and with all the spiritual weapons of faith, prayer, meditation, and watchfulness, with redoubled zeal and courage, fall on your spiritual enemies. Slay every lust that yet lurks within, as knowing your domestic foes are the most dangerous; and with gentleness, meekness, and, wisdom, by your holy conduct, your pious examples, your kind instructions, your friendly admonitions, spread the savor of divine knowledge all around you, as ye are scattered here and there through a benighted world; laboring to win souls to Christ, to induce the deluded. followers of Satan to desert his camp, and enlist as volunteers under your Prince, Messiah. And if the powers of darkness should rally all their forces, and a general battle through all the Christian world come on, O, love not your lives to the death! Sacrifice every earthly comfort in the glorious cause! Sing the triumphs of your victorious General in prisons and at the stake! And die courageously, firmly believing the cause of truth and righteousness will finally prevail."

not.

Surely it is infinitely unbecoming the followers of Him who is King of kings and Lord of lords, to turn aside to earthly pursuits, or to sink down in unmanly discouragements, or to give way to sloth and effeminacy, when there is so much to be done, and the glorious day is coming on. How should those who handle the pen of the writer, exert themselves to explain and vindicate divine truths, and paint the Christian religion in all its native glories. How should the pulpit be animated, from Sabbath to Sabbath, with sermons full of knowledge and light, full of spirit and life, full of zeal for God, and love to men, and tender pity to infatuated sinners. Christ loves to have his ministers faithful, whether the wicked will hear or And let pious parents be unwearied in their prayers for, and instructions of, their children, and never faint under any discouragements; as knowing that Christ is exalted to give repentance and remission of sins, and can do it for whom he will. Bring your children and friends, with all their spiritual diseases, and lay them at his feet; as once they did their sick, when this kind Savior dwelt on earth. Let pious persons of every age, and in every capacity, awake from sleep, and arise from the dead, and live and act worthy their glorious character and high expectations; and in their several stations exert themselves to the utmost to promote the Redeemer's glorious cause. Let this age do their share, as David, although the temple was not to be built in his day, yet exerted himself to lay up materials for that magnificent edifice, on which his heart was intently set; as knowing that in his son's day it would be set up in all its glory. So let us rise up, and with

the greatest alacrity contribute our utmost towards this building, this living temple, this temple all made of lively stones, of stones alive, in which God is to dwell, and which will infinitely exceed in glory the temple of Solomon, that was built of dead timber and lifeless stones. And let this be our daily prayer, an answer to which we may be assured of, whatever other requests are denied us,· "Our Father which art in heaven, etc.; for thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. AMEN."

39*

THE

GREAT EVIL OF SIN,

AS COMMITTED AGAINST GOD.*

AGAINST THEE, THEE ONLY HAVE I SINNed.

Psal. li. 4.

A SENSE of the great evil of sin is essential to true repentance. It may be laid down as a general maxim, that we cannot be suitably affected towards things, unless we see them as they are. Be they, on the one hand, ever so amiable and lovely, yet if their beauty is not seen, our hearts will be untouched. Even the infinite glory and excellence of God will not excite our esteem and love, if we have no sense of it; and let the moral beauty of the divine government be ever so great, although it may ravish the heavenly world who see it, yet we, while blind to it, shall be wholly unmoved. And be the gospel way of salvation, by free grace through Jesus Christ, ever so glorious, yet if the glories of it are not discerned, we may be far from admiring that divine constitution. So, on the other hand, let sin be ever so great an evil, yet if the great evil of it is not seen, we shall never be suitably affected towards it. Though it deserves to be hated ever so much, and though there be ever so great reason that we should be humbled and abased before God on the account of it, and mourn in the bitterness of our hearts for it, and be afraid of, and watch against, it, as the greatest of evils, yet we shall not, unless it be seen as it is. Did we see it perfectly as it is, we should feel towards it perfectly as we ought; but unless we see it in some measure as it is, we shall feel towards it in no measure as we ought. So that a sense of the great evil of sin is plainly essential to true repentance. And, indeed, it is that from which repentance does nextly and most immediately take its rise. Love to God, faith in Christ, and hope in the mercy

* Preached at Goshen, at a meeting of the Consociation of Litchfield county, May 30, 1753.

:

of God through him, prepare and dispose the heart to mourn for sin but it is a sense of the great evil of sin, which immediately affects the heart with sorrow, and humbles and abases the soul before the Lord. "My sin is ever before me ; against thee have I sinned; thou art just when thou speakest; have mercy upon me, O God." So also St. Paul: "the law is spiritual; I am carnal, sold under sin; -0, wretched man that I am: who shall deliver me?"

Now, the evil of sin arises from our obligations to do otherwise. And the more strongly we are obliged to do our duty, the more wicked is it in us to neglect it, or go contrary to it; and the more are we to blame; and the greater cause have we to be sorry and penitent.

We may be under various kinds of obligations to the practice of virtue. The honor and authority of God may oblige us; the welfare of our fellow-creatures may oblige us; and our own present and future happiness may oblige us too; and therefore we may be to blame, and have cause of repentance, on several accounts; and that, for the evil contained in one particular action, viewed in various respects, as it is; against God; our fellow-men; or our own interest, for this world and the next. And as is our sense of these things, so shall we be affected; that is, we shall be sorry, and blame ourselves accordingly.

For let our obligations be ever so great; yet, if they are not seen, we shall not feel ourselves obliged, or look upon ourselves to blame, when we do wrong. And if ever we do blame ourselves at all, it will be only as we have gone contrary to such obligations as we are sensible of. Although we may be to blame in other respects, yet we shall not blame ourselves. If we be to blame, for instance, for going contrary to the honor and authority of God, yet we shall not be disposed to blame ourselves on that account, unless we are sensible how that the honor and authority of God did oblige us. If we are sorry for what we have done, at any time, it will be only on such accounts, on which we see we have done wrong; and for such reasons, for which we see we ought to have done otherwise. Thus, if we see our great obligations to all holiness and righteousness, arising from the nature of God, and the reasonableness of his government, sin will accordingly appear as an infinite evil. But if we see ourselves under no obligations to God, but merely in way of gratitude for the kindnesses we have received, we shall feel to blame for our sins only as they are instances of ingratitude. And in a word, in what respects soever we see ourselves obliged to do right, in those respects