treating him with vile ingratitude; and not to receive this inestimable remedy at his hand, when he sends out his ministers to invite sinners to take it, to spurn it from them, as if it was a thing which they did not value or did not want, this is the height of sin and wickedness: for whosoever thus accounteth the blood of the covenant an unholy thing, and thereby doth despite unto the spirit of grace, for him there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation.

This being the case, the question returns, what can be the reason that the health of the daughter of my people is not recovered? Here is the all-healing balm of Gilead, here is an all-wise and an almighty physician, and why then, my brethren, will you not, for his sake, for your own sakes, receive the sovereign medicine at his hands? What other cause can be assigned, but that you love your disease more than health? Sin, with all its infirmities, is dearer to you than the full enjoyment of the pleasures of a perfect recovery. Sin, although you die of it, is more precious than to receive life from the hands of a redeeming God. Sin, although it sends you to hell, is more desirable than health in heaven. Sin, although it brings on you never-ending torments with devils and condemned spirits, is sweeter to you than those eternal joys which are at God's right hand for evermore. O what a wonderful delusion is there in sin, that it should thus make men love it more than health and happiness! How strong is the delusion, since the same men reason, in the things belonging to the body, directly contrary to what they do in things belonging the soul! Propose relief to any of them who are lying in a severe fit of the gout or stone, they embrace the proposal with eager joy. Propose immediate relief from the pains and miseries of sin, they will not hear of, much less take the remedy. There is balm. in Gilead, a physician is there, even the Lord Jesus, the sovereign physician of souls, and yet they will not apply to him. Sick as they are, and ready to expire

with the infirmities of sin, yet they had rather perish than be beholden to him for a cure. All his attributes, his power, his wisdom, his goodness, cannot win them. All his graces, his pardoning, justifying, sanctifying grace, have no influence. He may be God almighty to save, but the charms of sin, though but for a season, seem to them preferable to the blessings of his present and eternal salvation.

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But whence is it that sin should be capable of deluding men so far as to make them prefer sickness to health? The true cause is this. Sin blinds their eyes, and hardens their hearts. It stupifies and deadens the senses, so that they feel not their spiritual, in the same manner as they do their bodily, diseases. The understanding is in darkness, they know not that it is diseased. When they know it, the memory is short, and soon forgets it. When they remember it, yet conscience is fast asleep; it neither checks the will in the choice, nor the affections in the love and enjoyment of sin. Thus has sin impaired all their faculties, and they have no desire to be healed, because they are insensible of their malady. When we endeavour to convince them of it they will not believe us; and because they do not feel the immediate smart of their sins, they will not therefore give credit to us when we declare, from the word of God, that they will smart for them, and to eternity, unless they come to the physician of souls to be healed. And this will be the case so long as they are intent upon their present pursuits, and live entirely to sense and to its enjoyments. All this time their own hearts deceive them for it is one of the greatest delusions of sin to keep men ignorant of the true state of their souls. It flatters them with peace, while the Almighty is at war with them; and it promises them happiness in the enjoyment of those things which will bring on them eternal torments. And while it keeps them in this state of carnal security, nothing can appear to them more absurd than to hear that they are sick, when they fancy themselves to be in perfect health.

1. My brethren, are any of you in this state? Do you feel no pain, and do you apprehend no danger from your sins? Are you entirely secure, although your sins be unpardoned, and God might glorify his justice by immediately inflicting the deserved punishment? Nay, do you not find part of sin's punishment already inflicted, and why then should you hope to escape the remaining part? For have you not suffered some of those pains and sicknesses which, in a course of years, will infallibly bring down your bodies to the grave, and inflict the sentence on them, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.' The body was not at first liable to this sentence, until sin poured its cursed poison into it, and infected it with those painful maladies, which no art of physic can heal, and which wear it down to the grave of death. Every pain which it feels, every sickness which it labours under, all the outward and inward dangers which threaten its mortal life, are owing to sin for the wages of sin is death. All the harbingers of death which afflict and weaken men's bodies, and thereby prepare the way for his seizing on them, and carrying them prisoners to the dark and cold regions of the grave all these derive their power over us from sin: for as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. Sin has most undoubtedly wounded your bodies with pains and sicknesses, with mortality and death; and what a madness then and infatuation is it to think, that sin has not wounded your souls as well as your bodies? For what says the scripture? "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." Is not that a desperate wound? "It shall die." How? Can the soul die? Yes: it may be dead in trespasses and sin. Its death consists in being separated from God, the fountain of life, and in having no communion with him either in this world or in the next. And is not this a greater punishment than the death of the body, and is it not infinitely more painful too, thus to die from God and glory,

and to be tormented with the worm that never dieth, and in the fire that never shall be quenched? What! is not that a wound indeed which thus alienated you from the life of God? yea, a most dreadful wound, the torment and anguish of which you may suffer for ever and ever? Men and brethren, are these things so? Examine the evidence and determine. Is not sin the great murderer, who has wounded your bodies with pains and diseases and mortality, and has separated your souls from God, the fountain of life, and made you subject to the first and second death? Is not the proof of these truths as complete and full as the case will admit of? Does it not amount even to a demonstration? And do you not then stand in need of some sovereign balm to heal you, and do you not want a physician? You certainly do, as much as ever dying men did. And why then do you neglect the remedy, and slight the physician?

But perhaps some person may say, how can these things be? Am not I in perfect health, and how then can I labour under those diseases which you are mentioning? Yes, my brother, you may be in health, your body may be perfectly well, but you have a miserable, sinful soul within you, which is infected with the plague and foul leprosy of original sin, and which has been wounded with thousands of actual crimes. This is your case, and it is most deplorable. All the powers in nature can give you no relief. There is no remedy in heaven or earth, but the blood of Jesus Christ, applied by the grace of his good Spirit; and yet sin has such power over you as to persuade you to neglect that precious medicine, without which you must perish everlastingly.

What! say you, can I be in this desperate condition, and not know and feel it? Yes, you may. It is an undoubted matter of fact, that sin brought as many diseases upon the soul as it did upon the body. Indeed it left the soul entirely sick, and without any soundness in it, as we daily confess in the words of our church-"there is no health in us." And if there

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be no health in you, surely then you are sick in every part. And you have no sense of your malady, because sin has so impaired all your faculties that you have no spiritual discernment. You do not discern your case to be dangerous, which is one of the worst symptoms you could have. It proves you to be far gone in a spiritual lethargy, so that the less sense you have, the greater is your danger. And is not this a dangerous disease which makes the patient insensible? For how can he avoid perishing of it, while conscience, which ought to give the alarm, is seared as with an hot iron, and the other faculties of the soul are past feeling? This is the scripture account of your condition, and if it has not convinced you, may the Lord God Almighty make you sensible of your malady, that you may apply to the great Physician of souls for the balm of Gilead, along with those convinced sinners who are now waiting upon him for the sovereign remedy!

2. When sinners are first brought to a sense of their guilt and of their danger, and conscience begins to do its duty, they are apt to write bitter things against themselves, and through unbelief to reject the offered mercies of the gospel. They feel the wounds of sin more sharp and painful than ever its pleasures had been sweet and delightful. The law stirs up guilt, terrifies their consciences with its threatenings, sets God before their eyes as armed with almighty justice to inflict the threatened punishment, and they see no way open to escape. Speak to persons in this distress of the balm of Gilead, the remedy appointed of God for their disease, they cannot believe it is able to heal them; or if they are brought to believe this, yet they reject the comforts of the blessed medicine for want of faith to apply it to themselves.

Let us consider this case a little. My brethren, sin has wounded your bodies and souls, and you are become sensible of the malady. You feel the anguish of it, and you desire to be healed. What objection have you to the remedy which the Lord God has ap