By a long custom of finning, mens confciences grow brawny, and feared as it were with a hot iron; and by being often trampled upon, they become hard as the beaten road. So that, unless it be upon fome extraordinary occafion, they are feldom awakened to a fenfe of their guilt. And when mens hearts are thus hard, the best counfels make but little impression upon them. For they are fteeled againft reproof, and impenetrable to good advice; which is therefore feldom offered to them, even by those that wish them well, because they know it to be both unacceptable, and unlikely to prevail. It requires a great deal of good nature in a very bad man, to be able patiently to bear to be told of his faults.

Befides that habitual wickedness is naturally apt to banish confideration, to weaken our refolution, and to difcourage our hopes both of God's grace and affiftance, and of his mercy and forgiveness, which are the belt means and encouragement to repentance.

Sin is a great enemy to confideration; and efpecially when men are deeply plunged into it, their condition is fo very bad, that they are loth to think of it, and to fearch into it. A vitious man is a very deformed fight, and to none more than to himself; and therefore he loves to turn his eyes another way, and to divert them as much as he can from looking upon himself. He is afraid to be alone, left his own mind should arrest him, and his conscience fhould take the opportunity to call him to an account. And if at any time his own thoughts meet with him, and he cannot avoid confideration, he is ready to fay, as Ahab did to Elijah, Haft thou found me, O my enemy! and is as glad to shake it off, as a man is to get rid of a creditor, whom because he knows not how to fatisfy, he cares not to speak with him. Confideration is the great troubler and disturber of men in an evil course; because it would reprefent to them the plain truth of their cafe and therefore they do all they can to keep it off; as those who have improvidently managed their affairs, and been ill husbands of their eftates, are loth to make up their accounts, left by that means they fhould be forced to understand the worst of their condition.

Or if confideration happen to take them at an advantage, and they are fo hard preffed by it, that they cannot efcape the fight of their own condition; yet they find themselves fo miferably intangled and hampered in an evil course, and bound fo faft in the chains of their own wickedness, that they know not how to get loofe. Sin is the faddeft flavery in the world: it breaks and finks mens fpirits; and makes them fo bafe and fervile, that they have not the courage to rescue themselves. No fort of flaves are fo poor-fpirited, as they that are in bondage to their lufts. Their power is gone; or if they have any left, they have not the heart to make use of it. And though they fee and feel their mifery, yet they chufe rather to fit down in it, and tamely to fubmit to it, than to make any refolute attempt for their liberty. What the Prophet fays of whoredom and wine, is proportionably true of other vices, They take away the heart. Every luft that we entertain, deals with us as Delilah did with Samfon; not only robs us of our ftrength, but leaves us faft bound: fo that, if at any time we be awakened to a fenfe of our condition, and try to refcue ourselves from it; we find that our ftrength is departed from us, and that we are not able to break loofe.

And as long cuftom and continuance in fin deprives us of our ftrength, fo it difcourageth our hopes, both of God's grace and affiftance, and of his mercy and forgiveness. For why fhould men expect the continuance of that grace which they have so often received in vain? After fo many provocations, how can we look the offended majesty of God in the face? how can we lift up our eyes to heaven with any hopes of mercy and forgivenefs there? Defpair doth almost naturally spring from an evil confcience: and when men are thoroughly awakened to a fense of fin, and of the infinite evil of it, as they cannot eafily forgive themfelves, fo they can hardly believe, that there is goodnefs enough any where to forgive them.

But, befides thefe difadvantages, which are natural, and confequent upon a vitious courfe, by the juft judgment of God his fpirit is withdrawn from them; and they are given up to their own hearts lufts, to commit

all

all iniquity with greedinefs. And then there is hardly any thing left, either to restrain them in their evil courfe, or to recover them out of it.

And not only fo; but, by the juft permifion of God, as men grow worse and more wicked, the devil hath a nearer access to them, and more immediate power over them. So the fcripture tells us, that wicked men are let captive by Satan at his pleasure, and that the evil one works and acts in the children of difobedience: they are as it were poffeffed and infpired by him. And what can be expected from this cruel and malicious enemy of mankind, but that he will continually be pufhing them on. from one wickedness to another, till he drive them first into defpair, and then, if God permit him, into eternal perdition?

And what a forlorn ftate is this; when men are thus forfaken of God, and left without check, blindly and headily to follow the fway of their own tempers, and the bent of their own corrupt hearts; when they are continually expofed to temptations, ftrongly inviting them to evil, and God lets the devil loofe upon them, to manage thofe temptations with his utmost fkill, and to practise all his arts and wiles upon them? In these circumstances, men almost infallibly run into fin, as fure as men wander in the dark, and are in dan-ger of falling in flippery places, and of being intangled, when they continually walk in the midst of fnares cunningly laid for them. It is not in men thus difabled and intangled, to order their own steps, and to restrain their inclinations and paffions in the prefence of a powerful temptation. At the beft, we need God's diretion to guide us, his continual grace to uphold us, and to guard and preferve us from evil: and much more do we ftand in need of it, when we have brought ourfelves into these wretched circumstances; but then, alas! how little reafon have we to hope for it?

Blind and miferable men! that, in defpite of all the merciful warnings of God's word and providence, will run themselves into this defperate state, and never think of returning to a better mind, till their retreat is diffi cult, almoft to an impoffibility! I proceed to the

II. Second head of my difcourfe; which was, to fhew,

P 3

that

that the cafe of these perfons, though it be extremely difficult, is not quite defperate; but, after all, there is fome ground of hope and encouragement left, that they may yet be reclaimed, and brought to goodness. Indeed, humanly speaking, and according to all appearance and probability, the thing feems to be very hope lefs, and next to an impoffibility; but yet what our Saviour fays concerning the difficulty of a rich man's falvation, will reach alfo to this cafe, though much more difficult; Those things which are imposible with men, are poffible with God.

And this will appear, if we confider, that even in the worst of men there is fomething left which tends to reclaim them, to awaken them to confideration, and to urge and encourage them to a vigorous refolution of a better courfe: and this, accompanied with a powerful affiftance of God's grace, which, when fincerely fought, is never to be defpaired of, may prove effectual to bring back even the greatest of finners.

1. There is left, even in the worst of men, a natural fenfe of the evil and unreasonablefs of fin; which can hardly be ever totally extinguished in human nature. For though the habits of great vices are very apt to harden and tupify men, fo that they have feldom a just sense of their evil ways; yet these perfons are fometimes under ftrong convictions, and their confciences do feverely check and rebuke them for their faults. They are alfo, by fits, under great apprehenfion of the danger of their condition, and that the courfe which they are in, if they continue in it, will prove fatal to them, and ruin them at laft; efpecially when their confciences are thoroughly awakened by fome great affliction, or the near approach of death, and a lively fenfe of another world. And the apprehenfion of a mighty danger will make men to look about them, and to use the best means to avoid it.

2. Very bad men, when they have any thoughts of becoming better, are apt to conceive fome good hopes of God's grace and mercy. For though they find all the caufes and reafons of defpair in themfelves, yet the confideration of the boundle's goodneís and compaffions of God (how undeferved foever on their part) is apt to

kindle fome sparks of hope, even in the most defponding mind. His wonderful patience, in the midst of our manifold provocations, cannot but be a good fign to us, that he hath no mind that we fhould perish, but rather that we should come to repentance; and, if we do repent, we are affured by his promife, that we shall be forgiven: He that confeffeth and forfaketh his fins, fhall have mercy. If we confess our fins, he is faithful and juft to forgive us our fins, and to cleanfe us from all unrigh teousness.

3. Who knows what men thoroughly roufed and ftartled may refolve and do? And a mighty refolution will break through difficulties which feem infuperable. Though we be weak and pitiful creatures, yet nature, when it is mightily irritated and stirred, will do ftrange things. The refolutions of men upon the brink of defpair have been of an incredible force: and the foul of man in nothing more difcovers its divine power and original, than in that fpring which is in it, whereby it recovers itself when it is mightily urged and pressed. There is a fort of refolution which is in a manner invincible, and hardly any difficulty can resist it, or stand before it.

Of this there have been great inftances in feveral kinds. Some, by an obftinate refolution, and taking incredible pains with themselves, have mastered great natural vices and defects: as Socrates and Demofthenes; who almost exceeded all mankind in those two things for which by nature they seemed to be least made, and most unfit; one in governing of his passions, and the other in the mighty force and power of his eloquence.

Some that, by intemperance, have brought themselves to a dropfy, which hath juft fet them upon the brink of the grave, by a bold and steady purpose, to abstain wholly from drink for a long time together, have rescued themselves from the jaws of death.

Some that had almoft ruined themselves by a careless and diffolute life, and having run themselves out of their eftates into debt, and being caft into prifon, have there taken up a manly refolution, to retrieve and recover themselves; and, by the indefatigable labour and study. of fome years in that uncomfortable retreat, have maftered