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only the Glory of God. And can you then

who feek nothing your Designs and

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be called his Followers, but your felves in all Actions? Who have no Regard to God's Glory, but only to what ferves your Turn beft in the present Circumftances? He was full of Tendernefs and Compaffion to all who needed his Help; nay, he went about Acts 10. doing Good, it was the very Business of his Life. And can you think it becomes you his Disciples to be hard-hearted, and pitylefs, and unmerciful, to be furly, or felfish, or covetous, to live ufelefly and unprofitably in your Generations, when God has given you fundry Talents, fundry Means and Opportunities, whereby you may do a great deal of Good, and be very useful to others in the Place and Station wherein God hath put you? He, tho' he was as full of Employment as any Man, yet he conftantly took his Times of Retirement from the World, and gave up himself to the spiritual Exercises of Prayer and Meditation, and Communion with God: Nay, he fometimes spent whole Nights in those Exercifes. And can you his Difciples pretend fo much Bufinefs that you have no Leifure for your Devotions? Or can you live without any Senfe or Feeling that you have need of Communion with God? And fatisfy yourselves if now and then you put up a few, cold, formal, heartless Prayers to him? Our Lord was very contented and thankful,

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Luke 6.

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thankful, and heartily refigned to God, tho' he was very poor, and had not fo Matt. 8. much as an Houfe to put his Head in. Can it then become any of you who are his Followers to be uneafy under your present Circumftances, or to repine at God's Difpenfations to you? Is it decent that you Thould be querulous or discontented at your Condition, when your Lord and Mafter, who had as little a Share of worldly Goods as any of you, was very thankful to God for whatever happened to him. Oh that all of us would make it a little more our Bufinefs to look into our Lord's Life, and obferve how he behaved himself in all Emergencies! What kind of Life he led, and what Spirit and Temper he was of! We fhould then be more and more convinced how purely, how holily we ought to live, if we would walk worthily of our Vocation.

6. Pray ask yourselves further, what fort of Life he ought to lead, who by his Admiffion to this high Calling has fuch extraordinary Affiftance from the Holy Spirit made over to him, over and above the Powers that Nature hath furnished him with. Every one, who is a Member of Christ, has from God a Promise of the Holy Ghoft to affift him in the carrying on the Work of his Vocation. Nay more, our Saviour has given us his holy Spirit, not only to ftand by us and fupport us, but alfo to be in us, as a Principle of Life, to

dwell

dwell within us, to take our Souls and Bodies for his Habitation. So that every true Christian may, in the most proper Sense, be faid to be a Temple of God, a Ta-1 Cor. 3. bernacle where the Holy Spirit is pleased 16. to inhabit.

Think now what is the natural Confequence we ought to draw from hence: Think what infinite Obligations are hereby laid upon us to keep ourselves holy and undefiled, both as to Soul and Body. Think how undecently we treat our facred Gueft whenever we give Confent to any wicked impure Thing. Laftly, think what glorious Things are expected from us, what excellent Attainments we ought to make in every Virtue and Grace, who have a divine Power fo near us, nay within us, to ftrengthen us in all Difficulties, to fupport us under all Tryals and Temptations, and to carry us on, if we be not wanting to ourfelves, to the most noble Undertakings and Atchievements.

7. Once more, and I have done. Pray ask yourselves what kind of Life fhould he lead who is called out of this World, and has his Name inrolled among the Citizens of the other World; who, by his Profeffion, declares himself to be a Stranger Heb. 13. and a Pilgrim here, and to look for an abiding and continuing City, not made with Hands, eternal in the Heavens. Doth it become fuch a Man to live, as God knows too many Q4

of

of us do? To be fo wholly intent upon the Business and Designs of this Earth, as if we were always to live upon it? To make it the Work of our Lives to be contriving and projecting for our fecular Conveniencies or Delights, and but now and then, at fet Seafons, to lift up our Minds to God, and to attend the Concernments of our everlafting State? To be alarmed at every Thing; to be ruffled and difcompofed at every Thing that threatens the Disturbance of our Pleasures, or the Diminution of our worldly Substance? I fay, Can this be thought a Converfation that becomes a Man who bears the Character I have now given? Certainly, No: The fartheft from it of all Things. He that hath laid up his Treasures in Heaven, fhould not be much concerned about the Treafures of this Eaath. It becomes fuch a Man to fit loofe from the World, and all the Vanities of it. He should just use it as a Man in a Journey doth an Inn, for his prefent Accommodation and Refreshment, but not to fet up his Dwelling there. Heaven fhould be the Place to which all his Thoughts and Studies fhould tend. Thither fhould all his Designs and Purfuits be directed. And whatever became of him here, however it fhould please God to exercise him in this Life, whether by Poverty or Riches, Health or Sickness, a fplendid Fortune or low and mean Circumstances, all should be in a

manner

manner indifferent to him, if he got but to Heaven at laft.

This now, Brethren, is our Cafe. Here we are in the World at prefent, and we are allowed by our gracious God to serve ourselves of it, as to the Use of all the Things that tend to make our Abode here tolerably eafy and comfortable. But Heaven is our Home: That is the Country we are in queft of, and for the Sake of which we took upon us the Profeffion of Chrift's Difciples: That is the Prize of our High-call-Phil.3. 14. ing in Chrift Fefus. Would we therefore walk fuitably to our Vocation? Let us mind that. Let us live like Men of another World; (as we profefs to be.) Let God, and Heaven, and the Things above, have our Hearts, our Defires, our Affections, while this World hath our Bodies. By this means we fhall not only fecure to ourselves this everlasting never-fading Inheritance, which is the End of our Faith, and the Hope of our Calling; but we shall alfo make the beft Provifion poffible for a happy Life even in this World; for Chrift has folemnly promised us, that if we first feek the Kingdom of God and his Righteoufnefs all the other Things we need shall be added unto us.

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