tist, who was a burning and a shining light; Burning for his own zeal, Shining for the direction of others; direction, as in example of life, so in precepts of doctrine. We should not be like dials on a wall, or watches in our pockets, to teach the eye; but like clocks and larums, to ring in the ear. Aaron must wear bells, as well as pomegranates: yea, louder than so, the Prophet's voice must be a trumpet, whose sound may be heard far off; Hos. viii. 1.

God will never thank us for keeping his counsel; he will thank us for divulging it: and that St. Paul knew well enough, when, in his Farewell to the Elders of Ephesus, he appealed to their consciences, that he had kept back nothing that was profitable unto them, but had declared unto them all the counsels of God; Acts xx. 20, 27. Our Saviour therefore bids us not, to run into corners, and whisper his messages; but to get us unto the house-top, and to make the highest roof and battlements our pulpit.

Woe, therefore, to those Sigalion-like statues, who, taking up a room in God's Church, sit there with their fingers upon their mouths; making a trade of either wilful or lazy silence; smothering in their breasts the sins and dangers of God's people!

It is a witty and good observation of Gregory, that the Prophet prays, Set a door before my lips; a door, not a wall: he would not have his tongue mured up for all occasions; but so locked, that it may be seasonably let loose and free, when the convenience or necessity of his own soul or others' require it. The neglect or restraint of which liberty shall lie heavy upon many a soul. Surely, the blood of all those souls, that have miscarried through their unfaithful silence, cries loud to heaven against them, and shall one day be required at their hands.

If I shall see a blind man walking towards some deep pit or deadly precipice, if I do not warn him of it and prevent his fall, I am not much less guilty of his death, than if I had thrust him down. It is a clear and familiar case, that of Ezekiel xxxiii. 7, 8. Son of man, I have set thee for a watchman to the house of Israel: therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them of it. When I say to the wicked, O wicked man, thou shalt surely die; If thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at thine hand. A sleeping centinel is the loss of a whole city. The forfeiture of his own life, is the least piece of the mischief he is guilty of. O therefore ye, that are the watchmen of the Lord, rouse up yourselves: and, as you desire to avoid so many vengeances as there are souls lost by your drowsiness and taciturnity, bestir your tongues, in giving warning to God's people of their spiritual dangers, as our Apostle doth here; I have told you, and now tell you again.

2. Thus much for the Warning; now the FREQUENCE follows; I have told you often.

Not once, not seldom, had the Apostle told his Philippians of these inordinate walkers, but often. St. Paul feared not the slander of a tautology: rather, like a constant workman, he beats still upon the same anvil. There can never be too much warning of

that, whereof there can never be enough heed.

Nice ears are all

for variety of doctrines; as palates, of meats. Quousque eadem? "What still the same over and over?" is the note of both. How scornfully do these gluttons look at the often entrance of the same standing dishes! St. Paul hates to feed this wanton humour; and tells them this single diet is safe for them, and to himself not grievous: and therefore, not fearing their surfeit of so wholesome a service, he still sets before them the same mess; I have told you often, and now tell you again.

We tell over the same numbers in the counting of our coin; and are not weary of it: in our recreations, we spend the night after the day at the same game; and complain not of satiety: why should we, who profess ourselves spiritual, so soon nauseate at the iteration of good counsels?

Perhaps if we would seek Athens in our city, we should not lose our labour. There is an itch of the ear, which St. Paul foresaw would prove the disease of the latter times, that now is grown epidemical: an itch after news, even in God's Chair; new doctrines, new dresses.

And surely it must needs be confessed, that, of latter years, there was much fault in this kind. Too many pulpits were full of curious affectation of new quirks of wit, new crotchets of conceit, strange mixtures of opinions: insomuch as the old and plain forms were grown stale and despicable. Let me tell you, I still feared this itch would end in a smart. Certainly there cannot be a more certain argument of a decayed and sickly stomach, than the loathing of wholesome and solid food, and longing after fine quelques choses of new and artificial composition.

For us; away with this vain affectation in the matters of God. Surely, if ought under heaven go down better with us than the savoury viands of Christ and him crucified; of faith and repentance, and those plainly dressed, without all the lards and sauces of human devices; to say no worse, our souls are sick, and we feel it not.

O ye foolish Israelites, with whom too much frequence made the food of angels contemptible! If onions and garlic had grown as rifely in the Wilderness, and manna had rained down no where but in Egypt, how would ye have hated those rude and strong salads, and have run mad for those celestial delicates. The taste of manna was as of wafers made with honey; Exod. xvi. 31. Now what can be sweeter than honey? Yet says the Wise-man, the full despiseth a honeycomb. I doubt there are too many thus full; full of the world, full of wicked nature, of sinful corruptions; and then, no marvel if they despise this food of angels.

But, for us, my Brethren, Oh let us not be weary of our happiness; let not these dainties of heaven lose their worth for their store: every day, let us go forth of our tents and gather; and, while we are nourished, let us not be cloyed with good: else, God knows a remedy he knows how to make the Word precious to us; precious in the want, because it was not precious to us in the valuation. He, that hath told us, how precious peace is by the sense of a woeful

war, can soon shew us, how precious his word was by a spiritual famine; which God, for his mercy's sake, avert from us!

I might here have done with the Frequence: but let me add this one consideration more; That often inculcation of warning necessarily implies a danger. There is much danger, in a contagious conversation: evil is of a spreading nature: sin, as leaven, yea old lea ven, sours the whole lump where it lies; yea, it is a very plague, that infects the air round about it. If (as the entrances of sin are bashful) it begin with one angel, it infects legions: let it begin with one woman, it infects all the mass of mankind: one person infects a family; one family, a whole street; one street, a whole city; one city, a whole country; one country, a whole world: yea, it runs like powder in a train, and flies out suddenly on all sides.

Look about you, and see, whether you need any other witnesses, than your own eyes. Do ye not see daily, how Drunkenness doth in this participate of the nature of that liquor which causeth it, that it is not easily contained within its own bounds? The vice, as well as the humour, is diffusive of itself. How rarely have you ever seen a solitary drunkard! no; the very title, which is mis-given to this sin, is "Good Fellowship." Mark, if Oaths, where lewd men are met, do not fly about like squibs on a wheel, whereof one gives fire to another; and all do, as it were, counter-thunder to heaven: one bold swearer makes many, and the land mourns with the number. Look at the very Israelitish Stews: They assemble by troops into the harlots' houses; Jer. v. 7. And, for Heresies and Erroneous Opinions in Religion, the Apostle tells us it is a gangrene; 2 Tim. ii. 17. whose taint is both sudden and deadly: let it be but in the finger, if the joint be not cut off, or there be not an instant prevention, the whole arm is taken, and straight the heart. It is a pregnant comparison of the Father, That the infection of heresy is like the biting of a mad dog: you know the dog, when he is taken with this furious distemper, affects to bite every living thing in his way; and whatever he bites, he infects; and whomsoever he infects (without a present remedy) he kills, not without a spice of his own distemper. I would we had not too lamentable experience of this mischief every day: wherein we see one tainted with Popery; ano ther, with Socianism; another, with Antinomianism; another, with Familism; and all these run a madding after their own fancies, and affect nothing so much, as to draw others into the society of their errors and damnation.

Take heed to yourselves for God's sake, ye, that stand surest in the confidence of your settled judgment, grounded knowledge, honest morality. The pestilent influences of wicked society are not more mortal, than insensible. In vain shall ye plead the goodness of your heart, if ye be careless of the wickedness of your heels and elbows. St. Paul thought it a sentence worthy to borrow from a Heathen Poet, and to feof it in the Canon; Evil conversation corrupts good manners. As therefore Moses said in the case of Korah and his company, so let me say in the case of others' wickedness, whether it be in matter of judgment or practice; Depart, I

pray you, from the tents of these wicked men, and touch nothing of theirs, lest ye be consumed in all their sins; Num. xvi. 26.

It is worth your observing, that, in that great rebellion and dreadful judgment, the sons of Korah died not*. They had surely a dear interest in their father; yet their natural interest in a father could not feoff them in their father's sin: though they loved him in nature; yet they would not cleave to him in his rebellion: they forsook both his sin and his tents, and therefore are exempted from his judgment. If we love ourselves, let us follow them, in shunning any participation with the dearest of sinners, that we may also escape the partnership of their vengeance.

3. This for the Frequence, the PASSION follows, I tell you weeping.

And why weepest thou, O Blessed Apostle? What is it, that could wring tears from those eyes? Even the same, that fetched them from thy Saviour, more than once: the same, that fetched them from his type David; from the powerful prophet Elisha, 2 Kings viii. 11; in a word, from all eyes, that ever so much as pretended to holiness, grief for sin, and compassion of sinners.

Let others celebrate St. Peter's tears; I am for St. Paul's: both were precious; but these yet more: those were the tears of penitence; these, of charity: those, of a sinner; these, of an Apostle: those, for his own sins; these, for other men's.

How well doth it become him, who could be content to be Anathema for his brethren of the circumcision, to melt into tears for their spiritual uncircumcision! O blessed tears, the juice of a charitable sorrow, of a holy zeal, a gracious compassion!

Let no man say, that tears argue weakness: even the firmest marble weeps in a resolution of air: He, that shrinks not at the Bear, Lion, Goliath, Saul, ten thousand of the people that should beset him round about, yet can say, Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because they keep not thy law; Psalm cxix. 136.

What speak I of this, when the Omnipotent Son of God weeps over Jerusalem, and makes his tears the preface of his blood?

Nay rather, these tears argue strength of piety, and heavenly affections. To weep for fear, is childish; that is unbeseeming a man: and to weep for anger, is womanish and weak: to weep for mere grief, is human; for sin, Christian; but for true zeal and compassion, is saint-like and divine: every one of these drops is a pearl. Behold the precious liquor, which is reserved, as the dearest relique of heaven, in the bottles of the Almighty; every dram whereof is valued at an eternal weight of glory: even a cup of cold water shall once be rewarded; and, behold, every drop of this warm water is

In the only printed copy of this Sermon, which is in the Posthumous Collection of the Bishop's pieces, called "The Shaking of the Olive-Tree," reference is here made to 2 Chron. xxvi. 11; which has no relation to the subject. A comparison, however, of Exod. vi. 21. with 1 Chron. ix. 19. proves the truth of the Author's

remark. Editor.

more worth, than many cups of cold. Weep thus awhile, and laugh for ever: sow thus in tears, and be sure to reap in joy.

But woe is me! what shall I say to those men, that make themselves merry with nothing so much as sin; their own, or others; whether their act, or their memory? I remember, of old, the fool, that made the all-sport in the play, was called the Vice: and, surely, it is no otherwise still. Vice is it, that makes the mirth in this common theatre of the world. Were it not for quaffing, ribaldry, dalliance, scurrile profaneness, these men would be dull; and, as we say, dead on the nest. These things are the joy of their life; yea, these are all the life of their joy. O God, that Christians and Devils should meet in the same consort! that we should laugh at that, for which our Saviour wept and bled! that we should smile at that upon earth, whereat God frowns in heaven; and make that our delight, wherewith the Holy Spirit of God is grieved! Woe be to them, that thus laugh; for they shall weep, and wail, and gnash!

St. Paul weeps to tell of men's sins. Tears do well in the pulpit. As it is in the buckets of some pumps, that water must first be poured down into them, ere they can fetch up water in abundance; so must our tears be let down, to fetch up more from our hearers. The Chair of God can never be better fitted, than with a weeping Auditory. I remember holy Augustin, speaking of his own Sermons, saith, That when he saw the people did shew contentment and delight in their countenances, and seemed to give applauses to his preaching, he was not satisfied with his own pains; but when he saw them break forth into tears, then he rejoiced, as thinking his labours had sorted to their due effect.

I have heard some preachers, that have affected a pleasantness of discourse in their Sermons; and never think they have done well, but when they see their hearers smile at their expressions: but here, I have said of laughter, thou art mad; and of mirth, what doest thou? Surely jigs at a Funeral, and laughter at a Sermon, are things prodigiously unseasonable. It will be long, my Beloved, ere a merry preacher shall bring you to heaven. True repentance, which is our only way thither, is a sad and serious matter. It is through the valley of Baca, that we must pass to the mount of God.

The man, with the writer's inkhorn in Ezekiel, marks none in the forehead, but mourners. Oh, then, mourn for the abominations of Jerusalem, ye, that love the peace of it; and would be loth to see the ruin and desolation of it, and your own in it: weep with them that weep; yea, weep with them that should weep, as our Apostle doth here. That, which is said of the Israelites, that they drew water in Mizpeh, and poured it out before the Lord; 1 Sam. vii. 6. is, by some interpreters, taken of the plentiful water of their tears: which is so much the more likely, because it is joined with fasting and public humiliation. Oh, that we could put our eyes to this use, in these sad times, into which we are fallen! how soon would the heavens clear up, and bless us with the comfort of our long wished for peace!