III. Without this thy religion is vain. All thy religious performances will be lost, for they can neither please God, nor save thy soul, which are the very ends of religion. Be thy services ever so specious, yet God hath no pleasure in them. Is not that man's case dreadful, whose sacrifices are as murder, and whose prayers are a breath of abomination? Many under convictions think they will begin to mend, and that a few prayers and alms will salve all; but, alas, while your hearts remain unsanctified, your duties will not pass. God threatens it, as the greatest of temporal judgments, that they should build and not inhabit, plant and not gather, and their labours should be eaten up by strangers. Is it so great a misery to lose. our common labours, to sow in vain, and build in vain? How much more to lose our pains in religion; to pray, and hear, and fast, in vain? This is an undoing and eternal loss. Be not deceived; if thou goest on in thy sinful state, though thou shouldst spread forth thine hands, God will hide his eyes; though thou make many prayers, he will not hear thee. If a servant do our work, but quite contrary to our order, he shall have rather stripes than praise. God's work must be done according to God's mind, or he will not be pleased; and this cannot be, except it be done with a holy heart.

IV. Without this thy hopes are in vain.

First, Thy hopes of comfort here are in vain. "Tis not only necessary to the safety, but comfort of your condition, that you be converted. Without this you shall not know peace. Without the fear of God, you cannot have the comfort of the Holy Ghost. If you have a false peace, continuing in your sins, 'tis not of God's speaking, and then you may guess the author. Sin is a real sickness, yea, the worst of sickness; it is a leprosy in the head, the plague in the heart: it is brokenness in the bones: it pierceth, it woundeth, it racketh, it tormenteth. A man may as well expect ease when his bones are out of joint, as true comfort while in his sins.

Sin doth naturally breed distempers and distur bances in the soul: What a continual tempest is there in a discontented mind! What an eating evil is inordinate care! What is passion, but a very fever in the mind? What is lust, but a fire in the bones? What is pride, but a deadly tympany? Or covetousness, but an insatiable and unsufferable thirst? Or malice and envy, but venom in the very heart? And how can that soul have true comfort that is under so many diseases? But converting grace cures, and so eases the mind; prepares the soul for a settled, standing, immortal peace: Great peace have they that love thy commandments, and nothing shall offend them.

Secondly, Thy hopes of salvation hereafter are in vain, yea, worse than in vain: they are most injurious to God, most pernicious to thyself: there is death, desperation, blasphemy, in the bowels of this hope. 1. There is death in it: thy confidence shall be rooted out of thy tabernacles, (God will up with it root and branch;) it shall bring them to the king of terrors. 2. There is desperation in it: where is the hope of the hypocrite, when God taketh away his soul? Then there is an end for ever of his hope. But the righteous hath hope in his death, Prov. xxiv. 32. When nature is dying, his hopes are living; when his body is languishing, his hopes are flourishing: his hope is a living hope, but the other a dying, yea, a damning, soul-undoing hope. For the eyes of the wicked shall fail, and their hope shall be as the giving up of the ghost. Wicked men are fixed in their carnal hope, and will not be beaten out of it; they hold it fast, they will not let it go: yea, but death will knock off their fingers; though we cannot undeceive them, death and judgment will; when death strikes his dart through thy liver, it will out thy soul and thy hopes together. 3. There is blasphemy in it. To hope we shall be saved, though continuing unconverted, it is to hope we shall prove God a liar. He hath told you, that whatever you be or do, nothing shall avail you to salvation unless you become new creatures, Gal. vi. 15.

To say God is merciful, and we hope will save us nevertheless, is in effect to say, We hope God will not do as he says.

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Why, but we hope in Jesus Christ, we put our whole trust in God; and therefore doubt not but we shall be saved."

Ans. 1. This is not to hope in Christ, but against Christ. To hope to see the kingdom of God, without being born again, to hope to find eternal life in the broad way, is to hope Christ will prove a false prophet. 'Tis David's plea, I hope in thy word; but this hope is against the word. Show me a word of Christ for thy hope, that he will save thee in thy profane neglect of his service, and I will never go to shake thy confidence.

2. God doth with abhorrence reject this hope. God will not endure to be made a prop to men in their sins: the Lord rejecteth those presumptuous sinners that went on still in their trespasses, and yet would stay themselves upon Israel's God, Isa. xlviii. 1, 2. as a man would shake off the briars that cleave to his garment.

"But would you have us despair."

Ans. You must despair of ever coming to heaven as you are, that is, while you remain unconverted. You must despair of ever seeing the face of God without holiness; but you must by no means despair of finding mercy upon your thorough repentance and conversion; neither may you despair of attaining to repentance and conversion in the use of God's means.

V. Without this all that God had done and suffered will be (as to you) in vain, John xiii. 8. Titus ii. 14. that is, it will no way avail you to salvation. Many urge this as sufficient ground for their hopes, that Christ died for sinners: but I must tell you, Christ never died to save impenitent and unconverted sinners (so continuing), 2 Tim. ii. 9. A great divine was. wont, in his private dealings with souls, to ask two questions; 1. What hath Christ done for you? 2. What hath Christ wrought in you? Without the ap

plication of the spirit in regeneration, we can have no saving interest in the benefits of redemption. I tell you from the Lord, Christ himself cannot save you if you go on in this state.

1. It were against his trust. The mediator is the servant of the Father, Isa. xlii. 1. shows his commission from him, and acts in his name. Now Christ would quite cross his Father's glory, his greatest trust, if he should save men in their sins, for this were to overturn all his counsels, and to offer violence to all his attributes.

First, To overturn all his counsels: of which this is the order, that men should be brought through sanctification to salvation. If thou canst repeal the law of God's immutable counsel, or corrupt him whom the Father hath sealed, to go directly against his commission, then, and not otherwise, mayest thou get to heaven in this condition. To hope that Christ will save thee while unconverted, is to hope that God will falsify his trust. Be assured, Christ will save none in a way contrary to his Father's will.

Secondly, To offer violence to all his attributes. 1. To his justice, for the righteousness of God's judgment lies in rendering to all according to their works. Now should men sow to the flesh, and yet of the spirit reap everlasting life, where were the glory of divine Justice, since it would be given to the wicked according to the work of the righteous? 2. To his holiness. If God should not only save sinners, but save them in their sins, his holiness would be exceedingly defaced. It would be offering extreme violence to the infinite purity of the divine nature, to have such to dwell with him. If holy David would not endure such in his house, no nor in his sight, Psal. ci. 3, 7. can we think God will? 3. To his veracity: for God hath declared from heaven, that if any shall say, he shall have peace, though he shall go on in the imagination of his heart, his wrath shall smoke against that man. That they (only) that confess and forsake their sins shall find mercy, Prov. xxviii. 13, That they that shall enter into his hill must be of clean

hands, and of a pure heart, Psal. xxiv. 3, 4. Where were God's truth, if notwithstanding all this he should bring men to salvation without conversion? O desperate sinner, that darest to hope that Christ will put the lie upon his Father, and nullify his word to save thee! 4. To his wisdom: for this were to throw away the choicest of mercies on them that would not value them, nor were any way suited to them. First, they would not value them: the unsanctified sinner puts but little price upon God's great salvation. Now would it stand with wisdom to force pardon and life upon those that would give no thanks for them?

Secondly, They are no way suited to them. The divine wisdom is seen in suiting things to each other, the means to the end, the quality of the gift to the capacity of the receiver. Now, if Christ should bring the unregenerated sinner to heaven, he could take no more felicity there than a beast, if you should bring him into a beautiful room to the society of learned men and a well furnished table; whereas the poor thing had much rather be grazing with his fellow-brutes. Alas, what would an unsanctified creature do in heaven? He could take no content there, because nothing suits him. The place doth not suit him, he would be quite out of his element, as a fish out of water. The company doth not suit him. What communion hath darkness with light? Corruption with perfection? The employment doth not suit him: the anthems of heaven fit not his mouth, suit not his ear. Canst thou charm thy beast with music? Or, wilt thou bring him to thy organ, and expect that he should keep time with the tuneful choir?

5. To his immutability, to his omnisciency or omnipotency; for this is enrolled in the decrees of the court above, that none but the pure in heart shall ever see God. This is laid up with him, and sealed among his treasures. Now, if Christ yet bring any to heaven unconverted, either he must get them in without his Father's knowledge, (and then where is his omnisciency?) Or