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SERM. expect a Life of Eafe and Satisfaction without III. a Mixture of Sorrows and Calamities, nor to arrive at perfect Happiness but thro' much Tribulation. This Argument, one would think, fhould make us eafy under all Afflictions. Indeed 'tis eafy for them who feel no Pain or Anxiety to forbear Complaints; for, as Job fays, Doth the wild Afs bray when he hath Grafs or loweth the Ox over his Fodder? Yet ftill what will it fignify to ftrive against God; for he giveth not Account of any of his Matters? What will it profit to oppofe ourselves to the Almighty? Who bath hardened himself against him and bath profpered? Behold, he taketh away, who can hinder him? who will say unto him, What doeft thou? If we speak of Strength, lo he is strong; and if of Judg ment, who shall fet us a Time to plead? In a Word, and to conclude, let us submit ourfelves to God in every Condition of Life, and take care how we fufpect the Juftice of his Proceedings before we know the Whole of Things. At present we know only in part, a future State will reconcile all thofe Difficulties, and demonstrate, after all our rash and unwarrantable Complaints, that the righteous Lord loveth Righteousness, his Coun tenance will behold the Thing that is juft. SER

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SERMON IV.

GEN. iii. 15.

And I will put Enmity between thee and the Woman, and between thy Seed and her Seed; it hall bruife thy Head, and thou fhalt bruife his Heel.

N this Chapter we have a fhort, SErm. but furprizing, Account of the IV. Fall of Man, which introduc'd all

the Sin and Mifery that has ever

fince been fpreading itself over the Face of the whole Earth. No fooner do we behold the happy Pair pure and upright, as they came from the Hands of their Maker (and happy indeed had it been for them, and for us, had they continued fo!) but presently the Scene is chang'd, and they, who before were wont to be blefs'd with the Divine Prefence,

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SERM. Prefence, now hide themselves from the PreIV. fence of the Lord God among the Trees of the Garden. Unhappy Change! That heavenly Voice, that once left fuch pleafing and delightful Sounds behind, is now become a Voice of Fear and Terror: Iheard thy Voice in the Garden, fays Adam, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself. Naked indeed! when his native Innocence was gone, and he had thrown off the beautiful Garment of an upright Mind. Thus those, whom we see in the foregoing Chapter at the Head of the Creation, the Favourites of Heaven, who were thought worthy to appear before God, and receive his Orders and Commands in Perfon, we find, in the Compafs of a few Lines, ftanding before God, that very God by whom they were once fo highly favour'd, in order to receive Sentence for their Difobedience, of which Death was before threatned as the Penalty. But God, whose Property is always to have Mercy, came down in Pity as well as Judgment, and foften'd the Penalty with a moft gracious Promife That tho' they had incurr'd the Penalty of Death, and involv'd themselves in a great deal of Trouble and Affliction, yet in the. End they fhould get out of it all, and come

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victorious. For when Sentence was pafs'd SERM. upon the Serpent, and he was pronounced VI curfed above all Cattle, and above every Beaft of the Field, and commanded to go upon his Belly, and eat Duft all the Days of his Life, it follows, And I will put Enmity between thee and the Woman, and between thy Seed and her Seed; it shall bruife thy Head, and thou shalt bruife his Heel; i. e. Tho' thou haft deceiv'd her now under the Shew of Friendship, yet hereafter the fhall be convinc'd that thou art not a Friend, but an Enemy; and, accordingly, there fhall be Enmity and Variance between you, and between thy Offspring and hers her Offspring hall fruftrate and difappoint thy malicious Contrivances and Designs, and thou fhalt only be able to do fome bodily Hurt in return. This, I think, is meant by bruising the Heel; because when it is faid, the Seed of the Woman Jhall bruife the Serpent's Head, if by that is meant, as it moft certainly is, that it fhall fruftrate the grand Defigns of that old Serpent the Devil, which were to destroy the whole human Race, and which no doubt he thought he had effected when he had feduc'd the Wc man, imagining that the Sentence of Death, which was the Penalty of Difobedience,

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ŞERM. would extend to the Soul as well as the IV. Body, and fo not being able to gain his Purpose this Way, and yet being to have fome Advantage ftill, that must be suppos'd to relate to the Body, fignified, figuratively, by the Heel. I know the Bruifing of the Heel is confin'd by fome to the Sufferings of our bleffed Savionr in his human Nature; but tho' it is more eminently true in that Senfe, yet there feems to be no Reason to confine it to that only, because, as we are able to bruise the Serpent's Head by his Affiftance, tho' he is the principal Agent, fo tho' he was the principal Sufferer, and the Serpent bruis'd his Heel in a more particu lar Manner, yet his Power over the Body extends to the whole human Race.

I fhall not wafte fo much of your Time, or my own, as to give you a Detail of all the Opinions that have been conceiv'd about the Fall of Man; but, taking it for granted, that the Bible stands at least upon as good a Bottom of Truth as any prophane Author, I fhall prove,

I. The Certainty of it; which will make way in the

II. Place

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