ed, there, instead of one that had life, that could fpeak, walk, and do all the other things which ye can do; now, ye fee there is nothing but rotten bones, confumed ftinking flesh, which the dogs will fcarce come near, and filthy gore. Well, ye will in a little time be juft in that cafe your felves. Ye muft die. No doubt, ye have heard of fome of your companions, or fome other children who have died; and ye cannot tell but ye may die next. (2.) If ye do think of death, What do ye think will become of you, if these fins which ye have done, and of which I have now told you, be not forgiven? Then, without all doubt, you will go to hell. And, O can ye tell what a place hell is? It is a terrible place indeed. It may be, you would think it a terrible thing if any fhould put your finger in the hot fire: and indeed it would be fo. What then do ye think will be the pain which ye fhall fuffer when God will caft you foul and body into hell fire and this will furely be your portion, if ye get not grace. (3.) If once ye be caft into hell, do ye think ever to get out again? I affure you, God has faid ye fhalt not. Though ye weep till your hearts break, God will not hear you. Ye have done with mer cy if once ye die in your fins. God's eye will not fpare; his heart will not pity you. Therefore, if ye would escape hell, I fhall tell you, Secondly, What ye must do, by offering you two or three good counfels. (1.) Whenever ye go home this night, get into fome quiet corner or other, and there betake you to God in prayer. Say with the poor diftreffed publican, Lord, be. merciful to me a finner. Say, Lord, thou haft promised a new heart to finners like me; and I have need of it, for my heart is very bad: and fay, fay, Lord, give me Christ, fave me from my fins for Chrift's fake. Who knows but the Lord, who hears the lions and the ravens when they cry for food, may hear you? (2.) You that can read the Bible or the Catechifm, read them: but take care before ye read, that ye go and pray to God, that he may bless them to you, and make you underftand what you read (3.) Take care that you never lie, fwear, or break the fabbath, or commit again thefe fins which we were telling you of a little while ago.. (4.) Run out of the company of fuch as do lie, fwear, or break the fabbath: for God will deftroy them that keep company with fuch. A companion of fools shall be deftroyed, Prov. xiii. 20. (5.) Wait on them who will instruct you; and follow the good advices they give you. Walk with the wife, and ye shall be wife, Proy, xiii. 20. (6.) Be fure that ye pray to God fo foon as ye have got on your cloths in the morning, and before ye caft them off at night. Now, if ye will follow thefe advices, I will, Thirdly, Tell you fome things to encourage you in fo doing. (1.) God has made a promife, that they who begin foon to feek him shall come fpeed, I love them that love me, and they that feck me early fhall find me, Prov. viii. 17. (2.) God has a great liking to fuch as begin to feek him early. He commends them highly; and has left upon record the names of fome young converts; fuch as Abijah, in the house of a wicked Jeroboam, and good Jofiah, whofe early piety is much commended, 2 Chron. xxxiv. 3. In the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to feek after the God of his father David: And this is left upon record, for making others to begin early to feek God. (3.) Jefus Chrift in the days of of his flesh, was willing to entertain, with the most tender affection, little children that were brought unto him; and when his difciples would have. kept them away, he rebuked them, and then faid, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of fuch is the kingdom of heaven, and he took them up in his arms, and put his hands on them, and blessed them, Mark x. 14, 16. And I can affure you, he is no less kind now, than he was then: for he is the fame yesterday, to day, and for ever. Now, if he was fo kind to children that were brought to him, what will he be to these who themselves do come to him? O if ye knew how good he is, you would never be at reft till ye got notice where he is to be found; and then ye would go to him, and I dare promise you wel come. (4.) That I may have done with you, I tell you for your encouragement, that if ye will begin early, and feek God, ye shall be amongst these children of whom the kingdom of heaven is. God will bless you, and all his people will bless you; yea, all generations fhall call you bleffed, Thus far my love to your fouls has led me. I would fain have you faved: and therefore, I travail in birth till Christ be formed in you. O make glad my heart, make glad the heart of my great Mafter, make glad the heart of all the people of God; and rejoice your parents hearts, in complying with their wholfom counfels, which I am fure your parents will defire, if they be not worse than very beafts. In a word, feek God, and fave your fouls. Now, we have done with the first sort of perfons, with whom we undertook to deal. The tenderness of their capacity has obliged us to digrefs from our method which we did lay down in the the entry upon this ufe, and which, by the Lord's affiftance, we fhall clofely follow in what remains. It may be, fome of these who are come to age, may look upon this as tedious and unpleasant, which we have been upon, because there has been nothing here but what they, it may be, knew before; and what, it may be, they 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 never wear old to them who are ac+ quaint with the power of them; that children have fouls as well as they; that their fouls are no less precious than thofe of adult perfons; that we have the charge of the one as well as the other; that the Lord has fometimes been pleafed 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 Christ. In fine, we muft tell fuch, that we are particularly obliged, by our Lord's command formerly quoted, to encourage children to come to him, and therefore 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 fpirit, would even make these very truths which formerly you have known, have a new and better relish than formerly they had. : I shall now proceed, in the fecond place, to you who have ftept out of childhood into youth, or into middle age, and fhall 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. guilty. We told, nay proved, that you were defiled: now we fhall, as it were, point to the very fpot. 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 fhifting the challenge. And because now we find you in the houfe of God, we fhall, 1. Examine you a little in reference to your conduct there. You have frequently come here; you have frequently prefented yourselves before God as his people; but I fear, if your carriage in this matter be narrowly fcanned, you shall be found finners before the Lord in reference to this. I fhall, 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, cuftom, because they are ill looked upon who stay away? Or come ye to stop the mouth of a natural confcience, that would give you no rest if ye staid away? or come ye to fee and be feen? or to gratify curiosity merely? I fear these be the defigns on which not a few of you come: and if fo, then you are found guilty before God, who requires you to come upon other designs; even to wait upon him, that ye may fee his power and his 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 ye obferve more the way of the truth's being spoken, than the truth of God itself? Are you more intent in obferving the inftrument than in liftening to |