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'fore, a complete obedience and freedom from sin, are still sincerely to be endeavoured after. And it is nowhere promised, that those who persist in a wilful disobedience to his laws, shall be received into the eternal bliss of his kingdom, how much soever they believe in him.

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A sincere obedience, how can any one doubt to be, or scruple to call, a condition of the new covenant, as well as faith; whoever reads our Saviour's sermon in the mount, to omit all the rest? Can any thing be more express than these words of our Lord? Matt. vi. 14, "If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: but if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." And John xiii. 17, " If ye know these things, happy are ye if you do them." This is so indispensable a condition of the new covenant, that believing without it will not do, nor be accepted; if our Saviour knew the terms on which he would admit men into life. Why call ye me, Lord, Lord," says he, Luke vi. 46, " and do not the things which I say?" It is not enough to believe him to be the Messiah, the Lord, without obeying him. For that these he speaks to here were believers, is evident from the parallel place, Matth. vii. 21-23, where it is thus recorded: "Not every one who says Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doth the will of my Father, which is in heaven." No rebels, or refractory disobedient, shall be admitted there, though they have so far believed in Jesus, as to be able to do miracles in his name; as is plain out of the following words: "Many will say to me in that day, Have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name have cast out devils, and in thy name have done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye workers of iniquity."

This part of the new covenant the apostles also, in their preaching the Gospel of the Messiah, ordinarily joined with the doctrine of faith.

St. Peter, in his first sermon, Acts ii., when they were pricked in heart, and asked, "What shall we do?"

says, ver. 38, "Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins." The same he says to them again in his next speech, Acts iv. 26, "Unto you first, God having raised up his Son Jesus, sent him to bless you." How was this done?" in turning away every one from your iniquities."

The same doctrine they preach to the High Priest and rulers, Acts v. 30, "The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew, and hanged on a tree. Him hath God exalted with his right hand, to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins; and we are witnesses of these things, and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him."

Acts xvii. 30, St. Paul tells the Athenians, That now under the Gospel, "God commandeth all men every where to repent.

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Acts xx. 21, St. Paul, in his last conference with the elders of Ephesus, professes to have taught them the whole doctrine necessary to salvation: "I have," says he, "kept back nothing that was profitable unto you; but have showed you, and have taught you publicly, and from house to house; testifying both to the Jews and to the Greeks:" and then gives an account what his preaching had been, viz. "Repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus the Messiah." This was the sum and substance of the Gospel which St. Paul preached, and was all that he knew necessary to salvation; viz. "Repentance, and believing Jesus to be the Messiah :" and so takes his last farewell of them, whom he should never see again, ver. 32, in these words: "And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them that are sanctified." There is an inheritance conveyed by the word and covenant of grace, but it is only to those who are sanctified.

Acts xxiv. 24, "When Felix sent for Paul," that he and his wife Drusilla might hear him, "concerning the faith in Christ;" Paul reasoned of righteousness, or

justice; and temperance; the duties we owe to others, and to ourselves; and of the judgment to come; until he made Felix to tremble. Whereby it appears, that "temperance and justice" were fundamental parts of the religion that Paul professed, and were contained in the faith which he preached. And if we find the duties of the moral law not pressed by him every where, we must remember, that most of his sermons left upon record were preached in their synagogues to the Jews, who acknowledged their obedience due to all the precepts of the law; and would have taken it amiss to have been suspected not to have been more zealous for the law than he. And therefore it was with reason that his discourses were directed chiefly to what they yet wanted, and were averse to, the knowledge and embracing of Jesus, their promised Messiah. But what his preaching generally was, if we will believe him himself, we may see Acts xxvi., where, giving an account to King Agrippa of his life and doctrine, he tells him, ver. 20, "I showed unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent, and turn to God, and do works meet for repent

ance.".

Thus we see, by the preaching of our Saviour and his apostles, that he required of those who believed him to be the Messiah, and received him for their Lord and Deliverer, that they should live by his laws: and that (though in consideration of their becoming his subjects, by faith in him, whereby they believed and took him to be the Messiah, their former sins should be forgiven, yet) he would own none to be his, nor receive them as true denizens of the new Jerusalem, into the inheritance of eternal life; but leave them to the condemnation of the unrighteous; who renounced not their former miscarriages, and lived in a sincere obedience to his commands. What he expects from his followers, he has sufficiently declared as a legislator: and that they may not be deceived, by mistaking the doctrine of faith, grace, free-grace, and the pardon and forgiveness of sins, and salvation by him, (which

was the great end of his coming) he more than once declares to them, for what omissions and miscarriages he shall judge and condemn to death, even those who have owned him, and done miracles in his name: when he comes at last to render to every one according to what he had done in the flesh, sitting upon his great and glorious tribunal, at the end of the world.

The first place where we find our Saviour to have mentioned the day of judgment is John v. 28, 29, in these words: "The hour is coming, in which all that are in their graves shall hear his [i. e. the Son of God's] voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." That which puts the distinction, if we will believe our Saviour, is the having done good or evil. And he gives a reason of the necessity of his judging or condemning those "who have done evil," in the following words, ver. 30, "I can of myself do nothing. As I hear I judge; and my judgment is just; because I seek not my own will, but the will of my Father who hath sent me.” He could not judge of himself; he had but a delegated power of judging from the Father, whose will he obeyed in it; and who was of purer eyes than to admit any unjust person into the kingdom of heaven.

Matth. vii. 22, 23, speaking again of that day, he tells what his sentence will be, "Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity." Faith, in the penitent and sincerely obedient, supplies the defect of their performances; and so by grace they are made just. But we may observe, none are sentenced or punished for unbelief, but only for their misdeeds. 66 They are workers of iniquity" on whom the sentence is pronounced.

Matth. xiii. 41, "At the end of the world, the Son of man shall send forth his angels; and they shall gather out of his kingdom all scandals, and them which do iniquity; and cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." And again, ver. 49, "The angels shall sever the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire."

Matth. xvi. 24, "For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father, with his angels: and then he shall reward every man according to his works."

Luke xiii. 26, "Then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drank in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not; depart from me, ye workers of iniquity."

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Matth. xxv. 31-46, "When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and before him shall be gathered all nations; he shall set the sheep on his right hand, and the goats on his left. Then shall the King say to them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in; naked, and clothed me; ye I was sick, and visited me; I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? &c. And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily, I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Then shall he say unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me not in; naked, and ye clothed me not; sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. Insomuch that ye did it not to one of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal."

These, I think, are all the places where our Saviour mentions the last judgment, or describes his way of proceeding in that great day; wherein, as we have ob served, it is remarkable, that every where the sentence follows doing or not doing, without any mention of believing or not believing. Not that any, to whom the Gospel hath been preached, shall be saved, without be

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