modations? What will you say of them, when pain disgraceth them, and convinceth you of their insufficiency to stand you in any stead? These things that you are now so loath to leave, may shortly become such a load to your souls, as undigested meat to the stomach that is sick, that you can have no ease till you have cast them off.

Away therefore with these luscious vanities betimes, which vitiate your appetites, and put them out of relish with the things that are truly pleasant. O what a shame it is to hear a man say, 'I shall never endure so godly, and spiritual, and strict a life;' when he can endure and take pleasure in a life of sin! You may more wisely lie down in the dunghill or the ditch, and say, ' I shall never endure a cleaner diet;' or company only with enemies and wild beasts, and say, I shall never endure the company of my friends.' What! is God worse than the creature, and heaven than earth? and so much worse, as not to be endured in your thoughts and affections in comparison of them? You will never know your friends till you forsake these deceivers ! Nor ever know the pleasures of a holy life, till you will let go the poisonous pleasures of sin. And then you may find that sanctification destroyeth not, but changeth and recovereth your delights, and giveth you safety for the greatest peril, health for sickness, friends for enemies, gold for dross, life for death, and the foretastes of rest for tiring vexation.

2. The second sort that are hence to be reproved, are those weak and troubled servants of the Lord, that live as sadly as if they found more grief than pleasure in the ways of God.

Indeed it is to be lamented that few of the heirs of life do live according to the happiness and dignity of their calling; nor are the great things that God hath done for them so apparent in the cheerfulness and comforts of their lives as they should be. But some that are addicted to dejectedness, do in a greater measure wrong Christ and themselves, being always feeding upon secret griefs, and torturing themselves with doubts and fears, and acquainted with almost no other language but lamentations, self-accusations, and complaints. These poor souls usually discover honest hearts, that are weary of sin, and low in their own eyes, and long to be better, and do not disregard the matters of their salvation as dead-hearted ungodly sinners do. Their complaints

shew what they would be; and what they would be sincerely, that they are in God's account. But yet they live so far below the sweet delights which they might partake of, and so far below the provisions of their Father's house, and the riches of the Gospel, that they have cause to lament their excessive lamentations, and more cause to reform this sad distemper, and no cause to indulge it, as usually such do. And though with the most of them some natural passions and weaknesses, and some melancholy distempers are so much the cause, as may much excuse them; yet because it is an evil which must be disowned, and reason must be the means, where people have the free use of reason, I shall lay down some of the great inconveniencies of this sad distemper, and beseech those that tender the honour of God, and would do that which is most pleasing to him, and love not their own calamity, that they will soberly consider of what I say, and labour to regulate their minds accordingly.

1. I desire the dejected Christian to consider, that by his heavy and uncomfortable life, he seemeth to the world to accuse God and his service, as if he openly called him a rigorous, hard, unacceptable Master, and his work a sad unpleasant thing. I know this is not your thoughts: I know it is yourselves, and not God and his service that offendeth you; and that you walk heavily not because you are holy, but because you fear you are not holy, and because you are no more holy. Lknow it is not of grace, but for grace that you complain. But do you not give too great occasion to ignorant spectators to judge otherwise? If you see a servant always sad, that was wont to be merry while he served another master, will you not think that he hath a master that displeaseth him? If you see a woman live in continual heaviness ever since she was married, that lived merrily before, will you not think that she hath met with an unpleasing match? You are born and new born for God's honour; and will you thus dishonour him before the world? What do you (in their eyes) but dispraise him by your very countenance and carriage, while you walk before him in so much heaviness? The child that still cries when you put on his shoes, doth signify that they pinch him; and he dispraiseth his meat that makes a sour face at it; and he dispraiseth his friend, that is always sad and troubled in his company. He that should say of God, Thou art bad, or cruel, and unmer

ciful,' should blaspheme. And so would he that saith of holiness, It is a bad, unpleasant, hurtful state.' How then dare you do that which is so like to such blaspheming, when you should abstain from all appearance of evil? 1 Thess. v. 22. Canst thou find in thy heart thus to dishonour and wrong the God whom thou so much esteemest, and the grace which thou so much desirest? For a wicked man that is far from God, to go heavily or roar in the horror of his soul, is a shame to his sin, but no dishonour to God and holiness. But for you that are near him, in relation, engagement, and attendance, to walk so heavily, reflects on him to whom you are related, and from whom you look for your reward.

2. Consider also, what a lamentable hindrance you are hereby to the conversion and salvation of souls? Your countenances and sad complainings do affright men from the service of the Lord, and as it were call to them, to keep off and fly from the way that you find so grievous. You gratify satan, the enemy of Christ, and holiness, and souls, and become his instruments (though against your wills) to affright men from the way of life. As the Papists keep their deluded proselytes abroad from truth and reformation, by giving them odious descriptions of the Protestants, as if they were heretics, proud, frantic, mad, and scarcely men, and when they burn them, they adorn them with pictures of the devil; even so doth satan keep poor souls from entertaining Christ and truth, and entering the holy paths, by making them believe that the servants of Christ are a company of distempered, melancholy souls, and that godliness is the way to make men mad; and that he that will set his heart on heaven, must never look more for a merry, comfortable life on earth. Hence comes the proverb of the malignant formalists and profane, that A Puritan is a Protestant frightened out of his wits.' And will you confirm this slander of the devil and his instruments? Will you entice men to believe him! Will you make yourselves such pictures of unhappiness, and wear such a visor of calamity and misery, as shall frighten all that look on you and observe you, and discourage them from the way which they see accompanied with so much sorrow? As you hang up dead crows in your field to frighten the rest from the corn, and as murderers are hanged in irons to terrify all that see them from that crime, or as the heads of traitors are set up to the same end, as pro

claiming to all passengers, Thus must you be used, if you will do as they;' just so would satan fill you with terrors, and overwhelm you with grief, and distract you with causeless doubts and fears, that you may appear to the world a miserable sort of people; and then all that look on you will be afraid of godliness, and think they see as it were written in your foreheads, 'Such drooping pitiful creatures must all be, that will lead so precise and heavenly a life.” Do you think your carnal neighbours and acquaintance will not be deterred from a holy life, when they see that since you turned to it, you do nothing but complain, and droop, and mourn, as if you were worse than you were before? And was it not enough that you hindered their conversion before, when you were in your ignorance and sin, by your wicked examples and encouragements, but you must hinder it still by your dejected, discouraging countenances and conversations? Yea, perhaps your later excessive troubles may do more to hinder their conversion, than your persuasions and examples did before. And can you find in your hearts to lay such a stumblingblock as this in the way of your miserable acquaintance, to keep them from salvation? Will it not grieve you to think that you should have so great a hand in men's damnation, even since you are returned to God yourselves? I know by your sorrows and complaints, that the perdition of a soul is no small matter in your eyes. O therefore take heed of that which may procure it. The use that satan would have you make of these very words is, to go away with more dejection, and to say, What a wretch am I? even unmeet to live, that by my griefs am not only miserable myself, but also hinder the salvation of others.' And thus he would draw thee to grieve over all thy griefs again and because thou hast exceeded in thy sorrows, to be more excessive; and so to add one sin unto another; and to do more, because you have done too much. So that grief is all that he can allow thee; and one grief shall be made the reason of another, that thou mayest run thus in a round of misery, and stop in grieving, and go no further: whereas thou shouldst so grieve for such grief, as may call thee off, and stay thy grieving; and thy repenting should be the cure and forsaking of thy sin, and not the renewal of it.

But on the other side, if thou couldst live a heavenly joyful life, that the glory of thy hopes might appear in thy coun

tenance, thy conference, and conversation, how many might hereby be drawn to Christ, and caused to think well of the ways of God? Did the godly but exceed the rest of the world, in holy joy and cheerfulness of mind, as much as they exceed them in happiness and in the causes of true joy, what an honour would it be to Christ and holiness, and what an attractive to win the ignorant to embrace the motions of salvation! How easily would they let go their sinful pleasures, their gluttony, and drunkenness, and filthiness, and gaming, if they did but see by the carriage of believers, that they were like to exchange them for much greater joys? You cannot expect that ignorant men, that never tried a holy life, and have a natural enmity against it, should see the excellency of it immediately in itself; but they will judge of religion by the persons that profess it. That shall seem to them the best religion, that hath the best and happiest professors: and those seem to them the happiest and best, that have the greatest comforts, and conquer most the trouble of their minds. You can expect no other, but that country people, that know not the nature of medicines themselves, should judge of them by the success, and think that he followeth the best advice, who is most healthful, and of longest life. And so will the ignorant judge of the holy doctrine and commands of God, by the lives of those that seem to follow them. O therefore behave yourselves in the church of God, as those that remember that they live in the presence of a world of men, whose happiness or misery hath much dependance on your lives. If you were debating the case with a sensual wretch, would you not tell him that holiness is a state of greater pleasure than his sin? Tell him so then by your example, as well as by your words: let him see as well as hear of the confidence and comforts of true believers. Were Christianity exemplified in the lives of Christians, how excellent a state would it appear! were we but such as the holy doctrine and Christian pattern requireth us to be, even the blind, malicious world would be forced to admire the attainments of the saints: though they might hate them, yet they would admire them. Were we such as Stephen, that was full of faith and the Holy Ghost, and could stedfastly look up to heaven by faith, and see there the glory of the living God, and Jesus standing at his right hand, till we were raised to his boldness in defence of the truth, and his quiet submission