no room at all for this pretence, unless it be for inferiors, or such as want an opportunity to speak to their superiors, or to strangers; or, unless it be when the thing would be unseasonable.

Nature hath made the tongue the index of the mind; especially to express the matters of most ur gency and concern. Do you keep silent on the matters which you most highly esteem; which you most often think of; which you take your life and happiness to consist in; and which you are most deeply affected with, and prefer before all other matters of the world? What a shameful pretence is it, for those that are dumb to prayer and holy conference, for want of any sense of their condition, or love to God, which should open their lips, to talk on them? Is it because their prudence directeth them to silence? When they hold not their tongues about those matters, which they must confess are ten thousand fold less regardable, they can discourse, unweariedly, about their wealth, their sport, their friend, their honour, because they love them: and, if a man should here tell them, that the heart is not to be opened or exercised by the tongue, they would think he knew not the natural use of heart or tongue : and yet, while they pretend to love God above all, they have neither skill nor will to make expression of it, you strike them dumb when you turn the stream of conference that way; and you may almost as well bid them speak in a strange language, as pray to God from the sense of their necessities, and yet they say, their hearts are good.

Let the word of God be judge, whether a holy, experienced heart should hide itself, and not appear

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in prayer and holy conference by the tongue. Pray continually." "Christ spake a parable to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not wax faint." "Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God."

And how they must pray, you may gather from 2 Chron. vi. 29. In case of dearth, pestilence, mildews, locusts, caterpillars, enemies, sicknesses, or sores, "Then what prayer or supplication soever shall be made of any man, or of all the people, when every one shall know his own sore, and his own grief, and shall spread forth his hands in this house, then hear thou from heaven," &c. I am not speaking of the prescribed prayers of the church, nor denying the lawfulness of such in private; but if you have no words but what you say by rote, and pray not from the knowledge of your own particular sore and grief, it is because you are too much unacquainted with yourselves, and strangers to those hearts, where the greatest of your sores and griefs are lodged.

And whether good hearts should be opened in holy conference (as well as prayer), you may easily determine from the command of God, "As every man hath received the gift, so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God." "Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers." "Exhort one another daily, while it is called to-day, lest any of you be hardened through

the deceitfulness of sin."

"The mouth of the

righteous speaketh wisdom, and his tongue talketh of judgment: the law of his God is in his heart,” &c. "Let my mouth be filled with thy praise and with thy honour all the day." "The mouth of a righteous man is a well of life.

The lips of And Christ himself

the righteous feed many." decideth it expressly, "Out of the abundance of

the heart the mouth speaketh. the good treasure of his heart, things."

A good man, out of bringeth forth good

For a man that hath no heart to prayer or holy conference, but loathes them, and had rather talk of fleshly pleasures, to pretend that yet his heart is good, and that God will excuse him for not expressing it; and that it is his prudence, and his freedom from hypocrisy, that maketh his tongue to be so much unacquainted with the goodness of his heart, this is but to play the hypocrite to prove that he is no hypocrite, and to cover his ignorance in matters of his salvation, with the expression of his ignorance of the very nature and use of heart and tongue, and to cast by the laws of God, and his own duty, and cover this impiety with the name of prudence. If heart and tongue be not used for God, what do you either with a heart or tongue?

The case is plain, to men that can see that it is your strangeness to yourselves, that is the cause that you have little to say against yourselves, when you should confess your sins to God; and so little to say for yourselves, when you should beg his grace; and so little to say of yourselves, when you should open your hearts to those that can advise you but that

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you see not that this is the cause of your dumbness, who see so little of your own corruptions, is no wonder, while you are so strange at home. Had you but so much knowledge of yourselves as to see that it is the strangeness to yourselves that maketh you so prayerless and mute; and so much sense as to complain of your darkness, and be willing to come to the light, it were a sign that light is coming in to you, and that you are in a hopeful way of cure. But when you neither know yourselves, nor know that you do not know yourselves, your ignorance and pride are likely to cherish your presumption and impiety, till the light of grace, or the fire of hell, have taught you better to know yourselves.

2. And here you may understand the reason why people fearing God, are so apt to accuse and condemn themselves, and to be too much cast down; and why they that have cause of greatest joy, do sometimes walk more heavily than others. It is because they know more of their sinfulness, and take more notice of their inward corruptions and outward failings, than presumptuous sinners do of theirs. Because they know their faults and wants, they are cast down; but when they come further to see their interest in Christ and grace, they will be raised up again. Before they are converted, they usually presume, as being ignorant of their sin and misery: in the infancy of grace they know these, but yet languish for want of more knowledge of Christ and mercy. But he that knoweth fully both himself and Christ, both misery and mercy, is humbled and comforted, cast down and exalted. As a man that never saw the sea, is not afraid of it;

he that seeth

it but afar off, and thinks he shall never come near it, is not much afraid of it; he that is drowned in it, is worse than afraid; he that is tossed by the waves, and doubteth of ever coming safe to harbour, is the fearful person; he that is tossed, but hath good hopes of a safe arrival, hath fears that are abated or overcome with hope: but he that is safe landed is past his fears. The first is like him that never saw the misery of the ungodly; the second is like him that seeth it in general, but thinks it doth not belong to him; the third is like the damned, that are past remedy; the fourth is like the humbled, doubting Christian, that seeth the danger, but doth too much question or forget the helps; the fifth is like the Christian of a stronger faith, that sees the danger, but withal seeth his help and safety; the sixth is like the glorified saints, that are past the danger.

Though the doubting Christian know not his sincerity, and therefore knoweth not himself so well • as the strong believer doth, yet, in that he knoweth his sinfulness and unworthiness, he knoweth himself better than the presumptuous world.

CHAPTER VI.

Exhortations to the Ungodly.

ALL persons to whom I can address this exhórtation, are either godly or ungodly; in the state of sin, or in the state of grace. And both of them have need to study themselves.