but ill-deferving creatures; not only without our merits, but against our merits. And what though there be a concurrence of your abilities, head-work and hand-work in the procurement of fome of your mercies, yet ftill thofe mercies are the pure effects of free-grace: for all thofe endeavours of yours had fignified nothing to their procurement, without God's bleffing; yea, and that wisdom and industry which you have used, were themselves the free gifts of God. You know there are thousands in the world as induftrious and wife as you, and fuch as never provoked God by fuch fins as you have; who yet are denied the mercies you enjoy. O how fhould this endear you to God!

Argument 2. How feasonably your mercies have been bestowed upon you in the very point of extremity and danger! God hath on purpose fuffered it to grow to an extremity, that thereby he might commend his mercy to you with greater advantage. "In the mount "of the Lord it hath been feen," Gen. xxii. 14. without this God faw his mercies would have been flighted, and low prized by you: But God hath watched the opportunity of beftowing his goodnefs upon you, for no other end but to magnify his mercies in your eyes, and make the deeper and more lafting impreffions upon your hearts. Shall fuch mercies, which at first were so amazing and overwhelming to you, at the reception whereof you were like men that dreamed, as the Pfalmift fpeaks, Pfalm cxxvi. 1. fo foon grow ftale and com

mon? God forbid !

Argument 3. How fpecial and diftinguifhing have fome of your mercies been? God hath not dealt with every one as he hath with you. Are not fome that went out with you found wanting at your return: They are among the dead, it may be among the damned, and you among the living, yet enjoying the capacity and the means of falvation. God hath profpered your voyage, and returned you with fuccefs; you have fucked the abundance of the fea, and the treasures hid in the fand, as the text fpeaks; but others may fay as Naomi, Ruth i. 21. "I went out full, and am come back empty." I went out full of hopes, and am come back with fad difappointments. And is not this a strong tie to thanksgiving?

Argument 4. Did not your mercies find you under great guilt? You know what your own tranfgreffions against the Lord were, and yet fuch was the ftrength of mercy, that it brake through all your great provocations, and made its way to you through a multitude of iniquities. It came triumphing over all your great unworthinels; and is not fuch mercy worthy to be admired, and recorded for ever! O what will affect and melt your hearts, if this will not? Surely fuch mercies have a conftraining power in them, upon all fenfible fouls.

Argument 5. To conclude; if all the goodnefs of God which hath paffed before your eyes, does indeed prevail upon you to love the Lord, and fear to offend him; if it really conftrains you to give up yourselves, and all you have, to be his; then all this is but the be

ginning of mercies, and you fhall fee yet greater things than thefe. God hath more mercies yet behind, and those of a higher kind and more excellent nature than these temporal mercies are. You are now delivered from the dangers of the fea, and have escaped thofe perils: O but what is this to deliverance from wrath to come? You have been preserved from, or delivered out of Turkish flavery; but what is that to a deliverance from the curfe of the law, the bondage of your lufts, and the power of Satan? Happy fouls, if thefe deliverancés do in any measure prove introductive to the great falvation.

THE CONCLUSION.

Thus I have, as the Lord hath enabled me, endeavoured to chufe and improve proper fubjects for your meditation in every condition that befals you. I cannot carry these truths one degree farther, it is the Lord only that can make them effectual to your fouls. But it is my earnest request to you, mafters, that have the over-fight, and must give an account for your companies, that you will not only read and confider these things yourselves, but that you will at fit feasons, especially upon the Lord's day, read and inculcate them upon your fervants and company; and that, as those who must give an account. Will not this be a better expence of that precious and hallowed time, than to spend it in fleeping in your cabins, or drinking in tiplinghouses? All that fin of theirs which you may prevent, and do not, becomes your own fin. And have you not perfonal fins enough already, but you must draw the guilt of their fins upon you also? I befeech you, and it is my laft requeft, that you will faithfully labour, that you and your companies may ferve the Lord.

THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY.

To my dearly beloved and longed for, the Flock of Jefus Chrift in Dartmouth, over whom the Holy Ghost hath made me an Overfeer: Sound Judgment, true Zeal, and unftained Purity, are heartily wished.

My Dear Friends,

TH

HERE are three fad fights with which our eyes fhould continually affect our hearts: The firft, is to behold in every place fo many profane and diffolute ones, who bear the very image of Satan; the face of whofe converfation plainly discovers what they are, and whither they are going, Philip. iii. 18, 19. These look like themfelves, the children of wrath. The fecond is to fee fo many curfed hypocrites artificially difguifing themselves, and with marvellous dexterity acting the parts of faints, fo that even a judicious eye may fometimes mistake the similar workings of the Spirit on them, for his faving workings on others: To hear fuch a perfon conferring, praying, bewailing his corruptions, and talking of his experiences; would eafily perfuade a man to believe that he hath the heart, as well as the face of a fincere Christian: For,

Sic oculos, fic ille manus, fic ora ferebat.

So the people of God do fpeak, fo they pray, and even fo they open their conditions: Thefe look like faints, but are none. The third is to fee fo many real faints, in whom the fpirit of truth is, who yet, through the impetuous workings of their corruptions, and neglecting of the watch over their hearts, do often fall into fuch fcandalous practices, that they look like hypocrites, though they are not fo. These are three fad fights indeed, and O that my head were waters, and mine eyes fountains of tears, that I may weep abundantly over them all!

For the first, I would mourn heartily, confidering that they (fo continuing) muft be damned eternally, 2 Theff. i. 8, 9. 1 Cor.

vi. 9.

For the fecond, I would both weep and tremble, confidering that they (fo abiding) must be damned doubly, Matth. xxiv. 51.

And for the third no less than any of the reft, because, though though they themselves may, and fhall be faved, yet their examples make faft the bonds of death upon both the former, Matth. xviii. 7. 2 Sam. xii. 13, 14.

Alas! that ever they fhould fhed the blood of others fouls, for whom Chrift fhed his own blood! That ever they should be cruel to others who have found Christ so kind to them! I know they dare not do it directly and intentionally, but fo it proves occafionally and eventually. Suffer me here to digrefs a little, and expoftulate with thefe prejudiced and hardened fouls, I will prefently return to you again. O why do you mifchieve your own fouls by other men's examples? Because they ftumble and break their fhins, will you fall and break your necks? I defire all fuch as harden themselves by thele things, and take up a good opinion of their own deplorable condition, would foberly confider, and anfwer thefe three queries.

Query 1. Doth religion any way countenance or patronize the finful practices of its profeffors? Or doth it not rather impartially and feverely condemn them? It is the glory of the Chriftian religion, that it is pure and undefiled, Jam. i. 27. No doctrine fo holy, Pfal. xix. 8. Nor doth any make more provifion for an holy life, Tit. ii. 11, 12. Indeed there is a cafe wherein we may charge the evil practices of men upon their principles, but that is when their practices naturally flow from, and neceffarily follow their principles: As for example, if I fee a Papift fin boldly, I may charge it upon his principles, for they fet pardons to fale, and fo make way for loofenefs. If I fee an Arminian flight the grace of God, and proudly advance himfelf, I may cry fhame upon his principles, which directly lead to it: But can I do fo where fuch practices are condemned and provided against by their own avowed principles, who commit them?

Query 2. Is it not a moft irrational thing to let fly at religion becaufe of the fcandalous ways of fome, whilft, in the mean time, you wholly flight and over-look the holy and heavenly converfation of many others? Are all that profefs godlinefs loofe and carelefs in their lives? No, fome are an ornament to their profeffion, and the glory of Chrift: And why. muft the innocent be condemned with the guilty? Why the eleven for one Judas?

Query 3. If you condemn religion because of the fcandalous lives of fome that profefs it, muft you not then caft off all religion in the world, and turn down-right atheists? Surely this is the confequent of it: For what religion is there, but fome that profefs it walk contrary to their profeffion? And then, as Conftantine told the Novatian, you must set up a ladder, and go to heaven by yourself.

But alas! it is not our printed apologies for religion, but the vifible reformations of its profeffors, that muft both falve its honour, and re

move those fatal itumbling-blocks at which the blind world strikes, and falls into eternal perdition.

Now there are two ways by which this may be effected: First, By convincing the confciences of profeffors of their mifcarriages, and the evil aggravations of them. Secondly, By medicating the heart, and cleaning the fountain whence they proceed. In the first of thefe, a worthy and eminent fervant of Chrift hath lately laboured, holding a clear gofpel-glafs before See Gospelthe faces of profeffors, which truly represents their glass. fpots and blemishes: if he that reads it will consider, apply, and practife, it shall doubtlefs turn to his falvation; but, if it turn to no good account to him that reads it, I know it fhall turn to a teftimony for him that wrote it. The fecond is a principal defign of this fmall treatise, the subject whereof is exceeding weighty, and of daily use to the people of God, though the manner of handling it be attended with many defects and weakneffes; every one cannot be excellent, who yet may be useful.

I will exercise your patience no longer than whilft I tell you, 1. Why I publish it to the view of the world.

2. Why I direct it particularly to you.

First, For the publication of it, take this fincere and brief account, That as I was led to this fubject by a special providence, fo to the publication of it by a kind of neceffity. The providence at first leading me to it, was this, A dear and choice friend of my intimate acquaintance being under much inward trouble, upon the account of fome fpecial heart-diforder, opened the cafe to me, and earnestly requested fome rules and helps in that particular; whilft I was bending my thoughts to that fpecial cafe, divers other cafes of like importance (fome of which were dependent upon that confideration) occurred to my thoughts, and this fcripture, which I have infifted upon, prefented itself, as a fit foundation for the whole difcourfe; which being lengthened out to what you fee, divers friends requested me to tranfcribe for their ufe, divers of the cafes here handled, and fome others begged me to publish the whole, to which I was in a manner neceffitated, to fave the pains of tranfcribing, which to me is a very tedious, and tiresome work: and just as I had almost finished the copy, an opportunity (and that somewhat strangely) offered to make it public. So that from first to laft, I have been carried beyond my firft intentions in this thing.

Objection. If any fay, The world is even cloyed with books, and therefore though the difcourfe be neceffary, yet the publication is needlefs.

Solution. 1. I answer, There are multitudes of books indeed, and of them many concern not themselves about root-truths, and practical godliness, but spend their strength upon impractical notions, and frivolous controverfies; many also strike at root-truths, and endeaVOL. V.

3 H.