come guilty before God—there is none righteous there is none that doeth good, no not one. Is it not a lamentable fact evinced by the tes timony of Scripture, and the sad experience of the saints, That in our flesh dwelleth no good thing? That when we would do good, evil is present with us, so that we cannot do the things that we would?-We are carnal, sold under sin we are not sufficient to do any thing as of ourselves, but are absolutely without strength.' So far are we from having naturally any real love to God, that the 'carnal mind is enmity against him:" we do not love to retain him in our thoughts. Now this is not the case with a part of mankind only: nor are these things said of a few individuals notorious for acts of atrocity, but of every man without exception. The defection is universal. The saints themselves are involved in the guilt, and are by nature children of wrath, even as others. 'The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God and what was the result of this survey? they are, it is said, all gone aside, they are altogether become filthy there is none that doeth good, no, not one -every mouth therefore must be stopped-for by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight.' The sovereignty of divine love, and the riches of divine grace, are eminently conspicuous, not in Christ's dying for persons comparatively righteous, but in this-That when we were yet without strength, Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being jus tified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.' Besides, the very term Saviour, as it respects man, implies his lost condition. For if by any means of his own devising he could have delivered his soul, or have given to God a ransom for it; the angelic heralds would not have been commissioned to proclaim, glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will toward men. The song of praise is an implicit declaration that salvation is of the Lord, that the glory of its contrivance, as well as of its completion, wholly belongs to him; and that the promulgation of this salvation is the only way in which the peace of God is made known to man; by which it is enjoyed in the conscience on earth, or experienced in all its plenitude in heaven. Permit me therefore to repeat, that divine love, as exercised toward sinners, did not originate in any real or supposed comparative excellence in any of its objects, but in the good pleasure and Sovereignty of God. Men were viewed as altogether unworthy, as depraved and guilty; and so circumstanced that all, if such had been the divine will, might have been justly left to perish in their sins. Grace, therefore, as a sovereign, had an undoubted right to communicate its blessings to this notorious transgressor or that. To the completely vicious, or the comparatively virtuous-to the infant of a day, or to the hoary head bending to the grave. It looks for no moral qualifications on which to bestow its favours; but confers them on the guilty, the wretched, and the damnable, It delights in extending relief to the miserable in supplying the wants of the unworthy, It tri umphs in delivering its favourites from the depths of calamity; knowing that where much is forgiven, much will also be gratefully returned. It seems, indeed, from many examples left on record in the Bible, that divine goodness purposely sought for objects the most undeserving on which to exercise beneficence: that in ages to come, God might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us through Jesus Christ; and that, for the encouragement of the indigent supplicant at his throne, it might appear, in every generation, that the unsearchable riches of his grace are treasures which no poverty can exhaust, and which divine fidelity itself stands pledged never to withhold. 'Such was the beneficent design of God, and such is the salutary genius of the gospel.-Delightful, ravishing truth! enough, one would think, to make the brow of melancholy wear a smile. The blessings of grace were never designed to distinguish the worthy, or to reward merit; but to relieve the wretched and save the desperate. These are the patentees in the heavenly grant. Yea, they have an exclusive right. For as to all those who imagine themselves to be the better sort of people; who depend on their own duties, and plead their own worthiness; who are not willing to stand on a level with publicans and harlots; Christ has nothing to do with them, nor the gospel any thing to say to them. As they are too proud to live upon alms, or to be entirely <beholden to sovereign grace for all their salvation; so they must not take it amiss, if they have not the least assistance from that quarter. They appeal to the law, and by it they must stand or fall.' The divine conduct in saving sinners, has ever been an occasion of stumbling to the self-righteous moralist. This was strikingly exemplified dur ing the life and ministry of our blessed Lord. His compassionate regard to those whom the Scribes and Pharisees considered as the refuse of the people, was always objected to his mission and his character. He was contemptuously called, A friend of publicans and sinners.' It was said, in a way of reproach, 'He receiveth sinners and eateth with them-He is gone to be a guest with a man that is a sinner:' and when the infamous prostitute came to Jesus as he sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, and began to wash his feet with tears, and to wipe them with the hairs of her head; he that invited him spake within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him: for she is a sinner-How is it, was the inquiry, that your master eateth and drinketh with publicans and sinners? The deportment of the Pharisees was very different from the conduct of those whom they denominated sinners; for these, it is pretty evident, were notoriously abandoned even to a proverb. The Pharisees imagined that the moral qualifications which they'possessed, ought, when contrasted with the character of those profligates with whom Jesus was familiar, to have secured them peculiar marks of favour and attachment. They argued, as all men naturally do, on a sup position that some sort of worthiness in the sinner must be the ground of divine approbation, and the only mean by which that approbation can consistently be enjoyed. They were, in Scripture language, whole. They did not consider themselves as diseased, and of course felt no need of a physician. But so far was our blessed Lord from considering the objections brought against the publicans and sinners a just reason for treating them with abhorrence or neglect, that he made the very objection itself an argument for paying them particular attention. He tacitly admitted the truth of what the Pharisees alleged, and vindicated the propriety of his conduct on their own principles. You pronounce, as if he had said, and it is granted, that these, men are extremely wicked; that they are lost as to themselves, and abandoned by reputable society; and this charge they do not pretend to deny, nor yet attempt to palliate their crimes; surely, therefore, if any persons upon earth be completely wretched, these are the men. Your own assertions compel you to admit that they stand in need of commisera, tion and relief; and that, if divine mercy be not gratuitously conferred, they must inevitably perish therefore in rescuing them from perdition, I am only doing what you, in other cases, would both commend and imitate. For what man among you, having a hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wildernes, and go after that which was lost, until he find it? Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it?' Now, I have publicly and repeatedly declared, that I am come to seek and to save that which was lost. This is my errand; and therefore you must allow that these publicans and sinners are the very persons whom I ought to save: for the whole need not a physician, but they that are sick-I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance, Th' atonement a Redeemer's love has wrought |