There is a vast difference between recommending or practising moral virtues, as agreeable to the nature of man, and the dictates of reason; and a person’s being led in that way of holiness, which our Saviour has prescribed in the gospel. This takes its rise from a change of nature, wrought in regeneration, is excited by gospel-motives, encouraged by the promises thereof, and proceeds from the grace of faith, without which, all pretensions to holiness are vain and defective. What advances soever these may have made in endeavouring to free themselves from the slavery of sin, they have been very deficient, as to the mortification thereof; for being ignorant of that great atonement which is made by Christ, as the only expedient to take away the guilt of sin, they could not, by any method, arrive to a conscience void of offence, or any degree of hope concerning the forgiveness thereof, and the way of acceptance in the sight of God: and their using endeavours to stop the current of vice, and to subdue their inordinate affections, could not be effectual to answer that end, inasmuch as they were destitute of the Spirit of God, who affords his divine assistance, in order thereunto, in no other way than what is prescribed in the gospel; so that as _without holiness no one shall see the Lord_, this grace is to be expected in that way which God has prescribed; and every one that is holy is made so by the Spirit, who glorifies himself in rendering men fruitful in every good work, being raised by him, from the death of sin, to the life of faith in Christ; which is a blessing peculiar to the gospel. [2.] Since holiness is required of all persons, as what is absolutely necessary to salvation, and is also recommended as that which God works, in those in whom the gospel is made effectual thereunto; we may infer, that no gospel-doctrine has the least tendency to lead to licentiousness. The grace of God may indeed be abused; and men, who are strangers to it, take occasion from the abounding thereof, to continue in sin, as some did in the apostle’s days, Rom. vi. 1. but this is not the genuine tendency of the gospel, which is to lead men to holiness. Whatever duties it engages to, they are all designed to answer this end; and whatever privileges are contained therein, they are all of them inducements thereunto: are we _delivered out of the hands of our_ spiritual enemies? it is, _that we should serve him in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our lives_, Luke i. 74, 75. As for the promises, they are an inducement to us, as the apostle expresses it, to _cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God_, 2 Cor. vii. 1. and every ordinance and providence should be improved by us, to promote the work of sanctification. [3.] Let us examine ourselves, whether this work be begun, and the grace of God wrought in us, in truth? and if so, whether it be increasing or declining in our souls?