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By the promise to keep God's holy will and commandments, we are bound by vow to yield an univerTo keep fal obedience unto, and to keep as long as we live God's comour good refolutions; not to break, but to keep mandments.. the ten commandments of the moral law: for baptifm, and faith, and refolutions of obedience are nothing, unless they produce the real fruits of a virtuous and good life. The juft fhall live by faith: but, if any man draw back, my foul shall have no pleasure in him. The meaning of which is, not that men, in this frail and mortal state, can continue without fin; but that they muft prefs towards the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jefus; conftantly endeavouring to keep all God's commandments; under which are included all thofe particular precepts of the Old and New Teftament, which are reducible to one or other of those heads: for, as Jefus himself obferves, On these commandments hang all the law and the prophets. No one fin must reign in us; the only true religion is to do whatever God commands; and that, because he, from whom we have received all that we have, and to whom we owe all that we can do, commands it. All other fchemes open a door to confufion and licentioufnefs. We muft either follow God's will, and be determined by it; or we muft fet up our own headftrong felf-will in oppofition to his unerring wisdom. How much then do they derogate from the honour of God, who represent religion as an unprofitable and unpleafant talk! when it is plain to any man, that confiders things rightly, and is not under the prejudice of his lufts and paffions, that the great defign of religion is to make us happy here, as well as hereafter; that all its rules and precepts are moft admirably fuited to this end. There is nothing in religion, but what tends to make our lives eafy, chearful, and contented; nothing but what is fuitable to our natures, and agreeable to the dictates of right reafon; nothing but what will ennoble our minds, enlarge our understandings, and infpire us with a generous principle of univerfal love, and charity, and goodwill to mankind; in thort, the commands of God are not grievous, but his yoke is eafy, and his burthen light.

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rows.

Thus I have shewn you the nature of the vows in baptifm: and now I muft inform The obligayou, that except a tions of thefe chriftian, when arrived at years of understanding, fhall believe and do, as promised by his fureties in baptifm, he will certainly forfeit all the benefits thereof; which are the gracious promifes of pardon and forgiveness of fin upon our true repentance; the affiftance of God's bleffed fpirit, and the influences of his grace to enable us to work out our falvation; the benefit of Chrift's interceffion in heaven, where he is an advocate for us with the Father; a share in all those promises of care and protection made to the church; and an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, a crown of glory that fadeth not away. Because the benefits promised by God in baptism are that part of God's covenant with man, which we have no reason to hope we shall obtain, till we comply with our promises made to him in that facrament; which by God's help we are always able to do: for God can never be fuppofed to command or require more of us, than what he enables us to perform: and therefore, both in justice, and in regard of our own interest, we are bound to ftand to his covenant, which was made in our name by our godfathers and godmothers; because they promised no more than what is implied in the very nature of baptifm. All mankind are in the hands of God's unlimited goodness; yet his covenanted mercies are the peculiar lot and portion of christians, the members of Chrift's holy church, who honoured God by a due discharge of thofe things promised in baptifm; of which promises you have already been taught what that first vow obliges to renounce; namely, the devil and all his works, the pomps and vanities of this wicked world, and all the finful lufts of the flesh. And therefore let us now proceed to inquire what that faith is, to which we give our affent, when we profefs to believe all the arti cles of the chriftian faith; of all which articles we shall treat, after that I have laid down fome inftructions concerning divine revelation, and given some convincing reasons for its certainty.

SUNDAY

SUNDAY III.

I. Of divine revelation, and its difficulties, evidences, and excellency. II. Of faith in one GOD. III. The Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth. IV. Of GOD's providence, and of chance, fortune, neceffity, and fate. V. Of the Trinity or three Perfons in the Godhead, and why difficult to be believed. VI. Of faith in Jefus Chrift, our Lord; an objection against this faith answered. VII. The angel's meffage to the virgin Mary; and VIII. Of the incarnation and birth of

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Oncerning a divine revelation, the proofs are three : first, they may relate to the perfon infpi- of divine red; fecondly, to those that received the matter re- revelation. vealed from the perfons infpired; thirdly, to thofe that live remote from the age of the infpired perfons; as is the cafe of all chriftians fince the time of Chrift, and the apostles' his fucceffors. For, if the Almighty vouchfafeth to make a revelation, or manifeft and discover any truth or thing to a man, of which he was before ignorant; it is very reasonable to think, that he will fatisfy the perfon concerning the reality of it; for it cannot fignify any thing, or have any effect upon the man, unlefs he be fatisfied it is fuch. And

The affurance of a divine revelation, as to the perfon himfelf, is most probably wrought by the great evi- Its inward dence it carries of its divine original. In God's evidences., manifesting himself to the prophets, there was fuch a powerful reprefentation on the part of the meffenger of God's will, and that clearness of perception on the part of the perfon infpired, or to whom he was fent, as did abundantly make good those phrases of vifion and voice, by which it is defcribed in fcripture: And fometimes there was added some sign or fupernatural proof; as in the cafe of Gideon and Mofes +. By which examples you may perceive, why a good man has that certainty, which the deluded perfon wants; because a good man, when he is infpired, and reflects upon it, and di

• Judg. vi. 21, and vii. 13, to 15.

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ligently confiders the affurance, which he finds in his mind, can give a rational account of it to himfelf, which the deluded perfon cannot have; whofe pofitivenefs often arifes from pride and felf-conceit, which have no fmall influence; but more especially from a difordered imagination or fancy, which interrupts the operations of the mind; whereas a real infpiration will bear the teft of the prophet's reason, and the people's examination.

Again; the truth of such a revelation may be judged of, Its outward from the reasons why we ought to believe the perevidences. fons pretending to infpiration, whose known probity and approved integrity clear them from all fufpicion of imposture; and whofe prudence and understanding set them above being deceived: alfo from the extraordinary evidence and teftimony of miracles; the prediction of future events; and, above all, from the matter of the revelation; which, when it concerns mankind in general, must be worthy of God, as proceeding from him, and muft tend to the advantage, the fatisfaction, and happiness of mankind, to whom the revelation is made: for juftice, holiness, and goodness are as neceffary and as effential to our thoughts of God, as power; and, confequently, a revelation, that contradicts these attributes, cannot come from the Father of truth. And the neceffity and reasonableness of this evidence fhews it to be a proof of the highest nature: for it being fuch as every man, who is master of fenfe and reafon, can judge of; fo it is what every man ought to be determined by. For, as in all other things, which have been done at a great distance of time; fo the evidence neceffary to fatisfy us of the truth, and to oblige us to believe that revelation to be fent from God by divers perfons, and in divers manners, is the credible report of eye and ear witnesses concerning the miracles that have been wrought, and the predictions which have been foretold, to prove perfons infpired, conveyed down to us in fuch a manner, and with fuch evidence, as that we have no reafon to doubt of the truth of them; befides, the inward evidence of the chriftian revelation confirms the outward evidence that was given to it: for, -as it excels all other forms of religion, that ever appeared in

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the world; fo it is every way worthy of God, entirely beneficial to his creatures, and agreeable to the best reafon and fenfe of human nature.

The fcripture, though deep, is clear in every doctrine that tends to the glory of God, the good of manOf the difkind, and the benefit of our own fouls. So far ficulties in God has gone; and farther than this he needed feripture. not go, to answer the end of a revelation. Whatever things there are in it hard to be understood, which a moderate application cannot clear up, they may exercise the abilities of the curious, but are not neceffary to edify the bulk of mankind. Any man, who diligently and impartially fearches the fcriptures, comparing place with place, interpreting the darker paffages by the clearer, and attending to the fcope and defign of the author, may furnish himself with an intelligible, confiftent and determinate rule of faith and practice; may derive from thence hopes full of a bleffed immortality; and find there that beautiful affemblage of moral truths, clear and unmixed, which lie fcattered through the Its excellenwritings of all the philofophers, and are in them 9. blended with pernicious errors. Whereas other writers took things in too high a key, and were proud to foar above the level of common apprehenfions: the infpired writers ftoop to the loweft capacities, at the fame time that they enlighten the highest. Whatever precept is briefly and in general terms delivered in one place, is more clearly and diftinctly unfolded in another: And where there is the addition of any doctrine, which natural reafon could not difcover, it is fo far from contradicting the plain and evident sense of mankind, that upon confideration it appears highly useful to us in the state in which we now are. For the great fears and doubts of mankind, concerning the way of appeafing the offended justice of God, are removed, and the dishonour that was done to his justice and holiness fatisfied by the death of Chrift. Aman may look into his bible, and fee plainly there what will become of him, when the present scene is shifted, as to his most important, I had almost said, his only concern, a future state; who, if he were left to himself, the more he confidered the point on every fide, the more he would find himself bewil

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