judge parents might inform their children in. But we must tell fuch, that the defign of preaching is not to gratify itching ears with new difcoveries, but to reform hearts by the old, yet new truths of God, which will hever wear old to them who are acquainted with the power of them; "that children have fouls as well as they; that their fouls are no leis precious than those of adult perfons; that we have the charge of the one as well as the other; that the Lord has fometimes been pleased to reach the heart of children by fuch familiar applications; that we are obliged to be all things to all men, that fo we may win fome to Chrift. In fine, we must tell fuch, that we are particularly obliged, by our Lord's command formerly quoted, tó encourage children to come to him, and therfeore we could not but endeavour to deal with them, and that in a way fuitable in fome measure to their capacities: what is old to you, may be new to them; and a new drop of the influences of God's Spirit would even make these very truths, which formerly you have known, have a new and better relish than formerly they had.

I fhall now proceed, in the fecond place, to you who have stepped out of childhood into youth, or into middle age, and shall endeavour to fix guilt upon you. Hitherto we have made it appear, that you are guilty: now we come to tell you, and to condefcend on fome particulars whereof you are guilty. We told you, nay proved, that you were defiled: now, we fall, as it were, point to the very spot. We have made it appear that ye have finned: now we fhall take you to the places, as it were where ye have finned, that ye may get no way of shifting the challenge. And becaufe now we find you in the house of God, we thall,

1. Examine you a little in reference to your conduct there. You have frequently come here; you have frequently prefented yourfelves before God as his people; but I fear, if your carriage in this matter be narrowly fcanned, you fall be found finners before the Lord in reference to this. I fall, in the name of that God in whofe courts ye tread, put three questions to your confciences. (1) What brings you ordinarily here? Come ye to facrifice to the world's idol, custom, because they are ill-looked upon who stay away? or come ye to stop

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the mouth of a natural confcience, that would give you ́ no rest if ye staid away? or come ye to fee and be seen ? or to gratify curiofity merely? I fear these be the defigns on which not a few of you come; and if so, then you are found guilty before God, who requires you to come upon other designs, even to wait on him, that ye may fee his power and glory in the fanctuary, as his people have feen him heretofore. (2.) What do ye here, when ye are come! Do ye hear the word of God merely as an idle tale? Do ye put truths by yourselves, and apply them to others? Do ye fuffer your minds to roam up and down upon the mountains of vanity, looking at this or the other thing or perfon? Do you obferve more the way of the truths being spoken, than the truth of God itself? Are you more intent in observing the inftrument than in ¦ listening to the voice of God? Let your confciences speak, and I am fure a great many of thefe evils ye will find yourfelves guilty of. (3.) I would pose you, as to the fruit of thefe approaches. What good get ye for your coming? Do ye get convictions, and shift them? Do ye get calls, and fit them? Do ye hear reproofs, and hate them? Do hear inftructions, and forget them? Who of you can clear yourselves of thefe fius? fins done in the very prefence of God, fins wherein his honour and glory is in a more than ordinary manner concerned, because they do extremely reflect upon it.

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2. We shall next follow you to your employments, and inquire a little what your carriage is there. I take it for granted, that all of you have fome honeft occupation or other. If there be any who have not, thefe perfons, as they fin in wanting, because thereby they idle away God's talents; fo they lie open to all fins. Now, fuch of you as have employments, I fhall defire you to answer me a few queftions in reference to your deportment in them. And, (1.) I would know if ye did confult God in the choice of them? Did ye make it your endeavour to understand what God was calling you to? God, either by giving a man fpecial endowments, a peculiar genius, with other congruous circumftances, or by hedging up the way to all other employments, or fomeone fuch providential way or other, calls every one to å particular employment; and therefore, when we engage in any, we fhould endeavour

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to understand God's mind in it, what it is our duty to do; for we are commanded, in all our ways to acknowledge God, Prov. iii. 6. "In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he fhall direct thy paths." Now, did ye in this step of your way acknowledge God, I mean in the choice of your employments? I fear, few dare fay that they bowed their knee to God to crave his direction. Well, then, here your iniquities have found you out. (2.) Do ye fet God before you in following your employments? Do ye make it your bufinefs to know how ye may glorify God in them? Whatever we do, we are obliged to do it to the glory of God. Let confcience now fpeak, and it will tell many of you, that to this very day, ye never had a thought of promoting the glory of God by your employments. So that here you are found guilty, not of fome one fin only, but of a tract of fin, and that even from the morning of your day continued till now. (3.) Do ye depend upon God for a bleffing upon the work of your hands? Who of you dare fay, that however ye do ufe means diligently, yet it is to God ye look for the blefling? And are ye earnest in dealing with God, that he may fucceed the works of your hands, and make you profper in them? (4.) To whom do ye attribute the fuccefs of them? When the Lord fucceeds the work of your hands, do ye heartily blefs God for it? Dare ye fay, that this leads you to praise the God of your mercies, and to walk humbly before him, who deals kindly even with the unthankful and finners, and has given a proof of this, in giving you fuccefs in thefe employments? (5.) When ye are fuccessful in them, what use make ye of your fuccefs? Does it engage you to the ways of God, and make you walk more humbly or are you lifted up, and forget yourselves, and forget the Lord? And do ye fpend upon the fervice of fin what the Lord has graciously given to you? Sure, if ye confcientiofly put these questions home to your own hearts, they will difcover very much fin. But,

3. We hall, in the next place, take a view of you in your converse in the world, and there fee whether we can find you guilty of fin or not. And with refpect to your converfe in the world, I would pose you upon a few things. And,

(1.) I put the question to you, What company do ye

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make choice of? Do ye chufe the company of them that fear God, or the company of irreligious perfons? I am fure, if many of you deal impartially with your own hearts in this matter, ye will find guilt. Your confciences can tell, that you have the greatest intimacy with perfons who have no religion, perfons who have no fear of God before their eyes; nor regarding what the wife man Jong ago obferved, that he that walks with the wife fhall be wife, but a companion of fools fhall be destroyed,” Prov. xiii. 20. And fuch are all irreligious men in God's account. I would not be understood to extend this too far, as fome, through a mistake dangerous enough, do, as if thereby we were forbid civil or neighbourly converfe with perfons that are not religious; for this is not only lawful, but a duty; we have not only fcripture-commands to this purpose, but the very law of nature obli. ges us to it; and we are fure, God did never by any pofitive precept enjoin us any thing contrary to this. Nay, upon the contrary, we fee plainly, that a walk according to the law of nature in this matter is highly congruous to religion. If fuch perfons do vifit us, we may visit them again, and carry it friendly. This is one part of that courteousness that the apostle Peter enjoins us, 1 Pet. iii. 8. Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compaffion one of another; love as brethren, be pitiful, be courte ous." And whereas the refufal of civil converse, in inquiring after one another's health, visiting at fome times, and the like ads of kindness, is looked upon by fome as a piece of ftri&tnefs, it is quite otherwife; for the very contrary is determined to be a piece of perfection, by our great Lord and Mafter, who is the best judge, Matth. v. 47, 48. And if ye falute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans fo? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." The plain meaning of which is this, A Christian fhould be a man every way beyond others, and fhould have fomething peculiar in the whole of his conduct; but if ye deal only civilly and neighbourly with thole of your own perfuafion, with thofe who in every thing do jump with you, wherein do ye go beyond the publicans and finners, the most fignally impious wretches that the world can fhew? Again, even thieves and rob

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bers will keep fome correfpondence and civility towards thofe of their own fort; but Chriftian perfection calls for more enlargement of foul, and requires that we carry obligingly to all, and perform, as occafion calls, all the duties of love, which comprehend certainly these of civil converfe and neighbourlinefs, as the apoftle puts beyond all queftion, 1 Cor. x. 27. "If any of them that believe not, bid you to a feast, and ye be disposed to go; whatfoever is fet before you, eat, afking no queftion for confcience fake." Thus we fee Chriftians are allowed to converfe civilly with thofe who are unbelievers. And indeed not to do fo, has a tendency to bring the way of God into contempt, and to make religion to be evil fpoken of, and is contrary to the very fpirit of the gospel, and to thefe many exprefs commands which we have, of adorning the gospel, and of converfing, fo as thereby we may leave a teftimony upon the confciences of men. Nay, it is to bear witnefs against God's goodness, and to rub fhame upon our religion, as if it did narrow our fouls, and make us defective in thofe duties which it obliges us to abound in. But though what we have faid doth condemn the unchristian rigidity of fome, yet it will not justify the unwarrantable choice of perfons who have no religion, for our intimates, or for our ordinary and daily companions. No; we are obliged to guard against this. If we do this, we are out of our duty, and therefore have no reason to promife to our felves God's protection. A perfon that walks, that ordinarily converfes with fuch men, has reason to fear that the Lord may leave him to become like to them; and this intimacy, I fear, is what most of you are guilty of.

(2.) I would ask you, What company do ye delight moft in ? This is a great indication of the frame of the heart. A man that takes moft pleasure in the company of irreligious perfons, furely fins in it. Some, when they are in the company of the godly, carry it as if they thought themselves in fetters; and whenever they get out of it, to their own companions again, their minds are at eafe, and they find fatisfaction; as a man doth that is loofed out of the stocks. Are there none here whofe confciences can tell them that they are of this number? Let fuch look

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