and prayer. When you are at meat this morning, shew by your holy speeches, that your minds are not forgetful of the work of the day. Check playing and idle talking, both in children and servants, and labour to engage them by your example, to shew a more grave and serious air in their countenances this morning, than upon other occasions.

you,

Let as many of them as can be conveniently spared, accompany you to the public ordinances; and suffer none of them to be absent therefrom, except in cases of necessity. Remember the fourth command, "Thou, thy son, thy daughter, thy man-servant, and thy maid-servant, and all within thy gates." Let not the dressing of meat for keep servants from the house of God this day; but see that you be able to say with Cornelius, (who feared the Lord with all his house) "We are all here present before God." Though children be young, yet bring them with you; for they are capable of getting good by the word sooner than we are aware. The scripture takes several times notice of little ones in the solemn assemblies, Deut. xxix 11. Ezra x. 1. Acts xxi. 5. If we lay our children by the pool side, who knows how early the Spirit of God may help them in, and heal them? Take your families along with you to the church; leave them not behind you, to come straggling to the church after worship is begun; nor allow them to drop away before it be ended. This is very indecent and disorderly; you would not allow them to do se with respect to your work. If you were going to the harvest field, you would not suffer them to come or go when they pleased. No, you would oblige them all to be ready timely to come forth together, and fall to their work at once, and tarry till they loosed from work together. And should you not be as much concerned for God's work, as for your own; for the business of eternity, as for the affairs of time ?

Concerning our going to the Church.

In the next place, let me give some advice relating to your behaviour in going to the church, proper especially for you whose houses lie some what remote from it.

Having dressed your souls, as well as may be. this morning, according to the foresaid direction, go forth, watching over your hearts and senses, having the lively impression of

God's eyes upon you, and believing that he takes special notice of all your thoughts, words, and actions this day.

If you walk in company with others. take heed to your words, that they may be savoury and suitable. O that people would guard against worldly discourse in their going to the church (which very much discomposeth the heart for the public worship) and would talk of spiritual subjects. of the design and work of the day, and encourage one another to it! How pleasant would this be! This was the ancient practice of God's people, Zech. viii. 21 and we see how much David is taken with it, Psal. cxxii. 1. 66 I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord;" q. d. It was the most pleasant sound I heard all the week through, to hear the people encouraging one another to assemble to God's public worship, in God's house. upon God's day. This to him was the most pleasant journey ever he went; he was not backward to it, he did not weary of it; nay, it was "the joy and life of his soul;" he was glad of it. How few among us are in this frame ? Alas! instead of it there are many in our day glad of any trifling excuse to stay them at home, or take them away from the afternoon's sermon.

If you live at some distance from the church, and be with carnal company by the way who savour nothing but the world: it is best for thee to retire from them to thine own meditations, lest thou be infected with their carnal and corrupt communications: for even a Peter, when he is conversing and warming his hands with the enemies of Christ, his heart turns ice cold and frozen to Christ his Master, till a love-blink from the Sun of righteousness thawed it again.

If better meditation offer not to the by the way, I shall furnish thee with some very suitable, from natural things, which are objects of your senses.

If it be in a winter morning thou goest out, when the sun is but rising, think, if one sun make so bright a morning, what a shining morning will that be when Christ, with all his bright angels and saints, shall break through the clouds, when there shall be as many suns as we see stars in a winter's night?! shall I be one of those that "shall shine as the sun, in the kingdom of my Father ?"

If it be in the spring time, and when a pleasant rain is

falling upon the grass and corn, think, the Sabbath should be a growth-day for believers. This day God is as the "dew to Israel." O that my soul"may grow as the lilly, and revive as the corn!" O that I may grow inward in sincerity, and outward in good works: downward in humility, and upward in heavenly mindedness! Let the doctrine of God's word this day drop on my soul, as "the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass," that I may wax taller in grace, and stronger in faith and love. This day I should be going from strength to strength," according to Psal. Ixxxiv. 7. As the bee is busy in going from flower to flower, still gathering honey as she passeth; so should I this day go from duty to duty, from one ordinance to another, from praying to reading, from reading to hearing, from hearing to meditating, still gathering grace and strength as I go.

Dost thou look to the heavens? Think, I have my Saviour and my all there; there is the place of my everlasting abode. Sense tells me what the outside of it is; yet that spangled roof over my head is but the pavement of that glorious place, where I shall enjoy my eternal Sabbath, and my everlasting rest in Christ's bosom. O my soul, yonder is Goshen, the region of light; yon twinkling stars, shining moon, and flaming sun, are but as lanterns hanging out at my Father's house to light thee, while thou walkest in the dark streets of the earth. Little dost thou know the glory, mirth, and joy, that are within: 0 what are worldlings' joys to them! Olet my affections and desires this day mount thither, that this may be one of the days of heaven to my soul !

Again, think, the Lord hath spread out the "heaven as a curtain," Psal. civ. 2. and, notwithstanding of its rapid motion, this curtain hath continued spread near these six thousand years, and not one hole is to be seen in it to this day. Is not heaven then a safe place for me to lay up my treasure in, where none can break through and steal it from me ? O that my portion and treasure may be there; "that where my treasure is, there my heart may be also!"

Dost thou see the clouds ? Think on the day when Christ will rend and break through them; as he went up triumphing in a cloud to heaven, in like manner he shall come again. Are the heavens of such bright and pure mat

ter? Think on the purity of the inhabitants thereof. There is no room, no not a foot-breadth, for impure persons in the heavenly Jerusalem, where the gates are of pearl; no profane sinner, no unclean thing shall enter

there.

When thou walkest on the ground, think, this whole earth is but my Father's footstool, that he hath given me to tread on: O how glorious then must his palace be ! yet it is mine in Christ. Again, this earth hangs upon nothing," Job xxvi. 27. O shall I be so foolish as to hang my hopes upon that which hangs on nothing? Again, wonder at God's power and faithfulness, that notwithstanding it hangs as a ball in the air, and hath had many dreadful tempests upon it, and terrible earthquakes within it, yet God hath kept it from moving out of its place for near these six thousand years past.

Dost thou tread upon the grass ? Think how God calls thee thereby to remember thy fading life and withering condition, every step thou makest, Isa. xl. 6. "All flesh is

grass," and death is coming with his scythe to mow down this grass: And, though some grass escape the scythe in summer, when it is fresh and green, yet the winter frost will wither it away; so, though you escape the scythe of death in the summer of your youth, yet the winter of old age will come and wither you.

Dost thou pass over a little brook or rivulet in the way y? Think, O if I could say this day with the psalmist, Psal. xlii. 1. 2. "As the hart pants after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God; my soul thirsteth for God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear before God ?"

Dost thou go up an ascent? Think, the way to heaven is all up hill, Psal. xxiv. Lord strengthen me to climb it, without fainting or sliding back. O that my soul this day may be ascending to God, and God may be descending to me!

Dost thou behold the sea? Wonder at the ebbing and flowing of it, and at God's power and goodness, that sets restraining bounds to it. How easily might that power, that makes it to flow 20 feet, make it to flow 200 feet? and so it would overflow our sea-towns and adjacent coasts; but the Lord's goodness commands it back again by its ebb.

Dost thou see a ship in the sea? Think, Christ's church is compared to a ship; this world is the sea, through which she sails; believers are the passengers; God is her pilot; the angels are her rowers; faith is the helm; hope is the anchor for a mast, she hath, in the midst of her, erected the saving tree of the cross; the graces are the sails hanging thereon; the Spirit is the wind that fills them; but Christ alone is the bottom that carries all safe and sure to the haven of eternal rest and felicity. O let my soul lean upon no other bottom. Again, think how mercifully Christ delivered his disciples, when tossed in a ship, on the sea in a dark night. My soul is a little ship, often ready to be overwhelmed with the waves of temptations: O then, when it is in this danger, let me awake Christ by my prayers. Again, as it is said of the mariner, with respect to his ship, that he sails always within four inches of death; so it may be said of the soul in relation to the body, that it lives still within four inches of eternity. If these earthen vessels break, then our souls are immediately set a-drift into the bankless and bottomless ocean of eternitv. Lord, let not my soul launch out into that deep, while I am uncertain whether it sink or swim.

Doth it rain upon thee while the sun is shining? Think, if the sun of God's countenance shine on me, I may well be content to be wet with some rain of affliction: this easily doth counterbalance any trouble whatsoever.

Art thou drawing near to the church? Then put up some fervent ejaculations and prayers for God's blessing and presence. Say, as Abraham's servent did, when he came to the well of water near the city, Gen. xxiv. 12. O Lord God, I pray thee send me good speed this day." "Let me not miss my errand; let it be the day when salvation shall come to my heart and house; let it be the day of my new birth, the day when my hard heart will be broken; let it be a day to be had in everlasting remembrance. As I am drawing nigh to thy house, Lord, draw nigh to my soul, and let me have a meeting with thee this day. As thou art to knock at the doors of my soul by the hammer of thy word this day, Lord. come and make patent doors for thyself, and command thy loving kindness to break in. Lord, open my eyes, that I may see the wonders of thy law; open my ears, that I may hear the charming voice of the