SPIRITUAL PEACE AND COMFORT. 407 distemper of yours, that you cannot bear this rousing preaching, doth betray another and greater sin ; look to it; I beseech you, for I think I have spied out the cause . of your trouble; are you not yourselftoo great a stranger to poor stupid sinners ? and come not amóng them ? or pity them not as you should? and do not your dutyfor the saving oftheir souls; but think it belongs not to you, but to others ? Do you use to deal with servants and neighbors about you, and tell them of sin and misery, and the remedy, and seek to draw their hearts to Christ, and bring them to duty ? I doubt you do little in this; (and that is sad unmercifulness;) for if you did, truly you could not choose but find such miserable ignorance, such senselessness and blockishness, such hating reproof and unwilling- ness to be reformed, such love ofthis world, and slavery to the flesh, and se little favor`of Christ, grace,-heaven, and the things of the Spirit, and especially such an unteachableness, untractableness, (as thorns and briars,) and so great a difficulty moving .them an inch from what they are, that you would have been willing ever after to have ministers preach more musingly than they do, and you would be glad for their sakes, when you heard that which might awake them and prick them to the heart. Yea; if you had tried how hard a work it is to bring worldly, formal hypocrites to see their hypocrisy, or to come over to Christ 'from the creature, and to be in good earnest in the business of their salvation, you would be glad to have preachers search them to thequick, and ransack their hearts, and help them against their affected and obstinate self-delusions. Besides, you shouldconsider that their case is far different from yours; your disease is pain and troùble, they are stark dead : you have God's favor and doubt of it, they are his enemies and never suspect it : youwant comfort, and they want pardon and life ; if your disease should never here be cured, it is but going more sad- ly to heaven, butif they be not recovered by regeneration, they must lie forever in hell. And should we not, then, pity themmore than you ; and study more for them ; and preach more for them ; and rather forget you in a sermon than them ? Should you not wish us so to do ? Should we more regard the comforting of one than the saving of a hundred? Nay, more; we should net only neglect them, but dangerously hurt them, if we should preach too much to the case of troubled souls ; for'you are not so apt to mis- apply passages of terror, and to take their portion, as they are apt to apply to themselves such passages for comfort, and take your portion to themselves. I know some will say, that it is preaching, Christ, and setting forth God's love, that will win them best, and terrors do but make unwilling, hypocritical professors. This makes me remember how I have heard some preachers of the times blame their brethren for
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