glory. Indeed you cannot, till you comply with his method of doing it. You are bound hand and foot; yea, "dead in trespasses and sins." Breath must come into you from above; and if ever you become the children of God, in the newness of a free obedience, it can only be by power from him, who worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Which leads me,

The

II. To show how this state is to be attained. Scripture is express, that" without holiness no man shall see the Lord," i. e. without a settled purpose and sincere endeavour to do the will of God from the heart. Not doing this, as it was the sin of the first man, and brought death into the world, so it is the sin of every man; for "sin is the transgression of the law" of God, and "the wages of it" at all times "is death." And to show us the great evil of all sin, and our unhappy condition under it, together with the way and means of deliverance, by removing the curse of it from us, and subduing the strength of it in us, is the design of all Scripture. Now, whenever we have our eyes opened to see the desert of all sin, the greatness of our own, and the necessity of holiness, the first thought we naturally betake ourselves to, and it is as far as our own reason can carry us, is that we will make our peace with God, by forsaking our sins, and a more conscientious obedience for the time to come. Confess and forsake them we must, upon the warning and authority of Christ himself, who began his preaching with saying," Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand;" meaning, that without repentance there is no entering upon his way of salvation, called the kingdom of God, because by it we become members and subjects of his kingdom of grace here upon earth, and shall be admitted into his everlasting kingdom of glory. But observe carefully, as it is a matter of life and death; he

does not say, Repent, and ye shall be saved, as if nothing more was to be done to reconcile us to God, and secure our title to heaven. This is the greatest of all mistakes. It is a flat denial of Scripture, utter ignorance of the nature of God therein revealed, and the sacredness of his law; which, when it is once broken, subjects us to death, and leaves us under its curse. It is in effect telling God how he shall save us, limiting his justice, and setting what penalty upon sin we please. In a word, it is being our own redeemers, establishing our own righteousness for salvation, and making Christ die in vain.

What then is the soul's relief under the apprehensions of its danger and misery, and where shall we go for help with our defilement and wretched weakness? If we are all guilty before God, and no repentance or endeavours of our own can alter our condition and restore us to his favour, what is the hope of condemned sinners? I beseech you to hear it, and I pray God it may sound sweetly into your hearts: It is, saith St. Peter, "the word which God sent, preaching peace by Jesus Christ, that, through his name, whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins." "This is the word of faith which we preach," saith St. Paul," that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead" and by this convincing proof marked him out for the Christ, thy Deliverer" thou shalt be saved." "Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth," saith St. James. "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin," saith St. John. See how the apostles of our Lord, with one consent, declare these glad tidings to a guilty world-that though we are miserable and undone in ourselves, can do nothing to satisfy the divine justice, or recover our first happy state in God, have no works or righteousness of our own to

plead before him, and must let that alone for ever, yet he has come down all the vast distance between us, given his own Son to pay the debt we owed him, made him our surety, our atonement, and righteousness, and in him is well pleased with us; thereby manifesting his nature of love, and making all his goodness pass before us, for our present peace and everlasting salvation.

Stand fast here in fulness of belief; reach out your hand to this cordial; let your soul meet this mercy; receive this grace as grace, under a deep sense of your want of it, and as the riches of God's goodness to you a perishing sinner; say once joyfully, "There is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus ;" and then mark what use an apostle, who was perfect in this lesson himself, will teach you to make of it. "We love him," saith St. John, "because he first loved us." He means that in all reason we should; it is a sacred, strong bond upon us to do it. And we shall do it, if we have any ingenuousness or sense of gratitude; if any thing in the world can oblige or take hold of us. The superabundant love of God, in giving his Son to die for us, when we were rebels, and enemies to him by wicked works, is such a powerful attractive, carries such persuasion in it to win our hearts to him, and bears with such force upon our minds, that we cannot well resist it. If we understand and believe it, our next inquiry will be, what shall we render unto God for so great a benefit, "Lord, what wouldst thou have me to do?" Our Saviour tells

us,

"If ye love me, keep my commandments." As if he had said, surely you cannot but love me, when you consider what I have done for you; and the only return I expect from you as a proof of it, is, that you would put yourselves into my hands, to be created unto good works, and to a new state of willing obedience.

Thus then it is that "the kingdoms of this world

become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ, and that he is the Governor among the people." Here is our advantage for holiness; this is the Scripture ground of it, and Scripture call to it; and you now see how I have brought this matter to a point. When we are "rooted and grounded in love, and comprehend with all saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of the love of Christ, (which indeed passeth knowledge)," the natural and proper working of our faith will be a desire to please God in the way of his appointing; for love is the fulfilling of the law; and those who before were so backward to obey, so stubborn in their own wills, and fast bound in the hardness of an evil nature, will be disposed to receive a law from God, ready in Christ's freedom to run the way of his commandments, and prize his holiness as the health of their souls, and a necessary part of his salvation.

I do not mean that we are sufficient of ourselves either to believe the love of God in Christ, or to walk worthy of it when we do. No; the Spirit must be with us in every step of our progress, to convince us of sin, to work faith in us, to keep us steady in it, and make us lively in our obedience. But then he does not deal with us as so many stocks and stones, or by putting an absolute force upon our natures, but gives in his help in the way of our own reason; that is, by presenting thoughts to our minds, enforcing them upon us by his secret operation, and so gaining the consent of our wills. And this argument of God's love to us is, in the Spirit's hands, of all others, the most powerful to recover our hearts to him, and settle us in the truth of obedience from love.

Let me, therefore, in conclusion, recommend these two points to your belief and most serious consideration, as the sum of all I have said; first, that without the

faith of Christ we can never attain to holiness; and secondly, that if he does not govern us, we cannot belong to him.

1. I have already observed to you what a mighty advantage we have in the sense of God's love to us for keeping his commandments, and how forcibly it draws our hearts and wills to him in the way of a pure obedience; and what I am now farther saying is, that if we are not first well grounded in the faith of his great mercy to us in forgiving us freely, and delivering us from the sentence and curse of the law by the death of his Son, we shall never attain to the holiness which is required of us by the Gospel. Take away this ground, with the Spirit's aid, who lays it, and works with it, and what remains but the corruption and weakness of nature, blind to itself; and when it would set about a work of reformation, bringing it down to the low standard of its own thoughts and abilities, acting by constraint, struggling with difficulties which it cannot overcome, and resting, at the best, in a few lifeless, outward performances? Whereas it is the great excellency of faith to reach and purify the heart; and the love of God shed abroad in it by the Holy Ghost both binds Christ's whole yoke upon us, and makes it easy. If our faith is strong, our endeavours after universal holiness will be sincere and hearty; if it is weak, they will be weak; and just in proportion as we believe the pardoning love of God in Christ, we shall find ouselves disposed to make him suitable returns of love, and live unto him that died for us, in all the duties and exercises of our Christian calling, keeping close to God in prayer, and living as we pray.

And now you see the reason why you are so careless of your obedience, and so little recovered to God in holiness, according to the teaching and example of