consider themselves as ready to be laid open before the eye of their Almighty Judge, their deficiencies with regard to his law begin to appear so great and weighty, that all their excellencies above their fellow-men turn out to be light as the dust of the balance.

Notwithstanding the care taken by many to conceal their inward disquiet, and die decently, and notwithstanding the care taken by surviving friends to throw a veil over deathbed scenes; yet enough transpires to give us an idea of the real condition of man in that awful hour; to inform us, that matters are in reality no better within than they appear without; and to show us, that nothing but the Divine reason of hope can then give composure to his heart: but what thus transpires occasionally, affecting only small circles in society, is soon smothered. All individuals at separate times and places die; but society lives: the course of nature continues with it, and the sentiments of the healthy and prosperous prevail. If we could collect the last suffrages of dying individuals, we should find a great majority against those of living society. Yet we have some public view of the real condition of man, when society itself is threatened with death, as in the case of earthquakes and other sudden calamities. Besides, there are few who have lived any considerable time in the world who have not on some occasion or other been exposed to such imminent danger of losing their lives, as is sufficient to give them some idea of what happens at death. Death strips all men of their distinctions and sets them on a level. Now, the Deity, in sending his gospel to men, views their days as an hand-breadth; he considers all men as on the brink of the grave. Accordingly, the apostles commended themselves to every man's conscience IN THE SIGHT OF GOD. They awakened men to view themselves in that point of light wherein their conscience commonly sets them at the hour of death.

We have naturally an awful concern mixed with some anxiety about the condition of a criminal whom we see led forth to execution. And one reason is, the voice of society warrants us to hold him for an unrighteous person. The gospel leads every one whom it awakens, to view himself in a light no less awful. It draws him aside from the eye of society, and places him under the eye of God; so that he dare not lay his hand to his heart, and say of any dying criminal, I

am not as this man.

Certain instruments of destruction have, not improperly, been called the last reason of kings: but that death which is

men.

common to all men, is such an argument of Divine judgment, as has hitherto mocked all the presumptuous reasonings of Wherever the force of this argument is well observed, no solid ground of comfort will be found, but that afforded by the gospel. For what notions, founded on the course of nature, can support a man when nature itself is dissolving? No scheme but the gospel can show us any fixed point on the other side of the grave. Yet nothing else can be expected, but that men will always continue to reason against fact while society lives, and the course of nature proceeds along with it. For though all individuals are successively confuted most effectually; yet their conviction, being private, and often reserved, can have no extensive or lasting effect on the public.

Now, though the Scripture asserts and enforces all that the conscience of man can call reason, though it demonstrates all our original natural notions; yet almost every little enemy of the gospel no sooner lifts his pen against it, than he introduces himself, by declaiming, with great parade, on the sacred rights of reason, and the great danger of invalidating our natural notions. The truth is, such writers are afraid, lest the light of the gospel should too clearly evince and manifest right reason, in opposition to the fondly received counterfeits of it. They are afraid, lest the light of nature should be increased and strengthened with such additional splendour, as to discover too plainly the corruption of nature. fore, as impostors abound most in professions of fidelity and veracity, so these men are the foremost to assert the rights of reason and nature. None so proud of the term of medicine as quacks, none more forward in expressing concern for the health of mankind than they.

There

No man will be reconciled to the gospel till once his attention be awakened to hearken to reason; till the voice of reason prevail in his thoughts; till his natural notions be so ratified in his mind, as to make him see the vanity of all his artificial or invented ones. Therefore, care is taken by many to dress up these last with all the arts of eloquence, in order to divert the attention of men aside from the gospel. And it is easy for them to give out for certain maxims the most foolish and groundless presumptions with great assurance, and confident hopes of success. For having the corruption of nature on their side, they know, that any false glare, any ignis fatuus is sufficient to decoy men along with the current of that corruption.

A very ordinary attention to this sort of writers will show us, that they declaim about nature and reason with no less

ambiguity, no less absurdity, than the popular preachers do about faith and mystery; yet, the fashionable mob is ready to nod, wink, and smile applause at every ingenious period of the former, even as the populace gape and stare in reverent admiration of the latter. But let the popular preachers enjoy themselves, in crying, in their own way, Faith and Mystery, Hence ye profane; and let the gentlemen of fashion divert themselves with the rhapsodies about the sacred rights of reason glorying over the superstitious vulgar; let them continue to cry upon the matter, "Great is the image which fell down from Lucifer, and which all the rational world worshipeth:" Christians may content themselves with adopting the old saying, "Great is the truth, and it shall prevail; or rather in hearing their own leaders, the apostles, declaring, "All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass: the grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away; but the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you."

ON SPIRIT.

As I have hitherto spoken but sparingly on the invisible energy by which men are conducted in their ignorance and hatred, or knowledge and love of the Christian truth, I am willing to spend some time in consulting the Scripture on this head; for I would not choose to rank with those who unsettle two points where they fix one.

It may suffice, by way of introduction, to say that it is the part of bad influence, to obscure, to confound, to break the order, connection, and subordination of man's natural notions, to decoy him into disloyalty, and then leave him exposed a defenceless prey to the necessary consequence thereof; or, in two words, to deceive and to destroy. It is the part of good influence, which ever proceeds from the fountain of all goodness, to replace and ascertain man's natural notions, and to furnish him with new ones, when destitute of any that can give him comfort; or in some, to enlighten and to save, to restore man to truth and happiness. For however strongly some reasoners have maintained, that all that is true is also good, it will require but a short survey of one's own heart to convince him, that he never loves truth, nor inclines to admit it, when it presents its dark side towards his own self.

There is a certain great genius or spirit often made mention of in Scripture, whose history is coeval with that of

man, and whom I would choose rather to describe by the lead ing line of his character, than by any of those names which have become familiar terms of reproach; I mean that spirit, who being originally of the first order of created beings, fell from his high station, with many under his conduct, by forgetting his natural state of dependence.

It does not appear that he fell by any such proud disposition as has been generally held odious among mankind, or by acting unsuitably to what wise men in all ages have accounted good sense and greatness of mind. The clearest account we have of his fall is given us, by one who well knew his history, in these notable words, John viii, 45, (Ev în aλndɛia ovx έsпкεv,) He stood not in the truth. I think I need not take time to show, that the truth so largely contested in this chapter was, that the man Jesus was the beloved Son of God, in the sense which the Jews accounted blasphemy. But we may take some notice of the occasion on which the mention of this spirit is introduced.

In opposition to the truth, and the real freedom in the family of God preached along with it, the Jews insisted on a peculiar relation to God, as his children, by their father Abraham. But they did not consider that even this boasted privilege was founded in their fleshly relation to Christ, that seed promised to Abraham, who is the Son of God. Jesus gives them to understand, that while they hated this truth, whatever relation to God they gloried in, they could be no otherwise in his family than as Ishmael the servant, the son of the bondwoman, was in Abraham's house, who was cast out for persecuting Isaac the son and heir; and that the true freedom in the house of God, as his children, in distinction from bondmen, comes only by himself the true Son of God. He shows them at large, how vain a thing it was to glory in having Abraham for their father, while they did not the works of Abraham, who rejoiced to see his day afar off, but the works of another father, who stood not in the truth, but opposed it by all his craft and power.

It is evident, then, from this passage, that the great characteristic of this angelic chief, is opposition to the sacred truth from first to last, ever since his early apostacy from it. And he is the father and prompter of all the opposers of this truth to the end of the world. For the truth opposed by him is the same that Abraham believed, and rejoiced in; the same that the Jews disbelieved, and hated; and so showed themselves to be not the genuine sons of Abraham, but á

spurious race, more properly to be ranked under another father.

Seeing, then, this chief is distinguished from the angels who stood, by his not abiding or standing in the truth, we are plainly given to understand, that this truth was made known to him, and some way acknowledged by him before he fell; so that he fell by apostacy from it. Yet we cannot say that the perseverance of those who stood, was owing to any difference or excellency in their nature, but to their being chosen of sovereign grace to be servants in the kingdom of the Son of God, and, therefore, they are called the elect angels.

We do not find any occasion more proper for its being made known to the angels, that the Son of God was to be united to his creatures in man, and become Lord of the creation in the human nature, than the formation of man, which is introduced with a very peculiar solemnity. And what may give some countenance to this is, that the same tenor of expression used by the Deity at the making of man, is repeated by his inspired prophet in the 8th psalm, in describing the universal dominion of the Son of God, under the title of the Son of man for this psalm is in the New Testament expressly applied to Jesus Christ.

All the angels are represented as unanimously praising God, when he began to form the earth, Job, xxxviii, 4. 7, Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth ?—when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. As they were witnesses to the whole progress of the Divine work in framing the world, their attention must have been in an especial manner drawn to the grand conclusion thereof in the making of man, which was ushered in with these words, And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. Here was a proper occasion for their being given to know, that the Divine glory was fully to be manifested in the human nature, by the Son of God becoming a man. We cannot date the intimation of this truth to them much later, for apostacy from it took place among them before the fall of man.

In illustration of what has been said, it may be observed, that the Apostles, Peter and Jude, compare the corruption of Christianity by its teachers, to the fall of the angels. Jude, moreover, calls to mind the apostacy of the Israelites, who fell in the wilderness, as a similar case to both these. And decribing the sin of the angels who fell, he says, they kept not