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tent and disobedient; * and the fervant, who SER M• knowing his Lord's will, does not prepare IV. himself to do it, will deferve to be beaten with many ftripes.

I may add, under this head, the gracious affistance which the gospel affords that men may be led to repentance. It is the glory of christianity to be the miniftration of the fpirit. Not only was the holy Ghost sent down from heaven to atteft it by miraculous gifts and operations at firft, but the divine comforter abides always with the followers of Christ, to inftruct them, to lead them in the way of truth, and incline them to the practice of their duty. Now as all their obedience is fummed up in repentance, from which confolation naturally arifes, and to the increase whereof it tends, the operations of the Holy Spirit may be faid to have this for their end. The prophet Zechariah foretelling the glory of the last days, or of the chriftian difpenfation when the most perfect model of religion should take place, and real piety and virtue fhould flourish, fays chap. xii. 10. It fhall come to pass faith the Lord, that I will pour on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerufalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplications,

*Luke xii. 47.

SERM.cations, and they shall look upon me whom they
VI. have pierced, and they shall mourn and be

in bitterness. The Holy Spirit then pour'd
out abundantly shall incline men to repent,
and from a sense of their former fins, to re-
nounce them with abhorrence, and do no
more wickedly. When fuch aids are offer'd
to us, and the Spirit of God ftrives, in order
to reclaim and reform us, it must be a high
aggravation of wickedness to refift him, and
by fuch hardness and * impenitence of heart
men treasure up to themselves wrath against
the day of wrath, and revelation of the
righteous judgment of God.
What more
cou'd have been done on God's part that he
has not done? he not only calls upon us by
the voice of reason and nature, which loudly
proclaims his glory and our duty, and exer-
cifes great patience and long fuffering to-
wards us; nay, he not only has appointed a
propitiation for our fins, and thereby given
us the most folemn and fatisfying affurances
of pardon, that by the hope of it we might
be animated to a dutiful return to him; but
he had fuch pity on our weakness, tho' it
was in a great measure criminal, and con-
tracted by our own fault, that he fends his
Holy

#Rom. ii. 5.

Holy Spirit to help our infirmities, to en-SER M. lighten our darkness, and to ftrengthen our IV. feeble and if after all we will repowers; main impenitent, and defeat the best means, and gracious efforts of mercy for our recovery, our ruin must be wholly charg'd on ourselves.

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And, laftly, the kingdom of heaven, or the gospel, has brought life and immortality to light, and fince we have entrance with boldnefs into the holiest of all by the blood of Jefus, by that new and living way, which he hath confecrated for us, through the veil, that is to fay, his flesh. The apoftle's inference is very juft, Heb. x. 22. Let us draw near with a true heart, in full affurance of faith, baving our hearts sprinkled from an evil confcience, and our bodies washed with pure waters; that is, let us come to God in the exercise of faith and unfeigned repentance, It is true, that reafon itself and natural religion carries no fmall light into futurity. When we confider the moral perfections of God, from which we infer that fome time or other he will make a diftinction between the good and the bad, which is not done in the external administration of providence here, for as Solomon obferves, Ecclef. ix. 2.

All

IV.

SERM. All things come alike to all, there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked, to the good, and to the clean, and to the unclean, to him that facrificeth, and to him that facrificeth not; as is the good, fo is the finner, and he that fweareth as he that feareth an cath; when, I fay, we confider this, we conclude very reasonably, that there will be a great difference made hereafter in the condition of men, by the appointment of their great, judge.

But, christianity gives us ftill a much clearer light into the other world. It represents a future judgment, and the awful important iffues of it in the most affecting manner; that Jefus Chrift, as the vifible judge, will fit on his throne, fummon the whole human race to appear before him, and diftribute to every one rewards and punifhments, according to what they have done in the body, whether it be good or evil. By this powerful confideration, God requires all men to repent: the hope of an abfolute and compleat justification, and the enjoyment of an eternal reft, and of fulness of joy in God's prefence, if they fulfil the terms of his covenant; if amending their evil ways and breaking off their fins, they

patiently

IV.

patiently continue in well doing, is the SERM. strongest inducement that can be propos'd to a reasonable nature. And, on the contrary, the fear of that judgment and fiery indignation wherewith God will confume his adverfaries, one would think fufficient to awaken the attention of the most obdurate finners, and dispose them to forfake their fins. Not that fuch fear is fufficient of itself to produce true repentance, but at least, it fhews the extreme folly of impenitency; and as it is generally the first thing that takes hold of very corrupt and harden'd hearts, it may excite fuch confideration as shall end in an ingenuous converfion to God.

I shall now make fome practical reflections on all that has been faid, and the firft, which I think a very important one, is, that we should take care to avoid refting in false appearances of repentance, and substituting any thing else in the room of that true repentance which the gospel does indispensably require. They are grofs errors of the Papists, and of a most dangerous tendency to place the power of forgiving fins in the hands of frail and fallible men, and annex that forgiveness to faftings, confeffions, penances, or any thing of a like nature,

These

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