terminated. Thus by a free and insuperable decree (when all mankind, lapsed and miserable, was in his view) he chose some to be "vessels of mercy," and by privilege separated them from the rest that finally perish. Now what induced him to place a singular love on the elect? There was nothing in them to incline his compassion, being equally guilty and depraved with the rest of the progeny of Adam. This difference therefore is to be resolved into his unaccountable and adorable will, as the sole cause of it. Thus God declares it to be his glorious prerogative, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion." And this is no unjust acceptance of persons: for as a benefactor, he may dispense his own favors as he pleases. A gift from mere and arbitrary bounty may be bestowed on some, and not on others, without injustice. But there are other actions of God, for which there is an evident reason in men on whom they are terminated. Thus, as the supreme judge, without respect of persons, 1 Pet. 1. 17. he will judge and reward every man according to his works, Rom. 2. 16. Acts 26. 18. The evangelical law (as was touched on before) is the rule of eternal judgment, and gives a right from the gracious promise of God to all penitent believers in the kingdom of heaven, and excludes all impenitent infidels. Divine justice will illustriously appear then, in distinguishing believers from unbelievers by their works, the proper fruits either of faith or infidelity: all the thick clouds of disgraces, calumnies, persecutions, that often oppress the most sincere christians here, shall not then darken their holiness; and all the specious appearances of piety, which the most artificial hypocrites make use of to deceive others, shall not conceal their wickedness. And accordingly the one shall be absolved and glorified, the others condemned and punished forever. In short, without violation of his own righteous establishment in the gospel, God cannot receive the unholy into his glory, Heb. 12. 14.

3. Besides the legal bar that excludes unsanctified persons from the beatific vision of God, there is a moral incapacity. Suppose that justice should allow Omnipotence to translate such a sinner to heaven, would the place make him happy? Can two incongruous natures delight in one another? The happiness of sense is by an impression of pleasure from a suitable object: The happiness of intellectual beings arises from an entire conformity of dispositions. So that unless God recede from his holiness, which is absolutely impossible, or man be purified, and changed into his likeness, there can be no sweet communion between them. Our Saviour assigns this reason of the necessity of regeneration in order to our admission into heaven: "That which is born of the flesh, is flesh; and that which is born of the spirit, is spirit." According to the quality of the principle, such is what proceeds from it. The flesh is a corrupt principle, and accordingly the natural man is wholly

carnal in his propensions, operations and end. The disease is turned into his constitution. He is dead to the spiritual life, to the actions and enjoyments that are proper to it: Nay, there is in him a surviving principle of enmity to that life; not only a mortal coldness to God, but a stiff aversation from him, a perpetual resistance and impatience of the divine presence, that would disturb his voluptuous enjoyments. The exercises of heaven would be as the torments of hell to him, while in the midst of those pure joys his inward inclinations vehemently run into the lowest lees of sensuality. And therefore till this contrariety, so deep and predominant in an unholy person, be removed, it is utterly impossible he should enjoy God with satisfaction. As it was necessary that God should become like man on earth, to purchase that felicity for him, so man must be like God in heaven, before he can possess it. Holiness alone prepares men for celestial happiness; that is against the corruption, and above the perfection of mere nature.

I shall now proceed to consider more particularly what is requisite in order to our obtaining of heaven.

CHAPTER IX.

Faith in the Redeemer is indispensably required of all that will partake of salvation. Heaven must be chosen as our supreme happiness, and sought as our last end. The choice of heaven must be sincere, early, firm and constant. The sincerity of the choice discovered by the zealous use of means to obtain it. The sincerity of the choice will regulate our judgments and affections, with respect to temporal things that are so far good or evil to us as they conduct or divert us from heaven. The sincere choice of heaven will make us aspire to the highest degrees of holiness we are capable of in the present state. The vanity of the hopes of the lukewarm in religion discovered.

1. Faith in the redeemer is absolutely required of all that will partake of the salvation purchased by him. God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him, should not perish, but have eternal life, John 3. 16. This is the spirit and substance of the gospel, therefore I will briefly unfold it. The Son of God having assumed the human nature, and performed what was necessary for the expiation of sin, Phil. 2. 8, 9. the Father was so pleased with his obedience, that from his lowest state he raised him to divine glory, gave him supreme authority, and all-sufficient power to communicate that glory, to others. Thus our Saviour declares;

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lect of our duty justly exposes to punishment; but the performance of it deserves no reward, because no advantage accrues to God by it: "Who hath first given unto him, and it shall be recompensed to him again?" He challenges all creatures, even of the highest order. To speak strictly therefore, when God crowns the angels with glory, he gives what is merely his own, and does not render what is theirs. If he should leave them in their pure nature, or deprive them of the being, he were no loser, nor injurious to them: for what law binds him to enrich them with immortal glory, who are no ways profitable to him, or to preserve that being they had from his unexcited goodness? No creature can give to him; therefore none can receive from him, by way of valuable consideration.

(3.) There is no proportion between the best works of men, and the excellency of the reward, much less an equivalence. It was the just and humble acknowledgment of Jacob to God, "I am less than the least of all thy mercies;" those that common providence dispenses for the support and refreshment of this temporal life; but how much less than the glorious excellencies of the supernatural divine life, wherein the saints reign with God forever? The most costly, the most difficult and hazardous services are equally nothing in point of merit, with the giving but "a cup of cold water to a disciple of Christ," there being no correspondence in value between them and the kingdom of heaven. The Apostle tells us, "I count the sufferings of this present life are not to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us:" and suffering is more than doing. God rewards his faithful servants, not according to the dignity of their works, but his own liberality and munificence. As Alexander having ordered fifty talents of gold to be given to a gentleman in poverty to supply his want; and he surprised with that immense bounty, modestly said, ten were enough he replied, "If fifty are too much for you to receive, ten are too little for me to give; therefore do you receive as poor, I will give as a king." Thus God, in the dispensing his favors, does not respect the meanness of our persons or services, but gives to us as a God. And the clearest notion of the Deity is, that he is a being infinite in all perfections, therefore all-sufficient, and most willing to make his creatures completely happy.

(4.) If a creature perfectly holy, that never sinned, is uncapable to merit any thing from God, much less can those who are born in a sinful state, and guilty of innumerable actual transgressions, pretend to deserve any reward for their works. This were presumption, inspired by prodigious vanity. For,

1. By his most free grace they are restored in conversion to that spiritual power by which they serve him. The chaos was not a deader lump before the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters, than the best of men were before the vital influ

ences of the spirit wrought upon them: and for this they are so deeply obliged to God, that if a thousand times more for his glory were performed, yet they cannot discharge what they owe.

2. The continuance and increase of the powerful supplies of grace to the saints, who even since their holy calling by many lapses have justly deserved that God should withdraw his grieved Spirit, are new obligations to thankfulness; and the more grace, the less merit.

3. The best works of men are imperfect, allayed with the mixtures of infirmities, and not of full weight in the divine balance. If God should strictly examine our righteousness, it will be found neither pure nor perfect in his eyes, and without favor and indulgence would be rejected. And that which wants pardon, cannot deserve praise and glory. "He shews mercy to thousands that love him, and keep his commandments." If obedience were meritorious, it were strict justice to reward them. The Apostle prays for Onesiphorus, who had exposed himself to great danger for his love to the gospel; "The Lord grant he may find mercy in that day." The divine mercy gives the crown of life to the faithful in the day of eternal recompense.

II. The meritorious cause of our obtaining heaven, is the obedience of Jesus Christ, comprehending all that he did and suffered to reconcile God to us. From him, as the eternal word, we have all benefits in the order of nature; "for all things were made by him," and for him, as the incarnate word, all good things in the order of grace. What we enjoy in time, and expect in eternity, is by him. To shew what influence his mediation has to make us happy, we must consider,

1. Man by his rebellion justly forfeited his happiness, and the law exacts precisely the forfeiture. Pure justice requires the crime should be punished according to its quality, much less will it suffer the guilty to enjoy the favor of God: for sin is not to be considered as an offence and injury to a private person, but the violation of a law, and a disturbance in the order of government so that to preserve the honor of governing justice, an equivalent reparation was appointed. Till sin was expiated by a proper sacrifice, the divine goodness was a sealed spring, and its blessed effects restrained from the guilty creature. Now the Son of God in our assumed nature offered up himself a sacrifice, in our stead, to satisfy divine justice, and removed the bar, that mercy might be glorified in our salvation. The Apostle gives this account of it; We have boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Christ, by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh, Heb.

10. 19. 20.

2. Such were the most precious merits of his obedience, that it was not only sufficient to free the guilty contaminated race of mankind from hell, but to purchase for them the kingdom of

heaven. If we consider his human nature, all graces were born with him, as rays with the sun, and shined in the whole course of his life in the excellence of perfection. And the dignity of his divine person derived an immense value to all he performed as mediator. One act of his obedience was more honorable to God, than all the lives of the saints, the deaths of the martyrs, and the service of the angels. God was more pleased in the obedience of his beloved Son, than he was provoked by the rebellion of his servants. Therefore, as the just recompense of it, he constituted him to be universal head of the church, supreme judge of the world; invested him with divine glory, and with power to communicate it to his faithful servants: "He is the Prince of life." In short, it is as much upon the account of Christ's sufferings that we are glorified, as that we are forgiven. The wounds he received in his body, the characters of ignominy, and footsteps of death, are the fountains of our glory. His abasement is the cause of our exaltation.

If it be said, this seems to lessen the freeness of this gift, the answer is clear:

This was due to Christ but undeserved by us. Besides, the appointing his son to be our Mediator in the way of our ransom, was the most glorious work of his goodness.

CHAPTER VIII.

The gospel requires qualifications in all that shall obtain the kingdom of heaven. The renovation of man according to the likeness of God, is indispensably requisite for the enjoying of God. Renewing grace described. The wisdom and justice of God requires that men be sanctified before they are admitted into heaven. Without sanctification, there is a moral incapacity of enjoying the beatific vision.

The means of our obtaining heaven are to be considered. Though the divine goodness be free in its acts, and there can be nothing in the creature of merit, or inducement to prevail upon God in the nature of a cause, yet he requires qualifications in all those who shall enjoy that blessed unchangeable kingdom. The Apostle expressly declares, it is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that sheweth mercy, Rom. 9. 16. But we must distinguish the effects of this mercy, which are dispensed in that order the gospel lays down. The first mercy is the powerful calling the sinner from his corrupt and wretched state; a second mercy is the pardoning his sins; the last and most eminent is the glorifying him in heaven. Now it is clear, that in