ied the faith, and is worfe than an infidel, r Tim. v. 8. what must he be that provides not for his own foul? 2. Whatever thoughts, words, or actions, have no usefulness or fubferviency to one or other of thefe ends, are finful; by the law of God and naure this holds true. If we do, fpeak, or think ny thing that has no tendency to promote either our temporal or eternal happiness, then in fo doing we fin against God; we throw away these powers of fpeaking, thinking and acting, upon that which God never defigned them for, and this is a manifeft abuse of a talent beftowed by God. The Lord complains of Jerufalem's indulging vain thoughts, Jer. iv, 14. O Jerufalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be faved: how long shall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee? 3. Much of our fitnefs or unfitnefs for profecuting thefe ends, depends upon the right or wrong management of our youth. Idlenefs, vitioufnefs and folly, in our childhood, has a tendency to incapacitate us in our riper years, for profecuting the defigns of our being. Childhood and youth are, as it were, a formatory, calm or mould wherein men are caft; and fuch ufually do they continue to be, as they then have been formed; which lets us fee how much depends upon the right management of children, of which the wife-man was well aware, as we fee Prov. xxii. 6. Train up a child, fays he by the fpirit of God, in the way he fhould go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. 4. Thefe actions in children which people overlook generally, and judge fcarce culpable, yet are upon a double account evil; firft, in that they flow from a bitter root that cannot bring forth good fruit; I mean that curfed biafs and depravity of nature, which prompts to evil, to that only, and that continually: and then, because they have a tendency to incapacitate for the future. An ill habit contracted when young, cannot foon be worn off. Nay, unlefs grace do interpofe, and that with more than ordinary influences, fome vitious habits contracted in youth, can by no pains or endeavours be laid afide. Had man's nature remained incorrupt, as it was in Adam, then certainly thefe follies and extravagancies, into which generally childhood and youth are precipitate, had not been known; there fhould not any of these vitious inclinations have been found, which are now the bane of youth and of childhood. 5. We premise this, That the law of God is exceeding broad and extenfive, Pfal. cxix. 96. I have feen an end of all perfection, but thy commandment is exceeding broad. Some people do ftrangely in their deluded apprehenfions narrow the law of God. There is a general mistake here; few, very few, do believe how extenfive it is; and therefore moft part are clean and pure in their own eyes, though they be not washed from their iniquities. But David, a man according to God's own heart, a man instructed of God in the fpiritual meaning of God's law, entertained other thoughts and apprehenfions of the matter: he found it exceeding broad and extenfive: For, (1.) it extends to words and thoughts as well as to actions. Many of you do, it may be, dream that if ye do no abominably wicked action, though ye live in a courfe of vain and idle thoughts and words, it is no matter: but deceive not yourfelves in this matter; for God judges otherwife. Indeed his word has told us, That he will bring every work work into judgment, Ecclef. xii. 14.. For God hall bring every work into judgment, with every fecret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil. But he has no where told us, that words and thoughts. fhall go free. Nay, upon the contrary, he has exprefly told us, that we must give an account of idle words, Matt. xii. 36, 37. But I fay unto you, faith the Amen and faithful witness, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment; for by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned. And in that forecited Jer. iv. 14. the removal of vain thoughts is indifpenfably required in order to the falvation of Jerufalem; which fays plainly, that an indulged course of them would inevitably ruine: for as the fpirit of God tells us, Prov. xxiv. 9. The thoughts of foolishness is fin. And indeed no wonder it is that they be repute fo by God the fearcher of the hearts, who knows the thoughts afar off; and be condemned by that word that is a difcerner of the thoughts of the heart, fince all evil flows from the thought, words and actions being but indications of the thoughts of the heart. And therefore, when Simon Magus is reproved by the apostle Peter in that 8th of the Acts, for his wicked defire to buy the holy Ghoft, or rather the power of conferring the gift of the holy Ghoft by, the impofition of hands, he is not rebuked for his words, though he fpoke it, but for his thoughts, because it was there fin began. Acts viii. 20. But Peter faid to him, thy money perifh with thee, becaufe thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchafed with money. Thou haft neither part nor lot in this matter; for thy heart is not right in the fight of God. Repent therefore of this thy wickedness; and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee. (2.) The law of God is broad, in that it extends to all forts of actions; not only to thefe which immediately respect God, and thefe which immediately refpect our neighbour or ourselves; but even to our natural actions, eating and drinking, and to our plowing, or fowing, or the like, which cannot fo eafily be reduced to any of these other claffes: for we are told by the fpirit of God, that the plowing of the wicked is fin, Prov. xxi. 4. (3.) The broadnefs of God's law is confpicuous in its reaching all forts of perfons, young and old, rich and poor, high and low. All forts of perfons are bound to their duty by the law of God, children as well as others: and a deviation from it is taken notice of, even with refpect to children. We are told of their coming into the world in fin, of their being fhapen in fin, of their being estranged from the womb, and going aftray as foon as born, and of their dying for their fin. Behold, I was fhapen in iniquity, and in fin did my mother conceive me, fays the man who had made God his truft from his youth up, Pfal. li. 5. And in that 58th Pfalm, we are told, that the wicked go aftray in infancy. The wicked are estranged from the very womb, they go aftray as foon as they be born. And the apoftle in that 5th to the Romans, from the 12 ver. proves even infants to be finners, by their fharing in thefe calamities which are the confequents of fin: but this could not be, unless the law of God did extend unto, and even bind children as well as others. A fenfe of this extent of the law of God, even to children, made blessed Auguftine, in that firft book of his Confeffions, Cap. 7. bitterly lament, and bewail the fins of his 66 childhood, even thofe which are laught at by moft; fuch as, untowardness and unwillingness to receive what was good for him, but even in that age, meaning his infancy, does he fay, "Was it not ill and fin, to feek with tears what "would have proven hurtful to me if it had been given to be angry with these who were no ways obliged to be under my command, be"cause they would not obey me? Nay, that even " my parents would not obey me. Was it not "ill, that I endeavoured to strike even those who were every way my fuperiors, because they "would not obey me in these things wherein they could not have given obedience without "hurt either to me or fome other?" Thus we fee this holy man looks upon these things as fins, which are commonly laught at by others as inno cent; and if God would give us fuch a difcovery of the wickedness of our natures, and of the extent of the law, as was given to him, then we would think fo too. But the truth of this might be proven at great length, were it requifite to fay any more than what has already been alleged. 6. In fpeaking to every one of these three forts of perfons, we may have occafion to name many fins; and therefore, we fhall here at once prove all the particulars we shall name under any of thefe heads to be fin, because it would divert us and detain us too long, to infist under every head, in adducing arguments, to prove every one of the particulars we are about to mention, to be finful. Now, that they are all fuch, ye will not queftion, if ye carry along, with what has been already faid, thefe three unquestionable fcripture truths. (1.) That whatever is done, thought or faid, by one whofe heart is not renewed by grace, |