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more judicious, the more affectionate, the more argumentative you are in them, the more you will teach your people to pray. And I would ask, how can you prosecute any intention of piety among your people more effectually, than by letting them see you praying, weeping, striving, and in an importunate agony before the Lord, that you may obtain the blessing for them?

The more appropriately you represent the various cases of your people in your public prayers, the more devoutly sensible you will make them of their own cases; and it will wonderfully comfort them.

The prayers you offer at BAPTISMS, may be so managed as greatly to awaken in the minds of the people, a sense of their baptismal obligations. What effusions of the Holy Spirit may your people experience, if your prayers at the table of the Lord, are as Nazianzen describes his father's to have beenMade by the Holy Spirit of God.

Your sermons, if they be well studied, as they ought to be, from the consideration of their being offerings to God, the great King, as well as to his people, will" do good" beyond all expression. The manner of your studying them, may very much contribute to it. It is necessary that you study the condition of your flocks; and bring them such truths, as will best suit their present circumstances. In order to this, you will observe their condition, their faults, their snares, and their griefs; that you may speak a word in season;" and that, if any thing remarkable occur among your people, you may make a suitable improvement of such a providence. You may divide your people

into classes, and consider what lessons of piety may be inculcated on the communicants, on those who are under the bonds of the covenant; what should be addressed to the aged; to the rich, to the poor, to the worldly, and to those who are in public situations; what consolations to the afflicted; and what instruction to each, with respect to their personal callings. Above all, the YOUNG must not be forgotten; you will employ all possible means to cultivate early piety. Yea you may do well to make it understood, that you would willingly be informed, by any persons or societies in your flocks, what subjects they may wish to hear expounded. By giving them sermons on such subjects, you will at least very much edify those who requested them; and it is probable, many other persons.

In studying your sermons, it might be profitable, at the close of every paragraph, to pause, and endeavour with ejaculations to heaven and self-examination, to feel some impression of the truths contained in that paragraph on your own soul, before you proceed any farther. By such a practice, the hours which you spend in composing a sermon, will prove to you so many hours of devotion: the day in which you have made a sermon, will even leave upon your mind such a savour as a day of prayer commonly does. When you come to preach the sermon, you will do it with great liberty and assurance; and the truths thus prepared will be likely to come with more sensible warmth and life upon the auditory;-from the heart and to the heart! A famous preacher used to say, "I never dare to preach a sermon to others,

till I have first got some good by it myself." And I will add, that is the most likely way to render it useful to others. Let the saying of the ancients be remembered," He who trifles in the pulpit shall wail in hell;" and let the saying of a modern not be forgotten, "Cold preachers make bold sinners."

How much good may be done, sirs, by your VISITS! It would be well for you to impose it as a law upon yourselves," Never to make an unprofitable visit." Even when you pay a visit merely for the sake of civility or entertainment, it would be easy for you to observe this law: "That you will drop some sentence or other, which may be good for the use of edifying, before you leave the company." There have been pastors who were able to say, they scarcely ever went into a house among their people, without some essay or purpose to do good in the house before they left it.

The same rule might very well be observed with such as come to us, as well as with those whom we visit. Why should any of our people ever come near us, without our contriving to speak something to them that may be for their advantage? Peter Martyr having spent many days in Bucer's house, published this report of his visit-"I dare affirm, that I always left his table more learned than before." I make no doubt that the observation of this rule may be very consistent with an affable, and, as far as is suitable, a facetious conversation. But let it be remembered, that "What are but trifles in the mouth of the people, are blasphemies in the mouth of the priest."

But, sirs, in your visits you will take a particular notice of the widow, the orphan, and the afflicted, and afford them all possible relief. The bills put

up in your congregation will assist you to find out who need your visits.

If any peculiar calamity hath befallen any of them, it is a suitable time to visit such a person, to direct and persuade him to hear the voice of God in the calamity, and to comply with the intent and errand upon which it comes.

Another very proper time for a visit is, when any special deliverance has been received. Those should be admonished to think of some remarkable manner in which they may express their thankfulness for the deliverance: nor should you leave them, until such a determination be made.

The handmaids of the Lord, who are near their hour, may on this account, be very proper objects for your visits. At such a time they are in much distress; the approaching hour of trouble threatens to be their dying hour. The counsels that shall exactly instruct them how to prepare for a dying hour, will now, if ever, be attentively listened to: and there are precious promises of God, upon which they should also now be taught to live. To bring them these promises will be the work of a "good angel," and will cause you to be welcomed by them as such.

CATECHISING is a noble exercise; it will insensibly bring you into a way to "do good," that surpasses all expression. Your sermons will be very much lost upon an uncatechised people. Nor will

your people mind so much what you address to them from the pulpit, as what you speak to them in the more condescending and familiar way of applying the answers of the catechism. Never did any minister who catechised much repent of his labour; thousands have blessed God for the wonderful success which has attended it. The most honourable man of God should consider it no abasement or abatement of his honour, to stoop to this way of teaching. Yea, some eminent pastors in their old age, when other labours have been too hard for them, have, like the famous old Gerson, wholly given themselves up to catechising; though there have been others, of whom that renowned chancellor of Paris, in his treatise," Of Drawing Children to Christ," makes a sad complaint: "So degrading is it now esteemed by many, if any of our divines, or celebrated literary men, or dignitaries in the church, apply himself to

his work."

Those pastors who so love a glorious Christ as to regard his word, "Feed my lambs," will vary their methods of carrying on this exercise, according to their various circumstances. Some have chosen the way of pastoral visits; and from the memorials of one who long since did so, and afterwards left his advice to his son upon this subject, I will transcribe the following passages on Pastoral Visits:

You may resolve to visit all the families belonging to your congregation, taking one afternoon in a week for that purpose: you may give previous notice to each family, that you intend to visit them. And on visiting a family, you may endeavour, with as

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