incumbrances and distracting cares of the world: Hereafter a crowd and thick fucceffion of earthly employments and engagements will come on; fin will harden you by cuftom and continuance. Now is your time; you are in the convertible age; few that pafs the feafon of youth (comparitively fpeaking) are brought over to Chrift afterwards. It is a rarity, the wonder of an age, to hear of the converfion of aged finners. Befides, you are the hopes of the next generation: Should you be Chrift-neglecting and defpifing fouls; how bad foever the present age is, the next will be worfe. Say not we have time enough before us, we will not quench the fprightly vigour of our youth in melancholy thoughts: Remember there are fkulls of all fizes in Golgotha; graves of all lengths in the church-yard: You may anticipate those that stand nearer the grave than you feem to do. O you cannot be happy too foon: As young as you are, did you but taste the comforts that be in Chrift, nothing would grieve you more than that you knew him no fooner. Behold he ftandeth at thy door in the morning of thy age, knocking this day for admiffion into thy heart.

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6. You that have had fome flight, ineffectual, and vanishing convictions upon you formerly; the Lord Jefus once more renews his call: Will you now at last hear his voice? It is an infinite mercy to have a fecond call. I doubt not but there are many aniong you, whilft you have fat under the word, have had fuch thoughts as these in your hearts: Sure my condition is not right, nor fafe; there must another manner of work pass upon my foul, I am loft for ever. External duties of religion I do perform, but I am a ftranger to regeneration. Such inward convictions as thefe were the knocks and calls of Chrift, but they paffed away and were forgotten: your convictions are dead, and your hearts the more hardened; for it is in putting a foul under conviction as it is in putting iron into the fire, and quenching it again, which hardens it the more. You have been near the kingdom of God, but the more miserable for that, if you be shut out at laft. The quickening of your convictions is the right way to the faving of your fouls. The Lord make you this day to hear his voice.

7. Such as have come hither upon vain or vile accounts, for mere novelty or worse ends; to catch advantages, or reproach the truths of God; fcoffing at the most folemn and awful voice of Christ. The word that you have flighted and reproached, the fame shall judge you in that great day, except the Lord will give you repentance unto life, and make the heart tremble under it that hath fcoffed at it. "Be not mockers, left your bonds be made "ftrong," Ifa. xxviii. 22.

8. To conclude; let all whofe hearts the Lord hath opened this day, for the enjoyments of the gofpel, the bleffed inftrument of

their falvation, blefs the Lord that hath made it a key by regeneration to open the door of falvation to your fouls. And as you have received Chrift Jefus the Lord, fo walk ye in him.

AN

APPENDIX

TO THE FOREGOING

TREATISE.

ROM. i. 18.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodlinefs, and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteouf nefs.

IN

N all the foregoing fermons I have been pleading and wooing for Chrift. And as Abraham's fervant, to win the damfel's confent, told her what treasures his matter's fon had, fo I have laboured to fhew you fome part of the unfearchable riches of Christ, if by any means I might allure your hearts, and be instrumental to clofe the happy match betwixt him and you; and (as the apofile fpeaks) efpoufe you to one hufband, even to Chrift.

But alas! How few ftir towards him? The most seem to be immoveably fixed in their natural state, and finful courfes. All our arguments and entreaties return to us again, and affect nothing. It is amazing to think what is the matter, that fouls which have in them the inbred hopes and fears of the world to come, and felf-reflecting powers cannot, for all this, be prevailed with to quit the way of fin, and to embrace the way of holiness, though their confciences mean while ftand convinced, that eternal damnation is the iffue and refult of the one; life, peace, and eternal joys of the other.

This hath put me upon a ferious fearch what may be the caufe and reafon of this fixed and unreafonable obftinacy; and in this it feems evidently to lie with moft that live in an unregenerate ftate under the gofpel, that they put a force upon their own confciences, and do imprifon and hold the truth in unrighteousness, though the wrath of God be revealed from heaven against all that do fo.

If by this difcourfe I can but fet truth at liberty, and loose the

Lord's prifoners which lie bound in your fouls, I fhall not doubt the value of Chrift will quickly rife among you, and free convictions will make the work of your minifters much more easy and fuccessful than they now find it. It is hardly imaginable but the things you have heard muft leave your fouls under convictions: but if you fupprefs and ftifle them, they produce nothing but aggravations of fin and mifery. Now, in order to the free and effectual working of all your convictions, and begetting that reverence which is due to them from every foul, as to the voice of God, I have chofen this fcripture, the scope and fense whereof I shall next give you.

The true fcope and aim of this context is to prove the justification of finners to be only by the imputed righteoufnefs of Chrift in the way of faith. To make this evident, he diftributes the whole world into Gentiles and Jews; the one feeking righteoufnefs, by the dim light of nature, or the law written in their hearts; the other, viz. the Jews, by the works of the law, or external conformity to the law of Mofes: But that neither can find what they feek, he diftinctly and fully proves. He proves it first upon the Gentiles from this verfe to the 17th verfe of the fecond chapter; and then he proves it upon the Jews alfo from thence to the end of the third chapter. As for the Gentiles, he acknowledges that they had inbred notions of God imprinted in their nature; they had alfo the book of the creatures before them, enough to leave them without excufe, ver. 20. they have no pretence of ignorance: But thefe common notices of God, and of good and evil, they did not obey and put in practice, but acted against the very light and dictates of their natural confciences. For which cause the wrath of God was revealed from heaven against them, as the text fpeaks. Wherein note,

I. A clear and dreadful revelation of Divine wrath.

2. The object or impulfive cause thereof, ungodliness and unrighteoufnefs.

3. The fpecial aggravation of this ungodlinefs and unrighteoufnefs, "that they held the truth in unrighteousness."

1. Here is a clear and dreadful revelation of Divine wrath, the "wrath of God (faith the apoftle) is revealed from heaven;" py, the indignation or vengeance of God. It is a word of deep and dreadful fignification; the damned that feel the weight of it, have the fulleft fenfe of it. It is faid, Pfalm xc. 11. "Who "knows the power of thine anger? According to thy fear, fo is "thy wrath" That is, the fears of an incenfed Deity are no vain bugbears, nor the effects of ignorance and fuperftition as atheifts fancy; but let men's fears of it be what they will, they hall VOL. IV. No. 33.

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find, except they repent, the wrath of God to be according to, yea, and far above their fears of it. If the wrath of a king be as the meffengers of death, what then is the wrath of the great and terrible God? This wrath is here said to be revealed, Añoxxλutletai, discovered, or made manifeft; and fo it is divers ways: It was revealed to them by the light of nature, their own confciences gave them notice and warning of it. Thus it was revealed to them by an internal testimony, a witness within them; and it was also revealed to them by the inftances and examples of ftrokes and punishments of fin in all ages by the immediate hand of a justly incenfed God. They came not by chance, but Divine direction: therefore it is added, a' spare, from heaven, or from God in heaven.

2. Here is the object, or impulfive caufe of this revealed and inflicted wrath, it is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteoufnefs of men. Επι πασαν ασέβειαν και αδικιαν. The former arra, ungodliness, comprifeth all fins against the first table; the irreligious lives and practices of men, living in the neglect of the duties of religion: the other word adınız, unrighteousness, comprifeth all fins against the second table, acts of fraud, uncleanness, &c. against men. And because these two general comprehenfive words are branched out into many particulars, therefore he faith, "the wrath of God is revealed against all ungodlinefs and unrigh"teousness." There is not one of the many fins into which ungodliness and unrighteoufnefs are branched out, but incenfeth the Lord's wrath and though he only mentions the fins in the abstract, we are to understand the abftract put here for the concrete; the fins for the finners that commit them, or God's punishing these fins upon the perfons of the finners.

3. Laftly, We have here before us the fpecial aggravation of thefe fins, or that which made them much more provoking to God than otherwife they had been. And it was this, that whilft they committed thefe fins, or omitted thofe duties, they held the truth in unrighteousness: xaTexovtwr, the word fignifies to detain, flop, kinder, or put a Remora in that way of the truth of God, or those common notions they had of his being, power, goodness, truth, &c. as alfo of his worthip, and the difference between good and evil. Thefe truths ftruggled in their confciences; confcience inftigated them to duty, and laboured to reftrain them from fin; but all in vain, they overbear their own confciences, and keep those fentiments and convictions prifoners, though they ftruggled for liberty to break forth into practice and obedience. Their convictions were kept down under the dominion and power of corruptions, as a prifoner is fhut up by his keeper. Their lufts were too hard for their light. Thus you have both the scope and fenfe of the text. The point from it is this.

their

Doct. That the wrath of God is dreadfully incenfed against all thofe that live in any courfe of fin, against the light and dictates own confciences.

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Sins of ignorance provoke the wrath of God, yet are they not of fo heinous a nature as fins against light and conviction are, nor fhall they be punished fo feverely, Luke xii. 47. "That fervant "which knew his Lord's will, and prepared not himfelf, neither "did according to his will, fhall be beaten with many stripes."

It excufes, a tanto, in fome measure, when a man can fay, Lord, had I known this to be a fin, I would not have done it: but when the confcience is convinced, and ftrives to keep us from fuch an act or courfe of finful actions, and we stop our ears against its voice and warnings; here is a high and horrid contempt of God and his law, and gives the fin a fcarlet dye or tincture. Sins of ignorance cannot compare with fuch fins as thefe, John iii. 19. John xvi. 22. To open this point, let me

1. Shew you what confcience is.

2. What the light of confcience is, and what its kinds are.
3. How this light binds the confcience, and makes it strive

in us.

4. Then inftance in fome cafes wherein it doth fo.

5. And, Laftly, how and why the imprisoning of these convictions fo dreadfully incenfeth the wrath of God.

First, It will be needful to speak a little to the nature of confcience in general. Confcience (as our Divines well exprefs it) is the judgment of a man upon himself, as he is fubject to the judgment of God. A judgment it is, and a practical judgment too; it belongs to the understanding faculty, 1 Cor. xi. 13. If we would judge ourselves, &c. This felf-judgment is the proper office of the confcience, and, to enable it for this its work and office, there are (as is generally obferved) three things belonging to every man's confcience.

I. A knowledge of the rule or law, according to which it is to judge, called the Synterefis, which is a treafury of rules and principles, without which confcience can no more do its work, than an artificer that wants his fquare or level can do his.

2. Knowledge of the facts, or matters to be judged, called the Syneidefis. The confcience of every man keeps a register of his actions, thoughts, and the very fecrets of the heart.

3. An ability and delegated authority to pass judgment on ourfelves and actions, according to the rule and law of God, called Crifis, judgment. Here it fits upon the bench as God's vicegerent, abfolving or condemning, as it finds the fincerity or hypocrify of the heart upon trial, 1 John iii. 20, 21.