and shall triumph over ■ tliem, when he meets them again at the great day at the har of Christ, where to their face he shall witness against them, and vote with Christ for their eternal destruction. Methinks I hear all the faithful ministers of Christ giving an accoimt to him, on whose errand they were sent, in the language of Jeremiah's prayer, Jer. xvii. 16: ' Lord, we have not desired this woeful day, thou knowest,' which now hath taken hold of these wretched souls, and which we warned them of; that which came out of our lips, in our preaching to them, was right before thee ; the life of their souls was dear and precious to us ; we could have sacrificed our temporal lives to save the eternal life of their souls ; but nothing we could say or do would stay them ; to hell they would go, over all the prayers, tears, and entreaties out of thy word, which stood in their way. This wiU make the sincere ministers of Christ lift up their head with joy, and such forlorn wretches hang down their heads with shame to look Christ or them in the face, though now they can brazen it out with an impudent forehead. So for parents and masters ; sincerity in your relations will comfort you, though you see not your seed come up, which you have sown upon them in your godly examples, holy instructions, and seasonable corrections. David was one that 'walked in his house with a perfect heart,' Psa. ci. 2; care- ful in the nurtiu-e of his children, as appears in his pious council to Solomon, 2 Chron. xxviii. 9, though not without failings. But many of his children were none of the best : one incestuous ; another imbruing his hands in his brother's blood ; a third catching at his crown traitorously while his father was alive, which made this holy man sadly foresee how the squares would go when he was dead and gone. Yet in this great disorder of his family, how comfortable do we find him on his dying bed. 'Though my house be not so with God, yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure,' 2 Sam. xxiii. 5. Surely he had done his duty sincerely ; this was his evidence for his interest in the covenant, and the covenant was all his desire and salvation.
In a word, in times of public calamity, when the flood of God's wrath comes i-oUing in upon a nation like waves, irresistibly, at the wide breach which the high crying sins of the times make, and the few righteous that are found upon the place labour to stand in the gap, by their prayers begging the life of the nation ; but God will not hear; for so it sometimes falls out, though they were like Noah, Job, and Daniel, greatly beloved of God, that no bail will be taken for a nation luider arrest of God's judgments ; even then sincerity will be a sweet support, while we share with others in the common calamity. Jeremiah bestirred him zealously for God, in testifying against the sins of the times, and for the people, faithfiilly and earnestly with God by prayer; but he could neither convert them by his preaching, nor divert the wrath of God by his praying. The Jews bid him hold his peace, and prophesy no more against them : God stops his mouth also, and bids him pray no more for them. Now in this dismal state of things, what easeth his soi-rowful heart, swollen with grief for their sins and judgments hastening vipon them, like an eagle to her prey ? Truly nothing can, but the remembrance of his sincerity to God and man, in those debauched times, Jer. xviii. 20 : ' Remember that I stood up before thee to speak good for them, and to turn away thy wrath from them.' As if he had said, O Lord, though I cannot prevail with this rebellious generation to repent of their sins, or with thy majesty, to repent of thy wrath gone out by an irre- versible decree against them ; yet, remember that I have been faithful in my place both to thee and them. Whereas, on the contrary, horror and amazement of spirit is the portion, in such times of public calamity, of hypocrites, as we see in Pashui-, Jer. xx., who was a man that bare great sway at court in Jere- miah's time, a bitter enemy to him, and the message he brought from God to the Jews, labouring to soothe up the king and pi'incess with vain hopes of golden days coming, point-blank against the word of the Lord, in the mouth of Jere- miah ; and what becomes of him when the storm falls on that unhappy people? Jeremiah tells him his doom, ver. 4, that God will make him a Magoi- Massabih, a terror to himself; he should not only share in the common calamity, but have a brand of God's especial wrath set upon him above others.
Section IV. — Fourthly, Sincerity girds theChristian with strength of comfort wlu^n deprived of those opportunities which sometimes God had intrusted him
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