want of holiness, which is the privative part of this sin, is forbid: We are moreover commanded to “love the Lord our God, with all our heart;" and so the heart's inclination to hate God, which is the positive part of this sin, is forbid: In a word, there is in it a non-conformity to the whole law of God; and a nonconformity to, is a transgression of, the whole law. If therefore the Apostle's definition is just, the corruption of our nature is a sin; and accordingly it is frequently called so in Scripture, and acknowledged and confessed as such, by the saints, both in the Old and New Testament: So it is by David in our text; and so it is by the Apostle Paul, who bewailed and aggravated it exceedingly, Rom. vii. He not only complains of it, as a misery, but he confesses and bewails it as a sin; and lest we should think it a small peccadillo, a sin of an ordinary size, he calls it a sin exceedingly, hyperbolically, sinful.

Against this it is frequently objected, It is not a sin, because it is not voluntary: But should we admit this rule, that whatever is not voluntary is not a sin, to be just, which will not hold true universally, and without limitation, even when applied to actual sins; yet natural corruption is voluntary in some respects; it is voluntary in its principle and cause: As it was voluntarily contracted by Adam, so he therein being our federal head and representative, his will was the will of us all: But this is not all, for this corruption is inherent in the will, as its subject. If Adam had derived a bodily disease only to his posterity, it might have been an involuntary evil, because the diseases of the body may be foreign to the soul: But when the corruption invades the internal faculties, it is denominated from the subject wherein it is seated. What! though it does not proceed originally from any act of the will in us, yet the consent of the will accompanies it, or rather it is itself the natural bias or inclination of the will to evil, and therefore to say that it is altogether involuntary, is no less than a contradiction. However, it is, to be sure, voluntary in us, with re

spect to an after-consent, and in the effects of it: Who amongst us can say, We never consented to our natural corruption, were never well-pleased with it, never cherished it by occasions of sin, never strengthened it by acts of sin, and never resisted the means whereby it should be mortified and subdued? All which are evidences of an actual consent. Now, if it is a sin, we ought to repent of it, and be humbled for it; for that we ought to be thus affected to, and by every sin, no one will deny. And this would further appear, if I could shew that this is not only a sin in itself, but the fruitful parent of all other sins: But, having hinted at this before, I must not enlarge upon it now.

3. What has been said discovers to us our need and necessity of Christ. We have not only the guilt of the first sin imputed, but we have natures universally defiled derived to us; and as we cannot expiate our guilt, so neither can we, of ourselves, renew and cleanse our natures. This shows us our need of Christ, as he is made of God to the believer, both righteousness and sanctification: We need him as made of God righteousness, to cover our guilt; and as made of God sanctification, to renew and cleanse our natures: His blood is the blood of atonement, and it is the blood of sanctification, and we need it in both regards; and our necessity, in these respects, is indispensable. If we come not to him for pardon and cleansing, for righteousness and sanctification, that guilt and pollution we brought with us into the world will prove our ruin. How slight thoughts soever some may entertain of it, even this exposes us to the wrath and curse of God. As God hates sin, wherever he sees it, so he has denounced a curse against it, and consequently being shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin, this curse belongs to us, and we are children of wrath by nature: And there is no way to be delivered from it, but by Christ, by the blood and righteousness, the Spirit and grace of Christ. If therefore we desire to be freed from it, let us pray for the gift of the Divine

Spirit, to shew us our disease, to discover to us our remedy, and to unite us to Christ, by a living and lively faith, that we may be found in him, washed in his blood, clothed with his righteousness, and renewed by his Spirit and grace, that as in Adam we all died, died with respect to the guilt, and died with respect to the power of sin; so in Christ we may, in both respects, be made alive.

4. If any of us are, by the blood and righteousness of Christ, freed from the guilt of original sin, and have the corruption of our natures, in any measure, cured, by the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, let us always maintain in our minds a lively sense of our obligations, how much we are indebted to the love of the Father, and to the grace of the Son, and Holy Spirit, and be forever thankful for the same. Let us, in the remembrance of it, and of the wretched circumstances of guilt and pollution, from which we are by grace delivered, walk humbly with, and before, the Lord all our days. And as, by the corruption of our natures, we have so strong a bias to sin, let us not only watch and pray continually, that we fall not into, and that we fall not in, and by, temptation; but be diligent, in the use of all appointed means, with a dependence upon the grace of the Spirit, to mortify the deeds of the body, to stop up this corrupt fountain of actual transgressions, and to waste sin in its root and principle.

Now to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, three Persons, but one God, be all glory, and honour, henceforth, and for evermore. Amen.

THE

SCRIPTURE DOCTRINE

OF

PARTICULAR REDEMPTION,

STATED AND VINDICATED.

FOUR

SERMON S,

By Mr. JOHN HURRION, Minister of the Gospel.

ADVERTISEMENT.

ness.

THE first two of the following excellent Sermons of the late learned and judicious Mr. HURRION, were preached at the same Lecture, in which those of others, which precede them in this Volume, were delivered. As he had not time to go through this subject, he designed, before that exercise was closed, to have preached two more, but was hindered by illWhen this work came to be printed, he was desired to add the Sermons he purposed to have preached. Being a little revived, he transcribed the two first Sermons, towards the end of November, 1731. After that, he grew much worse than he had been; but his desire to finish this subject, carried him beyond what his strength might have been thought to have admitted. He purposed to insert in the remaining Discourses some materials which he had by him: with great difficulty he transcribed the third Discourse, which he sent me, with a letter, dated the 14th of December, which was as follows: "I have just finished, and now send you, my third

Sermon: I shall go on with the fourth, as fast as I can; if possible, I would finish it next week, but I fear I shall not be able, I have been so much worse, since I wrote to you last. I would desire you to take care of my poor copy and use freedom in correcting what mistakes I may have been guilty of. It is no wonder to find such in my performances, at any time, and especially now, so ill am I, and so often taken off from my work by great pains. Pray for me, that I may have grace sufficient for me, and that whether I live or die, I may be the Lord's, and to the praise of his glorious grace." When I came to look over the Discourse, I was amazed, that when unwieldiness of body increased so much upon him, and when he was under such a faint distemper as the dropsy, he should have vigour of mind to draw up such a performance; which, for vivacity and closeness of thought, strength of argument, and clearness of stile, is not in the least inferior to any of his other works. It was very little above a fortnight after, that he rested from his labours; for on the thirty-first day of the above-mentioned month, he sweetly slept in Jesus: So that it may be said, that he composed the Sermon while he struggled with death, and that it contains some of the last thoughts of an eminent saint, who, in a few days after it was finished, began to ascribe, in the upper world, salvation, and power, and glory, to the Redeemer, the certain efficacy of whose death he so well defended. To him may be applied the following verses of Mr. Waller:

Wrestling with death, these lines he could indite:

No other theme could give his soul delight.
The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decayed,
Lets in new light, through chinks that time has made:
Stronger by weakness, wiser men become,

As they draw near to their eternal home:

Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view,
Who stand upon the threshold of the new.

He had begun to transcribe his fourth Sermon: but illness increasing, he was soon forced to give over. He proposed, in the beginning of it, to consider the allegations of the friends of universal redemption, from a set of Scriptures, which speak of