is, and how shall you believe? You hear, or might hear, a voice as that of sweetest music in the promises and provisions of his grace, and in the blessings of peace and plenty; you hear, or might hear, a noise as that of thunder in his threatenings and judgments; but you do not discern that this melody, or this noise, comes from him; you take both his judgments and his mercies as natural accidents and emergencies, which would come to pass, though there were no dealing and speaking between God and man. Not only do you not hear him in the sound of these his organs, but you neither know nor hear when he comes out of the whirlwind, and the cloud, and the promise, and speaks to you, as it were, 'face to face,' yea, and as with his own, his full voice in Jesus Christ. Alas, that the Creator should so spend the riches of his power and wisdom in fitting up and furnishing this their earthly habitation, and the more exceeding riches of his grace and love, that he might raise them to a fellowship with himself, and to more durable and glorious mansions in the skies, and still find it so difficult, let alone their heart, to gain the eye or the ear of his creatures!

CHAPTER X.

Inferences growing out of or consistent with the principles of the preceding discussion-Doctrines of religion viewed in relation to our spiritual necessities-Mode of justification-Due esteem of Divine grace-Operation of faith-Its effects rational-Agency of the Spirit-His fruits contrasted with the works of the fleshJust deductions of reason-Contrariety of Christianity to our corrupt nature a proof of its divine origin-Reason competent to judge of this—The assistance it gives to faith-Obligation it imposes on us to believe strongly-Justness of our thoughts of God depending on the purity of our hearts-Conceptions of holy men contrasted with those of the wicked-Necessity of a light that tries and purifies.

Ir we suppose the reader to be convinced of his sinfulness and unbelief, and filled with distress, what can he do? He sees that God is just and holy, and will by no means clear the guilty. But he learns that he can be just, and yet the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus. Still he feels his nature is corrupt, and that sin attaches to all he does, and how shall he have deliverance from it? He learns that the blood of Christ releases him not only from the condemnation of sin, but procures for him the grace and power by which it may be successfully resisted, and shall be finally overcome. After trying every thing else for relief, and finding none, will he not here say, that which I sought is found? I have nothing to pay, and

here is a salvation without price. I want something to recommend me to a holy God, and here is a recommendation which he cannot despise and must needs honour. I am defiled with sin, and here is a fountain that washes away its every stain. I am weak and can have no confidence in myself, but here is strength sufficient for me, strength omnipotent, and yet mine to employ. This, surely, is all my salvation, and all my desire.

How holy and how averse soever to sin the Scriptures represent God to be, (and considered as an infinite and perfect Being we cannot conceive too highly of him in this respect,) and how short soever we may come of his holiness and of the requirements of his law, neither is proper ground for doubting the testimony of the Scriptures, or the fitness of God to be the happy portion of creatures even so sinful and unworthy as we are; for in the plan whereby he proposes to save us, and confer on us this blessedness, it is contrived, as with design to meet this objection to our faith and joy, to put so high glory on us, that God in heaven shall know no man from his Son so as not to see the very righteousness of his Son in that man, and that no man there shall be so humble, so deformed, or any way so inconsiderable, as that the angels shall not desire to look upon his face as expressing the very beauty of Christ himself, a distinc

tion which they must needs regard as very glorious in itself, and as making him no less so on whom it is conferred, or rather whose it is as a nature.

How honourable to us, how wonderful in wisdom and

grace, is the plan of our salvation! How complete is its adaptation to our wants-to the ends, the great and glorious ends, which it proposes to answer in us! If we would honour God, we must see that we honour this his peculiar work. He has set it apart in all its operations, and parts, and issues, as eminently his work. We are assured in his word that the end of our salvation is, that we may be 'to the praise of the glory of his grace." The Son of God, who is the unspeakable gift of his grace, and the foundation of all blessing, is he that quickens us. The Spirit of God is called 'the Spirit of grace,' and is given to make us partakers of his 'grace and truth.' The law of God entered, that when sin should abound, we might know of its abounding, and that grace might much more abound.' The gospel is called 'the gospel of the grace of God,' and the end of it is, that as sin had reigned unto death, so grace might reign through righteousness unto eternal life. This treasure, too, is committed unto earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power might all be of God, insomuch, that though the doc 1 Eph. i. 6.

trine of Christ be the means of turning our souls to God, yet it is but a means, an instrument, that the efficacy of it might be seen to depend upon the power of God, and that though we should have a due esteem of the planting and watering of the word, we might, at the same time, know that if even Paul plant, and Apollos water, yet it is God only who can give the increase. The design, on our part, of magnifying his grace, should appear to us a chief duty, a great and worthy design indeed, when the only wise God our Saviour' takes such care to guard its glory, and lays its foundations in such depths. If the Scriptures do not deceive us, we shall never succeed, if we slight this wonderful plan in any of its parts. If the blessings which it confers be so very great as to bear any proportion to the expense and care on the part of God in procuring them, then well is it, if we make them ours; but double, unutterable is the folly of our unbelief, if we think to gain them on other conditions than his own.

It is not however more certain that God engages to perform all things for us, than that, if let alone, we could and would do nothing adequate to attain the end of our salvation; and yet, if we look to the commencement and progress of divine life in the soul, we shall see that nothing is done but in perfect accordance with our rational nature, meeting at every