236 TUE STEADFASTNESS OF THE PROMISES,
Give me leave to add a few motives to this duty.
(1.) TJiey want it. No want like theirs who waut the gospel. I would there were for the present one gospel preacher for every walled town in the English possession in Ireland. The land moumeth, and the people perish for want of knowledge. Many nm to and fro, but it is upon other designs; knowledge is not increased.
(2.) They are sensible of their luants, and cry out for sitpply. The tears and cries of the inhabitants of Dublin after the manifestations of Christ are ever in my view. If they were in the dark, and loved to have it so, it might something close a door upon the bowels of our compassion ; but they cry out of their darkness, and are ready to fol- low every one whosoever, to have a candle. If their being gospelless move not our hearts, it is hoped tlieir importunate cries will disquiet our rest, and wrest help as a beggar doth an alms.
(3.) Seducers and hlaspheniers "svill not be wanting to sow their tares, which those fallowed fields will receive, if there be none to cast in the seed of the word. Some are come over thither already A\ith- out call, without employments, to no other end but only to vaunt themselves to be God ; as they have done in the open streets with detestable pride, atheism, and folly. So that as Ireland was heretofore teniied by some in civil things a frippery of bankrupts, for the great number of persons of broken estates that went thither ; so, doubtless, in religion it will prove a frippery of monstrous, enormoiis, contradictious opinions, if the work of preaching the word of truth and soberness be not carried on. And if this be the issue of your present undertakings, will it be acceptable, think you, to the Lord Jesus, that you have used his power and might to make way for such things as his soul abhors?
[1.] Will it be for his honour, that the people whom he hath sought to himself with so high a hand should, at the very entrance of his taking possession, be leavened with those high and heavenly notions wliich have an open and experimented tendency to earthly, fleshly, dunghill practices? or, —
[2.] Will it be for the credit and honour of your profession of the gospel, that such a breach slioidd he under your hand! that it shoidd be as it were by your means ? Will it not be a sword, and an arrow, and a maul in the hands of your observers ? Who can bear the just scandal that Avould accrue, — scandal to the magistrates, scandal to the ministers of this generation, — in neglecting such an opportunity of advancing the gospel, — sleeping all the day whilst others sow tares ?
[3.] Where will be the hoped, the expected consolation of this great affair, when the testimony and pledge of the peculiar presence of Christ amongst us upon such an issue shall be wanting ?
What, then, shall we do ? This thing is often spoken of, seldom driven to any close !
AND SINFULNESS OF STAGGERING. 237
1st. Pray. " Pray the Lord of the harvest, that he would send out/' that he would thrust forth, " labourers mto his harvest." The labourers are ready to say, There is a lion in the way, difficulties to be contended withal. And to some men it is hard seeing a call of God through difficulties ; when if it would but clothe itself with a few canial advantages, how apparent is it to them ! they can see it through a little cranny. Be earnest, then, with the Master of these labourers, in whose hand is their life and breath, and all their ways, that he would powerfully constrain them to be willing to enter into the fields that are white for the harvest.
2dli/. Make such provision, that those who will go may be fenced from outward straits and fears, so far as the uncertainty of human affairs in general and the present tumultuating perturbations will admit. And let not, I beseech you, this be the business of an un- pursued order. But, —
Sdli/. Let some be appointed (generals die and sink by themselves) to consider this thing, and to hear what sober proposals may be made by any whose hearts God shall stir up to so good a work.
This, I say, is a work wherein God expecteth faithfulness from you: stagger not at his promises nor your own duty. However, by all means possible, in this business I have striven to deliver my own soul.
Once more ; — to this of faith, let me stir you up to another work of love, and that in the behalf of many poor perishing creatures, that want all things needful for the sustentation of life. Poor parentless children that lie begging, starving, rotting in the streets, and find no relief; yea, persons of quality, that have lost their dearest relations in your sei'vice, seeking for bread, and finding none; — oh, that some thoughts of this also might be seriously committed to them that shall take care for the gospel !
Use 3. I desire now to make more particular application of the doc- trine, as to things purely spiritual. Until you know how to Ijelieve for your own souls, you will scarcely know how to believe for a nation. Let this, then, teach us to lay the burden and trouble of our lives upon the right shoulder. In our staggerings, our doubtings, our disputes, we are apt to assign this and that reason of them ; when the sole rea- son, indeed, is our unbelief Were it not for such a cause, or such a cause, I could believe ; that is, were there no need of faith. That is, faith must remove the mountains that lie in the way, and then all will be plain. It is not the gi'eatness of sin, nor continuance in sin, nor backsliding into sin, that is the true cause of thy staggering, what- ever thou pretendest (the removal of all these is from that promise Avhose stability and certainty I before laid forth), but solely from thy unbelief, that "root of bitterness" which springs up and troubles thee. It is not the distance of the earth from the sun, nor the sun's with-