in what I have laid down. If we appeal to Reason, no man can doubt, but that an habit of virtue has much more of excellence and merit in it, than fingle accidental acts, or uncertain fits and paffions; fince an habit is not only the fource and spring of the noblest actions and the most elevated paffions, but it renders us more regular and steady, more uniform and conftant in every thing that is good. As to good natural difpofitions, they have little of strength, little of perfection in them, till they be raised and improved into habits and for our natural faculties, they are nothing else, but the capacities of good or evil; they are undetermined to the one or other, till they are fixed and influenced by moral princi. ples. It remains then, that religious Perfection must confift in an habit of righteoufness. And to prevent all impertinent fcruples and cavils, I add a confirmed and well established one. That this is the fcripture notion of Perfection, is manifeft; First, From the use of this word in fcripture. Secondly, From the characters and descriptions of the best and highest state which any ever actually attained, or to which we are invited and exhorted. 1. From the use of the word: whereever we find any mention of Perfection in fcripture, if we examine the place well, we shall find nothing more intended, than uprightness and integrity, an unblameable and unreproveable life, a state well advanced in knowledge and virtue. Thus upright and perfect are used as terms equivalent, Job i. And that man was perfect and upright, fearing God and eschewing evil; and Pfalm xxxvii. 37. Mark the perfect man and behold the upright man, for the end of that man is peace. Thus again, when God exhorts Abraham to Perfection, Gen. xvii. 1 I am the Almighty God; walk before me and be thou perfect, all that he exhorts him to, is a steady obedience to all his commandments, proceeding from a lively fear of, and faith in him; and this is the general use of this word Perfect throughout the Old Testament, namely to fignify a fincere and just man, that feareth God, and escheweth evil, and is well fixed and established in his duty. In the New Testament, Perfection fignifies the same thing which it does in the Old; that is, universal righteousness, and strength, and growth in it. Thus the perfect man, 2 Tim. iii. 17. is one who is throughly furnished to every good work. Thus St. Paul tells us, Col. iv. 12. that Epaphras laboured fervently in prayers for the Coloffians, that they might stand perfect and compleat in all the will of God. In James i. 4. the perfect man is one, who is entire, lacking nothing, i. e. one who is advanced to 1. a matu a maturity of virtue through patience and experience, and is fortified and established in faith, love, and hope. In this sense of the word Perfect St. Peter prays for those to whom he writes his epistle, 1 Pet. V. 10. But the God of all grace, who called us into his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have fuffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, fettle you. When St. Paul exhorts the Hebrews to go on to Perfection, Heb. vi. he means nothing by it, but that state of manhood which consists in a well fettled habit of wisdom and goodness. This is plain, first, from ver. 11, 12. of this chapter, where he himself more fully explains his own meaning; and we defire that every one of you do shew the fame diligence, to the full affurance of hope unto the end; that ye be not flothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promife. Next, from the latter end of the 5th chapter; where we difcern what gave occafion to this exhortation; there diftinguishing Christians into two classes, babes and strong men, i. e. perfect and imperfect, he describes both at large thus: For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God, and are become fuch as have need of milk, and not of Strong meat; for every one that ufeth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness; for be 5 is a babe, but strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their fenfes exercised to discern both good and evil. And tho' here the apostle seems more immediately to regard the perfection of knowledge; yet the perfection of righteousness must never, in the lan guage of the fcripture, be separated from it. Much the fame remark must I add concerning the integrity of righteousness, and the Chriftians progress or advance in it. The the fcripture, when it speaks of Perfection, doth sometimes more directly refer to the one, and sometimes to the other; yet we must ever suppose that they do mutually imply and include one another; fince otherwise the notion of Perfection would be extremely maimed and incompleat. I will infift therefore no longer on the use of the words Perfect and Perfection in fcripture: but as a further proof that my notion of Perfection is truly fcriptural, I will shew, 2. That the utmost height, to which the fcripture exhorts us, is nothing more than a steady habit of holiness; that the brighteft characters it gives of the perfect man, the lovelieft defcriptions it makes us of the perfectest state, are all made up of the natural and confeffed properties of a ripe babit. There is no controverfy that I know of, about the nature of a habit, every man's experience instructs him in the whole philofophy of it; we are all agreed, that it is a kind of fecond nature, that it makes us exert our selves with defire and earnestness, with fatisfaction and pleasure; that it renders us fixed in our choice, and conftant in our actions, and almost as averse to those things which are repugnant to it, as we are to those which are diftafteful and disagreeable to our nature. And that, in a word, it so entirely and abfolutely poffeffes the man, that the power of it is not to be refifted, nor the empire of it to be shaken off; nor can it be removed and extirpated without the greatest labour and difficulty imginable. All this is a confess'd and almost palpable truth in habits of fin: and there is no reason why we should not ascribe the fame force and efficacy to habits of virtue; especially if we confider that the strength, easiness, and pleasure which belong naturally to thefe habits, receive no small accession from the fupernatural energy and vigour of the Holy Spirit. I will therefore in a few words shew how that state of righteousness which the fcripture invites us to, as our Perfection, directly answers this account I have given of an habit. man's creature, |