divine architecture by fulfilling all righteoufness; he agreed and ftipulated to be nominated and made

the whole character of fin, retired into nothing: and,

and then vanished and rifing into a new man

it neither power nor

gave it the flip, and left place. With regard to its relation to us, as our character and fault, it has totally ceafed to be..

1

Strange as this method may feem to fome, it is the most eligible on many accounts. Efpecially to take the wife in their own craftiness. Satan, pretending to be what he was not, maimed the works of God; Jefus, by a fimular fort of con duct, deftroys his works. Satan could boast, that by pretending to be innocent, he had ruined the cause of innocency in the world; and to deride him, Jefus, by taking upon him to be fin, caufes it to cease to exift. This is true wit, real humour and perfect eloquence. Let heaven and earth clap their hands and burst out into a laugh, for God has mocked the mocker, outwitted the wit, deceived the deceiver, and for ever turned the laugh upon his adverfary. Even he that fitteth in heaven fhall laugh and have him in derifion; for now the worlds are

finished

finished, the top ftone is laid, men are juftified, and fin blotted out and ceafed to be.

But if the world is unfinned as above, how comes it to pafs, that it remains a finful, and especially fo finful a world? If fin is annihilated how comes it to live, and rage and reign? The reafon of this is given us 1. John, 5. 18. 19. 20.

whofoever is born of God

with great affurance, And we know that

finneth not, but he

that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one. toucheth him not. And we

know that we

of God, are

world lieth in wickedness.

and the whole

And we know that

the fon is come, and hath given us an underftanding to know him that is true.

The teftimony brought in here is, that he that is born of God, to wit, he that believes the truth and endeavors to practice it, is reckoned finlefs. And the reafon is alfo here affigned why the world is wicked, even because it lies in it; to wit, by confent and choice, as the word implies. Says he, we have an understanding given us of God, and confequently know what

we

we say. We fay,
We fay, that we who believe

are

wicked only

finless; and that the whole world is because it lies down peaceably by choice in it, and refuses to be delivered. Men are makers of fin as John fays; they chufe it beyond any thing elfe. And their deliberate choice they must have, let the confequence be ever fo contrary to the decree and will of God, and their own real advantage. Such as believe that fin is nullified, and endeavor to keep from it, are reckoned to have none. Those who believe that it is, and follow it, do in fact raise it from the dead and give it a new ftate of exiftence, and fhall be condemned as fuch.

8

Sin therefore has its power and advantage, and even exiflence, as our fault, in unbelief and human confent. Its prefent force and univerfal prevalence arifes from the abufe of that liberty in which men must be continued during a state of trial. And it cannot be otherwife ordered, let the fuppofed inconvenience or evil be ever

fo great. For man, being a reasonable creature, muft be held in a condition wherein he fhall make a deliberate choice of good or evil, that

it may be faid unto him, This is thy own; and by it thou must eternally abide. God has chofen us with ineffable delight and love, has adopted, predeftinated and justified us for life everlafting has according to the emanations of unbounded goodness and benignity decreed, and fwore to the truth of the decree, of our perfect happiness; has unfinned and prefented us to himfelf without fpot, and given his all-reasoning, all-moving and enlightening fpirit to be our inward guide and teacher: in a word, has cried after us from eternity, and followed and purfued us to the very edge and border of compulfion and force; over which he will never pafs, though we fhould utterly perish.

Let man

now believe, and refolutely contend that fin is ended and difplaced; that it no longer exifts as our fault; that by an infathomable depth of divine contrivance and art, it is nullified: let him strive to oppofe its works and operations, fo that it reigns not over him; let him endeavor to imitate thofe virtues which he believes and admires as the matter of his juftification: let him do this, according to the power and ability which

God

A

God imparts to him, and then, I fay, he is finless. Sin indeed is in him, and daily breaks out; but then it is in him only as a temporary infelicity. It is juft to reckon him finlefs. Says the apostle, when he would have done and performed what was good, and happened by weakness to do the contrary, it is not I that do it but fin. He and fin were now to be confidered not as one, but two; for the law of the fpirit of life in Chrift, had freed him from the law of fin; for as above, fin itself had ceased to exifl ̧

in

that very sense, in which it could be his. There fore fuch a man as this, in the language of the old and new teftament is a holy, righteous and perfect man: worships God in fpirit and in truth, draws near with a perfect heart, without fpot or blame.

Human choice and confent then, is all now that is neceffary to the deliverance of the world from fin. This is the hinge upon which every man turns hither or thither, and which fixes him in his own everlafting abode. Those two leading principles by which the kingdom of the devil was fet up and is ftill carried on; fraud and force,