ment, by suspending the due execution of his law in favor of so vile a criminal. By this sense of the equity of the law, he was prepared to embrace the gospel with the most cordial affection. With transporting joy and gratitude he receives the blessed information of a great and glorious Saviour, who hath glorified God in the highest, while he hath made peace by the blood of his cross. He readily admits salvation is all of grace, and rejoices that God can at the same time be just, and yet the justifier of the ungodly, who believeth in Jesus. He welcomes these heavenly tidings, as worthy of all acceptation; and he longs to impart them to others, conscious that nothing can so glorify all the divine perfections, nothing can so secure the happiness of his fellow-sinners, as the gospel of the blessed Redeemer.

The primary objects that demand our zeal, are, the glory of God, and the good of mankind. The infinitely glorious GOD is the first object of benevolence to every virtuous mind: and though we cannot increase his essential glory and bliss, we may be instrumental in the advancement of his declarative glory, and subserve his gracious purpose of communicating his fulness to his needy creatures. He that truly regards the glory of the Creator, will be also a zealous friend to the interests of his fellow-creatures. Could a true saint have information of God's being glorified and enjoyed in distant worlds it would give him heart-felt joy. But his sphere of action is confined. He has at present no opportunity to glorify God, but among his own species. This is the world where God has chosen to magnify his grace in the salvation of sinners and here only are we called to subserve his glorious designs. The glory of God, and the welfare of his kingdom among men, are most intimately and inseparably connected; indeed, they involve each other. For you cannot manifest any zealous regard for the glory of your Lord, but as you endeavour to bring others to know, love, and enjoy him, and devote themselves wholly to his service. Nor can you discover true zeal for the highest interests of your fellowmen, without endeavouring to bring them to the knowledge, love, enjoyment, and resemblance of God.

The knowledge of the TRUTH, and the practice of HOLINESS,

are the principal means of advancing the kingdom of God among men; and consequently, are necessary objects of Christian zeal.

Zeal, for the DIFFUSION OF TRUTH, is essentially requisite to the promotion of the divine glory, and the manifestation of our good will to men. For God cannot be glorified, actively and intentionally, unless he is known in his true moral character. It should, therefore, be our incessant concern to form just ideas of his glorious perfections, and to make known his glory and excellency to others. God cannot be enjoyed without being loved, and he cannot be loved without being known; if, therefore, we wish to promote the happiness of our fellow-men, we must endeavor to teach them the good knowledge of the Lord. Wrong ideas of the divine perfections lie at the bottom of all capital mistakes in religion. Christian zeal will excite you to labor after an increasing acquaintance with divine truth. Knowing that God has magnified his word above all his name, you will be zealous for the honor of the sacred scriptures. You will study their harmonious contents, and be charmed with the blessed discoveries they contain. You will desire impartially to regard every truth, and wish to enter deeper and deeper into the treasuries of divine wisdom. Meanwhile, you will be concerned to feel answerable affections attending your own knowledge of sacred truth; sensible that spiritual knowledge is ever attended with holy affections, and that merely speculative notions, without sincere and cordial love to the truth, would only prove aggravations of guilt. You will therefore attend to the sanctifying influence of the truth on your hearts and lives, and be concerned that others may, in like manner, manifest that they receive the truth in the love of it.

The propagation of the truth, and the practice of holiness, have a most intimate connexion, and a reciprocal influence on each other, and are therefore the united object of Christian zeal. The best way of recommending true principles to others, is to demonstrate both by argument, and especially by their visible influence on our own lives, their holy tendency. Unless we thus enter into the real spirit of the

gospel, there will be the most just ground to suspect that we never thoroughly understood it ourselves. No doubt many wretchedly deceive themselves in this respect. They adopt certain phrases, without entering into their genuine meaning; and while they profess uncommon zeal for evangelical truth, if they were aware of the full import of the doctrines of grace, they would reject them with the most bitter hatred. But alas, their embracing them as they hold them, and defending them in the manner they defend them, does them ten times more injury than any opposition they could make to them. For, either they state them so unguardedly as to make one part of revealed truth clash with another, pouring contempt on the law, under pretence of honoring the gospel :-or, they disgrace their evangelical talk by their ungodly walk and conversation; indulging themselves in intemperance, or minding earthly things, as if their eyes and their heart were only for their covetousness:— or finally, while they abstain from fleshly lusts, they are wholly under the dominion of spiritual pride, rancorous bitterness, party spirit, and notorious self-righteousness, though they suppose themselves so far from that evil.

The true believer is peculiarly zealous for the PRACTICE OF HOLINESS, even universal holiness, or holiness in all manner of conversation, for he hath respect unto all God's commandments. His ardent desire is to experience, himself, more of the power of godliness, and to subserve its promotion in others. For the grace of God, that bringeth salvation, teacheth him to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world.He is zealous for sobriety, for temperance, chastity, selfdenial, humility, and self-government; sincerely desiring, through the Spirit, to mortify the lusts of the flesh, and the lusts of the mind; that his bodily appetites, and his mental passions, may be brought into subjection to the divine will.— He is zealous for righteousness in all his dealings with men ; careful of his actions that they are not injurious to others, but that he may evidently do unto others as he could reasonably desire they might do unto him: he is concerned to owe no man any thing but love, and that love which he

continues to owe, he is zealous constantly to pay: he is careful of his words, not to offend the law of truth, the law of kindness, or the law of purity and edification: he is careful of his very thoughts, lest he should injure others by unjust suspicions and evil surmises, or even lest he should unfit himself for a readiness to do them good, by needlessly dwelling upon their real faults. He is zealous for godliness; for the worship of God, public and private; for the ordinances of his house; for gospel institutions, in their original simplicity and purity, as far as he has light into the will of God concerning them but especially for internal religion; for repentance toward God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ; for supreme love to God, submission and resignation to his will, and real conformity to his moral perfections.— These are the great essentials of religion, which he aspires after an increasing enjoyment of, himself, and burns with zeal against the opposite evils in his own breast. And this is the religion he is zealous to promote among mankind: it is not a name, a form, or a party, which he longs to see prevail, but real powerful godliness, ruling in the heart, and regulating the whole tenor of the life.

:

He is zealous for the conversion of sinners. What an honor would he account it to be instrumental in bringing others to the knowledge and love of God, that are now strangers and enemies to him! It is true, the judicious Christian is led, by the divine word, by a reflection on his own experience, and by observation of the state of mankind, to entertain such a conviction of the total depravity of the human heart, and the insuperable obstinacy of the rebellious will of man, that he would despair of the conversion of any sinner in the world, without the regenerating influences of the HOLY SPIRIT. Hence one principal effect of godly zeal will be, his abounding in fervent prayer for divine power to attend the ordinances of God's house. But though regeneration, strictly speaking, be allowed to be the immediate effect of divine agency, beyond and above the use of means; yet God is accustomed to employ them in bringing sinners under those awakenings and convictions that usually precede regeneration; and it is likewise in the use of means, that the secret influence of re

newing grace, is manifested by active conversion. There is therefore nothing in the doctrine of efficacious grace, when rightly explained, that tends to discourage us from expressing our zeal for the conversion of souls, by the most diligent use of every means, that is suited to instruct, alarm, or allure the mind.

Were it needful to prevent some other of our principles from being misunderstood by those who embrace them, or misrepresented by those who oppose them, we might briefly show, that the doctrines of future punishment, of God's special electing love, or of the divine decrees in general, form no objection to your seeking the salvation of all around you, and Iwill be no excuse for the want of zeal in this case.-It appears from fact, as testified in the divine word, that the wisest and most benevolent of beings did not think it would tend to produce the greatest quantity of happiness, to insure the final felicity of every individual. Sin and misery have taken place, though we cannot rationally doubt his ability to have prevented their existence. We are sure he had good reasons for his conduct in not hindering the introduction of evil, and fear not but the final issue of events will fully justify his determination, and prove the plan he has actually adopted to be the wisest and best of all possible schemes. Though we expect the apostate angels, and a considerable number of our own species, will be miserable for ever, we are persuaded that when all the saved are made perfect in benevolence, they will applaud the conduct of the Great Supreme, and all heaven will resound with hallelujahs, though the smoke of their torment, who persisted in impenitence, shall ascend for ever and ever.-But God's decrees are unknown to us till their accomplishment. We know not one individual that he hath determined to abandon to his own lusts. It is our part to exert ourselves, in the present state, with the warmest zeal, warning every man, and teaching every man, with an ardent desire to present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. Who would excuse a watchman, who, perceiving fire breaking out in a house, should neglect any attempt to alarm the family, and after they were burnt to death, should plead that God had decreed they should be consumed? The ful