v SERMON XIX. 200 win heaven, you must borrow all your strength from Christ and the gospel. If you would appear comely and honourable before the face of God, you must be clothed in the robeof righte- ousness, and the garments of salvation, which he has prepared ; Is. lxi. 10. Nor can any difference in the natural qualities of the- soul forbid any personwho believes in Christ tohope for this salvation. Those who are by nature proud or peevish, sullenor passionate, angry or revengeful, have been made partakers of this grace, as well as those who by the complexion of their animal frame, and the original temper of their minds, have had more of the natural virtuesbelonging to them ; such as gentleness, meekness ofspirit, good-humour and kindness. Those who have something in their very frame that is slyand crafty, or covetous, wanton, and intem- perate, have felt the power of this gospel, as well as those that have beengenerous and sincere, modest, chaste, and abstemious; for the grace of the gospel, which was typified by the ark of Noah, takes in all manner of animals, clean and unclean, and saves them from the deluge of divine wrath that shall come upon an ungodly world. But there is this blessed difference, that the brutes went,out of the ark with the same nature they 'brought in : but those who come under the protection and . power of this gospel by faith, they are in some measure changed, they are refined, they are,sanctified. Thewolf thatcame in, is turning into a lamb, and the raven by degrees becomes a dove, surely, the gospel has begun to make them so, for it has begun their salvation. I will grant indeed, that the perverse temper ofblood and spirit's, and the very make of the man, as to his natural and vicious qualities, is seldom entirely altered by the grace of God here on earth. There will be some sallies of animal nature, some out-breakings of the irregular fire that is pent up in the constitu- tion ;. and .these will too often mix themselveswith our conduct, and interline our acts ofvirtue and duty. But the holy soul, who believes in Christ, will be humble, will mourn, will accuse and chide itself before God in secret, and will be importunate and restless, in prayer for the victory. The christian will not suffer himself to be carried away willingly by the stream of vicious in- clinations ; for he that is born of Godsinneth not ; 1 John v. IS. and it is in vain to talk of the gospel and salvation of faith and . grace, if we give up the reins to vicious nature, andbida careless farewell to any one virtue. But to proceed yet farther in reckoning np the various cha- racters of men, whom the gospel makes christians by the grace of faith. 0. As no persons are excluded becauseof their natural con-
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