carrying away your fubftance? and even thefe which are moft ferviceable, and feem to retain fomething of their refpect to man, fometime their Lord, do they not rebel? Doth not the horse fometime throw his rider, the ox gore his owner? This man has loft his honour; nay, now he who once did reign, is become fin's flave, and thereby falls under the lashes of fin and Satan's flaves. This, O finner, is a part of your punishment.

4. This yet will not fatisfy juftice. God purfues the quarrel to posterity. I am a jealous God,says he in the threatening annexed to the third com mand, vifiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children. Rebels children fuffer with the fathers in all nations; and fhall not rebellion against God be as feverely punished, as that which is against an earthly fovereign? If an Achan fteal a Babylonish garment, and fin against the God of Ifrael, then he and his whole family fhall fall, man wife, and child: nay, and the very houfholdftuff, his ox and his affes. God will pursue the quarrel to a dreadful length. You may fee this terrible tragedy defcribed by God, in that 7 chap. of Joth. from the 24 ver. God will fpare nothing that finners have/ufed. Because finners have trode upon this earth, it must undergo the fire at the laft day, before it can be freed from the bondage of corruption. O finners, ye tranfmit a fad legacy to your wretched pofterity! a legacy of which the diftreffed church, Lam. v. 7. heavily complains, Our fathers have finned and are not, and we have born their iniquities.

5. Once more; God purfues his quarrel yet further. He will have your names eternally ruined. The memory of the wicked shall rot, Prov.x. 7. After he has killed your bodies, and fouls, and

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children, and ruined your eftates, then he will kill your names that there fhall no rememberance of you be upon the earth, unless it be the stench of a rotten name. Thus will the Lord deal with you, O finners. The whirlwind of the Lord, that goes forth with fury, will blow away all your enjoyments, turn you out of all your poffeffions. The Lord will banish you his presence. That almighty arm that stretched out the heavens, will tear your fouls from your bodies, and throw you headlong into perdition: the weight of infinite wrath will fink you down into the bottomless pit; and omnipotence will dig a grave for your memory, wherein it will eternally rot. For the greatnefs of your iniquity ye may expect this. This is thy lot, the portion of thy measure from me, faith the Lord, becaufe thou haft forgotten me and trufted in falfhood, Jer. xiii. 25. This is the fatisfaction God requires: and think on it; this way will he be glorified in your ruin, if ye continue in'your fins.

I have at fome length proved you all to be offenders, that God demands a reparation, and what that reparation is, which he doth demand of his injured honour, I have at fome length made appear; I now proceed, according to the method propofed,

V. To demonftrate the reasonableness of this demand. I have fhewn your ways to be most unequal; now I come to fhew that God's ways are moft equal, and that he acts very reasonably, in demanding fo high: and this will appear to the conviction of the most obftinate finner, if the confiderations we offer for clearing this be duly weighed. And,

1. Let it be confidered, That fin deferves fuch a punishment; and therefore it is very just to inflict

it. Nay, I might perhaps run this a little higher, and affert that therefore it would be unjust to require any lefs, any more eafy punishment. That fin deferves it, is very plain, if we confider,

1. Against whom it ftrikes. This is the way of measuring offences agreed to all the world over, that the meafure fhould be taken from the confideration of those against whom they strike. This we may obferve in the laws of God, which enjoin that offences fhall be punished according to the quality and condition of the offenders and the offended. The daughter of the high priest, if she committed uncleannefs, was to be burned without mercy, Lev.xxi. 9. fo was not every one who was guilty in that way. Again, he that curfeth his father and mother is adjudged to die, Lev. xx. 9. fo was not he that curfeth his equal. The fame measure is kept in our laws: if one kills his equal, then he dies; but there doth not thereby redound any injury to his pofterity; but if a man kills the king, makes any attempt against the government, then life, lands, name and all goes. Now, if we confider in this cafe the quality of the offender, a poor mean worm, that dwells in cottages of clay, that has his foundation in the duft, that is crush ́ed before the moth, that holds all of God: And then on the other hand, confider him who is of fended by every fin, not a prince, or fome great man, who is but flesh and blood at the beft; but the high and lofty one that inhabits eternity, he who is a great God, and a great king, above all the earth: behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the fmall duft of the balance: behold, he taketh up the ifles as a very little thing: and Lebanon is not fufficient to burn, nor the beafts thereof fufficient for a burnt-offering. All nations before

before him are as nothing, and they are counted to him less than nothing and vanity. To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him? There is no proportion here, Now, if it deferves fo fevere a punishment that is committed against man, what must it not deserve that is committed against this God? As it were injurious to compare God to man; fo it is injurious to compare the demerit of any offence committed against man, and the demerit of that which is committed against the great God.

2. Confider the damage that fin doth; and then we will fee what fin deferves: we will fee that the terrible punishment we have been difcourfing of, is nothing too fevere. If we confider man with refpect to the creatures that are under hin, the inanimate part of the creation, and the brutes; he was appointed to be their mouth, by which they thould pay homage to their Creator; he was to be their treasurer, to pay in a revenue of glory for them to their Creator and governor: but man by fin puts himself out of ali capacity for this; he lays an ill example before his fellow creatures. But all this is nothing when compared with the injury he doth to God by every fin. This, if throughly and well understood, would for ever clear the juftice of God, in punithing fin with eternal punishment. True it is indeed what Elihu fays, If thou finnest, what dost thou against him? or if thy tranfgreffions be multiplied what doft thou unto him? Job xxxv. 6. That is to fay, God lies beyond our reach; we cannot by our fins detract from, as neither can we by our holinefs add to his happiness; but this is no proof that we do him no injury. A rebel clapt up in prifon, or in the hand of the king's guard, is not

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able to reach the prince's perfon, nor render him dissatisfied; yet he may then injure him, and doth it, when he unjustly reflects upon his government. Juft fo is it with finners: indeed they cannot scale the walls of heaven, they are not able to climb over the eternal ramparts, which raife the fence of the Almighty's facred throne, and there ftab his person; but yet they injure him in his name and honour, and even in his life, by every fin: it is intended murder; and this is death by the laws of God and man. That among men it is not always punished fo, is only becaufe it is not always difcovered; for when it is difcovered by words, or overt, though ineffectual, actions, it is punished. Every fin fpits upon God's holiness, tramples upon his authority, brands his wifdom with folly, denies his goodness, and braves, and gives a defiance to his power: what punishment then can be too great for this? Now fure, (3.) Sin deferves it, if we confider the obligations that are by every fin trampled upon. Every one will own that the fins of children against their parents, of fervants against their mafters, of fubjects against their lord, and the wives against their husbands, are fins of a black hue, a crimfon dy, and deserve therefore a very fevere punishment; and accordingly are fo punished in all nations: but all thefe obligations are none to what we all ly under to God; fo that there is more perfidy, falfhood, and treachery in all our fins against God, than in any of thefe: therefore, it is but juft that there fhould be a proportion kept bewixt the offences and the punishment.

4. That fin deferves fuch a punishment, is the judgment of God; and we know that his judgment is always according to truth. It is not the