eminent for their moral righteousness, whether in heaven or hell ; but were there ever any that doubted what would become of the unrighteous Christian in the other world ? Hell gapes for these above all others: ' Know you not,' saith the apostle, ' that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God ? ' 1 Coi-, vi. 9 ; as if he had said, Sure you have not so far lost the use of your reason, to think that there is any room for such cattle as these in heaven. And if not the unrighteous, what crevice of hope is left for their salvation, whose unrighteousness hath a thousand times more malignity in it, than any otiiers in the woi-ld is capable of? The heathen shall for their unrighteousness be indicted, and condemned as rebels to the law ; so shall the unrighteous Cln-istian also, and that more deeply. But the charge which is incomparably heaviest, and will lay weight upon him far above the other, is that whicli the gosjjel brings in, that by his unrighteousness he hath been an ' enemy to the cross of Christ,' Phil. iii. 18. Indeed, if a man had a mhul to shew his despite to the height against Christ and his cross, the devil himself could not help him to express it more fully, than to clothe himself with a gaudy profession of the gospel, and with this wrapped about him, to roll himself in the kennel of sordid, base practices of unrighteousness. O how it makes the profane world blaspheme the name of Christ, and abhor the very profession of him, when they see any of this filth upon the face of their conversation, who take the name of saints to themselves more than others do ! What ! shall that tongue lie to man, that even now prayed so earnestly to God ? Those eyes be sent on lusts, or envi(ms errands, that a few moments past thou tookest off the Bible, from reading those sacred oracles ? Those hands in thy neighbour's pocket to rob him of his estate, which were not long ago stretched forth so devoutly to heaven ? Those legs carry thee to-day into thy shop or market to cheat and cozen, which yesterday thou wentest with to worship God in public ?
In a word, dost thou think to commune with God, so as by a greater semblance of outward zeal to God in the first table, to obtain a dispensation, in point of righteousness, to man, in the second? Will thy pretended love to God excuse the malice and rancoiu- with which thy heart swells against thy neigh- bour? thy devotion to God, disoblige thee from paying thy debts to man ? God forbid thou shouldst think so; but if thou dost, Peter's counsel to Simon Magus is mine to thee, ' Repent of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thy heart may be forgiven thee,' Acts viii. 22. In the name of God I charge every one that wears Christ's livery to make conscience of this piece of righteousness, as you would not bring upon your heads the vengeance of God for all those blasphemies, which the nakedness of some professors in tliis par- ticulai", yea, base practices of some hypocrites, have given occasion to be belched out by the ungodly world against Christ and the good ways of holiness. Now the power of holinessj as to this particular, will be preserved, when these two things are looked to : —
First, When our care is uniform, and equally distributed, to endeavour the performing of one duty we owe to our neighbour as well as another. For we must know, there is a righteousness that, as one saith, runs through every precept, as it were the veins of every law, in the second table ; and calls for obedience due to parents natural, civil, ecclesiastical, in the fifth command ; our care to preserve our neighbour's life in the sixth, chastity in the seventh, estate in the eighth, good name in the ninth, and our desires in due bounds, against coveting what is our neighbour's, in the tenth. Now, as healtli in the body is preserved by keeping the passages of life open, for the spirits freely to move from one part to another, which once obstructed from doing their office in any part, the health of the body is presently in danger ; so here the spirit and life of holiness is preserved in the Christian by a holy care and endeavour to keep the heart free and ready to pass from doing one duty he owes his neighbour to another, according to the several walks that are in every connnand for him to move in.
Secondly, as our care nnist be uniform, so the motive and spring witlu'n that sets us at work, and makes all these wheels move, must be evangelical. Tlie command is a road in which both heathen, Jew, and (Christian, may be found travelling ; how now shall we know the ('hristian from the other, when heathen and Jew also walk along with him in the same duty, and seem as
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