Most are

in the choice of husbands and wives, few do enquire the mind of God? Now, I am fure, if ye deal impartially with your own hearts, ye will find that here ye have finned, and have not acknowleged God in your ways.. (2.) Do ye feek direction of God, how to carry in your relations? I fear the confciences of many of you can tell, that ye never are at pains to enquire in reference to the duties called for at your hands. quick fighted enough in obferving the advantages or difadvantages that redound to their temporal concerns by these relations, but have never a ferious thought of the duties called for at their hand; and therefore, herein ye may all in more or less find yourselves guilty. (3.) Do ye make it your aim to promote the spiritual advantage of your relations? Servants, do ye pray for your mafters? Masters, do ye pray for your fervants, that they may be acquainted with God's ways? If not, furely ye fin; for prayers are to be made for all, but in a special manner for those in whom we have fo peculiar concernment. Nay, we fear, which is yet more fad, that there are not a rew hufbands and wives, parents and children, who pray not for one another. How fad is it to think, that there fhould, in thefe relations, be fo much care for the outward man, and fo little for the inward? The parent, will toil himself night and day before the child want bread, and it may be fo will the child do for the parent; and yet, it may be, never one of them spent an hour in wrestling with God about one anothers eternal falvation. Are there no confciences here this day accufing any of fins in this matter? Sure I am, there are here who have ground fufficient for accufation.

5. We fhall follow you into your closets, and

there

there a little enquire what ye do. (1.) Whether take ye most time in the morning for adorning your fouls, or for adorning your bodies? I fear the foul gets the leaft part of your time: :nay, it may be, fome of you will go abroad to your employments, and never bow a knee to God. Sure, here is fin enough to fink you lower than the grave. (2.) If you do pray in fecret, what leads you to it? Is it confcience of duty? Is it custom, or fome fuch principle as this? I fear few can fay, that when they go to prayer, they do it from a fincere refpect to their duty; and therefore I fear, but few can juftify themfelves as to their defign in the duty. (3.) When you do pray, is it a burden to you? Are ye foon weary of it, and glad when it is over and by hand, as it were? I fear moft of your confciences can tell that it is indeed fo, that ye fay of the fervice of God, What a burden is it to you? (4.) Once more I would ask you, What good get ye by your prayers? Can ye ever fay, that you were heard? Can ye ever fay, ye received grace for enabling you to the confcientious discharge of any duty? Most part, I fear, can fay no more of their prayers, but that they prayed, or rather have faid words, without any fenfe, either of the advantage of doing so, or of the need they ftand in of the things they afk of God in prayer: doth not conscience tell that it is fo with many of you?

6. And lastly, I would come a little nearer for the difcovery of your finfulness. I have a queftion or two to put to you, in reference to your thoughts. And, (.) I afk you, What thoughts are most numerous? Whether spend ye maniest thoughts about your fouls, or about your bodies; about God or about the world; about other

things that contribute nothing to your happiness, or about that which tends to the eternal fecurity of your fouls? Here if ye look in, you will find crouds of fins. (2.) What thoughts take ye moft delight in? If thefe be carnal and earthly, then fuch is your mind; and to be carnally minded is death, Rom. viii. 6. (3.) What thoughts do ye allow yourselves in ? and to what fort of them do ye give way? If these be not fuch as make for the glory of God, then here ye are found guilty before God.

Now, we have done with you of a middle age; in what we have faid for your conviction, we have. rather mentioned fuch things as are unqueftionably finful, than endeavoured to reftrict ourselves: to thefe fins that are peculiarly incident to your age. This we have willingly fhunned, becaufe it would have obliged us to spend almost as many fermons, as there are different ways of life to which perfons of this age do betake themselves. Before I proceed to the third fort of perfons, I fhall put a few questions to you. (1.) Though ye had been guilty of no more fins, fave these which we charged not long ago upon children, would not these have been fufficient to have ruined you? (2.). What will then your cafe be, who have over and above all these which we have now laid to your charge, and referred to your own confciences for proof of what we have faid? (3.) When generals make you guilty of fo many fins, what will particulars do? When ye are found guilty fo many ways in your thoughts or words; for example, What will be your cafe, when you are brought to particulars? If ye may fin by fpeaking idly, by speaking ill of others, what will it amount to, when every particular idle word

fhall

fhall be charged upon you? (4.) If every fin deserves the wrath of God, what will be the cafe of thefe who fhall ftep into eternity, laden with all these innumerable evils? How many hells will their one hell have in it?

Think, and think seriously, upon these things, and I believe ye will find it hard to reft fatisfied, till ye understand how fuch vaft debts may be difcharged, and how ye shall answer when reproved for fo many, and fo great offences. Think on thefe things, I fay, and dwell upon the thoughts of them, till ye be made to fee your own mifery, and then the news of a faviour will be welcome.

I fhall now proceed, in the third place, to fpeak to you who are old men. Ye whofe faces speak your age, and tell that ye are quickly to be gone; we are now particularly to addrefs ourfelves to you, and to make good our charge of fin againft you, from inconteftable evidences and proofs. Give ear therefore, old men and old women; tho' you be posting off the ftage, and, it may be, are within a few removes of eternity, yet ye have not perhaps duly confidered your own ftate and condition: we must tell you in God's name, ye have finned and come short of his glory. And for proof of this,

1. We need go no further than your very faces. What has confumed your youthful beauty? What has turned that fimoothnefs which in the days of your youth was, it may be, your own delight, and that of others, into thefe many wrinkles which now every one fees, and ye may feel? has not fin, or God, upon the account of fin, done it? Thou haft filled me with wrinkles, fays Job, which is a witness against me, and my leanness rifing up in me, beareth witness to my face, Job

xvi. 8. If ye be not finners, tell me, I pray, whence are the unfteady hands, the dim eyes, the mouldred teeth, that paleness of the vifage, that approaches near to the colour of that mould into which a little hence ye are to be turned? Are not all these things proofs of your guilt, and witnesses against you?

2. Have not ye paft through childhood and youth? and have not ye the fins done in these ages to account for? What, how many, and how grievous they are, ye may in fome measure understand, from what has been difcourfed on this head fome days paft. Now, fure if your confciences have been awake all the while, you might understand your concernment in these things, and how deeply guilty ye are, though ye had no more to account for but thefe. It is accounted, by the fpirit of God, to be one of the great mifèries of the wicked, that they fhall ly down in their graves with their bones full of the fins of their youth. His bones are full of the fins of his youth, which fhall ly down with him in the duft, Job XX. 11. These, though there were no more, will rot your bones, gnaw your hearts, and make you lofe the repofe which many times ye propofe to yourselves in the grave.

3. Ye have had much time, and have, no doubt, loft much time. Many precious hours and days and years are spent and gone, and nothing, or nothing to purpofe, done in them. And for evincing this, I shall put a few questions to you about the improvement of your time. (1.) What have ye done for God in it? The great bufinefs ye came into the world for, the great design of your creation, was the advancement of the glory of God. The Lord hath made all things for himself,

and