannot, but that, in the knowledge and faith of God's love to us, we have a powerful

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call to admire the riches of his goodness, and the strongest of all motives to love him again. Our souls lost and redeemed-God sending his own Son into the world to seek and to save us-Christ washing us from our sins in his blood, conquering death and hell, rising triumphantly from the grave, and ascending into heaven for us, that we, wretched sinners, might be partakers of his merits and heirs of his glory as the children of his bowels— "herein," saith the same apostle, "is love;" unspeakable, almighty love! And again he says, Behold it!" for it is the Spirit's great argument to the soul to give up all its corruption, all its opposition to such undeserved kindness; his fire in the heart of a believer, to purge it from its dross, to melt down all its stubbornness, and inflame it with love and gratitude to God. And holiness on this ground is acceptable to him, the restoration and right frame of our minds, Christ's freedom, whereby, in the spirit of adoption, we cry, Abba, Father, and serve him, not with a slavish fear, but with the disposition of dutiful and affectionate children. If you can find any thing besides faith, which thus purifieth the heart and worketh by love, then reject it. And, I beseech you, do not pretend to it if you do not purpose and endeavour to keep the commandments. For, look which way you will, it points to obedience. If sin brings you up to the cross of Christ for pardon, see what a curse there is in it. If you think of the love which he had in his heart for you, when he willingly died upon it to save you from eternal misery, how can you love, how can you retain that abominable thing which shed his blood, which his soul hateth, and which, in pity to yourself, he so earnestly advises you to renounce?

Would you then say as Peter did, truly, and from the heart, with the same faith, by the same Spirit, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God?" Let this be

the meaning of your confession, that he is your life and all your hope. Let it be your constant prayer, that you may acknowledge him as living, dying, and rising again, to reconcile you to God, and redeem you from death, when you could not possibly do it by any work, power, or merit of your own. And let it be your steadfast belief, that if you do not receive him in his commands as your Lord and Governor, you deny him in a necessary part of his grace and office, resist his Spirit, and can have no share in his salvation.

I shall only mention one inference from the whole, and that is, what cause we have to be thankful to God for the promise of the Spirit, to pray for his coming in our souls, and to put them under his guidance. Whilst I was speaking to you of our natural blindness in the things of God, and inability to receive Christ, you might, perhaps, make a handle of it for continuing as you are, and think with yourselves that, if you had not grace given you to believe, you could not help it. But this would be a sad mistake and abuse of the doctrine of the Spirit. You do not think and act thus with respect to your bodies or worldly concerns; when you know you want help, you do not sit still and do nothing, but go to those who you know can advise and assist you. Do as much for your souls. Go to God, and beg of him to send his Spirit to open your eyes and teach your hearts. Read the Scripture to put yourself in his way; pray for him, and he will come and abide with you, as sure as Christ said, “Ask, and it shall be given you." You should reason thus with yourselves: that if God promises the Spirit, it is because we want him; that what he promises, he will certainly give; and that if we have him not, we must die unbelievers, and be undone for ever. And he has two ways of manifesting himself to us, and helping us: one is by the words of Scripture, the other is by