Rem. III. This difcourfe fhews us the abfolute neceffity of regeneration, in order to the enjoyment of heaven. If men are at enmity with God, and if God is the bleffednefs of heaven, then there can be no heaven for them till they are conformed to him. How vain therefore, are the hopes of those who found their expectations of heaven on their attendance upon the outward ordinances of religion, or their civil and inoffenfive behaviour, while they are deftitute of a new nature conformed to the perfections of God?

There is reafon to fear that multitudes, who profefs the religion of Chrift, go no farther than the mere outward form, and reft in the name, while they are strangers to the New-Birth, and thofe divine influences which conform our hearts to God's glory. Are there not many who please themselves with the thoughts of going to heaven when they die, who have never been acquainted with the God of heaven in this life? But how can thofe enjoy him there, whofe glorious perfections are now the objects of their abhorrence? Alas! Sirs, your hopes are as the fpider's web; you will find in a very little time, that without holiness, and being born again, no man can fee the kingdom of heaven. Chrift does not say such shall not, but they cannot their state and temper of mind will render them as incapable of enjoying God, as fire is of uniting in harmony with water. Nothing can be more oppofite than the glories of heaven and an unholy heart. You must not then think hard of God for fhutting you out of heaven,for you exclude yourselves; you hate God, who is heaven, now, and you will have no lefs hatred to him when you come to fee him in the light of that world to which you are haftening every moment, Be perfuaded therefore to confider the danger of your native ftate, and the abfolute importance of being created after God in righteousness and true holiness in order to the enjoyment of him.

Rem. IV. From the whole we fee, that the ruin

and

and mifery of men are wholly of themfelves. God does not take pleasure in their destruction, but is long fuffering, and waits to be gracious. Yet men will not return to him. Their rooted averfion to God keeps them at the greateft diftance, and renders them quite incapable of enjoying him. To be carnally minded (as all unrenewed finners are) is death; death lies in the very nature of the carnal mind; and if we should. admit, that no pofitive punishment will be inflicted on the wicked in hell, yet this carnal ftate or temper of mind, will be a bottomlefs pit of inexpreffible mifery for ever and ever. Into this pit finners fall by their own weight. If God fhould let them alone, and only take off his reftraining hand, they would immediately flide into this bottomlefs gulf: all their lufts and paffions would feize on them, and be the very flames of their eternal torment. But to all this will be added the displays of his anger and wrath, who hath faid, Vengeance is mine, and I will repay it. This will be the cafe of every finner, in whatever rank he stands among men, who lives and dies a ftranger to the New-Birth, however decent and moral his outward conduct hath been for outward reftraints may, and often do keep mankind from open fins, and lead them to a decent behaviour, while their enmity to God and holiness still remains; which, as foon as the covering is removed from their faces, and they fee what a God they have to do with, will break out in all its rage, and plunge them deep in eternal woe. And then,

"Not all their anguifh and their blood
"For their old guilt atones;

"Nor the compaffions of a God
“Will hearken to their groans.

SERMON

N II.

SERMO O N

2 COR. V. 19.

To wit, that God was in Chrift reconciling the World unto bimfelf, not imputing their trefpaffes unto them, and bath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

IN

N the preceeding difcourfe I have fhewn the cause and nature of the enmity between God and man; and pointed out the wickedness of man's enmity to his maker, and the divine righteousness in his condemnation to eternal woe. I now proceed to a more delightful theme; and fhall fhew you the ground of hope,. which the gospel propofes, laid in the work of Chrift finished on his crofs, which is the only reafon why God can forgive fin; and this I fhall speak of under the fecond head, which is to fhew,

II. The meritorious caufe of God's reconciliation to offending man.

A

The infinite juftice and righteoufnefs of God rendered it unfit and inconfiftent, and therefore impoffible for him to put up with the affront and indignity caft on him, and his moral government, by the fin of man; who on his revolt from God was jufly condemned to everlasting deftruction. This fentence could not be reverfed and man acquitted, as things then stood, without an implicit acknowledgment that the fentence was unrighteous; which God could not do confiftent with truth; for the fentence was perfectly juft, and founded in the rectitude of his own nature which is unchangeable. Therefore the cafe of man was hopeless and desperate; and nothing which exifted could furnish a plea, or be a juftifiable

reafon

reafon for God to proceed on in paffing by his fimi, and receiving him to favour with himself.

(But God fo loved the world that he gave his only begotten fon, and fet him forth to be a propitiation to declare and affert his righteoufnefs, which man had denied, that he might be just, and the juftifier of him that believes in Jefus, John iii. 16. Rom. iii. 26. From this laft remarkable icripture it plainly appears, that the [immediate] end for which Chrift was (by God] made [appointed or fet forth as a propitiation or] facrifice for fin was, to declare, manifeft, vindicate, and bonour bis righteousness, which has from the beginning been denied and contemned by man; and not to declare his kindness, [or indulgence] and perfuade men that God is merciful, and very ready to forgive them. Men are too prone to believe this without any arguments or perfuafions,*) and none but the awakened finner who

fees

This paffage and that in p. 26 included in parenthefis, Mr. H. quotes D. p. 10, and fays, "Ift. The Dr. here inverts "the order of the gofpel, and fpreads a very difhonouring "cloud over the glory of this difpenfation. The fcripture every where reprefents the immediate grand defign "of Chrift's appearing and fuffering in the fiefh, as being 66 to manifeft God's mercy, and to minister to and ac

complish the defigns of his love to man." Reply 1. In this Mr. H. grofly mifreprefents me. He would have his reader conceive of me as maintaining that "the immediate great end of the fuffering of Chrift" (which was itfelf the manifeftation of righteoufnefs) "was to manifeft" righteoufnefs; which would be the fame as to fay, the immediate end of the manifeftation of righteoufnefs was the manifeftation of righteoufnefs. Whereas in the paffages he quotes, I fpeak, not of the actual fuffering of Chrift which declared God's righteoufnefs, but of his appointment by the Father to be a propitiation. This was fufficiently clear in the first edition, but least any should again mistake me, I have added a few words in crotchets, to make it more manifeft. I have alfo left out the word great as improper, and put immediate in its place, becaufe I think the

great

the strictness of the law, and the heinoufnefs of his fins, has any scruple about it: And this is one reafon of men's numberless open tranfgreffions of God's law; notwithstanding

great end of all was the glory of God; and for this reafon Mr. H. fhould dafh the word grand out of the quoted paffage. Ifpeak of God's appointing Chrift to be a propitiation,and sfay, that the immediate end for which he was appointed was to manifeft God's righteoufnefs; but Mr. H. in the above paffage, fpeaks of the actual fufferings of Chrift, which were themselves the propitiation or manifeftation of righteoufnefs, and concerning thefe he afferts, that their immediate end was the exercife of mercy, which is no ways Linconfiftent with the paffages he has quoted,even tho' I had bintended that mercy which actually faves finners, which, by the way, I do not, as will foon appear. For in those paf fages. I fpeak, not of the actual fufferings, but of the appointment of Chrift to fuffer. I no where deny that the immediate end of the manifeftation of righteousness was the exercise of mercy: So far from this, that it is one main drift of my fermons to fhew, that the whole of Chrift' undertaking and work was defigned to open the way for the exercise of mercy in confiftence with righteoufnels and to the glory of all the divine perfections. This is evident from a multitude of places in my fermons, particularly p. 34, 35, &c. But in order that mercy might be thus exercifed, it was neceflary that righteoufnefs fhould be glorified, which was done in its manifeftation on the cross of Chrift, which manifeftation was not the remote, but the immediate, first, or next thing in view in God's appointing him to be a facrifice. I do not fay that his declaration of righteousness was the moving caufe of God's fetting forth his fon, but his love which could not be exercised till justice was glorified; the immediate thing therefore to be done was, to declare and fo to honour the divine righteoufnefs by making Chrit a facrifice, that mercy might be honourably exercifed.

"

This is the view 1 give of the matter in my fermons, and the tex's which I there recited, and from one of which I'made the above remark, fully prove this to be true. The fi ft is Joh. iii. 16. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son-Here the love of God is faid to be the moving caufe of the gift of Chrift. The other is Rom. iii. 25, 26. Whom God hath fet forth to be a propitiation-to

declare