istical notions, I affirm, that there is a certain noble and refined part of the soul expressed to us in the text by spirit, and here said to be wounded. Which is the

Second thing to be explained by us; and, I suppose, is so far and fully explained by us already, from the very nature of the subject to which it is here ascribed, that every one presently apprehends it to be an expression purely figurative; and that the soul being wounded, signifies nothing else, but its being deeply and intimately possessed with a lively sense of God's wrath for sin, dividing, entering, and forcing its way into the most vital parts of it, as a sword or rapier does into the body. I say possessed with a sense of God's wrath for sin; forasmuch as there is no grief, but meritoriously presupposes sin as the cause of it not that I deny, but God by his absolute prerogative, without any violation of his other attribute, could and might grieve and afflict an innocent person, if he so pleased; but that by the stated rule of his transactings with men, he has resolved the contrary, and never afflicts or torments any rational creature that is not a sinner, either by actual commission, or at least by imputation.

Now this brief explication of the words being premised, the sense of them lies full and clear in this one proposition; viz.

That the trouble and anguish of a soul labouring under a sense of God's displeasure for sin, is inexpressibly greater than any other grief or trouble whatsoever.

The prosecution of which I shall manage under

I. I shall shew what kind of persons are the proper subjects of this trouble.

II. I shall shew wherein the excessive greatness of this trouble doth appear.

III. I shall shew by what ways and means it is brought upon the soul.

IV. What is God's end and design in casting men into such a perplexed condition: and,

V. and lastly, I shall draw some useful inferences from the whole.

Of each of which in their order.

1st. And first for the persons who are the proper objects of this trouble. These I affirm to be indifferently both the righteous and the wicked, both such as God loves, and such as he hates; but with a very different issue in one and in the other. The reason of which assertion is, because these troubles and spiritual terrors are not, as such, either acts or figures of grace, by which alone persons truly pious and regenerate are distinguished from the wicked and degenerate; but they are properly effects of God's anger, striking and afflicting the soul for sin, and consequently are alike incident to both sorts, forasmuch as both are sinners; and even the most pious person in the world has fuel enough in his guilty soul for the wrath of God to flame out upon in all these terrible rebukes. Nay, where there is no inherent guilt, these effects of wrath may take place: as in the case of our Saviour, who, without the least personal inherent guilt, suffered the utmost that an angry God could inflict upon him in this world. And therefore nothing certain can be concluded of any man's spiritual estate,

in reference to his future happiness or misery, from the present terrors and amazements that his conscience labours under: for as Cain and Judas, and many more reprobates, have suffered, so David and many other excellent saints of God have felt their shares of the same; though the issue, I confess, has not been the same in both; but that alters not the nature of the thing itself.

Nay, I shall add further, that according to the present economy of God's dealing with the souls of men, persons truly good and holy do more frequently taste of this bitter cup than the wicked and the reprobate; who are seldom alarumed out of their sins by such severe interruptions; but, for the most part, remain seated up in ease and security, to the fearful day of retribution. And therefore I should be so far from passing any harsh or doubtful sentence upon the condition of a person struggling under the apprehensions of God's wrath, that I should, on the contrary, account such an one a much fitter subject for evangelical comfort, than those sons of assurance, that, having been bred up in a constant confidence of the divine favour to them, never yet felt the least doubt or question arising in their secure hearts about it: and consequently should think the balsam of pardoning mercy the only proper infusion for such wounded spirits, while the gall and vinegar of the curse, the caustics and corrosives of the law, were the fittest applications to be made to such brawny, unrelenting hearts, as never yet smarted under any remorse, nor experimentally knew what it was to be troubled for sin. And thus having shewn upon what kind of persons this trouble of

Second particular; which is to shew, wherein the strange, excessive, and sometimes supernatural greatness of it does appear. In which though I may seem to contradict that in the prosecution, which I had asserted in the doctrine; namely, that this trouble was beyond expression; it being of the nature and number of those things that are rather to be felt than described; yet, so far as the dimensions of it can be taken, we may collect the surpassing greatness of it from these following discoveries.

1. First, from the behaviour of our Saviour himself in this condition. It was indeed a sense of God's wrath for sin that he was under; but for sin never committed by him, for guilt that was none of his, but only by imputation, and account of law, founded upon his own free act, in the voluntary assuming of the person of a surety, undertaking to discharge that vast debt of mankind to the divine justice, in his own body upon the cross. Upon which account alone, the wrath of God for sin could have any thing to do with him, who in his own person and actions was absolutely, perfectly, and entirely innocent, or rather even innocence itself.

Now I think I may with great truth affirm this; in all the sufferings that sin can possibly bring upon the sinner, there is, without all peradventure, something more grievous and corroding to the mind of man, from his being conscious that he has actually committed the sin he suffers for, than in all the sharpest and most afflicting impressions of pain, of which that suffering, as to the matter of it, does consist. Otherwise surely the voice of reason, in the bare discourses of nature, could never have risen so high, as to affirm that a wise or dexterous man

could not be miserable; that he was unconcerned in all bodily pain, and might sing in Phalaris's bull. But scripture, which is the best, and experience, which is the next philosophy, have put the matter past all doubt; the first telling us, that it is sin only is the sting of death; and the other perpetually ringing this sad peal in every suffering sinner's conscience, Perditio tua ex te; that his misery is but the due and just consequent of his own actions, the genuine fruit of his own free, unconstrained choice. And this is that, that envenoms the cup of God's fury, and adds poison to the bitterness of that fatal draught.

But now this part of suffering for sin, or rather from sin, Christ neither did nor could undergo; it being a contradiction, that he, who never committed sin, should feel in his conscience those stings and remorses that can spring only from a sense of having committed it. No; these are the natural, essential results of a sinful act, and so rest wholly within the person of the agent; the primitive rewards of sin, which consist properly in those pains which by positive sanction of law are adjudged to every sinful action, and to which alone Christ did or could subject himself.

And yet we see the sense of the divine wrath exerting itself upon Christ only in these latter, and stripped of the poison of all personal guilt, was so direful and intolerable, that it made him, who was God as well as man; him, to whom all

power in heaven and earth was given; him, by and for whom God made the world, and in whom the very fulness of the Godhead dwelt bodily; even this infinite, mighty person, this man of God's right hand,