terrible hornet. "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer!"-there is the sting. Thou that art exalted up to heaven, shalt be thrust down to hell; though thou hast made thy nest among the stars, from thence will I fetch thee down there is a sting. To be pulled, for and through love to some vain lust, from the everlasting gates of glory, and caused to be swallowed up for it in the belly of hell, and made to lodge for ever in the darksome chambers of death there is the piercing sting.

But again, as there is the sting of hell, so there is the strength of that sting; for a sting, though never so sharp or venomous, yet if it wanteth strength to force it to the designed execution, it doth but little hurt. But this sting hath strength to cause it to pierce into the soul: “The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law." 1 Cor. 15:56; Rom. 7:8; 4:15.

Here then is the strength of the sting of hell: it is the law in the perfect penalty of it; for without the law, sin is dead; yea, where no law is, there is no transgression. The law then followeth, in the executive part of it, the soul into hell; and there strengtheneth sin, that sting in hell, to pierce the soul for ever and ever by its unutterable charging of sin on the conscience. Nor can the soul justly murmur or repine at God or his law; for that then the sharply apprehensive soul will well discern the justness, righteousness, reasonableness, and goodness of the law, and that nothing is done by the law unto it, but that which is just and equal.

This, therefore, will put great strength and force into sin to sting the soul, and to strike it with the lashes of a scorpion.

And besides these, the abiding life of God, the Judge and God of this law, will never die. When princes die, the law may be altered by which at present transgressors are bound in chains; but Oh, here is also that which will make this sting so sharp and keen: the God that exécutes

it will never die. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." Heb. 10:30, 31.

"This shall they have of my hand, they shall lie down in sorrow;" they shall lie down in it, they shall make their bed there, there they shall lie. And this is the bitter pill that they must swallow down at last; for after all their tears, their sorrows, their repentings, their wishings and wouldings, and all their inventings and desires to change their state for a better, they must lie down in sorrow.

The poor condemned man that is upon the ladder or scaffold, has, if one knew them, many a long wish and long desire that he might come down again alive, or that his condition was as one of the spectators, that are not condemned and brought thither to be executed as he. How carefully also does he look with his failing eyes, to see if some one comes not from the king with a pardon for him, all the while endeavoring to fumble away, as well as he can, and to prolong the minute of his execution. But at last, when he has looked, when he has wished, when he has desired and done whatever he can, the blow with the axe, or the turn with the ladder, is his lot: so he goes off the scaffold; so he goes from among men.

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And thus will it be with those we have under consideration when all comes to all, and they have said and wished and done what they could, the judgment must not be reversed; they must lie down in sorrow.

XXIX. MISCELLANEOUS.

THE SABBATH.

THIS day is called the Lord's day, the day in which he rose from the dead. The Lord's day every day, say some, is the Lord's day. Indeed this, for discourse' sake, may be granted; but strictly, no day can so properly be called the Lord's day, as this first day of the week; for that no day of the week, or of the year, has those badges of the Lord's glory upon it, nor such divine grace put upon it, as his first day of the week.

There is nothing, as I know of, that bears this title but the Lord's supper, and this day. And since Christians count it an abuse to allegorize the first, let them also be ashamed to fantasticalize the last.

The Lord's day is doubtless the day in which he rose from the dead. To be sure, it is not the old seventh day; for from the day that he arose, to the end of the Bible, we find not that he did hang so much as one twist of glory upon that; but this day is beautified with glory upon glory, and that both by the Father and the Son, by the prophets, and those that were raised from the dead thereon: therefore this day must be more than the rest.

As for the seventh day, that is gone to its grave with the signs and shadows of the Old Testament. Yea, and has such a dash left upon it by apostolical authority, that is is enough to make a Christian fly from it for ever. 2 Cor. 3.

God the Father leaves such a stamp of divine note and honor upon this day, as he never before did leave upon any, where he saith to our Lord, "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee;" still having respect to the first day of the week, for that and no other is the day here in

tended by the apostle: This day, saith God, is the day. "And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he saith on this wise, I will give thee the sure mercies of David ;" wherefore he saith in another psalm, "Thou wilt not suffer thy Holy One to see corruption."

Now shall not Christians, when they read that God saith, This day, and that too with reference to a work done on it by him so full of delight to him, and so full of life and heaven to them, set also a mark upon it? "This was the day of God's pleasure," for that his Son did rise thereon; “and shall it not be the day of my delight in him?”

Shall kings and princes and great men set a mark upon the day of their birth and coronation, and expect that both subjects and servants should do them high honor on that day; and shall the day in which Christ was both begotten and born be a day contemned by Christians?

If God remembers it, well may I. If God says, and that with all gladness of heart, "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee;" may not, ought not I also to set this day apart to sing the songs of my redemption in?

This day my redemption was finished.

This day my dear Jesus revived.

This day he was declared to be the Son of God with

power.

Yea, this is the day in which the Lord Jesus finished a greater work than ever yet was done in the world; yea, a work in which the Father himself was more delighted than he was in making heaven and earth; and shall darkness and the shadow of death stain this day? Or shall a cloud dwell on this day? Shall God regard this day from above, and shall not his light shine upon this day? What shall be done to them that curse this day, and would not that the stars should give their light thereon? This day! after this day was come, God never, that we read of, made mention with delight of the old seventh-day Sabbath more.

gavest to be with me, she The woman was given for Satan often maketh that to

"The woman which thou gave me of the tree." Gen. 3. a help, not a hinderance; but become our snare which God hath given us as a blessing.

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And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done?" Gen. 3. What is this? God seems to speak as if he were astonished at the inundation of evil which the woman by her sin had overflowed the world withal. What is this that thou hast done? Thou hast undone thyself, thou hast undone thy husband, thou hast undone all the world; yea, thou hast brought a curse upon the whole creation, with an overplus of evils, plagues, and distresses.

What is this that thou hast done? Thou hast defiled thy body and soul, thou hast disabled the whole world from serving God; yea, moreover, thou hast let in the devil at the door of thy heart, and hast also made him the prince of the world. What is this that thou hast done? Ah, little, little do sinners know what they have done, when they have transgressed the law of the Lord.

As death and the curse came into the world by a woman, so also did life and health: "God sent forth his Son, made of a woman." Yea, to show how much those that came after did abhor the act of the mother, this sex, in the Old Testament, coveted children, if happily this or that woman might be the mother of the Saviour of the world. I will say again, that when the Saviour was come, woman rejoiced in him, before either man or angel. I read not that ever man did give unto Christ so much as one groat; but the women followed him and ministered unto him of their substance. It was a woman that washed his feet with tears, and a woman that anointed his body to the burial. They were women that wept when he was going