with hopes of appeafing the divine justice by your reformations, good endeavours, or duties? Alas! they are all fo defective and finful, that the iniquity of your holy things will greatly increase the score, and add to the weight of your guilt:-Will you flatter your hopes from the mercy and goodness of the divine nature? But what claim can you have to mercy, when open to the inexorable demands of juftice!-Do you expect acceptance with God upon Chrift's account? This is indeed a fure foundation of hope for all who are interested in Christ and united to him. But what pretence can you make to the righteoufnefs of Chrift and the benefits of his redemption, if you have no interest in him, or in any of his faving benefits?-If you have an interest in him, you are united to him, as I have already demonstrated. If you have not an interest in him, you have no plea to make for juftification and acceptance with God upon his account. Our Lord Jefus Chrift has indeed made a fufficient atonement for fin. He has wrought out a perfect righteoufnefs for finners, whereby they may be acquitted from guilt, reconciled to God, and freely juftified in his fight. But what is this to impenitent unbelievers, who have never been drawn to Chrift by the powerful influences of his Holy Spirit, who have never received him by faith; fo have never belonged to him; and therefore could never have any part in cither his active or paffive obedience? If a man abide not in me, (fays our bleffed Lord), he is caft forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and caft them into the fire, and they are burned, John xv. 6. This therefore is a fufficient evidence of the truth of what I have before written to you upon the doctrine of juftification. We cannot be juftified by works. We cannot be juftified by a conformity to any imaginary law of grace, without

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a vital union to Chrift by faith. For he that believeth not is condemned already, John iii. 18. And he that hath not the Son of God, hath not life, 1 John v. 12.But then, on the other hand, being united to his perfon, we are united to his benefits, and partake with him in all the merits of his obedience, in his righteoufnefs, victories, graces, and inheritance.This then thews you, what neceffity there is of your acquaintance with the doctrine of our union to Christ. There is a neceflity of it, that you may know what is the foundation of your eternal hope, how you may find acceptance with God, and how you may know Chrift, and the power of his refurrection, and the fellowship of his fufferings, and be made conformable to his death.

Moreover, our fanctification does likewife immediately and neceffarily depend upon a vital union unto the Lord Jefus Chrift.-The Scriptures do indeed exhort us to be holy, as our Father which is in heaven is holy; and to that end exhort us to watch and pray, to crucify our flesh with its affections and lufts, to mortify our members which are upon earth, and to place our affections upon things that are above; and to the like exercifes of religious duty. But they no where exhort us to attempt these in our own ftrength, or to expect a renewed nature by any performance of them within our power.-To attempt our fanctification merely by our own endeavours, were to prefs oil out of a flint. For in the Lord, fhall men fay, we have righteoufness and frength: His grace, and that only, is fufficient for us; and without him we can do nothing.-I have fhewn you, that all fupplies of grace are treasured up in Chrift for us; and that we are to receive them all out of his fulness. How then can we partake of them, whilft eftranged and difunited from him? Can a branch cut off from the vine bring forth fruit? No

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more can wè, except we abide in him, John xv. 4. Can the branches of an olive-tree flourish without the root? Surely we cannot bear the root: But the root muft bear us; and we muft therefore be grafted in, if we would partake of the root and fatness of the olive-tree, Rom. xi. 17.-Can we live and act when feparated from our life? Chrift is our life, Col. iii. 4. And until he quicken,us, tue are dead in trefpaffes and fins, Eph. ii. 1. In a word, our carnal minds are enmity to God, we are altogether as an unclean thing; and when love to God can be the produc'tion of enmity itself, and purity and holiness, of nothing but defilement and uncleannefs, then, but not till then, can we be holy without an union to Jefus Chrift. If therefore you would obtain that holiness, without which no man can fee the Lord, you muft, with active diligence, repair to him for it. You must by faith depend upon him, as the fountain of all grace. You must receive all from him, and give him the glory of all you receive.

Our communion with God does likewife wholly depend upon our union to Jefus Chrift.-I have already fhewn you, that all fanctifying grace is derived from our union to Jefus Chrift; and I think I need not use arguments to prove, that we cannot exercife grace before we have it. All quickening, comforting, ftrengthening grace, muft derive from the fame fource as converting and fanctifying grace does. Would you be humbled and abafed before God, you must learn of Chrift to be meek and lowly of heart, Matt. xi. 29.-Would you have your affections placed upon things above, you must remember, that you are dead, and that your life is hid with Chrift in God, Col. iii. 2, 3.-Would you have enlargement of foul, and cheerful hope in God's mersy, when you approach his prefence, Chrift in you is your hope of glory, Col. i. 27. In whom you may

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have boldness and accefs with confidence by the faith of him, Eph. iii. 12. And be accepted in the Beloved, Eph. i. 6. Would you enjoy the earneft of your future inheritance, it must be upon your believing in him that you are fealed with that holy Spirit of promife, which is the earnest of your inheritance, Eph, i. 13, 14.-Would you have joy and peace in elieving, you must rejoice in Chrift Jefus, without confidence in the flesh, Phil. iii. 3.-Would you have the communications of the divine love to your foul, it. must be from Chrift's loving you, and manifesting himself to you, John xiv. 22. To conclude, certain it is, that without union there can be no communion; and it therefore concerns you not only to confider, whether you are indeed united to Christ, and have access to God through faith in him, but alfo, whether your deadnefs, formality, and dif tractions in duty, which you so often complain of, are not owing to the want of a cheerful dependence upon Chrift as the head of influences; or elfe to your vain attempts to quicken your foul by fome endeavours of your own, without looking to him for the incomes of his Spirit and Grace.

I may add once more, our perfeverance in grace here, and our perfection of grace in glory, do neceffarily depend upon our union to Chrift.-As we are accepted in the Beloved, fo it is by Chrift's dwelling in our hearts by faith, that we are rooted and, grounded in love, Eph. iii. 17. We stand by faith in him, Rom. xi. 20. It is becaufe Chrift lives, that we live alfo, John xiv. 19. And if we do live, it is not ave, but Chrift liveth in us, Gal. i. 20.-We have no fource of fpiritual life, but in him; no ftability in the exercises of the fpiritual life, but by continual supplies of grace from him. It is because none can pluck us out of Christ's hand, that we shall bave eternal life, and never perish, John x. 28. Gg 2

Here,

Here, and here only is the believer's stability and fecurity, he belongs to Chrift, is a member of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. And will the bleffed Saviour neglect his own body? Will he leave any of his members to perifh? Is it in the power of hell or earth, of fin or Satan, to prevail again. him? Or can he, who is the fame yefter day, to-day, and for ever, change the purposes of love, and eternal kindness, towards those whom he has once loved, and united to himself? And are not all the promises of the believer's perfeverance, reas, and Amen in Chrift, with whom the believer is one myftical and spiritual perfon ?-Sooner fhall heaven and earth pafs away, than the blessed Redeemer thall forget or neglect the members of his body, and the objects of his love; they were eternally chosen in him, they are his by covenant, they are united to him by faith, their intereft is his, and he is gone, to take poffeffion of their inheritance, that where he is they may be alfo.-Thus are we kept by the power of God through faith unto falvation. But how could we stand one day or hour against the efforts of our own corruptions, the craft, malice, and power of Satan's temptations, and the fnares and entanglements of a wicked world, if we were not founded upon this Rock?

And now, Sir, you are to judge, whether there be not more than a doctrinal acquaintance with our union to Chrift neceflary for us, if we would either be justified in the fight of God, obtain that holiness, without which no man can see the Lord, live near to God, or hold the beginning of our confidence stedfaft to the end.

By what has been faid, you cannot but fee, that it fhould be your great inquiry, how this union may be obtained, if you have not the evidence of it, or

how