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too far, when nevertheless you all know in your consciences I speak to you but what God speaketh in his word? In short, 'As new-born babes, have ye desired the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby ?'* As a child doth the breast, have you always loved and always desired the word, always received it when offered you, always fed upon it, and made it the whole nourishment of your soul? Your diligence in the use of it may best show you your sincerity, and therefore I ask,

Secondly. Have you been diligent in the use of God's word? Have you been diligent to hear it publicly ministered? Hath your place been never vacant in the church? or, when vacant, was it always an absolute necessity, so as that you can appeal to God you did not come for this only reason, because you could not, or at least because you were satisfied in your conscience it was his will in your circumstances you should not? Have you been diligent to read it in private? Hath your Bible at no time lain by covered with dust? or is it not the case with you, perhaps, that you have never yet provided to have such a book in your house? Was this because of your poverty? What! all your life so poor? Have you never squandered more than this would amount to? or, even in the most necessitous case, would you not beg if you were never able to buy? Or, say you could not read; have you been diligent to meditate on what you heard therefrom? You could think : have you thought on God's word? this is required of all, whether readers or not readers. Have you endeavoured always to hide it in your heart? All the day long hath your study been in it? Have you made it your delight and your counsellor?-God's command concerning the Scriptures, Ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way; when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.' It means plainly that the Scriptures must be the matter of our ordinary conversation. Before the business of the day begins, and when it is ended, when we sit at our tables, and when we walk abroad, our conversation must be from the word of God. This might you all do, whether learned or unlearned; but this have you done, or do you? Are your children, your family, your houses, your tables, your walks, witnesses for you herein? Alas! it is greatly + Deut. xi. 19.

1 Peter ii. 2.

to be feared the word of God is more in the mouths of some to jest upon it, than of others to speak of it with honour. Indeed we are ashamed of so unfashionable a thing; and, while it is banished our familiar discourses, our souls suffer abundantly from the idle, vain, trifling, insignificant matters we entertain one another with in our friendly intercourses.—But have you been diligent so to use the word as to profit by it? Have you made diligent preparation for such use of it, by praying for a meek and understanding heart, that you might be able both to know and receive the will of God concerning you? Have you been diligent to apply it to yourself rather than others when you have been hearing or reading it, always laying home to your own soul the doctrines, reproofs, corrections, and instructions it hath spoken to you? And have you also been diligent to do what you have been taught, carefully keeping the word in your heart, and recalling it for use by recollection and prayer? To talk over the Sermon one with another, and to communicate their several experiences relating to it, was a good old custom among Christians. Have you desired or endeavoured to do this? or, rather, have you not too often carelessly forgotten, as soon as you were gone from church, whatever was said to you? And how could it be otherwise, when you would pass your Sunday evenings in visits one with another; and when in them you would speak your own words on the sabbath-day?* To speak freely, I never expect to see that person religious indeed who continues in this practice, and thereby breaks at least two commandments at once as soon as departed from the house of God, the fourth by an abuse of the sabbath, the second by a careless and wilful forgetfulness of the word spoken.-I say then, once more, have we used the word with diligence, or have we not all been sadly negligent to read, to hear, to speak of, to improve it? And to what shall we ascribe this, but to want of sincere love of it? Let us take shame to ourselves before God, that while we have been so desirous to hear, or read, or talk of any matter of pleasure, we should have been so backward to God's word; and been amusing ourselves with that which doth not profit, while we have been neglecting what alone can make us wise unto salvation!

Thirdly. Have we used the Scriptures in faith? There is

Isaiah lviii. 13.

ground enough for believing the Scriptures to be the word of God; but yet to believe them such with the heart is no slight matter; indeed there is no doing it of ourselves, for this faith is the gift of God. To use the Scriptures in faith is not only to receive every and any part of them with suitable temper and disposition of spirit, but especially it is to have all the great points of them lying on the heart; to entertain in the heart the threatenings and curses of God against sin, with an humble acknowledgment and awful adoration of their reality and justice; to entertain the promises with persuasion of their truth, satisfiedness in their fulness, and content that they shall surely be accomplished; to entertain the precepts with delight, as being holy, just, and good; to entertain the prohibitions with willingness and readiness; and to entertain the means prescribed with desire and thankfulness. And have we thus received the word?

Sin

ners, see you not that God's curse against you for your sins hath never humbled your hearts; that you do not take one of his promises relating to this or another life into your hearts, so as to rest upon and be influenced by it; that heartily and from the bottom of your souls you hate all which God bids you do, and with full choice love and follow what he forbids you; that you experience no desire after the means God affords us, and use them with a most wicked indifference? And where then is your faith in God's word? Believers, have God's threatenings awed you as they ought now and always, and his promises encouraged you; hath what he bid been received with cheerful delight, and what he forbad been forsaken with utter detestation; or have you always used the means with desire and thankfulness? Have you used the word in faith? Though you believe, have you no cause to say, 'Lord, help mine unbelief?' Put yourselves to the trial; hath faith enlivened the word in your hearts whenever you heard it? Whence, then, hath the hearing of God's terrors drove you no faster from the wrath to come, or the declarations which you have had made to you so often of God's mercies allured you no more to Jesus? Whence is the law of God so little transcribed into your hearts, and the law of sin so little mortified there? May not Christ well complain of us, 'O, faithless generation! how long shall I be with you? how long

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shall I suffer you ?'* One and all of us, we have great cause of humiliation for our little faith in God's word. And be it remembered, that nothing more dishonours God than this, seeing not to believe his word is to make him a liar, to suppose him unfaithful, to suspect him weak, or changeable, or mistaken. Alas! who can know the depth of that mystery of iniquity, the heart of man, when so much sin is implied in only one word? But,

Fourthly.

Have we used God's word with reverence? Brethren, in all reason we should approach God's word as if we heard God speaking to us. For the word is God's revealed will, the declaration of God's mind to us and concerning us. The difference is not so much whether the instrument he uses be the voice of a man, or the voice of an angel; the thing to be regarded is, that what we hear or read is the declaration of God's mind to us. And I will leave you to judge in what manner we ought to attend upon God revealing his mind to us. Only consider that he is the glorious eternal almighty Majesty of heaven and earth, and we dust, ashes, sinners, and you will easily perceive, that, with our faces on the earth, with the deepest prostration of spirit, struck into awe and reverence we ought to attend the manifestations of his mind. But, now, are you not already confounded in the recollection of that little reverence wherewith you have so often attended on the most high God speaking to you? How wandering, cold, and inattentive you have been how lightly you have regarded! how heedlessly you have approached! how suddenly you have forgotten! the ministry is God's especial way of speaking;-a thought which should make the preacher and the audience both to tremble, lest either should profane the word of God. And is it fit that God, opening himself by the mouth of his messengers, should be heard with curiosity, with critical remarks only on the abilities of the preacher, with contention against his declarations, with an insulting indifference, with a horrid slight, disdain, and a licentious air of disregard? Is it fit that messages from heaven should be received with that irreverence they too often are? Attention is not enough, there must be reverence; reverence not of the man, but of the word; of the word, as coming from the most Matt. xvii. 17.

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high God. I beg you to consider if you have thus heard; to see whether your irreverence hath not been a signal cause of your little profiting by what you hear, and to weigh what that word of the inspired preacher meaneth, Keep thy foot when thou goest into the house of God, and be more ready to hear than to offer the sacrifice of fools; for they know not that they do evil.*-And thus much concerning the use of the word.

II. I would speak a few words concerning the use we have made of prayer; and they will be but a few, because what hath been said concerning the word may be so easily applied to this matter of prayer. Yet I ask,

First. Have you been sincere in your approaches to the throne of grace? Sincerity in prayer is an unfeigned desire of God's granting what we ask. But I fear there is much seeming prayer where there is little unfeigned desire. Did you never ask for a contrite heart, and full of godly sorrow for your sins; or for a new heart and new spirit; or for faith and love, and other. graces; or for God's blessing on the church; or for the conversion of sinners; or for the establishment of saints; or, in short, for many other things which have been the matter of your prayers (if not elsewhere, yet in this house at least), when at the bottom you really desired none of these things; or when your desire of them was so very weak that you could hardly call it sincere ?

are

Perhaps

Secondly. Have we been diligent in prayer? Diligence implies that we are constant at our work, and busy while we are in it. How have you been constant in prayer? This you ought. 'Continue instant in prayer, and pray without ceasing,'* Scripture injunctions. But some pray not at all. they are more than may be thought of. Truly I stick not to put in the number all such as pray not in secret, though they appear in the congregation. That they may do and never pray, unless an unmeaning repetition of words should be called prayer. And if they had anything more, any the least grain of the spirit of prayer and supplications, it would bring them on their knees in private as well as public. And others, are they as constant as they should? (let the question be put to any of you all.) Have you been always constant ? At no time have you needlessly

* Eccles. v. 1.

+ Rom. xii. 12.

1 Thess. v. 17.

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