teaches us to do to others as we would be done to. So that if confcience be but in the deadthraw with the thief, and not quite dead, he is judged and condemned from within in the very act. No wonder the heart quake, and the hands tremble, when they are put out, over the belly of the conscience, to that unlawful gain.

2. Confider the reproach of it. How difgraceful a name is that of a thief? If confcience have no weight with people, may they not regard their credit? Do not people regard to be hiffed at by others? Job xxx. 5. It is true, they hope to carry it fecretly; but how often is it feen that a bird of the air carrieth the voice, and they are surprised one time or other with fhame covering their face?

3. It quite mars your acceptance and communion with God. The thief excommunicates himself from the presence of the Lord. He may pray to God, but God will not hear him; may come to fermons, but there is nothing for him there but words of anger. Judas was a thief, and both preached and prayed; but had no intercourse with God in these exercises. When the thief brings in the ftolen goods, God goes out; and is not that a fad exchange, and are not the things stolen dear wares? And while he enjoys the sweet of it, it is mixed with the vinegar of God's wrath; till he repent, and restore too, if he be able, he can have no more accefs to God than the murderer while he has his sword in' his neighbour's body, or the adulterer while his whore is in his arms, Jer. vii. 9, 10.

4. Nay, it brings down a curse instead of a bleffing. While he fwallows down these goods, the curfe goes down with it, which will choke him at length. It brings a curse on him, and that he has otherwife, Zech. v. 2.-4. Sometimes it works on his own fubftance like a moth, and what he has decays, and do what he will he is always poor. Sometimes it works like a lion, fo that though he have a full life of it a while by the gains of unrighteoufnefs, yet at length all is fwallowed up from him together, either by the hand of God or of men. However, it makes always a blasted, withered foul.

5. Lastly, It will ruin people eternally. The thief is liable to three tribunals. (1.) Of the ftate, feeing the laws of the land strike against it. Theft is punished with death, how equitably, I fhall not fay; for there feems to be no proporVOL. III. No. 23. O

tion betwixt men's goods and lives. Pickery, or fmall theft, is punished arbitrarily, with difgrace enough. (2.) Of the church; for the difcipline of the church ought to strike against it, and they are cenfurable for it even to excommunication, 1 Cor. v. 11, 12. But it is for the most part so cleverly carried, that neither church nor ftate can touch them, But they will not escape. (3.) The tribunal of God, who is a Judge that will not want witneffes to prove the fact which no eye faw, while himself is omniscient, and there is a confcience within men's breast. And therefore I, as a messenger of that Judge, the eternal God, do in his name and authority fummon, arrest, and bind over, every ftealer, and partaker with stealers, hearing me, or that fhould be hearing me this day, to anfwer it before the tribunal of God; denouncing the eternal vengeance of God and everlasting damnation against them, to be affuredly executed against them if they repent not in time. And let the timber and ftones of this house, and every one of you, be witnesses to this execution, to be produced when they and I shall stand before that tribunal, 1 Cor. vi. 9, 10. And O but it is dear bought that is got at the rate of eternal burnings!

SECONDLY, I fhall confider fome occafions of this fin, and expofe them.

1. Solitude, people dwelling alone, which gives them fair occafion to play their tricks. It is marked of that graceless place Laifh, Judg. xviii. 7. that they were far from neighbours. Such a folitary place we live in; and readily folitude produces either great faints or black devils, as in other things, fo particularly uncleannefs and thievery; and therefore the night is the thief's time, because of the folitude of it. It is no fmall business to keep a clean confcience on a hill-head or in a glen, or in the black and dark night, where there is an occafion of finning.

But O confider, that God's eye is on you at all times and in all places! and whatever folitude ye may have to fin in, ye will be called to an account before the throng of the whole world, angels and men, and in broad day-light.

2. Poverty becomes an occafion of it, through the corruption of men's hearts, Prov. xxx. 8, 9. Graceless poor bodies can hardly think but they have a difpenfation to steal.

But furely God, who will not have the persons of the poor refpected in judgment, Lev. xix. 15. never gave a dif

penfation to them to fteal, but commands them to be content, and to feek for his fake what they have not, and cannot want. Poor thieves are thieves as well as others; and I doubt not but it is that which keeps fome always poor, Job xxx. 3.-5. It is true, Solomon says, that as his temptation is ftronger, his guilt is lefs than others, Prov. vi. 30.; but ftill he is guilty, ver. 31. ; and all that can be expected from this is to have a lefs hot place in hell than others; and that is but cold comfort.

3. Idleness and laziness, Eph. iv. 20. There is a generation that will not ply themselves, work and win, and they cannot want, and they must steal. They idle away their time when they might be provided as others are, and then the time comes that they cannot want, and they steal from their neighbours what they provided for themselves with the fweat of their brows.

Ye have two fins to account for here, your idleness and ftealth; the one will not excufe, but aggravate the other. Ye make yourselves a prey to the devil; and when the devil finds you idle, it is no wonder he puts work in your

hands.

4. A fair and eafy opportunity meeting with a covetous heart. When there was a wedge of gold lying for the uptaking before Achan, he could not hold in his hands. People that have a mind to steal in fuch a place, need not go off their own field, or from their own flock, to fteal; their neighbours goods cannot be kept from mixing with theirs, and there is an opportunity to the wifh of a covetous heart.

But if people would think with themselves, Now, God in his holy providence is trying me, now the devil is waiting for my enfnaring: fhall I fin because I have an opportunity? May not God fend me to hell then, having fuch an occafion against me?

5. The fmallness of the thing. They think it is but a fmall thing, the owner may well enough fpare that, it will not do him much harm. It is but this and but that.

But be what it will, it will make thee but a thief for ftealing of it. And wilt thou fell thy foul for fuch a small thing? The way of fin is down the hill; let the devil get in a finger, and he will have in his hand next. He that for a little will fin, will mend his fervice if the devil will mend his wages. At first perhaps it is but a bit of meat, then a parcel

of peats, than a quantity of fodder, and then a fheep, and so on till they come to the gallows here, and to hell hereafter.

6. The difficulty there is in finding it out. It is a work of darkness, which there use not to be witneffes to, and fo the man or woman defies the world to make out any fuch thing against them; and fo they go on without controul, boasting like Ephraim, "He is a merchant, the balances of deceit are in his hand: he loveth to opprefs. And Ephraim faid, yet I am become rich, I have found me out substance: in all my labours they fhall find none iniquity in me, that were fin," Hof. xii. 7, 8.

But O what avails that? Will ye defy the God of heaven, and your own confcience, to make it out before the tribunal ? and then ye fay fomething. Till then thou art a criminal before God, and dreadful fhall thy doom be. But take heed, they have been discovered that thought themselves fecure because no eye faw them. When a man's day comes to fall in fuch a course, God can infatuate him, that he guides not his matters with common fenfe.

7. Lastly, Bearing with them. I will not meddle with them, fays one; and I will not meddle with them, says another; let them fall in another's hand, and fo on it goes. Justice is neglected, neighbours are robbed, the fouls of the guilty are ruined, and others involved in their fin, that might prevent the progrefs of it, and will not. It is marked of that Laish, that there was none in it to put it to shame, Judg. xviii. 7. Refpect to men's credit more than to their confciences, is like the tender mercies of the wicked, that are cruel.

THIRDLY, I come now to point out fome remedies against this fin.

1. Let the guilty flee to the Lord Jefus Chrift, for his blood and Spirit, to wash away their guilt, and take away their fin. They are no more beyond the reach of mercy than other grofs finners are. In the catalogue of the Corinthian finners, were thieves; and yet we are told, that they were washed, and fanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jefus, and by the Spirit of our God, 1 Cor. vi. 10, 11. Put the covetous heart in his hand, that he may take it

away.

2. Labour to awe your hearts with the dread of the allfeeing God, whofe eye is ever on you; and remember, that

for all these things ye do God will bring you into judge

ment.

3. Labour to be content with your lot, Heb. xiii. 5. Be content with little, if it be your lot. A little will serve nature, grace will be content with lefs; but luft will never have enough.

4. Laftly, Lay more ftrefs on the quality than the quantity of what ye have. A little with God's favour, in a righteous way, is better than much with the wrath and curfe of God.

SECONDLY, I would dehort from all injustice and unrighteous dealing whatsoever, in all the ways I have shewn that the eighth commandment may be broken, befides by direct stealing, and any other way whatsoever. Be precisely upright and just in all you do, and do nothing to others that ye would not have done to you. For motives confider, 1. Whatever you gain by any unjust way, it is indirectly ftolen, it is stolen in effect. Therefore God forbids all these, under the name of ftealing. And there is good reafon for it; for no right can be founded in wrong. Injuftice can give no man a title to what is his neighbour's before God; and therefore what you have of him unjustly, is ftill his, and ye are fraudulent and wrongous poffeffors of it, as well as if ye had directly stolen it.

2. Juft and upright dealing is neceffary to prove you to be faints, Pfal. xv. 1, 2. It is true, it will not prove it alone: men may be just to their neighbours, and yet be no faints. But he can be no faint that makes not conscience of it, be his profeffion and practice in religion otherwise what it will. This is clear, if you confider,

(1.) Righteousness towards men is an effential part of the image of God, Eph. iv. 24, 25. And as the half-image is no image, fo piety without righteousness is not God's image, nor true piety. Will God ever regard what we give him, when we make no conscience what we take from our neighbour?

(2.) Without it our service to God is but half-service, Luke iv. 74, 75.; and that can never be fincere, Pfal. cxix. 6. In regeneration, God writes his law on the heart, and not shreds here and there of the firft table: fo that where righteousness, a principal duty of the second table, is not, the law of God is not written there.

3. That injustice in profeffors of religion gives a deep