equal to this first act, are strong confirmations of it. Wisdom is another attribute of the Deity, which manifests itself clearly in the works of the Creation; yet doth it break forth with additional lustre in the work of Redemption. With what admiration do we look back on this glorious plan rising and encreasing in remotest ages, and brought to perfection! light and order rising from darkness and confusion in the moral system, as they had done bofore in the natural.

We are further instructed by the Christian Faith in the true condition of our situation here, and the laws of our nature and our duty are laid before us in the fullest and clearest manner; laws so equitable, that even the adversaries of revelation have ever acknowledged their excellence; laws so wisely framed, and so well adapted to our na ture, that when speculative men have undertaken to build their systems of morality, and have furnished them with riches borrowed liberally from the treasures of revelation, they have been apt to mistake the dictates of inspiration, for the deductions of their own reason.

But we are not only instructed in whatever concerns our duty or our happiness here: our understandings are led forth into a future state, all eternity is unveiled before us, and we see the great doctrines of life and immortality in the clearest light. The gospel hath laid open to our view those bright eternal fields, the prospect of which must otherwise have been for ever intercepted by clouds impenetrable to the human eye. The utmost labour of the human understanding,

where

where the most select geniuses of every enlight ened age united all their efforts, could do little towards this great discovery. They could do no more than the assistance of art hath enabled the eye to do in surveying the starry firmament. The ablest reason, in its utmost cultivation, could but just discern a glimmering light streaming through that dark expanse of night with which it was surrounded, from whence it might conjecture that there was a brighter world beyond. But this was a light too faint and dubious to be of any service to the vulgar sight, and which every passing cloud concealed even from the philosophic eye. The philosopher could exult in the pleasing theory of immortal happiness, but it generally failed even him when it was to be brought to the proof. Whereas the faith of a Christian is a fixed and a steady light, which never deserts him, but shines the brightest in the darkest seasons of dis

tress.

Of good works.

Regeneration being no other than the entire possession of the Soul by the principles and powers of christianity, whereby its evil dispositions are subdued, and it is gradually wrought into an holy and heavenly frame, we cannot but discern how naturally it must lead to the practice of good works. Virtuous action is indeed the grand aim of the whole Christian institution: it is the very end and design, as we are expressiy assured by St. Paul, of our new creation, for "we areGod's workmanship, saith the Apostle, created in Christ Jesus unto good works. Were

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Were it possible in surveying the Christian system not to perceive how directly it is calculated to answer this great end, we should want one of the noblest proofs which we now enjoy of the wisdom and goodness of Him who formed it. THE POWER OF MAKIng US GOOD is the greatest glory of the Christian dispensation; and they who would deny it this power, rob it of that jewel which shines the brightest in its heavenly crown and fix upon it a calumny greater than its enemies have ever been able to invent against it.

The design of Redemption was to restore man to that happiness which he had lost by sin. Tohave relieved his misery only without taking any measures to remove his guilt, would have been removing the effect and leaving the cause in its full force again to operate the same effect.

A

redemption undertaken on account of sin must certainly have been aimed against sin itself, otherwise the enemy would be left in full possession of his conquest. To suppose that the Redeemer came only to deliver us from the punishment of sin without delivering us from its power is to suppose that he came in fact to take away a discou ragement to sin, by removing its penalty. His mercy thus confined would hardly deserve the name of mercy: it would be mercy to sense on ly, whilst it was denied to our nobler, our spiritu al and intellectual part.

But these unworthy notions of Redemption will not stand a moment before the light of the gospel. The very first intimation of the great design shews us that our Saviour undertook to bruise

the

the serpent's head this is, not only to obviate some ill effects of his power, but to destroy his power itself. To make us happy, and yet to leave us under the dominion of sin, seems to be one of those contradictions which omnipotence itself cannot effect. At least we are assured that redemption is very far from any attempt thus to do violence to the nature of things, by connecting happiness with vice, which can only be the natural parent of misery. Redemption goes at once to the very source of all our sufferings, and applies its healing virtue to cure the soul of that disease from which all its misery springs, Re demption acts in perfect conformity with the first sacred establishments of Heaven and leads us to $ happiness by forming us to the practice of virtue, the only way to happiness that either revelation or experience have ever pointed out.

Every part of the christian dispensation is ma nifestly adapted to answer this great end, to train us up to the exercise of goodness, and to qualify us for virtuous action. For to what other end doth our holy faith inspire us with all its principles of virtue? why doth it, like Moses, striking a rock, open the fountain of divine love in our heart, and cause the love of man to spring from the love of our Redeemer; why doth it enlighten us with all its laws of heavenly good. ness; why point to the bright example of a Saviour walking before us in the path of active virtue; why doth it try to move us by all the power of those awful sanctions which belong to our holy religion? why still further, doth the holy spirit

join

join his influence to that of faith, and give new strength and vigour to our souls; why are we endowed with all these principles and powers of action, if yet the Christian Life is not a Life of action, and if all is to end only in some brisk emotion of the spirits and some inward agitation of the mind? When "the Man of God is thus adapted and thoroughly furnished unto all good works," how strange a doctrine is that which will yet adventure to say, that he is designed for no kind of work; and when all those principles and springs of action are in motion with in him, would at that instant fix him motionless, blast all his powers, and freeze him as it were into inaction! As well may we suppose that when the Creator fashioned this animated clay and breathed into it the breath of life; when he furnished it with limbs, with nerves, joints, muscles, and all its numberless instruments of motion, he never yet intended that the human body should move; as to suppose that this new workmanship of God, created, and in every respect furnished unto good works, was never intended for the practice of those works, for which it is expressly formed.

The gift of the power certainly implies and requires the use and right application of that power; and that indeed not only in the case of the finished and enlightened christian, but universally and in all cases, as far as the power and light for the direction of that power, have been communicated.

All