by an obligation of gratitude, it takes up resolutions. of obeying him. This truth, though it be first received in the understanding, and entertained by faith, yet it doth immediately work upon the will and affections; viz. An averfion to that luft that crucified her Saviour, and which the fame Saviour, upon the endearment of his own blood, begs us to crucify. 3. There is yet a further work upon the will by the fecret and powerful working of the Spirit of God, ftrengthening, and perfuading, and restoring it to its liberty and just fovereignty over the sensual appetite,

A POEM.

THE Great Creator gave to brutes the light
Of sense and natural instinct that might
Conduct them in a fenfual life; by this

They fteer their course, and very rarely miss
Their inftituted rule, nor yet reject
Its guidance, or its influence negle&t,
But the Creator's great Beneficence
Gave unto Man, befides the light of Senfe,
The nobler Light of Reafon, Intellect,
And Confcience to govern and direct
His life and actions, and to keep at rights
The motions of his fenfual appetites :
But wretched Man unhappily deferts
His Maker's inftitution, and perverts
The end of all his bounty, prostitutes
His Reafon unto Luft, and fo pollutes

His noble Soul, his Reafon, and his Wit:
And Intellect, that in the throne should fit,
Muft lackey after Luft, and fo fulfil

I

The base commands and pleasure of her will:
And thus the human nature's great advance
Becomes its greater ruin, doth enhance
Its guilt, while Judgment, Reafon, Wit,
Improve those very fins it doth commit.

Dear Lord, thy Mercy furely muft o'erflow,
That pardons fins, which from thy Bounty grow.
1 attend servilely,

THE

THE

FOLLY AND MISCHIEF OF SIN.

T

1. Ir is a most unprofitable and foolish thing: The content that is in it, is but imaginary, and dies in the compafs of a thought; the expectation of it is nothing but difappointment, and the fruition of it perifheth in

a moment.

2. It is the infallible feed of fame and mifchief, which, without it be intercepted by repentance, and the mercy of God, doth as naturally and infallibly grow from it, as hemlock and henbane do from their proper feeds And though the nature of fome fins is more fpeedy and visible in producing that fruit; yet more certainly, fooner or later, every fin yields his crop, even in this life. The beft fruit it yields is forrow and repentance, which though it be good in comparison of their fruit enfuing, if omitted, yet certainly it is not without much trouble and difcompofure of mind; and the bitterness even of repentance itself, infinitely overbalances the contentment that the fin did yield.

3. Sin doth not only produce an ungrateful fruit, but there is also a certain fpite and malignity in the fruit it yields, carrying in it the very picture, refemblance and memorial of the fin for the most part, which dogs a man in the punishment of it, with the very repetition of the guilt, a lex talionis 1.

If a

4. It poifon and envenoms all conditions. man be in prosperity, it either makes it an occafion of

' law of retaliation.

new

new fins to cover or fecure them that are paft; or it fours and infefts the very state itself with fad pre-apprehenfions of the fruit due to his fin; or haunts him in his jollity, like as I have feen an importunate creditor, a young gallant, which blafts all his comfort and contentment. If a man be in adverfity, it adds affliction to affliction. The best companion of afflictions is a clear confcience: but when a man hath outward troubles, and a mifgiving guilty foul, it makes his affliction black and defperate.

5. It difcompofes and diforders, and unqualifies man for any good duty either to God or man: I pray, but I bring along with me a fenfe of fin, that makes me ungrateful to myself, and how can I expect to be acceptable to God, the pure and holy God, who hates nothing but fin? I beg bleffings, but how can I expect to receive ableffing from him, whom I but lately prefumptuously offended? If my fon or fervant hath offended me, and comes to ask a benefit of me, I look upon it as a faucy prefumption; and can I expect to have a better entertainment from my Maker, than I think fit to allow my fellow-creature? The truth is, there is no petition comes feasonably from a man under the guilt of fin, but pardon, forgiveness and mercy.

If I do a good work, the fin, that I ftand guilty of, makes the comfort I take in it, or in other commendations of it, infipit and empty: my heart tells me there is a fin in my confcience, that makes nie afhamed to own the good that is in the action.

If I fee a fault in another, that my place or condition requires me to reprove, the fenfe of my own guilt makes me either backward to reprove, or condemn myfelf, while I am reproving another, with fuch thoughts as thefe: I am reproving a fin in another, 'where I ftand as guilty in the fight of God as the per'fon reprehended: if he knew my fin, how juftly might he throw my reprehenfion into my own face; ' and if he knew it not, yet the God of heaven, before 'whom I ftand, and the confcience which I bear

• within

within me, makes my reprehenfion of another, a ⚫ condemnation of myfelf. If I go about any action of my life, though never fo honeft, just, and lawful, yet my mifgiving thoughts make me either inactive in it, or fill me with pre-apprehenfions of mischief or disappointment in it; how can I expect a bleffing from God, whom I have offended in any bufiness I undertake? I carry along with me, in all I do, the curfe that the Lord threatened. The Lord fhall fend upon thee curfing, vexation and rebuke in all that thou fetteft thy hands unto 1.' C And, Thou shalt not profper in thy ways. And, So that thou fhalt be mad for the fight of thine eyes which thou fhalt fees.' And, In the morning thou fhalt fay, would God it 'were evening; and at the evening thou fhalt fay, 'would God it were morning, for the fear of thine heart wherein thou fhalt fear, and for the fight of thine eyes which thou fhalt fee 4.'

And certainly all this grows from the incongruity and diffonancy that is between fin and the true right conftitution of the nature of man, that is thereby made unufeful for his proper operations; just as a fore, or a bone out of joint difables the proper ferviceableness of a limb; or, as a noxious humour diforders the ftomach, liver or fpleen, in its proper office; or, as a disease, or ill difpofition of the body, makes it unferviceable to its proper actions; fo do the fins, and defilements, and guilt, the refult of it upon the foul, difable it in its works and offices: and this is the evidence of it; every thing is then in its right conftitution, when it is in that ftate that the wife God of nature ordered it; and fo far as it declines from that position or state, so far forth it lofeth its usefulness and proper happiness; and therefore it is confequently evident, that every thing that lofeth its usefulness and happinefs, is out of that conftitution that God Almighty meant for it; and therefore, inafmuch as apparently all fin doth introduce this diforder and irregularity, it is plain that mankind there

Deut. xxviii. 20. 2 Deut. xxviii. 29. * Deut. xxviii: 67.

3 Deut. xxviii. 34.

by