of denials, nay, of delays and demurs. "For if the word spoken "by angels was fted faft, and every tranfgreffion and difobedience "received a juft recompence of reward; how fhall we efcape if we neglect fo great a falvation?" Heb. ii. 2, 3. The question is put, but no answer made; How shall we efcape? The wildom of men and angels cannot tell how. To enforce this exhortation, I fhall present you with ten weighty confiderations upon the matter, which the Lord follow home, by the bleffing of his Spirit upon all your hearts.

1. Confider how invaluable a mercy it is that you are yet within the reach of offered grace. The mercies that ftand in offer before you this day, were never fet before the angels that fell; no mediator was ever appointed for them. O aftonifhing mercy! that thofe veffels of gold fhould be caft into everlasting fire, and fuch clay veffels as we are, thus put into a capacity of greater happiness than ever they fell from; nay, the mercy that ftands before you is not only denied to the angels that fell, but to the greatest part of your fellow-creatures of the fame rank and dignity with you: "He "fheweth his word to Jacob, his ftatutes and his judgments unto " Ifrael, he hath not dealt fo with any other nation, and as for his judgments they have not known them: Praife ye the Lord," Pfal. cxlvii. 19, 20. A mercy defervedly celebrated with a joyful Allelujah. What vaft tracts are there in the habitable world, where the name of Chrift is unknown! it is your fpecial mercy to be born in a land of bibles and minifters, where it is as difficult for you to avoid and fhun the light, as it is for others to behold and enjoy it.

2. Confider the nature, weight, and worth of the mercies which are this day freely offered you. Certainly they are mercies of the firft rank, the moft ponderous, precious, and neceffary among all the mercies of God. Chrift the firit-born of mercies, and in him pardon, peace, and eternal falvation are fet before you: it were aftonifhing to see a starving man refufing offered bread, or a condemned man a gracious pardon. Lord! what a compofition of floth and stupidity are we, that we should need so many entreaties to be happy.

3. Confider who it is that makes thefe gracious tenders of pardan, peace, and falvation, to you; even that God whom you have fo deeply wronged, whofe laws you have violated, whofe mercies you have fpurned, and whofe wrath you have jufly incenfed. His patience groans under the burden of your daily provocations; he lofes nothing if you be damned, and receives no benefit if you be faved; yet the firft motions of mercy and falvation to you freely arife out of his grace and good pleasure. God intreats you to be reconciled, 2 Cor. v. 20. The bleffed Lord Jefus, whofe blood

thy fins have fhed, now freely offers that blood for thy reconcilia tion, juftification, and falvation, if thou wilt but fincerely accept

him ere it be too late.

4. Reflect feriously upon your own vileness, to whom fuch gracious offers of peace and mercy are made. Thy fins have fet thee at as great a distance from the hopes and expectations of pardon, as any finner in the world. Confider man, what thou hast been, what thou haft done, and what vaft heaps of guilt thou haft contracted by a life of fin; and yet that unto thee pardon and peace fhould be offered in Chrift after fuch a life of rebellion, how aftonifhing is the mercy! the Lord is contented to pafs by all thy former rebellions, thy deep-dyed tranfgreffions, and to fign an act of oblivion for all that is paft, if now at last thy heart relent for fin, and thy will bow in obedience to the great commands and calls of the gofpel, Ifa. ly. 2, &c. and i. 18.

5. Confider how many offers of mercy you have already refused, and that every refusal is recorded against you: how long have you tried, and even tried the patience of God already, and that this may be the laft overture of grace that ever God will make to your fouls. Certainly there is an offer that will be the last offer, a striving of the Spirit which will be his laft ftriving; and after that no more offers without you, no more motions or ftrivings within you for everThe treaty is then ended, and your last neglect or rejection of Chrift recorded against the day of your account; and what if this should prove to be that last tender of grace which must conclude the treaty betwixt Chrift and you! What undone wretches muft you then be, with whom fo gracious a treaty breaks off upon fuch dreadful terms.

more.

6. Confider well the reasonable, mild, and gracious nature of the gofpel-terms, on which life and pardon are offered to you, Acts xx. 21. The gofpel requires nothing of you but repentance and faith. Can you think it hard when a prince pardons a rebel, to require him to fall upon his knees, and stretch forth a willing and thankful hand to receive his pardon? Your repentance and faith are much of the fame nature. Here is no legal fatisfaction required at your hands, no reparation of the injured law by your doings or fufferings, but a hearty forrow for fins committed, fincere purposes and endeavours after new obedience, and a hearty, thankful acceptation of Chrift your Saviour; and for your encouragement herein, his Spirit ftands ready to furnish you with powers and abilities; "Turn ye at my reproof; behold I will pour out my Spirit unto cc you, I will make known my words unto you," Prov. i. 23. And Ifa. xxvi. 12 "Lord, thou haft wrought all our works in " us."

7. Again. Confider how your way to Chrift, by repentance and faith,

is beaten before you, by thousands of finners for your encouragement. You are not the first that ever adventured your fouls in this path: multitudes are gone before you, and that under as much guilt, fear, and difcouragement as you that come after can pretend unto; and not a man among them repulfed or difcouraged: here they have found reft and peace to their weary fouls, Heb. iv. 3. Acts xiii. 39. Here the greatest of finners have been fet forth for an enfample to you that should afterwards believe on his name, 1 Tim. i. 16. You fee if you will not, others will joyfully accept the offers of Chrift; what difcouragements have you that they had not? Or what greater encouragements had they which God hath not given you this day? therefore they shall be your judges.

8. Confider the great hazard of these precious feafons you now enjoy. Opportunity is the golden fpot of time, but it is tempus labile, a very flippery and uncertain thing: great and manifold are the hazards and contingencies attending it. Your life is immediately uncertain, your breath continually going in your noftrils; and that which is every moment going, will be gone at laft. The gospel is as uncertain as your life; God hath made no fuch settlement of it, but that he may at pleasure remove it, and will certainly do so if we thus trifle under it; it is but a candlestick, though a golden one, Rev. ii. 5. and that you all know is a moveable thing; and not only your life, and the means of your eternal life, I mean the gofpel, are uncertain things; but even the motions and ftrivings of the Spirit with your fouls are as uncertain as either. "Work out "your own falvation with fear and trembling; for it is God that "worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure,' Phil. ii. 12, 13. That God now works with you is matter of great encouragement to your work: but that he works at his own plea fure, as a free arbitrary agent, who can ceafe when he pleases, and never give but one knock at your hearts more, should make you work with fear and trembling.

9. Think what a fearful aggravation it will be both of your fin and mifery, to perish in the fight and prefence of an offered remedy; to fink into hell betwixt the out-ftretched arms of a compaffionate Redeemer, that would have gathered you, but you would not.

Heathens, yea devils will upbraid you in hell for fuch unaccountable folly and defperate madness: heathens will fay, Alas, we had but the dim moon-light of nature, which did indeed difcover fin, but not Chrift the remedy. Ah, had your preachers and your bibles been fent among us, how gladly would we have embraced them! furely faith God to Ezekiel," had I fent thee to "them, they would have hearkened unto thee," Ezek. iii. 5, 6. Matth. xi. 21. The very devils will upbraid you; O if God had VOL. IV. E

fent a Mediator in our nature, we had never rejected him as you have done; but he took not on him the nature of angels.

10. Laftly, How clear as well as fure, will your condemnation be in the great day, against whom fuch a cloud of witnesses will appear! O how manifeft will the righteoufnefs of God be! men and angels fhall applaud the fentence, and your own confciences fhall acknowledge the equity of it. You that are chriftless now, will be Speechless then, Matth. xxii. 11. "Knowing therefore the terrors

of the Lord, we perfuade men," 2 Cor. v. 11. as one that trembles to think of being fummoned as a witness against any of your fouls. O that I might be your rejoicing, and you mine in the day of our Lord Jefus Chrift.

Η

SERMON II.

REV. iii. 20.

Behold [I] and at the door, &c.

AVING, in the former fermon, pondered Chrift's folemn

H preface to his carneft fuit; the next thing that comes un

der our confideration, is the perfon foliciting and pleading for admiffion into the hearts of finners, which is Chrift himself.

Behold [I] ftand. The only difficulty here is rightly to apprehend the manner of Chrift's prefence in gofpel-administrations; for it is manifeft the perfon of Chrift was at this time in heaven; his bodily prefence was removed from this lower world above fixty years before this epiftle was written to the Laodiceans. John's banishment into Patmos is by Eufebius, out of Irenæus and Clemens Alexandrinus, placed in the fourteenth year of the emperor Domitian, and under his fecond perfecution, which was about the ninety feventh year from the birth of Chrift.

Yet here he faith, Behold I ftand; not my meflengers and minifters only, but I by my fpiritual prefence among you, I your fovereign Lord and owner, who have all right and authority by creation and redemption to poffefs and dispose of your fouls: it is that ftands at the door and knocks, I by my Spirit, foliciting and moving by the miniftry of men. You fee none but men; but believe it, I am really and truly, though spiritually and invifibly, prefent in all thofe adminiftrations; all thofe knocks, motions, and folicitations, are truly mine, they are my acts, and I own them, and fo I would have you to conceive and apprehend them. Hence the fecond Note is this,

Doct. 2. That Jefus Chrift is truly prefent with men in his ordinances, and hath to do with them, and they with him; though he be not vifible to their carnal eyes.

Thus runs the promife: " Where two or three are gathered to"gether in my name, there am I in the midst of them," Mat. xviii 20. The middle place was the feat of the prefident in the Jewish affemblies, where he might equally hear and be heard of all. So will I be in the midst of the affemblies ofthe faithful, met together in my name and by my authority, to blefs, guide, and protect them Hence the church is called the place of his feet, Ifaiah xvi. 13. a manifeft allufion to the ark, called God's footstool, Pfal. xcix. 5. And agreeably hereunto, Chrift is faid to walk among the feven golden candlesticks, Rev. ii. 1. There are the fpiritual walks of Chrift, there his converfes and communion with men and this presence of Chrift was not the peculiar privilege of the first churches, but is common to all the churches of the faints to the end of the world, as appears by that glorious promife fo comfortably extended to the church from first to laft; "Lo, I am with you always to the "end of the world," Mat. xxii. ult. This promife is the ground and reafon of all our faith, and expectations of benefit from ordi nances; and the subjects of it are not here confidered perfonally but officially; to you, and all that fucceed you in the fame work and of fice; not to you only as extraordinary, but to all the fucceeding or dinary standing officers in my church. As for the apostles, neither their perfons nor extraordinary office was to continue long, but this promise was to continue to the end of the world.

Nor is this promife made absolutely, but conditionally; the connection of the promise with the command, enforces this qualified sense; as 2 Chron. xv. 2. "The Lord is with you, whilft you are "with him." Ignorant, idle,, unqualified perfons cannot claim the benefit of this gracious grant.

Once more, this promife is made to every hour and minute of time. I am with you, all the days, as it is in the Greek text; in dark and dangerous, as well as peaceable and encouraging days; and it is closed up with a folemn Amen, So be it, or, So it thall be. To open this point diftinctly, we are to confider that there is a three-fold prefence of Christ.

1. Corporeal.

2. Represented. 3. Spiritual. 1. There is a corporeal prefence of Chrift, which the church once enjoyed on earth, when he went in and out amongst his people, Acts i. 21. when their eyes faw him, and their hands handled him, 1 John i. 1. This prefence was a fingular confolation to the difciples, and therefore they were greatly dejected when it was to be removed from them. But after redemption