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not to the throne of grace, without carrying me upon your heart; for you know not what influence your prayers may have. As for you, my dear brethren, God knows my heart, I continually bear you on my mind, when I go in and out before the LORD; and it is my earneft defire, you may not perifh for lack of knowledge, but that he would send out more ministers to water what his own right-hand hath planted. May the Antient of Days come forth upon his white horse, and may all opposition fall to the ground. As we have begun to bruise the serpent's head, we must expect he will bruise our heel. The devil will not let his kingdom fall without raging horribly. He will not fuffer the minifters of CHRIST to go on, without bringing his power to stop them. But fear not, my dear brethren, David, though a ftripling, encountered the great Goliah; and if we pray, GoD will give us ftrength against all our spiritual enemies. Shew your faith by your works. Give the world the lye. Prefs forward. Do not stop, do not linger in your journey, but strive for the mark fet before you. Fight the good fight of faith, and GOD will give you fpiritual mercies. I hope we fhall all meet at the right-hand of GOD. Strive, ftrive to enter in at the strait gate, that we may be borne to Abraham's bofom, where fin and forrow fhall ceafe. No fcoffer will be there, but we fhall fee JESUS, who died for us; and not only fee him, but live with him for ever.

Which God, of his infinite mercy, &c.

SERMON

SERM MON X.

A Prefervative against unfettled Notions, and want of Principles, in regard to Righteoufnefs and Chriftian Perfection.

Being a more particular Answer to Doctor Trapp's i Four Sermons upon the fame Text.

To all the True Members of Chrift's Holy Church.

Dear Fellow Chriftians,

TH

HE great, and indeed the only motive which prompted me to publish this fermon, was the defire of providing for your fecurity from error, at a time when the deviators: from, and false pretenders to truth, are so numerous, that the most difcerning find it a matter of the greateft difficulty to avoid being led aftray by one or by other into downright falfhood. There is no running divifions upon truth; like a mathematical point, it will neither admit of fubtraction nor addition And as it is indivifible in its nature, there is no splitting the difference, where truth is concerned. Irreligion and enthusiasm are diametrical oppofites, and true piety between both, like the center of an infinite line, is at an equal infinite diftance from the one and the other, and therefore can never admit of a coalition with either. The one erring by defect, the other by excess. But whether we err by defect, or excefs, is of little importance, if we are equally wide of the mark, as we certainly are in either cafe. For whatever is less than truth, cannot be truth; and whatever is more than true must be falfe.

Wherefore,

A

Wherefore, as the whole of this great nation feems now more than ever in danger of being hurried into one or the other of these equally pernicious extremes, irreligion or fanaticifm, I thought myself more than ordinarily obliged to rouze your, perhaps, drowfy vigilance, by warning you of the nearnefs of your peril; cautioning you from leaning towards either fide, though but to peep at the flippery precipice; and stepping between you and error, before it comes nigh enough to grapple with you. The happy medium of true chriftian piety, in which it has pleased the mercy of God to establish you, is built on a firm rock; " and the gates of hell fhall never prevail against it." While then you ftand fteadily upright in the fulness of the faith, falfhood and fin fhall labour in vain to approach you; whereas, the leaft familiarity with error, will make you giddy, and if once you ftagger in principles, your ruin is almoft inevitable.

But now I have cautioned you of the danger you are in from the enemies who threaten your fubverfion, I hope your own watchfulness will be fufficient to guard you from any furprise. And from their own affaults you have nothing to fear, fince while you perfift in the firm refolution, through God's grace, to keep them out, irreligion and enthusiasm, falfhood and vice, impiety and falfe piety, will combine in vain to force an entrance into your hearts.

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Take then, my dearly beloved fellow-members of CHRIST'S myftical body, take the friendly caution I give you in good part, and endeavour to profit by it: attend wholly to the faving truths I here deliver to you, and be perfuaded, that they are uttered by one who has your eternal salvation as much at heart as his own.

"And thou, O LORD JESUS CHRIST, fountain of all truth, "whence all wisdom flows, open the understandings of "thy people to the light of thy true faith, and touch their hearts with thy grace, that they may both be able to fee, and willing to perform what thou requireft of them. " Drive away from us every cloud of error and perverfity; guard us alike from irreligion and falfe pretenfions to "piety; and lead us on perpetually towards that perfec tion to which thou haft taught us to afpire; that keeping us here in a conftant imitation of thee, and peace"ful

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ful union with each other, thou mayeft at length bring us to that everlasting glory, which thou haft promised "to all fuch as fhall endeavour to be perfect, even as the "Father who is in heaven is perfect, who with thee and "the Holy Ghoft lives and reigns one Gop, world with"out end! Amen, Amen.

ECCLES. vii. 16.

Be not righteous over-much, neither make thyself over wife; Why Shouldeft thou destroy thyself?

R

IGHTEOUS over-much! may one fay; Is there any danger of that? Is it even poffible? Can we be too good? If we give any credit to the exprefs word of God, we cannot be too good, we cannot be righteous over-much. The injunction given by GOD to Abraham is very ftrong: "Walk before me, and be thou perfect." The fame he again lays upon all Ifrael, in the eighteenth of Deuteronomy: “ Thou fhalt be perfect, and without blemish, with the LORD thy GOD.". And left any should think to excufe themselves from this obligation, by faying, it ceafed when the old law was abolished, our bleffed Saviour ratified and explained it: "Be ye, therefore, perfect, even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect." So that until our perfection surpasfes that of our heavenly Father, we can never be too good nor righteous over-much; and as it is impoffible we should ever furpafs, or even come up to him in the perfection of goodness and righteousnefs, it follows in course that we never can be good or righteous in excefs. Nevertheless Doctor Trapp has found out that we may be righteous over-much, and has taken no small pains, with much agitation of fpirit, to prove that it is a great folly and weakness, nay, a great fin. "OLORD! rebuke thou his fpirit, and grant that this falfe doctrine may not be publifhed to his confufion in the day of judgment !"

But if what this hafty, this deluded man advances had been true, could there be any occafion, however, of warning against it in thefe times," when the danger (as he himself to his con

"fufion

"fufion owns) is on the contrary extreme; when all manner " of vice and wickedness abounds to a degree almost unheard "of?" I answer for the prefent, that "there must be herehes amongst you, that they who are approved may be made manifeft."

However, this earthly-minded minister of a new gospel, has taken a text which feems to favour his naughty purpose, of weaning the well-difpofed little ones of CHRIST from that perfect purity of heart and fpirit, which is neceffary to all fuch as mean to live to our LORD JESUS. O LORD, what shall become of thy flock, when their fhepherds betray them into the hands of the ravenous wolf! when a minifter of thy word perverts it to overthrow thy kingdom, and to deftroy fcripture with Tcripture!

Solomon, in the person of a desponding, ignorant, indolent liver, fays to the man of righteousness: "Be not righteous overmuch, neither make thyfelf overwife: Why fhouldest thou deftroy thyself?" But muft my angry, over-fighted brother Trapp, therefore, perfonate a character fo unbecoming his function, merely to overthrow the express injunction of the LORD to us; which obliges us never to give over pursuing and thirsting after the perfect righteoufnefs of CHRIST, until we reft in him? Father, forgive him, for he knows not what he fays!

What advantage might not fatan gain over the elect, if the false construction, put upon this text by that unfeeing teacher, fhould prevail! Yet though he blushes not to affift fatan to bruise our heel, I fhall endeavour to bruise the heads of both, by fhewing,

1. First, The genuine sense of the text in queftion,

II. The character of the perfons, who are to be fuppofed: speaking here: And

III. The character of the perfons spoken to.

From whence will naturally refult thefe confequences.

Firft, That the Doctor was grofly (LORD grant he was not maliciously) mistaken in his explanatory fermon on this text, as well as in the applicaion of it.

Secondly,

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