man, however learned he may be, yet he knows not the things of the Spirit, feeing they are fpiritually dif cerned. Indeed, this was verified in the ancient Heathens, as well as many of our modern ones. With all their researches, they could not find out God; nay, they could not even find themselves,; they knew not themselves, nor did they know any way of reconciliation. True it is, they had fome dark notions in their different facrifices, and, very probable, even that they might pick out of the Scriptures, tho' much disguised; for it cannot be supposed that fuch a book as the Bible would He concealed from many of the prying philofophers: yet, after all, what lame accounts have we of our real disease, and likewife of the genuine cure? what knowledge have they of the Supreme Being, or of a judgment to come? The Resurrection was laughed at, as folly and weaknefs to suppose any fuch thing. Hence the philofophers heard St. Paul till he came to speak of the Refurrection, and then they mocked, and fome, as if they spoke in a taunting ftrain, cried, We will hear thee again of this mattèr. †. But now, light and immortality are brought to light by the Gofpel; our disease is probed, and the infallible cure is pointed out, and we are exhorted to lay hold on the fame. A future ftate is opened, and alfo how we may obtain a happy refurrection. The way of the Crofs is pointed out, and by what means we may endure the Crofs and defpife the fhame.

fhame. In a word, the Gofpel is like the fhining light, which fhineth more and more to the perfect day.

8. MAN is in much danger: if he is unconverted, he is in danger of being loft for ever, feeing that he dies in his fins, and, thus dying, where Chrift is he never can come. Nothing unholy can, in any wife, enter into the kingdom of God; therefore the wicked fhall be turned into hell, and all the people that forget God. If the man is converted, he is in danger of letting the things of God flip, + of making fhipwreck of faith and a good confcience ‡. And no wonder, seeing life hath fo many fnares attending the path of a Chriftian; fo many cares in life; fo many temptations from the infernal foe, to fay nothing of the grand adverfary within, an evil heart of unbelief, ready to depart from the living God.-Now the Gospel propofes the only fecurity, and which was prefigured under the law by the City of Refuge, to which the manflayer was to flee for protection, and where he was fafe. The language of the Gospel is, The name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous run therein and are fafe ¶. The Lord alfo is a refuge for the oppreffed, a refuge in the time of trouble **. This man is an bhiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempeft; as rivers of water in a dry place, and the shadow of a great rock in Does the enemy come in a flood?

a watery land +t.

The Spirit of God will lift up a standard against him ‡‡:

Does the law speak a dreadful language, pronouncing all accurfed who continue not in all things written in that facred volume? Chrift hath redeemed us from the curfe of the law. Does justice brandish a glittering fword, and the right hand of the Most High take hold on vengeance? + See Him who was wounded for thy tranfgreffions, and was bruifed for thy iniquities, seeing it pleafed the Lord to bruife him; he hath put him to grief; he hath made his foul an offering for fin, and for the tranfgreffion of my people was he fmitten ‡. The Lord in the day

Of his anger did lay

Your fins on the Lamb, and bore them away.

This bleffed Meffiah was cut off,

not for his own fins,

Now Chrift having

but for the fins of his people ||.
once fuffered for fins, the just for the unjust, those fins
can never be charged on the believing foul. No, they
are for ever done away-blotted out as a thick cloud,
never to condemn him any more. We have redemp •
tion in his blood, a full, and a free pardon; the hand-
writing is blotted out, taken out of the way, and
nailed to the Crofs. Here, in the bleffed, the heavenly
man, Christ, juftice and mercy are met together,
righteousness and peace have kiffed each other:

"For all was mercy, all was mild,
And wrath forfook the Throne-

When Chrift on the kind errand came,

And brought Salvation down."

This,

* Gal. iii. 13.

† Deut. xxxii. 40, 41.

Ifa. liii.

| Dan. xix. 26.

me;

This, this is thy fafety, my dear fellow traveller, whoever thou art, who haft fled for refuge to the hope set before thee, so that thou mayft cry, with pleasing rapture, O Lord, I will praise thee, hough thou wert angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comforteft therefore will we with joy draw water out of the wells of falvation *. Thus, trufting in the Lord, thou shalt never be confounded, but shalt be like Mount Zion, which standeth fast for ever. Abiding in Jefus, thou art eternally fafe, and with our Apostle mayst fay, I am perfuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, fhall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is Christ Jefus Thus, whatever a poor fellow-creature needs, to raise him from the ruins of his fall, to make him holy, to make him happy, to conduct him through the house of his pilgrimage, and to bear him through the dark vally of the fhadow of death, 'tis all found in the Gospel, and freely offered unto him; not only to conduct him through death, but to acquit him in the final judgment, and to enable him to ftand with the Lamb on Mount Zion for ever. Precious Gofpel, which points to a precious Chrift, and which is the power of God unto falvation! Bleffed is the people who know the joyful found, they fhall, O Lord, walk in the light of thy countenance ‡‡.

II.

*Ifa. xii. 1, 2, 3.

¶ Pf. cxxv. 1.

Rom. viii. 38, 39.

‡‡ lxxxix. 15.

II. HAVING fhewn what the Gofpel is, I now proceed to describe its progrefs,---that it must be preached. to all nations. If we confider Him whofe authority we have, it might be proof fufficient that he hath faid it; for not a jot or tittle of what he hath said shall, in in any wife, fall to the ground, but all fhall be fulfilled. But as he was pleased to prove his own affertions, and did appeal to the law and the teftimony for confirmation, he is, in that refpect, as well as in other things, a very good precedent for us to follow, and I fhall herein attend unto the Bible.

2. MENTION has already been made of the deftruction of Antichrift, the chaining of the Dragon, the ceafing of Wars and Tyranny, Violence and Oppreffion: now these are confiderable obstructions to the fpreading of the glad tidings of Salvation. The ferment and uproar which these occafion, engage the attention of mankind too much to liften to the heavenly trumpet of the Gofpel; for these are something like the great and strong wind, which rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind, an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake ; and after the earthquake, a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: then, after all these hurricanes, was the ftill fmall voice; and in that ftill fmall voice was the word of the Lord. Thus it is with all the violence and confufion which have been, and still are

*

* 1 Kings xix. II, 12.`

in