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doing our Duty, and doing more than our Duty, between Evangelical Precepts and Evangelical Counfels, is vain and idle. For I would afk this Question: Are these extraordinary Performances that we are not bound to, these that you call Evangelical Counfels, or Directions to Perfection, but not ftrict Precepts; I fay, are these true Inftances or Expreffions of our Love to GOD, or of our Love to our Neighbour, or are they not? If you will say they are not, how can they recommend us to God? What Reafon hath he to be pleased with them, or take any Notice of them? You may as well fay, that, to fit down and fay over the Letters of the Alphabet an hundred times a Day, or to go about the Streets, and count all the Signs between the one End of the City and the other; I fay, you may as well imagine, that these Works are meritorious, as that the other are, whatsoever they be, fuppofing they be not Inftances and Expreffions of our Love to Gop; and therefore certainly there can be no Merit or Supererogation in Works of that Nature.

Well, but you will fay, thefe Works you talk of, are really Inftances and Expreffions of your Love to GOD. You faft fo often, for God's fake. You go fo many Pilgrimages, for God's fake. You fay fo many Prayers more than you are obliged to, for GOD's fake. You renounce the World, and vow a perpetual Poverty, for God's fake.

All

very

All these Things you do out of the pure Love of GOD. Yet every one of thefe Things is more than you are in Duty bound to by the Laws of Christianity. Why, all this feems well; but but yet it will be spoiled by afking one Question more, and that is this: Do you think you can love Gop more than you can do? Da you think you can do Things to please Him more than it is in your Power to do? If you fay you cannot (as indeed all Men in their Wits must acknowlege; for no Man can do more than he can do), then all these fine Things are come to nothing, for you were bound to do, for the Love of God, all thefe Things that you have now talked of (fuppofing, indeed, that they did really recommend us to Gop, and were fuch Expreffions of our Love as He delights in, which for my Part I fhall never believe of them); I fay, you were bound to do all these Things, because you are bound to love the LORD your GOD with all your Heart, and with all your Soul, and with all your Mind. It is your indifpenfable Duty; nay, as our Saviour tells you, it is the first and great Commandment. Now, if you can do more than all this amounts to, for the expreffing your Love to GOD, I will yield, that you may do more than GOD requires of you, and confequently may merit fomething from him. But, till you can love Gop more than with all your Heart, and Soul, and Strength, I am fure you cannot do any

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thing

thing for the expreffing your Love to God, which it is not your Duty to do. And if it be your Duty to do it, where are your Works of Supererogation?

This, I think, is enough to have faid in Confutation of these abfurd Opinions, though abundance more might be offered, to fhew how reasonable they are. But my Text hath led me thus far, and I will not go farther than it leads me, efpecially upon fo invidious an Argument.

As for us, let us all endeavour to love GOD, and to ferve him with all our Hearts, in all those Inftances which he hath recommended to us by our Lord Jefus. Let us do our Duty to Him, and to our Neighbour, as well as we can; and, when we have done our best, let us earnestly beg of Him to forgive us our Failings, to pardon our Infirmities, to pass by all the Slips, and Faults, and Miscarriages, we have been guilty of towards him. I am fure, all of us, even the best of us, do need his Pardon; nay, do need it every Day. Nor have we any other Merits to plead but those of Chrift Jefus. Nay, though we could be fo happy as to live without Sin in the World, and to do our whole Duty, yet ftill we merit nothing from God's Hands, ftill we have no way in the World obliged him, ftill the Cafe between God and us is but the fame as it is between the Mafter and the Servant, in our Saviour's Parable, with which I fhall con-.

clude,

clude, because indeed it is the Sum of all that I have faid, and may ferve for a Recapitulation of whole Difcourfe upon my

this Point.

You may find it in the xviith Chapter of St. Luke's Gofpel, and the 7th Verfe: Which of you (faith he) having a Servant plowing, or feeding Cattle, will fay unto him by-and-by, whon he is come from the Field, Go and fit down to Meat? And will not rather fay unto him, Make ready wherewith Imay fup, and girdthyJelf,and ferve me,till I have eaten and drunken, and afterwards thou shalt eat and drink? Doth be thank that Servant because he did the Things that were commanded him? I trow,not. So likewife ye, when ye have done all thofe Things which are commanded you, fay, We are unprofitable Servants; we have done that Thing which was our Duty to do. Thus far our Saviour. From whence we may gather, that those that do all these Things which God hath commanded them, are but unprofitable Servants and therefore how unprofitable muft they be, that do not an hundredth Part of that which God hath commanded us! And yet I doubt this is the Cafe of even good People among us. May God forgive the best of us all our Neglects and Mifcarriages, and inspire us both with Power and Will to ferve him better; and this for the only Merits of his dear Son Jefus Chrift. To whom with the Father and the Holy Ghoft, &c.

SER

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SERMON XI.

MATT. XXII. 37, 38, 39, 40.

37. Jefus faid unto him, Thou shalt love the
Lord thy God with all thy Heart, and with
all thy Soul, and with all thy Mind.
38. This is the first and great Commandment.
39. And the fecond is like unto it, Thou shalt
love thy Neighbour as thyself.

40. On these two Commandments hang all the
Law and the Prophets.

T

HE Method I have propofed in treating of this Text was,

Firft, To explain the Duty here commanded, that is to fay, what is implied in loving GOD with all our Hearts and Souls.

Secondly, To fhew upon what Accounts this may be truly faid to be the first and great Commandment.

Thirdly, To make fome Application of this Doctrine, by drawing fome useful Inferences from it. And,

Fourthly,

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