per, Luke xiv. 15, to 25. And who is it long of now but yourfelves? and what can you fay is the chief caufe of your damnation, but your own wills? you would be damned. The whole cafe is laid open by Chrift himself, Prov. i. from the 20th to the end! • Wisdom crieth without, fhe uttereth her voice in the ftreets, fhe crieth in the chief place of the concourfe, How long, ye fimple ones, willye love fimplicity, and the fcorners delight in their fcorning, and fools hate knowledge? Turn ye at my reproof; behold. I will pour out my fpirit upon you, I will make known my words unto you. Because I have called, and ye re fufed, I have ftretched out my hands, and no man regarded, but ye have fet at nought all my counfels, and would none of my reproofs; I alfo will laugh at your calamity, I will mock when your fear cometh: when your fear cometh as defolation, and your deftruction cometh as a whirlwind; when diftrefs and anguish cometh upon you, then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they fhall feek me early, but they fhall not find me. For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord. They would none of my counfels: they defpifed all my reproof: Therefore fhall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. For the turning away of the fimple fhall flay them, and the profperity of fools fhall deftroy them. But whofo hearkeneth to me fhall dwell fafely, and fhall be quiet from the fear of evil. I thought beft to recite the whole text at large to you, because it doth fo fully fhew the caufe of the deftruction of the wicked. It is not becaufe God would not teach them, but because they would not learn. It is not because God would not call them, but because they would not turn at his reproof. Their wilfulness is their undoing.

USE.

FROM what hath been faid, you may further learn these following things:

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1. From hence you may fee, not only what blafphe my and impiety it is, to lay the blame of men's de ftruction upon God; but alfo how unfit thefe wicked wretches are to bring in fuch a charge against their Maker. They cry out upon God, and fay, he gives them not grace, and his threatenings are fevere, and God forbid that all fhould be damned that be not converted and fanctified; and they think it hard measure that a fhort fin fhould have an endlefs fuffering; and if they be damned, they fay they cannot help it, when in the mean time they are bufy about their own de, ftruction, even cutting the throat of their own fouls, and will not be perfuaded to hold their hands. They think God were cruel, if he should damn them; and yet they are fo cruel to themfelves, that they will run into the fire of hell, when God hath told them it is a little before them, and neither intreaties, nor threaten, ings, nor any thing that can be faid, will stop them. We fee them almoft undone; their careless, worldly, flefhly lives do tell us that they are in the power of the devil; we know if they die before they are con verted, all the world cannot fave them, and knowing the uncertainty of their lives, we are afraid every day left they drop into the fire; and therefore, we intreat them to pity their own fouls, and not to undo themfelves when mercy is at hand, and they will not hear us. We intreat them to caft away their fin, and come to Chrift without delay, and to have fome mercy on themselves, but they will have none; and yet they think that God must be cruel if he condemn them. O wilful wretched finners! It is not God that is cruel to you, it is you that are cruel to yourfelves; you are told you must turn or burn, and yet you turn not. You

are told that if you will needs keep your fins, you fhall keep the curfe of God with them; and yet you will keep them. You are told that there is no way to hap pinefs but by holiness, and yet you will not be holy. What would you have God to fay more to you? What would you have him do with his mercy? He offereth it you, and you will not have it. You are in the ditch of fin and mifery, and he would give you his hand to help you out, and you refufe his help; he would cleanfe you of your fins, and you had rather keep them; you love your luft, and love your gluttony and fports, and drunkennefs, and will not let them go; would you have him bring you to heaven whether you will or no? Or would you have him bring you and your fins to heaven together? Why that is an impoffibility, you may as well expect he should turn the fun into darkness. What, an unfanctified fleshly heart be in heaven! it cannot be; there entereth nothing that is unclean, Rev. xxi. 17. For what communication hath light with darkness, or Chrifi with Belial? 2 Cor. vi. 14, 15. All the day long hath he firetched out his hands to a difobedient and gain-faying people, Rom. x. 25. What will you do now? Will you cry to God for mercy? Why, God calleth upon you to have mercy upon yourfelves, and you will not. Minifters fee the poifoned cup in the drunkard's hand, and tell him there is poifon in it, and defire him to have mercy on his foul, and forbear, and he will not hear us; drink it he must and will; he loves it, and therefore though hell comes next, he faith he cannot help it. What fhould one fay to fuch men as thefe? We tell the ungodly careless worldling, it is not fuch a life that will Serve the turn, or ever bring you to heaven. If a bear were at your back, you would mend your pace; and when the curfe of God is at your back, and Satan and hell are at your back, will you not flir, but afk, What needs all this ado? Is an immortal foul of no more worth? O have mercy upon yourselves! But they will E

have no mercy on themselves, nor once regard us. We tell them the end will be bitter; who can dwell with the everlafting fire? And yet they will have no mercy upon themfelves. And yet will these shamelefs wretches fay, that God is more merciful than to condemn them; when it is themselves that cruelly and unmercifully run upon condemnation, and if we fhould go to them with our hats in our hands, and intreat them, we cannot stop them; if we should fall down on our knees to them, we cannot ftop them, but to hell they will go, and yet will not believe that they are going thither. If we beg of them for the fake of God that made them, and preferveth them; for the fake of Chrift that died for them; for the fake of their own poor fouls, to pity themselves, and go no further in the way to hell, but come to Chrift while his arms are open, and enter into the state of life while the door ftands open, and now take mercy while mercy may be had, but they will not be perfuaded. If we fhould die for it we cannot get them fo much as now and then to confider with themselves of the matter, and to turn; and yet they can fay, I hope, God will be merciful. Did you never confider what he faith, Ifa. xxvii. 11. It is a people of no understanding ; therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them; and he that formed them will fhew them no favour. If another man will not cloathe you when you are naked, and feed you when you are hungry, you will fay he is unmerciful. If he fhould caft you into prifon, or beat and torment you, you would fay he is unmerciful; and yet you will do a thousand times more against yourselves, even caft away both foul and body for ever, and never complain of your own unmercifulness: Yea, and God that waited upon you all the while with his mercy, must be taken to be unmerciful, if he punish you after all this. Unless the Holy God of Heaven will give thefe wretches leave to trample upon his Son's blood, and with the Jews, as it were again, to fpit in

his face, and do defpite to the Spirit of Grace, and make a jeft of fin, and a mock at holiness, and fet more light by faving mercy, than by the filth of their fleshly pleasures; and unlefs, after all this, he will fave them by the mercy which they caft away, and would have none of, God himfelf muft be called unmerciful by them. But he will be justified when he judgeth, and he will not ftand or fall at the bar of a finful worm.

I know there are many particular cavils that are brought by them against the Lord, but I fhall not here ftay to answer them particularly, having done it already in my Treatife of Judgment, to which I fhall refer them. Had the difputing part of the world been as careful to avoid fin and deftruction, as they have been bufy in fearching after the caufe of them, and forward indirectly to impute it to God, they might have exercised their wits more profitably, and have lefs wronged God, and fped better themfelves. When fo ugly a monfter as fin is within us, and fo heavy a thing as punishment is on us, and fo dreadful a thing as hell is before us, one fhould think it should be an ealy queftion, who is in the fault, whether God or man be the principal or culpable caufe? Some men are fuch favourable judges of themfelves, that they are proner to accufe the infinite perfection and goodness itfelf, than their own hearts, and imitate their first parents, that faid, the ferpent tempted me, and the woman that thou gavest me, gave unto me, and I did eat, fecretly implying, that God was the cause. So fay they, the understanding that thou gavest me was unable to dij cern; the will that thou gavest me was unable to make u better choice; the objects which thou didst fet before me, did entice me; the temptations which thou didst permit to affault me, prevailed against me. And fome are fo loth to think that God can make a felf-determining creature, that they dare not deny him that which they take to be his prerogative, to be the determiner of the will in every fin, as the firft efficient immediate