the public worship by the performance of fecret duties, particularly reading and prayer. When you are at meat this morning, thew 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 fhew 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 cases 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 houfe) "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 ftraggling to the church after worship is begun; not allow them to drop away before it be ended. This is very indecent and disorderly; you would not allow them to do fo 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 business of eternity, as for the affairs of time?

Concerning

Concerning our going to the Church. 5 10 mus

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 reinote 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 live ly 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 difcouffé in their going to the church (which very much difcompofeth the heart for the public worship) and would talk of fpi ritual 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. viii. 21 and we fee how much David is takeit with it, Pfal. cxxii. 1. "I was glad when they faid unto me, Let us go into the houfe of the Lord" q. d. It was the most pleasant 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 pleasant 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! inftead of it, there are many in our day glad of any trifling excufe to stay them at home, or take them away from the afternoon's fermon; ">2

If you live at some distance from the church, and be tryfed with carnal company by the way, who favour nothing but the world; it is belt for the 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

frozen

frozen to Chrift his Mafter, till a love-blink from the Sun of righteousness thawed it again.

If better meditations offer not to thee by the way, I fhall furnish thee with fome very fuitable from natural things, which are objects of your fenfes.

If it be in a winter morning thou goeft out, when the fun is but rifing, think, if one fun make fo bright a morning, what a thining morning will that be, when Chrift, with all his bright angels and faints, fhall break through the clouds, when there fhall be as many funs as we fee ftars in a winter's night? O! fhall I be one of those that" shall shine as the fun, in the kingdom of my Father?"

If it be in the fpring time, and when a pleasant rain is falling upon the grafs and corns, think, the Sabbath fhould be a grow-day for believers. This day God is as the "dew to Ifrael." O that my foul 66 may grow as the lily, and revive as the corn!" O that I may grow inward in fincerity, and outward in good works: downward in humility, and upward in heavenly mindedness! Let the doctrine of God's word this day drop on my foul, as "the fmall rain upon the tender herb, and as the fhowers upon the grafs," that I may wax taller in grace, and ftronger in faith and love. This day I fhould be "going from ftrength to strength," according to Pfal. lxxxiv. 7. As the bee is bufy in going from flower to flower, still gathering honey as the paffeth; fo fhould I this day go from duty to duty, from one ordinance to another, from praying to reading, from reading to hearing, from hearing to meditating, ftill gathering grace and strength as I go.

Dolt thou look to the heavens? Think I have my Saviour and my all there; there is the place of my everlafting abode. Sente tells me what the outside of it is; yet that spangled roof over my head is but the pavement of that glorious palace, where I fhall enjoy my eternal Sabbath, and my everlasting rest in Christ's bofom. my foul, yonder is Gothen, the region of light; yon twinkling itars, fhining moon, and flaming fun, are but as lanterns hanging out at my Father's noufe to light thee, while thou walkeft in the dark streets of the earth. VOL. IV. B b

Little

Little doft thou know the glory, mirth, and joy, that are within: O what are worldlings joys to them! Olet my affections and defires this day mount thither, that this may be one of the days of heaven to my foul!

Again, think, the Lord hath fpread out the "heaven as a curtain," Pfal, civ, 2. and, notwithstanding of its rapid motion, this curtain hath continued fpread near thefe fix thousand years, and not one hole is to be seen in it to this. d. y. Is not heaven then a fafe place for me to lay up ny treafure in, where none can break through and teal it from me? O that my portion and treasure may be there; that, where my treafure is, there my heart may be alfo!"

Deft thou fee the clouds? Think on the day when Chrift will rend and break through them; as he went up triumphing in a cloud to heaven, in like manner he fhall come again. Are the heavens of fuch bright and pure matter? Think on the purity of the inhabitants thereof. There is no room, no, not a foot-breadth, for impure perfons in the heavenly Jerufalem, where the gates are of pearl; no profane inner, no unclean thing thall enter there.

When thou walkeft on the ground, think, this whole earth is but my Father's footftool, that he hath given me to tread on: O how glorious then must his palace be ! yet it is mine in Chrift. Again, this earth "hangs upon nothing," Job xxvi. 27. O fhall I be fo foolish as to hang my hopes upon that which hangs on nothing? Again, wonder at God's power and faithfulnefs, that, notwithstanding it hangs as a ball in the air, and hath had many dr adful tempefts upon it, and terrible earthquakes within it, yet God hath kept it from moving out of its place for near thefe fix thousand years paft.

Doft thou tread upon the grafs? Think how God calls thee thereby to remember thy fading life and withering condition, every ftep thou makeft, ifa. xl. 6. "All flesh is grafs," and death is coming with his fcythe to mow down this grafs: And, though fome grais efcape the fcythe in fummer, when it is freth and green, yet the winter froft will wither it away; fo, though you efcape. the fcythe of death in the fummer of your youth, yet the winter of old age will come and wither you.

Doft

Doft thou pass over a little brook or rivulet in the way? Think, O if I could fay this day with the Pfalmitt, Pfal. x 1.2"As the heart pants after the water brooks, fo panteth my foul after thee, O God; my foul thirfteth for God, for the living God; when thall I come and appear before God?

Doft thou go up an afcent? Think, the way to heaven is all up the hill, Pial. xxiv. Lord, ftrengthen me to climb it, without fainting or fliding back. O that my foul this day may be afcending to God, and God may be defcending to me!

Dost thou behold the fea? Wonder at the ebbing and flowing of it, and at God's power and goodnefs, that fets reira ning bounds to it How eafily might that power, that makes it to flow 20 feet, make it flow 200 feet 2 and fo it would overflow our fea towns and adjacent coalts; but the Lord's goodness commands it back again by its ebb..

Doft thou fee a thip in the fea? Think, Chrift's church is compared to a fhip; this world is the fea through which the fails; believers are the paffengers; God is her pilot; the angels are her rowers; faith is the helm; hope is the anchor: For a maft, the hath, in midt of her, erected the faving tree of the crofs; the graces are the fails hanging thereon; the Spirit is the wind that fills them; but Chrift alone is the bottom, that carries ali fafe and fure to the haven of eternal reft and felicity. O let my foul le n upon no other bot om. Again, hink how mercifully Chrift deuvered his disciples, when toffed in a fhip, on the fea in a dark night. My foul is a little flip, often ready, to be overwhelmed with the waves of temptations: O then, when it is in this danger, let me awake Chrift by my prayers. Ag in, as it is faid of the mariner, with refpect to his hip, that he fails always, within four inches of death; fo it may be faid of the foul in relation to the body, that it lives still within four inches of eternity. If these earthen veffels break then our fouis are immediately let a drift into the bankless and to tomlefs ocean of eternity. Lord let not my foul launch out into that deep, while I am uncertain whether it fink or fwim.