the voice of God? Let your confciences fpeak, and I am fure a great many of these evils ye will find yourselves guilty of. (3.) I would pofe you, as to the fruit of these approaches. What good get ye for your coming? Do ye get convictions, and fhift them? Do ye get calls, and fit them? Do ye hear reproofs, and hate them? Do ye hear inftructions, and forget them? Who of you can clear yourselves of thefe fins? Sins 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.

2. We fhall next follow you to your employments, and enquire 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 ly open to all fins. Now, fuch of you as have employments, I fhall defire you to answer me a few questions 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 special endowments, a peculiar genius, with other congruous circumstances, or by hedging up the way to all other employments, or fome one fuch provi dential way or other, calls every one to a particular employment. And therefore, when we engage in any, we should endeavour to understand God's mind in it, what it is our duty to do; for we are commanded, in all our ways, to acknowlege God. Prov. iii. 6. In all thy ways acknowlege him, and he fhall direct thy paths. Now, did ye, in this step of your way, acknowlege God, I mean, in

the

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 business 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 bleffing? 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 praife 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 fuccefsful 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 ye lifted up, and forget yourselves, and forget the Lord? And do ye ipend upon the fervice of fin what the Lord has gracioufly given to you? Sure, if ye confcientiously put thele queftions home to

your own hearts, they will difcover very much fin. But,

3. We fhall in the next place take a view of you in your converfe in the world, and there fee whether we can find you guilty of fin or not. And with respect 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 make choice of? Do ye choose the company of them, that fear God, or the company of ir religious 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; not regarding what the wife man long 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 obliges 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

as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous. And whereas the refufal of civil converfe, in enquiring after one another's health, vifiting at fome times, and the like acts of kindness, is looked upon by fome as a piece of strictness and perfection, it is quite otherwife; for the very contrary is determined to be a piece of a perfection, by our great Lord and Mafter, who is the beft 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 therefore perfect, even as your father which is in heaven is perfect. The plain meaning of which is this, A Chriftian 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 thefe of your own perfuafion, with these who in every thing do jump with you, wherein do ye go beyond the publicans and finners, the moft fignally impious wretches that the world can fhew again? Even thieves and robbers will keep fome correspondence and civility toward thefe of their own fort; but christian 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 thefe of civil converfe and neighbourlinefs, as the apoftle puts beyond all queftion, I Cor. x. 27. If any of them that believe not, bid you to a feast, and ye be dif pofed to go; whatsoever is fet before you, eat, afking no question for conscience fake. Thus we fee Chriftians are allowed to converfe civilly with thefe who are unbelievers. And indeed not to do fo, has a tendency to bring the way of God into con tempt, and to make religion to be evil fpoken of, and is contrary to the very fpirit of the gospel, and

these many exprefs commands which we have of adorning the gofpel, and of converfing, fo as thereby we may leave a teftimony upon the con fciences of men. Nay, it is to bear witness against God's goodness, and to rub fhame upon our religion, as if it did narrow our fouls, and make us defective in these duties which it obliges us to abound in. But though what we have faid doth condemn the unchriftian rigidity of fome, yet it will not juftify 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 reafon to promise to ourselves God's protection. A perfon that walks, that ordinarily converfes with fuch men, has reafon to fear that the Lord may leave him to become like to them: and this intimacy, I fear, is what most of you are guiltty of.

2. I would ask you, What company do ye delight most in? This is a great indication of

the frame of the heart. A man that takes most 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 when ever 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 ftocks. Are there none here whofe confciences can tell them that they are of this number? Let fuch look to the I Pfal. and ver. and there they will fee how far otherwife they ought to carry it.

3. I would further put the question to you,. What converfe do you delight in? Some, it may

be,