refting-place; it raises every faculty of the foul to increase the prefent mifery. How does the memory of what is paft, and the fear of what is to come, give an edge and sharpness to affliction! How does the imagination work to paint in all the colours of terror the fad doom that is expected! It is this only that renders the afflictions of life truly infupportable; for the Spirit of a man will fuftain his infirmity, but a wounded Spirit who can bear? So that, if we confider the cafe fairly, we fhall find, that though the final reward of virtue, and punishment of vice, are referved to another time and place; yet there are fuch rewards and punishments annexed to them here, and which have their foundation in the very frame and conftitution of our minds, as are fufficient to determine the choice of a wife or reafonable man. And if fome, who pretend to doubts and uncertainties concerning a future state, are serious, let them confider, whether that defect, as they suppose, in the foundation of religion be not supplied by what we now speak of: for, were they ever fo certain of a future ftate, their duty would confift in those very things which their own reason requires of them, and which are abfolutely neceffary to the peace of their minds, upon which all their happiness depends. Allow them then their doubts, will the confequence be, that they may fafely go contrary to their own reason, and the measures of their present happiness? How then does this uncertainty affect the practice of virtue, fince the certainty requires nothing of us but what our reason and present intereft will teach us without it? And

this fhews how effectually God has laid before us the knowledge of his law, together with proper and sufficient motives to fecure our obedience.

To conclude then: as you value the use of that reafon which diftinguishes you from the creatures of a lower rank, as you value the comforts of this life, and the glories of the next, (and, if these arguments will not weigh, there is nothing more to add,) take heed to preserve innocence and virtue, which fill up the character of that godliness, which, the Apostle tells us, is great gain, having the promise of this life, and of that which is to come.

DISCOURSE XXXII.

ROMANS Vi. 21.

What fruit had ye then in thofe things whereof ye are now afhamed? For the end of those things is death.

THOUGH the hopes introduced by the Gospel of Christ are in themselves fitted to fupport and encourage virtue and true religion, and are only to be truly enjoyed by those who make a title to them by the innocency of their lives; yet they have been perverted to very ill purposes by fuch as, hating to be reformed by the precepts of the Gospel, are willing nevertheless to put their fins under the protection of the glorious promifes contained in it. This policy prevailed fo foon in the church, that we find the Apostle stating the pretence, and rejecting it with indignation, in the firft verfes of this chapter: What shall we fay then? Shall we continue in fin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How fhall we, that are dead to fin, live any longer therein? In the chapter before this of the text, he fets forth the exceeding great benefits we receive through Jefus Chrift: that being juftified by faith, we have peace with God. That God commendeth his love towards

us, in that, while we were yet finners, Chrift died for us. That being juftified by his blood, we shall be faved from wrath through him. That as by one man's disobedience many were made finners; fo by the obedience of one fhall many be made righteous. To prevent the ufe which ill-difpofed men were ready to make of this great goodness of God towards finners, imagining their iniquities to be privileged, fince so much grace had been extended to them, the Apostle in this chapter enters into the queftion, whether the hopes of the Gospel are reconcileable to a continuance in fin; and fhews by many arguments, drawn from the profeffion, the state, and the condition of a Chriftian, that a state of grace and a state of fin are as inconfiftent as life and death: fince every Christian is buried with Chrift by baptifm into death; that, like as Chrift was raifed up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even fo we also fhould walk in newness of life. From these reasons he proceeds to others, not of lefs moment, appealing to the fenfe of confcience and the voice of reafon against the prefumptuous conceit which made the Son of God the minifter of fin, and the Gospel to give countenance to the iniquities of which nature was ever afhamed, and against which the common reason of mankind had paffed fentence of condemnation: What fruit had ye then in thofe things whereof ye are now afhamed? for the end of thofe things is death.

These words will fuggeft to our confideration the following particulars :

First, That the fhame and remorfe which attend upon fin and guilt arife from the natural impreffions on the mind of man.