33O DIRECTIONS AND PERSUASIONS learn of folly ? Must the Almighty stand at the bar of a worm ? O horrid arrogancy of senseless dust ! Shall every mole,_or clod, or dunghill, accuse the sun of dark- ness, and undertake to illuminate the world? Where were you when the Almighty made the laws, that he did not call you to his council? Surely he made them before you were born, without desiring your advice; and you came into the world too late to reverse them : if you could have done so great a work, you should have stept out of nothing, and have contradicted Christ when he was on earth, or Moses before him, or have saved Adam and his sinful progeny from the threat- ened death, that so there might have been no need of Christ. 3. If sin be such an evil that it requires the death of Christ for its expiation, no wonder if it deserve our everlasting misery. 4. And methinks you should perceive, that it is not possible for the best of men, much less for'the wicked, t6 be competent judges of the desert of sin. Alas ! we are all both blind and partial. You can never know fully the desert of sin, till you fully know the evil of sin : and you can never fully know the evil of sin, till you fully know the excellency of the soul which it de- forms ; no, nor till you know the infinite excellency, almightiness, and holiness, of that God, against whom it is committed. When you fully know these, you shall fully know the desert of sin. You know that the offender is too partial to judge the law, or the proceed- ing of his judge. 5. Can you think that unholy souls are fit for heaven ? Alas ! they cannot love God here, nor do him' any ser- vice which he can except. They are contrary to God, they loathe that which he most loves ; and love that which he abhors ; they are incapable of that imperfect communion with him, which his saints here partake of. How then can they live in that most perfect love of him, and full delight and communion with him, which is the blessedness of heaven ?
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