3. Thirdly, In all your administrations of justice, take the authority of the ivoi'd icith you. This will yield you most comfort,' most peace, most security, and most boldness, in the great day of your account. But,
4. Fourthly, Never put off your own souls with . any such pleas or arguments now, that are not pleadable in the court of conscience, when you shall lie upon your dying-beds ; nor that are not pleadable before the court of heaven, when you shall stand before Christ's judgment- seat. But,
5. Fifthly and lastly. In all your administrations of justice and judgment, be sure that you act nothing upon the account of any com- mand, commission, or authority under heaven, that you dare not oion, plead, and stand hy hefore the great . authority of heaven, when the King of kings shall make a narrow inspection into all your judicial proceedings, and accordingly pass judgment upon you. What though this command, and that commission, and the other authority, may bear you out in this world ? yet if they are too weak to bear you out in the other world, you will curse the day that ever you were born, and
22 THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY.
wish that you had rather been a-turning of spits, or lying under a hedge, or a-begging at the rich man's door, than that you had ever sat in seats of judicature, to act upon such grounds as are no ways plead- able before the Lord Jesus Christ, when he shall come in the glory of his Father, with all his holy angels, to judge all the kings, princes, nobles, judges, and justices of the earth. My Lords and Gentlemen, if these five things or rules were but sincerely, seriously, resolutely, and constantly followed, no heart can conceive, nor no tongue can express, the heinous sins, the sore troubles, and the dreadful calamities and woeful miseries that thereby would be prevented. And thus, my Lords and Gentlemen, I have done with those special rules that you are carefully, diligently, faithfully, and constantly to observe in all your judicial administrations ; but how you will be able to act suitable and answerable to these rules without a spirit of holiness, without a principle of holiness, and without an experiment i of the powerful operations of holiness in your own souls, I am not able to see ; and, therefore, how much it siknds you upon that want, that holiness, that this Treatise holds forth, to study holiness, to love holiness, to prize holiness, to countenance holiness, to encourage holiness, to promote holiness, and to be restless till you have experienced the power, and life, and sweet of holiness in your own hearts and lives, I must leave you to judge. 2 And oh that after all this pains that I have taken upon the account of your immortal souls, I may not have cause to complain, as once Marcus Antonius did : Alas, saith he, those graces which the deity sent down as so many pillars to stay up human societies, viz., Faith and Modesty, Justice and Verity, they found such cold entertain- ment in the world, that they are fled back to heaven. I shall follow these weak endeavours with my best prayers, that you may all put on holiness as a royal robe, and that all your judicial administrations may savour of a spirit of holiness, and of the power and prevalency of holi- ness, that so you may be as high in happiness above others, as you are now in power and place exalted above others.
If this Treatise should fall into any of their hands who call and ac- count themMves the only ministers of Jesus Christ; I mean such who preach rather to please than to profit ; to tickle the ear than to awaken the conscience ; that are better at fleecing of their flocks than they are at feeding of their flocks ; that seek more men's goods than their good ; ^ that set up men's traditions above God's own institutions ; that prefer human commands before divine commands ; that are very zealous and warm for mint, anise, and cummin, but are very cold, careless, and negligent in the great and weighty matters of the law, viz., judgment, mercy, and faith ; that can bless God in the church, and blaspheme him in the tavern ; that prefer music in the church before singing of hallelujahs in heaven ; that prefer a fat benefice before an interest in a heavenly inheritance ; that can kneel devoutly behind a pillar, and in their drunken fits rail as stoutly against a post ; that pretend a great deal of reverence to the name of Jesus, and yet in their lives do daily
^ ' Experience.' — G.
^ If you please to read from page 433 to page 447, you will find many more weighty arguments to more you to labour after holiness. [As before. — G.] ^Ezek. xiii., read it throughout; Mat. xxiii. 23 ; Mat. xxv. 1-10.
THE EriSTLE DEDICATORY. 23