cutting off a right hand, and plucking out a right eye. The finner's neck is flexible enough to the devil's yoke; but it is an iron finew to Chrift's yoke. He that has a will to any thing, he has no will to this, till a day of power make him willing, Pfal. cx. 3.

2. Because of prevailing love to carnal cafe. Prov. xxvi. 15. "The flothful bideth his hand in his bofom; it grieveth him to bring it again to his mouth." The man loves to fleep in a found skin, and therefore will die in his neft, if God do not in mercy fet a fire to it. Sloth is fo fweet a fin, that the carnal heart can never get a fill of it, Prov. vi. 10. "Yet a little fleep, a little flumber, a little folding of the hands to fleep." The man lies in the bed of floth, and would not mifs heaven if it would fall down into his mouth, or if wishing and woulding would do it. But if these will not do, he must even want it, for he cannot leave the embrace of his dear ease. Fighting, running, praying, ftriving, wrestling, taking heavenly violence, and the like, he cannot away with.

3. Because Satan furnishes them with work more agreeable, and it they will do; therefore God's work they will not meddle with: John, viii. 44. "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lufts of your father ye will do." will do." When the call of the gospel comes to finners, Satan docs with them as Pharaoh did with the Ifraelites, holds them more to their tasks; fo they have always bufy hands, and hearts full of their work, infomuch that they cannot get the work of religion minded to purpose. And what are they doing? They are bufy weaving the fpider's web; very bufy doing nothing, or hatching the cockatrice egg, doing worse than nothing. They have much to do, having the defires of the flesh and mind to fulfil. They have more

to

24. "Because I have called, and ye refused, I have ftretched out my hand, and no man regarded; but ye have fet at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof; I also will laugh at your calamity, I will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as defolation, and your deftruction cometh as a whirl-wind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then fhall they call upon me, but I will not anfwer; they fhall feek me early, but they shall not find me; for that they hated knowledge, and did choose the fear of the Lord." Salvation-work will not work, unless men beftir themselves; but damnation-work will go on when men fit at ease, and are carried down the ftream into the ocean of the wrath of God.

IV. In the last place, I am to make fome practical improvement; in doing which, I fhall confine myfelf, for the prefent, to an use of exhortation. I would exhort refufers of Chrift and of religion to take their word again, and to comply with the gofpel-call. Ye have had many calls to engage the work of religion with earnestnefs, but the anfwer of the most part is, I will not; and thus one refusal comes on the back of another.

in

You have had many I calls from the word of God to fall to your work, and what has been your anfwer to these meffages of God by his fervants, but that I will not? Have you not heard many exhortations which have never affected you? Have you not gone back to those very fins for which reproofs have met you in public ordinances, and yet you have held them faft? Has not duty been laid plainly before you, and you have found means to put it by? and ftill the answer is, I will not.

2. Has not God purfued fome of you by afflic

tions to drive you to your work, and yet no awakening to repentance and reformation, but ftill the language of your practice has been, I will not. The Lord, in his holy providence, has fent you loffes, croffes, and diftreffes of divers forts, to bring. you to your duty; but, O! may it not be written on rod after rod, You have not yet returned to the Lord?

3. Nay, has not the Lord sometimes so met you in a finful course, that you could not but say, This is the finger of God? and yet ye would be froward, ye would go back to the fin again. What is the language of that, but I will not? Have ye not fallen under Jotham's curfe again and again? Judges, ix. 15. whereby fire has flashed out of fome one or other bramble, under which you have rested, on your faces to burn you, instead of that shade. ye thought to find under it to refresh you. Has not your confcience awakened on you fometimes, and the arrows of conviction fastened on you, and yet you have refufed? Ye have murdered convictions, and never been at ease till conscience has been filenced. You have run away from God, even with his arrows fticking in you, faying in oppofition, I will not.

Laftly, Have you not often delayed complying with the call of God, and fet the time for your going to work? Yet for all that is come and gone, your eyes have never seen that time yet. What is delaying but plainly a refufal? I will not. For there is no word of God that fays, Go work to-morrow, or the next day; it is to-day, if ye will hear his voice; fon, go work to-day. So that he that will not work to-day, but pretends he will do it afterwards, plainly refufes the call, and will not..

To promote your compliance with the call, I would offer a few weighty motives; as, 1. Repent now, and fall to that work have VOL. I.

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ye

formerly

formerly refused; for it is a work preferable to all other works. The work of religion is your main, your chief work. (1.) It is the most pleasant work. Many are difgufted at the work of religion, because they think it unpleasant. But they have not yet tried it, and therefore are not fit judges. You have a more favourable account of it from Prov. iii. 17." Her ways are ways of pleasantnefs, and all her paths are peace." See alfo Pfal. iv. 7. 8. "Thou haft put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased. I will both lay me down in peace, and fleep; for thou, Lord, only makeft me dwell in fafety." There is work indeed in the vineyard that is very unpleasant to corrupt nature; but even out of this arifes the moft refined fatisfaction to the new nature. And what are all the pleafures of the world, to reconciliation with God, and that peace of confcience and joy that there is in believing? (2.) It is the most profitable work. The profit thereof is both for time and for eternity,

Tim. iv. 8. For bodily exercise profiteth little, but godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promife of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.". The profits of it are durable profits; they laft, and will be profitable, when all others will be of no avail. Hereby you will gain the life of your fouls, and, as the lofs is incomparably great, fo alfo is the gain of it. (3.) It is the moft neceffary work. It is the one thing needful, abfolutely needful, Luke, x. 42. We cannot be happy here or hereafter without it; without it, we are undone

for ever.

2. Ye are always working fomething. The greateft idler on earth is in fome fort always bufy. God does not require of you more work, but other work. The foul of man is like a watch, that goes as faft in going wrong as in going right. How

fad

fad is it, that feeing men are always doing fomething, they should refuse only that work which would honour God, and fave their own fouls! Will you not, then, for God's fake, and your own fake, change your work?

3. It is fad work you are working while you refufe this. If you be not working out your own falvation, you are working out your own damnation. We are always going forward; if not preffing a step nearer heaven, you are a step nearer hell. Every refufal, yea, every fin, is a new impediment in your way to heaven, a new call to Heaven for vengeance on the finner, builds the feparation-wall the higher, and lays on the greater weight to fink you for ever under the wrath of God.

4. Confider, if ye be not in fome fort at as much pains to ruin your fouls, as otherwife might fave them. There are difficulties in the ways of fin, as well as in the ways of God. Is the work of religion a toilfome work? but do not ye many times weary yourselves to commit iniquity? Is there not as much pain when a finner deprives himself of his night's reft, racking himself about the world, as when a faint communes with his heart on his bed about eternal things? The finner travels to bring forth fin, Pfal. vii. 14. What more than this at the hard duties of religion! Since he that engages not in the work of religion is cumbered about many things, had he not better take up with the one thing needful? The faint has but one mafter to ferve; finners have many, not only at war with God, but at war among themfelves, one luft dragging them one way, and another another way.

5. The time is coming, when working in the vineyard will be over; and if ye continue to refufe,

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