338 Wherefore take unto you Thirdly, by thybehaviour in thy worldly employments. Firft, when thy worldly occafions donot leave thee in fo free and fpirirual a difpofition, to return into the prefence of God as formerly ; may be thoucouldeft have come from thy fhop - and family- employments to thy clofet, and finde that they have kept thee in frame, yea, may be delivered thee up in a better frame f4tr thofe duties, but now ''tis otherwife, thou canft not fo (hake them off, but they cleave to thy fpirit, and give an earthly favour to thy praying and hearing ; thou haft reafon to bewail it; whennature decayes men,go more iLooping, and 'cis a figne tome fuch decay is in thee, that thou canft not as thou tifeft, lift up thy heart from earthly to fpiritual duties. They were intendedas helps againft temptation, and therefore when they prove fnares to us there is adiftemper on us. If we waxe -worfe after fleep, the body is not right, becaufe the nature of fleep is to tefrefh ; ifexercife indifpofeth for work, the reafon is in our bodies: So here. Secondly, when thydiligence in thy particular calling is more ,felfifh; poffibly thou haft wrought in thy fhop, and let dole at ,thy Rudy, in obedience to the command chiefly ; thy carnal in- , terefts have fwayed but little with thee, but now thou tradeft more for thy felf,and leffe for God. 0 have a care of this. Thirdly, when thou canft not bear the difappointment of thy tearnal ends in thy particular calling, as thou hail done ; thou workeft and gettelt little of the world, thou preacheft and art not much efteemed, and thou knoweft not well how to brook thefe. The time was thou couldeft retire thy felt into God, and make up all thou didit want elfewhere in him ; but now thou art not fo well fatisfied with thy elate, rank and conditi- -Oa ; thy heart is fingering for more of thefe then God allowes thee ; this (hews declining ; children are harder to be pleated, and old men, (whole decay ofnature makes them more froward, and in a manner children the fecond time) then others; labour therefore to recover thy decaying grace, and as this lock grows, fo thy ftrength with it will, to acquiefce in the difpofureofGods :Providence. "CHAP.
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