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all the pomp and fplendor of outward happiness and profperity for where-ever fin and vice is, there must be guilt; and where-ever guilt is, the mind will be restless and unquiet.

For there are two very troublesome and tormenting paffions, which are naturally confequent upon guilt; fhame, and fear: fhame, arifing from the apprehenfion of the danger of being discovered; and fear, from the apprehenfion of the danger of being punished: and these do continually haunt the finner, and fill him with inward horror and confufion in his most fecret retirements. And if fin were attended with no other trouble but the guilt of it, a wife man would not commit it, if it were for no other reason, but merely for the peace and quiet of his own mind.

2dly, The enjoyments of fin, as to the duration of them, are but fhort. Upon this confideration, Mofes fet no price and value upon them, but preferred affliction and fuffering in good company, and in a good cause, before the temporary enjoyments of fin.

If the enjoyments of this world were perfect in their nature, and had no mixture of trouble and forrow in them; yet this would be a great abatement of them, that they are of fo fhort and uncertain a continuance. The pleasure of most fins expires with the act of them; and when that is done, the delight vanisheth.

I cannot deny but that there are feveral worldly advantages to be purchased by fin, which may perhaps be of a longer continuance; as riches and honours, the common purchase of covetousness and ambition, and of that long train of inferior vices which attend upon them, and minister unto them: but even thofe enjoyments are, in their own nature, of an uncertain continuance, and much more uncertain, for being purchafed by indirect and ill means. But if the enjoyment of these things were fure to be of the fame date with our lives, yet how short a duration is that compared with eternity? Make the utmost allowance to these things that can be, yet we can but enjoy them whilft we are in this world. When we come into the world of fpirits, it will fignify nothing to us to have been rich or great in this world. When we fhall ftand before that highest tribunal, it will not avail us in

the

the least to have been princes, and great men, and judges on the earth; the poorelt man that ever lived in this world, will then be upon equal terms with the biggest of us all.

For all mankind fhall then ftand upon a level; and those civil diftinctions of rich and poor, of bafe and honourable, which feem now fo confiderable, and make fuch a glaring difference amongst men in this world, fhall all then be laid afide, and moral differences fhall only take place. All the distinctions which will then be made, will be betwixt the good and the bad, the righteous and the wicked; and the difference betwixt a good and bad man will be really much greater, than ever it feemed to be betwixt the higheft and meaneft perfons in this world.

And if this be fo, why fhould we value the enjoyments of fin at fo high a rate, which, at the beft, are only confiderable (and that only in the imagination of vain men) during our abode in this world; but bear no price at all in that country where we must live for ever: or if they did, we cannot carry them along with us. The guilt of them indeed will follow us with a vengeance; the injuftice, and all the ill arts we have used for the getting or keeping of them, efpecially if at once we have made fhipwreck of faith and a good confcience.

If we have changed our religion, or, which is much worfe, if continuing in the profeffion of it, we have betrayed it, and the intereft of it, for the gaining or fecuring of any of these things; we fhall find, to our forrow, that though the enjoyments of fin were but for a feafon, the guilt of it will never leave us nor forfake us, but will ftick clofe to us, and make us miferable for ever. But this belongs to the

Third thing I propofed to fpeak to, namely, the final iffue and confequence of a finful courfe; which is, mifery and forrow, many times in this world, but most certainly in the next.

1. In this world, the very best iffue and confequence of a finful courfe that we can imagine, is repentance: and even this hath a great deal of fenfible pain and trouble in it; for it is many times (especially after great fins, and a long continuance in them) accompanied with much

regret

regret and horror, with deep and piercing forrow, with difmal and defpairing thoughts of God's mercy, and with fearful apprehenfions of his wrath and vengeance: fo that, if this were the worst confequence of fin, (which indeed is the best), no man that confiders and calculates things wifely, would purchase the pleasure of any fin, at the price of fo much anguish and forrow as a true and deep repentance will coft him; especially, fince a true repentance does, in many cafes, oblige men to the restitution of that which hath been gained by fin, if it hath been got by the injury of another.

And this confideration quite takes away the pleasure and profit of an ill-gotten eftate. Better never to have had it, than to be obliged to refund it. A wife man will forbear the most pleasant meats, if he know beforehand that they will make him deadly fick, and that he shall never be at ease till he have brought them up again.

No man that believes the threatenings of God, and the judgments of another world, would ever fin, but that he hopes to retrieve all again by repentance. But it is the greatest folly in the world to commit any fin upon this hope for that is to please one's felf for the prefent, in hopes to have more trouble afterwards than the pleasure comes to. But, especially, no man would be guilty of an act of injustice and oppreffion, in hopes to repent of it afterwards; because there can be no repentance for fuch fins without restitution: and it is perfect madness for a man to run the hazard of his foul to get an eftate, in hopes of restoring it again; for fo he must do that truly repents of fuch a fin. But,

2. In the other world, the final iffne and confequence of all the pleasures of fin unrepented of, will certainly be mifery and forrow. How quietly foever a finner may pass through this world, or out of it, mifery will certainly overtake him in the next; unfpeakable and eternal mifery, arifing from an apprehenfion of the greatest lofs, and a fenfe of the fharpest pain; and thofe fadly aggravated by the remembrance of past pleasure, and the defpair of future ease.

From a fad apprehenfion and melancholy reflexion upon his ineftimable lofs. In the other world, the finner fhall be eternally feparated from God, who is the foun

tain of happiness. This is the first part of that miferable fentence which fhall be paffed upon the wicked, Depart from me.

Sinners are not now fenfible of the joys of heaven, and the happiness of that state; and therefore are not capable of estimating the greatnefs of fuch a lofs: but this stupidity and infenfibleness of finners continues only during this present state, which affords men variety of objects and pleasures to divert and entertain them. But when they are once entered upon the other world, they will then have nothing else to take up their thoughts, but the fad condition into which, by their own wilful negligence and folly, they have plunged themselves. They fhall then lift up their eyes, and, with the rich man in the parable, at once fee the happiness of others, and feel their own mifery and torment.

But this is not all. Befides the apprehenfion of fo great a lofs, they shall be fenfible of the forest and sharpeft pains and how grievous thofe fhall be, we may conjecture by what the fcripture fays of them in general, that they are the effects of a mighty displeasure, of anger and omnipotence met together, far greater than can be defcribed by any pains and fufferings which we are acquainted withal in this world: for who knows the power of God's anger, and the utmost of what omnipotent justice can do to finners? It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

One would think, this were mifery enough, and needed no farther aggravation: but yet it hath two terrible ones; from the remembrance of past pleasures, and the defpair of any future cafe and remedy.

The remembrance of past pleasure makes prefent fufferings more fharp and fenfible. For as nothing commends pleasure more, and gives a quicker relifh to happinefs, than precedent pain and fuffering, (for perhaps there is not greater pleasure in the world, than in the fudden ease which a man finds after a fharp fit of the ftone); fo nothing enrageth affliction more, and sets a keener edge upon mifery, than to pafs into great pain immediately out of a state of eafe and pleasure. This was the ftinging aggravation of the rich man's torment, VOL. IV.

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that

that in his lifetime he had received his good things, and had fared fo deliciously every day.

But the greatest aggravation of all is, the defpair of any future ease and remedy. The duration of this mifery is fet forth to us in fcripture by fuch expreffions as do fignify the longest and most interminable duration: Depart, ye curfed, into everlasting fire, Matth. xxv. 41.; and Mark ix. 44. where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. And in the Revelation it is faid, that the wicked shall be tormented day and night, for ever and ever, without intermiffion, and without end. And this furely is the perfection of mifery, for a man to lie under the greatest torments, and to be in despair of ever finding the leaft ease.

Let us now compare things together; on the one hand the sufferings of good men for a good confcience, and the reward that follows them; and, on the other hand, the enjoyments of fin, and the mifchief and mifery that attend them, and will certainly overtake them in this world, or in the next; and then we fhall easily difcern which of these is to be preferred in a wife man's choice.

And indeed the choice is fo very plain, that a man must be very strangely forfaken of his reafon, and blinded by fenfe, who does not prefer that courfe of life which will probably make him happier in this world, but most certainly in the next.

IV. There remains now only the fourth and laft particular to be spoken to, viz. fuppofing this choice to be reafonable, to inquire whence it comes to pafs, that so many make a quite contrary choice. How is it that the greatest part of mankind are fo widely mistaken, as to prefer the temporary enjoyments of fin before confcience and religion; especially if it be attended with great afflictions and fufferings? And of this I fhall give you as brief an account as I can, and fo conclude this difcourse.

This wrong choice generally proceeds from one or both of these two caufes; from want of faith, or from want of confideration, or of both.

1. One great reason why men make fo imprudent a choice, is unbelief; either the want of faith, or the

weakness

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