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the Lord as great delight in burnt-offerings and facrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than facrifice, and to hearken than the fat frams, 1 Sam. xv. 22. But this yet is not all: we charge you,

5. With rebellion. Every finner is a rebel against God, he cafts off the yoke of God, bursts the bonds of obedience, and takes up rebellious arms against God the great Sovereign of the world. Rebellion is a name fo odious, that the unjust imputation of it has been made frequently like the wild beafts fkins with which fome primitive perfecutors clothed the faints of the most high, that thereby they might fet upon them the dogs to tear them. Men have been termed rebels, and had this note of infamy put upon them, for difosbeying the unlawful and impious commands of men; while difobedience to the commands of God has got a more mild and favourable name; while duty has been called rebellion, the highest acts of rebellion against the moft high God, poffeffor of heaven and earth; fuch as drunkenness, fwearing, perfecution, have been horribly mifcalled by the appropriation of foft names; the drunkard has been called a good-fellow, the fwearer a gentleman, and the perfecutor a loyalist. But God will take care to have these abules rectified, and to have things called by their right names, and then fin, and only fin will be found to be rebellion; and this we charge upon you. And that we have ground to affert every fin rebellion, you may foon fee, if you confider that, 1 Sam. iii. 14, 15. If ye will fear the Lord, and ferve him, and obey his voice, and not rebel against the commandment of the Lord, then fhall both ye and alfo the king that reigneth over you, continue following the Lord

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your God. But if ye will not obey the voice of the Lord, but rebel against the commandment of the Lord, then fhall the hand of the Lord be against you, as it was against your fathers. Thus you fee, obeying and not rebelling, disobeying and rebelling, are plainly the fame thing in God's account : God ufes them fo; if ye obey and rebel not, if you difobey and rebel. This then is one branch of the charge we now manage against you. In God's name we accufe you of rebellion, when we accufe you of fin; for, as you have juft now heard, rebellion or fin is in fcripture account, and therefore in God's account, one and the fare, and how hainous this crime is, we find the fpirit of God telling us in that 1 Sam. xv. 23. Rebellion is as the fin of witchcraft. Once more,

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6. We charge murder upon you. An hard charge, will you fay, if it be well proven. A charge, which if it be made good against us, we deferve by the law of God and man to die. Well, as difficult as you may think it, we fhall make it good againft every foul of you, and that after this manner. You have finned, and every finner is à murderer; and that the worst of murderers. Well might the wife man fay, Ecclef. ix. 18. One finner deftroyeth much good: For, (1.) he murders his own foul by it. What is faid of adultery is indeed applicable to every fin, Prov. xvi. 32. He that doth it destroyeth his own foul, and fo is guilty of that worft of wickednefs felf-murder. He flays a foul and not a body only, who commits fin. (2.) He is in his difpofition a murderer of God, who commits fin; this is plain if you confider two feriptures, 1 John iii. 5. it is afferred that hatred is murder, Whosoever bateth his brother is a murderer; and ye know that no murder

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er hath eternal life. And Rom. viii. 7. The carnal mind is enmity against God. the natural. man in the ftate wherein he is born is a hater, an enemy of God; and therefore in God's account a murderer of God; for indeed he that hates one, forbears murdering only for want either of opportunity, or power, or fecrecy, or some fuch like advantage. Now, every fin is the product of that natural enmity, the fruit which grows on the carnal mind; and therefore muft partake of the nature of the root, must have enmity or hatred against God in it, and implies a judging him unworthy of a being. That principle of enmity that inclines and prompts, man to fin, to tread upon God's law, would excite him to destroy God, were it poffible; every fin aims at no lefs than the life of God. We fay not that every, or any finner doth intend the deftruction of God, but that it is the aim of every fin. A man in every fin aims at the advancement of his own will above that of God's: and could the finner at.. tain his end, God would be destroyed; for God cannot furvive his will. He can as foon outlive his being as his glory, and he that aims at the one, aims at the other alfo; and this is the cafe of every finner. Now I have made it good, That every fin has murder in it; and confequently that all who have finned, as ye all have done, have committed murder, and that of the worst fort, felfmurder, foul-murder; nay, and God-murder: and if the blood of the body of another fhall be required at the hand that sheds it, what do you think will be the cafe of fuch as have fhed the blood of a foul? And if it stand hard with fuch, what will become of the murderer of God? Sure, if fimple murder be avenged, then felf-murder, foul-murder

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will be avenged feven times more; and if foulmurder be fo evil, and bring complicated deftruction upon the guilty, what, O finners, think ye will be the cafe of these who fhall, be found confpirators against the life of God? ~

Now, can ye think the crime alleged against you fmall, after we have a little opened it to you? fure he who will, must be totally deftitute of all sense of God, or of religion, nay, or reafon. What is grievous and heavy, if the charge of atheism, idolatry, blafphemy, robbery, rebellion and murder be not fo? And we have made it appear that our plea, or rather God's plea against you, amounts to no lefs. But this is far from being all that we have to fay in the juftification of God, and for your condemnation: thefe fins have,

Thirdly, Aggravations as dreadful and guiltenhancing as they themselves are great and monftrous. You have finned, and confequently are guilty of atheism, idolatry, blafphemy, robbery, rebellion and murder: but not fimply of these abominations, as in themselves; but as they are attended with a great many fearful and killing aggravations, which add extremely to the fcore of the provocations, being as it were fo many cyphers put behind the figures, which though in themselves they be nothing, yet put behind they fwell the number to a prodigious greatness.

1. All these evils you have done, notwithstanding a great many notable helps you received against fin. Not to speak of what you had in Adam, perfect ftrength, perfect will, and perfect happiness; you have not only finned in him againft all thefe, but you who are here present, have finned againft many notable means aford. ed you of God for your prefervation from in, (1.) You

(1.) You have finned in the face of all the dreadful threatenings of God's vengeance against it. You have finned under the very thunderings of mount Sinai. And when the flames of hell have out of the threatenings of God been staring you in the face, even then you have dared to provoke the moft high, flighting all these formidable evidences of his anger. (2.) You have finned against dreadful examples or inftances of the judgment of God against offenders. You have as it were feen your companions turned into hell, and yet you have persisted in the crimes for which they were ferved fo. Say now, who of you in some one remarkable inftance or other, has not feen the judgments of God against fin and finners? Sure our land has of late afforded remarkable instances not a few. Have you not feen fome out of a fever of luft fall into fickness, and out of this drop into the bottomlefs abyss of the fcorching wrath of God? and notwithstanding all this you have finned on, and have not guarded against fin. (3.) You have finned contrary to great and precious gospel promifes; thefe great and precious promiles, that are breafts full of light, full of life, confolation and ftrength; full of spiritual fupplies for ftrengthening poor men against the affaults of fin. (4.) You have finned against the glorious gofpel ordinances, all of which are defigned for the deftructionand ruin of fin, and are the pipes through which the fupplies contained in the promises are conveyed to the Lord's people. (5.) You have finned against all the strivings of the fpirit of God with you, in ordinances and providences; and confequently have refifted the holy Ghost in your fins. (6.) You have finned against that fovereign ordipance of God, the antitype of the brazen ferpent

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