many times move and affect, when no other considerations will work upon us. Many men that could not be wrought upon by the love of God and goodness, nor by the hopes of everlasting happiness, have been affrighted and reclaimed from an evil course by the fear of hell and damnation, and the awe of a judgment to come. To think of lying under the terrible wrath and displeasure of Almighty God to eternal ages, of being extremely and for ever miserable, without intermission and without end, must needs be a very dismal consideration to any man that can think and consider: For who knows the power of God's anger? who can dwell with everlasting burnings?" and yet to this horrible danger, to this intolerable misery, do all the workers of iniquity, every one that lives in the wilful contempt and disobedience of the laws of the Gospel, expose themselves, and this is as expressly revealed and declared to us as it is possible for words to declaro any thing (Matt. xiii. 40-42) "So shall it be in the end of the world. The Son of man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." (Matt. xxv. 41) There you have the very sentence recorded which shall be pronounced upon sinners at the great day: "Then shall the King say to them on His left hand (that is, to the wicked), Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." And, (ver. 46) "These shall go into everlasting punishment." And this is that which St. Paul tells us renders the doctrine of the Gospel so powerful for the conversion and salvation of sinners: (Rom. i. 16) "I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, because it is the power of God to salvation, to every one that believeth." And, (ver. 18) "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men." And, (chap. ii. 8, 9) "To them that obey not the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation, and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil." (Ephes. v. 6) "Let no man deceive you with vain words, for because of these things (viz., the sins he had men

tioned before) cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience." (2 Thess. i. 7-9)" When the Lord Jesus (speaking of the judgment of the great day) shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction, from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power." So that the Gospel gives all imaginable discouragement to the transgression and disobedience of God's laws, by denunciation of the greatest dread and terror that can be presented to human nature, enough to make any sensible and considerate man willing to do or forbear anything to escape so horrible a danger, to cut off a foot or hand, or to pluck out an eye, not only to restrain nature in anything, but even to offer violence to it, rather than to be cast into hell fire, "where the worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched," as our Saviour expresseth it (Mark ix. 48). This is the first argument from the threatenings. The

(2.) Second is from the promises of the Gospel, which are full encouragement to obedience; and there are three great promises made in the Gospel to repentance, and the obedience of God's laws.

(1.) The promise of pardon and forgiveness.

(2.) Of grace and assistance.

(3.) Of eternal life and happiness. And these certainly contain all the encouragement we can desire; that God will pardon what is past, assist us in well-doing for the future, and reward our perseverance in it to the end with eternal life: and all this is expressly promised to us in the Gospel.

(1.) The pardon and forgiveness of sins past: (Acts. xiii. 38, 39) Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: and by Him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses." And this is a great encouragement to amendment, to be fully indemnified. from all past sins and transgressions; and this promise is made

to believing, which includes in it repentance and a better

course.

(2.) The promise of grace and assistance to enable us to all the purposes of holiness and obedience. And this our Saviour has most expressly and emphatically promised to all that are sincerely resolved to make use of it; and that upon the easiest condition that can be, if we do but earnestly pray to God for it, telling us that we may, with the same confidence and assurance of success (nay, with much greater) ask this of God, as we can anything that is good of the kindest father upon earth (Luke xi. 9). And surely here is a mighty encouragement to well-doing, to be assured that God is most ready to afford His grace and assistance to us to this purpose, if we heartily beg it of Him. So that neither the consideration of our own weakness, nor of the power of our spiritual enemies, can be any discouragement or . just excuse to us from doing our duty, since God offers us so freely all the strength that we need, and to endow us with an inward principle of well-doing, more powerful and effectual to all the purposes of holiness and virtue, than any opposition that can be raised against it. So St. John assures us that we have God on our side, and the powerful assistance of His Holy Spirit, and therefore are sure of victory in this conflict: (1 John iv. 4) "Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome: because greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world." If the Spirit of God be more powerful than the devil, we are of the stronger side; and we have no just cause to complain of our inability and weakness to do the will of God, since that strength and assistance, which we may have for asking, is to all effects and purposes in our own power. And therefore St. Paul made no scruple to call it so, and to say, He was able to do all things: "I am able to do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth

me."

(3.) The promise of eternal life: and this is the great promise of the Gospel, and the crown of all the rest: (1 John ii. 25) "This is the promise that He hath promised us, even eternal life." And this is a reward so great and glorious, and so in

finitely beyond the proportion of our service and obedience, that nothing can be more encouraging. What should not men do "in hopes of eternal life, which God that cannot lie hath promised to us?" The expectation of such a reward, so well assured to us, is sufficient to encourage us to do our utmost, and to strain all our powers for the securing and attaining of it, which we cannot do without holiness and obedience of life; for "without holiness no man shall see the Lord." So that all the promises of the Gospel are to encourage and strengthen us in well-doing, "to make us partakers of the Divine nature, that we should cleanse ourselves from all filthiness, and perfect holiness in the fear of God."

Thus you see that the whole dispensation of the Gospel, and the doctrine of it, and every part of them, are all calculated to reform the minds and manners of men. This is the great design of the Christian religion, and all the parts and powers of it, to clear, and confirm, and perfect the natural law, to reinforce the obligation of moral duties by severer threatenings and greater promises, and to offer men more powerful grace and assistance to the practice of all goodness and virtue; and they do not understand the Christian religion, who imagine any other end and design of it. There is nothing that our Saviour and His apostles do everywhere more vehemently declare, than that hearing and believing the doctrine of Christ signifies nothing, without the real virtues of a good life. "Know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead," saith St. James. For men to think that the mere belief of the Gospel, without the fruits and effects of a good life, will save them, is a very fond and vain imagination. And thus much may suffice to have been spoken concerning the first point.

OF THE BLESSEDNESS OF GIVING, MORE

THAN THAT OF RECEIVING.

And to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.—Acts. xx. 85.

The whole verse runs thus:

I have showed you all things, how that so labouring ye ought to sup port the weak and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.

THE words which I have read to you, have this particular advantage to recommend them to our more attentive consideration, that they are a remarkable saying of our Lord Himself, not recorded by any of the evangelists among His other sayings and discourses, but remembered by the apostles, and by some of them delivered to St. Paul, and by him preserved to us in his farewell speech to the elders of Ephesus. In which, after he had given them some needful advice, and commended them to the grace of God, he appeals to them concerning the integrity of his conversation among them; that he was so far from seeking his own advantage, and from coveting anything that was theirs, that he had not only supported himself, but also relieved others by the labour of his own hands; giving them herein a great example of charity, which it seems he was wont to enforce upon them by an excellent saying of our Lord, "It is more blessed to give than to receive."

And it is really a particular endearment of this saying to us, that, being omitted by the evangelists, and in danger of being lost and forgotten, it was so happily retrieved by St. Paul, and