called your attention to the amazing and everlasting importance of this doctrine, and to have exhorted you diligently to confider and lay it to heart. Thefe things are either true or false. If they be falfe, let them meet with that inattention and difregard which they merit. But if they be true, as I am confident you know them to be, then how deeply, nay, how infinitely do they concern us all, and especially thofe of us who have taken upon us the folemn and important office of preaching the Gospel? Surely we, at least, shall be inexcufable, if we do not profecute this business faithfully, and make it our chief concern every day to win fouls. Added to the obligations that lie upon us, in common with others, to be diligent in this work, you fee the nature of our office lays us under other and peculiar engagements. Let us, therefore, efpecially attend to it. Let it be our fincere and fervent defire, and our daily endeavour, to win fouls. That we may but accomplish this great and bleffed end of our important calling, let us not account our ease, our honour, our liberty, or even our lives, dear unto ourselves. Let us be willing to engage in any labour, to undergo any fatigue, and to endure any hardship or fuffering, fo we may but" fulfil the ministry, we have received of the Lord Jefus," and fave immortal fouls from everlasting death. 7. Let us regard fuccefs in this work above all other confiderations whatever. Indeed, other confiderations, in the line of life we have chofen, there are none which can have any weight with a thinking mind. Profpects of gain we have not : our excellent Plan allows us only the supply of our neceffary wants, and indeed, hardly that. Preferment we cannot expect, except from our great Mafter, in confequence of our difcharging our duty faithfully. Honour and applause are equally out of our reach, unless among the few poor peo · ple ture ple to whom we minifter. We are, therefore, compelled, even by our fituation, to act in this bufinefs from pure motives, if we act at all, or act rationally. Let these motives, then, the only motives which are justifiable, or worthy of regard, be allowed to have their full weight with us, and let us abandon the very idea of any other. Let who will enter upon, and pursue this facred calling, with a view to eafe, honour, or intereft, let our end be only the glory of God, in the falvation of fouls. This is the only end we can reasonably hope to attain, others being all precluded; and this, which infinitely excels all others, bleffed be God, we may attain. In fome, yea, in a great degree, it has been attained already by many of you; efpecially by you my Fathers and Brethren, who are old in the work. You have won many fouls, and hercby God has been greatly glorified, while thousands of mankind have been, or shall be eternally benefited. Go on then, my dear, and much efteemed brethren, as you have begun and perfevered hitherto; only, if poffible, with greater diligence than ever, running fafter, as your race grows fhorter; and, as far as the decay of your health and ftrength will allow, labouring harder, in proportion as your time for labour haftens to a period. And let thofe of us that are younger, and thofe that have but lately given themfelves up to the work, emulate the zeal, and activity of our elder brethren, and strive to exceed even them in labours and fuccefs. In fo doing we shall provoke, not their envy, but their love. Let us learn of them, and that more and more perfectly every day, the happy art of faving fouls. In order hereto, let us make ourselves better acquainted than ever, with God, and Chrift, and the Scriptures; as alfo with human nature, the deceitfulnefs of fin, and the various wiles of the Devil. And And as practice makes perfect, let us labour to become, daily, greater proficients in this bleffed bufinefs of winning fouls, by daily endeavouring to win them. Let us "give attendance to reading, to inftruction, to exhortation." Let us "preach the word; be inftant in feafon and out of feafon; convince, rebuke, and exhort, with all long-fuffering and doctrine. Let us meditate on these things, and give ourselves wholly to them, that fo our profiting may appear unto all." 8. And let us not confine our inftructions, reproofs, or exhortations, to the Pulpit, and the large affemblies of God's people; as if fouls werę only to be won in public, and it were beneath us to labour much to fave them, unless we faw a profpect of faving several at once. Let us remember what pains our Lord and Master took with one, fingle, finful woman, at Jacob's well, as well as with divers other individuals in private; and let us teach from house to house, as well as publickly. Let us fpeak for God as we have opportunity, inftructing, advifing, rebuking, exhorting, thofe we come in company with, or can have access to. And let us water the feed fown with continual and fervent prayer, that God may cause it to fpring up, and bear fruit to his glory. 9. Upon the whole; let us all, Preachers and Hearers, fee that we have this bleffed and important work at heart, and ufe every mean in our power to promote it; looking unto God alone, and not to any efforts of ours, for fuccefs. Let Parents, Mafters, Magiftrates, nay, and fubjects, children, and fervants, confpire together, to help it forward. Let us all endeavour to improve our feveral stations and fituations in life, with the various talents and advantages entrusted to our ma nagement, to the attainment of this most desirable end. Let all be preffed into this fervice, and made to to minister to the falvation of fouls. Whatever influence our piety, virtue, learning, knowledge, eloquence, wealth, honour, pre-eminence, authority, or any other gift or endowment give any of us, let it be employed for this purpofe; let it be laid at the feet of Christ, and dedicated to his praise, in promoting the great work for which he came into the world, and for which he fhed his precious blood. Let us not think it too much to bestow a little care, labour, or money, upon that for which he was pleased to give up his life. And let us not fail to fecond and enforce all our endeavours, this way, by a conduct according to the Gofpel. Let our example fpeak, and fhew others, what it is to be won over to God, and how fuch ought to walk and please him in all things. Thus let us fhew forth the praifes of him who hath "called us out of darkness into his marvellous 66 light," by imitating him who came to feek "and fave that which was lost,” and who went "about doing good:" And "our labour will not "be in vain, in the Lord. "He will, undoubtedly, give fuccefs, more or lefs; and being the children of God ourselves, we shall rejoice over many loft brethren and fifters in Chrift, brought back to their heavenly Father's family. Thefe will be our companions here, in our way to the kingdom, and our crown of rejoicing in the kingdom itself hereafter. They will furround, with us, the eternal Throne, and spend everlasting ages in fhouting "Salvation to God and the Lamb," and aferibing "bleffing, and honour, and praife, and "glory, to him that hath loved them, and washed. "them from their fins in his own blood, and made them Kings and Priests unto God and his "Father." SERMON THE CONFERENCE AT MANCHESTER, At their first Annual Meeting after his Death, "Remember them that had the rule over you, who fpake to you the Word of GOD, whofe faith follow, confidering the end of their converfation." I. I MAKE no apology for reading the paffage thus, tho' not quite according to our common tranflation, because that must appear improper even to an English reader, as being manifeftly contradi ory to itself. For it fuppofes the perfons, here referred to, to be dead, and yet speaks of them as now prefiding over the Hebrews. Bishop Lloyd, in his Funeral Sermon for Bishop Wilkins, I gives |