442 DIRECTIONS AND PERSUASIONS MMOI,M, did not set much by them. Why, sirs, are not your souls worth the thinking on? Is not God, is not your Redeemer, worth the thinking on ? And yet you will hypocritically pretend that you love God above all; when you ,will not so much as seriously think of him. How can you show greater contempt of any thing, than to cast it out of your minds as unworthy to be thought on? And how can you more plainly shew that you despise God and heaven, than by such a course as this ? If it be not worth thinking on, it is worth nothing. 3. Consider that God Both not set so lightly by your salvation. He thought it worth a great deal more. Must Christ think it worth his bloody suffer- ings, and worth such á life of labour and sorrow ; and will you not judge it worth your serious considera- tion? If he had not thought on it, and thought again, how miserable should we have remained! Mi- nisters also must think on it, and study how to save your souls. And should you not study how to save your own? Must another man make it the business of his life to think how to do you good, that you may be saved; and are you not as much bound to do good to yourselves? Yea, all that fear God about you are bound to study to do you good; and should you not bethink you then of the things that concern your own good? 4. Moreover, what have you your reason for, but to consider? And wherein do you differ from the beasts, so much as in your reason ? If you have reason, and will not use it, you brutify yourselves; you live -like madmen : for what is madness, but a loss of the use of reason ? And do you think it a small thing to deface so noble a creature as man, and to turn yourselves into beasts, and madmen ? Do you think that God will not call you to account for your reason, how you have used it? Doubtless he gave it you for a higher employment, than to enable you to plow and sow, and follow your trades, and provide for your flesh. If this were all that a man did
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