II. is loft, we are cut off for our Parts," Ezek. xxxvii. And to cry, What shall we do to be faved? Now in fuch a Condition the Baptifm of John will be accepted, even his Baptifm of Repentance for the Remiffion of Sins, Luke iii. 3. Then will you begin to few your Fig Leaves together, your ragged filthy Righteoufnefs, to cover your fhametul Nakedness, Ifa. lxiv. 6. And then shall you hear the awful Voice of God calling after you, and faying as he did to Adam, Where art thou? Then will you tremble and feek to hide yourselves, and confefs to God, like him, I am afraid, because I am naked! And God will reply, Who told thee thou waft naked? Haft thou eaten of the forbidden Fruit ? Gen. iii. 10, 11 Your trembling Souls fhall then be fenfible, not only of Guilt, but Pollution, "from the Crown of the Head to the Sole of the Foot, full of Wounds, Bruites, and putrifying Sores," Ifa. i. 6. Odious and loathfome in your own Eyes and yet obliged in this Condition to ftand before the dreadful Sovereign, the awful Judge of all the Earth, whofe Prefence is ten thousand Times brighter than the Sun, Eccle. xxiii. 19. Before whom the Cherubims cover their Faces, because of the Splendor and Brightness of his Glory? I fay, you must give an Answer to this "high and lotty One that inhabiteth Eternity," Ifa. lv. 15. This nevertheless is the great Shepherd and Bishop of Souls, who is come to feek after his loft Sheep, Luke xv. 4. And here you would be in a great Strait, between Hope and Defpair, not knowing what to answer and you would ftill be afraid to own yourselt guilty, for fear God would not be gracious to you, and forgive you. And therefore as Adam put off the Blame from himself to his Wife, fo would you Sinners put off the Blame to your depraved Nature And if God accufe the Wife, corrupt Nature, it will endeavour to excufe itself, and lay the Fault upon the Serpent, the Devil. Adam, we know, blam'd the Woman which God gave bim. The Woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the Tree, and I did eat, Gen. iii. 12. Tacitly blaming God for giving him fuch a Creature, who enticed him to Sin. And when God faid unto the Woman, What is this that thou hast done? fhe imputes her Difobedience to the Serpent. Here we may fee how loath a Man is in his natural State to own himself guilty of Condemnation. Adam hearkened to the Inftigation of the Devil, who told him, as he did Eve, that he hould not furely die, Gen. iii. 4. but that his Excufe and his Fig-leaf Covering fhould fcreen him from the Wrath of the Almighty, and keep him safe on the Wild Olive Tree (Nature's Hope). So when the Spirit of Chrift carries Conviction to the Heart, we strive to put the Fault on our depraved Nature, faying, "All have their Failings! and flatter ourselves that by our future Amendments (Fig-leaf Righteousness) we shall be faved: 'till Sin, by the Law, flay us, and we are convinced of our Inability, and obliged to cry, Guilty, guilty. Then we fee our Fig-leaf Covering (moral Honesty) will not fave our guilty Souls, Now we find ourfelves dead, dry Bones, driven out from the Prefence of God. Thus did Adam see himself, when driven out of the Garden, excluded from the Tree of Life, and doom'd to Labour and Sorrow, Gen. iii. 24. But the Almighty Jehovah, the Disposer of all Events, knowing, as the Scripture fays, "That Offences must come, but woe to him by whom the Offence cometh," Matt. xviii. 7. pronounced the Curfe on the first Offender, the Serpent; and exhibited the gracious Purpose of Salvation contained in the Promife to Adam, vi, That the Seed of the Weman Woman should bruife the Serpent's Head. And I (faith God) will put Enmity between thee and the Woman, and between thy Seed and her Seed: it shall bruife thy Head (thou Devil), and thou shalt bruise his Heel, Gen. iii. 15. Here is God's Decree, that Chrift the Seed of the Woman being fown in the Believer's Heart, by God the Father, who is the Husbandman, through the Operation of the Holy Ghost, in them who are his Husbandry, fhall bruise the Serpent's Head in them. And this Seed is verily the Kingdom of Heaven, which our Lord faith is like unto Leaven, which a Woman took and bid in three Measures of Meal, 'till the whole was leavened, Matt. xiii. 33. And this is the Seed that remaineth in God's Children, fo that they cannot love Sin, because they are thus born of God, 1 John iii. 9. And the Devil being curfed because he beguiled the Woman which God had created upright, is a Prifoner in Chains; decreed to crawl on his Belly, never to look up to Heaven for Mercy; and permitted only to bruife Chrift's Heel in his Church militant. For as Heaven is God's Throne, fo Earth is his Footstool, A&t. vii. 49. And he delights to walk among his golden Candlefticks, Rev. ii. 1. And fills them full of Peace and Joy in Believing, Rom. xv. 13. Which stirreth up Wrath in Satan, and his Agents, and caufeth him to affault God's People with diverse Temptations, and fo bruifes Chrift's Heel in them, "by grieving that Holy Spirit of Chrift, wherewith they are fealed to the Day of Redemption," Eph. iv. 30. Thus he quencheth the Spirit of Confolation in God's People, by feducing them to Sin, whereby they are deprived of the Joy of his Countenance for a Seafon. "For what Fellowship hath Righteousness with Unrighteousness ? and what Communion hath Light with Darknefs? and what C Concord 66 Concord hath Chrift with Belial ?" 2 Cor. vi. 14, 15- t Eden (left he should attempt to take of the Tree of Lire), to till the Ground from whence he was taken, and placed at the End of the Garden of Eden, Cherubims, and a flaming Sword, to keep the Way of the Tree of Life," Gen. iii. 22, 23, 24. Here, notwithstanding the Meffiah, the Pearl of great. Price, Matt. xiii. 46. was promifed, yet it was fo hid in the Field of God's Purpose and Providence, that Adam muft feek after it 'till God in Mercy thought proper he should find it. Thus was poor Adam, the loft Sinner convinced of Sin, whereby he saw the Wages thereof was Death, but that it must be the free Gift of God to beftow Life, and alfo to lead Men to Chrift to have eternal Life, Rom. vi. 23. Poor Adam, where art thou now? the flaming Sword keeps thee from Prefumption ! the Promise of the Meffiah keeps thee from Despair! now thou art caft out to till the Ground, in order to prepare thy Heart; to root out the Thorns and Thiftles; to cultivate thy corrupt Nature, to receive the immortal Seed, and bring it to it's primitive Purity. Poor Adam (poor Sinner) view thy fad Situation, seriously reflect on the Condition of thy Soul! Here thou mayeft dig after Happiness, but canft never of thyself find it. The Depth faith, It is not in me: and the Sea faith, It is not in me, Job xxviii. 14. Alas! where is the wife Man? where is the Scribe where is the proud Free-willer now? where is the unconverted, whole-hearted, boafting Pharifee now? Like as the Priefts, fo are the People; blind Leaders of the Blind; who (without the New-birth) muft both fall into the Ditch; Matt. XV. 14. Lord our God! forafmuch as this Ditch is the unfathomable bottomless Pit, where Hope never comes, and the Fire is never quenched, prepared for the Devil C 2 and |