eternity; but this purpose is actually took up in time; namely, after some signal provocation. And because the schools will not admit of any new immanent acts, new purposes or decrees in God, therefore I call it a purpose only in a large and popular sense for indeed, in strictness of speech, it is properly but an effect of God's will, actually disposing the sinner under such circumstances, as, meeting with his corruption, will certainly end in his perdition.

And thus having cleared these two questions, which was the third thing proposed to be handled, I descend now to the fourth and last, which is, to draw some uses from the whole. And the

First shall be of exhortation, to exhort and persuade all such as know how to value the great things that concern their peace, to beware of sinning under sin-aggravating circumstances. What those are, you may know by recollecting, in your meditations, what has been delivered. It is wonderful to consider what weight a bare circumstance gives to sin, and what a vast and wide disparity it makes between actions of the same nature. What is the reason that the same sin does not actually fetch down wrath upon one, when it strikes another with an immediate vengeance, but because in one it is empoisoned with more killing circumstances than in the other? Now we are to know, that the things that chiefly provoke God to swear against men, are judgments, mercies, means of grace, warnings, and convictions; these are the things that, neglected, double and treble the guilt of sins, and of damnable, make them actually condemning. These are the fair days that ripen us apace for the sickle of sin-revenging justice. It is said of

the times of heathenism, in Acts xvii. 30, that God winked at them: what was the reason? Certainly their sins, as to the nature and kind of them, were as black, hideous, and provoking, and struck as high as the highest improvement of natural corruption could reach. Why then cannot God wink also at the same sins now under the gospel? Why! because, as the gospel offers grace to sinners, so it adds guilt and greatness to sin. A dunghill under the hot sunshine is much more offensive than under the shade.

As men therefore fear falling under that terrible sentence expressed in the words; as they dread a final, unappeasable anger; let them shun these sinheightening aggravations, and beware of sinning against judgments and deliverances, gospel light, clear warnings, and strong convictions. For can we in reason imagine, that that great and universal Providence, that takes cognizance of every the least accident, and reckons every hair that falls from our head, should not have some great and particular designs upon the souls of men in the several strange and unusual passages of their lives? Neither God's words nor his works can be frustrate. He neither discourses nor fights with the air. And therefore, in the strength and evidence of what I have laid down, I must affirm, that that person, whosoever he is, whom the continual returns of the word preached does not alter, but that his old sins continue firm, entire, and unbattered; the baseness of his inclinations unchanged; so that after all his attendance upon the word, his tongue and thoughts are as loose to all filthiness, to all levity of discourse and behaviour, as before. He also whose former distresses, hardships, and disasters have not laid him low in the

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valleys of humility, nor circumscribed the lashings out of his luxury, but that his past miseries and restraints give only a relish instead of a check to his present pride and intemperance. And lastly, he whom all the caresses and embraces of Providence have not been able to win upon, so as to endear him to a virtuous strictness, or to deter him from a vicious extravagance; I say, every such person, (unless the great God be trivial and without concern in his grand transactions with our immortal souls,) during this condition, is (so far as we can judge) a fashioning for wrath. He is a probationer for hell, and carries about him the desperate symptoms and plaguetokens of a person likely to be sworn against by God, and hastening apace to a sad eternity.

The other use and improvement of the foregoing particulars shall be, to convince us of the great and fearful danger of a daring continuance in a course of sin. The counsel of Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar carries an equal aspect upon us all, that we break off our sins by righteousness, and change our lives by an immediate repentance: for who knows what dreadful things may be forming in the mind of God against us during our impenitence? Who knows what a day may bring forth, and what may be the danger of one hour's delay? This is most sure, that every particular, repeated act of sin sets us one advance nearer to hell. And while we are sinning obstinately, and going on audaciously in a rebellious course, how can we tell but God may swear in his wrath against us, and register our names in the black rolls of damnation? And then our condition is sealed and determined for ever.

It is dangerous dallying with and venturing upon

the Almighty. God is indeed merciful; but we know mercy itself may be angry, and compassion provoked may swear our destruction. Every sinner, upon his return to God, should repent and believe with that confidence, as if God were nothing but mercy; but having once repented, it would be his wisdom to live with that caution and exactness, as if God were nothing but justice. For none certainly can be too exact in acquitting himself to God, or too cautious in the business of eternity. And therefore, when the tempter shall dress up any beloved minion sin, and present it to our eager, inflamed appetites, let us not look upon it as it paints and sparkles in the temptation, but let us rather demur a while, and debate with ourselves, what may be the issue of that sin, if committed by us, in the court of heaven; whether it may not provoke God to protest that we shall never come thither: and then, believe it, God will say, as he does in Isaiah xlv. 23, I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and it shall not return. What God absolutely purposes and declares, God himself cannot (because he will not) disannul. Still, therefore, let us keep this consideration alive upon our spirits, that, before the sentence of death pass upon us, it may fairly be prevented; but when it is once denounced, it can never be recalled. God in mercy give us a right understanding of these things.

To whom be rendered and ascribed, as is most due, all praise, might, majesty, and dominion, both now and for evermore. Amen.

SERMON XXXII.

PSALM xiv. 1.

The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. THAT any one should degenerate to that degree of unreasonable baseness, as to deny that being and power by which he breathes, is not easy to imagine, did not some force us to believe so much of them upon their own word; such as, history tells us, were Diagoras Melius, Theodorus Cyrenæus, and the like: and we have no cause to have so much better an opinion of the modern age, as to doubt that it has those who are ready enough to let fly and vent the same impiety. Though, let them affirm it never so much in words, there are not wanting arguments to persuade us, that their mouth belies their heart; and that they have an inward, invincible sense of what they outwardly renounce, holding them under the iron bands of a conviction not to be stifled or outbraved, or hectored out of their conscience; as shall be discoursed of afterwards.

In the words we have these two particulars:

I. An assertion made; There is no God.

II. The person by whom it is made; the fool.

As for the assertion, we may consider in it two things: first, the thing asserted; second, the manner of its assertion.

As for the thing asserted, that there is no God, it may be understood,