Not guilty, before the great Judge of heaven and earth; but do upon the bended knees of my soul, bewail my sin, and implore His pardoning grace and mercy; crying mightily unto Him; "Deliver me from this bloodguiltiness, O my God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of Thy righteousness!."

Having laid ourselves at God's feet, let us not lie idly there, but arise, and for the future do the work of God with all faithfulness and industry; yea, let us make amends for our past negligence, by doubling our future diligence. And for our encouragement here, let us remember, that though many things are required of a Minister, yet the chief and most indispensable requisites, are these two; a passionate desire to save souls, and Ì an unwearied diligence in the pursuit of that noble design. The Minister that wants these two qualifications, will hardly pass the test, or gain the approbation of God, the great Judge and Trier; but where these are found, they will cover a multitude of other failings and defects. Let us therefore, reverend brethren, (and may I here conjure both you and myself, by the endeared love we bear to our own souls, and the precious souls committed to our charge, yea, by the blood of the Son of God, the price of both,) let us, I beseech you, from henceforth return to our several charges, zealously and industriously plying the great work and business that is before us. Let us think no pains too great to escape that μeilov κpipa, that "greater judgment," that otherwise attends us. Let us study hard, and read much, and pray often, and "preach in season and out of season," and catechise the youth, and take wise opportunities of instructing those, who being of riper years, may yet be as unripe in knowledge; and visit the sick, and according to our abilities relieve the poor; shewing to all our flock the example of a watchful, holy, humble conversation. And may a great blessing of God crown our labours! Let us go on, and the Lord prosper us.

I have done ad clerum, and have but a word more ad populum, "to the people."

My brethren, you may possibly think yourselves altogether unconcerned in this whole discourse. But if you do, you are

[Psalm li. 14.]

mistaken; all this nearly concerns even you. I shall only point to you wherein.

1. If the Pastoral office be so tremendous an undertaking, judge then, I pray you, of the sacrilegious boldness and impiety of those Uzzahs among the laity, that dare touch this ark, the Priest's charge and care. If we, my brethren, that have been trained up in the schools of the prophets, that have been educated with no small care and cost to this employment, that have spent a double apprenticeship of years in our studies, and most of us a great deal more: if we, I say, after all this, find reason to tremble at our insufficiency for such an undertaking, how horrible is the confidence, or rather impudence, of those mechanics, that have leaped from the shopboard or plough into the pulpit, and thus per saltum, by a prodigious leap, commenced teachers! What shall we say to these mountebanks in the Church, these empirics in theology? I only say this; I can never sufficiently admire, either their boldness in venturing to be teachers, or the childish folly and simplicity of those that give themselves up to be their disciples. It is a miracle that any such person should dare to preach; or if he do, that any man in his right wits should vouchsafe to hear him.

2. This discourse concerning the difficulty and hazard of the Priestly office, shews sufficiently all the people's danger. It is the danger your own souls are in, my brethren, if not carefully looked to, that is the great hazard of our office. O therefore, you do consider it, what need have you to look to your

if

selves!

3. Lastly, If our work and office be attended with this difficulty, sure it is your duty to pity us, to pray for us, to encourage us by all possible ways and means to the vigorous performance of it; at least not to add to our load, or discourage us, either by your wayward factiousness, or stubborn profaneness, or sacrilegious injustice: if you do, sad will be your

account.

Remember, therefore, the advice of the Apostle, "Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give an account, that they may do this" (i. e. attend on this work of watching

Heb. xiii. 17.

over your souls) "with joy, and not with grief." Grotius's paraphrase is here most genuine; "Sweeten and allay the irksome labour of your teachers, by performing to them all offices of respect and love, that they may with alacrity, and not with grief, discharge that function, which is of itself a sufficient burden, without any addition of sorrow from youi."

Now to God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, be ascribed all honour and glory, adoration and worship, both now and for ever.

Amen.

8 Ινα μετὰ χαρᾶς τοῦτο ποιῶσι, καὶ potius quam dolore fungantur munere μὴ στενάζοντες. satis gravi, etiamsi a vobis nihil triste accedat.

h Mulcete eum laborem omnibus ob

sequiis et officiis, ut cum alacritate

SERMON VII.

THE DIFFERENT DEGREES OF BLISS AND GLORY IN CHRIST'S HEAVENLY KINGDOM, ANSWER TO THE DIFFERENT DEGREES OF GRACE HERE BELOW. SEVERAL OBJECTIONS AGAINST THIS DOCTRINE ARE

ANSWERED.

2 PETER i. 11.

For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Ir is the great concern of every man, in the first place, to get the saving grace of God, and having gotten it, to proceed and increase in it; earnestly to reach after a principle of the Divine life within himself, and having attained it, to cherish and improve it; to endeavour of evil (as we are all naturally, and antecedently to the Divine grace) to become truly good, and then every day to grow better; first to be sincere disciples of the holy Jesus, and then to aspire, study, and labour hard, to become great proficients in His divine school. This latter duty, St. Peter earnestly and vehemently presseth on the converted Jews of the dispersion, to whom he writes, and in them upon all of us, in the verses preceding my text; where he exhorts them in the most emphatical expressions, to an holy covetousness after spiritual riches, and to accumulate and heap up heavenly treasures with as much greediness, as the men of this world do their gold and silver: to add one grace to another, and one degree of each grace upon another, and to abound in virtue and good works. For after he had a minded them of the great design of Christianity, which is to make men "partakers

a Ver. 4.

of the Divine nature," by rescuing them from "the corruption that is in the world through lust;" i. e. to convert men from their evil and wicked courses, and to bring them to a state of grace and regeneration; and charitably supposing this to be already done in them, he proceeds to shew them their farther duty", "And besides this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity. For if all these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." As if he had said, You have now, God be thanked, escaped the pollutions of the world, and are truly, I hope, converted to Christianity, and in Baptism have been regenerated by the Holy Ghost; (that he means by their being "made partakers of the Divine nature"). This, indeed, is a very great achievement, and an invaluable mercy of God, vouchsafed to you; yet, I beseech you, rest not here; but "besides this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue," &c. So that the sum of his discourse is to press them first to truth in grace, and then to growth in grace; to acquire the divine virtues reckoned up by him, and then to abound in them. And to persuade them to this abounding in grace and virtue, he useth a very powerful motive and argument in the words of my text: "for so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." As if he had said, If you thus abound in grace, you shall abound in glory; you shall not only come to heaven, or get just within the gate of that glorious region, (and yet happy is he that can arrive to be but "a doorkeeper in the house" of his heavenly Father,) but you shall have an "abundant entrance" into it; you shall go very far, and attain an higher pitch and degree of glory there. This is the plain and obvious sense of the words.

Not to spend time needlessly, or to trouble you with any farther preface, the text thus briefly explained and considered, with relation to the context, readily and of itself offers to us this proposition.

h Ver. 5-8.