before you come to receive the "feed of the word," according to Hofea x. 12. If you would have the fallow ground plowed up, you muft feek the Lord by fervent and heart-breaking prayer.

:

3. Bring hunger and thirft with you to God's banqueting houfe; bring a deep fense of foul wants and neceffities, and longing defires to meet with Chrift in the ordinances For he fills the hungry with good things, when the rich are fent away empty.". O for the hungry appetites of God's children, when we come to God's houfe! Say, "O that, like a new born child, may this day defire the fincere milk of the word for my nourishment! and, O that, like a true child of my heavenly Father, I may love that milk beft which comes warm from the breafts of public ordinances !"

I

IV. Search into thefe lufts and evils that hinder the fuccefs of ordinances; caft them out, and guard carefully against them. If you would have God this day to hear your prayers, and accept of your facrifices, you muft" regard no iniquity in your hearts," you must throw out all bofom lufts and idols. Chrift faith to you this day, as once he did to Judas in another cafe, John xviii. 8 "If therefore you seek me, let these go their way" Let your pride, worldlinefs, prejudice, &c. go away; for they bar Chrift out of the heart.

い

1. Throw out worldlinefs, and all thoughts about the world, that you may with your whole fouls this day attend upon God: Say to the cares of the world, as Abraham to his fervants, Gen. xxii. "Stay ye here till I go yonder to worship God." Suffer not a vain thought this day to take up its lodging in your heart, according to Jer. iv. 14. It is faid of Bernard, that, when he came to the church door, he would fay, Stay here, all my earthly thoughts." Nay, fay this alfo before you come from home. Worldly hearts will hinder you from getting good of the ordinances; they will make the church like the market-place to you, full of tumult and diftraction; they will make fuch a noife and buz. zing in your ears, that you cannot hear; or they will make you wander in time of hearing, as thofe, Ezek.

xxxiii. 31. Nay, they will make you weary of all Sabbath work, as thofe, Amos viii. 5.

2. Lay afide felf-conceit, or a good opinion of yourfelves, your duties and performances; count all these but "dung and lofs for the faving knowledge of Chrift." For, if you lean upon your prayers and preparations this day, as any piece of righteousness before God, this will mar your accefs to God this day, and make the ordinances prove dry breasts to you.

3. Throw out all prejudices against ministers, and against the laws of Chrift; and with meeknefs lay your ear and heart open to receive instruction, faying with Paul, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" and with Samuel," Speak, Lord, for thy fervant heareth."

4. Guard against doubtings concerning the truths of God, and mysteries of religion: Let us captivate and fubject reafon to faith, and deal with it, as Joshua did with the Gibeonites'; he made them "hewers of wood, and drawers of water, for the fervice of the temple :" So let us make reason fubject to faith, and ferviceable to religion; but nowife fet it up as a standard for examining its myfteries by, fince they are above its reach.

5. Beware of erroneous principles; for thefe will mar the good of ordinances to you; while there is an error in the foundation, you cannot be "built up in the moft holy faith." Chrift bids us "be wife as ferpents;" and ferpents (they fay) whatever injury is offered to them, their great care is to preferve their head. Let it be our great care, then, not only to preferve our hearts and hands from fin, but our heads from error; efpecially when there are so many falle teachers going abroad, feeking to "pervert the fimple, by fair words and false speeches."

6. Beware likewife of fchifm and divifion, and guard against those who are inftruments to divide and scatter Christ's sheep. Do not ftraggle from Christ's flock, but abide close by the place where the good Shepherd feeds his flock, and makes them to rest at noon," and do not "turn afide after the flocks of the companions," Cant. i. 7.

I refer

I refer the handling of the duties of masters of fami lies, as fuch, till afterwards: Only, it ought to be their care early to call their families together to pray with them, and praife God; and to cause them rife as early this day as others. Let not your fervants and children wafte away this morning in fleep and idleness, but call them up as early to God's work this day, as you do to your own upon other days.

How blame-worthy are these families, and especially the mafters thereof, who on week-days can rife betimes. to follow their worldly business, but on the Lord's day do ly longer in bed than ordinary, giving themselves to carnal eafe and reft? Is this to keep holy the Sabbath day, thus to fleep and loiter away the firft and chiefeft part thereof? Is this the way to accomplish the work of the Sabbath, to promote the glory of God, and carry on the work of your falvation? All of you have great work to do this day; therefore rife early to it, as the Ifraelites did to the befieging of Jericho: They had been encompassing the city fix days before; but we are told, Joshua vi. 15. That" on the feventh day, they rofe early about the dawning of the day, and compaffed the city feven times:" And fo that day they became mafters of the city. And, according to the best expo fitors, this feventh day, on which the walls of Jericho fell down, was the Sabbath. Now, O Chriftian, as the Ifraelites had the ftrong walls of Jericho, fo haft thou the strong holds of fin to batter down this day; thou haft these Canaanites to conquer, which would keep thee out of the promised land: Therefore imitate the Ifraelites, and rife early this morning to your work: The walls are thick, your enemies ftrong; if you would expect then to conquer on the Sabbath-day, and triumph against night, fee that you begin the fiege early.

And, if you would manage the work fuccessfully, you must fet about and carry it on conjunctly, as well as feparately; by family-prayer, as well as fecret-prayer: And fee that all in the family attend family-worfhip this morning. Likewife, as occafion offers, exhort your children and fervants to prepare themselves for

the

the public worship by the performance of fecret duties, particularly reading and prayer. When you are at meat this morning, fhew by your holy fpeeches, that your minds are not forgetful of the work of the day. Check playing and idle talking, both in children and fervants, and labour to engage them by your example, to shew a more grave and serious air in their countenances this morning, than upon other occafions.

Let as many of them as can be conveniently spared, accompany you to the public ordinances; and fuffer none of them to be abfent therefrom, except in cafes of neceffity. Remember the fourth command, "Thou, thy fon, thy daughter, thy man-fervant, and thy maidfervant, and all within thy gates." Let not the dressing of meat for you, keep fervants from the house of God this day; but fee that you be able to fay with Cornelius, (who feared the Lord with all his house) "We are all here prefent before God." Though children be young, yet bring them with you; for they are capable of getting good by the word fooner than we are aware. The fcripture takes several times notice of little ones in the folemn affemblies, Deut. xxix. 11. Ezra x. 1. Acts xxi. 5. If we lay our children by the pool-fide, who knows how early the Spirit of God may help them in, and heal them? Take your families alongit with you to the church; leave them not behind you, to come straggling to the church after worthip is begun; nor allow them to drop away before it be ended. This is very indecent and diforderly; you would not allow them to do so with refpect to your work. If you were going to the harvest field, you would not fuffer them to come or go when they pleased. No, you would oblige them all to be ready timeously to come forth together, and fall to their work at once, and tarry till they loofed from work together: And fhould you not be as much concerned for God's work, as for your own; for the bufinefs of eternity, as for the affairs of time?

Concerning

Concerning our going to the Church..

In the next place, let me give fome advices relating to your behaviour in going to the church, proper efpecially for you whofe houfes lie fomewhat remote from it.

Having dreffed your fouls, as well as may be, this morning, according to the forefaid directions, go forth, watching over your hearts and fenfes, having the lively impreffion of God's eyes upon you, and believing that he takes fpecial notice of all your thoughts, words, and actions this day.

If you walk in company with others, take heed to your words, that they be favoury and fuitable. O that people would guard against worldly difcourfe in their going to the church (which very much difcompofeth the heart for the public worship) and would talk of fpiritual fubjects, of the defign and work of the day, and encourage one another to it! How pleasant would this be! This was the ancient practice of God's people, Zech. vili. 21. and we fee how much David is taken with it, Pfal. cxxii. 1. "I was glad when they faid unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord;" q. d. It was the most pleafant found I heard all the week through, to hear people encouraging one another to affemble to God's public worship, in God's houfe, upon God's day. This to him was the most pleafant journey ever he went; he was not backward to it, he did not weary of it: nay, it was " the joy and life of his foul;" he was glad of it. How few among us are in this frame! Alas! instead of it, there are many in our day glad of any trifling excuse to stay them at home, or take them away from the afternoon's fermon.

If you live at fome distance from the church, and be tryfted with carnal company by the way, who favour nothing but the world; it is beft for thee to retire from them to thine own meditations, left thou be infected with their carnal and corupt communications: For even a Peter, when he is converfing and warming his hands with the enemies of Chrift, his heart turns ice cold and

3

frozen