James in the text, ftyled wisdom, as correcting the depravity of nature, and enabling men to become wife unto falvation.

The gifts of God are free, and he bestoweth them as feemeth beft to his wifdom. If he gives to one more liberally than to another, yet he who receives leaft has reason to be thankful, and no reason to demand an account of God of the unequal diftribution of his favour. Were the gifts therefore of the Spirit to be confidered as fpecial favours only granted to fome, we should not be obliged, by the terms of our religion, to render an account of God's proceeding herein. But the promise of the Spirit being general to all Chriftians, and represented in Scripture as the purchase of Chrift's obedience to the will of his Father, and as a principle of new life, by which they who are dead in fin are made alive to righteousness; it is evident that we cannot account for our being Chriftians, without fhewing a reafon for the neceffity of grace to render our hopes and affurances of salvation effectual.

This is a point in which there is an effential difference between the Gospel and mere natural religion; and it is confequent to another point of difference relating to the state and condition of mankind before the Gospel. If men were in that state of original purity in which God muft, in justice to his divine attributes, be supposed to have made them, it will be hard to fay what grace was wanting to enable them to attain the end of their creation. If they have fallen from that state, and contracted a corruption not to be cured by natural means, it will be hard for any man to dispute against the grace of

God, without having a reason to produce that shall render it impoffible, or improper, for God to redeem the world. For, the fall of man fuppofed, it is more reasonable to think, because it is far more honourable to God, that he fhould deftroy the power of fin by communicating a new principle of holiness, in order to the falvation of the world, than that he fhould honour fin fo far, as to render finners both glorious and immortal. Since then there can be no redemption, but either by deftroying fin, or by granting happiness to finners, unreformed finners, it is easy to judge which method is most fuitable to the wisdom of God, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity.

It will be one means of fhewing the neceffity of grace, to fhew the effects afcribed to it in Scripture. For the Spirit of God is certainly given for the fake of thofe effects, which were to be produced by it in true believers and he that can prove that the fame effects generally are, or may be, attained by the mere ftrength of nature, will give the best argument against the neceffity of grace in order to falvation. For, if men are naturally inclined to virtue and holinefs, they will not want grace to make them fo. But this has never yet been the cafe; and if we may judge of those who thall be after us, by ourfelves, and thofe who have lived before us, this never will be the cafe.

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Now the works of the Spirit are described to us in many places of Scripture. They are in the text fet forth to be pure, then peaceable, gentle, and eafy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrify. The Apostle to the

Galatians, chap. v. 22. reckoning up the fruits of the Spirit, places them in this order; Love, joy, peace,. long-fuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance; and continuing his account, though varying his ftyle, he adds, And they that are Chrift's have crucified the flesh, with the affections and lufts.

Were the manners of any people to be defcribed in this language, there is no one fo little acquainted, with human nature, but that he would fufpect the truth of the relation. Where muft we go, to the eaft or to the weft, to find a people pure and peaceable, full of mercy and good works, without partiality, without hypocrify, crucifying the flesh and the affections and lufts thereof? No hiftory yet has presented us with fuch an idea of mankind. But, if we look into the account which the fame Apoftle gives of the works of the flesh, we fhall find too great a correfpondence between them, and the hif-. torical accounts of all nations: they are, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lafcivioufnefs, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, flrife, seditions, herefies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and fuch like. These works we know where to find, and are fure of not mistaking in what country foever we feek them. You fee the difference between the works of nature and grace: and tell me, was it a work unworthy of God to fend his Spirit to make the difference? If you think it not yet so sufficiently made, as to answer the pretenfions of the Gospel, yet you must own that here is a work worthy of God to undertake; and that if we have not the Spirit already to produce these effects, it were much to be wished that we had: fo that natural reason fhall

be forced to give this testimony to the Gospel, that the help it propofes is the thing in the world the moft to be desired, the most honourable for God to give, the most advantageous for man to receive. If you aík us what evidence we have to fhew, that we have received this promife of the Gofpel; it were well indeed if we had more evidence than we have, and that every man naming the name of Chrift were a living teftimony of the Spirit of God working in him; and yet, I truft, we have enough to fhew that the promises of God are not in vain. The Spirit is given to be a principle of religion, and not of force and mechanism; and confequently it must be maintained to be confiftent with the freedom of man's will, without the fuppofition of which it is impoffible to have any notion of religion: and many, who by their profeffion of Christianity are entitled to the promise of the Spirit, do fhew no figns of the power of God working in them, they will be so many proofs indeed, that the grace of God is not irresistible: but no better argument can be drawn from their case to fhew that the pretences to grace are mere fiction, than may be drawn from the unreasonable actions of the generality of men to shew that reason itself is a fiction, and that there is no fuch governing principle in mankind.

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We have indeed the fulleft proof, that there is fuch a thing as reafon and natural understanding in men; and therefore the abufe of reafon creates no fufpicion against the being of it: but the Deift fees no proof of the reality of grace in any; the effects we afcribe to it, and which are the only visi

ble evidences for its reality, are no other than what reafon prescribes; and wherever they are found, he claims them as the work of reason, and demands. of us to fhew upon what ground we afcribe them to any other principle. If men are meek, and charitable, and good, void of partiality and hypocrify, they are but what their reafon tells them they fhould be; and fince thefe virtues flow from the dictates of reason, by what right do we impute them to another principle? The Apoftle to the Romans has taught us the refolution of this difficulty: 1 delight, says he, in the law of God after the inward man: but I fee another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of fin, which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who fhall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God, through " Jefus Christ our Lord. That the dictates of reason are juft and right, St. Paul acknowledges; but right as they are, we gain little by them but the conviction of fin and guilt; for there is another principle in the members warring against this principle of reason, or law of the mind, which brings us under the flavery of fin. This ftate afforded him fo little comfort, notwithstanding the goodness of his reason to diftinguish rightly between virtue and vice, that he exclaims in the bitterness of his foul, O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Under these agonies. he faw no help in nature, no affiftance to be had from reason; and therefore he flies to the arms of Chrift for shelter, and owns him for his only Redeemer from this captivity to fin: I thank God,