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you the following remedies against a worldly disposition. Consider, for this end, the six following particulars.

1. These vanities will not yield you pleasure in the time of the greatest trouble; they cannot ease you of the least pain. When you make a gash in your conscience, and wound your spirit, and so expose yourselves to the wrath of God, what will the things of the world avail you? Who loved the world better than Judas did? But when God burnt his fingers with it, if we may be allowed the expression, then he threw it away with a fury. What will become of you at death, man? Will it be any comfort to you, that you die in a well-hung room? or that your chamber-floor is laid with silver? or that you die possessed of such a large estate, or ample fortune? Will not the man then cry out, " O if I had but spent some of this time in securing an interest in "Christ, that I have bestowed in hunting after the world, "that can now stand me in no stead!"

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2. Seek a law-work; something of it is absolutely necessary to shake the world out of its place: " He will shake heaven and earth," Heb. xii. 26. People will never leave the world till God shake it out of their heart.

3. Be conversant with your own sensible experience of the world. Have you never found the vanity and emptiness of it? Nay, hath it never been a sting and gall to your poor soul, that the world hath got all your time, thought, and care?

4. Be persuaded, that God in Christ is the only good. Seek the discovery of the glory of God in Christ. Persons may harangue never so long about the world's emptiness and vanity; but they will never part with it till they get something better in the room of it. Something the man must have to set his heart upon: Therefore, till the unsearchable riches of Christ be discovered to the soul, so as your soul's desire run out after him, the husks of the world will be your portion. People may think it is their principle, that the world is but vanity; yet still they are taken up with the vanity thereof, till they see the glory of God. The Lord is a full and sufficient good: he is a proportionable good, suiting the soul: he is an everlasting good, suiting the immortal soul.

5. Believe the providence of God: he that made the world by creation, doth still preserve it by providence, allotting every man his portion; and by making every man's condition in the world, best for him: "Your heavenly Father taketh care of you," saith Christ.

6. O beware of valuing yourselves for what you have of the world: I assure you, in God's name, it will be one of your challenges when death comes, or some time a-day or other, Oh! I neglected my poor soul! Like the woman that left her child in the flame; many leave their soul thus, to be consumed in the flame of divine wrath. Seek to have Christ for your everlasting portion. Many say, "Who will shew us any good?" But say you, Lord, lift thou upon me the light of thy countenance; then shall I have more gladness than they, when their corn and wine abounds." Never rest till you come to that," Whom have I in heaven but thee?" And then you will be able to say also, "When heart, and flesh, and all fail, the Lord is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever."

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7. Take up Luther's resolution, that you will not be put off with this world for a portion. If God, for holy ends, see fit to imbitter worldly felicity to you, pray for weaning influences, improve weaning dispensations and weaning words, weaning rods, and weaning ordi

SERMON VIÌI.

SELF-CONCEIT Incident to a Multitude of Professors; or, the Imaginary Pure Generation found not washed from their Pollution*.

PROV. XXX. 12.

There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness.

THE subjects I lately treated, as formerly observed†,

hold out to us, 1. The FATHER'S exhibition of Christ, saying, "I have given thee for a covenant of the people." 2. The SPIRIT'S operation upon the hearts of the people, in order to his being known and believed in; "He shall testify of me." 3. The Son's declaration of his own excellency, as being God equal with the Father; "I and my Father are one." And so Father, Son, and Holy Ghost concur in their commendation of him to us. But, 4. We treated a little of the WORLD'S disapprobation of this glorious One, and their harsh entertainment of him; 66 Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath given me are for signs and for wonders in Israelt." And now, 5. This text may be looked upon as the ground and reason, why there are so many, even in Israel, that entertain Christ and his followers with marks of reproach, and look upon them as signs and wonders: Why?" There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet are not washed from their filthiness." -Their self-conceit makes them value themselves, to the undervaluing and contemning of others: though yet, while they suppose themselves to be pure, their impurity remains.

* This subject was handled in several Discourses; but we are uncertain when or where delivered: though it is more than probable, they were preached in his own church at Dumfermline, sometime in the year, 1723. The place they have in his notes seems to determine it. + See Serm. VI. See Serm. VI.

We may observe two sorts of persons in the visible church.

1. Some truly exercised persons, who, looking more to their spots and weaknesses, than to their graces and privileges, are ready to conclude themselves to be hypocrites and dissemblers with God. There are a few of these.

2. There are those who have nothing but a profession of religion, being strangers to the power of it; yet entertain an high opinion of themselves: who, looking more to their seeming righteousness, than to their real cases; more to their gifts than to their spots, conceive themselves to be what they really are not. They have an high conceit, a towering imagination, and raised opinion of themselves; and there is a multitude of such; "There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet are not washed from their filthiness."

This chapter contains, 1. Augur's confession of faith. 2. His prayer, and the parts of it. 3. His sixfold quaternary; that is, his coupling of four things together, and making a comparison among them; as you may see them divided in the contents of the chapter, upon some of your Bibles.-The first four is a fourfold generation of sinners that are most detestable to God; though this be not expressed, yet it is clearly implied; and you will find a parallel where it is expressed, Prov. vi. 16. Now, of the four generations he here speaks of, the second is in our text: "A generation that are pure in their own eyes, yet are not washed from their filthiness." The scope whereof is to shew, That it is a fault incident to vast multitudes, to have an high opinion of themselves, while yet they are naught; to think themselves pure, while yet they are impure: they take external reformation for true conversion: outside-holiness, for inward sanctification; and common grace for saving.

In the text these persons are described two ways; both negatively and positively.

1. Negatively, from what they are not in reality; they are not washed from their filthiness: where, as the defilement of sin is expressed by the word filthiness, signifying excrement, and denoting the pollution and de

filement of sin; so the necessity of purity is supposed; they are not washed; they were never cleansed in the fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness; they never washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb; their hearts and natures remain polluted and under the power of corruption.

2. They are described positively, from what they are in their own opinion; they are pure in their own eyes; they have a spiritual pride. For it is of this, I think, the text chiefly means: because carnal pride is spoken of, ver. 13. They have an high opinion of themselves. And they are set forth by their number: There is a generation of such. This word is sometimes taken for the succession of one age to another. Sometimes it imports a multitude; and in this sense I chiefly take it; "There is a multitude of people that are pure in their own eyes, yet are not washed from their filthiness."

The farther explication I refer to the prosecution of these three doctrines, 1. That sin is an impure thing, of a polluting and defiling nature. 2. That purity is an excellent thing, and of absolute necessity to denominate a true saint. Whatever we think of ourselves, if we be not washen from this defilement, we are naught. 3. That self-conceit is incident to a multitude of professors. Many who are most impure, do yet look on themselves as pure, and labour under a sad and woful delusion; a gross and damnable mistake, about the state of their immortal souls; they have a good heart, they think; and yet, alas! it is the worst part about them, "There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet are not washed from their filthiness." The two former doctrines are clearly implied, the last is plainly expressed and is what I mainly designed in fixing on the text: but I shall touch at the two other also. I begin with the first of these, and would speak a little to it at the time.

DOCT. I. That sin is a pollution and defilement. The method we propose for handling this subject, through divine aid, shall be the following.

I. We would consider what the scripture saith about the pollution of sin.