have the broadest view of the divine displeasure against all unrighteousness of men, as well as a high proof illustrated by his resurrection, how differently God judges of righteousness from what men do; that which was highly esteemed among men, being found to be an abomination in his sight; and that which was disallowed of men, found to be chosen of God and precious. In the death of Christ, then, is held forth the broadest view of human guilt and misery, and the clearest discovery of the all sufficient remedy. There divine judgment itself is made to rest for a light to the nations.

When Christian teachers imitate the apostles in preaching, they hold forth the sacred truth, Christ crucified, the divine wisdom and power to salvation; and so leave it wholly to God to make converts. The merciful truth is all-sufficient to save. It needs no requisite, no preparative from man to produce a relish for it. It creates a relish for itself; it answers to the majesty of him whose voice it is, and who framed the conscience of man for hearing his voice; it wounds and it heals; it kills and it makes alive; it blocks up and darkens all the resources of the pride of man, in the light of which he formerly walked and lived; and it brings him light and life from an unexpected quarter, by opening as it were a window in heaven. No lecture about any law can affect the conscience of man like this truth, which shows the divine law magnified and honoured in the most eminent manner;. which demonstrates the Deity to be inflexibly in earnest as to every word spoken in his perfect law, and so demolishes all the subterfuges of human pride. What preparative, what requisite, had Paul when the merciful truth surprised him on the road to Damascus? And if we inquire what effect it had upon him, we find it made such a revolution in his sentiments, and all the springs of his life, as if we should see the course

of a mighty torrent changed from east to west by the shock of an earthquake. The extraordinary signs affecting his body, showed what befel his mind. The miraculous shutting, and the miraculous opening of his eyes, were signs of that turning from darkness to light, which Jesus told him his ministry was to operate among the Gentiles: and he tells us himself, he was designed for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe to life everlasting.

Many artifices have been devised by some, and unwarily adopted and propagated by others, which serve to throw mist betwixt the eyes of men and the glory of that righteousness which delivers from death; serving to confound and perplex their minds about the way of enjoying the unspeakable comfort therein laid open to the guiltiest of mankind, in their most desperate circumstances; serving, in short, to render of none effect the gospel of our salvation. Such are those, who, having largely insisted on the corruption of human nature, concluded the whole world guilty before God, eloquently set forth the necessity of an atonement, zealously maintained the Scriptural doctrine concerning the person and work of Christ; yet, after all, leave us as much in the dark as to our comfort, as if Jesus Christ had never appeared; and mark out as insuperable a task for us, as if he had not finished his work; while, with great assiduity and earnestness, they are busied in describing to us, animating us with various encouragements, and furnishing us with manifold instructions, how to perform that strange something which is to make out our connection with Christ, and bring his righteousness home to us; that something which has got many names, and includes divers considerations; all which have been supposed to be comprehended under the Scriptural expression FAITH;

as to which, after all they have told us about it, we are at as great a loss to tell distinctly what it is, or what we are doing when we perform it, if not greater, than when they began.

Though, by all who believe the scriptures, the power and cunning of the prime enemy of mankind, whose work stands in direct opposition to the spirit of truth, must be acknowledged to be very active in promoting and inforcing the influence of all those glosses on the Scriptures, by which the minds of men have been darkened about that blessed truth which contains the only ground of hope for them, and by which they have been furnished with directions setting them to work to do something, under whatever name, to make up their peace with God; yet, at the same time, it must be owned, that all this sort of doctrine draws its origin from a very broad and deep root in depraved human nature, from a principle firmly settled in the heart of every fool and of every philosopher. Hence it is, that Christianity can never become popular in any nation, unless it be taught in such a manner as to leave room for the gratification of this common principle; and hence it is, that philosophers will always have a copious fund of arguments against it, and will always despise it as unsuitable to nature; though the wisest and best of them, according to the history of human nature given us by its author, possess it only in its depraved condition, and can have no opportunity of observing it in others, but in that same condition.

In order to have a proper view of this common principle, we must trace it to its source, and consider man in his first condition. The scripture then gives us to understand, that when man was created, and paradise fitted up for him, he was framed to live, or enjoy the divine favour, by his own righteousness. He was not

made like other animals, to live by his food alone: he was framed to know his dependence on his Creator, to hear his voice, and obey it; and thus to be conscious of his favour, so long as he was conscious of having done nothing to deserve the loss of it. So we find he received his food by a formal grant from the voice of God, and included in that grant a command to be a test of his loyality and dependence; and his obedience was to be the security of all his happiness. If it be inquired, what was the language of nature then, as to the concerns of man with God? we must say, that God was very profuse in his gifts, and no less peremptory in his commands; that he was very kind to the obedient, and no less severe to the transgressor: we must say, that man, could have no hope of any further friendly correspondence with him, if once his righteousness was stained with one act of disobedience. And the condemnation that has since followed, of all mankind to death, for one single transgression, and that not of what is called moral, but of a positive precept, as a standing proof of the extent of the divine displeasure against sin.

When man became a sinner, nature could point out no way of relief for him. Every attempt now to become righteous before God, and much more every imagination that God would assist him in any such attempt, behoved to be criminal in man, and to carry in it a dishonourable reflection against his creator and judge, as if he could be pleased with an imperfect righteousness, or a righteousness stained with sin. Yet as by his original constitution, he was framed to live by his own righteousness, and to enjoy an happy earthly life as its reward; and as he knows no other supports against despair, he still retains the strongest propensity toward both these. And though disappointment has hitherto attended all his at

tempts this way; yet his pride still flatters him with the prospect of better success, by means of new improvements in his attempts.

This propensity, this common principle in all men, must now be considered as nature corrupted; and it is from this source that we find the Scripture deducing all the corruption that is in the world.

Every scheme of religion devised by men, has been contrived for the gratifying of this principle: and from hence every corruption of that religion which came from heaven takes its rise. Every one who agrees with the apostle in saying, Far be it! that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world, must see how opposite the gospel is to this universal bias, this corruption of nature.

Every doctrine, then, which teaches us to do or endeavour any thing toward our acceptance with God, stands opposed to the doctrine of the apostles; which, instead of directing us what to do, sets before us all that the most disquieted conscience can require, in order to acceptance with God, as already done and finished by Jesus Christ. What Christ hath done, is that which pleases God; what he hath done, is that which quiets the guilty conscience of man as soon as he knows it: so that whenever he hears of it, he has no occasion for any other question but this, Is it true or not? If he finds it true, he is happy; if not, he can reap no comfort by it. If, then, we slight the comfort arising from the bare persuasion of this, it must be owing, at bottom, to our slighting this bare truth, to our slighting the bare work of Christ, and our considering it as too narrow a foundation whereon to rest the whole weight of our acceptance with God. Whereas all Christians of the same stamp with Paul, can never see it