mifes and threatenings, ought we not to conform our lives to it, and charge ourselves with obedience to all thofe precepts of piety towards God, and purity and temperance in the government of ourselves, and juftice and righteoufnefs in our dealings with others, which are contained in this new law of the gospel? If the gospel hath promifed eternal life and happiness to thofe who do confcientiously abftain from fin, and follow holinefs; having thefe promifes, ought we not to cleanfe ourselves from all filthiness both of flesh and Spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God? If the gofpel hath threatened, that at the end of the world, Chrift will come in flaming fire, &c. if we believe these things fhall be, what manner of perfons ought we to be in all holy converfation and godliness?

I have formerly fhewed at large, how unbecoming it is for any man that profeffeth himself a Chriftian, to live unfuitably to his profeffion, that it is the greatest difparagement to the gofpel, and the highest reflection upon it that can be; and that it is infinitely dangerous to us; and though these be very proper confiderations, yet because I have formerly urged them, I fhall not now enforce my exhortation with thefe arguments; but fhall mention two other confiderations, and fo conclude.

First, If our lives be not anfwerable to our belief, our faith will be ineffectual to all intents and purposes. Secondly, A life unfuitable to our belief is the highway to infidelity and atheism.

First, If our lives be not answerable to our belief, our faith will be ineffectual to all real intents and purposes.

1. It will be ineffectual to give us the reputation of Chriftians among wife and difcerning perfons. We profefs to believe the gofpel; but if we live contrary to it, our profeffion is proteftatio contra factum, and therefore not credible; becaufe our actions contradict it. The conftant tenour of a man's actions is a more credible and emphatical declaration of the inward fenfe of his heart, and fhews better what the man believes, than the most folemn profeffion in words. When our words are not confirmed by our actions, they are but an empty found, and fignify nothing. I may allude to that of St. Paul, 1 Cor. xiii. 2. Though a man have

all

all faith, yet if he be deftitute of the true effect of faith, charity, he is but as a founding brafs, and a tinkling cymbal. St. James doth very well fet forth the ineffidacy of fuch a faith, by this fimilitude, James ii. 15. 16. 17. If a brother or fifter be naked, and deftitute of daily food, and one of you fay unto them, depart in peace, be you warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not thofe things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even fo faith, if it hath not works, is dead. Men are not fo eafily cozened as we think they are. Difcerning men will not be impofed upon, and put off with a formal and empty profeffion of faith, when there is nothing in our lives to anfwer it. It is not standing up in the church, and profeffing that we believe in God, and in Jefus Chrift, that he was born, and died, and rofe again, and at the end of the world will come to judge the quick and the dead, that will perfuade men that we are Chriftians. Men will look into our lives, and examine our actions, and enquire into our converfations by these they will judge of the truth and reality of our profeffon. Let us not delude ourfelves, and think to pafs for Chriftians upon these terms, among any that know how to make a right judgment of things. We may cozen ourselves; but we cannot cheat others, who are not fo partial to us, as we are apt to be to ourfelves. It is not our winking, that hinders others from seeing us.

Nay, I go farther, it is not an earnest contending for fundamental articles of our Chriftian faith, if we live contrary to them, that will fatisfy any wife man that we believe them; much lefs an intemperate zeal for indifferent opinions in religion. Such were the doArines concerning the neceffity on the one hand, and the unlawfulness of circumcifion on the other; but the affent to the one opinion or the other in these matters, neither circumcifion availeth any thing, nor uncircumcifion, but faith that worketh by love, the new creature, the keeping of the commandments of God, as the Apostle in feveral places expreffeth it. Men ftand much upon the title of Orthodox, by which is ufually understood, not believing the doctrine of Chrift or his Apoftles, but fuch opinions as are in vogue among fuch a party, fuch

fyftems

1

fyftems of divinity as have been compiled in hafte by those whom we have in admiration; and whatever is not confonant to these little bodies of divinity, though poffibly it agree well enough with the word of God, is error and herefy; and whoever maintains it, can hardly pass for a Chriftian among fome angry andperverfe people. I do not intend to plead for any error; but I would not have Christianity chiefly meafured by matters of opinion. I know no fuch error and herely as a wicked life. That man believes the gospel beft, who lives moft according to it. Though no nan can have a worse opinion of the Socinian doctrine than I have, yet I had rather a man fhould deny the fatisfaction of Chrift, than believe it, and abuse it to the encouragement of fin. Of the two I have more hopes of him that denies the divinity of Chrift, and lives otherwife foberly, and righteoully, and godly in the world, than of the man who owns Chrift to be the Son of God, and lives like a child of the devil.

2. Such a faith as hath not an answerable life will be ineffectual to the purpose of juftification and falvation. So St. James tells us, it is a dead faith, and profits nothing, that no man is juftified by it, nor will it fave any man. Chrift is the author of eternal falvation to them whofo believe his doctrine as to obey it; he will come in flaming fire, to render vengeance, not only to them that do not believe, but to them that do not obey the gospel. It will not be fufficient at the day of judgment, to plead our profeffion of faith in Chrift, and to fay, Lord, Lord, have we not prophefied in thy name, and in thý name have caft out devils, and in thy name have done many wondrous works? Doing all this in Chrift's name, implies that they profefs to believe in him but notwithstanding all this, if they be workers of iniquity, Chrift will fay to fuch, Depart from me, I know you not. If our Saviour makes a true and proper reprefentation of the day of judgment, and the proceedings of it, Matth. xxv. mens faith fhall then be tried by the real fruits and effects of it; then" the enquiry fhall be, how men have lived? what good' they have done, or omitted and neglected? and accordingly fentence will be past upon them. Nay, fuch a faith is fo far from faving, that it will be an aggravation

of

of our condemnation, and fink us the deeper into hell. There is one that condemneth you, even Jefus in whom you trust.

Secondly, A life unfuitable to our belief is the highway to infidelity, and atheism, to bring others and ourfelves to it.

1. To bring others to infidelity aud atheism, and to confirm them in it. What can be a more effectual bar to keep Heathens, and Jews, and Turks from entertaining the gofpel? what can be a greater confirmation of them in their infidelity, than fo to mifreprefent Chriftian religion to them, as we do by our unfuitable lives? What can be a stronger prejudice against it, to men who do not look narrowly into it, but only fee it at a distance, than to fee what fruit it produces in the lives of Chriftians? May they not invert that proverbial fpeech of our Saviour's, Does a vine fend forth thorns ? If Chriftianity were fuch a holy inftitution, how comes it to pass that Chriftians are fo wicked? If Jefus Chrift were fo excellent a mafter, we fhould fee it in his fcholars; fi Chriftus fancta docuiffet, Chriftiani fanéte vixiffent, as Salvian fpeaks. And it is the way to bring men to atheism. What more like to take men off from all religion, than to fee the religion which pretends to be the best in the world, reprefented by the lives of Chriftians at fuch a difadvantage, as if it were a barren, and fruitless, and ineffectual thing, and as if they who profefs it, did believe it to be a lie, and gave no credit at all to the doctrines of it?

2. It is the way to bring ourselves to infidelity and atheism. As an erroneous judgment and understanding hath usually an evil influence upon mens lives, so much more a vitious and corrupt life hath a bad influence upon mens understandings. It is fo uneafy a thing for men to act contrary to their reason, and against the dictates of their understandings, that men, for their own quiet, and in their own defence, will bend their judgments, and make them comply with the intereft of their lufts. Mens affections, which way foever they incline, fet a biafs upon their understandings; and this doth not only proceed from the nature of the thing, but from the just judgment of God, 2 Thess. ii, 10. 11. 12. the A-:

poftle

postle tells us, that thofe who receive not the truth in the love of it, that they may be faved; God will fend them Strong delufions, to believe lies; that they all may be damned who believe not the truth, but have pleasure in unrighteoufnefs. If men once have pleafure in unrighteoulnefs, it will not be long before they give over believing the truth, becaufe God, by his juft judgment, will give them over to themfelves, to follow the biafs of their own corrupt hearts, which inclines them to believe lies. Of all perfons in the world, a wicked and unholy Chriftian, is most likely to turn a fpeculative infidel and atheift; and none fo like to fall into this grofs darknefs, as those who refilt and quench fo great a light as that of the gofpel is, which they profefs to believe.

SERMON

CCXXIX.

Of the miracles wrought in confirmation of Chriftianity.

HEB. ii. 4.

God alfo bearing them witness, both with figns and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghoft, according to his own will.

W

The firft fermon on this text.

Hoever impartially confiders the Christian religion, cannot but acknowledge the laws and precepts of it to be fo reasonable; and the practice of them fo evidently to tend not only to the happiness of particular perfons, but to the peace and welfare of the world; and the promises and threatenings of the gospel, which are the great motives to perfuade men to the obedience of thofe laws, to be fo agreeable to the natural hopes and fears which mankind were al

ways