ploughing and sowing are not more necessary to your harvest, than the work of holiness in this day of grace is necessary to your salvation? You are blind if you see not this; you are dead if you feel it not; what then will you do? For God's sake, and for your own sake, stand not demurring till time be gone. It is all that the devil desireth, if he can but find you one thing or other to be thinking, and talking, and doing about, to keep you from this till time be gone; and then he that kept you from seeing and feeling, will help you to see and to feel your calamity; then the devil will make you feel that which preachers could not make you feel; and he will make you think of that, and lay it close enough to your hearts, which we could not get you to lay to heart. Now we study and preach to you in hope; but then (alas, it breaks our hearts to think of it) we have done with you for ever, because all hope is gone. Then the devil may challenge a minister, 'Now do thy worst to bring this sinner to repentance: now call to him to consider, and believe, and come to Christ: now offer him mercy, and entreat him to accept it: now cry to him to take heed of sin and of temptations, that he come not to this place of torments: now tell him of the beauty or necessity of holiness, and call upon him to turn and live: now do thy worst to rescue him from my power, and save his soul.' Alas, poor sinners! will you stop your ears, and go on in sin, and damn yourselves, and break our hearts to foresee that day! Must we see the devil go away with such a prey, and shall we not rescue your captivated souls, because you will not hear, you will not stir, you will not consent! O hear the God of heaven, if you will not hear us, who calleth to you, Return and Live! O hear him that shed his blood for souls, and tendereth you now salvation by his blood! O hear without any more delay, before all is gone, and you are gone, and he that now deceiveth you, torment you! Yet hold on a little longer in a carnal, earthly, unsanctified state, and it is too late to hope, or pray, or strive for your salvation: yet a little longer and mercy will have done with you for ever; and Christ will never invite you more, nor ever offer to cleanse you by his blood, or sanctify you by his Spirit! Yet a little longer, and you shall never hear a sermon more, and never more be troubled with those preachers that were in good sadness

with you, and longed once for your conversion and salvation! O sleepy, dead-hearted sinners, what should I do to shew you how near you stand to eternity, and what is now doing in the world that you are going to, and how these things are thought on there! What should I do to make you know how time is valued, how sin and holiness are esteemed in the world where you must live for ever! What should I do to make you know those things to-day, which I will not thank you to know when you are gone hence! O that the Lord would open your eyes in time! Could I but make you know these things as believers should know them, I say not, as those that see them, nor yet as dreamers that do not regard them, but as those that believe that they must shortly see them; what a joyful hour's work should I esteem this! How happy would it be to you and me, if every word were accompanied with tears! If I followed you home and begged your consideration on my bare knees, or as a beggar begs an alms at your doors: if this sermon cost me as many censures or slanders as ever sermon did, I should not think it too dear, if I could but help you to a sight of the things we speak of, that you might truly understand them as they are; and that you had but a true, awakened apprehension of the shortness of your day, of the nearness of eternity, and of the endless consequence of your present work, and what holy labour and sinful loitering will be thought of in the world to come for ever! But when we see you sin, and trifle, and no more regard your endless life, and see also what haste your time is making, and yet cannot make you understand these things; when we know ourselves as sure as we speak to you, that you will shortly be astonished at the review of your present sloth and folly, and when we know that these matters are not thought of in another world, as they are among the sleepy or the Bedlam sinners here, and yet know not how to make you know it, whom it doth so exceeding much concern, this amazeth us, and almost breaks our hearts! Yea, when we tell you of things that are past doubt, and can be no further matter of controversy, that men have sold their understandings, and betrayed their reason to their sordid lusts, and yet we cannot get reasonable men to know that which they cannot choose but know; to know that seriously and practically which al

ways hath a witness in their breasts, and which none but the profligate dare deny; I tell you, sinners, this, even this, is worse than a prison to us: it is you that are our persecutors; it is you that are the daily sorrow of our hearts; it is you that disappoint us of our hopes, and make us lose so much of the labour of our lives! And if all others did as some do by us, alas, how sad an employment should we have; and how little would it trouble us to be silenced and laid aside! If we were sick of the ambitious or covetous thirst, we should then say that it is they that deny us wealth and honour that disappoint us. But if we are Christians, this is not our case, but it is the thirst after your conversion and salvation that affecteth us: and therefore it is to you, even you that linger in your sins and delay repentance, and forget your home, and neglect your souls; it is you that disappoint, and you that are our afflicters: and as much as you think you befriend us when you plead our cause against men of violence and rage, it is you that shall answer for the loss of our time, and labour, and hope, and for the grieving of your teachers' hearts.

Sinners, whatever the devil and raging passion may say against a holy life, God and your own consciences shall be your witnesses, that we desired nothing unreasonable, or unnecessary at your hands. I know it is the master-piece of the devil's craft, when he cannot keep all religion in contempt, to raise up a dust of controversy in the world about names, and forms, and circumstances in religion, that he may keep men busily striving about these, while religion itself is neglected or unknown; and that he may make men believe that they have some religion, because they are for one side or other in these controversies,; and especially that he may entice men to number the substantials of religion itself, among these less doubtful points, and make sinners believe that it is but the precise opinion of one party that they reject, while they reject the serious practice of all true religion. And so the devil gets more by these petty quarrels and controversies, occasioned by contentious, empty men, than he could have done by the open opposition of infidels, heathens, or the profane: so that neither I nor any man, that opinionative men have a mind to quarrel with, can tell how to exhort you to the very practice of Christianity it

self, but you are presently casting your thoughts upon some points wherein we are reported to differ from you, or remembering some clamours of malicious men, that prejudice against the person of the speaker may keep your souls from profiting to salvation by the doctrine which even yourselves profess.

If this be the case of any one of you, I do not mean your consciences shall escape the power or evidence of the truth. Dost thou talk of our differences about forms and ceremonies? Alas, man, what is that to the message which we come about to thee? What is that to the business that we are preaching of? The question that I am putting to you, is not whether you will be for this form of church-government, or for that, for a ceremony, or against it; but it is, whether you will hearken in time to God and conscience, and be as busy to provide for heaven, as ever you have been to provide for earth? And whether you will set yourselves to do the work that you are created and redeemed for? This is the business that I am sent to call you to: What say you? Will you do it, and do it seriously without delay? You shall not be able to say that I called you to a party, a faction, or some opinion of my own, or laid your salvation upon some doubtful controversy. No, sinner, thy conscience shall have no such shift for its deceit : it is godliness, serious and practical godliness that thou art called to. It is nothing but what all Christians in the world, both Papists, and Greeks, and Protestants, and all the parties among those that are true Christians, are agreed in the profession of. That I may not leave thee in any darkness which I can deliver thee from, I will tell thee distinctly, though succinctly, what it is that thou art thus importuned to; and tell me then, whether it be that which any Christian can make doubt of.

1. That which I entreat of thee, is but to live as one that verily believeth there is a God, and that this God is the Creator, the Lord, and Ruler of the world: and that it is incomparably more of our business to understand and obey his laws, and as faithful subjects to be conformed to them, than to observe or be conformed to the laws of man and to live as men that do believe that this God is almighty, and the greatest of men are less than crawling worms to him; and that he is infinitely wise, and the wisdom of man is

foolishness to him; and that he is infinitely good and amiable; and the best of creatures is dung and filth in comparison of him; and that his love is the only felicity of man; and that none are happy but those that do enjoy it; and none that do enjoy it can be miserable; and that riches, and honour, and fleshly delights are brutish vanities in comparison of the eternal love of God. Live but as men that heartily believe all this, and I have that I come for. And is any of this matter of controversy or doubt? Not among Christians I am sure; not among wise men. It is no doubt to those in heaven, nor to those in hell, nor to those that have not lost their understandings upon earth. Live then according to these truths.

2. Live as men that verily believe that mankind is fallen into sin and misery; and that all men are corrupted, and under the condemnation of the law of God, till they are delivered, pardoned, reconciled to God, and made new creatures by a renewing, restoring, sanctifying change. Live but as men that believe that this cure must be wrought, and this great restoring change must be made upon ourselves, if it be not done already. Live as men that have so great a work to look after. And is this a matter of any doubt or controversy? Sure it is not to a Christian and methinks it should not be to any man else that knoweth himself, any more than to a man in a dropsy, whether he be diseased, when he feels the thirst and sees the swelling. Did you but know what cures and changes are necessarily to be made upon your diseased, miserable souls, if you care what becomes of them, you would soon see cause to look about you.

3. Live but as men that verily believe that you are redeemed by the Son of God, who hath suffered for your sin, and brought you the tidings of pardon and salvation, which you may have if you will give up yourselves to him who is the physician of souls, to be healed by him. Live as men that believe that the infinite love of God revealed to lost mankind in the Redeemer, doth bind us to love him with all our hearts, and serve him with all our restored faculties, and to work as those that have the greatest thankfulness to shew, as well as the greatest mercies to receive, and misery to escape; and as those that believe that if sinners that without Christ had no hope, shall now love their sins and refuse to