of, than wantons, or worldlings, or pot-companions have. It is better to be giving conscience an account, what business thou hast had so often in such company; and how thou wouldst have looked, if death had found thee there, than without leave from God or conscience, to go thither again.

The thriving way is neither to be still at home, nor still abroad; but to be at home when home-work is to be done; and to be abroad only for doing and for getting good, in a way of diligent, Christian trading; and to bring that home that is got abroad: But never to go abroad upon loitering, vain, expensive occasions. When you have done with conscience, converse with others that your business lieth with, and go abroad when it is for your Master's work: but go not upon idle errands: Converse not with prodigal wasters of your time, and enemies to your souls.

One time or other conscience will speak, and have a hearing: the sooner the better: put it not off to a time so unseasonable as death; I say not unseasonable for conscience to speak in; but unseasonable for it to begin to speak in; and unseasonable for those terrible words that need a calmer time for answer; and unseasonable for so many things and so great, as self-betrayers use to put off until then, which need a longer time for due consideration and despatch.

3. And I beseech you consider, with what amazing horror it must needs surprise you, to find on a sudden and unexpectedly when you die, that all is worse with you than you imagined or would believe! After a whole life of confident presumption, to be suddenly convinced by so dreadful an experience of your so long and wilful a mistake! To find in a moment, that you have flattered your souls, into so desperate a state of woe! To see and feel all the selfish cavils and reasonings confuted, in one hour, which the wisest and holiest men on earth could never beat you from before! O, sirs, you know not what a day, what a conviction, that will be! You know not what it is for a guilty soul to pass out of the body, and find itself in the plague of an unsanctified state, and hated of the holy God, that never would know it till it was too late. You know not what it is to be turned, by death, into the world of spirits, where all self-deceit is detected by experience; and all must undergo a righteous judgment; where blindness and self

love can no more persuade the miserable that they are happy; the unholy, that they are sanctified; the fleshly-minded men, that they are spiritual; the lovers of the world, that they are the lovers of God. Men cannot there believe what they list; nor take that for a truth which makes for their security, be it never so false: men cannot there believe that they are accepted of God, while they are in the bonds of their iniquity; or that their hearts are as good as the best, while their tongues and lives are opposite to goodness, or that they shall be saved as soon as the godly, though they be ungodly.

It is easy for a man to hear of waves, and gulfs, and shipwreck, that never saw the sea; and without any fear to hear of battles, that never saw the face of an enemy; and without any trouble to hear of sickness and tormenting pains, and burning, and cutting off of limbs, that never felt or saw such things. It is easy for you here in these seats, in the midst of health, and peace, and quietness, to hear of a departing soul, and where it shall appear, and what it shall there see, and how great a discovery death will make. But, O sirs, when this must be your case, (as you know it must be, alas, how speedily!) these matters will then seem considerable: they will be new and strange to those that have heard of them a hundred times, because they never heard of them sensibly till now.. One of those souls that have been here before you, and have passed that way into eternity, have other thoughts of these things than you have! O how do they think now, of the fearless slumber and stupidity of those that they have left behind! What think they now of those that wilfully fly the light, and flatter themselves in guilt and misery, and make light of all the joys and torments of the other world? Even as the damned rich man in Luke xvi, thought of his poor brethren, that remained in prosperity and presumption upon earth, and little thought what company he was in, what a sight he saw, and what he did endure!

Poor careless souls, you know not now what it is, for the ungodly to see that they are ungodly, by the irresistible light of another world; and for the unholy to feel in hell that they are unholy, and to be taught by flames and the wrath of the Almighty, what is the difference between the

sanctified and the carnal; between an obedient and a rebellious life. While you sit here you little know these things. You see them not: you feel them not: and the Lord grant you may never so know them by woful experience: that you may escape such a knowledge, is the end of all that I am saying to you: But that will not be, but by another kind of knowledge, even the knowledge of belief and serious consideration.

For your souls' sake therefore come into the light, and try yourselves, and huddle not over a work of such unspeakable consequence, as the searching of your hearts and judging of your spiritual state! O be glad to know what you are indeed! Put home the question, Am I sanctified or not? Am I in the Spirit or in the flesh?' Be glad of any help for the sure resolution of such doubts. Take not up with slight and venturous presumptions. It is your own case; your nearest and your greatest case; all lies upon it: who should be so willing of the plainest dealing, the speediest and the closest search as you? O be not surprised by an unexpected sight of an unrenewed, miserable soul at death! If it be so, see it now, while seeing it may do good: if it be not so, a faithful search can do you no harm, but comfort you by the discovery of your sincerity. Say not too late, 'I thought I had been born again of the Spirit, and had been in a state of grace: I thought I had been a child of God, and reconciled to him, and justified by faith!' O what a hearttearing word would it be to you, when time is past, to say, I thought it had been better with me!'

4. Consider also, that it is one of Satan's principal designs of your damnation, to keep you ignorant of yourselves. He knows if he can but make you believe, that you are regenerate when you are not, you will never seek to be regenerate: and that if he can make you think that you are godly, when you are ungodly, and have the Spirit of Christ, while you are servants to the flesh, he may defeat all the labours of your teachers, and let them call on you to be converted till their hearts ache, to no purpose, but leave you as you are: He knows how light you will sit by the physician, if he can but make you believe that you are well! and how little care you will take for a pardon, if you think that you need it not, or have one already. In vain we may call on you till

we are hoarse, to turn and become new creatures, and give up yourselves to Christ, if you think that you are good Christians, and are in the way to heaven already.

And when you know beforehand, that there lieth the principal game of the deceiver, and that it will be his chief contrivance, to keep you unacquainted with your sin and danger, till you are past recovery, one would think there should be no need to bid you to be diligent to know yourselves.

5. And I beseech you consider also, that without this design there is no likelihood that Satan could undo you: if he keep you not ignorant of yourselves, he is never likely to keep you in his power: you come out of his kingdom when you come out of darkness. He knoweth that if once you did but see how near you stand to the brink of hell, you would think it time to change your standing.

There is a double principle in nature, that would do something towards your repentance and recovery, if your eyes were opened to see where you are.

1. There is since the seduction and ruin of man, by Satan's temptations, an enmity put into the whole nature of man against the whole satanical, serpentine nature; so that this natural enmity would so much conduce to your deliverance, as that you would not be contented with your relation, if you knew that you are the drudges of the devil; nor would you be charmed into sin so easily, if you knew that it is he indeed that doth invite you; nor would you dance after his pipe, or take his bait, if you perceived indeed that it is his no language would be so taking with you, which you knew was uttered by his voice. It would do much to affright you from his service, if you knew that it is he indeed that setteth you on to work, and is gratified by it. He keepeth men in his bondage, by making them believe that they are free: he persuadeth men to obey him, by persuading them that it is God that they obey: and he draweth them to hell by making them believe that they are following Christ to heaven; or at least, that they are following the inclination of their nature in a pardonable infirmity.

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2. And the natural principle of self-love, would in order to self-preservation, do much to drive you from your sinful state, if you did but know what a state it is. There is no man so far hateth himself, as to be willing to be damned.

You cannot choose an habitation in hell; for such a place can never be desired. Surely he that cannot choose but to fly from an enemy, or a bear that did pursue him, or fly from fire, or water, or pestilence, when he perceives his danger, would fly from hell if he perceived his danger.

I beseech you all, that are secure in an unsanctified state, do but look inwards, and help me in preaching this doctrine to your hearts, and tell yourselves, whether you do think that your state is good, and that you are the children of God as well as others; and that though you are sinners, yet your sins are pardoned by the blood of Christ, and that you shall be saved if you die in the state that you are in? And are not these thoughts the reason why you venture to continue in your present state, and look not after so great a change as Scripture speaketh of as necessary?

And I pray you deal plainly with your hearts, and tell me, you careless sinners, young or old, that sit here as quietly as if all were well with you, If you did but know that you are at this hour unregenerate, and that without regeneration there is no salvation: if you did but know that you are yet carnal and unholy, and that "without holiness none shall see God:" if you did but know that you are yet in a state of enmity to God while you call him Father, and of enmity to Christ while you call him your Saviour, and of enmity to the Holy Spirit, while you call him your Sanctifier: if you did but know that your sins are unpardoned, and your souls unjustified, and that you are condemned already, and shall certainly be damned if you die as you are, Could you live quietly in such a state? Could you sleep, and eat and drink quietly, and follow your trades, and let time run on without repenting and returning unto God, if you knew that you are past hope, if death surprise you in this condition? For the Lord's sake, sirs, rouse up yourselves a little, and be serious in a business that concerneth you more than ten thousand natural lives; and tell me, or rather tell yourselves, If you did but know that while you sit here, you are unrenewed, and therefore under the curse of God, and in the bondage of the devil, and are hastening towards perdition, and are gone for ever, if you be not sanctified and made new creatures before you die: could you then put off this sermon with a sleepy, careless hearing, and go home and talk of common matters, and no more mind it, as you have done by