not fatisfy ourselves with an idle confeffion, that the New Teftament is the word of God, but we must hold faft by it, as our only rule, in opposition to all other rules that have been added to it, or come in the place of it; we must hold fast the things delivered there, in our practice, without turn. ing to the right hand or to the left. And in order to this, let us hearken to the advice the Apostle gives to the church in Rome, which, if it had been always attended to, might have prevented all the abominations of that worldly kingdom, at the head of which that church came to be in after ages. He fays, "Be not conformed to this world, but be ye tranf "formed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove "what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God," Rom. xii. Let them that are minifters fearch the fcriptures diligently, and with a single eye, clear of worldly refpects, and however much they know of them, let them yet be perfuaded, they are able to make them wiser, and let them still be disci ples of Chrift, depending on him, as little children, for inftruction from him, by opening their understanding to un derstand the scriptures. And let them not fhun, for the fear of the people, or for any hope in this world, to speak all the words of eternal life, and to declare the whole counsel of God keeping nothing back; knowing this, that the word is not com. mitted to them to give it out as they please; and that now, fince the revelation is finished, there is no part of it but what is pro fitable for making the man of God perfect, or thoroughly furnifhed unto all good works. They must not only take care of handling the word of God deceitfully, and study to teach Chrift's difciples to obferve all he has commanded, but they must also go before them, as enfamples of holding fast the things delivered in the fcriptures, in a diligent obfervation of them, the least of them not excepted. "For he that shall "break one of these leaft commandments, and fhall teach "men fo, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of hea "ven." And let the Chriftian people alfo to their power, fearch the scriptures, and examine every part of the doctrine of their ministers, and their example by the fcriptures, com paring fcripture with fcripture, that they may be followers of them only, as they can fee them following Chrift; and fo profess fubjection to the gospel of Chrift in following them, Let them bring all their former thoughts and opinions in mat ters of religion to the ftandard of the fcriptures, ready to give up with every principle and practice that has no founda. tion there, and to take up with every doctrine and practice

that

that fhall be found there, and without delay to obferve all things whatsoever Chrift is found requiring there, however little they have been obferved before. Even as the captive Jews, returning from typical Babylon, reformed themselves by the written law, which, through the good providence of God, remained among them, notwithstanding the captivity, and all the corruptions that had prevailed among them, and after they no more enjoyed many of the glorious things that attended the first giving out of that Old-Teftament revelation. The Lord encourages them under their wants with this, that they had his word and his fpirit remaining among them; and they diligently read that word, and what they found written there, they forthwith practifed, though fome of these practices had not been in ufe from the days of Jofhua the fon of Nun. Though we cannot now pretend to many things, that accompanied the giving out of the New-Teftament revelation, and behoved to ceafe when it was completed, as the Apostle expressly declares they fhould ceafe, 1 Cor. xiii. ; yet, by the wonderful providence of God, we have the writings of the prophets and the apoftles of Chrift preferved, and brought into our own language, fo as all have access to know them and in this cafe, is not the practice of the returning reforming Jews written for our learning, that we may take them as our example in this thing? Let us therefore, as they did, give attendance to the reading of the fcriptures, to exhortation and to doctrine, that we may be by them furnished unto every good work, and hold fast the things written there, fo as not to let them go, or add any thing to them, in confeffion or practice, for any hope or for any fear wherewith we can be moved,

2. Let the defcription that the New Teftament gives of a Christian, as well as of a minifter, be carefully obferved; fo as all they, and none elfe, may be acknowledged as Chri ftians, who are in fome measure conformable to that defcription. Our obedience to Jefus Chrift depends, at least, as much on the knowledge of this, as on our acquaintance with the fcripture-character of a minifter; and as great evils have followed upon a departure from the rule of the New Testa ment on this head as on the other. It is impoffible for us to fearch mens hearts, and to know who is a true Chriftian in the fight of God, fo as to diftinguifh him from one that is a hy pocrite only in his fight. But there are fuch peculiar duties required of us towards the children of God, and the brethren of Jefus Chrift, on account of their relation to him, with fuch VOL. I. promifes

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promises and threatenings annexed, that we had been in the greatest difficulty about our obedience to Jefus Chrift, if his law had not alfo described to us the perfons to whom it obliged us to do thefe duties. Shall we think that the Christian law hath made our peculiar esteem and regard to a people whom we cannot know, to be the grand evidence of our love to Christ himself, and of our interest in him? Or are we to ftand or fall at the judgment-feat of Christ, and is it to fare with us eternally according to our behaviour to a peculiar people whom we cannot by any rule diftinguifh from other people?

The New Teftament leaves us not at this uncertainty; but gives fuch a description of these whom we are to look on as the brethren of Chrift, as will ferve to convince Chrift's enemies at his appearing, of their neglect and hatred of him, by their neglect and hatred of the least of these his brethren whom they faw in this world, and as will ferve, on the other hand, to manifeft his peoples love to himself by their deeds of love to one another while they lived together in the world. The defcription given in the New Teftament of these to whom we are to behave as the children of God, and brethren of Chrift, is fo clear, as to leave us at as little uncertainty as the Jews and the nations their neighbours could be in, as to them that were of the feed of the Jews. We may take these few texts for inftances on this fubject, which is one way or other touched on throughout the New Teftament, Matth. xi. 48. 49. 50. 1 John iii. 23. Matth. vii. 21. 22. 23. Heb. vi. 9. 10. Matth. xviii. 3. 5. 6. & x. 36. 37. 38. Luke xiv. 27. John xiii. 34. 35. Rev. xii. 17. 1 Theff. i.

The extraordinary figns that appeared about Chrift's disciples at the erection of his kingdom, and whereby the Lord bare witness to the firft-fruits of the Gentiles, when he vi fited the nations, to "take out of them a people for his "name," are now ceased, because there is no more ufe for them; but that "work of faith," that "labour of love," and that "patience of hope in our Lord Jefus Chrift," that was the product of the gospel in the first Christians, must remain as long as Chriftianity remains in the world. And as the diftinguishing character of a Chriftian was made up of these three from the beginning, fo it must be ftill to the end of the world. "For," fays the Apostle, "whether prophe. "cies, they shall fail, whether tongues, they fhall ceafe, "whether knowledge, it fhall vanish away. And now abi "deth faith, hope, charity, thefe three; but the greatest

of

** of these is charity," I Cor. xiii. And therefore where the work of faith appears not, nor the patience of hope, but especially where there is no appearance of charity, in that la bour of love fhewed towards his name, in miniftring to the faints, as he requires in his word, there, let men think what they will, there is no appearance of Christianity.

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We are not to take the defcription of the children of God from our own fancy: For through our felf-liking, we are ready to fancy, that likeft to God that is likeft ourselves; nor are we to take the description of a child of God from the esteem and approbation of the world, as if thefe who are highly esteemed among men for holiness, were so likewise in the fight of God; for by that rule the Pharifees, who were an abomination in the fight of God," would have been his children, and his fon a Samaritan, having a devil: but let us take the description of a Christian, with whom we are to behave as with the brother of Jefus Chrift, only from his own word in the New Teftament. Let all our notions. of a Christian's character be examined and corrected by that infallible rule. Let the greatest names of men that "could "speak with the tongues of men and angels," if yet they be not conformable to that description, fall in our efteem before that rule. And let the leaft of Chrift's brethren be acknow ledged by us according to that rule, though the "base, weak, "and foolish things of the world," and though they should be "hungry and thirsty, naked, strangers, and in prison," or whatever their circumstances be in this world, and however they be difpifed among men.

There is the more need for cleaving ftrictly to the fcripturedescription of a confeffor of the name of Chrift, that the New Teftament foretels a falfe profeffion of Chriftianity coming in place of the true one, and fetting it afide: for Paul, forewarning Timothy of the "perilous times to come in the "laft days," points out the danger of these times in defcribing the people that should then have "a form of godliness, "denying the power of it ;" and, as a guard to us against the peril of these times, he gives this charge," From fuch "turn away," 2 Tim. iii, By this new form of godliness, or of Christianity, fuited to the people there described, the outer court of the Lord's house" came "to be trodden un"der foot of the nations," and "the man of fin" rose to his feat in "the temple of God," and "the power of the 66 people," "whom God "took out of the nations for his "name," was fcattered, when, by this "form of godliness,

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they

they came to be "mingled again with the people of these a"bominations;" and so that took place which was pointed at in the prophecy of Ezekiel, chap. xxxiii. 17. 18 19.

The Apoftle likewife gives Timothy a fample of these, that, in the last days, should have the form of godliness denying its power, in them who, at that time, under the name of Chriftians, went about craftily among the difciples to fubvert the true profeffion of Chriftianity, and prevailed on them that had not attained to that knowledge of the truth, whereby they might be delivered from the dominion of their lufts; and therefore wanted a profeffion of Chriftianity under which they might have fome more cafe in the fulfilment of them. And these were, on the one hand, the Judaizers, largely defcribed in the epifiles of Paul; and, on the other hand, they that were confident of their justification, by a knowledge and a faith that they faid they had, which did not shew itself in works of obedience to the gofpel; for they came to know their juftification a fhorter way, as we fee in the epiftle of James, and in Jude, and the second epistle of Peter.

The Apoftle compares them whom he thus fhews to Timothy to the Egyptian magicians, in their oppofition to the word of God to keep his people in bondage whom he made free to ferve him. And thereby he infinuates, that, as the true Chriftian profeffion was at firft established in the world by figns, fo that other form of godliness should have signs on its fide alfo, whereby men would harden themselves in clea ving to it, in oppofition to the true profeffion of Christianity defcribed in the fcriptures, to which God bare witness by all the figns recorded there. But he fays thefe men shall not proceed the full length, even as thefe Egyptians, though they held pace with Moles fo far, did not go the full, and were obliged to own themselves outdone by the finger of God. So none of the men that ever gloried in any signs that they imagined to be wrought in favours of the modern form of Christianity, in any fhape of it, can fo much as pretend, that the figns they talk of ever proceeded the length of the figns whereby God bare witness to the profeffion of Chriftianity that is defcribed in the New Teftament. How fhall we then turn away from them that "have a form of godliness, de"nying the power of it," as the Apoftle charges us, but by turning to the Chriftianity defcribed in the New Teftament, and there exemplified to us in the way of the first Christians, to which the Lord bare witnefs by fuch figns as no other Chritianity in after-ages could ever pretend to?