SERM. ~ or and fufficiently evidenced by the 2dly, HERE is a defcription given of generation feeketh after a Sign. ift. THE VI. ~ Ift, THE Doctrine of religion is in it- SE R M. felf reasonable to be believed, and sufficiently evidenced by the ftanding and univerfal Signs or Marks of Truth: "Tis Suppofed in the words, that what our Saviour here calls the Sign of the Prophet Jonas, was fufficient to render That generation of the Jews inexcufable in their Unbelief. Religion is in its Nature a Trial or Probation of men's Hearts; and is therefore effentially inconsistent with all compulfive Motives, with fuch Motives as deftroy the nature of a Trial or Probation. Deut. viii. 2, The Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the Wilderness,-----to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldeft keep his commandments or no. The Meaning is, not that God wants any information with regard to Himfelf: But he puts men in a probation-state, in order to their Own Benefit; that by virtuous Actions they may obtain an habitual Love of Virtue; and by labouring in the rational Search after Truth, and perfevering patiently in the Practice 1 3 VI. SER M. Practice of Right, they may be purified and made white and tried, Dan. xii. 10: For, as the Apoftle St James expreffes it, the Trying of our Faith worketh Patience, ch. i. 3. God could, if he pleased, even out of the ftones of the Street, raise up children unto Abraham; or irresistibly compel the moft obdurate Sinner to obey his Commandments. But This, is not dealing with Them as rational Agents; nor could fuch an Obedience be any more acceptable to Him, than the abfolute Subjection of the material World to his Omnipotent Will, gives irrational Beings any Title to the Efteem and Character of Moral Goodness or Virtue. Were God by his Almighty Power to overrule and prevent all Poffibility of Difobedience or Moral Evil, as fome men fancy it would be glorious for him to do; it would indeed have the contrary effect, and deprive him of the Glory of all his Moral Attributes. For tho' he would ftill continue to be a Mighty Creator and All-Powerful Lord, yet he could in no sense be a Moral Governour or Judge of the World, nor By IV. n nor have Any Exercise of his Moral Per- SER M• fections. All Religion or Virtue, confifts in the Love of Truth, and in the Free Choice and Practice of Right, and in being influenced regularly by rational and moral Motives. By These things therefore God tries or proves men's Obedience; and under various Circumstances, and by various Methods of manifefting himself to them, he exercifes their Faith and Patience and Virtue. induing men originally with Reafon and Understanding, with a natural Knowledge of Good and Evil, and a Confcience of the difference between Virtue and Vice; By the Witness that God bears to himself in the Works of Nature, and by the various Dispensations of his All-wife Providence; in which Visible Effects, the Power and Government of the Invisible God are clearly and continually feen, fo that they, who attend not to them, are without excufe: By these things, does God perpetually call men to religion; and hold out unto them an univerfal Light, in all Places and at all Times. And had men no other Discovery VI. SER M. of the Will of God, than This; yet their choosing to depart from the natural Law of everlasting Righteousness, would justly denominate them an evil and adulterous generation of Mankind. But befides this Voice of Nature in the vifible works of God, and in the mind and confcience of every particular person; the divine Providence has moreover, in compaffion to the ignorance of the Weak, and for a Teftimony against the perverse and corrupt, in almost every Age of the World, raised up Eminent Preachers of Righteousness ; fuch as was Enoch before, and Noah at the time of the Flood, and Job and the Patriarchs after it; to excite and call men to the practice of their Duty. And to the Nation of the Jews, he gave a ftanding Revelation of his Will; inviting them continually to Repentance by his Meffengers the Prophets, and at laft by his Son Jefus Chrift, their promised and long expected Meffiah: Manifesting his manifold Wisdom, at fundry times and in diverfe manners of Revelation; as he had before done in the various diftribution of the Na tural |