your bleffings: yea, I have curfed them already." The holy Law is a killing letter to him, 2 Cor. iii. 6. The miniftry of the Gofpel, a favour of death unto death, chap. i 15. In the facrament of the Lord's fupper, he catheth and drinketh damnation to himself, 1 Cor. xi. 29. Nay, more than all that, Chrift himself is to him, a ftone of ftumbling, and a rock of offence, 1 Pet. ii 8. Thus wrath follows the natural man, as his fhadow doth his body.

4thly, He is under the power of Satan, Acts xxvi 18. The Devil has overcome him, fo he is his by conqueft, his lawful captive, Ifa. xlix. 24. The natural man is condemned already, John iii. 18. and therefore under the heavy hand of him that hath the power of death, that is the devil. And he keeps his prifoner in the prifon of a natural state, bound hand and foot, Ifa. Ixi.1. Laden with divers lufts, as chains wherewith he holds them faft. Thou needeft not, as many do, call on the devil to take thee; for he has a faft hold of thee already, as a child of wrath.

LASTLY, The natural, man has no fecurity for a moment's fafety from the wrath of God its coming on him to the uttermaft. The Curfe of the Law denounced against him, has already tied him to the ftake, fo that the arrows of juftice may pierce his foul; and in him may meet all the miferies and plagues that flow from the avenging wrath of God. See how he is fet as a mark to the arrows of wrath, Pfal. vii. 11, 12, 13. "God is angry with the wicked every day. If he turn not, he will whet his fword: he hath bent his bow, and made it ready: he hath alfo prepared for him the inftruments of death." Doh he ly down to fleep; There is not a promife, he knows of, or can know, to secure him that be shall not be in hell ere he awake. Juftice is purfuing, and cries for vengeance on the finner: the Law cafts the file-balls of its curfes continually upon him: wafted and long-tried patience is that which keeps in his life: he walks amidit enemies armed against him : his name may be Magor MiTabib, i.e. "terror round about," Jer. xx. 3. Angels, devils, men, beats, ftones, heaven and earth, are in readiness, on a word of command from the Lord, to ruin him.

Thus the natural man lives, but he must die too; and death is a dreadful meffenger to him. It comes upon him armed with wrath, and puts three fad charges in his hand. (1.) Death chargeth him to bid an eternal farewel to all things in this world; to leave it and make away to another world. Ah! what a dreadful charge must this be to a child of wrath! He

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can have no comfort from heaven; for God is his enemy: and as for the things of the world, and the enjoyment of his lufts, which were the only fprings of his comfort; thefe are in a momen dried up to him for ever. He is not ready for ano her world: he was not thinking of removing fo foon: or, if he was, yet lie has no portion fecured to him in another world, but that which he was born to, and was increafing all his days, namely, a treasure of wrath. But he must; his clay god, the world, must be parted with, and what has he more? There never a glimmering of light, or favour from heaven, to his foul and now the wrath that did hang in the threatning as a cloud like a man's hand, is darkning the face of the whole heaven above him and if he look unto the earth, (from whence al his light was wont to come), behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; aud he shall be driven to darkness. Ifa. viii. 22. (2.) Death chargeth foul and body to part till the great day. His foul is required of him, Luke xii. 20. Ꮕ what a miserable parting must this be to a child of wrath! Care was indeed taken to provide for the body things neceffary for this life; but, alas! there is nothing laid up for another life to it; nothing to be a feed of glorious refurrection: as it lived, fo it muft die, and rife agaia finful flesh; fuel for the fire of God's wrath. As for the foul, he was never folicitous to provide for i. It lay in the body, dead to God, and all things truly good; and fo must be carried out into the pit, in the grave clothes of its natural ftate for now that death comes, the companions in fin must part. (3) Death chargeth the foul to compear before the tribunal of God, while the body lies to be carried to the grave, Ecclef, xii. 7. "The fpirit thail return unta God who gave it." Heb. ix. 27. "It is appointed unto all men once

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to die, but after this the judgment.' Well were it for the finful foul if it might be buried together with the body. But that cannot be it must go and receive its fentence; and fhall be fhut up in the prifon of heil, while the curfed body lies imprif oned in the grave, till the day of the general judgment.

When the end of the world, appointed of God, is come; the trumper fhall fouad, and the dead arife. Then fhall be weary earth, at the command of the Judge, caft forth the bodics, the curfed bodies of thefe that lived and died in their natural state. "The fea, death, and hell, fhall deliver up their dead," Rev. xx. 12. Their miferable bodies and fouls-fhall be reunited, and they fifted before the tribunal of Chrift. Then fhall they receive that fearful fenter ce, "Depart from me, ye

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curfed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels," Matth. xx. 41. Whereupon, they fhall go away into everlafting punishment, ver. 49. They fhall be eter-, nally fhut up in hell,, never to get the leaft drop of comfort, nor the leaft ease of their torment. There they will be pun fhed with the punishment of lofs: being excommunicated for ever from the prefence of God, his angels and faints. All means of grace, all hopes of a delivery, thall be for ever cut off from their eyes. They fhall not have a drop of water to cool their tongues, Luke xvi. 24, 25. They fhall be punished with the punishment of fenfe. They must not only depart from God, but depart into fire, into everlasting fire. There the worm, that fhall gnaw them, fhall never die: the fire that shall scorch them, shall never be quenched. God fhall, thro' all eternity, hold them up with the one hand, and pour the full vials of wrath into them with the other.

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This is that fire of wrath natural men live in: being under much of the wrath of God, and liable to more, But for a further view of it, let us confider the qualities of that wrath. (1.) It is irrefiftible, there is no ftanding before it. "Who may ftand in thy fight, when once thou art angry?" Pfal. lxxxvi. 7. Can the worm, or the moth, defend itself against him that defigns to crufn it? As little can worm man fland before an angry God. Foolish man indeed practically bids à defiance to heaven: but the Lord often, even in this world, opens fuch fluices of wrath upon them, as all their might cannot ftop; but they are carried away thereby, as with a flood.. How much more will it be fo in hell? (2.) It is unfupportable. What one cannot refift, he will fet himself to bear: but, "Who fhall dwell with devouring fire? Who fhall dwell with everlafting burnings?" God's wrath is a weight that will fick men into the loweft hell. It is a burthen no man is able to ftand under. A wounded fpirit who can bear it?" Prov. xviii. 14. (3.) It is unavoidable to fuch as will go on impenitently in their finful courfe. He that being often reproved, hardneth his neck, fhall fuddenly be deftroyed, and that without remedy." Prov. xxix. I, We may now Hy from it indeed, by flying to Jefus Chrift: but fuch as fly from Chrift, fhall never be able to avoid it. Whither can men fly from an avenging God? where will they find a fhelter? The hills will not hear them : the mountains will be deaf to their loudest cries; when they cry to them, to hide them from the wrath of the Lamb. (4.) It as powerful and fierce to wrath, Pfal. xc. 11. "Who knoweth

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the power of thine anger? Even according to thy fear, fo is thy wrath." We are apt to fear the wrath of man more than we ought but no man can apprehend the wrath of God to be more dreadful than it really is: the power of it can never be known to the utmoft; feeing it is infinite, and (properly fpeaking) has no utmoft: how fierce foever it be, either on earth, or in hell, God can still carry it further. Every thing in God is moft perfect in its kind; and therefore no wrath is fo fierce as his. O finner, how wilt thou be able to endure that wrath, which will tear thee in pieces (Pfal. I. 22.) and grind thee to powder, Luke xx. 18. The hiftory of the two fhe-bears, that tare the children of Bethel, is an awful one, 2 Kings ii. 23, 24. But the united force of the rage of lions, leopards and fhe-bears, bereaved of their whelps, is not fufficient to give us even a fcanty view of the power of the wrath of God, Hof. xiii. 7. 8. "Therefore, I will be unto them as a lion; as a leopard by the way will I obferve them. I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her whelps, and will rent the caul of their heart," &c. (5.) It is penetrating and piercing wrath. It is burning wrath, and fiery indignation. There is no pain more exquifite, than that which is caufed by fire; and no fire fo piercing as the fire of God's indignation, that burns into the lowest hell, Deut. xxxii. 22. The arrows of men's wrath can pierce flesh, blood and bones; but cannot reach the foul: but the wrath of God will fink into the foul, and fo pierce a man in the most tender part. Like as when a perfon is thunderftruck, oft-times there is not a wound to be feen in the ikin : yet life is gone, and the bones are, as it were, melted: so God's wrath can penetrate into, aud melt one's foul within him, when his earthly comforts ftand about him entire, and untouched, as in Belfhazzar's cafe, Dan. v. 6. (6.) It is conftant wrath, running parallel with the man's continuance in an unregenerate. ftate; conftantly attending him, from the womb to the grave. There are few fo dark days, but the fun fometimes looketh out from under the clouds: but the wrath of God is an abiding cloud on the fubjects of it, John iii. 36. "The wrath of God abideth on him that believes not.' "" (7.) It is eternal. O miferable foul! if thou fly not from this wrath unto Jefus Chrift, thy mifery had a beginning, but it fhall never have an end. Should devouritg death wholly fwallow thee up, and for ever hold thee faft in a grave, it fhould be kind; but thou mult live again, and never die; that thou mayeft be ever dying, in the hands of the living God. Cold death wil quench the flame of

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man's wrath against us, if nothing elfe do it but God's wrath, when it has come on the finner millions of ages, will fill be the wrath to come, Matth. iii. 7. 1 Theff. i. 18. as the water of a river is till coming, how much foever of it has paffed. While God is, he will purfue the, quarrel. Laftly, Howfoever dreadful it is, and tho' it be eternal, yet it is most just wrath: it is a clear fire, without the least smoak of unjustice. The fea of wrath raging with greateft fury against the finner, is clear as chrystal. The Judge of all the earth can do no wrong. He knows no tranfports of paffions, for they are inconfiftent with the perfection of his nature. "Is God unrighteous, who tak eth vengeance? (I fpeak as a man,) God forbid for then, kow fhall God judge the world?" Rom. iii. 5, 6.

The Doctrine of the State of Wrath confirmed and vindi'cated.

II. I fhall confirm the doctrine. Confider, (1.) How peremptory the threathing of the firft covenant is: "In the day thou eateft thereof, thou shalt furely die," Gen. ii. 17. Hereby fin and punishment being connected, the veracity of God afcertains the execution of the threatning. Now all men being by nature under this covenant, the breach of it lays them under the curfe. (2.) The Justice of God requires that a child of fin be a child of wrath; that the law being broken, the fanction thereof should take place. God, as man's Ruler and Judge, cannot but do right, Gen. xviii. 25. Now it is a righteous thing with God to recompence fin with wrath, 2 Theff. i. 6. He is 66 of purer eyes than to behold evil," Hab. i. 13. And "He hates all the workers of iniquity," Pfal. v. 6. (3) The horrors of a natural confcience prove this. There is a confcience in the breafts of men, which can tell them, they are fin'ners; and therefore liable to the wrath of God. Let men, at any time, foberly commune with themfelves, and they will find they have the witnefs in themselves: "Knowing the judgement of God, that they which commit fuch things are worthy of death," Rom i. 32. (4.) The pangs of the new-birth, the work of the fpirit of bondage on elect fouls, in order to their converfion, demonftrate this. Hereby their natural finfulness, and mifery, as liable to the wrath of God, are plainly taught them, filling their hearts with fear of that wrath. Now that this fpirit of bondage is no other than the Spirit of God, whofe work is to convince of fin, righteoufnefs, and judgement,

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