feech you, has God promised to reward your infincerity, with his faving mercy? and how vain are all pretences to ferve God fincerely, where there is not one grain of true holiness in the heart? whatever moral honesty men in a state of nature may boast of, 'tis all but fpiritual hypocrify in the fight of a heart-fearching God: and can bring none under the promise; which is made to faith unfeigned, the only fimplicity and godly fincerity, in the account of the gospel.

But I return to confider your objection more distinctly. The fcriptures (you tell me) promife, that he who feeks fball find.' But, Sir, do not the fcriptures also inform us, that many shall seek to enter in at the strait gate, and fhall not be able: that fome afk, and receive not, because they afk amifs: And that he who does not afk in faith, nothing wavering, must not think he shall receive any thing of the Lord? There is indeed a promife to him who feeks in faith and fincerity: but what claim can he have to that promife, who has neither true faith nor fincerity? Will mocking God, and flattering him with your lips, while your heart is eftranged from him, intitle you to the promife?

But you fay, All our divines tell us, that the most finful and unworthy may have accefs to God through * Chrift; and this is the purport of all my reafoning

with you. True, by faith in Christ they may: but God is a confuming fire to unbelievers. He that believeth not, is condemned already. What claim therefore can they have to the favour of God upon Christ's account, who have never received him by faith; and confequently have no intereft in him, nor in any of his faving bene. fits? Can they claim the benefits of the covenant of grace, who are themselves under the covenant of works, which curfes them, for their not continuing in all things written in the book of the law to do them? I entreat you, Sir, to confider this cafe; it is of vast importance to you. If you have not good evidence of an intereft in Chrift, how can you pretend to the privileges purchased with his precious blood? How can you pretend to accefs to God through him; and a claim to the bleffed influences of his holy Spirit? How can unbelievers have a claim

to the favour of God by Chrift, when he himself affures us, that the wrath of God abideth on them?

But Will not God have compaflion on his creatures, ' when they do what they can to ferve him? What anfwer would a prince make to a condemned rebel in his fhackles and dungeon, that should make this plea for pardon? Would the criminal's doing what he can to ferve his prince (which in his prefent ftate, is nothing at all to any good purpose) atone for his past rebellion? Or would this qualify him for his prince's favour, while he yet retains the fame enmity in his heart against him, and wont fo much as fubmit to his fovereign good pleas fure and meer mercy? The application is eafy. And it belongs to you, Sir, to confider seriously, whether a finner who is dead in trefpaffes and fins, who is in a state of rebellion against God, and therefore under the condemning fentence of the law, can any more atone for his fins, or make a reasonable plea for grace and pardon, than the traitor aforefaid? But were your reafoning ever fo juft, it would afford you no grounds of comfort. For there never was, nor ever fhall be any man, that can fairly make this plea in his own favour; and truly fay, he has done all he can, in the mortifying his lufts, and in his endeavours to ferve God. There will, after all his attempts, remain enough neglected, even of the external part of his duty, that was most in his own power, to condemn both his perfon and his fervices.

You complain, that the arguments in the book I fent you, don't give you fatisfaction.' Well, I have here added fome further evidence, to what was there offered; and would now call upon you to confider, whether all these things put together don't make it evident, that you lie at mercy, and convince you of those fcripture truths, that it is not in him that willeth, nor in him that runneth, but in God that fbeweth mercy. God giveth his faving grace only because it hath fo feemed good in his fight. Confider, whether you can atone for past fins by prefent duties, by duties that are fo polluted by the principle from which they flow; and which have fo much carnality, felfishness, hypocrify, and finful defects cleaving to them, that if the iniquity of your most holy things be imputed, it must greatly increafe the mo

ral diftance between God and you. Confider, whether while you are under the law, or covenant of works, you are capable not only to fulfil all its preceptive demands, and fo not further expose yourself to its curfes; but also to do fomething towards making fatisfaction to God's justice for what you have already done amifs, and to me. rit his favour. Or confider, whether you have any claim to God's acceptance of your perfon upon Chrift's account, without an interest in him, and whilst condemned already by his own mouth, and under the wrath of God for your unbelief. Confider whether you can have any promife of acceptance to plead, while you remain under the curfe, both of the law and gofpel. Confider, whether an omniscient and holy God can be either deluded or gratified with mere external fhews of religion, when he knows you have an heart in you that is far from him. Confider, whether you can ever make the cafe better, by all your endeavours to change your own heart, and to create yourself anew in Chrift Jefus, any more than you can produce a new world. Confider, whether you dare venture your eternity upon this iffue, that you fincerely do what you can to ferve God; and whether there be not such finful defects cleaving to your beft performances, as may juftly condemn both you and them. Confider again, whether if you should do all you can in the fervice of God, you would do any thing that would either fully come up to the terms of the covenant of grace; or bear the leaft proportion to that falvation which the Gofpel requires. Confider once more, whether the glorious God has not an abfolute right to difpofe of his own favours, just how, when, and where he pleafes; and whether he has not affured us, that he will bestow his everlasting mercy upon none but those who are really conformable to the terms of the covenant of grace.

Now, Sir, if you, while unregenerate, can neither make atonement for your paft fin and guilt, nor come up to the demands of the law of nature; if you can nei ther please God by your finful performances, nor im pofe upon him by your hypocritical fhews: if you run further in debt by the fin in your duties, inftead of pay. ing any thing of the old fcore: if you have no claim to

acceptance on Chrift's account, without a special intereft in him: nor any claim to the benefits of the covenant of grace, till you actually comply with the terms of it: if both law and Gospel condemn you in your present ftate: and nothing but omnipotence can change your heart, and make your ftate better: if God be a fovereign donor of his own favours; and you can have no promise to plead, while you remain under the curfe and wrath of God, and a stranger to the covenants of promife; if even you yourself muft allow all these things to be undoubted truths, it must then be true, even to demonstration, that (while in such a state) you are capable of no qualifying condition of the divine favour; and had need therefore to feel that you lie at mercy.

To conclude this head, if God himself may be believed on in the cafe, he will have mercy upon whom he twill have mercy; and whom he will, he hardneth, Rom. ix. 18. 'Tis not for our fakes, that he bestows grace upon us, but for his boly name's fake, Ezek. xxxvi. 22, 31. He predeftinates us unto the adoption of children by Jefus Chrift to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praife of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved, Eph. i. 5, 6. He acts in this cafe according to his own fovereign pleasure, as a potter that hath power over his clay, to make one vessel to honour, and another to difhonour; and we have no liberty to reply against God: it is infufferable arrogance for the thing formed to say to him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus ? Rom. ix. 20, 21. Sir, as you yourfelf claim a fovereignty in the dispensation of your fayours, furely you won't dare to deny a like fovereignty in the eternal God. Believe it, the glorious God is a fovereign benefactor; and he will be acknowledged as fuch, by all that ever partake of his faving mercy.

And now I am prepared to fhew you, that the confequence which you draw from this doctrine, is unjuft; and even directly contrary to the improvement you ought to make of it.

And the reafon I offer for this, is, that a realizing belief of the truth before us directly tends to bring moft glory to God; and most fafety, comfort, and happiness to yourself. It is eafy to conceive how it conduceth

H

moft to God's glory, for us to confider him as the foun tain and foundation of all grace and mercy; and to confider all the favours we enjoy or hope for, as flowing from the mere goodness of his nature; and not from any motive or inducement which we can poffibly lay before him. In this view of the cafe we do that honour to an infinite and eternal being, as to fuppose him a self exiftent, independent, and immutable fovereign: while, on the contrary, to imagine ourselves capable by any thing we can do, to change his purposes, engage his affections, or excite and move his compaffions towards us, is to conceive him to be altogether fuch an one as ourselves, liable to new impreffions from our complaints or perfuafions, mutable in his affections, and dependant upon our duties for the exercife of his grace. And I leave it to you to judge, which of these apprehenfions are moft worthy of that God, who is infinitely exalted above us; and is without any variation or Shadow of turning. I leave it likewife to you to judge, which principle is most likely to fubferve our beft interefts, that which does most honour, or that which does the most difhonour to God.

If we apply this to the prefent cafe, I afk, In which way can we find moft encouragement to feek or strive for mercy in which way have we the beft profpect of fuccefs? by entertaining falfe and dishonourable conceptions of the divine being, and denying to God the glory which is due to his name? or else by lying at the foot of a fovereign; and thereby afcribing to him the infinite perfections of his excellent nature? Though in this latter way, you can make no change in God, you will nevertheless have the evidence that he has made a change in you, and a comfortable profpect, that by bringing you to a fubmiffion to his fovereignty, he has a defign of fpecial favour to your foul.

If we fhould yet further continue our view of this cafe, it will appear, that a fubmiffion to the mere fovereign mercy of God is most conducive to your own comfort, fafety, and happiness. This confideration is a juft foundation of comfort and hope, in that it obviates the darkness and difcouragements, that would otherwise arife from a fenfe of your guilt and unworthinefs, and from your impotence and unavoidable infirmity and im