fober person will flee from, and shun as a pest, the company of fuch an one. But why? what is the matter? what is there fo odious in thefe crimes, that every one flees from the perfon guilty of them? there is fin in them, and hence it is they are so hateful: and the only thing that distinguisheth these from others, is, that they have differ. ent circumftantial aggravations: for in the nature of fin they all do agree, the least and the greatest; the least fin ftrikes at the holy law of God, contemns the authority of the great and fupreme Lawgiver, as well as the greatest doth. And if fin be fo odious when you get a fuller view of it, as it were, in these large, these great and crying provocations, it is no less fo when it is less perceptible in these fins which quadrate better with our vitiated and corrup ted natures; for indeed the difference among fins, as to greater and less, lies not fo much in the nature of the fins, as in their different refpects to our understanding, arifing from the objects about which they were converfant. But, if after all these views of fin, your eyes are so blinded that you cannot fee it, then come to take a view of it,

7. In the case of the damned. Here, here you may have a ftrange, and heart-affecting view of fin's ugly face. See the poor wretches lying in bundles, boiling eternally in that stream of brimstone, roaring under the intolerable, and yet eternal anguish of their spirits. Take a furvey of them in this lamentable posture. If you fhould see some hundreds of men, women, and children, all thrown alive into burning pitch or melted lead, would not th's prefent you with a fad fcene of misery and woe? would not this be a difmal fight? indeed it would be fo. But all this is nothing to the unfpeakable mifery of the devils and damned, who have fallen into the hands of the living and finrevenging God, and are laid in chains of maffy and thick darkness, eternally depreffed and funk into the bottomless depth of the wrath of God, and choaked with the fteam of that lake of fire and brimstone; and have every faculty of their foul, every joint of their body, brim-full of the fury of the eternal God: behold, and wonder at this terrible and astonishing fight; and in this take a view of fin. Were hell now opened, and faw you the damned in chains of darkness, and if you heard their dreadful yelling, and found the team of the bottomlefs pit, ye would then in

every fenfe get fome difcovery of fin. It is only fin that has kindled that dreadful and inextinguishable fire of wrath, and caft the damned into it; and it is fin that holds them there, and torments them there. If you had but a just impreffion of these things, how hateful would it be to you? And if, after all that has been said, you still imagine that fin is not fo bad as we would reprefent it, then come once more, and take a view of it,

8. In the fufferings of Chrift. Here is a glafs, O criminals wherein you may fee your own face. You think it a little thing that you have finned; nay, it may be, you roll fin as a fweet morfel under your tongues." But come here, and fee what a thing it is which you thus dreadfully mistake! Come fee it holding the fword; O ftrange! nay more, thrusting it into Chrift's fide! Here, finners, is a fight that made the earth to tremble, and the fun to hide his face, as we fee, Matth. xxvii. 51. Luke xxiii. 45. In this glafs you may fee, (1.) What God's thoughts of fin are. So highly oppofite to his nature is it, that the bowels of affection he had to the Son of his love, whom he fo highly honoured, when the voice came from the excellent glory, faying, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleafed," were not able to hold up the band of inexorable juftice from firiking at him, nay, ftriking him dead, for the fin of the elect world. Would not

that be a great proof think ye, of the averfion of a parent to any thing, if he would rather choofe to flay his fon, nay his only fon, his fou whom he loved moft tenderly, than it fhould efcape a mark of his difpleafure? (2.) Here you may fee more of the pollution of fin than any where else. Never was there any thing that gave so just apprehenfions of the ftain of fin, as the death of Christ. An ingrained pollution it must indeed be, if no lefs will wash it out than the blood of God. (3) Here is a dreadful evidence of the power of fin. Never did this more appear, than when it blinded the eyes of the degenerate fons of men, fo far that they could not difcern" the glory of the only-begotten of the Father, who was fo full of grace and truth," whole divine nature daily beamed, as it were, through that of his human, in miraculous operations, works, and words, which none but God could do, but God could fpeak." And no lefs was the power of fin feen, when it hurried men headE

long

long into that heaven-daring pitch of impiety, to imbrue their hands in the blood of God. O finners! would you fee what fin is look at it with its hands reeking in the gore aud blood of God, and tell what you think of it.

Bat it is like, fome of you may fay, What is this to the purpofe? This is not the fin we are guilty of. We have never imbrued our hands in the blood of God, and so herein we cannot fee our crimes. This makes nothing to that which now you are doing, the unfolding the heinous nature of that crime you now implead us as guilty of before God. To this we answer,

(1.) Should we grant what is alleged as to your innocency in this matter, to be true, yet herein there is much of the nature of your fin to be feen, fince it partakes of the common nature of fin, with that of the murder of God; and fince it is every way equal to, if not that very fame, against which God did evidence his hatred in fo wonderful a manner, in the death of his only begotten Son, whom he fpared not, but gave to the death, when he laid on him the iniquity of the elect world." But,

(2.) We fay, that very fin lies at your door, O finners! and if you deny it, I would only afk you one question, Dare you hold up your faces, and in the fight of God fay, that you did receive Jefus Chrift the first time ever there was an offer of him made to you? If not, then you are guilty in that you practically fay, that the putting him to death was no crime. You by your practice bear witness to, or affert the juftice of the Jew's quarrel, and bring the blood of God upon your head: and therefore in their crimes you may fee your own. All the world, to whom the gofpel-report comes, muft either be for or against the Jews in their profecution of him; and no otherwife can we give teftimony against them, but by believing the gospel-report of him, that he was indeed the Son of God, the Saviour of the world. In fo far as we refufe a compliance with this, in as far we are guilty of the death of Chrift: for unbelief fubfcribes the Jew's charge against the Son of God, and afferts him an impoftor.

(3.) Either you are believers or unbelievers; if believers, then it was for your very fins that Chrift was killed, it was for your iniquities he was bruifed: " But he was wounded for our trafgreffions, he was bruifed for our ini

quities,

quities, the chaftifement of our peace was upon him, and with his ftripes we are healed. All we like loft fheep have gone aftray: we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all," faith the prophet in the name of the elect, Ifa. liii. 5. 6. If you be unbelievers, then you do not believe the witnefs that Christ gave of himself, that he is the Son of God; and therefore do practically declare him an impoftor, and worthy of death, and fo may fay of yourfelves, with respect to the Jew's cruelty, that when they condemned him, they had your confent to what they did.

Now, what think ye, O criminals! when we have, in thefe eight different glaffes, given you a profpect of the crime we implead you of? Is it not a fearful one? If you be not ftrangely ftupified, fure you must own it fo. But leaft there fhould be any fo blind, as not to difcern what it is we accufe them of, we fhall,

2dly, Proceed to mention fome great evils that are all implied in the leaft fin, in every provocation. This charge which we intend against you is no mean thing. For,

1. It has atheism in it. An atheift, who denies the being of a God, is a monster in nature; a creature fo extremely degenerate, that fome have doubted, whether there ever was, or could be, any of the fons of Adamı fo debauched as in principle to avouch this monstrous untruth. But there are practical atheists, fuch as the apoftle mentions and characterises, Tit. i. 16. " who profefs to know God, but in works deny him, being abominable and difobedient ;" or, as it is in the firft language, "Children of unperfuafion, or unperfuadable, and to every good work reprobate." That there are fuch, none can deny, fince every finner is in fome fort fuch, for every fin has atheism in it. In the 14th and 534 pfalms, we have a defcription of the natural state of man; and look to the fpring of all the impieties, ver. 1. "The fool hath faid In his heart, There is no God ;" and then a train of lamentable practical impieties follow; "they are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doth good." The Pfalmift doth not there difcourfe of fome profligate wretches among the Jews, or of the Gentiles who knew not God, but of the whole race of Adam, Jew and Gentile, as the apoftle proves, in the 10th, 11th,

and

and 12th verfes of this chapter, wherein our text lies, when he adduces teftimonies from this pfalm, to prove all and every one to have finned and come fhort of the glory of God. And indeed the thing proves itself. What! do not we deny his fovereignty, when we violate his laws? Do not we deny and difgrace his holiness, when we cast our filth before his face? And we difparage his wifdom, when we fet up our own will as the rule and guide of our adions. We deny his fufficiency, when we profefs that we find more in fin, or in the creature, than in him. In fine, every fin is a denial of all God's attributes, one way or other; and therefore every fin has atheism in it: fo that our charge against you runs very high, it amounts to no less than an impeachment for atheism: A crime, than which there is not, nor indeed can there be any more odieus for all other diftempers naturally fall in here; they all iffue themselves into this affection: and hence is it, that the atheift is generally fo odious and hateful; and yet even they who hate the atheist most, want not atheism ; and they who will be moft forward to question this truth, that all finners are guilty of atheism, are, it is like, most guilty. This, then, is one branch of the charge laid against you; bat it is not all. For,

2. We charge you all with idolatry. Sinners you are, and every fin hath idolatry in it. How can this be? will you fay, we never worshipped an idol in all'our life, we never bowed at the name of a strange god? we blefs God we were better taught than fo; we were not bred papists nor pagans, but reformed Chriftians, who renounce all idols, and plead for the worship of one God alone. Well, notwithstanding of all this, idolaters you are. What! do you think that only the mere grofs act of idolatry is reputed fuch by the holy God? This certainly flows from your ig norance of him, and of his law. Did you understand either, you would never attempt your own juftification. There is not only outward and grofs idolatry, but there is a more fecret and inward fort of it. A fet of men there were with whom the prophet Ezekiel had to do, who were a formal and punctual in their attendance upon duties, I mean the external duties of religion, as you are: externally in covenant with God they were, as you are: nor is it improbable that they had now abandoned all external idolatry;