Psalm 68, ver. 28, Strengthen, O God, that which

thou hast wrought in us. Pray that prayer which David prayed over that liberal frame of heart, which God had formed in his people, for the service of the temple: 0 Lord God of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, our fathers, keep this for ever in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of thy people, and prepare (or establish) their heart unto thee. Oh be earnest with God for stability of heart, that thy goodness may not be as a morning cloud, and as the early dew; but that it may, in some proportion, resemble the Author of it, and be the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.

In a word, by all these means and helps, and what other God hath sanctified for this gracious end, labor, christians, to be such out of your afflictions, as you promised God and yourselves to be when you were in; that the fruit of chastening may be repentance never to be repented of. Having in your troubles repented of your sins, take heed when you are delivered, that you repent not of your repentance.

III. I come now to the third duty. PRAY FOR THE AFFLICTED; and when you pray, say, Lord teach them, as well as correct them, that they may be blessed. O pray thus for England; she hath been a long time sorely chastised of the Lord, and yet hath been all this while like a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke. O pray, Turn us, Lord, and we shall be turned, thou art the Lord our God. Pray that God would

teach England in this day of her visitation the things of her peace, before they be hid from her eyes. O pray that we may be INSTRUCTED, lest God depart from us. If correction be not accompanied with instruction; if England be not at length reformed by all the judgments of God upon her, she hath seen her best days, and may expect to be made desolate, a land not inhabited; there is no balm for our pain, neither any physician that can heal our malady.

Pray thus for all your friends who are or have been in the furnace of affliction; pray that they may come forth as gold purified seven times in the fire, that they may lose nothing there but their rust and dross. One great use which christians should make of reading the scriptures is, to learn from thence the language of prayer. O that the professors of this age would in this particular, learn what to pray, and how to pray for their brethren in tribulation: O that they would censure less, and pray more, and instead of speaking one of another, speak more one to another, and one for another; that was the good old way-Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another: But now the tender, praying, healing, restoring Spirit is departed; and if christians stir not up themselves to call it back again, it is a sad presage that God is departing too; and woe unto us when God departeth from We judge before we enquire, and reject before we admonish: Our brethren upon vain surmises are to us as heathens and publicans, before we have been.

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to them as christians and fellow members: And this we think becometh us, and we take a kind of pride and contentment in it. But O to inform, to convince, to exhort, to pray, to put the bone that is out in joint again, this were to act like the disciples of Christ; to shew ourselves christians indeed, professors not of the letter, but of the spirit, and would gain our brethren instead of blasting them.

; 2. I am to address such as cannot evidence to their own souls that chastening hath been accompanied with divine teaching in any gospel proportion, or at least are not deeply sensible of the want of it; here is a word of exhortation for them, suffer it I beseech you -Roll yourselves in the dust before the Lord; smite upon your thigh; sigh with the breaking of your loins, and cry out with Ephraim, Thou hast chastised me and I was chastised, as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: I have felt the blows of God, but that is all; I have received no more instruction by all my correction than a brute beast; or if I had, I have quickly lost it; it is fled like a bird, from the birth, and from the womb, and from the conception: it is like the untimely fruit of a woman that never saw the sun. Truly thou hast cause to sit down, and even wish for thy affliction again; God had put himself into thy hands as it were, and thou hast let him go without the blessing, the blessing of saving instruction. How mayst thou even wish, O that I were in prison again, my sick bed again, in banishment again. However,

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humble thyself greatly before the Lord, and wrestle mightily for the AFTER TEACHINGS of God upon thy heart; pray, Turn me Lord, and I shall be turned, for thou art the Lord my God; what affliction hath not done, Lord do thou-turn me, and I SHALL BE turned; that so thy soul may yet speak to the praise of free grace: AFTER that I returned I repented, and AFTER that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh; I was ashamed, yea even confounded, because I did bear he reproach of my youth. Urge the Lord, as Sampson did after his victory, Thou hast given this great deliverance into the hand of thy servant, and shall I now die for thirst, and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised? Say unto him, "Lord, thou hast given thy servant this great deliverance from danger and death, and shall I now perish for want of teaching, and go down to hell among the uncircumcised? Teach me thy way, O Lord, I will walk in thy truth; unite my heart to fear thy name." In a word, desire the Lord that he would do all the work, and then take all the glory; say, "Lord teach me as well as deliver me, and I shall be blessed."

The fourth and last branch of exhortation is to PARENTS and GOVERNORS-To exhort them in the education of their children to imitate God, and that in two things.

1. AFFORD YOUR CHILDREN DUE CORRECTION. -It is the counsel of the Holy Ghost, CHASTEN thy son while there is hope, and let not thy soul spare for his

crying. Behold, God counselleth you that are parents, or instead of parents, to do with your children as he doth with his; wisely to use the discipline of the rod, before vicious dispositions grow into habits, and folly be so deeply rooted, that the rod of correction will not drive it out." Error and folly (saith one very well) be the knots of satan, wherewith he ties sinners to the stake to be burnt in hell;" and these knots are easiest cut betimes; or if you should make the child bleed in cutting of them, let it not cause you to withdraw your hand; for so it follows, Chasten thy son, and let not thy soul spare for his crying: it is not only foolish, but cruel pity to forbear correction for a few childish tears; to suffer the child to wail in hell for sin, rather than to shed a few tears for the preventing of it. Foolish fathers and mothers call this love, but the Father of spirits calls it hatred: He that spareth the rod, hateth his son. Surely there is nothing so ill spared, as that whereby the child is bettered, such sparing is hatred; and because you hate your children in not correcting them, they may come afterwards to hate you for not correcting them. But this is not all: the parent's lenity in this case makes way for God's severity: pity to the flesh is cruelty to the soul; so the Hebrew may be rendered, Spare not to his destruction, or to cause him to die; that is, to occasion his destruction. The foolish indulgence of the parent may be, and often is, the death of the child-eternal death. Parents spare their children in their folly to the destruction both of