mankind in paradise; and wrath was at his heels there; Adam's profperous state was quickly turned into mifery. The very ground on which the finner treads, is curfed for its fake. The finner, in his finful state, is in a state of wrath. It abides on him, John, iii. 36. The sky never clears on him, while he is a finner. Even with his own children, God writes his indignation on it: John, xlii. 24. "Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Ifrael to the robbers? Did not the Lord, he against whom we have finned ?" The earth is made to groan under it; and when the end comes, the defiled creation has to go through the fire to purge it. But above all, fee how he purfued fin in his own Son, though it was only on him by imputation: Rom. viii. 32. "He spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all." The fins of the elect met on him, and therefore the forrows of wrath met in him, and left him not, till they brought him to the dust of death.

(3.) Departing from it is the only teftimony of his creatures love to him which he req sires, and nothing lefs can be accepted. He does not feek rivers of oil, nor other coftly facrifices: "But he hath fhewed thee, O man! what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" If he call them to lay down their lives for him, it is only in the way of their standing off from fin; otherwife it is not acceptable, nor required. But his law is, Suffer any thing rather than fin. Behold it in one word, "Ye that love the Lord, hate evil," Pfal. xcvii. 10.

2. Sin is an evil, and a great evil, in the eyes of the truly godly. Whenever the eyes of any perfon are opened by grace, then immediately they are of this mind; while the reft of the deluded world hug the ferpent in their bofom, they are for flying

flying from it at any rate. If they lose this opinion of it at any time, it is owing to the lofs of their light, their falling asleep. But, in their fettled judgement, it is the worlt of evils.-For,

(1.) Of all evils it has lain nearest their hearts, and produced the heaviest complaints and groans. Pial. li. 3. Lam. xvi. 17. Hear Paul's complaint: Rom. vii 24. " O wretched man that I am! who fhall deliver me from the body of this death?" Did ever perfecutions, prifons, reproaches, or all the ills he fuffered, draw fuch a complaint from him? In tribulations he rejoiced, in a prifon he fang; but in the fetters of the body of death, he groans like a dying man.

(2.) Sin or fuffer being put to their choice, they have always, when themfelves, chufed to fuffer rather than fin: Acts, xx. 24. "But none of these things move me; neither count I my life dear unto myself, fo that I might finifh my courfe with joy, and the miniftry which I have received of the Lord Jefus, to teftify the gospel of the grace of God." It is true, a godly man may fometimes be bemifted, fo as not to fee a thing to be fin which is fin; nay fometimes, in a hurry of temptation to avoid fuffering, he may fall into fin against light; but otherwife, by divine grace, they will chufe poverty, imprisonment, banishment, death, rather than fin; even the greatest temporal evil, rather than the least fin. Thus the cloud of witneffes gave their teftimony. From thete they did not "accept deliverance, that they might obtain a better refurrection," Heb. xi. 35.

3. Sin is indeed in its own nature and properties the greatest of all evils. To make this evident, confider,

(1.) That of all things fin is most contrary to the nature of God, who is the chief good, and

therefore

therefore it is the chief evil, Lev. xxvi. It is walking contrary to God; it is worse than all penal evils; thefe met in Jesus Christ, who was God as well as man, but fin was not found in him : Heb. vii. 26. "For fuch an High-Prieft became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from finners." God owns himself the author of penal evils, but it is blafphemy to father fin upon him. This fights against God; and, as one fays, the finner, so far as in him lies, destroys the nature of God, dethrones him, and ftrikes at his very being. God, fwearing by his holinefs, fwears by himself; but nothing is fo opposite to holiness as fin is, nothing can be more or as much fo; nay, it is the very thing which makes the devil evil, and therefore it is more evil itself than even the devil.-Confider,

(2.) That fin is most contrary to the rational nature. Right reason condemns it; and no reason approves it, but as blinded and prejudiced. It degrades men, and makes them like beafts, the filthieft of beasts, dogs and fwine, 2 Pet. ii. 22.; more beaftly than the beafts themselves: Ifa. i. 3. "The ox knoweth his owner, and the afs his mafter's crib; but Ifrael doth not know, my people doth not confider." Thus the wicked man is a vile man, though never fo honourable, Pf. xv. 4. Hence it is, that although there are fome who glory in their fhame, yet fin is fuch a work of darkness, that no perfon ordinarily is disposed to father the monftrous brat.-Confider,

(3.) That fin is the deformity of the foul. That is the feat of fin, which is the nobleft part of man. But it is the deformity of that part; and the corrup tion of what is the best is certainly the worst evil. Even a deformity in the face is worse than in another part; a bloody man on a throne is worse than fuch a

perfon

perfon on a dunghill. Thus the ill of fin appears in what it does to the foul; it defaces God's image there, and fo mars its beauty: Pfal. xiv. 3. "They are all gone afide, they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doth good, no, not one." No running fore, canker, or gangrene, is comparable to it, for these do but prey on the body, fin on the foul. It makes men unlike God, and like the devil. God is holy, juft, and good; the devil is unholy and wicked; and fo is the finner going on in his fin. It makes a perfon like the devil, as a child is to his father, John, viii. 44. therefore both go to one place in the end: Matth. xxv. 41. "Then fhall he fay alfo unto them on his left hand, Depart from me, ye curfed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels."-Confider,

(4.) That fin is a hereditary evil, and these are the worst of evils, the hardest to be cured. We were born with it: Pfal. li. 5. "Behold, I was fhapen in iniquity, and in fin did my mother conceive me." It is woven into our very natures, it cannot be taken away without a miracle of grace; even fuch a power is neceffary as is required in raifing the dead, and quickening them. The whole inan must be born again, new moulded, new framed, ere the perfon can depart from iniquity. Confider,

(5.) That fin is the mother of all thofe evils which ever were, are, or fhall be; the teeming womb of all mifchief. What caft the angels out of heaven, Adam out of paradife? What deluged the old world, and burned Sodom? It was fin. Of all the evils on foul and body to which man is liable, fin leads the van. Behold how death, in numberlefs fhapes, has overflowed the world! What a flood of miferies is overflowing mankind,

kingdoms,

kingdoms, churches, families, perfons, fouls, bodies! What has opened the fluice of these? Rom. v. 12. affords the answer, "Wherefore, as by one man fin entered into the world, and death by fin; fo death paffed upon all men, for that all have finned.". There is never a figh, nor a groan in this world, under any hardship whatsoever, but it rifes from the fting of this ferpent; and it has filled hell with groans which will laft for ever.— Confider,

(6.) That where fin is removed in its guilt and power, the greatest evils cannot harm us: 2 Pet. iii. 13. "And who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?" Difeafes, croffes, death itself, without it, is like a ferpent without a fting, 1 Cor. xv. 55. 56. The fevere lashes of the juft Judge of heaven and earth, are turned into the rods of a loving father, Pfal. lxxxix. 31. 32. Death is but the falling asleep, and dying only the shadow of death. Nay, they fhall do us good: Rom. viii. 28. "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." Out of the most dark, troubled, and confounding cafe, God will raise a beautiful frame. Every stone caft at them fhall be a precious stone, fanctified for their good.--Confider,

(7.) That wherever fin is in force, it not only ftrengthens other evils, but blasts and poisons all that good which a perfon enjoys. It not only arms difeafes, death, and hell, against a man, but turns his very bleffings into curfes: Mal. ii. 2. "If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name, faith the Lord of hofts, I will even send a curfe upon you, and I will curfe your bleffings; yea, I have curfed them already, because ye do not lay it to heart." In all the en

joyments