to yourselves, I should hope that all the unsanctified that hear me, would date their conversion from this very day; and that you would not delay till the next morning, to bewail your sin and misery, and fly to Christ, lest you should die and be past hope this night.

And doth so much of our work, and of your recovery,

lie upon this point, and yet shall we not be able to accomplish it? Might you be brought into the way to heaven, if we could but persuade you that you are yet out of the way; and will you be undone, because you will not suffer so small and reasonable a part of the cure as this is? O God forbid ! O that we knew how to illuminate your minds so far, as to make you find that you are lost! how ready would Christ be then to find you, and to receive and welcome you, upon your return! Here is the first difficulty, which if we could but overcome, we should hope to conquer all the rest. Had we but a wedge to cleave this knot, the rest would the more easily be done. Could we draw but this one pin of selfdeceit, the frame of Satan's building were like to tumble down. O that any of you that know the nature of selfdeceit, and know the accesses to the inwards of a sinner, and know the fallacious reasonings of the heart, could tell us but how we might undeceive them! O that any of you that know the nature of human understanding, with its several maladies, and their cure, and know the power of saving truth, could tell us what key will undo this lock! what medicine will cure this disease, of wilful, obstinate, self-deceiving! Think but on the case of our poor people, and of ours, and sure you cannot choose but pity both them and us. We are all professors of the Christian faith, and all say we believe the word of God. This word assureth us, that all men are fallen in Adam, and are by "nature children of wrath," and increase in sin and misery, till supernatural grace recover them. It tells us, that the Redeemer is become by office, the Physician or Saviour of souls, washing away their guilt by his blood, and renewing and cleansing their corrupted natures by his Spirit. It tells us, that he will freely work the cure, for all that will take him for their Physician, and will forgive and save them that penitently fly to him, and value, and accept, and trust upon his grace: and that except they be thus made new creatures, all the world cannot save them from everlasting wrath. This is the

doctrine that we all believe, or say we do believe. Thus doth it open the case of sinners. We come now, according to our office, and the trust reposed in us, and we tell our hearers what the Scripture saith of man, and what it commandeth us to tell them. We tell them of their fall, their sin and misery; of the Redeemer, and the sure and free salvation, which they may have if they will but come to him. But, alas, we cannot make them believe that they are so sick, as to have so much need of the Physician: and that they are dead, and have need of a new creation, as to the inclinations of their hearts, and the end, and bent, and business of their lives. We are sent to tender them the mercy of Christ, but we cannot make them believe that they are miserable. We are sent to offer them the riches, and eyesalve, and white raiment of the Gospel; but we cannot make them know that they are poor, and blind, and naked. We are sent to call them to repent and turn, that they may be saved; and we cannot make them know that they are so far out of the way, as to need a change of heart and life. Here they sit before us, and we look on them with pity, and know not how to help them. We look on them, and think, Alas, poor souls, you little see what death will quickly make you see! You will then see that there is no salvation, by all the blood and merits of Christ, for any but the sanctified: but O that we could now but make you understand it! We look on them with compassion; and think, Alas, poor souls, as easily and quietly as you sit here, a change is near! It will be thus with you but a little while, and where will you be next? We know, as sure as the word of God is true, that they must be converted and sanctified, or be lost for ever: and we cannot make them believe, but that the work is done already. The Lord knoweth, and our consciences witness to our shame, that we be not half so sensible of their misery, nor so compassionate towards them as we ought to be. But yet sometimes our hearts melt over them, and fain we would save them from the "wrath to come;" and we should have great hopes of the success, if we could but make them know their danger. It melts our hearts to look on them, and think that they are so near damnation, and never likely to escape it, till they know it; till they know that their corruption is so great, that nothing but the quick

ening Spirit can recover them, and nothing less than to become new creatures will serve the turn. But if we would never so fain we cannot make them know it. O that we knew how to acquaint them with their case! O that we knew how to get within them, and to open the windows, that the light of Christ might show them their condition! But when we have done all, we find it past our power. We know they will be past help in hell, if they die before they are regenerate. And could we but get themselves to know it, we could not but hope that they would better look about them and be saved. But we are not able. It is more than we can do. We cannot get the grossest worldling, the basest sensualist, the filthiest lecher, the proudest child of the spirit of pride, to know that he is in a state of condemnation, and must be sanctified or be damned. Much less can we procure the formal Pharisee, thus to know himself. We can easily get them to confess that they are sinners, and deserve damnation, and cannot be saved without Christ; but this will not serve: the best saint on earth must say as much as this comes to. There are converted and unconverted sinners, sanctified and unsanctified sinners, pardoned and unpardoned sinners, sinners that are members of Christ, and the children of God, and heirs of heaven; and sinners that are not so, but contrary. They must know not only that they are sinners, but that they are yet unconverted, unsanctified, unpardoned sinners; not only that they cannot be saved without Christ, but that they have no special interest in Christ: they will not turn, while they think they are turned already: they will not so value and seek for conversion, and remission, and adoption, as to obtain them, while they think they have them already. They will not come to Christ that they may have life, while they think they have part in Christ already. Paul after his conversion was a sinner, and had need of Christ: but Paul, before his conversion, was an unsanctified, unjustified sinner, and had no part in Christ: This is the state of sin and misery that you must come out of, or you are lost and how can you be brought out of it, till you know that you are in it?

O therefore that we knew how to make you know it! How should we make poor sinners see that they are within a few steps of everlasting fire, that we might procure them

to run away from it, and be saved! We cry so often, and lose our labour, and leave so many in their security and self-deceits, that we are too discouraged, and remit our desires, and lose our compassion; and ourselves, alas, grow dull, and too insensible of their case, and preach too often as coldly as if we could be content to let them perish. We are too apt to grow weary of holding the light to men asleep, or that shut their eyes and will not see it. When all that we have said is not regarded, and we know not what more to say than hath been said so long in vain, this damps our spirits; this makes so many of us preach almost as carelessly as we are heard. Regardless, sleepy hearers, make regardless, sleepy preachers. Frequent frustration abateth hope and the fervour and diligence of prosecution ceaseth, as hope abateth. This is our fault: your insensibility is no good excuse for ours: but it is a fault not easily avoided.

And when we are stopped at the first door, and cannot conquer Satan's out-works, what hope have we of going further? If all that we can say, will not convince you that you are yet unsanctified and unjustified, how shall we get you to the duties that belong to such, in order to the attainment of this desirable state?

And here I think it not unreasonable to inform you of the reason why the most able, faithful ministers of Christ do search so deep, and speak so hardly of the case of unrenewed souls, as much displeaseth many of their hearers, and makes them say, they are too severe and terrible preachers. The zealous Antimonian saith, they are legalists; and the profane Antinomian saith, they rail and preach not mercy, but judgment only, and would drive men to despair, and make them mad. But will they tell God he is a legalist for making the law, even the Gospel law as well as the law of nature, and commanding us to preach it to the world? Shall they escape the sentence by reproaching the law-maker? Will not God judge the world; and judge them by a law; and will he not be just and beyond the reach of their reproach? O, sinner, this is not the smallest part of thy terror, that it is the Gospel that speaks this terror to thee, and excludes thee from salvation, unless thou be made new: it is mercy itself that thus condemneth thee, and judgeth thee to end less misery. You are mistaken, sirs, when you say we preach not mercy, and say we preach not the Gospel, but the law:

It is the Gospel that saith, "Except a man be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven! and that if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, the same is none of his.” (John iii. 3. 5; Rom. viii. 9.) The same Gospel that saith, "He that believeth shall be saved," saith also, that "He that believeth not shall be damned." (Mark xvi. 16.) Will you tell Christ, the Saviour of the world, that he is not merciful, because he talks to you of damnation? Mercy itself, when it tells you that "there is no condemnation," doth limit this pardon to them "that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." (Rom. viii. 1.) It is sanctifying mercy that must save you, if ever you be saved, as well as justifying mercy. And will you refuse this mercy, and by no entreaty yield to have it, and yet think to be saved by it? What, saved by that mercy which you will not have? And will you say, we preach not mercy, because we tell you, that mercy will not save you, if you continue to reject it? To be saved by mercy without sanctification, is to be saved and not saved; to be saved

by mercy without mercy: your words have no better sense than this: And are those afraid, lest preachers should make them mad by showing them their need of mercy, that are no wiser than to cast away their souls upon such senseless, self-contradicting conceits as these?

I beseech you, tell us whose words are they, think you, that say, "Without holiness none shall see God?” (Heb. xii. 14.) and that "He that is in Christ, is a new creature," (2 Cor. v. 17,) and such like passages which offend you; Are they ours, or are they God's? Did we indite the Holy Scriptures, or did the Holy Ghost? Is it long of us, if there be any words there that cross your flesh, and that you call bitter? Can we help it, if God will save none but sanctified believers? If you have any thing to say against it, you must say it to him we are sure that this is in his word: and we are sure he cannot lie: and therefore we are sure it is true: We are sure that he may do with his own as he list, and that he oweth you nothing, and that he may give his pardon and salvation to whom, and upon what terms he please: and therefore we are sure he doth you no wrong. But if you think otherwise, reproach not us that are but messengers; but prepare your charge, and make it good against your Maker, if you dare and can: You shall shortly come before