V. This fubject opens an eafy and plain way, and perhaps the only fatisfactory and true way, to reconcile the two apoftles, Paul and James, in what they fay of that by which finners are juftified. St. Paul has faid, "Therefore we conclude, that a man is juftified by faith, without the deeds of the law; knowing that a man is not juftified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jefus Chrift." St. James has faid, "Ye fee then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only." It has been rafhly thought by fome that the apostles in these words exprefsly contradict each other; but their perfect confiftence and agreement with each other will appear only by obferving the different fenfe in which they use the word works, which is evident by all they fay on the point.

Paul exprefsly defines the works which he excludes from the law of faith, and fets in oppofition to it. They are the works of the law, the fame with the law of works, meaning works done in order to recommend to favour, as a price offered to purchase and merit acceptance and juftification of God, as has been reprefented and explained. By works James means Chriftian holiness and obedience, which is the fame with the law of faith, which has been explained. By works James means that love, in all its operations and fruits, which he fays is the life and foul of faith, and without which there cannot be any true faith. His words are, "For as the body without the Spirit is dead, fo faith without works is dead alfo. Seelt thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect ?" How could he more strongly affert the holiness of faving faith, when he fays that holy love, the root and effence of all Chriftian obedience and good works, is as much the life and active nature of a living, faving faith, as the fpirit is the life and activity of the body? How contrary is this to faying, as many have done, that holy love, which implies and comprehends all the obedience and good works of a Chriftian, is the effect and confequence of faith, and produced by faith, as the cause produces the effect!

Paul

Paul agrees with James perfectly in his defcription of faving faith. He fays, "Faith worketh by love," that is, Love, which is the effence of all Chriftian obedience, and implies all good works, is the foul and active life of faith, by which it operates, or acts and works, as the spirit is the life of the body, by which it moves and

acts.

VI. This fubject may be improved by those who have attended to it, as affording matter by which they may examine themselves, whether their converfion and confequent religion be true and genuine, or false and fpurious.

Have you been effectually cured of a difpofition to truft to your own righteousness, and renounced and become dead to the law of works, under a clear conviction that you were curfed by it, notwithstanding any thing you could do, and that you should be juftly accurfed forever, unless you obtained relief by the law of faith, trufting in the merit and righteoufnefs of Chrift for pardon and juftification?

And have you been led to understand and cordially to embrace the law of faith, in which you highly approved of the character of Chrift, and the way of falvation by him, condemning yourself as being so far from having or doing any thing to recommend you to God, or render you deferving, that you were infinitely guilty and ill-deferving?

Have you felt and experienced this law of faith, suited to deftroy your pride, and fet you at the greatest distance from boasting, and the more you understood and cordially embraced this way of falvation, the more difpofed you have been to humble yourself in the fight of the Lord?

Do you know that your heart was naturally as much opposed to the gofpel, as it was to the holy law of God, and that, had not God given you a new heart by regeneration, you fhould have continued an enemy to Chrift? that the law of faith is a holy law, and that it cannot be complied with by a heart unfriendly to God

and

and holiness? that the more you attend to and are pleafed with the law of faith, the greater is your averfion from fin, and the more you long to be holy, and hunger and thirst after righteoufnefs?

Are you defiring and looking for that evidence that you are juftified and shall be faved, which arifes from a confcioufness that you do embrace the gospel, and have thofe holy exercifes which imply this, or are implied in conforming to the law of faith? and do you defire no other evidence but this, that your juftification may be proved only by good evidence that you are fanctified?

Sermon XVII.

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1789.

Eccl. iii. 14. I know that whatsoever God doth, it fhall be forever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it; and God doth it, that men should fear before him.

WE

E may be fure that the Infinitely Great, Eternal, Omniscent Being, who is the First and the Laft, the Almighty, does nothing for an end, or with a view to accomplish any defign, which is temporary, and shall wholly ceafe and come to nothing, fo that every thing which remains fhall, in all respects, be juft as it would have been had he not done it. For this would be infinitely unworthy of fuch a Being, infinitely beneath him, and unbecoming his character: it would be really more unbecoming and trifling, than for a man to do all he does through life for no end at all, were this poffible; or for the greatest monarch on earth to spend his life in action for no higher and more important ends than those which children have in what they do. That which ceases to exift in all its effects and confequences, fo that

the

the universe is in no respect better or otherwife than if it had not been, is of infinitely lefs worth and importance, than that of which the confequence and good effect, or the end of which, is without end, or forever. Therefore the Infinitely Great, Wife and Good Being will do nothing but that which fhall anfwer an end which never fhall ceafe, fo that the confequence and good effect of it fhall exift forever.

If this visible world were to cease to exift, and every effect and confequence of its having existed were to ceafe forever, fo that no end were to be answered by it but what took place during the existence of it; and no existence, or circumftance of existence, fhould be in any refpect otherwife than if it had not exifted; it would have been created, and preferved during the existence of it, in a great meafure, if not altogether, in vain. It is certain no end would be answered worthy of the Infinite Creator. There would really nothing be gained by such a work; all would be loft. Therefore we may be fure that none of the works of GOD are of this kind, but every thing that he does, will, in the effect and confequence of it, exift forever, or the end to be answered by it will never cease.

The natural world which we behold, with all the works of man in it, is to come to an end, at least as to the form in which it now exifts, when the end of the existence of it is answered, but that end which was defigned to be accomplished by the creation and continuation of the existence of it will remain forever. The natural world, the fun, moon and ftars, with this earth, and all the creatures and things contained in them, which are not capable of moral agency, and moral government-the natural world was created, and is upheld, for the fake of the moral world, and thofe creatures which are capable of moral government, and of conformity to God in moral exercises; as a houfe is built, not for its own fake, but for the fake of thofe who are to live in it. And when this world, having answered the end with refpect to the moral world for which it was made and preferv

ed,

ed, fhall be burnt up, the moral world, and all moral agents, will continue forever, with all the effects and confequences of the natural world, respecting the moral world, which were defigned to be produced by creation and providence.

Hence it is demonftrably certain that moral agents, at leaft fome of them; and if some why not all? will exift without end; for they cannot anfwer the end of their. existence, and the end of all thofe works of God which he has done for their fake, if they should ceafe to exist: they must therefore exist forever.

It will appear evident and certain, no doubt, if duly confidered, that moral government cannot be perfectly or properly exercifed, unless it be endless, and confe quently, unless moral agents, the only fubjects of this government, continue to exift forever. This is evident from the text we are confidering, and what has been obferved upon it. But the evidence of this arifes from another view of this point. Moral government cannot be exercised without a law pointing out and requiring the duty of moral agents, and fixing the penalty of dif obedience, and maintaining and executing this law, agreeable to the requirements and fanctions of it. The punishment which a tranfgreffion of the divine law deferves is endless evil or fuffering; and therefore this must be the penalty of the law of God, and must be executed on the tranfgreflor, unless something can take place to answer the fame end; therefore he upon whom this penalty is executed, muft exift forever, in order to fuffer the penalty of the law. And although it be not effential to the law of God, that there should be an exprefs promise of endless life to the obedient, yet the threatening of evil to the tranfgreffor feems to imply favor to the obedient, and is inconfiftent with putting an end to their existence, and depriving them of endless happiness, which in their view, and in reality, would be an infinite negative evil; and therefore must be inconfiftent with the wifdom and goodnefs of God, yea, with his diftributive juftice; for they deferve no evil,

fo