is peremptory, that you must believe in the name of Chrift: you must receive him as the gift of God, otherwise you shall fink in the mighty waters of the deluge of eternal wrath and vengeance, and Chrift himself will refent it to the uttermost, if his falvation be flighted; for he will come in faming fire to take vengeance on all them who know not God, and who obey not this great command of believing in the name of the only begotten Son of God, 2 Theff. i. 7. 8.

Object. 1. I am afraid it be prefumption in me to believe in and apply. Chrift.'

Anfw. It can never be prefum,ption to obey an express and pofitive command of God. Is it prefumption to pray? Is it prefumption to read the word? Is it prefumption to hear the word? Is it prefumption to fanctify God's name? and is it prefumption to remember the Sabbath? You do not reckon it prefumption to do any of thefe, because ye are commanded of God; as little can it be prefumption to "believe in Chrift, feeing this is his commandment,"

iii. 21.

John

Object. 2. I am fuch a great finner, that I am afraid it is not I that is commanded to believe,'

Anfw. The command of believing is to all without exception, great finners, and finners of a leffer size, If. i. 8. "Come now, and let us reafon together, faith the Lord: Though your fins be as fcarlet, they fhall be as white as fnow; though they be red like crimson, they fhall be as wool:" If the command of believing were not to every one, then unbelief would not be their fin; for "where there is no law, there is no transgreffion," Rom. v. 13. But unbelief is a fin of the deepest dye, and makes every fin elfe unpardonable, by rejecting the only remedy.

Objec. 3. You tell us, That we are commanded to believe; and yet at the fame time tell us that we want power to believe; that it is the work of God, John vi. 29. and that exceeding great and mighty power of God, that raised Chrift from the dead, that mall make us to believe,' Eph. i. 19. 20.

Anfw. It is very true, ye cannot believe; "No man can come to Chrift, except the Father draw bim," John vi. 44. and yet ye are commanded to believe, not by us, but by that God that commands "things that are not as though they were," Rom. iv. 17. and he commands you, impotent finners, "dead in fin, to believe in the name of his Son;" that, from a fenfe of your own impotency, you may turn the work upon himfelf, as the Author and Finisher of faith," Heb. xii. 2. and his command is the vehicle of power: As when he commanded the man with the withered hand, "Stretch forth thine

hand,"

hand," Matth. xii. 13. the poor man minted to obey, and in the mint of obedience he got power to ftretch out his hand as he was commanded: So, after his example do ye. Mint at the duty, depending on the power of him who commands you to believe, that he may "fulfil in you all the good plea fure of his goodnefs, and the work of faith with power," 2 Theff. i. 11.

Object. 4. I have effayed and minted to believe, in obedi ence unto the command, and yet, alas! I am just where I was; I do not find the power of God coming along.'

Anfw. Continue in the ufe of the means of God's appointment, to mint at believing: Continue to hear the word, and mint at mingling faith with it: Continue in prayer; and mint at believing that God will hear you; and in this way wait on the Lord. Remember the poor man that lay at the pool, John v. 5-9. for thirty-eight years, waiting for the troubling of the waters, and at laft the Lord came and healed hirn: So do ye; for " bleffed are all they that wait on him,” Pfal. Xxxvii. 9.

Object. 5. But all my labours will be in vain if I be not elected; for it is only they that are ordained to eternal life that will believe, Acts xiii. 48.

Anfw. It is true, the election fhall obtain, Rom. xi. 7. though others be hardened; but let me tell you, in the matter of believing, you have no more concern with the fecret counfels of God, than you have in buying or felling, eating or drinking, or fuch like common actions of life. If any man fhould fay, I will not open my fhop-door, because I do not know if God has decreed that I fhould fell any wares; or, I do not know if God has ordained that any man should buy them: Or, if a man should fay, I will neither eat nor drink, because God has fixed the term of my life; I am fure I thall live as long as God has ordained, whatever I do, &c.: Or, I may caft myself down a precipice, or attempt to walk upon the waters, becaufe I fhall not perifh till God's appointed time come: I fay, would you not reckon that man mad, or distracted, that would argue at that rate? Yet the cafe is the fame, when he argues, That he needs not fly to Chrift, or enter into the New Teftament Ark, because if he be elected to eternal life he shall never perish, whether he believe or not. Sirs, let not the devil and a deceitful heart lead you in among the decrees of God, which are fecret; for "the fecret things belong unto the Lord our God; but thofe things which are revealed belong unto us, and to our children," De it. xxix. 29 Follow commanded duty: believe in the Son of God; and then you fhall know your election of God.

HER.

HEB. xi. 7.-By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not feen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark, to the Javing of his house.

TH

THE SIXTH SERMON ON THIS TEXT.

THE doctrine taken from the words in their typical and fpiritual meaning, was as follows:

"That Chrift is the great New Teftament ARK, unto which perishing finners must betake themfelves, that they may be faved from the deluge of God's wrath."

The method was:

I. To fpeak of the deluge of God's wrath, with allufion unto the deluge of waters that deftroyed the old world.

II. To fpeak of the warnings that God gives of the dreadful deluge of his wrath.

III. To fpeak of Chrift as the great New Teftament Ark, typified by the ark of Noah.

IV. To caft open the doors of the New Teftament Ark. V. To fhew how it is that a finner actually enters into this Ark by this door.

VI. Proceed to the application of the doctrine.

Having spoken to the firft four, I proceed to

V. The fifth thing in the method, which was, to fpeak of the foul's actual entering by these doors into the New Teftament Ark.

I find faith fometimes expreffed in fcripture under the notion of entering, John x. 9." I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he thall be faved," and Heb. iv. 3. "For we who have believed do enter into reft;" and ver. 7. "Let us therefore fear, left a promife being left us of entering into his reft, any of you should feem to come fhort of it." Of the fame import is that expreffion of turning unto Chrift as a Strong-hold or Refuge, Zech. ix. 12.

All I fall fay upon this head is, to illuftrate a little the na

ture

ure of faith, under the fimilitude of Noah's entering into the ark, and the creatures that were faved there with him.

1. Then, we fee in the text, that Noah was warned of God of his danger before he prepared an ark, or fled unto it.

Juft fo is it with finners in the matter of believing in Chrift; God gives the finner warning of the danger he is in of the wrath to come. As God gave public warning to the old world, by the miniftry of Noah, of the approaching deluge; fo by the word read and preached, particularly by the preaching of the law, there is warning given to all finners of the danger they are in of perishing for ever. The voice of God in the law to finners is, Gal. iii. 10. "Curfed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." Rom. ii. 8. 9. "Indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every foul of man that doth evil.” Pfal. ix. 17. “The wicked fhall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.-The wages of fin is death." Now, thefe and the like warnings are carried in and brought home to the foul in particular, by the power of the eternal Spirit, before the finner enter in to the New Testament Ark; and the finner is made to believe the truth of these threatenings: For there is a law of faith, and a particular application of these and the like threatenings, before there be a true gofpel faith of the remedy. Hence,

2. You fee that Noah was moved with fear before he prepared an ark, or entered thereinto. What was he afraid of fay you. I anfwer, He was afraid of perifhing in the dehuge with the reft of the wicked world. (See the text.) Juft fo is the cafe with finners in the matter of believing, or flying to Chrift; they are moved with the fear of an angry God, against whom they have finned. And hence it is, that the finner, through the terror of God, and of an awakened confcience, falls a trembling, with the jailor, Acts xvi. 30. and cries, "What must I do to be faved?" Oh! to whom fhall I fly for help, Ifa. x. 3. "Who among us fhall dwell with the devouring fire? and who among us fhall dwell with everlasting burnings?" If. xxxiii. 14. This is what is commonly called a law-work, which every one that believes hath either in a greater or leffer degree: For "The law is our schoolmaster to lead us unto Chrift, that we might be justified by faith," &c. Gal. iii. 24.

3. Noah renounced all the falfe confidences that the men of the old world betook themselves unto for fhelter against the deluge. There is no doubt, but the inhabitants of the old world, when they faw the "windows of heaven opened, and the fountains of the great deep broken up, and VOL. III.

U u

the

the waters increafing and fwelling," they would fly to the highest houses or mountains, to fave them from the waters of the deluge, in hopes that the waters would ftay before they came up where they were: But Noah knew other things; he knew that these were but lying refuges, and that the waters would overtop the highest mountains in the world: And therefore he renounced these vain refuges, and betook himself unto the ark.

Juft fo is it in the matter of believing in Chrift, the poor foul is made to fee that "in vain is falvation to be expected from the hills, and from the multitude of mountains," Jer. iii. 23. "That the hail fhall fweep away the refuge of lies," I. xxviii. 17. And the waters fhall overflow all these hiding places, which hypocrites, the carnal worldling, or legalist, betake themselves unto: and therefore it flies for refuge unto Chrift, that bleffed hope fet before it, Heb. vi, 18. in the gofpel, knowing that there is no name given-whereby to be faved, but by the name of Jefus.

4. Noah believed that the ark (being God's ordinance) was fufficient to fave him and his family from the deluge.

So in the matter of believing, Christ is taken up as an allfufficient Saviour, "able alfo to fave unto the uttermoft, all that come unto God by him," Heb, vii. 25.; and as he is appointed and ordained of God to be a Saviour every way qualified for the falvation of loft finners, and made of God" unto us, wisdom, and righteousness, and fanctification, and redemption," 1 Cor. i. 30.

5. God gave to the living creatures (that were to be saved alive in the ark) a certain instinct, which made them to move from all parts of the earth towards the ark, and at last 10 enter into it.

Juft fo is it in the matter of believing. God gives an inftinct, a fupernatural inftinct, unto the poor finner, that makes him reflefs, until he win Chrift, and be found in him, Phil. iii. 8. 9. This is nothing elfe but that drawing power of the word and Spirit of God, whereby the finner is led to the Rock that is higher than all other refuges; John vi. 44. "No man (fays Chrift) can come unto me, except the Father which hath fent me draw him;" Hof. xi. 3. "I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love." You know the bees, before a fhower, they, by a certain instinct, fly into the hive: Juft fo is it here.

6. Noah's faith refted (not in the boards of the ark, but) in God who had appointed him to prepare it.

So in the matter of believing, true faith terminates upon "God-in Chrift, reconciling the world to himself," 2 Cor.