plies, that the violation of the divine law fhall lay the offender under an obligation to punishment. For to what purpose enact laws, without guarding and enforcing them by proper fanctions? Could there be either wisdom or righteousness, or justice in the divine government, if the fubjects of that government might trample upon the fovereign's authority with impunity?-Besides, does not confcience fuggeft that we are accountable to our Maker for our conduct, and frequently alarm the finner with the apprehenfions and forebodings of future punishment? Have not these fuggeftions and apprehenfions prevailed univerfally, and given rise to numberless expedients for appealing the offended deity? And can there be a stronger proof, that this principle of religion is planted deep in the human heart, and confequently must be founded in truth? For can it be rationally supposed, that the wife and gracious author of our being would plant hopes and fears in us, without any corresponding objects? Would not fuch a fuppofition represent him, either as a capricious being, acting without end or object, or as neceffitated to govern his creatures by the dread of evils merely ideal, and which he seriously never designed to inflict? It is true, the devices fallen upon to quiet the fears of conscience were always fuperftitious and unfatisfactory. But this does not destroy the credibility of future punishments arising from these natural feelings and apprehenfions. Nature was right in her conclufions refpecting the connection betwixt fin and punishment. She only erred, as indeed fhe ever wust,

without

without the aid of revelation, in the judgment she formed of the nature of future punishments, and the methods fhe adopted for removing the penal confequences of fin. In fhort, thefe conclufions of reafon are fully confirmed by the ordinary conduct of providence in the government of the moral world, fo far as it comes within the reach of our observation. There is manifeftly an established connection betwixt finning and fuffering, the one following the other as its natural confequence and punishment. And though the tendency of the criminal course of action to render the delinquent miferable, does not take effect, in every cafe, immediately and in exact proportion; yet this does neither destroy nor weaken the evidence of nature, but rather leads us to expect fome future period, under the moral administration of God, when the natural tendencies of virtue and vice shall have their full effect. On this ground the ancient philofophers built their strongest arguments for the immortality of the foul and a future state.

Should any man venture to affert that human nature is at prefent in the fame condition in which the Almighty placed it at first, and meant it to continue, the affertion would not be more false than foreign to the purpose. That God fhould have created an order of beings under the neceffity of finning, and confequently of fuffering, is utterly incongruous to every idea we can form of infinite wifdom, and juftice, and goodness. Reafon, if permitted to fpeak out, will agree with the declarations

declarations of fcripture, that God made man upright, with the power of preferving his innocence; but that he, by the abuse or misapplication of his faculties, loft his innocence, and involved himself in guilt and wretchednefs.

Suppofing, however, that ignorance, debility, and moral turpitude had been the original lot of humanity, does this fuppofition neceffarily preclude the idea of any alteration or improvement? Look into the kingdom of nature, and you will obferve every thing almost advancing, by gradual and progreffive steps, from weak and imperfect beginnings to higher degrees of perfection. And why may not the fame rule take place under the moral government of God? We perceive the human mind improving in every other kind of knowledge; why, then, fhould it be thought, that religion and morals are the only things in which man is debarred from improvement? And therefore, though it fhould be granted, that man was originally created in a state of ignorance and moral defilement, yet you cannot infer from thence, that no change in his nature and condition was intended by his Creator, and that no means were appointed for raifing him to a higher degree of dignity and bleffednefs.

Such being the present guilty and depraved flate of human nature, a queftion naturally occurs to the mind of the convinced finner, "What fhall I do to be faved?" A question this of infinite moment, as upon the right determination of it his everlasting happi

nefs

nefs depends. This, then, leads our attention to the

Second Ground or reason, by which we are led to embrace the gospel as the only effectual mean of obtaining eternal life, namely, the inability of human nature, by any efforts of its own, effectually to affift and relieve itself.

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In order to this, these three things feem abfolutely necessary 1st, The obligation we are under to fuffer punishment, in confequence of our difobedience, must be cancelled: 2dly, The mind must be rescued from the bondage of darkness, and enlightened with the knowledge of true religion: And 3dly, Our fouls must be purified from the defilements of fin, and effectually affifted and enabled to recover their original dignity and perfection, without which we must for ever remain incapable of eternal life.

With respect to the first of these, the neceffity of it is obvious and indifputable. The fentence of the divine law is an infuperable bar in our way to happiness; and till it be removed, we can have no hope. But how is this to be done? Can man, by any power or policy of his own, reverse the decrees of heaven, or ftop the regular course of justice? Shall we look up to fovereign mercy for relief? Every thing that mercy can do, consistently with holiness and juftice, we may expect. But reafon tells us, that an unconditional dif penfation of pardon is inconsistent with the honour of the Deity, and with the order and ends of his govern

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ment: And therefore, if pardon fhall be granted, it must be granted upon the condition of such a fatisfaction as will effectually answer these ends. But can man himfelf make this fatisfaction? Or can the wisdom of man devise any method by which it may be done? The fentence of God denounceth a curfe upon every one who continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them; and that curfe is death. In the day thou eatest thereof thou fhalt furely die. Death, then, being the punishment to which man is doomed, nothing lefs can fatisfy the demands of juftice. The law exacts a perfect unfinning obedience, as the indifpenfible condition of happiness. It provides no remedy in cafe of failure; and therefore, if it be violated in any one inftance, the offender forfeits his title to life, and is undone for ever.

But nature, though confcious of her own inability to pay the forfeiture, is ftill loth to part with hope. The profpect of everlasting damnation is big with hor

With what eagerness and anxiety does fhe cry out, "Wherewith fhall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the High God? Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings and calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleafed with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my tranfgreffion, or the fruit of my body for the fin of my foul?"-All these expedients have been repeatedly tried; but they have ever proved as unfatisfactory as they are unavailing. The blood of bulls and of goats cannot take away fin.

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This the fcriptures