when our intereft is fo much concerned in obeying him who hath infinite power, and all fovereign right in his hand? But when God is a master to be served on fuch easy terms as the gospel fets forth; when he hath made us an offer of all that we can poffibly want, to come to the knowledge of truth, and be faved, there is no degree of madness in nature equal to that of a Chriftian who lives in the practice of any great and prefumptuous fin. Other forts of madness are ufually more pitied, perhaps because they are lefs common; but they are the loss of reafon only, this is of the will: they are involuntary, this is the effect of choice and deliberation.

Was ever, or can ever the love of God be fhewn to more advantage than in the gospel? Read there all the gracious calls, all the folemn exhortations to repentance. Chrift wept over the impenitent city of ferufalem, and God is represented throughout the New Testament as having bowels of compaffion, as taking pains to feek and fave a loft sheep; but thou, Christian finner, art unmoved with all these inftances of the divine goodness. God is grieved for thee, and art not thou for thy felf?

God

God declares, that he hath no pleasure in the death of the wicked; and is death to thee fo pleafant a thing, that thou art refolved to go on in the broad way that leadeth to deftruction? O! that we were wife, and confidered thefe things, now while time and opportunity, precious time and happy opportunity are kindly held out to us. But whatever we refolve upon, let us remember that Christianity which is all grace now, will be the aggravation of a finner in the great day of account; and that the gospel, which now offers falvation to all men, will then add weight to the fentence, and increase to the punishment of those who shall be found to have neglected fo great falvation

SERMON XI.

JOHN i. 17.

The law was given by Mofes, but grace and truth came by Jefus Chrift.

Na former difcourfe upon the words it

was fhewn, that the Evangelift intended to set forth to us the great benefits and advantages of Christianity above what either the law of nature or the law of Mofes had conveyed to mankind. The gospel which our blessed. Saviour brought was grace and truth, or the true grace, as the expreffion seems to fignify; such as was not only without a rival, but of fo fuperior a kind, that no other feems fo properly to bear the fame title and appellation; for it gave to men the most perfect and certain knowledge of all the parts of their duty. It afforded them the most powerful motives to incline their wills to a due discharge of it; dertook to fupply them with fuch a Р

VOL. I.

and it un

degree of

divine

divine help in the practice of it, as might make their own earneft endeavours fuccefsful: thefe three points have been already explained, and proved to you in a full, and, I hope, a fatisfactory manner.

But I am well aware that the adverfaries of Christianity are not without their objections to it in this view, as a grace or favour. They have prefumed to fay, that if it be a divine revelation, it is yet fo far from being the good news and the glad tidings, as it is declared to be in the fcriptures, that it is rather a yoke and a burden upon the minds of men, which are the reasonable and the nobleft part of their compofition.

But to every objection of this fort which has, or may be made against Christianity, as it is now among us reformed from the errors of Popery, a clear and fufficient anfwer may be given. I fhall content myself with fhewing you, how little force there is in their principal objections. And if this be effectually done, you will be fully able to fee, that, notwithstanding the oppofition of gainfayers, grace and truth is rightly faid to have come into the world by Fefus Chrift.

First, It hath been objected to the gospel of Jefus, that fo much stress is there laid upon faith; more, as they pretend, than upon a good life, though faith is not fo much in a man's power as a good life is.

Secondly, That eternal punishments are there threatened as the wages of fin; whereas they think, that there would be more of grace and of truth too, if these had been wholly left out of the Chriftian scheme.

Thirdly, That Christianity was not fo early revealed, and is now not fo univerfally known, as one would expect that a meffage should be, which profeffes to be a gracious one to all mankind.

Fourthly, That after all they do not fee what great fervice it hath in fact been of to the world; men's morals being commonly as bad now as before this new light of revelation was discovered to us.

To each of these objections I fhall endeavour to give a distinct and fatisfactory answer.

With regard to the first, we must acknowledge the objection to be in part true; to be fo far true, that faith is much insisted upon in the New Teftament. For our bleffed Savi