346 SERMONS UPON PSALM XIX. 13 [SeR. II.
heavy on our persons, children, estate, and all other outward comforts. It is not safe to offend him.
[3.] It bringeth a dishonour on the name of God, and a disgrace on religion : Eom. ii. 24, ' For the name of God is blasphemed among the gentiles through you ; ' 2 Sam. xii. 14, ' Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme.' You make others judge ill of the ways of God, and en- courage them to sin, which certainly will strike deep in the consciences of good men, and make them bethink themselves.
SERMON II.
Keep hack thy servant from presumptuous sins. — Ps. xix. 13.
Having made some progress in the doctrinal part raised from these words, I shall now make some application thereon.
Use 1. For the just condemnation and reproof of them that never take care to be kept from these sins. They are of two sorts —
1. Some that live in known sins against the light of conscience.
2. Such as please themselves that their sins are but infirmities, when indeed they are presumptions ; and therefore are never troubled about wliat they do. I must speak to both.
First, Such as live in known sins against the light of conscience. Every one of you that, under the light of the gospel, do live in the customary neglect of necessary duties, or the customary committing of any gross sin, you sin presumptuously, and allow yourselves in it. You who are so blinded in judgment as that ye know not that the gross ways ye live in are sin, and so wallow in all manner of sensualities, without any care and government of your souls and senses, and live in a present oblivion of the world to come, and the way that tendeth thither, do not you know that to live in an utter unmindfulness of God, and a neglect of your everlasting interests, without praying, meditating, reading, hearing and other means of grace, or a serious addressing yourselves to come to God by Christ, is a presumptuous violation of God's will, and is inconsistent with salvation ? Do you not know that you ought not to lie, or swear, or to be drunk, deal unjustly, and fraudulently in your callings ? Are not these bogs and quagmires visible, and yet you will run into them ? Doth not nature and scripture condemn these things ? Gal. v. 19-21, * Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, adulter}^ fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulation, wrath, strife, sedition, heresy, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and the like.' This is apparent to a common understanding that these are to be called works of the flesh. Scripture telleth you so, and conscience telleth you so ; yet you will not give over, because of the habituated rooted wickedness that is in your hearts. You cannot plead ignorance, temptations, passions, weaknesses; this is the element you live and breathe in.
VeR. 13.] SERMONS UPON PSALM XIX. 13. 347
Hell will be heated seven times hotter for such proud and arrogant
sinners as you are. Oh, think of your condition before it be too late !
That you should not sin presumptuously, take these dissuasions —
1. If you have any respect of God : Jer. xliv. 4, ' Oh, do not this abominable thing which I hate.' You are his servants ; of right all should be so ; and what is the condition of a servant ? /jlt] ^rjv tu? /Sou- Xerac, not to live as he list. We are not nostri juris, have no power to dispose of ourselves ; but de facto yon have actually resigned up your- selves to God, to be guided by his will ; and will you in apparent cases set your own will in contradiction to his, as if you would try whose will shall stand, God's or yours ? God saith, ' Thou shalt not steal ; Thou shalt not commit adultery ; Thou shalt not bear false witness ; nor take my name in vain ; ' and thou in a flat contradiction sayest, I will swear, lie, and wallow in all manner of filthiness. Is this to be God's servants? Oh, how far are you different from the temper of those that are indeed so ! That which is their terror is your choice , that which they desire to be freed from, you with all earnestness run into, with great proneness of heart. We may say, Deut. xxsii. 5, ' Their spot is not the spot of God's children.'
2. If you have any respect to yourselves. Presumptuous sins will cost you dear at length, both in this world and the next. Men make a scourge for their own backs while they run wilfully into sin, and shoot arrows against heaven, that return upon their own heads. If God hath been so terrible against sins of infirmity, sudden passion, and temptations, what may you fear that provoke God, and dare him to his face, and, in contempt of him and his commandments, deliber- ately run into known sins ? It is a wonder God giveth such any longer time upon earth, that he doth not suddenly strike them. Surely he will not always bear. Lot's wife for looking back was turned into a pillar of salt. Uzzah for touching the ark, though out of a good meaning, struck dead, 2 Sam. vi. 6. Moses, for a few unadvised words, shut out of Canaan : Ps. cvi. 32, 33, ' It went ill with Moses for their sakes, because they provoked his spirit, so that he spake unadvised with liis lips.' When meek Moses was drawn into the snare of a rash speech, God shutteth him out of Canaan. Therefore certainly gross sins obsti- nately persisted in cannot but provoke God to anger.