the life to come. We have here the hope and the foretaste; but it is only there that we shall have our portion. You see what a poor Christian is according to his outward appearance. But you see not what he will be to eternity. There' is the kingdom for which we hope, and for which we run, and wait, and suffer. If God be true, and his Gospel true, then heaven shall be the portion of the sanctified. But if it were otherwise, then we would confess their hopes are vain. Heaven is our riches, or we have none. There have we laid up all our hopes; and in these hopes we will live and die, as knowing they will not make us ashamed; Rom. v. 5. ix.33. 1 John ii. 28. We believe that we shall live with Christ in glory, "shine as stars in the firmament of our Father, and be" made like to the angels of God," and shall see his face, and praise his name, and live in his everlasting love and joy; for all this he himself hath promised us; 1 Thess. iv. 17, 18. Dan. xii. 3. Matt. xiii. 43. Luke xx. 36. Rev. xxii. 4.

Matt. xxv. 21.

And now, poor worldling, what is all your gain and riches in comparison of the least of these? Do you think in your judgments that there is any comparison? Or rather doth not sin and the world even brutify you, and make you lay by the use of your reason, and live as if you knew not what you know? Your treasure is all visible, when ours is unseen, and therefore I may bid you bring it forth, and let us see it, whether indeed it be better than the treasure of the saints. Let us see what that is that is better than God, and everlasting glory. What! is a little fleshly ease or mirth; a little meat, and drink, and pleasure; a little more money, or space of ground to use than your neighbours have; are these the things that you will change for heaven, and prefer before the Lord that made you? O poor miserable sinners ! Are you not told that you have your good things here? But what will you have hereafter when this is gone? Luke xvi. 25. When your wealth is gone, and your mirth is gone, your souls are immortal, and therefore your misery and horror will continue, and never be gone. As the wealth of the godly is within them, and above the reach of their enemies, and surer than yours, so is it the more durable, even everlasting. When all your riches are upon the wing, even ready to be gone, and leave you in sorrow, when you are most highly valuing them, you have it now, but it is gone to-morrow.

For

"And what is the hope of the hypocrite though he hath gained, when God taketh away his soul? Will God hear his cry when trouble cometh upon him?" Job xxvii. 8,9. Let the words of Christ decide the controversy, if indeed you take him for your Judge. 66 If any man will come after me let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then he shall reward every man according to his works;" Matt. xvi. 24-27.

Well, sirs, you that are all for getting, and for wealth, judge now if you have not lost your reason, whether a holy or unholy, a heavenly or an earthly life be the more profitable way! I would not draw you to any thing that you should lose by. If I speak not for your gain, reject my words as contemptuously as you please. But if I do, then be not against your own commodity. Will such silly gain as the world affords you, do so much with you as it doth; and shall not the heavenly inheritance do more? Shall all this stir be made in the world for that which you are ready to leave behind you, and will you not lay up a treasure in heaven where rust and moths corrupt not, and where you may live for ever? Matt. vi. 20. What profit now have all those millions of souls that are gone from earth, by all the wealth they here possessed? Hear, sinners, and bethink you in the name of God. You are leaving earth and stepping into eternity, and where then should you lay up your riches? Would you rather have your portion where you must stay but a few days, than where you must dwell for ever? O" Labour not for the meat that perisheth," in comparison of " that which endureth to everlasting life, which Christ will give you," if you will follow him; John vi. 27. Make you friends of this wealth that the world abuseth to "unrighteousness, that when all fails below, you may be received into the everlasting habitations ;" Luke xvi. 9. Make not yourselves a treasure of corruptible riches, and set not your hearts on "gold and silver, lest the rust of it be a witness against you, and eat your flesh as it were fire; and lest ye heap up" another kind of treasure than you dream of against the last days. How many of you have

cause to weep and howl for your approaching miseries, even then when you are glorying in your prosperity? James v. 1-5. Are you for commodity? Refuse not then the best commodity. Be not enemies to them, or to those holy motions, that make for your everlasting profit. Take but the most gainful course for yourselves, and we are pleased. If you know any thing better than God and glory, and any riches that will endure any longer than eternity, why do you not shew it us, that we may join with you? But if you do not, why will you not hearken to the servants of the Lord, and join with them? "Wherefore, saith the Lord, do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfieth not? Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Incline your ear, come unto me, hear and your souls shall live, and I will make an everlasting covenant with you;" Isa. lv.2, 3. If there be not more to be gotten by Christ, and by prayer, and by the promises, and a holy life, than there is by sin, or than there is by all your friends, or lands, or trades, or care, or labour here, then take your course, and turn your back on God, and spare not. But if you are ashamed to say so, be ashamed to think so, or to live so.

Verily sirs, if the Gospel be true, you must be every man of you saints, or miserable. Holiness is the only thriving way. Yea, the only saving way. If you forsake this way, you are losing while you are gaining, and losing by your gains. You are but making Achan's bargain, that by his gold did purchase a storm of stones that dashed out his brains; Josh. vii. You are running after Gehazi's gains, that thought he had got riches, and it proved a leprosy. You are trading with the devil, though you see him not, and will not believe it, even as certainly as the miserable witches, that sell him their souls for a few fair promises, and when they have done have the most miserable life of any. You are laying up but Judas's treasures, which quickly grew too hot to hold, and too heavy for his conscience to bear; and he would fain have rid his hands of it if he knew how; and because he cannot he hangs himself, and rids himself out of the ashes into the flames. O covet not such undoing gains, which you all know as sure as you breathe, that you must let go. Believe but your Redeemer and you shall know that there

are greater and better things before you. Gather not stones when you may be gathering pearls. Hear me, poor sinner! If God and heaven, if grace and glory seem not better riches than this world, thou judgest thyself to have no part in them.

CHAPTER IX.

Holiness is the most Honourable way.

WE are resolved, if Scripture and reason can resolve us, that godliness is the safest, the most honest, and the most gainful course. I shall next shew you that it is the most honourable course. I know the world thinks otherwise of it. In most places it is a matter of reproach to be but serious and diligent in God's service. And though in this place, and at this time, through the great mercy of God, it is not so with us, unless it be with here and there a sottish drunkard, yet there are too few places that are so much freed from this plague. And it is not yet I fear forgotten of God, since the very practice of a godly life, was a matter of greater scorn and derision, than to have been the profanest swearer or drunkard. If a man would not have gone to the alehouse with them, nor sworn, or spoke profanely as they did; and if he made any serious mention of the Scripture, or the life to come; if he reproved any gross offender, if he prayed and instructed his family, and spent the Lord's day in holy exercises, this was enough to brand him with the name of Puritan or Precisian, and make him the common byword of the town, and (let him be never so conformable to bishops and ceremonies) if once he went under the name of Puritan, he was looked upon as Lot in Sodom, by the open enemies of piety, who insulted over them, and lived securely in open wickedness. This is the chiefest sin that God hath been scourging this nation for, if I am able to understand his judgments. I know men are apt to interpret providences according to their own interests and conceits. But I take the help of the Scripture, and the experience of former ages for my interpretation; and I am verily persuaded (not excluding other sins) that the great sin

for which God hath plagued England by a sharp and bloody war, was the common scorn that was cast upon his service, it being made the derision of too many in the land. I never came into any place, where mere serious diligence for salvation was not branded with the name of Puritanism and too much preciseness; and those that abstained from iniquity were as owls among their neighbours, even the very wonder and the reproach of those about them. When this is made a principle that all must hold that ever hope to be accepted with the Lord, in (Heb. xi. 6.) that "he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." This is the next point in our faith, to the believing that there is a God. And yet among us that called ourselves Christians, the diligent seeking of the Lord was so far from being thus esteemed of, that it was the surest way to make a man contemptible and odious unto many. The jealous God did long endure this horrible indignity, but would not still endure it from us. Must he make a holy law for the government of the world, and shall the obeying of it be derided? Is he our sovereign Lord, having by creation and redemption the right of ruling us, and shall we scorn them that will be ruled by him? Those that will not have Christ rule over them, will surely be destroyed; Luke xix. 27. And shall those escape that scorn his service? Holiness is the image of God, and unholiness the devil's image. And when the image of God is made a scorn, and the devil's image had in honour, and that by them that call themselves Christians, was it not time for God to arise to judgment? Was it not enough that God was slighted by them, and his service turned out of doors, but it must be made a byword? Is there but one way pleasing unto God, and but one way that leadeth to salvation, and must that one way be the common scorn? For these things God had a controversy with this land; and he hath pleaded his cause with fire and sword, and spoke by a voice that will not be derided. He hath entered into judgment with priests and people. He will not always support and maintain a people to deride him. O England! hadst thou none to make the football of thy scorn, but the servants of the most high God? Did he not tell thee that they were his jewels? Mal. iii. 1. And that "he that touched them did touch the apple of his eye?" Zech. ii. 8. Will he give his Son for them, and will he glorify them with himself, and make them equal to the angels? Luke xx.