doing nothing, and much worse than nothing, when they. have a work of everlasting consequence to do, and they know that the devil's chiefest hopes do consist in the success of these diversions! I must seriously profess to you, that I am constrained by the word and teachings of God, and by undeniable reason itself, to look upon all the labour of your lives, the highest, and the busiest, but as the picking of straws, of playing with a feather, or riding upon a staff or a hobby-horse, or such like actions as children, fools, or madmen use, as long as you mind not, and seek not after the one thing necessary. Whatever they may be to others, they are no wiser or better to yourselves. This is my judgment; yea, this is the judgment of the Spirit of God; Phil. iii. 8. If Paul was not mistaken, your gain itself is to be accounted loss, and all but dung, in comparison of the knowing and winning of Christ, that you might be found in him, and have his righteousness. Think not the name of dung too base, which God himself hath written here upon your highest endowments and honours, by his Spirit. And indeed what will they all do more than dung to procure you the favour of God, or the pardon of your sins? If you offer him gold, will it do any more than if you offered him so much dirt? Is not the prayer of a beggar heard as soon as of a lord or gentleman? If they would do any thing to buy you peace of conscience, or everlasting life, or if they would but keep you alive on earth, I should not marvel at your course. But when they will do none of this, but make your way to heaven more difficult, yea, your salvation a thing impossible while you thus live after the flesh (Rom. viii. 13.), how then can any easier sentence be passed upon your choice? Be you the greatest or the wisest in your own esteem, or in the esteem of others of your mind, I believe, yea, I am sure, that you are all this while but laboriously idle, and honourably debasing yourselves, and delightfully tormenting yourselves, and wisely befooling yourselves, and thriftily undoing yourselves for ever. I have reason to say that your rising, and honourable, and voluptuous employments, are not only like children's play in the sand, and making them houses with sticks and stones; but so much more pitiful, as the reason which you abuse exceedeth theirs. And could you all attain to be lords and ladies, I should upon you but as a king or queen upon a chess-board, as

look

to any felicity that it bringeth to yourselves; whatsoever use the overruling providence of God may make of you for his churches. The wise merchant is he that seeking pearls doth find this one of greatest price, and selleth all that he hath and buyeth it; even all the worldly treasures which you so highly value; Matt. xiii. 45, 46. There is more true riches in this one pearl, than in a thousand loads of sand or dirt. If you will load yourselves with mire and clay, conceiting it to be your treasure, your back will be broken before you will have enough to make you rich.

O sirs, with what eyes, with what hearts do you use to read such passages of Christ that speak so plainly to you, as if he named you, and so piercingly as one would think should make you feel, Luke xiii. 19-21. "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said to him, Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee; and then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich towards God." Would you have Christ speak plainer to you; or more closely apply it, that you may perceive he speaks to you? You have lost all the labour of your lives; but that is not all.

3. But furthermore consider, that if the one thing needful have been neglected, whatever else you have been doing or whatever you have got (unless as preparatory to this), you have not only lost your labour, but you have all this while been busily undoing yourselves, and labouring for your own perdition.

If it were but the loss of your time and labour, you would then die but as brutes, and be as if you had never been; and to those that have brutified themselves, this will seem more tolerable, than to live in holiness to God. But alas, you have done much worse than this! You have not only been digging your own graves, but barring up against yourselves the doors of heaven, and kindling the unquenchable fire to torment you; Mark ix. 4.

I beseech you give me a considerate hearing, you ambitious gentlemen, you covetous worldlings, and you that serve your lusts and pleasures! Do you think you had been doing the work of wise men, if you had all this while been burning your own fingers, or cutting your own flesh, or set

ting your own or your neighbours' houses on fire? What would you have us call that man that would live in such employments as these, and yet would be accounted wise or honourable? Do I need to tell thee, as Nathan did David, that "thou art the man?" Do I need in so plain a case to tell you, that you have been doing worse (I speak not rashly), a thousand times worse against your souls, than this would have been which is supposed to be only against your bodies? Alas! self-destroyers, what do you mean? Did God send you hither on no better an errand than to kindle and blow the fire of his wrath, and fall into it when you have kindled it? Have you no better work in the world to do, than to prepare yourselves a place in hell, and with a great deal of care, and cost, and stir, to labour for damnation, as if you were afraid of losing it?

I know you will say, 'God forbid, we hope better, we intend no such thing.' But alas, the question is not, What you intend, but what you are doing? Not whether it be your desire that everlasting death should be the wages of sin, but whether it be the law and unchangeable will of God? Rom. vi. 23. If you seek not first God's kingdom and his righteousness, and look not after the one thing needful, with your chiefest estimation, resolution, and endeavour, as sure as Christ is true, this will prove your case at last, though now you wink, and wilfully go on, and will not believe it. As sure as the Gospel is true, this is true. There are but two ends, heaven and hell; and if you miss the former, you fall into the latter. "If you live after the flesh, you shall die," whatever you imagine; and you must "mortify the deeds of the flesh by the Spirit," if you "will live;" Rom. viii. 13. If you see a man cutting his own throat, and you ask him, 'What are you doing, man?-will you kill yourself?' and he answereth you, No, God forbid; I have no such meaning; I will hope better;' would you think that this would save his life? or that his hopes and meanings would prove him ever the wiser man? I tell you, from the word of God, it is one of the plainest truths that is there contained, that if you value not, choose not, and seek not the one thing needful above all other things whatsoever, you are all this while but sowing the seeds of endless misery, whose fruit you must reap in "outer darkness, where will be weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth;" Matt. xiii.

42.50. You are "treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath, and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will give to every man according to his works;" Rom. ii. 5, 6. You are sowing in pleasure to the flesh, in eating and drinking, and mirth, and honour; but you shall reap in corruption, lamentation, and woe; Gal. vi. 7, 8. "For that you shall mourn and weep. now laugh, for you Woe to you that are rich (and have no better, but want the everlasting riches), for you have received your consolation. Woe to you that are full (and yet are empty of Christ and grace), for you shall hunger;" Luke vi. 24, 25. These are the words of Christ himself, and therefore true if Christ be

woe to

true.

Yea, more than this; let me have leave to tell you, (for why should I not tell you of your greatest folly, and that which is necessary for you to know?) as long as you neglect the one thing necessary, you are acting the part of the most deadly enemies against yourselves. No enemy that you have in all the world, could do that against you, as you do against yourselves. You abhor the devil; and I blame you not; for his malice and enmity deserveth it: but you do much worse against yourselves than the devil himself could ever do. To tempt you to sin is not so much as to consent to it and commit it. He can but entice you, and constrain you. It is you that are the neglecters of your Maker and Redeemer, and the wilful rejecters of your own felicity. Satan doth bad enough against you by temptation, but you do worse by yielding and sinning; much worse than all the devils in hell could do against you. For God hath not given all of them so much power over you, as he hath given you over yourselves.

Lord, what a distracted case is the ungodly world in! They hate any man else that they do but imagine is their enemy! Though he do but diminish their worldly wealth or honour, they cannot forgive him. If a man give one of them a box on the ear he cannot bear it. And as for the devil, who is the common enemy, they spit at his name, and think they bless themselves from him. And yet these same men do spend all their care, and time, and labour, in doing more against themselves, than all their enemies could do in earth or hell; and are worse than devils to themselves; and yet they never fall out with themselves for it; but can for

give themselves as easily as if they did themselves no harm. This is true, too true, sirs, as harsh as it seemeth to your ears. And if it displease you to hear of it, bethink yourselves what it is to do it; and how God and all wise men must judge of you that have no more mercy on yourselves. Certainly it is much worse to do it, than to tell you what you do. God tells men of their sin, and God doth nothing but what is good; but it is themselves only that commit it. I beseech you do but understand what you are doing, as long as the one thing necessary is neglected by you.

4. Consider also, that whatsoever else you have been doing in the world, if you have not done the one thing needful, you have unmanned yourselves, and lived below your reason, and in plain English, you have lived as besides your wits.

I give you no harder language than God himself hath frequently given you in his word, and than you will shortly give yourselves, if you repent not; yea, and sooner if you do repent. If you have (in this) the use of your reason, you must needs know what you have your reason for.

And

I beseech you tell me for what you have it, if not to serve and please your Maker, and prepare for your everlasting state? Is it only that you may know how to plough and sow, and follow your trades and pleasures in the world, and satisfy your flesh a little while, and then die as the beasts that perish? None of you, I suppose will say so, that calls himself a Christian. If God had made you for no higher things than beasts, he would have given you no higher faculties and endowments. As they be not made to enjoy God, so they have no knowledge of him; he sendeth not his word to them, and calleth them not to learn the knowledge of his will. But you know, or may know, that there is a God, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him; and are capable of loving him, attending him, and serving him, and therefore of enjoying him. Beasts are not ruled by the hopes and fears of a life after this. For their nature and end do not require it. But men must be thus ruled, or else there can be no sufficient ruling of them, in an ordinary way which shews that the nature of men is capable of the things which are the matter of their hopes and fears.

Verily, sirs, I think as to any good that cometh by it,