unconcerned to prevent it and flie from it? The moft SERM. dull and ftupid creatures will start back upon the CLXXII. fight of prefent danger. Balaam's afs, when the faw the angel of the LORD ftanding in the way, with his fword drawn ready to fmite her, ftarts afide, and could not be urged on. Now God hath given us, not only fenfe to apprehend a prefent evil, but reason and confideration to look before us, and to discover dangers at a distance, to apprehend them as certainly, and with as clear a conviction of the reality of them, as if they threatened us the next moment: and will any confiderate man, who hath calculated the dangerous events of fin, and the dreadful effects of God's wrath upon finners, go on to "provoke "the LORD to jealoufy, as if he were stronger than "he?" It is not to be imagined, but that if men would feriously confider what fin is, and what fhall be the fad portion of finners hereafter, they would refolve upon a better course. Would any man live in the lufts of the flesh, and of intemperance, or out of covetoufnefs defraud or opprefs his neighbour, did he seriously confider, that "GOD is the 66 avenger of fuch;" and that "because of these things the wrath of GoD comes upon the chil"dren of difobedience."

I fhould have great hopes of mens repentance and reformation, if they could but once be brought to confideration: for in moft men it is not fo much a pofitive difbelief of the truth, as inadvertency and want of confideration, that makes them to go on fo fecurely in a finful courfe. Would but men confider what fin is, and what will be the fearful confequence of it, probably in this world, but most certainly in the other, they could not chufe but fly from it as the greatest evil in the world.

And

SERM.

And to fhew what power and influence confideraCLXXII. tion will probably have to bring men to repentance, and a change of their lives, I remember to have fomewhere met with a very remarkable story, of one that had a fon that took bad courses, and would not be reclaimed by all the good counsel his father could give him; at last coming to his father, who lay upon his death-bed, to beg his bleffing, his father inftead of upbraiding him with his bad life, and undutiful carriage towards him, spake kindly to him, and told him he had but one thing to defire of him, that every day he would retire and spend one quarter of an hour alone by himself; which he promised his father faithfully to do, and made it good. After a while it grew tedious to him, to spend even fo little time in fuch bad and uneafy company, and he began to bethink himself, for what reafon his father fhould fo earnestly defire of him to do fo odd a thing for his fake, and his mind presently fuggefted to him, that it was to enforce him to confideration; wifely judging that if by any means he could but bring him to that, he would foon reform his life and become a new man. And the thing had its defired effect, for after a very little confideration, he took up a firm refolution to change the course of his life, and was true to it all his days. I cannot anfwer for the truth of the story, but for the moral of it I will; namely, that confideration is one of the best and most likely means in the world, to bring a bad man to a better mind. I now come to the

IV. and last particular, namely, That the want of this confideration is one of the greatest causes of mens ruin. And this likewife is implied in the text; and the reason why GoD does fo vehemently desire that men would be wife ond confider, is, becaufe fo many

are

are ruined and undone for want of it. This is the SERM. defperate folly of mankind, that they feldom think CLXXII. feriously of the confequence of their actions, and least of all of fuch as are of greatest concernment to them, and have the chief influence upon their eternal condition. They do not confider what mischief and inconvenience a wicked life may plunge them into in this world, what trouble and disturbance it may give them when they come to die; what horror and confufion it may fill them withal when they are leaving this world, and paffing into eternity; and what intolerable mifery and torment it may bring upon them to all eternity. Did men ponder and lay to heart death and judgment, heaven and hell; and would they but let their thoughts dwell upon these things, it is not credible that the generality of men could lead fuch profane and impious, fuch leud and diffolute, fuch fecure and careless lives as they do.

Would but a man frequently entertain his mind with fuch thoughts as thefe; I must shortly die and leave this world, and then all the pleasures and enjoyments of it will be to me as if they had never been, only that the remembrance of them, and the ill use I have made of them, will be very bitter and grievous to me; after all, death will tranfmit me out of this world, into a quite different ftate and scene of things, into the prefence of that great and terrible, that inflexible and impartial judge, who will "ren"der to every man according to his works ;" and then all the evils which I have done in this life, will rise up in judgment against me, and fill me with everlafting confufion, in that great affembly of men and angels, will banish me from the prefence of GOD, and all the happiness which flows from it, and procure a dreadful fentence of unspeakable mifery and

torment

SER M. torment to be paft upon me, which I can never get CLXXII. reversed, nor yet ever be able to stand under the weight of it. If men would but enter into the serious confideration of these things, and pursue these thoughts to fome iffue and conclufion, they would take up other refolutions; and I verily believe, that the want of this hath ruined more than even infidelity itself. And this I take to be the meaning of that question in the Pfalmift, "Have all the workers of iniquity "no knowledge?" that is, no confideration; intimating that if they had, they would do better.

All that now remains, is to purfuade men to apply their hearts to this piece of wisdom, to look before them, and to think seriously of the confequence of their actions, what will be the final iffue of that course of life they are engaged in; and if they continue in it, what will become of them hereafter, what will become of them for ever.

And here I might apply this text, as God here does to the people of Ifrael, to the publick condition of this nation, which is not fo very unlike to that of the people of Ifrael: for GOD feems to have chofen this nation for his more peculiar people, and hath exercised a very particular providence towards us, in conducting us through that wilderness of confusion, in which we have been wandring for the fpace of above forty ears; and when things were come to the last extremity, and we feemed to ftand upon the very brink of ruin, "Then (as it is faid of the people of Ifrael, ver. 36. of this chapter) "GOD

repented himself for his fervants, when he faw "their power was gone:" that is, that they were utterly unable to help themselves, and to work their own deliverance. And it may be faid of us, as Mofes does of that people, chap. xxxiii. 29. Happy

"Happy art thou, O Ifrael, O people faved by the SERM. LORD, the fhield of thy help, and who is the CLXXII. "fword of thy excellency!" Never did any nation struggle with, and get through so many and fo great difficulties, as we have feveral times done.

And I fear we have behaved ourselves towards GOD, not much better than the people of Ifrael did, but like Jefurun, after many deliverances and great mercies, "have waxed fat and kicked, have forsaken "the GOD that made us, and little esteemed the "rock of our falvation;" by which we have "pro"voked the LORD to jealoufy," and have as it were forced him to multiply his judgments, and to spend his arrows upon us, and "to hide his face from "us, to fee what our end will be;" fo that we have reason to fear, that God would have brought utter ruin and destruction upon us, and "fcattered us in"to corners, and made the remembrance of us to "have ceased from among men, had he not feared "the wrath of the enemy, and left the adverfaries "fhould have behaved themselves ftrangely, and left

they should fay, our hand is high, and the LORD "hath not done all this;" that is, left they should afcribe this just vengeance of GOD upon a finful and unthankful nation to the goodness and righteoufness of their own caufe, and to the favour and affiftance of the idols and falfe gods whom they worshiped, to the patronage and aid of the virgin Mary and the faints; to whom, contrary to the will and command of the true God, they had offer'd up fo many prayers and vows, and payed the greatest part of their religious worship. But the LORD hath fhewn

himself greater than all gods, and in the things "wherein they dealt proudly, that he is above them : VOL. IX.

T

" for