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in his serious consideration is another thing; yet we are to take great heed of passion.

3. Another enemy to love is strangeness; strangeness ends in enmity. When brethren and friends grow strangers one to another, then they surmise things one of another, and that destroys love and unity.

4. Another is designing one against another. True love knows no designs upon others. No man can endure to have designs laid against him. Designing causeth anger, enmity and hatred, and hinders true love one toward another.

5. Another is whispering: "A whisperer separateth true friends," Prov. xvi. 28. But now if any one should come to me and tell me any thing against a brother, I would not believe the whisperer till I had spoken with the other; for a cause can never be truly known nor judged of, till both parties have been heard speak. Thus you may see the five things that hinder love, that is, pride, passion, strangeness, designing one upon another, and hearkening unto whisperers. Now as you desire to live in love and unity, observe these things, and take heed of them.

Let me say to you, holy and beloved brethren, if you would love one another, then forgive one another, and live more unto God who loveth you; live more to God, lest he should turn his love to hatred and wrath against you.

Strengthen your love to God himself; the more love you have to God, the more will you love others.

If you would live in love and unity, then you must willingly take wrong, and give up your right for peace sake and for agreement. Saith Abraham to Lot, "Let there be no difference between my herdmen and thy herdmen, for we are brethren." Now Abraham was the elder, and therefore it was his right to have the choice; but yet for peace sake he gives up his right, and says to Lot, "Take what you will, the right-hand or the left." There was a division between them, and the Canaanites were in the land, and therefore it was no good time for them to be at difference one with another. When the Canaanites were in the land, it was no good time then for good men to strive, and therefore Abraham for peace sake gives up his right. So I say for peace sake and for a holy agreement, you should willingly give up your right, and render up your own right to preserve peace

and unity one with another. O friends, love one another, that you may declare yourselves to be heavenly children, to be children of your heavenly Father. Consider Phil. i. 27: "Only let your conversation be as becometh the gospel of Christ; that whether I come or be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one Spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel."

O friends, let me beseech you to love one another, and to take all advantages that may increase your love. How can you shew your face before the free love and grace of God, if you do not love one another? With what face can you go to God for free grace and love, when you yourselves have no love for your brethren.

If a poor man should do a rich man a great deal of prejudice, and if this rich man should nevertheless invite this poor man to a feast, and welcome him, and do him abundance of good; would you not say that this is wonderful love and kindness, because the poor man is no way able to gratify him, or to make any requital for what he receives, but only by thankfulness: it may be he may be thankful to him. Why thus it is with us now, this is our own case; for we have done great injury to God, and yet God hath loved us, and hath given us blessings and riches. And what doth he expect for it all? Surely no reward from us, for he knows we are poor and not able to gratify him; no, he expects nothing, but only that we should love one another. Says God, You can do nothing for me, all that I desire is, that you would love one another in truth. How then, I say, will you be able to shew your faces before the God of heaven, if you love not one another.

Oh look after this love, which is so much commended in this little Psalm. Oh how sweet and perfuming it is, it is as sweet as honey, "it is like unto the oil that ran down Aaron's beard, like the dew upon Hermon, and as the dew that fell down upon the mountains of Zion." Yea this it that which is sweet and profitable, that which will perfume you. Now if you do desire that God's perfume may come upon you, and that the dew of God's blessings may fall upon you, labour more and more to love one another, and let not love be wanting. I cannot tell how it may be with you, yet let me desire you, as you would honour yourselves now, and as

you desire happiness in this life, and also to be blessed hereafter to all eternity, observe this new commandment to love one another. And as you do desire to declare that you have received free grace, and that you have that seal with which God seals the soul for his own, to live with him for ever, be exhorted to be of one mind, and love one another. "Rejoice in the Lord, and be of one mind;" be united one to another, and let your hearts abound in love more and more one toward another.

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SERMON VI.

The Lord's voice crieth unto the city, and the man of wisdom shall see thy name: hear ye the rod and who hath appointed it.”— M.CAH VI. 9.

METHINKS I see a great rod ready to be laid upon the back of this nation, and I would therefore at this time endeavour to inform you what the voice of this rod is; and have to that end chosen this scripture to speak unto.

In this chapter then you have God's controversy with his own people, set down at the end of verse 2: "For the Lord hath a controversy with his people, and he will plead with Israel." And then he chargeth them with

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1. Unthankfulness for many years, in verses 3, 4, 5: my people, what have I done unto thee, and wherewith have I wearied thee? Testify against me, for I brought thee up out of the land of Egypt," &c.

2. He chargeth them with formality, and shews them the evil of it, in verses 6, 7: “ Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams," &c. And then,

3. He pleads against them, in verse 8: "He hath shewed thee O man what is good, and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justice and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God." And then,

4. He seals up the sentence in this verse of my text: "The Lord's voice crieth unto the city, and the man of wisdom shall see thy name: hear ye the rod and who hath appointed it."

Wherein you you have three things especially remarkable. 1. The people the Lord's voice crieth unto, and that is unto the city. "The Lord's voice crieth unto the city."

2. You have an exhortation to hear the voice of the rod. "Hear ye the rod and who hath appointed it."

3. You have an argument to press you so to do; it is your wisdom: "The man of wisdom shall see thy name." "The Lord's voice crieth unto the city," that is, unto Samaria and Jerusalem, the chief cities: "And the man of wisdom shall see thy name;" the dispensations of God in the way of his mercy or justice are his name. As a man is known by his name, so God is known by his dispensations; which though they be dark to the world, yet the man of wisdom shall see them and discern them. "Therefore hear ye the rod and who hath appointed it," the rod; that is, the rod of correction. Now there is,

1. The rod of power and dignity," He shall send his rod out of Zion."

2. There is a rod of discrimination: "I will cause you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you under the bond of the covenant," Ezek. xx. 37,

3. There is the rod of direction: "Thy rod and thy staff they shall comfort me."

4. There is a rod of government, both ecclesiastical and civil. As for ecclesiastical, saith Paul," Shall I come unto you with a rod ;" and as for civil, "He that spareth the rod hateth the child."

5. There is a rod of destruction: "Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron, and dash them to pieces like a potter's vessel," Psalm ii. 9.

Now it is a rod of correction that we are to understand here, from whence I take up this observation:

That when God visits the transgressions of his people with a rod, it is their best wisdom to hear the rod and who hath appointed it; it is their true interest and best wisdom so to do.

For the opening and clearing hereof, I shall speak to these four or five propositions.

First, That God doth not steal upon a people with his judgments, but he first warns them before he smites them.

Secondly, When God smites his own people, he deals with them in the way of rod.

Thirdly, That God's rod is a teaching rod.

Fourthly, That the message of the rod is commonly sent to the great cities and to the great towns of a nation or people.

Fifthly, When God smites his own people with the rod, it is their best wisdom and their duty to hear the rod, and who hath appointed it.

First, Though God consumes a nation at once, and destroys a nation at once, at last; yet he still doth and will warn a people before he destroys them: God will not steal upon a people with his judgments, but he first warns them before he consumes them. He hath his murdering pieces which he will discharge in due time, but he will first discharge his warning pieces. And God doth sometimes warn people by his word, and sometimes by his works and dispensations. Ezek. xxxiii. 2, "Son of man, speak unto the children of thy people, and say unto them, If I bring a sword upon the land," &c. And at the 7th verse he applies it. So saith he, 66 Thou, O son of man, I have set thee as a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word from my mouth, and warn them from me." Would you know what this warning is, why it is a warning by the word.

Sometimes God warns his people by his works and dispensations, by his judgments upon others and by his afflictions upon themselves, he brings a lesser judgment to prevent a greater; it is with the works of God as it is with his word. Now God doth sometimes hew down men by the word, yea he hews them down by the ministry of the word. There is a time when God will hew down sinners by the ministry of the word, and lays them upon the ground a drying, as I may say, for hell, before they come there. Matt. iii. "The tree that bringeth not forth fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire." Hosea vi. 5, "Therefore I have hewed them by the prophets, I have slain them by the words of my mouth," &c. There is a time of hewing down, a time when God will hew men down by the ministry of the word; and as he doth thus by his word, so he doth the same also by his works and dispensations: and though God may and can des

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