use, comfort, and delight of mankind, will not be in the main frustrated. II. The second use may be of exhortation. Under this use, I shall confine myself to two particulars, many other things having been already spoken to. 1. I shall hence take occasion to exhort parents to restrain their children from stealing, and particularly from being guilty of theft in stealing the fruits of their neighbor's trees or fields. Christian parents are obliged to bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. But how much otherwise do they bring up their children, who bring them up in theft! Which certainly those parents are guilty of, not only who directly teach them to steal, set them an example and set them about it, but also those who tolerate them in it. : Parents should take thorough and effectual care, not only to instruct their children better, and to warn them against any such thievish practices, but also thoroughly to restrain them. Children who practice stealing, make themselves vile. Stealing, by the common consent of mankind, is a very vile practice Therefore those parents that will not take thorough care to restrain their children from such a practice, will be guilty of the same sin which God so highly resented, and aw fully punished in Eli, of which we read, 1 Sam. iii. 13. For I have told him, that I will judge his house for ever, for the iniquity which he knoweth ; because his sons made them; selves vile, and he restrained them not. 2. I exhort those who are conscious in themselves that they have heretofore wronged their neighbor, to make restitution. This is a duty the obligation to which is exceeding plain. If a person was wronged in taking away any thing that was his, certainly he is wronged also in detaining it and keeping it away: And all the while a person, who has been guilty of wronging his neighbor, neglects to make restitution, he lives in that wrong: He not only lives impenitent of that first wrong, of which he was guilty, but he continually wrongs his neighbor. A man who hath gotten any thing from another wrongfully, goes on to wrong him every day that he neglects to restore it, when he has opportunity to do it. The person injured did not only suffer wrong from the other when his goods were first taken from him, but he suffers new injustice from him all the while they are unjustly kept from him. Therefore I counsel all those of you that are sensible that you have heretofore wronged your neighbor, either by fraud, or oppression, or unfaithfulness, or stealing, whether lately or formerly, though it may have been a great while ago, speedily to go and make restitution for all the wrong your neighbor has suffered at your hands. That it was done long ago, doth not quit you from obligation still to restore, as much as if it had been done yesterday. This is a duty with which you must comply; you cannot be acquitted without it. As long as you neglect it, it will be unreasonable in you to expect any forgiveness of God. For what ground can you have to think that God will pardon you, as long as you wilfully still continue in the same wrong, and wrong the same man still every day, by detaining from him that which is his? You in your prayers ask of God, that he would forgive all your sins; but your very prayers are mockery, if you still wilfully continue in those sins. Indeed, if you go and confess your faults to your neighbor, and he will freely acquit you from making restitution, you will be acquitted from the obligation; for in so doing, your neighbor gives you what before was his. But otherwise you cannot be acquitted. Particularly I would leave this advice with all, for their direction in their behavior on their death beds. Indeed you should not by any means put it off till you come to die; and you will run the most fearful risk in so doing. But if you will not do it now, while you are in health, I will leave it with you to remember, when you shall come to lie on your death beds. Doubtless, then, if you have the use of your reason, you will be concerned for the salvation of your poor souls. And let VOL. VIII. 3 P this be one thing then remembered, as absolutely necessary in order to your salvation, that before you die, you must make restitution for whatever wrong you shall have done any of your neighbors; or at least leave orders that such restitution be made; otherwise you will, as it were, go out of the world, and go before your Great Judge, with stolen goods in your hands. And certainly it will not be very comfortable or safe, to bring them into his infinitely holy and dreadful presence, when he sits on his throne of judgment, with his eyes as a flame of fire, being more pure than to look on iniquity; when he is about to sentence you to your everlasting unalterable state. Every one here present, who has been guilty of wronging his neighbor, and has not yet made restitution, must die.. Let all such therefore remember this counsel now given them, on the day when death shall approach, if they shall be so fool ish as to neglect it till that time. FINIS. . GENERAL INDEX. ACTION in the Arminian sense, vol. 5. Affections of the soul, not distinguishable from the will, vol. 3. Religion consists much in them, vol. 4. The height of, no sign that they are gracious, vol. 4. Their being not an effect of previous personal effort, Their being attended with the suggestion of texts of Not certainly gracious because they seem to be at- Not certainly gracious because they dispose the sub- Nor because they dispose persons to praise God with That they inspire confidence, no sign that they are Page. 93 That they beget confidence in others, no sign, vol. 4. 103 171 ble and excellent nature of divine things, vol. 4. 201 of the reality and certainty of divine things, vol. 4. 230 253 286 Affections involve a Christianlike temper, vol. 4. Are attended with Christian tenderness, vol. 4. Are expressed in a Christianlike practice, vol. 4. Apostasy after the millennium, vol. 2. Application of Redemption, proof of Original Sin, vol. 6. Attempt Humble to promote explicit agreement in prayer, vol. 3. Assent to the doctrines of religion, no sign of grace, vol. 7. Beauty, primary, vol. 2. Secondary, vol. 2. Benevolent being, a secondary ground of virtuous affection, Page. 291 307 314 326 332 354 409 59 355 238 93 402 413 401 Bereaved, their sorrows spread before Jesus, a Sermon, vol. 8. 396 178 183 Brainerd David, account of his life, and Reflections upon it, vol. 3. 496 140 Captivity Babylonish, its effects, vol. 2, Care great, necessary lest we live in some known sin, a Ser- Cause, the necessity of, to the existence of every event, vol. 5. 66 Necessary to the existence of volition in the creature, vol. 5. 61 Eminently the elect of God, vol. 5. His appearance in a human form to Moses and oth- An example of ministers, a Sermon, vol. 8. Chubb, his notions of the freedom of the will considered, and Church, her marriage to her sons, and to her God, a Sermon, Conscience, how it operates, vol. 2. 392 91 217 ΙΟΙ 267 375 101 313 437 In what it consists, vol. 2. 441 Convictions distinguishable from spiritual light, vol. 8. 293 142 David, an eminent ancestor and type of Christ, vol. 2. 97 273 Decrees of God absolute, no more inconsistent with human 142 |