God's book, and the other to be accursed from Christ, than that Israel should not be saved, Exod. xxxii. 32; Rom. ix. 3. Think how the bowels of Christ yearned over Jerusalem, Matt. xxiii. 37; and over the multitude, Matt. ix. 36. "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus," Phil. ii. 5.

Be patient and long-suffering towards sinners: such is the value of one soul, that it is worth waiting all our days to save it at last. "The servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness, instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance," 2 Tim. ii. 24, 25. The Lord waits with patience upon sinners, and well may you. Consider yourselves, how long was God treating with you ere you were won to him? Be not discouraged if your success at present answer not your expectation.

Be sure to enforce your exhortations with a godly example, else you may preach out your last breath before you gain one soul to God. The devil, and the carnal hearts of your hearers, will put hinderances enough in the way of your labours; do not you put the greatest of all yourselves. O study not only to preach exactly, but to live exactly; let the misplacing of one action in your lives trouble you more than the misplacing of words in your discourses. This is the way to succeed in your embassy, and give up your account with joy.

6. The exhortation speaks to all those that are yet in a state of enmity, and unreconciled to God.

O that my words might prevail, and that you would now be entreated to be reconciled to God! The ambassadors of peace are yet with you, the treaty is not yet ended, the Master of the house is not yet risen up, nor the door of mercy and hope finally shut. Hitherto God hath waited to be gracious; O that the long-suffering of God may be your salvation: a day is hasting when God will treat with you no more, when a gulf shall be fixed between him and you for ever, Luke xvi. 26. O what will you do when the season of mercy and all hopes of mercy shall end together! when God shall become inaccessible and irreconcilable to you for evermore.

O, what wilt thou do when thou shalt find thyself shut up under eternal wrath! when thou shalt feel the misery thou art warned of! Is this the place where I must be? Are these the torments I must endure? What, for ever?

D

yea, for ever. Will not God be satisfied with the sufferings of a thousand years? no, nor millions of years? Ah, sinners, did you but clearly see the present and future misery of those who die unreconciled, and what that wrath of the great and terrible God is, which is coming as fast as the wings of time can bring it upon you, it would certainly drive you to Christ or drive you out of your senses. O it is a dreadful thing to have God for your eternal enemy; to have the great and terrible God causing his infinite power to avenge the abuse of his grace and mercy.

Believe it, friends, it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God: knowing the terrors of the Lord, we persuade men: an eternal weight hangs upon an inch of time. O that you did but know the time of your visitation! that you would not dare to adventure and run the hazard of one day more in an unreconciled state.

7. This subject speaks to those who have believed our report, who have taken hold of God's strength and made peace with him; who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy; who once were afar off, but now are made nigh by the blood of Christ.

(1.) Admire and stand amazed at his mercy. "O Lord, I will praise thee," saith the church: "though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst me," Isa. xii. 1. O how overwhelming a mercy is here before you! God is at peace, at peace with you that were enemies in your minds by wicked works, Col. i. 21. At peace with you, and at enmity with millions as good by nature as you; at peace with you that sought it not; at peace for ever; no dissolving this friendship for evermore. O let this consideration melt your hearts before the Lord, and make you cry, "What am I, Lord, that mercy should take in me, and shut out fallen angels and millions of men! O the riches, O the depths of the mercy and goodness of God!"

(2.) Beware of new breaches with God. "He will speak peace unto his people and to his saints; but let them not turn again to folly," Psalm lxxxv. 8. What though this state of friendship can never be dissolved, yet it is a dreadful thing to have it clouded: you may lose the sense of peace, and with it all the joy of your hearts and the comfort of your lives in this world.

(3.) Labour to reconcile others to God, especially those that are endeared to you by the bonds of nature. When

Paul was reconciled to God himself, his heart was full of heaviness for others that were not reconciled-for his brethren and kinsmen according to the flesh, Rom. ix. 2, 3. When Abraham was become God's friend himself, then he prayed, "O that Ishmael might live before thee!" Gen. xvii. 18.

You

(4.) Let your reconciliation with God relieve you under all burdens of affliction you shall meet with in your way to heaven. Let them that are at enmity with God droop under crosses and afflictions; but do not you do so. "have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Rom. v. 1. Let the peace of God keep your hearts and minds. As nothing can comfort a man that will go to hell at last, so nothing should deject a man that shall, through many troubles, at last reach heaven.

Thanks be to God for Jesus Christ.

SERMON IV.

THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT, THE INTERNAL AND MOST EFFECTUAL MEANS OF THE APPLICATION OF CHRIST.

No man can come to me, except the Father which has sent me draw him. John vi. 44.

OUR last chapter informed you of the usefulness and influence of the preaching of the gospel, in order to the application of Christ to the souls of men. There must be, in God's ordinary way, the external ministerial offer of Christ before men can have union with him.

But yet all the preaching in the world can never effect this union with Christ in itself, and in its own virtue, except a supernatural and mighty power go forth with it. Let Boanerges and Barnabas try their strength, let the angels of heaven be the preachers; till God draw, the soul comes not to Christ.

No saving benefit is to be had by Christ without union with his person; there is no union with his person without faith; no faith is ordinarily wrought without the preaching of the gospel by Christ's ambassadors; and their preaching has no saving efficacy without God's drawing—as will evidently appear by considering these words and the occasion of them.

The occasion of these words is found, as the learned Cameron well observes, in the 42nd verse, "And they said, Is not this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know?" Christ had been pressing upon them in his ministry the great and necessary duty of faith; but notwithstanding the authority of the preacher, the holiness of his life, the miracles by which he confirmed his doctrine, they still objected against him, "Is not this the carpenter's son?" From whence Christ takes occasion for these words: "No man can come unto me, except my Father which has sent me draw him." As if he had said, In vain is the authority of my person urged; in vain are all the miracles wrought in your sight to confirm the doctrine

preached to you: till that secret, almighty power of the Spirit be put forth upon your hearts, you will not, you

cannot come unto me.

The words are a negative proposition, in which the author and the powerful manner of the Divine operation in working faith are contained: there must be drawing before believing, and that drawing must be on the part of God. Every word has its weight. We will consider them in the order in which they lie in the text.

No man-not one, let his natural qualifications be what they will, let his external advantages in respect to means and helps be never so great; it is not in the power of any man: all persons, in all ages, need the same power of God, one as well as another; all men are by nature alike dead, impotent, and averse to faith. No man-not one among all the sons of men

Can, or is able: he speaks of impotency to special and saving actions, such as believing in Christ: no act that is saving can be done without the concurrence of special grace. Other acts that have a remote tendency to it are performed by a more general concourse and common assistance; so men may come to the word and attend to what is spoken, remember and consider what the word tells them; but as to believing or coming to Christ, that no man can do of himself, or by a general and common assistance. No man can

Come unto me-believe in me unto salvation. Coming to Christ, and believing in him, are terms of the same import, and are both used to express the nature of saving faith, as is plain, verse 35, "He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst; " it notes the terms from which and to which the soul moves, and the voluntariness of the motion, notwithstanding that Divine power by which the will is drawn to Christ.

Except my Father-not excluding the other two Persons; for every work of God relating to men is common to all the three Persons; nor only to imply that the Father is the first in order of working: but the reason is hinted in the next words.

Who hath sent me- -God hath entered into covenant with the Son, and sent him, and thus bound himself to bring the promised seed to him, and this he does by drawing them to Christ by faith. So the next words tell us that the Father doth