the meanness, guilt, and pollution of the sinner's heart, when he begins to work upon it; the opposition made by our proud carnal minds at the first; and the ingratitude, neglect, unteachableness, and perverseness with which he is still treated by us, even to the last; we shall scarcely, or not at all, less admire and adore the unwearied tender love of the divine Sanctifier, than that of the Redeemer; but shall most cordially join in that orthodox ascription of praise; 'Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.'" DISCOVERY OF THAT WORK-ENTHUSIASM PRECLUDED. "Things being thus planned in the counsels of God, and every needful preparation made, the gospel of salvation is preached to sinners; the suitableness, sufficiency, and tender love of the Saviour are represented to them, and the nature, excellency, and preciousness of the blessings he bestows laid open; and all is in Jehovah's name freely of fered to men in general, and to every one in particular, who is willing to accept of it, and apply to Jesus Christ in believing prayer for it. Hearing these things thus set forth, some, having their hearts touched by the influences of the Holy Spirit, feel a willingness before unknown, to return to God in this appointed way, and a desire, before unfelt, after the salvation they have heard of; accompanied by a conviction of its absolute necessity and infinite importance, and a pressing anxious fear of failing of it. These persons are generally ignorant of the origin of these new desires and apprehensions; seldom or never conceive themselves to be at this time regenerate;* and frequently are total strangers or enemies to the doctrine of regeneration: yet they are disposed, and in some measure encouraged by what they hear, to attempt approaching to God, through Christ, by prayer, and thus seeking the blessings of sal vation. "Such persons derive not their encouragement from any impression, or new revelation ir.forming them of God's everlasting love to them, that Christ died for them specially, and intends to save them; nor from confidently be * Or "renewed in the spirit of their minds." lieving, without evidence, that this is the case, and groundlessly ascribing this enthusiastical, presumptuous confidence to the Holy Ghost: (by which things Satan transformed into an angel of light, has done immense mischief to religion in this age:) but, in hearing the gospel preached, and reading the word of God, they are convinced, and do believe, that God loves sinners, that Christ died for sinners, that the gospel invites sinners, all sinners. 'All that will may come: the worst may come: therefore I, being now willing, however vile, may come; and coming aright (which I pray God that he would teach me to do,) I shall not be cast out; for him that cometh he will in no 3 wise cast out.' This is their language. Thus the old revelation is abundantly sufficient to encourage those who believe it to come to and trust in Christ, for all the blessings which he is exalted to bestow; without our giving countenance to any pretended new revelations, or inventing a new sort of faith, consisting in the belief of a proposition* not contained in scripture, to the deforming and disgracing of religion, and deluding the souls of men by enthusiasm and counterfeit experience." THE LAW MAGNIFIED BY THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. "IF God has ever shewn himself so determined to put honor on his law as we have seen, both in the destruction of fallen angels, and in the method which he has adopted of saving fallen men, will he lose sight of this his determination in the application of redemption? By no means. Still he will magnify the law and make it honorable...... 1. CONVICTION OF SIN BY THE LAW. "He has appointed the preaching of the law, in the strictness, extent, and spirituality of its demands, and in the severity of its sanction, and in the righteousness and excellency of both, as the general means of bringing sinners to see their guilt, and misery, and need of salvation.When the law of God is laid open and applied to the conscience, and it is proved, from the word of God, that it * Namely, that Christ died for me, A. B., in a special sense, so that he will certainly save me. requires a perfectly holy heart and life; supreme love to God, and equal love to man, influencing every imagination, intention, and affection of the soul, every word that is spoken, and every action that is done, to perfect conformity with the divine will; entire devotedness to God's service, and zeal for his glory, and for the universal benefit of all men, in the most disinterested manner, from the beginning to the end of life: when it is declared in God's name, and by his authority, that every failure of this obedience is sin, and that every sin is deserving of eternal death: that cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them; and that this curse shall be executed when even the merciful Jesus shall, as Judge of all, say to the wicked, Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: when further it is shewn, by a declaration of the divine perfections, and of our relations and obligations to God and to one another, that this law is holy, and just, and good; that the transgression of it is infinitely wrong and base, and the penalty righteously merited: then the proper means are used to bring sinners to see their lost condition, and to cry, What must I do to be saved? And, if the divine Spirit by his blessed influences accompany the word, then the sinner's understanding being enlightened, his judgment is convinced; his conscience, being stirred up to do its office, anticipates the judgment of God; and he is self-condemned. Inwardly consenting to the law that it is good, he sees by this light what he ought to be: comparing his former conduct, his present dispositions, his best days and best works, with this perfect rule, his own heart condemns him, and he becomes more and more sensible that, according to this divine rule of judgment, God will condemn him too. Thus by the law he becomes dead to the law;* renounces his dependence on and expectation from it; submits to God's righteousness; condemns himself; despairs of help from himself; and, as a poor bell-deserving, helpless rebel, casts himself, as his only possible remedy, on God's free and sovereign mercy. God be merciful to me, a sinner! is now the genuine language of his humbled heart; however moral and strict his former conduct may have been in the sight of man. * Gal. ii, 19 REPENTANCE. "Thus true repentance is begun in the heart, which increases continually in the experience of the sincere and thriving Christian. When he is enlightened by the Holy Ghost to a discovery of the loveliness and glory of God, and of his own obligations to him, he then perceives the reasonableness and excellency of the law: then he discerns, not only the danger he has incurred by transgressing it, to alarm his apprehensions, but especially the evil, the baseness, ingratitude, and odiousness of his conduct, to the humbling and breaking of his heart for sin. He hath perverted that which was right:* and his own character and conduct appear odious in his eyes: he abhors himself:† he loathes himself in his own sight for the abominations of his heart and life: his mouth is stopped: his excuses are silenced: his self-admiration is turned into self-abasement: his godly sorrow is excited: he is truly grieved and pained at heart for his sins-and not only or chiefly for the punishment which he fears: and this godly sorrow worketh repentance unto salvation not to be repented of. And, the more he sees of the glory of the divine character, and of the excellency of the divine law, in all his subsequent discoveries to the end of his days; though they serve to remove terror, and to inspire confidence and consolation; yet, so far from putting a stop to the flow of godly sorrow and repentance, increasing love and gratitude to God, produce an increasing sense of the hatefulness of sin, set the heart more against it, and fill the soul with more deep humiliation and remorse on account of it: and, the more a man grows in all other graces, the more natural do godly sorrow, self-abasement, and deep repentance become to him. So that, though true repentance does not, as some suppose, first spring from a view of Christ dying for us, in particular,§ but from a discovery of the glory of that God whom we have offended, of the goodness of that law which we have broken, and of the hatefulness of those sins which we have committed; yet the after discovery, by faith, of the glory of God in the gospel, if genuine, tends greatly to enlarge our repentance: and even the full assurance of hope, and the Job xxxiii, 27. utmost certainty that any true saint ever enjoyed that Christ died for him, and would certainly save him, would still more and more deepen repentance, and promote self-abasement.-And hereby true faith, in its first rise, in its after growth, and in its full maturity, is distinguished from that dead faith, which, by increasing confidence, destroys any appearances of repentance, with which in its feebler state it might, through fears of hell, be ac companied. 2. THE GLORY OF THE GOSPEL SHEWN BY THE LAW. "THE law thus seen in its glory (for the ministration of condemnation is glorious,)* shews the humble repenting sinner the real glory of the gospel.-The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness: and this for many reasons; but, eminently, because they see no need of it: and it must needs appear foolish to a rational creature, for any one to put himself to great trouble, loss, and suffering, to effect a purpose which might have been as well either effected without it, or not effected at all. But, except a man really see the glory and excellency of the law, both -in its precept and its penalty, he cannot possibly see any need there was for the incarnation, sufferings, and death of the Son of God, to put honor upon it in the sight of the whole universe, in order that God might honorably pardon, justify, and save those who had broken it. ....... The more extraordinary this transaction was, the more unaccountable and foolish must it appear in the eyes of him who sees not the excellency and goodness of the law. If The be consistent with himself, and understand his own sentiments, it must appear to him that the purpose of conferring such honor on the law had better never have been accomplished at all; and that the salvation of sinners might have been better effected another way; namely, by an act of sovereign mercy, without any satisfaction to justice." DELUSIVE EXPERIENCE. "THESE things I would state strongly, in order to shew that antinomianism borders much more nearly upon Socin 2 Cor. iü, 9. |