We might pity men who fit in darkness; God himself is faid to have winked at the times of ignorance: these have fome cloak for their fins; but a Christian has none; none, but what he should be afhamed to own. It is pro bably the goodness of God: And good he is in the most infinite degree; otherwise the young finner would not have lived to attain his bad habits, much less would the old finner have in his. But let us confult our reagrown grey fon, our confcience, our common sense, our any thing that can inform us, whether it be right, whether it be not in every view wrong, for us to go on in finning, because God goes on in forbearing. If there be any use of religion, it is to reform us; if there be any advantage of knowledge in religion, it is to reduce it into practice. This is our duty, this is our intereft, this is our wifdom; all elfe is but folly. It may amuse, it may please, it may delight us, nay it may feem to profit us for a while. But let us always remember to put the queftion, and to put it home to ourselves, which St. Paul put to his Roman converts, What fruit bad ye then in those things, whereof you you are now afhamed? for the end of those things is death. Sin in the enjoyment is unprofitable, in the present confequence of it is shame, and in the future consequence, without repentance, it is eternal mifery. a Rom. vi. 21. SERMON X. JOHN i. 17. The law was given by Mofes, but grace and truth came by Jefus Chrift. I N the precedeing part of this chapter the and human nature of our bleffed Saviour. He a John i. 14. added added in my text, for the law was given, &c. where he plainly gives the preference to the newly revealed law upon account of that grace and truth, which Chrift brought into the world and the fame he had before afcribed to the author of our faith, when he represented him as full of grace and truth. But it may be asked here, what is meant by this expreffion? Was the law of Mofes without truth; that law which is fpoken of in both the Teftaments as given by divine revelation? Or was it without any degree of grace; that law which made the Jews the peculiar people of God, the nation diftinguished for divine favours above all others under heaven ? To understand the words of the text aright, we muft obferve, that by grace is meant the gift or favour of God freely vouchfafed to all mankind in that gospel which Chrift was commiffioned to preach. And by grace and truth seem to be not meant two distinct things, but the true grace, or that which was more really and fubftantially fuch, than either the light of nature which the heathens had received, or the revelation with which the Jews were blessed. I Nor is this way of speaking unusual in the sacred writings; for it is remarked by learned men, that in 2 Tim. i. 10. life and immortality are put for immortal life; as the spirit and power are for the powerful Spirit in 1 Cor. ii. 4. and mercy and truth stand for true and real mercy in Gen. xxiv. 27. And, to mention no more, this Evangelift, St. John, when he speaks in ch. iv. 23, 24. of worshipping God in Spirit and in truth, may be, perhaps, best underftood to mean the worshipping God in a truly Spiritual manner. From thefe paffages, I think we have authority to suppose, that by grace and truth in the text is fignified the true grace: and by this very title St. Peter calls it, when speaking of the gospel and its benefits he says, this is the TRUE GRACE of God, wherein ye ftand.” This grace by Jefus Chrift was of fo excellent a nature and kind, that it is by St. Paul opposed to the law of Mofes, ye are not under the law, but under grace, where he manifeftly speaks of the law as of a difpenfation much in a See Le Clerc's note on Gen. xxv. 27, 49. bi Pet. v. 12, I • Rom. vi. 14, 15. ferior |