s 418 MEMOIRS OF MR BOSTON. yet fmalleft of all is the company of ordinary hearers ; when thofe are taken off that cornéonce in twenty days, a month, or fix weeks : who are taken up with their beafts all thfummer in the fields, and fleep at home with them all the winter; yet force whofe faces I feldom if ever can difcern, but when I fur- prifls them at their houfes, though I tell publicly in the congre- gation that I am to be that way. Weep over the {lighting of the preaching of the word among us: Some that have not far to come, will loiter away Lord's days at home ; though, if they would corne little further than half-way from their own houfes, they might poffibly fometimes hear the found of ray voice. When I come in to the church, and the wor{hip is begun, I will fee fome of you fitting or flooding in the church-yard in pairs, as clofe at your difcourfe, that fometimes I think we would not have feen your faces that day, if you had not had bufinefs with Come body ye would fee at the church : in which I am the more confirmed, when I wil; fee they have ftaid all the time between fermons, and when 'the congregation is affembling again, they will go away home. Some will fpend a good part offermons about the dikes ; ay and goout of the church in the very time thereof, and lie about the dikes, and crack. I cannot get you pleafed with fhort enough preaching; though force of you make it fbort enough, what with your fleeping, what with your leaving it, even when there is no milking ; and Come will fit at the door all the afternoon, that they may get away when they think they have got enough of it. 3. ,Veep over thefightingof the facraments. That of baptifin is dolefully flighted. If the child be like to die, then, without any regard to the congregation, or the firugglings of this church againft private baptifm, the minifter muft come and give the child a name, without any more. But if not, Sabbath {hall go over after Sabbath, one opportunity after another ; and they never trouble themfelves about the baptizing of their children, even when neither weaknefs nor the weather hinders. As tote facrament of the flapper, go weeping, Sirs, that there are fo few in this congregation to go with you. Theyneed Chrift as well as you ; the blood they flight, is the blood they muft be faved by, if ever ; the covenant they prepare not themfelves to feat, is that they muft enter into, if they would enter into heaven. It is long fince Chrift made fuch a vifit to Etterick. O weep that they are {ö few to Leceive him, fo few fit to be admitted, and fo few going out to meet the bridegroom. This fighting of ordinances, as it is fomething more than ordinary, is a very fad fign. 4. Weep over the loofe lives of many of us ; the abounding fin of fwearing, that devil-like fin, by which there is neither profit,nor pleafure ; lying and backbiting, fupplanting of one another, the lack of common honefty in many, to the difgrace 9f the fociety they live in, and the reproach of thofe that enter-
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