Leg. 6. I would Leave with you is this: Be always doing or receiving good. Our Lord and Master went up and down in this world doing good ; he was still doing good to body and soul ; he was acted by an untired power. Be still doing or receiving good. This will make your lives comfortable, your deaths happy, and your account glorious, in the great day of our Lord. Oh ! how useless are many men in their gene- ration ! Oli ! that our lips might be as so many honey-combs, that we might scatter knowledge!
Leg. 7- I would leave with you is this : Set the highest examples and patterns before your face of grace and godliness for your imitation. In the business of faith, set an Abraham before your eyes ; in the business of courage, set a Joshua ; in the business of uprightness, set a Job ; of meekness, a Moses, &c. There is a disadvantage that redounds to Christians by looking more backwards than forwards. Men look on whom they excel, not on those they fall short of. Of all examples, set them before you that are most eminent for grace and holiness, for com- munion with God, and acting for God. Next to Christ, set the pattern of the choicest saints before you.
Leg. 8. Hold fast your integrity, and rather let all go than let that go. A man had better let liberty, estate, relations, and life go, than let his integrity go. Yea, let ordinances themselves go, when they cannot be held with the hand of integrity : Job xxvii. 5, 6, ' God forbid that I should justify you till I die. I will not remove my integrity from me; my righteousness I will hold fast, and I will not let it go : my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live.' Look, as the drowning man holds fast that which is cast forth for to save him, as the soldier holds fast his sword and buckler on which his life depends, so, saith Job, ' I will hold fast my integrity; my heart shall not reproach me. I had rather all the world should reproach me, and my heart justify me, than that my heart should reproach me, and all the world justify me.' That man will make but a sad exchange that shall exchange his integrity for any worldly concernment. Integrity maintained in the soul will be a feast of fat things in the worst of days ; but let a man lose his integrity, and it is not in the power of all the world to make a feast of fat things in that soul.
Leg. 0. That I would leave with you is this : Let not a day pass over your head without calling the whole man to an exact account. Well, where have you been acting to-day ? Hands, what have you done for God to-day ? Tongue, what have you spoke for God to-day. This will be an advantage many ways unto you, but I can only touch on these legacies.
Leg. 10. Labour mightily for a healing spirit. This legacy I would leave with you as matter of great concernment. Labour mightily for a healing spirit. Away with all discriminating names whatever that may hinder the applying of balm to heal your wounds. Labour for a healing spirit. Discord and division become no Christian. For wolves to worry the lambs, is no wonder ; but for one lamb to worry another, this is unnatural and monstrous. God hath made his wrath to smoke against us for the divisions and heart-burnings that have been amongst us. Labour for a oneness in love and affection with every one that is one with Christ. Let their forms be what they will, that which wins
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most upon Christ's heart, should win most upon ours, and that is his own grace and holiness. The question should be, What of the Father, what of the Son, what of the Spirit shines in this or that person ? and accordingly let your love and your affections run out. That is the tenth legacy.
Leg. 11. Be most in the spiritual exercises of religion. Improve this legacy, for much of the life and comfort, joy and peace of your souls is wrapped up in it. I say, be most in the spiritual exercises of religion. There are external exercises, as hearing, preaching, praying, and con- ference ; and there are the more spiritual exercises of religion, exercise of grace, meditation, self-judging, self-trial, and examination. Bodily exercise will profit nothing if abstracted from those more spiritual. The glory that God hath, and the comfort and advantage that will redound to your souls is mostly from the spiritual exercises of religion. How rare is it to find men in the work of meditation, of trial and examination, and of bringing home of truths to their own souls ?
Leg. 12. Take no truths upon trust, but all upon trial, 1 Thes. v. 21, so 1 John iv. 1, Acts xvii. 11. It was the glory of that church, that they would not trust Paul himself; Paul, that had the advantage above all for external qualifications ; no, not Paul himself. Take no truth upon trust ; bring them to the balance of the sanctuary. If they will, not hold weight there, reject them.
Iieg. 13. The lesser and fewer opportunities and advantages you have in public to better and enrich your souls, the more abundantly address your souls to God in private : Mai. iii. 16, 17, 'Then they that feared the Lord, spake often one to another,' &c.
Leg. 14. Walk in those ways that are directly cross and contrary to the vain, sinful, and superstitious ways that men of a formal, carnal, lukewarm spirit walk in ; this is the great concernment of Christians. But more of that by and by.
Leg. 15. Look upon all the things of this world as you will look upon them when you come to die. At what a poor rate do men look on the things of this world when they come to die ! What a low value do men set upon the pomp and glory of it, when there is but a step between them and eternity ! Men may now put a mask upon them, but then they will appear in their own colours. Men would not venture the loss of such great things for them did they but look on them now, as they will do at the last day.
Leg. 16. Never put off your conscience with any plea or with anv argument that you dare not stand by in the great day of your account. It is dreadful to consider how many in these days put off their con- sciences. We did this and that for our families, they would have else perished. I have complied thus, and wronged my conscience thus, for this and that concernment. Will a man stand by this argument when he comes before Jesus Christ at the last day ? Because of the souls of men, many plead this or that. Christ doth not stand in need of indirect ways to save souls ; he hath ways enough to bring in souls to himself.
Leg. 17. Eye more, mind more, and lay to heart more, the spiritual and eternal workings of God in your souls, than the external providences of God in the world. Beloved, God looks that we should consider the operations of his hand ; and the despising the works of his hands is so
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