willino;ly. Herbs and Howers shed not their seed til! ripe ; creatures pi'opagate not till of stature and age. What do those that tempt others, but dittiise their wicked opinions and practices, and as it were raise up seed to the devil, thereby to keep up the name of their infernal father in the world ? This shews sin is mighty in them indeed. Many a man, though so cruel to his own soul as to be drunk or swear, yet will not like this in a child or servant ; what are they then but devils incarnate, who teach their children the devil's catechism, to swear and lie, drink and drab ? If you meet such, be not afraid to call them (as Paul did Elymas, when he vv'ould have perverted the deputy,) children of the devil, full of all subtilty and mischief, and enemies of all righteousness. O do you not know what you do, when you tempt ? I will tell you ; you do that which you cannot undo by your own repentance ; thou poisonest one with error, initiatest another in the devil's school, (ale-house, I mean,) but afterwards, it may be, thou seest thy mistake, and recantest thy error, thy folly, and givest over thy drunken trade. Art thou sure now to rectify and convert them with thyself? Alas, poor creatures ! this is out of thy power ; they, perhaps, will say, as he (though he did it upon a better account) that was solicited to turn back to popery by him who had before persuaded'him to renounce the same : ' You have given me one turn, but shall not give me another.' And what a grief to thy spirit will it be, to see these going to hell on thy errand, and thou not able to call them back ! Thou mayest cry out as Lamech, ' I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my Inu't.' Nay, when thou art asleep in thy grave, he whom thou seducedst may have drawn in others, and thy name may be quoted to commend the opinion and practice to others; by which (as it is said, though in another sense, ' Abel, being dead, yet speaks,') thou mayst, though dead, sin in those that are alive, generation after generation. A little spark kindled by the error of one, hath cost the pains of many ages to quench it ; and when thought to be out, it hath broken forth again.
Thirdly, They are not barely wicked, but maliciously wicked. The devil's name denoteth his spiteful nature, his desire to vex and injure others. When he draws souls to sin, it is not because he tastes any sweetness, or finds any profit therein ; he hath too much light to have any joy or peace in sin ; he knows his doom, and trembles at the thought of it, and yet his spiteful nature makes him vehemently desire, and incessantly endeavour, the damnation of souls. As you shall see a mad dog run after a flock of sheep, kill one, then another, and when dead not able to eat of their flesh, but kills to kill : so Satan is carried out with a boundless rage against man, especially the saints ; he would not, if he could, leave one of Christ's flock alive ; such is the height of his malice against God, whom he hates with a perfect hatred, and because he cannot reach liim with a direct blow, therefore he strikes him at second hand through his saints; that wicked arm which reacheth not to God, is extended against these excellent on the earth, well knowing the life of God is in a manner bound up in theirs. God cannot outlive his honour, and his honour speeds as his mercy is exalted or depressed ; this being the attribute God means to honour in their salvation so highl)% and therefore jualigned above the rest by Satan. And this is the worst that can be said of these wicked spirits, that they maliciously spite God, and in God the glory of his mercy.
Use 1. First, This may help us to conceive more fully what the desperate wickedness of man's nature is, which is so hard to be known, because it can never be seen at once, it being a fountain whose immensity consists not in the stream of actual sin, (that is visible, and may seem little,) but in the spring that incessantly feeds this : but here is a glass that will give us the shape of our hearts truly like themselves. Seest thou the monstrous pitch and height of wickedness that is in the devil ? All this there is in the heart of every man ; there is no less M'ickedness, potentially, in the tamest sinner on earth, than in the devils themselves ; and that one day thou, whoever thou art, wilt shew to purpose, if God prevent thee not by hi^ renewing grace ; thou art not yet fledged, thy wings are not grown to make thee a flying dragon, but thou art of the same brood, the seed of this serpent is in thee, and the devil begets a child like himself ; thou yet standest in a soil not so proper for the ripening of sin, which will not come to its fulness till transplanted into hell. Thou who art
|2g AGAINST SPIRITUAL WICKEDNESS.