freed from the law, fuppofeth, its condemning sentence, because of fin; and a deliverance from that fentence, by a reformation of life.

The fatal mistake seems to have its fource in an imagination, that a man may serve, at once, two oppofite mafters; that a love of truth, may confift with a love of falsehood; a love of right, with a love of wrong; a reasonable and righteous, with an unreasonable and unrighteous behaviour; a mortification of luft, with the life and vigor of it. These are palpable contradictions, imagined by the Doctor to be reconcileable in the best characters of mankind. but every whit as well, would light and darkness be made to dwell together: or life and death be reduced. to one confiftent, fimple, and uniform idea.

For, notwithstanding the prefent unavoidable mixture of infirmity, every virtuous character is free from vice; no luft gives him law, He obtains a fimplicity; and whenever he errs or mistakes, it is with an honest mind, that has a fupreme reverence of truth and God. Accordingly, St. John has told us, whosoever is born of God finneth not; for his feed remaineth in him, and he cannot fin, becaufe

F 4

caufe he is born of God. And he who dot. righteousness is righteous, even as he is right

eous.

St. James teaches likewife the integrity of the virtuous character, in that propofition, he who offends in one point, is guilty of all. q. d. fincerity admits of no referves in our obedience. And we might as well; plead for theft, as for fornication; and for murder, as for avarice. They all have among themselves, their refpects, their relations. and connexions; and are effentials of one and the fame fyftem of falsehood, or unrighteousness.

Befides, that peace of mind which is the result of truth and righteousness, and so effential to the conftitution of God's kingdom, will not admit of any fuch hoftile condition of the good man, that is fuppofed and contended for by this writer. It is a peace that paffes all understanding; and which garrifons the human heart; what renders it well fortified, amids the various onfetts of evil.The consciousness of fimplicity and a godly fincerity, is what establisheth the inward calm, and fupports the felf-approbation.

For

For want of difcerning the beauties and

excellencies of truth, in the uniformity or

agreement of its various directions; the not attending to the real nature of human happiness, as the result of an integrity and confiftency of character, has occafioned many to mistake in the ground of their final confidence and to judge of themselves, rather by the more reputable of their own rank and condition, than by the reafon and truth of things, the standard of nature, and the will of God.

And what fadly contributes to the prejudice, which more liberal minds often have to the profeffions of piety, has been, and yet is, the extremely abfurd characters, which are found deeply tinged and coloured with that profeffion. Some of them, perhaps, the moft grotefque of the whole family of mankind. Which greatly contribute to a confirmation of that opinion, and lead men to conclude a neceffary competition, or an alternate fway of the fceptre by the flesh and the fpirit. For if the feemingly pious and devotional are often found libidinous, or licentious in their indulgences; it will too haftily be imagined that

there

there are, in fact, no confiftent, regular and rational characters. But on the contrary, if fimplicity, if truth and rectitude are the divine ftandard of human excellence and perfection; it cannot be at all agreeable to a virtuous and good character, that the obfervance of and conformity to this standard be partial, defultory, and capricious.

Another refuge commonly taken by the gay, the airy and trifling spirit, is, the mercy of God, confidered as an arbitrary abfolver of guilt. Which opinion has no basis on truth, as it cannot poffibly confift with invariable rectitude. Penitence and perfonal purity must ever give the ground or reafon of pardoning mercy. The meetness for mercy, will always determine the divine rectitude in the remiffion of guilt, as to any fubject of favour. In the reason and nature of things, on which the Gofpel fupports, penitence only can remove the enmity. For penitence imports, a return to duty and obedience that is fincere and ingenuous, without any reserve. Since truth is one, all the branches of righteousness are in harmony. So that it is abfolutely impoffible that the fornicator can be deemed, by

the

the deity, a fubject of truth, any more than the fraudulent and oppreffive: or that the avaricious fpirit should be accounted a devotee of righteoufnefs, any more than the man is, who fcruples not to cut the throat of his neighbour, or affaffinate his character by detraction, and calumny. There is, we own, a difference in the impreffions which these distinct vices make on society; but they grow in the mind upon the very fame root of falsehood, and are equally incompatible with a virtuous and good character. The love of truth, else the love of falfehood will predominate. The wavering, mixed, variable difpofition, hovering between the formally virtuous and vicious, and alter nately partaking of both, is an inftance of deplorable vanity and delufion; and will, by no means range under the clafs of the wife and the righteous. Such wavering fpirits are, at the pleasure, and become the sport of every temptation; like the wave of the fea, driven of the wind and toffed. The unfteady and the luke-warm, are hateful characters; and always fo reprefented in the facred writings. See Jam. i. 6. Rev. iii. 15. Luke xiii. 24. among other places,

We