pel, and of the whole of true religion, it would plant a thorn in his bosom which he would find it difficult to extract.

Secondly, If the foregoing principles be true, it will follow that men in general are either obliged to perform spiritual actions, or allowed to live in sin, and perform sinful actions. In the voluntary actions of a rational creature, there is no medium between what is good and well pleasing, and what is evil and offensive in the sight of God. All our actions are, in some mode or other, the expressions of love, or they are not: If they are, they are spiritually good; they are acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. Whether we eat, or drink, or whatsoever we do, if it be done to the glory God, this is godliness. The actions performed may be simply natural, but the end to which they are directed, and which determines their nature, denominates them spiritual. On the other hand, if they are not, there is no p

ty of their being any other than sinful. The want of love is itself a sin, it is a sinful defect relating to principle; and whatever is done otherwise than as an expression of love,let it wear what face it may,it is a sinful action. We ourselves esteem nothing in a fellow creature which is not in some mode or other the expression of love. If a wife were ever so assiduous in attending to her husband, yet if he were certain that her heart was not with him, but gone after another, and that no part of her assiduity was the effect of love to him, he would abhor her very endeavors to please him, and nothing that she did would be acceptable in his sight.

Instead of its being a question, whether God requires any thing of carnal men which is spiritually good, it is

evident from scripture and the nature of things, THAT HE REQUIRES NOTHING BUT WHAT IS SO. It has been alledged that the obedience which God required of Israel by the Sinai covenant was merely external, and did not extend to the heart. Their government, it is said, was a theocracy: God acted towards them under the character of a civil governor; and if so, it is sup posed, he must forbear to take cognizance of the heart, which is beyond the province of creatures to inspect. That God acted towards Israel as a civil governor is admitted, and that it belongs not to a civil governor, in his executive capacity, to take cognizance of the heart, is also admitted. In the bestowment of rewards and punishments, he must act from what is apparent in the lives of men, having no other medium by which to judge of the temper of their hearts: But it is not so with respect to legislation, or the formation of the laws. No civil government upon earth will allow its subjects to hate it in their hearts, provided they do but carry it fair in their conduct. The spirit of all laws, in all nations, requires men to be sincere friends to their country; but as there is no medium for mortals to judge of the heart, but that of an overt act, it is fit that this should be the established rule for the dispensation of rewards and punishments. It was thus, I conceive, in the government of God over Israel. Every precept contained in the Sinai covenant required the heart, or, which is the same thing, some genuine expression of it; but under its administration punishments were not always inflicted, nor rewards conferred according to what men really were, but what they appeared to be, or what they would have been judged to have deserved if a fellow-creature had sat in

judgment upon them. It was on this principle that Ahab's punishment was averted on his humbling himself before God. So far was the divine Legislator from re quiring mere external obedience by the Sinai covenant, that the grand preliminary to that covenant was thus expressed: "If ye will obey my voice INDEED, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people."* And what is meant by obeying his voice indeed is sufficiently evident by the subsequent addresses of Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and others; in many of which it is observable that though the blessings promised were external, yet the proviso on which the promises were made was nothing less than a heart sincerely devoted to God. "If ye will hearken diligently to my commandments, TO LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND TO SERVE HIM WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, I will give you the rain of your land in his season; the first rain, and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and thy wine, and thine oil. Take heed to yourselves that your HEART BE NOT DECEIVED, and ye turn aside, and serve other gods, and then the Lord's wrath be kindled against you, and he shut up the heaven that there be no rain, and that the land yield not her fruit, lest and ye perish quickly from off the good land which the Lord giveth you. Take diligent heed to do the commandment which Moses the servant of the Lord charged you, TO LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND

TO WALK IN ALL HIS WAYS, AND TO CLEAVE UNTO HIM, AND TO SERVE HIM WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL!-ONLY FEAR THE LORD, AND SERVE HIM IN TRUTH, WITH ALL YOUR HEART: For consider

* Exod. xix. 5.

what great things he hath done for you. If external obedience were all that God required by the Sinai covenant, why was he not satisfied with the godly professions which they made during that solemn transaction, saying, "all these things will we do;" and wherefore did he utter that cutting exclamation, "O that there was SUCH AN HEART IN THEM, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them and their children for ever!”

Lastly, If the foregoing principles be just, instead of being a question whether ministers should exhort their carnal auditors to any thing spiritually good, it deserves to be seriously considered, whether it be not at their peril to exhort them to any thing short of it. If all duty consist in the genuine operations and expressions of the heart, it must be utterly wrong for ministers to compromise matters with the enemies of God, by exhorting them to mere external actions, or to such a kind of exercise as may be performed without the love of God. It is disloyalty to God; betraying his just authority over the heart, and admitting that in behalf of him, which we should despise from a fellow-creature if offered to ourselves. Nor is it less injurious to the souls of men, as it tends to quiet their consciences, and to cherish an opinion that having complied with many of the exhortations of their minister, they have done many things pleasing and acceptable to God; while, in fact, every thought and imagination of their heart has been only evil continually.

It may be thought these things bear hard upon the unconverted sinner, and reduce him to a terrible situaDeut. xi. 13, 14. Joshua, xxii. 5. 1 Sam. xii. 24. 10

VOL. III.

tion: But if such in fact be his situation, it will not mend the matter to daub it with the untempered mortar of palliation; on the contrary it will render it still more terrible. The truth is, there is no way for a sinner to take, in which he can find solid rest, but that of returning home to God by Jesus Christ. And, instead of trying to render his situation easy, it ought to be our business as ministers to drive him from every other resting place, not for the sake of plunging him into despair, but, if it please God to bless our labors, that he may be necessitated to betake himself to the good old way, and find rest unto his soul: we ought solemnly to assure him, that do what else he will, he sins; and is heaping upon his head a load of guilt that will sink him into endless perdition. If he pray, or frequent the means of grace, his prayer is an abomination to the Lord; If he live in the omission of these things, it is worse. Whether he eat or drink, piough the soil,or gather in the harvest (like the supposed ship's company before mentioned, who, with all their regularity continued in their rebellious course) all is iniquity. "Incense is an abomination: it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting." To die is to be plunged into the gulf of destruction, and to live,if he continue in enmity to God, is worse, as it is heaping up wrath, in an enlarged degree, against the day of wrath. What then, it will be asked, can sinners do? If they go forward, destruction is before them; if on this hand, or that, it is the same. Whither can they go, and what must they do? All the answer which the Scripture warrants us to make is included in the warnings and invitations of the Gospel: "Repent and believe the Gospel." Repent and be converted, that your sins may be blotted