144 PATTERN FOR A. DISSENTING PREACHER. will have abundant reason to keep close to those teachers where you have felt conviction and sanctification under the word. When it shall be enquired, What do you more than others? let there be a fair and glorious answer ever at hand, that is legible in your lives by all mankind ; let the graceof God in your heart, and abounding virtue and piety in your lives speak for you, that you attend upon men who do not preach as others do, and that you are made to live such lives as others do not live. Let your christian government of your- selves in sobriety, in temperance, in abstinence from the lusts of the flesh, in mortification to this world, and deadness to the vanities of this life, plead for you and for your preachers. Let it appear you are taught better than others by your living better than the rest of men, in faithful, just, and merciful behaviour towards your neighbours, in strict honour and honesty, in purity of life, in innocency and usefulness among your fellow-crea- tures.' Let it appear that you bind yourselves to the rules of morality and piety, stronger than others do, even by the death of Christ, and the love of God in Christ Jesus, whose sacred name as aMediator, a ruler and a divine pattern, is ever dwelling on the lips of your preachers. O never let it be said concerning you, that you are ready to cheat in your traffic, that you are apt to deal deceitfully in your merchandize, and that you are prone to outwit others, and to undermine them in the management of your secular affairs. Never let it be charged,upon any of you in your trades, that you screw down the seller, and strain up the buyer, to extravagant and unreasonable prices for your covetous and exorbitant gain. But let all be open and generous, plain and simple, without fraud, and without extortion ; such as may honour the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, and give a charac- ter of honour too, to that ministry upon which you attend, since it has not national and established ordinations and honours. Let your carriage towards God in your secret worship, and your public attendance upon divine ordinances, be of a piece with your conversation in the world ; let it be known by the heavenly and holy temper of your spirits, that you are the sons of God, that your hearts are renewed, your souls are changed from what they were by nature, and your lives are gloriously different from the lives of others, and thereby give honour to the gospel that is preached among you. This will enable you to bear the reproaches of schism and separation from a national church ; but how can you bear them, if you have not something that carries you above these reproaches ? Can you be content to be as loose, as vain, as careless in your manners towards God, and towards your neighbour, as others are, and yet to give yourselves all
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