folved not to change your Mafter, and your hopes, and your boly courfe, for any other life or hopes. Whatever come of it you are refolved that here you will venture all: Knowing that you have no other game to play, at which you are not fure to lofe, and that you can lay out your love, and care, and labour on nothing elfe that will answer your expectations; nor make any other bargain whatsoever, but what you are fure to be utterly undone by, Pfal.73. 25. & 4. 6, 7. Mat.6.20,21. & 13.45, 46. Luke 18. 33.

3. A found belief of things invifible, will be so far an effectual fpring of a holy life, as that you will [feek first the Kingdom of God, and its Righteoufneß,] Mat. 6.33. and not in your Refolutions only, but in your Practices, the bent of your lives will be for God, and your invifible felicity. It is not possible that you fhould fee by faith, the wonders of the world to come, and yet prefer this world before it. A dead opinionative belief, may ftand with a worldly fleshly life; but a working faith will make you ftir, and make the things of God your bufinefs and the labour and indufry of your lives will thew whether you foundly believe the things unfeen.

4. If you favingly believe the invifible things, you will purchafe them at any rate, and bold them fafter than your worldly accommodations; and will fuffer the lofs of all things visible, rather than you will caft away your hopes of the glory which you never faw. A humane faith and bare opinion, will not bold faft when trial comes. For fuch men take Heaven but for a referve, becaule they muft leave earth against their wills, and are loth to go to Hell: but they are refolved to hold the world as long as they can, because their faith apprehendeth no fuch fatisfying certainty of the things unfeen, as will encou rage them to let go all that they fee, and have in fexfible poffefon. But the weakest faith that's true and faving, doth ba bitually difpofe the foul, to let go all the hopes and happines of this world, when they are inconfiftent with our fpiritual hopes and happiness, Luke 14. 33.

And now I have gone before you with the light, and fhewed you what a Believer is, will you prefently confider how far your bearts and lives agree to this defcription? To know [Whether you live by faith or not] is confequentially to know,

whether

whether God or the world be your portion and felicity; and fo whether you are the heirs of Heaven or Hel. And is not this a question that you are moft nearly concerned in? O therefore for your fouls fakes, and as ever you love ing peace, Examine your felves, whether you are in the faith or your everlastnot? Know you not that Chrift is in you (by faith) except you be reprobates? 2 Cor. 13. 5. will you hearken now as long to your confciences, as you have done to me? As you have heard me telling you, what is the nature of a living, faving faith will you hearken to your confciences, while they impartially tell you, whether you have this life of faith, or not? It may be known if you are willing, and diligent, and impartial: If you fearch on purpose as men that would know whether they are alive or dead, and whether they fhall live or die for ever: and not as men that would be flattered and deceived, and are refolved to think well of their state, be it true or false.

Let confcience tell you: What eyes do you fee by, for the conduct of the chief imployment of your lives? Is it by the eye of fenfe, or faith? I take it for granted that it's by the eye of Reafon. But is it by Reafon corrupted and byassed by fenfe, or is it by Reafon elevated by faith? What Country is it that your bearts converfe in? Is it in Heaven or Earth? What company is it that you folace your felves with? Is it with Angels and Saints? Do you walk with them in the Spirit, and joyn your eccho's to their triumphant praifes, and fay, Amen, when by faith you hear them afcribing honour, and praife, and glory to the ancient of daies, the Omnipotent Febovab, that is, and that was, and is to come? Do you fetch your Joyes from Heaven or Earth? from things unfeen or feen? things future or prefent? things hoped for,or things poffeffed? What Garden yieldeth you your sweeteft flowers? Whence is the food, that your hopes and comforts live upon? Whence are the fpirits and cordials that revive you; when a frowning world doth caft you into a fainting fit, or fwoun? Where is it that you repofe your fouls for Reft, when fin or fufferings have made you weary? Deal truly, Is it in Heaven or Earth? Which world do you take for your pilgrimage, and which for your home? I do not ask you, where you are, but where you dwell? not where are your perfons, but where

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are your hearts? In a word, Are you in good earnest, when you fay, you believe a Heaven and Hell? And do you think, and speak, and pray, and live, as those that do indeed believe it? Do you spend your time, and chufe your condition of life, and difpofe of your affairs, and answer temptations to worldly things, as thofe that are ferieus in their belief? Speak out; do you live the life of faith upon things unfeen? or the life of fenfe on things that you beh ld? Dal truly; for your endless joy or forrow doth much depend on it. The life of faith is the certain paffage to the life of glory. The fl fhly life on things here fern, is the certain way to endless mifery. If you live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye by the fpirit, do mortifie the deeds of the loly, ye shall live, Rm 8 13. Be not d ceived: God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall be alf reap: For be that foweth to his flesh, shall of the fi fhreap corruption: but be that foweth to the fpirit, fhall of the Spirit reap everlifting life, Gal. 6. 7. 8. If you would know where you must live for ever, know how, and for what, and upon what it is, that you live here.

Ufe 4. Having enquired whether you are Believers, I am next to ask you, what you will be for the time to come? will you live upon things feen or unfeen? While you arrogate the name and bonour of being Chriftians, will you bethink you what Chriftianity is? and will you be indeed what you say you are, and would be thought to be? Oh that you would give credit to the Word of God that the God of Heaven might be but beartily believed by you! And that you would but take his Word to be as fure as fenfe? and what he hath told you is or will be, to be as certain as if you saw it with your eyes? Oh what manner of perfons would you then be? how carefully and fruitfully would you speak and live? How impoffible were it then that you fhould be careless and prophane? And here that I may by ferioufness bring you to be ferious, in fo ferious a business, I fhall first put a few fuppofitions to you, about the invisible objects of faith; and then I fhall put fome applicatory questions to you, concerning your own refolutions and practice thereupon.

1. Suppose you faw the Lord in glory continually before you; When you are hearing, praying, talking, jefting, eating,

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drinking, and when you are tempted to any wilful fin: Suppofe you faw the Lord find over you, as verily, as you fee a man! (As you might do if your eyes could fee him for it's moft certain that he is ftill prefent with you) fuppofe you faw but fuch a glimpse of his back parts as Mofes did, Exod. 34. when God put him into a cleft of the Rock, and covered him while he paffed by (Chap. 33. 23.) when the face of Mofes fhined with the fight, that he was fain to vail it from the people, Exod. 34-33,34,35. Or if you had feen but what the Prophet faw, Ifa. 6. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. when he be held the Lord upon a Throne, high and lifted up, &c. and beard the Seraphim cry, Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hots, the whole earth is full of bis glory. When he faid, Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips! for mine eyes have seen the King the Lord of Hafts. Or if you had fean but what Job law, Job 42.5, 6. when he faid, [I have heard of thee by the bearing of the ear; but now mine eye feeth thee; wherefore I abbor my felf and repent in duft and abes.] What courfe would you take, what manner of perfons would you be after fuch a fight as this? If you had feen bat Christ appearing in his glory, as the Difciples on the boly Mount, Matth. 17. or as Paul faw him at his converfion, when he was fmitten to the earth, A&s 9. or as John faw him, Rev. 1. 13. where he faith [He was cloathed with a garment down to the foot, and girt with a golden girdle; bis head and bis hairs were white like Wool or Snow, and his eyes were as a flame of fire, and bis feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace, and his voice as the found of many waters; and be bad in bis right band fun Stars, and out of his mouth went a sharp two edged Sword, and his countenance was as the Sun fhineth in his strength: and when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead; and be laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, fear not, I am the first and the last; I am be that liveth and was dead; and behold I am alive for evermore, Amen, and bave the keyes of hell and death.] What do you think you fhould be and do, if you had feen but fuck a fight as this? Would you be godly or ungodly after it? As fure as you live, and fee one another, God alwaies feeth you: He feeth your fecret filthinefs, and deceit, and malice, which you think

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is hid; he feeth you in the dark the locking of your doors, the drawing of your curtains, the fetting of the Sun, or the putting out of the Candle, doth hide nothing from bim that is Omniscient, Pfal. 94. 8, 9. [Understand ob ye brut if among the people! and ye fools, when will ye be wife? He that planted the ear, shall be not hear? be that formed the eye, shall be not fee?] The luft and filthinefs, and covetoufnefs, and envy, and vanity of your very thoughts are as open to his view as the Sun at noon. And therefore you may well fup. pole bim prefent that cannot be abfent; and you may fuppofe you faw him that fill feeth you, and whom you must fee. Oh what a change, a glympfe of the glory of his Majefty, would make in this Affembly! Oh what amazements, what paffionate workings of foul would it excite! Were it but an Angel that did thus appear to you, what manner of hearers would you be? how ferious? how affectionate ? how fenfible? And yet are you Believers, and have none of this? when faith makes unfeen things to be as feen? If thou have faith indeed, thou feeft him that is invifible: thou fpeakeft to him thou heareft him in his Word: thou feeft him in his Works: thou walkeft with him he is the life of thy comforts, thy converfe and thy life. 2. Suppose you had feen the matters revealed in the Gospel to your faith, as to what is past and done already? If you had feen the deluge and the Ark, and prefervation of one righteous family: the burning of Sodom and Gomorrab with fire from Heaven; and the faving of Lot whofe righteous foul was grieved at their fins, and hunted after as a prey to their ungodly rage, because he would have hindered them from tranfgreffing? Suppofe you had feen the opening of the Red Sea, the paffage. of the Ifraelites, the drowning of Pharaoh and his Ægyptians,the Manna and the Quails that fell from Heaven, the flaming Mount, with the terrible Thunder, when God delivered the Law to Mofes! what manner of people would you have been? what lives would you have led, after fuch fights, as all or any one of these? Suppofe you had feen Chrift in his ftate of Incarnation, in his examples of lowlinefs, meekness, contempt of all the glory and vanities of this world, and had heard him fpeak his heavenly Doctrine with power and authority, as never man fpake. Suppofe you had feen him heal the blind,

the