People do not confider, that want of learning will be no excufe in a chriftian country, for their being ignorant of their duty. Such as will attend the church, and pray for God's grace, and hear his word with a ferious and devout temper, and practise what they know, are in as fure a way of happiness as the most learned. Take heed, therefore, how ye bear: and if you would indeed profit by hearing, and carry a bleffing home with you, imprint upon your heart fome fuch truths as thefe:

This is God's minifter; what he delivers is God's word. I mind attentively my betters when they speak to me, and I lay it up in my heart: and fhall I forget what my • Maker has faid as foon as I am got from his prefence? God forbid. I will rather go 'home, and confider with myself what use I ought to make of what I have heard, and ' will order my life accordingly.'

Do fo;-and God will increase your knowledge and your graces. And the word which you hear will become indeed the word of falvation (as St. Paul calls it) to every one that believeth, and fo receives it.

And may our bleffed Lord, who has caused all holy scriptures to be written for our learning, grant that we may in fuch wife hear, mark, learn, and inwardly digeft them, that by patience and comfort of his holy word, we may embrace and ever hold faft the bleffed hope of everlasting life, which he has given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ.

To whom, &c.

L

THE TRUE WAY OF PROFITING BY SERMONS.

VOUCHSAFE, O Lord, to direct me, and bless this discourse for the good of my flock; that they may glorify Thee for the truths they shall hear, and for the bleffing they shall receive, by the miniftry of the most unworthy of thy fervants, O Sovereign Paftor! Amen.

LUKE viii. 18.

TAKE HEED HOW YE HEAR: FOR WHOSOEVER HATH, TO HIM SHALL BE GIVEN; AND WHOSOEVER HATH NOT, FROM HIM SHALL BE TAKEN EVEN THAT WHICH HE SEEMETH TO HAVE.

Have already, in a former discourse, explained to you what our Lord means by this earnest caution; namely, To affure us, that according to the measure of our love for God's word, our attention in hearing it, and our care to profit by it, fhall be the measure grace which God will give us.

of

I have already fhewed you the danger of living under the light of the gofpel, and not being bettered by it: our Saviour fays exprefsly, That it fhall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for fuch people: because the word which you hear is Matth. xviii. 4. Heb. ii. 1, 2, &c. Theff. ii. 13. iv. 1. James i. 21.

a See Amos viii. 11.

"" not

"not the word of men, but in truth the word " of God."

This is my beloved Son, faith God, hear ye him. And it is his gospel we preach, we explain, we prefs upon you. It is him you defpife, when you mind not what is faid to you by his ministers. And on the other hand, when you come to church with a serious, teachable temper, and hear his word with reverence and fubmiffion, you do most certainly engage him to enlighten your minds with faving truth.

It was for this reafon I proposed to shew your THE TRUE WAY OF PROFITING BY SERMONS; by fhewing you how every Chriftian ought and may most profitably apply the things he hears to himself, and form fuch refolutions as are most likely to influence his practice. I have already done this on feveral practical fubjects, fuch as moft nearly concern a chriftian life; and shall now proceed to others of like importance.

Let us then fuppofe, that you have heard a difcourfe concerning THE DANGER OF KEEPING BAD COMPANY-of converfing with people of wicked principles or wicked lives.

To be fure you will have been put in mind, how many have been ruined by an unwise choice of fuch companions; how many have got habits of idlenefs, of intemperance, of trifling away their time and their eftates; have been strangely corrupted both in their principles and in their manners.

You

You will, with great truth, have been asfured, that in all companies where men make a mock of fin, speak lightly of God, and profanely of any thing that belongs to him; there Satan infallibly governs, infpires his agents, and more or less infects all that are prefent;that you will in time be content to hear the most serious things made a jest of, and to wish inwardly that the things you were taught to believe were not true, and that there was no God to call you to an account.

You do not know but the company you are fond of are Atheists, men under the government of Satan: if you live as they do, you will in time believe as they do, whatever at present you may think of it.

You will have been affured, that nothing more provokes God to deprive men of his Holy Spirit, and of his graces, than the frequenting of wicked company, where things hateful to God are faid and done.

Laftly; you will have heard, from the inspired writer, that wine, and new wine, take away the heart; [i. e. the understanding:] and every one who is given to drinking and company will find it so to his forrow, when it may fo be too late to return to a fober mind; fad experience convincing us, that one need but taste a finful pleafure, or frequent bad company a very little while, to be very fond of them, and a flave to them.

fe

If I fhould obferve any young perfon very rious and attentive when he hears these truths,

I should

I should conclude that fuch perfon will make some such reflections as these following:

'I thank God that I have had this fair warning given me. I am convinced that bad company has cot many a man very dear. I have within me the fame feeds of wicked'nefs with other people; and if God leaves 'me to my own choices, and I make choice ' of bad company, I fhall be as wicked as the 'worst of them; my heart will be infected, my faith weakened, my good purposes cooled, and all my graces injured. I am con'vinced of the difficulty of getting out of the 'fnare, and of breaking off evil habits; and ' that if I provoke God to withdraw his Spirit, I never can repent, never can return to a fober mind. I will therefore keep in my ' mind the words of the apoftle,-Evil com'munications corrupt good manners; and I am ' refolved, by the grace of God, to avoid, as I would the devil, the company of all fuch by whofe loose principles and lewd examples my faith may be corrupted, or my morals

endangered.'

I perfuade myself that all young perfons, who have any grace left, will make fome fuch refolutions as these, and will beg of God the grace to keep them.

How many discourses have Chriftians heard concerning another reigning vice, THE SINS

OF IMPURITY, FORNICATION, AND UNCLEAN

NESS, without being bettered by what either God or his Minifters have said upon thofe fubjects.