3. And yet you have more room for joy, whilst you confider where you must, and shall shortly be. You are now in Christ, but in a few days you fhall be with Chrift as well as in him; it is well now, but it will be better e'er long. Your fin is now fully pardoned, but not fully purged out of your fouls. Your perfons are freed from guilt, but your hearts are not either freed from filth or grief: But in a little time you shall be absalutely and eternally freed from both. Your prefent condition is in heaven, compared with your former, and your future state will be in heaven indeed, compared with your present. "The "path of the juft is as the fhining light, which fhineth more " and more unto the perfect day," Prov. iv. 18. II. But on the other fide, what meditation can be more startling and amazing to all the unregenerate, and chriftless world? Ponder it, thou poor christless, and unfanctified foul. Get thee out of the noife and clamour of this world, which makes fuch a continual din in thine ears, and confider how thou hangest over the mouth of hell itself, by the feeble threed which is fpun every moment out of thy noftrils; as foon as that gives way, thou art gone for ever. What fhift do you make to quiet your fears, and eat, drink, and labour with any pleafure? It is ftoried of Dionyfius the tyrant, that when Damocles would have flattered him into a conceit of the perfection of his happiness, as he was an abfolute fovereign prince, and could do what he pleased with others, as his vaffals; Dionyfius, to confute his fancy, caused him to be placed at a table richly furnished, and attended with the moft curious mufic, but juft over his head hanged a fharp and heavy fword by one fingle hair; which when Damocles faw, no meat would go down with him, but he earnestly begged for a discharge from that place. This is the lively emblem of the condition, thou unregenerate man. There are three things in thy ftate, fadly oppofed to the for mer ftate last described. 1. The ftate you were born in, was bad. 2. The state you are now in, is worse. 3. The ftate you shall shortly be in, if you thus continue, will be unfpeakably worst of all. 1. The ftate you were born in, was a fad ftate; you were born in fin, Pfal. li. 5. and under wrath, Eph. ii. 3. The womb of nature caft you forth into this world, defiled and condemned créatures. 2. The ftate you are in now, is much worse than that you were born in for what have you been doing ever fince you were born, but treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath? : Rom. ii. 5. For every fand of time which run out of the glass of God's patience towards you, a drop of wrath hath been running into the vials of his indignation against you. Oh! what a treafure of fin and wrath then, is laid up in fo many years as you have lived in fin! Every fin committed, every mercy abufed, every call of God neglected, and flighted, adds fill more and more to this treafure. 3. It will be much worfe fhortly than it is now, except preventing, renewing grace ftep in betwixt you and that wrath, into which you are hastning so fast. It is fad to be under the Jentence of condemnation, but unspeakably worse to be under the execution of that fentence. To be a Chriftless man is lamentable, but to be a hopeless man is more lamentable. For though you be now without Chrift, yet whilft the breath of life is in your noftrils, you are not abfolutely without hope: But when once that breath is gone, all the world cannot fave or help you. Your laft breath and your last hope expire together. Though you be under God's damning fentence, yet that fentence, through the riches of forbearance, is not executed, but as foon as you die, all that wrath which hanged over your heads, fo many years, in the black clouds of God's threatenings, will pour down in a furious ftorm upon you, which will never break up whilft God is God. Oh! think, and think again, and let your thoughts think close to this fad and folemn fübject, there is but a breath betwixt you and hell. Infer. 4. Doth Ged maintain your life by breath? Let not that breath deftroy your life, which God gave to preferve it. No man can live without breath; and yet fome might live longer than they do, if their breath were better employed. "Some men's throats have been cut by their own tongues," as the Arabian proverb intimates. Life and death (faith Solomon) are in the power of the tongue. Critics obferve, that a word and a plague grow upon the fame root in the Hebrew tongue. It is certain, that fome mens breath hath been baneful poison, both to themselves and others. It was a word that cut off the life of Adonijah, 1 Kings ii. 23. and thousands, fince his day, have died upon the point of the fame weapon. It is therefore wholesome advice that is given us, Pfal. xxxiv. 12. "What man is he that defireth life, and loveth many days, "that he may fee good; keep thy tongue from evil, and thy lips from fpeaking guile." * Cave, ne feriat lingua tua collum tuum. Scal. Arab. Prov. Cent. I.. And the more evil the times are, the ftricter guard we should keep upon our lips. "It is an evil time, the prudent will keep "filence," Amos v. 13. When wicked men watch to make a man an offender for a word, as it is, Ifa. xxix. 20, 21. it behoves us to be upon our watch, that we offend not with our lips. It is good to keep, what is not fave to truft. David was a deaf and dumb man, when in the company of wicked men, Pfal. xxxviii. 13. he thought filence then to be his prudence. It is better they fhould call you fools, than find you fo. Infer. 5. Employ not that breath to the dishonour of God, which was first given, and is ftill graciously maintained.by him for your comfort and good. It were better you had never breathed at all, than to spend your breath in profane oaths, or foolish and idle chat, whereby, at once, you wound the name of God, draw guilt upon your own fouls, and help on the ruin of others. That is a startling text, Mat. xii. 36. "But I fay unto you, that every idle word "that men fhall speak, they fhall give an acount thereof in the "day of judgment." To give an account, is here, by a metalepfis of the antecedent for the confequent, put for punishment in hell-fire, without an intervening change of heart, and fprinkling of the blood of Jefus. And there is more evil in this abuse of our breath, than we can easily discern, especially upon two accounts; (1.) Because it is a fin moft frequently committed, and feldom repented of. The intercourse betwixt the heart and tongue is quick, and the fenfe of the evil as eafily and quickly paffeth away. (2.) Because the poisonous, and malignant influence thereof abides and continues long after: our words may mischief others, not only a long time after they are spoken, but a long time after the tongue that fpake them is turned to duft. How many years may a foolish, or filthy word, a prophane fcoff, an atheistical expreffion, fick in the minds of them that heard them, after the fpeaker's death: A word spoken is phyfically tranfient, and passed away with the breath that delivered it; but morally, it is permanent: For as to its moral efficacy, no more is required, but its objective exiftence in the minds and thoughts of them that once heard it: And, upon that very ground, Suarez argues for a general judgment, after men have paft at death their particular judgment; because (faith he) long after that, abundance of good and evil will be done in this world by the dead, in the perfons of others that over-live them. For look, as it was faid of Abel, that being dead, he yet speaketh; fo it may be faid of Julian, Porphyry, and multitudes of feoffing Atheists, that being dead they yet fpeak. Oh therefore get a fanctified heart to feafon your breath, that it may minifter grace to the hearers. Infer. 6. Let your breath promote the spiritual life of others, as well as maintain the natural life in your felves. 66 Though the maintaining of your natural life be one end why God gave you breath, yet it is not the only, or principal end of it. Your breath must be food to others, as well as life to you Prov. x. 21. The lips of the righteous feed many." It will be comfortable to refign that breath to God at death, which hath been inftrumental to his glory in this life. It was no low encomium Chrift gave of the church, when he said, Cant. iv. II. "Thy lips, oh my fpoufe, drop as the honey-comb, honey "and milk are under thy tongue." Sweet, wholfome, and pleafant words, drop from her lips. They drop (faith Christ) as the honey-comb. Some drops ever and anon fall actually, and others hang, at the fame time, prepared and ready to fall. Such a prepared and habitual difpofition fhould every Christian continually have. Your words may ftick upon mens hearts to their edification and falvation, when you are in your graves. Your tongues may now fow that precious feed, which may fpring up to the praife of God, though you may not live to reap the comfort of it in this world, John iv. 36, 37. 'Tis a rich expence of your breath, to bring but one foul to God, and yet God hath used the breath of one, as his inflrument, to fave, edify, and comfort the fouls of thousands, Prov. xi. 30. "The "fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he that winneth "fouls is wife." The good Lord make all his people wife in this. Surely, whether we confider the invaluable worth and precioufaefs of fouls, the benefits you have had from the breath of others yourselves, the innate property of grace, where-ever it is, to diffufe and communicate itfelf, how fhort a time you have to breathe, and how comfortable it will be, when you breathe your last, to remember how it hath been employed for God, all this fhould open your lips, to counfel, reprove, and comfort others, as often as opportunity is miniftred. Did Chrift spend his blood for our fouls, and fhall not we fpend our breath for them! Oh! let our lips difpenfe knowledge. If you will not spend your breath for God, how will yon fpend your blood for him? If you will not speak for him, I doubt you will not die for him. Away with a fullen refervednefs, away with unprofitable chat; all fubjects of discourse are not fit for a Chriftian's lips. 'Tis a grave admonition God once gave 66 66 his people by the pen of a faithful * minister." You may rue (faith he) the opportunities you have loft. Here lay a poor wretch with one foot in hell, would he not have started "back, if he had had light to discover his danger? Well, you "are now together, fomething you must fay; the fame breath "would ferve for a compaffionate admonition, as for a com 66 placent impertinency, which will redound to neither of your "advantages. You part, the man dies, and in the midst of "hell cries out against you, one word of yours might have "faved me; you had me in your reach, you might have told me my danger; you forbore, I hardened; the Lord reward "your negligence." Infer. 7. If breath be the tie betwixt foul and body, How are we concerned to improve, and draw forth the precious breath of minifters and Chriftians, whilst it is yet in their noftrils ? The breath of many minifters is judiciously ftopt already, their breath ferves to little other ufe than to preserve their own lives; it will be ftopt.ere long by death, and then those excellent treasures of gifts and graces, wherewith they are richly furnifhed, will be gone out of your reach, never to be further ufeful to your fouls. You should do by them therefore (as one aptly fpeaks) as scholars do by fome choice book they have borrowed, and must return in a few days to the owner: They diligently read it night and day, and carefully transcribe the most ufeful and excellent notes they can find in it, that they may make them their own, when the book is called out of their hands. : But alas! we rather, divert, than draw forth thefe excellencies that are in them. You may yet converfe with them, and greatly benefit yourselves by thefe converfes; but (as one fpeaks) by the stream of your impertinent talk that feafon is neglected Afterwards you see your lack of your knowledge, but then the inftrument is removed. How muft it gall an awakened Jew, to think what discourse he had with Jefus Christ ! · Is it · lawful to give tribute to Cafar? Why do not thy difciples fast? Oh! had I nothing elfe to enquire of the Lord Jefus? Would it not have been more pertinent to have asked, What shall I do to be faved? But he is gone, and I dead in my fins. How ma ny perfons have we fent away, that had a word of wisdom in their hearts, having only learnt from them what a clock it is, what weather, or what news; forgetting to ask our own hearts, what is all this to us? and to enquire of them things worthy 1 Mr. Weft, |