to prefer, with affections to love the one, and to avoid the other? Are not the principles of moral duty so plainly and comprehensively written in the heart of man that they cannot easily be mistaken? What doth the Lord require, but what he has given me ample ability to perform? Why may I not therefore work out my own salvation, independently of any supernatural interference? How are the provisions of the gospel suited to my necessity? If I really be defiled by sin, and under the wrath of God, can my pardon be bought, my atonement made, my reconciliation effected, by means of the death of Christ? Am I so dead in trespasses and sins, as to be wholly powerless towards any holy and godly dispositions; and must some strange transformation pass upon me, to make me spiritually a new creature? Where then is my freedom of moral agency: and how can I be rewarded or punished, according to a righteous judgment at the bar of God? If the Scriptures faithfully declare my condition, yet what virtue can there be in the ordinances of religion-what hidden connexion between baptism and the regeneration of the spirit; between the bread and wine of the Supper of the Lord, and the strengthening and refreshing of my soul by the body and blood of Christ? Can prayer, or the preaching of the gospel, or the reading of the word, be instru

mental in transforming me into the likeness of the children of God? It cannot be.' Alas, there are thousands in this land and day of light -thousands, upon whom infinite compassion is pressing the mercies of salvation, by the doctrine of Christ crucified, who reason thus, and, in the pride of their hearts sport themselves with their own deceivings. The spirit of Naaman, when he received the prophet's message is still widely spread throughout the world, as men compare the salvation they would choose, with that which the unfathomable love of God has provided in his Son. Are not Abana and Pharpar rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel; may I not wash in them and be clean? 'Folly and pride strive for place in a natural heart, and it is hard to say, whether is most predominant; folly, in measuring the power of God's ordinances by the rule of human discourse and ordinary event; pride, in a scornful valuation of God opposed to our own devices.'1 A divine influence, however, strove with Naaman's heart and prevailed. He listened to the wiser suggestions of his servants; he washed seven times in Jordan; "and his flesh came again, like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean." If the Israelites had attempted to conquer Jericho after their own manner, and with

'Bishop Hall's Works, II. 50.

their own weapons, in opposition to the command of God, they would have found it as invincible, as was the throne of heaven to the fallen spirits who would have usurped it. They had the gracious wisdom given them to resign their own will and plan, to the appointed means of their Almighty leader; and they were blessed in their deed. If the blind man who besought the mercy of our blessed Lord, had been offended, when Jesus made clay with spittle to anoint his eyes, because the method of cure seemed improbable; or, if others had withdrawn him on the same account from beneath the Saviour's hand, he had gone down to the grave in hopeless darkness. He endured the application, he washed, at the bidding of Christ, in the pool of Siloam: and he returned to behold, and to adore the gracious Redeemer, who had appointed the means of restoration, and blessed him with sight in the use of them.

The manner in which you are encouraged to hope for victory over sin, is expressly declared by God in his holy word. There is a "fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness." Thither must you come, with the pollution that rests upon you. There must you be found-not once, not twice, not interruptedly, but constantly, unceasingly, perseveringly, like him at the pool of Bethesda. There is an atonement made on the cross for your transgression. In that

must you glory; and seek to be found in Christ, not having your own righteousness which is of the law; but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. There is salvation in no other-to no other refuge must you flee. God requires at your hands a sanctification of character, which the Almighty agency of his Holy Spirit can alone produce. On that Spirit must you depend: to him must you seek, with every desire of the heart, if you look to be quickened to run the way of God's commandments. The mode of obtaining these mercies is as plainly declared in scripture, as your need of the mercies themselves. Be diligent in the ordinances of religion, approach God in prayer, and study his holy word. Do not faint or fail, or intermit. Consult not with flesh and blood: ask not with Nicodemus, "How can these things be?" Turn not away, if ye should not wholly understand them. Never prefer to walk by the slender taper and crooked line of your own understanding: but in that precise manner in which it has pleased the Father of mercies to reveal salvation, receive it with bended knees, humbled minds, adoring spirits. The champion might enter the lists in the ancient games, and take his part in the contest, yet was he not crowned, except he strove lawfully. Men may seem to be in earnest to

obtain eternal life; but, if they will not consent to the terms on which it is imparted, they will as surely fail of success, as would the disciples, if they had cast the net on the left side of the ship, when Jesus had directed it to be thrown on the right. A transgressor commanded to repent and believe the gospel, whose heart has responded to the call of mercy, may not understand the meaning of all its requisitions, or the exact method in which the eternal author can supply all his need: but let him be found in humble and diligent use of means, and he shall know, if he follow on to know the Lord. The wisdom of the manner in which we are to obtain salvation may not run parallel with our own device: but if, through divine grace, we should "cast down imaginations, and every high thought that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save our souls,” we shall own, amidst the disclosures of unclouded light and unbroken bliss, that, as the heaven is higher than the earth, so are God's ways higher than our ways, and his thoughts than our thoughts.

(2.) An obedience so entire and uncompromising, must have proceeded from some principle of no common efficacy. That principle was a full persuasion of the truth of God in his