from above, and are become new creatures. And do you find this? It is not to be expected, you should be able to tell the very moment, when you ceased from your enmity against God, and became his friends, or give a punctual account of every turn or motion of thoughts in such a change: but it is to be supposed, the work was not done upon you in your sleep, so as that you could have no consciousness of what was doing. However, comparing what you sometimes were with what you are, what difference do you observe? What, were you sometimes haters of God, and are you now come to love and delight in him, without perceiving in yourselves any difference? Bethink yourselves, is not the temper of your spirits toward God just such as it was always wont to be, without any remarkable turn or alteration? That is a shrewd presumption against you, that your case is most deplorable.

2. What is your present temper, considered in itself? You love God and delight in him,how do you make it appear? wherein does that friendly and dutiful affection towards him evidence itself? Surely love and hatred are not one and the same with you. Whereby would you discern your hatred towards one, whom you most flatly and peremptorily disaffect? You would dislike the thoughts of him, hate his memory, cast him out of your thoughts. Do you not in the same way shew your disaffection to God? Do you not find, that a wicked man is branded and distinguished thus, "God is not in all his thoughts?" Are not they

a Ps. x. 4.

who shall be turned into hell, described thus, "The people that forget God;"a that is, who forget him willingly, or from the habitual inclination of their hearts? And is not that your case? What could hinder you to remember him, if you were so disposed?

"But, you say, you often forget your friends, or those at least to whom you are sure you bear no ill will; and what friend would expect to be always in your thoughts?" It is answered, you disrelish not the remembrance of a friend-do you not disrelish the thoughts of God? You say, you do not think on your absent friends, while no present occasion occurs to bring them to your remembrance. But is God absent? Is he far from any one of us? Have you not daily before your eyes, things enough to bring him to mind; while his glorious works surround you, and you live, move and have your being in him, and your breath is in his hand? Have you that dependence on any friend? Are you under so much obligation to any?" But you often do not think on friends, with whom you have no opportunity to converse,' Have you no opportunity to converse with Him? Your friends can lay no such law upon you, as to have them much in your thoughts. It argues a depraved inclination, not to do herein what you ought and are bound to do. You cannot, by the exercise of your thoughts, obtain the presence of a friend:-you might obtain a most comfortable Divine presence.

a Psalm ix. 17.

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And what though you think not of many to whom you bear no ill will, nor have any converse with many such ;-Is it enough to bear no ill will to God? Will that suffice you for delighting in him? Are you no more concerned to mind God and converse with him, than with the man you never knew? Your unconversableness with God, and unmindfulness of him, can proceed from nothing but ill will to Him,-who daily offers himself to your converse, who seeks and invites your acquaintance, who would have you inwardly know him, and lead your lives with him. Why is it that you do not so, but that you like not to retain him in your knowledge? This is the sense and language of your hearts towards him, "Depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of thy ways." It can proceed from nothing but ill will and a disagreeable temper, that you shun the converse of one that seeks yours, that you will take no notice of one that often offers himself to your view, one that meets you at every turn, and aims to draw your eye, yet cannot gain a look. When such is your deportment towards God, that he passes by you, and you perceive him not, that he compasses you about behind and before, and is acquainted with all your ways, and with him and his ways you will have no acquaintance, but remain alienated from the life of God, and as without him in the world, is not this downright enmity? Or can this deportment agree with that habitual and frequent actual delight in God, which is required?

Again, Would you not be justly taken to dis

affect one whose temper is ungrateful, whose disposition and way is unpleasing to you? Is it not thus with you towards God? When you hear of the purity and holiness of his nature, his abhorrence of all wickedness, and how detestable to him every thing is that is impure, and that he' will not endure it; do not your hearts regret this quality (as we must conceive of it) in the nature of God? Yet this, because it is his very nature, so much the more certainly infers, that a dislike of it cannot but include disaffection to himself, and that habitual and constant; since his whole way of dealing with men, and the course of his government over the world, do (and shall more discernibly) savour of it. Do you not wish him not to be, in this respect, what he is;—which is, in effect, to wish him not to be at all? And doth this import no enmity? Can this consist with delight in him?

Are you not disaffected to him, when, not being able to accuse him of falsehood, and having the greatest imaginable assurances of the impossibility that he should deceive, you will yet by no means be induced to trust? Consider, what doth your trust in God signify, more than the sound of the name? Doth it quiet your heart, in reference to any affairs which you pretend to commit to him? Doth it purify it, and check your ill inclinations, in any thing wherein they should be countermanded upon the credit of his word? What doth his testimony, concerning the future things you have not seen, weigh with you, to the altering of your course, and rendering it such as may com

port and square with the belief of such things? Would not the word of an ordinary man, premonishing you of any advantage or danger, which you have no other knowledge of, be of more value with you? Constant suspicion of any one without cause or pretence, most certainly argues rooted enmity. You love him not, whom you

cannot trust.

Do you love him, whom upon all occasions you most causelessly displease, whose offence you reckon nothing of? Is that ingenuous towards a friend, or dutiful towards a father or a Lord? How do you, in this, carry yourself towards the blessed God? Are you wont to displease yourselves, to please him; or cross your own will, to do his? Do you take delight in him, whom you make no difficulty to vex, whose known declared pleasure-though you confess him greater, wiser, and more righteous than yourself—you have no more regard to, when it crosses your own inclination, than you would have to that of your child, your slave, or a fool?

Have you any thing to except against that measure and character of loyal affection to your Redeemer and Lord, "If ye love me, keep my commandments;" "Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you;" "This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments?" Do you not disobey the known will of God in your ordinary practice, without regret? Do you not know it to be his will, that you strive to enter at the strait gate; that you seek first the kingdom of heaven; that you keep your heart with all

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