asleep?

It is not the works of the Mosaical law, nor works that are conceived for their proper value, to deserve any thing at the hands of God, that I am all this while persuading you to: but it is the works prescribed you by Christ in the gospel, according to which you shall be shortly judged to joy or misery, by Christ himself, that will call you to account. These must be done with all your might.

Object. But you will say perhaps, Alas! what might have we? we have no sufficiency of ourselves; without Christ we can do nothing; and this we find when it comes to the trial.

liberties or lives, be sure you look to life eter- | delay, laugh, play, and dream away their time, nal; and cast not that on any hazard, for a that are drunk with prosperity, and mad with withering flower, or a pleasant dream, or a picture fleshly lusts and pleasures, and have lost their reaof pleasure, or any vanity that the deceiver can son in the cares, delusions, and vain-glory of the present. For what shall it profit you to win the world. But shall it be so with thee whose eyes whole world and lose your soul;' or to have been are opened, who seest the God, the heaven, and honoured and obeyed on earth, when you are the hell, which they but hear of as unlikely under the wrath of God in hell; or that your things? Wilt thou live awake, as they that are flesh was once provided with variety of delights, Wilt thou do in the day-light, as they when it is turned to rottenness, and must be do in the dark? Shall freemen live as Satan's raised to torments? Hold on therefore in faith, slaves; shall the living lie as still and useless as holiness, and hope, though earth and hell should the dead? Work then while it is day; for the rage against you; though all the world, by force night is coming when none can work. or flattery, should do the worst they can to hinder you. This is your trial; your warfare is the resisting of deceit, and of all that would tempt you to consent to the means of your own destruction: consent not and you conquer: conquer, and you are crowned. The combat is all about your wills; yield, and you have lost the day. If the prating of ungodly fools, or the contemptuous sneers of hardened sinners, or the frowns of unsanctified superiors, could prevail against the Spirit of Christ, and the workings of an enlightened mind, then what man would be saved? You deserve damnation, if you will run into it to avoid a mock, or the loss of any thing that man can take from you. You are unfit for heaven, if you can part with it to save your purses. 'Fear not them that can kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do: but fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell.' Obey God, though all the world forbid you. No power can save you from his justice and none of them can deprive you of 2. Art thou willing to use the might thou hast, his reward. Though you lose your heads, you and to have more, and use it if thou hadst it? shall save your crowns: you no way save your If thou art, thou hast then the strength of Christ : lives so certainly, as by such losing them, one thou standest not and workest not by thy own thing is necessary: do that with speed, care, and strength; his promise is engaged to thee, and diligence, which must be done, or you are lost his strength is sufficient for thee. But if thou for ever. They that are now against your much art not willing, thou art without excuse; when and earnest praying, will shortly cry as loud thou hadst heaven and hell set open in the word themselves in vain. When it is too late, how of God to make thee willing, God will distinfervently will they beg for mercy, that now de-guish thy wilfulness from unwilling weakness. ride you for valuing and seeking it in time! But then they shall call upon God, but he will not answer; they shall seek him early, but shall not find him: for that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord: they would none of his counsel, but despised all his reproof.'

Up therefore and work with all thy might. Let unbelievers trifle, who know not that the righteous God stands over them, who know not that they are now to work for eternity, and know not that heaven or hell is at the end. Let them

Ans. 1. It is not a might that is originally thine own, that I am to call thee to exercise: but that which thou hast already received from God, and that which he is ready to bestow. Use well but all the might thou hast, and thou shalt find thy labour is not in vain. Even the strength of nature, and of common grace, are talents which thou must improve.

3. There is more power in all of you than you use, or than you are well aware of. It wants but awakening to bring it into act. Do you not find in your repentings, that the change is more in your will than in your power; and in the awaking of your will and reason into act, than in the addition of mere abilities; and that therefore you befool yourselves for your sins and your neglects, and wonder that you had no more use of your understandings? Let but a storm at sea, or violent sickness, or approaching death, rouse up and awaken the powers which you have,

and you will find there was much more asleep in you than you. used.

I shall therefore next endeavour to awaken your abilities, or tell you how you should awaken them.

When your souls are drowsy, and you are forgetting your God, and your latter end, and matters of eternity have little force and savour with you; when you grow lazy and superficial, or religion seems a lifeless thing and you do your duty as if it were in vain, or against your wills; when you can lose your time, and delay repentance, and friends, profit, reputation, and pleasure can be heard against the word of God, and take you off; when you do all by halves, and languish in your Christian course, as near to death; stir up your souls with the urgency of such questions as these.

7. Can I do no more, that know not now but I am doing my last; that see how fast my time makes haste, and know I must be quickly gone; that know it must be now or never; and that this is all the time I shall have, on which an endless life depends?

8. Can I do no better, when I know beforehand, what different aspects diligence and negligence will have, to the awakened soul in the review, and what a comfort it will be at death and judgment, to be able to say, I did my best, or loitered not away the time I had? And what a vexatious and heart-disquieting thing it will then be to look back on time as irrecoverably lost, and on a life of trial, as cast away upon impertinencies, while the work that we lived for lay undone? Shall I now, by trifling, prepare such tormenting thoughts for my awakened conscience?

9. Can I do no more, when I am sure I cannot do too much, and am sure there is nothing else to be preferred? And that it is this I live for: and that life is for action; and disposes thereunto; and holy life for holy action, and that it is better not live, than not attain the ends of living; when I have so many and unwearied enemies; when sloth is my danger, and the ad

Quest. 1. Can I do no more than this for God; who gave me all; who deserves all; who sees me in my duties and my sins; when he puts me purposely on the trial, what I can do for his sake and service, can I do no more; can I love him no more; obey, watch, and work no more? 2. Can I do no more than this for Christ; for him that did so much for me; that lived so exactly; obeyed so perfectly; walked so inoffensively and meekly; despising all the baits, hon-vantage of my enemy, when I know that resoluours, and riches of the world? That loved me to the death, and offers me freely all his benefits, and would bring me to eternal glory; are these careless, cold and dull endeavours my best return for all this mercy?

3. Can I do no more when my salvation is the prize; when heaven or hell depend much on it? When I know this beforehand, and may see in the glass of the holy scriptures what is prepared for the diligent and the negligent, and what work there is and will be for ever in heaven and hell on these accounts; could I not do more, if my house were on fire, or my estate or life, or friend in danger, than I do for my salvation? 4. Can I do no more for the souls of men; when they are undone for ever, if they be not speedily delivered; is this my love and compassion to my neighbour, my servant, friend or child?

5. Can I do no more for the church of God; for the public good; for the peace and welfare of the nation and our posterity; in suppressing sin; in praying for deliverance; or in promoting works of public benefit?

6. Can I do no more, that have loitered so long; and go no faster, that have slept till the evening of my days, when diligence must be the discovery of my repentance?

tion and vigorous diligence is so necessary, that all is lost without it. Will temptations be resisted and self-denied, concupiscence mortified, and fleshly desires tamed and subdued, sin cast out, and a holy communion with heaven maintained with idleness and sloth; will families be well ordered, and church, or city, or country well governed; will the careless sinners that I ain bound to help, be converted and saved, with sitting still, and with some heartless cold endea vours?

10. Can I do no more that have so much help; that have mercies of all sorts encouraging me, and creatures attending me; that have health to enable me, or affliction to remember and excite me, that have such a master, such a work, such a reward, as better cannot be desired; who is less excusable for neglect than I?

11. Could I do no more, if I were sure that my salvation lay on this one duty; that according to this prayer, it should go with me for ever; or if the soul of my child, or servant, or neighbour must speed for ever, as my endeavours speed with them now for their conversion; for ought I know it may be thus.

12. Would I have God to come with the spur and rod; how do I complain when affliction is upon me; and will I neither endure it, nor be

quickened without it; is it not better to mend | original sin, and the necessity of a Redeemer, my pace and work on easier terms? and of renewing grace.

I would not have distressed souls use these considerations merely to disquiet themselves for their infirmities, and so live in heaviness and self-vexation, because they cannot be as good as they desire, or do as much and as well as they should do: It is not despair that will mend the matter, but make it worse. But I would wish the lazy slothful soul to plead these questions with itself, and try whether they have no quickening power, if closely urged, and seriously considered.

Believe it, it is the deceitfulness of prosperity that keeps up the reputation of a slothful life, and makes holy diligence seem unnecessary. When affliction comes, awakened reason is ashamed of this, and sees it as an odious thing.

Distracted, miserable souls! Is it not enough for you to refuse your own salvation, but you must be angry with all that will not imitate you! Is it not mad enough, and bad enough to choose damnation, but you must be offended with all that are not of your mind. If you will not believe God, that without regeneration, conversion, holiness, and a heavenly, spiritual life, there is no salvation to be hoped for, must we all be unbelievers with you? If you will laugh at hell till you are in it, must we do so too? If God and glory seem less worth to you than your fleshly pleasures for a time, must we renounce our Christianity and our reason for fear of differing from you? If you dare differ from your Maker, the Redeemer, and the Holy Ghost, from all the By this time you may see what difference prophets, apostles, and evangelists, and all that there is between the judgment of God, and of ever came to heaven, might not we be bold to the world, and what to think of the understand- differ from you? If you will needs be ungodly, ings of those men, be they high or low, learned and choose your everlasting woe, be patient with or unlearned, that hate or oppose this holy dili- them that have more understanding, and dare gence. God bids us love, seek, and serve him, not be so hardy as to leap after you into the with all our heart, soul, and might: and these unquenchable fire: Mock not at holiness if you men call them zealots, enthusiasts, and puritans, have no mind of it. Hinder not them that that endeavour it; though alas, they fall exceed- strive to enter in at the strait gate, if you reingly short, when they have done their best. It frain yourselves. Be not so desirous of com's one of the most wonderful monstrosities and pany in hell. It will prove no comfort to you, deformities that ever befell the nature of man, or abatement of your pain. that men, that learned men, that men that in other things are wise, should seriously think that the utmost diligence to obey the Lord and save our souls, is needless, that ever they should take it for a crime, and make it a matter of reproach: that the serious, diligent obeying of God's laws, should be the matter of the common disdain and hatred of the world; that no men are more generally abhorred, and tossed up and down-by impatient men; that great and small, the rulers and vulgar rabble, in most places of the earth cannot endure them. To think how the first man that ever was born into the world, did hate his own brother till he had proceeded to murder him, because he served God better than himself, because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous;' and how constantly this horrid unnatural madness hath succeeded and raged in the world from Cain until this day. It is not in vain that the Holy Ghost adds in the next words, 'Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you.' Implying that we are apt to marvel at it, as I confess I have often and greatly done. Methinks, it is so wonderful a plague and stain in nature, that it doth very much to confirm me of the truth of scripture; of the doctrine of man's fall and

But because you have the faces to contradict the. God of truth, and to reproach that work which he commands, and to say, What needs so much ado? when he bids us do it with all our might; I will briefly tell you what you are doing, and show you the deformed face of the scorner, and the filthy hearts of the enemies of holiness, that if it may be, you may lothe yourselves.

1. These enemies of holy diligence deny God with their works and lives, and are practical atheists; and it seems are so near of kin to 'that wicked one,' that they would have all others to do so too. And then how soon would earth be turned into hell! The case is plain: if God deserve not to be loved and served with all thy heart, soul and might, he is not God. And if thy wealth, or honour, or flesh, or friend deserve more of thy love, care, and diligence than God, then that is thy God that deserves best. See now what these deriders of purity and obedience think of God, and of the world.

2. These Cainites blaspheme the Governor of the world: when he hath given laws to the creatures that he made of nothing, these sinners deride and hate men for obeying them. If God have not commanded that which you oppose,

contradict it, and spare not: I would you were much more against that pretended religion which he commands not. But if he have commanded it, and yet you dare revile them as too pure and precise that would obey it, what do you but charge the King of saints with making laws that are not to be obeyed; which must needs imply that they are foolish, or bad, though made by the most wise and good.

judge, he implies that you may despise a constable. No king is so great in comparison of God, as the meanest insect to that king. He therefore that would relax the laws of God, and make it seem a needless thing to obey him diligently and exactly, implies that obedience to any of the sons of men is much more needless.

And you that are children or servants, take heed of the doctrine of these men: masters, adIf he be worthy

3. These enemies of holiness oppose the prac-mit it not into your families. tice of the very first principles of all religion. For he that cometh to God, must believe that God is, and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him.' It is diligent seeking him that they hate and set themselves against.

to be scorned as a puritan, who is careful to please and obey the Lord, what scorn do your children and servants deserve, if they will be obedient and pleasing to such as you?

4. Do not they judge heaven to be less worth than earth; when they will do less for it, and would have others to do so too?

5. They would have us all unchristian and unman ourselves, as if there were no life to come; as if our reason and all our faculties were given us in vain. For if they are not given us for greater matters than all the honours and pleasures of the world, they are in vain, or worse; and the life of man is but a dream and misery. Were not an irrational animal less miserable, if this were all ?'

6. How base a price do these Cainites set on the immortal soul of man, that think it not worth so much ado, as the careful obedience of the laws of Christ; nor worth so much as they do themselves for their filthy sins and perishing flesh? But would have us so mad as to sell heaven and our souls for a little sinful sloth and

ease.

7. These enemies of holiness would have men take their mercies for their hurt, and their greatest blessings for a burden or a plague, and to run into hell to be delivered from them. Why man, dost thou know what holiness is; and what it is to have access to God? I tell thee it is the foretaste of heaven on earth. It is the highest glory, sweetest delight, and chief enjoyment of the soul. Art thou afraid of having too much of this? What, thou that hast none, which should make thee tremble, art thou afraid of having too much? Thou that never fearest too much money, nor too much honour, nor too much health, art thou afraid of too much spiritual health and holiness? What shall be thy desire, if thou lothe and fly from thy felicity?

8. You that are loyal subjects, take heed of these ungodly scorners: for by consequence they would tempt you to despise your king, and make a mock at the obeying of his commands and laws. For if a man persuade you to despise a

9. All you that are poor tradesmen, take heed of the consequences of the Cainites' scorns, lest it make you give over the labours of your calling, and turn yourselves and families into beggary. For if heaven be not worth your greatest labour, your bodies are not worth the least.

10. These Cainites speak against the awakened consciences, and the confessions of all the world. Whatsoever they may say in the dream of their blind presumption and security, at last, when death hath opened their eyes, they all cry, O that we had been saints! O that we might die the death of the righteous, and that our last end might be as his! O that we had spent that time, care, and labour for our souls, which we spent on that which now is gall to our remembrance! And yet these men will take no warning, but now oppose and deride that course that all the world do wish at last they had been as zealous for as any.

11. The enemy himself hath a conscience within him, that either grudges against his malicious impiety, and witnesses that he abuses them that are far better than himself, or at least will shortly call him to a reckoning, and tell him better what he did, make him change his views, and wish himself in the case of those that he did oppose.

12. To conclude, the Cainite is of that wicked one, of his father the devil, and is his walking, speaking instrument on earth, saying what he himself would say: he is the open enemy of God. For who are his enemies, but the enemies of holiness, of his laws, of our obedience, of his image, and of his saints? How will Christ deal at last with his enemies? O that they knew, that, foreseeing, they might escape! This is the true picture of a Cainite, or enemy of a holy life, that reproaches serious diligence as a precise and needless thing, when God commands us, and death, the grave, and eternity admonish us to do his work with all our might. Now con

sider this ye that forget God, lest he tear you in improvement of the Lord's day, or any other acpieces, and there be none to deliver you.' tions of strictness and holy industry are mentioned, these ungodly ministers are ready to blame them with some open calumnies, or secret reproaches, or words of suspicion, to vindicate their own unholy lives, and make people believe that serious piety is faction and hypocrisy. The black tincture of their minds, and the design and drift of their preaching may be perceived in the sneers and slanderous intimations against the most diligent servants of the Lord. The con

sent as errors: their unavoidable errors they represent as heresy: their duties they represent as faults; and their human frailties as enormous crimes: they feign them to be guilty of the things that never entered into their thoughts, and if some that have professed godliness be guilty of greater crimes, they would make men believe that the rest are such, and that the family of Christ is to be judged of by a Judas, and the scope is to intimate that either their profession is culpable, or needless, and less commendable. Regeneration they would make to be but the entrance into the church by baptism, and any further conversion, than the leaving off some gross sins, and taking up some heartless forms of duty, to be but a fancy or unnecessary thing: and they would draw poor people to believe, that if they be born again sacramentally of water, they may be saved, though they be not born again by the renewing of the Holy Spirit. Being strangers themselves to the mystery of regeneration, and to the life of faith and a heavenly conversation, and to the loving and serving of God with all their soul and might they first endeavour to quiet themselves with a belief that these are but fancies or unnecessary, and then to deceive the people with that by which they have first deceived themselves.

But of all the opposers of serious holiness in the world, there are none more inexcusable and deplorably miserable, than those that profess themselves ministers of Christ. Would one believe that had not known them, that there are such men in the world? Alas, there are too many. Though education, and the laws of the land engage them to preach true doctrine, yet are they false teachers in the application. For they never well learned the holy and heavenly doc-troverted truths that such maintain, they repretrine which they preach, nor digested it, nor received the power and impress of it upon their hearts; and therefore retaining their natural corruptions, impiety and enmity to the life, power, and practice of that doctrine, they indirectly destroy what directly they would seem to build; and preach both for God, and against him, for Christ, and the Holy Spirit, and against them; for godliness, and against it, both in the same sermon. In general, they must needs speak for the word of God, and a holy life; but when they come to the particulars, they secretly reproach it, and condemn the parts, while they commend the whole. In general they speak well of religious, godly, holy people; but when they meet with them, they hate them, and make them enthusiasts, a sect that is every where spoken against, pestilent fellows, and movers of sedition, as the apostles were accused, and any thing that malice can invent to make them odious. And what they cannot prove, they will closely intimate, in the false application of their doctrines, describing them so as may induce the hearers to believe that they are a company of self-conceited hypocrites, factious, proud, disobedient, turbulent, peevish, affecting singularity, desiring to ingross the reputation of godliness to themselves, but secretly as bad as others. And when they have thus represented them to the ignorant sort of people, they have made the way of godliness odious, and sufficiently furnished miserable souls with prejudice and dislike; so that because the persons are thus made hateful to them, all serious diligence for heaven, all tenderness of conscience, and fear of sinning, all heavenly discourse, and serious preaching, reading, or praying, are also made odious for their sakes: for hearing so ill of the persons, and seeing that these are the things wherein they differ from others, they reduce their judgment of their practices to their foresettled judgment of the

persons.

When their diligence in their families, in prayer and instructions, in reading, and fruitful

But

And it is worthy of your observation, what it is in religion that these formal hypocrites are against. There are scarcely any words so sound or holy, but they can bear them, if they be but deprived of their life nor scarcely any duty, if it be but mortified, but they can endure. it is the spirit and life of all religion which they cannot bear. As a body differs from a carcass, not by the parts, but by the life; so there is a certain life in preaching, prayer, and all other acts of worship, which is perceived by several sorts of hearers. The godly perceive it to their edification and delight. For here it is that they are quickened and encouraged. Life begets life, as fire kindles fire. The ungodly often perceive it to their vexation, if not to their con