you would endeavour to enter, not only into the sense, but into the spirit of them. You well know, that unregenerate sinners are wicked men; and of such it is said, God is angry with the wicked every day*; or all the day long, as the original imports. The sinner lies down and rises up, goes out and comes in, under the divine displeasure; and though with great patience God bears with him for a while, he is described as preparing his dreadful artillery against him, to smite him even with a mortal wound: So far will he be from admitting him into his kingdom, that as it is there added, If he turn not, he will whet his sword; he has bent his bow, and made it ready. He has also prepared for him the instruments of death+. And in another place, he describes the dreadful consequence of that preparation in most lively terms: If I whet my glittering sword, and my hand take hold on judgment; I will render vengeance to mine enemies, and will reward them that hate me: I will make mine arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh, from the beginning of revenges on the enemy; i. e. as soon as I begin this awful workt. And elsewhere he compares the destruction, which he will bring upon sinners at last, to that which he executed on Sodom and Gomorrah, when he scattered fire and brimstone on their habitations, and reduced their pleasant country to a burning lake: Upon the wicked he will rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest: this will be the portion of their cup§; and oh, how unlike the state and abode of those who are the happy subjects of his kingdom! None of the prophets speak in milder and more gentle language to returning penitents, than Isaiah; yet he declares, There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked. Yea, he does, as it were, call in the concurrence of all who feared God, and who loved their country, to echo back and enforce the admonition: Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him; but, on the other hand, Woe to the wicked, it shall be ill with him; for the reward of his hands shall be given him¶. The enumeration would be endless; and it would require more than the time of a whole discourse only to read over, without any comment or remark, one half of the passages which might properly be introduced on this occasion. I will therefore only mention two more, which, though some of you may hear with indifference, I confess I cannot read without a very sensible inward commotion. *Psal. vii. 11. Isa. Ivii. 21. + Ver. 12, 13. Isa. iii. 10, 11. + Deut. xxxii. 41, 42. § Psal. xi. 6. The one is that passage in the Mosaic law, where God directs his servant to say, if There be among you a root that beareth gall and wormwood, or any unregenerate soul, who when he hears the words of this curse, shall bless himself in his heart, saying, I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst, and run into one debauchery and sin after another: The Lord will not spare him, but the anger of the Lord, and his jealousy, shall smoke and be inflamed against that man ;-and the Lord shall separate him unto evil, out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant, that are written in the book of the law*. There is a terrible emphasis, of which we cannot but take notice here: God declares, that if, among all the thousands of Israel, there was but one such presumptuous sinner, that thus flattered himself in the way of his own heart, he would make a terrible example of him, and separate that one man to evil, out of thousands and ten thousands of his faithful and obedient servants. This therefore is a passage full of apparent terror: The other is indeed a language of mercy; but it contains a most awful insinuation, which appears, as good Archbishop Tillotson expresses it, "like a razor set in oil, which wounds with so much the keener edge." As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israelt? thereby plainly intimating, that, notwithstanding all that gentleness of the divine nature, which he expresses in a most tender invitation, which he confirms even with the solemnity of an oath; yet, if sinners did not turn from their evil ways, there was no remedy, but they must die for it. And how, Sirs, will any of you that continue in an unregenerate state arm yourselves against these terrors? Is it by saying, "that these are the thunders of Mount Sinai; that these are denunciations of the Old Testament; whereas the New speaks in milder language?" You may easily know the contrary; and to this purpose I am farther to shew you, 2. That this declaration was renewed by the preaching of Christ. It is true indeed that Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ Yet all the grace and gentleness of that administration he brought, did not contradict those awful threatenings; nay, it obliged him to set them in a stronger light.-He pro : *Deut. xxix. 18-21. + Ezek. xxxiii, 11. John i. 17. sently repeats to Nicodemus what he had just before asserted in the text, and declares, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water, and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God; i. e. " As he must be baptized with water, in order to a regular entrance into the society of my people, so he must also be sanctified and transformed by the cleansing and renewing influences of the spirit, signified by the water there used, or he can have no part in the blessings which my gospel brings."-And that this must produce an universal change in the life as well as the heart, and a faithful subjection to the will of God, without which no profession will stand a man in any stead, our Lord solemnly declares in the conclusion of his incomparable discourse on the mount. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doth the will of my Father who is in heaven: Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in thy name cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity. And shall you, Sirs, merely for having a name and place in his house, escape; when those that have preached his gospel, and wrought miracles in confirmation of it; when those that personally conversed with Christ, and those that ministered unto him, shall perish, if destitute of a holy temper of heart, and of its solid fruit in their lives?-Has not our Lord expressly said, that He will gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them that do iniquity; and will cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth?-Nay, in his infinite compassion he has given to sinners, as it were, a copy of the sentence, that will another day be pronounced upon them; that they may meditate upon it, and review it, and judge whether they can bear the terror of its execution: Hear it attentively, and then say whether unregenerate sinners shall enter into his kingdom. The dreadful doom is this; Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels§. And what now will you say to this? Can any soul of you imagine, that the Lord Jesus Christ did not know what would pass in this day, in which he is appointed to preside? or that knowing it, and knowing it would be something different from this, he would, on any consideration whatsoever, make a false representation, and lay so much stress upon it? Yet one or other of these things you must secretly imagine; or must own, * John iii. 5. Mat. vii. 21, 22, 23. Mat. xiii. 41, 42. § Mat. xxv. 41. that every unregenerate sinner, and you among the rest, must not only be excluded from his presence, but be condemned to suffer all the fury of his wrath, in company with devils and damned spirits, in final darkness, and everlasting burnings. It only remains, that I shew you, 3. That the same testimony was renewed by the apostles, under the influences of the Holy Spirit. You know, that they were authorized by their great master, to declare, in an authentic manner, the constitution of his kingdom; and that he who Despises them, despises Christ*. Now I would fain persuade you all to consider this argument as it lies in scripture; to read over the epistolary parts of the New Testament, in this view, to observe what encouragement they any of them give to an unregenerate sinner, to expect any part of the kingdom of heaven. In the mean time, permit me to present you with a few texts as a specimen of the rest. The apostle Paul, in his epistle to the Romans, does indeed speak of God's Justifying the ungodly; but lest any should vainly imagine that he encourages the hope of those that continue so, he expressly tells us in the very same epistle, that The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of ment; and that ere long this wrath shall be executed, even in the day of the more ample Revelation of the righteous judgment of God; who will render to every man according to his deeds :-To them that do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, which is the character of every unregenerate sinner, Indignation and wrath; Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doth evil, of the Jew first, as having had the most signal advantages, though advantages inferior to yours, and also of the Gentile§. And farther he assures us, that to be carnally minded, is death; and that the carnal mind, which universally prevails in men, till by regenerating grace they are made spiritual, is enmity against God, and is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.In another epistle, he mentions it as a first principle, in which it might rationally be supposed, no christian was uninstructed; Know ye not, says he, that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God¶?— And elsewhere he declares, that all external modes of religion, separate from that entire change of soul which I have described, are worthless and vain: In Christ Jesus, says he, or to those Luke x. 16. + Rom. iv. 5. Rom. i. 18. § Rom. ii. 5, 6, 8, 9. that desire any part in him and his kingdom, Neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.He likewise tells us to this purpose, in another place, that his Grace, which has appeared unto all men, teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world; and yet after all to acknowledge, that it is Not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy he saves us, by the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he has shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour.And Without holiness, which is the effect of these sacred operations upon the soul, he expressly tells us, in another place, that no man shall see the Lords.And to alledge but one more passage from him: As it is evident, that all unregencrate sinners, and only they, are ignorant of God, and disobedient to the gospel; he solemnly assures us, that instead of receiving such at last into his kingdom, The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven, with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.- This is the testimony of the apostle Paul in his own emphatical words, zealous as he was for the doctrine of free grace, which such declarations as these do not in the least degree contradict. Let us now hear his brethren, the other apostles of the Lord. James urges sinners, if they ever desire to Draw nigh to God, and to have him draw nigh to them, to cleanse their hands, and purify their hearts¶. And yet more expressly he says, when he speaks of those, who should Receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him: Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures**.-The apostle Peter describes christians, as those whose souls were Purified in obeying the truth through the spirit; being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible††; and as those, who were made Partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust ?-Again, John, the beloved disciple, tells us that Every one that doeth righteous |