you can instantaneously conform on a death-bed, after having run a criminal career? Here is a second question.

On the idea you may form of these questions, will depend the opinion you ought to have of the man, who claims admission to the throne of mercy, after a dissipated life. For if the Gospel is a definitive covenant, requiring nothing of man; or if its requisitions are so easy, that a wish, a tear, a superficial repentance, a slight recourse to piety, is sufficient, your argument is demonstrative, and our morality is too severe. Profit by a religion so accommodating; cease to anticipate an awful futurity; and reduce the whole Gospel to mere request for grace. But, if the Gospel is a conditional covenant; and if the conditions, on which grace is offered, are of a nature that require time, labour and application; and if the conditions become impracticable, when too long de ferred, then your argument is false, and your con duct extremely absurd.

Now, my brethren, I appeal to the conscience of the most profligate sinners, and to casuists minutely scrupulous, Can they rationally hesitate to de cide on the two questions? And will it be difficult to prove, on the one hand, that the Gospel, in of fering mercy, imposes certain duties; and, on the other, that we reduce ourselves to an evident inca pacity of compliance, when conformity is deferred?

I. Say that the Gospel is a definitive covenant, and you save us the trouble of attacking and refut. ing an assertion which contradicts itself; for the very term covenant, implies a mutual contract be tween two parties: otherwise it would overturn a thousand express testimonies of Scripture, which we avoid reciting, because we presume they are well known to our audience.

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II. The whole question then is reduced to this, tą know what are the stipulated conditions? We are

all agreed as to the terms. This condition is a disposition of the soul, which the Scriptures sometimes call faith, and sometimes repentance. Not to dwell on terms, we ask, what is this faith, and what is this repentance, which opens access to the throne of grace? In what do these virtues consist? Is the whole implied in a simple desire to be saved? In a mere desire to participate in the benefits of the pas sion of Jesus Christ? Or, if faith and repentance include, in their nature, the renunciation of the world, the forsaking of sin, a renovation of life, an inward disposition, inducing us to accept all the be nefits procured by the cross of Christ, does it prompt us sincerely to detest the crimes which nailed him to it? In a word, is it sufficient for the penitent to say on a death-bed, "I desire to be saved; I ac knowledge that my Redeemer has died for my sins," Or must he subjoin to these confessions, sentiments proportioned to the sanctity of the salvation which he demands; and eradicate the crimes, for which Jesus Christ has made atonement?

I confess, my brethren, that I discuss these subjects with regret. I fear that those of other communions, who may be present in this assembly, will be offended at this discourse; and publish, to the shame of the reformed churches, that it is still a disputable point with us, whether the renunciation of vice, and adherence to virtue, ought to be included in the notions of faith, and in the conditions we prescribe to penitents. Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in Askelon 2 Sam. i 20. There are ig norant persons in every society we have them also in our communion. There are members in each denomination, who would subvert the most generally received principles of their profession: we have also persons of this description. We have ignorant and degenerate Protestants, who presume to entertain those relaxed notions of faith and repentance. of Al teal Protestant believes with our sacred authors, that he who confesseth and forsaketh his sins,

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shall find mercy. Prov. xxviii. 13. That with God there is forgiveness, that he may be feared. Psalm cxxx. 4. That God will speak peace unto his people, and to his saints; but let them not turn again unto folly. Psalm lxxxv. 8. A good Protestant believes that faith, without works, is dead; that it worketh by loves and that we are justified by works. Jam. ii. 21-26. A good Protestant believes, that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, in order that men may bring forth fruits meet for repentance. Mat. iii. 3, & A good Protestant believes, that there is no condemnation to those who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Rom. viii. 1, 2. That sin shall not have dominion over us, because we are not under the law but under grace. Rom. vi. 14. A good Protestant believes, that without holiness, no man shall see the Lord: that neither fornicators, nor idolators, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extor tioners, shall enter the kingdom of God. 1 Cor. vi. 8, 9.

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If this were not the true definition of faith and repentance; if faith and repentance were a mere wish to participate of the merits of Jesus Christ; if, in order to salvation, we had but to ask the grace, without subduing the corruptions of the heart, what would the Gospel be? I will venture to affirm, it would be the most impure of all religions; it would be a monstrous economy; it would be an invitation to crimes; it would subvert the law of nature. Under this supposition, the basest of men might have claims of mercy; the laws of God might be violated with impunity; Jesus Christ would not have descended from heaven, to save us from our sins, but to console us in the commission of crimes. A heathen, excluded from the covenant of grace, might be checked in his riot, by fears of the most tremendous punishment: a christian, on the contrary, might be the more encouraged to continue in sin, by the notion of a mercy ever ready to receive

him. And you, Celsus, you Porphiry, you Zošimus, you Julian, celebrated enemies of the christian name, who calumniated the infant church, who so frequently accused the first christians with authorising licentiousness, you had reason to complain, and we have nothing to reply. So many are the reflections, so many the proofs, that the faith and repentance, without which we can find no access to the throne of grace in a dying hour, consist not in a simple desire to be saved, in a superficial recourse tothe merits of Jesus Christ; they include, in their notion, the renunciation of the world, the abandoning of our crimes, and the renovation of heart, of which we have just spoken; and, without this faith, there is no grace, no mercy, no salvation,

I know that there are growing conversions; that faith has degrees, that piety has a beginning, that a christian has his infancy; and that, at the tribunal of a merciful God, the sincerity of our repentance will be accepted, though imperfect. But would you call that a growing conversion, would you denominate that faith, would you take that for repentance, which is the remorse of a conscience alarmed, not by abhorrence of sin, but the fear of punishment; not by a principle of divine love, but a principle of self-love; not by a desire to be united to God, but by horror, excited by the idea of approaching death, and the image of deyouring fire? Farther, is it not true, that to what degrees soever we may carry evangelical condescension, it is always evident, that faith and repentance include, in their notion, the principles, at least, of detachment from the world, of renunciation of vice, and the renovation of heart, the necessity of which we have pressed.,

This being established, it seems to me that truth is triumphant; having proved how little ground a man, who delays conversion, has to rely on the mercy of God, and expect salvation. For after hav ing lived in negligence, by what unknown secret would you form in the soul the repentence and faith

we have described, without which, access to the mercy of God is excluded? Whence would you derive these virtues? From your own strength, or from the operations of the Holy Spirit? Do you say from your own strength? Then what becomes of your orthodoxy? What becomes of the doctrine of human weakness, and of the necessity of grace; of which pretext you would avail yourselves to defer conversion? Do you not perceive how you destroy your own principles, and sap, with one hand, what you build with the other?

We conclude, that nothing is so suspicious as a tardy repentance; that nothing is so unwise as the delay of conversion. We farther conclude, that, in order to receive the aids of grace, we must live in continual vigilance; in order to become the objects of mercy, we must have both repentance and faith; and the only sure tests of having these virtues, is a long course of pious offices. In the ordinary course of religion, without a miracle of mercy, a man who has wasted his life in sin, whatever sighs he may send to heaven at the hour of death, has cause to fear that all access to mercy will be cut off.

All these things appear very clear, my brethren ; nevertheless, the wicked love to deceive themselves; they affect rationally to believe the things, of which they are only persuaded by caprice; and they start objections, which it is of importance to resolve ; with this view we proceed to apply the whole of this discourse.

APPLICATION.

We find people who readily say, that they cannot comprehend these things; that they cannot imagine the justice of God to be so severe as we have insisted; and the conditions of the new covenant to be so rigorous as we have affirmed.

What are the whole of these objections but suppositions without foundation, and frivolous conjec