minded earthly things," instead of a conversation in heaven. (Phil. iii. 18, 19.) When God hath blessed us with the comfortable enjoyment of many ancient, holy Christians, who are the beauty and honour of the assemblies, and death calls home one of them after another to Christ, and the rest are ready to depart, alas! must a seed of serpents come after them? Must those take their places to our grief and shame, who are bred up to the world and flesh, in drunkenness, fornication, and enmity to God and to a holy life? O what a woful change is this!

If any be likely to be the stain and plague of the church, it is such as these: If we preach holy truth to them, lust cannot love it. If we tell them of God's word, the fleshly mind doth not savour it, nor can be subject to it. (Rom. viii. 5-7.) If we reprove them sharply, they smart and hate us. If we call them to confession and repentance, their pride and carnality cannot bear it. If we excommunicate them for impenitency, as Christ requireth, or but deny them the sacrament as unmeet, they rage against us as our fiercest enemies. If we neglect discipline, and admit swine to the communion of saints, we harden and deceive them, and flatter them in their sin, pollute the church, and endanger our souls by displeasing the Chief Pastor. What then shall we do with these self-murdering, ungodly men?

Many of them have so much reverence of a sacrament, or so little regard of it, that they never seek it, but keep away themselves. Perhaps they are afraid lest they eat and drink damnation to themselves, by the profanation of holy things. But do they think that it is safe to be out of the church and communion of saints, because it is dangerous to abuse it? Are infidels safe because false-hearted Christians perish? What! if breaking your vows and covenant be damnable, is it not so to be out of the holy covenant? What! if God be a consuming fire to those that draw near him in unrepented heinous sin, is it therefore wise or safe to avoid him? Neither those that come not to him, nor those that come in their hypocrisy and reigning sin, shall be saved.

And yet, what to do with these self-suspenders, we know not. Are they still members of the churches, or are they not? If they are, we are bound to call them to repentance for forsaking the communion of saints in Christ's commanded ord'nance. If they are not, we should make it

3

have taught him early how to live and may not be conseek and what to shun. You should b .erstand their case. ample of a holy and heavenly mind; but for dwelling in have watched over him for his s structed him for his salvation. despise God's word, to set li heaven, to hate instruction day in idleness or world'

nd sermons, they must t discipline should exashis is that discipline which of episcopal dignity and remake the Church of England the

the prosperity of the he same men that would rage, were pleasure. What them; and they must either be adquickly teach hi ament in a life of fornication, drunkenness, profaneness, without any open confession,

young to feed the fruit of lect of yo

are, as

VOW

WO

ence and reformation, or else must pass for church

hout any exercise of discipline, while they shun the tental communion of the church. Such work

ckedness

make among us!

Indeed these are the men that are the trouble of faeighbours, and of good magistrates, the shame of and the great danger of the land. All the foreign zies against whom we talk so much, and whom we fear,

are not so hurtful and dangerous to us as these,-these that

spring

out of your own bowels; these that are bred up with care, and tenderness, and cost in your houses; these that should succeed godly ancestors in wisdom and well-doing, and be their glory. Who plot against us but homebred sinners? Who shew greater hatred to the good, and persecute them more? Who are more malignant enemies of godliness, scorners of a holy life, hinderers of the word of God, and patrons of profaneness, and of ministers and people that are of the same mind? If England be undone, (as the Eastern churches, and many of the Western are undone,) it will be by your own carnal, ungodly posterity.

He that is once a slave to Satan and his fleshly lust, is ready, for preferment or reward, to be a slave to the lust of any other. He that is false to his God and Saviour, after his baptismal vows, is not likely to be true to his country or his king, if he have but the bait of a strong temptation: and he that will sell his soul, his God and heaven, for any forbidden gratifications of his appetite, will not stick to betray church or state, or his dearest friend, for provision to satisfy these lusts. Can you expect that he should love any man better than himself? A wicked, fleshly, worldly man is a soil in

which Satan may sow the seeds of any sort of actual sin, and is fuel dried or tinder for the sparks of hell to kindle in. Will he suffer much for God or his country, who will sell heaven for nothing? An evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit. If he hath the heart of an Achan, a Gehazi, an Ahithophel, no wonder if he hath their actions and their reward. If he be a thief and bear the bag, no wonder if Judas sell his master.

12. And these wretches, if they live, are likely to be a plague to their own posterity: woe to the woman that hath such a husband! And how are the children likely to be bred, that have such a father? Doth not God threaten punishment to the third and fourth generation of them that hate him, and to visit the iniquity of the fathers on the children? Were not the children of the old world drowned, and those of Sodom and Gomorrah burned, and Achan's stoned, and Dathan's and Abiram's swallowed up, and Gehazi's struck with leprosy, &c. for their fathers' sins? And were not the children of the Amalekites all destroyed, and the posterity of the infidel Jews forsaken, the curse coming on them and on their children? And as their children are likely to speed the worse for the sins of such parents, so are such parents likely to be requited by their children. As you shamed and grieved the hearts of your parents, so may your children do by you. And by that time, it is probable, if grace convert you not, though you have no hatred to your own sins, worldly interest may make you dislike those of your children. Their lust and appetite do not tempt and deceive you, as your own did. Perhaps when they shame your family, debauch themselves with drink and other crimes, and consume the estates for which you sold your souls, you may perceive that sin is an evil and destructive thing; especially when they proceed to despise and abuse your persons, to desire your death, and to be weary of you. Sooner or later you shall know much better what sin is.

CHAP. VI.

The joyful State and Blessing of good Children, to themselves and others.

FROM what is said in the second and fifth chapters, it is easy to gather how joyful a case to themselves, and what a blessing to parents and others, it is when children betimes are sober, wise, godly and obedient. The difference doth most appear when they arrive at mature age, and when they come to bring forth to themselves and others the fruits of their dispositions. Their end, and the life to come, will shew the greatest difference: but yet, even here, and that betimes, the difference is very great.

1. First, As to themselves: How blessed a state is it to be quickly delivered from the danger of damnation, and God's displeasure, that they need not lie down and rise in fear lest they be in hell whenever death removeth them from the body! Can one too soon be out of so dreadful a state? Can one who is in a house on fire, or who has fallen into the sea, make too much haste to be delivered? If a man deep in debt be restless till it be paid, and glad when it is discharged; if a man in danger of sickness, or of a condemning sentence from the judge, be glad when the fear of death is over; how glad should you be to be safe from the great danger of damnation? And till you are sanctified by grace, you are far from safety.

2. And if a man's sickness, pain or distraction be a calamity, the cure of which brings ease and joy; how much more ease and joy may it bring, to be cured of all the grievous maladies of reigning sin? Sanctification will cure your minds of spiritual blindness and madness, that is, of damnable ignorance, unbelief and error. It will cure your affections of idolatrous, distracting and carnal love; of the itch of fleshly desires or lusts, of the fever of revengeful passions, and malignant hatred to goodness and good men, of self-vexing envy and malice against others, of the greedy worm of covetousness, and the drunken desire of ambitious and imperious minds. It will cure your wills of their fleshly servitude and bias, and of that mortal backwardness to God and holy things, and that sluggish dulness and loathness to

choose and do what you are convinced must be done. It will make good things easy and pleasant to you; so that you will no more think you have need to beg mirth from the devil or to steal it from sin,-as if God, grace and glory had none for you. But it will be so easy to you to love and to find pleasure in the Bible and good books, in good company and good discourse, in spiritual meditations and thoughts, in holy sermons, prayers, and church-communion and sacraments, even in Christ, in God, and the forethoughts of heaven, that you will be sorry and ashamed to think that ever you forsook such joys for fleshly pleasure, and defiled your souls with filthy and forbidden things. Is not the feverish and dropsical thirst after drink, wealth and honour, better cured, than pleased to the sinner's death? And is not a lazy backwardness to duty, better cured by spiritual health, than pleased with idleness and sleep?

3. You certainly cannot too soon attain the delights of faith, hope and love, of holy knowledge and communion with God and saints. You cannot too soon have the great blessing of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost; and live night and day in peace of conscience,-in assurance that all your sins are pardoned, and that you are the adopted sons of God and heirs of heaven, sealed by his Spirit, accepted in your prayers, welcome to God through Christ, and that when you die you shall be with him. Can you make too great haste from the folly and filth of sin, and the danger of hell, into so safe and good a state as this?

4. It will be a great comfort to you thus to find, on arriving at age and the use of your reason, that your baptismal blessings ceased not with your infancy by your own rejection, but that you are now by your own consent in the bond of God's covenant, and have a right to all the blessings of it, which the sacrament of Christ's body and blood will confirm ; as you had your entrance by your parents' consent and accepted dedication: for the covenant of grace is our certain charter for grace and glory.

5. Is it not a joy to you to be the joy of your parents, and to find them love you not only as their children, but as God's? Love maketh it sweet to us to please, and to be beloved by those whom we love. If it be not your grief to grieve your parents, and your pleasure to please them, you love them not, but are void of natural affection.