souls than you are of yours? If you would have them redeem their time, do not you mispend yours. If you would not have them vain in their conference, see that you speak yourselves the things which may edify, and tend to minister grace to the hearers. Order your own families well, if you would have them do so by theirs. Be not proud and lordly, if you would have them to be lowly. There are no virtues wherein your example will do more, at least to abate men's prejudice, than humility, and meekness, and self-denial. Forgive injuries, and "be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." Do as our Lord, "who, when he was reviled, reviled not again." If sinners be stubborn and contemptuous, flesh and blood will persuade you to take up their weapons, and to master them by carnal means: but that is not the way, further than self-preservation or public good may require, but overcome them with kindness, and patience, and gentleness. The former may show that you have: more worldly power than they, (wherein yet they are ordinarily too hard for the faithful); but it is the latter only that will tell them that you excel them in spiritual excellency. If you believe that Christ was more worthy of imitation than Cesar or Alexander, and that it is more glory to be a Christian than to be a conqueror, or even to be a man than a beast, which often exceed us in strength, contend with charity, and not with violence; set meekness, and love, and patience, against force, and not force against force. Remember you are obliged to be the servants of all. "Condescend to men of low estate." Be not strange to the poor of your flock; they are apt to take your strangeness for

contempt. Familiarity, improved to holy ends, may do abundance of good. Speak not roughly or disrespectfully to any one; but be courteous to the meanest, as to your equal in Christ. A kind and winning carriage, is a cheap way of doing men good.

Let me entreat you to abound in works of charity and benevolence. Go to the poor, and see what they want, and show your compassion at once to their soul and body. Buy them a catechism, and other small books, that are most likely to do them good, and make them promise to read them with care and attention. Stretch your purse to the utmost, and do all the good you can. Think not of being rich-seek not great things for yourselves or posterity. What if you do impoverish yourselves to do a greater good; will this be loss or gain? If you believe that God is the safest purse-bearer, and that to expend in his service is the greatest usury, show them that you do believe it. I know that flesh and blood will cavil before it will lose its prey, and will never want something to say against this duty; but mark what I say, and the Lord set it home upon your hearts-that man who hath any thing in the world so dear to him, that he cannot spare it for Christ, if he call for it, is no true Christian. And because a carual heart will not believe, that Christ calls for it when he cannot spare it, and, therefore, makes that his self-deceiving shift, I say further, that the man who will not be persuaded that duty is duty, because he cannot spare that for Christ which is therein to be expended, is no true Christian: for a false heart corrupteth the understanding, and that again increaseth the delusions of the heart. Do not

take it, therefore, as an undoing, to make friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, and to lay up treasure in heaven, though you leave yourselves but little on earth. You lose no great advantage for heaven, by becoming poor: "Qui viam terit, eo felicior quo levior incedit."

I know, where the heart is carnal and covetous, words will not wring men's money out of their hands; they can say all this, and more to others; but saying is one thing, and doing is another. But with those that are true believers, methinks such considerations should prevail. O what abundance of good might ministers do, if they would but live in contempt of the world, and the riches and glory thereof, and expend all they have in their Master's service, and pinch their flesh, that they may have wherewith to do good! This would unlock more hearts to the reception of their doctrine, than all their oratory; and, without this, singularity in religion will seem but hypocrisy; and it is likely that it is so. "Qui innocentiam colit, Domino supplicat qui hominem periculo surripit, opimam victimam cædit; hæc nostra sacrificia; hæc Dei sacra sunt; sic apud nos religiosior est ille qui justior," says Manutius Felix. Though we need not do as the Papists, who betake themselves to monasteries, and cast away property, yet we must have nothing but what we have for God.

IV. Take heed to yourselves, lest you live in those sins which you preach against in others, and lest you be guilty of that which daily you condemn. Will you make it your work to magnify God, and, when you have done, dishonour him as much as

others? Will you proclaim Christ's governing power, and yet contemn it, and rebel yourselves? Will you preach his laws, and wilfully break them? If sin be evil, why do you live in it? if it be not, why do you dissuade men from it? If it be dangerous, how dare you venture on it? if it be not, why do you not tell men so? If God's threatenings be true, why do you not fear them? if they be false, why do you needlessly trouble men with them, and put them into such frights without a cause? Do you know the judgment of God, that they who commit such things are worthy of death;" and yet will you do them? "Thou that teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonourest thou God?” What! shall the same tongue speak evil that speaketh against evil? Shall those lips censure, and slander, and backbite your neighbour, that cry down these and similar things in others? Take heed to yourselves, lest you cry down sin, and yet do not overcome it; lest, while you seek to bring it down in others, you bow to it, and become its slaves yourselves; "For of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage." "To whom ye

yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness." O brethren! it is easier to chide at sin, than to overcome it.

Lastly, Take heed to yourselves, that you be not destitute of the qualifications necessary for your work. He must not be himself a babe in know

How

ledge, that will teach men all those mysterious things which are to be known in order to salvation. what qualifications are necessary for a man who hath such a charge upon him as we have! How many difficulties in divinity to be solved; and these, too, about the very fundamental principles of religion! How many obscure texts of Scripture to be expounded! How many duties to be performed, wherein ourselves and others may miscarry, if in the matter, and manner, and end, we be not well-informed! How many sins to be avoided, which, without understanding and foresight, cannot be done! What a number of sly and subtle temptations must we open to our people's eyes, that they may escape them! How many weighty, and yet intricate cases of conscience, have we almost daily to resolve! And can so much work, and such work as this, be done by raw, unqualified men? O what strong holds have we to batter, and how many of them! What subtle and obstinate resistance must we expect from every heart we deal with! Prejudice hath so blocked up our way, that we can scarcely procure a patient hearing. We cannot make a breach in their groundless hopes and carnal peace, but they have twenty shifts and seeming reasons to make it up again; and twenty enemies, that are seeming friends, are ready to help them. We dispute not with them upon equal terms. We have children to reason with, that cannot understand us, We have maniacs to argue with, that will bawl us down with raging nonsense. We have wilful, unreasonable people to deal with, who, when they are silenced, are never the more convinced; and who, when they can give you no