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as that holy man did, Pfal. cxix. 80. "Let my heart be found "in thy ftatutes, that I be not ashamed.”

Counsel 2. Always fufpect and examine your ends in what you de. Sincerity and hypocrify lie much in your ends and defigns; as they are, fo are you. The intentions of the heart lie deep ; a man may do the fame action to an holy end, and his perfon and service be accepted with God; which another doing for a corrupt end, it may be reckoned his fin, and both his perfon and service be abhorred by the Lord. We find two men riding in one chariot, and both of them concerned in the fame expedition, Jehu, the fon of Nimfhi, and Jonadab, the fon of Rechab, 2 Kings x. 15, 23. But though the work they engaged in was one, and the fame, yet the different ends they aimed at, made the fame action an excellent duty in Jonadab, and an act of vile hypocrify in Jehu: Idem quod duo faciunt, non eft idem: It was the faying of a good foul, commended for a good action: the work indeed is good, but I fear the ends of it. Self ends are creeping, and infinuating things into the best

actions.

Counfal 3. Scare yourselves with the daily fears of the fin that is in, and the mifery that will follow hypocrify. Look upon it as the most odious fin in the eyes of God and men : to want holiness, is bad enough, but to diffimulate and pretend it, when we have it not, is double impiety: to make religion, the most glorious thing in the world, a mere ftirrup to preferment, and a covert to wickedness: O how vile a thing is it! God made Chrift a facrifice for fin, and the hypocrite will make him a cloak for fin.

And as to the punishments that follow it, they are suitable to the nature of the fin; for as hypocrify is out of meafure finful, fo the reward and punishment of it will be out of meafure dread. ful. Matth. xxiv. 51. "He fhall cut him afunder, and appoint "him his portion with hypocrites; there fhall be weeping and "gnashing of teeth."

Counfel 4. Be daily at work in the mortification of those lufts that breed bypocrify. It is plain, without much fifting, that pride, vain-glory, felf-love, and a wordly heart, are the feeds out of which this curfed plant fprings up in the fouls of men. Dig but to the root, and you fhall certainly find these things there; and till the Lord help you to kill and mortify thefe, hypocrify will fpring up in all your duties to God, and in all your converfes with men.

Counsel 5. Attend the native voice of your own consciences in the day of fickness, fear or trouble, and take Special notice of its

checks, or upbraidings, which, like a fitch in your fide, will gird you at fuch times: Commonly in that lies your greatest danger: Beware of that evil which confcience brands and marks at fuch times, whether it be your living in the practice of fome fecret fin, or in the neglects of fome known duty: These frights of confcience mark out the corruption, wherein your danger mostly lies.

Conofel 6. Let us all that profefs religion he uniform and fleady in the profeffion and practice of it, without politic referves, and bye-ends.

O take heed of this Laodicean, neutrality and indifferency which Chrift hates: Be fure your ground be good, and then be fure you ftand your ground. The religion of time-servers is but hypocrify They have fluices in their confciences which they can open or fhut as occafion requires: Every fox will have at least two holes to his den, that if one be ftopt, he may escape at the other. The hypocrite pofeth himself fo evenly in a mediocrity, that, as it is faid of Baldwin, Let Anthony win, let Augustus win, all is one: So let Chrift win, or let Antichrift win, he hopes to make every wind that can blow serviceable to waft him to the port of his own interest.

The hypocrite hath always more of the moon than of the fun; little light, many spots, and frequent changes: It is easier to him to bow to the cross, than to bear the cross; to fin, than to fuffer.

Our own flory tells us of a poor fimple woman that lived both in the reigns of queen Mary and queen Elizabeth, and would conftantly lay her prayers both in Latin and English, that the might be fure to please one fide or other; and let God, faid he, take which likes him beft. What is noted as an act of ridiculous fimplicity in her, the time-ferving hypocrite accounts a point of deep policy in himself.

The times under Dioclefian were Pagan; under Constantine, Chriftian; under Conftantius, Arian; under Julian, Apoftate; and under Jovian, Chriftian again: And all this within the fpace of seventy years, the age of one man. O what shifting and fhuffling was there among the men of that generation! The changes of weather fhew the unfoundness of men's bodies, and the changes of times, the unfoundness of their fouls,

Chriftian, if ever thou wilt manifelt and maintain thine integrity, be a man but of one defign, and be fure that be an honeft and good defign, to fecure heaven, whatever becomes of

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earth: To hold faft integrity, whatever thou art forced to let for its fake.

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Take heed of pious frauds: Certainly it was the devil that first married these two words together, for they never did, nor can agree betwixt themselves, nor was ever fuch a marriage made in heaven.

Never ftudy to model religion, and the exercises thereof, in a confiftency with, or fubferviency to your fleshly interefts: If your religion be but a mock religion, your reward fhall be but a mock heaven, that is a real hell.

O the vanity and inutility of these projects and designs! Men ftrive to caft themselves into fuch modes, and fint themselves to fuch measures of religion, as they think will best promote, or fecure their earthly interefts: but it often falls out, contrary to their expectation, that their deep policies are ridiculous follies; they become the grief and shame of their friends, and the fcorn and fong of their enemies. And often it fares with them, as with him that placed himself in the middle of the table, where he could neither reach the dish above him, nor that beJow him, Efuriunt medii, &c. and, which is the very beft of it, if earthly intereft be accommodated by finful neutrality, and a Laodicean indifferency in religion, yet no good man fhould once feel a temptation to embrace it, except he think what is wanting in the fweetnefs of his fleep, may be fully recompenfed to him by the stateliness of his bed, and richer furniture of his chamber; I mean, that a fuller and higher condition in the world, can make him amends for the lofs of his inward peace, and the quiet repofe of a good conscience: These bye-ends and felf-interefts are the little paffages through which hypocrify creeps in upon the profeffors of religion.

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O let this be your rejoicing, which was Paul's, "The testimony of your confcience, that in all fincerity and godly fim"plicity, not in fleshly wifḍom, but by the grace of God, you "have had your converfations in this world," 2 Cor. i. 12.

Let that be your daily prayer and cry to heaven, which was David's, Pfal. xxv. 21. "Let integrity and uprightnefs preserve me, for I wait on thee."

Counfel 7. Keep your hearts day and night under the awe of God's all-feeing eye: Remember he beholds all your ways, and ponders all your thoughts; how covertly foever hypocrify may be carried for a time, all muft and will out at last, Luke xii. 3. Secrefy is the main inducement to hypocrify, but it will fall out with the hypocrite, as it did with Ottocar the king of Bohemia, who refufed to do homage to Rodolphus the emperor, till at laft

chaftifed with war, he was content to do him homage privately in a tent: But the tent was fo contrived by the emperor's fervants, that, by drawing one cord, it was taken all away; and fo Ottocar presented on his knees doing homage in view of three armies.

Reader, Awe thy heart with God's eye, know that he will bring every fecret thing into judgment. Thus did Job, and it preferved him, Job xxxi. 1, 4. Thus did David, and it preferved him, Pfal, xviii. 21, 22, 23. Thus do thou alfɔ, and it will preserve thee blameless, and without guile to the day of Christ.

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The Advice of CHRIST to a diftreffed Mother, bewailing the Death of her dear and only Son: Wherein the Boundaries of Sorrow are duly fixed, Exceffes reftrained, the common Pleas answered, and divers Rules for the support of God's afflicted Ones prefcribed.

The

EPISTLE

DEDICATORY.

To his dearly beloved brother and fifter, Mr. J. C. and Mrs. E. C. the Author wifbeth grace, mercy, and peace.

DEAR FRIENDS,

T

HE double tye of nature and grace, beside the many endearing paffages that for fo many years have linked and glewed our affections fo intimately, cannot but beget a tender fympathy in me with you, under all your troubles, and make

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me fay of every affliction which befals you, Half's mine. I find it is with our affections, as with the ftrings, of musical inftru ments exactly fet at the fame height, if one be touched, the other trembles, though it be at fome distance.

Our affections are one, and fo in a great measure have been one afflictions alfo. You cannot forget that in the years lately paft, the Almighty vifited my tabernacle with the rod, and in one year, cut off from it the root, and the branch, the tender mother, and the only fon. What the effects of those strokes, or rather of my own unmortified paffions were, I have felt, and you and others have heard. Surely I was as a bullock unaccuftomed to the yoke. Yea, I may fay with them, Lam. iii. 19, 20. "Remembering mine affliction and my mifery, the worm"wood and the gall, my foul hath them fill in remembrance, " and is humbled in me."

I dare not fay that ever I felt my heart discontentedly rifing and fwelling against God; no, I could ftill juftify him, when I moft fenfibly smarted by bis hand: If he had plunged me into a fea of forrow, yet I could fay, in all that fea of forrow, there is not a drop of injuftice: But it was the over-heating, and over-acting of my fond and unmortified affections and paffions that made fo fad impreffions upon my body, and caft me under those diftempers which foon embittered all my remaining comforts to me.

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It was my earnest defire, fo foon as I had strength and oppor tunity for fo great a journey, to vifit you, that fo, if the Lord. had pleafed, I might both refresh, and be refreshed by you, after all my fad and difconfolate days. And you cannot imagine what content and pleasure I projected in that vifit; but it proved to us, as all other comforts of the fame kind ordinarily do, more in expectation than in fruition: For how foon after our joyful meeting and embraces did the Lord overcast and darken our day, by fending death into your tabernacle, to take away the defire of your eyes with a ftroke! To crop off that fweetand only bud from which we promifed ourselves fo much comfórt. But no more of that, I fear I am gone too far already. It is not my defign to exafperate your troubles, but to heal them; and for that purpose have I fent you these papers, which I hope may be of ufe both to you and many others in your condition, fince they are the after-fruits of my own troubles; things that I have not commended to you from another hand, but which I have, in fome measure, proved and tasted in my

own trials.

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