derers of old, who bowed their knees, and cried, Hail King of the Jews! while they spit in his face, and smote him with the palms of their hands. The hypocrite's profession is dark and opaque; but that of a real saint is pellucid and transparent. The rays of grace in a genuine believer, pervade his whole behaviour, and are transmitted through all the parts of his practical walk. Though every moral man is not therefore a Christian, yet every Christian is necessarily a moral man.

When Flaminius, the Roman general, did, at the Isthmian games, announce freedom to Greece, in the name of the senate and people of Rome, the transported Greeks received the glorious news with such acclamations of gratitude, and thunder of applause, that some ravens which were flying over the Stadium, dropt down to the earth, stunned and senseless the very games and exercises were neglected, and nothing but bursting eclats of admiring joy, engrossed the day.-So, when the holy Spirit of consolation announces gospel liberty, and eternal redemption, to the souls of the awakened, the love of sin, and the ravens of detested lusts, fall before his sacred influence. Both the toils and the pleasures of the world are regarded as insignificant, when set in competition with the one thing needful. Holy wonder, love and joy, quite engage the powers of the believer's mind, during the spring-tide consolations of his first manifestative espousals; and a sure foundation is, from that moment, laid, for the performance of all those good works, which are the fruits of salvation by grace. While faith is in exattitude his hands are clasped together, and held horizontally to his breast; his eyes meekly demissed, like those of the publican in the gospel; and the good man appears to be quite absorbed in humble adoration and devout recollection. But take a nearer survey, and the deception vanishes: the book, which seemed to lie before him, is discovered to be a punch-bowl, into which, the wretch is all the while, in reality only squeezing a lemon.How lively a representation of an hypocrite!

ercise, and a sense of divine favour is warm upon the heart, a child of God is as much steeled to the allurements of sin, as Octavius was cool to the meretricious charms of Cleopatra.

Thus, conscientious obedience, though neither the cause nor condition of our justification in the sight of God, nor of our admittance into his glory; is, nevertheless, an essential branch both of privilege and duty, as well as a necessary indication of our acceptance in the beloved. This is the point of view, in which our church considers good works: viz. not as preceding conditions of salvation, but as subsequent testimonies and marks of salvation already obtained.

ARTICLE XII. Of Good Works.

"Albeit that good works, which are the fruits of faith, and follow after justification, cannot put away our sins, and endure the severity of God's judgment; yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ, and do spring out, necessarily, of a true and lively faith: insomuch that, by them a lively faith may be as evidently known, as a tree discerned by its fruit."

VII. What think you concerning the tenet of sinless perfection? which supposes, that the very inbeing of sin may, on earth, be totally exterminated from the hearts of the regenerate; and that believers may, here, be pure as the angels that never fell, yea, (I tremble at the blasphemy)-holy as Christ himself. To hold this heresy, is the very quintessence of delusion; but to imagine ourselves really in the state it describes, were the very apex of madness. Yet, many such there are: some such I myself have known.

Indwelling sin and unholy tempers do, most certainly, receive their death's wound in regeneration : but they do not quite expire until the renewed soul is taken up from earth to heaven. In the

mean time, these hated remains of depravity will, too often, like prisoners in a dungeon, crawl toward the window (though in chains), and show themselves through the grate. Nay, I do not know, whether the strivings of inherent corruption for mastery, be not frequently more violent in a regenerate person, than even in one who is dead in trespasses: as wild beasts are sometimes the more rampant and furious for being wounded. A person of the amplest fortune cannot help the harbouring of snakes, toads, and other venomous reptiles on his lands; but they will breed and nestle, and crawl about his estate, whether he will or no. All he can do, is to pursue and kill them, whenever they make their appearance; yet, let him be ever so vigilant and diligent, there will always be a succession of those creatures, to exercise his patience and engage his industry. So is it with the true believer, in respect of indwelling sin.

Would you see a perfect saint? you must needs go out of the world, then, you must go to heaven, for the sight: forasmuch as there only are the spirits of just men made perfect*. This earth on which we live, never bore but three sinless persons: our first parents, in the short state of innocence; and Jesus Christ, in the days of his abode below. Of the whole human race beside, it always was, and ever will be true, that there is not a just man upon earth, who doeth good and sinneth not. The most forward and towering professors are not always the firmest and most solid Christians. Naturalists tell us, that the oak is a full century in growing to a state of maturity: yet, though perhaps the slowest, it is one of the noblest, the strongest, and most useful trees in the world. How preferable to the flimsy, watery, shooting willow.

*Heb. xii. 23.

Our church enters an express caveat against the pestilent doctrine of perfection, in her 15th article, entitled, "Of Christ alone without sin :" where she thus delivers her judgment:

"Christ in the truth of our nature, was made like unto us in all things, sin only excepted, from which he was clearly void, both in his flesh and in his spirit. He came to be a lamb without spot, who, by sacrifice of himself once made, should take away the sins of the world; and sin, as St. John saith, was not in him. But all we the rest (although baptized and born again in Christ) yet offend in many things and, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us."

So, it is declared, about the middle of the 9th article, that the "infection of nature doth remain; yea, in them that be regenerated."—Let me just mention,

VIII. One more particular, contrary to sound doctrine: I mean, the assertion of some, who would fain persuade us, that it is impossible for us to receive knowledge of salvation by the remission of sin. Such a denial is very opposite to the usual tenor of God's proceeding with his people in all ages. The best believers, and the strongest, may, indeed, have their occasional fainting fits of doubt and diffidence, as to their own peculiar interest in Christ; nor should I have any great opinion of that man's faith, who was to tell me that he never had any doubts at all. But still there are golden seasons when the soul is on the mount of communion with God; when the spirit of his Son shines into our hearts, and gives us boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him*; and when sunt sine nube dies, may be the Christian's exulting motto, Moreover, a person, who is at all conversant with the spiritual life, knows as certainly, whether he indeed enjoys the light of

* Eph. iii, 12.

God's countenance *, or whether he walks in darkness; as a traveller knows, whether he travels in sun-shine, or in rain. And, as a great and good ‡ man observes," It is no presumption to read what was God's gracious purpose toward us of old, when he, as it were, prints his secret thoughts, and makes them legible in our effectual calling. In this case, we do not go up into heaven, and pry into God's secrets but heaven comes down to us, and reveals them."

وو

It may, indeed, be objected, that the scripture doctrine of assurance, when realized into an actual possession of the privilege, "may tend to foster pride, and promote carelessness.' It cannot lead to pride; for all who have tasted that the Lord is gracious, know by indubitable experience (and one fact speaks louder than an hundred speculations), that believers are then lowest at God's footstool, when they are highest on the mount of assurance. Much indulgence from earthly parents, may, indeed, be productive of real injury to their children; but not so are the smiles of God; for the sense of his favour sanctifies, whilst it comforts.-Nor can the knowledge of interest in his love tend to relax the sinews of moral diligence, or make us heedless how we behave ourselves in his sight. During those exalted moments, when grace is in lively exercise; when the disciple of Christ experiences

"The soul's calm sun-shine, and the heart-felt joy." corrupt nature (that man of sin within), and every vile affection, are stricken, as it were, with a temporary apoplexy; and the believer can no more, for the time being, commit wilful sin, than an angel of light would dip his wings in mud. No: it is when we come down from the mount, and mix again with the world, that, like Moses, we are in danger of

*Psalm lxxxix. 15. + Isa. 1. 10. ‡ Gurnall, vol. i. p. 127.