I

but what I know, and believed but what I now believe, methinks my life would be a foretaste of hell: how oft should I be thinking of the terrors of the Lord, and of the dismal day that is hastening on! Sure death and hell would be still before me. should think of them by day, and dream of them by night; I should lie down in fear, and rise in fear, and live in fear, lest death should come before I were converted. I should have small felicity in any thing that I possessed, and little pleasure in any company, and little joy in any thing in the world, as long as I knew myself to be under the curse and wrath of God. I should be still afraid of hearing that voice, "Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee." And that fearful sentence would be written upon my conscience, "There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." O poor sinners! It is a more joyful life than this, that you might live, if you were but willing, but truly willing, to hearken to Christ, and come home to God. You might then draw near to God with boldness, and call him your Father, and comfortably trust him with your souls and bodies. If you look upon the promises, you may say, They are all mine. If upon the curse, you may say, From When you read the law, you may see what you are saved from. When you read the Gospel, you may see Him that redeemed you, and see the course of his love, and holy life, and sufferings, and trace him in his temptations, tears, and blood, in the work of your salvation. You may see death conquered, and heaven opened, and your resurrection and glorification provided for in the resurrection and glorification of the Lord. If you look

this I am delivered.

on the saints, you may say, They are my brethren and companions. If on the unsanctified, you may rejoice to think that you are saved from that state. If you look upon the heavens, the sun, and moon, and stars innumerable, you may think and say, My Father's face is infinitely more glorious; it is higher matters that He hath prepared for his saints; yonder is but the outward court of heaven. The blessedness that He hath promised me is so much higher that flesh and blood cannot behold it. If you think of the grave, you may remember that the glorified Spirit, a living Head, and a loving Father, have all so near a relation to your dust, that it cannot be forgotten or neglected, but will more certainly revive than the plants and flowers in the spring: because that the soul is still alive, that is the root of the body; and Christ is alive, that is the root of both. Even death, which is the king of fears, may be remembered and entertained with fear, as being the day of your deliverance from the remnant of sin and sorrow, and the day which you believed, and hoped, and waited for, when you shall see the blessed things which you had heard of, and shall find by present joyful experience what it was to choose the better part, and to be a sincere believing saint. What say you, sir? Is not this a more delightful life, to be assured of salvation, and ready to die, than to live as the ungodly, that have their hearts "overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and the cares of this life, and so that day comes upon them unawares? Might you not live a comfortable life, if once you were made the heirs of heaven, and sure to be saved when you leave the world? O look about you then,

and think what you do, and cast not away such hopes The flesh and world can

as these for very nothing.

give you no such hopes or comforts.

And besides all the misery that you bring upon yourselves, you are the troublers of others as long You trouble magistrates as you are unconverted.

you.

to rule you by their laws; you trouble ministers by resisting the light and guidance which they offer Your sin and misery are the greatest grief and trouble to them in the world. You trouble the commonwealth, and draw the judgments of God upon you. It is you that most disturb the holy peace and order of the churches, and hinder our union and reformation, and are the shame and trouble of the churches where you intrude, and of the places where you are. Ah, Lord! how heavy and sad a case is this, that even in England, where the Gospel doth abound above any other nation in the world, where teaching is so plain and common, and all the helps we can desire are at hand; when the sword has been hewing us, and judgment has run as a fire through the land; when deliverances have relieved us, and so many admirable mercies have engaged us to God, and to the Gospel, and a holy life; that, after all this, our cities, and towns, and countries, shall abound with multitudes of unsanctified men, and swarm with so much sensuality, as every where, to our grief, we see? One would have thought, that after all this light, and all this experience, and all these judgments and mercies of God, the people of this nation should have joined together, as one man, to turn to the Lord, and should have come to their godly teacher, and lamented all their former

sins, and desired him to join with them, in public humiliation, to confess them openly, and beg pardon of them from the Lord, and should have craved his instruction for the time to come, and be glad to be ruled by the Spirit within, and the ministers of Christ without, according to the word of God. One would think that, after such reason and Scripture evidence as they hear, and after all these means and mercies, there should not be an ungodly person left among us, nor a worldling, nor a drunkard, nor a hater of reformation, nor an enemy to holiness, to be found in all our towns and countries. If we be not

all agreed about some ceremonies or forms of government, one would think that, before this, we should have been agreed to live a holy and heavenly life, in obedience to God, his word, and ministers, and in love and peace with one another. But, alas! how far are our people from this course! Most of them, in most places, do set their hearts on earthly things, and seek not "first the kingdom of God and the righteousness thereof," but look on holiness as a needless thing their families are prayerless, or else a few heartless lifeless words must serve instead of hearty fervent daily prayers (or perhaps only on the Lord's day, in the evening): their children are not taught the knowledge of Christ, and the covenant of grace, nor brought up in the nurture of the Lord, though they firmly promised all this at their bap

tism.

They instruct not their servants in the matters of salvation; but so their work be done, they care. not. There are more railing speeches in their fami-. lies than gracious words that tend to edification.

How few are the families that fear the Lord, and inquire at his word and ministers how they should live, and what they should do, and are willing to be taught and ruled, and that heartily look after everlasting life! And those few that God hath made so happy are commonly the by-word of their neighbours. When we see some live in drunkenness, and some in pride and worldliness, and most of them have little care of their salvation, though the cause be gross and past all controversy, yet will they hardly be convinced of their misery, and more hardly recovered and reformed; but, when we have done all that we are able to save them from their sins, we leave the most of them as we find them. And if, according to the law of God, we cast them out of the communion of the church, when they have obstinately rejected all our admonitions, they rage at us as if we were their enemies, and their hearts are filled with malice against us, and they will sooner set themselves against the Lord, and his laws, and church, and ministers, than against their deadly sins. This is the doleful case of England: we have magistrates that countenance the ways of godliness, and a happy opportunity for unity and reformation is before us, and faithful ministers long to see the right ordering of the church and of the ordinances of God but the power of sin in our people doth frustrate almost all. Nowhere can almost a faithful minister set up the unquestionable discipline of Christ, or put back the most scandalous impenitent sinners from the communion of the church and participation of the sacraments, but the most of the people rail at them and revile them; as if these ig