ture. The whole faith and duty of a Christian are many times comprised in few words, not to encourage sloth and idleness in any, or prevent our diligent reading and studying of all Scripture; but for the benefit and comfort of all, and to take away all excuses from the busiest and most unlearned part of mankind: seeing that the knowledge of salvation may be easily attained, carried about in memory, and laid up in our hearts. The words I have now read to you are an instance of this, amongst many others; and I pray God make you sensible of it, teach where I cannot, and imprint them in the depth of your souls. There are three particulars in the text which, with God's help, I shall open to you in the order they are mentioned.

I. St. Peter's exhortation to "lay aside all malice and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evilspeakings."

II. "As new-born babes to desire the sincere milk of the word, that we may grow thereby."

III. The motive or reason for so doing, contained in the words," if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious."

I. We are exhorted to "lay aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil-speakings." Would ye be Christians indeed, the disciples of Jesus, to receive a law at his mouth, to follow his example, to live unto God by him? Look well at these words of St. Peter. Here is the rule you must walk by, and the mark you are to be aiming at. The evil tempers of your fallen nature must be seen and resisted. The graceless passions of the old man must come under the discipline of the law of Christ, to be restrained and subdued. It must be a weighty matter upon your minds, a first principle never

to be disputed, a point of which you are clearly convinced, and fully settled in once for all, that as the children of faith, and heirs of the grace of God, you must lay aside, check, and mortify, with the utmost sincerity of endeavour, as much as lieth in you, and as God shall enable you, all malice-in general, all manner of wickedness, and particularly that evil quality, so inconsistent with a Christian state of love, so destructive of your own peace, and so mischievous to others, of bearing malice or ill-will in case of injury, or on any account whatsoever, to any soul of man.

"And all guile and hypocrisies:" all fraud and dissimulation; never purposing to deceive, never speaking what you do not think, never doing what you would be ashamed of if it was known; but acting steadily in all cases by the rule of conscience, and with the same clearness, simplicity, and uprightness of intention, as if you had a window in your breast for all your thoughts and designs to be seen by all the world, and knowing that you are always naked and open to the eye of God. "And envies;" neither grudging at another man's lot, nor repining at your own; but rejoicing in his prosperity, and taking what God gives you as an alms, with thankfulness, and cheerful submission to the will of his providence. Here is a word more, and that is, "evil-speakings;" the tongue never to be governed, till we have learned to govern ourselves by the fear of God, and the love of our neighbours; which, in spite of all the pretensions we can make to religion, peaceableness, and good-will, in spite of all pretences to the contrary, betrays the evil disposition of the heart; the tongue, that unruly member, must be kept in subjection, and all evil-speakings laid aside. And for the same reason, all evil-hearing too; I mean, that we must neither speak evil of any man ourselves, nor take a secret pleasure in hearing his cha

racter slandered by others; for both proceed from the same root of pride, self-ignorance, and uncharitableness. Indeed, my brethren, all this is strict. Some can make a tolerable shift, from natural conscience, worldly prudence, or sense of reputation, to keep themselves clear of outward scandalous sins; but St. Peter will not be content with this; he is here teaching us to judge our selves by another rule, and carrying every man into the depth of his heart. I say, you may observe, that he is here prescribing a law to our inward parts; and striking at those evil qualities in us, which, though they do not much prejudice our reputation, or worldly interest, are nevertheless odious in the sight of God, full proof of our corruption, and eating like a canker at the root of our happiness. You may not be an adulterer, nor a drunkard, nor a profane swearer, nor a sabbath-breaker, nor a thief; but if you are under the power of malice and envy, deceitful and insincere, and destitute of that pure love, which by ruling in your heart would set a guard upon your mouth, and keep the door of your lips, you are not in the way of peace and holiness; you are not in a Christian state; you are "in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity;" Acts, viii. 23. i. e. if you are not convinced of the evil of these tempers, nor striving against them. This is the work we must be doing in obedience to God, and with full persuasion of the necessity of it. For he it is who says, by the mouth of St. Peter, "lay aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil-speakings;" do not think it enough to "make clean the outside of the cup and the platter, and justify yourselves before men," Luke, xi. 39, and xvi. 15. but if you would come to the true knowledge of yourselves, and form a right judgment of your state, look where God does; look at the heart; see what passes there, whether the evil motions of it have been discovered

and brought before God in repentance, and whether you are watching and praying against them. I beseech you take notice of what I am saying; and observe the difference between any kind of outward behaviour and an inward spiritual work of reformation. One has nothing of God in it, and while it is rested in will keep you from Christ; the other begins with God, leads to faith, and is a true work upon that ground, with regard to every sin, open or secret. It is true, where there is nothing in the outward behaviour contrary to the rule of the Gospel, we' are obliged in charity to think and hope the best; but if you look no farther for yourselves, you are undone. There is a world of iniquity in the heart, well known to God; and if it never was searched in his presence, by the light of his word shining upon the conscience, you never truly repented, never knew how much you have to be forgiven, never came sincerely to Christ for it, never applied your endeavours in the right place, by laying the axe to the root of the tree. What is the reason that so many talk of their good hearts? It is because they are utter strangers to them, and in all their lives never passed one half hour in their company. What is the reason that they are, even to themselves, as graves which appear not, outwardly fair, and carrying a handsome inscription in their foreheads, within full of stench and corruption; but because they never smelt into their own bosoms? Why do they know so little of Christ, prize him so little, and think so meanly of their obligations to him, but because they never were pinched with a sense of their poverty and nakedness, and do not go to the bottom of their case? And what can this wretched ignorance, and shuffling with their duty, proceed from, but judging of themselves by an imperfect rule; and if they can but fashion their outward man to some kind of conformity to it, making no account of those sins which the apostle

here brings to our view, taking no care to purge themselves from all filthiness, both of flesh and spirit, nor casting their eyes with any degree of concern upon that inward defilement which has overspread their souls like a leprosy? And on the other hand, what is the reason, why those who are in earnest with God and their souls, the awakened and converted, confess and lament their sins, without guile or hypocrisy, but because they know them, and go with the Spirit into the depth of their hearts? And therefore, knowing what a body of death they carry about with them, dare not stir an inch from Christ in their very best estate; but keep close to him for pardon and strength to fight against all inward corruption, as well as outward sin; laying hold on mercy, and at the same time endeavouring faithfully, in the sense of it, to approve themselves to that God, to whom "all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid."

Let this then be the instruction and advice of the first head: you must not deny, excuse, or extenuate the prevalence which these and other secret sins have in you; while you do, you are hidden from yourselves, without Christ, and strangers to a work of grace. And when you do know them by help from above, it is your business, as Christians, to resolve and endeavour to lay them aside; “all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil-speakings." The help we are to make use of for this purpose, the way and means of attaining to so desirable an end, will appear under the second head;

II. Which is St. Peter's exhortation to all," as newborn babes to desire the sincere milk of the word, that we may grow thereby."

Sincere, as coming from God; every way fitted to maintain the new life he gives, to preserve the soul in