grow in holiness! O what a changed people you would be! And why should not the certain word of GOD be believed by you, and prevail with you, which openeth to you these glorious and eternal things? Yea, let me tell you, that even here on earth, you little know the difference between the life which you refuse, and the life which you chuse. The sanctified are conversing with GOD, when you dare scarce think of him, and when you are conversing but with earth and flesh. Their conversation is in Heaven, when you are utter strangers to it, and your belly is your GOD, and you are minding earthly things, Phil. iii. 18, 19, 20.They are seeking after the face of God, when you seek for nothing higher than this world. They are busily laying out for an endless life, where they shall be equal with the angels. Luke xx. 36. When you are taken up with a shadow, and a transitory thing of nought. How low and base is your earthly, fleshly, sinful life, in comparison of the noble, spiritual life of true believers! Many a time have I looked on such men with grief and pity, to see them trudge about the world, and spend their lives, and care, and labour, for nothing but a little food and raiment, or a little fading pelf or fleshly pleasures, or empty honors, as if they had no higher things to mind. What difference is there between the lives of these men, and of the beasts that perish, that spend their time in working, eating, and living, but that they may live? They taste not of the inward heavenly pleasures which bellevers taste and live upon. I had rather have a little of their comfort, which the forethoughts of their heavenly nheritance afford them, though I had all their scorns and sufferings with it, than to have all your pleasures and treacherous prosperity. I would not have one of your secret gripes and pangs of conscience, and dark and dreadful thoughts of death and the life to come, for all that ever the world has done for you, or all that you can reasonably hope that it should do. If I were in your unconverted carna state, and knew but what I know, and believed but what I now believe, methinks my life would be a fore. taste of hell. How oft should I be thinking of the ter rors of the Lord,and of the dismal day that is hastening on. Sure, death and hell would be still before me. I should think of them by day, and dream of them by night: 1 should lie down in fear, and rise in fear, and live in fear, lest death should come before I were converted. I should have small felicity in any thing that I possessed, and little pleasure in any company, and little joy in any thing in the world, as long as I knew myself to be under the curse and wrath of GOD. hearing that voice, Luke xii. 20, shall thy soul be required of thee. tence would be written upon my conscience, Isa. xlvii. 22, and Iviii. 21. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked. O poor sinners! It is a joyfuller life than this that you might live, if you were but willing, but truly willing to hearken to Christ, and come home to GOD. You might then draw near to GOD with boldness, and call him your Father, and comfortably trust him with your souls and bodies. If you look upon Promises, you I should be still afraid of Thou fool, this night may say, They are all mine. If upon the Curse, you may say, From this I am delivered. When you read the Law, you may see what you are saved from; when you read the Gospel, you may see him that redeemed you, and see the course of his love, and holy life, and sufferings, and trace him in his temptations, tears and blood, in the work of your Salvation. You may see death conquered, and Heaven opened, and your resurrection and glorification provided for, in the resurrection and glorification of your Lord. If you look on the Saints, you may say, They are my brethren and companions. If on the unsanctified, you may rejoice to think that you are saved from that state. If you look upon the heavens, the sun, and moon, and stars innumerable, you may think and say, my father's face is infinitely more glorious; 'lis higher mallers that he hath prepared for his saints. Yonder is but the outward court of Heaven. The blessedness that he hath promised me is so much higher, that flesh and blood cannot bekold it. If you think of the grave, you may remember, that the glorified spirit, a living head, and a loving father, have all so near a relation to your dust, that it cannot be forgotten or neglected, but will more certainly revive than the plants and flowers in the spring, because that the soul is still alive, that is the root of the body; and Christ is alive, that is the root of both. Even death, which is the king of fears, may be remembered, and entertained with joy; as being the day of your de liverance from the remnants of sin and sorrow, and the day which you believed, and hoped, and waited for, when you shall see the blessed things which you had heard of, and shall find by present joyful experience, what it was to choose the better part, and to be a sincere believing saint. What say you, sirs? Is not this a more delightful life to be assured of salvation, and ready to die, than to live as the ungodly, that have their hearts overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and the cares of this life, and so that day comes upon them unawares! Luke xxi. 34, 36. Might you not live a comfortable life, if once you were made the heirs of Heaven, and sure to be saved when you leave the world! O look about you then, and think what you do, and cast not away such hopes as these for very nothing. The flesh and world can give you no such hopes or comforts. And besides all the misery that you bring upon yourselves, you are the troubles of others as long as you are unconverted. You trouble magistrates to rule you by their laws. You trouble ministers by resisting the light and guidance which they offer you: Your sin and misery is the greatest grief and trouble to them in the world. You trouble the Commonwealth, and draw the judgments of GOD upon us : 'Tis you that most disturb the holy peace and order of the Churches, and hinder our union and reformation, and are the shame and trouble of the churches where you intrude, and of the places where you are. Ah! Lord! How heavy and sad a case is this that even in England, where the Gospel doth abound bove any other nation in the world, where teaching is so plain and common, and all the helps we can desire are at hand, when the sword has been hewing us, and judg ment hath run as a fire through the land; when deliverances hath relieved us, and so many admirable mercies have engaged us to GOD, and to the Gospel, and an holy life That after all this, our cities, and towns and countries shall abound with multitudes of unsanctified men, and swarm with so much sensuality as every where to our grief we see! One would have thought, that after all this light, and all this experience, and all these judg-. ments and mercies of GOD, the people of this nation should have joined together as one man to turn to the Lord; and should have come to their godly teacher, and lamented all their former sins, and desired him to join with them in public humiliation, to confess them openly, and beg pardon of them from the Lord, and should have craved his instruction for the time to come, and be glad to be ruled by the spirit within, and the ministers of Christ without, according to the word of GOD. One would think, that after such reason and scripture evidence as they hear, and after all these means and mercies, there should not be an ungodly person left amongst us, nor a worldling, nor a drunkard, or a hater of reformation, or an enemy to holiness to be found in all our towns or countries. If we be not all agreed about some ceremonies or forms of government, one would think that before this, we should have been all agreed to live a holy and heavenly life; in obedience to GOD, his word, and ministers, and in love and peace with one another. But, alas, how far are our people from |