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PREFACE.

Coming to Christ as unto a living stone, disallowed | ners, as he did at the beginning; "Cursed is every indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious; Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.-1 Pet. ii. 4, 5.

WHATEVER disputes may have been raised concerning the nature of saving faith, it is allowed on all hands to be one of the most important Christian virtues, and essential to the character of a Christian.

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I am ready to profess, that in conformity with the great lights of the primitive church, of our own church, and all the protestant ones, at the reformation, and long after, I understand by it "a dependence upon the righteousness and death of Christ, as a full satisfaction to the justice of God for the sin of the world, in the breach of his law; and the sole ground of our acceptance to the reward of eternal life." And if any explanation of this point, now so very offensive to many, should be demanded, the following is humbly submitted to consideration.

Sin is the transgression of the law of the most high God which law, the moment it is broken, subjects us to its penalty. Of this the punishment of the first sin committed by the first man is a most memorable instance, and stands in the front of the Bible as a perpetual and most important lesson of instruction to mankind, in a point of which they would otherwise have been ignorant: and which, notwithstanding the solemn manner in which it is related, many are very apt to overlook. This fact ought to be particularly remarked, as designed to give us a clear insight into the nature of God, and the nature of sin; and as being the key to all the subsequent discoveries of Scripture. For if the sin of eating the forbidden fruit cannot be pardoned, though its punishment was so fatal in its consequences, and involved in them the whole race of Adam, it may fairly be presumed that sin must in all cases wear the same appearance in the eyes of an unchangeable God. "He is the same yesterday, to-day and for ever:" every sin therefore, as an act of disobedience and rebellion against him, must be the object of his displeasure at all times, and will for ever separate from him every soul of man, in whom it is found unpardoned.

one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them." On which, let it be observed, that as more than temporal death was necessarily implied in the threatening and curse to the Jews; because that was unavoidably the doom of all mankind, whether they obeyed or not; so it naturally suggests to us, that the first threatening, "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," was of the same extent with the second, and its meaning precisely determined by it. In this second sentence, then, there is no relaxation of the first; no contrary declaration concerning the case of offenders, nor the least intimation of any change in the will of God with respect to sin. Indeed it would be strange if there should be any; such a variation or inconsistency in the character of God as given by himself, would be an argument of much greater force against the truth of the Bible than any yet alleged. The fact then is certain: "The wages of sin is death," and always will be so while God continues the same. What he published and declared at the giving of his first universal covenant to all mankind, in the person, of Adam, he renewed and confirmed by the delivery of the law to Moses, which, as St. Paul observes, "was added, because of transgressions, (Gal. iii. 19,) that the desert of them might be known, and "That the offence might abound" (Rom. v. 20,) in its penalty and curse unto death, now once more solemnly awarded against every offender and every offence.

These two grand manifestations of the nature and will of God, of the odiousness and great evil of sin, and of the manner in which it is to be treated, are further exemplified in the judgments upon sinners recorded in Scripture. Very striking and awful indeed they are; and here we must rest the point for ever, unless we would take upon us, as too many with horrid presumption do, to estimate the guilt of sin from our own false notions of it; to prescribe a law to God, to divest him of his sovereignty, to cavil at his wisdom, and to dethrone his justice.

But let the reason of man, short as it is, be judge in the cause. The decree is gone out from the Almighty, and stands unrepealed in the revelation he has made of himself; "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the book of the law, to do them." Suppose now for a moment we are at liberty to call this decree in question, or to tamper with the threatening, by taking allowance for one sin. What is that sin? And if for one, why not for two or more: and where will you stop? If once you take the right of judging out of God's hands, there will be no end for pleading for transgression, no dread of it, no sense of good and evil, no submission to God's rule and authority, no obedience upon earth. The conclusion is evident; if all have sinned, all stand condemned by the sentence of a just God.

If you are unwilling to admit this account of the nature of sin, and of the nature of God, as being contrary to the idea you have framed of him, and derogatory as you suppose to his perfections, it is then incumbent on you to prove, in what age or period of the world, under what dispensation, or new discovery of the will of God, and in what part of Scripture you find it recorded, that God has revoked the decree against sin, and made a change in the law given to man at his creation, of life upon obedience, and death in case of transgression. The Scripture, on the contrary, in perfect harmony with itself, acquaints us, that at the second promulgation of the law, God The expediency of the remedial covenant of gosappeared in the same majesty and holiness, and pel grace, in which mercy and truth meet together, with the same denunciation of wrath against sin-righteousness and peace kiss each other, and God

* See the Confessions of Faith of all the Reformed Churches.

is both just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus, is here apparent: and the necessity of dependence upon the righteousness and death of

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Christ is demonstrated from the preceding account of God's unalterable justice, and of the guilt of sin being the same in all ages of the world. One thing is needful: we must be declared free from guilt, and invested with a righteousness which shall stand before the law of sinless perfection, and entitle us to the kingdom of heaven. And if we have it not in ourselves, where must we look for it, but as existing in the person of Jesus Christ. Dependence therefore upon that righteousness, as wrought out by him for believers, and appointed of God for sinners to trust in, is the precious faith of the gospel by which the soul is justified before God. As no other will reconcile the divine attributes, or answer the exigencies of mankind, concluded under sin, and always sinners; so nothing else must be the ground of our hope towards God.

Not works. Alas! We have none-None that will bear to be weighed in God's balance, or answer the demands of his justice. Look at what you think the best action of your life, or the most excellent grace of your soul; bring it to the touch-stone; examine it by the straight rule of the commandments, considered in their whole spiritual extent, and as reaching the heart and all its motions. In the matter or manner, principle or end, be assured you will find some grievous flaw, and condemnation instead of reward will be your desert. Let the judicious and pious Hooker be heard on this head. "If God (says he) should make us an offer thus large; search all the generations of men, since the fall of our first father Adam; find one man which hath done one action, which hath passed from him pure, without any stain or blemish at all; and for that one man's only action, neither man nor angel shall feel the torments prepared for both: do you think that this ransom to deliver men and angels could be found to be among the sons of men?"

Not sincerity. This has lately been adopted into our divinity, as if it were the gracious condition of the new covenant, in opposition to the law of perfect obedience. But it is no where mentioned as such in Scripture. So remarkable a variation, in a matter of the greatest importance, from other revelations which God had made of himself, and of the terms of our acceptance with him, had need be very distinctly and expressly pointed out; and yet, when the proofs of it are called for, none are produced. It is indeed altogether a claim of human invention, and as it acknowledges defect of obedience, and therefore an absolute forfeiture, it delivers us up to justice, so long as the law of strict conformity to every command of God stands in full force against us. And let the reader determme, after what has been said, whether that law was not designed to be the perpetual standard of the only obedience God will accept from man, or if not, how, or when it was abrogated.

Not faith and works, considered as co-operating to our justification, and both together making a claim of acceptance; for works, which are confessed to have the nature of sin, by those who call in the aid of faith to supply their imperfection, cannot be admitted to any share in our justification, and must be excluded from the idea of it, because the matter turns entirely upon another point, and the great difficulty is still to be removed. Justice must be satisfied, the law must be fulfilled; with all our duties sin is found mixed; and unless it could be supposed that the new covenant is a relaxation of every preceding one, in respect of God's judgment of sin; and that now in this last age of the world he has exhibited himself as acting under a dispensing power, and discharging sin of its guilt, our case is left desperate.

• Discourse on justification.

But this is a dangerous expedient, unwarranted by reason or Scripture; and we therefore believe, that "being justified by faith we have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord:" and that the whole of what will be accounted our deliverance from the curse of the law, is the righteousness of Christ satisfying the divine justice by his obedience unto death, and, to the praise of the glory of his grace, imputed to sinners for salvation. This is the anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast; our full security against all fears, our first and only justification."

The notion of a first and second justification is the offspring of pride opposing the truth of God. They who adopt it consider not the justice of God as still existing in all its rigor, and substitute instead of perfection what falls infinitely short of it. But the nature of God and the nature of sin remain always the same; consequently we are as much undone as ever, if gospel mercy extends no farther than to the first benefit of remission of sins, when we are admitted into the Christian covenant. Faith is not to be dropped after the beginning of conversion, as a thing of no further use. "The just shall live by faith;" its utility is to be experienced not once, but always; in every step of our progress, at the hour of death, and at the day of judgment; in hope, comfort, obedience here, and in heaven for ever.

It is not meant that faith has any such effect, or justifies merely as a work or righteousness of our own. No, it consists in the denial of the merit of all works, qualifications or habits as inherent in man; and the essence of it is an unfeigned humble submission to the righteousness of God, as accounted or given to us, and that not of debt but of grace. This may furnish an answer to those who ask, Why may not imperfect works justify as well as imperfect faith? taking it for granted that one can be no more perfect than the other. The reason is, that the indispensable condition of justification by works, is their perfection; consequently a claim founded on them must either be made good by an obedience entirely sinless, or the hope of salvation be wholly relinquished. Whereas faith, though it may be weak and imperfect, instead of exalting itself against the justice of God, and standing before him in the confidence of a lie, puts all from itself, and ascribes to God the whole glory of our salvation.

We shall close this little argument with observing, that faith is not understood, much less possessed, if it is not productive of more holiness, and more gracious affections, than could possibly be attained in any other way. The charge of vacating the law as a rule of life followed close upon the first preaching of salvation by faith, and a base suspicion of its being prejudicial to the interests of virtue, is hardly ever to be rooted out of the minds of men, till they experience the power of faith themselves. But this can have no weight with those who remember the authoritative decision of Christ himself in this point upon a remarkable occasion, in opposition to the secret conceit of a proud Pharisee: to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little." Luke vii. 2. It is acknowledged, it is strenuously maintained, that the heart of man is exceedingly depraved, and our affections corrupted to the very root: but you charge the nature of man with greater depravity than you are aware of, when you suppose the superabundant love of God, manifested in the plan of redemption, and especially in the wonderful manner of its accomplishment, can kindle no love, and excite no gratitude. On the contrary, it is the peculiar glory of gospel grace, to humble every believer in the dust, and to fill him with the most dreadful apprehensions of sin, in order to raise him from his dead state, and to csta

blish him in obedience from love to God, from holy | in almost every family. But it is evident that the admiration of his perfections, and from an earnest great thing is wanting in that celebrated treatise, desire to be partaker of his blessedness. And if towards obtaining the end for which it was written; the gospel is not effectual to this end in the Spirit's since Christ the Lawgiver will always speak in hands, therein displayed and secured to every sin- vain unless Christ the Saviour is first known.ner who really believes the gospel; if the love of Christian morality is produced and maintained by the Holy Trinity does not touch every string of our this principle, "We love God, because he first lovhearts, and put all the powers of our souls in mo- ed us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for tion to make some suitable returns to the ever- our sins:" all treatises therefore written to promote blessed God, our condition is indeed hopeless. We holiness of living must be deplorably defective, in may venture to affirm, that a zeal for works truly which the cross of Christ is not laid as the foundaChristian can be built on no other foundation; and tion, and constantly kept in view, and every duty that a desire to perfect holiness will never have a enforced as having relation to the Redeemer. This place in the heart of man, but under a sense of re- is the apostolical method of inculcating Christian deeming grace, and of the complete salvation that obedience; and all other obedience is pharisaical, it sets before us. a mere refined species of self-righteousness.

It is therefore greatly to be lamented, that neglect of this doctrine should be so much the character

It is proper to apprise the reader that he is in

graphs in the chapter on the difference between Sermons for several fine sentiments in the chapter true and false repentance; and to Mr. Maclaurin's On the foundation of faith. In a few other places also in the work, where a masterly argument, or a author was treating, occurred, he has taken the beautiful illustration of the subject on which the liberty of enriching his own work with it.

istic of our age; and that the gospel-motive to obe-debted to Mr. Dickinson's Letters for several paradience should not be more generally inculcated in a Christian country. In vain do we hope to revive the decayed spirit of religion, and establish a pure morality on any other than Scripture grounds. A spurious kind of it, outward, partial, founded chiefly on love of reputation, with little regard to God, nature itself can discern, and in some degree attain. Poor and low attainment! Yet this is what we are prone to substitute in the place of inward spiritual renovation, to which nature is altogether averse.But true holiness, which consists in profound selfabasement and subjection to the God and Father of our spirits in love of nature and will, in heavenly-mindedness, in ardent longings after purity of heart, is the genuine product of a lively faith; and I say again, no where to be found, till the everblessed name of Jesus, his grace and truth, his compassion, dying love, and all-perfect obedience, are the meditation, delight, and confidence of the soul.

In this view, and with these sentiments strong upon his mind, the author has endeavored in the following treatise to delineate The Complete Duty of Man. His book bears this title not from any arrogant conceit he holds of its worth, but from its comprehending the doctrines as well as the precepts of the gospel, from its placing things in their proper order and preparing the way to Christian practice by Christian faith, and to faith by conviction of sin. The attempt may appear to some unnecessary, as The Whole Duty of Man, so called, has long been in possession of general esteem, and is to be found

Nothing further is necessary to be added, but an earnest request, in which the author begs every reader would join with him to the Fountain of all good, that it would please Him to make the following sheets instrumental in giving to those who peruse them, such a manifestation of the glory of God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, as shall make sin and the world, with their bewitching charms, appear vain, despicable, odious-such a conviction of human ignorance, guilt, and depravity, as may infinitely endear the name of a Redeemer and Sanctifier, and create tender compassion and humbleness of mind one towards another-such a knowledge of the pardon and peace, the strength and power, the purity and holiness which ennoble and bless those who have scriptural faith in Christ, as may manifest the emptiness of deistical and formal religion, and excite an earnest desire to behold the meridian glory of CHRISTIANITY in the eternal world: where every creature breaks forth in fervent acknowledgment of infinite obligation, saying, WORTHY IS THE LAMB THAT WAS SLAIN TO RECEIVE POWER, AND RICHES, AND WISDOM, AND STRENGTH, AND HONOR, AND GLORY, AND BLESSING.

COMPLETE DUTY OF MAN.

SUNDAY I-CHAP. 1.

ON THE EXCELLENCY OF THE SOUL.

removed its abode. My soul by its presence gave to my body all its motion, life and beauty. The instant the one took its destined flight, the other began to turn into an offensive carcase, which must moulder into dust, and dust remain, till his voice, who is the RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE, unites it for ever to

Ir is evident that man is endued with an active
principle entirely distinct from his body. For whilst
his body is chained down, an unconscious mass of
matter, to a spot of earth, his soul can soar and ex-its former inmate."
patiate in contemplation; can reflect, and with va-
riety almost infinite, can compare the numberless
objects which present themselves before it. When
his body has attained maturity and perfect strength,
his soul arrives to a state of perfection, but goes on
increasing in wisdom and knowledge; and when
the body is feeble or sinks into decay, the soul is
often full of vigor; or feels grief and anguish all its

own.

To demonstrate the excellency of the soul, in its properties so singular and admirable, is of great importance because all that is comprehended under the word religion, respects the soul. And many precepts in the book of God must be resisted as unreasonable, or slighted as unnecessary, if the salvation of the soul is not considered as the greatest good man can attain; the ruin of it, the greatest evil he can suffer.

To prove the worth of the soul, I shall make my appeal to your own observations, and to the evidences of holy Scripture, entirely waiving all philosophical inquiries into its nature, and all abstract reasoning concerning it.*

Observation then upon what passes before your eyes powerfully proves the worth and excellency of the soul. For what is the case of thousands around you, if it has not already been your own? Are they not mourning over some tender parent, some affectionate friend, or near relation? One week, the dear deceased how much was he valued! What a sprightly entertaining companion, in the prime of life, perhaps of personal comeliness! The next, ah! sudden, biter, prodigious transformation! the desirable object is become a putrid mass: the desirable object is become insufferably loathsome, fit only for the grave! Do you ask, how it comes to pass, that what was lovely to admiration, only a week or a day before, should so soon be even hideous to look on? The answer loudly proclaims the dignity and excellency of the soul. For could the dead parent, friend, or relation, hold discourse with you on the subject, his answer would be to this effect: "Are you seized with afflicting surprise? Do you, with tears of tenderness, bewail the frightful change you see, in a form long so familiar and so pleasing to you? The cause is this-The immortal inhabitant, which for a few years lodged under this roof of flesh, hath

Let not this be thought to proceed from any ignorant contempt of philosophical inquiries, when confined to their proper sphere; since this is the determination of one of the greatest philosophers in whom our nation glories

"All our inquiries about the nature of the soul (says Lord Bacon) must be bound over at last to religion, for otherwise they still lie open to many er

rors.

For seeing the substance of the soul was not deduced from the mass of heaven and earth, but immediately from God, how can the knowledge of the reasonable soul be derived from philosophy? It must be drawn from the same inspiration from whence the substance thereof first flowed."-Advancement of Learning, Book iv. Chap. 3.

From this most striking difference, therefore, between a dear parent, friend, or relation, active, useful, lovely, and the cold pale piece of outcast earth, which he instantly becomes upon the departure of his soul; understand what dignity and worth must necessarily belong to the soul.

And if from this fact, daily passing before our eyes, you turn to the page written by inspiration of God, it is impossible to remain ignorant of the excellency of the soul.

What can be imagined more grand than the account of its creation? Look up to the heavens: immensely high, immeasurably wide as they are, God only spake, and instantly, with all their host, they had their being. The earth, the sea, the air, with all their millions of beasts, birds, and fishes, were formed instantaneously by the breath of his mouth. But, behold! before the human soul is formed, a council of the eternal Trinity is held.— God said, "Let us make man in our own image, after our own likeness. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him," Gen. i. 26, 27. He formed his soul in its moral faculties and powers, a sinless, immortal transcript of himself.

To deface this image, and ruin a creature which the love of God had so highly exalted, was an attempt equal, to the execrable malice Satan bore against God and against the favorite work of his hand. But no sooner did the devil, by his accursed subtlety, bring on the soul an injury, tending to its utter destruction, than the most high God, by the method used to recover it, declared a second time still more loudly the exceeding greatness of its worth. For take a just survey of the majesty of HIM, who only, of all in heaven, was able or suffi cient to restore the soul to the favor and fruition of God. Before him the depth of the unfathomable seas, the height of the loftiest mountains, the vast dimensions of the earth, and the immense circuit of the skies, are as the small dust of the balance. Before him, the vast multitudes which people the whole earth, with all their pomp, are less than nothing and vanity. This is He, behold him! This is he who takes upon himself a work impossible for angels to effect, the redemption of the soul. He undertakes to replace it in the favor of God-not by the word of his mouth, as in the day that he made the heavens and the earth; but by a contrivance infinitely costly

* The reader is desired, as he would not wish to dishonor and injure the Redeemer by mean and unworthy thoughts of him, to meditate deeply on the grand and divine things which are written of him. In the evangelical prophet Isaiah, you will find his majesty set forth in the most lofty and affecting manner, and by a variety of such glorious images as will more exalt your apprehensions of him than any train of abstract reasoning. In the xlth chapter, from whence the above description of his grandeur is taken, there is enough declared both of his grace and divinity to make him appear altogether glorious.

and painful; by a process of many steps, each of them mysterious to angels as well as to men. To redeem the soul, he lays aside his glory. He is born poor and mean. He lives afflicted, insulted, oppressed. In his death he is made a sin-offering and a curse, presenting to the Father a divine obedience, and a death fully satisfactory to his broken law. Pause then a while, and duly consider who the Redeemer is, and what he hath done. Then will you necessarily conclude, that whatever the world admires as excellent, and extols as most valuable, is unspeakably mean when put in the balance against the worth of the soul.

a person from the exalted station he is born to bear, and the possessions he shall one day call his own, how great must the worth of the soul be judged, which, unless ruined by its own incorrigible sinfulness, is to inherit the riches of eternity; to stand before the throne of Jehovah on a rank with angels; to drink of rivers of pleasures which are at his right hand for evermore.

It is, on the other hand, evidence equally strong, of the value of the soul, though, alas! of a very melancholy and distressing kind, with which the Scripture account of the extreme misery it must suffer if it perishes, furnishes us. If it is not counted worthy to be admitted, through the Saviour's mediation, into glory; O sad alternative! its doom, like the sentence pronounced on some offender of great dignity, whose distinction serves only to inflame his guilt, is full of horror. It is cut off from all communion with God; removed to an inconceivable

have him for the avenger of its crimes, in comparison of whose strength all created might is weaker than a new-born babe. That arm is to be stretched forth against it, which shoots the planets in their rounds, and taketh up the isles as a very little thing. The soul that perishes, is to suffer the punishment prepared for the devil and his angels; to suffer punishment, the very same in kind with that of the avowed enemy of the blessed God; whose business, whose only joy ever since his fall from heaven, hath been to defeat, if it were possible, all God's designs of grace; to undermine his kingdom, and tread his honor in the dust; who has already seduced souls without number, and who will go on in his course of treason and enmity against God, till the day of executing full vengeance on him is come. Though not in equal torment, yet in the same hell with this execrable being, is the soul that perishes to endure the wrath of God.

It is indeed a matter of the utmost difficulty, to believe that one in every perfection equal with the eternal Father should abase himself to the cross, and shed his blood on it to ransom the soul. Here reason with all its efforts is lost in the unfathomable depth of mystery; and if left to itself, would lead into perpetual cavil, if not to a flat denial of the re-distance; separated by an unpassable gulf. It must ality of the fact. The method used to prevent such a denial, which would be blasphemy against God and perdition to ourselves, still more forcibly adds evidence to the worth of the soul. For the same eternal Spirit which in the beginning brought light out of darkness, and order and beauty out of chaos, comes down from heaven to bear witness of Redemption. "He shall glorify me," saith the Redeemer, "for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you." John xvi. 14. In other words, it is his office so to display the glory of the person, righteousness, and salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ, that those truths, which are foolishness to the reason of the natural man, may be discerned in all their excellency. This eternal Spirit (called the Spirit of Truth, because the only effectual teacher of divine truth,) is continually present with the church of Christ, by his illumination to make known the things which are freely given us of God. Judge then, what must be the excellency of that immortal principle within you, which in its original birth is the offspring of the God of Glory, and impressed with his own image; then the purchase of the blood of his Son: and now the pupil of the Holy Ghost. When nobility stoops to the office of teaching, no one of less dignity than the heir of a kingdom must be the scholar. How great then must be the excellency of the soul, which has the Spirit of God for its appointed instructer and continual guide?

It will still further prove the worth of the soul, to consider that amazing elevation of glory to which it will be advanced, or that dire extremity of wo in which it will be plunged hereafter. Soon as the few years allotted for its education and trial here on earth expire, if grace and the offers of salvation have been duly accepted and improved, it will gain admission into the city of the living God; where shines an everlasting day; where every thing is removed for ever that might but tend to excite fear, or for a moment to impair the completeness of felicity. And whilst the soul possesses a magnificent habitation, eternal in the heavens, the company with which it will be associated, in excellency far surpasses all the glories of its place of abode. Man, by revolting from God, was banished from any commerce with the glorious spirits that people the invisible world. But when the designs of grace are accomplished in the soul, it becomes a partaker of all the invaluable privileges and dignities of the angels. It is clothed with a brightness of glory refulgent as the sun, it is raised to such degrees of excellency as exceed our highest reach of thought; every defect and blemish inherent in its present condition is done away, and its moral perfections surpass in splendor the outward beauty with which it is arrayed. Now, if we estimate the grandeur of

Whether you regard therefore the felicity or the ruin, which the soul of man in a few fleeting years must experience, you will find it hard to determine which of the two most forcibly bespeaks its gran

deur.

These evidences, obvious to every eye which reads the Scripture page, prove, in a manner not to be questioned, that the poorest beggar carries greater wealth in his own bosom, and possesses a higher dignity in his own person, than all the world can give him. The souf, that enables him to think and choose, surpasses in worth all that the eye ever saw or the fancy ever imagined. Before one such immortal being, all the magnificence of the natural world appears diminutive, because transitory. All these things wax old, as doth a garment, and all the works of nature shall be burnt up; but the years of the soul, its happiness or its wo, like the unchangeable God its creator, endure for ever.

From these evidences, you will perceive, that the schemes which engage the attention of eminent statesmen and mighty kings, nay, even the delivery of a nation from ruin and slavery, are trifles when set in competition with the salvation of a single soul. You will see the propriety of that astonishing assertion, that in heaven, the seat of glory, and among angels, whose thoughts can never stoop to any thing little, "There is joy over one sinner that repenteth." You will see why the Lord God Almighty is at so much pains (if the expression may be used) to awaken the children of men into a just concern for the salvation of their souls; why the warnings he gives them are so solemn, his calls so repeated and pressing, and his entreaties so affectionate. All these things follow as the just and natural conclusions from the matchless excellency of the soul.

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