I am a sinful man, O Lord. And if these faint discoveries of God, even to holy men themselves, were so astonishing and unsupportable, what a confounding sight then will it be, to have all the glorious attributes of God break forth in a full flash upon the faces of wicked men; when, among the rest of those attributes, they shall behold the dread wrath and severe justice of God, to be sworn and armed against sin and sinners! Is this a sight, that will make heaven desirable to a wicked man? How dost thou think to endure the rays of that excellent glory and majesty, which make even the eyes of the angels themselves to twinkle with the dazzling brightness of it?

(2) As for that near Bosom-Communion with God, wherein stands another part of the reward of heaven; this is that, which wicked men hate: yea, they hate that any should pretend to it.

Those sweet, endearing intercourses, that pass betwixt God and the soul, in ways of worship, of love for love, and of obedience for mercies received, they never knew on earth, and how then shall they be fit for them in heaven? Certainly, to be for ever tied up to such spiritualities as these, will make heaven but an uncomfortable place to an ungodly, unchanged heart.

Now tell me, after this representation made unto you, both of the Work and of the Reward of Heaven, whether you are indeed willing to be in this eternal state or no. A strange question, you may think! What! to ask men whether they are willing to go to heaven, and to be possessed of glory! But, let me tell you, it is an impossible thing, for an unsanctified heart really to wish to be in heaven; considering it under that notion of perfect purity and true holiness, which hath now been laid before you. Do you wish to be for ever employed in the loving, praising, serving, and enjoying of God, without interruption or cessation? why then do you not endeavour to fit yourselves for it, against the time of your appearing in glory? why do you not labour after true grace, that alone can fit you for that holy and blessed work? That idea and notion, that wicked men frame to themselves of heaven, only as a place of ease, rest, and all blessedness, makes them to believe that they do really wish themselves possessed of it; but, yet, if it could be supposed that such a person were taken up into heaven, he would find it a place so contrary to his fancy and corrupt inclinations, that he would soon wish rather to be on earth again in the pursuit of his more sensible and suitable pleasures.

I have the longer insisted on this particular demonstration, because I look upon this as a most convincing argument, to make every wicked man see how unfit he is, in a state of unregeneracy for the state of glory. As ever, therefore, you hope for heaven, and I dare assure myself that this is the hope of all of you, make sure to yourselves this great change. It is no notion, that I have now preached unto you: your natures and your lives must be changed; or, believe it, you will be found at the Last Day under the wrath of God. For God will not change or alter the word, that is gone out of his mouth: he hath said it, Christ who is the truth and word of God hath pronounced it, that, without this New-Birth or Regeneration, no man shall inherit the kingdom. of God.

iii. WHATSOEVER A MAN DOTH IN A STATE OF UNREGENERACY IS SIN; and, therefore, the change of Regeneration is absolutely necessary, unto eternal life.

Whatever such a man's whole life is, it is nothing else but a continued course of sin, without either interruption or cessation: and, in this one particular lies a main difference betwixt a regenerate and unregenerate man. The regenerate man, through that corruption that is remaining in him, sins in every thing that he doth; but, whatever an unregenerate man doth is sin: there is the difference: the one doth, as it were, tread awry, in a right path; and the other runs out into a crooked and perverse And how then is it possible for such men ever to arrive at heaven, since every step they take leads down to the chambers of death and destruction?

one.

I spake somewhat to this before, in opening to you the misery of an unregenerate state and condition; and shewed you then, that the Scripture every where speaks of the civil actions and the religious duties of wicked men as sins: their ploughing is sin; and so also is their praying: yea, whatever they do is sin; they sin in doing evil, and they sin in doing good.

But I shall pass by that, and briefly enquire what it is, that makes all the actions and all the duties, that wicked men perform, to be thus sinful. And this may be reduced to two particulars and these are the Principle from which, and the End to which, their actions are done.

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1. The Principle from whence all the actions of an unregenerate man flow is corrupt; and when the fountain is corrupt, the streams also, that issue from thence, must needs be tainted.

That principle, that is necessarily required to make our actions to be truly good and holy, is the sincere and superlative love of God. What we do becomes then a good action, when we do it from the commanding motive of Divine Love: and, therefore, our Saviour saith, in John xiv. 24. He, that loveth me not, keepeth not my sayings. Our whole duty consisteth, either in that which immediately respects God, or in that which immediately respects man; and, accordingly, God hath comprised the whole Law in Two Tables: in the one, he prescribes the services due to himself; and, in the other, he requires from us what is due to men: and both these are fulfilled by love. So, saith the Apostle, Rom. xiii. 10. Love is the fulfilling of the Law: and, therefore, our Saviour reduceth all the Ten Commandments unto Two, in Mat. xxii. 37, 38, 39. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. This is the first.....Commandment. And the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Our Saviour reduceth all unto two, and these two speak but one and the same thing, Love, which is the fulfilling of the commandment. Now this teacheth us, that, whatever external conformity our actions may carry in them to the letter of the Law, yet are they not true obedience to God's Commandments, if they flow not from a principle of love. Though you may perform each particular duty required in each particular command, yet this is not fulfilling but transgressing the Law, if what you do is not done out of a principle of divine love. This is that universal quali fication, that can alone make our duties truly good and acceptable unto God. So that, either to do contrary to the Law, or to do actions that the Law requires without love to God, are both of them sins; the one against the express letter, and the other against the true sense, of the Law. Now no unregenerate man can act any thing from this divine principle of the love of God; for this is implanted in us, only by Regeneration: and, therefore it is said, 1 John iv. 7. Every one, that loveth, is born of God. The great moving principle in a carnal man, that sets him on to work every thing that he doth, is love indeed, but it is only self-love; not love to God, but love to self: a love, that is enmity and hatred against God; and, therefore, whatever he doth is sin.

2. As all unregenerate men fail in the Principle, so they also fail in the End of all their actions.

For, such as a man's principle is, such also will be the end

that he propounds. Water will naturally rise no higher than the spring-head from whence it flows: so neither can any man's principles carry him out to act above themselves. Now as the love of God is the moving principle to a regenerate man, so the glory of God is his determining end: and so, on the contrary, self-love being the only principle of an unregenerate man's actions, self-preservation must be his utmost end into which he resolves all. And, because God hath in his word of truth threatened destruction to those who persevere in sin, and promised an unconceivable reward of glory to obedience, self-love here interposes; and excites to the external duties of religion, that thereby it may escape the one and obtain the other. Now, herein, self-love is very blind: for, by propounding himself as his end, he loseth the reward sought for, and all his services become only sins.

I would not be thought to condemn this kind of self-seeking in religion, for I know that it is one of the greatest incentives to obedience. Moses had respect unto the recompence of the reward, and encouraged himself by it: yea, of Christ, a greater than Moses, the Apostle saith, he had an eye upon the glory set before him, to encourage him to undergo those humiliations and abasements that he was sent into the world for. Only when a man's self-concernments stand so full in his eye, that he cannot look either beside them or above them, then do such self-ends become sinful in themselves, and turn also every action that is directed by them into sin.

Here, then, let every carnal, unchanged sinner see the sad and deplorable condition he is in: what little ground he hath to hope for heaven and salvation. Alas! Sinners, how do you hope to be saved? The only way, that leads to heaven and happiness, is faith and good works: not such equivocal good works, as most men rely upon; but such genuine ones, as have the love of God for their principle, and glory of God for their end: and such no unregenerate man can produce. All the rest are but trash and lumber; and such, as will rather burden, than crown your souls, at the Last Day. Think of it seriously unless the foundation be laid in a real change of grace wrought upon your souls, all that afterwards you build is but hay and stubble; such, as will only add fuel to your unquenchable fire. Think not, therefore, as many ignorant, sottish people do, of balancing your evil deeds by your good: for, if you are in an unregenerate, in a natural state and condition, if in the same that you

brought into the world, there is nothing but what is evil and sinful. And it is very sad to consider, that, when God and your own consciences shall come, at the Last Day, to take a review of your lives; those lives, that have been full of actions, perhaps for forty, fifty, or threescore years together; that then they shall be found to be but one continued series of wickedness, one sin succeeding another without the least gap made in it by one good and holy work. This is the condition of every unregenerate sinner. And, therefore, if ever you hope for heaven, endeavour for Regeneration: for this change is absolutely necessary, for the raising of any of your actions from being sinful to be holy.

iv. HEAVEN, IN SCRIPTURE, IS PROMISED TO BE GIVEN BY WAY OF INHERITANCE, AND NO OTHERWISE.

So you have it, in Acts xx. 32. and, in Acts xxvi. 18. and in many other places. Now an inheritance denotes sonship: God will not give that inheritance unto any, but to those, that are his own children. We are all of us naturally strangers to God: and, before we can become his children, we must be New-Born; and, by this New-Birth it is, that we are made heirs of glory, and coheirs with Jesus Christ our elder brother: and, therefore, Regeneration is absolutely necessary unto eternal salvation.

v. IT IS NOT FOR THE HONOUR OF GOD, TO BESTOW HEAVEN AND HAPPINESS UPON SINFUL MEN, UNLESS THEY ARE CHANGED.

The glory of God is chiefly manifested in our Regeneration. Should he admit sinners into heaven, many of his attributes would suffer thereby. His Truth would suffer, in saving those, whom in his word he had doomed to damnation. His Justice would suffer; for, if he should save all wicked men, and leave none as vessels of wrath, what would become of the glory of his justice and severity? if he should save some, and not all, this would be partiality; seeing all, according to the terms of the Gospel, are equally liable to damnation. His Holiness would suffer also, in the admitting of unholy and impure men to inhabit for ever before him, who is of purer eyes than to behold sin on earth with approbation, and therefore certainly will not behold sin in heaven with countenance.

vi. BOTH THE PERSONS AND THE PERFORMANCES OF UNREGENERATE MEN, WHILE THEY ARE SUCH, ARE DISPLLASING UNTO