fire left from the evening to kindle the morning Sacrifice O Friends how often is it that though at our morning Sacrifice a fire be kindled that it 's quenched and lost before the evening through the carelesness and negligence of our hearts Sin and the World have a whole days time to quench and put out what an hours duty hath been kindling and so at the return of our duty-seasons we find our hearts at the same loss in the same deadness and hardness as before Beloved these two Directions of getting up our hearts into a lively frame in duty and of keeping up that holy frame from duty to duty though there be some difficulty and it will cost you pains to practise them to purpose yet the advantage you will hereby gain will be abundantly worthy all your pains and therefore I pray remember them if you do in good earnest intend an advancing in Religion let these two Directions be before your eyes every day you have them preached to you and you have them written for your use the Lord write them upon your hearts and hold them before your eyes This course will be as the whetting our Instruments and keeping them keen for our work how much work may be done and with much more ease by a cutting than a blunted Instrument Eccl. 10.10 If the Iron be blunt and he do not whet the edge he must put to more strength 't will cost you much more pains to make any work in your Religion whilst your edge is blunted a dull heart will do little and that little not without much pains By the course prescribed whet your spirits and keep them with a good edge and then all your work will be the more easily carried on To this I shall add 3. Let your prayers be pursued in your practice Whatever Grace you pray for whatever Sin you pray against follow after the one and fight against the other in your daily practice Let Prayer and Practice joyn hand in hand and both drive the same way Think not you have done your whole days work when you have prayed morning and evening Religion must be the business of your whole time be thou in the fear of the Lord be thou at the work of the Lord all the day long Prov. 23.17 and not the business of an hour or two When you have been praying for an heavenly mind that God would help you to live in the spirit to set your affections on things above to have your conversation in Heaven when you have ended your Prayer what should ye now do Why then to thinking on heavenly things let your thoughts run upon and be working more throughout the day upon these holy things to pray for an heavenly mind and never to think more of heavenly things all the day long till you come to pray again what will such praying come to When you pray for a willing obedient and fruitful life what should you do Go and take pains with your hearts to bring them on and to hold them close to your several duties When you have been praying against Sin for power over a proud heart or a froward heart or a covetous worldly heart what should you now do Why then set your watch against your sins take heed of every proud thought of every froward word take heed and beware of all covetous practices set your selves to the mortifying of these sins to restraining your selves from the actings of them to pray against pride or to pray against covetousness and as soon as you have done to leave your hearts loose for them to carry it as proudly or as frowardly as before to be as busie for the world as eager in hunting after it what 's this but to set your Prayers and your Practices together by the ears to destroy the things you have been building to destroy by your Practices what you have been building by your Prayers And whilst this hath been the voice of your Prayer Lord deliver me from a proud or froward or covetous heart your Practices say I care not whether this Prayer be heard or no I had rather be let alone and left under the power of them If ever you would that your praying should come to any thing let your Prayers and Practices drive the same way Let it not suffice you to pray for a more gracious and fruitful heart and life to pray for a more mortified heart a more self-denying course but set to it to put your Prayers into practice Let the stream of your care the stream of your endeavours run the same way with the stream of your prayers and desires and that 's the stirring Prayer I would have you give your selves to such as may effectually overpower the stream and course of your life and carry it on according to the stream of your Prayers O Friends If of all that I have said these three last words might be remembred and observed if in every Prayer you henceforth make you would diligently strive to get you up into a spiritual and lively frame If 2. you would carefully maintain this blessed frame afterwards from duty to duty If you would 3. set to the practice of those things you pray that God would enable you to what do you think would be the success O what a cure would be wrought O what a blessed change might we expect to appear upon you and all your Religion 2. Fasting and Prayer In the former particular I spake of Prayer as an ordinary duty here as an extraordinary as annexed to that extraordinary duty of Fasting and Humiliation We may say of that evil spirit that Spirit of slumber and of a deep sleep that 's fallen upon us as Christ said of that Devil Mat. 17.21 This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting Extraordinary Diseases must have extraordinary Remedies Hitherto I have spoken mostly to our personal Cases now I shall speak with more respect to the publick Case of our People and Age and shall direct you 1. How you may most effectually stir up a spirit of Prayer in your days of Humiliation 2. How you may most successfully perform this duty 1. How you may most effectually stir up a spirit of Prayer in your days of Humiliation And so 1. There 's something in the very abstinence that conduceth to the stirring up the spirit of Prayer Abstinence is pinching upon the flesh and should be so much in such days as may afflict the body first and thereby the soul The abstinence of a Fast should be afflicting abstinence as far forth as the body will bear it without prejudice to its health and so becoming an hindrance rather than a furtherance of the duty There 's a two-fold failing too common in our days of Humiliation 1. In the time Mostly what we call a Day of Humiliation comes to no more but a few Hours of Prayer It 's said of a Fast Lev. 17.31 It shall be a Sabbath of Rest to you that is 1.
It was to be a whole day as a Sabbath is 2. It must be wholly spent in the proper exercises of it a Sabbath of Rest it must be in this extraordinary duty there must be a laying aside our ordinary works and the whole time spent either in the publick or private worship of the day How seldom is it that we hear of such a Fast Some Hours as I said we sometimes spend together in seeking the Lord but when do we keep a Day to the Lord The morning of the day is usually as other mornings we are as busie at our Callings and may be more busie to dispatch our work out of hand and so come hot out of our shops and fields with our heads full and hearts full of our worldly affairs and as soon as ever the Publick Duty is over then away to our work again Is it such a Fast the Lord hath chosen will ye call this a Day of Humiliation Christians 't is well that you spend some Hours of Prayer but call not That a Day of Humiliation when ever you set apart a Day for Fasting let it be a Sabbath of Rest to you begin it in secret and separating your selves from all your unnecessary ordinary works hold you to the duty of the day as your strength will bear it to the end of the day Let the private part of it both before and after Publick Exercises be spent as your Lord's days are in suitable converses with God Were this more observed we might expect more of Spirit and of Power in the duty and more Fruits afterward 2. There is also a failing in the Abstinence of the Day How often have I known it that the Abstinence in a day of Humiliation hath been no more than the sparing of one Meal which hath been made up by a larger Break-fast and perhaps a Feast at least a full Meal at Supper and sometimes in the intervals of the duties Wine Cake Sweet-meats Tobacco and such like refreshments are allowed and used No particular Rules for the degree of Abstinence can be prescribed to all sorts of persons but this should be observed in the general 1. That there be such Abstinence used both as to quantity and quality as may best subserve the Spiritual duties of the day especially that of afflicting the Soul and therefore 2. That not only our full Meals be forborn but no Wine or strong Drink c. no not so much as a Pipe of Tobacco be allowed for the present pleasure or refreshment of it This latter concerning the use of Tobacco I the more particularly mention because I suppose it is not so much thought on many of those that use it much find great pleasure in the use of it and it may be can give no good account of their present need of it and yet will use it at such times If it be really needed as in some cases it may and by some persons let it be used But if Daniel would eat no pleasant Bread nor Flesh nor Wine came into his mouth Dan. 10.3 If the Jews be reproved Is 58.3 that in the day of their Fast they find their pleasure then any thing taken as an exhilarating refreshment which is not necessary to the present duty is a transgression Well this will be something towards the stirring us up in Prayer self-afflicting Abstinence 2. Especially a deep consideration of the case we are in will most effectually do it Qui nescit orare discat navigare Tempests will teach even profane Mariners to pray if any thing will do it afflictions will fetch out our very hearts in our Prayers and is not iniquity an affliction Sure if it be we are in an afflicted state for consider a little again how grievously iniquity doth abound I shall not now lead you a voyage over the Seas and remember you how 't is abroad how the Devil drives almost all the world before him filling them with all unrighteousness and what a small handful there are that follow Christ and how very little of serious Religion or Christianity and how much iniquity there is in those few Let us at present inquire how 't is with us at home may we not take the words of the Text into our mouths and complain We even we are all as an unclean thing and our righteousnesses are as filthy rags we fade as a leaf and our iniquities like the wind are taking us away Who can say Mine heart is clean I have kept me from mine iniquity who of us will not say My righteousness is as a filthy rag Or if any will not say thus concerning themselves must not we say it for them and of them To put in but a word of the profane Rout the open enemies of Religion and Righteousness whose wickedness hath left the shade of the twilight and the covert of the night and who are grown up to that impudence as to shew their shame in the Sun-light not to speak much neither of their Prophets and Teachers amongst whom though through mercy there are that deal faithfully yet some of them cannot others will not tell them of their transgressions or heal their hurt what Snuffs are there in some of the Candlesticks what dark Lanthorns are many of those that should be burning and shining lights Seers without eyes lame Leaders sickly Healers of the hurt of the daughter of our people such some of them are as if God had said concerning us as Micah 2.11 If any man walking in the spirit of falshood do lie and do prophesie of wine and strong drink he shall be even the Prophet of this people To let these pass also let us consider how 't is with the Sinners in Zion with those of us who profess to have separated themselves from the follies and filthinesses of the Land to the Law of their God may not even these also complain Even we are as an unclean thing our filthiness is still in our skirts What is our Religion what is our Righteousness what a totter'd maimed thing is it Ah how little Religion is there in our Religion how little of the Spirit how little of the power how glorious soever the form appears How much unrighteousness is there mingled with our righteousness is not our Gold mix'd with Dross and our Wine with Water What a spirit of vanity what hypocrisie pride headiness censoriousness peevishness is there to be found and all cryed up for Religion What wood and hay and stubble is there built upon the foundation Christians and yet carnal Christians and yet earthly and sensual having not the Spirit how much soever of the Name of Religion in them And amongst them that were once better how many are there that must go on with the complaint and confess we all do fade as a leaf we wither and wast and consume and are even dried away And it is not here and there a fading leaf does not the Tree fade so that 't is but here and there a leaf that
sighted yet it wants tenderness and they can dispense with themselves in smaller matters you will never be Christians of any proof you will never come to much in religion unless your hearts be tender of the smallest evils 3. Let the mouth of conscience speak quick and home I will not say concerning Conscience as the Apostle concerning the Tongue Be swift to hear slow to speak but let it be swift to hear and swift to speak Let it speak quick and speak home Let it speak home and speak aloud let not your consciences be muzled or meal mouthed let them speak and speak closely and deal plainly with you let them not whisper out a warning or a reproof but if they may not otherwise be heard let them do as the Prophet was to do Isa 58.1 Cry aloud spare not lift up thy voice like a trumpet Let conscience never leave speaking and crying till it be heard such a conscience as this is like to be a stirring conscience That 's a stirring conscience which will maintain its authority and integrity whatever difficulties or pains it cost which will be faithful in instructing admonishing and rebuking and will not that its word or authority be slighted which will not suffer its self to be slighted and abused nor to be baffled or put off with shifts and excuses or delays such a conscience will be obeyed you shall have little ease it will not suffer you to have any rest or quiet in your minds if you will not hearken to it As the Apostle said he will not 2 Cor. 13.2 so neither will conscience it will not spare them that have sinned If conscience gives an admonition or a warning take heed of pride take heed and beware of covetousness or frowardness or suppose but loytering and coldness in matters of Religion if conscience gives warning take heed of this worldly carnal lazy trifling life and a warning will not do it will check and chide and rebuke and scourge the heart if its voice may not be heard 't will set in its teeth 't will bite and sting and worry the soul if once speaking or chiding or scourging will not do 't will hold on and lie at the soul from day to day and give no rest till it prevail O what stirring Christians should we be had we such stirring consciences the reason why we sin and sink as we do shuffle in our Religion turn aside after the world play the hypocrites or the formallists in our duties let all run to ruine within us and suffer our selves to continue asleep this is much our consciences faults conscience lets us alone and either does not speak but keep silence or if it speak 't is too softly it does not chide or scourge us it does not come to us with a rod to smite us for our faults You that can go on in your sins or go so coldly on in your Religion you with whom the World is so much risen and godliness is so much fallen you can't but confess that this is the case of many of you how is it with your consciences mean while what says conscience to you in this case it may be just nothing conscience is asleep as well as you O if we could but awaken your consciences out of sleep if the stirring words the Lord sends among you might have but this effect to stir up conscience this would awaken you all to another manner of life and activity in Religion Friends what 's become of all those words those awakening words that have been spoken on this subject have they stirred up any thoughts of heart within you and set these on work have they stirred up your affections and set these aworking in you if they have not 't is a sign they have not stirred up conscience and what hearers have you been if conscience hath been asleep all this time when shall we ever stir your hearts or mend your ways if we cannot stir your consciences If your consciences will yet hear then let them speak and give their judgment on these particulars 1. If it be not a wretched thing to be most remiss and negligent in those things which are your highest concernment to be so busie and intent about those small matters about Meat and Drink and Money which all perish with the using and to be so remiss and heedless and heartless about the most weighty and important affairs What says conscience to this Do not you think in your consciences that this is a wretched thing and a piece of extream folly 2. If the matters of this world be not all but small matters in comparison of the matters of Religion the matters of God and the other World what says conscience to this Do not you think in your consciences 't is so that the most prosperous state in this world is a Toy in comparison of prospering in your Souls and the matters of Salvation If that Question be put to you Mat. 16.26 What shall it profit you if you win the whole world and loose your own souls would not your consciences say It would profit me nothing O 't is a miserable gain that 's gotten by such an eternal loss every mans conscience I doubt not but must speak thus if it will speak at all 3. If yet this be not many of your cases Is it not the plain truth that you are more remiss and heedless and cold in the matters of Religion than in the matters of this World do not some of your consciences tell you O'twere well for me if I were but as hearty and lively in Religion as in my worldly concernments if I could serve the Lord as hotly and as heartily as I serve my flesh but I cannot say 't is so well with me my conscience tells me and I cannot deny it I am much more intent about Earth than about Heaven 4. If it be not better for you to rouze up and recover your selves out of your remisness and coldness in the matters of God and to abate your zeal for the World would it not be well for you if this word might have this effect to make such a change do not you think in your consciences ' t would 5. If it be not necessary for you thus to rouze your selves up and recover doth not conscience tell you you are in hazard of being undone for ever if you continue at this pass 6. If Conscience judges thus in all these particulars and will but speak one word more then it would be well if conscience would hereupon give the word of command awaken sleepers arise sluggards put away your sloth from you hearken to the word of the Lord take his warning stir up your selves bethink your selves recover your selves from this dulness and deadness of heart seek the Lord earnestly serve the Lord instantly no more such idling and creeping on be zealous run the good race fight the good fight make sure the good treasure lay hold on eternal life live not
at these hazards and uncertainties but do thy best put forth thy strength in the work of the Lord that thou mayest come to a certainty if your consciences would speak thus to you and cry thus in your ears night and day and not suffer you to rest till you hear and answer its cries or if you yet linger and delay if conscience would make use of the rod and smite and scourge you out of your remisness if your consciences would fall upon you and sting you for your neglects and fright you out of your security by telling you and laying before you the dreadful reward of sleepers and such idle servants would cast in some of that fire into your hearts which your sin and your sloth is preparing for you if your hearts would condemn you for your follies and tell you down right this my way I am in is the way of death these my paths lead down to hell I am sleeping upon a rock drowzing on a mast O the waves are ready to rise and tumble upon me and to sweep away this sleeping soul of mine and drown it in everlasting perdition Had you but such a stirring conscience as this O what a cure what a change would it speedily make upon you Brethren awaken conscience that conscience may awaken you look to your consciences that conscience may look better to you Watchman what of the night Watchman what of the night Is it day break doth sleep begin to depart from thine eyes what is the Watchman asleep awake sleeper 't is high time to awaken out of sleep Speak thus to your consciences and then hear what conscience will speak to you Friend art thou fallen art thou come to this so thou canst but grow rich in the world thou considerest not how poor 't is with thee in thy soul whilst thou hast been so busie for thy self and thy flesh hast thou let fall the care of thine heart whilst thou hast turned a side after thy pleasures after thy lovers hast thou lost the sight of God have thy carnal correspondencies and compliances made thee such a great stranger in Heaven What says conscience to this Ask Is it peace conscience is it well Is it with me as it hath been is it with me as it should be Speak conscience go tell this man I have somewhat against thee thou hast left thy first love remember whence thou art fallen return to thy first husband for then it was better with thee than now What hast thou gotten since thy departing from thy God may be thou hast gotten more of the world about thee more great friends than heretofore more esteem and reputation amongst thy friends but O wert thou not a better man when thou wert a poorer man hadst thou not more of a Christian in the days of old when thou hadst less of this world Remember the sweet days that thou hadst when thou walkedst humbly with thy God remember the hopes and the joys and the peace that thou hadst in the secret recesses to thy beloved Now thou canst snatch at a duty cast a look heavenward a word and away scarce considering what thou dost or what entertainment thou hast with the Lord thou hast thy long dinners but short duties long markets but short prayers and as slight as they are short What says thy conscience to this does it not tell thee thou hast made a dear bargain 'T is a great rate that thy riches have cost thee that thine ease and thy pleasures have cost thee better thou hadst kept thee a poor man still and been holy and humble and tender and upright than to have made a purchase of the world at so dear a rate as the loss of thine integrity and tenderness Speak conscience and speak home in this matter thou mayest speak where I may not thy word may be heard where mine may not Conscience art thou awakened get thee about and walk the rounds and speak according to what thou findest Go into the City and observe the Professors there go into their Chambers and see if thou find them not in their beds when they should be on their knees go into their Wardrobes search after their gawdy clothing their antick ornaments and attires and see if thou find not such habits and dresses as are fitter for a Stage player than for a Christian go into the Parlour and hear what 's going amongst them there whether there be any more seriousness or savouriness in their discourses together than there is amongst them that know not God and whether the Cards and the Dice be not where the Bible was wont to be Go to their Tables and observe their superfluities and curiosities how delicately how sumptuously they fare every day like that Gentleman Luke 16. Go into their Shops and their Markets and observe if there be no lying and deceitful dealing even as amongst others observe how little difference thou canst find betwixt some that are Professors in their dealings and those that pretend to no Religion Then conscience from the City go down into the Country into the Fields into the Houses and see how busie they are there in ploughing and sowing in building and planting in buying and selling laying house to house and field to field hasting to be rich oppressing the poor working and sweating riding and running and neglecting nothing but God and their Souls See what they do and see how it fares with them both in City and Country what starveling souls thou findest within under their pampered flesh see conscience how 't is and speak according to what thou seest reprove them warn them worry them if they will not hear thy voice set in thy teeth and make them feel O Christians if I could but set on your consciences thus upon your backs or if you would set them on upon your selves you would both hear of more that 's amiss in you than now you will acknowledge and would find no quiet till you set upon amending 5. Be much conversant with stirring society and acquaintance and be stirring among them And here I shall endeavour the reviving of that too obsolete practise of holy and quickning discourse the neglect whereof is both a cause a sign and an effect of the decay of Religion among us For the recovering and promoting of this Holy Practise I shall give you 1. Directions for the bringing you on upon it and the better managing of it 2. An Argument to perswade you to it For the Directions they are these that follow 1. Get your hearts well filled with the Grace of God Mat. 12.34 Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh 1. Men ordinarily fetch their words out of their hearts as 't is said of a fiery Tongue Jam. 3.6 It 's set on fire of Hell that is of that Hell of malice that is in the heart so of an holy Tongue it may be said all the good that comes from it is kindled from Heaven from that of Heaven that