PREFACE,

BY THE

REV. THOMAS ADAM OF WINTRINGHAM.

As the following Sermons are excellently calculated to promote vital Christ'anity, by illustrating the means and necessity of a real inward change, or the recovery of man from his present state of gross insensibility under the fall, to a life of acquaintance and communion with God; it is hoped they will be well received by serious persons of all denominations: and, with the divine blessing, answer the Author's design, in rousing the stupid sinner, undeceiving the formalist, and animating men of good-will to higher attainments.

If the single point insisted on in the first Sermon, namely, the deep guilt of an apostate, independent will, was duly attended to, it might be a means of checking many of the careless, giddy tribe, in their mad career of selfishness, and sensual pleasure; and perhaps awaken some startling thoughts concerning natural corruption, in the breast of the more cool objector to revelation in general. A rational creature, made to be happy by knowing and loving God, and a steady conformity to his will, and yet turned from

nature.

him in the bent of its will and affections, and seeking after happiness in opposition to him, is a monster in Do but allow the fact, which is sufficiently confirmed by the experience of all ages, and the confession of the best men that ever lived, and we need look nowhere else than to this poisoned fountain of a selfish, corrupt will, for the vanity and wretchedness of our state. It may justly be questioned, whether there can possibly be two kinds of happiness in nature, and whether God can conceive or produce a happiness different from, and much less opposite to his own. If then the happiness of God springs from, and is one with the perfect rectitude of his will, and there can possibly be no happiness in any part of creation but according to his idea and standard of it, the necessary consequence of a rebellious departure from the sovereign will which made and governs the universe, must be perpetual error, and certain misery. And though God in mercy may instruct, admonish, bear with, and use all suitable methods to reclaim his perverted creatures from their foolish wanderings, and bring them back agair into the one sole road of order and happiness, yet he has not the power, if he could have the will, to make them happy out of it.

The disputer of this world thinks it too great a stoop of majesty, for God to become man, that he might accomplish the work of our redemption; and cries out, not with pious admiration, but in the selfsufficiency of his reason, What is man that thou shouldst so regard him? And the willing slaves of sin, as well as those who are engaged in a continual round of what is called innocent pleasure, or worldly

business, and who abandon themselves with full relish to the comforts of the animal life, without understanding and seeking after God, take refuge in mercy, and make it the first, if not the only article of their creed; meaning by that, a power or will in the Most High to dispense with truth and justice, in order to suit their case, and sneering at the horrid word, damnation. But the answer to both is, that the recovery of self-conscious intelligent beings, from a state of enmity and rebellion against their Maker, and their eternal happiness or misery, is no trifle with God, though it is with man.— That if help was wanted, it would be offered; and when it was, we might well suppose it would be in a way far exceeding our natural thoughts and apprehensions. That the greatness and mysteriousness of the deliverance, shows dreadfully the greatness of our danger, and the infinite malignity of that disposition in man which required it.-That it comes to us in the way of a cure; and as restoration of health to the soul. That our great spiritual disorder, terrible corruption, and absolute incapacity for happiness, is the aversion of our wills from God, and opposition to him in self;—and that if we reject our remedy, by refusing to return to an union of will with him, there is no such resource of mercy in his nature as we vainly dream of: we have the essence of misery in ourselves, and by our own obstinate choice of it, put an eternal bar to his goodness.

I suppose Christ has given us sufficient intimation of the state we are in, and carries us to the root of our distemper, when he teaches us to pray, "that God's will may be done in earth, as it is in

heaven;" and charges us to "deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him, whose meat and drink it was to do the will of him that sent him;" nay, tells us, that "whosoever he be that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be his disciple." Does not this seem a grievous, hard saying to thee? Art thou unwilling to cross thy desires, and give up all thy worldly views of profit or pleasure for the will of God? Deceive thyself no longer; trust not in an outward civility, nor any kind of life, whether in religion or in the world; thy sin is found out for thee. Thou mayest see in this glass wherein thou "comest short of the glory of God"-of glorifying God by a profound submission to his will, which is his glory in and from man;—and what is the true cause of every other sinful exorbitance in thee.

And therefore I cannot but think, that the Author has judiciously singled out this capital instance of man's corruption, an usurping will, broken off from God, to draw our thoughts as it were to a point, and strike conviction into the soul; as well as justly represented the guilt, and fatal consequences of it. If the charge is false, we have comparatively no sin: the love and practice of every virtue being implied in the contrary disposition. But if it is true, and we are not in subjection to the Father of spirits, adoring his nature and will, pleased with his commands, and resigned to his providences, the word of truth has but one call for us, 66 Repent, and be converted." Whatever we pretend, or however we may appear outwardly to men, so long as there is this root of a secret enmity against God in the heart, an alienated, self-pleasing, opposing will, we dishonour

him in the whole state of our lives, and the whole course of our beings; we can have no communion with him here, nor enjoyment of him hereafter.

The peculiar doctrines of the gospel are easily connected with, and follow close upon this discovery. Guilt incurred, punishment due, and infinite justice demanding it, what shall ward off the blow? Repentance, and return to God:-So unbelieving man says; making a merit of it; supposing that he has the power to repent and return, in and of himself; and that whenever he does, God must receive him to favour. But these are dangerous suppositions to trust to for eternity; and utterly insufficient to relieve the conscience, labouring under a sense of guilt, and looking out every way for some better ground of hope. I will venture to say, it is hardly possible for the convinced awakened soul to trust to them; and I fear those who do, have another secret suppo sition in reserve, which is, that sin is not of so deadly a nature, nor so odious to God, as it must be upon the Christian scheme. A real belief of the guilt and danger of it, will necessarily be attended with alarming apprehensions of the defectiveness of repentance, of its insufficiency, at the best, for satisfaction, and of our impotence to good in the future course of our lives. And this sense will dispose, if not force us to receive the much-wanted, friendly aid of revelation; and to form our conduct upon the notion of a SCRIPTURE GOD, instead of one of our own making. For notwithstanding the boasted perfection of human reason, and our conceited, arrogant pretences to supernatural knowledge, God will always be unknown, as to his counsels, ways, and