tent and disobedient; * and the fervant, who SER M• knowing his Lord's will, does not prepare IV. bimself to do it, will deferve to be beaten with many ftripes.

I may add, under this head, the gracious affistance which the gospel affords that men may be led to repentance. It is the glory of christianity to be the miniftration of the fpirit. Not only was the holy Ghost sent down from heaven to atteft it by miraculous gifts and operations at firft, but the divine comforter abides always with the followers of Christ, to inftruct them, to lead them in the way of truth, and incline them to the practice of their duty. Now as all their obedience is fummed up in repentance, from which confolation naturally arifes, and to the increase whereof it tends, the operations of the Holy Spirit may be faid to have this for their end. The prophet Zechariah foretelling the glory of the last days, or of the christian dispensation when the moft perfect model of religion fhould take place, and real piety and virtue fhould flourish, fays chap. xii. 10. It shall come to pass faith the Lord, that I will pour on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerufalem, the fpirit of grace and of Supplications,

*Luke xii. 47.

SERM.cations, and they shall look upon me whom they VI. have pierced, and they shall mourn and be

in bitterness. The Holy Spirit then pour'd out abundantly shall incline men to repent, and from a sense of their former fins, to renounce them with abhorrence, and do no more wickedly. When fuch aids are offer'd to us, and the Spirit of God ftrives, in order to reclaim and reform us, it must be a high aggravation of wickedness to refift him, and by fuch hardness and impenitence of heart. men treasure up to themselves wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. What more cou'd have been done on God's part that he has not done? he not only calls upon us by the voice of reafon and nature, which loudly proclaims his glory and our duty, and exercifes great patience and long fuffering towards us; nay, he not only has appointed a propitiation for our fins, and thereby given us the most folemn and fatisfying affurances of pardon, that by the hope of it we might be animated to a dutiful return to him; but he had fuch pity on our weakness, tho' it was in a great measure criminal, and contracted by our own fault, that he fends his

* Rom. ii. 5.

Holy

Holy Spirit to help our infirmities, to en-SERM. lighten our darkness, and to strengthen our IV. feeble powers; and if after all we will remain impenitent, and defeat the best means, and gracious efforts of mercy for our recovery, our ruin muft be wholly charg'd on ourselves.

And, laftly, the kingdom of heaven, or the gofpel, has brought life and immortality to light, and fince we have entrance with boldnefs into the holiest of all by the blood of Jefus, by that new and living way, which he hath confecrated for us, through the veil, that is to fay, his flesh. The apostle's inference is very juft, Heb. x. 22. Let us draw near with a true heart, in full affurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conScience, and our bodies washed with pure: waters; that is, let us come to God in the exercise of faith and unfeigned repentance. It is true, that reafon itself and natural religion carries no fmall light into futurity. When we confider the moral perfections of God, from which we infer that fome time or other he will make a distinction between the good and the bad, which is not done in the external adminiftration of providence here, for as Solomon cbferves, Ecclef. ix. 2.

All

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SERM. All things come alike to all, there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked, to the good, and to the clean, and to the unclean, to him that facrificeth, and to him that facrificeth not; as is the good, fo is the finner, and he that fweareth as he that feareth an cath; when, I fay, we confider this, we conclude very reasonably, that there will be a great difference made hereafter in the condition of men, by the appointment of their great judge.

But, christianity gives us ftill a much clearer light into the other world. It repre fents a future judgment, and the awful important iffues of it in the most affecting manner; that Jefus Chrift, as the vifible judge, will fit on his throne, fummon the whole human race to appear before him, and distribute to every one rewards and punishments, according to what they have done in the body, whether it be good or evil. By this powerful confideration, God requires all men to repent: the hope of an abfolute and compleat juftification, and the enjoyment of an eternal reft, and of fulness of joy in God's prefence, if they fulfil the terms of his covenant; if amending their evil ways and breaking off their fins, they

patiently

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patiently continue in well doing, is the SERM. strongest inducement that can be propos'd to a reasonable nature. And, on the contrary, the fear of that judgment and fiery indignation wherewith God will confume his adverfaries, one would think sufficient to awaken the attention of the moft obdurate finners, and dispose them to forfake their fins. Not that fuch fear is fufficient of itself to produce true repentance, but at least, it fhews the extreme folly of impenitency; and as it is generally the first thing that takes hold of very corrupt and harden'd hearts, it may excite fuch confideration as shall end in an ingenuous converfion to God.

I fhall now make fome practical reflections on all that has been faid, and the first, which I think a very important one, is, that we should take care to avoid refting in falfe appearances of repentance, and substituting any thing else in the room of that true repentance which the gofpel does indifpenfably require. They are grofs errors of the Papifts, and of a moft dangerous tendency to place the power of forgiving fins in the hands of frail and fallible men, and annex that forgiveness to faftings, confeffions, penances, or any thing of a like nature.

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things