glass, in which, if you are not wilfully blind, you may behold your true picture :—and if you have attended, and fuffered confcience to do its office, fome of you, I am perfuaded, must be convinced, that you are the perfons who have hitherto defpifed and rejected the Saviour; and therefore it is time for me to afk, What is your prefent refolution? Is this a ftate to be continued in? Would any of you, if left to your own choice, be willing to be found in this condition at laft?-Brethren, this is a ferious queftion, and ought not to be flightly paffed over: The Lord Jefus now waiteth upon you for an answer ;-but remember, that ere long you must wait upon him for a doom: As therefore you would be found of him in peace, come now to a speedy and firm determination.-You have defpifed him too long already; O do not add this farther inftance of contempt, to hefitate, while I now plead with you, whether or no you fhould this moment renounce all his competitors, and give him the chief room in your hearts. May I hope you are refolved? Happy you, thrice happy, if you be fo! Now you begin to live, your former unworthy VOL. I. behaviour

L

behaviour fhall all be forgiven; and that compaffionate Redeemer, who procured fparing mercy for you even when you defpifed him, and, by his gracious interposition, hath kept you alive till this hour, will not reject your penitent believing fouls, but will accept your esteem and love, though late; and, in return, will beftow upon you all the enriching benefits of his purchase. But if any of you fhall justify your former contempt, and refolve to perfift in it,-I must declare the righteous fentence of God; and I fhall do it in the words of John the Baptift, (John iii. 36.) "He that believeth not "the Son, fhall not fee life; but the wrath " of God abideth on him."-Let my counfel therefore be acceptable unto you: "Seek "the Lord while he is yet to be found, and "call upon him while he is near.-Kifs "the Son, left he be angry, and ye perish "from the way: for if once his wrath be "kindled but a little, then fhall it be found "that they," and they only, are bleffed, " who put their truft in him."

SER

SERMON

VI.

163

ROMANS iii. 19.

Now we know, that what things foever the law faith, it faith to them who are under the law; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

TH

HE great defign of this epiftle, is to lead men to Christ, as the only refuge for perifhing finners: and because none will value a remedy, but they who feel their disease, and with for health, the Apostle therefore, in the two foregoing chapters, examines the condition both of Gentiles and Jews; under which denominations, the whole pofterity of Adam are included; and proves, by plain undeniable. facts, that all, without exception, are guiltybefore God, and confequently, that all ftand in need of a Saviour.. -In the L 2

verfes

verfes immediately preceding my text, he brings feveral quotations from the OldTeftament writings, which give a very strong and melancholy reprefentation of the corruption and depravity of the human kind. But left the Jews fhould alledge, that these, and other paffages of the like nature, were only defcriptive of the Gentile nations, and could not juftly be extended to them, whom God had chosen from the rest of the world, and fet apart for himself as his peculiar inheritance; he judged it proper to remind them, that the sacred books, from which he had taken the above description, were primarily addreffed to the Jews, and defigned for their inftruction and ufe: We know, fays he, that what things foever the law faith, it faith to them who are under the law; confequently thefe quotations, which are all exprefsly contained in the law, may and ought to be confidered as a juft representation of the ftate of thofe to whom that law or revelation was given. And he further adds, that they were inferted in Scripture for this very purpose, that the plea of innocence being taken

taken away from the Jews as well as from the Gentiles, every mouth might be stopped, and thus all the world might become guilty before God. From which words, as they stand connected with the Apoftle's reafoning, we learn, in the

First place, That it is extremely difficult to bring men to a proper sense and acknowledgement of their guilt and mifery.

I hope none will be fo unreasonable as to require a laboured proof of this obfervation; for you will eafily perceive, that I can have no other witneffes to produce but yourselves. I affirm, that it is fo, upon the authority of Scripture; and can only appeal to your own hearts for the truth of it.Befides, none will deny this who are already convinced of their guilt and mifery for this is an effential property of real conviction, that the deeper it is, it renders the perfon ftill more fenfible of the natural hardness of his heart; fo that nothing grieves him fo much, as that he cannot grieve more for finning against God: And they who are of an oppofite character, who