SECTIQN IV. IOI of the christian religion, is by no. means to be justified, yet too many have unhappily practised it ; and though the latter way is much to be preferred, and most likely to come near the truth, yet it is not toilowed by all who preach the gospel ; and no wonder then that ministers may differ in their thoughts. Such is the weakness of human nature, that as some of us form and buildup our first opinions upon veryslight and insuffi- cient grounds, and there are many who persist in them, and strongly maintain them without an honest re-examination, so, others of us change our opinions upon reasons as slight and fee- ble and insúfñcieut. Some persons having been perplexed with one or two great difficulties in that scheme of sentiments which they have professed, and being unable to grapple with them, have by swift or slow degrees, abandoned that whole scheme, and fell in wjth another, which perhaps 'lath equal or ,greater diffi- culties in it; never considering that the whole system of Christi- anity, with all its appendices, is so vast, and our viewof things is so narrow, and our knowledge so imperfect, that a sharp dispu- tant may push some parts of all our human schemes into great perplexities, even such as human reason can hardly solve ; and perhaps God alone knows how to reconcile them, inwhose single . view all things lie for ever fair and open, perfectly consistent, and are comprehended at once. Or it may be the way and method of divine grace in the first conversion of the one and the other was very different. Some were wrought upon at first more by legal methods, and theterrors of the law of God, and they find them still to have the greatest and most powerful influence on their consciences ; others from their wild wanderings were brought home to Christ by gentle discoveries of divine love in the death of a Saviour : Some, like the jailor ; Acts xvi. 25-30. have had their cou- sciences shaken as with an earthquake, they came in trembling and crying out, what must I do to be saved? Others had their hearts softly opened, as was theheart of Lydia, verse 14. of the same chapter, and they received the wordof grace and the gos- pel ; and they find the work of God carried on upon their own souls, still by the most evangelical methods. Now a man's own early experiences in the things of religion, will naturally have a great influence on his opinions ; and God in his infinite wisdom hathordered it should be so, that persons of every sort and tem- per, and humour, young and old, sinners and saints, under every kind of temptation, might meet, with some ministers of the gospel, and some sermons and writings to suit their taste, to hit their case, and be the most effectual means of-their salvation. The third thing I proposed here was to show briefly, III. That as each of these ways of preaching have their several advantages, so each of them have their special incon- a 3
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