ger is greater than they are aware of; fatan is very bufy at fuch a time: While you fleep, he fuccefsfully fows his tares, Mat. xiii. 25. your fleeping time is a feed time for the devil, and a spring time for lufts. If you would remedy this evil, ftrive and wrestle against it, and pray for help to do it; go timeously to bed on Saturday's night, and fee that you be temperate through the week; for they that wake much in the ale-house, will be fair to fleep in the church. XI. Prejudice at preachers, and quarrelling with them for their plainnefs and freedom in reproving fin, mars the fanctification of the Sabbath, and your getting good by the ordinances. Some hear minifters, as the Pharifees heard Chrift, with ill-will to them, and a defign to catch advantage against them; they "would make a man an offender for a word." Others are so fast alleep in fin, that they cannot endure minifters to thunder in their ears, or lighten in their eyes by plain and piercing Termons, because they disturb their reft. Afa was. "wroth with the feer" upon this account, and " put him in prifon;" fo dealt Herod with John, and Ahab with Micaiah. Many, like Ahab, think the minifter has a pique at them, when he reproves fin freely: "He never fpeaks good of me," faith Ahab. O finner, this is the wrong way; for when God wounds thy fin, and darts conviction into thy foul, thou fhouldft thank the fpirit of God for his merciful vifiting of thee, and lay open your lufts, and fay, "Smite, Lord, with a deadly blow thofe enemies that would not have thee to rule over them; kill my lufts, and fave my foul. Bleft Phyfician, wound and heal; caufe thefe convictions end in my converfion here, and falvation hereafter." An honeft heart loves that fermon beft that wounds his lufts deepeft. He fays to the word, or the minifter, that stops his career in fin, as David to Abigail, Sam. xxv. 32. 33. "Bleffed be the Lord God of Ifrael, which fent thee this day to meet me; and bleffed be thy advice,” &c. If your eyes were opened, you would look on plain rouzing preachers as your best friends in the world. If you were in hazard of burning or drowning by falling into the fire or water, would you be angry with one that that will pull you out, and fave your life, though he fhould wound you, or break an arm of you in the doing of it? Nay, you would think him your friend, and thank him for his kindnefs. And will you be angry with a minifter for plucking you as a brand out of the burning, by denouncing wrath against fin, and telling your hazard in plain language? XII. Slighting the offers of the golpel, and Christ tendered to us therein, is a great profanation of the Lord's day, and directly oppofite to the defign of it: Yet alas! it is a most prevailing evil among us. Chrift calls, but we will not hear; he offers himself and his purchafe, but we will not accept; he allures us with his mercy, but we will not turn to him; he oft waters us with the dew and rain of gofpel ordinances, but little fruit follows: We are like the barren field, on which much cost is bestowed, but the crop is nothing anfwerable. How many Sabbaths are fpent, and fermons preached, and no good done? At one fermon of Peter's, there were three thousand fouls converted: But, alas! we fear there are three thousand fermons preached now, and not one foul brought in. Many times is the gospel net let down in vain: O that Chrift would come and direct it to be let down on the right fide of the fhip! I fhall endeavour briefly to lay before you the great fin and mifery of rejecting Chrift and the gofpel offers. i. It is against reason to refufe a remedy when in our offer; as for a wounded man to flight a phyfician, or a condemned man a pardon, none in his right wits would be guilty of this: Nay, it is even felf-murder; for he is as guilty of his own death that rejects a medicine, or tears a plaifter from off his wounds, as he that cut his own throat. Now, you know what a heinous fin felfmurder is; yea, this is not only fo, but it is foul-murder, which has a louder cry than any other murder, by fo much as the foul is more precious than the body: You are afraid to fled the blood of others, O do not embrue your hands in the blood of your own souls. 2. It is the greatest affront and indignity that can be offered to the majesty of God and our Lord Jefus Christ. Christ. It is even called a "treading under foot the Son of God, and his precious blood," Heb. x. 28. 29. which is there reckoned a greater fin than the breach of all the ten commands; it is a fin which neither heathens nor devils are guilty of. To" tread upon the Son of God," O monftrous guilt! who would be guilty of this? May you fay, "Am I a dog (as Hazael faid to the prophet) that I fhould do this thing?" Yea, every foul that flights Chrift and his gofpel-offers, doth it. How provoking muft it be, to trample on God's most precious Jewel, wherein he is highly delighted and well pleafed, Mat. iii. 18. to lòthe that which is moft fweet unto God? What horrid ingratitude is it, to flight the remedy that the infinitely wife God hath been at fo much pains and expences in preparing for us, and which hath coft him more than the creating of ten thoufand worlds would have done? a work upon which his heart is fo fet, and wherein he hath fo difplayed his glorious attributes and perfections; yea a work which he prefers to all his other works: How criminal must it be to undervalue that? Again, what a flight must it be to the divine Majefty, to prefer the devil and lufts before him? When fatan and lufts knock, they prefently find accefs; yea, the leaft whisper they make is hearkened to: But though Chrift cry aloud, and lift up his voice like a trumpet in the gofpel offers; yea, though he call, intreat, beseech, and complain, is difregarded, and finds fhut doors. "What iniquity (may Chrift fay) do you find in me," that the devil and lufts fhould be preferred before me? Can they do for you what I can do?"Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish and unwife?" 3. Refufing Chrift as offered in the gospel, is the great condemning fin of the world, fee John iii. 19. 36. Heb. iii. 19. The ruin of finners under the gofpel, is laid at the door of this fin, as if there were none other charged upon them: And juftly it is fo; for if a malefactor were offered his life upon his kneeling and accepting the king's remiffion, if he refused to do this, it may well be faid, that his refufal hangs him. O finner, no other fin in the world, however great it be, would condemn condemn you, if you were not guilty of this fin of flighting Chrift: But this is the fin which binds the guilt of all your other fins hard and faft upon you; yea, it is the fin that binds up the hands of Omnipotency, that it cannot fave you. Chrift's merits, though infinite, cannot justify you, if you reject them; for the best medicine that ever was compounded cannot heal, unless it be applied. 4. Unbelief and flighting of Chrift, tends to defeat the whole defign of the gospel, and to render Chrifl's whole undertaking ufelefs: For, what is it but a faying on the matter, You have no need of him; and His death was to no purpose? May not Chrift look with a grieved heart upon unbelieving finners, and fay, "I have gone a long journey, fhed my precious blood, and fuffered the pains of hell, to fave finners: But these fay on the matter, I might have ftaid in heaven; I might have kept my blood in my veins; or, I died as a fool dieth: They give me no thanks for all my pains.” O finners, confider what you are doing; would you go about to fruftrate Chrift's glorious expedition, or give him cause to repent of his death and bloody agony? 5 This fin brings on inevitable wrath and mifery, Heb. ii. 3. As Chrift hath cords of love, fo he hath a rod of iron; if you break his cords, he will take his rod : If mercy manage it, it will but wound you; but, if juftice take it, it will grind you to powder. O provoke not the Mediator to take his iron rod; for his vengeance is heavy. Though he be the meek" Lamb of God," and be clad with prieftly garments, yet he hath "feet like brass, as if they burned in a furnace," both heavy and hot to trample on his enemies, Lev. 1. 13. 15. lf you refufe Chrift, your mifery is as inevitable as that of the devils: For they perish, because they have no Mediator; and you perith, because you will not have a Mediator. O why will you put yourfelves in the fame cafe with devils? Nay, your cafe, in fome refpects, will be worse than theirs; for they never rejected a remedy. The most scorching corners in the fiery oven of God's wrath feems to be referved for unbelievers, Luke xii. g6. The breath of his mouth, that before invited them, will eternally blow their fire, Ifa. xxx. 35. Mercy itfelf will be incenfed, and plead against them at the great day. You will be more inexcufable than the hea thens: They will have fomething to fay for themselves, "We never had an offer of Chrift, we never once heard of him," but what can you fay for yourfelves, who have had fo many thousand offers, and fo many knocks and calls every Sabbath to accept of Chrift ? You must furely ftand fpeechlefs: there remains nothing for you but a " fearful looking for of judgment, and fiery indignation, which fhall devour the adverfa ries:" Yea, "it will be more tolerable for Sodom in that day of judgment, than it will be for you," Mat. xi. The fins of Sodom were fo monftrous, that they made a hell upon earth. O what punishment. muft they have now, when the beginnings of it in this world were fo terrible? If the punishment of the leaft fin will be intolerable in that lake, O what will the ** punishment of the Sodomites horrid and unnatural fins be Yet their cafe will be eafy, in refpect of them that have flighted the gofpel: Thefe will even gnash their 1 teeth for envy of the happinefs of a damned Sodomite. Nay, O gofpel flighter, you will then with a thoufand times you had rather been living in Sodom, when fire. and brimftone was rained from heaven on it, than have lived in Scotland, where maṛına was rained, and the light fhined fo abundantly.. 22. 23. So much for inward fins. Of outward Sins of Commiffion on the Lord's Day. II. I come, in the next place, to caution you against outward fins, whereby the Lord's day is too commonly v profaned. 1. Beware of the fins of the tongue : It is a most effential part of true religion, to govern the tongue aright: For," if any man feem to be religious (faith James) and bridleth not his tongue, that man's religion is vain." The tongue is a moft unruly thing; and therefore the pfalmift treats it, as he would do an un- * reasonable beaft, Pfal. xxxix. 1. "He keeps it in as with a bridle." God hath fet a double hedge about this un ruly |