condemnation. The wisdom that is from above, is first pure, and then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy; and the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace." (Jam. iii. 1, 17, 18.) "Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you, let him show out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish,-for where envying and strife is, there is confusion, and every evil work." (Jam. iii. 13-16.) Look on those assemblies where the people, possessing the fear of God, are of one heart and mind, and walk together in love and holy order, and people give due honour and obedience to their faithful guides, and compare them with the congregations where professors are self-conceited, unruly, proud, and addicted to ostentation of themselves, and to divisions; and see which is likest to the primitive pattern, and in which it is that the power of godliness prospereth best, and the beauty of religion most appears, and Christians walk as Christians indeed. If pride had not brought the heavy judgment of infatuation or insensibility on many, the too clear discoveries of the fruits of divisions, in the numerous and sad experiences of this age, would have caused them to be abhorred as odious and destructive, by those that now think they do but transcend their lower brethren in holiness and zeal. "Now I beseech you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together, in the same mind, and in the same judgment." (1 Cor. i. 10.) "The God of patience and consolation grant you to be like-minded one toward another, according to Christ Jesus; that ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God." (Rom. xv. 5, 6.) "And I beseech you, brethren, to know them which labour among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you; and esteem them very highly in love for their works' sake, and be at peace among yourselves." (1 Thess. v. 12, 13.) And "mark them that cause divisions and offences, contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned, and avoid them." (Rom. xvi. 17.) And "if there be any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, fulfil ye our joy, that ye be like-minded, having the same love, being of one

accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vain-glory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things (his own gifts and graces), but every man also on the things (the graces and gifts) of others; let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus; who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but made himself of no reputation, (or emptied himself of all worldly glory.” (Phil. ii. 1-7.) As if he had had no form or comeliness, and no beauty to the eye, for which we should desire him; but was despised and rejected of men, and not esteemed. (Isa. liii. 2-4.) It is not-(as you imagine) your extraordinary knowledge, zeal, and holiness, that inclineth you to divisions, and to censuring of your brethren but it is pride and ignorance, and want of love. And if you grow to any ripeness in knowledge, humility, self-denial, and charity, you will bewail your dividing inclinations and courses, and reckon them among the greater and grievous of your sins, and cry out against them as much as your more charitable and experienced brethren do.

3. To the third sort (the papists) I shall say nothing here, because I cannot expect they should read it and consider it: and because we are so far disagreed in our principles, that we cannot treat with them on those rational terms as we may do with the rest of the inhabitants of the world, whether Christians, infidels, or heathens. As long as they build their faith and salvation on this supposition, that the eyes, and taste, and feeling of all the sound men in the world are deceived, in judging of bread and wine; and as long as they deny the certain experience of true believers, (telling us that we are void of charity and unjustified, because we are not of their church ;) and as long as they fly from the judgment and tradition of the ancient and present church, (unless their small part may be taken for the whole, or the major vote ;) and as long as they reject our appeal to the holy Scriptures; I know not well what we can say to them, which we can expect they should regard, any more than music is regarded by the deaf, or light by the blind, or argument by the distracted. If they had the moderation and charity impartially to peruse our writings, I durst confidently promise the recovery of multitudes of them, by the three writings which I have already published, and the more that others have said against them.

4. And for the fourth sort (the hiders and the quakers), I

have said enough to them already in my book against infidelity, and those against popery and quakers; but in vain to those that have sinned unto death.

5. It is the fifth sort, therefore, that I shall chiefly address my speech to, who, I fear, are not the smallest part. It is an astonishing consideration to men that are awake, to observe the unreasonableness and stupidity of the ignorant, careless, sensual part of men, how little they love or fear the God whom their tongues confess; how little they value, or mind, or seek the everlasting glory which they take on them to believe; how little they fear and shun those flames which must feed for ever on the impenitent and unholy; how little they care or labour for their immortal souls, as if they were of the religion of their beasts; how bitterly many of them hate the holy ways commanded by the Lord, while yet they pretend to be themselves his servants, and to take the Scriptures to be his word; how sottishly and contemptuously they neglect and slight the holiness, without which there is no salvation; (Heb. xii. 14;) how eagerly they desire and seek the pleasing of their flesh, and the matters of this transitory life, while they call them vanity and vexation; how madly they will fall out with their own salvation, and, from the errors and sins of hypocrites or others, will pick quarrels against the doctrine, and ordinances, and ways of God; as if other men's faults should be exceeded by you, while you pretend to loathe them. If it be a sin to crack our faith by some particular error, what is it to dash it all to pieces? If it be odious in your eyes to deny some particular ordinance of God, what is it to neglect or profane them all? If it be their sin that quarrel in the way to heaven, and walk not in company, as love requireth them, what is it in you to run towards hell, and turn your backs on the holy laws and ways of God? If it be so lamentable to the nation and themselves, that so many have fallen into schism and disorder, what is it, then, that so many are ungodly, sensual, and worldly, and have no true religion at all in sincerity, and life, and power? Ungodliness is all heresy transcendently in the lump, and that in practice. A man that is so foolish as to plead, that arsenic is better than bread, may yet live himself, if he do not take it; but so cannot he, that eateth it instead of bread. Heretics only in speculation may be saved, but practical heretics cannot. You think it heinous to deny with the mouth, that there is a God, who made us, and is our only Lord and happiness, (and

so it is ;) and is it not heinous, then, to deny him with the heart and life, and to deny him the love and obedience that is properly due to God? It is odious idolatry to bow to a creature as to God; and is it not odious to love, and honour, and obey a creature before him, and to seek it more eagerly, and mind it more seriously than God? If it be damnable infidelity to deny Christ to be the Redeemer, is it much less to turn away from him, and make light of him, and refuse his grace, while you seem to honour him? If it be damnable blasphemy to deny the Holy Ghost, what is it to resist and refuse him when he would sanctify you, and, perhaps, to make a scorn of holiness? If it be heresy to deny the holy catholic church, and the communion of saints, what is it to hate the holy members of the church, and to avoid, if not deride, the communion of saints? Be not deceived; God is not mocked; a mock religion and the name of Christianity will never save you. Do you know how near you are to judgment? and will you fearlessly thus heap up wrath, and lay in fuel for the everlasting flames? Do you know how speedily you shall wish, in the bitterness of your souls, that you had heard, and prayed, and laboured as for your lives, and redeemed your time, and obeyed your teachers? and yet will you now stand loitering, and quarrelling, and jesting and dallying in the matters of salvation? and will you live as if you had nothing but the world to mind, when you are even ready to step into the endless world? O sirs, do you know what you are doing? you are abusing the living God, and wronging the Lord Jesus, and trampling upon that mercy which would comfort you in your extremity, a drop of which you would be glad of: you are grieving your poor friends and teachers, and preparing for your endless grief. Alas! what should a faithful minister do for the saving of your souls? He seeth you befooled in your security, and carelessly passing on towards hell, and cannot help it: he sees you posting to your misery, where you will be out of the reach of all our exhortations, and where mercy will not follow you to be accepted or rejected and though he see you almost past remedy, he cannot help you. He knoweth not, when he speaks to you, whether ever he shall speak unto you more, and whether ever you shall have another call and offer; and, therefore, he would fain speak effectually if he could; but it is not in his power. He knows that the matter sticks all at your own wills; and that if he could but procure your own consent to the most reasonable and necessary business in the world, the

work were done, and you might escape the everlasting flames; and yet this is it that he cannot procure. Oh! wonderful, that any man should be damned; yea, that many men, and most men, should be damned, when they might be saved if they would, and will not. Yea, that no saying will serve to procure their consent, and make them willing. That we must look on our poor miserable neighbours in hell, and say, They might have been saved once, but would not: they had time and leave to turn to God, and to be holy and happy as well as others; but we could never prevail with them to consent, and know the day of their visitation.' Oh! what should we do for the saving of careless, senseless souls ? Must we let them go? Is there no remedy? Shall ministers study to meet with their necessities, and tell them, with all possible plainness and compassion, of the evil that is a little before them, and teach them how they may escape it? Why, this they do from day to day, and some will not hear them, but are tippling or idling, or making a jest of the preacher at home; and others are hearing with prejudice and contempt; and most are hardened into a senseless deadness; and all seems to them but an empty sound: and they are so used to hear of heaven and hell, that they make as light of them, as if there were no such states. Alas! that while millions are weeping and wailing in utter desperation for the neglecting of their day of grace, and turning away from him that called them; our poor hearers at the same time should wilfully follow them, when they are told from God what others suffer. Alas! that you should be sleepy and dead under those means that should waken you to prevent eternal death; and that ever you should make merry so near damnation, and be sporting yourselves with the same kind of sins, that others at the same hour are tormented for. And is such madness as this remediless in people that seem as wise as others for worldly things? Alas! for any thing that we can do, experience tells us, that with the most it is remediless. Could we remedy it, our poor people should not wilfully run from Christ, and lie in the flames of hell for ever could our persuasions and entreaties help it, they should not for ever be shut out of heaven, when it is offered to them as well as others. We bewail it from our hearts before the Lord, that we can entreat them no more earnestly, and beg not of them, as for our lives, to look before them, and hearken to the voice of grace, that they may be saved; and a thousand times, in secret, we call ourselves hard-hearted, unmerciful, and