is in his ears, and the mirth and sport that takes him up, will not allow him so much of reason, as seriously to consider of his soul's condition. Alas, when poor men, that must labour all day for food and raiment, can find some time for serious converse with God, and with their consciences, the great ones of the world have no such leisure. How many are going apace towards hell, and say they cannot have while to bethink themselves what way they are in, or whither it is that they are going! That which they have all their time for, they have no time for, because they have no hearts for it. Prosperity doth so please their flesh, that they can give no heed to conscience or to reason: it doth so charm their minds, and enslave their wills to sense and appetite, that they cannot abide to be so melancholy, as to prepare for death and judgment, or to consider seriously how this will relish with them at the end; nor scarcely to remember that they are men, that should rule their senses, and be ruled by God, and that have another life to live.

And as prosperity in itself is so great a hindrance to the knowledge of yourselves, so flatterers, that are the flies of summer, are always ready to blow upon the prosperous, and increase the danger. What miserable men are extolled as wise, and virtuous, and religious, if they be but rich and great! their vices are masked, or extenuated, and made but little human frailties; though they were swinish gluttons or drunkards, or filthy fornicators, or mere flesh-pleasing, sensual brutes, that waste most of their lives in ease and sports, and eating and drinking, and such delights; yet with their flatterers all these shall go for prudent, pious, worthy persons, if they can but seek when they have done, to mock God and their consciences with some lip-service and lifeless carcase of religion. O happy men, if God would judge of them as their flatterers do; and would make as small a matter of their wickedness, and as great a matter of their outside hypocritical, heartless worship! But they must be greater than men or angels, and higher than either earth or heaven, before God will flatter them. When they can make him afraid of their high looks or threatenings, or when they can put him in hope of rising by their preferment, then they may look that he should comply with their parasites, and compliment with his enemies, and justify the ungodly; but not till then. O did they consider how little flattery doth

secure them, and how little the Judge of all the world regards their worldly pomp and splendour; yea, how greatly their greatness doth aggravate their sin and misery, they would frown their flatterers out of doors, and call for plain and faithful dealers. Of all the miseries of worldly greatness, this is not the least, that usually such want the necessary blessing of a glass that will truly shew them their faces; of a friend at hand that will deal plainly and justly with their souls. Who tells them plainly of the odiousness, and bitter fruits of sin; and of the wrath of God, and endless misery? How few such true and faithful friends have they! and what wonder! when it is a carnal inducement that draweth men to follow them: It is their wealth and honour, and their power, to do men good or hurt in outward things, that makes their friends. They are attended by these flies and wasps, because they carry the honey-pot which they love. And God saith to his followers, "Love not the world, nor the things that are in the world: if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." (1 John ii. 15.) And it is for love of worldly things, even the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and pride of life, &c., which are not of the Father, but of the world: (1 John ii. 16:) it is for these that great men have their friends and followers for the most part and therefore it is plain, that the worst sort of men are ordinarily their friends; for those are the worst men, that have not the love of the Father in them, but are the friends of the world, and therefore the enemies of God. (James iv. 4.) And the best, though fit to be their truest friends, are seldom their followers, as knowing that the attractive of the sensual world is a shadow unfit to deceive those that are acquainted with its vanity, and a snare unfit to take those that have observed how Satan lays and baits the trap, and how they have fared that have been taken in it. A despised Christ that hath the words of eternal life, is much more followed by men that have the heavenly relish. Such gracious souls, whose appetites are not corrupted by the creature and their sickness, have more mind to flock after a spiritual and powerful messenger of Christ, that talks to them of his kingdom, and the righteousness thereof, which they first seek, than to gape after the preferment and vainglory of prosperity. Christ, that despised the offer of

all the kingdoms and glory of the world, (Matt. iv. 8, 9,) doth teach his followers to despise them.

Seeing then the ordinary attendants of the prosperous are the worst of men, that seek themselves, and are purveying for the flesh, what wonder if they be flatterers, that have neither skill, nor will to speak that unpleasing language of reproof, that should make the prosperous know themselves! O how seldom (or never) do they hear, what the' poor can hear from every mouth! If a man of low degree be wicked, or offend, his enemy dare tell him of it, and his friend dare tell him of it, and his angry neighbour or companion will be sure to tell him of it; and they dare. tell him frequently till he amend, and tell him plainly, and set it home. But if great ones be as bad, and need more help, as having more temptation, yet, alas, they may sin, and sin again, and perish, for any body that will deal faithfully with their souls, except some faithful minister of Christ, whose plainness is taken but for a thing of course. And usually, even ministers themselves are some of them so unfaithful, and some so fearful, and some so prudently cautelous, that such persons have no such help from them to know themselves, as the poorer sort of people have. If we deal freely with them, and set it home, it will be well taken; or if it offend, yet offence may be easily borne, as bringing no ill consequents to our ministry: But if we deal so with the great ones of the world, what outcries would it raise, and by what names should we and our preaching be called! If it were not for fear, lest some malicious hearers would misunderstand me, and misapply my words, as spoken of those we are bound to honour, and as tending to diminish the reputation of any of our superiors (which I detest), I should have shewed you all this in Scripture instances. When Haman could not bear the omission of one man's obeisance, what wonder if such cannot bear to be spoken to, as indeed they are! Not only an Ahab hateth one faithful plain Michaiah, because he prophesieth not good of him, but evil; (1 Kings xxii. 8;) but Asa, that destroyed idolatry, can imprison the prophet that reproveth him for his sin. (2 Chron. xvi. 10.) I will not tell you of the words that were spoken to Amos by the priest of Bethel, (Amos vii. 10-13,) or to the prophet, (2 Chron. xxv. 15, 16,) lest

malice misinterpret and misreport me: for it is none of my intent to fix on any particular persons, but to tell you in general, the lamentable disadvantage that the great and presperous have, as to the knowledge of themselves; how little plaindealing they have, and how hardly most of them can bear it; though yet I doubt not but it is borne and loved by those that have true grace: and that if David sin, he can endure to hear from Nathan Thou art the man," and this shall befal thee! And an Eli can bear the prophesy of Samuel, and say, "It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good." (1 Sam. ii. 27; iii. 17, 18.) And an Hezekiah can say, "Good is the word of the Lord which thou hast spoken;" (2 Kings xx. 19;) and Josiah can bear the threatenings of Huldah. (2 Chron. xxxiv; 2 Kings xxii.) And it is a double honour in persons that have so great temptations, to love the plain discoveries of their sin: but a Joash will slay even Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada, that set him up and a Herod, that hath so much religion as to fear John, as knowing that he was a just man, and an holy, and to observe (or save him); and when he heard him, to do many things, and hear him gladly, had yet so much love to his fleshly lust, and so little power to resist a flatterer, as that he could sell both the head of John and his own soul, for so pitiful a price as this. (Mark vi. 20. 25. 27, 28.) So true is that of Christ himself, "For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved (or discovered): but he that doeth truth, cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God." (John iii. 20, 21.)

And indeed there is none that more opposeth Micaiah than Zedekiah, as being concerned for the honour of his flattering prophecy, to bring plaindealing into disgrace. It is he that smiteth him, and saith, "Which way went the Spirit of the Lord from me, to speak unto thee?” (1 Kings xxii. 24.) As Plutarch compareth the flatterer to a painter, that having made a picture of cocks which was very bad, he bid his boys be sure to keep the living cocks out of his sight, lest their appearance should shew the faultiness of his picture: so, saith Plutarch, doth the flatterer do what he can to keep away plaindealing faithful friends, lest his fraud and falsehood should be detected by them. But, saith

Solomon, "He that rebuketh a man, afterward shall find more favour than he that flattereth with the tongue.” (Prov. xxviii. 23.) And "Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful." (Prov. xxvii. 6.) When prosperity is vanished, the flatterer and the faithful dealer will be better known. Deceitful prosperity, and deceitful men, will at once forsake you. None of them will admire or applaud you when you are low, and the tide is gone, and hath left you in contempt: these kind of men will be as ready as any to reproach you; as Shemei that honoured David in his prosperity, but curseth him, and revileth him as a rebel against Saul, and casteth stones at him, when he saw him flying in distress. Plutarch likeneth flatterers to lice, that forsake the bodies of the dead, because the blood is gone that did maintain them. Commonly men in misery, or at death, have better thoughts of faithful plainness, and worse of smoothing man-pleasers, than before.

But whom can the prosperous blame so much as themselves, if they are undone by the deceit of flatterers? It is their own choice; they love to have it so; they will not endure faithful dealing. When they contract those diseases which will not be cured without bitter medicines, they hate the physician that offereth them: their appetites and sensual Just, and not their believing-reason, doth choose their work, their pleasures and their company, and prescribe what language must be spoken to them. And he that resolves to cast away the remedy, and will please his appetite and fancy, come on it what will, must take what he gets by it, and bear the endless wrath of God, that could not bear the necessary warnings and self-knowledge that should have prevented it. Did these men hate sin, and the messengers of Satan, they would not hate the justice and messengers of God: but while they damnably love fleshly pleasures, they cannot savingly love the word that chargeth them to let go those pleasures, nor the persons that cross them in the things they love. And thus poor worldlings are ruined by their own desires: it seemeth so sweet to them to live in sin, that they cannot endure to know the bitter fruits of misery, which it will at last bring forth. They are conquered by their fleshly lusts, and therefore they hate the messengers of that Spirit which would fight against them. Satan doth