teach us that he has no wisdom and justice, and then we should be foon agreed what regard ought to be paid to his revelation.

The conclufion of the whole is, that without holinefs no man fhall fee God; that Chrift has, by redeeming us from fin itself, and fanctifying us to be an elect people peculiar to God, redeemed us from the punishment of fin: if we refuse the redemption from fin, we shall never partake in the redemption from the punishment of it. All the arts and contrivances of men to atone for their fins without forfaking them, are affronts to God, contradictions to reason, and fuch as would effectually overthrow the credit of any revelation which should profess them, but cannot poffibly be fupported by any; and, in fact, are utterly inconfiftent with the doctrine of the Gospel.

Let us remember then, that he only is righteous who doth righteously; that those only fhall be truly happy who shall do the works of God; whilft the hopes and confidence of those who lay great claim to the merits of Chrift, but feek not after the righteousness of Chrift, fhall in the end be vain and delufive for the word of the Lord fhall ftand, and be confirmed at the great day: Not every one that faith unto me, Lord, Lord, fhall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

DISCOURSE XXXIII.

PROVERBS Xix. 27.

Ceafe, my fon, to hear the inftruction that causeth to err from the words of knowledge.

THAT by the words of knowledge in the text we are to understand the principles and dictates of virtue and religion, is fo well known to all who are in the leaft acquainted with the language of Scripture, efpecially of the book of Pfalms, the Proverbs, and other writings of the like kind, that there is no need to infift upon the proof of it. This being admitted, the wife man's advice in the text amounts to this; that we should be careful to guard against the arts and infinuations of fuch as fet up for teachers of infidelity and irreligion.

These teachers are not here confidered under the character of vicious and profligate men, given up to the exceffes of lewdnefs, or to be diftinguished by any marks of defperate or notorious wickedness: they are spoken of only as inftructors, as difputers, and as reafoners against the words of knowledge Such the wife King forewarns us of, advifing us to keep at a distance from danger, and to ftop our

ears against their pernicious enchantments. He had often before spoken of the danger of affociating with wicked men, who fleep not, except they do mifchief ; who eat the bread of wickedness, and drink the wine of violence: but here he points out to us another fort; men who have arrived to a pitch of being gravely and seriously irreligious; who fpend their coolest hours and their calmeft thoughts in the fervice of infidelity, and are maliciously diligent to pervert men from the acknowledgment of the truth, and by the very arms of heaven, reafon and underftanding, to enlarge the bounds of the kingdom of darknefs.

There are two things, which, in speaking to this fubject, I would beg leave to recommend to your ferious confideration :

First, The feveral temptations which men lie under to liften to fuch inftructors as the text refers to.

Secondly, The great danger there is in listening to them.

It is one step towards fecurity to see the dangers we are exposed to: for, when we know the weak places, which are leaft able to fupport themselves against the enemy's ftrength, we fhall double our diligence to guard against any surprise from those parts. It will be of great fervice to us therefore to know the weakneffes of our own minds, to understand the prejudices and paffions which confpire together to deliver us up as a prey to those who lie in wait for our ruin. This, if any thing, will enable us to rescue ourselves, by arming us with refolution to withstand the temptations which we are

acquainted with beforehand. Infidelity has no rewards or punishments to beftow: it affords at beft: but a very hopeless and comfortless profpect: which would make a confidering man wonder whence the temptations to it should arife, and what should give that keenness which appears in the paffion with which fome men maintain and propagate it. Wicked and profligate men indeed are under fome temptation from self-intereft to wish well to the cause of infidelity, in oppofition to both natural and revealed religion; because it fets them free from the fears of futurity, and delivers them from the many uneafy thoughts that attend them in all their vicious pleasures and enjoyments. To live at once under the dominion of our paffions and the rebuke of our minds, to be perpetually doing what we are perpetually condemning, is of all others the most wretched condition: and it is no wonder that any man should strive to be delivered from it, or that thofe, who refolve to enjoy the pleasure of fin here, fhould wish to be delivered from the fear of punishment hereafter. This then is a very great temptation to men to hope that all their fears are false and ill-grounded; and that religion, from whence they flow, is nothing but the cunning of wife men, and the fimplicity of weak ones. Since therefore the fears and apprehenfions of guilt are fuch ftrong motives to infidelity, the innocence of the heart is abfolutely neceffary to preferve the freedom of the mind which, if duly weighed, is a good reason why a man, as long as he finds himself swayed by appetite and the pleasures of vice, fhould fufpect his own judgment in a matter where his reafon

is fo abfolutely chained down by paffion and intereft, and difabled from exerting itself to do its proper work and office.

Confider too; in the most unhappy circumstances of fin and guilt, religion opens to us a much fafer and more certain retreat than infidelity can poffibly afford, and will more effectually extinguish the fears and torments we labour under, and restore the long-forgotten peace and tranquillity of the mind: for, after all the pains we can take with ourselves to close up our minds, and to shut out the belief of a fuperior overruling power, and of a future state of rewards and punishments, we cannot be secure of enjoying long even the comfort we propose to ourfelves from it in this life. We may not always have ftrength enough to fubdue natural fenfe and reafon, Any fudden fhock, either in our health or in our fortune, will disperse our animal fpirits, and all the gay imaginations which attend them, and give us up once again to the cruel torments of cool thought and reflection. Then will our fears rally their forces, and return upon us with double ftrength hell and damnation will conftantly play before our eyes, and not fuffer the leaft glimpse of comfort to enter, nor leave us courage to repent of our fins, or to fly to our laft and only hope, the mercy of God. To the truth of what I fay, witness the latest and the bittereft hours of dying finners! Hours of woe and despair! in which the foul, conscious of its own deferts, anticipates the pains of hell, and suffers the very torments of the damned! in which it feels the worm which never dies beginning to gnaw, and lies expiring amidst the terrors