liar people! that they may fhew forth the praifes of him who hath called them out of darknefs into his marvellous light, for the glory of his Grace, in whom they believe. Let us join the Apoftle, 1. In diffuading all we have under our care, from living after the flesh, left they die: from being conformed to this world, in fpirit, in converfation, in drefs, or otherwife; as they cannot ferve the two maflers in any character, and leaft of all as believers. For the friendship of the world is enmity with God. We should therefore teflify that whofoever are its friends, are not crucified unto it, whatever profeffions they make of love to the Gospel, veneration for Chrift, &c. But alas! how few credit St. James, or fpeak after him, when he fays, "they are the enemies of God!"

O Brethren, to us it is given, to warn every man, to speak the truth, this truth, with great plainnefs; and fo to commend ourfelves to every man's confcience, but efpecially to all who bear the name of Methodifts, in the fight of God. You have had the noble example fet you, the long and well prepared way before you; and ought not to be afhamed, herein to fet the example, yourselves, in all things, and upon every occafion; even the example of being, againit univerfal example, thus good. You have nothing to fear. You feek not the honour which cometh of man. We fet out to feek the falvation of mankind, and from the very beginning have used great plainness of fpeech in this as well as every thing elfe, knowing no man after the flefh! O let us not fuffer any to take our crown! But, as we lament that fo many are fick and weak, if not fpiritually dead, even while they have a name to live, not in our great congregations only, but in our focieties alfo let us continue to diffuade them even from the very appearance of every evil. As our little children, let us give them line upon line, that they love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. Let us clearly exhibit to their view, and prefs home upon their yet tender minds, the danger of this dark, deceitful world: what is in it now, and what will become of it ere long! that it paffeth away, and perifheth in the very act of ufing! They will yet bear found doctrine: this doctrine, which is fo according to godlinefs, that, we know whatever may be faid to the contrary, they ftand and fall together. And if we hold our peace, who fhall, who will, who can speak to thefe ? Are they not our children, begotten by our means, hrough the word of truth? Can we live, if these stand not faft?

Then let us, 2. after the examples above fet us, add, exhortation to diffuafion; that by this alfo we may fhew them their calling, and the privileges it entitles them to: and fo by all means endeavour to fave fome from fettling upon their lees, or remaining at eafe in our Zion. To prevent this, fhew them that they are called unto liberty; yea, that the Son has actually made them free. But warn them at the fame time, to be careful how they ufe their liberty not as a cloak to covetoufnefs or any other evil; but that

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they more effectually ferve the Living God, who gave his Son to die, to redeem them from the dominion of fin, the government of Satan, and from this prefent evil world; that they fhould henceforth not live unto themselves, but unto Him who died for them, that whether they live or die, they should be the Lord's. For this purpose they should be cautioned to be exceeding careful, that they be not again entangled with any of thofe yokes of bondage, from which they are releafed; and that they be ftedfast against all temptations, which might rob them of that liberty, wherewith Chrift fet them free, the moment they believed in him, as is largely defcribed in the 5th, 6th, and 8th chapters of the epiftle to the Romans. That this may be their experience, intreat them to come out, and be feparate from all connections, which would entice them even to touch the unclean thing of fin, in any form. And to prevent their laying again the foundation for repentance on the one hand, or refting in what they have already received on the other, urge them to go on to perfection. For their encouragement therein, ufe the argument in the text. Open, explain, and enforce the promifes given unto them; befeeching them by the mercies of God fo richly beftowed, to prefent their bodies a living facrifice, holy, acceptable to God, as their reasonable service; abftaining from fleshly lufts which war against the foul; following peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man ihall fee the Lord. And that there may be no bar in the way, from our not having yet attained, where this is the cafe, let us fimply own we have not; but at the fame time, fhew we are in earneft, in our arguments, diffuafive and perfuafive; and that we do believe, and therefore fpeak. Let us be able to fay by more than words, even by the tenor of our lives, "I follow after, that I may apprehend: forgetting what is behind, and reaching out to that which is before, I prefs towards the mark, for the prize of my high calling of God in Chrift Jefus.". And fo fhall we not only be workmen, not afhamed of our labours, while we fhew believers their calling and its privileges, but be prepared with them to fay, "Come, and let us join ourselves to the Lord, in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten:" even with that God, who is fo fanctified in our hearts, that he is our Fear all the day long. But we haften to the next thing propofed in the improvement of this important. fubject, viz.

3dly. To fhew, why so few attain to, or are even aiming at this hope of their calling, HOLINESS. 1. It is, because they do not cleanfe themselves as the text enjoins. 2. They neglect this, becaufe they do not live in the habitual practice of the fear of God. Hence, 3, they neither fee the neceflity, nor poffibility of perfecting holiness. 4. Some who fee both, do not attain, because they feek it, not by faith, but as it were, by the deeds of the law.

1. So few attain to, or even aim at this, because they do not act as the text prefcribes. And is not this a fact fo felf-evident,

that

that it needs only to be attended to, or even mentioned, to its being fully proved? How very few do we fee, who are daily watching, that they may deny their appetites, fenfes, and natural inclinations, what they fo continually crave, to the great hindrance of their fpiritual progrefs? Nor do we fee a much greater number, who are strictly attentive to their wills, affections, and tempers; who mark with jealous eye, the rifings of defire, and catch the wanderings of the will, and fo fhun the firft approach of fin. Alas! how very few do you fee thus living and walking in the Spirit, and evidencing that they are the fons of God, because they are led by his Spirit?

And when the pleafing dream is over, of whatever kind, lawful or unlawful, which has fo diverted them, and they awake, and fee what has been thought, faid, or done, whereby their fouls have been robbed; how few feem at all alarmed? How little, if any, compunction is there for this great evil? How very few meltings of a broken heart, for having grieved the Spirit of God. How eafily, how foon is the whole got over, and fucceeded by the like declenfions, or perhaps by fomething worfe? And things being thus, it is no wonder that they do not immediately apply to that Fountain, which alone can cleanfe from all impurity and of confequence, but little agonizing at the throne of God for grace to help in time of need. That fuch do not attain, is not at all furprizing, fince they do not even aim at perfecting holiness. The very thing is quite out of their fight. And it is not at all ftrange to find, that fuch even defpife and deride it, as a matter not once to be named by a man of fenfe!

And all this arifes, 2ndly, because they do not live in the habi tual practice of the fear of God. They are ftrangers to the true reverential awe of him as a Father; and they cannot, or at least in many cafes do not, make any diftinction between the fervile horror of a flave, confifting in obedience from the dread of fevere punishment; and the affection of a child, engaging him to a due regard, from the high efteem of the relation with which he is honoured, in being adopted into the family of God, and blessed in confequence, with the exceeding great favours fo undefervedly conferred upon him. A temper of mind confcious of thefe great honours, at once preferves a proper familiarity, and a due refpect; and wonderfully tends to increase in the foul a fenfe of the infinite diftance there is between the creature and the Creator; keeping a lively fenfe of the difcovery firft made of the Divine purity, and the great and juft displeasure of a holy God at the appearance of fin. This will ever prove a prefervative against turning the Grace of God into lafciviousness, on account of that richness and freedom of it, which is manifested in the Gospel, and clearly dif played in the finner's actual forgiveness, even while ungodly. Ít is true, where there has never been any work of deep repentance on the foul, there is little difcovery made of the holiness and VOL. XIX. March, 1796.

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juftice of God on the one hand, or of the exceeding finfulness of fin on the other. But a real child of God, whether drawn by love, or driven by fear, to the hope which the Gospel fets before him, for prefent pardon and acceptance, has a juft conception of both; and, while the confcience remains tender, cannot forget either. Therefore he fets God, in his effential holinefs, always before him; and endeavours to "walk as in his ftrict Obferver's fight!" But when, by mistaken conceptions of the Gospel, and of the Chriftian's calling and privileges, the grace of the Gospel is opposed to its precepts; or the privileges of the Chriftian are ftrenuously claimed, while his duty is overlooked and neglected; then the profeffor, because he is not under the law, fo as to be faved by his obedience to its precepts, concludes, he is without law to God, and under none to Chrift; forgetting that our gracious Redeemer is the Author of eternal life to those only who obey him and that as none can find present reft to their fouls, but fuch as take his eafy yoke upon them, and gladly bear his burden; fo of fuch as would not that he should reign over them, he faith, "bring them forth, and flay them before my face, and cast them into outer darkness."

Thefe truths being forgotten or difregarded, and the contrary fentiments entertained, with the additional fuppofition, that the work of falvation is fo of grace, that being once begun (which, alas! it is too often fuppofed to be on very flight grounds) it will be carried on even to glory, be the conduct of the fubject what it may: and where there is alfo connected with this another idea, that religion is not fo much (if at all) a perfonal, as an imputative thing; fuch conceptions once embraced, have a natural tendency to hinder the work of holinefs, as they weaken the practical fear of God which prompts to it; and where they gain their full influ ence, occafion the very mention of righteousness or holiness in the believer, to be abhorred; and are in fome the occafion of their fo fpeaking and acting, as if they judged it most for the honour of the Redeemer, to continue in fin, that grace might abound! And in all that hold them, thefe fentiments weaken (if not deftroy) that very fear, which is effentially neceffary for the perfecting of holinefs. Yea, and where they are not made the occafion of any fuch conduct as would be openly reproachful, they imperceptibly damp the purfuit after holinefs, as they enervate that fear, which ever proves as a guardian angel to the foul, and preferves in it an averfion to evil in every form and degree: that fear, which fills the mind with fanctifying awe, and animates it to a close and inward walking of the foul with God, and makes it contract a relifh for a nearer conformity to Him in all things. Where this fear of God is loft, or even but weak, the foul wants that grand motive to perfect holiness, which St. Paul urges upon us in the text, and proportionably lofes its views of the neceffity or poffibility of it: which leads me to the third reafon propofed above, why fo few

aim at, or attain to holinefs, viz. Because they neither fee the neceffity, nor poffibility, of perfecting holiness."

(1.) They fee not the neceffity of holinefs. If their views of things be right, there can be no neceffity of perfonal, much lefs of perfect holiness. For if all religion be imputative, or (which comes nearly to the fame) if all our holiness be in Chrift, and this is to be ours by an imputation of it to us, it is certainly a complete and perfect holiness, and fuperfedes all neceflity for any other. But then what becomes, 1. of all thofe precepts, which enjoin holiness upon believers? 2. Of all thofe promises of it made to them? And, 3. of thofe declarations, which amount nearly to threats of exclufion from all the privileges, to which believers are entitled in time and eternity? If they be not to be applied perfonally, they all fall to the ground at once.

To mention but a few of each. 1. "Be ye perfect, as your Father which is in Heaven, is perfect," by fhewing you have his holy Nature in you, namely, love; and by manifefting this in your life, even to your enemies; and not in word only, but after his example, "who caufeth the fun to fhine, and the rain to fall, on the juft and unjuft, the evil and the unthankful." So fhew your love in "doing good to them that hate you, in bleffing them who curfe you, and in praying for those who defpitefully use you." "Be ye holy, for I am holy,' holy in all manner of converfation; "Thou fhalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, &c." And thou fhalt love thy neighbour as thyfelf." It is eafy to fee, that these are not imputed to us, but tempers implanted in us, producing the fruits of holiness: therefore holiness is neceffary, abfolutely neceffary for believers.

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2. The promifes: "I will circumcife thy heart, that thou mayeft love the Lord thy God, &c. and that thou mayeft love thy neighbour as thyfelf." Again, that promife, to which the text refers: "I will fprinkle clean water upon you, and ye fhall be clean; from all your filthinefs, and from all your idols will I cleanse you. I will take away the ftony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flefh;" not by imputation, but implantation. For "I will put my Spirit within you," [that you may be a holy people]" and ye thall walk in my ftatutes, and keep my judgments [ordinances,] and do them." And that preceding the text: "I will dwell in you, and walk in you; and I will be your God, and you fhall be my people; and I will be a Father unto you, and ye fhall be my fons and daughters, faith the Lord Almighty: With many others of the like kind, which must all fall to the ground, and the word of promise becomes of none effect, if holiness be not neceffary for a believer,

3. The declarations, which almoft amount to threats, to an exclufion of believers from all their privileges in time and eternity, if they be not holy. "If any man love not the Lord Jefus Chrift, let him be Anathema, Maran-atha. He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is Love. But he that dwelleth in love, dwellQ & eth