or reputation or any interest of your own. No man will have settled peace in his mind or be peaceable in his place, that proudly envies the precedency of others and secretly grudges at them that seem to cloud his parts and name. One or other will ever be an eye-sore to such men. There is too much of the devil's image in this sin, for an humble servant of Christ to entertain. Be not too sensible of injuries, nor make too great a matter of every offensive word or deed. At least do not let it interrupt your concord in God's work; that were to wrong Christ and his church, because another has wronged you. If you be of this impatient humor you will never be quiet; for we are all faulty, and cannot live together without wronging one another. And these proud, over-tender men, are often hurt by their own conceits; like a man that has a sore, who thinks that it smarts the more when he imagines some body hits it. They will often think that a man jeers them or means them ill, when it never came into his thoughts. Till this self be taken down, we shall every man have a private interest of his own, which will lead us all into separate ways, and spoil the peace and welfare of the church. While every man is for himself and his own reputation, and "all mind their own things," no wonder if they "mind not the things of Christ."

XII. [Do not confine your ministerial labors to your own flock, but be ready to do good wherever you have an opportunity for it].

If we are heartily devoted to the work of the Lord, let us compassionate the congregations about us that are unprovided for, and endeavor to help them to able ministers. In the meantime, we should step out now and then to their assistance, when the business of our own particular charge will give us leave. A lecture in the more ignorant places, purposely for the work of conversion, carried on by the most lively, affectionate preachers, might be very useful where constant means are wanting.

XIII. In your whole ministerial work, keep up constant desires and expectations of success.

If your hearts be not set on the end of your labors, and if you do not long to see the conversion and edification of your hearers, and study and preach in hope, you are not likely to see much success. It is a sign of a false, self-seeking heart, when a person is contented to be still doing, without seeing any fruit of bis labor. And I have observed that God seldom

blesses any man's work, so much as his whose heart is set upon the success of it. Let it be the property of a Judas to have more regard to the bag than to the business; leave it to such worldlings as he to be satisfied, if they have their salary and the esteem of the people; but let all that preach for Christ and the salvation of men, be dissatisfied till they have the thing they preach for. He never had the right ends of a preacher in view, who is indifferent whether he obtains them or not; who is not grieved when he misses them, and rejoiced when he can see the desired issue. When a man only studies what to say, and how to spend the hour with commendation, without looking any more after it, but to know what the people think of his abilities, and thus hold on from year to year, I must needs think that he preaches for himself; that he drives on a private trade of his own; and that when he preaches Christ, he preaches not for Christ, how excellently soever he may seem to do it. I know that a faithful minister may have comfort when he wants success; though Israel be not gathered, our reward is with the Lord.' Our acceptance is not according to our fruit, but according to our labor. But then he who longs not for the success of his labors, can have none of this comfort, because he is not a faithful laborer. This is only for them whose hearts are set upon the end, and grieved if they miss it. This is not the full comfort that we must desire, but only what may quiet us, if (notwithstanding our utmost care) we fail of the rest. What if God will accept the physician though the patient die? He must still work in compassion, and do his utmost to save his life. We labor not for our own reward, but for other men's salvation. I confess for my part, that I wonder at some ancient, reverend men, who have lived thirty or forty or fifty years with an unprofitable people, where they have been scarcely able to discern any fruit of their labors, that they can with so much patience continue there. should not be easily satisfied to spend my days in such a manner, but should suspect that it was the will of God I should go some where else, that another person might come there, better suited to them and more useful among them. Once more,

I

XIV. Our whole work must be carried on under a deep sense of our own insufficiency, and in a pious, believing dependance upon Christ.

We must go to him for light and life and strength, who

sends us on our work. When we feel our faith weak and our hearts grown dull, and unsuitable to so great a work as that we have to do, we must have recourse to the Lord, and pray that we may not go to persuade others to believe, with an unbelieving heart of our own; or to plead with sinners about everlasting life and death, while we have but a faint belief and feeling of these things ourselves; but that, as he has sent us forth to his work, he would furnish us with a spirit suitable to it. [Further, we must not only pray for ourselves, but we must often pray in behalf of all our hearers]. Prayer must carry on our work, as well as preaching. He preaches not heartily to his people, who will not often pray for them. If we prevail not with God to give them faith and repentance, we are unlikely to prevail with them to believe and repent. Paul gives us his example in this respect, who tells us that he prayed for his hearers 'night and day exceedingly,' 1 Thess. 3: 10. Since our own hearts and those of our people, are so far out of order as they be, if we prevail not with God to help and mend them, we are likely to make but unsuccessful work.

CHAPTER X.

THE CONCLUSION OF THE WORK; BEING A PARTICULAR

APPLICATION OF THE WHOLE.

REVEREND and dear brethren; [having taken a survey of our duty and of our sins], let us now humble our souls before the Lord for our past negligence, and implore his assistance for the time to come. Indeed we cannot expect the latter without the former. If God will help us in our future duty, he will certainly first humble us for our past sin. He that has not so much sense of his faults as unfeignedly to lament them, will hardly have sufficient to make him reform them. Shall we deny or excuse or extenuate our sins, while we call our people to such free confessions? It is too common with us to expect that from them, which we do little or nothing of ourselves. Too many labor for other men's souls, while they seem to forget that they have any of their own to regard. They act as if their part lay only in calling for repentance,

and the hearers' in repenting; theirs in crying down sin, and the people's in forsaking it; theirs in preaching duty, and the hearers' in performing it. If we did but study half so much to affect and mend our own hearts, as we do to affect and mend those of our people, it would not be with many of us as it is. It is much too little that we do for their humiliation, but I fear it is much less that we do for our own. It is a sad thing that so many of us have preached our hearers asleep, but it is worse still, if we have studied and preached ourselves asleep, and have talked so long against hardness of heart, till our hearts are grown hard under the noise of our own reproofs! Is it not better to give God glory by a full and humble confession, than in tenderness of our own glory to seek for 'fig-leaves to cover our nakedness', and to put God upon building that glory, which we have denied him, on the ruins of our own which we have preferred to his?

It is certainly our duty to call to remembrance our manifold sins, especially those that are most obvious and 'set them in order' before God and our own faces, that he may cast them behind his back;' to deal plainly and faithfully with ourselves, in a free confession, that he who is 'faithful and just may forgive us our sins;' and to judge ourselves that we may not be judged of the Lord; for they only (whether pastors or people) who confess and forsake their sins, shall find mercy; he that hardeneth his heart shall fall into mischief,' Prov. 28: 13, 14. [We should not refrain from confessing our sins even in public;] truly humble ministers, I doubt not, will rather be provoked more solemnly in the face of their several congregations to lament their guilt and promise reformation. Sins openly committed are more dishonorable to us when we hide them, than when we confess them. It is the sin and not the confession of it, that is our dishonor. We have committed them before the sun, so that they cannot be hid; attempts to cloak them increase the guilt and shame. It will not be amiss to look behind us and imitate the servants of God in ancient times, in their confessions. We find in Scripture that the guides of the church did confess their own sins as well as those of the people. See the example of Ezra; he confessed the sins of the priests, 'casting himself down before the house of God,' Ezra 9: 6, 7, 10. So did the Levites, Neh. 9: 32-34. So did Daniel, Dan. 9:20. And God expressly required 'the priests and ministers of the Lord to weep,' Joel 2: 15-17, as well as others.

I think, if we consider well the duties that have been explained and recommended, and at the same time, the manner in which we have performed them, we cannot doubt whether we have cause for humiliation. He that reads this one exhortation of Paul from whence the text is taken, and compares his life with it, is stupid and hardened indeed if he be not laid in the dust before God, bewailing his great omissions, and forced to fly to the blood of Christ and his pardoning grace. O! What cause have we all to bleed before the Lord, that we have been ministers so many year, and yet have done so little (especially by private conference) for the saving of men's souls! Had we done our duty, who knows how many souls might have been brought to Christ, and how much happier we might have been in our parishes? And why did we not do it? Many impediments were doubtless in our way; but if the greatest had not been in ourselves, in our darkness and dulness, our indisposition to duty, and our divisions among ourselves, much more might have been done for God than has yet been done. We have sinned, and have no just excuse for our sin. The sin is great because our duties were great; we should therefore be afraid of excusing ourselves too much. "The Lord of mercy forgive us and all his ministers, and lay not any of our ministerial negligence to our charge! Oh that he would cover all our unfaithfulness, and by the blood of the everlasting covenant' wash away our guilt of the blood of souls! That' when the chief shepherd shall appear, we may stand before him in peace,' and may not be condemned for the scattering of his flock.'

And now, brethren, what have we to do for the time to come, but to deny our lazy, contradicting flesh, and rouse up ourselves to the great business in which we are employed? 'The harvest is great, the laborers are too few.' The loiterers and contentious hinderers are many; the souls of men are precious; the misery of sinners is great; the everlasting torment to which they are near is greater; the joy to which we ought to help them is inconceivable; the beauty and glory of the church is desirable; our difficulties and dangers are many and great; the comfort that attends a faithful stewardship is greater; but that which attends a full success is inexpressible; and the honor conferred upon us who are called to be co-workers with God,' and to subserve the blood-shed of Christ for the salvation of men, is illustrious beyond com.