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We must begin our religion then as we would end it. Our acceptance with God, first and last, must rest entirely on the work finished by Jesus Christ on the cross: or we must betake ourselves to what many call the religion of nature, and what God warrants us to call the religion of pride, as being no less opposite to the law nature, than to the Gospel.
"I frankly acknowledge, then that my religion, or my hope toward God, is not founded on argument, not on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God;-not on any deductions from any principles I had hitherto known: but on authority interposed in a manner quite unexpected, baffling, confounding, and repelling all my reasonings; and if I may be allowed the expression, forcing upon me a new set of principles, by the most convincing and satisfactory, as well as irresistible evidence;-not on any reasonings a priori, but on a plain matter of fact, established by impregnable evidence;- not on any effort exerted, or any motion felt on my breast, but on that motion of divine power, which burst the hands of death when Jesus Rose;-not on any operation which men call mystical, to avoid saying unintelligible, but on the simplest and most striking operation of power that can affect the human mind, even the presenting alive again a man who was dead,-not on feeling any change on my heart to the better, or the remotest good inclination of my will, forced upon me the most shocking view of my guilt, and proved proved me to be an enemy to Heaven, in that respect wherein I thought to have approved and valued myself to my last hour;-not on a work of power assisting me to feel, will, or do anything,in order to peace with God, but on a work of power, proving to demonstration, that everything needful thereto is already completely finished;-to say all in one word, not on any difference betwixt me and others, or any token for good about me whatsoever, but on the token or proof of divine good-will expressed, in the resurrection of Jesus, toward the sinners of all nations, without regard to any difference by which one man can distinguish himself from another."