A call to the unconverted, to turn and live

8. The very gifts that God bestoweth on you and the ordinances of grace which he hath instituted for his church, you turn to sin. If you have better parts than others, you grow proud, and self-conceited: If you have but common gifts, you take them for special grace. You ta••• the bare hearing of your duty for so good a wo•• ⟨p. 121⟩as if it would excuse you for not obeying it. Your prayers are turned into sin, because you "regard iniquity in your hearts," Psalm. lxvi. 18. and depart not from iniquity when you call on the name of the Lord, 2 Tim. Your prayers are abominable, because you turn away your ear from hearing the law, Prov. xxviii. 9. And more ready to offer the sacrifice of fools, (thinking you do God some special service) than to hear his word and obey it, Eccles. v. 1. You examine not yourselves before you receive the supper of the Lord, but not discerning the Lord's body, do eat and drink judgment to yourselves, 1 Cor. xi. 28, 29.

9. Yea, the persons that you converse with, and all their actions, you make the occasions of your sin and destruction. If they live in the fear of God, you hate them. If they live ungodly, you imitate them. If the wicked are many, you think you may the more boldly follow them: •f the godly be few, you are the more em••ldmed to despise them. If they walk exactly, you think they are too precise; if one of them fall in a particular temptation, you stumble upon them, and turn away from holiness, because hat others are imperfectly holy; as if you were warranted to break your necks, because some thers have, by their heedlessness sprained a ew, or put out a bone. If a hypocrite discover himself, you say, they are all alike, and ink yourselves as honest as the best. A prossor can scarce slip into any miscarriage, but cause he cuts his singer, you think you may ldly cut your throats. If ministers deal plainly