1. That if ye be the Lord's people by fincere dedication, his covenant-people, ye have come as way freely from all your lufts, unto himself. You have been at his table, folemnly devoting yourfelves to him: if you have dealt honeftly with him, and have not eaten and drunk unworthily, your hearts are loofed from all your idols, you have with heart and good-will turned your back on the Sodom of finful courses, with fincere refolutions not to look back. However little influence this charge has had on others, it is effectual on you; you have taken the alarm, and have begun your march out of the tents of fin, you dare no more be disobedient to the heavenly vision. If fo, it is well; if otherwife, you have but mocked God, and wronged your own fouls.--You may learn,

2. That if you be indeed the Lord's people by covenant favingly, you will not go back to your former lufts: Luke, ix. 62. " And Jefus faid unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God." You are not to return to your vain converfation. You have lifted up your hand to the Lord, and you cannot go back in point of right; and unless you have been dealing deceitfully with God, you will not go back. Apoftacy and backfliding take the mafk off hypocrites; and fearful is their condition, for fallen ftars were never genuine ftars, but ftars only in appearance: 1 John, ii. 19. "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us; but they went out, that they might be made manifeft that they were not of us." Think on this when temptations come, that to return into the tents of fin, is to prove yourselves not to be the Lord's. We may learn, Laftly,

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Laftly, That if you be the Lord's by election, you fhall part with thofe fins which now part betwixt the Lord Chrift and you. For though you hide yourselves from him who came to feek you, he notwithstanding will find you out; and as fast as your lufts hold you, and you them, the Lord will make you fain to caft them as fire out of your bofom, if he has any thoughts of eternal love to you. If he has not, you will get them kept, and you may embrace and hug them during life and through eternity; they fhall clafp about you like ferpents, ftinging with endless despair. But it looks fearfully ill, while the trumpet of the gospel, day after day, and year after year, is founding an alarm to depart from fin, and others are marching away in your fight, that you are still staying behind.

The life of a faint is a departing from iniquity, and this is their work while here; fo that, although it ftill cleaves unto them, yet they are not fitting down contented in it, but endeavouring the feparation for altogether. Thus the charge is effectual, in fo far as they go farther and farther from it. Here there is another

Queftion, But is it not often feen, that Chriftians are farther from iniquity at firft than ever they are afterwards? hence many complain that their days, after a long standing in religion, are not found to be by far fo good as when they were but young Chriftians.In anfwer to this, I obferve,

1. That there are not a few who, though never found converts, yet had awakening grace at their first setting out in a profeffion, making a mighty reel among their affections, and a great change on their life; which wearing away by degrees, they fettled on a lifeless empty form of godlinefs, and fo were farther from iniquity then than ever before.

But

But this will not prove it to be fo with the truly godly. I obferve,

2. That Chriftians of a long, ftanding in religion have their fleeping and decaying times, and young Chriftians alfo have theirs. In Song, v. 2. we find the fpouse afleep after great manifeftations; and in Matth. xxv. 5. we find the wife, as well as the foolish virgins, flumbering and fleeping. And if we compare the fleeping days of aged Chriftians with the waking days of thofe who are only young, no doubt the latter has the advantage of the former, even as a working boy is in less danger of the enemy's furprife, than a fleeping man. But fince the power of grace effectually firs up both from their fpiritual flumbers, it is but just the comparison pafs betwixt them, in the waking frame.-I observe,

3. That there is a difference betwixt the bulk of religion, and the folidity and weight of it; the vehement commotions, and its firmness and rootednefs. Young Christians may be of more bulk than the old in refpect of many gliftering, affections, arifing from the newness of the thing, which are mixed with it, and afterwards go off. But with old Christians, though there be less bulk, it is more solid and weighty; as the gold, the oftener it is in the fire, is the more refined, though not fo bulky. Young Chriftians have more vehement affections, but the old have them more regular, rooted, and firm; thus the old is better. The longer one ftands in Chriftianity, certainly he has the more experience of the goodness of God, and of the corruption of his own heart, and of the danger from fpiritual enemies. Hence he must be more refolute in folid ferious dependence upon the Lord for all; more humble, self-denied, and more firm against temptation; and, in one word,

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have

have more of a regular compofed tenderness, with respect to fin and duty. And herein lies the ftrefs of departing from iniquity: 1 John, v. 3. "For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not grie

vous.

Young foldiers may rufh upon the enemy with greater brifknefs, but the old ones ftand the ground beft, and abide the fhock more firmly. Wherefore, let not Chriftians of long standing in religion be difcouraged as if they were not departing from iniquity, because they do not make fuch vifible progrefs as when religion was new to them, if there remain with them a rooted tenderness with refpect to any thing that may be difpleafing to God, with a fincere purpose and endeavour to keep a confcience void of offence towards God and towards man: 2 Cor. i. 12. "For our rejoicing is this, the teftimony of our confcience, that in fimplicity and godly fincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world."-Add to this, a ferious longing to be freed from the body of death, Rom. vii. 24. ; and to be perfected in holiness, Phil. iii. 13. 14. For as the progrefs of the fhip in the main ocean is not fo difcernible as when it was coming off from the fhore, tho' it may move as fast; so it is no wonder that the progrefs of the Chriftian of long ftanding be not fo vifible as at the first; or as the growth of a tree the first year is more difcerned than after, fo it may be with the Chriftian.

Having thus fhewn how far the charge is effectual in this life, we add upon this head,

That it is effectual in all who are the Lord's people, at death; and this in fo far as that then they perfectly depart from fin, and fin from them.

They

They come then to the fpirits of just men made perfect, Heb. xii. 23. There is a great difference betwixt the godly and the wicked in life, and a flill greater at death.--As the wicked do in life hold faft their iniquities amidst all the means of juftification and fanctification offered them; fo at death all these means are removed for ever out of their fight; and thus their iniquities meet upon them, to prey on their fouls for ever. Then fin is fettled in its full power in their fouls as on its own bafe. No more hopes nor poflibility of fanctification; and the feveral pieces of guilt, as cords of death, are twisted about them for ever. As fin in the godly is in their life loofed at the root, so at their death it is rooted up; as in life they depart from it fincerely, fo at death perfectly. The body of death goes with the death of the body, that as death came in by fin, so fin may go out by death. Now, fin is in the godly as the leprofy in the walls of the house, which, therefore, being taken down, the leprofy is removed; when the gracious foul drops the mantle of the body, it will at the fame inftant drop all the uncleannefs cleaving to it. Amen.

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