To this purpose are thefe and the like words of fcripture, They fhall fear the Lord, and his goodnefs, in the latter days. Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand;" the kingdom of grace, reigning thro' the righteoufaels of Jefus, declaring God to be pacified in him, it is at hand, it is proclaimed in your ears. Repent, and in order to this, believe the gofpel; the gofpel of reconciliation. "Let the wicked forfake his ways, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord." Why? "He will have mercy; he will abundantly pardon."

The method we would lay down, for profecuting this obfervation, as the Lord fhall be pleafed to aflift, fhall be the following.

I. We would fpeak a little of this humiliation.

II. Of this reconciliation; or, of God's being pacified. III. Of the connection between them; or the influence which the view and knowledge of God's being pacified, hath upon this humiliation.

IV. Make fome application of the whole.

I. We will touch a little at that humiliation here before us. And, O Sirs, fince we are here met about hu miliation-work, let us look upon it as the fubject-matter of a divine promise, "Thou fhalt know that I am the Lord, that thou mayeft remember and be confounded." If you had this view, then you would have the more hope of coming speed, and meeting with fuccefs. This view may help you to know that you are not come to do fome great work of yourfelf, as if God were ftill ftanding upon terms with you, according to the old covenant of works; but that you are come to get all the humbling and healing grace that you need, according to the tenor of the covenant of grace, which is a giving covenant. But now, I fhall mention four ingredients of this humiliation that is here promifed, and that we are to look for, and pray for, to be brought forth out of the womb of the promife, namely, remembrance, confufion, fhame, and filence.

1. The first ingredient is remembrance; That thou mayft REMEMBER. The very first beginning of true repentance is, God's making a man thoughtful; "I thought upon my ways, and turned my feet to thy teftimonies." Hence we are called to confider our ways. We forget God, and forget our fins against him; but whenever God begins the good work, he makes the man to remember and call to mind his fins: as the prodigal, when he came to himself, confidered matters. This remembrance, I think, includes illumination and conviction. The first part of the phyfic that God gives, is the eye falve, that they may fee; for, until their eyes be opened, they will not turn from darkness unto light, Acts xxvi. 18. The firft creature that ever God made in the primitive creation, was light; and the firft thing in the new creation, is fpiritual light. The finner, before repentance, is like a man fleeping in a dark pit, in the midst of a great many vipers, afps, and ferpents, and venomous beafts: while he lies in the dark pit, they neither hurt him, nor is he afraid of them himself; but whenever a ray of light comes in at a hole or window, presently they fall upon him, and fting and torment him, and he fees himself to be furrounded with them. So here, before repentance, the finner fleeps in the darknefs of ignorance, atheism, error, and unbelief; but whenever a beam of fpiritual light breaks in upon the mind and confcience, by an effectual conviction and illumination, then fin revives, and the finner finds himfelf encompaffed, as it were, with living ferpents, tainted and corrupted with the poison of afps, destroyed and defiled with all the trash of hell in his heart.

It is not a bare fpeculation, or notion of our finful ways, that is imported here. We many times, by a bare notion of our fins and mercies, write them, as it were, upon the waters: they are no fooner thought, or spoke of, but they are forgot again; but it is a feeling remembrance, and an abiding remembrance: fuch as that the pfalmift had, when he faid, "My fin is ever before me:" they haunt me like a ghost. The ghost of Uriah is still before me, might he fay; the thoughts of my murder and adultery never go out of my mind. Yea, it is a remembrance of fin, as Vol. VII. against

against God; " Against thee, thee only have I finned, and done this evil in thy fight," Pfalm li. 4. This is the remembrance here alfo fpoken of; Thou shalt know that I am the Lord; and fo thou fhalt remember thine evil ways and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more, because of thy thame." It is a remembrance of fome fin or other, fo as to bring in the remembrance of the reft, like that of the woman of Samaria, when Chrift told her of her lewdnefs, the got, as in a map, a view of all that ever fhe did. Yea, it leads back to the fountain of fin in the nature; "Behold, I was conceived in fin, and brought forth in iniquity, " Pf.li. 5.

2. Confufion is another ingredient of the humiliation here mentioned; That thou mayft remember, and be coNFOUNDED.. It is true, this confufion may be thought to be the fame with the fhame afterwards mentioned; but,

think, they may be viewed as diftinét. There is a confufion of heart, and a confufion of face. The laft of thefe I take to be the fame with fhame; but the former, namely, confufion of heart, I think feems, efpecially here, to be intended; because it is joined with heartremembrance of fin: Thou shalt remember, and be confounded; q. d. Thou thalt have a heart-confounding remembrance of thy fin. And this confufion of heart, I think, takes in heart-contrition, or fome degree of brokennefs; heart-compunction, whereby the heart is pricked and pierced; heart-forrow and anguish, and most of thefe ingredients of repentance and godly forrow mentioned, 2 Cor. vii. 11. "For behold, this felf fame thing that ye forrowed after a godly fort, what carefulness it wrought in you; yea, what clearing of yourselves; yea, what indignation; yea, what fear; yea, what vehement defire; yea, what zeal; yea, what revenge," &c. Yea, it seems to import the heart's being struck with astonishment at its own finfulness, and with amazement at its own madness; like a man plunged into the deep, his fenfes are inftantly confounded. O! when a man's thoughts are, by a spiritual remembrance, plunged into the depth of fin and wickednefs, that he fees into his heart and ways, how he is confounded, fo as he knows net what to think! His fins are beyond his underftand

ing; "Who can understand his errors?" His very heart fins do overflow his thoughts, and furpafs his. knowledge; The heart is deceitful above all things, and defperately wicked, who can know it?" Jer. xvii. 9. The man is fwallowed up in this great deep, Thou shalt remember, and be confounded.

3. The next ingredient is fhame, fuch as is mentioned here, and Ezra ix. 6. "O my God, I am afhamed, and bluth to lift up my face unto thee; for our iniquities are increafed over our heads: Lord, our trefpafs is grown up unto the heavens." The poor penitent Publican is the reverse of the proud Pharifee; he is afhamed to look up to heaven. Sin brings fhame one way or another; but is beft when it brings in a holy flame before God. One may be ashamed of fin, as it brings him to open igno. miny before men; but the truly humbled foul is afhamed of fin before God, and that on many accounts.Sin makes him guilty. Adam never blushed for fhame, until he was guilty of eating the forbidden fruit, and perceived himself naked. Sin makes him ungrateful; and fo he is afhamed that he hath requited evil for good: "Do ye thus requite the Lord, O foolish and unwife?" He is afhamed, because fin makes him naked he fees he is naked, as Adam and Eve faw themfelves to be, after they had eaten the forbidden fruit. Sin divests us of our garment of righteousness and holiness; and hence the gofpel offers the righteoufnefs of Chrift, as white raiment, that the fhame of our nakednefs may not appear, Rev. iii. 18. The humbled foul fees itfelf naked, and therefore is afhamed.-Sin makes him a beaft; and therefore he is afhamed: "So foolifh was I, and ignorant, I was as a beaft before thee." The dog returning to his vomit, and the fwine to his wallowing in the mire, is not fo loathfome as the foul is to itfelf, when under a view of fin: "Truth, Lord, I am a dog."-Sin makes him a fool; and therefore he is afhamed. He views himfelf as a fool and a madman, that hath been mad on idols; and is not this ground of fhame ?-Sin makes him a flave; and that is matter of fhame. Alas! that I thould have been a flave to Satán, and a captive todivers lufts!-Yea, fin makes him. a devil; and he fees himfelf to be an incarnate devil;

and therefore blufhes that he fhould be reckoned even among the children of men, let be the children of God; and how can he look up to God, while he fees his nature to be not only earthly, but hellish, not only fenfual, but devilish, James iii. 15. He fees his fin to be not only greater than the fin of heathens, who never had the gofpel, but greater than the fin of devils. They never finned against the blood of Chrift, as I have done.-In a word, he is afhamed becaufe his fin brought fhame and difgrace to the eternal Son of God, the God of glory, who, as he endured the crofs, and defpifed the fhame; fo our fin brought him to it; yea, our continued fin put him to open fhame, Heb. vi. 6. Ah! the fhame that the penitent rubs upon himself for fin! I read of Diodorus, a logician, that he fell down dead for fhame that he could not refolve an argument that was propounded to him. Oh! if we were apprehenfive of the horridnefs of our fin, how might we blush to death for fhame before God!

4. The next ingredient is filence; And never open thy mouth any more, because of thy shame. This holy filence before God, imports a not opening the mouth in oppofition to God; not daring to quarrel with his difpenfa tions, but owning that God only hath a right to speak against us; and that he will be juftified when he speaks, and clear when he judgeth, Pfal. li. 4.-It imports a not opening his mouth in complaint of him, or reflections on him, whatever be his difpenfations: "Why fhould a living man complain? a man for the punishment of his iniquity?"-It imports a filent fubmiffion to the will of God, faying, with the pfalmift, "I was dumb, I opened not my mouth, because thou didft it," Pfal. xxxix. 2.It imports a filent taking with the charge of fin and guilt, juftifying God and condemning ourselves; "That every mouth may be ftopped, and all the world may become guilty before God," Rom. iii. 19.-It imports a convic tion of former pride, in opening of the mouth against God a not opening it any more fays, that this was the former practice. Men naturally justify and vindicate themselves by covering themselves with the figleaves of fome filly excufe. Hence errors in principle, are called but a free way of thinking; errors in practice,

are