persecuting world, as you may see by comparing several verses of that chapter together. Ver. 9, 10; By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Ver. 24, 26; By faith Moses when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; chusing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, for he had respect to the recompence of reward. Ver. 27; By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible. And in ver. 35; They refused deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. So in Heb. x. 34; They took joyfully the spoiling of their goods, upon what account? knowing in themselves, that they had in heaven a better and more enduring-substance.

Thirdly; faith does it by assuring the soul of enjoying better things. For my part I must confess, so far as I understand any thing of the things of God, I cannot see how a soul under the power of a well-grounded assurance, can be a servant of his slave, I mean, the world. I confess, men may talk much of heaven, and of Christ, and religion; but give me a man who does really and clearly live under the power of divine assurance, and I cannot see how such a one can be carried out in an inordinate love to these poor transitory things. I know not one instance in all the scripture that can be produced to prove that ever any precious saint who has lived in the assurance of divine love, and who has walked up and down this world with his pardon in his bosom, has ever been charged with an inordinate love of the world. That is a sad word in 1 John ii. 15.

4. Now a fourth reason of this point, why persons aré to exercise their graces, is, because it is the best way to preserve their souls from apostacy and backsliding from God. Add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness; for if ye do these things, ye shall

never fall, 2 Pet. i. 5, 6, 10. Add to your faith virtue. The Greek word that is here rendered add, has a great emphasis in it: It is taken from dancing round. "Link them,' says the apostle, hand in hand." As in dancing, virgins take hand, so we must join hand to hand in these measures of graces, lead up the dance of graces, as in the galliard every one takes his turn. So in 2 Pet. iii. 17;

Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things, beware, lest ye also, being led aside with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness. There are many who turn aside, and bid farewell to God, and Christ, and truth, and ̧ ́ the words of righteousness; and therefore you had need to take heed that you fall not as others have fallen before you. But how shall we be kept from apostatizing? why, grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It is a growth in grace, it is the exercise of grace, that will make a man stand when others fall, yea when cedars fall.

5. All other exercises without the exercise of grace, will profit nothing.

Or, if you will, take it thus-all other exercises will be loss to us without the exercise of grace; therefore we had need to improve our graces.

When the house is on fire, if a man should only pray or cry, he may be burnt for all that; therefore he must be active and stirring; he must run from place to place, and call out for help, and must work even in the fire, and bestir himself as for life in the use of all means, whereby the fire may be quenched. So if grace be not acted, it is not all a man's praying and crying, that will profit him or better him; grace must be exercised, or will be lost, prayers lost, tears lost, time lost, strength lost, soul lost.

But refuse prophane and old wives' fables, 1 Tim. iv. 7. Shift them off, as the word is; set them by; say thou art not at leisure to attend them; make a fair excuse, as the word notes; tell them thou hast business of an eternal concernment to look after, and exercise thyself rather unto godliness; or lay aside thy upper garments, as runners and wrestlers do, (to which practice the apostle alludes) and bestir thyself lustily; for says he, Bodily exercise profiteth little, but godliness is profitable unto all

things, having the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.

The Babylonians are said to make three hundred and sixty several commodities of the palm tree; but what are those hundred commodities to those thousands that attend holiness, that attend the exercise of grace? Nothing makes a man rich in spirituals, like the frequent and constant actings of grace. In Heb. iv. 2. we read, The word did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. He does not speak there of unbelievers, but of those who had grace in the habit, but not in the exercise; and therefore the word did not turn to their account. They heard and were never the better; and what was the ground of it? Why, it was because they did not exercise faith upon the word. The words that fell from the preacher's lips into their ears, were a sweet potion, but they did not work kindly, because there wanted the ingredients of faith. Faith is one of those glorious ingredients, that must make every sermon, every truth, work for the soul's advantage. Nothing will work for a believer's good, for his gain, if his graces be asleep.

6. Because it is the end of all the dignity and glory that God has conferred upon his people; therefore they must exercise and improve their grace. But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous

light, 1 Pet. ii. 9. Ye are a chosen generation; that is, a picked out people; the dearly beloved of his soul; such as he first chose for his love, and then loves for his choice. A royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people. The Greek is, A people of purchase, such as comprehends, as it were, all God's gettings, his whole stock that he makes any reckoning of. That ye should shew forth; or as it is in the Greek, That ye should preach forth, that ye may publicly declare the virtues of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light; that ye may so hold forth the virtues of him who hath conferred all this dignity and glory upon you, as to excite others to glorify your Father which is in heaven. You know the picture of a dear friend is not to be thrust into a corner, but in,some

nspicuous place of the house: why, our graces are the very image of Christ; they are his picture, and therefore to be held forth to open view. These candles must not be put under a bushel, but set up in a candlestick. Jewels are to wear, not to hide; so are our graces. It was a capital crime in Tiberius's days, to carry the image of Augustus upon a ring or coin into any sordid place; and shall not Christians be more mindful and careful, that their graces which are Christs image, be no ways obscured, but that they be kept always sparkling and shining? Christ's glory and thy comfort, O Christian, lies much in the sparkling of thy graces. Pearls are not to be thrust into mud walls, or hung in swine's snouts, but to be hung on the breasts.

7. Gracious souls must exercise their graces, because the more grace is exercised and improved, with the more ease and delight will all religious services be performed.

When grace is improved and exercised, gracious services are easily performed. As the more natural strength is exercised and improved, with the more ease and pleasure are all bodily services performed; so the more grace is acted and improved, with the more ease and delight all Christian services are performed. Such souls find wages in their very work; they find not only for keeping, but also in keeping of his commandments there is great reward. All the ways of the Lord are ways of pleasantness to them, and they find that all his paths drop marrow and fatness. Ah Christians, as ever you would have the services of God to be easy and delightful to your souls, look to the exercise and improvement of your graces, and then your work will be a joy.

8. You must exercise and improve your gifts and graces, because the more grace is improved, the more God will be honoured. Abraham being not weak in faith, considered not his own body, now dead, when he was about an hundred years old; neither the deadness of Sarah's womb: he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strong in faith giving glory to God, and being fully persuaded, that what he had promised, he was able to perform, Rom. iv. 19-21. He gave glory to God. But how did he give glory to God? was it in a dead habit of

faith that set the crown of honour upon the head of God? No; it was the lively actings of his faith upon the promise and the Promiser, that gave glory to God. All the honour and glory that God has from believers in this life, is from the actings of their grace. It was Abraham's acting of faith, that was his high honouring of God. Christians, I would intreat this favour of you, that you would be often in the meditation of this truth, that all the honour which God has from believers in this life, is from the actings and exercise of their graces. When thou • Is it so,

goest to prayer, then think thus with thyself, that all the honour that God shall have from my soul in prayer, will be from the actings of grace in prayer? O then what cause have I to stir up myself to lay hold on God, and to blow up all those sparks of grace that are in me?' As a body without a soul, much wood without fire, a bullet in a gun without powder, so are words in prayer without the Spirit, without the exercises of the graces of the Spirit. Jonah acted his faith when he was in the belly of hell, and Daniel acted faith when he was in the lion's den, and the thief acted faith when he was on the cross, and Jeremiah acted faith when he was in the dungeon, and Job acted faith when he was on the dunghill, and David acted faith when he was in his greatest distress, and so did Moses in Exod. xiv. And you know the issue. of all was much glory to God, and much good to them. His heart will never be long a stranger to joy and peace, who is much in the exercise and actings of grace.

9. Because the more grace is improved, the more afflictions and tribulations will be lessened and sweetened to us.

Though our outward man perishes, yet the inward man is renewed day by day, or, day and day, 2 Cor. iv. 16, 17. When Peter Martyr was dying, he said, 'My body is: weak, but my mind is well, well for the present, and will be better for ever hereafter.' This is the godly man's motto, For afflictions there is glory; for light afflictions a weight of glory, for momentary afflictions eternal glory.' O friends, if your graces were more exercised and improved, afflictions would be more sweet. This would turn the cross into a crown, this would turn bitter into