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who fhook the earth, was their God, and gave it a commiffion not to wrong, but to help them. This keeps the chriftian calm under fhaking providences: the feas may rage, and beat high, but the rock whereon he refts, remains firm, and cannot be fhaken. And a further proof of their frame. we have in their regard to the jaylor's fafety. Some would have thought it a happy occafion to make an efcape; but they take care of the keeper's life, though it should be to the endangering of their own. They do good to enemies, and love them that hate them.

7. Their words to the jaylor are remarkable ; Do thyself no harm, they feafonably ftep in for preventing of fin. They reprefent the fin fo as it might appear the more hateful; they remove the temptation. Herein they leave us an example: if we would prevent the ruines of others, we must ftep in feafonably. Had they delayed a little longer, the man had been gone paft all remedy. If we would difcover fin fo as to make it appear finful, we must reprefent it under thefe forms which are most likely to engage finners to renounce it. Do thyfelf no harm. Self-prefervation is the prime dictate of nature. For one to deftroy himself, is to act cross to the very foundation of reafon, which leads to the use of all means that have a tendency to felf-prefervation. And then, they remove the temptation. Thefe who would effectually dif fuade finners from fin, must let them fee that all the grounds they go upon are mistakes. The man fuppofed they had been gone, and that he would be punished for them; and to evite this imaginary danger, he would have really ruined himfelf. Thus finners, to evite imaginary evils, run upon real ones; and to gain imaginary advantages, they

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lofe the true gain. thers, in dealing with them, fhould ftudy to undeceive them in this matter; Do thyfelf no harm, for we are all here.

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Here fome may enquire, how they faw him, when it was now night, and he did not fee them? To this I anfwer, There might be either moonlight, or a candle in the uttermoft room, thereby they might fee what was done there; but yet he could not fee into the remote corners of the innermost prison where they lay in chains.

8. We are to obferve the influence that this check, this feasonable advice, that carrried a reproof in its bofom, had upon the man; it convinced him, it put him into this trembling humble posture we find him in. Here I might obferve many very confiderable truths. Grace ufually begins to work, when finners have gone to a height, to an excess of fin. While the man is practifing a bloody crime, and had murdered himself in defign, then grace chooses to lay hold on him. When Saul was grown mad in his perfecution, carrying it even to a foreign country, grace takes the opportunity. It doth not befpeak finners in their lucid intervals; but, to fhew its power, it reaches them when at their worft. Again, how mighty a change can a word work, when the fpirit of God concurs? He whom the earthquake did not deter from finning, is overcome with a word: A word makes him that put their feet in the stocks, fall down at their feet. One word opens the man's eyes to fee what he never faw before, it fills his heart with concern about falvation, a thing he had not minded before; and the fears of that wrath that he little thought of, when he was juft going to throw himself fearlefly in its hands by

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Part II. felf-murder, now make him tremble, and fall down, and cry out, What must I do to be faved? It makes him pay reverence to them to whom he paid none before. He calls them Sirs, a term of honour and refpect. A great change indeed! Here are a multitude of wonders. The terrors of God make a ftout heart to fhake. An unconcerned perfecutor lays falvation to heart: and much concern in the heart discovers itself by its effects; it breaks out in the trembling of the body, and the anxious queftion in the text.

9. Here it is worth our while to enquire; What he was convinced of?. That the man is convinced of danger is plain; that it was not the danger of being punished for letting away the prifoners, is no lefs plain; he was now eafed of any fears he had of this fort. In one word, he was convinced of his fin and mifery. This is plain from the apoftles direction. It were blafphemy to think that they mistook his cafe: and the event puts it beyond all doubt, that they were not miftaken; for the cure is no fooner applied than it takes effect. The direction quieted the man's mind; and this makes it plain, that it was fin and mifery that was now in his view; it was the curfe of the law that was purfuing him. We need not fpend time in enquiring what fins he was convinced of. That the fin of felf-murder was the first, feems probable from what has been already dif courfed. When the candle of the Lord fills the bofom of a finner with light, the firft fin that is feen is ufually fome great fin, and for moft part the fin that was laft committed. This fin was just now committed; and a monftrous one it was: but though this might be the firft, we have no reafon to think that it was this only; nay, we

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have reafon to think, that the Lord gave the man

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broad fight of all his other impieties. When the Lord lights a candle in a finner's bofom, though fome one great fin occurs first, yet he quickly turns to others, and looks through the ugly heart that was never seen before, and fees it full of fins. The Lord tells finners fometimes all that ever they did, by telling them one fin; and thus no doubt it was with the jaylor. In the

10. And last place, the posture the poor man is in when he puts the melancholy question, What muft I do to be faved? deferves our notice; he is fallen upon his face; not to worship: this the apostles would not have permitted, as they did not upon other occafions: but either it is only a civil refpect he pays them after the fashion of fappli cants in the eastern countries; or his trembling legs were not able to fupport his body; or partly the one, and partly the other occafioned this pofture.

The next thing that falls under our confideration, is the answer which the apoftles give to the jaylor's queftion, Believe on the Lord Jefus Chrift, and thou shalt be faved and thy house. This contains the fubftance of the gofpel; and it is this part of the words we principally design to infist on. I fhall refer the explication of them, till fuch time as I have done with what is defigned from the queftion; because I do not incline to burden you with too tedious an explicaton of the words.

From the question itself then, according to the account just now given of its meaning, we tha lay before you, and difcourfe of this one doctrinal propofition.

"A finner that is awakened and foundly convinced of fin, and of mifery its neceffary confe

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quent and companion, will lay falvation serious ly to heart; or will with concern put the questi on, What must I do to be faved?"

This we fee is the firft fruit of conviction in the jaylor, Sirs, What must I do to be faved? This was the immediate refult of conviction in the awakened converts, Acts ii. 37. And thus it will be with all who are indeed awakened and convinced of fin, unless there be fome fuch concomitant circumstances as hinder it neceffarily, of which anon.

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In difcourfing this doctrine, we fhall,

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1. Premife a few things for clearing the doctrine.

II. Enquire what this falvation is, which awak. ened finners feek after..

III. We fhall endeavour to give fome account of this concern about falvation, which is the refult of conviction.

IV. We shall fhew why it is that convinced finners do lay falvation to heart. Now, of each of thefe in order.

I. We begin with the firft, and for clearing our doctrine, we offer to your confideration a few propofitions.

1. Conviction is that fight of fin and mifery which finners get, when the fpirit of God prefents them to the foul's view, in their nature, and their neceffary connection with one another, together with the firner's intereft and concernment in them; and that in fo clear a light, that he cannot but take notice of them. (1.) We say the spirit of God fets fin and mifery in their own nature before the finner's eyes, in a clear light. There is no man who has not fome apprehenfions of fin and mifery; every one difcourfes of thefe things.

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