Human nature in its fourfold state ... In several practical discourses

(2.) Christ's word preached is despised. The entertainment most of the world, to whom it has come, have always give• […] is that which i• mentioned. Matth. xxii. 5. They made light of it. And for its sake they are d•s•ised wh• he has employed to preach it; whatever other since men put upon their contempt of the ministry, John xv. 20. The servant is not greater than the Lord: if they have persecuted me• they will also persecute you; if they have kept my sayings, they will […] ⟨p. 69⟩yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake. That Levi was the son of the hated, seems not to have been without a •stery, which the […] in all ages, hath unriddled. But tho' the earth •n vessel, where in God has put the treasure, be turned, with many, into vessels wher• in there is no pleasure, yet, why is the treasure itself slighted? But slighted it is, and that with a witness this day. Lord, who hath believed our report? To whom shall we speak? Men can, without remorse, make to themselves silent Sabbaths, one after another. And alas! when they come to ordinances, for the most part, it is but […] the word is, to be seen) before the Lord, and to tread his courts; namely, as a company of beasts would do, if they were driven into them, Isa. i. 12. so little reverence and awe of God appears on their spirits. Many stand like brazen walls before the word, in whose corrupt conversation the preaching of the word makes no breach. Nay, not a few are growing worse and worse, under precept upon precepts and the result of all is, They go and fall backward, and be broken, and s•ared, and taken,