have done.

God? or that never treated with God about justification? In all your dealings with God still remember grace: when you come for justification, plead for it as grace: when you receive it, receive it as grace: and when you praise for it, praise for it as grace; and thus will you behave as the people of God When you plead for it, plead for it as grace; bring nothing with you in your hand, offer nothing to God for your justification; it is a free gift: if God be pleased to give it, in his great bounty, you shall be saved. You have no reason to quarrel if God doth not give it: you have no reason to fear but God will give it. Though you do not deserve it, yet he hath promised it. As there is a fulness of righteousness in Christ to procure grace, so there is a fulness of grace in the tender of the gospel; and you are to believe that Christ is willing to make all this over to sinners.

When you receive justification, receive it as grace; sometimes we beg it as an alms, and sometimes in the gospel the Lord offers it as a gift, and we are to receive it as such. If the Lord tenders you the gift of righteousness through Jesus Christ, do not say you cannot receive it; do not say you are not meet for it; the question is, Are you in need of it? Are you not guilty? and is not a pardon suitable for the guilty? Receive it as a grace. The true reason why so many neglect right dealing with God, for justification, and slight God's dealing with them about receiving it, is because their hearts stand at a distance from, and they have a sort of a quarrel with mere grace. As it is certain that nothing but grace can save the sinner, so it is as certain there is nothing more unpleasing to the sinner than grace; than that good, which when received he must always own the bounty of the giver, and never to eternity be able to say, "My own hand hath made me rich:" Christ will bring none to heaven that are in that mind. He that will not be rich in Christ, must be poor and condemned still in the first Adam. Know ye not, saith the apostle, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who though he was rich, yet he became poor, that we through his poverty might be made rich, 2 Cor. viii. 9. The riches of a beliver stards in the poverty of Christ; and every true believer counts Christ's poverty his riches.

SERMON II.

GAL. ii. 21.

I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then is Christ dead in vain.

I TOLD you the last day (what you may learn by your own reading), thatt he scope of the apostle in this epistle is, to teach and defend the doctrine of the justification of a sinner by the righteousness of Christ, apprehended by faith alone. In the text the apostle hath two arguments for this truth, against the contrary error, with which the Galatians were plagued; and both arguments are taken from the absurdities that follow upon the contary doctrine.

1st, That seeking righteousness by the works of the law, doth frustrate, and make void the grace of God.

2dly, That it makes Christ's death to be in vain; and there is nothing revealed by the Lord, in his word, more sacred, and more awful than these two-the grace of God, and the death of Christ; and therefore it must needs be a great wickedness to enervate, and overthrow both these. From the first part of these words I observed four things, and have already spoken to the first of them, and would speak to the next at this time.

1st, The grace of God shines gloriously in the justifying of a sinner through Christ's righteousness alone. All the revelations that are made of this great way of God's justifying a sinner, are all made with a high deference to the grace of God, as the orignal thereof.

2dly, I am now to speak to this point-That frustrating the grace of God is a great and horrible sin: the apostle here brings it in as such, and denies his concern in it; I do not frustrate the grace of God. The scope of his discourse leads me to this head: "If I seek righteousness by the works of "the law, I should frustrate the grace of God; but I do not "seek righteousness that way, therefore I do not frustrate

the grace of God." Frustrating the grace of God is a great

and horrible sin there are two things I would speak to upon this head-To shew you how this sin is committed-and then, wherein its greatness doth appear; for there are many that commit this sin, and when they have done, think nothing of it.

1st, How is this sin committed that the apostle here vindicates himself from? I do not frustrate the grace of God. This sin is committed two ways: 1st, By not receiving the grace of God when it is tendered. 2dly, By seeking other ways and shifts for righteousness than the grace of God.

First, Frustrating the grace of God is, not receiving it; the grace of God is frustrated when it is not received: the right entertaining of it is by receiving it. The apostle exhorts the Corinthians, We then, as workers together with him, beseech you also, that you receive not the grace of God in vain, 2 Cor. vi. 1. I have told you in what sense the grace of God might be received in vain, and in what sense it could not. The doctrine of the grace of God, the offer of the grace of God, may be received in vain, and rejected, as many times it is; but the grace of God itself cannot be received in vain, for it always worketh its effect wheresoever it lights. The grace of God is an irresistible principle of salvation: never man had one mite of the grace of God, but he was saved by it: Christ Jesus hath two quivers, if I may so say; there is a common quiver, out of which he draws some arrows, and shoots them at sinners, and they can fence against these well enough, and never be hurt by them; but then he hath other arrows, that are marked with his love, and sent by his power, and there is no guarding against them. As there are arrows of destruction, so there are arrows of salvation, Let thine arrows be sharp in the heart of the king's enemies, is the prayer Psal. xlv. My work then is to shew how it is that the grace of God is not received.

1st, The grace of God tendered in the gospel, and the way of salvation by Jesus Christ, is not received when it is not minded. There is little hopes of that man's salvation that doth not think of salvation, or when the matter is neglected. "How shall ave escape," saith the apostle, "if we neguct so f great salvation." Heb. ii. 3. The true sense of the original

word lies mainly in this, not so much in a stated formal enmity to it, but only in a careless indifferency about it: the grace of God is not received when it is not minded. Therefore, would you know when you profit by the gospel, know it this way if what you hear from the word doth not occasion many thoughts in your hearts, you get no good at all. If the matter of salvation do not become the matter of your serious meditation, you receive the grace of God in vain. God may say concerning such men, "They will not so much "as think of my proposals to them."

2dly, People do not receive the grace of God when they do not see their need of it, when they do not see their absolute need of it. As long as a man hath this dream-and every natural man falls into such a dream-as long as a man thinks in his vain mind, that any thing else but the sovereign grace of God can save him; this man will never receive the grace of God. It is impossible that a man can receive it, till he see that nothing else will do his business.-Woe be to them that think any thing but grace can save them: they are in a forlorn state indeed!

3dly, They that do not believe that the grace of God alone can save them, they do not receive it neither; for as the grace of God is sent to men as that which they do simply stand in need of, and as that which nothing can supply the want of; so it is sent as a sovereign remedy, that whatsoever ails the poor creature it will do it for them.-So much for this first thing: They that do not receive the grace of God, are guilty of this great sin of frustrating the grace of God.

Secondly, This sin is also committed by men's taking other methods and shifts to obtain the favour of God than this grace alone; they frustrate the grace of God. I would speak a little to this under two heads: 1st, I would shew you the cause of it. 2dly, I would shew the effects that proceed from those causes.

(1.) Of the cause of it. The world is full of it; this heresy, if I may so say, runs through the whole earth; no man is quite free from it but only the sound believer; a man may be orthodox in his judgment, and subscribe to the orthodox doctrine, and Protestant truth; but every natural man is

a heretic in this matter; he hath secretly something else in his eye to recommend him to God, and to make his state safe before God, besides the righteousness of Christ. Now the cause of this universal hankering after ways of people's own devising to do their business with God, without this grace of God through Christ, is what I would speak a little to.

It flows from nature: now nature is so strong a spring, that nothing but the mighty grace of God can turn it; it is so strong a principle. I would shew this in a little.

1st, The grace of God in saving sinners by Christ Jesus is above nature in its best state; it is above sinless nature. If you could suppose such a thing as this, that there was a man as holy as the first Adam was; if God should create another man as holy as the first Adam was, and bring to this man the doctrine of the righteousness of Christ, and of the grace of God in him, it would be above his nature. It is above sinless nature; it is that which Adam did not know, neither was he bound to know it, for it was not revealed to him; nor did he need to know it, for there was another way provided for his standing, that he might have kept.

2dly, This way is not only above sinless nature, but it is quite contrary to corrupt nature. If it be above sinless nature, it must needs be far above corrupt nature; but not only is it so, but it is also cross and contrary to it. There is in this corrupt nature four things that are its strength, and from that strength comes this enmity to this way of salvation.

[1] There is in this corrupt nature dismal darkness and ignorance, expressed by the apostle in the abstract, Eph. v. 8. For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord. Not only are they dark and blind, but they are darkness and blindness. Now in this darkness, as to this matter, I will name two or three things: 1st, There is ignorance of the righteousness and holiness of God, Rom. x. 3. 2dly, There is ignorance of the holy law of God, Rom. vii. 10. 3dly, There is utter ignorance of God's righteousness in Christ Jesus. A little to each of these:

1st, In every natural man there is an ignorance of the righteousness and holiness of God. I know that in man's nature