that he would with the temptation alfo make a way for you to escape.

Thirdly, From the example of St. Peter we may learn how great the advantages of regular and habitual holiness are. Good Chriftians though they may fall like other men through paffion, or prefumption, or other infirmities, yet the way to their repentance is more open and eafy; their minds, not being hardened by fin, are awakened by the gentleft calls, and the sense of virtue revives upon the first motion and fuggeftions of confcience. St. Peter fell, and his fall was very fhameful; but his repentance was as furprifing and remarkable as his fall. Whilft he was in the height of his rage for being fufpected to be a difciple of Chrift, whilft he was abjuring him with oaths and imprecations, one look of his Lord laid all the ftorm, and melted him into the tears and forrows of repentance. The fame minute faw him the moft audacious finner and the moft humble penitent; he committed the fault, and begged pardon for it, almost in the fame breath. There was no need of terrifying judgments to awaken his mind to a fenfe of his iniquity: the eye of his Lord, though full of compaffion, was a fufficient rebuke; it ftruck him with a forrow not to be diffembled, and therefore he went out, and wept bitterly. St. Peter's cafe is the case of every good man under the fame unhappy circumftances. The hardened finner goes on from fin to fin, despises the calls of confcience, refufes to hearken to the judgments of God, and obftinately perishes in the error of his way but, where there is a fenfe of virtue and religion, fin can never keep poffeffion long;

no fooner does the paffion cool, and confcience be-. gin to fpeak, but the heart travails with repentance, and feels the pangs of godly forrow. How different were the calls to repentance which the rulers of the Jews had upon the death of Christ, and yet how different the fuccefs of thofe calls! When he. hung upon the crofs, they faw all nature thrown into convulfions; the earth trembled, the fun was darkened, and the vail of the temple was rent in two: yet ftill they pursue their malice, and fet a guard upon his fepulchre, hoping at least that the grave, fo affifted, would hold him faft: but when this failed them, and their own trufty watch declared to them the wonder of his refurrection, they relented not; but, throwing off all fhame, they fuborned the guards to witnefs a lie, giving out that his difciples had stolen him away by night. One compaffionate look recovered St. Peter; but the Jews were not convinced, though one arofe from the dead. A good man may be mistaken, furprised, mifled; but the firft return of thought, the first interval he has of cool reflection, fhews him his error, and haftens his return to the obedience of holinefs. This is a great fecurity: for every man may fin; but thofe only will repent, who fincerely endeavour after righteoufnefs. The wicked, as they advance in iniquity, do more and more fubdue their confcience, till even repentance itfelf becomes impoffible.

Fourthly, You may obferve that the fins of the best men are expiated with the greatest sense of forrow and affliction. It is eafy for men, who have, been long ftrangers to a fenfe of religion, to argue

themselves into an unconcernedness for their past iniquities; and to imagine that, if they do but purfue their refolutions of living virtuously for the time to come, it is of little moment to trouble themfelves with the remembrance of what is paft and gone; fince God requires nothing but their amendment, and even forrow and repentance are no farther valuable, than as they tend to reformation. I fhall not enter into fpeculations upon this fubject; let men enjoy their reafonings: but this I fay, it is impoffible to have a fenfe of religion, to think of God and ourselves as we ought to do, without being affected with the deepest forrow for our offences. When men are truly concerned they do not confider what they are to get by their tears, or what profit their forrow will yield: the foul muft vent its grief; and godly forrow is as truly the natural expreffion of an inward pain as worldly forrow, however they differ in their caufes and objects. St. Peter, when he went out and wept bitterly, did not ftay to confider whether he ought to weep or no; or to reflect what ufe his tears would be to him: his heart was too full for fuch reflections; he faw the goodness of his Lord, and his own baseness, and his grief came as naturally into his eyes, as when a man bemoans the lofs of a father or a mother. Some indeed have learnt how to make a trade of repentance, and can balance fin and forrow as exactly as a merchant does his accounts: and repentance is indeed their richest merchandise. But the Gofpel has taught us no fuch art: there only we learn how gracious our God is, how much it is our duty and intereft to obey; and from thence we learn how

base and how miferable we are, when we offend.. What is beyond this is the work of nature, which will ever start and grow afflicted at the fight of mifery, and knows how to lament its own afflictions without a guide. When therefore we find ourselves truly affected with the sense of our fins, and in good earnest lament our disobedience and ingratitude to God, we have the beft indication that we can have, that the spirit of religion is still alive within us, and that we are not given up to a reprobate obdurate heart.

Laftly, There is one obfervation of a more general concern, that naturally offers itself upon the view of this cafe. The inftruction of this example to private Christians is very great; but yet there seems to me to be fomething more intended in the tranfmitting this hiftory to all ages in the facred writings.

The Gospel was the work of God; and though we were to receive it by the hands of men, yet was our faith to be founded not in the ftrength or policy of man, but in the power and wisdom of God: for this reafon God chose the weak things of the world to confound the ftrong. The difciples, upon whom the weight of the Gospel was to reft, and upon whose management the fuccefs feemed to depend, were men of no distinguished characters; their fimplicity and honefty were their beft commendation: thefe our Lord elected, well knowing, the weaker the inftruments were, the more evidently the hand of God would appear in the mighty things performed by them. Among these St. Peter plainly had the greateft fpirit and the ftrongeft refolution; his

readiness and vivacity diftinguished him in every ftep; he was the mouth of the Apoftles, and always ready to undertake and execute the commands of his Lord. If there was any of the number that could be thought capable of entering into and managing fo great a defign as the propagating a new religion in the world, it was St. Peter: he therefore is called to the trial. And how able he was of himfelf to encounter the difficulties that were to attend the Gospel in every ftep, you have already feen. Had the Gospel been left to have been conducted by him merely, it is probable that the fame of it would not have reached our times. And yet this fame man, not many weeks after, appears before the tribunal of the magiftrates, preaches to his judges, and teftifies that of a truth Jefus was the Chrift, and that whom they flew, and hanged on a tree, God had raised from the dead, and exalted him to the right hand of his glory. Whence this mighty difference? or to what can it be afcribed, but to that great Spirit, for whose coming their Lord commanded them to wait in Jerufalem, and not to enter upon their office till they should receive power from on high? If the Gospel was an imposture, and if Chrift died to rife no more, what gave this fresh courage to St. Peter? Had he more confidence in a dead man, than in his Mafter whilft on earth? If he had not feen Chrift come from the grave, nor received the power of the Spirit, what could move him to expose himself for the fake of Chrift, for whofe fake whilft on earth, and whilft the hopes of his being the Son of God were ftrong, he dared not to expose himself?