ble; but to answer the objection I have made of its being useless, on a supposition of the impossibility of falling from grace, to warn a real Christian of the calamities he may incur, should he lose his habit of piety.

IV. Three classes of people have consequences to deduce from the doctrine we have advanced. We shall first address ourselves to those who seem least of all interested; I would say, those who have no cause to fear falling from grace; not because they are established, but because they never entertained sincere resolutions of conversion. If people of this description would pay serious attention to their state; if they would read the scriptures with recollection; if they would listen to our sermons with a real, not a vague and superficial design of reducing them to practice, I think the doctrine we have deliv ered would rouse them from their indolence; I think it would hinder them from going so intensely into the world on withdrawing from devotion, as not to hear the voice of their conscience. What! the ple of whom we speak should say, What! Christians of the first class; what! those distinguished saints who have devoted the whole of their life to duty; what! those who have wrought out their salvation with fear and trembling, can they promise themselves nothing from past efforts? What! are all the sacrifices they have made for Christianity useless, unless they persevere in piety; and, for having failed to run only a few steps of their course, will they fail of obtaining the prize promised to those only who finish the whole? And I, miserable wretch, who am so far

peo

from being the first of saints, that I am the chief of sinners;-I, who am so far from having run the race which Christ hath set before his disciples, as to have put it far away;-I, who have been so far from working out my salvation, as to have laboured only by slander, by calumny, by perjury, by blasphemy, by fornication, by adultery, by drunkenness ;-I, who have done nothing but obstructed the work, yet I am composed, I am tranquil! Whence proceeds this peace? Does it not proceed solely from this circumstance, that, my sins having constrained the Deity to prepare the sentence of my eternal condemnation, he has (among the calamities prepared for me by his justice) the fatal condescension to make me become insensible of my misery, lest I should anticipate my condemnation, by the dreadful torments which the certainty of being damned would excite in my soul. Oh, dreadful calm! fatal peace! tranquillity to which despair itself is preferable, if there be any thing preferable in despair! Oh! rather, thou sword of divine vengeance brandish before my eyes all thy terrors! Array in battle against me all the terrors of the mighty God, as in the awful day of judgment; and striking my soul with the greatness of my misery, give me, at least if there be time, to emancipate myself! If there be yet time? And, if there be not time, why do you yet breathe ? Why are there still open to you the gates of this temple? Why is the gospel still preached, if it is not that you may be recollected; if it is not that you may renounce the principles of your past folly; if it is not that you may yield to calls of which pub21

VOL. VII.

grace,

lish to you the consoling declarations of the merciful God? When I say unto the wicked, thou shalt surely die; if he turn from his sin, and do that which is lawful and right; if the wicked restore the pledge; give again that he hath robbed, walk in the statutes of life without committing iniquity, he shall surely live, he shall not die. None of his sins that he hath committed shall be mentioned unto him. Ezek. xxxiii. 14, 15, 16.

A second sort of people, who ought to derive serious instruction from the words of my text, is those visionaries, who, while engaged in the habit of hating their neighbours, of fornication, of revenge, or in one or the other of those vices, of which the Scripture says, they that do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God, fancy themselves to be in a state of grace, and believe they shall ever abide in that state, provided they never doubt of the work. People of this character, whether they have fallen into the hands of antinomian guides, one of the greatest plagues with which justice punishes the crimes of men, and one of the most awful pests of the church ;. -whether it be the effect of those passions, which in general so fascinate the mind as to prevent their seeing the most evident truths opposed to their system;-people of this class presumptuously apply to themselves the doctrine of the inamissibility of grace, at the time when we display the arm of God ready to pour the thunder of its vengeance upon their heads. Know then once for all, it is not to you that the inamissibility of grace belongs. Whether a true saint may fall, or whether he may not fall,

it is the same thing with regard to you; and your corruption will gain nothing by the decision: for if the true saint may fall, I have cause to conclude that you are already fallen, since, notwithstanding the regeneration you pretend to have received, you now have no marks of real saints; and if a real saint cannot fall, I have cause to conclude that you were deluded in the notion you have formed of yourselves with regard to conversion. I have reason to believe that you never were true saints, because I see with my own eyes, that you no longer sustain the character. Here Here is an abridgment of the controversy. Here is a decision of the question between us. But if it do not agree with your systems, preserve those systems carefully; preserve them to the great day, when the Lord shall render to every man according to his works; and endeavour,-endeavour in the presence of the Judge of all the earth, to defend your depravity by your opinions.

There is, in short, a third class of people, who ought to make serious reflections on the doctrine of perseverance. It is those who carry the consequences to an extreme; who, from a notion that they must endure to the end of their course, to be saved, persuade themselves that they cannot be assured of their salvation till they come to that period. It is not to ministers who maintain so detestable a notion, that this article is addressed. It is not to captious, but to tender minds, and those tender minds who are divided between the exalted ideas they entertain of duty, and the fears of deviation. Fear, holy souls; but sanctify your fear. Entertain ex

alted views of your duty; but let those exalted views be a sure test that you will never deviate: and, while you never lose sight of difficulties with which the race Christ hath set before you is accompanied, never lose sight of those objects which he hath set before you, in order that you may be enabled to surmount them.

A Christian is supported in his course by the very nature of the difficulties which occur. These are many, and we shall have occasion to enumerate them in a subsequent discourse. But, with discerning Christians, all these things may promote the end they seem to oppose, and realize the words of St. Paul, all things work together for good to them that love God, Rom. viii. 28. One of those difficulties, for instance, to which a Christian is exposed in his race, is adversity; but adversity is so far from obstructing him in his course, as to become an additional motive to pursue it with delight; and assist him in taking an unreluctant flight towards the skies. Another difficulty is prosperity; but prosperity assists him to estimate the goodness of God, and induces him to infer, that if his happiness here be so abundant, what must it be in the mansions of felicity, seeing he already enjoys so much in these abodes of misery. Another of those difficulties is health; which, by invigorating the body, strengthens the propensity to sin; health, by invigorating the body, strengthens him also for the service of God. So it is with every obstruction.

A Christian is supported in his course, by those unspeakable joys which he finds in the advancement