the fiction of priests; the humiliation and death of Christ, the absurdity of ignorant ages; and all the learning of the christian world is foolishness. For the scriptures grant, if such a plan could have been obtained, it would certainly have been established. "If there could have been a law given which could have gi

ven life, verily righteousness should have been by the law, but "the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by "the faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe." Christians and believers, deists and infidels, hold perfectly opposite creeds; the former is true-therefore, the latter, with its contrivers, sink into perdition.

Yet there is a great sect of christians, which is no small har dle to the deists, who affirm that impenitents will be saved by the atonement. These believe in eternal justification, that they were selected and saved by an eternal decree. All terms and conditions are by them secluded from divine prescience, and their conversion consists of an impression on their minds of their eternal election; and this is the great source of their comfort, hope and joy. For perhaps no party of christians have more joy than the antinomians; and surely none, (delusion and error excepted) can have less reason for it. They rejoice upon fancy-the orthodox christian, on evidence. Many good people, their feelings, hopes, and wishes have run into this system, rather than their experiences and understanding. Hence an apology ought to be made for a thousand names, which have arrived at salvation, while their erroneous doctrine have been the means of plunging tens of thousands into eternal ruin. The plain doctrine of the gospel is, that an impenitent cannot be saved at all, in any way whatsoever; and that there can be no penitents, nor salvation for penitents, only on the system of grace and divine influences in the gospel. Now, if there can be salvation for penitents without an atonement, and salvation for impenitents by the atonement, both these schemes seem to set aside the system of divine revelation. I readily grant that the former does it openly and

compleatly, while the latter effects the same purpose, and ar rives at the same end, in a more covert and clandestine way.— Would we be penitents and christians according to the scriptures, we must relinquish both the deistic and antinomian system, and bow in faith to the simple revelation of God. That without repentance, and faith in the atonement, and a compleat change of heart, life and manners, there is no rational foundation to hope for felicity, according to the scriptures. "Except ye repent, ye "must perish; except he believe, all that is contained in being "damned, must be your fate." Hence repentance, faith, conversion, and holy living is universally inculcated upon us in the bible, as absolutely necessary to eternal life. All these argu. ments plainly show, that pardon for a penitent without an atone→ ment, and pardon for an impenitent by an atonement, are equally impossible for God, and in the nature of things. Hence, alf must repent, be converted and reduced to gospel holiness, that their sins may be blotted out. Thus true penitents, real con verts and holy livers, according to the gospel, can be heirs of eternal felicity. The whole gospel proceeds on this foundation, that without a perfect vindication of the divine perfections, and a full satisfaction to the divine law, to render all consistent and glorious, no possibility of salvation either for the penitent or im penitent. Can reason say that penitence can satisfy for offences against God, when the laws of all ages and nations have declared that it is no satisfaction for offences against men? Is man of greater dignity than his Maker; the laws of man of higher obligation than the laws of God? The traitor and the murderer, whatever his contrition, repentance, reformation, confession, and supplication for forgiveness may be, there is no mercy in the law or breast of a temporal judge-he must die. Yet the laws of heaven are easily superceded by the ignorant and foolish imaginations of silly and depraved man; and when he cannot resist the evidence of divine revelation, his blindness, madness, and corruption hurry him to an opposite and equally fatal extreme; that the mercy of God, in the atonement of Christ, is all and every

thing; and to believe this we are safe, without scripture, sense or reason, as one expresses it-without a regard to the law, or understanding the gospel, without repentance and without refor mation, only maintain a strong faith in eternal justification; believe Christ is yours, and you are Christ's, that you are good, and you are good. God forbid, that my charity should be sa contracted, as not to extend to many of the Antinomians. The errors of the head ought to be excused, where holiness of heart, and godliness of life, demonstrate a conformity to the precious gospel.

St. Paul, agreeably to his commission, goes to the Gentiles, to open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light, to preach to them repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ, opens to these learned, infidel Athenians, a new and strange philosophy, the doctrine of evangelical repentance. A doctrine of which, in all the extent of their reading and stu dy, they had never heard. Athens, at this time, was the college, or university of all the learning of the world. The Romans had only imbibed a few drops from this fountain. It was the grand seat of philosophy, literature, civil liberty, and theology. The Epicureans and Stoics, were the heads and leaders of two great sects. Each party had a multitude of followers. They heard a new teacher had come to their city, and his popularity had gain ed the attention of all parties. They rushed in crouds to hear this new philosopher; they cried in the way, some that he was a babler, and others that he was a setter forth of new Gods. A new God, among the Athenians, was then captivating-like a new religion among modern christians. When all the philosophers, senators, and crouds of ignorants, whom common fame had hurried round the Apostle, his great genius, by the Spirit of God, suggested a theme, which immediately commanded the attention of all orders. The theme had long been before them, and the explication of it had exceeded all the learning of their phifosophers. Perhaps they had evaded the investigation of it by a

variety of flourishes, excuses and apologies, as multitudes of the literati in modern times do, when they would avoid labour and study, and perhaps some impertinence.

In this situation, our learned Apostle, to the astonishment of all around him, assumes this wonderful theme. He was now in the grandest assembly in the universe, in the great court of Arecpagus, interrogated by the nobles of the nation, what was the meaning of his new doctrines, for he had brought strange things to their ears. Pause a moment, and behold the dignity, humility, meekness, and self-possession, and self-recollection of this great christian. He stood on an eminence on Mar's hill, and said, "Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things, ye are "too superstitions. I passed by and beheld your devotions, and "found an alter with this inscription, to the unknown God."This object of your ignorant wership, I am well acquainted with, and it is the business and happiness of my life to preach him to mankind. Therefore, he taught these pedantic Athenians, the character of this unknown God; how he was the creator and preserver of all things-had made all nations of one blood, and therefore, all ought to love, worship and serve him. By quotations from their own writers, of distinguishing vogue among them, he proves that men were the offspring of God. Hence he infers, that the "Godhead is not like gold, or silver, or stone graven by art 46 or man's device." And the application of his doctrine he makes in the words of our text: "The times of this ignorance God

winked at, but now commandeth all men every where to re"pent." It is not to be supposed by God's winking at the idolatry, superstition, and wickedness of the Athenians, that he did not notice their conduct as an evil and hateful thing, but only that his long suffering and patience had borne with their outrageous abominations, for which strict justice might have banished them to eternal misery. By his suffering with their iniquities, he illustrated his mercy and goodness, and his designs of salvation towards them. His winking at those times of ignorance, evi

dently meant his bearing with them, and so far overlooking their crimes, that an opportunity might be granted for the gospel to be preached among them, and that they should be called to repentance. Wherefore, the glorious God, who gives life and breath to all, suspends his wrath, and gives them space for repentance, enjoins it by all his divine authority upon all the children of men to repent, change their minds and ways, and return to his favor and service by faith in Christ, of whom he hath given assurance to all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. The phrase winked at, is not a very serious and religious expression in our times, yet it was once a very sober and pious one. Indulge me in the declaration of this fact, in favor of the translators of our bible, that they never allowed themselves in the use of any terms either fanciful or ridiculous. Living languages are always changing; therefore, by this mutation, many phrases in the bible ap pear to the ignorant and unlearned, some base, some low and mean, and a few wearing the appearance of levity and ridiculousFrom these incidents, modern infidels, unacquainted with the original languages, and more unread in, and unpardonably ignorant of their own tongue two hundred years back, have been pouring forth their foolish collections upon the present and infatuated age. Were it not from the ignorance of christians, carried away by these torrents of folly, they should have been dropt, and passed by, in their native gulf of infidelity, to which they belang.

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Repentance is a gospel doctrine, and to this the believers and friends of the christian revelation ought to attend. Repentance appears to be an essential article of this system; and if we wish for the salvation of the gospel, it must be of the highest consequence to us, to consider its nature, its exercises, evidences and effects. If we believe revelation, surely it is a cardinal doctrine therein.

There are three kinds of repentance often mentioned in the sacred oracles. A repentance ascribed to God; a repentance of