of the glory of God in this world. Every one is furnished with endowments more or less. To fome God has given an ample stock, many talents; to fome fewer; and to fome but one. All have received; and if all do not employ their endowments, fuppofing they appear very inconfiderable, they will find it hard to answer for the mifimprovement. He who had but one talent, for his neglect of it had a dreadful doom pronounced against him, Matth. XXV. 30. "Caft ye the unprofitable fervant into utter darkness; there fhall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. We are not born to ourselves only, but to the world, and therefore we fhould defign usefulness in it, and withal fhould take a due care of our own principal concern, the falvation of our fouls. If he who provides not for his own family, has denied the faith, and is worfe than an infidel, 1 Tim. v. 8. what must he be that provides not for his own foul! 2dly, Whatever thoughts, words or actions, have no ufefulness or fubferviency to one or other of these ends, are finful: by the law of God and nature this holds true. If we do, fpeak, or think, any thing that has no tendency to promote either our temporal or eternal happiness, then in fo doing we fin against God; we throw away thefe powers of speaking, thinking, and acting, upon that which God never defigned them for; and this is a manifeft abufe of a talent bestowed by God. The Lord complains of Jerufalem's indulging vain thoughts, Jer. iv. 14. "O je. "Oje. rufalem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou mayest be saved: how long fhall thy vain thoughts lodge within thee?" 3dly, Much of our fitness or unfitnefs for profecuting thefe ends, depends upon the right or wrong management of our youth. Idlenefs, vicioufnefs, 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 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 Spirit of God," in the way he fhould go, and when he is old he will not depart from it G 4thly, 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 bias and depravity of nature, which prompts to evil, to that only, and that continually; and next, because they have a tendency to incapacitate for the future. An ill habit, contracted when young, cannot foon be worn off, may, unless grace do interpofe, and that with more than ordinary influences, fome vicious 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 these follies and extravagancies, into which chilhood and youth are precipitated, had not been known; there should not any of these vicious inclinations have been found which are now the bane of youth and of childhood. 5thly, We premife 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 deJuded apprehenfions, narrow the law of God. There is a general mistake here; few, very few, do believe how extenfive it is; and therefore most 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 you do no abominably wicked action, though you live in a courfe of vain and idle thoughts and words, it is no matter: but deceive not yourfelves in this refpect; for God judges other wife. Indeed his word has told us, that he will bring every work into judgment, Eccl. xii. 14. "For God fall 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 hall go free. Nay, upon the contrary, he has exprefsly told us, that we must give an account of idle words, Matth. xii. 36, 37. "But I fay unto you," faith the Amen and faithful Witnefs, "that every idle word that that men fhall fpeak, they fhall give an account thereof in the day of judgment; for by thy words thou shalt be juf tified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." And in that forecited Jer. iv. 14. the removal of vain thoughts is indifpenfibly required, in order to the falvation of Jerufalem; which fays plainly, that an indulged courfe of them would inevitably ruin it: for, as the Spirit of God tells us, Prov. xxiv. 9. "The thoughts of foolishness is fin." And indeed it is no wonder that they be reputed 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 thoughts, words and actions being but indi, cations 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 spoke it, but for his thoughts, because it was there fin began. Ads viii. 20. • But Peter faid to him, Thy money perish 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 wickednefs; 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 thofe which immediately refpect God, and thefe which refpect our neighbour or ourfelves ; 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 Spirit 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 respect to children. We are 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 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 aftranged from the very womb; they go aftray as foon as they be born." And the apoftle, in that 5th of the Romans, from the 12th verfe, proves even infants to be finners, by their haring in thefe calamities which are the confequences 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 bleffed Auguftine, in that first book of his Confeffions, cap. 7. bitterly lament and bewail the fins of his childhood, even thofe which are laughed at by most, 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 thofe who were nowife obliged to be under my command, becaufe they would not obey me? nay, that even my parents would not obey me. Was it not ill," that I endeavoured to ftrike even thofe who were every way my fuperiors, because they would not obey me in thofe things wherein they could not have given obedience, without hurt either to me or fome other. ?" Thus we fee this holy man looked upon these things as fins, which are commonly laughed at by others as innocent; 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 say any more than what has already been alleged. 6thly, In fpeaking to every one of thefe three forts of perfons, we may have occafion to name many fins; and therefore we fhall here at once prove all the particulars we fhall name under any of thefe heads to be fin ; because it would divert and detain us too long, to infist under eve ry 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, we will not queftion, if ye carry along, with what has been already faid, these three unquestionable 6 Whe unquestionable fcripture-truths: (1.) That whatever is done, thought, or faid, by one whofe heart is not renewed by grace, is fin. This is the plain meaning of that af fertion of our Lord's, Matth. vii. 18. "A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit." Hence it is, that not only the thoughts of the wicked, but his plowing, and his very facrifice is fin, Prov. xxi. 7. (2.) Whatever refpects not the glory of God as its end, is fin, 1 Cor. x. 31. ther therefore ye eat or drink, or whatfoeyer ye do, do all to the glory of God." (3.) Whatever has no refpect to Jesus Christ, as the only one in whom our perfons or performances can be accepted, is fin, Col. iii. 17. "What-ever ye do, in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jefus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him." All the particulars we fhall name, will be found cross to one or all of these three, and therefore finful; though we fhall not always particularly infift in proving the finfulness: of every one of them, or in naming the particular com-mands of the decalogue of which they are a breach. In the 7th and last place,, we premife, That those of a middle age, and of old age, are equally concerned in these fins which we are to lay to the charge of children, with the children themselves, because they were once fuch. Young, men and old men were once children, and therefore guilty of the fins of childhood. Old men were once youths, and therefore guilty of the fins of youth-hood; and therefore ye are all, the oldest of you, obliged to take heed what we fay to one or another; because those who are old have been young, and those who are young may be old.. The way being thus cleared, I fhall now proceed to fpeak particularly to, and endeavour the conviction of the children of the congregation which are now prefent. Children, and young ones,, who are this day hearing me, take heed: I have a meffage from God to you. That God who made the heavens and the earth, who made you,, and who feeds you daily, has fent me this day to you, to every one of you, as particularly as if I did name you, name and firname, to tell you fad and doleful news. The youngest of you all has finned and come short of the glory of God; that is, ye have done that for which. God will certainly caft you, foul and body, into hell-fire,, |