tianity for the end of it, to think it enough, if they are entered into the way of it, and to sit down upon the entry; but to walk on, to go from strength to strength, and even through the greatest difficulties and discouragements, to pass forward with unmoved stability and fixedness of mind. They ought to be aiming at perfection. It is true, we shall still fall exceedingly short of it; but the more we study it, the nearer shall we come to it; the higher we aim, the higher shall we shoot, though we shoot not so high as we aim.

It is an excellent life, and it is the proper life of a Christian, to be daily outstripping himself, to be spiritually wiser, holier, more heavenly-minded to-day than yesterday, and to-morrow, if it be added to his life, than today; every day loving the world less, and Christ more, and gaining every day some further victory over his secret corruptions; having his passions more subdued and mortified, his desires in all temporal things more cool and indifferent, and in spiritual things more ardent; that miserable lightness of spirit cured, and his heart rendered more solid and fixed upon God; aspiring to more near communion with him; and laboring that particular graces may be made more lively and strong, by often exercising and stirring them up, faith more confirmed and stayed, love more inflamed, composed meekness producing more deep humility. O this were a worthy ambition indeed! You would have your estates growing and your credit growing; how much rather should you seek to have your graces growing, and not be content with any thing you have attained to!

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But all our endeavours and diligence in this will be vain, unless we look for our perfecting and establishing from that right hand, without which we can do nothing. ther the apostle moves his desires for his brethren, so teaches them the same address for themselves; The God of all grace make you perfect.

The humble believer sees himself beset with enemies without, and buckled to a treacherous heart within that will betray him to them; and he dares no more trust himself to himself, than to his most professed enemies. And the more the Christian is acquainted with himself, the more

will he go out of himself for his perfecting and establishing. He finds that when he thinks to go forward, he is driven backward, and that sin gets hold of him oftentimes, when he thought to have smitten it. He finds that such is the miserable inconstancy of his heart in spiritual things, the vanishing of his purposes and breaking off of his thoughts, that they usually die ere they be brought forth; so that when he hath thought, "I will pray more reverently, and set myself to behold God when I speak to him, and watch more over my heart, that it fly not out and leave me," possibly the first time he sets to it, thinking to be master of his intention, he finds himself more scattered, and disordered, and dead, than at any time before. When he hath conceived thoughts of humility and selfabasement, and thinks, “Now I am down, and laid low within myself, to rise and look big no more," some vain fancy creeps in anon, and encourages him, and raises him up to his old estate; so that in this plight, had he not higher strength to look at, he would sit down and give over all, as utterly hopeless of ever attaining to his journey's end.

But when he considers whose work that is within him, even these small beginnings of desires, he is encouraged not to despise and despair of the small appearance of it in its beginning, not to despise the day of small things ; and knowing that it is not by any power, nor by might, but by the Spirit of the Lord, that it shall be accomplished, he lays hold on that word, Though thy beginning be small, yet thy latter end shall greatly increase.

The believer looks to Jesus; looks off from all oppositions and difficulties, looks above them to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith-author and therefore finisher. Thus that royal dignity is interested in the maintenance and completion of what he hath wrought. Notwithstanding all thy imperfections and the strength of sin, he can and will subdue it. Notwithstanding thy condition is so light and loose, that it were easy for any wind of temptation to blow thee away, yet he shall hold thee in his right hand, and there thou shalt be firm as the earth, that is so settled by his hand, that though it hangs on nothing, yet nothing can remove it. Though

thou art weak, he is strong; and it is He that strengthens thee, and renews thy strength; when it seems to be gone and quite spent, he makes it fresh and greater than before. A weak believer, and his strong Saviour, will be too hard for all that can rise against them.

It is the inactivity of faith on Jesus, that keeps us so imperfect and wrestling still with our corruptions, without any advancement. We wrestle in our own strength too often, and so are justly, yea, necessarily foiled; it cannot be otherwise, till we make him our strength. This we are still forgetting, and had need to be put in mind of it, and ought frequently to remind ourselves of it. All our projectings are but castles in the air, imaginary buildings without a foundation, till laid on Christ. Never shall we find heart peace, sweet peace, and progress in holiness, till we make him all our strength; till we be brought to do nothing, to attempt nothing, to hope or expect nothing, but in him; and then shall we indeed find his fulness and all-sufficiency, and be more than conquerors through him who hath loved us.

But the God of all grace. By reason of our many wants and great weakness, we had need to have a very full hand and a very strong hand to go to for our supplies and for support. And such we have indeed: our Father is the God of all grace, a spring that cannot be drawn dry, no, nor so much as any whit diminished.

The God of all grace. The work of salvation is all grace from beginning to end. Free grace laid in the counsel of God the plan of it, and performed by his own hand all of it. All grace is in him, the living spring of it, and flows from him; all the various actings and all the several degrees of grace. He is the God of pardoning grace, who blotteth out the transgressions of his own children for his own name's sake; who takes up all quarrels, and makes one act of oblivion serve for all reckonings betwixt him and them. And as he is the God of pardoning grace, so the God of sanctifying grace, who refines and purifies all those he means to make vessels of glory, and hath in his hand all the fit means and ways of doing this; purifies them by afflictions and outward trials, by the reproaches and hatreds of the world. But most

powerfully are the children of God sanctified by the Spirit within them, without which indeed no other thing could be of any advantage to them. That divine fire kindled within them is daily refining them; that Spirit of Christ conquering sin, and by the mighty flame of his love, consuming the earth and dross that is in them; making their affections more spiritual and disengaged from all creature delights. And thus as they receive the begiunings of grace freely, so all the advances and increases of it; life from their Lord still flowing and causing them to grow, abating the power of sin, strengthening a fainting faith, quickening a languishing love, teaching the soul the ways of wounding strong corruptions and fortifying its weak graces; yea, in wonderful ways advancing the good of his children by things not only harsh to them, as afflictions and temptations, but by that which is directly opposite in its nature, sin itself, raising them by their falls, and strengthening them by their very troubles; working them to humility and vigilance, and sending them to Christ for strength, by the experience of their weakness and failings.

Now for the further opening up of his riches, expressed in this title, the God of all grace, there is added one great act of grace, which doth indeed include all the rest, for we have in it the beginning and the end of the work linked together; the first effect of grace upon us in effectual calling, and the last accomplishment of it, in eternal glory; Who hath called us to his eternal glory.

This calling doth not simply mean the design of the gospel in its general publication, wherein the outward call lies, that it holds forth, and sets before us, eternal glory as the result of grace; but it refers to the real bringing of a Christian to Christ, and uniting him with Christ, and so giving him a real and firm title to glory; such a call, as powerfully works grace in the soul and secures glory to the soul; gives it a right to that inheritance, and fits it for it, and sometimes gives it even the evident and sweet assurance of it. This assurance, indeed, all the heirs of glory have not ordinarily within them, and scarcely any have at all times equally clear. Some travel on in a covert, cloudy day, and get home by it, having so much light

as to know their way, and yet do not at all clearly see the bright and full sunshine of assurance; others have it breaking forth at times, and anon under a cloud; and some have it more constantly. But as all meet in the end, so all agree in this in the beginning, that is, in the reality of the thing; they are made unalterably sure heirs of it, in their effectual calling.

All you who hear the gospel are called to this glory. It is told you where and how you may lay hold on it. You are told, that if you will let go your sins and embrace Jesus Christ, this glory shall be yours. It is his purchase, and the right of it lies in him, and not elsewhere; and the way to obtain a right to him is to receive him for a Saviour, and at the same time for Lord and King; to become his subjects, and so to be made kings. This is our message to you, but you will not receive it. How wonderful is it, that where this happiness is daily proclaimed, and you are not only informed of it, but entreated to receive it, not only is it offered you, but pressed and urged upon you, and you say, you believe the matter; yet still the false glory and other vanities of this world amuse and entangle you, so that you close not with this rich offer of eternal glory!

But where any do close with it, it is by a call that goes deeper than the ear, a word spoken home to within, a touch of the Spirit of God upon the heart, which hath a magnetic virtue to draw it, so that it cannot choose but follow, and yet chooses it most freely and sweetly; doth most gladly open to let in Jesus Christ and his sweet government upon his own terms, takes him and all the reproaches and troubles that can come with him. And well it may, seeing, beyond a little passing trouble, abiding eternal glory.

The state to which a Christian is called, is not a poor and sad estate, as the world judges; it is to no less than eternal glory.

Eternal. O that word eternal adds much! Meu would have more reason to pursue the glory of the present world, such as it is, if it were lasting, if it stayed with them when they have caught it, and they stayed with it to enjoy it. But how soon do they part! They