are wronght by men, which yet are utterly rejected by God, and shall never stand upon record, in order to an eternal acceptation, because they took no heed to keep their hearts with God in those duties : this is that fatal rock, upon which thousands of vain profes- sors have split themselves eternally : they are curious about the ex- ternals of religion, but regardless of their hearts. O how many hours have some professors spent in hearing, praying, reading, con- ferring ! and yet, as to the main end of religion, as good they had sat still, and done nothing; for all this signifies nothing, the great work, 1 mean heart work, being all the while neglected. Tell me, thou vain professor, when didst thou shed a tear for the deadness, hardness, unbelief, or earthliness of thy heart ? Thinkest thou such an easy religion can save thee ? If so, we may invert Christ's words, and say, " Wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to '' life, and many there be that go in thereat." Hear me, thou self- deluding hypocrite, thou that hast put off God with heartless duties, thou that hast acted in religion, as if thou hadst been blessing an idol, that couldst not search and discover thy heart; thou that hast offered to God but the skin of the sacrifice, not the marrow, fat and inwards of it : how wilt thou abide the coming of the Lord ? How wilt thou hold up thy head before him, when he shall say, O thou dissembling, false-hearted man ! how couldst thou profess religion ? With what face couldst thou so often tell me that thou lovedst me, when thou knew all the while, in thine own conscience, that thine heart was not with me ? O tremble to think what a fearful judgment it is to be given over to a heedless, and careless heart ; and then to have religious duties, instead of a rattle, to quiet and still the con- science !
2. Hence also infer for the humlUation, even of upright hearts. That unless the people of God spend more time and pains about their hearts^ than generally and ordinarily they do, they are never like to do God much service, or be owners of much cornfort in this world.
I may say of that Christian that is remiss and careless in keeping his heart, as Jacob said of Reuben, " Thou shalt not excel."" It grieves me to see how many Christians there are that go up and down dejected, and complaining, that live at a poor low rate, both of ser- vice and comfort ; and how can they expect it should be otherwise, as long as they live at such a careless rate ? O how little of their time is spent in the closet in searching, humbling, and quickening their hearts ?
You say your hearts are dead, and do you wonder they are so, as long as you keep them not with the fountain of life ? If your bodies liad been dieted as your souls have been, they would have been dead too ; never expect better hearts till you take more pains with them : Quifiigit molam, fugit farinam ; he that will not have the sweaty must not expect the sweet of religion.
O Christians ! I fear your zeal and strength have run in the wrong
496 WHY SAINTS WALK SO UNCOMFORTABLY.
channel; I fear most of us may take up the Church's complaint, Cant. i. 6. " Thej have made me the keeper of the vineyards, but *' mine own vineyard have I not kept."" Two things have eaten up the time and strength of the professors of this generation, and sadly diverted them from heart- work : (1.) Fruitless controversies started by Satan, I doubt not, to this very purpose, to take us off from prac- tical godliness, to make us puzzle our heads when we should be searching our hearts. O how littje have we minded that of the apos- tle, Heb. xiii. 9. " It is a good thing that the heart be established *' with grace, and not with meats ;" i. e. with disputes and contro- versies about meats, " which have not profited them that have been " occupied therein."
O how much better is it to see men live exactly^ than to hear them dispute suhtlely ! These unfruitful questions, how have they rent the churches, wasted time and spirits, and called Christians off from their main business, from looking to their own vineyard.? What think ye, sirs ? Had it not been better if the questions agitated among the people of God of late days had been such as these ? How shall a man discern the special, from the common operations of the Spirit ? How may a soul observe its first declinings from God ? How may a backsliding Christian recover his first love ? How may the heart be preserved from unseasonable thoughts in duty ? How may a bosom- sin be discovered, and mortified, &c. would not this have tended more to the credit of religion and comfort of your souls ? O it is time to repent and be ashamed of this folly ! When I read what Suarez, a Papist, said, who wrote many tomes of disputations, that he prized the time he set apart for the searching and examining of his heart, in reference to God, above ail the time that ever he spent in other studies : I am ashamed to find the professors of this age yet insensible of their folly. Shall the conscience of a Suarez feel a relenting pang for strength and time so ill employed, and shall not yours ? This is it your ministers long since warned you of; your spiritual nurses were afraid of the rickets, when they saw our heads only to grow, and our hearts to whither. O when will God beat our swords into plow-shares ! I mean, our disputes and contentions into practical godliness. (2.) Another cause of neglecting our hearts hath been earthly incumbrances ; the heads and hearts of many have been filled with such a croud and noise of worldly business, that they have sadly and sensibly declined and withered in their zeal, love, and delight in God ; in their heavenly, serious, and pro- iitable way of conversing with men.
O how hath this wilderness entangled us ! our discourses and con- ferences, nay, our very prayers and duties have a tang of it : we have had so much work without doors, that we have been able to do but little within. It was the sad complaint of an holy one *, ' O (saith he)
WHY SAINTS WALK SO UNCOMFORTABLY. 497
* it is sad to think how many precious opportunities I have lost ;
* how many sweet motions and admonitions of tlie Spirit I have pas-
* sed over unfruitfully, and made the I^ord to speak in vain : in the
* secret illapses of his Spirit, the Lord hath called upon me, but my
* worldly thoughts did still lodge within me, and there was no place