time could be “ a time of love." (4.) It was he that took off your prison-garments, and clothed you with robes of righteousness, garments of salvation. (5.) Remember your faults this day; as Pharaoh's butler who had forgotten Joseph. Mind how you have forgotten, and how unkindly you have treated him who remembered in your you "Is low estate. this your kindness to your friend?" In the day of your deliverance, did ye think ye could have thus requited him, your Lord?

2. Pity the children of wrath, the world that lies in wickedness. Can ye be unconcerned for them, ye who were once in the same condition? Ye have got ashore indeed, but your fellows are yet in hazard of perishing; and will ye not make them all possible help for their deliverance? What they are, ye sometime were. This may draw pity from you, and engage you to use all means for their recovery.

3. Admire that matchless love which brought you out of the state of wrath. Christ's love was active love he loved thy soul from the pit of corruption. It was no easy work to purchase the life of a condemned sinner; but he gave his life for thy life. Men get the best view of the stars from the bottom of a deep pit: from this pit of misery into which thou wast cast by the first Adam, thou mayest get the best view of the Sun of Righteousness in all its dimensions. He is the second Adam, who took thee out of the horrible pit, and out of the miry clay. 4. Be humble, walk softly all your years. not proud of your gifts, graces, privileges, or attainments: but remember you 66 were children of wrath even as others."

Be

Lastly, Be wholly for your Lord. Every wife is obliged to be dutiful to her husband; but double ties lie upon her who was taken from a prison or a dunghill. If your Lord has delivered you from wrath, you ought, upon that very account, to be wholly his; to act for him, to suffer for him, and to do whatever he calls you to. The saints have no

reason to complain of their lot in the world, whatever it be. Well may they bear the cross for him, by whom the curse was borne away from them: well may they bear the wrath of men in his cause, who has freed them from the wrath of God. Soul and body, and all thou hadst in the world, were sometime under wrath: he has removed that wrath, shall not all these be at his service? That thy soul is not overwhelmed with the wrath of God, is owing purely to Jesus Christ; and shall it not then be a temple for his Spirit? To him who believes that he was a child of wrath even as others, but is now delivered by the blessed Jesus, nothing will appear too much to do or suffer for his deliverer, when he has a fair call to it.

III. To conclude with a word to all: Let no man think lightly of sin, which lays the sinner open to the wrath of God. Fear the Lord, because of his dreadful wrath. Tremble at the thoughts of sin, against which God has such a fiery indignation. Do you think this is to press you to slavish fear? If it were so, one had better be a slave to God with a trembling heart, than a freeman to the devil with a seared conscience and a heart of adamant. But it is not so you may love him and thus fear him too; yea, you ought to do it, though you were saints of the first magnitude.

"For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly."

JOHN vi. 44.

"No man can come to me, except the Father, which hath sent me, draw him.”

WE have now had a view of the total corruption of man's nature, and that load of wrath which lies on him, that gulf of misery he is plunged into in his natural state. But there is one part of his misery that deserves particular consideration; namely, his utter inability to recover himself: the knowledge of which is necessary for the due humiliation of a sinner. What I design here is, only to propose a few things, whereby to convince the unregenerate man of this his inability; that he may see an absolute need of Christ, and of the power of his grace.

As a man that is fallen into a pit cannot be supposed to help himself out of it, but by one of two ways; either by doing all himself alone, or taking hold of and improving the help offered him by others: so an unconverted man cannot be supposed to help himself out of that state, but either in the way of the law, or covenant of works, by doing all himself with

out Christ; or else in the way of the gospel, or covenant of grace, by exerting his own strength to lay hold upon, and to make use of, the help offered him by a Saviour. But, alas! the unconverted man is dead in the pit, and cannot help himself either of these ways. Not the first way; for the first text tells us, that when our Lord came to help us, we were without strength, unable to recover ourselves. But when Christ comes and offereth help to sinners, cannot they take it? cannot they improve help when it comes to their hands? No; the second text tells us they cannot: "No man can come to me, (that is, believe in me, John vi. 35.) except the Father draw him." This is a drawing which enables them to come, who till then could not come, and therefore could not help themselves, by improving the help offered. It is a drawing which is always effectual; for it can be no less than hearing and learning of the Father, which whoso partakes of cometh to Christ, ver. 25. Therefore it is not drawing in the way of mere moral persuasion, which may be, yea, and always is, ineffectual; but it is drawing by mighty power, absolutely necessary for them that have no power in themselves, to come and take hold of the offered help.

Hearken then, O unregenerate man, and be convinced, that as thou art in a most miserable state by nature, so thou art utterly unable to recover thyself any manner of way. Thou art ruined: and what way wilt thou go to work to recover thyself? Which of the two ways wilt thou choose? Wilt thou try it alone? or wilt thou make use of help? Wilt thou fall on the way of works, or on the way of the gospel?

I know

very well thou wilt not so much as try the way of the gospel, till once thou hast found the recovery impracticable in the way of the law. of the law. Therefore we shall begin where corrupt nature teaches men to begin, namely, at the way of the law of works.

I. Sinner, I would have thee believe that thy working will never effect it. Work, and do thy best, thou shalt never be able to work thyself out of this state of corruption and wrath. Thou must have Christ, else thou shalt perish eternally; it is only Christ in you can be the hope of glory. be the hope of glory.

But if thou wilt needs try it, then I must lay before thee, from the unalterable word of the living God, two things which thou must do for thyself; and if thou canst do them, it must be yielded that thou art able to recover thyself; but if not, then thou canst do nothing this way for thy recovery.

1. "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." That is, if thou wilt by doing enter into life, then perfectly keep the ten commands. For the scope of these words is to beat down the pride of the man's heart, and to let him see an absolute need of a Saviour, from the impossibility of keeping the law. The answer is given suitable to the address. Our Lord checks him for his compliment, "Good master," telling him, "There is none good but one, that is God." As if he had said, you think yourself a good man, and me another; but where goodness is spoken of, men and angels may veil their faces before the good God. And as to his question, wherein he discovereth his legal disposition, Christ does not answer him, saying, "Believe, and thou shalt be saved." That would not have been so