for any man to think that he is a good scholar, merely because he hath chosen a good master or tutor, without any further learning of him. When Christ sent out his apostles, it was for these two works:-first to disciple nations and baptize them; and then to go on in teaching them to observe all things whatsoever he commandeth them. Christ is the way to the Father; but to what purpose did you come into this way, if you meant not to travel on in it?

(2.) Moreover, when you became Christians, you entered into a solemn covenant with Christ, and bound yourselves, by a vow, to be faithful to him to the death; and this vow is upon you. It is better not to vow, than to vow and not perform. In taking him to be the Captain of your salvation, and listing yourselves under him, and taking this oath of fidelity to him, you did engage yourselves to fight as faithful soldiers, under his conduct and command, to your lives' end. And as it is a foolish soldier that thinks that he hath no more to do but list himself and take colours, and need not fight; so it is a foolish and ungodly covenanter that thinks he hath nothing to do but to promise, and may be excused from performance, because that promising was enough; when the promise was purposely to bind him to perform.

(3.) Moreover, when you became Christians, you put yourselves under the laws of Christ: and these laws require you to go further, till you are confirmed; so that you must go on, or renounce your obedience to Christ.

(4.) Lastly, when you became Christians, you received such exceeding mercies, as do oblige you to go much higher in your affections, and much further in your obedience to God. A man that is newly snatched as from the jaws of hell, and hath received the free forgiveness of his sins, and is put into such a state of blessedness as we are, must needs feel abundance of obligations upon him to proceed to stronger resolutions and affections, and not to stop in those low beginnings. So that if you lay these four things together, you will perceive that the very purpose of your receiving Christ was that you might walk in him, and be confirmed and built up.

2. Besides, your conversion is not sound, if you are not heartily desirous to increase. Grace is not true, if there be not a desire after more; yea, if you desire not perfection itself. An infant is not born to continue an infant, for that were to be a monster; but to grow up unto manhood. As the kingdom of Christ in the word is likened by him to a little leaven, and to a grain of mustard-seed in the beginning, which afterward makes a wonderful increase; so his kingdom in the soul is of the same nature too. If you are contented with that measure of holiness that you have, you have none at all, but a shadow and conceit of it. Let those men think of this that stint themselves in holiness, and plead for a moderation in it, as if it were intemperance or folly to love God, or fear him, or seek him, or obey him, any more than they do; or as if we were in danger of excess in these.

If ever these men had feelingly, and by experience, known what holiness is, they would never have been possessed with such conceits as these.

3. Consider what abundance of labour hath been lost, and what hopes have been frustrated, for want of proceeding to a rooted confirmation. I say not that such were truly sanctified; but I say they were in a very hopeful way, and went far, and by going further, might have attained to salvation. The heart of many a minister hath been glad to see their hearers humbled, and bewailing sin, and changing their minds and lives, and becoming forward professors of godliness; when a few years' time hath turned all this joy into sorrow: and one of our hopeful seeming converts doth grow cold, and lose his former forwardness; another falls to desperate sensuality, and turns drunkard, or fornicator, or gamester; another turns worldling, and drowneth all his seeming zeal in the love of riches and the cares of this life; and another (if not many to one) is deluded by some deceiver, and infected with some deadly errors, and casts off duty, and sets himself, like a hired instrument of hell, to divide the church, oppose the gospel, and reproach and slander, and rail at the ministers and professors of it, and to weaken the hands of the builders, and strengthen the ungodly, and serve the secret enemies of the truth. Those that once comforted our hearts in the hopes of their conversion, do break our hearts by their apostasy and subversion, and become greater hinderances to the work of Christ, and greater plagues to the church of God, than

those that never professed to be religious. Those that were wont to join with us in holy worship, and went up with us to the house of God as our companions, do afterwards despise both worshippers and worship. Whereas, if these men had been rooted and confirmed, you should never have seen them fall into this misery. O how many prayers, and confessions, and duties, do these men lose? How many years have some of them seemed to be religious, and after all have proved apostates; and the world, and the flesh, and pride, and error, swallow up all. See then what need you have to be rooted, confirmed, and built up in Christ.

4. Consider also, how much of the work of your salvation is yet to do when you are converted. You have happily begun, but you have not finished. You have hit off the right way, but you have your journey yet to go; you have chosen the best commander and fellow-soldiers; but you have many a battle yet to fight. If you are Christians indeed, you know yourselves that you have many a corruption to resist and conquer, and many a temptation yet to overcome, and many a necessary work to do. And there is a necessity of these afterworks as well as of the first. For these are the use and end of your conversion, that you may live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts.' For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God hath ordained that we should walk in them.' And how can infants Which of you would

go through all these works?

desire an infant or cripple to be your servant? But though God be in this more merciful than man, yet he may well expect that you should not be still infants. What work are you like to make him in this decrepit and weak condition! O pitiful blindness! that any man who knows that he hath a soul to save, should think an infant-strength proportionable to those works and difficulties that stand between him and everlasting life! In the matters of this life, you feel the need and worth of strength: you will not think an infant fit to plough or sow, or reap or mow, or travel or play the soldier; and yet will you rest satisfied with an infant-strength, to do those great and matchless works which your salvation lieth on?

5. Moreover, the weak unconfirmed souls are usually full of trouble, and live without that assurance of God's love, and that spiritual peace and comfort, which others do possess. One would think no other arguments should be necessary to make men weary of their spiritual weaknesses and diseases than the pain and trouble that always attend them. It is more pain to a sick man to travel a mile, than to a sound man to go ten. To the lame or feeble, every step hath pain, and all that they do is grievous to them; when far more recreation to one that is in health. delight not in your own languishings! to live in pain and sorrow, but strive mation and growth in grace; that, overgrowing your infirmities, you may overcome your sad complaints and groans, and may be acquainted with

would be a

O, therefore Choose not after confir