thou canst by no means throw off; no, not tho' thine head were waters, and thine eyes a fountain of tears, to weep day and night for thy fin. That is what the law cannot do, in that it is weak through the flesh, Rom. viii. 3. Now thou art another profane Efau, that hath fold the bleffing; and there is no place for repentance tho' thou feekeft it carefully with tears, while under that covenant. (5.) There is no accepting of the will for the deed under this covenant, which was not made for good will, but good works. The mistake in this point ruins many. They are not in Chrift, but ftand under the first covenant; and yet they will plead this privilege. This is just as if one having made a feaft for thofe of his own family, when they fit down at table, another man's fervant that has run away from his mafter, fhould prefumptuoufly come forward and fit down among them: would not the master of the feaft give such a stranger that check, Friend, how cameft thou in hither? And fince he is none of his family, command him to be gone quickly. Tho' a mafter accept the good will of his own child for the deed, can a hired fervant expect that privilege? (6.) Ye have nothing to do with Chrift, while under this covenant. By the law of God a woman cannot be married to two husbands at once: either death or divorce must diffolve the first marriage, ere fhe can marry another. So we muft first be dead to the law, ere we can be married to Chrift, Roin. vii. 4. The law is the first husband; Jefus Chrift, who raiseth the dead, marries the widow, that was heart-broken, and flain by the first husband. But while the foul is in the house with the first husband, it cannot plead a marriage-relation to Chrift; nor the benefits of a marriage-covenant, which is not yet entered into, Gal. v. 4. Chrift is become of no effect to you; whosoever of you are justified by the law, ye are fallen from grace. Peace, pardon, and fuch like benefits are all benefits of the covenant of grace. And ye must not think to ftand off from Chrift, and the marriage-covenant with him, and yet plead these benefits; more than one inan's wife can plead the benefit of a contract of marriage past betwixt another man and his own wife. Laftly, See the bill of exclusion, past in the court of heaven, against all under the covenant of works, Gal. iv. 30. The fon of the bond-woman fhall not be heir. compare ver. 24. Heirs of wrath must not be heirs of glory. Whom the first covenant hath power to exclude out of heaven, the second covenant cannot bring into it.

Objection. Then it is impoffible for us to be faved. Anfwer, It is fo, while you are in that fate., But if you would be out of that dreadful condition, haften out of that ftate. If a murderer be under fentence of death, fo long as he lives within the kingdom, the laws will reach his life; but if he can make his escape, and get over the fea, into the dominions of another prince, our laws cannot reach him there This is what we would have you to do: flee out of the kingdom of darkness, into the kingdom of God's dear Son; out of the dominion of the law, into the dominion of grace; then all the curfes of the law, or covenant of works, shall never be able to reach you.

Motive 2. ye children of wrath, your ftate is wretched, for ye have loft God; and that is an unfpeakable lofs. Ye are without God in the world, Eph. i. 12. Whatever you may call yours, you cannot call God yours. If we look to the earth, perhaps you can tell us, that land, that houfe, or that herd of cattle, is yours: But let us look up. ward to heaven, is that God, that grace, that glory yours? Truly, you have neither part nor lot in that matter. When Nebuchadnezzar talks of cities and kingdoms, O how big does he fpeak! Great Babylon that I have built,my power,my majefty! but he tells a poor tale, when he comes to speak of God, faying, Your God, Dan. ii. 47. and iv. 30. Alas! finner, whatever thou haft, God is gone from thee. O the mifery of a godlefs foul! Haft thou loft God? Then, (1.) The fap and fubftance of all that thou haft in the world, is gone. The godlefs man, have what he will, is one that hath not, Mat. xxv. 29. I defy the unregenerate man to attain to foul-fatisfaction, whatever he poffelfeth; fince God is not his God. All his days he eateth in darkness: in every condition, there is a fecret diffatisfaction haunts his heart like a ghoft: the foul wants fomething, tho' perhaps it knoweth not what it is: and fo it will be always, till the foul return to God, the fountain of fatisfaction. (2.) Thou can't do nothing to purpose for thyself; for God is gone, his foul is departed from thee, fer. vi. 8. like a leg out of joint hanging by, whereof a man hath no ufe, as the word there fed doth bear. Lofing God, thou haft loft the fountain of good; and fo, all grace, all goodnefs, all the faving influences of his Spirit. What cant thou do then? What fruit can't thou bring forth, more than a branch cut off from the stock? John xv. 5., Thou art become unprofitable, Rom. iii 12 as a filthy rotten thing fit only for the dunghill. (3.) Death has come up into thy windows, yea, and has fettled on thy face; for God, in whole favour is life, Pfal. xxx. 5. is gone from thee, and fo the foul of thy foul is departed. What a lothfome lump is the body, when the foul is gone? Far more lothfome is thy foul in this cafe. Thou art dead while thou liveft. Do not deny it; feeing thy fpeech is laid, thine eyes clofed, and all fpiritual motion in thee ceafeth. Thy true friends, who fee thy cafe, do lament, because thou art gone into the land of filence. (4) Thou haft not a steady friend among all the creatures of God; for now that thou haft loft the Mafter's favour, all the family is fet against thee. Confcience is thine enemy: the word never fpeaks good of thee: God's people lothe thee, fo far as they fee what thou art, Pfal. xv. 22. The beafts and flones of the field are banded together against thee, Job v. 23. Hof. ii. 18. Thy meat, drink, clothes, grudge to be ferviceable to the wretch that has loft God, and abufeth them to his difhonour. The earth groaneth under thee; yea, the whole creation groaneth, and travaileth in pain together, because of thee, and fuch as thou art, Rom. viii 22. Heaven will have nothing to do with thee: for there fhall in no mife enter into it any thing that defileth, Rev. xxi. 22. Only hell from beneath is moved for thee, to meet thee at thy coming.

Ifa. xiv. 9. Laftly, Thy hell is begun already. What makes hell, but exclufion from the prefence of God? Depart from me ye curfed. Now ye are gone from God already, with the curfe upon you. That fhall be your punishment at length (if ye return not) which is now your choice. As a gracious ftate is a state of glory in the bud; fo a gracelefs ftate is hell in the bud; which if it continue, will come to perfection at length.

Motive 3. Confider the dreadful inftances of the wrath of God; and let them serve to awaken thee to flee out of this ftate Confider, (1.) How it is fallen on men. Even in this world, many have been fet up as monuments of divine vengeance; that others might fear. Wrath has swept away multitudes, who have fallen together by the hand of an angry God. Confider how the Lord spared not the old world, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into afhes, condemned them with an overthrow, making them an example unto thofe that after should live ungodly, 2 Pet. ii. 5, 6. But it is yet more dreadful to think of that weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth, amongst those, who in hell lift up their eyes, but cannot get a drop of water to cool their tongues. Believe thefe things, and be warned by them; left deftruction come upon thee, for a warning to others (2.) Confider how wrath fell upon the fallen angels, whofe cafe is abfolutely hopeless. They were the first that ventured to break the hedge of the divine law; and God fet them up as monuments of his wrath against fin, They once left their own habitation, and were hever allowed to look in again at the hole of the door; but they are referved in everlasting chains under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day, Jude 6. Lastly, Behold how an angry God dealt with his own Son, ftanding in the room of elect finners, Rom viii. 32. God spared not his own Son. Sparing mercy might have been expected, if any at all. If any perfon could have obtained it furely his own Son would have got it; but he spared The Father's delight is made a man of forrows: he who is the wisdom of God, becomes fore amazed, ready to faint away with a fit of horror. The weight of this wrath makes him sweat great drops of blood. By the fierceness of this fire, his heart was like wax melted in the midst of his bowels. Behold here how fevere God is against fin! the fun was ftruck blind with this terrible fight! rocks were rent! graves opened! death, as it were, in the excefs of aftonifhment, letting its prifoners flip away. What is a deluge, a shower of fire and brimstone on Sodomites, the terrible noife of a diffolving world, the whole fabrick of heaven and earth falling down at once, angels caft down from heaven into the bottomlefs pit? What are all thefe, I fay, in comparison with this? God fuffering! groaning, dying upon a crofs! infinite holinefs did it, to make fin look like itfelf, viz. infinitely odious. And will men live at eafe, while expofed to this wrath. Laftly, Confider what a God he is, with whom thou haft to do, whofe wrath thou art liable unto: He is a God of infinite knowledge

him not.

and wildom; fo that none of thy fins, however fecret, can be hid from him. He infallibly finds out all means whereby wrath may be executed, toward the fatisfying of juftice. He is of infinite power, and so can do what he will against the finner. How heavy must the strokes of wrath be, which are laid on by an omnipotent hand! infinite power can make the finner prifoner, even when he is in his greatest rage against heaven. It can bring again the feveral parcels of duft, out of the grave; put them together again, reunite the foul and the body, fift them before the tribunal, hurry them away to the pit, and hold them up with the one hand thro' eternity, while they are lashed with the other. He is infinitely juft, and therefore muft punith; it were acting contrary to his nature to fuffer the finner to escape wrath, Hence the executing of this wrath is pleafing to him; for tho' the Lord hath no delight in the death of the finner, as it is the deftruction of his own creature, yet he delights in it, as it is the execution of juftice. Upon the wicked he fball rain fnares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempeft. Mark the reafon, For the righteous Lord loveth righteousness, Pfal xi. 6, 7. I will caufe my fury to rest upon them, and I will be comforted, Ezek. v. 13. I also will laugh at your calamity, Prov.i. 26. Finally, He lives for ever, to purfue the quarrel. Let us therefore conclude, It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Be awakened then, O young finner; be awakened, O old finner, who art yet in the ftate thou waft born in. Your fecurity is none of God's allowance, it is the fleep of death: rife out of it ere the pit clofe its mouth on you. It is true, you may put on a breaft-plate of iron, make your bow brafs, and your hearts as an adamant: who can help it? But God will break that brazen bow, and make that adamantine heart, at laft, to fly into a thoufand pieces. Ye may, if ye will, Jabour to put thefe things out of your heads, that ye may yet fleep in a found fkin, tho' in a ftate of wrath. Ye may run away with the arrows sticking in your confciences to your work, to work them away; or to your beds, to fleep them out; or to company, to fport and laugh them away: but convictions fo ftifled, will have a fearful refurrection: and the day is coming, when the arrows of wrath fhall fo ftick in thy foul, as thou fhalt never be able to pluck them out thro' the ages of eternity, unless thou take warning in time.

But if any defire to flee from the wrath to come; and for that end, to know what course to take; I offer them these few advices, and abteft and befeech them, as they love their own fouls, to fall in with them. (1) Retire yourselves into fome fecret place, and there me. ditate on this your mifery. Believe it, and fix your thoughts on it. Let each put the question to himself, How can I live in this ftate? How can I die in it? How will I rife again, and ftand before the tribunal of God in it? (2) Confider feriously the fin of your nature, heart and life. A kindly fight of wrath flows from a deep sense of fin. They who fee themfelves exceeding finful, will find no great difficulty to perceive themfelves to be heirs of wrath. (3.) Labour

to

to justify God in this matter. To quarrel with God about it, and to rage like a wild bull in a net, will but fix you the more in it. Humiliation of foul, before the Lord, is neceffary for an efcape. God will not fell deliverance, but freely gives it to thofe, who fee themfives altogether unworthy of his favour. Laftly, Turn your eyes, O prifoners of hope, towards the Lord Jefus Chrift; and embrace him as he offereth himself, in the gofpel. There is no falvation in any other, Acts iv. 12. God is a confuming fire; ye are children of wrath; if the Mediator interpofe not betwixt him and you, ye are undone for If ye would be fafe, come under his fhadow: one drop of that wrath cannot fall there, for he delivereth us from the wrath to come, 1 Theff. i. 10. Accept of him in his covenant, wherein he offereth himself to thee: and fo thou fhalt, as the captive woman, redeem thy life, by marrying the Conqueror. His blood will quench that fire of wrath, which burns against thee: in the white raiment of his righteousness thou shalt be fafe; for no storm of wrath can pierce it.

ever.

II. I fhall drop a few words to the faints.

First, Remember, that at that time, (namely, when ye were in your natural ftate) ye were without Chrift-having no hope, and without God in the world Call to mind that ftate, ye were in formerly; and review the mifery of it There are five memorials, I may thence give in to the whole affenbly of the faints, who are no moré children of wrath: but heir of God, and joint heirs with Chrift, tho' as yet in their minority. (1) Remember, that in the day our Lord took you by the hand, ye were in no better condition than others? O what moved him to take you, when he past by your neighbours! he found you children of wrath, even as others; but he did not leave you fo. He came into the common prifon, where you lay in your fetters, even as others; and from amongst the multitude of condemned malefactors, he picked out you, commanded your fetters to be taken off, put à pardon in your hand, and brought you into the glorious liberty of the children of God; while he left others in the devil's fetters. (2) Remember there was nothing in you to engage him to love you, in the day he first appeared for your deliverance Ye were children of wrath, even as others, fit for hell, and altogether unfit for heaven: yet the King brought you into the palace: the King's Son made love to you a condemned criminal, and efpoufed you to himfelf, on the day in which ye might have had been led forth to execution. Even Jo, Father, for fo it feemeth good in thy fight, Matth ix. 26. (3) Remember, ye were fitter to be lothed than loved in that day. Wonder, that when he faw you in your blood, he looked not at you with abhorrence, and paffed by you. Wonder that ever fuch a time could be a time of love, Ezek xvi 8 (4) Remember, ye are decked with borrowed feathers. It is his comelinefs, which is upon you, ver. 14. It was he that took off your prifon garments, and clothed you with robes of righteoufnefs, garments of falvation: garments wherewith ye are arrayed as the lilies, which toil not, neither do they fpin. He took the chains froin off your

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