speak ill of godliness, it is a hard thing to be converted under these temptations; especially if men wilfully cast themselves upon them.

Direct. 11. Fly therefore the occasions and appearances of evil. If you would not be drowned, what do you so near the water-side? If you would not be wounded, why do you thrust yourselves among your enemies? If you would escape the hook, meddle not with the bait: walk not among the lime-twigs if you would not be entangled. You may fly from temptation, and yet resist the devil, and make him fly. Be not too confident of your own strength; consider whether it be safe to die in your sin and ungodliness? If not, why should you live in it? And if you may not live in it, why should you commit it? If you cannot digest it when it is down, but it must up again by repentance, or you perish, why then should you let it down? If you may not let it down, what reason have you to be tasting it? And if And if you may not take it, why should you once look upon it, to entice your taste? And if you may not look on, why should you think on it, and make your own fancy to be your tempter. Present and strong temptations have shaken those that seemed to be cedars; therefore take heed of them; for they may much more hinder the conversion of the impenitent, and such difficulties may easily block up the way of life to you.

Hindrance 12. Another common hindrance of conversion, is, The scandalous lives of the professors of religion; when those that seem godly, or indeed are so, shall fall into division among themselves, and withdraw from each other, and censure one another, and cry out against one another as deceived; when the common people see so many religions, as they think, and so many several minds and ways, they think it is as good to be of none, as to venture among so many, where they are not sure to hit on the right; and it maketh them question all, when they see so many that they know not which to own. When they see men change their opinions, which awhile ago they seemed so zealous for, this makes them think that the rest may be as uncertain as these. And thus we have seen by sad experience in these times, that many have been kept off from the approving, and practice of a godly life, because of the unhappy differences that are among us. And, alas! when they see one that seemed

religious to be worldly, and another to fall into this or that sin, this makes them think that religion is but hypocrisy, and themselves are already in as good a condition as the godly are.

Direct. 12. I will not excuse the sins of any. Offence must come, but woe to him by whom it comes. If they be godly, their profession doth aggravate it, and therefore I do not intend to extenuate it. But yet, as I must needs say, that the malice of the ungodly doth frequently make even holiness to be a crime, and virtue itself to be the greatest vice, and those to be faults that are really none, and those to be common that are seldom, and but the case of very few; and those to be great that are not so. So I must needs tell you, that there is no sufficient reason in the faults, and divisions of those that are religious to dissuade any from religion, or excuse them in their sin, or sinful neglect of their own salvation, For consider these things following.

This is not long of it,

(1.) It is not men's lives that are any disgrace to the word of God, any more than it is a dishonour to the sun that some men are blind, or others wilfully abuse his light. Will you fall a railing at the sun, because a thief may steal by the light of it, or a murderer may kill men by the light of it? or some men may miss their way? but of themselves. (2.) Yea, consider that it is for want of being more religious that men are so bad, and not because they are religious. Can you prove that ever religion did teach men to be bad? Doth the word of God teach men to be worldly, to be proud, to divide the church, and abuse one another? You know it doth not: nay, you know that it forbiddeth and condemneth all this; and that no one in the world hath said and done so much against these sins as God hath done. And no religion is so much against them as the Christian religion. And is it not an abuse beyond all modesty then, to think ill of the word of God, or of his way, because men offend against it, and forsake it? To accuse the law, because men break it? To wrong God because others have wronged him? (3.) Consider, that the sins of others will be no excuse to you. Their fall should be your warnings, and not your hardening. Will God pardon or save without repentance and faith, because some that seemed religious have miscarried? If they are wicked while

they seem religious, they and you, if you so continue, shall be damned together. But if they rise by repentance, and hate and forsake the sins which they did fall into, and you stumble upon them, and will not rise with them, but quarrel with religion, because of their falls, they shall be pardoned, and you shall perish. I tell thee, man, if all the world should fall from God, he will not therefore change his law, nor admit one unconverted sinner into heaven. Do you think to be saved without holiness, because some men counterfeit holiness that have it not? Methinks this should cast you into greater terrors, and make you think with yourselves how much you have yet to do, that must go further, and be better than any hypocrite was, before you can have any durable hopes of salvation. If you will have any part in God, you must stick to him, though all men else should forsake him, and not forsake him, because you think that others do so that seemed to stick to him. (4.) Consider also, that as to the divisions that offend you, it is not every difference in judgment or practice that makes a new religion. While we are here we shall know but in part, and therefore shall differ in part, but as long as we all agree in the fundamentals, and live to God, we are of one religion, for all our differences. (5.) And can you think that it will excuse you to be of no religion, because that other men are of a wrong religion? Will you sit still and let heaven go, because some men have missed the way to it? Do you think that this is a reasonable conclusion? Surely they that would fain know the way if they could, and are diligent to seek it, are likelier to be accepted, though they fall into many errors, than those that mind it not, but prefer the things of the world before it. (6.) The more bye ways there be, the more need have you to look about you, and see that you miss not the way yourselves. Salvation is not a matter that we can spare, and therefore the difficulty must make us more diligent, and not more negligent. 7. Among all the religions and opinions in the world, God hath not left you at a loss, he hath given you his word to tell you which is the right, and many means to understand it. So that if proud and careless men will err, it followeth not that therefore the humble and diligent may not be certain, which way is the right. Go you to the Scripture with an humble reverence, willing to know

the will of God, that you may do it, and take the helps that you may have from ministers and private Christians, and shew not by your neglect that you despise the word of God, and your salvation, and then you shall have no cause to complain that you cannot find the right religion, and not hit the way to heaven, because there are so many opinions. (8.) I pray you consider of that which I have often answered you to this objection. Will you but faithfully practise that which all, or almost all these different parties are agreed in? If not, then make not their differences any more a pretence for your ungodliness. If you will, then consider, whether they be not all agreed of the necessity of conversion and a holy life. Will they not all acknowledge that there is no salvation without sanctification and newness of life? Let their agreement then move you, and do not for shame neglect so great and necessary a thing, which is owned by them all, who differ much in other things.

Hindrance 13. The next hindrance of conversion, is, The ill education of children: when they are trained up in ignorance, or kept unacquainted with the truths of God till they are grown hardened in their evil way; especially when they are taught from their childhood to think hardly of godliness, and speak reproachfully of it, and hear nothing of the godly, but by slander or contempt. That which people receive in their youth, doth usually possess them all their days: they receive it with more advantage, when they are most teachable and tractable: and when they receive it from parents, and those that have the greatest interest in their affections, and the most absolute rule over them. And therefore we see that most of the world are such as they were taught in their childhood to be: and it is hard to change them from the way that they were brought up in.

Direct. 13. O, you that have children, remember they are Christ's. (1.) If you are Christians, both you and yours are devoted to God: will you be so forward to devote them to God in baptism, and will you rob him afterwards of his own; and break these covenants, and, contrary to your own promises, will you hinder them from the knowledge and fear of God? O what desperate hypocrisy and wickedness is this? Will you come here in the face of the congregation, and consecrate and offer your children to Christ, and when

you have done, will you keep them from the way of Christ, and make them believe that godliness is more ado than needs, and that holiness is but foolish preciseness? Will you here undertake to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and when you have done, never once instruct them in his fear, nor persuade them to a holy life, nor restrain them from sin, but rather teach them to rail, and curse, and swear, and be carnal? O cruel wretches that dare thus murder your children's souls! To murder the body is an heinous sin, yea, though it were the body of an enemy; but to murder the soul, yea, and the soul of a child, and so to be guilty of their eternal damnation; what greater sin can you commit? O what a horror it will be to you to see your own children in eternal flames by your procurement; and to hear them there cry out against you, and say, you hardened them in evil, you discouraged them from good. You gave them ill examples, you used to rail, curse and swear before them: you took no pains to convince them of their natural sin and misery; and to get them to Christ that they might be healed by him. O pity your poor children, and do not hinder them from that glory that is offered them: if the devil be against their salvation, be not you so too. It is more excusable in the devil himself to seek to destroy the souls of your children, than it is in their own parents to do it: for nature and Christianity doth bind them to do otherwise. If you settle them in an ignorant, carnal course, they will remember it as long as they live; and if you possess them with hard thoughts of the holy ways of God, they will make this an argument against us, whenever we would seek to reform and convert them. Do we not hear it from them daily? Our fathers, say they, taught us otherwise, and we hope they are saved, and therefore we will venture to do as they did so that it is the false conceits that you put into their minds in childhood, which ministers have to encounter with all their days after. The devil hath instruments enough to seek your children's damnation besides you: be not you his instruments as ever you would not lie with them in everlasting misery; take some more pity on yourselves and them. You could not find in your hearts to dash your children against the stones, or cut their throats, and if you should, the world would ring of