they are only gospel gossips. Is this the case with any of you? If it is, you are in a deplorable condition, under the gospel and not convinced thereby. O may God bring down you rebels tonight; may this be the happy hour you may be cast down and disquieted within you. What can I say more? I would speak till I burst; I would speak till I could say no more; ( poor souls that hast never yet been cast down. I will tell you, if you die without being cast down, however you may die, and have no pangs in your death, and your carnal relations may thank God that you died like lambs, but no sooner will your souls be out of your bodies, but God will cast you down to hell; you will be lifting up your eyes in yonder place of torment; you will be disquieted, but there will be nobody there to say, hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise him. O my God, when I think of this, I could go to the very gates of hell to preach. I thought the other day, O if I had my health, I would stand on the top of every hackney coach, and preach Christ to those poor creatures. Unconverted old people, unconverted young people, will you have no compassion on your own souls? If you will damn yourselves, remember I am free from the blood of you all. O if it be thy blessed will, Lord most holy, O God most mighty, take the hearts of these sinners into thy hand. Methinks I see the heavens opened, the Judge sitting on his throne, the sea boiling like a pot, and the Lord Jesus coming to judge the world: well, if you are damned, it shall not be for want of calling after. O come, come, God help you to come, whilst Jesus is standing ready to receive you. O fly to the Savior this night for refuge; remember if you die in an unconverted state you must be damned for ever.

O that I could but persuade one poor soul to fly to Jesus Christ; make him your refuge; and then however you may be cast down, hope in God, and you shall yet praise him. God help those that have believed, to hope more and more in his salvation, till faith be turned into vision, and hope into fruition. Even so, Lord Jesus. Amen and Amen.

SERMON XIX.

THE GOSPEL, A DYING SAINT'S TRIUMPH,—A FUNERAL

SERMON.

MARK XVI. 15, 16.

And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gos pel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned.

I AM persuaded I need not inform this auditory, that when ambassadors are sent to a prince, or when judges go their respective circuits, it is always customary for them to show their credentials, to open and read their commissions, by which they act in his majesty's name. The same is absolutely necessary for those who are ambassadors of the Son of God, as they would be faithful to their Lord, since they are to sit with him on the throne, when he shall come the second time to judge both evil angels and men. If any should ask me, where is their commission? it has been just now read unto you. Here it is in my hand, it is written with the king's own hand, by the finger of the ever blessed God, and sealed with the signet of his eternal Spirit, with his broad seal annexed to it. The commission is short, but very extensive; and it is remarkable, it was given out just before the Redeemer went to heaven; he reserved it in infinite wisdom for his last blessing, to appoint and employ vicegerents to carry on his work on earth. He that hath an ear to hear let him hear, what the Son of God says to a company of poor fishermen. There was not one scholar among them all. What does he say; Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. Let us pause a while, and before we go further let us see what mercy, what love, and yet withal, what equal majesty are blended in this expression or commission. Go ye, ye poor fishermen, ye that are what letter-learned doctors will look upon as illiterate men; Go ye, that have hitherto been dreaming of temporal preferments, quarreling "who should sit on my right hand and on my left hand in my kingdom:" Go ye, not stay till the people come to you, but imitate the conduct of your Master; Go ye, remembering that the devil will not permit souls to be fond of hearing you. Go therefore. Where? Into all the world. There is a commission for you; there was never such a commission on the earth; there never was any like this; Go into all the

world, that is, into the Gentile as well as the Jewish world. Hitherto my gospel has been confined to the Jews; I once told you, you must not go to the Gentiles; I once told a poor woman that came to me, "it is not meet to take the children's bread and give it unto dogs :" but the partition wall being now broke down, the veil of the temple being now rent in twain, he gave them a universal commission; Go ye therefore into all the world; how! what, go into other ministers' parishes? For there was not a district then but what was settled with shepherds, such as they were; yes, yes, Go into all the world: and though I will not pretend to say, that this enjoins ministers to go into every part of the world; yet I insist upon it, and by the grace of God, if I were to die for it I will say, that no power on earth has power to restrain ministers from preaching where a company of people are willing to hear; and if ministers were of a right temper, they would say as a minister did at Oxford, that used to visit the prisoners there. I remember I once went to ask him whether I might go and visit some of his parish; whether he was offended at our going to visit the prisoners? No, no, says he, I am glad I have any such young curates as you. And if ministers were of such a temper now, the devil would fly before us. As good Mr. Philip Henry said to the minister of Broad Oaks, from whence he was ejected, but preached afterwards in a barn, and meeting the minister after the sermon was over; Sir, says Mr. Henry, I have been making bold to throw a handful of seed into your ground. Thank you, sir, says he, God bless it, there is work enough for us both. We may talk of what we will, search into the bottom, it is not for want of light, but of more zeal and love to the Son of God: if we were as warm, and full of the love of God as we ought to be, these petty excuses we urge to save our bones, would not be so much as mentioned we should go out, and leave these carcasses to the grace of God. I do not see how we can act as priests of the Church of England without doing it. Be so kind as to read the Ordination Service as soon as you go home; for the office of ordination and consecration of bishops, priests, and deacons, is left out of most the common prayer books, so that people are as ignorant of it as if it was not. The office of a priest is this he is not to confine himself to his place, no; what then? Why he is to go forth, and seek after the children of God that are dispersed in this naughty world; these are the very words that the bishop speaks to us when we are ordained; but if we are confined to one particular place, and are to be shut up in one corner, pray how do we seek the children of God that are dispersed in this naughty world? Parishes and set

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tled ministers there must be, but we are not, I insist on it, to be hindered from preaching Christ any where, because he bids us go into all the world; here is our license. I acknowledge the Chapel is licensed; here is my license, and wherever I go I will produce my license. Where? Why out of the 16th of Mark; Go ye and preach the gospel to all the world: there is the license, and the Spirit of Christ helping us to preach by that license will make all the devil's children cowards before us. We have tried them these thirty years, would to God we set about it now; if I had strength I would set about it to-morrow; I only grieve that my body will not hold out for field preaching, else Kennington Common should be my pulpit, for any place is consecrated where Christ is present. Well, what must we go forth to do? Go ye into all the world and preach; preach! what is that? Why the original word for preach is to speak out, as a crier does that cries goods that are lost, proclaim it. And Isaiah would be reckoned a dreadful enthusiast if now alive. How does he preach? He preaches in the king's chapels with such language and eloquence as would carry all before it; and yet how does he preach? "Ho, every one that thirsteth." O, he lifts up his voice like a trumpet. And the word preach signifies to proclaim; to cry aloud, and spare not. How do you like one that cries your lost goods if he only whispers? Would you choose to employ a man that you could not hear two yards? O, say you, I shall never find my goods: and if persons have what qualifications they may, if they cannot be heard at all, they need not preach at all. I know a prebend in the cathedral of York, who spoke so very low nobody heard him; somebody said, they never heard such a moving sermon in all their lives in that cathedral, for it made all the people move out, because they could not hear. The matter of the ministry of the gospel is of infinite importance: unless, my brethren, we could be heard, what do we preach for? It implies earnestness in the preaching and the preacher. You expect a person, like one that is crying your goods, to be in earnest; and if we preach, and make the king's proclamation, we should be in earnest. It is said, "Christ opened his mouth and taught." Now a modern critic would laugh at that; open his mouth, say they, how could he speak without opening his mouth? Would it not be better to say, he taught them? No, no, there is no idle word in God's book. It is said, the Lord Jesus opened his mouth: what for? Why to get in breath that he might speak loud to the people, when the heavens were his sounding board: then did he open his mouth, and taught them in earnest, powerfully; and therefore the people made this

observation when he had done speaking, "that he spoke as one having authority, and not as the scribes." There is no dispensation from preaching, but sickness or want of abilities, to those that are ordained to preach; and therefore it was a proverb in the primitive church, that it becomes a bishop to die preaching. Bishop Jewell, that blessed minister of the Church of England, gave that answer to a person that met his lordship walking on foot in the dirt, going to preach to a few people. Why does your lordship, weak as you are, expose yourself thus? Says he, it becomes a bishop to die preaching. Lord send all the world that have bishops such jewels as he was! Pray what are they to preach? Not themselves. What are they to preach? Why, they are to preach not morality; not morality! come, do not be frightened, any of you that are afraid of good works, do not be frightened this morning I say not morality; that is, morality is not to be the grand point of their preaching; they are not to preach as a heathen philosopher would. A late bishop of Lincoln, who has not been dead a long while, said to his chaplain, You are not a minister of Cicero, or any of the heathen philosophers; you are not to entertain your people with dry morality, but remember you are a minister of Christ; you are, therefore, to preach the gospel; and if you will not preach the gospel in the church, you must not be angry for the poor people's going out into the fields where they hear the gospel; that is to be your grand theme, Go into all the world and preach the gospel.

Now the gospel signifies good news, glad tidings. Behold I bring you, said the angel, glad tidings of great joy. Mean and contemptible as the office of a preacher may be thought now, the angels were glad of the commission to preach this gospel: and Dr. Goodwin, that learned, pious soul, says in his familiar way, and that is the best way of writing, God had but one son, and he made a minister of him: and I add, he made an intinerant minister of him too. Well, and some say, you must not preach the law: you cannot preach the gospel without preaching the law: for you shall find by and by, we are to preach something that the people must be saved by; it is impossible to tell them how they are to be saved, unless we tell them what they are to be saved from. The way the Spirit of God takes, is like that we take in preparing the ground. Do you think any farmer would have a crop of corn next year unless they plough now? You may as well expect a crop of corn on unploughed ground, as a crop of grace untill a soul is convinced of its being undone without a Savior. That is the reason we have so many mushroom converts, so many persons that are always happy! happy! happy! and never were mis