_Direct._ III. Remember that this God is instructing you, and warning you, and treating with you, about no less than the saving of your souls. Come therefore to hear as for your salvation. Can that heart be dull that well considereth, that it is heaven and hell that is the matter that God is treating with him about? _Direct._ IV. Remember that you have but a little time to hear in; and you know not whether ever you shall hear again. Hear therefore as if it were your last. Think when you hear the calls of God, and the offers of grace, I know not but this may be my last: how would I hear if I were sure to die tomorrow? I am sure it will be ere long, and may be to-day for aught I know. _Direct._ V. Remember that all these days and sermons must be reviewed, and you must answer for all that you have heard, whether you heard it with love, or with unwillingness and weariness, with diligent attention or with carelessness; and the word which you hear shall judge you at the last day. Hear therefore as those that are going to judgment to give account of their hearing and obeying, John xii. 48. _Direct._ VI. Make it your work with diligence to apply the word as you are hearing it, and to work your own hearts to those suitable resolutions and affections which it bespeaketh. Cast not all upon the minister, as those that will go no further than they are carried as by force: this is fitter for the dead than for the living. You have work to do as well as the preacher, and should all the while be as busy as he: as helpless as the infant is, he must suck when the mother offereth him the breast; if you must be fed, yet you must open your mouths, and digest it, for another cannot digest it for you; nor can the holiest, wisest, powerful minister, convert or save you without yourselves, nor deliver a people from sin and hell, that will not stir for their own deliverance. Therefore be all the while at work, and abhor an idle heart in hearing, as well as an idle minister. _Direct._ VII. Chew the cud, and call up all when you come home in secret, and by meditation preach it over to yourselves. If it were coldly delivered by the preacher, do you consider of the great weight of the matter, and preach it more earnestly over to your own hearts. You should love yourselves best, and best be acquainted with your own condition and necessities. _Direct._ VIII. Pray it over all to God, and there lament a stupid heart, and put up your complaints to Heaven against it. The name and presence of God hath a quickening and awaking power.