them; the pride, malice, and envy of their hearts; the perpetual strong opposition of their wills and desires to the will and law of God, and their inward total alienation from the life of God;-if they never found so much of their sin as to be pained and humbled under a sense of it; if they never felt the burden of it, so as to cry earnestly to God for deliverance from it, and strength against it;if they do not give up all their own works as worthless in the sight of God;-if the deep ground of their hearts is untouched, and they do not know their inward want of a Saviour, to atone for their guilt, to dwell in them by his Spirit, and to make even their best works and services acceptable to God: in a word, if they are not endeavouring, wishing, and praying with all their souls to be rooted and grounded in the religion of love-the love of God and man, as the perfection of their natures, the great end of their creation and sole capacity for happiness, the Gospel has no promises or comforts for them; nay, it lies full against them. Whatever they are, they are of and from themselves, and must be left to stand or fall by it for ever: nay, the Bible is so decisive upon these points, and it is so plainly the whole design of it to bring us to the knowledge and belief of them, that if we mistake, it is because we shut our eyes against the light, and do not choose to understand too much of what we seem resolved not to practise.

When the word of God comes with power, declaring the necessity of repentance for all in their natural state, and of an hearty deep sense of the unworthiness and insufficiency of our persons and of all our performances; when we see the need of coming to Christ for remission, and living by the faith of the Son of God, and not daring to lift up our heads without an interest in the great atonement; when we hear of putting off the old man with his deeds, and putting on the new man, which, after

God, (after the likeness, according to the will, and by the power of God,) is created in righteousness and true holiness, so that we can truly say, Behold all things are become new, and our conversation is in heaven: this comes home to the heart and conscience: this is laying the axe to the root of the tree indeed: this is piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and the joints and marrow. And, therefore, though this repentance and faith, and living by the Spirit of God, is all in all in religion; though it is the very thing we want, and God would gladly give us, and can give us nothing else to make us happy; yet it will go hard but we will put something else in the room of it, and boldly venture all upon it for, as I said before, a decent worldly life; a behaviour that will entitle us to much esteem and respect from men; generosity, kindness, relieving the poor; a strict performance of the outward duties of religion, and often extraordinary zeal for it, is the image of our own setting up, which we fall down and worship. Be not surprised at my saying this, for St. Paul says more; if we give all our goods to feed the poor and have not charity, a sincere love of God and man, it will profit us nothing; but the spiritual deep-searching religion of Jesus; this mourning and poverty of spirit; this real mean opinion of ourselves, in order to believing and becoming new creatures; this heart-work in religion, we will not come too near it. Surely we may do well, and stand fair with God without it; we will be guilty of no such singularity in religion; we are resolved at any rate to preserve the good opinion of the world.

Where then shall we find a place to set our foot on? which is the truth, and how shall we know when we are safe? Now, if we have read the holy Scriptures to no better purpose than to hazard our souls upon any kind of out

ward behaviour, whether in religion or our dealings in the world, it has hitherto been a dead letter to us indeed; and I am sure if we have not found our sin in it, we have found nothing else there. But, waiving this at present, I think we have an easy infallible rule here in the text to know which of these two kinds of righteousness is the true; and my design, in pitching upon these words, was to bring it out to observation, as it is a matter in which it greatly concerns us not to be deceived. And I have now brought what I had to say upon it as it were to a point. "Blessed are they," says Christ," which are persecuted for righteousness' sake." Then, I say, by righteousness here, he does not mean what passes for such in the world; for it never was, nor ever will be, persecuted, and that becaue it is the righteousness of the world. It has the countenance and favour of the world. The world is altogether on its side; smiles upon it, and pays homage to it; bestows saintship upon it here, and heaven hereafter: and, therefore, unless our blessed Saviour here supposes a case which could never happen to the world's end, that the righteousness of man, of man's own choosing, setting up, priding himself in, and trusting to, could be persecuted by man, this is not the righteousness he is here speaking of. No, it is the amiable, loving religion of the Gospel which strikes at the heart, and comes like fire into the soul, burning and consuming its secret iniquities, that would purge all the venom of the old serpent out of our natures, and lay the foundation of all blessedness in us by faith in the blood shed for us, and given unto us as the principle of a new heavenly life. It is this, I say, which is dreaded, hated, and persecuted-by lies, by calumnies, by hard speeches, and much harder treatment, when the powers of all the world are against it. I do not say that it is always necessarily persecuted in all

times, places, and persons, or that persecution is a certain mark of truth; but that man's righteousness never is, therefore cannot be the true.

I leave this matter to your serious consideration, and shall only add two or three short exhortations.

1. For God's sake, look well at the Bible; and see whether it does not condemn our whole state, and call upon us to turn from it with abhorrence, and look out for real inward conversion, and restoration from the fall to a life in God. In this view it is the book of all books, consistent and uniform-a storehouse of the most precious interesting knowledge- and comes upon us with a flood of light. In any other, the great design of it will be lost upon us. It will leave us in the darkness and deadness of our natures. We shall but trifle with it, and with our souls, till it brings us to see our death in trespasses and sins, and close heartily with God's method of being recovered from it. The whole amount of our religion will be only that of the young man in the Gospel; and we shall be apt to say in the pride of our hearts, for having kept the commandments as we think, "What lack I yet?"-while God knows we want every thing. And if we have no experience of a working time with God in the depth of our hearts, we are still poor, and blind, and naked, and miserable.

2. Beware of a persecuting spirit. "Take heed," says Christ, "that ye despise not one of these little ones;" those who are little in their own eyes, and enter into a spirit of mourning, and come to Christ to find rest for their souls from the troubles of an awakened conscience, and the power of inbred corruption. What ground is there, I beseech you, in all this, for contempt, hatred, and persecution? And what sort of readers of the Bible are they, who can look upon such with an evil eye, when the most high God says, " To this man will I look" (with

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approbation and delight), even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and that trembleth at my word."— And how truly may it be said in this case, that God seeth not as man seeth! Let this word, then, which so fully sets before us the dreadful guilt of a persecuting temper, make the stoutest tremble; I mean, "whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me," shall discourage them, or lay stumbling blocks in their way, shall do or say any thing to hinder them in their Christian progress, "it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea."

Examine yourselves whether ye be in the faith. If you have come to it by repentance, and there is no other door of entrance into the Gospel state, you cannot much find fault with any one who is coming at it in the same humbling way. If he is mistaken, you will instruct him in meekness, "for the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle towards all men:" knowing that every man must approve himself unto God according to his own conscience, and not according to that of another; that in matters of religion or opinion, ill usage is the most unlikely method to recover men from their errors; that it has power only upon the tongue, and may force men to say what they do not think, but can never reach their wills or consciences.

But, you will say, this preaching and insisting so much upon inward conversion, and the experience of a new life by the power of faith, is condemning all others. So it is; if they are not converted, else why is it preached? And so do the sacred Scriptures condemn them. Repent, or perish! And for any to be provoked at it, and run into a spirit of bitterness against it, is a strong sign that they neither are converted, nor at present care to think of it. They may put in a loud claim to true religion, but,