t72 A CAVEAT AGAÌNST INrIDLtLITY. and tittle of what his conscience directed him to, and required of him as his duty. It isvery possible,that a man may be sincere in some single actions of life or worship, who is greatly defective as to his sincerity in other parts ofhis behaviour. Where is the man that can stand up and say, "I have constantly served God to the utmost of my knowledge : I have loved him with all my heart : I have loved my neighbour as far as conscience told me I ought to do, and fulfilled every duty toGod and man, as far as I knew. it, and was able to perform it, and that without any wilful trans- gression or negligence ?" I am verily persuaded no man can say, his own conscience has always excused him, though in many actions men may have been justified to their own conscien- ces. Now if men will venture to build their eternal hopes upon this presumption of God's acceptance of their sincerity, even where their religion is not true, let them see to it, that they sin- cerely and constantlyfulfil their own invented law of righteous- ness : Let them take carethat their honest and sincere obedience to their own light be contïnnal, uniform and complete ; or else they may justly expect that God and their own consciences wilr come upon them one day with dreadful demands*. V. Suppose it Were granted, that the sincere practices of a mistaken or falsereligion, could rentier us accepted of God, and suppose yet further, that we could be perfectly sincere iii this practice, without one failure, yet we ought to enquire whether we have been sincere also in our search after the true reli- gion : Forif we have failed here, and beennegligent and careless in our searchafter the right way to please God, our greatest sin- cerity in a false way can pretend to no merit, and can give us but little hope. It is not an irrational and thoughtless sincerity, an , ignorant and stupid zeal in a mistaken religion that carne to us by chance, or that we slightly took up from a principleof sloth, or were led into by culpable prejudices, that can ever make a just pretence to the favour of God : And therefore ifwe should allow, that in the darkest nations of the earth, where men have scarce any advantages for knowledge, God would accept of their sin- cere follies and superstitions, yet we have no reason to expect it in álaud of such light and knowledge, where we have the greatest advantages to be informed of the true way of worship.. The great God who made all the powers of our nature, expects St Perhaps it will besaid, that sincerity does not imply such an uninterrupted . constancy of Obedience as I represent, but that it it consistent with sorge fai- lures in point of known duty, if these failures be attended with hearty repeat. tance, and a resolution offuture care and watchfulness. To this I answer, that the gospel and the revelations of grace in scripture al- low this sort of sincerity and accept of hearty repentance after sin, through the interest of a Mediator : But the light of nature doth not allow ofany sincerity in obedience, if it be interrupted by one wilful sin ; for the light of nature can never assure us that any one wilful or known sin will be pardoned, nor thataay repenteuee will be accepted. The discovery of this is pure grace.
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