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great creation, and determining to bring all the glory to him that is in my power. With shame, abasement, and reverence, I own his wisdom, power, and goodness, in making me and all things out of nothing, and I desire to think and act as one who derives all I am and have from him, using all the various blessings he has provided for me with thankfulness, acknowledgment, calling upon his name, and due fear of dishonouring my Maker by using them amiss. I regard myself as his workmanship, formed to set forth his praise; and I yield up my every power of soul and body to be employed unto his glory according to his will; fully resolved never again to give up my soul to those thoughts and studies which pride, interest, and indulgence suggest, nor my body to serve the base purposes which these lusts have too much directed me to pursue; but universally in both to remember and serve my Creator. And inasmuch as God has honoured me with a special place and station under him in his creation, to that I am determined to have a special regard, and to carry myself in it in such a manner that his honour may suffer no more damage through my negligence and fault; but, laying aside the consideration of my own praise, or interest, or convenience, and every other worldly respect, I do profess and declare, that to promote his glory therein both is, and by his grace shall be, my great endeavour and aim. In one word, I judge it my bounden duty, and it is my real choice, in every thing to think and act as the creature of God, dependent upon him and subservient to him. And this is what I avow myself determined to do when I say, "I believe in God the Maker of heaven and earth.”

Take one word at parting. What a confusion has sin brought into God's creation! Angels began the apostacy, man has followed them. Who would think that God has made us, to see what we do? Sin has subverted all. Sin has put creation into disorder. What is become of the glory of God in his works? But I see the restorer of the breach. Immanuel is come to restore all things, to exalt the Creator, by bringing in to their allegiance some of the proud apostates, and to make the others know with the sinners of hell that God shall be glorified. What an undertaking! Look at your hearts, my friends, and see what an undertaking! Who is sufficient for it? Why, Jesus is! He that brought beauty, harmony, and order, out of the

first chaos, is able to do it. He can, he will, he has already in part. Look again to your hearts, believers, and see if he has not; for your Creator again reigns there. In part, you say? but it shall be wholly. Witness the first-born which are written in heaven, the spirits of just men made perfect. Yes, the day is coming when ye shall say, What hath the hand of the Lord wrought! To him that was able to subdue all things to himself, to him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

SERMON XII.

ACTS xvi. 30, 31.

What must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.

WE have gone through the several points contained under the first article of the Creed, and which are relative to God the Father. The second branch has regard to God the Son, and his office as Redeemer.

Now the subject-matter contained herein is this. First, You profess your belief in Jesus as your all-sufficient Saviour. And then, Secondly, You declare the grounds upon which such your belief in him as your Saviour doth stand, to wit, 1. As having been duly anointed to this office, implied in the name, Christ; 2. As being the only Son of the Father; 3. As being our Lord; 4. As having been conceived of the Holy Ghost; and born of the Virgin Mary; having suffered under Pontius Pilate; been crucified, dead, and buried; and having descended into hell. 5. As having risen the third day from the dead, and ascended into heaven; as sitting on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; and as coming from thence to judge the quick and the dead. The word Jesus, you see, must be carried forward to all the points that follow; and the service is, I believe in Jesus, as being the Anointed, as being the only Son, as being our Lord, as conceived, born, crucified, and dead; as risen, ascended, exalted, and coming to judgment. His mediatorial sufficiency depends on all this together, and therefore there is not so much as one point to be omitted, consistently with a real belief in Jesus as a complete Saviour.

The first and great point, which is the result of all the rest, is, I believe in Jesus.

The word Jesus, every one knows, signifies Saviour. And therefore, when I say I believe in Jesus, I declare that I believe in him as my Saviour; which nevertheless is impossible any further than I am both sensible of my want of salvation, in regard of those things wherein he is a Saviour, and also that in all those respects he is sufficient and suited to my purpose. To talk of believing in a Saviour, when I really find not a want of a Saviour, is to talk nonsense; and to declare that I believe in Jesus as sufficient every way to save me, when, being unacquainted with those sure grounds upon which his saving power stands, I am not really satisfied that he is able to save me, is to assert a direct palpable falsehood. Consequently, whoever says truly I believe in Jesus, is as well acquainted with his being in a miserable, helpless, and undone state in himself, as that there is a fulness and sufficiency in Jesus to help him completely out of it. Without the former, namely, an acquaintance with our misery and helplessness, there is an absolute impossibility of believing in Jesus ; and it is only in proportion with our acquaintance with the latter, namely, his sufficiency, that we can exalt him in our hearts as the Saviour we profess him to be unto us. As to the grounds upon which the person here speaking is confirmed in the sufficiency of Jesus to save him, they will be considered afterwards; here they are supposed to be known and believed, and not less the professor's sense of his misery and helplessness in himself. So that the words are the declaration of one, who, having found misery in himself, and help in one that is mighty to save, openly avows that Jesus is all his salvation. Now in this plain, reasonable, and, I conceive, incontestable state of the matter, it appears, that in the words before us are implied an acknowledgment of all that misery from which Jesus is said in the Scripture to be come to save us; and also that the whole hope and confidence of the soul are lying on him. And so of course to say, I believe in Jesus, is as much as to declare,

First. I believe in him as my Deliverer from the power of darkness and ignorance.

Secondly. I believe in him as my Deliverer from the curse of the law, due unto me, and threatened against me for my

sins.

Thirdly. I believe in him as my Deliverer from all my spiritual enemies.

Fourthly. I believe in him as my great, final, and full Deliverer at his judgment-day. In all which points it will be necessary to observe, as we go along, both that there is a renunciation of ourselves, and also an acceptation of Jesus; and at the same time to inquire how it stands with ourselves concerning it.

First. I believe in him as my Deliverer from the power of darkness and ignorance. Man by nature is in a state of blindness and ignorance. All that he can see of spiritual things, without the light of the Word and Spirit, is but that confused traditionary knowledge that has been handed down from generation to generation, the effect of which is little other than selfcondemnation; and even that knowledge I say traditionary, not acquired by the exercise of man's reason, but received by information from others, though indeed capable of being reasoned upon afterwards, and so of considerable improvement. Man, since the fall, is (without the help of foreign light) in a state of utter spiritual darkness; a reasonable creature, but incapable of discerning spiritual things by any exercise of his unassisted reason; nay, and when that foreign light is afforded him, he cannot be benefited, or understand the things that are declared by it, unless by a supernatural influence both his will be stirred up to seek into it, and his mind enlightened to receive it. This is the Scripture-account of the matter; where we are said to be darkness, to be without God in the world, to be without hope, and the wisest of us, by all our wisdom, not to know God. Of this his natural estate of blindness and ignorance our professor is made duly sensible; as he is also that Jesus, by the light of the Word and Spirit, is the only one who can direct his steps. He ascribes it to Jesus that he was at first enlightened whilst he lay in his dark state of sin and ignorance, and was made to discern and see the sinfulness and misery of that condition, and the way out of it prepared by the mercy of God, and executed by the Only-Begotten made flesh. And he is equally well advised, by self-experience, that, left to himself, he should instantly lose sight of all the glorious things belonging to his peace, which are now so evidently and delightfully before his eyes; and that it is the Lord therefore who hath made, and still makes, his darkness to be light.

Now here you sce is a manifest renunciation of the suffi

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