as in a moment, and utterly consumed with terrors: as a dream when one awaketh, so, O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image." Though, while they lived, they blessed themselves, and were praised by men; yet, when they die, they carry nothing away; "their glory shall not descend after them; like sheep they are laid in the grave: death shall feed on them, and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; man in honour abideth not he is like the beasts that perish; this their way is their folly; yet their posterity approve their sayings." They shall find that God is not

afraid to lay the hand of justice on the stoutest of them, and will be as bold with silken, shining gallants, as with the poorest worms; and will spit in the face of that man's glory, who durst spit in the face of the glory of his Redeemer, and will trample upon the interest which is set up against the interest of Christ. The jovial world do now think that self-study is too melancholy a thing, and they choose to be distracted for fear of being melancholy; and will be mad, in Solomon's sense, that they may be wise and happy in their own: "The heart of fools is in the house of mirth, and the heart of the wise in the house of mourning." And yet there is most joy in the hearts of the wise, and least solid peace in the hearts of fools they know that conscience hath so much against them, that they dare not hear its accusations and its sentence: they dare not look into the hideous dungeon of their hearts, nor peruse the accounts of their bankrupt souls, nor read the history of their impious, unprofitable lives, lest they should be tormented before the time: they dare not live like

serious men, lest they should lose thereby the delights of brutes. O sinful men! against what light, both natural and supernatural, do they offend! They see how all things haste away; the names of their predecessors are left as a warning to them: every corpse that is carried to the grave, being dead, yet speaketh; and every bone that is thence cast up, doth rise as a witness against their luxury and lust: and yet they will have their wills and pleasure while they may, whatever it cost them; and they will set their houses on fire, that they might have one merry blaze, and warm them once before they die.

I shall give a few directions to those that would be well acquainted with themselves, and would comfortably converse at home.

Direct. 1. Let him not overvalue or mind the deceitful world, that would have fruitful converse with God and with himself. Trust not such a cheater as hath robbed so many thousands before us, especially when God and common experience call out to us to take heed. The study of riches, and reputation, and pleasures, agreeth not with this study of God, and of our hearts: and though the world will not make acquaintance with us, if we come not in their fashion, nor see us, if we stand not on the higher ground; yet it is much better to be unknown to others, than to ourselves. A retirement, therefore, must be made, from the inordinate pursuit of worldly things, and the charms of honours, riches, and delights and if some present loss does seem to follow, it is indeed no loss, which tendeth to gain. Methinks they that sincerely pray, "Lead us not into temptation," should not desire to have bolts and

bars between God and them, and to dwell where salvation is most hardly attained! Desire not to be planted in any such place, though it seem a paradise, where God is most unknown, and used as a stranger, and where saints are wonders, and examples of serious piety are most rare, and where a heavenly conversation is known but by reports, and reported of according to the malice of the servant, and represented but as fancy, hypocrisy, or faction: where sin most prospereth, and is in least disgrace; and where it is a greater shame to be a saint than to be a sinner; a serious Christian, than a seared, stupified sensualist. Bless you from that place where the weeds of vice are so rank, that no good plant can prosper near them: where gain is godliness; and impiety is necessary to acceptable observance; and a tender conscience, and the fear of God, are characters of one too surly and unpliable to be countenanced by men; where the tongue, that nature formed to be the index of the mind, is made the chief instrument to hide it; and men are so conscious of their own incredibility, that no one doth believe or trust another: where no words are heart-deep, but those that are spoken against Christ's cause and interest, or for their own; where a vile person is honoured, and those contemned that fear the Lord. Bless you from the place where truth is intolerable, and untruth cloaked with its name; where holiness is looked at as an owl or enemy, and yet hypocrisy must steal its honour from it; where he is a saint that is less wicked than infamous transgressors; and where Dives' life is blameless temperance; and where pride, idleness, fulness of bread, and filthy

fornication and lasciviousness, are the infirmities of pious and excellent persons; where great sins are small ones, and small ones are none; and where the greatest must have no reproof, and the physician is taken for the greatest enemy; where chaff is valued at the price of wheat, and yet the famine is of choice: where persons and things are measured by interest; and duty to God derided as folly, whenever it crosseth the wisdom of the world, and hated as some hurtful thing, when it crosseth fleshly men in their desires and where Dives' brethren are unwarned; and none are more secure and frolicsome, than those that to-morrow may be in hell. Old travellers are usually most addicted to end their days in solitude; learn to contemn the world at cheaper rates than they neither hope, nor wish to live an Alexander, and die a Socrates: a crowd or concourse, though the greatest, where there is the greatest tumult of affairs, and confluence of temptations, is not the safest place to die in; and I have most mind to live where I would die. Where men are Christians in name, and infidels in conversation, the sweetness of their Christian names will not preserve them or you from the danger of their unchristian lives. It was not the whole of Lot's deliverance to be saved from the flames of Sodom, but it was much of it to be freed from their malicious rage, and filthy grievous conversations: the best medicine against the plague is to keep far enough from the place that hath it. Desire not that condition, where all seem friends, but none are friends indeed; but they that seem to be your servants, are by flattery serving themselves by you where few persons or things are truly re

presented; but men are judged of by the descriptions of their enemies, and the lambs have the skins and names of wolves: and the best are odious when bold calumniators load them with odious accusations. In a word, desire not the place where the more men seek, the less they find, and the more they find, the less they have; and the more they have, the less they do enjoy: where the more are their provisions, the less are their supplies; the more their wealth, the more their want; the more their pleasure, the less their peace; the greater their mirth, the less their joy; the greater their confidence, the less their safety: where the great mistake about their happiness, their best interest, their end, doth make their lives a constant error, and death a doleful disappointment.

Direct. 2. Keep all clean and sound within, that there may be little of loathsomeness to disaffect you, or terror to frighten you from yourselves; it is afrightful thing to be much conversing with a guilty soul, and hearing the accusations of a conscience not cleansed by the blood of Christ: and it is an unpleasant thing to be searching in our wounds, and reading the history of a life of folly; especially of wilful sin, and of ungrateful neglect of offered grace. Make not such work for yourself, if you love it not. We make our beds ill, and then we are weary of them, because they are so hard: our comforts are more in our own hands than in any others the best friend or pastor cannot do so much to promote them, nor the greatest enemy so much to destroy them, as ourselves. If we will surfeit, and make ourselves sick, we must endure it. If