divisions of the church are from such unsettled weaklings as you. In all ages, almost, these have made the church 'more work than the heathen persecutors did with fire and sword. These novices, as Paul calleth them, that is, young beginners in religion, are they that most commonly are 'puffed up with pride, and fall into the condemnation of the devil.' These are they that are easiest deceived by seducers, as being not able to make good the truth, nor to confute the plausible reasonings of the adversaries and withal they have not that rooted love to the truth and ways of God, which should hold them fast; and they quickly yield, like cowardly soldiers that are able to make but small resistance. And as Paul speaks, they are 'like children tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.' If you will still continue children, what better can we expect of you, but thus to be tossed and carried about? Thus you gratify Satan and seducers when you little think of it; and thus you harden the ungodly in their way; and thus you grieve the hearts of the godly, and especially of the faithful guides of the flocks. Alas! that so many of the children of the church should become the scourges and troublers of the church, and should set their teeth so deep in the breasts that were drawn out for their nourishment! If you were never drawn to do any thing to the reproach of the church, yet what a grief must it be to us, to see so many of yourselves miscarry! 'Ah,' thinks a poor minister, 'what hopes

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had I once of these professors! and are they come to this?' O mark, Sirs, the Apostle's warning, (Heb. xiii. 9,) 'Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines.' And his way of prevention is, that the heart be established with grace.'

9. Consider, also, that it is a dishonour to Christ that so many of his family should be such weaklings, so mutable, and unsettled, and unprofitable as you are. I do not mean that it is any real dishonour to him: for if all the world should forsake him, they would dishonour themselves, and not him, with any competent judge; as it would dishonour the beholders more than the sun, if all the world should say that it is darkness. But you are guilty of dishonouring him in the eyes of the misguided world: O, what a reproach it is to godliness that so many professors should be so ignorant and imprudent; and so many so giddy and inconstant; and so many that manifest so little of the glory of their holy profession! All the enemies of Christ without the church, are not capable of dishonouring him so much as you that bear his name, and wear his livery. While your graces are weak, your corruptions will be strong: and all those corruptions will be the dishonour of your profession. Will it not break your hearts to hear the ungodly pointing at you as you pass by, to say, Yonder goes a covetous professor; or Yonder goes a proud, or a worldly, or a sensual, or a contentious professor? If you have any love to God, and sense of his dishonour, methinks such sayings should touch you at the heart. While you are weak and unconfirmed, you will, like

children, stumble at every stone, and catch many a fall, and yield to temptations which the stronger easily resist; and then you become a stumbling-block to others, since all your faults by foolish men will be charged on your religion. If you do but speak an ill word of another, or rail, or deceive, or overreach in bargaining, or fall into any scandalous opinions or practice, your religion must bear all the blame with the world. Ever since I can remember, it hath been one of the principal hinderances to men's conversion, and strengtheners of the wicked in their way, that the godly were accounted a sort of peevish, unpeaceable, covetous, proud, self-seeking persons; which was a slander as to the most, but too much occasioned by the scandalousness of some. And methinks you should be afraid of that woe from Christ-Woe be to him by whom offence cometh.' If you be children, you may have the woe of sharp castigations; and if you be hypocrites, you shall have the woe of everlasting sufferings. The world can judge no further than they see and when they see professors of holiness to be so like to common men, and in some things worse than many of them, what can you expect but that they should despise religion, and judge of it by the professors of it, and say, 'If this be their religion, let them keep it to themselves; we are as well without it as they are with it.' And thus will the holy ways of God be vilified through you. If you will not excel others in the beauty of your conversation, that in this glass the world may see the beauty of your religion, you must expect that they

should take it but for a common thing which bringeth forth but common fruits to their discerning. You should be such that God may boast of, and the church may boast of, to the face of the accuser: then would you be an honour to the church, when God may say of you as he did of Job, 'Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil?' If we could say so of you to men of the world-See what men the godly are, there is none such among you; men of holiness, wisdom, uprightness, sobriety, meekness, patience, peaceable and harmless, living wholly to God, as strangers on earth and citizens of heaven ;'-then you would be ornaments to your holy profession. Were you such Christians as the old Christians were, (Acts iv.) we might boast of you then to the reproaching adversaries.

10. Moreover, till you are confirmed and built up, you may too easily be made the instruments of Satan, to further his designs. The weakness of strength of your

your understandings, and the passions, and especially the interest that carnal self hath remaining in you, may lay you open to temptations, and engage you in many a cause of Satan, to take his part against the truth. And how sad a case is this to any that have felt the love of Christ! Have you been warmed with his wondrous love, and washed with his blood, and saved by his matchless mercy; and may it not even break your hearts, to think that, after all this, you should be drawn by Satan to wound your Lord, to

abuse his honour, to resist his cause, to hurt his church, and to confirm his enemies, and gratify the devil? I tell you, with shame and grief of heart, that abundance of weak, unsettled professors, who we hope have upright meanings in the main, have been more powerful instruments for Satan, to do his work for the hindering of the gospel, the vilifying of the ministry, the dividing of the church, and the hindering of reformation, than most of the notoriously profane have been. What excellent hopes had we once in England, of the flourishing of piety and happy union among the churches and servants of Christ? And who hath not only frustrated these hopes, but almost broken them all to pieces? Have any had more to do in it than weak, unstable professors of religiousness? What sad confusions are most parts of England in at this day, by reason of the breaking of churches into sects and shreds, and the contentions and reproaches of Christians against Christians, and the odious abuse of holy truth and ordinances! And who is it that doth this, so much as unstable professors of piety? What greater reproach almost could have befallen us, than for the adversary to stand by, and see Christians at variance, hating, and persecuting, and reproaching one another; and that our own hands should pull down the house of God, and tear in pieces the miserable churches, while men are striving who Ishall be the master of the reformation? O what a sport is this to the devil, when he can set his professed enemies by the ears, and make them fall upon one another!-when, if he have any notable