it, and vesting in himself the Power of SERM. the whole Community, which every XI. Murderer does, and likewife to the injur’d Perfon himself, by depriving him not only of all the Benefits of Society, to which, as a Man, he has a Natural Right, till he forfeits it to the Community, but alfo of Life itself, which God only can give, and he only has a Right, or the Magiftrate who is his Vicegerent, to take away. The Sin of Murder then is a Sin of a complicated Nature, and has a very great Malignancy in it; for as it ftrikes at Human Nature itself, and even at the Deity too, a Man cannot be fuppos'd to be guilty of it, till he has almoft blotted out his Humanity, and defac'd the Image of God within him.

And indeed the Remorfe and Fear, to fay nothing of any other Punishment that attends the Commiffion of this dreadful Crime, bears an exact Proportion to the Guilt of it, which fhews the dreadful Nature of it in the most lively manner imaginable. The Man, who has ftain'd his Hands with Blood, fears a Revenge awaiting him from every Part of Nature; and not without good Reason; for as the Prophet fays, The Stones fhall cry out of the Wall, and the Beams out of the Timber shall answer it. Every Breeze of Wind whispers a Memorandum of his Guilt,

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SERM. Guilt, and breathes the Vengeance that is XI. due to it: At the Ruftling of a Leaf he pleads guilty, and paffes Sentence upon himself before he finds an Accufer; Every one that looks upon him his Guilt dreffes up as a Judge and Executioner, and he reads his Condemnation in their Countenances; fo dreadful is the Punishment of this Crime, even before it comes to be punished; and is only the Beginning of that Punishment, which he is to receive hereafter, and to which the Punishment, which Societies have allotted to this Crime, is but a prefent Relief. And indeed, if we confider the Remorfe and Fear, which are the Seeds of Vengeance within, and the Punishiment which is ripening from without, correfpondent to it, we cannot well conceive a more melancholy State: And this Cain was very fenfible of to his Sorrow: For when the Lord had pronounced Sentence upon him, Now art thou curfed from the Earth, which bath open'd her Mouth to receive thy Brother's Blood from thy Hand: When thou tilleft the Ground it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her Strength, a Fugitive, and a Vagabond shalt thou be in the Earth. He faid unto the Lord, my Punishment is greater than I can bear: Behold thou haft driven me out this Day from the Face of the Earth, and from

thy

thy Face Shall I be hid; i. e. from the im- SERM. mediate Prefence of God as heretofore, XI. and I fhall be a Fugitive and Vagabond in the Earth, and it shall come to pass, that every one, that findeth me, shall slay me: But from this he was preferv'd, and accordingly a Mark was fet upon him, left any finding him fhould kill him. What that Mark was, tho' there are many Conjectures about it, which are of little Ufe, unless it be to fhew the Folly of those who make them, is not material; whatever it was we find it was fomething that prevented People from killing him; and this is all the Account we have, or need have concerning it.

Having thus fhewn, that every Sin calls to Heaven for Vengeance; and that the Sins that are of a Heinous Nature, fuch as Murder, do fo in a more extraordinary manner, let us fee now,

Secondly, What proper Obfervations are to be made upon it. And First, we may obferve the Goodnefs and Juftice of God, in that he will not fuffer the leaft Evil to go without its Compensation; that Punishment shall be the fure Confequence of Sin, which if it does not overtake a Man in this Life, upon account of the many Imperfections and Chances that attend the State of things, tho' it will always have its Chance for being punish'd

SERM punish'd here, which is all that Time XI. can give it, and a Certainty of it in Eternity there will furely be; and therefore tho' the Evil does go unpunish'd in this Life, tho' here below the Wicked triumph and the Ungodly profper, yet as this is not always the Cafe, fo when it happens to be fo, it is not the Confequence of any Male-Adminiftration in God, but of the Imperfection of the prefent State of things, which cannot be perfected but in Eternity.

But there are fome, who are so far from thinking that there is any thing wrong in a Sinner's not being punish'd in this Life, that they rather incline on the contrary to think it inconfiftent with the Goodness of God to punish any Man at all, either here or hereafter; as if Justice was fomewhat contrary to Goodness; and Goodness was bound to relieve the Punishment that Injustice did inflict; whereas these things are all one in God, and only become different, as they are by us differently apprehended. For to punish the Evil is to do it as much Good as belongs to it; as to reward the Good is to render it the Juftice that is due to it. To an absolute Being these things are the fame: To Reason, Truth, Juftice, and Goodness are all one, and the fame thing: And in this View to fhew Goodnefs to a Being is to fhew it Juftice and Truth;

and

and to fhew Truth is to fhew Juftice SERM. and Goodness, and so on: To the Sense XI. they are not fo, for that reprefents them in different Lights, to one Faculty they are one thing, to another another, and fo on. To Pity, a Man is an Object of Mercy; to Refentment, an Object of Juftice; and to Love, an Object of Goodness: So that upon the whole it is not inconfiftent with the Goodness of God to punish Evil, any more than it is inconfiftent with his Juftice to reward Good; if it was, then it would follow that there is no Difference in things, and that Good and Evil are the fame.

Secondly, If every Sin calls to Heaven for Vengeance, this may teach us the Malignancy of it, and fhew how cautious we ought to be of committing it; for tho' we may have a thousand Chances for escaping Punishment from Men, yet we have no Chance against God; it is all Certainty there. Let us therefore upon the Commiffion of it be fure to be early in seeking God by Repentance; for that, as it is a making Reparation to Justice, will ftand between us and Vengeance, and take off the Violence of the Blow: It will plead for us as Abraham did for Sodom ; whereas an obftinate Impenitency is not only a denying of all Justice, and the Truth of things, but also a deny

ing