opportunities to make themselves great and rich in the world, and yet suffer their golden gifts and graces even to grow rusty for want of exercise. It is sad to see how busy many men are to exercise and improve a talent of riches, who yet bind up their talents of gifts and grace in a napkin. By these God loses much honour and praise, and themselves lose much comfort and content, and others lose much profit and benefit, and the gospel loses much credit and glory.

But the main use that I shall make of this point, shall be to exhort and stir you all up to make a blessed improvement of your graces: and indeed it is a point of most singular use to us all our days, a truth that is every day of very great concernment to our souls.

Now there are seven considerations that I shall propound by way of motives to stir up your souls to make a blessed improvement of the grace and gifts you have re

ceived.

1. And the first is this-seriously consider that the exercise and improvement of grace in your souls, will be more and more the death and ruin of sin in your souls.

Take it from experience. There is not a choicer way than this, for a man to bring under the power of his sin, than to keep up the exercise of his grace. Sin and grace are like two buckets at a well, when one is up, the other is down; they are like the two laurels at Rome, when one flourishes, the other withers. Certainly the readiest and the surest way to bring under the power of sin, is to be much in the exercise of grace. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead, because of sin, but the spirit is life, because of righteousness, Rom. viii. 10. The life and activity of Christ and grace in the soul, is the death and destruction of sin in the soul. The more grace acts in the soul, the more sin withers and dies in the soul. The stronger the house of David grew, the weaker the house of Saul grew. As the house of David grew every day stronger and stronger, so the house of Saul every day grew weaker and weaker. So the activity of the new man, is the death of the old man. When Christ began to bestir himself in the temple, the money-changers quickly fled out.

So when grace is active and stirring in the

soul, corruption quickly flies. A man may find out many ways to hide his sin, but he will never find out any way to subdue his sin, but by the exercise of grace. Of all Christians, none so mortified as those in whom grace is most exercised. Sin is a viper that must be killed, or it will kill you for ever; and there is no way to kill it, but by the exercise of grace.

2. Consider this by way of motive to provoke you to exercise and improve your graces the exercise and improvement of your graces, will provoke others to bless and admire the God of grace.

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven, Matt. v. 16; the light of your conversation, and the light of your graces. O how many thousand souls are there now triumphing in heaven, whose gifts and graces shone gloriously when they were on earth! And ah! how many thousands are there now on earth, who bless and admire the Lord for the faith of Abraham, and the zeal of David, and the meekness of Moses, and the patience of Job, and the courage of Joshua! O Christians, as you would stir up others to exalt the God of grace, look to the exercise and improvement of your graces. When poor servants live in a family, and see the faith of a master, and the love of a master, and the wisdom of a master, and the patience of a master, and the humility of a master, shining like so many stars of heaven, O how does it draw forth their hearts to bless the Lord, that ever they came into such a family! It is not a profession of religion, but the exercise and improvement of grace, that contributes so much to the lifting up of the glory of the Lord, and to the magnifying of his praise in the world. Many saints have had their hearts warmed and heated by sitting near other saints' fires, by eyeing and dwelling upon other saints' graces. Ah, when men's graces shine as Moses' face did; when their lives, as one speaks of Joseph's life, is a very heaven, sparkling with variety of virtues as with so many bright stars; ah, how are others stirred up to glorify God, and to cry out, 'These are Christians indeed! These are an honour to their God, a crown to their Christ, and a credit to their gospel. Oh, if they were all such,

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 se may publicly declare the virtues of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light; that ye mayO DOE forth the virtues of him who hath conferred all digging and glory upon you

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conspicuous 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