Thirdly, _Lest you keep up a barren and fruitless profession_. See to it, that you be not only professors, but proficients. Many think all is well because they go on in the exercises of religion; but alas! You may keep on praying and hearing all the week long, and yet be not one jot the farther. Many there are that keep going, but it is like the horse in the mill, that is going all day, but yet is no farther than when he first began. Nay, it often happens in the trade of religion, as in trading in the world, many keep on trading still, ’till for want of care, and examining their accounts, they trade themselves out of all. Oh, look to it my brethren, that none of you rest in the doing of duties, but examine what comes of them. Otherwise, as you may trade yourselves into poverty, so you may hear and pray yourselves into hardness of heart and desperate security and formality. This was the very case of wretched _Laodicea_, who kept in the track of religious duties, and verily thought that all was well, because the trade went on, and that she was increased in spiritual goods. But when her accounts were cast up, all comes to nothing, and ends in wretchedness, poverty, and nakedness. I commend you to the living God, remaining
_Your fervent well-wisher and Embassador in Christ_.