dying and preaching Christ! To be still searching into his mysteries, or feeding on them; to be daily in the consideration of the blessed nature, or works, or ways of God! Others are glad of the leisure of the Lord's-day, and now and then an hour besides, when they can lay hold of it: but we may keep a continual sabbath. We may do nothing else almost but study and talk of God and glory, and call upon him, and drink in his sacred, saving truths. Our employment is all high and spiritual! Whether we be alone, or with others, our business is for another world. O, were but our hearts more suitable to this work, what a blessed, joyful life should we live! How sweet would the pulpit be, and what a delight would our conference of these things afford! To live among so many silent, wise companions, whenever we please, and of such variety,——all these, and much more such privileges of the Ministry, bespeak our unwearied diligence in the work.

5. You are related to Christ as well as to the flock; and he being also related to you, you are not only advanced but secured by the relation, if you be but faithful in the work that he requireth. You are the stewards of his Mysteries, and rulers of his household; and he that hath entrusted you will maintain you in his work. But then, "it is required of a steward that a man be found faithful." (1 Cor. iv. 2.) Be true to him, and never doubt but he will be true to you. Do you feed his flock, and he will sooner feed you as he did Elias, than forsake you. If you be in prison, he will open the doors; but then you must relieve imprisoned souls. He will give you a tongue, and wisdom that no enemy shall resist; but then you must use it faithfully for him. If you will put forth your hand to relieve the distressed, and willingly put it to his plough, he will wither the hand that is stretched out against you. The Ministers of England, I am sure, know this by large experience. Many a time hath God rescued them from the jaws of the devourer. O, the admirable preservations and deliverances that they have had from cruel Papists, from tyrannical Persecutors, from malicious Sectaries, and misguided, passionate men! Brethren, in the fear of God, consider, why it is that God hath done all this! Is it for your persons, or for his Church? What are you to him more than other men, but for his work and people's sake? Are you angels or men? Is your flesh of any better mettle

than your neighbours? Are you not of the same generation of sinners, and need his grace as much as they? Up then, and work as the redeemed of the Lord; as those that are purposely rescued from ruin for his service. O, do not prepare a remediless overthrow for the English Ministry, by your ingratitude, after all these deliverances. If you believe that God hath rescued you for himself, live to him then, as being unreservedly his that hath delivered you.

II. The first Motive mentioned in the text, we have spoken of, which is from the consideration of our Office itself. The second is from the efficient cause. It is God by his Spirit that makes us overseers of his Church, therefore it concerneth us to take heed to ourselves, and it. I did before shew you how the Holy Ghost is said to make Bishops or Pastors of the church in three several respects: By qualifying them for the office; by directing the ordainers to discern their qualifications, and know the fittest men: and by directing them, the people, and themselves, for the affixing them to a particular charge. All these were done then in an extraordinary sort, by inspiration, at least very often. The same are all done now by the ordinary way of the Spirit's assistance. But it is the same Spirit still; and men are made overseers of the Church (when they are rightly called) by the Holy Ghost now as well as then. It is a strange conceit therefore of the Papists, to think that ordination by the hands of the man, is of more absolute necessity in the Ministerial office, than the calling of the Holy Ghost. God hath determined in his word, that there shall be such an office, and what the work and power shall be, and what sort of men, as to their qualifications, shall receive it. None of these can be undone by man, or made unnecessary. God also giveth men the qualifications which he requireth. So that all that the Church hath to do, whether pastors or people, ordainers or electors, is but to discern and determine, which are the men that God hath qualified, and to accept of them that are so provided, and upon consent to instal them solemnly in this office. But I purposely cut short the controvertible part.

What an obligation then is laid upon us by our Call! If our commission be sent from heaven, it is not to be disobeyed. When Paul was called by the voice of Christ, he

was not disobedient to the heavenly vision: when the apostles were called by Christ from their secular employments, they presently leave friends, and house, and trade, and all, and follow him. Though our Call be not so immediate or extraordinary, yet it is from the same Spirit. It is no safe course to imitate Jonah, in turning our back upon the commands of God. If we neglect our work, he hath a spur to quicken us; and if we overrun it, he hath messengers enough to overtake us, and fetch us back, and make us do it; and it is better to do it at first than at last. This is the second Motive.

III. The third Motive in the text, is, from the Dignity of the object. It is the Church of God which we must oversee

and feed. It is that Church for which the world is much upheld, which is sanctified by the Holy Ghost, which is united to Christ, and is his mystical body; that Church which angels are present with, and attend upon as ministering spirits, whose very little ones have their angels beholding the face of God in heaven. O what a charge have we undertaken! And shall we be unfaithful? Have we the stewardship of God's own family, and shall we neglect it? Have we the conduct of those saints that must live for ever with God in glory, and shall we neglect them? God forbid! I beseech you, brethren, let this thought awaken the negligent! You that draw back from painful, displeasing, suffering duties, and will put off men's souls with ineffectual formalities; do you think this is an honourable usage of Christ's Spouse? Are the souls of men thought meet by God to see his face, and live for ever in his glory, and are they not worthy of your utmost cost and labour? Do you think so basely of the Church of God, as if it deserved not the best of your care and help? Were you the keepers of sheep or swine, you might better let them go, and say, they be not worthy the looking after; and yet you would scarcely do so if they were your own. But dare you say so by the souls of men, even by the Church of Christ? Christ walketh among them. Remember his presence, and keep all as clean as you can. The Praises of the most high God are in the midst of them. They are a sanctified, peculiar people, a kingly priesthood, a holy nation, a choice generation, to shew forth the praises of him that hath called them; and yet dare you

neglect them? What a high honour is it to be but one of them, yea, but a door-keeper in the house of God; but to be the priest of these priests, and the ruler of these kings,this is such an honour, as multiplieth your obligations to diligence and fidelity in so noble an employment.

my text is, the Price God the Son did pur

IV. The last Motive mentioned in paid for the Church which we oversee. chase it with his own blood. O what an argument is here to quicken the negligent; and what an argument to condemn those that will not be quickened to their duty by it! 'O, saith one of the ancient doctors, if Christ had but committed to my keeping one spoonful of his blood in a fragile glass, how curious should I preserve it, and how tender should I be of that glass! If then he have committed to me the purchase of his blood, should I not as carefully look to my charge? What, sirs, shall we despise the blood of Christ: shall we think it was shed for them that are not worthy of our utmost care! You may see here, it is not a little fault that negligent Pastors are guilty of. As much as in them lieth, the blood of Christ should be shed in vain : they would lose him those souls whom he hath so dearly bought!

O then let us hear those arguments of Christ, whenever we feel ourselves grow dull and careless: Did I die for them, and wilt not thou look after them? Were they worth my blood, and are they not worth thy labour? Did I come down from heaven to earth, to seek and to save that which was lost; and wilt not thou go to the next door, or street, or village to seek them? How small is thy labour and condescension as to mine? I debased myself to this, but it is thy honour to be so employed. Have I done and suffered so much for their salvation; and was I willing to make thee a co-worker with me, and wilt thou refuse that little that lieth upon thy hands?' Every time we look upon our Congregations, let us believingly remember, that they are the purchase of Christ's blood, and therefore should be regarded accordingly by us.

And think what a confusion it will be at the last day to a negligent Minister, to have this blood of the Son of God to be pleaded against him, and for Christ to say, ' It was the purchase of my blood that thou didst so make light of, and

dost thou think to be saved by it thyself? O, brethren, seeing Christ will bring his blood to plead with us, let it plead us to our duty, lest it plead us to damnation.

I have done with the Motives which I find in the text itself: there are many more that might be gathered from the rest of this Exhortation of the Apostle; but we must not stay to mention all. If the Lord will set home but these few upon your hearts, I dare say we shall see reason to mend our pace and the change will be such on our hearts, and in our Ministry, that ourselves and our Congregations will have cause to bless God for it. I know myself unworthy to be your monitor; but a monitor you must have; and it is better for us to hear of our sin and duty from any body than from none at all. Receive the admonition, and you will see no cause in the monitor's unworthiness, to repent of it; but if you reject it, the unworthiest messenger may bear that witness against you that will confound you. But before I leave this Exhortation, as I have applied it to our general work, so I shall carry it a little further to some of the special parts, and modes of our duty which were before expressed.

I. And first, and above all, See that the work of saving grace be thoroughly wrought on your own souls. It is a fearful case to be an unsanctified Professor, but much more to be an unsanctified Preacher. Doth it not make you tremble when you open the Bible, lest you should read there the sentence of your own condemnation? When you pen your sermons, little do you think that you are drawing up indictments against your own souls! When you are arguing against sin, you are aggravating your own; when you proclaim to your hearers the riches of Christ, and grace, you publish your own iniquity in rejecting them, and your unhappiness in being without them. What can you do in persuading men to Christ, in drawing them from the world, in urging them to a life of faith and holiness; but conscience if it were but awake might tell you, that you speak all this to your own confusion! If you mention hell, you mention your own inheritance; if you describe the joys of heaven, you describe your misery that have no right to it. What can you devise to say, for the most part, but it will be against your own souls? O miserable life, that a man should