Though the Jews’ enjoyment of the land of Canaan depended on their good works and obedience to the law of Moses, yet their hope and enjoyment of heaven depended on their faith or trust in the mercy of God, which was to be farther revealed in the days of the Messiah. And it is the same gospel by which we are to obtain salvation, since Christ is come in the flesh; but with this difference, that we are now more expressly required to make Jesus Christ the object of our faith, and we have a thousand clearer discoveries of his righteousness and grace than ever the Jews were favoured with. Happy mankind! though fallen and ruined in Adam, yet recovered and raised to righteousness, grace, and glory by Jesus Christ. How dreadful is that law which pronounces a curse and death upon every transgressor! _Tribulation and wrath, indignation and anguish upon every soul that doth evil, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile_; Rom. ii. 9. But how sweet and reviving is the grace of that gospel, which becomes the power of God to the salvation of every one that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek! The great and blessed God saw the frailty of his creature man, how ready he was to ruin himself under a law of works; therefore he appointed his recovery by the law of faith. And _what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the infirmity of flesh, that he has sent his own Son Jesus Christ in the likeness of sinful flesh_, to do for us, to fulfil all the demands of the law, both in the penalty and the precept, _to finish transgression, to made an end of sin_, by his own sufferings, _and to bring in an everlasting righteousness, that whosoever believes on him shall be saved_. Blessed God! How kind and condescending are thy ways to the children of men! How full of compassion to rebels, who had destroyed themselves! How gentle are the methods of thy recovering mercy! If we will but confess our sins, mourn over our own follies, return to the Lord our God by humble repentance, and put our trust in an almighty Saviour, there is peace and pardon, there is grace, and life, and glory provided for us, and laid up in the hands of Jesus Christ our Lord. III. Though the gospel offers us salvation by faith and not by works, yet it effectually secures the practice of holiness since holiness is a part of that salvation. We are saved from sin as well as from hell by this gospel; and we must have our souls prepared for heaven, as well as brought to the possession of it. He that pretends to trust in Christ, for a deliverance from hell and has no desire to be made holy, he has no desire after such a salvation as Christ proposes in his gospel, nor is he like to attain it.