him, and be put to it to justify yourselves: if you can do it by recrimination, and can prevent your condemnation, by condemning the law and the Judge, try your strength and do your worst.

Ah, poor worms! dare you lift up the head, and move a tongue against the Lord! Did Infinite wisdom itself want wisdom, to make a law to rule the world? And did Infinite goodness want goodness to deal mercifully, and as was best with man! And shall justice itself be judged to be unjust? and that by you! by such silly, ignorant, naughty and unrighteous ones as you! as if you had the wisdom and goodness, which you think God wanted when he made his laws!

And whereas you tell us of preaching terribly to you, we cannot help it, if the true and righteous threatenings of God' be terrible to the guilty. It is because we know the terrors of the Lord, that we preach them, to warn you to prevent them. And so did the apostles before us. (2 Cor. v. 11.) Either it is true that the unquenchable fire will be the portion of impenitent, unbelieving, fleshly, worldly, unsanctified men, or it is not true: If it were not true, the word of God were not true: and then what should you do with any preaching at all, or any religion! But if you confess it to be true, do you think in reason it should be silenced? Or can we tell men of so terrible a thing as hell, and tell them that it will certainly be their lot, unless they be new creatures, and not speak terribly to them! O, sirs, it is the wonder of my soul that it seemeth no more terrible, to all the ungodly that think they do believe it. Yea, and I would it did seem more terrible to the most, that it might affright you from your sin to God, and you might be saved. If you were running ignorantly into a coalpit, would you revile him that told you of it, and bid you stop if you love your life! would you tell him that he speaks bitterly or terribly to you? It is not the preacher that is the cause of your danger: he doth but tell you of it, that you may escape. If you are saved, you may thank him: but if you are lost, you may thank yourselves. It is you that deal bitterly and terribly with yourselves. Telling you of hell doth not make hell: warning you of it, is not causing it: nor is it God that is unmerciful, but you are foolishly cruel and unmerciful to yourselves. Do not think to despise the patience and mercy of the Lord, and then think to escape by accus

"He is

ing him of being unmerciful, and by saying, it is a terrible doctrine that we preach to you impenitent sinners! I confess to thee it is terrible, and more terrible than thy senseless heart imagineth, or is yet aware of: One day, if grace prevent it not, thou shalt find it ten thousand times more terrible than thou canst apprehend it now. When thou seest thy Judge with millions of his angels coming to condemn thee, thou wilt then say his laws are terrible indeed. Thou hast to do with a holy, jealous God, who is a “consuming fire,” (Heb. xii. 29,) and can such a God be despised, and not be terrible to thee? He is called, "The great, the mighty, and the terrible God." (Neh. ix. 32; Deut. vii. 21.) "With God is terrible majesty." (Job xxxvii. 22.) "He is terrible out of his holy place." (Psal. lxviii. 35.) terrible to the greatest, even to the kings of the earth.” (Psal. lxxvi. 12.) It is time for you therefore to tremble and submit, and think how unable you are to contend with him and not revile his word or works, because they are terrible; but fear him for them, and study them on purpose that you may fear and glorify him. And as David, "Say unto God, How terrible art thou in thy works! Through the greatness of thy power shall thy enemies submit themselves unto thee- Come and see the works of the Lord! He is terrible in his doings towards the children of men. (Psal. lxvi. 3. 5.) "Let them praise thy great and terrible name, for it is holy.” (Psal. xcix. 3.) And will you reproach God, or his word, or works, or ministers, with that which is the matter of his praise? If it be terrible to hear of the wrath of God, how terrible will it be to feel it? Choose not a state of terror to yourselves, and preaching will be less terrible to you. Yield to the sanctifying work of Christ, and receive his Spirit: and then that which is terrible to others will be comfortable to you. What terror is it to the regenerate (that knoweth himself to be such), to hear that none but the regenerate shall be saved? What terror is it to them that mind the things of the Spirit, to hear of the misery of a fleshly mind, and that they that live after the flesh shall die? (Rom. viii. 8. 13.) The word of God is full of terror to the ungodly: but return with all your hearts to God, and then what word of God speaks terror to you? Truly, sirs, it is more in your power than ours, to make our preaching easy and less terrible to you! We cannot change our doc

trine, but you may change your state and lives: we cannot preach another Gospel; but you may obey the Gospel which we preach. Obey it, and it will be the most comfortable word to you in the world. We cannot make void the word of God; but you may avoid the stroke by penitent submission. Do you think it is fitter to change our Master's word, and falsify the laws of God Almighty; or for you to change your crooked courses, which are condemned by this word, and to let go the sin which the law forbiddeth? It is you that must change, and not the law. It is you that must be conformed to it, and not the rule that must be made crooked to conform to you.

Say not as Ahab of Michaiah, of the minister: "I hate him, for he prophesieth not good of me, but evil;" (1 Kings xxii. 8;) For a Balaam could profess that if the king "would give him his house full of silver and gold, he could not go beyond the word of the Lord his God, to do less or more," (Numb. xxii. 19,) or "to do either good or bad of his own mind," as he after speaks, xxiv. 13. What good would it do you for a preacher to tell you a lie, and say that you may be pardoned and saved in an impenitent, unsanctified state? Do you think our saying so, would make it so? Will God falsify his word to make good ours? Or would he not deal with us as perfidious messengers that had betrayed our trust, and belied him, and deceived your souls? And would it save or ease an unregenerate man to have Christ condemn the minister for deceiving him, and telling him that he may be saved in such a state?

Do but let go the odious sin that the word of God doth speak so ill of, and then it will speak no ill of you.

Alas, sirs, what would you have a poor minister do, when God's command doth cross your pleasure; and when he is sure to offend either God or you? Which should he venture to offend? If he help not the ungodly to know their misery, he offendeth God: if he do it, he offendeth them. If he tell you, that " All they shall be damned that believe not the truth, but have pleasure in unrighteousness," your hearts rise against him for talking of damnation to you: and yet it is but the words of the Holy Ghost, (2 Thess. ii. 12,) which we are bound to preach! If he tell you that "If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die," you will be angry, (especially if he closely apply it to yourselves :) and if he

do not tell you so, God will be angry; for it is his express determination. (Rom. viii. 13.) And whose anger think you should a wise man choose; or whose should he most resolutely avoid; the anger of the dreadful God of heaven, or yours? Your anger we can bear, if there is no remedy; but his anger is intolerable. When you have fretted, and fumed, and railed, and slandered us and our doctrine, we can live yet; or if you kill the body, you can do no more: you do but send us before, to be witnesses against you, when you come to judgment. But who can live, when God will pour out wrath upon him? (Numb. xxiv. 23.) We may keep your slanders and indignation from our hearts; but it is the heart that the heart-searching God contendeth with: and who can heal the heart which he will break? You may reach the flesh; but he that is a Spirit can afflict and wound the spirit: "And a wounded spirit (and wounded by him) who can bear?" (Prov. xviii. 14.) Would you not yourselves say he were worse than mad, that would rather abuse the eternal God, than cross the misguided desires of such worms as you; that would displease God to please you, and sell his love to purchase yours? Will you be instead of God to us when we have lost his favour? Will you save us from him, when he sendeth for our souls by death, or sentenceth us to hell by judgment? Silly souls! how happy were you, could you save yourselves! Will you be our gods if we forsake our God? What you that are but skinfuls of corruption! that will shortly be choked with your own filth and phlegm, and by your friends be laid to rot in silent, undiscerned darkness, lest the loathsome sight or smell of you should annoy them! Blame not God to use them as enemies. and rebels, that will change him for such earthen gods as you. We have one God, and but one, and he must be obeyed, whether you like or dislike it: "There is one Lawgiver that is able to save and destroy," James iv. 12,) and he must be pleased, whether it please your carnal minds or not: If your wisdom now will take the chair, and judge the preaching of the Gospel to be foolishness, or the searching application of it to be too much harshness and severity, I am sure you shall come down ere long, and hear his sentence that will convince you, that the "wisdom of the world is foolishness with God, and the foolishness of God (as blasphemy dare call it) is wiser than men." (1 Cor. iii. 19;

i. 25.) And God will be the final Judge, and his word shall stand when you have done your worst. The worst that the serpent can do, is but to hiss awhile and put forth the sting, and bruise our heel: but God's day will be the bruising of his head, and "Satan shall be bruised under feet." (Rom. xvi. 20.)

The sun will shine, and the light thereof discover your deformities, whether you will or not. And if adulterers or thieves, that love the works of darkness, will do their worst by force or flattery, they cannot make it cease its shining, though they may shut their eyes, or hide themselves in darkness from its light: Faithful teachers are the "lights of the world." (Matt. v. 14.) They are not lighted by the Holy Ghost, to be "put under a bushel, but on a candlestick, that they may give light to all that are in the house." (ver. 15.) What would you do with teachers but to teach you? and what should they make known to you, if not yourselves? Shall not the physician have leave to tell you of your diseases?

Verily, sirs, a sinner under the curse of the law, unsanctified and unpardoned, is not in a state to be jested and dallied with, unless you can play in the flames of hell: it is plain dealing that he needs. A quibbling, toyish, flashy sermon, is not the proper medicine for a lethargic, miserable soul, nor fit to break a stony heart, nor to bind up a heart that is kindly broken. Heaven and hell should not be talked of in a canting, jingling, or pedantic strain. A Seneca can tell you that it is a physician that is skilful, and not one that is eloquent, that we need. If he have also fine and neat expressions, we will not despise them; nor overmuch value them: urendum, secandum:' It is a cure that we need; and the means are best, be they never so sharp, that will accomplish it. Serious, reverent gravity best suiteth with matters of such incomprehensible concernment. You set not a schoolboy to make an oration, to give an assaulted city an alarm, or to call men out to quench a common fire. You may play with words when the case will bear it: but as dropping of beads is too ludicrous for one that is praying to be saved from the flames of hell; so a sleepy, or a histrionical, starched speech, is too light and unlikely a means to call back a sinner that is posting to perdition, and must be humbled and renewed by the Spirit, or