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fins, then this new warning, among many others, will be a dreadful aggravation of your guilt. Confider your cafe in time, before it be too late. Are there not many who

were not born for many years after you, and who, it may be, are dead many years ago, and having wrought their work, have got a blessed immortality? yet, it may be to this day, ye know not what fhall become of your fouls. Think, old finners, is it not a wonder that God has given you this warning, after making light of fo many; and will it not be a cutting reflection, if ye fit a warning near the twelfth hour?

Now, children, young men, and fathers, old and young, I have, by an appeal to your own confciences, made good my charge against you, and fixed a great many particular fins upon you. I fhall now proceed,

FOURTHLY, To fhew what fatisfaction that fovereign King, at whofe inflance, and in whofe name, I have impleaded you, requires of all and every one of you. His justice, at any rate, must be fatisfied. It is not congruous to reason, it is not congruous to the holiness, justice, and wildom of the Lawgiver, that fin fhould efcape unpunished, and therefore it is impollible it fhould pass without fome figual and fuitable mark of God's displeasure. He has declared pofitively in his word, he has confirmed it in his providence, that though hand join in hand, the wicked hall not go unpunished," Prov. ix. 21. If angels and men, fhould lay their hands and heads together, unite their wit and their power, they shall not preserve one fin from the marks of God's difpleafure. Some fignal and evi dent token of it will reach fin, wherever it is. There needs no proof of this, after what Chrift has met with. And ye must lay your account with it, that this punish. ment will not be fome petty inconfiderable one. It must be in fome measure fuited to the crimes ye ftand impleaded of. It muft, on the one hand, hold fome proportion to the holiness and purity of that law, you have broken; to the majesty and authority of that God whose authority ye have trampled upon; yea, it must hold fome propor tion to the feveral aggravations of your refpective fins. Lay your account with it, finners, you cannot escape his hands, who is every where : Whether will ye go from his Spirit wirether will ye flee from his presence? If ye afcend

afcend up into heaven, he is there; if ye make your bed in hell, behold he is there; if ye take the wings of the morn ing, and dwell in the uttermoft parts of the fea, even there fhall his hand lead thee, and his right-hand fhall hold thee. If ye fay, Surely the darkness fhall cover you, even the night fhall be light about you; for the darknels hideth not from him, but the night shineth as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to him," Pfal. cxxxix. 7.-12. There is no darkness nor fhadow of death, where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves, Job xxxiv. 22. from his eye, or fecure themselves against the inquiry God will make, or the ftrokes that his almighty arm will inflict. Punished then finners must be. And if ye afk, what fatisfaction will he have of fuch finners? I answer,

1st, He will have you punished in your estates, by a forfeiture of all. You invaded God's poffeffion; he will caft you out of yours, This is the ordinary punishment of rebellion; and we have proven you guilty of rebellion of the worst fort. Man, when God made him, was mafter of a fair eftate. The fons of men now may value themselves upon fome petty tenements which many of them hold by no good right, as we fhall fee anon; but none of them can vie poffeffions with Adam in innocency. He had a paradife replenished with all the rarities of innocent, of uncorrupted nature, all the delicacies which the earth did yield, before it loft its strength by that curfe which man's disobedience brought it under, while it was impregnated by the blefling of God; and as he had this in poffeffion, fo he had heaven in expectation, a Roble, and feemingly unfailing, profpect of a paradife above. This was Adam's eftate; and this fhould have been the estate of his pofterity, his defcendents: but all is forfeited by fin. Had Adam ftood, he had then tranfmitted to us a goodly heritage, and none fhould have had reason to complain of his poffeffion : but now we have by fin forfeited all; we have no eftate, no heritage. O finners! by your fin ye have loft the right to all your enjoyments here, and all profpect of any comfortable being hereafter. Adam when he finned, was banished out of paradife, and that was guarded against him.

But ye will fay, We are not forfeited; for we enjoy houfes, lands, meat, and clothing, and a great many other

fuch

fuch things: how can ye then fay, that we loft all? by what means get we thefe things? I anfwer, (1.) A rebel fentenced to die is by the king allowed food, raiment, and other neceffaries, for the fuftenance of nature, till the time of the execution come: juft fo God, for holy ends not now to be inquired into, having reprieved man for a while, fuffers him to enjoy fome fuch things, till he fee meet to put the fentence of death in execution, and then the forfeiture will take place. (2.) We fay, ye have no right to any enjoyment, fave that just now mentioned. The grant whereby innocent man held all his pof. feffions was the covenant of works: this was the ground of his fecurity as to what he poffeffed, and the foundation of his hope as to what he further expected. Now, this covenant being broken by your fin, ye have no more right to any enjoyment. (3.) As ye have already loft the right and title, fo ye have loft the fweetnefs of all your enjoyments. Ye toil and fweat, but ye are not fatisfied: "What profit have ye of all your labour under the fun?" It is not able to give you fatisfaction. This we have at great length made appear in our lectures upon Ecclefiaftes. (4.) To conclude, in a very little ye will be entirely deprived of all. The day of the execution of the fentence draws on, when God will fnatch all your enjoyments out of your hands. Now, indeed, fome have more, and fome have lefs, according to the plea fure of the great Judge, who has allowed every one their portion, till the day of execution come, and then all will go.

2dly, God, at whofe inftance ye have been impeached of fin, will have fatisfaction in the death of the offenders. God threatened death to Adam in paradife: "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou fhalt furely die," or "dying thou fhalt die," Gen. ii. 17. and "the foul that finneth fhall die," faith the Lord by the prophet, Ezek. xviii. 20. " for the wages of fin is death." This is not to be limited to a natural death; no, but is of a huge extent. It takes in a threefold death, a death fpiritual, natural, and eternal. Man in innocency had a threefold life, either in poffeffion or prospect, (1.) A spiritual life, which confifted in the union of his foul to God, in a meaiure fuited to his prefent condition, and in fitnefs of all his faculties and powers for acting and doing what was well-pleafing unto God. (2.) A na

tural

tural life, which confifted in the union of foul and body. That lovely pair, his innocent foul and pure body, were matched together, and linked to one another, by a thought furpaffing art; fo that they had a moft near alliance, being compacted into a perfon by a tie fo ftrong, as to occafion a notable fympathy; and yet fo fecret, that no eye could ever fee, no mind ever difcover, this imperceptible chain. (3) Man had then a fair prospect of eternal life, in a full and clofe union to God, never to admit of any interruption, or of any fuch interpofition, as was between man and him in this lower world. But now upon his fin, he loft all by virtue of the primitive threatening of death to the foul that fins. Anfwerably hereunto, God will have you punished with a threefold death. O finners! his heart will not pity you, his eye will not fpare you. You are alrea dy condemned to die: "He that believeth not," that is, every finner by nature, "is condemned already," fays the Spirit of God. Nay more, ye are not only condemned already, O finners! but moreover the execution is begun: the fire of God's wrath is already kindled against you; there are fome drops begun to fall, before the thower come that will entirely destroy you. [1.] You are Spiritually dead. I fpeak to all of you who are not favingly changed by grace, being begotten again from the dead, by the refurrection of Jefus Chrift. You are dead in trefpaffes and fins, utterly unmeet to entertain communion and fellowship with God. As a dead man cannot fpeak, act, or exercife any vital power; fo neither can ye act any thing that is spiritually good, or well-pleafing to God. This is a heavy punishment, tho' as yet ye be not fenfible of it. [2.] Natural death, that confifts in the feparation of the foul from the body, is already begun. Every difeafe that feizes upon our bodies is like the "pofts that run to meet another, to tell the king of Babylon that his city was taken at one end," Jer. li. 31. Every disease makes a breach in our walls, and tells that all will in a little fall down flat. Your very life is nothing elfe but a fucceffion of dying: every day and hoar wears away part of it; and fo far as it is already spent, so far are ye already dead and buried. Difeafes and natural decays do lay close fiege, as it were, to your bodies, routing their guards, battering the walls of your flesh, and forcing your fouls to quit the out-works, and retire into the heart: and

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every minute, ye have reafon to fear that ye may be taken in, and become a prey to death, In one word, O finners! ye are the mark at which justice fhoots its arrows. Do not ye fee, fometimes the arrow flee over your head, and flay fome great perfon, your fuperior? Sometimes it lights at your feet, and kills a child or a fervant, or those who are inferior; fometimes, it paffeth by your left-hand, and kills an enemy, at whose death poffibly ye rejoice; and anon it ftrikes the friend of your right-hand; and poffibly the very next arrow may ftrike you dead, be ye young or old, eternally dead, and hurry you into hell.

3dly, Your death will not do all; this punishment reaches your honours. Rebels are wont to have their honours torn and fo God has determined with respect to you, O finners! Man was in his first estate advanced to a high dignity, he was the friend as well as fubject of God; and he was his deputy in this lower world, as the Pfalmift tells Us: "Thou madeft him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou haft put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air, and the fish of the fea," Pfal. vii. 5.-8. Thus was he crowned with glory and honour: but now, O finners the fentence is past against all the race of finful Adam: thus faith the Lord, Remove the diadem, and take off the crown from the head of finners. The crown is fallen indeed from your head. Now, tell me, O finners! do not you already feel the direful effe&s of this part of your punishment? Thefe beafts which were once man's fubjects, are now turned his enemies, because he is God's enemy. Do not the very flies infult you, and mike fometimes your life uneasy? Do not the wild beafts of the field terrify you? Are not fome of them daily making inroads upon you, devouring your cattle, carrying away your fubftance? And even these which are moft ferviceable, and feem to retain fomething of their refpe&t to man, fometime their Lord, do they not rebel? Doth not the horse fometimes throw his rider, the ox gore his owner Thus 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 finners! is a part of your punishment.

4thly, This will not fatisfy justice. God purfues the quarrel to pofterity: "I am a jealous God," fays he, in a threatening

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