XXVI.

neither of the little or no fruit, nor of the great and horrid SERMON shame, nor of the vast and miserable ruin that comes of sin, but our own selves. "What had ye?" says our Apostle; ye can show no fruit; "ye are now ashamed," and ye cannot be ignorant that death is coming on. I here refer it to you; say what you can in the behalf of it; I desire none other witnesses nor judges than yourselves. "What fruit had ye, then, in those things whereof you are now ashamed?" Tell me if you can.

IV. Indeed, there is none can tell so well as the sinner can himself, what he has gotten by his sin; whether we consider him as one reflecting upon his ways, only as a person of reason should, or else as a Christian will.

For (1) let any of us, as men of reason, lay together the weary steps, the hard adventures, the vexatious troubles, the ordinary disappointments, the impertinent visits, the thoughtful nights, the busy days, the tumultuous uproars of our fears, our jealousies, our hopes, our despairs; the unworthy condescensions, the base disparagements, the dishonourable enterprises; that a lust, that a humour, that a vanity puts us too, or puts upon us and then compare them with the lightness, the shortness, the unprofitableness, the unsatisfactoriness, the eternal shame and confusion we yet after all purchase with all that toil; and we must both needs confess that we have done brutishly and unreasonably, and cannot but be ashamed we have so unmanned ourselves, and betrayed the very essence and glory of our nature: not done like men.

But (2) let us renew the same reflections, and view them over again by the light of grace; look upon ourselves a Christians thus wretchedly betraying our God for a lust, Christ for an interest, our religion for a fancy, our obedience for a humour, our charity for a ceremony, our peace for a punctilio, our duty to God and man, for a little vain applause of, peradventure, ungodly men; our innocence for dirt and pleasure, our eternal glory and salvation for toys and trifles; and will we not without more ado confess we are ashamed, infinitely ashamed of it? Hear but those brave ranting blades, those gallant sinners, what they say themselves: "What hath pride profited us," say they, "or Wisd. v. 8.

XXVI.

SERMON what good have riches with our vaunting brought us?" as if in sum they had said, What have all our sins procured us? Wisd. v. 9. Why, “all those are passed away like a shadow," and we are Wisd. v. 13. "consumed in our own wickedness." Now indeed, though there too late, they begin to talk like men,-to speak reason. The Christian penitent, after he has run the course of sin, and is now returning, talks somewhat higher, calls it a prison, the stocks, the dungeon, the very nethermost hell; thinks no words bad enough to style it by. We need not put any such upon the rack for this confession: they go mourning and sighing it all the day long; they tell you sensibly by their tears and blushes,-by their sad countenances, and downcast looks,-by their voluntary confessions, their willing restraints now put upon themselves, their pining, punishing, afflicting of their souls and bodies, their wards and watches now over every step, lest they should fall again -that never were any poor souls so gulled into a course, so vain, so unprofitable, so dishonourable, so full of perplexities, so fruitful of anxieties, so bitter, so unpleasant as sin has been, nor anything whereof they are so much ashamed. No fruit of all you see, even ourselves being judges.

And yet I will not send you away without some fruit or other-somewhat after all this--that may do you good.

For, (1,) methinks, if sin have no better fruits, if wickedness come no better off, we may first learn to be ashamed, and blush to think of it,-be ashamed of sin.

We may, (2,) learn to beat it off thus at its first assaults. What! thou sin, thou lust,-what fruit shall I have in thee? -what good shall I reap of thee? Do I not see shame attend thee, and death behind thee? I am ashamed already to think upon thee; away, away, thou impudent solicitress,— I love no such fruit,-I love no such end.

And if, (3,) we be so unhappy as to be at any time unawares engaged in any sin, let us strike off presently upon the arguments of the text. For why should we be so simple, to take a course that will not profit,-to take pains to weave a web that will not cover us,-to plant trees that will yield no fruit, to range after fruit that has no pleasure,- to court that which has no loveliness? If we can expect nothing from our sins, (as you have heard we cannot,) why do we sweat

about them? If they bring home nought by shame, why are we not at first ashamed to commit them? If they end in death, why will ye die, O foolish people and unwise?

Lastly, you that have led a course of sin, and are yet perhaps still in it, sit down and reckon every one of you with himself, what you have gotten. Imprimis, so much cost and charges; item, so much pains and labour, so much care and trouble, so much loss and damage, so much unrest and disquiet, so much hatred and ill-will, so much disparagement and discredit, so many anxieties and perplexities, so many weary walks, so much waiting and attendance, so many disappointments and discouragements, so many griefs and aches, so many infirmities and diseases, so many watches and broken sleeps, so many dangers and distresses, so many bitter throbs, and sharp stings, and fiery scorchings of a wounded conscience; so much, and so much, and so much misery, all for a few minutes of pleasure; for a little white and yellow dirt, for a feather or a fly, a buzz of honour or applause, a fancy or a humour for a place of business, or vexation summed up all in air, and wind, and dust, and nothing. Learn thus to make a daily reflection upon yourselves and sins.

But after all these, remember, lastly, it is death, eternal death, everlasting misery, hell and damnation without end, that is the end of sin; that all this everlasting is for a thing that is never lasting, a thing that vanishes often in its doing; all this death for that only which is the very shame of life, and even turns it into death; and surely you will no longer yield your members, your souls and bodies to iniquity unto iniquity, but unto righteousness unto holiness. So shall ye happily comply with the Apostle's argument in the text, and draw it, as he would have you, to the head; do what he intends and aims at by it, and by so doing attain that which he desires you should; make yourselves the greatest gainers can be imagined; gain good out of evil, glory out of shame, life out of death, all things out of nothing, eternal life, everlasting glory. Which, &c.

SERMON

XXVI.

A SERMON

ON THE

FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENT.

1 COR. ix. 24.

XXVII.

SERMON THAT Christianity is a race, and heaven the goal, and we, all of us, they that are to run, is an ordinary allegory in Scripture and sermons, which you have none of you but heard. And that in this race all that run do not obtain, no more than they do that run in other races, every one sees, and every one can tell you. "Not every one," we told you the last day; not they that run only with their tongues, run they "Lord, Lord," never so fast; not many others that run further than so you will hear anon, and too common experience can inform you.

But how so to run as to obtain is not a piece of so common knowledge. Hic labor, hoc opus est. This is the Apostle's business,-a business ordinary Christians are not sufficiently skilled in, it is to be feared; or if sufficiently skilled in, not so practised in, but that they want a voice both behind and before them to tell them, "this is the way" they are to walk in. "This is the way, walk in it," so, and obtain."

so run that you may Were we to run in those Olympic games (which S. Paul here seems to allude to), they who were practised in those sports and exercises were fittest to instruct us how so to run as to be conquerors there. But being now to run the

true Olympic; that is, the heavenly race, the true race to SERMON heaven that true Olympus, which that poetical did but XXVII. shadow-this our Apostle, that great wrestler, "not against flesh and blood" (though in another sense against that too), "but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of darkness and spiritual wickedness," whose whole life was nothing else but a continual exercise of all the hardships in the Christian course, who so gloriously "fought the good fight," and "finished his course," can best teach us how to do so too. With this prerogative too above the cunningest of those Olympic masters, that they cannot so instruct their scholars that they shall be sure of the prize they run for, though they run never so accurately to their rules; many there running and but one obtaining; but here, by S. Paul's direction, we may all "run" and all "obtain." For to that purpose only are we invited and directed to "run," that we "may obtain."

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Yet true it is, as we may all "obtain," so we may not; and it will be but a spur to us to fear it, one spur to hasten and quicken us in our course. S. Paul had such a one now and then to make him "run." He had "run" much, "from Rom. xv. Jerusalem round about unto Illyricum;" yet, lest he had or should "run in vain," he gathers up his heels and to Jeru- Gal. ii. 2. salem he goes again, to see whether he had not "run" so, or might not at the last; and notwithstanding all his great pains and care in the Gospel of Christ, in preaching it freely too," without any charge" to the Corinthians, applying 1 Cor. ix. himself to all ways and means to gain them, and becoming anything to make them Christ's, he yet tells us what ado he kept with his body, lest when he had done all, he "should be a castaway."

But that such a one he should not be, he had some hope, that he should be a partaker rather of the Gospel in its reward as well as in its work, in the verse before the text. This is the other spur to him in his course-must be to us, that we thus quickened to our race, and by these two, hope to obtain and fear to lose, as by two leaden plummets, in each hand one, to poise us as we "run," may so "run" as to obtain."

We "may obtain," that is our hope; yet it is but "may," that is our fear; yet no fear at all, if we "run" but so as

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