neighbours, in whose company we are ahiiost every day. It were a rare way to secure our faith, yea, to advance it and all our other graces, would we, in our dailv course, labour to do all our actions, as in obedience to the command, so in faith on tlie promise. But, alas ! how many enterprises are undertaken M-hcre faith is not called in, nor tlie promise consulted with from one end of the business to the other ! And, therefore, when we would make use of faith in some particular strait wherein we think ourselves to be more than ordinarily at a loss, our faith itself is at a loss, and to seek, like a servant who, because his master very seldom employs him, makes bold to be gadding abroad, and so when his master doth call him upon some extraordinary occasion, he is out of the way and not to be found. O Christian, take heed of letting your faith be long out of work; if y-ou do not use it when you ought, it may fail you when you desire most to act it.
Fourthly, Take special notice oftliat unbelief which yet remains in thee, and as it is putting forth daily its head in thy Christian course, be sure thou loadest thy soul with the sense of it, and deeply humblest thyself before God for it. What thy faith loseth by every act of unbelief, it recovers again by renewing thy repentance. David's faith was on the mending hand when he could shame himself heartily for his unbelief, Psa. Ixxiii. 22. He confessethhow foolish and ignorant he was : ' Yea,' saith he, ' I was a beast before thee ; ' so irrational and brutish his unbelieving thoughts now appeared to him. And by this ingenuous, humble confession, the malignity of his distemper breathes ont, that he is presently in his old temper again, and his faith is able to act as high as ever. ' Thou hast holden me by my right hand ; thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and after receive me to glory,' ver. 23, 21. But, so long thy unbelief is sure to grow upon thee, as thou art mihumbled for it. We have the reason why the people of Laish were so bad, Judges xviii. 7 : ' There was no magistrate in the land that might put them to shame in anything.' Christian, thou hast a magistrate in thy bosom, commissioned by God himself, to check, reprove, and shame thee, when thou sinnest : indeed, all things go to wreck in that soul where this doth not its otRce ; hear, therefore, what this hath to charge thee with, that thou mayest be ashamed. There is no sin dishonours God more than unbelief, and this sword cuts his name deepest when in the hand of a saint. O to be wounded in the house of his friends ! this goes near the tender heart of God. And there is reason enough why God should take this sin so unkindly at a saint's hand, if we consider the near relation such a one stands in to God. It would grieve an indulgent father to see his own child come into court, and there bear witness against him, and charge him of some untruth in his words, more than if a stranger should do it ; because the testimony of a child, thougli when it is for the vindication of a parent, m^iy lose some credit in the opinion of those that hear it, upon the sus^iicion of partiality ; yet when against a parent, it seems to carry some more probability of truth than what another that is a stranger says against him ; because the bond of natural affection with which the child is bound to his parent is so sacred, that it will not be easily sus])ected ; he can offer violence to it only upon the more inviolable necessity of bearing witness to the trutli. O think of this, Christian, again and again. I3y thy unbe- lief thou bearest false witness against God ; and if thou, a child of God, speakest no better of thy heavenly Father, and presentest him in no fairer character to the world, it will be no wonder if they be confirmed in their hard thouglits of God, even to final impenitency and unbelief, when they shall see how little credit he finds with thee, for all thy great profession of him, and near relation to him. When we would sink the reputation of a man the lowest possible, we cannot think of an expression that will do it more effectually, than to say he is such a one as those that are nearest to him, even his own children, dare not trust him, or will not give him a good word. O Christian, ask thyself whether thou couldst be willing to be the unhappy instrument to defame God, and take away his good name in th.e world : certainly thy heart trembles at the thought of it, if a saint ; and if it doth, then surely thy unbelief, by which thou hast done this so oft, will wound thee to tlie very heart ; and, bleeding for w'bat thou hast done, thou wilt beware of taking that sword into thy hand again with which thou hast given so many a wound to the name of Ciod and thy own peace.
Fifthly, If thou wouldst preserve thy faith, labour to increase thy faith. None in more danger of losing what they have, than those poor-spirited men who are
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4,gg ABOVE ALL, TAKING THE SHIELD OF FAITH.