One would suppose that these subjects should be the most welcome of all that can be presented to our view. But this is not the case : for, however great the encouragement that is derived from them, they all have an humiliating tendency : they shew us the depth of our misery, that called for such a remedy : they constrain us to acknowledge our obligations to the grace and mercy of God, and our entire dependence on the merits of his Son, and the influences of his Spirit. On these accounts men would rather be amused with moral essays, than instructed in these mysterious truths.
But we must " affirm these things ;" we must affirm them " constantly ;" for they are " faithful sayings," and truths in which our everlasting welfare depends. To make these known, and understood, and felt, should be the great object of all our labours.]
That we may not be thought to lay too great a stress on these subjects, we shall shew,
II. Why they deserve so great a portion of our attention —
The Apostle assigns reasons the most satisfactory imaginable :
1. They are the appointed means of promoting good works —
[It is a lamentable but undoubted fact, that where morals only are insisted on, or where the foregoing doctrines are but occasionally stated, the great mass of the people are ignorant of the fundamental truths of our religion, and their morals rarely experience any visible or important change. Nor can we wonder at this, if only we consider, that God has appointed other means for the reformation of mankind ; and that the means he has appointed, are alone suited to produce the end. Is it asked, ' Whence the stating of Christian doctrines should work so powerfully, while the pressing home of moral duties fails to produce any such effects V we answer. That God will bless the means which are of his own appointment, when he will not prosper those which are substituted in their place ; and, that there is in the doctrines before stated a natural and proper tendency to produce a change both of heart and life. Suppose a person truly to receive what God has declared respecting the extreme degeneracy of our nature ; can he fail of being humbled in the dust? Can he do otherwise than stand amazed at the forbearance of God towards him? Can he re- frain from saying, ' O that I could serve my God with as much zeal and diligence as ever I exerted in violating his commands?' Suppose him then to receive all the glorious truths relative to