(2.) Has your love to fin decayed? If this change were to be observed, it were a great bleffing; but I fear, that, however ftrength may be failed fo far that ye cannot fulfil your lufts as formerly, yet the old heart-love to them remains.

8. Old finners, ye have feen much of the world: and here I ask you, Are ye not guilty, (1.) By neglecting many difcoveries of its vanity, which might have been of great use to you, if duly obferved? (2.) By retaining the fame love to it, after many discoveries of its uncertainty and emptinefs?

9. Once more, and I have done with you. Old finners, You have lived long, and death is at the door. God has given you much time to pro. vide for it; and I fear ye are guilty, extremely guilty, by not improving time; and for difcovering your fin here, I fhall lay a few questions be fore you, and I plead that ye may lay them home to your own confciences. (1.) Are ye yet content to die? It is the indifpenfable duty of all, to be ever content to comply with the will of God in this matter; and upon a call, to be ready cheerfully to comply with the will of God as to death, the time and manner of it. Now, old finners, are ye content? It may be, fome of you will forwardly enough anfwer, That ye are content; but if ye fay fo, I afk you, (2.) Are ye ready to die? I fear fome are content to die, who are not ready; fome in a fit of difcontent at the world, upon the back of fome notable difappointment, be fo well content to die, that they will lay hands upon themselves, who yet are very far from being ready to die. If ye pretend that ye are; then for difcovering the truth of what ye fay, I enquire, (3.) Are your fins dying? A perfon whofe fins

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are lively, he is never ready to die. (4.) Are ye in Jefus Chrift? These who are out of him are never ready to die. It is only these who are ready to die in the Lord, Rev. xiv. 13. who are ready to die. (5.) Is your pardon fealed? Death will try you; and if your pardon be not fealed, ye will find that ye are scarce ready to die. (6.) I put this one queftion more to you, Have you provided your lodgings? It is high time, when mens houses are falling, to be looking out for new lodgings. This tabernacle is ready to be diffolved; have ye a building of God not made with hands fecured to yourselves? God has given you time and means for doing all this; and if ye have not done it, then ye have finned against the Lord, and against your own fouls.

Now, old finners, if ye lay not to heart this warning, and lay not yourselves in the dust before God for your fins, then this new warning will be a dreadful aggravation among many others 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 sit a warning near to 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,

IV. In the next place, to fhew you what fatisfaction that fovereign King, at whofe instance and in whofe name I have impleaded you, requires of all and every one of you. His juftice, at any rate, must be fatisfied. It is not congruous to reafon, it is not congruous to the holiness, juftice and wisdom of the lawgiver, that fin fhould efcape unpunished, and therefore, it is impoffible it fhould pass without fome fignal and fuitable mark of God's difpleafure. He has declared pofitively in his word, he has confirmed it in his providences, that though hand join in hand the wicked fhall not be unpunished, Prov. xi. 21. If angels and men fhould lay their hands and heads together, unite their wit, and their power, they fhall not preferve one fin from the marks of God's dif pleasure. Some figual and evident token of it will reach fin, wherever it is. There needs no proof of this, after what Chrift has met with. And ye muft lay your account with it, that this punishment 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, bold fome proportion to the holiness and purity of that law you have broken, to the majesty and authority of that God whofe authority ye have trampled upon; yea, it must hold fome proportion to the feveral aggravations of your refpective fins. Lay your account with it, finners, escape you cannot his hands who is every where. Whither will ye go from his fpirit? whither will ye flee from his prefence? If ye afcend up into heaven, he is there. If ye make your bed in bell, behold, he is there; if ye take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermoft parts of the fea, even there hall his hand lead thee, and his right hand fhall hold

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hold thee. If ye fay, Surely the darkness fhall cover you, even the night shall be light about you; for the darkness hideth not from him, but the night fhineth 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 themfelves, 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,

1. He will have you punished in your eftates, by a forfeiture of all. You invaded God's poffef fion; he will caft you out of yours. This is the ordinary punishment of rebellion; and we have proven you guilty of rebellion of the worft fort. Man, when God made him, was mafter of a fair estate. The fons of men now may value themfelves upon fome petty tenements which many of them hold by no good right, as we shall fee anon; but none of them can vy poffeffions with Adam in innocency. He had à paradife replenished with all the rarities of innocent, of incorrupted nature, all the delicacies which the earth did yield, before it loft its strength by that curfe which man's dif obedience brought it under, while it was impregnated by the bleffing of God: and as he had this in poffeffion, fo he had heaven in expectation, a noble and feemingly unfailing profpect of a paradife above. This was Adam's eftate; and this should have been the estate of his pofterity, his defcendants; but all is forfeited by fin. Had Adam stood, he had then tranfmitted to us a goodly heritage, and none fhould have had reafon 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 things: how can ye then fay that we loft all; by what means get we these things?

I answer, (1.) A rebel fentenced to die, is by the king allowed food, raiment, and other neceffaries for the fuftentation of nature, till the time of the execution.come: just so, God, for holy ends not now to be enquired into, having reprived 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 juft now mentioned. The grant whereby innocent man held all his poffeffions, 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 H 4

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