5. Ah for the deep lethargy that this generation is fallen into ! conversion-work is much at a stand, soul-exercise is grown a stranger to the most part; there is no growth but in naughtiness and selfconceit.

6. When gospel-ordinances and gospel ministers are contemned. Were not the gospel received in vain, the house where his honour dwells, and the galleries where he walks, would be prized; and the feet of them that bear the glad tidings would be precious. But, alas! all is contrary here. His ordinances are trampled upon, his servants are discouraged, and broken on every hand. Few want brow enough to break over the awful hedge that God has set about them: He that despiseth you, despiseth me.' We are as little troubled with the scrupulous in coming to us for information from the word concerning different practices, as with cases of soul-exercise.

7. When they are not thankful for it. The Lord hath done great things for us; but the generation is waxed wanton, so as there seems to be a sort of fondness to see the church in confusion again. Well, come when it will, it is like we will cool of that heat, and learn to prize what is now lightly let of.

8. Lastly, Most of all when Christ is not received by faith into the soul, Matth. xxii. Were there never so much strictness of life, mortification, reeling amongst the affections, and this be wanting, all is to no purpose. Unbelief, or rejecting of Christ, is the great quarrel that God pursues in time and eternity against the hearers of the gospel. But, ah! is not the preaching of Christ sapless at this day? are not our eyes held, that we cannot behold his glory? he is despised and rejected of men still.

I shall conclude with an improvement of this subject.

Take heed ye receive not the grace of God, the gospel, in vain. Two things ye would especially take heed to in this matter.

1. Take heed the gospel leave you not still out of Christ. It is certain, (1.) That the gospel finds people growing upon the old stock, and out of Christ, Ezek. xvi. (2.) That without Christ men are without hope let them profess or be what they will, if they be not ingrafted into Christ, they are nothing, Eph. ii. 12. John xv. 6. (3.) That the gospel is the great mean appointed of God to bring sinners to Christ, the ministry of reconciliation, 2 Cor. v. 18. It is by this that sinners are brought to the marriage of the King's Son, Matth. xxii. O take heed ye receive not the gospel in vain. The cry, Can. iii. 2. ult. Go forth, ye daughters of Zion, and behold King Solomon with the crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals, and in the day of the gladness of his heart,' is come to your ears; beware ye sit not still. These invitations,

Psal. xxiv. 7. ' Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in;' and Rev. iii. 20. Behold, I stand at the door and knock: If any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me;' beware they leave you not so. There is a treasure in this field, one pearl of great price in this market, and it is in your offer.

2. Take heed it leave you not without a saving change in your hearts and lives. It is impossible you can be saved without this, John iii. 3. Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.' Heb. xi. 14. And this gospel is the mean of it, 1 Pet. i. 23, 24, 25. Faithful ministers will be in pain till Christ be formed in people, Gal. iv. 19. What is their preaching, beseeching, exhorting, &c. but pains to bring forth? But, alas! we may sit down with that, Isa. xxvi. 18. We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind, we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth, neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.' O for that day when that promise shall be accomplished, ver. 19. Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.' And this is a change that must be carrying on while here, Eph. iv. 21. and that by the same means it was begun, unless ye receive the grace of God in vain, John xv. 2. O! Sirs, what branches of the old man is this knife snedding off; what hellish weeds is the gospel in its ordinary preaching to you plucking up? Sure they are not wanting in our hearts and lives, and sure there will be some execution doing on them, if ye receive not the gospel in vain.

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Dear friends, God has sent you the gospel, and has set up his ordinances among you; despise not the treasure, because it is in such an earthen vessel. I would fain see the gospel doing good, a day of God's power to Ettrick again. I dare not think I have been altogether useless here: but truly, when I look upon the case of this parish in general, and on the success of my ministry in it, my heart sinks, being afraid that I have bestowed labour in vain, yea, worse than merely in vain, and God, though most justly, has dealt bitterly with me, and put a heavy, heavy piece of work in my hand. But O that the doleful effects of this reached no farther than to me! O that it were well with you, though my eyes were held not to see it for my comfort! But the works of the flesh are manifest, and continue and grow under a preached gospel, to which the appetite is lost, while the beauty and glory of practical godliness is under a dreadful vail amongst us. I would not willingly stand in the way

of your mercy; but if I be indeed the stumbling-block that lies between you and Christ and the power of godliness, I pray the Lord may remove that block out of your way, what way he thinks best, that another face for Christ, for the gospel and true godliness, might be put upon the parish of Ettrick. But stand I must in my post, till he that sent me in it call me off; and I desire to be doing while it is to-day, ere the night come on when there shall be no more working. Wonder not that this matter is laid out with this weight: We are workers together with God, and therefore have need to blush and be humbled, that we cannot be more deeply concerned that ye receive not the grace of God in vain*. Consider,

1. We are workers with God. It is not our own but our Lord's work that we are about. God has made our Lord and Master heir of all things, and he has sent us forth to court a spouse for him. There is none that can say so much to the commendation of their Lord as we may for he is white and ruddy, the chief among ten thousand, yea, he is altogether lovely: and there is no bride so unworthy as the daughter of Zion. And shall our Lord get the naysay off the hands of ugly, hell-hued, beggarly souls, and the prince of darkness be preferred to the Prince of Peace? Our Lord has got the gift of the kingdom from his Father, and of this land among others, Psal. ii. 8. and he has sent us out to beseech you and command you in his name to submit to our royal Master: and must we tell him, that ye will not have this man to reign over you? Luke xix. 14.

2. God works with us. We are but the voice of one crying; the Speaker is in heaven, and speaks from heaven, though by men, Heb. xii. 25. Therefore the slighting of our message is a slighting of the Lord himself. See Matth. xxviii. 20. 'Lo, I am with you alway even unto the end of the world.' Have ye never had the secrets of your hearts made manifest by the preaching of the word? why then fall ye not down before our Lord? why say ye not, We will go with you, for the Lord is with you? O fight not against God.

3. The message we bring you is the grace of God; and shall it be received in vain? This gospel,

(1.) Is most necessary grace. What a dismal darkness overclouded the world by Adam's fall, more terrible than if the sun, moon, and stars, had been for ever wrapt up in the blackness of darkness, in which we should for ever have lain, had not this grace

The author here plainly alludes to the distracted state of the parish, and the sea of trouble he was tossed in, on account of the unmanageable spirit of the parishioners, fed by the malignant leaven which the Old Dissenters spread through it, and of which he repeatedly and heavily complains in his Memoirs.

appeared as a shining sun to dispel it, Tit. ii. 11. So the word. rendered appeared properly signifies. And shall we now like nightowls flee from the face of the rising sun, and like wild beasts get into our hellish dens, when this sun is up? Are we struck blind with its light, and such creatures of darkness, that we will love darkness rather than light?

(2.) It is an uncommon grace. This sun enlightens but a small part of the world. The most part are yet without the gospel; and this land had it not always. Nothing but grace brought it to, and has kept it with us. And shall we receive it in vain? Ah! will not the wild Americans think us unworthy of a place in the same hell with them.

(3.) It is the greatest grace that God ever bestowed on the world. God has given some nations gold mines, precious stones, spices, plenty of corns, &c. and he has given some the gospel without these; so that we may say of them, Israel then shall dwell in safety alone; the fountain of Jacob shall be upon a land of corn and wine; also his heavens shall drop down dew. Happy art thou, O Israel who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency! and thine enemies shall be found liars unto thee, and thou shalt tread upon their high places,' Deut. xxxiii. 28, 29. Barley-bread and the gospel is good cheer, if people receive it not in vain, Isa. xxx. 20, 21. There is a treasure in the gospel, Christ in it is the greatest of all mercies, Matth. xiii. 44. Ah! shall such a price be put in the hands of fools, that have no heart to it.

No other disNow, Sirs, the therefore now

(4.) It is God's last grace to the world, Heb. i. 1. pensation of grace shall ever the world see more. last ship for Immanuel's land is making ready to go; or never, Heb. x. 26, 27. For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment, and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.' This gospel is the Lord's farewell sermon to the world. The Lord has made a feast for the world these five thousand years, and the last dish is served up now. O then receive it not in vain!

(5.) Lastly, It is grace that may be lost, Matth. xxiii. 37, 38. The sun of the gospel has gone down in some places, where it shined as clearly as ever it did in Scotland, and God knows if ever it rise again there. That we have received it much in vain, is plain from the heavy hand of God on us at this day in temporal calamities, Hos. ii. 9. yea, and his threatening us with the removal of the gospel, ver. 11. O then receive it not in vain; but, while ye have VOL. II.

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the light, be walking in it for to look no farther than the entertainment the gospel is getting at this day, it is a sad sign there is a black night abiding us so that I think ministers and people should set themselves about it as a way-going commodity.

THE DANGER OF NOT COMPLYING WITH THE GOSPEL-CALL.

PROV. ix. 12.-If thou be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself; but if thou scornest, thou alone shalt bear it.

THIS verse is the epilogue or conclusion of the gospel-treaty with sinners, carried on with them by the messengers of Christ in his name. It is a solemn declaration or protestation that it is shut up with. The entertainment the gospel meets with, is twofold, and there are two sorts (and but two) of gospel-hearers. (1.) Compliers with the gospel-call; these are called the wise. (2.) Refusers; these are styled scorners. The declaration looks to both, and is carried as it were, after the offer is made, to every individual man and woman's door that hears the gospel. It is not, They that are wise, shall be wise for themselves; but hereby the Lord speaks to every one in particular, If thou be wise, thou shalt be wise for thyself, &c. Which class soever one puts himself into, here is his case declared. (1.) If thou be wise, and comply, the gain shall be thine own; it is not the Lord's, but the fruit shall drop into thine own lap. (2.) If thou scornest, and refusest, the loss shall be thine, it will lie chiefly at least on thine own head. So the exclusive particle is taken, Psal. li. 4. Against thee, thee only have I sinned.'

I design not to insist on these words, but only with them to shut up the call to the improvement of the gospel and religion which I have been giving you. Thus the great duty is laid before you: and now I would apply the words of the text unto you on this occasion, and to every one of you. Ye have heard the nature of faith and repentance, the utility of public ordinances for salvation, and the necessity of not receiving the gospel in vain. Now, sinner, what wilt thou do? wilt thou comply with the gospel-offer or not? Well, I protest and declare in the terms of the text, If thou be wise thou shalt be wise for thyself; but if thou scornest, thou alone shalt bear it. I shall branch out this protestation in three particulars.

First, If thou be no complier with the gospel-call, thou art a scorner of it: there is no mids. This is evident from the text, which divides all gospel-hearers into these two sorts. Now, thou art not a complier with the gospel-call, as long as,