and allured you; as often as confcience has checked. and warned you, or prompted you to your duty; as often as the Holy Spirit has moved upon your hearts, and excited fome ferious thoughts and good purposes and inclinations; as often as providence has allured you with its profufion of bleffings, or chaftened you with its afflictive rod; as often as you have feen a good example, or heard a pious word dropt in converfation; in fhort, as often as any means of any kind have been ufed with you, that had a tendency to make you fenfible of your danger, or your need of Jefus Chrift, so often has he used means with you to engage you to fly to the shelter of his wings for protection. O! how frequently, and by what a great variety of means, has he called you in this congregation! This is the very bufinefs of one day in feven, when you are called away `from the noise and bustle of the world to liften to the voice of his invitation. But this is not the only time when he calls you. While you are at home, or following your business through the reft of the week, you have a Bible, a Providence, a conscience, and the Holy Spirit, ftill with you; and these are still urging you to fly to Jefus, though their voice may be difregarded, and loft in the din and confufion of the world around you. The gracious call of a compaffionate Saviour has followed you ever fince you were capable of hearing it to this day. But alas! does not the next remark hold true as to fome of you, viz. 5. That, notwithstanding all this, multitudes are unwilling to fly to him for protection! It was not of Jerufalem alone that he had reason to say, I would have gathered you, but ye would not! I was willing, but ye were unwilling. This is ftrange indeed, and might feem incredible, were it not a most notorious fact. That the Judge fhould be willing to pardon, but the criminal unwilling to receive a pardon that the offended Sovereign should be ready to take a perifhing rebel under his protection, but the rebel should stand off, and rather perish than fly to him-this is a moft VOL. III. aftonishing L aftonishing thing; and it is the hardest thing in the world to convince finners that this is their conduct towards the Lord Jefus. They are generally more fufpicious of his willingness to fave them, than of their own to come to him. Were he but as willing to fave them as they are to be faved by him, they think there would be no danger of their falvation; but the cafe is directly the reverfe; the unwillingness lies entirely upon their fide. To convince them of this, let it be confidered, that we are not truly willing to be saved by Christ at all, unless we are willing to be faved by him in his own way, or upon his own terms. We are not willing to be faved, unless the nature of the falvation offered be agreeable to us. Now one principal part of the falvation which we need, and which Chrift offers, is deliverance from fin; deliverance from the power, the pleasures, the profits of fin, as well as from the deftructive consequences of it in the world to come. And are finners willing to accept of fuch a falvation as this from Chrift? No, this appears no falvation to them; this feems rather a confinement, a lofs, a bereavement. They are willing to indulge themfelves in fin, and therefore it is impoffible they fhould, in the mean time, be willing to be reftrained from it, or deprived of it. This is the thing they struggle againft, and to which all the means ufed with them cannot bring them. To tear their fins from them is to rob them of their pleasures; and they rife up in arms against the attempt. And are thefe willing to be faved by Chrift, who abhor the falvation he offers them? The truth of the matter is, the conduct of finners in this cafe is the greateft abfurdity: they are willing to be happy, but they are not willing to be holy, in which alone their happiness consists: they are willing to be faved from hell, but they are not willing to be saved from those difpofitions which would create a hell within them, even according to the nature of things they are willing to go to heaven when they can live no longer in this their favourite world; but they pure they are unwilling to be prepared for it in their temper and difpofition. An eternity spent in holy exercifes would be an eternal drudgery to them, unless they have a relish for holiness. Freedom from fin would be a painful bereavement to them while they take pleafure in fin, and how then could they be happy, even in the very region of happiness, fince the fordid pleafures of fin never mingle with those rivers of living water? In fhort, they act as abfurdly as if they were willing to recover their health, and yet were unwilling to part with their sickness, or to be restrained from thofe things which are the causes of it. They are willing to go to heaven, but it is in their own way; that is, in the way that leads to hell. The only way of falvation, according to the divine appointment, is the way of holinefs. Indeed Chrift came into the world to fave finners; but these finners must be made faints before they can enter into his kingdom: and he makes them holy in order to be happy. And this is not an arbitrary appointment, but neceffary, in the very nature of things; for, as I obferved, till they are made holy, it is impoffible in the nature of things they fhould. be happy in heaven, because the happiness of heaven confifts in the perfection of holinefs. To be faved without holiness is as impoffible as to be healthy without health, or faved without falvation. Therefore, for God to gratify the finner, and gratify him in his own way; that is, in his fins, is an impoffibility; as impoffible as for a physician to heal an obftinate patient in his own way; that is, to heal him by letting him retain and cherish his disease; letting him cool a fever with cold water, or drink poifon to cure a confumption. God is wife in all his conftitutions, and therefore the way of falvation through Chrift is agreeable to the nature of things; it is in itfelf confiftent and poffible: and if finners are not willing to be faved in this poffible way, they are not willing, in reality, to be faved at all. Again, The way of falvation by Chrift is all through grace. It is adapted to itain the glory, and mortify the pride of all flesh, and to advance to the mercy of God, and the honour of Chrift, without a rival. Now haughty, felf-righteous finners are unwilling to be faved in this humbling, mortifying way, and therefore they are unwilling to be faved by Chrift. If they would be faved by him, they must be faved entirely upon the footing of his merit, and not their own; they must own that they lie at mercy, they must feel themselves felf-condemned, they muft utterly renounce all dependance upon their own righteoufnefs, and receive every bleffing as the free unmerited gift of grace. And it is the hardest thing imaginable to bring a proud finner fo low as this; but till he is brought thus low, he cannot be faved upon the gofpel-plan. Nor is this part of the conftitution arbitrary any more than the former. It would be inconsistent with the honour of the great God, the Supreme Magistrate of the universe, and with the dignity of his government, to receive a rebel into favour, on any other footing than that of mere grace. If after finning fo much, the finner ftill has merit enough to procure a pardon, in whole or in part, or to render it cruel or unjust for God to condemn and punish him, certainly he must be a Being of very great importance indeed; and fin against God must be a very fmall evil. To fave a finner in a way that would give any room for fuch infinuations as thefe, would be inconfiftent with the honour of God and his government; and therefore the plan he has conftituted is a method of grace, of pure rich grace, in all and every part. Now, while finners are not willing to be faved in this way, they are not willing to be faved at all. Here lies their grand mistake: Because they have a general willingness that Chrift should fave them from hell, they, therefore, conclude they are really willing to come to him according to the gofpel-conftitution, whereas there is nothing in the world to which they are more averfe. There are many that think, and perhaps de clare, clare, they would give ten thousand worlds for Christ, when, in reality, they are not willing to receive him as a free gift: they are not yet brought to that extremity as to fly to him. No, the finner is brought low indeed before he is brought to this. He is entirely cut off from all hope from every other quarter; particularly, he fees that he cannot shelter himself any longer under the covert of his own righteousness, but that he will be overwhelmed with a deluge of divine vengeance, unless he hides himself under the wings of Jefus. I beg you would examine yourselves impartially on this point, my brethren, for here lies the grand delufion that ruins thoufands. If you are really willing to fly to Jefus, and be faved by him in his own way, you may be fure he is infinitely more willing than you are; nay, your willingness is the effect of his, for he firft made you fo. But if, when you examine the matter to the bottom, you find, that, notwithstanding all your pretenfions, you are really unwilling to fly to him, confider your dangerous fituation; for, 6. The text implies, that this unwillingness of finners is the real cause of their deftruction. Sinners complain of the want of ability; but what is their inability but their unwillingness? Coming to Chrift is an act of the will, and, therefore, to will it heartily, is to perform the act. To be unable to come to him is to be fo perverfe, fo difaffected to Jefus Christ, as not to have power to will to come to him. This, by the way, fhews the vanity of that popular excuse, "I am not able to fly to Chrift, and therefore it is not my fault if I do not." That is, you are fo wicked that you can do no good thing; you are fo difaffected to Jefus Chrift that you have no will, no inclination, to choose him for your Saviour; you are fuch an obstinate enemy to him, that you would rather perifh than take him for your Friend; therefore your not coming to him is no crime. Is this confiftent reafoning? Is it not all one, as if a rebel fhould think to excufe himfelf by pleading, "I have fuch an inveterate hatred to my fovereign, |