we efcape, if we neglect fo great a falvation, they that defpifed Mofes' law died without mercy," &c.

10. The time of flying will be gone within a little; no flying out of hell; none to come to you there to cry, "Turn ye to your ftrong holds," &c. "He that lives for ever and ever, has fworn, with his hand lifted up to heaven, that time fhall be no more," &c. "And therefore to-day, if ye will

hear his voice," &c.

11. Fly, or elfe you will lofe your foul for ever; "He that believeth not fhall be damned." And "what is a man profited, if he fhall gain the whole world, and lofe his own foul,"

&c.

Objec. 1. You bid us fly, but to what purpofe, you tell us we are dead in fins? Anfw. It is the glory of fovereign grace, to fhew wonders to the dead; fee what he did among the dry bones, Ezek. xxxvii. 3. &c. Can these dry bones live? Yea, if the Spirit of the Lord breathe upon them, God has bidden prophefy upon the dry bones, to cry to the dead, to arife and fly; and therefore we must do it. And if God would bid me fay to the mountains remove, to the rocks and trees and grafs piles, arife and live, I would do it, and I would believe that God would make it effectual.

"

Object. 2. You bid me fly, but alas, I want wings to fly, "O that I had wings like a dove, for then would I fly," &c. Anfw. If there be a will to fly, and a hearty defire to fly, thou got wings and if you want even that, feek wings from him that bids you fly, for he gives power to the faint, and then they mount up with wings as eagles, &c.

haft

(

Object. 3. I have a load of fin upon my back, I cannot get up.' Anfw. "Caft thy burden upon the Lord," and if you cannot fly, reft you with your load upon him; for as faith is a flying, fo it is a refting, &c.

Object. 4. Chrift is fo far away, that I will never reach him. Anfw. Do not fay fo, for he is near, Rom. x. S. &c. Objec. 5. When I attempt to fly, the devil and the world, and my own heart, pull me back again into the mire, and then I am juft where I was.' Anfw. From that moment that thou makeft an attempt to fly to Chrift, the devil, the world, and corruption, will be upon thee to harafs thee. But though they may do thee many an ill turn, yet they shall never pull thee out of Chrift, if once thou haft fled to him, no manfhall pluck them out of my hand, my Father who gave them me is greater than all (fays Christ), and none shall pluck them out of my Father's hand." Many a pluck the enemy gives at Chrift's doves, but they hall never pluck them away from him.

Quest

Queft. You bid me fly like a dove into Christ, and his windows; but will you give me your advice in order to it? Anfw. 1. Be much in viewing the holiness of the law, and of the Lawgiver, "for it is a schoolmafter to bring us to Chrift," &c. 2. Be much in viewing your danger while out of Chrift, condemned already, &c. 3. Be much in studying the gofpel, Chrift in his perfon, nature, and offices, the freedom of the covenant, and the fulness and suitableness of the gofpel remedy, &c. 4. Be perfuaded of the Lord's willingnefs to take you in to himself, at his windows, his bowels found towards finners, &c. 5. Cry for the wind of the Spirit to blow, that thereby you may be fet a-flight, for he testifies of Chrift, and joins the finner to him, &c. 6. Make a despe rate attempt to be at Chrift, through the window of prayer, and of faith in prayer; wrestle, cry, feek, and knock, for to fuch it fhall be opened, &c.

2dly, The fecond fort I would fpeak to are believers, who have fled like a cloud, and as doves to Chrift's windows.

1. Blets the Lord that gave you counfel, and did not allow you to fit ftill in a natural ftate, within the fea-mark of his wrath, but chafed you with his la terrors, and drew you in at his windows to himfelf. Sing his praife, faying, "Blefs the Lord, O my foul," &c. "He brought me up alfo out of an horrible pit," &c.

2. Have you fled to Chrift? Abide in him as in a lodging and dwelling-place: Juft as the man-flayer was to abide in the city of refuge, after he had fled to it, and was never to go out of it, until the death of the high prieft: and your High Priest never dies; and therefore you are never to be found out of your gofpel-refuge, &c.

3. Frequent the windows of his ordinances, both the more fecret and retired windows of prayer and meditation, reading, fafting, Chriftian conference; and these that are more folemn and public, fuch as word and facrament, when you can have accefs: For there it is that Chrift feeds his doves, and gives them interviews with himfelf; and when the public windows are fhut, or defiled, or haunted with foxes or birds of prey, that fright, fcatter, or tear the doves, be the more frequently reforting unto the n ore private or fecret windows, &c.

4. Have you fled to Chrift like doves to their windows, and taken up your reft in him: never look back to your old houfs and reforts, your lying refuges, nor look to the general mercy, &c. Never look to an empty profeflion, &c.; never take up again with the works of the law, &c.; bid all thefe adieu, never to come back to them again, &c.

5. When like the dove, you come to pick up any thing that

is neceffary for you upon earth, do not fit ftill upon the earth, but away again to your windows, and foar upward toward Chrift. Set your affections upon things above, where Chrift is at the right-hand of God," &c.

6. Invite others to your windows where you have been entertained, and do what you can to recommend Christ and his way and word and ordinances to them, "O taste and fee that the Lord is good," fays David, &c.

7. When the Lord has taken you from among the pots, and made you like the wings of a dove covered with the filver and yellow gold of his own Spirit and righteousness. O do not defile your feathers, do not tarnish and blacken your profeffion with the filth of fin. Do not lie down in the puddle with the men of this world: "Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. Let your light fo fhine before men, that they may fee your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven."

99

8. Let God's doves drink the pure and running water of the fanctuary, I mean, keep by the pure word, worship, and ordinances of his appointment, the river of divine truth, gofpel doctrine and worship, difpenfed in gofpel ordinances. Alas! the ftreams of thefe rivers do not make glad the city of God, at this day, through many corners of the land. Why, the waters are fouled with the feet of a fet of hirelings, intruders, and corrupt and lax minifters, that are forced in upon them; men that are unfkilful in the law, men that want the dove-like fpirit of Chrift, and therefore are incapable of feeding God's doves. Let God's doves be aware of them that foul the waters of the fanctuary, that corrupt the doctrine, difcipline, worship, and government, which we in thefe lands are fworn to maintain and preferve in their purity, Philip. i. I. "Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concifion," &c.

ACTION

ACTION SERMON.

CHRIST SET UP FROM EVERLASTING.

PROV. viii. 23.-I was fet up from everlasting, from the begin ning, or ever the earth was.

TH

HERE are fuch evident rays of the eternal and fupreme Deity of Chrift, as alfo of his perfonality and effential oneness with the Father, in this paffage, as looks the Arians and Socinians, thefe blafphemers of the Son of God, quite out of countenance, and obliges them, though with great abfurdity, to alledge, that what is fpoken of and by Chrift in this chapter, and particularly froin ver. 22. to ver. 31. is to be understood of wifdom as one of the attributes of the divine nature. But it is beyond controverfy, among all orthodox interpreters, that it is Chrift the fecond perfon of the glorious Trinity, under the notion of wisdom, that here fpeaks, as might be cleared from many perfonal properties, perfonal acts, and perfonal words, that are afcribed to him in this paffage of fcripture, which, for brevity's fake, I cannot infist upon at this time.

The penman of this book was Solomon, "But behold a greater than Solomon is here," even Chrift, "the wifdom of God, and the power of God, in whom all the treasures of wifdom and knowledge are hid." As Solomon had all his wifdom out of this treafure; fo being under the conduct of the Spirit of wifdom and revelation, is led, as a type, to fpeak in the perfon of his glorious anti-type, as his father David doth frequently in the book of the Pfalms, particularly in Pfal. xvi. and Pfal. xl. 1-22. Christ recommends his dictates in the word unto the children of men, and fhews what advantage will accrue to them by the ftudy of the fcriptures; agreeable unto what he fays, John v. 39. "Search the fcriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which teftify of me." From the 22d verfe unto the 31st, in order to engage our faith and truft in him, he eigantly de feribes the glory of his perfon, that fo we beholding as in a glafs, his glory, may be changed into his image. More par

ticularly,

ticularly, (1.) He fhews how, from all eternity, he lodged in his Father's arms and bofom, as his beloved Son, in whom he was, and is well pleafed, ver. 22. "The Lord poffeffed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old." (2.) He fpeaks of his eternal defignation unto the great work and fervice of our redemption," in the words of my text, I was fet up from everlafting, &c. Where we may notice,

1. The divine perfon, who is the fpeaker, in the pronoun, (1) I the eternal Son of God, the glorious Immanuel, the faithful and true Witnefs. I who am God co-equal with the Father; and who fat as a conflituent member of the council of peace, anent the great affair of man's redemption, and therefore cannot but be well acquainted with what was transacted there.

2. The refult of that eternal tranfaction declared with relation to himself, I was fet up, i. e. I was, by an act of the divine will, common to all the three perfons of the glorious Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghoft, elected, fet a-part, or fore-ordained to the great fervice of man's redemption. A word parallel unto this, and which cafts a light upon the text, you have, Pfal. ii. 7. "Where Chrift, fpeaking of himself, fays, "I will declare the decree: the Lord hath faid unto me, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee." This is called the Father's will, Pfal. xl. 7. 8. "Lo! I come, in the volume of the book, it is written of me, I delight to do thy will."

3. In the words we have the date of the divine council and decree, with relation to our Redeemer, or when he was fet up for that fervice. It bears date from the ancient years of eternity, I was fet up from everlasting, from the beginning, ere ever the earth was. Here are words that fwallow up all finite thought and confideration, it leads us back to an eternity past, and who could ever have told us what was acted in the divine mind and council from all eternity, but he only who is the Alpha, and the Omega, from everlafting to everlafting, God. He was fet up from everlasting, from the beginning, ere ever the So much for explaining the words.

earth was.

DOCT. "That as Chrift is the everlasting God; fo, from all eternity, he was fore-ordained and fet up for the great fervice of man's redemption. I was fet up from everlafting," &c.

To this purpofe is that of the apostle, 1 Pet. i. 20. "He was verily fore-ordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifeft in thefe laft times."

The