by his grace to do otherwife. When ye are helped to fay thankfully, what the Pharifee faid boaftingly, The Lord be thanked that I am not as other men; and that I have not fo learned Chrift.It is matter of finging alfo, when their fins make you more holy; and when their unfavourinefs makes your graces to fend forth a fragrant fmell: and when thereby the Lord gives you an occafion to convince and convert them; and to be the inftruments of doing good to their fouls.-Well, fay ye, but the great queftion is, when my own fins are the affliction, can there be any ground to fing of judgment? Indeed finning can be no ground of finging; for fin is in itfelf a damnable thing, worie than hell: and, in God's name, I will fay, Whatever tends to discourage holinefs, and encourage fin, let it be ANATHEMA; and curfed be the preaching that tends to encouragement of fin; yea, curfed be the thought, in the preacher or hearer, that makes the doctrine of grace an encouragement thereto. Many fuch thoughts may enter into us all; but may vengeance from heaven come down upon them, and destroy them in us, that we may not blaspheme a holy, finless Jefus, to make him a minifter of fin. However, fin being the worst of all affliction and judgment, it would be an everlasting damp to the fong of mercy and judgment, if a fovereign God could not, in his infinite wisdom, bring a fong of praife out of the evil of fin. Why then, there is ground to fing, notwithstanding of fin, when God makes your fin a burden to you, and you to look upon yourselves as wretched because of it, faying, “O wretched man that I am! Who fhall deliver me from the body of this fin and death?" When the burden of fin makes you weary of this life; faying with Rebecca, I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth.' -There is ground to fing notwithstanding of fin, when God makes the prevalency of fin the mean of drawing you to a Saviour, and to the blood of Chrift that cleanfes from all fin; when daily fin makes daily application tỏ the fountain open for fin and uncleannefs; when the bit, terness of fin makes Chrift fweet and precious to you, and the fting of fin draws out your eye to look to the

brazen

brazen ferpent; and fo the man fees God get more glory, and Chrift more honour, and his righteoufnefs more renown, then he fings and glories in his infirmi ties, that the power of Chrift uray reft upon him.— There is ground to fing, notwithfianding of fin, when the fenfe of fin makes a man to judge himfelf, and condemn himself, that he may not be judged and condemned of the Lord; when it makes him examine himself more ftrictly, faying, "Search me, O God, and try if there be any wicked way in me.:" and obferve himself more clofely, fo as to watch over his heart and way, fo as to find out fin, and expel it, thro' grace, and live more circumspectly for the future.-There is ground to fing notwithstanding of fin; when fin makes a man to abhor himfelf, and to repent in duit and afhes; when it makes him, with David, to water his couch with his tears; and with Peter, to go out and weep bitterly, and lays him low in the duft before the Lord: Therefore,

as one fays, Better is the fin that makes us humble, 'than the duty that makes us proud.' The hypocrite's rifing is the mean of his fall; but the believer's fall, is the mean of his rifing. While the fenfe of his fin makes him holy, and fenfe of his pride makes him humble, his hypocrify fincere, his hardness makes him foft, his carnality makes him fpiritual; happy that victory of fin over a man, that iffues in a bloody war against it yet no thanks to fin, but to a fo vereign wife God, that turns the malady into a medicine. If any fhould hereupon take encouragement to fin, let them confider, if they do fo, whether their fpot can be the fpot of God's children; for, to fin, that grace may abound, is a prefumptuous fin of the highest degree; and true grace dare not draw fuch a bitter conclufion from fuch fwéet promifes; or, if a child of God fhould do fo, and make bold with fin, let him confider, if this be all his kindness to his friend? Though God do not damn you, he may fend you to a hell in this life, and fill you with horrors, terrors, and agonies of foul, fuch as I fpake of before: let this therefore be a rail to keep you back from the burning mountain. To fing of judgment in refpect of G

VOL. II.

fin,

fin, is not to fing of our folly in committing it, but to fing of God's wifdom in deftroying it: you have no caufe to fing of fin, which of itfelf brings death, ruin, and damnation; but fiill caufe to fing of judg ment concerning fin, or of the Lord's executing judg ment upon it.But what if hell be the judgment at laft, would you have me to fing in that cafe? I fear I go to hell when all is done; I fear I never get to heaven; and how fhould I fing? I anfwer, Have you not caufe to fing, that ye are out of hell, and that it is not as yet your lot? But I will tell you, if you were beginning to. fing, it would be the beginning of heaven: "Bleffed are they that dwell in thy houfe; they will be fill praifing thee." Will you fay, as an honeft exercifed Chriftian once faid, when tempted to fear hell, and thereupon to give over the duties of religion, Why, fays he, if I fhall never praife him in heaven, I fhall endeavour to praife him all that I can on earth.' This would be a fweet token that you fhall fing in heaven for ever, among the redeemed. And thus you fee, whether we view judgment with refpect to affliction, temptation, defertion, or fin, in what refpects it is that we are to fing of judgment; it is even to fing of the mercy that God exercifes in thefe judgments: and fo "I will fing of mercy and of judgment." It comes all to this, as if the pfalmist fhould fay, "I will fing of MERCIFUL JUDGMENTS;" for judgment is mercy, as it is the matter of the fong: or, to take them feparately, "I will fing of mercy.IN mercies;" and, "I will fing of mercy IN judgment:" and fo I will fing of my blinks and of my fhowers; I will fing both of my cloudy and my clear day; both of my ups and downs; both of fimiles and frowns; I will fing both of frowning and favourable-like difpenfations; "I will fing of mercy and judgment; to thee, O Lord, will I fing."-So much for the fecond head.

III. The Third general head propofed was, What this finging imports; and how we are to fing of mercy and judgment to the praife of God. I fhall speak a little to the quality and import of this fong.

ift, The

Ift, The import of this finging: "I will fing to the Lord" that is, I will praife the Lord; and it does not ly in the fimple found of a voice, but imports the glorifying of God with our hearts and lips, in our lives, and in our death or fuffering.

1. To fing to the Lord, is to glorify him with our hearts; to give him the love and adoration of our hearts. In this finging, there is the inward act of the foul; "Ble's the Lord, O my foul: and all that is within me, blefs his holy name," Plal. ciii. 1. It imports a deep impreffion of God upon the foul, and a lively fenfe of his mercy in Chrift, and of our unworthinels of it and here the foul, and all that is within it, is acting and moving: the judgment moves with admiration and wonder at God for his glorious grace; the memory moves with a thankful recording of his favours, Forget not all his benefits:" the affections move with joy and delight in God, and love to him for the riches of his grace in Chrift. O fhall I not love the greatest and beft of Beings, for the greatest and best of benefits! The heart is here employed: neither prayer nor praifes, without the heart, are of any worth: many fing with their voice, when their hearts are a hundred miles off, gading here and there: but a fixed heart is a finging heart; "My heart is fixed, O Lord; my heart is fixed, I will fing and give praife." We are called to fing with grace in our hearts, Col. iii. 16.: we are to fing with faith in our heart: He that is firong in the faith, glorifies God. We are to fing with love in our hearts, with fear in our hearts, and with joy in our hearts.

2. To fing to the Lord, is with our lips to glorify him: we are to give him the calves of our lips. When the heart is full of love, the tongue will be full of praife. Our tongues fhould be as well-tuned organs, to found forth the high praifes of God, pleading his caufe, defending his truths, avouching his name, and confeffing him before the world: Thy loving-kindnefs is better than life, therefore my lips fhall praife thee," Pfalm Ixiii. 3. When our hearts are inditing a good matter, our tongues will be as the pen of a ready writer, to freak

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of the things that concern the King, Pfal. xlv. t. when our hearts are glad, then our glory [i. e. our tongue] will rejoice, Plal.xvi. 9. and xxx. 12. O! the little heavenly difcourfe argues a very fad degeneracy.

3. To fing to the Lord, is, with our life to glorify him; when the love of our hearts, the calves of our lips, and the fervice of our lives, are prefented unto God together, they make a harmonious fong: the praife of the life is the life of praife : "Whofo offereth praife, glorifieth me," Pial. 1. 23. When we devote all the actions of our life to his difpofing-will, then we fing a fong of praife unto God. When we live by

faith on the Son of God; for no lefs is worth the name of life, but what is derived from him, and devoted to him, then we may be faid to glorify him in our lives. It is a practical way of finging the praise of God, that is here intended by the Pfalmift, as appears from the rest of the Pfalm.

4. To fing to the Lord, is, with our death and fufferings to glorify him, as well as with our life and actions thus we are called to glorify the Lord in the fires, Ifa. xxiv. 15. Does God call you to fuffer affliction in perfon, name, eflate, family, or concerns'; to fuffer want of hufband, wife, brother, fifter, ehildren, or other outward comforts? Why then, you fing of mercy and judgment, by fuffering patiently and fubmiffively; and God is as much glorified by your paffive obedience, as by your active. Whenever you are afflicted any way, believer, know that then God hath fome employment for your graces, and expects praife thereby; yea, if he fhould call you to fuffer death and martyrdom for his name, you are to fing his praife, by dying in and for the faith, as well as living by faith. O man, woman! could you die for him, that did for. you? That is a great matter. O it is a small matter to die once for Chrift, faid a martyr; if it might poffibly be, I could wifh that I might die a thoufand deatlis for him!-Thus you fee the import of finging to

the Lord.

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2dly, As to the qualities of this fong; or how we are to fing of mercy and judgment. And,