rted, that sin maketh a man liable to a charge and
accusation, and brings him under the hazard of judgment. Indeed it is hard
enough to endure an accusing conscience, and a spirit wounded with the
apprehension of wrath. When our Saviour would express great affliction, he
doth it thus--"A man's enemies shall be those of his own house." If a
domestic enemy be so ill, what shall a bosom enemy be, when a man's
accuser is not only beside him, but within him,--not only in the house with
him, but in the field too,--carried about with him whithersoever he goeth,
so that he can have no retiring or withdrawing place from it! Indeed, some
poor souls make a mad escape from under the challenge of their
consciences, they get away from their keepers to more excess in sin, or
make some vain diversion to company, and other things of the world. But
the end thereof shall be more bitterness, for that will not still sleep
within them, but shall awake upon them with more terror, and one day put
them in such a posture, that all the comforts of the world shall be but as
a drop of water to a man in a burning fever, or as oil to a flame. But, as
I told you, that is not the greatest matter, to be self accused, and
self-condemned, if there were not a higher tribunal, which this process
originally flows from, one greater than the conscience, who speaks to us
in his word, and hath written his charge and sentence against us, and this
is it which sets the soul most on edge, and it is but the very
apprehension of that higher judgment, which is the gall and wormwood, the
poison of those challenges in the conscience. I would desire you to look
upon this, and consider that there is a sentence passed in the word of God
upon all your actions, that the wrath of God is revealed in the scriptures
as due to you, however you may flatter yourselves in your sins, and fancy
an immunity from wrath, though you live in sin. I wish ye were once
persuaded of this,--that all sinners must once appear before God's tribunal
and hear the righteous sentence of the dueness of punishment pronounced; I
say, all must once appear, either to hear and believe it, or to see it
executed. The wisdom of God requires, that all men's guilt, which is a
transgression of the law, should once come to a judicial trial and
decision by the law, and either this must be done in your own consciences
here, that ye may sist yourselves before him, and take with your sins, and
humble yourselves in his sig