THE PRESENCE AND POWER OF HIM, WHO ALONE IS GOOD. All the LIGHT and GOODNESS, therefore, which the mercy of God, notwithstanding their-repugnancy, still preserves within them as their call to heaven, they arrogate as the light of human reason, and the attainments of human virtue; and confiding wholly in themselves, and contented with the forms of godliness instead of the power, they stifle the sense of their inherent darkness, impurity, impotence, and, misery, by mingling in the cares and pleasures of a vain and busy world. But they are questions that deserve the most serious consideration, whether CHRIST is not THE SAVIOUR of men, only by being formed within them as the living power of knowing and fulfilling the will of God; and whether those that reject him as this INWARD SAVIOUR, who alone, by the manifestation of his own nature, life, and spirit in the soul, can transform selfish, sensual, proud, and ` maglignant spirits, into angels of patience, humility, meekness, purity, and love, and from "Children of wrath" make them "children of THE LIVING GOD;" reject Him less, than the seribes and pharisees, who blasphemed, persecuted, and put Him to death.

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"Some," says the author, speaking in the person of CHRIST, "place their religión in books; some in images; and some, in the pomp and splendour of external worship: these honour me with their lips, but their heart is far from me: But there are some, that with illuminated understandings discern the glory which man has lost, and with pure affections pant for its recovery: these hear and speak, with reluctance, of the cares and pleasures of the present life, and even lament the necessity of administering to the wants of animal nature; these hear and under

stand what the HOLY SPIRIT speaketh in their heart; exhorting them to withdraw their affection from things on earth, and set it on things above; to abandon this fallen world, and day and night aspire after reunion with God." Book III. chap. iii. § 8.

As the fittest key to unlock the treasures of this inestimable book, and lay them open to common use, it may be necessary to shew, in general, the ground and nature of CHRISTIAN REDEMPTION; and it can scarcely be done with more power of conviction, than in the following extracts from the writings of a great divine, whose name is not mentioned, because names have been known to endear error, and to keep the eyes shut from the sight of truth.

The fall of man into the life and state of this world, is the whole ground of his redemption; and a real birth of CHRIST in the soul, is the whole nature of it. To convince man of his fall as the ground of his redemption, it is not necessary to appeal to the history which Moses has given of it; because Moses's histo-ry of the fall is not the proof of it, and because a mere historical knowledge of the fall would not do man any real good. Moses has recorded the death of the first man, and of many of his descendants;" but the proof that man is mortal, lies not in Moses's history, but in the known nature of man, and the world from which he has his life. Thus, though Moses has recorded the time and manner of the fall, yet there is no more occasion to have recourse to his history to prove it, than to prove that a man is a poor, weak, vain, distressed, corrupt, depraved, selfish, self-tor-: menting, perishing creature; and that the world is a sad mixture of imaginary good, and real evil, a mere scene of vanity, vexation, and misery. This is

the known nature and condition both of man and the world; and every man is,, in himself, an irresistible proof that he is in a fallen state. An attempt, therefore, to convince man of his fall, as the ground of his redemption, must be an attempt to do that which misfortunes, sickness, pain, and the approach of death, have a natural tendency to do, to convince him of the vanity, poverty, and misery of his life and condition. in this world; and how impossible it is, that a GoD, who has nothing in himself but infinite goodness and infinite happiness, should bring forth a race of intelligent creatures, that have neither natural goodness nor natural happiness.

Man, in his first state, as he came forth from GOD, must have been absolutely free from all vanity, want, or distress, of any kind, from any thing either within or without him: a God-like perfection of nature, and a painful distressed nature, stand in the utmost contrariety to one another. But man has lost his first Divine Life in GOD: every thing that we know of God, and every thing that we know of man, of his birth, his life, and death, is a continual irresistible proof that man is in a fallen state. The human infant just come out of the womb, is a picture of such deformity, nakedness, weakness, and helpless distress, as is not to be found amongst the home-born animals of this world." The chicken has its birth from no sin, and therefore comes forth in beauty; it runs and pecks, as soon as its shell is broken: the calf and the lamb go both to play as soon as the dam is delivered of them; they are pleased with themselves, and please the eye that bẹholds their frolic state, and beauteous clothing: whilst the new-born babe of a woman, that is to have an upright form; that is to view the heavens, and

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worship the GOD that made them; lies, for months, in gross ignorance, weakness, and impurity; as sad a spectacle when he first breathes the life of this world, as when in the agonies of death he breathes his last. What is all this, but the strongest proof, that man is the only creature that belongs not to this world, but is fallen into it through sin; and that, therefore, his birth, in such distress, bears all these marks of shame and weakness? Had he been originally of this world, this world would have done the highest honour to its highest creature: and he must have begun his life in greater perfection than any other animal, and brought with him a 'more beautifull clothing than the finest lilies of the field: But when the human infant has at length acquired strength, and begins to act for himself, he soon becomes a more pitiable object than when crying in the cradle. The strength of his life is a mere strength of wild passions; his reason is craft and selfish subtilty; he loves and hates only as flesh and blood prompt him; and jails and gibbets cannot keep him from theft and murder. If he is rich, he is tormented with pride and ambition; if poor, with want and discontent: be he which he will, sooner or later, disordered passions, disappointed lusts, fruitless labour, pains and sickness, will tear him from this world, in such travail as his mother felt, when she brought forth the sinful animal. Now all this evil: and misery is the natural and necessary effect of his birth in the bestial flesh and blood of this world; and there is nothing in his natural state, that can put a stop to it; he must be evil and miserable, as long as he has only, the life of this world in him. Therefore, the absolute certainty of man's fall, and the absolute I faila ako i at walinaloa biải ph

necessity of a NEW BIRTH to redeem him, are truths, independently of Scripture, plain to a demonstra

tion.

No creature can come from the hands of GOD, into a state of any ignorance of any thing that is proper to be known by it: this is as impossible, as for God to have an envious or evil will. Now all right and natural knowledge, in whatever creature it is, is sensible, intuitive, and its own evidence; and opinion, reasoning, or doubting, can only then begin, when the creature has lost its first right and natural state, and has got somewhere, and become somewhat, that it cannot tell what to make of. Reasoning, doubt, and perplexity, in any creature, are the effect of some fall or departure from its first state of nature; and shew that it wants, and is seeking, something that belongs to its nature, but knows not how to come at it. The beasts seek not after truth; a plain proof, that it has no relation to them, nor suitableness to their nature, nor ever belonged to them. Man is in quest of it, in perplexity about it, cannot come at it; takes lies to be truth, and truth to be lies: a plain proof, both that he has it not, and yet has had it; was created in it, and for it for no creature can seek for any thing, but that which has been lost, and is wanted; nor could man form the least idea of it, but because it has be longed to him, and ought to be his.

Now suppose man to come into the world, with this chief difference from other creatures, that he is at a loss to find out what he is, how he is to live, and what he is to seek as his chief happiness; what he is to own of a GOD, of providence, religion, &c. suppose him to have faculties that put him upon this search, and no faculties that can satisfy his inquiry;