Serm.VI. hereafter, nor the Degree nor the Durati

o n of it: Nor can it be determined by
Reason, whether our future. Happiness or
Misery would be finally decided by an irre-
vocable Sentence, according to our Der
portment here; or whether, after the Close
of this Life we might not pass through-le-
veral intermediate States of Probation, bet
fore a decisive and irreversible Judgment
was passed upon us. But Revelation assures
us, that the Condition of our Existence
here, however inconsiderable, it may seem
in itself abstractedly from a future State, is
infinitely considerable in it's Consequences
that be, that lives and dies righteous, will
be righteous still; and He, that, dies filthy,
will be filthy fill, Rev. xxii. 11, 12.
Death setting as it were a kind of Seal up-
on the State of the Soul-that the Wicked
must be finally severed from the Good
that in Heaven there is no Possibility of
falling away from Goodness, and in Hell
no Room for Amendment. For then
God's Grace will be withheld, and Virtue,
when every Spark of it is extinct, is only,
like the Vellal Fire, to be rekindled by a
Beam from Heaven.
in ' '2 -.

So far was Christianity from narrowing Serm.VI, our Views, that it alone has raised them, as high as Heaven; and extended them as far as Eternity. A Man may look into his Bible, and see plainly there what will become of him, when the present Scene is fhifted, as to his most important, I had almost said, his only Concern, a future State ; who, if he were left to him self, the more he considered the. Point on every Side, the more he would find himself bewildered in Doubts, without coming to any Determination, -- Happy are we, if we know our Happiness, who have a Revelation, like it's great Author, full of Grace and Truth.

ZA

S E R M ON

The intrinsic Excellency of the 5. Scriptures, a Proof of their Inspi

ration. . ....

1.1. PETER III. 15." ;
Be ready always to give an Answer to every

Man that asketh you a Reason of the
Hope, that is in you.

T O affirm, as some have done, that Sex. VII.

u nenlightened Reason is absolute1 ly sufficient, and that a Revelation is needless, is neither better nor worse ; than to say, that Men either are, or may be, so wise of themselves, that it is not in the Power of God himself to make them wifer ; that their natural Abilities are so very considerable, as to superfede the Use of any supernatural Notices, even from the Father of Lights : A Pô

SER. VII. fition fő shocking, that if it be not down

‘right Blasphemy; it certainly maketh very

near Approaches to it *. m. But, you will say, where was God's impartial Goodness in with-holding from others those Advantages, which he has afforded us ? If a Revelation were wanted, why was not that, which was equally want, ed by all, made equally known to all, at all Times ?" .

If we trace this Objection to it's Ori. ginal, we shall find it stands on a wrong Foundation: It supposes the Deity to be determined by the Wants of Men, exclufively of all other Regards: Whereas what may be very fit, the Wants of Men singly