without grace are like a ship without ballast in a boisterous sea, that cannot miss to sink. And when such an one is sinking into hell, his gifts will be like a bag of gold on a drowning man, precious in itself, but will only help to sink

him the faster.

4. The experimental Christian is the only Christian whose religion will bring him to heaven. Heaven in effect is but a perfect experimental knowledge of Christ, where the saints will for ever feed upon that sweetness they have heard to be in him. And there is no attaining of heaven, unless men first begin on earth to know Christ thus.

5. Lastly, It is absolutely necessary to qualify a man to go on and hold right in an evil time. And surely, if ever there was need for it, there is need now.

(1.) The experimental Christian is fitted thereby to suffer for Christ, because he has the testimony within himself, that the way which the world persecutes is the way of God. No arguments give such a certainty of the truth of religion as experience does.

(2.) When wickedness prospers, and piety is oppressed, experimental religion keeps a man from being led away with the error of the wicked, Mal. iîï. 16.

(3.) When many stumbling-blocks are laid in the way, especially in divisions and church-contentions, which make many wicked men think there is no reality in religion at all; yet the righteous, in such a time, shall hold on his way.

This is a very weighty point; and to illustrate it a little further, I will,

1. Give evidence that experimental religion is very rare. 2. Point out some causes of it.

3. Shew how it may be obtained.

4. Press you to seek after it by some considerations. First, I am to give evidences that experimental religion is very rare in our day.

1. The little relish that men have of the word either preached or read. Experience makes the word savoury; hence David says I rejoice at thy word, as one that findeth great spoil,' Psal. cxix. 162. How many are there to whom the word is tasteless as the white of an egg? Their fancy may be tickled by the discovery of something which they knew not before: but, alas! they have no inward sensation of the thing wrapt up in the words of truth. 3 T

VOL. III.

2. The little knowledge of the word by experience. The best commentary on the ills of the heart is the word; and the best commentary on the word is experience. These reflect light one upon another. The experimental Christian reads his heart in the word; he gets it opened and anatomised there, Heb. iv. 12, 13. It is the looking-glass wherein he sees it. And he understands the word by experience, John ii. 17. and vii. 16. The doctrine of truth is according to godliness, and godliness, in the practice of it, makes truth shine the more into the soul.

3. The little precise and nice walking there is among professors, Eph. v. 14. Christians should walk circumspectly; and it is the native effect of experimental religion, Isa. xxxviii. 15. And the reason is plain: The experimental Christian finds how a wrong step will provoke the Spirit to depart, and how communion with God cannot be kept up in a loose and irregular way, Psal. lxvi. 18. He sees how small a thing exposeth to the dint of the threatening; and that the way of getting the promise told out to him, is the way of tender walking, which counts no sin little. But, alas! for that miserable latitude that prevails in the walk of the generation, who take such a woful liberty in their words and actions, as we may say with the prophet, Mic. vii. 1, 2. Wo is me, for I am as when they have gathered the summer-fruits, as the grape-gleanings of the vintage: there is no cluster to eat my soul desired the first ripe fruit. The good man is perished out of the earth: and there is none upright among men they all lie in wait for blood: they hunt every man his brother with a net.'

4. The little advantage religion has by the conferences of professors. People may go into many companies ere they get one from whence they may come forth with a heart more inflamed with love to God and Christ, and the practice of godliness, because they can meet with few like him who said, Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul,' Psal. lxvi. 16. Alas! there is little of heaven in the converse of Christians at this day; which says there is but little of it in their hearts. We have sat down on time's things; and as for the matters of another world, we have little relish of them. A philosopher bade one speak, that he might see him, Col. iii. 16.

5. Lastly, The general security that prevails among all ranks,

though we never saw the day wherein it was more unseasonable. Did experimental religion prevail, we would be waiting on the Lord in the way of his judgments, as the church did, Isa. xxvi. 8, 20. God help us! Scotland's stroke seems to be walking in the dark, with feet of wool, that we will never hear the sound of, till we feel its iron hands. It is very like some fearful surprise is abiding us. The dispensations of our day are in their own nature rousing dispensations; but we are not at all awakened by them, more than we were when there was not a pin in our tabernacle loosed. There are different opinions and practices in these matters; but whose heads soever are rightest, we think the hearts of all parties are wrong. And among all our unhappy differences, we have a more unhappy agreement in a spirit of slumber that has seized all together. And what shall be the end of these things?

Secondly, I shall point out some of the causes of the scarcity of experimental religion.

1. The Lord has a controversy with our mother, and therefore has withdrawn, and it fares the worse with the children. She was some time Hephzibah, and her land Beulah; but now her gold is become dross, and her wine mixed with wa

She has forgotten her husband, and has been gadding after other lovers. She hath cast herself into a loathsome disease; her kindly heat and warmth is gone; any thing of it that is left has struck out to the outward parts, leaving a key-cold heart within. And, by all appearance, she will not be cured, till blood be let of her.

2. People's spiritual senses are dulled with the luscious sweets of a present world. Farms and merchandise take away people's appetites for the marriage-supper, Matth. xxii. 4, 5. The devil makes birdlime of the things of the world to catch professors, that they find, when they would get upward, their feet stick in the mire. Many of us, I trow, when our worldly incomes were less, our spiritual incomes were more. Or, if the world go against people, their spirits are so embittered, that they find no sweetness at all in religion.

3. Religion is not made people's business, but just a byhand work. Men are like the mole, whose abode is in the earth; and though sometimes it come above ground, it hastes in again to its hole, to be in its element. They will say their prayers indeed, evening and morning; but for walk

ing with God in the interval of duties, they know nothing about it. Their religion is over when duties are over. They are like a man that takes physic indeed, but he justs vomits it up again when he has got it, giving it no time to work, Gen. vi. 9. Religion's chance-customers will never grow rich by it.

4. People's not holding hand to any attainment they make in religion, like the slothful man, not roasting that which he took in hunting,' Prov. xii. 27. They are, it may be, at some pains to earn something in religion, but they put it in a bag with holes. Sometimes they are in a fair way to gain experience of religion, they get some taste of it, but then they do not follow on, Hos. vi. 3. The spark is kindled, but they let it go out; they do not feed it, and presently they have a cold coal to blow at again.

5. Lastly, Formality in religion, when people content themselves with outward worship, doing the work, but make it not their business to worship God in the spirit; by faith in him, love, dependence, fear, hope, patience, &c. It is these and the like graces that bring in the experimental knowledge of Christ and religion into the soul. These are they that get forward to God, even to his throne. And duties without them are useless and vain, like liquor that has lost all the spirits.

Thirdly, I come to shew, how we may become experi mental Christians.

1. Let us labour to be Christians indeed, and lay the foundation well in a serious and sincere closing with Jesus Christ. That is to say, let us, under a conviction of the reality and necessity of religion, give away and consecrate ourselves to the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us forsake the world for him, and look on ourselves as men bound to another world, under the conduct of the Captain of the Lord's hosts. And while we go through it with him, let us resolve to go lightly along, and uot dip, Cant. iv. 8. Let us forsake sin for him, and leave these husks to feed upon himself, for the manna will not fall till the Egyptian provision be done. And men need not think that the dainties of heaven will be brought to the table, where the soul is sitting at dust, which is the serpent's meat. Labour to know them no more, not to seek your satisfaction from them, and ye shall know Christ.

2. Receive the truths of the word by faith. If you would

be experimental Christians, let the word dwell in you rich. ly in all wisdom and spiritual understanding." Hear it, and read it attentively, and with application; meditate on it; let it be your constant companion and bosom-oracle, to which you may always resort for direction, caution, and encouragement. And ye will soon find the commandment is a light, and that by them ye are warned, and that the promi, ses have a sweet accomplishment, in the way of duty, in the experience of the Christian. Labour to get the divine faith of the word. O, Sirs! it is not easy to believe scripturetruths, Luke xxiv. 25. Admit the conviction; look to the Lord for grace to believe, and keep up the struggle with unbelief.

3. Be diligent observers of your own way, the way of your heart and life. A man that lets his heart run at random, and does not review what passeth there, can never be an experimental Christian. But every serious review of the heart would give you a new experimental confirmation of scrip ture-truths. There are two great depths that the experimental Christian wades much in, viz. the depths of wickedness in the heart, and the depth of perfection and fulness in Christ. Be much in self-examination.

4. Be careful observers of providence; the providence of God towards the church, and towards yourselves in particu lar, Psal. cvii. ult. Providence is a river that brings down the rich ore of experiences, which are to be gathered by Christian observation. The Bible is the word that God preacheth to the world; and providence is the application of the doctrine. In the Bible, the word is brought to our ears, and in providence it is set before our eyes; though most of us are blind as moles, and see it not; but the experimental Christian doth see,

5. Lay it down for a conclusion, that religion is a thing that lies inwardly, and that it is quite another thing than a parcel of external performances; that it is a conforming of the soul to the image of Christ, by a close application to him, and a real participation of his Spirit, and virtue of his blood, And therefore seek that, and seek it on till ye find his truth comes not into your heart in word only, but in power, gradually killing sin and self, and conforming you more to his image, And go not to duties as one that is only to hear or speak, but to feel or taste. And when your hand is once in,