the greatest part of the blame upon ourselves, according to the old adage, "Like prieft, like people?" Is it furprising that fome of us fhould have an antinomian audience? Do we not make or keep it fo? When did we preach fuch a practical fermon as that of our Lord on the mount, or write fuch clofe letters as the Epiftles of St. John? Alas! I doubt it is but feldom. Not living fo near to God ourselves as we should, we are afraid to come near to the confciences of our people. The Jews faid to our Lord, In fo faying thou reproachest us; but now the cafe is altered; and our auditors might say to many of us," In fo faying you would reproach yourselves."

Some prefer popularity to plain-déaling. We love to fee a croud of worldly-minded hearers rather than a little flock, a peculiar people zealous of good works. We dare not fake our congregations to purpose, left our five thousand fhould in three years time be reduced to an hundred and twenty.

Luther's advice to Melanthon, Scandaliza fortiter, "So preach that those who do not fall out with their fins, may fall out with thee," is more and more unfashionable. Under pretence of drawing our hearers by love, fome of us foftly rock the cradle of carnal fecurity in which they fleep. For "fear of grieving the dear children of God," we let buyers and fellers, sheep and oxen, yea goats and lions, fill the temple undisturbed. And becaufe "the bread must not be kept from the hungry children," we let thofe who are wanton make fhameful wafte of it, and even allow dogs which we fhould beware of, and noify parrots that can speak hibboleth, to do the fame. We forget that God's children are led by his Spirit, who is the Comforter himfelf: that they are all afraid of being deceived, all jealous for the Lord of hofts; and therefore prefer a preacher who fearches Jerufalem with candles, and cannot fuffer God's house to be made a den of thieves to a workman who white washes the noisome fepulchres

he fhould open; and daubs over with untempered mortar the bulging walls he fhould demolish.

The old Puritans ftrongly infifted upon perfonal holiness, and the firft Methodists upon the new birth; but thefe doctrines feem to grow out of date. The gofpel is caft into another mould. People it feems may now be in Chrift without being new creatures, or new creatures without cafting old things away. They may be God's children without God's image; and born of the Spirit without the fruits of the Spirit. If our unregenerate hearers get orthodox ideas about the way of falvation in their heads, evangelical phrafes concerning Jefus's love in their mouths, and a warm zeal for our party and favourite forms in their hearts; without any more ado we help them to rank themselves among the children of God. But alas! this felfadoption into the family of Chrift will no more pass in heaven, than felf-imputation of Chrift's righteoufnels. The work of the spirit will stand there, and that alone. Again,

Some of us often give our congregations particular accounts of the covenant between the perfons of the bleffed Trinity, and speak of it as confidently as if the King of kings had admitted us members of his privy council; but how feldom do we do juftice to the fcriptures where the covenant is mentioned in a practical manner! How rarely do the minifters who are fond of preaching upon the Covenant between God and David, dwell upon fuch feriptures as these! Because they continued not in my covenant I regarded them not; because they have tranfgreffed the Law, changed the Ordinances, and broken the Everlasting Covenant, therefore bath the eurfe devoured the Earth, and they that dwell therein are defolate; therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left. I fay to the wicked what bast thou to do to take my covenant in thy mouth ?. They kept not the covenant of God and refused to walk in his law; they would not be evangelically legal, therefore

therefore a fire was kindled in Jacob, the wrath of God came upon them, he flew the fatteft of them, anda Jmote down the chofen, the elect of Ifrael!

The

We frequently keep back from our hearers the. very portions that honeft Nathan, or blunt John the Baptift would have particularly inforced. taste of many is perverted, they loath the manna of the word, not because it is light, but heavy food: They must have favory meat, fuch as their foul loveth; and we hunt for venison, we minister to their fpiritual luxury, and feaft with them on our own doctrinal refinements. Hence many are weak and` fkly among us? Some that might be fat and wellliking, cry out, My leannefs! my leannefs! And many Sleep in a fpiritual grave, the easy prey of corruption and fin.

How few Calebs, how few Joshuas are found among the many fpies who bring a report of the good land! The cry is feldom, Let us go up and poffefs it, unless the good land be the map of the gofpel drawn by Dr. Crifp. On the contrary, the difficulties attending the noble conqueft are magnified to the highest degree: The Jons of Anak are tall and ftrong, and their cities fenced up to heaven. "All our corruptions are gigantic, the caftle where they dwell shall always remain a den of thieves; it is an impregnable citadel, ftrongly garrifoned by Apollyon's forces; we fhall, never love God here with all our fouls, we shall always have desperately wicked hearts."

How few of our celebrated pulpits are there, where more has not been faid at times for fin than against it! With what an air of pofitiveness and affurance has that Barabbas, that murderer of Christ and fouls been pleaded for! "It will humble us, make us watchful, ftir up our diligence, quicken our graces, endear Chrift," &c. that is in plain English, pride will beget humility, floth will fpur us on to diligence, ruft will brighten our armour, and unbelief, the very foul of every finful temper, is to do the work of faith! Sin muft

not

not only be always lurking about the walls and gates of the town of Man's foul (if I may once more allude to Bunyan's holy war) but it fhall dwell in it, in the King's palace, in the inner chamber, the inmoft receffes of the heart: There is no turning it out. Jefus, who cleanfed the lepers with a word or a touch, cannot, with all the force of his fpirit and virtue of his blood, expel this leprofy; it is too inveterate. Death, that foul monfter, the offspring of Sin, fhall have the important honor of killing his father. He, he alone is to give the great, the laft, the decifive blow. This is confidently afferted by those who cry, Nothing but Chrift! They allow him to lop off the branches; but Death, the great Saviour Death, is to deftroy the root of fin. In the mean time the temple of God fhall have agreement with idols, and Chrift concord with Belial: The Lamb of God fhall lie down with the roaring Lion in our heart.

Nor does the preaching of this internal slavery ; this bondage of fpiritual corruption, fhock our hearers. No: this mixture of light and darkness paffes for gofpel in our days. And, what is more aflonishing ftill, by making much ado about

finished falvation," we can even put it off as "the only pure, genuine and comfortable gospel." While the smoothnefs of our doctrine will atone for our most glaring inconfiftencies.

We have fo whetted the antinomian appetite of cur hearers, that they fwallow down almost any thing. We may tell them, St. Paul was at one and the fame time carnal, feld under fin, crying, Who fhall deliver me from this body of death? and triumphing that he did not walk after the flesh but after the fpirit, rejoicing in the teftimony, of a good confcience, and glorying that the law of the Spirit of life in Chrift Jefus had made him free from the law of fin and death! This fuits their experience; therefore they readily take our word, and it paffes for the word of God. It is a mercy that we have not yet attempted to prove by the fame argument, that

ying and curfing are quite confiftent with apoftolie faith; for St. Paul fpeaks of his lie, and St. James fays, with our tongues curfe we men.

We may make them believe, that though adultery and murder are damning fins in poor blind Turks and Heathens, yet they are only the Spots of God's children in enlightened Jews and favoured Chriftians.That God is the moft partial of all judges, fome being accurfed to the pit of hell for breaking the law in the most trifling points; while. others, who actually break it in the moft flagrant inftances, are richly bleffed with all heavenly beneditions. And that while God beholds no iniquity in Jacob, no perverfeness in Ifrael, he fees nothing but odious fins in Ifmael, and devilish wickedness in Efau: although the Lord affures us the wickedness of the wicked fhall be upon him, and that though band join in hand the wicked shall not go unpunished, were he as great in Jacob as Corah, and as famous as Zimri in Ifrael.

We may tell our hearers one hour, that "the love of Christ fweetly conftrains all believers to walk, yea to run the way of God's commandments, and that they cannot help obeying its forcible dic tates:" And we may perfuade them the next hour, that "how to perform what is good they find not, that they fall continually into fin; for that which they do they allow not, and what they would that do they not; but what they hate that do they." And that these inconfiftencies may not fhock their common fenfe, or alarm their confciences, we again touch the fweet-founding ftring of finished falvation; we intimate we have the key of evangelical knowledge, reflect on those who expect deliverance from fin in this life, and build up our congregations in a moft comfortable, I wish I could. fay, most boly faith.

In fhort, we have fo ufed our people to ftrange doctrines, and prepofterous affertions, that if we were to intimate, God himself fets us a pattern of antinomianism, by difregarding his own most hɔly

and.