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SERM.VI. hereafter, nor the Degree nor the Dura

tion of it: Nor can it be determined by Reason, whether our future Happiness or Misery would be finally decided by an irrevocable Sentence, according to our Deportment here; or whether, after the Clofe of this Life we might not pass through several intermediate States of Probation, before a decifive and irreverfible Judgment was paffed upon us. But Revelation affures us, that the Condition of our Existence here, however inconfiderable it may feem in itself abftractedly from a future State, is infinitely confiderable in its Confequences · that he, that lives and dies righteous, will be righteous ftill; and He, that dies filthy, will be filthy fill, Rev. xxii, 11, 12. Death fetting as it were a kind of Seal upon the State of the Soul-that the Wicked must be finally fevered from the Good that in Heaven there is no Poffibility of falling away from Goodnefs, and in Hell no Room for Amendment. For then God's Grace will be withheld, and Virtue, when every Spark of it is extinct, is only, like the Veftal Fire, to be rekindled by a Beam from Heaven.

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So far was Christianity from narrowing SERM.VI. our Views, that it alone has raised them, as high as Heaven; and extended them

as far as Eternity. A Man may look into his Bible, and fee plainly there what will become of him, when the present Scene is fhifted, as to his most important, I had almost faid, his only Concern, a future State; who, if he were left to himfelf, the more he confidered the Point on every Side, the more he would find himself bewildered in Doubts, without coming ta any Determination.

Happy are we, if we know our Happiness, who have a Revelation, like its great Author, full of Grace and Truth.

SER

The intrinfic excellency of the Scriptures, a Proof of their Inspira

tion.

******

I PETER III. 15.

Be ready always to give an Answer to every
Man that afketh you a Reafon of the
Hope that is in you.

T

O affirm, as fome have done, that SER. VII. unenlightened Reafon is abfolute

ly fufficient, and that a Revela

tion is needlefs, is neither better nor worfe; than to say, that Men either are, or may be, fo wife of themselves, that it is not in the Power of God himself to make them wifer; that their natural Abilities are fo very confiderable, as to fuperfede the Ufe of any fupernatural Notices, even from the Father of Lights: A Po

SER. VII. fition fo fhocking, that if it be not downright Blafphemy; it certainly maketh very near Approaches to it *.

But, you will fay, where was God's impartial Goodnefs in with-holding from others thofe Advantages, which he has afforded us ? If a Revelation were wanted, why was not that, which was equally wanted by all, made equally known to all, at all Times?

If we trace this Objection to its Original, we shall find it ftands on a wrong Foundation: It fuppofes the Deity to be determined by the Wants of Men, exclufively of all other Regards: Whereas what may be very fit, the Wants of Men fingly

con

* I would not be thought to depreciate Reafon in general, which rightly understood, as taking in all Helps and Evidences, whether intrinsic or extrinfic, is the only Faculty we have to difcern Truth from. Falíbood. It is no more a Difparagement to Reafon to affert, it can do little in religious Affairs without the Help of Revelation; than to maintain, it would make a slender Figure without the Affiftance of Education: For what is Revelation but Affifiancés and Inftructions from Heaven; as Education is Inftru&ion communicated to us from our Fellow-Creatures? Dedu& thofe religious Truths that were discovered to us, and only place thofe down, that were discovered by us; and the remaining Sum of our Knowledge, at the Foot of the Account, will not be very confiderable.

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