and art. As they are, I hope the candid and ingenuous readers will take them in good part.

And I do heartily wish, that all that are concerned in the refpective duties treated on in the following fermons, would be perfuaded fo to lay them to heart, as to put them effectually in practice that how much foever the reformation of this corrupt and degenerate age in which we live is almost utterly to be defpaired of, we may yet have a more comfortable profpect of future times, by feeing the foundation of a better world begun to be laid in the careful and confcientious difcharge of the duties here mentioned; that by this means the generations to come may know God, and the children yet unborn may fear the Lord.

I have great reafon to be fenfible how fast the infirmities of age are coming upon me, and therefore must work the works of him whofe providence hath placed me in the ftation wherein I am, whilft it is day; because the night cometh when no man can, work.

I knew very well, before I entered upon this great and weighty charge, my own manifold defects, and how unequal my beft abilities were for the due difcharge of it; but I did not feel this fo fenfibly as I now do every day more and more. And therefore, that I might make fome small amends for greater failings, I knew not how better to place the broken hours I had to fpare from almost perpetual business of one kind or other, than in preparing fomething for the publick that might be of ufe to recover the decayed piety and virtue of the prefent age, in which iniquity doth fo much abound, and the love of God and religion is grown fo cold.

To this end I have chosen to publish thefe plain fermons, and to recommend them to the ferious perufal and faithful practice both of the pastors and people committed to my charge; earnestly befeeching almighty God, that, by his bleffing, they may prove effectual to that good end for which they are fincerely defigned.

The

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The SER MON.

JOSHUA Xxiv. 15.

-But as for me and my houfe, we will ferve the Lord.

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The first fermon on this text..

Fter Joshua had brought the people of Ifrael into the promised land, and fettled them in the quiet poffeffion of it, his great defire was, to cftablish them in the true religion, namely, in the worship of the one true God, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and given them the poffeffion of that good land, the land of Canaan.

And now, finding himself weak and declining, being an hundred and ten years old, and fearing left after his death the people fhould fall off from the true religion to the worship of idols; he, like a wife and good governor, confiders with himself what courfe he had best to take to keep them firm and stedfast in their religion, and to prevent their defection to the idolatry of the nations round about them.

And to this end he calls a general affembly of all If rael, chap. xxiii. 2.; that is, of the elders, and heads, and judges, and officers of the feveral tribes; and, in a very wife and eloquent fpeech, reprefents to them in what a miraculous manner God had driven out the nations before them, much greater and stronger nations than they, and had given them their land to poffefs it; and, in a word, had performed punctually all that he had promifed to them.

And therefore they ought to take good heed to themfelves, to love God, and to ferve him; and if they did not, he tells them, that it fhould come to pass, that as all good things are come upon you, which the Lord your God promifed you; fo fhall the Lord bring upon you all evil things, until he have deftroyed you from off this good land which the Lord your God hath given you, chap. xxiii. 15.

After this, he calls them together a fecond time, and gives them a brief historical account and deduction of the

great mercies of God to them and their fathers, from the days of Abraham, whom he had called out from among his idolatrous kindred and countrymen, unto that day.

From the confideration of all which, he earnestly exhorts them to renew their covenant with God; and, for his particular fatisfaction, before he left the world, folemnly to promife that they would for ever ferve God, and forfake the service of idols: Now therefore, fear the Lord, and ferve him in fincerity and in truth; and put away the gods which your fathers ferved on the other fide of the flood, and in Egypt: and serve ye the Lord, chap. xxiv. 14.

And then, in the text, by a very elegant scheme of fpeech, he does, as it were, once more fet them at liberty; and, as if they had never engaged themselves to God by covenant before, he leaves them to their free choice: And if it feem evil unto you to ferve the Lord, chufe you this day whom ye will ferve; whether the gods which your fathers ferved, that were on the other fide of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whofe land ye dwell.

Not that they were at liberty whether they would ferve the true God or not; but to infinuate to them, that religion ought to be their free choice: and likewife, that the true religion hath thofe real advantages on its fide, that it may fafely be referred to any confiderate man's choice: If it feem evil unto you; as if he had faid, If after all the demonftrations which God hath given of his miraculous prefence among you, and the mighty obligations which he hath laid upon you, by bringing you out of the land of Egypt, and the houfe of bondage, by fo outstretched an arm; and by driving out the nations before you, and giving you their land to poffefs: if after all this, you can think it fit to quit the fervice of this God, and to worship the idols of the nations whom you have fubdued, thofe vanquished and baffled deities: if you can think it reasonable so to do, but furely you cannot; then take your choice: If it feem evil unto you to ferve the Lord, chufe you this day whom ye will ferve.

And to direct and encourage them to make a right choice, he declares to them his own refolution, which he hopes will alfo be theirs; and as he had heretofore been their captain, fo now he offers himself to be their

example:

example but whether they will follow him or not, he for his part is fixed and immoveable in this refolution: But as for ME and my houfe, we will ferve the Lord.

In effect, he tells them, I have proposed the best religion to your choice; and I cannot but think, nay I cannot but hope, that you will all ftedfaftly adhere to it; it is fo reasonable and wife, fo much your interest and your happiness to do it. But if you should do otherwife; if you should be fo weak as not to difcern the truth, fo wilful and fo wicked as not to embrace it: though you fhould all make another choice, and run away from the true God to the worship of idols; I for my part am stedfastly refolved what to do. In a cafe fo manifest, in a matter fo reasonable, no number, no example fhall prevail with me to the contrary; I will, if need be, ftand alone in that which is fo evidently and unquestionably right: and though this whole nation should revolt all at once from the worship of the true God, and join with the rest of the world in a falfe religion, and in the worfhip of idols; and mine were the only family left in all Ifrael, nay in the whole world, that continued to worfhip the God of Ifrael, I would still be of the fame mind; I would still perfift in this refolution, and act according to it: As for me and my houfe, we will ferve the Lord. A refolution truly worthy of fo great a prince and fo good a man in which he is a double pattern to us.

1. Of the brave refolution of a good man, namely, that if there were occafion, and things were brought to that extremity, he would stand alone in the profeffion and practice of the true religion: As for ME, I will ferve the Lord.

2. Of the pious care of a good father and master of a family, to train up thofe under his charge in the true religion and worship of God: As for me and Mr HOUSE, we will ferve the Lord.

I fhall, at this time, by God's affiftance, treat of the first of thefe, namely,

First, Of the brave resolution of a good man, that if there were occafion, and things were brought to that extremity, he would ftand alone in the profeffion and practice of God's true religion: Chufe you this day (fays Joshua) whom ye will ferve: but as for ME, I will ferve the

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Lord.

Lord. Jofhua here puts the cafe at the utmost extremity, that not only the great nations of the world, the Egyptians and Chaldeans, and all the leffer nations round about them, and in whofe land they dwelt, were all long fince revolted to idolatry, and pretended great antiquity and long prefcription for the worship of their falfe gods: but he fuppofeth yet further, that the only true and vifible church of God then known in the world, the people of Ifrael, fhould likewife generally revolt, and forfake the worship of the true God, and cleave to the service of idols: yet, in this cafe, if we could fuppofe it to happen, he declares his firm and ftedfaft refolution to adhere to the worship of the true God; and though all others fhould fall off from it, that he would stand alone in the profeffion and practice of the true religion: But as for ME, I will ferve the Lord.

In the handling of this argument, I fhall do these two things.

1. I fhall confider the matter of this refolution, and the due bounds and limits of it.

2. I fhall endeavour to vindicate the reasonableness of this refolution from the objections to which this fingular and peremptory kind of refolution may feem liable. I. I fhall confider the matter of this refolution, and the due bounds and limits of it.

1. The matter of this refolution. Joshua here refolves, that if need were, and things were brought to that pafs, he would stand alone, or with very few adhering to him, in the profeffion and practice of the true religion. And this is not a mere fuppofition of an impoffible cafe, which can never happen: for it may, and hath really and in fact happened in feveral ages and places of the world.

There hath been a general apoftafy of fome great part of God's church from the belief and profeffion of the true religion to idolatry, and to damnable errors and herefies: and fome good men have, upon the matter, ftood alone in the open profeffion of the true religion, in the midft of this general defection from it.

Elijah, in that general revolt of the people of Ifrael, when they had forfaken the covenant of the Lord, and broken down his altars, and flain his prophets, and he only, as

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