wealth, and Yea, one eperfect and fuddenly, he In the place

lived, they became old; yea, were mighty in power: Their feed was established in their fight, and their offspring before their eyes their houfes were fafe from fear, neither was the rod of God upon them; they spent their days in in a moment went down to the grave. vent happened to all: he deftroyed the the wicked; when the Scourge flew did laugh at the trial of the innocent. of judgment wickedness dwelt: yea, there were juft men, to whom it happened according to the work of the wicked; again, There were wicked men, unto whom it happened according to the work of the righteous. No man knew either love, or hatred, by all that was before him. The wicked were buried, who had come and gone from the place of the haly. O golden year of jubilee! wherein every thing is reduced to its proper order; every man rewarded according to his work; the most hidden things of darknefs are laid open: the innocency of the righteous, and the perverfenefs of the wicked, are laid open, before all. All things are in a right order now. No more to be feen exalted folly, or debafed wifdom: the hiftrionic fancies of riches, and titular honours, are quite done away; fools hall no more rule over the wife Heroic fpirits eternally poffefs the state of princes; and flavish fpirits are bound in everlasting chains of darkness. How doth the equity of thy proceedings appear? O righteous God! what though monflrous reprobates roar out their horrid blafphemies against thy fpotlefs holiness? Thou art of purer eyes, than to behold iniquity; and wilt not at all acquit the guilty. What joy! to behold truth vindicated from all the horrid afperfions of hellish monsters. I am overjoyed, in hearing the everlafting howlings

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of the haters of the Almighty; what a pleasant melody are they in mine ears? O eternal hallelujahs to JEHOVAH and the Lamb! O fweet, fweet! my heart is fatisfied. We committed our cause to thee, that judgeft righteously; and behold, thou haft fully pleaded our caufe; and fhalt make the fmoke of their torment for ever and ever to afcend in our fight: For righteous art thou, O Lord, and juft in all thy ways. Curfed creatures, your confciences tell you the equity of JEHOVAH's ways. Are you not the creatures that banished God out of your thoughts? and it is most equal you are banished e ternally from the prefence of God, and the glory of his power; being given up to a reprobate mind, hardened against your great Former and Preferver: are you not all moft worthy of divine vengeance, who hate your Creator, and preferred your bafe felves before him; who in the midft of his bounty, when he gave you abundance of created enjoyments, contemned and abhorred him? who are fo defperately mad against that infinite original of all good. nefs, that though he should remove from you his juft punishments, and reftore unto you your for mer enjoyments; yet fhould you ftand out un gratefully against him? O horrid monftrofity that which might be known of God was manifested unto you; For the invifible things of him from the creation of the world were clearly feen, being understood by the things which were made, even his eternal power and Godhead: so that you were without excufe; because that when you knew God, you glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in your imaginations, and your foolish heart was darkened; profefling your felves wife, ye became fools, and worshipped, ferved and loved the creature, more than the Creator,

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who is God bleed for evermore. Even your own felves being judges, vile wretches, is not your lot fuitable to your abominable nature, which fhewed itself, in your way of walking in time? The cha=racters of a Deity were fo written on your heart, as it was impoffible to cancel them; yet ye facrilegiously ftrove to eradicate fuch noble draughts, written by the finger of God: and banished from your minds the thoughts of his mercies, or judgments: felf, and only felf was the ultimate centre of all your defigns and projects: whence you preferred the enjoyment of creatures, before that of the allfufficient Creator; efteeming it a more defirable lot, to live eternally in the midst of earthly riches, honours, and pleafures, than in an immediate fellowship with God.

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And is it not most just he remove these enjoyments you bafely placed in his room? Your own glory was more defigned by you than his; and fhould not he confound, and put to shame the nothing beings you adored, and fet above him? What fhould he otherwife do unto you, ftrous wretches! Should he restore the enjoyments you used against him? Should he cut you off to nothing, who have defired to be his eternal enemies, and would have effential eternity destroyed? Did you not care to fee his cause and people debafed and is it not most juft you be fpectacles of fhame and vilenefs, throughout eternity? Would you be above the Moft High? and should ye not lie under his feet, while his glory remains? Are you ftated enemies against him? and may not your adversary use his power against you, and tread you under his feet, as you would do to him, if your power did answer your monftrous, abominable will? Do you curfe him, and want a relenting heart

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to acknowledge your madnefs? and are fo dreadfully hardened against him, that ye would despise and blafpheme mercy, even mercy offered unto you? and is it not molt just you continue for ever, in that most terrible condition? No wonder your confciences gnaw you fo fearfully; you cannot but be dreadfully affrighted at your monstrous felves; God in his equity having fo wonderfully fharpened your faculties, as that you are able to anderftand your own wickedness most clearly and fully. Your wickednefs, in time, was in its bud, now it is at its height; the fmell of hell was upon you even then, but now you are fo many black lumps of death and hell, caft into the lake of fire. You were not afraid to speak irreverently of him; now you directly (O monstrous madnefs !) curfe him to his very face. The fentence is now fully accomplished, To him that hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, shall be taken away, even that which he hath. Did you hate the lovely image of God? and is it not most just, the remainders thereof, you had on earth, be quite abolished? Some lovelinefs, fome excellency you were endowed with, through the Creator's bounty: now you are stript of all, and are nothing but vile lumps of deformity. Your torments on earth might have raised compaffion in the hearts of fellow creatures, but now your malice and deformity is fe monstrous, as you cannot become objects of compaffion: no, the beholding of the fmoke of your torment is a paffing delectation. O my God, thou art holy in all thy ways, and righteous in all thy works thou art not the cause of their everlafting ruin, though they blafphemously father it upon thee. Curfed wretches, who hath turned your hearts against God hath he turned them a

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gainft himself? This is repugnant. Or, was he obliged to hinder your rebellion, or to turn your minds again towards him, when you fought against him with all your strength, foul, and mind? 46. Sovereignty the first mover of all things. How gloriously doth thine abfolute fovereignty fhine forth in all thy ways? Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honour, and power; for thou haft created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created. Because so it pleafed thee, will abundantly answer all queftions concerning thy proceedings. Why are we here, fuch and fuch by name? Because fo it pleafed thee. We that are praising thee, might have been thine eternal blafphemers; and thofe who are curfing thee, might have been thine eternal praifers: but abfolute fovereignty would have it otherwise. That all things are thus, is because of thy free will: thefe creatures might have been in another ftate; or others in their room, or none at all; if fo it had pleafed thee. All the external lots, in time, the moft contingent things, were eternal draughts of abfolute fovereignty. Is not the eternal resound of our endless fongs, Not unto us, not unto us, but unto thee, O abfolute Sovereign of all things, be the glory for ever! Wicked men and devils have mightily endeavoured to obfcure the glory of thy abfolute fovereignty, by afcribing undetermined and abfolute fovereignty to intellectual agents, over their actions: ftupid madness! are not all things at thy beck? Whatever pleased thee, haft thou done, in heaven and on earth: the hearts of men are in thine hands, as the rivers of waters, thou turneft them whitherfoever thou wilt. Thou removeft the mountains, and they know it not; thou overturneft them in thine anger; thou takeft away the heart L

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