vice. We cannot make lime and mortar of stones, so long as they retain their natural hardness, till, by the heat of fire, they be made dissolvable, and so fit to temper: so the Lord humbleth and draweth out self-thoughts, self-sap, self-indispositions, any thing which might cause shrinking or warp. ing, before he intrusts his servants with great employments. High buildings have deep foundations; tall cedars, deep roots; quantum vertice, tantum radice.' Richest treasure is drawn out of the lowest mines. God lays the foundation of great works in despised and self-despising instruments, 'in a day of small things,' and, as it were, in a grain of mustard-seed,' that he may have the greater honour. What a high dignity was it to the Virgin Mary, to be the mother of God! She will tell us, what foundation God laid in her for this dignity: "he had respect to the low estate of his handmaid." (Luke i. 48) What graces doth Christ honour to be the keys of eternal life, but self-denying graces, faith and repentance? By the one whereof, we are taught to go out of ourselves; by the other, to abhor ourselves.

3. Consider again, that there are no conditions of life, which are not exceeding subject unto the temptations of self-seeking. Some men gain by the public troubles: if differences should be composed, and a happy end put to these calamities, their offices, commands, advantages, employments, would expire; they must then shrink back into their wonted lower condition again. Others gain by the crimes of men, by their sensuality, luxury, prodigality, excess, malice, contentions: some, by one sin; others, by another. If there should be a too strict reformation, an animadversion over the exorbitances of men, there would much less water drive their mill; and as John Baptist, so in this respect, might they say of Christ, "If he increase, we must decrease." We, in our profession, have our temptations too. If so much duty be required, so much preaching, humiliation, thanksgiving, admonition, superintendency; so frequent returns and vicissitudes of service do attend our office; we must then shake hands for ever with all our outward ease and quiet, and resolve never more to have the power and posses

d Quod superest, iterum, Cinname, tonsor eris: Martial. Criminibus debent hortos, prætoria, mensas: Juvenal.

sion of ourselves. We might instance endlessly in things of this nature, from the throne to the plough.

Now then it much behoveth us who are the Lord's remembrancers,' to pray earnestly unto him for a large spirit of self-denial upon all in public service, both others and ourselves, that God would preserve us all from this dangerous temptation; that he would take out of us all our own sap and lusts, whatever would make us warp, and shrink, and crack, and be unserviceable to the state, the church, the community whereunto we belong. She who was to marry an Israelite, being herself an alien, was to be shaven and pared, and taken, as it were, from her own former shape, before she became an Israelite. The daughter of Pharaoh is no fit wife for Solomon, till she forget her own people and her father's house. (Psalm xlv. 10) Rahab, Babylon, Tyre, Ethiopia, Philistia, must renounce their natural and Gentilitian honours, and derive their genealogy from Sion, before they can be useful unto the service and glory of God. "All my springs" (saith he, speaking of Sion) "are in thee." (Psalm lxxxvii) A man who works all for and out of himself, is like a standing lake, which harbours toads and vermin, of very little use, of no pure use at all: but they who deny themselves, and work for God, and from God, are like the streams of a spring; their sweetness and pureness, running out of the springs and fountains of Sion, make them fit for their master's use, and prepared unto every good work.

6

Let us therefore, I say, pray for all who are in public employment, that God would give them public spirits.

For the King's Majesty; that God would fill his heart with this excellent grace, and with the love of the common welfare above all other respects or interests; that God would mercifully preserve him, from a dependence upon the enemies of our religion, for the promoting of such ends, as those enemies of God, even according to the principles and practices of their religion, are much more likely, in the conclusion, to betray and destroy, than promote or preserve.

For the Parliament; that God would double upon them the spirit of self-denial; and would keep it always in the imaginations and resolutions of their hearts, to seek the wealth of the people; and as Mordecai did, "To speak peace unto them, and to their seed." (Esth. x. 3) That God would

cause them still "to speak comfortably unto the Levites. who teach the good knowledge of the Lord," and to command them" to carry forth all filthiness out of the holy place," as good Hezekiah did: (2 Chron. xxix. 5, and xxx. 22) that no jealousies may ever break asunder, but that piety and wisdom may most sweetly knit together the civil and the ecclesiastical dispensations in things, pertaining to God and his house.

For ourselves, that we may, in all matters of duty and service, deny ourselves. It is a singular mercy of Christ unto us, so to order the business of his church, as that the reverence of the persons and function of his ministers should be, as it were, complicated and linked up together with his own honour; according as he hath said, "He that heareth you, heareth me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth me." Whosoever entertain honourable thoughts of Christ by our ministry, cannot but therewithal reverence us, and esteem the feet of those beautiful, who discover such glad tidings unto them. And it is but a counterfeit and hypocritical pretence of zeal for piety, which is accompanied with any low thoughts, or contemptuous undervaluing of the ministers of the gospel. The Galatians received Paul as an angel of God, yea, as Christ himself; and would have plucked out their own eyes to have given them unto him. But though Christ hath joined these things together, yet it is our duty, in all our aims and desires, to abstract and prescind our master's interest from our own reward; to seek Christ's honour alone, and to leave unto him the care of ours.

I dare not think or suspect that, in any of our humble advices and petitions to the honourable houses of parliament, we have at all pursued any private interest of our own yet, because some are jealous with a jealousy of suspicion, that it is so; let us ourselves also be jealous with a jealousy of fear and caution, that it may not be so: and let us pray for humble and self-denying hearts, that God would enable us to pass through evil report, and through good report; and would furnish us with such spiritual meekness and wisdom as that we may be able to make it manifest to the consciences of all, even of enemies themselves, that as "we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord," so we seek not ourselves or our own things, but the things of Jesus Christ;"

nor affect dominion over the people of God, but would only be helpers of their joy,' and furtherers of their salvation, ' and servants unto them for Jesus' sake.'

I have done with the first part of my exhortation, to stir us up in behalf of ourselves and others, to pray unto God to bestow this excellent grace upon all who are intrusted in public services; unto which (had I sooner thought of it) I would have subjoined a like exhortation unto every one of us in our ministry, to press and urge the practice of this duty upon our people, especially when we preach before those who are called unto public trusts, and in whose hands the managing of great and common affairs is deposited: for certainly, self-seekers can never serve the public with fidelity.

I now proceed unto the last part of my application, viz. an exhortation unto us ourselves to practise this heavenly duty, wherein I can but offer a skeleton, and some naked lineaments of what might have been more fully enlarged. I shall branch this exhortation likewise into two parts: one concerning our general ministry: the other concerning our particular relation unto the service of this assembly.

For the former, I shall need say nothing of the third way of Self-denial; there being none, I presume, either here or in our ministry, who so value their own graces, as to seek righteousness from them, or to hang salvation upon them. Of the two former, let me crave leave to offer a word or two:

First, That we would stady to deny ourselves in those more peculiar and special failings, which we are subject unto as ministers of the gospel: many particulars might be singled out; I shall name but two at this time, namely, affectation of new lights in doctrine, and of new senses and expositions of scripture.

For the former, there are in this age of liberty (for usually such men do" captare tempora impacata et inquieta," as Petrus Erodius, a learned civilian, telleth us) very many itching and wanton wits; men of an Athenian temper, who spend all their time in nothing else but to hear and to tell some new theology; who fly after too high notions, and abstruse, metaphysical, unheard-of fancies; not contenting themselves with the wholesome form of sound words, and the general harmony of orthodox doctrine; who direct all

the studies and navigations of their minds unto theologia incognita,' to practise new experiments, and to make new discoveries. For mine own part, I never liked projectors in any kind; they usually delude others, and undo themselves. But above all, a projector in learning is one of the most unhappy: and of all learning, none more dangerous than a projector in theology; the likeliest piece of timber of any other, out of which to shape first a sceptic, and, after that, a heretic, and, at last, an atheist. Such were the ancient heretics of old, Valentinus, Basilides, Montanus, Marcus, and the rest; who, as Eusebius telleth us, were wont to amuse the people with strange words, and unintelligible expressions, the better to draw them first into admiration, and by that into belief; and such were, in our latter age of the church, Faustus Socinus, Conradus Vorstius, and divers others, whose corrupt and bold doctrines have spread like a gangrene, and miserably infested the churches of Christ in other countries. And many such are likely enough to arise and multiply in these kingdoms (heretofore famous for unity in doctrine), if the fancies of new light, and liberty of conscience (falsely so called) should go on and prevail: one sad example whereof we have already in the prodigious and most execrable blasphemies of a Socinian heretic, to say nothing of any other distempers.

I do not doubt, but when the prophecies of scripture, touching the affairs of the church which are yet future, (of which there are many) shall be fulfilled, there will by that means be much more light in understanding such predictions, than it is possible yet to have of them, while they are unfulfilled for the accomplishments of prophecies are the best and surest expositions of them. But in things doctrinal and evangelical, in matters of faith, duty, and godliness (which, I am sure, ought to be heads of our preaching) to cry up new lights, and to amuse the people with metaphysical fancies, and chymical extractions, as if they were deep and heavenly mysteries; and, in the mean time, to neglect the preaching of duty, and the savoury and saving principles of repentance and new obedience,-is the next way to intro

• Εβραϊκὰ ὀνόματα ἐπιλέγουσι πρὸς τὸ μᾶλλον καταπλήξασθαι τοὺς τελου Mévous. Lib. 4. Hist. Eccles. cap. 10.