sion from God, so we have our mission by law and authority from men? If it be so, this is not zeal, but contumacy and per

verseness.

Or are they our own personal faults and miscarriages, the neglect of our ministry or the scandal of our lives, that make men to abhor the offerings of the Lord, and forsake his tabernacle? Indeed, I would much rather deplore, than excuse them. Yet, since this imputation cannot, without great wrong and injustice, be laid upon all, why is the defection from all? Why are godly, laborious, and conscientious ministers forsaken and despised, as well as the rest? But, suppose they were all as black, as aspersions and calumnies would render them: yet, certainly, they cannot be thought worse than the Scribes and Pharisees; who were not only vicious in their lives, but corrupt in many principal parts of their doctrine: yet, such was the authority and reverence of Moses's chair, that our Lord Christ himself, who was the great Teacher of the World, sends his own scholars to learn of them; only because they were the allowed and authorized instructors of the people: Mat. xxiii. 2, 3. The Scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. All therefore, whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not.

1

Or, finally, is it that the ordinances of Jesus Christ are, as they say, burdened with some observances, which they cannot so well digest and comply with? Not now to defend these things in particular, let me only say, That they nothing hinder the energy of the gospel, where it is attended on with an humble submiss soul, and tractable and docile affections. And what slight opinions soever the overweening fancies of the men of this generation may have taken up concerning our way of worship; yet, I am sure that many thousands of souls have been converted and saved, since our happy and blessed reformation from popery, by the ordinances of Jesus Christ, administered with all the same observances which are now so much vilified and condemned. And I pray God profaneness be not laid to the charge of a great many, who not only neglect, but deride and despise that worship, which God hath accepted and rewarded; and that way of administration, which he hath sanctified in the conversion, and sealed in the salvation of many blessed and glorious saints now in heaven.

Yet I do not think all those, who do as yet refrain from our public assemblies, merely out of the dissatisfaction of their consci

ences; who do desire and endeavour to be satisfied, and would willingly close with their duty, as soon as it is discovered to them, without sticking at the examples of others, or their own former contrary practice: I dare not, I say, think them guilty of profaneness; although, for the present, they may be very much misguided.

But, for others, that either absent themselves out of mere carelessness and a wretched neglect of the commands of Christ, or only out of humour and frowardness; and, because they have been of another way, therefore they will stiffly and pertinaci ously maintain it, and cast all the odium they can devise, and all the dirt they can rake together, though it be with lies and slanders, upon us; such, as search for all manner of arguments, not so much to satisfy their consciences, as merely to cavil against our worship; and, when they can neither condemn it by scripture nor reason, do it by bitter invectives, odious reflec tions, and a scoffing contempt, on purpose to make it both hateful and ridiculous to the people: such, I shall be bold in the Lord, to pronounce profane and irreligious wretches. And, whereas they cry out upon the profaneness of others, and make that a pretence why they separate and rend the body of Christ into schisms, they themselves are most profane: despising the holy ordinances of Jesus Christ, and thereby making themselves unworthy to be admitted to such holy mysteries; and worthy to be excluded, not only by their own voluntary obstinacy, but by a judicial censure.

So much for the Second Character of a Profane Person. [3] He is also a profane person, who neglects the perform ance of religious duties in private.

Every house ought to be a temple dedicated to God; and every master a priest, who should offer unto God the daily sacri fices of prayers and praises. But, alas, how many profane persons have we, and how many profane families, who scarce ever make mention of God, but in an oath; nor never call upon his name, but when they imprecate some curse upon others! How many, who wholly neglect the duty of prayer; and think they sufficiently discharge their trust, if they provide for the temporal subsistence of their families, though they utterly neglect the care of their souls, and their spiritual concernments! such profane families as these, God ranks with infidels and heathens, and devotes them to the same common destruction: Jer. x. 25.

Nor ought our family duties to be seldomer performed by us

than morning and evening. In the morning, prayer is the key, that opens unto us the treasury of God's mercies and blessings : in the evening, it is the key, that shuts us up under his protection and safeguard. God is the Great Lord of the Whole Family both in Heaven and Earth: other masters are but, under him, entrusted to see that those, who belong to their charge, perform their duties both to him and them. One of the greatest services, that we can do for God, is to pray unto him and praise him. And, how unjust and tyrannical is it for a master of a family to exact service to himself, when he takes no care to do service to his great Lord and Master, to whom it is infinitely more due!

Neither is there any excuse that can prevail to take off your obligation from this duty.

Not that thou art ignorant, and knowest not how to pray. For many are the helps, that God hath afforded thee. Do but bring breath and holy affections: others have already brought to thy hands words and expressions proper enough for the concerns of most families. And, besides, use and common practice will facilitate this duty; and, by an incessant conscientious performance of it, thou wilt, through the promised assistance of the Holy Ghost, be soon able to suit thy affections with pertinent expressions, and to present both in a becoming manner. unto the Throne of Grace.

Not the multiplicity and incumbrance of thine affairs. For, the more and the weightier they are, the more need hast thou to ask counsel and direction of God; and to beg his blessing upon thee in them: without which, thou wilt but labour in the fire, and weary thyself for very vanity.

Not thy bashfulness and modesty. For will it not be a far greater shame to thee, that those, whom thou governest, and perhaps overawest even by thy rash and unreasonable passions, should be able to overawe thee from so excellent and necessary a duty? Be ashamed to sin before them; be ashamed to talk loosely, to profane the name of God, to be intemperate, or unjust before them, to defile thy mouth and their ears with unclean and scurrilous discourses: be ashamed to neglect thy duty: but be not ashamed to pray; for our Saviour hath told us, Mark viii. 38, that whosoever shall be ashamed of him.....in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the Son of Man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father, with the holy angels. And, therefore, since there is no just reason, why thou shouldst

refrain prayer from the Almighty, whosoever thou art that doest so, be thy conversation in all other respects never so blameless, (which yet it is not very probable that it should be, when thou beggest not grace from God to direct it) thou art a profane person; and declarest thyself to be so, by the neglect of the most holy and spiritual of all those duties, wherein we are to draw nigh unto God.

[4] He is a profane person, that performs holy duties slightly and superficially.

All our duties ought to be warmed with zeal, winged with affection, and shot up to heaven from the whole bent of the soul. Our whole hearts must go into them; and the strength and vigour of our spirits must diffuse themselves into every part of them, to animate and quicken them. And therefore the Apostle commands us, Rom. xii. 11. to be fervent in spirit, serving the Lord. Sacrifices, which under the Jewish economy were the greatest part of God's solemn worship, were commanded to be offered up with fire: and no other fire could sanctify them, but that, which miraculously shot itself down from heaven, or from the presence of God in the sanctuary, which was ever after kept burning for that very use: Lev. ix. 24. vi. 9. So, truly, all our Christian Sacrifices, both of praise and of prayer, must be offered up unto God with fire; and that fire, which alone can sanctify them, must be darted down from heaven; the celestial flame of zeal and love, which comes down from heaven and hath a natural tendency to ascend thither again, and to carry up our hearts and souls upon its wings with it. But, indeed, commonly our duties are either,

1st. Offered up with strange unhallowed fire.

They are fired by some unruly passion of hatred, or self-love, or pride and vain glory. Like those choleric disciples, that presently would command fire to come down from heaven to consume those, who had affronted them by refusing to give them entertainment: only, that God, by such a severe miracle, might vindicate their reputation, and revenge the contumely that was done them.* But this is a fire kindled from beneath, and, therefore, our Saviour himself sharply checks their furious zeal: Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of: Luke ix. 55. And, certainly, whensoever we pray thus in the bitterness of our spirits, devoting our enemies to destruction, and

*Luke ix. 54.

that because they are ours, rather than God's; when we pour out a great deal of gall mingled with our petitions; such a prayer cannot be from the dove-like Spirit of God, which is meek and gentle, and makes those so who are led and inspired by him. Every party and persuasion of men is very ready, boldly to prescribe unto God those ways and methods, by which he ought to be glorified: and, if any shall but question their principles, or oppose their rash and unwarrantable proceedings, their touchy zeal is straight kindled; and nothing less than solemn prayers must be made, to devote such an one to ruin and destruction, as an enemy to God and to religion. Here is fire, indeed! but it is wild-fire, kindled from beneath the fuel of it is faction, popularity, pride, contention, and vain glory; and it sends forth a great deal of smoke from corrupt and inordinate passions.

2dly. If there be none of the former incentives to heat them, then our duties are commonly very cold and heartless.

Our Prayers are dull and yawning, and drop over our lips without any spirit or life in them: how often do we beg God to hear us, when we scarce hear ourselves! and to grant us an answer, when we scarce know what it is that we have asked! We make our requests so coldly and indifferently, as if we only begged a denial.

So, likewise, in our Hearing of the Word: we bring with us very slight and profane spirits to those holy and lively oracles. What else mean the vagrancy and wanderings of our thoughts; our lazy and unbeseeming postures, which would be counted rude and unmannerly to be used in the presence of some of those that are here with us, were they any where else but in the church? What means our weariness; our watching every sand that runs; our despising the simplicity of the Gospel; our prizing the sound of words more than the weight of things: but, especially, our indulged sloth and drowsiness? a sin, that I have observed too common in this place. What, cannot you watch with God one hour? Do we speak poppy and opium to you? Or do you expect that God will now reveal himself to you in dreams? Have ye not houses, have ye not beds to sleep in ; or do you despise the Church of Christ? Certainly, God requires our most wakeful and vigilant attention, when he delivers to us the most important things of his law and of our salvation. These, and many other things, which, to particularize, would perhaps be to descend below the majesty of this work, do too evidently