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heart, how much more corrupt than either! What an inexhausted fountain of sin has there been in it! A fountain of original corruption, which mingled its bitter streams with the days of early childhood; and which, alas, flows on even to this day, beyond what actions or words could express. I see this to have been the case, with regard to what I can particularly survey. But oh, how many months, and years, have I forgotten? concerning which I only know this, in the general, that they are much like those I can remember; except it be, that I have been growing worse and worse, and provoking thy patience more and more, though every new exercise of it was more and more wonderful.

"And how am I astonished, that thy forbearance is still continued! It is, because thou art God and not man.* Had I, a sinful worm, been thus injured, I could not have endured it. Had I been a prince, I had longsince done justice on any rebel, whose crimes had borne but a distant resemblance to mine. Had I been a parent, I had long since cast off the ungrateful child, who had made me such a return as I have all my life long been making to thee, Oh thou father of my spirit? The flame of natural affection would have been extinguished; and his sight, and his very name, would have become hateful to me. Why then, O Lord, am I not cast out from thy presence? Why am I not sealed up under an irreversible sentence of destruction! That I live, I owe to thine indulgence. But oh, if there be yet any way of deliverance, if there be yet any hope for so guilty a creature, may it be opened upon me by thy gospel and thy grace! And if any farther alarm, humiliation, and terror, be necessary to my security and salvation, may I meet them, and bear them all! Wound mine heart, O Lord, so that thou wilt but afterwards heal it; and break it in pieces, if thou wilt but at length condescend to bind it up.‡

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CHAP. V.

The Sinner stripped of his vain Pleas.

The Vanity of those Pleas which Sinners may secretly confide in, so apparent, that they will be ashamed at last to mention them before God. §. 1, 2. Such as, (1.) That they descended from pious Parents. §. 3. (2.) That they had attended to the speculative Part of Religion. §. 4. (3.) That they had entertained some Notions. §. 5. (4.) That they had expressed a zealous Regard to Religion, and attended the outward Forms of Worship with those they apprehended the purest Churches. §. 6, 7. (5.) That they had been free from gross Immoralities. §. 8. (6.) That they did not think the Consequence of neglecting Religion would have been so fatal. §. 9. (7.) That they could not do otherwise than they did. §. 10. Concluson. §. 11. With the Meditation of a convinced Sinner, giving up his vain Pleas before God.

My last discourse left the sinner in a very alarming, and

§. 1. a very pitiable circumstance; a criminal convicted at the bar of God, disarmed of all pretences to perfect innocence and sinless obedience, and consequently obnoxious to the sentence of a holy law, which can make no allowance for any transgression, no, not for the least; but pronounces death, and a curse, against every act of disobedience: how much more then against those numberless and aggravated acts of rebellion, of which, O sinner, thy conscience hath condemned thee before God? I would hope, some of my readers will ingenuously fall under the conviction, and not think of making any apology: for sure I am, that humbly to plead guilty at the divine bar, is the most decent, and, all things considered, the most prudent thing that can be done in such an unhappy circumstance. Yet I know the treachery, and the selfflattery, of a sinful and corrupted heart. I know what excuses it makes, and how, when it is driven from one refuge, it flies to another, to fortify itself against full conviction, and to persuade, not merely another, but itself, "that if it has been in some instances to blame, it is not quite so criminal as was represented : that there are at least considerations that plead in its favour, which, if they cannot justify, will in some degree excuse." A secret reserve of this kind, sometimes perhaps scarce formed into a distinct reflection, breaks the force of conviction, and often prevents that deep humiliation before God, which is the happiest token of approaching deliverance. I will therefore examine into some of these particulars; and for that purpose would seriously ask thee, O sinner, what thou hast to offer in arrest of judgment? What plea thou canst urge for thyself, why the sentence of God should not go forth against thee, and why thou shouldst not fall into the hands of his justice?

§. 2. But this I must premise, that the question is not, how thou wouldst answer to me, a weak sinful worm like thyself, who am shortly to stand with thee at the same bar: (the Lord grant that I may find mercy of the Lord in that day*!) But, what wilt thou reply to thy judge? What couldst thou plead, if thou wast now actually before his tribunal; where, to multiply vain words, and to frame idle apologies, would be but to increase thy guilt and provocation? Surely the very thought of his presence must supersede a thousand of those trifling excuses, which now sometimes impose on a generation that are pure in their own eyes, though they are not washed from their filthiness or while they are conscious of their own impurities, trust in words that cannot profit, and lean upon broken reeds ||

§. 3. You will not, to be sure, in such a circumstance plead, "that you are descended from pious parents." That was indeed your privilege; and woe be to you, that you have abused it, and forsaken the God of your fathers ¶. Ishmael was immediately descended from Abraham, the friend of God; and Esau was the son of Isaac, who was born according to the promise: yet you know they were both cut off from the blessing, to which they apprehended they had a kind of hereditary claim. You may remember, that our Lord does not only speak of one who could call Abraham father, who was tormented in flames** ; but expressly declares, that many of the children of the kingdom shall be shut out of it; and when others come from the most distant parts to sit down in it, shall be distinguished from their companions in misery, only by louder accents of lamentation, and more furious gnashing of teeth ++.

§. 4. Nor will you then presume to plead, "that you had exercised your thoughts about the speculative part of religion." For to what end can this serve but to increase your condemnation! Since you have broken God's law, since you have contradicted the most obvious and apparent obligations of religion, to have enquired into it, and argued upon it, is a circumstance that proves your guilt more audacious. What, did you think religion was merely an exercise of men's wit, and the amusement of their curiosity? If you argued about it, on the principles of common sense, you must have judged and proved it to be a practical thing: and if it was so, why did you not practise accordingly? You knew the particular branches of it and why then did you not attend to every one of them? To have pleaded

* 2 Tim. i. 18, + Prov. xxx. 12. Jer. vii 8. Isai. xxxvi. 6. 2 Chron. vii. 22. ** Luke xvi. 23, 24. tt Matt. viii. 11, 12.

§. 5. Nor yet again will it suffice to say,

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an unavoidable ignorance, would have been the happiest plea that could have remained for you: nay, an actual, though faulty ignorance, would have been some little allay of your guilt. But if, by your own confession, you have known your master's will, and have not done it, 'you bear witness against yourself, that you deserve to be beaten with many stripes*. "that you have had right notions, both of the doctrines and the precepts of religion.' Your advantage for practising it was therefore the greater but understanding, and acting right, can never go for the same thing, in the judgment of God, or of man. lieving there is one God, you have done well; but the devils also believe and tremblet. In acknowledging Christ to be the Son of God, and the Holy One, you have done well too; but you know the unclean spirits made this very orthodox confession, and yet they are reserved in everlasting chains, under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day. And will you place any secret confidence in that, which might be pleaded by the infernal spirits, as well as by you?

In be

§. 6. But perhaps you may think of pleading, that 'you have actually done something in religion." Having judged what faith was the soundest, and what worship the purest, you entered yourself into those societies, where such articles of faith were professed, and such forms of worship were practised; and among these you have signalized yourself, by the exactness of your attendance, by the zeal with which you have espoused their cause, and by the earnestness with which you have contended for such principles and practices.”—() sinner, I much fear that this zeal of thine, about the circumstantials of religion, will swell thine account, rather than be allowed in abatement of it. He that searches thine heart, knows from whence it arose, and how far it extended. Perhaps, he sees that it was all hypocrisy ; an artful veil, under which thou wast carrying on thy mean designs for this world; while the sacred names of God and religion were profaned and prostituted in the basest manner; and if so, thou art cursed with a distinguished curse, for so daring an insult on the divine omniscience, as well as justice. Or perhaps the earnestness, with which you have been contending for the faith and worship, which was once delivered to the saints ¶, or which, it is possible, you may have rashly concluded to be that, might be mere pride and bitterness of spirit: and all the zeal you have expressed might

* Luke xii. 47. † James ii. 19. Luke iv. 34, 41. || Jude, ver. 6. ¶ Jude, ver. 3.

possibly arise from a confidence of your own judgment, from an impatience of contradiction, or some secret malignity of spirit which delighted itself in condemning, and even in worrying others; yea, which (if I may be allowed the expression,) fiercely preyed upon religion, as the tyger upon the lamb, to turn it into a nature most contrary to its own. And shall this screen you before the great tribunal? shall it not rather awaken the displeasure, it is pleaded to avert ?

. 7. But say, that this your zeal for notions and forms has been ever so well intended, and so far as it has gone, ever so well conducted too; what will that avail towards vindicating thee in so many instances of negligence and disobedience, as are recorded against thee in the book of God's remembrance? Were the revealed doctrines of the gospel to be earnestly maintained, (as indeed they ought ;) and was the great practical purpose for which they were revealed to be forgot? Was the very mint, and anise, and cummin to be tithed, and were the weightier matters of the law to be omitted* ; even that love to God, which is its first and great command +. Oh how wilt thou be able to vindicate even the justest sentence thou hast passed on others for their infidelity, or for their disobedience, without being condemned out of thine own mouth!

§. 8. Will you then plead, "your fair moral character, your works of righteousness and of mercy?" Had your obedience to the law of God been complete, the plea might be allowed, as important and valid. But I have supposed and proved above, that conscience testifies to the contrary; and you will not now dare to contradict it. I add farther, had these works of yours, which you now urge, proceeded from a sincere love to God, and a genuine faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, you would not have thought of pleading them, any otherwise than as an evidence of your interest in the gospel covenant, and in the blessings of it, procured by the righteousness and blood of the Redeemer and that faith, had it been sincere, would have been attended with such deep humility, and with such solemn apprehensions of the divine holiness and glory, that instead of pleading any works of your own before God, you would rather have implored his pardon, for the mixture of sinful imperfection attending the very best of them. Now, as you are a stranger to this humbling and sanctifying principle, (which here, in this address, I suppose my reader to be,) it is absolutely necessary you should be plainly and faithfully told, that neither sobriety,

* Matt. xxiii. 23.

Matt xxii. 38.

Luke xix. 22.

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