&c. (2 Cor. iv. 17.) We are often saying, if we lose this and that, what will become of us? what shall we have?" We have forsaken all." Α great all they had left for Christ, it may be a net, a fishing boat, a cottage; yet he speaks magnificently of it; and, "What shall we have?" Have! You shall have enough in the regeneration: "Ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel" (Matt. xxix. 27-29).

5. You should not warp, though you carry your lives in your hands, because constancy is necessary for our credit and good name as we are men. "Did I use lightness?" saith the Apostle (2 Cor. i. 17). Men lose their authority and esteem, they are not accounted grave, serious, and weighty, when they shift and change, and appear with a various face to the world; and certainly, it is for our comfort, for our right to everlasting blessedness is most sensibly clear by constancy in God's cause: “In nothing terrified by your adversaries; which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God" (Phil. i. 28). Oh! what would a man give for to clear this, that he is an heir of God. This is an evident token. And it is necessary for the credit of the truth which we profess: when we shift, turn, and wind, we bring a dishonour upon it; but, saith the Apostle, "Waxing confident, by my bonds" (Phil. i. 14); this puts heart and courage. And it is for the honour of God: "On your part he is glorified" (1 Peter iv. 14); and, "Signifying by what death he should glorify God" (John xxi. 19). Since constancy is so necessary, either we should not take up principles, or suffer for them, if called thereunto.

USE I.-Caution to the people of God. Take heed you do not forget the word, when you carry your lives in your hand; many of God's people may do so sometimes, as when we deny the truth: "And again he denied with an oath, I do not know the man (Matt. xxvi. 72). Or when we take any sinful course for temporal safety, as when David feigned himself mad before Achish (1 Sam. xxi. 12). Or when our spirits are filled with passion against the instruments of our trouble, and with uncomely heats; as Peter drew a sword in a rash zeal, and had no thanks for it, but a rebuke from Christ. Or when we suffer in a heartless and comfortless manner, as God's children sometimes are in dejections of spirits: David took notice of his drooping and disconsolateness (Psalm xlii. 5); when he flitted up and down in the wilderness, and pursued with Saul's army, he had his droopings and discomforts; in these cases, we forget the word of God.

2. To press you to courage and constancy in a time of danger, to endure all extremities, rather than do anything against the word of God. Here I shall inquire,

(1.) What is this Christian courage? There is military valour and Christian valour. The one consists in doing, the other in suffering, great things. Peter, at Christ's death, had more of the military valour and fierceness, than of the passive valour; for he that could venture on a band of men, was foiled by a damsel's question. The one dependeth on hastiness of temper, greatness of blood and spirits; the other upon faith and submission to God's will: "He, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into Heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God" (Acts vii. 55): it is spoken when the people gnashed on him with their teeth, then full of the Holy Ghost. There is the habit of fortitude, and the act of it when led on. There is a great deal of difference between the courage of wicked men, and the faith and fortitude of

good Christians. We see rude men are undaunted in the face of danger; but the fortitude of Christians consisteth in lifting up their eyes and hearts to Heaven: others not; for, as soon as they think of God, their courage faileth; the more brave, the more they shut out the thought of Divine things, all sense of God and immortality: "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die" (1 Cor. xv. 32). It is a brutish fury inflamed by wine, stirred up by trumpets and drums, not stirred up by the consolations of God, or remembrance of his covenant; then they are dejected (Rev. vi. 15-17).

(2.) To remove such objections as may hinder your courage and constancy :

(i.) It is a sore temptation to keep our service; but we must stand to God's providence, to honour him by service or by suffering, as he shall think good. We are to honour God in his own way, we are not to stretch conscience in the least degree to continue it. God hath no need of thy sin; when God hath a mind to lay you aside, submit.

(ii.) The smallness of the difference is another objection. If it were to turn Turk, or Heathen, or Papist, men will say, they would not do so and So. God standeth upon every peek of his word; every dust of truth is precious.

(iii.) Another objection is this, we shall be interpreted to hinder the public peace.

I answer, "If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men" (Rom. xii. 18); but be sure not to betray the cause of God, nor lose the interest of Christ; that is not possible which is not lawful, in a moral sense.

(iv.) Another objection is, that we shall be accounted peevish, rash, stubborn.

I answer, we must be led to credit. There is a difference between men stubborn and obstinate, and zealous. Many may sacrifice a stout body to a stubborn mind; but be courageous and constant in the service of God.

(3.) What is necessary to this well-tempered courage, that we may suffer, not out of humour, but out of conscience towards God; not because formerly engaged by profession, or out of a desire of a name and esteem among religious persons, but out of obedience to God, who commandeth us to choose afflictions rather than sin. To this resolution there is necessary,

(i.) A heart weaned from the world will act very uncertainly, and his zeal for (ii.) A heart entirely devoted to God. must be thus resolved (Luke xiv. 26).

(Matt. vi. 24); otherwise, a man God be very uneven.

Every one that cometh to Christ,

(iii.) A heart purged from sin; or else our zeal is not uniform, besides that our lusts will weaken our courage. A carnal person, suffering in a good cause, is of no account with God. The priests were to search the burnt-offering, if sound, or had any defect or blemish upon them. He that keepeth the commandments, is best able to suffer for them: "Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake" (Matt. v. 10). A martyr must have all the precedent graces.

(iv.) A heart that lieth under a deep sense of eternity and things to come: "This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith' (1 John v. 4), not any looking backward, but forward.

SERMON CXX.

ON THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER.

VERSE 110.-The wicked have laid a snare for me; yet I erred not from thy precepts.

Here is the second assault made upon David's integrity, the secret snares laid for him. The enemies of God's people do not always go to work in the way of open persecution, and directly for righteousness' sake; but then, they lay snares; what they cannot do by open force, they seek to do by fraud. Many that have stood out with courage against the shock of violence, have been taken in a snare, as the Prophet that resisted the king, was enticed by the blandishments of the old Prophet (1 Kings xii); persecution is a more gross way, and liable to exception; and therefore they must go secretly to work. Sometimes this life is a continued temptation; and a Christian that walketh in the world, walketh in the midst of snares set for him, by his enemies bodily and spiritual. The Devil is the great snare-layer, and wicked men learn it of him: "The wicked have laid a snare for me," &c. In the words observe,

1. David's temptation, a snare laid for him.

2. The persons who managed the temptation. "The wicked." 3. The success and issue, "Yet I erred not from thy precepts." DOCTRINE.-The godly have often snares laid for them, not only by Satan, but by wicked men.

Now, snares are to entice or endanger, or of a mixed nature.

First, Snares to entice them from their duty. Thus the blandishments of the whorish woman are called a snare : "As the bird hasteth unto the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life" (Prov. vii. 23). Of this nature are crafty insinuations, baits of preferment, profit, pleasure, or any carnal advantage to pervert our judgments, and draw us off from our duty. Secondly, Snares to endanger their safety, clogged with some spiteful condition to entrap others; or when there is a plot laid to endanger others, as Jeremy complaineth: "They have digged a pit to take me, and hid snares for my feet" (Jer. xviii. 22), secretly conspired and practised his destruction. And David: "The proud have hid a snare for me, and cords; they have spread a net by the wayside, they have set gins for me. Selah" (Psalm cxl. 5). Hunters and fowlers did never go more cunningly to work to catch the prey, than those proud men had laid their design to bring his life under their power. And in Psalm xxxv. 7, "For without cause have they hid for me their net in a pit, which without cause they have digged for my soul;" and, "They have prepared a net for my steps; my soul is bowed down: they have digged a pit before me, into the midst whereof they are fallen themselves. Selah" (Psalm lvii. 6). Now, of this sort are St. Bartholomew's matins, and the plot and contrivance to oust the Protestants in France, when they were invited to a wedding, that they might destroy them; and of this nature was the Gunpowder-treason, there was a snare laid. When Orestes had plotted Clytemnestra's death, Euripides expresseth it, Καλῶς ἄρα άρπυν εἰς πεδὴν πορεύεται, She ftly cometh into the snare.

Thirdly, Of a mixed nature, both to entice by endangering and endanger by enticing.

1st, As when they put them upon such conditions as may tempt them to folly and sin. Some think the text verified in David, at that time when he said, "They have driven me out this day from abiding in the inheritance of the Lord, saying, Go serve other gods" (1 Sam. xxvi. 19); meaning, they excited Saul to pursue him, and persecute him, and forced him to flee into an idolatrous country; and so a snare laid to endanger his steadfastness in the true faith. It is a great temptation: Necessitas cogit ad turpia, necessity is but an evil counsellor; and this joined with the other temptation of bad company: "Wo is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar" (Psalm cxx. 5).

2ndly, When they enact a law or statute, whereby to force them to sin or trouble; as they had a plot against Daniel, either to make him neglect his God, or render him obnoxious to authority (Dan. vi. 7, 8). When they burden them with such laws and statutes as the godly cannot obey without sin, or refuse without danger; they have their ends, either to draw them to sin or suffer.

Now, snares are laid by the wicked,—

1. Because, usually, they excel in policy, craftiness, and worldly wit, are superior to God's children therein. Their whole hearts run that way, and their principle is entire and unbroken; and therefore our Lord Christ telleth us, "For the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light" (Luke xvi. 8). They applaud themselves in their artifices, idolize their wit, "sacrifice unto their net, and burn incense unto their drag" (Hab. i. 16); therefore they use it to the saints' destruction.

2. Because they are acted by Satan, who will ever be doing against the church, though to little purpose. The Devil entered into Judas, when he plotted against Christ (Luke xxii. 3). They learn their wiles from Satan, and conceive mischief by copulation with the great incubus of Hell.

3. Their own hatred and malice against the people of God. Malice is a laying snares: anger vents itself in a storm of words, or in some sudden, violent action; but hatred lurketh in the soul, and puts them that harbour it, upon plots and contrivances of revenge. The historian observeth of Tiberius, In malitiam statim invectus est, &c. When Absalom hated Amnon, because he forced his sister, he plotteth how to take away his life (2 Sam. xiii. 22).

Now, whence cometh this malice against the children of God? Either by envy at their interests, or hatred at their holiness.

1. Envy at their interests, their esteem and respect in the world, when they come to be of any regard among men: Haman plotteth against Mordecai, because he sat in the king's gate (Esther v. 9): "His horn shall be exalted with honour; the wicked shall see it, and be grieved; he shall gnash with his teeth" (Psalm cxii. 9, 10). When the Gospel was like to get credit, the envious Jews raised an uproar (Acts xvii. 5). Pride is loth to stoop to see opposites in glory and power, whets their malice, and they contrive how to root them out. Every man would have himself and his own faction admired and magnified. The Pharisees conspired to take Christ: "The world is gone after him" (John xii. 19). When religion prevaileth, and groweth in credit and fashion, it is deeply resented by naughty men.

2. Hatred at their holiness. Men cannot endure to be outstripped in religion, and therefore hate what they will not imitate. Hatred is quick

sighted in revenge, full of plots and contrivances, and tickleth the soul with a delight in them; but especially religious hatred, when a man hateth another for his godliness; when religion, instead of a party, becomes a judge; that which should restrain our passions, feeds them: no hatred so great as that against the power of godliness. Cain, when he saw Abel so punctual in God's service, he plotteth to draw him into the field, and beginneth a discourse with him about providence and judgment to come, and rewards and punishments; and, while Abel maintained God's part, Cain fell upon him, and slew him (1 John iii. 12).

USE I. To apply this: as these snares tend to our temporal destruction, so there is a double use to be made of them.

1. To trust God with our safety in the midst of so many snares. What shall we do? Whatever remedy we have against violence, no man by his own foresight can find out all the snares that are laid for him; therefore commit your safety, spiritual and temporal, to the Lord; go to him and say, "Keep me from the snares they have laid for me, and the gins of the workers of iniquity" (Psalm cxli. 9). Constant dependence upon God is necessary; for there can be no snare hidden from him who watcheth over us and our safety by night and by day. There is a double argument why we should trust God with our safety, because of his wisdom and because of his watchful providence. Because of his wisdom. Alas! we are foolish and simple, and often betray ourselves into an evil condition; but God is wise for them that are foolish: "The wicked plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon him with his teeth: the Lord shall laugh at him; for he seeth that his day is coming" (Psalm xxxvii. 12, 13). There is a wise God acting for a foolish people: I tell you, the wisdom of God for us, is much greater than the wisdom of God in us. Where enemies deal proudly, God is above them; where they deal craftily, God is beyond them. The wisdom of God for us, is greater than the wisdom of any against us. And also because of his watchful providence: he hath a waking love and care of us night and day : Behold, he that keepeth Israel, shall neither slumber nor sleep" (Psalm cxxi. 4). He will be so far from sleeping, that he will not so much as slumber. When we know nothing, his providence finds out the secret contrivances that are against us. I tell you, God is our father; he will maintain us, and take care for us, when we live by faith, and not by shifts, in a good, plain, downright course of honesty : "I am God Almighty: walk before me, and be thou perfect" (Gen. xvii. 1); that is, they should go on, doing their duty, and refer the care of their safety to God. Oh! then, cast yourselves upon the Lord; he will either direct your way to eschew these snares, or pluck your feet out of them, if you be taken therein: "Mine eyes are ever towards the Lord; for he shall pluck my feet out of the net" (Psalm xxv. 15). Look to him for direction and counsel.

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2. Bless God for your safety and preservation. It is a mercy to have a being in the midst of so many dangers and snares as waylay us everywhere; especially should we bless God when we have escaped some notable trap and pit that was digged for us: "Our soul is escaped like a bird out of the snare of the fowler: the snare is broken, and we are escaped" (Psalm exxvii. 7). This is a passage we may use to God this day; there are two grounds, usually, of thanksgiving for this deliverance.

(1.) That their devices came to nought: "They conceive mischief, and bring forth vanity" (Job xv. 35). It discovereth the wisdom, power,