changed.

Repent and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out." Consider that you are sinners, that your course is evil, and that you never yet thought it worth your while to acquaint yourselves with God, and be at peace with Him, in the gospel way. Study the Scripture way of salvation, and your own concern in it, till you are brought to hearty prayer and calling upon God.

Consider, if you attend to these things at all, that Satan will endeavour to prevent you from bringing any thing to good effect. He will strive to take the word out of your hearts, as our Saviour says, lest you should believe and be saved. If then, after finding a little uneasiness about the state of your souls, you can soon shake it off, and be as careless of your souls as before, be assured Satan is tempting you to your destruction. Awake then. The enemy is upon you. Pray, and watch, and use every means which God has appointed for your conversion. Cease not till you know that God is a "God of peace" to you in Christ. Then you may have the christian's comfort to know that He will make you conquerors, and more than conquerors, through Him that loved you.

SERMON VIII.

THE SELF-DECEIVER SHOWN TO HIMSELF.

Prov. xxx. 12.

There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness.

THESE persons think themselves to be clean. They have done something to satisfy their minds that they are so. They may own that they once were impure, and needed to be washed from their filthiness; but they have gone through certain operations for this end, and now suppose themselves to be made pure. Yet the filthiness of sin remains in all its poisonous impurity, and they are in reality no more washed from their filthiness than if they had done nothing.

As there is a way in which a man may walk, in a confidence of walking right, which may nevertheless end in death, so is there a washing which a man may give himself, and yet remain filthy and unclean. The first is the case of those regular characters who are content with outward religion; and morals without christian principles and affections. This proverb may be applied to another kind of character; men who own and profess to love, and to embrace the real principles of the christian religion; the fall, re

generation, justification by Jesus Christ; and who yet are themselves unacquainted with the new birth unto righteousness, and are not justified by the grace of Jesus Christ. This is but one of the many proofs that abound, of the deceitfulness of the heart of man. The Scripture is full of cautions on this subject; and yet how easily do mankind impose on themselves, and one another, with regard to the goodness of their state! Till the principles of the gospel be known in any place, and while men go on without Scripture light and knowledge, such sort of self-deceivers cannot be found. They are apt to grow numerous, in proportion as light increases, and the more fashionable true religion grows, the more of this counterfeit sort makes its appearance. The enemy of God and of souls, who has laboured to keep men in utter ignorance, and prejudiced them against Scripture-truth altogether, finding this post no longer tenable, changes his plan. He persuades those whom he can now no longer induce to despise conversion altogether, to suppose themselves converted, when they are not so.

I fear, this is a growing evil among ourselves. Blessed be God! there is good fruit to be foundI hope in great abundance-which will appear in the last day. But there is also much chaff and false profession; the counterfeit works of Satan, by which he would disgrace the genuine work of God. It is of these I am then to speak at present. May it please God to enable me to say something that may be the means of undeceiving those who are deceived; and also of quickening and stirring up the really sincere, to shake off, and cleanse themselves from all

false mixtures they may have imbibed, from the torrent of temptation, in this bad world, and to become more guarded against Satan's snares, and their own besetting sin.

I must first give as clear a description as I can of the case itself, and then speak a few words of exhortation.

False professors do not take all one course; there is a large variety in their cases. I can only undertake to point out some of the most common, and the most striking. These men heard the doctrine of the gospel. They attended to it. Their consciences were, probably, stirred up and awakened. Their curiosity was excited. They were gratified with a new fund of knowledge. Salvation by grace grew a pleasing sound. The comforts of free, and full justification by Jesus Christ, which contrite and humbled spirits, who have the most right to them, hardly dare venture to make their own, are fearlessly grasped by these arrogant spirits. Nay, they are even encouraged, from hence, to cast off the fear of God; and though they live uncharitably, selfishly, carelessly, and proudly, they suppose they shall still be saved by the grace of Jesus Christ. There are many ways of proving to them how they abuse the grace of God, but one is so obvious that it may seem a wonderful instance of the power of Satan's delusions, that it does not strike their minds.

You know, O false ones! that "the tree is known by its fruit." As you know more of the Scriptures than the ignorant Pharisee, you can prove to him, and justly too, that the faith of the gospel, which justifies a man through Christ, teaches him to live

soberly, righteously, and godly. You can tell him that a man who really believes in Christ, will live holy, though not perfectly so, yet that he will live holy, and be a new creature, in all his dispositions and practice. This you can show from the Scriptures, and also from experience, as there want not living seals to confirm it. For you can point out to them real saints, who believe on Jesus so wholly for salvation, as to renounce all works for that end, and yet, by the force of love, are led to be as careful of all good works as if they expected salvation from them. You can also add, that these alone of all men live to God.

Now this, you, O false professors, maintain to be

true.

"Thou then that teachest another, teachest thou not thyself?" Look at your life since your fancied conversion began. You are not called on to examine your conduct, before that period, with this view, but since. Is it not astonishing that you should not see, that your life is no more according to godliness, since your religion began, than before? Is it not as fruitless as ever? What good do you more than formerly? Are not your tempers as violent, your dispositions as worldly, your conversation as trifling, your views as selfish, and your taste as earthly as before? Name any one essential alteration that has taken place in you. A NEW CREATURE! a great change indeed! if any man be in Christ, he is one. "Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." So great a change must be visible in the temper and conduct. The whole course of the desires must be altered, and this cannot be, unless it is followed by a very great alteration in the practice. Now as no such change has taken place in your case,