that the consideration of these things should for ever stop your mouth.

2. Consider how you have promoted others' damnation. Many of you, by the bad examples you have set, by corrupting the minds of others, by your sinful conversation, by leading them into sin, or strengthening them in sin, and by the mischief that you have done in human society other ways, that might be mentioned, have been guilty of those things that have tended to others' damnation. You have heretofore appeared on the side of sin and Satan, and have behaved yourself so as much to strengthen their interest, and have been many ways accessory to others' sins, have hardened others' hearts and thereby have done what has tended to the ruin of their souls.

And without doubt there are those here present that have been in a great measure the means of others' damnation. Though it is true that it is determined of God whom he will save, and whom not, from all eternity, yet one man may really be a mean of others' damnation as well as salvation. Christ charges the scribes and pharisees with this, Matth. xxiii. 13. "Ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering, to go in." We have no reason to think that this congregation has none in it that are cursed from day to day by poor souls that are roaring out in hell, whose damnation they have been a mean of, or have greatly contributed to.

There are many that contribute to their own children's damnation, by neglecting their education, and setting them bad examples, and bringing them up in sinful ways: They take some care of their bodies, but take but little care of their poor souls; they provide for them bread to eat, but deny them the bread of life, that their famishing souls stand in need of. And are there no such parents here that have thus treated their children? If their children be not gone to hell, it is not because they have not done what has tended to their des truction. Seeing therefore you have had no more regard to others' salvation, and have promoted their damnation, how justly might God leave you to perish yourself?

IV. If God should eternally cast you off, it would but be agreeable to your own behavior towards yourself: And that in two respects;

1. In being so careless of your own salvation. You have refused to take care for your salvation, as God has counselled and commanded you from time to time; and why may not God neglect it, now you seek it of him? Is God obliged to be more careful of your happiness, than you are, either of your own happiness or his glory? Is God bound to take that care for you, out of love to you, that you will not take for yourself, either from love to yourself, or regard to his authority? How long, and how greatly, have you neglected the welfare of your precious soul, refusing to take pains and deny yourself, or put yourself a little out of your way for your salvation, while God has been calling upon you! Neither your duty to God, nor love to your own soul, were enough to induce you to do little things for your own eternal welfare; and yet do you now expect that God should do great things, putting forth almighty power, and exercising infinite mercy for it? You was urged to take care for your salvation, and not to put it off: You was told that that was the best time, before you grew older, and that it might be, if you would put it off, God would not hear you afterwards; but yet you would not hearken; you would run the venture of it. Now how justly might God order it so,

that it should be too late, leaving you to seek in vain? You was told, that you would repent of it if you delayed; but you would not hear: How justly therefore may God give you. cause to repent of it, by refusing to show you mercy now? If God sees you going on in ways contrary to his commands and his glory, and requires you to forsake them, and tells you that they are ways that tend to the destruction of your own soul, and therefore counsels you to avoid them, and you refuse; how just would it be if God should be provoked by it, henceforward to be as careless of the good of your soul as you are yourself?

2. You have not only neglected your salvation, but you have wilfully taken direct courses to undo yourself. You have

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gone on in those ways and practices that have directly tended to your damnation, and have been perverse and obstinate in it. You cannot plead ignorance; you had all the light set before you that you could desire: God told you that you was undoing yourself; but yet you would do it: He told you that the path you was going in led to destruction, and counselled you to avoid it; but you would not hearken: How justly therefore may God leave you to be undone! You have obstinately persisted to travel in the way that leads to hell for a long time, contrary to God's continual counsels and commands, till it may be at length you are almost to your journey's end, and are come near to hell's gate, and so begin to be sensible of your danger and misery; and now account it unjust and hard if God will not deliver you? You have destroyed yourself, and destroyed yourself wilfully, contrary to God's repeated counsels, yea, and destroyed yourself in fighting against God: Now therefore, why do you blame any but yourself if you are destroyed? If you will undo yourself in opposing God, and while God opposes you by his calls and counsels, and, it may be too, by the convictions of his Spirit, what can you object against it, if God now leaves you to be undone? You would have your own way, and did not like that God should oppose you in it, and your way was to ruin your own soul: How just therefore is it, if, now at length, God ceases to oppose you, and falls in with you, and lets your soul be ruined; and as you would destroy yourself, so should put to his hand to destroy you too! The ways you went on in, had a natural tendency to your misery: If you would drink poison in opposition to God, and in contempt of him and his advice, whom can you blame but yourself if you are poisoned, and so perish? If you would' run into the fire against all restraints both of God's mercy and authority, you must even blame yourself if you are burnt.

Thus I have proposed some things to your consideration, which, if you are not exceeding blind, senseless, and perverse, will stop your mouth, and convince you that you stand justly condemned before God, and that he would in no wise deal hardly with you, but altogether justly, in denying you any

mercy, and in refusing to hear your prayers, let you pray never so earnestly, and never so often, and continue in it never so long; and that God may utterly disregard your tears and moans, your heavy heart, your earnest desires, and great endeavors; and that he may cast you into eternal destruction, without any regard to your welfare, denying you converting grace, and giving you over to Satan, and at last cast you into the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, to be there to eternity, having no rest day nor night, forever glorifying his justice upon you, in the presence of the holy angels and the presence of the Lamb.

Object. But here many may still object, (for I am sensible it is an hard thing to stop sinners' mouths) "God shews mercy to others that have done these things as well as I, yea, that have done a great deal worse than I.”

Ans. 1. That does not prove that God is any way bound to shew mercy to you, or them either. If God does bestow it on others, he does not bestow it on them because he is bound to bestow it: He might if he had pleased, with glorious justice, have denied it them. If God bestows it on some, that does not prove that he is bound to bestow it on any; and if he is bound to bestow it on none, then he is not bound to bestow it on you. God is in debt to none; and if he gives to some that he is not in debt to, because it is his pleas ure, that does not bring him into debt to others. It alters not the case as to you at all, whether others have it or have it not: You do not deserve damnation the less, than if mercy never had been bestowed on any at all. Matth. xx. 15. “Is thine eye evil, because I am good?"

2. If this objection be good, then the exercise of God's mercy is not in his own right, and his grace is not his own to give. That which God may not dispose of as he pleases, is✔ not his own; for that which is one's own, is at his own disposal; but if it be not God's own, then he is not capable of making a gift or present of it to any one; it is impossible to give a debt.

What is it that you would make of God? Must the great God be tied up to that, that he must not use his own pleasure in bestowing his own gifts, but if he bestows them on one, must be looked upon obliged to bestow them on another? Is not God worthy to have the same right, with respect to the gifts of his grace, that a man has to his money or goods? Is it because God is not so great, and should be more in subjection than man, that this cannot be allowed him? If any of you see cause to shew kindness to a neighbor, do all the rest of your neighbors come to you, and tell you, that you owe them so much as you have given to such a man? But this is the way that you deal with God, as though God were not worthy to have as absolute a property in his goods, as you have in yours.

At this rate God cannot make a present of any thing; he has nothing of his own to bestow: If he has a mind to shew peculiar favor to some, or to lay some particular persons under peculiar obligations to him, he cannot do it; because he has no special gift, that his creatures stand in great need of, and that would tend greatly to their happiness, at his own disposal. If this be the case, why do you pray to God to bestow saving grace upon you? If God does not fairly deny it to you, because he bestows it on others, then it is not worth your while to pray for it, but you may go and tell him that he has bestowed it on these and those, as bad or worse than you, and so demand it of him as a debt. And at this rate persons never need to thank God for salvation, when it is bestowed; for what occasion is there to thank God for that which was not at his own disposal, and that he could not fairly have denied? The thing at bottom is, that men have low thoughts of God, and high thoughts of themselves; and therefore it is that they look upon God as having so little right, and they so much. Matth. xx. 15. "Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?" 3. God may justly shew greater respect to others than to you have shown greater respect to others than to God. You have shown greater respect to men than to God. You have rather chosen to offend God than offend men.

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