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Our fos have ftruck immediately againt God, and against those who are vested with his authority in the ftate, in the church, and in families, againft his people, and the common good. Sins against the letter of the law, fcandalous offences abound, over the belly of light, mercies, and judgements, cove. nants national, facramental, and perfonal; and thefe continued in obftinately, in a time when the Lord's hand has oft been ftretched out and drawn in again, in a land of light.

4. Repent, and flee to the blood of Chrift for pardon, if fo be our hainous fins may not be our ruin.

5. The means of grace which we enjoy will ei ther promote our falvation, or they will aggravate our damnation.

6. When ye examine yourselves, and think on your fins, confider the feveral aggravations of them; and lie deep in the duft before the Lord on account thereof; and through the grace of God ab stain from every fin, and all appearance of evil.

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It is written, Curfed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them,

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HOUGH fome fins be greater than others, yet there is no fin but deferves damnation, which we can no where better learn than from the voice of the law, which is the verdict of a juft God upon the demerit of fin. This verdict in the text. is found written, Deut. xxvii. ult. Curfed be be that confirmeth not all the words of this law to do them. And herein confider,

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1. The party condemned by the law; every finner. The law condemns him for omiffions as well as commiffions, for breaking off from obedience as well as never entering upon it; for every fin, even the leaft fin, the leaft breach of the law, as well the greateft. Curfed is every one that continueth not in all things, &c.

2. The doom pronounced in all these cafes, is. God's wrath and curfe; Curfed is he that continueth not in all things, &c. This curfe binds over to

wrath in this life, and that which is to come. It is God's own voice in his law, whofe juftice will not allow him to fix a punishment on fin greater than it deferves. Hence the doctrine is,

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DOCT. "Every fin deferveth God's wrath and "curfe, both in this life, and that which is to "come."

Here I fhall fhew,

P. What is God's wrath and curfe, which every fin deferves.

II. What this wrath and curfe is.

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III. That there is no fin which does not deferve. God's wrath and curfe,"

IV. Deduce fome inferences.

I. I fhall fhew what is God's wrath and curfe, which every fin deferves.

Fift, God's wrath is no paffion, nor is there any perturbation in God though an angry God. His wrath is a fire without finoke, and may be taken up in these two things,

1. God's difpleasure against the finner, Pfal. v. 4:5 For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither fhall evil dwell with thee. The foolish fhall not stand in thy fight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity. Sin makes the foul loathfome and hateful in God's fight, kindles a holy fire in his heart against the finner. Were the fun continually

under a cloud, and the heavens always covered with blackness, none of these would be comparable to the ftate of a finner under wrath, Pfal. xc. 11. Who knoweth the power of thine anger?

2. God's dealing with finners as his enemies, whom he is incenfed againft, Nah. i. 2. God is jea lous, and the Lord revengeth, the Lord revengeth and is furious, the Lord will take vengeance on his adverfaries; and be referveth wrath for his enemies. If. i. 24. Ab, I will eafe me of my adverfaries, and avenge me of mine enemies. The wrath of a king is as the roaring of a lion; what then muft the wrath of God be; an enemy, whom we can neither fight nor flee from, neither outwit nor outbrave? Of this wrath it is faid, It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Secondly, His curfe is his feparating one to evil, Deut. xxix. 21. And the Lord fhail Jeparate him unto evil, out of all the tribes of Ifrael, according to all the curfes that are written in this book of the law. It is a devoting the finner to deftruction, to all the direful effects of the divine wrath. It is the tying of the finner to the flake, fetting him up for the mark of God's vengeance, that a broken law and offended juftice may difburden all their arrows into him, and that on him may meet together all miferies and plagues, flowing from the wrath of God *.

II. I fhall fhew what is God's wrath and curfe in this life, and that which is to come.

1. In this life they comprehend all the miferies of this world which one meets with on this fide of time, miferics on the body, relations, name, eftate, employment; miferies on the foul, as blindnefs, hardness, vile affections, horrors of confcience, &c. and finally death in the feparation of foul and

* See a more particular account of the curfe, in the author's wo of the covenant of works, part 4. published in 1772.

body. Thus they make a flood of miferies in this life.

2. In the life to come, they comprehend eternals • death and damnation, and an eternal being unders the punishment of lofs and fenfe in hell. So they make a fhoreless fea of miferies in the life to come. But of both these I spoke largely in a former part of this work. [vol. i. p. 405.-409.]

III. I proceed to fhew, that there is no fin which does not deferve thefe, but that every fin deferves this wrath and curse.

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1. The wages of every fin is death, Rom. vi. 23.01 that is, eternal death, as is clear from the opposi tion to eternal life, Rom. v. 12. As by one man fin entered into the world, and death by fin; and fo death paffed upon all men, for that all have finned. Job xxiv. 19. The grave confumes thofe which have finned. 2. Every fin is a breach of the law; and he who breaks it in one point, is guilty of all, Jam. ii. 1ÓN He who is guilty of all deferves the wrath of God both in this life and that which is to come. The commands of the law have all one author, whose majefty is offended by whatfoever breach; they all meet in one command, viz. love, and every fin is against that; the law requires univerfal obedience.

3. Chrift died for all the fins of all his elect, 1 Pet. ii. 18. 1 John i. 7. Wherefore fince he fuffered God's wrath and curfe for them, they certainly deferve it.

4. The leaft fin will condemn a man, if it be not forgiven, Matth. v. 19. even idle words, Matth. xii. 36.37 and all must be forgiven graciously, Pfal. ein. 2. wherefore God might in juftice not forgive them, and if never forgiven, they may be ever punished. ut sil

balviupicome to fhew why every fin deferves fo much. The reafon is, it is a kind of infinite evil; VOL. II.

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and therefore fince the punishment is defervedly proportioned to the offence, it deferves infinite punishment. Sin is an infinite evil in two refpects.

1. In refpect that the guilt and defilement of it is. never taken away, but endures for ever, unlefs the Lord himfelf in mercy do remove it. The party offended is the eternal God, whofe being never comes to an end; the finner never being able to expiate and put away his offence, Rom. v. 6. it ever remains, unlefs the Lord himself do remove it, as in the elect by his Son's blood; wherefore the party offended and the offence ever remaining, the punishment muft needs be eternal; for no unclean thing can ever enter heaven, therefore the finner must be for ever excluded and punished.

2. In refpect it wrongs an infinite God. It is evident among men, that the demerit of a crime rifes and falls according to the quality of the perfon against whom it is committed; fo that a crime againit one's prince is punifhed with death, that would not be fo, if against a perfon of meaner condition. Since God then is of infinite dignity and majesty, the offence against him deferves infinite punishment. And because the creature being finite is not capable of punish nent infinite in value, therefore it is neceffarily infinite in dura tion. There is a manifold wrong to God in the leaft fin.

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(1.) It wrongs his infinite fovereignty, Jam. ii. 10. 11. He is Sovereign Ruler of his creatures; his will must be their law, fince by his will they were created. But every fin cafts off the natural yoke of his fovereign authority, and fets up the finner's will againft it. So that it is accounted a fighting again God, Acts v. 39.

(2.) It wrongs his infinite goodness, Exod. xx. I. 2. All the good, natural, moral, or fpiritual, which the creature has, it has it from God, who is the fountain of all good. So that fin is a doing ill

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