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For the rest, as God the Father vouchsafed to create them, and God the Son disdained not to bear the penalty of their sins upon the cross: and did not judge such sufferings vain, though he knew that by refusing the sanctification of the Holy Ghost, they would finally destroy themselves, so we that are his ministers, though these be not gathered, judge not our labour wholly lost.

Reader, I have done with thee, (when thou hast perused this book ;) but sin hath not yet done with thee, even those that thou thoughtest had been forgotten long ago; and Satan hath not yet done with thee though now he be out of sight; and God hath not yet done with thee, because thou wilt not be persuaded to have done with deadly reigning sin. I have written thee this persuasive discourse, as one that is going into another world, where the things are seen that I here speak of, and as one that knows thou must shortly be there thyself. As ever thou wouldest meet me with comfort before the Lord that made us as ever thou wilt escape the everlasting plagues prepared for the final neglecters of salvation, and for all that are not sanctified by the Holy Ghost, and love not the communion of the saints, as members of the holy catholic church; and as ever thou hopest to see the face of Christ the judge, and of the majesty of the Father, with peace and comfort, to be received into glory, when thou art turned naked out of this world: I beseech thee, I charge thee to hear, and obey the call of God, and resolutely to turn, that thou mayest live. But if thou wilt not, even when thou hast no true reason for it, but because thou wilt not; I summon thee, answer for it before the Lord, and require thee there to bear me witness I gave thee warning, and that thou wert not condemned for want of a call to turn and live,' but because thou wouldst not believe it, and obey it; which also must be the testimony of thy serious monitor,

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ever shut out of the kingdom of heaven, and tormented with the devils in eternal fire. Infidels believe not this when they read it, and therefore must feel it. Those that do believe it, are forced to cry out with Paul, O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! But nature itself doth teach us all, to lay the blame of evil works upon the doers, and therefore when we see any heinous thing done, a principle of justice doth provoke us to inquire after him that did it, that the evil of the work may return the evil of shame upon the author. If we saw a man killed and cut in pieces by the way, we should presently ask, O! who did this cruel deed? If the town were wilfully set on fire, you would ask, What wicked wretch did this? So when we read that the most will be firebrands of hell for ever, we must needs think with ourselves, How comes this to pass, and to whom is it owing; who is it that is so cruel as to be the cause of such a thing as this? And we can meet with few that will own the guilt. It is indeed confessed by all, that Satan is the cause, but that doth not resolve the doubt, because he is not the principal cause. He doth not force men to sin, but tempt them to it, and leaves it to their own wills, whether they will do it or not. He doth not carry men to an ale-house, and force open their mouths, and pour in the drink; nor doth he hold them that they cannot go to God's service, nor doth he force their hearts from holy thoughts. It lies therefore between God himself and the sinner, one of them must needs be the principal cause of all this misery, which ever it is; for there is no other to cast it upon. God disclaims it: he will not take it upon him. The wicked disclaim it usually, and they will not take it upon them, and this is the controversy that is here managed in the text.

The Lord complains of the people, and the people think the fault is with God. They plainly say, 'that the way of the Lord is not equal.' And God saith, it is their ways that are not equal.' So here they say, 'if our transgressions and our sins be upon us, and we pine away in them, how shall we then live? As if they should say, if we must die and be miserable, how can we help it? As if it were not owing to them, but to God. But God, in my text, doth clear himself of it, and tells them how they may help it if they will, and persuades them to use the means; and if they will not be persuaded, he lets them know that it is of themselves; and if this will not satisfy them he will not therefore

forbear to punish them. It is he that will be the judge, and he will judge them according to their ways, they are no judges of him, or of themselves, as wanting authority, wisdom and impartiality; nor is it their caviling and quarreling with God, that shall serve their turn, or save them from the execution of justice against which they murmur.

I shall next speak somewhat of each of them in order, though very briefly.

DocT. I. It is the unchangeable law of God, that wicked men must turn or die.

The words of this verse contain, 1. God's purgation of clearing himself from the blame of their destruction. This he doth, not by disowning his law, that the wicked shall die, nor by disowning his judgments and execution according to that law, or giving them any hope that the law shall not be executed; but by profession, that it is not their death that he takes pleasure in, but their returning rather, that they may live: and this he confirms to them by his oath. 2. An express exhortation to the wicked to return; wherein God doth not only command, but persuade and condescend also to reason the case with them, Why will they die? The direct end of this exhortation is, That they may turn and live. The secondary, or reserved ends, upon supposition that this is not attained, are these two: First, To convince them by the means which he used, that it is not the will of God, if they be miserable. Secondly, To convince them, from their manifest wilfulness, in rejecting all his commands and persuasions, that it is of themselves; and they die even because they will die. The substance of the text doth lie in these observations following: DocT. I. It is the unchangeable law of God, be converted, and become as little children, ye that wicked men must turn, or die. cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.—

If you will believe God, believe this; there is but one of these two ways for every wicked man, either conversion or damnation. I know the wicked will hardly be persuaded either of the truth or equity of this. No wonder if the guilty quarrel with the law. Few men are apt to believe that which they would not have to be true; and fewer would have that to be true, which they apprehend to be against them. But it is not quarreling with the law, or with the judge, that will save the malefactor: believing and regarding the law might have prevented his death; but denying and accusing it, will but hasten it. If it were not so, an hundred would bring their reasons against the law, for one that would bring his reason to the law and men would rather choose to give their reasons why they should not be punished, than to hear the commands and reasons of their governors, which require them to obey. The law was not made for you to judge, but that you might be ruled and judged by it. But if there be any so blind, as to venture to question either the truth or justice of the law of God, I shall briefly give you that evidence of both, which, methinks, would satisfy a reasonable man. And first, if you doubt whether this be the word of God or not, besides a hundred other texts, you may be satisfied by these few. Verily I say unto you, Except ye

DOCT. II. It is the promise of God, that the Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be wicked shall live, if they will but turn. born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God,

· DocT. III. God takes pleasure in men's con--If a man be in Christ, he is a new creature: version and salvation, but not in their death or damnation he had rather they would return and live, than go on and die.

DOCT. IV. This is a most certain truth, which because God would not have men to question, he hath confirmed it to them solemnly by his oath.

DocT. V. The Lord redoubles his commands and persuasions to the wicked to turn.

old things are passed away, behold all things are become new.— -Ye have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge, after the image of him that created him.-Without holiness none shall see God.-So then, they that are in the flesh cannot please God. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.-For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.

DocT. VI. The Lord condescends to reason the case with them, and asks the wicked why-According to his abundant grace, he hath bethey will die.

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gotten us again to a lively hope.-Being born
again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorrupti-
ble, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth
for ever.-
-Wherefore, laying aside all malice and
all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and evil-
speakings, as new-born babes, desire the sincere
milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.-

The wicked shall be turned into hell; and all the nations that forget God.-And the Lord loveth the righteous, but the wicked his soul hateth.'

As I need not stay to open these texts which are so plain, so I think I need not add any more of that multitude which speak the like: if thou be a man that dost believe the word of God, here is already enough to satisfy thee that the wicked must be converted or condemned. You are already brought so far, that you must either confess that this is true, or say plainly, you will not believe the word of God. If once you are come to that pass, there is but small hopes of you: look to yourselves as well as you can; for it is likely you will not be long out of hell. You would be ready to fly in the face of him that should give you the lie: and yet dare you give the lie to God? But if you tell God plainly you will not believe him, blame him not if he never warn you more, or if he forsake you, and give you up as hopeless: for, to what purpose should he warn you, if you would not believe him, should he send an angel from heaven to you; it seems you would not believe, for an angel can speak but the word of God, but if an angel should bring you any other gospel, you are not to receive it, but to hold him accursed; surely there is no angel to be believed before the Son of God, who came from the Father to bring us this doctrine. If he is not to be believed, then all the angels in heaven are not to be believed. If you stand on these terms with God, I shall leave you till he deal with you in a more convincing way. God hath a voice that will make you hear; though he intreat you to hear the voice of his gospel, he will make you hear the voice of his condemning sentence, without intreaty. We cannot make you believe against your wills, but God will make you feel against your wills. But let us hear what reason you have, why you will not believe this word of God, which tells us that the wicked must be converted or condemned. I know your reason; it is because that you judge it unlikely that God should be so unmerciful; you think it cruelty to damn men everlastingly for so small a thing as a sinful life. And this leads us to the second thing, which is to justify the equity of God in his laws and judgment.

First, I think you will not deny, but that it is most suitable to an immortal soul to be ruled by laws that promise an immortal reward, and threaten an endless punishment. Otherwise, the law should not be suited to the nature of the subject; who will not be fully ruled by any lower means

than the hopes or fears of everlasting things: as it is in case of temporal punishment. If a law were now made that the most heinous crimes should be punished with a hundred years' captivity, this might be of some efficacy, as being equal to our lives. But if there had been no other penalties before the flood, when men lived eight or nine hundred years, it would not have been sufficient, because men would know that they might have so many hundred years' impunity afterwards. So it is in our present case.

Second, I suppose you will confess, that the promise of an endless and unconceivable glory is not unsuitable to the wisdom of God, or the case of man: and why then should you not think so of the threatening of an endless and unspeakable misery?

Third, When you find it in the word of God that so it is, and so it will be, do you think yourselves fit to contradict this word? Will you call your Maker to the bar, and examine his word upon the accusation of falsehood? Will you sit upon him and judge him by the law of your conceits? Are you wiser and better, and more righteous than he? Must the God of heaven come to school to you to learn wisdom; must infinite wisdom learn of folly; and infinite goodness be corrected by an erring sinner, that cannot keep himself an hour clean? Must the Almighty stand at the bar of a worm? O horrid arrogancy of senseless dust! Where were you, when the Almighty made the laws, that he did not call you to his council? Surely he made them before you were born, without desiring your advice, and you came into the world too late to reverse them: if you could have done so great a work, you should have stepped out of your nothingness, and have contradicted Christ when he was on earth, or Moses before him, or have saved Adam and his sinful progeny from the threatening death; that so there might have been no need of Christ. And what if God withdraw his patience and preservation, and let you drop into hell while you are quarreling with his words, will you then believe that there is an hell?

Fourth, If sin be such an evil that it required the death of Christ for its expiation, no wonder if it deserve our everlasting misery.

Fifth, If the sins of the devils deserved an endless torment, why not also the sins of man? Sixth, You should perceive that it is not possible for the best of men, much less for the wicked, to be competent judges of the desert of sin. Alas, we are both blind and partial. You can never know fully the desert of sin till you fully know the evil of sin and you can never fully know

reason.

the evil of sin, till you fully know, 1. The excel- | see what you have to trust to. You are but lency of the soul which it deforms. 2. And dead and damned men, except you will be conthe excellency of holiness, which it obliterates. verted. Should I tell you otherwise I should 3. The reason and the excellency of the law deceive you with a lie. Should I hide this from which it violates. 4. The excellency of the you I should undo you, and be guilty of your glory which it despises. 5. The excellency blood, as the verses before my text assure me, and office of reason which it treads down. 6. When I say to the wicked man, O wicked man, No, nor till you know the infinite excellency, thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not speak to almightiness, and holiness of that God, against warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man whom it is committed. When you fully know shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I reall these, you shall fully know the desert of sin. quire at thine hand.' You see then, though this Besides, you know that the offender is too par- be a rough, unwelcome doctrine, it is such as we tial to judge the law, or the proceedings of this must preach, and you must hear. It is easier judge. We judge by feeling, which blinds our to hear of hell than feel it. If your necessities We see in common worldly things, that did not require it, we should not grate your tenmost men think the cause is right which is their der ears with truths that seem so harsh and grievown: and that all is wrong that is done against ous. Hell would not be so full, if people were them and let the most wise, or just, impartial but willing to know their case, and to hear and friends, persuade them to the contrary, and it is think of it. The reason why so few escape it, is, all in vain. There are few children but think because they strive not to enter in at the strait the father unmerciful, or deals hardly with them, gate of conversion, and to go the narrow way if he whip them. There is scarcely the vilest of holiness while they have time, and they strive transgressor, but thinks the church doth wrong not, because they are not awakened to a lively him, if they excommunicate him; or scarcely a feeling of the danger they are in: and they are thief or murderer that is hanged, but would ac- not awakened, because they are loth to hear or cuse the law, and judge it cruelty, if that would think of it; and that is partly, through foolish. serve his turn. tenderness and carnal self-love; and partly, because they do not well believe the word that threatens it. If you will not thoroughly believe this truth, methinks the weight of it should force you to remember it, and it should follow you and give you no rest till you are converted. If you had but once heard this word, by the voice of an angel, Thou must be converted or condemned: turn or die! would it not sink into your mind, and haunt you night and day? So that in your sinning you would remember it, as if the voice were still in your ears, Turn or die ! O happy were your souls, if it might thus work with you, and never

Seventh, Can you think that an unholy soul is fit for heaven? Alas, they cannot love God here, nor do him any service which he can accept. They are contrary to God; they lothe that which he most loves; and love that which he abhors they are incapable of that imperfect communion with him which his saints here partake of. How then can they live in that perfect love of him, and full delights and communion with him, which is the blessedness of heaven? You do not ac cuse yourselves of unmercifulness, if you make not your enemy your bosom counsellor; or if you take not an animal to bed and board with | be forgotten, or let you alone till it hath driven you: no, nor if you take away his life, though he never sinned: and yet will you blame the absolute Lord, the most wise and gracious sovereign of the world, if he condemn the unconverted man to perpetual misery.

home your hearts to God. But if you will cast it out by forgetfulness, or unbelief, how can it work to your conversion and salvation? But take this with you, to your sorrow, though you may put this out of your minds, you cannot put it out of the bible; but there it will stand as a sealed truth, which you shall experimentally know for ever, that there is no other way but turn or die.

Use, I beseech you now, all that love your souls, that instead of quarreling with God, and with his word, you will presently stoop to it, and use it for your good. All you that are yet un- O what is the matter then that the hearts of converted in this assembly, take this as the un- sinners are not pierced with such a weighty truth! doubted truth of God, you must ere long be A man would think now that every unconverted converted or condemned, there is no other way soul that hears these words should be pricked to but turn or die. When God, that cannot lie, the heart, and think with themselves, This is my hath told you this, when you hear from the own case, and never be quiet till they found maker and judge of the world, it is time for him themselves converted. Believe it, this drowsy that hath ears to hear; by this time you may careless temper will not last long. Conversion

and condemnation, are both of them awakening | behold the glorious majesty of the Lord, and to things and one of them will make you feel ere praise him among his holy angels, to love him, long, I can foretell it as truly, as if I saw it with and be filled with his love for ever. As this my eyes, that either grace or hell, will shortly was the end that man was made for, so God did bring these matters to the quick, and make you give him means that were fitted to the attaining say, What have I done; what foolish wicked of it. These means were principally two. First, courses have I taken? The scornful and the The right inclination and disposition of the mind stupid state of sinners will last but a little while. of man. Secondly, The right ordering of his As soon as they either turn or die, the presump-life and practice. For the first, God suited the tuous dream will be at an end, and then their disposition of man unto his end; giving him wits and feeling will return.

such knowledge of God, as was fit for his present state, and an heart disposed and inclined to God in holy love. But yet he did not fix or confirm him in this condition; but having made him a free agent, he left him in the hands of his own free will. For the second, God did that which belonged to him; that is, he gave man a perfect law requiring him to continue in the love of God, and perfectly to obey him. By the wil ful breach of this law, man did not only forfeit his hopes of everlasting life, but also turned his heart from God, and fixed it on these lower fleshly things, and hereby did blot out the spiritual image of God from his soul. So that man did both fall short of the glory of God, which was his end, and put himself out of the way, by which he should have attained it; and this, both as to the frame of his heart, and of his life. The holy inclination and love of his soul to God, he

But I foresee there are two things that are like to harden the unconverted, and make me lose all my labour, except they can be taken out of the way and that is, the misunderstand ing of those two words the wicked and turn. Some will think with themselves, It is true, the wicked must turn or die: but what is that to me? I am not wicked, though I am a sinner, as all men are. Others will think, It is true that we must turn from our evil ways; but I am turned long ago, I hope this is not now to do. Thus, while wicked men think they are not wicked, but are already converted, we lose all our labour in persuading them to turn. I shall therefore, before I go any further, tell you here who are meant by the wicked, and who they are that must turn or die, and also what is meant by turning; and who they are that are truly converted; this I have purposely reserved for this place, prefer-lost; and instead of it, he contracted an inclinaring the method that fits my end.

And here you may observe, that in the sense of the text, a wicked man and a converted man are contraries. No man is a wicked man that is converted, and no man is a converted man that is wicked: so that to be a wicked man and to be an unconverted man, is all one. And therefore in opening one, we shall open both.

Before I can tell you what either wickedness or conversion is, I must go to the bottom, and fetch up the matter from the beginning.

It pleased the great Creator of the world, to make three sorts of living creatures; angels he made pure spirits, without flesh, and therefore he made them only for heaven and not to dwell on earth. Beasts were made flesh, without immortal souls; and therefore they were made only for earth, and not for heaven. Man is of a middle nature, between both, as partaking of both flesh and spirit: therefore he was made both for heaven and earth. But as his flesh is made to be but a servant to his spirit, so is he made for earth; but as his passage, or way to heaven, and not that this should be his home or happiness. The blessed state that man was made for, was to

tion and love to the pleasing of his flesh, or carnal self, by earthly things! Growing strange to God, and acquainted with the creature the course of his life was suited to the bent and inclination of his heart; he lived to his carnal self, and not to God: he sought the creature for the pleasing of his flesh, instead of seeking to please the Lord. With this nature or corrupt inclination, we are all now born into the world; for who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?" As a lion hath a fierce and cruel nature before he doth devour, and as an adder hath a venomous nature before it stings, so in our very infancy we have those sinful natures or inclinations, before we think, or speak, or do amiss. Hence springs all the sin of our lives. Not only so, but when God hath of his mercy provided us a remedy, even the Lord Jesus Christ, to be the Saviour of our souls, and bring us back to God again, we naturally love our present state, and are loth to be brought out of it, and therefore are set against the means of our recovery: though custom hath taught us to thank Christ for his good will, yet carnal self persuades refuse his remedies, and to desire to be excused when we are commanded to take the

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