man pleading an exemption from one command, and another from another, and every man indulging himself in his beloved vice, to the subversion of all order, and exclusion of the divine government. You are not a murderer, nor an adulterer, nor a thief; then you will not be condemned as such. But if you are unmerciful, or a slanderer, or a drunkard, or a sabbath-breaker, or a profane swearer, or a covetous worldling, or trust in any thing you have more than God, or live in opposition to his law in any one respect, what can you have to say why judgment should not pass upon you according to that law? and how will you ever be able to clear yourselves of the curse which belongs to the particular sins you are guilty of? I would not be understood to speak of the principle of sin in believers, or any transgressions they may happen to fall into, and repent of; which they do as sure as they are believers, humbling themselves before God for sins of constitution, surprise, or infirmity, which others would think and call venial, and living with allowance in none. But here lies the danger; and what I am observing and insisting upon is, that one sin indulged, pleaded for, and therefore unrepented of, is inconsistent with a Christian state, and will shut the door of mercy against you as well To which I add, that in all our searchings for sin, we shall take a false measure of it, and totally mistake the truth of our condition, if we do not look at the heart, where God looks, and pass judgment there, as Christ has directed us to do. Matt. v.

as more.

3. Let us ask ourselves the question, whose curses do we hear? The curse of him who can, and in case of stubborn disobedience, will, "destroy both body and soul in hell." They are the positive declarations of the just and holy God against sin and sinners; and they are delivered in the form of curses to express the certainty

of them, and strike the greater terror into us. For you are not to suppose that God's cursing is like man's, or that there is any thing of the weakness of passion in it; but he curses that we may consider what we have to do, and how we venture upon sin, when he has declared his displeasure against it, and his will to punish it, in so solemn and awful a manner. When he swears by himself," as I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth," we can take comfort from thence, if we repent and turn to him, and think ourselves more safe because of his oath: so when he pronounces the doom of sin in the form of a curse, we should dread it the more on that account, and take warning from the severity of his threatenings to escape them. Assure yourselves, God does not curse in the manner you think of when you hear that word; but he thereby publishes to the world the accursed nature of sin, his eternal abhorrence of it, and determination to punish it. Neither do you make the curses of Scripture your own in the bad sense of the word, by hearing them repeated, and saying Amen to them, and much less are you required to do it in a cursing disposition: but what you do is declaring your belief of them on the testimony of God's word, and if you do not believe them, you must not pretend to believe the Bible. And know for certain that they are the words of God, who cannot lie, whether you believe them or not, and always in force against all obstinate and impenitent sinners: and I cannot think that you take the way to avoid them by keeping yourselves out of the way of hearing of them. Let them strike deep into your souls now; and think with yourselves what you can do against God, or what power you have to stop the course of Almighty justice. Stop the course of the sun, keep off sickness from your bodies. he has decreed that you shall die; say to him, you will

not; do something or other to show that you can control him, before you bid defiance to him, and provoke his displeasure. You know you cannot; and, however you may fight against him with your sins, you cannot possibly entertain a thought of resisting him by open force. Then stand in awe of his threatenings, fear his curses, and think only of this one thing, how to secure yourselves against them.

Nay, there is something in this matter still more dreadful and alarming than any thing I have yet said; namely, that whenever you commit any one sin, the curse of it belongs to you; from that moment the decree is gone out against you, that very sin must be punished; you have pulled that sentence upon your heads, "the soul that sinneth shall die," and must lie under it for ever, for any thing you can do to help yourselves. I do not say there is no hope in the case, or that you are lost for ever without remedy; but help must come to you by another hand, and it must also come in a way of satisfaction to justice, which you have not in your power. There is a debt to pay, and you are cast into prison for it, and can by no means come out thence till the last farthing of it is paid. How this is done every Christian knows, and I will not forget to tell you before I conclude. In the meantime let this observation have its due weight with you, that the curses you have heard out of Scripture are God's, and that he will say Amen to them, whether man does or not.

4. Let it be observed that the curses of God against impenitent sinners will be executed upon them chiefly in another world, and that the whole weight and power of his wrath cannot be known till after death. We may feel the effects of his displeasure, and doubtless do, in pain and sickness, crosses and calamities of various kinds. And whenever his hand is heavy upon us in any kind of

trouble, we should learn from Scripture to know the author, and consider the design of it. Then is the time, if ever, to make deep search into ourselves, and ask why God does this? And as sure as we ask the question sincerely, we shall find the answer to it in our sin. For God afflicts for nothing else but to bring it to our remembrance, to chastise, humble, and correct us, and turn us out of the road of destruction; and we suffer like beasts, and not like reasonable creatures, or Christians who have the history of providence before us in the Bible, if we do not consider what is laid upon us as the desert and punishment of our sin, and the means of preventing much greater sufferings to come.

It is true, when troubles come thick upon us, we have not a prophet, or a messenger sent from heaven, on purpose to tell us what we have done, or what God is doing with us; we need it not; the Scripture tells us once for all, and we should tell it faithfully to ourselves, it is for sin; and one great design of Scripture is to teach us that God is always the same, and will deal with mankind at all times according to the methods of his providence therein recorded, as the unalterable purpose of his will, and a perpetual warning to us of the great evil and necessary consequence of sin, viz. eternal death. For that is the curse of all God's curses, the true import and full meaning of them all; and I am now particularly observ ing to you, that nothing we suffer in this life can discharge us from it, if we die in our sins.

The 90th Psalm is entitled a Prayer of Moses, and supposed to have been delivered by him at that melancholy time when all the Israelites, who came out of Egypt, of twenty years old and upward, except Joshua and Caleb, died in the wilderness, above forty in a day for forty years together. Many of them might repent and save their souls; but if they did not, the death of

of great joy to your ears; just as comfortable as it would be to a condemned criminal to have a pardon brought him when the halter was about his neck. It is my delight, as well as my office among you, to tell you of the precious things of Christ; of deliverance from wrath by him; of redemption from every curse; of the full and free pardon of all your sins, only by his blood-shedding; and it is my great desire, before I die, to see you crying after him, as the blind, the lame, the lepers did when he was upon earth, every one of you for your own healing; but how can this be while you think yourselves whole, fear no evil, and do not know your want of such a Physician? How can you ever come to him for a pardon, if you do not see the condemnation you are under, and find the sentence of death in yourselves? You must, you must come to this; this is your awakening, the Spirit's 'first work in you, and the way to Christ, the Saviour of sinners. I must therefore be faithful to you here, upon the peril of my own soul. I must tell you of sin, what a depth of evil there is in it, far beyond what you could ever have thought of, and what a depth of sin there is in you: and when you know and feel it by grace given you from above, see your danger, and the curse which cleaves to it, Oh! how will you rejoice to hear those words, "Thou shalt not die;" to have your pardon confirmed beyond all doubt by a thousand promises of Scripture, and mercy as it were forcing itself upon your hearts; to see Christ paying the vast debt you owed, and bearing the heavy load of your sins in his own body; and to know assuredly that the forgiveness of all sins is sealed in his blood to every believer for ever.

And when you have faith in the pardoning love of God, and come to it in the way of repentance, see the desert of sin, and the greatness of your own, the great mercy of your deliverance, and how dearly it was pur