Manton has been running argument of his sermon along the twin lines of grace and law. The law condemns and will drive is to despair. “We may lull the soul asleep with carnal delights, but the virtue of that opium will soon be spent.” Judgment will come despite any efforts here to hold it off.

But there is grace which offers two blessings, “pardon and life, reconciliation with God and everlasting fruition of him in glory.”

In this, Christianity gives what is most to be sought

The business of religion is to provide sufficiently for two things, which have much troubled the considering part of the world;—a suitable happiness for mankind, and suitable means for the expiation of sin. Happiness is our great desire, and sin is our great burden and trouble. Now these are fully made known and discovered to us by the Christian faith. The last is that we are upon,—the way how the grand scruple of the world may be satisfied, and their guilty fears appeased; and that we may see the excellency of the Christian religion above all religions in the world, it offers pardon upon such terms as are most commodious to the honour of God, and most satisfactory to our souls; that is, upon the account of Christ’s satisfaction and our own repentance, without which our case is not compassionable. The first I will chiefly insist on.