The sovereign and final happiness of man with the effectual means to obtain itThe soveraign and final happiness of man with the effectual means to obtain it

For the Apostle tells us, that if those who were enlightened, and had tasted of the Heavenly Gift, that had been under some common Workings and lower Operations of the Spirit, if such fall away universally, and live in a course of Sin opposite to their former illuminations and resolutions, it is impossible to renew them by Repentance; how much more then if those who were truly sanctified by the holy Spirit, should entirely lose all those gracious habits planted in them in their Regeneration? But David, though guilty of Adultery and Murder, Sins of so foul a Nature as would dishonour Paganism it self, and made the Enemies of God to blaspheme, was restored by Repentance. The Gospel propounds a remedy not only for Sins committed before Conversion, but after it. If any Man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous. God does not revoke the Adoption, nor reverse the Justification of a Believer: but upon scandalous disorders, a Pardon is not granted with respect to the new contracted Guilt, till there be sincere and actual Repentance. He is not disinherited, but his right to the Kingdom ⟨p. 152⟩of Heaven is eclipsed as to the comfortable sense of it, nay suspended, till by renovation he is qualified and made fit for the enjoyment of that pure Inheritance. For those Sins which are a just cause of excommunicating an Offender from the Church on Earth, would exclude him from the Kingdom of Heaven without Repentance. Our Saviour tells us, what is bound on Earth is ratified in Heaven. And the Apostle expressly declares of those kinds of Sin for which Professors must be removed from the Communion of Saints here, that they are an exclusive bar from the Kingdom of Heaven. But I have written to you, ¹not to keep Company, if any that is called a Brother be a Fornicator, or Covetous, or an Idolater, or a Railer, or a Drunkard, or an Extortioner: with such a one, no not to eat. And know ye not that the Unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God? ²Be not deceived: neither Fornicators, nor Idolaters, nor Adulterers, nor Effeminate, nor Covetous, nor Drunkards, nor Revilers, nor Extortioners, shall inherit the Kingdom of God. If one that is truly a Child of God fall into any of these Sins, till by an extraordinary ⟨p. 153⟩