Indeed, such a constancy in our Christian obedience, as is absolutely perfect, and denotes an entire freedom from sin, is not what the gospel insists upon. Experience, and scripture too, shews this to be impossible and impracticable in the present life: "There is no man that sinneth not,” 1 Kings viii. 46. "There is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not," Eccl. vii. 20. "How should a man be just with God? If he will contend with him, he cannot answer him one of a thousand, Job ix. 2, 3. "Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from sin ?" Prov. xx. 9. No man can; and, therefore, the psalmist makes that acknowledgment and prayer, Psal. xix. 12. "Who ean understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults." The New Testament plainly affirms the same thing of Christians, James iii. 2. "In many things we all offend." 1 John i. 8. "If we say, we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." St. Paul pretended "not to have already attained, or to be already perfect," Phil. iii. 12. And, therefore, the disciples of Christ are directed in the Lord's prayer daily to acknowledge and ask the pardon of their trespasses, as well as to beg God to give them their daily bread.

Such passages as these plainly shew, that a perfect evenness and uniformity of obedience, without any mixture of sin, is not to be supposed in any man living. If any are so vain as to make the pretence, they have more reason to say with Job, chap. ix. 20." If I justify myself, my own mouth shall condemn me; if I say I am perfect, it shall also prove me preverse :" My very saying so against notorious evidence of fact, will be a proof that either I am a very faulty stranger at home, or a proud and arrogant boaster.' If a man could not be an acceptable Christian without such a perfect uniformity of conduct, there would be no such Christian to be found in our world.

But yet such an evenness and constancy in our devotedness to God and goodness is attainable, as in the gracious acceptation of the gospel is so styled; and is a very different and distin guishable thing from the character of many, who play fast and loose with God; from that character, for instance, which is given of the Israelites in Psal. lxxviii. 8. as "a generation that set not their hearts aright, and whose spirit was not stedfast

with God." And in ver. S7. whose "heart was not right with him, neither were they stedfast in his covenant." A right spirit is the reverse of this, stedfast with God and his That is,

covenant.

1. Our design and purpose should be for a constant adher-> ence to God and our duty at all times. Those resolutions for God are insincere, which are made with a designed exception against some known precepts, or in favour of some known sin; and those are equally insincere, though they should be ever so extensive as to the branches of duty, which are made only for some particular times and seasons, and not for all. As suppose, I will mind my soul, and the service of God upon the Lord's day, but I will be my own master, and at full liberty on other days: or, now in a serious hour, when temptation is at a distance, I will set myself to repent of my sins, and to walk softly; but if, when temptation returns, when my companions renew their importunity, I should begin a new score, I hope I shall repent again, and God will forgive me. Such purposes, formed with a view and a sort of design of turning again to folly, are an abomination to God, and shew that the first steps are not taken in real religion. There may be purposes of constancy, and yet a fatal miscarriage; but if even these be wanting, that much religion is vain. He cannot be styled truly upright in the lowest sense, even in intention, who is not come so far as to purpose not to transgress; who makes it not his fixed design to be faithful to God, and to maintain a good conscience, at one time as well as at another, for the future as well as at present; and especially to be upon his guard in a known hour of temptation, nd when he may be most apprehensive of danger.

2. Religion must be made our stated and ordinary business, to denominate us with any propriety constant in it. We must set about it as our work and main concern, and not only mind it on the by. This is imported in that expression of the apostle, Acts xxiv. 16. "Herein do I exercise myself, to keep a conscience void of offence toward God and toward men." I reckon this my chief business, and accordingly make it my daily care and employment to endeavour to know and do my duty to God and men. I have no concern upon my hands that I esteem equal to this.' Though the thoughts are not employed at all times with equal intenseness and application

to the direct consideration of our duty, as it is impossible they should be; yet these thoughts are commonly uppermost in the mind of a man truly religious; they often recur to it; he minds them, as we say, ever and anon; actual attention to his main concern is not long intermitted.

3. Deliberate and presumptuous sins must be carefully avoided; or a breach will be made upon our constancy and stedfastness in the work of the Lord, in the mild and favourable sense of the gospel. Sins of ignorance and common infirmity, break not in upon Christian constancy; though they are sins, yet they are not properly breaches of covenant. If we set out in our Christian course with a just consideration of the state of human nature, we did not absolutely resolve against these; though we resolved not to countenance them, and to endeavour more and more to outgrow them under divine culture and grace and as long as we retain that temper with reference to our ordinary infirmities, they should not be thought breaches of covenant. The psalmist, before his great fall, though he was aware of many imperfections, could say, Psal. xviii. 21, 22. "I have kept the ways of the Lord, and have not wickedly departed from my God. For all his judgments were before me, and I did not put away his statutes from me." But known and presumptuous sins are of quite another nature, such as are directly voluntary and chosen, against the dictates of a man's own judgment and conscience. These are direct insults upon God's authority. Every particular act of this kind is contrary to covenant-engagements, and so far a renouncing of God for our Lord and Sovereign. If a good man fall into such offences, it is impossible for him to be assured, that he is born of God, as long as he continues under the power of them. And in the number of such presumptuous sins, we must reckon

All great and notorious sins in their nature; such as either any man may discern to be amiss by the light of nature, or that a man completely acquainted with the holy scriptures may plainly perceive to be forbidden there. If a man fall into any of these crimes, though upon a sudden temptation, and without discernable thought and reflection; yet they cannot be called sins of mere surprise and infirmity, because they are so contrary to the light and habitual frame of a good

man, that they could not be done without some reluctancy.

And any sin, though of the least kind, when it is committed upon actual deliberation, and against the actual judgment of the mind, is a wilful sin, which breaks in upon evangelical stedfastness. If there be time and space, between the temptation and the ill action, to consider the evil nature of it; if our heart rebuke us at the time, admonishing us that God forbids what we are about to do, and yet we presume to do it; if there be debate and arguing, and yet temptation carry the day; this is a breach of covenant, though in ever, so minute an instance. It makes us "the servants of sin; for to whom we yield ourselves servants to obey, his servants we are to whom we so obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness," Rom. vi. 16. And if a servant of God so yield himself to any wilful sin, it would be a sin unto death,' if he were not renewed again to repentance.

And much more heinous still will it be, if the instance of offence, into which a man falls, be at once greatly criminal in itself, and such as conscience is habitually furnished against, and also which is actually remonstrated against at the time. This is a prodigious breach upon the temper and character of a saint. As in the case of David's dreadful fall into the complicated sins of adultery and murder, or that of Peter, when he denied his Master thrice, with oaths and curses, and that after a solemn warning which he had received but a few hours before of his danger. Such sins make a dreadful waste upon conscience, and such an interruption in a holy course, as would be ruinous without particular repentance, and really make their recovery difficult. Hence David found occasion to pray for God's creating power, to purify and renew him, as if he were to begin the divine life anew, Psal. li. 10. "Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me." And Peter's recovery is described as another conversion, Luke xxii. 32. "When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren." Though such instances of recovery may prevent utter despair in others upon their falls: yet the falls themselves are so marked in scripture, as much more strongly to admonish us against the like.

4. Upon any known falls, there should be a speedy and

proportionable repentance. Next to a constant evenness in our walk, without turning again presumptuously to folly, a quick return to God and to ourselves, by unfeigned and answerable repentance, is the best that can be done; that the interruption may be as small as possible. Indeed David's case is a sad instance of the hardening quality of such offences, even in good men, that he seems to have continued many months under the power of his sin: it is a mighty instance of grace that he was recovered after all. But certainly, where there is a latent principle of goodness under such sins, it is not usual to suffer them to lie long upon them. Upon the return of such exercises as a pious man has accustomed himself to, self-examination and prayer, hearing or reading the word of God, surely he will bethink himself, and then not be easy till he break off his sin by repentance, and come to himself. His return will be with eminent bitterness and deep sorrow. He will not be for covering or extenuating his sin with excuses, or for avoiding just shame for it; but will condemn himself more severely than others can do, and give glory to God by making ample confession, as public as his offence was. Like Peter, when roused out of his lethargy, "he went out, and wept bitterly." He will do all that lies in him, to repair the dishonour done to God, or the damage to his neighbour; will walk softly and humbly all his days, lie as a deep penitent at the foot of divine mercy; endeavour to regain the ground he has lost, and to repair the breaches made in the healthful state of his soul; and to double his guard and care for time to come.

The issue of a fall with a good man, should be like that described by the apostle in the case of the Corinthians, 2 Cor. vii. 11. "This self-same thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you," that you might not offend again: "Yea, what clearing of yourselves?" Not by self-justification or excuses, but by endeavours to clear yourselves from guilt, by application to God for his pardoning mercy; and from the sin itself, by putting evil far away. Yea, what indignation at the sin, and at yourselves for having been guilty of it? Yea, what vehement desire, that you might by no means fail of pardon and purification? Yea, what revenge upon your sins, by careful endeavours to mortify the deeds of the body? Those who, after eminent falls,