XII. The Miracles of the Divine Mercy. PSALM LXXXVI. 5.-For thou, Lord, art good, and ready I. The Righteousness Evangelical. MATTHEW V. 20.-For I say unto you, that except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and ruler over his household, to give them their portion of SERMONS. SUMMARY OF SERMON VIII. JUDE,- -VERSES 22, 23. PART I. MAN has but one entrance into the world, but a thousand exits. And as in the natural, so it is in the spiritual state: nothing but the union of faith and obedience can secure our regeneration; but there are a thousand passages turning to dark ness. There are various stages and descents to death, as there are degrees of torment in the kingdom of sorrow: yet for every one of these stages of sin, God hath measured out a proportion of mercy. If sin abounds, grace shall much more abound. Yet there are some sins for which God hath not appointed a remedy : some men have sinned like the fallen angels, and have outrun the conditions of grace. This is a state to be avoided with all care and anxiety. The aim of this discourse stated :—to remonstrate on the several states of sin and death, and to show the remedies which God hath proportioned for them; that we may observe the evils of the least, and so avoid the intolerable mischiefs of the greater; lest we fall into such sins as the eternal God will never pardon. I. Of some have compassion. These reduced to four heads or orders of men and actions : all which have their proportional remedies. TAY. VOL. III. A 1. The first are those that sin without observation of their peculiar state; either because they are uninstructed in the special cases of conscience, or because they do an evil against which there is no express commandment. Millions are in a state of sickness and danger, who are made to believe that they are in perfect health; and they do actions concerning which they never made a question whether they were just or not, nor were ever taught by what names to call them: this explained. Others sin, because the crime is not under the restraint of an express commandment, and there is no letter of the law to condemn them by an express sentence: this enlarged on. 2. Men sin without an express prohibition, when they commit a thing that is like to a forbidden evil. When St. Paul had reckoned many works of the flesh, he adds, and such like; that is, all that have the same unreasonableness and carnality: this explained. 3. A man is guilty, even when no law names his action, if he does any thing that is a cause or an effect, a part or unhandsome adjunct, of a forbidden instance: this explained. 4. Besides the express laws of our religion, there is a universal line and limit to our passions and designs, which is called the analogy of Christianity, that is, the proportion of its sanctity, and the strictness of its holy precepts. This is not forbidden; but does it become you? Is it decent in a Christian to live in plenty and ease, and heap up money, and never to partake of Christ's passions? this subject dilated on. It is but reasonable that we should take account of our lives by the proportions, as well as by the express rules of our religion; for that which in the accounts of men is called reputation and public honesty, is the same which in religion we call analogy and proportion : this point enlarged on. II. The next sort of those who are in the state of sin, and yet to be handled gently and with compassion, are those who entertain themselves with the beginnings and little entrances of sin: this point enlarged on the compassion to be used to such |