He must lay aside that holiness which is essential to his nature, and which is the brightness and glory of it: he must love that which he now hates, and be indifferent to that which he most affectionately loves, before he can open his arms to you, and smile upon your souls. And can you dare to hope for such an unaccountable, such an inconceivable revolution as this? No, Sirs, infinitely sooner would God change earth into hell, and bury you, and all of your character, under the ruins of this world, which you inhabit and pollute, than he would thus tarnish the beauties of heaven, and divest himself of the brightest glory of his own divinity. "God," says Arch-. bishop Tillotson, "has condescended to take our nature upon him, that he might make us capable of happiness; but if this will not do, he will not put off bis own nature to make us happy."

What then do you imagine? Do you think that God will prepare some separate apartments in heaven, furnished with a variety of sensual pleasures, for the entertainment of persons of your character?some apartments from whence the tokens of his presence shall be withdrawu, from whence the exercise of his worship shall be banished, from whence saints and angels shall retire to make way for those inhabitants, who, like you, have sinned themselves beyond a capacity of enjoying God, or of being fit companions for any of his most excellent creatures? This were to suppose the Christian religion false, and to contradict the light of natural reason too, which not only shews such a disposition of things

to be unworthy the Divine sanctity and majesty, but also shews that if there be a future state, it must be a state of misery to wicked men, in whose minds those vicious habits prevail, which are even now the beginnings of hell; which therefore they must carry along with them wherever they are, in proportion to the degree in which they are predominant.

Upon the whole then, you must evidently see that it is absolutely necessary that you, sinners, should be changed, if ever you expect to have any part or lot in the future happiness. And when do you expect that change should be wrought? Do you. expect it when death has done its dreadful office upon you, and your soul arrives at the invisible world? Is the air of it, if I may be allowed the expression, so refined that it will immediately purify, and transform every polluted sinner that comes into it? You cannot but know, that the whole tenor of Scripture for bids that presumptuous, destructive hope. It assures us that there is no work, nor device, nor knowl edge, nor wisdom in the grave (1); but that we must be judged according to what we have done in the body, and not according to what has past in any separate state, whether the actions we have done be good, or whether they be evil (2).

If ever therefore you are regenerate at all, it must be while you are here below, in this state of education and trial: and if you continue in your sins till death surprise you, your souls will be forever sealed up under an irreversible sentence, and by the decreeof God, and the constitution of things, will be excly. (2) 2 Cor. v. 10.

(1) Ecol. ix. 10.

ded from happiness, as by no means either entitled to it, or prepared for it. So evident is the truth of this assertion in the text, that except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.

And will you then sit down contentedly under such a conclusion as this, "I shall be excluded from this kingdom, as accursed and profane?" Alas, Sirs, the conclusion is big with unutterable terror and death; as I should now proceed to shew you at large if my time would allow : for I am next to represent the infinite importance of entering into that kingdom, and consequently of that entire change which has been proved to be necessary to that entrance. But I must reserve that to the next opportunity of this kind. In the mean time let me add, that I doubt not but there are many present, who have heard this description of the heavenly world with delight, and who are saying in their hearts, "This is my rest forever: here will I dwell, for I have desired it (1): This is the felicity to which my heart aspires with the most ardent breathing." Such may with the utmost reason regard it as a token for good, and may go on in a cheerful assurance, that the grace that has made them meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light (2), will at length conduct them to it, in perfect safety and everlasting triumph. Amen.

(1) Psal. cxxxii. 14.

(2) Col. i. 12.

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OF THE IMPORTANCE OF ENTERING INTO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.

JOHN 111. 3.

Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of GOD.

HOW impossible it is that an unregenerate sin`ner should see, i. e. enjoy the kingdom of God, or that future blessedness to which the gospel is intended to lead its professors, I have shewn you at large. I have appealed to the testimony of God's holy prophets, and apostles, in concurrence with that of his incarnate Son, to prove that persons of such a character are, by the inviolable constitution of that kingdom, excluded from it. And I have further in my last discourse, proved, that if they were actually admitted to it, they would be incapable of relishing its pleasures: that their vitiated palate would have a distaste to the choicest fruits of the Paradise of God; yea, that in these blissful regions thorns and briars would spring up in their paths, and make them wretched in the very seat of happiness.

I doubt not, but you are in your consciences generally convinced, that the truth of these things cannot be contested. You are inwardly persuaded that it is indeed so; and I fear many of you have also reason to apprehend, that you are of this unhappy number, who are hitherto strangers to regenerating grace. But how are your minds impressed with this appre

hension! Do I wrong you, Sirs, when I suspect that some of them are hardly impressed at all? Do I wrong you when I suspect there are those of you, who have spent the last week with very little reflection upon what you have heard? The cares and amusements of life have been pursued as before, and you have not taken one hour to enter into the thought with self-application, and seriously to consider, "I am one of those concerning whom eternal wisdom and truth has pronounced, that, if they continue such as at present they are, they shall not see the kingdom of God." You have not paused at all upon the awful thought; you have not offered one lively petition to God, to beg that you may be recovered from this unhappy state, and brought to a meetness for his kingdom, and a title to it. For your sakes therefore, and for the sakes of others in your state, having already explained, illustrated, and confirmed the proposition in my text, I proceed,

III. To represent to you the importance of the argument suggested here; or to shew you how much every unregenerate sinner ought to be alarmed to hear, that while he continues in his present state, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

And oh that while I endeavor to illustrate this, my words might enter into your minds as goads, and might fix there as nails fastened in a sure place! The substance of my argument is given forth by the one great shepherd (1); may the prosecution of it be blessed, as the means of reducing some wandering sheep into his fold.

(1) Eccles. xii. 11.