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lieve, and give him the glory of his power, that will perform this great thing. Should all the angels and men in the universe confpire to free the groaning creation, they could not effect it. It is long fince they were nonpluffed in the cafe of refreshing the weary earth with a fhower of rain: Jer. xiv. 20. "Are there any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain? or can the heavens give fhowers?" Nay, men confpire to hold down, to abuse the creatures, and keep the hold they have got of them. And the earth is made a field of blood for the mastery over them. But God will end the quarrel, and deliver the creature out of wicked hands. The fecond Adam is as able to restore, as the firft was to break in picces. Give him the glory of his goodness, that will not allow it always to go ill with the good. God's good creatures suffer for man's fake; but a good God will not fuffer it always to be fo. How much more will he provide, that piety fhall not always be ashamed, and wickednefs triumph! The day will come, when none will be high but they that are holy. Give him the glory of being mindful of his promife, and ftedfaft to his word. It is more than five thousand years fince he subjected the creature to vanity in hope; and fo, to this day, they not only groan, but they travail, in the hope of delivery; and their hope fhall not make them afhamed. O that it could make us afhamed of our hope wearing out fo foon under afflictions! to whom a few years, months, days, nay, even hours, are fufficient many times to make us hopeless.

(2.) Let us believe this delivery, and walk fwerable to the faith of it: 2 Pet. iii. 11. "Seeing, then, that all these things fhall be diffolved, what manner of perfons ought ye to be, in all holy converfation and godlinefs !"

[1.] ·

[1] Let us ufe the creatures as servants, not as flaves; allowing them a regard suitable to their natures and use. God has given the creatures into our hands, and they must endure much mifery for our profit; and even that may be humbling to us, as being the confequence of fin. But that ever God allowed man to make a sport of the proper effects of fin, to torment and put to pain, any creature, merely for his pleafure, is what I do not believe. And therefore grave divines do condemn cock-fighting, and fuch like, as unlawful recreations; and I think not without good ground. Sure I am Solomon fays, "A righteous man regardeth the life of his beaft; but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel," Prov. xii. 10. And to whom can the needlefs torment of the poor creatures create pleasure, but to the cruel or unthinking?

[2.] Let us labour to use the creatures foberly, and in the fear of God, and not abuse them to the fervice of our lufts. God allows us them for our neceffity, convenience, and delight, in fobriety, but not to be fuel to our lufts. Let us ufe them fo as we would wish to have done in the day when we will fee them delivered; that is, use them to the honour of God.

[3] Let us never build our neft in that tree at the root of which the axe is lying. The creature is paffing, lay not the weight of your portion upon it. Ye cannot abide with this world; and if ye could, it will not abide with you. He is a fool, though he act the part of a king on a ftage, who looks not for a portion that will be more abiding. For where is he when the stage is taken down?

[4.] Look for your portion in another world, where is an enduring fubftance: Matth. vi. 19.

"Lay

"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal :" Verse 20. "But lay up for yourselves treafures in heaven, where neither moth nor ruft doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor fteal." This world is no continuing city; look out for one that is to come. That is life, which begins after death is subdued, and when men fhall die no more. be easy here is no great matter, but to be so then is what should be our chief concern.

To

[5.] Be holy in all manner of converfation, 2 Pet. iii. 11. This is the time of God's forbear ance, wherein many confufions are fuffered in the world: The holy and unholy are mixed: The effects of fin lie on God's good creatures, as well as finners: But this will draw to an end, and there will be a fair feparation. It concerns you now to see on what fide you fhall be fet, to dif tinguish yourselves by holinefs now, from those you would be distinguished from by happiness hereafter.

(3.) And laft place. Believe thy delivery, and help it forwards with your prayers. Cry for the great deliverance, the reftitution of all things. It is one of fix petitions our Lord has put into our mouths, " "Thy kingdom come;" and the laft in the book of God is," Even fo come, Lord Jefus," Rev. xxii. 20.—I would have you to confider,

[1.] That the churches are all groaning together this day; fome of them under temporal plagues, being raised by Antichrift; all of them under fpiritual plagues, a fearful decay of power and purity among them, whereby the disease is become general. The concern for the Proteftant interest is very little at the hearts of fome Proteftant ftates. But a due concern for the Proteftant

religion,

religion, the promoting truth and holiness, by a thorough reformation, appears to be very little at the hearts of any of them: Ifa. lxiii. 5. "And I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought falvation unto me, and my fury it upheld me."

[2.] That the wheels of providence seem to be running fpeedily forward to great changes in the world. God is fhaking the nations, and things appear as in Luke, xxi. 10. 11. " Then said he unto them, Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and great earthquakes fhall be in divers places, and famines and peftilences; and fearful fights, and great figns fhall there be from heaven." And who knows what fhall be the iffue? But we may be fure that the mystery of God is carrying on by them, and a way making towards it being finished.

Let us then, by our prayers, help on the deliverance of the creation, from fin and its confequences, by crying mightily to the Lord, that these glorious things which are fpoken of the city of God in the latter days may be fulfilled, and fo the end may come.I now proceed to

DOCT. III. THAT the whole creation makes a mournful concert in the ears of ferious Chriftians, by their groans under man's fin.-Or, That how deaf foever others be to the groans of the creature under man's fin, ferious Chriftians will not be fo, they will be affected with them.--In speaking to this, I shall be very short.

I SHALL only, in a few words,

I. Mention the reafons why they fo affect serious Christians.

II. Make fome improvement.

I. I AM to mention the reasons why they fo affect serious Christians.-Among others, there are the following.

1. They are the undoubted marks of man's fall and apoftacy from God, which cannot fail to affect a ferious heart. Sin has marred the beauty of the creation; and though blackness is no deformity among blackamores, yet it is so amongst the whites. Some glory in their fhame, but they will not do fo to whom fin has been truly shameful. Now, thefe groans are the memorials of the fall.

2. They are the constant evidences of God's indignation against, and hatred of fin, which are never wanting in the world. And it is a child-like difpofition to be affected with the tokens of their father's anger; though they who have no care to please God, can easily pafs the figns of God's dif pleasure, others cannot.

3. They bring their own fins to remembrance; and a tender confcience difpofes perfons to think, This is for my fake, for my provocations, that they fuffer. And fo the faints groan with the groaning creatures, and long for the common deliverance.

4. God is dishonoured by the finner's abuse of the creatures. This makes both the creature and true Christians to groan, to see God's good creatures abused, to the dishonour of their Creator.

II. I AM now to make fome improvement; and all I propose here, is an Exhortation- not to be deaf to the groans of the creation under man's fin, but to be fuitably affected with them. God has not only made them groan with their ordinary, but with an extraordinary groan; and if you do not from hence see what an ill thing fin is, what a just God the VOL. II. Lord

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