even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them, over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; being filled with all unrighteousness," Rom. i. 28, 29. Seest thou a man that heretofore had the knowledge of God, and that had some awe of Majesty upon him; I say, seest thou such an one, sporting himself in his own deceivings, Rom. i. 30, 31. "turning the grace of God into lasciviousness, and walking after his own ungodly lusts? His judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and his damnation slumbereth not," 2 Pet. ii. 13. Dost thou hear, barren professor? It is astonishing to see how those that seemed sons of the morning, and were making preparations for eternal life, now at last, for the rottenness of their hearts, by the just judgment of God, to be permitted, being past feeling, "to give themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness," Ephes. iv. 18, 19. A great number of such were in the first gospel days; against whom Peter, and Jude, and John, pronounce the heavy judgment of God.Peter and Jude couple them with the fallen angels, 2 Pet. ii. 3-8. and John forbids that prayer be made for them, because that is happened unto them, that hath happened to the angels that fell, Jude 5, 6, 7, 8. "Who, for forsaking their first state, and for leaving their own habitation, are reserved in chains under everlasting darkness, unto the judgment of the great day." Barren figtree, dost thou hear?

1. These are beyond all mercy.

2. These are beyond all promises.

3. These are beyond all hopes of repentance.

4. These have no intercessor, nor any more share in a sacrifice for sin.

5. For these there remains nothing but a fearful looking for of judgment.

6. Wherefore these are the true fugitives and vagabonds, that being left of God, of Christ, of grace, and of the promise, and beyond all hope, wander and straggle to and fro, even as the devil, their associate, until their souls shall die, or until they descend in battle and perish. 2. Where

2. Wherefore they are let alone in hearing. If these at any time come under the word, there is for them no God, no savour of the means of grace, no stirrings of heart, no pity for themselves, no love for their own salvation. Let them look on this hand or that, there they see such effects of the word in others as produceth signs of repentance, and love to God and his Christ. These men only have their backs bowed down alway, Rom. xi. 10. these men only have the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear, to this very day, Eccles. viii. 10. Wherefore, as they go to the place of the Holy, so they come from the place of the Holy, and soon are forgotten in the places where they so did: only they reap this damage, "They treasure up wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God," Rom. ii. 3, 4, 5. Look to it, barren professor,

3. If he be visited after the common way of mankind, either with sickness, distress, or any kind of calamity, still no God appeareth, no sanctifying hand of God, no special mercy is mixed with the affliction. But he falls sick, and grows well, like the beast; or is under distress, as Saul, who when he was engaged by the Philistines, was forsaken and left of God, 1 Sam. xxviii. 4, 5, 6. "And the Philistines gathered themselves together, and came and pitched in Shunem; and Saul gathered all Israel together, and they pitched in Gilboa: and when Saul saw the host of the Philistines, he was afraid, and his heart greatly trembled. And when Saul enquired of the Lord, the Lord answered him no more, neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets." The Lord answered him no more; he had done with him, cast him off, and rejected him, and left him to stand and fall with his sins, by himself. But of this more in the conclusion; therefore, I here forbear. These

* Wicked men live without God in the world: they ask no blessing at the hand of divine Goodness, nor are they thankful for any mercy undeservedly bestowed upon them. As God is not in all their thoughts to any good purpose; so neither are they the objects of his peculiar care and love."

These men may go whither they will, do what they will: they may range from opinion to opinion, from notion to notion, from sect to sect, but are stedfast no where, they are left to their own uncertainties; they have not grace to establish their hearts; and though some of them have boasted themselves of their liberty, yet Jude calls them wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever, Jude 13. They are left, as I told you before, to be fugitives and vagabonds in the earth, to wander every where, but to abide no where, until they shall descend to their own place, (Acts i. 5.) with Cain and Judas, men of the same fate with themselves.

A third sign that such a professor is quite past grace, is, when his heart is grown so hard, so stony and im penetrable, that nothing will pierce it. Barren fig-tree, dost thou consider? a hard and impenitent heart is the curse of God. A heart that cannot repent, is instead of all plagues at once; and hence it is that God said of Pharaoh, Exod. ix. 14. when he spake of delivering him up in the greatness of his anger, I will at this time," saith he," send all my plagues upon thy heart."

To some men that have grievously sinned under a profession of the gospel, God giveth this token of his displeasure, they are denied the power of repentance, their heart is bound, they cannot repent; it is impossible that they should ever repent, should they live a thousand years. It is impossible for those fall-aways to be renewed again unto repentance, seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to open shame, Heb. vi. 4, 5, 6. Now, to have the heart so hardened, so judicially hardened, this is as a bar put in by the Lord God against the salvation of this sinner. This was the burden of Spira's complaint: I cannot do it: O now I cannot do it.

This man sees what he hath done, what should help him, and what will become of him, yet he cannot repent: He pulled away his shoulder before, he shut up his eyes

I

before,

before, and in that very posture God left him, and so he stands to this very day. I have had a fancy, that Lot's wife, when she was turned into a pillar of salt, (Gen. xix. 26.) stood yet looking over her shoulder, or else with her face towards Sodom; as the judgment caught her, so it bound her, and left her a monument of God's anger to after generations.

We read of some that are seared with an hot iron, and that are past feeling; for so seared persons in seared parts are: Their conscience is seared, 1 Tim. iv. 2. the conscience is the thing that must be touched with feeling, fear, and remorse, if ever any good be done to those whose conscience is worse than that, that is, fast asleep in sin, Ephes. iv. 19. For that conscience that is fast asleep, may yet be effectually awakened and saved; but that conscience that is seared, dried, as it were into a cinder, can never have sense, feeling, or the least regret in this world. Barren fig-tree, hearken, judicial hardening is dreadful. There is a difference betwixt that hardness of heart which is incident to all men, and that which comes upon some as a special judgment of God. And although all kinds of hardness of heart, in some sense, may be called a judgment, yet to be hardened with this second kind, is a judgment peculiar only to them that perish, an hardness that is sent as a punishment for the abuse of light received, for a reward of apostacy.

This judicial hardness is discovered from that which is incident to all men, in these particulars :

1. It is an hardness that comes after some great light received, because of some great sin committed against that light, and the grace that gave it. Such hardness as Pharaoh had, after the Lord had wrought wonderously before him; such hardness as the Gentiles had, a hardness which darkened the heart, a hardness which made their minds reprobate. This hardness is also the same with that the Hebrews are cautioned to beware of, (Heb. iii. 7, &c.) an hardness that is caused by unbelief, and a departing from the living God; an hardness com

plèted

pleted through the deceitfulness of sin: such as that in the provocation, of whom God sware, that they should not enter into his rest. It was this kind of hardness also, that both Cain and Ishmael, and Esau, were hardened with, after they had committed their great transgressions.

2. It is the greatest kind of hardness; and hence they are said to be harder than a rock, Jer. v. 3, or than an adamant, Zech. viii. 13, that is, harder than flint: so hard, that nothing can enter.

5. It is an hardness given in much anger, and to bind the soul up in an impossibility of repentance.

4. It is an hardness, therefore, which is incurable, of which a man must die and be damned. Barren professor, hearken to this.

. A fourth sign that such a professor is quite past grace, is, when he fortifies his hard heart against the tenor of God's word, Job ix. 4, &c. This is called hardening themselves against God, and turning of the Spirit against him: as thus, when after a profession of faith in the Lord Jesus, and of the doctrine that is according to godliness, they shall embolden themselves in courses of sin, by promising themselves that they shall have life and salvation notwithstanding. Barren professor, hearken to this. This man is called (Deut. xxix. 18.) a root that beareth gall and wormwood, or a poisonful herb, such an one as is abominated of God, yea, the abhorred of his soul. For this man saith, ver. 19. I shall have peace, though I walk in the imagination or stubbornness of my heart, to add drunkenness to thirst; an opinion flat against the whole word of God, yea, against the very nature of God himself: Wherefore he adds, Deut. xix. 20. "Then the anger of the Lord, and his jealousy, shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in God's book shall lie upon him, and God shall blot out his name from under heaven."

Yea, that man shall not fail to be effectually destroyed, saith the text, ver. 31. "The Lord shall separate

that