don, or, as it is in the Hebrew, God will multiply to pardon. As you have abundantly finned, he will abundantly forgive your fins; as you have multiplied your offences against him, he will multiply his pardons unto you: Yea, be your fins never fo many, never fo great, his mercies are ftill both more and greater; for your fins are the fins but of finite creatures, whereas his mercies.are the mercies of the infinite God' made over alfo, and confirmed to us, by the infinite merit and fatisfaction of his only begotten Son; in whom therefore whosoever repents and turns to him, cannot but be abundantly pardoned.

THUS I have endeavoured to fhew you upon what grounds and terms we may expect pardon and mercy at the hands of God, even upon our repentance of all our fins, and true converfion to the Lord: Not as if God would therefore pardon our fins, because we repent of them; or turn to us because we turn to him: But Chrift having made fatisfaction for our fins, whofoever repent and are converted, God is pleafed to ac cept of his death in lieu of theirs; and fo upon his account, not only to difcharge and acquit them from their fins, but alfo to receive them into grace and favour. And all that he requireth of us, in order to the application of Christ's merit to us, and by confequence to the reinftating us in the happinefs which we have loft and forfeited by our fins, is only to forfake our fins,

and

and turn again unto the Lord. And therefore I hope that I need not ufe any arguments to perfuade you to repentance and converfion; your own intereft, one would think, being enough to prompt you to it. I am fure there is none of you but muft needs be fenfible, that you have done many things that you ought not to do, and have not done many things which you ought to do, fince you came into the world; and fo are guilty of many and great offences against him. that fent you hither: By which means you have forfeited your right to whatfoever is good, and are always liable to whatsoever is evil or pernifcious to you; infomuch that by reafon of your former fins, you are all at this very moment fubject to the wrath of God, with all its difmal confequences, and in danger of hell and eternal damnation. How you may prevent and escape this has been the fubject of this day's difcourfe; wherein I have difcovered upon what account God will have mercy upon you, and pardon your fins; even if you forfake your fins, and turn again unto the Lord. And therefore fuch amongst you as matter not whether your fins be pardoned or no, you may ftill continue in them, and take what follows: But if you ferioufly defire to have your fins forgiven. and your maker reconciled unto you, you fee upon what terms you may expect it, and what you must do that you may obtain it. There is no other remedy, you muft either turn from your fins to God, or elfe

God

God will never turn from his wrath to you. But if any person amongst you shall truly forsake whatsoever fins he knows himself to be guilty of, and return unto the Lord; the Lord hath faid it, and he will perform it, that he will have mercy upon him, and abundantly pardon.

*******************

SERMON

The SIXT H.

Chrift's Grace fufficient to make Chriftians Holy.

PHIL. iv. 13,

I can do all things, through Chrift which
flrengthneth me.

A

LTHOUGH we had no divine revelation for it, yet our own experience might eafily convince us that we are not fuch creatures as the All-wise and moft Holy God at first made and defigned us to be, but that we are very much corrupted, degenerated, and fallen from our firft eftate: For God made all things good, and therefore man

too,

too; but now there is not a man upon the face of the earth, that is, or doth good of himself, no not one. The The very beft may fay, as one of the beft that ever was did, I find a law, that when I would do good, evil is prefent with me: For I delight in the law of God after the inward man. But I fee another law in my members, waring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of fin, which is in my members, Rom. vii. 21, 22, 23. They that have no fenfe at all of good or evil upon their minds, are two fad inftances of the corruption of human nature, If any can plead exemption from it, it must be such as St. Paul was, who are not only fenfible of the difference between good and evil, but really defire to efchew the evil, and do good. And yet these find, as he did, a contrary principle in them, putting them upon doing the evil they would not, and hindering them in doing the good they would do; whereby it comes to pafs, that of themselves they can do nothing that can truly be termed good, because that nothing is perfectly fo, but in their very beft actions there is ftill fuch a mixture of evil, fo many failures and imperfections, as quite fpoil and corrupt them. They cannot pray without' diftraction, nor fo much as think upon God,' but the thoughts of other things will be crowding into their heads: They cannot come into God's prefence, but their minds will be running out again every Moment: They cannot read,

or

or hear God's holy word, nor praise his name, nor receive the bleffed facrament itself, but they are ftill difturbed and interrupted in it by fome unruly paffion or other: They cannot fubdue any fin fo, but it will go near to get up again; nor overcome the world fo, as to keep it always under: They cannot give alms, but they are apt to fail either in the quantity of what they give, or else in the quality and manner of giving it. In fhort, they can do nothing as they ought to do it; but when they have exerted the utmost of their own ftrength, and have done all that poffibly they can by it, they come fhort of what the law of God requires. This they all know and feel by woful experience, and it is the greatest trouble that they have in the world; fo great that it makes them cry out as St. Paul did, in the place before quoted, Owretched man that I am who shall deliver me, from the body of this death? Rom. vii. 24.

WHO fball deliver me? It is a very hard queftion; but the apoftle refolves it in the next words, faying, I thank God, through Jefus Cbrift our Lord, ver. 25. As if he had faid, though none else can deliver me from the body of this death and fin, yet I thank God for it, he can and will do it, through Jefus Chrift our Lord; where we may obferve how he afcribes his deliverance from the power of fin, and his ability to do good, wholly and folely to the grace of God, thro Jefus Chrift: By whom the

fame