wrath of malignant opposers of the preaching of Christ's gospel are nothing to me but when the world of spirits disappears, or my soul is clouded, and receiveth not the vital illuminating influences of heaven, I grow eold, first to myself, and then to others...

Come then, poor sinners, and help us, who are willing at any time to help you. As we first crave God's help, so we next crave yours: help us, for we cannot serve you against your wills, nor save you without your consent and help. God himself will not save you without you; and how shall we? We know that the devil is against us, and will do his utmost to hinder us; and so will all his ministers, by what names or titles soever dignified or distinguished. But all this is nothing, if you will but take our parts; I mean, if you will take Christ's part and your own, and will not be against yourselves. Men or devils cannot either help or hinder us in saving you, as you may do yourselves: if God and you be for us, who shall be against us?

And will you help us? Give over striving against God and conscience: give over fighting against Christ and his Spirit: take no more part with the world and flesh, which in your baptism you renounced: set your hearts to the message which we bring: allow it your manlike sober thought, search the scriptures, and see whether the things we speak be so or no. We offer you nothing but what we have resolvedly chosen ourselves, and that after the most serious deliberation we can make. We have many times looked round about us, to know what is the happiness of man; and had we found better for ourselves, we had offered better to you. If this world would have served our turns, it would have served yours also, and we would not have troubled you with that talk of another world; but it will not, I am sure it will not, serve your turns to make you happy, nor shall you long make that selfdeceiving shift with it as now ye do.

But if you will not think of these things, if you will not use the reason of men, alas! what can we do to save your souls? O pity them, Lord, that they may

pity themselves; have mercy on them, that they may have some mercy on themselves; help them, that they may help themselves and us. If you still refuse, will not your loss be more than ours? If we lose our labour, (which to ourselves we shall not,) if we lose our hopes of your salvation, what is this to your everlasting loss of salvation itself? And what are our sufferings for your sake, in comparison of your endless suffering?

But, O! this is it that breaketh our hearts, that we leave you under more guilt than we found you: and when we have laid out life and labour to save you, the impenitent souls must have their pains increased for refusing these calls; and that it will be part of your hell to think for ever, how madly you refused our counsel, and what pains, cost, and patience, were used to have saved you, and all in vain. It will be so, it must needs be so. Christ saith, it shall be easier for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for the rejecters of his gospel-calls. The nature of the thing, and the nature of justice, certainly inform you it must be so.

O turn not our complaints to God against you! turn us not from beseeching you to be reconciled to God, to tell him you will not be reconciled: force us not to say, that we earnestly invited you to the heavenly feast, and you would not come: force us not to bear this witness against you, "Lord, we could have borne all our labour and sufferings for them much easier, if they would but have yielded to thy grace. But it was they themselves that broke our hearts, that lost our labour, that made us to preach and intreat in vain; it was easier to preach without maintenance than without success. It was they that were worse to us than all the persecutors in the world. How oft would we have gathered them; but they would not, but are ungathered still?" How many holy, faithful ministers, have I known, these eleven years last past, who have lived in pining poverty and want, and hardly by charity got bread and clothing; and yet, if they could but have truly said, Lord, the sermons which I preach

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privately, and in danger, have won many souls to thee," it would have made their burden easy. But I tell the senseless and impenitent sinner, thou that de niedst God in thy heart, and that deniedst them thy conversion, which was the end of all their labours,' has dealt much more cruelly with them than they that denied the Levites bread.

Poor Sinners! I know that I am speaking all this to those that are dead in sin; but 'tis a death consisting with a natural life, which hath a capacity of spiritual life, or else I would no more speak to you than to a stone. And I know that you are blind to sin; but 'tis a blindness consisting with a reasonable faculty, which is capable of spiritual illumination; or else I would no more persuade you than I do a beast. And I know that you are in the fetters of your own lusts; your wills, your love, your hearts, are turned away from God, and strongly bewitched with the dreams and dalliances with the flesh and world: but your wills are not forced to this captivity. Surely these wills may be changed by God's grace, when you clearly see sufficient reason to change them; else I would as soon preach (were I capable) to devils and damned souls. Your case is not yet desperate; O make it not desperate. There is just the same hope of your salvation as there is of your conversion and perseve rance, and no more. Without it there is no hope, and with it you are safe, and have no cause to doubt and fear. Heaven may yet be yours, if you will. Nothing but your own wills, refusing Christ and a holy life, can keep you out. And shalt thou do it? Shalk hell be your own choice? And will you say, you will not be saved?

O think better what you do! God's terms are rea-) sonable, his words and ways are good and equal; Christ's yoke is easy, and his burden light; and his commands are not grievous to any, but so far as blindness and a bad and backward heart makes them so. You have no true reason to be unwilling; God and conscience shall one day tell you, and all the world, that you have no reason for it. You may as wisely pretend reason to

cut your throats, to torment yourselves, 'as plead reason against a true conversion unto God. Were I persuading you not to kill yourselves, I would make no question but you would be persuaded; and yet I must be hopeless, when I persuade you from everlasting misery, and not to prefer the world and flesh before your Saviour, and your God, and before a sure everlasting joy. God forbid!

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Reader, I take it for a great mercy of God, that before my head lies down in the dust, and I go to give up my account unto my Judge, I have this opportunity once more earnestly to bespeak thee for thy own salvation. I beg it of thee, as one that must shortly be called away, and speak to thee no more till we come unto our endless state, That thou wouldst but sometimes retire into thyself, and use the reason of a man, and look before thee whither thou art going; and look behind thee how thou hast lived, and what thou hast been doing in the world till now; and look within thee, what a case thy soul is in, and whether it be fit to enter upon eternity; and look above thee, what a heaven of glory thou dost neglect, and consider thou hast God to be thine everlasting Friend or Enemy, as thou chusest, and as thou livest, and thou art always in his sight; yea, and look below thee, and think where they are that die unconverted. And when thou hast soberly thought of all these things, then do as God and true Reason shall direct thee.-And is this an unreasonable request? I appeal to God, and to all wise men, and to thy own conscience, when it shall be awakened, if I speak against thee, or if all this be not for thy good: or if it be not true and sure, then regard not what I say: if I speak not that message which God hath commanded his ministers to speak, then let it be refused as contemptuously as thou wilt. But if I do but in Christ's name and stead beseech thee to be reconciled to God, 2 Cor. v. 20. refuse it at thy peril. And if God's beseeching thee shall not prevail against thy sloth, lust, thy appetite, against the desires of the flesh, against the dust and shadows of the world, re

-member it when with fruitless cries and horror thou art beseeching him too late.

I know, poor Sinner, that flesh is brutish, and lust and appetite have no reason: but I know thou hast reason thyself, which was given thee to over-rule them, and that he that will not be a man, cannot be a saint, nor a happy man. I know thou livest in a tempting and wicked world, where things and persons will be daily hindering thee; but I know that this is no mor to a man that by faith sees heaven and hell before him, than a grain of sand is to a kingdom, or a blast of wind to one that is flying for his life. O man! that thou didst but know the difference between that which the devil and sin will give thee, if thou wilt sell thy soul and heaven, and that which God hath promised and sworn to give thee, if thou wilt heartily give up thyself to him! I know thou mayest possibly fall into company (at least among some sots and drunkards) that will tell thee, "All this is but troublesome preciseness, and making more ado than needs." But I know withal what that man deserveth who will believe a fool before his Maker; (for he can be no better than a miserable fool, that will contradict and revile the word of God, even the word of grace that would save men's souls.)

And, alas, it is possible thou mayest hear some of the tribe of Levi (or rather of Cain) deriding this serious godliness, as mere hypocrisy, and fanaticism, and self-conceitedness; as if you must be no better than the devil's slaves, lest you be proud in thinking that you are better than they; that is, you must go with them to hell, lest in heaven ye be proud hypocrites, for thinking yourselves better than they,

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It may be they will tell you, that this talk of conversion is fitter for pagans and infidels to hear, than for Christians and Protestants, because such men's big look or coat may make the poison be the easier taken down: I will entreat thee but (as before God) to answer the following questions, or to get them answered, and then judge whether it be they or we that would