and well-being here, and as the means of obtaining pardon for fin and eternal life hereafter, may have in fome measure occafioned the great complaint against the mysteries of the Gofpel: for myfteries are not indeed the neceffary parts of religion, confidered only as a rule of action; but most neceffary they are to it, when confidered as a means of obtaining pardon and eternal glory. And this farther fhews, how unreasonably men object against the myfterious wisdom of the Gofpel, fince all that the Gospel prescribes to us as our duty is plain and evident; all that is myfterious is on God's part, and relates entirely to the furprising acts of divine wif dom and mercy in the redemption of the world. Confider the Gofpel then as a rule of action, no religion was ever fo plain, fo calculated upon the principles of reafon and nature; fo that natural religion itself had never more natural religion in it. If we confider the end propofed to us, and the means used to entitle us to the benefit of it, it grows myfterious, and foars above the reach of human reafon; for God has done more for us than reason could teach us to expect, or can now teach us to comprehend. Let us then do our part, which we plainly understand, and let us truft in God that he will do his; though it exceeds the ftrength of human wifdom to comprehend the length and depth and breadth of that wifdom and mercy, which God has manifefted to the world through his Son Chrift Jefus, our Lord.

DISCOURSE I.

PART IV.

As, with respect to the health of the body, there is one regimen proper to preferve and maintain a found conftitution, and another to assist and restore a broken and distempered one; the one cafe requiring little more than wholesome food and temperance, the other calling for all that the help and skill of the physician can furnish: so it is in religion. An innocent man has nothing more to do than to preserve his innocence, which is his title to the favour of God; and therefore his religion is only a rule of life, directing him in all things how to preserve his integrity, and walk uprightly with his God. This is the first and the natural notion of religion; because the firft and natural ftate of mankind was a state of innocence, and required no other religion than this. Here indeed there is no room for any thing mysterious, this religion being founded merely in the natural notions of justice and equity, and the neceffary difference between good and evil: nor is it at all to be wondered at, that, whilst men confider religion under this fingle view, and imagine that whatever is to be done for their falvation is to be done by themselves, and that religion is only the

rule directing them how to do it, they fhould fee no use of mysteries, nor, confequently, any reafon to admit them.

But, upon fuppofition of men's becoming finners, and liable to the displeasure and wrath of God, religion itself becomes a new thing. Innocence, which once was all the care religion had, is now vanished, and with it all our hopes of glory and immortality. The natural attributes of God, which to the eyes of innocence afforded a pleasant profpect, to the eyes of finners are exceeding dreadful. What then fhall the finner do? Shall he feek to natural religion in this distress? But, if this religion be nothing but a rule of living well, what is that to him, who has already lived fo ill as to be obnoxious to condemnation? As well may you fend the condemned malefactor to ftudy the law by which he dies, in order to fave his life, as the finner to the perfect rule of life, which he has tranfgreffed, in order to fave his foul. The more he ftudies the rule by which he should have lived, and compares it with his own tranfgreffions, he will but the more fully comprehend how much he deferves punishment, and how defperate the state is to which his fin has reduced him. In a religion, which is barely a rule of life, there is no fure comfort or fupport to be had against the terrors of guilt and fin.

Unbelievers may think we ask too much of them to be granted, when we argue upon this fuppofition, that all are finners, and are fallen fhort of the glory of God. But, as this is the fuppofition upon which the Gospel uniformly proceeds, pretending to no more than to provide means of falvation for finners, who

ever takes upon himself to question the reasonablenefs of the Gospel, muft confider it as being what it pretends to be; otherwife he will not argue against the Gofpel, but against something else formed in his own imagination. If, upon examination of the Gospel, it appears to be indeed, what it pretends to be, a means for saving finners, you must neceffarily come to one or other of the following refolutions if you are confcious to yourself that you are a finner, you must gladly receive the remedy provided for you, and which upon examination you find to be proper for your cafe; or, if you are fatisfied with yourself, and want no help, you must reject it as unneceffary and improper in your cafe, and truft entirely to your own merit; and must appear before God, and demand life and immortality as due from his justice and equity, which you will not accept as a gift from his grace and mercy.

Let us then confider what is neceffary to be done for a finner, in order to restore him to eternal life; and that will teach us the true notion of that religion mentioned in the text, and which are the words of eternal life; and will enable us to judge what weight there is in the objection raised against fuch a religion from the additions which it makes to natural religion.

First then, it is neceffary, in order to reftore a finner to eternal life, that God be reconciled to him :

Secondly, that the finner be purged from the impurity contracted by fin:

Thirdly, that for the future he be enabled to obey the holy laws of God, without which his reconcile

ment to God would be fruitlefs and of no effect.

I think there needs but little to be faid to prove the neceffity of thefe conditions: if the finner's cafe be defperate, because God is provoked by his iniquity, and juftly angry at his offences; there can be no foundation for him to hope, till God be reconciled to him if finners are impure and odious in the fight of God, because of their fins; their impurity must be cleanfed, before he can again take pleafure in them, and delight to do them good: if the tranfgreffion of the laws of reason and nature, which are the laws of God, was that which loft him the favour of God; that he may not lose it again, after being reconciled to him, it is neceffary that he fin no more, or, if he does, that a remedy be provided to restore him.

Allowing then these conditions to be neceffary to the falvation of a finner, and likewise that religion must contain the words, or means, of eternal life; it neceffarily follows, that the finner's religion must contain the means by which he may be reconciled to God; the means by which he may be purified and cleansed from fin; and the means by which he may be enabled for the future to obey the will of God: for these are the neceffary means by which a finner must be faved; and therefore they must neceffarily be contained in the finner's religion. How imperfect a notion then have we of fuch a religion, when we confider it only as a rule of action! and how weakly must we argue against it, when our arguments are pointed only against this notion or idea of it!