spirituality. Oh, how changeable and fickle are our hearts! this should humble us.

2. It reproveth them that would have a dispensation at times, and take liberty to cast off all Christian modesty and gravity; that think if they be serious sometimes, they may be light and vain at others; and therefore, sometimes like angels of light, at other times like fiends of darkness; sometimes we would take them for grave, serious Christians, at other times for loose libertines, and they cast the fear of God behind their backs: "If he trust to his own righteousness, and commit iniquity," &c. (Ezek. xxxiii. 13); that is, if upon presumption that he hath been righteous, he dispenseth with himself, and takes an indulgence from his former duty to be light, vain, careless; all his righteousness shall be forgotten. Such a dissimilitude is there between men; now they seem to be grave and serious, anon vain, light, and wanton; so very uncertain and uneven are we in our temper and practice.

3. It shows what need there is of a constant watchfulness, that in all things we may behave ourselves as God's children. Sin is always at work: "The imaginations and thoughts of our heart are only evil and that continually" (Gen. vi. 5); and Satan is always at work, espying advantages against us (1 Peter v. 8), to draw us off from God. Oh, then let grace be in its continual exercise! Live as knowing all the motions and operations of the soul are under a rule. Live as being always under the eye of God. Live as being sensible God takes care for us himself, remembereth us every moment, therefore it is but reason we should take him. Secondly, A perseverance without defection and apostasy, that we may not fall off from God, when we have taken a profession of his name upon Now, the considerations to quicken you to that will be these :

us.

1. Consider how equal it is that our duty should last so long as we would have God's blessings last, that one part should answer another. We would have God bless us to the end, therefore we must serve and obey him to the end: "For this God is our God for ever and ever; he will be our guide even unto death" (Psalm xlviii. 14). He doth not lay down the conduct of his providence, until we come to Heaven; and therefore we should keep his law for ever and ever. How can we desire God to be ours to the end, if we are not his to the end? The stipulation of our part of the covenant must answer to that of God's.

2. We have the same reasons to continue that we had to begin at first; there is the same loveliness in God's ways; Christ is as sweet as ever; and Heaven as worthy, and as great as ever. If there be any difference there is more reason to continue, than there was to begin. Why? Because we have more experience of the sweetness of Christ, you knew him before only by report and hearsay, but now you have tasted he is gracious, you know him by experience (1 Peter ii. 3). Surely when we have made trial, Christ should be sweeter and Heaven nearer: "Now is our salvation nearer" (Rom. xiii. 11). The nearer to the enjoyment of any good, the more impatient in the want of it. A Christian, as he is the nearer to his hopes and happiness, and the more experience of God and Christ, the more stable should his heart be in the ways of God. I speak of this, because at first men are carried out with great affection and zeal, and are of very promising beginnings. There is no reason of altering our course, and why we should grow remiss, lazy, and changeable in God's service. What is more usual with men than to cast off their "first faith" (1 Tim. v. 12),

and their "first love " (Rev. ii. 4), and their first diligence and obedience (2 Sam. xvii. 3). We read of the "first ways" of David. Many that seem to have set forth with a great deal of forwardness and zeal, tire afterward. In the marriage relation true affection increaseth, but adulterous love is hot only while it is new.

3. Consider the danger and mischievous effects of apostasy, and declining from God.

(1.) This is somewhat that you lose your crown: "Hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown" (Rev. iii. 11). The honour and comfort of all we have hitherto done and suffered will be lost and gone: "Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought" (2 John 8). All your watchings, strivings, prayings, fastings, professing the name of God, all is come to nothing. The Nazarite under the law was to begin again, if the days of his separation were defiled (Num. vi. 12). If he had separated himself for such a while, though he kept almost all his time, yet if he defiled himself before the time was out, he was to begin all again: "When the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity, all his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned" (Ezek. xviii. 24). When you turn head against your former profession all comes to nothing.

(2.) Consider, falling off is more dishonourable to God than a simple refusal. Why? You bring an ill report upon him, as if he were not a good master. A wicked man that refuseth grace, he does not so much dishonour God, because his refusal is supposed to be the fruit of his prejudice. But now you cast him off after trial, and so your refusal is supposed to be the fruit of your experience, as if the Devil were a better master; when you have tried both, you do as it were deliberately judge that Satan's service is best; or that you do not find in God that which he promised, and you expected from him. And that is the reason why God stands upon his credit, and pleads with apostates: "What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far me?" (Jer. ii. 5); and, "O my people, what have I done unto thee, and wherein have I wearied thee? testify against me (Mic. vi. 3). Is he hard to please? or backward to reward? what cause of distaste have you found in him? for you do implicitly accuse him.

(3.) When you fall off after a taste of the sweetness and comfort of the practice of godliness, your condition is worse than if you had never begun, and you will be more unable than you were at first. A man that is climbing up a tree, or ascending a ladder, if, after he hath gotten up many steps, he let go his hold, and fall down, he doth not only lose the benefit of his former pains, but gets a bruised body, and broken bones, and is less able to climb up than he was before.

(4.) All the promises are made to perseverance (Heb. iii. 6.—Col. i. 23.-Rev. ii. 10.-Rom. ii. 7). Oh, there be many that leave their first love, and so they forfeit all the comfort of the promises.

(5.) The more you persevere, the more assurance you have of the goodness of your condition: "We desire that every one of you do show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope unto the end" (Heb. vi. 11). When a man keeps up his warmth, his hope increaseth, and he grows to more assurance and more establishment, and keeps up his diligence in God's service.

USE I.-For reproof.

1. Those that take up religion only by way of essay, and trial, that do not resolve upon all hazards, but take it only as a walk, and not a journey: like men that go to sea for pleasure, not to make a voyage. But whenever we begin with God, we should say, "I will keep thy law for ever and ever." We should sit down and count the charges, make God a good allowance, resolve that nothing shall withdraw us from him (Rom. viii. 35, 36).

2. It reproveth aguish Christians, whose piety and devotion takes them by fits. Their righteousness is like the morning dew, that cannot endure the rising sun (Hos. vi. 4), and so they are off and on with God.

3. Those that are of the Samaritan temper, swayed altogether by temporal advantages. The Samaritans, sometimes they would be of the Jews' religion, when favoured by Alexander; when the Jews were pursued by other princes, then they would be against the Jews, and deny the temple of God. Sometimes their temple was dedicated to the God of Israel, sometimes to the god of the Heathens, as their interests did fall or rise. So there are many that do intend or remit the conscience of their duty, according to their interests, and therefore when trouble ariseth, they are offended (Mark iv. 17).

USE II. For exhortation, to press you thus to keep God's law for ever and ever. To this end,

1st, Be fortified within, after you have gotten grace. I suppose men that they are in a good way. O be fortified from that which may shake you from without. Three things are wont to hurry men from one extreme to another; errors, persecutions, and scandals.

1. Errors. Be not troubled when differences fall out about the truths of God, nor shaken in mind: "For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved, may be made manifest among you" (1 Cor. xi. 19). Many question the ways of God, and all religion, because there are so many differences about them; therefore they think nothing certain. These winds God lets loose upon the church, to distinguish the chaff and the solid grain; God saw this discipline necessary, that we might not take up religion upon trust, without the pains of study and prayer.

2. Persecutions are an offence: "Blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me" (Matt. xi. 6); that is, offended because of troubles that accompany the profession of the truth. The whole drift of the Christian religion is to draw us off from the interests and concernments of the present world, to look after another.

3. Scandals of professors. All that profess the name of God are his witnesses; their lives should be a confirmation of the Gospel, but indeed they often prove a confutation of it; we should confirm the weak, and we offend the strong. Many have been gained by persecution, when they have seen the courage of God's servants. O, but the scandals of those that profess the name of God have proved a stumbling block. Those that are offended by crosses, yet they have a secret liking of the truth; but those that are offended by scandals, they loath the truth itself, and so are hurried away against the profession of God; therefore, be fortified against all these.

2ndly, Be fortified within, by taking heed to the causes of apostasy, and falling off from the truth either in judgment or practice. What are those things?

1. Ungrounded assent. A choice lightly made, is lightly altered, when

men do not resolve upon evidence. We are to try all things (1 Thes. v. 21). When we take up a profession without evidence, we soon quit it; men waver hither and thither for want of solid rooting in the truth.

2. Ungrounded profession, want of solid rooting in grace, when not rooted either in faith (Col. ii. 7), or grounded in love (Eph. iii. 17), or established by grace (Heb. xiii. 9). There must be a foundation before a building, a thorough sense of the love of God, and a being rooted, when our hearts are sound in God's statutes.

3. Unmortified lusts. That which is lame is soon turned out of the way; while men keep up their respects to the pleasures, profits, and honours of the world unbroken, they are sure to miscarry; though they should stand for awhile, yet temptation will come that will take them away. Lusts put us upon great uncertainty, as fear, or the favour of men, or as carnal hopes sway: "Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world" (2 Tim. iv. 10).

4. A fond easiness. Men change their religion with their company, out of a desire to please all, as the camelion changeth colours, according as it touches. True religion is indeed easy to be entreated (James iii. 17). But now, to make bold with God and conscience, to please men, is a sad adventure; it is not a good disposition, but pusillanimity.

5. Self-confidence. When we think to bear it out with natural courage and resolution, and will be playing about the cockatrice's hole, and dallying with temptation. As Peter's confidence, you know how dear it cost him (John xviii. 16, 17). It is God which keepeth the feet of his saints, and he will be known to be their guardian (1 Sam. ii. 9), therefore he will be depended on.

3rdly, Take heed of the first decays, and look often on the state of your hearts. A man that never casts up his estate is undone insensibly. It is the Devil's policy, when once we are a declining to carry us further and further. A gap once made in the conscience, grows wider and wider every day. The first declinings are the cause of all the rest. Evil is best stopped in the beginning. When first you begin to be careless, mindless of God, and neglectful of communion with him, O, then take heed. It is easier to crush the egg than kill the serpent. He that keeps the house in constant repair, prevents the ruin and fall of it. So do you keep your soul in constant repair; take notice of the first swerving, lest it carry you further and further. Men fall off by degrees, and grow worse and worse, neglect this duty and that, till they cast off all. Like Nebuchadnezzar's image, which was of gold, silver, iron, clay, from worse to worse; they presently run from one extremity to another. There are degrees of hardness: Let us "hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end" (Heb. iii. 14). The first sense, taste, and liveliness of it; learn from whence you are fallen, and then a steadfast expectation of the reward (1 Cor. xv. 58). You have but a few years' service more, a little while to be put upon labour and striving, then you shall be as happy as heart can wish. Then a religious use of the Lord's Supper; for here you renew again the oath of allegiance to God. The great purport of this duty is to bind yourselves to this firm and close walking. The Lord's Supper is a renewing of covenant, to fix our hearts by new promises of obedience. When we begin to waver and faint, and stand, we receive new strength. As they, when they had a little refreshing, then they went on "from strength to strength" (Psalm lxxxiv. 7). The Lord's Supper, it is our viaticum,

our well and refreshing by the way, that we may hold out to our journey's end.

SERMON LI.

VERSE 45. And I will walk at liberty: for I seek thy precepts.

The copulative in the front of the text, showeth some dependence which the words have upon the former. His last request was (verse 43), for an opportunity and heart to own the ways of God. His arguments

are,

1. His present hope, in the end of that verse. 2. His perseverance in obedience (verse 44).

Now,

3. The freedom of his heart in that continued course of obedience. A free and open confession of the truth, may seem to cast us into bonds and straits; but yet it giveth us liberty. The truth sets free (John viii. 32). If it bring the body under fetters, yet it enlargeth the heart. We never have greater freedom than when we are pleasing God, though at our bitter cost. "I will walk at liberty," non in angustiis timoris, sed in latitudine dilectionis, not straitened by fear, but set at large by love. "I will walk at liberty, for I seek thy precepts." In the words observe,1. David's privilege, “And I will walk at liberty."

2. The ground of it, "For I seek thy precepts."

The points are two.

DOCTRINE I.-To walk in the way of God's precepts, is to walk at liberty.

DOCTRINE II.-The more we take care to do so, the more we find this liberty. "I seek," that noteth an earnest diligence. Both these points will be made good by these three consideratons :

Therefore his law is

1st, The way of God's precepts is in itself liberty. 2ndly, There is a liberty given to walk in that way. 3rdly, Upon walking in that way, we find it liberty. First, The way of God's precepts is liberty. called a "law of liberty" (James i. 25). No such freedom as in God's service; and, on the contrary, no such bondage as to be held with the cords of our own sin. "While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption" (2 Peter ii. 19). A liberty to do all we please, is the greatest bondage. There are three pairs of notions in which men are extremely mistaken; in misery and happiness, wisdom and folly, liberty and bondage. Men think none miserable but the afflicted, and none happy but the prosperous; because they judge by the present ease and commodity of the flesh. Therefore Christ, in his sermon on the mount, maketh it his drift to undeceive the world, to show that the mourners and the persecuted, the pure and the meek, they are the happy men (Matt. v.) So, in the notions of wisdom and folly, the world are mistaken. Man, that is an intelligent creature, affects the reputation of wisdom, and would rather be accounted wicked than weak. But how do they mistake? He is the wise man in their account, that can carry on his worldly business with success. They judge of wisdom and folly not by the concernments of the other world, but by present interests. Therefore the whole drift of the Scripture is to make us wise to salvation (2 Tim. iii. 15), to call us off from secular wisdom, and to teach us to "become fools that we may be