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been happy, nay much happier for us, that the First had never been? What Satisfaction or Comfort is it likely to afford to an imprison'd Malefactor, or notorious Criminal, to entertain him with difcourfes of the mighty Pomp and glorious Solemnity in which he that is to give Sentence upon him fhall appear? What Support or Relief can be expected from fuch a Ones Contemplating on the great State of his Trial, and the Majefty of his Condemnation? Certainly they who live like Sadducees, tho' they call themselves Chriftians, altho' Chrift is rifen, nay because he is rifen, are of all Men moft miferable. To Them, and to Them only is the Refurrection of Chrift a matter of Joy and Unspeakable Confolation, over whose whole Lives and Conversations, over all whose Thoughts and Words and Actions this Belief has fo Powerful an Influence as to keep 'em in a conftant and Reverential awe of the great Majefty of their Judge, as well as in a perpetual Courfe of Gratitude and Praise and Love to their Redeemer.

To whom with the Father and Holy Spirit be all Honour and Glory and Praise both now and for evermore. Amen.

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SERMON VI.

Romans VI: 21;

What Fruit had ye then in those Things, whereof ye are now afbam'd? For the End of thofe Things is Death.

A

S our Firft Parents were they from whom all Mankind was propagated, and as thro' the whole vaft Family of the World, there are visible Marks of our Relation one to another, and a common Likeness wherein we all agree; So their Sin was the Parent of all the Sins that have, or are, or fhall be Committed to the End of the World; and This unhappy Offspring too, tho' fo infinite in Number and Variety, do yet all

agree

agree in fome Refemblance to their First Original; Facies non omnibus Una, Nec Diverfa tamen; qualem decet eße Sororum: They all bear Likeness enough to each other to prove themselves of the fame Family, and deriv'd from the fame Stock; Even that Firft Difobedience of Adam, as all the Sins, that are defcended from it, was Unprofitableness and Vanity in the Enjoyment, Shame and Confufion in the Confequence, and in the End Destruction and Death. For what Fruit gather'd our first Father from the forbidden Tree? what gain'd he by it? Knowledge of Good and Evil? he did indeed: but of Good loft, and Evil got. What immediately follow'd? He faw himself naked, and was afham'd? and what was the End of all but Death? for in the Day that he eat thereof, He, and in Him all his Pofterity, did furely Dye. Yet tho' of fo pernicious and deadly a Nature, how foon did Sin overfpread the Face of the Earth? With the Generations of Adam, which grew fo foon to be fo vaftly Numerous, it made an equall Progrefs; and as Man, the Work of God's hands, obey'd his Blessed Command Encrease and Multiply; So Sin, the Work of the Devil, feem'd to have had a Curfed Command from Him, and accordingly that too was Fruitfull and Multiply'd and Replenifh'd the Earth. Whatever new

Citys

Sin.

Citys were Built, wherever new Colonys were Sent forth; Murder, and Rapin, and Luxury, and Luft, and all other Wickedness followed and kept equall pace; and the whole History of the Beginning of Nations, and Rife of Monarchys, is nothing elfe but an Account of the new Territorys, and Conquests, and enlarg'd Dominions of This then being the moft Univerfal Contagion fpread over all the World, as general an Antidote, as univerfal a Remedy ought to be fought out and apply'd to it. And my Text feems to be of this Nature; for it discovers the whole Progrefs of Sin, in its first Commitment, its immediate Confequence, its last End; it infinuates itfelf into all the different Sorts of Mankind likely to be inveigled by it, by Motives fuitable to each one's natural Inclinations and Paffions; Thofe of a more fenfual or fordid Mind, whom Sin flatters either with Hopes of Profit or Pleasure, it teaches to confider, what Fruit is in it? To the more generous and noble Spirits, it uses the erfull Argument of the Shame and difhonourable Nature of it; and to those, with whom Fear has a greater Force, the more ftrong and univerfally prevailing Argument, Death: thus do's our great Apoftle in these Words, as elféwhere he fays of himself, Become all things to all Men; that if poffible He may fave fome.

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