who abfolutely depended on him, would reverence his Son; efpecially when he came upon fuch a gracious errand as to be their Saviour.

I forgot to take notice of one fpecies of idolatry, which has always been, (and never more than now), avowedly propagated by the men who are the patrons of what they call natural religion. It is dreffing up a philofophical idol, fuch as never had a being, and putting it in the place of the God and Father of our Lord Jefus Chrift And much pains has been taken to perfuade us, that the Heathen Jupiter was the very fame true God with Jehovah, whom the Jews did, and the Chriftians now do, worship; and that all the noife which has been made about their worfhipping falfe gods is without any foundation. Indeed I believe it will not be very easy to find any effential difference between what they call God, and Baal, the grand idol of the nations of Canaan.

The new creature, that which is born of the Spirit, the new man, born not of blood, nor of the will of man, but of God, is not, cannot be idle: for he is the workmanship of God, created in Christ Jesus unto

good

good works, which God hath prepared before all ages for them to walk in. But the Apoftle knew better things than to make use of the fame way of fpeaking which he had done in the other cafe. When he had laboured more abundantly than all the other apostles, he durft not affume the honour of the work: "It was not he, but the grace "of God in him." So here, though it is very evident, that what he here mentions are really the qualities and actions of the renewed man, yet he calls them not his works, but the fruits of that Spirit, which the renewed man had received. Our Lord brought in this way of speaking, in the image he gives of the vine and branches; and it is a very proper one. The branches carry the fruit; but it is the fap conveyed from the root through the trunk of the vine to which all their fruitfulness is owing. The first we find of these fruits is love: and with great juftice it is placed firft; for all the reft are no more but the native confequences and actings of it. Thus we find this Apostle representing this fubftantial fruit, 1 Cor. xiii. throughout, where he has faid every thing that is needful on the fubject. Nor do I need to fhew how they come to 3 F2

t

be

be called the fruits of the Spirit, when they all flow from that grace which is in Christ Jefus; for it is by his Spirit that all this is conveyed to the believer.

grace

One may justly wonder how it fhould ever have entered into the head of any one who had feen the Bible to feparate morality, (as focial duties especially are called), into a human science; and yet more, to fend their pupils to the Heathen philofophers to learn it: and, most of all, how this fhould be made an effential part of education in Christian schools, when we are fo folemnly taught, that the love of God is the only foundation on which morality can ftand, and fuch a foundation as neceffarily produces all the duties which belong to it in an incomparably more perfect manner; as much more perfect as the law of God, written in the heart, is more perfect than the dry precepts and trifling motives of philofophy, and the chicane of metaphyfical reasoning, which may fill the head, but can never reach the heart, regulate the paffions, and form the conduct of life; and, least of all, enable one to ftand against the wiles of the devil. However the pride of philofophy may flatter

1

its votaries, the Apostle may be prefumed to have understood the human ftate and constitution rather better than they; for he had an infinitely better teacher, that Spirit which made ours, and endued them with all thofe perfections and powers which we thoughtlessly value ourfelves upon, as if they were abfolutely our own property.

We must not overlook the event and iffue of these very different works of the flesh, and fruits of the Spirit, as the Apoftle here ftates them. The first ought to be carefully confidered by us; and the rather, that we find him exprefsly declaring, verf. 21. that they who do fuch things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. We need not ftand to obferve, what is allowed by every body, that the kingdom of God denotes the state of the children of God, and the inheritance which belongs unto them as fuch; the fame with the kingdom of the Meffiah, and very generally used in that sense in the days of our Lord and his apoftles. It appears to have taken its rife from the prophet Daniel's interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, Dan. ii, 44. and accordingly made use of in the first publication of the

gofpel,

gofpel, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Hence it is called the gofpel, or good news of the kingdom: and our Lord comforts his difciples by this, that it is his Father's good pleasure to give them the kingdom: and the Apostle to the Hebrews fays plainly of all believers, that they had received the king dom which cannot be moved. Nor will any body be at a lofs to apprehend how the .kingdom of Chrift fhould be called theirs, who confiders that intimate union which fubfifts between Chrift and them, and that the conftitution and whole management of his kingdom is for their benefit, and not his own, who needs it not; that they are fet down with him upon his throne, and fhare with him in all the honours of his kingdom. It is the fame with eternal life, which is but another word for the glory, honour, and immortality, which all who are in Chrift poffefs in profpect and hope, and will be entered into the full poffeffion of, when he fhall appear the fecond time without fin unto falvation.

This gives the foundation for diftinguishing the kingdom as it fubfifts in a prefent world, from what it will be after the refurrection, when it fhall ftand pure

and