from one end of this earth to the other. He that hath delivered doth deliver, and in him we trust that he will deliver.

What other oppositions you do meet, or in your progress may meet withal, I shall not mention; but wait with patience on him, who gives men repentance, and change of heart to the acknowledgment of the things that are of him. This in the midst of all hath hitherto been a cause of great rejoicing, that God hath graciously kept off ravenous wolves from entering into your flocks, where are so many tender lambs, and hath not suffered men to arise from amongst yourselves speaking perverse things, and drawing away disciples after them; but as he hath given you, to obey from your heart that form of doctrine, which hath been delivered unto you, so he hath preserved that faith amongst you, which was once delivered to the saints.

Your peculiar designation to the service of the gospel, and defence of the truth thereof, your abilities for that work, your abiding in it, notwithstanding the opposition you meet withal, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, are as I said before, my encouragements in this address unto you; wherein I shall crave leave a little farther to communicate my thoughts unto you as to the matter in hand. Next to the Son of his love, who is the truth, the greatest and most eminent gift, that God hath bestowed on the sons of men, and communicated to them, is his truth revealed in his word. The knowledge of him, his mind and will, according to the discovery which he hath made of himself, from his own bosom, having magnified his word, above all his name. The importance hereof, as to the eternal concernments of the sons of men, either in ignorance refusing and resisting, or accepting and embracing

of it, is that which is owned, and lies as the bottom and foundation of all that we any way engage ourselves into in this world; wherein we differ from them, whose hope perisheth with them. Unto an inquiry after, and entertainment of, this divine and sacred depositum, hath God designed the fruit and labour of that, wherein we retain the resemblance of him, which whilst we have our being nothing can abolish. The mind of man, and divine truth, are the two most eminent excellencies, wherewith the Lord hath adorned this lower part of his creation, which, when they correspond, and are brought into conformity with each other, the mind being changed into the image of truth, there is glory added to glory, and the whole rendered exceeding glorious. By what suitableness and proportion in the things themselves (that is, between truth and the mind of man), as we are men; by what almighty, secret, and irresistible power, as we are corrupted men, our minds being full of darkness and folly, this is wrought, is not my business now to discuss. This is on all hands confessed; that, setting aside the consideration of the eternal issues of things, every mistake of divine truth, every opposition to it, or rejection of it, or any part of it, is so far, a chaining up of the mind, under the power of darkness, from a progress towards that perfection which it is capable of. It is truth alone that capacitates any soul to give glory to God, or to be truly useful to them who are partakers of flesh and blood with him without being some way serviceable to which end, there is nothing short of the fulness of wrath, that can be judged so miserable as the life of a man. Easily so much might be delivered on this account, as to evince the dread of that judgment, whereto some men in the infallibly wise counsel of God are doomed, even to the laying out of the

labour and travail of their minds, to spend their days and strength in sore labour, in making opposition to this truth of God. Especially is the sadness of this consideration increased, in reference to them, who upon any account whatever, do bear forth themselves, and are looked upon by others, as guides of the blind, as lights to them that sit in darkness, as the instructors of the foolish, and teachers of babes. For a man to set himself, or to be set by others, in a way wherein are many turnings and cross paths, some of them leading and tending to places of innumerable troubles, and perhaps death and slaughter; undertaking to be a guide to direct them that travel towards the place of their intendments, where they would be, and where they shall meet with rest; for such a one, I say, to take hold of every one that passeth by, and pretending himself to be exceeding skilful, in all the windings and turnings of those ways and paths, and to stand there on purpose to give direction, if he shall, with all his skill and rhetoric, divert them out of the path wherein they have perhaps safely set out, and to guide them into those byways, which will certainly lead them into snares and troubles, if not to death itself; can he spend his time, labour, and strength, in an employment more to be abhorred? or can he design any thing more desperately mischievous to them, whose good and welfare he is bound and promiseth to seek and promote? Is any man's condition under heaven more to be lamented, or is any man's employment more perilous than such a one's, who being not only endowed with a mind and understanding capable of the truth, and receiving impressions of the will of God, but also with distinguishing abilities and enlargements for the receiving of greater measures of truth, than others, and the more effectual improvement of what he doth

so receive, shall labour night and day, dispending the richest treasure and furnishment of his soul, for the rooting out, defacing, and destruction of the truth, for the turning men out of the way, and paths that lead to rest and peace? I never think of the uncomfortable drudgery which men give up themselves unto, in laying the hay and stubble of their vain and false conceptions upon the foundation, and heaping up the fruit of their souls, to make the fire that consumes them the more fierce and severe, but it forces compassionate thoughts of that sad condition, whereto mankind hath cast itself, by its apostacy from God. And yet there is not any thing in the world, that men more willingly, with more delight and greediness, consecrate the flower of their strength and abilities unto, than this of promoting the delusions of their own minds, in opposition to the truth and ways of God. of God. It is a thing of obvious observation and daily experience, that if by any means whatever, any one closeth with some new, and by-opinion, off from the faith delivered to, and received by, the generality of the saints, that be it a thing of never so small concernment in our walking with God, in gospel obodience, and in love without dissimulation one towards another, yet, instantly more weight is laid upon it, more pains laid out about it, and zeal dispended for its supportment and propagation, than about all other most necessary points of Christian religion. Have we not a deplorable cloud of examples, of men contending about some circumstance or other in the administration of an ordinance, biting and devouring all that stand in their way, roving up and down to gain proselytes unto their persuasion, and in the mean time, utterly ignorant or negligent of the great doctrines and commands of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which are as in

him, the head and life of souls? How many a man seems to have no manner of religion at all, but some one error. That is his God, his Christ, his worship; that he preaches, that he discourseth of, that he labours to propagate; until by the righteous judgment of God it comes to pass that such men in all other things wither and die away; all the sap and vigour of their spirits, feeding that one monstrous excrescency, which they grow up daily into. Desire of emerging and being notable in the world, esteem and respect in the hearts and mouths of them, whom peculiarly they draw after them, with the like unworthy aims of self-advancement, may, without evil surmising (when such attempts are, as in too many, accompanied with irregularity in conversation), be supposed to be advantages given into the hands of the envious man, to make use of them for the sowing. of his tares, in the field of the poor seduced world.

That this procedure is also farthered by the bur- ̧ densomeness of sound doctrine unto the generality of men, who having itching ears, as far as they care for these things do spend their time in religion, in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing, cannot be denied. Besides to defend, improve, give and add new light, unto old truths (a work which hath so abundantly and excellently been laboured in, by so many worthies of Christ, especially since the Reformation), in any eminent manner, so as to bring praise and repute unto the undertakers (which whether men will confess or no, it is evident that too many are enslaved unto) is no easy task. And for the most part of what is done that way, you may say, 'Quis leget hæc?' The world (says every one) is burdened with discourses of this nature. How many have we in our days, who might have gone to the grave in silence among the residue of