or not fo much as they must acknowledge to be due to what contains the law of their duty, and a declaration of the will of God.

A fecond inference is, that the Christian revelation, now it is known, ought to be the rule of our actions, and that happy only are they that know these things if they do them.*

In truth, this is the chief aim of Chriftianity, which was intended for a religion not of words only, but of deeds. And canst thou, O Christian (I speak not now to any one Christian, but to every Christian finner) canst thou believe, and yet not obey? is thy profeffion to lead one way, and thy practice another? has God any where throughout the whole New Teftament, made an exception for thee and thy fins? moft furely not: the law is general, the precepts reach to all: why then hast thou ears to hear, and doft not hear? If the cords of love, as the kind inviting calls of the gospel are stiled, are not able to draw thee to a holy life, yet furely the fears of a divine vengeance fhould. Does not your Bible tell you, that the wrath of Heaven is revealed against all un

righteousness of men? If it be fo, fad is thy condition; and no Chriftian can have a folid and true enjoyment even of the good things of this world, but he, who has made his peace with God by repentance and amend, ment of life, or, what is much happier, who has, by the uniform innocency of his life, never forfeited the divine favour; but having lived foberly, righteously and godlily in this prefent world, can carry with him into the next world, a mind, a temper and a habit of piety, fuch as will be found suitable to the place, and fecure to him a share of happiness in that state which is called the kingdom of glory.

SERMON IX.

ROM. vii. 24, 25.

O wretched man, that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God, through Jefus Christ our Lord.

S

O mournful a complaint from fo holy an

apostle, may feem very strange at the first hearing for, was St. Paul the wretched man ; whom the text fets forth as thus bemoaning his condition? He, who hath affured us, that his rejoicing was this, the teftimony of his conScience? And had he no comfortable answer to give to his own queftion? Could he think of no deliverer, for he names none here, to fet him free from that body of death? He, who a 2 Cor. i, 12.

a

had been told by Chrift himself, that his grace was fufficient for him ?a

As the words therefore of the text now ftand, there is fome difficulty to reconcile them with St. Paul's true character. But you will find in what I have farther to say on these words, that they contain a leffon of undoubted truth, and very confiftent with every thing else which is faid of this apostle either by himself or by his hiftorian St. Luke. For this purpose, before I confider the doctrine, which they include, it will be proper that the two following remarks fhould be made for explaining the text:

First, What the Apostle here fpeaks, as in his own person, he does not mean of himself, at least not of himself in his Christian state, and at the time when he was fpeaking. He had before, in this chapter, been giving an account at large of this perfon, of whom the text fpeaks. In his own name, he had faid of him, The good that I would, I do not; but the evil that I would not, that I do: He had faid, I find a law, that, when I would do good, evil is prefent with me; for I delight in the law of God, after the inner man ; but I fee another law

a 2 Cor. xii. 9..

in

in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of fin, which is in my members2.

This fad account, and a great deal more which he had before faid of a ftate of corruption, is just and proper, if we suppose the Apostle to be describing not his own condition, but that of every man, whether Jew or Gentile, while he continues in an unregenerate state, and is left at large to the workings of his own depraved nature, without the benefit of the gospel of Chrift to affist and strengthen him. And that St. Paul meant fuch a one, and not himself, though he fpake in the first person, appears plainly from what he had faid of him, I was alive without the law once; but, when the commandment came, fin revived and I died. This is true of thofe only, who lived before the law of Mofes, and the commandments, which God gave by him. Those were alive before the law; but St. Paul never was, having been born under that law: And therefore all that he fays farther concerning fuch a person, as he does in the text, muft neceffarily be understood, not of himself, but of that fort of man who

a Rom. vii. 19, 21, 22, 23. b Ibid, ver. 9.

is