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God giving you life, falvation, righteoufnefs, and all in Chrift; and, from the faith thereof, kindling love in your foul, and conftraining you to ferve him in gratitude? If this be the ftrongeft obligation to holiness, then believers in Chrift are under ftronger obligations to holiness, than ever Adam was in a flate of innocency.

Access to the most holy place obliges us to be the most holy people, both effectively and argumentatively.

1. Effectively and powerfully; for, when one hath ac. cefs to the most holy place, then he fees the glory of God; and, "Beholding this glory, he is changed into the fame image, from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord," 2 Cor. ii. 18. Thus, what the law teaches preceptive. ly, the gofpel teaches effectively. It is faid of thefe that are mounted to the upper ftory of the houfe of God, to heaven, They are like him, becaufe they fee him as he is. Being come to the most holy place, they fee the most holy God, and are made like him in holiness. This privilege is commenced in the lower houfe; the more that believers fee the most holy God in the most holy place, or the glory of God in the face of Chrift, the more they are like unto him. When they come boldly to the throne of grace, or to the holy of holies, then they obtain mercy, and find grace to help them, and grace to ftrengthen them in all the duties of holiness. All their holiness comes from that moft holy place, to which they have accefs. And thus it obliges them to holiness, sweetly, powerfully, neceffarily, and effectively.

2. Argumentatively; it obliges them to be the most holy people; for, accefs to the moft holy place furnishes. them with an argument drawn from equity; "What! fhall we, that are dead to fin, live any longer therein ?" Rom. vi. 2. Have we by accefs to God, got a dead ftroak given to the tyrant fin, and fhall we return to flavery? God forbid. Access to the moft holy place furnishes with an argument drawn from gratitude; "Shall I thus requite the Lord, O foolish and unwife? Is not he my Father that hath bought me?" Deut. xxxii. 6. Has he allowed me accefs to him, and fhall I fpurn at fuch bowels, and spit on the face of fuch love?-At the most holy

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place the man fees that there is mercy with God that he may be feared and obeyed, and fo is encouraged to duty; and there he fees that it is God that worketh in him both to will and to do: there he fees that the law he is under, is not a law of works, but a law of love, where all the commands are love-commands; " If ye love me, keep my commandments;" and the threatenings, lovethreatenings, not of vindictive wrath, but of fatherly displeasure. The law-threatening of hell, and vindictive wrath, works wrath and enmity, which is the height of difobedience; while the man fears that God will damn him, he flees from God as an enemy: but gofpel-threatenings, if we may fo call them, work upon love, and inflame it, while the believer fears, in a filial manner, faying, "O! fhall I incur my Father's difpleasure; and · provoke him to hide his face, and deny me that gra"cious prefence of his, which is even a heaven upon "earth to me?"-At the most holy place, the believer fees God clothed with a garment of falvation, compaffed with love and grace, and riding, as it were, in the chariot of a free gracious promife; not a promife of life upon our doing, but a promise of grace to do, and of glory to crown our doing; and of grace and glory both, as the reward of Chrift's doing all.-In a word, when we have accefs to the moft holy place, we fee the place encircled with blood, the mercy-feat fprinkled with blood, and that by this blood the infinite juftice of God is fully fatisfied, and that we have to do with him as a reconciled God and friend; and therefore our obligation is not under the authority of an angry Judge, but the authority of a loving Father, teftifying his everlafting love to us, by drawing with loving-kindness and fhall we not kindly run, when thus kindly drawn?--Why then, this privilege of accefs to the most holy place, lays us under the ftricteft and ftrongeft obligation, to be the moft holy people. And, behold, this is the law of the boufe: the bond of love is the ftrongest bond.

VII. I come now to the application of the subject. And we fhall apply it, in the first place, by deducing a few inferences for information. Is it fo, that univerfal

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holinefs is fo much the established law of God's houfe, that the whole family, being priviliged with accefs to the moft holy place, are under the strongest obligation to be the most holy people? Then,

1. Hence fee, that God's house is not a lawless house, and believers in Chrift are not without law to God, but under the law to Chrift; as the apoftle expreffes it. The doctrine of grace is no doctrine of licentioufnefs: though many reproach gofpel-doctrine with a flourish of words, in their harangues on morality, under pretence of putting honour upon the law, while yet they neither underftand law nor gofpel, but miferably confound and blend them together. Do we make void the law through faith? Are we lawlefs Antinomians *, becaufe we declare the freedom of the houfe from the law of works? Alas! many, in their ignorant zeal for this law, difcover their little acquaintance with the law of the house.

2. Hence fee, that if univerfal holinefs be the law of the house, because of the univerfal accefs there is to the holy place; then, how few appear to be of the houfhold of God in our day, which is a day of univerfal unholinefs, univerfal wickednefs, univerfal profanity and impiety. Oh! how few in our day go in to the most holy place, fince few appear to be a moft holy people! Where there is no accefs to the moft holy place, there is no holinefs where little accefs, little holiness.

3. Hence fee the difference betwixt the covenant of works and the covenant of grace, in refpect of the place that holinefs hath in the one and the other. The former being, Do and live; therein duty opens the door to privilege, and man behoved firft to be holy, before he could be admitted to the holy place: but the latter being, Live and do, therein privilege opens the door to duty, and men must first have access to the holy place, before they can be a holy people; for they must first come to Chrift, or to God in Chrift, which is the holy

It was formerly noticed, Vol. I. p. 232. Vol. II. p. 304. 395. Vol. III. P. 44. that a legal turn of mind, and ftrain of preaching was much upon the increafe in Scotland: and the patrons and promoters hereof, boldly accused and virulently lampooned the champions for, and defenders of, the doctrine of grace, as enemies to the law, and friends to licentiousnets.

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of holies, and from hence bring all their holinefs. That is one of the reafons why gofpel-minifters preach fo much upon gofpel-privileges, and upon faith in Chrift entering into the holy place, because this faith works by love, and is the root of all true holiness; for, when faith looks into the most holy place, there it fees the law hidden in the ark, Jefus Chrift, and fafely kept there; and the believer finds, that, by lying in the warm bofom of Chrift, it is turned into a law of love.

4. Hence fee, That it is not fafe to be without the church of God: for, as it is the houfe where God dwells, and it is best dwelling where God dwells; fo there is accefs to the moft holy place to be found there, upon the top of the mount, and the whole limit thereof round about. As long as God dwells in a church, and gives evidence of his presence in these ordinances, let us blefs him for the day of fmall things, and wait upon him, who yet hides himself, in many refpects, from the house of Jacob. Let us pity thofe who are without the church: for, Without are dogs, and they can have no view of the holy place; and, Where no vifion is, the people perish. And pity thefe who are only within the outer walls of the church, in the outer court, and never got grace to enter into the moft holy place; and alfo thefe who have been within, and have gone out, and feparate from the church; I mean, even feparatifts from the church of Scotland, fome upon a kind of Independent footing, and others affecting novelties, betaking themselves to Englifh popifh ceremonies, and new modes of worship. At the fame time, many true friends to Prefbytery are on the very borders of feparating from this eftablished church, upon a difguft at the defections of the day; and it is to be lamented, that many ftumbling-blocks have been laid in peoples way and it is fure, when a particular church, like Romish Babylon, comes to be wholly corrupt, then that rule for feparation will hold, Come out from among them, my people. This was what juftified our glorious Reformation from Popery. In this cafe, it is not a finful feparating from the church of God, but a dutiful feparating from the chapel of the devil. And I own, that as matters ftand at prefent in the church

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of Scotland, we feem to be on the very brink of a fchifm: but, whatever tenderness I defire to fhow to weak confciences, in many circumftances, I have never as yet, feen ground to preach feparation*, whatever ground I fee to testify against the corruptions and defections of the day, I hope God hath not yet left the house; he is yet to be found in thefe galleries of his house, the ordinances of his worship. Mean time, I have a concern particularly for these that are mourning over the defections and defilements of the house, and keeping the cleanest rooms they can find therein, and whofe lot is to have officers obtruded upon them, and have not the gofpel, but the law, or mere moral harangues, preached to them; and I defire to pray they may be directed to their duty in an evil day. This leads me to

A word of lamentation, which is the next ufe I wouldmake of the doctrine. Even on a communion day, when we are holding communion in the houfe of God, we may lament the disorders and irregularities therein, contrary to the law of the houfe. Surely the houfe of God in our day is a ruinous house, and needs to be repaired and reformed. If this be the law of the house, that every member, every part, every room of the house be moft holy; then furely the law of the houfe is broken and violate in our day; for we may fee the reverse of this law, even unholinefs, upon the top of the mountain,

* Our Author, at this time, was not fo clear for withdrawing from the prefent Judicatories, as he afterwards came to be. And, indeed, all the habile methods had fcarcely as yet been ufed within doors, by Reprefentations, Petitions, Remonftrances, Expoftulations, and Proteftations: but when all thefe were used to no valuable purpose, and a deaf ear lent to them; nay, fentences inflicted for fo doing, he faw juft ground to withdraw from the prefent corupt Judicatories, while carrying on a courfe of defection; but never did separate from the church of Scotland in her Conftitution. We have his full fentiments on this head, in his Seceffion from the Judicatories, about five years after this: in which, after stating the nature and grounds of his Seceffion, we have these words; "So that, (tays our Author, adopting the fentiments of an eminent Light in this church) here is no feparation from the church of Scotland, ei "ther in her doctrine, worship, difcipline, or government; but rather a cleaving more clofely thereto, by departing or going forth from her backflidings "and defections, as we are commanded by the Lord, and from fome Judicato. "ries, because of thefe; and only a negative, paffive, and conditional withdrawing; not importing any refolution never to join with them in any cir "cumftance, but a present refusing to follow the declining part of the church, "while carrying on thefe defections, and a choofing rather to fland ftill and "cleave to that part, though fmaller, that is endeavouring to retain and main"tain a covenanted Reformation."

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