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government, we must be in a condition either to observe or to break his laws. A power to do the one neceffarily fuppofes a power to do the other; and without this power we should not be the proper fubjects of religion; as, in that cafe, it would be in vain to propose to us either rewards for obedience or punishments for difobedience.

Nor is the fuppofition of a power in man to do the will of God any foundation for pride. For we muft ftill fay with the apoftle, What have we that we have not received? and how then can we glory, as if we had not received it? Every good and every perfect gift comes from God; and, knowing this, the more we receive of his bounty, the more thankful and the more humble we should be. I fhall, certainly, be more folicitous to exert myself in doing the will of God, when I believe that I have a talent to improve, than if I believe that I have no talent intrusted with me at all; fo that I cannot do even fo much as the wicked and flothful fervant, who hid his talent in a napkin.

Some of thofe perfons who believe that all mankind are absolutely incapable of doing good, are sometimes heard to invite finners of all kinds to come to Christ, as they are, and to fay, that the viler they are, the more welcome they will be to him; as if he was, after this, to cleanse them by fome miraculous power. But, my brethren, the invitation of the gospel runs in very different terms. It is, Repent and bring forth fruits

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meet for repentance. Matt. iii. 8. Repent and be converted that your fins may be blotted out. Acts iii. 19. And none are invited to come to Christ, but those who labour and are heavy-laden; nor can they find reft for their fouls, 'till they have actually learned of him to be meek and Lowly in heart. Matt. xi. 28..

What can be more contrary to the maxims above mentioned, than the whole tenor of that serious expostulation with the children of Ifrael in the prophet Isaiah, part of which I quoted above? Wash you, make you clean,, put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes. Ceafe to do evil, learn to do well. Seek judg- ̄ ment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now (and not before) and let us reafon together, faith the Lord. Though your fins be as Scarlet, they fhall be white as fnow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. Ifa. i. 16, &c.

Others, who entertain the fame opinion of the utter inability of man to do the will of God, act more confiftently with those sentiments, but far more inconfiftently with the fcriptures, in never preaching to firners at all; though to call finners to repentance was the chief end of Chrift's coming into the world.. Matt. ix. 13.

Whatever represents a state of acceptance with God, as a thing that may be brought about without any efforts of our own, and efpecially if it may be done in a moment, or in a very fhort fpace of time, is fure to be a popular dotrine. Mankind in general

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care not how little is expected of them, or how little they themselves have to do, in order to get to heaven. But true religion, that alone which affords solid ground of hope towards God, confifts in a change of heart, affections, and habits; which can only be brought about by ferious refolution, and a vigorous and conftant exertion of our powers. Nay, unless a course of virtue be begun, and good habits formed early in life, there is very great danger that the thorns, briers, or bad foil, will prevent the good feed from ever -coming to maturity.

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To believe, as the fame perfons do, that faith and repentance are nothing that we ourselves are capable of, but altogether the miraculous operation of the Spirit of God in us and upon us, fuppofes that this great and sudden change may as well take place at the last hour of life, as at any other: which certainly encourages the most unwarrantable and most dangerous prefumption, and is far from having any countenance in the fcriptures. The word of God always reprefents a fafe and happy death as the confequence of nothing but a good and well-spent life. Some, indeed, are faid to have been called at the eleventh hour, but none at the twelfth, when the time for labouring in the vineyard was quite over; and not one of the foolish virgins, who had neglected to provide themselves with oil, was admitted to the marriage-fupper.

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III. OF ORIGINAL SIN.

As a foundation for this ftrange doctrine, of the utter inability of men to do what God requires of them, a doctrine fo injurious both to our maker and ourfelves, it is faid that by his first offence our first parent Adam, and all his pofterity, loft all power of doing any thing acceptable to God for the future; that he was the reprefentative of all his pofterity, fo that when be finned, we all finned; and every fin being an offence against an infinite God, we all became, from that moment, liable to an infinite punish ment, even the everlafting wrath and curfe of our maker. And they fay, that, on this account only, it would have been just in God to have made us al fuffer the most exquifite and endless torments in hell, even though we had never finned in our own perfons.

But, my brethren, you find nothing like any part of this in your bibles. For there you read, the foul that finneth, it fall die. Ezek. xviii. 4. And long after the tranfgreffion of Adam, and to this very day, God is continually calling upon men to cease to do evil, and learn to do well; which certainly supposes that men always have had, and that we now have, a power to do fo. It is allowed that we fuffer by the fin of Adam, as any child may fuffer in confequence of the wickedness of his ancestor; but it is not poffible that we should have finned in him. Wherever there is fin, there is guilt; that is, fomething that may be the foundation

foundation of remorfe of confcience; fomething that a man may be forry for, and repent of; something that he may wish he had not done; all which clearly implies, that fin is something that a man has given his confent to, and therefore must be convinced of the reasonableness of his being punished for. But how can any man repent of the fin of Adam, or feel any thing like remorfe of conscience for it; when he cannot but know that he never gave his consent to it, and could not poffibly have been, in the leaft degree, acceffary to it? Good and bad conduct are, in their own nature, personal, and cannot poffibly be transferred from one to another. Whatever fome divines pretend, nothing of this kind can be imputed in this fense of the word. We may receive harm by means of one person, and benefit by means of another; but no fin of the former, or righteoufnefs of the latter, can be confidered as ours, in the eye of an equitable and juft God. The contrary is as much the language and the plain meaning of the fcriptures throughout, as it is agreeable to the common fenfe and reason that God has given us.

IV. OF ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

SUPPOSING that all mankind became liable to the everlasting wrath and curfe of God for the fin of one man, some divines say, that it was mercy in God to fave any, though by an arbitrary decree, which left all the reft of the human race under an inevitable

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