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done your neighbour, without repairing it? Are you not conscious that you have formerly, at some time or other, wronged your neighbour, and yet you live in it, have never repaired the injury which you have done him? If so, you live in a way of sin.

SECT, VII.

Self-examination respecting charity towards our Neighbours, and conversation with them.

I desire you would examine yourselves, 1. Whether you do not live in the neglect of the duties of charity towards your neighbour. You may live in sin towards your neighbour, though you cannot charge yourselves with living in any injustice in your dealings. Here also I would mention two things.

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(1.) Whether you are guilty of sinfully with-holding from your neighbour who is in want. Giving to the poor, and giving liberally and bountifully, is a duty absolutely required of us. is not a thing left to persons' choice to do as they please; nor is it merely a thing commendable in persons to be liberal to others in want; but it is a duty as strictly and absolutely required and commanded, as any other duty whatsoever; a duty from which God will not acquit us; as you may see in Deut. xv. 7, 8, &c. ; and the neglect of this duty is very provoking to God, Prov. xxi. 13. Whoso stoppeth his cars at the cry of the poor, he also himself shall cry, and not be heard.

Inquire, therefore, whether you have not lived in a way of sin in this regard. Do you not see your neighbour suffer, and pinched with want, and you, although sensible of it, harden your hearts against him and are careless about it? Do you not in such a case neglect to inquire into his necessities, and to do something for his relief? Is it not your manner to hide your eyes in such cases, and to be so far from devising liberal things, and endeavouring to find out the proper objects and occasions of charity, that you rather contrive to avoid the knowledge of them? Are you not apt to make objections to such duties, and to excuse yourselves? and are you not sorry for such occasions, on which you are forced to give something, or expose your reputation?-Are not such things grievous to you? If these things be so, surely you live in sin, and in great sin, and have need to inquire, whether your sport be not such as is not the sport of God's children?

(2.) Do you not live in the neglect of reproving your neighbour, when you see him going on in a way of sin? This is required of us by the command of God, as a duty of love and charity which we owe our neighbour: Lev. xix. 17. Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart; thou shalt in any wise

rebuke thy neighbour, and not suffer sin upon him. When we see our neighbour going on in sin, we ought to go, and in a Christian way deal with him about it. Nor will it excuse us, that we fear it will have no good effect; we cannot certainly tell what effect it will have. This is past doubt, that if Christians generally performed this duty as they ought to do, it would prevent abundance of sin and wickedness, and would deliver many a soul from the ways of death.

If a man going on in the ways of sin, saw that it was generally disliked and discountenanced, and testified against by others, it would have a strong tendency to reform him. His regard for his own reputation would strongly persuade him to reform; for hereby he would see that the way in which he lives makes him odious in the eyes of others. When persons go on in sin, and no one saith any thing to them in testimony against it, they know not but that their ways are approved, and are not sensible that it is much to their dishonour to do as they do. The approbation of others tends to blind men's eyes, and harden their hearts in sin; whereas, if they saw that others utterly disapprove of their ways, it would tend to open their eyes and convince them.

If others neglect their duty in this respect, and our reproof alone will not be so likely to be effectual; yet that doth not excuse us for if one singly may be excused, then every one may be excused, and so we shall make it no duty at all.

Persons often néed the reproofs and admonitions of others, to make them sensible that the ways in which we live are sinful; for, as hath been already observed, men are often blinded as to their own sins.

2. Examine yourselves, whether you do not live in some way of sin in your conversation with your neighbours. Men commit abundance of sin, not only in the business and dealings which they have with their neighbours, but in their talk and converse with them.

(1.) Inquire whether you do not keep company with persons of a lewd and immoral behaviour, with persons who do not make conscience of their ways, are not of sober lives, but, on the contrary, are profane and extravagant, and unclean in their communication. This is what the word of God forbids, and testifies against: Prov. xiv. 7. Go from the presence of a foolish man, when thou perceivest not in him the lips of knowledge;" Prov. xii. 20. A companion of fools shall be destroyed. The Psalmist professes himself clear of this sin, Psal. xxvi. 4, 5. I have not sat with vain persons; neither will I go with dissemblers; I have hated the congregation of evil doers, and will not sit with the wicked.

Do you not live in this sin? Do you not keep company with such persons? and have you not found them a snare to your souls? If you have any serious thoughts about the great

concerns of your souls, have you not found this a great hinderance to you? Have you not found that it hath been a great temptation to you? Have you not been from time to time led into sin thereby? Perhaps it may seem difficult wholly to forsake your old wicked companions. You are afraid they will deride you, and make a game of you; therefore, you have not courage enough to do it. But whether it be difficult or not, yet know this, that if you continue in such connexions, you live in a way of sin, and, as the scripture saith, you shall be destroyed. You must either cut off your right hands, and pluck out your right eyes, or else even go with them into the fire that never shall be quenched.

(2) Consider whether, in your conversation with others, you do not accustom yourselves to evil speaking. How common is it for persons, when they meet together, to sit and spend their time in talking against others, judging this or that of them, spreading ill and uncertain reports which they have heard of them, running down one and another, and ridiculing their infirmities! How much is such sort of talk as this the entertainment of companies, when they meet together! and what talk is there which seems to be more entertaining, to which persons will more listen, and in which they will seem to be more engaged, than such talk! You cannot but know how common this is.

Therefore, examine whether you be not guilty of this.And can you justify it? Do you not know it to be a way of sin, a way which is condemned by many rules in the word of God? Are you not guilty of eagerly taking up any ill report which you hear of your neighbour, seeming to be glad that you have some news to talk of, with which you think others will be entertained? Do you not often spread ill reports which you hear of others, before you know what ground there is for them? Do you not take a pleasure in being the reporter of such news? Are you not wont to pass a judgment concerning others, or their behaviour, without talking to them, and hearing what they have to say for themselves? Doth not that folly and shame belong to you which is spoken of in Prov. xviii. 13. He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.

This is utterly an iniquity, a very unchristian practice, which commonly prevails, that men, when they hear or know of any ill of others, will not do a Christian part, in going to talk with them about it, to reprove them for it, but will get behind their backs before they open their mouths, and there are very forward to speak, and to judge, to the hurt of their neighbour's good name. Consider whether you be not guilty of this. Consider, also, how apt you are to be displeased when you hear that others have been talking against you! how forward are you to apply the rules, and to think and tell how they ought VOL. VI.

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first to have come and talked with you about it, and not to gone and spread an ill report of you, before they knew you had to say in your vindication! How ready are perso resent it, when others meddle with their private affairs, and themselves, and judge, and find fault, and declaim against th How ready are they to say, it is no business of theirs! Yet you not guilty of the same?

(3.) Is it not your manner to seem to countenance and in with the talk of the company in which you are, in that wi When the company is vain in its talk, and falls i lewd discourse, or vain jesting, is it not your manner, in s a case, to comply and fall in with the company, to seem plea with its talk, if not to join with it, and help to carry on st discourse, out of compliance with your company, though inde you disapprove of it in your hearts? So inquire, whether be not your manner to fall in with your companions, when th are talking against others. Do you not help forward the di course, or, at least, seem to fall in with their censures, the a persions they cast on others, and the reflections they make upd their neighbours' characters?

There are some persons, who, in case of difference betwee persons or parties, are double-tongued, will seem to fall in with both parties. When they are with those on one side, they wil seem to be on their side, and to fall in with them in their talk against their antagonists. At another time, when they are with those of the other side, they will seem to comply with them, and will condemn the other party; which is a very vile and deceitful practice. Seeming to be friendly to both before their faces, they are enemies to both behind their backs; and that upon so mean a motive as the pleasing of the party with which they are in company. They injure both parties, and do what in them lies to establish the difference between them. Inquire whether or no this be your manner.

(4.) Is it not your manner, not to confine yourselves to strict truth in your conversation with your neighbours? Lying is accounted ignominious and reproachful among men and they take it in high disdain to be called liars; yet how many are there that do not so govern their tongues, as strictly to confine them to the truth! There are various degrees of transgressing in this kind. Some, who may be cautious of transgressing in one degree, may allow themselves in another. Some, who commonly avoid speaking directly and wholly contrary to truth, in a plain matter of fact; yet perhaps are not strictly true in speaking of their own thoughts, desires, affections, and designs, and are not exact in the truth, in the relations which they give of things in conversation; scruple not to vary in circumstances, to add some things, to make their story the more entertaining; will magnify and enlarge things, to make

relation the more wonderful; and in things wherein their st or credit is concerned, will make false representations ngs; will be guilty of an unwarrantable equivocation, and leful way of speaking, wherein they are chargeable with a abuse of language. In order to save their veracity, words entences must be wrested to a meaning quite beside their al and established signification. Whatever interpretation men put on their own words they do not save themselves the guilt of lying in the sight of God. Inquire whether be not guilty of living in sin in this particular.

SECT. VIII.

If-examination respecting the families to which we belong.

Examine yourselves, whether you do not live in some way sin in the families to which you belong. There are many rsons who appear well among their neighbours, and seem to of an honest, civil behaviour in their dealings and convertion abroad; yet if you follow them to their own houses, and the families to which they belong, there you will find them ery perverse in their ways; there they live in ways which are ery displeasing to the pure all-searching eyes of God. You ave already been directed to examine your conversation abroad; ou have been directed to search the house of God, and to see if you have brought no defilement into it; you have been directed o search your closets, to see if there be no pollution or provocation there; be advised now to search your houses, examine your behaviour in the families to which you belong, and see what your ways and manners are there.

The houses to which we belong are the places where the generality of us spend the greater part of our time. If we respect the world as a man's sphere of action, a man's own house is the greater part of the world to him; i. e. the greater part of his actions and behaviour in the world is limited within this sphere. We should therefore be very critical in examining our behaviour, not only abroad but at home. A great proportion of the wickedness of which men are guilty, and that will be brought out at the day of judgment, will be the sin which they shall have committed in the families to which they belong.

Therefore inquire how you behave yourselves in the family relations in which you stand. As those relative duties which we owe towards the members of the same family belong to the second table of the law, so love is the general duty which comprises them all. Therefore,

(1.) Examine yourselves, whether you do not live in some way which is contrary to that love which is due to those who

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