ting at the table, in the posture of children standing round their father's board, to receive his distributions of bread and wine, or in the posture of humble supplicants kneeling and adoring ; whether our ministers must be ordained, and our churches governed by bishops or presbyters, or how far the concurrent acts of the whole church have an influence in these solemnities; whether our prayers must be immediately conceived in our hearts, and invented as they are uttered in new expressions continually, or whether we may use forms written down before-hand: These things, and many others of the like nature, because they are not of such necessity, therefore are not so evidently determined in the word of God.

But as for the six general rules before mentioned, I do not see how we can expect that God should dispense with any of them, since he has appointed his written word to be the rule of his final judgment, and he seems to have required them in his word in so peremptory a manner. He that strives and takes pains to obtain heaven, with a neglect of these rules, I think we may boldly say, he does not strive lawfully, and he has no sufficient ground to hope that he shall be crowned.

SECT. II. Considerations to prove the Doctrine.

I proceed now to the second thing which I proposed, and that is to lay down several considerations, which may serve to evince and prove the truth of the doctrine, and make it still more evident, that such as neglect the rules of God's appointment shall not obtain salvation.

Consideration I. "God alone has a right to appoint the way to his own favour, and he is jealous to secure this prerogative." God has the first and most unquestionable property in us as his creatures, and sovereign dominiou over us as subjects. He has a right, and he only, to ordain in what manner we should honour him, and seek his favour. If we were innocent creatures, it is he must direct us to any special instances of our duty in that state of innocence, and tell us how we may keep ourselves in his love: Or since we are guilty and rebellious, he only can appoint the sacred methods to obtain his own favour again, and gain an interest in his compassion.

The Lord our God is a jealous God, and will not suffer himself to be disobeyed or mocked in things that so nearly concern his own sovereignty. This is evident in the second commandment, where he appoints the method of his own worship: And though we may think paintings, or images to represent his glory, and his power, are very agreeable and proper to assist our sensible natures, yet he forbids every thing of this kind as mediums of divine worship, and he solemnizes the prohibition with an awful discovery of his own jealousy: He declares that.

he will avenge himself of those that dare to worship him in unappointed or forbidden ways, even to the third and fourth generations. It is worthy of our notice, that when he charges the Jews of old, with some of their idolatrous abominations, he mentions this as the reason of his anger, that they practised things which he commanded not, neither came they into his heart ; Jer. vii. 31.

When God designed his own worship to be attended with a variety of pomp and ceremony, he prescribed every part of it to Moses with great exactness: And when he had given an account how the tabernacle, and table, and the candlesticks, and the altars should be made, he gives him a charge that he should precisely follow the divine directions; Ex. xxv. 9, 40. Look that thou make them after their pattern, which was shewed thee in the mount. Now if the great God requires such accuracy, and such exact conformity to his rules in matters merely external, typical, and ceremonial, how much more may we suppose that he will be strict and severe in demanding a conformity to his own appointed methods of salvation in things of more solemn, more spiritual, and everlasting concernment?

Suppose a traitor guilty of death, should have orders from the king his sovereign to enter into his presence, dressed in the borrowed ornaments of the prince his sou, and to be introduced by his hand in order to obtain pardon; now if this condemned criminal should resolve rather to come and appear before the king in some bright ornament of his own preparing, and without the mediation of the prince; would he not deserve to be frowned away from the throne, and sent directly to execution? Would not this be a new indignity offered to the king himself, and a fresh instance of rebellion and disobedience? So when we consider ourselves as rebels and traitors against the majesty of heaven, if we will refuse the methods of God's own appointment in order to obtain his favour, and will walk in the devices of our own hearts; this will be justly construed a continuance in our rebellion; and we must expect the sentence of death to be executed upon us; Is. 1. 11. Behold all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks, walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled; this shall ye have of my hand, ye shall lie down in sorrow.

II. "All the ways of recovering the favour of God, that proud vain mau would contrive for himself, are evidently fruitless and ineffectual, and if we consider them distinctly, each of them will appear to be insufficient.

Shall we come to God in the way of innocency, and pretend that we have done no harm? But we have before proved that all men are guilty. There is none righteous, no not one; Rom. iii. 15. Shall we come in the way of hope and reliance upon the

general and absolute mercy of God, trusting that God will forgive our sins because he is infinitely good and kind? But the light of nature can give us no manner of assurance, that he will express his kindness and goodness in forgiving sinful men. This is a free act of his will, and there is nothing in his nature, or in our circumstances that obliges him to it. Nor in his gospel hath he given any promise of such mercy to be exercised, but through Jesus his Son: The grace of God that appears to men is only through Jesus Christ; Tit. iii. 4. He justifies us freely by his grace; but it is through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ; Rom. iii. 24.

Shall we approach to God in the way of humble address to him, and beg him to accept of our repentances and mortifications? But these can never atone for our past offences. What are the tears or sorrows, or little penances of a creature to make satisfaction for the affronts offered to God? Shall we come to God and hope for acceptance by our best duties of righteousness? But they are all imperfect, and the law of God in its perfect purity would condemn both us and them: Besides if they were never so perfect they could not make recompence for transgressions past. Shall we seek to saints in heaven, or angels, or any higher rank of creatures to become mediators, advocates, and intercessors for us? Alas! We have no acquaintance with them, nor do we know that any of our petitions can come to their knowledge: Besides, this office is so sublime and glorious, that it seems too assuming for them to undertake, unless the offended Majesty of heaven had appointed them to it: They are all utterly precluded by their want of sufficient merit, as well as by the designation of his Son Jesus Christ alone to that glorious office.

In vain shall sinful guilty man hope to come near to a holy and offended God, but by the death and righteousness of his own Son. Ever since the first Adam laid the foundation of our ruin, and divided us from God our Maker, by his sin, mankind has been still wandering farther from God, and rebelling against him; and it is the second Adam alone that can restore us to his favour again by his righteousness; Rom. v. 19. As by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one man shall many be made righteous.

But to proceed in shewing the insufficiency of sinful man to return to God by his own power or merit. All that we have insisted on here is but one part of our misery: We must look upon ourselves not only guilty of many past offences in the sight of God, but as having our natures ruined, and the powers of them enfeebled and broken by sin. We are dark, ignorant, and averse to God and all that is holy. We cannot learn divine things, savingly, without the teachings of the Holy Spirit: We cannot VOL. IN.

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change our sinful natures to holiness without his special infla ences: We cannot mortify all the rising corruptions, and reigning iniquities of our hearts, and transform our own souls into the likeness of God: By nature we are enemies to God and goodness; our own reasonings, our moral motives, our rules of philosophy, and all our self-invented methods of austere penance and mortification, will not wean our hearts from the love of sin and vanity, and work that supreme love to God in our souls, and that delight in him above all things, which is necessary in order to true happiness. It is a new creation, it is a resurrection from the dead, it is a being born again; and what mere creature is sufficient for these almighty works? As it is nothing but the gospel that shews us the atonement of Christ, which is equal to the guilt of our offences: and how by that atonement we are to be reconciled to God, so it is nothing but the gospel that reveals to us the condescending grace of God, and the powerful influences of his own Spirit, whereby we may have our natures renewed and fitted for the presence and enjoyment of God*.

III." Since the gospel of Christ is established as the way of our access unto God, there is an awful and terrible curse pronounced against those, who bring in any other pretended gospel or way of salvation." If any man preach any other gospel to you than that ye have received, let him be accursed; Gal. i. 9. And this curse is not only pronounced against men, but against angels themselves, if we could suppose any of them should attempt such an affront to the government of God, verse 8. Though we, or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel to you, than that which we have preached, let him be accursed. Behold here St. Paul, a little and despicable figure of a man, but under the influence of the divine Spirit, pronouncing a curse upon himself, an apostle, and upon the highest angel in heaven, if he should preach another gospel. The sovereignty of God, in the appointment of the means of our salvation, will maintain its own unrivalled character and dignity in a sublime degree, and he declares his holy jealousy of the least entrenchment upon it. Woe be to the man that attempts to lay any other foundation for a sinner's hope; he exposes himself to such a curse as would sink an apostle, or an angel down to hell and eternal misery.

IV." The great God has already made several persons become terrible instances of his indignation, when they have pretended to attempt to please, or serve him in other methods, than he himself has appointed." Read the story of Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, in Lev. x. I, 2. when they took their

* See these things proved more at large in the two first discourses of my Erst volume of Sermons; volume the first, page 1-25.

censers and burned incense in them, and offered strange fire before the Lord, which he commanded them not; there went out fire from the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord. It is supposed by learned men, that when the divine fire came from heaven and consumed the burnt-offering; Lev. ix. 24. this fire was not only to be preserved always upon the altar, according to God's express order; Lev. vi. 12, 13. The fire shall ever be burning, and never go out: But that no other fire was lawful to be used in burning the sacrifices, or the incense: And when Nadab and Abihu neglected to use this sacred fire, and put common fire in their censers in the room of it, this was the very crime which God so terribly avenged. This is that, said Moses, which the Lord spake, I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me, and before all the people will I be glorified, verse 3.

Behold a second instance of the dreadful anger and high resentment of God upon a like occasion, when Korah, Dathan and Abiram, with two hundred and fifty princes of the assembly, rose up against Moses. They presumed to enter into the office of priesthood, and to offer incense in their censers, to which ministry God appointed none but Aaron and his sons. Read the awful narrative! Num. xvi. 1, 31-35. When Moses gave them a solemn reproof, and pronounced the doom of Korah and his company, "the ground clave asunder that was under them, and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up and their houses with all their goods: They and all that appertained unto them, went down alive into the pit; and the earth closed upon them, and they perished from among the congregation: And all Israel that were round about them, fled at the cry of them, for they said, lest the earth swallow us up also: And there came out fire from the Lord, and consumed the two hundred and fifty men that offered incense." This unexampled and astonishing vengeance makes it appear with dreadful evidence, that their crime was very heinous in the eyes of a jealous God.

Take a third example of the jealousy of God. Saul was the first king whom he appointed over Israel, yet when he presumed to offer a burnt-offering himself before the appointed hour, and did not tarry for Samuel to do it, God lays this to his charge as one reason of his taking away the kingdom from him, viz. because he did not keep the commandment or appointment of the Lord; 1 Sam. xiii. 12-14. And yet he seems to have had a very good excuse too, and did it almost unwillingly: I forced myself, &c.

In the fourth place, mark what a monument of indignation and misery appears in Uzziah, the king of Judah; 2 Chron. xxvi. 16-21. He went into the temple of the Lord, to burn incense upon the altar of incense. The king refuseth to desist from his impious attempt, when the priests informed him of his trans