always firccefsful. 197 faith our Lord, Jhall ft rive to enter in, and S E x Me Jhall not be able. God hath (hewn us the VIII. particular path wherein we muft walk, and the courfe we muft run ; it is not by being induftrious in uncommanded rites, voluntary humility, and will-war/hip; nor yet by a formal repetition of external fervices, even though they be of divine inftitution, but the plain way of holinefs; being righteous before God, and walking in all the flatutes and ordinances of the Lord blamelefs. There is an eftabliíhed progrefs in religious virtue, and the path of the full is as the Jhining light, which jhineth more and more unto the perfea day ; and there is, according to the declarations of God's word, an eftablifhed eonnec`tion between holinefs and eternal life, which is really nothing elfe than the per - feetion of holinefs. We may as well pre- tend to diffolve the heavens and the earth, to alter the frame of nature, as to change that conftitution in the moral world, fixed in the eternal and invariable counfels of the great lawgiver ; as the prophet 7eremiah, .chap. xxxiii. reprefenteth the covenant God made with Ifrael as immutable, like what he calleth the covenant of the night and of the day, and the ordinances of heaven. The defires and the hopes of men, who (J2 sn
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