for our sins. It is plain, from the light of the gospel, that all, whose sins are forgiven, and who are finally saved, are forgiven and saved for the sake of Jesus Christ and from the same light it is plain, lastly, that whatever may be said of those who know not the gospel, or who lived before it, all those, to whom it has been properly proposed, are obliged to believe and obey it; or, in other words, are not saved but upon the terms of faith and repentance. And the proper direction, with regard to practice, arising from hence, is this, that with all humility and thankfulness we embrace this method of salvation, and endeavour to secure to ourselves the benefits of it, by complying with the terms on which it is offered. As faith is one of these, it becomes us to remember that a moral life, (as it is commonly called,) abstracted from duties purely or more properly evangelical, is not the thing we are to trust to. An open profession of the gospel, an avowed adherence to Jesus Christ, a firm belief of his satisfaction, and a federal reliance upon his merits, are surely some part of a Christian's duty, and carry in them the strongest obligations to all the rest. And whether men only pretend to morality, or whether they practise it, if they place their confidence in that, exclusive of the mediation and merits of Christ, they virtually reject the Christian covenant; they so far divest Jesus Christ of his character of Saviour; they place themselves in his stead, and they expect salvation upon terms on which God has nowhere promised it; nay, upon terms on which he has declared it shall never be given. At the same time let us, who hope to be saved by that name, which alone is appointed to save us, be careful to add to our faith virtue; and to

maintain all those good works which accompany salvation, though they cannot merit it. Mistakes have sometimes been committed on this hand, full of scandal and of danger; and weak men, too intent on magnifying what Christ has done for us, have overlooked, or even vilified that part which still remains to be done by ourselves. The just temper in this matter is, to consider Jesus Christ as at the head of a scheme designed to bring us to glory and happiness, by the means of repentance and faith, which he has died to render not needless, but effectual; and to the practice of which in their full extent, as including all future obedience, he has bound us by the strongest obligations, making them the very terms and conditions of our final acceptance and salvation. Wherefore, in the words of St. Peter, let us give diligence to make our calling and election sure: for if we do these things, we shall never fall: for so an entrance shall be ministered unto us abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To whom, &c.

b 2 Pet. i. 10, II.

SERMON V.

HEB. i. 1, 2, 3.

God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high.

THERE is nothing which can more effectually tend to promote in us the Christian life, than right notions, and a firm belief of the Christian doctrine: and no part of this doctrine is either more important in itself, or more likely to influence our practice, than that which more immediately concerns its divine Author, our blessed Saviour Jesus Christ. I would therefore engage your attention to a discourse upon the two natures united in his person, after I have just taken notice how naturally the words I have read will introduce it. The point, directly asserted in the text, is that of a divine revelation; that God was pleased, even from the beginning, to make a gradual discovery of his will, as the wants of his creatures, or the ends of his providence required; and that he had now finished and completed it by the mission of his Son. As it was the apostle's great design to shew the advantages of this last revelation above all that

went before it, he begins, and spends this first chapter with setting forth the preeminence and superior dignity of the revealer himself. And the terms he makes use of upon this occasion very fully contain in them the catholic faith with respect to the natures of Christ, as will appear whilst we distinctly treat of each. And indeed, an unprejudiced mind will hardly desire either more or better arguments for the received doctrine in those points, than what he may be supplied withal in the single passage before us.

I. Without any further introduction then, I am first to prove the true and proper divinity of Jesus Christ; not by arguments drawn from the scriptures at large, but by such only as are here suggested to us. They are four;

1st, His filiation or sonship:

2dly, His being styled the brightness of the glory, and the express image of the person of the Father: 3dly, His creation of all things: and,

4thly, His preservation, or upholding of them.

1. With regard to the first particular, it must be allowed, that angels, that Adam, and other men, are sometimes in scripture called sons of God; and yet we never think of ascribing any proper divinity to them, since the title is sufficiently accounted for by their creation or adoption. But in the case before us we must go further, because the same holy writings speak of one who is the Son of God in a far more transcendent and peculiar manner; of one, who is his well-beloved, his only, and his only-begotten Son. There are indeed several distinct grounds and reasons of this high appellation: he is the onlybegotten Son of God, as he was conceived by the

Holy Ghost, and born of the Virgin Mary; but neither this, nor the other reasons commonly enumerated by divines, which are all posterior to it, can supply us with the highest and primary notion of our Saviour's sonship. It is plain from scripture, that he had an existence antecedent to his incarnation. In what capacity then, and under what relation? Was he coordinate with the Father, equally underived and unoriginate? This will not be asserted. Was he then made, or created? Nor should this; because the scriptures declare, that all things were made by him, and that without him was not any thing made that was made: he therefore could not be made at all, unless his agency was concerned in his own creation, which is an absurdity that may be resolved into an express contradiction. If then he was neither made nor created, but subsisted with the Father before all time and all creation; and yet was not, like him, absolutely underived, self-existent, and of none; it must follow that he proceeded, in some ineffable and mysterious manner, from the Father; or, in the catholic language, that he was begotten of him. That passage indeed, in the Epistle to the Colossians, which we render the firstborn of every creature, if it should be translated, as some learned men contend, born, or begotten before all creation, will sufficiently prove our Saviour's divine and eternal sonship. And the context seems to determine it to this sense, as it there immediately follows, that all things were created by him; which is given as a proof of his an

& John i. 3.

b

• Πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως, cap. i. 15. See bishop Brown's Procedure, &c. p. 304. and Dr. Sherlock on the Trinity, p. 156. d Col. i. 16.