SERMON VI.

OF THE IMPORTANCE OF ENTERING INTO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.

JOHN iii. 3.

"Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."

How impossible it is that an unregenerate sinner should see, that is, enjoy the kingdom of God, and that future blessedness to which the gospel is intended to lead its professors, I have shown 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 farther, 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 happi

ness.

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 apprehension? 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 show 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 endeavour 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." May the prosecution of it be blessed, as the means of inducing some wandering sheep to return into his fold!

Now, in order to illustrate the force of this argument, I beseech you seriously to consider what this kingdom is, from which you are in danger of being for ever excluded, and what will be the condition of all those who shall be finally cut off from any interest

in it.

(1.) Consider what that kingdom is, from which the unregenerate, or those who are not born again,

shall be excluded.'

And here you are not to expect a complete representation of it; for that is an attempt in which the tongues of angels, as well as men, might fail ; or how proper soever their language might be in itself, to us it would be unintelligible; for "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him." And surely these final and most illustrious preparations of his love. must, beyond all others, exceed our description and conception. A minister that, with the Apostle Paul, had been caught up into the third heaven, if he would attempt to speak of the glorious scenes which were there opened to him, must say, they were unutterable things; and one that, with John, had lain in the bosom of Christ himself, must say, as that Apostle did, "It does not yet appear what we shall be." And indeed, when we go about to discourse of it, I doubt not but the blessed angels pity the weakness of our apprehensions and expres

sions, and know that we do but debase the subject when we attempt the most to exalt and adorn it.

Yet there are just and striking representations of this kingdom made in the word of God; and we are there often told in general, wherein it shall consist. You no doubt remember, that I was, in the last of these lectures, going over several important views of it. I then told you, it will consist in the perfection of our souls in knowledge and holiness, in the sight of God, and our blessed Redeemer; in exercising the most delightful affections towards them, and in being for ever employed in rendering them the most honourable services; in conversing with saints and glorious angels; and in the assured expectation of the eternal continuance of this blessedness, in all its branches. That this is the scriptural representation of the matter, I proved to you from many express testimonies in the word of God; and I doubt not but you have often heard the excellency of each of these views represented at large, in distinct discourses on each.

I will not, therefore, now repeat what has been said upon such occasions; but will rather direct you to some general considerations, which may convince you of the excellency of that state and world, from which, if you continue unregenerate, you must for ever be excluded; for I would fain fix it upon your minds, that it is in this connexion, and for this purpose, that the representation is made. And oh ! that you might so review it, as no longer to neglect so great salvation, nor act as if you judged everlasting life to be beneath your attention, and unworthy your care and regard! You cannot think

it so when you consider, that it is represented in Scripture, under the most magnificent images, that it is the state which God has prepared for the display of his glory, and the entertainment of his most favourite creatures; that it is the great purchase of the blood of his eternal Son; that it is the main work of his sacred Spirit to prepare men's hearts for it; and the great business of our inveterate enemy, the devil, by all possible means, to prevent our obtaining it. Each of these considerations may much illustrate the excellency of it, and all taken together, yield a most convincing demonstration.

1. Consider, by what a variety of beautiful and magnificent images this happiness is represented in the word of God;' and that may convince you of its excellency.

When the blessed God himself would raise our conceptions of a state of being, so much superior to any thing we have ever seen or known, unless he intended a personal and miraculous revelation of it, he must borrow our language, and in painting the glory of heaven, must take his colours from earth. And here the magnificence of a city, the sweetness of a garden, the solemn pomp of a temple, the lustre of a crown, and the dignity of a kingdom, strike powerfully on the human mind, and fill it with veneration and delight. But when such figures as these are borrowed from this low world of ours, faintly to shadow out that which is above, there is always the addition of some important circumstance, to intimate how far the celestial original exceeds the brightest earthly glory, by which the divine condescension has vouchsafed to describe it.