286 'Attending public Inflrublion, S E R M. of fincere chriflians, engageth them to a XI. conftant attendance. Befides a growth in "--v"' knowledge, which is earneftly defired, as being the foundation of increafe in every good quality, and abounding in every good work, we are fo apt to let divine truths flip out of our minds, that we need to be often furred up by way of remembrance, which is one proper end of the holy miniftrations For this it was that the apoftle Peter wrote both his epiftles, as he telleth us in the 3d chapter of his fecond epiftle, and if verfe; and he declareth it to have been the proper bufinefs of his apoflolic office, as long as he lived, to fir up chriftians, chap. i. 12, 13. Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of thofe things, though ye know them, and be e/labled in the prefent truth : yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to ßir you up, by putting you in remembrance. But fill, a religious praylice, what our Saviour calleth good fruits, the fruits of righteoufnefs and cha- rity, and the apoftle defcribeth as works which are good and profitable to men, thefe are the great end of facred miniflrations, and fhould be our end in attending them. Then are we the true difciples of wifdom, and watch at her gates not in vain, when we
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