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care not how little is expected of them, or how little they themselves have to do, in order to get to heaven. But true religion, that alone which affords folid ground of hope towards God, confifts in a change of heart, affections, and habits; which can only be brought about by ferious refolution, and a vigorous and conftant exertion of our powers. Nay, unless a course of virtue be begun, and good habits formed early in life, there is very great danger that the thorns, briers, or bad foil, will prevent the good feed from ever coming to maturity.

To believe, as the fame perfons do, that faith and repentance are nothing that we ourfelves are capable of, but altogether the miraculous operation of the Spirit of God in us and upon us, fuppofes that this great and sudden change may as well take place at the laft hour of life, as at any other: which certainly encourages the moft unwarrantable and most dangerous prefumption, and is far from having any countenance in the fcriptures. The word of God always reprefents a fafe and happy death as the confequence of nothing but a good and well-spent life. Some, indeed, are faid to have been called at the eleventh hour, but none at the twelfth, when the time for labouring in the vineyard was quite over; and not one of the foolish virgins, who had neglected to provide themselves with oil, was admitted to the marriage-fupper.

III, OF ORIGINAL SIN.

As a foundation for this ftrange doctrine, of the utter inability of men to do what God requires of them, a doctrine fo injurious both to our maker and ourfelves, it is faid that by his first offence our first. parent. Adam, and all his pofterity, loft all power of doing any thing acceptable to God for the future; that he was the representative of all his pofterity, fo that when he finned, we all finned; and every fin being an offence against an infinite God, we all became, from that moment, liable to an infinite punishment, even the everlafting wrath and curfe of our maker. And they say, that, on this account only, it would have been just in God to have made us al fuffer the most exquifite and endless torments in hell, even though we had never finned in our own perfons.

But, my brethren, you find nothing like any part of this in your bibles. For there you read, the foul that finneth, it fall die. Ezek. xviii. 4. And long after the tranfgreffion of Adam, and to this very day, God is continually calling upon men to cease to do evil, and learn to do well; which certainly supposes that men always have had, and that we now have, a power to do fo. It is allowed that we fuffer by the fin of Adam, as any child may fuffer in confequence of the wickednefs of his ancestor; but it is not poffible that we should have finned in him. Wherever there is fin, there is guilt; that is, fomething that may be the foundation

foundation of remorfe of confcience; fomething that a man may be forry for, and repent of; fomething that he may wifh he had not done; all which clearly implies, that fin is fomething that a man has given his confent to, and therefore must be convinced of the reasonableness of his being punished for. But how can any man repent of the fin of Adam, or feel any thing like remorse of conscience for it; when he cannot but know that he never gave his confent to it, and could not poffibly have been, in the leaft degree, acceffary to it? Good and bad conduct are, in their own nature, perfonal, and cannot poffibly be transferred from one to another. Whatever fome divines pretend, nothing of this kind can be imputed in this fenfe of the word. We may receive harm by means of one perfon, and benefit by means of another; but no fin of the former, or righteoufnefs of the latter, can be confidered as ours, in the eye of an equitable and juft God. The contrary is as much the language and the plain meaning of the fcriptures throughout, as it is agreeable to the common fense and reason that God has given us.

IV. OF ELECTION AND REPROBATION.

SUPPOSING that all mankind became liable to the everlasting wrath and curfe of God for the fin of one man, fome divines fay, that it was mercy in God to fave any, though by an arbitrary decree, which left all the rest of the human race under an inevitable

neceffity

neceffity of perifhing. But certainly, my brethren, fuch tender mercy is cruelty. All the creatures of God muft look up to him as the author of their being, fince it was, undoubtedly, in his power to give, or to withhold it, at his pleafure; and, furely, a good and merciful God would have put a stop to the propagation of fuch a race of creatures, rather than fuffer them to be born in fuch fhocking circumstances; in which he infallibly forefaw, that the greatest part of them must be exposed to, and even actually suffer remedilefs deftruction. As furely as I derive my being from a juft and merciful God, I conclude that the terms on which I came into the world are advantageous to me; and therefore, that it must be my own fault only, if I have not reason to rejoice in it, and to be thankful for it. But, indeed, I can hardly think that any man seriously believes, that the greateft part of his fellow-creatures are born into the world under a predetermined neceffity of being for ever miferable. For, in that cafe, it must appear probable, that any children which he himself may be the means of bringing into the world will be for ever miferable; and furely no man of real goodness or compaffion would wish to have children, or be acceflary to their being born in fuch circumstances.

If this doctrine be true, what motive can any man have to endeavour to flee from the wrath to come; Matt. iii. 7. when, if it is to be his lot at all, nothing that he can do will enable him to escape it; or

what

what motive can a man have to exert himself to lay bold on eternal life; 1 Tim. vi. 12. when, if he is to enjoy it at all, he cannot poffibly miss of it, or of any thing belonging to it, or that is necessary to prepare him for it? What reafon had the apostle Paul to exhort christians to take heed left they should fall, 1. Cor. x. 12. when none that ever did ftand could poffibly. fall? and what reafon had he to labour, left after having preached to others, he himself should be a caft-away, 1. Cor. ix. 27. when being certain of his conversion, he must have known that that confequence was impoffible?

This doctrine, of absolute election and reprobation, is certainly a doctrine of licentioufnefs, and not a doctrine according to godlinefs; and let divines employ all the ingenuity they are masters of, it is impoffible for them to clear this opinion from being the cause of fatal defpair in fome, and as fatal a security in others. If this opinion were true, and men were really aware of their fituation, I should think it impoffible to prevent their falling into abfolute distraction, through terror and anxiety. It would be like a man having his all, his life, nay infinitely more than his life, depending upon the caft of a die; the decree of God being a thing that he has as little power to command. Befides, this doctrine certainly reprefents the God and Father of us all in fuch a light, as no man would chuse that he himself fhould appear in.

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