conflicts amidst all their budding hopes, and their blasting fears, in all the pious and secret jealousies of their own hearts, their doubts and complaints, their holy desires and trembling tendencies toward God and Christ, and salvation; and that we should direct the doubtful foot where to tread, and the doubtful eye where to look for peace and pardon, for light and strength, for holiness and eternal life. You delight to hear your preachers sometimes mention the case of the afflicted and the tempted, who are engaged in a hard combat with their spiritual adversaries, with the powers of sin within them, and temptation without them, and you wait to hear us give the feeble and the oppressed some proper advice and encouragement. You expect we should at other times take the case of the backsliders in hand, and prepare a word of admonition and reproof for those that decline from the good degrees of religion which once they professed and practised; that we should strengthen the feeble, the humble and the fearful christian, and pass through the various parts of spiritual experience, and the several scenes and stages of the christian life. Surely this was the fashion and practice of our fathers amongst the puritans and protestant dissenters in their ministry: I hope this is the present mode of preaching amongst us, and I wish with all my soul this sort of ministration, this manner of dividing the word of God, and giving to each their due, may never grow out of fashion in our places of worship.

But my business is to apply this matter closely to your consciences: Under all these advantages, as you suppose, of experimental preaching, do you live any better than your neighbours? Have you learnt more of the christian life in the various parts of it than they have done? Are you more acquainted with the particular state and case of your own souls toward God? Have you traced out the frame of your own spirit, or are you more solicitous to find it? Can each of you tell where to rank yourselves? Are you mere nominal Christians, or real followers of Christ? Are you among the secure and presumptuous, or the awakened and convinced? Are you among the irresolute, the doubtful and wavering christians, or among those who run the race of holiness with a steadiness and establishment of soul? Are you daily growing in the things of God, or do you belong to the class of backsliders in heart and ways? Have you observed the directions that have been given to persons under these different characters? Have you made such a proficiency in religion hereby, as to answer the designs of those ministrations and labours in the pulpit under which you have placed yourselves? It is in vain for you to pretend to have enjoyed such a manner of preaching, as is most suited to bring souls onward from a state of sin and nature to a state of grace, and advancing toward glory, if you yourselves remain still in a state of sin, and are strangers to divine grace; or if you have never applied the distinguishing evidences of formal professors and sincere converts, so as to learn where to rank yourselves.

Yet once more give me leave to put you in mind, that you generally profess to desire such a ministry as not only instructs the head, but strikes the heart in a powerful and affecting manner; you delight to hear your ministers, in the application of their discourses, speak with life and zeal, like messengers who are sent from God to sinners on an errand of everlasting importance: You love to hear them address the consciences of their auditory in such a serious, a penetrating, and a persuasive style and manner, as becomes persons who are in good earnest, who feel the power of the words which they speak, and who are resolved, if possible, to reach the hearts of the assembly, and to save the souls of men from hell by the concurrent influence of the grace of God.

3

But then, my friends, if you choose such a ministry, and suppose that you enjoy any such advantages, what have you profited thereby more than others? Do you frequent places of worship where there are such awakening, fervent and persuasive ministrations, and why are you not more remarkably reformed, and more eminently religious? Why are you not more effectually convinced of the evil of sin and the danger of eternal wretchedness under the wrath of God? Why are you not all more powerfully persuaded to break off your sins by repentance, to cry out what shall I do to be saved? to fly for refuge to the only hope, to receive Jesus the Saviour in all his blessed offices, to resign your souls to his care and grace and government, and devote yourselves to him for ever? Why are you so cold, so indifferent in the practice of the duties of piety and virtue, which are so warmly recommended to you? What! is all the fervour of the pulpit lost upon you? Do the words die on your ears, and never reach your souls? Why are you so unaffected with the important and eternal things of the invisible world, which are set before you in the ministry with some zeal and affection? What will you say for your own defence, when some of your brethren and neighbours of the established church, who have sat all their days under that which you suppose to be a less affecting ministry, shall have their hearts awakened and warmed with the great and awful scenes of religion more than you? How will you answer it to your final Judge, if he shall find their souls have been drawn near to God, and engaged in the lively exercises of faith and love and every grace, and yet you yourselves who profess to enjoy superior advantages shall be found cold triflers and mere formalists in religion? A dreadful sentence awaits such sinners from the tribunal whence there is no appeal. Thus I have finished the fourth advantage which you who worship God in separate assemblies, profess to enjoy above your brethren of the church of England, viz. you choose your own ministers, and put yourselves under the preaching and the pastoral care of such persons as you yourselves best approve and think most adapted to the salvation of souls.

V. Another advantage which you who worship God in separate assemblies, are supposed to have above your brethren of the church of England, is this, that the communion of your churches is kept more pure and free from unworthy and scandalous members, by the exercise of proper discipline in the care that is taken about the admission to the Lord's table, and in excluding the ignorant and the vicious from your special fellowship. When a communicant in any of your congregations grows vicious or profane, and it appears so by evident proof, he is at least privately admonished to abstain from the holy communion, or plainly forbid to attend on it: And in some of our congregations he is more solemnly cast out of the church, as unworthy to partake of so holy an institution as the table of our blessed Lord: Nor is he received again until he hath professed serious repentance, and hath behaved himself for some space of time as a penitent, and a person thoroughly reformed. Now where such discipline is maintained in christian congregations, this remarkable advantage is obtained by it, that all vicious practices are most evidently and powerfully discouraged by the exclusion of criminals from the church. If such a person be found among us, he is shunned that he may be ashamed: The pious communicants have no company with him, besides what is necessary and cannot be avoided. This is perfectly agreeable to the directions of the apostle. Some construe those words of St. Paul into this sense; in 2 Thess. iii. 16. Now we command you Lord Jesus Christ that you withdraw yourselves from every brother

in the name of the

which walketh disorderly: But in 1 Cor. v. 9-11. the sense is stronger, and more evident; I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators, &c. but now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man who is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner, with such an one, no not to eat. Whether this eating refer to the religious feast of the Lord's-supper, or whether to the common entertainments of the table, may perhaps be doubted by interpreters; but this inference is certain, that if the apostle forbids familiar society with persons of this character at our common repast, much more are we forbid to hold communion in the sacred feast with persons of such a character. Surely the table of the Lord should be guarded and kept as pure as our own tables. The churches of Christ are and should be separate and distinguished from the world; they should have as little chosen and voluntary society as may be with the wicked of the earth, and especially in holy things, that they may keep up a more venerable character and reputation of the gospel in the world, and of the obligations that lie upon those that profess christianity to be strictly religious: They are called to separate themselves from every defilement of flesh and spirit, to come out from among the wicked and profane, that they may be a peculiar people to the Lord.

It is true, this cannot be practised universally and perfectly in any visible churches of Christ here on earth, because we are bound to judge by the sensible appearances of things: And those who have the visible marks of christianity in the knowledge and profession of the faith of Christ, and whose conversation in the world is sober and pious to all outward appearance, may claim a place in any christian church and in the peculiar rites and ordinances of the gospel: And upon this account there may be some secret sinners who make their way into our separate congregations, and join with us in the most solemn ordinances, though they are not really worthy of any room or place in the house of God: Yet common swearers and common drunkards, publicly vicious, riotous and unclean persons, and men of scandalous life, are never received amongst us to the holy fellowship of the supper or communion at the Lord's-table; therefore in this respect we hope our communion is tolerably pure, and such as the gospel requires. And indeed it must be also confessed, that neither the rubric nor the rules of the church of England encourage such scandalous sinners to come to the table of the Lord: but there is very little obedience can generally be paid to these rules in the continual admission of all persons, as is practised now-a-days to this holy sacrament: there are very few ministers of our parishes who usually attempt to lay these bars against any persons, known or unknown, who have a mind to come: and where a minister of a tender and scrupulous conscience has endeavoured to put the rules of the rubric in practice against persons of vile and profane character, he has exposed himself to great difficulties and troubles, and to many hardships and vexatious suits; and especially if they who offer themselves to the communion, have wanted to qualify themselves at the table of the Lord, for an office at court or in the city, by land or by sea.* Well then, since you who assemble in separate places of worship, maintain and enjoy a purer communion in your churches, should you not be very zealous and solicitous, each of you for yourselves, that you are no dishonourable communicants at the holy sup

See Dr. Calamy on Moderate Nonconformity, Vol. III. p. 64, and Mr. Rastrick's account of his hardships in the church of England, and his becoming a Nonconformist, at the end of that volume, p. 8, &c. Lay Nonconformity Justified, p. 33.

per? that your consciences and your hearts are pure in the sight of God? that you lift up pure hands at his altar? And do you not feel this sacred engagement on your souls, to keep yourselves from the infection of evil company in the world, since you are not constrained to mingle with them in the church.

圃

Enquire of yourselves, Who are your chosen and delightful companions among men? Is it with you as it was with David, who was a companion of them that fear the Lord? Psalm cxix. 63. Are the saints, the excellent in the earth, high in your esteem, and is your delight amongst them? Psalm xvi. 3. It is granted, and the apostle allows it, 1 Cor. v. 10. that if you would always avoid the company of the wicked and the profane, you must even almost go out of the world, because the world is so full of them; and in buying and selling, in the daily business and commerce of life, their presence and converse cannot be avoided: but he directs you to avoid them, as far as it may be done consistently with other duties. And the great question is, Who are the companions of your choice, and in whose society do you take the most agreeable satisfaction? Are the sons of vice and impiety your familiars and intimates? And while you profess your desire to be separated from them in the church, do you chuse to dwell much with them in the world? Does not such a conduct give too just an occasion to charge you with hypocrisy? What! cannot you bear to sit near the lewd and the profane, the drunkard or the swearer in the house of God, for fear of defiling yourselves with their communion, and yet can you delight in their company all the week, and take so much pleasure to meet them either in your own houses or in the houses of public resort, in taverns, in gay assemblies, at midnight clubs, and in seasons and places of extreme hazard to virtue? Can you take familiar delight in those who neither love God nor fear him in the world, while you exclude them from a place in the church? Is there no defilement to be taken but in the house of God? Is there no infection but at the sacrament? What strange sort of conduct is this? Ridiculous and inconsistent! And to what severe reproaches do you expose the protestant dissenters, with all their pretences to purer communion, while you make the company of known and profligate sinners your free choice and your daily delight?

VI. It may be reckoned among your advantages for strict religion and virtue, that your whole conduct is strictly observed, and your behaviour is watched with a narrow and severe eye by many of your neighbours of the established church, and especially by those of them that hate you: they are ready to take notice of every failing, and to make sharp remarks upon every defect you are guilty of in your duty to God or man. You cannot step awry, but censure and reproach attend you. If there should happen to be any persons in your societies for worship, who are a scandal to religion, you shall be sure to hear of it plentifully,* even though perhaps they are ejected out of your special communion: and this should awaken you to a double watch over yourselves, to a more constant and severe guard upon all your words and motions.

It is true, the eyes of God and angels are ever upon us all, and this ought to have the most awful influence on us, in order to secure us from every sin and folly but it should also awaken you to a constant care of your whole conduct, when you remember that the eyes of men, and of some such as have no great kindness for you, are upon you too; and they are sharp and piercing to spy out every transgression, and to magnify Lay Nonconformity Justified, p. 17, 35, 43.

every instance of your departure from strict piety and virtue into a heinous crime and scandal. I confess this is no very pleasing circumstance and situation of life, to stand forth as a mark for every nice observer, to have every word and motion watched and critically remarked by an eye of jealousy or professed enmity: it is no pleasing circumstance indeed, but perhaps it is, or it should be, a profitable one; for it carries in it a constant spur to duty, a constant restraint upon sinful appetite, and a guard upon our whole behaviour.

And here I cannot but make mention of an observation which I have often made in the course of my life, viz. If a person who professes himself to belong to the established church is found guilty of swearing or cursing, if he drink to excess, if he prove false and deceitful in his dealing, if his character be vicious and lewd, and he indulge iniquities of the grosser kind; there is no such mighty matter made of it in the world, nor is the scandal of such a criminal thrown at all upon the church itself: We never hear it said upon such an occasion, These are the members of the church of England: But on the other hand, if a protestant dissenter, who attends constantly on the worship of God in our separate assemblies, and communicates with us, be guilty of any foul or infamous crime, what a loud clamour is raised in the town? What a noise spreads and echoes through the neighbourhood? And the name of the single offender is not only set up as a public mark for the reproach of the world, but the whole party of the dissenters falls under disgrace thereby; These are your nonconformists; These are your saints; These are the men that pretend to godliness, and who do not think our church pure enough for them; See what hypocrites they are! And thus they load the whole profession and party with the crime and scandal of a single sinner. Now surely the view and consideration of this situation of things, and this circumstance of your case, should make you all more watchful, more strictly religious toward God, more sober, temperate, and careful in the practice of all personal virtues, and more exactly righteous and honourable in all the affairs of the social life, that you may never suffer your foot to slide, nor give occasion to those who wait for your halting, to blaspheme the good ways of the Lord, wherein you profess to walk. You are called by providence to give double diligence, and walk more circumspectly in every station of life, since so many watchful eyes are ever upon you: It behoves you to keep a holy jealousy over yourselves, lest at any time you yield to temptation, that the whole body of the dissenters may not receive a wound and infamy through your misbehaviour.

SECTION IV.

OF THE OBLIGATIONS OF PROTESTANT DISSENTERS TO GREATER DEGREES OF HOLINESS.

Thus I have finished the first general head of this part of my discourse, which relates to the real or supposed advantages, that the protestant dissenters enjoy for their improvement in religion and virtue, above their brethren, their neighbours of the established church: I proceed now to the second general, and that is to set before you, What special obligations you lie under to practise higher degrees of piety and morality by the very profession of religion which you make in this way of nonconformity, and to enquire in the language of our Saviour, What do you more than others, you who have all the following bonds and engagements lying upon you from your own profession?